News comes mainly from newspapers, TV or blogs. But even the newspapers and TV companies publish their content online these days, generally with comment facilities for the public to make their opinions known. This turns out much as you'd expect.

News published from 16th March 2020 to 14th April 2020

(From The Independent, April 7th 2020)

RUSSIAN Defence Minister Stefan Grigorev was arrested yesterday afternoon by Moscow police following his suspected involvement in crimes committed in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Information was leaked from the Kremlin regarding the operation of an illegal chemical research facility in Chernobyl's exclusion zone that may have been linked to biological or chemical weapons development. Grigorev was handed to the International Court of Justice by Russian authorities immediately following his arrest. Minor Ukrainian local officials are also currently under investigation by EUROPOL for suspected complicity in the events which are seeing Grigorev being charged with Crimes against humanity.

It is believed that the facility in Chernobyl was destroyed prior to EF troops arriving in the Exclusion zone. Detailed reports of the situation inside the zone have yet to be released, though it seems that the EF army experienced no resistance as they marched in.

The extent of Russia's involvement in the scenario has yet to be ascertained. Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Darina Sokova, said yesterday following Mr. Grigorev's arrest, “The Federation is not in the business of allowing wanton criminals to perform terrorist atrocities in neighbouring countries. Now that the business has been brought to light, we have put our faith in the International courts, and fully support any verdict that is given.” Mrs. Sokova's words may certainly come as a relief to many, though it seems that relations between Russia and Europe will be frayed for some time to come.

Mr. Feliks Tokarev, Chairman of the State Duma, further announced that a new Defence Minister would be elected shortly.

Mr. Josef Krupke, Prime Minister of Europe, said further to the incident “We will not allow this to happen again. We will be keeping a closer watch on our borders, and ensure that federal security is kept to a maximum.”

• 5. UK4EVA: Oh, come on! I'ts only the fjcking liberals and people with somethign to hide that are objecting! Most of us want to feel safe in ourown beds.
• 12. Garry7: Bloody hell, this is actually really scary. It's like something out of 1984. When I find myself agreeing with the Tories, I know that something is seriously wrong.
• 22. RandomCherub: Over a third of the country object to this bill and it's still got through? What the hell happened to democracy??
• 39. LacyStacy: I've always voted Labour but I'm going to vote Conservative now. A General Election is due before the end of the year anyway.
• 42. GeneralIssues: What happened to the LibDems as a serious candidate? When we're complaining at the government for being too right-wing, why on earth are we talking about voting in the Conservatives? I didn't hear Paul Harding objecting to the bill when it was originally brought three months ago,
• 63. BusinessWatcher: Interestingly enough, Neurodyne Defence Dynamics who were designing the encryption key database have now completed it. The UK Government's new internet battlestation is now fully operational, and the three month delay has only given them the time they needed to complete it. You have one month to get your encryption keys sent in, boys and girls, or they'll be sending the heavies after you. I for one am moving to the US.

• 11. Conapplby: I heard those guys at the house they raided in Canberra were really practising BLACK MAGIC!!
• 23. NervousBloom: Don't be ridiculous - even the Australian government wouldn't be stupid enough to put out that sort of rumour with the Pagan Rights movement banging its drum.
• 34. AdriEnne: I heard they were a bunch of Masons– bet they'll get out sooner than the political prisoners Oz is holding!
• 73. BinIdol: Why is Amnesty bothering to focus on these guys? hundreds of people go “missing” after arrests in Australia every year and they've never made a fuss about it before
• 94. LaUndecided6: Follow the money!
• 103. RabbitChargerrr: I heard one of the guys arrested wasn't Australian, or a dual citizen or something, maybe it's some diplomatic shit
• 104. SunWatcher4: What, like that Johnny Chess fan last year? I HEARD THAT GOT HUSHED UP TOO.

• 11. LevelCrossing: These the same videos that were leaked a few months ago, apparently. Why weren't they investigated properly then? They don't look faked to me. They made me frankly ill.
• 18. BigBullDog: I'll say what I said last time - they're murderous terrorist scum. Waterboarding is all they deserve.
• 25. Jeremy25: I don't give a shit about human rights abuses right now - my son wanted to watch CBeebies, and the videos he actually got made me fucking ill. He's not sleeping, he keeps crying, he's too disturbed to go to school. I hope they catch the fucker who did this, and try some of those abuses out on them.
• 32. ChillPig: MI6 have been called in pretty damned quickly - so they know it's not local. I hope whoever got this stuff out has a damn good firewall, 'cos otherwise there's going to be extraordinary rendition going on..
• 47. Veritatum: We knew they were doing this to foreign nationals; now we have proof that they do it to UK citizens too. This is some scary shit.

• 5. User: Angelshopper Sensationalist nonsense. They're just doing some interesting gene therapy stuff at the moment, there's nothing to indicate they're nearing any sort of massive breakthrough in genetic engineering yet.
• 7. User: Imm0rtal Who wants to live forever? :P Well, I certainly think more of this sort of research should be done - this is exactly what the Posthumanists have been looking for all along.
• 10. User: 3DBug Yeah, and this is what about five or six other companies have been trying to do over the last ten years in Russia. They keep getting shut down. I wonder if this one will last any longer than the rest.
• 11. User: D_Aily What are your sources for this? I haven't seen any press releases. Did you get this crap from an employee, your dog, or what?

• 1. I<3JOHNNY: this is soooo cool! He’s like James Bond or something. I bet that Dr. Zuberi has a big fluffy white cat.
• 12. Skeptacles: Oh come on, this is clearly some sort of viral marketing for his next album. This sort of stuff doesn’t happen in the real world. And that footage is so grainy, no security cameras these days are that awful. Actually, maybe he’s trying to launch a film career.
• 20.Wiltedrose: “And that, m’lud, was when internationally famous rock star Johnny Chess bashed me over the head with a lead pipe, threw me into a pit full of penguins, broke into the secret depths of a cold war base and stole a Nazi supercomputer along with his burly bodyguard and glamorous Indian love interest”. Simple, when you explain it like that.
• 31. IronPenguin: I think calling it a James Bond plot is giving it too much credit, it’s like something out of a low budget B-movie. Good for an advert though.

• 1. Mangakakaka: First!
• 3. PoisidenRising: Too much talking heads! Oh where has my wrestling chinese beauty gone!
• 4. T3rm1nus: She's Filipino dipshit.
• 5. WickedMeals: I thought she was Malay?
• 19. Seeker32: Pointless ethnicity debate aside, did anyone notice how positive she was about the work of the Japanese? First Australia now this, oh Shauna how you have sold out.
• 24. PutridFish: Why the assumption that Japan is still carrying on their practices of a decade ago? I've just done a bit of research myself and it looks to me like the reason Shauna is being positive about them is because they have moved from being a huge problem for conservationists to being a leading promoter of conservation reform.

• 3.Wheelfire: Carter faked his death the first time? Good thing they didn’t get complacent at GCHQ.
• 8.Tiledfile: Surprising how coordinated the attacks were. I thought the cells were all supposed to operate independently? Maybe they decided that they were doomed anyway…
• 17.MarchMartyr: They will not be forgotten for fighting the good fight. Down with Nazi politicians.
• 23.DialledUp: Bloody terrorists actually took down my internet for a whole day. They hit some of the exchanges really hard. Also, if they’ve all been captured, why do we still need the encryption bill?
• 29.KarySmith: That could have been due to that silly “dance like a hacker” day or whatever it was called that ,my kids were going on about.

Characters operating in the UK may have experienced some connection issues on the day when the majority of the Aprilist attacks this month occurred. These coincided with a grassroots “make like a hacker” day, organised through various fora, on which users were encouraged to use extra encryption to impede government surveillance efforts.

• I'm living in a tank of FREEDOM! - Defacement of the Financial Times website.
• In a vision or in none,
  Is it therefore the less gone? - Johannesburg
• I watch the watchmen, and I'm watching you. - walls in London, Cardiff, Tokyo, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Sidney and New York.
• This was a triumph - Defaced wikipedia pages.
• You didn't think the end of times would wait for you did you? - Hanau, Germany.
• HO PL OK - defacement to several Indian vans.
• O God!
  can I not save One from the pitiless wave? - Vancouver
• Ask Kari about the tanks - Tokyo
• Estimated probability of humanity's survival to next iteration: 56.3% - showed up in every google ad for 2 days.
• ECHELON is the Great Satan - Damascus
• Once for every drop of venom in his eyes - Mumbai
• Blood is the Key - Manchester
• P2; now with less emotions
• Fuck )+( - Seen in cities all over the world
• Come, nuclear bomb - Davyhulme, Lancashire
• The Blood of Adam is the Blood of Life - Paris

Hey you guys, ♋/巴\♋ here, write a blog to them tell them i'm ok i'm fine I'm 元気 Hope you haven't missed me too much I've been so busy what was my last breakfast was it chips yes it was chips and ramune I've been trying to keep up to date with modding and stuff but I guess I've sort of gotten out of the loop bracket right period left bracket (>.<) Oh well, I'll do my best to catch up again! is it light outside yet /search:dawntime latitude… toukyou well honshuu anyway :0403: not yet Have you seen the Aibo XDR 500? It is super cute - and you can mod the programming yourself!!! (^.^)★★ bracket star star mod it can you mod it are its behaviours moddable can you change it I can't wait until they release the avatar version! I would love one. buy one from a store if you can buy one then you can touch it there's a wall it's just like just like almost Well, I hope I'll see you round soon, if not then then then then keep doing your best together! \(*･∀･)/やぁ slash yaa /submit post

“Not dead yet. Just been networking. At a very nice restaurant. Am now networked as a newt.”

As long time readers are no doubt aware I have a bad habit of spending a bit too much time behind my comics and not enough time out and about. Happily I've recently had an opportunity to get out from behind my desk, if only figuratively speaking. As such, I thought I'd give a shout out to my friends over in #classified# in the form of this review. The comic sure made me giggle when I picked it up.

Harker #1

Definitely not one for the kiddies, Harker is an independent press title from the 00's which follows two unlikely English cops as they delve into a gruesome murder on the steps of a church. Take CSI, peel away all the Hollywood veneer, and throw in a dash of that loveable dry British wit and you’ll come up with this oddly charming tale.

Written by Roger Gibson with art by Vince Danks, Harker is a curiously attractive package. Sure, there’s profanity and spilling gizzards, but it does maintain a sense of quiet anarchy without coming across as pretentious. All in all it's really rather clever.

It opens with a brutal stabbing, followed by the discovery of the corpse the next morning. Amidst the disgusted cops and forensics team step Harker and Critchley, discussing cheese and pickles. They are very much at odds with their fellow police officers, with their casual banter. However, they seem to know a lot and are determined to unearth answers. A quick visit to the autopsy later, where they put the female coroner off balance, and they have enough clues to act on. This leads them to the British Museum, where their unusual social stylings put another female professional out of whack. However, this time Critchley manages to impress the librarian enough to wrangle a date out of her. The pair finally come to the conclusion that they are dealing with a satanic cult. And this new series is off and running with an impressive first salvo.

The art has to be mentioned too. Danks does a great job with the black and white interiors. Fans of Dave Sim’s Glamourpuss MUST get this. With its beautifully simple renderings the art just pops. Every character looks like an actual person, rather than a generic humanoid, and when Danks puts his skills to the grand English architecture, with fine detail, and wise use of greys, the environment looks just as real as anything Alex Ross does.

Within this series (of 6 in the first volume) there’s room for further character development, and our heroes certainly discover there are more than a few surprises left to find. More than a novelty, Gibson and Danks show they have what it takes to build upon this intriguing premise and make something truly earth-shattering.

The current state of world affairs is abysmal. The computer has put the reins of ever tighter power in the hands of too few individuals - or none at all? Everything is monitored to maintain the status quo and in service of the SYSTEM; it is unclear to me if there are even masters behind this, or if we even now toil towards the goal of generating ever more wealth for corporate bodies with no real controller - some sorts of almost self-aware financial instrument.

So what can we do about this? We can work against the surveillance state by encrypting all our data, costing more CPU cycles to see through, but this is only effective if everybody does it. The sheeple out there don't know how, and the major operating systems are too establishment to make this the default. We can try and fight back within the system, creating our own financial instruments to do battle; this is a high risk scenario and there is no guarantee it will work. I believe the only viable solution is to work through disruptive technologies. Individuals have always been more nimble than large unwieldy corporate structures at exploiting new ideas, and this is what we must take advantage of. Think for example of the Bletchley incident - if we had control of the AI (or whatever) we could use that to implement either of the previous strategies cleanly.

The problem with the Aprilists is substantially that they don't have a plan. Yes, we can work to bring about the end of the world, the singularity, a new age - but we need to know what to do afterwards, otherwise we will find that on the other side life has lost all meaning and our civilization will be at a dead end.

If you have a plan, please contact me on classified so we can discuss what must be done for the good of all.

It seems crazy, but there are people who want me dead. I can confirm rumours that a stage collapse in Pakistan, in which miraculously nobody was harmed, forced the band to leave the venue by a rear exit, at which point somebody shot at me. Luckily for me I have amazing security staff, one of whom added faith in his kevlar to a professionalism which I doubt I will ever see matched and spent a long time in hospital for his troubles. I'm in awe of the guy, he's a hero, and he did that for someone who contributes nothing to the world but the odd pop record.

In addition, someone going by the tag 'trowelman' in various online fora, and claiming to be an archaologist called Dr Zubiri from the University of Santiago, has convinced himself that while on my Antarctic video shoot last month, I in some way interfered with a dig out there. His response to this has been to approach several individuals soliciting lethal violence against me. Luckily some of them felt it incumbent upon them to warn me of his intentions.

I know, it all sounds mad. At this stage the optimal outcome is that I end up looking like a paranoid fruitbat. Lots of people already think I am, so I'm cool with that.

No metaphors today, no allegories or epigrams. Just a simple observation: most wars, murders and atrocities have happened from a defensive posture. It was fear, rather than hate, that motivated the greatest violence.

So now I am adrift, weakned, no longer a threat. Do you love me more, now? How weak must I be, before you will love me?

As tiMe goeS by wE incREasiNgly seE the HAndiWorK of tHE MIC all arOuNd us: hiGh tecHNoloGIes vaNIshinG; sciEntiSts diSAppEarEd aloNG wiTH thEir resEarCh; grEAT advAncEs hidDEn aWay frOm Us. HoWEVer it’s nOt a oNE sidEd figHT, we aRE maKINg proGREss And soON thE full exTENt of wHAt thEy hAVE hiddEn wiLl be rEveALed.

WhEn we dO finALLY seE tHe ligHt we sHOuldn’t bE afrAId of teChnOLogIcal adVAncE wE shOUld acCept It and giVE in tO the iDEa thAt our cONCEPts of huManIty muSt chaNge, muSt be rePlaCed, as tHE ineVitaBle advANce ocCurs. If wE feAr chaNGe then “They” havE woN foR thEy wILL usE our tERROr tO coNtrol uS fOrevER, or WorSe…desTroY uS uTTERly.

SO I sAY:

ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

Is there anybody out there?

Sorry folks, I've been kind of quiet. Got caught up in a little research project there, and I can get kind of nerdy-obsessive when the mood takes me. Good job I'm so goddamn awesome that a little of me goes such a long way, eh?

Currently busy tracking down an entirely new kind of ghost. New to me, anyway. If you're all especially good, I may even let you know what I find out. I'm looking at you, goths.

World still hasn't ended. This is good, I suppose. Which means you get another instalment of Mercury's Ghostbusting 101. I'm a traditionalist, for all the fact that I'm hi-tech. What this means is that I kick the arse spiritual in much the same way it's been done for centuries - I'm just slightly more rigourous about it, and work my voodoo using electron flow rather than spooky chants. You can see why me and goths don't get on, right?

Anyway, the point being there are three stages to any exorcism, the summoning, the binding, and the dismissal. Today, we'll talk about summoning.

Summoning is the process of attracting a ghost's attention. How you do it is different for every ghost. That's why you get Mercury's special bespoke service, rather than say Microsoft Ghostfinder 19, or whatever. The code I use is handcrafted to each ghost. So I can get this right, some of my kit is actually used to build up a picture of the ghost's electromagnetic signature. Doing this is kind of like trying to do an artist's impression from the smell of stale cigarette smoke smoked by the subject. That's why I'm not too worried about the competition, to be honest. This shit is hard - and, if I'm brutally honest, nearly entirely done on pure instinct. Would be kind of cool to let someone see if they could analyse exactly what it is I'm doing scientifically, but frankly I just do what seems right. Works for me.

So I've got my electronic wax impression. It fits the ghost like a glove. But it's not the impression itself that attracts the ghost. The impression tells me what sort of thing lights up the ghost's Christmas tree, makes it want to pay attention to me. Think of it as being like a tune playing low in the background. If the ghost is a f***ing Goth, it's going to be a lot more interested in the Sisters of Mercy than in Britney Spears. Think of that, only with electromagnetic signatures, and you've got the essence of a summoning.

Next month, I'll tell you about binding. Or something entirely different. I'm an asshole. I roll that way. Lucky you.

So why exactly are you still reading this shit anyway?

Remember to Phone Home!

Hey guys, it's me again, and listen, this is kinda serious. Seems like every time I turn around, someone else isn't logging on when they should be. Weird thing about the internets, huh? You never know if someone just got bored, or lost their cell, or if they fell off a cliff or something. 'Specially with people living alone more often now.

So get yourself a buddy! Make a pact with someone you trust to email or phone them at the same time every week or so, let them know you're okay. If they don't get the call, they can raise the alarm. Low tech may be the way to go with this - burn important info to a CD and stash it somewhere it can be retrieved by your buddy. Leave a letter with your solicitor with instructions to deliver it to a certain address if you don't call them at a certain time. Make a will.

I'm working on something at the moment that might help… I'll let you know how that goes.

Oh, and folks in Japan? Watch out for the ghost in the machine. I've heard it bites.