th'downstairs room

geographies: Dysart

Saturday newstrip

Daylight terror: the Ford Falcon, part of Australia's landscape for half a century, is driving into the sunset • soldier hacked to death in London • thousands attend spectacular Jerusalem wedding • Biggest Loser trainer Michelle Bridges has confirmed speculation she is dating her co-star Steve "The Commando" Willis • Australian astronomers have helped solve one of the cosmos's most thorny riddles • zoos are the only places where white tigers exist • 80-year-old Japanese mountain climber Yuichiro Miura reached the top of Mount Everest • touching reunion stories caught on camera.

Tresor

Today is International Turtle Day

& here's one from the local region . . .

geographies: Brandon

InterNaPwoWriMo

was last month, was International Pwoermd Writing Month. & some pwoermds from won des laits during that time are below

contnets

suppernatural

dΩme

brillain't

innonsequential

powerm

wnidow

alt-ctrl-er

thend

The dick who thinks

he will be Australia's next Prime Minister.

Simplistic in the extreme, cro-magnonesque perhaps, producer of simplistic pamphlets that he calls "books" but which, as the photos below the photos below show,

are too complex for his tiny brain. So he downsizes, first to simplex slogans

& then reduced even further, to the only thing he can get his brain around, a branded coffee shop takeaway container.

Yes, this is Tony Abbott, a dickhead who needs

to wear budgie-smugglers to find the head of his dick.

Grafton Bridge Revisited

geographies: Corio

tuesday newstrip

Celebrity stunts gone wrong • Twelve shot at US Mother's Day parade • A man beaten to death last week in Volgograd, south Russia, was the victim of a homophobic gang • The ARIA Singles Chart will again use foreign aid money to capture solar eclipse • 3D printed guns are reportedly too scary to pay for the care of asylum seekers • Robin Thicke has scored his first Australian No.1 with New Threats Emerge From Syria • The Greens will move to block federal funding for the anti-soy zeitgeist permeating the culinary & coffee-loving world.

Series Magritte #242

The New Years

In the closed circles of
psychic apparati, exposed
navels emphasize the
rural-urban rift. It is
from this dark rift that
the winter solstice sun

will emerge, offering
a single world with a
dichotomy of semantics
in which objects co-exist
with primitive types. More
problematic in theory

than in practice, it tends
towards a reductionist
framework. On the day
of the second new moon
after the December solstice
the new years begin.

geographies: Neerim

elsewhere II . . . & definitely elsewhen

The Queensland State Government recently passed legislation allowing local councils to decide whether they wanted to add fluoride to water supplies, instead of the former Labor government's push to make it mandatory.

The Townsville Bulletin

from the comments boxes of the above news item . . .

BRUSH YOUR TEETH, fluoride doesn't prevent cavities if you don't clean your teeth.Remove this poison from my water and I will stay in Townsville, I know of at least 1000 people in Mackay area who never moved north to Townsville because of the poison in the drinking water supply.It has driven house prices down in this region, Council will continue to lose more and gain less.Fluoride imitates calcium in the body and fools the heart muscle into believing it has sufficient calcium supply only to end with heart failure.We water our lawns, wash our cars and pet and ourselves with this poison, it ends up in the rivers and oceans, we are FLUORIDATING the whole planet, STOP THIS MADNESS.The only people who want this have business selling treatment devices and make a profit from it, or otherwise they are just crazy.

elsewhere

woken
by road-
trains & roosters

thursday newstrip

Soldiers making blunders · The Queensland student accused of throwing a sandwich at the prime minister says he is innocent · Cameras reveal amazing animals-eye-view of world · Celebrities attacked on stage · The unemployment rate is expected to have been steady in April · A "ring of fire" solar eclipse will darken skies on Thursday.

asemic weir

sunday newstrip

The national disability care scheme is a step closer with Victoria agreeing to a full rollout of the plan · Kitten makes recovery after petrol attack · What Seven Days Without Email Can Teach You About Your Inbox · Best slips of the tongue on live TV · Formerly obese dog gets skin lift.

The names New Zealand wouldn't allow

New Zealand's Registrar of Births, Deaths & Marriages has released an updated list of rejected names that parents attempted to bestow upon their newborns.

Six sets of parents have tried — & failed — to legally name their child "Lucifer" during the past 12 years. Other banned names include "Anal" & "4real." Punctuation marks such as “.” (full stop) & “*” (star symbol) were also overruled, as were names using slashes & brackets.

The agency does not allow names resembling an official title or rank, so there aren't any children legally called "King," "Princess," "Majesty" or "Knight."

"Justice" is the most popular banned name, having been rejected 62 times since 2001. Two sets of parents tried their luck with "Justus" & one with "Juztice,” but those were also shot down.

However, some peculiar names have been approved, including “Midnight Chardonnay,” “Violence” & “Number 16 Bus Shelter.”

In 2008, a 9-year-old New Zealand girl named "Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii" was made a ward of the court so that her name could be changed.

Sweden is another country known for its naming laws. In the ’90s, a couple famously tried to name their child "Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116" (pronounced "Albin," of course), but it was rejected.

Here is a list of New Zealand’s banned names & how many times they have come up since 2001.
Justice: 62
King: 31
Princess: 28
Prince: 27
Royal: 25
Duke: 10
Major: 9
Bishop: 9
Majesty: 7
J: 6
Lucifer: 6
Using brackets around middle names: 4
Knight: 4
Lady: 3
Using back slashes between names: 8
Judge: 3
Royale: 2
Messiah: 2
T: 2
I: 2
Queen: 2
II: 2
Sir: 2
III: 2
Jr:2
E: 2
V: 2
Justus: 2
Master: 2
Names that have come up once:
Constable, Queen Victoria, Regal, Emperor, Christ, Juztice, 3rd, C J, G, Roman numerals III, General, Saint, Lord, "." (full stop), 89, Eminence, M, VI, Mafia No Fear, 2nd, Majesti, Rogue, 4real, "*" (star symbol), 5th, S P, C, Sargent, Honour, D, Minister, MJ, Chief, Mr, V8, President, MC, Anal, A.J., Baron, L B, H-Q and Queen V.

New York Daily News

Kawana

Otoliths #29 is now live

When I started Otoliths seven years ago, I wondered if it would grow, if it would survive. That wondering is now far behind me, & even a cursory glance at the lineup below indicates how wide-ranging the journal has become in literary & artistic endeavor & scope, how truly international it now is.

Otoliths issue 29, the southern autumn issue, contains a lot of new work from a lot of people: Mark Cunningham, Susan Lewis, Aditya Bahl, Jal Nicholl, Andrew Topel, Pete Spence & Andrew Topel, Julian Jason Haladyn, Ed Baker, John Ryan, Francesco Aprile, Unconventional Press, Kyle Hemmings, Philip Byron Oakes, Marco Giovenale, Sheila E. Murphy & John M. Bennett, Jim Leftwich & John M. Bennett, Thomas M. Cassidy & John M. Bennett, John M. Bennett, John W. Sexton, Louie Crew, Sy Roth, Jack Galmitz, Anthony J. Langford, Mark Melnicove, Yoko Danno, Pam Brown, Eleanor Leonne Bennett, A. J. Huffman, John Veira, Maria Zajkowski, Camille Martin, Wayne Mason, Bobbi Lurie, Darren C. Demaree, Michael Stutz, James Mc Laughlin, Howie Good, Reed Altemus, Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, Johannes S. H. Bjerg, Vernon Frazer, Jeremy Freedman, John Pursch, dan raphael, Sheila e. Black & Caleb Puckett, Ricky Garni, Jack Collom & Mark DuCharme, Kathryn Yuen, Tim Wright, Mark Reep, Gary Barwin, Taylor Reid, harry k stammer, Marcia Arrieta, Anna Ryan-Punch, Katrinka Moore, Neil Ellman, Sally Ann McIntyre, Jeff Harrison, Joe Balaz, Boyd Spahr, Tony Beyer, Jim Davis, Chris Brown, Sam Moginie, Lakey Comess, Alberto Vitacchio, Jorge Lucio de Campos translated by Diana Magallón & Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Rebecca Rom-Frank, Craig Cotter, Javant Biarujia, Carla Bertola, Iain Britton, Anne Elvey, Bob Heman, Donna Fleischer, J. D. Nelson, sean burn, Spencer Selby, Charles Freeland & Rosaire Appel, Paul Dickey, Michael D Goscinski, Kathup Tsering, Miro Bilbrough, Chris Holdaway, Samuel Carey, Paul Pfleuger, Jr., Michael Brandonisio, Willie Smith, Mercedes Webb-Pullman, Bogdan Puslenghea, Andrew Pascoe, Scott Metz, Marty Hiatt, Eric Schmaltz, Sam Langer, & bruno neiva.

In addition, this issue features 147 Million Orphans: A haybun folio curated by Eileen R. Tabios, containing work from Eileen R. Tabios, Tom Beckett, j/j hastain, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Aileen Ibardaloza, Thomas Fink, Sheila E. Murphy, Michael Caylo-Baradi, Jean Vengua, William Allegrezza, & Patrick James Dunagan & Ava Koohbor.