Terry Heaton is pointing to a story that claims that 35% of ever hour of prime-time television is some form of commercial, sponsorship or "branded entertainment". And they wonder why people don't watch telly. 
Next weekend, London is having an event called someting like the Open Garden Square Weekend (Google it). Lots of beautiful gardens are going to be open to the public.
Shit! It looks like we might have another de Menezes situation, thankfully a non-fatal one. The Met claim that they wil "fully support" an independent investigation. They've got such a good record with independent investigations. I'm thinking that there's a 1 in 15 chance that anything significant actually gets done about this. Meanwhile, we'll sit here in fear that stormtroopers will climb on the train and shoot us through the head "for our own good". Bent coppers scare me far more than terrorists, because nothing can be done about bent coppers, as the de Menezes scandal demonstrated.
Oh my, if you've got a rude parrot in Israel, it should be slaughtered! That's fucked up.
A massive round of applause for Les. 40,000 comments is a real achievement. 
I'm liking the look of Waxxi.us - Skypecasts needs comeptition, methinks. (Via mashable)
Looks like not everyone appreciates the "CO2: Some call it pollution, we call it life" ads (which I first heard while walking down a very sinny, warm street in Cambridge, Mass).
It looks like Rush Limbaugh is delusional. That really is pretty cool.
Bon Echo has an interesting error - half the keyboard shortcuts don't seem to work. For instance, if you hit "download" on something, it'll pop up the download box. You have to click on it - if you just hit "enter" it'll do the task but repeat the box. Plus if you try to bookmark something, it can have a real hissy fit if you use the keys rather than the mouse - one of my browser windows is now frozen as a result.
Apparently, Alabama has a new nutter running for the bench who says that he just doesn't believe in precedent. Perhaps if he doesn't believe in it with enough vigour, it'll just go away.
NightShift looks like a totally awesome application. (Via TUAW)
Ed Brayton is right on target about Washington State's ridiculously shitty new laws about online gambling. Moralising dullards strike again!
Want to waste a couple of billion quid? You could buy AOL UK.
This is a Dan Brown novel that even I could get behind. Go Rolf!
LiveJournal have a post about Christian yoga and bondage. Interesting mixture.
Ask MeFi is responding to the fatuous idea perpetuated by morons that, when the government is involved in surveillance, "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" which really means "nothing to hide, something to fear; something to hide, nothing to fear".
A New Feed Rule 
The BBC are showing the World Cup online. Superb. I'm managing reasonably well to avoid the World Cup, and I have a "three-strike rule" regarding RSS feeds that contain W.C. stories. If a news source posts three stories about the W.C. I unsubscribe and put the feed either on to a sort of "sin bin" until the W.C. is over or they go to the trash forever. Depends how much I like them.
The Guardian is almost ready to go either to the sin bin or off the radar completely. It would be extremely useful if they produced a sports-free version of their feeds. I can't seem to find one, though I'll probably put one together myself.
