The Ninth Gate (1999) - Lena Olin in her own private library

The Ninth Gate (1999) - one of my twenty favourite movies Spooky and cool

The Ninth Gate (1999) - chasing down rare books

The Ninth Gate (1999) - thinking about an old book

The Ninth Gate (1999) - the cognoscenti

The Ninth Gate (1999) - Lena Olin as Liana Telfer

The Ninth Gate (1999) - Good times!

The Ninth Gate (1999) - the engravings

The Ninth Gate (1999) - Emmanuelle Seigner She's Roman Polanski's wife. Says a lot

Curtis Yarvin wants to destroy democracy. Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and J. D. Vance are among his fans. (Photo by Carolyn Drake for The New Yorker) Yarvin has called for a total 'reboot' of the social order. He proposed 'the liquidation of democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law'

The satirical mask appears crucial: by presenting his views as parody, Yarvin arguably grants himself deniability while daring his readers to refute him on his own fungible terms bylinetimes.com/2025/09/24/c...

Maria Ressa delivered a passionate speech at the UN’s 80th anniversary meeting, warning of an 'information Armageddon' fueled by big tech, AI, and disinformation And I think she's completely right! - the tech bros have demonstrated complete contempt for humanity www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4ki...

Jodie Haydon and Anthony Albanese attended a reception hosted by Donald and Melania Trump. - That must have been pleasant! ... If Albo is 5'10" (1.78 m) how can Trumpie be 6'2"-6'3"? He'd be a monster towering over everyone!

Anthony Albanese has been received by Chucky the King in a royal audience at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Albo was greeted by a Scottish guy blowing bagpipes when he landed at the air base. (AAP - Dominic Lorrimer) Chucky was probably glad for some polite conversation after Trumpie's recent visit

I've been there

Cthulhu proselytiser

Cthulhu proselytiser under water

America is SO FUN!

As I keep saying to people, there's nothing wrong with Christianity - this hostility to Christianity, and religion in general, is VERY American! Normal Christians in normal places don't think like that, liberals DON'T HATE THEM If you want peace and to live in a peaceful country ... be peaceful 💙

Well, as we know, art comes from a darker place - this is why you're supposed to FEAR God, and shamans are spooky, weird witches, and so on - and I'm not saying not to enjoy Sean Connery's movies - who DOESN'T love Zardoz?!! But resolving arguments with 'a smack' doesn't sound ideal

Israeli soldiers sit on a tank facing Gaza on 19 January, 2024. (Amir Levy)

Lake Macquarie along the NSW coast north of Sydney. (Supplied by Beth Bunn)

Five states of matter ... Every little kid is taught that there are three states of matter - and, of course, there are many more that even we know of (the aliens probably have a whole extensive theory on the subject)

In her book, Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams said that, while promoting the use of Facebook for kids generally, even with big programmes designed to encourage take-up, the senior people at Facebook wouldn't let their own kids use social media, wouldn't even let them have phones

Theodore Roosevelt speaking from a car in Milwaukee on October 14, 1912, shortly before being shot As the assassin fired on the unarmed former president, he was heard to yell, '- Take that, fatboy!'

Maori scholar, Makereti Papakura

Very cool picture

Nice!

Alice in Chains, Jar of Flies

Kids not enjoying catastrophic climate change on the Australian East Coast - summer or 2019-20. (Martin Von Stoll)

Homunculus in an alchemical experiment - how cute!

Corporations in politics is the worse thing to happen to America after the ultra-Christian right got involved They've all got a post-Enlightenment, quasi-Mediaeval mindset utterly devoid of light

Gillian Welch The Harrow and the Harvest

He even had to think about answering the first question, 'Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump?'

That moderator sucks

How could you not walk out on that freak? He walks in darkness

Really cool image

Such distressing images!

Many years ago Facebook was exposed EXPERIMENTING on users, applying bias to their feeds, to see what increased ad revenue So they tried skewing feeds towards posts that encouraged people to feel good, or happy, or sad, or angry ... I guess angry won. And I told this to people and they didn't care

Most of the problem in the modern world has been that the Americans can do with impunity whatever they want If presidents had to answer to international justice for what they've done they would behave differently And for one, Trumpie would never have become president - How America destroys itself

The news out of America just keeps getting worse www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2yI...

And bad would be good ... You know I think Peter Thiel thinks he's another Sauron. Palantíri - are the showing stones invented by Fëanor Sauron didn't understand the Palantíri, but he could use them to manipulate and control other beings That (I believe) is why his data mining company is Palantir

Milan looks amazing (I've never been)

The delicate balance.

Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew at Royal Ascot, 21 June 2019. (PA - Adam Davy) - What lovely people!

Crambione mastigophora - a better class of human being than the American president - can clog the engine cooling systems of large vessels - Trumpie can't do that! (Supplied by Aimee Galasso)

Anthony Albanese swiftly posted this selfie with Trumpie on social media. Australians can feel assured that Trumpie cares about us enough to pretend he cares (even if he looks like demented Grandpa)

The push-and-pull between inflows and outflows is central to understanding how galaxies grow and change over cosmic time theconversation.com/what-a-newly...

Facebook - that face you make ...

Dieric Bouts, Day of Judgment, part of Triptych of the Last Judgement (1450) - Good times!