The Null Device
2001/12/11
Dissatisfied with the UK Labour Party's policy on war in Afghanistan, a Labour MP has defected to the Liberal Democrats. The party, formed in the merger of the Liberals and Social Democrats some time ago, is also home to some pro-European defectors from the Conservative Party. Which would probably make it analogous to the Australian Democrats (though perhaps not as sloganistically trendy or yoof-oriented).
It has emerged that John Walker Lindh, the young Northern Californian Taliban fighter captured in Afghanistan, was a prolific Usenet poster, frequenting groups such as rec.music.hip-hop, and using pseudonyms including "Prof.J", "Dr. Hine E. Craque" and "Mr. Muhajid", before deciding to run away and join the Taliban. Thanks to Google, there is a history of his posts, dissing wack rhymes, buying and selling CDs and musical instruments (mostly drum machines/samplers, though he was looking for a talkbox at one stage), and apparently getting into Islam through hip-hop music. (via Techdirt)
Hmmm... My indie cred has almost doubled over the past 14 or so months; it was 24% last October, and now is 40-42% (depending on how you count). The fact that I lived in a sharehouse of Top-40-listening normals for a while probably pushed me on the path to indie-snobbery, and the black-rimmed glasses and writing RAN reviews did the rest. I still don't own any Belle & Sebastian or regularly wear sweaters (or jumpers, even), or hang out with stereotyped "indie kids" though. (The indie fundamentalists sound every bit as annoying as goths, even if superficially less daft.)