Several readers have steered my attention to the new Fake Charities website. It’s a directory of consultants, lobby groups and quangos that receive substantial funding from either the UK or EU governments, and thus from thee and me. One featured charity is Alcohol Concern, which, according to its 2007/08 accounts, received £515,000 from the Department of Health. It received just £4,991 in public donations. This dependence on state subsidy, as opposed to public donations, raises the question of just how independent such organisations are, and whether “charity” is the word we should be using.
Anna thinks some of you may be interested in a gallery of rolling papers and smoking paraphernalia, which includes products by Rizla, Abadie and numerous other brands.
And, thanks to Candice, I’ve discovered a compendium of superpowers with somewhat limited applications. Among them: the ability to levitate the left side of your body, ultra short-range teleportation, and an imperviousness to helium.
Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.
I can’t decide whether I want to be bulletproof “eventually” or be able to fly inside a plane. Can I have both?
Superhuman strength whilst sleeping.
“Can I have both?”
Ah, but if you have lots of superpowers, it gets a little boring. You’d end up like Superman, who’s immune to just about everything except kryptonite and tiresome three-hour films starring Kate Bosworth.
“immune to just about everything except kryptonite and tiresome three-hour films starring Kate Bosworth.”
Kate wasn’t good but it was the kid that did him in.
Yes, that was the deadliest foe of all. A multimillion dollar franchise brought to its knees by giving Superman a cute, asthmatic son. [ Bangs head on desk. ]
Ability to bang head on desk for extended periods.
That short-range teleportation could be handy if you don’t have to rest up between jaunts. Just keep teleporting. Assuming instantaneous “transmission” from Point A to Point B (even if they’re only 0.5 inches apart), a continuous exercise of this ability would amount to de facto long-range teleportation, or even FTL motion. Just make sure you can navigate around stuff rather than inter-penetrating it.
You might even get one of those cool, “really fast moving”, blurring effects out of it. http://www.intuitivewebdesigns.com/comics/graphics/flash/flash2.jpg
It still seems to involve an awful lot of bearing down. Whatever it is you’d have to clench would eventually get tired, surely?
Captain DJ: Radio Wave Vision (only see objects larger than 100 meters).
Amoeba-Man: The power to will single celled plants to his aid.
Marx-Girl: Able to hold two contradictory statements in her head and believe both to be true (e.g. everyone is the same, diversity is good).
“Superhuman size. Totally human feet. Upon engaging the No-Go-liath power, the upper 95% of our superhero swells to impressive size. Shortly thereafter, he topples like Nick Nolte at an open-bar charity ball.”
http://superuseless.blogspot.com/2009/01/no-go-liath.html