For the FELL readers: Michael O’Neil has opened a “Snowtown Tag” tag on Flickr:

The United Nations official in charge of investigating instances of torture around the world has arrived in Nepal for a week-long visit. The visit by Manfred Nowak comes as concern grows at the increasing incidence of the practice in the violence-stricken kingdom.

A leading Nepali organisation, Centre for the Victims of Torture or C-Vict, says nearly 5,000 cases of physical or psychological torture were reported to it last year. But it adds that victims are now getting more afraid of coming forward. It also says it is having problems funding professional treatment and sending its experts into conflict-hit areas.

Nepal has the world’s highest rate of fresh political disappearances, and C-Vict says that people who disappear have often been tortured to death…

My hobby for the month of September: taking control of the Top Tracks This Week front-page listing at music preview/download site Mperia.com.

I’m two for two: Theory Anesthetic and Full Moon Day are now on there.

Combat my internautics if you can. I am Swami now.

(I once actually forced my poor film/tv agent to refer to me only as Swami for a full week.)

(Thanks, Jhayne)

A February 16 note may be Hunter Thompson’s final written words. It reads:

“No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won’t hurt.”

Hunter left the note for his wife, Anita. He shot himself four days later at his home in Aspen, Colorado, after weeks of pain from a host of physical problems that included a broken leg and a hip replacement.

Written in black marker, the note was titled, “Football Season Is Over.”

Full Moon Day: their “Empty Headed” is supercooled, slowed-down psychedelic dreampop, ideal for these late-summer days.

Four-page preview here.

Organisers of the world testicle cooking championships were left out of pocket after a hoaxer claimed to be Australia’s top testicle cook.

A man claiming to be Australian chef Nibel Bevan rang the World Testicle Cooking Championship in Serbia, asking to take part. Organiser Gornji Milanovac said they imported kangaroo testicles especially for the Australian team – but nobody turned up.

He said: “The caller told us cooked kangaroo testicles were a popular delicacy in Australia, and gave us the details of where we could get kangaroo testicles from so we could have them ready when Mr Bevan and his team arrived. We were disappointed when no Australians arrived, we even had a band ready to welcome them.”

Ljubomir Erovic, who arranged a VIP reception for ‘Mr Bevan’, added: “We are sorry Mr Bevan could not make it, and hope he might still turn up next year once he realises that jokers have been pretending to be him. We would like to compare the testicles of a kangaroo to those of wild boars and bulls. That would really make our unique competition the World Championships.”

(Testicle Chefs = new band name)

Novelist Chiren Misawa fell to his death from his eight floor apartment in Yokohama on Wednesday, and local police believe he committed suicide. He was 46.

Misawa, whose real name is Tetsuo Takahashi, was arrested in 1982 over his involvement in a murder case while he was a member of a right-wing organization. While he was serving his 12-year prison term, he released a novel, “Tenno Gokko” (Playing Emperor), in 1994, for which he won the Shin-Nihon literary prize.

Misawa is also known for his novel, “Choritsu-no-Teikoku” (The Empire of Tuning) describing prison life.

Scientists have developed an ultra-light limb that they claim can mimic the movement in a real hand better than any currently available.

At present, prosthetic hands either do not move at all or have a simple single-motor grip. But the University of Southampton team has designed a prototype that uses six sets of motors and gears so each of the five fingers can move independently.

…at 400g it is lighter than the average human hand. Heavy prosthetics can be extremely uncomfortable and cause injury to the area where it joins with the arm…

My photographer friend Siege has finally located his mother and brother in New Orleans. They, and the rest of their family in the LA/MS area, are homeless.

He’s therefore selling a time-limited edition of prints at this link to attempt to care for and rebuild for his family.

Speculation is reaching fever pitch about what Apple will announce in its 7 September press conference.

However, reputable people tell me it’s this.

Print available. Help Katie pay for things like food.

A bunker-busting shell that gets so hot on impact that it burns its way through concrete and steel is being developed by the US Navy’s Warfare Center in Virginia.

The shell contains a mixture of aluminium polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and perchlorate oxydiser, moulded together into an aerodynamic shape. To prevent the mixture from disintegrating as it travels through air at high velocity the shell is wrapped in a soft Teflon tape, which is wound tight under high tension, heated and topped with epoxy glue to prevent unravelling.

Its high-velocity impact acts as a catalyst, forcing the two chemicals together in a red hot reaction. The projectile gets so hot so fast that it should instantly burn its way through armour plating or other defences.

And the burning shell would avoid the environmental pitfalls of radioactive depleted uranium – currently the most common material used in armour-piercing shells.

When Carl the labrador chased a squirrel into the woods, his owners’ only concern was for his quarry. But they should have worried about their dog. Because seconds later Carl re-emerged with the grey squirrel firmly clamped to his neck.

The squirrel launched itself at the dog and sank its teeth and claws into his neck. The attack continued until a passer-by intervened.

Carl, who is two, was taken to a vet and needed surgery to stitch up his wounds…

Internet giant Yahoo has been accused of supplying information to China which led to the jailing of a journalist for “divulging state secrets”.

Reporters Without Borders said Yahoo’s Hong Kong arm helped China link Shi Tao’s e-mail account and computer to a message containing the information.

The media watchdog accused Yahoo of becoming a “police informant” in order to further its business ambitions…

Over the last couple of weeks, me and some friends have been building a new online forum, The Engine; it exists both to facilitate community around some of my work, and to create a space for creators to talk.

I’m going to start letting some of the pro comics creators into The Engine early, so listen: if you’re a PUBLISHED or CONTRACTED-TO-PUBLISH creator, and working entirely or partly outside the superhero genre, drop me a line at warrene @ aol.com.

I realise the genre distinction is going to put some noses out of joint. But there are loads of other, bigger message boards that are pretty much all about superhero comics. It’s not my field of interest. I’m not even talking about my own superhero work at the Engine. And there’s just not a big public place for those of us working outside the genre to talk. I wanted to make a space for people like me, focussed on making original material outside the genre. That’s the whole deal.

I will also take “creator” to mean a webcomics creator publishing on a paysite or working ad-supported, on a case-by-case basis. Which I know sounds kind of snooty, but, right now, I’m looking for a separation between hobbyist creators and the people who are risking significant chunks of their lives on this stupid game…

I know I’m going to piss some of you right off. I apologise in advance.

By “comics,” I mean comics, graphic novels, manga, OEL, BD and any other contortion of the intended meaning. I was discovering manga and BD while some of you comickers were still twinkles in a tentacle-beast’s eye, and it’s all bloody comics as far as I’m concerned…

I’m holding off on creator-publishers and the like for the moment. Doing this thing by stages.

– W

Hope Larson’s SALAMANDER DREAM graphic novel will be out some time in the next ten days. Butm lucky you, you can preview the whole thing in web version first.

Publisher’s Weekly says of it:

Hailey believes in magic. Or at least she tries to, when she visits the woods near her house where, as a young girl, she first meets the endearing Salamander, who tells her a tale to while away a summer afternoon. As she grows older, she meets Salamander again as an adolescent and then a young adult. This book is a collection of the stories the two friends take turns telling each other: of swimming with a minnow in the stream, of flying on the back of a hawk, of shrinking through the pores of the skin to raft on red blood cells and fly past electrons. These stories are told almost exclusively through images, in bold blocks of black, white and green. The drawings are surreal, the dialogue looping through the scenery and the limbs of the characters, stretching into the nature that surrounds them. Salamander and other animal characters are drawn as silhouetted human figures wearing representational masks, making Salamander and Hailey’s journeys seem even more bizarre. A coming-of-age story about a girl learning to hold onto magic as she grows older, this is a also whimsical, dreamlike flight of fancy.

If you have trouble finding it, Amazon have it up for preorder.

Oh, this is glorious. President Bush: Sell the Ranch