Morrisey was quizzed by FBI - apparently the Peoples Democractic Republic of America is not without a sense of irony.
Oh - go and see Why We Fight -informative but depressing viewing. Annoyingly factual, it cleverly gives its subjects plenty of rope rather than going the Michael Moore demagogue route.
Add comment February 27th, 2006
Everyone was invited to a flashmob with pillows in NYC. Looks like fun.
Add comment February 19th, 2006
Just finished a week long training session in Surrey (All you ever wanted to know about Windows Vista). If you ever have to go to Microsoft Chertsey, then do youself a favor and stay at a B&B in Chertsey or in Weybridge. Don’t do like I did, and go with the Microsoft “recommended” Hilton in Cobham unless you are looking for some alone time. The hotel is in the middle of a forest, miles from anywhere. Your eating options are the restaurant, the bar or room-service. Oy vey - it was dull. And the internet didn’t work (and cost £15 extra a night).
Anyway - while I was there the annual Brit awards were on. Kaiser Chiefs won a bunch which is nice, but I caught a rocking performance by KT Tunstall - female singer songwriter with a nice earthy voice. Folky pop says the wikipedia, and they’re not wrong. A bit like early Tori Amos. Have a listen…
Add comment February 18th, 2006
Not the Wikipedia - the Wookieepedia - the source of obscure Star Wars trivia.
Add comment February 12th, 2006
Jonesing for some risotto. No white wine available, wine monopoly shut.
Replace wine with a pint of light beer and we’re good to go.
Fry the meat, garlic, onions, shrooms in the oil on medium heat.
Toss in the rice, pour the pint of beer in. It’ll froth a bit, but that’s ok - just stir for a bit and it’ll settle down. Add a bit of stock or bullion, stir in the mustard. Set the heat on low and put on some music. Crack open another beer (for youself this time) and resist the urge to stir. Wait for the rice to cook. Add water if necessary.
Once the rice is cooked (after 25 minutes or so), serve with some parmesan and a contented smile.
A light pilsner gives a light flavor to the risotto. Unlike a wine, it’s not as acidic. I wonder what it’d be like with a heavier, more sugar-rich beer, like a Newcastle Brown or a typical Christmas beer.
Add comment February 12th, 2006
This must be what my grandmother refers to when she says that getting old is a pain.
I finally got back to my workout schedule after a four month hiatus. Twelve reps of ten squats were bad enough to make my calf cramp. At least I know that next week it will be easier. But for the next couple of days I’m gonna feel like a ninety-year old, unable to move without a little grimace of pain.
Add comment February 9th, 2006
Couldn’t put it better really.
http://www.latimes.com/cl-et-rutten4feb04,0,4714691.column?coll=la-home-headlines&track=morenews
The decent respect for the opinions of others that life in modern, pluralistic societies requires is not a form of relativism. It will not do, as Isaiah Berlin once put it, to say, “I believe in kindness and you believe in concentration camps” and let’s leave it at that.
The proof of this is written in the facts on the ground. Across the United States, there are Saudi-funded mosques, teaching that nation’s particularly intolerant brand of Islam. There are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia; they’re against the law. In Iraq on Friday, the country’s dwindling community of Chaldean Catholics prepared for more of the terrorist attacks that have become routine; there were no reported attacks on Muslims in any of the countries where the Danish caricatures were republished. Muslims in those places may have been affronted, but they are not in fear for their lives. No Western leader claims that Ferdinand and Isabella did not expel the Moors from Spain or that there were no massacres during the Crusades. If they did, they’d be howled off the podium and ridiculed into obscurity. The president of theocratic Iran claims that there was no Holocaust and people across the Islamic world applaud.
The European media may have behaved in a provocative fashion this week, but it was provocation in a good cause. The Western governments — ever mindful of their commercial interests — aren’t required to endorse what their press has done, but they do nobody a favor when they apologize for it.
The syrians torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies, but this appears to be Syrian internal politics more than anything else (it’s important for tyrants to keep the mob happy, and a good bonfire makes for a happy mob).
While we wait for the apocalypse, there are more pictures of the prophet (going back five hundred years or so) at this site. The interview with Sheikh Haitham al-Haddad is a nice example of the fact that denial is not just a river in Egypt.
And yet, there is hope.
Mosques across europe are either preaching tolerance and moderation or ignoring the issue. The vast majority of muslims appear have more important things to do. The message of not allowing the extermists to gain from the situation seems be spreading.
We run the risk of being offended every day as soon as you peek outside your house. This is a result of having to live with other people who are not the same as you. You can either stop looking at the outside world, or deal with the fact that the world is full of idiots, and get on with your life. You can try asking the world to become more like you, but your request is more likely to be ignored, and you will probably be offended when the world asks you to become more like it instead.
Add comment February 5th, 2006
Opinions are like assholes — everybody’s got one. Here’s mine.
Google threw this at me today. Very apropos:
“A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.”
- Edward R. Murrow
The following things are acceptable:
The following things are not acceptable:
The cartoons and an excellent writeup of the controversy are on the wikipedia - the cartoons’ immortality on the net is now assured by the reaction they have provoked among muslims. Rowan Atkinson has written a great defence of free expression as part of a law debate in the UK - otherwise unrelated to the cartoon debacle, but topical nonetheless.
Fear is not conducive to creativity. Fear and violence are the last resorts of fools and incompetents. Ignorance of these basic rules of discourse probably stems from a lack of experience with them. Freedom of expression is not widely practiced on the arabian peninsula. This may be why some appear to assume that whatever is printed in a newspaper is sanctioned by the government, thus the government should apologise for what was printed. The idea of a press without a censor is foreign to them.
As Irshad Manji writes and Ayaan Hirsi Ali says: the islamic world is stuck in the middle ages. The equivalent of the Enlightenment has yet to overturn the power of religion in the public square. The idea that religion is a personal choice, and that the public space (the political space, if you will) is goverened by a different set of negotiated rules hasn’t got much traction yet. The countries on the arab peninsula which aren’t theocracies are either dictatorships or run by kingly despots.
Indonesia, a democracy with a large muslim population and a free press appears to be largely unaffected by this furore. Granted: chairs were thrown around the Danish embassy lobby, but the organizers got the protest under control. Most people ignored the protest
Protests must happen within the law. Hurt feelings are not an excuse to go around killing people.
Islam needs a “Life of Brian” event. “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World” is a good start, but where is islamic satire and self-criticism?
Another quote to close:
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.
- Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)
1 comment February 4th, 2006
We got a mail from a happy customer today. A very happy and satisfied customer.
When a customer rates the product you’ve designed and helped build on par with sex, you can’t be doing too badly.
Add comment February 3rd, 2006
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