Bread dipped in tea
Saturday, November 29, 2003
What good friends left behind - Pilger on the shocking state we have left Afghanistan in: [via robotwisdom]...the issue of women in Afghanistan. She says that the current silence in the west over the atrocious nature of the western-backed warlord regime is no different. We met clandestinely and she wore a veil to disguise her identity. Marina is not her real name.ω 1:56:00 AM.
"Two girls who went to school without their burkas were killed and their dead bodies were put in front of their houses," she said. "Last month, 35 women jumped into a river along with their children and died, just to save themselves from commanders on a rampage of rape. That is Afghanistan today; the Taliban and the warlords of the Northern Alliance are two faces of the same coin. For America, it's a Frankenstein story - you make a monster and the monster goes against you. If America had not built up these warlords, Osama bin Laden and all the fundamentalist forces in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion, they would not have attacked the master on September 11 2001."
For 17 years, Washington poured $4bn into the pockets of some of the most brutal men on earth - with the overall aim of exhausting and ultimately destroying the Soviet Union in a futile war. One of them, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a warlord particularly favoured by the CIA, received tens of millions of dollars. His speciality was trafficking opium and throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. In 1994, he agreed to stop attacking Kabul on condition that he was made prime minister - which he was.
Your Body's Many Cries for Water
Friday, November 28, 2003
This book's viewpoint Your Body's Many Cries for Water: A Revolutionary Natural Way to Prevent Illness and Restore Good Health is revolutionary in some ways, although there are many experts who have advocated drinking two litres of water a day for decades. It's good for all your body's systems and can stop depression. (But don't drink more than one litre in an hour or your brain will expand resulting in death.) I'd be interested to see if it addresses the problem of private companies taking over the water supply in Africa."You see, the health care crisis of America that will bankrupt the nation if permitted to continue in its present trend, is not caused by the way it is operated. Nor is it entirely the result of greed-based pricing. It is caused by a most primitive mistake in the basic premise in the science of physiology that is [the] foundation to all medical and scientific knowledge of the human body...
"...the 'science of medicine' has expanded on a hopelessly erroneous paradigm. The very foundation of 'knowledge' on which medical practice of today is staking its credibility and license to practice is in error and ignorant of water metabolism disturbance as a possible cause of disease emergence in the human body."
Reviewer Earl Hazell:
The most deeply arresting and provocative part of the book however was his chapter on AIDS. Dr. Batmanghelidj holds strong in YOUR BODY'S MANY CRIES FOR WATER to the idea that "AIDS is not a viral disease but a metabolic disorder precipitated by an exaggerated way of life. IT CAN BE EQUALLY CAUSED BY SEVERE MALNUTRITION IN POORER AND FAMINE-STRICKEN SOCIETIES (emphasis mine)." His paradigm-shifting analysis in the chapter entitled "New Ideas on AIDS" wreaks havoc on the cherished origins theories of both the far right and the far left in America simultaneously. (He shows, with pure science, an explanation of both AIDS's origins and its rape of the African continent and the American gay community far more logical than a) the homosexual/negro morality plays of the fundamentalist right OR b) the secret CIA biological warfare testing turned Frankenstein theories of the conspiratorial left.) POVERTY, it seems, may be the true epidemic disease: it is the central cause of the dysfunctional behavior and nutritional patterns that contribute to the metabolic systems failure of AIDS victims' bodies throughout the world who, up till now, have been wrongly labeled as victims of an avoidable but incurable virus.ω 10:45:00 PM.
Funny Peculiar
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Robot Lobsters follow scents. [via Macsurfer.com]Numbers to be patented.
Distractions: Digital Drudgery.
The Joy of Tech: Mac Eye for the Windows Guy.
Strangers in the Night: iPod Caligula. ω 2:49:00 AM.
At sixes and sevens
Monday, November 24, 2003
On Wednesday developers started knocking down my old school, Finchley County. So far they have taken the clock and two of its four faces out of the tower.On Thursday we heard that an old acquaintance Don Rafael Cavestany had died in Madrid, and also the father of one of Espe's residents where she works.
On Friday two of my colleagues were canned, don't know why. All of which gives one pause for circuitous thought. ω 6:54:00 AM.
An Ideal Christmas Present
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Here are my picks from the new releases on DVD and VHS since July, courtesy of the excellent brochures from Movie Mail: Repo Man (Alex Cox, 1984); Six Feet Under - The First Series; White Zombie (1932); Fall of the House of Usher (Ken Russell, 2002; The Price and Lom versions were both great - but what's this?); Jazz - A Film by Ken Burns (2001); The Post Office in the Thirties (1935); Manufacturing Consent (Noam Chomsky 1992); All About Lily Chou Chou (2002); The Crazies (1973); I Know Where I'm Going (1945); The Secret Agent (1936); Roman Polanski Collection (1962-65); Near Dark (1987); Sykes - The First Colour Series; Charlie Chaplin - The Essanay Years; The Haunting (1963); The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin - The Complete Collection; Mapp & Lucia Collection; The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971); Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972); El Crimen del Padre Amaro (2002); Dirty Pretty Things (2002); The Beiderbecke Collection (3 classic TV series with James Bolam and Barbara Flynn); The Amicus Box Set; Journey to Italy (1953 - Bergman and Sanders); Secretary (2002); London Orbital (2002); The Sagas of Noggin the Nog (1959-); Edge of Darkness; David Lynch Triple Pack. ω 4:26:00 AM.Apple Chancery to Zapfino
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
I haven't checked out the SMALL CAPS in Mac OS X Panther yet, but there is yet more typographic gorgeousity in the Font Panel, illustrated here by Frederic Latour. Ligatures, swashes, design complexity, number case and glyph variants can be set in those fonts which have them. Wow. ω 6:55:00 AM.Whatever happened to Annie Haslam?
Blimey, this here track Guns Blazing by UNKLE from their album Psyence Fiction has a sample from the Blakes 7 episode Duel. This is very old news and one other page on the net had this astounding revelation before it disappeared.I mention this only because the music sounds great without the familiar image of Travis's cruisers hanging in space, and it reminds me that Who and Blake had new music composed for each story, not some bloke noodling away on a synth with the same settings all the time, like in the new varieties of Star Trek, which drives you mad if you actually listen to it. ω 6:43:00 AM.
Great Red Spot
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Cassini Snaps Best Jupiter Image.Secret Santa is underway, if you have an Amazon Wishlist and a weblog then get stuck in.
Is it dangerous to use mobile phones at filling stations? It appears from this article that the risk is minuscule, in fact I would have thought that cars pose a far greater risk.
Paranoid android alert:
Which reminds me they now have a TV screen at the Texaco garage in East Finchley showing some corporate channel to the happy consumers below. Tra-la-la, the subculture music made me unhappy.
Why are car registration plates being digitally obscured on TV broadcasts? The only people who can access the DVLA and police computers are completely honest, mature and responsible, surely? Or they're not: the number-plate editing is an official admission of this. ω 11:26:00 PM.
In a forest
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Some of the oldest, tallest trees in the world in a beautiful forest are to be logged. Here's the weblog from some protesters in a treehouse up in one ofthese big trees like ‘our’ one, called 'giants'. I mentioned the height of 84.2 meters. That’s nearly three times the height of the church tower in my neighbourhood back home. Or a twenty-five story building. Why are they cutting down amazing trees like this? And selling them as woodchip to be turned into paper. Once. And then there is no more ancient forest, no more tallest hardwood trees in the world. I can’t see the logic behind that. Can you?
Robert Fisk: Oil, War and Panic: [via greenswitch]
"When the US attacked Iraq in March, the country was producing 2.7 million barrels a day. It transpires that in the very first hours after they entered Baghdad on 9 April, American troops allowed looters into the oil ministry. By the time senior officers arrived to order them out, they had destroyed billions of dollars of irreplaceable seismic and drilling data.ω 11:22:00 PM.
While the major oil companies in the US stand to cream off billions of dollars if oil production resumes in earnest, many of their executives were demanding to know from the Bush administration--long before the war--how it intended to prevent sabotage. In fact, Saddam had no plans to destroy the oil fields themselves, plenty for blowing up the export pipes. The Pentagon got it the wrong way round, racing its troops to protect the fields but ignoring the vulnerable pipelines."
Jeep Cherokees with black windows are demons' gateways from Hell
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Matt Webb went to buy some new trainers.Music reviews. [via metafilter.com]
He's back. And he's not happy. Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka.
Belle de Jour diary of a london call girl [via iamcal.com]
The Strange Case of the Karmic Bus Ticket Machines
How not to steal [via Miami New Times]
Bloody Mary: demons abroad in Miami. (... sounds like a Steve Harris novel!)
Children of all races and classes told of the hideous demon conjured by chanting her name before a mirror in a pitch-dark room. (In Miami shelters, the mirror must be coated with ocean water, a theft from the Blue Lady's domain.) And when she crashes through the glass, she mutilates children before killing them. Bloody Mary is depicted in Miami kids' drawings with a red rosary that, the secret stories say, she uses as a weapon, striking children across the face.
Playlistism: iTunes cultural effect, now we can see each other's playlists.
Students are starting to realize they must manage their music collections, or at least prune them, to maintain their image, Aubrey said. He confessed to deleting a lot of stuff himself.
"I had a lot of show tunes I had to get rid of," he said. "And a lot of punk pop from my earlier days like Green Day and Blink-182."
As well as trimming their music collections, some students are enhancing them, but not always subtly. Aubrey said the campus' resident jazz expert complains that any jazz he talks about instantly shows up on his fellow students' playlists.
Big guide to the 150 new things in Apple's new operating system. [via Bryan Bell]
Armistice Day.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
The only thing that keeps me voting for New Labour is remembering how much worse the Tories are. Still, I'd rather have a traditional Labour party that would not keep on trying to introduce ID cards into a free secure country. I have to wonder what their motives are - given the absence of WMD which was their stated reason for the invasion of Iraq - since they are saying it is to combat terrorists and illegal asylum seekers (the fashionable bogeymen) but ID cards are completely ineffective against these groups. They won't change anything except create more jobs for civil servants and more power to the government over the people who elected them... perhaps that's the reason. Perhaps in the long term to make consumers more accountable to the big corporations too: I bet they'd love a digital ID locked into their licencing.ID Cards threat on Armistice Day
For Blunkett to raise the proposal of ID cards on the very day we are remembering those who died to establish the liberties we enjoy and frequently take for granted is distasteful beyond description. ID card introduction in the UK has no historical precedent and still smacks of Gestapo and “Ihre Papiere bitte” to very many in our country.
I for one will be writing to him on behalf of my mum to remind him to think very carefully about the symbolism of compulsory ID cards, as well as using all my knowledge regarding ID card technology to highlight the futility of introducing such flawed systems, and telling him why they will not tackle any of his or the government's alleged concerns (asylum seekers, freeloaders, terrorism, etc).
A new weblog by Clive Soley, MP [Via BloggerHeads]
Why modern life is rubbish?
I like a good rant. This one is about the USA. And even nice chaps like Joi Ito can have a mild rant occasionally. And here's a good old argument in the comments thread about about communism and fascism and other isms - interesting to see what people think if a bit irritating at times. That's why I'm linking to a blog by a 'hard-headed liberal'.
Right-wing blogs do seem to be getting more extreme. [Via Tom Watson, MP]
Free Yourself from Conservative Talk Radio: 12 Steps to Recovery.
uncovered treasures
Saturday, November 08, 2003
Choose 7 or 8 books... Another 'meme': you have a few minutes to grab a desert island selection of important books. My books are:- The Ascent of Man - Dr. Jacob Bronowski
- Red Shift - Alan Garner
- Christopher Columbus - Gianni Granzotto
- The Cornelius Chronicles - Michael Moorcock
- Mother London - Michael Moorcock
- Rumpole of the Bailey - John Mortimer
- The NME Book of Rock 2
- Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
I'm starting to wonder now if I shouldn't have had some Lovecraft or Blake in there, or Shelley and Stoker - well, it's too late! (Click on the picture for a desktop-sized effort.) [via technorati]
Someone else has started a perfect album thread - LPs with no bad tracks. My nominations are:
- 801 - 801 Live
- The Beatles - Abbey Road
- Bjork - Debut
- David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
- Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
- Ducks Deluxe - Ducks Deluxe
- Ian Dury and the Blockheads - New Boots and Panties!!!
- Edgar Broughton Band - Oora
- Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
- Fripp & Eno - No Pussyfooting
- Hawkwind - Space Ritual
- Man - Back Into the Future
- Ramones - Ramones
- Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks
- Siouxsie and the Banshees - The Scream
- Patti Smith - Horses
- White Noise - An Electric Storm.
Inca city found in Peru jungle
Etruscan Demons, Monsters Unearthed
Your chance to own...
Thursday, November 06, 2003
Spotted today: iPod posters in bus shelters all over North London.Speaking of adverts, the internet phones with the nice metal keyboards being installed in tube stations show commercials when not in use.
The B&Q in Whetstone has been painted orange.
The newly-restored police box in Aldgate High Street has been paint-spattered, as have some of the solar panels on the parking ticket machines on the High Steet in North Finchley. Last month some anti-media terrorist (?) tried to destroy one of the JCDecaux pavement mushrooms. They must have driven a tank into it! I was going to get a photo but they repaired it too quickly.
Final update: I've now put all the best photos from our holiday in Fuerteventura online! Twelve pages (36.5 megabytes) with captions including some good desktop background candidates, which I shall work on next. ω 5:17:00 PM.
I Still Like Lists
Tonight I saw a film called Citizen X on the telly. Stephen Rea starred as a pathologist (like Sam Ryan he didn't smile much) on the trail of Russia's worst serial killer, with Donald Sutherland as his commander and that bloke who was in White Mischief as a bastard. Interesting for the changing relationship between the men, although the portraits of the killer and the Soviet system was sketchy at best. Recommended.I missed the start of Film 2003 which tonight featured our Jon criticizing yet another pointless Hollywood remake and the results of their Vote for the Nation's Worst Film Ever. Someone at the Beeb has gone to bed without putting the results online so I shall tell you the least worst was Highlander II, then Eyes Wide Shut, Battlefield Earth, The Avengers, Batman and Robin, The Blair Witch Project, Vanilla Sky, Pearl Harbor, A.I., and worst of all Titanic. I'm guilty of seeing two of these: The Avengers which had very good photography because I am a fan of the original TV series (I have already sold the DVD on Amazon MarketPlace) and Titanic because Espe likes Decaprio. I'm surprised not to see The Hulk or latter entries in the Star Wars or Matrix canons in the list. I read the reviews first before seeing a film because life is too short. I'm surprised more people don't check the verdicts before going to the cinema at the weekend. So how many clunkers have you seen recently? ω 12:58:00 AM.
Tubes and wires snaking from flesh into machinery
Monday, November 03, 2003
Driving around London I see direction signs fixed to posts, labelled UNIT. Anything to do with Brigadier Leftbridge-Stewart, one wonders? Alien invasion this way!Driving around Finchley I resolve darkly-cowled figures in the corner of my eye. They turn out to be solar-powered parking ticket machines.
We've got a Spike Milligan exhibition this month at the Church Farm House Museum.
Get lost here: Five Great Sites. [via Wordforge]
An attempt to explain the popularity of Microsoft software: Bill Gates is a Pod Zombie? [via macsurfer.com]
Once I had a normal life. But something about Redmond, and Mr. Gates, always bothered me. More horrifically, it was the way all my friends began to rigorously use Microsoft products, in spite of how bad it all was.
And the most unstable, insecure operating system is now being entrusted with democracy.
I've added Blogwise to the links down the side which is a good-looking blog directory. The graphic is done with CSS.
Comments by: YACCS.
Valid CSS and HTML 4.01!
