I see that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has finished the script of Submission II – the followup to the film that caused outrage in the Muslim community last year. She doesn’t seem to have relented in her efforts to point out what she views as failings in Islam, this time the script explores Islamic attitudes towards homosexuals. And they’re not a bundle of fun. Good luck to her, it will be interesting to see if she manages to get the film made. And if it is, doubtless it will act as a lightning rod in the same manner as the first. All the pus of anti-gay hatred will probably come to a head. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes boils are better lanced.
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How Much Time?
The shortfall in pensions continues to be an issue in the news. I see that the UK government is proposing to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67. I’m sure that some people might well think well, it’s only a couple more years… Maybe so, but data from the UK government’s own actuary department shows that one in five men and one in eight women who reach the age of 65 will die before they are 67. And that adds up to nearly a million people who will never be able to enjoy their retirement. A sobering thought, I feel.Leave a comment
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Reliving The Experience
There was a documentary on BBC this week about the London bombs of 7/7/2005. I didn’t see it. Rachel did though. She was caught up in the bombings, and watching the documentary made her relive the experience. Read it.Leave a comment
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One Down, Four To Go
Apparently, Osama bin Laden wants the United States to convert to Islam, ditch its constitution, abolish banks, jail homosexuals and sign the Kyoto climate change treaty. These are from his statements now gathered together in a book, according to this story in The Telegraph. Well, the shenanigans of the current US administration are doing their best to deal the Constitution a mortal blow, so that’s one down I suppose. And I’m sure many on the Christian Right would just lurve to return to the days of jailing us pesky homosexuals, so number two is not beyond the realms of possibility. But I’m not sure about signing the Kyoto treaty though. I suspect that before that gas-guzzling culture would sign, Hell would first have to freeze over, except it wouldn’t have a chance, if you see what I mean.Update: Ophelia nails the bastards.Leave a comment
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Almost Impossible
And talking of ID cards, I see that Dame Stella Rimington, ex-head of MI5, has let the cat out of the bag. She has made the obvious point that ID cards would "only be of some use if they could be made unforgeable – and all our other documentation is quite easy to forge".Quite. There is no such thing as a totally secure system. Still, that didn’t stop the UK minister for ID cards, Andy Burnham from popping up and dismissing Dame Stella’s observation. And how did he do this? He said: "the system will make it almost impossible to forge an identity". Er, tricky word that "almost", Andy. It actually negates the word "impossible". So in fact, Dame Stella’s right then… Clearly Andy, being the minister in charge of this scheme has to be gung-ho in favour of it, no matter how unworkable and expensive it will become. Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians were prepared to be honest, and recognise and speak the truth? As usual, CuriousHamster puts his finger squarely on the reasons why Andy Burnham is a twit.Leave a comment
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I Am Not A Number…
…I am a free man. If that phrase strikes you as a plea against ID cards, then you’re probably too young to have seen The Prisoner – one of the seminal TV series of the 1960s. The Guardian reports today that the series is to be remade. I hope it works out as well as the remake of Doctor Who, which has been an undoubted, and well-deserved, success.Leave a comment
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Those Crazy Swedes
These were created by a Swedish designer. They’ve sold out. It’s very much the sort of thing that would appeal to the Dutch, who tend to have a fairly earthy sense of humour. I fully expect to see serried ranks of the toys in Dutch stores in time for Sinterklaas.Leave a comment
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Excuse Me?
Sometimes I think that the human psyche can’t get any weirder. Then I read this. Oh well, at least he’s won some sort of Darwin award and taken himself out of the gene pool…(hat tip to Kameron at Brutal Women)Leave a comment
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Wine Tasteless
This is a wine that I don’t think I shall be buying. I’m all for interesting labels, but this is so wrong on so many levels – and a) I’m not religious and b) I think Michael Jackson is seriously deranged.Best laid down and avoided at all costs, I think.Leave a comment
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The Book as Cupid’s Arrow
Maciej Ceglowski, over at the Idle Words blog has a witty piece on the role that books play in courtship. I particularly like his take on Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being as "the sexually-transmitted book that this Czech-born author has inflicted on a generation of American youth". His alternative list of books looks most intriguing.Leave a comment
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This Bird Is No More…
… but rather than pushing up the daisies, it was blasted to smithereens. It was a sparrow – an endangered species here in The Netherlands. Its crime? It knocked over a domino, which in turn knocked over 22,999 others.The Dutch animal protection agency is investigating the crime. The execution of the sparrow, that is, not the pushing over of a domino.Leave a comment
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Cologne in 2010
Cologne will host the Gay Games in 2010. That’s good, by that time we’ll be living just over an hour’s drive away from the city… I hope it will be as good as Amsterdam was in 1998.Leave a comment
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Obituaries
As I get older I find myself reading obituaries more and more. Marking one’s time on the tree of life by seeing who’s fallen off the neighbouring branch, I suppose. Two obituaries in The Guardian today caught my eye.The first is for Gladys Tantaquidgeon (what a glorious name!) – a matriarch of the Mohegan tribe – who has died aged 106. Gladys obviously was able to cling to the branch for longer than most of us will ever be able to do. She sounds to have been quite a character.The second is for Eva Svankmajerova, wife of the filmmaker Jan Svankmajer, and an accomplished artist in her own right. She has died at 65 (only nine years older than me; damn, that branch is close!). I see that she was responsible in part for the animation and puppetry of Little Otik, a creepy little jewel of a film.Leave a comment
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50,000 Queer Couples in The Netherlands
The Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics reports today on the state of queer couples in The Netherlands. It states that, in The Netherlands, there are almost 53,000 couples of the same sex living together: 29,000 gay male couples and 24,000 lesbian couples.That 53,000, by the way, represents more than 1% of all couples living together in The Netherlands. Most of the couples simply live together (perhaps with some form of legal agreement, the research doesn’t make it clear). Just over 5,000 couples have a "registered partnership", while about 6,000 have a full civil marriage. Thus, taken together, the percentage that have entered into a partnership bound by civil law is almost a quarter.About 9 percent of gay couples have one or more children – often from a previous relationship. Just one percent of the gay male couples have children; 18 percent of the lesbian couples have children.About a quarter of the gay couples live in one of the four largest cities in The Netherlands (Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht). That still leaves 75% who live outside of these cities. We’ll be one of those, and even more so when we go to live in the middle of nowhere in Gelderland next April.Leave a comment
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Stick to the Day Job, Scott
Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert, a comic strip that has, I freely admit, raised a few chuckles with me over the years. He also has a blog. A couple of days ago he opined on the topic of Intelligent Design versus Evolution. Oh dear, oh dear. A more perfect example of why he should stick to the day job of cartooning I have yet to see. Luckily, PZ Meyers of Pharyngula was on hand to dissect Scott’s ramblings piece by messy piece. Worryingly, Scott has titled his entry as "Intelligent Design part 1". One can only hope that part 2 is not the pile of dogs bollocks that part 1 turned out to be.Update: Well, he’s now posted part 2. It basically boils down to "yah, boo, sucks to you, PZ Meyers". An even bigger pile than part 1, I think. Feet of clay, and all that. Goodbye, Scott, don’t bother to close the door on your way out.Leave a comment
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Orb – Too Good to be True?
Mike Torres, over at his Torres Talking blog gushes about Orb – a new application that enables media streaming from your home PC to any web-based device – a remote PC, a mobile phone, a PDA, etc.I have to admit, it does sound intriguing, and it’s free (what on earth is the business model of Orb?). I suppose one area of concern is the security issue – what are the points of weakness about the mechanisms used? I think I’ll let others kick the tyres for a little longer on this.The other issue would be about using it to stream to mobile phones. Mike claims that it turns his mobile phone into an iPod on steroids. Well, yes, I would have access to a vast vault of media sitting at home – far more than on an iPod slung around my neck. But, ahem, what are the costs of streaming all that to the mobile phone? I speak as someone who refuses to get a monthly subscription, preferring to pay as I go. So far it’s cost me all of 20 euros for 18 months usage. The phone companies clearly aren’t going to get rich through people like me. They need people like Mike.2 responses to “Orb – Too Good to be True?”
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Sprint is $15/mo for unlimited data in the U.S. VERY inexpensive all things considered.And Microsoft employees get 20% off of that 🙂
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So, already an order of magnitude more expensive than my 20 euros over the same period then? And if I look at what the charges are here in Europe then it gets really scary. I think I’ll just listen to the birdsong as I cycle along, and forget about wearing earphones, whether they belong to an iPod, a Walkman, a PDA or a mobile… To each his own…
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Dubai – Building Boom or Bubble?
There’s an interesting series of programmes (Dubai Dreams) on the BBC at the moment that centre around the building boom currently underway in Dubai. Today’s entry on BLDGBLOG is a pair of "before and after" photos that really bring home the scale of the building boom. There’s also a pointer to the Pruned blog, where the "is it all going to end in tears" question is raised. In some ways, Dubai is only Shanghai, but with the volume control turned up even higher. But I can’t help feeling that the whole edifice is constructed on the notion of cheap oil. I see no evidence that the skyscrapers and other buildings are being constructed to be energy efficient. What are the air-conditioning bills like now, and what happens when the cost of energy rises as it inevitably must?Leave a comment
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Happy Birthday, Wendy!
Today is the birthday of Wendy Carlos. A musician and composer who brought the attention of the emerging electronic synthesiser to the public with her "Switched-On Bach" I think I almost wore out my copy with constant replaying, and it fired me up to construct my own synthesiser from a kit.Leave a comment
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Tinfoil Research Rebuttal
Last Friday, I wrote about research that had been done in MIT to show that tinfoil hats did not work. Now a member of the conspiracy community has hit back with a rebuttal, done in fine style. Nice one, Zapato.2 responses to “Tinfoil Research Rebuttal”
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Haven’t said hi in awhile. Thought I would today.Be well,BlueEyedLevity :o)~PS: Catch a falling star…
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Thanks, Blue. Same to you. 🙂
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