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“Gideon Burrows asks why British government representatives are at this year’s Sofex arms fair when countries known to be ‘sponsors of state terrorism’ – such as Iraq – are also there” The right to fair arms
“Dija heya tha onea baht…” I find it depressing that there is an overwhelming bias to the right amongst bloggers. People like wit and levity and left wing writing has a tendency to appear whiny and over sincere. The PJ O’Rourke’s can scoop up all the laughs, ‘cos lets face it, they can afford to be frivolous and decadent. But there are plenty of precedents for left wing humor, from Swift to Michael Moore, so where are they all in weblog land. (oh – and please don’t forward any libertarian examples, I’ve just eaten)
Grauniad: When did you encounter the internet? Chomsky: In the early days of the military Arpanet, my daughter was studying in Nicaragua. Because the US was essentially at war with them, contact was difficult. I managed to use MIT’s Arpanet connection and she found one, so we could communicate thanks to the Pentagon! David: When did you buy your first anorak? Chomsky: I was living with the Eskimo’s in Northern Canada, and was presented with one made out of woven seal’s whiskers. The Guardian | Working IT out: Noam Chomsky
As if things weren’t already complicated enough for the cerebrally challenged Bush administration, the North Korean’s admit to telling porkie pies, and have been working on a nuclear weapons program while the US has helped them build power reactors. The main problem, however, is that cash starved North Korea has shown willingness to sell some of its more threatening weapons technology. “The Bush administration has relayed information to U.S. allies in Asia that North Korea has tested key parts of the intermediate-range No-Dong missile in Egypt. Officials said tests were designed to determine whether North Korean components and technology could help complete missile programs in Egypt and other Middle East countries.” Middle East Newsline –
Martin Schwimmer notes that Toyota have registered scionsucks.com and scioncarssuck.com
Scion is Toyota’s new brand aimed at generation Y – you know – the ones who laugh at you ‘cos the crotch of your pants isn’t six inches from the floor. Well apparently these guys now have buying power and a whole boat load of lurid tricked out gear that would make Vin Diesel whimper is about to hit the consumer market.
I once tried to impress a girl by putting Philip Glass on the stereo, she shot me a look of faint disgust – ‘oh, architect music’. I was an architect at the time and most of my more anally retentive 0.1mm ink drawings were fuelled by the mechanical trance that onsets after six hours of Glassworks on repeat play. So Philip Glass came to San Francisco this week, and we went to see him play along to a series of short films which were mostly great, but then we had to sit through half an hour of turgid travelog and cutesy, derivative nature shots sponsored by Bulgari – sorry Bvlgari! Philip Glass is the apotheosis of modern, a musician that even dresses like a modernist architect, how weird then to be watching his troupe accompany silent films. How strange also that the only people wearing black polo necks last night…
Christopher Hitchens’ excellent ‘Why Orwell Matters’ will be the subject of a week long dialog between Hitchens and Sullivan
“What does this mean for non-geeks? You’ll be able to boot the phone company” You’ll have to boot up your phone more like.
Clayton Cramer who describes himself as ‘I’m a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older)’ says “Oh, you mean the laws don’t work when criminals want guns?” to somehow explain that Britain should not be so restrictive with guns. Well Clayton, even with the terrible increase in crime in the UK, gun related homicide rates are still 150 times less than in the US.
Do a favor for the safety of your children and drop the illusion.
Nick Denton rails against Islam again, but is it really a question of the secular US against Islamic fundamentalism, in a country where 90% of the population regularly attend religious ceremonies.
Christopher Hitchens Interview “Why is the United States so prone to any kind of superstition, not just organized religion, but cultism, astrology, millennial beliefs, UFOs, any form of superstition? I’ve thought a lot about it. I read Harold Bloom’s book The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (1992) about the evolution of what he thinks of as a specifically American form of religion. There was a book by Will Herberg in the 1950s called Protestant, Catholic, Jew where he speculated that what was really evolving was the American way of life as a religion. And that this was a way of life that wasn’t at all spiritual or intellectual but in a sense believed that all religion was valid as long as it underpinned this way of life. Somehow religion was a necessary ingredient. In other words, religion was functional. I think that’s true but it’s not the whole story.”