Some Such Name
12.11.2004
Pass The Dutchie On Left-Wing Side
I'm deeply troubled by the recent killing of Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh. He was an extreme liberalist who constructed explosive cinematic and textual images against Islam and it's abuse of women. At the same time, he constantly called the Moroccan community "geitenneukers" or goatfuckers. He was killed by a youth of Moroccan descent. Muslim women took to the streets in Amsterdam protesting the killing, which involved several stabs and verses of the Q'uran.
The West needs to hear the voice of those Muslims who do not want to be identified alongside extremist forces that have, sadly, co-opted an ancient religion as it's facade. Dalrymple thinks the backlash is largely due to issues of dominance and sexual gratification:
Religious sanction for the oppression of women (whether theologically justified or not) is hence the main attraction of Islam to young men in an increasingly secular world. This explains why a divide often opens between brothers and sisters in the same European Muslim family; the sisters want liberty, but the brothers enforce the old rules. They have to, or the whole gratifying system breaks down.
I'm not sure I agree with Mr. Dalrymple, as much as I do with Robert Spencer:
No one really knows how many Muslims in Europe and America hold the views of the Moroccan woman at the rally, and how many would side with van Gogh's killer.
If Western countries continue, out of ignorance, fear, or narrow self-interest, to refuse to find out, they will find themselves playing host to many more incidents like the bloody scene in Amsterdam. And the more likely it becomes that the killing of van Gogh will be the first of many.
When will the West realise that their attitude feeds this bloodshed in history's longest running feedback loop since the fucking Crusades! Why can't the world see that Islamism is not terrorism. A few extremist rebels do not Islam make, in the same vein as Frank Zappa: "If I had a wooden leg, would that make me a table?"
Most countries that seem to be democratic have only democratic facades and ways of making politics seem populistic in nature. I restate my opinion that periodic elections are not enough to make a country democratic. They are but a snapshot, while opinion is like a motion picture.
Following the film-maker's death, the Dutch government has tightened it's liberalist policies and intends to make everyone pass a citizenship test. This is a bad move, O Men Of Jesus. ¶ 11:38:00 PM 1 comments
I'm deeply troubled by the recent killing of Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh. He was an extreme liberalist who constructed explosive cinematic and textual images against Islam and it's abuse of women. At the same time, he constantly called the Moroccan community "geitenneukers" or goatfuckers. He was killed by a youth of Moroccan descent. Muslim women took to the streets in Amsterdam protesting the killing, which involved several stabs and verses of the Q'uran.
The West needs to hear the voice of those Muslims who do not want to be identified alongside extremist forces that have, sadly, co-opted an ancient religion as it's facade. Dalrymple thinks the backlash is largely due to issues of dominance and sexual gratification:
Religious sanction for the oppression of women (whether theologically justified or not) is hence the main attraction of Islam to young men in an increasingly secular world. This explains why a divide often opens between brothers and sisters in the same European Muslim family; the sisters want liberty, but the brothers enforce the old rules. They have to, or the whole gratifying system breaks down.
I'm not sure I agree with Mr. Dalrymple, as much as I do with Robert Spencer:
No one really knows how many Muslims in Europe and America hold the views of the Moroccan woman at the rally, and how many would side with van Gogh's killer.
If Western countries continue, out of ignorance, fear, or narrow self-interest, to refuse to find out, they will find themselves playing host to many more incidents like the bloody scene in Amsterdam. And the more likely it becomes that the killing of van Gogh will be the first of many.
When will the West realise that their attitude feeds this bloodshed in history's longest running feedback loop since the fucking Crusades! Why can't the world see that Islamism is not terrorism. A few extremist rebels do not Islam make, in the same vein as Frank Zappa: "If I had a wooden leg, would that make me a table?"
Most countries that seem to be democratic have only democratic facades and ways of making politics seem populistic in nature. I restate my opinion that periodic elections are not enough to make a country democratic. They are but a snapshot, while opinion is like a motion picture.
Following the film-maker's death, the Dutch government has tightened it's liberalist policies and intends to make everyone pass a citizenship test. This is a bad move, O Men Of Jesus. ¶ 11:38:00 PM 1 comments
Control Freaks
John Perry Barlow is being dragged through the American judicial system for possession of controlled substances. He writes about his year-long battle on his blog:
My own liberty is at stake, but so, I think, is the liberty of anyone who wishes to travel in America without fear of humiliation or arrest.
On September 15, 2003, shortly after Burning Man, I was hauled off an airplane that was about to depart San Francisco for New York and charged with the misdemeanor possession of controlled substances that had allegedly been discovered during a search of my checked baggage.
¶ 1:50:00 AM 1 comments
John Perry Barlow is being dragged through the American judicial system for possession of controlled substances. He writes about his year-long battle on his blog:
My own liberty is at stake, but so, I think, is the liberty of anyone who wishes to travel in America without fear of humiliation or arrest.
On September 15, 2003, shortly after Burning Man, I was hauled off an airplane that was about to depart San Francisco for New York and charged with the misdemeanor possession of controlled substances that had allegedly been discovered during a search of my checked baggage.
¶ 1:50:00 AM 1 comments
The Army Of Principles
While packing for his final departure from Bombay towards Cairo, I was following Dan around the apartment so we could talk as much as possible. On reaching the bathroom, he handed me an almost-empty soap bottle - PURE-CASTILE SOAP, the Peppermint variety. At first I declined, and then my gaze fell on the label, which was crammed with exclaiming text. The more I read, the more I convulsed with laughter. Finally, I brought the bottle home with me as a souvenir. The author of this text, Soapmaker Dr. Bronner, is now a heavenly bubble. His eleventh spasm, er, psalm:
11th: Essene, Chinese and other birth control methods must reduce birth or Easter Isle type overpopulation destroys God's Spaceship Earth!
You can download a PDF of the various, hilarious labels here.
¶ 12:08:00 AM 0 comments
While packing for his final departure from Bombay towards Cairo, I was following Dan around the apartment so we could talk as much as possible. On reaching the bathroom, he handed me an almost-empty soap bottle - PURE-CASTILE SOAP, the Peppermint variety. At first I declined, and then my gaze fell on the label, which was crammed with exclaiming text. The more I read, the more I convulsed with laughter. Finally, I brought the bottle home with me as a souvenir. The author of this text, Soapmaker Dr. Bronner, is now a heavenly bubble. His eleventh spasm, er, psalm:
11th: Essene, Chinese and other birth control methods must reduce birth or Easter Isle type overpopulation destroys God's Spaceship Earth!
You can download a PDF of the various, hilarious labels here.
¶ 12:08:00 AM 0 comments
12.10.2004
Gimme Now!!!!!!
I suppose this just beats the crap out of Segway. Poorva sends this report on the new personal mobility devices being developed by Toyota.
The personal transport arena is taking on a new dimension, though, with futuristic devices that augment human capabilities.
Toyota's prototypes represent the latest incarnation of wearable exoskeletons in a vehicular form that is specially focused on transport.
Powered robotic exoskeletons have been the focus of much US military research over the years and Japan seems to have jumped onto the bandwagon with a wave of products being developed for specific applications.
With an emerging range of devices targeted towards the ageing world population, care giving and the military, wearable exoskeletons seem to represent a new line of future technologies that meet an individual's particular mobility needs. ¶ 6:58:00 AM 0 comments
I suppose this just beats the crap out of Segway. Poorva sends this report on the new personal mobility devices being developed by Toyota.
The personal transport arena is taking on a new dimension, though, with futuristic devices that augment human capabilities.
Toyota's prototypes represent the latest incarnation of wearable exoskeletons in a vehicular form that is specially focused on transport.
Powered robotic exoskeletons have been the focus of much US military research over the years and Japan seems to have jumped onto the bandwagon with a wave of products being developed for specific applications.
With an emerging range of devices targeted towards the ageing world population, care giving and the military, wearable exoskeletons seem to represent a new line of future technologies that meet an individual's particular mobility needs. ¶ 6:58:00 AM 0 comments
12.09.2004
The Age Of Hari Seldon
In an earlier post I'd said that opinion flow in the US exit polls could have been a unique instance of the The Doppler Effect, a law of physics. Following the same path, Paul Levy has written a fairly nice piece, but obfuscated by unnecessary scientific jargon about how Quantum Physics effects the polls:
What Wheeler is pointing out through the delayed choice experiment, though, is that the past doesn’t actually exist in a solid and objective way that causes or determines our present moment experience like is imagined by classical physics. Rather, he is saying our situation is just the opposite. He is saying that by the way we observe in this present moment we actually reach back into time and create the past. It is not just the future that’s undetermined, but the past as well; just as there are ‘probable’ futures there are ‘probable’ pasts. Our present observations select one out of many possible quantum histories for the universe.
The other thing to observe with how Search has changed the nature of news, is that we now have all the information of the past and present available at hand simultaneously, so the only remaining task for us would be to speculate about the future! You too can get a feel of the times to come by playing this game I play, a stockmarket of ideas.
As you might already know, Psychohistory is a fictional science created by Isaac Asimov in his Foundation series, "which combined history, psychology and mathematical statistics to create a (nearly) exact science of the behavior of very large populations of people, such as the Galactic Empire."
¶ 11:57:00 PM 3 comments
What Wheeler is pointing out through the delayed choice experiment, though, is that the past doesn’t actually exist in a solid and objective way that causes or determines our present moment experience like is imagined by classical physics. Rather, he is saying our situation is just the opposite. He is saying that by the way we observe in this present moment we actually reach back into time and create the past. It is not just the future that’s undetermined, but the past as well; just as there are ‘probable’ futures there are ‘probable’ pasts. Our present observations select one out of many possible quantum histories for the universe.
The other thing to observe with how Search has changed the nature of news, is that we now have all the information of the past and present available at hand simultaneously, so the only remaining task for us would be to speculate about the future! You too can get a feel of the times to come by playing this game I play, a stockmarket of ideas.
As you might already know, Psychohistory is a fictional science created by Isaac Asimov in his Foundation series, "which combined history, psychology and mathematical statistics to create a (nearly) exact science of the behavior of very large populations of people, such as the Galactic Empire."
¶ 11:57:00 PM 3 comments
12.07.2004
The Element Of Crime
He calls himself "a melancholy Dane masturbating in the dark to images on the silver screen." Last night I saw my second film by Lars Von Trier, a hallucinogenic psychodrama called The Element Of Crime. He also founded the Dogme95 movement in cinema.
There were roughly twenty of us at the beginning of the screening at Ghetto, but by the time the movie ended, me and a couple of others were left. The reason may have been the trance music from a washerman's wedding outside the pub, which was the accidental soundtrack to von Trier's film. Little did the ignorami know, the Lars Von Trier is known as Tranceformer, and I think TEOC was one of the scariest films I have ever witnessed. The ending is a true-to-dictionary mindfuck. My favorite lines from the film:
Fischer: "I want to fuck you to the Stone Age".
Kim: "Fuck God into me."
Kim: "Why do you torture yourself?"
Fischer: "I believe in Joy! I believe in Joy!" ¶ 12:31:00 AM 1 comments
He calls himself "a melancholy Dane masturbating in the dark to images on the silver screen." Last night I saw my second film by Lars Von Trier, a hallucinogenic psychodrama called The Element Of Crime. He also founded the Dogme95 movement in cinema.
There were roughly twenty of us at the beginning of the screening at Ghetto, but by the time the movie ended, me and a couple of others were left. The reason may have been the trance music from a washerman's wedding outside the pub, which was the accidental soundtrack to von Trier's film. Little did the ignorami know, the Lars Von Trier is known as Tranceformer, and I think TEOC was one of the scariest films I have ever witnessed. The ending is a true-to-dictionary mindfuck. My favorite lines from the film:
Fischer: "I want to fuck you to the Stone Age".
Kim: "Fuck God into me."
Kim: "Why do you torture yourself?"
Fischer: "I believe in Joy! I believe in Joy!" ¶ 12:31:00 AM 1 comments
12.06.2004
The Viktor-Yulia Mob
There is an article under review at the Wikipedia called New Couples Emerge Out Of Ukranian Crisis. It says that:
KEIV-An unexpected consequence of the thousands of people from diverse areas of Ukraine congregating for the massive protest currently underway in Kiev has been the union of couples that otherwise would not have met.
According to local priests and doctors giving support to the masses camping on the streets, there has been a rise in marriages between young people that have met during the demonstrations, and an increase in the requests for pregnancy tests, up from virtually zero in the first days to 10-15 a day.
The babies born in 9 month's time will, according to tradition, be named in honour of those leading the protests: Viktor —if it's a boy— in honour of Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition leader, and Julia, in honour of Yushchenko's stong supporter and opposition Parliament deputy, Yulia Timoshenko.
Here is a history of the protests following the election. This just confirms my theory that political revolution is just another way of going about reproduction, with added benefits like a democratic regime.
¶ 9:10:00 PM 0 comments
KEIV-An unexpected consequence of the thousands of people from diverse areas of Ukraine congregating for the massive protest currently underway in Kiev has been the union of couples that otherwise would not have met.
According to local priests and doctors giving support to the masses camping on the streets, there has been a rise in marriages between young people that have met during the demonstrations, and an increase in the requests for pregnancy tests, up from virtually zero in the first days to 10-15 a day.
The babies born in 9 month's time will, according to tradition, be named in honour of those leading the protests: Viktor —if it's a boy— in honour of Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition leader, and Julia, in honour of Yushchenko's stong supporter and opposition Parliament deputy, Yulia Timoshenko.
Here is a history of the protests following the election. This just confirms my theory that political revolution is just another way of going about reproduction, with added benefits like a democratic regime.
¶ 9:10:00 PM 0 comments
The Perry Bible Fellowship
I found some amazing, cleverly conceived, and brilliantly designed comics by Nicholas Gurewitch via my virtual pal Mike Sizemore's Visible Monsters blog. Very cutting edge stuff, it makes you look kinda hard before you get the joke. The most common element is proportional reversal, and irony. I hope Nicholas doesn't mind me promoting his brilliant work, even though he supports copyright in the age of CopyCan & CopyCant. This one is called Tree Of Irony. I won't compare it to Red Meat, an old favorite.
¶ 12:18:00 AM 0 comments
¶ 12:18:00 AM 0 comments
12.05.2004
Sundials Are Primitive Computers
This essay at SocialFiction has one brilliant insight after another, and I've had a tough time choosing between what I can extract to tantalise your mind:
"Time (and every device that sublimated it) is not the only abstraction of the sun that led to a wide range of applications. A similar story could be written for fire. Fire, once under human control, brought the heat of the sun into the night. This power led to an entire different line of technological progress, starting with the ability to boil food, and ending with nuclear energy. In this last line of development, solar power, and especially the rhetoric's behind it, is an interesting reminder of the fact that we are in the end, still struggling with making the most of the sun." ¶ 2:31:00 AM 0 comments
"Time (and every device that sublimated it) is not the only abstraction of the sun that led to a wide range of applications. A similar story could be written for fire. Fire, once under human control, brought the heat of the sun into the night. This power led to an entire different line of technological progress, starting with the ability to boil food, and ending with nuclear energy. In this last line of development, solar power, and especially the rhetoric's behind it, is an interesting reminder of the fact that we are in the end, still struggling with making the most of the sun." ¶ 2:31:00 AM 0 comments
