The night sky in 800 millions pixels

Hat tip to Slashdot for this one

A project carried out recently by Serge Brunier and Frédéric Tapissier. Brunier traveled to the top of a volcano in the Canary Islands and to the Chilean desert to capture 1,200 images — each one a 6-minute exposure — of the night sky. The photos were taken between August 2008 and February 2009 and required more than 30 full nights under the stars. Tapissier then processed the images together into a single zoomable, 800-megapixel, 360-degree image of the sky in which the Earth is embedded. "It is the sky that everyone can relate to that I wanted to show — it's constellations... whose names have nourished all childhoods, it's myths and stories of gods, titans, and heroes shared by all civilisations since Homo became sapiens. The image was therefore made as man sees it, with a regular digital camera."

Le Pissoir Mirroir

Seen in Weimar.

On ...er.....reflection, it could be Le Mirroir-Pissoir...

With friends like this...

who needs enemies.

NYT story on Qaddafi's UN rambling diatribe address

How to lose an election. Reloaded.

Given that I was (pretty much) spot-on 4 years ago, they should save their money, get rid of all those pollsters and listen to me.

Angela Merkel's at serious risk of buggering it up. Again.

The elections on 27 September are going to deliver a coalition government.

Just depends which one.

The centre/conservative CDU (senior partner in the Grand Coalition with the centre/socialist SPD) and the liberal FDP (CDU's preferred coalition partner) have been chugging along quite merrily at a combined 50% plus x since the beginning of the year.

They're now down to 48%, which - as we all know - isn't a majority.

The SPD's share of the vote has been steadily drifting downwards from 35% at the last election to 22% at the weekend, mostly due to the Idiot Beck, but they've only themselves to blame for that.

The Greens had been cruising along at a mildly irrelevant 10% for much of the time, but are now making ground at 13% and the Linken (discontented ex-SPD voters, what's left over from the ruling party in (ex) East Germany and sundry malcontents is back up to 12%.

And why?

Because no-one's electioneering.

Merkel and Steinmeier, chancellor and vice-chancellor respectively in the grand coalition faced up to each other the other week in a "TV Duel", as the papers called it.

Or a "Duet", as the they called it the next day.

They obviously can't rip into each other, because there's a fair chance of having to coalesce again after the election on Sunday.

But a bit of substance wouldn't be out of order.

Posters with tag-lines such as "Together for our country" "We have the strength" or "We're voting for assurance" don't cut the mustard.

I wouldn't mind hearing something like:

"We've done a pretty good job in the grand coalition (which no-one really wanted), but we REALLY need to do these things (list them) that we can only do in a coalition with the Liberals"

Give people something to vote for, for goodness sake.

A non-vote is a vote for the extreme Right or the extreme Left, because their supporters are motivated.

And they WILL vote.

Leaf peeping

Now all you need is a forecasting module to let the innkeepers optimise their pricing structure...

Not being nasty, or anything...

...but I've been wondering all along whom Michael Hartmann, the SPD candidate for Mainz in next week's general election reminds me of.

(That's him on the right, by the way. Or is it the left. Not sure. The one without the bolt through his neck, I suppose.)

And it just came to me in a flash - Hermann Munster (above left) from the 1960s sitcom, The Munsters.

I think it's the smile.

Not that I'm going to vote for him, of course.

(Not that I can, anyway...)

Private Eye

Who else..?

Headline: Jackson's breast under review again

Oh, HER.

For a moment, I thought they were dig up poor old Michael.

But it just goes to show what a puritanically voyeuristic society America is, with adverts for condoms banned, but constant gratuitous tit (oops..) illation in the mainstream media.

And the FCC has to dig this up again after FIVE YEARS?

Can't they just watch it on YouTube like me everybody else?

"H" as in "Humbug"

New Zealand is nothing if not politically correct.

The New Zealand Geographic Board has recommended that the city of Wanganui be renamed to Whanganui.

This is, of course, nonsense on stilts.

Given that the Maori language had no written form until the arrival of white settlers in the 18th and 19th century, the original spelling varied wildly, based either on creative oral transcription or the marginal literacy of the scribe.

It's been Wanganui since 1872

But changed it must be, despite overwhelming (82%) public sentiment for its retention.

And it doesn't stop there, of course.

Headline in the Nelson Mail:

"A controversial recommendation to put the 'h' back into Wanganui could have a flow-on effect to other regions, including Nelson"

So it's going to be what - Nhelson? Or Nelshon?

W*at the #$%&?

* Letter "H" donated for a good cause

Too good to miss - Pink Floyd on the accordion

A new hit. A new hero. He knows Tulibu Dibu language and sing many rock hits using that well known language. 

Pissed, I can imagine.

Sober, I can't

Bulgaria.

Need I say more?

Reminiscent of "Radar Love" by Golden Earring.

Urban legend has it that they sang phonetically, none of the band having an adequate command of English

Another reason to buy an iPhone (As if I needed one...)

This is what David Hockney does on his iPhone with Brushes

All you need is $3.99 and endless talent.

Think I'll leave it for a while, then.

Although I could probably come up with the $3.99.

At a pinch.

Winston the Pigeon

A Durban IT company pitted Winston, an 11-month-old bird armed with a 4GB memory stick, against the ADSL service from the country's biggest web firm, Telkom.

Winston the pigeon took two hours to carry the data 60 miles.

In the same time the ADSL had sent 4% of the data.

Full story from the Beeb here

Too cool

Arthur Ganson makes the most excellent machines.

This one takes a motor rotating at 212 rpm and via a series of 50:1 reduction gear sets (12 in all) reduces the final drive output to 1 rp2,000,000,000,000 years.

The output drive shaft is attached to a concrete block.

Irresistible force meets immovable object.

I think I'll hang around to watch

I'm very sorry about this....

Private Eye, of course

Hurra!! iv got my filling cabinet and Video collection back...

 

cjcdesign.co.uk is one of those sites that give you a sugar rush and not much else.

Some really cool ideas (LED solar lamps, for example) and roll-out vege patches and herb gardens

Not that you can buy them, of course, but that's not the point.

But the best is undoubtedly....

 

 ..Bluetooth furniture.

You see, all you have to do is to pull a handle which powers a storage device in your table/desk/bed/front door and - hey presto - "your most precious films and songs can be backed up in your coffee table so theyl never be lost again" 

 

Wish the bugger'd learn to spell, though...

 

Dance of the planets

 A Royal Observatory prizewinner

No wonder....

...everyone's in such a tizz in the States when it comes to health care.

Just look at the text of America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (HR3200)

"Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States"

So if I visit the United States and am granted entry by Immigration, I assume that I am "lawfully present in the United States"

Which means that I qualify for Federal payments.

If this isn't sloppy lawmaking.....

Dearest creature in creation.....

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain .
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty , library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas .
Sea, idea, Korea , area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight ,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

-- G B Shaw

Here's a solution

If you don't want to get whacked with a draconian fine when New Zealand introduces legislation in November, banning the use of mobile phones at the wheel, here's a Heath-Robinson (Rube Goldberg to the rest of you) workaround.

He looks a bit of a tit, I have to say.

I'll get my coat....

This I need...Haiku

Motorists taking the Northern Gateway out of Auckland may soon be able to pay the $2 toll by text.

In other news:

Texting on a hand-held mobile phone while driving will be illegal from November.

The full story:

In the olden (1960s) days, it'd take you the best part of a morning to drove up to Warkworth (north of Auckland).

These days - with the flash motorway they've built - you can do it under an hour.

AND. They've built a tunnel that takes transit traffic away from the main drag through the beach town of Orewa.

Cuts 4km and 6 minutes off your trip.

Costs $2.

Being NZ, all very high tech with number plate recognition and stuff and you can set up an account from which the $2 are deducted every time you use the tunnel.

Great if you're a commuter. Not so if you're a occasional user.

And there are a LOT of occasional users.

And this is where it gets tricky.

You can pay via the interweb either in advance or retrospectively within 3 days.

Unless of course your journey doesn't show up on their computer, which they put down to "processing delays".

Then you have to call someone and try and sort it out.

Much easier, then, to stop at the self-service kiosk in the lay-by before you enter the tunnel and pay your $2 there.

Along with all the other "occasionals" looking for a parking space and queuing up at the 2 (count them....2) kiosks.

Into which you have to key your registration, confirm that it's a silver 1997 Honda CRV, that I am who I am and that I live where I live.

You do this by pressing an unlabelled green button on the touch screen, which is what I explained to the old(er than me even) gent who was having a bit of trouble.

"What 'green button'" he wailed. "I'm colour-blind"

And all the time - while wasting AT LEAST the 6 minutes that I'm meant to be saving by going through this rigmarole - I'm thinking "Why ON EARTH can't I text my registration to a Transport Agency number, they whack $2 on my phone bill and send me a receipt to my mobile"

I understand they're introducing it in November.

Ah. Now what was that about hands-free...?.

Deja vu. All over again

Play it fucking loud, Barack.

It's the only way they'll hear it.

Great words (as ever) from Clive Crook here

It can be a California thing.....

And we all thought Sarah Palin was bad.

It must be catching.

This from a speaker to the Santa Cruz City Council.

"Well the crops are growing very well and they're organic and some have pesticides and I think that we should make a perfect pesticide for the crops that is good for people and healthy and keeps the crops preserved too because we need the food because it's food and stuff and organic food is good also. And the businesses down town really needs to lower their rent. Because if the rent was lowered those people would really have their own business. They have enough stuff, they're very good at making things, they're like experts. We can really be a community and make the things and sell them in our stores and I really believe that it can be a California thing that it can really work out because we can be rich in cotton and mining metals and silk worms and we can make things, we can make things; cars, the machine can make it for us. And we can have the community and the city and San Francisco and we can make things and put them in the store. On the east coast they have slaves and they believe in slavery and made in China but on the west coast, the US coast we don't believe in that. We believe in the Union and that's what we are. The Bush administration, which is really good um he has government funding for small business owners. You can grow every kind of fruits and vegetable you want. That's how they do it. They have fruit trees and vegetable trees. That's where fruit and vegetables come from. You freeze the fruits and vegetables it will last forever. You can put you know broccoli or strawberries in the freezer, it will last forever. If you don't it might go bad in a while. People, we live in California, this is our home. This is where we live. Growing food is so good for the people because it's free. All you have to do is pay the farmers and pay for the land. But why do we have to pay for the land, the land is free it's new land you know. Do we have to pay for the land, do you have to pay rent? Do you have to pay. The food is free so we should just sell it at the farmer's market."

 Sound clip here

YouTube (edited, thank goodness) here

If your brain doesn't implode, that is

Not around here....

Bernard Hickey featured this chart the other day, illustrating how American consumers went on a spending binge over the last 20 years or so (and don't forget - this is year-on-year change. I'd hate to see the cumulative effect).

And then stopped.

I wish this type of behaviour would become noticeable around here....

Arse. Elbow.

So if I've got this right, the Linke party, a cesspit of disenchanted Marxists, East German ex-communists and sundry other malcontents, wants 

Wealth for all

Poster on the left

after which they're going to 

Tax wealth

Poster on the left

"Left hand/right hand" did spring to mind, as did "arse/elbow/difference", but hey, things do get a tad hectic during an election campaign.


But it's fine with me.

Close to half of the buggers around here pay virtually no income tax at all (Source: The Economist Aug 20th 2009) and the top 10% of earners pay around 50% of all income tax (Source:me)

So it'll be quite nice to have other folks sharing the load and being abused as parasites and locusts....

This I need...maybe/definitely

I hereby decree today to be my birthday.

Not that I need all this stuff, of course.

I bought them all from my pocket money the day they hit Lewis Eady's.

Mostly mono.

Still got them

The winner of the Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award 2009.

"Currently in its ninth year, the award is renowned for the challenging and often controversial entries it attracts.

This year’s winning entry ‘Collateral’ by Auckland artist Dane Mitchell was selected from amongst 43 finalists and 283 entrants from all over the country, with the announcement made at an award ceremony at Waikato Museum on Friday night.

As the winner Mr Mitchell received $15,000 prize money sponsored by Trust Waikato. Award judge Charlotte Huddleston, who is a well-known curator and essayist, and is currently the Curator of Contemporary Art at Te Papa Tongarewa the Museum of New Zealand, said Mr Mitchell had drawn on his real life experiences to create a thought-provoking piece of art.

“Dane's work responds well to his current situation, addressing, as is typical for him, the interplay of art, culture, anthropology, archaeology and his own situation within these systems.”

What he actually did (and given that he's currently artist-in-residence at the DAAD Berliner Kunstlerprogramm, he was perhaps constrained in his scope...) was to write a message to Waikato Museum art gallery staff asking them to collect the discarded wrapping of other entries and tip it on the floor.

That was his entry.

If I were one of the furious losing artists, next year I'd write to the art gallery staff asking them to defecate on the gallery floor and title it "A load of crap"

Bound to win

Can't say I didn't warn her...

Cousin Dave's oldest boy got married the other year.

I wrote to the bride-to-be

Dear Rebecca,

thank you for your invitation to the wedding

It would, however, perhaps be advisable to meet at some stage before
 you undertake a long-term commitment. 

I am in a unique position to
 provide you with the lowdown on the Mumblemumble family, specifically on a
 certain C. J. Mummblemummble, your intended spouse. It's not a pretty picture and you may wish to
 reconsider. 
(The rest of them - including the undersigned - aren't
 much better, and you'll probably be better off remaining a spinster
 of this parish.)

 

If you do decide to go through with it, I'll be only too pleased to
 make a speech on the matter on the evening. Just let me know. I'll
 probably just make an impromptu one anyway.

 

The honeymoon destination is well chosen - we can give you lots of
 tips for Los Angeles (or San Francisco, if that's your destination).
 But your spelling is about as crap as Chris' - it's CALIFORNIA, not
 KEFALONIKA.

 

(Did you hear the one  - quite appropriate considering the foregoing
 - about the dyslexic, agnostic insomniac? Lay awake at night,
 wondering whether there really is a Dog?)

 

So we'll look forward to seeing you on 24 June. Preferably
 beforehand, if you know what's good for you.

The reply

Many thanks for the reply.  Could you let us know which of the 
starter and
 dessert options appeals most please?

Just ignore me. I don't mind.

So now you know.....

At least the fact that my favourite clothing store is thinkgeek.com appears to exclude my being a dork or a nerd.

But who knows..?

Exceeding expectations

When stuff like this is what goes for "informed journalism" in America, you just don't expect to see anything like this anymore




He'll never make the major networks, though.

He's just too

• intelligent
• informed
  
• reasonable
• eloquent
• sensible
  

Unarmed robbery

Only in America via Reuters

Reminds of the story of an unfortunate bloke standing at the bus stop, waiting for the Number 88.

3 eyes, no arms and just one leg.

Bus comes along (this is proof it isn't a true story - the Number 88 NEVER came along...), conductor looks quizzically at the chap and says.

"Ey Ey Ey, you look 'armless enough, 'op on"

I'll get me coat....

The Global Economy for Dummies. Correction. For Kurt Beck

Full disclosure: I worked in the aviation industry for over 40 years. This might make me partisan. It also might mean that I know a bit about the way the business works. Certainly more than Kurt Beck.

Kurt Beck is the ever-so-slightly dim-witted Premier of Rhineland-Palatinate.

He's against aircraft noise, despite wildly subsidising 2 airports (Hahn and Zweibrücken) in his fiefdom and OWNING one of them (Hahn) outright.

Frankfurt airport, home base to Europe's largest airline and either 2nd or 3rd busiest airport in Europe, is in the neighbouring state of Hesse, which is run by Beck's nemesis, one-time Chancellor hopeful Roland Koch.

And given that VSTOL isn't a viable option for commercial aircraft, their approach to FRA (or EDDF, if you prefer ICAO nomenclature) takes them over some fairly heavily built up areas.

Some of them in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Mainz and the surrounding countryside, for example.

Now, I'd REALLY prefer not to have aircraft noise but a) given that I chose to have a short-ish drive to work and b) the airport was there before we (and everyone else) moved here, you grin and bear it.

And I'd CERTAINLY prefer not to have aircraft movements at night, which is what the current hoohah's all about, but you grin and bear it.

FRA/EEDF have been banging on for about a decade about the need for a 4th runway and part of Koch's greasy political deal was the usual lie balancing act, promising residents i.e. voters that there'd be NO night flights and promising industry i.e. the tax base that there WOULD be night flights.

There are currently around 40, the mediation committee agreed on 17 and a court the other week said that 17's WAAAY too many.

Lufthansa Cargo - the main user of night-flight slots - has been saying very quietly for years that its business model loses viability (it's marginally profitable at best and you'd probably achieve a higher ROI by putting the investment in a savings account) with every reduction in night-flights.

Now they've come out openly (and - for them - quite emphatically) and said that no night-flights means no freighters (they've got 19) means a 50% reduction in lift capacity (they transport half their traffic on freighters and half on Lufthansa's passenger aircraft) means a proportionate cut in staff numbers.

Kurt wakes up and spouts something about "blackmail", they should "operate freighters from HIS (Hahn) airport" (120 km and 90 minutes distant) and - get this - "Germany won't put up with this insult."

Now if Kurt was a bit more clued-up, he'd have understood big words like "logistic chain" and "Just-in-time". [Thinks: "Aaah. Foreign words. Probably not, then.."]

Manufacturers need to have their production delivered next day in global markets that never shut down. And this means that you just can't stop the clock for 8 hours a day.

Here's a film clip, Kurt.

At the beginning of the film, loads of flights leave North America and Asia and head towards Europe. Then there's frantic of activity within Europe all day long, followed by a heap of lunchtime departures to North America and evening departures to Asia.

Now given that a big chunk of the 1.7 million tonnes that Lufthansa Cargo transports annually switches between freighters and passenger flights somewhere along the line (well, yes, you COULD operate an MD11 freighter profitably between Frankfurt and Madrid, Kurt. Maybe once a week, which sort of negates the raison d'etre for using airfreight. No?), it's of great use to have the 2 modes close to each other.

At the same airport, for example. Transfer between aircraft in an hour if needed.

Which is why industry builds distribution centres close to airports and why some manufacturers even move their PRODUCTION close to airports and - this goes without saying - why logistics companies are clustered around airports like bees around a hive.

Remove the driving logic behind this behaviour (the ability to send things to places when they're needed) and there'll be a big sucking sound (companies relocating) and a thunderous banging at the doors of the unemployment agencies by all those people who don't have jobs anymore.

So why don't they just unload cargo from passenger flights and truck it to Hahn and vice-versa?

Because a) you lose at least half a day in transit and b) you're putting an extra 5,000 tons A DAY onto the roads.

Look at it this way, Kurt.

You live in Hamburg (wish you did - you wouldn't be Premier around here..) and you want to fly to Singapore.

Singapore flights leave Frankfurt at 11pm, so they can't fly from FRA/EDDF anymore. They have to fly from Hahn.

So you have to be in Hahn at 10-ish, which means flying from Hamburg to FRA and leaving FRA at 20:00 for the 1.5 hour (if you're lucky..) bus ride.

Which means checking in at Hamburg sometime around 4 in the afternoon.

Or you could just fly to Amsterdam at 21:00 instead and take a flight from there.

Thought you'd do that, Kurt.

And that's exactly what will happen with cargo traffic flows.

You just watch.

Just what WERE they thinking......

This is a real bus.

Saw it today in Frankfurt and just above drove into the bloody river.

The company's since changed its name to Fücker, but what's an umlaut between friends...?

Reminded me of the story of WW2 Luftwaffe ace Adolf Galland talking to the Great Hucklow Womens' Institute.

"I vas flying along in my Messerschmitt" he related "and to my LEFT I am seeing a Fucker and to my RRRIGHT I am seeing a Fucker and BEHIND me I am seeing a Fucker"

(Talked like that man Strodel, come to think of it.... )

The Chairperson is rapidly on her feet, bright red, and announces to the mortified group of sensitive souls:

"Ladies, General Galland is of COURSE referring to the FOCKE Wulf 190 which, as we all know, was a German fighter aeroplane. Teehee. I DO apologise"

"NO, NO" says Galland "Ziss is not TRRRUE. Zees Fuckers were SPITFIRES!"

True story.

Just ask Angela Whatley.

Seems to have caught on....

Birgit S's girl (I use the term loosely..) friends seem to have been flattered at being categorised as "Desperate Housewives"


"Crikey" said the salesgirl "was there a RUSH...?! All these women from Klein-Winternheim just DESCENDED on the place and started FIGHTING over the couple of mats that we had in stock"


Desperate, indeed.

...and consequently this country is at war with Germany"

Proclamation of war

11:15 BST 3 September 1939

The Laptop Burka

Now here's a useful piece of kit.

But hasn't she got knobbly knees?!

And from the fact that she doesn't shave her legs, I'd say Polish.

All very confusing.

Explanation here

Buy it here

New toy - Sarah Palin Fictional Quote Generator

Here

And if it sounds familiar, here's the interview with CBS's Katie Couric:

" . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh -- it's got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."

Word for word....

Stop me if you've heard this one

A nun, a Muslim woman and a rabbi walk into a bar the Hastings District Court in New Zealand......

Here's the story:


A Hastings Muslim woman who was barred from entering a courtroom because she refused to take off her headscarf is going to lodge a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.
Yasmeen Ali said she had gone to Hastings District Court yesterday morning to support her brother, also a Muslim, who was being sentenced, Hawke's Bay Today reported.
When she arrived she was allowed to stay in the courtroom for a short time, despite being asked to remove the scarf, or Hajib, by a court officer.
However, after the morning break, when Ms Ali tried to go back into the courtroom, she was told the presiding judge, Judge Geoff Rea, had ordered she was not to be allowed in wearing the scarf.

Not taking sides on this, but would a nun be required to remove her coif and veil or an Orthodox Jew be required to remove his kippah?

I'll go out on a limb and say "I don't think so"

Discuss

Image by Jonathon Bloom Portaits

NOW I understand....

...differential gears.

If someone could now explain calculus as simply, we'd be set...

Common sense and Swine Flu

From a letter to the Daily Telegraph:

"When I was a student nurse back in the sensible Seventies, we were taught a simple diagnosis for those with influenza. If there is a $10 note on the floor and the patient can get out of bed to pick it up, then he does not have flu, simply a common cold.

Similarly, anyone collecting his own Tamiflu from the pharmacy should be sent away empty-handed."

Just sod off. Please.

Wellington, New Zealand's capital city, has big plans.

It's going to be 150 in 6 years' time and they've set up the Capital City Initiative to give the city a make-over.

The most important of these projects (I assume it is - it gets first mention in the press release) is to replace the little green MEN on the pedestrian lights near Parliament with little green WOMEN to celebrate the fact that New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote.

Being New Zealand and oh-so-politically-correct, it would surprise me if they hadn't first considered depicting a Maori woman, but the Gender and Ethnic Equality and Resource Consent and Environmental Impact Study Committee probably came to the conclusion that brown wouldn't be a positive visual amenity and would result in a negative outcome for the transport disadvantaged (meaning that you can't see it in the dark}

"We are the city of important conversations" says Mayor Kerry Prendergast.

No. Just a bunch of wankers.

All days are equally long

"Some are just wider than others."

This I like.

Probably even love.