Blogging on and off since 2003
Ed’s reporting that the Belgian Police have been investigating Scientology since 1997:
Now, 10 years and 76 cartons of documents later, prosecutors say the evidence points to one conclusion: The Church of Scientology in Belgium is a “criminal organization” that has used fraud and extortion to separate members from their money.
But we already knew that, didn’t we?
Hear, hear! I wish we saw more of this kind of thing:
Defence Minister Lord Drayson has taken a “leave of absence” from the government in a bid to take part in the world-famous 24-hour Le Mans race.
The only downside is that the kind of person who is willing to give up political power in order to follow his or her dream is probably the kind of person we want in government….
Greta Christina’s posted a long, passionate piece entitled Atheists and Anger. I’ve been thinking about writing something like this for a couple of months, but now I can just endorse her magnum opus.
The bottom line:
I’ll acknowledge that anger is a difficult tool in a social movement. A dangerous one even. It can make people act rashly; it can make it harder to think clearly; it can make people treat potential allies as enemies. In the worst-case scenario, it can even lead to violence. Anger is valid, it’s valuable, it’s necessary… but it can also misfire, and badly.
But unless we’re actually endangering or harming somebody, it is not up to believers to tell atheists when we should and should not use this tool. It is not up to believers to tell atheists that we’re going too far with the anger and need to calm down. Any more than it’s up to white people to say it to black people, or men to say it to women, or straights to say it to queers. When it comes from believers, it’s not helpful. It’s patronizing. It comes across as another attempt to defang us and shut us up. And it’s just going to make us angrier.
It’s the intermission… I’m at the 5th Avenue Theatre, attending a sparkling performance of Sondheim’s “Into The Woods”. It’s been years since I last saw a musical, and I can’t imagine a better choice to break the drought. It’s simply wonderful.
Almost time for the second half. What if “happily ever after” isn’t the end…? 🙂
[Later]
That was a really wonderful performance. It’s a local production, not touring, and it’s only running for one more week so if you’re in the Seattle area you owe it to yourself to go. Seattlechannel.org has posted a nice video clip about the production.
Your vote is needed in the Best Comic Strip section of the 2007 Weblog Awards. And there’s only one choice, really: xkcd. Off you go…
Check out Animator vs. Animation II by *alanbecker. Desktop icons will never seem the same…
Some years ago there were stories of RFI mucking about with garage door openers. Now we have the “Satanic car key”. As we rely more and more on wireless replacements for mechanical systems, there will be lots of opportunities for “interesting” distributed systems failures…
Stranded motorists in Kent were forced to turn to Ofcom after a rogue car’s central locking system took possession of other vehicles in the same Gravesend car park. More than 12 cars at the Parrock Street car park in the comfortable yet earthy Medway town decided not to open or start on Tuesday, the Beeb reports. […] The regulator’s boffins said they eventually traced the problem to “a small family car [that] was intermittently sending out signals blocking other fobs in a 164ft (50m) radius”.
Bruce Schneier has just posted an essay called The War on the Unexpected which captures the zeitgeist of paranoia to a T:
Watch how it happens. Someone sees something, so he says something. The person he says it to — a policeman, a security guard, a flight attendant — now faces a choice: ignore or escalate. Even though he may believe that it’s a false alarm, it’s not in his best interests to dismiss the threat. If he’s wrong, it’ll cost him his career. But if he escalates, he’ll be praised for “doing his job” and the cost will be borne by others. So he escalates. And the person he escalates to also escalates, in a series of CYA decisions. And before we’re done, innocent people have been arrested, airports have been evacuated, and hundreds of police hours have been wasted.
Boing Boing has just posted a warning for all Mac users:
Malware for OS X is rare, but here’s a new trojan that Mac users should know about:
It’s on porn sites today (surprise, surprise) but it’s likely to pop up elsewhere – YouTube clones, blogspam, etcetera. Be careful.
The Register reports that the House of Lords debated the ban on carrying liquids onto planes, and thereby demonstrated that British politicians are as stupid and scaremongering as their US counterparts.
At times, the debate seemed to verge on the whimsical.
“We should not complain too loudly,” said the Baron. “I always celebrate the fact that there is effective security at airports… A friend of mine had two jars of Marmite confiscated, which I thought was a bit tough at the time, but these are the things that we have to put up with.”
The only possible reading of this is that, now that the Baron has been briefed in by security experts, he no longer considers the Marmite seizure unjustified. The implications of this are literally breathtaking.
Yes, that’s right: the government have warning of a fiendish terrorist plot to destroy airliners using EXPLODING MARMITE. (Aiee!)
Where’s Neddy Seagoon when you need him for the voice-over?