tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57856257569085490712024-03-13T23:54:02.068+01:00Security HippoDead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-5229281160972850532010-10-05T00:10:00.010+02:002010-10-06T16:28:01.198+02:00Palin's Critics Refudiated<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Well gosh-darn... turns out Sarah Palin wasn't the first to coin the term "t<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/07/sarah-palins-refudiate-ta_n_707568.html">o refudiate</a>". Reading Alan Moore's excellent <span style="font-style: italic;">Watchmen </span>(written 1986-1987), this is what I found:</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHFk2-l5JPKd6MADbojbRn3GKejBaGkKotQ5QJMji_aYKGb7L7iFBxGpLpo6gxYtIkavMygOk92j8CUoXAf8XRVIiahlEoTTZU4vocPjGf5VhSs5CGuS6WpghzF41DwrZ-A406z7j2G1fA/s1600/refudiate.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 72px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHFk2-l5JPKd6MADbojbRn3GKejBaGkKotQ5QJMji_aYKGb7L7iFBxGpLpo6gxYtIkavMygOk92j8CUoXAf8XRVIiahlEoTTZU4vocPjGf5VhSs5CGuS6WpghzF41DwrZ-A406z7j2G1fA/s400/refudiate.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524318128599850290" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is at the end of Chapter 4, in the excerpt from "Dr. Manhattan: Super-Powers and the Superpowers" by Professor Milton Glass. A quick reminder: In an <a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRU1pjqQpP0&feature=player_embedded">interview with douchnozzle</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> Sean Hannity, the </span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">half-term quitter from Wasilla had called on Barack Obama to "refudiate" the NAACP's statement of the obvious, namely, that the Republican Tea Party is a bunch of racist halfwits.<br /><br />Note to Palin: Read <span style="font-style: italic;">Watchmen</span>, you might like it and would certainly benefit from reading it. There are some interesting points there about the dangers of a black-and-white worldview and how that Manichaean mindset can quickly bleed over into cryptofascism.<br /><br />Also: Unlike you, Dr. Manhattan really can see Russia from his backyard. Regardless of where his house is.<br /></span></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-36196447825234861922010-09-25T23:41:00.003+02:002010-09-25T23:44:22.406+02:00Thought for the Day<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">"I have been too much of an idealist about America, had set my hopes too high, had formed too fair an image of what she might become. Never had a nation such an opportunity; she was the hope of the world. Never again will any nation have her chance to raise the standard of civilization."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">- Charles Eliot Norton</span></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-6833918416607467192010-09-10T00:57:00.006+02:002010-09-10T01:07:44.822+02:00My name is Phil Davison and I'm MAD AS HELL<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sarah Palin hasn't said yet whether she will be running in 2012, but if so, her running mate should be Republican Councilman Phil Davison of Minerva, OH. Here he is trying to convince his audience that he is the right choice for Stark County treasurer. It is the funniest (unintentionally) speech I have ever come across, and I immediately switched by party affiliation to "(R)".<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lipnBHeyvII?fs=1&hl=de_DE"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lipnBHeyvII?fs=1&hl=de_DE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br />As Davidson rightly says, politics is about winning, or rather: "POLITICS IS ABOUT WINNING!!" The kicker: he has a masters' degree in communication - as one commenter said, probably from the University of Mordor...</span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-59852771893635431872010-08-14T00:36:00.021+02:002010-08-14T04:04:21.571+02:00BBC Apostrophe 'A Cheap Cop-Out'<span>Hear ye, hear ye: Unto us a young hippo is born!</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBPgAmrziu9UBZujwKdEpTyFYn3Slk5pAXuOEgDne9gGTlWCFOpHhXOwsRoOPUy0h8_8h_KQKtwgsS9xlAAQ-qJm0Cks6QJCV1BbAhRGBbV_XvArMJavC4VfnQTszhqOKjeQ0SxntWu-Pq/s1600/DSC00166_sH.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBPgAmrziu9UBZujwKdEpTyFYn3Slk5pAXuOEgDne9gGTlWCFOpHhXOwsRoOPUy0h8_8h_KQKtwgsS9xlAAQ-qJm0Cks6QJCV1BbAhRGBbV_XvArMJavC4VfnQTszhqOKjeQ0SxntWu-Pq/s400/DSC00166_sH.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505043837768802802" border="0" /></a>Verily, a Happy Little Hippo. Which goes some way towards explaining why we have not been posting, and also why this is going to be a short post.<br /><br />The emergence of a next generation always tends to put all experiences into perspective. Also, in very real terms, we realize that this mudflat is doomed; thus, we are biased as to posting comments on the world in general and the world of security policy specifically that might be read, if not by anyone now, then possibly 25 years hence by a bright young lady in the throes of a struggle with her parents, in a world much worse than the present one.<br /><br />Having framed the matter in terms of generations and eons to come, it seems frivolous now to comment on punctuation. Nevertheless, on this Friday night of our Lord 2010, I would like to say why I am bothered by quotation marks in headlines, especially RSS feeds. First, some examples, all culled from the BBC:</span><br /><ul><li style=""><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10962017">Germany in 'record' 2.2% growth</a></li><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-10968992">Plea for 'blood diamonds' return</a></li><li><a style="" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10967808">Israeli 'agent' freed in Germany</a></li><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10941034">Meteors set for 'good show'</a></li><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10947918">Iraq 'not ready' for US pull-out</a></li><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10949629">Iran stoning woman 'confesses'</a></li><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10963556">Afghan army offensive 'ambushed'</a></li><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10960440">Fox outlines 'leaner' MoD plan</a></li></ul>Writing headlines is a difficult and delicate matter, subject to the dictate of pithiness - accuracy and brevity. Not everybody can do it. Nevertheless, we would like to think that the legions of highly trained hacks at the Beeb would be the masters of this art. Not so.<br /><br />There are basically three reasons for placing apostrophes in a news headline. The first is when the headline consists of a direct, highly relevant quote by somebody cited in the article (<span style="font-style: italic;">Defense Minister: Trident 'Not Needed'</span>). The second is when the information cited in the headline is attributed to a source considered unreliable, and the authors wish to distance themselves from the claims stated therein (<span style="font-style: italic;">Iraq Had 'Flying Saucers', Said Curveball</span>). The third is when the author chooses to highlight a specific phrase used by somebody in the article because the wording, rather than the substance, of the citation is highly unusual (<span style="font-style: italic;">British Economy 'Fucked', Says UK Treasury</span>). Let us consider the examples cited above - all picked at random on a slow Friday news night in the midst of a summer slump on 13 August 2010. They account for eight out of 27 headlines tonight, just under 30% of the top RSS feeds on the BBC website.<br /><br />The first, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10962017">Germany in 'record' 2.2% growth</a>, refers to the latest GDP figures in the German economy, based on official figures. Why the quotation marks? When we look at the article in question, we see that the stats are attributed "to the national statistics office, Destatis". Destatis is the <span style="font-style: italic;">Deutsches Statistisches Bundesamt</span>, or the German Federal Office of Statistics, so the source is prima facie a credible authority. Is the author questioning the legitimacy of the source? If so, we are not told so, or why.<br /><br />The second headline is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-10968992">Plea for 'blood diamonds' return</a>. One might think that the author disagrees with the term "blood diamond" or wishes to make clear that this is a non-scientific term. Such a view would seem to be supported by the fact that the phrase is once again placed in quotation marks in the article itself:<br /><blockquote>The war crimes trial of Liberian ex-President Charles Taylor has heard claims he gave [supermodel Naomi Campbell] "blood diamonds" thought to originate in Sierra Leone.<br /></blockquote>But why use the quotation marks in the headline? The term itself has entered common parlance, and if anywhere, a condensed headline would be the appropriate place to use it without punctuation, while the body of the text could make clear that questions remain over the assertion that the diamonds were given to Campbell. The term <span style="font-style: italic;">blood diamonds </span>per se is uncontested. Further complicating matters, the headline should have a possessive plural apostrophe (<span style="font-style: italic;">diamonds' return</span>). Did a junior copy editor make a mistake here?<br /><br />Headline number three is a simple cop-out: <a style="" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10967808">Israeli 'agent' freed in Germany</a>. The BBC has so far not made up its mind, and failed to research, whether the person in question is an agent or not. Some say yes, others say no: how would the Beeb know? This would be fair enough if the story were breaking news and all other news outlets apart from the one that published the scoop were following up on the first report. But the Dubai assassination story has been public knowledge since January of this year. Should the BBC not at this point have determined whether or not there is any substance to the "agent" angle of this story? Also, if we are giving Israel the benefit of the doubt in this report, why not say <span style="font-style: italic;">'Israeli agent'</span> rather than <span style="font-style: italic;">Israeli 'agent'</span>? It's a small, but essential difference.<br /><br />The next headline is simply a lame attempt at humour, with "good show" being a direct quote attributed to the BAA...<br /><blockquote>John Mason from the British Astronomical Association (BAA) told BBC News: "Weather-permitting, we should be in for a very good show across the UK.</blockquote>... as well as a common phrase suggesting gentlemen at the races at Ascot or at a pugilistic competition under the Marquess of Queensberry's rules. "Good show, old boy," indeed, but the implied bathos does not do the story, or the BBC, justice; that is, unless Pimm's and strawberries with cream be served during observation of the Perseid shower.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10947918">Iraq 'not ready' for US pull-out</a> is a difficult one. On the one hand, this story is based on a specific accusation of coitus interruptus made by an Iraqi general, as the full headline (<span style="font-style: italic;">Iraqi general says planned US troop pull-out 'too soon'</span>)<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>on the BBC website makes clear. However, the story again fails to take a stance on what is actually happening in Iraq. All three subheaders in the story also have quotation marks, seemingly absolving the unnamed reporter of the responsibility to establish the truth for the benefit of his/her readers:<br /><span class="cross-head"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Security 'void'</span><br />(according to Iraqi top army officer </span>Lt Gen Babaker Zebari)<br /><br /><span class="cross-head"><span style="font-weight: bold;">'Significant improvements' </span><br />(according to US Gen Ray Odierno)<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;" class="cross-head">'Wrong signals'</span><br />(according to Faleh Abdul-Jabbar, the director of the Baghdad-based <a href="http://www.iraqstudies.org/">Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies</a>).<br /><br />Who is right? Well, the BBC won't tell you.<br /><br />Even more ridiculous, misleading, and uninformative is the headline <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10949629">Iran stoning woman 'confesses'</a>. Here, the quotation marks serve as a "wink, wink" to the reader, so that the BBC journalist can infer, without saying it in so many words, that the confession was obtained under duress. But apparently it is too much to ask for the journalist to stake out a position on whether or not the confession - sorry, <span style="font-style: italic;">'confession'</span> - was legitimate. Most laughable is this section:<br /><blockquote>The woman, whose face was pixelated, admitted her part in the 2005 killing, despite Ms Ashtiani having earlier told Western media that she had been acquitted of the charge.</blockquote>The accompanying footage shows a pixelated person (woman?) wearing a chador, speaking in Azeri, dubbed into Persian, allegedly confessing complicity in her husband's killing. Also, the accused (who may or may not be the person in the video) has since reportedly denied any part in the murder; she now accuses her lawyer, who has fled to Norway, of releasing the video against her wishes; she now may be hanged, according to the report, which further calls into question the already outrageously stupid epithet <span style="font-style: italic;">Iran stoning woman</span>. Thus, considering all the uncertainties involved here, a slightly less misleading headline might be <span style="font-style: italic;">'Iranian' 'woman' 'retracts' 'confession'</span>.<br /><br />Did I say this was going to be a short post? Let's leave the other headlines for now and conclude that the quotation mark is grotesquely misused by the BBC and other news outlets (yes, I'm looking at you, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/13/deepwater-horizon-crisis-may-be-over">Guardian</a>: <span style="font-style: italic;">Gulf oil spill 'may be over'</span> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7940937/Google-Street-View-dead-girl-sparks-panic-after-photographed-lying-down.html">Telegraph</a> <span style="font-style: italic;">'Dead girl' </span>[i.e., not-dead girl] <span style="font-style: italic;">sparks panic after photographed lying down</span>). First of all, journalists: Do your job and research what happened. Then tell us what really transpired, not what somebody may have said or thought they had seen. Is that too much to ask? Thanks.<br /><br />UPDATE: While I was writing this, the BBC outdid itself with this cretinous headline: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10973459">Obama backs 'Ground Zero mosque'</a>. Referring to Obama's backing for religious freedom, in the case of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordoba_House">not-exactly-mosque</a>, to be built on the hallowed ground of the <a href="http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/38967">former Burlington Coat Factory</a>. Thanks for pointing that out, Beeb!<br /><blockquote></blockquote></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-72739119512434045272009-12-14T03:25:00.017+01:002009-12-14T04:25:07.830+01:00Money Talks: The Riyal Truth<div style="text-align: justify;"><a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMqQUfatTgQ7DNNtw5uDYfmRPJ1buQjnqRjXXKuHy_VhZeCFwsHk3xUG7kL3UaA-oi5PzGwusd2wZ5C5ahS5XthMvxNKdSg848mz1kY_E797NjB8qOPVMXv-PR7UoAvFMCIhgzxv0i6wWA/s1600-h/iranian-banknotes-billion+slogans.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 233px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMqQUfatTgQ7DNNtw5uDYfmRPJ1buQjnqRjXXKuHy_VhZeCFwsHk3xUG7kL3UaA-oi5PzGwusd2wZ5C5ahS5XthMvxNKdSg848mz1kY_E797NjB8qOPVMXv-PR7UoAvFMCIhgzxv0i6wWA/s320/iranian-banknotes-billion+slogans.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414919836996398850" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Ingenious Iranian opposition members are apparently using paper money to disseminate anti-regime propaganda and challenge the authority of the state on its very own symbol of power, the national currency. According to the Iranian exile website Payvand.com, run from Mountain View in California, opposition activists</span><br /></div><div style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;"><blockquote>"have taken their expressions to another high circulation mass-medium, banknotes. The Central Bank of Iran has tried to take these banknotes out of circulation, but there are just too many of them, and gave up. For the activists’ people it’s a way of saying “We are here, and the green movement is going on”.<br /></blockquote>In times like these, the "green movement" idea of letting the money do the talking might be worth a try in other countries too. Certainly, this type of free speech is a most felicitous marriage of form and substance - the medium is the message.<br /><br />Assuming that these sample images are genuine and represent a sense of what a significant part of the Iranian public think, it is particularly interesting to see that the regime is being challenged on the basis of its deals with other countries. Khamenei is accused of being a "servant of Putin" and the government is charged with having passed on the nation's <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/06/iran.venezuela/index.html">oil revenues to Chavez</a>. The government's relations with China (from where it imports garbage) and India (to where it exports gas) are also slammed.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_idQft9l6ljoMI9KqtXU9Bb5LBaNjxF9DzSTtBbz7QH4YxGRfqWjFU7xPqj3E0ykDSWxB6IGBskWnVIKvB85QBxogyBJtyAov-5ATIaWj3kT25WWeb4zCAUTuEY_gO2ZQFG_LG1M0d9XS/s1600-h/iranian-banknotes-green-movement06.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_idQft9l6ljoMI9KqtXU9Bb5LBaNjxF9DzSTtBbz7QH4YxGRfqWjFU7xPqj3E0ykDSWxB6IGBskWnVIKvB85QBxogyBJtyAov-5ATIaWj3kT25WWeb4zCAUTuEY_gO2ZQFG_LG1M0d9XS/s320/iranian-banknotes-green-movement06.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414921466949918546" border="0" /></a><br />But the slogans also hit pretty close to home on domestic policy issues. Particularly irksome must be this quote from Ali Shariati, the chief ideologue of the 1979 revolution (all quotes based on the info provided by Payvand.com - I don't claim to know any Farsi):<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjBAC3RMWcdBLoofpnC4FU342inuU1wQPzZfG8hPQRDOJAol2FnfTv-cclkAAlprWq23bO0x8BOvCyenriQfYa7efwY1sgyn9C2wXYCBaY_24TfgzjCcdyiK4KeLSv5lp_lTWDMJI8Tjkh/s1600-h/iranian-banknotes-shariati.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 195px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjBAC3RMWcdBLoofpnC4FU342inuU1wQPzZfG8hPQRDOJAol2FnfTv-cclkAAlprWq23bO0x8BOvCyenriQfYa7efwY1sgyn9C2wXYCBaY_24TfgzjCcdyiK4KeLSv5lp_lTWDMJI8Tjkh/s320/iranian-banknotes-shariati.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414918699117620050" border="0" /></a><br /><blockquote>"Don’t believe what a government says if that government is the only entity that has the right of expression."</blockquote>Ouch... it's got to hurt for any corrupt, violent, fundamentalist regime that draws its legitimacy from a revolutionary heritage when it is reminded by its own population of its long-lost ideals from 30 years ago. Meanwhile, in my own neighborhood, I will be looking out for Swiss franc banknotes with hand-scribbled demands for nationalization of UBS and Credit Suisse, and calling for the head of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Ospel">Marcel Ospel</a>.<br /><br />In other news from the Siamese twins of crime and politics (conjoined at the head), <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims">The Observer reports</a> that over US$350 billion of drug money were injected into legal circulation (read: laundered) at the height of the financial crisis last year when no other liquid assets were available, keeping several unnamed banks afloat; and last night, somebody wiped that smirk off Silvio Berlusconi's face - throwing shoes is so 2008:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisMILWy_-QUcCGrV7rDEacpCZdIxhU7j5jeBDGM8nWuwO1L6D_z5yZcrBPGfPdbw0Qv4ii_msnLLbKz672jfeYtCf8g3el4Yyr5PKCN3HImTddlf6y4jQiKg5aVDJN0aLwYdCRDQzYw8Yi/s1600-h/silvio.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisMILWy_-QUcCGrV7rDEacpCZdIxhU7j5jeBDGM8nWuwO1L6D_z5yZcrBPGfPdbw0Qv4ii_msnLLbKz672jfeYtCf8g3el4Yyr5PKCN3HImTddlf6y4jQiKg5aVDJN0aLwYdCRDQzYw8Yi/s320/silvio.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414925662983506034" border="0" /></a><br />Not that I endorse that kind of behavior. Pronta guarigione, Silvio!</div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-60658110870272589502009-11-27T01:41:00.005+01:002009-11-27T01:57:42.964+01:00Mine/Thine<span style="font-family:arial;">What can I say... this kind of thing wouldn't fly back in the old country... but I am currently in Switzerland, where people still juxtapose words like "</span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum">Lebensraum</a><span style="font-family:arial;">" and "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimat">Heimat</a>" quite innocuously - in the Migros supermarket.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_PLJoRYWoC4RPBhG0I6ZEOEH8ZbC4tqnjbADNmpGGsMVse3lVfSLcUHHYaFJQSvStXTglPm1RKPZJz152AlI4sUUqg8ykPum7TpVWXHh03eGTnhSTx60LjcVgRG3-bBgVy0NNKrP7Ulo-/s1600/DSC00556.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_PLJoRYWoC4RPBhG0I6ZEOEH8ZbC4tqnjbADNmpGGsMVse3lVfSLcUHHYaFJQSvStXTglPm1RKPZJz152AlI4sUUqg8ykPum7TpVWXHh03eGTnhSTx60LjcVgRG3-bBgVy0NNKrP7Ulo-/s320/DSC00556.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408577854956846050" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Back in Germany, the store would be considered to have gotten off lightly if it was only subjected to a boycott and occasional firebombing. I guess I'm not in Kansas anymore. Incidentally, these plastic bars are <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/zwiebelfisch/0,1518,284728,00.html">known in German</a> variously as</span><br /></div><ul style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;"><li>Transportbandwarentrennleiste</li><li>Kundenseperator</li><li>Warenabtrennhölzchen (according to <span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Goldt">Max Goldt</a>)</li><li>NäKuBi (short for "nächster Kunde, bitte" - "next customer please")</li><li>Miendientje ("mine-thine-let", in East Frisia)</li></ul>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-72234326768873052302009-10-10T04:53:00.006+02:002009-11-27T02:17:15.341+01:00Aoristed Development<!-- S BO --> <!-- S IIMA --> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="226"> <tbody><tr><td> <div> <img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46524000/jpg/_46524748_cernpa226b.jpg" alt="ATLAS detector at CERN (2008)" border="0" height="170" hspace="0" vspace="0" width="226" /> </div> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <!-- E IIMA --> <!-- S SF --><p class="first"><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8299668.stm">Wait... huh</a>? </p><blockquote>France has arrested a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (<a href="http://public.web.cern.ch/public/">Cern</a>) for suspected links with al-Qaeda, officials have said.</blockquote><p class="first">"He was not a Cern employee and performed his research under a contract with an outside institute. His work did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism".</p><p class="first">So: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle">will he, or will he not</a>, have been being bringing about the end of the world as we will have been knowing it? I'm confused. Everything will have been being <a href="http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=%229%2F11+changed+everything%22&aq=f&aqi=g1&oq=&fp=7d15299a959dbb33">changed after 9/11</a>! Or does that not apply where <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aorist">aorist</a> is invalid?</p>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-86261491583206464582009-08-08T16:05:00.019+02:002009-08-10T12:11:25.893+02:00What can a terrorist not do?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDxML-_sZ0Gqos9sGh1nw7eOOyinsrxOIQ_hUSyB3zC_609Ng5Wc7TNSeEXjoCngeWxI7MZnKoYdDyVGlDdQTLuxQtI_mEb08ZtHaF6ikWYPH-ix9dJ6efhCYpGoBsKZZxm9lZuw8moqWI/s1600-h/terminator.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 164px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDxML-_sZ0Gqos9sGh1nw7eOOyinsrxOIQ_hUSyB3zC_609Ng5Wc7TNSeEXjoCngeWxI7MZnKoYdDyVGlDdQTLuxQtI_mEb08ZtHaF6ikWYPH-ix9dJ6efhCYpGoBsKZZxm9lZuw8moqWI/s320/terminator.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368275319962129090" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >While d</span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >oin</span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >g research on cybersecurity I came across an article in the </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/24/internet-cyber-attack-terrorists"><span style="" lang="EN-US">Guardian</span></a></span><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >that discussed a study r</span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >evealing how "terrorists could soon use the internet to help set off a devastating nuclear attack". Thi</span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >s study, commissioned by the </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.icnnd.org/"><span style="" lang="EN-US">International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND)</span></a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >, </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >basically warned that without greater efforts to secure global information infrastructure, these so-called terrorists could hack into computer systems and create havoc in the form of a mushroom cloud.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >That's right, according to this study there is no longer the need to acquire the nuclear materials when you can simply find the right whiz-kid to hack, hack, and hack away.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >Interesting - and yet this study does what so many have done before it... it presents yet another potential, catastrophic way that 'terrorists' could circumvent the system and carry out some asymmetric, dramatic, Hollywood-style attack that would significantly disrupt our world as we know it... well, that is until </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111503/"><span style="" lang="EN-US">Arnold Schwarzenegger</span></a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" > comes in to save the day. Meanwhile, most groups are relying on classic bombing campaigns (IEDs, roadside bombs, suicide bombing, grenades, etc.) and the more recent swarm-based tactics that we've seen in </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2009/RAND_OP249.pdf"><span style="" lang="EN-US">Mumbai</span></a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" > and elsewhere. While the Western world continues to develop more fantastical ideas on what these individuals <i>could </i>do, at this point I'm wondering: what can terrorists not do? A quick internet search of "what could terrorists do" rendered all types of fantastic things; for instance, they could, of course, carry out a </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28301954/"><span style="" lang="EN-US">nuclear attack</span></a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" > (this was the most popular), use </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4123782/Terrorists-could-use-insect-based-biological-weapon.html"><span style="" lang="EN-US">insects to carry out biological attacks</span></a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >, employ </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/02/terrorists-coul/"><span style="" lang="EN-US">killer robots</span></a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >, launch </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2008/06/26/terrorists-could-launch-satellite-strikes-in-12-years/"><span style="" lang="EN-US">satellite attacks</span></a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >, poison our </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2005/06/07/govt-terrorists-could-target-school-food/"><span style="" lang="EN-US">food </span></a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >or </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2009/May/Pages/TerroristsCouldTapWebtoPoisonDrinkingWater.aspx"><span style="" lang="EN-US">drinking water</span></a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >, breed </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://www.defensetech.org/archives/000641.html"><span style="" lang="EN-US">new types of pox</span></a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >, and the list goes on.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >Not bad.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN-US" >Another thing that this article, or rather study, manages to do is follow a much deeper tradition of scenario-construction and 'what ifs' in the world of counter-terrorism that will likely never be held accountable. Like the killer robots or insects, the potential that 'terrorists' <i>could </i>hack into government computers and hit the nuke button continue to feed into a threat-spectrum that grows by the day. However, like most scenarios, they never come true. What they manage to do is construct and distort the capabilities of what a non-state actor is able or even willing to do to communicate a political message. I'm not saying that scenario building is necessarily bad or that we should not look at how dual-use technologies can be exploited, but that we should be tempered in our analysis and look deeper into what today's violent non-state actor <span style="font-style: italic;">is </span>doing and how they're leveraging their environment to achieve their objectives.</span><br /></div>girouxj13http://www.blogger.com/profile/15866037156937388853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-50273724171429204452009-08-05T13:42:00.018+02:002009-08-05T15:03:05.897+02:00Sworn Statements on Murky Blackwater Deeds<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1l1GK_a-Y3lHb5gwW2_mL-ApF8w702DlOr6f1Ndv8RH7h5KgO7uJ8OX87evQ_TsTsYcWdIF_gnq7DYfbDCWJnS17qHowcKV8mLkEd2iTtXV2wbRSGT1ZMMNO8AOdl5rXyBG1CFAiCU83y/s1600-h/150px-Xe-Logo.svg.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1l1GK_a-Y3lHb5gwW2_mL-ApF8w702DlOr6f1Ndv8RH7h5KgO7uJ8OX87evQ_TsTsYcWdIF_gnq7DYfbDCWJnS17qHowcKV8mLkEd2iTtXV2wbRSGT1ZMMNO8AOdl5rXyBG1CFAiCU83y/s320/150px-Xe-Logo.svg.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366464383553406338" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >According to two <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/thenation/pdf/JohnDoe1Declaration.pdf">affidavits</a> <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/thenation/pdf/JohnDoe2Declaration.pdf">deposited</a> in a federal court in Virginia on 3 August, the then-CEO of the mercenary company formerly known as Blackwater and now <a href="http://www.xecompany.com/">rebranded as "Xe"</a>, Erik Prince, "murdered or had murdered" Blackwater employees who were cooperating with a government inquiry about the company's criminal conduct in Iraq. Both sworn statements, posted as part of an <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill">article in The Nation</a> by Jeremy Scahill, were given by former employees of Blackwater named only as "John Doe One" and "John Doe Two" for their own protection. The second affidavit also says that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe" and intentionally deployed mercenaries to Iraq who "shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis."</span><br /></div><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Among the other charges cited in the affidavits and in the article by Scahill - who has </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.amazon.com/Blackwater-Rise-Worlds-Powerful-Mercenary/dp/1560259795/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-8008373-8407634?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191303034&sr=8-1">written a book </a><span style="font-family:arial;">on Blackwater's activities - are the following:</span></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><ul style="text-align: justify;font-family:arial;"><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Erik Prince </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">smuggled illegal weapons ("sawed off semi-automatic machine guns with silencers") and ammunition ("designed to explode after penetrating within the human body") into Iraq in bags of dog food.</span></li><li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Blackwater knew some of its staff intentionally used excessive force to injure and murder innocent bystanders, and did nothing about it. Both John Does cite numerous cases where innocent passersby were killed apparently "as a sport or game".<br /></span></li><li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Some of its mercenaries used M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ("SAW") machine guns in violation of State Department rules, which only allowed them to use pistols or M4 automatic carbines.</span></li><li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Against the advice of other company executives, Prince insisted on deploying to Iraq men who were patently unfit to serve, due to their stated intention to rack up "body counts" of "ragheads", due to alcohol and steroid abuse, or because they ignored safety regulations in operating weapons.</span></li><li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Prince also ignored the advice of mental health experts who warned him against deploying mercenaries who were psychologically unfit to serve.</span></li><li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">He "knowingly hired two persons who were previously involved in the Kosovo sex trafficking ring to serve at relatively high-levels [sic] within his companies."</span></li><li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Blackwater ran a "Man Camp" where employees were supplied with prostitutes, including child prostitutes. Prince, the "Christian crusader", also visited the camp.</span></li><li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Many top Blackwater executives in the company's North Carolina headquarters took part in an "ongoing wife-swapping and sex ring", which caused so much trouble among the top management that a special investigation was undertaken.</span></li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Needless to say, Prince is a </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/02/blackwater_bush/">generous financial backer</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of fundamentalist Christian groups, having donated millions of dollars to causes such as The Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Council for National Policy, and Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship Ministries. Naturally, he is also a large donor to the American Enterprise Institute and the Republican Party</span></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >. The company's excellent relations to the Bush administration are further illustrated by the fact that the former director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center and the State Department's c</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">ounterterrorism coordinator, Cofer "Flies on their Eyeballs" Black, has been a vice chairman of Blackwater/Xe since 2005.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The company has won government contracts worth at least hundreds of millions of dollars since 2001.</span></span><br /></span></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-40482428428153474162009-06-24T01:02:00.006+02:002009-06-24T01:21:03.477+02:00Arrested for Watching the Watchers<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The British police officer used to be regarded worldwide as the epitome of fairness and the protector of the public peace. That was rubbish even back in the old days of course. But, as they say (all together now): EVERYTHING CHANGED AFTER 9/11... Looking at </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/jun/21/fit-watch-kingsnorth-arrests">this footage </a><span style="font-family:arial;">of women being arrested for monitoring the police at Kingsnorth climate camp, I am a lot less enthusiastic at the thought of travelling to the UK next month... welcome to <a href="http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/">the authoritarians'</a> paradise created by New Labour. The two ladies in question were involved with </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://fitwatch.blogspot.com/">Fit Watch</a><span style="font-family:arial;">, the organization that watches the British police's Forward Intelligence Teams (whose job is to harass demonstrators at protests in the UK). More information about the cops in this video and their identities (they are required to provide badge numbers if requested by members of the public) is available at </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/21/fit-watch-police-surveillance-val-swain-emily-apple-arrests">The Guardian</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and at this </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://fitwatch.blogspot.com/2009/06/identity-of-police-officers-in-guardian.html">Fit Watch blog entry</a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Oh... need I add that the women were of course cleared of all charges in court, having spent a total of four days in prison without bail or access to their lawyers - just for asking the cops for their badge numbers?</span><br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-54682418785148661322009-06-23T22:14:00.008+02:002009-06-23T22:53:58.330+02:00Did Nokia Siemens Network Give Iran Surveillance Technology?<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html">Wall Street Journal</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/nokia-siemens-boycott/">WIRED</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> magazine are reporting that Nokia Siemens Network, a subsidiary of the German and Finnish telecom companies, supplied technology for monitoring and censoring communications as part of a larger deal for a mobile phone network with the Iranian government late in 2008. According to the WSJ, the deal included provisions for </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_packet_inspection#Iran">"deep packet inspection"</a><span style="font-family:arial;">, which involves not only the ability to block or restrict access to specific websites, but also the capability to inspect the content of individual communications. The company confirms the deal, but denies that the technology provided allows deep packet inspection, instead claiming that the contract included what it refers to in lovely newspeak as "<a href="http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/global/Press/Press+releases/news-archive/Provision+of+Lawful+Intercept+capability+in+Iran.htm">provision of Lawful Intercept capability</a>":<br /></span><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">In most countries around the world, including all EU member states and the U.S., telecommunications networks are legally required to have the capability for Lawful Intercept and this is also the case in Iran.</blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Whether the requirement by EU and US bureaucrats to include spying/censorship backdoors for law enforcement in telecommunications software is itself legitimate and commensurate to democratic standards relating to the rule of law is of course highly questionable (for the record, I say no). Another matter is whether </span><span style="font-family:arial;">a European company should sell such equipment to a regime with a record like that of the Islamic Republic, which suppresses free speech (and may have manipulated the elections of last week) as a matter of course. Yet the two issues are closely related. Had the European and US governments decided to defend democratic/civil-rights principles even under pressure from "security experts", it would be much more difficult for companies like Nokia Siemens Networks to defend their decision to trade integrity for profit.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I found this an interesting question to consider in the context of the important role of mobile communications technology for documenting eand coordinating events during the current unrest in Iran.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">N.b., not to unfairly single out Iran for violations of privacy, whether clandestine or "legal": It turns out that the NSA, which is able to read the e-mails of all US citizens without court orders using the </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/17nsa.html?pagewanted=2&hp">Pinwale software</a><span style="font-family:arial;">, has also been </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/pinwale/">accessing the personal communications</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of former US president Bill Clinton. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Feel free to communicate with Nokia Siemens Networks and their damage control man Ben Roome at </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://blogs.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/news/2009/06/22/provision-of-lawful-intercept-capability-in-iran/">this address</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> or via e-mail at </span><span id="ContentContent_Tgx2placeholderContent"><a style="font-family: arial;" class="mail" target="_self" href="mailto:ben.roome@nsn.com">ben.roome@nsn.com</a><span style="font-family:arial;">. They will certainly be delighted to hear from you provided you state your opinion respectfully.</span><br /></span></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-45942487413850367232009-06-15T01:44:00.010+02:002009-06-15T09:33:08.937+02:00Fox News Obliquely Smears Obama as Jew-Hater<div style="text-align: justify;"><a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWWjuvQjn9deZQdHW9xdmhQOVN2sgKwT003IKZRPGFNHhPxuT39SQ_UEhDpldQvLQaO2sGU6VNt3cVzHfvEmN_cUlOZHkA0lNhMN6UyH_ViqazB3OPtrQKYl-N6VOLXDIvy6Og1lSQnpt/s1600-h/obama.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 50px; height: 50px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWWjuvQjn9deZQdHW9xdmhQOVN2sgKwT003IKZRPGFNHhPxuT39SQ_UEhDpldQvLQaO2sGU6VNt3cVzHfvEmN_cUlOZHkA0lNhMN6UyH_ViqazB3OPtrQKYl-N6VOLXDIvy6Og1lSQnpt/s320/obama.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347334300713591458" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">FoxNews.com accompanied its coverage of the speech by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with one stock picture of Netanyahu at Bar-Ilan University, and one picture of US President Barack Obama wearing a keffiyah. The latter image was obviously photoshopped; what is interesting is the provenance of this not-very-subtle smear, with its blatant overtones of Obama being a "secret Muslim" and similar debunked nonsense: It is cropped from this picture of a poster seen in Israel, which proclaims "Barack Hussein Obama" (of course!) to be an "Anti-Semitic Jew-Hater":</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivwe8FGEfpzMsmP3pg1_rQHdfvYQhz6l-56C6wIyK51igD56oUNDTm-nxPluVwh0l0dWBaOtnNsZHwFMEAa3a_OtTlP5nkZNBRWa0dPJYMmYm6bizLZzds9uHDAgAhFQhN1Ip_8X9WVGKo/s1600-h/0_68_320man.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivwe8FGEfpzMsmP3pg1_rQHdfvYQhz6l-56C6wIyK51igD56oUNDTm-nxPluVwh0l0dWBaOtnNsZHwFMEAa3a_OtTlP5nkZNBRWa0dPJYMmYm6bizLZzds9uHDAgAhFQhN1Ip_8X9WVGKo/s320/0_68_320man.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347336279794077298" border="0" /></a><br />Now, this is clearly not an error; somebody in the FoxNews.com newsroom intentionally selected this picture of Obama to accompany the report on Netanyahu's comments, in which he stipulated that any future Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized and accompanied by security guarantees for Israel. (While it goes without saying that the second of these demands is perfectly reasonable, the first will be unacceptable to the Palestinians and at this point constitutes a de-facto rejection of real Palestinian statehood in the occupied territories.)<br /></div><br />The picture was pointed out by a commenter on the extreme right-wing discussion board <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2271546/posts?page=264#264">Free Republic</a>, who called the choice of image "pretty stunning" and said quite rightly that it "seems to be an editorial decision". The next commenter asks "Is there a FReeper working for Fox? I nearly fell off my chair seeing that!", while others gleefully respond with "Wow...is that a real picture? I like it!" and "Whoa! At first I thought you were pulling my leg but the picture really is on Fox’s site! I wonder how long it’ll be there?".<br /><br />At the time of writing, the picture was still there, cf. the following screenshot:<br /></div><br /><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE_OEEAg9aBP5pUjv3EsYQLwk8VAJQ3U-ejjr5ZnttyfHGx6x-gRrdYTBiefts_q4gYnWUn_ZxsgIse6mDRY0XJr3hgnIUwLoFgILvpDUgfAdb4qzdqL-7yWExbWZNF67PmIGCcd7MRcAg/s1600-h/obama_netanyahu.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 260px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE_OEEAg9aBP5pUjv3EsYQLwk8VAJQ3U-ejjr5ZnttyfHGx6x-gRrdYTBiefts_q4gYnWUn_ZxsgIse6mDRY0XJr3hgnIUwLoFgILvpDUgfAdb4qzdqL-7yWExbWZNF67PmIGCcd7MRcAg/s320/obama_netanyahu.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347336137532663330" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">By promoting the idea that Obama is a "Jew-Hater" and antisemite, FoxNews.com is further stoking the fire of those nutjobs who already feel tempted to take the law into their own hands. Without going into the details of the delicate relationship between right-wing extremists and philosemites (among many militant conservatives in the US, philosemitism frequently appears to be constantly on the verge of tipping over into prejudice against Jews), suffice it to say that casting Obama as a new Hitler, while obviously completely crazy, will egg on those who believe any means are justified in stopping him. FoxNews knows no shame, of course, but they should be called out on this.</span><br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-3146153852974522462009-04-23T23:20:00.003+02:002009-04-23T23:23:22.402+02:00File under: Misheard Lyrics<span style="font-family:arial;">Charles Manson asks the question that's been bugging me for some time now:</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XREnvJRkif0&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XREnvJRkif0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Easy to see how he might have misunderstood some of the lyrics on the Beatles' White Album.</span>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-31323209246431775192009-01-21T03:00:00.011+01:002009-01-21T03:14:40.890+01:00A Hollow Man in the White House: The Lost Bush Decade<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Just before New Year’s Eve, I began reading “The Final Days” by Woodward and Bernstein on the last weeks of the Nixon administration. Not because of any conscious awareness of the imminent end of the Bush era, but simply because it was the first book that jumped out at me from the bookcase in my brother’s spare bedroom in Malta where we were spending ten days escaping from the icy winds that tore across the continent in late December and early January. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The impression one gains from this account and other descriptions of Nixon is that, though he was a crook, he was also a complex person with deep-seated neuroses and obsessions that he was able to harness as vehicles to advance his political career. Even Hunter S. Thompson, probably the most outspoken critic that Nixon ever had, acknowledged in the summer of 1973 that the true loathsomeness of Watergate was to be found not in the person of the president, but in the broader implications for the nation as a whole:</span><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">The slow-rising central horror of “Watergate” is not that it might grind down to the reluctant impeachment of a vengeful thug of a president whose entire political career has been a monument to the same kind of cheap shots and treachery he finally got nailed for, but that we might somehow fail to learn something from it.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Only 27 years later, George W. Bush was elected the 43rd president of the United States. It is already clear that his sole lasting achievement and bequest to the Republican Party will be the rehabilitation of Richard Milhous Nixon. And while the legal and moral corruption of the Bush administration is immeasurably greater, making Tricky Dicky’s many crimes seem almost petty by comparison, Nixon himself now comes across as a larger-than-life figure – a tragic character in the full sense of the word, brought down by his own hubris and destroyed by the same traits of personality that made possible his ascent to power. Bush by comparison is a hollow man, a cardboard cutout, a two-bit tinhorn gambler who bet the ranch and lost. His legacy will be that of an idiot child who was somehow hoisted onto the throne and spent his days cycling, playing with his train set, and invading other countries in wars of aggression, ending in failure on an epic scale that was previously inconceivable.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I like children, but they can be stupid and cruel, as <a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1215/92470">Bion of Borysthenes</a> knew well:</span><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">It was the saying of Bion, that, though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Ultimately, Bush remains a mystery to us; maybe the only ones who can fathom him are those of us who have stared down the drooling, vacant-eyed monster inside of us that occasionally returns our gaze in the mirror at 3am. If so – and we would do well never to forget that Bush was re-elected in 2004, despite all the information that was publicly available at the time already – he represents not the most evil aspects of our political system and ultimately of our nature as political beings (that honor would have to be reserved for criminals of Nixon’s stature), but the most bland, careless, unthinking manifestation of human interaction. Could this be because Nixon came from a poor farming family of Quakers and had to claw his way to power and infamy, while Bush is a </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortunate_Son_%28song%29">Fortunate Son</a> of the establishment</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> and was handed the keys to the White House by a coalition of the super-rich, the foreign-policy hawks, and the Christian Right?</span><br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ec0XKhAHR5I&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ec0XKhAHR5I&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Possibly the worst aspect of the Bush years has been not the political shit sandwich that he has tried to force-feed to all of mankind, but the way in which he has made cretinism and mediocrity fashionable, or at least acceptable in polite society. On the other hand, this development is already beginning to be reversed by the current economic devastation, which has disabused the world of the notion that the emperor’s new clothes are oh so pretty. Thus it is that in the run-up to Barack Obama’s inauguration, the residents of Washington, D.C. were <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/theogeo/3209835911/">throwing shoes at a blow-up doll of Bush/Pinocchio</a>, </span><span style="font-family:arial;">even as the jailers guarding “shoe assassin” Muntadhar al-Zeidi in Baghdad <a href="http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/world/2009/01/16/D95OEC2G0_ml_iraq_shoe_thrower/">threw a birthday party</a> for him (after severely beating and torturing him, it should be added). </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">“So for him it does not matter for how long he would be imprisoned,” his brother said, “because the important thing is that he restored the honor of the Iraqi people.”</span><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">As for Bush, he can take solace in two deserved awards recently bestowed upon him: The <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/200811130951.html">Bishop John T. Walker Service Award</a>, which he earned (in all fairness – though it is a shame he did not muster the same level of dedication when New Orleans was drowning) for his efforts to improve the lives of Africans, </span><span style="font-family:arial;">and a well-deserved label devised especially for Dubya by the esteemed <a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx8AeROHzBA">Sean Bedlam</a>: </span><br /></div><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">“He is the Swiss army knife of being a fuckhead”</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></blockquote>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-20013568548962124652008-11-09T22:14:00.027+01:002008-11-10T02:00:50.837+01:00Celebrating Victory With Barack Obama<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMpPxMRF_sAJ0JhOiBrdpzro4pXkCOCHOCRl62OfHEgpfqu1tSm6bRcm0Xqe0E1nTubRjjZ6hjMmeXnnIWRqTBbQK1g1zYhvrzB7SHiBFjYhiPEXbdgIkFDOnDVjf3Tf2hWs6U4whbswO/s1600-h/DSC01305.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 243px; height: 183px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMpPxMRF_sAJ0JhOiBrdpzro4pXkCOCHOCRl62OfHEgpfqu1tSm6bRcm0Xqe0E1nTubRjjZ6hjMmeXnnIWRqTBbQK1g1zYhvrzB7SHiBFjYhiPEXbdgIkFDOnDVjf3Tf2hWs6U4whbswO/s320/DSC01305.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266773866056685634" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">It was a long night on Tuesday, but worth the wait. We went to the Democrats Abroad pre-election party and had a few beers to loosen up nerves that were tense even though we were all pretty confident about the outcome of the vote. Comrade Jen G. had to take it easy because she had been selected to debate the head of Republicans Abroad later in the evening. The debate took place at GZ Riesbach here in Zurich, at an SP election night party. The Republican dude was let off easy because everybody knew his sorry ass was going down anyway, and the other panelists were (unnecessarily) gracious, leaving the booing and ridicule to an audience of 99% Obama supporters. Jen turned on her considerable charm while the Republican became increasingly irritated, ending up with a beet-root red face (tsk, tsk, those angry white men).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I went home at 4:30am local time, when Pennsylvania and Ohio were called for Obama and it was increasingly clear that McCain was not just going to lose, but was losing in a landslide. Walking home along the lake in the cold November morning, I felt very tired but cheerful - not necessarily elated... but as I came home, my dear lady (who had left the party early and nodded off watching the election coverage on the sofa) told me that CNN had just officially declared Obama the President-Elect.</span><br /><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvMS7Mp5JxML3Cy3tdhRZmwJ3YfVstTUZgXZOURMJjj4Q5uVSpi-FGk2iV-Wamo2P_MR3txsApA5IGL1hxa1VsLOmNN_RKLbFiuxXpBQPoSSckb47CLnamUrEvnH83YAcxHFSZGw0Z0TM1/s1600-h/DSC01307.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvMS7Mp5JxML3Cy3tdhRZmwJ3YfVstTUZgXZOURMJjj4Q5uVSpi-FGk2iV-Wamo2P_MR3txsApA5IGL1hxa1VsLOmNN_RKLbFiuxXpBQPoSSckb47CLnamUrEvnH83YAcxHFSZGw0Z0TM1/s320/DSC01307.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266776161593112578" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br />John McCain gave a remarkably graceful </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/speeches/mccain-concession-speech.html">concession speech</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> before a crowd that was visibly reeling between shock and anger that the impossible had happened - enraged bellows were heard as McCain said he had called Obama "to congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country we both love". Buh-buh-but... isn't he a Muslim communist?! Like many others, I felt that the race would have been a much closer one had McCain not pandered to the lunatic base of his party by insinuating that Obama was some kind of strange, radical alien - and nominating a dumb Pentecostal gasbag for VP, of course.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Obama's acceptance speech was tremendous in form and delivery. It allowed even me, a cynical political junkie, to set aside for a few minutes the terrible disappointments, shortcomings, and mistakes that the next four years will undoubtedly bring, and to imagine for a brief moment that change for the better is possible - that the problems we are currently facing can be resolved with intelligence and goodwill, and that as both <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln">Abraham Lincoln</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Up,_Stand_Up">Bob Marley</a> have observed: </span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time;<br />you can even fool some of the people all of the time;<br />but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Anyway, on Wednesday morning or rather around noon, I woke up feeling quite good about the world I live in, and after work, Jen (who hadn't slept all night), Manu, and I decided the time was right for a glass or two of celebratory prosecco at Safari... and since Obama deserved a few beers after two years of hard campaigning, we thought it would be a nice gesture of our appreciation to ask him to come along. Imagine our surprise when Barry said he was going to leave the nomination of his chief of staff for another day and hit the bar with us.</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtc9dekTF_GXK_xooTf41DDrav2wnuju-ahPfnfXDNJjRr7SfmfTCsGueBZK680EJ8UC2M8HzyKMiFz6vJRXeH-Gq8yuOS9qGCeS8FZ-2M9TO4pndUvphRd7C-4rXX7ck7i0kjvG65U02c/s1600-h/DSC01308.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtc9dekTF_GXK_xooTf41DDrav2wnuju-ahPfnfXDNJjRr7SfmfTCsGueBZK680EJ8UC2M8HzyKMiFz6vJRXeH-Gq8yuOS9qGCeS8FZ-2M9TO4pndUvphRd7C-4rXX7ck7i0kjvG65U02c/s320/DSC01308.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266788155588410194" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb4sCsVorH7Y6HzFESM9kVr_qZ-6ElQustGkShR9Dt4Hf_9J9OMII8bv9Q4kCSohKFRSf37OPQkxEfAu6rnG6tsVXoYX4H90q5jlT9wAve0uWcKTWRYlE8clHWjnffo1cDspWhDJY5DFgk/s1600-h/DSC01311.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb4sCsVorH7Y6HzFESM9kVr_qZ-6ElQustGkShR9Dt4Hf_9J9OMII8bv9Q4kCSohKFRSf37OPQkxEfAu6rnG6tsVXoYX4H90q5jlT9wAve0uWcKTWRYlE8clHWjnffo1cDspWhDJY5DFgk/s320/DSC01311.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266788155675467042" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhoCaR8TcsQaEwT9RVR0MT6xJnmnF9_wk3XA_beQr6Ww9k_UMcTFYT0mB54ZloY_XX6ZeZxNhY7SyKDNZujvcbva2wOuIMkFbOyxpHf3goLeTSBuhoW9d94RCcys8kqhMbn45dvEMGfIoM/s1600-h/DSC01313.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhoCaR8TcsQaEwT9RVR0MT6xJnmnF9_wk3XA_beQr6Ww9k_UMcTFYT0mB54ZloY_XX6ZeZxNhY7SyKDNZujvcbva2wOuIMkFbOyxpHf3goLeTSBuhoW9d94RCcys8kqhMbn45dvEMGfIoM/s320/DSC01313.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266827436495029602" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwXCDqMt1aC3BNA0vJluAEsBF9965qZ-li8KXRm0d9pd64Z8q92mMZVSZw-hRgCbguXub7LRyUTDW_NXtVbwO5RP_7oigrBAGKcF0OxLxn5NXp1uv4vHcyljEvS-EcwkrMgZTRVFcFEArV/s1600-h/DSC01315.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwXCDqMt1aC3BNA0vJluAEsBF9965qZ-li8KXRm0d9pd64Z8q92mMZVSZw-hRgCbguXub7LRyUTDW_NXtVbwO5RP_7oigrBAGKcF0OxLxn5NXp1uv4vHcyljEvS-EcwkrMgZTRVFcFEArV/s320/DSC01315.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266788161222492242" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">It didn't take long before old Barack was more than a little sozzled and started mumbling into his beer about how "that honky bastard Dubya" had stuck him with a country in tatters, a divided society, and an economy that was "totally roached", and how <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/black_man_given_nations">once again it was the black man</a> who was going to have to "clean up their shit after them". Fortunately, he soon cheered up and started flirting with Comrade Jen, who was not completely averse to his advances (she likes tall dark guys, which is why George Clooney didn't stand a chance with her at the Geneva fundraiser held by the Democrats Abroad).</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKKJBG7CeCvR5EWebjL8Oze7UnOx0zfau19g7aIL7YPD_M3fkLrdb60mqeu0eJggE2GtHd4dHlTV5A8W23HOOTflFyJZ-GUNIcC2SiiIYd5jBYMfunpW0ImYnMKQgqJqf8nkS7vBrr87xi/s1600-h/DSC01329.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKKJBG7CeCvR5EWebjL8Oze7UnOx0zfau19g7aIL7YPD_M3fkLrdb60mqeu0eJggE2GtHd4dHlTV5A8W23HOOTflFyJZ-GUNIcC2SiiIYd5jBYMfunpW0ImYnMKQgqJqf8nkS7vBrr87xi/s320/DSC01329.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266791146937453090" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDe21bNBThFURctqoG1Z2wEMs998B5qlCCEfpu9znSWf2UZWPp45GgRblfRSGmHbBXd0b2MaKwkzVKXj1fjN2ySrmziss6xlxLce2ClNDTB9r3lIyN5ytOOxvZZ9vdm5zZT3u97bLFkbvQ/s1600-h/DSC01319.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDe21bNBThFURctqoG1Z2wEMs998B5qlCCEfpu9znSWf2UZWPp45GgRblfRSGmHbBXd0b2MaKwkzVKXj1fjN2ySrmziss6xlxLce2ClNDTB9r3lIyN5ytOOxvZZ9vdm5zZT3u97bLFkbvQ/s320/DSC01319.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266808732786490690" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNM7OXYLyzhMP8VKI_RrnNGyJj_k-ZQipNmHnyN9F93UEk26H1O6oTU2ijeEofGAzJSgRGvuXmD9aGFURvHQqEQ3I_skbDpv_MF6gWtJ_tnnZjF62KTaIxNVQE9A5mZrcqhtRFYNSwMu_J/s1600-h/DSC01325.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNM7OXYLyzhMP8VKI_RrnNGyJj_k-ZQipNmHnyN9F93UEk26H1O6oTU2ijeEofGAzJSgRGvuXmD9aGFURvHQqEQ3I_skbDpv_MF6gWtJ_tnnZjF62KTaIxNVQE9A5mZrcqhtRFYNSwMu_J/s320/DSC01325.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266791139356802562" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAp6ZjkdXq20c5cDyl7b9_8LpVkKySEDSaBQtkw6VG2f0cMYkz0nVDD1H-QfocPqBwxSfKBzwTcxJ5NLmZ2eF7Sc6ZctikPLBa6rtf9LzqFt0s1mrbSbciI3iL0JkLtQySXGHPAnIDDbLG/s1600-h/DSC01322.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAp6ZjkdXq20c5cDyl7b9_8LpVkKySEDSaBQtkw6VG2f0cMYkz0nVDD1H-QfocPqBwxSfKBzwTcxJ5NLmZ2eF7Sc6ZctikPLBa6rtf9LzqFt0s1mrbSbciI3iL0JkLtQySXGHPAnIDDbLG/s320/DSC01322.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266794687198506914" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguBOBHvUV7aGqTsm7SwZnzyZPR6E3gtn8sUTnufnrVnO_7zix8Ow7ja45RtJniTTb-bgggyHLcdwBu8CgymW5zYuqqk07bsDUukAF2fn501d9fUc50JylTeJpzLVQ18iAKL46M1v9wLo0u/s1600-h/DSC01330.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguBOBHvUV7aGqTsm7SwZnzyZPR6E3gtn8sUTnufnrVnO_7zix8Ow7ja45RtJniTTb-bgggyHLcdwBu8CgymW5zYuqqk07bsDUukAF2fn501d9fUc50JylTeJpzLVQ18iAKL46M1v9wLo0u/s320/DSC01330.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266794692979099186" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">After we had left the Safari Bar, Barry wanted to go to a strip club, but we convinced him this was probably not a good idea (though part of me was screaming at myself that we could take photos and sell them to Fox News for a fee that would put not just our children, but our grandchildren through university).</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1-PFgDfsRpnSEYpRLKhMgvrK2TgPNoCOVdsCznfgGILwhKgFgV4rtmfG_EKFg2eReR4B-gUpoYLhxGWVS-B0ecich5LHO575Pezm1OzE22SbxjTdYwfq4RUn1GKAAb3lPU79Mhx7ayRym/s1600-h/DSC01334.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1-PFgDfsRpnSEYpRLKhMgvrK2TgPNoCOVdsCznfgGILwhKgFgV4rtmfG_EKFg2eReR4B-gUpoYLhxGWVS-B0ecich5LHO575Pezm1OzE22SbxjTdYwfq4RUn1GKAAb3lPU79Mhx7ayRym/s320/DSC01334.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266796285983568114" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;">Instead, we went to the Kon-Tiki Bar, where Obama has some fans too. While the Safari bartender had offered him a beer on the house, the pierced/tatooed/redheaded lady behind the Kon-Tiki bar stood us a round of suspicious-looking red drinks that seemed to be vodka-based. By this time, Barack was totally relaxed and decided he wanted to play some good music on the jukebox. He put on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxl4lQ8tmdM">"Paint the White House Black"</a> by George Clinton and started laughing hysterically, shouting something about how he would have liked to "buy that crazy-ass bitch Hillary <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWjldxdcGIo">a quart of rye whiskey</a> if she were here right now."</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgkgdBx7Hu4FEKHablvRDnCxAq-oLhxOubM0XwkhYDlH_c0gE7IGO1hAgdDYi9B9II4H8e2PKCyux1SaNwaVTgsuNp8VbzKdKS7Zas8AwKmbuyyIC-OoWcwX9holjB-z4j1ue5gEQt6DMQ/s1600-h/DSC01335.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgkgdBx7Hu4FEKHablvRDnCxAq-oLhxOubM0XwkhYDlH_c0gE7IGO1hAgdDYi9B9II4H8e2PKCyux1SaNwaVTgsuNp8VbzKdKS7Zas8AwKmbuyyIC-OoWcwX9holjB-z4j1ue5gEQt6DMQ/s320/DSC01335.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266801776297897106" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLy5Tt9LqyZt1vOJgUjh02OGKcwh51pIQgeqpECitM1YeOqO71-M9Qzv5qDz3DRu6vJZwEubr7R5XUQfJJmwau9w1nni3SEinY6ugMjAHagqUjhQ3R3U61Wi6GzvmIUfpVCE-6sXLVRhxw/s1600-h/DSC01339.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLy5Tt9LqyZt1vOJgUjh02OGKcwh51pIQgeqpECitM1YeOqO71-M9Qzv5qDz3DRu6vJZwEubr7R5XUQfJJmwau9w1nni3SEinY6ugMjAHagqUjhQ3R3U61Wi6GzvmIUfpVCE-6sXLVRhxw/s320/DSC01339.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266801774990200354" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Afterwards, we went to the Regenbogen Bar, where the election night warm-up party had taken place. All night long, we had been making new friends and getting big smiles from absolute strangers. In this bar, we got into an argument with a belligerent jerk who took the whole thing a little too seriously. The less said about that conversation, the better - all I want to add is that apparently you can hang out in a chic gay bar and still be a nasty, uptight, angry asshole. Who knew.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In traditional continental European style, we wrapped up the night in a kebab shop, where the döner jockey announced that Obama was "far too thin" and needed to "get some meat on that skinny frame". By this point, Barack seemed to be getting a little bleary-eyed (he had taken off his glasses, as you can see) and his grin was starting to look unnaturally fixed, so we decided to head home after one more round of beers. Outside, another group of complete strangers (they looked decidedly Middle Eastern) begged him to have their picture taken with him.</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYPDs5CIIzHaqVdZYamgH4PmZcfBrTN8ooOnSy-dASfbwjKvuaUGsE-Pry7dWW1hYJafWc0tDdNjy9J7NFGU_ZFvsPD0Frbo8szoAFw7wXwsE45oV2OSIPF7y8XGAK01plBoi7vDJ7K5rY/s1600-h/DSC01347.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYPDs5CIIzHaqVdZYamgH4PmZcfBrTN8ooOnSy-dASfbwjKvuaUGsE-Pry7dWW1hYJafWc0tDdNjy9J7NFGU_ZFvsPD0Frbo8szoAFw7wXwsE45oV2OSIPF7y8XGAK01plBoi7vDJ7K5rY/s320/DSC01347.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266805015308775634" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWEwIWzhA5S7OT_pGBCekUlSZfFVI2ZT9C18NCg7vBW8VBmA9iZa-4myKAj0zqQCpAgiXYMPzNsGUTQXi9AQDpN78rr7UYVdZis0NCry2GHFbO_kCuOWfOIxIt9o9PksTawtOMdfw6ga9k/s1600-h/DSC01341.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWEwIWzhA5S7OT_pGBCekUlSZfFVI2ZT9C18NCg7vBW8VBmA9iZa-4myKAj0zqQCpAgiXYMPzNsGUTQXi9AQDpN78rr7UYVdZis0NCry2GHFbO_kCuOWfOIxIt9o9PksTawtOMdfw6ga9k/s320/DSC01341.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266805636625329442" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: arial;">All in all, it was a very enjoyable night out with Barack (or "Hussein", as we, his friends, call him), and to paraphrase his already legendary <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y11XTAh4V5Y">acceptance speech in Grant Park</a> on the night of 4 November... if there is anyone out there who still doubts that this is a president you would like to have a beer with, tonight was your answer!<br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-89838273971843660552008-10-14T14:59:00.004+02:002008-12-17T01:31:15.411+01:00The 35 Articles of Impeachment<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNT6s9rMg9EWQMmiews9yAUJ2d7PPiFTWIpXLZ6Lbp225sMv8m0uL-n5P_l2C_92Yirq-BwBQ094J9VBeeM8YeqMLAvS7IANwJgL1TV9v0nrywacjjZXqncfKZOTwDKhAa7J52EtGe0rE/s1600-h/349_bigcover.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 148px; height: 234px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNT6s9rMg9EWQMmiews9yAUJ2d7PPiFTWIpXLZ6Lbp225sMv8m0uL-n5P_l2C_92Yirq-BwBQ094J9VBeeM8YeqMLAvS7IANwJgL1TV9v0nrywacjjZXqncfKZOTwDKhAa7J52EtGe0rE/s320/349_bigcover.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256996067052740754" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-style: italic;">... and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush</span>, by Dennis Kuchinich with David Swanson and Elizabeth de la Vega, available as a paperback from </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://feralhouse.com/titles/kulchur/35_articles_of_impeachment_the.php">Feral House</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and available for free download as a PDF from</span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://feralhouse.com/titles/images/BushImpeachment.pdf"> the same publisher</a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Read it and pass it on, then lobby your local Democratic Party to push for impeaching the Chimp when Obama takes office in January.</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">In the best case, we will see GWB and his coterie sentenced to long prison sentences. Do I believe this? No, because even though I am supporting Obama, I think he is an establishment candidate and will not violate the unwritten rule that incoming administrations let sleeping dogs lie. But even in the worst case, you will be able to tell your grandchildren that it was through no fault of your own that Bush got away with murder.</span><br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-64811087613910953612008-10-14T00:33:00.005+02:002008-10-16T12:02:14.675+02:00"Kärntens 9/11" - Zum Tod von Jörg Haider<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: arial;">Heute ausnahmsweise mal in meiner Mutter- statt Vatersprache, denn es geht um ein Thema, das primär den deutschsprachigen Raum betrifft. De mortuis nihil nisi bene, sagt man, und meint damit, dass man von den Toten nicht sprechen soll, wenn man nichts Nettes über sie zu sagen hat. Nun dürfte es vielen schwerfallen, etwas Gutes über Jörg Haider zu sagen, und selbst seinen unterbelichteten Anhängern fällt <a href="http://www.bazonline.ch/ausland/europa/Bitte-Joerg-du-musst-noch-einmal-vorbeikommen/story/16572592">laut Basler Zeitung</a> nichts wirklich Eloquentes ein. Sprüche an der Unfallstelle wie "Wir leben durch dich!" oder "Danke, dass du mir einmal die Hand gereicht hast" bringen den Schmalspur-Führerkult des dauergrinsenden Caudillo von Kärnten noch einmal auf den Punkt, während das flehentliche "Bitte Jörg, du musst noch einmal vorbeikommen" ein frommer Wunsch bleiben dürfte.<br /><br />Die Umstände von Haiders Tod - als Raser auf der Überholspur - sind von einigen Kommentatoren als bezeichnend für seine politische Karriere gedeutet worden: "Bevor er sich mehrmals überschlug, rammte der VW Phaeton ein Schild mit Tempolimit 50", heisst es in dem obigen Artikel, und wenn man des weiteren darauf hinweist, dass der Jörgl mit 142 km/h unterwegs war, werden wir mal wieder daran erinnert, dass gerade für Law-and-Order-Politiker der Grundsatz gilt: "Do as I say, not as I do," was auch die CSU-Politiker im benachbarten Bayern ein ums andere Mal demonstriert haben - siehe die zahllosen Titanic-"Briefe an die Leser", die sich mit diesem Thema über die Jahre beschäftigt haben.<br /><br />Apropos Titanic: Natürlich hat sich das <a href="http://www.titanic-magazin.de/postkarten.html?&cat=181&cHash=25203e575c">Pflichtblatt für Rechtsabbieger</a> auch mit dem Haider-Exitus in gewohnt pietätvoller Manier beschäftigt. "Rechtsruck in Österreich" war die Schlagzeile bereits am Sonntag, während die folgende Meldung unter dem Titel "Wie Jörg Haider vom rechten Weg abkam" eine Grafik präsentiert, wie wir sie bereits vom Tod der Prinzessin Diana kennen ("1.: Haider blinkt auf der Überholspur mehrere Jahre lang rechts. ... 3.: Haider versucht, das Steuer in Österreich herumzureissen...").<br /><br />Als ich die erste Meldung von seinem Crash gelesen hatte, war ich zunächst verwirrt, weil ich dachte, es sei dies wieder ein Haiderscher PR-Stunt, genauer: eine neue Runde im <a href="http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/2006/0209/politik/0018/index.html">Streit über slowenisch- und deutschsprachige Strassenschilder</a> gewesen, mit dem der Landeshauptmann immer wieder bei den Deppen und Arschgeigen unter den Wählern in seinem Bundesland zu punkten wusste:<br /><blockquote>Mit dem Umsetzen des Schildes will Haider erreichen, dass das Verfahren vor dem Verfassungsgericht neu aufgerollt werden muss (...) Ausgelöst hatte das Verfahren in Wien ein Anwalt aus Klagenfurt. Der bekennende Slowene war mit überhöhter Geschwindigkeit durch eine geschlossene Ortschaft gefahren, wurde geblitzt und bezahlte sein Strafmandat nicht. Das Ortsschild, das auch in Österreich "Tempo 50" bedeutet, sei, weil einsprachig, nicht korrekt und das Tempo-Limit somit nicht rechtmäßig gewesen.</blockquote>Dies schien mir dann aber eher nicht plausibel, zumal Populisten vom Schlage eines J.H. solche Kampagnen ja meistens eher auf dem Rücken anderer austragen, anstatt selber mit gutem Beispiel voranzugehen bzw. zu -fahren.<br /><br />So bleibt Haiders Tod letzlich komplett sinnfrei und schliesst auch in dieser Hinsicht nahtlos an sein Leben an. Nur eines blieb mir in der ganzen Berichterstattung völlig unerklärlich: "Öfters fällt das Schlagwort von 'Kärntens 9/11'", so die BAZ - wieso? Erstens war Haider kein Muslim, und zweitens ist er nur in die Leitplanke und nicht in ein Hochhaus gebrettert.<br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-32875133493722849022008-10-11T05:52:00.005+02:002008-10-16T12:02:57.461+02:00Rensselaer County "Mistakenly" Mislabels Election Ballot For "Osama"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbsALSAcIX4JMKgNulMX4Ihl4aeeF8_Ate6wUVkwFEN7DJa4L1PT1QrCQumQTYfZ9rwkMJVng-kQ7Ms4CBPIKISvdOm6B0hpenjEoUKWy-Zt_FalOnkct4UNuwBFqaUR0BJpJhvLcim9YZ/s1600-h/rensselaer.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbsALSAcIX4JMKgNulMX4Ihl4aeeF8_Ate6wUVkwFEN7DJa4L1PT1QrCQumQTYfZ9rwkMJVng-kQ7Ms4CBPIKISvdOm6B0hpenjEoUKWy-Zt_FalOnkct4UNuwBFqaUR0BJpJhvLcim9YZ/s320/rensselaer.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255739652516260578" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I have </span><span style="font-family:arial;">just voted for Obama as an overseas voter, and am happy to have done so. Now this... does anybody believe the "<a href="http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,583499,00.html">Barack Osama</a>" ballot handed out by <a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.rensco.com/">Rensselaer County</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> was the result of an honest mistake?</span> Yeah, right, just one of those mistakes that happen from time to time. I'm sure the good people administering Rensselaer County will appreciate your honest and respectful criticism at <a href="http://www.rensco.com/contact_eform.asp">this address.</a></span><br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-31406992187283080562008-10-08T16:45:00.012+02:002009-12-18T03:44:47.606+01:00McCain Must Really Hate America<div style="text-align: justify;"><a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ePDYV37Dob6wx-51yi9Gy8navfevYNjDhWiC5CVjtH9hgmArPnwsmLREdfHY9Lg_tIoWnpH5AtTieOrVFdjGTM3Kvwcrvh5l4_iIQsvgRZH_DczeXZgtS-kHFtGOtSeOfBTKnoIR9tqt/s1600-h/mccain_exit.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 87px; height: 140px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ePDYV37Dob6wx-51yi9Gy8navfevYNjDhWiC5CVjtH9hgmArPnwsmLREdfHY9Lg_tIoWnpH5AtTieOrVFdjGTM3Kvwcrvh5l4_iIQsvgRZH_DczeXZgtS-kHFtGOtSeOfBTKnoIR9tqt/s320/mccain_exit.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254800575370043330" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Last night, watching the presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, I was disturbed to note that while Obama displayed a US flag lapel pin, his opponent did not. Apparently, McCain's brazen rejection of all the values America stands for went unnoticed by </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug20/0,4670,CandidatesPatriotism,00.html">Fox News</a><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" >, which had previously </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299439,00.html">spoken out</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> on behalf of all red-blooded freedom-lovers thusly:</span><br /></div><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">Some Americans, however, say they question the patriotism of a candidate who makes such a choice, a sentiment that shows up in polls.</blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Perhaps McCain could have borrowed US$2,500 from his beer heiress wife to purchase one of the lapel pins </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=30720">on sale by his own campaign management</a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Surely, that would not be too steep a price to show a little pride in the country he wants to lead.<br /><br />Update: Raquel Laneri of <a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/trailwatch/2008/10/mccains-missing.html">Forbes magazine</a> noticed, too.<br /></span>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-85276881030665681862008-09-08T23:44:00.012+02:002008-09-10T01:56:36.876+02:00Dear Boy<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9y5pCB7E7eYkwcKdqxc1xDwKYVRRxlzQoHqwZb2AK9im8ZwPLdbzgzzAHAusg7MC-1oMtbcY3aOpifZbcKz6ytpKRyu-hclddcLQ9yAO7NElmG19uyu7Ylba8iA4vfnfrxGZkI1n4cR5u/s1600-h/moonie_animal.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 253px; height: 193px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9y5pCB7E7eYkwcKdqxc1xDwKYVRRxlzQoHqwZb2AK9im8ZwPLdbzgzzAHAusg7MC-1oMtbcY3aOpifZbcKz6ytpKRyu-hclddcLQ9yAO7NElmG19uyu7Ylba8iA4vfnfrxGZkI1n4cR5u/s320/moonie_animal.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243779476500081762" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Keith Moon died 30 years ago yesterday. Besides being the greatest drummer of all times with The Who, he also earned a reputation for inventing the rock-star cliche of smashing up hotel rooms on an epic scale. I remember when I was about 11 years old visiting my family in Scotland, I stayed in the room of my older cousin. Every inch of this room was completely covered in Who memorabilia, and what particularly impressed me were the clippings from The Sun and other tabloids describing the various exploits of Moon the Loon - how he had crashed his Rolls into the pool of a Holiday Inn hotel, how he habitually destroyed his drum kit on stage, and - most memorably in the mind of this pre-pubescent kid - how a naked stripper had emerged from his birthday cake (I was almost as impressed by the fact that my cousin was allowed to have the article, with photo of the lady in question, up on his wall; my mom would have had my head on a stake had I suggested redecorating my room in similar fashion).</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />When, several years later, I started getting seriously into the music of The Who myself, it was Moon's drumming that convinced me this was the best band ever. Especially in recordings of live concerts, his power and speed are unreal (just listen to his drumming on </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_VhXnqt-gA"><span style="font-style: italic;">I Can See For Miles</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> - and I still consider </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Live at Leeds</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> the best live album ever recorded by any band).</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />On a trip to the UK, my buddy Felix (if at all possible, an even bigger Who fan than myself) bought </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Full Moon</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, a biography of Keith by his driver, bodyguard, and drug purchaser Dougal Butler. In addition to introducing me to the concept of cockney rhyming slang, this account of life as a rock star also made clear that besides Moonie's charming and comical personality, he also had a vicious Mr Hyde side to him that came out when he was drunk, i.e., near-permanently as his career evolved. After hurling a bottle of champagne at his wife, which thankfully missed and became embedded intact in the wall of their living room, he framed the corpus delicti, turning violence simultaneously into a joke and into a work of art, perfectly encapsulating his approach to life and the two sides of his increasingly psychotic personality.<br /></span> <a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvRI4VylWv77TQEKyBPz0WR7czd9xSSNSf1nWkqjrmBeRJWpsnHNJs0lFTq58Ae4iDmjYGXgMFAJCaJ7mj_ZM2EefNmsFAgDHRxvs0TATvDtq3XHvGZY4NC5kOr01xzEZvuAOsRlVeE9dj/s1600-h/moonie1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvRI4VylWv77TQEKyBPz0WR7czd9xSSNSf1nWkqjrmBeRJWpsnHNJs0lFTq58Ae4iDmjYGXgMFAJCaJ7mj_ZM2EefNmsFAgDHRxvs0TATvDtq3XHvGZY4NC5kOr01xzEZvuAOsRlVeE9dj/s320/moonie1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243779226038912530" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">A 1970s cartoon showed a hotel lobby with what looks like a fire alarm and the notice, "In Case of Keith Moon, Break Glass". The </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Moon">Wikipedia entry</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> on Moonie contains the following anecdote: </span><br /><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">According to Townshend, Moon's reputation for erratic behaviour was something he cultivated. Once, on the way to an airport, Moon insisted they return to their hotel, saying , "I forgot something. We've got to go back!" When the limo returned, Moon ran to his room, grabbed the TV while it was plugged in, threw it out the window and into the pool. He then jumped back into the limousine, sighing "I nearly forgot."</blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Another nice story is recounted by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJIazV4AHdU">Graham Chapman</a></span><span style="font-family:arial;">: </span><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">"He had a little bit of a problem in a hotel in Los Angeles, in the Hyatt House on Sunset Strip in fact it was, he was returning home one afternoon after rehearsing with the band, and was walking through the lobby at the hotel listening to this old cassette recorder - listening to the rehearsal of the band that morning, in fact, and evidently there was some kind of complaint about this, because the manager approached him and told him to turn that noise off, please. Well, Keith immediately complied, turned it off, and went up to his room, where he happened to have a large supply of detonator caps. He'd been saving these up for the acts later on in the week. And he spent the next 20 minutes meticulously wiring these up to the back of his door. He then rang down to the manager's office and told the man that he wanted to see him immediately. He popped his head out of the door to check that the manager had indeed got out of the elevator, popped back in again, and the manager subsequently arrived just outside of Keith's door to see the whole thing blown off its hinges in front of his eyes, and Keith, stepping out of the rubble and smoke, holding up this little cassette recorder, saying: 'That was noise, mate; this was The Who.' He certainly had a way with authority".<br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Not the kind of person you would wish to married to, then; but certainly if I had the choice of which resurrected dead rock star I could spend a night of drinking with, I would have to go with Keith, no contest. If you are unfamiliar with his drumming style, the difference between noise and The Who is showcased</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span> in <span style="font-style: italic;">Cobwebs and Strange </span>on the album "A Quick One", and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VvhJfRiNZo">this video</a> gives a good impression of both his mastery of the drums and of the charming part of his personality (with a cameo appearance by Steve Martin, from the movie The Kids Are Alright). The other side of the Moon, the bombastic stadium rock power drumming, can be seen in the final scene of the aforementioned movie as The Who give a monster performance of <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUbGLVvfB7Y">Won't Get Fooled Again</a>. At 7:37 minutes, Moonie breaks into the synthesizer track with a fantastic extended drum roll that still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.<br /><br />But there can be no better way to honor his memory than with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d6mj7PG9qA&NR=1">this clip</a> of Moon the Loon performing his beloved surf music: a lovely smile, terrific drumming, and atrocious singing (though his version of <span style="font-style: italic;">Barbara Ann</span> still better than <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg">John McCain's</a> obscenity)... we shall not see his like again.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Recommended reading: Tony Fletcher, </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dear-Boy-Tony-Fletcher/dp/1844498077/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220915893&sr=8-1"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Dear Boy - The Life Of Keith Moon</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, London: Omnibus Press, 1998.</span></span><br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-39155417425982799502008-08-21T21:15:00.003+02:002008-08-21T21:53:52.453+02:00Wikigroaning<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: arial;">Wikigroaning is an amusing way to point out the obvious bias of Wikipedia towards pop culture as compared to other subjects of serious academic discourse. Compare, for example, the length, incisiveness, and relative value to the general public of the Wikipedia articles on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God">God</a> and on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Smith">Kevin Smith</a> (don't worry, I had no idea who Kevin Smith was, either). Looking at the examples collected by <a href="http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/wikigroaning.php">Something Awful</a>, I marvel both at the brevity with which many important topics are treated by Wikipedia authors, and at the level of detail devoted to completely irrelevant stuff like anime characters, storylines from computer game plots, or other ficititious items (cf. the respective articles on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizards">lizards</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons">dragons</a>, for example).<br /><br />Here's one I found myself: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly">Monopoly</a> (economic term) vs. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_%28game%29">Monopoly</a> (board game) - examples abound once one starts looking, and many hours of boring office time can be killed this way. Feel free to submit your own example in the comments.<br /><br />(Found via <a href="http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Wikigroaning">Encyclopedia Dramatica</a>)<br /><br /><br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-43459673774943376032008-08-15T03:13:00.004+02:002008-08-15T03:21:50.250+02:00Phrase Cloud<span style="font-family:arial;">Wordle.net lets you create a cloud of most frequently used words for a given website. It's not only a nice little free gimmick, but also an interesting visualization tool for written content. For example, </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/08/03/portrait_of_the_candidate_as_a_pile_of_words/">The Boston Globe</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> finds that John McCain's blog has an unhealthy fixation on Barack Obama and on negative terms... by the same token, it could be said that Security Hippo is skewed towards the term "counterterrorism" - certainly something to consider.</span><br /><br /><pre style="font-family: arial;" id="embed"><a href="http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/122903/security_hippo" title="Wordle: security hippo"><img src="http://wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/122903/security_hippo" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 4px;" /></a></pre><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Maybe in a few months' time I will try this out again to see whether the semantic center of gravity, and thus the focus of my attention, has shifted at all.</span>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-14140283042522279992008-08-06T01:55:00.003+02:002008-08-06T02:01:52.312+02:00Thought for the Day<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-family: arial;" id="days">As of the time of writing, Bush has</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;" id="days">167</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> days, </span><span style="font-family: arial;" id="hrs">4</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> hours, </span><span style="font-family: arial;" id="min">4</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> minutes, </span><span style="font-family: arial;" id="sec">27</span><span style="font-family: arial;">.</span><span style="font-family: arial;" id="ten">2</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> seconds left in office. Not a fifth of a second too soon.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm not a believer in end-times prophecy, but H.L. Mencken saw this coming:</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(13, 0, 208);"><span style="font-family: arial;">“As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”</span><br /></span><br /><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Klicken Sie hier, um dieses Objekt mit Adblock Plus zu blockieren" class="abp-objtab-08810583470111719 visible ontop" href="http://www.backwardsbush.com/images/BackwardsBush_Flash.swf"></a><embed src="http://www.backwardsbush.com/images/BackwardsBush_Flash.swf" quality="high" wmode="transparent" bgcolor="#000000" name="BackwardsBush" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" align="middle" height="255" width="300"></embed><br /><br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-35194595295762635932008-07-25T00:40:00.008+02:002008-07-25T02:26:46.791+02:00Making the World Safe for Business<span style="font-family:arial;">Two unrelated stories that may nevertheless be linked on a deeper, karmic level (or, since this blog is run from the heartlands of the Occident: on the level of what Boethius might have recognized as a </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >fati series</span><span style="font-family:arial;">) have recently failed to make the headlines.</span><br /><div face="arial" style="text-align: justify; font-family: arial;"><br />First of all, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/AR2008071703161.html">The Washington Post</a> tells us that:<br /><blockquote>The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.<br /></blockquote>In order to be able to fight evildoers in style, the US Air Force generals decided to take taxpayers' money that was earmarked for counterterrorism and spend it to ensure that<br /><blockquote>each of the capsules is to be "aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule," with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror. </blockquote>Over the past three years, the Air Force has demanded that over US$16 million be taken from funding from the "war on terrorism" and spent instead on more comfortable "capsules" for air travel in the style that its commanders deserve.<br /><blockquote>Changing the seat color and pockets alone was estimated in a March 12 internal document to cost at least $68,240. </blockquote>Never mind that Congress has told the USAF - not once, but<span style="font-style: italic;"> twice</span> - that the funds reserved for counterterrorism should be spent on "higher priority" needs, meaning something more useful than cushy seats and in-flight entertainment systems, such as, oh, let's say, <span style="font-style: italic;">counterterrorism</span>. Despite the hysteria we have been subjected to in the past seven years of madness and cretinism, and despite the billions of dollars that have been taken away from essential state services, and despite the fact that bin Laden and al-Zawahri have not yet been found, the main funding priority at this point in time seems to be that some top Air Force brass are provided with<br /><blockquote>what one (lower-ranking officer) described as "world class" accommodations exceeding the standards of a regular business-class flight. </blockquote>Oh, sorry, did I say "despite"? Seems I may have gotten the causality inversed here, which happens to me occasionally after a long day. What I meant to say was that in order to justify the splooging-out of unfathomably huge quantities of cash for the benefit of their buddies in the oil and arms industries, while "starving the beast" of the welfare state, the Bush administration has turned the US into a nation of bedwetters, transfixed by the specter of an undefined and ominous threat to All that is Good and Right. Those generals must be having a grand old chuckle as they hook up the X-Box 360 to their 37" flatscreen for another few hours of "Call of Duty 4", killing time in non-stop transit from Andrews AFB to Diego Garcia for another round of waterboarding some poor Afghan goatherd.<br /><br />The second and <span style="font-style: italic;">prima facie</span> unrelated story makes the above "comfort pod" look like a tame joke by comparison. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/world/asia/24pstan.html">New York Times</a>' Eric Schmitt reports that:<br /><blockquote>The Bush administration plans to shift nearly $230 million in aid to Pakistan from counterterrorism programs to upgrading that country’s aging F-16 attack planes, which Pakistan prizes more for their contribution to its military rivalry with India than for fighting insurgents along its Afghan border.</blockquote>So again, we see the diversion of funding reserved for counter-terrorism (and let's save the discussion on how effectively that money has been used so far for another time), but this time, the money isn't being spent on hi-tech travel capsules. The US$16 million of de-facto embezzled funds wasted by the Air Force are peanuts compared to the almost quarter of a <span style="font-style: italic;">billion</span> dollars that will not be available for combating al-Qaida. Instead, the money will go to Lockheed Martin, the makers of the F-16 (who, in another of those strange coincidences, are among the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topcontribs.php?cycle=2006">top donors</a> to the Republican Party this year).<br /><br />There has been an ongoing debate over whether air power is useful or even sufficient for subduing insurgencies, but the experiences made by the Israeli Air Force in Lebanon in 2006 and since the withdrawal from Gaza seem to have more or less settled the matter: While tactical air superiority may be useful, an insurgency cannot be defeated without boots on the ground. Why, then, would the US want to use its counterterrorism budget for Pakistan to upgrade fighter jets that have so far not been used against militant in the North-West Frontier Province? After all, as the NY Times notes,<br /><blockquote><br />The financing for the F-16s would represent more than two-thirds of the $300 million that Pakistan will receive this year in American military financing for equipment and training. Last year, Congress specified that those funds be used for law enforcement or counterterrorism. Pakistan’s military has rarely used its current fleet of F-16s, which were built in the 1980s, for close-air support of counterterrorism missions, largely because the risks of civilian casualties would inflame anti-government sentiments in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7CIYxAt7aeOdwAQpk29Z8gcnL97YhtdjnJbWQiHDKbXyQnyLyjtBtqQVpVa_ROMpMtQ6F4idVb9f0129-HcH09VCMrZF61TzG6Zwv4absYPa2jGK9E_2Yxc6yK30fXfsdfnskO7Jm9P3Q/s1600-h/PAF_F-16A_Lahore.jpg"><br /></a></blockquote>Even by the obscene standards of the US military, that's quite a lot of money that will <span style="font-style: italic;">not be spent </span>on securing the Pakistani-Afghan border region. However, the upgrades will go some way towards restoring parity between the Pakistani and Indian air forces.<br /><br />The US sold Pakistan F-16s in the 1980s, but then cut off Islamabad from further arms deliveries due to its nuclear weapons program. In the meantime, India had acquired Russian MiG-29s and Sukhoi-30s, as well as French Mirage fighters, which had given it an edge over the Pakistani Air Force's F-16s in the 1999 Kargil crisis.<br /><br /><blockquote><br />A new deal was struck after the Sept. 11 attacks to allow Pakistan to buy newer models, in part to reward Pakistan’s cooperation in fighting terrorism. In 2006, Pakistan was a major recipient of American arms sales, including the $1.4 billion purchase of up to 36 new F-16C/D fighter aircraft and $640 million in missiles and bombs. The deal included a package for $891 million in upgrades for Pakistan’s older F-16s.</blockquote>The current delivery and upgrade of F-16s is not a recent decision, but the financing of the deal using funds earmarked for counterterrorism and law enforcement contravenes assurances made by the White House to Congress. The Bush administration, in addition to ensuring that its financial aid to Pakistan flows back to the US arms industry, is also calculating that the deal will help stabilize the political leadership of Pakistan vis-à-vis the army, and will prevent India from acquiring a strategic edge - especially with non-US weapons systems - in a possible future conflict over disputed territory with Pakistan.<br /><br />All of these considerations are, of course, not part of polite conversation in American public discourse, where expenditures on security and especially "counterterrorism" go largely unquestioned.<br /><br />Does that make you sad, depressed, or even fill you with despair when you consider the prospects for the survival of democracy, not to mention human existence as we know it?<br /><br />If so, you may now view the following short video clip, which will make you feel much better. It has been approved by the Security Hippo for all audiences.<br /><br /><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 14px ! important;" title="Klicken Sie hier, um dieses Objekt mit Adblock Plus zu blockieren" class="abp-objtab-0838147154101186 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/xpcUxwpOQ_A&hl=en&fs=1"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 14px ! important;" title="Klicken Sie hier, um dieses Objekt mit Adblock Plus zu blockieren" class="abp-objtab-0838147154101186 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/xpcUxwpOQ_A&hl=en&fs=1"></a><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xpcUxwpOQ_A&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xpcUxwpOQ_A&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xpcUxwpOQ_A&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></object><br /></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785625756908549071.post-61446824085149109592008-05-24T22:52:00.066+02:002008-05-25T03:14:48.554+02:00Neighborhood Patrol II<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Hmmmmm. Where to begin. Maybe by saying "so much for New Year's resolutions".</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> I had promised in January to write more, but somehow that didn't work out. It is now the end of May, the smell of summer is in the air, and even at 11pm, it is still comfortably warm out on the balcony. And the last blog entry was in mid-January. Sometime in the past two weeks, the page registered 1,000 hits. Nice! Know that the Security Hippo loves and cherishes every single visitor to the old mudflat.</span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;font-family:arial;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Maybe the best thing to do is simply to act as if nothing had happened, and to carry on as before. The first item will therefore be a traditional "what I did on my holidays" effort, a short pictorial review of some impressions gained during the past weeks and months.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When we moved to this flat, I decided to throw out some old T-shirts that had only nostalgic value, but weren't being worn any more. I decided this one had to be documented for posterity, fondly picturing the chap (for some reason I am sure it was a man) who came up with this extremely hip statement of near-haiku quality: "Acting Up/Who Make The/First Move/The Dramatic/American/What Guys Think".</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCU2GuUxlzZ7yPjOR9dL3SoMWnmsEzwXNThYNOt8NyB0tJYY_RP7BAESv8CgoHpNuPmhlKUMoNvTa_SgxYNZcQgPoe66gb1mz9KpW_n3VhnTpihzxwmbotB-8fYF58sEYAmvkCJEpMKeFC/s1600-h/acting_up.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCU2GuUxlzZ7yPjOR9dL3SoMWnmsEzwXNThYNOt8NyB0tJYY_RP7BAESv8CgoHpNuPmhlKUMoNvTa_SgxYNZcQgPoe66gb1mz9KpW_n3VhnTpihzxwmbotB-8fYF58sEYAmvkCJEpMKeFC/s320/acting_up.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204055951759462050" border="0" /></a> <div face="arial" style="text-align: justify;">What guys think, indeed. You have to wonder sometimes. No less amusing was this shirt seen last year while visiting the Locarno Film Festival, on sale at a market in Luino across the border in Italy:<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqqtCLuOmM6iu2u7kA4lZV0Mqybj4yn-I36fNcUDQK_s9vd1g6n76cPzhIMOw_WZ5BIn4k3Dxqg8hn7fRImHNZxkFq2ALqZYWVEpCox8wDy8sCNpCqe1mdVLi_kNaz8P9aQMp2QeA7FlIM/s1600-h/die_liebe.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqqtCLuOmM6iu2u7kA4lZV0Mqybj4yn-I36fNcUDQK_s9vd1g6n76cPzhIMOw_WZ5BIn4k3Dxqg8hn7fRImHNZxkFq2ALqZYWVEpCox8wDy8sCNpCqe1mdVLi_kNaz8P9aQMp2QeA7FlIM/s320/die_liebe.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204055956054429362" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;">"Die Liebe/Sommer ist/Nur Geschlecht" ("Love/Summer Is/Only Gender"). Note the elegant layout and typesetting. No doubt somebody found this to be a profound statement on the nature of human attraction and the passing of the seasons.</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Anyway, here are some more bits and pieces seen while walking in my neighborhood - graffiti, art, stickers, and other stuff that caught my eye.</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibju0XsOJoIOz9NkRKt0rRVcp3Y55ftAuE9fkBAUXzK2aLIfEjTESY9oeawIdt5jGJ4nsoZMLhbJzwKNFHPV52BJKIyCjGggUC6PFL5lcJEc3NJD_24Tt1HWBCuLu3nMcGS-28RnTMFznB/s1600-h/caffeine.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibju0XsOJoIOz9NkRKt0rRVcp3Y55ftAuE9fkBAUXzK2aLIfEjTESY9oeawIdt5jGJ4nsoZMLhbJzwKNFHPV52BJKIyCjGggUC6PFL5lcJEc3NJD_24Tt1HWBCuLu3nMcGS-28RnTMFznB/s320/caffeine.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204060770712768194" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;">The offer still stands, by the way, for the next person to leave a comment (see last post) - you can win original art featuring the above observation, plus the chance to set a topic for the next blog entry.</span> <a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGeOlpnT63jk-GiX6cXZpYKeb8t0aE4uAogTX6jXOx_M69xbnb7Q9wPD_gMQi0AUBCuYHKuFqRpl0fH7b5GW1xChv9TjTQD0-MBhJSJjSqsmdkdkngdAqMKMNPZjK2cfjFpuq-fHHpeawo/s1600-h/chef.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGeOlpnT63jk-GiX6cXZpYKeb8t0aE4uAogTX6jXOx_M69xbnb7Q9wPD_gMQi0AUBCuYHKuFqRpl0fH7b5GW1xChv9TjTQD0-MBhJSJjSqsmdkdkngdAqMKMNPZjK2cfjFpuq-fHHpeawo/s320/chef.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204060775007735506" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >This poster, calling for a strike in the construction business, states that your boss can never be your partner. Somebody left comments indicating their agreement.<br /><br /></span> <a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZADUu5CNbHl1uA25XnK247q8SA4iwgR3-4_whTU2WzYDCvwb8Xx-bv2GOOZkDhIsnsUicDAirfTEweQ9hHzSQFQGvRi2Dyu3Fw26qgGssxfWFhvmRRoZK0u3g6AWrBP8ePhTVmT3bSBfA/s1600-h/eimer.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZADUu5CNbHl1uA25XnK247q8SA4iwgR3-4_whTU2WzYDCvwb8Xx-bv2GOOZkDhIsnsUicDAirfTEweQ9hHzSQFQGvRi2Dyu3Fw26qgGssxfWFhvmRRoZK0u3g6AWrBP8ePhTVmT3bSBfA/s320/eimer.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204060779302702818" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br />EIMER's panda asks the cassette tape: "Soll ich in den Wald gehen, um als Räuber zu leben?" - "Should I go and live as an outlaw in the forest?" - No, you should publish a book of awesome cartoons and get really rich.</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />More graffiti can be seen on this short stretch of fence along a construction site:<br /><br /></span><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimlqZsJO3kIEXCeViDwqyS7HanNGKG-pvpFe4QsWVPEiQQCuqtN9qn5Gdci0GnesmgzIE48Fy8-b0jxjFB0N3eolgPSyLcN8Hyt5EZvUv-mbC2C2Uz47nbT39ZZ6Q_DLH263wIh3cRsklL/s1600-h/ladies.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimlqZsJO3kIEXCeViDwqyS7HanNGKG-pvpFe4QsWVPEiQQCuqtN9qn5Gdci0GnesmgzIE48Fy8-b0jxjFB0N3eolgPSyLcN8Hyt5EZvUv-mbC2C2Uz47nbT39ZZ6Q_DLH263wIh3cRsklL/s320/ladies.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204064928241110786" border="0" /></a> <a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidMmZBTIWYxzY_1YLs0ISKqz-gjO18405VwFwbg_MjY0o7NpQF5WZlkZAUwbZN6om0vSCfDOEHYzXPyP8YwNr1KL2MPTNCzMu8u_8ntGjV98ZWvFLV3HJtAlIT5ir_qG62KpGhOaX9GW-O/s1600-h/kraueln.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidMmZBTIWYxzY_1YLs0ISKqz-gjO18405VwFwbg_MjY0o7NpQF5WZlkZAUwbZN6om0vSCfDOEHYzXPyP8YwNr1KL2MPTNCzMu8u_8ntGjV98ZWvFLV3HJtAlIT5ir_qG62KpGhOaX9GW-O/s320/kraueln.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204064932536078114" border="0" /></a> <a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Wn7mSv9uTs6uxNYlCm6BKwcUaMRteZtb4Mk2yMTj4vLwzZLdQ5fCFIlXcqFFMGJ8C6wje_tRJVAsgEj7emU9mGowXTSQmvd5OVt8X_1bFRa8SwMXXidYK3I8TYFYz66isaTuYl1shKuu/s1600-h/koscher_city.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Wn7mSv9uTs6uxNYlCm6BKwcUaMRteZtb4Mk2yMTj4vLwzZLdQ5fCFIlXcqFFMGJ8C6wje_tRJVAsgEj7emU9mGowXTSQmvd5OVt8X_1bFRa8SwMXXidYK3I8TYFYz66isaTuYl1shKuu/s320/koscher_city.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204060779302702834" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;">Kreis 4 in Zurich is kosher city, baby. Just across from this Jewish supermarket was more nice graffiti:<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhAN7RrbAcLtVgNU3UCgNr2zZ2gPalDJ6I44beMz8-IQ5LxpEyDI8MbVB8hZRnF2CzdmjoJifRirtk2lvfOqSxVft3nuTQefIIRj0Ym0Rb-8mfEspYX_HuT0_vZ9xNRF3uxF9Wl2KSBUB1/s1600-h/ladies2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhAN7RrbAcLtVgNU3UCgNr2zZ2gPalDJ6I44beMz8-IQ5LxpEyDI8MbVB8hZRnF2CzdmjoJifRirtk2lvfOqSxVft3nuTQefIIRj0Ym0Rb-8mfEspYX_HuT0_vZ9xNRF3uxF9Wl2KSBUB1/s320/ladies2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204064932536078098" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;">The lovely lady accompanying me thought this mural was spooky - it reminded her of the little girls in "The Shining", which is admittedly one of the most crap-your-pants terrifying scenes in the history of cinema. Still, the effect for me was different. These ladies exude a self-assured serenity that I find enviable and reassuring at the same time. Then again, a very similar atmosphere may also be part of what makes the scene in "The Shining" so scary.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The Art of Security</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Anyway... more bric-a-brac on this blog's theme of "Security in Everyday Life", or "Why You Should be Very Very Afraid" follows here, no comment necessary.</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKihdC2_jr-HFViY4rNMPDlRvsUg5RuF87qi8a_5Knv1tlEy1lhLd6-ZQcU6H9TAGXWDyZl9g7642foj37Lh3sxJ9YXvk005FJcR3eM2KJS6b6fUG3sAqk1xO2yIu-JMqERAm3oNZNvMn3/s1600-h/handcuffs.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKihdC2_jr-HFViY4rNMPDlRvsUg5RuF87qi8a_5Knv1tlEy1lhLd6-ZQcU6H9TAGXWDyZl9g7642foj37Lh3sxJ9YXvk005FJcR3eM2KJS6b6fUG3sAqk1xO2yIu-JMqERAm3oNZNvMn3/s200/handcuffs.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204069893223305026" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggbv4lonavTCJLAk-XpQP2DlVx_t-nyyoJl_Yz2NFfj9IxYATfN9uPY0aUMfCkbnmZ7rjxKAO4isQu2EuJn1bYlO5meH9y1pc03w_tHXg6uBAM0baJl5sgnojT6Lrfc2fAz2Kk_ErthvaW/s1600-h/camera.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggbv4lonavTCJLAk-XpQP2DlVx_t-nyyoJl_Yz2NFfj9IxYATfN9uPY0aUMfCkbnmZ7rjxKAO4isQu2EuJn1bYlO5meH9y1pc03w_tHXg6uBAM0baJl5sgnojT6Lrfc2fAz2Kk_ErthvaW/s200/camera.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204069888928337714" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguXlzf5W-qKfpJGD2b9RC62P1_J6o7T94kTnsxbMJ_UIX2VXsVff0tPERfpsmwm94bDOVauA2K4LSjT5Po20oiEDz3mFvNHnF1Ae29k95mRxUUWOdivFj_R7xZ9YcDqrvgXClFPk3JL-ZP/s1600-h/sturmgewehr.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguXlzf5W-qKfpJGD2b9RC62P1_J6o7T94kTnsxbMJ_UIX2VXsVff0tPERfpsmwm94bDOVauA2K4LSjT5Po20oiEDz3mFvNHnF1Ae29k95mRxUUWOdivFj_R7xZ9YcDqrvgXClFPk3JL-ZP/s200/sturmgewehr.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204069893223305042" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijOjB5Kt70IsKr_VGZ4Puy2nGvznNfi4n_81Ushw38cPn7P9QfaYKmMTKqRgrfbsdzB_8gyT6sX6wkBqqoxhIXg6jW8H9jFlNRMNYKvjZgasGFQWqkS-BVtIz50R15jXHlEbD6hz4Rnaw6/s1600-h/funk.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijOjB5Kt70IsKr_VGZ4Puy2nGvznNfi4n_81Ushw38cPn7P9QfaYKmMTKqRgrfbsdzB_8gyT6sX6wkBqqoxhIXg6jW8H9jFlNRMNYKvjZgasGFQWqkS-BVtIz50R15jXHlEbD6hz4Rnaw6/s200/funk.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204069897518272354" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMSQ0kD8xE6jGvctIfa-d97ZYkjjLVJznlhaNJPKE2B6dDTcUaCVABJohgJgd6skvlCUncVXEDoctHt_XKp96nbm-Nu0EjbulSEjRIVbiGt28v6mmzujvvZxQJsQzIeAX5a4gV0_Bqjlvm/s1600-h/wenigerblocher.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMSQ0kD8xE6jGvctIfa-d97ZYkjjLVJznlhaNJPKE2B6dDTcUaCVABJohgJgd6skvlCUncVXEDoctHt_XKp96nbm-Nu0EjbulSEjRIVbiGt28v6mmzujvvZxQJsQzIeAX5a4gV0_Bqjlvm/s200/wenigerblocher.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204071155943690098" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWP3uNyGmRMyAJ8qVqQrZSmYbxyMAHnjIc6iarEGXQ3kdG2MeNo0Bz3-nS_PJpg_C7_d73FMGFJtMUh5dOQW951xmfD7uGkAuCFj8lL0Ba_VlJjAD_RfAJx5P9he4mljx4znez2GU881E1/s1600-h/perm_rev.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWP3uNyGmRMyAJ8qVqQrZSmYbxyMAHnjIc6iarEGXQ3kdG2MeNo0Bz3-nS_PJpg_C7_d73FMGFJtMUh5dOQW951xmfD7uGkAuCFj8lL0Ba_VlJjAD_RfAJx5P9he4mljx4znez2GU881E1/s200/perm_rev.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204071160238657410" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF8giqpWsr7F13aSRf-7xlpG6ogs_GkPikpwBq9YD0c05P9COymi8mPo55Qkx8lz62beVeUC5pJqeQJ3IGXyiae-DaeKAoNuDrnXTnNpgDOAk9ZhdMLbukM17NmSBMGTDKJIH9XakTVSK2/s1600-h/US_lock.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF8giqpWsr7F13aSRf-7xlpG6ogs_GkPikpwBq9YD0c05P9COymi8mPo55Qkx8lz62beVeUC5pJqeQJ3IGXyiae-DaeKAoNuDrnXTnNpgDOAk9ZhdMLbukM17NmSBMGTDKJIH9XakTVSK2/s200/US_lock.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204071164533624738" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6eRxSmrMmLSmjdmP7Vr-ccfnadWGkQrzSfrBSyEjPHpY6-KT46NnnhhEGwKH1TI0k7Kl8qxzGaRlo_4IdrGaZiMQTAqayht3eDhxTnGNuvrBOP4mRJ9DmefwtURL7ITNvMUlM7FN6ozA-/s1600-h/taliban_shura.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6eRxSmrMmLSmjdmP7Vr-ccfnadWGkQrzSfrBSyEjPHpY6-KT46NnnhhEGwKH1TI0k7Kl8qxzGaRlo_4IdrGaZiMQTAqayht3eDhxTnGNuvrBOP4mRJ9DmefwtURL7ITNvMUlM7FN6ozA-/s200/taliban_shura.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204071160238657426" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Actually, the last two are worth commenting on. The lock, on sale at the Swiss Post Office near Zurich main train station, is advertised as follows: "Lock for travel to the USA. Allows American security personnel to examine luggage without damage to lock or bag". The lock can apparently be opened with a skeleton key held by US airport security, so that they can graciously refrain from completely destroying your luggage while they rifle through it. Oh, great, that makes me feel much safer. The second picture was taken outside a meeting room of the Taliban Grand Shura in Kandahar. As you may know, many Taliban commanders are (multiple) amputees, in some cases dating back to the mujahideen struggle against the Soviets. No doubt the "international community" has now added to their number. Oh, and just in case it wasn't clear: That was a joke. The picture was actually taken in the second-hand store around the corner from our house. If you need cheap crutches, this would be the place to go.</span><br /></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">When in Rome...</span> </span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />I saw lots more interesting graffiti when we went to Rome over the Pentecost weekend. A lot of political stuff, obviously, since there had just been an election a few weeks earlier, which the utterly corrupt Silvio Berlusconi won with support from self-styled "post-Fascists" and Lega Nord separatists.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7uQOPmfDL4DoMkGmVIT8nHcG3WoxvO6ZSNfMDBZ3cwlAlcxUMPP6eNgH62XEVcUr91YdaRnbZvmeQMBfvDWgTaamQAZE2jtSGwNT2kSr2gQU34zgY7HOFYs0NCOfyFC4XALlRx7WjBT4/s1600-h/fasciporci.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7uQOPmfDL4DoMkGmVIT8nHcG3WoxvO6ZSNfMDBZ3cwlAlcxUMPP6eNgH62XEVcUr91YdaRnbZvmeQMBfvDWgTaamQAZE2jtSGwNT2kSr2gQU34zgY7HOFYs0NCOfyFC4XALlRx7WjBT4/s200/fasciporci.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204080428778082274" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieRvyRBodc83VwzK_syt0CdwxTY6hfTty5u19KDXcspCOv5ExGmuroiHM9LSSvGsHSkSFYA-_3JIbX1rrbsT-JgCoiwfiqzSR3o68itODSjwLlAJ1NEdDpxroElmNbnQjVnrt2DcCS4Xz1/s1600-h/pig_latin.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieRvyRBodc83VwzK_syt0CdwxTY6hfTty5u19KDXcspCOv5ExGmuroiHM9LSSvGsHSkSFYA-_3JIbX1rrbsT-JgCoiwfiqzSR3o68itODSjwLlAJ1NEdDpxroElmNbnQjVnrt2DcCS4Xz1/s200/pig_latin.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204080433073049586" border="0" /></a><br /></div></div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Amusingly, the transparent attempt to establish a sense of continuity between the Roman empire and Mussolini's Italy through the use of Latin (in the bottom picture) fails completely. "Semper Dux Mea Lux" would translate roughly as "The Duce is forever my light". However, "sempre" is not Latin. <span style="font-style: italic;">Proximus, sed abest banana</span> - close, but no cigar.<br /><br />The origins of the term "fascist" are nicely illustrated by this part of a frieze we saw near the tomb of the noblewoman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caecilia_Metella">Caecilia Metella Cretica</a> alongside the old <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Appia">Appian Way</a> (Via Appia Antica) south of Rome's ancient city walls: It shows the insignia of Roman state power, the <span style="font-style: italic;">fasces</span>, which were bundles of birch rods tied around an axe, symbolizing the authority to mete out corporal and capital punishment. They were carried by Roman civil servants known as <span style="font-style: italic;">lictores</span>.<br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1zvlsz4qsBRr3Aonj2r9fIn06Wag4D-TYH18YpUtSVlvqhex6TdYa4jhuIg0RLz-_z-e59LobQHGqVSZPpXxDmnJBLeJLRcbAKOGmnwIU-GIQ17QE_izYpk5WFVEkYnjZsgV_3FVYd0if/s1600-h/fasces.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 336.001px; height: 252px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1zvlsz4qsBRr3Aonj2r9fIn06Wag4D-TYH18YpUtSVlvqhex6TdYa4jhuIg0RLz-_z-e59LobQHGqVSZPpXxDmnJBLeJLRcbAKOGmnwIU-GIQ17QE_izYpk5WFVEkYnjZsgV_3FVYd0if/s320/fasces.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204084839709495330" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />It seems that old-school polical propaganda is generally held in high esteem in Italy, however; I could not tell whether these posters were Communist or (post-?) Fascist or something completely different. Which is also interesting in a way, maybe:<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvYyM-pM1a7BuwTzqJVA0xApc7k3rgZJUSQIIkPZmZXhHbMprQQvuiXAeQ4L-zTk3mtICci3MgB79_IY73bekaFqAx2vsjS7OqAHY3u9sncLmzSJLO1YQ2jH2Xq5jVhaiLdR9-daL8fG0n/s1600-h/nuova_europa.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvYyM-pM1a7BuwTzqJVA0xApc7k3rgZJUSQIIkPZmZXhHbMprQQvuiXAeQ4L-zTk3mtICci3MgB79_IY73bekaFqAx2vsjS7OqAHY3u9sncLmzSJLO1YQ2jH2Xq5jVhaiLdR9-daL8fG0n/s320/nuova_europa.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204085423825047602" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxabl9dfr2GpGDK0jxX35d_8FstY0gPv2MjvoceGBPVhsQRRVdJ9GJWZdxDU9Em1TgA-vDA8ZTYgN9sDII1H961FLLuX1mNQt0ub7fENWYLEkMDTJO2MNwHrsdtQZYph8WFzc_1P6ezDcd/s1600-h/famiglia.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxabl9dfr2GpGDK0jxX35d_8FstY0gPv2MjvoceGBPVhsQRRVdJ9GJWZdxDU9Em1TgA-vDA8ZTYgN9sDII1H961FLLuX1mNQt0ub7fENWYLEkMDTJO2MNwHrsdtQZYph8WFzc_1P6ezDcd/s320/famiglia.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204085441004916802" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Other messages included the following lovely sign at the entrance to St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican,<br /><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq9Ljb8qPnkDkUXZPLYiySb28EvICit0SzVpScdGsEzmJkOixHMJly88cCeBJNjRL9AskTg8b61Fit8RIk6eDqytgDN20TzH6MOHuwSF-be3wDRTzSse-SEGi8nMla6QWF9VfNaoJ6WF91/s1600-h/no_entry.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq9Ljb8qPnkDkUXZPLYiySb28EvICit0SzVpScdGsEzmJkOixHMJly88cCeBJNjRL9AskTg8b61Fit8RIk6eDqytgDN20TzH6MOHuwSF-be3wDRTzSse-SEGi8nMla6QWF9VfNaoJ6WF91/s320/no_entry.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204087300725755986" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">and a sign indicating the next bunker, presumably intended for blasphemers to take cover from bolts of lightning -<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgecI5AE66_cC53BVB8baBgRv5n2UzG7SqW48DSG5VeQ5whxKNxBE2PZnKoFuFZo3pNsJdhpuua0_8tOv4HijCWZb-Dph-kSPdDjDvJId89aWeSjhWn4HvK1EHKZm3CM77QQ_9yq2j_AbT/s1600-h/bunker.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgecI5AE66_cC53BVB8baBgRv5n2UzG7SqW48DSG5VeQ5whxKNxBE2PZnKoFuFZo3pNsJdhpuua0_8tOv4HijCWZb-Dph-kSPdDjDvJId89aWeSjhWn4HvK1EHKZm3CM77QQ_9yq2j_AbT/s320/bunker.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204089035892543586" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">why is it that in Catholic countries, profanities are mainly based on blasphemy, while Protestant regions of the world swear using words related to sex and bowel movements? Does anybody know what swearing in Muslim countries is based on? Of course there was also anti-US graffiti:<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrHteApKmD4eYwV0zcCkt0FupYFCKCXDHtx0D8kL-FnDR2KCkl56Ek1EXCN6m5j7kh44sVMXApDCEVKYsw1W6N3Sr0g7KuB_gUmqkD586ck3oT6DXLYetjzzbvpaHKPC94U78_KgKNlKe9/s1600-h/america_terror.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrHteApKmD4eYwV0zcCkt0FupYFCKCXDHtx0D8kL-FnDR2KCkl56Ek1EXCN6m5j7kh44sVMXApDCEVKYsw1W6N3Sr0g7KuB_gUmqkD586ck3oT6DXLYetjzzbvpaHKPC94U78_KgKNlKe9/s320/america_terror.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204089508338946162" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Why oh why do they hate us? I am reminded of this picture recently found on the web, advertising an old arcade game from the late 1960s or early 1970s; unrelated to any of the above, of course. <span style="font-style: italic;">Res ipsa loquitur</span>:<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZ-kgJwytEbp37y4CgHV_PsYpsXx6IF5DfXYEfAgy_rVr6Z14lGuijtcvJAcMcp7y1pIEQTlbNKq8Fnj4Jm0uuoUEw9QRVMlfnIhZuSUk_FStSVtJGp0cokQoTVg59IbvrwzBCI77lfVc/s1600-h/safe_for_profits.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZ-kgJwytEbp37y4CgHV_PsYpsXx6IF5DfXYEfAgy_rVr6Z14lGuijtcvJAcMcp7y1pIEQTlbNKq8Fnj4Jm0uuoUEw9QRVMlfnIhZuSUk_FStSVtJGp0cokQoTVg59IbvrwzBCI77lfVc/s320/safe_for_profits.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204090066684694658" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;">"Rifle gallery featuring Realistic Running Indians - Continuous Action! 17 Different Moving, Spinning, Vanishing Targets"! Looking at this vintage training equipment, one would think that the US should have been well prepared to make Iraq safe for profits ("Double Mirrors" - how prophetic). But I digress... getting back to the wonders of Rome, here are some assorted pictures of the fantastic art that can be found just about everywhere in the Eternal City.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiadChh8B5IttQ_f-zFbskBLPB-ErwgatDjCDxUX-v3nVN7DVrCvsxVFWtSeFlaFf4D2qKFJ9pe5UsPEn2c7zcdpCrK7jmKtrMrrLfKSF6zEEsgktIMpFnG41GUgkdCD6o21LkNvv8w20DI/s1600-h/angelofdeath.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiadChh8B5IttQ_f-zFbskBLPB-ErwgatDjCDxUX-v3nVN7DVrCvsxVFWtSeFlaFf4D2qKFJ9pe5UsPEn2c7zcdpCrK7jmKtrMrrLfKSF6zEEsgktIMpFnG41GUgkdCD6o21LkNvv8w20DI/s200/angelofdeath.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204093287910166674" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibc54be0TeO_6ew1SD_drqdAIQnzh9WMcJ_CwOG_z-cZrhlv-Vi43HiFHXG0J8IR_vo2JYc6qe3fnl6VwVqGglhMl2_sZjMhMPnJN4MIjVABR2cu-BBVvYWjrVKsxf158LBQcOpBgwbVbs/s1600-h/angelofdeath2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibc54be0TeO_6ew1SD_drqdAIQnzh9WMcJ_CwOG_z-cZrhlv-Vi43HiFHXG0J8IR_vo2JYc6qe3fnl6VwVqGglhMl2_sZjMhMPnJN4MIjVABR2cu-BBVvYWjrVKsxf158LBQcOpBgwbVbs/s200/angelofdeath2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204093292205133986" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFrmjPB2fQguyHCdLdFRjZYoapi-wl6HpoSvcY9ynVwlExsF3odPjlnt2WYH3GUfn_U5ZAgxEZUGRvGXm0Qg7ZyEkohbJKZl0qRIF5G3nZQyhcYMZ1pCJ5oLLukSlL6Zy_k68QUtmrlRS/s1600-h/angelsofdeath3.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFrmjPB2fQguyHCdLdFRjZYoapi-wl6HpoSvcY9ynVwlExsF3odPjlnt2WYH3GUfn_U5ZAgxEZUGRvGXm0Qg7ZyEkohbJKZl0qRIF5G3nZQyhcYMZ1pCJ5oLLukSlL6Zy_k68QUtmrlRS/s200/angelsofdeath3.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204093292205134002" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KhopjcoTBVE3YdwEok15F-QRf6sqCuRhmB6Lhr02w2FGTWe9DSC45EHsB7SqYjIs28WRrDt6KML1JQMeetzDBoPAIibMebzLTxfOmc-tYLoHsTLAP4FqvazolbO1-UikHforhxulMrnC/s1600-h/lionhorse.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KhopjcoTBVE3YdwEok15F-QRf6sqCuRhmB6Lhr02w2FGTWe9DSC45EHsB7SqYjIs28WRrDt6KML1JQMeetzDBoPAIibMebzLTxfOmc-tYLoHsTLAP4FqvazolbO1-UikHforhxulMrnC/s200/lionhorse.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204093296500101314" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSiYjY1WyMkYODwVgwoHO8LAF9Osc6PWhX3AsRy1CsBMcALLdwkr3S7PI0tYtdoZNmepmbUtCl_Vgr8qWQyA61h0w3ectIBidWaXyTU-5S9sSGHo2YRj4AgsEmqvjv7hDRak9kU3rMcgxg/s1600-h/perikles.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSiYjY1WyMkYODwVgwoHO8LAF9Osc6PWhX3AsRy1CsBMcALLdwkr3S7PI0tYtdoZNmepmbUtCl_Vgr8qWQyA61h0w3ectIBidWaXyTU-5S9sSGHo2YRj4AgsEmqvjv7hDRak9kU3rMcgxg/s200/perikles.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204093300795068626" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbnLxpMCDbccRLWClNc8CKoMaigzk0atHk3otln_rxS6ZpPQbNzuSKhagSXisARMHVHz29AxG-GnePgDfpbAXlhmS0pyj27exbcrqDyS3jIGfsZiv5oeYsl5gOQ5qz_SErqQ2thauXh9f_/s1600-h/pizza.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbnLxpMCDbccRLWClNc8CKoMaigzk0atHk3otln_rxS6ZpPQbNzuSKhagSXisARMHVHz29AxG-GnePgDfpbAXlhmS0pyj27exbcrqDyS3jIGfsZiv5oeYsl5gOQ5qz_SErqQ2thauXh9f_/s200/pizza.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204103797695140194" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFXLwbb7wUYW9gdo_vyQl5K43HJOYP1gVP369DlJJbN3trQ4k5IR4aKqjDgOVW5eaP8Lye1B0_hgTNygVcmyXYRSTfjcQEQFUju-Eb_u0xZwRIK02jh-5bFKFmrES2L7A4LE2PMn7Y5f8h/s1600-h/horny_moses.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFXLwbb7wUYW9gdo_vyQl5K43HJOYP1gVP369DlJJbN3trQ4k5IR4aKqjDgOVW5eaP8Lye1B0_hgTNygVcmyXYRSTfjcQEQFUju-Eb_u0xZwRIK02jh-5bFKFmrES2L7A4LE2PMn7Y5f8h/s200/horny_moses.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204094340177154274" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4BvDYEQXENiWDP5A9dG7krcSGHsDgsM3E5tIg3mLbF_e1VMuZof2hr2DjPS8ypfS7tsmFMSMcwrBbKVJgF1swzN4dbyaSzvb-8VTBfz1NC4TDDU09xEV8-9Bzf0OQrm5DgQ2AQUFMcRh/s1600-h/horny_moses2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4BvDYEQXENiWDP5A9dG7krcSGHsDgsM3E5tIg3mLbF_e1VMuZof2hr2DjPS8ypfS7tsmFMSMcwrBbKVJgF1swzN4dbyaSzvb-8VTBfz1NC4TDDU09xEV8-9Bzf0OQrm5DgQ2AQUFMcRh/s200/horny_moses2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204094344472121586" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The last two of these pictures are quite interesting as the sculptures of Moses depict him <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses#Horned_Moses">with horns</a>, due to Jerome's mistranslation of Exodus 34: 29-35 in the Vulgate version. The Hebrew root letters <span style="font-style: italic;">kof</span>,<span style="font-style: italic;"> resh</span>,<span style="font-style: italic;"> and nun</span> can be vocalized in different ways to spell the Hebrew words for "ray of light" or for "horn".<br /><br />I had been to the Vatican several times before, but there is always more left to discover. For example, who knew that there is a sculpture of Attila the Hun in St Peter's?<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK35tJ2v5rU6Cw0kzLTF6peiIdofzr6uOAZEcaUWgOqnS_8kHY2zuQX5Cvl1NtHbPtkIni2e0qstiC_RP5aC9amQKqXvf6z7iC-QLyTZtewRAgtra86ybrVpEHw55KdvFLGWXgDwRqmf1B/s1600-h/attila.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK35tJ2v5rU6Cw0kzLTF6peiIdofzr6uOAZEcaUWgOqnS_8kHY2zuQX5Cvl1NtHbPtkIni2e0qstiC_RP5aC9amQKqXvf6z7iC-QLyTZtewRAgtra86ybrVpEHw55KdvFLGWXgDwRqmf1B/s320/attila.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204097557107659010" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This frieze shows Attila being told, in no uncertain terms, to get lost by a pope whose name I failed to note, and by the Apostles Paul and Peter, who are swooping down from on high, as they were apparently wont to do - Peter of course always having been handy with the sword (John 18: 10-11), and to judge by this statue of St Paul outside <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Saint_Paul_Outside_the_Walls">San Paolo Fuori le Mura</a>, he was no slouch either when the chips were down:<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtB4l4NXHEAFCOLNbb4VUcWpJTw8HlbewuuPn3eMO0souwBesdQU5qCXkSpKqL5QaWk4GxV-Yx-BPPJ5xtklYHQPVTshXnK8Pxbn6osjNg_H0aiOsJAibouA9Nbo_rR55G0KOnJiMZXlQt/s1600-h/paul_fuori.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtB4l4NXHEAFCOLNbb4VUcWpJTw8HlbewuuPn3eMO0souwBesdQU5qCXkSpKqL5QaWk4GxV-Yx-BPPJ5xtklYHQPVTshXnK8Pxbn6osjNg_H0aiOsJAibouA9Nbo_rR55G0KOnJiMZXlQt/s320/paul_fuori.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204099717476208914" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The inscription reads "To the Preacher of Truth and the Teacher of the Gentiles". Certainly he seems to have taught Attila a thing or two, as the Huns took his message to heart and never came back ("Verily, I say unto you, speak softly and carry a huge sword; and now, scram!"; <span style="font-style: italic;">Paul's Epistle to the Huns</span>, 12:23-24). Of course, Caesar - a certified nutcase and degenerate sex maniac (Suetonius tells us he was "every woman's man and every man's woman") -<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-janxemuRGbVI1SyzBEftQt0DmflU7gbezByhigI_3SnXruyxR2RzEWLytswQtcNFzjkdY5aplpyLvkogh8ws7FPmDOY4in1W47P5woz9metOwD4d-oZ8S10yET7idffIvvl3vPU1ylRX/s1600-h/caesar.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-janxemuRGbVI1SyzBEftQt0DmflU7gbezByhigI_3SnXruyxR2RzEWLytswQtcNFzjkdY5aplpyLvkogh8ws7FPmDOY4in1W47P5woz9metOwD4d-oZ8S10yET7idffIvvl3vPU1ylRX/s320/caesar.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204100967311692066" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">had a few things to say on that matter too in his account of his dealings with the Helvetii tribe in <span style="font-style: italic;">De Bello Gallico</span>. They were made up of four sub-tribes, who spoke Latin, Gaulish, Germanic, and an unintellegible dialect that nobody else understood, which didn't matter afterwards, because Caesar slaughtered every last one of them. No relation to my present-day neighbors the Swiss, who are very nice people, and adherents of the words of the Apostle Paul to the Huns - every Swiss male has a sword, pike, or halberd stored at home, yet they enjoy a fully deserved reputation as peaceful folk.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQtb2kv20L-LFbD7UiYNzqdzxoy3KqniAejc8QkXteReY1Q1cnfr83q-B_OQ0rL8vgpbbiFcF1GIEULucSds886oDzTZ2bqPqDji3s95dIT51ieP9fhL-_aofurkgRQjZVuWIXy21M5Ihz/s1600-h/schweizergarde2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQtb2kv20L-LFbD7UiYNzqdzxoy3KqniAejc8QkXteReY1Q1cnfr83q-B_OQ0rL8vgpbbiFcF1GIEULucSds886oDzTZ2bqPqDji3s95dIT51ieP9fhL-_aofurkgRQjZVuWIXy21M5Ihz/s320/schweizergarde2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204103033190961458" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimvDll_36xrvEb5mlWokq6_yx-DE-1HtNrc4FqJ2wRTZnOZkGofi43lljDUIW11udOCVO15JkkT6EO-GVVy_tJ2m0uwe0TjYBkTFzaCvmwN1quLDDczGFDgCQ1fH7PHgZLVvO-OlvVTum5/s1600-h/pace_helvetia.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimvDll_36xrvEb5mlWokq6_yx-DE-1HtNrc4FqJ2wRTZnOZkGofi43lljDUIW11udOCVO15JkkT6EO-GVVy_tJ2m0uwe0TjYBkTFzaCvmwN1quLDDczGFDgCQ1fH7PHgZLVvO-OlvVTum5/s320/pace_helvetia.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204103196399718722" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Which kind of brings me full circle; much as we enjoyed Rome, there were certain moments when, like <span style="font-style: italic;">Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz</span>, I had a sudden feeling of "Toto, I don't think we're in Switzerland any more":<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeUy5Tzym1YlM_tfKcq0pFqN6-DGWZrKRg_zNyt5jSpUKCDIZ-jIVV0lR9K_q8WF2CERTvqbH1s6Ivwvp8EA-mHAQamGirU4T8y6Z0MFjoHSjJcQ1sf2V-vR2U9NuMa9bzjHEPPQ-mu5EL/s1600-h/phonebooth.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeUy5Tzym1YlM_tfKcq0pFqN6-DGWZrKRg_zNyt5jSpUKCDIZ-jIVV0lR9K_q8WF2CERTvqbH1s6Ivwvp8EA-mHAQamGirU4T8y6Z0MFjoHSjJcQ1sf2V-vR2U9NuMa9bzjHEPPQ-mu5EL/s320/phonebooth.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204104669573501298" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It's nice to be back in Zurich, a town that is always beautiful, but at its best in summertime. I am looking forward to BBQ on the balcony, nighttime bars on the lake, and of course I will <a href="http://securityhippo.blogspot.com/2008/01/manboobs-for-filipino-monkey.html">continue to promote</a> the cause of <a href="http://barabrost.blogg.se/">Bara Bröst</a>; in conclusion, I offer the following evidence that theirs is an ancient and time-honored prerogative (statue of Diana of Ephesus, originally from the mind-blowing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_d%27Este">Villa d'Este</a> in Tivoli, now in the Vatican Museum).<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNnT-vV-I5bP1aY6pn9_Q-VIJwA7rBpMfGQ7ANefuVwXfyNS_v0Wzpa9tcOkoRhQ-t3RloBUHf_ySMpT6j2NT3suqxYX2esMgkAJrNHQmp8V2YsPzOS08xwmFKfrLrt5rgmOyz3LoPRFlF/s1600-h/bara_broest.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNnT-vV-I5bP1aY6pn9_Q-VIJwA7rBpMfGQ7ANefuVwXfyNS_v0Wzpa9tcOkoRhQ-t3RloBUHf_ySMpT6j2NT3suqxYX2esMgkAJrNHQmp8V2YsPzOS08xwmFKfrLrt5rgmOyz3LoPRFlF/s320/bara_broest.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204106340315779458" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">That's it for now; watch this space, and feel free to leave your comments - the Hippo wants to hear from you.</span><br /></div></div></div></span></div>Dead Hippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03563727337887812372noreply@blogger.com2