What on earth were the Bedfordshire police thinking when they detained and interrogated an award winning group of actors? They had just returned from an award ceremony in where their film “The Road to Guantanamo” had won a “Silver Bear” award at the Berlin Film Festival.
Ironically, the film is about young British citizens who were wrongfully arrested and then sent to the American military detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The actors were permitted to go home after some hours of questioning, however the whole incident gives the impression of a clueless and racist counter-terror operation.
Most countries like to honor their award winning citizens. A popular film can bring revenue to the box-office and sustain the British film industry. I’m saddened that Bedfordshire police cannot see the value in popular films that explore controvercial topics. I think that these hard-working actors deserve a public apology from the police!
Would any legal types care to speculate on the the enforcability of street signage that requires a knowledge of local fixtures in order to comply? The assumption is that all men and women who drive cars must take an avid interest in football.
I found this sign not far from Finsbury park, but at least a ten minute walk away from the various venues that Arseal football club have used or are likely to use in the near future. Could a vehicle owner who received a ticket on a Sunday claim ignorance of soccer schedules?
Might parking permissions be tied to other events in future? Perhaps astrological or certain martyr’s feasts days will also be subject to additional parking permissions.
Published on
February 17, 2006 in
Art.
John Kirkfalusi, the famous animator responsible for “The Ren and Stimpy Show” has just started a blog. His posts feature a great deal of his unique art, plus commentary on cartooning and the state of the animation business. I’ve been a fan of John’s work since I was a small child, so I gaze in awe at his doodles. Do yourself a favour and allow your eyes to feast upon his work.
Published on
February 15, 2006 in
Politics.
This exciting Flash game reveals just how hard shooting caged quails on a private game-shooting reserve must be. I’ve never shot a live animal, but once I began to play this game, the adrenelin rush was nothing short of incredible. How could anybody object to this truly noble sport?
The concept of the game is simple as it is beautiful; wait until the bird is released, take aim and then blast your prey out of the sky.
Completing this game will require the dexterity and moral courage of America’s Vice-President… please do nnot blame me if you fail tomeasure up to his standards of strength and moral courage.
Published on
February 15, 2006 in
Podcasts.
I’ve been listening to Chris Cronin’s podcast called “American Dissent Radio”, a truly liberal minded dissection of American politics and current affairs.
His show reminds me of Alistair Cooke, particularly because he takes great pleasure in putting today’s political scandals in the context of recent history that is all too full of scandalous behavior. Instead of writing a “Letter from America”, Chris gives us a “Letter to the President”, a weekly feature in which he offers the president the advice he wishes the presidents real advisers were advocating.
This show has been podcasting since early summer, so if you fancy a blast of American politics, go subscribe and I strongly recommend listening to his early episodes.
Update: Episode 2 has been changed; It is now a higher bitrate version.
I just snarfed my copy of Daniel Kitson’s new series on Resonance FM courtesy of the Bittorrent p2p network. For those who dont know, Kitson is a Perrier award winning stand-up genius. He does a show on London’s Resonance 104.4 FM every Friday night.
Resonance FM have given Daniel completely free reign to do whatever he wants: The result is a blend of his own personal favourite choons, plus his own improvised comedy. I’ve managed to track down the first four episodes:
Last night, while most crazy young people are out getting sorted for E’s and whizz, I decided to stay in and migrate the Exciting Hellebore Shew and Epistaxis Archives over to Wordpress. To my dismay it appears that the standard Wordpress RSS importer cannot handle enclosures, so there is no way to import a podcast series.
Rather than cut & paste seventy episodes of Epistaxis Time, I hacked up a new RSS2 importer based on the existing design, but using Magpie RSS to parse the RSS feeds. As a result we have a new parser that is more able to cope with the nuances of RSS2. You can download my code as a SVN diff here: http://svn.stodge.org/wordpress_rss2_import/magpie_rss2_import.diff
In order to make this work you will need a recentish version of Magpie RSS in a folder called ‘magpierss’ somewhere in your PHP search path. Just apply the diff at the root folder of your Wordpress installation. This works best if you got Wordpress via subversion… it’s much easier than downloading and unpacking tgz or zip files.
Published on
February 5, 2006 in
Politics.
Have bloggers gone too far? Have we become arrogant bunch of offensive wankers, keen to assault other people’s profoundly felt beliefs for a quick giggle or a snide jibe. I’ve said that most bloggers (including this blogger) are vanity publishers and should really be out doing something better than writing these sad lonely comments that nobody in their right mind will read…
Which brings me on to today’s subject… those depictions of the Islamic prophet Mohamed as a bomber, and that cartoon which has inspired so much violence and embassy burning:
It’s worth noting that nobody actually knows what the historical figure of Mohamed looked like. No illustrations of him survive, as he eschewed depiction. The cartoon resembles the historical figure in so much as any bearded, beturbaned man with a bomb in his headgear resembles any historical figure whose visage no living person can possibly recall.
The sensible response upon seeing this somewhat crude and provocative cartoon is to agree with the the message below the image – specifically that this is not Mohamed.
In this 16th Century illustration, Mohamed is shown riding one of those human-headed horsey things. His face is veiled.
Ironically, the mob who are busy tearing down embassies in various Arab countries right now are doing their best to confirm precisely the prejudices that gave inspiration to this cartoon in the first place. The small proportion of those mobs who have seen those drawings and felt offended, probably did so because it was intended to highlight a very real tendency in modern Islamic belief.
It’s also yet another example of failing to heed the Barbra Streisand Effect. I can forgive radical islamofascists for not knowing the anecdote about an American Jewish singer who sued a photographic company in an effort to have photos of her beach mansion removed from a public archive. Not only did she fail to have the photos removed, but she also drew attention to what would otherwise have been an annonymous photo of a big house.
By making such a fuss of an image a certain group found offensive, they have caused that image to be replicated a million times. And that is exactly why I have posted the image today in my blog. It is likely that enraged Islamicists will now seek to burn down my flat… I fear them not. In fact I am prepared to show them exactly where I live:
Published on
February 5, 2006 in
Politics.
The Bad Astronomy Blog has an interesting story about presidential interference in NASA’s scientific operations. It seems that the president is happy to be pro-science as long as none of the findings conflict with his supporter’s beliefes or short-term financial goals.
Tom Hume has been reading “The Adventures of Dr. McNinja“, and exciting cartoon series…
Dr McNinja… he’s a medical doctor but he is also a Ninja. He wants to save life but his Ninja family want him to join the family business… assasination. Dr McNinja faces extrordinary dangers in his medical career - like giant lumberjacks and his own dissapointed family. And if that wasnt enough to deal with, he’s got to resolve the aincient blood feud between the Ninjas and the Pirates.