Tony Blair’s “Number 10″ web-site has opened an online petition engine. I wonder if our luddite Prime Minister has even been told about this? Anyway, here are the petitions that I’ve e-signed…
Scrap the proposed introduction of ID cards. Of course!
Anyway, when I first heard someone mention MySpace I checked it out and wondered if maybe I was re-directed to a defunct Tripod page.
And then the music started playing… oh sweet zombie jesus.
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| Worth paying? | Worth paying? |
Seen on Metafilter…
Okay, maybe this is the place I can find someone to explain to me the third verse of the Star Spangled Banner.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:10 PM PST on April 28
I’ve just finished listening to Cliff Richard arguing for an extension to the term of performance copyrights. Could he be any more selfish?
It’s one of those laws where ordinary people are not permitted to bring private private prosecutions. The argument is that it stops people from “abusing” the law. This novel use of the word “abusing” actually means “practically demonstrating the fuckwittitude of”.
A cigarette, between knobbly old fingers. A tiny thread of red promise slowly curls in its tip.
“Ash?”
The young man stands beside the cafe table. He smells of the rain outside. The old man arches an eyebrow. It grotesquely contorts his lean, wizened face.
“Is your name Ash?” the young man repeats.
The old man draws on his cigarette. Its promise bursts into crimson life, illuminates his mahogany smile. He gestures a welcome. Opposite him, the young man sits…
London Kuro5hin meetup pictures now in… we were there
Justin Cartwright’s commentary in The Guardian is anti-religious flame bait, but it does make an interesting observation. Liberal democracy is principally concerned with the process rather than the outcome.
Most religions are good, positive belief systems. The Christian gospels are a powerful plea for tolerance and humility. However, the fundamentally good core fails to prescribe a process that would allow a moral society to function.
Socially, all religions are authoritarian. Sadly you can’t make people act morally by simply telling them to do so. In the real world even good people have conflicting interests, and an authoritarian “only one true answer” system can never resolve those conflicts successfully.
Liberal democracy may not be a very good system for resolving conflict, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.
