The world owes a debt to the United States for its leadership in the fight against international terrorism, Gordon Brown has said.Arrrrrrrrrrrgh!
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has confirmed that the United States is planning a significant increase in military and defence aid to Israel...the package is seen as an attempt to allay Israeli concerns over the planned arms deal with Saudi Arabia, reportedly worth $20bn (£9.8bn) over the next decade. Defence officials quoted by US media said the sales would include advanced weaponry, missile guidance systems, upgraded fighter jets and naval ships. Mr Olmert said the increased support was a sign of US commitment to maintain Israel's military "advantage over the Arab states". "We understand the need of the US to assist the moderate Arab states which are in one front with the US and us in the fight against Iran, and on the other hand we appreciate the renewed and re-emphasised support for Israel's military and security advantage," he said.
It's not unreasonable to expect people to save for forseeable events: that you will live to the average age of the previous age cohort...Living to 103 is clearly unforseeable, a suitable case for that social insurance. However, these days, living to 70 or 75 is not unforseeable: in fact, it's highly likely, more likely than not in fact. So those in those age groups are not suitable candidates fo the system of social insurance.Worstall speaks from his comfortable position as a metal dealer working three hours a week in the Algarve. Good luck to him. I speak from my comfortable position of working zero hours a week from a slightly colder part of the world. But for many people out there work means long hours on piss-poor wages (the sort of workers who look after 103 year-old Esme, for instance) and the idea that they are in a position during their working lives to save for their old age and should only receive welfare support after reaching 70 or 75 is, frankly, unrealistic.
The BBC has admitted that a scene in its hit show Top Gear apparently showing an accidental caravan fire had been faked. The episode showed presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May taking the caravan on a trip to Dorset, with the blaze erupting after Clarkson began cooking some chips at a campsite. Viewers saw a fire engine race into the site, with sirens wailing, as if the crew faced a real emergency - but the fire service involved have confirmed that the entire scene was set up.
Inspired by Dave Winer I think I'm going to try the no comments route for a while. I've always felt you can't call yourself a blog without having comments, but I've found that the level of comments has gone down over the last couple of months. It's to the point at which all I do is delete vile comments that are, well, dumb...It feels like the comments are a place for the same five wacky folks to use sockpuppets to debate themselves and spew bile while linking back to their adsense honeypot...I wish someone would make a new platform to end all platforms. One that could be invite only comments and one that helped me express myself better. Feels like the blog format is lost and adrift.Calacanis is a big cheese in the blogworld - founder and CEO of Weblogs.inc, GM of Netscape and now a web entrepreneur at Sequoia Capital. Dave Winer is no small potatoes either and his take on comments (he doesn't allow them) is explained by Joel Spolsky:
"...to the extent that comments interfere with the natural expression of the unedited voice of an individual, comments may act to make something not a blog.... The cool thing about blogs is that while they may be quiet, and it may be hard to find what you're looking for, at least you can say what you think without being shouted down. This makes it possible for unpopular ideas to be expressed. And if you know history, the most important ideas often are the unpopular ones.... That's what's important about blogs, not that people can comment on your ideas. As long as they can start their own blog, there will be no shortage of places to comment." - Dave Winer
The important thing to notice here is that Dave does not see blog comments as productive to the free exchange of ideas. They are a part of the problem, not the solution. You don't have a right to post your thoughts at the bottom of someone else's thoughts. That's not freedom of expression, that's an infringement on their freedom of expression. Get your own space, write compelling things, and if your ideas are smart, they'll be linked to, and Google will notice, and you'll move up in PageRank, and you'll have influence and your ideas will have power.
When a blog allows comments right below the writer's post, what you get is a bunch of interesting ideas, carefully constructed, followed by a long spew of noise, filth, and anonymous rubbish that nobody ... nobody ... would say out loud if they had to take ownership of their words.
People caught fighting over water supplies or damaging bowsers in flood-hit Gloucestershire will be jailed, police have warned. Normally criminal damage or threatening behaviour would be dealt with by community-based sentences. But Chief Constable Tim Brain has said offenders will be treated the same as those guilty of road rage assaults.Or maybe not!
And what do vegetables sound like? Like any orchestra, the instruments of the Vegetable Orchestra produce different categories of sound based on their shape and the method of playing them. There are percussion instruments: celeriac bongos, a clapper made from an eggplant, pumpkins to be pounded upon, and dry beans that are shaken to provide rhythmic effects. There are strings (a leek violin), woodwinds (a carrot recorder), and versions of brass instruments (a trumpet made from a red pepper). Of course, the orchestra is also continually coming up with new instrumental creations, determined by their need for a specific sound or a new discovery at the market.
Muslims appear growingly (sic) aware that the terroristic ways of Osama bin Laden offer a less successful path to realizing the Islamist goals of imposing the Shari'a and creating a caliphate do (sic) than the political, lawful ways of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's newly-triumphantly reelected prime minister. Whereas terrorism stimulates its own antibodies and offers no plausible path to power, working through the system is proving successful in such diverse places as Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Iraq, and Bangladesh, as well as in the West. Therefore, this survey has more subtle and ambiguous implications than first appear.At last, its clear that the 'war on terror' will continue even when the terror ceases because, of course, it's actually a war on Muslims as Daniel Sewerpipes so clearly explains in this piece.
I have mentioned here before that the Chinese way, of taking out convicted drug dealers and shooting them, has something to commend it. Sadly, that won't happen: instead we shall have drugs gangs going around shooting each other, as happens now in our cities all the time.This is the most ill-informed, badly argued and stupid article I have read for a long time. There was a time in China when people like Simon Heffer were taken out and shot. Sadly that won't happen.
When a dental assistant needed a couple of dental implants, her boss, Dr. Woo, offered to do the work. While she was under anesthesia, though, he first temporarily installed a couple of fake boar tusks and took some snapshots of his handiwork, including a few with her eyes propped open. Then he swapped in the real implants and woke her up none the wiser. She only found out later, when a coworker gave her prints of the photos for her birthday.
Naturally she was mortified, and naturally she sued. The insurance company refused to defend him, so Dr. Woo settled out of court, paying $250,000, and then sued the company. On what grounds? Well, the doctor reportedly argued, what he did with the tusks was an integral, if unorthodox, part of a legitimate dental procedure, and the jokiness was just part of his policy of maintaining a friendly work environment. He won. He got $1,000,000 (including the $250,000 he paid the assistant).
