Dude with Bush T-shirt stopped from boarding

What is the world coming to these days? What happened to the libertarians of old, those who cry out and risk their lives to safeguard the freedoms of others?
We are in great need of young, energetic people who fight for freedom of expression in an age that is becoming evermore controlling. An age where a guy wearing an item of clothing to express his views on the current occupant of the Oval Office is restricted from boarding an airplane.
It gets better folks - the airline stated the reason for this restriction as a measure against offending other passengers on the plane. Is their anyone in this planet, apart from his mother, who would feel offended by a mockery of Dubya? If their is, well, what on earth do they feel on those rare incidents in which he choses to make a fool of himself?

Deja vu - I've already seen it!

Okay, perhaps the pun was a tad, say, crappy. I'm trying, alright? Anyways, the flic: not bad.
I've got to admit that I wanted to see it ever since I watched the rather dramatic and somewhat audacious trailer - I mean, having the opening sequence repeat itself? Pure genius!
Wandering back to point, I found Deja Vu to be deliciously full of suspense and action.
The plot of the movie centres around a terrorist attack in New Orleans. Denzel Washington as Agent Doug Carlin from the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives?) becomes involved in the police investigation and joins a rather special team who attempt to catch and (trying to induce suspense here!) stop the twisted psychopath who carries out attack.
And here we come to the dodgy bits. The plot is perhaps overly complicated, not really aided by the rather bizarre science. Yes, I do get the gist of Einstein's general theory of relativity (not really mentioned by the brainiacs in front of the screen) but sometimes the movie tilts towards the utterly weird. One notable scene comes to mind, where Washington drives down the bridge looking at nearby traffic with one eye, and traffic from 4 days, 6 hours ago in the other.
On the whole, a brilliant piece of screenplay, very exciting, very fast and reaches out to the humanity of the audience at times with a setting that is relevant to today's world.
(PS - apologies for the (lack of) accents you frogs!)

The real Ocean's Eleven

These guys were amazing - they tried to rob a casino buy using tiny cameras, microphones and a computer in a van parked outside the building.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/6263795.stm

A platter of desert shrimp?

Check out this interesting delicacy in West Africa.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/07/africa_desert_shrimps/html/1.stm

IT IS HERE!

The Apple iPhone - $500-$800 - is here at last. Can they still call it an iPhone though?




(I found these pics on Wired at http://blog.wired.com/wiredphotos16/2007/01/the_iphones_int.html
who got them courtesy Apple)

How much Google really hates Microsoft

Enhance XP if you don't want Vista

I just spent a few minutes checking out a few bookmarked sites I hadn't seen in a while, and went on to Metacafe, and found an interesting video. If you think Vista is currently overpriced and/or can't be bothered to rush for an update, you might as well as update your XP system to compete with the new ones.
Check out this link for help:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

And here's the video (the link above goes here btw):

Four Desktops In One! - video powered by Metacafe

Those who chose to forget history are doomed to repeat it

I don't think that Bush is like Nixon, even if he wiretaps citizens and has (or rather, HAD) a carbon copy of Dick's administration, but hey, what the hell?

Political campaigning 40 years ago

Have things changed? And if so, for better or for worse?

New Year

Well, it's that time of year again. 2006 - come and gone, and right now, I have 10 minutes left. Instead of looking back or predicting events, I'd just like to make a few personal comments.
I've had a tumultuous year - ups and downs, and so on. The latter half has brought me so much more than the first. To be honest, I ain't a confident person at heart. I don't think I was born with that self-assured zest. I get depressed most of the time, if I care to listen to that voice, or rather, feel that ocean of misery that wells deep in the corridors of my mind. Yet I have managed to beat it, I have listened to reason, and I am lucky to have good family and friends to help. I have a challenge coming up now, and that voice just tells me that I can't do it, that I won't be able to. But what I say is f*** that. I can take this on. I am sure that I do have the maturity to go for the big one. And that's my resolution for this year: to see that I keep trying, and to make sure that no matter what situation I got myself in, I won't be blue.
This is me back after a full 40 minutes of fireworks in the neighbourhood - none of them mine - and I'd just like to say, coming after a period of so many wrongs, I want you all to have a year that is fantabulously successful and full of all the fun you could possibly get.

Death of a tyrant

Well, it finally happened. Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti has been hanged on the charge of crimes against humanity.
A despot who ruled for decades, his death will probably the last noteworthy of 2006, coming on the morning of Saturday, 30 December. The last few hours were confusing for the world, his location seeming to alternate between Iraqi and American custody.
By law, his death had to come within 30 days of an unsuccessful appeal. However, it seems to me to be a bit rushed - perhaps a desperate US attempt to salvage a result by the end of this year.
Whether or not his death will change Iraq is yet to be seen, but it probably won't: the conflict now is about far more than him. Whether or not his execution was justified is also up to debate - but whatever the argument, he still had to be punished for what he did.

Pictures

Paris

Oui, je suis en Paris en ce moment and it isn't as great as I thought it would be. Yes you get to see the wondeful Champs Elysées with the Arc de Triomphe at the end and the landmark Tour d'Eiffel shimmering in golden ecstacy in the frosty night. But, mon dieu, the traffic is astounding - Manhattan is far better, trust me! It's pretty dangerous too, especially in the little free-for-all at the Arc de Triomphe, where you can never be certain when someone's gonna cut across you. And the people - well, I can say I've met nicer folks. They're not too bad actually. I guess their lives are pretty hectic - you can see that in the métro. I've taken loads of pics already, will post some when I get back.

Hope

It doesn't matter if you fail trying to do something, it doesn't matter if you struggle doing it. But TRY. When one gives up, we let our spirit, mind and body rot, and then we are truly losing.
What the f. I'm neck deep in shit and I don't know what the hell I'm saying. Nice to dish out soundbites like this without paying head to them. Jeez, I'm just pissed at everyone, and what I would like most is to just scream everything out.

TIME's Person of the Year: You!

Congratulations! You've won an award that places you in the same league as JFK, Bill Gates, Bono and Hitler. Yes, you! Well done y'all - you've finally made it big time.
I can just imagine it now - Americans in shorts traversing Europe in shorts and a t-shirt that says: "Time Person of the Year 2006". Seems a bit cheesy - then again, I guess having the Fuhrer on the front cover might have been as well. At least it wasn't as distasteful, desperate and demeaning as the 2004 winner: George W Bush.

The Polonium Affair

What a great can of worms we've got on our hands. An ex-KGB man dies in London, the Russian government is implicated and it seems the Italian PM was investigated for links with Soviet Intelligence by an associate of the dead man. And all around this, polonium 210, an obscure yet dangerous isotope of an element discovered by the Curies.
The stuff emits alpha radiation (i.e. a helium-4 nucleus) - not too dangerous outside the body, as it has only a range of a few cm and is almost completely blocked by a sheet of paper. If it's taken in though, it's a different matter: alpha radiation, with a charge of +2, ionises (removes electrons from atoms) strongly, altering body chemistry. According to that bastion of knowledge, Wikipedia, half a gram of polonium -210 can release enough energy in its decay to raise its temperature over 750 K ( subtract 273 for T in degrees C). 1g of it can produce 140W of power.
Even better - well, not if its inside you - Po-210 has a half-life of around 138 days. I guess that means that if you inhale 2g of it, you'll end up with 1g of it still in you after more than 3 months. And half a gram, you'll remember, is pretty powerful.
In any case, despite being a truly horrific case of brutality and inhumanity, it seems to be a classic thriller played out in real life; science and politics mixed up in just the right amounts. I guess we're gripped by it for the same reason that we watch CSI.

Borat

I saw the movie recently and boy - I was in stitches some of the time. But at the same time, like other people who've seen it, I also felt a bit uneasy at times: perhaps that was the point? Like, when at the rodeo, Borat was told that he looked a bit like a terrorist, and that he'd better get a shave or he'd be viewed suspiciously. At the same time, some stuff was pretty disgusting - like at the hotel, or at the dinner party. Though I laughed my head off at the way New Yorkers reacted to Borat's greetings, I kinda feel this is a movie I'd only watch again in about 10 years time. Partly because of the blunt, raw scenes, but also because much of the stuff raised is too true to laugh at.

An Inconvenient Truth

I haven't seen it yet - but it looks interesting (rather odd considering who's narrating it). Any one mind telling me anything about it?

Democrats win, Rumsfeld resigns

What a great day it is for the US and the world! The Democrats have the House, and the senate will end up in a 50-50 split, meaning Republican control due to VP's vote. All in all this seams pretty fair and democratic, the only fears being on how any actual "governing" can take place with so many "checks and balances".
I hope that this marks a turnaround in foreign policy for the US - although it's still pretty unlikely with 2 more years of Bush in the White House. A tight government might mean a more accountable government, if at least, a less effective one.
And great news - truthiness is on its way out, with Rumsfeld being "stepped down". The oldest and the youngest defense secretary (not at the same time) must be one of the most arrogant and despised figures in a generation.

The Colbert Report

This guy is absolutely hilarious. Worse still, everything he says is true. I love the Report (with a soft "t") and wish I lived in the US so that I could see it every week day.