Posted by racingsnake
@ 02:27 PM GMT+00:00
06 Sep · Tue 2005
Where's Dick?
Ouch. Andy Borowitz has done it again. Today's Borowitz Report (Sept. 6th) takes a bludgeon to Bush's record, but reserves a classic stiletto for VP Dick Cheney in the closing paragraph. I won't quote it here, because it's only fair that Andy should get the web hits... so do follow the link.
05 Sep · Mon 2005
Questionable ethics
Somewhere in Breckenridge, CO, there's a church minister who recently hosted a group on English schoolchildren on a choir trip. It's pretty unlikely that he will read this, but I figure it's worth blogging about it on the off-chance.
This weekend I spoke to one of the children who went on that trip - so I've now heard about this from three different sources (nevertheless this is still, ultimately, based on hearsay). In the minister's sermon were some remarks which so angered the teachers in the visiting party that one of them walked out of the church rather than listen to any more.
Specifically, he remarked that the 'purpose' of the Boxing Day tsunami in Aceh was to 'clear some space' for Christian missionaries to go out there and convert the heathen.
I wonder if he feels the same way about Hurricane Katrina.
03 Sep · Sat 2005
Photos from the Meuse
I've recently been in the Meuse region of Belgium, south of Brussels.
Having not been there before, I wasn't sure what to expect, but the combination of good weather, great scenery and excellent beer was a sure winner. Here are a couple of photos.
First, a house on the outskirts of Dinant. I know it looks a bit Addams-ish, but I really liked the way it sits against the green woods behind.
And this is the entrance to the convent of Maredret.
Inside, the abbey had a layout which I haven't seen before. I've done my best to both use and clarify the right architectural terms here (there were several which I needed to look up myself). There was a normal nave (the main bit, where the congregation sits), running from the narthex (entrance) to the sanctuary rail. You then have the 'crossing': the point where the nave is intersected by the transepts (the two 'arms' of the classic cruciform church shape). Ahead is where you would expect to find the altar, in the apse (the 'head' of the cross shape), and to the right is the south transept. All those were pretty normal, but the north transept was unusual; about as long as the nave, it was lined with beautiful wooden stalls for the nuns, and in the centre of the northernmost end, a 'throne' presumably for the abbess.
First, a house on the outskirts of Dinant. I know it looks a bit Addams-ish, but I really liked the way it sits against the green woods behind.
And this is the entrance to the convent of Maredret.
Inside, the abbey had a layout which I haven't seen before. I've done my best to both use and clarify the right architectural terms here (there were several which I needed to look up myself). There was a normal nave (the main bit, where the congregation sits), running from the narthex (entrance) to the sanctuary rail. You then have the 'crossing': the point where the nave is intersected by the transepts (the two 'arms' of the classic cruciform church shape). Ahead is where you would expect to find the altar, in the apse (the 'head' of the cross shape), and to the right is the south transept. All those were pretty normal, but the north transept was unusual; about as long as the nave, it was lined with beautiful wooden stalls for the nuns, and in the centre of the northernmost end, a 'throne' presumably for the abbess.
Posted by racingsnake
@ 03:39 PM GMT+00:00
01 Sep · Thu 2005
What is personal information?
There's some discussion going around at the moment (some of it in the context of appropriate legislation against Identity Theft) about what constitues "personal information".
I know UK and EU legislation codifies the kinds of data which count as "personally identifiable information", but it's also interesting to read David Matheson's blog entry here on the topic of "personal information" in the slightly broader sense. Warning: if the word 'epistemology' makes you feel dizzy, you might want to give it a miss.
Posted by racingsnake
@ 12:56 PM GMT+00:00
"Cleaning up" after Katrina?
As the grim consequences of Hurricane Katrina continue to unfold, some estimates of the cost to repair the damage done could exceed $25bn; more than the $21bn needed after Hurricane Andrew. Ken Rijock notes that that kind of cash flow is an extremely attractive vehicle for opportunistic money-launderers, looking to shift dirty money back into the mainstream financial cycle under circumstances where anti-money-laundering (AML) monitoring may be less focussed than usual.
He and others, including the very lucid Jeffrey Robinson, point out the crucial difference between law-enforcers and criminals. The former are constrained by borders, laws, budgets, ethics and the like. The latter are constrained only by the limits of their imagination.
Posted by racingsnake
@ 12:27 PM GMT+00:00
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