taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Politics: So I was listening to that this morning. Did I hear correctly? Did Bush really say that one of the good side-effects of Iraq’s invasion, was that there were now hopefully less attacks inside other countries? sure looks like it:

‘Coalition forces now serving in Iraq are confronting the terrorists and foreign fighters so peaceful nations around the world will never have to face them within our own borders.’

I’m sure the Iraqi civilians will love that. ‘Hey guys, sorry about all the missing limbs, but you’re doing a really good job of being flypaper so we don’t get hurt. Cheers! Have a 15% corporate tax rate!‘

Tags: bush, cheers, coalition, flypaper, hey, invasion, job, morning, politics, tax, world

Media: ever wondered why SCO is being targetted by the MyDoom virus?

Wonder no more. Apparently, according to William Campbell of BUA Training in this hilariously off-the-wall interview with RTE’s Morning Ireland radio show, it’s because of the Browser Wars and ‘Open System Software’. He goes on to explain:

‘if you go to a website, such as openoffice.org, you can download a free copy of what is the competitor for Microsoft Office, an equivalent of Microsoft Word, and equivalent of Microsoft Excel, which probably most of you have on their computers.’ ‘These competitors, they don’t really exists as companies, although there are some companies such as Open Office.org and eh, Star Office and lynux, but em, Microsoft has put all the commercial competition out of business, or they bought them up or whatever.’

Complete transcript here.

Sounds like Morning Ireland needs some new ‘computer experts’ ;)

Tags: equivalent, media, microsoft, morning, mydoom, office, open, org, sco, virus, wonder

Culture: Five killed in separate road crashes. Donncha notes ‘There were 2 terrible road accidents this morning. One of them was just outside Cahir, in Co. Tipperary. I drove past there dozens of times in the past and I was shocked to hear the news.’

It’s interesting to note this cultural difference. In Ireland, a road crash with multiple fatalities is national news, on the 6 o’clock news; in California, as far as I can see, it’s pretty much an everyday fact of life – unless there was a juicy ‘road rage’ story attached, it won’t get reported.

Are there more deaths in the US than Ireland? It seems not. The US department, NHTSA, notes that California had 3,956 fatalities in 2001, which works out at 11.47 per 100K population. The Irish dept, NRA (heh – that’s National Road Authority) notes a 2001 rate of 10.7 per 100K population. (However, Ireland’s rate has dropped since then, due to an increased emphasis on road safety; the 2003 rate is reported to be the lowest since the 1960’s. Not sure what it is now, though.)

So, interestingly, the death rate is comparable — so where’s the difference? I reckon it must be simply a PR issue; Ireland’s road safety authorities have made it a PR priority, so that public awareness of road safety is heightened. As a result, road crashes are headline news.

Tags: cahir, crash, culture, difference, donncha, morning, news, population, rate, road, safety

Movies: Inhabitants of San Francisco! Or people nearby who fancy watching a great documentary! According to the SFGate.com Morning Fix, the Castro theater will be showing the amazing documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised between Oct 24-30.

I’ve blogged this before, but quick recap: it’s an incredible movie documenting what happened in the Venezuelan Presidential Palace on April 11th 2002, when President Hugo Chavez was briefly deposed by a coup d’etat. It covers the entire period, and amazingly has pretty-much full access to everything that Chavez, his cabinet, and his loyal soldiers did and said. A sample:

‘On the day of the coup, we only began realising what was actually going on when the state TV signal was cut. Up until then, people had been shot and there was a terrible sense of confusion, but still the reality of what was taking place hadn’t exactly sunk in. Then later that night, the media started saying that Chavez had fled to Cuba and that he had resigned, when in fact he was in the palace — and so were we. It became clear then that something very calculated and sinister was unfolding.’

Really, it’s well worth watching. Due to its comments on the actions, and spin, of the current US administration, Harry Knowles reckons it’ll never get a public release in the US outside a film festival (and I’d agree) — so you’re going to have to watch it in a lefty theater or nothing.

(BTW the website needs some work though — it uses the horrible ‘reinventing the scrollbar’ DHTML trick, urgh.)

Tags: com, coup, documentary, fix, inhabitants, morning, movies, palace, sfgate, theater, watching

BlogStart:

Spam: The Register: World’s first 419 revenge killing?

Michael Lekara Wayid, 50, Nigeria’s consul in the Czech Republic, was shot dead at the embassy yesterday morning. The embassy’s 37-year-old receptionist was shot in the hand during the melee which began after a suspect opened fire after visiting the embassy to discuss an unspecified business matter yesterday morning. A 72-year-old Czech man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder, the BBC reports. Unconfirmed, and thus far sketchy reports, suggest the unnamed suspect was a victim of a 419 (AKA advanced fee) fraud.

Now that’s taking it a bit too far IMO ;)

Tags: blogstart, embassy, killing, morning, register, revenge, spam, wayid, world, yesterday

Samuel Pepys has a weblog:

This morning (we living lately in the garret,) I rose, put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other, clothes but them. Went to Mr. Gunning’s chapel at Exeter House, where he made a very good sermon.

Anyway, still recovering from the holidays. Hope you all had a good one..

Tags: chapel, exeter, garret, hope, house, morning, sermon, suit, weblog

Sliced liver, anyone? “The first public autopsy in Britain for 170 years brought back vivid memories of medical school - and an acute sense of hunger - for the Guardian’s junior doctor Michael Foxton.”

“The process of dismemberment is a deeply weird and dysphoric experience, and it is a dangerous border to cross. I remember the first time I had to do it, as a medical student in an operating theatre. It was a man with stomach cancer, who I had been talking to on the ward the morning before his operation. When the surgeon brought his knife down to make the first cut on his belly, it was everything I could do to stop myself reaching out and grabbing his hand to stop him. Doctors have to cross that line. We have to separate the thinking, smiling, family man from the clinical material. If I hadn’t done that I couldn’t possibly cut a hole and force a huge chest drain tube a centimetre across into a writhing patient on a respiratory ward at three in the morning, without going mad.”

Tags: anyone, autopsy, hunger, liver, man, morning, school, sense, sliced, ward