Larry Brilliant, who has organised the fight against Smallpox in the early seventies, talks about why people could be pessimistic when looking at a future of global warming, the growing divide between the rich and the very poor and the oncoming of over 30 new communicable diseases.
BUT, he did succeed in his fight against Smallpox, a disease that had killed over 50 Million people until if was eradicated by an organisation of over 150,000 health workes of all cultures, religions and countries. And he sees a growing trend for organisation against our new threats, this time coming from busineness entrepeneurs, politicians and philonthropists.
His case is for optimism, and he is right in this I guess, because without optimism, how could you go on living and working in today’s world? Without optimism, what could you teach your children about their future?
This is an interview with a young Iggy Pop to the music of Mogwai. I especially like when he says: “What sounds to you like a big load of trashy loud noise, is in fact the brilliant music of a genius ….. myself. And that music is so powerful that it is beyond my control.“
I have just recently discovered ‘the show‘ a series of tiny video episodes from and with zefrank. I think he’s funny, Tina doesn’t, but that’s ok. He has great humour and it helps that he thinks, so I don’t have to. I also now that he likes me, he says so on his website!
This video is special. A great song to sing whenever you are scared: “At least I don’t suck at life, I keep on trying despite.”
This is a great talk by Stanford professor Larry Lessig about how the current system of enforced copyright is turning us and our children into criminals for only creative expression.
This is copied from Sean’s Website who has copied it from somewhere else, so I feel safe to copy it again without fear of eternal damnation
Top Ten Signs You’re a Fundamentalist Christian
10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
9 - You feel insulted and “dehumanized” when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the “atrocities” attributed to Allah, but you don’t even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in “Exodus” and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in “Joshua” including women, children, and trees!
6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs — though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most “tolerant” and “loving.”
3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in “tongues” may be all the evidence you need to “prove” Christianity.
2 - You define 0.01% as a “high success rate” when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.
1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.
You, yes you, dinosaur of the industrial age, get this into your head: this age is about information and information is really totally different from material matter. One curious property of information is that if you try to take it away …. it multiplies! Not by magic, but by the nature of the human mind which just loves to delve into a big sea of information and reacts strongly to forces that try to dry up this well.
So, read up on the Streisand Effect and learn a lesson. All you RIAA, DCMA, Cease and Desist lawyers and Patent Pushers out there. You are of the past, just lie down and die.
It’s APEC in Sydney and again, whenever the ‘big’ guys get together to decide how to screw over the rest of the world, they made sure that they are not disturbed by the rabble (or rather the people that they somehow represent?)
“The Great Wall of Sydney is a wall of shame and a testament to the disastrous and anti-people policies of the capitalist leaders of APEC,” Communist Party spokesman Mr Symon said in a statement today.
Well I’m not a communist, but I have to agree on that with Mr Symon. I always wonder why the elected leaders of ‘democratic’ countries have to hide behind high walls to make their policy. What do they have to hide?
But as Michael Franti sings: “Those who build walls are pretending that forever they can defend them.” We Germans have seen first hand the power of the people and the fragile nature of oppressing walls.
Welcome to my motley collection of rags and bones from the vast internet. Most of it may be completely useless to you, but please be my guest and browse ...
