Unintelligent Design

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday!

I'm now almost recovered from birthday & Whitby... :-)

I've just seen jambon_gris headbutt an easter egg.

While I'm in a not-terribly-goth but musical mood -

Kathryn Tickell Band @ the MAC, Birmingham - May 14th

Oysterband / Big Session 2006 - Oysterband, Warsaw Village Band, Levellers (acoustic), Chumbawamba (acoustic), June Tabor...

Cara Dillon - Leicester (Phoenix), 28th July

A Muslim convert to Christianity could face the death penalty in Afghanistan. Abdul Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and could be executed under Sharia law unless he reconverts

It sounds as if some things haven't changed much since the Taliban days.

From the delightful WorldNetDaily:

"a vile, pro-terrorist piece of neo-Marxist, left-wing propaganda filled with radical sexual politics and nasty attacks on religion and Christianity"

(Actually, I liked it a lot. Saw it yesterday. Some things they changed for the worse - and I may post about that later - but not bad)

A little while back I made a fairly blunt post about the BNP's latest leaflet (I'm not a fan, in case you hadn't guessed)

This attracted a couple of anonymous comments from people who thought I was being more than a little unfair to the BNP. The second comment included this:

I am not in agreement with a lot of the BNP's policies and also find they have no policies in relation to a lot of issues but in answer to their question on the leaflet I know which I find most offensive. I also find it offensive that one image shows a section of people breaking the law and still to this day not one single person has been charged or is ever likely to be.

I don't know if anyone's seen this on the BBC website today, but...

Five men have been arrested over their alleged role in protests against cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad, Scotland Yard said

The BBC site also shows that Omar Khayam, who dressed as a suicide bomber, "was arrested and recalled to prison" shortly after the protest - he'd been released on licence after serving half his sentence.

Looks like some people may get charged after all, then. So much for the double standard. If people want to argue politics with me, that's fine - however much I disagree with those politics. I do get a little annoyed when people make assumptions and/or opinion replaces fact, though.

This may appeal to a few people reading this...

Information Security Analyst
IT Services
University of Warwick
£23,182 to £30,002 pa

As some people will already be aware, there's a certain concern about Dubai Ports World taking control of six U.S. ports.

"From our point of view, we don't want foreigners controlling our ports" - Thomas Kean

Fair enough. But the only reason that DP World is in this position is that they've just bought P&O - who already had control of those ports. And P&O was based in London, not American...

I suspect I may be at Convergence.

If not, I'll be in Leeds for BTV. Either way, I see excellent music in my future...