The End of an Ira

The end of terror, long live democracy!!!!

Suicide Bombers, sod off!

I have lived in London long enough to tell the difference between a sad person and a nutter. The beauty of London is the calm in the middle of hustle and bustle, you can only experience it, mate. London is the coolest city in the entire world, believe it!

These suicidal fruitcake nutters want to create chaos in the middle of chaos, not knowing that London has a breath of its own.

Suck on this

And fight in the way of Allah those who fight you. But do not transgress limits. Truly Allah loves not the transgressors.

An ancient dildo

sculpted and polished phallus.. Feeling inadequate anyone?

blogger buzzwords

What do you tell a blogger who writes about how much he hates blogging buzzwords?

One blogger thinks people parroting stupid buzz words are, wait for it, stupid. The blogger goes on further to list the stupid buzzwords and comments; If these words were people, I would embrace their genocide.

Say no more.

Global war on Terror

Is Old Europe finally learning that it must join the global war on terror? Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, Thinks Outside the Box:

Combating terrorism is thus the modern version of war--no huge armies, but nevertheless a real war--and winning this war is no less important to global freedom than winning the World War II and the Cold War.

America can win the war against terrorism, but it will take time and resources and a considerable intellectual effort. The Bush administration will continue to provide military and intelligence resources, but it must also continue the intellectual debate.

Radio Open Source

This how Radio Open Source works:

It sounds a little fruity, we know. "Everybody join hands," this seems to read, "and we'll make beautiful radio together." But it's kind of true. We're trying to produce radio in a completely new way.

Culture War

The OpinionJournal describes what happens when traditional values comes under attack.

"In every culture war the existing customs and traditions of a society are called to the bar of reason and ruthlessly interrogated and cross-examined by an intellectual elite asking whether they can be rationally justified or are simply the products of superstition and thus unworthy of being taken seriously by enlightened men and women. "

Top 10 Web fads

Top 10 Web fads - CNET.com
Internet phenomena. Memes. Grist for the e-mail forwarding mill. Whatever you call them, Web fads are entertaining, unintended consequences of life on the World Wide Web. Once the masses could put anything online easily, they turned up weird fetishes, hilarious parody, jaw-dropping narcissism, and moments of brilliance. And over the past 10 years, some of these ideas broke through to the mainstream. Whether it was dancing hamsters, a kid enjoying his day as a Jedi Knight, or the sudden ability to publish your thoughts online with just a few simple clicks, the following 10 Web fads still make us laugh, make us wonder, or make us feel guilty enough to update our blogs.

asta la vista

According to the The Seattle Times, by naming the next version of Windows "Vista," Microsoft may have stepped on the toes of another software company. The founder of Vista a business software and services company was not amused when Microsoft announced its choice.

Vista means view or panorama.The the literal translation of asta la vista loosely means 'see you later', in court!

So You Want to Write a Book?

O'Reilly Media's guide for new authors.

High Emotions over Microsoft's Smiley Patent

A software patent filed by Microsoft in the US has been described as 'very dangerous'. The Microsoft patent that organisations are concerned about is patent number 0050156873, which was filed in January 2004. The US Patent Office has not yet made a decision on whether to accept the patent application. Mark Taylor, the executive director of the Open Source Consortium, said:

"I would have expected to see something like this suggested by one of our more immature community members as a joke on Slashdot, and probably would have chuckled at the absurdity of the notion. We now appear to be living in a world where even the most laughable paranoid fantasies about commercially controlling simple social concepts are being outdone in the real world by well-funded armies of lawyers on behalf of some of the most powerful companies on the planet"

MSN Virtual Earth

MSN Virtual Earth has new features which include;
,blockquote>Satellite images with 45-degree-angle views of buildings and neighborhoods

Satellite images with street map overlays

Ability to add local data layers, such as showing local businesses or restaurants

The service allows users to choose from a number of different data types plus allow people to contribute their own information.

The avatar versus the journalis

As Wikipedia becomes more and more like a newspaper everyday, should not the newspapers try and become more like the journalist?
Rohit Gupta's article provides some answers.

"Each person can be many avatars, depending on the diversity of his or her skill set, and can contribute a drop every now and then in the vast ocean that is human knowledge. When needed, another avatar of the same Wikipedian, or even a stray visitor, can 'clean up' some polluted part of the living document with a bit of editing. Therefore, people do not populate Wikipedia community as they do Bombay or Mexico - an online community consists of 'versions' of people, their fragmented avatars. It's more like an ant colony without ants."

James Doohan

'Star Trek's' Doohan dies, immortalized for 'Beam me up, Scotty':

"James Doohan, who played engineer Montgomery Scott, the scrappy Scotsman who repeatedly gave the Starship Enterprise 'all she's got' in the original 'Star Trek' TV series and motion pictures, died Wednesday, his publicist said here. He was 85"

Man shot dead by police on Tube

A man has been shot dead by police at Stockwell Tube station in south London, as officers hunt four bombing suspects.

BBC NEWS site has more info....

Same-sex legislation now law in Canada

Legislation giving same-sex couples the legal right to marry received royal assent on Wednesday and is now the law of the land.

• INDEPTH: Same-sex Rights

More from CBC News

Judge John G. Roberts Nominated to the Supreme Court

Bush's Supreme Court Choice is a judge anchored in modern law.

Now the question is whether Judge Roberts, if confirmed, will, like those two justices, commit himself to recapturing a distant constitutional paradise in which the court was faithful to the original intent of the framers or whether, like the justice he would succeed, he finds himself comfortably in the middle rather than at the margin.

More on US Supreme Court

London Alert

Services on three London underground services have been suspended. There are no reports of explosions or casualties.

The London Underground Tube authorities have issued a code Amber alert. The whole tube systems has now been suspended.

An eye witness reports hearing a bang.

There is a report of another incidence on bus. Details are sketchy.

Birds imitate mobile phone ring tones

Birds imitate mobile phone ring tones:
"Birds have learnt to imitate the ring tones of the omnipresent mobile phones, say German ornithologists.

'The birds have an uncanny ability to mimic these ring tones. This has picked up in tandem with the boom in mobile phone ownership,' Richard Schneider of the NABU bird conservation centre near the university city of Tuebingen here said."

MATTHEW COOPER: WHAT I TOLD THE GRAND JURY

TIME Exclusive:

"In his 2 1/2 hour testimony last Wednesday before the grand jury investigating the CIA leak case, TIME White House correspondent Matthew Cooper testified that when he called White House political advisor Karl Rove the week of July 6, 2003, Rove did not reveal Joe Wilson's wife's name and did not reveal her covert status to Cooper. But he did say that Wilson's wife works at the "Agency on WMD." This was the first time Cooper had ever heard of Wilson's wife. "

Cocaine traces at EU parliament

....There may be an answer to this perplexing question. The BBC can’t call a terrorist a terrorist, but they seem to be allowed to note that things go better with coke, as in cocaine, even at their beloved European Parliament (HT Little Green Footballs):....

The Plame Game

The Plame Game of lies explained.

this isn't about Valerie Plame or Joe Wilson or even Karl Rove. It's not about exposing a CIA agent. That's merely the tear in the fabric, the third-rate burglary, if you will. This is about a president who knowingly took his country to war on the basis of lies and the war on the homefront against anyone and everyone who's tried to peel back the lies and expose the truth.

We're not Afraid!

I spent my early years as a construction engineer working on the Liverpool Street subway escalator tunnel. When the shameless bombers terrorised london they got it very badly wrong, the shame is that they picked (bombed) the wrong target. Londoners are not Afraid!.

I spent slavish hours boring tunnels in London, it is very upsetting when good for nothing losers mess with great engineering works.

We gonna get you suckers!

Nostalgia Central

20 Things That Only Happen In Moviesl

The Jealous will envy..

We're better than the British, says Chirac

what?

"President Jacques Chirac celebrated Bastille Day yesterday by insisting that France had no need to 'envy or copy' Britain.
Whether the point of comparison was food, health, education or science, France was in far better shape than its old rival, he said."

France sucks, Britannia rules!

Google Maps Mania

With workplace survillance on the rise, cubicle inhabitants have been forced to find more wholesome sites to surf than they might otherwise. Even some non-porn sites have long ago been on the nix lists of systems administrators. But one G-rated site is quickly becoming the time-wasting site of choice for many bored workers, Google maps. What next, a site devoted to knitting?

More Google earth

Punishment Fit For a Geek

"Make the hacker spend 16 hours a day fielding help-desk inquiries in an AOL chat room for computer novices. Force him to do this with a user name at least as uncool as KoolDude and to work on a vintage IBM PC with a 2400-baud dial-up connection. Most painful of all for any geek, make him use Windows 95 for the rest of his life."

-- New York Times columnist John Tierney proposes a fitting punishment for Sasser author Sven Jaschan (see "Sasser author ordered to pick up trash along information highway")

CEO Bernie Ebbers' Prison Break

Looks like it's 25 years in the ol' graybar hotel for former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers. U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones, who rejected Ebbers' request for a new trial on Tuesday, this morning threw the book at the "gentle-giant-of-the-ponderosa" for his role in the $11 billion fraud that drove WorldCom into bankruptcy. "Mr. Ebbers' statements deprived investors of their money," the judge said before delivering sentence. "They might have made different decisions had they known the truth. It seems clear to me that Mr. Ebbers was a leader of criminal activity in this case."
Since Ebbers has been a GMSV fixture for so long, we'd like to mark this occasion by taking a look back at some of our favorite memories:

• Former WorldCom CEO finds self not guilty
• Former WorldCom CEO: Short People got no reason ...
• Bernie Ebbers stole my lunch money
• Former WorldCom CEO to star in Forrest Gump sequel
• In bold variation, defense will argue that Ebbers is a twinkie
• In Texas, they call it "all hat and no head"
• Prosecutor: Former WorldCom CEO's pants on fire
• Ex-WorldCom CEO adds "Prison Etiquette" to Amazon wish list

Bernie Ebbers

Born and Bred

How could this happen in the UK?:

"Investigators believe that four home-grown terrorists from Yorkshire carried out the London terror attacks in suicide bomb missions. Documents belonging to the four - aged between 19 and 30 - were recovered at the scene of the four blasts.
But they are thought to be 'clean skins' - men who existed outside the surveillance of security services. "

This is a damning statement for British values.

The Mother of All Connections

A special report on the new evidence of collaboration between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda.

In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars.

U.S. government 'Summary of Evidence' for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

London Bombings: Conspiracy Theory

London Bombings: Conspiracy Theory Part 1 and Part 2.

Anti-terror police raid homes in northern England

Anti-terrorist police investigating the London bombings raided five residences in northern England Tuesday morning. No arrests were immediately reported.

News reports said the searches were concentrated on one street in Leeds, 185 miles north of London. Police would confirm only that the activity was in West Yorkshire, the county Leeds is in.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said the raids were connected to the massive investigation of Thursday's attacks on three subway trains and a bus. More details from source....

HOW TO POACH AN EGG

If you, like me, have struggled to poach an egg advice from HOW TO POACH AN EGG will encourage you to test different methods.

The perfect poached egg apparently is an elusive goal. I'll try again soon.

The selling of the Blogosphere

Technorati's big push into monetizing its treasure trove of data collected about millions of blogs
SiliconValleyWatcher.com asks:

"Are Technorati and others, spying on the blogosphere? I don't think so, it is a public space after all. . . but it is a bit creepy.
A lot of blogs are semi-private, their authors are mostly talking with their friends and family, and the discussions are not intended for broad publication. "

Technorati has every right to make a living from its work, it shares a considerable amount of data it collects with the entire blogging community for free, and it is just one of many companies selling the blogosphere.

Terror In London

Leaked No 10 dossier reveals Al-Qaeda’s British recruitsRead the document: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Sunday Times - Times Online has more details.

Jacko and the Chocolate Factory?

Tim Burton's new take on the children's classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has one problem, the fabled candy maker Willy Wonka as embodied by Johnny Depp looks like, I think, Michael Jackson.

The longish black hair. The pale skin. The ornate suit jacket. The less-than-traditional adult-male speaking voice. It's very scary.

New Iraqi torture camps

The observer reveals the grim world of new Iraqi torture camps:

"Secret torture chambers, the brutal interrogation of prisoners, murders by paramilitaries with links to powerful ministries... Foreign affairs editor Peter Beaumont in Baghdad uncovers a grim trail of abuse carried out by forces loyal to the new Iraqi government "

Who's to Blame for Valerie Plame?

Wired News Journalist, Adam L. Penenberg says:

"The first (obvious choice) to come to mind would be the person (Karl Rove, Scooter Libby or one of their minions?) who leaked the fact that Valerie Plame, wife of former diplomat-turned-Bush-basher Joseph Wilson, worked for the CIA. Then there's crusty Robert Novak, who published this scoop in a column, yet seems to have avoided the threat of prison -- unlike Time's Matthew Cooper, who agreed to testify when his source suddenly consented, or Judith Miller of The New York Times, who chose prison over revealing her source. Perhaps Novak concluded that as an opinion columnist with a shrill political agenda, he doesn't actually qualify as a journalist.

Finally there is prosecutor Fitzgerald, who has placed himself on the front lines in this administration's war against the press, doling out subpoenas to journalists like they were Evites to a barbecue. While the First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press -- and that, I would argue, means ensuring that reporters can protect the identity of confidential sources -- Fitzgerald believes that journalists don't have the right to promise confidentiality. This is something the courts have backed him on.

Yet our whole business is predicated on convincing sources to talk to us and in return to count on our protection if things get hairy. This is what Pearlstein means when he talks of a "chilling effect."

But do you know who deserves most of the blame?

We do. And by that, I mean journalists."

"

The Genius Factory

The WSJ article Turbulence in the Gene Pool describes how David Plotz's "The Genius Factory" tells a wonderfully readable and eye-opening account a "genius" sperm bank founded by businessman Robert K. Graham in 1980.

Graham feared that, in late-20th-century America, 'cradle-to-grave social welfare programs paid incompetents and imbeciles to reproduce. As a result, 'retrograde humans' were swamping the intelligent minority.' The only way to save mankind was for the best intellectual 'specimens' of the species to reproduce at a higher rate. And the best way to make that happen was to have the planet's brightest -- Nobel Prize-winners -- donate their genetic material for the betterment of humanity. 'Ten men of high intelligence,' Graham mused, 'can be more effective than 1,000 morons.' He envisioned replacing Darwin's natural selection with 'intelligent selection.

Regardless of the ethical merits of Graham's plan -- or, one should say, its demerits -- the bank was doomed to failure. Most Nobelists are older, relative to the rest of the population. Their sperm is generally of substandard quality -- lower in number and, so to speak, reproductive energy -- and thus less likely to fertilize an egg. So shortly after opening the bank, Graham had to seek out as donors younger, high-IQ folks who weren't Nobelists

Photos of London bombings

Here are some Photos taken in London after the blasts.

Astrologist Sues NASA

It is obvious that elements of the comet's orbit, and correspondingly the ephemeris, will change after the explosion, which interferes with my astrology work and distorts my horoscope."

-- Astrologist Marina Bai, who has filed a $300 million suit against NASA, claiming the agency's Deep Impact probe "ruined the natural balance of forces in the universe

London Underground Explosion

The entire London underground system has been shut down due to a major explosion at Aldegate station near near Liverpool street. According to BBC 24, the explosion was caused by a surge in electricity that led to a transformer to explode.

FT.com says

"The immediate cause of the blasts, the first of which was reported at 8.49am at Aldgate station, was described by the BTP as a power surge. The BTP confirmed there were a number of "walking wounded" and one report of a person classed as "life at risk".
Four other incidents were reported at Edgeware Road station, King's Cross, Old Street and Russell Square. Passengers spoke of hearing a "huge thud" at Edgware Road station and travellers emerged from tunnels covered in blood and soot and with torn clothing.
Shares on the FTSE 100 lost almost 1 per cent after the blasts, which come just a day after London won its bid to host the 2012 Olympics in a closely fought contest with Paris."

Update...10.00am GMT
More explosions reported on a bus at Tavistock square, London. This is likely to be a bomb. No confirmation yet from authorities wether this is a terrost attack.

More reports of of explosions on three more buses around London.

Update...11.20am GMT
According to the BBC security correspondent, reports coming from Arab sources are stating that the explosions in London are likely to have been caused by Al-quaeda.

Update...12.00pm GMT
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair will leave the G8 Summit to head for London. The visibly shaken Blair said that he will return to the summit.

He confirmed that these are terrorists attacks.

The Al quaeda wing of the Jihad in Europe has claimed responsibility.

Also, a large rescue service is underway at Kings Cross Station. Fatalities have been reported and many severely injured passengers.

Update...3.30pm GMT
Emergency Number: 0780 1566 344

New York Times Reporter Judith Miller Jailed

The New York Times reports:

"A federal judge today ordered Judith Miller of The New York Times to be jailed immediately after she again refused to cooperate with a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. operative.

Another reporter who had been facing jail time on the same matter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, agreed today to testify to a grand jury about his confidential source on the same matter, thus avoiding jail. Mr. Cooper said he had decided to do so only because his source specifically released him from promises of confidentiality just before today's hearing."

Travel Chaos in London

I live under the Heathrow Airport flight path. It has been exceptionally quiet in the skies today. So, I checked the

British Airport Authority and found this message:

"Important Message
7th July 2005 12:34
Due to the incident in Central London the BAA website is currently experiencing a high level of people visiting the site for information.
Severe disruption to transport in London - 7 July 2005

The airports remain open and all flights are currently operating normally.
Passengers are advised to allow additional time for their journey to and from the airports. All underground services in London are currently suspended.

All bus services in central London are suspended and coach services are severely disrupted.
Paddington, Liverpool Street, Kings Cross, St Pancras, Euston, Stratford and Victoria stations are shut.

Heathrow - Heathrow Express and Connect services are currently operating.
Gatwick - Gatwick Express is currently not operating
Stansted - Stansted Express is currently not operating

Visit baa.com "

Emergency Number: 0780 1566 344

London Stock Market Plunges

The London Stock Market Index has fallen by more than 100 points. The pound has slipped against the dollar as well. FT.com has more details

A bomb has gone off in a street near Liverpool Street. People have been warned to stay away from Central London because a series of controlled explosions will be conducted.

Unconfirmed reports say that Mobile phone systems have been switched off in parts of central London. This is to prevent mobile phones being used to trigger more bombs.

More reports from the towns Swindon and Brighton. this is a hallmark of Al Quaeda.

Karl Rove-aled as Source in Plame Case

MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case

Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Friday night, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

London 2012 Olympics

It is official the 2012 Olympics will be hosted in London. Bottoms up to the London 2012 Olympic Bid team!

G8 Gleneagles 2005

The G8 summit officially begins with several side-shows. According to Reuters;

The International Olympic Committee decides in Singapore who will host the 2012 summer Games, with Paris and London the front-runners at a time when Blair and French President Jacques Chirac are engaged in a bitter battle over the European Union.

Disparaging remarks reportedly made by Chirac about British food have soured the mood. Blair arrived in Gleneagles early on Wednesday from 2 days of lobbying the IOC in Singapore, and was to meet anti-poverty campaigners before other leaders arrived.

G8 protestors have become a permanent fixture of the G8 summit. The main issues climate change, poverty in Africa and Oil prices are likely to be fudged over, yet again. Is this another summit that waffles of issues?

The protestors may have a legitimate cause. There comes a time when talk is cheap. If the powers that be do not listen to people's concerns, anger, frustration can be vented out through violence.

Oil Doom Looms

Oil 'will hit $100 by winter'. Worst-ever crisis looms, says analyst.

"[Texan oil analyst Matt Simmons] will publish a hard-hitting book this week in which he argues that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer, is running out of oil, and further price rises are inevitable as supplies decline. He warns that the scramble for resources could eventually descend into war."

Biggest Financial Disasters!

If you think that you've messed up your money, reading about this Fool's financial foul-ups will make you feel a whole lot better! When did you last lose a million?

Deep Impact- Awesome!

Scientists watched in awe today as the greatest sharp-shooting show in history took place 133 million miles from Earth.
Shortly before 7am, a copper and aluminium 'torpedo', about the size of a washing machine, smashed into the icy surface of a comet in a spectacular flash of white light. More....