So, we export terror around the world. Time for the Americans to invade us please. Or perhaps the Iraqi army should be invited over to show us how to keep control of our populace now that they have been trained up by us and the Americans? The possibilities are endless.
Update: Well, as of today's date (24th Jan 09) doesn't appear that there were British links, although of course we don't know all there is to know about the terrsts yet. So, no US-led coalition invading Slough any time soon.
28 November 2008
23 November 2008
Life: Disappearing
“We need the cafe to have an equilibrium between the village and the world outside,” Mr. Perrey said. “Without the cafe, you lose the conviviality. You lose your mates. Business agreements are made behind the zinc” of the bar.
“We have to be very careful,” Mr. Perrey continued. “If we standardize everything in France, and we study everything, and forbid everything, we destroy respect for our culture. We need to preserve the cafe bar. What is a village but a cafe, a school, a pharmacy, a bakery and a city hall?”
So says a cafe owner in France where the number of cafes has dropped dramatically according to the NYT - down from 200,000 in 1960 to 41,500 today. Well I think Monsieur Perrey and I are sat in the same place, metaphorically, albeit that I wouldn't wish to return to 1960. What is missing is freedom and personal responsibility. If I want to get in a car that is slightly dangerous, perhaps without the required 112 airbags, then that is UP TO ME. Well, it used to be - not any more. Now it is up to the government. Equally, if I wished to drink myself to an early death well then that too was an option available. Still is, I guess, but not if I want to do it in a sociable manner - only those with huge disposable incomes can afford a round in the pub now. Still, we're allowed odd shaped vegetables again. Thank you oh eurocrat overlords.
“We have to be very careful,” Mr. Perrey continued. “If we standardize everything in France, and we study everything, and forbid everything, we destroy respect for our culture. We need to preserve the cafe bar. What is a village but a cafe, a school, a pharmacy, a bakery and a city hall?”
So says a cafe owner in France where the number of cafes has dropped dramatically according to the NYT - down from 200,000 in 1960 to 41,500 today. Well I think Monsieur Perrey and I are sat in the same place, metaphorically, albeit that I wouldn't wish to return to 1960. What is missing is freedom and personal responsibility. If I want to get in a car that is slightly dangerous, perhaps without the required 112 airbags, then that is UP TO ME. Well, it used to be - not any more. Now it is up to the government. Equally, if I wished to drink myself to an early death well then that too was an option available. Still is, I guess, but not if I want to do it in a sociable manner - only those with huge disposable incomes can afford a round in the pub now. Still, we're allowed odd shaped vegetables again. Thank you oh eurocrat overlords.
6 November 2008
A comment from BoingBoing
Comment 81 from a thread discussing the entry "4-1 odds on the existence of god.....":
#81 posted by FoetusNail , November 5, 2008 1:46 PM
God is the best part of what it means to be human, cut from the sub-conscious, given form by imagination. When we are of the spirit, we for brief moments are allowed to experience the oneness that is our true self. When this separate imagined entity ceases to exist, we will once again be whole, as we always were before religion excised the best part of what it means to be human and turned our imaginations against us.
Quite beautiful. More about this later.
#81 posted by FoetusNail , November 5, 2008 1:46 PM
God is the best part of what it means to be human, cut from the sub-conscious, given form by imagination. When we are of the spirit, we for brief moments are allowed to experience the oneness that is our true self. When this separate imagined entity ceases to exist, we will once again be whole, as we always were before religion excised the best part of what it means to be human and turned our imaginations against us.
Quite beautiful. More about this later.
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Welcome to Mrs Lemon's: Sic transit gloria mundi.