Panglossian Notes

Dinner in the Sky?

Interesting idea! Hmm. The lower picture is from FirstPost. The Dinner in the Sky website is here.

It costs about 7,000 eruos - that's about 12,000 cad or usd - for 8 hours. I'm not sure whether that may included lowers for washroom breaks.

Technorati Tags: Curiosity, Interesting, Inventive?

Update: The Top 100 Public Intellectuals.

Earlier today I was looking for the 2005 contest winners and or the rankings of the candidates in that year's Foreign Policy/Prospect competition for big thinkers that might or maybe did effect something way back then in the past, eh.

I found it over on the Prospect site and I eyeballed it. The weather here in Ottawa CA is too nice to stay inside: sunny, balmy breezes and no fing humidity yet, so outside I must go. But, even though I don't had a photographic memory, while enjoying a coffee and watching the world go by, at an outside cafe, I thought, there are some individuals missing from the 100 for 2008, I'd better compare 2005 and 2008 when I surrender and head back to the condo.

It is spring and I'm lazy so my comparison isn't up to my normal ex-silly servant rigour but I've noticed 5 individuals not included in this years contestants who where on the 2005 list:

Naomi Klein
Robert Hughes
Lawrence Lessig
Germaine Greer
Paul Kennedy

[I did also notice a 6th, Paul Wolfowitz but, my bias again, I'd not know why he would be considered an intellectual or even iconoclast even way back in the stone-age just 3 years ago.]

I wondered why they may have been dropped and, at least, the Prospect's blog provides a "bit" of a rationale. [Providing rationales for "stuff" is something I've grown accustom to not expecting here in North America least from any publications in the middle part and likely also not here either in the Northern part of our lovely continent.]

Here is the rationale:

"... we’re repeating the [2005 pick a big thinker in 2008] exercise, with a new list [of big thinkers] that we believe better reflects the current trends in global thought. We’ve tried to spruce up the list this time around by clearing away some of the dead wood from 2005’s list and adding new and exciting younger thinkers, particularly from outside the anglosphere. We reckon [partner] the new list feels much fresher as a result.

The return of the global intellectuals poll
First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog
April 21, 2008

Hmm!

I suspect Germaine and Robert might have something to say about dead wood [my ears are burning just imagining Germaine's mild response] and I wonder what Naomi might think of being considered not an exciting younger thinker.

Maybe I should have just stayed at the cafe and watched the current silly servants head for home.

Technorati Tags: Foreign Policy, Hack writing, Iconolasts, Intellectuals yeah, eh!, joke?, Pinheads, Polls, yeah?, Prospect, Silly, Words, writing

The Top 100 Public Intellectuals?

Foreign Policy(USA) & Prospect(UK) magazines are having their 2nd joint, you pick the, Top 20 Public Intellectuals contest. The list of their candidates can be found at the links indicated in the previous sentence.

There are 4 Canadians list as big thinkers that could be picked for the 20 top positions:

Charles Taylor - the philosopher at McGill and U of Chicago;
Malcolm Gladwell - the writer who grew up just outside Kitchener and writes now for the New Yorker;
Michael Ignatieff - maybe a "useful idiot"; and
Steven Pinker - the linguist at MIT.

Of the 4, it's only Gladwell's writing that I haven't read, though I'm more than acquainted with his now very familiar noun phrase (?) "tipping point".

I question whether David Petraeus should be included in a list of public intellectuals and strongly suspect his nomination would have come from the USA based Foreign Policy magazine crowd. It seems he might be included because of the U.S. military’s revised field manual on counterinsurgency to which he stuck his name, I think, either figuratively or actually. A public intellectual , I really wonder, but maybe if pilfering or plagiarism re: ideas doesn't matter (the defense of the supposed lack of scholarship associated with the revised manual would seem to me to disbar the general from any list of public intellectuals but I'm likely just being too picky.).

Bjørn Lomborg being listed as an environmentalist seems to me a bit much, a political scientist maybe or half-baked statistician possibly, but an environmentalist. This, also, likely just shows my own personal biases.

I guess I'd not have the contest titled "Meet the Top 100" public intellectuals but rather "Meet the Top 100 World class iconoclasts" then under each individuals' name the magazines could list the particular wind-mills or subject areas at which the person takes charges. Too demeaning? Likely. Intellectual, unless you happen to be running for political office in the USA, still has a certain style while iconoclast seems to me to usually be used in a pejorative sense.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Foreign Affairs , Iconolasts, Intellectuals, Not political??, Nothing in particular, Outside view, Polls, yeah?, Prospect

A distrubing video!

I've often wondered what type of strange individuals in this Brush administration might get a kid out of this sort of video:

Amnesty International's unsubscribe campaign via The Independent article: Amnesty unveils shock 'waterboarding' film.

Why did I say Bush officials might like to watch this sort of thing. Because we know that torture was video taped for the viewing pleasure of some characters in the US White House. This was revealed when it became public knowledge that videos had been made of some early torture sessions conducted by the CIA, then conveniently lost, of course and, also, now we know via Philippe Sands, the UK lawyer and author of Torture Team, that someone in the White House was watching the antics being inflected on human beings in Guantánamo.

Why do I keep thinking of the aftermath of the July 20th plot. Likely just because it is unusually warm out here today and I'm happy, disgusted and appalled at the same time.

But I can't get the images I have of the aftermath of the July 20th plot out of my head and away from this Bush administration. I think I want ... no I'm going to be sick.

Technorati Tags: POTUS , torture

Condi Rice speaks, but does anyone listen????

Seems Condi Rice has called Muqtada al Sadr a coward. The Dallas Morning news is more specific reporting she mocked him:

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless a military crackdown on his followers ends.

In a surprise visit to the Iraqi capital, Dr. Rice said Mr. al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying.

"I know he's sitting in Iran," Dr. Rice said dismissively, when asked about Mr. al-Sadr's latest threat. "I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him."

Rice Visits Iraq
Dallasnews
Monday 21, 2008

I'm trying to wrap my head around her statement.

My first response is that it is an example of the classic frustrated raving of a school yard geek in the face of some physical threat - an ineffectual mix of bluster and apprehension.

No?

How about an attempt to ridicule Muqtada al-Sadr by using sarcasm.

Maybe?

If so, it is a pretty lame attempt. She really must be a dull wit, certainly not a Basil Fawlty.

But, beside Mz Rice's attempt to "cut Sadr down to size" so to speak, who does she think maybe listening to her?

George W. Bush?

Yes, George W. who she knows is sitting in D.C. while it is all-out war for the 150,000 or so US service personnel but not him, as usual, eh.

I'm going to stop now, but, I wonder if Rice couldn't have just made a "Freudian slip".

Technorati Tags: Confusing?, Hot Air, Iraq, McClatchy Newspapers, Politics, Really stupid, Words

Some light reading for a Spring morning: torture courtesy US & thuggery in Israel Defense Force

Boy am I glad it's a nice Spring morning out there and I'm certainly heading off to enjoy it but not really because the temperatures here in the capital of CA are finally not dipping below zero C (or 32 F) .

No I'm really heading out to clear my thoughts of my earlier morning reading of some articles in British papers.

The Guardian this morning is running an excerpt from Philippe Sands’s new book The Torture Team - Stress hooding noise nudity dogs. As you likely already know, Vanity Fair had also run an excerpt from the same book in its May edition of the magazine - The Green Light.

The Independent has published an article - Our reign of terror, by the Israeli army - which details, via the testimony of some of those involved, the thuggish behaviour of the Israeli Defense Forces in their day-to-day dealing with Palestinian specifically in Hebron.

I should write more but do need to think and clear my mind of the revulsion which is causing me to have bad emotional feelings right now towards the US and its good ally Israel - [I shouldn't forget that our sickening PM, Harper, has said that Israel is now Canada's ally too, since that country did such a good job killing Lebanese Canadian women and children in the summer of 2006 and a Canadian peacekeeper just for good measure, gads we have one of our rare warships visiting the place, I think, right now.].

Time to clear my mind.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Allies, IDF, Israel, Politicians, Shmucks, The Guardian, The Independent, Thugs, torture, War criminals

Spring is here in the capital of CA.

So this morning, while checking Juan Cole and drinking a coffee on the 2nd floor of my condo, the door bell rang. It was too early for the postwoman on my route, no UPS or FedEx truck can be seen out the window, so I two-stepped down to the front door.

It was a friendly and very jovial tow-truck driver.

"Hi! Any of those cars on XXX Street (the cross street from my place) yours or maybe your neighbours. I know you don't have enough parking for all your condo units out the back."

Let me look!

Nope I don't recognize any of them.

"OK, just wanted to check and give you maybe a chance to avoid a large towing bill and ticket"

Sorry and thanks, but I think those cars are people working downtown - tow them.

What caused this exchange?

Spring in the capital and the streets are being cleaned.

The same restrictions apply now as apply in the winter when snow is being removed. Signs go out, stuck in snow banks or, now, on top of traffic cones placed on the sidewalks - no parking snow removal or street swiping.

If you maybe are an out-of-towner who ignores signs, or just a local and too dumb for real life, and you leave your car on a street with those signs on it, then you are going to be heading half way to Montreal to bail out the stupid vehicle.

Right now, its night here, I hear the street swipers rumbling up and down my street and tomorrow morning for likely 2 seconds I'll bet I could, maybe, think of eating off the road in front of my place - not.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Canada, Clean, Ontario, Ottawa, Spring, Street swipers

Lost in Translation!

It's a bit breezy downtown in CAs capital this afternoon, even though most of the snow is finally gone and the ice is now just along the rims of the Rideau Canal. Below are pictures taken 2 days apart of the canal - looks like Spring is coming?

So, after a brisk walk through Chinatown to Little Italy then along the canal and circling back to my digs on the north-west fringes of Chinatown, I've spent an enjoyable hour or so watching some Sexy Beijing YouTube clips I've found via a recommendation from James Fallows

This clip is a couple of years old but one of my favourites so far:

Technorati Tags: Asia, China, Chinese, Chinglist, English, fun, Interesting, The Atlantic, Youtube

The real reason the NDP wants to get rid of the "penny"?

Has that truly righteous Pat Martin, firebrand of the New Democratic Party, finally realized where all those "pennies" have been:

I think so.

Technorati Tags: 49th Greatest Comedy Sketch, Canada, Cheap tricks, NDP, Pinheads, Politicians, Really stupid, Righteous, Silly, Stupid Canadian tricks, Terrorism?

Good news from the EU parliament - entertainment neanderthals trounced.

Via boringboring comes news that the EU parliament has defeated:

""three strikes", the IFPI-promoted plan to create a class of digital outcasts, forbidden from accessing the Net if repeatedly accused by music companies of downloading infringing content.

In a vote held today, hundreds of MEPs supported language which declared termination of Internet access to be in conflict with "civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness", all core values of the European Union.

The French, least their wealth worshipping President, Nicholas Sarkozy, had tried to derail the vote. Seems Sarkozy is in favour of the outdated music industry's business model, good luck idiots.

Again via boringboring, here's a link to a video of Matt Mason, on The Pirate's Dilemma. I usually take Matt's inspirational style type talks with a large grain of salt, but, even given my "I'm from Missouri" attitude, his talk is interesting.

Come on IFPI get with it you neanderthals, you are making our ancient ancestor look like a, ugh, conservative.

Technorati Tags: Delusional, European Union, France, eh?, great stuff, IFPI, Neanderthal business model, Pirates?, Ah!, Politicians, Self-destructive?, The Mission, The Plan, What is Sarkozy thinking?