civilisationReview

A woman has been fined for taking her horse into a McDonald's restaurant in Greater Manchester. Police said the woman, who has not been named, was in the saddle when she was initially turned away from the drive-through kiosk on Bury New Road. The woman then led the animal inside, where it "ended up doing his business on the floor", a Greater Manchester Police (GMP) spokesman said. "The incident caused distress to customers and disruption for the restaurant, and the police issued the woman with a fixed penalty notice." She added: "The health and safety of our customers and staff is our top priority, and for this reason we are unable to serve pedestrians, bicycle riders or customers on horseback through the drive-thru." - bbc Why should MacDonald’s view a horse in a drive-through as compromising ‘health and safety’ as opposed to a car.  I dare say that a horse’s ass presents less of a hazard than the exhaust pipe of a car. And anyway, I don't know wh...

Boston Bomb accused Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Denies Charges Boston Marathon bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to all charges in his first court appearance, as blast victims looked on. Mr Tsarnaev, 19, faces 30 counts of using a weapon of mass destruction in the two 15 April blasts that killed three, including an eight-year-old boy. He appeared in shackles and an orange prison suit, and replied "not guilty" as the charges were read to the court. - bbc * following comments from bbc news facebook Dawn Greenhouse: It's was a white flag bombing everyone knows it !! No one ever questions the real culprits !! Research the evidence ! It's even been seen that there were staged injuries ! Yahya Kushtuban: CIA is guilty. They planted the bombs to scare people and keep them under lockdown. USA citizen are made to sheep so that Obama the Führer can control them better. Have fun! Alyson Vernon: I am not saying the guy on trial is guilty. The law will decide. What I...

Radical cleric Abu Qatada is being held in a high security jail near the Jordanian capital Amman, after being deported from the UK. His plane left RAF Northolt at 02:46 BST for his home country, where he appeared in court to be charged with terror offences, which he denies. Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "delighted" at his removal. Abu Qatada was first arrested in the UK over alleged terror connections in 2001 and has fought deportation since 2005. bbc I don't get this 'terrorism' thing. Wasn't it an 'act of terror' when u.s. sponsored embargoes killed close to half a million children in Iraq? Is the colonial, 'we are white ergo right' still going on? Going by many comments here, it seems to be the case. The best way to get rid of terrorism is to not incite it with terrorism. I don't understand how people can kill people and call them terrorists when they retaliate. Gross self-absorption and arrogance perhaps. Most times, terroris...

photograph, video, music, by ed just a thought: The uncanny thing about this video that i first shot the video, and then did the music for it without knowing how long the video was going to be.  Thereafter, i threw the clips together in the video-editing software, stuck in the music, and they matched in timing - the music ends at the end of the video.  Sweetly strange. ed

click image for larger view I did this shot to test the handheld quality of shots on the Canon SX50.  Well, I suppose it is not just the image stabilisation that matters but the stability of the shooter as well.  Shot in Manual Mode, handheld, and only with optical zoom. I'll post up the video which i shot handheld as well soon.  Interesting little camera.  For its 1200mm zoom range, certainly a useful complement to my dSLRs (Nikon F4-F6, D700) ed

Pet Shop Boys isn't as much my cup of Darjeeling as is Depeche Mode - whose Delta Machine concert at the London o2 i attended...and it was amazing! to say the least.  But it still has the 80s spirit to it, or at least the 2nd half of the concert where they performed quite a few of my favourites from Domino Dancing to Surburbia and Opportunities.  I went on my own.  But i wasn't alone.  There were people of all ages up to their 50s, sizes, dress-styles....and they were loving it.  So i was in good company.  Epping to Stratford, Stratford to North Greenwich where the o2 is located....nice ride, nice sights.  Fantastic concert, especially when it was amongst the people whom produced the Pet Shop Boys.  They weren't there because it was the 'in-thing', but because they loved it.  That certainly makes it all the more of a great experience as everyone feeds off everyone's spirit.  Good one! Next stop, Santana at the Wembley Arena in...

Facebook's decision to remove videos showing people being decapitated leaves the firm in a quandary: should or shouldn't it impose a wider censorship policy?

 Since publishing the article, readers have contacted the BBC to complain about other videos, including:
 - one that shows killings which do not involve beheadings - clips involving cruelty to dogs and other animals - a smartphone recording of a schoolgirl being punched to the ground by another pupil 
In all cases they said the network had refused their requests to remove the material. A spokeswoman for Facebook confirmed its policy had only been amended in regard to decapitations. - bbc Back in the 70s, people criticised The Waltons, Little House on the Prarie, etc, for not reflecting 'real life'. Thereafter came 'real life' shows which basically killed of the Idyllic family in real life or any inclinations towards it.  It became 'corny' or 'embarrassing' to be close to one's family th...

I'm still in love with the printed word, be it in ink or e-ink


  ~  ed I had been an avid book-reader since i was a child, but with books tearing on me, i decided that it would be wiser for me to upgrade my views on this so that i wouldn't have to keep buying the same books over and over again - like my Sherlock Holmes, Rumpole, and Jeeves and Wooster (Rumpole has the Oxford Book of English Verse as a constant bedside companion, i have the Rumpole Omnibuses and the aforementioned:) ) I save space on books and DVDs (the latter replaced by a hard-drive and a WDTV) and replace it with music-making tools, toys, comics and records now As for the issue of book vs ebook-reader, it is a non-issue for me now. What i'm focused on is what is the best e-reader in terms of function and feature. Kindle has great marketing strategies, the Kobo has a great e-book reader - given its non-proprietary approach, and its memory card slots. As for being able to share e-books, well, unlike mysel...


An extreme artist has been performing acrobatics hundreds of metres above a canyon in central China. Eskil Ronningsbakken, who worked on the Aizhai suspension bridge in Hunan province without a safety harness, later balanced on a rope ladder hanging from a hot air balloon. - bbc “There were times when intellectual, spiritual, and creative achievement preoccupied quite some people. Now, its just 'career advancement', reproduction, grocery shopping, celeb worship and reality shows. With the devaluation of life, its no wonder that people put it at risk for 'kicks' as a last effort at feeling alive. People who like 'living on the edge' are those who don't have anything going on in the plains of the lives, if you think about it.” - ed, on facebook What we are seeing all around us is the best a child would do if pushed to be creative and intelligent but forced to remain a child.  The child can reach the maximum of its intelligent and creative potential as a ch...

Superheroes have evolved with the passage of times.  Once, they were saints and Gods, whom represented ideals which we could internalise and become Godlike.  Of course, many people say that the belief in God only led to underdevelopment amongst people.  They, of course, are wrong.  It is the failure to follow God to the final conclusion, to realise that He made all of us in His image, and that to realise that ‘image’ in ourselves by unifying with every culture and country, and extricating the best elements of all religions, recipes, etc, etc, etc, that would bring together the still-disparate pieces of the puzzle of God, and finally bring to hand the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, that had led to disenchantment with religion and God.  The failure to do this is that which led us to be disempowered.  That is when we produced, became susceptible to, and handed control over to, the elite, celebs, and corporations of our day.  What happened then was that ...