Hulleye Comes By!

following on from my previous post… an example of how democracy works in america today

views and discussion welcomed.

-shb

so the millennium seed bank project which i blogged about a while back has just collected it’s billionth seed. this is an astounding milestone to have reached in such little time and much credit needs to be given to them.

The Millennium Seed Bank Project (MSBP) based in Wakehurst Place, West Sussex is regarded as one of the most ambitious conservation projects in the world. It holds the largest wild seed collection in the world (18,000) including 88% of the total UK flora. It works with over 100 partner organisations in 50 countries forming a global network, duplicating collections in partner seed banks to provide an effective insurance against the loss of species in their natural environments.

thrust vectoring technology video on you tube is pretty damn awesome. wikipedia entry on thrust vectoring here. the forces acting on the pilot must be astounding.

Here’s a little test for your enjoyment, courtesy of ebonmusings. I’ll just provide you with a teaser:

3) You are a product tester and frequently bring your work home. Yesterday, while dressed in a flame resistant suit (up to 3,000 degrees) and carrying the latest model fire extinguisher, you discover your neighbor’s house is on fire. As the flames quickly spread, you stand and watch your neighbor’s new baby burn to death. Which of the following best describes your behavior?

• A. All-powerful
• B. All-knowing
• C. All-loving
• D. Mysterious

holy shit man. what is wrong with these people!

A father who raped his teenage daughter over several years and ordered her to throw two newborns he had fathered with her down an air shaft was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

The 45-year-old West New York man pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, aggravated assault and two counts of aggravated sexual assault. The Associated Press is not identifying him to protect the identity of his daughter, the victim of a sex crime.

a man is deceased. whether or not it was because of a sport called cricket nobody knows. espn did a wonderful job trying to figure it out. this is one of the best articles i’ve read on the case. and probably the only one i will link to so you had better read it. it’s unfortunate that the world cup and the west indies had to get involved in a case like this. cricket as a sport in general is sure to suffer because of it. i think that north american’s do not understand cricket because they don’t understand the feeling of nation’s playing sports against each other. they only know how one city battles out with another without any form of patriotism.

Paul Hickson in American Scientist:

For almost a century, astronomers have experimented with the intriguing idea of building telescope mirrors out of mercury. The reason is that it is relatively easy to get a liquid to take on the required parabolic profile—all one needs to do is to place it on a spinning platter—whereas solid mirrors require meticulously grinding the shape from glass. The obvious shortcoming of liquid-mirror telescopes is that they can only point straight up. Fortunately, for many studies this is the best direction to look, because the line of sight passes through the least amount of atmosphere. What’s more, the practice of “drift scanning” with modern CCD detectors circumvents the inability of liquid-mirror telescopes to track a target as it moves across the sky. The author reports the progress his group has made constructing a 6-meter liquid-mirror telescope, and he discusses plans for other instruments of this kind to be built at more suitable sites—perhaps even on the Moon.

More here

The dish is made of lightweight foam sandwiched between skins of fiber-reinforced plastic. The trusses (b) are affixed to the dish using hinged mounts that can accommodate different degrees of thermal expansion in the materials used above and below.

The number of children under the age of 17 shot by guns in America every year is greater than the gun-related deaths of children in all the industrialized nations of the world COMBINED.

Here is the population of Japan: 127,463,611.

Here is the number of children killed by guns in Japan every year: 0.

A 2001 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study found that in homicides among intimate partners, women are murdered more with guns than with all other means COMBINED.

In 2004, guns were most commonly used by males to murder their female partners.

A 2003 study found women living with a gun in the home were almost three times more likely to be murdered than women with no gun in the home.

“If we ban handguns only criminals will have guns.” Well then let’s not have any laws in America at all. No drug laws, no traffic laws, no laws at all, right? Duh.

“Cars kill people!!” Yes, cars kill people when something goes wrong. Guns are MADE to kill people…

More here.

Most everyone knows and loves the MythBusters, two guys who attempt to set the story straight on things people just take for granted. Well, maybe everyone except Brandon Hansen, who has offered them a taste of their own medicine as he busts the MythBusters’ improper use of statistics in their experiment to determine whether yawning is contagious. While the article maintains that the contagion of yawns is still a possibility, Hansen is clearly giving the MythBusters no credit for proving such a claim, ‘not with a correlation coefficient of .045835.’”

The US Food and Drug Administration is considering redefining ‘chocolate’ to allow substitution of vegetable oil ($0.70/lb.) for cocoa butter ($2.30/lb.), and whey protein for dry whole milk. There are already standard terms to differentiate these products from chocolate, such as ‘chocolatey’ and ‘chocolate-flavored.’ The change was requested by the industry group Chocolate Manufacturers of America. Leading the resistance to this change is high-end chocolate maker Guittard, with significant grass-roots support from the Candyblog. The FDA is taking consumer comments until April 25. Here is the FDA page on the proposed change, which oddly enough does not say what the proposed change is.

A mineralogist at London’s Natural History Museum was contracted to help identify an unknown mineral found in a Serbian mine. While he initially thought the miners had discovered a unique compound, after its crystal structure was analyzed and identified the researcher was shocked to find the material already referenced in literature. Fictional literature. Dr. Chris Stanley, from the BBC article: ‘Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral’s chemical formula — sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide — and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luthor from a museum in the film Superman Returns … I’m afraid it’s not green and it doesn’t glow either — although it will react to ultraviolet light by fluorescing a pinkish-orange.”

Yesterday India successfully launched an Italian astronomical satellite. A BBC article (view video clip) notes that the launch grants India membership in the exclusive group of nations that can sustain commercial satellite launches. India’s launch vehicle has less overall capacity than the competition — up to 1,500 kg to orbit — but the country plans to sweep the low end of the market by offering the lowest cost per launched kilogram for smaller payloads.

He calls himself the Antichrist, wears the number 666 tattooed on his arm and claims a following of 2 million people.And Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is coming to Guatemala whether it wants him or not.

a cousin tree from wikipedia. thanks 3qd.

seems like pakistan isn’t the only place where freedom of the press is an issue. the ugliness of it has come across to canadian borders where thugs and morons combine their brains to do stupid shit like this. it’s shameful to see this come over here.

Journalist Jawaad Faizi says he can still feel broken glass showering over him in his car as he fended off blows from a cricket bat in a surprise attack he blames on “religious fanatics.”

A writer for the Pakistan Post, Faizi said he was beaten by three men because he mocked a Pakistani cleric in a column.

Faizi said the men smashed the windshield and driver’s window of his car as he arrived at his editor’s home about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. He said he was struck by the cricket bat and was cut on his forearm.

“They were smashing and smashing, hitting and hitting,” Faizi said. “I could not stop them.”

Faizi said both he and his editor, Amir Arain, recently received phone calls warning them to stop writing defamatory articles about the religious group Idara Minhaj-ul-Quran and its leader, Allama Tahir-Ul-Qadri.

Faizi said he wrote a column two weeks ago mocking the cleric, who he said told a gathering in Pakistan “that he could write the name of Mohammed on the moon with his finger.”

Keep reading. Thanks Hugh.

“This is one of many robot series. Some of them are sexually oriented.”

Feast your eyes on this mind-bending video of an ’80s fundamentalist Christian broadcast, discussing “occultic symbolism” (!) in Voltron and the Transformers. Apparently Voltron is teh devil.

for all those who really care about their online and desktop computing experience. why don’t you take some time out and switch to ubuntu. try it out without even installing it using their live cd. it’s well worth the shot. believe me. they send you free cd’s even. their newest release came out today. why don’t you install it and try it. don’t use windows. it’s not worth the headaches. believe me. i left all the tension of serials and cracks and updates and patches and security and bugs and compatability and versions and shareware and viruses and all that jazz all behind me two years ago now and haven’t looked back since. believe me, try it now. if you are at all interested and feel hesitant to do so. if you feel you’re too used to windows. if you feel you have too much data on your windows machine that you can’t do without. if you feel that you won’t be able to play games anymore. if you feel you won’t be able to run your important msn and other applications, do ask me about it. i’ll guide you through it and answer all your questions about it. you know you want to. if you don’t believe me, i made a believer out of awab. also the new release of ubuntu, labelled feisty fawn, has an easy to use windows migration tool as well to ease the pain of switching. ask me for details. please

this is all i am going to post about the virginia tech shootings. i think it explains my sentiments fairly well. click to make bigger.

Update: even though i had promised not to post anymore about vtech, this is related to the post i’ve already made about the blame game. the cynical-c blog is keeping track of all the things that the media has already blamed for the massacre.

speaking of mario and luigi, saw this earlier today. whoever is playing this must be one of the most patient morons ever. credit to him though. i ended up watching the whole damn thing.

so one of the reasons i haven’t updated in a while is that i’ve been stuck with my brand spankin new wii trying to finish super paper mario and playing wii sports with my wife. it be awesome. if you can find one, i highly recommend it. now wii really want cricket.

everyone has played monopoly at some point in their life. it teaches you a lot about your friends and family and how shrewd they can be. it brings out the best and worst in you. but what is it really about. this pdf goes through the nitty gritty of the game. does all the math for you. good luck with the jargon because i ain’t helping you out with it. but it’s a fascinating read nonetheless. (it’s a pdf, try adobe acrobat or cutepdf).

just a brief glimpse of today’s headlines giving an exact state of affairs in the homeland at the moment. and people all over the world are oblivious.

Justice Iftikhar still CJ, govt tells SC
—————————————————————-
By Nasir Iqbal
ISLAMABAD, April 16: The government conceded before the Supreme Court here on Monday that it still considered Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to be the Chief Justice of Pakistan.
“He is still the chief justice but the SJC has passed some restraining orders against him,” advocate Malik Qayyum, representing the government, told a three-member bench hearing identical petitions challenging formation of the SJC and President Pervez Musharraf’s move to forward a reference against Justice Chaudhry….

Understanding in country’s interest, says Benazir
—————————————————————-
Dawn Report
KARACHI: In the interview with The Sunday Times of London that is now at the centre of a fresh controversy over a possible deal between the People’s Party and Gen Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto claimed that such a deal was in Pakistan’s interest.
The report — titled “Defiant Bhutto plans return” — was written by Dean Nelson, the newspaper’s South Asia Correspondent. Here are some excerpts from the story:…

Extremism greatest threat: president
—————————————————————-
By Our Reporter
RAWALPINDI, April 16: President Gen Pervez Musharraf has said that internal threat is posing the greatest challenge to the country’s integrity. Addressing a conference of formation commanders here, he alluded to the Lal Masjid episode and said the government was following a prudent course to deal with some misguided youths.
“Moderate forces must win and we must defeat extremism if Pakistan has to progress,” he remarked….

India accuses Pakistan of backing terror
—————————————————————-
NEW DELHI, April 16: India’s defence minister on Monday accused Pakistan of continuing to support cross-border terrorism in occupied Kashmir.
“There is no change in Pakistan’s support to cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir,” Defence Minister A.K. Antony told a conference of top army officials in New Delhi. “This remains a cause of concern to us,” a defence ministry statement quoted him as saying….

Trust needed for success in war on terror: FO
—————————————————————-
By Qudssia Akhlaque
ISLAMABAD, April 16: In a pointed message to the US and other members of the international coalition against terrorism, the government on Monday warned them against deflecting criticism from their own failures towards Pakistan and underscored the need for mutual trust for counter-terrorism efforts to succeed.
“We expect the international community to have trust in us as we would trust them because without that, this alliance against terrorism cannot achieve any success,” Foreign Office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam told a weekly news briefing while responding to a question. “We also expect the international community to acknowledge Pakistan’s contribution, acknowledge its own failures and not try to deflect criticism from its own failures towards Pakistan,” she added….

Change is imminent, claims Nawaz
—————————————————————-
By Ashraf Shad
DUBAI, April 16: Mian Nawaz Sharif has challenged President Gen Pervez Musharraf to stop his return, vowing to land in Pakistan at the ‘right time’.
In an interview with Dubai’s Khaleej Times, to be published on Tuesday, the former prime minister said: “I will choose the time to return to Pakistan and President Musharraf cannot stop me from returning”….

Blasts cut power supply
—————————————————————-
By Our Staff Correspondent
QUETTA, April 16: Power supply to Guddu power plant from Uch was suspended on Monday as two towers of the transmission line were blown up near Dera Allahyar.
Police sources said explosive devices went off near two pylons of the 220kV transmission line near Dera Allahyar bypass in the evening….

Missile firing exercise concludes
—————————————————————-
ISLAMABAD, April 16: A three-day live missile firing exercise conducted by Pakistan Air Force concluded successfully at Sonmiani range on Monday.
All types of fighter aircraft and surface-to-air missile units of PAF participated in the exercise….

Three killed, four injured as grenade explodes
—————————————————————-
By Our Correspondent
PESHAWAR, April 16: Three children were killed and four other people, including two women, sustained injuries when a hand grenade exploded inside a house in the Badhbare village in the outskirts of Peshawar on Monday morning.
Two sisters, Bushra, 9, and Sara, 4, daughters of Jamdad Khan, were killed on the spot while three of their brothers, Siyar, 13, Zulfiqar, 11, and Asfandyar, 7, and their mother, Sharafta, and their grandmother, Dil Feroza, were injured…

Security man killed in ambush
—————————————————————-
By Our Correspondent
DARRA ADAM KHEL, April 16: An official of the Khasadaar Force was shot dead and two others were seriously injured by masked motorcyclists near a Khasadaar post on Kohat-Peshawar road here on Monday evening.
Subedar Major Iran Gul along with other Khasadaars was on a routine patrolling on Peshawar-Kohat road when two motorcyclists opened fire on the Khasadaar party and killed Iran Gul on the spot….

Health scheme changed without homework
—————————————————————-

By Baqir Sajjad Syed
ISLAMABAD, April 16: The health ministry has decided to add haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine to the children’s immunisation programme from next year without ascertaining the exact burden of Hib pneumonia in the country.
A health ministry spokesman on Monday said every child born in the country would be given a new combination of vaccines against five diseases from July 2008….

Benazir calls for ending Balochistan operation
—————————————————————-
By Our Reporter
ISLAMABAD, April 16: Former prime minister and chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party Benazir Bhutto has expressed grave concern over the continuing military operation in Balochistan and called for an end to the operation and settlement of political disputes through dialogue.
A press statement issued by the party’s media centre said that the PPP chairperson had been receiving reports from the party’s provincial organisation that life had become miserable in Balochistan for people in areas where the military operation was under way….

Unregistered Afghan DPs termed ‘illegal’
—————————————————————-
By Bakhtawar Mian
ISLAMABAD, April 16: All unregistered Afghan refugees living in the country will now be considered ‘illegal’ as the government deadline set for their registration or voluntary return to Afghanistan expired on Sunday.
Pakistan had set April 15, 2007 deadline and asked all Afghan refugees either to get themselves registered by obtaining the Proof of Registration (PoR) cards or voluntarily go back to Afghanistan. Those failed to go back to Afghanistan will now be considered illegal and face the laws of Pakistan….

Lawyers continue protest campaign
—————————————————————-
By A Reporter
KARACHI, April 16: The lawyers’ fraternity on Monday continued its campaign in the city courts and Malir district against the suspension of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

Twelve members of Karachi Bar Association (KBA) observed a token hunger strike in the city courts. They were Zubair Ishaq, Maroof Hussain Hashmi, Mohammad Qasim Niazi,Mehmood Habibullah, Raja Mohammad Ashraf, M.I. Aasi Baba, Kamran Alam, Nasir Mehmood, Mehtab Ahmed, Azhar Hussein, Sohrab Ahmed and Mohammad Jurial Rajper….

i hope you had your breakfast of champions. the sirens of titan will recieve you, and mother night shall embrace you. the cat’s cradle will always be welcome in the monkey house, and rosewater blesses you back. rest in peace kurt.

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ “

–God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

it seems that the persians are in quite the hotspot as of late. every other media channel has the letters i-r-a-n plastered somewhere on the screen. was it always like this? nope, media portrays the evils rather well according to the current mood of american politics. in any case, the movie 300 has gotten rave reviews and the critics have soaked up blockbuster ratings and the moguls that be have made their millions from it. even though it’s a work of fiction by a great story teller, namely frank miller, it’s been acclaimed already, and rather inaccurately as a historical film. here is a bit of an insight in greek and persian history as dr. kaveh farrokh reviews the film piece by piece and explains how the film has demonized and butchered the greeks and persians and their ancient cultures.

In the course of their historical intercourse, Greece and Persia have created breathtaking works in domains such as the arts, architecture, sciences, music and of course, democracy and human rights. It is interesting that many modern Greeks acknowledge and appreciate ancient Iran as a civilization as worthy as their own, yet the same is not necessarily true in northwest Europe and North America. 

This review will focus on eight items for discussion:

(1) The Notion of Democracy and Human Rights

(2) What really led to War

(3) The Military Conflict: Separating Fact from Fiction

(4) The Error of Xerxes: The Burning of Athens

(5) The “West” battling against the “Mysticism” of “the East”

(6) The Portrayal of Iranians and Greeks

(7) A Note on the Iranian Women in Antiquity

(8) “Good” versus “Evil”

why is the number 17 not as random as it should be?

The Melbourne to Karachi tram or the W-11 tram was a tram commissioned by the city of Melbourne decorated by a team of professional Pakistani vehicle decorators during the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

humans and machines interact in a fairly bizarre manner. in science fiction, even more so. here’s a detailed analysis of the interactivity between machines and humans in popular sci-fi culture.

so the washington post, recently hired one of the world’s bests violinists, and put him outside a D.C. metro station to play for pocket change and to see whether anyone would notice him. the results are mind boggling. i love how consumed we all are in the morning.

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch

Terry Jones
The Guardian

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God’s sake, what’s wrong with putting a bag over her head? That’s what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it’s hard to breathe. Then it’s perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can’t be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn’t be able to talk at all. Of course they’d probably find it even harder to breathe - especially with a bag over their head - but at least they wouldn’t be humiliated.

And what’s all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It’s time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That’s one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn’t rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it’s just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

What’s more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting “stress positions”, which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It’s all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is “unhappy and stressed”.

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her “unhappy and stressed”. She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer - whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq.

· Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python
www.terry-jones.net

How the Iranians treat their prisoners:

so apparently keith richards is a living reason to do drugs because he just refuses to die. seems like he snorted his dad a while back. can you imagine what state of mind you must be in to do something like that?

“The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort?” the Sun quoted Richards as saying in its early Wednesday edition.

“My father. I snorted my father.

“He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared.

“It went down pretty well and I’m still alive.”

Update: Yesterday MTV followed up with Richards manager, who said it wasn’t true. They say:

In a buzz-killing mood, though, we decided to check with Richards’ longtime manager, Jane Rose. We asked her about the dad-snorting quotes in the NME interview. She responded with an e-mail: “Said in jest,” she explained. “Can’t believe anyone took [it] seriously.”

Whatever. That dude did it. She probably had to say he didn’t because ingesting dead people would seemingly be illegal. And what the hell was she supposed to say anyway? “Yeah, he snorted his dad. I’m taking bets on who will croak first, Richards, or Iggy Pop?