Keeping the world up to date with me.
Friday, May 28, 2004
Suppression of the Knights Templar
Formed in 1118 to protect pilgrims headed for Jerusalem, the Templars were simultaneously a religious and military order. Also known as the 'Poor Knights of Christ' they helped Plunder the holy land, making a large fortune which allowed them to set up what was effectively Europe's first international banking system. They provided many loans to enable various crusades to take place. Based in France, they drew the envy of the weak king Philippe IV, and his minister Marigny, who suppressed the order in 1312. Branding them 'ravening wolves, a perfidious, idolatrous society, whose works and words alone are sufficient to pollute the earth and infect the air', most were arrested, tortured and executed. Some were accused of worshipping a preserved, severed head called 'Baphomet', held by some to be the remains of St. John the Baptist. Modern theories link them to an ancient Egyptian order of stonemasons related to the monotheist king Akhenaten; he was driven from Egypt and possibly to Spain, whereon the masonic teachings were passed to the Templars. After their suppression it is said that some took refuge in Scotland (at that time allied strongly to France), and after many years resurfaced as the modern Freemason society. Graves with Templar motifs can be found in Scottish churchyars. The Templars have also resurfaced as an independent organisation, which among other things now offers student loans.
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Is Islam in the same condition Christianity was 500 years ago?
I saw this article last night, and posted a reply:
That's a good overview. I would add in the the US/UK are acting in the Middle East in a similar way the Holy Roman Empire did amongst the Italian states, or like England did amongst the pre-Norman Irish kingdoms. In the latter, Norman mercenaries fought on one side of a squabble between nascent kinglets in Ireland, which eventually drew the Norman kings into a quagmire in Ireland that they've never got out of (1000 years on).
The US/UK been drawn into a conflict between the various (short-lived) states on the basis of dodgy WMD evidence cooked up by Chalabi and his Shia chums. A UK Guardian article yesterday went through the evidence that Iran wants to see Shia supremacy in the region, so 'planted' intelligence so that it could pull in a big ally to destroy its neighbour. The same thing happens in schoolyards where one kid lies to his bigger brother about another kid he doesn't like ('he hit me!'), and then big brother comes along and kicks the other kid.
One thing that's missing from this analysis is that many of these extremists do equate religion with state, and see the struggle for one as the struggle for the other - there is no separation of the two in their minds. It's a bit like Catholicism, which 'officially' equates being a Catholic with being a Christian - if you're not a Catholic, you're not a Christian (I'm a Catholic, by the way!). The al-Saud family are of this persuasion, which is why they went into Riyadh about 100 years ago, killed the ruling group there and created Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is constructed as a state which exists to further Islam. This is where a lot of the present Islamic thinking that drives al-Qaeda and the rest. (we're not bombing them though, are we?)
Anyway, enough ramblings.
That's a good overview. I would add in the the US/UK are acting in the Middle East in a similar way the Holy Roman Empire did amongst the Italian states, or like England did amongst the pre-Norman Irish kingdoms. In the latter, Norman mercenaries fought on one side of a squabble between nascent kinglets in Ireland, which eventually drew the Norman kings into a quagmire in Ireland that they've never got out of (1000 years on).
The US/UK been drawn into a conflict between the various (short-lived) states on the basis of dodgy WMD evidence cooked up by Chalabi and his Shia chums. A UK Guardian article yesterday went through the evidence that Iran wants to see Shia supremacy in the region, so 'planted' intelligence so that it could pull in a big ally to destroy its neighbour. The same thing happens in schoolyards where one kid lies to his bigger brother about another kid he doesn't like ('he hit me!'), and then big brother comes along and kicks the other kid.
One thing that's missing from this analysis is that many of these extremists do equate religion with state, and see the struggle for one as the struggle for the other - there is no separation of the two in their minds. It's a bit like Catholicism, which 'officially' equates being a Catholic with being a Christian - if you're not a Catholic, you're not a Christian (I'm a Catholic, by the way!). The al-Saud family are of this persuasion, which is why they went into Riyadh about 100 years ago, killed the ruling group there and created Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is constructed as a state which exists to further Islam. This is where a lot of the present Islamic thinking that drives al-Qaeda and the rest. (we're not bombing them though, are we?)
Anyway, enough ramblings.
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Monday, May 24, 2004
I've just read in Saturday's Guardian (May 22 2004) - yes, I know it's a crap paper, but it had a free CD - that cuddly Ken Livingstone is even better than I thought. He thinks that 4-wheel drive vehicles in London are all driven by wankers ('idiots' he calls them, but we know what he means). And he's right of course. He also calls them 'Chelsea tractors', which I hadn't heard before - they're probably called that as the kids in the back often look like pigs I guess. If you have a 4WD vehicle (also called SUVs in the US), please set fire to it now to save me the trouble. Well, I suppose it's handy when the mums have to negotiate the grass verge outside the school.
My mate Jon gave me a good game to play with 4WD/SUV names. Basically, you put the word 'Anal' in front of the name: it's funny more often than you think. e.g. 'Anal Dominator', 'Anal Explorer' etc. ad nauseam.
Incidentally, they did a survey in South Warrington of speeding vehicles (as reported in the Warrington Guardian some weeks ago). They found that 85% of drivers exceeding the speed limit were mums driving their kids to school in the morning. Of course, these are the same mums that don't let their kids walk to school because of the dangerous traffic. Go figure.
I was hit by a taxi the other day as I was turning out of my cul-de-sac. The whys and wherefores of who's at fault I won't go into (it was probably mine, in other words). But what annoyed me most about the incident is that the taxi was on its way to pick up some kid from his house to ferry him to school. This is a small town, and the school is about 1o minutes' walk away. But the kid is still picked up for both journeys, five days a week. I bet he's fat too.
More despair and loathing tomorrow. At least Ken's ok.
My mate Jon gave me a good game to play with 4WD/SUV names. Basically, you put the word 'Anal' in front of the name: it's funny more often than you think. e.g. 'Anal Dominator', 'Anal Explorer' etc. ad nauseam.
Incidentally, they did a survey in South Warrington of speeding vehicles (as reported in the Warrington Guardian some weeks ago). They found that 85% of drivers exceeding the speed limit were mums driving their kids to school in the morning. Of course, these are the same mums that don't let their kids walk to school because of the dangerous traffic. Go figure.
I was hit by a taxi the other day as I was turning out of my cul-de-sac. The whys and wherefores of who's at fault I won't go into (it was probably mine, in other words). But what annoyed me most about the incident is that the taxi was on its way to pick up some kid from his house to ferry him to school. This is a small town, and the school is about 1o minutes' walk away. But the kid is still picked up for both journeys, five days a week. I bet he's fat too.
More despair and loathing tomorrow. At least Ken's ok.
From the L.A.Times:
In 1922, just after his second term as president, Woodrow Wilson was asked for his thoughts on Darwinian theory.
"Of course, like every other man of intelligence and education, I do believe in organic evolution," he replied. "It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised."
Now imagine Wilson's downright astonishment had he been informed that in 2004, more than eight decades later, the state schools superintendent in Georgia would propose excising the word "evolution" from the biology curriculum.
There are few backers these days for the argument that we have reached "the end of history." However, a glance at some of the dominant ideas of the last couple of decades raises an even more startling possibility: that history, far from halting, has gone into reverse gear.
This may explain why so many of the case studies in Charles Mackay's classic 1841 history of human folly, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," are reflected in the more recent episodes I've been studying.
The dot-com lunacy of the late 1990s, for instance, when companies with no discernible income achieved higher market valuations than big and well-established industrial corporations, was eerily reminiscent of previous investment manias such as the South Sea Bubble and the Dutch tulip craze, both of which were recounted at length by Mackay.
Mackay also mocked Nostradamus, observing with amused incredulity that this 16th century astrologer still had some followers in "the Walloon country of Belgium," among "old farmer-wives." Yet the self-same Nostradamus raced up the bestseller lists in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and few if any of those 21st century readers could be classified as "old farmer-wives."
Charles Mackay's book is largely a history of the pre-Enlightenment - an age of witch hunts and holy relics, alchemy and geomancy. But we've grown out of that now, haven't we? Apparently not.
Over the last 25 years or so, after two centuries of gradual ascendancy, Enlightenment values of reason, secularism and scientific empiricism have come under fierce assault from a grotesquely incongruous coalition of radical deconstructionists and medieval flat-earthers, New Age mystics and Old Testament fundamentalists.
The space vacated by notions of history and progress has been colonized by cults, quackery, gurus, irrational panics, moral confusion and an epidemic of gibberish. A Gallup poll in 1993, for example, found that only 11% of Americans accepted the standard scientific account of evolution, whereas 47% maintained that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Another poll revealed that 49% of Americans believed in demonic possession, 36% in telepathy and 25% in astrology. It is as if the Enlightenment never happened.
There have been astonishing scientific advances in the last quarter-century, exemplified by the creation of the Internet and the mapping of the human genome. In spite of this - or, more likely, because of it - millions of Westerners now seek consolation from mumbo-jumbo merchants and snake-oil vendors.
Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who styles himself a modernizer and recites the mantra "education, education, education," has praised creationist teachers at a state-funded school in the north of England who seek to establish the Book of Genesis as the main biology textbook. Blair and his wife underwent a "rebirthing experience" while holidaying on the Mexican Riviera three years ago. "The Blairs were offered watermelon and papaya, then told to smear what they did not eat over each other's bodies along with mud from the Mayan jungle outside," the London Times reported. "Before leaving, the Blairs were told to scream out loud to signify the pain of rebirth."
Rational argument is increasingly obscured by a swirling fog of emotionalism and superstition - and, as Blair has proved, even the highest and mightiest are not immune. Remember Nancy Reagan's astrologer? Or President Clinton's brainstorming weekend with Hollywood mystic Marianne Williamson, self-styled "sacred psychologist" Jean Houston and management gurus Anthony Robbins and Stephen R. Covey?
The sleep of reason brings forth monsters. Some are manifestly sinister, others perhaps merely comical - harmless pastimes, as Nancy Reagan said of her reliance on horoscopes. Cumulatively, however, the proliferation of obscurant bunkum is a menace to the Enlightenment legacy bequeathed to America by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Where is H.L. Mencken when we need him?
Francis Wheen is the author of "Idiot Proof: Deluded Celebrities, Irrational Power-Brokers, Media Morons and the Erosion of Common Sense" (Public Affairs, 2004).
In 1922, just after his second term as president, Woodrow Wilson was asked for his thoughts on Darwinian theory.
"Of course, like every other man of intelligence and education, I do believe in organic evolution," he replied. "It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised."
Now imagine Wilson's downright astonishment had he been informed that in 2004, more than eight decades later, the state schools superintendent in Georgia would propose excising the word "evolution" from the biology curriculum.
There are few backers these days for the argument that we have reached "the end of history." However, a glance at some of the dominant ideas of the last couple of decades raises an even more startling possibility: that history, far from halting, has gone into reverse gear.
This may explain why so many of the case studies in Charles Mackay's classic 1841 history of human folly, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," are reflected in the more recent episodes I've been studying.
The dot-com lunacy of the late 1990s, for instance, when companies with no discernible income achieved higher market valuations than big and well-established industrial corporations, was eerily reminiscent of previous investment manias such as the South Sea Bubble and the Dutch tulip craze, both of which were recounted at length by Mackay.
Mackay also mocked Nostradamus, observing with amused incredulity that this 16th century astrologer still had some followers in "the Walloon country of Belgium," among "old farmer-wives." Yet the self-same Nostradamus raced up the bestseller lists in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and few if any of those 21st century readers could be classified as "old farmer-wives."
Charles Mackay's book is largely a history of the pre-Enlightenment - an age of witch hunts and holy relics, alchemy and geomancy. But we've grown out of that now, haven't we? Apparently not.
Over the last 25 years or so, after two centuries of gradual ascendancy, Enlightenment values of reason, secularism and scientific empiricism have come under fierce assault from a grotesquely incongruous coalition of radical deconstructionists and medieval flat-earthers, New Age mystics and Old Testament fundamentalists.
The space vacated by notions of history and progress has been colonized by cults, quackery, gurus, irrational panics, moral confusion and an epidemic of gibberish. A Gallup poll in 1993, for example, found that only 11% of Americans accepted the standard scientific account of evolution, whereas 47% maintained that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Another poll revealed that 49% of Americans believed in demonic possession, 36% in telepathy and 25% in astrology. It is as if the Enlightenment never happened.
There have been astonishing scientific advances in the last quarter-century, exemplified by the creation of the Internet and the mapping of the human genome. In spite of this - or, more likely, because of it - millions of Westerners now seek consolation from mumbo-jumbo merchants and snake-oil vendors.
Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who styles himself a modernizer and recites the mantra "education, education, education," has praised creationist teachers at a state-funded school in the north of England who seek to establish the Book of Genesis as the main biology textbook. Blair and his wife underwent a "rebirthing experience" while holidaying on the Mexican Riviera three years ago. "The Blairs were offered watermelon and papaya, then told to smear what they did not eat over each other's bodies along with mud from the Mayan jungle outside," the London Times reported. "Before leaving, the Blairs were told to scream out loud to signify the pain of rebirth."
Rational argument is increasingly obscured by a swirling fog of emotionalism and superstition - and, as Blair has proved, even the highest and mightiest are not immune. Remember Nancy Reagan's astrologer? Or President Clinton's brainstorming weekend with Hollywood mystic Marianne Williamson, self-styled "sacred psychologist" Jean Houston and management gurus Anthony Robbins and Stephen R. Covey?
The sleep of reason brings forth monsters. Some are manifestly sinister, others perhaps merely comical - harmless pastimes, as Nancy Reagan said of her reliance on horoscopes. Cumulatively, however, the proliferation of obscurant bunkum is a menace to the Enlightenment legacy bequeathed to America by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Where is H.L. Mencken when we need him?
Francis Wheen is the author of "Idiot Proof: Deluded Celebrities, Irrational Power-Brokers, Media Morons and the Erosion of Common Sense" (Public Affairs, 2004).
Friday, May 21, 2004
On the subject of statistics, Eric Meyer has an interesting article on this: We Need Some References, STATS!.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Understanding 'Mean Time Between Failure': Coupling, Complexity and Normal Accidents
In 1984, Charles Perrow wrote an amazing book titled Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies. In it he observed that system accidents can be the result of one big failure, but most often are caused by the unexpected interactions between failures of multiple components.
In other words, complex systems whose components are tightly integrated typically fail through the culmination of multiple components failing and interacting in unexpected ways. For example, it's very rare that a plane has a wing fall off mid-flight. It's far more likely that several component failures interact in unpredictable ways that, when combined, cause a catastrophe.
In 1984, Charles Perrow wrote an amazing book titled Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies. In it he observed that system accidents can be the result of one big failure, but most often are caused by the unexpected interactions between failures of multiple components.
In other words, complex systems whose components are tightly integrated typically fail through the culmination of multiple components failing and interacting in unexpected ways. For example, it's very rare that a plane has a wing fall off mid-flight. It's far more likely that several component failures interact in unpredictable ways that, when combined, cause a catastrophe.
Monday, May 17, 2004
Friday, May 14, 2004
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Monday, May 10, 2004
Some cheap airlines in the UK:
Air Southwest: Flights from Plymouth & Newquay to Manchester.
Jet 2: Flights from Leeds/Bradford.
Fly Globespan: routes from Scotland.
BMI Baby.
Air Southwest: Flights from Plymouth & Newquay to Manchester.
Jet 2: Flights from Leeds/Bradford.
Fly Globespan: routes from Scotland.
BMI Baby.
'Poor paying for war on terror' - another unfortunate side-effect of our country's policy toward Iraq.
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Michel Thomas - a different way to learn a foreign language. Allegedly, he's taught many celebrities a foreign language within a weekend. A weekend - wow!
The 50 places people would 'die' to see (compiled for BBC Holiday Magazine):
1. Grand Canyon
2. Great Barrier Reef
3. Walt Disney World, Florida
4. South Island, New Zealand
5. Cape Town
6. Golden Temple, Amritsar, India
7. Las Vegas, USA
8. Sydney, Australia
9. New York, USA
10. Taj Mahal, India
11. Lake Louise, Canadian Rockies
12. Ayers Rock (Uluru), Australia
13. Chichen Itza, Mexico
14. Machu Picchu, Peru
15. Niagara Falls
16. Petra, Jordan
17. The Pyramids
18. Venice
19. The Maldives
20. Great Wall of China
21. Victoria Falls
22. Hong Kong
23. Yosemite National Park
24. Hawaii
25. North Island, New Zealand
26. The Iguacu Falls, Argentina/Brazil border
27. Paris
28. Alaska
29. Angkor Wat, Cambodia
30. Mount Everest
31. Rio de Janeiro
32. Masai Mara, Kenya
33. Galapagos Islands, off Ecuador
34. Luxor
35. Rome
36. San Francisco
37. Barcelona
38. Dubai
39. Singapore
40. La Digue, Seychelles
41. Sri Lanka
42. Bangkok
43. Barbados
44. Iceland
45. The Terracotta Army, China
46. The Matterhorn, Switzerland
47. The Angel Falls, Venezuela
48. Abu Simbel, Egypt
49. Bali
50. Bora Bora, French Polynesia
Not too many then!
1. Grand Canyon
2. Great Barrier Reef
3. Walt Disney World, Florida
4. South Island, New Zealand
5. Cape Town
6. Golden Temple, Amritsar, India
7. Las Vegas, USA
8. Sydney, Australia
9. New York, USA
10. Taj Mahal, India
11. Lake Louise, Canadian Rockies
12. Ayers Rock (Uluru), Australia
13. Chichen Itza, Mexico
14. Machu Picchu, Peru
15. Niagara Falls
16. Petra, Jordan
17. The Pyramids
18. Venice
19. The Maldives
20. Great Wall of China
21. Victoria Falls
22. Hong Kong
23. Yosemite National Park
24. Hawaii
25. North Island, New Zealand
26. The Iguacu Falls, Argentina/Brazil border
27. Paris
28. Alaska
29. Angkor Wat, Cambodia
30. Mount Everest
31. Rio de Janeiro
32. Masai Mara, Kenya
33. Galapagos Islands, off Ecuador
34. Luxor
35. Rome
36. San Francisco
37. Barcelona
38. Dubai
39. Singapore
40. La Digue, Seychelles
41. Sri Lanka
42. Bangkok
43. Barbados
44. Iceland
45. The Terracotta Army, China
46. The Matterhorn, Switzerland
47. The Angel Falls, Venezuela
48. Abu Simbel, Egypt
49. Bali
50. Bora Bora, French Polynesia
Not too many then!
Friday, May 07, 2004
Some London facts from Peter Ackroyd's series on London:
The London Stone is one that Brutus traditionally brought from Troy to be the foundation stone of London. You can find out more about it here.
Leadenhall Market has been a market since Roman times.
The London Stone is one that Brutus traditionally brought from Troy to be the foundation stone of London. You can find out more about it here.
Leadenhall Market has been a market since Roman times.
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Monday, May 03, 2004
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- Watching paint dry
- Suppression of the Knights Templar
- The Ultimate War Sim
- Is Islam in the same condition Christianity was 50...
- How to get Wi-Fi in the outback
- The Victoria Manual - VickyWiki - a guide to Victo...
- I've just read in Saturday's Guardian (May 22 2004...
- From the L.A.Times: In 1922, just after his secon...
- Eggs and the city - it's a bit w*nky, isn't it?
- Honda CB1300 - Discussion group my Dad posts to AL...
- On the subject of statistics, Eric Meyer has an in...
- STATS - checking out the facts and figures behind ...
- Culture clash in the South Seas - the weird John F...
- UK pondered suicide pigeon attacks - the good old ...
- css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design - Wow.
- Welcome to the Dana Centre - a science forum.
- BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Japan's mafia me...
- Understanding 'Mean Time Between Failure': Couplin...
- Simple formula for staying awake - God, how I need...
- Library of Alexandria discovered
- Library of Alexandria discovered
- Bona Vacantia - handy if you want to claim money f...
- Worship The Stones - Anne-Marie's cool website.
- TheFreeDictionary.com - Free Online Dictionary and...
- 'Exhausted' Pop Star Insults The Welsh - marvellous.
- Parrondo's Paradox - an interesting paradox in gam...
- Teen Busted For Sasser Worm - amazing that one kid...
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- Your Daily Mislead
- 'Poor paying for war on terror' - another unfortun...
- Reuters now does RSS - do you need any other source?
- Michel Thomas - a different way to learn a foreign...
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- Peter Ackroyd's journeys across London.
- Another nice article about the London Stone.
- Some London facts from Peter Ackroyd's series on L...
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