dave: April 2004 Archives

US Soldiers torture Iraqi Prisoners.

US Marines execute an Iraqi to the cheers of fellow Marines.

Some Questions for the 'pResident'

The Lord of the Rings as sung by REM. (via Yet Another Web Log)

If you were wondering why you couldn't see anything here, it's becuse I've been upgrading the webserver. It's now running Fedora Core 1. with a 2.6.5 kernel.

The current system configuration is always visible at this page.

spotted in this mornings SCMP:

Because, you dribbling idiot, when other countries 'interperet' the Basic Law, they're just stating an opinion, when China 'interperets' the Basic Law, they are changing it to suit themselves.

We saw One of these in a camera shop today. Instant Lust. It's a six Megapixel camera with a built in rechargeable bettery and the images looked fine when we used it. And it's also very easy to use. Seconds after picking it up, my wife was able to take a picture. The colours on the big screen looked very clear and the zoom function on the taken pictures was very clear too.

The only little hassle was the price - HK$ 4,500 - which is well out of our budget for a camera. Mind you, our budget for a camera is zero at the moment. Maybe if we sell the flat...

I just discovered what my catfish are. They're Clarius Batrachus, or Walking Catfish! They can grow up to 18" long, are omnivorous and can walk! I'm definitley keeping the bedroom door closed at night!

US tactics condemned by British officers, from the Telegraph is a pretty scathing indictment of what's currently happening in Iraq, and how much of it is self-inflicted by the Americans.

There's more discussion of it by juan Cole and BillMon at Whiskey Bar.

There are some new additions to the family. I got some sharks and a stone-fish today to add to the aquarium. The sharks bully the catfish, which is good. The stone-fish lurks. He's a world champion lurker. He's got a great face - sort of a cross between Yoda and Obi-Wan.

Mind you, I just remembered seeing stonefish in the Wan Chai market for sale. Apparently, they grow to about 18 inches long. Ho Hum. If I'm complaining about the two steaks per day that my fish require in a year or so, you can remind me that it's all my fault.

Operation Ignore, from Al Franken's book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right looks at the real anti-terrorism policies of the Bush White House.

I've added a navbar link to a site I read regularly: The Daily Kos. (A good over view of the current faff about Kos.)

Basically, Kos expressed an opinion about the four mercenaries that were recently killed in Fallujah. (BBC, Guardian) The hysterical Right Wing Slime Machine went into overdrive and started getting his advertisers to withdraw their advertising.

If you're in Ohio, go vote for Jeff Seemann. He seems to make sense.

A question for the more savvy readers out there. When you have some tropical fish in a tank in the living room, is it normal to hear some of them eating from two rooms away?

We have three catfish, which I bought when they were about one inch long, that have now grown to about ten inches long each. Ten inches of lean, mean, wriggling, eating machine.

The kids are under orders not to open their bedroom door unless whatever is trying to get in can speak.

We headed over Kowloon-side by MTR today and something happened which I haven't seen in quite a while.

I went over to an empty seat to sit down and the old lady on the same side got up and moved away. It used to be common that no one would sit next to the Gweilo, but it's not something I've experienced recently.

Normally, when old ladies see me coming with the kids, they go into universal granny mode. This involves making clucking noises, exclaiming "how cute!" in whatever language they speak and possibly offering small treats. Grannies everywhere are like this with small kids, regardless of whether the kids are likely to understand.