Oh dog. Still laughing. The Flight of the Conchords outside the Australian consulate in New York flipping the bird. I thought the racism against Kiwi’s was a bit predictable but very funny. Needed more Kristen Schaal though.
Archive for June, 2008
Flight of the Conchords
June 22nd, 2008In Our Name
June 22nd, 2008
“To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize “how it really was.” It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger. For historical materialism it is a question of holding fast to a picture of the past, just as if it had unexpectedly thrust itself, in a moment of danger, on the historical subject. The danger threatens the stock of tradition as much as its recipients. For both it is one and the same: handing itself over as the tool of the ruling classes. In every epoch, the attempt must be made to deliver tradition anew from the conformism which is on the point of overwhelming it. For the Messiah arrives not merely as the Redeemer; he also arrives as the vanquisher of the Anti-christ. The only writer of history with the gift of setting alight the sparks of hope in the past, is the one who is convinced of this: that not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.” – Walter Benjamin, On the Concept of History.
I have had a long and bitter argument with a colleague about the justifications for the use of torture. There was an excellent episode of Compass about the issue. Particularly worth listening closely to are Raimond Gaita‘s discussions on moral philosophy.
The episode should be compulsory viewing for those idiots who claim there is some justification for torture and abuse. There are no grounds, no “ticking bomb” scenario, under which we can condone the use of torture for any purposes.
On Posting
June 10th, 2008I haven’t really done more than lurked in the blogsphere for the last 6-12 months. I don’t think I’ve commented more than a dozen times (excluding today where I went nuts – the recent tit-for-tat bullying revenge movie extravaganza has prompted some comments) on anyone’s blog. Ruth is the same – she has been a infrequent poster of late also – though she has less excuse than me – she camps with laptop on lap on my couch and should post every night. Unless of course she’s not funny anymore. Yep. That’ll be it. Not funny anymore. *Note to self – be on guard for retaliation tonight*.
Instead I do a lot of Twittering and IRC. Oh and work. Work has left little time to blog too. Some paid work but mostly FOSS work. Which I probably shouldn’t call “work” but sometimes feels like it is – truth be told I feel like a walking, talking support centre some days. And I cut a lot less actual code than I’d like but rather shuffle tickets and triage things. But I have recently migrated a ticketing system for Puppet from Trac to Redmine – which I am fairly chuffed about and that is already making life much easier.
All in all I find the Twitter system of 140 characters updates a much smaller morsel to swallow rather than epic blog posts. Not that I wrote an awful lot of those. But I have decided to make some effort and try to blog at least once or twice a week. I don’t particularly care about readership – that was never this blog’s intent – but I do feel like the journaling/diary element of it has been lost lately as I meander along doing other things. A lot of things in my life I’d like to be taking note of for future posterity (my own future posterity – I am sure no one else cares 
) have been happening.
So first piece of news – another book in the offing/maybe/possibly – lots of issues around it and not feeling overly motivated but it’s a distinct possibility. A more Linux focussed title this time around – or perhaps more accurately back to my roots.
