Saturday, January 31, 2009
Are Tuna Ticklish?
A ban preventing Tourists from attending the pre-dawn Tuna auction in Tokyo, Japan, has been lifted. Officials now trust tourists to restrain themselves and not lick or hug the fish - actions which were the origin of the ban.
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The San-Lu Saga
In China the milk company, San-Lu, has apparently closed for business. Two of its suppliers contaminated their milk with melamine which led to the deaths or illnesses of thousands of babies. The two suppliers were given the death sentence and the chairwoman of the company life imprisonment. She is...
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No Fandango But A Tango
Argentina and Uruguay are jointly petitioning UNESCO to grant the Tango World Heritige Status. Buenos Aires and Montevideo are planning to build Tango museums with permanent exhibits. There is also money being made available to catalogue an estimated 50 000 Tango recordings.
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More Popcorn
Still with the Pope but this time from a Jewish perspective. Jewish groups say that accepting a holocaust denier like Richard Williamson back into the fold is a slap in the face to them. On the one hand, theirs, it is. But still on the other hand, what does this act say about the Catholic Church?...
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Pass The Popcorn
Pope Benedict the 16 th has decided to rehabilitate the excommunicated Richard Williamson and three other men. Williamson was claiming last year that there is no evidence of six million Jews being killed as a “deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler” and “there were no gas chambers”. He was excommunicated...
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Gallipoli: 1918
The Red Cross notice only 35 men are still alive of those who were captured during the Gallipoli campaign by the Ottoman Empire. Dardanelles Commission (1) Report Findings (1) NZ, in particular, was bitterly against this Commission, as the British Government chose the person who was supposed to...
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
End Of An Era
A few words on former US President, George W. Bush. He has been compared to a douche bag. This is unfair. He has always seemed to me to be a dysfunctional sewage treatment plant - shit goes in, more shit is added, shit goes out. I shall miss him.
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And The “I Plucked The Numbers Out Of My Ass” Award Goes To…
The IFPI. This week they claimed 95% of music downloads are illegal. This figure is possible but unverifiable. The IFPI got the figure by estimating. What annoys me is that the “estimate” (used for confirmation bias:I.e we feel a lot of music is being pirated therefore we will estimate a big figure)...
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U2 In America
The Presidential inauguration in America doesn ’ t need commentary from me. Instead I ’ ll talk about U2 who gave a performance in the lead-up ceremonies. From a New Zealand perspective I was among the group ’ s earliest fans. I even travelled to Ireland in the eighties to hear them perform before a...
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Greece
Ballistics experts have determined that the death of the teenage boy which triggered the rioting of late las year was caused by a ricochet. Hardly earthshaking news. But the report also claims the guard fired “in the direction” of the boy and not “in the air” as the guard claims. This is not...
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