Op-ed on Muslim boycott of Denmark

January 31, 2006 By Svend White

Thought I’d share a partial translation of a hardhitting and eye-opening op-ed by Danish social commentator, Rune Engelbreth Larsen about the international uproar and political and economic crisis facing Denmark over the infamous political cartoons denigrating the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in Jyllands-Posten . Like me, he sees this PR disaster as self-inflicted by the Danish government and sees a lot of doublestandards at work here. I’ve only translated/summarized the first few paragraphs. Will try to summarize the... Read more

NYT on children, sex & the media

January 31, 2006 By Svend White

Speaking of the saturation of American pop culture with sex that I lamented in a recent post, Faisal was nice enough to alert me to a particularly germane piece in the New York Times, "Children, Media and Sex: A Big Book of Blank Pages – New York Times". —————————————– January 31, 2006 Personal Health Children, Media and Sex: A Big Book of Blank Pages By JANE E. BRODY In last summer’s prize-winning R-rated film "Me and You and Everyone We... Read more

Palestinians return fire by trashing Danish flag

January 29, 2006 By Svend White

Since the Danish government has refused to condemn the now infamous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, a boycott effort is brewing in the Middle East. Palestinians in the West Bank are getting into the act by denigrating the Danish flag in variuos ways. This article in a Danish newspaper shows photos of Palestinians burning and walking on the Dannebrog [pronounced "DANna-broe"], or Danish flag. Fair’s fair. If the Danish government is so committed to... Read more

Legos, robots & boring Danish food

January 27, 2006 By Svend White

An intriguing article in Wired on how the Lego product line has adapted with the times and prospered. Lego built a global empire out of little plastic blocks, then conquered the wired world with a robot kit called Mindstorms. So when the time came for an upgrade, they turned to their obsessed fans – and rewrote the rules of the innovation game. A fact that warms the cockles of my Lego-loving, technology-geek heart: 70% of customers for their current line... Read more

L’Etat c’est W

January 27, 2006 By Svend White

The Power-Madness of King George – Is Bush turning America into an elective dictatorship? By Jacob Weisberg Read more

BBC: Britons Unconvinced on Evolution

January 27, 2006 By Svend White

BBC: Britons unconvinced on evolution It’s interesting to see that evolution scepticism isn’t simply an American phenomenon. Read more

America’s Most Endangered Species: the Virgin

January 26, 2006 By Svend White

In "single and chaste: the yearning", Shabana writes about the challenge of loneliness for singles and the need for them to approach marriage carefully and without unrealistic expectations of their spouse or themselves. In a similar vein, I suspect it’s hard for those born in less sexually charged times or in more religiously conservative lands to understand the incredible pull of sex for people who’ve come of age recently in America. Regardless of one’s values, class, race, or religious background,... Read more

A family member passes

January 25, 2006 By Svend White

My beloved laptop Mjolnir (the name of Thor’s hammer) has moved on to greener hotspots. Please join me in a moment of silence in remembrance of this extraordinarily hard-working, loving and forgiving Dell Latitude C840, which gave me 4 wonderful years. I’ll never forget you, Mjolnir. Like your storied namesake, you flew true, smote my foes, and always returned to my gloved hand, burning hot…well…until you started flashing a blood-chilling "cannot find optical drive" error. Now, you just reboot endlessly.... Read more

God talking to Bush Junior

January 25, 2006 By Svend White

Alright, I know this is old news, but I thought I’d comment on discussions in the media a while back about how George W Bush appears to have confided in Palestinian leaders in June 2003 that ‘I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" As happy as I am to criticize... Read more

Essential downloads for kewl bloggers

January 20, 2006 By Svend White

Aggregate your news/bogs with RSSAre you reading blogs by typing in each site’s URL and perusing the site to look for updates? If so, you should hang your head in shame over the time you’re wasting. You should using news aggregator to show you all new headlines/postings in a single place. That way you have a single page that you can scan to see if your favorite websites (assuming they’ve set up RSS feeds) have new content for you to... Read more