Beyonce

I have just noticed the picture of Beyonce “stealing the show” at the Grammy awards, on the same page as the article linked below in relation to Men at Work.

Looks like she is indicating what she thinks about the show to me…

Labels: music

Men at Work

I appreciate that this is like when you say your goodbyes at the hotel check out and then bump into one another again in the carpark. But I am going to make another post notwithstanding yesterday’s portentous farewell, because this is important news:

Men at Work have apparently been successfully sued for copyright infringement. I had always assumed that the flute hook in ‘Down Under’ was an entirely deliberate musical reference to ‘Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree’ as a piece of well–known Australiana, along with the references in the lyrics to other stereotypically Australian things (Vegemite, etc). A bit lame of the composers of ‘Kookaburra’ to object to what is in effect an affectionate musical ‘quote’, in circumstances where the money made by Men at Work for ‘Down Under’ was never going to be made by ‘Kookaburra’ on its own.

Labels: law, music

Is this the end?

No more FTP support by Blogger after the end of March, apparently. I know that .foXinternet has not exactly been regularly updated lately, but is this finally the end…? Am I realistically going to find another way of publishing to this site? If this is my last post, it has been nice knowing you all over the last (nearly) nine years since .foXinternet started in June 2001. Be excellent to each other. And party on, dudes.

Skeptics

Clever bloke, and I enjoyed all of his books that I have read, but Richard Dawkins has a lot to answer for. I mean, they may have a point about the whole God not existing thing, but I have been thinking for a while that some of the soi–disant “skeptics” movement really are a bunch of very annoyingly superior smart–arses, as many of the comments on this article about the BBC declining to allow atheists on Thought For the Day demonstrate. From the other side, the comment with which I found myself the most in sympathy was that stating:

“If atheists are so convinced they’ve got it right, why are they so obsessed with hijacking the expressions of other people’s beliefs?
So you’re an atheist. Good for you! Now get over it, and go away.”

Quite right. Leave Rabbi Lionel Blue alone! It’s, like, three minutes a day, man.

Labels: news, religion

Nanny State

This is brilliant. A few weeks ago, we had the story that two policewomen were in trouble with OFSTED for babysitting each other’s children without being officially registered as childminders. Now, parents have apparently been banned from supervising their own children at public playgrounds in Watford. Instead, parents will be barred from the playgrounds and expected to leave their kids in the hands of officially sanctioned Watford council “play rangers”.

Labels: news

Proceeds of Crime Act extension

The Times reports that Alan Johnson has pushed through a Statutory Instrument extending confiscation powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2003 to civilian investigators. It comes into force next week. Another great example of mission creep. Powers brought in to hit mafia godfathers being made available to hit those who are in arrears with their council tax. How many Terrorism Act 2000 searches was it again that have resulted in a terrorist being apprehended?

A telling point mentioned in the article is that targets for financial seizures have been set, to recover £250 million in criminal assets by 2010, rising to £1 billion per year soon after. Somebody in central government has been taking lessons from Camden council…

Labels: law, news, UK politics

Geert Wilders

I can’t help thinking that Mohammed Shafiq of the Ramadhan Foundation has slightly misunderstood the idea behind the prohibition on inciting religious violence and its interface with concepts of freedom of speech. While acknowledging that British ideas about the latter mean that Geert Wilders should not be banned from entering the UK because of his views about Islam, Mr Shafiq has apparently stated that while Mr Wilders is here:

“…he has got to be monitored so that he doesn’t say anything to incite religious violence. If you start attacking somebody’s faith in the way that he has, they could react violently.”

I think the idea is that people should be banned from inciting others to physically attack people based upon those people’s religion. Not that people should be banned from saying anything about religion that might induce the religious to get offended and beat them up.

Times article on the story here.

Labels: news, UK politics, war on terror

Buell

Having owned and enjoyed a Buell Lightning City–X for a couple of years until trading it for the Aprilia recently, I am sorry to hear that Harley Davidson have pulled the plug on Buell and that the company will not be continuing to make motorcycles in the future.

Labels: motorcycles