Service Announcement
I'm not here tomorrow: my little sister has hired her first van, and we're all very excited.
Trevlig helg!
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2004-11-11 tomorrow (utc)
Service AnnouncementI'm not here tomorrow: my little sister has hired her first van, and we're all very excited. Trevlig helg!
2004-11-11 15:45
Off with their heads!Some dreary bunch of republican no-hopeurs is plotting against the Swedish monarchy! We link instead, however, to Lena Mellin's analysis:
Kampanjen mot monarkin har inga utsikter att bli framg�ngsrik. Svenska folkets st�d f�r kungahuset �r grundmurat. Without a monarchy there wouldn't be any prinsesses, and without any prinsesses there wouldn't be any prinsessgossip, and then where'd we be, eh? Silly persons!
2004-11-11 samwidge (utc)
Sm�rg�spost�1. Skandall! Norwegish prinsess M�rtha Louise's planning permission application got fasttracked! I love 'Wegia precisely because this sort of thing counts as an outrage, but the persons responsible are mumbling about security and stuff and hoping it will bl� over. �2. Some day, Sheila, all this will be yours! It is the queen of Danmark and her lovely daughter-in-law, having their breakfast (at lunchtime, as is the Danish way) after the Royal Huntnings:
Det var ikke helt tilf�ldigt, at Mary og Dronningen i g�r ankom skulder ved skulder til frokost efter den �rlige kongejagt i Grib Skov. Are mothers-in-law this year's surprise fashion accessory for the bare-headed prinsess about town? Could be! �3. Yasser Arafat, he dead Gosh, I didn't even kn� he had been poorly!
2004-11-11 morning (utc+1)
Contra NewtonThe incomparable Fafblogue:
Today we aren't gonna just talk to you about some "theory" a relativity. We're gonna talk to you about science. Leprechaun Science. General relativity says gravity is caused by the "curvature of space" which is crazy. Space isn't curved! It's big an black an empty an fulla spaceships! If it was curved how would spaceships fly in it? They would crash into the curves an blow up an stuff! Gravity isn't caused by any crazy "curved space"! It is caused by scientifical processes such as leprechauns. It has bothered me for more time than none how easy a ride Newton's theory of gravity gets. (You may think it is a bit late to worry about such a something, but this is philosophy, and therefore has no use-by date.) Newtonian gravity, I would remind you, is hypothesised in terms of instantaneous and unmediated action at a distance. This is utterly scandal�s! A philosophe of the time ought to have dismissed it, as I do, out of hand on those grounds alone. Mr Descartes, on the other hand, proposed a model with an admirable attention to the question of mechanisms. (It involved vortexes, as it happens. I've always been partial to a nice vortex, I freely admit it. Ask me about Kelvin's vortex theory of atoms, some time, unless you don't want to know.) The only thing wrong with it was that it was, well, wrong.
2004-11-10 16:34
Educate me harder!The University of Openness has embraced with a delight bordering on the boggling its task or mission of sending me Stuff. And very grateful I am, too. But one of the cheery leaflettes had a ticky-box full of things to contemplate your feelings about, among which was "Supporting your ideas with reasoned arguments". You can imagine, unless you can't, my horror at this such thought. I have been looking, since then, to guides to writing essays in the vastly preferable West Belgian manner, and so far this is the best I've found - the rubric is in Engleesh, but much of the content is as French as you like. (All the books I've seen recommended to date, without exception, have been out of print. This annoys me more than somewhat.) I'll see your "reasoned arguments", Silly Engleesh, and raise you a dialectique!
2004-11-10 samwidge (utc)
Sm�rg�spost�1. Yule �l! Or "jul �l" as they call it in Norwayland:
I �r kan du velge blant n�rmere et halvt hundre ulike jule�l, og det skulle tilsi noe for en hver smak og anledning. One of each, please! �2. Skandal�st!
Kronprins Frederik og kronprinsesse Mary blev tiljublet af nysgerrige tyskere, da de mandag udn�vnte seks fremtr�dende tyske kulturpersonligheder til H.C. Andersen-ambassad�rer p� r�dhuset i Berlin. But the fair Knudella, stung no doubt by this 'bladets boisterous bonnet badinage, is bare-headed! �3. A cure for what ales you? (Ales you, d'you see? Ha ha!)
Dutch brewer Heineken is to put labels on its beer warning customers about the dangers of drinking too much. All West Belgian adverts, be they for �l or other flavours of drinknings, already offer the text:
L'abus d'alcool est dangereux pour la sant�. A consommer avec mod�ration. When oh when will Blighty follow suit?
2004-11-10 09:19
On virusesAccording to the criteria I was taught at school, viruses are not alive. They cannot, in particular, reproduce without the use of reproductive machinery that doesn't belong to them. So, they are a ghastly but limited simulacram of life. Which is to say, they are zombies. And their way of un-life is sustained by plunder and hijack of innocent living cells. They are, which is to say, pirates. Zombie pirates, in fact. From now on, the expression "I've got the lurgi" is to be replaced with "I've got the lurgi, me hearties, arrrrrrr!". Thank you for your cooperation.
2004-11-09 15:44
This time, for sure
The Dead Collector : Bring out yer dead. I'd show more respect, of course, but you don't generally get the Nobel Peace Prize without a lot of blood on your hands. (Can anyone say "Henry Kissinger"? Without reflexively adding "War criminal"?)
2004-11-09 12:13
Twinkletree shoppnings
Oy, Santa where's my sn�?
Skyltf�nster dekorerade med sn� och glitter, tomtar och kanske troll. Paket inslagna i glansigt papper med rosett. According to Expressen, Fortnum & Mason's and Harrods are the places to do your Twinkletree shoppnings in London, which suggests to moi that they're not really talking about purchase-oriented shoppnings, not that there's anything wrong with that. And there are lots of other cities, too! (I never did get to KaDeWe in Berlin, either - no champion shoppeur, I!)
2004-11-09 09:46
Prinsesses, discursive exploitation of
On what ground [...] could the legislature have fastidiously rejected the fair and abundant choice which our own country presented to them, and searched in strange lands for a foreign princess? He goes on more than a bit, does Burke, but surely the advantages of Forren prinsesses are blindingly obvious?
Let's go back to where my story started, with Kant. Kant summarizes the Enlightenment [Upplysning] in the words sapere aude, which may be freely translated: dare to think for yourself. That is, Continental philosophy cannot, and in my view, should not expect any new prince(sse)s from over the water. Sigh.
2004-11-08 14:31
Why I am so sourcey
Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis? quid academiae et ecclesiae? quid haereticis et christianis? And while we're at it, let's have a big hand please for Eric Voegelin:
One of the more oft-quoted passages from his work is the following: Totalitarian regimes, selon Voegelin, are implicitly Gnostique which, selon Voegelin, is a Bad Thing. (It is pointed out for the benefit of any passing stupids that the condemnation of totalitarianism is by no means confined to these grounds by persons, such as I, who are not Voegelin.)
2004-11-08 12:06
Once-Great Nation!Since the FDRUSA turned out in bulk for the Torture Party, running on a platform of bigotry and fiscal imprudence, we will gloat henceforth on any and all bad news about it:
Dollarn rekordl�g: Kostar strax �ver sju svenska kronor - har rasat 36 procent p� tre �r. Time for some nice tax cuts and religiously-motivated pork, I'd say!
2004-11-08 morning (utc)
Translation MasterclassSorrows of Werther, William Makepeace Thackeray
Werther had a love for Charlotte That's the way to do it! |