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2005-03-24 16:10

Fun with Linux, part 771(b)

We have borrowed "our" work laptop for use at home but since we do not seem to have a floppy drive we have procured a USB memory stick for use with our SneakerNet infrastructure.

Many of the Internets have instructions on how to use this which go along the lines of "check /var/log/messages for entries that might reveal the /dev file to mount. Then edit your /etc/fstab file." (A lot more, of course, have explanations of how to boot Linux on an Xbox via a device.)

The main pay-off of the user-friendliness enhancements of Linux over the last few years seems to have been that even HOWTO writers don't know what they're talking about anymore, which doesn't especially strike us as an improvement.

Anyway, have a lovely P�sk! (We will be doing our homework for the University of Openness, mostly. Sigh. We'll be back Wednesday.)

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2005-03-24 11:46

Sm�rg�spost

�1. Prinsessunconservation

Prinsesses are (sometimes) created by marriage, but they are not uncreated by divorce.

Danskt prinspar ber om skilsm�ssa

Danish prinscouple ask for divorce

Which is fine by us, since we like prinsesses. (Conservation laws, bah!)

�2. But don't breathe the air...

The Paris municipality has started distributing free designer carafes in a bid to convince Parisians that tap water is just as good as mineral water.

Recent polls revealed that 51% of Parisians drink bottled water.

Our contempt for the scam that is bottled water is unbounded, so we rejoice more than somewhat at this. Well done, Paree!

�3. Cheapflightsearchnings, somewhat enhanced

www.skyscanner.net

www.applefares.com

Not perfect, but better than the native engines and therefore essential for the up-to-date modern cosmopolitan of the fast-moving contemporary today.

�4. The bits of Germany that aren't Berlin

Are there any worth going too, we wonder and/or muse openly?

M�nchkinville, for example? We like cities and museums and bier (which is like beer or �l, only German) and food that is made largely out of pig.

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2005-03-24 09:17

Tripidation

I'm scheduled for Norfolk, VA in the FDR in Oktober. I'll need a new Big Brother passport by then, of course.

The good bit is that it makes sense to fly from Bristol and change at Newark and (the actual good bit) spend a little time in Noo York one side or the other of this. Noo York is one of the few bits of the FDR I've ever wanted to go to, for sure.

But it is so terrifyingly Free and so Democratic, this Republic these days!

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2005-03-22 12:08

I am individual, hear me ironise!

[Yes, we have no new 'bladet
We have no new 'bladet today.

We are looking into alternative hosting, for sure.]

It is Slavering Slavoj Zizek!

In the eyes of the US evangelical populists, the state stands for an alien power and, together with UN, is an agent of the Antichrist: it takes away the liberty of the Christian believer, relieving him of the moral responsibility of stewardship, and thus undermines the individualistic morality that makes each of us the architect of our own salvation - how to combine this with the unheard-of explosion the state apparatuses under Bush? No wonder large corporations are delighted to accept such evangelical attacks on the state, when the state tries to regulate media mergers, to put strictures on energy companies, to strengthen air pollution regulations, to protect wildlife and limit logging in the national parks, etc. It is the ultimate irony of history that radical individualism serves as the ideological justification of the unconstrained power of what the large majority of individuals experience as a vast anonymous power which, without any democratic public control, regulates their lives.

We now see! Libertoonians are being ironic! Well done, Libertoonians, we never thought you had it in you.

But why oh why does anyone fall for this malarkey? We and Slavering Slavoj are both glad you asked, although he'll be doing the answering:

"Stupidity" and "ideological manipulation" are not an answer; that is to say, it is clearly not enough to say that that the primitive lower classes are brainwashed by the ideological apparatuses so that they are not able to identify their true interests. If nothing else, one should recall how, decades ago, the same Kansas was the hotbed of progressive populism in the US - and people certainly did not get more stupid in the last decades...

It is also not enough to propose the "Laclau solution": there is no "natural" link between a given socio-economic position and the ideology attached to it, so that it is meaningless to speak of "deception" and "false consciousness," as if there is a standard of "appropriate" ideological awareness inscribed into the very "objective" socio-economic situation; every ideological edifice is the outcome of a hegemonic fight to establish/impose a chain of equivalences, a fight whose outcome is thoroughly contingent, not guaranteed by any external reference like "objective socio-economic position."

We just plain like Slavering Slavoj. (We seldom feel more Yoorpean than when the von Johnenbelle posse pile on to his stuff in the name of the noble tradition of Liberalisme. Most of what we know about Liberalisme is that Libertoonians claim to be heirs of it, which generally strikes us as plenty.)

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2005-03-22 09:45

Sm�rg�spost

�1. It's estniska Hansapank, silliheads

Handelsstopp i estniska Hansabank

Tradestop in Estonian Hansabank [sic]

Look, Varied Reader, and see for yourself!

(We made a point, in Estonia, of seeking out the mighty Hansapank's cash machines ("ATMs") for our cash withdrawal needs.)

�2. Prinsessor!

Undercover Agent B in Stockholm brings word that the times are catching up with us: there is a mighty prinsess exhibition at the Livsrustkammaren:

F� vet idag vem Cecilia Vasa, Eug�nie eller Sofia Albertina var. Flera av dessa prinsessor var vackra, men framf�rallt �ventyrliga, viljestarka kvinnor - som p� flera s�tt kontrasterar med sagans ideal.

Few today know who Cecilia Vasa, Eug�nie or Sofia Albertina were. Several of these prinsessor were beautiful, but above all adventuresome, wilful wimmins - who in several ways kontrasted with the fairytail ideal.

We may have to pop to Stockholm before September, then, isn't it?

�3. Why I am so cosmopolitan

One of the things in Barcelona's contemporary art wossname MACBA was an exhibition of fotos by Robert Frank. The same exhibition of fotos by Robert Frank, in fact, that I saw at the Tate Modern a while back.

Fellow cosmopolitans I ask and enquire of you: does this happen a lot?

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2005-03-21 16:43

When langwidges collide!

It is our new favourite Google search leading to the 'bladet: The alimentation of the schoolchildrens.

(The interface was set to Arabic, we note. We are the only hit, we also note.)

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2005-03-21 11:40

Sm�rg�spost

�1. Don't think of it as pie, think of it as yummy pigcake!

A West Yorkshire couple ignored years of marriage tradition on their wedding day by opting for a three-tier pork pie instead of a cake.

Well done, West Yorkshire couple!

�2. Rosbifhouseuppricenings, slightly controversial

But the Bretons who organised last month's demonstration say that integration is not the real issue anyway, but the sheer number of incomers buying homes in Brittany, regardless of where they are from.

Anna Kerrain and Guillaume Bricaud co-founded the Breton group 'A-Stroll' (which means 'Together' in Breton), which led the protest.

Both are young, idealistic and horrified to be called racist or anti-British. Both could better be described as anti-globalisation campaigners, who are trying to protect Brittany's unique heritage - and the future of its young people.

House price inflation is getting globalised, too! But (approximately) no Englishes know German so Berlingrad should be safe for a while yet.

�3. Oh.

The clocks go forward next week, you say? Oh.

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2005-03-21 09:17

Sm�rg�spost

�1. Circulate me harder!

It is the figures for British (actually, English) poshbladets (commentary from link also):

The Independent
192,599 up-market
Daily Telegraph
968,630
Financial Times
465,737 up-market (which represents an astonishing 13% gain in circulation share during a period when all other papers except The Independent saw their share fall)
The Guardian
381,013 up-market

We do not include The Times since it has been Murdoched and is now a trashbladet.

�2. Yurovizhnoutdroppning, slightly political

Lebanon has withdrawn from this year's Eurovision Song Contest, after refusing to show the Israeli entry on Lebanese TV channel Tele-liban.

The channel told the European Broadcasting Union that Lebanon's legislation made it nearly impossible to broadcast the Israeli performance.

This is craziness, Lebanon! Blighty manages to broadcast the German and even French entries, after all! (Suppose we offered to lend them Terry Wogan's legendary "witty" bebunkning commentary, though? Could be a win-win scenario for us.)

�3. Ow-wee, indeed

Human nature, why did you make it this way? Ow-wee
Everyone but the one I love makes a play for me

Never had trouble gettin' guys around me
I've never been without a boyfriend
I always had 'em plain get nice with me
I keep 'em guessin' to the end
But the love of my life is really there alone
& the only time things are bad & gone wrong, yeah

(repeat & fade): The one you can't have is the one that you want the most

[THE ONE YOU CAN'T HAVE, The Honeys (written by Brian Wilson)]

It's true of lurve, but also oh so true of samwidgecake:

Sjukhusk�kets sm�rg�st�rta smakar s� gott att rena t�rtkriget har utbrutit i G�vle.
Nu har landstinget inf�rt id-kontroll vid f�rs�ljningen.

The hospitalkitchen's samwidgecakes taste so good that open cakewar has broken out in G�vle.
Now the landsthing has brought in ID checks at the salespoint.

After protests from private samwidgecake manufacturers outraged - outraged! - at being outclassed by a such tax-funded rival.

Our Anglo-Saxon instincts give us cause to wonder why they didn't try to license the recipe, but that is not by a long chalk the Swedish way.

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