Have a shufty...

... at this article by George Monbiot. Yahoo's grassed up a Chinese Journalist, Shi Tao, and now he's doing ten years. "Yahoo must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the [local] laws, regulations, and customs." Yahoo's big cheese, Jerry Yang said: "we give them things that satisfy local laws."

If you do any news search on this you'll find that MSN and the sainted Google (who "do no evil", remember) don't come out of this too well, either, so far as China's concerned. Multinationals, though, can glide over borders; so anybody, anywhere, curious about, say, a certain dodgy herb, had better go easy. The relationship your search engine or ISP enjoys with your government is clearly far more important than friendly relations with you. It probably won't work out as horribly as it did for poor bloody Shi Tao, but you might still get an early morning knock at the door.

Serious bit over.

Regarding this week's wallpaper, Factobrunt said it wouldn't have been his choice, which is fair enough, each to his own. What's good in a picture is down to a personal sense of aesthetics, I suppose. In Flickr I commented on this picture:
what I like most is the narrative - these vans would have such stories to tell: doing removals they've featured in big events in so many people's lives.
Not every picture tells a story, but that one tells thousands of them, IMHO. Which is nice to see, every time I boot up the laptop, or close down Firefox or whatever program I'm using prior to re-entering reality. Here's another example of image-as-narrative.

And there's the ever approaching Happy Event. Herself reports peculiar sensations in places she didn't know she had. Hmm. Week 38. She doesn't want to go far from home now. I've noticed that we both seem to be keeping the flat very tidy, keeping the cupboards and fridge well stocked. Waiting.

Comments

  1. FactoBruntTue Sept 13, 07:48:00 pm BST

    I actually agree with you about that lorry photo. It's a great photo and does conjure up stories of when the old thing was working. Still not sure I'd want it as a backdrop, just because it's too busy... it'd distract me :o)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousWed Sept 14, 04:47:00 pm BST

    Sounds as though you'll soon have very little time for blogging Garry.

    Happy events lead, inevitably to crying babies.

    Crying babies lead, inevitably to stressed wives

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LTPTP XXV: We Shall Overcome

Image
We shall indeed.  It's a lovely wee tune to learn.  I've almost memorized it this morning, the idea being, when I encounter a piano, I want something to sit down and play on the bugger.  I've a feeling that my keyboard's keys are lighter than a proper piano's, and there'll be a bit of effort transferring the skills I've gotten so far.  Probably, at some point this year, I'll be in workplace with a piano.  I'll print off some simple music and scales, and work at it, but it's likely to be in a public place so I want something to avoid making a twat of myself initially. It feels right that this should be the first tune I learn by heart.
Read more

Leech or flatworm? Ants and Swiss Chard

Image
For the 2nd time in a week or so, (1st time regarding dwarf beans ), I'm following Alys Fowler's advice, this time with regard to Swiss chard .  Long story short, after midsummer plants which often bolt if planted in spring will resist the impulse to do so, probably because of shortening days; (I say shortening, but in Glasgow, in July, we're still getting 18 hours of daylight).   I got a packet of Bright Lights , at a good price, (another reason to wait until July before sowing, lots of bargains, I've noticed). But where to sow them? Most of the 2nd bed is under a tarpaulin, but it wasn't quite big enough to cover the whole bed, so the last 5ft or so went under a sheet of plastic, (in the background of the photo in this post, here .) Transparent plastic was a foolish idea, weeds were growing underneath it, so I covered most of it with sheets of metal from the old shed. I decided to leave the tarp, but use the area beneath the plastic for the chard. Who-ah there
Read more

VINEGAR!

That wine I started a while back has turned to vinegar. Well, that answered questions I was asking myself back then, viz., 'Do we get vinegar flies around here?' And, 'Are all these little flies vinegar flies?' The fuckers. I thought I was being a clever recycler, not buying proper air-locks and using the old plastic-and-lacky-band method. Ah well, another step up another learning curve. Anybody need three gallons of white wine vinegar and two gallons of the impossibly exotic strawberry wine vinegar? It's been a 'business day', dealing with officials and filling out forms. Don't get me started! Alex came over tonight. He gave me the Aphonic CD (he's been in touch with them and they sent him several copies). I thoroughly approve of this new trend of bands getting their work known over the internet, by-passing (initially at least) the poisonous attentions of the music industry. Come to think of it, some of the people in that business are rat
Read more