Michel Galabru, died during his sleep this morning.
Monday, January 4, 2016
Could God be looked upon as a dangerous assassin ?
To commemorate the terrible slaughter on 7 January 2015 at Charlie Hebdo, the resuscitated weekly will be using the following cover:
It reads: "A year later, the assassin is still on the run." And we see a blood-stained God Almighty with a Kalashnikov strapped to his back, racing madly away. The message is clear. Behind the human assassins who perpetrated the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo, the ghastly cause was absurdly fanatical religious belief.
Is the assassin really still on the run? Yes, and this will remain true for as long as religious fanaticism infiltrates our societies. And that's surely for a long, long time. As we used to say in my childhood Australia: Up until the cows come home...
It reads: "A year later, the assassin is still on the run." And we see a blood-stained God Almighty with a Kalashnikov strapped to his back, racing madly away. The message is clear. Behind the human assassins who perpetrated the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo, the ghastly cause was absurdly fanatical religious belief.
Is the assassin really still on the run? Yes, and this will remain true for as long as religious fanaticism infiltrates our societies. And that's surely for a long, long time. As we used to say in my childhood Australia: Up until the cows come home...
High-tech loo
For the first decade of my existence, I lived in a rural house in South Grafton (Australia) that did not have a so-called WC (water closet). This dull aspect of my early life has often appeared to me as exceptional: an extraordinary caveman anecdote that I'm including proudly in an autobiographical book on which I'm working. Like many lucky people, I tend to forget that, today, over two billion citizens of the planet Earth have no access to satisfactory toilets.
Click here to examine a project for a low-priced high-tech loo known as the Nano Membrane Toilet, invented at Cranfield University in England, to be put on trial soon, probably in Ghana.
Click here to examine a project for a low-priced high-tech loo known as the Nano Membrane Toilet, invented at Cranfield University in England, to be put on trial soon, probably in Ghana.
For more information, click on the following video:
Sunday, January 3, 2016
French pharmaceutical company Sanofi is authorized to combat dengue fever in three countries
The Aedes Aegypti mosquito, distributed in tropical zones throughout the world, is the main vector of both dengue and yellow fever viruses. When the female mosquito sups human blood, it often deposits the virus that causes dengue, and this can bring about some 400 million infections a year worldwide. Among children, in particular, this painful, flu-like disease can be fatal. And, up until recently, no truly effective prevention had existed.
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Thinking rationally about terror
Here's a brilliant short New Yorker article on the subject of urban terrorism by the exceptional US physicist Lawrence Krauss.
His conclusion is sobering but appeasing:
His conclusion is sobering but appeasing:
... a mass killing like that which occurred in Paris would not significantly affect the death toll from guns in the USI take this opportunity of reminding my Antipodes readers that Krauss is the author of a momentous book on physics and philosophy: A Universe from Nothing. It reflects upon humanity's biggest question (which has often driven me crazy... at least for a moment or so): Why is there something rather than nothing at all?
Champion Frenchman at the wheel
This 41-year-old Frenchman, Sébastien Loeb, is the most successful automobile driver in the history of the World Rally Championship (WRC), having won it nine times in a row.
Having retired from WRC competitions, Loeb has decided to compete in this year's Dakar trial, which starts today from Buenos Aires. At the wheel of a Peugeot, he is accompanied by his faithful co-driver Daniel Elena. He should find the local road familiar, since Loeb happens to have won the Argentina rally eight times in a row!
I once spent twenty minutes or so watching a video created from inside Loeb's vehicle, along a quite ordinary mountain road. I soon had the distinct impression that Sébastien Loeb is infinitely more than a normal human animal like you or me. His visual system is surely some kind of extraordinary space computer coupled to his brain.
Having retired from WRC competitions, Loeb has decided to compete in this year's Dakar trial, which starts today from Buenos Aires. At the wheel of a Peugeot, he is accompanied by his faithful co-driver Daniel Elena. He should find the local road familiar, since Loeb happens to have won the Argentina rally eight times in a row!
I once spent twenty minutes or so watching a video created from inside Loeb's vehicle, along a quite ordinary mountain road. I soon had the distinct impression that Sébastien Loeb is infinitely more than a normal human animal like you or me. His visual system is surely some kind of extraordinary space computer coupled to his brain.
Manchester moments
This fascinating news photo has stunned the Internet world:
It looks like a staged image with actors, maybe a sequence from a movie in the making. In fact, it's simply a photo of an ordinary alcoholic scene of Manchester by night. Click on the word series to access photos of an interesting kind in the website of the Manchester Evening News. Scroll to the second gallery in this website, which is quite funny.
I've never set foot in that big British city, but I have the impression that it's not the kind of place where I would like to settle down.
It looks like a staged image with actors, maybe a sequence from a movie in the making. In fact, it's simply a photo of an ordinary alcoholic scene of Manchester by night. Click on the word series to access photos of an interesting kind in the website of the Manchester Evening News. Scroll to the second gallery in this website, which is quite funny.
I've never set foot in that big British city, but I have the impression that it's not the kind of place where I would like to settle down.
Friday, January 1, 2016
Let's start the year at the Moulin Rouge
On French TV during this festive season of the year, we can see a lot of French cancan, often with dancers from the Moulin Rouge in Paris.
Click here if you feel like watching a 6-minute presentation of a couple of authentic and delightful cancan girls from the famous "red windmill" going through their steps.
Trivial little places like that seem to have acquired a more intense and wonderful meaning since our discovery of the mad mob of terrorists who would surely wish to destroy all that. On the contrary, we'll destroy all those Islamic arseholes before they let themselves loose in France for another tragic operation.
Click here if you feel like watching a 6-minute presentation of a couple of authentic and delightful cancan girls from the famous "red windmill" going through their steps.
Trivial little places like that seem to have acquired a more intense and wonderful meaning since our discovery of the mad mob of terrorists who would surely wish to destroy all that. On the contrary, we'll destroy all those Islamic arseholes before they let themselves loose in France for another tragic operation.
Wishes from the French president
Click here to access the New Year 2016 speech from the French president François Hollande.
"My first duty is to protect you. I am proud of you. In spite of the drama, France has not given in. In spite of the tears, she remained upright. Faced with hatred, she revealed the force of her values, those of the République. I owe you the truth. We have not reached the end of terrorism. The threat is still present, at the same level."The president made his speech from the Napoléon III Room of the Elysées Palace. This was the same place from which he had spoken last January, after the attack against Charlie Hebdo, then in the middle of November, when a wave of terrorist crimes killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Antipodes blog: French woman of the year 2015
Emmanuelle Charpentier, born in 1968, is a French microbiologist, geneticist and biochemist.
Emmanuelle started her studies at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, then she acquired her doctorate at the Pasteur Institute. She worked for five years as a researcher in several US universities and hospitals, then pursued her activities in Europe, in Vienna, Sweden and Germany. Earlier this year, she accepted a post as director of the new Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.
This 47-year-old lady is best known in the scientific world for her role in deciphering the molecular mechanisms of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 immune system, and her methods are now used as a tool for editing the DNA sequences of plants and animals.
She has just been named as one of ten winners of the prestigious Leibniz Prize in Germany. Included too by Time magazine in the list of the 100 most influential people in the world, Emmanuelle Charpentier will not be surprised or offended (I hope) if I name her in my humble Antipodes blog as French woman of the year 2015.
Emmanuelle started her studies at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, then she acquired her doctorate at the Pasteur Institute. She worked for five years as a researcher in several US universities and hospitals, then pursued her activities in Europe, in Vienna, Sweden and Germany. Earlier this year, she accepted a post as director of the new Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.
This 47-year-old lady is best known in the scientific world for her role in deciphering the molecular mechanisms of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 immune system, and her methods are now used as a tool for editing the DNA sequences of plants and animals.
She has just been named as one of ten winners of the prestigious Leibniz Prize in Germany. Included too by Time magazine in the list of the 100 most influential people in the world, Emmanuelle Charpentier will not be surprised or offended (I hope) if I name her in my humble Antipodes blog as French woman of the year 2015.
Philipino church should rent this fellow out, to earn money for the poor
Click here to see a spectacular priest who has the makings of what might be designated as an ecclesiastical sandwich board. The Church might look into the possibility of getting him canonized (in the future, of course, after he leaves his earthly skating rink) as Saint Hoverboard. Maybe his miracles can't cure cancer, but I'm convinced they can patch up broken bones.
Rétrospective 2015
Presentation by French TV of the year 2015 that was. Between the atrocities of Charlie and those of the Bataclan, it was indeed a grim year for France. But the nation and the French people have survived magnificently, stronger than ever. And that's what makes me so happy and proud to be here, a naturalized French citizen in France.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
My children's ancestors, the Gauls
French school-children have always heard the expression "our ancestors, the Gauls"... without knowing too much about that civilization, wiped out by Julius Caesar in 52 BC. Everybody is aware of the existence of a prestigious Gallic leader named Vercingétorix, who led the Gallic tribes in their final disastrous battle against the Romans, in Alésia.
We're all aware that this courageous warrior, when he realized that he had been defeated, threw his arms at the feet of Caesar.
But most people's ideas about the Gallic society are vague, because much of their history seems to have disappeared. And many of our ideas about the Gauls are derived from the Astérix comic-books.
So, last night's excellent animation film on the defeat of the Gauls filled in a lot of holes.
In particular, I was greatly impressed by the technological imagination and inventiveness of the creators of this astounding animation film. It's understandable that the team members who performed this amazing work are not going to reveal all the production secrets they've invented and tested, because they'll be using them now to make similar movies, and earn tons of Caesar's coins.
We're all aware that this courageous warrior, when he realized that he had been defeated, threw his arms at the feet of Caesar.
But most people's ideas about the Gallic society are vague, because much of their history seems to have disappeared. And many of our ideas about the Gauls are derived from the Astérix comic-books.
So, last night's excellent animation film on the defeat of the Gauls filled in a lot of holes.
In particular, I was greatly impressed by the technological imagination and inventiveness of the creators of this astounding animation film. It's understandable that the team members who performed this amazing work are not going to reveal all the production secrets they've invented and tested, because they'll be using them now to make similar movies, and earn tons of Caesar's coins.
End of our Gallipoli centenary year
This year, my native land celebrated the centenary of the fateful Australian landing at Gallipoli (in modern Turkey) that started on 25 April 1915. Over 8 thousand Australians died there. In Australia and New Zealand, we have always thought of this disastrous battle as our initial military engagement.
Click here to listen to Lemmy Kilmister, of the Motörhead rock group, who died yesterday, singing about young soldiers in that horrible war.
Click here to listen to Lemmy Kilmister, of the Motörhead rock group, who died yesterday, singing about young soldiers in that horrible war.
Few folk are interested in science
The US writer-director Matthew Chapman is the co-founder and president of ScienceDebate.org, an organization trying to get the American presidential candidates to hold a debate on science. He has just published an interesting blogpost on this theme through the Huffington Post.
In the USA, presidential candidates have brought up many important kinds of current-affairs subjects, but they never attempt to talk about science, and rarely about technology. Few Americans appear to be convinced that science and technology will have a greater impact upon future society than most traditional political themes. Recently, the Paris conference COP21 on global warming put certain branches of science and technology in the limelight, but world leaders still do not talk regularly about such subjects.
In France, the situation is similar. I wrote a blog post recently [here] about a distinguished French thinker who believes that mathematics is not being considered with the attention it deserves. Science in general receives no more popular attention, here in France, than mathematics. I must admit however that the state-owned TV channels in France often provide us with excellent shows concerning, or based upon, science/technology methods. This was the case last night, when we were offered an amazing animated movie concerning the final years of the Gauls, before their definitive annihilation by the forces of Rome.
In the USA, presidential candidates have brought up many important kinds of current-affairs subjects, but they never attempt to talk about science, and rarely about technology. Few Americans appear to be convinced that science and technology will have a greater impact upon future society than most traditional political themes. Recently, the Paris conference COP21 on global warming put certain branches of science and technology in the limelight, but world leaders still do not talk regularly about such subjects.
In France, the situation is similar. I wrote a blog post recently [here] about a distinguished French thinker who believes that mathematics is not being considered with the attention it deserves. Science in general receives no more popular attention, here in France, than mathematics. I must admit however that the state-owned TV channels in France often provide us with excellent shows concerning, or based upon, science/technology methods. This was the case last night, when we were offered an amazing animated movie concerning the final years of the Gauls, before their definitive annihilation by the forces of Rome.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
An Oxford lady named Sarah Outen
In the website of Richard Dawkins, there's a charming presentation of a smart and adventurous young Oxford lady, a graduate in biology, named Sarah Outen [click here].
In July 2009, while rowing across the Indian Ocean, she sent Dawkins an email, indicating that she liked to listen (when her solar-powered batteries were operational) to the professor and his wife reading The God Delusion. Dawkins thanked her with a poem:
I find these communications between Oxfordians most pleasant and stylish.I’ve received a splendid emailFrom a most courageous female.Battling onward to Mauritius,Lone among the flying fishes,Albatrosses, giant whales,Turning turtle in the gales.To hell with Health and Safety rules,She’s in tune with tuna schools.She’ll dance, while others dance in bars,With pilot fish and Pilot Stars.I have not the faintest notionHow to brave the Indian OceanIn anything that keeps afloat,Let alone a rowing boat.But Sarah takes it in her stride,And going with her, for the ride,A book, or audio CDRead by Lalla and by me.To speed her trip to its conclusionWe’re reading her The God Delusion!All godly tripe and tosh she’s doubtin’So raise your glass to Sarah Outen.
French president's determined attempt to legislate on the possible annulation of citizenship for terrorists
In a recent blog post [here], I expressed my shock at finding out that François Hollande imagines seriously that terrorists with dual nationality should be deprived of their French citizenship. This idea seems to go against the grain of the nation's sacred motto:
But on second thoughts, the president's unexpected suggestion is nowhere near as bat-shit crazy as I first imagined. In a nutshell, it's surely Hollande's intricate plan to achieve three goals simultaneously:
1 — Make it clear to everybody (including terrorists) that France's Left will go to all imaginable ends to destroy our enemies, including methods that were recently unthinkable.
2 — Invent a trick to annihilate the Extreme Right of Marine Le Pen.
3 — Use that same trick to enable François Hollande to return to power.
When Hollande and his prime minister Manuel Vals first announced the déchéance theme (removal of citizenship), most people were caught unawares, because we weren't quite sure what it was all about. We now realize that this kind of action has already been used, on rare occasions, in French history... with no lasting negative effect upon the moral principles of the nation. We shall see exactly what the president has to say in the context of his televised New Year's speech. The chances are, I think, that he'll throw in a powerful formula, to justify his idea of déchéance :
Why not? We all recall the terrible terrorists acts of last November, which shocked everybody immensely and meant that nothing would ever be quite the same again. We saw European citizens, some of whom were born in France, taking out weapons to kill young French citizens. And there are no limits to what we must do to combat this exceptional kind of evil.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité.
But on second thoughts, the president's unexpected suggestion is nowhere near as bat-shit crazy as I first imagined. In a nutshell, it's surely Hollande's intricate plan to achieve three goals simultaneously:
1 — Make it clear to everybody (including terrorists) that France's Left will go to all imaginable ends to destroy our enemies, including methods that were recently unthinkable.
2 — Invent a trick to annihilate the Extreme Right of Marine Le Pen.
3 — Use that same trick to enable François Hollande to return to power.
When Hollande and his prime minister Manuel Vals first announced the déchéance theme (removal of citizenship), most people were caught unawares, because we weren't quite sure what it was all about. We now realize that this kind of action has already been used, on rare occasions, in French history... with no lasting negative effect upon the moral principles of the nation. We shall see exactly what the president has to say in the context of his televised New Year's speech. The chances are, I think, that he'll throw in a powerful formula, to justify his idea of déchéance :
« A situation exceptionnelle, mesures exceptionnelles »
(when faced with an exceptional situation, adopt an exceptional solution)
Why not? We all recall the terrible terrorists acts of last November, which shocked everybody immensely and meant that nothing would ever be quite the same again. We saw European citizens, some of whom were born in France, taking out weapons to kill young French citizens. And there are no limits to what we must do to combat this exceptional kind of evil.
Back to the future shopping hoverboard
Here's exactly what I need to do my shopping:
It appears to be safer than a cute two-wheeled gadget that caused a pile of accidents over the Christmas season, when it was given as a gift [see here]. This powerful vehicle is the ArcaBoard, presented here.
From an esthetic viewpoint, the device could be improved to look more like a curved surfing toy than a floating tombstone. I'll publish an appraisal as soon as I return from my first shopping excursion.
It appears to be safer than a cute two-wheeled gadget that caused a pile of accidents over the Christmas season, when it was given as a gift [see here]. This powerful vehicle is the ArcaBoard, presented here.
From an esthetic viewpoint, the device could be improved to look more like a curved surfing toy than a floating tombstone. I'll publish an appraisal as soon as I return from my first shopping excursion.
Well preserved
In the German town of Schöppingen, near the Dutch border, three fellows used explosives to tear apart a metallic distributor of preservatives, in the hope of stealing money. After lighting the mesh, they dashed into their nearby vehicle, to protect themselves from the blast. But they left a door open, and one of the fellows was hit on the head by a fragment of metal. Instead of picking up 14 euros in small coins (the total contents of the distributor), they rushed to a nearby hospital, where they told the staff that their mate had fallen down the stairs. The poor fellow died soon after... and the police discovered the scene of their tragic operation.
The victim surely deserves a Darwin Award for this courageous method of ensuring that society would be well preserved from his procreation of a stupid offspring.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)