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.

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.

Even on the Internet, today’s Christmas messages are not always as stupid as some of yesterday’s

Look at the absurdly ugly drawing, and the utterly idiotic text:

A hearty Christmas greeting

Four jovial frogs a-skating would go

They had asked their mamma

But she'd sternly said no

And they all came to grief in a beautiful row

There’s a sweet Christmas moral for one not too slow

Must go!

The individuals who created such rubbish, not to mention the folk who sent and received such brain-damaged messages, must have been sick in an old-fashioned sense.

Are humans truly smarter today than they were yesterday? I'm an optimistic humanist, and I usually think so...

Devastated Ramadi, formerly a Daech stronghold, is liberated

The Iraqi army has just announced that Ramadi, occupied since May by Daech, has been totally liberated.

This is a major news item. The town is a couple of hours by road to the west of Baghdad. Apparently the operations were conducted solely by Iraqi forces, with no participation of Shiite militia. At the latest news, no more civilians are being used as protective shields by fleeing Daech forces, but there are risks of booby traps inside the deserted city.

Here's a map that I found in the Libération website:

Click to enlarge slightly

Daech remains present throughout a big borderline zone between Syria and Iraq, but it's dwindling fast, and their end is surely near (I hope). I would suspect that the next Iraqi mission is to reconquer Mossoul.

Magic of mathematics

I've always been thrilled and amazed by the extent to which my ex-wife Christine continues to offer me various books that give me deep joy... even though I suspect that most of these books would not appeal to Christine herself. Her Christmas gift was a little masterpiece in this domain: Eloge des mathématiques by Alain Badiou.

The 78-year-old author is a renowned professor at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris.

In his tiny book, Badiou explains that mathematics have declined in popularity and esteem in France since the 1960s (shortly after my arrival in France), when philosophy seemed to replace both science in general and mathematics in particular as the most fashionable subject to tackle at university. Personally, I've always had the same impression. French society was no longer fascinated by mathematicians.

Badiou quotes a vulgar statement apparently made by the fashionable philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre :

"La science, c'est trou de balle. La morale, c'est peau de balle."  

It's hard to translate. Maybe: "Science is an arsehole study, whereas the pursuit of moral philosophy has balls."

In any case, Badiou makes a wonderful case for the praise of mathematics, which he associates with claims to almost magical achievement at several levels of truth. Mathematics proposes a coded language for all humans, but the discipline of mathematics remains unattached to any particular human language. The existence of mathematics made it possible for science to become a universal human preoccupation. Badiou goes much further than the mere domain of science. He considers that the arrival of mathematics in society made it possible to create principles of a political nature, and he even suggests that the presence of mathematics enabled humans to envisage new social relationships that gave rise to the future theme of courtly love.

Personally, I would love to think that literary intellectuals, politicians and creative artists, not to forget business and industrial leaders, are likely to be so charmed by the arguments of Badiou that French citizens will surely get around to electing a mathematician as the next president. But I wouldn't bet on it...

Family visits to Gamone

Little by little, members of my Australian family have got around to visiting Gamone.

This was my sister Susan Skyvington, who dropped in for lunch with a Belgian lady friend on 17 May 2015. A month or so later, I slipped down the stairs inside my house... and entered a lengthy period of convalescence, which I spent mainly in Brittany with Christine and our son François.

Worse than a crime, the removal of an individual's nationality is a moral fault

What's gone crazy in the mind of our president, who's normally so calm and intelligent? The idea of introducing a constitutional change that would enable France to deprive a citizen of his/her French nationality, as a punishment for terrorism, simply doesn't add up.

This idea is almost as abject as reintroducing the guillotine. In any case, I imagine that the nation, as a whole, will reject this absurdity.

Terminology: The French term déchéance might be transcribed into English as the downfall (of a person's official nationality). Does François Hollande imagine that, once France has officially deprived a terrorist of his/her French nationality, we'll be able to "export" that downfallen individual to another nation ?

Libération suggests that this decision represents the downfall of the president's credibility. I'm afraid I agree.

Holy Savior Christmas Prize

In my recent blog post here entitled These people give me goose pimples, I was unkind, because the poor fellow I spoke about was actually killed, while playing a Father Christmas role, when he fell off an ancient stone edifice in Douai (France). This time, I intend to express myself charitably in a Christian spirit.

Accidents happen at all times of the year, but I would like to draw attention to those that happen during the Christmas season, and in what would appear to be a Christmas spirit. I'm thinking in particular of grave accidents that nevertheless avoid a mortal end, maybe because of a last-minute role played by a guardian angel or even thanks to the Holy Savior in person. I believe that a fortunate individual in this situation should be rewarded by a prize, to be known as the Holy Savior Christmas Prize.

In the Norman city of Caen, the town hall is located on a square called Holy Savior Place... which has inspired this seasonal blog post, of a most Christian motivation. On this square, the local municipality had installed their Christmas tree... composed of synthetic materials that I would have preferred not to mention.

For reasons that only the Holy Spirit understands, a 21-year-old local lad decided, during the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, to climb to the top of this giant artificial tree, to a height of about ten metres. Needless to say, the synthetic branches were not designed to support the weight of a sturdy youth, and the lad was gravely injured when he fell to the ground, alongside the Old Holy Savior church. Apparently he survived nevertheless. And that's why I would like to suggest that he be the recipient of an award. Maybe, to reduce the risks of injuries, this small Holy Savior Christmas Prize could be made out of colorful synthetic substances such as foam rubber and felt.