06 August 2002

Well, can't be serious all the time.  How about this for a joke? Time to stop blogging, and go walk the dog. 7:59:07 PM    comment []

Reverting to purely local news:  we had four days of torrential rain the weekend before last, very unseasonal and bad for the tourist business, but quite a relief from the heat and dust of mid-summer, and very reminiscent of the endless rainstorms we experienced back in March and April, which seems so long ago. In the middle of the deluge, in fact during a hiatus when we were walking the dog on Sunday evening, we experienced a quite severe earth tremor.  Here's how the Athens News reported it: On July 28, a moderate earthquake was recorded at 8.16pm measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale in a seismic sea region between the Ionian islands of Kefalonia and Zakynthos. Seismologists at the University of Patra locating its epicentre 15km below the seabed. It was reportedly felt in much of southwestern Greece, although no damages were reported. A 4.3 Richter quake was also felt earlier in the afternoon in the Nafplio region. We were crossing a bridge over a stream at the time, and it was swaying and bucking most eerily - like being very, very drunk  (not that I would know...).  We've had two more quite severe jolts since then, on Tuesday evening, and just before midnight last Saturday.  No damage at all, but just a reminder that we do live in an earthquake zone, and complete devastation has happened here before (1953). 7:33:12 PM    comment []

Is this hysteria or what?  (George Monbiot in The Guardian): The nation that in the past has been our firmest friend is becoming instead our foremost enemy. Much more measured comment from Tom Friedman, one of my favourite commentators. 7:07:50 PM    comment []

Talking about famine in Africa:  read this and weep. From a collection of links on the Guardian weblog on Africa's food crisis. 6:50:39 PM    comment []

The biggest talking shop in history or a mass gathering to save the world?  (The Guardian) Wow!  Johannesburg at the end of the month sounds like somewhere to avoid.  65,000 delegates, 27,000 security staff!  Where are they going to put them all?  Where are they meeting?  Who the hell is organizing it?  How will the traffic work (especially if Gaddafi comes back)?  What do they hope to achieve?  Who is paying for it?  Surely feeding the starving millions in Southern Africa is more important? So many questions. I have noticed that www.woza.co.za has a collection of articles on the summit - must read and catch up. 6:23:13 PM    comment []

The delusions of Gaddafi, Emperor of Africa Comment from The Times on our Great African Democrat's efforts to hijack the African Union. But at least the spectacle of Colonel Gaddafi manipulating populist rhetoric to peddle his vision of an Africa united against the evil West demonstrated that he remains what he has always been: a rabble-rousing dictatorial showman whose notion of development does not go much further than his own bloated ego. 5:25:45 PM    comment []

Pressure mounts against war in Iraq (from The Times). As I've been reading on andrewsullivan.com in the last week or so, the New York Times is also leading a crusade against war with Iraq.  Will this pressure have any effect? Does the USA need any advice from outside? 5:22:26 PM    comment []

Dave Winer posts (inter alia): Glenn and Nick respond. My brief response. In addition to being a technologist and living on the west coast of the US, I am also the first-generation American son of Holocaust survivors, born and raised in NY. Does Nick have any insight into my thinking? Clearly not. [Scripting News] There, that's how it works!  Now, with reference to my previous post, I don't want to start sounding like a warblogger.  By following this thread back (all the way to here), I realise that apart from the static, well-thought newspaper pundit pieces I have linked to, this is also a very contentious, dynamic and voluminous topic in blogging-land.  I probably don't have the time or energy to get fully involved, but one does wonder at the long-term implications of all this. (BTW, Nick Denton does not have one of those coffee-mug things which allow one to subscribe with a single click). 5:00:37 PM    comment []

I referred a month ago to one of the hot philosophical topics of the moment, the apparent drifting apart of what used to be called the Atlantic Alliance, and the different views on the war in the USA and Europe.  Here's more, from recent days: Victor Davis Hanson, in National Review Online  Simon Jenkins, in The Times The world does seem to have changed, International Herald Tribune I forget who pointed me at the first two references, probably Dave Winer's Scripting News. (I've now learned, through reading some documentation, that there is a really elegant, and painless way to refer to other people's links, right while you're reading it; ie hit the POST button.  I'll do that next time!). 3:34:46 PM    comment []

Here's the viewpoint of  South African cricket journalist (and native-born Australian), Mike Haysman, on the American national sport of baseball.  If I ever get some American readers (where are you guys?), this may be considered pretty inflammatory stuff.  Personally, in my limited experience of the ball game, mostly from ESPN, and one live match in Kansas City, it is a very social occasion, and I've always thought that the fielding, particularly some of the outfield catching, is pretty spectacular.  Have to trust Haysie's view of the two particular teams on the night, though. In my varsity days, a couple of very prominent cricketers, (particularly Berry Versveld and Glenn Mezher) were also very fanatical baseballers, and they felt that their baseball improved their cricket fielding ability.  Certainly, in Berry's case, he was a phenomenal throwerof a cricket ball - long, fast, flat and accurate, definitely in the class of current Aussie one-dayer Andrew Symonds. Here is Haysman's opinion on drugs and strikes (the industrial action type) in baseball. 2:21:55 PM    comment []

More from my backblog: As usual, the inimitable Dave Barry has the pithiest and funniest comment on the stock-market collapse.  Also worth reading, his explanation of what men are really thinking about when they look at women. Note:  I always buy the weekend edition of the International Herald Tribune, which publishes Dave Barry's column on the back page.  Couldn't find it on the IHT web site, but it is at home on the Miami Herald site. 1:30:52 PM    comment []