Cogs can think.

It is my pleasure to introduce to you all… Twiek!

Twiek

Sep 25, 2006 - 3 Photos

Eight weeks young, very lively, and supercute. His name is Twiek, which is the Dutch spelling for Tweek, you know, from Southpark. The Dutch pronunciation can be heard in this video:

Do you kow what makes Bill CLinton a great president and a great person? Because when he goes into the lion’s den, thinking he will be interviewed about climate change, but in fact will be attacked by that lion’s den bias, he admits his error. The question is asked why he did not do enough to take down Bin Laden. His reply is astonoshingly elloquent.

OK, let’s talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits but I want to talk about the context of which this arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network…ABC just had a right wing conservative on the Path to 9/11 falsely claim that it was based on the 9/11 Commission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report. I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn’t have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn’t do enough said that I did too much. Same people.

Then Fox News again asks, did you do enough? He replies:

But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t…I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke… So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked: Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many you asked: Why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know…

Watch the interview on Google Video, or read the transcript.

This, boys and girls, makes Bill Clinton the great president Bush will never be. The world would be a much better place with Clinton in office.

I couldn’t resist. My list of driving songs.

Tracy Chapman - Fast Car

The Cardigens - My Favourite Game

Golden Earring - Another 45 Miles To Go

Golden Earring - Radar Love

Golden Earring - When The Lady Smiles

Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild

Bruce Springsteen - The River

The Eagles - Hotel California

The Eagles - Take It Easy

The Eagles - Lyin’ Eyes

Beach Boys - Surfing USA

Don Henley - Boys Of Summer

Garbage - When I Grow Up

Garbage - Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)

Roxette - Joyride

The Police - Every Breath You Take

In no perticular order.

Outside, in my soon-to-be-rebuilt garden, this little black cat showed up a few hours ago, and he or she hasn’t left since. It’s very young, and cute as hell.

This made me think… I was planning on getting a cat january 2007; however, I can barely resist the urge to get one now. To cut a long story short, I’ve been looking at sacred burmans, since I fell in love with this breed years and years ago.

However, getting a thoroughbred cat has its downsides. The most important one: theft. You see, thoroughbre cats can be quite expensive and hence worth the stealing.

That’s something to talk to the police about. I will inquire how common cat theft is, after which I’ll contact a cattery to see if they find my house and environment fit for sacred burmans. Oh what the hell, I’ll inform right away to the burman cattery in Heerhugowaard.

Dear United States of America,

You have gone too far. Fcuk you.

Regards,

Grandpa Thom

Sting, bass player and singer of one of the best bands of all time, The Police, has said that music and rock are dead. He says nobody is making new music, and that everything is an endless loop of more of the same.

I respect Sting, and credit him for all his work, but this is just plain nonsense. If you look at the past 10-15 years, MANY new bands with new sounds have risen and fallen. To name a few.

Fiona Apple. Radiohead. Oasis. Blur. Gorillaz. The Streets. Marylin Manson. Rammstein. Garbage. Sufjan Stevens. The Verve.

And I just came up with these in 30 seconds.

Now, I agree with Sting that with the exception of Sufjan Stevens and Fiona Apple, nobody will ever become as great as bands/artists such as The Police, The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Don McLean, Neil Young, Dire Straits, The Eagles, etc. etc., however, to say that no one is doing anything new is a bit too radical.

Belgian GNOME developer pvanhoof:

I will not visit the Boston Summit because I’m against its country’s foreign policy. Try again when you guys have real and good leaders in Washington. I know the people organizing the summit aren’t responsible for American foreign policy. Their non-guilt isn’t the point. The point is philosophical: I can’t visit a country that doesn’t respect human rights, is directly responsible for thousands of innocent dead and of which its politicians think that they own the planet. They don’t. For me, visiting the country wouldn’t feel right.

I have been struggling with the same problem. Eugenia invited me on numerous occassions to come visit her and her husband in California, and David will invite me to come to his new house when it’s done in Salt Lake City. Besides the fact I simply do not have the money to make such an expensive trip right now, I also have problems with it for the same reasons as pvanhoof.

You see, I would not go to Iran, China, or whatever other country that disrespects human rights either. Thanks to the United States, the world has gotten a whole lot less safe, and us in the west are slowly but surely getting more hated by the day. With the US in the lead, we are inevitably en route to more violence thrown our way from Muslim extremists; we are in a spiral of violence, all due to the uninformed arrogance of the United States.

I do not wish to support this menace country. However, I also fully realise that only 25% of the American electorate even voted for Bush (50% of the electorate voted, and half of them voted for Bush, hence, 25%).

A difficult decision, and no matter what I choose in the end it, won’t be 100% comforting.

Richard “the hamster” Hammond has been admitted to a hospital after getting seriously injured during a car crash while filming for the BBC’s international hit Top Gear. He was trying to break the British land speed record in a rocket engined car. His situation is critical, but stable.

Richard Hammond, who together with James “captain slow” May and Jeremy Clarkson hosts Top Gear, is one of my heroes. Let’s hope that for him and his family, as well as all of us Top Gear fans all over the world, his admittance to the hosptial will be a short one, and that he will soon conintue to work to make Top Gear one of the best, if not the best, television show ever made.

And so it happened that the Thai armed forces commited a military coup, in order to remove the current corrupt government and its hated prime-minister, who was out of the country during the events. The generals leading the coup have stated clearly that they do not wish to govern the country; they have talked to the Thai king Bhumibol Adulyadej and assured the people an interim government will lead the country to elections next year. The coup went by without a single gunshot and is completely peaceful.

Assuming they indeed mean no harm, I’m all for this course of events. The Thai PM was hated, and his government extremely corrupt. So, taking him out of office seems like a reasonable course of action. Democracy is simply not suited for the removal of failing leaders; hence someone else needs to do it. If they would not have done it, the PM could’ve destroyed the entire economy and country.

I would expect the same from the Dutch armed forces if The Netherlands ever came into a similar situation. Democracy has its faults, and one of them is that bad people can come to power fairly easily (Adolf Hitler came to power via completely legal and democratic means), by playing the people. And no offence, but the people are mindless (and yes, the people includes myself), and easily manipulated. We are dumb, and in essense incapable of deciding over matters of State (hence I am against referenda) (hence I am for transferring slightly more power to the Crown).

Of course The Netherlands has an extra theoretical safeguard (the Crown), but failing that, I expect our military to come into action to remove a very, very failing government.

The whole Pope ’scandal’… Two parties are at fault:

Religious Muslim leaders, for using the Pope’s words as en excuse to start Cartoon War II;

The media, both in the west as well as in the east, who totally ripped the words of the Pope out of context. He was citing a 14th century emperor for god’s sake. Am I a nazi when I cite Adolf Hitler during an anti-nazi speech?

And who are the victims of all this nonsense? Exactly, normal people. As always, the normal people have to bend over to make it possible for religious Muslim leaders to spout anti-western crap, and for the money-controlled media to create an artificial front between Muslims and Christians, because that sells.

Fcuking disgusting.