Hooray (William) Henry (Gates) (III)

So Microsoft says it will now comply with an EU ruling forcing it to disclose information on its technology to competitors.

Did I mention I'm actually David Ben Gurion?

Well, the seemingly impossible has happened. I attended an interview today at Xtreme Information - they do press monitoring - and walked out with the job! I can't tell you how good it feels to have a job again. It's like suddenly waking up from a bad dream in which you are an invisible alien, and finding you're still human.

"Damn you! Damn you all to Hell!"

It's a bank holiday today in Britain, or at least in England. I'm not sure why, but with Ben Hur on Channel 4 and Planet of the Apes on Five, maybe it's Charlton Heston Day?

Thought for Today

If religion is so bad, and secularism so good, why does secularism result in fanatical intolerance of the type displayed by the Secular Humanist Society in the following:

In George Orwell's 1984, it was stated, "Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past." Who is going to control the present-fundamentalism or freedom?

It may be comforting to these people to equate "religion" with "fundamentalism" and secularism with "freedom", but REAL freedom involves allowing people to profess their beliefs, and to act on those beliefs, without interference or intolerance. It certainly cannot be denied that a lot of "religious" people have been involved in violence, and as the article from which that quote was taken says, Hitler was NOT an atheist - but Stalin was, at least for a time, a confirmed atheist, and Communism itself is predicated on the idea that there is no God. Not only that, but just as anyone who believes in God has to confront the problem of evil, so anyone who believes that religion should be banned "because it leads to violence" needs to explain why they do not therefore advocate the banning of politics, or soccer, or cigarettes.

There is nothing wrong with atheism, but it will never "catch on" with religious people unless atheists can show that they really ARE "more ethical" than the religious (not to mention, unless they can prove there is no God; what we have to date is not proof; like the belief in the existence of God, it is no more than opinion.)

Bah, humbug

Not only did we have another discussion among my programming friends about religion (do I go to shul to discuss Linux?), I wake up this morning to find Wikipedia's "featured article" is about Windows NT.

Bah, humbug!

Better Late than Never

Yesterday marked my first visit to a synagogue. I have been thinking of converting to Judaism for about 3 years but, for various reasons, didn't take the plunge until now.

Not exactly what I was expecting. Most literature on Reform Judaism tends to concentrate on the American Reform movement, which is more "liberal" (less observant) than the Reform Movement in the UK. So I turn up and about half the service is in Hebrew (of which I know about half a word...). It's ok, though, because "philosophically" I'm more inclined to American Conservative Judaism, which is more observant than American Reform and less than Orthodox (everywhere).

I felt right at home, not least because everyone was very friendly.

Looking forward not only to next Shabbat's services, but also to the High Holidays services (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), which are in September.

SBO's (Statements of Bleeding Obviousness)

A headline by the BBC on our former, dearly-departed* Prime Minister Tony Blair states that the "[presumably Iraq] War was Blair's hardest choice."

Well, phew! Thank goodness! I'd hate** to think that his most difficult choice in ten years as PM was, oh, I don't know, deciding what flavour of toothpaste to use. (Though I notice he never had much difficulty choosing between throwing away [other] people's civil liberties and, ooh, not.) Because, you know, when a policy decision could result throwing away thousands of our young people's lives, I'd kinda sorta hope he might take that just a little bit seriously.

*I don't mean what you think I mean. Think again.
**Actually, I do enjoy thinking the worst of politicians, cynical bastard that I am. And they're always so eager to prove me right to do so. (Bless their little cotton socks.)