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Fabrice's Blog
Ô malheureux mortels ! Ô terre déplorable !
Voltaire wrote Candide from the shock of hearing about Lisbon's earthquake. This emotion was probably fueled by his rivarly with Rousseau on the question of Christianity. Voltaire's grief was, really, religion.
Spanish manifestation against austerity and corruption (23F)
There was an important demonstration in Madrid and other Spanish cities yesterday, to protest against austerity and corruption.
New Year greetings (2013)
Operation Pillar of Defense
These are some personal thoughts motivated by the Operation Pillar of Defense [1]:
The peace Nobel prize 2012
Today, the European Union was awarded the peace Nobel prize [1]. The merit was "for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe".
On what is art and what is not
There is something of cosmic proportion in this story. In the now famous village of Borja, a fresco from a minor artist, Elías García Martínez was defaced by a local resident, Cecilia Giménez, an Octogenarian who, in good faith, decided to benevolently restore the painting to preserve it from humidity.
Happy Hacking
Stallman is one of the rare alive persons I see who can assume the role of a morale conscience for our contemporary world and much troubled society (!?) He is the genuine intellectual, achieved scientist and cold tempered social activist entitled to carry this much needed virtuous, wise and timeless truth that the rest of us can rely upon.
Onyx, 20 January 1998, 9 July 2012.
Ask the beasts and they will teach you the beauty of this earth.
Saint Francis of Assisi.
Onyx, the Yorkshire terrier of my mother, passed away. Five years after her. Five years alone as they were inseparable companions, and the loneliness of the little dog ever since always echoed a bit of my own.
GEMA or the modern slave trade
The copyright business is to intellectual production the same atrocious deformity as slavery was to the physical integrity of people in the past centuries.
Politics and Language
The videos of Gaddafi's demise have been a great shock for me. The images themselves were not the most shocking, though, the real shock came from the concert of congratulations that accompanied the news of Gaddafi's death. I would have like to read consternation, outrage, condemns and reproving. Not even stopping long on such supremacist uncouthness as Clinton's "hilarity" (we came, we saw, he died [1], you can compare this impromptu spontaneous reaction to her sober official statement [2]), how can a man be lynched and all our leaders deliver victorious speeches and manifest outright satisfaction?
I do not want to delve much into the political issues, which are complex but more importantly, are really not the point. I would just summarize here what may be can be agreed upon by most.
Potentially offensive or inappropriate
Images and even videos showing the fall of Gaddafi bear a mention or another along the lines of "content is potentially offensive or inappropriate. Viewer discretion is advised."
Today I am 34
When Nabe got 33, he went to Jerusalem to get baptised. A mystical move which he recounted in an essay, L'âge du Christ:
- C'est fait, ça y est. Je suis rené, j'étais mort, je ressuscite. Tout peut commencer parce que tout recommence.
The dawn of Google+
Google started, less than a couple of weeks ago(i), a revolutionary service: its social networking platform Google+.
Happy 30th birthday Elena!
Today is Elena's 30th birthday!
What's happening in Spain
There is little echo in the international press of the recent events in Spain, be it the growing mass gatherings [2], or some cases of its violent repression by the police [1]. This is a bit strange as the events are both important and notable. Since the demonstrations are pacific and their demands are mainly against political corruption and decency in the conduct of power, I have only positive feelings about it. Today, we went in Munich to support the indignados, themselves supporting the core movement in Spain.
A moral conscience for our troubled times
We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.
Death of Osama bin Laden
"I can report to the American people and to the world" announces the president of the United States, Barack Obama... What? That they have cured cancer? Landed on Mars? Achieved room-temperature superconductivity? Solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? At least lifted the embargo on Cuba?
Mad Rush
I was looking for a representative masterpiece of minimalism for my list of favourite songs. I have settled for Mad Rush
The Bliki way
The bliki is a blog provided by a wiki.
This is the technology we shall be using on laussy.org from now on. We initially used own-cooked php scripts, then later upgraded to a dedicated weblog engine, WordPress, but as we later relied increasingly on MediaWiki that is powering the rest of our web, there came a strong urge of uniformity and homogeneity.