tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54302992024-03-21T05:05:26.995+00:00the shipwright returns.catholicism, africa, kenya, caledonia, football, beer, philosophy & all else that takes my fancy. Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.comBlogger232125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-41764239639065188962007-04-25T20:31:00.000+00:002007-04-25T20:32:15.750+00:00MovingI'll be moving to Wordpress, later than all the cool kids. The new address is mithlond.wordpress.com; see you there!Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-82681725987689105572007-04-25T12:35:00.000+00:002007-04-25T12:39:20.540+00:00RIP Alan BallFrom Brian Glanville's obit in the Guardian:...It was now that Ball came truly into his own, with his constant runs down the right. Within 90 seconds, he had left Schnellinger behind, ending with a shot which Tilkowski turned over the bar. On 100 minutes, Nobby Stiles sent him a searching pass. Ball would later say that he had "already died twice" and that he told himself, "Oh, no, I can't get Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-78960301269691900762007-04-13T04:28:00.000+00:002007-05-16T22:53:07.976+00:00Cuss in KinyarwandaProfanity in 180 languages. Dazzling stuff. (Not Safe For Work - this happened after I first came across the link, by the way)Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-29787075175983587812007-04-10T18:54:00.000+00:002007-04-10T18:57:27.788+00:00Christos AnestiJesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.(John 11:25-26. KJV)Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-61488160036078536482007-04-07T03:55:00.000+00:002007-04-07T03:59:22.122+00:00Embarrassingly, I had never heard his name before While my government was devoting its energies to figuring out how to describe what was happening in Rwanda without using the word "genocide", Mbaye Diagne just saw what had to be done and did it, at the cost of his own life.(Via Hilzoy, who continues to be mandatory reading.)Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-82341576369891809042007-03-29T20:39:00.000+00:002007-03-29T20:41:21.186+00:00I regret to announce the death of HiphopCirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-44187626211488539372007-03-14T17:20:00.000+00:002007-03-14T17:29:32.269+00:00Chrysostom on WineSt. John Chrysostom had very definite views on wine:Paul is not ashamed, and does not blush, after the many and great signs which he had displayed even by a simple word; yet, in writing to Timothy, to bid him take refuge in the healing virtue of wine drinking. Not that to drink wine is shameful. God forbid! For such precepts belong to heretics;...I desire to ask one favor of you all, in return Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-24146275502368401922007-03-12T16:14:00.000+00:002007-03-12T16:17:04.309+00:00Yotube just keeps on giving...(Your mother smelled of elderberries edition)Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-27688575146697769462007-03-12T14:51:00.000+00:002007-03-12T14:57:25.970+00:00a good man is hard to findCalestous Juma profile. Juma often gets asked when he will return to Africa. It's a barbed question, coming from a continent bedevilled by brain drain. But he views it differently. Nobody accused him of leaving Africa when he was at the UN, but it was then he felt he'd left Africa behind. "That was when I was disengaged." In his current position, he feels engaged once more. He goes back to Kenya Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-82408414651872324492007-03-09T14:50:00.000+00:002007-03-09T14:56:31.995+00:00exoticising, informative, moving, all at once.Rendille single motherhood; a photo essay.Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-36106587299567003682007-03-05T19:31:00.000+00:002007-03-05T19:35:38.515+00:00RIP Chris LightfootChris Lightfoot, of ex-parrot, is dead. Truly sad news. More here, here, and here. (via VirtualStoa and Crooked Timber)Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-14772857354147180372007-02-28T14:20:00.000+00:002007-02-28T14:24:18.445+00:00Philosophical Logic versus Philosophy of LogicJC Beall has a go at making the distinction here.Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-3876739530075428212007-02-25T22:42:00.000+00:002007-02-25T23:08:48.682+00:00Concepts in Science explained (A Series)Awesome piece of work by various ScienceBloggers. John Wilkins hosts. Apparently, it'll be updated regularly. You might like to begin at Theory.Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-72467924057171031322007-02-15T00:58:00.000+00:002007-02-15T01:12:41.863+00:00Wonderwoman IIWangari Maathai was recently interviewed on Start the Week. She's got a new autobiography out. It looks promising.Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-25588960610724344102007-02-15T00:52:00.000+00:002007-02-15T00:58:03.533+00:00WonderwomanLene Hau stops light: Lene Hau has already shaken scientists' beliefs about the nature of things. Albert Einstein and just about every other physicist insisted that light travels 186,000 miles a second in free space, and that it can't be speeded-up or slowed down. But in 1998, Hau, for the first time in history, slowed light to 38 miles an hour, about the speed of rush-hour traffic.Two years Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-56592001320391266332007-02-12T18:37:00.000+00:002007-02-12T18:38:12.332+00:00Top Gear In America(Via Metafilter)Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-79146519480887992492007-02-08T19:27:00.000+00:002007-02-08T19:37:29.558+00:00The Hallelujah Chicken Run Band (Reloaded)Back in the day, when things were just as bad as they are now in Zimbabwe, The Hallelujah Chicken Run Band (led by Thomas Mapfumo) put out a dazzling series of songs; songs that both changed the face of popular music in Zim, and gained fame outside Zim. Matt Yanchyshyn, of benn loxo du taccu, has a song (time limited mp3) off the 2006 reissue. Head over there and listen to aural proof of Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-16809781020001247342007-02-08T19:22:00.000+00:002007-02-08T19:27:02.633+00:00Meng ZiwenFrom his obituary in the Times:The death of Meng Ziwen, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nanning, deprives China of its oldest prelate and a man whose long life encapsulated the challenges — and personal costs — of practising the faith in a country where the Communist Government still sets limits to religious conduct, despite China’s much-vaunted economic reforms. Requiescat in pace.Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-23882659520524713242007-02-08T18:49:00.000+00:002007-02-08T18:52:09.203+00:00AwesomeKenya v ScotlandPlayed at Gymkhana Club Ground, Nairobi, on 7 February 2007 (50-over match)Result Kenya won by 8 wickets (with 73 balls remaining) More here, and here.Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-9589892201656772542007-02-06T20:18:00.000+00:002007-02-06T20:22:44.340+00:00An unusual refutation of SkepticismSEARLE: Right...If you go back to the 17th century, and Descartes, skepticism -- the question of how it is possible to have knowledge -- was a live issue for philosophy. That put epistemology -- the theory of knowledge -- at the heart of philosophy. How can we know? Shouldn't we seek a foundation for knowledge that overcomes skeptical doubts about it? As recently as a hundred years ago, the Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-25621460658051672022007-02-02T19:43:00.000+00:002007-02-02T19:46:48.978+00:00The World is Closer than You ThinkBruce Osborn has, over the years, taken an amazing series of photos of Japanese parents and their children. More here, and here.Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-31928672308040866192007-01-27T15:25:00.000+00:002007-01-27T15:30:57.829+00:00Ethics via the the Biology of Consciousness? (or réchauffé Hume ?)MY OWN VIEW IS THAT THIS IS backward: the biology of consciousness offers a sounder basis for morality than the unprovable dogma of an immortal soul. It's not just that an understanding of the physiology of consciousness will reduce human suffering through new treatments for pain and depression. That understanding can also force us to recognize the interests of other beings--the core of Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-71370152251126310292007-01-22T20:58:00.000+00:002007-01-22T20:59:35.954+00:00(from the Holy Grail) Help, I'm being Repressed!Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-34329157961182967782007-01-22T16:22:00.000+00:002007-01-22T17:08:26.400+00:00Excluding ExclusionDeogol argued that the antipathy against exclusiveness (see here, here and elsewhere for material) was misguided and destructive. The argument is unsound, or so I've argued in comments.Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430299.post-33214905333949986632007-01-20T13:24:00.000+00:002007-01-20T13:29:14.428+00:00World Social Forum comes to Kenya.Nairobi hosts the WSF this year. From the blurb:WSF Nairobi 2007 will be an opportunity to showcase Africa and her social movements; Africa and her unbroken history of struggle against foreign domination, colonialism and neo-colonialism; Africa and her rich heritage of natural wealth, cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity; Africa and her reputation for embracing communities from around the Cirdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06161072165681849178noreply@blogger.com0