[housekeeping] two day hiatus

Back soon. Moderation on, sorry.

[ladies and gentlemen] adjust your urls

The state of play is this, ladies and gentlemen - it's been a learning curve and widgets are doing strange things, pics are not appearing where they should and so on at the new site. The url of the new site is:

http://nourishingobscurity.com

However, for the present, until September 29th, things have been so configured that the dotcom url, as well as the usual blogspot url, will both lead you straight back here.

On the 29th, the dotcom automatically switches itself over to the new site - you needn't do anything. If you change the url in the next week, it just means that you needn't change it again. Don't know if that was as clear as mud.

This site will still be active, in the sense that comments on previous posts will still be answered and the site will be maintained but the new site will be for all new posts. More closer to the time.

[late evening listening] tanita tikaram

Time for some of the songs I like, even if the lyrics are meaningless:

[the host] a cut above your average horror

The Korean film, The Host, suffers from the wooden English dubbing and very Asian style of acting in places but it has some excellent parts - the monster himself and how the little girl who is taken by it and kept in a narrow pit under a bridge and how she manages to outwit it. It's all about how authority reacts in an emergency by denial and by turning on its own people.

This part in the clip is not the very best - later scenes of despair are quite moving, how the grandfather re3acts to the loss and so on. Definitely a cut above the average, this one. You can read up on it here.

[beyonce] uncultured idiot

Why has no one ever told her that it's not what you reveal but what you conceal which makes you more alluring. However, that's not even the issue here:

Beyonce Knowles says she will perform in Malaysia in October, two years after canceling a show in this Muslim-majority country after protesters threatened to disrupt the concert because of her sexy image and clothing. The R&B superstar's upcoming show is already drawing the ire of conservatives in this country, where female performers are required to cover up from the shoulders to knees with no cleavage showing.

"We are not against entertainment as long as it is within the framework of our culture and our religion," Sabki said. "We are against Western sexy performances. We don't think our people need that."

There are different issues here, all being mish-mashed into one. The issue if decency is one thing and the issue of killing off fun is another. The story of Inul in Indonesia is a case in point. Vilified by the Imams for lascivious conduct, nevertheless follow that clip and see the attire she's wearing. She does not let it all hang out, as the western woman does.

It doesn't have to be a Muslim society either. When we were in Cypress, my gf had to change into something which revealed less before going into a Makarios church. She was up in arms about that but I pointed out that that was their rules, they were well within their rights to ask that and so it should be. I went into a mosque without footwear and I went into a synagogue wearing kippar on the head.

So what?

That she should wish to bowl in, promoting her slatternliness in a culture which does not appreciate it is beyond that sort of person.

And another thing - if we are to fight back against the imposition of Muslim life on us by means of spreading our own culture to Muslim nations, then let it be our higher culture that gets exported, not something which reveals our cultural ignorance.

Let it be something which edifies them and let's them see something higher to aspire for.

[cayman islands] hedging one's bets

Hedging over the Cayman Islands

Karl Denninger today:

Senior officials of Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second largest bank, are facing claims that they pocketed millions of dollars by dishing out loans that were impossible to repay.

Impossible to repay? What's the judge say about this?

Credit Suisse has now been accused of loaning the money in an unorthodox and lucrative deal for the bank that federal bankruptcy judge Ralph B. Kirscher described in May this year as a case of “naked greed” that “shocks the conscience of this court.”

This was a bunch of low-level employees, or even middling staff, right? Uh, wrong:

Brady Dougan, the Chief Executive Officer of Credit Suisse First Boston, and Hans-Ulrich Doerig, Chairman of the Board of Directors, received the subpoenas along with past and current Executive Board officials and Credit Suisse’s Board.

“Bank officials have testified that Credit Suisse created a Cayman Islands ‘branch’ in 2005 to sell these loans. “In reality, there was no phone and no staff in the bank’s phony branch. “They used the Caymans to circumvent US banking laws and to issue inflated loans that Credit Suisse executives called a ‘gravy train’ in internal memos.“

What's it all about? Yes, of course it's about a naughty bank which did what comes naturally to them and adds fuel to the fire of opinion quite willing to accept restructuring of the financial system of the world [and why does everything always have to be global?] in the image of Them.

Why all the media attention? The MSM is controlled, it's not even an issue, so why no D notices on this? Why are Credit Suisse left unprotected? To hit back at the Swiss releasing personal details on clients? It would be nice to know what's going on here.