30 Reasons to Hate the French

Amazingly, their obsession with Jerry Lewis only comes in at 16.

The Camel's Nose

The Muslim Students Association at the University of Toronto demanded that halal meals be served at Bluff's, the campus restaurant. The university, showing the proper dhimmitude, caved in like a Styrofoam cup filled with petrol.

Problem solved? Hardly. The MSA promptly showed their sense of compromise and reconciliation by saying that the change in the menu wasn't good enough because the restaurant still served alcohol and played dance music. According to Ahmad Jaballah, a former MSA executive and current Scarborough Campus Students Union VP students and equity,

This initiative was brought forth solely by Bluff’s without ever consulting the MSA or Muslim students. If this was a deliberate accommodation, it’s kind of offensive in giving us the food in a manner unsuitable to us.

Translation: That's what appeasement gets you.

Pontius Pilate, Call Your Service

Miscea has produced a new sensor-activated tap that will not only turn on when you put your hands near it, but will also adjust the temperature and dispense soap, lotion, disinfectant, and a fit of apoplexy as you try to get on with just washing your hands is that too much to ask, dammit.

The New Etiquette

The BBC, operating under the delusion that the sort of damp-handed, creeping Continentalism practised at Broadcasting House is the norm for the country, ponders at tedious length the "new etiquette" of people who are not close family members kissing and hugging.

In order to help avoid confusion, I would point out that this sort of thing was settled long ago in my part of Yorkshire and I offer the following guidelines for the confused:

• A handshake is a perfectly acceptable form of greeting, though if the recipient is female, try to restrict the breakage to the smaller bones of the hand.


• An offer of a cheek to kiss is best responded to with a blank stare of complete incomprehension followed by a look implying that the cheek-offerer has gone mad.


• The offer of a "Soprano-style" hug anywhere outside of backstage at the Royal Theatre should be politely declined with a cold-conking.

I hope this clears up these little details.

Seeking

Paul Allen's latest venture gets off the ground as the first bits of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) comes online as part of a $50 million search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

The builders hope that they will receive the first signals by 2025, though loyal readers of Ephemeral Isle will recall that such a message has already been received and it isn't exactly what Carl Sagan had in mind.

Gizmo

Newsreel compilation of the stark, raving, gloriously mad.

Space Guns

The Russians have been packing iron in their spaceships since 1982.

Unfortunately, lasers are not involved.

Problem, Meet Solution

Engineers at EDS have developed a new "intelligent" shopping trolley with a built-in computer and barcode reader that will nag warn you if you're buying too much junk food.

In other news, Ephemeral Isle is marketing handy sledge hammers that you can use to smash busybody shopping trolleys to tiny bits if they stick their metallic noses into your business.

Tiny Minds

Turning to the tinfoil hat section of the news, we learn that anti-war protesters in the United States believe that the CIA is spying on them with teeny, tiny flying robots.

At least, that's what the voices keep telling them.

Quatermass and the Pit (Part 6)

London becomes a Martian colony and it's up to Quatermass to save the Earth.

Fatty Cascade

The Great British Fry-Up: heart attack on a plate or victim of a modern scientific superstition?

An object lesson in what happens when an untested hypothesis is blindly acccepted when it serves the ends of those who believe they have a "Science-given" right to control the lives of others.

The Ultimate Martini

Australian doctors have saved the life of an Italian tourist by giving him an alcohol drip feed.

Oddly, in many parts of Australia this procedure is known as "cutting out the middleman."

Quatermass and the Pit (Part 5)

Can Quatermass convince the government of the danger before it's too late? Find out in Part 5.

Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion.

Atomic Che

(T)he people (of Cuba) you see today tell you that even if they should disappear from the face if the earth because an atomic war is unleashed in their names... they will feel completely happy and fulfilled.

Che Guevara

The BBC is indulging in one of its periodic bouts of Socialist worship; this time extolling the "legacy" of Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Not surprisingly, there are gallons of ink spilled in rapture of his "iconic" image, his "inspiration" and battles against "injustice."

Unfortunately, they do overlook the tiny matter of his knowingly working in the cause of a totalitarian system, his love of mass executions, his introduction of the gulag to Cuba, his rank cowardice in battle, and his wild fanaticism that made him lust after the idea of universal Stalinist dictatorship ushered in on the backs of a hundred million radioactive corpses.

But that's just awkward nit-picking against the reputation of a dead Communist murderer who's cornered the tee-shirt market.

Million Dollar Mistake.

A complete twit walked into a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania convenience store and asked them to break a forged million dollar bill for him.

He became rather stroppy when the clerks offered him a $500,000 and two $250,000 bills in change.

Quatermass and the Pit (Part 4)

Are we the Martians? Find out in Part 4.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 5

Ford Nucleon

Damn Interesting has a rather nifty article on the Ford Nucleon: Atomic runabout for the atomic age.

The Future is Now (1955)

The Future is Now (1955)
Uploaded by donaldtheduckie

The future! Mystic land of videophones and electronic player pianos.

Player pianos?

Quatermass and the Pit (Part 3)

What mystery is behind the history of Hobb's lane? Find out in Part 3.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 4.

Multiculti Madness

Mark Steyn on Mohammed Fayed's assertion that the Princess of Wales was assassinated by MI6 because she was dating a Muslim:

David Pryce-Jones made the point that, in persisting with his lurid accusations, Mohammed Fayed revealed how little he understands Britain: He’s lived there for years, it’s been good to him, he owns Harrod’s and the Paris Ritz and various other baubles. No big deal. He’s one of many, many beneficiaries of Western openness to “the other.” And yet he’s convinced himself that Buckingham Palace is so consumed by “Islamophobia” that the Queen’s husband dialed M, and M called in Moneypenny, and Moneypenny faxed 007, and a week later the princess and her Islamostud are dead.

Reality is more humdrum: In multiculti Britain, everyone was indifferent to Di’s Muslim lover. Could have been a Hindu, could have been a Buddhist. Who cares? But instead Mr Fayed has retreated into the paranoia and victim mentality that stunts so much of the Muslim world. A while back, I was in Jordan, and a wealthy Saudi told me that the Iraq war was part of a continuous western assault on Islam that includes the British Royal Family’s assassination of Dodi Fayed. And so, in a London courtroom, a freak one-off celebrity death becomes just another snapshot of the big geopolitical picture.