burning midnight oil

effectivity: zil. Better go home now.
sondtrack: montreal_jazz_big_band__lover-come_back_to_me.mp3

BBC NEWS | Bush criticises Iran's election

The BBC writes:

"[...] Mr Khatami swept to victory in 1997 on a reformist ticket.
But apathy has taken hold after his programme failed to deliver change in the face of the conservative religious establishment, which is able to veto legislation and political candidates. [...]"

Sounds a bit like rôle of the the military in Turkey. So probably Mr. Bush is not so wrong with his criticism, but his allegation that "Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world," does not sound like he has learned anything. I keep myself wondering whether political leaders believe in the things they say or whether they are just well trained machiavellists. Being an actor is at least in the U.S. not a bad start for a political career.

buddhanet

What are you reading this blog, go to metafilter. I found the link to this picture there, taken from buddhanet.net.

SenderBase

Who is sending most emails in the world? Who are they? Where are they? Are they in any blacklists? All this data is collected and searchable on SenderBase. I was not aware that comcast.net (which was unknown to me) sends out more emails than yahoo.com (332m vs. 309m estimated daily volume). And that aol.com sends less (87m) than wanadoo.fr (92m). My be that the estimate is wrong and for instance aol is not submitting data so that internal (aol to aol) emails remain unaccounted for. But still, huge figures.

Regime Change Iran

Regime Change Iran - Yes, there is something outside my dream world and my musing. If you are inside Iran and want to read news, it might be hard to get through the content filters. I wonder how this site passes, but I will try to help by linking it.

I am a bit confused by the US flag which they show at the top of the site but I take it as a symbol for freedom rather than christianism and there is still lots of green in the logo.

Cuando Calienta el Sol

Cuando calienta el sol
aqui en la playa
siento tu cuerpo vibrar
cerca de mi...

Rather than wondering whether Trini Lopez or Luis Miguel were the first one to sing this, I keep humming this tune to myself. In popular music it is almost always the performer that is remembered, not the composer. Even though some songs are sung by more that one, to a degree that people get confused 'whose' tune it actually is an 'who stole from whom'. This one must be relatively old but still has all the potential of a hit. If you want to hear it, try this search.

Earplugs, earplugs,

praise them, love them!
Sitting next to a computer that is running under full load is no fun - normaly. The fan is running with max rpm and I can feel the room warming up. That plus my colleague is cursing over his work and people are passing on the corridor. But now there is silence. The world is such a peaceful place when you put your earplugs in. I am looking forward to testing the special kind for musicians. They should be in the mail any day now.
And I recall spending a night in Rome with the window to the street wide open. I had all the cool air and no noise, 'cause I wore my earplugs. The only thing that was annoying was that banging on some door somewhere distant. Took me a while to figure out it was my door that was banged on and that I was supposed to check out.
But now I'm humming to myself: earplugs, earplugs, love them, praise them...