Ciaran’s Omnipurpose Blog

I saw this this evening and found it inspiring.

I think homeopathy’s nonsense. One very good reason is here. Dawkins also explains it well here. The key point about homeopathy is that it claims to cure like with like but at high dilution. The standard dilution is what is referred to as “30C”, and this means that:

since the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, a 30C solution would have to have at least one molecule of the original substance dissolved in a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water. This would require a container more than 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth.

I found this image on b3ta today and loved it so much I thought I’d host a copy of it here. Take a look.

What a beautiful day!

The snow’s been falling thick and fast all day, and it’s been beautiful outside. I’m lucky to live in a very picturesque part of the world with narrow lanes and fields and hills. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

This is just 5 meters from my house. 2 cars were abandoned on the road and the police were called. Now the road is closed. I’m not going anywhere tomorrow.

This is on the fields near my place. Lit up in the distance is St. Mary’s Church on the top of the Hill.

Just behind the school at twilight.

It occurred to me today that I probably don’t do enough of this, so it was good to find this video on Youtube to get me thinking about how I think:

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is coming! So the important thing to remember at this time of year is FOOD!

I love Lebkuchen. It’s a bit like gingerbread, only spicier and fruitier. Well, the variety I like the most is. It’s called Nürnberger Lebkuchen. There are lots of varieties, but I think this one is the best.

It really takes me back to my roots: my mum used to bake huge batches of this at Christmas. This Christmas, I’m going to do it. I’m probably going to start tonight. It’s a very laborious process, but the cookies last for ages and they’re delicious.

So here’s the recipe. You’ve still got time before Christmas to get the ingredients and bake them whilst snowed in:

This recipe is for a small batch. We usually multiply the ingredients up 3 or 4 times to get a good quantity for keeping in airtight tins. They’re full of honey, so they keep well.

Ingredients

• 175g Clear Honey
• 50g Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons oil
• 2 Tablespoons water
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 heaped Teaspoon cocoa
• 6 drops lemon essence
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 1 level Teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 250g Wheat Flour
• 3 level Teaspoons Baking Powder
• 75g ground almonds
• 75g ground hazelnuts
• 50g candied lemon peel
• 75g dried apricot (diced)
• Whole hazelnuts and almonds (optional – for decoration)

For the icing:

• 125g Icing sugar
• 1 egg white
• Water

Method

• Mix the honey, sugar, oil and water in a bowl, gently warming over a pan if necessary. Allow to cool slightly.
• Into the mixture, fold in the egg yolk, cocoa, lemon essence, ground cloves and cinnamon. Don’t forget to reserve the egg whites!
• Sieve into the mixture the flour, bakikng powder and some water if necessary to make a good dough.
• Into the dough,mix in the ground almonds, hazelnuts, peel and apricots.
• Roll out the dough to a thickness of about half a centimeter.
• Cut out cookie shapes and (optionally) decorate the cookies.
• Bake the cookes at 175-200 degrees in a warm oven for 15-20 mins.
• Whilst the cookies are baking, mix the egg whites with the icing sugar and water until the icing is ready.
• Then paint the icing sugar over the cookies with a pastry brush.

I’m going to make these tonight. If I’m not too busy stuffing my face, I’ll put pictures up of the final product.

Enjoy! Let me know if you like the recipe!

It’s Winter Solstice today, which means that the days will now start getting longer until the Summer Solstice next year. Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry for Winter Solstice explains:

Since the event is seen as the reversal of the Sun’s ebbing presence in the sky, concepts of the birth or rebirth of sun gods have been common and, in cultures using winter solstitially based cyclic calendars, the year as reborn has been celebrated with regard to life-death-rebirth deities or new beginnings such as Hogmanay’s redding, a New Year cleaning tradition. In Greek mythology, the gods and goddesses met on the winter and summer solstice, and Hades was permitted on Mount Olympus. Also reversal is another usual theme as in Saturnalia’s slave and master reversals.

Does that sound familiar?

In any case, it was interesting to watch this “discussion” between Faux News’ Laura Ingraham and Annie Laurie Gaylor from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Who represents their position the best here?

It snowed last night, so we took the scenic route through the fields to the station. I live in a beautiful place with a beautiful person!

Probably another symptom of my unavoidable brushes with the Daily Mail and LBC and the rest of them, but I get really riled up about people wishing the Death Penalty were reintroduced in the UK.

I stumbled across the following statement from Napoleon Beazley, which I thought was truthful and powerful:

The act I committed to put me here was not just heinous, it was senseless.  But the person that committed that act is no longer here – I am.

I’m not going to struggle physically against any restraints.  I’m not going to shout, use profanity or make idle threats.  Understand though that I’m not only upset, but I’m saddened by what is happening here tonight.  I’m not only saddened, but disappointed that a system that is supposed to protect and uphold what is just and right can be so much like me when I made the same shameful mistake.

If someone tried to dispose of everyone here for participating in this killing, I’d scream a resounding, “No.”  I’d tell them to give them all the gift that they would not give me…and that’s to give them all a second chance.

I’m sorry that I am here.  I’m sorry that you’re all here.  I’m sorry that John Luttig died.  And I’m sorry that it was something in me that caused all of this to happen to begin with.

Tonight we tell the world that there are no second chances in the eyes of justice…Tonight, we tell our children that in some instances, in some cases, killing is right.

This conflict hurts us all, there are no SIDES.  The people who support this proceeding think this is justice.  The people that think that I should live think that is justice.  As difficult as it may seem, this is a clash of ideals, with both parties committed to what they feel is right.  But who’s wrong if in the end we’re all victims?

In my heart, I have to believe that there is a peaceful compromise to our ideals.  I don’t mind if there are none for me, as long as there are for those who are yet to come.  There are a lot of men like me on death row – good men – who fell to the same misguided emotions, but may not have recovered as I have.

Give those men a chance to do what’s right.  Give them a chance to undo their wrongs.  A lot of them want to fix the mess they started, but don’t know how.  The problem is not in that people aren’t willing to help them find out, but in the system telling them it won’t matter anyway.  No one wins tonight.  No one gets closure.  No one walks away victorious.

The text was here. You can browse the text of other last statements on that site too.

A group, created for the purpose of getting Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” to Christmas #1, was recently removed from Facebook. It might not succeed, but the group claims to be raising money for charity and it’s a nice idea: let’s get some real music to #1 for Christmas instead of plasticky pop.

My friend Richard Wand blogged about this the other day here.

The main site for the initiative is here: http://www.ratm4xmas.co.uk/

I went to check up on this Facebook group this evening and found that it had been removed. I don’t know how or why. I can only hope that Facebook didn’t censor it. Never mind, there’s a backup group on Facebook, and I thought I’d put the information from it here before it too gets wiped.

Enjoy! Fight the Power! Download links to get this to the charts are at the bottom of the post!

It’s time for true music fans to make our voice heard – December 13th 2009 – The day we take Killing in the Name to the Number One spot in the UK charts. Simon Cowell and the X-Factor have controlled the Christmas #1 spot for 4 years, lets show him that putting out the same predictable monotonous garbage each year for a guaranteed Number #1 isn’t good enough.

To get this to Number 1 in the UK Charts it is important that you buy from one of the shops shown below, these are confirmed to count in the UK Chart. Other places like Amazon do not count so please use one below, will add more when they confirm chart ranking. Just click on the logos to be taken straight to the page where you can buy this track and make history!

LET’S GET RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE TO THE CHRISTMAS NO.1 SPOT THEN!

Q: So how do we do this then?
A: Take your pick(s) of the digital providers below. It should take you to the page where you can purchase your copy of KILLING IN THE NAME. in most cases it’s track#2 but check before you click!

DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT 6 OR 7 TIMES…IT’LL JUST GET ANNULLED IN THE CHART.

7DIGITAL – £1.19P – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-7digital

TUNETRIBE – 49P – track #2 – LIVE version (yes it counts)
http://bit.ly/ratm-tunetribe

TESCO DIGITAL – 67p – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-tesco

HMV.COM – 79p (careful – this is track #1)
http://hmv.com/hmvweb
http://bit.ly/ratm-hmv

PLAY.COM – 70p – it’s the only track on the page
http://bit.ly/ratm-play

WE7 – £1.07p – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-we7

iTUNES – 99p – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-itunes

I was in Stockholm this weekend to visit some friends and hook up with my online buddies from The Corporation, as we do every 6 months. One of the friends I was visiting, unconnected to the Corporation, is a very dear school friend, Karl. He and I got to spend the day together preparing for a party at his place. Whilst doing this, I learned a couple of very important lessons:

• Alcohol is very heavily taxed and anything stronger than 3.5% is sold by Government monopoly stores (Systembolaget)
• The number counter on McDonalds tills only goes up to 99.

Our first stop was the Systembolaget, where we picked up 7 cases of beer and 3 cases of prosecco:

Total price? I estimated this would cost just shy of £200 ($327) in the UK. Here it cost about £550 ($900).

After loading the beer into a cab and taking it back to Karl’s place, we did a bit of party preparation before going out to get cheeseburgers for the party. Karl figured on about 60 people coming to the party, so he went up to the counter and said, ”I’d like 100 Cheeseburgers, please”. They couldn’t believe it. “Yes, I’m serious. I’d like 100 Cheeseburgers”. The girl behind the counter was a bit flummoxed by this and a committee was formed to work out how to make this happen:

In the end, we had to settle for 99 cheeseburgers:

We took a stroll and came back 15 minutes later:

The two drinks on the counter were a freebie from the manager. I nearly declined the offer, thinking that the drinks at McDonalds are a bit unhealthy. Then I thought how stupid that sounded.