b r a v e c r e a t u r e s

Another in my series of webcams that I love.

This one is on my Google homepage so I get to see it updating all the time and it is the most amazing series of images.

Everyday the Eiffel Tower goes through the most amazing series of vistas, and there is something about the position of this cam that it seems to get all of them.  With this sort of view, who couldn't fall in love with Paris. 

I am flying in the face of my mate Scott on this opinion, and those who read his sensational blog will realise that this is not a wise maneuver. Scott is an ex-Marine, or Navy Seal or something. He is 3 parts bad temper, 2 parts foul mouth,  4 parts pig headedness with just a dash of saint to round things out.† And he is not happy with Google, which is why we moved him off Blogger. But lets face it, Scott's a grown up blogger now and deserves a home of his own. Given his combat experience, and ignoring that in my own time I have been a SAS(SY) commando, I seek to not piss Scott off.

But daring his ire for a sec, Google has done some good things, even if Blogger is a bit dinky and contrary. Recently I came across their new customisable homepage and I have to say I likee, I likee a lot. Google has long been my homepage, because its a good start to the internet, even if all my browsers have a search box now. With the custom homepage I can get the other thing I use as a home - and thats news etc.

But there is something else I found amongst the widgets they provide, and it makes me very happy.

A web cam showing live shots of the Eiffel Tower .

Sigh!

Imagine getting up every morning to the Eiffel tower lit for the night (remember the time difference) or working in the evening and seeing it bathed in dawn light.

Its just beautiful, and needs to be nothing else.

I have even added a world clock and a weather report showing Paris to round out the experience.

Anyone who knows me, will know I love to travel and this is a window on the world that makes my days a little brighter. So thank you for this one Google, you have brought me some happiness.

Its interesting to reflect as to why this service is so good, and Blogger kind of sucks.I suspect it has something to do with the homepage actually being an extension to Googles core business of search - its about brining together the things I am interested in in a relevant way - where as something like Blogger is a different kind of service altogether. Perhaps a gentle reminder to Google to focus on doing what they do best, and to watch out for things that are peripheral.

 Just a thought.

But for now its back to contemplating Paris. 

†Most of my friends are like this

Not something you hear about every day, the creation of a new island, but its going on right now. Somewhere in the Pacific, inside Tonga's Territorial waters, a new volcanic island is forming.

A passing boat, the Maiken †, came across a field of floating pumice stone. A field that thickened so fast that they had back off quickly to avoid getting caught. Moving around the area, they spotted an island in the distance. An island that was smoking and steaming. An island that wasn't on the maps, or the satellite images. A map that Google Earth didn't know about.

A new island.

Apparently they were not the first to notice something was going on, just the first to investigate. A point that should highlight the difference between the Tongans and the Germans.

Apparently Allan Bowe, at the Mounu Island Resort, reported seeing an eruption on Late Iki that could be seen from Mounu Island between August 9-11, "We could hear what sounded like continuous thunder rumbling to the south and there was a huge plume of smoke and cloud rising up into the sky," he said.

Allan said that at the time they rang the tower at the airport in Vava'u and asked if the pilots could have a look, but they didn't get around it .

What ever else you might get from the story, the thing that jumps out for me is that the planet we are living on is changing and evolving. Its a process that has nothing to do with humans and will likely go on long after we are gone. While thats intimidating, and implies a certain insignificance, to me its good to know that there is more to the universe than man can ever control.

†a truly enlightened vessel since the owner manages to run a blog from the middle of the ocean. Welcome to 2006 folks.

The god botherers in the US seem to be tearing themselves apart, and from a distance its actually kind of sad to watch. Up close its probably a little more scary.

After the whole Foley debacle, now comes Rev. Ted Haggard, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and arguably one of the State's most influential Christian leaders. 

Lets recap for those of you that have missed it;

Long term anti same-sex marriage advocate, Ted Haggard, has been accused by male prostitute, Mike Jones†, of carrying on a three year sex-for-cash relationship that included the use, or at least purchase, of the drug methanphetamine.

Mr Haggard has fought long and hard to oppose same sex marriage in the United States, both politically and from his Colorado Mega Church pulpit. He has been actively engaged in promoting Amendment 43, a proposal on Colorado's election ballot that would define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Mr. Haggard, 50, who is married and has five children, has consistently denied the sex accusation, saying in a television interview: "I am steady with my wife. I'm faithful to my wife." 

Lets be clear here, as far as Google News and I can find, there is no evidence one way or another in this case. There is no smoking gun, no DNA covered little blue dress, no IM Chat logs. Its just finger pointing.

Ted is just being hoisted on the cross of media fueled innuendo.

In a country where  you are supposedly innocent unproven guilty, the irony is not lost on me that the tables are fast turning on the Christian Right who have, for the last 12  years, taken power by denouncing from their pulpits those they perceive as "immoral".

Not that any of this is new  in the US, this behaviour just keeps turning up - look back to the 50's and you have the McCarthy trials or back to the 1800's for the Salem witch trials. There is no substantive difference - apart from how fast the media can broadcast it all.

So here is the thing for me Ted, can I call you Ted? I am happy for you if you are "steady" with your wife. I hope that you two have a strong, happy marriage. I hope that the two of you go on to have a really wonderful life together into ripe old age and that the current drama you are embroiled in doesn't adversely effect your relationship. I don't think that dabbling with a prostitute, or even using meth* NECESSARILY makes you a bad person, a bad husband or a bad father.

I am not going to judge you for the things you have done, I have not walked in your shoes, I don't know why you may have done any of this - as long as you own them, take responsibility and make amends where necessary. I have no problem with you getting a little back door action from Mr Jones if that was the case.

Where I do have a problem is you getting up and denouncing me and mine. Saying that my life, the loves that I have found, are not of equal value to yours is not your place or your right. Particularly if its a cover for your own guilt as it appears to be.

Time and again it seems the most rabid fag haters turn out to actually be hiding some inclinations of their own; Mr Foley, the onetime chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and accused peadophile, is a sad case in point; and as you appear to be Ted.

Is it any surprise that Ted's impression of the gay world is that it is furtive, seamy and loveless if all of his experience has been in darkened hotel rooms and with prostitutes.

For those of us who embrace our sexuality, things are a whole lot sunnier. 

If these allegations are true, Mr Haggard has some serious soul searching to do as to WHY he is so publically opposed to gay marriage. If they are not maybe he is going to have an incling of what its like to be persecuted, the way he has been persecuting people.

So Ted, go back to your wife and apologise if thats necessary - or invite her along next time, you never know she might like to join in - but stop with the bible bashing when it comes to gay relationships and gay marriage. 

†Mike Jones is totally hot 

*Don't get me wrong, meth is a highly addictive and dangerous drug

‡Not dissing sex workers here - only that Ted has denounced publicly gay sex, gay relationships, prostitution and drug use while apparently keeping this part of his life in shadows

Googlejuice (GOO.gul.joos) n.

The presumed quality inherent in a Web site that enables it to appear at or near the top of search engine results, particularly those of the Google search engine. Also: Google-juice, Google juice.

An example of this would be someone who lists the web sites of people with the same name as them on their website specifically to drive up traffic.

Example Citations:
Foreshadowing the importance of links and the rise of Google's PageRank algorithm, Pinkerton then ran a test on his newly created database in March 1994. Which sites, he wondered, had the most references, or links, from other sites (in today's parlance, the most Googlejuice)?
-John Battelle, "The Search," Portfolio Hardcover, September 8, 2005

For one thing, corporations are outnumbered by citizen bloggers who link to each other, generating the kind of Google juice which propels them up the search pages. Consumers doing online research find them fast.
-Antonia Zerbisias, "So far, blogging's more bane than boon to business," The Toronto Star, June 13, 2005

Earliest Citation:
Warning: this blurb contains serious bogus linkage, a ploy to gather Google juice for Xenu.net.
-Praxis, "Scientology rewrites history," alt.religion.scientology, September 25, 2002

Thanks to Wordspy  

Out of respect for my latest guest AJ [HangTen], a little story about gay surfers in Australia.

It appears the English are planning to make a low budget film about gay surfers which challenges the macho paradigm of bare-chested blokes who bravely ride their “planks�? on towering waves, certainly raised eyebrows and comment from surfers at Sydney’s appropriately titled Manly Beach, named by an explorer after the confident and masculine local Aborigines.

I suspect the film maker, 27 y/o surfer Ed Aldridge who is also gay, is looking for a reason to hang around with the boys with his camera. But more power to him. Personally I would like to see what ends up on teh cutting room floor.

Thanks to The Statesman and Google News Alerts for the tip.