From Cork to Toronto

The Red Hot Chili Peppers recently launched a lawsuit against Showtime's show " Californication " claiming that they had lifted the title, a character name and some dialogue. The Register notes some possible icebergs on the horizon : Showtime Networks is expected to argue that the band did not coin the word, a portmanteau of California and fornication. It first appeared in print in Time Magazine in 1972, in an article called The Great Wild Californicated West. Time reporter Sandra Burton wrote: "Legislators, scientists and citizens are now openly concerned about the threat of 'Californication' - the haphazard, mindless development that has already gobbled up most of Southern California." Kim Walker, head of intellectual property at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, said the band should have registered Californication as a trademark. Instead, the only trademark application was filed in April in the US, by Showtime Networks. The mark has no...

I am grateful to Bob Tarantino for directing me to John Lorinc's feature, " Deadly Lesson " in this month's Toronto Life. It points out the central problem with some Toronto schools - that political considerations have led to some of Toronto's schools being largely uncontrolled and that students with serious behavioural problems are being left in those environments with foreseeable consequences to their peers. Shuffling problems from place to place didn't work for paedophile priests and it doesn't work for disturbed and criminal teenagers either. To be in control of a school you must know who is on the premises and be able to quickly eject interlopers. It's not enough to have conduct standards - they have to be taken seriously, enforced and action taken when they are breached. I can't help but think that the "progressive educators" who refuse to admit that leadership and security are the cornerstones of winning back our troubled camp...

The New York Times have an article on " How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads " by Daniel Cassidy regarding how many American slang words appear to originate either phonetically or via translation from Irish. (Hat-tip Slugger ) The word “gimmick” seemed to come from “camag,” meaning trick or deceit, or a hook or crooked stick. Could “scam” have derived from the expression “’S cam é,” meaning a trick or a deception? Similarly, “slum” seemed similar to an expression meaning “It is poverty.” “Dork” resembled “dorc,” which Mr. Cassidy’s dictionary called “a small lumpish person.” As for “twerp,” the Irish word for dwarf is “duirb.” I think a few of those listed in the NYT are a stretch but still aren't as bad as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where Gus explains the Greek roots of the word "kimono".

Found this from Paul Wells' blog . While I fully subscribe to the failings generally inherent in a hereditary monarchy, there is no question that the King of Spain has brought his country successfully through a potentially disastrous post-Franco transition to democracy, and that he would know a fascist if he saw one. The advantage of not having to worry about election cycles means you can face down bullies in a human rather than calculated, nuanced, triangulated way. Here he is in Santiago, Chile, telling the ludicrous, anti-democratic, puffed up on his sulphur laden petroleum leader of Venezuela to "just shut up" . Chavez, having accused the recent prime minister of Spain, Aznar, being a "fascist", continued to rant with his microphone off as Prime Minister Zapatero reminded him that he was in a democratic forum and that some respect wouldn't go amiss. ¿Por qué no te callas? Sadly the following day Nicaragua's Ortega gave some of his time to back up C...

When I switched from Bloglines from Google Reader I decided to remove the Bloglines roll rather than maintain two sets of feeds or mess around with OPML. The addition of "shared items" was something but didn't substitute. Today I happened across this post on the Official Google Reader Blog announcing that a roll feature was available, and as you can see from the mess on the right I have tried to implement it. Unfortunately the roll seems to not work sometimes and I have temporarily subdivided it, and not all blogs I read and would like to share are listed (I also read some comment feeds which would be a redundency to add). I'll poke at it some more anon and hopefully it will be refined and look a bit nicer over time.

The teaser for Battlestar season 4.0 is on youtube... Hopefully the deferral of the start of the season to April 2008 means that when it does come it will run as a proper season and not "half-seasons" as before.