Det Nye Kuld
Det Nye Kuld (Facebook-link her) er på mange måder et tiltrængt fænomen.
Det radikale Venstres folketingsgruppe er klart ældre end de andre partiers, og der er klart en fare for, at partiet bliver set som mere og mere irrelevant, især under Margrethe Vestagers utilfredsstillende lederskab.
Jeg kan dog ikke selv tilslutte mig Kuldets fem dogmer. Jeg har ingen problemer med nr. 1, 2, 3 og 5, men nr. 4 er jeg komplet uenig i:
“Vi har valgt at pege på Helle Thorning, fordi vi ved, at det er sammen med S, at vi får gennemført mest radikal politik. Vi vil ikke lade som om, det er lige meget, hvem vi samarbejder med. Anders Foghs politik harmonerer ikke med radikale værdier. Derfor skal Radikale Venstre stoppe slingrekursen. Det Nye Kuld arbejder for en klar strategi, hvor vælgerne ved, hvad de får. “
Som jeg har blogget før, er det vigtigt, man kan samarbejde til begge sider.
Især for tiden er det ikke oplagt, at DrV egentlig er tættere på Socialdemokraterne end på Venstre og de Konservative, så hvorfor binde sig til førstnævnte?
På mange måder har Venstre og Konservative jo ikke haft andre realistiske flertalsmuligheder end Dansk Folkeparti, så det er jo ikke til at sige, at en VK-regering med radikal støtte ikke vil harmonere bedre med radikale værdier end en S-SF-regering.
Hvis man absolut vil binde sig til Socialdemokraterne, hvorfor så ikke bare melde sig kollektivt ind dér?
Server move
I got this from Prime Hosting (the company that is hosting this blog) today:
This Thursday, 26th February 2009, we are moving our servers from London to Manchester. Since December 2008 our parent company has been building their own data centre based in Stretford, Manchester, the building is now ready for live servers.All servers (web hosting, dedicated servers, co-location etc) will be taken offline from 10.30PM Thursday. We anticipate the physical move will last between 6-7 hours from turn off in London to turn on in Manchester. We have hired a van in order to move the servers in one drive, the drive from London to Manchester, traffic and road works pending, will take no longer than four hours.
Our windows services will be moved at a different time yet to be decided so are unaffected on Thursday and will remain online.
For detailed information on the data centre, including build progress pictures, please visit www.manchesterdc.com.
Summary points:
- Funded with the companies own cash and angel investor – No debt
- 20G redundant connectivity back to London
- Capable of holding 145 racks, initial phase is 29 racks
- On site offices available for rent on the first floor
- 24/7 on site security and support staff
- Cold-aisle containment ensures the building is very efficient and uses less power for air conditioning than traditionally built data centres
- Newly built detached office building
- Professionally designed and fitted out by data centre builders inssudlows.co.uk
The construction of our own facility is a watershed moment for all those involved in the company. It provides us with a very secure facility to house our existing clients and huge expansion space for new services. The inclusion of on site staff will also enhance our support capabilities.
Dyr look like animals
A few days ago, I removed a few bricks that had been placed on top of the lawn for a while, and beneath there were plenty of centipedes, worms, spiders, ants and woodlice.
Léon was watching with great interest, and afterwards he went in to tell Phyllis:
– Mum, there were dyr under the stenene, and they looked like animals!
It so typical of a bilingual kid to know the same word in two languages (here “dyr” and “animals”), but not to equate them. Fully bilingual kids are normally crap at translating literally.
Manifestos
This article by Tony Blair’s former speech writer contains a shocking revelation:
A few years ago, I took the Conservative manifesto for the 1997 general election, deleted all the insulting references to the State that would never appear in a Labour document, and circulated the expurgated text as if I had thought it all up myself. My colleagues in Downing Street thought it was an accurate but uninteresting account of the Labour Government’s policy. They were mystified as to why I thought it worth sending round.
It does remind me of the final sentence of Animal Farm:
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Thinking in languages
Phyllis says people have often asked her whether her kids are thinking in English or French when they are speaking the latter, and I remember being asked similar questions when I was a kid.
I must admit I find it a puzzling question because I don’t think of thinking as being in a language most of the time. I’d say something like 4/5 of thought happens in swift, intuitive, pictorial ways, and it’s only put into words in a final output stage.
So when I’m speaking Spanish (just to take a language I’m fairly fluent in but where I have severe gaps in my vocabulary), most of my thinking is the same as the same as if I had been speaking Danish, but when I have to output it, I have to express myself using fewer words, and I will occasionally be unable to express exactly what I wanted to say. That doesn’t mean I have a word or a sentence ready in Danish, just that I’m thinking of a concept that doesn’t have an output mapping.
So I must say I disagree with Wittgenstein: Die Grenzen meiner Sprache sind nicht die Grenzen meiner Welt.
Our address in Gaelic
I was trying to figure out what our address is in Gaelic.
“Glasgow” is of course Glaschu, and according to Wikipedia, “Newton Mearns” is Baile Ùr na Maoirne.
According to the same source, “Kinloch” is normally Ceann Loch (“head of the loch”).
However, I’m not certain what “Kinloch Road” would be. “Road” is of course rathad, but what about the genitive? “Kinloch Castle” is Caisteal Cheann Locha (although some sources add the article and don’t aspirate: Caisteal Ceann an Locha), so that is probably the best pattern to follow.
Our address is thus:
27 Rathad Cheann Locha (or 27 Rathad Ceann an Locha)
Baile Ùr na Maoirne
Glaschu G77 6LY
Alba
Dobbelt statsborgerskab igen
Så Folketinget har igen stemt et forslag om dobbelt statsborgerskab ned – heldigvis med mit parti på den rigtige side.
Det ser dog ud til, at flere partier er ved at flytte sig, så måske går det igennem næste gang.
Jeg må dog sige, jeg står hovedrystende over for Søren Krarups udtalelse: »Ligesom man kun har én familie, har man også kun ét folk eller ét land.«
Hvad mener manden dog? Familier er da noget af det mest sammenbragte. Selv om man som barn måske nok betragter sin familie som én enhed, er ens kærestes eller ægtefælles familie en fremmed familie, der bliver ens egen med tiden.
Går Søren Krarup ind for, at man ved ægteskab skal vælge klart mellem den familie, man er født ind i, og den familie, man gifter sig ind i? I stedet for at blive en del af dem begge?
Det er jo netop det, der er pointen ved dobbelte statsborgerskaber! Jeg er tysker, jeg er dansker, jeg er skotte. Hvorfor (og hvordan) skal jeg vælge én nationalitet?
The consequences of crazy car taxation
The Danish car taxation that trebles car prices has some bizarre consequences.
See for instance this article (in Danish, Google translation here – “dollars” seems to be a mistranslation of “kroner”).
The problem is that lots of people would like to buy their cars in Sweden or Germany to save the tax. However, this would completely undermine the Danish system, so the Danish tax authorities will clamp down heavily on this, showering you in fines and potentially imprisonment, too.
To me, this just demonstrates that the system is broken. If Danish car taxes were adjusted to normal levels, nobody would want to circumvent the rules, and nobody would have to go to jail.