And here I was worrying that I've not been finding enough new good music lately.

This stuff is brilliant. I'll only stop listening to it because there's a Miyazaki movie on the TV.

I believe what that Mike Boyd meant to say was that it is pointless to prevent pilots (those with permission to carry) from carrying their guns in cockpit, because if a pilot is set out to commit an act of terror, he won't use his gun; the 747 he conrols is much better for that purpose.

Björk also won't perform at a music festival in Novi Sad, Serbia later this year because in a recent concert in Japan she dedicated one performance of "Declare Independence" to Kosovo.

The organizers cancelled her contract for the festival saying they "couldn't guarantee her safety from public outrage". I think they really meant to say "couldn't protect from lynching".

There's a Vasarely exhibition in my home town Szeged, Hungary from February 15 to March 20, in the Móra Ferenc museum; just in case you're nearby (sorry, couldn't round up a page in English)

Combined with 10-finger fingerprints taken at point of entry, and with potential to have data from the electronic devices you carry copied and/or said devices indefinitely confiscated...

Let me say, I'm glad I visited US few times before this madness ensued, as I have not much mood to travel there again while these measures are in place.

I was given few 500 EUR notes when I was converting a bunch of local currency before going to a vacation in The Netherlands back in 2003. Not suspecting anything, I tried to pay for a restaurant bill in downtown Amsterdam (around 100 EUR, mind you) with one, and the waiter politely informed me that they are not willing to accept it. I had to walk around the neighborhood, leaving my friends at the table, to find a currency exchange booth where they were willing to change the 500 EUR note into smaller denominations for a commission.

Since then, I've learned the lesson and will not accept anything larger than a 100 EUR note myself when I'm buying Euros for a trip abroad...

Is there a URL with voting details? I'd like to be able to check how my MEPs have performed.

I saw this yesterday, linked from Daring Fireball. I was wondering about the apps he used to put this together, too.

I was also wondering about how dedicated he had to be to actually keep track of all of this throughout the year - on the first page of the report in "The accounting of an average day" it says "20.6 annual report measurements".

If you're ever in Zürich, make sure to check out the Museum for the Cultural History of Coffee, established in the former house of Johann Jacobs:

http://www.johann-jacobs-museum.ch/index.php?id=124&L=3

Me and my wife visited it when we were in Zürich last December, and it is a delightful place, with multiple coffee bean varieties on display - etiopian, javan, etc., hung from the ceiling in sealed plastic spheres that you can open to sniff the beans, with exhaustive description of each variety's - from its natural environment, chemical characteristics, to how it is being processed locally. And you can taste coffee brewed from freshly ground beans of any of the displayed variety as well! Tasting one cup is included in the admission fee, and you can taste even more for an additional reasonable fee. The exhibition goes on displaying various artifacts for grounding, brewing, and serving coffee, then on to some chemistry of molecular ingredients of the coffee aroma (with sniffable samples of a dozen major ones!), and in the basement you can find an exhibition of art featuring or inspired by coffee, coffee houses and such. It's a real must-see for any serious coffee lover.

Well, the father-in-law didn't do it anonymously, so the FBI agents could at least assume there's some truth to it, coming from someone clearly risking his real identity's credibility (and legal liability). It wasn't the FBI, but the father-in-law who was stupid sending that e-mail. And a guy's also a bit insincere after the fact, I might say -- if he didn't think FBI will be "stupid enough" to act on his lies, then why did he bother sending them in e-mail in the first place? No, I think the old bastard really wished FBI to trouble his son-in-law.

OTOH, FBI definitely made a mistake deporting the poor guy. They should've let him in the country and thoroughly apologized after the situation cleared up. It's this sort of stuff that makes you think twice before going to US. I could understand and live with (not that I'd enjoy it) being pulled aside for few hours for a security check, but not being let in the country *after* it became evident you've been innocently framed? Hell, no.