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Wednesday February 22, 2006

Too late for shoarma

Personal

Usually the pub closes around half one so I still have half an hour to get shoarma as that place closes at 2am. Look at the post time to see what went wrong tonight! Not that I'm complaining, the bar is still open so I get plenty of alcohol to keep me warm.

Still, wouldn't mind if Podge knew a good place for grub around 3 or 4. I'm rather peckish!

Shoarma in Rotterdam

Urbanity

Big European city? Then there will be shoarma for sale 24/7. Unfortunately my favourite, Kubus (Burg. V. Walsemweg), closes at 2am midweeks but Mac El Aviv (Coolsingel) is a decent alternative until 6am as I am experiencing right now.

Even later I recommend Welkom (Nw. Binnenweg) which is open all day as far as I remember from my days as a student.

That said, can't say the pub closed early tonight. I'm knackered!

Illegal combatants now legal

Anglosphere

In a blow to the Bush administration, secularism and sanity, the US Supreme Court has decided unanimously that illegal activities are allowed in the name of religion.

Justices, in their first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, moved decisively to keep the government out of a church's religious practice.

Federal drug agents should have been barred from confiscating the hoasca tea of the Brazil-based church, Roberts wrote in the decision.

The tea, which contains an illegal drug known as DMT, is considered sacred to members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, which has a blend of Christian beliefs and South American traditions. Members believe they can understand God only by drinking the tea, which is consumed twice a month at four-hour ceremonies.

Brilliant. As a libertarian I am in favour of legalisation of harmless drug use, but I have to disapprove of the actual argumentation in this particular case because it is based on religion and not harm done.

Apparently it is okay to ignore federal narcotics law and import treaties for the sake of foreign-based churches. Then where do we draw the line? What other laws and treaties should not apply to members of a religion?

How about the Geneva convention or the right to life. If memory serves me right, I recall a number of people who believe they can understand a bloke called Allah only by killing others while concealed in civilian clothing. We could call these people illegal combatants or terrorists or tyrannic fundamentalists, but perhaps government should be kept out of such foreign religious practices and admit a zero tolerance approach is not sensible.

Right. Let me tell you what's not sensible: a world where religious activities are exempt from law where similar secular activities (medical marijuana, anyone?) are not. I wonder whether , still.

.net and Simply American

Software

Good news for Neil: I just copied a dump of my old database to my laptop so he can finally complete Simply American with the full history of posts.

Additionally, I will probably put a selection of my old personal posts here, restoring years of journal content!

Next day: Friday February 24, 2006 Previous day: Tuesday February 21, 2006

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