Brain Turned Off

There is now a video about the blurred houses in Germany – and what happened to them.

Have you seen a strange phenomenon in Germany lately?

Google’s Street View just put some pictures on the internet, starting with some sightseeing points, and one smaller town. This town wanted to be one of the first on the map, so they invited the Google crew and served them cake.

Now, there are some people who don’t want to be featured on street view, especially if they are shown in compromising places and situations. That’s understandable, so Google blurs out the faces of the people and also automobile plates. But some people object to pictures of their houses, even if they don’t own them and just rent one apartment.

The results are pictures like these.

Actually, right now the whole picture is blacked out, it is “under review”.

Now, keep in mind, it is legal for anyone to photograph buildings from public places. Even if the Google cameras are higher than the average height of a walking person, you can be riding in a tourist bus and be on an elevated level like that.

The people requesting their houses being blurred like that – what are they thinking? Do they think they won’t get much attention? Normally it works the other way – you create curiosity in you desperate attempt to hide something.

Or maybe it is a plot to attract tourism to this town of blurred houses (remember the city leaders welcomed the Google team and pleaded to be among the first to be online in Germany).

Who knows?

1. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament

2. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside-down

3. In Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless except as a clerk in a tropical fish store

4. Mince pies cannot be eaten on Christmas Day

5. In Scotland, if someone knocks on your door and requires the use of your toilet, you must let them enter

6. A pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman’s helmet

7. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the king, and the tail of the queen

8. It is illegal to avoid telling the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing

9. It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armor

10. In the city of York it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow

This photo was taken in Queensland, Australia.

Any comments?

Michael Vick, who was featured in this blog a while ago, is the most hated athlete, according to a popularity poll.

According to a CNBC report, the Q Scores company, which does this kind of popularity poll, has rated Vick as the moist disliked sports personality.

The next five places in the negative list are occupied by Tiger Woods, Terrell Owens, Chad Ochocinco, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.

These polls are conducted on a national level. I would assume there are regional differences, so Vick probably fares better in the Philadelphia area.

I’m using this platform to tell about the Twitter bug.

If you, after log on, see strange graphics, like very large letters, or your background is darker than usual, you’re hit. If you see Tweets that have just a block of colors, it it a trap.

BE CAREFUL WHERE YOU MOVE YOUR MOUSE.

If your home page looks unusual, there is a link right at the top of the page. Don’t go over this.

You need to navigate you mouse avoiding these areas.

You might have accidentally tweeted something. Move you mouse around the display area of your browser, e.g. where you have your icons and toolbars. Go to the right over the browser slider and approach the text link where you can get to the page of all your own tweets.
You will easily recognize the bad tweets – they occupy a large area of the page. Using the slider shift the display to the end of such tweet. Approach this section from the right. You might remember if the mouse is over the bottom right corner of the tweet, an icon will appear, with which you can delete a tweet, or undo a retweet. Do this. It will delete that (re)tweet not only from your list but also from the recipient’s lists. That will help them too.

Use the browser refresh button, or enter “twitter.com” as the URL address into the browser. If it looks good for you, you’ve done your part.

The New York Post reports today, that Pastor Terry Jones might cancel the event if President Obama gives him a call. Or the State Department or the Pentagon.

How much convincing does he need?

If you do a Google Search on his name and select the option “Latest”, you’ll see that almost every second someone posts something on the Internet, many of them just voicing their disgust with the plan. And Hillary Clinton and General David Petraeus already voiced her concerns. Also lets not forget the FBI memo.

Or does he want to convince them? After all, he already demonstrated his persuasion power in the past.

Oh well well well

It turns out that the pastor organizing the Koran burning event has a history in Germany.

I quote here :

Former church members are still undergoing therapy as a result of “spiritual abuse,” … Jones urged church members to beat their children with a rod and also taught “a distinctive demonology” and conducted brainwashing. Terry Jones appears to have a delusional personality.

There was a climate of fear and control in that church.

Well – that doesn’t look like a religion of joy.

You know if you point to somebody most of your fingers are pointing back to you. In truth he is a religious extreme.

He has also a keen sense of history of Germany. He apparently considered Cologne “a city of Hell that was founded by Nero’s mother,” while he thought Germany was “a key country for the supposed Christian revival of Europe.

I suspect he got the book-burning idea also from Germany’s past, from some 70-80 years ago.

He was ousted from his congregation there last year.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strongly condemns threats by a Florida church to burn Korans on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

A follow-up on this

The FBI has issued a warning

It’s getting serious, folks.