I printed this from a website many years ago and I still love it:

I saw the immense beauty of the twinkling stars;
like countless diamonds on an inky cloak
of inaccessible and inscrutable depths.
The sparkling stars dim and gracefully recede.
The morning star preaches about the coming light;
an epoch of uproar and change,
an epoch of progress and enlightenment.
The dark night on a furious retreat from a battle lost.
The divine morning sun rises in a magnificent battle dress
of smouldering red, orange, and yellow.
Now, godspeed traveller...

Stellifer by Bjørn Reese

OK, my country has officially lost its marbles.

NL, as leader of the EU now, has given priority in the resolution queue to this proposal issued in April 2004 (see: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/apr/8958-04-dataret.pdf). On top of that they are also 'positively receptive'

Statewatch.org reported back in April the following legal analysis.

Best excerpts from that page:

• "This is a proposal so intrusive that Ashcroft, Ridge and company can only dream about it, exceeding even the US Patriot Act"
• It will put in place the compulsory retention of all communications traffic and location data - land and mobile telephones, faxes, e-mails, internet histories and any future communications technology.

Did you notice the any future communications technology part? Are you the type of person that signs a contract with any company which basically is a blanket contract where the company can change your contract at will without you having to sign it again to agree to it?

Are we now so collectively brainwashed about the prospect of an impending terror attack that we are willing to sacrifice our basic freedoms? What is next? Registration of religion and sexual preference? I know, let's start up the Schutzstaffel again!

Received two books yesterday:

Donald Knuth's volume 3 of the Art of Computer Programming (Sorting and Searching) and Ken Lunde's CJKV Information Processing.

Donald Knuth's volume 2 should be coming my way next week.

Of course, some people might recognise the title. Sabaku no Gaara (<span lang="ja">砂瀑の我愛羅</span>) being a character from the anime series. The name means: Gaara of the Desert. The name Gaara (<span lang="ja">我愛羅</span>) itself is a combination of: ga-a(i)-ra, meaning: I, love, demon. In general you could read it as: "I love myself, I am a demon."

The kanji 'ai':

<img alt="" src="http://www.in-nomine.org/~asmodai/kanji/loveai.jpg"/>

For some reason I love this Kanji. Consists of 13 strokes.