Under The Sun

From the home page of the HSBC web site:

To truly understand a country and its culture, you have to be a part of it. That’s why at HSBC, we have local banks in more countries than anyone else. And all of our offices around the world are staffed by local people.

The hatred was directed at Britain, but there can never have been any doubt in th minds of the terrorists that the victims would be predominantly Turkish Muslims.

Consul-General Roger Short was one of at least 14 people killed at the British Consulate.

101 things you can do in Mozilla

Tobias Jung has made available some freeware fonts for programmers, that are small but highly legible, with clear distinctions between 1 and l and with slashed zeroes. I’m not too keen on ProFont (for Windows) but Sheldon 12pt is excellent.

While there is much to take issue with regarding the the global ambition and conduct of its current administration, we should be profoundly grateful that the most powerful nation on Earth is America and not, let’s face it, almost anyone else.

Some fine British irony ahead of the first state visit by an American president for 85 years.

Update: apparently this is the first ever state visit by a US president:- Wilson’s visit in 1918 doesn’t count.

This is heartbreaking — folk tales told by Miami street children:

On Christmas night a year ago, God fled Heaven to escape an audacious demon attack — a celestial Tet Offensive. The demons smashed to dust his palace of beautiful blue-moon marble. TV news kept it secret, but homeless children in shelters across the country report being awakened from troubled sleep and alerted by dead relatives. No one knows why God has never reappeared, leaving his stunned angels to defend his earthly estate against assaults from Hell. … But their accounts of an exiled God who cannot or will not respond to human pleas as his angels wage war with Hell is, to shelter children, a plausible explanation for having no safe home, and one that engages them in an epic clash.

Pray for Christian workers to bring the light and hope of Christ to these urban hell-holes.

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners [Isaiah 61:1]

Camera phones are an example of the mismatch between technological progress and human nature. In an attempt to address privacy and security issues, South Korea has ordered manufacturers to ensure that all new handsets emit a beep whenever a picture is taken.

A Vatican conference has been debating the moral implications of genetically modified organisms. Pro-GMO delegates who spoke of the potential benefits of genetically modified foods in alleviating world hunger were challenged by critics who claimed that the real problem is not food production but inequalities in distribution and access to markets. Two Jesuits presented their view that :

endorsing the use of genetically modified organisms disturbed “the awesome goodness of God’s creation. … Nature is not just useful to us humans, but is valued and loved in itself, for itself, by God in Christ,”