Goddamned
I’m marching to Zion, a camera in my hand.
I hear people cryin’, dyin’ for this blood-stained land.
The streets of old Jerusalem are lined with souvenirs and those buying them.
It sounds cold but I cannot see how this theme park has shaped history.
‘Cause virgins don’t have babies
And water, it isn’t wine
And there’s a holy spirit, maybe
But she would never rent a room with walls built by mankind.
Mary and Mohammed are screaming through the clouds
For you to lay your goddamned arms down
Rip your bigot roots up from the earth and salt the goddamned ground
Stand in line patiently to super-charge your rosary
Or stuff your prayers inside this wall.
We once had God trapped in this great hall
But we’ve been cast out from this place
They say a prophet floated from here to outer space.
Am I crazy?
Maybe it’s me, but this all sounds like mythology.
‘Cause virgins don’t have babies
And water, it isn’t wine
And there’s a holy spirit, maybe
But she would never rent a room with walls built by mankind
Mary and Mohammed are screaming through the clouds
For you to lay your goddamned arms down
Rip your bigot roots up from the earth and salt the goddamned ground
Zeus was afraid of his girlfriend so he swallowed her in bed
And he bore forth Athena when they cracked open his head
Her brother tried to rape her, Athena got away
And when his seed hit the ground the grass gave birth that day
Now we all freely admit this story’s clearly bullshit
No one will lay down their life or start a war for it
So throw your stones and pray
You’ll be rewarded some day
I hope it all goes your way
But something tells me no one’s coming to save you
No one’s coming to save you
No one’s coming to save you
Save yourself
From turning earth into hell
No one’s coming to save you
No one’s coming to save you
No one’s coming to save you
No one’s coming to save you
Mary and Mohammed are screaming through the clouds
For you to lay your goddamned arms down
Rip your bigot roots up from the earth and salt the goddamned ground.
Saturday was the main day of the conference. Sessions go for 1 hour (5 session times in the day) and there were 5 sessions that ran in parallel. This made it hard to decide what I actually wanted to go to and I found it particularly harder than this year with many quality sessions. The CITCON wiki will slowly be updated this week from notes taken in those sessions. It can be found @ http://www.citconf.com/wiki/index.php?title=CITCONAsiaPacific2008Sessions
The best part about CITCON is just socialising with the talented people that attend. Everyone is dead keen on agile and continuous integration (obviously because they gave up their weekends). Being from Newcastle means I’m not surrounded or have frequent access to this type of talent and I think it’s important to take the things learned from these events and adapt my development processes for the better.
I’ll be helping organise next years event so hopefully we can make it even bigger and better.
Arrived at CITCON on Friday night for the session scoping night. CITCON is run in an Open Spaces format which means there is no agenda, the responsibility of running a good conference is up to the attendees. The only rule is the ‘Rule of Two Feet’. If your not getting value out of a session, standup and go to another one.
There were a few familiar faces from CITCON 2007 in Sydney but by far the majority where new people from Melbourne. CITCON 2008 Melbourne was also the largest CITCON worldwide to date, beating out Sydney for the top honour. This is great news for Australia as its indicating there is a lot of interest for this type of development as well as demonstrating the amount of talent we have here.
After the topics for Saturday were proposed there was a social hour and then about 12 of us headed off for a local pub. It took us so long to find a decent one that didn’t have $30 cover charges that we lost 2 guys along the way I woke up a little worse for wear on Sat morning ready for the sessions.
I’m off to Melbourne tomorrow for CITCON, 2008 and hoping to pick up as much valuable information about Continuous Integration and Testing as possible. Last year, my team was still in the early steps of adopting many of these strategies. A year on, and hopefully I have something to bring to the table this year.
It looks like being a full conference so looking forward to meeting lots of new faces.
The Steelers extended Ben Roethlisberger’s contract today to an 8-year, $102 MILLION dollar deal. That’s the largest contract ever for a Steeler and makes a massive statement that the Rooney’s are giving the keys to the Steelers to Big Ben. Let’s hope this helps bring another couple of Superbowl trophies to Pittsburgh.
Some interesting statistics from this
He gets $25.2 million for just signing the contract
Using his stats for last year this equates to $31,875 per pass attempt and $398,437.50 per touchdown.
I guess they felt sorry for him getting sacked so much last year. At least he’ll be able to pay for insurance
Good on you Ben. Here we go Steelers, here we go !
I found a nice article in my mailbox today about ‘hitting the ball fat’ (Golf talk that is). I wanted to bookmark it but thought I’d throw it on here instead for any other keen golfers.
The West screwed up badly when the denunciation of the fatwa on Salman Rushdie was not closer to unanimous. (I will never forget or forgive the shameful silence of some writers who shunned the invitation to join in a firm but not hostile rebuke.) The West screwed up badly again when the Danish cartoons were not reprinted world-wide. What many didn’t understand was that the staged riots were a political strike against moderate Muslims, not non-Muslims. The “tolerance” urged by many voices outside the Muslim world played into the hands of the radical Islamists. Now we get a third chance to come to the aide of moderate Muslims all over the world, but so far, I haven’t heard much outcry. Several days ago I sent the following letter to the Boston Globe, which has not yet indicated that it will publish it:
The conviction and pending execution of an Afghani student, Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, for blasphemy is an appalling circumstance, but it offers an opportunity that we should all seize. The time has come for Muslims to step up to the plate and demonstrate that Islam is a great faith that has no need for violence or intimidation to maintain the loyalty of its congregation. And we outside Islam must make it crystal clear that we cannot respect or honor a religion that would consider blasphemy a capital crime, no matter how ancient the tradition from which this decision flowed. Muslims who support–or refrain from condemning–the conviction and sentence of Kambakhsh must be made to realize that they share responsibility for bringing dishonor to their cherished heritage, and if we non-Muslims do not speak out, we too must share in the blame. Friends don’t let friends commit, or condone, evil. The best way of showing our good will towards Islam is by helping it shed an indefensible aspect of its legacy. Every religion has much to atone for, but that is no reason to button our lips and tolerate fresh grounds for atonement.
There is no need, yet, for anger. Let us all just remind Muslims everywhere of what they must surely know: blasphemy is not a capital crime in any society worthy of respect. It is now up to Muslims to prevent some of their number from defiling their own precious culture.
I woke up a little worse for wear on Sat morning ready for the sessions.
