In the beginning there was the swamp, the hoe, – and Jussi!

This is a little post that takes its title from a line in a waifs song that I was listening to today.

I recently had an chat with a friend of mine from America about his view on healthcare reform and “socialism”. He was adamant that it was wrong, and because there were those who abuse the system, then the system is flawed and broken, and so shouldn’t be implemented. He tried to give his point of view which was very “liberal” – “I am me and I should be able to decide how I use my money that I earn” and “my taxes shouldn’t be used to pay for $person to abuse the system”.

Now this is where the title of this post comes from – it is my belief in this that “When you water the garden, you also water the weeds” – there will always be people who abuse the system, but this does not mean the system shouldn’t exist. Its similar to the line “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”.

While we need to “weed out the weeds” or do things about those who abuse the system, we still have to have systems which work, which give everyone a fair go, which favor the people over the corporation, which build a better world.

So thats my little point today, hope it makes sense :=)

Isnt it funny when you listen to oldd favourites sometime you think, this song is timeless, it could have been written today and still be relevant? The following lyrics are by one of my favourite bands (the now disbanded Midnight Oil), and to me, are as relevant today as the day they were written.

Conquistador of mexico, the zulu and the navaho
The belgians in the congo short memory
Plantation in virginia, the raj in british india
The deadline in south africa short memory
The story of el salvador, the silence of hiroshima
Destruction of cambodia short memory

(hirst/moginie/garrett)

After a fairly eventful time in Australia, I am heading to my adopted home in Helsinki, Finland. Its been great to catch up with family, friends and even a few random people from IRC (yes you, wgrant). The downside of this trip is that while playing soccer in the park, I managed to tear my anterior cruciate ligament in my knee. This means I cant walk, I’m on crutches and in a fair bit of pain, which makes travel really hard. So hoopefully my plane trips go well tommorow and Qantas/BA/Finnair are all really nice to me. Ill also be not around for a few days while things get sorted and I get a new knee.

Real quick one today:

Just read about Red Hats Christmas party, and thought it was worth a mention. Good to see open source companies being socially involved outside of Free Software

As many of you know, I recently was able to visit Anfield for the West Brom game. It was a fantastic game, with Robbie Keane scoring his first league goals for Liverpool. The day was awesome, something that you only dream of. We were invited to be guests in the Legends Lounge, where we were fortunate enough to be introduced to Gerry Byrne, the defender who played 117 minutes in the FA cup of 1965 with a broken collarbone. Included in the day was a brief tour of the stadium, with a chance to sit in the seat where Rafa sits – I just had to have a photo. After an excellent meal, we were given our tickets and enjoyed the game from the last row in the main stand – the atmosphere was awesome and the Anfield crowd was amazing.

After the game, we were taken to another lounge where I met Ian Rush, Daniel Agger and Sami Hyypia and had a good long chat with Ron Yeats – he is a fanatastic guy.

All in all I had a wonderful day and I’d recommend a trip to Anfield for anyone who can make it!

Here are some photos of the day:

I read in Stephan Hermans blog that QT will be ported to Symbian S60. This is really good news, especially as my favourite IRC client is QT, and Im hoping for a port

Good news day today

As you can see, my galleries are not really looking the best, but I cant seem to figure out the CSS to fix that. Im using the nextgen gallery plugin, so If anybody has had this issue before, please comment and tell mew how to fix it.

Edit: I changed the theme and it fixed it

Hi welcome to my blog – This is about me and a few other things that interest me – My Family (my wife – Anu, my dog – Kreol and my hedgie – Tuhina ), K/Ubuntu and other “stuff”. Depending on how motivated I am, you might get an update like…. hmmm… maybe once a year Anyway thats all for now.

Jussi