Spiegel: Mr. Cruise, as you know, Scientology has been under federal surveillance in Germany. Scientology is not considered a religion there, but rather an exploitative cult with totalitarian tendencies.

Cruise: The surveillance is nothing like as strict anymore. Any you know why? Because the intelligence authorities never found anything. Because there was nothing to find. We’ve won over 50 court cases in Germany. And it’s not true that everyone in Germany supports that line against us. Whenever I go to Germany, I have incredible experiences. I always meet very generous and extraordinary people. A minority wants to hate — okay.

SPIEGEL: There is a difference between hate and having a critical perspective.

Cruise: For me, it’s connected with intolerance.

Nice interview from Der Speigel with Stephen Spielberg and Tom Cruise. Lot of good stuff relating to War of the Worlds and the guys work in general. Link. (via.)

I’d say this will be more fun for those who’ve read the book/seen the movie either or both…Zaphod’s Song.

Following on from our recent talking on graffiti, check out Eiresol.com, a pretty comprehensive collection of photographs of Irish graffiti. And when you are done there, head on over to http://www.graffiti.org to see Graffiti all over the world.

Another great Daily Show clip…on oil prices, Bush…technology is the ticket!

Will be shown this sunday in the states followed by episode 351. Newer episodes are pretty hit and miss but ya gotta give it to them. 16 series with cast signed on for 3 more! ep 350 guest stars Ray Romano from everybody loves raymond and Ice Age. While 351 guest stars Albert Brooks who was the dad in Finding Nemo. Classic stuff
bbc story

A great story from skynews about a manager of a restaraunt in Sweden who asked a lesbian couple to leave after they were spotted canoodling!

He denied the eaterie was discrmininating against gays or lesbians and insisted he would have asked anyone who was kissing on his premisis to leave.

lol linkage

Hundreds of toads have mysteriously exploded in a pond in Germany.
Scientists are trying to work out what caused around 1,000 of the amphibians to burst.
Television footage showed toad debris scattered around the water in Hamburg.
The area has been cordoned off and scientists are looking at the possibility that race horses may have deposited a fungus into the pond, Local6.com reported.

wtf?

A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school. All over a giant burrito.

Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High.

The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.

Full story. (via.)

Pistake of American Chopper on Discovery Channel…choppers are swoop bikes from Star Wars. Imperial Chopper. (via.)

We have made an important new discovery in the field of culinary entertainment. Properly prepared, the common seedless grape can be made to combust spectacularly when subjected to a short (5-10 second) duration of microwaves. This study was conducted based upon suggestions from dozens of IRC #root participants using locally available funds and equipment.

Fun with Grapes.

Firefox has passed 50 million downloads. Or has it? Is IE7 not going to crush this little uprising once again? If IE7 is super great, what will be the point of Firefox anymore? I only use it cause IE 6 is the devil.

Really interesting news. The Netherlands are weeks away from possibly introducing a levy on mp3 players. - The levy taxes 3.28 euros for every gigabyte of capacity. This money is then payed to copyright collection agencies. The problem of course is, if you use your iPod with legitimate iTunes bought stuff - you’re effectively charged twice over for the copyright material. Read the full story at The Register.

Roads? Where this guy was going he didn’t need roads.

Story at the BBC.

The tragic circus continues.

A military jury sentenced a soldier to death yesterday for a grenade and rifle attack on his comrades during the opening days of the Iraq invasion, a barrage that killed two officers and that prosecutors said was driven by religious extremism.

So the court has decided killing is a really bad thing to do, and then decides to kill the guy. Full story.

Cool photography.

The US government recently launched MyPyramid.gov; a guide to healthy eating etc. Well now there’s a nice parady online, mypyramid.org.

We posted about this a while ago, but now theres an online java applet version, so lets link to that here.

tree is a translation program. the simulation of real space by software as a starting point and basic question characterizes the search for an algorithm (design specification) which illustrates a real tree. tree interprets each html page as a design specification; the html space determines the algorithm and generates the visual world of the translation beyond simulation.

I want to be able to rotate and zoom in.

Yep. Trailer for Romero’s new zombie flick is up and it’s only on Yahoo. I loved the original trilogy.

All the stuff on this site is based on Bible code interpretations. They have the ark. They know the world is fucked:

If, if, if, if and only if the Bible codes are correct in citing the year 5766 as the time when world war 3 occurs, then from my table of dates, World War 3 will start immediately after the abomination of desolation in the Temple on 31 January/1 February 2006.

Exodus 2006. (via.)

Too many bugs. But Samurai Jack rules.