The last time I blogged about Google Maps it was about transliterations into Japanese. Since then, Google can also transliterate English names into Simplified Chinese and Russian. The following are Google maps of Loughborough in several languages.
Update: Google now transliterate English Place and Street names into Korean
I've written before about Christopher Hitchens and his penchant for overblown rhetoric. Well, he's at it again, this time with a scathing attack on none other than Prince Charles. As a longtime advocate of the dismantling of the monarchy, you might think this would be music to my ears. Well, it's not. Hitchens' diatribe is mean-spirited and intellectually flawed.It has been a great concern of mine to affirm and encourage those groups and faith communities that are in the minority in this country. Indeed, over the last twenty-five years, I have tried to find as many ways as possible to help integrate them into British society and to build good relationships between our faith communities. I happen to believe this is best achieved by emphasizing unity through diversity. Only in this way can we ensure fairness and build mutual respect in our country. And if we get it right here then perhaps we might be able to offer an example in the wider world.Hitchens contemptuously labels this as "Islamophilia" and writes:
... as he paged his way through his dreary wad of babble, there must have been some wolfish smiles among his Muslim audience.This kind of innuendo is typical: here and in his other writings, Hitchens often hints at Muslim fanaticism. In this case, at least, it seems to be entirely the product of his imagination.
... what is less obvious is the attitude and general outlook which perpetuate this dangerously destructive approach. It is an approach that acts contrary to the teachings of each and every one of the world's sacred traditions, including Islam.Prince Charles explained that he was referring to "a mechanistic and reductionist approach to our scientific understanding of the world around us." It is perhaps not surprising that Hitchens, one of the "new atheists" and author of Good is Not Great, characterizes this as a claim that "the scientific worldview" is "an affront to all the world's "sacred traditions." But this misconstrues what the prince was saying. Later on in his speech, Prince Charles argued that:
... there is a point beyond which empiricism cannot make complete sense of the world. It works by establishing facts through testing them by the scientific process. It is one kind of language and a very fine one, but it is a language not able to fathom experiences like faith or the meaning of things – it is not able to articulate matters of the soul.Hitchens dismisses this as "vapid talk about the 'soul' of the universe". But although the prince made liberal use of words like "soul", "spiritual", and "faith", his arguments do not stand or fall on a narrow religious interpretation. He was pointing out that science has limits, and the temptation to pretend otherwise may lead us astray. Prince Charles sees part of the solution in "the traditional teachings, like those found in Islam that define our relationship with the natural world". Not everyone will share his interpretation, but it's hardly the "farrago of nonsense" that Hitchens alleges.
| A | エー | B | ビー | C | スィー | D | ディー |
| E | イー | F | エフ | G | ジー | H | エイチ |
| I | アイ | J | ジェー | K | ケー | L | エル |
| M | エム | N | エヌ | O | オー | P | ピー |
| Q | キュー | R | アール | S | エス | T | ティ |
| U | ユー | V | ヴィー | W | X | エクス | |
| Y | ワイ | Z |
