Karmona Pragmatic Blog

According to the Chinese Zodiac, the Year of 2008 is a Year of the Rat (Earth), which begins on February 7, 2008 and ends on January 25, 2009. First in the cycle of 12 Animal signs, Rat Year begins the sequence and recurs every twelfth year.

So… what did we have until now?

• Beijing Olympic Games a.k.a. 51 Chinese Gold Medalists

• Chinese in Space a.k.a The taikonauts, Zhai Zhigang emerged from the hatch of the Shenzhou-7 spacecraft for a 13-minute space-walk

• Yesterday we had the Skype privacy thingy a.k.a. Skype admitted that TOM-Skype, the Chinese version of the Skype service, had been scanning users’ text messages for sensitive keywords like. Falun Gong, Taiwan independence, Karmona Pragmatic Blog etc.

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Two insignificant Ratatouille facts:

• Sir Ian Holm, the voice of Skinner (3′ 6″ tall head, Napoleon looking chef at Gusteau’s), is two feet taller than Skinner and has played Napoleon Bonaparte three times in his illustrious career.

• Skinner’s name is a nod to behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, famous for his experiments with rats.