*Ø* Blogmanac | How can so much dumb reside in just one man?

"Lost in the noise and fury over the Greens' rude interruption of President George Bush's address to the Australian Parliament was a New York Times article which cast the incident in a starkly different light to the debate here about bad manners.

"David E.Sanger, the NYT correspondent who had travelled with Bush on his six-day journey through Asia, reported how the 'fearsome security bubble' that cocoons the President from reality wherever he travels was pierced just briefly during his trip.

"The first time, the article said, was when Bush met Islamic leaders in Bali and was totally surprised to be told that they believed the US was pursuing a deliberate anti-Muslim foreign policy. The second was when the Greens interrupted his speech in Parliament and confronted him with the 'uncomfortable reality' that Bush's approach to the world 'is deeply unpopular among Australians'.

"Sanger reported that even some of Bush's top aides conceded that the President had only begun to discover the gap between the picture of a benign superpower that he sees and the 'far more calculating, self-interested, anti-Muslim America the world perceives as he speeds by behind dark windows' ..."
Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | The Neo-Con-spiracy: Worse than Iran-Contra

Cheney's hawks 'hijacking policy'

"A former Pentagon officer turned whistleblower says a group of hawks in the Bush Administration, including the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, is running a shadow foreign policy, contravening Washington's official line.

"'What these people are doing now makes Iran-Contra [a Reagan administration national security scandal] look like amateur hour. . . it's worse than Iran-Contra, worse than what happened in Vietnam,' said Karen Kwiatkowski, a former air force lieutenant-colonel.

"'[President] George Bush isn't in control . . . the country's been hijacked,' she said, describing how 'key[governmental] areas of neoconservative concern were politically staffed'.

"Ms Kwiatkowski, who retired this year after 20 years service, was a Middle East specialist in the office of the Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, headed by Douglas Feith.

"She described 'a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress', adding that 'in order to take that first step - Iraq - lies had to be told to Congress to bring them on board'.

"Ms Kwiatkowski said the pursuit of national security decisions often bypassed 'civil service and active-duty military professionals', and was handled instead by political appointees who shared common ideological ties.

"There was speculation earlier this year that such an ideologue group had emerged, and that it was behind the US attack on an Iraqi convoy in Syria in June.

"The New York Times quoted Patrick Lang, a former senior Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) official, as saying that many in the Government believed the incursion was an effort by ideologues to disrupt co-operation between the US and Syria ..."
Source: Sydney Morning Herald

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Dick Cheney, Commander in Chief

"'Like with a horse, Powell is always able to lead Bush to the water. But just as he is about to put his head down, Cheney up in the saddle says, "Un-uh," and yanks up the reins before Bush can drink the water. That's my image of how it goes,' said Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, describing the power relationship between George Bush and Dick Cheney in a recent interview with the National Journal.

"The image of the president of the United States as a tame horse, saddled up and ridden by his own vice president, may seem overblown, but Biden is not alone in his assessment of the White House's internal dynamics. When it comes to foreign policy, Cheney is increasingly seen as holding the reins in the power circles within Washington ..."
Source: Alternet

Thanks, long-time Almaniac Lynn Perry, for sending these.

*Ø* Blogmanac | The Eye of God

The Hubble Telescope has taken a picture of an astronomical wonder known as "The Eye of God". Take one look at this awesome sight and you will know why. Sometime soon I'll post a large image of it in the top of this blog where I change the pix every day or two for fun. Halloween and Houdini will get top billing for the moment.

Then there is the Cat's Eye Nebula which is also awesome. Even more reason to support the Dark-Sky Association which, like your Almanac, campaigns to clear our skies of electric light so that humans can redicover the wonders our ancestors knew and which are all but lost to our generation.

*Ø* Blogmanac | From MoveOn.org: Bush ad

"Dear MoveOn member,
"Today, MoveOn.org Voter Fund is launching Bush in 30 Seconds, a political TV ad contest to help us find the most creative, clear and memorable ideas for ads that tell the truth about George Bush's policies. You don't have to be trained in the art of filmaking to participate, you just need to be ready, willing, and able to turn your clever ideas into a real 30 second ad. We want to run ads that are of the people, for the people, and by the people ...

"The prize? Just in case getting your work seen by our judges and thousands on our web site isn't enough, we'll put the winning ad on TV during the week of Bush's State of the Union Address. All 15 finalists will also be featured in an email to the MoveOn membership. The ad doesn't need to have TV production values -- it's the idea that counts. We'll reshoot the winning ad if we need to in order to air it.

"Last week, we launched a fundraising campaign to to take the truth about George Bush's policies to voters in battleground states. The response has been phenomenal -- over $2.3 million of our $10 million goal came in in under three days. Your contributions will help us get our first ads on the air in swing states in a matter of days. Now we need your help to ensure that the campaign is truly creative.

"Interested in making a 30-second spot for Bush in 30 Seconds? Check out the website below for more details. Know someone who might be willing and able to make a great ad? Please pass this message on."

You can learn more about the contest and get the complete guidelines at:
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/

If you have an idea for an ad, but not the time or the equipment to shoot it, you can post your ideas on our discussion board at: http://www.bushin30seconds.org/ideaswap.html"

Sent in by Almaniac Mary Ann Sabo who always has something good to share. Thanx, MAS!

*Ø* Blogmanac October 31, 1888 | John Dunlop's pneumatic tyre

John Dunlop, a Scottish veterinarian, was granted a patent for the pneumatic tyre. He is remembered for inventing the first commercially viable pneumatic tyre – for his son's bicycle.

In 1888 his small son was prescribed cycling as cure for a heavy cold and, as Dunlop watched his son ride his tricycle, he noticed that the boy was encountering difficulty and discomfort while riding over cobbled ground. Dunlop realized that this was because of the vehicle's solid rubber tyres and began looking for a way to improve them. The vet hit on the idea of filling a rubber tube with air to give it cushioning properties.

*Ø* Blogmanac | If only ...

Up in Heaven, Alexander the Great, Frederick the Great and Napoleon are looking down on events in Iraq.

Alexander says, "Wow, if I had just one of Bush's armoured divisions, I would definitely have conquered India."

Frederick the Great states, "Surely if I only had a few squadrons of Bush's air force I would have won the Seven Years War decisively in a matter of weeks."

There is a long pause as the three continue to watch events. Then Napoleon speaks, "And if I only had that Fox News, no one would ever have known that I lost the Russian campaign."

Thanx Chris Keeley for this one.

*Ø* Blogmanac October 31, 1926 | Death of the great Houdini

Among the many great feats of the magician, escapologist and stunt performer Harry Houdini (Ehrich Weisz –American immigration officials changed Weisz to Weiss) (March 24, 1874 - October 31, 1926) was the ability to withstand any man’s punch to his abdomen. He used to prepare his body for this trick before the show, but on October 22 a student, Joselyn Gordon Whitehead, approached him when Houdini was unprepared, punching the great showman three times in the belly. He did several shows at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit after that, but soon became ill. Nine days later in room 401 of Detroit's old Grace Hospital, Harry Houdini died of the peritonitis that followed the rupturing of his appendix, on this day in 1926.

Was Whitehead to blame?
However, the rupturing of his appendix was quite possibly not Whitehead’s fault. It was long assumed that the blows to his stomach and his ruptured appendix were related. This seemed a natural enough explanation at the time, even to his doctors, and this is how the legend began. However, we now know this explanation is incorrect: appendicitis is not caused by physical trauma. The abdominal blows received by Houdini might indeed have hastened his death, but not in the way usually imagined: he was probably already suffering from appendicitis at the time. The great magician might have explained his subsequent stomach pain as being caused by the punches he took rather than the pre-existing inflammation of his appendix. We may conjecture that because the dressing room incident occurred, Houdini might have not realized his pain was an indication of disease, and might have delayed two days before seeking medical treatment.

The greatest magician who ever lived is buried in Machpelah cemetary, Cypress Hills Street, Queens, New York City.

Images
Houdini posters
Copy of Houdini's Death Certificate
Houdini's Body Arrives at Grand Central Station, New York

Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email

*Ø* Blogmanac October 31 | Samhain (Halloween) origins and folklore

An American custom? Many Australians think it is.

Not so. Trick-or-treating was going on in some parts of Australia before it was ever seen in some parts of the USA.

And the Scots have trick or treating for 500 years. Halloween itself is millennia old, and seems to be in Australia to stay.

Witches and spooks might come a-knocking on your door on the night of October 31. Send them away if you will, by all means, but not because they're enacting a foreign custom. Most Aussies unwittingly have Halloween customs deep within their rattling bones.

Halloween was already an ancient festival of souls 2,000 years ago. It has long been commemorated in countries from Ireland and Poland to Mexico and the Philippines (where trick-or-treating is called Nangangaluluwa, and your chickens are in danger of being purloined).

Halloween customs are relatively new to Australia, but are rapidly establishing themselves. When you come to think of it, every old, cherished custom was once a new-fangled idea, even in the BCE.

The ancient Druids of Britain, whose mysteries held sway for centuries before the Romans came to Britain, celebrated a spooky night on October 31. These pagans called it Samhain. In the northern hemisphere, the day which falls slap bang between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice, is November 1. The eve of Samhain, October 31, was the night the lord of death was said to judge the souls of the departed.

What you could have expected on Samhain eve if you were a suburban Briton in 300 BCE, was to go to the mall bonfire and watch a neighbour being roasted alive, while you nibbled roast chestnuts with your diet cola. This was an 'end of summer' ceremony, and the druidic priests built a bonfire (bone-fire) to represent the sun which they wished would return, dispelling bitter cold and famine.

The Romans invaded Britain, and outlawed human sacrifice, so the Druids put another horse on the barbie. In 834, two centuries after St Augustine had brought Christianity to Britain, the Pope in Rome ordered that the ancient pagan rituals, which couldn't be stamped out among the masses, be Christianized. Spring fertility rites became Easter. Winter solstice, or yule, rites became Christmas. Samhain became All Saints' Day. Another word for saint was 'hallow', and 'even' meant 'evening before': All Hallows' eve became called ... Halloweven, or Hallowe'en ...

Trick-or-treating, then, is not strictly American, despite assertions to the contrary by some Australian xenophobes. British Catholic and Protestant emigrants, and others from Europe, took Halloween customs to America, but they were spread unevenly. Catholic customs went to Maryland, Dutch and Swedish Lutheran to Delaware, English Protestant to New England, and so on. Texas children started trick-or-treating in the 1940s. Some regions didn't see it before 1955 ...

Lex Lammoy, public relations officer for the Scouting Association in New South Wales says that he first saw trick-or-treating in Cairns, Queensland, as far back as the early 1950s, which is earlier than the Halloween promenade appeared in some parts of Florida and North Carolina ...

Read on at the Scriptorium's Halloween origins and folklore page

Halloween party fun ideas
The Yarn of Fisher's Ghost: An Australian ghost story
Ancient Greek Samhain festivals

Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Happy Samhain, dear friends!
(Or if you're in the South like me, happy Beltane!

October 31 is 'Out Of The Broom Closet Day', named by the Pagan Pride Project in 2001 as a day to support and encourage followers of Pagan, Heathen, and other earth-based and ethnic religious paths to publicly declare and support their chosen religion to those who they encounter in everyday life.
Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | "If I'm lyin' they're dyin'." --gwb

CrimQuips 10/28/03
Commentary by Barry Crimmins

Massive Edition
Available with graphic emphasis here.

Don't you find the White House's new "I can't believe we have to revisit these issues about the war simply because we have been caught lying at every turn" campaign a bit difficult to swallow?


How much more lying can the court-appointed Bush Administration do? Consider the crap they heap upon us:

The environment benefits from pollution

The evisceration of civil liberties is patriotic.

The price-gouging of seniors for prescriptions is for their own good.

Every time another several billion cubic liters of quicksand are added to the Iraqi Quagmire, it only proves how much stronger the American position has become.

If you believe any of this, W is your boy. Otherwise, make a donation to the
Democratic candidate of your choice today.

CONTINUE

Distribute Freely- Aggravate them! -- BFC

*Ø* Blogmanac | Participate by Not Participating on Buy Nothing Day


THE CULTURE JAMMERS NETWORK

"We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century. We believe culture jamming can be to our era what civil rights was to the '60s, what feminism was to the '70s, what environmental activism was to the '80s. It will alter the way we live and think. It will change the way information flows, the way institutions wield power, the way TV stations are run, the way the food, fashion, automobile, sports, music and culture industries set their agendas. Above all, it will change the way meaning is produced in our society."


Four weeks to Buy Nothing Day and the Jammer's network is buzzing.
This year we're giving away twenty-five $100-$250 awards to help you organize and pull-off your actions.
Click to the site for details.

While you're there, check out the crop of downloadable posters, handbills, MP3s, clip art and web banners. Also, there are four BND TV subverts ready for viewing here.

Best of luck with all your BND preparations.

November 5-7 jammers from around the world will get together in Madison, Wisconsin, for the Media Reform conference and December 10-12 for the UN's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva.

We'll be at both events with our year-end "Media Carta" issue of Adbusters Magazine -- I hope to see you there.



Cheers,

Tim Walker
Campaigns Manager
Adbusters Media Foundation
Ph: 604.736.9401"
-------------------------------------
Visit our website to join the Culture Jammers Network.

SOURCE

*Ø* Blogmanac | Solar Hurricane Hits Earth's Magnetic Field

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - "A shockwave from the Sun hit the Earth on Wednesday, the final burst from a solar hurricane that has hampered some space satellite transmissions and led electric grid operators to curb power transmissions as a precaution.

"Scientists said the cloud of charged particles unleashed at high speeds by a hyperactive Sun and known as a coronal mass ejection (CME) was traveling at more than 5 million mph, taking just 19 hours from the Sun.

"Power plants from Sweden to New Jersey cut production to limit how much electricity was flowing over transmission grids, preparing to absorb any sudden surge in energy that might result in coming days from lingering effects of the storm."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac October 30, 1945 | Australian-American shameful secret

Cover-up: more than 800 died when USA sank POW ship

The only thing more remarkable than the saga of the ‘Montevideo Maru’ is that so few Australians know anything about it.
Mark Simkin, 7.30 Report, ‘Silence broken on Australia's worst maritime disaster’

Only on October 30, 1945 did Australian relatives of victims of the Montevideo Maru disaster of July 1, 1942, began receiving news of the tragedy from the Australian government – more than three years after their loved ones had been sent to the bottom of the ocean by an American submarine’s torpedoes.

July 1, 1942 The sinking of the Montevideo Maru with the loss of approximately 1,053 mainly Australian lives. About 610 Australian soldiers and 130 civilians perished when American submarine, USS Sturgeon, commanded by Lieutenant Commander WL Wright, mistakenly opened its torpedoes on the 7,267-ton transport Montevideo Maru. The Japanese ship, carrying hundreds of Australian POWs, was sailing from Philippine waters off Cape Bojidoru, Luzon, westwards towards the South China Sea. Although the sinking had been reported in Japanese newspapers, the American and Australian governments did not inform Australian loved ones anxiously wondering about the fate of the hundreds of victims until October 30, 1945 – more than three years later.

Almost twice as many Australians lost their lives in that one night as did in the ten years of the Vietnam War, and some 71 Japanese crewmen and naval guards also perished in the tragedy. However, even today, the exact number of lives lost, and the names of the victims, are not known, and the event is still shaded in mystery. Peter Stone, in his book Hostages to Freedom, writes that “a confirmed list of all Australians who died on the Montevideo Maru is not available although several reports indicate that the ship's complement consisted of 845 prisoner of war servicemen, 208 civilian prisoners of war, 71 Japanese crew and 62 naval guards”.

However, the Japanese Navy Department had reported the sinking to the ship’s owners only 20 days after the tragedy, and on January 6, 1943 to the Prisoner of War Information Bureau in Japan with a “complete nominal roll of 848 POWs and 208 civilians who were on board and presumed lost”.

Sadly, most Australians and Americans are still unaware of the tragedy that occurred on the night of July 1, 1945.

See: The sinking of the Montevideo Maru, 1 July 1942

Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email

*Ø* Blogmanac | Iraq: the missing billions

"A staggering US$4 billion in oil revenues and other Iraqi funds earmarked for the reconstruction of the country has disappeared into opaque bank accounts administered by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the US-controlled body that rules Iraq. By the end of the year, if nothing changes in the way this cash is accounted for, that figure will double."
Read on

*Ø* Blogmanac October 30 | Quaint ancient tax

The Rhyne Toll, Chetwode Manor
At Chetwode, near Buckingham, England, the Lord of the Manor has the right to levy a yearly tax, called the ‘Rhyne Toll’, on all cattle found between October 30 and November 7 on his ‘liberty’, a grazing domain.

The origins of the ceremony associated with the toll are described in an Elizabethan-era document. The people had to blow a whelk-shell, or a horn, immediately after the sun rose on Chetwode Manor, then blow it in the field between Newton Purcell and Barton Hartshorne. Then the instrument had to be blown a third time at “a place near the town of Finmere, in the county of Oxford”, then a fourth time at “a certain stone in the market of the town of Buckingham”. Further places are given in the document. Then followed the customs associated with the actual collecting of the tax.

By the 19th century, festivities commenced at 9am, and gingerbread and beer were distributed amongst the assembled boys, the girls being excluded.

How it began
The parish was formerly part of an ancient forest called Rookwoode. The ‘liberty’ of Chetwode had the boundaries of this forest. In olden times, it was inhabited by an enormous wild boar. It attacked locals and visitors, ruining the tourist trade – yes, there was always a tourist trade of sorts, however primitive by modern standards.

Naturally, the Lord of Chetwode determined to have the beast slain (‘slay’ being a word meaning ‘kill’ as used in olden times – and currently by journalists), and eventually it was a certain Sir Ryalas who did the deed.The gallantry of the knight reached the ears of the king, who awarded him this tax, and to his heirs forever.

In 1810 a mound (called from time immemorial ‘Boar's Head Field’) in the forest near the manor, near a ditch called the ‘Boar's Pond’, was excavated and the skeleton of an enormous boar was discovered.

Source: Chambers’s Book of Days

*Ø* Blogmanac October 29 | Today's thingummies

Allan Day
‘Allan’ is an old English term for ‘apple’. If you eat a very large apple first thing on waking today, without speaking a word, you will dream of your future mate. I suppose it’s a bit late now. Mark it in your diary for next year.




Rebirth: Scarlet macaw, Mayan calendar“Mayan: This day begins the Uinal of Rebirth, the eleventh of the 20-day Uinals in the current cycle of the Tzolkin, or 260-day calendar (6 Imix, Tzolkin 201). The symbolic bird for this uinal is the Scarlet Macaw, the energy principle that of flowering.”
Source



Iroquois Feast of the Dead
A Native American festival akin to All Soul’s Day of the Christian tradition. Traditionally held every 12 years in honour of departed loved ones, the dead are reinterred and revered, with a huge grave dug and lined with beaver skins.

Earth, Moon and Sky informs us that the tribe calls themselves the ‘Haudenosaunee’ meaning ‘people of the long house.’ The Algonquin word 'Iroqu' (Irinakhoiw), which means 'rattlesnake,' was combined by the French with the suffix 'ois' to form the name 'Iroquois,' as an insult.

Strange!

I was looking for a Scarlet macaw image and at this page of Google Image Search I clicked on the second bird:

scarlet_babyLG.gif
200 x 150 pixels - 6k
jmaviaries.com/index.php

But what I got was a bit of a surprise – to say the least. I hope it works for you – tell me if it does. (Maybe don't do it in the office.)

The twenty-ninth of October will be marked in any future local almanac as the day on which telegraphic communication was first completed between Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.<em>The Sydney Morning Herald, October 30, 1858 (so I thought I should put it in)

*Ø* Blogmanac | Perhaps our fate is in our stars, or the planets, the solar flares or the asteroids


GEORGE W. BUSH, HOWARD DEAN AND THE HARMONIC CONCORDANCE
By Moses Siregar III
AstrologyfortheSoul.com

"Recently I received a response to the Harmonic Concordance audio that began with: "The Harmonic Concordance is probably just what this country needs." That got me thinking about how this event appears to be manifesting in the realm of US politics.

"Of course George W. Bush has been reeling from one scandal after another (most prominently the untruths in the State of the Union speech that motivated the country to go to war) for many months now, and this was what I was guessing we would see due to the transit of Saturn conjoing the US's 8th house Sun; for example, the last time this transit happened we had Watergate. If you have been subscribed to this newsletter for a while, you probably remember me talking (in February and March) about how I expected Bush to reach the pinnacle of his Presidency in the Spring and then quickly plummet to his nadir in the Fall. So far, that's been pretty much the case.

"While the Saturn transit is clearly a big influence on the Bush/US problems now, I can't separate this Harmonic Concordance event from it, either. With the spiritual energies on the planet rising to much higher vibrations, the Bush agenda is finding itself in a less compatible starry climate. If there's one person who misses the opposition of Saturn and Pluto, with its emphasis on intense destruction and the relinquishment of individual freedoms to one's government, it's Bush. With the Uranus-Neptune mutual reception, and then the Harmonic Concordance now dominating, the "liberal agenda" is really favored by the astrological gods, and looks to be for a long time to come. I think this will continue to be bad news for George Bush and friends. But perhaps the worst thing of all happening on the planet, if you are George Bush, is the campaign of Democratic nominee hopeful Howard Dean.

"If you haven't heard of Howard Dean yet, you're probably going to be hearing a lot more about him over the next year, because he is probably going to be the Democratic nominee, challenging George W. Bush in the next US Presidential election.

"One of the ideas on Dean's platform is universal health care (and he credits Canadians and Europeans when he talks about this), and it's hard to imagine many things that would seem more appropriate during the mutual reception of Uranus in Pisces and Neptune in Aquarius.

"If you heard my audio on the Harmonic Concordance, you'll remember the emphasis that I put on Chiron in this profound pattern. Chiron "rules" this configuration, in my opinion, and when I look at the campaign of Howard Dean, it's hard not to see "Chiron" written all over it."

CONTINUE

*Ø* Blogmanac | An identity forged out of many

By Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times

"In the first great work of what we would now recognise as the English language, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, one of the characters is a doctor. To establish his credentials, Chaucer tells us that

'Wel knew he the olde Esculapius,
And Deiscorides, and eek Rufus,
Old Ypocras, Haly and Galien,
Serapion, Razis and Avicen.'

"These are the names that anyone familiar with medical science in the 14th century would be expected to recognise. None of them is Christian. The first six are figures from Greek and Roman civilisation. The last three, the most modern figures for Chaucer's contemporaries, are from the medieval Islamic world: Ibn Sarabi-yun or Serapion as he was known to Europe, a Syriac physician of the 9th century; Razis, the great Arab clinician of the early 10th century, and Avicenna, as most Europeans called him, referring to Ibn Sina, whose early 11th-century medical encyclopaedia was the most important summation of medical knowledge.

"If Chaucer wrote his verses on paper, he would almost certainly have been aware that he was using a technology that came to his little backwater in the Atlantic from the Islamic world. Paper was a Chinese invention, but it entered the Arab world through Samarkand and then came to Europe through Moorish Spain. The word 'ream' which we still use for a sheaf of paper comes from the Arabic rizma.

"It seems to me that Chaucer and any other educated European in the late middle ages would have been rather surprised to learn from the Connacht Ulster MEP Dana Rosemary Scallon on 'Morning Ireland' [last week] that the Christian nature of European civilisation is a 'historical fact'.

"That Christianity was a huge element of their culture would, of course, have been obvious, but the notion that European culture, civility and learning were utterly bound up in Christianity would have seemed quite bizarre. Without the pagan Greeks, the pagan Romans and the Islamic Arabs, literate Europeans would have felt themselves mired in ignorance.

"This is not an abstract reflection. The EU's constitution is being drawn up in a context where the notion of an endless clash of civilisations between the West and Islam has become fashionable. In this context, the demand that the EU constitution should explicitly pay homage to the Christian nature of Europe's heritage is not innocent. Two years ago, the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, told us that Western civilisation is superior to Islam and therefore would triumph over it.

"The demand that, in Dana's words, the constitution should insist that 'the Christian heritage is our identity' is part of this mind-set. It is not about respecting religion, but about drawing lines between the West and the rest.

"The irony is that Europe became dominant in the first place precisely because it didn't draw these lines. It took the classical heritage of Greek learning that had been preserved by Arab scholars, reintegrated it into European culture and created the Renaissance. It raided the Islamic world for the intellectual tools with which modernity was forged ..."

Continue HERE

*Ø* Blogmanac | That's the idea!

BERLIN (Reuters) - "A 25-year-old German woman enraged over another Saturday night of boring television programs and dull re-runs hurled her TV set out the window of her fifth floor apartment window ... " Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | The Mummy's Return

CAIRO (Reuters) - "Egypt's antiquities chief said on Sunday the return of a royal mummy, probably the pharaoh Ramses I, was a message to others to give back ancient artifacts.

"The 3,000-year-old mummy left Egypt in the 19th century and returned Saturday as a gift from the Michael C. Carlos Museum in the U.S. city of Atlanta. It was unveiled in the Cairo Museum amid an unruly scene of journalists crushing around the corpse.

"'This ... is a message to other people all over the world that they should do the same. If you do have a masterpiece in a museum outside Egypt, I think this masterpiece should come home, and home means Egypt,' said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities."

Full story

*Ø* Blogmanac October | Spring forward, Fall back

Whether you are in the Northern Hemisphere, or the Southern, chances are that you adjusted your clocks recently because of Daylight Saving.

How did Daylight Saving Time begin?
According to John May (The Book of Curious Facts, Collins and Brown, London, UK, 1993, 24), it was first thought of by William Willett (1856-1915), who was not a mathematician nor an astronomer, but a London builder. Willett, obsessed with the idea, said the idea occurred to him one Summer morning when he noticed how many people had their blinds drawn, and thus were asleep, while he was up and about enjoying the sunshine. Willett devoted much effort and money to promoting the idea, and in 1908 the first Daylight Saving Bill was introduced to British parliament.

Willett suggested changing the clock by eighty minutes, by four separate movements. It first became law on May 17, 1916, a year after Willett had died, as a wartime measure to conserve fuel. The scheme was put in operation on the following Sunday, May 2nd. There was a storm of opposition. The Royal Meteorological Society warned the citizenry that Greenwich time would apply to movements of the tides. Eventually, in 1925, it was enacted that summer time should begin on the day following the third Saturday in April. The date for closing of summer time was fixed for the first Saturday in October.

However, other sources say that Benjamin Franklin originated the idea, and it might well be as he seems to have been the progenitor of everything else. His proposal – made with tongue in cheek – came during his sojourn as an American delegate in Paris in 1784, in an essay, ‘An Economical Project’.

“An accidental sudden noise waked me about six in the morning, when I was surprised to find my room filled with light; and I imagined at first, that a number of those lamps had been brought into it; but, rubbing my eyes, I perceived the light came in at the windows. I got up and looked out to see what might be the occasion of it, when I saw the sun just rising above the horizon, from whence he poured his rays plentifully into my chamber, my domestic having negligently omitted, the preceding evening, to close the shutters.

“I looked at my watch, which goes very well, and found that it was but six o'clock; and still thinking it something extraordinary that the sun should rise so early, I looked into the almanac, where I found it to be the hour given for his rising on that day. I looked forward, too, and found he was to rise still earlier every day till towards the end of June; and that at no time in the year he retarded his rising so long as till eight o'clock. Your readers, who with me have never seen any signs of sunshine before noon, and seldom regard the astronomical part of the almanac, will be as much astonished as I was, when they hear of his rising so early; and especially when I assure them, that he gives light as soon as he rises. I am convinced of this. I am certain of my fact. One cannot be more certain of any fact. I saw it with my own eyes. And, having repeated this observation the three following mornings, I found always precisely the same result.”
Benjamin Franklin, Letter to the Authors of The Journal of Paris, 1784

In America
Web Exhibits says that “In 1916, a nationwide campaign was begun in the United States for the support of daylight saving. For about a year the subject was the centre of controversy.

“In 1917, however, an Act was passed by Congress to advance United States time by one hour on the last Sunday in March and to put it back by one hour on the last Sunday in October. This Act was in force for one year from March 31 to October 27, 1918 and it was renewed from March 30, 1919.

“Meantime, there was an outcry throughout the continent, particularly from farmers, and the Act was repealed on August 20, 1919.”

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*Ø* Blogmanac | Disinformation the Operative Word

NY Times Disseminates Disinformation about Republican Campaign Finance -- Under Misleading Headline

A disinformation-packed article in the NY Times states: "Two-thirds of the money from small donations went to Republicans during the last election cycle.... By contrast, the Democrats received 92% of unregulated contributions over $1 million." The truth? Most of the GOP's small donations were channeled through corporate-funded front sites. While the GOP received 3-4 corporate dollars for every dollar given the Dems, the Dem's big donations came from private, NONCORPORATE individuals. Here's another whopper: "The reason the Dems are now having to play catch-up is because the new campaign finance laws prevent them from being funded by a small universe of very wealthy people." The truth: 77% of Bush's campaign take this quarter came from a VERY SMALL UNIVERSE of just 285 corporate barons and lobbyists, while most Democratic funding is coming from individual donations. What will the Times do next? Claim the GOP is the "common man's party?"

FULL TEXT

*Ø* Blogmanac | Australia and US admin's aluminium tube hoax

"LINDA MOTTRAM: To last night's Four Corners program, which also raises issues for Mr Downer. It cast further doubt on claims made before the war by both the United States and Australia about a shipment of aluminium tubes, intercepted on their way to Iraq.

"In the lead-up to war, Iraq was accused of trying to import the tubes, to enrich uranium, to restart its nuclear weapons program. But several highly placed experts have told Four Corners that it was unlikely to be the case.

"Peta Donald reports.

"PETA DONALD: Iraq's attempt to import 60,000 aluminium tubes back in 2001, was part of the US case for going to war.

"It's now been revealed Australian authorities knew about the tubes early on, with a Sydneysider involved in shipping them from China to Jordan, businessman Garry Cordukes.

"He told Four Corners he was contacted by an Australian defence official before the shipment left, and was asked to bring some samples over from China.

"GARRY CORDUKES: I was met at Sydney Airport by a gentleman holding up a sign with my name on and I handed over the tube and that was the end of that. But obviously by this stage we were quite nervous about the situation.

"PETA DONALD: The tubes were seized in Jordan and didn't make it to Iraq, and there was scepticism high up about what they were meant for, with some arguing the tubes were too thick and heavy to be used for uranium enrichment.

"Greg Thielmann is a former senior intelligence officer with the US State Department.

"GREG THIELMANN: There is a growing consensus within the, not only the US intelligence community but also among our close allies, with whom we shared a lot of the results, and the consensus was that this was not bound for the nuclear weapons program.

"REPORTER: And those close allies would include Australia?

"GREG THIELMANN: That's right ..."

Source

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Spinning the Tubes
"How Australian intelligence was seized upon on by the CIA, spun and gilded, then presented to the world as the best evidence that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction.

"LIZ JACKSON, REPORTER: On 23 May 2001, a container load of thousands of aluminium tubes left this factory in southern China. It travelled on a slow barge to Hong Kong, en route to Iraq. The CIA was watching its progress, as was Australian intelligence.

"GARRY CORDUKES, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL ALUMINIUM SUPPLY: We had feelings that perhaps phone calls were being intercepted, etc, but that's...that's hearsay, and we don't know.

"LIZ JACKSON: Four Corners has tracked down a number of the players, and tonight we can reveal how one small gem of Australian-sourced intelligence was seized on by the CIA, spun and gilded, and then presented by the leaders of the world as their best evidence that Saddam Hussein was starting to build a bomb ..."

Read the full transcript of the Four Corners TV documentary (Australia) with its incredible disclosures ... and spread the word!

*Ø* Blogmanac | Welcome to Australia, Mr Bush
Peace Bus has some shots of protests from Shrub's visit to Australia on October 23, including the famous Australian "chucking of the browneye" by a group of activists. Warning: If you have never seen a browneye chucked before, nor ever met an Australian, this could be considered offensive (which is exactly the point, Mr Mini-President).

*Ø* Blogmanac October 28, 1886 | One nation under Goddess

The 49 m-tall Statue of ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ was dedicated in New York Harbour by President Grover Cleveland. She was created by French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi. It has been said that the face is that of his mother.

The idea of the Statue of Liberty was not received well by either the US federal nor New York state governments. However, due to a campaign stated by publisher Joseph Pulitzer, funds were raised for the American half of the bill in only five months.

In Roman mythology, Liberty is Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. Originally a goddess of personal freedom, she evolved to become the goddess of the commonwealth. Her temples were found on the Aventine Hill and the Forum. She was depicted on many Roman coins as a female figure with a pileus (a felt cap, worn by slaves when they were set free), a wreath of laurels and a spear

Libertas was presented in 1884 as a gift from the French Grand Orient Temple Masons to the Masons of America in celebration of the centenary of the first Masonic Republic. The cornerstone of the statue has an inscription that records that it was laid in a Masonic ceremony. It is believed that Bartholdi conceived the original statue as an effigy of the goddess Isis, and only later converted it to a ‘Statue of Liberty’ for New York Harbour when it was rejected for the Suez Canal. The statue of Isis was to be of “a robed woman holding aloft a torch” (Weisberger, Bernard, Statue of Liberty: 1st Hundred Years, p.30, quoted in Lloyd, James, Beyond Babylon, p.103).

A huge restoration project, costing $66 million, was finished in 1986, the 100th anniversary of the dedication of ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’. A four-day festival centring on July 4, 1986, marked the anniversary. A grand ceremony was also held on October 28, 1986 – 100 years after the original dedication of the colossus.

Goddess of Liberty (New Age)
The Statue of Liberty and Freemasonry
Goddess Liberty on Roman coin
Google other colossal statues
Statue Of Liberty National Monument (National Park Service)

More at the Scriptorium

*Ø* Blogmanac | Online dictionaries

I have always thought that HyperDictionary was the best online dictionary (we have a HyperDictionary search box in our right-hand column), but I'm starting to think that maybe OneLook is hard to beat. Both of them give results from many other dictionaries, which is why I like them. Fortunately, I don't have to pick a winner; I'm keeping both of them in my Favorites.

OneLook has 6,052,903 words and 959 dictionary indexes. How did we find information before the Internet?

I had found OneLook a long time ago, but forgotten about it. Thank you to Linda from Australia for reminding me.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Mormon church donates debunked artifacts to museum

"GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) – Some of the now-debunked Michigan Relics – once considered by some influential Mormons as evidence of the church's connection to a Near Eastern culture in ancient America – have a new home.

"For decades, the Mormon Church kept a large collection of the artifacts in its Salt Lake City museum, but never formally claimed them to be genuine.

"This past summer, after scholars examined the relics and declared them fakes, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated the 797 objects to the Michigan Historical Museum, which will display them next month ..."
Read on

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Was the Book of Mormon taken from a rough draft of a novel written by Solomon Spalding? I don't know, but this site says "No".

"The Rev. Solomon Spalding (1761-1816) was a lapsed Calvinist clergyman, a failed businessman, and the would-be author of a pre-historic American epic story explaining the lost civilization of the "Mound Builders." Since 1833 he has been credited by some scholars and writers as being the original author of a portion of The Book of Mormon."
Source

More

This image, and the original Bush ad whence it was Photoshopped, is at a very good blog I discovered tonight.
It's called Demon Sweat and it's worth bookmarking. I've taken the liberty of optmizing this pic to make download faster; the one at Demon Sweat is superior.

*Ø* Blogmanac October 27, 1206 | Thurkill’s strange journey

We know from the medieval chronicle by Roger of Wendover, that on Friday, October 27, 1206 the English peasant Thurkill was digging ditches to drain his Essex farm when a stranger, who identified himself as Saint Julian, came up to him and said he would take Thurkill on a journey. Thurkill lay down, going into a coma. His family awakened him on the Sunday by pouring water down his throat. He was indignant because he had been about to enter Heaven. On Monday night, Julian returned, angry that the farmer had not told the full story to his family. On the following feast days, All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day, Nov 1 and 2, Thurkill described his vision to the assembled community in church. To this day, Thurkill’s field floods at the end of October. Or, so it is said.

More

*Ø* Blogmanac October 27 | Angam (Homecoming) Day, Nauru

Pacific tropical paradise island, ruined by Western farming

An oval-shaped South Pacific island lying near the equator, Nauru is the smallest republic in the world – and an ecological basket case. It lies 42km (26 miles) south of the equator, and its nearest neighbour is Ocean Island (Banaba, part of Kiribati), 305km (190 miles) to the east. It is 4,000km from Sydney. Until recently, Nauru was the richest nation on earth, per capita. That was before the bird-droppings phosphate ran out. It has all been mined and shipped to the Rich World, where it has fertilized our farms.

The word Angam means homecoming. Sources vary as to date (October 26 is most commonly cited): one source gives 27 October for this event which commemorates the various times in history when the size of the Nauruan population has returned to 1,500, which is thought to be the minimum number necessary for survival. Like many low-lying poor nations, Nauru is threatened by the greenhouse effect caused by wealthy Western nations. As global warming of the earth causes sea levels to rise, the habitable low-lying land areas are becoming threatened by tidal surges and flooding.

The Australian government of ultra-conservative Prime Minister John Howard, in order to keep tinted refugees from white Australian shores, has recently begun shipping desperate boat people to Nauru. The Nauru government, strapped for cash following the collapse of its economy (Western corporations, having dug up and shipped out all the bird-guano phosphate, departed), have accepted refugees for money. In Nauru, people fleeing persecution in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq now find themselves locked up in this tropical isle. Hot and isolated, the inhospitable 21 sq km island has been called a “living hell” for the refugees.

Fresh water is scarce and communications poor. Amnesty International Australia says that lawyers, health professionals, churches and members of ethnic communities are being prevented from going to Nauru to inspect conditions.


Amnesty attacks Nauru 'security'
17 convicted for Nauru detention centre riot
Amnesty International Australia (Refugees –Australia)
Refugees: Australia's moral failure
Refugees Australia - National Directory
We are all Boat People
Search news for Refugees Australia or browse the latest headlines

*Ø* Blogmanac October 27 | Ramadan begins

Ramadan 2003
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim Calendar. It is during this month that Muslims observe the Fast of Ramadan. For the entire month, Muslims fast during the daylight hours and in the evening eat small meals and visit with friends and family. Smoking and sexual relations are also forbidden during fasting. At the end of the day the fast is broken with prayer and a meal called the iftar. In the evening following the iftar it is customary for Muslims to go out visiting family and friends. The fast is resumed the next morning.

The Qur'an was first revealed to Muhammad during the month of Ramadan. The month is a special time of worship, Qur'an reading, charitable acts, and individual reflection and purification. All Muslims who have reached puberty are required to fast. Exceptions include men and women who are too ill or old to fast, women in advanced stages of pregnancy, and women who are menstruating.

According to the Holy Qur’an:

One may eat and drink at any time during the night "until you can plainly distinguish a white thread from a black thread by the daylight: then keep the fast until night".

And

Ramadan is the month during which the Qur'an was revealed, providing guidance for the people, clear teachings, and the statute book. Those of you who witness this month shall fast therein. (2:185).

The Islamic calendar is a purely lunar one. In 638 CE, Umar ibn Al-Khattab (592-644) Raa introduced the calendar as a way of consolidating the various calendars then in common usage among Muslim peoples. The years are measured from the date when Muhammad migrated to the city of Medina, on July 16, 622 CE. The calendar is also called the Hijri Calendar as this migration is called the Hegira.

The western dates of Ramadan move up about 10 days every year. Muslims celebrate the end of the fast with the festival of Eid ul-Fitr (Festival of Breaking the Fast), when they attend special congregational prayers in the morning and greet each other with "Eid Mubarak", or "Holiday Blessings".

How many Muslims are there in the world?
“Estimates of the total number of Muslims in the world vary greatly:

0.700 billion or more, Barnes & Noble Encyclopedia 1993
0.817 billion, The Universal Almanac (1996)
0.951 billion, The Cambridge Factfinder (1993)
1.100 billion, The World Almanac (1997)
1.200 billion, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic relations)

“At a level of 1.2 billion, they represent about 22% of the world's population. They are the second largest religion in the world. Only Christianity is larger, with 33% of the world's inhabitants.

“Islam is growing about 2.9% per year. This is faster than the total world population which increases about 2.3% annually. It is thus attracting a progressively larger percentage of the world's population.”
Source: ReligiousTolerance.org

The Story of Ramadan
Children’s Activities for Ramadan
Send someone a free Ramadan e-card from Wilson’s Almanac
Ramadan and Id-Ul-Fitr Greeting Cards
Ramadan around the world
More on Ramadan
http://www.fasting.com/
Nutritional Program for Fasting
Fasting across the religions Ba’ha’i, Buddhist, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Hindu, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Pagan, Protestant
US State Department: Islam in the USA
Islam Information Australia

*Ø* Blogmanac October 26 | Hathor’s Moon Festival, ancient Egypt

Hathor: Egypt's goddess of the sky – and terror

The beauty of your face
Glitters when you rise
Oh come in peace.
One is drunk
At your beautiful face,
O Gold, Hathor.
From a hymn to the goddess Hathor, Egypt, 18th Dynasty


In Egyptian mythology, Hathor is the mother goddess and goddess of love of ancient Egypt. She was worshipped c. 2700 BCE or possibly earlier, to c. 400 CE, in a cult that flourished in Ta-Netjer (‘Land of God’ – modern day Dendera, or Dendara) in Upper Egypt, as well as Thebes and Giza, and her priests included both men and women.

Other names for Hathor are Het-Hert, Athyr and Hetheru. Her name appears to mean ‘house of Horus’, a reference to her role as a sky goddess, the ‘house’ denoting the heavens depicted as a great cow. (At the temple of Queen Nefertari at Abu Simbel, Nefertari is shown as Hathor, and her husband Ramses II is shown in one sanctuary receiving milk from Hathor the cow.) Hathor was often regarded as the mother of the Egyptian pharaoh, who styled himself the ‘son of Hathor’. During the Old Kingdom she assumed the properties of an earlier bovine goddess, Bat. She is an ancient goddess and appears to have been mentioned as early as the 2nd Dynasty.

Read more about Hathor at the new page at the Scriptorium

*Ø* Blogmanac | Guantanamo Bay brought to Manchester, UK

"MANCHESTER (Reuters) - An artist is building a life-size copy of Guantanamo Bay's Camp Delta in a bid to make Britons aware of the conditions in which detainees are being held at the U.S. military base on Cuba.

"The camp will cover an area about the size of a soccer pitch on wasteland in Manchester.

"Like the original, it will have a guards' mess, a prisoners' dormitory, a parade ground, floodlights, a sentry post and a perimeter fence topped with barbed wire.

"Loudspeakers will be used to play the U.S. national anthem each morning and the Islamic call to prayer three times a day.

"Nine volunteers, one for each of the nine British prisoners believed to be held at Guantanamo Bay, will be kept under guard in the camp for nine days ...

"The real Camp Delta, formerly known as Camp X-Ray, has become a controversial symbol of what many see as the draconian measures the U.S. government has taken in its self-declared war on terror ...

"The U.S. describes the detainees as 'enemy combatants' rather than prisoners of war and has denied them their legal rights under the Geneva Convention ..."
Source
More, with broadband film clips
Guantanamo camp is a 'national asset,' US says
More on the Manchester installation, from Google News

*Ø* Blogmanac | Gandhi branded racist as Johannesburg honours freedom fighter

"It was supposed to honour his resistance to racism in South Africa, but a new statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesburg has triggered a row over his alleged contempt for black people.

"The 2.5 metre high (8ft) bronze statue depicting Gandhi as a dashing young human rights lawyer has been welcomed by Nelson Mandela, among others, for recognising the Indian who launched the fight against white minority rule at the turn of the last century.

"But critics have attacked the gesture for overlooking racist statements attributed to Gandhi, which suggest he viewed black people as lazy savages who were barely human.

"Newspapers continue to publish letters from indignant readers: 'Gandhi had no love for Africans. To [him], Africans were no better than the "Untouchables' of India," said a correspondent to The Citizen.

"Others are harsher, claiming the civil rights icon 'hated' black people and ignored their suffering at the hands of colonial masters while championing the cause of Indians.

"Unveiled this month, the statue stands in Gandhi Square in central Johannesburg, not far from the office from which he worked during some of his 21 years in South Africa.

"The British-trained barrister was supposed to have been on a brief visit in 1893 to represent an Indian company in a legal action, but he stayed to fight racist laws after a conductor kicked him off a train for sitting in a first-class compartment reserved for whites ..."
Source: The Guardian via howcomyoucom.com

*Ø* Blogmanac | Shoemakers' Day



Now shoemakers will have a frisken
All in honour of St Crispin.
Traditional rhyme, St Crispin’s day

The twenty-fifth of October:
Cursed be the cobbler
That goes to bed sober.
Traditional rhyme, St Crispin’s day

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d.
William Shakespeare, Henry V, iv, 3. Spoken by Henry before the Battle of Agincourt, October 25, 1415

Today’s plants
Fleabane starwort, Aster conizoides and Meagre starwort, Aster miser were designated today’s plants by medieval monks. They are dedicated to Saints Crispin and Crispinian respectively, whose feast day this is.

Feast of SS Crispin and Crispinian
St Crispin and St Crispinian were nobly-born brothers at Soissons, France, who worked as shoemakers by night to support their good works. They were tortured and executed under Maximiar Herculeus in about 287, and their remains were thrown into the sea and washed up at Romney Marsh, England, or, so it is said. There is an annual cobblers’ procession held at their home town.

These shoemaker saints were supplied with leather by an angel. It is said that they were pricked to death with cobbler’s awls in about 287. On this day in England it used to be customary for shoemakers to hold processions and feasts. Today is also known as Snobs’ Holiday.

The Greeks called today the Day of the Dioscuri. The twin brothers Castor and Pollux were called the Dioscuri by the Greeks and the Gemini by the Romans. Pollux was a god and Pollux was a mortal, the sons of Zeus and Leda. Castor was renowned as a horseman, and Pollus was a famed boxer. The Dioscuri were worshipped as the protectors of travellers. The Spartans, in particular, worshipped the Dioscuri and carried their images into battle.

St Crispin’s effigy
On St Crispin’s Day in old Tenby, England, shoemakers used to cut down an effigy of this patron saint of shoemakers, from a steeple or other high place where it had hung overnight. The effigy was carried through the town and stopped at every shoemaker’s door, where the saint’s “ last will and testament” was read and an item of his clothing left as a souvenir. Finally, his body was kicked round like a football, commemorating the saint’s martyrdom in about 287.

His long-noseship
Charles V of France loved to walk incognito amongst his subjects and get to know them. One day in Brussels while walking, the emperor needed to have a boot repaired, but it was St Crispin’s Day, the shoemakers’ and cobblers’ holiday. He offered one cobbler a handsome fee if he would mend his boot, but the cobbler said he would not work that day even for Charles V. He invited Charles in for a drink, however, and toasted the health of the emperor. “Then you love Charles V?” asked the emperor? “Ay” said the cobbler, “I love his long-noseship well enough but I should love him better would he but tax us a little less.” The emperor revealed his true identity to the cheeky cobbler and rewarded the cobblers of Flanders with the right to precede shoemakers in processions, a custom that lasted for centuries.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Hydrogen cars: Perth up and running

Keith Suter Comments
Perth Leads The Way Into The Hydrogen Era
"The world has had about a century in the "petroleum era". There is speculation about the looming end of that era and its replacement with the 'hydrogen era'.

"President Bush in this year's State of the Union Address (which has attracted so much attention because of the references to Iraq) may actually have caused the speech to be of even more long-lasting significance from a point of view hardly commented on at the time. The President announced that he was proposing US$1.2 billion for research funding so that America can lead the world in hydrogen powered automobiles. His vision was that '…the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen and [be] pollution free'.

"Perth, Western Australia is already up and running. It is one of the pioneer cities (the only one in the southern hemisphere) looking at hydrogen bus trials. On a recent trip to Perth, I met Simon Whitehouse and his team who are responsible for this exciting venture at the WA Department of Planning and Infrastructure.

"In 2004, Perth will have three fuel cell powered buses. There are 11 cities world wide involved in the trial (including Hamburg, London, Madrid and Stockholm). DaimlerChrysler is also involved. DaimlerChrysler expects to have the full commercialisation of this type of vehicle by 2010 ..."
Read more

*Ø* Blogmanac | Who will guard the guardians?

Keeping Secrets: America and Iraq's Public Finances (PDF File)
"Iraq's public finances fall short of international standards of accountability. Iraq Revenue Watch calls for greater transparency in the management of the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), the central repository for Iraqi oil and gas revenues. The Coalition Provisional Authority has refused to disclose basic information about large purchase contracts and DFI expenditures, and the Iraqi public, as well as members of the United Nations Security Council, have been left in the dark about how the Fund works.

"This report calls on the Coalition Provisional Authority to reverse these trends and offers a set of recommendations, including increased Iraqi involvement in the DFI, the establishment of the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, and better public access to information."
Iraq Revenue Watch

*Ø* Blogmanac October 24 | We need the United Nations, more than ever

United Nations Day
The United Nations officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, when the UN Charter was ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and by a majority of other signatories. The formation of the United Nations evolved from a number of other institutions including the Atlantic Charter, Food and Agriculture Organization, Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Moscow Declaration, and others.

30-second streaming video on UN Day

In Memoriam: A video tribute to Sergio Vieira de Mello and all the United Nations staff who died in the bombing at the United Nations Office in Baghad on 19 August 2003. The tribute was created and produced by Saatchi and Saatchi, Sydney, Australia. (5 minutes 50 seconds: English.)

To download high-quality version, click here.

World Development Information Day (UN)
The United Nations General Assembly instituted World Development Information Day at its twenty-seventh session in December 1972 with the object of drawing the attention of world public opinion each year to development problems and the necessity of strengthening international co-operation to solve them. The General Assembly also decided that World Development Information Day should coincide, in principle, with United Nations Day to stress the central role of development in the work of the United Nations.

Disarmament Week (UN) (Oct 24-30)
More

*Ø* Blogmanac October 24, 1868 | Alexandra David-Néel, explorer

If "heaven is the Lord's," the earth is the inheritance of man, and that consequently any honest traveller has the right to walk as he chooses, all over that globe which is his.
Alexandra David-Neel, France, My Journey to Lhasa

1868 Alexandra David-Néel, first foreign woman explorer of Tibet and its mysteries. She was an anarchist, singer, feminist, explorer, writer, lecturer, photographer, buddhist, architect, mail artist, sanskrit grammarian and centenarian. Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David was the only daughter of a French father of Huguenot ancestry and a Catholic mother of Scandinavian origin. At age 54, David-Neel was the first European woman to venture into Lhasa. Disguising herself as a pilgrim, this Frenchwoman journeyed into Tibet's ‘forbidden city’ in 1932. She died in Digne, France, in 1969 at the age of 101, and a museum is kept there in her honour.

Shop Alexandra David-Neel

Truthfully, I am “homesick” for a land that is not mine. I am haunted by the steppes, the solitude, the everlasting snow and the great blue sky “up there”! The difficult hours, the hunger, the cold, the wind slashing my face, leaving me with enormous, bloody, swollen lips. The camp sites in the snow, sleeping in the frozen mud, none of that counted, those miseries were soon gone and we remained perpetually submerged in a silence, with only the song of the wind in the solitude, almost bare even of plant life, the fabulous chaos of rock, vertiginous peaks and horizons of blinding light. A land that seems to belong to another world, a land of Titans or gods ? I remained under its spell.Alexandra David-Néel; letter to her husband, March 12, 1917

*Ø* Blogmanac October 24, 1901 | Over Niagara at 63 years old!

1901 Anna (or Annie) Edison Taylor, a 63-year-old Bay City, Michigan, USA school teacher, became the first person to survive the ride over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She did it for money to help pay the mortgage. Her words following the stunt: "No one ought ever do that again."

The next person over the Falls in a barrel was Bobby ‘The Canadian Daredevil’ Leach, a native of Cornwall, UK, who survived his July 25, 1911 plunge over Niagara’s Horseshoe Falls in a cylindrical steel barrel, resulting in six months in hospital recuperating from a broken jaw, and two broken kneecaps.

Daredevil Chronological Lists
Daredevils of Niagara Falls

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

I ask no one to ever try such a stunt, or an act of sadness again, because depression is a terrible thing, and we must feel sorry for all those who have not survived such an endeavour that I have taken.
Kirk Jones "Don't try this": Niagara jumper speaks out, Oct 23, 2003

*Ø* Blogmanac | So funny I forgot to laugh!

[Eat your heart out, Australia! (NO! This is NOT a parody!) -v]


Bend Over and Grab Your Ankles, America, Things May Get Worse
by Allen Snyder
opednews.com

Drowned out in the media-orchestrated overhype about the California recall and the landslide victory of Governor-elect Schwarzenegger (cough! choke!) over Gary Coleman, a porn star, Gallagher, and the hapless Cruz Bustamante, are the more long-term consequences of another Republican ‘victory’ for America’s political future.

With malleable and moronic BushCo shills manning the governmental controls in Texas, Florida (is stupidity genetic?), New York, every Federal branch, and now, California, there is little but hope (or a miracle transplant of Dennis Kucinich’s mind into General Clark’s body) standing in the way of a BushCo re-appointment in 2004.

Even though there are some seriously juicy scandals swirling around (the White House’s sophomoric and felonious retaliatory outing of a covert CIA agent, the CA governor-elect’s predilection for inflicting unwanted petting -- aka misdemeanor battery, and a failing war, based on the most odious lies, filling two or three body bags per day), a meek and timid press, starved for higher ratings and fearful of being sent to journalistic ‘Time-Out’, routinely forgives or ignores BushCo’s transgressions, while being generally slow on the scandal uptake (the story about the identical letters-to-the-editor-signed-by-soldiers-who-didn’t-write-them scam was on the Internet for at least a week before CNN’s radar operators noticed the blip).

The Rove/FOX spin machine then freely peddles the wingnut-tainted (or is that invented, manufactured, or contrived?) message to a public all too eager to believe their appointed government officials are honorable, honest, trustworthy people who act with integrity, and not the dangerous, megalomaniacal, reactionary whackos they really are.

Silly public. Why are you so naïve?

I guess I can understand somewhat. Nobody wants to admit they voted for a dick. We had to do it with Clinton. Twice. But he was only a dick because he cheated on his wife, not because he was the worst, most destructive killing-machine of a President since… well…ever.

With wingnuts having infiltrated government institutions and corrupted them to the core (the BushCo fish stinks from the head down, people) and drone-like BushCo supporters burying their heads ever deeper into the suffocating sands of denial and faux patriotism, one can only imagine what a fraudulent mockery the 2004 Presidential ‘election’ is going to be. [If several wars aren't started to provide grounds for cancelling elections due to wartime distraction. -v]

GOP-bribed minions within the electronic voting industry are no doubt manipulating the computerized machines as we speak, while faceless BushCo henchmen purge voter rolls of likely and borderline Democrats in important swing states, counties, and districts (let’s call it trickle-down election-fixing).

Their success in illegally stopping the vote-count in Florida has clearly emboldened them. They can now rest assured that whatever inconveniences arise, lawsuits are filed, or blocs of voters are disenfranchised, disallowed, disappointed, or just plain dissed, the Supreme Embarrassment will save the day – re-installing the Bush junta and subjecting us all to another four-year gang-rape.

The simple fact that any conscious person would vote for a politically inexperienced serial-groping steroid freak like Arnold in the midst of this BushCo-created international nightmare speaks volumes about the illusions Americans have, even in the hip state of California, about quality government leadership – they’re so desperate for it, they’ll vote for anybody. Arnold’s handlers marketed him like an indispensable product by molding him into a phony populist. His celebrity and ability to sound appropriately ignorant of practically everything endeared him to voters with a proved penchant for bad actors in high places. How any self-respecting woman could pull Arnie’s lever, I’ll never know (get it? Pull Arnie’s lever…).

And just as BushCo morphed into flaming fascists practically overnight (by noon on 9/11), they’ll make Arnold an offer he can’t refuse, and he’ll be Heiling Bush faster than he can stuff Arianna Huffington’s head in a toilet. Recently, at their first meeting, Bush gushed that he and Arnold had much in common, including their routine English Language Rights violations (I think Dubya meant it as a joke – wasn’t funny).

What a sad display.

Despite their constant protestations about how actors should shut their collective pie-holes about politics, the GOP is now conspiring to promote a product ostensibly called ‘President Terminator 2008’ for release before the 2006-07 toy season. To that end, Sen. Orrin Hatch’s (R – Utah; that’s ‘R’ for ‘Retarded’) latest legislative brain fart is his proposition that the Constitution be amended to allow foreign-born nationals to be elected President (can’t imagine his motivation).

I’m not sure which would be more horrifying -- watching Dubya Bush handing Arnold the White House keys in January 2009, or living in a country where enough people voted to make it happen. If this possibility doesn’t induce waves of panic, make you convulse and wretch with heaves (dry or otherwise), shudder involuntarily, or recoil with absolute terror, revulsion, and disgust, then you’re either dead, in a coma, or a Republican.

America! Assume the position!


Allen Snyder is an instructor of Philosophy and Ethics at Pellissippi State Technical Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee. He can be reached at asnyder111@hotmail.com . This article is copyright by Allen Snyder and originally published by opednews.com but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit paragraph is attached.

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*Ø* Blogmanac October 23 | Some today stuff

Iga Ueno Tenjin Matsuri, Japan (Oct 23-25)
At Sugawara Shrine, Ueno, Mie Prefecture
On Oct 23 and 24 there are lantern parades, a dashi parade in daytime, strolling priests (yamabushi), a costume parade and mikoshi carried on young men’s shoulders. On the 25th, there is a procession of people disguised as demons to dispel illness and bad luck.

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Nothing is more motivating than giving staff, employees, and associates the opportunity to express their own individual influences.
Anita Roddick (October 23, 1942 - ), English businesswoman, social reformer. She founded The Body Shop shampoos, lotions, and creams from natural ingredients; uses business as a vehicle for social and environmental concerns.

I wake up every morning thinking ... this is my last day. And I jam everything into it. There's no time for mediocrity. This is no damned dress rehearsal.
Anita Roddick

If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.
Anita Roddick

I've never been cajoled into being someone I'm not. I've always spoken up. If I wanted to be quiet, I would've opened up a library.
Anita Roddick

1942 Anita Roddick , English businesswoman, social reformer, founder of The Body Shop which uses business as a vehicle for social and environmental concerns

Anita Roddick, interviewed by Ethical Matters Magazine

The price of dignity

Business is imposing virtual slavery in the developing world - and only we, the consumers, can stop it

By Anita Roddick
Monday September 22, 2003
The Guardian

In the past two years, 500 export assembly factories have shut down in Mexico, throwing 218,000 workers on to the street. Their crime was the $1.26-an-hour base wage they were paid by companies such as Alcoa Fujikura to produce auto parts for export to the US. Those wages are now "too high" in the global economy.

Never mind that the Alcoa workers in Acuna live in makeshift cardboard huts that lack potable water. Never mind that many of the workers in nearby Piedras Negras were selling their blood plasma twice a week to Baxter International for $30 in order to survive. Those same auto parts are now being made in Honduras by workers earning 59 cents an hour, in Nicaragua for 40 cents an hour and in China for 27 cents an hour ... Source

Straits Times article

Anita Roddick: Body and Soul; Profits with Principles (book available from Wilson's Almanac)

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4,004 BCE, 9am According to the 19th century Bishop Usher’s computations, God created the earth.

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1642 The Roundheads of Oliver Cromwell, and King Charles I's Cavaliers, fought the Battle of Edgehill in the Cotswolds, England.

Published Jan 23 1643: A great Wonder in Heaven, shewing, &c.
This brochure described how on a Saturday in the previous Christmas season (1642), there had occurred at Keniton, Northamptonshire, “the apparition and noise of a battle in the air, a ghostly repetition of the conflict which two months before had taken place on the adjacent fields at Edgehill between the forces of the King and the Parliament”. The alleged phenomena took place on four successive weekends; the King sent emissaries to report on it, and they were positive witnesses to the ghostly battle.

1642 A strange case of suspended animation after the Battle of Edgehill
Among the casualties on the king's side that bloody Sunday morning was Sir Gervase Scroop. Left for dead on the battle field, Scroop lay until Tuesday evening, when his son came to retrieve the knight's corpse. In the meantime, his body had been robbed of its clothes by camp-plunderers, and left lying two days and nights in particularly cold and frosty weather.

When his son took Sir Gervase's corpse back to camp and into a warm room, the body stirred. Despite the sixteen serious wounds he had sustained, Sir Gervase Scroop “came back to life” and lived ten years further in good health.