*Ø* Copyright dangers

Today's edition of The Law Report is a very important radio program, especially for Australians. Under the terms of the recently signed, and misnamed, Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Australia and the USA, copyright has changed, to the advantage of the wealthy.

The audio covers such issues as how the estate of James Joyce pressures performers and others who wish even to quote a few of the long-dead Irish writer's words. It shows how Disney's corporate muscle was a main driving force to extend copyright internationally from 50 years to 70 years (because the copyright on Mickey Mouse was due to expire soon). How this matters to artists, writers, people on the Net ... whether in Australia or elsewhere.

Read on

Listen in | Real Media | Windows Media

*Ø* USA using excessive force on civilians, Turkey claims

Turkey threatens withdrawal from Iraq over mistreatment claims

"Turkey's Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, has condemned what he has called the excessive use of force against civilian populations [in Tall Afar, Iraq], he says he has asked the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, to end the fighting in the region."
Source

*Ø* Level playing field

Electioneering leader of the Australian Labor Party, Mark Latham, has announced an education funding policy that will take a little of the government funding of the richest private schools and redistribute it to some less-advantaged schools. Labor says it wants a level playing field.

The principals of the wealthy schools say they agree, in principle, with the "level playing field" concept, adding that they also want cushioned seats by the swimming pool, shade cover for the tennis court and cappuccino machines at the rifle range.

*Ø* Superheroes for a super challenge

Activist scales Buck House for fathers' rights

[I heard on the grapevine that the Queen phoned Gotham City and asked Commissioner Gordon to send more firepower, but the 'Commish' was in court trying to win quadrennial visitation rights for his children.]

"A comic book superhero perched in a dangerous location brandishing a banner has become an increasingly common sight in recent months.

"From Bristol's Clifton Suspension Bridge to London's Tower Bridge, numerous landmarks have been targeted by the costume-clad campaigners of Fathers 4 Justice.

"Britain has ordered an urgent security review at Buckingham Palace after a campaigner dressed as Batman evaded armed police and spent five hours on a ledge at the Queen's London residence.

"Jason Hatch, 32, used a portable ladder in broad daylight on Monday to scale the perimeter fence at the palace, dash across the parade ground and climb 10 metres up the front wall."
Source: New Zealand News

Death to uppity dads
"A companion dressed as his trusty sidekick Robin turned back when police threatened to shoot him as he climbed the ladder."
Source: Reuters

Picture: Batman removed from palace

“I cry silently for these children who, through no fault of their own, are forced to grieve unnecessarily and applaud the heroic fight of Fathers 4 Justice.”
Pierce Brosnan, star of Evelyn

*Ø* New at 'Kill the President'




New verses are regularly being added to the saga of Irving Lumwedder:

"Alright, you speech guys, from today, no more lies.
Listen up and get wise, things have changed.
At 3 o'clock today, I got somethin' to say,
on soil and decay, so what do you say?
What do you think?" They think "So it's true. He's deranged."

More at fishpond the blog.

*Ø* Powell said what about Shrub's neocons?

"Fucking crazies", that's what

"A furious row has broken out over claims in a new book by BBC broadcaster James Naughtie that US Secretary of State Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq.

"Powell's extraordinary outburst is alleged to have taken place during a telephone conversation with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The two became close friends during the intense negotiations in the summer of 2002 to build an international coalition for intervention via the United Nations. The 'crazies' are said to be Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz."
Source: Guardian

Tsk, tsk! My, but these conservatives have dirty hippie mouths these days.

Why doesn't Powell just quit, write a book, do lectures? How much money and power can salve that conscience (assuming that, as is widely asserted, he's actually been against Bush & Co from the beginning)? And maybe he'd get something resembling a smile back on that miserable face.

Maybe he's just not the token dove people like to paint him as. Wish he'd speak up next time his boss wants to kill fifty or sixty thousand people. Still, there's the mortgage and all. Isn't there more in lecture tours? Must be the power then. Hmmm

*Ø* Hammer day, Rome; Little Richard

Day of Driving the Nail, Roman Empire
In ancient Rome a nail was driven into the wall of the temple of Jupiter every 13 September. This was originally done to tally the year, but subsequently it became a religious ceremony for warding off calamities and plagues from the city ...

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Tutti Frutti
September 13, 1955 Los Angeles, USA: Little Richard (Richard, or Ricardo, Wayne Penniman) recorded a bowdlerised version of Tutti Frutti. What the naughty words were that he expunged, your almanackist has not been able to determine, but “all over rootie” is still in the published lyrics.

I always thought it was “I wanna rootie”. The most famous line of the song is when Richard sings “A Wop bop a lu bop ba lop bam boom!” Or something like that.

Following an Australian tour in 1957, during which he looked up into a Sydney sky and saw Sputnik and was troubled by it, he said he saw a vision of the apocalypse and his own damnation in a dream. He said he prayed to God during a fiery plane flight, promising God that if the plane landed safely he would give up his rock ’n’ roll life ...

These are just a couple of snippets of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.

*Ø* Free fantasy fonts


If you like fantasy & medieval fonts & runes & wonderful wingdings, and especially if they're free, then check out Lord Kyl's excellent collection. The site appears to have cobwebs on it (not up to date) but there's plenty of goodies left in the pantry.

*Ø* 9-11 revisited



By now, I suppose everyone knows that Bush lied about how he first heard of the tragic attack on America three years ago. This page sets it out.

Here's the biggest list of 9-11 links I've found. Here's another at the Scriptorium, and for some analysis of the event, Myths of the War on Terrorism and Iraq has a wealth of information. Don't forget An Interesting Day, which has a timeline of Bush's actions and movements on that day ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.

*Ø* Cheney, 9-11 and oil desperation

The From the Wilderness website frequently has some stimulating articles.

Now available for free download (a PDF file) is a speech given by Michael C Ruppert, which is a teaser to his new book, Crossing the Rubicon. It is a thought-provoking window into the links between the Kean commission that investigated 9-11, and the oil industry.

It's well worth a read for its presentation of facts about the parlous state of oil production in the world, and, startlingly, points a finger at Dick Cheney as responsible for 9-11. I haven't read the book (but hope to) so I have no opinion on the latter, but there is a great deal of essential reading in the speech. For me to recommend a bloody PDF, it's got to be something out of the box.

Thanks, Star Light, for sending the link to the PDF.

From the Wilderness has another article on the subject here. Again, recommended. It's called In Your Face: Connections between Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, 9/11 and Peak Oil "On the Table". Here's a quote:

60% of the world's recoverable oil is in a “golden” triangle running from Mosul
in northern Iraq, to the Straits of Hormuz, to an oil field in Saudi Arabia 75
miles in from the coast, just west of Qatar, then back up to Mosul. Sixty per
cent of all the recoverable oil on the planet is an in area no larger than the
state of Indiana .

Is it surprising then that the overwhelming majority
of US military deployment since 9/11 is in this region?

Torturing Children, by William Rivers Pitt
Also at From the Wilderness, a disturbing article by William Rivers Pitt, Torturing Children, about 107 Iraqi children abused by American forces at Abu Ghraib prison, with war crimes including sodomizing of some children. Just another one of those Internet stories that, if you're lucky, the media take notice of about two years too late.

*Ø* Ahmed Shah Massoud
I was a bit crook yesterday (I feel well now), so I couldn't post this, which commemorates this September 9 event, harbinger of the world we now inhabit. From our Book of Days for September 9:

Death of the Lion of Panjshir

Ahmed Shah Massoud ('the Lion of Panjshir'; born c. 1953), leader of the Northern Alliance, was assassinated in Afghanistan on September 9, 2001.

Massoud, probably the greatest resistance leader of the 20th century, and probably equal to any of all time, was the victim of an Al Qaeda suicide bomber attack at Khvajeh Baha od Din, two days before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the USA, and as part of that strategy.

It was the event that, in my opinion, ushered in the century and the Age of the New US Imperialism.

The assassination: prelude to 9-11
Two days before 9-11, Ahmad Shah Massoud, warrior-intellectual hero of the resistance to Russian imperialism and Taliban lunocracy, was assassinated by two suicide bombers posing as journalists. It was big news when it happened, and like many I was stunned, but like everyone else except Al Qaeda, I hadn't the slightest idea what big event it was leading up to within 48 hours. In fact, we weren't even sure he was dead because his cadres denied it, saying he was only wounded, as they played for time to regroup and plan. (It is believed that the horribly wounded Massoud died within 15 - 30 minutes, although his death was denied until September 13.)

If the official explanation for the September 11 attack on America is correct, ie, that Al Qaeda was to blame, then it's reasonable to assume that from Osama bin Laden's point of view, it was necessary to eliminate the Lion of Panjshir in order to secure local territory for the expected retaliation from the US when he attacked NYC and the Pentagon. With Massoud gone, so was bin Laden's mortal enemy and a reasonable man who did not despise the West.

Who was Ahmed Shah Massoud?
Massoud was a soccer player and coach, a horse rider, swimmer and karate sportsman, chess player, architect and reader, but he gave it all up for his country and people. "I love Hafiz's poems," he once said, "I always read them. They change and inspire me. Music talks to the innermost feelings of a human being. Poetry and music have influence on every one."

He once told National Geographic journalist Sebastian Junger (author of Fire) he was fighting not only for a free Afghanistan but for a free world. Junger wrote: "There was something about him – the slow nod of his head as he listened to a question, the exhaustion and curiosity engraved on his handsome, haggard face – that made it clear we were in the presence of an extraordinary man. I found it impossible not to listen to Massoud when he spoke, even though I didn't understand a word. I watched everything he did, because I had the sense that somehow – in the way he poured his tea, in the way his hands carved the air as he talked – there was some secret to be learned."

Nine times the Soviet Union tried to defeat the Afghans in the Panjshir Valley, and nine times they were repelled by forces commanded by Massoud. The Soviets killed approximately 1,000 Afghan military personnel and civilians to every one of their own combatants (15,000 Soviets dead compared to 1.5 million Afghans), and forced more than 7 million out of a population of 18 million to flee to squalid refugee camps where millions remain to this day. Despite this overkill, the USSR was forced to give up their war of aggression. Massoud, a brilliant military commander, was largely responsible for the victory of the Afghan people.

For at least two decades, Massoud determinedly resisted first the Soviet invaders, then the Taliban, living in a multitude of wilderness camps in the same rudimentary conditions as the guerrilla fighters under his command.

Robert D Kaplan wrote in his book The Soldiers of God, 1991: "Ahmad Shah Massoud has to be considered one of the greatest leaders of guerrilla movements in the 20th century. He defeated his enemy just like Marshall Tito, Hu Chi Minh and Che Guevara did. Massoud controlled a bigger terrain that was much more difficult to defend militarily and was under constant attack from the enemy. His territory suffered much more attacks from enemy forces than those areas which were under the control of the resistance movements of Tito, Hu Chi Minh, or Guevara."

Massoud was a man of character. In 1980, a young soldier took advantage of the darkness and shot at Massoud's car from only three metres away. Massoud told him: "Friend, your hands are trembling and you are not used to shooting anyone," and let the attacker go. Moscow tried to poison, shoot and blow up Massoud, but was never successful. On one occasion, Dr Najibullah, later President and at that time chief of the puppet Afghan government's intelligence service, sent an agent named Kamran to Panjshir where Massoud gave him the traditional and celebrated Afghan hospitality. Kamran finally came to understand Massoud's reason for resisting the Communists and handed over the muffled firearm he had been given by the Afghan government to carry out the planned assassination. Kamran then took refuge in Germany, asking for political asylum.

Massoud's last plea: "America, help us"
In Massoud's last interview, given to Newsweek two weeks before murder, his plea (couched in diplomatic terms but nonetheless clear), was for the USA to stop aiding the Pakistan/Taliban/bin Laden brutalization of his country and to develop a policy that would support moderate politics in Afghanistan. As we all know now, freedom-loving George W Bush had more important things to do at the country club and had never heard of any of these entities that his government was either supporting or turning a blind eye to.


Nobel Prize for Massoud?
Your almanackist, for one, hopes that Massoud will be awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment to freedom and the inspiration he continues to give the world. I believe that there are other ways of national self defence than Stinger missiles and home-made guns forged out of water pipes, as used by the Mujahideen under Massoud's command. However, in the real situation of the defence of a country that has been repeatedly invaded, from Genghiz Khan to the British (three times) the mighty Communist empire to the north, (and of course more recently the 'Coalition of the Willing'), at least Ahmed Shah Massoud was incorruptible, merciful, and almost worshipped by his people. And unlike the generals of the invaders, he fought on the battlefield with his men, resting in dirty caves and tents in boiling hot and sub-freezing temperatures in Afghanistan's parched desert valleys and deep-snow mountains, sleeping in a different bed most nights and eating the meagre rations of the guerrilla fighter.

Shaobakhai, Lion of Panjshir, and tashakoor. Goodnight, and thank you.

More Massoud links at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days

*Ø* Two gods at war

Another reminder to Australians about the anger their government, with its cruel policies, has naturally caused in the Muslim world. News from Australia's nearest neighbour, Indonesia (the nation with the largest Muslim population):

Embassy blast kills 7 in Jakarta

"Seven people are now reported to have been killed after a blast outside the Australian embassy building in Jakarta this afternoon, but no Australians have been badly hurt.

"Hospital officials in Jakarta say at least seven people were killed and nearly 100 injured. Indonesian Radio is also reporting around 100 people have been injured."
Source

This outrage, will, of course, up the ante. And so on ad infinitum. Expect rhetoric about the evil of these people, with never a reference to their grievances or the circumstances that can lead people to sacrifice their lives, while killing others.

Sadly, although the Australian government is aware of the context of these bombings, its leaders are expert manipulators of opinion, and they are adept at subordinating terrrorism, and the deaths of innocent people, to their political agenda. I believe we can expect much more of the same from fanatics of both the Islamist and Western economic rationalist variety. It's two gods at war while ordinary people are their collateral damage.

*Ø* The pentagram: origins in Venus



The pentagram is a fascinating arcane symbol and well known to Neopagans and occultists.

In my own view, the pentagram's origins are in part associated with the passage of the planet Venus through the skies, a view propounded by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, but don't let that put you off. Others, such as this Freemasonry website, dispute it, and I would hazard a guess that's because of the sacred feminine associations of Venus, as the Freemasons are a very masculine association.

I know there's a lot of current interest in this question, and Dan Brown's assertion that a four-year venus cycle informs the Olympics periodicity seems wrong to me. As far as I know, the Venus path is on an eight-year cycle. After that period, Venus, the Sun, Earth and the stars are in the same relative positions (more).

However, I certainly ain't no astronomer and can only go by what I read. If you have any information at all associated with this matter, or anything to do with the pentacle and its origins, I'd be grateful if you'd let me know.

Nick Anthony Fiorenza of Lunar Planner/The Venus Transit has very kindly permitted the use of his animation. I recommend his fascinating site.

*Ø* Free audio

Little Johnny Howard,
How 'ard you try ...

A funny song that isn't too respectful of the Australian Prime Minister.
You can hear the song here in mp3 format, about 4 megs and not a real fast download. You can order it here, which is the only website of a political candidate that I've ever seen which shows the candidate mucking out a bull yard (Jeremy Bradley is an organic farmer). Goodonya, Jezza! We're voting Greens in the Australian election (endorsing Democrats in the USA).

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Free Iraq! with every purchase

While I'm here, I must mention a site I just found (that's their logo at left) called Wax Audio. Lots of audio to download free, taking the piss out of the WMDs/Children Overboard politicians.

Check it out, it won't disappoint. Titles include 'Bushbeats', 'Howard Killed' (hilarious) and 'American Justice'. Slow downloads, but cool.

From the site:

American Justice
We hear the static of radio frequencies, the dial settles and we are tuned into a steady hip-hop beat & the rhythmic rhetoric of commander in chief, George W Bush, delivering his ultimatum to Saddam :

"Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict ...at a time of our choosing"

Following Dubya is John Howard, then Tony Blair. Before long all three are reciting their pre-war mantra in unison –

"Weapons of Mass Destruction, Weapons of Mass Destruction"

A punching bass line drives the rhythm beneath before Dubya returns to the front without missing a beat.

"…we have the terrorists on the run, we're keeping them on the run… one - by one - the terrorists – are learning – the meaning – of American – justice"

*Ø* Cheney's outrageous claim

Senator John Edwards released the following statement today in response to comments made by Dick Cheney that America is more likely to be attacked if John Kerry and John Edwards are elected in November:

"Dick Cheney's scare tactics crossed the line today, showing once again that he and George Bush will do anything and say anything to save their jobs. Protecting America from vicious terrorists is not a Democratic or Republican issue, it's an American issue and Dick Cheney and George Bush should know that.

"John Kerry and I will keep America safe, and we will not divide the American people to do it."

*Ø* Green Brown hits back

Vote Greens in the Australian federal election. If only to give John Anderson apoplexy.

"THE coalition was mounting a 'Greens under the bed' scare campaign to distract voters from its own shortcomings, Australian Greens senator Bob Brown said tonight.

"Senator Brown said a new round of attacks from the government, spearheaded by Nationals leader John Anderson, would simply fail and drive voters to the Greens. Mr Anderson, campaigning in the marginal Nationals' seat of Page in northern New South Wales today, said supporters of the Greens would have been members of the Communist Party in the 1950s. [Emphasis mine]

"He said the Greens were like a watermelon - green on the outside but red on the inside.

"But Senator Brown said the Greens were more like avocados - green on the inside and outside.
"
He said when it came to links with communist organisations, it was the coalition government in bed with the reds.

"'This government cosies up with the biggest communist regime in the world - Beijing,' he said.

"'I've been trying to get out monks and nuns locked up in Tibet who are on the political right, and that's being done by the Chinese.

"'If John Anderson wanted to set up the National Party in China he'd be arrested as soon as he got there.'"
Souce: Herald Sun

Andrew Wilkie for Benelong: WMDs whistleblower Wilkie for Green Party challenges Prime Minister Howard in his safe seat

*Ø* Osama Fires Publicist

No Mention At Convention Has Madman Miffed

"Al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden, reportedly 'furious' that his name was not mentioned once at last week's Republican National Convention, fired his publicist today and warned that more changes in the Qaeda publicity department may be imminent.

"According to sources close to Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda kingpin had eagerly anticipated watching the Republican gathering in its entirety, hoping to hear his name bitterly invoked dozens of times by G.O.P. speakers.

"But after hearing four nights' worth of speakers excoriating Democratic nominee John Kerry instead of him, an increasingly riled bin Laden picked up the phone and fired his publicist, David Grenway of the Grenway Group, a leading New York public relations firm."

Continue at The Borowitz Report

*Ø* Wal-Mart builds near world-famous sacred site



Mexicans battle over Wal-Mart-owned store being built near 2,000-year-old pyramids

"A Wal-Mart-owned discount store rising a half-mile from the ancient temples of Teotihuacan has touched off a fight by a small coalition that doesn't want to see the big, boxy outlet from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun.

"We'd rather not have Mickey Mouse on top of the Pyramid of the Moon"

"But with most people in the area supporting Wal-Mart, the group is waging a lonely battle for what it calls its defense of Mexico's landscape and culture.

"The dispute in Teotihuacan – a town built next to the ruins of the 2,000-year-old metropolis – illustrates how the allure of low prices and U.S. lifestyles often wins out in Mexico, leaving traditionalists struggling to draw a line in rapidly shifting cultural sands.

"'We'd rather not have Mickey Mouse on top of the Pyramid of the Moon,' says Emmanuel D'Herrera, a business owner in Teotihuacan, 30 miles north of Mexico City.He claims a tall sign will loom near the huge twin pyramids that draw hundreds of thousands of tourists annually, although a government-appointed archaeologist disputes that."
Source: SFGate

I found it at Infoshop, a website that's definitely a keeper.

Google News on Teotihuacan Wal-Mart

Click the thumb above for Common Dreams story and to expand image.

*Ø* Bush by numbers

Four years of double standards

By Graydon Carter

1 The rank of the United States worldwide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

25 Percentage of overall worldwide carbon dioxide emissions the United States is responsible for.

53 Number of days after taking office that Bush reneged on his campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

14 Percentage carbon dioxide emissions will increase over the next 10 years under Bush's own global-warming plan (an increase of 30 per cent above their 1990 levels).

408 Number of species that could be extinct by 2050 if the global-warming trend continues.

5 Number of years the Bush administration said in 2003 that global warming must be further studied before substantive action could be taken.

62 Number of members of Cheney's 63-person Energy Task Force with ties to corporate energy interests.

0 Number of environmentalists asked to attend Cheney's Energy Task Force meetings.

6 Number of months before 11 September that Cheney's Energy Task Force investigated Iraq's oil reserves.

2 Percentage of the world's population that is British.

2 Percentage of the world's oil used by Britain.

5 Percentage of the world's population that is American.

25 Percentage of the world's oil used by America.

63 Percentage of oil the United States imported in 2003, a record high.

24,000 Estimated number of premature deaths that will occur under Bush's Clear Skies initiative.

300 Number of Clean Water Act violations by the mountaintop-mining industry in 2003.

750,000 Tons of toxic waste the US military, the world's biggest polluter, generates around the world each Year.

$3.8bn Amount in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 1995, the Year "polluter pays" fees expired.

$0m Amount of uncommitted dollars in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 2003.

Source: The Independent. Found at Majority Report Radio

[To which I add:

1 The national ranking of Australia in terms of per capita greenhouse emissions.]

*Ø* Humpback whales head home, Australia

“There were around 10,000 Humpback Whales off eastern Australia in 1952. In 1962, after 10 years of commercial whaling, that number had been reduced to a critically low 100 individuals. When Humpback whales were commercially harvested between 1952 and 1962, Australia made about 1 million pounds (current value around $32M) annually in sales of oil and other whale by-products. Today in Australia around $70M is earned annually through whale-watching and associated tourist business.”

At present there are around 44 species of whale recorded in Australia, 35 of them toothed whales and nine baleen whales. The Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, is one of the baleens.

Your almanackist is fortunate enough to live a few metres back from the eastern shore of the continent (Sandy Beach, NSW). Two days ago a baby whale was stranded on the beach, as they're wont to do. I missed seeing it, but presume it was a baby Humpback on September's southward migration, from the tropical breeding waters of northern Queensland, back to the icy Antarctic.

Six thousand kilometres there and six thousand back, just to have sex – even in Australia, where long distances are the norm and God knows one can get desperate, that's a long way to go for a humpback ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.

*Ø* How to become a Wikiactivist

Wikipedia for social change

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia, is a great favourite of mine, and I have been visiting it and using it since not long after its inauguration.

Wikipedia began in a conversation between two old Internet friends, Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief of Nupedia, and Ben Kovitz, a computer programmer, on January 2, 2001. The idea was to have an encyclopaedia that was not only free to users, but which could actually be created by the general community. It might even be said that it is a very good example of anarchism at work.

When I first found Wikipedia there weren't a lot of articles but it has grown fantastically so that today there are more than 340,000 articles. It is a true Internet success story and a credit to the vision of its founders.

Planting memes and pulling up weeds at Wikipedia
Wikipedia affords a great opportunity for people with progressive ideas and a commitment to justice, peace and our natural environment to influence ideas. Anyone may initiate and edit articles, or add input to the 'Discussion' section at the head of each and every Wikipedia article. Ideas that you plant, and the rooting out of falsehoods and reactionary ideas, can influence the course of events and people's thinking in many ways.

Here are a few suggestions, just off the top of my head:

Start articles on people who have made a difference, such as activists and writers. There are already articles on movie celebrities and sports people, so let's up the ante with more inspiring people like R Buckminster Fuller, EF Schumacher, Petra Kelly, Jane Addams and Mahatma Gandhi. Together we can change the concept of celebrity;

Add useful internal and external links to existing articles. It's easy to learn how to make amendments and additions to any Wikipedia article, and most of the time no one will amend your amendments. It will happen sometimes, but you are allowed to debate it, and anyway, it won't be possible for cranky people to oppose everything you do, and you can invite some friends to join the debate – that's what democracy is all about;

Help give Wikipedia more global awareness and responsibility. If an article says something like "In 1972 the first movie about artichokes was screened", and you know that in your country there was one earlier, add the words "in the USA" ... this is necessary because Wikipedia is very Americocentric despite a policy in favour of internationalism. If an article says "Vice-President Schlemburger", it might be appropriate to add "of the USA". The authors often assume there is only one country – we all know that there will be no peace until globalism (rather than globalization) spreads;

You can bring some brain-food to articles that reveal the author's lack of thinking about what's important. For example, an article like 'F/A-22 Raptor' really needs a section that is critical of expensive death machines, and discussion about what this machinery does, i.e., kills men, women and children. There are obviously a lot of fairly unconscious people posting stuff without a view to the bigger picture, so take your monkeywrench to any article and fix it. There might be specific information you can bring to an article from your own reading, or you can search for info elsewhere. Most things have a political context and if no one points it out, Wikipedia users will be the poorer for it. Remember, if nothing changes, nothing changes;

The beauty of this is that it won't cost you a penny and you might influence thousands of people over the years. Think of all the schoolteachers and schoolkids who might get a much-needed alternative view because you took the time to assert good values where none previously existed. True, someone might edit your editing, but it's very democratic and even slightly progressive at Wikipedia, and you won't find yourself alone.

At Wikipedia you will also find links to Wikisource (where you can post source documents), Wikiquote (your choice of quotations to upload – and the authors of those quotes – can be influential in themselves), and Wikibooks.

If you think it is a good idea for progressive people to influence the world's knowledge bank in this free and easy way, I invite you to pass this on to as many people as you can.

Have fun being a Wikiactivist!

*Ø* Northern Ireland: Agreement 'in difficulty'

"Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has said that the Good Friday Agreement stands in 'considerable difficulty' ahead of talks aimed at restoring devolution.

"He was speaking in London on Monday shortly before talks with British and Irish government officials.

"Mr Adams said that the DUP had been honest that they wanted to destroy the Good Friday Agreement ...

"The Sinn Fein leader was speaking at the beginning of a week of intense political activity aimed at generating movement in the Northern Ireland political situation ...

"The political institutions in Northern Ireland were suspended in October 2002 amid allegations of IRA intelligence gathering at the Northern Ireland Office."
Full text: BBC

*Ø* Abbots Bromley Horn Dance

Abbots Bromley Horn (Antler Dance; Ceremony of the Deermen), Abbots Bromley, UK
Wakes Monday, the first Monday after September 4

Originally this was danced during the Yuletide on Twelfth Day (January 6) at Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, England. Now the Abbots Bromley Horn is danced on the first Monday after September 4, the date having been moved in the 18th Century. Six male dancers hold white and brown-painted (formerly red and white) genuine reindeer antlers on wooden poles.

The antlers were obtained from reindeer that were castrated, or domesticated during the eleventh century. As reindeer are believed to have become extinct in the British Isles by then, and we know of no domesticated herds, the antlers were possibly of Scandinavian origin. In 1976, a small splinter was radiocarbon dated to around 1065. (At Star Carr in Yorkshire, Mesolithic antler ‘frontlets’, apparently meant to be worn, have been dated to 7600 BCE.) Since 1981, the Abbots Bromley horns have been legally the property of Abbots Bromley Parish Council and for 364 days of the year, they are on display in St Nicholas Church.

The dance starts at 7 am with a service of Holy Communion in St Nicholas Church, where the horns are housed. The dance begins on the village green, then passes out of the village to Blithfield Hall, currently owned by Lady Bagot.

The dancers hold the antlers to their heads as they dance. They go round neighbouring farms before the event (a distance of about 16 kilometres, or ten miles), which is possibly left over from a more ancient fertility dance. At the end of the day, the antlers are returned to the church. The Horn Dancers comprise six ‘Deer-men’, a Fool, Hobby Horse, Bowman (Robin Hood) and Maid Marion, performing their dance to a traditional tune provided by a melodion player.

The sight of a bowman following men wearing antlers is reminiscent of scenes in the celebrated cave paintings of Lascaux, France, which date to Paleolithic times 20,000 years ago, which depict men wearing antler head-dresses being stalked by archers (pictured at left). The Kalahari Bushmen’s ritual mimicry of hunters stalking antelopes also comes to mind, as does the Apache horn dance ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.

*Ø* Equatorial Guinea demands handover of former PM's son

"Equatorial Guinea is willing to guarantee that it would not use the death penalty if it were allowed to extradite Sir Mark Thatcher and other British citizens it accuses of involvement in a coup plot, the country's Attorney-General, Jose Olo Obono, has told The Independent on Sunday.

"Sir Mark, freed from house arrest in Cape Town on Friday after his mother, Baroness Thatcher, put up £165,000 bail money, is being investigated under South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act for his alleged part in financing a botched coup against President Teodoro Obiang Nguema's regime in March. Equatorial Guinea officials are due to arrive in South Africa today, and may be allowed to question him, but the west African nation wants Sir Mark and other Britons, including Simon Mann, an ex-SAS officer facing sentence in Zimbabwe on arms charges, Greg Wales, a British businessman, and Ely Calil, a London-based oil trader accused of masterminding the plot, to face its own justice ...

"[But] Equatorial Guinea has become sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest oil exporter since offshore fields were discovered in the mid-1990s, raising the stakes. International involvement in the latest plot, which collapsed when Zimbabwe intercepted a planeload of South African former special forces soldiers in March, has kept tensions high in Malabo."
Full text

*Ø* Four SEALs Charged With Abuse Of Prisoners

Washington Post, Saturday:

"The Navy said yesterday it charged four of its SEALs with abusing detainees in Iraq, marking the first time that elite Special Operations troops have been accused of such offenses in the expanding series of probes into the U.S. military's mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan ...

"Many of the charges brought against the SEALs this week grow out of a previously reported incident on Nov. 4, 2003, in which a detainee in the custody of the CIA died at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, officials said. The investigation continues, Navy officials said, and is expected to produce additional charges against other sailors. They said they did not know how many ultimately would be charged.

"Until now, the only service members facing legal action for alleged abuses of Iraqi prisoners are seven members of an Army reserve military police unit that worked in the Abu Ghraib prison. In the hierarchy of status within the U.S. military, those part-time MP soldiers, drawn from a support unit, are virtually at the opposite end of the scale from Navy SEALs, who are seen as highly skilled and disciplined troops trained to operate in extremely dangerous situations" ...

"The four new charges came after announcements by Pentagon officials over the past two weeks that dozens of additional charges against soldiers were likely to be filed. Army investigators said they have concluded that in addition to the seven already charged in connection with alleged offenses at the Abu Ghraib prison, 30 other soldiers and contractors participated in abuse there, and 11 more could face charges or disciplinary action for not reporting what they saw.

Also, the Army last month charged a soldier for abuse of an Afghan detainee, and Army officials said earlier this week that they expect to charge 25 other soldiers in connection with abuses in Afghanistan.

[All emphasis mine.]

Full text

In the lead-up to Australia's federal election on October 9, the government has been feeling some heat on the Guantanamo detainees issue, and is frantically taking baby steps to entreat the USA to give Hicks and Habib something resembling a fair trial.

It goes to show that public pressure can have an effect sometimes, though in this case the government reveals itself as quixotic as it is cynical, for the US government has long shown it has absolutely no interest in the human rights of these Australian citizens whom it held without charge and in solitary confinement in 6 X 8 foot concrete cells for years.

*Ø* Tinkering won't help Hicks: ALP

"Tinkering with the US military commission process would not ensure Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks received a fair trial, Labor said.

"The federal government said it would seek changes to the process used to try Hicks to ensure he received procedural fairness.

"Hicks last month pleaded not guilty at a preliminary military commission hearing to charges of conspiracy to commit war crimes, aiding the enemy, and attempted murder.

"Another Australian, Mamdouh Habib, is also likely to face charges before a military commission.

"Opposition attorney general's spokeswoman Nicola Roxon said it had been known for months that the military commission process was unfair, but the Australian government had only chosen to act now.

"'We should demand ... where trials are held that people have a fair process and that if they have done something wrong and committed a crime they'll be convicted,' Ms Roxon told ABC radio.

"'But not using this trumped-up military commission process where really none of the normal rules apply and tinkering at the edges probably won't improve that.'"
Source: Yahoo! News

Downer, Ruddock admit failure on Guantanamo Bay
"The announcement that the Howard government will 'discuss' with the Bush Administration such matters as the presumption of innocence, the right to silence, the right to defence counsel and assurances against the death penalty at the Guantanamo Bay Military Commission is an admission of failure by ministers Downer and Ruddock, Greens Senator Bob Brown said in Canberra today.

"'The military commission is all but a kangaroo court. It cannot be made fair. Otherwise, why have it rather than have David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib brought before an Australian court?' Senator Brown said.

"'The government's compliance with this process is outrageous. Even Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry says he will disband the commission,' Senator Brown said."
Source: Australian Greens

*Ø* Extended Aljazeera Iraq ban blasted

"The interim Iraqi government's decision to extend a month-long ban on Aljazeera's reporting in the war-torn country has been criticised by the network and media rights groups.

"The secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, Robert Menard, on Saturday condemned the decision to indefinitely extend the closure of Aljazeera's Baghdad office.

"The decision 'contradicts Iraqi officials' statements on democracy', Menard said, adding that it went against the notions of law and freedom."
Full text

*Ø* 'Kill the President' a-comin'

I'd hoped to post some more of Kill the President today as I want to keep adding about 7 or so stanzas per week. It didn't happen but I'll try to get some more there very soon, maybe a day or two. I need to derange my brain a bit before I can do it. I don't do drugs any more so I have to hit myself around the head a lot with a piece of 4 X 2.

If you're into killing the president, you can come back about once a week and there should be a new chapter unfold in the patriotic tale of Irving Lumwedder.

*Ø* Republican Dirty Tricks, Much?


["Born yesterday...NOT! — Orwell Himself Couldn't Have Imagined This Bullshit!" — Lisa -v]

No Trespassing
Bush admin move may keep Kerry and other candidates
from stumping on federal property
By Amanda Griscom
Grist

The Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, NASA headquarters, and the Washington Monument are among the many federal properties that may be off-limits to presidential and congressional candidates for campaign photo ops this election season, thanks to a guidance recently released by the Bush administration's U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

The OSC is an independent federal agency that investigates and prosecutes issues ranging from whistleblower complaints to concerns that federal employees are participating in campaign activities prohibited by the Hatch Act, which defines election-related political no-no's for people on the government payroll.

Kerry advisers and some environmentalists are royally peeved about the advisory, calling it at best deliberately ambiguous and misleading, at worst a deliberate maneuver to gain advantage over John Kerry's presidential campaign.

The guidance is "an extraordinary reinterpretation of the Hatch Act," said David Hayes, who oversaw national parks as deputy secretary of the interior under Clinton, and who now serves as a senior adviser to the Kerry campaign. "It is a patently ridiculous and extreme measure that the Bush administration is taking to cover up its appalling record on funding and protecting national parks after promising in the 2000 campaign to make it a priority."

But OSC spokesperson Cathy Deeds told Muckraker that her agency is merely "restating the Hatch Act" in response to repeated queries over the last several months from federal employees at various agencies about which campaign activities they can participate in and what federal property is fair game. [Yeah, yeah. -v] On Aug. 9, the office issued a government-wide guidance in an effort "to clear up the confusion." That just happened to be the very day that John Kerry made a campaign stop at the Grand Canyon and delivered a speech criticizing the shortfall of funding for national parks under the Bush administration. [Emphasis added. -v]

CONTINUE

*Ø* Plenty of Precedent for Chechen Revenge


Chechen Revenge
By BigEye.com Webmaster

The Bush administration's leaders, as well as the Russian government would prefer their publics to believe that the recent Russian school massacre occurred in a vacuum. Just as 9/11, this "terrorism" also has its obvious antecedents. As inhumane and barbaric as this school atrocity was, the number of children killed is only a fraction of those murdered by Russia's and lost by their Chechen parents. [Emphasis added. -v]

Despite their horror, "terrorist" acts perpetrated by individuals and private groups pall in comparison to those undertaken by state leaders. The governments of "Western Civilization", including our own [the U.S. -v], have been complicit in atrocities committed by the Russian government for the past decade against civilians in Chechnya and their heroic defenders.

If you want to gain perspective in this matter, read each of the following Foreign Correspondent columns by Eric Margolis, published on this web site.

SOURCE

*Ø* Hail to Dads' Day in Oz

It has never snowed in Sydney, as far as anyone knows, but it does get the occasional good hail storm. The one on April 14, 1998 will probably not be forgotten for generations (click the link for photo/story). That one destroyed my new car .... while I was in it.

Today, while Sydneysiders were commemorating Fathers' Day (first Sunday in September in the World's Second-Greatest Democracy), hail came down on Sydney Town. Not like 1998, but enough to give Sydney in Springtime almost a Northern Hemisphere Christmas appearance.

Baz le Tuff sent me a link to some good photos.

For dads: links on men's issues

*Ø* Romans catching up

"Not to be shackled while the world goes to hell in a handcart, the Vatican is making up new words to hold the line against sin.

"As the only body in the world still using Latin, the Vatican has helpfully produced a new lexicon of modern words.

"It may help resolve the problem of how to threaten damnation if you dare not speak vice's name.

"Words appearing for the first time include hotpants (brevissimae bracae femineae), nightclub (taberna nocturna) and cigarette (fistula nicotiana). Like iuvenis voluptarius (the new Latin playboy), they're unlikely to feature favourably in the next papal encyclical."
Full text

*Ø* Pentagon mystery explored



Teensy-weensy hole in the Pentagon wall, no shorn-off wings, no skid marks on the lawn, an unskilled terrorist pilot with the skills of Han Solo, eyewitness accounts of a small plane or missile rather than a Boeing 757, films confiscated by FBI ...

From J-9, a Flash-animated short documentary about the plane that allegedly struck the Pentagon. It's a very slow download but I think well worth the wait. Have a cuppa while it loads.

*Ø* Google World? Nup

While I'm at it, I must mention I'm a bit fed up with Google News's presentation of what's going on in the world.

The tragedy in Beslan is a huge thing happening in the world, and top of the headlines worldwide, but Google News (which is otherwise a great service) today has headlines like

Bush Opens 11-Point Lead Over Kerry at Convention, Poll Shows
Bypass surgery among most common in USA
Cardiologist: Clinton's outlook good
A warning from Intel sets stocks tumbling

You have to scroll down for World News, which is always below news from the USA.

Memo to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin: There are 190 countries out here. Cumulatively known as "World". We love the USA as much as any of them, but ... hey, fellas, give us a break.

Granted, Google is an American company, and they can do any damn thing they want. (Why not, we may ask, all the other American companies do.) But the Internet is used by the people of the planet. Isn't it about time that Google's owners acknowledged that their own wealth comes from the people of a world, not just a nation? And even if most of their trade is domestic, perhaps they might allow internationalism to transcend parochialism.

I'd urge Google to put world news at the top, above any individual nation's local concerns. Sure, it's not very difficult for the rest of us to scroll down past Oprah Winfrey's's facelift or Edward Kennedy's grumbling gallbladder, down to "The Rest of You", but the symbolism of placing six billion people below any one country is rather telling and, quite frankly, insulting.

*Ø* Beslan

Our hearts go out to Beslan today. No suffering that has happened in Chechnya, no matter how vast, can ever justify the taking of innocent lives, especially those of children.

The Chechnyan people have suffered horrifically under the Russian boot, with organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture of one accord that human rights are still being systematically repressed in Chechnya.

It's all for Chechnya's oil, for rich industrialists and shareholders living in luxury in Moscow, Berlin, New York, Tokyo ... and countless thousands of innocents have been killed, tortured and "disappeared" to support their lifestyle.

Homes have been bombed indiscriminately, and the huge occupying Russian force behaves like Nazis, aided by the other major nations whose profit-making elites and their media ensure their citizens know practically none of the facts. Like Iraq, it's yet another case of "Sorry, but our oil is under your sand".

Even this 2001 report, 'Endless Brutality' from Physicians for Human Rights, reveals the level of the crisis, and it's quite out of date now and things have got much worse. We can well understand how long-brutalised people can get so desperate that violent reprisals seem the only choice.

Terrorism is wrong, and obsolete
However, terrorism and revenge are to be condemned as cruel and ineffectual methods of personal or political action. History records no lasting successes from the use of violence, and the skills of non-violent resistance are now well developed. There is enough experience of alternative methods of conflict resolution and self-defence to have rendered violence obsolete, especially terrorism which always turns global public opinion against the groups that employ it. Terrorism is clearly a method that works against the people who have the grievance.

People of goodwill are urged to spread knowledge of these superior strategies and tactics, information on which abounds on the Internet. The survival of our species and our world depends on it.

Crisis in Chechnya: A very good overview on one page, lotsa links. In fact, it's a must-read, IMHO.
American Committee for Peace in Chechnya
BBC's Chechnya timeline
Nonviolence.org
The Politics of Non-Violent Action (Gene Sharp)

*Ø* Cats could carry the bird flu virus

"The bird flu virus that can kill humans has the potential to be spread by cats, scientists have found.

"It had been thought that domestic cats were resistant to diseases caused by influenza A viruses - one of which, H5N1, is responsible for avian flu.

"The disease killed at least 20 people in Asia earlier this year, and forced farmers to cull almost 200m birds.

"The research, by Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, is published in the journal Science ...

"Professor John Oxford, an expert in virology at Queen Mary College, London, told BBC News Online the study was 'very significant and slightly alarming'.

"He said there was little evidence at present that cats could be infected with other forms of human flu virus, and so the possibility that H5N1 could mix with a human virus inside a cat and produce a deadly new strain was probably slim." [My emphasis - N]
Full text

*Ø* Tours open up science treasures

"The Science Museum is opening up its vast storerooms in west London.

"The public can now book a curator-led tour of some of the 170,000 objects that are not on display in the museum's South Kensington exhibition halls.

"Known as Blythe House, the storerooms are home to early telescopes and operating tables, Stone Age tools and even freeze-dried GM mice ...

"Visitors who take up what are likely to be some of the hottest tickets on the London museum circuit will wince as they marvel at the massive collection of medical instruments, many of them amassed by the philanthropist Henry Wellcome.

"There are drills to open up people's skulls, amputation saws and intricate ivory models of the human anatomy used to explain to well-to-do ladies where babies come from. [!!!]

"A bottle of pills labelled 'Aphrodisiac' bizarrely also carries a warning in small print: 'poison'.

"'I suppose you would just have to chose your priorities,' medical curator Alice Nicholls said." Full text

*Ø* NYC demos: Reports from the front lines

Police reluctantly bully demonstrators

Remember your cause and keep your mind on why you came here and on what you came to do. Remember all of those people who came before you and did just what you did tonight for something they believed in.
NYC police officer to young protester

Published here (thanks to Almaniac Star Light) is a report from the New York City demos against Bush's war machine:

"Sorry we haven’t been up-to-date with our up-dates, but thanks to George Bush and Mayor Bloomberg, we’ve been in jail!

"Here’s what happened: We’d joined a march organized by War Resisters League, Schools of the Americas, Pax Christi, Veterans for Peace and others. The event was framed with this statement:

"'Our aim is to confront the administration with the death and suffering for which they are responsible: more than 10,000 Iraiqs and Afghanis, as many as 1,000 Americans killed, thousands more wounded and scarred for life, as well as the economic victims of Bush policies – the unemployed, the uninsured, the undereducated. The Republicans have chosen to hold their convention in New York City to link George Bush and 'Ground Zero'. Bush’s policies have created 'ground zeros' of death and suffering throughout the world and we hold him accountable for that.'

"Organizers asked people to gather at 3 p.m. on Tuesday at Church and Fulton Streets (just in front of Ground Zero). The plan was to march from Ground Zero up Broadway to Union Square and finally to Madison Square Garden where a 'die-in' would be dramatized to honor the fallen.

"We arrived early to distribute Progressive Democrats of America fliers to the crowd as they gathered. An estimated 1-2,000 people had assembled. After a brief negotiation between organizers and police, a police officer clearly in charge of the event (whose badge read 'Shea') announced to the marchers over a megaphone that the march could begin. He cautioned marchers to:

Obey all traffic lights
Walk 2 X 2
Stay close to the fence and keep the sidewalk clear

"As we were told to do, we waited for the traffic light to change before crossing Church Street to begin marching East on Fulton. As we began to walk along the south side of St. Pauls’s Church, we walked 2 X 2 and stayed as close to St. Paul’s wrought iron fence as we could. When 100-200 had moved onto Fulton Street sidewalk, the march was halted by police at the front forcing marchers to spill into the whole sidewalk. The police (who numbered almost as many as the protesters) immediately closed off and circled the marchers contained on the sidewalk. We couldn’t move. We couldn’t back up or leave. We heard no warning and were not allowed disperse. We were enclosed by an orange net fencing and were told that we were being arrested.

"At about 4:15 p.m., police began rounding us up, handcuffing us and putting us onto to buses to be taken away. We then began being told that we were not “arrested” but merely 'detained'.

Twenty-four-hour ordeal
"What followed was a 24-hour ordeal of being moved from a temporary holding facility and eventually to central booking. We were continuously moved from cell to cell – chained to each other in chain-gang fashion. Conditions were deplorable. The cells were overcrowded and filthy and the food was not edible.

"As more and more people were brought into jail, we learned that similar sweeps had taken place across Manhattan. People were picked up at Union Square, Times Square, Madison Square Garden, the Library, and various other locations. It was a planned sweep to interrupt and shut down growing nonviolent protests to the Republican National Convention.

"Such is the 'America' that George Bush has brought us to.

"We do want to acknowledge that the rank and file police were overwhelmingly in support of us but seem to feel forced to satisfy the top brass to keep their jobs and feed their families. During our incarceration, we heard these comments from police:

"One police officer looked us in the eye and sadly said, 'I’m so sorry.'
Another said: 'You don’t think that any of us want to be doing this, do you?'
Another officer told us during the wee hours of the morning, that 'We’re doing this to keep the rich Republicans happy.'
Another officer reminded us that: 'When you’re feeling down and discouraged, remember why you’re here and what you came to do.'
And my favorite story ... When a young 17-year-old woman began to cry as she was being fingerprinted, the officer finger printing her gently said to her: 'Remember your cause and keep your mind on why you came here and on what you came to do. Remember all of those people who came before you and did just what you did tonight for something they believed in'."

Sherry and Thom Bohlen reporting from New York City, September 1, 2004
Sherry Bohlen, Arizona Democratic Progressive Caucus

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Indymedia has the latest on the protests and so does Indymedia NYC.

See also CounterConvention.org, which writes

Never has a convention been hosted so late in the year and this is the first time a Republican Convention has been in New York City. Why host a convention in September? Why New York? By exploiting our grief and trauma from September 11th, the right wing intends to further their regressive political agenda.

Thousands arrested in battle for New York
Judge orders release of NY protesters
Photo blog

"New York (CNSNews.com) - About a thousand protesters descended on Fox News Channel's headquarters in New York City on Tuesday afternoon and blasted the network as a fascist arm of the Republican Party."
Protesters Denounce Fox News for 'Twisted Views'

For breaking news of protests, call 212-233-5767

* Ø * Ø * Ø *



Click

PS I've heard that these huge demonstrations haven't been getting much media coverage across the USA. If you have an important progressive action planned or in progress, we recommend you upload info to your local free Indymedia website, of which there are dozens worldwide. There's a list in the left-hand column at Indymedia central And we might be able to help by placing brief reports here. Just ask.

*Ø* Windows XP update problems

"Millions of business users face problems when installing Microsoft's big security update for Windows XP.

"About 10% of all desktop machines will suffer compatibility problems following the installation of the SP2 update warns Canadian firm AssetMetrix ...

"Microsoft itself has detailed 60 programs, many produced by Microsoft itself, that will not work as they used to once the SP2 update is installed.

"In some cases tweaking Windows settings will solve the problems but in other cases more drastic action is needed."
Full text: BBC

*Ø* Wattle Day, Australia

This here is the wattle,
emblem of our land.
You can stick it in a bottle,
you can hold it in your hand.
Monty Python's Flying Circus*



Formerly August 1, Wattle Day was gazetted for September 1 by the Keating Government in 1992. The wattle may be one of many species available, and it is said that across Australia, on any day of the year there is at least one species flowering.

The flower loved by Australians (except allergy sufferers) was so named because the early British and Irish settlers used wooden slats and sticks of these Acacia trees to make their wattle-and-daub huts, being made of clay spread over light timbers in the style of the old country, or 'Home' as it was known for many years in the colony.

Australia's colours, as seen at the (ptuii!!) Olympiks are green and gold, due to the popularity of the plant and its frequent presence in the Australian bush alongside the omnipresent gumtrees (Eucalyptus spp).

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.

We have the full text of the Monty Python classic 'Aussie sketch' today, including 'The Drinking Song of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Woolloomooloo', with lyrics & audio of the song.

*Ø* So funnee!

I didn't watch a single event during the Olympics. Whether one is pro or anti competitive sports, I believe that the alleged corruption at IOC level, the scandal of sweatshops, and the never-ending saga regarding steroids etc. have soured it all for many. I saw a half-hour of the opening ceremony, which was quite spectactular as a pageant. But this is the funniest story of my week so far:

EU claims ‘victory’ over US in Athens

"Brussels: The European Union claimed on Monday that it was the true champion of the Athens Olympics, taking far more gold medals than the United States, the official winners of the most first places at the Games.

"The 25 EU member states compete as individual nations in Olympics, but that did not stop the EU’s executive European Commission from adding up their scores.

"'With 82 gold medals and all together 286 medals, the European Union swept the floor in the Olympic Games,' chief spokesman Reijo Kemppinen told a daily news briefing. 'For the sake of comparison, the United States of America won 35 gold medals and 103 medals in total, with China and Russia behind them (the United States).'

"He also said that European Commission president Romano Prodi hoped that the blue EU flag with its 12 gold stars would be featured for the first time at the 2008 Beijing Games." Full text

And then:

"Anti-EU papers aghast at Brussels 'hijack' of Olympics

"LONDON (AFP) - The European Commission spokesman might only have been joking when he hailed the collective success of the European Union at the Olympics, but for the vehemently anti-Brussels [UK] press it was no laughing matter ...

"'New EU bid to hijack Olympic glory,' screamed the Daily Mail in a front-page banner headline ...

"'Fury at 'Euro medal total'' was the page two headline of the Sun, the country's best-selling daily paper, which closely reflects the euro-scepticism of its proprietor, Australian-born media tycoon Rupert Murdoch ..."
Full text

*Ø* Reclaiming Islam from the Radicals

"With two French journalists facing execution in Iraq by Islamic radicals unless France scraps an imminent headscarf ban in schools, Muslims are protesting against the hijacking of their religion by terror groups.

"It is not only the government in Paris and numerous colleagues who demand the release of the two kidnapped French journalists in Iraq who have been threatened with death: There are also many voices from the Islamic world, including Amr Mussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League.

"The calls for the release of Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper have stressed that from the very beginning, France was opposed to the war in Iraq. Therefore any French reporters on the ground would be operating in a neutral capacity.

"But this latest case of westerners being held captive under a death threat in Iraq has little to do with the contentious conflict in that land.

"It is claimed that their detention and possible execution in fact has its roots in a situation within France, their own country. The kidnappers from the so-called 'Islamic Army of Iraq' are not concerned with France's political involvement in the Iraq war but with the headscarf ban in French schools which comes into effect at the beginning of September.

"The kidnapping case has revealed a level of public protest more notable and with more supporters than the amount of Islamic federations who stand against the headscarf ban. The protest is against the kidnapping itself and it is coming from a large contingent of French Muslims.

An insult to all Muslims

"Those who have joined to protest are angry about the use of the word 'Islamic' in the title of the group responsible and in the justification of its actions. They see this as an insult to Muslims all around the world, and reject the claim made by the group that the actions are dictated by the Koran, Islam's holy teachings."
Continue here

*Ø* Republican National Convention Schedule

Revised, August 2004

6:00pm - Opening prayer

6:15pm - Supplementary opening prayer

6:30pm - Prayer in thanks of first two prayers

6:45pm - New energy policy presented by Exxon

7:00pm - Canonization of Reagan

7:15pm - Additional prayers

7:30pm - Opening remarks by Halliburton

8:00pm - Prayer for the safety and well-being of Ken "Kenny-boy" Lay

8:15pm - Additional remarks by Halliburton

8:30pm - Stoning of the first homosexual

8:45pm - New healthcare polices presented by HMO leader, Kaiser Permanente

9:00pm - Invasion of Iran or North Korea (TBA)

9:15pm - Halliburton contributes 1.4 billion to Republican party

9:30pm - Reagan elevated to savior, Holy Trinity now referred to as "the quads"

9:45pm - Bush undergoes plast! ic surgery to look more like Reagan

10:00pm - Cheney runs into Ron Reagan, Jr. Tells him to go fuck himself

10:15pm - Recall of troops from accidental invasion of South Korea (Bush: "Damn, the SOUTH is our ally. My bad.")

10:30pm - Burning at the stake of 16 year-old Jenny Williams, who had an illegal abortion after being raped by her cousin

10:45pm - Dancing around the golden calf

11:00pm - Stoning of the partner of the first homosexual

11:15pm - New forestry policy presented by Weyerhaeuser

11:45pm - Thanking God for his wisdom in choosing Bush as president

12:00pm - Closing prayers (lasting until 2:00am)

2:00 am - Hookers arrive for all delegates

[Thanks to Almaniac Tom Hogan for sending this.]

*Ø* Lesson in rational thought from Giuliani

"Giuliani recalled standing below the north tower on Sept. 11 and seeing a man jump to his death from the 101st or 102nd floor.

"'At the time, we believed that we would be attacked many more times that day and in the days that followed,' he said. 'Without really thinking, based on just emotion, spontaneous, I grabbed the arm of then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and said to him, "Bernie, thank God George Bush is our president." I say it again tonight, "Thank God George Bush is our president."'"
Source

See what happens when you don't really think?

*Ø* UK Seeks Global Support for Stem Cell Research

"LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's leading scientific institution said Monday it is urging countries to back a campaign to stop a possible ban on stem cell research as part of a global treaty banning human cloning.

"The London-based Royal Society is stepping up its drive to push the United Nations to ban the cloning of babies, but to make no ruling on using the technology for medical research, or therapeutic cloning, at its 59th General Session in October."
Continue here

*Ø* Cleopatra the beautiful



August 30, 30 BCE Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) committed suicide at the court of Cleopatra VII of Egypt of Egypt when he wrongly heard that his queen was dead.

Cleopatra later committed suicide (legend has it she clasped an asp, the royal snake of Egypt, to her bosom) when she thought she would be exhibited by Octavian in his triumph at Rome.

I've never been very fond of Elizabeth Taylor, but if I had to choose ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.

*Ø* Oz elections: lesser of two evils?

As in the USA, electors will choose between two conservatives


Well, it's official. Australia goes to the polls on October 9, to choose between Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.

The right-wing Prime Minister John Howard refuses to divulge whether he plans to retire during the term if he is re-elected, and thus hand over the reins of power (unbridled?) to right-wing Treasurer Peter Costello. Costello refuses to promise not to challenge Johnny Howard's leadership after the election, if they win. The Government is running on a platform of "trust". Leader of the Opposition, the right-wing Mark Latham, missed his golden opportunity today by responding to that announcement with politician weasel words instead of one long, cackling laugh.

Meanwhile, someone said today "A vote for Howard is a vote for Costello". Someone replied, "Yeah, but a vote for Latham is a vote for Latham".

Latham's Labor Party, one of the very first social democrat parties in the world, and written about by VI Lenin, has moved inexorably closer to the middle. If that wasn't bad enough, because the right, represented by Howard's misnamed "Liberal Party", has moved so extremely right, the middle has shifted, making middle-of-the-road Laborite Latham just slightly to the left of Goebbels. However, many feel that Australia has an "anyone but Howard" situation.

Much of the above, we can be sure, will all have the ring of familiarity to our American readers.


Australian PM calls October poll

"CANBERRA, Australia -- Prime Minister John Howard says Australians will head to the ballot boxes on October 9, in a race that is seen as being the closest in 30 years.

"The 65-year-old leader will be pitted against maverick Labor leader Mark Latham in his bid to win a fourth consecutive term of government.

"Howard's eight-and-a-half-year-old conservative coalition has trailed the main center-left opposition Labor in recent opinion polls after months of unofficial campaigning ...

"Earlier this month, 43 eminent Australians – including two former chiefs of defense, three former intelligence chiefs and 30 former ambassadors – issued a scathing public statement accusing the government of deceit, and of rubber-stamping foreign policies decided by Washington.

"'We are concerned that Australia was committed to join the invasion of Iraq on the basis of false assumptions and the deception of the Australian people,' the statement said.

"The group said Howard told Australians in March 2003 that his reason for supporting the U.S.-led coalition was disarming Iraq, not removing Saddam Hussein.

"Two Australian inquiries have found the government did not misrepresent intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs and had not pressured spy agencies into bolstering a case for war.

"Australia still has nearly 900 troops in and around Iraq, and their deployment is likely to become a key election issue, with Howard saying they must remain there as long as they are needed ..."
Source: CNN

*Ø* Blog spammers

What a shame that bloglinker is being spammed. About 6,000 blogs are using what has been till now an excellent link exchange (it's in our right-hand column, down low), but now the owner of bloglinker has had enough and sounds like he wants to sell.

At time of writing, the following dubious-sounding "blogs" are gaining valuable free reciprocal links from bloglinker members:

The Best Online Pharmacy for Women 30 Aug
Orchid Care 30 Aug
emarketingprofit - powerlinking smartpages and blogbooks 30 Aug
PartnersManager 30 Aug
Cover for Ebook - Ecover Software 30 Aug
phone sex 30 Aug
CashWayz Links 30 Aug
GrowingWealthOnline 30 Aug
Jack Humphrey's Website Promotion Log 30 Aug
Profitbuz 30 Aug
BizOppCity - Get Rich Before You Get Old. 30 Aug
A Home Business That Makes Perfect Sense 30 Aug
BreakTrue Impact Newzine 30 Aug
Profitbuz 30 Aug
Net Affiliate Programs - Work at Home Ideas and Opportunities 30 Aug
new infoproducts 30 Aug
Smart Designer Consultants 30 Aug
Downline Builder 30 Aug
Free IQ Test 30 Aug
Russian Brides 30 Aug
Your Thai Bride is waiting to meet you... 30 Aug
Popinadvertising 30 Aug
Online Dating 30 Aug
BPJC Enterprises.biz

And that's just today's list. My apologies if any of these is a genuine blog.

In fact, not one of the recently updated blogs looks genuine. How do these people sleep at night? They probably don't, they sleep by day, hanging upside down.

Protesters against President George W. Bush march in front of Madison Square Garden, site of the Republican National Convention in New York. The marchers were estimated by the United for Peace and Justice coalition to reach more than 200,000. Source

*Ø* Geek or serial killer?

If you (like me) tend to think you can tell a lot about someone just from his face, try out this test.

Turn off your speakers if you don't want to hear the (fake) screams. :)

*Ø* More about bananas - and 400 massive spiders

Tropical spiders give family the creeps

"A Staffordshire family home has been plagued by an infestation of tropical spiders for almost two months after they were brought in on a bunch of bananas.

"The Huntsman spiders, more commonly found in the US and the Caribbean, began breeding in the home of Emma Bradbury, of Salters Lane, Werrington, eight weeks ago.

"One adult can give birth to up to 400 offspring - and now her home is overrun with the creatures, which can grow as large as four inches." [And the family is still in the house. Yikes!]
Full text

Bananas could power Aussie homes [?]

"Australian engineers have created an electricity generator fuelled by decomposing bananas, and hope to build a full size fruit-fired power station.

"At present, much of Australia's annual banana crop goes to waste, because the fruit are too bruised or small ...

"However Dr Clarke admits this technology has a flaw: it takes an awful lot of bananas to generate a small amount of power.

"He said: '60kg of bananas are needed to power a household appliance such as a fan heater for 30 hours.'" [Hmmm ...]
Full text

*Ø* Thucydides, war and peace

In a Neopagan e-list to which I subscribe, came this message (my reply is below)

Please ponder this.

War is and evil thing, but to submit to the dictation of other states is worse. Freedom if we hold fast to it, will ultimately restore our losses, but submission will mean permanent loss of all we value. To you who call yourselves men of peace, I say: You are not safe unless you have men of action on your side.

-Thucydides

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Dear Gyllias,

I've pondered the quotation as requested, and thank you for it.

Thucydides was a remarkable man and a fine historian for his day, but his views on freedom and the necessity of war must be taken with a grain of salt. We only know his name because he wrote the history of the Peloponnesian War. He might, in fact, be considered to have had a vested interest in human slaughter. As a general of Athens, he most certainly had a vested interest in war, and no doubt was surrounded by a culture too wrapped up in war to think outside the square. His family background is heavily aristocratic and military, which must have coloured his thinking.

Thucydides was largely able to write his famous history because his inherited wealth afforded him luxuries such as education.The money for this came from the suffering of his family's slaves who worked in their gold mines. Thucydides, I feel, has little to share with us about freedom. Like many readers, I also find his writings to reveal an incredibly pessimistic man, so I'm not surprised if he doesn't have the brightness of mind to consider imaginative alternatives to war. Not everyone can do it.

He's been dead for 2,400 years and despite his wisdom (and I really do love the old coot), the challenges of the 21st century are way beyond his experience and understanding. He knows nothing of globalization nor the manipulation of public consent. The past has much to offer us, but very little of the arts and sciences of conflict resolution and creative alternatives to violence, as these are on the whole new disciplines. Thucydides could never have imagined the writings of people like Gene Sharp. Sharp is one of many who remind us that war, which was horrible in 5th-century BCE Greece, is even worse today and completely unnecessary as we've developed techniques that render it obsolete. National self defence needs no weapons.

So, thank you for stimulating me with this quotation. It reminded me of cranky old Thucydides, his wonderful writing, and most importantly, that there is much work to be done by peace-loving pagans to spread the word in the Neopagan community, which is still confused on this pressing issue. I'm sure most of us believe that there is absolutely no point to any religion if it is not about peace.

Bright blessings,

Pip

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

[pagans4peace Yahoo! Group is another great group.]

*Ø* No Olympics level playing field

How much longer will these dreary Olympics be on?

It will be so nice when the news tells us what's really going on in the world instead of playing another interview with some puffing athlete. Most galling of all, of course, is the constantly repeated myth that when a rich country like Australia wins "gold, gold gold", there is some sporting fairness in the achievement. It's a lie as big as the obvious canard that says that competition between people and nations engenders brotherhood.

There is, of course, no level playing field in international sport. Australian athletes are supported by huge taxpayer-funded institutions; most countries have no chance of matching that largesse. And when people with full bellies beat hungry people, what is the cause of national pride? Two thirds of the world's population don't stand a chance, and hungry people have other things on their minds. That makes international sport sound like a cheating game to me.

A radio station in Senegal is offering listeners a 50 kg sack of rice if they can catch and kill 50 kg of locusts (source). Maybe the Olympics corporation could consider adding events like that.

*Ø* Kiss your rights goodbye

From a scathing assessment of Ashcroft and the US Administration:

"Ashcroft is, not to mince words, a lunatic. This would have been universally recognized at almost any other moment in American history. In the looking-glass world of 'the war on terror,' however, Ashcroft's religious manias haven't excited even mild censure from anyone in government. By all reports, Ashcroft runs the Department of Justice like a Pentecostal revival meeting, enjoining his staff to raise their voices in righteous hymns of his own composition ...

"What should have been a disaster for G.W. Bush's presidency, then, has instead served as a pretext for conducting it like a dictatorship, with John Ashcroft's Justice Department as its secret police."
Source: Village Voice

*Ø* Physics 911



Physics911.org: Applying Science to Uncover the Truth. I could spend hours there, but haven't gottem.

*Ø* Aussie denied USA's kangaroo court

Bush's 'justice': three years solitary, no charge, no lawyer

"ELEANOR HALL: While David Hicks has been able to see his family, however briefly, the other Australian inmate in the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is yet to enjoy similar privileges.

"After being in detention for almost three years, Sydney man, Mamdouh Habib, still has no idea when he might be brought to trial before the military commission system.

"And despite a US court ordering that Mr Habib should be allowed access to a lawyer, his Australian solicitor has again been refused permission by US authorities to visit his client."
Source: The World Today

*Ø* Watchdog's Big Brother UK warning

"The UK could 'sleepwalk into a surveillance society' as a result of ID cards and other plans, UK information commissioner Richard Thomas has warned.

"He told The Times he had concerns about how much information would be collected and shared under the ID card plans.

"Mr Thomas also suggested he was uneasy about plans for a population register and a database of every child.

"He used General Franco's Spain as an example of what can happen when a state knows too much about its citizens."
Source: BBC News

UK ID Card Webpage
Privacy International
Privacy issues in Australia (if you have more info, please send in, because reports are slipping through the net saying that some disturbing legislation is being drafted, but I'm finding it hard to locate)

*Ø* 9/11: What did Goss and Graham know?

This kinda throws some interesting questions at Senator Bob Graham and Rep. Porter Goss, chairmen of the Senate and House Committees on Intelligence and the investigation into 9/11.

"The chairmen of the Joint Inquiry have dubious links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which is known to have actively supported Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

"Moreover, according to intelligence sources, including the FBI, Pakistan's ISI played a role in financing the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"The two Joint Inquiry chairmen Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss were fully cognizant of the "Pakistani ISI connection" and the role played by its former head, General Mahmoud Ahmad.

"Why then did they choose to exclude an examination of the role of the ISI from the Joint Inquiry's 858 page Report? ...

"In late August 2001, barely a couple of weeks before September 11, Senator Bob Graham, Representative Porter Goss and Senator Jon Kyl were on a top level mission in Islamabad, which was barely mentioned by the US media.

"Meetings were held with President Pervez Musharraf and with Pakistan's military and intelligence brass including the head of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mahmoud Ahmad. Amply documented, the ISI is known to support a number of Islamic terrorist organizations. (See Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) here)

"According to the FBI, Indian Intelligence and several press reports, the ISI Head was instrumental in providing financial support to the 9/11 terrorists. General Mahmoud Ahmad had allegedly ordered the transfer of $100.000 to the presumed 9/11 ring-leader Mohamed Atta."
Source: Sydney Indymedia
More on this
And more
What Really Happened

*Ø* Vale Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

For years, I have been stalked by a bad reputation. Actually, I have been pursued by people who have regarded me as the Death and Dying Lady. They believe that having spent more than three decades in research into death and life after death qualifies me as an expert on the subject. I think they miss the point. The only incontrovertible fact of my work is the importance of life.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross; The Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying (her autobiography), 1997

I can't let Tuesday's passing of the remarkable Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. July 8, 1926) go unmentioned here. I've placed a brief obit at August 24 in the Book of Days.

*Ø* No USA justice for Aussie hicks

[Whenever you see the image above, you can click for updates on Australians being denied natural justice by the Bush Administration.]

"ELEANOR HALL: Today, after three years of detention at Guantanamo Bay, where he has been held by the United States as an enemy combatant, Australian David Hicks finally faced the military commission which will try him on charges including conspiracy and attempted murder.

"Having spent the majority of the last three years in solitary confinement, Hicks was put in the now unfamiliar position of confronting a large group of people when he appeared unshackled and wearing civilian clothes to plead not guilty to all charges.

"David Hicks was also allowed to see his father, Terry, for the first time in five years.

"The ABC's North America Correspondent, Leigh Sales, was in the courtroom at Guantanamo Bay for today's hearing.

"LEIGH SALES: Many of the observers made two comments after today's court hearing. The first was how totally composed and inscrutable David Hicks was. The Adelaide man showed no reaction at all to proceedings, nor did he attempt to make eye contact with his family, except for one occasion when he first walked in.

"The second observation was how impressive the lead defence counsel, Josh Dratel, was. Mr Dratel is a New York based civilian lawyer who works alongside Steve Kenny and Major Michael Mori on the Hicks case ...

"Outside, Major Mori repeated his assertion that the military commission process will not deliver a fair trial.

"MICHAEL MORI: The process, I don't think, myself, Josh, Steve or any of us, have ever hidden from David that he is facing an unfair system that has been resurrected from the 1940s and he's been thrust into it and his life and freedom is being put in jeopardy.

"It's being placed in a system that the United States would not tolerate for its citizens, that Britain will not tolerate for its citizens. And I can't understand why David Hicks' life has to be placed in this position. I think we've never hidden that from him and he knows it ...

"LEX LASRY: My main concern, or my main area of surprise is this combination of judge and jury in the panel, the way that process… how that process will practically work seems to me to be a bit of a mystery. But I haven't seen it functioning so it's perhaps a bit early to tell.

"LEIGH SALES: David Hicks is back in his orange jumpsuit in solitary confinement in Camp Echo tonight, his flash charcoal suit in mothballs until his next appearance before the Commission in November. His full trial will start on the 10th of January next year.

"This is Leigh Sales in Guantanamo Bay for The World Today."
Source

Fair Go for David
Charge John Howard website
Aussie activist harrassed in USA by FBI

*Ø* Krakatoa Scream

Munch painted in volcano's sunsets

August 26, 1883

On the Indonesian island of Rakata, the volcano Krakatoa (real name, Krakatau) erupted with one of the biggest volcanic explosions ever in human history (some say Santorini’s eruption in 1628 BCE was three times as forceful. Krakatoa was heard over 7.5 per cent of the earth’s surface).

The sound of the eruption was heard as far as 3,540 km away, in Australia. By way of comparison, an equivalent phenomenon in Australia would be an explosion in Perth being heard in Sydney, or in the USA, a New York explosion being heard in San Francisco. Tidal waves caused by the great blast killed 36,000 people in Java and Sumatra.

‘Modern’ communications helped the world know about Krakatoa in a short time and helped changed the world view of the day. Whereas news of Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 assassination did not reach London for 12 days, Europeans and Americans knew about the explosion of Krakatoa in four hours. The difference: in the years between 1865 and 1883 there had been three great developments: the invention of Morse Code; the global spread of the telegraph, and the establishment of Reuter’s news agency. No longer could the world be seen as vast and unknowable.

The eruption is also the subject of a 1969 Hollywood film entitled Krakatoa, East of Java starring Maximilian Schell – which is notable chiefly for getting the volcano’s location embarrassingly wrong; Krakatoa is in fact west of Java.

It has been discovered that Edvard Munch painted The Scream when Norway was experiencing brilliant sunsets following the great explosion, no doubt influencing his depiction of the sky in the famous painting ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.

*Ø* Teleportation goes long distance

"Physicists have carried out successful teleportation with particles of light over a distance of 600m across the River Danube in Austria.

"Long distance teleportation is crucial if dreams of superfast quantum computing are to be realised.

"When physicists say 'teleportation', they are describing the transfer of key properties from one particle to another without a physical link.

"The team has published its findings in the academic journal Nature."
Source: BBC News via Almaniac Star Light (USA)

*Ø* Last sacrifice of the Celts

August 25, 1778

The last pagan sacrifice of a bull to be conducted publicly in the Celtic world, was performed on the island of Eilean Maree (Maelrubha, formerly Eilean a Mhor Righ – Island of the Great King), in Loch Maree, a lake in the Ross and Cromarty region of the Scottish Highlands. The sacrifice was to ensure the healing of mental disorders.

Libations of milk were also poured out on the hills, ruined chapels were perambulated, wells and stones worshipped, and divination practised each year on this date, the alternative feast day of St Malrubius, known locally as St Mourie. 

It's likely that Maol Rubha (pronounced mull-roo-ah) supplanted Mourie, a pagan Moon god of earlier times. The crescent moon is shaped like a bull’s horn, and this might be why the bull was associated with the ancient rites and festivities – at Eilean Maree and elsewhere.

The island was formerly known as and its festival is closely connected to the Irish Lughnasad, which also featured animal sacrifice. On the island there is a spring known as St Maelrubha’s Well, long considered to have healing properties, especially for the mentally ill. A visitor who witnessed these rites in 1772 told how a sufferer was forced to kneel before an ancient altar and then drink water from the well before being dipped three times in the loch.

And whoso bathes therein his brow
With care or madness burning,
Feels once again his healthful thought
And sense of peace returning.
John Greenleaf Whittier

In 1656, the Scottish Presbytery had condemned the “abominable and heathenish” practices that took place on this day – practices that included ceremonial well dressing. As late as 1911 in Ireland, the peasantry still killed a sheep or heifer for St Martin on his festival, and ill-luck was thought to follow the non-observance of the rite ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.

*Ø* Poor man's PR

Mindful of the fact that, just as a crazy rich man is eccentric but a crazy poor man is a nutter, a rich man has PR and a poor man has shameless self-promotion, your almanackist is pleased to report we have passed the mark of three quarters of the Book of Days.

That is, 276 days out of the 366 days are done online – more than 2,130,000 words of folklore, calendar customs, alternative history and oddities.

With your support, which is very welcome, we'll continue to go round the whole Wheel of the Year. I invite readers to see how our system of support operates.

I'm always delighted when members write, and I enjoy replying. Susan, an Almaniac from California who formerly unsubscribed to Wilson's Almanac ezine but has now returned, wrote this week:

"Pip, I enjoy your ezine very much. It is so much fun and educational!! I quit you for a while – 9/11 and your anti-Bush opinions – but I have changed my mind about the whole thing now – a lot of Americans have."

That was such a nice email to receive and it warmed my heart.

Way back on August 2, 2002 in the Almanac, were the words:

"The government of my country, Australia, and several others apparently, are planning an invasion of Iraq ... Wilson's Almanac will oppose this war ..."

You can read the whole statement in the Yahoo! Groups archives, message number 650.

At that time there was almost no discussion of an invasion, and certainly little opposition. Many people at the time thought my words were crazy, and on that day began a mass exit from the Almanac ezine's subscriber base that now seems to be reversing. We have continued with what we believed then to be right and honourable.

To those who stayed, or left and returned, and to all who have just surfed in, a big thanks. There would be no Almy without you. :)

*Ø* Former Oz Libs president's anti-Howard campaign

"A former federal president of the Liberals thinks the party would be better off without John Howard.

"John Valder today helped launch the 'Not Happy John' campaign, designed unseat Mr Howard in his Sydney seat of Bennelong."
Source: ABC Oz

Note: The Liberal Party is the governing party in Australia. Despite its name, it is a conservative party akin to the Republicans in the US and the Tories in the UK.

*Ø* Lots of political toons

Here is a huge page of American political cartoons, some old, some new. A long download, though.

*Ø* Guantanamo trials 'completely illegal'

Reporter: Eleanor Hall, Radio National, ABC (Australia's taxpayer-funded national broadcaster)

"ELEANOR HALL: As we've been hearing the Australian Government says it’s confident the special military tribunal set up to try David Hicks will be fair.

"But a New York lawyer who represented Guantanamo detainees in the Supreme Court earlier this year is scathing of the military tribunal system.

"Attorney, Michael Ratner, is President of the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York and earlier today I asked him about the pending military tribunals.

"MICHAEL RATNER: It's my view now that these are completely illegal, both under our domestic law as well as under international law. So unusual would be an understatement. They're not just unusual but as many of us have said – they're unfair as well.

"ELEANOR HALL: The Australian Government though says it's been assured that the trial procedures being used for David Hicks are based on fundamental principals of justice like the presumption of innocence and proof beyond reasonable doubt?

"MICHAEL RATNER: Yeah, I find their position really remarkable and completely unjustified. I mean, we have to start with the idea that first the President designates who is going to be tried. The President then appoints the military prosecutors. He then appoints the military judges. There's no appeal from these tribunals and they allow all kinds of evidence in. Even coerced evidence. So there's nothing fair about this. There's nothing that resembles justice. It's really inexcusable to me that any government that would call itself civilised at this point would support these kind of tribunals.

"ELEANOR HALL: Now, you mentioned that there are questions about whether evidence obtained under coercion will be admissible. How does this compare to rules of evidence in say a murder trial?

"MICHAEL RATNER: Well, in murder trials, coerced evidence cannot be used. If the government hasn't given you an attorney, it's assumed that the statement is coerced. If they've obviously been kept in detention for two and a half years and not only subject to very, wildly coercive tactics including possibly torture – whether in David's case or in the people who might be used as witnesses against him. And when I say people as witnesses against him, another real problem with these tribunals is that they can be trials by affidavit. So if there's a witness that says David did something, they can put in his statement, and you can't cross-examine the person, and they then come in and say national security – you can't cross-examine him. So the Bush administration here is not going to even allow David Hicks' lawyers to examine, as far as I know, a number of the witnesses here.

"ELEANOR HALL: So these witnesses will be testifying anonymously will they?

"MICHAEL RATNER: Well, testifying would be an exaggerated word I'm afraid. It may be that a lot of these people come in simply by an affidavit or a paper and there's nothing much you can do. So not only could there be anonymous witnesses – there could be no witnesses at all other than the statements given to army investigators again, without knowing the circumstances that those statements were given – could very well have been coercive, in fact in the case of Guantanamo where the coercion has been rampant.

"ELEANOR HALL: So how will David Hicks' lawyers mount a defence?

"MICHAEL RATNER: Well, for starters, just two things about David Hicks' lawyers. Apart from the overall rules that have made these tribunals very unfair, the actual treatment right now of the lawyers and others who are trying to defend David Hicks and the others, has been completely unfair. They're not getting access to the discovery they need. They're not getting enough money to go travel to Afghanistan and actually interview witnesses. So there's a whole series of motions that have to be decided over the next couple of months of arguments that the lawyers are going to make – that they haven't been provided with the information that they need. So that's one real downer. The second thing is, the US Government doesn't pay anything for the civilian lawyers. His military lawyer, Colonel Michael Mori, is an excellent lawyer – has been objecting to these, and people should understand, this is a colonel – major actually, Major Michael Mori – a major in the US military and he himself has said that these are unfair tribunals, that they have no place in the justice system and that these people should be tried – if at all – by courts martials.

"ELEANOR HALL: Now you also said that there's no appeal process. To what extent is that a concern?

"MICHAEL RATNER: Well it's illegal under the Geneva Convention as well as under our domestic law. The idea that – I mean, they would say, the government might argue, the Bush administration, that there's an appeal process. But it's only an appeal essentially within the military system to a panel, and then to the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld or his designee. There's no court appeal. So what we've done in these cases and what the lawyers have done, is they've immediately tried to take these cases into out federal courts in the United States, much like we took the original habeas corpus or petitions in the early days into US federal courts, to try and challenge these illegal procedures. My prediction is in the end, that none of this will hold up, that these will be thrown out, these will be seen for what they are – an utter and complete sham.

"ELEANOR HALL: What about the argument that special rules are needed in special circumstances like terrorist enemy combatants?

"MICHAEL RATNER: My view is that fundamental human rights and civil rights don't depend on circumstances. In fact, they're made for very difficult situations. They're made for situations like this, and we haven't really insisted – and that was interesting in the Supreme Court opinion – that since 1215, since the Magna Carta which was signed in 1215 and the court sited that in the Supreme Court decision, that you're required to have fair procedures and fair hearings and the rule of law. You're not supposed to set up special ad hoc tribunals that are geared to prosecution, geared to conviction to suit the circumstances. That's very, very unfortunate here. These are just flatly, something I never would have expected to see in my 30 years of law practice.

"ELEANOR HALL: Michael Ratner is President of the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York, and he was speaking to me from there earlier today.
Source: The World Today

More

The documentary 'The President Versus David Hicks' reviewed in Variety

Get the latest on David Hicks here.

*Ø* The Warlords of America


The Warlords of America
By John Pilger

"The real debate is neither Bush nor Kerry, but the system they exemplify; it is the decline of true democracy and the rise of the American 'national security state' in Britain and other countries claiming to be democracies, in which people are sent to prison and the key thrown away and whose leaders commit capital crimes in faraway places, unhindered, and then, like the ruthless Blair, invite the thug they install to address the Labour Party conference. The real debate is the subjugation of national economies to a system which divides humanity as never before and sustains the deaths, every day, of 24,000 hungry people. The real debate is the subversion of political language and of debate itself and perhaps, in the end, our self-respect."

FULL TEXT

*Ø* Bringing Back Saddam (Almost)


Bringing Back Saddam (Almost)
By Ivan Eland

The Saddam-al Qaeda connection has fizzled and no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons have been unearthed in post-invasion Iraq. So the Bush administration’s fallback, ex post facto rationale for invading Iraq is that the country is better off without Saddam. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi government seems to be ruling more like Saddam everyday. [Emphasis added. -v]

Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has recently ordered the arrest of political opponents, closed a prominent media outlet reporting stories that were embarrassing to the Iraqi government, and taken up aggressive tactics vis-a-vis the opposition guerrillas, including reinstating the death penalty against them.

After the cosmetic changeover of power from the U.S. occupation to a hand-picked Iraqi Prime Minister, Allawi’s behavior is predictable. With an Iraqi glove now on the fist of U.S. power, Iraqis can get away with much harsher policies toward other Iraqis than could a foreign occupier—especially the leader of the free world, which has billed its invasion as bringing democracy to an autocratic country. Thus, the U.S. government, as it has done so many times during the Cold War and after, is masking with high flying democratic rhetoric the substitution of an unfriendly dictator with a friendly one.

The Iraqi government has ordered the arrest of political opponents Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew Salem, who is leading the prosecution of Saddam. They were originally darlings of the Pentagon and American neo-conservatives but have since fallen out of favor with the Bush administration. The Chalabis did too much consorting with the theocrats in Iran for U.S. authorities to stomach.

In another Saddam-like move, Allawi has closed the Iraq office of Al Jazeera, the pan-Arabic television network, for broadcasting images that embarrassed the Iraqi government. Apparently, the network’s coverage was placing too much emphasis on the rampant kidnappings that have recently paralyzed Iraq.

CONTINUE

__________________
Dr. Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute.

*Ø* Paper magic

A work of origami, or paper folding, is shown on display during the origami convention in Tokyo, Friday, Aug. 20, 2004. Showcasing a renaissance in the ancient Japanese art of origami, some of the best paper-folders in the world descended on Tokyo on Friday for a three-day competition and convention to celebrate the artistic possibilities of origami, which is believed to have been used to create sacred ornaments at the Grand Shrines of Ise, the center of Japan's native shinto religion. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa) Source

*Ø* Exclusive! Da Vinci Code sequel


Sequel to best-seller set in Australia

I'm not sure if I've sold one yet, but I've had on sale Dan Brown's best-seller, The Da Vinci Code, in our store, Cafe Diem, for a few months, so I thought it was about time I actually read it myself. Now that I'm about halfway through this "intellectual thriller" full of twists, turns and intriguing ancient riddles, two burning questions have arisen:

Firstly, was ever such a badly written book such a page-turner? And secondly, was ever a page-turner so badly written?

Dan Brown has written a book of genius, as we are reliably informed by a reviewer (on the back cover of the book). The author of The Da Vinci Code has the distinction of being the first writer to craft an entire best selling novel – nay, to craft an entire career, as his career and continuing celebrity are now assured – out of a deep understanding of the dumbed-down status of his readership.

One must congratulate Mr Brown on identifying the marketing possibilities created for all of us by the failed education systems of the West over the past two or three decades. Formerly, these opportunities were exploited to their maximum potential by media owners and a number of other corporate go-getters, and although certain novelists had made valiant attempts to mimic their success, it took a writer with the heretofore mentioned genius of Dan Brown to "crack the code", as it were. We are all the richer for it. Mr Brown and a great many people at Bantam Press are as well.

The sequel to The Da Vinci Code

So impressed was I with Mr Brown's genius, I shot off an email to him last week and asked him what his next book was going to be about. He replied immediately, thanking me for his free daily Wilson's Almanac ezine, for he is a subscriber and huge fan – as a matter of fact, he said he owes much of his success to "the captivating esoteric information that arrives each day in [my] email in-tray". Dan, you're the man!

Danny, as I fondly call him, told me that the sequel would be set in Australia, and he gave me permission to print a few paragraphs from his manuscript here for the readers. Oh – and he asked me to send his warm greetings to all.

Here for the first time is a snippet from Dan's forthcoming novel ...

The Dundee Code: Exclusive to Wilson's Almanac

Langdon and Sophie peered over the low brick wall toward the famous Sydney Opera House and into the foyer, as 'lobby' is called in Australia – a country in the Southern Hemisphere that many people know from Crocdile Dundee and Crocodile Hunter.

"Can you see into the lobby, Sophie?" asked Robert Langdon.

"The earth is divided into hemispheres, Robert," Sophie Neveu explained. "There is a Northern Hemisphere and a Southern, an Eastern and a Western Hemisphere, like you have an East and West Coast in America, east being on the right and west on the left of the 'map' (a kind of street directory only world-sized). You might have seen maps on Discovery Channel. Unlike people in the USA, Australians live in the Southern, and Eastern Hemispheres. And rather than using the word 'lobby', they use the French-sounding word, 'foy ––'"

"There he is!" interrupted Langdon. "It's the evil Silas, the albino. I can tell, because of his very white skin and hair, as white as Disney's Snow White's hair is black. And I think his eyes might be pink, but from this distance ..."

"Ah yes, monsieur Robert," said Sophie, who often tended to use the famous French word for 'mister' (monsieur) even down there Down Under in Australia, an English-speaking democracy of about 20 million population, and one-time convict colony of the UK, or United Kingdom. Where they drive on the left-hand side of the road.

Sophie continued, "Yes. Albinism: a genetic condition resulting in a lack of pigmentation in the eyes, skin and hair ... an inherited condition arising from the combination of recessive genes passed from both parents of an individual."

Langdon looked concerned. "He seems to be asking the 'bloke behind the desk' – as they call a 'desk clerk' over here, Down Under – something. Sophie, do you still have that long-range hearing device in your handbag, the one that Inspecteur – or 'Inspector' in English – Fache accidentally dropped back in Paris (Paris, France, about 3,500 miles from Ohio) and you picked up so adroitly?"

That word 'adroit'! The French word 'droit', meaning 'right', certainly finds its way into many nooks and crannies of the English language. It even makes me think of the motto on the British coat of arms, DIEU ET MON DROIT. It took Sophie to see her grandfather's clever anagram here: I'M DUNDEE. ROOT IT. Root! The Australian slang term for sexual intercourse. How could I have missed it?

"Oui, monsieur. Yes, sir," Sophie ventured.

"Sophie, you can call me 'mate'. We're now in Australia (a country located south of Indonesia, which is about 12,000 miles from Oregon). People call each other 'mate' here," Langdon said, "as they are very friendly, and have national characteristics such as anti-authoritarianism, tough individualism and a touch of idleness, just as Asians are just one big lookalike monoculture, and bad people have German accents, and you French are arrogant and smell like garlic. But Aussies are achievers and hosted the famous Olympic Games right here in Sydney in 2000 – you might have seen it on le télévision in your native France, Europe, way east of New York. Australians are a bit like Americans, only with bad accents."

Sophie was obviously impressed. As a university-trained professional, there was so much she already knew, but so much she could learn, and Robert Langdon was the one to teach her. "Here is the dévice d'acouter – listening device in your language – what will you use it for?" she asked, occasionally slipping into the language, French, of her native homeland of origin, which can easily happen when you have some language other than English, as almost all the 60 million or so French people do. French is the language spoken by Pepe le Pew in the old Warner Brothers cartoons.

Langdon was lost in thought. France: A country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in North America, the Caribbean, South America, the western Indian Ocean, the northern and southern Pacific Ocean, and the ocean surrounding Antarctica (sovereignty over Antarctica proper is suspended since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty). Langdon was still lost in thought.

"Robert? Robert? You're thinking again. Italics mean thinking, or French. What will you use it for?" Sophie asked.

"Use what? Oh! The listening device?" Langdon, a professor from one of the most famous universities of the East Coast in the USA ('Ivy League'), that two Presidents and a lot of famous people had gone to, hadn't noticed Sophie Neveu was speaking to him. A lot of professors have this absent-minded quality, like they have Father Knows Best leather sleeve patches on their tweed jackets, and polo-necked shirts, and flecks of gray in their hair, like poets, but not necessarily red setter dogs and cottages on wind-swept beaches as poets do – and Dr Robert Langdon, (Ph D, or Doctor of Philosophy, not a medical doctor) was no exception.

Although we might not have seen much evidence of it in Gilligan's Island (which was not completely based on fact), these charming professor characteristics are seen as irresistibly attractive to beautiful and savvy women of 32 or so. Hot young women just like the brave, university-educated redhead, Sophie Neveu, who had a kind of female Heinrich Schliemann feel about her.

Heinrich Schliemann was a famous archeologist (like Indiana Jones), from Germany, Europe. However, Sophie was not an archeologist, but a cryptographer, so a lot of her time had been spent working out what codes meant – the cryptographer's vocation. Yes, working out codes or 'cryptograms' as they're called, rather than digging in the ground to find lost civilizations – the vocation of archeologists.

Huh? Hey! HEINRICH SCHLEIMANN! My gosh, if you let an N be an H, that's an anagram of SHH A CLICHE IN MENHIR. Of course! 'Menhir' – a large, single upright standing stone (monolith or megalith), of prehistoric European origin ... like the Heelstone at Stonehenge, England, Europe! How could I have missed it? HEELSTONE .... ETHEL NOSE!

Now, if we can just find someone called Ethel.

"Oui – yes, Robert. Mais of course. The listening device Inspecteur Fache dropped when I disarmed him of his .44 Magnum by wrapping myself in the Mona Lisa canvas, knowing he wouldn't shootez moi."

"Well Sophie, it's like this ––"

"Robert. Before you continuez, and while Silas is breaking that 'desk bloke's' neck, there is something I must tell you half of."

"What is it, Sophie? You look harried. (Stressed.)"

Langdon took a long puff on his meerschaum pipe. He hadn't noticed before how the bright sun they have down there in Down Under could light up a woman's hair so, while at the same time illuminating those delicate facial hints of doubt, uncertainty, vulnerability, that made the well-built cryptographer seem somehow ... appealing. Appealing? She is becoming suddenly very attractive to me. Me! A middle-aged expert!

"Sophie, you have another surprise secret to reveal to me, don't you?"

"Oui – yes, Robert."

"First half now, and second half tomorrow?"

"Oui."

"Hey, I just guessed that! I have an agile mind but yours is so much sharper, like many women these days. Is it about the sacred feminine in the Delphic Oracle in Greece, Europe, and how that ties in with the famous Olympic Games? And the connection with Sydney, Australia (which successfully hosted the Olympics in 2000)?"

"Un peu. A bit. But more to do with the Knights Templar, the Illuminati and the mysteriously engraved golden lava lamp my grandfather found buried under the south pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (the famous bridge on many Australian postcards)."

Her French accent is making the hairs on my arm stand on end! Golly, I could really fall for this 'babe' ...

"OK, Sophie. Shoot."

... if she'd only lay off the garlic, already.



* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Fact is, I really am enjoying The Da Vinci Code, every hyperreal, ignorant, made-for-TV, page of it. It really is hard to put down.

If you haven't done so already, grab a cheap copy at Cafe Diem. Better still, get it from your library for free, just be prepared to wait six weeks like I did, as it's still very much in demand.

*Ø* Exorcise the White House

*Ø* Robert Fisk: Iraq is about to explode

George from North Queensland, Australia, sent this one in. It's three weeks old but as it comes from one very brave journalist (and one of the best throughout the war), Robert Fisk, and as I'm too lazy to check our archives to see if we ran it, here goes:


Can't Blair see that this country is about to explode? Can't Bush?

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

"The war is a fraud. I'm not talking about the weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. Nor the links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida which didn't exist. Nor all the other lies upon which we went to war. I'm talking about the new lies.

"For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that did not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist. Much of Iraq has fallen outside the control of America's puppet government in Baghdad but we are not told. Hundreds of attacks are made against US troops every month. But unless an American dies, we are not told. This month's death toll of Iraqis in Baghdad alone has now reached 700 - the worst month since the invasion ended. But we are not told.

"The stage management of this catastrophe in Iraq was all too evident at Saddam Hussein's 'trial.' Not only did the US military censor the tapes of the event. Not only did they effectively delete all sound of the 11 other defendants. But the Americans led Saddam Hussein to believe - until he reached the courtroom - that he was on his way to his execution. Indeed, when he entered the room he believed that the judge was there to condemn him to death. This, after all, was the way Saddam ran his own state security courts. No wonder he initially looked 'disorientated' – CNN's helpful description - because, of course, he was meant to look that way. We had made sure of that. Which is why Saddam asked Judge Juhi: 'Are you a lawyer? ... Is this a trial?' And swiftly, as he realised that this really was an initial court hearing – not a preliminary to his own hanging - he quickly adopted an attitude of belligerence.

"But don't think were going to learn much more about Saddam's future court appearances. Salem Chalabi, the brother of convicted fraudster Ahmad and the man entrusted by the Americans with the tribunal, told the Iraqi press two weeks ago that all media would be excluded from future court hearings [emphasis mine – PW] . And I can see why. Because if Saddam does a Milosevic, he'll want to talk about the real intelligence and military connections of his regime - which were primarily with the United States.

"Living in Iraq these past few weeks is a weird as well as dangerous experience. I drive down to Najaf. Highway 8 is one of the worst in Iraq. Westerners are murdered there. It is littered with burnt-out police vehicles and American trucks. Every police post for 70 miles has been abandoned. Yet a few hours later, I am sitting in my room in Baghdad watching Tony Blair, grinning in the House of Commons as if he is the hero of a school debating competition; so much for the Butler report.

"Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn't Blair realise that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn't Bush realise this? The American-appointed 'government' controls only parts of Baghdad – and even there its ministers and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated. Baquba, Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilla, Fallujah, Ramadi, all are outside government authority. Iyad Allawi, the 'Prime Minister,' is little more than mayor of Baghdad. 'Some journalists,' Blair announces, 'almost want there to be a disaster in Iraq.' He doesn't get it. The disaster exists now.

"When suicide bombers ram their cars into hundreds of recruits outside police stations, how on earth can anyone hold an election next January? Even the National Conference to appoint those who will arrange elections has been twice postponed. And looking back through my notebooks over the past five weeks, I find that not a single Iraqi, not a single American soldier I have spoken to, not a single mercenary – be he American, British or South African – believes that there will be elections in January. All said that Iraq is deteriorating by the day. And most asked why we journalists weren't saying so.

"But in Baghdad, I turn on my television and watch Bush telling his Republican supporters that Iraq is improving, that Iraqis support the 'coalition,' that they support their new US-manufactured government, that the 'war on terror' is being won, that Americans are safer ..."
Read on at Common Dreams

*Ø* An Olympics LOL flash

Thanks, Mary Ann from Californ-I-A, USA, for this Bozzetti Flash animated bit of Olympics fun. It's so corny but I got some good belly laughs.

*Ø* Doctors were part of Abu Ghraib Abuse

By Emma Ross, AP Medical Writer

"LONDON - Doctors working for the U.S. military in Iraq collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, profoundly breaching medical ethics and human rights, a bioethicist charges in The Lancet medical journal.

"In a scathing analysis of the behavior of military doctors, nurses and medics, University of Minnesota professor Steven Miles calls for a reform of military medicine and an official investigation into the role played by physicians and other medical staff in the torture scandal.

"He cites evidence that doctors or medics falsified death certificates to cover up homicides, hid evidence of beatings and revived a prisoner so he could be further tortured. No reports of abuses were initiated by medical personnel until the official investigation into Abu Ghraib began, he found.

"'The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing psychologically and physically coercive interrogations,' Miles said in this week's edition of Lancet. 'Army officials stated that a physician and a psychiatrist helped design, approve and monitor interrogations at Abu Ghraib' ...

"'The detaining power's health personnel are the first and often the last line of defense against human rights abuses. Their failure to assume that role emphasizes to the prisoner how utterly beyond humane appeal they are,' Miles said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. [my emphasis - N]

Full text here

*Ø* Happy anniversary Mr Rumsfeld!

Hey Mr Rumsfeld, you said it!

I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on November 14, 2002, speaking on National Public Radio and Infinity Radio, USA.
Source: BBC

The Iraq war had been going for five months by August 20, 2003 as land troops from United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Poland had invaded Iraq on March 20. That must make today some kind of anniversary! Yayyy!!!!

Jim Lehrer: Rightly or wrongly, Mr. Secretary, I went back and checked the record today, the impression that was given in public statements and all that sort of thing was that when this war ended, this war was going to end, that when Saddam Hussein and his regime, you know, fell, then the rest of it was going to be kind of a mop-up. And I’m just –
Donald Rumsfeld: Not by me.
Amnesiac Donald Rumsfeld, September 10, 2003
Source: PBS News Hour

Mr Rumsfeld, you win the Cakewalk Anniversary Cake!

>More good and useful Iraq quotes

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.

*Ø* Country reports

A good website I just stumbled upon is Human Development Reports, from the UN Development Programme.

Usually when you google up a country, you get the CIA facts pages (and it's not too far-fetched to presume something there). CIA facts sheets are very useful, it's true, and I find Wikipedia's country profiles are becoming a great resource. But anyone who is interested in places from a human rights perspective will like the Human Development Reports. Oxfam, too, has very useful country profiles on the Two Thirds World.

*Ø* US Planes pound Najaf

"NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes pounded areas near a shrine where radical Shi'ite militiamen were holed up early on Friday after their leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, defied a final demand from Iraq's interim prime minister to disarm.

"U.S. AC-130 gunships struck repeatedly at positions held by Sadr's Mehdi Army fighters, who have sheltered in and near the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, sacred to Shi'ites around the world." Source

Iraq's Sistani leaves London hospital

"LONDON (Reuters) - Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, has been discharged from a London hospital after heart surgery, but will stay in Britain for the time-being, says his spokesman ...

"Many Shi'ites regard the reclusive Iranian-born Sistani as their highest religious authority and some experts blame his absence on the latest escalation in violence." Source

*Ø* Bear rejects Bus(c)h!

"SEATTLE (Reuters) - A black bear was found passed out at a campground in Washington state recently after guzzling down three dozen cans of a local beer, a campground worker said on Wednesday ...

"The hard-drinking bear, estimated to be about two years old, broke into campers' coolers and, using his claws and teeth to open the cans, swilled down the suds.

"It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge."
Source

*Ø* Military Records Debunk Kerry Attacker

Michael Dobbs, Washington Post Staff Writer:

"Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.

"In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day.

"But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to 'enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire' directed at 'all units' of the five boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat 'despite enemy bullets flying about him' ...

"Thurlow, an oil industry worker and former teacher in Kansas, said he was angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return to the United States and particularly Kerry's claim before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that U.S. troops in Vietnam had committed war crimes 'with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.'"
Full text at truthout.org

*Ø* Sex spam clogs summer in-boxes

"The temperature is rising in inboxes as spammers attempt to promote a summer of 'love'.

"Pornographic spam has risen by almost 350% since June according to e-mail filter firm Clearswift ...

"The amount of counterfeit Viagra being offered by spammers has prompted manufacturer Pfizer to launch a legal campaign against them.

"Its own research found that a quarter of men believed that the pharmaceutical giant was responsible for sending Viagra spam."
Source

*Ø* I lived to tell the tale

It wasn't last year's bomb but American policy which destroyed the UN's
hopes in Iraq

Salim Lone

"Even before that awful bomb ripped through our Baghdad headquarters on
August 19 2003, taking the lives of 22 of my colleagues, the UN mission
in Iraq had already become marginal to the epic crisis being played out
there. Iraq had become the centre of both the US war on terror and the
war between the extremities of two civilisations. The vicious terrorist
attack a year ago today surprised no one working for Sergio Vieira de
Mello, the UN secretary general's special representative. Indeed, the UN
chiefs of communication in Iraq had met that morning to hammer out a
plan to counter the intensifying perception among Iraqis that our
mission was simply an adjunct of the US occupation.

"Little did the Iraqis know that the reality was quite the opposite: by
August, the UN mission had grown very distant from the Americans. The
intense early relationship that Sergio, the world's most brilliant
negotiator of post-conflict crises, had fashioned with Paul Bremer, the
US proconsul, had already fractured. Contact was intermittent now that
Bremer's coalition provisional authority (CPA) could deal directly with
the Iraqis whom it had appointed, with Sergio's help, to the governing
council. General dismay over occupation tactics aside, Sergio had
already parted company with Bremer over key issues such as the need for
electoral affirmation of a new constitution, and the arrest and
conditions of detention of the thousands imprisoned at Abu Ghraib prison.

"The low point came at the end of July last year, when, astonishingly,
the US blocked the creation of a fully fledged UN mission in Iraq.
Sergio believed that this mission was vital and had thought the CPA also
supported it. Clearly, the Bush administration had eagerly sought a UN
presence in occupied Iraq as a legitimising factor rather than as a
partner that could mediate the occupation's early end, which we knew was
essential to averting a major conflagration ...

"But by mid-August, a restless and discouraged Sergio had begun to breach
the protocol. Two days before the bombing, he told a Brazilian
journalist that Iraqis felt humiliated by the occupation, asking him how
Brazilians would feel if foreign tanks were patrolling Rio de Janeiro's
thoroughfares. And on the day of the bombing, Sergio was going to issue
a statement criticising the killing by US soldiers of the Reuters
cameraman Mazen Dana as he filmed an incident outside Abu Ghraib prison.
That statement saved my life. Sergio asked me to add additional
information about other unlawful killings, which made me miss the 4pm
meeting that was the target of that attack. Six of the seven
participants were killed, and the seventh lost both legs and an arm.

"August 19 2003 is a pivotal moment UN history, not merely because of the
unprecedented viciousness of the attack, but because of the lack of an
Iraqi, Arab and Muslim outcry over the atrocity. This near silence
exposed the depths to which the organisation's standing had sunk in the
Middle East a result of its inability to contain or even condemn the
militaristic excesses of US and Israeli policies in the post-9/11
period. The UN is generally considered to be too willing to do the US's
bidding, and its rare challenge on the Iraq war authorisation was
quickly forgotten once subsequent resolutions pushed the American
project in Iraq. Spectacularly egregious was the security council
approval of a Spanish resolution condemning Eta for the Madrid bombings
when most suspected al-Qaida. This cavalier use of supposedly hallowed
security council resolutions was only possible because of support from
the US, which wished to protect the Aznar government from electoral defeat ..."

· Salim Lone was director of communications for the UN mission in Iraq
headed by the late Sergio Vieira de Mello

salimlone@msn.com

Source: The Guardian, Thursday August 19, 2004

*Ø* Dominionism links

Know how your elected representative might be thinking.

"Dominionism, as defined by S.R. Shearer, is a 'militant post-millennial eschatology ('doctrine of end times') which pictures the seizure of earthly (temporal) power by the church as the only means through which the world can be rescued; only after the world has been thus "rescued" can Christ return to "rule and reign.""
Source: Disinfopedia

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm
http://homepage.mac.com/akitzmil/iblog/C826490882/
http://www.counterpunch.org/hill01042003.html
http://www.gainesvillehumanists.org/apocalypse.htm
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/12/p/06_bad.html
http://www.antipasministries.com/oldnews/george.html

These links courtesy of Jade and Luthien, posted at pagans4peace Yahoo! Group.

*Ø* Phoney freedom websites

With the Iraq crisis, it's easy to forget that Russia has its own Iraq, and it's called Chechnya.

The Russian government has a pretty propaganda site (with sweet pictures like the one shown at right) called Chechnya Free, to fool web searchers looking for info on the tragedy.

China pulls the same trick for Googlers of "human rights China"; see this phoney site, humanrights-china.org. Then there is China's cutesy Tibet tourism site, which says that the era of Dalai lama rule: " ... basically ended in 1951 when Tibet was liberated and came to a complete end in 1959 when rebellion led by the Dalai Lama was pacified and the People's Government of the Tibet, Autonomous Region was set up", neglecting to mention that China killed one million people before turning Tibet into its new tourist resort.

On the other hand, if you find a genuine Chechnyan site like this you will read things to make us weep, but which we should all know, like:

"Estimates indicate that during the first and second war in Chechnya, on a Chechen population of 1 million, 150,000 - 200,000 civilians died or disappeared. This amounts to 15% - 20% of the entire population." [References]

One of the happy headlines in the phoney site is: "Builders are in demand in Grosny". Below is a picture from another genuine site, Free Chechnya, that will explain why.




A good site to bookmark is the official website of the Chechen separatist movement.

It is inconceivable that in Europe there hasn't been any movement of rebellion against all this, a rally, not a symbolic one, but a huge and imposing rally that says how all this is intolerable! The tragedy of Chechnya is the tragedy of Russia. Europe is a happy and thoughtless continent. A continent that doesn't think about it. About nothing. When it will be forced to think about it, it risks to pay a very high price. It's better it would begin to think about it.
Adriano Sofri, on Russia's occupation of Chechnya

There is nothing more dangerous in the war of ideas than the “realpolitik” approach which brought us so many disasters in the past. After all, was not Osama bin Laden a by-product of similar “marriage of convenience” at one point? Was it not true also in the case of Saddam Hussein? And is it not true that your new “partners” such as Russia secretly sell military equipment (including nuclear technology) to the Axis of Evil countries even now?
Will the United States ever learn this lesson, or will it continue forever to build up new enemies while fighting present ones?
Yelena Bonner (wife of Andrei Sakharov) and Vladimir Bukovsky; from an open letter on Chechnya to President George W Bush

*Ø* Blix WMD claims 'careful and guarded'

[The plot just keeps thickening, don't it?]

"[Australian] Prime Minister John Howard has refused to confirm he was told by former United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix that there was no solid evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"Avoiding questions on the revelations yesterday, Mr Howard would only say that Mr Blix was 'careful and guarded' when they met in New York during the lead-up to the Iraq war.

"In an email to a researcher last week, Dr Blix said he told Mr Howard that weapons inspections in Iraq were working ..."
Source

And here's another new one on the SIEVX: Navy gunner breaks silence

*Ø* SIEVX whistleblower book hits the stands



This boat is not SIEVX.
SIEVX was smaller & carried nearly 200 more passengers.


On October 19, 2001, the refugee boat SIEVX sank in Australian waters; 353 men, women and children drowned.

Sign the SIEVX online memorial

Aussie whistleblower and former Ambassador to Poland,Tony Kevin, has written a book, A Certain Maritime Incident, exposing an Australian gov't cover-up. Tony Kevin is virtually unemployed because of the stand he has taken, along with many other SIEVX activists who are still having a hard time getting the story heard. Please spread the word. A federal election is due in Australia about the time of the US one, and George W Bush would like to see the current right-wing Howard government returned, to help his own political fortunes. Remember how upset he was when the Spanish voters threw out his war buddies?

Please pass it on.

Noam Chomsky writes:
"The treatment of refugees is one of the great scandals of the modern age… With impressive courage and determination, Tony Kevin has unearthed the grim and deeply moving story he recounts in this remarkable book – an "always powerfully contested story," and one of "durable national significance" that has "crept into the hearts and consciences of many Australians" and must find its way to the hearts and consciences of many others if these persistent and shocking crimes are to be brought to end."

Tony Kevin writes:

"I retired from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 1998, after a thirty year public service career involving posts in DFAT and Prime Minister’s Department. My last postings were as Australia’s ambassador to Poland (1991-94) and Cambodia (1994-97).

"I have been an honorary Visiting Fellow at ANU [Australian National University] Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies since 1998. I have also since 2001 given a seminar course on UN peacekeeping at Melbourne University Institute of Asian Languages and Societies. In the past five years I have written extensively, from a standpoint increasingly critical of the present government, on a range of Australian foreign, national security and refugee policies.

"Since February 2002, assisting in the public investigation of the sinking south of Java on 19 October 2001 of the asylum-seeker boat that took 353 lives, and which I named SIEV X ( i.e., 'Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel, Unknown'), has become my main research activity. I see SIEV X as a major human tragedy that happened on Australia’s border protection military watch, and that raises disturbing unresolved questions about the Australian government’s cover-up of suspected criminality.

"I am now firmly of the view, on the basis of substantial, albeit as yet incomplete, public evidence, that the sinking of SIEV X was the result of planned acts of sabotage in Indonesia, involving use of undercover agents under a people smuggling disruption program that was being conducted by elements of the Indonesian police, who had been trained and funded by Australian police; and that Australian government agencies have much more knowledge of this suspected crime against humanity than they have so far admitted to the Australian Senate or people."
Tony Kevin Source

*Ø* Saving the Vote (?)

Paul Krugman, New York Times:

"Everyone knows it, but not many politicians or mainstream journalists are willing to talk about it, for fear of sounding conspiracy-minded: there is a substantial chance that the result of the 2004 presidential election will be suspect.

"When I say that the result will be suspect, I don't mean that the election will, in fact, have been stolen. (We may never know.) I mean that there will be sufficient uncertainty about the honesty of the vote count that much of the world and many Americans will have serious doubts.

"How might the election result be suspect? Well, to take only one of several possibilities, suppose that Florida -- where recent polls give John Kerry the lead -- once again swings the election to George Bush.

"Much of Florida's vote will be counted by electronic voting machines with no paper trails. Independent computer scientists who have examined some of these machines' programming code are appalled at the security flaws. So there will be reasonable doubts about whether Florida's votes were properly counted, and no paper ballots to recount. The public will have to take the result on faith.

"Yet the behavior of Gov. Jeb Bush's officials with regard to other election-related matters offers no justification for such faith. First there was the affair of the felon list. Florida law denies the vote to convicted felons. But in 2000 many innocent people, a great number of them black, couldn't vote because they were erroneously put on a list of felons; these wrongful exclusions may have put Governor Bush's brother in the White House.

"This year, Florida again drew up a felon list, and tried to keep it secret. When a judge forced the list's release, it turned out that it once again wrongly disenfranchised many people -- again, largely African-American -- while including almost no Hispanics.

"Yesterday, my colleague Bob Herbert reported on another highly suspicious Florida initiative: state police officers have gone into the homes of elderly African-American voters -- including participants in get-out-the-vote operations -- and interrogated them as part of what the state says is a fraud investigation. But the state has provided little information about the investigation, and, as Mr. Herbert says, this looks remarkably like an attempt to intimidate voters.

"Given this pattern, there will be skepticism if Florida's paperless voting machines give President Bush an upset, uncheckable victory.

"Congress should have acted long ago to place the coming election above suspicion by requiring a paper trail for votes. But legislation was bottled up in committee, and it may be too late to change the hardware. Yet it is crucial that this election be credible. What can be done?"

Continue here

*Ø* Twins of the world unite

RENNES, France (AFP): "A tiny French village in Brittany -- the self proclaimed capital of twin-dom -- has played host to an international gathering of thousands of identical twins, triplets and quadruplets.

"The 11th annual edition of 'Two and More' in Pleucadeuc on Sunday attracted dynamic duos from as far afield as China, Japan and Benin in Africa."
Continue here

MADRID (AFP) - A white tiger with blue eyes and no stripes, one of only 20 worldwide, was born in captivity at a wild animal refuge in southern Spain, the refuge director, Serafin Domenech, told AFP. Source

*Ø* Hospitals received payment for organs

From the Irish Times:

"Pathologists and hospitals were paid by a pharmaceutical company for removing and storing pituitary glands taken from dead patients during postmortem examinations and which were later used in the production of a growth hormone.

"In a statement last night, Pharmacia Ireland said that one of its predecessor companies Kabi Vitrum Ltd had, in the 1980s, obtained pituitary glands from a number of hospitals to manufacture Crescormon, a human growth hormone.

"'Kabi provided reimbursement to pathologists and hospitals for the work involved. The sum was intended solely to defray any additional costs required to remove and store the pituitary glands,' the statement said ...

"The new developments in the pituitary gland controversy arose from a second statement issued by Pharmacia Ireland to the Dunne Inquiry last May.

"Based on this new information Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin last week told around 20 parents that organs taken from their children had been given to the pharmaceutical company. [my emphasis]

"The Irish Times revealed on Saturday that two former Dublin hospitals, the Richmond and Jervis Street, had also provided pituitary glands 'for research' to the company. Over the weekend it emerged that pituitary glands were taken from patients at Cork University Hospital and the Coombe Hospital in Dublin. Last night, the Southern Health Board said that the practice had also occurred at Tralee General Hospital."
Full text

*Ø* Outfoxed

Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know.

The film explores Murdoch's burgeoning kingdom and the impact on society when a broad swath of media is controlled by one person.

Media experts, including Jeff Cohen (FAIR) Bob McChesney (Free Press), Chellie Pingree (Common Cause), Jeff Chester (Center for Digital Democracy) and David Brock (Media Matters) provide context and guidance for the story of Fox News and its effect on society.

This documentary also reveals the secrets of Former Fox news producers, reporters, bookers and writers who expose what it's like to work for Fox News. These former Fox employees talk about how they were forced to push a "right-wing" point of view or risk their jobs. Some have even chosen to remain anonymous in order to protect their current livelihoods. As one employee said "There's no sense of integrity as far as having a line that can't be crossed."

Director/Producer Robert Greenwald has produced and/or directed 53 television movies, miniseries and features. He is the director of Uncovered and the Executive Producer of the UN series - Unprecedented, Uncovered and the soon to be released Unconstitutional.

Source: Outfoxed website, Outfoxed.org

Outfoxed Breaks Opening Weekend Record While Top Fox News Execs. Fight Back

Outfoxed DVD is available
through Cafe Diem/Amazon here for only $9.95.

*Ø* US assault on Najaf "a war crime"

"The US assault on Najaf is a war crime. The spectacle of the world’s foremost imperialist power unleashing its overwhelmingly superior military might against poorly armed opponents of foreign occupation recalls the most notorious crimes of the twentieth century, including the fascist bombardment of Guernica in Spain, Mussolini’s rape of Ethiopia, and the Nazi blitzkrieg against Germany’s European neighbors in World War II.

"The US military, in the name of Washington’s puppet government under Iyad Allawi, is carrying out the slaughter of supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who have taken up arms against the attempt to turn Iraq into a de-facto American colony.

"The coverage by US television networks and the American press conveys none of the true horror of what is being perpetrated by the 11th Marine Expeditionary Force and First Cavalry Division in Najaf. US bombers, helicopter gunships, field artillery and tanks are being unleashed against Iraqi fighters armed only with small arms and grenade launchers that are next to useless against American armored vehicles ...

"No estimate is being given by the US attackers of civilian casualties, but given the massive firepower being thrown against urban centers—including the Shiite slum of Sadr City in Baghdad and other southern Iraqi cities besides Najaf—they must number in the thousands ..."
Source

*Ø* More copyright-free stuff

Ooh, these public domain tarot images from Sacred Texts are nice. And check out Art Images for College Teaching which is a goldmine if your use is non-commercial.

*Ø* Iran's transsexuals

Capital, which is so heavily invested in the military-industrial complex, requires the existence of combatants, and traditionally generates discourses of "the enemy" and "the other".

To this end, capital's meme machine borrows heavily from racial stereotypes, and in fact sometimes creates those stereotypes.

Thus we shouldn't be surprised when a middle manager of capital, such as George W Bush or almost any news media editor, police chief or defence officer in the Western world, propagates a Crusade mentality when there are impediments to investment. In our time, Islam is the enemy, for many reasons, not the least of which is its resistance to some of the mainstays of US trade, such as alcohol and the Hollywood sex-death culture.

The portrayal of Muslims as the enemy usually relies on the stereotypes of violence and puritanism. Scratch beneath the surface, however, and a different picture emerges. If the same standards were applied to Western cultures, it would be very easy to portray Western cultures as incredibly violent and ruthlessly puritanical. Give me five minutes and I can paint a picture of Australia or the USA that would make Hieronymus Bosch's inferno pale by comparison. As a matter of fact, this method is used by Islamist ideologues of the bin Laden variety, and by Leninist memeticists in Cuba and China. Whichever "side" the propaganda is on, it is still propaganda.

Understanding why our "enemies" change like the fashion season, it's important to keep undermining the stereotypes, and I do so at every opportunity. I delight in telling people that I have lived for years with Afghan Muslims, and I make a point of conveying my experience of certain qualities that I find superior in Afghan Muslim culture to my own. As just one example, without doubt Afghans are on the whole far more hospitable than Australians, who pride themselves on being welcoming. The difference is like chalk and cheese.

Of course, we all know that Muslim countries are incredibly sexually repressive, unlike our own enlightened states. So it must be a lie that Iran, the worst of the worst as far as Muslim states goes, supports transsexuals more compassionately than many states in the enlightened West.

Caption to image above: Maryam Hatoon Molkara, who was formerly a man known as Fereydoon, was an early campaigner for the rights of transsexuals in Iran. Photograph by S. Reza for the New York Times.

*Ø* Woodstock bash: Townsend wallops Hoffman

August 16, 1969 Woodstock Day Two: Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman, slightly out of his gourd, attended Woodstock and attempted to take over the stage during The Who’s set.

He did his Abbie best to exhort the crowd with Yippie rants, but was roundly booed for interrupting the music. Guitarist Pete Townsend (who didn’t know Hoffman was a celeb) bashed Hoffman’s head with a guitar and Abbie was thrown off the stage. At a later time, and perhaps in a different mind, Hoffman wrote one of his his bestselling books, Woodstock Nation.

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.

*Ø* Tiger stats

From Baz le Tuff:

"Went to the doctor this morning.

"While waiting I read a Time magazine, from last year, that stated that there were more tigers owned by private individuals, in America, than there were left in the wild. ie 10,000 vs 5,000."

*Ø* Truth overboard – again

The credibility of Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, is on the line once again over the 'Children Overboard' scandal of three years ago.

Immediately before the last federal election, Howard and several of his senior ministers whipped up racist sentiments in Australia by alleging that boat people in the waters off the coast of Australia were holding their babies over the edge of their boats and threatening to drown them if they were not granted asylum.

'Honest John' Howard and Co. even went as far as to show photos of children in the water as evidence of how wicked these asylum seekers are. Howard was re-elected, with the biggest issue being 'protection of Australia's borders'. Meanwhile, thousands of people fleeing regimes such as those of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were rounded up and put in Aussie concentration camps that have drawn international condemnation. I do not use the term 'concentration camps' flippantly. I have spoken to people that have been inside them, and there is a wealth of info on the Net, such as here, here and here.

When a tardy media finally deigned to investigate the allegations, it turned out that no such incident had occurred, and the photos were phony. Of course, this alone should have prompted a media campaign sufficient to do a Watergate on Howard and have him kicked out of office, but the Oz media has more important things on its mind, such as the Rugby finals and who Russell Crowe is punching out lately.

They put Howard and his cronies on the back burner, and Howard, a slick politician, got away with saying that he had no idea that Children Overboard was dodgy. Peter Reith, one of the ministers at the centre of the lie, quietly slipped out of Parliament. The other main player, Philip Ruddock, still wields considerable influence in the mismanagement of Australia.

The occasional story slips through the media net, however, and this one challenges the veracity of the Prime Minister:

Aide reveals children overboard advice
"A former federal ministerial adviser has revealed that he told Prime Minister John Howard before the 2001 federal election that no children had been thrown overboard from a boat carrying asylum seekers in Australian waters.

"Mike Scrafton, an adviser to then-defence minister Peter Reith, has written a letter to The Australian newspaper saying he had three telephone conversations with Mr Howard on November 7, 2001.

"Mr Scrafton says he told the Prime Minister that a tape of the incident 'certainly didn't support the proposition that the event had occurred'.

"He says he told Mr Howard 'that no-one in defence that I had dealt with on the matter still believed any children were thrown overboard'.

The adviser says he also told the PM that photographs released during the debate were not of children thrown into the water.

"Mr Scrafton says he passed on the advice in three conversations with Mr Howard on the evening of November 7.

"'During the last conversation, the Prime Minister asked me how it was that he had a report from the Office of National Assessments (ONA) confirming the children overboard incident,' he said.

"'I replied that I had gained the impression that the report had as its source the public statements of the then minister for immigration, Philip Ruddock.'"
Source

What next for the whistleblower?
A little birdie just whispered something in my ear. I'm not in the business of making predictions, but I will say that I expect whistleblower Mike Scrafton to be the target of a major smear campaign immediately if not sooner. It's likely that the only way the government can salvage any lost face and votes will be by character assassination. I hope Mr Scrafton is prepared. These guys play for keeps.

Children Overboard: so what really happened?
So, who were those people filmed floating in the ocean, if not the children of filthy towelheads? Well ... they were asylum seekers trying desperately to stay alive after their leaky boat had sunk, no thanks to the Howard tripartite policy of dealing with tinted people, namely: push them back to sea; throw them into a desert camp; ship them over to the Pacific island of Nauru.

Australia's spooks, the ONA, had given advice to the government not from their own spooking, but from media releases put out by none other than Peter Reith, John Howard and Philip Ruddock! This CIA-like advice, the government then used to support its own deceits. Richard Nixon, eat your heart out.

[In another notorious case full of government disinformation, a refugee boat sarcastically named by the government 'SIEVX' (as in, leaky sieve; it means 'Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel'), capsized and 353 men, women and children drowned. This weblog is dedicated to their memory, and casualties of poverty and authority all around the planet.]

You can help defeat Howard, and Bush
Please read up on this and other nasties the Australian Government has been up to and tell your friends. An election is due before November, and Australian and overseas support is needed to help bring down this extreme right-wing government. George W Bush does not want to read headlines in the Washington Post that his Deputy Sheriff in Australia has been defeated just before the 2nd Tuesday in November.

Sydney Indymedia and Wilson's Blogmanac are two pretty good ways to stay informed.

SIEVX Memorial

Get the latest news on refugees Australia with Google News Alerts

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

View Long Journey, Young Lives: A Flash online documentary about child refugees

*Ø* New 911 fillum raises new questions

Thank you Almaniac Star Light (USA) for alerting the Almanac to 911 In Plane Site. I haven't seen the fillum but it does sound interesting. It certainly has been troubling me that an airliner should crash into the Pentagon, leave only a hole the size of my toilet, then vaporise into the atmosphere over the Eastern Seabord.

The fillum does sound a bit too conspiratorial for my taste, but if I get a chance, I'll watch it. Here are some quotes from its website.

"Why weren't America and the world shown the video and photographs of the Pentagon, before the outer wall had collapsed? The Pentagon's outer wall did not collapse for a full 35 minutes after the initial impact. See these astounding photographs for the first time.

"Given that the outer wall of the Pentagon had not yet collapsed, how does a plane over 44 feet tall and 125 ft. wide, fit into a hole which is only 16 ft. in diameter, as shown in the crystal-clear photographic evidence from the Pentagon? Can physics explain this?

"In the aftermath, it was reported by media sources that a giant 100 ft. crater was plowed into the front lawn of the Pentagon as the result of a powerful airliner crash. Why does photographic evidence overwhelmingly show that this was not the case?

"How does a Boeing 757, constructed from lightweight aluminum, penetrate over 9 ft. of steel reinforced concrete? Recently discovered photographs shed light on this unexplained feat of physics.

"Contrary to the pictures shown to the American public, why does photographic evidence taken only a few moments after the Pentagon event, show no wreckage on the lawn of the Pentagon? Where is the plane? What happened to the passengers? Examine this new evidence for yourself.

"At the World Trade Center, why did firefighters, reporters and other on the scene eyewitnesses describe a demolition-like, pancake collapse of buildings One, Two & Seven? Outrageous admissions by the building lease owner recorded on video, plus shocking new video evidence helps to answer important questions.

"What is the bright flash on the right side of the Boeing 767, seen just before impact on both the North Tower & the South Tower, captured on video by 5 separate cameramen including CNN and ABC? Slow motion analysis reveals startling verification of this extraordinary event and begs the question [sic], 'What is it?'
Find out what former military personnel think this could be.

"Why were there numerous reports of bombs & explosions going off in and around the WTC before any buildings had collapsed? Hear & see the testimony of the reporters, rescue teams and eyewitnesses who tell a different story than what we have all been lead to believe.

"Why did a FOX News employee, who witnessed the second tower attack, report seeing no windows on “Flight 175” a commercial United Airlines jetliner?"
911 In Plane Site website

One reviewer writes:

"One particular interview that brought gasps from the audience and many looking around with shock etched on their faces was an interview conducted – live at the time – by FOX News. This intense interview with Mark Burnback, an employee of FOX News, contains the following narrative, paraphrased: Burnback was close to the path of the second plane and had a good long look at what he describes was not a commercial airliner. The plane that hit the second tower had no windows, Burnback was very clear about that. The plane had some kind of blue logo on the front near the nose and looked like a cargo plane."
Source

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