*Ø* Blogmanac | What next? - This

Oh my sainted aunt ... !

OSLO (Reuters) -- "President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are among nominees for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize before a Sunday deadline for nominations despite failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"'Nominations are pouring in,' said Geir Lundestad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. He said he gets letters and up to 1,500 e-mails a day from people either supporting or denouncing candidates."

However:

"Nobel watchers say Bush or Blair's chances of winning are close to nil ...

"Lundestad said many people wrongly believed being a 'Nobel prize nominee' was itself a kind of honor.

"Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic have made it to the list -- every member of all the world's parliaments, university professors from law to theology, ex-winners and committee members can submit names."

Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | This one's for you, J-9!

Our dear friend J-9 (Jeannine) isn't feeling very well these days (see Tell J-9 You've Read It, above left, this blog) and this song (one of her favorites) is dedicated to her with all our love and healing thoughts.


Eyes Of The World
The Grateful Dead

Right outside this lazy summer home
you ain't got time to call your soul a critic no.
Right outside the lazy gate of winter's summer home,
wond'rin' where the nut-thatch winters,
wings a mile long just carried the bird away.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has its seasons, its evenin's and songs of its own.

There comes a redeemer, and he slowly too fades away,
And there follows his wagon behind him that's loaded with clay.
And the seeds that were silent all burst into bloom, and decay,
and night comes so quiet, it's close on the heels of the day.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has its seasons, its evenin's and songs of its own.

Sometimes we live no particular way but our own,
And sometimes we visit your country and live in your home,
sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk alone,
sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has its seasons, its evenin's and songs of its own.

*Ø* Blogmanac | A bit of good news!

From one of the most admired among our alternative news writers from TruthOut.org, William Rivers Pitt:

You have an Audio Postcard(TM). To get your
Audio Postcard, turn up your speakers, and
click on this link. Or paste this link into your web browser:

http://members.audiogenerator.com/postcards/?2321401

*Ø* Blogmanac | Oh, brother! What next?

The current U.S. administration is breeding some strange bedfellows!


Justice Antonin Scalia in 'Duck Season'
Supreme Court Justices Need Friends Too
Mark Fiore Audio Visual Animation


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Trip With Cheney Puts Ethics Spotlight on Scalia
Friends hunt ducks together, even as the justice is set
to hear the vice president's case.
By David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON ? Vice President Dick Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent part of last week duck hunting together at a private camp in southern Louisiana just three weeks after the court agreed to take up the vice president's appeal in lawsuits over his handling of the administration's energy task force.

While Scalia and Cheney are avid hunters and longtime friends, several experts in legal ethics questioned the timing of their trip and said it raised doubts about Scalia's ability to judge the case impartially.

But Scalia rejected that concern Friday, saying, "I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned."

Federal law says "any justice or judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be questioned." For nearly three years, Cheney has been fighting demands that he reveal whether he met with energy industry officials, including Kenneth L. Lay when he was chairman of Enron, while he was formulating the president's energy policy.

A lower court ruled that Cheney must turn over documents detailing who met with his task force, but on Dec. 15, the high court announced it would hear his appeal. The justices are due to hear arguments in April in the case of "in re Richard B. Cheney."

Continue, please

*Ø* Blogmanac | BBC stars back defiant media campaign

John Plunkett, The Guardian
30 January

"Some of the BBC's biggest names including Jonathan Ross and John Simpson have given their support to an unprecedented newspaper campaign in which the corporation vows to carry on making challenging and provocative programmes.

"The full-page advert, which is due to appear in the Daily Telegraph tomorrow [Saturday], was paid for entirely by BBC employees, presenters and reporters, as well as outside contributors.

"The ad says staff are 'dismayed' by the departure of the director general, Greg Dyke, who resigned after scathing criticism of the corporation in the Hutton report.

"'Greg Dyke stood for brave, independent BBC journalism that was fearless in its search for the truth. We are resolute that the BBC should not step back from its determination to investigate the facts in pursuit of the truth,' reads the ad."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Clinton ignored Gore's invention?

"LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) -- The archives of the Bill Clinton presidential library will contain 39,999,998 e-mails by the former president's staff and two by the man himself.

"'The only two he sent,' Skip Rutherford, president of the Clinton Presidential Foundation, which is raising money for the library, said on Monday.

"One of them may not actually qualify for electronic communication because it was a test to see if the commander in chief knew how to push the button on an e-mail ..."
Source

Religious money making. Does it get much worse than this?

*Ø* Blogmanac | A baby dragon, or a bad joke?

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 24/01/2004)

"A pickled 'dragon' that looks as if it might once have flown around Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire.

"Yesterday the baby dragon, in a sealed 30in jar, was in the office of Allistair Mitchell, who runs a marketing company in Oxford. He was asked to investigate by his friend, David Hart, from Sutton Courtenay, who discovered it.

"A metal tin found with the dragon contained paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s. Mr Mitchell speculates that German scientists may have attempted to use the dragon to hoax their English counterparts in the 1890s, when rivalry between the countries was intense.

"'At the time, scientists were the equivalent of today's pop stars. It would have been a great propaganda coup for the Germans if it had come off.

"'I've shown the photos to someone from Oxford University and he thought it was amazing. Obviously he could not say if it was real and wanted to do a biopsy.'

"The documents suggest that the Natural History Museum turned the dragon away, possibly because they suspected it was a trick, and sent it to be destroyed. But it appears a porter intercepted the jar and took it home. The papers suggest the porter may have been Frederick Hart – David Hart's grandfather.

"Mr Mitchell said: 'The dragon is flawless, from the tiny teeth to the umbilical cord. It could be made from indiarubber, because Germany was the world's leading manufacturer of it at the time, or it could be made of wax. It has to be fake. No one has ever proved scientifically that dragons exist. But everyone who sees it immediately asks, "Is it real?"'

Yesterday the Natural History Museum said that it was interested in following up the find ..."
Source: Telegraph UK

*Ø* Blogmanac | Judge who cleared Blair, blamed BBC, accused of "whitewash"

"LONDON (AFP) - The judge who probed the suicide of arms expert David Kelly was accused of a 'whitewash' by much of Britain's daily press for clearing Prime Minister Tony Blair's government of wrongdoing while rebuking the BBC.

"The rightwing Daily Mail said that judge Brian Hutton's long-awaited verdict, delivered Wednesday, had attracted 'widespread incredulity.'

"'Justice?' the paper asked in a front page headline. It said Hutton's report 'does a great disservice to the British people. It fails to set its story in the context of the BBC's huge virtues and the government's sore vices.'

The British Broadcasting Corporation was plunged into turmoil, with its chairman Gavyn Davies resigning, after Hutton severely criticised the world's biggest public broadcaster.

"The judge said that a BBC radio report claiming that the government deliberately exaggerated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the US-led invasion on March 20 last year was 'unfounded'.

"'We're faced with the wretched spectacle of the BBC chairman resigning while Alastair Campbell crows from the summit of his dungill. Does this verdict, my lord, serve the real interest of truth?' asked the Daily Mail ..."
Source: Yahoo! News

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

"Again and again, he comes down on the side of politicians and officials."

Who is Judge Hutton?

"The 72 year old Baron Hutton of Bresagh, County of Down, North Ireland, is a classic representative of the British ruling establishment. A member of the Anglo-Irish elite, he was educated at Shewsbury all boys boarding school, and then Balliol, Oxford, before entering the exclusive club of the British Judiciary. Whilst British judges are overwhelmingly conservative, upper class, white, male and biased, Hutton's background is even more compromised ...

"His name will be familiar to residents of the Six Counties of Ulster. During the bloody thirty years war Hutton was an instrument of British state repression, starting in the late 1960's as junior counsel to the Northern Ireland attorney general, and by 1988 rising to the top job of Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland ...

"However, he will be remembered in the rest of the UK for his role in the 1999 Pinochet affair. Another senior Judge, Lord Hoffman had contributed to the decision to arrest and extradite the notorious former dicator of Chile and mass murderer General Pinochet during his visit to Britain.

"As a law lord, Hutton led the rightwing attack on Lord Hoffman, on the excuse that Hoffman's links to the human rights group amnesty international invalidated Pinochets arrest! Lord Hutton said "public confidence in the integrity of the administration of justice would be shaken" if Lord Hoffman's ruling was not overturned ..."
Source: Indymedia UK

*Ø* Blogmanac | Life once existed on Mars, Australian scientists say

"Australian scientists believe they have found evidence that life once existed on Mars.

"They have found that microscopic fossils of primitive bacteria-like organisms in a Mars meteorite match characteristics of bacteria found in mud in Queensland.

"The research is published today in the Journal of Microscopy ..."
Source: ABC Oz

*Ø* Blogmanac January 29, 1688 | Emanuel Swedenborg

1688 Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish philosopher, naturalist and theosophist, (d. 1772)

Swedenborg’s remote viewing
The philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote that a friend of his was witness in 1756 (it was actually 1759), on a Saturday in late February, at about 6 pm, to an extraordinary occurrence in the town of Gottenburg. 

Swedenborg had become agitated. He described in perfect detail a large fire that he said was burning in Stockholm, and that the house of his friend was burnt down, and his own was in danger. On the Monday evening, the news reached Swedenborg and his friends in Gottenburg that every detail as described by the esoteric philosopher was perfectly correct. Kant's information of the event led him to believe it completely. 

Aha! :: Synchronicity Central :: Log your synchronicities and coincidences


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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Ireland's all-male delegation unacceptable in Europe

Denis Staunton, Irish Times
29 January

"The Council of Europe has suspended the voting rights of the entire Irish delegation to its Parliamentary Assembly because Ireland's delegates are all men.

"The council agreed last September that each national delegation should include at least one woman, an instruction that all countries obeyed, except Ireland and Malta.

"The council wrote to all national delegations last November, reminding them that their team for 2004 must include members of both sexes. However, the Government Chief Whip, Ms Mary Hanafin, told the Dáil last Thursday that the all-male delegation, in place since the last general election, had been renominated ...

"The delegation will not be allowed to vote in the council's Parliamentary Assembly until its composition is changed to include a woman."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Doctors question Kelly 'suicide'

"Fresh doubts about the death of Dr David Kelly, the British weapons expert, were raised yesterday by three doctors who questioned whether he took his own life.

"The doctors suggested that the former United Nations weapons inspector could not have committed suicide in the way described to the inquiry chaired by Lord Brian Hutton.

"Kelly was found dead in a copse near his Oxfordshire home in July after being named as the source of a BBC report claiming that the Government had sexed up an intelligence dossier on the threat from Iraq.

"A forensic pathologist, Dr Nicholas Hunt, told the Hutton inquiry that Kelly had bled to death from a self-inflicted wound to his left wrist. But Dr David Halpin, a former consultant in trauma and orthopaedic medicine at Torbay Hospital, Devon, and two colleagues, question this account ..."
Source: New Zealand Herald

Suicide "improbable": Doctors


I have an open mind on the cause of David Kelly's controversial death. However, I have my suspicions. The following is something I haven't fully read, but intend to today. I log it here not as an endorsement (Blogmanac posts never are) but as background material to this week's media overload over the Hutton Report: The Murder of David Kelly

*Ø* Blogmanac | Kay calls for independent inquiry

Former US Weapons Inspector: Intelligence on Iraqi Weapons Was Inadequate

"Former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay is calling for an independent inquiry into the U.S. intelligence failure over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Mr. Kay blamed faulty intelligence for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction ..."
Source: VOA

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Last of the believers
Only Blair now insists there were Iraqi WMDs. But even claiming an honest mistake will no longer wash

Jonathan Freedland

"It's getting embarrassing. Anybody who's anybody now admits that there are no, and were no, weapons of mass destruction worth the name in Iraq. The roll-call of converts to what used to be the exclusive position of the anti-war camp gets more impressive by the day ..."
Source: Guardian

*Ø* Blogmanac | Mr Phoenix lives to fight another day

With the Hutton report's exoneration, Tony Blair has sailed through yet another potential political crisis, writes Kamal Ahmed
January 28

"'It was so good for them, maybe Alastair Campbell gave Lord Hutton advice on how to write it,' muttered one disgruntled journalist as he left court 76 of the royal courts of justice.

"Anyone expecting 'a plague on all your houses' report from Lord Hutton on the death of Dr David Kelly or even a smoking gun that would go the heart of the government machine would have been sorely disappointed by today's events.

"Lord Hutton, in his measured brogue, delivered a damning indictment of BBC editorial processes and governance. At the same time, he flourished a 'get out of jail card' for Downing Street, saying that he understood the reasons for the infamous naming strategy and that the BBC's claims against the prime minister were 'unfounded'. Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell must have been slapping themselves on the back at such a wholehearted endorsement of their position ...

"Later, Mr Davies [BBC Chairman] took the only route open to him and resigned ...

"Journalists muttered 'whitewash' as they left court 76 at just before 1.45pm this afternoon. Lord Hutton has successfully opened a flank on the BBC that Campbell, even in his most optimistic moods, must have barely thought possible."

Full text at the Guardian

[A poll at Sky.com asking the public if "Hutton has got to the truth" is currently indicating "No" 64% and "Yes" 36% -- N]

*Ø* Blogmanac January 28, 1706 | John Baskerville

1706 John Baskerville, English printer and typefounder whose fonts (including the famous 'Baskerville', above) were so successful, his competitors claimed they damaged the eyes (d. 1775).

His masterpiece was a folio Bible, published in 1763. Among Baskerville's publications held in the British Museum are Aesop's Fables (1761), the Bible (1763), and the works of Horace (1770).

A native of Worcestershire, Baskerville made a fortune in a japanning business in Birmingham. He devoted his resources to the art of printing and development of typefaces, was said to be a great perfectionist and made his own ink, presses, moulds for casting, and all the apparatus.  

Baskerville enjoyed a lasting friendship with Benjamin Franklin, who had built up a successful printing business in Philadelphia, and who visited Baskerville in Birmingham. 

"His typography is extremely beautiful, uniting the elegance of Plantin with the clearness of the Elzevirs; in his Italic letters he stands unrivalled," wrote one commentator.

He was a man of eccentric tastes: he had each panel of his carriage painted with a picture of one of his trades. John Baskerville was buried in his own garden; in 1821 his remains were accidentally disturbed, the leaden coffin was opened and his body and shroud were in a nearly perfect state of preservation.

People were actually charged sixpence for a look at the wonder. Baskerville was an atheist and wished not to be interred in a churchyard. His body had several moves before it found its final resting place. As Deborah Cooper writes in John Baskerville: A man with a mission, writes,

Just as his typeface is now recognized as one of the greatest ever designed, so his body is more or less where he would want it, in a place where there is no church. Perhaps he would have been happy about this as it proves that if you keep persevering, you will eventually get what you want. This was John Baskerville to the letter.


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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Monkey business too costly for Cambridge

Press Association
January 27

"Cambridge University is rethinking its controversial plans for a government-backed primate research centre because of the expected cost of protecting it from animal rights activists.

"The laboratory has become a focus of the growing battle between anti-vivisectionists opposed to the use of monkeys for science and academics who said the centre was vital for research into diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

"The decision to put the development on hold was made after costs grew from £24m to more than £32m ...

"South Cambridgeshire District Council had earlier refused planning permission after police raised fears about public safety at the site. Animal rights campaigners today welcomed the news."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Ireland revives hope for EU Constitution

By George Parker, Financial Times
January 27

"European foreign ministers gave new impetus yesterday to talks on the proposed European Union constitution, six weeks after negotiations collapsed at the Brussels summit. The Irish EU presidency said the mood among ministers was 'positive and helpful' as they held their first talks on the draft treaty since last December's divisive meeting.

"Many foreign ministers argued it was vital to resolve the constitutional debate quickly, to allow the EU to focus on economic reform, future spending plans and other priorities. Many diplomats expressed admiration for Ireland's low-key attempts to revive the constitution, which aims to streamline decision-making in an enlarged EU, increase democratic scrutiny and enhance Europe's role on the world stage."

Full text

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Meanwhile ...

Taoiseach may be asked to attend bomb hearings

Conor Lally, Irish Times

"The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, may be invited to appear before the Oireachtas subcommittee to explain why he was not more insistent with the British and Northern Irish authorities when they refused Mr Justice Barron access to files on the Dublin-Monaghan bombings of 1974 ...

"Mr Paul Murphy, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has also been invited to appear as has a number of his predecessors, including Mr Peter Mandelson and Mr John Reid. Mr Hugh Orde, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, has also been asked to attend.

"All are scheduled to appear before the subcommittee in mid-February. However, it is unlikely that any of the British and Northern Irish officials and former officials will agree to attend. The subcommittee will report back to the Government in March on whether it believes a public tribunal of inquiry into the Dublin-Monaghan bombings is warranted."

Source

[No one was ever prosecuted for the attacks, in which 33 people died. There are suggestions of possible involvement of British agents in the bombing plot by the UVF -- N]

*Ø* Blogmanac | Nifty site revealer

javascript:alert("The real URL of this site is: " + location.protocol + "//" + location.hostname + "/");

If you want to know the actual URL of a site (you might want to one day), just paste all of the above code over the URL in the address bar. Then click Go.

Thanks to my good mate Mary Ann Sabo, an Almaniac in the US of A.

*Ø* Blogmanac January 27, 1832 | Lewis Carroll

1832 Lewis Carroll, English mathematician and author (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), (d. 1898)
?
Carroll's words
The English mathematician coined dozens of words in Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and his nonsense poems, many of which have become part of the English language, such as 'chortle' (a cross between a chuckle and a snort) and 'galumph'. He called them 'portmanteau' words, a term still used by linguists today, and wordmongers today still use Carroll?s technique of combining two words to form a new one, as in 'smog' and 'brunch'.

Questions over his sexual preferences
Evidence abounds that Carroll was a paedophile though not whether he ever indulged his sexual preference. He photographed many pretty little girls – some languidly stretched out on beds, and some nude. He is famously quoted as saying, "I am fond of children (except boys)?. However, according to all evidence, Carroll remained beyond reproach in his behaviour and the girls without exception seem to have adored him.

Morton Cohen, a pre-eminent Carroll scholar conducted interviews in the 1960s with several elderly women who were once Carroll's child-friends, but even when pressed for details of possible indiscretions, all of them affirmed that Carroll was the nicest, most gentle, and kindest man they had ever known. Perhaps the Victorian English scholar is often judged harshly by 21st-Century values. Maybe Chicka is chortling in his grave.

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Muslim refusenik

This looks pretty interesting. I was doing some weeding and pool cleaning for Baz le Tuff today and he told me about the Muslim Refusenik website by Irshad Manji. She's a lesbian feminist Muslim whose books are causing quite a stir. Booklist's review of her new book said:

Uganda-born Manji fled with her Muslim family of South Asian extraction to Canada when she was two. Growing up there, she was affected as much by North American as by Muslim social conventions, and she became a woman with a career (in broadcasting) and an out lesbian. She remains Muslim, though "hanging on by my fingernails." She questions the sexism, anti-intellectualism, moral superiority and evasion, anti-Semitism, and Arab chauvinism she sees in Islam's public face.

I've put The Trouble With Islam in the Almanac's Cafe Diem store (it's discounted by 30% although only released on January 14).

Thanks Monsieur le Tuff for putting me onto this site and book. BTW, I slept for two hours after doing your garden. Of course, I was almanacking till nearly dawn before I went there. Those yellowing palms need a feed.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Let's at least get ONE thing straight!

Just as a point of interest, although they're all saying different now, Dennis was the ONLY one who stood up against the claim of Iraq having WMDs from the very beginning.

Kucinich: 5 Dem Candidates Promoted WMD Claims

Please forward this to every Democrat you know.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich today said that based on the public record five of his fellow candidates promoted the idea that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"The implications of this are enormous," Kucinich said. "They were either misled or looked the other way while President Bush was using the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction as a reason to go to war against Iraq. Either way, these candidates have seriously undermined their ability to win in the general election when President Bush is obviously running for reelection based on his Iraq policies.

"Yesterday the leader of the U.S. search for Iraq's alleged stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons said he didn't think there were any. Secretary of State Colin Powell now claims we went to war to find out whether such weapons existed.

"Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Edwards, Dr. Dean, and General Clark, all claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and, therefore, contributed to the political climate which falsely justified a war.

"In September of 2002, before five of my fellow candidates joined the President in claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, I repeatedly and insistently made the point that no proof of that claim existed and as such that there was no basis to go to war. Six months later, even Dr. Dean was still claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. "

The Institute for Public Accuracy has compiled the following quotes, listed in chronological order:

[August 4, 2002] Sen. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: "Every day Saddam remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States."
[See: http://www.counterpunch.org/wmd05292003.html , http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,59538,00.html ]

[Sept. 12, 2002] Rep. DENNIS KUCINICH: "Since 1998 no credible intelligence has been brought forward which suggests that Iraq is manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. . . "
[See: http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/pr-020912-avoidwar.htm , http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/oh10_kucinich/030604WMDinqres.html ]

[Oct. 9, 2002] Sen. JOHN KERRY: "Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try? According to intelligence, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons . . . Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents. . ."
[See: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0826-03.htm , http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2002_1009.html ]

[Oct. 10, 2002] Sen. JOHN EDWARDS: "We know that he [Hussein] has chemical and biological weapons."
[See: http://www.senate.gov/~edwards/statements/20021010_iraq.html ]

[Jan. 18, 2003] Gen. WESLEY CLARK: "He [Hussein] does have weapons of mass destruction. " When asked, "And you could say that categorically?" Clark responded: "Absolutely. " (on CNN, Jan. 18, 2003). On finding the alleged weapons Clark said: "I think they will be found. There's so much intelligence on this. " (on CNN, April 2, 2003)
[See: http://www.fair.org/press-releases/clark-antiwar.html , http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0301/18/smn.05.html , http://www-cgi.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0304/02/lt.08.html ]

[Jan. 31, 2003] Rev. AL SHARPTON: "I think that the present administration is bent on war. There has been no, in my judgment, evidence presented there has been any weapons of mass destruction. " (on NPR, Jan. 31, 2003)

[March 17, 2003] Dr. HOWARD DEAN: "[He and others] have never been in doubt about the evil of Saddam Hussein or the necessity of removing his weapons of mass destruction. "
[See: http://www.wtv-zone.com/Morgaine_OFaery/HDean4pres/deantrpswar.html ]

Kucinich, who led the effort in the House of Representatives in challenging the Bush Administration's march toward war attempted repeatedly to warn America that there was no basis to go to war:

On Sep. 3, 2002, on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Dennis Kucinich said, "I don't think there's any justification to go to war with Iraq. There's no evidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. There's no. . . there's nothing that says that they have the ability to deliver such weapons, if they did have them. There's been no stated intention on their part to harm the United States. "

On Sep. 4, 2002, on Buchanan and Press, Buchanan asked "Congressman Kucinich, does not the President have a clear, factual point here? Saddam Hussein is developing these weapons of mass destruction, he agreed to get rid of them, he has not gotten rid of them. Kucinich replied: "Well, frankly we haven't seen evidence or proof of that, and furthermore we haven't seen evidence or proof that he has the ability to deliver such weapons if he has them, and finally, whether or not he has the intent. I think that what we need to be doing is to review this passion for war, that drumbeat for war, that's coming out of the White House, and to slow down and to let calmer heads prevail and to pursue diplomacy…. "

On Sep. 7, 2002, Dennis Kucinich gave a speech in Baraboo, Wisconsin, called "Architects of New Worlds," in which he said "There's no evidence Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, or the ability to deliver such weapons if it had them or the intention to do so. There is no reason for war against Iraq. Stop the drumbeat. Stop the war talk. Pull back from the abyss of unilateral action and preemptive strikes." [See: http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/sp-020907-newworlds.htm ]

Please forward this to every Democrat you know.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Nothing but the truth

Leader
January 26, The Guardian

"Nearly 12 months on, the Iraq war continues to cast its shadow over everything about Tony Blair's premiership. At the start of this momentous week in British politics, it remains the determining event of this government. It is also an open wound in the body of the Labour cause.

"Depending on what Lord Hutton says on Wednesday, this fateful conflict could shortly claim the political scalps of a defence secretary, and even conceivably a prime minister, to go with the two other senior cabinet ministers, Robin Cook and Clare Short, who have been its victims already.

"Cabinet divisions did not end when those two resigned last year; a new biography of Mr Blair by Philip Stephens suggests that the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, was a reluctant warrior himself. Nor is the effect confined to events, like Hutton, that are themselves directly linked to Iraq.

"If enough Labour MPs vote with the opposition parties to overturn the higher education bill tomorrow evening -- which we again strongly urge them not to do -- they will do so in part because they lost their patience with Mr Blair over his determination to go to war alongside the United States last year. Iraq, in short, remains unfinished and live business."

Continue here

*Ø* Blogmanac | Howard defiant over Iraq war involvement

"[Australian] Prime Minister John Howard says he did the right thing in sending Australian troops to Iraq last year, despite new claims that the Gulf state did not have any so-called weapons of mass destruction at the time.

"Chief weapons inspector David Kay quit last week, saying he believes Iraq probably got rid of its banned weapons some years ago.

"And United States' Secretary of State Colin Powell has now conceded Saddam Hussein's regime may not have had any chemical or biological weapons when it was attacked ...

"But the Federal Opposition says it is now clear that Australia went to war in Iraq on a false premise ...

"Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, has seized on Mr Kay's resignation.

"'For Mr Kay to come out and say quite plainly that in his view these stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons simply did not exist at the time Mr Howard took Australia to war against Iraq fundamentally torpedoes the credibility of Mr Howard and Mr Downer and Senator Hill in taking this country to war on the argument they put to the Australian people at the time,' Mr Rudd said."
Source: ABC Oz

*Ø* Blogmanac | Somebody stop them!

As if the unfair media exposure of all candidates wasn't bad enough, or the unfair interpretation of Dean's pep talk for his staffers during which he was laughing, described as "angry!" Yeah--we sure don't want an angry man as president! As Bill Maher said on Real Time " . . . he might START A WAR!" Every single negative thing the media chooses to pick on about the candidates already applies to the Little Napoleon from Crawford!


Two Eyeopeners From Bruce:

The End Of Democracy in the United States?
By Bob Zanelli

A question which hasn't got near enough attention, in my opinion, is the GOP's effort to make their control of power election proof. We got a taste of this when the current war criminal in the White House was elected. Is this paranoia? Or is this a real threat this country faces. Is there a vast right wing conspiracy, or is American Democracy safe? Below is a helpful link from those wild eyed alarmists, the American Humanist Association. Don't expect to hear about this from the already corporate controlled American media. -- Bob Zannelli

Apparently democracy is safe only in Iraq.


---0---0---0---

The Bush plan to promote marriage? (In case you missed it.)


Call It The Divorce Belt
By Ellis Henican

Holy Britney Spears!

Here's a fact I couldn't find anywhere in George W. Bush's $1.5-billion plan to prop up American marriage.

The pro-Bush red states, especially those in the rural South, have a far higher divorce rate than Al Gore's blue states.

This is the Bible Belt?

Actually, it's more like the Divorce Belt, where the pro-marriage president's staunchest supporters tend to congregate.

For this little nugget, we are indebted to the insightful research of George Barna, who is probably America's leading pollster of religious attitudes. The Barna Research Group of Ventura, Calif., has spent the past 18 years tracking various church and cultural trends.

Trends like Baptists (29 percent) and nondenominational Christians (34 percent) getting divorced more frequently than do atheists/agnostics (21 percent).

Forget all that family-values talk from the Religious Right.

"Divorce rates among conservative Christians were much higher than for other faith groups," Barna says flatly.

And to think: I'd always heard that godless relativists in places like New York were undermining marriage.

Well, not so you'd notice on the marital-political map.

Full story . . . read on

*Ø* Blogmanac January 26 | Australia Day

Happy Oz Day, folks, and thanks Nora for the greetings and the great anim. Made me laff!

As you can see in the Coffs Harbour weather sticker at the foot of this blog, the temperature here is a bit higher than zero. It's a glorious day here.

Australia Day is a good time to think about our environment. These frightening statistics come from Worldwide Fund for Nature's Threatened Species Network:

Until recently, 50% of the world's mammal extinctions in the last 200 years occurred in Australia. Unfortunately the rest of the world is now catching up and the number has dropped to 25%. Since the settlement of Australia by Europeans in 1788, at least 50 species of mammals and birds and about 68 species of plants have become extinct in Australia, and there are probably many more that we know nothing about. At least another 100 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs, and fish are now nationally listed as endangered, and over 500 plants. Invertebrates (creatures without internal skeletons) are not included in these statistics, as relatively little information is known about these animals. However, it is likely that there are hundreds under threat (a small few have been listed). Many of our listed species could become extinct within 10 to 20 years. The total number of species nationally listed in Australia as threatened is nearing 1500.
Additionally, 75% of our rainforests and 43% of our forests have been cleared – homes for many Australian species. There are also many important ecological communities under threat. For example less than 1% of the lowland native grasslands of south-eastern Australia remains intact.

A barbecue would be nice, but today I'm busy with January 26 at the Book of Days, which I've nearly finished. Our American readers might be interested in a quaint item there, a connection between General Douglas Macarthur, Australia and Wrigley's chewing gum.

Australia Day is a rather controversial topic here, for many reasons. I've tried to cover the topic at the Australia Day page.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Happy Australia Day

... to Pip, and to all our Australian readers!



Enjoy the barbies, folks. It's 0 degrees Celsius in Dublin as I write -- N

*Ø* Blogmanac | Jethro Tull musician has sex swap op

"A former member of seventies band Jethro Tull has had a sex-change operation and become a woman called Dee.

"Once bearded keyboard player David Palmer now has long blonde hair and wears make-up and black leggings, reports the Evening Standard.

"She broke the news to flute playing frontman Ian Anderson by saying: 'There's something I need to get off my increasingly ample chest.'"
Source

*Ø* Blogmanac January 25, 1992 | Happy birthday Rem!

I just want to wish a big happy birthday to my son, Remy, and lots of good wishes as he starts high school this week. Remy's one of the nicest kids you could hope to meet.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Bush's long, hot summer to come

Local Activists Organize for "New York Summer"
While George Bush Jr. pandered to rightwing extremists during Tuesday night's State of the Union address, local activists with the No RNC Clearinghouse packed Judson Memorial Church to continue planning massive street protests for this August when Bush comes to New York to receive the Republican nomination.

Various working groups discussed everything from guerrilla theatre to the logistics of housing hundreds of thousands of visiting protesters to the training of legal observers and street medics. The outreach working group announced it would be organizing community forums around the city this spring in advance of a New York Summer full of activism.
Source: Indymedia

*Ø* Blogmanac January 25 | A big day in world folklore

Burns Day
All over the world, Scots will gather tonight for the annual Burns Supper.

There they will honour the life and work of their national poet Robert Burns. Usually they will enjoy a great feast and there will be the singing of national songs, many of them from the pen of Burns himself. It may be that these revels have their origins in the ancient Norse Disting festival of the Dísir, protective maternal deities or guardian goddesses.

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere!
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak' a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.

Disting (Disirblot)
The dísir may be considered ancestors of humans and they are associated with the Norse goddess Freya. They are valkyrie-like guardians of the dead. One of the dísir’s functions was to assist women in childbirth, leading to these deities holding an important position as agents of destiny. The Disting was held at the beginning of February and the end of October, and is still celebrated by various Neopagan religions such as Asatru and Germanic heathenism ...

Tenjin Matsuri (festival), Japan
This festival, popularly known as Kitano Tenjin, is held at Kitano Shrine at Osaka. It is dedicated to Sugawara-no-Michizane (845-903), a highly-gifted official of the Heian court (794-1185) who instituted many reforms of great benefit to the fledgling Japanese nation. He was deified under the name of Tenjin and is the god of scholarship, language and calligraphy, having taught humans to write. This is the first of Tenjin’s festivals for the year at this shrine. There are many shrines to him in Japan, and students go to them to ask his blessing on their studies.

Feast day of St Dwynwen, the 'St Valentine' of Wales
Saint Dwynwyn’s Day is celebrated in Wales as a kind of St Valentine's Day, particularly among women who will send cards to their lovers today ...

These are just snippets of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | US government dusts off 1800s law in targeting Greenpeace

By Catherine Wilson, Associated Press

"MIAMI — When prosecutors brought charges against Greenpeace for protesting a shipment of Amazon mahogany, they dusted off a 19th century federal law enacted to stop pimps from clambering aboard ships entering port.

"Environmentalists call the charges a heavy-handed attempt to stifle free speech and say the government is retaliating against Greenpeace for previous in-your-face protests against the Bush administration.

"The federal government has never successfully prosecuted an entire activist organization on criminal charges over its protest methods — not even the Ku Klux Klan.

"'It's an incredible abuse of power, and this is nothing short of political retribution,' said Sierra Club spokesman Eric Antebi. 'We think this sets a horrible precedent for political intimidation of public interest groups' ..."
Source: ENN

*Ø* Blogmanac | Of course the White House fears free elections in Iraq

Only an appointocracy can be trusted to accept US troops and corporations

Naomi Klein, The Guardian
January 24

"'The people of Iraq are free,' declared President Bush in his state of the union address on Tuesday. The previous day, 100,000 Iraqis begged to differ. They took to Baghdad's streets, shouting: 'Yes, yes to elections. No, no to selection.'

"According to Iraq occupation chief Paul Bremer, there really is no difference between the White House's version of freedom and the one being demanded on the street. Asked whether his plan to form an Iraqi government through appointed caucuses was heading towards a clash with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's call for direct elections, Bremer said he had no 'fundamental disagreement with him' ...

"Bremer wants his Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to appoint the members of 18 regional organising committees. These will then choose delegates to form 18 selection caucuses. These will then select representatives to a transitional national assembly. The assembly will have an internal vote to select an executive and ministers, who will form the new government. This, Bush said in the state of the union address, constitutes 'a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty'.

"Got that? Iraqi sovereignty will be established by appointees appointing appointees to select appointees to select appointees. Add the fact that Bremer was appointed to his post by President Bush and Bush to his by the US Supreme Court, and you have the glorious new democratic tradition of the appointocracy: rule by an appointee's appointee's appointees' appointees' appointees' selectees.

"The White House insists its aversion to elections is purely practical; there just isn't time to pull them off before the June 30 deadline. So why have the deadline? The favourite explanation is that Bush needs a 'braggable' on the campaign trail: when his Democratic rival raises the spectre of Vietnam, Bush will reply that the occupation is over, we're on our way out.

"Except that the US has no intention of actually getting out of Iraq; it wants its troops to remain, and it wants Bechtel, MCI and Halliburton to stay behind and run the water system, the phones and the oilfields. It was with this goal in mind that, on September 19, Bremer pushed through a package of economic reforms that the Economist described as a 'capitalist dream'."

Continue here

*Ø* Blogmanac | We've got work to do!

Thoughts on the Coming 'Discovery' of Bin Laden
The Best Propaganda Money Can Buy
By Eric A. Smith

Unless preparations are made for its eventuality, the announcement of Bin Laden's capture will be the death-knell for the 2004 Democratic campaign. And, like the "heroic rescue" of Jessica Lynch or the toppling of Hussein's statue by "jubilant throngs" of Iraqis, it needn't even be real:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/3028585.stm

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-scheer20may20,1,2187120.column

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2838.htm

So Democrats must have a pre-emptive strategy in place; the most obvious being, early in the game, to accuse the White House of sitting on Bin Laden for political gain.

A better one is to launch an independent investigation to find Bin Laden first and announce the discovery before Rove's political operatives; this would be a huge coup.

In case you haven't been paying attention, this election year, Republicans are playing a deadly game of attrition — death by a thousand tiny cuts, so to speak: extreme gerrymandering in Texas, the recall of a governor in California, the installation of inauditable, easily "preprogrammed" DRE e-vote machines in as many counties as will allow them to be stuffed down their throats, relentless and bloody character assassinations in a bought-and-paid-for Murdoch-dominated media empire, absentee ballots counted by an untouchable firm in Kuwait, stacked courts ready to deliver decisions for which 2000's Gore vs. Bush set the precedent.
[Emphasis added. -v]

The odds look dire for Democrats (and, by extension, the majority of Americans, though they are as yet blissfully unaware of the slender thread from which all our liberties hang).

But, in case you haven't connected the dots, this time the GOP is playing for keeps.

Once the fix is in, there will be no turning back: by an invisible, carefully planned coup, the neoconservatives will have transformed America into an autocracy, and any remaining political opposition will be window dressing.

And so, I challenge you: this is a battle we perhaps cannot win, but, at all costs, MUST NOT LOSE.

The consequences of surrender will be incalculable: one by one, like dominos, institutions we cherish will fall — environmental laws, social security, independent media, healthy advocacy groups, assistance for the unemployed, impoverished and disenfranchised — and, foremost, the right to choose our leaders. [Emphasis added. -v]

CONTINUE, PLEASE!

*Ø* Blogmanac January 24 | Cornish Tinners' and Seafarers' Day

Or Paul Pitcher Day
An old labour day, celebrating new season of sailing and mining in Cornwall, Great Britain. Cornish tin miners traditionally set up a pitcher in a public place and threw stones at it to destroy it.

A replacement pitcher was then bought and filled with beer, which was replenished throughout the day as they drank from it.

The miners were great inventors of reasons to celebrate, this one being a rebellion against the rule that only water was to be drunk during work time.

Was Jesus a tin man too?
Old Cornish tradition has it that Jesus Christ went to Cornwall with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea. There is even an old local song that says "Joseph was a tin man". Legend has it that at Glastonbury, which was also known as Avalon (resting place of King Arthur), Joseph stuck his staff in the ground, and from it sprung the famous 'Glastonbury thorn' tree which always flowered on Christmas Day.

Cornwall has long been a centre of tin mining, known even to ancient Phoenician traders who travelled from the Mediterranean to Britain for the tin they sold in North Africa, the Middle East and other areas of their influence. It is not impossible that the ancient Cornish tradition about Jesus and his uncle might be true. We know from the Bible that Joseph was a wealthy man (he provided the tomb that Jesus was buried in), and he could quite feasibly have travelled to the British Isles.

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Believe It!

Truth? You can't handle the truth!

Here's the truth in a brillliant animation from our friend Eric Blumrich. You'll want to play it a couple of times, then share it with your pro-war and pro-Bush friends.


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Snake of the Union Address


GOP Chairman Ed Gillespie sent me my very own personal copy of Bush's State of the Union Address. To be courteous I dashed off the following reply:

1/21/04 -- Barry Crimmins responds to the 2004 SOTU Address.
(Barry's remarks are preceded by" BC". Bush's remarks are by "GWB:")


The State of the Union Address
President George W. Bush
January 20, 2004

GWB: Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens: America this evening is a Nation called to great responsibilities. And we are rising to meet them.

BC: Particularly in New Hampshire.


GWB: As we gather tonight, hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure.

BC: They are delivering justice, alright. They are delivering it by telling the truth about the neglect, shoddy equipment, dangerous circumstances and muddled mission that has been inflicted upon them. The wounded, who've returned to abysmally poor treatment and benefits, will soon gather enough strength to seek some justice of their own. The dead, although brought into our nation under the shroud of darkness in an attempt to minimize the significance of their sacrifice, have filled some 600 graves that will forever remind the world of your callous wasting of their lives. Thousands and thousands of more such graves bespeak the same needless horror in Afghanistan and Iraq.


GWB: Each day, law enforcement personnel and intelligence officers are tracking terrorist threats; analysts are examining airline passenger lists; the men and women of our new Homeland Security Department are patrolling our coasts and borders. And their vigilance is protecting America.

BC: In the meantime while using all of this personnel to handle an unwieldy and hopelessly inefficient method of allegedly keeping us safe, you have caught thousands of innocents in your driftnet of paranoia. In the process you have done savage harm to the very civil liberties that should be a top priority of any decent homeland security operation.


GWB: Americans are proving once again to be the hardest working people in the world.

BC: Those not looking for work 24 hours a day simply can't because their multiple part-time, benefit-less jobs won't allow them to do so.


GWB: The American economy is growing stronger. The tax relief you passed is working.

BC: Glad to hear tax relief, unlike millions of Americans, is working. If we continue to create jobs at the rate of 1,000 per month (last month's total) it will only take 3,000 more years of your giveaways to the rich for us to regain the THREE MILLION jobs we have lost under your court-appointed presidency.


GWB: Tonight, Members of Congress can take pride in great works of compassion and reform that skeptics had thought impossible. You are raising the standards of our public schools; and you are giving our senior citizens prescription drug coverage under Medicare.

BC: Compassion for Big Pharmaceutical companies in guaranteeing them retail list price in perpetuity. Compassion for insurance hucksters that spend more money figuring out how to deny coverage than provide it. And reform by stealing funds from public schools so that they can be used to indoctrinate children in religious dogma at private institutions. Yeah, those are some real proud achievements.

CONTINUE

*Ø* Blogmanac | Unbelievable!

Wars 'useful', says US army chief

BBC:

"The head of the United States army has said that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have provided a 'tremendous focus' for the military ...

"General Schoomaker said the attacks on America in September 2001 and subsequent events had given the US army a rare opportunity to change.

"'There is a huge silver lining in this cloud,' he said.

"'War is a tremendous focus ... Now we have this focusing opportunity, and we have the fact that [terrorists] have actually attacked our homeland, which gives it some oomph.'

"He said it was no use having an army that did nothing but train."

Read full text here

*Ø* Blogmanac | Campaign Warns of Cannabis Dangers

By Kate Holton

London (Reuters) -- "The British government launched a one million pound campaign Thursday to warn people of the dangers of taking cannabis, a week before it downgrades the legal status of the recreational drug.

"Young people will be targeted by radio adverts and leaflets to remind them that cannabis is still illegal ...

"'Cannabis is a drug that can kill,' Dr Peter Maguire, deputy chairman of the BMA's [British Medical Association's] board of science told Reuters. 'People are making the conclusion that it is safe where in fact it is actually more dangerous than tobacco.'

"A cannabis joint without tobacco contains a third more tar than a normal cigarette, Maguire said, while the blood of someone who smoked a cannabis joint contained five times more carbon monoxide than that of a person who smoked a normal cigarette.

"Mental health charities have also highlighted the link between cannabis and schizophrenia."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Ex-Arms Hunter Kay Says No WMD Stockpiles in Iraq

"I don't think they existed" Kay tells Reuters

By Tabassum Zakaria

"WASHINGTON - David Kay stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for banned weapons in Iraq on Friday and said he did not believe the country had any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons.

"In a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which says its invasion of Iraq was justified by the presence of illicit arms, Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview he had concluded there were no Iraqi stockpiles to be found.

"'I don't think they existed,' Kay said. 'What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War, and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties,' he said.

"David Kay, who stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for weapons of mass destruction, said on January 23, 2004 that he does not believe there were any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. 'I don't think they existed,' Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview ...

"The CIA announced earlier that former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, who has previously expressed doubts that unconventional weapons would be found, would succeed Kay as Washington's chief arms hunter.

"Kay said he believes most of what was going to be found in the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has been found and that the hunt would become more difficult once America returned control of the country to the Iraqis.

"The United States went to war against Baghdad last year citing a threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. To date, no banned arms have been found ..."
Source: Common Dreams

*Ø* Blogmanac |

URGENT! IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUESTED!

Dear Friend of MoveOn.org,

During this year's Super Bowl, you'll see ads sponsored by beer companies, tobacco companies, and the Bush White House. But you won't see the winning ad in MoveOn.org Voter Fund's Bush in 30 Seconds ad contest. CBS refuses to air it.

Meanwhile, the White House is on the verge of signing into law a deal which Senator John McCain (R-AZ) says is custom-tailored for CBS and Fox, allowing the two networks to grow much bigger. CBS lobbied hard for this rule change; MoveOn.org members across the country lobbied against it;* and now our ad has been rejected while the White House ad will be played. It looks an awful lot like CBS is playing politics with the right to free speech. [Emphasis added. -v]

Of course, this is bigger than just the MoveOn.org Voter Fund. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) submitted an ad that was also rejected. But this isn't even a progressive-vs.-conservative issue. The airwaves are publicly owned, so we have a fundamental right to hear viewpoints from across the ideological spectrum. That's why we need to let CBS know that this practice of arbitrarily turning down ads that may be "controversial" -- especially if they're controversial simply because they take on the President -- just isn't right. [Emphasis added. -v]
Watch the ad that CBS won't air and sign our petition to CBS.

We'll deliver the petition by email directly to CBS headquarters.

You also may want to let your local CBS affiliate know you're unhappy about this decision. We've attached a list of the CBS affiliates in your state at the bottom of this email. Remember, a polite, friendly call will be most effective -- just explain to them why you believe CBS' decision hurts our democracy.

CBS will claim that the ad is too controversial to air. But the message of the ad is a simple statement of fact, supported by the President's own figures. Compared with 2002's White House ad which claimed that drug users are supporting terrorism, it hardly even registers.

CBS will also claim that this decision isn't an indication of political bias. But given the facts, that's hard to believe. CBS overwhelmingly favored Republicans in its political giving, and the company spent millions courting the White House to stop FCC reform. According to a well-respected study, CBS News was second only to Fox in failing to correct common misconceptions about the Iraq war which benefited the Bush Administration -- for example, the idea that Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11.

This is not a partisan issue. It's critical that our media institutions be fair and open to all speakers. CBS is setting a dangerous precedent, and unless we speak up, the pattern may continue. Please call on CBS to air ads which address issues of public importance today.

Sincerely,
--Adam, Carrie, Eli, James, Joan, Laura, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn.org Team
January 23rd, 2003

P.S. Our friends at Free Press have put together a page which explains simply how CBS and the FCC rule change are integrally linked. Check it out here.
___________

* American citizens across the board spoke out against it! Republicans and Democrats alike. It was the issue that drew the most dissent of any, other than the war on Iraq, such legislation in many years. But the lobbies and their money are getting their way.

*Ø* Blogmanac | The Long and the Short of It

From Shara:

Subject: Only part of the universe

Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida has put up a very interesting Java applet on their site. It begins as a view of the Milky Way Galaxy viewed from a distance of 10 million light years and then zooms in towards Earth in powers of ten of distance. 10 million, to one million, to 100,000 light years and so on and then when it finally reaches a large oak tree leaf. But that is not all; it zooms into the leaf until it reaches to the level of the quarks viewed at 100 attometers.

Molecular Expressions: Science, Optics and You - Powers Of 10: Interactive Java Tutorial

[Bookmark this! It's great to bring out when you're wondering about your place in the universe. Heck, it's great to contemplate when we think ANYthing in our little lives is important. -v]

*Ø* Blogmanac | Does Hicks stand a chance?

[Aussie David Hicks has languished without trial in Guantanamo for more than two years. This report from the 7.30 Report, ABC TV, Oz]

Hicks lawyer unimpressed with legal process

MAXINE McKEW: And I spoke to Major Michael Mori from the ABC's Washington bureau earlier today.

Major Mori, you've made the point today that the military commission that will try David Hicks has been created, as you've said, by those with a vested interest in conviction.

What is your basis for that claim?

MAJOR MICHAEL MORI, DAVID HICKS' MILITARY LAWYER: I think you have to look at the rules and procedures, is really what I addressed, and I believe that they created a system of justice that will not provide a full and fair trial.

There are certain aspects of this system that are missing from a regular, constituting criminal court.

There is no independent judge.

There is not the type of independent appellate review that you would find in the US civilian courts or under the uniform code of military justice.

I think, most shocking is the rule that prohibits the commission members from ruling on issues that would dismiss a charge or would invalidate part of the commission process.

Instead, those types of issues have to go to the appoint authority, who is the person who started the charges and approved the prosecution in the first place ...

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Legal community expresses concern over fairness of Hicks trial

ELIZABETH JACKSON: But first today, to the surprising comments by the American military lawyer representing the Australian David Hicks detained in Cuba that the Pentagon system of justice is neither fair nor just.

The lawyer's claims have prompted the Australian legal community to express its concerns that the alleged Australian terror suspect might not get a fair trial.

David Hicks has been detained at Guantanamo Bay for more than two years amidst debate about how he should be charged and what he should be charged with.

Well, now the lawyer representing him has challenged and even criticised the very system the Pentagon has put in place to hear the allegations against the Australian.

And while the Federal Government has dismissed the criticisms as the tactics of a defence lawyer, many others are now deeply concerned about the trial ...
Source: The World Today, ABC Radio, Oz

*Ø* Blogmanac | Watching the juggernaut: Australia

I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.
Mark Twain

Big drug corps are trying to do to Oz what they've done to poor countries for years

The big US pharmaceuticals firms are using Australia's public medicine supply scheme for target practice, writes David Fickling

"If you are reading this in the UK, Australia, Canada or Maine, you may be the victim of a conspiracy you have scarcely guessed at.

"Your government is preventing you from getting access to life-saving drugs. Diabolically, it is insisting that you only receive the medication you need if pharmaceutical companies give subsidies to the rich.

"Welcome to the world as seen through the eyes of big drugs firms. Public pharmaceuticals programmes, by which governments drive down prescription costs by bulk-buying common medicines, are a mainstay of public health systems across the developed world. To the lunatic fringe of the pharmaceuticals lobby, they are a menace: patients under such programmes may be healthier and financially better off but (the argument goes), intangibly, they are less free.

"Top of the liberation hit-list at the moment is Australia, which is embarking on the final round of free trade negotiations with the US in Washington this week. The country's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is likely to become a key target of US trade negotiators over the next fortnight.

"Drugs companies contributed ?10m to George Bush's election campaign in 2000 and are determined to get their money's worth out of any free trade agreement. The grumbles of the drugs and farming lobbies have already delayed the signing of the deal, which President Bush had previously scheduled for before Christmas.

"US companies' principal lobbyist, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (Phrma), views the trade talks as a vital opportunity to tackle what it regards as Australian protectionism.

"Phrma's version of capitalism is bizarre. Public pharmaceuticals programmes are to drugs as Wal-Mart is to kitchenware and camping gear: they push down prices by buying in volumes that none of their competitors can match. There are no laws in Australia banning non-PBS medicines from the market, and no tariffs are imposed on drugs that are not listed.

"Nonetheless, Phrma argues that the very existence of a government agency whose purpose is to depress the prices of drugs is anti-competitive. Before a drug is listed on the PBS, its worth must first be evaluated by committee, using criteria of provable effectiveness, value and safety; all of which means that prescribing doctors are unable to take other considerations into account - say, whether the manufacturer has bought them a golf club membership.

"Australia's conservative Coalition government is not widely trusted on public health issues, but ministers have been keen to proclaim their commitment to the PBS. Interviewed on ABC radio last week, the prime minister, John Howard, stressed that certain issues would not be up for negotiation: any deal, he explained, 'means the protection of the essentials of things like the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme'.

"Mr Howard's use of language is famously circumspect, and it is always worth thinking hard about his choice of words. Here it is important to note that he is not talking about protecting the scheme as a whole, only certain undefined 'essentials' ...
Source: The Guardian (UK)

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Opposition to US-Australia Trade Agreement

The Australia US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) has been negotiated behind closed doors since March 2003. Read How will a USA-Aus Free Trade Agreement Affect You?. A number of large US Environmental organisations have said the AUSFTA may undermine environmental protection initiatives within Australian and U.S jurisdictions. Their concerns are echoed by the Australian Conservation Foundation and independent research: a report released in October by Ozprospect.org which argues that a free trade agreement with the United States will generate significant and to date unreported negative environment impacts, including an increase in Australian water use by up to 1.3 trillion litres per year ? almost as much as the entire national domestic water use. (Report in PDF Format).

According to Health and Welfare organisations Medicines are still threatened. Further, the Australia Institute released a report (PDF)in December discussing the US's targeting of Australia's intellectual property laws as part of the USFTA, and the impact this would have on pharmaceutical prices.
Source: Indymedia Melbourne, Australia

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

One lump, or two?

"Thanks, 'Ossies', for sending your kids to die in Iraq for our gas-guzzling autos"

US takes hard line on Australian sugar
"The United States has asked Australia to accept a free trade agreement which does not include any increase in access for Australian sugar.

"A US trade official is being quoted as saying Bush administration negotiators have asked Australian negotiators to settle for a free trade agreement which does not open the US market to any more Australian sugar.

"But the official denied US trade representative Robert Zoellick had told a North Dakota radio station that sugar has been taken off the table.

"Dozens of Australian negotiators are in Washington this week trying to hammer out a free trade deal.

"The hard line US position on sugar is being seen as a major concession by the Bush administration to the powerful sugar beet and sugar cane industry in the US ..."
Source: ABC Australia

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

What can you do?

- Go to http://www.nofta.org and register your vote against the FTA (IT ONLY TAKES A MINUTE!) – please only vote once!
- Go to http://www.tradewatchoz.org for more information and form letters you can send to key politicians.
- Send a short letter/email (that’s all that’s needed!) to the Prime Minister, the Trade Minister Mark Vaile, the shadow trade minister Stephen Conroy or your member of Parliament. You can use the points listed above. Be sure to include your full name and address.
- Speak to family and friends about this issue, it has got very little and superficial coverage in the media, and the government is trying to keep all the details secret.
- Get involved in the campaign!

*Ø* Blogmanac | Interactive Crossword

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT . . .

From Mad Kane:

State of the Disunion

In honor of George W. Bush's 2004 State of the Union Address, I'm pleased to present my first interactive crossword puzzle.



Mad

Madeleine Begun Kane, Humor Columnist
MadKane.com
Notables Weblog
Dubya's Dayly Diary
Subscribe to MadKane Humor Newsletter (weekly) here

*Ø* Blogmanac January 22, 1561 | Mysteries of Francis Bacon

Was he Elizabeth I's bastard son? Did he write Shakespeare?

1561 Francis Bacon, early English philosopher, who shares a birthday with Lord Byron – Bacon on January 22, 1561, and Byron on that day in 1788 (d. April 9, 1626). Some allege that he was the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Bacon was Lord Chancellor of the realm, and man of letters, author of the Rosicrucian-inspired utopian New Atlantis (1627). The English poet Alexander Pope called him "The wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind". Pope also wrote, in 1741, “Lord Bacon was the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any country, ever produced.”

Many respectable scholars believe that it was actually Bacon who wrote the plays of William Shakespeare, claiming that the supposedly uneducated Shakespeare could not possibly have done so. While the theory is perhaps fanciful (we can deduce a little about Shakespeare’s probable education), it certainly has persisted for a long time.

In 1621 Lord Bacon was accused of accepting bribes as Lord Chancellor. To this, he pleaded guilty and was fined £40,000, banished from the court and disqualified from holding office. He was also sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London. The banishment, fine, and imprisonment were remitted, but his career as a public servant was finished. However, such was his popularity and the public perception of his relative innocence, his disfavour with the Crown, the Lords and the people did not last long.

When he was 21, Bacon met the alchemist and original 007, John Dee ...

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

*Ø* Blogmanac January 22, 1720 | Nothing new under the sun

The South Sea Bubble

1720 The beginning of the infamous South Sea Bubble – the name given to the economic bubble that occurred due to overheated speculation in and subsequent disastrous collapse of the South Sea Company.

In 1717 in England, a group of speculative merchants (including the English statesman Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, and Edward Gibbon, the grandfather of the famous historian), who had formed a huge corporation called the South Sea Company, proposed to the government that they should take on the national debt of 30,981,712 pounds. The public had confidence in the scheme and stock rose from 130 per cent to 300. Only soon-to-be Prime Minister Robert Walpole opposed the scheme, and he warned the country of the likely consequences, but was ignored.

The speculators spread rumours about their prospects in places such as Mexico and Peru, and stock went to 400, then settled at 330. Soon after the bill was passed by parliament, the stocks went up to 340. Crafty speculators made huge profits with sham or 'bubble' companies. The Prince of Wales was said to have reaped 40,000 pounds. Such investors merely put money in to raise the public hope, only to pull it out again as stocks rose. One of the schemes was "A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is."

Satirists as eminent as Swift produced caricatures of bubble companies in verse and on playing cards. By May 28 the shares sold at 890; soon they hit 1000. The inevitable happened, and stock slumped. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had profited by nearly 800,000 pounds. The poet John Gay was one of those wiped out. Many prominent members of the establishment were bankrupted for their fraud and speculation.

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | WHAT Environment?

MIA in the SOU
Bush stops pretending that he cares about the environment.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2004, at 8:45 PM PT

In a famous memo to Republican politicians about how to talk about the environment, pollster Frank Luntz warned against using the phrases "risk assessment" and "cost-benefit analysis," and urged them to instead use the words, "safer," "cleaner," and "healthier." But in President Bush's State of the Union address, the words "cleaner" and "healthier" were never uttered, and the word "safer" was spoken only in the context of the overthrow of
Saddam Hussein.

Here are some other words and phrases that did not appear in the speech: "environment," "pollution," "natural resources," "global warming," "clean air," "clean water," and "Clear Skies," which is what Bush calls his main initiative on air pollution. The word "conservation" appeared once in a plea to pass the energy bill, which takes various steps to encourage more oil drilling. This in a speech where Bush found time to call for an end to steroid abuse in professional sports, an issue completely outside the realm of government at the federal, state, or local level.

Apparently Karl Rove has decided that the environment isn't even worth paying lip service to anymore. [Emphasis added. -v]

SOURCE


* Ø * Ø * Ø *


The Earth's life-support system is in peril
by: Wire Services
1/21/2004
Excerpts from Margot Wallström, Bert Bolin, Paul Crutzen and
Will Steffen's article in the International Herald Tribune

Our planet is changing fast. In recent decades many environmental indicators have moved outside the range in which they have varied for the past half-million years. We are altering our life support system and potentially pushing the planet into a far less hospitable state.

Such large-scale and long-term changes present major policy challenges. The Kyoto Protocol is important as an international framework for combating climate change, and yet its targets can only ever be a small first step. If we cannot develop policies to cope with the uncertainty, complexity and magnitude of global change, the consequences for society may be huge.

Evidence of our influence extends far beyond atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and the well-documented increases in global mean temperature. During the 1990's, the average area of humid tropical forest cleared each year was equivalent to nearly half the area of England, and at current extinction rates we may well be on the way to the Earth's sixth great extinction event.





CONTINUE

[See also related article.]

*Ø* Blogmanac | SOTU

THE REAL STATE OF THE UNION

232: Number of American combat deaths in Iraq between May 2003 and
January 2004. . .

0: Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender
to the Allies in May 1945. . .

0: Number of funerals or memorials that President Bush has attended for
soldiers killed in Iraq. . .

100: Number of fund-raisers attended by Bush or Vice President Dick
Cheney in 2003. . .

2: Number of nations that Bush has attacked and taken over since coming
into the White House. . .

9.2: Average number of American soldiers wounded in Iraq each day since
the invasion in March last year. . .

1.6: Average number of American soldiers killed in Iraq per day since
hostilities began. . .

16,000: Approximate number of Iraqis killed since the start of war. . .

10,000: Approximate number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning
of the conflict. . .

92%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that had access to drinkable water
a year ago. . .

60%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that have access to drinkable
water today. . .

10: Number of solo press conferences that Bush has held since beginning
his term. His father had managed 61 at this point in his administration,
and Bill Clinton 33. . .

28: Number of days holiday that Bush took last August, the second
longest holiday of any president in US history (Record holder: Richard
Nixon). . .

13: Number of vacation days the average American worker receives each
year. . .

$10.9 million: Average wealth of the members of Bush's original
16-person cabinet. . .

88%: Percentage of American citizens who will save less than $100 on
their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and
dividends taxes. . .

$42,000: Average savings members of Bush's cabinet are expected to enjoy
this year as a result in the cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes. . .

$42,228: Median household income in the US in 2001. . .

$116,000: Amount Vice President Cheney is expected to save each year in
taxes. . .

SOURCE

*Ø* Blogmanac | Complete mammoth skull unearthed

"A complete mammoth skull has been unearthed in southern England, only the second to be found in Britain.

"The specimen was discovered in a gravel pit in the Cotswolds and is estimated to be about 50,000 years old ...

"Dr Adrian Lister, a mammoth expert from University College London, has carried out a preliminary analysis of the skull.

"The mammoth was an elderly female between 25 and 40 years old, which probably weighed between four and five tonnes.

"The tusks, which would have been up to 2.4m (eight feet) long, were missing from the skull and the experts now plan to look for these in the quarry, which is currently flooded due to rain."

Full text at the BBC

*Ø* Blogmanac January 21, 1950 | The Alger Hiss case

1950 Alger Hiss , former official in the US State Department and probable spy for the Soviet Union, was found guilty of perjury (as the statute of limitations for espionage had expired), in New York City. Hiss, who always maintained his innocence, was sentenced to five years in prison. The verdict was upheld at the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Hiss was sentenced to five years on January 25 and served 44 months before being released in November, 1954.

Although in the 1990s evidence (the ‘Venona files’) came to light from the former Soviet union that Hiss might indeed have been guilty of endangering his country, the matter is still one of some debate. The media line has tended to make Hiss a martyr to anti-Communist ‘witch-hunts’, and his main detractor, Whittaker Chambers (April 1, 1901 - July 9, 1961), a persecutor of an innocent man.

Chambers, a former communist, on August 3, 1948, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and presented a list of what he said were members of an underground communist network working within the United States government in the 1930s and 1940s. One of the names on that list was that of Alger Hiss. Chambers said that in 1937 he introduced Mr Hiss to a Russian agent named Colonel Bykov and that Hiss ever since had been passing American classified material to the Russians.

Chambers’s accusations were very well supported with documentation he alleged he had received from Hiss while Chambers was a Communist ...

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Bedtime story

[Well, it's bedtime in Ireland! - N]

Bush comes to England and meets the Queen, and says to her, "Maybe I should turn America into a Kingdom."

"Oh no, Mr Bush" says the Queen. "A kingdom needs a King and that would be most unsuitable."

"Well," says Bush, "maybe America could become a Principality."

"Oh no, Mr Bush" says the Queen. "A Principality needs a Prince and that would be most unsuitable."

"Well, "says Bush, "maybe America could become an Empire."

"Oh no, Mr Bush" says the Queen. "An Empire needs an Emperor and that would be most unsuitable. And before you go on, Mr Bush, I think you're doing perfectly well as a country ..."

*Ø* Blogmanac | US -- CAMPAIGN 2004

by Robert Steinback, Miami Herald
20 January

Unjust war is the only issue

"Iraq changes everything.

"Without it, we'd be having an interesting discussion about George W. Bush's tax cuts and whether his deficit spending threatens the nation's economic well-being.

"We'd be arguing over his environmental and energy policies.

"We'd be debating his court appointments, his immigration policies, the future of Social Security, the state of public schools, health insurance coverage and whether the federal government should influence personal choices like abortion, marriage and the right to die.

"In other words, we'd be thrashing out the important topics of a typical presidential campaign, to discern which candidate has the best ideas for America.

"But a deafening roar is drowning out the customary din of political conversation.

"America under Bush started a war, killed thousands of people, sacrificed hundreds of her own valiant soldiers and conquered a soveriegn nation, using the justification that this foreign government participated in a heinous terrorist attack and posed an immediate and serious danger to America.

"Which wasn't true.

"And now I'm having a dreadful time paying attention to any of the other relevant issues of this campaign. What can compare to the single-handed destruction of the legacy America spent 227 hard years crafting -- a commitment to justice, principle and the rule of law? ...

"America beat up Iraq for no good reason, destroying our honor in the process.

"For me, this season, all other issues pale in comparison."

Read full text here

*Ø* Blogmanac January 20 | The Eve of St Agnes and love spells

Saint Agnes' Eve

They told her how, upon St Agnes' Eve,
Young virgins might have visions of delight,
And soft adorings from their loves receive
Upon the honey'd middle of the night.
John Keats, 'Eve of St Agnes'

The divinations referred to (above) by John Keats in his poem 'The Eve of St Agnes' are referred to by Aubrey in his Miscellanies (1696) as being associated with St Agnes' night (thus, January 21), not the eve before. However, it is generally accepted that January 20, the Eve of St Agnes, is in fact the night of prognostications. I have changed my view as published in the Almanac in previous years.

Aubrey wrote in Miscellanies of 1696 that on the night of St Agnes you take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another. While saying a paternoster ('Our Father'), stick one of these pins in your sleeve, and you will dream of the person you will marry.

Otherwise, “passing into a different country from that of her ordinary residence, and taking her right-leg stocking, she [the maiden looking for a lover - PW] might knit the left garter around it, repeating the rhyme:

I knit this knot, this knot I knit,
To know the thing I know not yet,
That I may see
The man that shall my husband be,
Not in his best or worst array,
But what he weareth every day;
That I tomorrow may him ken
From among all other men.

Lying down on her back that night, with her hands under her head, the anxious maiden would supposedly see her future husband, who would greet her with a kiss.

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Microsoft takes on teen's site MikeRoweSoft.com

"VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- It's Microsoft versus Mike Rowe-soft.

"Rowe, a 17-year-old high school senior and Web designer from Victoria, has angered the software giant by registering an Internet site with the address www.MikeRoweSoft.com.

"'Since my name is Mike Rowe, I thought it would be funny to add "soft" to the end of it,' said Rowe.

"Microsoft, however, is not amused.

It has demanded that he give up his domain name. In November, Rowe received a letter from Microsoft's Canadian lawyers informing him he was committing copyright infringement.

"'I didn't think they would get all their high-priced lawyers to come after me,' Rowe said.

"He wrote back asking to be compensated for giving up his name. Microsoft's lawyers offered him $10 in U.S. funds ..."
Source

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Mike Rowe writes:
"Wow, this is amazing. My site this morning went down because of the massive amounts of visitors coming to my site. 250000 to be exact. My host couldn't handle the bandwidth so he was forced to shut it it down. I pleaded my case on a couple message boards and Deafening-urge.net came through for me with a great offer to host my site. Many thanks to him.

"I have been all around the world and back, I never expected this type of feedback. I have put up a defence fund so that I can hire a lawyer to guide me through the process of talking to Microsoft. I have already received a lot of pledges and I think each and every one of you for that.

"I could never think this could happen, even in my wildest dreams."
Source: www.mikerowesoft.com

*Ø* Blogmanac | We'd better tell all the Latinos we know about this!

Iddybud tells it like it is:

Could it be?
Bush planning to use Hispanic immigrants for a new draft?

"....The masses rarely catch-on until it is way too late in the game to go back. Every alien, illegal or not, denoted immediately above, that registers for the new three year immigration status will be simultaneously (though likely without knowledge of it) be registering to be selected for service in the United States Army or Marines. They will, along with other Americans chosen, be selected by a lottery system most are familiar with. Their tour of two years minimum will lighten the load on America’s Reserves and National Guard forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan presently, and it seems likely in Syria and Iran (but anywhere U.S. forces are deployed) later on in 2004-2008. It hasn’t helped any that there has been some 1,700 deserters from the Iraq war alone. Bush is having trouble convincing the youth of America that to enlist in the Armed Forces is the patriotic thing to do; enlistments is all branches of the military are off drastically. So reinstitution of the draft is a necessity if Bush and Pentagon are to continue their plans for an extended Pentagon 'footprint' throughout the world. While there are some 12 million aliens in the United States presently (illegal and legal) Mr. Bush isn’t likely to overlook this unregistered pool of draftees for long..."

"...One can already hear Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity squealing: 'If they want the benefits of the American dream they have to accept the obligations which come with these freedoms.' Of course nearly every single talk show host in America has never served their country either and will not be subject to the new draft as they will fall over the 25 year age limit (initially at least)..."


CONTINUE TO FULL TEXT

*Ø* Blogmanac January 19, 1809 | Edgar Allen Poe



1809 Edgar Allen Poe, (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849), American poet, short story author (The Tell Tale Heart; The Raven)

Edgar Allen Poe’s prescient cosmology

Poe wrote in 'Eureka, A Prose Poem' (1848):

That the Universe of Stars might endure throughout an aera at all commensurate with the grandeur of its component material portions and with the high majesty of its spiritual purposes, it was necessary that the original atomic diffusion be made to so inconceivable an extent as to be only not infinite. It was required, in a word, that the stars should be gathered into visibility from invisible nebulosity -proceed from visibility to consolidation- and so grow grey in giving birth and death to unspeakably numerous and complex variations of vitalic development: – it was required that the stars should do all this – should have time thoroughly to accomplish all these Divine purposes- during the period in which all things were effecting their return into Unity with a velocity accumulating in the inverse proportion of the squares of the distances at which lay the inevitable End.

Here is what modern astrophysicist John Barrow writes in his book The World within the World (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988, p354); note the similarity:

This state of expansion means that the size of the Universe is inextricably entwined with its age. The reason that the Visible Universe is more than 13 billion light-years in size today is that it is more than 13 billion years old. A Universe that contained just one galaxy like our own Milky Way, with its 100 billion stars, each perhaps surrounded by planetary systems, might seem a reasonable economy if one were in the universal construction business. But such a universe, with more than a 100 billion fewer galaxies than our own, could have expanded for little more than a few months. It could have produced neither stars nor biological elements. It could contain no astronomers.

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Aha! :: Synchronicity Central ::

Have you been to Aha! :: Synchronicity Central :: yet?

More than 100 people have joined for free at the message board where you can log those weird things like coincidences, premonitions and dreams that might be prophetic .... or are prophetic.

Read what 105 other people are logging on just these topics.

By the way, if you forget the URL, you can find the board easily any time: just Google in SYNCHRONICITY CENTRAL, or AHA SYNCHRONICITY. See you there.

*Ø* Blogmanac January 18, 1932 | RAW and Discordia



1932 Robert Anton Wilson, author (Illuminati trilogy); one-time editor of Playboy magazine who made Discordianism, Sufism, futurism, the Illuminati and other esoteric or counter-culture philosophies accessible to larger audiences. He is also a proponent of Timothy Leary's eight-brain circuit model and neurosomatic/lingustic engineering ...

Eris, the goddess of Discord
Eris is the ancient Greek goddess of discord, daughter of Zeus and Hera and frequent companion of her brother (some say twin) Ares. The Romans associated her with their goddess Discordia. With Zeus, she was the mother of Ate and the man, and while the length of time he meditated on this problem is not recorded, he did eventually award the apple to Aphrodite ...

Eris has been adopted as the matron deity of the modern Discordian religion. In the process, however, she has lightened up considerably in comparison to the rather malevolent Graeco-Roman original ...


Discordianism has been described as both an elaborate joke disguised as a religion, and a religion disguised as an elaborate joke. It has also been described as a religion disguised as a joke disguised as a religion. Others view it as a simple rejection of reductionism and dualism, even falsifiability -- not in concept different from postmodernism or certain trends in the philosophy of mathematics. It has also been described as "Zen for roundeyes", and converges with some of the more absurdist interpretations of the Rinzai tradition

[Lots of links on these topics]

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

*Ø* Blogmanac January 17, 1706 | Ben Franklin

1706 Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790), American journalist, publisher, author, philanthropist, public servant, scientist, diplomat, and inventor who was also one of the leaders of the American Revolution, known also for his many quotations and his experiments with electricity. He corresponded with members of the Lunar Society and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1775, Franklin became the first US Postmaster General.

Franklin was born on January 6, 1706, which was then Epiphany, but in 1752, when he was 46, England and her colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar and also changed to New Style, which dropped 11 days. Thus we remember this American ‘Renaissance man’ on January 17. Long before there was Wilson’s Almanac, there was Poor Richard’s Almanac, by Ben Franklin, the first American bestselling book, which gave the young Franklin financial security to begin his life’s work doing … absolutely everything.

The prodigious accomplishments of the boy who left school aged ten include: the foundation of the Society to Abolish Slavery and the American Philosophical Society, the first US hospital and its first lending library, its first police and fire departments and the first American fire insurance company. He invented the lightning rod, a platform rocking chair, the step ladder that folds down into a chair, the Franklin stove (still popular today) and bifocals. He created the first efficient postal service in the USA, and an academy that became the University of Pennsylvania.

He was America’s first newspaper cartoonist; the US Ambassador to England and France (helping to cement the alliance so valuable to the American Revolution); a musician, philanthropist, cartographer, linguist and printer. He sat on the committee that drafted the US Declaration of Independence. He founded a popular publication, the Pennsylvania Gazette, later to become The Saturday Evening Post. He invented swim fins, and a tool to get books off of high shelves; he headed the Pennsylvania delegation to the Albany Congress; he established two major fields of physical science, electricity and meteorology. Old Ben wrote a scientific essay that for the first time described the existence of the Gulf Stream ...

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Don't just recall beef!

Recall the Mad Cowboy

The Bush administration's lack of attention to meat safety regulations has left
the door wide open for mad cow disease to enter this country, and several cows
have potentially been tainted by the disease. Meat is being recalled in 13
states and over 100 cows have been destroyed.

President Bush has benefited from his close ties to the meat industry. The livestock industry gave him over $500,000 during his first election campaign, and has chipped in another $250,000 this election cycle. Meat processing companies dumped over $75,000 into the Bush campaign in 2000, and have followed that with another $40,000 this cycle. [This doesn't include donations from individuals in the meat industry as well as donations given in the names of employees who might not have donated had their employers not coerced them to allow the donation in their names. -v] [Emphasis added. -v]

On several occasions since Bush took office, Congressional Democrats introduced provisions demanding the increased inspection of meat, only to have them shot down by their conservative counterparts. As you know, we think there is something else that needs to be recalled along with American meat, so we're asking you to help us Recall the Mad Cowboy.

We're starting a new campaign to Recall the Mad Cowboy. Please go to our Bush
Recall website (www.bushrecall.org) and sign the new petition, as well as forward this along to all of your friends. At the website, you can find background information about our mad cowboy on the Daily Reality Check column.

We also thought you might enjoy the fact that right-wing strategist Paul Weyrich
has targeted BushRecall.org's treasurer and co-founder Mike Lux as someone to
"look out for." We couldn't be more proud.

Mr. Weyrich will be dismayed to learn that the BushRecall.org website is looking
to expand so that we may bring you more in-depth information on this, and many
other issues we know are important to you.

Help us raise money to make right-wingers like Weyrich even more mad, money that will help us organize more of the campaigns and projects like the ones you've already seen -- The Lord of the Right Wing video and the Daily Reality Check column.

Please contribute to BushRecall.org, a project of the Fair and Balanced PAC.

Paid for by the Fair and Balanced PAC, www.bushrecall.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Yoikels!!

Esmeralda has crashed. Maybe died. But then, she is about 93 in computer years and there sure were a lot of cobwebs inside when we opened her up.

Thanks to the highly spiritual and barely subgenius Baz le Tuff, I have his 2nd-best computer on loan until we can figger something out about the old gal.

Excuse me please – looks like no Almanac ezine for Thursday 15th and Friday 16th, and maybe not much of me till the weekend. The plan: to stay online.

Anyway, you can read all about Australia's first female surfboard rider at the Book of Days (click January 15). It's an interesting tale, the day in 1915 that Hawaii's famous Duke Kamewhatsit (the Big Kahuna) taught Aussies to shoot the curls. Young Isabel Letham learned that day, and it happened at a beach I used to live at, so it kinda stirs my imagination.

At ease.

*Ø* Blogmanac | This guy's GOT to go!

Dubya's handlers are pushin' the Kennedyesque "vision thing" for the election season. Spare us! He's already made such a mess down here, he's ready for another Star Wars project and a hiding place for himself. For someone whose vision didn't even extend to an exit strategy in Iraq, today's moon speech was laughable. Especially in light of his reputation with the sciences!


Politics in the lab hits US scientific integrity
By Barton Reppert
Christian Science Monitor

GAITHERSBURG, MD. – In theory, science is supposed to be cold, analytical, dispassionate -- and studiously apolitical. But in the real world of competing demands for federal research dollars, savvy scientists of all disciplines -- from cognitive psychologists running rats through mazes to nuclear physicists operating massive particle accelerators -- recognize that a certain amount of political meddling in their research by policymakers in the executive branch and Congress is to be expected.

However, there are limits -- limits the Bush administration has frequently disregarded by imposing stringent political controls on a broad variety of federal scientific programs and activities. This has raised acute concern in the American scientific community that the administration's drive to stamp its conservative values on science isn't just affecting policy decisions, but undermining the integrity of the US research infrastructure itself. [Emphasis added. -v]

By all means, please continue


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Speaking of "Kennedyesque," ol' Ted may be a little slow on the uptake, but at least he's speaking out.

Kennedy Says Iraq War Has Made America Less Safe
By Congressional Quarterly
January 14, 2004

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., today delivered a blistering attack on the Bush administration for its insistence on going to war in Iraq, saying the effort has made America less safe. The administration, Kennedy told a liberal advocacy group, the Center for American Progress, "is leading this country to a perilous place. It has broken faith with the American people, aided and abetted by a congressional majority willing to pursue ideology at any price, even the price of distorting the truth." Kennedy said the administration "squandered the immense good will" showered on America after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by launching a war against Iraq without United Nations support. "If Congress and the American people knew the whole truth, America never would have gone to war," he said, adding, "The war has made America more hated in the world. And it has made our people more vulnerable to attacks both here and overseas."

SOURCE


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Yep, this was bound to happen. Kick us when we're down, right, George?
Okay, evasion is one thing--but legal avoidance? What about the shelters for
the big boys? Take back that tax cut! And how about some corporate taxes?
I'm sure this is the tip of the iceberg for middle-income individuals.


Treasury Outlines Proposals To Curb Tax Evasion, Avoidance
by Congressional Quarterly
January 13, 2003

The [U.S.] Treasury Department today laid out an extensive agenda of more than 20 legislative proposals to crack down on tax abuses. The proposals, to be included in President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget due Feb. 2, would raise more than $46 billion over 10 years, according to the administration's estimate. It was not clear if the proposals would make much of a dent in the tax abuse problem, which a December report by the General Accounting Office said is costing the government $40 billion a year in unrealized revenue, based on IRS documents. The largest of the proposals, which alone would raise $33.73 billion over 10 years, would limit the ability of companies and wealthy individuals to buy tax benefits from government agencies and tax-exempt entities that cannot use them. A second proposal that would affect far more ordinary taxpayers would tighten rules for vehicle donation deductions, a plan that would raise $2.55 billion over 10 years [Emphasis added. -v]

SOURCE

*Ø* Blogmanac | Could it be??

The most exciting thing I've heard yet about the forthcoming election!


Two Waves of Change
by Stephen Dinan
stephen@radicalspirit.org

Many Kucinich supporters lament the number of people that have assembled, somewhat skittishly, behind Howard Dean. Since many Dean supporters have confessed that they would really prefer Dennis Kucinich were he "electable" many of us wonder, "why not get behind the candidate you REALLY believe in?" [Emphasis added. -v]

Instead of fighting the current situation, I say celebrate it! The reason is that there are two main waves of change sweeping the country. Howard Dean provides a powerful rallying point for the first wave and Dennis is providing the rallying point for the second. Many people involved in the early stages of the second wave wonder why the masses haven't yet caught on. But this misses a crucial point: people can't be forced into the second wave until the first wave has worked its magic. And that magic is this:

Many, many Americans are hurting. Every new announcement from the Bush administration is like a dagger, cutting the proud ideals of America into red, white, and blue ribbons. We are ashamed of America's behavior in the world, outraged by the overthrow of so many advances, galled at the waste of life and resources. We feel grief and pain over our national trajectory

For quite some time, many have felt the wound, but most felt powerless to stop the ongoing abuse. Corporate money, fear of terrorists, distorted media, and the juggernaut of Bush's neo-cons seemed unstoppable.

The magic of Howard Dean is that his feisty demeanor and anti-Bush rhetoric has stirred progressive America from its slumbers. Through righteous anger in the service of ending the abuse of power, he has provided a rallying point. Through his goading, he resurrects our confidence that we can defeat Bush next year. Through his attacks, he inspires the grass roots to organize. He is allowing us to shed the first layer of our cocoons.

The thing to notice, though, is that Dean has a much more cloudy vision of the society and world we want to create. His energy is that of rebellion, not progress. His voice is that of combat, not peace. His vision is that of railing against the status quo, not creating a truly just world. His stance is one of antagonism, not the stance that goes beyond the fight and stands in a fundamentally wiser place.

Dennis Kucinich spent some of his early career in a more oppositional stand, just as Dean does now. He fought the good fight with the "enemies." However, he now stands beyond that, in a place of commitment to truth. He will certainly go into battle for a good cause, but he does so without rancor or demonizing the perceived enemy. He has worked through the dramas that are necessary to become a man of wisdom and integrity. He has been through his fiery trials to become a light unto the world.

From that place, his policies emerge as a service to the country and a service to his constituents rather than a way for him to maintain or increase power. In doing this, he rekindles the noble fire at the heart of America and reminds us of our highest mission as a country. [Emphasis added. -v]

He is a new kind of political leader for today's America, more like Mandela in South Africa or Lula in Brazil, or stretching backwards in time, like Abraham Lincoln. These leaders surface at moments of crisis when it is imperative that a country evolves beyond the problems of the moment into the next stage of maturity. [Emphasis added. -v]

Please read on for an exciting vision for America

[While being deeply and bitterly disappointed in the leaders of the U.S. and their actions "in our name," I've always
held out hope for a leader "with vision like Kennedy" to emerge and, with a higher purpose, join the world community in a way that fulfills the potential of all of us, working together. This is the first time I've seen my thoughts expressed. Now I wish I'd written what I'd been feeling. LOL! Stephen states it very well. Could it be . . . ? -v]

*Ø* Blogmanac January 14 | Feast of the Ass, old England

This was a popular theatrical representation of the Biblical ‘Flight into Egypt’, performed in the Middle Ages.

The escape of the Holy family of Jesus into Egypt was represented by a beautiful girl holding a child at her breast, and seated on an ass, splendidly decorated with trappings of gold-embroidered cloth. After the procession, the ass was taken to the church's high altar, where it remained during the religious services. In place of the usual responses, the congregation brayed like donkeys. At the end, the priest brayed three times instead of pronouncing the benediction. He was answered by a general hee-hawing ...

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

*Ø* Blogmanac January 14, 1967 | Human Be-In

1967 Timothy Leary, Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder and others attended the first 'Human Be-In' in a park in San Francisco, USA, one of the big events of the ‘Summer of Love’. Among the performers were The Grateful Dead and The Jefferson Airplane. Estimates of numbers in attendance range wildly from 20,000 to 300,000 (estimate in Ringolevio by Emmett Grogan). Leary, in his first San Francisco appearance, uttered the sound bite of the decade: “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out”.

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Happy New Year?

Where's the evidence . . . the smoking gun, so to speak?

Three commentaries from Online Journal tell it like it is!
(And we deserve better than this.)


Random Thoughts: 2003
By W. David Jenkins III

January 10, 2004—Okay, 'fess up. Does anybody else feel totally beat up? Kind of like the feeling of waking up with the hangover from Hell only to have some idiot drop a box of sledge-hammers on your head. I remember hearing that you should never challenge "worse." Never say to yourself, "Oh man, things can't get worse" because worse has a way of crawling up onto your lap and—with a big smile on its face—smacking you over the head with an iron skillet.

Full Text


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Quail hunting in the backwoods
By Teresa Simon-Noble

January 10, 2004—Quail, my friend Claudette tells me, is an innocent, fragile, trusting bird.

Out in the backwoods of Texas on New Year's Day 2004, the Enchanted Prince and his proud as a peacock that my son is President of the United States, father, George Herbert Walker Bush, hunt for quail on the enchanted land of a family friend who is related to a Texas engineering and construction company that many years ago became part of Halliburton—the firm which has received untold, overgrown, oversized, disproportionate favors from the Bush administration in the so called reconstruction of Iraq.

Emerging from said enchanted forest to face an enthralled press corps, where the only mortal danger lurking about was the one the Prodigious (don't get in my way or your life will pay) Father and his Enchanted Prince posed to any poor, defenseless quail, unlucky enough to make its living in those woods, Splendid Son said he thought he shot five quail.

"I'm not that good of a shot," he said, then, flaunted for the press corps and in the face of all of the families he has temporarily or forever disjoined with his takeover of Iraq, "but it was a lot of fun. It's a good way to start the New Year—outdoors [and] with my dad."

Outdoors in America these days is filled with the many empty places of mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, aunts, and uncles, nieces, who have died or are fighting in Iraq for Bush's oil and for the establishment of his New American Century.

Full Text


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

I want to believe
By Norma Sherry

January 10, 2004—It's a new year: 2004. A time to reflect on all that's past and a time to be filled with the hope of all that's new. Try as I might, though, I find it very difficult to imagine that this new year, this the fourth year in the new millennium holds any more promise than the years that came before.

Full Text

*Ø* Blogmanac | More bizarre every day

From Colleen in Canada:

Frightening indeed. Many Canadians are becoming frightened of the US government,
and they are well justified in that fear.


Justice Goes Offshore and is Imprisoned
By Tom Engelhardt, tomdispatch.com

Timothy Noah of Slate writes: "[Vice-president Dick] Cheney violated the Bush administration's policy of never saying the e-word in a Christmas card he and his wife sent out to various supporters and important Washingtonians. -- Along with their best wishes for this holiday season, the Cheneys included the following quotation from Benjamin Franklin: 'And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?'"

The imperial (vice-)presidency has new meaning -- and not just because Dick and Lynne implicitly plugged God's Empire, the United States of Everything, in a Christmas card. The New York Times had a fascinating, if chilling, front-page rundown on the underside of Cheney's imperial dream, the sort of thing for which his New Year's card might be inscribed, "Happy New Year, Welcome to Hell."

James Risen and Thom Shanker began their report, "Hussein Enters Post-9/11 Web of U.S. Prisons," this way:

"Saddam Hussein is now prisoner No. 1 in what has developed into a global detention system run by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, according to government officials. It is a secretive universe, they said, made up of large and small facilities throughout the world that have sprouted up to handle the hundreds of suspected terrorists of Al Qaeda, Taliban warlords and former officials of the Iraqi government?"

CONTINUE FOR FULL STORY


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

A "FLASHBACK' from WHATREALLYHAPPENED.COM
November 17, 2003 issue
Copyright ? 2003 The American Conservative

[You and me both! I never thought I'd reprint from a conservative
source either! But it's a definite MUST READ! LOL! -v]


Most Favored Democracy
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies goes on offense.
By Daniel McCarthy

The images on the screen show American flags on fire, children dressed as suicide bombers, Saddam Hussein triumphantly addressing a throng of Iraqis, and grainy footage of the destruction wrought by a terrorist attack. These arresting pictures and the voice-over narration tell viewers that the war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and al-Qaeda?s attacks against the United States are all part of a larger war that Israel and the U.S. must fight together.

Congressmen and senators, White House aides and Pentagon officials, lobbyists and journalists are seeing the ad, which has been running on cable television in the Washington D.C., area. It is just one tactic used by an aggressive new neoconservative think tank, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), to shape American thinking on war, terrorism, and the Middle East. The Foundation is only two years old, but already the group is making its influence felt on the nation's policymakers.

In early 2001, a tightly knit group of billionaire philanthropists conceived of a plan to win American sympathy for Israel's response to the Palestinian intifada. They believed that the Palestinian cause was finding too much support within crucial segments of the American public, particularly within the media and on college campuses, so they set up an organization, Emet: An Educational Initiative, Inc., to offer Israel the kind of PR that the Israeli government seemed unable to provide itself.

At first, Emet floundered, without an executive director or a well-defined mission. But that changed after Sept. 11, and Emet changed too, into what is now the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The name is different, but the goal of influencing America's opinion-forming classes remains.

CONTINUE, by all means!


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Israel to Request Billions from the U.S.
to Actualize Unilateral Separation Plan
14:40 Jan 08, '04 / 14 Tevet 5764

(IsraelNN.com) A "senior Jerusalem source" quoted by Israel Radio this morning stated Israel will be seeking billions of dollars in U.S. assistance to actualize Prime Minister Ariel Sharon?s unilateral separation plan to cut ties with the PA.

Funds would be required to pay for the logistical separation of forces/persons from the PA, as well as making compensatory payment to the tens of thousands of families residing in Yesha (Judea, Samaria & Gaza) communities.

SOURCE

*Ø* Blogmanac January | Plough Monday



Plough Monday: First Monday after Epiphany

Like St Distaff's Day, Plough Monday in England of old represented a return to work after the Christmas holidays. Before the Protestant Reformation, ploughmen (or, plough bullockers) kept lights burning in front of certain images in the church, and there was also a procession, with the men gathering money for the support of these plough-lights as they were called. A plough light was a lamp in the church that was never allowed to go out .

After the Reformation, the procession continued, with the men collecting money to spend on grog instead. A plough known as the Fool Plough was decorated with ribbons among other things, and dragged from house to house by 30 or 40 men dressed in clean smock-frocks, hats and shirts (outside their coats) decorated with ribbons and wheat. The Fool Plough was preceded by one ploughman in front dressed – over-dressed, in fact, and wearing a bullock’s tail – as an old woman known as Bessy, and carrying the money box. There was also a fool, or jester, in fantastic costume. In some parts of the country, morris dancers entertained the throng, and in the corn growing areas of eastern England, Plough Plays were versions of mumming plays. Sometimes there was a reproduction of an ancient sword dance that might have Scandinavian, Germanic or Roman origins. One of the ‘mummers’ wore a fox-skin hood, the meaning of which has been lost in the passing centuries ...

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

A note about the dating of items in Wilson’s Almanac

*Ø* Blogmanac January 11 | Auld New Year, Scotland

Burning the Clavie, Burghead, Morayshire, Scotland
The people of the north-eastern Scottish fishing port of Burghead enact the ritual Burning of the Clavie (tar barrel) on January 11, preferring their Hogmanay (Scottish New Year’s Eve celebration) according to the Old Style calendar that was in use in Scotland until 1660. So, on the evening of Auld New Year at 6 o'clock, the tar barrel (clavie) is set alight and paraded around town. The clavie is the bottom part of a wooden barrel, mounted on a pole and filled with tar-soaked wood, and must be lit with a piece of burning peat from a local household fire.

The barrel is pounded onto an eight-foot pole called ‘the spoke’ (using a round stone, never a hammer), the same nail being ritually used every year – perhaps there’s a link between ‘clavie’ and clavus, the Latin for ‘nail’, though it might come from the Gaelic word for basket, cliabh. Then the clavie is hoisted onto the shoulders of a local villager and the procession begins.

The clavie crew of nine or ten local men (led by the ‘Clavie King’) must make sure that the clavie isn't dropped, or else bad luck will come to Burghead in the coming year. Eventually, after the crew has stopped at a number of traditional stations along the route, it reaches its destination at an ancient mound called Doorie where it’s set on a specially prepared base. It is allowed to burn for some time, before being ritualistically broken up with a hatchet. Flaming embers are then snatched up by onlookers. Traditionally these used to be kindling for a special New Year Fire in the home, but are now kept for luck and even sent to relatives or friends who have moved away from the district.

Opinions differ as to the roots of the ancient festival of the Burning of the Clavie – it might be Pictish, Celtic, Viking or Roman in origin, but it is certainly pre-Christian. Until about 1875, clavies were also carried into each fishing boat, where handfuls of grain were sprinkled on their decks to ensure plenty in the coming year. In the 18th Century this picturesque and harmless rite was condemned as 'superstitious, idolatrous and sinfule, an abominable heathenish practice'. In Bannfshire there was 'ane act against clavies' in 1704 protesting that the barrels were 'carried about idolatrouslie sanctifying the cornes and cattle'.


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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Former Treasury Sec. Paints Bush as 'Blind Man'

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill likened President Bush at Cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," according to excerpts on Friday from a CBS interview.

"O'Neill, who was fired by Bush in December 2002, also said the president did not ask him a single question during their first one-on-one meeting, which lasted an hour.

"'As I recall it was just a monologue,' he told CBS' [sic] '60 Minutes,' which will broadcast the entire interview on Sunday.

"In making the blind man analogy, O'Neill told CBS his ex-boss did not encourage a free flow of ideas or open debate ..."
Source

*Ø* Blogmanac January 10, 1880 | Vale Emperor Norton

1880 Having died on January 8, Emperor Norton I, Emperor of the United States of America and Protector of Mexico, was buried at Masonic Cemetery in San Francisco. The funeral arrangements were the most elaborate the city had ever seen. The cortege was two miles long, and as many as 30,000 people turned out to pay homage and celebrate ...

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

January 10, 738 CE The final (sixth) phase of the Ball Court at Copán, Honduras, was dedicated by Mayan ruler and pre-Columbian ‘Renaissance Man’, 18-Rabbit (real name, Waxaklahun Ubah K'awil, which means ‘18 Are the Images of K'awil’). It was the same year that Xukpi suffered a major defeat from Quirigua ...

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Destroying our planet -- and ourselves

Farmed salmon linked to cancer risk
By Mark Henderson, Times.co.uk

""People who regularly eat farmed salmon may be raising their risk of developing cancer, scientists said yesterday.

"Salmon raised on British fish farms are so contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals that consumers would be unwise to eat them more than once every other month, a major study has concluded ...

"The analysis of more than 700 fish weighing more than two tonnes in total found that farmed salmon across Europe and North America had much higher concentrations of 14 pollutants than fish caught from the wild.

"The chemicals, which include dioxins, DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), belong to a class known as organochlorines, which are linked to cancer and birth defects ...

"The most likely explanation for the high levels of pollutants in farmed salmon is the feed they are generally given, which consists of a high-fat mixture of other fish, ground into fishmeal, and fish oil. As organochlorines build up in the fatty tissue of fish, they become concentrated in this high-fat food, and are passed on to the farmed salmon."

Source

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Global warming 'biggest threat'
BBC.co.uk:

"Climate change is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism, the UK Government's chief scientific adviser has said. Sir David King said the US had failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"And without immediate action flooding, drought, hunger and debilitating diseases such as malaria would hit millions of people around the world.

"US President George Bush says more research is needed before he introduces punitive carbon taxes on industry. But Sir David criticised the Bush administration for relying too exclusively on market-based incentives and voluntary actions."

Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | Lies, damned lies!

The totality is – the Prime Minister lied
By Boris Johnson
The Telegraph, 8 January

"Right. OK then! Now I get it (slap forehead). How could I have been so slow on the uptake? I understood until yesterday that the Prime Minister had been caught out in a great big fat steaming smoking-pants lie. I thought it was clear to the meanest intelligence that Tony Blair had authorised the naming of poor Dr David Kelly to the media, and then pretended otherwise.

"But it turns out that we haven't been paying enough attention to the 'totality' of what he said. No, no, he kept saying yesterday, as he wriggled before Michael Howard like a kebabbed witchetty grub. Only the 'totality' is operative, said Blair, irresistibly recalling the performance of Nixon's spokesman during Watergate. Well, let us indeed examine the totality of the Prime Minister's words and deeds, and discover how we came by this misunderstanding. They total up to quite a lot ...

"In the 48 hours before Dr Kelly's name was released to the media, the Prime Minister chaired four meetings on the business of how to do just that, and those meetings lasted several hours. As Sir Kevin Tebbit, the Permanent Secretary at the MoD, revealed to the Hutton Inquiry, 'a policy decision on that matter had not been taken until the Prime Minister's meeting on Tuesday, July 8.'

"And yet that is a fact that Mr Blair chose to try to conceal. Flying to Hong Kong a few days after Dr Kelly's death, he was asked directly: 'Did you authorise anyone in Downing Street, or the MoD, to release David Kelly's name?' He replied: 'Emphatically not.' He was asked: 'Why did you authorise the naming of David Kelly?' He replied: 'That is completely untrue.'

"Yesterday, in a feat of Clintonian pretzel-words, he told us that, in order to understand this flagrant inconsistency, we had to look at the 'totality' of his words, because he also said that he did not authorise the 'leaking' of the name. So he accepts that he authorised the 'naming', but not the 'leaking'?

"That is a distinction without a difference. He authorised and orchestrated a strategy to put Kelly's name out, and panicked when the lights came on. He was shocked and appalled by the death, and fearful, of course, for his political skin.

"The PM lied, and that is the totality of the matter."

Source

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

US calls off search for weapons of mass destruction

Irish Times, 9 January

"The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn a 400-member military team it sent to Baghdad to scour Iraq for evidence of unconventional weapons, write Conor O'Clery in New York & Deaglán de Bréadún in Dublin.

"The move indicates that the US does not now expect to find illegal weapons, the main reason given by President Bush for the war last year that toppled Saddam Hussein.

"At the same time, a prestigious Washington-based research foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has published a scathing report on President Bush's case for war."

Source
Carnegie group says Bush made wrong claims on WMD

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Powell Admits No Hard Proof in Linking Iraq to Al Qaeda

New York Times, 9 January

"WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conceded Thursday that despite his assertions to the United Nations last year, he had no 'smoking gun' proof of a link between the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and terrorists of Al Qaeda.

"'I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection,' Mr. Powell said, in response to a question at a news conference. 'But I think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did.'

"Mr. Powell's remarks on Thursday were a stark admission that there is no definitive evidence to back up administration statements and insinuations that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda, the acknowledged authors of the Sept. 11 attacks. Although President Bush finally acknowledged in September that there was no known connection between Mr. Hussein and the attacks, the impression of a link in the public mind has become widely accepted — and something administration officials have done little to discourage." [My emphasis - N]

Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | Can Music Save Your Mortal Soul?

Old Hippies Are Breaking New Ground,
New Hippies Are Treading Old Ground,
And We Listen.
Everything Musical In Between IS Relevant.
-- veralynne, 2004



Remembered mostly for her Chuck E's In Love of the '70s, Rickie Lee Jones is back with a lot more to say. -v

"...the depth of our democracy is only as good as the voices of protest she protects, voices of protest -- rise!" -- Rickie Lee Jones



From Eric at TooManyReasons.com:


Singer Rickie Lee Jones Speaks Out

American singer Rickie Lee Jones has attacked the policies of
the Bush administration on her latest record -- despite the
potential risk to her career.

Lee Jones took the music world by storm in the late 1970s when her self-titled debut album won best newcomer award at the Grammys.

But despite having vowed to stay away from politics, her latest album, The Evening Of My Best Day, features many political protest songs that directly criticise current US policy.

"To address George Bush and his presidency is a departure from my usual point of view," Lee Jones told BBC World Service's Everywoman programme.

"I usually reflect things totally internally. But I think what is happening in America is so disturbing to me, it becomes internal.

"You can't not address it."

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE.


NOTE: Rickie Lee Jones also has created a website entitled "FURNITURE FOR THE PEOPLE, a web community working to bring people together for peace."



From The Evening of My Best Day, Rickie Lee Jones' latest:


tell somebody (repeal the patriot act now)

not long ago it was alright
there were no bad dreams that kept me up at night
it was not brother against brother
mother against mother

so tell somebody,
you've got to tell somebody
tell somebody what happened in the usa

now they want us to just get in line
behind a president
when you know they spent milions of dollars
condemning and accusing
the last one from the other side

tell somebody, tell somebody
tell somebody
what's happening in the usa?
tell somebody, tell somebody
tell somebody
what happened in the usa

tell somebody, tell somebody, tell somebody?

i want to know how far you will go
to protect our right of free speech?
because it only took a moment
before it faded out of reach...

oh, tell somebody, tell sombody right now
tell somebody
what happened in the usa?
i wanna read about it in the news
i wanna hear about it on tv, yeah
what happened in the usa?
when they ask you
what happened in the usa?
tell sombody.
they'll wanna know, oh people

the depth of our democracy
is only as good as the voices of protest she protects
voices of protest - rise!


lyrics by rickie lee jones c. 2003 all rights reserved
Listen to the Mp3


Related Articles:

Announcing Campaign For a New Foreign Policy

Introducing Voice of Democracy

On the ninth of January, now four days ago, I received by the evening delivery a registered envelope, addressed in the hand of my colleague and old school-companion, Henry Jekyll. I was a good deal surprised by this; for we were by no means in the habit of correspondence; I had seen the man, dined with him, indeed, the night before; and I could imagine nothing in our intercourse that should justify formality of registration.
The story unfolds in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

*Ø* Blogmanac January 9, 1683 | The King's Evil, the King's Evil!



1683 King Charles II of Britain issued orders for the future regulations of the ceremony of touching ‘the King's Evil’.

The King's Evil
This was the name for scrofula, a a form of tuberculosis, affecting the lymph nodes (usually spread by unpasteurized cow's milk) which from the time of King Clovis of France in 481 CE was believed to be cured by a touch of the monarch's hand. Shakespeare mentioned it in Macbeth. The famous diarist, Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), recorded in his diary for April 10, 1661 that he saw the cure effected by the king.

The notion was first introduced into England by King Edward the Confessor and the belief continued to be common throughout the Middle Ages but began to die out with the Enlightenment.

In Cornwall, it was believed that the seventh son of a seventh son was able to touch-cure the disease. The seventh son of a seventh son was widely believed in Britain and Ireland to have all kinds of powers.

The Marcou
In old France it was believed that if a seventh son was born into a family, and he had no sisters, he was called a marcou, and a fleur-de-lis was branded on him ...

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | The insanity rages on!

There are two sure signs of insanity. One is doing
something the same way over and over expecting
a different result. The other is saying "I'm all right,
the WORLD'S all wrong!" --v


US Rejects IMF Warning that Debts Could Affect Global Economy
By Barry Wood, Washington
Voiceof AmericaNews
08 Jan 2004, 20:52 UTC


The U.S. Treasury Department Thursday rejected a warning from the International Monetary Fund that the huge American trade and budget deficits could pose a risk to the global economy.

A Treasury spokesman dismisses the IMF report as breathless hyperbole. The IMF says the $500 billion U.S. fiscal deficit combined with a $135 billion trade deficit could undermine the world recovery by pushing the dollar lower and interest rates higher.

Treasury Secretary John Snow acknowledged Wednesday that the growing fiscal deficit is a problem. But he promised to cut the deficit by half within five years. Mr. Snow outlined several reasons why the deficit is higher than anticipated.

"The war in Iraq: It is a one-time thing. {Yep. A one-time, 20+ year, $300Billion+
"thing." -v} But it had to be dealt with. Afghanistan had to be dealt with," he said. "But they created a bulge in [government] spending. And then we had the tax reductions."

The IMF has for a long time been worried about the burgeoning U.S. trade deficit. Its concern about the U.S. fiscal deficit is more recent, as the United States went from having a budget surplus in 2000 to having a very large deficit just three years later.

CONTINUE

gawn fishin

*Ø* Blogmanac | Climate risk 'to million species'

By Alex Kirby, BBC News Online, 7 January

"Climate change could drive a million of the world's species to extinction as soon as 2050, a scientific study says. The authors say in the journal Nature a study of six world regions suggested a quarter of animals and plants living on the land could be forced into oblivion.

"They say cutting greenhouse gases and storing the main one, carbon dioxide, could save many species from vanishing.

"The United Nations says the prospect is also a threat to the billions of people who rely on Nature for their survival."

Read on here

*Ø* Blogmanac | The truth WILL out! Say Hallelujah!

From Lisa at ACT:

President Bush Served Friday With Personal 9-11 RICO Complaint


[Note: TomFlocco.com is apparently being barraged with hits. The front page is loading very slowly, and the permalink to the full story (also above) gives a quota-related error message. If you have trouble getting through, try this Information Clearinghouse link instead. –L.]


U.S. media blackout continues as New Hampshire widow’s attorney also served multiple government officials and moved to examine new evidence while preparing subpoenas and written interrogatories for individual depositions. This, as corporate media execs continue to withhold important stories about presidential foreknowledge of attacks, military stand-down, and evidence of controlled demolition of third WTC Building 7, containing critical Securities and Exchange Commission corporate fraud investigation documents.

by Tom Flocco

PHILADELPHIA -- January 6, 2003 [sic? I hope they meant 2004! –L.] (TomFlocco.com) -- On Friday, Philip J. Berg, attorney for 9-11 widow Ellen Mariani in her Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit seeking to hold President Bush and various government officials accountable for the September 11 attacks, served Bush and top officials in his Administration with a personal summons, the original complaint and the first amended complaint via a federal process server, as required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Among those served besides the President, were Vice-President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, 9-11 Congressional Victim Compensation Fund Special Master Kenneth Feinberg, former Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein, Zacarias Moussaoui, and former President George H. W. Bush.

***

Berg told TomFlocco.com "the multiple summonses and complaints were filed last week in Philadelphia; and they require an answer within 60 days," adding "we feel confident that we'll be successful, and that the evidence in this case is so strong, it will lead to the end of the Bush presidency." ... [Emphasis mine. –L.]


[SOMEBODY PINCH ME!  First, the French take aim at Cheney... now this! YIPPEE!]

*Ø* Blogmanac | USA/Guantanamo: holding human rights hostage

Statement from Amnesty International, 6 January

"Two years after the first inmates arrived in the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Camp X-Ray and its successor, Camp Delta, have become synonymous with a government's pursuit of unfettered executive power and disregard for the rule of law. As detainees enter their third year held in tiny cells for up to 24 hours a day without any legal process, it seems that the current US administration views human dignity as far from non-negotiable when it comes to 'national security'.

"According to the USA's National Security Strategy, 'America must stand firmly for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity', including 'the rule of law' and 'limits on the absolute power of the state'. Its National Strategy for Combating Terrorism concludes by saying much the same thing, and adds: 'We understand that a world in which these values are embraced as standards, not exceptions, will be the best antidote to the spread of terrorism. This is the world we must build today'.

"Instead, the USA built a prison camp in Guantánamo Bay and filled it with detainees from around the world, including a number of children."

For more information on the situation of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, please see:

Guantanamo Bay: a human rights scandal (action page)

USA: Holding human rights hostage (feature)

*Ø* Blogmanac January 7 | Saint Distaff's Day

Today was named by some medieval English comedian after an imagined saint, Distaff, and honours the distaff, a sort of yarn spinning device.

It was also called ‘Rock Day’ in England until the19th Century, the custom being for women to return (after the Christmas holidays) to the spinning wheel (which was also called a ‘distaff’, or ‘rock’). Men went back to work yesterday on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Day (which in 2003 happened to fall on January 6, Twelfth Day).

Today is the first day after the ‘twelve days of Christmas’ which began on Boxing Day (the Feast of St Stephen), December 26. The women having gone back to the distaff, or rock, the men would play the prank of setting the flax on fire; in retaliation the women would drench the men from their water pails.

Most women would spin whenever they had nothing else to do. Thus, women were associated with the distaff. Because an unmarried woman was likely to do a lot of this work rather than caring for children and other domestic duties associated with marriage and motherhood in those days, she was known as a spinster, a term that was commonly used in Australia until about the 1960s and until more recently could still be found in some official documents.

The spear side and the distaff side were legal terms for male and female children with regard to inheritance. There is a French proverb “The crown of France never falls to the distaff" ...


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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Twilight of American Culture

Dr Morris Berman is an American academic, cultural historian and social critic who believes that American civilisation is on the verge of collapse.

Listen to an excellent interview with him by Australia's Phillip Adams (requires Real Media). It's the second interview in the one-hour program, Late Night Live. The first one is also worth listening to (an interview with Dubya's 'Axis of Evil' speech writer, David Frum). Adams is Australia's top interviewer, and his diametrically opposed guests make compelling listening while you read the Blogmanac.

Berman's book, The Twilight of American Culture, is available here through our store.

*Ø* Blogmanac | This Warmer World

Exotic fish focus on Ireland
Irish Examiner, 6 January

"Global warming is being credited with attracting exotic aquatic visitors to Ireland.

"Climbing seawater temperatures have brought more and more unusual fish species into Irish coastal waters.

"The clownfish, blue tang, shark, sea turtle and the angler fish -- many of which were featured in this year’s Captain Nemo film [surely they mean 'Finding Nemo' and 'last year'? - N] set on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef -- are now to be seen in the Mara Beo aquarium, in Dingle, Co Kerry."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac January 6 | Twelfth Night revels

Epiphany, or Twelfth Day
Epiphany, the oldest festival on the Christian Church calendar, is a national holiday in at least 15 nations. Celebrations generally are related to children.
The name derives from the Greek word meaning appearance of a god. It commemorates the visit of the Magi, or Three Wise Men, to the baby Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem, and also His baptism as an adult. Because of the latter, many customs today have watery associations, such as the blessing of fishing fleets in harbours around the world ...

Twelfth Cake
On Twelfth Night, English people held parties and ate the Twelfth Cake. Inside were baked a bean and a pea; he who found the bean was king for the day, and she who found the pea was queen. It might be that this came from the Roman festival of the Saturnalia, at the end of which children drew lots with beans to see who would be “king”.Both French and English revellers on Epiphany enjoyed special cake on the occasion. The English version, called a Twelfth Cake, was taller and fluffier than the French kind, and elaborately decorated with frosting. Lucky charms, to be found by diners, were baked inside, such as a ring to foretell marriage, a button for a single life and coins for wealth.

In seventeenth-century England, the Epiphany Cake was made with honey, ginger, pepper and flour. When it was cut up, slices for Christ, the Virgin Mary and the Magi were given to the poor. Whoever found a coin baked into the cake was made “king” and hoisted to the ceiling, where he chalked crosses on the rafters.

When any member of a family in old England was absent from the Twelfth Night revels, a piece of Twelfth Cake was kept for them. If the absent one was in good health, the cake would remain fresh, but if ill, the cake would perish. Or, so it was said ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in two big pages of folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

[If you've been waiting for today's Almanac ezine, please excuse the delay. It's all because of my ISP's POP server.]

*Ø* Blogmanac | 2003: BUSH'S YEAR IN REVIEW

Two from Eric's TooManyReasons:


Center for American Progress: 2003 Review of Bush claim vs Bush fact

Once again SmirkingChimp.com has provided a link to even more superb information to document the massive errors of the Bush regime. This time, SmirkingChimp recycled a report from the Center for American Progress which provided specific data to counter the various inaccurate and deceptive claims from the White House propaganda machine.

On Dec. 13, the White House issued a document entitled "2003: A Year of Accomplishment for the American People." The document made various inaccurate and deceptive claims about the administration's record over the last year. This report by the Center for American Progress seeks to correct those distortions, matching the White House's rhetoric with facts.

This is an excellent document, discussing the specific distortions on the subjects of drug coverage, drug costs, health savings accounts, economy, deficits, 'healthy forests,' power plant emissions, mercury emissions, education, consumer protection, veterans' benefits, AIDS, international financing, international military help, weapons of mass destruction, Saddam-Al Qaeda ties, military support, funding, terrorist financing, first responders, and cyber security.

This is an absolute must-read.

Read the full article here or here.


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Bush and the Mad Cow

Like the defective energy policy so eloquently described by Greg Palast in his often-seen article Power Outage Traced to Dim Bulb in White House, President Bush cotinues to exhibit extremely poor judgement, this time in the matters of public health.

Sandra Blakeslee of New York Times writes about the problems of the Mad Cow disease, and how the Bush administration has stood in the way of intelligent government policy. Again, another reason why America desperately needs a better president.



Expert warned that mad cow was imminent --
but Bush administration did not listen
By Sandra Blakeslee, New York Times

Ever since he identified the bizarre brain-destroying proteins that cause mad cow disease, Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurologist at the University of California at San Francisco, has worried about whether the meat supply in America is safe.

He spoke over the years of the need to increase testing and safety measures. Then in May, a case of mad cow disease appeared in Canada, and he quickly sought a meeting with Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture. He was rebuffed, he said in an interview yesterday, until he ran into Karl Rove, senior adviser to President Bush.

So six weeks ago, Dr. Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, entered Ms. Veneman's office with a message. "I went to tell her that what happened in Canada was going to happen in the United States," Dr. Prusiner said. "I told her it was just a matter of time."

The department had been willfully blind to the threat, he said. The only reason mad cow disease had not been found here, he said, is that the department's animal inspection agency was testing too few animals. Once more cows are tested, he added, "we'll be able to understand the magnitude of our problem."

Read the rest of the story here or here.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?

First, an article about Willie Nelson's strong feelings about Bush and the Iraq "war," then a recap on the lyrics of the new peace song debuted at the Dennis Kucinich fundraiser on Saturday, "Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth."

Willie Nelson, Taking Bush to Task
Reuters
Thursday, January 1, 2004; Page C03


DALLAS TX USA -- Country music icon Willie Nelson has written a Christmas song with an edge -- a protest against the war in Iraq that he hopes will stir passions. Nelson, 70, told Reuters yesterday he wrote "Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth" after watching the news on Christmas Day. He will play it in Austin on Saturday at a concert to benefit Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

His rare foray into protest music -- he said it was only the second such song he had written, after the Vietnam-era "Jimmy's Road" -- follows recent political controversies stirred by the Dixie Chicks and Steve Earle.

The Dixie Chicks, one of the biggest acts in country music, had their music boycotted by some country stations after lead singer Natalie Mains said at a concert in London just before the invasion of Iraq that she was embarrassed to be from the same state as President Bush.

Last year, Earle sparked the ire of conservatives with his song "John Walker's Blues" about John Walker Lindh, the young American who converted to Islam and was captured while fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Nelson said his new song criticized the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and those who thought it unpatriotic to speak out against the war.

The song opens with the line "How much oil is one human life worth?" and swings into the chorus: "Hell they won't lie to me / Not on my own damn TV / But how much is a liar's word worth / And whatever happened to peace on Earth?"

"I hope that there is some controversy," said the country singer, who has five nominations in the upcoming Grammy Awards." If you write something like this and nobody says anything, then you probably haven't struck a nerve.

"I got it out of my system. I was able to say what I was thinking," Nelson said.

David Swanson, a spokesman for the Kucinich campaign, said the candidate was a Willie Nelson fan and the song resonated with themes raised by Kucinich on the stump.

"This is a patriotic song," Swanson said. [Emphasis added. -v]

Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in March, saying that Saddam Hussein threatened U.S. security by possessing weapons of mass destruction, but no such weapons have been found.

SOURCE


---0---0---0---

What Ever Happened To Peace On Earth
By Willie Nelson

There's so many things going on in the world
Babies dying
Mothers crying
How much oil is one human life worth
And what ever happened to peace on earth

We believe everything that they tell us
They're gonna' kill us
So we gotta' kill them first
But I remember a commandment
Thou shall not kill
How much is that soldier's life worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth

(Bridge)
And the bewildered herd is still believing
Everything we've been told from our birth
Hell they won't lie to me
Not on my own damn TV
But how much is a liar's word worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth

Continue for more lyrics

*Ø* Blogmanac January 5 | Twelfth Day Eve, or Epiphany Eve

When is Twelfth Night, January 5, or 6?
Many reputable folkloric sources say that January 5, the Eve of Epiphany (which is Twelfth Day), is the night called Twelfth Night on which great revels used to take place all over Europe. For example:

“The day before Epiphany is the twelfth day of Christmas, and is sometimes called Twelfth Night, an occasion for feasting in some cultures. In some cultures, the baking of a special King's Cake is part of the festivities of Epiphany (a King's Cake is part of the observance of Mardi Gras in French Catholic culture of the Southern USA).” Source

No less an authority than Encyclopedia.com’s article on the subject also claims the evening of January 5 as Twelfth Night.

However, according to the authoritative Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough:

The last of the mystic twelve days is Epiphany or Twelfth Night, and it has been selected as a proper season for the expulsion of the powers of evil in various parts of Europe.
Frazer, Sir James George (1854–1941), The Golden Bough, 1922

So, to Frazer, Epiphany (January 6) is Twelfth Night. Moreover, in many places Twelfth Night is still celebrated on January 6.

Until I’m shown an authority greater than Frazer, not to mention many eminent others, such as Waverley Fitzgerald from School of the Seasons (who has a very good article on the celebration) and Robert Chambers (who calls today “Twelfth-Day Eve”), I will stick to January 6, Epiphany, as being both Twelfth Day and Twelfth Night, January 5 being the Eve of Twelfth Day/Night.

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Correct me if I'm wrong ...

Corrigenda, from the Guardian, 3 January

"As the serious business of correcting and clarifying enters the new year, here -- without minimising the mistakes -- Ian Mayes offers a reminder of some of the things that made us smile, or grit our teeth, in the old one"

[I've taken just a few of these. See the full list here - N]

"The 'equine statue of Saddam' in Tikrit's main square should have been described as an equestrian one, unless a withering insult was intended. Equine: resembling a horse -- Collins (A moment of pure Hollywood in the town of a thousand Saddams, page 3, April 15).

"In an article about the adverse health effects of certain kinds of clothing, pages 8 and 9, G2, August 5, we omitted a decimal point when quoting a doctor on the optimum temperature of testicles. They should be 2.2 degrees celsius below core body temperature, not 22 degrees lower.

"Louis Blériot's flight across the English Channel was in July 1909 not 1902 as incorrectly stated in a leader, page 25, August 1. The leader concluded by asking: 'Why do all the famous crossings seem to be from England to France?' In fact, Blériot crossed from France to England.

"In describing the sexual activity of the main character in the new film The Mother as including 'torpid afternoons in bed with her daughter's boyfriend', we reversed the entire meaning of the article (torpid: apathetic, sluggish, lethargic). Torrid -- highly charged emotionally -- was the word required (Why make do with cocoa?, G2, page 14, November 13).

"An editing error giving miles instead of metres (for the abbreviation m) made nonsense of a report headed Europe and US clash on satellite system (page 11, December 8). It caused us to say that Europe's planned navigation system to rival the US one would be accurate to within four miles."

Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | British soldiers 'kicked Iraqi prisoner to death'

Robert Fisk, Basra
4 January

"Eight young Iraqis arrested in Basra were kicked and assaulted by British soldiers, one of them so badly that he died in British custody, according to military and medical records seen by The Independent on Sunday.

"Amnesty International has urged its members to protest directly to Tony Blair about the death of Baha Mousa, the son of an Iraqi police colonel, and to demand an impartial and independent investigation into the apparent torture of the Basra prisoners. A major at 33 Field Hospital outside the southern Iraqi city said that one of the survivors suffered 'acute renal failure' after 'he was assaulted ... and sustained severe bruising to his upper abdomen, right side of chest, left forearms and left upper inner thigh'.

"British military authorities have offered Mr Mousa's relatives $8,000 (£4,500) in compensation, providing they are not held responsible for his death, but the young hotel receptionist's family plans to take the Ministry of Defence to court ...

"After Mr Mousa's death, the Army's Special Investigation Branch opened an investigation. The Ministry of Defence told the IoS yesterday that there was 'nothing in the records to suggest an inquiry was not still ongoing'. But two soldiers who were arrested have since been released, and no charges have been made.

"Mr Mousa's violent death left two children orphaned: his 22-year-old wife died of cancer shortly before his detention by British troops."

Source
Full text at Information Clearing House

*Ø* Blogmanac | Hunt the Haggis!

"At haggishunt.com we are reviving a fine old Scottish tradition: the hunting of the haggis. To encourage the resurgence of this great pastime, we are offering some great prizes.

"But fear not, to win you do not need to go out onto the hills, nor will you have to harm one of these rare creatures (haggishunt.com is totally environmentally friendly). You can hunt the haggis from the comfort of your computer.

"Simply browse through our ten haggis-cams, which are located in various parts of our beautiful country (and in London and New York, for the benefit of the haggis diaspora). If you see a haggis click on the 'I saw a haggis' link displayed under the cam. You will then be entered into a draw for one of our great prizes. If you see a Golden haggis you'll have a chance to win our grand prize - a stay at a luxury Scottish hotel."

Enjoy! Here's the link again

'Address to a Haggis' by Robbie Burns
The Burns Supper
How to hold a Burns supper

*Ø* Blogmanac | Happy birthday, Jakob Grimm

1785 Jakob Grimm, German folklorist and philologist, one half of the Brothers Grimm. Jakob and his younger brother Wilhelm, were professors at Berlin, investigators of the early history and literature of Germany. They published a large Dictionary of the German Language, and their famous Grimm’s Tales.

Not very Disney
“Before they could fall asleep a peasant woman appeared before their house, knocked on the door, and asked to be let inside. The girl got up immediately and told the woman that the dwarfs had only seven beds, and that there was no room there for anyone else. With this the woman became very angry and accused the girl of being a slut, thinking that she was cohabiting with all seven men. Threatening to make a quick end to such evil business, she went away in a rage.

“That same night she returned with two men, whom she had brought up from the bank of the Rhine. Together they broke into the house and killed the seven dwarfs …”
Not by Grimm, but ‘The Death of the Seven Dwarfs’, Ernst Ludwig Rochholz, Schweizersagen aus dem Aargau, vol. 1 (Aarau: Druck und Verlag von H. R. Sauerländer, 1856), no. 222, p. 312

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

*Ø* Blogmanac January | Dogon funerals

In January – Dogon tribe, Republic of Mali
The Dogon are a group of people living in Mali, in West Africa. There are about 300,000 Dogon people living today. They are most noted for their descriptions of the Sirius star system.

Funerals are held for those who died during the year. Every 12 years or so the dama dance is held to induce souls of recently departed to leave the local environs and join those of the ancestors. About every 60 years the Dogon celebrate the most important funeral of all, the Sigi. It involves all the Dogon villages and takes about six years to complete. It commemorates the death of the first human and initiates a new generation of males into the Dogon secrets ...

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

The Dogon and outer space
Dogon mythology seems to describe Sirius B, which is not visible without the use of a telescope. Some of the information given by Dogon natives on the Sirius system was recorded before it was discovered by Western science.

They call Sirius B Po Tolo. This star was the seed of the Milky Way galaxy and "navel" of the entire universe, according to the Dogon mythological explanation of the universe ...

According to some, the Dogons came in contact with an amphibious alien race, the Nommos, about 5000 years ago. The Nommos came from a planet orbiting Sirius and passed on information regarding the star system ...

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | To my fellow blogmasters and webmasters

Dear hard-working, dedicated, probably stressed-out friend,

Happy New Year!

Just some thoughts on our job.

There are more than six thousand million people sharing this little round rock with you and me.

They live in about 190 "nations", and when they read a website, if it says "national" or "our country", they shouldn't have to interpret that as meaning "American" unless they live in that particular one nation out of 190. The same goes for ezines and e-newsletters. Being the unchallengable global hegemon must surely indicate that some sensitivity is required towards the other 189.

The Internet is global and used in all those 190 nations. Like Australia. As much as we Aussies might admire Americans (and we do), we are not an American state quite yet. We would like, too, to see Internet news more reflective of the planetary realities. The world's in deep shit and Net news is so much about pop culture it's truly sick-making. And check out an "On This Day" website of any kind. It's as though only one country has any events, births or deaths. Hell, Lucille Ball's OK, and her birthday is interesting, but 3.5 million people have died in the Congo war in the past 3.3 years. Check it out. Is that not more important than some rich actor, or sports record?

However, it must be said about 99% of our brothers and sisters on this round rock have never used the Internet, and about half of them have never used a phone. That's only because of global inequity and injustice, and we must help it change. We, in our profression, can do a lot to alter the situation, largely by our awareness and use of words and images. Let's keep in touch with the real situation, please fellow blog owners and webmasters. I'm not directing this to any one person or group, just a tendency on the Internet. Thanks, and please pass it on if you agree.

*Ø* Blogmanac January 3| Peace on earth

Festival of Pax, Goddess of Peace (Our Lady of Peace)

In Roman mythology, Pax (‘peace') was recognized as a goddess during the rule of Augustus.

On the Campus Martius (Field of Mars, God of War), she had a minor sanctuary called the Ara Pacis, dedicated to her on January 30, 9 BCE. Her temple was on the Forum Pacis (Templum Placis) built on the site of a meat market by Vespasian, which was dedicated in 75. She was depicted in art with olive branches, a cornucopia and a sceptre. Pax became celebrated (in both senses of the word) as Pax Romana and Pax Augusta from the 2nd Century BCE ...

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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Today's snippets

Advent of Isis from Phoenicia, celebrated in Ancient Egypt, Rome
Isis discovered that the Ark of Osiris had been cast up by the Mediterranean in the region of the Phoenician Byblos, so journeyed across the sea to find it, and then brought it back with her to Egypt. Offerings were made on the seventh day of the month Tybi, roughly January 2.

The Egyptian deity Isis was honoured with a temple at Rome. Today, singers, musicians and dancers, mostly female, would perform at this temple during the festival of the Advent of Isis ...


1536 Anabaptist leader and social revolutionary, John of Leyden (John Bockhold), ‘The Prophet’, was executed. He had preached a coming apocalypse, and advocated polygamy and free love. John of Leyden was a tailor boy who became the leader of the Anabaptists of the German town of Munster on the executions of Muncer and Storck. His predecessors had tried to establish a theocracy. He had a magnificent coronation, and coins were struck for his reign; he was represented as a monarch and prophet in one.

He sent out twelve apostles to announce his reign through all Low Germany. He also married twelve wives at one time, decapitating one of them in the presence of the others when she was rude to him ...


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

*Ø* Blogmanac | Peace on Earth: The Prospects

By Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange.com

"Remember those quaint, nostalgic times when this season was associated with the phrase 'Peace On Earth'? That is, way back in the days before our born-again leader with the proclaimed personal ear of God started ordering up wars the way other politicians ask for planning studies? Before our nation became so drunken with manufactured bogeymen and antiseptic media invasions and patriotic warmongering fever that war’s unpleasantness made it something people wished absolutely to avoid? When peace was considered a good thing, not the way of cowards?

"I miss those days. A lot of us do ...

"All told, the U.S. military is now active in some 60 countries around the world. The dozen or so examples above [see full text - N] are among the most egregious – and what is the U.S. doing killing people in even a dozen countries? – but they have several factors in common: (1) No war has been declared against any government in any of them. (2) They are not on the same continent as the United States. (3) All target poor countries’ civilian populations. (4) In few of these cases have serious attempts been undertaken, especially by the U.S. government, to find a just and peaceful resolution to the situation. (5) Most Americans know very little about any of them, as national corporate reporting is generally either uncritical or, more commonly, nonexistent. The exception is Iraq, where the “factual” reporting is so markedly different from that in Britain and Europe that it might as well be describing a different conflict.

"Does that feel like an overwhelming list? Here’s a useful counterweight:

"This past year, on one day, tens of millions of ordinary people on every continent and in scores of countries gathered together, in national capitals and town squares, and demanded peace. Not asked for, not petitioned for, or recommended or begged. We demanded it ...

"Now, with extraordinary speed in our unipolar world, we’re seeing a second wave of nonviolent revolutions, one with a more explicitly economic component: rejection of the so-called 'Washington consensus' that imposes neoliberal economic and political straitjackets so as to make poor countries poorer and to send their wealth to the banks and gated communities of North America, Europe, and Japan ...

"The sooner the United States starts behaving like one country among many, rather than a global bully, the better the prospects for peace on earth become. The irony is that the post-9/11 bellicosity of the Bush Administration has been so extreme that in the long run it may lead more directly to a world with a common aversion to wars and empires.

"If we’re willing, much of the rest of the world is ready. It’s in our hands. So here’s to peace on earth in 2004 and beyond."

Full text at Alternet.org

*Ø* Blogmanac | New Year's customs and folklore



Happy New Year!
New Year’s Day is a holiday in 162 nations of the world. In Britain there is an old custom that you should take nothing out of the house today, not even garbage.

Take out, then take in
Bad luck will begin
Take in, then take out
Good luck comes about

If you must carry something out, make sure to bring something in first. The best thing is a coin which you have hidden outside on New Year’s Eve.

An old British tradition has it that you should not lend matches, or fuel, to anyone today, or you’ll lack fire all year. And don’t lend money to anyone, or you’ll be without it this year.

Welsh Callenig
The Welsh give a Calennig today. It’s a New Year’s apple, stuck with wheat, oats, nuts and evergreen leaves. Its covered in flour and gold paint or leaf, and stands on a tripod of rowan or holly skewers for luck. These woods are ancient Druidic magic charms, as is the apple itself.

Yulekebbuck
The Scots at New Year traditionally eat Yulekebbuck, or Christmas cheese. The first Monday in January is their public holiday, which they call Handsel Monday.

Pocket full of money
In Scotland, Wales and the border counties of England, an old tradition is for children to go singing door to door on New Year’s morning, for which they will be rewarded with coins, sweets, fruit or mince pies. A typical song goes:

I wish you a merry Christmas
A Happy New Year.
A pocket full of money
And a cellar full of beer.
A good fat pig
To last you all the year.
Please to give a New Year’s gift
For this New Year.

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about New Year's Day in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Greetings!

To Wilson's Almanac,

A HAPPY NEW YEAR Greeting for you!

Enjoy!

Love, peace and clarity,

From A-Changin' Times
(ACT, The Blog)

Wishing all our readers, and the team, a very Happy and Peaceful New Year!
Blessings from Ireland

*Ø* Blogmanac | What's next? Key Maps? Playboy?


FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs
TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer
Monday, December 29, 2003
©2003 Associated Press

(12-29) 16:18 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

In a bulletin sent Christmas Eve to about 18,000 police organizations, the FBI said terrorists may use almanacs "to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning."

It urged officers to watch during searches, traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if the books are annotated in suspicious ways.

"The practice of researching potential targets is consistent with known methods of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations that seek to maximize the likelihood of operational success through careful planning," the FBI wrote.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the bulletin this week and verified its authenticity.

"For local law enforcement, it's just to help give them one more piece of information to raise their suspicions," said David Heyman, a terrorism expert for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It helps make sure one more bad guy doesn't get away from a traffic stop, maybe gives police a little bit more reason to follow up on this."

Full Story