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The Blogmanac: "On This Day" ... and much more
Think universally. Act terrestrially.
For in a hard-working society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much, to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you're doing and rave, pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers, stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
Anneli Rufus*
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:
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]
*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.
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.
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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.
"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."
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."
*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
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.
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.
[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]
[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 ...
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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
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)
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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
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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
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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 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.
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.
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]
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.
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. . .
"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."
*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.
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 ..."
"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."
*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.
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)..."
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.
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.
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.
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Was Jesus a tin man too?
By Tabassum Zakaria 
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.
[Aussie 
Big drug corps are trying to do to Oz what they've done to poor countries for years
Opposition to US-Australia Trade Agreement
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.
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. 
"A complete mammoth skull has been unearthed in southern England, only the second to be found in Britain.
"The mammoth was an elderly female between 25 and 40 years old, which probably weighed between four and five tonnes. 
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. 
Saint Agnes' Eve 
"VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- It's Microsoft versus Mike Rowe-soft. 
Have you been to 
