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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*
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."
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.
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."
*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."
"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
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
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.
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."
"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
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
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."
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."
*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."
"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."
[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]
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.
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.
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. "
[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)
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 ]
"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."
*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
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
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.
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 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.
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'."
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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.
"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 ...
"Australian scientists believe they have found evidence that life once existed on Mars.
1688 Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish philosopher, naturalist and theosophist, (d. 1772)
"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.
Former US Weapons Inspector: Intelligence on Iraqi Weapons Was Inadequate
"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 ...
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). 
"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 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 ...
1832 Lewis Carroll, English mathematician and author (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), (d. 1898)
"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. 
Happy Oz Day, folks, and thanks Nora for the greetings and the great anim. Made me laff!
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.
Local Activists Organize for "New York Summer"
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.
Burns Day 