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Blogmanac team
Jeannine Wilson (USA)
Veralynne Pepper (USA)
Pip Wilson (Australia)
Carpe diem!
Seize the day with more than 150 articles at Wilson's articles department
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and casualties of poverty and authority all around the planet
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Saturday, September 11, 2004
*Ø* 9-11 revisited
By now, I suppose everyone knows that Bush lied about how he first heard of the tragic attack on America three years ago. This page sets it out.
Here's the biggest list of 9-11 links I've found. Here's another at the Scriptorium, and for some analysis of the event, Myths of the War on Terrorism and Iraq has a wealth of information. Don't forget An Interesting Day, which has a timeline of Bush's actions and movements on that day ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
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*Ø* Cheney, 9-11 and oil desperation
 The From the Wilderness website frequently has some stimulating articles.
Now available for free download (a PDF file) is a speech given by Michael C Ruppert, which is a teaser to his new book, Crossing the Rubicon. It is a thought-provoking window into the links between the Kean commission that investigated 9-11, and the oil industry.
It's well worth a read for its presentation of facts about the parlous state of oil production in the world, and, startlingly, points a finger at Dick Cheney as responsible for 9-11. I haven't read the book (but hope to) so I have no opinion on the latter, but there is a great deal of essential reading in the speech. For me to recommend a bloody PDF, it's got to be something out of the box.
Thanks, Star Light, for sending the link to the PDF.
From the Wilderness has another article on the subject here. Again, recommended. It's called In Your Face: Connections between Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, 9/11 and Peak Oil "On the Table". Here's a quote:
60% of the world's recoverable oil is in a “golden” triangle running from Mosul
in northern Iraq, to the Straits of Hormuz, to an oil field in Saudi Arabia 75
miles in from the coast, just west of Qatar, then back up to Mosul. Sixty per
cent of all the recoverable oil on the planet is an in area no larger than the
state of Indiana .
Is it surprising then that the overwhelming majority
of US military deployment since 9/11 is in this region? Torturing Children, by William Rivers Pitt
Also at From the Wilderness, a disturbing article by William Rivers Pitt, Torturing Children, about 107 Iraqi children abused by American forces at Abu Ghraib prison, with war crimes including sodomizing of some children. Just another one of those Internet stories that, if you're lucky, the media take notice of about two years too late.
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Blogroll Us Friday, September 10, 2004
*Ø* Ahmed Shah Massoud
I was a bit crook yesterday (I feel well now), so I couldn't post this, which commemorates this September 9 event, harbinger of the world we now inhabit. From our Book of Days for September 9:
Death of the Lion of Panjshir
Ahmed Shah Massoud ('the Lion of Panjshir'; born c. 1953), leader of the Northern Alliance, was assassinated in Afghanistan on September 9, 2001.
Massoud, probably the greatest resistance leader of the 20th century, and probably equal to any of all time, was the victim of an Al Qaeda suicide bomber attack at Khvajeh Baha od Din, two days before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the USA, and as part of that strategy.
It was the event that, in my opinion, ushered in the century and the Age of the New US Imperialism. The assassination: prelude to 9-11
Two days before 9-11, Ahmad Shah Massoud, warrior-intellectual hero of the resistance to Russian imperialism and Taliban lunocracy, was assassinated by two suicide bombers posing as journalists. It was big news when it happened, and like many I was stunned, but like everyone else except Al Qaeda, I hadn't the slightest idea what big event it was leading up to within 48 hours. In fact, we weren't even sure he was dead because his cadres denied it, saying he was only wounded, as they played for time to regroup and plan. (It is believed that the horribly wounded Massoud died within 15 - 30 minutes, although his death was denied until September 13.)
If the official explanation for the September 11 attack on America is correct, ie, that Al Qaeda was to blame, then it's reasonable to assume that from Osama bin Laden's point of view, it was necessary to eliminate the Lion of Panjshir in order to secure local territory for the expected retaliation from the US when he attacked NYC and the Pentagon. With Massoud gone, so was bin Laden's mortal enemy and a reasonable man who did not despise the West. Who was Ahmed Shah Massoud?
Massoud was a soccer player and coach, a horse rider, swimmer and karate sportsman, chess player, architect and reader, but he gave it all up for his country and people. "I love Hafiz's poems," he once said, "I always read them. They change and inspire me. Music talks to the innermost feelings of a human being. Poetry and music have influence on every one." He once told National Geographic journalist Sebastian Junger (author of Fire) he was fighting not only for a free Afghanistan but for a free world. Junger wrote: "There was something about him – the slow nod of his head as he listened to a question, the exhaustion and curiosity engraved on his handsome, haggard face – that made it clear we were in the presence of an extraordinary man. I found it impossible not to listen to Massoud when he spoke, even though I didn't understand a word. I watched everything he did, because I had the sense that somehow – in the way he poured his tea, in the way his hands carved the air as he talked – there was some secret to be learned." Nine times the Soviet Union tried to defeat the Afghans in the Panjshir Valley, and nine times they were repelled by forces commanded by Massoud. The Soviets killed approximately 1,000 Afghan military personnel and civilians to every one of their own combatants (15,000 Soviets dead compared to 1.5 million Afghans), and forced more than 7 million out of a population of 18 million to flee to squalid refugee camps where millions remain to this day. Despite this overkill, the USSR was forced to give up their war of aggression. Massoud, a brilliant military commander, was largely responsible for the victory of the Afghan people.
For at least two decades, Massoud determinedly resisted first the Soviet invaders, then the Taliban, living in a multitude of wilderness camps in the same rudimentary conditions as the guerrilla fighters under his command.
Robert D Kaplan wrote in his book The Soldiers of God, 1991: "Ahmad Shah Massoud has to be considered one of the greatest leaders of guerrilla movements in the 20th century. He defeated his enemy just like Marshall Tito, Hu Chi Minh and Che Guevara did. Massoud controlled a bigger terrain that was much more difficult to defend militarily and was under constant attack from the enemy. His territory suffered much more attacks from enemy forces than those areas which were under the control of the resistance movements of Tito, Hu Chi Minh, or Guevara."
Massoud was a man of character. In 1980, a young soldier took advantage of the darkness and shot at Massoud's car from only three metres away. Massoud told him: "Friend, your hands are trembling and you are not used to shooting anyone," and let the attacker go. Moscow tried to poison, shoot and blow up Massoud, but was never successful. On one occasion, Dr Najibullah, later President and at that time chief of the puppet Afghan government's intelligence service, sent an agent named Kamran to Panjshir where Massoud gave him the traditional and celebrated Afghan hospitality. Kamran finally came to understand Massoud's reason for resisting the Communists and handed over the muffled firearm he had been given by the Afghan government to carry out the planned assassination. Kamran then took refuge in Germany, asking for political asylum.
Massoud's last plea: "America, help us"
In Massoud's last interview, given to Newsweek two weeks before murder, his plea (couched in diplomatic terms but nonetheless clear), was for the USA to stop aiding the Pakistan/Taliban/bin Laden brutalization of his country and to develop a policy that would support moderate politics in Afghanistan. As we all know now, freedom-loving George W Bush had more important things to do at the country club and had never heard of any of these entities that his government was either supporting or turning a blind eye to.
Nobel Prize for Massoud?
Your almanackist, for one, hopes that Massoud will be awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment to freedom and the inspiration he continues to give the world. I believe that there are other ways of national self defence than Stinger missiles and home-made guns forged out of water pipes, as used by the Mujahideen under Massoud's command. However, in the real situation of the defence of a country that has been repeatedly invaded, from Genghiz Khan to the British (three times) the mighty Communist empire to the north, (and of course more recently the 'Coalition of the Willing'), at least Ahmed Shah Massoud was incorruptible, merciful, and almost worshipped by his people. And unlike the generals of the invaders, he fought on the battlefield with his men, resting in dirty caves and tents in boiling hot and sub-freezing temperatures in Afghanistan's parched desert valleys and deep-snow mountains, sleeping in a different bed most nights and eating the meagre rations of the guerrilla fighter.
Shaobakhai, Lion of Panjshir, and tashakoor. Goodnight, and thank you.
More Massoud links at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days
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Blogroll Us Thursday, September 09, 2004
*Ø* Two gods at war
 Another reminder to Australians about the anger their government, with its cruel policies, has naturally caused in the Muslim world. News from Australia's nearest neighbour, Indonesia (the nation with the largest Muslim population):
Embassy blast kills 7 in Jakarta
"Seven people are now reported to have been killed after a blast outside the Australian embassy building in Jakarta this afternoon, but no Australians have been badly hurt.
"Hospital officials in Jakarta say at least seven people were killed and nearly 100 injured. Indonesian Radio is also reporting around 100 people have been injured."
Source
This outrage, will, of course, up the ante. And so on ad infinitum. Expect rhetoric about the evil of these people, with never a reference to their grievances or the circumstances that can lead people to sacrifice their lives, while killing others.
Sadly, although the Australian government is aware of the context of these bombings, its leaders are expert manipulators of opinion, and they are adept at subordinating terrrorism, and the deaths of innocent people, to their political agenda. I believe we can expect much more of the same from fanatics of both the Islamist and Western economic rationalist variety. It's two gods at war while ordinary people are their collateral damage.
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Blogroll Us Wednesday, September 08, 2004
*Ø* The pentagram: origins in Venus
The pentagram is a fascinating arcane symbol and well known to Neopagans and occultists.
In my own view, the pentagram's origins are in part associated with the passage of the planet Venus through the skies, a view propounded by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, but don't let that put you off. Others, such as this Freemasonry website, dispute it, and I would hazard a guess that's because of the sacred feminine associations of Venus, as the Freemasons are a very masculine association.
I know there's a lot of current interest in this question, and Dan Brown's assertion that a four-year venus cycle informs the Olympics periodicity seems wrong to me. As far as I know, the Venus path is on an eight-year cycle. After that period, Venus, the Sun, Earth and the stars are in the same relative positions (more).
However, I certainly ain't no astronomer and can only go by what I read. If you have any information at all associated with this matter, or anything to do with the pentacle and its origins, I'd be grateful if you'd let me know.
Nick Anthony Fiorenza of Lunar Planner/The Venus Transit has very kindly permitted the use of his animation. I recommend his fascinating site.
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*Ø* Free audio
Little Johnny Howard,
How 'ard you try ...
A funny song that isn't too respectful of the Australian Prime Minister.
You can hear the song here in mp3 format, about 4 megs and not a real fast download. You can order it here, which is the only website of a political candidate that I've ever seen which shows the candidate mucking out a bull yard (Jeremy Bradley is an organic farmer). Goodonya, Jezza! We're voting Greens in the Australian election (endorsing Democrats in the USA).
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
 Free Iraq! with every purchase
While I'm here, I must mention a site I just found (that's their logo at left) called Wax Audio. Lots of audio to download free, taking the piss out of the WMDs/Children Overboard politicians.
Check it out, it won't disappoint. Titles include 'Bushbeats', 'Howard Killed' (hilarious) and 'American Justice'. Slow downloads, but cool.
From the site:
American Justice
We hear the static of radio frequencies, the dial settles and we are tuned into a steady hip-hop beat & the rhythmic rhetoric of commander in chief, George W Bush, delivering his ultimatum to Saddam :
"Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict ...at a time of our choosing"
Following Dubya is John Howard, then Tony Blair. Before long all three are reciting their pre-war mantra in unison –
"Weapons of Mass Destruction, Weapons of Mass Destruction"
A punching bass line drives the rhythm beneath before Dubya returns to the front without missing a beat.
"…we have the terrorists on the run, we're keeping them on the run… one - by one - the terrorists – are learning – the meaning – of American – justice"
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*Ø* Cheney's outrageous claim
Senator John Edwards released the following statement today in response to comments made by Dick Cheney that America is more likely to be attacked if John Kerry and John Edwards are elected in November:
"Dick Cheney's scare tactics crossed the line today, showing once again that he and George Bush will do anything and say anything to save their jobs. Protecting America from vicious terrorists is not a Democratic or Republican issue, it's an American issue and Dick Cheney and George Bush should know that.
"John Kerry and I will keep America safe, and we will not divide the American people to do it."
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*Ø* Green Brown hits back
Vote Greens in the Australian federal election. If only to give John Anderson apoplexy.
"THE coalition was mounting a 'Greens under the bed' scare campaign to distract voters from its own shortcomings, Australian Greens senator Bob Brown said tonight.
"Senator Brown said a new round of attacks from the government, spearheaded by Nationals leader John Anderson, would simply fail and drive voters to the Greens. Mr Anderson, campaigning in the marginal Nationals' seat of Page in northern New South Wales today, said supporters of the Greens would have been members of the Communist Party in the 1950s. [Emphasis mine]
"He said the Greens were like a watermelon - green on the outside but red on the inside.
"But Senator Brown said the Greens were more like avocados - green on the inside and outside.
"
He said when it came to links with communist organisations, it was the coalition government in bed with the reds.
"'This government cosies up with the biggest communist regime in the world - Beijing,' he said.
"'I've been trying to get out monks and nuns locked up in Tibet who are on the political right, and that's being done by the Chinese.
"'If John Anderson wanted to set up the National Party in China he'd be arrested as soon as he got there.'"
Souce: Herald Sun
Andrew Wilkie for Benelong: WMDs whistleblower Wilkie for Green Party challenges Prime Minister Howard in his safe seat
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Blogroll Us Tuesday, September 07, 2004
*Ø* Osama Fires Publicist
No Mention At Convention Has Madman Miffed
 "Al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden, reportedly 'furious' that his name was not mentioned once at last week's Republican National Convention, fired his publicist today and warned that more changes in the Qaeda publicity department may be imminent.
"According to sources close to Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda kingpin had eagerly anticipated watching the Republican gathering in its entirety, hoping to hear his name bitterly invoked dozens of times by G.O.P. speakers.
"But after hearing four nights' worth of speakers excoriating Democratic nominee John Kerry instead of him, an increasingly riled bin Laden picked up the phone and fired his publicist, David Grenway of the Grenway Group, a leading New York public relations firm."
Continue at The Borowitz Report
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*Ø* Wal-Mart builds near world-famous sacred site
Mexicans battle over Wal-Mart-owned store being built near 2,000-year-old pyramids
"A Wal-Mart-owned discount store rising a half-mile from the ancient temples of Teotihuacan has touched off a fight by a small coalition that doesn't want to see the big, boxy outlet from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun.
"We'd rather not have Mickey Mouse on top of the Pyramid of the Moon"
"But with most people in the area supporting Wal-Mart, the group is waging a lonely battle for what it calls its defense of Mexico's landscape and culture.
"The dispute in Teotihuacan – a town built next to the ruins of the 2,000-year-old metropolis – illustrates how the allure of low prices and U.S. lifestyles often wins out in Mexico, leaving traditionalists struggling to draw a line in rapidly shifting cultural sands.
"'We'd rather not have Mickey Mouse on top of the Pyramid of the Moon,' says Emmanuel D'Herrera, a business owner in Teotihuacan, 30 miles north of Mexico City.He claims a tall sign will loom near the huge twin pyramids that draw hundreds of thousands of tourists annually, although a government-appointed archaeologist disputes that."
Source: SFGate
I found it at Infoshop, a website that's definitely a keeper.
Google News on Teotihuacan Wal-Mart
Click the thumb above for Common Dreams story and to expand image.
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*Ø* Bush by numbers
Four years of double standards
By Graydon Carter
1 The rank of the United States worldwide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
25 Percentage of overall worldwide carbon dioxide emissions the United States is responsible for.
53 Number of days after taking office that Bush reneged on his campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
14 Percentage carbon dioxide emissions will increase over the next 10 years under Bush's own global-warming plan (an increase of 30 per cent above their 1990 levels).
408 Number of species that could be extinct by 2050 if the global-warming trend continues.
5 Number of years the Bush administration said in 2003 that global warming must be further studied before substantive action could be taken.
62 Number of members of Cheney's 63-person Energy Task Force with ties to corporate energy interests.
0 Number of environmentalists asked to attend Cheney's Energy Task Force meetings.
6 Number of months before 11 September that Cheney's Energy Task Force investigated Iraq's oil reserves.
2 Percentage of the world's population that is British.
2 Percentage of the world's oil used by Britain.
5 Percentage of the world's population that is American.
25 Percentage of the world's oil used by America.
63 Percentage of oil the United States imported in 2003, a record high.
24,000 Estimated number of premature deaths that will occur under Bush's Clear Skies initiative.
300 Number of Clean Water Act violations by the mountaintop-mining industry in 2003.
750,000 Tons of toxic waste the US military, the world's biggest polluter, generates around the world each Year.
$3.8bn Amount in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 1995, the Year "polluter pays" fees expired.
$0m Amount of uncommitted dollars in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 2003.
Source: The Independent. Found at Majority Report Radio
[To which I add:
1 The national ranking of Australia in terms of per capita greenhouse emissions.]
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*Ø* Humpback whales head home, Australia
 “There were around 10,000 Humpback Whales off eastern Australia in 1952. In 1962, after 10 years of commercial whaling, that number had been reduced to a critically low 100 individuals. When Humpback whales were commercially harvested between 1952 and 1962, Australia made about 1 million pounds (current value around $32M) annually in sales of oil and other whale by-products. Today in Australia around $70M is earned annually through whale-watching and associated tourist business.”
At present there are around 44 species of whale recorded in Australia, 35 of them toothed whales and nine baleen whales. The Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, is one of the baleens.
Your almanackist is fortunate enough to live a few metres back from the eastern shore of the continent (Sandy Beach, NSW). Two days ago a baby whale was stranded on the beach, as they're wont to do. I missed seeing it, but presume it was a baby Humpback on September's southward migration, from the tropical breeding waters of northern Queensland, back to the icy Antarctic.
Six thousand kilometres there and six thousand back, just to have sex – even in Australia, where long distances are the norm and God knows one can get desperate, that's a long way to go for a humpback ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
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*Ø* How to become a Wikiactivist
Wikipedia for social change
 Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia, is a great favourite of mine, and I have been visiting it and using it since not long after its inauguration.
Wikipedia began in a conversation between two old Internet friends, Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief of Nupedia, and Ben Kovitz, a computer programmer, on January 2, 2001. The idea was to have an encyclopaedia that was not only free to users, but which could actually be created by the general community. It might even be said that it is a very good example of anarchism at work.
When I first found Wikipedia there weren't a lot of articles but it has grown fantastically so that today there are more than 340,000 articles. It is a true Internet success story and a credit to the vision of its founders.
Planting memes and pulling up weeds at Wikipedia
Wikipedia affords a great opportunity for people with progressive ideas and a commitment to justice, peace and our natural environment to influence ideas. Anyone may initiate and edit articles, or add input to the 'Discussion' section at the head of each and every Wikipedia article. Ideas that you plant, and the rooting out of falsehoods and reactionary ideas, can influence the course of events and people's thinking in many ways.
Here are a few suggestions, just off the top of my head:
Start articles on people who have made a difference, such as activists and writers. There are already articles on movie celebrities and sports people, so let's up the ante with more inspiring people like R Buckminster Fuller, EF Schumacher, Petra Kelly, Jane Addams and Mahatma Gandhi. Together we can change the concept of celebrity;
Add useful internal and external links to existing articles. It's easy to learn how to make amendments and additions to any Wikipedia article, and most of the time no one will amend your amendments. It will happen sometimes, but you are allowed to debate it, and anyway, it won't be possible for cranky people to oppose everything you do, and you can invite some friends to join the debate – that's what democracy is all about;
Help give Wikipedia more global awareness and responsibility. If an article says something like "In 1972 the first movie about artichokes was screened", and you know that in your country there was one earlier, add the words "in the USA" ... this is necessary because Wikipedia is very Americocentric despite a policy in favour of internationalism. If an article says "Vice-President Schlemburger", it might be appropriate to add "of the USA". The authors often assume there is only one country – we all know that there will be no peace until globalism (rather than globalization) spreads;
You can bring some brain-food to articles that reveal the author's lack of thinking about what's important. For example, an article like 'F/A-22 Raptor' really needs a section that is critical of expensive death machines, and discussion about what this machinery does, i.e., kills men, women and children. There are obviously a lot of fairly unconscious people posting stuff without a view to the bigger picture, so take your monkeywrench to any article and fix it. There might be specific information you can bring to an article from your own reading, or you can search for info elsewhere. Most things have a political context and if no one points it out, Wikipedia users will be the poorer for it. Remember, if nothing changes, nothing changes;
The beauty of this is that it won't cost you a penny and you might influence thousands of people over the years. Think of all the schoolteachers and schoolkids who might get a much-needed alternative view because you took the time to assert good values where none previously existed. True, someone might edit your editing, but it's very democratic and even slightly progressive at Wikipedia, and you won't find yourself alone.
At Wikipedia you will also find links to Wikisource (where you can post source documents), Wikiquote (your choice of quotations to upload – and the authors of those quotes – can be influential in themselves), and Wikibooks.
If you think it is a good idea for progressive people to influence the world's knowledge bank in this free and easy way, I invite you to pass this on to as many people as you can.
Have fun being a Wikiactivist!
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*Ø* Northern Ireland: Agreement 'in difficulty'
 "Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has said that the Good Friday Agreement stands in 'considerable difficulty' ahead of talks aimed at restoring devolution.
"He was speaking in London on Monday shortly before talks with British and Irish government officials.
"Mr Adams said that the DUP had been honest that they wanted to destroy the Good Friday Agreement ...
"The Sinn Fein leader was speaking at the beginning of a week of intense political activity aimed at generating movement in the Northern Ireland political situation ...
"The political institutions in Northern Ireland were suspended in October 2002 amid allegations of IRA intelligence gathering at the Northern Ireland Office."
Full text: BBC
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Blogroll Us Monday, September 06, 2004
*Ø* Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
 Abbots Bromley Horn (Antler Dance; Ceremony of the Deermen), Abbots Bromley, UK
Wakes Monday, the first Monday after September 4
Originally this was danced during the Yuletide on Twelfth Day (January 6) at Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, England. Now the Abbots Bromley Horn is danced on the first Monday after September 4, the date having been moved in the 18th Century. Six male dancers hold white and brown-painted (formerly red and white) genuine reindeer antlers on wooden poles.
The antlers were obtained from reindeer that were castrated, or domesticated during the eleventh century. As reindeer are believed to have become extinct in the British Isles by then, and we know of no domesticated herds, the antlers were possibly of Scandinavian origin. In 1976, a small splinter was radiocarbon dated to around 1065. (At Star Carr in Yorkshire, Mesolithic antler ‘frontlets’, apparently meant to be worn, have been dated to 7600 BCE.) Since 1981, the Abbots Bromley horns have been legally the property of Abbots Bromley Parish Council and for 364 days of the year, they are on display in St Nicholas Church.
The dance starts at 7 am with a service of Holy Communion in St Nicholas Church, where the horns are housed. The dance begins on the village green, then passes out of the village to Blithfield Hall, currently owned by Lady Bagot.
The dancers hold the antlers to their heads as they dance. They go round neighbouring farms before the event (a distance of about 16 kilometres, or ten miles), which is possibly left over from a more ancient fertility dance. At the end of the day, the antlers are returned to the church. The Horn Dancers comprise six ‘Deer-men’, a Fool, Hobby Horse, Bowman (Robin Hood) and Maid Marion, performing their dance to a traditional tune provided by a melodion player.
The sight of a bowman following men wearing antlers is reminiscent of scenes in the celebrated cave paintings of Lascaux, France, which date to Paleolithic times 20,000 years ago, which depict men wearing antler head-dresses being stalked by archers (pictured at left). The Kalahari Bushmen’s ritual mimicry of hunters stalking antelopes also comes to mind, as does the Apache horn dance ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
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*Ø* Equatorial Guinea demands handover of former PM's son
"Equatorial Guinea is willing to guarantee that it would not use the death penalty if it were allowed to extradite Sir Mark Thatcher and other British citizens it accuses of involvement in a coup plot, the country's Attorney-General, Jose Olo Obono, has told The Independent on Sunday.
 "Sir Mark, freed from house arrest in Cape Town on Friday after his mother, Baroness Thatcher, put up £165,000 bail money, is being investigated under South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act for his alleged part in financing a botched coup against President Teodoro Obiang Nguema's regime in March. Equatorial Guinea officials are due to arrive in South Africa today, and may be allowed to question him, but the west African nation wants Sir Mark and other Britons, including Simon Mann, an ex-SAS officer facing sentence in Zimbabwe on arms charges, Greg Wales, a British businessman, and Ely Calil, a London-based oil trader accused of masterminding the plot, to face its own justice ...
"[But] Equatorial Guinea has become sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest oil exporter since offshore fields were discovered in the mid-1990s, raising the stakes. International involvement in the latest plot, which collapsed when Zimbabwe intercepted a planeload of South African former special forces soldiers in March, has kept tensions high in Malabo."
Full text
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*Ø* Four SEALs Charged With Abuse Of Prisoners
Washington Post, Saturday:
"The Navy said yesterday it charged four of its SEALs with abusing detainees in Iraq, marking the first time that elite Special Operations troops have been accused of such offenses in the expanding series of probes into the U.S. military's mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan ...
"Many of the charges brought against the SEALs this week grow out of a previously reported incident on Nov. 4, 2003, in which a detainee in the custody of the CIA died at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, officials said. The investigation continues, Navy officials said, and is expected to produce additional charges against other sailors. They said they did not know how many ultimately would be charged.
"Until now, the only service members facing legal action for alleged abuses of Iraqi prisoners are seven members of an Army reserve military police unit that worked in the Abu Ghraib prison. In the hierarchy of status within the U.S. military, those part-time MP soldiers, drawn from a support unit, are virtually at the opposite end of the scale from Navy SEALs, who are seen as highly skilled and disciplined troops trained to operate in extremely dangerous situations" ...
"The four new charges came after announcements by Pentagon officials over the past two weeks that dozens of additional charges against soldiers were likely to be filed. Army investigators said they have concluded that in addition to the seven already charged in connection with alleged offenses at the Abu Ghraib prison, 30 other soldiers and contractors participated in abuse there, and 11 more could face charges or disciplinary action for not reporting what they saw.
Also, the Army last month charged a soldier for abuse of an Afghan detainee, and Army officials said earlier this week that they expect to charge 25 other soldiers in connection with abuses in Afghanistan.
[All emphasis mine.]
Full text
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In the lead-up to Australia's federal election on October 9, the government has been feeling some heat on the Guantanamo detainees issue, and is frantically taking baby steps to entreat the USA to give Hicks and Habib something resembling a fair trial.
It goes to show that public pressure can have an effect sometimes, though in this case the government reveals itself as quixotic as it is cynical, for the US government has long shown it has absolutely no interest in the human rights of these Australian citizens whom it held without charge and in solitary confinement in 6 X 8 foot concrete cells for years.
*Ø* Tinkering won't help Hicks: ALP
"Tinkering with the US military commission process would not ensure Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks received a fair trial, Labor said.
"The federal government said it would seek changes to the process used to try Hicks to ensure he received procedural fairness.
"Hicks last month pleaded not guilty at a preliminary military commission hearing to charges of conspiracy to commit war crimes, aiding the enemy, and attempted murder.
"Another Australian, Mamdouh Habib, is also likely to face charges before a military commission.
"Opposition attorney general's spokeswoman Nicola Roxon said it had been known for months that the military commission process was unfair, but the Australian government had only chosen to act now.
"'We should demand ... where trials are held that people have a fair process and that if they have done something wrong and committed a crime they'll be convicted,' Ms Roxon told ABC radio.
"'But not using this trumped-up military commission process where really none of the normal rules apply and tinkering at the edges probably won't improve that.'"
Source: Yahoo! News
Downer, Ruddock admit failure on Guantanamo Bay
"The announcement that the Howard government will 'discuss' with the Bush Administration such matters as the presumption of innocence, the right to silence, the right to defence counsel and assurances against the death penalty at the Guantanamo Bay Military Commission is an admission of failure by ministers Downer and Ruddock, Greens Senator Bob Brown said in Canberra today.
"'The military commission is all but a kangaroo court. It cannot be made fair. Otherwise, why have it rather than have David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib brought before an Australian court?' Senator Brown said.
"'The government's compliance with this process is outrageous. Even Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry says he will disband the commission,' Senator Brown said."
Source: Australian Greens
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*Ø* Extended Aljazeera Iraq ban blasted
 "The interim Iraqi government's decision to extend a month-long ban on Aljazeera's reporting in the war-torn country has been criticised by the network and media rights groups.
"The secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, Robert Menard, on Saturday condemned the decision to indefinitely extend the closure of Aljazeera's Baghdad office.
"The decision 'contradicts Iraqi officials' statements on democracy', Menard said, adding that it went against the notions of law and freedom."
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*Ø* 'Kill the President' a-comin'
 I'd hoped to post some more of Kill the President today as I want to keep adding about 7 or so stanzas per week. It didn't happen but I'll try to get some more there very soon, maybe a day or two. I need to derange my brain a bit before I can do it. I don't do drugs any more so I have to hit myself around the head a lot with a piece of 4 X 2.
If you're into killing the president, you can come back about once a week and there should be a new chapter unfold in the patriotic tale of Irving Lumwedder.
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*Ø* Republican Dirty Tricks, Much?
["Born yesterday...NOT! — Orwell Himself Couldn't Have Imagined This Bullshit!" — Lisa -v]
No Trespassing
Bush admin move may keep Kerry and other candidates
from stumping on federal property
By Amanda Griscom
Grist
The Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, NASA headquarters, and the Washington Monument are among the many federal properties that may be off-limits to presidential and congressional candidates for campaign photo ops this election season, thanks to a guidance recently released by the Bush administration's U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
The OSC is an independent federal agency that investigates and prosecutes issues ranging from whistleblower complaints to concerns that federal employees are participating in campaign activities prohibited by the Hatch Act, which defines election-related political no-no's for people on the government payroll.
Kerry advisers and some environmentalists are royally peeved about the advisory, calling it at best deliberately ambiguous and misleading, at worst a deliberate maneuver to gain advantage over John Kerry's presidential campaign.
The guidance is "an extraordinary reinterpretation of the Hatch Act," said David Hayes, who oversaw national parks as deputy secretary of the interior under Clinton, and who now serves as a senior adviser to the Kerry campaign. "It is a patently ridiculous and extreme measure that the Bush administration is taking to cover up its appalling record on funding and protecting national parks after promising in the 2000 campaign to make it a priority."
 But OSC spokesperson Cathy Deeds told Muckraker that her agency is merely "restating the Hatch Act" in response to repeated queries over the last several months from federal employees at various agencies about which campaign activities they can participate in and what federal property is fair game. [Yeah, yeah. -v] On Aug. 9, the office issued a government-wide guidance in an effort "to clear up the confusion." That just happened to be the very day that John Kerry made a campaign stop at the Grand Canyon and delivered a speech criticizing the shortfall of funding for national parks under the Bush administration. [Emphasis added. -v]
CONTINUE
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*Ø* Plenty of Precedent for Chechen Revenge
Chechen Revenge
By BigEye.com Webmaster
The Bush administration's leaders, as well as the Russian government would prefer their publics to believe that the recent Russian school massacre occurred in a vacuum. Just as 9/11, this "terrorism" also has its obvious antecedents. As inhumane and barbaric as this school atrocity was, the number of children killed is only a fraction of those murdered by Russia's and lost by their Chechen parents. [Emphasis added. -v]
Despite their horror, "terrorist" acts perpetrated by individuals and private groups pall in comparison to those undertaken by state leaders. The governments of "Western Civilization", including our own [the U.S. -v], have been complicit in atrocities committed by the Russian government for the past decade against civilians in Chechnya and their heroic defenders.
If you want to gain perspective in this matter, read each of the following Foreign Correspondent columns by Eric Margolis, published on this web site.
SOURCE
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*Ø* Hail to Dads' Day in Oz
 It has never snowed in Sydney, as far as anyone knows, but it does get the occasional good hail storm. The one on April 14, 1998 will probably not be forgotten for generations (click the link for photo/story). That one destroyed my new car .... while I was in it.
Today, while Sydneysiders were commemorating Fathers' Day (first Sunday in September in the World's Second-Greatest Democracy), hail came down on Sydney Town. Not like 1998, but enough to give Sydney in Springtime almost a Northern Hemisphere Christmas appearance.
Baz le Tuff sent me a link to some good photos.
For dads: links on men's issues
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*Ø* Romans catching up
"Not to be shackled while the world goes to hell in a handcart, the Vatican is making up new words to hold the line against sin.
"As the only body in the world still using Latin, the Vatican has helpfully produced a new lexicon of modern words.
"It may help resolve the problem of how to threaten damnation if you dare not speak vice's name.
"Words appearing for the first time include hotpants (brevissimae bracae femineae), nightclub (taberna nocturna) and cigarette (fistula nicotiana). Like iuvenis voluptarius (the new Latin playboy), they're unlikely to feature favourably in the next papal encyclical."
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