Happy Halloween!

In the Book of Days for October 31 we have a truckload of folklore and origins of the Samhain/Halloween festivities.

Many Australians still resist Halloween and some trick-or-treaters get short shrift at some Aussie doors. The reason given is that "Halloween is American, and we're Australian". True, Halloween was scarcely celebrated when I was a kid, but of course, the Night of the Dead on October 31 was around for many centuries before Christopher Columbus was even a twinkle in his father's eye, so today we look at how the commemoration actually began.

The Almanac has found that Halloween was celebrated in Australia before it was celebrated in several states of the USA, so Aussie readers might like to follow the links to our source.

What killed Houdini?
Appropriately, I guess you could say, it was on October 31 that The Great Houdini died. It's often said that a punch to the abdomen killed him, but it's likely that this was not in fact the case. We explore that question today as well.

Speaking of Australia: did you know Harry Houdini was the first person to fly a plane in Oz? Follow the links for that as well, Oct 31 in the Book of Days. It will take you to photos and a cute lil film, too.

Memes.org on New York Times


From the Publisher of Memes.org:

Memoids:

I can't say it better than Richard Brodie, himself, can. So, please enjoy his email
and his link. Memes.org is mentioned in the article as well. My goodness, has the traffic increased. Thank you all so much for all of your patronage since 1999!

Here's our announcement.

####

Dear meme enthusiasts,

It has been a while since the New York Times ran an article on memes so it was
about time they ran this one.

Meme Central and Virus of the Mind are mentioned at the end.

All the best memes,

Richard Brodie

####


[See also: Cultural Software -v]

Enjoy the day, folks!

George Bush is giving us the finger

LOL! This is dated Wednesday 27th, but I've just tried to get GeorgeWBush.com and I was told "You are not authorized to view this page".

Bush website conspiracy theories darken skies

"The official Bush re-election website -- which blocked access to most of the world outside the US this week -- is still visible to Canadians.

"We don't know if it's fears about future attacks by hackers, concerns about keeping bandwidth costs to a minimum or an aggressive response to pinko UK broadsheet The Guardian's recent shameful pro-Kerry political lobbying efforts in Ohio which are behind moves that have rendered GeorgeWBush.com inaccessible to world + dog. Or, to be strictly accurate, most of the world bar the US and Canada which is presumably considered bandwidth-friendly, hacker-free and mercifully bereft of pinko broadsheets.

"We called the Republican National Committee for comment but they couldn't get back to us because campaign volunteers are not allowed to phone outside the US.

"So, we can't see Bush's website because of reckless politicking by pinko broadsheet agitators, Republicans can't call outside the US lest they be corrupted by pinko broadsheet agitators, but Canadians are exempt because -- well, readers will have to answer that for themselves but a massive black swarm of black helicopters is already hovering menacingly on the horizon.

"Meanwhile, the official website of the Kerry/Edwards campaign (JohnKerry.com) is still accessible to all and sundry -- as is the satire site GeorgeWBush.org. How many would-be visitors to GeorgeWBush.com -- including US service men and citizens living abroad and now denied their God-given right to freely surf the Land of the Free -- will wind up at the satire site, we wonder? We weep for democracy."

From The Register [Thanks for this one, Donal]

Now Online! Watch Fahrenheit 9/11!


Fahrenheit 9/11 at Your Fingertips

Michael Moore has already forfeited his chance for another Academy Award despite good odds of winning again. His only wish is to have as many people as possible see the film before Tuesday.

Share this link with everyone you know who is "on the fence" or a die-hard Repug!!

100,000 Iraqi deaths -- fury in Westminster

Excerpt from The Independent:

"The figures provoked a furious response last night in Westminster. Clare Short, the former cabinet minister who resigned over the war, said: 'It is really horrifying. When will Tony Blair stop saying it is all beneficial for the Iraqi people since Saddam Hussein has gone? How many more lives are to be taken? It is no wonder, given this tragic death toll, that the resistance to the occupation is growing.

"We have all relied on Iraqi body counts from media reports. That is clearly an under-estimate and this shows that it was a very big under-estimate. It is truly dreadful. Tony Blair talks simplistically about it getting better in Iraq. These figures prove it is just an illusion.'

"MPs said the assault on Fallujah expected after the US presidential election next Tuesday would add to the growing death toll among civilians. The figures are certain to provoke fresh demands at the Commons next week for Mr Blair to avoid further civilian deaths.

"Alan Simpson, a member of Labour Against the War, said: "Iraq has not seen this scale of slaughter since its war with Iran. At some point, the slaughter of civilians in the name of peace has to become a crime of war. This is not a matter of indifference but criminality. These figures are horrific, but it is a scandal that the world remains silent'...

"The researchers are savagely critical of the US General Tommy Franks for his widely quoted remark that 'we don't do body counts'. They say that the Geneva Convention requires occupying forces to protect the civilian population, and add the fact that more than half of the deaths caused by them were women and children is 'cause for concern'. [My emphasis above.]

Full text

Boo! 'Tis the Season.


Campaign of Fear: The Final Days
By Mark Fiore

Watch Animated Video

Pitcairn: Rape, Empire, more

So, Steve Christian, the Mayor of Pitcairn Island, will be jailed for three years (no surprise). Christian, one of 47 descendants of the Bounty mutineers who make up the entire population of Pitcairn, will pay the price for child rape. His son, Randy Christian, will do seven years.

If you've been following the case, in which most of the adult males of the island were charged with child rape and sexual abuse, or even if you haven't, The Law Report has a fascinating program to listen to, made just a few days ago.

The Pitcairn case raises a great many fascinating issues. Not the least of these is the question of Pitcairn's status in a British Empire that it ostensibly left back on April 28, 1789 when Fletcher Christian and his followers mutinied against Captain Bligh (who later went on to be governor of my State of New South Wales, where he was mutinied against once more). As I understand it, the case will go all the way to Britain's Privy Council to settle the matter.

Another major issue arises from the fact that a few weeks ago when the lawyers and international media horde first descended on the island, the women of Pitcairn called a public meeting to say that the underage sex practices on the island were part of their traditional (Anglo-Polynesian) culture, and that they themselves did not consider it rape or child abuse.

No emails

I've had no emails for a full day. My ISP says there are about 140 on the server, but when I check by Webmail, it still says there are none. Ain't life on the Net fun?

Florida's dirty tricks


New Florida vote scandal revealed
By Greg Palast
Reporting for BBC's Newsnight

10/26/04 "BBC" -- A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.


Mass challenges

They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.

Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."

"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."

Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.

In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters. The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents.

When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.

Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner.

Rather, she did acknowledge that the party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated in the law."

There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.


Private detective

In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.
The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.

On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.

Greg Palast's film was broadcast by Newsnight on Tuesday, 26 October, 2004.

[Emphasis added. -v]

SOURCE

100,000 Excess Iraqi Deaths Since War - Study

"London (Reuters) - Deaths of Iraqis have soared to 100,000 above normal since the Iraq war mainly due [to] violence and many of the victims have been women and children, public health experts from the United States said Thursday.

"'Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq', researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland said in a report published online by The Lancet medical journal.

"'Violence accounted for most of the excess death and air strikes from (U.S.-led) coalition forces accounted for the most violent deaths', the report added.

"The new figures, based on surveys done by the researchers in Iraq, are much higher than earlier estimates based on think tank and media sources which put the Iraqi civilian death toll at up to 16,053 and military fatalities as high as 6,370.

"By comparison 848 U.S. military were killed in combat or attacks and another 258 died in accidents or incidents not related to fighting, according to the Pentagon.

"'The risk of death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58 times higher than in the period before the war', Les Roberts and his colleagues said in the report which compared Iraqi deaths during 14.6 months before the invasion and the 17.8 months after it.

"He added that violent deaths were widespread and were mainly attributed to coalition forces.

"'Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children', Roberts added." [my emphasis]

Source

Guantanamo Bay Britons sue US officials for £22m

"Four Britons who were held at Guantanamo Bay for more than two-and-a-half years sued the American Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior Pentagon officials for $40m (£22m) yesterday -- accusing them of organising, authorising and overseeing alleged torture and inhumane treatment at the US prison.

"Lawyers for the four, the so-called Tipton Three and a fourth Briton from Manchester, filed the civil suit in Washington DC yesterday morning, demanding $10m each in compensation for physical and mental abuse from which the men are still recovering. All four men, Rhuhel Ahmed, 22, Asif Iqbal, 22, Safiq Rasul, 27, and the Mancunian Jamal al-Harith, 37, were released from Guantanamo Bay earlier this year having never been charged with any offence." [my emphasis]

Full text

UK: Secret services to be given access to ID card database

"The intelligence services will be given unprecedented access to the government database underpinning the controversial identity card scheme, the Home Office said yesterday, prompting accusations of Big Brother-style surveillance of people's everyday lives.

"The plan emerged as David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, announced 'refinements' to his ID card proposals, saying that the central register containing the cards' information would provide a 'full audit trail' of when and where they were used. This could include every time holders use public services -- including hospitals, benefits offices or colleges -- buy an expensive item or make large withdrawals from banks.

"The Home Office insisted that only the security services, such as MI5 and MI6, and not police or government officials, would be allowed to access the data.

"But a spokesman for Liberty, the civil liberties organisation, said: 'It's very easy to say today that only intelligence services could access this information. But they can't say that would be the case in five years' time. Once the information is in the system, it's open to misuse'." [my emphasis]

Continue at The Independent

Hobbits!?

No way. Leprechauns, of course!

"Scientists have discovered a new and tiny species of human that lived in Indonesia at the same time our own ancestors were colonising the world.

"The three-foot (one-metre) tall species -- dubbed 'the Hobbit' -- lived on Flores island until at least 12,000 years ago.

"The fact that little people feature in the legends of modern Flores islanders suggests we might have to take tales of Leprechauns and Yeti more seriously."

Continue at the BBC

Iraq war spurs terrorist, says Aussie spy chief

"Australia's spy chief has directly linked the Iraq war to the rising ranks of global terrorists and says it could have inspired new followers of Osama bin Laden in Australia.

"The ASIO director-general, Dennis Richardson, also said in a speech last night that al-Qaeda had cased an airport in Australia before the September 11 attacks in the United States.

"Mr Richardson said 'it is possible some new followers in Australia have been motivated primarily by Iraq', putting him at odds with the Federal Government's line on whether the war inflames terrorism.

"'We cannot exclude the possibility of Iraq being a motivator for some people here in Australia who may want to do harm,' he said."
Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Simply Amazing, huh?

"The honey bee is helping scientists discover how alcohol affects the brain. The study is part of long-term research into whether alcohol increases aggressive behaviour in humans.

"Scientists at Ohio State University fed honey bees different amounts of alcohol and watched how long they spent walking, flying, grooming or just lying on their backs.

"Julie Mustard, the entomologist leading the research, said that, at the molecular level, bees' brains worked in the same way as humans'. Those given the highest amounts of alcohol spent the most time lying on their backs."

Source: The Irish Times [subscription only]

More than 80 Muslims killed by Thai cops

The old "stuff 'em in a truck" routine
"More than 80 people are said to have died as a result of Monday's clashes in southern Thailand, many apparently crushed to death after being arrested.

"Previous reports said only six people were killed, and 20 were injured.

"Violence erupted after at least 1,500 protesters gathered outside a police station in Narathiwat province following the arrest of six Muslim men.

"Thai officials said 78 of the dead apparently died of suffocation after being loaded into army trucks."
Source: BBC

Congratulations, dear reader

You have survived 300 days of the year 2004.

Angam Day, Nauru

The people of Nauru celebrate Angam Day to commemorate the birth of the 1,500th Nauruan at the end of the epidemic in 1920s. The Nauruan word angam means: ‘jubilation’, ‘celebration’, ‘to have triumphed over all hardships’, ‘to have reached a set goal’ or ‘coming home’.

Nauruans experienced a dramatic drop in population in 1920 due to the influenza epidemic. The total number of Nauruans decreased dramatically, reaching a level of only 1,068 people. This appalling ‘demographic drop’ caused fear for the continuing survival of community ... [More]

Nauru, pawn in Australia’s game
An oval-shaped South Pacific island lying near the equator 4,000 km from Sydney, Australia, Nauru is the smallest republic in the world – and an ecological basket case. It lies 42km (26 miles) south of the equator, and its nearest neighbour is Ocean Island (Banaba, part of Kiribati), 305km (190 miles) to the east. Until recently, Nauru was the richest nation per capita on earth. That was before the bird-droppings phosphate ran out ...

In 2001 ... the Australian government of ultra-conservative Prime Minister John Howard, in order to keep tinted refugees/asylum seekers from white Australian shores, began shipping desperate boat people to Nauru. The Nauru government, strapped for cash following the collapse of its economy, accepted refugees for money. In Nauru, people fleeing persecution in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq found themselves locked up in this tropical isle. Hot and isolated, the inhospitable 21 sq km island has been called a “living hell” for the refugees ...

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.

Damn, not a virus after all

A bit disappointing, really

I think if a doctor diagnosed me with some rare tropical virus I would have something exciting worth dropping into a conversation, something to explain the strange yellow spots, the ringing in the ears and the disgusting bulging eyes.

How disappointing it would be to find out some time later that the diagnosis was wrong and that I was, in fact, presenting with symptoms of having underpants a size too small.

So it is with Esmeralda's 'virus'. It's no virus at all, dammit. (Not that her underpants are the wrong size or anything. I make sure of that, as part of normal computer maintenance.)

Baz le Tuff (pictured working at my desk), whose reputation for his digital acuity is only exceeded by that for his immense collection of girls' bicycle seats, having spent most of yesterday and two hours this morning applying his physician's skills to Esmeralda, had one of his famous Copernican-scale insights. "It isn't a virus and we've been pissing up the wrong tree," he told me with that steely look of certainty he once had many years ago when he predicted that the Fonz would do something weird soon, "like maybe jump a fish, or a whale, or some aquatic creature like that". He had that look in '69 when he told me that Meatloaf would "be bigger than Elvis". It's uncanny.

Hackers come home, we love you
It was instability in MS Outlook Express, not a worm. So it's not "Death to hackers" after all, but "Death to William Gates".

The symptoms were that all incoming emails were getting sent by my computer an attachment that said in the subject "This address is no more. My new address is ..." So it looked like the work of a trojan or worm, or some bug at least.

What is was, was MSOE applying an old Message Rule incorrectly. Friends of mine will know that I've had Message Rules problems in the past. For example, I might have a Rule that says all emails coming in from Jack must have a red subject header, and they occasionally come in black or blue. I've also found that new rules I was trying to apply, would not apply at all.

In May when I changed my email addies, I made a rule to send as an attachment an email that gave my correspondents my new address. Over the past few days, MSOE has been sending it to every correspondent, not just to those using my pre-May addresses. This explains why seven different scanners including McAfee, Norton, Avast, Kerpovsky (or Kalashnikov or Kaminsky or whatever it's called), Panda and Housecall were unable to clean the 'virus' that never was. MSOE somehow applied an old rule to the wrong incomings. This it did all by itself, as I haven't been near the Rules setting for some weeks, maybe months.

By removing the rule, and in fact removing all the rules, just to start with a clean slate, the bug is fixed. And I hope to get my work schedule back to its default setting, viz, Frantic.

Thanx, Monsieur le Tuff. I wouldn't be where I am today without you. Not that I hold you to blame. And thank you to readers of the ezines who have been patient. At least, I think you have. I haven't checked my In Tray yet so I hope I haven't spoken too soon.

Washington Post endorses Kerry

[Who says only bad news makes it into the media?]

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Washington Post endorsed Sen. John Kerry for president in its Sunday edition, saying the Democratic candidate had wisdom and open-mindedness that made him a stronger candidate to lead the United States than President Bush.

"Ten days before the election, the Massachusetts Democrat now leads Bush 66 to 57 in newspaper endorsements, according to the trade publication Editor and Publisher.

"Papers endorsing Kerry, including the New York Times, have a combined circulation of 10.6 million readers, compared to a combined circulation of 6.6 million for papers endorsing Bush, Editor and Publisher said."
Source

One helluva scary pic

Don't mean to spoil your Sunday lunch, or dinner, but we may be seeing these in the shops next year. Smoking is already banned in Ireland in all places of work, including pubs and restaurants, and the Brits are thinking of following suit.




View of packs of cigarettes, unveiled by European Health and Consumer
Protection Commissioner David Byrne, at a news conference in Brussels
October 22, 2004. Byrne unveiled new violent images for cigarette packs to
warn consumers of the health risk of smoking. REUTERS Source

"The EU head office wants EU governments to require cigarette makers to display the photos on their products, hoping the images will have more force than written warnings now on packs of cigarettes, including 'smoking kills' or 'smoking can lead to a slow and painful death.'

"EU member states now use 14 written health warnings, which must cover at least a third of the packaging. So far, Ireland and Belgium have indicated they will require cigarette makers to use the photos, which should appear on packs next year." Source
Slideshow

God and Sex

Extract from the New York Times. I found this a good read, although searching the Bible for answers is not a pastime of mine.

"So when God made homosexuals who fall deeply, achingly in love with each other, did he goof?

"That seems implicit in the measures opposing gay marriage on the ballots of 11 states. All may pass; Oregon is the only state where the outcome seems uncertain.

"Over the last couple of months, I've been researching the question of how the Bible regards homosexuality. Social liberals tend to be uncomfortable with religious arguments, but that is the ground on which political battles are often decided in America -- as when a Texas governor, Miriam 'Ma' Ferguson, barred the teaching of foreign languages about 80 years ago, saying, 'If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us.' [LOL!]

"I think it's presumptuous of conservatives to assume that God is on their side. But since Americans are twice as likely to believe in the Devil as in evolution, I also think it's stupid of liberals to forfeit the religious field ...

"The religious right cites one part of the New Testament that clearly does condemn male homosexuality -- not in Jesus' words, but in Paul's. The right has a tougher time explaining why lesbians shouldn't marry because the Bible has no unequivocal condemnation of lesbian sex.

"A passage in Romans 1 objects to women engaging in 'unnatural' sex, and this probably does mean lesbian sex, according to Bernadette Brooten, the author of a fascinating study of early Christian attitudes toward lesbians. But it's also possible that Paul was referring to sex during menstruation or to women who are aggressive during sex.

"In any case, do we really want to make Paul our lawgiver? Will we enforce Paul's instruction that women veil themselves and keep their hair long? (Note to President Bush: If you want to obey Paul, why don't you start by veiling Laura and keeping her hair long, and only then move on to barring gay marriages.)

"Given these ambiguities, is there any solution? One would be to emphasize the sentiment in Genesis that 'it is not good for the human to be alone', and allow gay lovers to marry.

"Or there's another solution. Paul disapproves of marriage except for the sex-obsessed, saying that it is best 'to remain unmarried as I am'. So if we're going to cherry-pick biblical phrases and ignore the central message of love, then perhaps we should just ban marriage altogether?" [All emphasis mine]

Full text

Computer health report
It's been quite a week for poor Esmeralda. First it was the long blackout after our big storm, then two days in a row the excessive humidity caused short circuits. Then this damn trojan or worm. Then today, unrelated to any of this, my ISP wouldn't connect for hours. What's left, chicken pox?

I've run about four or five virus scanners over Esmeralda (such a slow process, and so many reboots, I'm heartily sick of it) but no luck yet. One of them, Kapersky, picked up about 10 nasties that better-known programs had missed, but I still can't open my Outlook Express because when I do, the mystery bug mails out to incoming email correspondents. Until I get this fixed, if anyone feels they need to contact me, the best place is on the tagboard, thanks. I'll check in as I'm able. Hopefully reinstalling Windows tomorrow will solve it.

Death to hackers.

Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004


From our friend, Eric:

Hunter S. Thompson has a new article on the U.S. presidential election, and you can read it at:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/6562575?&rnd=1098394261180&has-player=true

There're some really tasty nuggets in this one....

(If you're having trouble accessing this page, just go to the link at my EP-RANTS page, and you can also see my suggestion for a timely DVD double feature.

Cheers,

ERIC PREDOEHL
a proud supporter of the U.S. Constitution (especially Bill of Rights),
the Geneva Convention, and verifiable voting
http://ep-rants.blogspot.com/

Some Supplements Can Damage Eyes

"New York (Reuters Health) - Many herbal remedies and nutritional supplements can damage the eyes, including some alternative therapies that are used by people trying to correct eye problems, new research reports.

"According to a review of reported cases and medical literature, commonly used supplements including chamomile, ginkgo biloba, licorice, vitamin A and echinacea can cause a myriad of eye problems.

"Study author Dr. Frederick Fraunfelder explained that supplements become dangerous to the eyes when people take them in large doses. They can cause problems including severe conjunctivitis, eye irritation, retinal bleeding and temporary loss of vision, the study found ...

"Fraunfelder, who is based at the Casey Eye Institute in Portland, Oregon, explained that most people are unaware of how damaging supplements can be to the eyes. 'Most consumers assume because a product is naturally occurring it is safe,' he said.

"As a result, about forty percent of people who use alternative therapies do not discuss them with their doctors." [My emphasis]

Full text

Endangered tigers culled because of bird flu

"More than 50 tigers in a Thai zoo have been put down after they showed symptoms of bird flu.

"The animals became sick after eating raw chicken carcasses believed to have been infected with the virus.

"Before the outbreak began, the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Chonburi province housed more than 400 endangered tigers, but 80 have now died or been culled.

"No keepers have succumbed to the virus, and the WHO said the outbreak among tigers had no implications for humans ... "

Full text

Russia's Duma Ratifies Kyoto Pact

"MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Duma ratified the Kyoto Protocol on Friday, clearing the way for the long-delayed climate change pact to come into force worldwide.

"The State Duma's ratification pushes the 126-nation U.N. accord - aimed at battling global warming - over the threshold of 55 percent of developed nations' greenhouse gas emissions needed to make it internationally binding, after a U.S. pullout in 2001."

Source

No emails for a while

Dunno how, but I've been snagged by an annoying email virus. It doesn't seem harmful except for its damn annoying replication through my Outlook Express. It's sending itself, not to my address book, which I had already pared down to almost nothing in case such a situation occurred, but to addresses in my Inbox. Even to spammers, which is a laugh, I guess.

So far the scanners I've used haven't been able to identify it, but I'm working on it. No emails from me for a while, gang. Of course, the Bloglet subscriptions remain unaffected.

As God Is His Witness?


As God Is His Witness
By Ayelish McGarvey

Bush is no devout evangelical. In fact,
he may not be a Christian at all.
[Damn straight! Jesus was a liberal! -v]

10/19/04 "American Prospect" -- Late in the summer, at the Republican national convention in New York, a movie billed as the conservative alternative to Fahrenheit 9/11 debuted for the party faithful. The film, George W. Bush: Faith in the White House, opens with a montage of a billowing American flag, a softly lit portrait of Jesus in Gethsemane, and a shot of the tawny profile of our 43rd president with his eyes gazing heavenward. Myriad times throughout the film Bush is referred to reverently as a man of faith.

Like no president in recent memory, George W. Bush wields his Christian righteousness like a flaming sword. Indeed, hundreds of news stories and nearly half a dozen books have evinced a White House that, according to BBC Washington correspondent Justin Webb, “hums to the sound of prayer.” Yet for the past four years the mainstream press has trod lightly, rarely venturing beyond the biographical to probe the depth, or sincerity, of Bush's Christian beliefs. Bush has no doubt benefited from the media’s reluctance; Newsweek, for example, in the heat of the run-up to the Iraq War, ran a cover package on the president’s faith under the headline “Bush and God” -- a story whose timing lent the war the aura of having heavenly sanction. Even lefty believers like Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners, and Amy Sullivan, journalist and Democratic adviser, politely maintain that Bush’s faith is strong, if misguided.

Indeed, in an 8,000-word lamentation appearing in The New York Times Magazine last weekend, Ron Suskind attempted to trace Bush’s lack of intellectual curiosity, and the policy disasters that have stemmed from that, back to his relationship with God. “That a deep Christian faith illuminated the personal journey of George W. Bush is common knowledge,” Suskind wrote. In other words, the devil, as it were, is lurking among the articles of faith, but not in the heart of the man.

This is a huge mistake, because when judged by his deeds, an entirely different picture emerges: Bush does not demonstrate a life of faith by his actions, and neither Methodists, evangelicals, nor fundamentalists can rightly call him brother. In fact, the available evidence raises serious questions about whether Bush is really a Christian at all.

Ironically for a man who once famously named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher during a campaign debate, it is remarkably difficult to pinpoint a single instance wherein Christian teaching has won out over partisan politics in the Bush White House. Though Bush easily weaves Christian language and themes into his political communication, empty religious jargon is no substitute for a bedrock faith. Even little children in Sunday school know that Jesus taught his disciples to live according to his commandments, not simply to talk about them a lot. In Bush’s case, faith without works is not just dead faith -- it’s evangelical agitprop.

[Emphasis added. -v]

CONTINUE

UK: Ministers hope to delay troop decision

"The all-out US assault on Falluja is likely to be delayed until after the American presidential elections, but Tony Blair may face a decision before then on whether British troops will provide a support role in the US sector, Whitehall sources said yesterday.

"Ministers have been caught badly off balance by the widespread assumption that they were preparing to bolster the US military as a political demonstration of support for George Bush ahead of the November 2 poll.

"Amid signs of a serious backbench revolt, ministers would like to defer a decision until after the US poll. They were last night holding talks with Labour backbenchers to forestall a full-scale rebellion, re-assuring them the request had come from the military and was totally focused on ensuring credible nationwide elections in Iraq." [My emphasis above]

Full text at The Guardian

The weatherman says no Almanac today

It will take me a bit of time to catch up after the biggest, wildest storm I can remember.

I thought it was a bit damp and breezy through the night:

Coffs Harbour and Bellingen districts have been declared natural disaster areas. [Pictured: debris banks up against Bellingen bridge.]

"... more than 120 millimetres [4.7 inches] fell in just over an hour."

"Winds of more than 120 kilometres an hour ..." [75 mph] [The Bureau of Meteorology in a forecast mentions wind gusts of 40 per cent higher.]

Bellingen is flooded (as usual). Evacuations underway as NSW floodwaters rise.

Video of aftermath

Forecast

Burma's prime minister 'arrested'

"Conservative elements in Burma's military junta have ousted Prime Minister Khin Nyunt and put him under house arrest, Thai officials say.

"'Khin Nyunt was removed from his position,' Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters.

"In recent months diplomats have spoken of a power struggle between Khin Nyunt, number three in Burma's hierarchy, and the hard-line Senior General Than Shwe ...

"Khin Nyunt was seen as favouring talks with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and soon after his appointment announced a seven-point roadmap to democracy.

"But Than Shwe remains strongly opposed to any role for the Nobel laureate.

"Her release was widely expected prior to the resumption of the National Convention in May but Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest."

Full text
Amnesty International documents on Burma/Myanmar

Is your cat/dog/horse/rabbit overweight?

"The obesity epidemic is spreading to the animal world, with veterinary surgeons reporting an alarming increase in the number of overweight cats and dogs ...

"Obesity was one of a growing number of 'human style' illnesses highlighted in a survey of vets and pet owners. Others included hyperactivity, stress, diabetes, arthritis and depression."

Full text

Good lord. Stress? And depression? And all caused by colourings, flavourings and preservatives, no doubt. My mother used to feed the cat with scraps she got free from the butcher. Including fish heads. But who sees fish being gutted in a butcher's any more? Even carrots come chopped into cute little 'sticks', and kids nowadays think they grow like that. [sigh] I'm off to bed, to dream of cheddar that left a tang in my mouth ...

St Luke's Day, The Horn Fair, Charlton, near London
The Horn Fair was held for three days annually from St Luke's Day (October 18) and was named after the custom of carrying horns and wearing them. A foreign traveller in 1598 wrote that there was at Ratcliffe, nearby, a long pole with ram's horns upon it, representing “wilful and contented cuckolds”.

The horned man, or Green Man, was a representation of the ancient horned god Herne (who derived from the Celtic horned god Cernunnos), and it is interesting to note that the fair, now held at Hornfair Park, was formerly held at Cuckold’s Point, East London.

At the fair there was a procession, which went three times around the church, of people wearing horns. There were many wild practices, such as whipping females with sprigs of furze, giving rise to the expression “all is fair at Horn Fair”. Men would often wear women's clothes. Toys made of horns were sold; even the gingerbread on sale had horns. There used to be a sermon preached on the day at Charlton Church, but it had been discontinued by Victorian times.

In 1973, the Horn Fair was revived, but the new Horn Fair is a pale shadow of the once great fair of Charlton.

St Luke is represented in art as an ox, or writing with an ox or cow beside him, so it is likely the ancient Herne cult was transmuted into a cult of Luke. The church at Charlton had stained glass windows, though largely destroyed in time of the troubles in Charles I's reign, showing St Luke's ox with wings on its back and horns on its head.

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

*Ø* Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us?

"Next week, something will happen that will unmask the upside-down morality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. On October 21, Iraq will pay $200m in war reparations to some of the richest countries and corporations in the world.

"If that seems backwards, it's because it is. Iraqis have never been awarded reparations for any of the crimes they suffered under Saddam, or the brutal sanctions regime that claimed the lives of at least half a million people, or the US-led invasion, which the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, recently called 'illegal'. Instead, Iraqis are still being forced to pay reparations for crimes committed by their former dictator.

"Quite apart from its crushing $125bn sovereign debt, Iraq has paid $18.8bn in reparations stemming from Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. This is not in itself surprising: as a condition of the ceasefire that ended the 1991 Gulf war, Saddam agreed to pay damages stemming from the invasion. More than 50 countries have made claims, with most of the money awarded to Kuwait. What is surprising is that even after Saddam was overthrown, the payments from Iraq have continued.

"Since Saddam was toppled in April, Iraq has paid out $1.8bn in reparations to the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), the Geneva-based quasi tribunal that assesses claims and disburses awards. Of those payments, $37m have gone to Britain and $32.8m have gone to the United States. That's right: in the past 18 months, Iraq's occupiers have collected $69.8m in reparation payments from the desperate people they have been occupying. But it gets worse: the vast majority of those payments, 78%, have gone to multinational corporations, according to statistics on the UNCC website ...

"Here is a small sample of who has been getting 'reparation' awards from Iraq: Halliburton ($18m), Bechtel ($7m), Mobil ($2.3m), Shell ($1.6m), Nestlé ($2.6m), Pepsi ($3.8m), Philip Morris ($1.3m), Sheraton ($11m), Kentucky Fried Chicken ($321,000) and Toys R Us ($189,449). In the vast majority of cases, these corporations did not claim that Saddam's forces damaged their property in Kuwait - only that they 'lost profits' or, in the case of American Express, experienced a 'decline in business' because of the invasion and occupation of Kuwait. One of the biggest winners has been Texaco, which was awarded $505m in 1999. According to a UNCC spokesperson, only 12% of that reparation award has been paid, which means hundreds of millions more will have to come out of the coffers of post-Saddam Iraq."

Full text

Google's desktop: the fast/slow dilemma



I've installed Google's new desktop search engine (see my post yesterday). So far I'm impressed, though it does seem to have slowed down Esmeralda a bit, and I'm not sure how long I can live with that. At least I can turn it off from the toolbar at the bottom of Esme's monitor when I want to burn rubber.

When you search for something in the normal Google bar, up come related items on your computer along with web links. As you can see (I hope) from the fuzzy screenshot above, when I did a test run with the keywords "Cardiff Giant", Google instantaneously gave me all the usual URLs plus a link to the 46 references on my own computer (the aforementioned lovely Esmeralda), and two additional links that showed me very recent things: the first being one of my own Word docs with a reference to Cardiff Giant, and the other being a Wikipedia page that I had opened an hour or two before. If I'd had an email or text file with the keywords in them, they would show up in the list as well.

Although the Google link I gave yesterday didn't mention it, I was delighted to discover that the desktop tool also finds images in its lightning-fast search, showing me the images of the Cardiff Giant I have (another good reason to label images well). That's great from my POV as I'm always looking for something in what I guess by now must be tens of thousands of images on Esme.

Apart from maybe a 10 - 15 per cent decrease in computer speed when the desktop app is running (or, so I think, but I'm not entirely sure – how can one be?), what I see as the biggest drawback would be for people who want privacy. As I live alone, there's no one looking over my shoulder, except maybe God. But the possibilities of something private showing up in the new-style Google search are endless, and easy to imagine. With that caveat, and a certain acceptance of decline in processing speed in exchange for a brilliant desktop search, I'm happy with the new tool.

As for the extended privacy problem vis a vis Echelon and the CIA, I doubt that there's anything those guys can't find through your Net connection anyway. So even though there are rumours of Google-CIA connections, and any self-respecting intelligence agency would obviously have recruited Google by now, I wouldn't sweat it. Forget about privacy. You've had none for years.

*Ø* UK: Former Ambassador drags Foreign Office into torture row

"The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has accused the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, of personally agreeing to the use of intelligence from the Uzbek government that had been obtained under torture ...

"Mr Murray was dismissed as Britain's ambassador in Tashkent on Wednesday night after a 15-month dispute. He has vowed to take legal action ...

"Mr Murray, who says his opposition to the Foreign Office's acceptance of such information led to his dismissal, has made a series of formal complaints to the Foreign Office since March 2003.

"The latest, written in July, was leaked this week to the Financial Times. He wrote: 'Tortured dupes are forced to sign confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe - that they and we are fighting the same war against terror ... This is morally, legally and practically wrong'."

Full text: The Guardian

Google announces Desktop Search

New app lets you 'google' your Windows PC

I am trialling the new Google Desktop Search and will let you know what I think when I've given it a spin around the block.

It's a 446 kb, free download that lets you search your own computer (something I've always wanted with my thousands of Almanac .doc and .html files and a large email correspondence).

Here's what Google offers:

Search email from Outlook 2000+ and Outlook Express 5+
Search files in TXT, HTML, DOC, XLS, and PPT formats (Office 2000+)
Search chats from AOL 7+ and AOL Instant Messenger 5+
Search web pages viewed in Internet Explorer 5+

You can read about it in Computerworld.

Platoon defies orders in Iraq

Almaniac Dragonsgrail writes: "Wanted to make sure this didn't stay lost in smaller newspapers. When you have two Sergeants, one a 24 year reservist, refusing orders because of concerns of not having the equipment needed to provide safety for their men, you have to take notice. Too bad Mr. Bush doesn't have the same ethics in leading his troops as these two do." Thanks for sending it in, DG:

Soldier calls home, cites safety concerns

"A 17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from Jackson and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is under arrest for refusing a 'suicide mission' to deliver fuel, the troops' relatives said Thursday.

"The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to Taji, Iraq — north of Baghdad — because their vehicles were considered 'deadlined' or extremely unsafe, said Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O. McCook.

"Sgt. McCook, a deputy at the Hinds County Detention Center, and the 16 other members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company from Rock Hill, S.C., were read their rights and moved from the military barracks into tents, Patricia McCook said her husband told her during a panicked phone call about 5 a.m. Thursday.

"The platoon could be charged with the willful disobeying of orders, punishable by dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and up to five years confinement, said military law expert Mark Stevens, an associate professor of justice studies at Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C."
Source

Poll reveals world anger at Bush

Eight out of 10 countries favour Kerry for president

"George Bush has squandered a wealth of sympathy around the world towards America since September 11 with public opinion in 10 leading countries – including some of its closest allies – growing more hostile to the United States while he has been in office.

"According to a survey, voters in eight out of the 10 countries, including Britain, want to see the Democrat challenger, John Kerry, defeat President Bush in next month's US presidential election.

"The poll, conducted by 10 of the world's leading newspapers, including France's Le Monde, Japan's Asahi Shimbun, Canada's La Presse, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian, also shows that on balance world opinion does not believe that the war in Iraq has made a positive contribution to the fight against terror.

Contempt for Bush
"The results show that in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, Spain and South Korea a majority of voters share a rejection of the Iraq invasion, contempt for the Bush administration, a growing hostility to the US and a not-too-strong endorsement of Mr Kerry. But they all make a clear distinction between this kind of anti-Americanism and expressing a dislike of American people. On average 68% of those polled say they have a favourable opinion of Americans."
Source: Guardian

*Ø* Repugs: "Arrest Michael Moore!"

Republicans, Out of Ideas, Ask Prosecutors
to Arrest Michael Moore
By Michael Moore
10/6/04

Dear Friends,

You may have heard by now that the Michigan Republican Party has called for my arrest. That's right. They literally want me brought up on charges -- and hope that I'm locked up.

No, I'm not kidding. The Republican Party, yesterday, filed a criminal complaint with the prosecutors in each of the counties where I spoke last week in Michigan.

My crime? Clean underwear for anyone who will vote in the upcoming election.

Each night on our 60-city "Slacker Uprising Tour" through the 20 battleground states, I've been registering hundreds (and on some nights, thousands) of voters at my arena and stadium events. I then ask for everyone over 23 who has never voted (or didn't vote in the last election) to stand up. I tell these slackers that I understand and respect why they think politicians are not worth the bother. I tell them that I may have been the original slacker, and that I do not want them to change their slacker ways. Keep sleeping 'til noon! Keep drinking beer! Stay on the sofa and watch as much TV as possible! But, please, just for me, on 11/2, I want you to leave the house and give voting a try -- just this once. The stakes this time are just too high.

If they promise me that they'll do this, I give the guys a 3-pack of new Fruit of the Loom underwear, and the women get a day's supply of Ramen noodles, the sustenance of slackers everywhere.

CONTINUE

*Ø* Little 'sleeping dragon' found

"A 135-million-year-old fossil dinosaur caught apparently grabbing a kip with its head tucked under its forearm has been discovered by scientists in China ...

"'Exactly how volcanic activity captured the life posture, we don't know,' Professor Xu told BBC News. 'There are many possibilities. For example, volcanic gas cut off the oxygen and the animal died sleeping, peacefully. Then, later, the body was covered quickly by ash.'"

Full text

*Ø* Fish changing sex

This is a worldwide phenomenon that calls into question everything about Western lifestyles, and globalization, which is the engine by which corporations spread those lifestyles to parts of the world as yet undamaged. Here are just two of many articles on what's happening to our water:

UK: Pollution 'changes sex of fish'
"A third of male fish in British rivers are in the process of changing sex due to pollution in human sewage, research by the Environment Agency suggests ..."
Source: BBC News

USA: Mutant fish prompt concern
"When Colorado biologist John Woodling and a team of researchers pulled fish from the South Platte River and Boulder Creek two years ago, they found deformities they'd never seen before.

"Some had both male and female sex tissue ...
Source: Denver Post

*Ø* Bush is simply lying about health care

And just look at other countries that have tried to have federally
controlled health care. They have poor-quality health care.

Our health-care system is the envy of the world ...
George Bush, Third Presidential Debate

Say what??!

A word from Australia, Mr President: We have had free universal health care here since 1972. If you feel sick, you go to the doctor and you can choose between one who charges you and one who charges the government. Most of them will not charge you, and except in remote areas, the choice is easy. I've been countless times to excellent doctors and never paid a cent in my life. This is the norm in Australia and many other countries. It doesn't matter whether you are employed or not, high quality health care is free to all. Maybe Bush should travel a bit more, or just learn how to tell the truth.

If you need to go to hospital in Australia, it's free. The sytem isn't perfect, but it is still excellent. In the past four years I have had two operations and not paid a cent. On both occasions I was treated like a king, and was operated on very soon after diagnosis. What is Bush trying to sell the American people? I hope they don't believe him but I fear some will.

As for the USA being the envy of the world, the fact is that in countries like Australia we are continually amazed and aghast at the stories we get from our American friends about the health care they receive and that they have to pay for.

Mr Bush, we laughing at you from Australia, Britain, continental Europe ... even from Cuba, where the infant mortality rate is less than that of Washington, DC.

*Ø* Fontinalia of Rome

Fontinalia, garlanding of fountains, Roman Empire
Festival dedicated to Fontus (Fons), the god of wells and springs and son of Juturna and Janus. From this God's name and the Latin word font or fons we derive the names of fountain, the baptismal font and the fonts, or typefaces, that we use most days.

The latter comes from the font, or well, of hot metal (usually an alloy of lead, tin and antimony) from which letters were cast in letterpress printing. The Latin verb fundere, from fons, meaning to pour out, gave the French fondre, to melt or pour out, which led to our typeface word. A cognate is the Sanskrit dhanvati, meaning flows, runs.

Now that you know this, you can be the font of wisdom at your next dinner party, and hope that they serve fondue, a molten meal or dessert, which is from the same root.

The freshwater goddesses, the Camenae, oracular water-nymphs, were honoured today as well. Today saw sacrifices, feasts, games, and the drinking of wine mixed with spring water. Garlands were used to decorate wells and springs today.

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

*Ø* Bali soon forgotten

"Survivors and family and friends of victims gathered on a chilly London evening to remember the 28 Britons killed by the Bali bombs two years ago but the rest of the nation seemed to have forgotten the atrocity.

"The second anniversary of the bombs, which claimed 202 lives in Kuta, did not rate a paragraph in any of Britain's national newspapers or a mention on television news."
Source: Yahoo News Oz

Well spotted, Baz le Tuff.

*Ø* Gday, digger, no wuckin furries

The perils of having an Australian accent are many, and for scriveners include having one's readers not being able understand what one writes. Or so I learned in my guestbook on Monday.

Muyboi oi need a flimin' terpreter for my lanwidge, zatroit, cobbers?

*Ø* Did Khrushchev bang his shoe in the UN?



October 12, 1960 Nikita Khrushchev pounded his shoe on a table at a General Assembly of the United Nations meeting in anger at a point, made Lorenzo Sumulong, the Filipino delegate, about Soviet Union policies regarding Eastern Europe.

Sumulong asked ‘Mr K’ how he could protest Western capitalist imperialism while the Soviet Union was at the same time rapidly assimilating Eastern Europe. Khrushchev became enraged and informed Sumulong that he was, “a jerk, a stooge and a lackey of imperialism,” then removed one of his shoes and banged it on his table.

Or, so it is said, but it is doubted by some ...

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

*Ø* What Is Karl Rove Saying Through The Bush Bulge?


Go here and enter your suggestions for the prompts Georgie Boy may be getting from his handlers.

Then go here and find out how it all happened!

Source: SatireSearch

*Ø* Is Bush wired?

Nora sent me these links to the "Is Bush wired?" question:

One from the NY Times and this one too.

Photos of the Bush bulge

*Ø* "The president was utterly incoherent"

So sayeth the New York Times, and far be it from me to disagree on this occasion. The NYT gives an opinion that pretty much echoes my own. I'm talking of course, about the "Town Hall Debate". (2 am to 3.30 am my time in Dublin last night, so I'm now in the class of the walking dead!)

Excerpt:

"One of the uncommitted voters in the audience sensibly asked President Bush to name three mistakes he'd made in office, and what he had done to remedy the damage. Mr. Bush declined to list even one, and instead launched into an impassioned defense of the invasion of Iraq as a good idea. The president's insistence on defending his decision to go into Iraq seemed increasingly bizarre in a week when his own investigators reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction there, and when his own secretary of defense acknowledged that there was no serious evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

"Even worse, the president's refusal to come up with even a minor error -- apart from saying that he might have made some unspecified appointments that he now regretted -- underscores his inability to respond to failure in any way except by insisting over and over again that his original decision was right.

"Unfortunately, for long stretches of the evening, the format did not lead to such telling responses. On occasion, the arguments were impossible to follow. Heaven help any citizen who relied on last night's debate to understand what is going on with North Korea or who tried to understand the fight about tax cuts on Subchapter S corporations. [I do have to wonder why anyone would have to rely on this 'debate' (32 pages of rules?) to know what's going on with North Korea. Or anything or anywhere else. - N]

"Mr. Bush was deeply unpersuasive when asked why he had not permitted the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. He claimed that the reason was 'I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill you'. Mr. Kerry cleanly retorted that four years ago in a campaign debate, Mr. Bush had said importing medicine from Canada sounded sensible.

"And the president was utterly incoherent when asked about whom he might name to the Supreme Court in a second term. His comment about how he didn't want to offend any judges because he wanted 'them all voting for me' was a joke -- but an unfortunate one, given the fact that the president owes his job to a Supreme Court vote." [my emphasis - N]

Full text here Or you'll get it at truthout.org
Full debate transcript and video

*Ø* Howard snatches victory from the jaws of mediocrity

Conservatives win Australian federal election

John "Little Johnny" Howard has won a fourth term as Australian Prime Minister, gaining an increased majority for the second election running.

In his victory speech, Howard thanked everyone in his 'Liberal' Party from his deputy leader and his Treasurer, to his spin doctors and the janitor, and every member of his family including his deceased Great Auntie Margaret, Nigel his second cousin-in-law once removed, and Candy the Cat. All family members, that is, except one, who stood at his side on the stage. He's gonna cop it when he gets into bed tonight.

Mr Howard also robustly referred several times to his "leadership" of Australia, forgetting as all politicians do that the verb 'to lead', or words based on the verb, don't occur in the Australian Constitution, although more than 60 instances of words from the verb 'to represent' do. Can't blame the pollies, really – the Aussie electorate itself forgot that a century ago.

Fun in the sun
I spent an enjoyable ten hours frying in the sun handing out leaflets for the Green Party, as mentioned yesterday, on 2.5 hours sleep. I was manning a polling station in a conservative and largely elderly country town that predictably returned its member, a gentleman of the National Party. That party is somewhat to the right of Joe McCarthy so it's great to see old-fashioned values well respected in the seat of Cowper. Get a haircut, there'll be a photo-op at the lynching.

One of the highlights of the gruelling and immensely boring six-week campaign was when Nationals leader John Anderson referred to members of the Green Party as "watermelons", that is, "green on the outside and red on the inside". So I and my fellow Greens supporter standing in the sun were pleased and amused when the Greens candidate, John Carty, and a party member, Annie, turned up at our polling station with a tray of sliced watermelon to slake our thirst.

One of the highlights of the day for me was the camaraderie extended between the pamphleteers of opposing parties. Ten sunburning hours on your feet, especially my feet, can be a drag, and the diversion of conversation makes welcome relief. I really enjoyed the friendly banter between me and the foot-soldiers of parties that passionately oppose the views and policies of the party I was supporting. I seemed to be chatting half the day to people whose whole raison d'etre is to oppose what I stand for, and vice versa.

Our conversations rarely strayed into divisive topics, and we helped each other, as when a gust of wind dislodged an opponent's poster or leaflets, for example. We exchanged drinks and sunburn cream. I found myself showing an elderly elector in a motorized wheelchair how she could vote for the National Party, and the Nationals pamphleteers gave Green Party leaflets to the occasional voter when some bewildered voter rendered it appropriate. One ALP worker told me he was going to vote Green.

I note here that a nice lady from the Nationals with whom I chatted (she said she had seen Fahrenheit 9-11 but didn't understand it) bemoaned the fact that the current insurance regime in this country has destroyed community activities such as dance classes and cake stalls on the street. Non-Australian readers may be interested to know that in very recent years, escalating insurance rates for anything that might involve a public risk have forced such community activities to all but disappear ... a consequence of excessive litigation, to be sure, but not something that could not be fixed by a governmental stroke of the pen. I told the lady she should be voting Green, as John Carty's policy statement states: "John supports a federal insurance scheme to remove the prohibitive insurance costs of holding community cultural events. He believes that involvement in community based initiatives greatly enhances our quality of life." But no, better to stay on the right and watch a once-rich culture die before our eyes.

Your almanackist spent much of the day in very pleasant discussions with workers for the Christian Democrats, although our views are poles apart. (This is despite the fact that I have long known its leader, Rev. Fred Nile, who married me in 1973; in fact, I stake a proud claim to being perhaps the only human being to have in my resumé a written reference from Dr Bob Brown, the famed gay leader of the Greens, and Rev. Nile, the famed anti-gay leader of the Christian Democrats!) One of the CDs tried to save me, but he found my devotion to the Lord of Darkness to be profound and immoveable.

My fellow Greens worker, a man of German citizenship, expressed amazement at the good-naturedness among the footsoldiers, something he assured me wouldn't happen in Europe. I'm pleased that there are still some things about Australia that engender pride, notwithstanding an execrable government whose economic rationalism has the effect of eroding small communities to an alarming degree.



Hip-pocket nerve
Howard's record-breaking electoral victory was based on a campaign that successfully dodged issues of human rights and pre-emptive invasion, and concentrated on the hip-pocket nerve of the Australian elector, a strategy that can always be assured of success. Working hard for John Howard, caught on the back foot, was his putative opponent and leader of the Australian Labor Party, the dazzlingly undazzling Mark Latham, who also found a way to get a dollar sign into every one of his banal speeches.

John Howard, despite his nervous mannerisms and spectacular bald-accountant sex appeal, is a consummate and seasoned politician with a gut understanding that no politician ever tasted defeat by underestimating the altruism of the Australian Mum and Dad. Australians can expect three more years of similar pork-barreling as well as more cynical political pandering to an almost limitless list of unbecoming prejudices.

With the virtuoso mediocrity of the Labor Party now in even greater disarray than before today's humiliation, Howard will be able to drive a Mack truck through the usual defences of Australian decency and a Caterpillar dozer over reasonable comprehension of what's really going on in the confusing world outside the Liberal/National coalition's Leave it to Beaver vision.

Finally, in closing, lastly, and at the end of the day, I'd like to thank my campaign manager, my next-door neighbour, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, my orthodontist, Mr Spielberg, Jesus of course, and what's-her-name ... the missus.

*Ø* FBI Seize Indymedia Servers

Friday 8th

"The FBI yesterday seized a pair of UK servers used by Indymedia , the independent newsgathering collective, after serving a subpoena in the US on Indymedia's hosting firm, Rackspace. Why or how remains unclear.

"Rackspace UK complied with a legal order and handed over hard disks without first notifying Indymedia. It's unclear if the raid was executed under extra-territorial provisions of US legislation or the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). Provisions of RIPA make it a criminal offence to discuss warrants, so Rackspace would not be able to discuss the action with its customer Indymedia, or with the media."

Full story at truthout.org

*Ø* Chaos at Afghanistan elections

"Afghanistan's first democratic election has been thrown into confusion after it was announced that most presidential candidates were boycotting it.

"The move follows claims of widespread voting irregularities.

"The boycott was agreed by 15 candidates opposed to the favourite, the interim President Hamid Karzai, reports say."

Full text at BBC

*Ø* That F-16 cockpit footage

With regard to my post on Thursday, below, entitled "US cockpit pictures from Fallujah screened", 'Dragonsgrail' has kindly posted a comment giving a link to the footage.

The clip can be seen here. As you will see, at no stage during the exchange between ground control and the pilot does anyone ask if the people are armed or posing a threat.

*Ø* Big weekend for Australia and Wilson

I don't want to turn this into a cheddar blog ("Today i had a cheese sandwich"), but I'll mention that tomorrow, October 9, is the federal general election in Australia, a very important one, and I'll be personning a polling place for my party of choice.

The Australian Green Party's fortunes have grown from 5% to 12% recently, and will be noticed tomorrow. With luck, they will gain important Senate seats that will rein in the crypto-fascists.

I might not be around much for a day or two, with ten hours in the sun being what my Saturday will be all about. It will be John Lennon's birthday, and unfortunately won't be able to show off the cool Lennon/Amnesty T-shirt that Nora kindly sent me, because I want to dress like a banker for the occasion. That's because Prime Minister Howard has labelled the Greens as 'kooks', and his deputy suggested they were Communists!

I'm not a party member. I'm a bit too kooky red for the Greens and I don't want to hurt their chances by carrying a card. But I'll support them tomorrow. And ask our American friends not to vote Green, but Democrat.

Now, how the hell am I going to wake up at 6.30 am? More to the point, how will I get to sleep before 3?

*Ø* C'mon people now, smile on your brother! Ev'rybody get together,
try to love one another right now.


Human populations are tightly interwoven
By Michael Hopkin
Nature

Family tree shows our common ancestor
lived just 3,500 years ago.

The person from whom everyone today is descended may have lived around 1,500 BC.

The most recent common ancestor of all humanity lived just a few thousand years ago, according to a computer model of our family tree. Researchers have calculated that the mystery person, from whom everyone alive today is directly descended, probably lived around 1,500 BC in eastern Asia.

Douglas Rohde of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and his colleagues devised the computer program to simulate the migration and breeding of humans across the world. By estimating how different groups intermingle, the researchers built up a picture of how tightly the world's ancestral lines are linked.

The figure of 1,500 BC might sound surprisingly recent. But think how wide your own family tree would be if you extended it back that far. Lurking somewhere in your many hundreds of ancestors at that date is likely to be somebody who crops up in the corresponding family tree for anyone alive in 2004.

In fact, if it were not for the fact that oceans helped to keep populations apart, the human race would have mingled even more freely, the researchers argue. "The most recent common ancestor for a randomly mating population would have lived in the very recent past," they write in this week's Nature.

CONTINUE

[No wonder we can't get along--we're all relatives! -v]

[Emphasis added. -v]

*Ø* Bush and Afghanistan: War on Nothing

How George W Bush spreads global terrorism

Similar to Nora's post yesterday is this video of US gunship destroying a mosque in Afghanistan. It's a 5.6 MB WMV file and will take a while to load on most computers, but I recommend it for an insight into how warfare is conducted in the 21st century. Places of worship and unidentifiable persons running for safety are of no account.

We see through the soldier's sights that people are easy to spot from the air with heat-sensing technology, and that the blasts killing individual people are as big as houses. Obviously money is no object and no expense is spared per victim. After all, Bush has spent $140 billion of US taxpayers' money in Iraq alone, and I don't see a general clamour to depose the bastard.

Anniversary of beginning of decline of US prestige
This week marks the October 7, 2001 start of US invasion of Afghanistan, with an air assault and covert operations on the ground. The US and Britain began a series of nightly attacks on targets in Afghanistan, using cruise missiles and long-range bombers in an assault directed at airports, air defences and communication and command centres.

The American administration falsely told its citizens that the government of Afghanistan had refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, a deceit echoed by other countries invading the sovereign state, such as Britain and Australia. The Afghan government, in fact, offered to extradite bin Laden to a neutral nation, as it did not trust the George W Bush regime – a suspicion that in due course would come to be quite the norm worldwide. No other reason for the invasion of Afghanistan has ever been attempted by the US government, not even the WMDs excuse used for America's invasion of Iraq. Cynics cite Afghanistan's fossil fuels reserves.

America and its allies created a bloodbath in Afghanistan that continues to this day. According to Marc W Herold's Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States’ Aerial Bombing, up to 3,600 civilians were killed as a result of US bombing. According to Jonathan Steele of The Guardian, between 20,000 and 49,600 people might have died of the consequences of the invasion.

George W Bush has spread terrorism (such as the bombings in Spain, Bali and Jakarta) by creating justified resentment worldwide, as predicted here before the invasion of Afghanistan:

Desultory talkin' World War III philippic, or how I was William F Buckley'd into agreement

When I was walkin up the stair
I met a man named Tony Blair.
He wasn't there agin today
and he won't be there in the morning.

Along come a man, George W Bush,
Beady eyes and smarmy moosh;
he's bombin from the Hindu Kush
in the cold and snowy mornin.

I looks agin and what'd I see,
a dandelion as big as a tree,
bigger'n Bush and bigger'n me,
it jist grew up in the mornin.

George rode up with his 10-gallon hat
and carryin a baseball bat.
"My friend George what you want with that,
an' yer big ol' hat in the mornin?"

He says, "See this big ol' baseball bat?
I's gonna whup its ass with that.
Gonna knock it down an' lay it flat,
An' it won't git up in the mornin.

"That dandelion, he's a E-Vil weed,
he's full a li'l old E-Vil seeds."
I said, "My friend, best you succeed,
we don't want sin in the mornin."

He took that bat and whupped the ass
of the dandelion, and well you ask
what other things did come to pass
that cold 'n' snowy mornin.

Well all them seeds did fly around
like parachutes, without a sound,
an' some of them they come to ground,
an' they all took root next mornin.

I walked on up them stairs again
and passed by old Afghanistan.
An' I heard them souls all cry in pain,
an' they woke me up this mornin.

*Ø* CNN yanked online poll favoring Edwards

Wednesday 6th:

"Time Warner’s Cable News Network abruptly yanked a poll from the front page of their website Tuesday which was favoring Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards by more than a three-to-one margin. They then replaced it in the 12 p.m EDT hour [today], completely eliminating all previous results.

"The original poll, which asked simply, 'Who do you think won the vice presidential debate?' was replaced in the eleven o’clock p.m. hour Tuesday with 'Did the vice presidential debate help you decide which way you will vote?'

"Wednesday, the original question was reinstated, but the results from the original poll were discounted."

See the original poll here and then see the new poll . About 200,000 previous responses to the poll were deleted, and the new poll has Cheney with twice as much support.

Source: bluelemur.com

*Ø* Dear Mike, Iraq sucks

From The Guardian:

"Civilian contractors are fleecing taxpayers; US troops don't have proper equipment; and supposedly liberated Iraqis hate them. After the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore received a flood of letters and emails from disillusioned and angry American soldiers serving in Iraq. Here, in an exclusive extract from his new book, we print a selection."

*Ø* Edgar Allan Poe's mystery visitor



October 7, 1849 Edgar Allan Poe, American poet and writer of macabre tales (The Tell-Tale Heart; The Raven), died after a drinking binge in Baltimore, Maryland.

The great author of such classic poems as ‘Annabel Lee’, prescient essays like Eureka, A Prose Poem, and chilling tales such as The Cask of Amontillado and The Masque of the Red Death, Poe was not a heavy drinker but someone who might have had an allergy to alcohol, for even a glass or two could send him into extreme behaviour.

On October 3 he had been found, delirious and incoherent at a low-class tavern in Lombard Street, by Dr James E Snodgrass. Summoning one of Poe’s relatives, Dr Snodgrass took the now unconscious and dying poet to the Washington Hospital where he was put into the care of Dr JJ Moran, the resident physician. Several days of delirium followed, with Poe only occasionally regaining partial consciousness. On his death bed he repeatedly called the name “Reynolds”, and he did know a Reynolds, but not closely. Shortly before dying, he said “the best thing a friend could do for me is blow out my brains with a pistol”. He became quiet and seemed to rest for a short time. Then, gently, moving his head, he said, “Lord help my poor soul”.

The Poe Toaster
Poe is buried in the Old Western Burial Ground in Baltimore. Since 1949, every January 19, Poe's birthday, a mysterious visitor dressed in black and wearing a fedora hat has left on Poe's grave a half-filled bottle of cognac accompanied by three red roses. The significance of cognac is uncertain as it does not feature in Poe's works as does, for example, amontillado. Several of the bottles of cognac from prior years are on display in the Baltimore Poe House and Museum. It has been suggested that the roses represent Poe himself and the two women who were most important to the poet during his troubled life: his mother, and his wife, both of whom are in repose in the same cemetery ...

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

*Ø* US cockpit pictures from Fallujah screened

I saw this footage on Channel 4 last night and it's horrific. I don't have a link for viewing, but there is a broadband subscription video link on the page. I saw what the pilot saw, a group of unidentifiable people running into the street. They are fired on, and the street dissolves into a mushroom of smoke ...

From Channel 4 News:

"Channel 4 News has obtained video from an American fighter jet showing it launching an attack on a group of people in a Fallujah street.

"The American military have confirmed to us that it is genuine. But it isn't clear whether what we're seeing is a massacre or a military operation in this rare and disturbing example of real footage of the fighting ...

"We have pictures that offer a rare glimpse inside America's disastrous attempt to seize Fallujah from the insurgents in April. At that time, there were reports of hundreds of bodies piling up at the hospital.

"But until now, we've had little real idea of how American pilots go about bombing in built-up areas.

"The Pentagon has confirmed the pictures show a cockpit video from a US Airforce F-16 fighter, shot in April.

"The pilot tells ground control he can see numerous individuals on the road.

"He asks if he should take them out?

"Instantly he's told to take them out.

"The pilot locks the bomb guidance system onto the crowd running along the street.

"The pilot's reaction: 'Aw dude.'

"Overnight, Channel 4 News received the following e-mail:

"'This video is indeed gun film footage from a US Air Force F-16 fighter. The mission was not 'recent', it was in April 2004. This was a close air support mission, flown by an F-16 Fighting Falcon in the Fallujah vicinity, and under the control of a Joint Terminal Attack Controller serving with ground forces in the area. The JTAC designated the target and confirmed the hit.'

"The confirmed hit happens incredibly quickly, just 32 seconds from the pilot telling ground control he's seen the crowd to the deaths of thirty or so people.

"The video graphically illustrates US rules of engagement in practice. Unlike British troops, if the Americans perceive anybody or anything to be a threat it is attacked, particularly in Fallujah, particularly in April.

"As Fallujah again comes into US gunsights many will want to know who were these people? Insurgents? Innocents? Running away from trouble? running to attack? Tonight a doctor who was at Fallujah hospital told us these people were innocent civilians fleeing from houses where they'd been pinned down by American snipers, by running down the street.

"The Pentagon says it's chasing answers but has yet to explain why these people were targeted."
Source and full text

*Ø* Man's best friend?



A poodle named Peter stands on its hind legs at the World Dog Exhibition in
Beijing Saturday Oct. 2, 2004. Source

Can anyone explain to me why someone professing to love their pet would do this to it? (Him? Her?) It boggles me.

Texas study finds couple of drinks can help memory

"Older women who have a drink or two a day have better memory skills than non-drinkers, University of Texas researchers said on Wednesday.

'Moderate drinkers reported less depression, had higher self-reported health, performed better on instrumental everyday tasks...and (had) improved memory performance,' Dr. Graham McDougall, associate professor of nursing at the university, said in a statement.

The five-year survey, which began in 2001, is looking at men and women with an average age 75 in central Texas.

As part of the study, a group of women were asked to remember items such as a story, the placement of hidden objects, future intentions and connecting random numbers and letters.

Those who drank alcohol in moderation did better on the tests than those who did not drink at all, according to the study.

'In addition to their actual performance on tests, the confidence of those who drank was higher and they used more strategies to facilitate memory,' McDougall said." [Sure didn't help Bush with his memory, and he consumed much more.-J-9]

Source

*Ø* Condoleezza Rice admits Iraq tube claims were dubious

"Condoleezza Rice -- one top aide who cited the claims about aluminium tubes seized in Jordan in June 2001 in urging that Saddam was attempting to revive a nuclear program -- was responding to a report in The New York Times that Bush officials ignored doubts about the potential other uses of thousands of the high-strength tubes to press the case for war.

"Rice claimed in September 2002 that the tubes were 'only really suited for nuclear weapons programs'." [My emphasis]
Source

[The dashes in the first paragraph were inserted by me. The reporter had written the entire first paragraph as one sentence, which was kinda hard to read.]

*Ø* Bremer: U.S. had too few troops in Iraq

"WASHINGTON -- The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said Monday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein ...

"Bremer's comments were striking because they echoed contentions of many administration critics, including Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, who argue that the U.S. government failed to plan adequately to maintain security in Iraq after the invasion. Bremer has generally defended the U.S. approach in Iraq but in recent weeks has begun to criticize the administration for tactical and policy shortfalls." [My emphasis]

Full text

*Ø* Rumsfeld Says No Evidence Of Saddam-Al Qaeda Link

"The US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has admitted he has no evidence to suggest there was ever a link between ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden's al Qaeda.

"Hours after he made the admission at a Washington press conference, a statement was released on the Pentagon website claiming Mr Rumsfeld had been 'misunderstood'."
Source

[The New York Times, 28 September 2002: "Rumsfeld Says U.S. Has 'Bulletproof' Evidence of Iraq's Links to Al Qaeda." Here]

*Ø* News in brief:

US: An Australian memo is at the centre of a $280 billion legal battle between the tobacco industry and the US Government.

~*~

China: Poor and under-age workers are putting their lives at risk salvaging material from discarded computers sent from Europe, America and Japan.

~*~

Researchers are hoping they can produce enough hydrogen to power cars, heat homes and otherwise take the place of oil and coal. Read about biological energy production

~*~

UK: Seven doctors at a private clinic for drug addicts are accused of serious professional misconduct by misprescribing medicine in excessive amounts, as well as providing irresponsible combinations of drugs such as methadone and rohypnol. The case is expected to centre on differences of opinion regarding treatment of addicts.

GOP Hypocrite of the Week: Tom DeLay


(Listen to the GOPHOTW HERE)

"Like Bush, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay claims to be on a mission from God. And like a Texas rattlesnake, he slithers across the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives pushing a GOP Biblical worldview upon the United States and pounding colleagues and opponents into voting against their constituents better interests.

'The Hammer,' as some call DeLay, uses unethical and bullying tactics more indicative of the Anti-Christ than an angel of God. Fortunately, for us, those tactics have him facing possible legal indictments and House ethics investigations.

Ending Tom DeLay's reign in Congress is important for all voters, because many Republican congressfolk who claim to be moderates, shrink under DeLay's pressure and vote for his Paleolithic legislative agenda.

And if a politician doesn't do what Tom DeLay says, they get their political kneecaps blown off by this zonked out Republican "rapture" mob enforcer and his Tim LaHaye "Left Behind" extra-religious cohorts.

He's a hit man for corrupt Republicans who fashion themselves fundamentalists, but have more in common with the mob than with the clergy."

Source

*Ø* US 'meddling' threatens Afghan poll

The American ambassador is acting as President Karzai's campaign manager, rivals claim
Excerpt from The Times:

"Mr Karzai has long been seen as America’s man and his backers have done little to challenge that perception. In the past week, the US Ambassador has appeared three times at Mr Karzai’s side at the opening of US-funded reconstruction projects, some of which have not even been completed ...

"Rival candidates have also complained to Afghanistan’s election commission over the legality of the logistical support that the Americans provide, from Chinook helicopters to fly Mr Karzai around the country to his well-armed bodyguards.

"Most serious of all, rival candidates are claiming that the Americans are trying to stage-manage an easy Karzai victory by pressuring them to drop out or seek deals. They contend that such interference could damage the credibility of what is being hailed as the first truly democratic election in Afghanistan’s long, troubled history."
Full text here

*Ø* Baby Superman

"Swedish MPs are calling for legislation on babies' names to be changed after a Gothenburg woman was refused permission to call her son Staalman (or Superman)...

"Local tax authorities refused the request, saying the name could lead to the boy being ridiculed in later life. But MPs say the law is inconsistent as the names Tarzan or Batman are allowed." Full text at the BBC

*Ø* Mt St Helen's webcam

With all eyes on Mt St Helen's, readers might like to stay in touch via the webcam at Wilson's Webcam Watch.

*Ø* Pope prepares Austrian emperor for sainthood

"The last emperor of Austria, Karl I, will be beatified by the Pope tomorrow amid fierce political and religious argument over how saintly he really was.

"While Austrian monarchists are delighted to see the first member of the defunct Habsburg dynasty set on the path to sainthood, critics claim that Karl I was an alcoholic adulterer who advocated the use of poison gas in the First World War.

"But the Vatican insists that he performed a miracle – the requirement for beatification. In 1960 a Polish nun based in Brazil was cured of severe leg sores and varicose veins after praying to him [What more proof do these skeptics want?! – PW]."
Source: Telegraph UK

Austria's last emperor was a saint, some say; others disagree

*Ø* Chaos grips bid to free hostages held in Iraq

The Observer:

"A series of unauthorised attempts to free two French journalists held hostage in Iraq for more than six weeks have caused acute embarrassment for President Jacques Chirac and may have jeopardised official negotiations for their release.

"Confusion surrounds the rescue mission launched independently by a maverick politician from Chirac's own ruling UMP party, Didier Julia, and his envoy Philip Brett, a former security guard for the extreme-right National Front movement. On Friday they promised that the journalists were about to be freed, but yesterday there was still no sign of them ...

"In Iraq, however, there is increasing anger about the huge attention paid to foreign hostages while hundreds of locals are being abducted. More than 100 Iraqi doctors have been kidnapped or killed since the fall of Saddam's regime, official figures released last week reveal. Hundreds more have fled overseas, seriously weakening efforts to reconstruct the dilapidated healthcare system." [My emphasis]

Full text

*Ø* Fabricated Kerry quotes lead to apology from Fox News

NY Times:

"WASHINGTON - Plenty of news media analysts thought Senator John Kerry looked good at Thursday night's presidential debate, but Fox News went a step further, posting a made-up news article on its Web site that quoted Mr. Kerry as gloating about his fine manicure and his 'metrosexual' appearance.

"Fox News quickly retracted the article, saying in an editor's note on its Web site that the article 'was written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast'."
Read on here

*Ø* Stronger curbs on trafficking in rare animals needed

"An international conference on wildlife trade has opened in Thailand with calls for stronger curbs on illegal trafficking in rare animals and plants.

"In his opening speech, the Thai prime minister urged states to fight criminal gangs said to be involved in the trade.

"The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (Cites) is holding its bi-annual meeting in Asia for the first time ...

"The trade in wildlife is worth billions of dollars a year and the Cites meetings are usually marked by a clash of interests, ideologies and cultures."
Full text at the BBC

*Ø* The mighty pav

On this day in 1935 Chef Bert Sachse of the Esplanade Hotel, Perth, Western Australia created the pavlova, named after Anna Pavlova, the Russian ballerina.

The pavlova, a meringue dish usually topped generously with passionfruit, strawberries and Chinese gooseberries (kiwifruit), is something of a national dessert in Australia.

However, the Kiwis can also now claim it as their own. Keith Money, a Pavlova biographer, wrote that a chef at a hotel in Wellington, New Zealand created the dish when Pavlova visited there in 1926 on her world tour.

If you ain't eaten pav, you ain't lived.

Traditional pavlova
4-6 egg whites
pinch salt
8oz castor sugar/sugar (equal parts)
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 level teaspoons cornflour ... [rest of recipe]

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.

A day in the life of Joe Republican

"Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko Liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune."

Full story.........

From Baghdad [A must read.-J-9]

A Wall Street Journal Reporter's E-Mail to Friends

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.

It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.

Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad." What they mean by situation is this: Full story
[Emphasis mine.-J-9]

Bush and Kerry Follow Debate With Sharp Jabs

"A day after the first presidential debate, President Bush ripped into Senator John Kerry on Friday as an equivocator who denigrates American troops and who would subject national security decisions to vetoes 'by countries like France.'

Mr. Kerry, with strategists in both parties saying he had helped himself in the first of three debates with Mr. Bush, acted at campaign rallies in Florida as though he had instantly taken the upper hand.

He told thousands of screaming Democrats that Mr. Bush thought he could 'fool you all the time' on everything from Iraq to the economy.

He mocked Mr. Bush as a stammering Elmer Fudd who was misstating Mr. Kerry's position on Iraq: 'He keeps trying to say, 'Well, we're-not-we-don't-no-we-don't-you-know, we don't want somebody who wants to leave.'

As his crowd erupted in laughter, Mr. Kerry went on: 'He says, 'We don't, we don't want to wilt or waver,' and I don't know how many times I heard that.

Mr. President, nobody's talking about leaving, nobody's talking about wilting and wavering. We're talking about winning and getting the job done right." [Emphasis mine.-J-9]

Source

America and Israel: The embedding of fear, and the conquest of hope.

''We are all Israeli’s now.'' [My italics. J-9]

This phrase surfaced immediately after 911. Google it and find over a dozen pages of the sentence used in different forms from 911 to April 2004.

Why is there a conflating of America with Israel? And why does the leadership caste of both nations see themselves as innocent victims rather than as criminals getting some payback from those they have abused?

In the three years since 911 I have watched the United States unravel with fear. Terror alerts, colour codes, no-fly watch lists, and the threat of new attacks.

In reality the threat of new attacks comes from one place: The White House.

Audio or video tapes that come out from Ayman al Zawahiri and, even rarer these days, Osama bin Laden mean what exactly? Shouldn’t they have all the impact of a crank caller?

Three years ago Osama was blamed for 911 and since then Osama has done what, exactly? Made some threatening phone calls? Hardly a menace which would warrant James Bond being forced to gulp down his martini and leap into action.

The terror that has caught the United States by the throat comes directly from the White House.

Source

Bush spins the disaster

Presidential Slaughter.........it's going to be funny to see how the Republicans spin this disaster!

Let me offer a balancing point of view to counter all these Republican talking heads!!!!

Looking at the major newspapers in America: When asked who won the debate, it wasn't even close. The highest number I saw was 90% Kerry, and the lowest was 43% Kerry. Bush got whacked. Only blind Republicans out of touch with reality felt it was a draw. What a dishonest joke!!

After watching the entire debate, I came away with two emotions. I felt embarrassed that Bush is my President. He was inarticulate, poor body language, too much facial contortions, sounded unprepared with too many pregnant pauses like he was searching for the right Republician talking points, had this blank, deer in the headlights look at times, overly repetitive like a one trick pony replaying the same rehearsed sound bites, and most importantly, had no answers for some pretty important issues. ie: Not finishing the job and losing Bin Laden in Tora Bora. Trying to imply a nexus between Iraq and 9/11, which Kerry quickly rejected and corrected Bush as it wasn't Saddam who attacked us on 9/11, but Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, which Bush had to sheepishly agree and acknowledge. To me, that was the defining moment of the entire debate.

The second emotion I felt was pity, pity for Bush, cause this was not a debate, but a Presidential Slaughter. He was so out of his league that it was no longer funny. Without Rove, without his minions, without the talking heads, without his surrogates to do the talking for him, Bush came across like a country bumpkin when he had to speak for himself. This was truly sad because his poor showing wasn't only in front of an American audience, but in front of major world media. [Emphasis mine. -J-9]

Source

Kerry Pulls Ahead of Bush in Newsweek Poll

Democrat challenger John Kerry has pulled ahead of President Bush in a poll published by Newsweek magazine showing Thursday's television debate erased the lead Bush had enjoyed for the last month.

In a two-way contest, the Kerry/Edwards ticket in the Nov. 2 presidential election led by 49 percent against 46 percent for Bush/Cheney, according to 1,013 registered voters polled by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

According to the poll, 61 percent of Americans who watched the first presidential debate on Sept. 30 said Kerry won, 19 percent said Bush won and 16 percent said they tied. The number of debate viewers surveyed was 770.

Bush's job approval rating dropped two points from the Sept. 9-10 Newsweek poll to 46 percent -- a 6-point drop since the Republican national convention a month ago. Fifty-seven percent of all poll respondents -- a total of 1,144 adults -- said they were dissatisfied with the way things were going in the United States now.

Sixty percent of registered voters said Bush administration policies and diplomatic efforts had led to more anti-Americanism around the world and 51 percent said the administration had not done enough to involve major allies and international organizations in trying to achieve its foreign policy goals, the poll showed.

Source

My Oncologist had me on Vioxx before my heart attack. I'm wondering now if it really was chemo-induced. [J-9]

Area patients alerted about Vioxx recall

Dr. Greg Williams, a family practice physician at SJ Family Medicine in Merrimack, started prescribing the arthritis drug Vioxx in 2001 - two years after its manufacturer, Merck & Co., put it on the market.

But on Thursday, when Merck recalled the drug after a study found it doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke, Williams had a relatively short list of patients to contact.

“There was a study published in January,” said Williams, who began prescribing alternatives to Vioxx last winter. “I had heard about problems.

”Williams, who had prescribed the drug to dozens of patients, said he learned about the recall Thursday from a fax sent from St. Joseph Hospital to his office. He said he had typically prescribed the drug for patients with arthritis and chronic osteoarthritis - generally an older population - although he also ordered it for younger patients with arthritis.

The study found that patients taking Vioxx for more than 18 months were twice as likely as those taking dummy pills to suffer a heart attack, stroke, or other heart conditions.

The Food and Drug Administration said there were early signs of possible problems with the drug.
Source

*Ø* Kill the President ... for free!



I've just posted Verses 52 and 53 to 'Kill the President', and President Irving Lumwedder is about to mount the podium for what will the most important speech so far in his presidency.

I add on average about one verse per day to the poem-in-progress. And there's now a free subscription service for those who want assassination-by-email with their daily Froot Loops. I look forward to meeting you in the fishpond.

Click for the poem and the subs form.

*Ø* Men 'more sexually harassed'

“Men are more likely to be sexually harassed in the workplace than women, according to academic research.

“Behavioural scientists Dr Don Hine and Roberta Martin from the University of New England also found that men had greater difficulty coping with sexual harassment and were more likely to quit their job because of it than women …

“‘We found 88.7 per cent of males had experienced a form of sexual harassment in the past year compared to 82.5 per cent of females,’ Dr Hine said.”
Source

*Ø* Shenanigans in Donegal

I live in Dublin, but my "roots" are in Donegal. Gotta love it!

"(Reuters) - A randy ram-raider smashed into a car showroom after letting his animal instincts get the better of him, Irish police said Friday.

"The intruder -- a stray ram belonging to a local farmer -- broke windows, soiled the garage and dented three doors of a new Mitsubishi Colt before he was apprehended by police officers.

"'The notion is that he saw his own reflection in the glass and, as I understand it, this was the natural reaction of a ram, particularly at this time of year,' said Inspector Greg Sullivan.

"Sullivan and an employee at the garage in the town of Moville, County Donegal, said newspaper reports of 10,000 euros ($12,400) worth of damage were probably exaggerated."
[as are the reports of my ... how much is a Mitsubishi Colt, anyway?]

Full text

*Ø* Ireland: Are we now party to US kidnap?

I'm posting the whole of Fintan O'Toole's article from the Irish Times, as it's "subscription only" and I can't give you a viable link. The activities described below hardly need comment from me. And Bush was sooooo emphatic last night, during his TV debate with Kerry, when he insisted he wouldn't 'sign up' the US to the International Criminal Court ...

Are we now party to kidnap?
28 September

"On the night of December 18th, 2001, a small private Gulfstream 5 jet landed at Bromma airport near the Swedish capital Stockholm, carrying a number of men in plain clothes with their faces hooded.

"They went to a private room where they were joined shortly afterwards by Swedish police officers and two prisoners, who were bound hand and foot. The prisoners were both Egyptian men in their 30s who had entered Sweden as asylum-seekers. Their clothes were cut off with scissors and suppositories containing an unknown drug were inserted into their bodies. Their hands and feet were chained to a harness, and they were carried on to the Gulfstream jet. On the plane, both men were blindfolded and hooded. The jet took off and the men were taken to Egypt.

"This was one small incident in the so-called War on Terror. American intelligence agencies believed that the two men, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed al-Zery, were connected to Islamist terrorism. These suspicions, in the prevailing climate after the September 11th atrocities in the US, were used to justify flagrant breaches of international law.

"Agiza and Zery were effectively kidnapped. Their abduction was part of a widespread, if undeclared, American policy of seizing suspected terrorists and taking them to friendly countries where they could be tortured. Back in Egypt, the two men were, according to their families, subjected to torture by electric shocks. Agiza, who had past ties to the senior al-Qaeda figure Ayman al-Zawahiri, was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in jail after a dubious legal process. Zery, however, was eventually released because even the most extreme methods failed to produce any evidence against him.

"The appalling abuses of human rights in this case are by no means unique, but they should be of particular concern to Irish people because there is disturbing evidence of complicity in them by our Government. From Seymour Hersh's new book Chain of Command, from an investigative documentary broadcast last May by the Swedish TV programme Kalla Fakta and from the logs of planes using Shannon Airport compiled by anti-war protesters, a fuzzy but sickening picture begins to emerge.

"Hersh reveals that, sometime in late 2001, President Bush signed a top-secret order authorising the US Defence Department to set up a clandestine team of special forces operatives who would evade diplomatic niceties and international law and kidnap or, if necessary assassinate, so-called 'high-value' targets. Secret interrogation centres would be set up in allied countries where torture and ill-treatment, unconstrained by legal limitations or public disclosure, could be employed. The programme was concealed as an 'unacknowledged' special-access programme (SAP), whose operational details were known only to a few in the Pentagon, the CIA and the White House.

"The unmarked Gulfstream jet, registered as N379P, which took the two Egyptians from Sweden, has also been used in other similar incidents. It is owned by an unlisted American company. When the Kalla Fakta TV programme contacted this company, posing as potential customers interested in hiring the jet, its reporter Fredrik Laurin (whose help I would like to acknowledge) was told: 'We only lease through the US government - we are on a long-term lease with them.'

"N379P's pattern of landings show it moving back and forth between the US and a variety of destinations including Egypt, Pakistan, Kuwait and Guantanamo Bay. Both Hersh and Laurin believe that there is overwhelming evidence that the plane is a tool of the SAP operation.

"N379P was spotted at Shannon Airport long before its role in the abduction of Agiza and Zery became a matter of international controversy. In the period for which protesters have a fairly detailed log of planes landing and taking off, January 2003, it certainly features on the list. Given that the plane seems to have been used exclusively for covert operations by a secret US squad established explicitly to evade both international law and democratic scrutiny within the US, the presence of the plane at Shannon raises two possibilities.

"One is that the Irish authorities were not informed that Shannon was being used to facilitate what Hersh calls the US 'entering the business of 'disappearing' people'. The other is that the Government was told, or, what amounts to the same thing, that it thought there might be something funny going on and decided not to ask questions. Either possibility raises the most basic questions. If the Government was not told, then its trust has been abused by a friendly state in the most egregious way. If it knew, or even suspected, what was going on, then it has colluded in serious crimes under national and international law.

"It is now more obvious than ever that the invasion of Iraq has been a disaster and that the so-called War on Terror, with its systematic subversion of human rights, is, at best, counter-productive. Last year, over 125,000 US troops passed through Shannon. The longer we allow ourselves to be part of this unholy mess, the deeper we will be sucked into the moral swamp." [All emphasis mine]

Source

Psychedelic Drugs: What a Long, Strange Trip!


Long Trip for Psychedelic Drugs
By Kristen Philipkoski
Wired News
Psychedelic drugs are inching their way slowly but surely toward prescription status in the United States, thanks to a group of persistent scientists who believe drugs like ecstasy and psilocybin can help people with terminal cancer, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, to name just a few.

The Heffter Research Institute, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and others have managed to persuade the Food and Drug Administration to approve a handful of clinical trials using psychedelics. The movement seems to be gaining ground in recent years. Since 2001, the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration have given the go-ahead to three clinical trials testing psychedelics on symptomatic patients, and several more are on deck.

Doctors who saw their patients benefit from psychedelic drugs back when they were legal are dedicated to jumping through bureaucratic hoops and diminishing the drugs' party stigma to get psychedelics in patients' hands, and brains.

"I'm interested in the treatment being available to people who need it, and doing it aboveboard and publishing good results," said George Greer, founder of the Heffter Research Institute, a scientific organization that organizes and funds trials involving psychedelics.

At first blush, it seems like an uphill battle more challenging than the one medical-marijuana advocates have been facing. MDMA has been vilified by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and in news stories, making it seem unlikely that federal agencies will ever allow the legal use of psychedelics.

But it might actually be easier to get psychedelics through the approval process than marijuana, according to Rick Doblin, founder and president of MAPS. The roadblock with marijuana has centered on supply. A government-controlled crop in Mississippi is the only marijuana the government will allow in clinical trials. But the supply of psychedelics is decentralized, and the researchers have control of much of it.

CONTINUE

[Emphasis added. -v]