Surf almanac with menu above. Click here to consult your free I Ching and Tarot while waiting (opens in a new window).
The Blogmanac: "On This Day" ... and much more
Think universally. Act terrestrially.
For in a hard-working society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much, to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you're doing and rave, pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers, stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
Anneli Rufus*
*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.
"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."
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.
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.
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.
"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, butthe 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.
"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."
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.
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
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]
*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.]
"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]
*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]
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.
"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."
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
"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
"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
"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]
*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
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.
"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."
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]
"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]
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.
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 agreeand 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, Bushcame 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]
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.
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
Pages
of Days
Almanac
President
John "Little Johnny" Howard has won a fourth term as Australian Prime Minister, gaining an increased majority for the second election running. 
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.
Similar to Nora's post yesterday is this video of US 
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:
"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.
"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. 
"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 ...
"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. 
"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 ... 
"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)...
"The last emperor of Austria, 
"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.
"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.
"An international conference on wildlife trade has opened in Thailand with calls for stronger curbs on illegal trafficking in rare animals and plants.
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.