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Blogmanac team
Jeannine Wilson (USA)
Veralynne Pepper (USA)
Pip Wilson (Australia)
Carpe diem!
Seize the day with more than 150 articles at Wilson's articles department
This blog is dedicated to the 353 victims of the SIEVX disaster,
and casualties of poverty and authority all around the planet
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Friday, February 18, 2005
 Forest activist Dorothy Stang's murder
"When Sister Dorothy Stang was murdered last weekend, it was just another day in the lives of the perpetrators. This is perhaps the most prominent activist to be murdered in the Amazon since Chico Mendez in 1988.
"She spent decades fighting efforts by loggers and large landholders who continued to steal land and clear large areas of the Amazon rainforest. Shot to death Saturday in northern Brazil by thugs, doubtless hired by the very loggers and Latifunda who accused Stang of inciting violence in the region and supplying weapons and ammunition to local people.
"Her assasination ought come as no surprise in an region still plagued with routine land-related killings, intimidation tactics and use of enslaved peoples as a workforce. Human Rights advocates who worked with Sister Dorothy remain skeptical that the Brazilian government will be able to do anything to change this. Para is the Amazon state with the highest murder rate related to land disputes. According to the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), a Catholic organisation campaigning for landless people and the poor, 1,237 rural workers died in Brazil from 1985 to 2001, and 40 percent of these occurred in Para ..."
Source: Short Takes: Will Brady's Ruminations
Remembering Sister Dorothy Stang
Dorothy Stang, 74, defended the land
Funeral held for rainforest advocate Stang (NPR, audio linked)
Death of Chico Mendez, in the Book of Days
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 Greenhouse gases 'do warm oceans'
"Scientists say they have 'compelling' evidence that ocean warming over the past 40 years can be linked to the industrial release of carbon dioxide.
"US researchers compared the rise in ocean temperatures with predictions from climate models and found human activity was the most likely cause.
"In coming decades, the warming will have a dramatic impact on regional water supplies, they predict.
"Details of the study were released at a major science meeting in Washington DC.
"The conference is the annual gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)."
Source: BBC
Image: "Warming oceans should contribute to sea-level rise"
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CIA up to its old tricks?
"An Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib died under CIA interrogation while in a position condemned by human rights groups as torture suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back, according to reports reviewed by The Associated Press.
"The death of the prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, became known last year when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke. The U.S. military said back then that the death had been ruled a homicide. But the exact circumstances under which the man died were not disclosed at the time.
"The prisoner died in a position known as 'Palestinian hanging,' the documents reviewed by The AP show. It is unclear whether that position was approved by the Bush administration for use in CIA interrogations."
Source: Boston Globe
Found it at Ghost Child
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Blogroll Us Thursday, February 17, 2005
 More claims Australians interrogated Iraqis
"A former head of the Iraq Survey Group has contradicted the Federal Government, saying he is 'almost positive' Australians were involved in the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners.
The Howard Government has consistently said no Australians interrogated Iraqi detainees.
Today Prime Minister John Howard tried to turn the political heat back on to the Opposition.
'This exercise we've had over the past few days has been a nit-picking attempt to damage the political reputation of the Minister for Defence,' Mr Howard said.
But David Kay, who led the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, has told ABC TV's Lateline that Australians were involved in interrogations.
'I'm almost positive they were engaged in areas where interrogations might have been going on,' he said.
Mr Kay does not agree with the Government's distinction between an interview and an interrogation.
'Anyone that was in a room with a prisoner was engaged in interrogation,' he said.
'You weren't playing bridge and so you had to play by the rules that were established for interrogation.
'If I was talking to someone [I] would have said I've had an interview, I've had a discussion.
'I didn't often use the word interrogation but that's what it was.'
DFAT 'in dark'
A former intelligence officer and member of the Iraq Survey Group, Rod Barton, has previously said that he did interrogate prisoners.
Between March and June last year, Mr Barton repeatedly told senior defence officials that he had interviewed prisoners in Iraq and relayed concerns about possible abuse of detainees.
He recommended an end to Australia's involvement.
Source: ABC News Online
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Blessed are the whatmakers?
From Pharisee Nation, by John Dear
"Last September, I spoke to some 2,000 students during their annual lecture at a Baptist college in Pennsylvania. After a short prayer service for peace centered on the Beatitudes, I took the stage and got right to the point. 'Now let me get this straight,' I said. 'Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers," which means he does not say, "Blessed are the warmakers," which means, the warmakers are not blessed, which means warmakers are cursed, which means, if you want to follow the nonviolent Jesus you have to work for peace, which means, we all have to resist this horrific, evil war on the people of Iraq.'
"With that, the place exploded, and 500 students stormed out. The rest of them then started chanting, 'Bush! Bush! Bush!'
"So much for my speech. Not to mention the Beatitudes.
I was not at all surprised that George W. Bush was reelected president. As I travel the country speaking out against war, injustice and nuclear weapons, I see many people consciously siding with the culture of war, choosing the path of violence, supporting corporate greed, rampant militarism, and global domination. I see many others swept up in the raging current of patriotism. Since most of these people, beginning with the president, claim to be Christian, I am ashamed and appalled that they support war and systemic injustice, that they do it in the name of God, and that they feign fidelity to the nonviolent Jesus who gave his life resisting institutionalized injustice."
Source: Nick Lewis: The Blog
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Uncle Sam Wants You!
USA pumping up military recruitment
"Given that US troops will no doubt be needed in Iraq for years to come, it's no wonder the Bush Administration, nervous about the political implications of a draft, is working overtime to come up with alternative forms of recruitment. The ubiquitous uses of patriotic propaganda include Hollywood films, TV shows, video games, Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, federally mandated acts requiring student contact info, and signing bonuses. With 1,000 new military recruiters coming on board this year, don't be surprised to see enlistment documents at the bottom of your Cracker Jack box."
Source: Marca Bradt, Utne Short Takes
Read full article by Am Johal at Worldpress.org
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 Kali Yuga: Evil Age begins
February 17, 3102 BCE It is a Hindu belief that the Kali Yuga, or Evil Age, began on this day, which was established by the Indian astronomer Aryabhata of Kusumpara. It is remarkable that Aryabhata lived in the 6th century CE concurrently with the Roman Dionysius (or, Dennis) Exiguus, the creator of the calendar we use today in the West. Kali Yuga is considered the last and most sinful of the four ages of man and is supposed to continue for 432,000 years. Then the world is supposed be destroyed by the goddess Kali. The cycle then begins again with Krita Yuga, the Golden Age of Truth.
The two astronomers, Dionysius and Aryabhata, both experienced on May 31, 531 CE, one in Rome and the other in India, a celestial conjunction that repeats itself every 3,600 years, and drew similar conclusions. Because of this common sidereal event, and the observations of these two astronomers, the Indian and Western calendars have many congruencies.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
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Blogroll Us Wednesday, February 16, 2005
 Today is Kyoto Protocol Day
Only two countries' governments oppose the Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty on global warming. These two are the Howard government of Australia and the Bush government of the USA.
The whole document
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Galton, the ox, Google and the wisdom of crowds
 February 16, 1822 Sir Francis Galton (d. 1911), English explorer, statistician, anthropologist, advocate of eugenics (i.e. the discredited notion of improving the physical and mental makeup of the human species by selected parenthood; he coined the term), and investigator of the human mind.
He was born into the remarkable Darwin - Wedgwood family and was the grandson of Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin’s half first cousin. It was Galton who gave statistics the concept of regression toward the mean.
Galton was an elitist, a believer in the power of a better class of people, noting “the stupidity and wrong-headedness of many men and women being so great as to be scarcely credible.” It will come as no surprise to the astute Almaniac that many of Galton's ideas have been used by the right wing of politics.
Galton and the ox
Some of his research seemed to show what James Suowiecki (in his book The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations) interprets as the superiority of group-think over experts. At one of England’s many fairs, he noticed a wagering competition in which people had to guess on the weight of an ox. In effect, it was like one of those “how many jelly beans in the jar” competitions. Eight hundred people wrote their guesses on slips of paper; some were butchers and farmers, while others were casual guessers.
Averaging the estimates, Galton expected the result to be nowhere near the mark, because so few of the guessers were professionals in the meat business. To his surprise, however, the crowd had come within one pound of the ox’s weight. The group as a whole had guessed that the ox would weigh 1,197 pounds, and the ox’s actual weight was 1,198 pounds.
Suowiecki extrapolates from this and other information that in order to predict winners political opinion pollsters would do better to ask people who they think will win an election, rather than who they want to win, because there is a group wisdom. In fact, bookmakers are better predictors than pollsters, because bettors tend to bet on what they think a result will actually be.
“Under the right circumstances,” Surowiecki argues, “groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.”
Suowiecki points out that this ‘wisdom of crowds’ that Galton stumbled upon at the fair is basically how Google ranks pages ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
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 McLibel activists cleared by Euro court
It seems to have been going forever, and in its 21 years has spawned books, films and countless articles, but the McLibel case is at last closed:
"Two Britons found to have libelled the US fast food chain McDonald's after the longest court case in English legal history did not have a fair trial, the European Court of Human Rights ruled.
"Helen Steel and David Morris, whose 1984 pamphlet accused McDonald's of starving the Third World, destroying rainforests and selling unhealthy food, were also deprived of free speech by the 1997 ruling, it said.
"The Strasbourg-based court, ordered Britain to pay the pair a total of 35,000 euro ($A57,684.38) and offer them a retrial. Britain has three months to appeal the decision.
"Morris, a single father, hailed the ruling as a 'total victory' in comments to reporters outside a McDonald's restaurant in central London where activists began handing out the leaflets at the centre of the libel case 20 years ago.
"It is only the end of the legal battle. It is not the end of the battle for the public to be able to criticise powerful organisations in our society," said Steel."
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
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Blogroll Us Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Tides as green energy
I hasten to note that I'm very skeptical about tidal energy due to the huge infrastructure required and the consequent environmental impact. But it's worth reading some of the latest:
"thpr writes "The Electric Power Research Institute and its partners have completed their Offshore Wave Power Feasibility Demonstration Project [PDF file - PW], which defined potential wave energy projects off the shores of the United States. This is building off of work already done in Scotland (and elsewhere). San Francisco, New York and other areas are considering trial installations of the technology. It is interesting to note (table 1 in the report) that the energy density (kW/m^2) that can be achieved is much higher than wind or solar. In addition, harnessing 24% of available wave energy near the US at 50% efficiency is equal to all of the hydropower currently generated in the US (~7% of total electricity production)."
Source: Slashdot
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Jon Frum Day, Tanna Island, Vanuatu
Jon Frum, a cargo cult, is a syncretic sect centred on Sulphur Bay on Tanna Island, Vanuatu, and found in some neighbouring islands. A white American named Jon, or John, Frum is also the name of the messenger of this movement; who on his return, will provide the Frum faithful with promised goods, or cargo.
An estimated 90 per cent of the population of Vanuatu is affiliated with a Christian denomination, the largest being Presbyterian, followed by Roman Catholic and Anglican. Jon Frum forms a small minority.
Some Frum members say that Jon Frum is a benevolent deity who lives in the crater of Tanna's highest mountain, Yasur, with his several thousand strong army, or else he is the 'king of America' ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
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First Aussie blog conference all about $$
"The blogging phenomenon will go corporate in February, when Australia’s first blogging conference will focus on how blogs can evolve into a channel for corporate communications.
"The conference, to be staged in a yet-to-be-determined Melbourne venue on 25 February, is the brainchild of Mick Stanic, a former executive producer with the Singleton Ogilvy advertising agency."
Source: ZDNet Australia via Michael Corkill with thanks.
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 History's largest protest: 12 million
2003 Grimly determined to invade Iraq and thus secure fossil fuels to drive Western consumerism, the leaders of the 'Free World' plugged their ears when global protests against war on Iraq occurred in more than 600 cities worldwide. Estimates from 10 million - 15 million made this the largest day of protest in the history of humankind.
So says the 2004 Guinness Book of Records which cites this day’s activities as the largest mass protest movement in history. However, other estimates have it that more than 12 million people worldwide marched in demonstrations against America’s illegal, unprovoked and pre-emptive impending invasion of Iraq.
In Rome one to three million people were on the streets in one of the Italian capital's largest ever mass demonstrations. In London, estimates of the number of marchers varied from 750,000 (by the police) to over 1.5 million (by the organisers, the Stop the War Coalition) and was the largest demonstration in the city's history.
In Berlin there were half a million in the largest demonstration for some decades. There were also protest marches all over France as well as in many other European cities, drawing attendance figures in the tens of thousands per city. In Ireland, one hundred thousand turned out in Dublin, for a parade that was originally expected to draw one fifth that number ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
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"Iraq attack not solution": UNSCOM head warned
On this day, two years ago
… I believe that there is a very real prospect now that the United States of America will attack Iraq without the approval of the UN Security Council. That is contrary to international law, it should not happen, and I believe the consequences of such an action could be possibly catastrophic. I also finally believe that war is almost certain not to be the solution to any of the problems that are posed by Saddam Hussein, and they are real problems. The smaller reason, not so small for we Australians, is, I don't know how to put this as simply as possible.... Let me just say that I'm sick to death of the lies that we're being told about this by the Prime Minister of Australia. I heard him again this morning on a national television interview, and it was shocking …
International law is important here, and we mustn't commit the terrible mistake and folly in our pursuit of a criminal, by ourselves breaking the law. Because then it brings the whole system into disrepute and that is what I fear we face if the Americans go it alone here. We will trash 50 years of post World War II international law and replace it with the rule that might is right, and that's what we've been trying to get away from.
Richard Butler, former director of UN weapons inspection in Iraq (UNSCOM), recorded on the day he marched in the anti-war rally in Sydney, Australia, February 15, 2003 [emphasis added]
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 Wilson's Almanac on radio
Readers living in my neck of the South Pacific might be interested to know that there are now two radio stations on which your almanackist is appearing regularly.
Here's the schedule:
Radio 2BBB-FM: Wilson's Almanac Book of Days
Fri Sat Sun 7.45AM
Mon-Thur 9.45AM
ABC Afternoon Show with Mike Corkill: 'Blogging Around'
Tues 2.45PM
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Blogroll Us Monday, February 14, 2005
Google Maps? Try MultiMap.com instead
Google has launched Google Maps in Beta stage. It's a valiant effort, but not the best free map site around. Perhaps it will improve in the next version.
MultiMap, to my mind, is a much better service. For starters, Google Maps only has one country out of 191 (guess which), and nothing on the home page that tells you that. Apart from being incredibly Americocentric, it's a time-waster as the Rest of Us try to get up some little places like Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and so on, and they just won't come. It would be OK if they just told the readers that they only have one country so far.
MultiMap immediately loaded Australia plus a separate map of the other countries when I opened the homepage, presumably reading my IP addy and concluding where I came from.
From there I can quickly go to any part of the world. Being as fixated on my own location as the Googlers are, I tried my own vicinity and within three or four clicks I was able to zoom in on Sandy Beach, right down to my own street. You can also search the world by town name or postcode, and the gifs are saveable, which is a great feature. And no ads. Cool. Top marks to MultiMap.
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Orange is the season's colour
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Habib torture claims: transcript
Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib appeared on TV this week with his allegations of having been tortured by various agencies with the full knowledge of Australian officials, in Camp X-Ray and elsewhere.
"Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib says an Australian official stood by and watched as he was tortured in Pakistan.
"His claims of abuse and mistreatment have prompted the Opposition to call for a full investigation into whether Australian officials were somehow involved.
"Government officials will be quizzed about Mr Habib's treatment when they front a Senate estimates hearing later this morning.
 "Mr Habib was freed from Guantanamo Bay, without charge, last month."
MAMDOUH HABIB: When they strip me, I don't know they put something in my bottom. I don't know what it is, and they put me nappies and they tied me up and they make photograph for me, in front of me, and they make video.
KIM LANDERS: From there he was taken to Egypt where he says he was tortured daily for six months.
MAMDOUH HABIB: With electric shock, beatings, they drugs.
KIM LANDERS: And there was no respite during the next two-and-a-half years he was held without charge at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where he says he was sexually humiliated by a female interrogator.
MAMDOUH HABIB: It's very rude actually. She put her hand in her privates, she take stuff of the blood and she threw it in my face.
KIM LANDERS: The 49 year-old claims Australian officials knew about some of the abuse.
At a military airport in Pakistan, he was twice visited by an Australian official.
MAMDOUH HABIB: Australian, he was watching me when I been beaten.
KIM LANDERS: And in Egypt another mystery Australian spoke to his American interrogators.
MAMDOUH HABIB: I have no idea. But if I see him, I will know him.
KIM LANDERS: Claims these officials did nothing while an Australian citizen was tortured have shocked the Opposition's Shadow Attorney General, Nicola Roxon.
NICOLA ROXON: The allegation that any Australians were involved in this sort of torture I think is quite explosive. There is a serious question to be asked. Did they or the US jeopardise the case against Mr Habib by letting torture be used as part of his interrogation?"
Source
No sign of a fair go for David yet
Fair Go for David (Note: Aussie David Hicks, also held in Amerika's Gitmo for years without charge, is still stuck in limbo.)
Google news: australians guantanamo
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 Valentine's Day origins and folklore
This year for Valentine's Day, why not dump the sentimental cards and the dozen red roses, and do something really traditional, something that harks back to the origins of this ancient commemoration?
If you want to get right into the ancient spirit of Valentine's Day, try these party tricks. First, go with your friends to a local cave and sacrifice some goats and a dog. Find two young men of good breeding and smear their foreheads with your bloody knife, then wipe the blood off with wool soaked in milk. The youths must laugh during this.
Next, your whole party should run licentiously around town wearing the skins of said goats, and infertile townsfolk will come out on the streets to be belted by you with straps of goat-skin. This will help them have children.
At some appropriate juncture of your evening, arrange to have the names of all the females written on billets, put in a container and drawn out one at a time by the males. This will enable the sexes to pair off as lovers.
Yes, the modern practice of celebrating Valentine's Day most likely has its roots in the ancient Roman celebration of the Lupercalia, when all these weird customs were indulged in ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
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Blogroll Us Sunday, February 13, 2005
This guy isn't a salesman
And he hates hype
"Look, I hate those massive overlong letters, where 'salesmen' try 500 different ways of persuading you to part with your cash. I'm not a 'salesman' and I never will be. I like the truth too much, and I can't stand hype."
mini site profits (caution, it's more than 2,600 words long)
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Valentine's Eve love spells
In olde England, Valentine's Eve, February 13, was one of a number of nights throughout the year on which prognostications would be made in order to discover when one would find a lover, and who that lover would be. An English practice of the mid-eighteenth century was for a girl to gather five bay-leaves. One was pinned to each of the four corners of the girl's pillow, and one in the middle. If she dreamed of her sweetheart she would be married before the year was out.
To make it more sure, and the dream presumably more vivid, the girl would hard-boil an egg, take out the yolk, fill it with salt, and eat it shell and all at bedtime, without speaking or drinking after it. I tried it last year but I think it only works for females
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
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 "Americans tortured me in Gitmo" - Aussie
"Mamdouh Habib still has a bruise on his lower back. He says it is a sign of the beatings he endured in a prison in Egypt. Interrogators there put out cigarettes on his chest, he says, and he lifts his shirt to show the marks. He says he got the dark spot on his forehead when Americans hit his head against the floor at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
"After being arrested in Pakistan in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, he was held as a terror suspect by the Americans for 40 months. Back home now, Mr. Habib alleges that at every step of his detention - from Pakistan, to Egypt, to Afghanistan, to Guantánamo - he endured physical and psychological abuse.
"The physical abuse, he said, ranged from a kick 'that nearly killed me' to electric shocks administered through a wired helmet that he said interrogators told him could detect whether he was lying ...
"Mr. Habib said any confessions he made were a result of torture and were not genuine.
"'Whatever they wanted me to sign,' he said, 'I signed to survive.'"
Source: New York Times
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
"Freed Australian terror suspect Mamdouh Habib cried during a television interview while describing his torture and revealed he made a secret pact with fellow detainee David Hicks."
Source: The Herald-Sun
Photo: Regis Martin for The New York Times. "Mamdouh Habib, shown back in Australia with his wife, Maha, and two of their four children, Ahmed and Hajer, after his 40 months in custody."
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 Who bombed the Sydney Hilton?
February 13, 1978 A bomb exploded outside the Hilton Hotel, Sydney, killing two garbage men and a police officer. Inside the hotel were heads of government from a number of Commonwealth countries. Corrupt police began a campaign of framing members of the Ananda Marga cult for the crime, and eventually the ‘Ananda Marga Three’ were released from prison and compensated.
It is usually called 'Australia's first outbreak of terrorism', but was it really? To this day the identity of the person or persons responsible remains a mystery. Were Australia's security police responsible?
Read on
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Paranoia grips the U.S. capital
By Eric Margolis
"This week, former military intelligence analyst William Arkin revealed a hitherto unknown directive, with the Orwellian name 'JCS Conplan 0300-97,' authorizing the Pentagon to employ special, ultra-secret 'anti-terrorist' military units on American soil for what the author claims are 'extra-legal missions.'
"In other words, using U.S. soldiers to kill or arrest Americans, acts that have been illegal since the U.S. Civil War."
Source: Toronto Sun
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