Yikes! Where did those 400,000 words come from?!

Sheesh! I'm pretty busy writing this silly novel, so about six months ago I said I would slow down on the Almanac site, in particular the Book of Days. That's what I wrote when the BoD passed 3 million words.

Well I just checked, and since I made that unkeepable (to me) pledge, I've checked and it's now passed 3,400,000 words. I probably shouldn't have added 8 or so books worth of extra text, but I do like to think that Almaniacs will be able to look up the birthdays of themselves and their loved ones and get a real kick out of it.

If you do, I would be very grateful if you'd tell your friends about the Book of Days (send them their birthday -- who wouldn't like to know?) and maybe chuck a few coins in Puppy's jar to help fend off the Internet bills. It really is a battle to pay them. Gracias.

Cities for Life Day: No to the death penalty

Three hundred cities around the world declare their opposition to the death penalty today.

From Wikipedia: Today commemorates the first abolition of the death penalty by a European state, decreed by the elightened monarch, Peter Leopold Joseph of Habsburg-Lorraine in 1786 for his Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

On this day, participating cities enlighten their symbolic monument, such as the Atomium in Brussels, the Colosseum in Rome and the Plaza de Santa Ana in Madrid. Participating cities include 30 capitals worldwide, and 300 cities and towns around the world, such as Rome, Bruxelles, Madrid, Ottawa, Mexico City, Berlin, Barcelona, Florence, Venice, Buenos Aires, Austin, Dallas, Antwerpen, Vienna, Naples, Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Reggio Emilia, Bogotà, Santiago de Chile.

By this symbolic action, these cities demand a stay of all executions worldwide. This initiative is promoted by the Community of Sant'Egidio and supported by the main international human rights organizations, gathered in the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty ( Amnesty International, Ensemble contre la Peine de Mort, International Penal Reform, FIACAT).

In 2005, the Cities for Life Day also featured the 'Africa for Life' conference about the death penalty in Africa, in which 14 ministers of justice from as many African countries participated. The conference took place in Florence, Tuscany.

Cities for Life Day :: 2005 Africa for Life conference

Tagged: singapore, australia, execution, van+nguyen, capital+punishment, human+rights, death+penalty

If kids were in charge

Thanks, Californian Almaniac Kayla.

Tagged: humor, humour, palestine, israel

Happy birthday Mark Twain

We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves of our business partner Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our protecting flag over that swag. And so, by the Providences of God -- and the phrase is the government's, not mine -- we are a World Power.

1835 Mark Twain (d. April 21, 1910), anti-war, anti-imperialist American humorist and novelist (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The War Prayer).

On October 24, 1901, when US Marines landed in Samar during the Philippine-American War (sometimes rather patronisingly referred to as the Philippine Insurrection), Brigadier General 'Hell-roaring Jake' Smith issued his orders: "I wish you to burn and kill; the more you burn and kill, the better it will please me."

Some Americans, notably Mark Twain, strongly objected to the annexation of the Philippines. (Many other Americans mistakenly thought that the Philippines wanted to be 'liberated' the United States.) Twain was, in fact, the most prominent literary opponent of the bloody war and imperialism in general, and served as a vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League from 1901 until his death. His short story 'The War Prayer', which we reproduce in the Scriptorium, remains one of the world's great pro-peace pieces of literature.

On December 17, 1877, when the Atlantic Monthly gave a party to celebrate the 70th birthday of John Greenleaf Whittier, American Quaker poet, abolitionist and reformer, Twain, in a speech, shocked the diners by comparing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes, (all guests) to three drunken tramps in the Sierras ...

Tagged: mark+twain, usa, america, literature, american+literature, peace, imperialism

Two sidelights on Van Nguyen's forthcoming execution

In today's media:

Van Nguyen faces death bravely
1) Van Nguyen's friend says that he is smiling and composed, and she says it is his nature to not want his mother and family members to be any more stressed than they are. She says he is "a very modest person, a humble person", who cannot see "why there is so much fuss about him".

Stretching a young man's neck, or avoiding tax: which is worse?
2) Sen. Bob Brown, Leader of the Australian Greens Party, put a motion before Parliament condemning capital punishment. The government passed it yesterday in an amended form, changing the word "abhor" to "oppose". Sen. Brown wryly pointed out this morning that the Prime Minister has used the word "abhorrent" in parliamentary reference to tax avoiders, but refuses to use the word in the case of the cruel killing of human beings. Reading between the lines -- Singapore is a trading partner.

Tagged: singapore, australia, execution, van+nguyen, capital+punishment, human+rights

Aussie ex-PM attacks own party on liberty

Govt exploiting terrorism fears, Fraser says

Tagged: australia, terrorism, sedition, free+speech, human+rights, civil+rights, liberty

Remembering Ryan

"Barring last minute clemency by the Singaporean Government, this Friday 25-year-old Australian Van Nguyen will be executed in Singapore's Changi prison.

"Singapore maintains that hanging is a quick, clean, humane form of killing -- a benign method of execution.

"Others beg to differ -- among them two men who were intimately involved in the case of Ronald Ryan, the last man to hang in Australia."
Radio National Breakfast

Ronald Ryan

At 8:00am on February 3, 1967, the last human being in Australia to be killed by the State fell through the trapdoor and died on the same gallows as Ned Kelly. Ronald Ryan is buried in quicklime within the grounds of Pentridge Prison. His family are forbidden to visit the unmarked grave. On November 28, 2005 on ABC Radio National, elderly Judge Opas, who was Ronald Ryan's lawyer to the end, stated that he still firmly believes that Ryan was innocent.

Listen (requires RealAudio) -- extraordinary interview with two elderly men. One was a journalist who witnessed the last execution in Australia. The other is Judge Opas.

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

I could not tell a lie
By Pip Wilson
(Based on an anecdote; avowedly a true story)

The judge sat through the weeks of trial
and sentenced Ryan to hang.
Premier Bolte sent for him
and asked him if this man,
this Ronald Ryan was truly guilty,
or was there “some way out,
with the election coming up and all” --
said the judge “No reasonable doubt”.

So Ronald Ryan’s neck was stretched;
the judge spoke to the press:
“I could not tell a lie”, he said
“I’m of the faith” he stressed.

And further pressed on how he felt,
said the judge “Ryan had the right
to absolution, he’s now in heaven.
I pray to him each night.”

Tagged: singapore, australia, execution, van+nguyen, capital+punishment, human+rights

Nguyen's fate 'close to hopeless'

"The condemned Aussie's legal team has not given up hope that an unexpected twist might save their client from the gallows."
Sydney Morning Herald

"WITH her son two days from execution in Singapore and her spirit crushed, Kim Nguyen's hair has started to turn white.

"Her anguish painfully clear after repeated requests to the Singapore Government to spare her son from the gallows have been rejected, Ms Nguyen is also noticeably losing weight."
Strain begins to show as execution nears

Australian government did not try hard enough
"According to human rights lawyer Tim Robertson SC, there remains a loophole in Singapore's extradition Act which could allow Van Nguyen to be saved from the gallows. It's part of an ongoing argument that Australia should have plea-bargained for his life as part of negotiations with an accused doubler murderer to Singapore two years ago."
ABC

Listen (requires RealAudio)

Hangman's sickening outburst

Tagged: singapore, australia, execution, van+nguyen, capital+punishment, human+rights

The eve of St Andrew's Day

Some marriage-related superstitions have become part of Saint Andrew's feast day, November 30, and some on the eve.

One German custom is for single women who wish to marry to ask for Saint Andrew's guidance on the Eve (November 29) of his feast, then sleep naked that night; they will then see their future husbands in their dreams.

Another has it that young women should note the location of barking dogs on Saint Andrew's Eve: their future husbands will come from that direction.

In Poland, single girls would traditionally pour melted wax into a bowl of cold water, and the hardened wax was then held up to the light. The shadow it cast on the wall was supposed to prognosticate the girls' marriage: if its shape resembled something used by a man, she would marry within a year. The shadow might also reveal of the future husband his personality, interests, occupation and so on. Another traditional pastime was for the girls to fling their shoes into the middle of the floor. The first shoe to go over the threshold would be that of the girl who would be first to marry.

Tagged: folklore, europe, germany, poland, advent, saints

Retraction and apology received

Regarding the most recent post: I have received a generous retraction and apology, with thanks.

Putting truth's boots on, quickly

Since my remarks yesterday about a false allegation made about me, three people, two of whom I respect and the other of whom I have no opinion, have suggested, in their various ways, that my remarks were perhaps a bit "over the top". Maybe you do too, dear reader.

They might be right, but a small point of order, Your Honour. There was a reason for my doing so: the person who libelled me, solely for the sake of winning over readers to his case in a debate, published a false allegation against me. So what? The point is that it was imputed of me that I have a "connection" to two organisations. So what? The point is, Your Honour that those two organisations have been alleged to have committed terrorist and other crimes. In fact, it might be that the organisations are illegal in some countries. I don't know enough about them to know.

I didn't want the record to go uncorrected. I had to make it perfectly clear that I have never had the slightest association with them -- because if I did not, the lie would remain on the Internet and might be used in the future to my detriment, or that of my family. As the proverb says, "a lie gets around the world before truth gets its boots on".

I have no desire to find myself at some airport in 20 years time and have some jumped up ticket officer place me under arrest just because some lowlife in Australia made false charges against me. I ask the skeptical reader to put themselves in my shoes, if someone published an imputation that you were "connected" to the Mafia or Al Qaeda. Because of the Hilton bombing, in the minds of many Australians, and Indians, etc, that is how bad the allegation against me sounds to many people. And there are people in the world (like my libeller) who are dull enough believe that if you write a piece of investigative journalism about The Mob, you must be part of The Mob. The slander against me is very serious in Australia.

I place a reasonable value on my reputation, too, and I had to write quickly a firm denial of the slanderer's baseless and totally false charge. Over the top? Perhaps. But that's why I did it, and I believe I did the only thing available to me, short of sueing the man for defamation (which would be so boring).

The moderator of the forum removed the libel, and my detailed refutation. This is regrettable, but out of my control and was possibly done to protect the forum from prosecution (which was not my intention), rather than for my sake. At time of writing, the contemptible person who attacked me in such a cowardly way has not responded. Enuff said. Thank you, 'oldbanger', who came to my defence in the forum when I was feeling quite deserted.

Update, Nov 29: I have received a generous retraction and apology, with thanks.

And the dog shat in the tuckerbox

'Twas gettin' dark, the team got bogged,
The axle snapped in two
I lost me matches and me pipe,
Now what was I to do?
The rains come down, 'twas bitter cold,
And hungry too was I
And the dog shat in the tuckerbox
Nine miles from Gundagai ...

1932 Australian Prime Minister Joseph Lyons unveiled the statue of the Dog on the Tuckerbox, near Gundagai, New South Wales, at the point where O'Brien's Creek crosses the main Gundagai Road, the site of an old time bullockies' camping-ground. And thereby hangs a tale ...

The “dog that shat in the tuckerbox" is a famous Australian tale and immortalised in an old folk song, possibly penned by someone who called himself 'Bowyang Yorke', but amended ("the dog sat on the tuckerbox") and brought to wider attention by Jack Moses, one of Henry Lawson's close mates, fellow pranksters and bards. Lawson and Moses probably would have been drinking mates, too, if Moses, although a wine salesman, were not a teetotaller – something no one could accuse Henry of being.

Jack O'Hagan wrote a hit 'Dog on Tuckerbox' song based on the bowderlised lyrics. 'Tucker', by the way, is an obsolescent Australianism for food ...

Tagged: australia, folklore, folk+music, australian, henry+lawson, gundagai

Family, friends to spend time with Nguyen

"Family and friends of Australian drug smuggler Van Nguyen are planning to spend as much time as they can with him with just four days until his scheduled execution.

"Nguyen's friends Bronwyn Lew and Kelly Ng will see the 25-year-old Melbourne man this morning briefly with extended visits allowed from tomorrow.

"Ms Lew hopes Australians will continue calling for clemency.

"'Van does not deserve to die and hopefully that message will make a difference at some point, whether it's in the next few days or the next few years,' she said."

Related image

Related Video
"Prime Minister John Howard warned Singapore's Prime Minister that many Australians might feel resentment towards the city state if it goes ahead with the execution.
[Real Broadband] [Real Dialup] [Win Broadband] [Win Dialup]

Wear a yellow ribbon
"Australians are being urged to wear a yellow ribbon on Thursday as a silent protest against the hanging in Singapore of Melbourne man Van Nguyen.
[Real Broadband] [Real Dialup] [Win Broadband] [Win Dialup]

ABC

Tagged: van+nguyen, australia, singapore, execution, capital+punishment, human+rights

Note about a false allegation made against me

Please note: An anonymous slanderer who uses the pen name BOAZ_David has written an insulting email to me, addressing me by my first name while not revealing his own. He has also posted on the Internet an untrue allegation against me, referring to my investigative article 'Lies, spies and the Sydney Hilton bombing'. This cowardly person wrote on this page of Online Opinion:

"I think everyone should look closely at Almanacs [sic] web site, and see his apparent connection to the Ananda Maga [sic] group.. and some mob called 'prout' [sic]. Given what appeared on his web site I can fully understand why they are the object of interest by the special branch. It might also explain some of his attitudes."


For the record: I am not and have never been connected in any way with Ananda Marga or Prout. I have never attended an Ananda Marga or Prout meeting, and do not know where any such meetings have ever been held. I have very little knowledge of Ananda Marga or Prout. I have never read an Ananda Marga or Prout book, pamphlet or any other kind of literature in my life. I have never, to my knowledge, met a current member of Ananda Marga or Prout. I am not in any way a friend of Ananda Marga or Prout. On the contrary, from the very little I have read about them in the press, I feel rather ill disposed towards them. The anonymous slanderer made this allegation following my public request for tolerance to people of the Islamic faith. I have no association with that faith either.

The slanderer took the opportunity to post his defamation after I had written in the same forum that I would not be returning to that forum. In other words, he cowardly libelled me with the understanding that I would not be in a position to defend myself. Furthermore, there is a time limit on the forum, by which I was unable to reply within at least six hours, causing damage to my reputation for those hours plus the perpetuity in which the slander will remain on the Internet in the forum. The anonymous person owes me a full public retraction and apology, on the same forum where the false allegation was made. To be fair, although fairness was not extended to me, if a full retraction and apology are forthcoming, I will post the link to them here.

Update, Nov 29: I have received a generous retraction and apology, with thanks.

We don't say it's Catholic terrorism: Brzezinski

From Zbigniew Brzezinski's remarks to the Middle East Institute banquet on November 7:

"Instead of mobilizing Muslim moderates on our side, some of our officials in their public statements have come close to using Islamophobic terminology, particularly in their insistence always on identifying the terrorists as Islamic terrorists. We don't do that when we talk of IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland. We don't go around saying it's Catholic terrorism. We don't do it when we talk of the Basques in northern Spain. We don't say this is Catholic terrorism. Unfortunately the use of these over-arching adjectives tends to create a subconscious identification of those people who see themselves as Muslims or Islamists with those who are being identified. That is the way the psychological mechanism works. This is why we don't call the IRA terrorists Catholics.

"Occasionally we will even go further than that. We have talked, at very high levels, of a crusade. We have talked about waging a war against an Islamic caliphate. We have even referred to Islamo-fascism. This is not helpful.

"Worse than that, I think it is posing the danger of the United States gradually sliding into a lonely American war against the world of Islam. That is to be avoided. It's not in our interest. It's not in the interest of the world of Islam. It certainly is not inevitable. But it is happening and one has to think about the implications of that seriously."

Tagged: islam, muslim, muslims, racism, terrorism, iraq, war, peace, brzezinski

Sydney protest, Nov 29: Stop HoWARd's 1984 laws

12.30pm TUESDAY NOVEMBER 29 @ NSW PARLIAMENT, MACQUARIE ST, SYDNEY
"Say NO to Howard's new anti-terror laws! Protest NSW parliament's support for Howard's campaign of terror and intimidation of Muslims, trade unionists & the anti-war movement, on the day state parliament sits to consider legislation to support Howard's new anti-terror laws. Howard needs the cooperation of state governments to implement his draconian new laws. Now is the time to speak out in defense of our civil liberties. Bring placards and something to make noise... before we're silenced!
Info: Anna 0401 900 690, Luke 0419 135 019
Called by the Sydney Stop the War Coalition"
Stop the War Coalition Sydney

New Zealand women, first to vote nationally

1893 Thanks to people like Kate Sheppard, leader of the New Zealand female suffrage movement, women in New Zealand voted for the first time in a national general election anywhere in the world. Australia was the second nation, fully nine years later (1902), although on December 18, 1894 women in the State of South Australia became the first in the world to be able to vote and stand for election.

Among the earliest nations to grant women the vote include Finland (1906), United Kingdom (1918), and Afghanistan (1922). Switzerland was one of the last, in 1971.

Women's worldwide electoral chronology
and Louisa Lawson, Australian suffragette at the Scriptorium

Tagged: women, womens+rights, feminism, suffragism, suffragettes, australia, new+zealand, electoral, vote

Now I'm a Trotskyist

My four decades of active anti-Communism, as my closest friends know, have often caused me quite a lot of harsh criticism and I never found the row an easy one to hoe, but I hoed it, oh yessir I did! It was a very isolating position to hold in the circles among which I moved (school, academy and activism), particularly before 1989 when the Wall came down -- after which the Left tended to fall into an ... err ... umm ... embarrassed silence.

As far as I can recall, I have not found that history has required me to recant a single one of the great many anti-Marxist-Leninist statement I have made since the mid-1960s. Like Nazism, Leninism is a scourge on the face of the earth.

However, every now and again, because of my progressive views, I have been accused of being a Communist! Once, Hugh Morgan, AO, called the magazine I was editing "Bolshevist". Ironically, this was about the same time in 1984 that the Australia-Russian Friendship Association, an actual Bolshevist front organisation in Sydney, ordered People for Nuclear Disarmament not to publish any more of my articles (they had published an article of mine about the persecution of the peace movement behind the Iron Curtain), at risk of ARFA revoking the free rent which it gave PND. That was some grin!

Today I'm grinning again, because I have just been labelled a Trotskyist, despite all those decades of strenuous anti-Trotskyism. I shouldn't gloat too much, because the writer, an Australian radio presenter, is obviously what we call in Australia a 'deadshit', but it does show the kinds of fools who have come out of the woodwork since has-been politician John Stone's anti-Muslim polemic 'Some will not integrate' was published online this week. I thought it would sink like a Stone, but I underestimated the virulence of xenophobia and ignorance.

I have decided not to waste any more breath on these scoundrels and Lilliputians in the discussion forum, but it was quite an eye-opener to find such racism still exists. One of my would-be antagonists writes, "Niggers and Muslims are both generally despised. This is hardly surprising given their generally unacceptable group behaviour, their almost total inability to integrate, their high levels of welfare dependency, and their growing population proportions." Another appears to be referring to your almanackist when citing "an exclusive hatred towards anything white". Logic is in scarce supply in the forum.

Perhaps if you have any anti-racist thoughts you might add them there. I spent some time in the forum and it made me feel like having a bath.

Tagged: racism, communism, anarchism, trotskyism, bolshevism, bigotry, islam, muslim, muslims, african-american

Pacific Atlantis: first climate change refugees

"For more than 30 years the 980 people living on the six minute horseshoe-shaped Carteret atolls have battled the Pacific to stop salt water destroying their coconut palms and waves crashing over their houses. They failed.

"Yesterday a decision was made that will make their group of low-lying islands literally go down in history. In the week before 150 countries meet in Montreal to discuss how to combat global warming and rising sea levels, the Carterets' people became the first to be officially evacuated because of climate change."
Guardian, Nov. 25

All the latest climate change news in Daily Planet News, refreshes every 15 minutes

Funny videos

http://www.b0rd.com/. The Xmas lighting one is the only one I've watched, and it wasn't bad.

Is it nut season in Oklahoma?

This bloke wants the USA to 'Declare War on Iran'!

Poverty facts and statistics

Poverty facts and statistics. Thank you, Kate, for sending.

Tagged: poverty, global, global+issues, development

Late November, Bogong Moth Dreaming, Australia

North-East and Upper Murray River region of Victoria
Six aboriginal clans used to meet at Mungabareena ('the gathering place'), east of Albury, for the bogong moth feast. At the end of November, the healthiest in these clans made this annual journey, while the elderly and babies stayed behind. Six of the seven clans met, the seventh, Minjamurra the Echidna stayed behind on their own lands ...

Tagged: australia, cuisine, aboriginal, indigenous, aborigines, moth, moths, insects, folklore

Want to know mine?

One of many intriguing secrets at PostSecret.

Bush aides 'double-crossed' Blair

The scholars of Borroloola

1835 Andrew Carnegie (d. August 11, 1919), Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist, who gave away more than $US350 million to charities through the Carnegie Institution.

The scholars of Borroloola

A one-horse town and its 'Carnegie Library'

Near the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the north coast of Australia, 60 kilometres (35 miles) from the sea, there’s a place called Borroloola. It’s just a tiny place, like many small, remote settlements in this big continent, where most of us live in a few major cities of several millions – the most urbanised nation in the world, despite our reputation.

Borroloola lies about 700 km (434 miles) from Darwin– not that much in Australian distances – in the Northern Territory. Despite what Territorians might tell you, Darwin’s nowhere, so Borroloola’s about as remote as you can get on God’s earth, and a hundred years ago it was the back-blocks of the back-blocks – the other side of the Black Stump, as we say here.

This hot, tropical bush settlement, a hundred years ago, was as close to the Wild West as Australia ever had. Stock drovers – men on horseback who led cattle overland for thousands of kilometres, through jungle and near-desert plain – sometimes stopped over at Borroloola with their herds. No doubt the men were tough, and Saturday nights must have got pretty wild in this one-horse, one-pub outpost.

One thing though, that visitors to Borroloola found over the decades last century, was that the few people who lived there seemed darn well educated, for a mob of bushies.

Sometimes a man could be seen sitting under a tree by the crocodilian river, reading a copy of Virgil, or Plutarch, or Henry James. A visit to the aboriginal encampments of the region might reveal an illustrated leather-bound Shakespeare whose pictures would be appreciated, and a drovers’ camp might turn up a fine Bible, the pages of which made useful fire starters or toilet paper.

There was a bloke lived around there, name of Roger Jose. This old eccentric and his aboriginal wife lived outside the ‘town’, like Diogenes and his barrel, in an upturned water tank, sweltering in the nearly equatorial sun. When a rare visitor arrived, Roger would treat them to some of his favourite fare, which included a glass or two of metho (methylated spirits), a shot or two of sal vital, and a nip of strychnine as a bolting heart starter ...

Tagged: australia, northern+territory, folklore, library, libraries, librarianship

John Stone and Queen Isabella, his heroine

Former Australian treasury secretary and National Party senator John Stone has written a very reactionary article, 'Some will not integrate', about the immigration of Muslims, and I have felt drawn to comment. So have a lot of other people, and the discussion is lively.

Mr Stone writes: "I am thinking of founding the Queen Isabella Society", referring to Isabella of Castile, the notoriously cruel ruler of Spain who, with her equally horrendous husband Ferdinand, created the Spanish Inquisition, ordered 150,000 Jewish subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion, and so on.

Queen Isabella is a heroine of the Neo-Nazi Stormfront organisation (see this discussion page) for "liberating" Spain from the Muslim Moriscos (one of history's bloodthirstiest chapters of two-way oppression and racism).
Check out the comments page: mine, naturally enough, are by 'Almanac'.

Tagged: australia, racism, race+hatred, islam, muslims, national+party, muslim, jewish, anti-semitism

Think like a search engine: Tips on searching the Almanac

There's a number of ways to find one's way around the whole Wilson's Almanac project. Some readers heap glowing praise on the Almanac for its navigability and searchability -- and some readers say it sucks.

I have to search the Almanac myself, several times a day, and like to believe the project is highly navigable and searchable, but there are ways to do it and ways not to -- like any catalogue search at a library. My advice: Try to think like a search engine.

The SiteMap
Most of what's in the Almanac can be traced here. There is a link to the SiteMap in the menu bar on almost all Almanac pages.

The Search engines
There are different parts to the Almanac project. The search engines search The Book of Days (more than 3,390,000 words of folklore, calendar customs, On This Day, etc), The Blogmanac, and the Scriptorium (the rest of the project; the wilsonsalmanac.com domain, excluding the Book of Days). If you want current events, you'll be more likely to find it in the Blogmanac than the BoD. All the guidelines you need are on the search page.

There is also a menu bar on top of most pages.

Unwise search queries
I get weekly reports from the search engines and get really saddened when I see how badly some of the searches are performed, knowing that the searcher will have gone home empty handed. Here are some typical examples, and my suggestions alongside each.

"how many tuesdays have been the 1st from 1860 until 2005"
(This is the most common kind of error --- I wonder if people ask questions of Google. People can think like search engines, but search engines can't think like people, so don't ask the search engine a question, type in one, two or three keywords.)

"autobiography and picture of guy de maupassant" (Way too much info. Just try "maupassant".)
"thanksgiving on 24th of november" (Go to Book of Days for November 24, or just search "Thanksgiving")
"lord byron to william s" (Spelling: Williams)
"anzac slouch hat history" (Too specific. Just try "anzac hat")
"alchemists in the almanac" (Try "alchemist" or "alchemists")
"australian all hallows eve" (It will more likely say Australia than Australian. Try "australia halloween".)
"holy grail march 5 arthurian book of days" (Try "grail arthur" or go to March 5 in the Book of Days")
"a midsummers nights dream" (If you leave the apostrophe out, the search engine might not find "night's")
"kriss kringle" (Try kris, or just kringle. Why make it harder for the engine?)
"may 1" (No need to search for it. Go to May 1 in the Book of Days)
"canadian thanksgiving" (Try "canada thanksgiving", that's more likely)
"november folklore" (The overall folklore of the month will be found at November 1 in the Book of Days)
"may 11 1987 first heart lung transpla t" (Spelling! Try "heart lung transplant". Better still, go to May 11 in the BoD)
"pope woman intercourse" (I hope you found something)
"quotes quotations" (Use the SiteMap: we have a quotations page)
"wolrd s last whale" (Spelling! Apostrophe!)
"mustafa kemal atatürk was he one of the heroes of gallipoli" (Bloody hell! Try "atatürk" or "ataturk")
"the month of october" (October lore: October 1 in the BoD)
"23october1992" (D'oh! This one-word search term will get you nowhere.)
"1oo myths facts" ( the letter "o" is not a zero. Try "100", but it's so vague a search term, don't hold your breath)

In short, please read the Search guidelines, and get to know what is here at the SiteMap (gateway to almost 4,000 pages) -- and think like a search engine, dear reader. If all else fails, email your almanackist and I will try to help.

Request to teachers of the world
Do your students ask Google questions like the one in red above, or do they know how to search? Please take an hour this week and teach kids how to search, because with that skill alone, they can go a l-o-o-o-ng way.

Tagged: search+terms, search+engine, atomz, search+engines, google, teaching, education, seo, school, schools, library, libraries

John Clarke and Brian Dawe

Australian readers will know the hilarious parodies by John Clarke and Brian Dawe.

This one has an interview (by Dawe) of Prime Monster John Howard (Clarke). Note the flag!

'Prime Minister John Howard' said a few words at the Nov 15 rally. Watch videos: Broadband :: Dialup (Windows Media Player) or Broadband :: Dialup (Quicktime, best for Macs)

Tagged: australia, humour, humor, industrial+relations, law, legislation

Take a Stand Barnaby! Urgent petition for Aussies

Dear Senator Joyce,
Over the past months you have raised many valid concerns about the WorkChoices legislation before the Senate.
The Government's 'economic argument' for WorkChoices is a furphy: 'I don't know whether there is a strong economic argument for it.' (The Age, November 16)
WorkChoices is a recipe for exploitation: 'I don't think it's fair enough to say just because it's your first job you should be able to be completely exploited.' (The Age, October 31) 'You have to be mindful of people with no bargaining power.' (The Australian, November 1)
WorkChoices places meal breaks and paid public holidays in jeopardy: 'You'd have no chance of pushing that donkey around the yard.' (The Age, July 28)
WorkChoices enshrines inherently inequitable unfair dismissal laws: 'They get to 100 and surprise, surprise, everyone from that point on gets employed by a services trust so they never technically went over the limit.' (Daily Telegraph, November 10)
These points cannot be dismissed as mere technicalities, and can't be fixed with hasty amendments. They are examples of the unfairness inherent in the WorkChoices Bill.

We, the undersigned, ask you to use your pivotal role in the Senate to vote against the Bill. On November 1, you said, 'I am always prepared to cross the floor, otherwise you aren't doing your job.' (The Australian). The decision you make is not only critical for Queensland, but to the future of all Australians and their families.
Take a Stand Barnaby!

Pass it on!

Tagged: australia, activism, industrial+relations, law, legislation

Daily Flute is a hoot

Daily Flute is a blog I think Australian readers in particular will find funny and intelligent.

Open Letter to the Australian Prime Minister

Open Letter to the Prime Minister
By John and Barbara Gunn
Wednesday 23 November 2005

Dear Prime Minister John Howard

I write to you as the father of five sons and a daughter -- all now mature, intelligent and hardworking Australian citizens -- and as grandfather of 11 more Australians. I also mention that I served in the Royal Australian Navy as a destroyer navigator and as a Fleet Air Arm pilot, from 1939 to 1950.

These, sir, are my credentials as an Australian who, until recently, was proud of his country, proud of the men and women who led it, proud of its fight against our powerful enemies in World War II to preserve our national values of decency and fairness.

It has been my privilege to write about generations of past Australians (an official history of Qantas and an official history of our railways in New South Wales) whose achievements helped make Australia the internationally admired country that your Government is in the process of destroying.

I write also on behalf of my wife. Her father, Colin Bingham, was a great Australian and war correspondent in World War II, and later editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. My mother, Nancy Gunn (serving in the WAAF), was the only woman in World War II allowed in the Central War Room of General Douglas MacArthur.

Do you get the picture, sir? We served our country, loved it, hoped for its future. You sir, in just a few years, have changed all this. You govern by provoking fear and uncertainty, by manipulation, by downright deceit.

Let me state succinctly how my wife and I view our remaining years in an Australia polluted and threatened by your actions. (I am now 80; my wife is 73.)

Whatever laws you may pass to serve your power-preserving ends we will, both of us, be outspoken in public and in private, in our efforts to bring your actions as a Government into disrepute. We shall be outspoken in our deep opposition to Australia's involvement in Iraq and the ongoing violence this has provoked. We will emphasise the deceitful intent of your industrial relations legislation, the obscenity of your actions in the children overboard matter and your abandonment of David Hicks, Australian citizen. We shall mock and lament your cowardly and submissive attitude to President George Bush and his devious advisers.

If these are acts of sedition, then so be it. To be imprisoned for such ‘sedition’ would be an honour.

You diminish us all by your cold immorality.

We are comforted by the fact that we are not alone in our views.

New Matilda

Dubya's Thanksgiving

Click to embiggen

From my flickr

Tagged: bush, funny, dubya, thanksgiving, humour, humor, parody

Democrats not the only ones aghast at administration

"... The torture we engaged in Iraq or in outsourcing the work was attributed to renegade elements in the military. When Congress wanted to pass a law prohibiting torture, though, Vice President Cheney objected. Suddenly, it seems the renegade elements reside in the White House.

"Rusher refers to the 'Democrats' Plan.' There is no plan. The Democrats have been very low key while our nation spiraled into a quagmire. They simply watched while the Republicans self-destructed ..."
Napa Valley Register Online | CommentaryOpinion

St Clement and Wayland the Smith

St Clement’s day marks the first day of Winter in the Julian (OS) calendar.

As patron of blacksmiths and metalworkers, Clement is an aspect of the Saxon and Norse godling Wayland the Smith (Weyland; Weland; Watlende), cognate of the North-Germanic/Norse Völundr, the smith of the gods, who was the son of the giant sailor Wate and of a mermaid ...

Tagged: british, english, european, folklore, saint, saints, christianity, pagan, neopagan

Van Nguyen's brother flies to Singapore to say goodbye

On February 3, 1967, the Australian State of Victoria took the life of Ronald Ryan, and so widespread was the revulsion and anger that, thankfully, no person has since been executed by any Australian government.

Now Australians watch powerlessly as another Australian, 25-year-old Van Nguyen, is to be killed by a State, this time, Singapore, and it is a truly sad and pathetic moment for Australians, and I regret to say a shameful one for the Singaporeans.

"The twin brother of the convicted Australian drug trafficker, Van Nguyen, has flown to Singapore to bid his brother a last farewell."
PM

Pictured: Friends place hands from their reach out campaign in front of the State Library in Melbourne / David Crosling (Source)

Tagged: capital+punishment, human+rights, civil+rights, civil+liberties

JFK, Dallas

1963 John F Kennedy assassination: In Dallas, Texas, US President John F Kennedy was assassinated, Texas Governor John B Connally was seriously wounded, and US Vice-President Lyndon B Johnson was sworn-in as the 36th President of the United States ...

Big list of JFK assassination links, books, videos, today in the Book of Days.

Tagged: jfk, cia, mafia, kennedy, usa, history, assassination

Study: Greenland is shrinking at surprising rate

"A new study reveals one of the largest glaciers in Greenland is shrinking and speeding to the sea faster than scientists expected. If it continues, Greenland itself could become much smaller during this century and global seas could rise as much as 3 feet."
Yahoo! News

Tagged: global+warming, climate+change, environment, ecology, oil

Gonorrhea Lectim

The Center for Disease Control has issued a warning about a new virulent strain of Sexually Transmitted Disease.

The disease is contracted through dangerous and high-risk behavior. The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim and pronounced "gonna re-elect him." Many victims contracted it in 2004, after having been screwed for the previous four years. Cognitive characteristics of individuals infected include: anti-social personality disorders, delusions of grandeur with messianic overtones, extreme cognitive dissonance, inability to incorporate new information, pronounced xenophobia and paranoia, inability to accept responsibility for your own actions, cowardice masked by misplaced bravado, uncontrolled facial smirking, ignorance of geography and history, tendencies towards evangelical theocracy, categorical all-or-nothing behavior.

Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed at how this destructive disease, which originated only a few years ago from a bush found in Texas, has spread throughout the country.

(Thanks J-9 at pagans4peace)

Tagged: dubya, bush, humor, humour

Ex-CIA boss: Cheney is 'vice president for torture'

"Former CIA chief Stansfield Turner lashed out at Dick Cheney on Thursday, calling him a "vice president for torture" that is out of touch with the American people."
Ex-CIA boss: Cheney is 'vice president for torture'

Tagged: cheney, bush, cia, torture, human+rights, civil+liberties, usa, iraq, war, peace, progressive

Protesters tell Rumsfeld to leave Australia

"A 500-strong rally in central Adelaide today called United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal and demanded he go home.

"With strict security precautions in place there was little prospect that any demonstrators could get near any venue in which Mr Rumsfeld or US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Zoellick were present."
The Advertiser

Tagged: australia, usa, rumsfeld, activism, progressive, iraq, war, peace, war+crimes

Texas town adopts corporate name

"Back in the 1950s, Hot Springs, N.M., was renamed Truth or Consequences, N.M., after a popular quiz show. During the dot-com boom of 2000, Halfway, Ore. agreed to become Half.com for one year.

"This week, Clark, Texas, morphed into DISH, Texas. Residents in Santa, Idaho, meanwhile, are weighing the pros and cons of changing to Secretsanta.com, Idaho.

"Across the nation, small communities are being courted by large corporations who say renaming a town provides a marketing buzz that can't be bought in television ads. Though some worry about corporate America's increasing influence in local government, most towns seem eager to accept."
Commercial Alert

Tagged: advertising, pr, public+relations, corporations, usa, media

Man in the Iron Mask

1703 The death of the Man in the Iron Mask

Held for more than forty years in prison (the 19th Century folklorist Robert Chambers says only the last five years of his imprisonment were actually in Bastille) during the reign of King Louis XIV, the Man in the Iron Mask was an unknown prisoner. When travelling from prison to prison, he always wore a mask of velvet, not iron.

He was buried as ‘M. de Marchiel’, but his true identity has never been revealed – one suggestion was that he was the Duc de Vermandois, an illegitimate son of Louis XIV ...

Tagged: mysteries, french, literature, france

Sydney's radical Active Service Brigade

1893 A cryptic ad in Sydney's Saturday Daily Telegraph read:

"ACTIVE SERVICE BRIGADE ('A' Division) — Church Parade, St. Andrews Cathedral, SUNDAY MORNING, 11; to hear of 'Him who has been murdered by the Law'. Countersign, 'Silence'. By order (7)."

When some 30 members of the far-left Active Service Brigade 'A' Division marched the following day, Sunday, November 19, on the no doubt bemused congregation of St Andrew's Cathedral, they were almost outnumbered by the plain clothes police officers watching them. Later 250 ASB members and sympathisers processed through the city, following a huge crucifix, to which was nailed an effigy of 'a down trodden man' in tattered rags, smeared with red paint.

One activist we may be sure was there that day would have been Arthur Desmond (c. 1859 - c. 1914), who used to sign himself "Number 7". He was a prime mover of the Brigade, which had its office and Reading Rooms at 221½ Castlereagh Street, Sydney, up a lane that ran off the street, between WHT McNamara's Book and News Depot, and Leigh House at 223, the home of the Australian Socialist League, another gathering place for 1890s Sydney radicals ...

The ASB was urban unemployed workers organised by an Irish elocutionist, John Dwyer (1856 - 1934), and Desmond during the 1890s Depression. The Brigade ran a soup kitchen, housed the homeless and also disrupted Parliament and, as we have seen, Protestant church services. The Active Service Brigade's aim was to "change the present competitive system into a co-operative and social system" ...

Tagged: sydney, australia, radical, labor, labour, history, anarchism, progressive

And it's definitely not about UK oil corporations

Three years ago today

"I have got no doubt either that the purpose of our challenge from the UN is disarmament of weapons of mass destruction, it is not regime change."
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, November 18, 2002

GM crop project scrapped after mice made ill

Australia: "The CSIRO [Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation] says its decision to abandon a project involving genetically-modified (GM) field peas proves safeguards around the technology are working.

"CSIRO scientists had successfully developed a GM field pea which proved almost completely resistant to insect attack.

"It promised to be a boon for the $100 million a year industry but now it has been discovered mice fed the modified pea became sick.

"The mice developed lung inflammation and the CSIRO decided to abandon the project."
ABC

GM peas destroyed after shock lab tests

Tagged: gm, genetically+modified

Singapore will kill Aussie in two weeks

Tragic news from Singapore, or, as I call it, Sing-Singapore.

"An execution date has been set for a Melbourne man convicted of drug trafficking in Singapore.

"Mr Lex Lasry, lawyer for convicted Australian drug trafficker Nguyen Toung Van says he will be executed in Singapore on December 2."
SBS

Singapore: The Modern Police State
Towards a Police State -- Big Brother is Watching Every Where All The Time
Singabloodypore
The burgeoning Singapore blogosphere
The Police State (Singapore blog)
Singapore Alternatives
Think Centre (human rights in Singapore)
Yawning Bread (partner to that excellent blog Howling Cheese?)
The Singapore Herald

I like Molly Meek, too

Google search Singapore capital punishment

Tagged: singapore, human+rights, civil+liberties, police+state, capital+punishment

Don Knotts as Dubya

There is only one man who can play the lead role in 'Dubya: The Movie'.

That man is Don Knotts.

View the trailer

Tagged: dubya, bush, humour, humor

US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about it

"Did US troops use chemical weapons in Falluja? The answer is yes. The proof is not to be found in the documentary broadcast on Italian TV last week, which has generated gigabytes of hype on the internet. It's a turkey, whose evidence that white phosphorus was fired at Iraqi troops is flimsy and circumstantial. But the bloggers debating it found the smoking gun ..."
Guardian Unlimited

US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on Fallujah

Tagged: white+phosphorus, chemical+weapons, iraq, wmds

Put another fakelore on the barbie

It's nearly Summer, and the prawns ("shrimps", our American cousins call them) are cheap in the shops this week.

They're not as cheap as they used to be, because they've been fished out, so $13 a kilo for poor-quality prawns, $22 for top-qual is cheap these days. In my youth they were so cheap that they were the preferred food of the street drunk, and a "derro" usually had a bottle of plonk in one overcoat pocket and a newspaper-wrap of prawns in the other.

It never fails to amuse me that Madison Avenue created a bit of modern folklore -- or fakelore -- in the USA twenty or so years ago with a Paul Hogan TV commercial (for Australian tourism) in which he said "Put another shrimp on the barbie".

I think most Australians, when they saw the commercial reported in the press here, thought that barbecuing prawns/shrimps must be an American culinary custom, because it never was here. In my short life of 52 years, I have seen prawns cooked on a barbecue only once, and that was in about 1997, by Brazilians. They tasted great (the prawns, not the Brazilians -- at least, most of the Brazilians), so perhaps we should indeed take it up as an Australian custom. I'd never heard the word "barbie" till that American-made ad, either, though we Aussies like to shorten words, tis tru.

Hey, you know the London pigs shot that poor Brazilian guy and tried to make it look like he was a terrorist? I wasn't fooled, bacause I know the difference between a Brazilian and a terrorist. You can negotiate with a terrorist.

By the way, to any Australian about 40 years and older, a barbecue means a cooking fire in some rural place ('the bush') or bushy setting ... something like a steel plate or one of the steel shelves from a fridge balanced on some rocks around a eucalyptus fire on the ground. In other words, a makeshift cooking platform over a campfire.

I've noticed in recent times that to younger souls (a generation that on the whole struggles far less valiantly than we did against brainwashing by consumerism and TV), a barbecue is a shop-bought device with a gas inlet. Everything must be made by others and puchased in a shop. If it ain't bought, it ain't good, sieg heil!

Sad, huh?

Interestingly, the barbecue is an American custom, picked up by Australians from US soldiers when they were here in WWII. Australians have always cooked in the bush, but the use of the word 'barbecue' is a recent addition to our vocabulary. People used to "go on a picnic". The shop-bought, gas-jet thing is even newer -- I first heard it about 10 or 15 years ago and nearly biffed the bloke. If he'd spelled it with a "q" (barbeque) or worse, "BBQ", the man would be dead now. What's even more appalling is that I, too, now use the term in its commercial sense. Dear dear.

I was married to a Brazilian once.

Tagged: folklore, australia, usa, america, american

Warning to Australia's Prime Minister Howard

Thanks, Almaniac Colin T from Queensland for forwarding this beauty:

NOTICE UNDER SECTION 46 Australian Constitution

From Peter Alexander Gargan
To John Winston Howard Member for Bennelong. House of Representatives Canberra.

15th November 2005.

Dear Sir,

BE WARNED: You are disqualified from Parliament by the Imperial Act attached to this letter, and are given a chance to resign forthwith, or face prosecution under Section 46 Australian Constitution.

There are 32 lawyers in the House of Representatives, or almost one quarter of the House, and 22 (twenty two) in the Senate, and all held or could hold an office of profit under the Crown, as officers of the Supreme Court and High Court in their respective States. This means an automatic disqualification from being elected. Since employers are usually the only ones who can regularly access legal advice at the prices lawyers charge, the lawyers in parliament are a member of a class of people who receive a pecuniary benefit from the laws they pass.

This mischief was addressed and cured in this year, by an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament, of exactly the same standing as the Australian Constitution, the Imperial Act under which Parliament is constituted. This is the text.

46 Edward III AD 1372
80. Lawyers and Sheriffs excluded from Parliament

WHEREAS men of the law who follow divers businesses in the king's courts on behalf of private persons, with whom they are, do procure and cause to be brought into parliament many petitions in the name of the commons, which in no wise relate to them, but only the private persons with whom they are engaged; also sheriffs who are common officers for the people, and ought to be abiding in their office, for the doing right to every one, are named, and have heretofore been and returned to parliament knights of the shires, by the same sheriffs; it is accorded and assented in this parliament, that hereafter no man of the law following business in the king's court, nor any sheriff for the time that he is sheriff, be returned nor accepted knights of the shires; nor that they who are men of the law and sheriffs now returned to parliament have any wages; but the king willeth that knights and sergeants of the most worthy of the county be hereafter returned knights in parliament; and that they be elected in full county.

Now that you know about this enactment, which by reference to Section 143
(1) (a) , Evidence Act 1995 (Cth) is strictly proved once presented in any court, you can take no further part in any proceedings in parliament, and neither can any of the other 32 lawyers in the House of Representatives, and
22 in the Senate. It would appear that by reference to this Act, legislation passed recently is invalid, and was obtained by a fraud on the Constitution.

If you resign immediately, you will probably retain your pension and entitlements, unless the new Parliament strips them from you, however, for every day you continue to sit, you are liable to a penalty of $100. Your salary must also stop immediately.

Imperial enactments came to Australia in the Australian Courts Act 1828, and evidence may be found in the Australia Act 1986, in Section 11, that this legislation remains un-repealed. Much fraudulent legislation has been enacted by Parliaments that have had lawyers participating, and much work will need to be done to repair the damage. Most Courts created by the Parliament since 1970, are fraudulently constituted with your fellow lawyers as absolute power-mongers in control.

The Constitution, in Section 108, prohibits the States from repealing Imperial enactments, and Section 118 brings in all the Imperial Acts forming part of the law in 1900. Lawyers have a genetic fault in their makeup, which allows them to listen, but not hear. Section 128 Constitution prohibits Her Majesty ELIZABETH THE SECOND from assenting to such laws, without a referendum, because they are the matrix on top of which the Constitution sits like a jewel. The Imperial Acts are the foundation stones on which justice has been built.

Luke 11 Verses 46 and 52, of the Gospels that Her Majesty ELIZABETH THE SECOND, has taken an oath to uphold, as set out on the 1 Will and Mary C 6
(Coronation Oath) (1688) deals with lawyers, and the description is pertinent today as it was 2000 years ago. 46 Says: "Woe unto you ye lawyers, for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers." And Verse 52 says: "Woe unto you lawyers! For ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves , and them that were entering in ye hindered." The Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1372, passed judgment upon you, and it remains in force to this day.

By Section 61 Constitution the Governor General as a military man, and the Queen's representative in Australia is obliged to withdraw your commission, on being satisfied, on the evidence that you were a lawyer, before entering Parliament, because he is responsible for upholding the Constitution and the laws that are conditions precedent to its enactment, from the British Constitution. In Section 62 Constitution the Governor General has an absolute discretion to dismiss you, at his pleasure, and he must be displeased, at the dirty deeds you are attempting to have him consent to. He must reserve these Bills, under S 58 Constitution, and may suggest amendments under the same section.

Before the Queen may allow these fundamental changes to the Australian Constitution she must withhold Her pleasure until a referendum is held under section 128 Constitution.

This is the warning you are entitled to as a Christian from Matthew 18 Verse
15, but should you not heed it, then you may expect further action promptly.

Yours sincerely

Peter Alexander Gargan.

Schedule: Carbon Copies to:

The Governor General of Australia The President of the ACTU The Secretary of the ACTU. The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. The Chief of the Federal Police. The Australian Broadcasting Commission. The Electoral Commission. Chief Justice of the High Court.

This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm

Tagged: australia, politics, humor, humour, political+humor

A satisfactory afternoon's work for Spanish imperialism

1532 The Battle of Cajamarca

New World: Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro (c. 1475 - 1541) seized Incan emperor Atahualpa (pictured; c. 1502 - August 29, 1533) after victory at Cajamarca, Peru.

Pizarro had just 168 men and Atahualpa had 80,000 battle-hardened soldiers who had recently defeated an indigenous enemy. However, the Spaniards had iron swords, guns, horses and armour, which the Incas did not. The result: surely one of history's most incredible battles – although largely forgotten today – and it was all over in a single afternoon.

The Spaniards' losses? Nil. ...

Tagged: spanish, history, peru, imperialism, south+america

Poll: Bush approval mark at all-time low

"Beset with an unpopular war and an American public increasingly less trusting, President Bush faces the lowest approval rating of his presidency, according to a national poll released Monday.

"Bush also received his all-time worst marks in three other categories in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. The categories were terrorism, Bush's trustworthiness and whether the Iraq war was worthwhile."
CNN

Walk Against Warming

Walk Against Warming [Australia] is being organised around an International Day of Climate Change Action with walks taking place in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra and Cairns. Other events around NSW are currently being planned from Coonabarabran to Parramatta.
Walk Against Warming


Help create a global wave of protest to press for the urgent action we need to prevent the catastrophic destabilisation of our global climate! For information on International activities visit: globalclimatecampaign.org

Tagged: activism, global+warming, climate+change, australia

Sydney rallies against Howard

"In Sydney, trucks and demonstrators blocked a major motorway as part of the protest.

"New South Wales Transport Workers Union secretary Tony Sheldon says protesters on the M4 motorway wanted to draw attention to the impact they say the laws will have on the trucking industry.

"'They're determined to protect motorists, their loved ones, their next door neighbours from the excesses of the Howard legislation that's going to cause more and more deregulation of the trucking industry and more unsafe rates and unsafe practices while there's a drive to the bottom,' he said.

"As expected the Labour Party bureaucrats were out in force to capitalise on the discontent for their careerist ambitions but interestingly the video of Bob Brown got a much bigger cheer than that of Kim Beazley, a nice contrast to the previous demo where workers were seen chanting 'beazley, beazley'."
Sydney Indymedia

Thousands protest Howard's anti-worker laws

"Australia: A crowd of up to 175,000 protesters in Melbourne has heard this morning that unions will hold the government to account for the 'human cost' of the federal government's new workplace laws.

"ACTU secretary Greg Combet urged all workers to join a union and fight the workplace reforms.

"Victorian Premier Steve Bracks and ACTU president Sharan Burrow also addressed the rally, Mr Bracks saying his government would mount a High Court challenge to the legislation.

"Traffic ground to a halt in Melbourne's CBD as protesters filled Federation Square and surrounding streeets."
The Age

Howard brushes off IR rallies

Thousands march in IR protests
Hundreds of thousands of workers protested over industrial relations reforms today, causing traffic havoc.
Fear and loathing in the CBD
Video: Scenes from the protests
Poll: Rate the marches
Gallery: Workers challenge IR laws
Gallery: Workers protest in Sydney

Tagged: protest, australia, industrial+relations, strike

Top 5 precepts of Christianity?

And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.
Acts 2: 44-46

I've read the Biblical accounts of Jesus of Nazareth and his earliest followers several times over the years, and have thus gained an admittedly subjective impression of what Christianity meant in the minds of those people.

From my reading, and after paring down to the bare basics, I conclude that Christianity's Top 5 precepts (not in any particular order) are:

* Believe in and obey a male supreme deity, (YHWH, or Jehovah, the God of the Jews);
* Love other people, even your enemies, as you love yourself;
* Eschew revenge: if someone hits you, turn the other cheek so they may hit you again;
* Sell all your property and possessions and give the proceeds to the poor;
* Live communally ("have all things in common").

Even as an atheist, I pretty much go along with four out of five (I live like a hermit but have lived communally and intend to again; I find it hard to love my enemies or even the general public, but I would prefer to). However, I must say that I can't figure out the response of today's Christianity to at least three of these precepts. Am I wrong here? Could the Church please explain, to make it easier for such a dummy?

Tagged: christianity, jesus, jesus+christ, bible, religion, church, catholicism, protestantism, religious+right, christian+right

Attack on Habeas Corpus: Read the latest

Google News habeas corpus. Read Restore Habeas Corpus in American Chronicle, which says:

"The sad thing is, a year ago, I was complaining about all the people who were comparing the Bush administration with fascist governments of the past, but the more I read about stuff like suspending Habeas Corpus, torture and entering our homes without due cause, the more I can see where people might start making those assumptions.

"If we don't change our actions soon, it may be too late to repair our tarnished image with the world community. Call your Senators and tell them that you demand they support Senate Bill 2517. This is Sen. Jeff Bingaman's (D-NM) amendment that will once again restore Habeas rights. Or, you can can go to one of two sites, Million Phone March and The Center for Constitutional Rights. You know it's the right thing to do."

"Can someone explain to me why an innocent man, someone who the military itself acknowledges committed no offense and presents no threat, is being held without charge at Gitmo?And then, can someone explain to me why the United States Senate has stripped that man (and others) of the right to habeas corpus? Finally, can anyone explain to me how it is that my lunch is staying down?" Source

Track new stories about habeas corpus – create an email alert :: RSS for news latest

Tagged: progressive, law, legal, habeas+corpus, authoritarianism, fascism

The Great Belzoni, forgotten archaeology pioneer

1778 The Great Belzoni, Giovanni Battista Belzoni (d. December 3, 1823), larger than life showman extraordinaire, who died of dysentery in Guinea, after attempting to travel to Tombouctou, often called Timbuctu or Timbuktu, a city on the Niger River in the West African country of Mali.

The explorer of Egypt and its antiquities was born the 14th child of a poor barber in Padua, Italy. Before becoming a famous traveller he was a barber, a Capuchin monk, magician, and a strongman in a circus). In Cork, Ireland in 1812, he promised to cut a man’s head off and put it back on again, but never quite got round to it. When Napoleon invaded his native land in 1798, Giovanni fled. For years he learned hydraulic engineering and worked as a merchant trader. In 1802, the 6’7” tall Belzoni adventurer moved to London where he was employed as a circus strongman called the ‘Patagonian Samson’, and later earned the name ‘The Great Belzoni’.

By a stroke of good fortune, Belzoni met up with a British Consul-General named Henry Salt who persuaded him to gather Egyptian treasures to send back to the British Museum. Although he can well be described as a tomb plunderer, he is perhaps the most important and yet least remembered explorer and archaeologist of the last two centuries. Under extremely adverse conditions he transported the colossal granite head of Rameses II from Thebes to England, where it is now one of the treasures of the British Museum.

Abu Simbel and Valley of the Kings
Belzoni went on to excavate the great temple of Abu Simbel. He discovered six major royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, including that of Seti I, and brought to the British Museum a spectacular collection of Egyptian antiquities ...

Tagged: history, trivia, egypt, archaeology, archeology

From the Almaniacs

I get sent some cool stuff. Kayla sent me this link to the Bush Speechwriter, and Nora from Extra!Extra! sent me this:

If you have a mouse with a scroll wheel on it, you can do some cool things:

SHIFT & Spin

Ever wonder what happens when you hold down the Shift key on a webpage and spin the wheel on your wheel mouse? Explorer goes either back or forward, depending on which direction you spin.

Give it a try. Open up Explorer and follow a few links. Then, hold down your SHIFT key and spin that wheel.

CTRL & Spin

If you are in a web browser (Explorer or Netscape) or reading an email in Outlook Express, hold down your Ctrl key and spin the wheel. It makes the text larger or smaller depending on which way you spin. For Opera users, it magnifies both the images and the text.

Tagged: bush, dubya, humor, humour

The power of disinfo

Click if you would like image embettermented

"The power of these lies was considerable. In a CBS News/New York Times poll released on Sept. 25, 2001, 60 percent of Americans thought Osama bin Laden had been the culprit in the attacks of two weeks earlier, either alone or in league with unnamed 'others' or with the Taliban; only 6 percent thought bin Laden had collaborated with Saddam; and only 2 percent thought Saddam had been the sole instigator. By the time we invaded Iraq in 2003, however, CBS News found that 53 percent believed Saddam had been 'personally involved' in 9/11; other polls showed that a similar percentage of Americans had even convinced themselves that the hijackers were Iraqis."
Frank Rich, '"We Do Not Torture" and Other Funny Stories', NY Times, November 13, 2005

Read the whole article free at alt.impeach.bush

Tagged: disinfo, disinformation, 9/11, 911, 9-11, propaganda, cia, osama, iraq, saddam, war, peace, progressive, wtc

Wikipedia and intelligence disinfo?

On this day in 1998 President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, after having ceased to comply with UN weapons inspectors on October 31, sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan offering to facilitate the inspections ... Read on

Aussie diplomat Richard Butler was head of the WMD inspection team (UNSCOM), and he made it clear in his 2000 book Saddam Defiant, that he and UNSCOM were told to get out of Iraq not by Hussein but by the USA (read on). Ever since then (December 16, 1998) the media and politicians have spun a lie. Now, even Wikipedia seems entangled in this extraordinarily widespread disinfo campaign:

See the Richard Butler article in Wikipedia; it rather obviously and disingenuously tries to paint Butler as a dishonourable man, while at the same time downplaying his activism against the Iraq invasion. It goes to great pains, too, to give as much of an impression as possible that Iraq had WMDs!

It is the most elaborate POV (point of view) article I have ever seen at Wikipedia in years. What is behind it? While I respect this free online encyclopaedia very much, as readers will know, it would be tremendously naive to think that intelligence agencies do not lean on it heavily, inserting false or biased information -- disinformation is the name of their game and Wikipedia is a cheap and easy way to spread the memes of the authoritarians.

See also the March 6, 2000 article, 'There They Go Again: The Washington Post's Iraq Tall Tale' on this very topic, which shows that people have been trying to dispel the disinfo far longer than I, who have only been at it for a mere thirty months. I really hope that people with more time than I will get in and dismantle and rewrite the Wikipedia article, and also I hope that my brief article UNSCOM weapons inspectors were not expelled from Iraq will be passed around the Net along with the article just mentioned, to try to rectify this false information which is now incredibly well entrenched. The falsity serves Bush's oil-neocon cabal, so that's where it was probably invented.

See also the Wilson's Almanac article Colin Powell lied to the UN ... it took more than two years, but Colin Powell said his behaviour was a "blot" on his record, and the assertions in our scoop article, disputed by so many, were finally and fully vindicated. Hey, CIA, how about a job? I'm unemployed, you know.

Tagged: unscom, disinfo, disinformation, propaganda, richard+butler, cia, iraq, war, peace, progressive, wmd, wmds

Nicholas Kristof: The exit from Iraq

"So how do we get out of Iraq?

It's easy to be antiwar, and tempting just to blast away at the Bush administration for getting us into this quagmire. But the essential question is how do we extricate ourselves, and that's a hard one to answer ..."

Tagged: iraq, war, peace, kristof, usa, terrorism, war+on+terror, illegal+occupation

A good day not to be Danish in England

1002 Ethnic cleansing: The St Brice’s Day Massacre, England

On the Feast of St Brice (successor to St Martin of Tours), the Anglo-Saxon people rose up and massacred all the Danish people living in England (mostly merchants and mercenaries), under whose Danelaw the Anglo-Saxon people were required to live.

It is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for the year 1002 that on St Brice’s Day the Danish community in Oxford, fearing for their lives, took refuge in St Frideswide’s, the minster church of the female saint who founded Oxford (Cardinal Wolsey later transformed her monastery into Christ Church College, and King Henry XIII made her church into Oxford cathedral). The townspeople burnt down the church building with considerable loss of life. Among those said to have been murdered were Gunnhild, sister of King Sweyn I (‘Forkbeard’) of Denmark ...

Tagged: english, history, genocide, ethnic+cleansing, danish, england, denmark, vikings, viking

From the mouth of Paul Keating

Another Aussie PM piece again today, but I think it's a goodie. I've just added to January 18 in the Book of Days some of my favourite quotes by Paul Keating, 24th Prime Minister of Australia.

Here's a sample:


Sydney is the only place to live in Australia – the rest is camping out.
Paul Keating

He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.
Paul Keating

A souffle doesn't rise twice.
Paul Keating on ousted opposition leader Andrew Peacock's chances of ever being Liberal Party leader again (Andrew Peacock, one-time intimate of Shirley Maclean, had a reputation as something of a 'spiv', or vain man)

It is the first time the Honourable Gentleman has got out from under the sunlamp.
Paul Keating to Andrew Peacock

... a fop such as the present Leader of the Opposition.
Paul Keating to Andrew Peacock

I suppose that the Honourable Gentleman’s hair, like his intellect, will recede into the darkness.
Paul Keating on Andrew Peacock

… if this gutless spiv, and I refer to him as a gutless spiv …
Paul Keating on Andrew Peacock

We’re not interested in the views of painted, perfumed gigolos.
Paul Keating on Andrew Peacock

John Howard has all the vision of Mr Magoo without the good intentions.
Paul Keating on then opposition leader and later Prime Minister John Howard

I'm not going to be fairy flossed away as my opposite number, John Hewson, is prepared to be fairy flossed away by some spaced out, vacuous ad agency.
Paul Keating on then opposition leader John Hewson

What we have got is a dead carcase, swinging in the breeze, but nobody will cut it down to replace him.
Paul Keating on John Howard

… the brain-damaged Leader of the Opposition …
Paul Keating on John Howard

But I will never get to the stage of wanting to lead the nation standing in front of the mirror each morning clipping the eyebrows here and clipping the eyebrows there with Janette and the kids: It’s like ‘Spot the eyebrows’.
Paul Keating on John Howard

I am not like the Leader of the Opposition. I did not slither out of the Cabinet room like a mangy maggot.
Paul Keating on John Howard

"You look like an Easter Island statue with an arse full of razor blades."

You look like an Easter Island statue with an arse full of razor blades.
Paul Keating to former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser (pictured)

This is the sort of little-boy, stamp your foot stuff which comes from a financial yuppie when you shoe him into parliament.
Paul Keating on John Hewson

Like being flogged with a warm lettuce.
Paul Keating on John Hewson

What we have as a leader of the National Party is a political carcase with a coat and tie on.
Paul Keating on Ian Sinclair

Codd will be lucky to get a job cleaning shithouses if I ever become Prime Minister.
Paul Keating on public servant Mike Codd

... the brain-damaged Honourable Member for Bruce ...
Paul Keating on Ken Aldred

You were heard in silence, so some of you scumbags on the front bench should wait a minute until you hear the responses from me.
Paul Keating

What really amuses me and almost makes me spew …
Paul Keating

Those opposite could not operate a tart shop.
Paul Keating

… for the benefit of the blockheads opposite ...
Paul Keating

Laurie Oakes is a cane toad.
Paul Keating on journalist Laurie Oakes

You have got to be joking. Whether the Treasurer wished to go there or not, I would forbid him going to the Senate to account to this unrepresentative swill over there.
Paul Keating, refusing to allow Treasurer John Dawkins to appear before a Senate inquiry, November 4, 1992

You had an important place in Australian society on the ABC and you gave it up to be a pop star … with a big cheque … and now you’re on to this sort of stuff. That shows what a 24 carat pissant you are, Richard, that’s for sure.
Paul Keating to TV journalist Richard Carleton

That you Jim? Paul Keating here. Just because you swallowed a fucking dictionary when you were about 15 doesn’t give you the right to pour a bucket of shit over the rest of us.
Paul Keating to former Labor politician, 'Diamond' Jim McClelland (on the phone)

Fucking animals.
Paul Keating on the Press

You boxhead, you wouldn't know. You are flat out counting past ten.
Paul Keating to Liberal Party politician Wilson Tuckey

You know me, love – downhill, one ski, no poles.
Paul Keating on taking risks

More

Tagged: australia, humor, humour, politics, political+humor

Australia: The Dismissal

1975 Australian constitutional crisis of 1975 ('The Dismissal'): Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed the Labor government of Gough Whitlam, commissioned conservative Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister, and announced a general election which took place on December 2.

It is generally regarded as the most significant domestic political and constitutional crisis in Australia's history ...

Interviews not to be missed
Phillip Adams (Late Night Live): Whitlam and Fraser on the 30th anniversary
Real Media Windows Media Download MP3 Podcast

Unfortunately, Adams doesn't interview Fraser and Whitlam together, but the old mortal enemies have indeed been known to appear together in public. Thirty years ago, Whitlam called on Australians to "maintain the rage", but that rage he feels is today more directed towards Kerr, who Whitlam calls "a contemptible man". In 2005, Whitlam finds that politically he has few disagreements with Malcolm Fraser.

The interview with Fraser, the man we all used to love to hate, is amazing: he is scathing of the government of John Howard, leader of the same Liberal Party he headed in 1975. He finds it amazing how far to the right politics has drifted, and he doesn't have a good word for the Liberal Party, which he believes was once truly "Liberal". Amazingly, Fraser, once reviled by the Left, and someone we all believed to be somewhat to the Right of Atilla the Hun, is now able to speak to Left-wing audiences to sustained standing ovations. Any Australian about 40 years and older will find this most astonishing, and will, I'm sure, appreciate the interview. Fraser also has some advice for Kim Beazley (the war-mad right-wing leader of the Labor Party): Sack your pollsters, and get some principle back into your party.

Howard: Not an overnight bastard
Something slips out in the interview with Fraser which is very interesting. It wasn't meant to slip out; Adams mistakenly believes that Fraser is giving him permission to mention something Fraser had once told him off the record. Adams reveals that almost 30 years ago John Howard opposed Fraser's progressive actions in allowing desperate Vietnamese 'boat people' refugees into Australia. No one will be surprised to hear that about current Australia's flint-hearted Prime Minister.

Tagged: australia, labor, progressive, history

Ratbags of the Week

"A push is under way to insert a reference to God in Australia's national anthem.

"Several god-fearing federal MPs say it is time that Advance Australia Fair was amended to reflect the nation's Christian values.

"Our national song does not mention God, unlike the anthems of New Zealand, the US and the UK ...

"Any amendment is likely to be hotly debated.

"High-profile Christian and Labor MP Kevin Rudd and Queensland Liberal MP Michael Johnson said a God reference was not needed.

"In the 1890s the sons and fathers debated about whether or not to establish religion in the Australian constitution," Mr Rudd said.

"'Wisely they decided not to. The same intelligently applies to our national anthem.'"
Courier-Mail

Tagged: australia, religion, christianity, authoritarianism

Leunig: Naming rights

I'm not a big Leunig fan, but this caught my eye.

Click to enbiggicate.

Night of Nicnevin, Daughter of Frenzy

(Martinmas Eve), Scotland

Scots Pagan festival honours an aspect of the goddess Diana. She rides with her entourage in the night hours of November 9-10. Nicnevin, who rode through the night with her followers "at the hinder end of harvest, on old Hallowe’en", as an old Scots poet describes it, made herself visible to mortals on this night.

Nicnevin is possibly an anglicization of Nic an Neamhain or Nigh Nemhain, ‘Daughter of Frenzy,’ an aspect of the triple Morrigan (Mórrígan). She rides the night skies on a broomstick at Samhain (October 31). Due to calendar changes, this old tradition may be seen as applying to tonight. Cognates: bean sidhe (Banshee); Gyre-Carling; Queen of Elphame; Daughter of the Bones ...

Tagged: irish, celtic, folklore, scottish, banshee, goddess, witch, witchcraft, wicca, pagan

So many Impeach Bush products

Lookit, Poppy, at all the products! "Impeach Bush" is the third most popular search term at Cafe Press, returning "2,014 Designs about "impeach bush" on 24,209 Products".

See also impeach at Google Image Search.

Tagged: impeach+bush

Evolution of the left

Click to emhugify.

Sadie Hawkins Day

In 1288 Scottish parliament legislated that any woman could propose to a man in Leap Year. If refused, the man had to compensate her by one pound. This law was adopted in France, Switzerland and Italy, and the tradition was carried to America, Australia and other countries. These days it is often said that Leap Year Day is the time that women may legitimately propose to men, while some people hold that the whole of a Leap Year is suitable.

American cartoonist Al Capp introduced the concept into his long-running syndicated comic strip L’il Abner. Sadie Hawkins Day (named for ‘the homeliest gal in the hills’), in the hillbilly town of Dogpatch, always featured a race for spinsters, and any bachelor must marry them if caught. Sadie Hawkins Day, which made its debut in the strip of November 15, 1937, is officially November 9, but by association with the Scottish tradition, February 29 is often given that name ...

See also Comix, comics and cartoons in the Book of Days :: Shop Comics

Tagged: comics, usa, american, folklore

Fall of Tenochtitlán

1519 Hernán Cortés entered Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomed him with great pomp as would befit a returning god.

It was the year that Italy saw the death, on May 2, of Leonardo da Vinci, followed shortly by his countrywoman Lucrezia Borgia on June 24.

In Rome, Germany’s Martin Luther was gazing on new works by Michelangelo and Raphael adorning the palace of Pope Leo X, while answering charges that he had called the pontiff “fallible”. Meanwhile, off the coast of Italy, Mediterranean traders sailed in fear of the corsairs of the notorious North African pirate, Khair ad Din ( Barbarossa).

At the time, in England, the ink was scarcely dry on Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), while elsewhere in Europe, King Charles of Spain was being elected Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile, across the big pond, Pedro Arias de Ávila, the new Governor of Panama was no doubt explaining to his superiors in Spain why in January he had beheaded Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the explorer and conquistador. In Holland, Erasmus published his Colloquia ...

Tagged: Tenochtitlán, american+history, mexico, history, moctezuma

Lookit, Poppy!

Found at Miss Cellania (lots more fun there), who writes: "Pictures I lifted from an very amusing blog called It Occurred To Me. He's got more Dubya fun on this post."

Tagged: bush, dubya, shrub, humor, humor, funny+pictures

TV host gets giggles

"Can this really be real? A foreign Kilroy gets the uncontrollable giggles while interviewing guests with a tragic tale to tell - because they have funny voices. We can't tell quite what's going on because we don't speak the lingo, but the chap has a very infectious laugh."
b3ta

Listen (WMV file). I'm still laffing.

Guy Fawkes Night, UK and New Zealand

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
We know no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Holla boys! holla boys! huzza-a-a!
A stick and a stake, for King George’s sake,
A stick and a stump, for Guy Fawkes’s rump!
Holla boys! holla boys! huzza-a-a!
Traditional English rhyme on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605

Guy Fawkes Night (often referred to as Bonfire Night) is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks on November 5, or the closest Friday or Saturday night.

Until the nineteenth century there was a special Church of England service for this commemoration in the Book of Common Prayer. Guy Fawkes Day became a public holiday in 1606 when it was proclaimed by an Act of Parliament. In commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot on this day in 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his comrades tried to blow up King James I and the whole English Parliament, English people still burn a 'guy' in effigy ...

Tagged: england, britain, british, english, folklore, calendar+customs, guy+fawkes, bonfire, bonfires, fireworks

Embetterment: Shrub does it again

"We both understand that institutions are important for the embetterment of the people, democratic institutions."
President Bush Meets with President Kirchner of Argentina, November 4, 2005

He's used the word before

The Embetterment Ingrinable Song 3.42 megs, very funny (Source)

The song is by the George W Bush Singers

Why Latin America Bashes Bush (current issue of TIME Magazine)

Tagged: bush, shrub, dubya, humor, humour, bushism, bushisms

Founding fathers say USA "not founded on Christianity"

1796 During the Presidency of George Washington, the government of the USA signed its first treaty with another nation. That treaty, made with Tripoli, Libya, included the statement, “The Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Tagged: usa, religion, atheism, agnosticism, rationalism

Ignatius Donnelly: American influenced Aussie radicals

1831 Ignatius Donnelly, American Congressman and author of utopian and fortean literature, especially on Atlantis.

The Atlantis Congressman
One of the most prominent 19th-century Atlantist authors (he made his fortune with Atlantis: the Antediluvian World) Ignatius Donnelly (born Philadelphia, November 3, 1831) was an idiosyncratic and somewhat quixotic American Congressman whose writings, particularly the utopian sci-fi novel, Cæsar’s Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century, profoundly influenced the working class in pre-federation (1901) Australia.

On November 18, 1893, in the Worker, a radical magazine, a journalist called "Murphy" pilloried and compared Australian poet and author Henry Lawson to Donnelly for his blood-and-thunder political article, 'A Leader of the Future' (Worker, 1893).

Perhaps ironically, he died in Minneapolis on the first day of the century, January 1, 1901 (precisely 100 years before this Almanac was founded) on the first day of the century, the very day that Australia’s federation took effect.

Tagged: atlantis, australia, radical+history

Guantanamo victims: Interview with James Yee

"James Yee served as the US army’s Muslim chaplain in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba in 2002.

"In September 2003 James Yee was his way to meet his wife and daughter for two weeks of leave in the US, when he was secretly arrested. Yee was subjected to sensory deprivation, taken into custody and held in solitary confinement for 76 days. His family did not know his whereabouts until the media broke the story ten days later.

"James Yee was accused of espionage spying, aiding the enemy, mutiny, sedition, and disobeying an order – and he was threatened with the death penalty. After several lengthy delays, all the charges against Yee were dropped. His record was wiped clean and he was given an honourable discharge from the army. He is still fighting for an apology.

"Tonight James Yee talks to Phillip about his personal ordeal; the mistreatment of detainees in Guantánamo Bay – including Australian David Hicks, and the pervasive culture of disrespect toward Muslims in the US army."
ABC

Listen :: Real Media :: Windows Media :: Download MP3 :: Podcast

James Yee's new book, For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire,
available through Cafe Diem!, our store

Tagged: guantanamo, david+hicks, torture, civil+rights, human+rights

Calendars for 2006 now in stock

Next year's calendars -- hundreds of them -- are now in at Cafe Diem!'s calendar store. We have lots of new posters, too, at the poster store.

The expulsion of English Jewry

1290 The expulsion of English Jewry. All the Jews in England had to leave the country by this date under a proclamation of the king.

Edward I of England (1239 - 1307), on his sick-bed, made a vow to God that if he recovered his health, he would undertake another crusade against the ‘infidels’. Some of the Jewish people of England had prospered as financiers when the country had squandered its wealth on the invasions of Palestine (the Crusades).

Edward’s proclamation, on August 31, gave all Jews just two months to leave the country, under penalty of death. They were permitted to take with them a small portion of their movable possessions, and only sufficient money to pay their travelling expenses ...

Tagged: england, english+history, britain, judaism, monarchy

US soldiers at Guantanamo 'tortured Aussie'

'New evidence' backs Hicks's torture claim

"Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks say they have uncovered evidence supporting claims that the South Australian may have been the subject of organised torture by American troops.

"In an interview with ABC TV's Four Corners program, Hicks's father Terry has detailed allegations of physical and sexual abuse of his son by American soldiers.

"'He said he had a bag over his head and he said, "Oh look, I know their accents - they're definitely American" - some pretty horrific things that were done to him,' he said.

"David Hicks also told his father he was given injections by the Americans and then anally penetrated with various objects.

"Another detainee says David Hicks told him of being flown by helicopter off a warship to an undisclosed location where he was spat on and beaten before being brought back to the ship ..."
ABC

US forces sexually abused Hicks, father says

Tagged: progressive, activism, usa, guantanamo, torture, david+hicks, human+rights, civil+rights, law, legal, iraq, war, peace