Daily Planet News now has over 200 free newsfeeds

When DPN had 150+ newsfeeds all on one page it was probably the biggest one-stop news source to be found. I've added a lot more, and now there are 200+ newsfeeds, still with the auto-refresh feature so that if you keep the page open and minimized you get the latest updates from those 200 sources every 15 minutes. I've added a daily cartoon too, just as an experiment.

I don't mean you get 200 headlines every 15 minutes.

I mean you get more than 600 headlines from more than 200 worldwide sources, refreshing four times an hour! Check it out and for variety of information compare it with CNN, Google News, Yahoo! News, NY Times, your local paper or Fox News, etc etc. Let me know what you think.

Why get news from one corporation, or even five or ten? I suggest you try Daily Planet News and I feel pretty confident you'll find it worth bookmarking. I myself check in several times a day just to see what's going on in the world. Get the news before TV, radio and printed newspapers. If you like it, thank you for spreading the word.

Tagged: internet+resources

Calvin's climes

Calvin Jones from http://climatechangeaction.blogspot.com writes:

"'Climate Change Action' now has a Group Map on Frappr so we can all see each other on a map!

"Come put yourself on the map, too!To see the 'Climate Change Action' map, click below or paste the URL into your browser http://www.frappr.com/?a=showmap&gid=608891&giv=1

"Its worldwide! Use the mouse to move the map."

Thanks Calvin. I'm going to add me.

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

Sydney thug was world's first movie star

1871 Young Griffo (Albert Griffiths; d. December 7, 1927), Australian boxer, Lightweight Boxing Champion of the World.

Young Griffo was born at Sofala on the goldfields of New South Wales, and grew up in the tough dockside district of Millers Point in Sydney (where Griffo is the usual nickname for anyone named Griffiths). There he sold newspapers for a living and learned to bare-knuckle fight. Australian boxer Larry Foley saw him in a street fight and added him to the Foley's Hall stable, and in 1893 the champion Young Griffo left for the USA, departing Sydney with his entourage on the same steamship as Robert Louis Stevenson.

Griffo's brilliant career in America came to a grinding end in New York City in 1895, at the peak of his international fame, after he was convicted of raping William Gottlieb, an 11-year-old boy. He spent the last three decades of his life drinking himself to death, was arrested for public drunkenness on numerous occasions, sometimes committed to psychiatric hospitals, worked in Tommy Burns's troupe for a time, and famously sat vacantly for years begging in Times Square, a familiar figure on the steps of the Rialto Theater.

He was also the star of Young Griffo vs. Battling Charles Barnett (filmed on the roof of Madison Square Garden, May 4, 1895), the first motion picture in the world to be screened before a paying audience, at 153 Broadway in New York City. It premiered on May 20, 1895, more than seven months before the Lumière brothers showed their film at the Grand Cafe on the Boulevard des Capucines, Paris, on December 28 – the event usually said to be the first movie-by-ticket screening in the world ...

Tagged: sport, cinema, australia, history, movies, australian+history

Sports jocks underwhelm Sydney

I have to admit I have a fierce competitor in the anti-competitive sports stakes, and we're going neck and neck for the gold medal. Baz le Tuff sends this link with glee and the comment "I wish I'd been there".

Two hundred people do not a tickertape parade make. Those 200 must have been the athletes and their mums and dads, plus all the council officials, media reps, sports industry sinecurists and masses of PR people with clipboards, plus One Wino and His Dog. There is hope yet when only 200 people out of a population of four million turn on a damp squib like this on a fine day.

Tagged: sport, anti-sport, competition, cooperation

Discover the Muslim heritage in our world

* Experience a thousand years of missing history
* Learn about a lost age of Muslim innovation and invention
* Discover the Muslim origins of many Western discoveries

"A unique UK based educational project that reveals the rich heritage that the Muslim community share with other communities in the UK and Europe. 1001 Inventions is a non-religious and non-political project seeking to allow the positive aspects of progress in science and technology to act as a bridge in understanding the interdependence of communities throughout human history.

"1001 Inventions consists of a UK-wide travelling exhibition, a colourful easy to read book, a dedicated website and a themed collection of educational posters complementing a secondary school teachers' pack.

"Discover Muslim Heritage in our World in seven conveniently organised zones: home, school, market, hospital, town, world and universe."
Source



Tagged: islam, science, muslim, muslims, history

Please read if you love literature and history

Why is a free educational resource being rejected by a Federal Government 'cultural' agency?

Surely not because (in part) it chronicles early progressive politics in Australia? Surely not political censorship!

The Wilson's Almanac Louisa and Henry Lawson Chronology (by far the biggest chronology on the Net covering Australian culture, literature and history of the period -- probably any period) has for months repeatedly been rejected for inclusion at the Australian Government's Culture and Recreation Portal, the 'Directory of Australian cultural organisations and resources'.

Some of the excuses offered have been bizarre to say the least, such as "The extraneous material which is not Australian content and links which are not directly related to Henry and Louisa Lawson make it difficult for us to categorise this as either Australian History or Literature." Other excuses have been even weirder (available on request if I could be bothered digging them up).

Don't take my word for it: Suck it and see

You might find it instructive to compare at random my FREE, 100,000-word, Australian-made, non-profit, high-Google-ranking resource for schools and scholars with some of the sites that have been included on various subjects in the government portal.

Many of the sites the portal links are miniscule, trivial and (unlike my chronology) very commercial and with lots of advertisements. But don't take my word for it, it might just be my sour grapes. See for yourself. For example, use the 'Blue cattle dog' search box (click here and scoll down) (it says "Find Australian cultural material with Bluey!") -- search any subject you like, eg foreign-owned brands like Westinghouse, Microsoft, Kodak, Shell Oil, Caltex, Ford Motor Company, etc. Try any "extraneous material which is not Australian content" you can think of, but the Louisa and Henry Lawson Chronology is not there -- it has been banned. Not Australian enough, you see.

If you think this is unfair, even if you are not Australian, please take a minute to contact the Minister, Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, giving reasons in support of The Louisa and Henry Lawson Chronology http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/lawsons/lawson_chronology.html as an aid to research in Australia and overseas.

And if you would pass on the link of this post to other individuals and groups who oppose political censorship, I would be very grateful. If you will tell webmasters, Members of Parliament, media, e-groups, anyone at all, so much the better. Thank you very much.

The permalink to this post is http://wilsonsalmanac.blogspot.com/2006/03/please-read-if-you-love-literature-and.html

Pip Wilson

Tagged: australia, history, australian+history, australian+literature, literature

Impeach Bush movement growing rapidly

I'm quite amazed at how quickly the Bush impeachment campaign is growing in the USA. Have you checked out Google News impeach bush lately? Also Google impeach bush is instructive.

It got off to a slow start but is really gathering momentum, as it should. There can be few people left in the world who doubt that Bush is America's worst president ever, and clearly a war criminal.

Tagged: bush, dubya, impeach+bush

Gouldian finches perhaps on path to recovery

"One of Australia's most endangered birds has reappeared in places it hasn't been seen for up to 15 years.

"The Gouldian Finch is listed as endangered, but researchers believe it could be on the path to recovery.

"Birdwatchers have reported the highest number of sightings in years in various places in the Northern Territory.

"Researchers, including Colleen O'Malley from the Threatened Species Network, believe better fire management may explain the increase in numbers.

"'And we're talking birds in the vicinity of 200 to 400 in a flock, which is a really exciting thing that sort of harks back to the days when there were flocks of thousands of birds,' she said."
ABC Asia Pacific

Photos of my Gouldians at Flickr

Tagged: finch, finches, gouldian, gouldians, bird, birds, australia, environment, extinction

Hold onto your hats, Australia

Here comes Category 5 Cyclone Glenda.

Tagged: global+warming, climate+change, environment

The solar eclipse as seen in Islamabad

The solar eclipse as seen in Islamabad (AFP)

If schools taught kids to read things apart from DVD covers ...

Australia, like the USA, does not need any more dumbing down. It's in desperate need of dumbing up.

"There are three certainties about Australian fiction today: fewer books are being published, sales are falling and shelf-lives are shorter. Is the literary novel dying down under? Rosemary Neill investigates

"According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, sales of Australian fiction fell from $125million in 2001-02 to $73 million in 2003-04.

"In telling admissions, two literary heavyweights interviewed for this story - Literature Board head John Emery and novelist Andrew McGahan - both reveal that they read more nonfiction than fiction. When asked whether he thinks Australian fiction is in crisis, McGahan says he can't comment because he hasn't read enough."
The Australian

Dips me lid to Baz 'Zola' le Tuff.

Tagged: australia, literature, australian+literature

Australia's 400th anniversary of European contact

"Australia on the Map: 1606-2006 (AOTM) is dedicated to encouraging the people of Australia plan events for 2006 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first europeon contacts with our continent. Our focus is particularly on the many Mariners who (whether by accident or design) charted our coasts – and put 'Australia on the Map', thereby making it known to the world ...

"Before any Australian history was written down the Original Australians lived here for more than 40.000 years. They may be the oldest continuous population in the world. Many hunted and gathered for their livelihood, some lived in semi-permanent villages. They arrived here from the North, group after group and occupied the continent ... Every Australian should know the name of Willem Janszoon and his ship the Duyfken, the first recorded ship and crew to chart an Australian coast as well as the first to meet with Aboriginal people ..."
AOTM

OK, gang, let's try a nice thought experiment

When Dutchman Willem Janszoon landed here in 1606 it was centuries after large merchant fleets of 25-ton ships from what is now called Indonesia had regularly been coming from the north to what is now called Australia -- as far as to Melbourne, at the far south of the continent -- for trade in trepang, a marine animal considered a delicacy by the Chinese. This trade with the Aborigines of Australia might have been going on since the 12th Century in the days of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, as I discuss in the article Robin Hood and his merry Sea Cucumbers.



The distances the Makassans sailed were vast (see map above: from Makassa to Melbourne is as good as Makassa to Africa). What if a Makassan ship traded with the Court of Kublai Khan (1215–1294)? What if an Australian Aboriginal sailor was on board? Why not? After years of trade between the two peoples, they surely picked up some of each other's languages. A strong native Australian might have been considered a good person to employ -- or enslave -- for ship duties.

What if a Chinese ship then took him to the North Sea via Africa? As we know from China's Kangnido Map (pictured below; it has provenance going back to 1330), Chinese sailors knew the whole coast of Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean, and even the name of Germany, which they transliterated as 'Alumangia' for the Latin word for Germany, Alemania.



What if my hypothetical Indigenous Australian seaman found his way to Germany, spent some time in a hotel enjoying draft Heinecken and frauleins, got to London, thence aboard a Crusader ship (maybe he was present at a battle at Jerusalem), thence another trading vessel, made it to South-east Asia, got another job on a Makassan prow, and ended up dying back home in the south of Australia with his lederhosen pockets stuffed with coins and trinkets from Germany, Norway, Greece, Malta, Libya, England, Jerusalem, Egypt, Iraq, Eastern Africa and Khan's China?

If his grave were found today in Melbourne, would Australia and the world revise its fantasy that "Nothing ever happened in Australia for 40,000 or 60,000 years, then Britain's Captain James Cook discovered it in 1770"?

Another point to note: 10th-Century Viking treasures (such as the Cuerdale Hoard) have been found in England that contained silver from as far afield as Afghanistan and Russia. Our 13th Century Aboriginal adventurer might have Afghan and Rusky coins in his pocket as well. Wouldn't Australia's Prime Monster John Howard be annoyed that some 'Abo' had done all that 700 years ago??!!

Tagged: australia, indigenous, aboriginal, maritime, history, china, australian+history, alternative+history

Cover of current issue of TIME

Here's the story, and as we always say, folks, keep abreast of Climate Change News at the Almanac.

Long live dirty rotten hippies!

It was sometime around 1975
a few years either side.
We said that the Soviet Union would implode soon,
because we read the samizdat.
Of course, years later the Czech Velvet Revolution
was named for Lou Reed & Velvet Underground, but the '70s
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that the next global challenge
was Islamic fundamentalism
because we talked to concerned, moderate Muslims.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said climate change was coming
because we read the science.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that car traffic would make cities unliveable
because we saw the signs of the times.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We started recycling in our own homes.
We lobbied local councils about recycling,
and were given the bum's rush.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that population pressures and deforestation
would lead to mudslides and other catastrophes
because we kept abreast of ecology.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that US conservatism would shift to neocon,
because we read the right books and papers.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said the US would end up invading the Middle East
because we read what the conservative think tanks wrote.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that the rate of destruction of the planet would increase
because we weren't blinded by corporate propaganda.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that oil was running out,
and our lives would have to change;
that we would need to find alternative energy sources urgently
and that soon prices of fuel would go sky high.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that ID cards, surveillance cameras etc would increase
because we had a good analysis of the corporate state's goals.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that wars would increase, not decrease as promised
because we analyzed the military-industrial complex.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that crime would increase and jails be corporatized
because, again, we read the right books and papers.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that people sould soon be able to work from home
via interconnected computers
(though the personal computer did not exist yet)
but warned that people might generally work longer, not shorter hours
because the technology would be co-opted by employers.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.
We said that corporations would grow massive
and push Ma and Pa capitalism to the wall
because we had a grasp on corporate capitalism and globalization.
We were dismissed as dirty rotten hippies.

How are we doing so far, man?

We said that Permaculture held the material solutions.
Because we were decades ahead of what the media know.
We were dismissed as ... you guessed it.

Long live dirty rotten hippies! Join us!


Tagged: global+warming, climate+change, environment, permaculture, sustainability, activism, action, progressive, war, peace

Observers converge to glimpse solar eclipse

"A total eclipse of the sun will be visible Wednesday in parts of Asia and Africa. The best viewing location is expected to be in Libya, which has issued special tourist visas for the event. But thousands of eclipse-watchers have converged on a tiny corner of northwest Egypt to catch the solar spectacle as well."
Voice of America

US warplanes bomb Iraqi eclipse site (Don't freak out, it's OK, that was August 10, 1999 when US warplanes bombed the hell out of eclipse watchers gathered for the last big eclipse of the century. Bush wouldn't bomb astronomers in Libya or Egypt ... would he?)

AT Sinclair has some animations of this and other eclipses. More info at NASA.

Lid dip to Dave Muller's South News for the flashback. Dave's article Iran, oil and the March solar eclipse is also thought provoking.

Tagged: astronomy, eclipse, iraq, libya

The death of alchemist Raymond Lulle

c. 1316 Raymond Lulle (Llull, Lull, or in Latin Raimundus Lullus; born c. 1232), Majorcan-born alchemist, was stoned to death by the natives of Mauritania. (Sources differ as to spelling of his name, as well as the date and cause of his death. We do know that he drafted his will on April 26, 1313.)

Lulle became an alchemist through an affair of the heart. He was in love with an extremely beautiful woman who refused to marry him. One day, when he tried again to win her heart, she showed her bosom inflamed by a cancer. He promised to cure her, and studied every book of medicine and chemistry that he could find. He cured her, and married her. After her death he attached himself to the church. The inhabitants of his home country of Majorca revere him as a martyr.
Lulle was the inventor of an early typewriting/calculating machine.

Lulle database

Alchemists in the Almanac: Cornelius Agrippa :: Roger Bacon :: Count Cagliostro :: John Dee
Edward Kelley :: Robert Fludd :: Isaac Newton :: Paracelsus :: James Price :: Tycho Brahe

Tagged: alchemy, occult

Sign petition to save Australia's ABC

"We are at a turning point in the future of a fundamental and cherished Australian institution, the ABC. Right now, the Cabinet's budget committee is deciding the ABC's funding for the next three years. Their next meeting is on Tuesday.

"As it stands, the ABC is $264 million poorer in real terms today than it was 20 years ago. The programs we rely on - from independent news and current and affairs to quality children's content - are under extreme pressure. In a very real sense, the integrity of the ABC is now at stake ..."
Sign the petition online

Critchley Parker's brave folly

1942 Australia: Critchley Parker, Jr, a young Melbourne friend of the Jewish people and wealthy son of a prominent publisher, set off enthusiastically to explore the area around Port Davey in south-west Tasmania as a possible site for a Jewish homeland. He did not return.

The new settlement, he wrote in his journal while starving to death in some of Australia's most remote, cold and wild country, would be the “Jewel of the Commonwealth”. He never lost faith, even in death.

Tasmanian fisherman Clyde Clayton had a drink with Parker before the young romantic set off alone into the wilderness on his quixotic scheme to survey potential sites for his quasi-Zionist fantasy.

Many years later, when asked what he would have done back in 1942 if he’d known Parker was surveying the land for a Jewish utopian colony, Clayton said, "I'd have carved him up and used him as cray bait".

Parker’s body was found on September 4 by fishermen sheltering from bad weather ...

Tagged: australia, history, israel, australian+history, utopianism

The mission was indeed accomplished

The mission was indeed accomplished -- Greg Palast's ideas, based on some claimed inside info, on why Bush invaded Iraq.

Tagged: bush, iraq, war, peace, oil, war+on+terror, impeach+bush, corporations

Happy birthday, daughter

Julia, my beloved baby girl, today turns 32.

She's always thought I was a foss. Now she's a foss. Jools is a most remarkable woman -- I would say that even if she hadn't given me five wonderful grandchildren: Sienna, Jayden, Briar Rose, Bailey and Miabella. Happy birthday, Toots. I couldn't love anyone more, but you know I'm challenged that way.

1986 (approx) photo of Jools, Jimi and your almanackist by Graeme Davey. Hi, Gravy! Deep gratitude, once again.

Whip the world, I wanna get on

This is really important. It's about my big life change, so please read on if you care.

A year or so ago I walked down to the general store in my customary naked (feet) way and trod on a bee, which stung me as though I were some kind of right-winger. It was then and there that I decided to stop fighting for Nature and to vote conservative for the rest of my life. I'm serious. I've been too hip for too long. All those 35 wasted years of the activist life. Nothing but poverty and failed causes. What did that bastard bee care? Nature can go and root itself. I mean it.

There's more. About three weeks ago someone asked me if I wanted a can of whipped cream. I'm a very absent-minded person -- no, Zippy the Pinhead is a very absent-minded person, I'm far more developed than that -- so my mind was on other things in some other century or universe as usual and I didn't think too deeply about what was being offered, and I never, ever knock back anything free, so I muttered "Thanks". I didn't really know what they meant, but I usually don't know what people mean anyway so I thought nothing of it and neither did they because they're used to me, or trying hard to be.

Anyway, this kind person gave me a little box of goodies, like a half a dozen things that normal people have -- these folks were passing through town on their way home after holidays up the -- ecchhh!! -- Gold Coast (Pip bites wrist till blood trickles down arm) and had this bunch of food and stuff left over and they know I'm always a good candidate for a food parcel. When I got home I unpacked my goodies (it was like Consumer Christmas for my sad, rarely opened fridge) ... and there was the "can of whipped cream". It really caught my eye.

It was a can that you shake and hold upside down and you press this button and it sprays whipped cream out. Something an old hippie like me is as likely to purchase as a rocket grenade launcher or a Perry Como album.

Now, I'm not saying I have never bought an aerosol can in my life, because every now and then I find it necessary (or convenient) to throw my values to the wind and bring home a spray can of something to wage chemical warfare on cockroaches. (Guilt, but I'm trying to be normal here, as well as honest, so please cut me some slack.) And the concept of aerosol-impelled cream was not new to me, because I remember a mate of mine 20 years ago told me he used to get a free stone in supermarket aisles by inhaling the nitrous oxide from whipped cream spray cans. I never did it that way, I just used to buy the sparklet bulb thingies and do it in the safety of my own home.

But the actual product was not something I had ever noticed before. I'm your typical dirty-longhair-New Age-get-a-job-hippie-freek shopper: I don't shop. It's never even occurred to me to glance at one those catalogs they stuff in my letterbox before I put it in the recycle bin. I don't even know where they come from or what they're about. They could have rocket grenade launchers for all I know. It's not that I'm out of touch with Planet Consume, but I don't listen to commercial radio and the last time I watched television Hoss Cartwright was looking for a lost heifer in the lower forty. Whipped cream in aerosol cans? You've gotta be kidding. What next? Videotapes?

Anyway, I was your typical hippie shopper. Not any more, not since I tasted coffee topped with a mountain of thick, white frothy stuff from some factory somewhere, probably in China with slave labourers. Who gives a shit? Like I said, I'm going to vote conservative from now on and I'm going to support every planet-raping industry I can find in the Yellow Pages. Any food that is mined rather than grown, that's the one for me. I want foodstuffs that are extruded, not alive. From now on my food must be engineered, denatured, overpackaged, chemically enabled to keep at room temperature for weeks on end, and marketed by gonadally challenged men with huge mortgages and miniscule consciences. Yayy team!!

Man, I dig that whipped cream the most. For a couple of weeks I had whipped cream on my morning two cups of coffee. This is what Heaven is all about -- that must be why most Christians have that polyester aura. Don't look for me after the Rapture, baby. This makes it worthwhile to chuck out every damn principle I ever had. Vive whipped cream spray cans! The planet can go to hell in a handbasket for all I care. Screw koalas and mooses. Meese. Whatever. This is all about me! I really miss that whipped cream spray can and if I can force myself to go into a shopping mall I'm gonna get me some more. I want to be normal! I want to rent a prohibitively priced time-share apartment at the Gold Coast and get me a tan and some vacuous babe!

Tagged: sustainability, permaculture, organic, progressive, activism, food

Photographers (USA), know your rights

NY photographer held for hours by police over flag photo

Thomas Hawk says,

Having been the subject of unwarranted police background checks and being detained when shooting in the streets of Oakland myself, I was dismayed to read about this guy, Ben Hider, who was detained by police for two hours, searched, forced to empty his pockets and frisked. His crime? Taking photos of the flags out in front of the courthouse. Although he was issued an apology this is just unacceptable behavior on the part of the police. Photography is not a crime. Link to ABC News story from White Plains, NY.

Here is Ben Hider's MySpace page. Looks like this is the photograph that got him in trouble.

Reader comment: Ryan says,

In response to the man who was hassled by police taking pictures of the (public!) courthouse ... this link is to an attorney's page whic has a nice PDF that states a photographer's rights. I keep a reduced one in my wallet in the case I am ever confronted, which seems like it may be sooner than later these days. Here's the PDF link.

Posted by Xeni Jardin tech culture journalist and co-editor of the award-winning weblog Boing Boing. Sent to me by Chris Keeley.

Tagged: usa, civil+rights, liberty, photography

Annunciation and the Tichborne Dole

Today marks the day that the Archangel Gabriel told Mary that she would give birth to Jesus. Annunciation, nine months before Christmas Day, is widely celebrated in Europe.

March 25 was the day, in 31 CE, of the first Easter, that is, the day on which Jesus Christ rose from the dead, according to early calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus. It was once also known to the Christians of Britain as 'Lady Day'. Lady Day is an abridgement of the old term ‘Our Lady's day’ – a ‘gaudy day’ of the Catholic Church, and it represents the Christianisation of older, pagan Spring Equinox festivals, in the much the same way that St Patrick's Day and Easter do.

The Tichborne Dole

In olden days in Hampshire, England, a certain Lady Mabella, on her deathbed from a crippling disease, asked Lord Tichborne to give her the means to bequeath a dole of money to anyone who asked for it on the day of Annunciation.

Sir Roger must have been a difficult man, or perhaps just parsimonious, for he promised her only the proceeds of as much land as she could go over while a firebrand was burning. However, a miraculous amount of strength came to her and she crawled around 23 acres, an area still to this day called the Crawls. On her deathbed the lady warned her family that they must keep the promise, and she predicted that the family name and its estates would die out if they neglected the Tichborne Dole, because a generation of seven sons would be succeeded by seven daughters, and the manor house itself would crumble.

It became tradition to bake 1400 loaves for the Dole, and to give twopence to any applicant if 1440 loaves did not go far enough. Only those families in Tichborne, Cheriton and Lane End have ever been entitled to this charitable disbursement. So it went for centuries, until the Tichborne estates had become a place of assembly for many paupers. By 1796, when rowdy vagrants assembled in large numbers on the common, the number of these paupers caused the Tichbornes to discontinue the Dole.

Local people remembered the final part of the Tichborne legend and Lady Mabella’s curse on any of her successors who should fail to distribute her dole. The penalty for such failure would be a generation of seven daughters (immediately following a family of seven sons), the family name would die out and the ancient house would fall down. Thus, it was seen as an omen when, in 1803, part of old Tichborne House collapsed into ruins. At the time, there were seven Tichborne sons. Misfortune befell the family in many ways ...

Tagged: british, folklore, history

President Bush's nephew interviewed in Iraq (what if?)

Vaporlock writes: "President Bush's nephew interviewed in Iraq. I'm sure he's a fine kid ... but it struck me while listening to him speak that it is very strange that while other peoples' [sic] children are having their lives destroyed daily, no one from the Bush family is 'actually' fighting in the 'War on Terror'."
President Bush's Nephew Interviewed in Iraq (what if?) (video)

I found it fascinating to see the family resemblance.

Tagged: dubya, bush, humour, humor, iraq, war, peace

Our friend and sister, Amal of SIEVX, leaves us

By Mary Dagmar Davies

"My friend, my sister, Amal Basry, the first to tell the story of the last hours of the people of SIEVX, died today. I thank God I spoke to her yesterday and was able to tell her that I loved her and that I cared.

"Amal and I had shared so much time on the phone, we had laughed and we had cried together. She was courageous, funny and strong but yesterday all her strength was gone. Instinctively I knew this was our last conversation. She told me how many things she could not do anymore as though she felt she must apologise.
'Amal just relax. There is nothing you need to do. You have done everything that could ever be asked of anyone.' I said.

"Yes Amal had done everything that could ever be asked of anyone. She had in fact done so much more. Amal Basry was the bravest, most wonderful woman I have ever known. I heard her name for the first time on October 23, 2001 four days after the sinking of SIEVX when she was quoted in the media saying 'Everybody has beautiful dreams about Australia.' I first spoke to her in December 2003, when she agreed to be a patron of JANNAH THE SIEVX MEMORIAL, and our conversation continued until yesterday ...

"I am fortunate that Amal Basry shared so much of her life, her experiences and her feelings with me. I spoke to one of the nurses who was caring for her in those last hours and told her about Amal and SIEVX. I thought it was important they know they were looking after a brave and brilliant woman. A woman who had survived for twenty hours in the sea among the dead and dying. She did so much to ensure the 146 children, 142 women and 65 men who died in the tragedy of SIEVX would not be forgotten and I hope she has joined those 353 souls in a much better place. Just as I know everyone who ever met her will ensure she will be remembered with respect by people all over this world.

"I seldom pray but I have prayed today. I seldom cry but I have cried today just as I cried when Amal and I first met. We both sobbed, we both said 'I love you' and 'You are my sister'; we seemed to say all this together as though we were one. I will never forget that loving hug. Amal felt warm and soft and wonderful, she felt as I remember my mother felt in happier times. My mother also died of breast cancer and her cancer like Amal's went into the bone and then the liver. Again today I feel as though I have lost my closest and dearest relative.

"I am devastated by Amal's passing. I cannot and will not remove her name from JANNAH THE SIEVX MEMORIAL. Amal Basry's name will remain unchanged heading the list of Patrons of Jannah just as she will continue to inspire all of us who care. My heart goes out to her family in Melbourne, Iraq and Iran. May God grant Amal Jannah and give her family the patience and strength to bear this loss."
Axis of Logic

Don't know about Australia's shame, 'SIEVX'? See October 19, 2001 in the Book of Days. [Wilson's Blogmanac is dedicated to the memory of the victims of SIEVX.] More at http://sievx.com/

"Mourners at a memorial service for SIEV-X survivor Amal Basry were asked last night to help enact her dream - to welcome people fleeing persecution.

"The Iraq-born woman spent 30 hours in the sea clinging to the corpse of another woman after an Indonesian people-smuggling boat, overladen with asylum seekers, sank in 2001.

"The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre's Kon Karapanagiotidis said: 'Her dream was that other people would not suffer as she did.'

"Mrs Basry, 51, who died on Saturday, was on her way to join her husband in Australia when the boat sank."
The Age

Tagged: siev-x, sievx

Women in Africa most affected by HIV/AIDS

Need own UN agency to address needs, UN Special Envoy Lewis says

Tagged: aids, africa

The sentencing of Mordechai Vanunu

1988 Mordechai Vanunu (b. 1954) was sentenced by an Israeli court to eight years' imprisonment for revealing Israel's nuclear program to England's Sunday Times.

He was kidnapped on September 30, 1986, and famously gave reporters clues to his predicament by writing details on the palm of his hand which he held up to the window of the vehicle he was being taken away in.

Vanunu was tried in secret, convicted of treason, sentenced on March 24, 1988 to 18 years in prison and spent many years in solitary confinement.

Vanunu was released from detention on April 21, 2004. Upon release Vanunu claimed his abduction had been by the CIA rather than Israel’s notorious Mossad secret agency as widely reported.

Tagged: nuclear, war, peace, activism, progressive, israel, cia

New TV ad campaign against global warming

"Environmental Defense and the Ad Council are launching the nation's first global warming PSA campaign today," writes a reader.

They don't say which nation (there are only 191 countries after all), so it must be USA. Yawn.

See the ads. Get your Climate Change News.

Great juggling finale

Even if you hate the Beatles, and loathe jugglers, I think you'd find this juggling feat by Chris Bliss to be pretty impressive.

(I actually think it will not only raise juggling in one's estimation, but also the music of the Beatles. That side two of Abbey Road still sounds so bloody good.)

Lid dip to Mary Ann.

Sustainability Dictionary

This is something cool I found at our constantly updating Action page: The Sustainability Dictionary.

This item was originally from the great sustainablog, one of my favourites, and delivered to the Action page via RSS.

Tagged: sustainability, permaculture

Get that special person to make your life perfect

Are you lonely? Do you need someone else in your life? Hate your own company? Can't do it alone? Get a grip, loser!

Or you could always try Wilson's Almanac Person to Person. There are plenty of relationship freaks just like you waiting to float your boat.

Loonie Moonie in the seat of US political power

2004 Self-styled Messiah and genuine wacko, Rev. Sun Myung Moon (b. 1920), and his wife Hak Ja Han were crowned the ‘King and Queen of Peace’ on Capitol Hill, inside the Dirksen Senate Office Building with Members of Congress looking on.

"It was the spirit world that said he was the Messiah," said Archbishop George A Stallings, Jr, pastor of an independent African-American Catholic congregation.

Moon, who is not only the head of the multi-million dollar Moonies cult and owner of the Washington Times, is also the font of such wisdom as: "Homosexuals and fornicators are like dirty dung eating dogs", and advice to men: "If your love organ does not listen to your conscience, then you should cut off the tip".

According to a Washington Post description of the event, more than a dozen US lawmakers attended. One of them, Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) "wore white gloves and carried a pillow holding an ornate crown that was placed on Moon's head".

Tagged: religion, cults, usa

Stop the Harp seal pup massacre

"However you look at it, the forthcoming mass cull of Canada's harp seal pups cannot be justified, says Nick Palmer

"If you thought that fox hunting, banned throughout Britain since last year, was beyond the bounds of acceptable behaviour towards animals, consider this: any day now Canadian hunters will start their annual slaughter of some 300,000 harp seal pups.

"Over the past three years, nearly a million seals have been clubbed and shot for their fur, with tens of thousands more -- according to the Canadian government -- left gravely wounded."
Dear Kitty

Harp seal news at Google

Tagged: canada, environment, wildlife, nature, arctic

More on repression of free speech and parody in Oz

More about the Richard Neville parody site that we have discussed here in the past few days (Aussie Prime Monster John Howard apparently can't take a joke and has actually used Australian Feds to remove a parody website!).

As one American reader wrote to me, the Australian Prime Minister must be incredibly vain.

http://richardneville.com/

http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/howard-spoof-site-caught-in-crossfire/2006/03/22/1142703433900.html

Thanks, Baz le Tuff.

Tagged: free+speech, civil+rights, human+rights, parody, liberty, progressive, humor, humour, richard+neville

Stephen Pearl Andrews, 200 yrs ahead of his time

1812 Stephen Pearl Andrews (d. May 21, 1886), anarchist abolitionist, Modern Times community founder (with Josiah Warren; 1799 - 1874); born at Templeton, Massachusetts, USA.

He was a lawyer, author (The Sovereignty of the Individual) and free-love advocate; it is said that he knew 32 languages.

He started with a brilliant career at the American bar and sacrificed it by his zealous work for the abolition of slavery. Andrews also contributed frequently to the Truth Seeker, a journal of rational thought that is still in publication (other eminent contributors included Thomas Edison, Clarence Darrow, Mark Twain, Robert G Ingersoll, HL Mencken, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Margaret Sanger). By the 1860s he was propounding an ideal society called Pantarchy, and from this he moved on to a philosophy he called "universology", which stressed the unity of all knowledge and activities.

Andrews was cited in the article on Anarchism by none other than Prince Peter Kropotkin in the famed 1910 edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica. Others who Kropotkin cites include Lysander Spooner, Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren, Herbert Spencer, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, August Spies, Albert Parsons. Kropotkin adds: "anarchism is connected with all the intellectual movement of our own times. JS Mill's Liberty, [Herbert] Spencer's Individual versus the State, Marc Guyau's Morality without Obligation or Sanction, and Fouillée's La Morale, I'art et la religion, the works of Multatuli (E Douwes Dekker), Richard Wagner's Art and Revolution, the works of Nietzsche, Emerson, W. Lloyd Garrison, Thoreau, Alexander Herzen, Edward Carpenter and so on; and in the domain of fiction, the dramas of Ibsen, the poetry of Walt Whitman, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Zola's Paris and Le Travail".

Early progressives in the Book of Days

Tagged: anarchism, progressive

All about SPIN and how it affects you

"Truth becomes relative as political spin and language laundering take over the world. There's a craziness in the air, in the flight from reason as politicians target gut emotions such as fear -- and rationality gets pushed aside by belief. In all this, the fastest growing industry is Professional Communications." [more]
Source

Definitely worth listening to this program from ABC Australia.

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

Tagged: disinformation, public+relations

$360 billion so far spent on Iraq

"... The weapons of mass destruction the administration said Saddam Hussein possessed before the war have never been found -- and many experts believe never existed. White House officials hammered then-chief economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey for claiming the war could cost as little as $100 billion, saying the estimate was too high. The actual tally is fast approaching four times that amount, according to the Congressional Research Service, which estimates a $360 billion price tag to date ..."
Washington Post: Old Forecasts Come Back to Haunt Bush

Tagged: iraq, war, peace, bush, military, army, disinformation

Goths grow up to be dentists and PR people

"This Guardian article, written by a former goth, makes the case that goths disproportionately grow up to be high-earning professionals -- and includes a 10-point quiz to help you figure out if your boss is a closet/reformed goth. Link "
Lid dip to Boing Boing

Bush and Rumsfeld's policy of No Touch Torture

A close friend of mine who died a few years ago had been, just before I met him, tortured for many months by the Soviet occupying force in Afghanistan. Two of the things they did to him were confine him in sensory deprivation, and make him stand on his feet for days on end.

Unlike another friend of mine who was tortured for three years in Iran by both the Shah's and the Ayatollah's agents (for writing progressive kids' books), Farid had very few scars on his body.

Remind you of something? Certainly: the USA's Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons (and countless others that have not yet been exposed). Prisoners wearing hoods, standing with arms outstretched, hands in gloves, ear muffs. Dark rooms, exposure to incessant loud music, cultural humiliation (like forcing religious men and women to appear nude in public) -- all these are part of it too, and they leave no tell-tale scars. CIA scientists, too, found out that these techniques actually break the will of the victims more quickly than physical torture and beatings. It's called No Touch Torture and President George W Bush has written it into the law of the United States of America.

Dear reader, this is a matter of USA policy, not "just a few bad apples" in the Army as Rumsfeld says. And it will continue until we stop it in its tracks. Worse -- it will grow and spread to other democracies.

Farid, my friend, a refugee from Afghanistan, was unable to live long in Sydney. He was too severely damaged in his mind. Soon after leaving me, he died on a bench at the well-known Sydney tourist destination called the El Alamein Fountain. I was honoured to be part of his Muslim funeral and I don't have to tell you how much we wept. I still weep, because I knew a little, but not as much as I do now after hearing the interview below, which I urge you to listen to. Had I known it then, I might have helped to save his life by finding the right treatment for him.

(His crime, by the way, had been that his late father had been a politician many years before, and that Farid had some US dollars and innocuous letters sent to him by his brother from Australia. No doubt the Russians called him a "dangerous terrorist", in the manner of the USA and Australian governments' treatment of people these days. But Farid had never had a political thought in his life. He was just a nice, skinny little guy in his 20s caught up in superpower geopolitics.)


Don't miss this interview

Alfred W McCoy, the eminent American author and scholar who worked for years in Australia, has recently researched the origins of this so called 'No Touch Torture', which was developed by scientists working for the CIA and the Soviets' KGB. Interestingly, he asserts that the FBI will not torture people, unlike their US Army and CIA counterparts, whose methods are based on the KUBARK Manual.

This extraordinary interview from Late Night Live is my pick of the week. Please listen to McCoy and tell your friends about it. We in the "free world" should all know this stuff.

Listen :: Real Media : Windows Media :: Download MP3 :: Podcast
A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror


Alfred W McCoy's new book, A Question of Torture is now available at discount in Cafe Diem!, the Almanac's online store.

"Cruel Science: The Long Shadow of CIA Torture Research"

Tagged: cia, kgb, torture, abu+ghraib, guantanamo, afghanistan, iraq, human+rights, civil+rights, war+on+terror, terrorism, bush, kubark, kubark+manual

March Equinox

(March 20, 21 or 22, varies)

The March 20 page in the Book of Days is a big'un. Check out the season: Autumn begins in this hemisphere, Spring in the Northern. We have a lot of related info from many cultures.

Cyclone Larry 'as bad as Tracy'

Spare a thought for the residents and wildlife of Australia's Deep North and this Category 5 cyclone Tropical Cyclone Larry (see Wikipedia article).



"The Mayor of Johnstone Shire in far north Queensland, Neil Clarke, says cyclone Larry is as bad as any cyclone in living memory.

"Category 5 cyclone Larry smashed into the far north Queensland coast this morning, lashing the area with winds of up to 290 kilometres an hour.

"Meteorologists say it is one of the biggest ever seen and residents say its force is frightening."
Source

Related Video
Real Broadband :: Real Dialup :: Win Broadband :: Win Dialup
Cyclone Larry Photo Gallery :: Bureau of Meteorology

Video On Demand ABC's latest video news featuring cyclone Larry

Cyclone Tracy, 1974 :: Climate Change News :: Latest headlines from Google

Tagged: climate+change, global+warming, cyclone, weather, hurricane, australia

More on John Howard's apology

Australia's Prime Minister represses satire against him

More on John Howard's apology as we reported a few days ago. Government orders spoof site shut. Thanks Mary Ann for the link.

Even though this country has terrible defamation laws that protect villains, this is the first instance in my lifetime in which I have heard of an Australian politician suppressing satire and parody.

It's a very disturbing development in a country that once boasted one of the world's most free presses, and a brilliant tradition of political satire. And it's a development that I feel should be widely condemned and discussed.

Support free speech in every country; support Richard Neville's site. The apology is here or here in PDF

More on Richard Neville and the Oz Trial of 1971 in which he figured prominently. Richard is pictured, above.

Tagged: satire, australia, parody, john+howard

Rare early Beatles photo

About 70 years before the Beatles were at the peak of their international fame, they worked the small clubs of Sydney, Australia, where they gained their first fans. It was at this time that they made the seminal album, 'George Street'. Click to embiggen.

Sir Richard Burton lived many lives in one

1821 Sir Richard Burton, British consul, explorer, translator, and orientalist.

Burton travelled alone and in disguise to Mecca, translated the classics Kama Sutra, The Perfumed Garden and Arabian Nights, journeyed with John Hanning Speke to discover the great lakes of Africa and the sources of the Nile, visited with Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, Utah, travelled far and wide, and wrote much. He later served as British Consul in Trieste, Damascus, and Fernando Po. He was knighted in 1866.

Burton died on October 20, 1890. His widow, Isabel Arundel Gordon, allegedly burned many of his papers, because she prudishly believed they would be harmful to his (and her) reputation due to sexually explicit content. This, however, is disputed.

Stone Talk (Lithophonema): Being Some of the Marvellous Sayings of a Petral Portion of Fleet Street, London, to One Doctor Polyglott, Ph.D.

By Frank Baker, D.O.N. [Richard Francis Burton] (London: Robert Hardwicke, 1865).

"This is Burton's pseudonymous foray into satire. He lampoons the British Empire, Victorian morals and, deliciously, the phony 'abolitionists' of his day." Source

Tagged: british+history, imperialism, literature, sex

One hundred pictures

That's it, and that's all it is. One hundred pictures. Constantly refreshing ... keep the page open and every 15 minutes a few new pictures will be on the page, depending on what photos people are taking. Or bookmark it and come back any time you feel like a lift. Because there are 100 pictures.

That's why, with great perspicacity, I've called the page One hundred pictures. Of course, there's a bit more to it than that. I've done my best to find interesting pix. Enjoy.

Lady Montagu brings inoculation from Turkey to the West

1718 Belgrade, London: Britain's first inoculation, for smallpox, was given, by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689 - 1762), to her infant son. Lady Mary had herself contracted the disease in 1715 at the age of 26 and wished to spare him the pain and disfigurement she had endured.

Lady Montagu, the celebrated letter writer, had seen in Turkey the custom of introducing smallpox by a needle into the veins, and she wrote "I am patriot enough to try to bring this useful invention into fashion in England".

The first patient, her son, did well, but almost the entire medical profession opposed inoculation, as did the clergy who considered it to be meddling in God's affairs. Lady Montague had to endure a great amount of personal strain from the opposition. However, the Princess of Wales became interested, and after having four condemned criminals (!) inoculated successfully, she had her own children exposed to the ‘ingrafted’ smallpox. As a result, the practice became fashionable. Voltaire learned of the practice as it became popular throughout England, and was largely responsible for its introduction into France.

In 1796 Edward Jenner announced the discovery of vaccination (from the Latin word for ‘cow’), which used cowpox rather than smallpox to introduce into the patient. By 1840 inoculation with smallpox was made illegal in Britain as vaccination was established.

Tagged: british+history, history, medicine

Now you can advertise on the Blogmanac

We now are taking ads at very reasonable monthly rates.

You can apply via the Blogads link in the left-hand sidebar.

Happy St Patrick's Day to all

Céad míle fáilte! A hundred thousand welcomes!

Well sure you'll be t'inking that if Wilson isn't around much today it's because he's drowning in Guinness (I wish) -- after all, his paternal great-grandparents met on the steamship coming from Ireland to Australia in the 1880s.

But the troot is, although I am indeed wearing the green today, I'm banjaxed and just got up from me deathbed to wish youse all a very, very happy St Patrick's Day. I expect I'll feel better soon and be sure be sure be sure be sure be sure to see you tomorrow.

And here's to the Irish, that most remarkable race who among other achievements have given us so many great writers, like James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, WB Yeats, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Jonathan Swift, George Bernard 'To Be' Shaw, John Millington Synge, Sean O'Casey and on and on and on.

How the small nation of Ireland with such a small population (still only about 5.8 million) can have influenced the whole world to such an extraordinary degree is a great mystery, but what I do know is that there are many times more than that number who are Irish on this the Irish national day, St Paddy's Day. And good luck to 'em all. We luv yez.

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Irish genealogy search for our readers :: Irish literature

St Patrick's Day free e-cards :: Irish blessings

Tagged: ireland, calendar+customs, saints, celebrations, folklore, lore, customs

State of the News Media 2006

The State of the News Media 2006. An annual report on American journalism.

Tagged: usa, media, journalism, disinformation

Call for ACCC to investigate Aboriginal art industry

"Police in Western Australia have called on the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate allegations of criminal activity in the Aboriginal art industry.

"Major Fraud Police carried out a two-year investigation after receiving information about fraud and corruption.

"Police were told about sweatshops where elderly Aboriginal people were forced into painting for hours at a time, for little return.

"They also heard about fake works, overpricing, and artists posing for photographs with paintings that weren't theirs."
PM

Tagged: australia

Monty Segur and the Holy Grail

1244 France: After a truce (beginning on March 1) in the siege at Montségur, four Cathar defenders escaped from the citadel perched 1,207 metres high on the granite outcrop. According to legend, they used ropes to lower themselves down the almost perpendicular slopes of the mountain, carrying with them the Holy Grail.

Their fate and destination are now the subject of myth and legend, as any reader of The Da Vinci Code knows.
A few hours later, between 205 and 225 Cathars marched down the southern slopes of the mountain where they were burned to death by the Albigensian Crusaders ...

The Dundee Code (sequel to The Da Vinci Code) Exclusive: We publish excerpts from the manuscript

Dubya and the lie detector

George W Bush said he was sick of people accusing him of lying us into war. Today he met with a gentleman from the CIA to administer a lie detector test to settle the matter once and for all.

The agent explained the test to Bush. He told him that he would ask a series of questions. He told Bush that when he told the truth the light would turn green, and if he told a lie, then the light would turn red. After explaining that to him, the agent asked Bush if he understood, and Bush said, "Yes." The light turned red.

[Lid dip, Mary Ann.]

Tagged: dubya, bush, humor, joke, humour

Salon publishes big Abu Ghraib archive

"Salon has published 279 photographs, 19 videos, and reports about the [USA] Army's internal investigation into detainee abuse inside Abu Ghraib -- along with background on how the publication obtained these materials. To date none of the officers identified as having been involved in the human rights scandal have been brought to justice in a court of law."

Link

Lid dip to Chris Keeley

Tagged: abu+ghraib, usa, army, military, human+rights, torture, iraq, civil+rights, war, peace

George W Bush's speechialist

Originally from kontraband

Tagged: dubya, bush, humor, humour, video

George Bush's funny words

Bin Laden is a really good hider

Funny George Bush video. "Don't listen to the filter."

I found it at OneGoodMove which got it from Comedy Central.

Tagged: dubya, bush, humor, humour, video

John Howard's apology

From the Prime Minister of Australia

During our recent celebrations of the Coalition's ten years in power, I have, as Prime Minister, been publicly reflecting on our Party's many great achievements, as was appropriate to do. But on this occasion, among old friends and senior colleagues, I wish to share some unsettling thoughts about the situation in Iraq.

Three years ago in Sydney, when I spoke to the men and women of the Australian Defence Force, who were gathered on the deck of HMAS Kanimbla, I felt that above all other Australians, they were entitled to know from me why it is that the Government had asked them to go to the Persian Gulf and face the armed forces of a dangerous dictator.

I said then that all the intelligence material collected over recent times, to which Australia had contributed, proved overwhelmingly that Saddam Hussein had maintained his stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and that he was on the brink of nuclear capability. This posed a real and unacceptable threat to the stability and security of our world. I said that unless Iraq was disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction totally and permanently then the Middle East would remain a powder keg, waiting for a match.

I sincerely believed that was true - on the best intelligence and advice that was available at that time. On February, 2003, I told Parliament, that disarming Iraq would bring enormous benefits to the Middle East and be widely welcomed throughout the world. Unfortunately, our expectations in this matter have not yet been realised. Even so, I have continued to hold firm to our commitment, despite the ups and downs of the occupation, because our alliance with the US is vital to the security of Australia.

On May 19, 2004, after my return from a visit to Baghdad, I told the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne that the situation in Iraq was rapidly improving. That the north of the country was relatively peaceful and most of the south was reasonably stable. I pointed out that Iraq was 'no longer ruled by a loathsome and homicidal dictator, and potentially hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved'. I sincerely believed that at the time.

There had been so many encouraging signs of progress. Let me re-iterate some of the signs I mentioned in 2004, and reflect on the situation from today's perspective, as we approach the third anniversary of the occupation.

I said then that electricity, water, telephone and sanitation were gradually being restored to pre-war levels or above. Sadly, this did not happen. As of February this year, 125 projects to provide electricity have been cancelled. Of the 136 projects that were originally pledged to improve Iraqi water and sanitation, only 49 will be ever finished ...

[The rest of the apology is here or here in PDF but it originates from Richard Neville and is reminiscent of President Bush announces Global Peace Imaginatorium. Good onya Richard, and thanks Janette for alerting me.]

Tagged: australia, iraq, humor, humour, parody, war, peace, war+on+terror

Gentile jokes

Thanks, Kayla, for these:


A Gentile goes into a clothing store and says: "This is a very fine jacket. How much is it?"

The salesman says: "It's $500."

The Gentile says, "OK, I'll take it."


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Two Gentiles meet on the street. The first one says,"You own your own business, don't you? How's it going?"

The other Gentile says, "Just great! Thanks for asking!"


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

A man calls his mother and says, "Mother, I know you're expecting me for dinner this evening, but something important has come up and I can't make it."

His mother says, "OK."


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

A Gentile couple goes to a nice restaurant: The man says: "I'll have the steak and a baked potato, and my wife will have the Julienne salad with house dressing. We'll both have coffee."

The waiter says: "How would you like your steak and salad prepared?"

The man says "I'd like the steak medium, the salad is fine as is."

The waiter says: "Thank you."


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

A Gentile man calls his elderly mother. He asks, " Mom, how are you feeling? Do you need anything?"

She says, "I feel fine, and I don't need anything. Thanks for calling."


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

A Gentile woman meets an old Gentile friend. The friend asks, "How is your son getting along?"

The Gentile woman says: "He's just fine. He just turned 35."

"And where does he live?" asks the friend.

"He lives at home with me. I don't think he'll ever get married."

The friend says, "How nice."

Tagged: humor, humour, jokes

Train of consciousness on China

Just a few random thoughts about China. Things that I don't hear mentioned often enough. In no particular order because I have a headache, toothache and am tired. Hey, it's my blog, I can blather if I want.

China in relation to the world is so complex now that no one can join the dots -- don't believe anyone who says they can. Sinology, like astrology, dream interpretation and spellings of the word 'felafel', has at least twenty-three varieties, all of them incorrect.

OK, everyone knows China's economy is growing at around 8 or 9%. Far fewer people seem to know that its military expenditure is growing at nearly 15% and that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is 2.8 million strong. Or that the PLA (through COSCO), had it not been for citizen outrage, very nearly was sold by the US Government the largest port on the west coast of the USA (Long Beach), and today largelycontrols the Panama Canal. (More and more on this.)

China's century? Or India's?
Everyone talks about this being China's century. Maybe. But it might be India's century and only China's half century. Because of China's one child policy, India -- which is growing economically much like China is (only with different industries) -- will have more young workers and China will have more old folks in about two generations from now. I have no crystal ball on how this will pan out, but I factor it into all my musings on the future. Another point: both India and China will hit the Peak Oil wall sooner rather than later. Of course, this is Foreign Relations 101 stuff, but if it is not considered in the light of Leninist thought, it can't be interpreted clearly.

China is not an ex-Communist state
Everyone -- especially business people, journalists and politicians -- blabs on about China being an ex-Communist country. This is a dangerous position to take, and demonstrably a crock. Sure, people admit that it is still authoritarian, but they say it is capitalist. The term 'Marxism-Leninism' does not occur in one conversation out of a thousand when China is being discussed.

Temporary capitalism
The power elite of China has not abandoned Marxism-Leninism. Marx-Lenin-Mao's places in the pantheon are secure. The temporary introduction of capitalist economic models is pure Lenin (vide his NEP -- New Economic Policy -- of 1921). Despite the complexity of the current situation, I still put my money on this being a dialectical retreat, especially when we consider that not all provinces are taking part in this new epoch. Certainly 2006 is not 1921 and I'm not trying to oversimplify this, but wouldn't it be lovely if one commentator in 100 actually knew something about the ideological underpinnings of China? It seems to be off the radar. Not at this Almanac it ain't!

Last random thought. The neocons are as divided and confused on China as anyone. There is no consensus on whether to contain, integrate, oppose or sell the hangman the rope to hang them (pardon the ancient allusion). Watch this space for more; I'm going to grab a nap.

Tagged: china, military, army, india, neocons, marxism-leninism, communism, progressive, war, peace

Simpsons live action video

What the hell. Here it is for those who haven't seen it.

Feast of the Mamuralia, ancient Rome

This festival was celebrated during the time of the Republic.

A man clad in furs was beaten with rods and driven beyond the bounds of the city, a practice said to have commemorated the expulsion of the smith Mamurius Veturius from the city, as Rome had suffered because of a shield he had provided. It seems that Mamurius represented the old year, depicted as the god of war, Mars. This festival also celebrates the art of armour making.

On this day, Frazer (Frazer, Sir James George (1854 - 1941), The Golden Bough, 1922, Ch. LVIII) tells us (originally the day before the traditional first full moon of the new year which began on March 1), a man dressed in goatskins would be ceremonially beaten with long white rods and chased out of the city in a rite of purification. Mamurius, representing the old year and all its troubles, is thus purged from the community.

Mamuralia and the scapegoat
This ritual of scapegoating is not uncommon in world cultures and religions – Frazer investigates some of these – and may be said to find an echo in the passion and execution of Jesus Christ ...

Tagged: ancient+rome, calendar+customs, festivals, holidays, religion

New Book Reviews and Tarot back working

OK, the New Book Reviews page is working now -- it was only down for a few hours but it bothered me.

And the Tarot Reading page is fixed too. That's one of my favourites and its being down bothered me even more. Thanks to Vince Pells the Scriptman for helping me out with this one. Great service from this Canadian company.

Tagged: occult, pagan, books, literature

US invasion - 250,000 dead civilians in Iraq

US invasion - 250,000 dead civilians in Iraq

Tagged: iraq, war, peace, progressive, military, army, usa, uk

Operation Northwoods: USA military planned terrorism in US

1962 Operation Northwoods

USA: The Joints Chiefs of Staff (the heads of the US Army, Air Force and Navy) presented a plan to Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara (and possibly to President John F Kennedy himself), that suggested using terrorism in the USA to turn opinion towards a US invasion of Cuba.

Long believed to be residing in the imagination of conspiracy theorists, the Operation Northwoods document (Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba) was declassified in recent years by the Freedom of Information Act.

We can be thankful that the military's plan was not enacted, for more reasons than one. McNamara has recently revealed that it was not till years after the Cuban Missile Crisis (began October 15, 1962), he discovered that Fidel Castro's Cuba had complete nuclear missiles; he and Kennedy had been incorrectly briefed by the CIA that the delivery systems were 'on the water' in a shipment from the USSR.
The Joint Chiefs even proposed killing astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit. The US brass wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof ... that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]" ...

Northwoods documents: false flag attacks video

Tagged: disinformation, usa, progressive, cia, war, peace, cuba, army, military, terrorism, war+on+terror

Important Ralph Schoenman interview

Rule and divide. Was the sophisticated bombing of the golden temple at Samara a set-up to turn Sunnis and Shi'ites against each other to distract from their reistance to the illegal Coalition occupation? Is the modus operandi of all this leading towards invasion of Iran, and why?

"Very concrete eyewitness testimony" that US and US-trained Iraqi National Forces were around the mosque just before the bombing, telling people to keep away. Photos showing people wiring the dome.

Former CIA analyst and presidential adviser Ray McGovern asserts that this is what is happening in Iraq.

Is the grand strategy to fragment Middle Eastern states into their ethnic and religious components to facilitate their conquest?

Good interview with Ralph Schoenman here (mp3).

Ralph Schoenman on Iraq, with some extraordinary assertions about the war's death toll ("250,000"), the reasons for the deaths of Western journalists, the bombing of the temple, British SAS forces in Muslim garb disguise, the profiteering behind the Dubai ports management controversy, and much more.

Listen to the end for the connection between the JFK asassination and the 9-11 fiasco. It's not your usual conspiracy nut stuff.

Thanks Almaniac Glenn Jerome for the link.

Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone, 'Taking Aim'

Tagged: iraq, usa, progressive, military, war, peace, disinformation, dubai

www.dictionary.hm

Almaniac Mary Ann sent me http://www.dictionary.hm/ which for me will never replace http://www.onelook.com/ or http://www.hyperdictionary.com/ but is a cool idea. I just wish I could drag the bookmarklet to my Links like it says, but I often find that with bookmarklets.

Tagged: internet+resources, internet, resources, english

LaRouche in Australia's boondocks

Who'd a thunk it? Wacko Lyndon LaRouche people have set up a literature street stall in Coffs Harbour, NSW, here in rural Australia.

Edwin Brady, a remarkable citizen of the world

I've just posted a page in the Scriptorium about an Australian bloke who lived a long life, from 1869 - 1952. He is not well known today, but I think he deserves to be.

Edwin Brady is his name. He's a fascinating man and his whole life was quite remarkable. As I am interested in Henry Lawson, I like Ed Brady because he was a loyal mate of Lawson's and helped him out when Lawson was at his lowest ebb, suffering badly from alcoholism. Like many Australian writers, Brady had his own struggle with the bottle, but overcame it and lived from the 1860s until six months before I was born.

Here's the Edwin Brady page, dedicated to a great Australian and citizen of Planet Earth.

Tagged: henry+lawson, australia, literature, australian, literature, history, australian+history, radical+history

Australia's first attempted assassination

1868 Prince Alfred (Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha), Duke of Edinburgh (1844 - 1900), the first member of Britain’s royal family to visit Australia, was shot by Irish-Australian Henry James O'Farrell, at Clontarf, a suburb of Sydney.

In one of Australia's greatest injustices, despite O’Farrell’s apparent mental instability, anti-Irish sentiment labelled the crime as political assassination and O’Farrell was hanged a few weeks later on April 21, merely for slightly injuring Queen Victoria’s son. To Prince Alfred's credit, he attempted to intercede to save his would-be killer.

Tagged: australia, royalty, history, australian+history

New at the Almanac, a book reviews page

As an adjunct to Cafe Diem, the Almanac's online store, we now have a page called New Book Reviews. I invite you to check it out.

Update: Just hours after I posted this, a problem occurred with the reviews provision site, so you might find that the reviews aren't showing today. Sorry, my timing wasn't so good!

Tagged: books, literature

Dee meets Kelley

1582 Two of Britain’s best-known magicians, the astrologer/mathematician Dr John Dee and necromancer Edward Kelley, met for the first time.

Dee, when spying abroad for Queen Elizabeth I, signed his letters ‘007’ - perhaps a prototype for Ian Fleming’s James Bond?

See also John Dee’s friendship with the mapmaker Mercator

Tagged: alchemy, astrology, occult, magick

'Granny D' Brings Her Message To Oregon

"Too old and tired to get involved in politics? Tell it to 96-year-old Doris 'Granny D' Haddock.

"'That's what you're supposed to do when you're 65 and retired - start serving the people from that time on,' a smiling Haddock said in a brief interview Wednesday afternoon.

"Haddock arrived in Eugene to kick off a four-day tour that includes a talk at the University of Oregon today followed by visits to Portland and Klamath Falls.

"She was honored Wednesday night at Cozmic Pizza, where she signed copies of her memoir, Granny D: You're Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell, and watched an excerpt from a documentary slated for broadcast on PBS, Granny D Goes to Washington."
Source :: Granny D in the Book of Days

Tagged: activism, progressive

Vale Gary Rhine, Rhino the blogger

I was an occasional reader of Rhino's blog, and thought it was very, very good. He had a progressive almanac on his site, too, so that appealed to me. Rhino was clever, progressive, caring, funny, hard working and dedicated to social change. We wrote to each other once or twice. I liked his name --- one of my dearest and oldest friends was also a Rhino, and he passed away a few years ago.

I only learned today that this Rhino, the blogger, also died quite recently.

"The following eulogy was delivered at Rhino's San Francisco service by Audrey Wells:

"Gary Rhine was so many things to so many people. At the top of his blog, he self-described as a political activist, satirist, fifth generation San Franciscan, filmmaker, father, paramedic and Indigenous rights activist ..."

The rest of the eulogy is here. Worth reading. My condolences to the family, friends and readers of a great blogger, one of the best.

March is Open Source for Appropriate Technology Month

Jeff at Sustainablog (a gem on the Net, so why not subscribe to his feed) writes:

"At Agroblogger and the Open Sourcing blog... I'd kicked in a paltry two cents two months ago, but now AB wants to get the wider blogosphere discussing 'the Viability of Open Source as a model for Appropriate Technology development.'"

Tagged: permaculture, sustainability, appropriate+technology

The Action Page just got bigger and better

Check out the Almanac's Action Page. From today it's much bigger and better, and I hope you'll find it worth bookmarking.

What is the Action Page, I strain to hear you ask?

It's a big auto-refreshing page of ideas for activism in many fields, taken from a number of feeds from the Web. Occasionally I've heard people say they're "bored". It's a word that need not be in the human vocabulary when there are so many causes worth putting energy into. And there are so many organisations of people dying to get helpers ... so the word "lonely" is another one to consign to the rubbish bin.

The Action Page should be a good place to start, and will have new material every time you visit on those bored and lonely days. :)

Tagged: action, activism, progressive, war, peace, environment

March 18, demonstrate to stop the war

Reasons to demonstrate

Iraq is suffering - the occupation has cost more than 100,000 lives with no end in sight.
Iraqis want our troops to go.
British troops are dying in Blair's war - nearly 100 so far, with hundreds more badly injured.
The US and Britain are plotting new aggression - against Iran above all. The war could spread and it could become a nuclear war.
We were lied to about the attack on Iraq - it is time Blair was held to account for his decisions, which have undermined democracy.
Blair's foreign policy is making Britain a terror target, as the atrocities of July 7 last year proved.
Freedom is under threat - civil liberties are being torn up by the government because of the so-called "war on terror".
British Muslims are under threat. We must stand together to protect communities being targeted by Islamophobic racists.
Billions are being wasted on the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan which could be used for pensions and public services in Britain.
March 18 is an international day of action against the occupation. Protests are already planned across the world, including in Iraq.
The world will be watching - let's show friend and foe alike that the British people are opposed to the Iraq occupation and the threats to world peace and our freedom.


Worldwide demonstrations:
Aalborg, Aarhus, Adana, Adelaide (20/3), Albuquerque, Alicante, Amsterdam, Ankara, Ann Arbor (19/3), Armidale, Athens, Atlanta, Baghdad, Bangkok, Bangor, ME, Barcelona, Basra, Battle Creek (19/3), Bemidji, Berkley (20/3), Berlin, [2], Boise (19/3), Bonn, Boston, Bremen, Brisbane, Brookline (17/3), Bruxelles (19/3), Budapest, Buffalo, Burlington, Calgary, Camden, ME (19/3), Caracas, Carbondale (19/3), Chattanooga, Chicago, [2], Chico, Colorado Springs, Columbus, Comox, Copenhagen, Covington, Dallas (19/3), Davenport, Denver (19/3), Detroit, Dublin, Duisburg, Eau Claire, Edmonton, El Centro, Evergreen, Fayetteville, Fort Collins, Frederick (15/3), Fresno, Gainesville (19/3), Galveston, Genève, Gijón, Grand Rapids, Göteborg, Halifax, Hartford (19/3), Helsinki, Highland Park, Houston, Indianapolis, Irvine (19/3), Istanbul, Jakarta, Janesville, Johannesburg, Kalamazoo, Kansas City (19/3), Karachi, Kent, Ohio (19/3), Kuala Lumpur (19/3), Lake Helen (19/3), Lansing (19/3), Las Vegas, Lisboa, Little Rock, Ljubljana, London, Long Island, Los Angeles, [2] (20/3), Louisville, Madison, Madrid, [2] (19/3), Malmö, Managua, [2], Manila, Melbourne (17/3), Melbourne, Florida, Memphis, Midland, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Mobile, Mobile - New Orleans (14/3), Mocksville, Montreal, Mountain View (19/3), Naples (19/3), New Bedford, New Haven, New York, Nicosia, Northville, [2], Odense, Oklahoma, Omdurman, Orange, Oslo, Ossining, Ottawa, Palo Alto, Pittsburgh, Quebec City, Redding, Reykjavik, Riverside (17/3), Roma, Rotterdam, [2] (20/3), Roxbury, Salisbury, MD (19/3), Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Juan, San Sebastián-Donostia, Santa Barbara (16/3), Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Santiago de Chile (17/3), São Paulo, Sarasota, Seattle, Seoul (19/3), South Portland (19/3), Southold (19/3), Stevens Point, Stockholm, Sydney, Tallahassee (19/3), Tarragona, Tijuana - San Francisco (12/3), Tokyo, Toronto, Trabzon, Tucson, Vancouver, Victoria, Walnut Creek, Warsaw (19/3), Washington DC, Wellington, West Bend, Wien (Vienna), Wilmington, Windsor, Winnipeg. All demos on 18/3/2006 unless otherwise stated.

Source: Stop the War Coalition, with thanks.

Tagged: iraq, war, peace, action, progressive, demonstrations

Republican Congressman predicts Bush impeachment

Says US close to dictatorship

"Republican Congressman Ron Paul has gone on record with his prediction that the impeachment of George W. Bush is right around the corner but warned that in the meantime the US was slipping perilously close to a dictatorship."
Source

Tagged: impeach+bush

Archbishop slaps Bush with a feather

The Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, has called the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay an "extraordinary legal anomaly" that sets a dangerous precedent. (Source)

"Anomaly"? That's what Tony Blair called it as well. Five or six hundred men captured on the field of battle defending their homeland from an illegal invasion, held without charge for nearly five years in 6X8 cells, kept out of fresh air for 23 hours a day, subjected to unspeakable brutalities and torture, kept away from family, lawyers, media, Red Cross, Amnesty International ... I'd hate to see what Archbishop Rowan Williams called Auschwitz. A jolly nasty place, by Jove? What were the Japanese camps in Changi in WWII? A spot of bother?

I hope Anglicans will write to their boss and tell him it's just not good enough to use such mealy mouthed language. Guantanamo must be closed, and the world must force the Bush administration to discard its torture policy.

Tagged: guantanamo, torture

Webster Tarpley

Webster Griffin Tarpley is an author and critic of what he calls "the Anglo-American oligarchical empire".

Webster Griffin Tarpley is an activist and historian best known for his George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography (1992), which has become an underground classic on the Internet.

Homepage :: More :: More A/V

Interview, mp3 ... how the neo-fascists/neo-cons are at odds with each other over certain issues.

Thanks, Glenn.

I seem to have left an important part of my brain in a field in Hampshire

Thanks again to Baz, I once again have a copy of some great Pulp songs that I lost a few years ago. I listened a lot to Pulp while recuperating from an illness about 8 years ago. It's so good to be hearing songs like the UK Hit single 'Common People' again, and 'Sorted for E's & Wizz'. Magic.

Oh is this the way they say the future's meant to feel?
Or just 20,000 people standing in a field.
And I don't quite understand just what this feeling is.
But that's okay cos we're all sorted out for E's and wizz.
And tell me when the spaceship lands cos all this has just got to mean something.

In the middle of the night,
it feels alright,
but then tommorow morning.
Oh then you come down.

Oh yeah the pirate radio told us what was going down.
Got the tickets from some fucked up bloke in Camden Town.
Oh and no-one seems to know exactly where it is.
But that's okay cos we're all sorted out for E's and wizz.
At 4 o'clock the normal world seems very, very, very far away.
Alright.

In the middle of the night,
it feels alright,
but then tommorow morning.
Oh then you come down.

Just keep on moving...
Everybody asks your name,
they say we're all the same and it's "nice one,"
"geezer"
but that's as far as the conversation went.
I lost my friends, I dance alone,
it's six o'clock, I wanna go home.
But it's "no way," "not today,"
makes you wonder what it meant.
And this hollow feeling grows and grows and grows and grows,
and you want to phone your mother and say,
"Mother, I can never come home again,
cos I seem to have left an important part of my brain somewhere,
somewhere in a field in Hampshire."
Alright.

In the middle of the night,
it feels alright,
but then tommorow morning.
Oh then you come down.

What if you never come down?

Tagged: pulp, music

Australia's first white rebellion

1804 Castle Hill Rebellion, Castle Hill, NSW, Australia: Fifteen convicts were left dead after Australia’s ‘Battle of Vinegar Hill’, named after the great Irish battle at Enniscorthy (June 21, 1798), and most of the leaders were later executed.

The rebellion had begun on the previous night (March 4) in the Castle Hill penal station when 300 convicts rose up. Led by Irishmen transported to the colony for their roles in the failed 1798 rebellion in Ireland, the rebels were confronted the following day, March 5, by British soldiers and militia near present day Rouse Hill, today an outer suburb of Sydney.

"Liberty or death"
Their leader, Philip Cunningham, who inspired the others with the slogan “Liberty or death”, was captured and immediately hanged on this day as martial law was in effect for the area for five days from March 5. Later, eight other convicts were tried and hanged as well. The remaining ringleaders were either severely flogged or removed to the newly founded penal colony of Newcastle on the Hunter River, or Coal River as it was then known.

Vinegar Hill was the first armed conflict between Europeans in Australia and the first significant rebellion against the colonial tyranny. The memory of it seems to have been suppressed, probably originally at the instigation of the colonial government, and there is today some debate as to the exact location of the events.

Tagged: australia, history, australian+history

Simpsons, life imitating art

Another from Baz Le Tuff: The Simpson's intro done with real actors. It's a hoot!

Explained in detail for our American readers

"Another reveler wearing a George W. Bush mask whipped a fellow parader clad in an orange boiler suit and black hood -- an apparent portrayal of a prisoner at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
Source: Gay 'cowboys' party in Sydney (CNN) Emphasis added.

Baz 'Bareback Mounting' Le Tuff notes: "Explained in detail for our American readers."

Tagged: guantanamo, torture, gay

Google's most stupid mistake ever, the bloody sidebar

Remember when Google's slogan (that's American for 'motto') was 'Do no evil'?

Google is great. Google Desktop Search is great. With my millions of words and hundreds of thousands of images I couldn't live without it.

But when I used it today they asked me if I wanted another feature. So, trusting Google, I clicked 'Yes' and now I have the most ridiculous sidebar on my monitor that you could ever imagine, full of useless information. And nowhere can I find how to get rid of it. This reminds me of Yahell at its worst.

Just what I need ... a sidebar with rotating pictures from my own files (like my own happy snaps, like old birthday party shots -- how boring), a 'Scratch Pad' (whatever the fuck that is --apparently something I should write on, as though I wouldn't use EditPad or Word if I had something to write). I even get a map of some Hooterville in some American state I heard of once in 'Gunsmoke' about 40 years ago. Thanks, Google. I'll use it next time I need a Google-sponsored pizza in Petticoat Junction.

I live in the Greatest Country in the World (Australia, Land of the Home and Oz of the Brave, From the halls of MontyPython to the Shores of TrippingSea, Flag of the Blue, White and Red with field of Amber bikkies of Grain), not the Land of People Packed like Sardines into the world's highest rate of incarceration. I don't need Google South Dakota on my machine, I need a Google Sidebar Decoder.

Worst of all, the sidebar sits on the monitor even when Desktop Search is closed. Is this a scam or just stupidity?

Then there's 'Web Clips' (clips of WHAT?), and some weird things called 'What's Hot' and 'Quick View'. Like I can't find what's hot on the Net with my own RSS reader and Google itself.

It's a total waste of space and I strongly caution against clicking 'Yes'. It will just take up space on your screen and you'll go crazy trying to get rid of it. I still haven't found a way and I've wasted half an hour.

Anyway, I've uninstalled Google Desktop Search now. It was the only way I could find to kill this silly thing.

Tagged: google

Resolution to impeach Bush-Cheney passes 7-3

"On Tuesday, February 28, 2006, the City and County of San Francisco became the first large municipality to call for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, by a 7-3 vote."
Source

Tagged: impeach+bush

Jane Wenham, the Witch of Walkern

1712 Hertford trial: In what was probably the last witchcraft trial in England in which a conviction was recorded, Jane Wenham, ‘the Witch of Walkern’, was tried for talking to her cat and for flying – in other words, for being a ‘wise woman’ as witches were sometimes called in that country.

Wenham was accused of bewitching Matthew Gilston and Anne Thorne of Walcorne, in the county of Hereford, was declared guilty and sentenced to death.

According to the mandatory penalty at the time, Judge Powell had no choice but to condemn her to death, but through his influence she was later given a Royal Pardon, provoking a brief pamphlet war. In 1686, Alice Molland actually had the distinction of being the last to be hanged for witchcraft in England. In 1736, the old laws against witchcraft were repealed, but people could be prosecuted for the pretended exercise of supernatural powers.

The killing times
In 1903 Robert Steele estimated that 70,000 victims were hanged in England, under the reign of James I alone. However, records indicate that between 1566 and 1685 fewer than 1,000 people were hanged. No accurate figures are available as to the carnage throughout Britain and Europe during the era of witch hunting. The Inquisition is often credited with many deaths, and indeed many people were killed for the crimes of witchcraft and sorcery, but the figures are minor compared to those executed by the Inquisition for heresy, which was its main brief. Usually, witches before the inquisitors were dismissed as mentally ill ...

Tagged: witchcraft, paganism, british+history

All fishing should be this easy

Maybe the guy's talking in Fish. Incredible fishing video.

Tagged: humor, humour, video

Wikipedia passes one million English articles

The Wikimedia Foundation announced today the creation of the 1,000,000th article in the English language edition of Wikipedia. The article is about the Jordanhill railway station in Scotland, and it was started by Wikipedia contributor Ewan Macdonald. Wikipedia is a free, multilingual, online encyclopedia with 3.3 million articles under development in more than 125 languages.

The full text of the English Wikipedia is located at en.wikipedia.org. In addition to articles, the English Wikipedia offers dozens of graphical timelines and subject-specific portals. Its media repository includes four hundred thousand images and hundreds of full-length songs, videos, and animations, many of which are available for free distribution.

Although its method of editing is new and controversial, Wikipedia has already won acclaim and awards for its detailed coverage of current events, popular culture, and scientific topics; its usability; and its international community of contributors. BBC News has called Wikipedia "One of the most reliably useful sources of information around, on or off-line." Daniel Pink, author and WIRED Magazine columnist, has described Wikipedia as "the self-organizing, self-repairing, hyperaddictive library of the future," and Tim Berners-Lee, father of the Web, has called it "The Font of All Knowledge."

Wikipedia is among the world's most popular websites, receiving tens of millions of visitors every day. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, and has spawned sister projects, including a dictionary, a library of textbooks, a compendium of quotations, a news site, and a media repository. These projects are all run using the open source MediaWiki software.

Other articles created within the same minute included an overview of the Tennessee Commissioner of Financial Institutions, a biography of baseball player Aaron Ledesma, and a look at cellular architecture.
Wikipedia media release

Tagged: wikipedia, internet, internet+resources

Gouldian finch courtship dance video

The male Gouldian finch (Chloebia gouldiae) performs his mating ritual, but the female (who at first turns her tail towards him, exposing her vent) decides she has a headache.

The first part of the ritual involves the cock bird (John Gould-Wilson) nodding his head rapidly to his chest. Then he hops up and down like a maniac. Lizzie doesn't seem to care, although the dark colour of her beak indicates she is "in season". Better luck next time, Johnny.

See my one-minute home video at Google Videos.

Click image to embiggen.

Tagged: gouldian, lady+gouldian, finch, finches, birds, australia

Da Vinci Code suit publicity stunt?

Ramona Koval, who I think is a very good journalist, raised a good point on her Book Show yesterday, about the Da Vinci Code lawsuit.

She noted that TV reports come neatly packaged with clips from the new movie, and that the two authors who claim that Dan Brown has ripped them off, are suing their own publisher. "Just what is Random House up to?" Ms Koval asks.

Whatever, if the outcome is that Dan Brown and Random House are found to have ripped off The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail authors, then it will be a sad day for literature worldwide. You shouldn't be allowed to copyright history, not in this form anyway.

Tagged: literature, history

St Chad's Day lore for wells and fountains

March 2 is the day to clean and groom holy wells and fountains, known in Britain as well-dressing.

Other days include Ascension Day, when in places such as Lichfield in England, villagers walked around the boundaries of the cathedral precinct area, carrying elm boughs and beating the eight places where wells had once been or still were present. In some places, such as Wirksworth, England, Pentecost Day was a day for well dressing.

Wells traditionally have mystical significance. Even today, wishing wells are common in parks and even may be found in shopping malls. Ancient Britain gives us many well customs. The first water drawn from a well on January 1 is supposed to bring fortune and happiness, and is called ‘the cream of the well’. It is customary to leave petals floating on the water. The wells at Wark, in Northumberland, UK, are supposed to have magical powers on New Year’s Day ...

It was believed by the Druids of Britain that when a new spring or well bubbled up, its location was like a bridge or doorway to eternity, and eternal life that may sometimes be had by drinking of the waters there (cf, baptism). The Chalice Well, at Glastonbury, England (the Avalon of King Arthur) is one such sacred site ...

Tagged: saints, britain, folklore, lore, christianity, religion, calendar+customs

Wikipedia English version approaches 1 million articles

Wikipedia's English-language version is currently working on 999,763 articles.

Quite a milestone and an extraordinary achievement from one of the best things on the Internet -- despite its flaws, one of the best things to happen to knowledge since the invention of moveable type. I remember when it was about 30,000 articles, and that wasn't very long ago. I occasionally edit an article, but have never started one.

Tagged: wikipedia, internet+resources, internet

Bagram 'worse than Guantanamo'

"Worse" Than Guantanamo: U.S. Expands Secretive Prison Inside Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/warcriminal/

Tagged: bagram, guantanamo, usa, torture, rendition, human+rights, bush, impeach+bush, war+crimes

Wearing of the leek on St David's Day

Some say it recalls a victory over the Saxons. The Welshmen, on St David's orders, put leeks in their hats to tell themselves apart from their enemy.

Another argument is that leeks were a druidic symbol in honour of the British deity Ceudven (according to the folklorist William Hone; he no doubt refers to Ceridwen), a cognate of Ceres. Hone maintained that the Druids had sacral connections with the Phoenician priesthood; both worshipped oaks and leeks were exhibited in funeral rites of Adonis at Byblos.

Leeks were worshipped at Ascalon (from which comes the alternative term of scallions) as they were in Egypt. Leeks and onions were deposited in the sacred chests of the mysteries both of Isis and Ceres.

Sometimes leeks are found in Egyptian hieroglyphics; a leek may be found on the head of Osiris or in his hand. An Italian proverb says: Porro che nasce nella mano: a leek that grows in the hand, meaning a virtue. The scholar Bryant derived the word sporrus, a leek, from Egyptian god Pi-orus, who is the same as Beal Peor of the Phoenicians, and the Bel or Bellinus of the Druids.

Tagged: wales, folklore, saints

Jesus' last words

What did he really say?

Matt.27:46,50: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ...Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost."

Luke23:46: "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:" and having said thus, he gave up the ghost."

John19:30: "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished:" and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."

This list of Biblical contradictions is pretty good. Maybe you know a better one online.

Tagged: religion, christianity