This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow double fade link to this:
here

They would build out the sixth floor of 1000 Smith in what I called a Hollywood set," Elkin said. "They would build out a set with a big, 36-inch flat panel screens and the teleconference conference rooms."

Elkin said that it was all an act, and that no trades were actually made there. The people on the phones were talking to each other.

"They would ask us to go alternately, in like hour shifts down to the sixth floor," Elkin said. "And sit and pretend that we lived and worked there."

Coca and Fumigation God is on our/their/someone's side

DynCorp: Beyond the Rule of Law A high ranking police official in Colombia, who has known about DynCorp since their 1993 arrival in Colombia, told Semana magazine, "no authority, whether the Civil Aviation Authority, police or army, is authorized to search DynCorp's planes. Nobody knows what they carry on their return to the United States because they are untouchable."

DynCorp: Beyond the Rule of Law Despite the fact that a company contracted by the U.S. government to carry out its program of fumigating and eradicating coca crops in Colombia has been caught smuggling heroin out of the country, no attempts have been made to bring it to justice. For more than a year the Office of Prosecutions has failed to render a decision on the case, while the police official responsible for setting the whole process in motion has since retired from active duty. This is not the first time a case against DynCorp employees has disappeared in the labyrinth known as Colombia's judicial system.

UNDERNEWS: The daily news service of the Progressive Review, Washington's most unofficial source DONALD RUMSFELD says he has closed down the Office of Strategic Influence, which was working on planting false stories in support of the Bush administration's war goals. Of course, this may be a false story

Wayne Magnuson: English Idioms
English Idioms
Sayings and Slang

Ananova - UFO sightings nearly double in Canada Other sightings included six orange objects spotted flying in V formation over Portage la Prairie, Manitoba , and a luminous object that hung in the sky over Hull, Quebec, for two consecutive nights before appearing to explode.
Airline pilots flying over Craik, Saskatchewan, saw what they thought were the lights of another aircraft until they were told by air traffic controllers that there was no other plane on radar. There were 15 so-called close encounters with UFOs or their alleged occupants reported in 2001, but none of them made the short list of the best unexplained cases.

Microcontent News: Weblogs, email digests, Webzines, personal publishing, content strategy, Microads. Corante. So to answer the New York Times, are weblogs just a fad? Anything that can potentially influence over a billion web searches every week sounds like more than a fad to me.

The Jerusalem Post Newspaper : Online News From Israel - News Article
According to initial reports, the two others got out and attempted to hide underneath the car, but were shot by soldiers who feared they might be wearing explosive belts.

A taxi driver told Israel Radio he was on his way to Jerusalem when he noticed the suicide bomber.

"There was a huge explosion," he said. "I saw them pull the two [other] terrorists out of the car and force them to the ground. Apparently there was an explosive belt on one of them. After five or 10 minutes, I heard gunshots - apparently they shot at the terrorist."

The Tales of the Whales - Whale Species - Blue This colossus of the deep has been reported to reach over 100 ft. in length and weigh up to 160 tons. The average weight range for both sexes is about 90-144 tons. Calves, born in April or May, are 20 to 23 ft. at birth, weighing in around 8 tons.

UNDERNEWS: The daily news service of the Progressive Review, Washington's most unofficial source
John Maynard Keynes explained it more than 60 years ago:
"'Professional investment may be likened to those newspaper competitions in which the competitors have to pick out the six prettiest faces from a hundred photographs, the prize being awarded to the competitor whose choice most nearly corresponds to the average preferences of the competitors as a whole; so that each competitor has to pick, not the faces which he himself finds the prettiest, but those which he thinks likeliest to catch the fancy of the other competitors, all of whom are looking at the problem from the same point of view. It is not a case of choosing those which, to the best of one's judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those which average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree when we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And there are some, I believe, who practice the fourth, fifth and higher degrees.'"

Jordan Times (Features Section) She took over her grandmother's mantle without hesitation or doubt. She became a collector due to an inherited spirit and love of Iraqi heritage. Now she ponders the future of her homeland as Gertrude Bell once did in 1920: �... I wish the world were a little more normal. Or do you think war and revolution may now be reckoned as normal?�

Feiffer Cartoons
massively brilliant understated contained mature refined poetic cartoon of author juggling phone calls between Bellow and Salinger.
yeah them, the real ones.
in Opera it went too fast to get even after 5 tries. in IE it don't move. but I still love it.

OpenContent Public Library of Science
"We believe that the permanent, archival record of scientific research and ideas should neither be owned nor controlled by publishers, but should belong to the public, and should be made freely available.
We support the establishment of international online public libraries of science that contain the complete text of all published scientific articles in searchable and interlinked formats."

Polka, Bowling and Kielbasa -- Congressman Kucinich, Representing Ohio's 10th District
this from a push from tom tomorrow's blog
and blogging's just a bunch of narcissistic adolescent-minded diarists
I got a rap on that but I can't create enough time-space around me to get to it
yet

Resisting Bush's War-Dennis Kucinich America, America. Let us pray for our country. Let us love our country. Let us defend our country not only from the threats without but from the threats within. Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good with brotherhood, and sisterhood. And crown thy good with compassion and restraint and forbearance and a commitment to peace, to democracy, to economic justice here at home and throughout the world. Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good.

Resisting Bush's War-Dennis Kucinich
I offer these brief remarks today as a prayer for our country, with love of democracy, as a celebration of our country. With love for our country. With hope for our country. With a belief that the light of freedom cannot be extinguished as long as it is inside of us.
With a belief that freedom rings resoundingly in a democracy each time we speak freely. With the understanding that freedom stirs the human heart and fear stills it. With the belief that a free people cannot walk in fear and faith at the same time.

VeriChip of the beast Applied Digital has consulted theologians and appeared on the religious television program the ``700 Club'' to assure viewers the chip didn't fit the biblical description of the mark because it is under the skin and hidden from view.

Why Cher Is Steamed at John Ashcroft (washingtonpost.com) Cher added: "I'm not the bastion of good taste. No one knows that better than I."
But she doesn't buy Justice's argument that the sculptures -- created by Prix de Rome winner C. Paul Jennewein -- are a visual distraction during Attorney General John Ashcroft's news conferences and terrorism alerts. "If he doesn't want to make speeches in front of them, let him make speeches somewhere else," she scoffed. "He's mobile."

NYPress - New York City - J.R. Taylor - Vol. 15, Iss. 9 There�s also the matter of a tough marketplace. "The problem may be that I�m a new singer," says the 66-year-old Eden. "There�s already talent like Diana Krall out there. What do they need in a Sid Eden? But bop fans really need to hear this record, because they don�t know that Joe Albany could play this way. I�m thinking that people will listen to this when I die. If people are going to teach jazz, this has to be heard."

NYPress - Theater - Mimi Kramer - Vol. 15, Iss. 9
We were completely blown away by Irwin, who gave, that night, one of the most extraordinary miniaturist stage performances I�ve seen. But I think it�s a role that somewhat fosters beautiful small-scale acting, which is one reason among several why actors should�and probably will�want to take it on

Peter Rabbit's Official Website
ed.
my happiest discovery.
thanking all involved that the thugs of disney haven't gotten their sad greasy hands on Beatrix Potter's gifts to the children of the world

SCIENCE FICTION WITHOUT THE FUTURE This seems very American to me. In the America I grew up with, what's new is always better than what's old. This assumption is annoying and highly regrettable at times, but it is an important component of American creativity.
Too much nostalgia poisons vitality and creativity in any field. But sf should be especially allergic to nostalgia. Science fiction�s most important contribution to the culture, it seems to me, is not to predict the future but to imagine it

dogma 2000
the solution is dogma 2000.
if you have something to say, put in on the web. scribble some pages, spread some colour on it, stick it together with some gaffa tape and put a d2k banner on it. there are people out there who want to read your stuff and they forgive your mistakes if your information is valuable to them and _free_.

Weblogs and Other New Forms of Journalism The following links provide information about new forms of personal journalism � including weblogs, collaborative news sites, personal broadcasting, and more � as well as pointers to examples of each genre.

Deconstructing �You�ve Got Blog� (fawny.org: Joe Clark) It shatters the illusions of communication and dialogue, a shadow of which we notice when the A-list blithely blogs and counterblogs itself. The thinking is: �They get to have a semblance of a conversation [however illusory; see above], so why can�t we?�

Jordan Times (Opinion Section) Most Israelis should by now have realised that they are less secure today than they were before he took office, one year ago.
It is peace, and not buffer zones, that will ensure their security and that of the Palestinian people.

Jordan Times (News Section) On Monday, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man who tried to circumvent a roadblock as he drove his pregnant wife to hospital to give birth. The woman was wounded in the shoulder.
In a separate incident, troops killed a 15-year-old girl who they said ran at their roadblock waving a knife.
She left a suicide note, family members said.

Jordan Times: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 A blue Subaru vehicle which was fired on by Israeli troops is seen in the West Bank town of Nablus on Monday. Israeli occupation troops at this checkpoint shot and wounded a pregnant Palestinian woman in labour and killed her husband Monday as the couple tried to reach a hospital in Nablus, a day after another pregnant woman was shot in an almost identical case at the same West Bank roadblock

Guardian Unlimited Books | Games | Books games haiku want to win a prize?
encapsulate news events
in three simple lines
paint a word picture
in seventeen syllables
five-seven-five form
a haiku headline
snapshot of the world today
elucidation

ed.
There WILL always be an England.

Guardian Unlimited Books | The digested read | In the Hands of the Taliban by Yvonne Ridley And if you really are pressed: The digested read, digested...
Narcissistic journalist dresses up as John Simpson, gets caught, causes a great deal of aggravation, gets let out and tries to cash in

United Press International: Current News from the International Desk young Sudanese Christian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery was instead given 75 lashes and then released, human-rights activists in the United States and Germany told United Press International Monday. They said that while this punishment was still cruel, the reduction of her sentence nevertheless proved that the Sudan did heed international pressure

AnswerBus Question Answering System
answer bus answer bus

Poetry Daily: Today's Poem glancing in the friction of the mist through which it moves.

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Sceptics denounce climate science 'lie' They say rising greenhouse gas emissions may not be the main factor in global warming. They argue that temperature rise projections this century are "unknown and unknowable".
They claim it is "a media myth" to suppose that only a few scientists share their scepticism.

Adbusters: The Zen TV Experiment How many of you know how to watch television?" I asked my class one day. After a few bewildered and silent moments, slowly, one by one, everyone haltingly raised their hands

Blogging: Tune Out and Switch On That's why I chuckle when I read how someone spends two hours a day on their weblog. Well spent I say, you could've let your brain chew on TV pulp for 120 minutes, instead you took your cells to the brain-gym. Good for you!

myself
I had the dubious pleasure of watching the TushTV crew over the last few days. the 'blogger thing' is in the radar gunsight now. so the squelch is on. these little yobbies treat it like a bunch of simpering adolescent girls are puking their diaries out over the web. as tho that would be worse than the pimp-style econoporn they themselves deliver 12 hours a day.
but that's the old Tom Paine dilemma decider. once it's on the table the wussies have to show or blow. and this was definitely an on-your-knees bunch. I mean Menlo. Robotwisdom. Mr. Tom Tomorrow. The papal Viridian sterling dude. I don't spend a lot of time checking these things out but my god, honeyguide. numerous others. it's the only viable niche for any non-commercial utterance left. and the money twinkies don't like that political stuff. so they treat it with diffidence. or disdain. or some other word that starts with a d. and you know what? every once in a while I run across some teen diary kind of blog and you know what? it makes me wake up. slaps me into caring. I'm serious. innocence. the ultimate accusation for the sellout. to confront that without scorn. it's more than they can take. well I'm not all that unhappy anymore. the news has caught up with my personal reality. you can drive your car right to the edge of the end of the world. cynicism won't be worth any more than optimism, a little less really. and that innocence so easily derided will matter more in the long run than any tech tweak fix they pimp off on the way to wherever it is they go to get high.

New Scientist Half of the Amazon rain forest is being damaged by the pollution caused by forest burning, a new study has revealed.
Previous concerns about the world's largest rain forest have focused on the burning itself, which has now destroyed 14 percent of the forest's five million square kilometres. But the new research shows that half of the remaining pristine forest is being degraded by the gases and particulates released by the burning.

New Scientist Peekabooty uses a complicated communications system to allow users to share information while revealing little about their identity. When a node receives a request for a web page it randomly decides whether to pass this on or access the page itself. It also only knows the address of its nearest partner. This makes it difficult to determine who requested what information and is designed to protect users from anyone trying to infiltrate the system from inside.

New Scientist Their new research shows that common Earth bacteria can survive pressures equivalent those found 50 kilometres beneath the Earth's crust or 160 kilometres under water. No organisms have ever been shown to be capable of withstanding such colossal pressure before.

The Death of Empires We know more about the human body than we ever have. We understand more about nutrition than we ever have. We are a child-centered culture; we worship our little darlings and protect them from all harm. Except that childhood obesity is on the rise. Type 2 diabetes strikes children as young as 10. Only the very rich and very poor are thin.
We know more about the brain than we ever have. We use that knowledge to persuade children to eat food that will make their lives more difficult and place a greater burden on our medical system. This practice exists outside the morality that we are so very proud of.

'Aggressive pacifists' put their faith on the firing line | csmonitor.com CPTer Kathleen Kern, a published Bible scholar from New York state, puts the group's ethos this way: "I've always felt that to be a pacifist, you should be willing to take the same risks for peace that soldiers take for violence." Ms. Kern has been beaten twice by settlers in Hebron; other CPTers also have been assaulted in their work.
Funded by individual and church donations, CPT maintains projects in Hebron, the Chiapas region of Mexico, and northern Colombia, as well as with several native American groups in Canada and the US

old sponsor copyrights against you (17 U.S.C 505). In addition, the Court may,
in its discretion, award our client statutory damages of up to
$150,000.00 (17 U.S.C 504�(2)).

We hereby demand that you cease and desist from any further use of, or linking to, the copyrighted images of the JESUS Film on your website.

Autofellatio and Ontologyvia robotwisdom(again...)
Perhaps it would help you to see that if you would turn the handout upside down, please. The visual effect is a little awkward, but I think it helps. At what is now the top, you see the world of appearances, that is to say, the world as we know it. And proceeding down, step by step, we get to the bottom of everything, to the underlying principle of everything, which is itself named "Everything," that is, Atum, "the All."

Newsday.com - Ancient Peruvian Site Studied The evidence of Caral puts into question what had been accepted until now," said Ruth Shady, a Peruvian archaeologist from Lima's San Marcos University who has led the excavation of the site.

"The splendor of Caral -- 2,600 years before Christ -- is contemporary to the splendor of the Egyptian pyramids, the pyramids at Giza, and the cities in Mesopotamia."

Since 1994, Shady and a team of archaeologists have sifted through dunelike mounds on this desert plateau overlooking the Supe River valley, 90 miles northwest of Lima, in what could be the cradle of civilization in the Americas.

Newsday.com - Buddha's Finger Heads to Taiwan Clasping their hands in a sign of worship, thousands of Buddhists welcomed the arrival Saturday of what they believe to be the remains of a finger that belonged to Buddha

Newsday.com - Muslims on Hajj Stone Devil Symbol The devil stoning is the hajj's most animated ritual and possibly most dangerous as many pilgrims frantically pelt rocks, shout insults or hurl flip-flops or shoes at the pillars -- acts that are supposed to demonstrate their deep disdain for the devil. Clerics frown upon such action and say it's un-Islamic.

On Saturday, some pilgrims wore goggles to protect their eyes from pebbles ricocheting off the pillars, which stand 50 feet high and a yard wide. Other pilgrims ducked after throwing a pebble to avoid being hit by someone else's.

The Nando Times: Colombian presidential candidate reported missing During a nationally televised forum, she urged the government to give in to the rebels' demand for aid for the unemployed

Engagierter Buddhismus Auf mich selbst achtend, achte ich auf den anderen,
Auf den anderen achtend, achte ich auf mich selbst.

A Lament for Bamian, Afghanistan (also known as Bamiyan)
In the morning the tourists have tea and cakes. There is a brightly-coloured pot for everyone. A tall Pathan and a Pashtu negotiate some business; it takes a little while to realize the medium of commerce is English. No tourists taste tea or opium in Afghanistan today. The tea-house, if it still stands, serves Taliban men. The women stay at home, uneducated. The great Buddhas of Bamian are desecrated. Say a prayer or at least lament for Bamian.

afghanistan green tea

afghan mountain truck (1976?)
In the days when it was safe to travel anywhere, the trucks were resplendent with rainbow colours, and piled high with anything from firewood to wolfskins. Safety was relative: the driving was fast and furious, the drivers often had cataracts in both eyes, hashish was smoked incessantly, and the burnt-out wrecks of head-on collisions were not infrequent by the roadsides.

Brewer, E. Cobham. Dictionary of Phrase & Fable. White Horse
White Horse
of Wantage (Berkshire), cut in the chalk hills. This horse commemorates a great victory gained by Alfred over the Danes, in the reign of his brother Ethelred I. The battle is called the battle of �scesdun (Ashtree-hill). The horse is 374 feet long, and may be seen at the distance of fifteen miles. (Dr. Wise.) 1
An annual ceremony was once held, called �Scouring the White Horse.�

EQUERRY.COM - Fun Barn - What the origin of...? A horse of a different color
Something of a different nature from that under consideration. It was used by Shakespeare as "a horse of the same color" in the Twelfth Night. Legend states that the phrase "a horse of another color" came from the White Horse of Berkshire, a huge carved picture in West Berkshire, almost 400 feet long - covering approximately 2 acres in commemoration of King Ethelrod and his brother Alfred the Great win over the Danes in 871, though the picture is believed to be even older. It was the custom of neighborhood people to make it a "horse of another color" periodically by clearing out the grass and debris from the trenches by which the figure is outlined.

Poetry Daily: Today's Poem
where woods turn suddenly into a city
of narrow roads
and the old wander through town
searching for a doorway
to remind them their lives
are not a pain they dream
to remind them they are alive.
These lives are where they sing.

Ruth Ellen Kocher
When the Moon Knows You're Wandering
2001 Green Rose Prize

To put (or set) the cart before the horse
To get the order of things reversed. (The Greeks said "Hysteron proteron" = "the later the former". The Romans said, "Currus boveris trahit preiposter" = The plow is drawn before the ox.) The phrase first appeared in English. It is found in Dan Michael's Auenbite of Inwiht (Remorse of Conscience), a translation by Dan Michael of a French treatise, written by Laurentis Galler, in 1279, into the dialect of Kent (which actually said "many religions have set the plow before the oxen.")

warmest warm warmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The last three months were the warmest on U.S. record books, and January was the balmiest in the 123 years temperatures for the month have been recorded globally, government scientists said on Thursday

Carter speaks to Bushist gaffe
Carter said Bush's statement seriously jeopardized progress made with North Korea, Iran and Iraq in recent years.
"I think it will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement," said Carter, speaking at an Emory University conference on the impact of terrorism.

digiboy | devnotes : How to Fix Blogger's BlogThis! for IE6 possible dangerous blogger rectification

Poetry Daily: Today's Poem Inclination


Time to summon those
metal fasteners. Time to watch the moon-eggs
roll and fix themselves.
Can't you tell I've been celibate for � what's it been? �
washes and leaves of days,
except for the occasional sharpness
with a pelican friend.
In horizontal mist I tell him
show off your slips and stays.
Like once
she loved that bull, all its wiry hair.
Time to weave
the diving fins a silver stitch
pull shore up
then shallow over shimmer leap and pour
I'm pulled into petals and I'm surprised
I welcome it so.



Molly Bendall
Ariadne's Island

David Horsey, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The Village Voice: Nation: Mondo Washington: The French Connection by James RidgewayParis interviews and translation by Sandra Bisin Then it shifted to the point where advisers thought that the economic arguments would make the difference with the Taliban and accelerate the negotiations. They started to put the oil subsidies that would be given to the Taliban on the table. At the end of July, the negotiations broke down, because the U.S. threatened to go to war with the Taliban if they didn't accept the deal."

The Village Voice: Nation: Mondo Washington: The French Connection by James RidgewayParis interviews and translation by Sandra Bisin coincides with that of the Taliban's unofficial emissary in the U.S., Laili Helms, the niece of the former CIA head (see "The Accidental Operative," Voice, June 19, 2001). Helms described one incident after another in which, she claimed, the Taliban agreed to give up bin Laden to the U.S., only to be rebuffed by the State Department. On one occasion, she said, the Taliban agreed to give the U.S. coordinates for his campsite, leaving enough time so the Yanks could whack Al Qaeda's leader with a missile before he moved. The proposal, she claims, was nixed. The State Department denied receiving any such offer.

Australian IT - Child porn surfer walks free (Nick Lenaghan, February 21, 2002) "What it is leading to are these industries in countries like Russia and Indonesia and in South America where children are being sexually abused to feed the (demand for) images in the first world," Ms McMenamin said.

Tipped off by three teenage female burglars, police raided Allan's Sunbury home in May last year where they found more than 1600 images stored on computer and discs.

But Justice Spillane said there were mitigating circumstances for Allan, including the loss of his public service career, his public humiliation and his guilty plea.

FLASH: Stories about Bin Laden Ignored in the Mainstream Press "The former official, John P. O'Neill, was the director of antiterrorism for the F.B.I.'s New York office when he resigned in August to become chief of security for the twin towers. "All the answers, everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organization can be found in Saudi Arabia," Mr. O'Neill is quoted as saying in the new book, "Ben Laden: La Verite Interdite" ("Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth"),

FLASH: Stories about Bin Laden Ignored in the Mainstream Press An analysis of the book in English became available from www.truthout.com. Since then fuller summaries have appeared in the Asia Times of November 20, and Irish Times of November 19. The Irish Times reports from the book that the first international arrest warrant against bin Laden was filed in March 1998, by Qaddafi in Libya. It was ignored by Interpol, presumably because in the mid-1990s British intelligence was plotting in collaboration with al-Muqatila, bin Laden's Libyan terrorist group, to assassinate Qaddafi.

Reviews of "Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth" These meetings, also called Six plus Two, because of the number of states (six neighbors plus the U.S. and Russia) involved, have been confirmed by Niaz A. Naik, former Pakistani Secretary for foreign affairs.
In a French television news program two weeks ago, Naik said that during a Six plus Two meeting in Berlin in July, the discussions turned around "the formation of a government of national unity. If the Taliban had accepted this coalition, they would have immediately received international economic aid. And the pipelines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would have come," he added.
Naik also claimed that Tom Simons, the U.S. representative at these meetings, openly threatened the Taliban and Pakistan. "Simons said: 'either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option'. The words Simons used were 'a military operation'," Naik claimed.

Reviews of "Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth" The fate of John O'Neill, the Irish-American FBI agent who for years led U.S. investigations into Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, is the most chilling revelation in the book Bin Laden: The Hidden Truth, published in Paris this week.
O'Neill investigated the bombings of the World Trade Centre in 1993, a US base in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam in 1998, and the USS Cole last year.
Jean-Charles Brisard, who wrote a report on bin Laden's finances for the French intelligence agency DST and is co-author of Hidden Truth, met O'Neill several times last summer. He [O'Neill] complained bitterly that the US State Department � and behind it the oil lobby who make up President Bush's entourage � blocked attempts to prove bin Laden's guilt.
The US Ambassador to Yemen, Ms. Barbara Bodine, forbade O'Neill and his team of so-called Rambos (as the Yemeni authorities called them) from entering Yemen. In August 2001, O'Neill resigned in frustration and took up a new job as head of security at the World Trade Center. He died in the September 11th attack.

Newly Spotted Comet Will Soon Grace Night Skies Binoculars or a small telescope should allow most skywatchers a view of Ikeya-Zhang's fuzzy head, called a coma, and of the tail.

Wheeling Around the Solar System a century later, a shy mathematician named Johannes Kepler asked if there might be a key to the orbit of planets in the data of Tycho Brahe. Kepler worked with great diligence, and discovered that the planets orbit the Sun on elliptical orbits ("Kepler and Mars--Understanding How Planets Moved"). Although Kepler could not say WHY the planets orbited the Sun, he did develop mathematical descriptions for HOW they orbited.

CRG -- The CIA met2 In the book "Bin Laden, la verite interdite" ("Bin Laden, the forbidden truth"), which hit bookshelves in Paris yesterday, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, claim that FBI deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July to protest the policy.
Brisard claims O'Neill told him that "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia." The authors say the U.S. government's main objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime and thereby obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. They say that until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime "as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia," from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. Until now, says the book, "the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that." But confronted with the Taliban's refusal to accept U.S. conditions, "this rationale of energy security changed into a military one," the authors claim.
"At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs,"

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow .) Interestingly, when the Taliban refused to accept U.S. conditions, they were told (before September 11, remember), "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold or we bury you under a carpet of bombs."

MWO Media Whores Online takes an unbiased, in-depth look at the astonishingly vast myriad of whores who call themselves "journalists." MWO casts a garish spotlight on the relentless screaming heads of television, the babbling paranoids of squawk radio, and the crayon scribblings of lazy print media "columnists

ed. somewhat strident a little kneejerky definitely biased but way inside the balance for what streams from the golden mouths of the many-headed beast of mainstream media these days.
a weird synchrony that bartcop.com is linked when I was just there a while ago looking for images of (blush) Maureen Dowd,who now that Jeanne Kilpatrick seems to have quit the stage, and since Hilary Clinton remains untouchably perfect, is my (and Bill the Cat's?) pinup of the day.

Right Wing Myths Exposed: The Red-Blue Myth, The Liberal Media Myth, the Myth of the Homosexual Lifesyle (a work in progress) Fact: Under Emperor Hadrian [A.D. 117-138], who was gay, the Roman Empire enjoyed its greatest security, prosperity and stability. The decline of the Empire roughly coincides with Christianity becoming the state religion. The middle ages, when Christianity ruled absolute, are rightfully considered the dark ages of humanity. The age of enlightenment started when Christianity lost its grip on society. History teaches us an undeniable lesson: if anything, then rampant Christianity is a sure sign of cultural decadence and moral decline.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Anthrax suspect 'is US scientist' The FBI has a suspect for last year's anthrax attacks, but is "dragging its heels" because he is a former government scientist familiar with secret state-sponsored research, a leading American expert on biological warfare said yesterday.

Star Telegram | 02/16/2002 | I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeLay Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio has just passionately demanded, "Let my people go!")

UNDERNEWS: The daily news service of the Progressive Review, Washington's most unofficial source The intrusion of adults in children's play can abolish or diminish this process of acting above one's age and acquiring self-mastery of one's own actions. Paradoxically, children exert more self-control in imaginative play than they do in real life, where their behavior is less conscious and more reactive. With adults, children tend to be 'childlike' because of their subordinate relationship.

UNDERNEWS: The daily news service of the Progressive Review, Washington's most unofficial source The speed, secrecy and state tax exemptions offered by Delaware, along with its business-friendly courts, have long enticed everyone from blue-chip corporations to international gangsters. State officials say more than half of Fortune 500 and New York Stock Exchange companies are chartered there, and the General Accounting Office cites Delaware as a haven for foreign money launderers. You can start a Delaware company without going there. First, pick a Delaware-registered corporation agent. They advertise in magazine and on the Web. For just $85 in fees, you're in business. You don't need to open a bank account; disclose your profits, sales or purpose; or even give your name. Yearly fees of $50 to Delaware and another $100 or so to your agent will keep you there.

UNDERNEWS: The daily news service of the Progressive Review, Washington's most unofficial source 1912 In the Bread & Roses Strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 200 police draw their clubs and go after 100 women pickets, knocking them to the ground and beating them

UNDERNEWS: The daily news service of the Progressive Review, Washington's most unofficial source REUTERS - A Filipino man was killed and his friend seriously wounded after they sarcastically applauded a student for singing Frank Sinatra's classic My Way off-key, newspapers reported. The 21-year-old student felt insulted when the victims clapped after he sang the song at a karaoke parlor in downtown Manila, according to the reports. After getting into a fight with the student's friends, the victims left the parlor to avoid trouble but were ambushed outside and shot by the student who was later arrested. Newspapers have said Philippine karaoke parlors have been removing "My Way" from play lists because fights frequently broke out - for unfathomable reasons - when the song was sung. The song seems to drive many drunken men to commit anything from slight physical injuries to homicide, reports said.

UNDERNEWS: The daily news service of the Progressive Review, Washington's most unofficial source ||| GEORGE MONBIOT, GUARDIAN, LONDON - State and corporate power are fusing almost everywhere on earth, but in Italy they have condensed into the stocky figure of a single man. Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, is worth around �10 billion. He has interests in just about every lucrative sector of the Italian economy. His control of most of the private media (through his businesses) and most of the public media (through the government) means that he can exercise a dominion unprecedented in a democratic nation over the thoughts and feelings of his people. He has been convicted in the past for bribery, tax fraud and corruption but by amending the law has had those convictions overturned and his business activities legalized. His government is sustained by parties which describe themselves as "post-fascist;" he himself has spoken of the "superiority" of western civilization.
This is the man who is now Tony Blair's closest political ally in Europe. After their meeting, Sr Berlusconi told the press that "we see eye to eye on all the matters that were raised." Blair added: "Some of these old distinctions - left and right - are no longer in my view as relevant as they were maybe 30, 40 years ago." Blair and Berlusconi are now the only European leaders who seem prepared to support a US attack on Iraq.

Washingtonpost.com: Carlson yep

IHT Article Print Page This is not some alarmist Orwellian scenario; it is here, now, financed by $20 billion last year and $15 billion more this year of federal money appropriated out of sheer fear.

By creating the means to monitor 300 million visits to the United States yearly, this administration and a supine opposition are building a system capable of identifying, tracking and spying on 300 million Americans. So far, the reaction has been a most un-American docility.

http://www.tollesburysc.co.uk/Knots/Knots_gallery.htm

Living Machines. Inc. | The Living Machine� Living Machines� accelerate nature's own water purification process. Unlike chemically based systems, Living Machines� incorporate helpful bacteria, plants, snails and fish that thrive by breaking down and digesting organic pollutants.

Wastewater treatment takes place through a series of differently managed environments, a diversity of organisms that eat the waste in the water.

// meta.am / rand /
For the world of our own making has become so complicated that we must turn to the world of the born to understand how to manage it.

That is, the more mechanical we make our fabricated environment, the more biological it will eventually have to be if it is to work at all.
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ed.-- this one has the exact perfect mix of mystique and accuracy pinned. what is it about? why? it's all there. calm. controlled and unplumbably mysterious. and it's about all this

THE IRANIAN: Experimental, "The night flight from Paris to New York", Sarv-e-Naz I woke up as the first rays of the early morning sun came piercing through the mosquito net

Prosecutors: Texas Mom Who Drowned Kids Not Insane ``She said she killed them because they weren't developing correctly and she was a bad mother,'' he said. ``She told (police) she had thought about killing them for two years. She told them they struggled for a couple of minutes

CNN.com - 'Sneaky' software may be watching you - February 18, 2002 I'm selling a hammer," he says. "They can beat nails with it, or their dog."
If someone calls with proof the software is being used nefariously, Eaton said he'll show the person how to remove it.

The Nando Times: Peru upholds American woman's sentence Her parents, Mark and Rhoda Berenson of New York, have begun a campaign to pressure Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo to grant her a pardon. Peruvian officials had declined to comment on the possibility of a pardon as long as the case was in the courts. There was no official reaction to Monday's verdict

DRUDGE REPORT 2002� BIRDS are opting not to migrate, lawns are continuing to grow and frogs are waking up weeks early.

The natural world, it would seem, is in a state of utter confusion.

According to the calendar, Britain should be trying to shake off the winter gloom.

But unusually warm weather has kicked off the earliest spring in recorded history. Temperatures between January 13 and February 12 were the warmest since records began in 1659, averaging 8-10c compared to the normal 4-6c. Scientists observing the activity of trees, plants and birds reckon nature is approximately three weeks ahead of itself

Pope has performed 3 exorcisms to ward off devil I have seen levitations, and a force that needed six or eight men to hold the person still. Such things are rare, but they happen," he said.
Amorth said the woman whom the Pope exorcised in September was still undergoing treatment.
"It's a very serious case. A series of curses," he said

Info for Eq nmhwb0217a Magnitude 2.9 - duration magnitude (Md)
Time Sunday, February 17, 2002 at 5:01:41 PM (CST)
Sunday, February 17, 2002 at 23:01:41 (UTC)

BBC News | BUSINESS | Bush gaffe hits yen The yen fell as some traders interpreted the comment as meaning the US favoured a devaluation of the Japanese currency.
Bush aides hastened to clear up the confusion, saying the president - in Japan as part of an Asian tour - had "misspoken".
They said his comment had meant to be about Japan's problem of "deflation" - steadily falling prices, which depress spending and investment - not devaluation.

New York Metro - New York Magazine Does Debra Winger Still Have Legs? HOLLY MILLEA But we had fun acting together. He was wearing some Kabuki makeup. And he had dyed his hair red, because we were in Ireland. I have the footage in my living room.
And to think, he was such a god.
Well, there's only one direction from there. And everybody ought to get hip on that

Warning of Future Environmental Havoc Resulting from Western Society's Lifestyle We can see that the world has been converted in an instant of time from a wild, natural one to one in which human beings, one of an estimated 10 million species of organisms, are consuming, wasting or diverting an estimated 45 percent of the total net biological productivity on land and using more than half of the renewable fresh water."

Secretary of Army Thomas White Alters Website To Hide Leading Role in Enron And now the Secretary of the Army's 'Official Biography' has been altered - and White's Enron role - moved to the tail end - is reduced to:
"From 1990 to 2001, Mr. White was employed by Enron Corporation and held various senior executive positions."

Backward on Global Warming editorial The New York Times 2/16/02: The obvious conclusion to be drawn from President Bush's latest global warming strategy, unveiled this week, is that he does not regard warming as a problem. There seems no other way to interpret a policy that would actually increase the gases responsible for heating the earth's atmosphere. That the policy demands little from the American people, while insulting allies who have agreed to take tough steps to deal with the problem, only adds to one's sense of dismay.

Poetry Daily: Today's Poem
If there was any justice in this world
it would be named
Mangrovia.

The Straight Dope: Does my cell phone company keep track of me wherever I go? (for enhanced) 911 capability has lots of pluses. Apart from helping emergency dispatchers, it'll support some useful commercial services. Say you're driving in an unfamiliar town and you get lost. No prob--push a button and your cell phone sends your location to a navigational service that tells you which way to go. Similarly, you'll be able to request directions to shops and services in the vicinity.
On the other hand, do you always want the world to know exactly where you are? If you were a crook on the lam, using a cell phone would be tantamount to phoning in your coordinates. Most of us don't have anybody tailing us, but check out this scenario: you're walking past the grocery store when it detects that you're close by and sends you a message about today's sale on bananas. Excited?

Rastafarians Want Meeting With Queen (washingtonpost.com) The religion emerged in Jamaica and spread throughout the Caribbean in the 1930s.

Classic American Comic Strips Table of Contents Out Our Way

Heros Are Made, Not Born XI
my alltime favorite cartoon strip

Welcome to the Comic Explorer So just hang on, keep reading, and we'll try to tell you what Comic Explorer does. Except we're not exactly sure what it does or why and we're the ones who built the fool thing. All we know is, you move the liquid sliders around on the left and then all kinds of different comic strip icons fly in at the bottom and when you click on one you get the latest version of that comic and if you want to go back over the last couple of weeks' strips you can do that too.

ed.
out of the black matrix dullthug wannabe murk comes.....gumball fun!!
it's dorky and it takes way too long to load (for my hicksville setup)
but I liked it enuff to blog it.

Columns: Tiny eyes pierce a cop's defenses We were preparing ourselves psychologically to find a deceased baby," he recalled. "I put my defense mechanisms in place to deal with an image that would haunt me the rest of my life."
In seconds that mind-set changed. A faint noise and a tiny raised hand from a pile of brush indicated the baby might still be alive.

NEWS of the WEIRD - Current News The French artist Cho was profiled in a December BBC News report for his street-beautification project of sticking little flags into some of the many piles of dog droppings on Paris sidewalks (an estimated 5,800 tons per year) and then painting artistic borders around them. [BBC News, 12-21-01]

Jordan Times: Sunday, February 17, 2002 Sallah Yunis, centre, is restrained as he weeps over the grave of his son Abdul Salam Yunis during his funeral in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on Saturday. Abdul Salam, 25, a police officer, was killed when Israeli warplanes attacked the Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, police station on Friday

Soros offers open access to science papers Research institutions and funding agencies that sign up commit themselves to making policy changes, such as creating local open-access electronic repositories, and making it compulsory for grant recipients to deposit their papers there. Individual signatories agree to deposit their research in freely available electronic repositories, and to support alternative journals as authors, editors and referees.

ed.
Nature requires sigjn-up/reg.
free/worth it

Yahoo! News - U.S. Tightening Rules on Keeping Scientific Secrets Last month, it began quietly withdrawing from public release more than 6,600 technical documents that deal mainly with the production of germ and chemical weapons. It is also drafting a new information security policy, to be released in the next few weeks, that officials say will result in more documents' being withdrawn. It is asking scientific societies to limit what they publish in research reports

Natalie Imbruglia 5. Do you think fans want to know more about you as a person than you are willing to tell?

Imbruglia: Definitely. I think that it's nice to have a bit of a distance there. The people that I love and admire, I don't know exactly what went on in their songs. I can guess. I can guess their experiences but what is most important is how it relates to my life

COLIN WILSON AT 70 by GEOFF WARD He cites the example of British author Philip Pullman whose His Dark Materials trilogy is greatly influenced by the works of David Lindsay about whom Wilson wrote a book The Haunted Man: The Strange Genius of David Lindsay (1970) in conjunction with J. B. Pick and E. H. Visiak. Pullman's trilogy was "brilliant", said Wilson, his imagination "tremendous and overwhelming". In correspondence, Pullman told Wilson he had used Wilson's works as a "guide to literature". Everything Wilson had recommended Pulllman had read.

Ananova - Believing is seeing for hypnosis subjects
The scans revealed that when they were asked to see non-existent colours, they really saw them.

ed. one of the bigger MKUltra scams was the old saw that you can't hypnotize somebody into doing something they wouldn't do unhypnotized. in other words if teddy jack eddy dropped the newsboy it was because tje was a bad actor.
but hey! suppose you mesmered him into thinking the newsboy was himself supremely bad acting? and about to drop the lonely widow on her way to church?
sirhan sirhan, whatever will be will be, the future's not ours to....uh.....be? see?
now that it's too late to matter the truth comes leaking from under the bathroom door.

Ananova - Research links vegetables to cancer Ground-breaking research has found eating vegetables could be the cause of the fastest growing cancer in the UK.
Researchers believe the increased use of nitrate fertilisers since the Second World War may be one of the main reasons for the rise in gullet cancer.
They have undertaken the world's first study into the link between nitrate-rich fruit and vegetables and the disease, which claims the lives of more than 3,000 people in the UK every year.
Reported cases of the cancer, which affects three times as many men as women, has trebled in the last 20 years, according to Professor Kenneth McColl, head of the study at Glasgow University.

Ananova - Britain's first 'designer' baby born The Daily Mail reports the 36-year-old woman gave birth to the girl on Thursday night at a London hospital after being induced 38 weeks into her pregnancy.

ed. so that's...um...all on the up and up? 38 weeks is 9-1/2 mos.?
it's late my math skills are minimized. something that separates this from cannibalism, the only thing that separates this from cannibalism, the absolutely only thing is.... chewing.
and of course the fact that lil sis is gonna make it right? I mean she is right? they don't say that anywhere in the article. and you know goddam well they're only hyping this as a foot-in-the-door for clone tissue harvesting.

Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Interview: Colin Wilson Life these days is well-regulated. Wilson, 71, is up at 5.30am and reads until eight. He does some practical, DIY-type work, then writes (with a short break for lunch) till four, when it's time to walk the dogs. "I've always been a pretty hard worker," he says. "That's how I've written over a hundred books."

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | IRA suspects on bomb charges All three denied having contact with the guerrillas but their claims have been undermined by rebel commanders who have apparently admitted meeting the men.
ed. note: this is good good good. ofay brit wank says "undermined by...." by who? rebel commanders! yeah right dickwad. the mortality rate in Columbia is thru the fucking roof for these FARC dudes. but hey when it comes to stopping int'l terrorism, everybody gets together right? coming in from the jungle to complain the paddies have been raising stink among the Indios. rebel commanders testifying that... oh jesus it's too much. right Raul you too Percy. if i wasn't so sick of all human affairs already, I'd be uncommonly disgusted.

Cristin McCauley Report on Visit I am proud beyond words of the resilience Martin and his friends have maintain in such degrading and inhumane conditions but pray that I do not have to witness the likes again.
In Dan�s account of the first visit to the men in September, he ended by saying that he �left Bogota with a heavy heart�, I left my heart in Bogota, but something inside me aches.

Statement Issued by the three Irishmen in Colombia� on 31st January 2002 we made a personal decision to travel to Colombia to exchange experiences with conflict resolution. We were arrested by the army which had no legal powers to do so. The military had no legal right to get a foreign power (US Embassy) involved.
There was a fabrication of evidence by US embassy officials in order to undermine President Pastrana's efforts to reach a peace settlement. The international community has now been restricted from entering the demilitarised zone. Elements of the British security services used the arrests to damage the Irish Peace Process. The presumption of innocence has been ignored. There has been illegal behaviour by the army supported by the Fiscalia. Confidential details of the case have been given to the media in order to damage our defence and the prospect of a fair trial.

Welcome to CounterPunch The difference, of course, is the scale and nature of U.S. support for a military that maintains ties with one of the most ruthless killing forces in the world, the AUC. While two Colombian military brigades defend Ecopetrol's (the State oil company's) facility near Barrancabermeja, the paramilitaries openly assassinate, "disappear" and torture labor leaders. A staggering 60% of the union organizers killed in the world last year were killed in Colombia.

Holocaust Museum Cashier Has Yet Another Depressing Day The people at the ticket desk deal with the pushy tourists screaming about the long wait, and they get paid 75 cents an hour less," Kaplan said. "Plus, they have to stare at that giant photo of Kristallnacht all day. If Anne Frank could survive in that attic all those years, I should be able to do five months behind this desk."

Going Down the Road: Wal-Mart Warriors Why single out Wal-Mart? Because it's a hog. Despite the homespun image it cultivates in its ads, it operates with an arrogance and avarice that would make Enron blush and John D. Rockefeller envious. It's the world's biggest retail corporation and America's largest private employer; Sam Robson Walton, a member of the ruling family, is one of the richest people on earth.
Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way: by roughing people up. Their low, low prices are the product of two ruthless commandments: Extract the last penny possible from human toil and squeeze the last dime from its thousands of suppliers, who are left with no profit margin unless they adopt the Wal-Mart model of using nonunion labor and shipping production to low-wage hellholes abroad

UNDERNEWS: The daily news service of the Progressive Review, Washington's most unofficial source John M. Poindexter, the retired Navy admiral who was President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser, has returned to the Pentagon to direct a new agency that is developing technologies to give federal officials instant access to vast new surveillance and information- analysis systems . . . Mr. Poindexter, who is 65, was a controversial figure both for his role in the Iran-contra scandals and for his efforts to assert military influence over commercial computer security technologies. With Oliver L. North, a former National Security Council aide, Mr. Poindexter was convicted in 1986 as part of the guns-for-hostages deal that provoked a Congressional investigation. The conviction was overturned in 1991 on grounds that the men had been granted immunity from prosecution as a result of their testimony before Congress .

UNDERNEWS: The daily news service of the Progressive Review, Washington's most unofficial source FEB 15
WORD
. . . we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we're free - Allen Ginsburg, Howl

NATIONAL POST ONLINE | News story
CHAMAN, Pakistan - U.S. aircraft over southern Afghanistan have scattered US$100 bills tucked into envelopes bearing a picture of George W. Bush, the U.S. President.
Some of the envelopes were carried by the wind and fluttered to earth over the Pakistan border town of Chaman, sending people scrambling for the cash.
"C-130 planes dropped white-coloured paper envelopes with a photo of President Bush and two bills of $100 each," said Abdul Hadi, a resident of Chaman, which is close to the border with southern Afghanistan.
"They are actually dropping these over areas across the border but a few were carried away by the wind to this side. People pushed and fought with each other to get their hands on the envelopes."
The envelopes bore no message

--say it again:
The envelopes bore no message.
uh..isn't that what all that semiotics stuff was about? hermeneutics? epistimology? Marshall McLuhan anyone? Did this really happen?

Poetry Daily: Today's Poem Dorothea Tanning Fortune Cookies
Go mad and you will not become truly insane. Tomorrow you will be chosen.

Peace Flags ~ Gadsden Flags ~ caps & t-shirts

NoLogo Submissions Here is where you can submit a story for the NoLogo Editors to peer at it, poke it with a stick, and perhaps post it for all to share and enjoy. It is very important that you write a clear simple subject, and include relevant links in your story. If you wish to be anonymous, feel free to leave the identifying fields blank. Anonymity has no affect on whether we will accept or reject the story.

ESPN.com - Page2 - Domestic terrorism at the Super Bowl
Who is responsible for this Rudeness? What kind of bigoted freak came up with the idea that Terrorizing 200 million football lovers on Super Bowl weekend is "Good for national Security interests"???
That is something that Adolf Hitler might have said in the summer of 1942. ... And the "Thousand-Year Reich" lasted 13 bloody years, buster. Only that. And nothing more

IHT: Bush's plan won't do a thing to halt global warming "greenhouse gas intensity" by 18 percent may have sounded like a pledge to reduce greenhouse gases, the emissions that cause global warming. But the extra word makes all the difference. In fact, the administration proposed to achieve almost nothing; consistent with that goal, it also announced specific policies that are trivial in scope and will have virtually no effect

ZNet Today's Quote
"From the point of view of the economy, the sale of weapons is indistinguishable from the sale of food. When a building collapses or a plane crashes, it�s rather inconvenient from the point of view of those inside, but it�s altogether convenient for the growth of the gross national product, which sometimes ought to be called the "gross criminal product."" Eduardo Galeano
More Quotes and Lyrics

The War on Terror's Newest Target: America's Kids In addition to setting new standards for illogic, the ads are also exercises in highly selective finger-pointing. We know, for instance, that bin Laden and al-Qaida used tens of millions of dollars in profits from the diamond industry to fund their operations. So how come we didn't see a commercial with a woman, say, a senator's wife, fingering the diamonds on her sparkling tennis bracelet and admitting: "I helped kids learn how to kill?" And, given the fact that 15 out of the 19 hijackers, and most of the detainees in Cuba, came from Saudi Arabia -- where the ruling family, glutted with oil profits, has coddled extremists for decades -- why no taxpayer-funded ad showing a soccer mom filling up her SUV and saying: "I helped blow up buildings?"

Bad Subjects: The Trial of Henry Kissinger The Trial introduces us to a man who will use any situation to advance his political power, regardless of the body count. According to Hitchens, Kissinger finessed the breakdown of the first peace talks with North Vietnam, extending the war another four years, which the author contends was a maneuver Kissinger craftily engineered so that he could win himself a position in Lyndon Johnson�s cabinet. Hitchens also spends a lot of time going over the human costs of Kissinger's foreign policy. For example, between 1968 and 1972, Kissinger authorized over 3500 missions against the civilian populations of Laos and Cambodia using B-52 bombers. According to Pentagon figures, during that time 31, 205 American servicemen, 86,101 South Vietnamese regulars and 475,609 "enemy" troops were killed. During the same period �more than 3 million civilians were killed, injured or rendered homeless

OUT THERE NEWS Only the fittest survive.
Abdul, Afghan bringing up his family in a refugee camp

Resisting the Assassins' Power They came for me on October 15," she recounts, "several days after I�d returned from hiding."
"The vicious ones chopped me up during the night� I spent a night in the weeds bleeding. They sliced me into pieces with machete strokes. They cut out my tongue and my mouth: my gums, plates, teeth, and jaw on my right side. They cut my face open, my temple and cheek totally open. They cut my eye open. They cut my ear open. They cut my body, my whole shoulder and neck and back slashed with machete blows. They cut off my right arm. They slashed my left arm totally and cut off the ends of all my fingers of my left hand. ... The death squad was so convinced that I died that they dragged me further away to dump me."

Here's Why Regulations Are Important The financial wealth of the top 1 percent of U.S. households now exceeds the combined household financial wealth of the bottom 95 percent.
The wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans grew an average $1.44 billion each from 1997-2000, for an average daily increase of wealth of $1,920,000 per person. That's 6,602 times the U.S. minimum wage.
The top fifth of U.S. households have 49.2 percent of the national income, while the bottom fifth gets by on 3.6 percent

Wendy Carlos Eclipse Page 1980 - This eclipse was again land-based, from the seacoast town of Malindi, in Kenya, East Africa (it's generally wise to seek an over-water view, while you are on solid land.) A friend and I had booked a quick eclipse trip to the area, my first visit to Kenya. Since I was in the midst of composing the musicscore to Kubrick's The Shining, I had only a few days grace period to "sneak away" ;-), before the next batch of music would be needed (I had just sent off a huge collection of cues that week) and could not stay long.

The Copenhagen Post Head of the Museum, Peter Meyer, has repeatedly refused to accept liability for the 'fish massacre,' blaming it on the philistine ignorance of museum guests.
'They seem to think they are at an experimentarium, where they can just go round pushing buttons and turning on switches. Now I'm left with five litres of fish boullion and a court case to defend.

The Nando Times: Sleep less and live longer, large study says The best survival rates were found among those who slept seven hours per night. The study showed that members of a group sleeping eight hours were 12 percent more likely to die within a six-year period than those sleeping seven hours, all other factors being equal.
But even those sleeping as little as five hours a night lived longer than participants who got eight or more hours a night.

Bush Blunder Shows It's Time for Dissent As a Frenchman, Antoine Boulay, famously said after zealous revolutionaries executed a popular duke, this was ''worse than a crime; it was a blunder.''
Blunder comes from swagger. Not only has Bush set back the process of detente in Korea; he has done something the ayatollahs were unable to do - given new life to the anti-American hard-liners in Iran.

Poetry Daily: Today's Poem Valentine's Afternoon


Four lanes over, a plump helium heart �
slipped, maybe, from some kid's wrist
or a rushed lover's empty front seat
through a half-cracked car window �
rises like a shiny purple cloudlet
toward today's gray mess of clouds,
trailing its gold ribbon like lightning
that will never strike anything
or anyone here on the forsaken ground,
its bold LOVE increasingly illegible
as it ascends over the frozen oaks,
riding swift currents toward the horizon,
a swollen word wobbling out of sight.

Yahoo! News - Country Great Waylon Jennings Dead His "Greatest Hits" album in 1979 sold 4 million � a rare accomplishment in country music for that era.
In the mid-1980s, he joined with Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson to form the quartet the Highwaymen, which recorded together and did concert tours.
"I'd like to be remembered for my music � not necessarily by what people see when they see us � but what they feel when they talk about you," he said in 1984.
"Some people have their music. My music has me."

Diary of a Start-Up This is a story that will teach you something about building a software product, about profitably running a company, and about what can happen if unqualified organizations obtain control.

Intrepid Trips One of the speakers at the press conference was Bev Smith, the U of O women's basketball coach. I thought she gave the best talk. She said where she grew up in rural Canada she didn't read in the rain she read in the snow. She said reading excites the imagination and you use your imagination to deal with the sworld. What you read goes into your mind and creates thoughts which come out as words which are transferred into actions and the actions control your destiny and that is the way you change the world.
-- This report filed by Ken Babbs

Astronomy Picture of the Day-Great Nebula in Orion one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen

Las Vegas SUN: Turner: Attackers 'Brave, but Nuts' Asked if he would allow public access to his vast landholdings in Montana, he replied: "Can I live in your home with you? We believe in private property in this country."
"You buy it and you can share it," Turner said.
Turner was expelled from Brown in his junior year in 1960 after he was caught living with a girlfriend in his dorm room.

BBC News | HEALTH | EU plans Europe-wide health card Unlike the E111, the new card would be valid indefinitely.
The E111 was dismissed as a "dinosaur from another age" by a Commission spokesman.
"Let us give citizens in the EU peace of mind, not a piece of paper," he said.

Astronomy Picture of the Day Therefore, a more effective way to help our planet than trying to restrict your own methane emissions would be to encourage efficient landfill gas management

BBC News | EUROPE | Profile: Carla Del Ponte They also tried to assassinate her. Half a tonne of explosives were discovered hidden in the foundations of Ms Del Ponte's Palermo home.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Afghans are still dying as air strikes go on. But no one is counting The neighbour, Muhammad Sarwar, 50, lost his wife Aziza and seven other family members. "Maybe he wasn't a very good pilot," he murmurs. "We like the Americans."

NATIONAL POST ONLINE | News story A severe winter storm in the mountains of central Mexico has virtually wiped out two colonies of monarch butterflies that make up Canada's entire breeding stock, an event that could have repercussions for the species here.
"It was really macabre," said Dr. Lincoln P. Brower, a butterfly biologist who estimated that between 220 million and 270 million frozen butterflies rained down from their roosts in the trees in mountains west of Mexico City.
Dead monarch butterflies lay in piles on the ground, he said, in some places more than a foot high. "I've been going down there for 25 years and I've never seen anything like it."

The Straight Dope: Did the inventor of the Slinky join a cult in Bolivia? To provide for her family, Betty decided to keep the Slinky business going, but it was on the verge of bankruptcy. Richard had diverted the company's resources to his religious interests and left millions of dollars in unpaid bills. Betty begged her creditors to be patient, and miraculously they all agreed. She wangled a TV advertising deal, moved the Slinky plant to her hometown of Hollidaysburg in central Pennsylvania, and slowly put the company back on its feet.

The Straight Dope: Why do you use salt to melt ice in the winter but freeze homemade ice cream in the summer? Back to the simplicities of chemistry. Salt lowers the freezing point of water, typically to the mid-20s Fahrenheit. If the air temperature is greater than the mid-20s, ice sprinkled with salt will melt.
In an ice cream maker, you want to rapidly lower the temperature while whipping air into the cream mixture using the crank. The water dripping from ordinary melting ice remains at a constant temperature of 32 degrees. The water from a melting ice and salt mixture, however, drops to the mid-20s due to the lowered freezing point. The water is what comes in contact with the canister containing the ice cream, so the lower its temperature, the quicker the ice cream freezes and the sooner you can stop cranking and enjoy

From the Files of Mike Mailway In a New York City cemetery is the grave of an old prizefighter who had taken too many punches. At the end, he didn't even know his name. Nor did anybody thereby. His headstone reads: "I'm in Pittsburgh -- and it's raining."

Frog Peak Artist: Tom Erbe

FROG PEAK MUSIC: Artists and Organizations jack body, whose music is as yet unheard by yours truly has an issue titled 'out of africa' new zealand two guitars ethnomusicologist... it's pretty much the end of the world and I'm a little saddened not to be able to run down this list and hear EVERYTHING offered.

Coagula - Industrial Strength Color-Note Organ

Dave Van Ronk Unauthorized he is a great cook, a devotee of science fiction, even bad science fiction, has a vast knowledge of world history and politics, and spent a great deal of time hobknobbing with jazz and boogie-woogie greats in New York before even considering a career in folk music!).
Dave remains an oft-imitated guitar guru to thousands of players...the sheer volume of response to this web page from amongst those players can attest to that! And, though many will be able to play what he does, note-for-note,

Weekly Review - Feb 12, 2002: Harper's Magazine for the wealthy. The Pentagon complained that it needed more money. New government statistics revealed that the number of Americans making more than a million dollars doubled between 1995 and 1999 while the percentage of their income paid in federal taxes dropped by 11 percent; Americans who made less than a million dollars per year paid 2 percent more in federal taxes. Interesting details continued to emerge from the Enron scandal, such as the impressive ability of one company insider to turn a $5,800 investment into more than $1 million in about two months.

Welcome to CounterPunch Second, that those of us who desire an Israeli-Palestinian peace cannot rely on America. Now everything depends on us alone, the Israelis and the Palestinians. Our blood is more precious than Caspian Sea oil. At least to us.
Uri Avnery lives in Israel. He has written extensively about the life and career of Ariel Sharon.

Welcome to CounterPunch The most coveted resource on earth is the giant oil-field in the Caspian Sea region, that competes in scale with the riches of Saudi Arabia. In 2010 it is expected to yield 3.2 billion barrels of crude oil per day, in addition to 4850 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year.
The United States is determined (a) to take possession of it, (b) to eliminate all potential competitors, (c) to safeguard the area politically and militarily, and (d) to clear a way from the oil-fields to the open sea.

Reason Gray: I was on Juvenile Court for Abused and Neglected Children. I can�t get these cases out of my mind. It was common that a single mother -- say she has two children -- would hook up with the wrong boyfriend, who would be a drug dealer. One fine day he would tell her, "Look, Maria, I�ll pay you $500 to take this package across town to Charlie." She basically knows it has narcotics in it. She gets arrested and gets five years in prison.
What happens to her children? They come into my court as abused and neglected children. There�s the mother in a prison jumpsuit and handcuffs and I tell her the truth. "You know, ma�am, you�re not going to be a functional part of your children�s lives for the next five years." She starts to well up with tears. Then I tell her that unless she�s fortunate and has either a close personal friend or family member who is both willing and able to take custody of her children, they are very likely going to be adopted by somebody else by the time she gets out of prison.

Reason You want to do something for your country. Then when you get in, the first thing you discover is that you can�t touch some of the biggest drug dealers in the world because they�re protected by the CIA or they�re protected by the State Department. Everyone from Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico to Manuel Noriega to the contras in Nicaragua to the Mujahedin in Afghanistan. Those of us who work overseas realize that this whole thing is a three-card monte game, that it�s a lie.

Reason Reason: Were you frustrated as a police chief with the constraints of the law?
McNamara: Enormously. Police chiefs are sitting on kegs of dynamite. Many of them are really decent, progressive guys. They are worried about the disproportionate racial impact and the corruption. But there�s nothing they can do. There�s just too much money in it. You don�t have the ability, regardless of the propaganda, to eliminate the code of silence. You don�t have unlimited power.

Reason year, he moved on to become the top cop in San Jose, California, a post he held until he retired in 1991. He currently hangs his hat at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, where he conducts seminars on the War on Drugs for law enforcement officials. The author of six books, including the drug war detective novel Code 211 Blue, the 66-year-old McNamara is working on a new book titled Gangster Cops: The Hidden Cost of America�s War on Drugs.

AlterNet -- How Does Pot Work? The places in the body with THC receptors seem to correspond with the drug's effects, though not always. "One of the key areas in the [brain's] frontal cortex has a high density of [such] receptors," says Iversen, "and that may have something to do with impairment in what brain scientists call 'executive' functions -- short-term memory, learning, the ability to take in information, plan ahead, make complicated future arrangements. That ties in reasonably well with actual experience," he adds dryly.

Eastlund Scientific Enterprises Corporation like uh....kick me you know if I'm wrong but.....I mean couldn't...no. it couldn't be. could it? these soul-less zombies want to "manipulate" the weather. are doing so. and... big 'and' here. they DID do this-
ARCO in the mid 80's studied antennae in the North Slope oil fields. powered by natural gas eh. they produced 10 to the 12th power watts. go talk to an engineeer dude. that is a fair amount of juice there. on the North Slope. alaska. hmmmm. this is a big thing maybe

AlterNet -- When the Army Owns the Weather A scientist from Wright Patterson Air Force Base acknowledges that planes are spraying barium salt, polymer fibers, aluminum oxide and other chemicals in the atmosphere to both modify the weather and for military communications purposes. The patent abstract specifically states: "The polymer is dispersed into the cloud and the wind of the storm agitates the mixture causing the polymer to absorb the rain. This reaction forms a gelatinous substance which precipitate to the surface below. Thus, diminishing the cloud�s ability to rain."

AlterNet -- When the Army Owns the Weather Oleg Klugin, a high-ranking KGB officer, bragged of his involvement in geophysical weapons research to a London newspaper. The grid patterns of jet chemtrails now spotted throughout the Western world are likely the application of these technologies to new military and civilian uses.

CNN.com - New iceberg breaks free in Antarctica - February 7, 2002 - A report from meteorologists at the United States' McMurdo Research Station of an unprecedented summer heat wave in early January, including first-ever temperatures above 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Irish Newspapers - Irish News, News Ireland, Irish Online, Sports, Business, Entertainment Michael Parle said he went into Kitty's 'to do a wee'. When he went through the door Paddy Finn was standing there. He said 'the likes of you aren't coming in here', Parle claimed. There was a scuffle, he said.
He explained to Inspector Peter Finn that he did not go to the toilet because 'Paddy Finn grabbed me and then there was a lunatic with a big stick.

Google Search:
It was a performance of such power and intensity that I don't think anyone who was there will ever forget it. Van Ronk's thundering voice rose up and shook down the stars from the darkening skies.

Tin House :: Current Issue : Issue 10 Among her talents was an uncanny ability to forge signatures. It would land her in the glass house three times. Her favorite thing to forge was medical prescriptions, and the drug she most prescribed for herself was Dilaudid. She would spend days on end semiconscious, falling off toilets, not one motherly bone in her whole beautiful body

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Indonesian rainforests pulped to extinction The Indonesian pulp and paper industry is destroying rainforest at such an astonishing rate that it will run out of wood in five years, according to a report being published today.
Environmental groups are concerned that rare wildlife, such as Sumatran tigers and a sub-species of elephant, in some of the most biodiverse rainforests in the world is threatened with

Tin House sandy bull article a.j. albany article. (via greil marcus in uhmmm....salon?

Jordan Times (Home News Section) Her confession angered her brother Anas, who attempted to kill her with an axe the same day, but she survived and was admitted briefly to a hospital, according to the court.
The following day, court papers reveal, Anas told his brother Musa that they must kill their sister because �he could not stand people's looks or comments that their sister was not a pure woman.�
�The two headed to their sister's room, tied a rope around her neck, and each of them pulled one end� the court said.
But she did not die, so they brought a garden hose and squeezed it tightly around her neck until she suffocated to death.

Ananova - Space probe under 'mysterious' force now travelling at 27,000mph towards stars that they will encounter several million years from now. Scientists are continuing to monitor signals from Pioneer 10, which is more than seven billion miles from Earth.
Research to be published shortly in The Physical Review will show the speed of the two probes is being changed by about 6mph per century - a barely-perceptible effect about 10 billion times weaker than gravity

The effect shows no sign of getting weaker as the spacecraft travels deeper into space and scientists are considering the possibility the probe has revealed a new force of nature

Jordan Times (News Section) The peace camp ... is waking up,� former Labour government minister Yossi Beilin, an architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords, told Reuters. �It is clear to all that Sharon and the right have nothing to offer but more bloodshed.�
Peace Now, a movement which used to draw hundreds of thousands of leftists to the streets but recently has been hard pressed to muster more than a few dozen at a time, is rolling out its first big protest campaign since Sharon took office.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Rumors of War (False Prophecy) Claim: A 1654 Nostradamus prediction said World War III would begin with the fall of "two brothers," a reference to the destroyed World Trade Center towers.
Status: False.

Did Nostradamus predict the WTC disaster? The year 1999, seventh month,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror:
To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols,
Before and after Mars to reign by good luck.

The Piri Re'is Map only one of several anomalous maps drawn in the 15th Century and earlier

The Proverbs The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer; 30:26 The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks; 30:27 The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; 30:28 The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.

The Proverbs The proverbs of Solomon the son of David

The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamish These words suggest that Ashur-bani-pal could not only read cuneiform texts, but could write like a skilled scribe, and that he also understood all the details connected with.....

I CHING Index 4-value logic replicated in ching page oracle.
"How a Neolithic shamans' divination technique presaged the basic logic of the human genome is one of the ageless mysteries"
(all sacred text links via robotwisdom

The Nando Times: Deadly elephant stampede in Bangladesh Elephants often wander into villages at the edges of forests

The Nando Times: Starving refugees suffer in Afghan camps I am fed up with life," Sadeq said from his hospital bed Saturday, four days after his suicide attempt. "I cannot even offer food to my crying children. Dying is the only escape from all this

Sacred Texts Timeline copyright J.B. Hare, 1997-2001.

BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | Church bells lead to Egypt clashes sources said local Muslims tried to burn down the church and five houses of Coptic Christians living nearby.

allah, this is god. god, allah. want some coffee? you guys have a lot to talk about eh?

Untitled Document not so much to their body but to their mind. The body can probably take a lot of bludgeoning. The mind is much more fragile than the physical form and it can break down faster. And when you wake up one morning and realize that you've done things that the mind can not handle, then the mind shatters and the body follows suit."

Killing Innocents: Does Anyone Out There Care? Is that an Al Qaeda?" Gul said to the reporter, pointing to a child�s severed foot that he had recovered from a smashed house. "Tell me," he said, his voice choking with fury, "is that what an Al Qaeda looks like?"

Untitled Document The Earth is only 5 to 9 degrees warmer today than it was 10,000 years ago during the last ice age. Throughout history, major shifts in temperature occurred at a rate of a few degrees over thousands of years. They were accompanied by radical ecological changes, including the extinction of many species. Manmade global warming is occurring much faster - faster, in fact, than at any time in the past 10,000 years.

Winterless Olympics? The majority of sub-Arctic glacial systems are now in rapid retreat. Sea ice in the Arctic is thinning quickly, and winter, measured by dates of first and last freeze, is now almost three weeks shorter across North American latitudes than it was in 1970.

Enron? Nader Is Glad You Asked Molly Ivins, Jackson Browne and Patti Smith. "America is starting to understand what Ralph has been trying to tell them all these years," says Smith, the most loyal of Nader's superrally compatriots. "People don't trust Washington, but they trust Ralph Nader."

Steven Emerson's Crusade: Why is a journalist pushing questionable stories from behind the scenes? Emerson has "close ties to Israeli intelligence."
"He's carrying the ball for Likud," says investigative journalist Robert Parry,

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | What's good for the stars is good for Gandhi marketing world, Mahatma Gandhi could soon be championing a wide variety of useful household products.

We make a percentage out of this, just like if it were Princess Diana or Babe Ruth," said Beth Vahle, a senior vice-president at CMG. "But we enjoy working to promote this cause to a generation that isn't used to it, and only classy, well-put-together things will be allowed to promote the Gandhi name." She would not disclose the percentage that the agency would take on income from Gandhi-related merchandise.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Jonathan Freedland: Breaking the silence We know, too, how important it is to handle failed states properly - and to prevent them failing in the first place. We have realised that we have to tackle "the root causes of terrorism and violence".
Faced with that agenda, he said "frankly, smart bombs have their place, but smart development assistance" mattered more. And it's that simple idea that Washington doesn't get? "That's a polite way of putting it," snorts Mr Patten,

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Image of Stone Age death He had well-made shoes and a bearskin hat.