moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

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There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

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WRITER'S LINKS
Absolute Write Paypal donation button:

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Everything you wanted to know about literary agents
On the getting of agents
Writer Beware
Miss Snark
Writer's Net

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(and my Wish List)

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The more things change ...  
Isn't there an old saying that goes: "The more things change, the more they say the same"? The French have it too.

With the current kerfuffle about problems with the New South Wales rail system, when, searching for some important legal papers, I stumbled across these comments in a collection of old songs, I thought some people might also find them illustrative of Santanya's saying that "those who forget history are condemned to repeat it." Note the date below.

If I can wrench some time and mental energy away from burgeoning "urgent & important" demands I may be able to write about how better public transport is an important part of answers to a large number, perhaps a majority of the problems discussed in "the meeja".

www.crixa.com/muse/tot/index.htm
AUSTRALIAN RAILWAY STORY
A Continuing Project: Concerning the Culture Associated with Australian Railways.

Objective
Further the collection and documentation of songs, poems and stories that reflect on the contribution railways have made (and continue to make) to the social history of Australia

unionsong.com/muse/tot/voices/voices16.htm
Railway Voices a CD of Australian railway workers stories with songs and poems

Brian Dunnett electrical fitter, Loco Workshops, Chullora
Undoubtably the 1970 period which led up to the election of the Wran government was the first real occasion that the public actually got itself involved in the debate about public transport. The argument between road and rail lead to the closing down, in the 1960s, of our tramway system, and that appeared to be the way in which rail as a whole was heading. The thing that intervened in that process, and as encouraged people to look again at rail as a system and a more efficient means, both of moving people and certainly bulk goods, was the energy crisis, the environmental questions that arose in the 1970s. People were in fact forced to look at the enormous increase in the usage of diesel and the cost, not only the cost factors involved but, but the energy crisis dominated a lot of the debate. It was stirred on here, I think, by the Green Ban movement in Sydney and elsewhere that it created a basis of interest about well ... what do you do with your cities?
...
Now what ... what had occurred was the NSW government, Askin, brought to Australia a British expert, so called expert, Phillip Shirley, who had been connected with the British run-down of rail and that government was quite openly speaking about 10,000 jobs. The repercussions of that within the union movement was enormous, very sharp divisions, and it was the railway unions that discovered that they had some unity of interest with the public, that formed the "Save Public Transport Committees". Granville had that effect of bringing home what railway workers had been saying, that if you neglect a system, if you don't spend money on maintenance, if you don't do the right thing, well then you're in for trouble.

TRAIN TRIP TO GUILDFORD
A song by John Dengate (1975)
John Dengate - guitar and vocals.

Waiting, waiting for the twenty past four to arrive;
Mate, the twenty past four doesn't run any more,
The next train's the quarter past five.

Time means money, they say,
And I must get to Guildford today
Did he say platform nine for the Liverpool line?
Do I have to change trains on the way?
Indicator, please won't you indicate soon
With your little round light that this platform is right;
I've been waiting at Central since noon.

This old fellow here next to me
Caught the bus up from Circular Quay;
He scratches his arse with his pensioner's pass
But he's on the wrong line for Narwee.

Waiting, waiting, for the twenty past four to arrive;
Mate, the twenty past four doesn't run any more,
The next train's the quarter past five.
Come on you timetable mob, I'm desperately short of a bob,
I'm in my good gear and I'm right off the beer
And at Guildford they say there's a job.

Indicator, please won't you indicate soon
With your little round light that this platform is right;
I've been waiting at Central since noon.

The service is worse than a fraud And the fare's more than I can afford
But I'll never complain - here comes the train
to Guildford And now I'm aboard.
But it's Wentworthville, Pendle Hill;
We're rattling towards Emu Plains.
I should have got out when I heard someone shout
At Granville, "You have to change trains."

Waiting, waiting for the twenty past eight to go back,
But the twenty past eight is half an hour late
And I think I'll lie down on the track.

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 10:07 pm

 
150 Years of Licensing  
150 Years of Licensing
I wonder if this Victorian group protesting about licensing laws was marking the sesquicentenary of the Eureka Uprising?

[GET EXPLANATORY LINKS; EUREKA LINKS]

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 9:57 am

 
Holy Rarebit, Batman!  
Holy Rarebit, Batman!
Apparently the grilled cheese on bread with the image of the BVM has been sold to a casino for $US36,000.

"tragic microfilm accident"
www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/ week_2004_07_18.php#003197

It's possible to 'merchandise' most things:
www.idiots4bush.com/t_shirts1
www.pbase.com/alexuchoa/favorites

Pretty Pix, to relax a bit with - Alex Uchoa is a Brazilian photographer.
www.pbase.com/alexuchoa/favorites

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:50 am

 
Cargoweasel helps us chill out  
Cargo - at www.livejournal.com/users/cargoweasel
November 8th, 2004
Time: 12:35 pm
Subject: Order

Two interesting links of visual beauty today. Enjoy.

Hough waves ( www.hough.no) are designs based on the Hough transformation algorithm ( homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/HIPR2/hough.htm). They are sold in the form of photographic prints.

Squidfingers ( www.squidfingers.com/patterns) has a repository of 140-odd pixel patterns in GIF format, from the modern to the arabesque.

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:26 am

 
Power of Nightmares (BBC Documentary) transcript site  
www.acutor.be/silt/index.php?id=573
Transcript of The Power of Nightmares

I contacted the BBC through their web site to try and obtain a legitimate DVD of the documentary, and got the following response:

Thank you for your question/questions regarding Power of Nightmares.
At present we do not have any information relating to whether the programme will be re-broadcast. Unfortunately the resources to show previous episodes are not available at present.
Due to resource limitations the programme’s transcripts are not available.
We regret that there are currently no plans for the programme to be released on DVD. However, you may be interested to visit the programme’s web content: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3951615.stm

Regards
Anthony Simon
Assistant Editor, Current Affairs Interactive

[S]omeone has posted a DVD encode to usenet, alt.binaries.multimedia abvcd.how.to

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:24 am

 
Post-Election: Major bugs in Diebold vote systems  
washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041112-112037-7263r.htm

Major bugs found in Diebold vote systems
Washington, DC, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The voting machine controversy likely will linger after a look at the systems source code software from Ohio-based Diebold yielded reports of numerous bugs...
... The Digital Encryption Standard 56-bit encryption key used can be unlocked by a key embedded in all the source code, meaning all Diebold machines would respond to the same key.

Rubin, his graduate students and a colleague from Rice University found other bugs, that the administrator's PIN code was "1111" and that one programmer had inserted, "This is just a hack for now."

The implication is that by hacking one machine you could have access to all Diebold machines...

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:22 am

 
Remembrance Day  
Sometime before next Anzac Day I will try to write the piece on Australian War Memorials I have in mind to put some flesh on the casualty figures, but here is an unofficial site about the local memorials. The official site is www.awm.gov.au, which has some excellent resource.
This link commemorates some Voices lost to the world of arts in The War to End Wars
(Two earlier
posts on Remembrance Day.)

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 7:47 pm

 
Mohandas Gandhi & Joe Hill  
I have been following (lightly - life gets in the way sometimes) some of the reaction in the US & elsewhere amongst like-minded citizens to the election success of Bush (& Howard).
It's usually agreed that putting as much effort into making sure that electronic voting, voting, ballot security & vote counting in the "First World" is as scrutinised & secure & independently overseen as the system developed for paper ballots in countries with former records of rigging & cheating is worth putting effort into.

But many are also looking at examples like, say, Gandhi, where he said, more or less: "We can't fight them with force, both because that's the wrong way to achieve our aims anyway, and also because they're better at it & we won't win.

We can try, in some circumstances defying & working against them directly, but that must only be where there is no alternative - and it might serve our cause rather than harm it.

What we should try to do is ignore them. Work around them. Do our own thing our own way rather than fall in with their system. Show that we can do things our way, with our systems, and with better results. Show the people they needn't be dependent on the ones who say 'bend down and serve us, let us make you suffer, because you will suffer even more without us', then their support will crumble from within."

Or as Joe Hill put it more succinctly: "Organize!"

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 3:18 pm

 
C.S. Lewis on Theocracy, 1946  

Why I am a Democrat (C.S. Lewis)

I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.

And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In a word, it forbids wholesome doubt. A political programme can never in reality be more than probably right. We never know all the facts about the present and we can only guess the future. To attach to a party programme — whose highest real claim is to reasonable prudence — the sort of assent which we should reserve for demonstrable theorems, is a kind of intoxication.

--C.S. Lewis, 1946

PDF: oddlots.digitalspace.net/downloads/democrat.pdf
"A Reply to Professor Haldane" in "Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories"
Danny's Blog Cabin
www.brendoman.com/danny/archives/006596.html
May 26, 2004
Church and State: Keep Them Separated
(article written for June 2004 church newsletter) quoted & explained part of this. It's also a good current-day explanation from the Christian side of the dangers of confusing religion & politics too much, as Lewis' was a half-century ago.

I may later add in something about CS Lewis & his works & relationship with JRR Tolkein & others in their group. Or you can go & look that up yersel :)

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 3:17 pm

 
News Just Through: Arafat's Death Announced  
News of Arafat's death has just come through.

Is this a turning point? Which way?

We are all rowing forward into the future, only able to see where we've been in the past.

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 3:39 pm

 
A Poem After War  
Back

They ask me where I've been,
And what I've done and seen.
But what can I reply
Who know it wasn't I,
But someone just like me,
Who went across the sea
And with my head and hands
Killed men in foreign lands...
Though I must bear the blame,
Because he bore my name.

Wilfred Gibson (1878-1962)
www.warpoetry.co.uk/FWW_index.html

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 11:11 am

 
Armistice Day  
Early Remembrance (1); pre-dawn 11/11/2004

Extracts from a small thing for Armistice/Remembrance Day, which I thought had a few aspects people may find good to think upon.
A life in three centuries November 11, 2004, by Jonathon King

Age shall not weary Peter Casserly. And, rather than being condemned by the years, time has made him a record breaker. He is Australia's oldest known man for one. Next, of the 331,000 Australians who fought overseas in World War I he is the sole surviving serviceman from the Western Front. For good measure, he appears to have notched up the country's longest running marriage - lasting 80 years and 10 months before his wife Monica died at 102 in August ...

"The passing time never changed the loveliness of my wife for me. She remained a beautiful blessing throughout our long marriage. But you know what my secret is ... Rum!

"I tell you they gave every soldier two issues of rum each day on the Western Front, but I knew my way around and used to get three and I've been drinking rum ever since - I'm still drinking it. It's a sure cure for the flu. If you feel it coming on, take some rum and in two days it's gone."...

Casserly was born just north of Perth on January 28, 1898, and has the birth certificate to prove [at 106] he's the oldest man in Australia.

A man of three centuries, the world into which Casserly was born is now long gone. Also born in 1898 were one of the discoverers of penicillin, Howard Florey; Charles Kingsford Smith's co-pilot Charles Ulm; billiards champion Walter Lindrum and the artist Sali Herman. There were only 3 million people living in the Australian colonies over which Queen Victoria ruled ...

After the war, Casserly helped with clean-up operations until his discharge on September 11, 1919. On his return he worked as a wharf labourer, timber cutter, sailor and fisherman before establishing a wood yard and then cray fishing business. He won a bravery award for saving the life of a swimmer who had got into difficulties...

Although Casserly returned to the Western Front with veterans for the 75th anniversary of the armistice in 1993, he always opposed subsequent wars and has only marched twice on Anzac Day - in 1917 and again this year.

Early Remembrance (2); pre-dawn 11/11/2004

Some poems of two wars
World War One Poets on the Battlefields: Blunden; Brooke; Owen; Sassoon; St Quentin; Ypres
Wilfred Owen
"Damn all war mongers who lie to the young so they volunteer to kill + to be killed"
Links:
http://www.1914-18.co.uk/owen/ (Wilfred Owen Association)
http://www.pitt.edu/~pugachev/greatwar/owen.html
http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Wilfred_Owen/wilfred_owen_contents.htm

Paul Eluard

Early Remembrance (3); pre-dawn 11/11/2004

Some non-poetry of two wars: Article (for members); Article (for members)
(Casualty figures 1914-1918; 1939-1945)
Until I can work out something grand & good -- this puts it into millenial vistas -- it looks like the only way you can look at these latter two is to download them. Any suggestions for simple conversions of complex Excel spreadsheets to, say, HTML tables?
I will try to write the piece on War Memorials I have in mind to put some flesh on the figures. This link commemorates some Voices lost to the world of arts in The War to End Wars.

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 5:05 am

 
Shock-voting?  
www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll/572.html?mode=reply
I know, it's easy to snipe as I sit here in Canada, as immune to unpleasant affairs abroad as a Belgian in 1933 but I'd like to issue a very special Adrej Waidja Stakhanovite* Award to the Republican voters of Gahanna District in Franklin County, Ohio, where 4,258 of the 638 people who voted voted for Bush. I think the old Soviets only ever managed to get turnouts 99% in favour the chosen candidate. Exceeding the actual number of voters has to count as something extraordinary.

*Or possibly Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov (Алексей Григорьевич Стаханов) - from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksei_Grigorievich_Stakhanov, see also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite about the "model Soviet worker" (or shock-worker) movement.

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 5:04 am

 
The First 9/11 - Broken Glass & Ashes  
(In Australia 9/11 is November 9th)

Remember Kristallnacht - 9/11/38

Two sites of many
www.remember.org/fact.fin.kristal.html
www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/kristallnacht.html

November 9th is still a pertinent anniversary: "Kristallnacht - the Night of Broken Glass".

In 1938, incensed by hearing of his family in Germany being forced into "relocation camps" in the November snow under Nazi laws, an adolescent Jew in Paris shot and killed a German diplomat.

Goebbels used this for propaganda about conspiracies against Germany, inciting Germans to "rise in bloody vengeance", culminating on the long winter night of November 9th in organised widespread violence. Non-Jews who protested were beaten. Police and firemen watched people brutalized, buildings smashed, looted and burnt.
Morning footpaths were impassable under an icy glittering crust of broken glass and ashes.

Lack of public protest encouraged the Nazi government to pass even more repressive laws in the next few months. Prominent Germans who protested were arrested. Ordinary Germans who protested were beaten up.

Can we hope that we've learnt from last century's several examples of disasters wrought by stirring up - for power, for gain, for dogmatic religion or ideology - the darker side we all have?

From www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/kristallnacht.html
what disturbed the German populace was less the sight of synagogues burning (fires take place all the time, after all -- it depends on the scale) than of the savage and wasteful vandalism that confronted bystanders everywhere, disrupting the clean and orderly streets (to say nothing of consumer convenience). What was indeed memorable was the sheer quantity of broken glass. A third point was the economic outcome of this massive breakage. Germany didn't produce enough plate glass to repair the damages (synagogues did not have to be replaced -- quite the contrary). The result was twofold: the need to import glass from Belgium (for sorely needed cash) and the outrage of indemnifying the Jewish community to pay for the damages.

Labels: anniversaries, history

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 9:29 am

 
 
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
(UK Edition) Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage America

The Working Poor : Invisible in America by DAVID K. SHIPLER

www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/cold_turkey/
Features > May 10, 2004
Cold Turkey
By Kurt Vonnegut

Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of ...

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 3:33 am

 
Deep & Meaningful (and other barriers)  
From a discussion on a subject like unto one my friends & I have discussed

nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005515.html
Graydon ::: September 10, 2004, 09:54 PM

Prosperity and civilization *do* manage to obscure some basic truths, the learning of a hard life.

One of the most basic of those truths is this -- you cannot kill fear with an ax. You cannot kill fear at all; fear is a thing in your heart, and if you cut your heart out, you are dead, and the shape of fear is dead with you.
I have said before the that American Radical Christian Right isn't, that they're fundamentally atheistic. One of the great teachings of Christianity is that you do not need to fear. With faith, all things are possible; in the love of God, the just and the pious are sure of their reward.


For people who ought -- in the certainty of their faith, and the power of their conviction -- to have no fear at all, they're creatures chained to terror, a terror of losing money, place, and material power. None of those are of themselves bad things; like all things else, what matters about them is what you do with them.


If you need, to build a cage for fear, to brick up the broken knowledge that money is not the same thing as goodness, to not believe that wealth is neither virtue nor the reward of virtue, that the wonder and the glory that is the material world can be understood and used to change all things for the better, to keep all those things away from the certainties of a distant childhood and the fear of surrendered power -- because, God knows, no one would any sense would trust and surrender power to them, and there are none better than them in all the world -- then you will, in whatever haze of deception, come to prefer to destroy your civilization, rather than endure the change that comes from peace and prosperity and letting everybody get at opportunity.


One of the ways you do this is break the machinery of government; treat the public sphere as a mechanism for mass theft, as a machine for making wealth equivalent to virtue, as a device for oppression -- price supports backed up with military power, that ancient doom of empires. So you remember that repetition creates belief -- it does; the insides of our heads are the lands of magic -- and repeat what you want to be true, because if it isn't, then, well, you're a liar and a coward and a skinflint son-of-a-bitch, a stranger to generosity and hope and courage.


All courage isn't found in the service of arms -- ask anyone who has been honest with their children about something they're not proud of, or who has done the right thing at personal cost -- but, well, look at the Right. Not the followers -- it's a ghastly set of certainties, but people will follow any certainty in which they come to believe -- but the folks out front, burning down the house? ...

The comment under
Randolph Fritz ::: September 10, 2004, 08:03 PM
also reflects something mentioned previously

no investment--not equities (stocks), debt securities (bonds), not cash, not gemstones, not precious metal--is certain. Your IRAs and 401(k) may turn into so much worthless paper. And they all depend on policy to maintain their values. When the SEC stopped doing its job, fraud in the securities markets (Enron!) made many stocks into so much worthless paper. Debt securities depend on the rate of inflation--the inflation that is likely if W. Bush is reelected will devalue them dramatically. Investments in any currency depend on international trade policies; it is likely that the dollar will not be the world standard of value in 20 years and there will be many losers in the resultant capital shifts. Metal and gemstones are only valuable as long as most people hold them; in hard times, many people will try to sell and the value will drop.

It all depends on policy--every penny of it. And, since it does, I think it makes good sense to make policy that protects everyone, rather than the minority of lucky investors.


The odd thing is, I'm sure that you--and just about any savvy investor--is aware of the facts I mentioned above. But, somehow, when it comes time to make policy, many of us forget.

and you'll probably notice that
PiscusFiche ::: September 11, 2004, 11:25
puts an example that follows my argument -- concluding "Times are changing, and the more we cooperate, the more able we are to weather it."

At 12frogs.com
September 12, 2004 The Worst Part Is I Don't Want Help

"I have gone on reading binges of an entire book or more in a day."
"Sometimes I avoid friends or family obligations in order to read novels."
"I have neglected personal hygiene or household chores until I had finished a novel."
"I have spent money meant for necessities on books instead."
"I have wept, become angry or irrational because of something I read."
"If you answered 'yes' to three or more of these questions, you may be a literature abuser

.
Affirmative responses to five or more indicates a serious problem."

Large Killer Tracheophytes

Silent Killers: The True Story Of Deadly Trees
By Gene Weingarten Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 7, 1998; Page C01
America was stunned this week by the tragic deaths of Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono, who lost their lives to a silent killer.
Trees. [etc.]

[also see (Hughes, Sylvia; "Antelope Activate the Acacia's Alarm System," New Scientist, p. 19, September 29, 1990.) summarised at . This is only a "killer" because the antelope are artificially confined by humans.]

Flagging & Surveying Tape

Used for surveying, mapping, forestry, tagging, roping off an area, or any other marking application. Also available in biodegradeable & printed versions; Pre-Made Aerial Targets

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PROPERTY LINE (Glo Pink)
WETLAND DELINEATION (Glo Pink)
PEST MANAGEMENT (Glo Pink)
Spot fire (Glo Orange)
WETLAND BOUNDARY (Glo Orange or Glo Pink)
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Other brands
Identi-Tape Inc
www.contractorstools.com/keson_m2_flag_tape.html

Photo-luminescent Tapes (Glow-in-the-Dark)

Comes in high-intensity photoluminescent and long-life phosphorescent types.
Camouflage Tapes
Chart & Map Tape
Color Coding Tape
Duct Tape
Flagging Tape
Fluorescent Tape
Gaffers Tape
Gear-Tape (Identi-Tape)

(Gear, Instrument, & Cable Identification Tape) - This colorfully striped high temperature proof (300 ?F ) vinyl tape is for identification of climbing gear, surgical instruments, small tools, wires, cables, and hoses. It is sterilization proof and won't fade, wrinkle, peel or become gummy.)
Label Tape
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Harness Tape

www.livejournal.com/users/crevette/113659.html
[WARNING!] Review: Night Travels of the Elven Vampire

(After reading 98 3/4 pages of complete and utter badness) ... This is my favorite half paragraph in the book.

Glowing red eyes looked at her, and she turned her eyes away from the sight of the glowing orbs. Each one stood at least seven feet in height, and must have weighed around six hundred pounds. They were covered in fur, had pointed ears, a snout and large sharp teeth. They stood on legs the size of tree trunks.

As an aside, there is a sequel in the works for this that is going to be rated NC-17. I can tell you right now that if I read any kind of porn written by this woman it will make my genitals shrivel up and retreat into my spleen, and I'll have to just pollinate for the rest of my life.

Now, that might make this somewhat more understandable? Or not?

The Rapture Index
www.raptureready.com/rap2.html

The Rapture Index has two functions: one is to factor together a number of related end time components into a cohesive indicator, and the other is to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting.
The Rapture Index is by no means meant to predict the rapture, however, the index is designed to measure the type of activity that could act as a
precursor to the rapture.
You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic
speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.

Rapture Index of 85 and Below: Slow prophetic activity

Rapture Index of 85 to 110: Moderate prophetic activity

Rapture Index of 110 to 145: Heavy prophetic activity

Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts

Antichrist Photo Gallery
www.raptureready.com/photo/antichrists/rap83i.html

Ummm ... www.ericawebb.com/091601

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:27 am

 
After the Ball is over ...  
ttp://smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/28/1098667914319.html
Saudi Arabia sees Bush victory as lesser of two evils
By Ed O'Loughlin, Herald Correspondent in Riyadh
October 29, 2004

Whatever the realpolitik calculations, on the emotional level relations between the US and its Saudi guarantors of cheap petrol - always unsentimental - have never been worse.

While Muslim fundamentalists continue to preach against the Great Satan, America's natural constituency among liberal and reform-minded educated Saudis has been alienated by what it sees as hostility towards Arabs since the September 11 attacks.

Over the past three years tens of thousands of young Saudis have returned home from US universities to escape official or unofficial harassment or because of difficulties in renewing study visas.

"After 9/11 they say that all Arabs and Muslims are terrorists," said the editor of Arab News, Khalid al-Maeena, whose son recently returned from a US university without graduating. "This has made young Arabs turn against the West. They like to listen to Ricky Martin and Mark Anthony and have coffee at Starbucks, and yet their sentiments are increasingly anti-American."

"Saudis love the West and they hate it," said Mansour al-Nogaidan, once a leading Islamic hardliner and now a liberal dissident. "They love Western civilisation but they hate it because they feel inferior. They hate the thought that it is stronger than we are, that it is up while we are a long way down."

Man tries to convert lions to Jesus, gets bitten
46-year-old leaps into den at Taipei Zoo, calls beasts to Christianity
[There is video of this - watch TV news.]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6396422/
Updated: 5:51 a.m. ET Nov. 3, 2004
TAIPEI, Taiwan - A man leaped into a lion’s den at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday to try to convert the king of beasts to Christianity, but was bitten in the leg for his efforts.
“Jesus will save you!” shouted the 46-year-old man at two African lions lounging under a tree a few metres away.

“Come bite me!” he said with both hands raised, television footage showed.

One of the lions, a large male with a shaggy mane, bit the man in his right leg before zoo workers drove it off with water hoses and tranquilizer guns.

Newspapers said that the lions had been fed earlier in the day, otherwise the man might have been more seriously hurt ... or worse.

Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Many good useful & hopeful things (as well as rage, despair, &c.) on the "Bad morning" thread at Making Light -- http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005687.html

I really thought that today would be the beginning of our recovery from the current low point. But I guess we have lower to sink. Doesn't mean we won't rise again eventually.


And in my right hand I hold my sorrow
And with my left hand I reach for joy
We all are soldiers whether we fight or fall
No one can run from the scorns of time

"Scorns of Time", on the Simple Path album, by Irene Kelley and Claire Lynch

Alison ::: November 03, 2004, 04:39 PM
( http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005687.html )

What I resent most about this election is that 80% of the people who based their decision on "moral values" voted for Bush. Since when did the Republican Party become the last bastion of morality? Well, because they say they are and Democrats are resistent to portraying themselves that way.

These people who voted for moral values believe that abortion is murder and that homosexuals are out to wreck their marriages, but not that every child should be adequately educated or that the elderly should not have to choose between their prescription drugs and their food for the month. The reason they focus on abortion and homosexual marriage is that someone told them who was to fear and what was to blame for their problems in life ...

What I keep coming back to is an article I read last year about how conservatives use language to dominate politics. The link:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

There must be a way to make people see that bombing terrorists only breeds more terrorists, that depriving children of education creates crime and that allowing everyone the same rights does not somehow dilute or diminish those rights. In other words, have to talk to the other side. Unfortunately, we first have to figure out how to use words they can hear.

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:26 am