• At http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/book-sum/lecky.html

• At http://www.americansouthwest.net/

• At http://www.nla.gov.au/oz/histsite.html

• At http://spamcop.net/

• At http://www.guardiansoftware.com/

• At http://www.pfaw.org/

• "This online rhetoric, provided by Dr. Gideon Burton of Brigham Young University, is a guide to the terms of classical and renaissance rhetoric."
• At http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm

• At http://stdatu.stsci.edu/dss/
• At http://stdatu.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_form
• Other sites - http://stdatu.stsci.edu/dss/other_sites.html

• At http://www.oanda.com
• At http://www.oanda.com/converter/classic
• Currency Converter by OANDA.com, The Currency Site.

• Dynamind Currency Converter
  • At http://www3.dynamind-llc.com/currency/input.cfm

• Bear-Market Portfolio Design
  • At http://www.zealllc.com/2002/bearport.htm

• Bears and bear foot prints / bear paw prints
  • At http://www.sierrafoot.org/waterford/wildlife/bears.html

• Revolt of the Long Bond - investment bonds
  • At http://www.zealllc.com/commentary/revolt.htm

• To Crash or Not to Crash
  • At http://www.zealllc.com/commentary/crash.htm

• Quicken.com
  • Allows you to generate stock market performance charts of companies.
  • At http://www.quicken.com

• Yahoo Finance
  • Allows you to generate stock market performance charts of companies. (Log scale plotting which is useful for tracking .com companies)
  • At http://finance.yahoo.com/
  • Example of Yahoo Insider Trades - Onvia.com Inc (NasdaqNM:ONVI): http://biz.yahoo.com/t/O/ONVI.html

• 1901 census online : UK Public Record Office's (PRO) containing details of the 1901 census
  • At http://www.census.pro.gov.uk/

• Mormon genealogical site
  • At http://www.familysearch.org

• American Family Immigration History Center at ellisislandrecords.org
  • At http://www.ellisislandrecords.org

• The Ultimate Warrior - Wrestling Hero Site
  • At http://www.ultimatewarrior.com/
  • At http://www.ultimatewarrior.com/menu.html
  • The Ultimate Warrior Comic: http://www.ultimatewarrior.com/comic.html

• Darwin Awards and Internet/Net Myths
  • At http://www.officialdarwinawards.com/
  • Rocket Car Myth
    • http://www.officialdarwinawards.com/uls/impala.html
    • http://www.dps.state.az.us/news/nr96006.htm
  • Stolen Kidneys Myth
    • http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm.

• Urban Legend Zeitgeist: Giant Atomic Mutant Cat from Canada
  • "A giant cat - 87 pounds and 69 inches from nose to tail - was raised by a Canadian man.
    See the picture and accompanying story here."
  • At http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/xbigcat.html
  • At http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/bigcat.html
  • At http://www.snopes2.com/spoons/photos/bigcat.htm
  • At http://www.weirdpics.com/pastpics/pastpics2000/giantcat.html
  • At http://www.weirdpics.com/pastpics/pastpics2000/giantcat.html

• E-mail reply to Spammer Stories
  • At http://www.sunworld.com/sunworldonline/swol-07-1999/swol-07-security.html#Stop the insanity

• Internet retail store featuring Frog-themed items
  • At http://www.frognirvana.com/

• UNESCO Memory of the World Register
  • At http://www.unesco.org/webworld/memory/Abid.htm#MemoryoftheWorldRegister
  • IFLA Core Programme for Universal Availability of Publications - www.ifla.org/VI/2/uap.htm
  • IFLA Core Programme for Preservation and Conservation - http://www.ifla.org/VI/4/pac.htm

• On-line Dictionaries
  • At http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction.html

• Doug’s Archaeology site
  • Archaeological/Skeptical Resources, Critiques of cult archaeology, Roman Britain links
  • At http://www.ramtops.demon.co.uk/

• Frank Doernenburg's Homepage
  • The Pyramid Sceptic page
  • At http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/FDoernenburg/entry.htm

• Junk Science Homepage
  • At http://www.junkscience.com/

• Numbers Watch
  • At http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/

• Australian aborigines
  • At http://looksmart.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0805377.html

• History and Ancient Britain - Caratacus, Caractacus - Celtic Earth
  • "Caratacus/Caractacus addressing his men before the battle by the River Severn "This day, decides the fate of Britain! Your liberty, or your eternal slavery, dates from this hour. Remember your brave ancestors, who drove the great Caesar himself across the sea!'"
  • At http://members.aol.com/BRBlast/caratacus.html

• Stonehenge History
  • At http://home.earthlink.net/~shadowfax/sfstone.htm

• CRC against Wolfram Research Court Case - October 2000
  • The perils of converting a web site to a book.
  • At http://mathworld.wolfram.com/
  • Frequently Asked Questions: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/docs/faq.html
  • At http://www.crcpress.com/us/

• Article on Open Source Scientific Publication
  • At http://slashdot.org/features/99/07/28/0219237.shtml

  • A comment following on from this:

    "Peer review often doesn't work (Score:3, Interesting)
    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28, @09:17PM EDT (#107)
    Back when I was in grad school, my research happened to make a notable contribution to a hot topic at the time. I was (usually with other authors) submitting papers to IEEE journals at a rate of about 1 per 3-6 months. I also attended several conferences and got to know a lot of the major contributors in my research area.
    Typically, every submission got sent to 3 experts for review. My professor (and one of his collegues) even forwarded to me several papers they were asked to review. I noticed a couple of things regarding peer review:

    1. For every submission, there was a 50/50 chance that none of the three reviewers would know what the paper is really about. Part of this problem is that the IEEE journal editors simply can't know about all the topics being researched in their area and would often pass the submission to the wrong experts. These "experts" (in the wrong subject matter) often wouldn't give a shit about trying to learn about the topic at hand and would just give it a bad review. You could tell this was happening when you got your submission back with comments and criticisms that simply made no sense. I was asked to review a couple of papers that were out of my research area, and I did my best to research the prior literature on the subject and give a fair review, but many professors didn't have the time and would slam the paper rather than pass it on to somebody who would understand it.
    2. There is an "old boys" network present in every field of research. Most of these operate like an old fashioned closed businessman's club. Once you are accepted into the fold, everyone else kisses your ass and gives great reviews to any paper with your name on it, regardless of whether it is worthy of publication. The people who make it to this stage rarely make useful research contributions anymore, but they get their names on lots and lots of papers. All of the lesser known researchers practically beg the big boys to co-author their paper, thus virtually guaranteeing its publication. Some of the members of the "old boys" network have unbelievable egos that require constant stroking if you plan on ever making a name for yourself in the field.
    3. There are some researchers who will go to great lengths to stab you in the back. I remember the case of one little known French researcher who wrote a landmark paper in our field. In the review process, it was sent to one SOB who was a big player in the field but was notorious for being a backstabber and had questionable intelligence (I never knew how he got so well known in the first place). The SOB managed sit on the review and delay the paper's publication for over a year while he attemped to figure out what the French guy had done and duplicate his results. He sat on it so long in fact that he got his own paper published on the subject before the French guy's and stole all the credit. This dickhead, and several others like him, were also notorious for attacking their peers (and especially their peer's grad students) at any conference where one of their sponsors or potential sponsors were present.
    I left grad school thoroughly disgusted with the whole research community. Your status was measured by how many papers you published, not how many real contributions you made. There were too many people who capitalized on the original research of others by pumping out lots of papers covering slight variations in the application of the aformentioned original research. To keep up, you had to sell out and produce lots of junk papers with the right names on them. I managed to get published in IEEE journals 6 times in 2 years, but I'm only proud of two. "

• What We Don't Know About the Ancient Celts
  • At http://www.conjure.com/whocelts.html

• The Sanctum of Cathbad (Or, the homepage of Brendan Myers)
  • Including "What is a consulting philosopher?"
  • At http://www.uoguelph.ca/~bmyers/sanctum.html

• Ogham, Ancient Alphabet of the Celts
  • At http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_18/b3679001.htm

• A Linguistic Analysis of Some West Virginia Petroglyphs - By Monroe Oppenheimer and Willard Wirtz (The West Virginia Archeologist Volume 41, Number 1, Spring 1989)
  • At http://cwva.org/ogam_rebutal/wirtz.html

  • It is equally sobering to discover on investigation that Barry Fell's connection with Harvard is as a retired professor of marine biology. His profession had nothing to do with archaeology or linguistics or ancient inscriptions, and he is in fact an extremely controversial figure whose previous decipherments of this same kind have been seriously challenged, after careful study, by American, Irish, English and Scottish archaeologists and linguists.

  • This strains credulity past the breaking point. It isn't just that Fell offers only the flimsiest basis for his conclusion that an early form of Ogam was what linguists call "consaine," a form of writing, that is, which includes only consonants. He ignores, in making this announcement, the fact that the Irish language has been authoritatively identified as not of a nature consistent with the use of a consaine alphabet (Carey, personal communication, 1987, and Fitzhugh, 1978: 167).

  • Among these commentators, Dr. John Carey of the Department of Celtic Languages and Literature at Harvard University, analyzes a series of questions of grammar and spelling that arise in connection with Fell's purported translation of the West Virginia petroglyphs. He points out that Fell "finds" in them sentence structures and spelling that in fact developed in the Irish language many centuries later than the time - the 6th to 8th centuries A.D. - to which Fell attributes these wall carvings (Carey, personal communication, 1987).

  • Professor Gillies concludes, however, "I suspect there may be more valuable things to be said about these carvings than the preposterous constructions you have had to put up with so far" (Gillies, personal communication). It would be unfortunate if the continuing search for whatever may be these petroglyph's explanation were deterred or obstructed by what turns out to be a demeaning fraud

• The Fall of a Dot-Com (''friction-free capitalism.'' )
  • At http://members.aol.com/plieadesqu/ogham.htm

• Boadicea/Boudica's last battle - introduction
  • At http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/boudica1.htm
  • Summary of Tacitus from Encyclopaedia Romana WWW site: http://www.ancientsites.com/as/er/boudicanrevolt.html | http://www.ancientsites.com/~Lucius_Aelius/boudica/boudicanrevolt.html
  • At http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/boudica2.htm

• Recovering the lost religious place-names of England
  • At http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/religpns.htm

• Australian Real Estate Agents and Property Sales Directory - Search over $ 5,173,411,377 worth of Australian Real Estate for sale.
  • At http://www.real-estate-australia.com.au/

• Camera store - Digital Cameras - Australia's largest online camera store. Digital cameras, Video and SLR's
  • At http://www.camerastore.com.au/

• The Green Man Variations on a theme
  • At http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/greenmen.htm
  • GREEN MEN AND FOLIATE FACES : http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/albion/ggcgm.htm

• Surgical instruments, THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATION AT STANWAY, COLCHESTER, UK
  • At http://peipa.essex.ac.uk/CAT/instruments.html
  • "The surgical instruments from Stanway, Colchester" by Ralph Jackson : http://peipa.essex.ac.uk/CAT/jackson.html

• Papyrus of Ani; Egyptian Book of the Dead [Budge]
  • At http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Books/Papyrus_Ani.html

• Jack Frost scenes: Indiana University Molecular Structure Center, Bloomington, USA
  • At http://www.iumsc.indiana.edu/docs/seasons_greetings.htm
  • Bentley's famous snowflake images: http://snowflakebentley.com/
  • For information on photographing snowflakes: http://www.micscape.simplenet.com/mag/artfeb00/eksnow.html
  • Source on snowflakes: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/
  • Designer Snowflakes: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/designer/designer.htm
  • The World's Largest Stellar Dendrite?: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/gallery00/snow00.htm
  • A Snow Crystal Primer: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/primer/primer.htm
  • Natural Snowflakes: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/natural/natural.htm

• Forging the Pharaoh's name?
  • At http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~martins/Pyramid/index.html

• Campion Bond
  • At http://www.dogonfire.net/smarts/bond.htm
  • 
    Source: The mind of Alan Moore, probably inspired by Ian Fleming's creation, James Bond
    Full Name: Mr. Campion Bond
    Allies: M and Colonel Sebastian Moran. One wonders if he hasn't a friend named Q...
    Special Skills and Abilities: His pompous manner.
    History: Nothing is known of Campion Bond's history, other than that his family, according to Broad Arrow Jack, has a bad reputation.
    Character: Campion Bond is Moriarty's flunky. Based on his reactions to Moriarty's revelation of his complete plan, Bond is in way over his head.
    A Quote: "We live in troubled times, where fretful dreams settle upon the Empire's brow." (Issue #1)
    

• Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer - Leda Cosmides & John Tooby
  • At http://www.clark.net/pub/ogas/evolution/EVPSYCH_primer.htm
  • At http://www.clark.net/pub/ogas/evolution/EVPSYCH_immoral_animal.htm
  • At http://www.clark.net/pub/ogas/evolution/EVPSYCH_dawkins_on_ev_future.htm
  • "The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life": by Robert Wright http://www.clark.net/pub/wright/index.htm

• Historical King Arthur
  • At http://freespace.virgin.net/david.ford2/arthur.html
  • At http://members.tripod.com/~cushmanj/

• King Arthur Pendragon - THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING - In Which King Arthur Uther Pendragon Grants An Interview
  • Including link to "Exploding the myths - will the real King Arthur please stand up"
  • At http://arthurpendragon.ukonline.co.uk/arthur.html

• Professor Plum's Relentless Rants on Eduquackery
  • Proctological Corps - won't knuckle under to Hitler
  • At http://professorplum.typepad.com/my_weblog/

• Interested in Sheep? - Click Here! (Stuart's Sheep Page)
  • At http://www.yorvic.york.ac.uk/~priest/sheep/
  • Invisible Films - http://manor.york.ac.uk/htdocs/films.html
  • Peter's Dragon: Young Peter is befriended by a lovable animated dragon that nobody else can see. This heartwarming story deals with his attempts to wean himself off dangerous addicting hallucinogenics.
  • Food of the Gods (A scientifically accurate rerendering of the classic novel): Brilliant maverick scientist Patrick Stewart creates a foodstuff that will cause anything to grow to enormous size. In a thousand to one accident, despite rigorous safety procedures, some of it gets left in a field somewhere and all manner of insects eat it. The insects grow to enormous size but, due to lack of internal skeletal structure and the fact that insects have no lungs and breathe by a process of molecula diffusion, they simultaneously suffocate and are crushed by their own weight before they have a chance to rampage through the city creating havoc and terror.
  • Airport 1997: When flight 49 set off from Manchester airport, everybody expected it to be a normal flight and sure enough it was. Stars Donald Pleasance as the nervous sweaty passenger who says things like "I hate flying", "I have a bad feeling about this", "We're all going to die aren't we" and "What do you mean you don't have any decent malt whisky, what kind of plane is this? Well I suppose I'll have the Glenfiddich then.".
  • Tatman: Val Kilmer stars as an accountant who finds it difficult to throw things away, even when they're patently without value. Thrills and excitement abount as he struggles to find space in his cupboards and loft for the junk he accumulates through his humdrum life.
  • Dave's Dragon: Young David is befriended by a lovable 1980s 32-bit personal computer that everyone else can see but nobody believes in. Hillarity ensues as he spends hours reading badly structured manuals and dealing with the lack of software.
  • Food of the Mods: Brilliant maverick scientist Colm Meaney creates a foodstuff that will cause anything to grow to enormous size. In a thousand to one accident, despite rigorous safety procedures, some of it gets left in Brighton in the early seventies and is consummed by some disaffected youths who grow to enormous size and terrorise the city on huge Lambrettas while wearing snorkel parkas and looking faintly ludicrous.
  • Silence of the Clams: A heartwarming tale of love and hope. Beautiful, young marine-biologist Meryl Streep meets a group of clams who are tragically blind, deaf and dumb. As she struggles to understand them and help them over their disabilities she realises that, beneath it all, they are as human as any other bivalve mollusc and romance blossoms (although eventually she realises it's pretty normal for clams to be blind, deaf and dumb but accepts them for it).
  • The Terminator: Doc-u-drama about the enthralling lo-tech bit of electronic gagetry that prevents reflected electric currents from stray ends of co-axial cables.
  • Star Talks: When two gigantic space-going democracies finally meet and clash, long negotiations, trade treaties, common currency negotiations and cultural exchange programs are inevitable. Stars John Major as the charismatic president.
  • Food of the Todds: Brilliant maverick scientist Burt Reynolds creates a foodstuff that will cause anything to grow to enormous size. In a thousand to one accident, despite rigorous safety procedures, some of it gets left in Fleet Street, London in the nineneenth century and some other bits get left in the Electronics Department of the University of York. They are consumed by the demon barber Sweeney Todd and popular, York-based, electronics lecturer Ken Todd respectively both of whom grow to enormous size and terrorize their respective cities and time zones.
  • Fantastic Journey/Incredible voyage: The heroic tale of two dogs and a cat miniaturised and injected inside a brilliant scientist. Meanwhile, in a related incident, a team of surgeons equiped with a submarine make a thousand mile over-land journey to get back home to the little boy that loves them.
  • Food of the Dogs: Brilliant maverick scientist Rolf Harris creates a foodstuff that will cause anything to grow to enormous size. In a thousand to one accident, despite rigorous safety procedures, some of it gets left in the city dog pound where the hungry animals consume it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work but the dogs rather enjoy it.
  • Born Free Willy: The true-life story of a young high-school drop-out, his friend a gigantic Killer Whale and his struggle to return the animal to its natural habitat which, due to his poor education he believes to be the African Savannah.
  • Invisible Films - http://manor.york.ac.uk/htdocs/films2.html
  • "The Remains of the Data: A poignant character study, based on one person's struggle to recover an accidentally deleted file on their computer. "
  • "The Municipal Seven Yul Brynner stars as the foreman of a small group of Local Council manual workers."
  • The Undergraduate: Played to an intrusive musical backdrop by the Spice Girls which sounds very modern now but will be recognised for the tat it is in five years' time, Dustin Hoffman is an undergraduate who develops a crush on a married woman almost twice his age. Unfortunately for Dustin Hoffman, her relationship with her husband is very important to her and she doesn't find feckless youth attractive anyway, so she's just not interested.
  • Thermite and Louise: Hard-hitting tale about two women who set out for a happy weekend away together. However, circumstances overtake them and their plans soon change: they discover the attractions of highly-exothemic metal redox reactions and take up careers as welding engineers instead.
  • Duck Hunt - Find the Fowl - http://kipper.york.ac.uk/ducks.html

• Space Pictures and Images
  • At http://www.space.com/

• Salvador Dali Art Gallery
  • At http://www.dali-gallery.com/
  • Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy — the joy of being Salvador Dalí — and I ask myself in rapture, ‘What wonderful things this Salvador Dalí is going to accomplish today?’" — Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí

• Accumulated Wisdom
  • "On keeping a good laboratory notebook" and "The rules from Carr, the floor-walker."
  • At http://Antinode.org/wisdom/index.html

• AER Redundancy
  • "AER is an acronym for Acronym Expansion Redundancy. AER redundancy occurs when an acronym is used with part of its own expansion. Some examples from real life are listed below"
  • At http://Antinode.org/complaints/aer.html

• the pyongyang metro
  • At http://www.pyongyang-metro.com/

• Pyongyang and Its People (Notes of a Soviet Student)
  • At http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/champion/65/pyongyang_lankov.htm

  • Pyongyang rose early. Work at most factories started at 7 o'clock while offices were opened around at 8 o'clock. At 8 am classes also began at schools and colleges, so by 7 in the morning the streets were full of people. Perhaps, the most remarkable among these were children who marched to school singing songs. It was considered “too individualistic” and, hence, improper for children to walk to school alone, so they had to gather at a certain place and from there, march under supervision of a specially appointed commander (also a student of the same school). This was said to improve their spirit of collectivism. While marching, they also had to sing. Without exception, they sang about the Great Leader (Kim Il Song) and the Dear Ruler (Kim Chông Il), about their boundless modesty and great care for the people. To a Russian ear, these "masterpieces of the unique chuch’e music school" sounded virtually indistinguishable from the Soviet tunes of the 1950s. Such marching and singing exercises were supposed to bring up children in the spirit of "socialist collectivism". One has to admit that as a result of these daily marching drills, groups of Pyongyang schoolgirls normally had much better bearing than, say, the soldiers of an average Soviet Army unit.

• The Oxford Pub Index
  • At http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~chrisw/pubindex.html

• Oxford Pub Guide
  • At http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/~michael/pubs.html
  • At http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/~michael/central_oxford.html

• Oxford Drinking Establishment Guide
  • At http://users.ox.ac.uk/~scug/handbook/Pubs/

• The Aliens' Guide to Oxford
  • At http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oxinfo/guide/PRG-TR-12-90.html

• UK RAE Tables (Research Accessment Tables)
  • Joint Funding Councils of the United Kingdom: 1996 Research Assessment Exercise: The Outcome http://www.niss.ac.uk/education/hefc/rae96/c1_96.html

  • Chemistry Departments: Joint Funding Councils of the United Kingdom: 1996 Research Assessment Exercise: The Outcome http://www.niss.ac.uk/education/hefc/rae96/1_96/t18.html

• Jorvik Viking Centre
  • At http://www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/

• Studsvik Neutron Research Laboratory
  • At http://www.studsvik.uu.se/

• History: Medieval Law Links
  • At http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook-law.html
  • The Questioning of John Rykener, A Male Cross-Dressing Prostitute, 1395, - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1395rykener.html
  • Internet Medieval Sourcebook - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
  • Medieval Heresy (Including original documents from The Inquisition - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1s.html#Medieval Heresy
  • How to Cite Internet and World Wide Web Documents - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/cite.html
  • Catholic Encyclopedia - "The Inquisition" - http://www.knight.org/advent/cathen/08026a.htm
  • The Donation of Constantine (c.750-800) - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/donatconst.html
  • Social and Cultural History in the Middle Ages - http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/subjects/social/social.html

• NIGMS - NIH - Science Education/General Public
  • Pamphlets - "Why Do Basic Research?", "The Structures of Life", etc
  • At http://www.nigms.nih.gov/news/publist.html

• St Paul's Cathedral, London, UK
  • At http://www.stpauls.co.uk

• Spot the Ball
  • At http://manor.york.ac.uk/htdocs/football.html

• The Quest for a Real Robin Hood
  • At http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4198/realrob.html

• iLeads.com: Instant Insurance, Mortgage and Home Loans quotes.
  • At http://www.ileads.com/

• Mortgage-leads.com: mortgage leads and insurance leadsInstant Insurance, Mortgage and Home Loans quotes.
  • At http://www.mortgage-leads.com/

• Preferential Travel Insurance - London
  • At http://www.preferential.co.uk/
  • Annual Travel Insurance, single trip travel insurance.

• The British Council
  • At http://www.britcoun.org/

• BBC PROMS concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, London, UK
  • At http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/
  • Booking: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/booking/index.shtml
  • "Up to 1,000 standing places in the Arena and Gallery are available at the door for every Prom (except the Last Night) for just £3!"
  • Booking for the BBC Proms will open in mid-May.
    Full details on booking seats will be published in early-May

• Nella Last: Mass Observation diarist - WWII
  • At http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/homefront/nellalast/nella_1.shtml

• Vintage Audio: Your King and Country Want You by Paul Rubens - WWII
  • At http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/yourkingandcountrywantyou.htm

• Puck/Robin Goodfellow
  • At http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4198/puck.html

• "Mountain Gate, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
  • At http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ncas/multimedia/gazetteer/list/mountaingate.html

• "Upwey High School, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
  • At http://www.upweyhs.vic.edu.au/

• "Harry S. Anchan's Memory-Making 50's to 80's Music Machine!"
  • At http://www.geocities.com/rarepop3/

• "Harry S. Anchan's Favorite Songs From The 90's"
  • At http://www.geocities.com/ninetiespop/

• The SFU Evolutionary Psychology Research Group Home Page
  • At http://www.sfu.ca/~janicki/

• "Kennewick Man" - found in July, 1996, below the surface of Lake Wallula
  • At http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/kennewick/

• The Thousand-Mile Front - The Civil War in the Lower Mississippi Valley
  • At http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/cwindex.htm

• Battle of Gettysburg - American Civil War
  • At http://www.cr.nps.gov/features/gett/
  • Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln - http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/gadd/4403.html

• Mississippian Mound Builders
  • At http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/feature/
  • At http://www.cast.uark.edu/npsweb/PINSON/
  • At http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/index.htm

• Christof Koch's Home Page : exploring the neuronal basis of visual consciousness and awareness, etc
  • At http://klab.caltech.edu/~koch/
  • Biophysics of Computation: Information Processing in Single Neurons by Christof Koch: http://klab.caltech.edu/~koch/biophysics-book/

• Consciousness and Neuroscience Francis Crick The Salk Institute and Christof Koch Computation and Neural Systems Program California Institute of Technology (as appeared in Cerebral Cortex, 8:97-107, 1998)
  • At http://klab.caltech.edu/~koch/crick-koch-cc-97.html

• Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
  • At http://assc.caltech.edu/

• Center for Evolutionary Psychology at UC Santa Barbara
  • At http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/

• Psychology, Culture, and Evolution
  • At http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/

  • "The Prehistory of Postmodernism 
      
       "In 'Star Trek,' every story is the same. There they are, the crew, working,
      working, working. Then somebody says,'Captain! I've lost control of the ship.'
      The rest of the episode is about gaining control of the ship."   
    
      "Compare that to 'Moby Dick.' Everybody's working, doing their job too. But
      the captain goes insane, the ship snaps in two, the crew drowns and the captain
      gets dragged to the bottom of the sea."  
    
      Laurie Anderson   
    
      -from The Netly News, Dec 2, 1996

  • Dedicated to the clear-eyed Pierre Menard who faced down  the tail-eating dragon of life and produced: 
      
    A technical article on the possibility of enriching the game of chess by
    means of eliminating one of the rook's pawns. Menard proposes,
    recommends, disputes, and ends by rejecting this innnovation.  
    
    Jorge Luis Borges (1939)

• Steven Pinker - The Language Instinct
  • At http://www.bkstore.com/mit/fac/pinker.html

• Steven Pinker - The Language Instinct
  • At http://www.mit.edu/~pinker/tli.html

• Steven Pinker - The Language Instinct
  • At http://www-ctp.mit.edu/~alford/pinker.html

• Steven Pinker - The Language Instinct
  • At http://www.2think.org/hii/tli.shtml

• Educating Eve - Opposition to Steven Pinker - The Language Instinct
  • At http://www.grsampson.net/CAmazon.html
  • At http://www.grsampson.net/BEve.html

• Sociobiology Sanitized: the Evolutionary Psychology and Genic Selectionism Debates - by Val Dusek
  • At http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/rmy/dusek.html

• Alan Sokal, Jean Bricmont - "Intellectual Impostures" - Disrobing Postmoderism - related links.
  • Alan Sokal Homepage - http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/
  • Some thoughts on the Alan Sokal / Social Text affair - http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~bweiner/sokal.html
    • "A parody paper in solid state physics, published in 1931" - by by G. Beck, H. Bethe, and W. Riezler - http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~bweiner/bethespoof.html
  • Sokal Affair page - http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/stt/stt/sokal.htm

• A Richard Dawkins homepage
  • At http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/
• "Snake Oil and Holy Water" by Richard Dawkins, Forbes ASAP, 10.04.99
  • At http://www.forbes.com/asap/1999/1004/235.html
• "The Improbability of God" by Richard Dawkins, Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 18, Number 3
  • "By definition, explanations that build on simple premises are more plausible and more satisfying than explanations that have to postulate complex and statistically improbable beginnings. And you can't get much more complex than an Almighty God!"
    
  • "There is a temptation to argue that, although God may not be needed to explain the evolution of complex order once the universe, with its fundamental laws of physics, had begun, we do need a God to explain the origin of all things. This idea doesn't leave God with very much to do: just set off the big bang, then sit back and wait for everything to happen. The physical chemist Peter Atkins, in his beautifully written book The Creation, postulates a lazy God who strove to do as little as possible in order to initiate everything. Atkins explains how each step in the history of the universe followed, by simple physical law, from its predecessor. He thus pares down the amount of work that the lazy creator would need to do and eventually concludes that he would in fact have needed to do nothing at all! "
  • At http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_18_3.html
• Chemistry and Industry comment: "Religion - the antithesis to science" by Peter Atkins
  • "My conclusion is stark and uncompromising. Religion is the antithesis of science; science is competent to illuminate all the deep questions of existence, and does so in a manner that makes full use of, and respects the human intellect. I see neither need nor sign of any future reconciliation. "
  • At http://www.forbes.com/asap/1999/1004/235.html
• "The "know-nothings", the "know-alls", and the "no-contests"" by Richard Dawkins
  • "Richard Dawkins, well-known for his books on evolution, took part in a debate with the Archbishop of York, Dr John Habgood, on the existence of God at the Edinburgh science festival last Easter. [Easter '92 ed.] The science correspondent of The Observer reported that the "withering" Richard Dawkins clearly believed the "God should be spoken of in the same way as Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy". He [the correspondent] overheard a gloomy cleric comment on the debate: "That was easy to sum up. Lions 10, Christians nil". "
  • At http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/religion.htm
• "Talking about Evolution with Richard Dawkins" with Richard Dawkins
  • "MR. DAWKINS: That's right. Now, in the modern world, which is now so different from the world in which our ancestors lived, what we actually strive for, the goals we set up, are very different. The goal-seeking mechanisms in our brains were originally put there totry to achieve goals such as finding a herd of bison to hunt. And wewould have set out to find a herd of bison, and we'd have used all sorts of flexible goal-seeking mechanisms and we'd have persisted and we'd have gone on and on and on for days and days and days trying toachieve that goal.
    Natural selection favored persistence in seeking goals. Nowadays we no longer hunt bisons. Nowadays we hunt money or a nice new house or we try to finish a novel or whatever it is that we do."
  • "MR. DAWKINS: Darwin, if I may say so, had better things to dothan talk about why we are here in that sense. It's not a sensible sense in which to ask the question. There is no reason why, just because it's possible to ask the question, it's necessarily a sensible question to ask."
  • MR. DAWKINS: Yes, it's not a very satisfying explanation. It's a very unparsimonious, very uneconomical explanation. The beauty of the Darwinian explanation itself is that it's exceedingly powerful. It's a very simple principle, and using this one simple principle, you can bootstrap your way up from essentially nothing to the world of complexity and diversity we have today. Now, that's a powerful explanation.
    MR. WATTENBERG: It's not any simpler. In fact, it's more complex than the -- than Genesis. I mean, 'And God created the heavens and the earth.' That --
    MR. DAWKINS: You have to be joking.
    MR. WATTENBERG: Well, I mean, 'God created the heavens and the earth' -- I can say that pretty quickly. I mean --
    MR. DAWKINS: You can say it, but think what lies behind it. What lies behind it is a complicated, intelligent being -- God, who must have come from somewhere. You have simply smuggled in at the beginning of your book the very thing that we're trying to explain. What we're trying to explain is where organized complexity and intelligence came from. We have now got an explanation. You start from nothing and you work up gradually in easily explainable steps.
  • "MR. DAWKINS: Yeah, okay. I mean, these are fascinating hypothetical questions and I suppose there would come a trade-off point. I mean, there'd probably come a point when -- but I do think it's important, since this is a very academic discussion we're having, I think it would be positively irresponsible to let listeners to this program go away with the idea that this is a major effect. If it's an effect at all, it's an elusive statistical effect."
  • At http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript410.html
• "IS SCIENCE KILLING THE SOUL?" with Richard Dawkins
  • "While The Guardian-Dillons series is characterized as a "debate", Dawkins and Pinker, who are in general agreement across broad areas, presented what I would characterize as a "a high level seminar." As Dawkins pointed out: "The adversarial approach to truth isn't necessarily always the best one. On the contrary, when two people disagree strongly, a great deal of time may be wasted. It's been well said that when two opposite points of view are advocated with equal vigor, the truth does not necessarily lie mid-way between them. And in the same way, when two people agree about something, it's just possible that the reason they agree is that they're both right. There's also I suppose the hope that in a dialogue of this sort each speaker may manage to achieve a joint understanding with the other one, better than he would have done on his own.""
  • "So Soul One refers to a particular theory of life. It's the theory that there is something non-material about life, some non-physical vital principle. It's the theory according to which a body has to be animated by some anima. Vitalized by a vital force. Energized by some mysterious energy. Spiritualized by some mysterious spirit. Made conscious by some mysterious thing or substance called consciousness. You'll notice that all those definitions of Soul One are circular and non-productive. It's no accident. Julian Huxley once satirically likened vitalism to the theory that a railway engine works by "force-locomotif." I don't always agree with Julian Huxley, but here he hit the nail beautifully. In the sense of Soul One, science has either killed the soul or is in the process of doing so.
    But there is a second sense of soul, Soul Two, which takes off from another one of the Oxford dictionary's definitions:
    Intellectual or spiritual power. High development of the mental faculties. Also, in somewhat weakened sense, deep feeling, sensitivity."
  • Turning back to Soul One -- in the first chapter of Steve Pinker's book How the Mind Works he says, "I want to convince you that our minds are not animated by some godly vapor or single wonder-principle. The mind, like the Apollo spacecraft, is designed to solve many engineering problems, and thus is packed with high-tech systems, each contrived to overcome its own obstacles." In the same paragraph, he moves on to Soul Two when he says, " . . . I believe that the discovery by cognitive science and artificial intelligence of the technical challenges overcome by our mundane mental activity is one of the great revelations of science, an awakening of the imagination comparable to learning that the universe is made up of billions of galaxies or that a drop of pond water teems with microscopic life." Well, awakening of the imagination is a pretty good definition of Soul Two. And in that sense, far from killing the soul, science may prove to be its greatest awakener.
    Carl Sagan wrote, shortly before he died,
    "How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
    Well it's common enough for people to agree that religions have got the facts all wrong, but "Nevertheless," they go on to say, "you have to admit that religions do provide something that people need. We crave a deeper meaning to life, a deeper, more imaginative understanding of the mystery of existence." Well, in the passage I've just quoted, Sagan seems to be criticizing religions not just for getting it wrong, which many people would accept, but for their deficiencies precisely in the sphere in which they are supposed to retain some residual virtue. Religions are not imaginative, not poetic, not soulful. On the contrary, they are parochial, small-minded, niggardly with the human imagination, precisely where science is generous."
  • STEVEN PINKER: I'm going to discuss an idea that elicits wildly opposite reactions. Some people find it a shocking claim with radical implications for morals and every value that we hold dear. Other people think that it's a claim that was established a hundred years ago, that the excitement is only in how we work out the details, and that it has few if any implications for our values and ethics. That is the idea that the mind is the physiological activity of the brain, in particular the information processing activity of the brain; that the brain, like other organs, is shaped by the genes; and that in turn, the genome was shaped by natural selection and other evolutionary processes. I am among those who think that this should no longer be a shocking claim, and that the excitement is in fleshing out the details, and showing exactly how our perception, decision-making, and emotions can be tied to the activity of the brain.
    Three new sciences are now vividly rooting our mental processes in our biology. Cognitive neuroscience, the attempt to relate thought, perception and emotion to the functioning of the brain, has pretty much killed Soul One, in Richard's sense. It should now be clear to any scientifically literate person that we don't have any need for a ghost in the machine, as Gilbert Ryle memorably put it. Many kinds of evidence show that the mind is an entity in the physical world, part of a causal chain of physical events. If you send an electric current through the brain, you cause the person to have a vivid experience. If a part of the brain dies because of a blood clot or a burst artery or a bullet wound, a part of the person is gone -- the person may lose an ability to see, think, or feel in a certain way, and the entire personality may change. The same thing happens gradually when the brain accumulates a protein called beta-amyloid in the tragic disease known as Alzheimer's. The person -- the soul, if you want -- gradually disappears as the brain decays from this physical process.
    We know that every form of mental activity -- every emotion, every thought, every percept -- gives off electrical, magnetic, or metabolic signals that can be recorded with increasing precision by Positron Emission Tomography, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Magnetoencephalography, and other techniques. We know that if you take a knife and section the corpus callosum (which joins the two cerebral hemispheres) you have the equivalent of two minds -- perhaps even two souls -- in the same skull. We know that if you look at the brain under a microscope it has a breathtaking degree of complexity -- on the order of a trillion synapses -- that's fully commensurate with the breathtaking complexity of human thought and experience. We know that when the brain dies, the person goes out of existence. I consider it to be a significant empirical discovery that one cannot communicate with the dead, and excellent evidence that Soul One, in Richard's sense, does not exist."
  • "STEVEN PINKER: The third science that's connecting mind to biology is evolutionary psychology, which takes an approach to understanding the mind that has long been fruitful in understanding the organs of the body. We can't make sense of an organ like the eye without considering it to have a function, or a purpose - not in a mystical, teleological sense, but in the sense of an illusion of engineering. That illusion, we now know, is a consequence of Darwin's process of natural selection. Everyone agrees that the eye is a remarkable bit of natural "engineering," and that may now be explained as a product of natural selection rather than as the handiwork of a cosmic eye-designer or as a massive coincidence in tissue formation. But the eye by itself is useless -- unless it's connected to a brain. The eye does not carry out its function by dumping optical information into a yawning chasm. Rather, the eye is hooked up to parts of the brain -- anatomically speaking, the eye is an extension of the brain -- and those parts contain circuits for analyzing the incoming visual material, for recovering the shapes and colors and motions in the world that gave rise to the stimulation of the eye. The perception of a world of colored 3-D objects, in turn, feeds into a system of categorization, allowing us to make sense of our experience, to impute causes to events, and to remember things in terms of their significant categories. And in turn, those categories themselves would be useless unless they were organized in service of certain goals, goals set by our emotions. Beginning with the eye, we have a chain of causation that leads to the study of faculties of mind, or modules, or subsystems, each of which can be seen as an adaptation akin to the adaptations in the organs of the body. Recent research has shown that aspects of the psyche that were previously considered mysterious, quirky, and idiosyncratic -- such as phobias, an eye for beauty, the tendency to fall in love, a passionate desire for revenge in defense of honor -- turn out to have a subtle evolutionary logic when they are analyzed in the way in which we have always analyzed the organs of the body.
    I find these developments to be exhilarating; they are a fulfillment of the ancient imperative to know thyself. They also have important practical implications. Alzheimer's Disease, to cite just one example, will be one of the leading causes of human misery in the industrial world over the next several decades, as we live longer and stop dying of other things. Successful treatment of Alzheimer's will not come from prayer or wishful thinking or reasoning about soul one; it will come from treating memory and personality as biochemical phenomena."
  • "STEVEN PINKER: One reason I find the reaction strange is that I can't imagine how anything coming out of the laboratory, computer, or theoretician's notebook could possibly subtract from what is the meaning of life, or Richard's sense of Soul two. Why keep on living if our minds are the physiological activity of the brain? Well, for starters there's natural beauty, and works of great art, and ethical ideals, and love, and bringing up children, and enjoying friends, and discovering how the world works -- I could go on. Why should the worth of any of those activities depend on the existence of a ghost in the machine?"
  • "STEVEN PINKER: The other part of the explanation comes from a conclusion that anthropologists have drawn about what you find in common in all the world's religions -- not just the major proselytizing religions, but the animistic beliefs of hunter-gatherer tribes. Ruth Benedict put it succinctly: the common denominator of religions is that a religion is a recipe for success. She didn't necessarily mean this to apply to the most sophisticated theologies, but in general, what people do in common when they think of deities is to pray to them for recovery from illness, for recovery from an illness of a child, for success in love, for success on the battlefield, for good weather, for the crops coming up, and so on. I don't want to say that sophisticated theology can be reduced to praying for good weather, but if you look at what's common across cultures that's what you find."
  • "DAWKINS: Yes. G. K. Chesterton said when people stop believing, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything. I presume that's what the questioner has in mind. I am interested in cults. The so-called organized religions are of course just old cults. They started off as cults and they've acquired a respectability that's simply due to the long time that they've been with us. I'm interested in them. I don't know why the questioner thinks it's not an ESS. It's not to me obvious that a world in which nobody believed in Soul One is necessarily ripe for invasion by cults, except insofar as I think one of the main reasons why people do believe the things that they believe is somewhat analogous to viral infection. And the reason for this has a good Darwinian basis. When we are children it is very important that we should learn as quickly as possible certain extremely important things. The language of our society, the social rules of our society, various rules for how to stay alive in a hostile world. So it's very easy for a Darwinian to believe that children will be preprogrammed with a rule that says, Believe what your parents tell you, or believe what your society's elders tell you. And of course a rule like that is not going to be discriminating. It's going to work both for the sensible things -- rules for how not to die of snake bite or falling off of cliffs or how to learn the language of the society. But the self-same rule is also going to be a natural sponge, or a natural soaker-up of New Age nonsense, and nonsense of any other kind. So, a biologically sensible rule -- Believe what you're told when you're young, and when you grow up pass on the same stuff to your own children -- that is a recipe for the long-term survival for the beliefs themselves. Or the rule might be, Believe so-and-so, and spend as much time as possible persuading other people to believe it as well; that's a recipe for epidemics of infectious beliefs. So I think that in that sense I agree with the questioner."
  • "PINKER: I think that evolution and genetics and neuroscience are essential parts of an explanation of human behavior, but that doesn't mean that people are sealed in a barrel, oblivious to the standards of behavior set by other people, and unable to make decisions based on them. Quite the contrary -- one of the things our brains are designed to do is learn the contingencies of the social world we find ourselves in. Obviously there is variation among cultures, which is made possible by the fact that people innovate and people learn other people's innovations. Also, the optimal way to behave in a given situation depends on how other people behave and react to one's own behavior, and those contingencies vary from place to place and have to be learned. There are large differences, orders of magnitude, in rates of violent encounters across different countries, although the psychology of the violent encounters is strikingly similar. The rates differ because of differences in the cultures and social values, those values aren't like a gas that seeps out of the earth and that people merely breathe in. They emerge from a bunch of minds interacting in a group, exchanging ideas, assessing one another, making decisions. So culture itself, even though it's part of any explanation of behavior, itself has to be tied to the psychological and ultimately neurological mechanisms that allow cultures to arise to begin with."
  • At http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge53.html
• "The Dissent of Darwin" - Jaron Lanier and Richard Dawkins
  • JL: But if we hope to separate ourselves from the awful history of evolution that created us, we have a very difficult time defining exactly how we're different.
    RD: You can simply say that in humans there was a gradual emergence of certain qualities that no other species has.
    JL: Can you name those qualities?
    RD: One of them is language. Another is the ability to plan ahead using conscious, imagined foresight. Short-term benefit has always been the only thing that counts in evolution; long-term benefit has never counted. It has never been possible for something to evolve in spite of being bad for the immediate short-term good of the individual. For the first time ever, it's possible for at least some people to say, `Forget about the fact that you can make a short-term profit by chopping down this forest; what about the long-term benefit?' Now I think that's genuinely new and unique.
    JL: Is survivability the only principle that generated our attributes? What about the benefit for a phenomenon as odd as testicles? It's as if a heavily armored tank were being ridden by a driver in a balloon on the roof.
    RD: Why do we have them dangling outside ourselves, rather than safely cushioned inside?
    JL: I'm familiar with the conventional explanation, which is that it has to do with the management of heat. [Sperm cannot survive long at body temperature.]
    RD: And you understand the implausibility of that explanation?
    JL: The evolutionary process has produced such spectacular mechanisms for managing problems that would seem to be much more difficult than coping with heat. And we have astonishing regulatory mechanisms for heat in our body already. I mean, we protect ourselves from invading microorganisms and from extremes of heat and cold.
    If it just turned out that it was impossible to pass along genes at a particular body temperature, we could have evolved a different body temperature that was appropriate to that process. So overall, testicles do seem very strange to me.
    RD: That's what I would have said. But are you familiar with Zahavi's handicap principle? It sounds really way out, but I think the problem of the `vulnerable balls' is well suited to this particular explanation.
    Zahavi is an Israeli biologist whose idea was ridiculed when he first put it forward in 1975, but he has recently been vindicated by some clever mathematical modeling by Alan Grafen at Oxford University. Zahavi and Grafen state that in any encounter in animals where advertisement is important--and that's very, very often--an advertisement is only believed if it's validated by being costly. Translated into English, what the male is saying is, `Look how powerful a male I am, because I can afford to wear my balls outside my body, in the most vulnerable position. You'd better not mess with me because I am proving my strength and my ability as a fighter.'
  • JL: It's not just a conflict between creationists and Darwinists. There's a large group of people who simply are uncomfortable with accepting evolution because it leads to what they perceive as a moral vacuum, in which their best impulses have no basis in nature.
    RD: All I can say is, That's just tough. We have to face up to the truth.
    JL: That answer is not good enough anymore. People are reacting against science. People feel science is telling them they're less special, less responsible than they once believed.
  • At http://www.nyu.edu/classes/neimark/evolution.html

• Edward O. Wilson is On Top of the World The father of sociobiology and grandfather of evolutionary psychology sounds off on life, death, faith, free will, the 'self' - and his beloved ants.
  • PT: You’ve said that ants have given you everything, and it’s to them you always return. What have they taught you?
    EO: One thing is that natural selection is brutal. It is brutal to see strong, beautiful ant queens and males go forth and realize that they’re all going to be devastated, that one out of 10,000 queens will make it into the ground to start a new colony. Every little advantage that an organism has can make an enormous difference. The other thing is that natural selection grinds exceedingly small. Natural selection doesn’t allow for foul-ups in an ant colony any more than in a hunter-gatherer society. Real biologists who actually do the research will tell you that they almost never find a phenomenon, no matter how odd or irrelevant it looks when they first see it, that doesn’t prove to serve a function. The outcome itself may be due to small accidents of evolution. And ants are very good for telling us about chemical communication. For instance, one ant may use a heptanone and another may use a methylheptanone as an alarm substance. What’s fascinating is that different species will not intermingle, even though they are so closely related that all that separates them is one isomer of one organic substance. Their gene pools are isolated.
    PT: Are there ever accidental spinoffs of evolution? Could there be some traits that really don’t seem to serve an obvious function, but persist anyway?
    EO: There are no accidental spinoffs, and there is very little probability that inferior traits will survive. If you told an arm-chair theorist about the tiny differences in chemical communication in ants their inclination would be to say, 'Well, it’s an accident, a spin-off. Evolution is full of accidents.' Not when you get down to the nitty-gritty and you find these tiny differences have a major function in separating species. This is the way biology has unfolded through natural history.
    PT: But what if one particular variation had such a huge benefit that it generated a huge number of spinoffs and those survived? Like the human brain. The benefit you get from a brain like ours is so large that maybe it can pay for all the spinoffs because of the gain. For instance, is the capacity to make music a spinoff?
    EO: Some scientists suggest that music is an accidental spinoff of rhythmicity and speech. But I feel music has a very important role in ritual activity and that being able to join in musical activity, along with dancing, could have been necessary at a very early stage of human culture. It probably served then, as it does today, to bind the society together, and especially during rites of passage and reaffirmation of tribal communion.
  • PT: In Consilience you said that our essential spiritual dilemma is that we evolved to accept one truth "God" and discovered another "evolution".
    EO: And the struggle for men’s souls in the 21st century will be to choose between the two. The transcendentalist view was so powerfully advantageous in early paleolithic and agricultural societies. And if there’s anything disagreeable about secular humanism, it’s that its bloodless. Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn’t stack up against a two-millenium-old funeral high mass. I used a phrase called the evolutionary epic back in 1978 to try and convey the grandeur of biology, and it’s beginning to catch on. A colleague of mine speaks of 'the sacred depths of nature' to try and evoke that same reverence.
  • PT: You’ve said that the brain is really a kind of ever shifting network, a republic of responses to information. And yet we walk around with a sense of a core self. Isn’t that peculiar?
    EO: I’m aware of you, you’re aware of me. There’s a sense of self. But there is no transcendental center of the brain somewhere that is in control of the machinery, pulling the levers and possessed of the capacity to float free of our mortal coil when that moment comes.
    PT: But how does the brain even create that sense of self?
    EO: You’ll hear the voice of the neurobiologist emerging from me on this. It’s natural we feel there’s a self because of the body that we’re in. The brain is mapping the world. Often that map is distorted, but it’s a map with constant immediate sensory input. The brain is organized heavily around sensations coming from the body, and that is so intense, so much at the center of conscious experience, including all the input coming from our body, and so it’s seen as the principal protagonist. That’s what the self is.
    PT: One of the most precious beliefs of the 'self' is that it has free will.
    EO: A lot of philosophers and thinkers have believed that the human mind was not based in material reality. They had a vague notion of angelic, transcendent activity that they never could define because, of course, they couldn’t translate it into any materialist terms and make sense. That’s really the basis of the notion of free will, that there is a whole different faculty, probably true for human beings only, a truly human quality that helps lift us up above the animals, somewhere between here and the angels.
    PT: But when you talk about free will, you describe it only in the sense that the brain is so complex, so constantly bombarded with input, that it’s able to cascade in any direction at any time. That’s freedom, but not self-determined free will.
    EO: There are really two meanings of free will. One we all agree on is that you have your own mind, you make your own decisions, your soul is your own. No matter what is done to you, that’s the one thing that cannot be surrended. Of course, now we know that with the right pharmaceutical or biochemical manipulation, you can get people to shift moods, attitudes and maybe even beliefs. So that view isn’t holding up quite so well anymore. But let’s say that’s what we mean by free will.
    The other kind of free will stops people cold in their attempt at self-understanding. We don’t know our own minds. We don’t know all the processes inside and we can’t predict what kind of responses and decisions we’ll make. And even if we believed we could, there is so much chaos in the mind brought about by tiny perturbations or external events. Not even with a gigantic computer could we predict what any of us sitting at this table will do precisely one hour from now.
    PT: So we’re free like the weather.
    EO: Or like the wind. We will get up when we are ready to get up. That will be our free will. And we will go out that door and events will happen and we will think about them and make decisions that we can’t predict right now. This thing we’re walking around in is not in complete control. It could do marvelous things. It could encounter disasters.
  • PT: You call yourself a deist. What do you mean by that?
    EO: A deist is a person who’s willing to buy the idea that some creative force determined the parameters of the universe when it began.
    PT: And a theist is someone who believes that God not only set the universe in motion, but is still actively involved.
    EO: But I’ve been doing a kind of Pascalian waffling as a deist. I think being an atheist is to claim knowledge you cannot have. And to say you’re agnostic is to arrogantly dismiss the whole thing by saying that it’s unknowable. But a provisional deist is someone like myself who leaves it open. You see, evolutionary biology leaves very little room for a theistic God. I’d like it to be otherwise. Nothing would delight me more than to have real proof of a transcendental plane.
  • EXCERPT FROM CONSILIENCE (check with publisher)
    For many the urge to believe in transcendental existence and immortality is overpowering. Transcendentalism, especially when reinforced by religious faith, is psychically full and rich; it feels somehow right. In comparison empiricism seems sterile and inadequate. That is why, even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart. Science has always defeated religious dogma point by point when the two have conflicted. But to no avail. In the United States there are fifteen million Southern Baptists, the largest denomination favoring literal interpretation of the Christian Bible, but only five thousand members of the American Humanist Association, the leading organization devoted to secular and deistic humanism . . . .
    Science has taken us very far from the personal God who once presided over Western civilization. It has done little to satisfy our instinctual hunger. . . The essence of humanity’s spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and empiricist world views? No, unfortunately, there is not. . . . For centuries the writ of empiricism has been spreading into the ancient domain of transcendentalist belief, slowly at the start but quickening in the scientific age. The spirits our ancestors knew intimately first fled the rocks and trees, then the distant mountains. Now they are in the stars, where their final extinction is possible. But we cannot live without them. People need a sacred narrative . . . . The true evolutionary epic, retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic. Material reality discovered by science already possesses more content and grandeur than all the religious cosmologies combined.
  • At http://www.nyu.edu/classes/neimark/eow.html

• "A Designer Universe? - STEVEN WEINBERG"
  • "I have been asked to comment on whether the universe shows signs of having been designed.1 I don't see how it's possible to talk about this without having at least some vague idea of what a designer would be like. Any possible universe could be explained as the work of some sort of designer. Even a universe that is completely chaotic, without any laws or regularities at all, could be supposed to have been designed by an idiot."
  • "I have to admit that, even when physicists will have gone as far as they can go, when we have a final theory, we will not have a completely satisfying picture of the world, because we will still be left with the question "why?" Why this theory, rather than some other theory? For example, why is the world described by quantum mechanics? Quantum mechanics is the one part of our present physics that is likely to survive intact in any future theory, but there is nothing logically inevitable about quantum mechanics; I can imagine a universe governed by Newtonian mechanics instead. So there seems to be an irreducible mystery that science will not eliminate.
    But religious theories of design have the same problem. Either you mean something definite by a God, a designer, or you don't. If you don't, then what are we talking about? If you do mean something definite by "God" or "design," if for instance you believe in a God who is jealous, or loving, or intelligent, or whimsical, then you still must confront the question "why?" A religion may assert that the universe is governed by that sort of God, rather than some other sort of God, and it may offer evidence for this belief, but it cannot explain why this should be so.
    In this respect, it seems to me that physics is in a better position to give us a partly satisfying explanation of the world than religion can ever be, because although physicists won't be able to explain why the laws of nature are what they are and not something completely different, at least we may be able to explain why they are not slightly different. For instance, no one has been able to think of a logically consistent alternative to quantum mechanics that is only slightly different. Once you start trying to make small changes in quantum mechanics, you get into theories with negative probabilities or other logical absurdities. When you combine quantum mechanics with relativity you increase its logical fragility. You find that unless you arrange the theory in just the right way you get nonsense, like effects preceding causes, or infinite probabilities. Religious theories, on the other hand, seem to be infinitely flexible, with nothing to prevent the invention of deities of any conceivable sort."
  • "Where religion did make a difference, it was more in support of slavery than in opposition to it. Arguments from scripture were used in Parliament to defend the slave trade. Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion."
  • At http://www.nyu.edu/classes/neimark/design.html
  • At http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~vincent/Cosmology/weinberg-designer-universe-reading.htm
  • At http://unix.cc.wmich.edu/korista/weinberg.html

• "Historical Misrepresentations, Misattributions and Fictions."
  • At http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/fakehist.htm
  • Links via Donald Simanek's Page - http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/
  • Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ v6.0 Jan 13, 1994 - http://cns-web.bu.edu/pub/dorman/trans_faq.html

• "rscal website presenting Weirdos on the Web"
  • A.S.D.W Approved: Association of SeriouslyDull Websites
  • A.S.W.W Approved: Association of Seriously Weird Websites
  • At http://www.rscal.demon.co.uk/

• "How To Deconstruct Almost Anything - My Postmodern Adventure"
  • At http://www.communities.com/paper/deconstr.html

• Counter Balance
  • Sceintific and Theological discussion and essays.
  • At http://www.counterbalance.org

• "Sterling Hill Mining Museum, 30 Plant Street, Ogdensburg, NJ 07439-1126 USA"
  • At http://sterlinghill.org/
• "Franklin and Sterling Hill, New Jersey, USA"
  • At http://simplethinking.com/franklinminerals/

• Excalibur Mineral Corporation
  • At http://users.bestweb.net/~excalmin/

• Broadstone Minerals
  • At http://www.broadstoneminerals.com/

• "The Dark Lady of DNA : A Portrait of Rosalind Franklin "
  • At http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s833226.htm

  • Leaving a palace for a slum (Kings College to Birkbeck)

• "The Fall of the Maya"
  • At http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s821598.htm

  • Summary: Three severe droughts over a one hundred year dry spell is most likely to have been the cause of the fall of the great Mayan civilisation in Central America.

• "Enterococcus Genome"
  • At http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s833225.htm

  • Summary: According to Ian Paulsen, there are more bacteria cells in the human body that human cells. The journal Science recently published his paper, which analyses the genome of a stubborn strain of Enterococcus faecalis, an organism that lives happily in the gut of every human being on the planet, but sometimes turns into a deadly pathogen, resistant to a wide range of drugs, even vancomycin, which is regarded as the drug of last resort.

• "The Cattle-Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cúalnge)"
  • "The Cattle-Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cúalnge) is the central epic of the Ulster cycle. Queen Medb of Connaught gathers an army in order to gain possession of the most famous bull in Ireland, which is the property of Daire, a chieftain of Ulster. Because the men of Ulster are afflicted by a debilitating curse, the seventeen-year-old Cuchulain must defend Ulster single-handedly."
  • At http://vassun.vassar.edu/~sttaylor/Cooley/

• Evolutionary Psychology Rant
  • At http://www.captain-justice.com/rants/essays.html
  • Including "Smoking Kills" - one man's justification of selling cigarettes to help rid the gene pool of stupid people - http://www.captain-justice.com/rants/essays.html
  • Link - The Skeptic's Dictionary - http://skepdic.com/
  • Link - Welcome to Crypt Newsletter - http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~crypt/

• eclectica, a weblog [stuff and nonsense]
  • At http://eclectica.pulp.nu/

• How Jedi are you?
  • At http://www.gaijindesign.com/lawriemalen/jedi/

• "truth in advertising" - vintage cigarette & tobacco ads
  • At http://www.chickenhead.com/truth/

• Interesting Microsoft links.
  • At http://i-want-a-website.com/about-microsoft/yamoo/antims.html
  • At http://torech-ungol.bgi.uni-bayreuth.de/~joku/microsuck.html

• Converting Pudding Labels into Mega Frequent Flier Points
  • At http://www.flyertalk.com/pudding.htm

• corpspeak: The Official SGI Corporate Press Release Generator
  • At http://reality.sgi.com/cpirazzi_esd/corpspeak.html

• Web Economy Bullshit Generator
  • At http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html

• White House .org
  • At http://www.whitehouse.org/
  • Welcome to the Virtual Tour of the White House : http://www.whitehouse.org/tours/virtual.asp
  • White House History : http://www.whitehouse.org/history/index.asp
  • White House Giftshop : http://www.whitehouse.org/giftshop/index.asp
  • United States Department of Faith Salvation Legislation Bill : http://www.whitehouse.org/DOF/salvation-act.asp
  • Attention American Citizens! You stand hereby directed to prove your patriotism by printing out hundreds of the wartime morale posters below, and distributing them widely throughout your community! : http://www.whitehouse.org/initiatives/posters/index.asp
  • Ten Commandments of Patriotism : http://www.whitehouse.org/policy/commandments.asp

• Patriotic Posters from whitehouse.org
  • At http://www.whitehouse.org/initiatives/posters/index.asp

  • "Fancy a Snort of Yank Bum?"

• The Complete Bushisms
  • At http://politics.slate.msn.com/Features/bushisms/bushisms.asp

• Gary Larsen Books
  • At http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/lit/far.html

• A Kurt Vonnegut Webpage
  • At http://www.duke.edu/~crh4/vonnegut/

• Marcus J. Ranum, President and CEO of Network Flight Recorder, Inc
  • At http://www.clark.net/pub/mjr/

• It's not news - it's FARK.com
  • At http://www.fark.com/

• Why Islam Hates Democracy
  • At http://frontpagemag.com/columnists/glazov/2002/glazov06-06-02.htm

• ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers)
  • At http://www.alpsp.org

• Learned Publishing On-line
  • At http://www.learned-publishing.org

• Searching the Deep Web: Directed Query Engine Applications at the Department of Energy
  • At http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january01/warnick/01warnick.html

• EnergyPortal Search: A distributed search of energy-related collections
  • At http://kratos.osti.gov:1999/

• Distributed Explorer (searching for information system on the internet)
  • At http://www.iwapps.com/products/distributed.shtml

• Postal Experiments - Testing the Limits of the US Postal System
  • At http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/postal-6-4.html

• Finding ZIP codes for US postal addresses
  • At http://www.usps.com/ncsc/lookups/lookup_zip+4.html

• The Open Archives Initiative: Searching Across e-Print Services
  • At http://www.openarchives.org

• deep Web (Web search system)
  • At http://completeplanet.com/Tutorials/DeepWeb/index.as

• Storage system for 2000 years (Rosetta Disc): Information Storage of the Future
  • At http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s150901.htm
  • Long Now Foundation : http://www.longnow.org/

• Institute for the Future
  • At http://www.iftf.org/

• Nicolaus Steno - History of Geology
  • At http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/histgeol/steno/steno.htm

  • Steno was born into a wealthy Lutheran family in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied medicine in Copenhagen, Leiden and Amsterdam, where he discovered the excretory duct of the parotid gland. After travels through France, Austria and Hungary, he became physician to the Grand Duke Ferdinand II in Florence, Tuscany. In 1666, he dissected the head of a large shark at the Duke's request and concluded that glossopetrae found in rocks are identical to shark teeth. He continued intensive geological observations, which culminated with his greatest work, De Solido Intra Solidium Naturaliter Contento Dissertationis Prodromus (Forerunner of a Dissertation on a Solid Naturally Contained within a Solid), often simply called the Prodromus. This was a bold statement of the organic origin of fossils and fundamental principles of stratigraphy, published in 1669. Although now regarded as a geological masterpiece, the conclusions of Prodromus were not generally accepted until the following century.

    His earlier conversion to Catholicism in 1667 began to produce personal conflict with his geological observations, and shortly after writing the Prodromus, Steno lost all interest in geology. His geological career, thus, spanned three short years. Although he returned to Denmark for a few years, he was not happy, and moved back to Florence, where he became a priest in 1675. In 1677 he was appointed titular Bishop and spent the rest of his life involved with missionary work in northern Germany.

• Public Service Commission of Canada
  • At http://www.psc-cfp.gc.ca/

• How to find the TRUTH
  • At http://physics.uwstout.edu/staff/larchez/miscel.htm
  • At http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/secfac/Images/sift_and_winnow_student_large.jpg

  • "Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquirey elsewhere, we believe that the great state of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found." (taken from a report of the board of regents in 1894)

• PubMed Central
  • "PubMed Central is a web-based archive of journal literature for all of the life sciences."
  • At http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/

• PubMed Central
  • "publiclibraryofscience.org was established to organize support within the scientific community for online public libraries of science, providing unrestricted free access to the archival record of scientific research."
  • At http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/

• On-line texts at the French National Library
  • At http://gallica.bnf.fr/

• Parliamentary Reports - on FAMIS Financial Accounting System
  • At http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199899/cmselect/cmpubacc/322/32202.htm

• Science and Technology - Minutes of Evidence
  • About putting Diamond/Zirconia Synchrotron at RAL, Oxford
  • At http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmsctech/uc82/uc8201.htm

• MoD scraps £120m computer project
  • At http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/33831.html
  • At http://www.computing.co.uk/News/1147382
  • At http://www.femail.co.uk/pages/standard/article.html?in_article_id=201440&in_page_id=2

• Cthulhu Links
  • At http://hjem.get2net.dk/abrehmc/links.htm
  • Cthulhu For President Home Page: http://www.minet.uni-jena.de/~mso/cthulhu.html
  • The Church of Cthulhu: http://www.cthulhusaves.com/
  • The Church of NOJ ( ]`-}<--- the horned one winks at you! ): http://www.noj.faithweb.com/

• First Church of Chumbawamba
  • At http://www.chumba.com/
  • Harriet Tubman - 1820 (approximately) - 1913: http://www.chumba.com/_troublemakers.htm
  • We have highlighted a selection of campaigns here, mostly centred around wrongful imprisonings and the subsequent campaigns for justice. These and many other miscarriages of justice can be found on the MOJO[UK] website.: http://www.chumba.com/_campaigns.htm

• Anarchist Soccer League
  • At http://www.infoshop.org/dc/asl.html

• The Hawksmoor Churches - London, UK
  • At http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/ripper/hawksmoor.html
  • "The eccentric architect Nicholas Hawksmoor designed a number of Baroque churches, which were built from 1710 to 1725. His designs were quite unusual, mixing pyramids and spires in a unique fashion."

• Disco Danger: Disco Stu
  • At http://www.digipen.edu/student-galleries/programs/projects/1998/Disco/DD/stu.htm

• The Tick Animated Movie
  • At http://www.comics2film.com/TickAniFlick.shtml

• The Drudge Report
  • At http://www.drudgereport.com/

• Sorel Blizzard Snowboots
  • At http://www.sonomaoutfitters.com/foot_winter/sorel_blizzard.html

• Sorel Blizzard Snowboots
  • At http://www.zappos.com/n/p/dp/2362379/c/9.html

• Sorel Men’s Blizzard Boot Replacement Liner
  • At http://www.sirmailorder.ca/show_prod.php?product_id=321878&cat_id=2&subcat_id=203&PHPSESSID=&PHPSESSID=

• Sorel Men’s Blizzard II Boot
  • At http://www.sirmailorder.ca/show_prod.php?product_id=321870&cat_id=2&subcat_id=203&PHPSESSID=&PHPSESSID=

• XTC FAQ (MDMA ;(extacy))
  • At http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma_faq2.shtml
  • At http://www.ecstasy.org/
  • At http://mir.drugtext.org/ecstasy/links.html
  • At http://mir.drugtext.org/ecstasy/new.html
  • Ecstasy The new drug of choice? : http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/96-2/issue3/ecstasy.html
  • Ecstasy (MDMA) History : http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/x_01.htm

• New England Comics - The Tick
  • At http://www.newenglandcomics.com/

• Internet Movie Database
  • At http://www.imdb.com/

• Tattoo Assassins Page (vapourware) - Including an insider's programming perspective
  • At http://www.bunnyears.net/tattoo/
  • I've asked before and I'll try again. Does anyone know where I might find a Tattoo Assassins PCB (or even the full machine?) I know this thing never went into full production, and I know there are good reasons for that, but I'd like to get it anyway.
    Also, last time I posted about this, someone claimed to have a video of the making of the game. The return email was fake though. Does anyone have this? I'd at least like to see what the game looked like. Email me if you know anything.
  • "And this is my answer. :) I collect pictures and information on games that never came out--I write about them in GamePro every once in a rare while under the header "Vapor Trails"--and Tattoo Assassins is one that I'd tracked for a while. I have nine screenshots from Data East's aborted fighting games--some as 35mm slides, some as color photo printouts. Please excuse the quality--these were generated from photographs of a monitor, and the originals aren't exactly optimal, but hey, when you're chasing shadows, you take what you can get.
    Clearly, this was Data East's chance to cash in on the Mortal Kombat craze of violent video games. And, by all accounts, it sucked, so it was never fully produced. Mind you, I'm not a fan--I've never played it, I've never seen a cabinet in person (only on the flyer), and I probably never will. I only know what I know from what you see here and from what others have told me. However, that's just enough to make a web page for it (and I'm eager to hear yours), so, without further ado... "

  • The Tale of the Tester: Someone was nice enough to send in this recollection of a tester who had the displeasure of working on Tattoo Assassins. I've cleaned it up a bit, but whoever wrote this up, thank you! I'd love to give you credit if you want to come forward.

  • An Insider's Report: I am shocked, delighted, and a little embarassed to reveal that a person from the original programming team contacted me about Tattoo Assassins after seeing this site, and I am extremely grateful to that person for the anonymous info you're about to read. This person assures me that the source code still exists, and that only two machines are believed to exist featuring the final code. I think I can safely say that now we know EXACTLY what happened to Tattoo Assassins, and I hope you find this as fascinating an account as I do...

• Murder Incorporated : 29-Jan-2008 The story of Eve Online's most devastating assassins
  • At http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=180867&site=pcg

  • 5AM, April the 18th, 2005. Mirial, CEO of the giant Ubiqua Seraph corporation, warped into the Haras solar system with her most trusted lieutenant. And at that moment, a single word was sent silently, secretly and simultaneously to operatives of the Guiding Hand Social Club across the galaxy. 'Nicole'. Mirial wouldn't leave alive.

    he was piloting her prize ship, a Navy Apocalypse worth billions of ISK - Eve's currency. Her lieutenant, Arenis Xemdal, flew an Imperial Apocalypse, of which only two were known to exist in the entire game universe.

    'Nicole' was the go-code for a hit that took ten months of infiltration to set up. By 6am it was over. Every Ubiqua Seraph office in the galaxy was raided, the contents of every shared hangar - not to mention their corporate coffers - gone. Mirial's prize ship was annihilated, her escape pod nuked and her vacuum-frozen corpse sucked into the cargo bay of a Guiding Hand Social Club vessel.

    The simultaneous ambush and galaxy-wide hangar theft inflicted financial damage upwards of 30 billion ISK - $16,500 US dollars at IGE.com's prices. The value of the stolen assets utterly dwarfed the original fee for the job. And yet the only item the Guiding Hand's anonymous client requested for himself was the cold, dead body of the target. It's safe to say this was personal.

    "At the time of the contract's signing, we requested one billion ISK," says Guiding Hand CEO Istvaan Shogaatsu, "which was quite a sum so many months ago. We could never have foreseen, however, the gains upon its execution... we found ourselves staring at Fort Knox with the key in our hands."

    Not that there was any question of the spoils distracting Guiding Hand's operatives from their objective. "The contract above all" is their philosophy. "The financial compensation becomes secondary to the recognition we garnered for our strike."

    Et Tu, Arenis

    By April 18th, the Guiding Hand had operatives in every level of Ubiqua Seraph's organisation. Several were on the board of directors, and primary agent Arenis Xemdal "rose to a rank sufficient to challenge the CEO's decisions."

    "Multiple vector infiltration is a trademark of GHSC," Shogaatsu adds. "We feel one spy is rarely enough."

    It took extraordinary effort, meticulous planning, and one moment of spectacularly orchestrated treachery. Xemdal had convinced Mirial - referred to as 'the objective' by Guiding Hand operatives - to fly her ridiculously valuable Navy Apocalypse alongside his even more ridiculously valuable Imperial Apocalypse "as a show of UQS (Ubiqua Seraph) might".

    "The early-morning strike against Mirial's battleship was fraught with concern." Shogaatsu recalls. "One tense moment occurred when a pilot belonging to an unaffiliated third party hostile to UQS entered the system where our operatives' trap for Mirial lay. Another came soon after, when Guiding Hand operative Uuve Savisaalo - tasked with assisting the kill on Mirial - was spotted arriving in system by an Ubiqua Seraph pilot. These events spooked the objective, who made a short jump before being set upon by Uuve and - in a moment of 'Et tu, Brute' if ever there was one - Arenis Xemdal's Imperial Apocalypse."

    The ambush was an unprecedented clash of the titans. A Navy Apocalypse is one of the most powerful and valuable ships in the galaxy, but even so, an Imperial Apocalypse is overkill - a few cheap Battleships would suffice. To use an even more valuable ship was an act of absurd bravado, and one with enormous risks. It's also typical of the Guiding Hand's flair for theatrical excess.

    But the hard part, according to Shogaatsu, was to then 'pod' Mirial. Podding is the usually spiteful, some say dishonourable act of destroying a victim's escape pod when you've already destroyed their ship. The pod is no threat, and if it's destroyed the victim has to revert to an earlier clone of themselves - sometimes losing skills that take weeks to learn, and in this case losing an incredibly valuable set of cybernetic implants. For this reason some players log out on ship-death in an attempt to avoid being podded - Mirial included, the Guiding Hand say. Successful podding was the only way to attain the physical body of the victim, however, and Arenis pulled it off.

    Thievery Corporation

    The moment the go-code was uttered, every Guiding Hand double-agent within Ubiqua Seraph unloaded the contents of their assigned Corp hangar - a communal storage area for trusted corporation members - into their own cargo holds and left. The assets were replaced by a note in each, stating simply that this was an act of the Guiding Hand Social Club.

    That afternoon, Istvaan Shogaatsu posted on the Intergalactic Summit - a section of the official Eve forums in which posters are required to stay in character, and content is monitored by CONCORD, the in-game police.

    Posted 2005.04.18: Istvaan Shogaatsu

    Greetings, everyone - it has been some time since I last stood behind a podium and made a public announcement, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm somewhat out of form. The reason I stand here before you is to announce that my mercenary outfit, the Guiding Hand Social Club, has completed its most ambitious contract to date.

    Our target was assigned to us many months ago - Mirial of Ubiqua Seraph. Our task was to carry out that which the GHSC has now become known for - to utterly demolish Mirial and bring all who followed her to their knees in one fell swoop. For those many months, we toiled, secreting our operatives among her ranks, steering her organization through a number of insidiously engineered events meant to engender trust and divert their attention from where it should have been.

    Early this morning, our hard work bore fruit. Executing a meticulously planned, thoroughly flawless concerto of simultaneous corp-hangar heists, attacks in open space and facility invasions, the Ubiqua Seraph came to know the wrath of the GHSC first-hand. The result shatters any previous records for sheer scale of such an endeavour:

  • // Istvaan on. . . . Philosophy

    Our philosophy . . . well, we have our quirks. Little traditions we stick to religiously. There is the tradition of first blood - in any war campaign, we must be the ones to score the first kill. If we do not, it is seen as a bad omen - so far, there have not been any bad omens. Another quirk we have is a sort of 'code of retribution' - this states that any unprovoked attack on our pilots must be met with the cruellest, most unrestrained kind of revenge. We will readily massacre an entire corporation and hound their fleeing members right out of the game if they transgress against one of our pilots and do not make appropriate and timely restitution. I find things like these make the bonds of friendship in our corporation stronger - if our guys know that the entirety of GHSC is always actively behind them, they feel as though they are part of a family. A very violent, cigar smoking, alcoholic family.

• PPI - Primate Programming Inc
  • At http://www.newtechusa.com/ppi/talent.asp

• Take that feeble emacs user - you are a vi man after all - cartoon
  • At http://www.cet.nau.edu/~mc8/index.html

• Kill Jar Jar Binks
  • At http://www.angelfire.com/tn/scottewen/killjarjar.html

• Jar Jar hate ring:
  • At http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=jarjarhate;list

• Exploding Whale
  • At http://www.explodingwhale.com

• News of the Weird
  • At http://www.newsoftheweird.com/

• For Sale by Mental Patient
  • "In the world of E-commerce, there is no one more STRONGLY COMMITTED then Mr. Mental Patient!!"
  • e.g., King Louis the Tooth Cracker
    • Beware!!!
    • "King Louis the Tooth Cracker" is NOT candy!!!
    • He is a Strong and Powerful Monarch who cracks teeth!!
    • Many call King Louis the Tooth Cracker "Cruel" and "Deceitful".
    • I call him "Hard Headed" and "Resilient"!!!
    • If you are looking for a Monarch that will crack your teeth when chewed, then I'd nudge you in the direction of acquiring King Louis the Tooth Cracker from me.
    • He's not only a Wise and Benevolent King, he also cracks Teeth!!!!
  • Opaque and moody, yet precocious and daring, my USA Today "Hot Site" Award is a sassy flirt that enjoys "flashing" itself at everyone it sees!
  • Grenwich Mean Time is the MEANEST Time there is!!!!
  • I recently discovered the Polynesian Island of Tofu while exploring the "Continental Shelf" of our Cafeteria!!!
  • In some countries he's known as "Mr. Pushy"!
    In others, he's called "El Strongo Diablo"!
    In my country, he's known simply as "The Man All Must Obey"!
    Don't be fooled by his lack of hands, feet, neck, and face!!
    This is one Powerful Man!
    Everyone on Earth must OBEY HIM!
    

  • In an agreement made with Father Time, I now own the worldwide rights to 12:17 p.m.!!

  • Over the years, little has been written about the "Forbidden City of Po".
    There are A FEW other things that are Forbidden in this Great Forbidden City!
    For Example:
    It is Forbidden to Live There!
    It is Forbidden to Visit!
    It is Forbidden to even Think About Visiting!
    Air is Forbidden!
    Plant Life is Forbidden!!
    All Mammals are Rigorously Forbidden!!
    Noise is Forbidden!
    Liquid is Forbidden!
    Touching ANYTHING is strictly Forbidden!
    That's because all writing about the "Forbidden City of Po" is Strictly Forbidden!!

  • I am currently selling "The Love That Can Not Speak It's Name"!!!
    It is a very Desirable type of Love.
    Love Experts have appraised it as being 6 TIMES more valuable than
    "The Love that can not STOP saying the word "Hiatus"!!!"
    That love can be irritating.
    This love is not.
    "The Love that can not speak it's name" is ALSO worth 12-15 times as much as
    "The Love that can not remember where it parked the car"!!!
    Unlike that love, this love knows exactly where the car is parked at all times!
    Think about it!!!
    It hardly matters if your Love "can" or "can't" speak it's name" when you need to know where your car is parked!!!
    Love Experts also say this love is far more valuable then the following types of love:
    "The Love that can not bathe itself!!!"
    "The Love that walks like a Raccoon"
    "The love that can not swallow solid foods!!!"

  • As you all know, Former U.S. President George Bush and his wife Barbara had 26 identical sons.
    Each one of them was given the first name "George" and a small country to run.
    What many people don't know is that George and Barbara Bush ranked their sons according to quality!
    

  • Dear Mr. Mental Patient: 
    
    I have thoroughly enjoyed your brilliance. Recently I ordered one of
    your mugs and I must say you certainly know how to treat your
    customers well.  I love the poem you wrote about me.  And the mug is
    made of fine quality.  It will make a lovely gift to a friend of
    mine. 
    
    I wish you all the best.  char clingman 

  • Thank You For Filling Out This Form
    Below is what you submitted to mrmentalpatient@hotmail.com on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 at 21:57:18
    Comment: Bidding for: "The Schism of Man's Dichotomy" I bid with following Non Competitive Scrabble words: exarsnif roath graviscondine knodobydian fojefroaph scofitregna cilyflopsis epaperematic ramegrapollotus
    submit: submit now
    opinion: stalk just a bit

  • At http://www.total.net/~fishnet/

• Church of the SubGenius
  • At http://www.subgenius.com/

Much of the following links relating to concerts and lectures in London are now being updated in Resources relating to free classical concerts, historical Concerts, Lectures, Debates and Talks in London, UK

• National Portrait Gallery London - Education - daytime and nighttime lectures
  • At http://www.npg.org.uk/live/lecindex.asp

  • 23rd October 2001
    Tuesday 1.10pm *
    Royal Society Lecture Series
    B. Free Franklin - the Enlightenment in America
    Sir Alan Cook FRS

  • "Daytime lectures are free, but some indicated by the symbol * require tickets."
  • "Tickets for all lectures can be obtained from the Gallery's Ticket Desk or by sending a s.a.e. to the Education Department, enclosing a cheque made payable to the National Portrait Gallery for the appropriate amount."
  • "All lectures take place in the Ondaatje Wing Theatre, unless otherwise indicated. "

  • October 26th 2001: Friday 6.30pm Free : The Arnold Ensemble : Brass ensemble perform music by British composers including Arnold and Handel
  • November 2nd 2001: Friday 6.30pm Free (The Regency Room - Room 20 - 2nd Floor) : 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' A journey through English song and poetry performed by Gary Tushaw (Bass-Baritone) and Andrew Charity (Piano)
  • November 11th 2001: Sunday Lecture - 3pm Free : Behind the Lines. For Remembrance Day, Gabriel Woolf, with Anne Harvey presents his moving programme of WW1 poetry and prose.
  • November 16th 2001: Friday 6.30pm Free : Czardas Duo : Matthew Forbes (cello) and Ian Watson (accordian) perform a diverse programme including the London premiere of John Webb's "Into a Several World"
  • November 23rd 2001: Friday 6.30pm Free (The Regency Room - Room 20 - 2nd Floor) : Flute Recital : Ian Mullen (Flute) and Juliet Allen (Piano) performs a programme of mainly French music for flute including Bach, Debussy and Poulenc
  • November 25th 2001: Sunday Lecture - 1:10pm or 3:00pm Free: William Hogarth in Words: his own and others - Alfred Bradley and Susan Morris
  • November 30th 2001: Friday 6.30pm Free : William Chen, Piano - playing Robert Shumann (Carnaval, Op. 9), Percy Grainger and Franz Liszt
  • December 9th 2001 : Sunday 3pm Free A Thousand Years of Christmas : Music and readings presented by Timothy West with singer Sally Bradshaw, accompanied on the piano by Michael Haslam
  • December 15th 2001 : Saturday 3pm Free : Oppressed with Sin and Woe? Readings from the diaries and letters of Victorian parsons with music by women hymn-writers and composers. Presented by ARION: Brian Davis (harp) and Andrée Back (soprano)
  • December 16th 2001 : Sunday 3pm Free : The Poisoned Chalice: The Policies of Elizabeth I and the Problems of James I : Justin Nolan
  • December 22nd 2001 : Saturday 3pm Free : Lord George Gordon and the Gordon Riots : Peter Street's talk marks the 250th anniversary of Gordon's birth

• St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London
  • At http://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/
  • St Martin-in-the-Fields Mission Statement (St Martin-in-the-Fields exists to honour God, and to enable questioning, open-minded people to discover for themselves the significance of Jesus Christ.): http://207.228.254.57/jserv/belief/index.jsp
  • "St Martin-in-the-Fields strives to be the 'Church of the Ever-Open Door'. Dick Sheppard, who was Vicar from 1914-27, was the first to express this hope. It is still our vision today."
  • Free Lunchtime concerts: http://207.228.254.57/jserv/concerts/index.jsp
  • Getting to St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, London: http://207.228.254.57/jserv/findus/index.jsp
  • Café in the Crypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, London: http://207.228.254.57/jserv/cafe/index.jsp
  • "Whilst steeped in history, St Martin-in-the-Fields has always been much more than a place of tradition, unashamedly breaking traditions as fast as establishing them. From the lending library of 1680 to the Social Care Unit of recent years, St Martin's continually reaches out to its community in diverse ways. During the First World War troops on their way to and from the Front slept overnight in the church, paving the way for the establishment of the Social Care Unit, which provides support to homeless people in London. "
  • "Whilst people are no longer buried at the church, the internment here of the controversial concubine, Nell Gwynn, and notorious highwayman, Jack Sheppard, reinforces the mission statement that St Martin's is a church for "open-minded" and "questioning" Christians."

  • Concerts: http://207.228.254.57/jserv/concerts/index.jsp
    • Tuesday 20th November - 1:05pm : Royal College of Music Series (free). Zaira Castro (soprano) and Silvia Fraser (Piano). Songs including: Rodrigo - Cuatro Madrigales Amatorios - De los Alamos vengo, madre; Donizetti - Norina's Cavatina (from Don Pascuale)
    • Monday 26th November - 1:05pm : North London Piano Series (free). Dharshini Tambiah performs Bach, Chopin and Beethoven
    • Tuesday 27th November - 1:05pm : Trinity College of Music Series (Free) Trinity Chamber Choir - Madrigals by John Bennett, Thomas Hunt and John Milton : Michael Tippett, Richard Rodney Bennett and John Joubert.
    • Friday 30th November - 1:05pm : Trinity College of Music Series (Free) : Bedford School Chapel Choir (Free) - Programme includes: Gibbons - Almighty and Everlasting God; Carter - I wonder as I wander
    • Tuesday 4 December 1:05pm Sweelinck Ensemble (Free) : Debbie Diamond (violin) and Martin Knizia (organ/harpsichord)
    • Friday 7 December 1:05pm Norwegian Girls' Choir - Conductor Barbro Grenerson : BIT 20 Ensemble : Ellen Sejersted Bodtker (Harp) (Free) : Including:
      • Choir entering while singing Britten's From a "Ceremony of Carols" - "Procession"
      • BIT 20 Ensemble playing Gorecki - Harpsichord Concerto op 40. (Jarle Rotevatn on Harpsichord)
      • Górecki (Concerto for harpsichord (piano) and string orchestra Op. 40 (1980)) - http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/composer/gorecki.html
      • Norwegian Girls' Choir singing carols including Die Engel und die Hurten
      • Norwegian Girls' Choir leaving while singing "Deilig er jorden" (traditional Silesian folk tune)

• St James' Church Picadilly - London, UK
  • At http://www.st-james-piccadilly.org/
  • St James' Church is positioned between Picadilly and Jermyn Street (go down Church St) about 200 yards from Picadilly Circus.
  • Events : http://www.st-james-piccadilly.org/page2.html
  • ACTIVITIES AND GROUPS : http://www.st-james-piccadilly.org/page6.html
    • Includes: BLAKE SOCIETY - William Blake was baptised at St James' and is celebrated by the Society through lectures, discussion and visits to Blake sites. Enquiries Membership Secretary 020 7733 3060
    • Includes: GOD'S GARDEN A sanctuary in the middle of London, with biblical plants, herbs and wild flowers.
  • Getting Started : http://www.st-james-piccadilly.org/page9.html
  • Lunchtime recitals - Free Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 1.10pm (suggested donation £2) and have a duration of approximately 50 minutes.
  • CONCERT PROGRAMME Details : http://stjamesconcerts.musicwise.net/

• The Friends of The City Churches - London, UK
  • At http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mothersole/walk.htm
  • Map of London City churches: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mothersole/mainmap.htm

• Timeout - London City lunchtime concerts
  • At http://www.timeout.com/london/ent/city_lunchtime_concerts.html

• London City Churches and Guild Churches lunchtime concerts and lunchtime events
  • At http://www.london.anglican.org/Churches/
  • At http://www.london.anglican.org/cityevents/
  • The City's parish churches together with 11 Guild churches offer a unique ministry. The City has few inhabitants but thousands visit and work there each day.
    Workers are encouraged to pause in the day and attend one of the numerous talks, concerts and services during the lunchtime and early evening.

  • St. Mary Le Bow Church; Cheapside ; London EC2V 6AU ; Tube: St Pauls or Bank ; Tel: 020 7248 5139 ; Lunchtime Concerts: 1.05pm Thur. ; MAP via YELL.COM
    • Thursday 6th December 2001 - Peter Martin - Lute (music of the 1500's - Spain and Italy)
    • Peter Martin's website: http://www.silvius.co.uk
    • The Lute Society: http://www.lutesoc.co.uk

  • St Margaret Lothbury; Lothbury, London EC2 ; Tube: Bank ; Tel: 020 7606 8330 ; Lunchtime Concerts: 1.10pm Thur ; MAP via YELL.COM
  • St. Olave's Church ; 8 Hart St London EC3R 7NB ; Tube: Tower ; Tel: 020 7488 4318 ; Lunchtime Concerts: 1.05pm Wed, Thur. ; MAP via YELL.COM
  • Church of St. Stephen Walbrook ; 39, Walbrook London EC4N 8BN ; Tube: Bank ; Tel: 020 7283 4444 ; Lunchtime Concerts: 12.30pm Fri. ; MAP via YELL.COM
  • Church of St.Martin-within-Ludgate ; Ludgate Hill London EC4M 7DE ; Tube: St Pauls ; Tel: 020 7248 6054 ; Lunchtime Concerts: 1.15pm Wed. ; MAP via YELL.COM
  • St. Bride's Church ; St. Bride's Avenue London EC4Y 8AU ; Tube: Blackfriars or St Pauls ; Tel: 020 7427 0133 ; Lunchtime Concerts: 1.15pm Tue, Wed, Fri ; MAP via YELL.COM
  • Temple Church ; Inner Temple, Fleet St London EC4Y 7HL ; Tube: Temple ; Tel: 020 7353 3470 ; Lunchtime Concerts: lunchtime organ concerts ; MAP via YELL.COM

  • The Parish Church of St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate
    • At http://www.st-michaels.org.uk/sepulchre/
    • Contact address: The Watch House, 10 Giltspur Street, London EC1A 9DF (Corner of Giltspur Street and Holborn Viaduct, opposite the Old Bailey); Tube: Temple ; Tel: 0207 248 3826 ; Lunchtime Concerts: varies - 1pm to 1.05pm Wed ;
    • MAP via YELL.COM
    • "The Royal School of Church Music was founded at St. Sepulchre's and the historic tower holds the twelve bells of the Old Bailey made famous by the nursery rhyme 'Oranges and Lemons'."

  • The Parish Church of St. Michael, Cornhill
    • At http://www.st-michaels.org.uk/information.html
    • St. Michael's Church, St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, London, EC3V 9DS (Tel. 0171 626 8841) : Tube: Temple ; Lunchtime Concerts: varies - 1pm to 1.05pm Wed ;
    • Monday 1pm: Organ Recital
    • Some Tuesdays: 1pm lectures

• Guildhall School of Music and Drama
  • At http://www.gsmd.ac.uk
  • Music Events : http://www.gsmd.ac.uk/pages/node0014

• Royal College of Music - London, UK
  • At http://www.rcm.ac.uk
  • Events : http://www.rcm.ac.uk/events/events.html
  • Events : Lectures : http://www.rcm.ac.uk/events/eventtype.asp?sendtype=4
  • Events : Chamber Music : http://www.rcm.ac.uk/events/eventtype.asp?sendtype=5

• St John's, Smith Square - London, UK
  • At http://www.sjss.org.uk/sjss.html
  • Friends of St. John's : http://www.sjss.org.uk/friends/index.html
  • "Thursday Lunchtime concerts featuring chamber and organ concerts."

• Wigmore Hall
  • At http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/
  • Concert Information : http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/asp/masterframeliteralie.asp

• Royal Opera House - Covent Garden - London, UK
  • At http://www.royalopera.org/
  • What's On : Performances : http://www.royalopera.org/PerformingSpaces/Index.cfm
  • What's On : Performances : Linbury Studio Theatre : http://www.royalopera.org/PerformingSpaces/Index.cfm?ccs=119

• Los Alamos LANL: The Real Story
  • At http://lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com/

  • LANL Director George P. Nanos shut down the entire laboratory in July, 2004, citing "egregious" security and safety violations. The results of the shutdown include a cost to the taxpayer of approximately $850 million, an exodus of highly talented staff members, and the loss of untold millions of dollars of funding from customers who have taken their business elsewhere. This blog provides an uncensored LANL forum. See the link named "Posting Guidelines" below for posting instructions.

  • Saturday, March 26, 2005

    As a manager today I keep asking myself

    From Anonymous:

    Every manager of complex facilities, especially ones that have exceeded their design life by a decade or more, knows that he or she has problems in maintenance and operations. These problems are found in inspections and self-assessments and are appropriately documented. Every manager I know submits this list for funding and is told to prioritize them. In medicine this would be comparable to triage. Coming up with this prioritized list obviously involves a great deal of conjecture. The manager submits his or her prioritized list up the management chain and, in almost 100% of the time, even some of the prioritized items are not funded. Yet when something happens like the laser injury, only the parties that denied funding to cover identified shortfalls escape reprimands and punishment. (Chemistry Division managers had requested and been denied funding by the Laboratory Director for a person to help oversee and enforce safety compliance.)

    On the other hand, a division manager threatened to lock down TA-18 a few years ago and have his people abandon the site if money to operate the site safely was not promptly provided. Strangely, the money came post haste from DOE/NNSA and the facility continued to operate safely (and securely) in spite of the fact that it was one of oldest facilities on site.

    However, hardball tactics can only be used sparingly and in healthy organizations driven by principle and not "inane arbitrariness to reduce overheads" they are needed even less. Worrying about overheads seems particularly inane considering that our senior management seems to have wasted $1B by some estimates on overhead processes of dubious long term value.

    As a manager today I keep asking myself, where would my facilities and those in the rest of Laboratory be if that same $IB had been used to correct specific things that we already knew about and had documented instead wasting hours finding out what we already knew and creating mountains of useless SYA paperwork?

  • LMC-SNL noninterference letter

    From an Anonymous Sandian:

    This is from a Sandian who thinks that LANL staff might be interested in the following letter. It was recently reissued to SNL management and staff when Tom Hunter took over from Paul Robinson. LMC has been issuing this letter periodically for several years. My earliest version goes back to 1998. Here's the text of the latest version:

    Dear Tom,

    I am writing to reaffirm the promise made by Lockheed Martin to the Department of Energy regarding how our Corporation conducts its management responsibility for Sandia National Laboratories. Lockheed Martin has long respected Sandia's maxim of "exceptional service in the national interest." Accordingly, we recognize that for Sandia to fulfill the extraordinary mission requirements of the Laboratories, complete objectivity and independence of judgment must be assured. Lockeed Martin also recognizes that at no time should Corporate interest be placed above the national interest. Even the appearance of this circumstance would be unacceptable.

    Be assured that Lockheed Martin will continue to uphold the integrity and independent objectivity that has enabled Sandia to advise the US government on sensitive matters and to fulfill its responsibilities in certifying the safety and reliability of the US nuclear stockpile. Should you ever be confronted with a situation that has the potential to compromise Sandia's independence, you are to contact the undersigned immediately. Appropriate action will be taken to ensure Sandia's ability to provide objective advice to the government at all times. Our corporate culture promotes the highest sense of ethics and integrity.

    This Corporate wide commitment to ethical business practice permits us to confidently undertake the tremendous responsibilty associated with the management and operation of Sandia. We are proud of Sandia and greatly value our relationship.

    We look forward to many more years of close association with Sandia and we are committed to sustain our excellent record of performance.

    Sincerely, Robert J. Stevens, President, Lockheed Martin Corporation.

    # posted by Doug Roberts : 6/17/2005 04:58:00 PM 37 comments

• Los Alamos Study Group - anti-nuclear pacifist site
  • At http://www.lasg.org/

• St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square, London WC2 and Dick Sheppard (vicar from 1914-1927)
  • At http://www.infed.org/walking/wa-stmar.htm
  • "The church became well known for its work with homeless people from just after the First World War when Dick Sheppard (the vicar from 1914-1927) established a relief centre in the crypt (Northcott 1937). Sheppard was a popular preacher and pioneer of religious broadcasting. He was also a pacifist and founded the Peace Pledge Union in 1936."
  • Northcott, R. J. (1937) Dick Sheppard and St. Martin's, London: Longmans Green and Co.

• The founder of the Peace Pledge Union was Hugh Richard Lawrie Sheppard, popularly known as Dick Sheppard.
  • At http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/people/pst_dick.html
  • "On recovery Dick served at various churches in the West End of London until in July 1914 he accepted the post of Vicar of St Martin-in-the Fields, Trafalgar Square. Before he could take it up, however, the First World War had been declared, and Dick accepted an invitation to be chaplain of a military hospital in France. Less than a week after arriving, the one time would-be soldier was writing home, "War is awful. More awful than I supposed possible". One of the doctors described how Dick "would identify himself with every dying man...sit there, just because he had promised the dying man that he would, just because he thought it might somehow comfort the poor fellow, who was long past any comfort really... "
    After two months Dick's health broke again, and he returned to London to be inducted to St Martin's in November, before a congregation of eleven people - so far removed from mainstream church life had St Martin's become. In his twelve years as Vicar, Dick not only filled the Church for Sunday services but made it a centre for social care which survives to this day. He opened up the crypt (cellar) for down-and-outs and played scratch games of cricket with young people in the courtyard. The church itself was kept open all night for soldiers waiting for trains and anyone else in need of spiritual or physical shelter. One human story relates how one night Dick found a young woman crying in the church. She had been turned out of her home in a northern town, after a quarrel with her parents, but was desperately homesick. Dick sensed the possibility of reconciliation, and there and then took her to the station and travelled home with her, returning to London wearily but happily after seeing the family reunited.
    Another pioneering venture came in 1924, when the BBC decided to experiment with broadcasting a religious service and chose St Martin's as the venue. This soon became a regular monthly feature, with Dick, 'the radio parson', sharing his pulpit with other clergy. Through such broadcasting Dick's increasing popularity in London spread throughout the country.
    Meanwhile, Dick's direct experience of war had not been without effect. In 1937 he mentioned that he had become a pacifist eighteen years before, that is in 1919, although he left no overt record at that time. He had, however, allowed his pulpit to be used for sermons critical of the war, and had mentioned conscientious objectors alongside soldiers and sailors in public prayers.-
    On Armistice Day in 1923 Dick organised a mass meeting in Trafalgar Square as a National Call to Righteousness, which, although without official sanction, was broadcast. In 1925 he famously wrote to The Times in protest against a Victory Ball in the Albert Hall planned for the evening of Armistice Day: "A fancy dress ball on a vast scale as a tribute to the Great Deliverance which followed on the unspeakable agony of 1914-1918 seems to me not so much irreligious as indecent". Such a stir was created that the Ball was postponed for a day and Dick was asked in its stead to lead a simple service, In Memory, at the Hall, in the presence of the King, the Prime Minister and other national figures. Later he scribbled on his own copy of the programme, "Of course Pacifism must be written into this". That is the origin of the Festival of Remembrance now held on the evening before Remembrance Sunday but, with its drills and displays, it regrettably seems to have more of militarism than pacifism written into it.
    Ill-health having necessitated Dick's resignation from St Martin's in 1926, he turned to completing a book on what he felt was wrong with the Church of England. Amongst many other points, The Impatience of a Parson (1927) argued that the Church should be "obliged to outlaw all war and to demand from its members that they should refuse to kill their brethren". The controversial nature of the best-selling book, together with his radio fame, led to writing columns in popular newspapers. On the recommendation of the Prime Minister, the King had already made him a Companion of Honour. Along with the down-and-outs, George V was actually a parishioner of St Martin's and came to a few services. Dick had been an Honorary Chaplain to the King since 1916.
    In 1929 Dick acknowledged in a letter to the writer Laurence Housman, "I am now a pacifist. I do not think a Christian can take part in any work of killing, or do anything he cannot believe that Christ would have done". He was, nevertheless, "a trifle reluctant to make pacifism my only love". So it was that Dick's next appointment came later in the year, as Dean of Canterbury, heading the staff of the Cathedral, the mother church of the Anglican Communion, where Cosmo Lang had recently become the Archbishop.
    Dick had just begun to make his mark in this influential post when ill-health once again forced a resignation in 1931. From this time on, Dick showed himself more and more as an active pacifist. On the night before Armistice Day 1931 he spoke at a No More War Movement meeting in the Albert Hall, along with the new Leader of the Labour Party, George Lansbury, who had campaigned against the Boer War whilst Dick was trying to join it. Dick made one of his best speeches and then, as was to happen frequently, collapsed on the platform.
    By February 1932 he was anxious about the war raging in China after the Japanese invasion. He joined with Maude Royden and Herbert Gray, both ministers in the Congregational Church, in writing a letter to the Press inviting volunteers to stand between the enemy firing lines and calling upon the League of Nations to make use of such a 'Peace Army'. Dick privately acknowledged that, "Most of those who read it will laugh at us", but felt compelled by the urgency of the time.
    Although there were a number of volunteers, including the Methodist minister Donald Soper, nothing substantive came of this venture. Aware that the Great 'War to end war' had far from ended war, and that the vaunted world Disarmament Conference in Geneva was breaking up in failure whilst states rapidly rearmed, Dick searched and searched for a real peace initiative. He went to The Hague in the Netherlands to hear the famous scientist Albert Einstein "appeal to all men and women that they will refuse to give any further assistance to war or the preparations for war. I ask them to tell their governments this in writing".
    As the international situation worsened, with the coming to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1933, Dick heard of a sermon preached on Armistice Sunday that year in Riverside Church, New York, by Harry Emerson Fosdick, a Free Church minister who, like Dick, had served as a military chaplain in the First World War. Dr Fosdick ended by pledging to "do the best I can to settle my account with the Unknown Soldier.
    "I renounce war. I renounce war because of what it does to our own men...I renounce war because of what it compels us to do to our enemies...I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it. I renounce war and never again, directly or indirectly, will I sanction or support another."
    This text so moved Dick that, after much thought and consultation, he decided to use it as the basis for yet one more letter to the Press. In this letter, which the Times refused to publish, but which did appear in the (then Manchester) Guardian and other papers on 16 October 1934, Dick wrote of "the almost universally acknowledged lunacy of the manner in which nations are pursuing peace...It seems essential to discover whether or not it be true, as we are told, that the majority of thoughtful men in this country are convinced that war of any kind or for any cause, is not only a denial of Christianity, but a crime against humanity which is not to be permitted by civilised people". He invited those who would be willing to join a public demonstration renouncing war, in the terms of the last sentence quoted from Dr Fosdick's sermon, to send him a postcard.
    For the first few days there was nothing. Then the local postmaster rang to inquire whether someone would be at home to receive sacks full of postcards. In a few weeks there were thirty thousand replies, and still they came. Dick called his demonstration in the Albert Hall on 14 July 1935, which inaugurated the Sheppard Peace Movement. In September Dick published We Say "NO" - The Plain Man's Guide to Pacifism. In May 1936, with the help of other notable figures such as George Lansbury and Donald Soper, the organisation became The Peace Pledge Union. The fuller story of it is told in a companion information sheet, but it should be emphasised here that, although Dick never made a speech or wrote an article without mentioning his own strongly Christian motivation, the PPU was to be open to "men and women of very divergent philosophic, religious and political opinions".
    In the meantime, Dick had accepted his final Church appointment, as a Canon of St Paul's Cathedral, London, in the autumn of 1934. He devoted all his spare time to the pacifist movement, and travelled the country speaking at meetings organised by the thousand local PPU groups springing up. He contemplated resigning his canonry to go full-time for peace, being ever more critical of "the attempts made at the Church Assembly to reconcile the teaching of Christ with the practice of war". In April 1937 he led a deputation in torchlit procession to hand in a statement of pacifist conviction by clergy and laity at Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, still a dearly loved friend, but the closer the friend, the more freely he should speak. That demonstration led to the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, still the main witness for pacifism within the Church of England.
    Also in 1937 Dick planned with others the first ceremony as a direct alternative to the official Armistice Day event at the Cenotaph. He invited those "who do not care to be present at the military parades now generally associated with that day" to go to Regent's Park for simple readings and singing as well as a solemn silence.
    The event was held, but without Dick. The last week of October was a period of high elation followed by deep sadness. On 23 October, after a hectic campaign, Dick had been elected by the students of Glasgow University as their Rector (an honorary post), in preference to Winston Churchill and other notables of the time. "This definitely puts pacifism on the map", said Dick; "I'm almost weeping with happiness".
    A week later his many friends wept. On 31 October Dick was found dead at his desk, having finally succumbed to perennial illness. The news made the headlines the next day, queues formed to pass his coffin as he lay in his beloved St Martin's, and crowds lined the streets to watch the funeral procession from there to St Paul's. Afterwards he was buried in the comparative quietness of Canterbury, where a memorial window shows him with St Martin, the soldier turned bishop, commemorated always on Armistice Day. There is also a Dick Sheppard Chapel in the crypt of St Martin's."

• Peace and Pacifist Organistion links
  • At http://www.gn.apc.org/fore/links/links.htm

• International Peace Bureau - Le Bureau International de la Paix
  • At http://www.ipb.org/
  • "The IPB is the world's oldest and most comprehensive international peace federation, bringing together people working for peace in many different sectors: not only pacifists but also women's, youth, labour, religious and professional bodies. IPB was founded in 1892 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910. It has 210 member organizations, both internationals and national/local groups in over 50 countries."

• Case Studies in Process Plant Accidents
  • At http://www.cheresources.com/procacc.shtml
  • Including: Nypro Factory, Flixborough, United Kingdom in 1974 - 28 dead
  • "After reviewing these incidents, its easy to see how knowing what caused past accidents can prevent future accidents from happening. With that in mind, I would urge everyone to read the reference cited below. Mr. Trevor Kletz assembled a well-written compilation of process plant accidents in his book. It's a fantastic resource!"
  • Kletz, Trevor, What Went Wrong: Case Histories in Process Plant Disasters, 4th Ed., Gulf Publishing Company, 1998, ISBN 0-88415-920-5: http://www.gulfpub.com/books.html
  • Trevor A. Kletz: "Lessons From Disasters : How organisations have no memory and accidents recur", 1993, ISBN 0 85295 307 0

• parishes related news, books and web resources
  • At http://www.qozi.com/parishes/

• Texas
  • At http://www.neosoft.com/texas/default.html

• Gresham College, London: Lectures Webpage (Providing free public lectures since 1597)
  • At http://www.gresham.ac.uk/special/lectures.html

  • December 15, 2007

    So there's a minor problem with a little nuclear reactor in Eastern Ontario, and half a world away, a doctor must tell a man she can't run a test to diagnose what's wrong with the guy's heart. A medical crisis erupts. Parliament is forced to pass emergency legislation to get the reactor restarted. It's stunning - who knew such a thing could happen?

    People who've been reading the business pages, that's who. The fiasco in Chalk River, Ont., is no surprise to anyone who has followed MDS, which distributes isotopes used in treating disease, or Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), which supplies them. Eleven years ago, the two companies said they'd join forces to build two new reactors, Maple 1 and 2. The Maples were meant to replace the ancient NRU reactor that produces half of the world's medical isotopes.

    If they were operating today, there would have been no crisis. AECL chief executive officer Michael Burns might still have his job; he quit yesterday. And those who still think it's a swell idea for taxpayers to back a bungling seller of nukes might still have a leg to stand on. They don't. The case for privatization has never been stronger.

    The Maples were supposed to be running by 2000. We're still waiting. They were supposed to cost $140-million. By early last year, the costs were some $400-million and AECL had to pay tens of millions to MDS in an arbitration settlement. Understand, please, that these are not monster nuclear generating plants. The Maples are small and simple - as much as any nuke can be called simple - designed to do only one task. If AECL can screw that up, what good is it?

    The situation reached a critical point when the feds' nuclear safety watchdog, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, shut down the 50-year-old NRU plant because AECL had failed to follow orders to install new backup power systems. The government balanced the risks - a minuscule chance of a nuclear meltdown, versus thousands of angry and upset sick people - and decided to fire up the reactor again. But as Mr. Burns' resignation makes clear, it was no victory for AECL.

    If anything, the saga is a window on why the Crown Corp. should be carved up and sold. This isn't the first time Parliament has had to come to its rescue, after all. AECL, thanks in part to disasters like the Maple cost overruns, doesn't pay for itself, never has, and probably never will, as long as it's under Ottawa's wing. Energy Probe, a Toronto-based research group on energy issues, last year calculated that taxpayers have put $21-billion into the old beast since 1953, contributing about $75-billion to the national debt. "I would love an outcome where I [as a taxpayer] stop owning AECL," said Norm Rubin, the organization's director of nuclear research.

    Energy Probe has an anti-nuke bias, so perhaps that's what you'd expect him to say. But he's right when he says there's no sign of an end to the subsidies. Crown status also can make it awkward when there are safety concerns. AECL reports to Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn. The nuclear safety watchdog is independent, but technically, it also reports to Parliament through the same minister. Can Ottawa properly regulate a company that it also owns? "All of Parliament was in a conflict [on the NRU legislation]," Mr. Rubin claims, "because Parliament owns the reactor."

    The Conservatives are launching a formal review of AECL. And while that's the right move, the Tories would be wise not to let it linger too long. Nuclear power is back in vogue. Some predict the U.S., which hasn't approved a new nuclear site since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, might build a dozen or more new reactors in the coming years. Energy-rich Alberta is talking about nukes; Ontario will be building new nuclear power as well, to replace old plants and the coal-fired electricity the province wants to shut down by 2014.

    Ontario already relies on nukes for about half of its power, and all of them were built with AECL's Candu technology. What about in the future? A nuke is a marriage to last a lifetime. It's a 50-year commitment, at least. No one's going to buy from a company that might not exist in five years' time. The uncertainty surrounding AECL's future is one thing keeping the province from getting moving, which it desperately needs to do, because it takes at least a decade to get a new nuclear generator approved and built.

    AECL once served a useful purpose. It got a domestic nuclear industry off the ground. But there's no reason to believe that selling it to General Electric or France's Areva would mean the end of employment for thousands of engineers and scientists in AECL's employ. A private company would need those people, too. It just wouldn't need - we hope, at least - the billions of tax dollars that AECL consumes. Time to sell it.

• Why I Am Opposed to Imperialism By Ernest Crosby (US Anti-Imperialist) (The Arena 28 (July 1902))
  • At http://www.boondocksnet.com/crosby/opposed.html

  • I am opposed to the modern imperialistic course of our Government:
  • (1) Because it is based upon physical force. The real history of the world is a history of ideas, and true leadership of mankind is in the realm of thought and character. The dream of wide influence is a grand dream, but it must be an influence on a higher plane than that of arms. The idea of political equality that we championed in the eighteenth century gave us for a time the right kind of leadership, and if now we could solve the problem of industrial democracy we might again have the world following in our train. To substitute a big navy for big ideas is stupid and puerile. When we really have a message worth delivering, we shall instinctively feel that the methods of Caesar and Mohammed are not adapted to its delivery.
  • (2) Because expansion by force fills the world with hatred. We have already made the Filipinos hate us as much in four years as the Spaniards did in four hundred, and our troops had hardly entered Manila and Santiago before they began to call the natives "niggers" and "monkeys." What hate, jealousy, wounded pride, and sullen misery on the one hand, and cruelty, disdain, and oppression on the other, that word "Imperialism" has denoted ever since the dawn of history! We have two complicated race problems on our hands already, both of which have led us into a disgraceful and still continuing course of crime and sin. Are we lightly to sow the seeds of new race-hatreds, and, under the pretense of uniting the world, insure its lasting division?
  • (3) Because it is founded on a false pride of race. The "chosen people" idea is a silly one, and out of place in the twentieth century. All races have their place, and attempts at subjection should give way to a generous rivalry. We have a wide enough field for influence in the exercise of persuasion and example. Other peoples must develop naturally. Some have preceeded us and appear to be on the wane; others follow in our wake and may be expected to surpass us in the future. In either case the effort to superimpose our ideas and customs by force must be disastrous.
  • (4) Because it is steeped in cant and hypocrisy. There is something fine in the unsimulated strength of a wild beast, but when a nation steals the soil from under your feet and enslaves you to its own uses, and in the meantime prates of Christianity and civilization and benevolent intentions, it turns the stomach of an honest man. We have lied to Cuba point-blank and misled the Filipinos, and our warfare has been distinguished by the most astounding cruelties ("conducted with marked severity" is the eupemistic expression of General Miles); yet we go on boasting of our philanthropic work as if falsehood were bred in our bones. Why cannot a nation behave like a gentleman?
  • (5) Because it distracts our attention and our material resources from the problems that beset us at home. We should reform ourselves before we undertake to preach a crusade. How can we to-day, with our slums, our lynchings, our race and labor questions -- how can we decently assume the right to teach mankind? We are the only civilized people who practise burning at the stake at the present time, and we wish to soften the manners of the isles of the sea!

• Plutarch on Lacus Curtius
  • At http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/home.html

• Plutarch, Moralia - Sayings of Spartans
  • At http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Sayings_of_Spartans*/main.html

  • Brasidas caught a mouse among some figs, and, when he got bitten, let it go. Then, turning to those who were present, he said, "There is nothing so small that it does not save its life if it has the courage to defend itself against those who would lay hand on it."

• The Strategemata of Sextus Julius Frontinus
  • At http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Frontinus/Strategemata/home.html

  • I neither ignore nor deny the fact that historians have included in the compass of their works this feature also, nor that authors have already recorded in some fashion all famous examples. But I ought, I think, out of consideration for busy men, to have regard to brevity. For it is a tedious business to hunt out separate examples scattered over the vast body of history; and those who have made selections of notable deeds have overwhelmed the reader by the very mass of material. My effort will be devoted to the task of setting forth, as if in response to questions, and as occasion shall demand, the illustration applicable to the case in point. For having examined the categories, I have in advance mapped out my campaign, so to speak, for the presentation of illustrative examples. Moreover, in order that these may be sifted and properly classified according to the variety of subject-matter, I have divided them into three books. In the first are illustrations of stratagems for use before the battle begins; in the second, those that relate to the battle itself and tend to effect the complete subjugation of the enemy; the third contains stratagems connected with sieges and the raising of sieges. Under these successive classes I have grouped the illustrations appropriate to each.

    It is not without justice that I shall claim indulgence for this work, and I beg that no one will charge me with negligence, if he finds that I have passed over some illustration. For who could prove equal to the task of examining all the records which have come down to us in both languages! And so I have purposely allowed myself to skip many things. That I have not done this without reason, those will realize who read the books of others treating of the same subjects; but it will be easy for the reader to supply those examples under each category. For since this work, like my preceding ones, has been undertaken for the benefit of others, rather than for the sake of my own renown, I shall feel that I am being aided, rather than criticized, by those who will make additions to it.

• Greek and Roman Authors on LacusCurtius
  • At http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/home.html

• National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
  • At http://www.ncrp.org/

• James Allen and the troubles he had finding a location for the exhibit
  • At http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~aflury/english1101webprojects/12sectiongroup3/james_allen.html

• The exhibit "Without Sanctuary: Lynching in America" at the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Center demonstrates a dark era in American history.
  • At http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~aflury/english1101webprojects/12sectiongroup3/mitchell.html

• James Allen and Without Sanctuary
  • At http://www.journale.com/withoutsanctuary/
  • At http://www.journale.com/withoutsanctuary/main.html
  • At http://www.journale.com/withoutsanctuary/movie1.html

• Lynchings in the American South. March 20, 2000.
  • At http://archives.theconnection.org/archive/2000/03/0320b.shtml

  • "May Lynch: 3 to 6 Negroes This Evening" is the headline from the Memphis Press, Jan. 26 1921.

    Public lynchings were common in America for much of the 20th Century. At its height at the turn of the century, two to three people, mostly southern blacks, were lynched every week.

    Railroads ran special excursion trains to lynching sites, and thousands gathered to watch the beating, hanging, and burning of human beings. Spectators brought cameras and vendors printed photographs on the spot, minting a small fortune by turning the prints into souvenir postcards.

    Some of those photographs are now part of a new exhibit at the New York Historical Society, and what they show is the shameless, festive carnival of lynching: Women with parasols, children lifted onto shoulders for the view, and large groups of men, all expectant and exultant.

    Lynching in America in the second hour of The Connection, with Leon Litwack and James Allen.

    The Exhibit can be seen at The New York Historical Society until July 9, 2000.

• Introduction to First World War Poetry
  • At http://info.ox.ac.uk/jtap/tutorials/intro/trench/

• "WHERE DEATH BECOMES ABSURD AND LIFE ABSURDER": LITERARY VIEWS OF THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918
  • At http://www.ph-erfurt.de/~neumann/eese/artic99/less3/Sources/HTML-Pages/HTML-Pages/thegr68.htm

• Travelling light
  • At http://weatherman.blogspot.com/2001_12_01_weatherman_archive.html
  • "I spent most of Saturday in the University of London's Senate House Library (the building, I've been told, was Hitler's planned English headquarters). "

• Richard III Society--McKellen Shakespeare Film, Production Notes
  • At http://www.r3.org/onstage/FILM/notes.html
  • At http://www.mckellen.com/cinema/richard/notes.htm
  • "The scenes at Richard's headquarters were filmed at the Senate House, the chancellery of London University with its large expanses of marble. Although designed and built for the University in the thirties, Senate House was occupied by the Ministry of Information throughout the second world war and information about Dunkirk and the 'D' Day landings was broadcast from Beveridge Hall."

• About the *real* Room 101
  • At http://www.angelfire.com/de/adrichome/101stuff.html

• George Orwell London Photographs
  • At http://www.zardoz.net/orwell/london.html
  • At http://www.zardoz.net/orwell/SenateHouse.html
  • "Senate House : The Senate House on Malet Street is the headquarters of the University of London. The structure is surprisingly large for the neighborhood, rising in tiers above the surrounding buildings. With its imposing white facade, it is thought to be the inspiration for architecture of the four ministries in Nineteen Eighty-Four. More... "

• The Convocation Office, Room 101, Senate House, University of London
  • At http://www.lon.ac.uk/convocation/convoc_trust.htm

• From 1984 by George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)

  • page 265
    
    The first thing you have to understand is that in this place
    there are no martyrdoms.  You have read of the religious
    persecution of the past.  In the Middle Ages there was the
    Inquisition. It was a failure. It set out to eradicate heresy,
    and ended by perpetuating it. For every heretic it burned at
    the stake, thousands of others rose up. Why was that?
    Because the Inquisition killed its enemies in the open, and
    killed them while they were still unrepentant: in fact, it
    killed them because they were unrepentant. Men were
    dying because they would not abandon their true beliefs.
    Naturally all the glory belonged to the victim and all the
    shame to the Inquisitor who burned him. Later, in the
    twentieth century, there were the totalitarians, as they were
    called. There were the German Nazis and the Russian
    Communists. The Russians persecuted heresy more
    cruelly than the Inquisition had done. And they imagined
    that they had learned from the mistakes of the past; they
    knew, at any rate, that one must not make martyrs. Before
    they exposed their victims to public trial, they deliberately
    set themselves to destroy their dignity. They wore them
    down by torture and solitude until they were despicable,
    cringing wretches, confessing whatever was put into their
    mouths, covering themselves with abuse, accusing and
    sheltering behind one another, whimpering for mercy.
    And yet after only a few years the same thing had 
    happened over again. The dead men had become martyrs and
    their degradation was forgotten. Once again, why was it?
    In the first place, because the confessions that they had
    made were obviously extorted and untrue. We do not
    make mistakes of that kind. All the confessions that are
    uttered here are true. We make them true. And above all
    we do not allow the dead to rise up against us. You must
    stop imagining that posterity will vindicate you, Winston.
    Posterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean
    out from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas
    and pour you into the stratosphere. Nothing will remain
    of you; not a name in a register, not a memory in a living
    brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the
    future. You will never have existed.'
    
    Then why bother to torture me? thought Winston, with
    a momentary bitterness. O'Brien checked his step as
    though Winston had uttered the thought aloud. His large
    ugly face came nearer, with the eyes a little narrowed.
    
    'You are thinking,' he said, 'that since we intend to
    destroy you utterly, so that nothing that you say or do can
    make the smallest difference in that case, why do we go
    to the trouble ofinterrogating you first? That is what you
    were thinking, was it not?'
    
    'Yes,' said Winston.
    
    O'Brien subiled slightly. 'You are a flaw in the pattern,
    Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out. Did I not
    tell you just now that we are different from the persecutors
    of the past? We are not content with negative obedience,
    nor even with the most abject submission. When finally
    you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We
    do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he
    resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we
    capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and
    all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not
    in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him
    one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us
    that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the
    world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the
    instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. In the old
    days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, 
    proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian
    purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he
    walked down the passage waiting for the bullet. But we
    make the brain perfect before we blow it out. The 
    command of the old despotisms was "Thou shalt not". The
    command of the totalitarians was "Thou shalt". Our
    command is " Thou art". No one whom we bring to this
     place ever stands out against us. Everyone is washed clean.
    Even those three miserable traitors in whose innocence you
    once believed-Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford - in the
    end we broke them down. I took part in their interrogation
    myself I saw them gradually worn down, whimpering,
    grovelling, weeping - and in the end it was not with pain
    or fear, only with penitence. By the time we had finished
    with them they were only the shells of men. There was
    nothing left in them except sorrow for what they had
    done, and love of Big Brother. It was touching to see how
    they loved him. They begged to be shot quickly, so that
    they could die while their minds were still clean.'
    
    His voice had grown almost dreamy. The exaltation, the
    lunatic enthusiasm, was still in his Face. He is not pretend-
    ing, thought Winston; he is not a hypocrite; he believes
    every word he says. What most oppressed him was the
    consciousness of his own intellectual inferiority. He
    watched the heavy yet graceful form strolling to and fro, in
    and out of the range of his vision. O'Brien was a being in all
    ways larger than himself There was no idea that he had
    ever had, or could have, that O'Brien had not long ago
    known, examined and rejected. His mind contained
    Winston's mind. But in that case how could it be true that
    O'Brien was mad? It must be he, Winston, who was mad.
    O'Brien halted and looked down at him. His voice had
    grown stern again.
    
    'Do not imagine that you will save yourself, Winston,
    however completely you surrender to us. No one who has
    once gone astray is ever spared. And even if we chose to let
    you live out the natural term of your life, still you would
    never escape from us. What happens to you here is for ever.
    Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to
    the point from which there is no coming back. Things will
    happen to you from which you could not recover, if you
    lived a thousand years. Never again will you be capable of
    ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside
    you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship,
    or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or
    integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you
    empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.'
    
    page 269
    

  • page 275
    
    'Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this.
    The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not
    interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in
    power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness
    only power, pure power. What pure power means you
    will understand presently. We are different from all the
    oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing
    All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were
    cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the
    Russian Communists came very close to us in their
    methods, but they never had the courage to recognise their
    own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed,
    that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited
    time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise
    where human beings would be free and equal. We are not
    like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the
    intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an
    end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to
    safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order
    to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is
    persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of
    power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'
    

• Movies of George Orwell's 1984
  • At http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=6034

  • In the 1950s, there were two versions of this tale. A 1954 BBC television production was written by Nigel Kneale (of Quatermass fame) and starred Peter Cushing. It was a huge success and gave both talents a big lift. A 1956 film version directed by Michael Anderson became unavailable in the 1970s because the Orwell estate disapproved of it - an ironic echo of the historical revisionism done by Winston Smith in the story itself. Starring Edmond O'Brien and Jan Sterling, it had the gall to be released with two endings - one of which showed Smith and Julia rebelling against Big Brother and being shot down for their trouble. Of yet, critics haven't demanded its revival.

• John Heartfield's art (1891 - 1968)
  • At http://www.towson.edu/heartfield/artarchive.html

• John Heartfield's art (1891 - 1968)
  • At http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2554/john_heartfield.html

• John Heartfield's art (1891 - 1968) - art against fascism
  • At http://www.lineargirl.com/heartfield/art_against.html

• John Heartfield's art (1891 - 1968)
  • At http://www.towson.edu/heartfield/art/art.html

• John Heartfield (1891 - 1968)
  • At http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWheartfield.htm

• John Heartfield and Goering, Executioner of the Third Reich
  • At http://www.abc.net.au/arts/visual/stories/montage/page3.htm
  • At http://www.abc.net.au/arts/visual/stories/montage/pg3_img3.htm

• Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens
  • At http://www.flakmag.com/books/whyorwell.html

• As I Please : Tribune, 31 December, 1943 - Goerge Orwell
  • At http://mural.uv.es/esamon/asIplease.html
  • At http://mural.uv.es/esamon/hitler.html
  • "Reading the discussion of "war guilt" which reverberates in the correspondence columns of the newspapers, I note the surprise with which many people seem to discover that war is not a crime. Hitler, it appears, has not done anything actionable. He has not raped anybody, nor carried off any pieces of loot with his own hands, nor personally flogged any prisoners, buried any wounded men alive, thrown any babies into the air and spitted them on his bayonet, dipped any nuns in petrol and touched them off with church tapers -- in fact he has not done any of the things which enemy nationals are usually credited with doing in war-time. He has merely precipitated a world war which will perhaps have cost twenty-million lives before it ends. And there is nothing illegal in that. How could there be, when legality implies authority and there is no authority with the power to transcend national frontiers?

    At the recent trials in Kharkov some attempt was made to fix on Hitler, Himmler and the rest the responsibility for their subordinates' crimes, but the mere fact that this had to be done shows that Hitlers's guilt is not self-evident. His crime, it is implied, was not to build up an army for the purpose of aggressive war, but to instruct that army to torture its prisoners. So far as it goes, the distinction between an atrocity and an act of war is valid. An atrocity means an act of terrorism which has no genuine military purpose. One must accept such distinctions if one accepts war at all, which in practice everyone does.

    Nevertheless, a world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet. "

• As I Please : Tribune, 2 February 1945 - Goerge Orwell
  • At http://mural.uv.es/esamon/asIplease.html
  • At http://mural.uv.es/esamon/war.html
  • "Some months ago, in this column, I pointed out that modern scientific inventions have tended to prevent rather than increase international communication. This brought me several angry letters from readers, but none of them were able to show that what I had said was false. They merely retorted that if we had Socialism, the aeroplane, the radio etc. would not be perverted to wrong uses. Very true, but then we haven't Socialism. As it is, the aeroplane is primarily a thing for dropping bombs and the radio primarily a thing for whipping up nationalism. Even before the war there was enormously less contact between the peoples of the earth than there had been thirty years earlier, and education was perverted, history re-written and freedom of thought suppressed to an extent undreamed of in earlier ages. And there is no sign whatever of these tendencies being reversed.
    Maybe I am pessimistic. But at any rate those are the thoughts that cross my mind (and a lot of other people's too, I believe) every time the explosion of a V bomb booms through the mist. "

• A nice cup of tea: George Orwell's prescription for post-nineteen eighty-four survival by MARTIN PARKER
  • At http://www.network.poznan.pl/pdf/martin.pdf

• What is scrimshaw?
  • At : http://www.scrimshaw.net/info.htm

• 1943
  • At http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/events/1943.html

• Re: why do people yawn, and are yawns contagus
  • At http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/934846431.Gb.r.html

• Internet Flame Warriors page
  • At http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html

• Relativity FAQ
  • At http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/relativity.html
  • Inlcudes "Is Faster Than Light Travel or Communication Possible?" - http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/FTL.html

• Who Will Tell The People lyrics by David Rovics (often misattributed to Willie Nelson)
  • At http://www.davidrovics.com/
  • At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Rovics
  • At http://davidrovics.prognet.dk/files/David_Rovics_Songbook_3.pdf

  • 1. The CIA is pushing crack in the ghettoes of LA
    While the food crops in Colombia get sprayed by the DEA
    The FBI is reading your email with something called the carnivore
    And the rich are getting richer while the poor are staying poor
    They're launching nuclear-powered ships up into space
    One little accident could wipe out half the human race
    And they're putting radioactive waste into your silverware
    Or maybe your toaster or perhaps your wheelchair
    
    2. The Air Force is bombing people in Iraq every other day
    They don't like the government so the children have to pay
    The ozone hole is spreading and the sheep are going blind
    While the US spends more on arms than the rest of the world combined
    Journalists are getting fired from San Jose to Atlanta
    When they write about reality, not a fluff piece for Fanta
    A death threat every week and sometimes life is short
    When the truth is too dangerous for someone to report
    
    Who will tell the people that free speech is a ruse
    The corporations run the country and then they make the news
    Is it media or mind control, heroic victories or crimes
    Who will tell the people that we're living in these times
    
    3. The cancer rates are skyrocketing though people are smoking less
    If you live near a nuke your life is bound to be a mess
    Clean water's almost gone all over the earth
    And what's left they want to privatize and see how much it's worth
    Chevron is gunning down the students of Nigeria
    Turning the land to waste while the babies die of dyptheria
    And the weather's getting hotter, the world's forests are on fire
    Pretty soon Brazil will be one giant funeral pyre
    
    Who will tell the people that free speech is a ruse
    The corporations run the country and then they make the news
    Is it media or mind control, heroic victories or crimes
    Who will tell the people that we're living in these times
    
    
    4. One in three adult Americans cannot read or write
    And their children go to bed hungry every night
    And two million US citizens are rotting behind bars
    And while they're there they're working hard building parts for cars
    And the Army's running torture schools to keep the earth under control
    And they're relocating Navajos so they can mine some extra coal
    Our taxes pay McDonald's to sell tumors in Shanghai
    While a hundred thousand poisoned vets are just about to die
    
    Who will tell the people that free speech is a ruse
    The corporations run the country and then they make the news
    Is it media or mind control, heroic victories or crimes
    Who will tell the people that we're living in these times
    
    5. And the people are resisting wherever you may go
    And this is the single biggest fact they don't want you to know
    From New Delhi to New Mexico there are battles going on
    And the darkest hour is just before the dawn
    And in Berkeley and New York they're raiding radio stations
    Trying to turn the voice of the people into the voice of the corporations
    Will we seize the airwaves, wipe the sweat off of our brow
    Stand and face the beast and shout, "Democracy Now!"
    
    Who will tell the people that free speech is a ruse
    The corporations run the country and then they make the news
    Is it media or mind control, heroic victories or crimes
    Who will tell the people that we're living in these times
    

• Douglas Scott's Cosmic Microwave Background FAQ
  • At http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/faq_basic.html

• VHEMT (Pronounced vehement)
  • The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement ("May we live long and die out")
  • "It's going to take all of us going"
  • "Visualize Voluntary Human Extinction"
  • At http://www.vhemt.org
  • Refer: http://www.vhemt.org/aboutvhemt.html

• GAIA LIBERATION FRONT
  • At http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/resources/glf/glf.html

• The Samaritans
  • UK based: "The Samaritans are a non-religious charity that have been offering emotional support to the suicidal and despairing for over 40 years by phone, visit and letter. Callers are guaranteed absolute confidentiality and retain the right to make their own decisions including the decision to end their life. The Samaritans have nearly 200 branches. A call to 0345 909090 will reach them anywhere in the UK and is charged at "local" rates. UK phone books generally list direct numbers for local branches on the inside of the front cover."
  • At http://www.samaritans.org/

• Newsgroup: alt.suicide.holiday
  • alt.suicide.holiday FAQ: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/suicide_methods/
  • At http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-bng/alt.suicide.holiday.html
  • Poetry and writings based around alt.suicide.holiday: http://ash.xanthia.com/ | http://ash.xanthia.com/nazgsoul.html#Poetry from ashspace | http://ash.xanthia.com/gb-debbie.html

• The Guilt, Folly, and Sources of Suicide by Samuel Miller (Samuel Miller first preached these two sermons on suicide in New York City in February 1805, and subsequently published them as a pamphlet, The Guilt, Folly and Sources of Suicide: Two Discourses (New York: T. and J. Swords, 1805). The text has been edited to bring it into greater conformity with contemporary spelling, punctuation, and grammar. )
  • At http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualnls/Suicides.htm

• Samuel Miller (1769-1850)
  • At http://ichthustref.nl/hoofdmap_links/lexikontheologen/theologen/Miller,%20Samuel.htm

• Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Program
  • At http://www.yellowribbon.org/

• Suicide and Suicide Prevention
  • At http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.suicide.html

• Suicide prevention links
  • At http://hugecrush.com/Suicide/

• Suicide prevention resources
  • At http://www.athealth.com/Practitioner/Newsletter/FPN_3_14.html

  • "Today's newsletter contains Web resources about suicide, obviously an important topic. In the U.S. alone, there are over 30,000 deaths by suicide each year. Because high risk age groups include adolescents and the elderly, we have cited resources specific to those ages in this newsletter.

    Because a major factor in the prevention of suicide is the early detection of depression, on May 4, 1999, sixteen national organizations, including the National Mental Health Association, and a multitude of local groups will sponsor Childhood Depression Awareness Day. You will find additional information about Childhood Depression Awareness Day in the materials below."

• American Association of Suicidology
  • At http://www.suicidology.org/index.html

  • "Why is there a need for the American Association of Suicidology?

    Official statistics show that more that 30,000 Americans kill themselves every year. The true figure is probably higher. The number of non-fatal suicide attempts is considerably greater, often resulting in serious injuries, trauma to families and friends, and economic loss to our society.

    Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 15-24, and is the ninth leading cause of death among all persons.

    Suicide cuts across all ages, economic, social and ethnic boundaries. "

• What can I do to help someone who may be suicidal?
  • At http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/whattodo.htm

• Voluntary Euthanasia Society: The law - prosecutions of doctors
  • At http://www.ves.org.uk/DpLaw_doctl.html

• Voluntary Euthanasia Society: Factsheets - Euthanasia in the USA
  • At http://www.ves.org.uk/DpFS_USA.html

• Voluntary Euthanasia Society: Factsheets - voluntary euthanasia in Australia
  • At http://www.ves.org.uk/DpFS_Aust.html

• Comparing Suicide rates between western nations
  • At http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/171_3_020899/cantor/cantor.html

• Australian Bureau of Statistics - Health - Special Article - Suicide (Year Book Australia, 2000)
  • At http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/BE00331A0C387533CA2569DE0024ED5B?Open&Highlight=0,suicide

  • The number of deaths in Australia attributed to suicide rose from 2,197 in 1988 to 2,723 in 1997, an increase of 24% over the 10 year period (table 9.3). In 1988, suicide accounted for about 12.8% of all deaths and ranked as the sixth leading cause of all deaths. In 1997, suicide ranked as the seventh leading cause of all deaths, but it ranked fourth in terms of the years of potential life lost before the age of 76 years.

    Suicides, for statistical purposes, are defined as those deaths classified to 'suicide and self-inflicted injuries' by the Supplementary Classification of the Ninth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases. The actual number of suicides is thought to be higher than the number of registered suicides, because the true intention of some deaths is difficult to determine. When there is a doubt about the intention of death, suicides could be misclassified to other causes of death categories (i.e. natural cause, accident or undetermined whether accidentally or intentionally inflicted). The coroners may be reluctant to give a verdict of suicide because of the social stigma attached to suicides and the socioeconomic and emotional implications it could have on families of the victims. The extent of under-reporting of suicide is, however, difficult to assess accurately.

    The age-standardised death rate for suicide rose from 13.4 deaths per 100,000 population in 1988 to 14.6 per 100,000 population in 1997, a 9% increase over the 10-year period. Between 1988 and 1996 the overall suicide death rate was relatively stable at 12 to 13 deaths per 100,000 population, but it then increased by 12% to 14.6 in 1997.

    The trend in the overall death rate from suicide reflects the underlying trend in male suicide deaths, which generally account for over three-quarters of the total number of suicides each year.

  • --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Australian Suicides   Age-standardised death rate per 100,000 population(a)
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      
          Males Females Total  Males   Females Persons   Sex ratio
                                                         (male death rate/ female death rate) 
    Year   no.    no.     no.    rate    rate   rate     ratio 
    
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    1988  1,730    467   2,197   21.5    5.6    13.4     3.8 
    1989  1,658    438   2,096   20.1    5.2    12.5     3.6 
    1990  1,735    426   2,161   20.7    4.9    12.7     4.0 
    1991  1,847    513   2,360   21.7    5.9    13.7     4.4 
    1992  1,820    474   2,294   21.1    5.3    13.1     3.6 
    1993  1,687    394   2,081   19.3    4.3    11.7     3.6 
    1994  1,830    428   2,258   20.7    4.7    12.6     4.8 
    1995  1,873    495   2,368   20.9    5.4    13.0     4.4 
    1996  1,931    462   2,393   21.3    4.9    13.0     3.9 
    1997  2,146    577   2,723   23.4    6.1    14.6     3.8 
    
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    9.4 AGE-SPECIFIC Australian SUICIDE RATES PER 100,000 POPULATION(a), By Sex - 1988-97
     Age group (years)
    Australian MALES
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
         15-24  25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+   All ages(b) 
         rate   rate  rate  rate  rate  rate  rate 
    
    1988  27.9  28.3  26.0  24.4  23.8  31.9  21.0 
    1989  23.9  30.0  22.4  23.9  22.8  29.5  19.8 
    1990  27.0  29.1  25.4  21.4  24.8  28.2  20.4 
    1991  26.7  29.9  30.3  26.1  21.3  28.1  21.4 
    1992  27.0  30.4  24.9  25.8  23.1  28.4  20.9 
    1993  24.7  28.7  21.4  23.5  22.9  25.8  19.2 
    1994  27.0  29.2  26.1  24.7  23.1  26.6  20.6 
    1995  25.4  33.4  27.8  23.9  23.3  22.9  20.8 
    1996  25.7  32.5  29.4  22.7  23.4  25.9  21.2 
    1997  30.6  37.5  30.2  24.4  22.6  28.3  23.3 
    

• America's Children 2000 - Health Indicators
  • At http://www.childstats.gov/ac2000/hlthtxt.asp

  • "In 1997, the death rate for adolescents ages 15 to 19 was 75 deaths per 100,000. After increasing to 89 per 100,000 in 1991, the rate declined again and continues to be substantially lower than the rate in 1980. Injury, which includes homicide, suicide, and unintentional injuries, continues to account for nearly 4 out of 5 deaths among adolescents."

  • "Most of the increase in firearm injury deaths between 1985 and 1992 resulted from an increase in homicides. The firearm homicide rate among 15- to 19-year-olds more than tripled from 5 to 18 per 100,000 between 1983 and 1993. At the same time, the firearm suicide rate rose from 5 to 7 per 100,000. From 1994 to 1997, the firearm homicide rate declined by nearly one-third and the firearm suicide rate declined by about one-fourth. "

  • "Deaths from firearm suicides were more common than deaths from firearm homicides among white, non-Hispanic adolescents. Deaths from firearm homicides were more common than deaths from firearm suicides among black, non-Hispanic and Hispanic adolescents."

  • "Indicator HEALTH7.B Injury death rate among adolescents ages 15 to 19 by gender, race, Hispanic origin, and type of injury, 1997"

• UK StatBase - UK National Statistics data and references
  • At http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/

  • UK - "Death rates from suicide: by gender and age, 1974-2000: Social Trends 32 - ST32715
    "Trends in suicide rates by age group and gender have shown some marked differences in the last 25 years. For men aged 15 to 24, there were 16 suicides per 100,000 population in 2000,compared with a rate of 9 per 100,000 in 1974 and 10 per 100,000 a decade later (Chart 7.15).Suicide is now the cause of 22 per cent of deaths of men in this age group.The suicide rate for men aged 25 to 44 has increased considerably since the mid-1970s reaching a peak of almost 25.6 per 100,000 population in 1998;in 2000 the rate for that age group was 23.4 per 100,000. Conversely, the suicide rate for men aged 45 and over has fallen since the mid-1980s.Suicide rates among women are significantly lower than among men.The rate for 15 -24 year old women has remained relatively stable, at around 4 per 100,000 population since the mid-1970s, while the rates for older age groups have fallen. In the case of women aged 45 and over the rates have more than halved."

  • UK - "Death rates from suicide among men: by age: Social Focus on Men - SFM504
    One notable trend has been the rise in suicide rates among younger men. For men aged 15 to 24, there were 16 suicides per 100,000 population in 1999, compared with a rate of only seven per 100,000 in 1971. The suicide rate for men aged 25 to 44 almost doubled over the same period, to reach a peak of almost 26 per 100,000 population in 1998. In contrast, the suicide rate for males older than this peaked in the mid-1980s and has fallen since, although the suicide rate for men aged 65 and over rose again between 1998 and 1999.

    There are also very large differences in male suicide rates by marital status. In 1995 the suicide rate for widowed and divorced men aged 15 to 44 was 35 per 100,000 population, more than double the rate for married men. The rate for single men has risen markedly since 1983, from 15 per 100,000 population to 22 per 100,000 population in 1995.

  • Data for Chart 7.15                           
    
    Death rates from suicide1: by gender and age                           
                               
    United Kingdom    - Rates per 100,000 population(2)   
                               
                           Males                         Females            
                               
                                    65 and                        65 and   
            15-24   25-44   45-64   over   15-24   25-44   45-64   over   
                               
    1974    8.6     14.1    19.8    23.6    3.8    8.4    15.0    15.0    
    1975    10.1    14.3    19.7    22.0    4.4    8.3    14.7    14.9    
    1976    9.8     15.1    20.9    24.0    4.6    9.1    14.1    15.1    
    1977    9.5     16.5    20.0    24.1    5.5    8.6    14.9    15.1    
    1978    10.5    16.8    20.7    24.7    4.4    9.0    14.5    16.1    
    1979    10.3    18.0    20.5    24.8    4.0    8.5    17.1    15.1    
    1980    9.7     18.8    21.3    24.8    4.2    8.2    15.6    16.5    
    1981    10.8    19.6    23.0    24.1    3.4    7.9    14.9    15.7    
    1982    9.7     18.9    23.0    25.1    3.4    7.9    14.0    15.1    
    1983    9.7     19.2    22.6    24.4    3.1    7.3    13.0    14.5    
    1984    10.1    19.6    22.4    23.9    2.6    7.2    13.6    13.6    
    1985    11.6    20.8    23.2    24.6    3.0    6.8    14.0    15.3    
    1986    12.5    20.3    22.6    26.3    3.3    6.6    11.8    13.6    
    1987    13.7    20.1    21.3    23.8    3.8    6.7    10.7    11.2    
    1988    16.2    23.0    21.4    26.1    4.1    7.0    10.1    12.2    
    1989    14.7    21.1    19.9    21.2    3.8    6.2     9.3     9.4    
    1990    16.2    23.2    20.7    21.6    3.3    6.5     8.4     9.6    
    1991    15.4    24.3    20.4    18.6    3.9    5.9     8.3     8.5    
    1992    16.2    23.7    20.7    19.2    3.7    6.3     8.2     8.2    
    1993    17.0    22.8    20.0    17.7    3.6    6.5     7.3     8.1    
    1994    16.0    22.8    18.1    18.6    3.4    6.2     6.9     7.7    
    1995    15.4    24.2    18.6    16.7    3.6    6.3     6.9     6.9    
    1996    14.3    22.8    17.3    17.2    4.2    6.2     6.4     6.7    
    1997    16.3    21.7    17.5    15.4    4.0    6.3     6.9     6.3    
    1998    17.2    25.6    19.1    14.9    4.5    6.6     6.5     7.1    
    1999    15.7    24.6    19.2    17.0    3.7    6.4     6.1     6.7    
    2000    15.9    23.4    18.0    15.7    4.4    6.4     6.3     6.0  
        
    1  Figures are based on suicides registered in the year. Includes  
    deaths undetermined whether accidentally or purposely inflicted.  
    2 Directly age-standardised to the European standard population.  
    All data are based on ICD9 apart from the Scotland data for 2000,  
    which are based on ICD10. See Appendix, Part 7: International  
    Classification of Diseases.  
      
    Source: Office for National Statistics; General Register Office   
    for Scotland; Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency  

• Suicide - Internet & International Crisis Resources and Information
  • At http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/suicide/resources.html

• The Legality Of Suicide
  • At http://www.users.nac.net/tberendt/suicide.html

• Suicide And Reason - Tom W Day
  • At http://ash.xanthia.com/phil-sar.html

• Japan's internet 'suicide clubs'
  • At http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4071805.stm

  • In Japan, the internet has been blamed for a spate of group suicides which appear to have been arranged in online chat rooms.

  • But others see the sites very differently.

    "There's nothing bad about suicide," said Wataru Tsurumi, author of a graphic, and best-selling handbook on the subject. "We have no religion or laws here in Japan telling us otherwise. As for group suicides - before the internet people would write letters, or make phone calls... it's always been part of our culture."

• The Complete Manual of Suicide
  • At http://www.aarrgghh.com/no_way/handbook.htm

  • The Complete Manual of Suicide, which has sold 1.2 million copies, promises its readers "the peace of mind of knowing you can leave this troubled world whenever you choose."

    It details 10 methods of self-slaughter, including hanging, electrocution and immolation, and compares them in terms of pain, speed and disfigurement.

    Illustrated with charts, maps and manga comics, the 200 pages contain recommendations about the best spots to die, tips about avoiding detection and descriptions of celebrity suicides.

    Parents' groups complain that the book glamorises suicide, but only a handful of local authorities have introduced restrictions on its sale since it was published six years ago. This tolerance reflects liberal publishing laws and a traditional view of suicide as an act that is honourable rather than criminal.

    But attitudes have hardened this year after an alarming 35% rise in the number of suicides has given Japan one of the highest rates in the world. Record unemployment, intense exam pressure and a rapidly ageing population are the main causes of the rise, but the finger is also being pointed at the manual.

    The book has been blamed for the rising body count in Aokigahara, a dense wood at the foot of Mount Fuji that is described in the manual as "the perfect place to die". Last year a record 74 corpses were found among the trees.

    In Tokyo the book was found beside two young suicide victims this year, prompting police to demand that sales be limited to people over 18.

    In the wake of an 85% increase in the number of young people who killed themselves in the capital last year, suicide prevention groups agree that action is necessary.

    "We have had calls from people in great pain because they followed the book's instructions, but failed to kill themselves," said Yukiko Nishihara, founder of a Tokyo helpline.

    Under existing bylaws, which cover only publications of a sexual or violent nature, the Tokyo metropolitan government cannot prohibit the manual. But officials have begun looking at whether to change the rules.

    "Clearly, there are growing public concerns about this book that we have to address, if necessary by enacting new regulations," said Shigemitsu Sekiguchi, who is heading the study. He said the new regulations, if approved, could be in place by the end of next year.

    The book's author, Turumi Wataru, says he is being made a scapegoat. "No one ever killed themselves just because of my book," he said. "The authorities are blaming me because they are unwilling to take responsibility for the economic, political and social problems that are the real cause of suicides."

    But his publishers are feeling the pressure: the Tokyo market accounts for 70% of the book's sales. To pre-empt a decision, they have slapped a warning on the book's cover saying that it is not suitable for under-18s.

    This has infuriated Mr Wataru, who has vowed to find a new publisher. "I want people under the age of 18 to read this book," he said. "They need it more than anyone.

    "It is important that people realise that suicide is not wrong. It is the right of every individual to kill themselves and, no matter what laws you enact, you cannot stop it."

    Copyright © Guardian Unlimited, Dec 10, 1999

• Aint no way to go: Seppuku.com
  • At http://www.aarrgghh.com/no_way/seppukuDotCom.htm

  • TOKYO, JAPAN — Glued to a computer screen in his north Tokyo apartment, the stocky, part-time sushi delivery man spent weeks searching the recesses of the Internet. Going simply by the handle "Murata," the 28-year-old surfed for online companions harboring his same dark interest: the desire to die.

    He found what he was looking for on a host of new Japanese-language Web sites such as "Underground Suicide" and "Deadline." Promising to supply most of the materials, he made arrangements to kill himself with two anonymous Internet friends on a mid-May afternoon. Face to face for the first time, the three young men drove to a tranquil mountain pass six hours north of Tokyo. They shared sleeping pills, and then — following detailed instructions posted on a Web site — set charcoal alight inside their car and died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

    "Maybe he didn't have high hopes for the future, but it is still so hard to understand how he could have done it," said Murata's 35-year-old brother, who shared their apartment. He spoke on condition that both their names be withheld. "I've disconnected the Internet at home, at least while our family comes to terms with this."

    The deaths of the three men marked only one incident in an extraordinary string of Internet suicides to hit Japan. Over the past six months, police investigators say at least 32 people — mostly in their teens and twenties — have killed themselves nationwide after meeting strangers online. Many more young Japanese have entered into online suicide pacts, but either failed in their attempts or backed out at the last minute.

    Psychiatrists and suicide experts are linking the phenomenon to a profound national identity crisis during Japan's 13-year economic funk. Indeed, the Internet deaths come at a time when Japan is undergoing an alarming surge in its overall suicide rate — with financial problems cited as the fastest growing reason for despair.

    The culture of suicide, encapsulated by the honorable hara-kiri rite of the ancient samurai, is nothing new here. But even by Japanese standards, there has been a staggering jump in suicides, to 32,143 last year, compared with 21,346 in 1990, the beginning of Japan's economic slide. The current suicide rate — 25.2 suicides per 100,000 people — is about double that of the United States.

    Though Western, religion-based stigmas of suicide do not exist here, the Internet deaths have nevertheless dismayed this island nation, becoming a dominant topic in chat rooms and the subject of a new play.

    The deaths have drawn attention to a deadly mix between Japanese traditions of suicide and its mega-tech society, which have now melded into a proliferation of "how-to-die" Web sites accessible from schools, offices, subways, trains and cars through wireless connections on most Japanese cell phones. They have become a source of morbid fascination for a growing subculture of troubled, mostly younger Japanese.

    The majority of the 20 males and 12 females who killed themselves after linking up on these sites came from Japan's "lost generation" — people in their teens and twenties who have come of age in a less secure, less confident society. Japan today is [a] nation where unemployment and homelessness have soared, and companies — long the pillars of society — no longer offer workers the promise of a job for life. The new realties have put added stress on families, sending the divorce rate steadily higher.

    Given the changes, experts say, many young adults in the world's second-largest economy have become dangerously cynical about their futures.

    "They are lost and confused. The long-held direction and goals of Japanese society are collapsing around them," said Rika Kayama, a Tokyo psychiatrist who has studied the Internet suicide phenomenon. "Japanese adults used to be able to say to their children that if you try very hard at school or at work, you'll see the rewards. But adults can no longer say that, because in many ways, it is no longer true."

    That confusion has manifested itself in a number of new societal ills. As many as 1 million Japanese, mostly young men in their twenties, have withdrawn from society altogether, becoming "shut-ins" inside their parents' homes for six months to several years.

    The news media are also decrying an increase in kireru, or the "snapping" of youths. Last month, several middle-class high school boys murdered a mutual friend after a minor disagreement. There seemed to be little real hate in the act — the boys even stopped to share a refreshment with their friend before dealing him the killing blows.

    With the wave of Internet deaths, experts say, young Japanese are turning those instincts on themselves.

    Police investigators have tracked the beginning of the Net death trend to a Feb. 11 tableau in a vacant apartment near Tokyo. One man and two women, all in their twenties, were found dead inside.

    A 17-year-old girl who had originally agreed to join them but backed out at the last minute, told police that the three were jobless and worried about the future. They had met after Michio Sakai, a 26-year-old unemployed magazine salesman from just north of Tokyo, posted a "death ad" on an underground suicide site: "I am looking for suicide partners," it said. "If you join me, I will give you sleeping pills. ... It is lonely to die alone."

    The suicides made headlines across Japan and became the inspiration for a series of copycat pacts over the Web, authorities say. The individuals find each other on bulletin boards and chat rooms in any one of dozens of suicide Web sites, including one that proudly displays gothic skulls and crossbones as readers scan tips and best methods for ending their lives.

    Citing freedom of expression, Japanese authorities have been loath to clamp down on the sites, instead asking content providers to police themselves. The Internet deaths are especially shocking, however, because police say those individuals who killed themselves appeared to make relatively snap decisions to end their lives, sometimes over seemingly minor problems. One young man, for instance, wrote in e-mails that he was merely upset over a minor traffic accident.

    "Their reasons were unclear. These were not obviously desperate people with unbearable problems," said Naoki Miyagi, a director with Japan's National Police Agency.

    Experts say this reflects a disturbing trend: A July poll of 100 teenagers by the Japanese weekly magazine Aera found that 30 percent of respondents had considered suicide, with a majority citing "trivial matters" as reasons.

    Taken alone, such feelings are unlikely to rise to the level of suicide. But through the Internet troubled Japanese are finding support from one another to die.

    In a society that spends extraordinary amounts of time online, the Internet's ability to influence people has grown exponentially. It has given people with only moderately suicidal tendencies a medium to find each other — and feed off each other's depression.

    Hana, the cyber handle of a 30-year-old Tokyo computer saleswoman who frequented suicide chat rooms before receiving counseling, said in an interview that she once did a live online broadcast of slitting her wrist.

    "I wrote on the chat site, 'I'm cutting now' — and then I had to go to the emergency room and get seven stitches," she said. "Several hours later, I found out someone online who was reading my words also decided to slit her wrist, and had to get 20 stitches."

    Murata, who killed himself with two strangers, did not appear clinically depressed, nor did he have a history of being suicidal, according to his family. He delivered sushi part-time, and liked to use his money to take long trips on his motorcycle into the countryside. Recently, however, he had less work, and was spending much of his time at home alone playing video games.

    After his death, his family found e-mails in which the three men had negotiated their ends, deciding who would bring what. "I'll get the sleeping pills and the charcoal," Murata wrote to one of his suicide companions. "I'll borrow my brother's car," came back a reply from one of the other two men on the day before they set off to die.

    "There was no discussion of why he was doing it, just an indication that maybe he was tired of living," said Murata's distraught father, a 67-year-old security guard. "But I don't think he could have done it alone. So he found others who were willing to do it with him. I suppose it made it less frightening for him. But I will never know for sure."

• Internet fuels epidemic of group suicides among young Japanese
  • At http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article344491.ece

  • Young Japanese people are still joining group-suicide pacts in record numbers despite efforts to crack down on the bizarre internet-led phenomenon.

    Japanese police said yesterday that a record 91 people had committed suicide together after meeting via the web in 2005, up from 55 people the previous year. The figure has tripled since the police began keeping records in 2003. Most of the victims were in their teens, twenties and thirties and sought each other out via websites that allow the suicidal to swap e-mail addresses, share stories and offer advice on the surest, least painful ways to die.

    Many opt for carbon monoxide poisoning in sealed vehicles, often in secluded or scenic areas, like four young men who died while watching the sun rise from a car at the foot of Mount Fuji. The men met for the first time just hours before their death.

    The latest statistics will likely lead to more demands for monitoring of cyberspace, including renewed calls to ban the word "suicide" from search engines. Net service providers already work with the police and there are signs the group-suicide phenomenon may have peaked. But Yukio Saito, who runs Japan's largest telephone helpline, cautions against complacency. "People will always find a way to end their lives if they want to. The wider issues must be tackled."

    In Japan, 94 people took their own lives every day in 2003, setting a record of 34,427 that broke the previous high of 33,048, in 1999. Since the Asian crash of 1997-8, when the statistics jumped 35 per cent, suicides have claimed more than 220,000 lives, approximately the population of Derby. A suicide manual that lists effective ways of ending it all - including hanging, electrocution and pills - has sold more than a million copies. In true Japanese style it rates these methods in terms of the pain and trouble they cause to others; predictably, jumping in front of a train is given a maximum rating of five.

    The dramatic rise in suicides forced the health ministry to bring out a package of proposals at the end of 2002, including a drastic boost in mental healthcare facilities. But Japan still has far fewer psychiatrists than other advanced countries, and family doctors routinely misdiagnose mental illness. A health ministry survey found that more than half of the workers recognised as having committed suicide due to work-related stress between 1999 and 2002 had been working at least 100 hours overtime a month. "This is a suicide epidemic," says Mr Saito. "We are not doing enough to help people who are suffering in silence."

    Japan is not unique. South Korea has also experienced a wave of suicide pacts, and Ireland has seen a 45 per cent increase in suicides over the past decade. But, at 24.1 per 100,000 people, Japan has the highest per-capita suicide rate in the developed world.

    Nearly 8,000 people in their twenties and thirties killed themselves in 2003, making suicide one of the leading causes of death for young Japanese. Many of these youngsters are drawn from the ranks of hikkikomori, social recluses who have locked themselves in their rooms, sometimes for years on end.

    Many are linked to the outside world only through the electronic umbilical cord of their computers, which they use to find like-minded folk. Dozens of young Japanese can be found every day discussing suicide on online chat rooms. A typical message reads: "If you are thinking about killing yourself, please reply." Another says: "I'm in my early twenties and I want to die easily. I can go anywhere in Japan." Fittingly, perhaps, one of the last acts of the suicidal is often to e-mail a friend or relative. Several times in the past two years the police have stumbled on semi- asphyxiated young people just in time, after similar messages were sent.

• Group suicides in Japan: a symptom of social malaise
  • At http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/japa-o20.shtml

  • Two cases of group suicide in Japan have again highlighted the tragic consequences of the country’s sharpening social and economic tensions. All of those who killed themselves were young and appeared to have contacted each other through Internet suicide web sites.

    On the morning of October 12, Japanese police found seven people dead in a rented van on the outskirts of Tokyo. The van’s windows were sealed with vinyl tape and charcoal stoves were found inside. The seven, some of whom had taken sleeping pills, died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Police found the bodies after receiving a call from a friend of one of the victims, who hinted in an email about suicide.

    One of the dead was a 34-year-old mother who apparently posted a notice in early October on a web site seeking others who wanted to commit suicide. The rest were in their teens or early 20s, including a university student, a part-time worker and an unemployed woman—all from widely separated regions of Japan.

    On the same day, police discovered two women dead in a car parked near a temple at Yokosuka, about 60 km southeast of Tokyo. The methods used were similar. Police are still investigating the possibility that the two cases are related. The two women were believed to be in their 20s.

    These are not isolated instances. According to Japan’s National Police Agency, 45 people committed suicide in groups between January 2003 and June 2004 after meeting through Internet web sites.

    Public shock over the recent suicides has provoked calls for the government to close down suicide web sites, which provide information about methods and the means for contacting others. Yet, the causes of such suicides, which are a tiny fraction of the total number of suicide cases in Japan, do not arise from the Internet. They lie in the immense psychological pressures produced by the country’s growing economic and social uncertainties.

    Japan has one of the highest rates of suicide of industrialised countries. It has been rising throughout the 1990s—a decade of economic stagnation, failing businesses and growing levels of unemployment. Many of those who killed themselves were middle-aged men who had lost their jobs or faced financial problems for which they saw no solution.

    Last year, a record 34,427 people took their own lives. An article published by Asia Times Online entitled “Suicide also rising in land of rising sun” pointed out that Japan’s suicide rates of 40.2 per 100,000 for men and 14.9 per 100,000 for women were approaching levels “witnessed in countries suffering severe economic hardships such as Russia, Latvia and Lithuania”.

    Just over a quarter of the suicides were officially put down to financial problems. Asia Times commented: “Some of the dominant economic factors that have contributed to the current suicide crisis include large-scale bankruptcies, increased unemployment, a sluggish business climate, accumulated debts, lower incomes, inadequate bankruptcy laws, prolonged economic stagnation, an unregulated financial loan market and corporate restructuring.”

    The cases of Internet suicide have, however, highlighted a disturbing trend toward younger people taking their lives. The number of people in their 30s committing suicide jumped by 17 percent to 4,603 in 2003 as compared to the previous year. Among school and college students the percentage increases were much higher—the largest, 54 percent, being among elementary and middle school students.

    Hiroshi Sakamoto, a retired local government official and volunteer suicide counsellor, explained to Asia Times that the growing problem of youth suicide is barely addressed either by government or the media. “We only read about suicide in the press, it is never on TV. They say it is too gloomy, too dark, not a happy subject. I feel the whole country is in a state of denial. This is perhaps why we cannot solve this problem. We are trying to ignore it, but wishing it away gets us nowhere,” he said.

    The attempts by the media and government to ignore the problem are matched by a lack of services to cope with the growing number of people contemplating suicide. Lifeline, which was founded in 1971, now has 8,000 trained counsellors operating 50 call centres round-the-clock to handle a variety of emergency calls. In 2001, it received more than 700,000 calls, of which nearly 25,000 were suicide related. Lifeline, however, is one of the few such services.

    An article in Newsweek in June, highlighting an earlier group Internet suicide, pointed to the limited character of mental health services in Japan. “While mental health care is widely available in Japan, it is heavily centred in mental institutions. Newer medications, including most anti-depressants common in the United States, are not widely available. And out-patient counselling, where it exists, is still in its infancy.”

    In comments to Asia Times, former MP Keiko Yamauchi berated Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for doing nothing. “How many children, young people, fathers or mothers have to die before our government takes any real action? Instead of wasting so much energy and national resources in assisting in the destruction of human life in Iraq, why doesn’t Koizumi declare war on suicide in Japan and save thousands of lives in this country?” he asked.

    But the lack of government action and preventative services, while significant, does not explain the rising number of youth contemplating taking their own lives. All the evidence points to a profound and growing alienation among young people who are under enormous pressure to succeed at school and university and to find and keep a job. Over the past decade, competition for the top schools and universities has become increasingly intense and unemployment among young people has risen sharply.

    These pressures are compounded by a culture in which relationships, even within the family, continue to be rather formal. As a result, young people often feel isolated and unable to discuss their personal problems.

    Yukio Saito, who founded Lifeline, explained to Newsweek: “Generally, they have a serious emotional problem, which is that they have difficulty dealing with others face-to-face, a kind of phobia or fear of talking about their feelings in front of others. Maybe this is quite a Japanese-type emotion. They have difficulty having personal relations, so they tend to use the Internet to communicate their feelings.”

    Saito noted what appears to be a related social phenomenon—“hikikomori”—young people who withdraw completely from society for months and even years and refuse to leave their homes, or even their rooms. According to some estimates, more than a million young Japanese have cut themselves off from the world and barely communicate.

    While such intense alienation may take particular forms in Japan, similar processes are occurring internationally. Confronted with a society that offers them no future and a world increasingly dominated by militarism and war, layers of young people, lacking any vision of a progressive alternative, retreat into a variety of destructive activities, including drug abuse, violent anti-social behaviour and in some cases suicide. Japanese capitalism is no more capable of dealing with these problems than its counterparts around the world.

• Notes from a suicide manual
  • At http://www.ussyorktown.com/yorktown/kamikaze.htm
  • At http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,778587,00.html

  • The introduction of Japanese kamikaze pilots was one of the most dramatic developments of the second world war. But what motivated these young men to fly their fatal missions? There are some clues in the manual they carried in their cockpits for inspiration, and which is now published in English for the first time. Here are some extracts.

    Albert Axell - Thursday August 22, 2002 - The Guardian

    The mission of to-go units

    Transcend life and death. When you eliminate all thoughts about life and death, you will be able to totally disregard your earthly life. This will also enable you to concentrate your attention on eradicating the enemy with unwavering determination, meanwhile reinforcing your excellence in flight skills.

    Exert the best in yourself

    Strike an enemy vessel that is either moored or at sea. Sink the enemy and thus pave the road for our people's victory.

    Take a walk around the airfield

    When you take this walk, be aware of your surroundings. This airstrip is the key to the success or failure of your mission. Devote all your attention to it. Look at the terrain. What are the characteristics of the ground? What are the length and width of the airstrip? In case you will take off at dusk, or early morning, or after sundown, what are the obstacles to be remembered: an electric pole, a tree, a house, a hill?

    How to pilot a fully dressed-up [heavily equipped] aircraft that you dearly love

    Before taking off. (After taxiing the plane from the camouflaged emplacement to the airstrip.) You can envision your target firmly in your mind as you bring your plane to a standstill.

    Breathe deeply three times. Say in your mind: "Yah" (field), "Kyu" (ball), "Joh" (all right) as you breathe deeply. Proceed straight ahead on the airstrip. Otherwise you may damage the landing gears.

    Circle above the airstrip right after take-off. Do so at the minimum height of 200m. Circle at an angle within five degrees and keep your nose pointed downwards.

    Principles you should know

    Keep your health in the very best condition. If you are not in top physical condition, you will not be able to achieve an ideal hit by tai-atari (body-crashing).

    Just as you cannot fight well on an empty stomach, you cannot deftly manipulate the control stick if you are suffering from diarrhoea, and cannot exert calm judgment if you are tormented by fever.

    Be always pure-hearted and cheerful

    A loyal fighting man is a pure-hearted and filial son.

    Attain a high level of spiritual training

    In order that you can exert the highest possible capability, you must prepare well your inner self. Some people say that spirit must come first before skill, but they are wrong. Spirit and skill are one. The two elements must be mastered together. Spirit supports skill and skill supports spirit.

    Aborting your mission and returning to base

    In the event of poor weather conditions when you cannot locate the target, or under other adverse circumstances, you may decide to return to base. Don't be discouraged. Do not waste your life lightly. You should not be possessed by petty emotions. Think how you can best defend the motherland. Remember what the wing commander has told you. You should return to the base jovially and without remorse.

    When turning back and landing at the base

    Discard the bomb at the area designated by the commanding officer. Fly in circles over the airfield. Observe conditions of the airstrip carefully. If you feel nervous, piss. Next, ascertain the direction of the wind and wind speed. Do you see any holes in the runway? Take three deep breaths.

    The attack

    Single-plane attack. Upon sighting a target, remove the (bomb's) safety pin. Go full speed ahead towards the target. Dive! Surprise the enemy. Don't let the enemy take time to counter your attack. Charge! Remember: the enemy may change course but be prepared for the enemy's evasive action. Be alert and avoid enemy fighters and flak fire.

    Dive attack

    This varies depending on the type of the aircraft. If you are approaching the enemy from a height of 6,000m, adjust your speed twice; or from a lower height of 4,000m, adjust speed once.

    When you begin your dive, you must harmonise the height at which you commence the final attack with your speed. Beware of over-speeding and a too-steep angle of dive that will make the controls harder to respond to your touch. But an angle of dive that is too small will result in reduced speed and not enough impact on crashing.

    Where to crash (the enemy's fatal spots)

    Where should you aim? When diving and crashing on to a ship, aim for a point between the bridge tower and the smoke stack(s). Entering the stack is also effective.

    Avoid hitting the bridge tower or a gun turret. In the case of an aircraft carrier, aim at the elevators. Or if that is difficult, hit the flight deck at the ship's stern.

    For a low-altitude horizontal attack, aim at the middle of the vessel, slightly higher than the waterline. If that is difficult, in the case of an aircraft carrier, aim at the entrance to the aircraft hangar, or the bottom of the stack. For other vessels, aim close to the aft engine room.

    Just before the crash

    Your speed is at maximum. The plane tends to lift. But you can prevent this by pushing the elevator control forward sufficiently to allow for the increase in speed. Do your best. Push forward with all your might.

    You have lived for 20 years or more. You must exert your full might for the last time in your life. Exert supernatural strength.

    At the very moment of impact: do your best. Every deity and the spirits of your dead comrades are watching you intently. Just before the collision it is essential that you do not shut your eyes for a moment so as not to miss the target. Many have crashed into the targets with wide-open eyes. They will tell you what fun they had.

    You are now 30m from the target

    You will sense that your speed has suddenly and abruptly increased. You feel that the speed has increased by a few thousand-fold. It is like a long shot in a movie suddenly turning into a close-up, and the scene expands in your face.

    The moment of the crash

    You are two or three metres from the target. You can see clearly the muzzles of the enemy's guns. You feel that you are suddenly floating in the air. At that moment, you see your mother's face. She is not smiling or crying. It is her usual face.

    All the happy memories

    You won't precisely remember them but they are like a dream or a fantasy. You are relaxed and a smile creases your face. The sweet atmosphere of your boyhood days returns.

    You view all that you experienced in your 20-odd years of life in rapid succession. But these things are not very clear.

    In any event, only delightful memories come back to you. You cannot see your own face at that moment. But because of a succession of pleasant memories flashing through your mind, you feel that you smiled at the last moment. You may nod then, or wonder what happened. You may even hear a final sound like the breaking of crystal. Then you are no more.

    Points to remember when making your last dive

    Crashing bodily into a target is not easy. It causes the enemy great damage. Therefore the enemy will exert every means to avoid a hit.

    Suddenly, you may become confused. You are liable to make an error. But hold on to the unshakeable conviction to the last moment that you will sink the enemy ship.

    Remember when diving into the enemy to shout at the top of your lungs: "Hissatsu!" ("Sink without fail!") At that moment, all the cherry blossoms at Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo will smile brightly at you.

• Suicide rate takes a worrisome jump
  • At http://www.atimes.com/japan-econ/AH04Dh01.html

  • TOKYO - Japan is perhaps one of the few countries left in the world where suicide is considered an honorable act, but even the Japanese are becoming alarmed at the steep rise in the number of people taking their own lives in their country.

    Official statistics show that last year, a record 32,863 Japanese and foreigners committed suicide in Japan, or a huge 35 percent increase over the 1997 figure.

    Many of them were failed businessmen or jobless workers who could no longer cope with doing nothing, while some killed themselves because of work-related stress. In a disturbing trend, however, about 339 students committed suicide last year, largely because they were being bullied by classmates. Observers say the youngsters may have been taking their cues from adults, many of whom are being driven by the recession to choose death instead of facing reality or trying to figure a way out of an oppressive situation.

    Many Japanese regard suicide as a show of sincerity to expiate their shortcomings, and view it as an act that would restore honor to their name, their family, or organization.

    Such an attitude has made it possible for the macabre book, ''The Perfect Suicide Manual'', to consistently land in the local bestseller lists even five years after it first came out. The book, written by Wataru Tsurumi, a sociology graduate of Tokyo University, gives explicit instructions on how to commit suicide by hanging, self-immolation, electrocution, drug overdose and other gruesome means.

    Lawmakers have apparently become so worried at the rising suicide rates that they recently designated the book a ''harmful publication.'' This designation was given last month, shortly after a 12-year-old girl used the manual prior to hanging herself.

    Meanwhile, the Japanese public and the media are now up in arms over those perceived to be pushing people to take their own lives during these hard economic times - financial institutions and prosecutors who interrogate suspects in financial scandals too roughly.

    Commented crime expert Akira Fukushima of Tokyo's Sophia University: ''Whenever prosecutors investigate a bribery case, someone ends up committing suicide.'' According to Fukushima, suspects - who are subjected to intensive grilling by prosecutors in an effort to break their will - resort to suicide to protect their superiors and to save themselves from shame.

    At the same time, banks and financial institutions are getting harsh criticism for granting reckless and unrecoverable loans of several billions of dollars during Japan's so-called bubble economy - and then today refusing to extend credit to needy small and medium enterprises.

    Last year, the suicide of three Tokyo business partners facing bankruptcy and who were unable to secure a new loan became the subject of much public discussion and dismay. Checking into a hotel, the three friends took a last drink before retreating to their respective rooms and hanging themselves.

    In another incident, the president of a picture-frame manufacturing firm and his wife hanged themselves because they could no longer pay their nine workers.

    At times, despondent parents have been known to take not only their own lives, but that of their children as well. Known as ''oyaku-shinju,'' the parent-child suicide is considered an act of mercy and the last demonstration of the parents' wish that their children do not become burdens to society.

    But despite the current uproar over the mounting deaths, some observers fear that there will be no let-up in the suicides until the recession ends, or the Japanese begin viewing the act in a different manner.

    As it is, there is a 2,400 hectare dense forest at the foot of Mt. Fuji that has become infamous for being a favorite suicide spot, after mystery writer Seichi Matsumoto described the woodland as ideal for the perfect death. In 1998 alone, the bodies of about 70 people were found in the notorious forest. Some of the victims were discovered hanging from tree branches, while others apparently swallowed sleeping pills or bled to death after having slashed their wrists.

    Then there is the railway system, which has been the site of a rash of suicides as well. Close to 100 people jumped in front of trains last year. Ironically, though, Japanese Railways is now seeking compensation from the families of the dead - because of the delays caused by the suicides. Railway officials say they expect as much as $70,000 from each jumper's family.

• Doctor-Assisted Suicide --a guide to WEB Sites and the Literature
  • At http://www.lwc.edu/administrative/library/suic.htm

• Death With Dignity
  • At http://www.growthhouse.org/dignity.html
  • At http://www.growthhouse.org/educate/flash/mortals/layouts/frameset1.html

• Peaceful Dying: The step-by-step guide to preserving your dignity, your choice, and your inner peace at the end of life
  • At http://www.growthhouse.org/books/tobin.htm

• Choice In Dying
  • At http://www.choices.org/

• Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul: The Complete 1783 Edition by David Hume
  • At http://www.utm.edu/research/hume/wri/suicide.htm
  • At http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/david_hume/suicide.html
  • At http://www.ets.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/Hume%20-%20Suicide.txt
  • At http://eserver.org/18th/hume-suicide.txt

• "The Morality of Taking Life"
  • At http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/160/6/index.html

• "Is Suicide a sin?" by Robert Green Ingersoll
  • At http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/

• "Peuchet: On Suicide" by Karl Marx
  • At http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/archive/marx/works/1845/09/suicide.html

• Euthanasia World Directory
  • At http://www.FinalExit.org/

• UK: Woman fights for right to die
  • At http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1499000/1499875.stm
  • Euthanasia and the law: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/background_briefings/euthanasia/newsid_1044000/1044740.stm
  • Lessons from Down Under: "> http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/background_briefings/euthanasia/newsid_1044000/1044740.stm">

• Voluntary Euthanasia Society of Tasmania
  • At http://www.tased.edu.au/tasonline/vest/vest.htm
  • At http://www.tased.edu.au/tasonline/vest/links.html

• A Modest, Not Satirical, Proposal For Assisted-Suicide Decisions
  • At http://www.managedcaremag.com/archives/0012/0012.ethics.html

• Top: Society: Death: Suicide: Law
  • At http://dmoz.org/Society/Death/Suicide/Law/

• The law on managing patients who deliberately harm themselves and refuse treatment.(Education and debate)
  • "The Mental Health Act 1983 may not be used to detain a person against their will "merely because [their] thinking process is unusual, even apparently bizarre and irrational, and contrary to the views of the overwhelming majority of the community at large.""
  • At http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0999/7214_319/56982121/p1/article.jhtml

• 'Happy' student killed himself after logging on to suicide website
  • At http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=466404

  • When Phillip Cranmer killed himself nearly three months ago, his family were at a loss to understand why he had taken his own life. The 20-year-old had no history of mental illness and had been laughing and joking the day before. But it emerged that Phillip had been secretly planning his death for months, logging on to internet chatrooms and surfing the net for tips on committing suicide.

    His father, Roy Boffey, has written to the Home Office demanding an urgent investigation into suicide chat rooms. He wants people who run them to face prosecution.

    "The website played a significant part [in Phillip's death]," said the retired teacher and hospital chaplain who, lives in Solihull in the West Midlands. "He wasn't suffering in any way. He wasn't having medication or suffering from depression."

    There is no official regulation of suicide website chatrooms. Experts believe they are dangerous because they may lead vulnerable young people to encourage one another to end their lives.

    Last year 35-year-old Michael Gooden jumped to his death from Beachy Head after entering into a death pact with fellow chatroom user Louis Gillies. Mr Gillies, 36, hanged himself on the day he was set to stand trial for assisting his friend's suicide.

    Under existing laws, anyone who helps another person to commit suicide faces a maximum prison term of 14 years. A Home Office spokeswoman said: "If anyone has evidence of a website that is encouraging anyone to commit suicide, we urge them to report this to the police." The Government has already drawn up a national suicide prevention strategy.

    However, providing information that enables someone to kill themselves is not necessarily illegal. Charities which support families of suicide victims said more research is needed. "There may be situations where people are encouraged to take their lives," said John Peters, spokesman for Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide. "These sites are not likely to stress the effect that suicide will have on those who are left behind."

    The Samaritans said there were benefits in people being able to share suicidal thoughts with others who can empathise with them but said there were "better places" to find such support.

    "There was one incident when a guy not interested in suicide was encouraging others," said a spokeswoman. "He was part of a cult who think the world is over-populated.

    "It's impossible to know who is using [a chatroom] and if people really are who they say they are. If someone is feeling vulnerable, there are other places that would be more constructive to visit. These sites can be very negative sites to visit."

    After Phillip's death, his family learned that he had been logging on to internet suicide sites for more than eight months. His diary entry a couple of days before he died on 8 September read: "The one thing that must not happen is for this to go wrong. I do not want to be saved."

    Yet Mr Boffey said there was no indication that Phillip was in emotional distress. Having passed his A-levels, he was looking forward to a gap year before taking a film studies course.Mr Boffey said: "He was perfectly normal nine-tenths of the time, but with the website he had a secret obsession on the subject of death. For reasons we will never know, he chose to take his life.It's not a healthy society that tolerates instructions on how to do this. It's not something to ignore."

• Physician assisted suicide: The Law
  • At http://web.bma.org.uk/public/ethics.nsf/39f32339ff78cd6b802566a6003f3311/e7754d2377f042ea802567a000375db6?OpenDocument

• Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: PART III: A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CONSENSUAL CRIMES SUICIDE AND ASSISTED SUICIDE
  • "THERE CAN BE NO MORE fundamental statement concerning individual freedom and responsibility than this: Our bodies and our lives belong to ourselves. Our bodies do not belong to the state, to our relatives, or to our friends. The laws against suicide and assisted suicide run directly counter to this concept. "
  • "Suicidal thoughts are a symptom of emotional depression. Our culture's taboo against suicide often keeps people who are thinking about suicide from talking about it. By talking about it, people can often get the emotional and psychological support they need to see them through a rough time. When people are afraid to talk about it, the pressures can increase to the point that they actually do something about it."
  • As Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote in her suicide note:
    Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune or "broken heart" is excuse for cutting off one's life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.

  •    Who knows?
     Maybe my life belongs to God.
        Maybe it belongs to me.
       But I do know one thing:
       I'm damned if it belongs
          to the government.
    
            ARTHUR HOPPE

  • At http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/aint/312.htm

• suicide
  • "In a famous rebuttal of such traditional views, David Hume identified with a handful of pre-Christian classical writers who considered suicide an honourable and sometimes praiseworthy act. An autonomous suicide, from Hume's perspective, is permissible (and on occasion laudable) if, on balance, more value is produced for the individual or more value is produced for society than would be produced by not performing the act of taking one's life ('Of Suicide', posthumously published, suppressed in 1757).
    Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780), in his codification of English law, used arguments similar to Aquinas's to explain the state's right to prevent and punish suicide. Blackstone categorized suicide as 'self-murder' and a grave felony (Blackstone's Commentaries, ch. 14). But when laws against suicide progressively fell, it was largely Hume's premisses and style of argument that led to the repeal, both in Britain and in North America."
  • At http://www.xrefer.com/entry/553638

• Quebec Canada's suicide hot spot
  • At http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040504.wstif0504/BNStory/National/

  • Montreal — Quebec men were nearly twice as likely to commit suicide as males in other provinces surveyed, suggests a public health report released Tuesday.

    The rate of suicide among Quebec males was 30.7 per 100,000 people in 1999-2001. The rate among men in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia was 16.1 per 100,000.

    “It's not just men, the real problem is among middle-aged men 30-49 years old who have the highest rate and largest increase in rates of suicide in the past few years,” said Danielle St-Laurent, one of the authors of a report by the National Public Health Institute of Quebec.

    A similar, but less forceful, trend existed among women.

    Only 7.7 per 100,000 females took their own lives in Quebec, about a quarter the suicide rate among men in the province. However, the rate among women in the rest of Canada was 4.6 per 100,000 people.

    The suicide gap between Quebec and English Canada has widened annually since the late 1970s. In prior years, suicide in Quebec was less common than elsewhere.

    Ontario, Alberta and B.C. were selected for the report because of the size of their populations. The western provinces were also included because they used the same process to track suicides as Quebec.

    The disparity in provincial rates can be partly attributed to a better reporting system for suicides in Quebec and an underestimation in other parts of the country, said the study, released Tuesday during an international suicide conference.

    But the rates in Quebec would still be high even if the reporting discrepancies were factored, Ms. St-Laurent said in an interview.

    “The phenomenon of suicide is very complicated,” she said. “We don't know exactly why.”

    Among the theories are cultural and social differences between Quebeckers and other Canadians.

    In New Brunswick, suicide rates among francophones were higher than among anglophones, said a provincial government report.

    Quebec's rates mirror those in western Europe while those in the rest of Canada compare with Anglo-Saxon countries, Ms. St-Laurent said.

    “There is a cultural dimension that is present, but it is difficult to explain why Quebec has increased while it has decreased elsewhere in Canada.”

    Suicides have continued to rise in Quebec despite prevention efforts over the past 20 years.

    The number of Quebec men who killed themselves had increased by nearly 40 per cent between the late 1970s and late 1990s.

    Rates among women, however, remained relatively stable over the same period.

    In 2001, 1,334 Quebecers — 1,055 men and 279 women — took their own lives. Suicide represented 2.4 per cent of all provincial deaths.

    About half the deaths were the result of hanging. Nearly 30 per cent of women overdosed, while 18.7 per cent of men shot themselves. Weapons were used more frequently outside Quebec.

    The suicide gap between men and women isn't unique to Quebec. Similar trends have been experienced in such industrialized countries as Austria and Finland, which have the highest rate of suicide.

• A Starter Course on G.K. Chesterton
  • At http://www.river.org/~dhawk/chesterton.html

• The Man Who Was Thursday by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
  • At http://www.bartleby.com/158/

  • "At first read, G.K. Chesterton’s the Man Who Was Thursday is a zany mystery story filled with often surreal twists that turn more traditional thrillers on their ear. Set in a fantastic London where the ridiculous never nears the sublime, our hero, Gabriel Syme revolts against the status quo and breaks out as - normal. Yet Syme’s normalcy provides the perfect foil to illustrate the insanity around him - and for Chesterton to illustrate the insanity he saw in turn-of-the-century London."

• Lots of quotes
  • At http://members.limitless.org/~fisherman/quotes.html
  • "A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extrordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion." -H. L. Mencken
  • "Systems die; instincts remain." -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
  • "What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?" -George Carlin
  • "It's the friends you can call up at 4 A. M. that matter." -Marlene Dietrich
  • "You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." -Yogi Berra
  • "Don't use the conduct of a fool as a precedent." -Talmud
  • "Statistics are no substitute for judgment." -Henry Clay
  • "I always find that statistics are hard to follow and impossible to digest. The only one I can ever remember is that if all the people who go to sleep in church were laid end to end they would be a lot more comfortable." -Mrs. Robert A. Taft
  • "Fate loves the fearless." -James Russell Lowell
  • "Give me a man who sings at his work." -Thomas Carlyle
  • "We are just statistics, born to consume resources." -Horace
  • "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." -Brooke Shields
  • "How come if we can send a man to the Moon, we can't send a man to the Moon anymore?" -Commander Rick in Prisoners Of Gravity
  • "Truth is rarely pure, and never simple." -Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest"
  • "Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies." -Honore de Balzac
  • "I've been rich and I've been poor; rich is better." -Sophie Tucker
  • "You learn a lot about a culture through its pornography." -Dr. Gordon MacLachlan
  • "If I owned both Hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell." -William T. Sherman
  • "Nobody roots for Goliath." -Wilt Chamberlain
  • "Trust in allah, but tie your camel." -Arabian proverb
  • "There is amazing strength in weakness." -Loa Tza
  • "Silence is argument carried on by other means." -Ernesto "Che" Guevara
  • "Never mistake motion for action." -Ernest Hemmingway
  • "Ronald Reagan is not a typical politician because he doesn't know how to lie, cheat, and steal. He's always had an agent for that." -Bob Hope
  • "One reason I don't drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time." -Nancy, Lady Astor
  • "Nixon is a shifty-eyed goddamn liar... He's one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides. " -Harry S. Truman
  • "I don't know [what my mother's thinking], I'm only related to her." -Francesca Smith
  • "The reverse side also has a reverse side." -Japanese proverb
  • "Tell the truth and run." -Yugoslavian proverb
  • "There is no money in poetry, but then there is no poetry in money, either." -Robert Graves
  • "I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." -Woody Allen
  • "If I had been present at creation, I would have given some useful hints." -Alfonso the Wise
  • "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape." -Michael McGriff
  • "The smurfs were Commies, you know..." -Ms. Celeste Mahabir, World History class
  • "Alcohol kills thousands of people a year. Marijuana makes people want to order pizza." -Dr. Gordon MacLachlan
  • "Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like men, but they often find it extremely difficult to behave like gentlemen." -Sir Compton Mackenzie, 1883-1972
  • "The fruits of philosophy [are the important thing], not the philosophy itself. When we ask the time, we don't want to know how watches are constructed." -Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1792-1799
  • "You keep losing and getting spanked badly!" -Dr. Gordon Machlachlan
  • "There are good fumes, and we like good fumes... but these fumes are evil!" -Dr. Gordon MacLachlan
  • "In nature, there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences." -Robert Greene Ingersoll
  • "God does not pay weekly, but he pays at the end." -Dutch proverb
  • "Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited." -Ambrose Bierce, "Devil's Dictionary"
  • "A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic." -George Bernard Shaw
  • "It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read a book of quotations." -Winston Churchill
  • "A man with God is always in the majority." -John Knox
  • "A guest sees more in an hour than the host in a year." -Polish proverb
  • "The truth knocks at the door and we say, "go away, I'm searching for the truth" and so it goes away." -Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
  • "Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable." -Laurence Peter
  • "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -Carl Sagan

• Quotations: Francis Bacon
  • At http://www.sirbacon.org/links/baconquotes.html
  • Knowledge is power. {Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est} Meditationes Sacrae 1597.
  • If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.
  • My Very Good Lord,--This day I have made even with the business of the kingdom for common justice. Not one cause unheard. The lawyers drawn dry of all the motions they were to make. Not one petition unanswered. And this, I think, could not be said in our age before. This I speak not out of ostentation, but out of gladness when I have done my duty. I know men think I cannot continue if I should thus oppress myself of business. But that account is made. The duties of life are more than life. And if I die now I shall die before the world be weary of me, which in our times is somewhat rare.
    {Bacon in his first four terms in the Court of Chancery made 8,798 orders and decrees, and freed more than 35,000 suitors in his court from the law's uncertainty. One of his sayings was,"Fresh justice is sweetist." Scarcely one of Bacon's decisions was ever reversed.}
  • If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.--Essays OF Fortune {Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind.--Shakespeare, Henry V, act III, sc.vi,}
  • It is an immense ocean that surrounds the island of Truth.
  • Read not to contradict and confute,nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse but to weigh and consider.
  • My story is proud...The entry of truth with chalk to mark those minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it.
  • Whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, Philanthropy is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed.
  • Light is God's first creature.
  • For all color is the broken image of light.
  • Tragedies and Comedies are made of one Alphabet.
  • Discovery sooner emerges from error than from confusion.
  • Laws are made to guard the rights of the people, not to feed the lawyers. The laws should be read by all, known to all. Put them into shape, inform them with philosophy, reduce them in bulk, give them into every man's hand.
  • Men believe what they prefer.
  • The souls of the living are the beauty of the world.
  • Money is like muck, best when it is spread out.
  • Our sorrows are our schoolmasters.
  • Nothing is terrible except fear itself.--De Augmentis Scientarum Book II,Fortitudo 1623.
  • Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.
  • My soul hath been a stranger in the course of my pilgrimage. Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for my savior's sake, and receive me into thy bosom, or guide me in thy ways.
  • If we have spoken the truth, the voice of nature will cry it up, though the voice of man should cry it down.
  • There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
  • The world's a bubble, and the life of man less than a span.
  • Beggars should not be choosers.
  • All is not gold that glisters.
  • Conscience is worth a thousand witnesses.
  • It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
  • Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.
  • To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.
  • If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.
  • A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
  • All colors will agree in the dark
  • Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.
  • Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
  • Silence is the virtue of fools.
  • The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.

• Quotations: Francis Bacon
  • At http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/francis_bacon.html

  • A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner. Francis Bacon
  • A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. Francis Bacon
  • A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it. Francis Bacon
  • A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green. Francis Bacon
  • A prudent question is one-half of wisdom. Francis Bacon
  • A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open. Francis Bacon
  • A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. Francis Bacon
  • Acorns were good until bread was found. Francis Bacon
  • All rising to great place is by a winding stair. Francis Bacon
  • Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor. Francis Bacon
  • Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time. Francis Bacon
  • As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time. Francis Bacon
  • Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Francis Bacon
  • Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution. Francis Bacon
  • Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch. Francis Bacon
  • But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on. Francis Bacon
  • By indignities men come to dignities. Francis Bacon
  • Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men. Francis Bacon
  • Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter. Francis Bacon
  • Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable. Francis Bacon
  • Cure the disease and kill the patient. Francis Bacon
  • Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order. Francis Bacon
  • Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid. Francis Bacon
  • Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse. Francis Bacon
  • For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages. Francis Bacon
  • Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason. Francis Bacon
  • Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall. Francis Bacon
  • Friends are thieves of time. Francis Bacon
  • Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom. Francis Bacon
  • God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires. Francis Bacon
  • God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave. Francis Bacon
  • God's first creature, which was light. Francis Bacon
  • Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again. Francis Bacon
  • He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other. Francis Bacon
  • He that hath knowledge spareth his words. Francis Bacon
  • He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Francis Bacon
  • He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator. Francis Bacon
  • Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. Francis Bacon
  • I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death. Francis Bacon
  • I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind. Francis Bacon
  • I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am. Francis Bacon
  • If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world. Francis Bacon
  • If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon
  • If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics. Francis Bacon
  • If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us. Francis Bacon
  • Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is. Francis Bacon
  • In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present. Francis Bacon
  • In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior. Francis Bacon
  • It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. Francis Bacon
  • It is impossible to love and to be wise. Francis Bacon
  • It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about. Francis Bacon
  • It is natural to die as to be born. Francis Bacon
  • Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws. Francis Bacon
  • Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue. Francis Bacon
  • Knowledge and human power are synonymous. Francis Bacon
  • Knowledge is power. Francis Bacon
  • Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance. Francis Bacon
  • Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy. Francis Bacon
  • Little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. Francis Bacon
  • Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use. Francis Bacon
  • Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other. Francis Bacon
  • Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread. Francis Bacon
  • Money is like muck, not good except it be spread. Francis Bacon
  • Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral. Francis Bacon
  • Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Francis Bacon
  • Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished. Francis Bacon
  • Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Francis Bacon
  • Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice. Francis Bacon
  • Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise. Francis Bacon
  • Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety. Francis Bacon
  • Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing. Francis Bacon
  • Oh! death will find me long before I tire of watching you. Francis Bacon
  • Opportunity makes a thief. Francis Bacon
  • People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can't fool the neighbors. Francis Bacon
  • People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom. Francis Bacon
  • Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory. Francis Bacon
  • Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes. Francis Bacon
  • Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New. Francis Bacon
  • Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider. Francis Bacon
  • Rebellions of the belly are the worst. Francis Bacon
  • Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. Francis Bacon
  • Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress. Francis Bacon
  • Science is but an image of the truth. Francis Bacon
  • Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt. Francis Bacon
  • Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom. Francis Bacon
  • Silence is the virtue of fools. Francis Bacon
  • Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God. Francis Bacon
  • Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. Francis Bacon
  • Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience. Francis Bacon
  • Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability. Francis Bacon
  • The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express. Francis Bacon
  • The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors. Francis Bacon
  • The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall. Francis Bacon
  • The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied. Francis Bacon
  • The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs. Francis Bacon
  • The great end of life is not knowledge but action. Francis Bacon
  • The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. Francis Bacon
  • The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears. Francis Bacon
  • The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil. Francis Bacon
  • The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands. Francis Bacon
  • The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Francis Bacon
  • The place of justice is a hallowed place. Francis Bacon
  • The remedy is worse than the disease. Francis Bacon
  • The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses. Francis Bacon
  • The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding. Francis Bacon
  • The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate. Francis Bacon
  • The wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. Francis Bacon
  • The worst men often give the best advice. Francis Bacon
  • The worst solitude is to have no real friendships. Francis Bacon
  • There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool. Francis Bacon
  • There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health. Francis Bacon
  • There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self. Francis Bacon
  • There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying. Francis Bacon
  • There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. Francis Bacon
  • Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible. Francis Bacon
  • They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. Francis Bacon
  • They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils. Francis Bacon
  • Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly. Francis Bacon
  • This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. Francis Bacon
  • Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. Francis Bacon
  • Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion. Francis Bacon
  • Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out. Francis Bacon
  • Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible. Francis Bacon
  • Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority. Francis Bacon
  • Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set. Francis Bacon
  • We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do. Francis Bacon
  • We cannot command Nature except by obeying her. Francis Bacon
  • What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Francis Bacon
  • When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative. Francis Bacon
  • Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul. Francis Bacon
  • Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much. Francis Bacon
  • Wise men make more opportunities than they find. Francis Bacon
  • With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half. Francis Bacon
  • Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses. Francis Bacon
  • Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. Francis Bacon
  • Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business. Francis Bacon

• Quotations: Francis Bacon
  • At http://www.dividingline.com/private/Philosophy/TopPage/Bacon_Quote.shtml
  • For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. - Francis Bacon
  • It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.
  • I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.

• Depositions: Don't Ignore Form Objections
  • At http://www.illinoistrialpractice.com/2005/04/depositions_don.html

  • When you're taking a deposition, don't ignore your opponent's objections to the form of your question. If you're planning to use the transcript at trial or for other purposes, you might lose the right if your opponent's objection is sustained.

    Once you hear "objection, form," you'll often know right away what was wrong with the question. Often, it was just too wordy, making it vague. Simplifying the question will usually take care of the form problem and is good practice anyway. Withdraw the question and ask a better one. You don't need to feel like this is an admission of defeat: it's not.

    What about those bothersome opponents who interject form objections just to be bothersome? If you don't know what's wrong with the form of your question, ask your opponent to tell you. You're entitled to an opportunity to fix your question. If it turns out that your opponent can't explain, it means he was just trying to harass you. Keep asking for the reason for the form objection, and chances are he'll stop.

• Quotes on memory
  • At http://allthingswilliam.com/memory.html
  • Occasionally we sigh for an earlier day when we could just look at the stars without worrying whether they were theirs or ours. --Bill Vaughan
  • Always remember to take the door-key. --William Makepeace Thackeray, The Willow-Tree. Stanza 9
  • When I look back now over my life and call to mind what I might have had simply for taking and did not take, my heart is like to break. --William Hale White
  • If you can remember the sixties, you weren't there. --Robin Williams
  • One had a lovely face,
    And two or three had charm,
    But charm and face were in vain.
    Because the mountain grass
    Cannot keep the form
    Where the mountain hare has lain.
    --William Butler Yeats, Memory
    
  • Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
    For old, unhappy, far-off things,
    And battles long ago.
    --William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper (1807)
    
  • It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them! --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
  • Abruptly the poker of memory stirs the ashes of recollection and uncovers a forgotten ember, still smoldering down there. . . . --William Manchester
  • He has made a chasm which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. --William Gerard Hamilton, quoted in Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson
  • Four ducks on a pond,
    A grass-bank beyond,
    A blue sky of spring,
    White clouds on the wing:
    What a little thing
    To remember for years --
    To remember with tears!
    --William Allingham, A Memory
    

• Famous Quotes on Suicide
  • At http://www.healpastlives.com/pastlf/quote/qusuicid.htm
  • "Nine men in ten are would be suicides." - Benjamin Franklin
  • "There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium and suicide were the only solutions to the strangulation that life had prepared for him." - Antonin Artaud
  • "Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure." - - Joseph Heller
  • "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." - Albert Camus ("The Myth of Sisyphus")

• Tuesday, 1 January, 2002, 09:36 GMT : Netherlands legalises mercy killing
  • At http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1736000/1736990.stm

• Tuesday, 10 April, 2001, 13:42 GMT 14:42 UK : Analysis: New law changes little : By psychologist Martine Cornelisse of the Dutch Voluntary Euthanasia Society
  • At http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1270000/1270553.stm

• Wednesday, 11 April, 2001, 09:43 GMT 10:43 UK : Live and let die is new Dutch religion
  • At http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1271000/1271571.stm

• Suicide Lodge
  • At http://www.a1b2c3.com/suilodge/

• Suicide Note
  • At http://suez-cide.tripod.com/
  • At http://suez-cide.tripod.com/quotes.html
  • The ocean doesn't want me today, But I'll come back tomorrow to play. The riptide is waging And the life guard's away But the ocean doesn't want me today - Tom Waits
  • Suicide is the most sincere form of self-criticism - Unknown
  • Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so shall I choose my death when I am about to depart from life. - Seneca
  • Death is a punishment to some, to others a gift and to many a favour. - Seneca
  • Whereas a prolonged life is not necessarily better, a prolonged death is necessarily worse. - Seneca
  • Most people, in committing a suicidal act, are just as muddled as when they do anything important under emotional stress. Carefully planned acts of suicide are as rare as carefully planned acts of homicide. - Erwin Stengel
  • There is only one prospect worse than being chained to an intolerable existence: The nightmare of a botched attempt to end it. - Arthur Koestler

• Reference to the court case abolishing Slavery in the UK A Designer Universe? - STEVEN WEINBERG
  • "Lord Mansfield, the author of the decision in Somersett's Case, which ended slavery in England (though not its colonies)"
  • "It is certainly true that the campaign against slavery and the slave trade was greatly strengthened by devout Christians, including the Evangelical layman William Wilberforce in England and the Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing in America. But Christianity, like other great world religions, lived comfortably with slavery for many centuries, and slavery was endorsed in the New Testament. So what was different for anti-slavery Christians like Wilberforce and Channing? There had been no discovery of new sacred scriptures, and neither Wilberforce nor Channing claimed to have received any supernatural revelations. Rather, the eighteenth century had seen a widespread increase in rationality and humanitarianism that led others - for instance, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan - also to oppose slavery, on grounds having nothing to do with religion. Lord Mansfield, the author of the decision in Somersett's Case, which ended slavery in England (though not its colonies), was no more than conventionally religious, and his decision did not men-tion religious arguments. Although Wilberforce was the instigator of the campaign against the slave trade in the 1790s, this movement had essential support from many in Parliament like Fox and Pitt, who were not known for their piety. As far as I can tell, the moral tone of religion benefited more from the spirit of the times than the spirit of the times benefited from religion. "
  • At http://www.nyu.edu/classes/neimark/design.html
  • At http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~vincent/Cosmology/weinberg-designer-universe-reading.htm

• The Rt. Hon. William, George Murray, Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice of England (1705-1793)
  • "Mansfield's political career was disappointing. He supported government policy in the American colonies, and clearly failed to sense the anger of popular feeling and prejudice as his lack of precautions during the Gordon Riots shows. In political rights cases he tended to decide the issues on technicalities, rather than on principles and was probably not entirely comfortable in ordering a slave brought to England by his master set free in Somersett's Case (1772). "
  • At http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/courses/lawdemo/MOD2/MOD2D3.HTM
  • At http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/courses/lawdemo/BIOGRAPH.HTM

• Convict Assignment Opinion
  • " In Somersett's Case (1772) 20 St. Tr. 1, p. 82, Lord Mansfield famously said that slavery "is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law". "
  • At http://www.butterworths.com.au/nswcases/html/convict_assignment_opinion__1827.htm
  • At http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/nswsc/pre1900/1827/62.html

• Definitive Lysander Spooner Site
  • Lysander Spooner Quote: "Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how , and how far, he can, or will perform them."
  • At http://www.lawcasella.com/spooner/index.htm
  • "Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication Of Moral Liberty" by Lysander Spooner: http://www.lawcasella.com/spooner/VicesAreNotCrimes.txt

    Vices  are those acts by which a man harms himself
    or his property.
    
    __Crimes  __are  those acts by which one man harms
    the person or property of another.
    
    __Vices__  are simply the errors which a man makes
    in  his  search  after  his  own happiness. Unlike
    crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no
    interference with their persons or property.
    
    In  vices,  the very essence of crime --- that is,
    the  design  to  injure  the person or property of
    another --- is wanting.
    
    It  is  a  maxim  of  the law that there can be no
    crime  without a criminal intent; that is, without
    the  intent  to  invade  the person or property of
    another. But no one ever practises a vice with any
    such  criminal  intent.  He practises his vice for
    his  own happiness solely, and not from any malice
    toward others.

• Unconstitutionality Of Slavery by Lysander Spooner (originally published in 1845) (referring to US Constitution)
  • "The authority of these charters, during their continuance, and the general authority of the common law, prior to the revolution, have been recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States. No one of all these charters that I have examined -- and I have examined nearly all of them -- contained the least intimation that slavery had, or could have any legal existence under them. Slavery was therefore as much unconstitutional in the colonies, as it was in England.
    It was decided by the Court of King's Bench in England -- Lord Mansfield being Chief Justice -- before our revolution, and while the English Charters were the fundamental law of the colonies -- that the principles of English liberty were so plainly incompatible with slavery, that even if a slaveholder, from another part of the world, brought his slave into England -- though only for a temporary purpose, and with no intention of remaining -- he nevertheless thereby gave the slave his liberty. Previous to this decision, the privilege of bringing slaves into England, for temporary purposes, and of carrying them away, had long been tolerated.
    This decision was given in the year 1772. And for aught I see, it was equally obligatory in this country as in England, and must have freed every slave in this country, if the question had then been raised here. But the slave knew not his rights, and had no one to raise the question lot him.
    The fact, that slavery was tolerated in the colonies, is no evidence of its legality; for slavery was tolerated, to a certain extent, in England, (as we have already seen,) for many years previous to the decision just cited -- that is, the holders of slaves from abroad were allowed to bring their slaves into England, hold them during their stay there, and carry them away when they went. But the toleration of this practice did not make it lawful, notwithstanding all customs, not palpably and grossly contrary to the principles of English liberty, have great weight, in England, in establishing law.
    The fact, that England tolerated, (i. e. did not punish criminally,) the African slave-trade at that time, could not legally establish slavery in the colonies, any more than it did in England -- especially in defiance of the positive requirements of the charters, that the colonial legislation should be consonant to reason, and not repugnant to the laws of England."
  • Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can he legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction. This was the doctrine of the King's Bench in Somerset's case, as it is the doctrine of common sense. Lord Mansfield said, "So high an act of dominion must be recognized by the law of the country where it is used. * * * The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from the memory. It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law."
    Slavery, then, being the creature of positive legislation alone, can be created only by legislation that shall so particularly describe the persons to be made slaves, that they may be distinguished from all others. If there be any doubt left by the letter of the law, as to the persons to be made slaves, the efficacy of all other slave legislation is defeated simply by that uncertainty.
    In several of the colonies, including some of those where slaves were most numerous, there were either no laws at all defining the persons who might be made slaves, or the laws, which attempted to define them, were so loosely framed that it cannot now be known who are the descendants of those designated as slaves, and who of those held in slavery without any color of law. As the presumption must under the United States constitution and indeed under the state constitutions also be always in favor of liberty, it would probably now be impossible for a slaveholder to prove, in one case in an hundred, that his slave was descended, (through the maternal line, according to the slave code,) from any one who was originally a slave within the description given by the statutes. [*33]
  • Footnote to reference: 6. [*23] Somerset v. Stewart.--Lofft's Reports, p. 1 to 19, of Easter Term, 1772. In the Dublin edition, the case is not entered in the Index.
  • Footnote to reference: 7. [*24] Have Parliament the constitutional prerogative of abolishing the writ of habeas corpus? the trial by jury? or the freedom of speech and the press? If not, have they the prerogative of abolishing a man’s right of property in his own person?
  • At http://www.lawcasella.com/spooner/UnconstitutionalityOfSlavery.htm
  • At http://www.lawcasella.com/spooner/UnconstitutionalityOfSlavery.pdf

• NO TREASON BY LYSANDER SPOONER (published 1867) (about the American Civil War)
  • "George the Third called our ancestors traitors for what they did at that time. But they were not traitors in fact, whatever he or his laws may have called them. They were not traitors in fact, because they betrayed nobody, and broke faith with nobody. They were his equals, owing him no allegiance, obedience, nor any other duty, except such as they owed to mankind at large. Their political relations with him had been purely voluntary. They had never pledged their faith to him that they would continue these relations any longer than it should please them to do so; and therefore they broke no faith in parting with him. They simply exercised their natural right of saying to him, and to the English people, that they were under no obligation to continue their political connexion with them, and that, for reasons of their own, they chose to dissolve it. [*14]
    What was true of our ancestors, is true of revolutionists in general. The monarchs and governments, from whom they choose to separate, attempt to stigmatize them as traitors. But they are not traitors in fact; in-much they betray, and break faith with, no one. Having pledged no faith, they break none. They are simply men, who, for reasons of their own --- whether good or bad, wise or unwise, is immaterial --- choose to exercise their natural right of dissolving their connexion with the governments under which they have lived. In doing this, they no more commit the crime of treason --- which necessarily implies treachery, deceit, breach of faith --- than a man commits treason when he chooses to leave a church, or any other voluntary association, with which he has been connected."
  • "The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any body but "the people" then existing; nor does it, either ex- [*4] pressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to bind anybody but themselves. Let us see. Its language is:
    "We, the people of the United States (that is, the people then existing in the United States), in order to form a more perfect union, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
    It is plain, in the first place, that this language, as an agreement, purports to be only what it at most really was, viz., a contract between the people then existing; and, of necessity, binding, as a contract, only upon those then existing. In the second place, the language neither expresses nor implies that they had any right or power, to bind their "posterity" to live under it. It does not say that their "posterity" will, shall, or must live under it. It only says, in effect, that their hopes and motives in adopting it were that it might prove useful to their posterity, as well as to themselves, by promoting their union, safety, tranquility, liberty, etc.
    Suppose an agreement were entered into, in this form:
    We, the people of Boston, agree to maintain a fort on Governor's Island, to protect ourselves and our posterity against invasion.
    This agreement, as an agreement, would clearly bind nobody but the people then existing. Secondly, it would assert no right, power, or disposition, on their part, to compel, their "posterity" to maintain such a fort. It would only indicate that the supposed welfare of their posterity was one of the motives that induced the original parties to enter into the agreement.
    When a man says he is building a house for himself and his posterity, he does not mean to be understood as saying that he has any thought of binding them, nor is it to be inferred that he [*5] is so foolish as to imagine that he has any right or power to bind them, to live in it. So far as they are concerned, he only means to be understood as saying that his hopes and motives, in building it, are that they, or at least some of them, may find it for their happiness to live in it.
    So when a man says he is planting a tree for himself and his posterity, he does not mean to be understood as saying that he has any thought of compelling them, nor is it to be inferred that he is such a simpleton as to imagine that he has any right or power to compel them, to eat the fruit. So far as they are concerned, he only means to say that his hopes and motives, in planting the tree, are that its fruit may be agreeable to them.
    So it was with those who originally adopted the Constitution."
  • At http://www.lawcasella.com/spooner/NoTreason.htm

• Dred Scott v. Sandford, McClean, J<
  • "No case in England appears to have been more thoroughly examined than that of Somersett. The judgment pronounced *535 by Lord Mansfield was the judgment of the Court of King's Bench. The cause was argued at great length, and with great ability, by Hargrave and others, who stood among the most eminent counsel in England. It was held under advisement from term to term, and a due sense of its importance was felt and expressed by the Bench.
    In giving the opinion of the court, Lord Mansfield said:
    'The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself, from whence it was created, is erased from the memory; it is of a nature that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law.'
    He referred to the contrary opinion of Lord Hardwicke, in October, 1749, as Chancellor: 'That he and Lord Talbot, when Attorney and Solicitor General, were of opinion that no such claim, as here presented, for freedom, was valid.'
    The weight of this decision is sought to be impaired, from the terms in which it was described by the exuberant imagination of Curran. The words of Lord Mansfield, in giving the opinion of the court, were such as were fit to be used by a great judge, in a most important case. It is a sufficient answer to all objections to that judgment, that it was pronounced before the Revolution, and that it was considered by this court as the highest authority. For near a century, the decision in Somersett's case has remained the law of England. The case of the slave Grace, decided by Lord Stowell in 1827, does not, as has been supposed, overrule the judgment of Lord Mansfield. Lord Stowell held that, during the residence of the slave in England, 'No dominion, authority, or coercion, can be exercised over him.' Under another head, I shall have occasion to examine the opinion in the case of Grace.
    To the position, that slavery can only exist except under the authority of law, it is objected, that in few if in any instances has it been established by statutory enactment. This is no answer to the doctrine laid down by the court. Almost all the principles of the common law had their foundation in usage. Slavery was introduced into the colonies of this country by Great Britain at an early period of their history, and it was protected and cherished, until it became incorporated into the colonial policy. It is immaterial whether a system of slavery was introduced by express law, or otherwise, if it have the authority of law. There is no slave State where the institution is not recognized and protected by statutory enactments and judicial decisions. Slaves are made property by the laws of the slave States, and as such are liable to the claims of creditors; *536 they descend to heirs, are taxed, and in the South they are a subject of commerce."
  • At http://www.soc.umn.edu/~samaha/cases/dred%20scott,%20mclean,%20j.htm

• Contemporary Editorials relating to the The Dred Scott Case (1857)
  • At http://history.furman.edu/~benson/docs/dsmenu.htm

• Landmark Supreme Court cases - Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
  • At http://www.landmarkcases.org/dredscott/home.html

  • ". . . . . . We think they [people of African ancestry] are . . . not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. . . ."
    - Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, speaking for the majority

• Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) - Diagram of How the Case Moved Through the Court System
  • At http://www.landmarkcases.org/dredscott/courtsystem.html

  • Superior Court of the United States (1857) : Found in favor of Sanford. Declared that African Americans are not citizens and thus have no rights

• CAA/OXFAM - Community Aid Abroad - Australian Charity
  • "Community Aid Abroad is Australian, independent, secular and community based. We are part of the eleven-member Oxfam International network of agencies. Our vision is of a fair world in which people control their own lives, their basic rights are achieved and the environment is sustained."
  • At http://www.caa.org.au
  • At http://www.caa.org.au/about/annual_report/accounts.html

• DOE List of Sensitive Countries
  • At http://www.lbl.gov/CJO/sensitive.html

• "The Curse of Ignorance" by Arthur Findlay
  • At http://www.cfpf.org.uk/recommended/books/findlay/findlay.html

• "The Curse of Ignorance" by Arthur Findlay
  • At http://www.skodun.is/archive/the_curse_of_ignorance.php

• No Book Has Divine Authority By Michael Roll
  • At http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/religion/nobook.html

• Is There a God? by Bertrand Russell (commissioned-but not published-by Illustrated Magazine in 1952)
  • At http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/religion/br/br_god.html

• Invisible Pink Unicorn (Blessed Be Her Holy Hooves, Peace Be Unto Her, or May Her Hooves Never Be Shod)
  • At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn

  • "For I did see my unworthiness in Her sight, for I was a sinner, destined forever to spend existence in the presence of the unholy Purple Oyster; Waxing his shell and massaging his most wretched and slimy feet. For, lo, the Purple Oyster doth truly have feet, and the legs thereof, and the toes thereof, giving him dominion over all the clams of the seas, and allowing him to go unto the children of men, and tempt them unto destruction."
    - The Revelation of St. Bryce the Long-Winded (Partial), Chapter One, Verses 9 to 11

• Flying Spaghetti Monster
  • At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

• Apathetic Agnostic
  • At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apathetic_agnosticism

• Welcome to The Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic "we don't know and we don't care"
  • At http://apatheticagnostic.com/

• Welcome to The Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic "we don't know and we don't care"
  • At http://www.apatheticagnostic.com/articles/meds/med02/med038.html

  • This should not be difficult... if such documentation really exists. There are a number of incidents reported in the four gospels relating to the life of Jesus that could very well have been recorded by observers at that time, if indeed the events occurred.

    For example:

    * Matthew 2.1: the wise men from the east - surely at least one of them would have written about such an important journey. They were wise men weren't they? And they visited Herod's court. That must have been documented in the palace records.

    * Matthew 2.16: Herod's ordering killing of all the male children in Bethlehem and vicinity, two years and under. There would have to be a record of such an order, perhaps even a message from the local Roman commander back to Rome saying "Guess what crazy Herod did now..."

    * Matthew 14.15 - 21: The feeding of the multitude with five loaves and two fishes: With five thousand people getting a free meal, couldn't one of them would have written about it at the time.[7]

    * John 11: The raising of Lazarus from the dead was widely reported and reached the ears of the chief priests and Pharisees who apparently discussed it. It seems reasonable that someone would have documented the incident.[8]

    * Matthew 26:14 - 15: The thirty pieces of silver; As anyone who has worked in a organization knows, you don't go spending thirty pieces of silver without filing an expense claim.

    * Matthew 27: The crucifixion - is there a record? The correspondent quoted in the opening seemed to feel so, even though he was unclear on dates. Whether 6 AD or the more commonly accepted approximately 27 - 33 AD, is there really any independent record of this specific event?

• The Historical Evidence for Jesus Christ? : A Further Response to Meditation 38 by Reverend Mark Crane
  • At http://www.apatheticagnostic.com/articles/meds/med02/med038d02.html

• Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation ("SLAPP")
  • At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation

• Warnings and Cautions for Writers--Print on Demand - Print on demand (POD)
  • At http://www.sfwa.org/beware/printondemand.html

• P.O.D. and You - Print-on-demand
  • At http://www.peacecorpswriters.org/pages/depts/resources/prntdmcoyne.html

• Lightning is a print-on-demand multi-facility printing company
  • At http://www.lightningprinting.com/
  • What's Available at Lightning Printing : http://www.lightningprinting.com/Lightning_Services.html

• Infinity Publishing - Print Books on Demand
  • At http://www.infinitypublishing.com/printondemand.htm

• Instabook Corporation - Print Books on Demand
  • At http://www.instabook-corporation.com/

• Have you or someone you know suffered at the hands of Johnson County? (Texas)
  • At http://www.FreeHoward.org/pages/3/index.htm

  • At http://www.freehoward.org/pages/2/index.htm

  • Actual Excerpt from Trial Transcript
    EXCERPT FROM COURT RECORD

    VOLUME 8 of 16
    PAGES 181-182

    (TESTIMONY OF LEAD DETECTIVE, Cross Examination)

    Q. Wasn’t that one of the first things you always look at, point of entry, when somebody, quote, burglarized the house to see how the whole thing started, how you got in?
    A. Yes, Sir, we looked, and there was no point of entry. There was no forced entry.

    Q. Would it be fair to say, Detective, that you have, in charging Mr. Whisenant, that we’ve ignored the medical evidence, we’ve ignored the alibi witnesses, we’ve ignored the lack of physical evidence and you are going purely on what Tracy Whisenant has told you?
    A. Somewhat, yes, sir.

    Q. Is anything I said untrue? The alibi witnesses back up Howard Whisenant; is that correct?
    A. Yes sir, that’s correct.

    Q. There is no physical evidence linking him to the crime; is that correct?
    A. Correct.

    Q. You have not fully reviewed the medical evidence from Harris Hospital where she went after she was shot?
    A. That’s Correct.

    Q. That’s the only evidence there is her testimony?
    A. That’s correct.

    Q. This is a situation, is it not, Detective, where you feel like you had to give the victim the benefit of the doubt?
    A. I couldn’t hear that, sir

    Q. Isn’t this a situation where you felt like you had to give the so-called victim the benefit of the doubt?
    A. No. No, sir. I believe her totally on what she told us

    Q. You haven’t always believed her.
    A. I didn’t talk to her until the day after

    Q. Three or four other investigators all thought it was self-inflicted; is that right?
    A. Yes, sir.

    Q. The big question in your mind at some point as to whether or not it was self-inflicted?
    A. At the beginning yes, there was.

    Q. And you could tell this jury that you’ve disregarded all this other evidence and charged Mr. Whisenant with this crime, but you’re not giving the benefit of the doubt to Tracy Whisenant—
    A. Yes, sir.

    Q. --because she is the alleged victim in this case?
    A: That’s correct. I can definitely say that. I definitely believe her.

• This is an application for a post-conviction writ of habeas corpus under Code of Criminal Procedure article 11.07
  • At http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/opinions/74108.htm

• BBC TV News Live
  • 350k Stream: http://windowsmedia.com/preview/asx/BBCworld350k.asx
  • 100k Stream: http://windowsmedia.com/preview/asx/BBCworld100k.asx

• DAY OF DECEIT: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert B. Stinnett
  • At http://www.liberty-tree.org/ltn/dayofdeceit.html

• Charles A. Beard and "President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War"
  • At http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north26.html

  • Consider the conservatives’ account of Roosevelt’s advance warning of the Japanese attack in late 1941. When George Morgenstern wrote Pearl Harbor: The Story of a Secret War, only right-wing Devin-Adair would publish it (1947). The book was ridiculed by academic historians as being a pack of unsubstantiated opinions written by a mere journalist – and a Chicago Tribune journalist at that. When the premier liberal historian, Charles A. Beard, said much the same thing the next year in President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War (Yale University Press), he was dismissed by his colleagues as senile, and he permanently lost his reputation. When the premier American diplomatic historian, Charles C. Tansill, said it again in 1952 in his Back Door to War (Regnery), he, too, was shoved down the liberals’ memory hole.

    Today, the revisionist account of Pearl Harbor is more widely accepted, and is gaining ground fast. Another journalist, Robert B. Stinnett, recently found the "smoking gun" – an 8-page 1940 memo by a lieutenant commander in the navy on how to get Japan to attack us, a memo that Roosevelt adopted, point by point. His book is titled, Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor (Free Press, 1999). Stinnett served under a young George Bush during World War II. His book is the capstone to his career.

  • It will be a long time before liberal historians get to stage 3: "We always knew it was true." They will not admit how they smeared the reputations of first-rate historians who told the truth early, and then for the next fifty years used their power over graduate schools and professional academic journals to screen out the truth. The issue was power, and liberals respect it and use it.

• President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941 by Charles Austin Beard: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0208002650/antiwrabookstore/104-0408254-2657544

• Things You Can't Say in America - FDR knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor : http://www.antiwar.com/cockburn/c060801.html

• Film exposes Allies' Pacific war atrocities : http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,500631,00.html

• Pearl Harbor - Mother of All Conspiracies
  • At http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html

• Concerning the "Fate" of the Ancients From the Latin of Justus Lipsius
  • At http://www.geocities.com/jerome_zanchi/Abs_Pred/Fate_of_the_Ancients.htm

  • So Seneca: "Eadem necessitas et deos alligat: irrevocabilis Divina pariter atque humana cursus vehit. Ille ipse, sequitur. Semper paret: Semel jussit." "The self-same necessity binds the gods themselves. all things, Divine as well as human, are carried forward by one identical and overpowering rapidity. The supreme Author and Governor of the universe hath indeed written and ordained the fates, but, having once ordained them, He ever after obeys them. He commanded them at first, for once, but His conformity to them is perpetual. This is, without doubt, very irreverently and very incautiously expressed. Whence it has been common with many Christian writers to tax the stoics with setting up a first cause superior to God Himself, and on which He is dependant.

• Concerning the "Fate" of the Ancients From the Latin of Justus Lipsius
  • At http://www.straitgate.com/books/zanchius/compfate.htm

  • it would be a most incontestible mark of weakness and dependence, the force of which argument made seneca, though a heathen, cry out, "Non externa Deos cogunt; sed sua illis in legem aeterna voluntus esst": "Outward things cannot compel the gods, but their own eternal will is a law to themselves."

• Seneca: Moral Epistles On Friendship Translated by Richard M. Gummere: III. On True and False Friendship
  • At http://www.molloy.edu/academic/philosophy/sophia/Seneca/friendship.htm

• Fake terror - the road to dictatorship
  • At http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/index.html

• Eleanor Roosevelt - Special Features (FBI File, "My Day" Column, Roosevelt Family Tree, Eleanor's TV Program)
  • At http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/sfeature/index.html
  • Eleanor Roosevelt's FBI File : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/sfeature/fbi.html
  • Mrs. Roosevelt says McCarthy is a menace

• National Archives and Records Administration - Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) resigning from the organisation - February 27, 1939
  • At http://www.nara.gov/exhall/originals/eleanor.html

  • "I regret exceedingly that Washington is to be deprived of hearing Marian Anderson, a great artist." --Eleanor Roosevelt, telegram to treasurer of Marian Anderson Citizens Committee, reported in the New York Times, February 27, 1939

    Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was First Lady for 12 years. An outspoken advocate of social justice, she became a moral force during the Roosevelt administration, using her position as First Lady to promote social causes.

    File copy of letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to president general of the DAR.

    In a dramatic and celebrated act of conscience, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) when it barred the world-renowned singer Marian Anderson, an African American, from performing at its Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. Following this well-publicized controversy, the federal government invited Anderson to sing at a public recital on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. On Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, some 75,000 people came to hear the free recital. The incident put both the artist and the issue of racial discrimination in the national spotlight.

    The DAR had adopted a rule excluding African-American artists from the Constitution Hall stage in 1932 following protests over "mixed seating," blacks and whites seated together, at concerts of black artists. You may read a 2-page letter from Mrs. Henry M. Robert, Jr., president general of the DAR, responding to Mrs. Roosevelt's resignation.

  • View of 75,000 people gathered to hear recital by Marian Anderson at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939 (National Archives, Still Picture Branch, 306-NT-965B-4 )

    In her autobiography, Anderson recalled the historic concert: "All I knew then was the overwhelming impact of that vast multitude . . . I had a feeling that a great wave of good will poured out from these people."

  • The documents shown here are from the papers of Eleanor Roosevelt, which are at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York. Other National Archives records relating to the 1939 Easter Sunday concert are among the Records of the National Park Service.

• Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)
  • At http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/daughters_of_the_american_revolu.htm
  • The DAR was founded in 1890 and is one of a number of hereditary orders in which the member must be a lineal descendent of someone allegedly historically significant and traceable back to the Revolutionary war. The most valuable pieces belong to the Daughters who have been dead the longest--perversely appropriate. This, of course, means the lowest serial number and one under ten thousand rates somewhere between the Holy Grail and a mint Billy Beer can. Rifle bars designate the Worshipful Ancestor and a brace of three or more gives an absolute aura of Patriotic Righteousness. Multiple bars also increase value but the fact that the medals and pins (and Daughters) are numbered tends to discourage this as an aftermarket enterprise. The Daughters are rabid historians and know exactly who all their members are--or were--related to. Pieces are usually by Caldwell and frequently 14K.

    Perhaps the most significant achievement of the Daughters was the banning of Marian Anderson from singing at Constitution Hall, a building they own in Washington D. C., in 1939. It would appear it had something to do with the fact that Anderson was black. Eleanor Roosevelt then invited Anderson to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial which she did to the thundering applause of seventy five thousand people--and the enduring embarrassment of the DAR. More recently, the Daughters similarly banned Joan Baez. They apparently don’t like Hispanics either.

    The Daughters have also demanded a recount of the gold in Fort Knox. President Truman responded by inviting the Daughters to come down to Kentucky and do the inventory themselves.

• Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)
  • At http://www.dar.org/

• WWI military record of Pvte J Guinness
  • At http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/imagine.asp?B=4391663&I=1&SE=1

• WWI military record of Wilfred HILARY - Barcode 5457960
  • At http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/ItemDetail.asp?M=0&B=5457960&NS=Y&T=1

• RPM - REPEAT PERFORMANCE MULTIMEDIA: London's Leading Studio for CD Mastering, Copy Masters, Digital Audio Editing, Graphic Design, CDR Duplication, CD Manufacturing, and Cassette Duplication - CD Burning
  • At http://www.repeat-performance.co.uk/
  • CD Manufacturing Templates for CD-covers: http://www.repeat-performance.co.uk/template.html
  • Tel: 020 8960 7222
  • Fax: 020 8968 1378
  • Repeat Performance Multimedia,
    6 Grand Union Centre,
    West Row,
    London W10 5AS

• Transco first4media
  • Buying CDRs in bulk - relatively cheaply
  • Transco first4media
    2 - 4 Dean St., (off Oxford St near Tottenam Court Road Tube station - South West)
    London W1V 5DD
    Tel: 020 7544 5400
  • At http://www.first4media.com

• People for the American Way - monitoring the religious right
  • At http://www.pfaw.org/

• Hurlburt Field - US Airforce - Image library
  • At http://www.hurlburt.af.mil/imageslink/

• American Eagle Foundation - preserving the American Eagle
  • At http://www.eagles.org/

• Eagles have their wings clipped
  • At http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19822.html
  • "The Eagles have lost a trademark infringement lawsuit against the American Eagle Foundation over the ornithological use of the www.eagles.org Web site.
    Don Henley and his legendary rock band launched legal proceedings against the not-for-profit conservation site in 1998 claiming that its Web site address, "800-2EAGLES" phone number and its "American Eagle Records'' compact disc and video distribution label was treading on the band's talons."

• Australian Tourism Links
  • At http://www.nttc.com.au/links/Links.asp

• Websites for kids
  • At http://www.globalcomputing.com/kids.htm

• NASA Classroom of the Future (COTF)
  • At http://www.cotf.edu/

• nutritional page Recommended: Banana ; Choclate Orange
  • At http://www.maximuscle.com/

• Nutrition Action Healthletter
  • At http://www.cspinet.org/nah/

• Nutrition Action Healthletter : TheDietChannel.com Best of the Web Award Review
  • At http://www.thedietchannel.com/Nutrition-Action-Healthletter-Review.htm

  • The Center for Science in the Public Interest, founded in 1971, is a nutrition advocacy organization working to educate the public about nutrition and health through the internet and their award-winning Nutrition Action Healthletter, the largest circulating health newsletter in the country. The CSPI site itself provides informative articles about topics from alcohol use to food safety to integrity in science. CSPI is involved in scientific research on issues relevant to food, alcohol, health and the environment and utilizes the legal system on all levels to promote and defend public interest. Its findings and results are all posted on its website along with current news, consumer tips, and ways to take action.

• Review of the Nutrition Action Healthletter - Facing the cold, hard truth about Kung Pao chicken
  • At http://www.epinions.com/mags-review-7F57-4142573-38D54EEA-prod5

  • Let me just preface this review right now by saying that I do not eat healthy. I dine out way too much for that. Come to think of it, I probably don’t exercise as much as I should, either.

    Which is why I always keep the Nutrition Action Health Letter on my coffee table. Together with my monthly copy of Shape magazine, I figure that, with all that valuable nutrition and fitness information sitting right in front of me as I watch TV, some of it has got to sink into my brain eventually. Diet through osmosis, I call it. :)

    You probably have already heard of the group that publishes NAHL -- the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). This is the group that first publicized the evils of Chinese restaurant food (Sept 93). They bought some of the most popular dishes from Chinese restaurants around the country, sent them to an independent lab for nutritional analysis, and then published the ugly results. How bad was it? How about an order of Kung Pao chicken that had the same amount of fat (76 grams) as four MacDonald’s Quarter Pounders? –- that’s more fat than a person should consume in an entire day.

    They really tell it like it is, no holds barred -- the cold, ugly truth about health and nutrition.

    What the NAHL is

    Created in 1974, the Nutrition Action Health Letter is a full-color 8-page health and nutrition newsletter that is published 10 times a year. Their advisory board includes more than a dozen MDs and PhDs from institutions such as Harvard Medical School, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Stanford University, and the National Cancer Institute. The NAHL contains no advertising, which means the newsletter is 100% information.

    Here are the three main reasons why I subscribe to the NAHL:

    #1: Brand name food comparisons

    • This is probably the most important feature of the NAHL. Any publication can tell you to eat less fat and sodium; NAHL rates name-brand products with their exact fat and sodium content. This makes it a virtual no-brainer to pick the right products at the supermarket!

    • Example: the March 2000 edition compares the nutritional value of various frozen fishsticks (a favorite meal of the under-12 crowd, or so I’m told). Four ounces of Mrs. Paul’s Healthy Selects Baked Fish Sticks has 3 grams of fat; the same amount of Gorton’s Crunchy Golden Fish Sticks contains 15 grams of fat.

    #2: Cheers and Jeers

    • The back cover of the NAHL always features the dynamic duo of “Right Stuff” vs. “Food Porn.” As you may guess, “Right Stuff” showcases a food product with high nutritional value, whereas “Food Porn” exposes another product for its lack of nutritional merit.

    • Example: In the January 2000 issue, cheers went to Mann’s Broccoli Cole Slaw prepared salad kit (using shredded broccoli instead of cabbage for the slaw results in meeting 150% of a day’s requirement for Vitamin C in a single 1-1/2 cup serving); jeers goes to T.G.I. Friday’s frozen potato skins, which have 510 mg of sodium and 17 grams of fat per serving.

    #3: Healthy recipes that are easy to prepare

    • Besides comparing name-brand items, the NAHL also provides recipes (from leading healthy cooking cookbooks) that supplement a particular story. It also provides a “Tip of the Month” for a quick and nutritious snack or dessert.

    • Example: “Place 4 peeled pears, with bottoms trimmed flat, in a bowl with 1 cup of water. Drizzle with the juice of ¼ lemon and microwave for 8 to 12 minutes. Discard the water and spoon 2 teaspoons of warmed raspberry or other preserves over each pear.” (From the January 2000 edition, and doesn't it sound yummy?)

    Other features of the NAHL

    The NAHL also contains in-depth articles (“Exploding Exercise Myths,” “Diet and Behavior in Children,” “Phytoestrogens for Menopause”). All articles are written for the average consumer, not the medical professional. Well-illustrated diagrams, colorful tables, and simple quizzes often accompany the articles, making the subject material even more engaging.

    NAHL versus the competition

    Consumer Reports publishes a competitive newsletter called “On Health.” It is also an 8-page newsletter of current health and nutrition issues, and also backed by a distinguished panel of medical professionals. While it offers the same type of information as the NAHL, it’s only a 2-color newsletter with fewer illustrations and tables. I also didn’t see any recipes in the one issue I received. For the same subscription price, I would recommend the more colorful and user-friendly NAHL.

    All in all

    If you’re a couch potato and the most exercise you ever get is to walk to the refrigerator, this newsletter might be overkill. But...if you are interested in learning about health and nutrition in small digestible chunks, and are particularly interested in brand-name food comparisons, this is a perfect addition to your coffee table!

• Go Bars
  • At http://www.scienceinsport.com/
  • At http://www.scienceinsport.com/Go-Bar.htm

• Protein Plus
  • At http://www.powerbar.com/products/proteinplus/
  • At http://www.powerbar.co.uk

• American Council on Education
  • At http://www.acenet.edu/

• Developing a Distance Education Policy for 21st Century Learning
  • At http://www.acenet.edu/washington/distance_ed/2000/03march/distance_ed.html

• The Royal Society (Scientific Academy)
  • At http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk

• JSTOR (Cliquey(?) electronic publishing of scholarly information on the internet?)
  • At http://www.jstor.org

• The home page of Bob Speel
  • Including "A Sculpture Walk in Marylebone, London", "Sculptures at Waterloo Place", "A Sculpture Walk in Hyde Park, London", "Kew Gardens" and "The Great Exhibition of 1851"
  • At http://www.speel.demon.co.uk/

• Penny Magazine online (1830's)
  • "The Penny Magazine, published every Saturday, was aimed at the working class. It was part of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge's program for liberal reform. For its reader, however, it was a source of information on subjects of general interest: everyday things like tea and coffee, well-known places in England, a series on animals and birds of Britain, descriptions of prsent-day manufacturing, even an American alaman and a serial of a personal account of an immigrant's problems. Poetry was published, too, and there are several illustrations in each issue."
  • At http://www.history.rochester.edu/pennymag/

• Toxicity of Earl Grey Tea
  • At http://nutritionnewsfocus.com/archive/a4/05-10-02.html

  • Too Much of a Good Thing

    There are optimal amounts of all nutrients. Too little and you get a deficiency. Too much and you can exhibit toxicity from certain vitamins and minerals. Too much of everything and you weigh more than you should. Tea has been promoted as preventing or curing everything that ails you.

    In the April 27-02 issue of The Lancet is a case report of a man in Austria who drank up to 4 liters (over a gallon) of black tea daily for 25 years. His favorite type of tea upset his stomach, so he switched to Earl Grey tea. A week after switching, he developed muscle cramps in one foot. Within five weeks, both feet, hands and one leg suffered from muscle cramps. He also had blurred vision. After five months the subject stopped drinking Earl Grey tea and the symptoms disappeared in a week.

    HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Earl Grey tea is flavored with oil of bergamot, extracted from a type of orange. This is also found in grapefruit and Seville orange juices, celery and parsnips. The chemical sensitizes skin to ultraviolet rays from the sun but also affects transmission in nerve cells. Don't overdo it is a message that bears repeating.

• Online Literary Criticism Collection
  • At http://www.ipl.org/ref/litcrit/

• Internet Public Library
  • At http://www.ipl.org/youth/

• John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895) Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh
  • At http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/lib/about/bgallery/Gallery/galleries/RECORDS/blackie.html

• The British Library
  • At http://www.bl.uk/
  • The British Library Public Catalogue (BLPC): Search the British Library: http://blpc.bl.uk/

• "Believed to be the most ambitious single digitisation project ever undertaken, nearly 150,000 English-language titles published between 1701 and 1800 will be available over the Web beginning June 2003."
  • At http://www.gale.com/press_room/18c-english.htm

• The British Library: Getting Music Manuscripts
  • At http://www.bl.uk/collections/music/overview.html
  • The British Library: Getting Music Manuscripts: FAQ: http://www.bl.uk/collections/music/questions.html
  • The British Library: Getting Music Manuscripts: Duration of copyright table: http://www.bl.uk/information/cro/coptable.html
  • The British Library: Getting Music Manuscripts: Manuscripts On-line: http://molcat.bl.uk/

• United States Copyright Office - Library of Congress : http://www.loc.gov/copyright/

• The British Library Copyright Office
  • At http://www.bl.uk/copyright

• The British Library Copyright Office - Duration of copyright
  • At http://www.bl.uk/services/information/coptable.html

• Reporting Copyright Problems
  • At http://www.wustl.edu/dmca/17usc512.htm

• Search Indexes and Request forms from the Australian National Libraries
  • State Library of Victoria on-line catalogue: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/slv/catalogue/
  • State Library of Victoria enquiry service: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/slv/inquiry_service/email.htm

  • National Library of Australia Music Collection: http://www.nla.gov.au/collect/musicoll.html
  • National Library of Australia Request Form: http://www.nla.gov.au/infoserv/rf_form.html
  • National Library of Australia: Document Delivery Services: http://www.nla.gov.au/dss/
  • National Library of Australia: Petherick Reading Room: http://www.nla.gov.au/infoserv/prr.html
  • National Library of Australia: Research & Information Services: http://www.nla.gov.au/pathways/pthw_library.html
  • National Library of Australia on-line catalogue: http://www.nla.gov.au/webpac/
  • National Library of Australia on-line catalogue: Music: http://webpac.nla.gov.au/webclient5.html

• Democracy Debased by Arundhati Roy
  • At http://www.forusa.org/Fellowship/July-Aug-03/Roy.html

  • "Arundhati Roy, author of the 1997 Booker Prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things"

• Barney the Dinosaur Loses Lawsuit Against Famous San Diego Chicken (August 26, 1998 )
  • At http://www.lw.com/news/pressRels/chicken.htm
  • "In an order dismissing the suit in its entirety, Judge John McBryde granted summary judgement against Lyons, holding that the parody performed by The Chicken was protected under the Copyright Act, the trademark laws and the First Amendment. According to Judge McBryde, " The Chicken's brand of humor is widely recognized and enjoyed." Balancing the First Amendment value of his humor against the likelihood of consumer education, the court held "free expression clearly prevails in this case.' In dismissing Lyons' claims, Judge McBryde stated, " this case presents a parody, pure and simple.""

• Barney barney makes dino outfit purple with rage
  • At http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19918.html
  • At http://www.cybercheeze.com/info/news/barneysuit.html
  • At http://www.cybercheeze.com/info/news/barneyreply.html
  • At http://www.cybercheeze.com/humor/list/31.html
  • An irreverent Web site has stuck two fingers up to annoying purple kids dinosaur "Barney" after being threatened with legal action over the "use and threat of violence towards the children's character".

    Cybercheese - which boasts "It's a joke doing business with you" - runs an item on its site entitled "150 Ways to Kill the Purple Dinosaur".

  • In a letter sent by attorney, Matthew W Carlin of New York-based Gibney, Anthony & Flaherty, LLP, the Lyons Partnership said it "vigorously objects to the unsavoury and unwholesome content that you [Cybercheese] have associated with its trademark and service mark Barney."

    It warned that Cybercheese was in breach of trademark and copyright laws and gave the site until June 27 to comply to its demands to remove the material or face the threat of further legal action.

    Last week Cybercheese replied to the legal letter threatening to counter sue if the Lyons Partnership proceeded with its lawsuit.

    It said: "This mouth is counsel to Cybercheeze, ("Media Beyond Inc."), the owners of the exclusive right to use the copyrighted term 'Kiss my ass'® as well as the federally registered and famous trademark and service mark 'piss off'.

    It continued: "It has come to the attention of Cybercheeze that you are operating an illegal scam called 'Strong Arm' under the guise of 'Intellectual Property'. We have reviewed your letter and found that it not only is about as intellectual as the purple quivering mass of gyrating goo you call Barney, but that it also is demeaning to everyone that visits our website and reads this worthless attempt and scare tactic."

    Cybercheese believes that the idea that "Barney is 'a recognised and distinctive famous trademark' slightly overrated" and points to a 1998 court ruling in which Barney's owners lost a similar case to "The Famous San Diego Chicken".

    At the time the judge ruled that a comedy sketch ridiculing Barney was nothing more than "a parody, pure and simple" and the copyright and trademark infringement case was thrown out of court.

    The success of that case has prompted Cybercheese to boast: "Lyons Partnership Can't do Dick!"

    Barney's attorney, Mr Carlin, told The Register: "This case is being discussed today. I'm not sure what we're going to do next."

• What is a (Canadian) Loyalists
  • At http://people.becon.org/~uela/uela4.htm

• Dr. Mardy's Quotes of the Week -- September 21-27, 2003
  • At http://www.chiasmus.com/archive/msg00142.html

  • Samuel Johnson said they "teach the morals of a whore and the manners of a dancing-master"

  • "Many learned persons have read themselves stupid." - Arthur Schopenhauer

  • "It is a source of consolation to look back upon those great misfortunes which never happened." - Arthur Schopenhauer

  • "There are some occasions when a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest." - Chesterfield

  • (T.S. Eliot) About television, he once wrote:

    "It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome."

  • "Delicate assaults sometimes hurt more than brutal and hostile ones."

• Dr. Mardy's Quotes of the Week -- September 14-20, 2003
  • http://www.chiasmus.com/archive/msg00141.html

  • "He who praises everybody, praises nobody." - Samuel Johnson
  • "There are occasions on which all apology is rudeness." - Samuel Johnson

  • "An Englishman who was wrecked on a strange shore and wandering along the coast came to a gallows with a victim hanging on it, and fell down on his knees and thanked God that he at last beheld a sign of civilization." - James A. Garfield

• Dr. Mardy's Quotes of the Week -- Sept. 28 - Oct. 4, 2003
  • http://www.chiasmus.com/archive/msg00143.html

  • "Religions are manipulated by those who govern society and not the other way around." - Gore Vidal

• Ignaz Semmelweis
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

  • Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (July 1, 1818 - August 13, 1865), also Ignác Semmelweis (born Semmelweis Ignác Fülöp), [1][2] was a Hungarian physician called the "saviour of mothers" [3][4] who discovered, by 1847, that the incidence of puerperal fever, also known as childbed fever could be drastically cut by use of hand washing standards in obstetrical clinics.

• Taxation no Tyranny: An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress. by Samuel Johnson
  • At http://www.samueljohnson.com/tnt.html
  • The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page : http://www.samueljohnson.com/

• Widger's Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Edition of Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son by Earl of Chesterfield edited by David Widger
  • At http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=3531

• You Are Nihilist Bear
  • At http://www.livejournal.com/users/thepersiancat/18105.html

  • You Are Nihilist Bear: you don't really like anything. Nothing matters enough for you to like it. The only thing you even remotely like is the idea that nothing is worth liking. As the antithesis of the typical Care Bear, you tend to have a lot of existentailist angst. You're an interesting mix of Goth and philosopher.

• AUSTRADE
  • At http://www.austrade.gov.au

• World Wide Words (Exploring the English language)
  • At http://www.quinion.com/words/

• Life of Riley (Exploring the English language)
  • At http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-ril1.htm
  • "There are several explanations for this phrase, all of them centring on popular music."

• English Slang
  • At http://www.effingpot.com/slang.html
  • "Blimey - Another exclamation of surprise. "Gawd Blimey" or "Gor Blimey" or even "Cor Blimey". It is all a corruption of the oath God Blind Me."

• Dan Amrich's Self-Indulgent Web Page!
  • At http://www.bunnyears.net/dan/index.html
  • The only people who are scared of Napster are the people who have filler on their albums and are scared that if people hear more than one single they're not going to buy the album. -Courtney Love
  • We're not afraid of the Internet. We think it's a very cool way to reach our fans. If a band sells 12 million albums, what are we supposed to say? "Oh, maybe we could have sold 13 million if we had just been Internet Nazis." -Dexter Holland (The Offspring)
  • When you think of Sesame Street, you don't think of Bert and Ernie and Big Bird drinking beer and wine. It's supposed to be milk and cookies. I don't think it's appropriate. Mel Kardos, township supervisor for Middletown PA, home of the Anheuser-Busch-owned Sesame Place amusement park--which no longer seeks a liquor license
  • Quality, as the old saying goes, rises to the top. -sportscaster Gary Radnich
  • The human race sucks. I can't wait 'til I die. -Ceasar, bitter artist

• Fact Sheets - Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
  • At http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/
  • "Australia 2000" Fact sheets from Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: http://www.dfat.gov.au/australia2000/

• Fandom.com vs Fandom.tv
  • At http://www.fandomfightsback.com/
  • At http://www.fandomfightsback.com/banners.html
  • Fandom Is a Noun and Not a Trademark: Boycott fandom dot com: http://www.dpsinfo.com/awardweb/boycottfandomdotcom.shtml
  • At http://www.fandomfightsback.com/letter.html

    Dear everyone, 
    
    Well, interesting things sure keep happening, don't they? 
    
    It seems there's an outfit out there calling itself Fandom, Inc. They've put
    together a website at www.fandom.com , and are now attempting to drive other
    websites with the word "fandom" in their top tiers off the 'net. 
    
    The owner of http://fandom.tv was hit with a cease & desist letter a couple of weeks
    ago. (Read it at http://fandom.tv/fcom .) Her response was met with a second letter
    ( http://fandom.tv/fcom/fcom2.html ). As some of you know, I work in an
    intellectual-property law firm, and have been communicating unofficially on this
    with the partner who handles trademarks; she seems unfazed by the language of the
    letters (pretty standard stuff), but is puzzled at F.com's insistence that they have
    exclusive rights to the word "fandom." Even if they have a trademark on it -- which
    they don't, by the way; the application was abandoned, presumably because the word
    is more generic than descriptive -- they should, she notes, at least recognize that
    there's a fair use problem, and if the matter went to ICAAN, fandom.tv would
    prevail. 
    
    A note about trademarks: the fact that the word "fandom" has been in routine use
    among fans since at least the 1970's does not preclude anyone from securing a
    trademark on it. Trademarks are not patents, and a mark need not be original to get
    protection. However. If, as in this case, the word is common -- or even if it's not;
    what if my name really were Leia Organa? -- a trademark-holder cannot legally stop
    someone else from making legitimate fair use of that mark. I can, therefore,
    trademark "Sugar-n-Spice" as the name of my bakery company -- but I can't prevent
    others from claiming that their baked goods include sugar and spice. 
    
    A note about domain names: the fact of registering a domain name confers no
    trademark rights on the registrant. These guys own fandom.com , which has no earthly
    bearing on anyone else's right to use the term. And, as I've noted, the application
    for a trademark on "FANDOM" by Fandom, Inc. seems to have been abandoned when the
    PTO refused to register the mark. 
    
    As you can see from the C&D letters, Fandom, Inc. is prepared to spend more money
    than most private citizens have at their disposal to protect their (get this)
    "famous and valuable mark" (standard legalese in this context, but pretty amusing).
    Don't let them win. Boycott fandom.com , and encourage your fannish friends to do
    the same. Tell them you're doing so, even. (Send a message to info@fandom.com) Visit
    http://fandom.tv , and send its operators a note showing you support them. I mean to
    say -- a lock on the word "fandom" so that even the fans themselves can't use it? I
    ask you. 
    
    If you disagree with me here, by all means, disregard this whole message. Hey, go
    lend your support to Fandom, Inc., if you're so inclined. It's a free country. But
    if, as I suspect, most of us are on the side of actual fans, 
    
    pass it on. 
    
    Fox 
    

• Billboard Liberation Front
  • At http://www.billboardliberation.com/
  • At http://www.billboardliberation.com/actions/
  • At http://www.billboardliberation.com/actions/e-Vision.html

    "By clicking below I agree to accept all Billboard Liberation Front (BLF) terms and conditions, explicit and implicit, rational and irrational, regardless of my location in physical space and irrespective of the laws of that or any jurisdiction. I understand that this website may contain subversive ideas, unsafe suggestions, hazardous memes, cultural contaminants and/or intellectual waste, and agree to hold BLF harmless, along with its agents and assigns, for any damages, psychic or otherwise, that may occur as a result. I further indemnify BLF and its operatives from any liability for expanded political or aesthetic consciousness and/or socioeconomic dementia. I understand that BLF is not responsible for lost or stolen items, and that any structural damage incurred during time of cultural warfare is outside of warranty and exempt from indemnification. I understand that some information in this website has been satirized for my protection. Known side effects of BLF agitprop include confusion, light-headedness, and mild mania. No animals or signmen were harmed in the production of this website. Use only as directed. Close cover before striking. Not intended as a substitute for direct action. "

• Industrial Research Chairs (IRCs) in Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Research
  • At http://www.nserc.ca/professors_e.asp?nav=profnav&lbi=b5_1#2

• Canada Research Chairs
  • At http://www.chairs.gc.ca/

• Laughing Squid
  • "laughingsquid.org: independent art and underground culture from San Francisco and beyond"
  • "laughingsquid.net: web hosting for artists, non-profits, individuals & small organizations"
  • At http://laughingsquid.com/

• Blow the Dot Com out your Ass.com - .com protest site
  • At http://www.blowthedotoutyourass.com/

• Cranswick Premium Wines
  • "various labels including Cranswick Estate, Haselgrove, Barramundi, Milburn Park, Salisbury and Cedar Creek"
  • At http://www.cranswickpremiumwines.com.au/

• How the Oxford English Dictionary went online
  • "Ariadne is published every three months by UKOLN. UKOLN is funded by re:source - The Council for Museums, Archives & Libraries (the organisation succeeding the Library and Information Commission), the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based"
  • At http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue24/oed-tech/

• UKOLN - The UK Office for Library and Information Networking
  • At http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

• The True Face of the Great War
  • At http://www.geocities.com/~worldwar1/trueface.html
  • "The official war photographers were not supposed to photograph the vast numbers of dead. The resason was simple. Their pictures had but one purpose: keeping up morale. Their pictures were checked and destroyed if they set the wrong tone.

    Of the five million photographs in the Imperial War Museum in Londen none would give you the impression that there were ever more than a couple of dozen dead to be seen at any one place.

    And how silly it may seem: researchers looking for pictures of dead soldiers are still not very welcome in this War Museum ('We are looked upon as traitors or freaks', one of these scholars wrote).

    As a result of this old and new censorship romantic and heroic illusions about the Great War still widely exist. Socalled re-enacting groups even replay war scenes like it was some kind of childrens play."

• Canadians Shot at Dawn
  • At http://home.cogeco.ca/~cdnsad/
  • At Newspaper Article
  • "Most of the soldiers shot for desertion were British. In addition to the 23 Canadians, five New Zealanders, four Africans and one Jamaican were executed."

• Executed For Example : Commemorating British Soldiers Shot during World War One
  • "Many became ill with the effects of this trauma related to 'battle-fatigue' or 'shell-shock'; these conditions are better known to us today as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome."
  • At http://www.clarkehome58.freeserve.co.uk/

• Shot at Dawn: For Armistice Day 2000 - Words Across the Years / Poetry
  • At http://www.clarkehome58.freeserve.co.uk/armistice.htm

• Shot at Dawn: Background Information
  • "During the war, as word spread of the occurrence and regularity of executions in the British army, questions were asked in the House of Commons about the circumstances and legality of such actions. In the years that followed the issue was continually raised and it was Ernest Thurtle MP, having served as a captain with first-hand experience of trench life, who was involved in the attempt to abolish the death penalty for offences, such as cowardice, desertion and sleeping at post."
  • "April 1930 - The new minority Labour government's Army and Air Force Bill, with an amendment by Ernest Thurtle MP, removed the dealth penalty for the military offences of cowardice and desertion."
  • "May 1997 - Dr John Reid (Minister of State for the Armed Forces) announced that a review, as sugggested in 1995 would now take place."
  • "24 July 1998 - Parliamentary Statement by Dr John Reid, concerning the Review of First World War Executions, during which he explained the reasons for not granting a full legal pardon, although sympathy was expressed for the victims and their families and it was requested that the stigma they had suffered be removed. It was suggested that the names of the soldiers be added to appropriate war memorials and books of Remembrance, where this had not already been done. Dr Reid also announced, subject to parliamentary approval, the abolition of the death penalty 'for military offences in the British Armed forces in peace and war'."
  • At http://www.clarkehome58.freeserve.co.uk/normal3.htm

• The Long Shadow
  • Short file by "ATG (Alfred the Great) Films, a small Hampshire-based production company: it tells the story of Private Reginald Tite of the Royal Sussex Regiment who was shot at dawn for cowardice on 25 November 1916. He was 27 years of age."
  • At http://www.atgfilms.co.uk/longshadow.html
  • At http://www.atgfilms.co.uk/people.html

• National Millenium Arboretum
  • At http://www.arboretum-nma.org.uk

• Chippenham's War Memorials
  • At http://www.chippenham-war-memorial.fsnet.co.uk

• Commonwealth War Graves Commission
  • At http://www.cwgc.org/

• Western Front Association
  • At http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/

• Siegfried Loraine Sassoon. (1886-1967)
  • At http://www.sassoonery.demon.co.uk/
  • London Times, Obituary: MR SIEGFRIED SASSOON: Poet, fox-hunter, soldier and pacifist: http://www.sassoonery.demon.co.uk/sass-obituary.htm

• "This site has been developed as an aid to those interested in the First War World, specifically Ypres"
  • At http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dccfarr/
  • Photographs Of Ypres: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dccfarr/photos.htm
  • Shot at Dawn Soldiers buried in cemeteries or commemorated on memorials in the Salient: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dccfarr/sad.htm

• Stephen's Study Room
  • "The subject is twentieth century British Criminal and Military History and includes an excellent bibliography. Of particular interest is an examination of Capital Courts Martial relating to members of both the Middlesex Regiment and the Royal Engineer"
  • At http://www.chippenham-war-memorial.fsnet.co.uk

• Shot at Dawn
  • "The SAD Campaign to Secure Millennium Pardons for British and Commonwealth Soldiers Executed During The First World War "
  • Information on LMF - Lack of Moral Fibre
  • At http://www.shotatdawn.org.uk/

• LESSER KNOWN FACTS OF WW II
  • Including number of executions of soldiers in WWII

  • Court Martial.  During the battle for Normandy, four British officers and 7,018 other ranks were court martialled for desertion.  Fifty nine officers and 3,628 other ranks were court martialled for other offences. The death sentence for desertion in the British forces was abolished in 1929. During World War 1, over 300 British and Commonwealth soldiers were shot for desertion and cowardice.

  • Execution. At 10.05am on January 31, 1945, Private Eddie D.Slovik, 36896415, of Company G, 109th.Infantry Regiment, US 28th.Infantry Division, was executed by a twelve man firing squad from his own regiment. The execution took place in the garden of a villa at No.86, Rue de General Dourgeois, in the town of St.Marie-Aux-Mines, near Colmar in eastern France.  Slovik, the son of poor Polish immigrants, was the only American since the Civil War to be shot for desertion. Of the hundred thousand or so GI deserters from the US Army, 2,864 were tried by General court-martial for desertion since the war began. Forty nine were sentenced to death but in only one case, that of Eddie Slovik, was the sentence carried out. Colonel James E. Rudder of the 109th Infantry Regiment would later write to his men "The person that is not willing to fight and die, if need be, for his country has no right to life". The villa at No.86 has since been demolished and three residential apartment blocks have been built on the site. The street name has also been changed.

    Military Crimes.    A total of 49 US soldiers were hanged for crimes that were committed on French soil after the D-Day landings. In the whole European theatre of operations, 109 civilians were murdered by American soldiers.  In Germany, 107 German nationals were murdered.

    In the same time, 214 US soldiers were also murdered by their own countrymen.
    Those sentenced to death for various crimes amounted to 443, (245 white men and 198 coloured).
    Only 21 per cent of those sentences were actually carried out.
    In France, there were 181 reported cases of rape that resulted in Court Martial.
    In Germany, there were 552 reported cases of rape by US Forces.
  • At http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/facts.html

• Trouble with undisciplined Aussies: No executions(?) in WWI of Australian Troops
  • "Some punishments however were not forced down on Australian troops. Though liable to be executed for mutiny, desertion to the enemy or treachery, the 129 Australians (including 119 deserters) that were sentenced to death during the war (117 in France) were not shot.

    The 1903 Australian Defence Act stipulated that the Governor General of Australia had to confirm the sentences passed by courts-martial - and he never endorsed the sentences. Although Haig made strong representations for power to inflict the extreme penalty upon Australian soldiers, the sanction was continually denied."

  • At http://www.geocities.com/~worldwar1/aussies.html

• Remembrance Day : Australia's "no death penalty policy" for troops in the first world war
  • "Even on the Western Front he had exercised his vote in the Australian elections and in the referendums as to conscription, and it was largely through his own act in these ballots that the Australian people had rejected conscription and that, to the end, the A.I.F. consisted entirely of volunteers. He was subject to no death penalty for disobedience or failure to face the enemy." (Source: 'The Australian Imperial Force in France During the Allied Offensive, 1918' ; reprinted in The Australian: Yarns, Ballads, Legends, Traditions of the Australian People, edited by Bill Wannan, Australasian Book Society, Melbourne, 1958, pp. 31-32.)"
  • At http://www.acn.net.au/articles/remembrance/index.htm

• The Heritage of the Great War: Shot at Dawn
  • Including number of executions of soldiers in WWII
  • "During the Great War many soldiers were executed. The armies wanted to set examples to the troops. "Do not walk away from our war - we shoot you if you do." The men were shot for desertion, cowardice (even if it was caused by shell shock or other mental affections), and other breaches of discipline. After the war all armies made their files on the executions top secret. Only these last years some of the archives have been opened and now, slowly, the truth becomes public. In France and England political debates have been started about demands for reviewing the sentences.

    In total British court martials condemned 306 soldiers to be shot at dawn. Among them were 25 Canadians, 22 Irishmen and 5 New-Zealanders. Australia was the only country that did not want its soldiers (all volunteers) to be executed.

    The German army carried out at least 48 death-sentences. The real figure is probably much higher; most documents seem to be destroyed.

    In the French army more than 600 soldiers were put to death. Little known is the French decimation (the shooting of every tenth person in a unit) of the 10e Compagnie of 8 Battalion of the Régiment Mixte de Tirailleurs Algériens. During the retreat at the beginning of the war these French-African soldiers refused an order to attack. They were shot on the 15th of December 1914 near Zillebeeke in Flanders"

  • At http://www.geocities.com/~worldwar1/index.html

• Censored pictures of the Great War
  • At http://www.geocities.com/~worldwar1/forbid.html

• Verdun 1916
  • At http://www.geocities.com/sander84/

• Refugees in The Netherlands during the First World War
  • At http://war1418.com/refugees/
  • Contents: http://war1418.com/refugees/english/vluchtelingen/pag02.htm

• No Consensus Yet on the Origins of the Great War
  • "Don't be fooled: there is no such thing as an historical consensus on the origins of the Great War. But there is something coming close to it.

    This happened before. In the past historians also almost reached a sort of mutual agreement on a revisionist interpretation which developed in the 1920's. Many years and thousands of studies later this interpretation is now, slowly, giving way for a new one.

    .
    Challenged
    This view of the origins of the war was challenged by the German historian Fritz Fischer. To the chagrin of other German intellectuals, who preferred the theory that the other countries involved in World War I were at fault, Fischer's concluded that the Germans under the Kaiser had expansionist goals in the war. Writing in the 1960's, in the aftermath of the Second World War, Fischer argued that leading groups in Germany - including the Kaiser - sought a war which would establish German control over much of Europe.

    .
    Ironic...
    Canadian leading military historian prof. Terry Copp, who wrote most of the summary above, adds that this 'new consensus' must seem ironic to allied First World War veterans, ,,...because it presents the origins of the war much as the people of 1914 understood them."

  • At http://www.geocities.com/~worldwar1/origins.html

• Breaking the conspiracy of silence: 'The Hero', by Siegfried Lorraine Sassoon (1886-1967)
  • At http://geocities.com/~worldwar1/hero.html

• 'On Passing the New Menin Gate', by Siegfried Lorraine Sassoon (1886-1967)
  • At http://www.geocities.com/~worldwar1/passing.html

• Links on internment in World War I: Links on internment in World War II
  • At http://war1418.com/refugees/links.htm

• Photos of the Great War: World War I - WWI
  • At http://www.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/photos/greatwar.htm

• Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Gardener"
  • "If any ask us why we died. Tell them 'Because our fathers lied'"
  • At http://geocities.com/~worldwar1/kipling.html

• Rudyard Kipling's "Mary Postgate"
  • At http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/kipling/postgate.html
  • "Mary Postgate" -- An Introduction: David Cody, Associate Professor of English, Hartwick College: http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/kipling/postgate.intro.html
  • Rudyard Kipling's "Mary Postgate" -- Another View: Dr Alexander Hutchison, Department of Educational and Staff Development, University of Paisley (Scotland) : http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/kipling/hutchison1.html

• Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia Library
  • At http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/

• The Project Gutenberg
  • At http://www.gutenberg.org

• The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bulchevy's Book of English Verse
  • At http://sailor.gutenberg.org/etext98/pgbev10.txt

• Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1728
  • At http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/s97th/

  • WE have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another

    No preacher is listened to but Time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that older people have tried in vain to put into our heads before

    When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

    It is unwise to punish cowards with ignominy, for if they had regarded that they would not have been cowards; death is their proper punishment, because they fear it most.

    The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing, and by the dullest nation, as the Germans.

    The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, hath, of all animals, the nimblest tongue.

    When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.

    It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.

    Some men, under the notions of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue, honesty, and religion.

    I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.

    It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of a spider.

    Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.

    The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

    If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.

    Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.

    Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is, in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.

    No wise man ever wished to be younger.

    Praise is the daughter of present power.

    How inconsistent is man with himself!

    I have known men of great valour cowards to their wives.

    I have known men of the greatest cunning perpetually cheated.

    Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy when great ones are not in the way. For want of a block he will stumble at a straw.

    If books and laws continue to increase as they have done for fifty years past, I am in some concern for future ages how any man will be learned, or any man a lawyer.

    A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.

    Apollo was held the god of physic and sender of diseases. Both were originally the same trade, and still continue.

    Laws penned with the utmost care and exactness, and in the vulgar language, are often perverted to wrong meanings; then why should we wonder that the Bible is so?

    Although men are accused for not knowing their weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength

    A man would have but few spectators, if he offered to show for threepence how he could thrust a red-hot iron into a barrel of gunpowder, and it should not take fire.

• UK Museums, Archives and Libraries Worldwide - www.resource.gov.uk
  • At http://www.resource.gov.uk/

• Team Building Example - Work Well With Others - insect/fly powered flying model.
  • At http://www.email.net/work-well-together.html

• Satires of Juvenal (in English)
  • At http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/juv-sat1eng.html
  • At http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/booklibrary/books/bibliographie/index/j/juvenal.htm

  •  ..Introduction
     ..Satire 1
     ..Satire 2 
     ..Satire 3 
     . Satire III: On the City of Rome c. 118 CE 
     ..Satire VI
     ..Satire VI (xi.199-304, 475-503): The Women of Rome. 
    

• Satires of Juvenal (in Latin)
  • At http://www.curculio.org/Juvenal/

• The Elixer By George Herbert (1593 - 1633)
  • At http://www.aol.bartleby.com/236/23.html

  • Teach me, my God and King,  
    In all things Thee to see,  
    And what I do in any thing  
      To do it as for Thee.  
      
        Not rudely, as a beast,  
      To runne into an action;  
    But still to make Thee prepossest,  
      And give it his perfection.  
      
        A man that looks on glasse,  
      On it may stay his eye;  
    Or if he pleaseth, through it passe,  
      And then the heav'n espie.  
      
        All may of Thee partake:  
      Nothing can be so mean  
    Which with his tincture, 'for Thy sake,' 
      Will not grow bright and clean.  
      
        A servant with this clause  
      Makes drudgerie divine;  
    Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws  
      Makes that and th' action fine. 
      
        This is the famous stone  
      That turneth all to gold;  
    For that which God doth touch and own  
      Cannot for lesse be told 
    

• George Herbert's Temple
  • At http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~kramarsky/herbert/temple.html

• Goodenough college - London - accomodation
  • At http://www.goodenough.ac.uk/

• Web Ring of Irony
  • At http://www.satire.demon.co.uk/irony.html

• Wildlife Trust
  • At http://www.wpti.org/
  • USA Offices: 61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964

• Lamont Sanctuary
  • At http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/ps/alumni/stay0025.html
  • Lamont Nature Sanctuary offers a respite from the city's concrete and granite. The Sanctuary's trails wander through 23 magnificent acres of Woodlands and nature tracts atop New Jersey's Palisades-all only one-half hour from Manhattan.

• Lamont-Doherty Nature Sanctuary
  • At http://nynjctbotany.org/whudson/lamont.html

• Dame Shirley Porter : The Westminster bloodhounds are closing in
  • At http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=365995

• Project Gutenberg Presents - The Diary of Samuel Pepys - edited by Henry B. Wheatley
  • At http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=4200
  • At http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03/sp85g10.txt

• The Diary of Samuel Pepys
  • At http://www.pepysdiary.com/

• Kelvin is Lord!: ALL PRAISE THE LORD KELVIN! Only The One, True Lord KELVIN Can Conserve You From Entropy!
  • At http://zapatopi.net/lordkelvin.html
  • Kelvin's Kids Club: http://zapatopi.net/kkc.html
  • The Writings of Lord Kelvin: http://zapatopi.net/kelvinplist.html
  • Happy Kelvinmas: http://zapatopi.net/kelvinmas.html

• The meept bids hello to his slapdash friends, for it is unlikely that the meept would be known by others.
  • The meept cannot speak as yet, as the meept does not yet have an audience.
  • When the meept's logs are full. Then shall the meept speak.
  • You must spread the word. You are meept's missionary. You must name meept and www.gloriousmeept.com whenever your fingers strike keys.
  • At http://www.thegloriousmeept.com/

• The Truth about Black Helicopter: Secrets THEY Don't Want You To Know About!: Black Helicopter Autopsy Photos!
  • At http://zapatopi.net/blackhelicopters.html

• AFDB Homepage - Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie (An Effective, Low-Cost Solution To Combating Mind-Control)
  • "AMIGA AND LINUX USERS: It is advised that you get a copy of MindGuard for your personal anti-psychotronic needs. Although an AFDB is an effective guard against most forms of psychotronic mind-control, it is no substitute for the comprehensive protection afforded by MindGuard."
  • "However, you should avoid American and European coins at all costs as they contain aluminum based mind-control circuitry. Canadian coins are free of this threat mainly due to the Canadian governments's choice of neglecting psychotronic research in favor of research into giant robotics."
  • Warning signs of psychotronically affected pets:
    • Does your cat stare intently at empty space as if watching something?
    • Does your dog follow you around as if keeping track of you?
    • Does your goldfish seem content to merely swim around in a little bowl observing you?
    • Does your parrot say things that you never taught it to say, especially pro-NWO slogans?
  • At http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html
  • 

• BELGIUM DOESN'T EXIST!
  • At http://zapatopi.net/belgium.html
  • 

• "French Fries are really Belgian, no?"
  • At http://www.tx7.com/fries/docs/questions.html#belgium

• Why are search engines so crap? - Why I hate the internet
  • At http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/search.htm

• Michael Kelly's Page of Misery - Home of the 'French Intellectuals in Afghanistan' thing
  • At http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/

• Michael Kelly's Page of Misery - HOW TO BE CALM
  • At http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/calm.htm

  • Are you filled with self-loathing and paranoia? Is your life one long silent scream of rage and resentment? Do you feel as though every day hideous ego-mutilations and psychic amputations are being performed upon you? Do you have dreams in which your mouth is sewn up and your limbs and organs are removed one by one until all that's left of you are your pain-filled eyes staring in horror at what has been done to you and mutely framing the question Why? forever and ever?
    ..Do you look in the mirror and want to perform cosmetic surgery on yourself with a hedge-trimmer? Do you think Franz Kafka was too upbeat? Do you scurry furtively along streets like a hunted animal, your guts knotted with fear, hated by everyone, chased by the mocking laughter of girls, men, old people, children and priests? Do you believe that the world is the plaything of bastards, thieves, whores and murderers and that you were born to be their victim always and forever? If your boss asks you to do something, do you look to see if he has an erection from ordering you around? Do you think about stapling his tie to his forehead? Or his tongue? His tongue would be better. Do you think you are the only sane person left? The only human in a world of cruel and savage carnivores? Do you think you must be the most evil person who has ever lived and you deserve to be degraded and shat on and submerged in slime? Do you get tense toenails? Does the speaking clock hate you? Does God hate you? Would Mother Theresa have punched you and spat on you if you'd ever met? Do you feel as though you are strapped to a conveyor belt hurtling you towards some hideous and inescapable doom you probably deserve anyway? Trapped in the toils of a vast and elaborate mechanism designed to grind you into tiny pieces? Do you feel like you're always walking across a very thin sheet of ice which could crack at any moment, dropping you down to drown forever in an infinite inky-black lake of unnameable horror?
    ..Well for Christ's sake snap out of it. Jesus, you're worse than I am.
    ..What you need is to be calm. Here is a page to help you do that, full of simple but effective relaxation techniques. Practise them daily and soon you will be as well-balanced and together as me.
    ..I have taken cues from various popular works on relaxation and self-help, but nothing I could be sued for. Incidentally, why the hell is the Little Book of Calm so small and easy to misplace? The number of times I've ended up smashing up my room with a cricket bat looking for the fucker, yelling, "Come out, you evil little paper turd, I'll kill you when I find you!" Also, if you read it for long enough it starts to look like it's a normal-sized book and you've got huge hands, very calming I don't think. And for those of us with unpublished manuscripts lying around, the mere fact that such mindless pap can sell 2 billion copies is enough to make you want to run amok with an axe. Little Book of Bastard, more like.
    ..But we are being calm now.
    The Joy of Calm
    WEAR A BIG GRIN
    ..A smile a day keeps the electro-shocks away!
    ..Smiling can help you through any stressful situation. When your boss calls you a cretin, grin. On crowded public transport, smile manically at the people around you until your cheeks start to hurt. They'll feel so friendly they'll move up to give you lots of room!
    WAGGLE YOUR EARS
    It's impossible to be unhappy whilst waggling your ears. If you can't do it, get someone else to do it for you!
    TALK WITH A SOFT VOICE
    A really sinister one like Donald Pleasance's. Stare intently at people's jugular veins or the place where their ears join onto their heads.
    ..You'll be surprised by the increased respect you get.
    BARRICADE THE DOOR
    ..Every day, shut yourself away for a while and attend to your own needs.
    ..Masturbation is nature's own way of easing stresses and strains.
    ..Do it for at least an hour a day.
    MAKE A DATE TO ARGUE
    ..If you have a disagreement with someone, don't have it out there and then. Arrange to meet later to discuss it when you're both in a calmer frame of mind. Get there early and be waiting for them with a baseball bat.
    CHOOSE YOUR COMPANY CAREFULLY
    ..It sounds harsh, but avoid people who are good-looking or successful or naturally happy, as they can be very depressing to be around. Hang out with glowering wretches like yourself instead. Make friends with people uglier than you, if there is anyone, which there probably isn't.
    LISTEN TO YOUR HEARTBEAT
    ..Is that a slight arrhythmia? You'll probably be dead soon. You'll have no problems then.
    THINK OF SOMETHING POSITIVE
    ..Make a list of ten people who have achieved something with their lives. Now imagine them all on a mini-bus going over a cliff. Imagine their screams as they lie mangled in the burning wreckage. Grin. Waggle your ears.
    STEAL SOMEONE'S PEN
    ..Rather than harbouring grudges or engaging in stressful confrontations, get back at annoying bosses or workmates by stealing something belonging to them or hiding rotting food in their desk.
    MAKE FRIENDS WITH A MASSEUSE
    ..Or a lapdancer.
    DO TAI CHI
    ..This soothing brand of herbal tea is available at most health shops.
    DO THAI WEED
    ..The THCs in cannabis are nature's own magic recipe for calmness.
    ELIMINATE THE NEGATIVE
    ..As much as possible try and use positive words, such as 'Yes', 'Oui', 'Javoll', etc. Avoid negative words like 'No', 'Non', 'Nein', etc. If you absolutely have to use negative words, be vibrant and upbeat about them. If your boss asks you if you've completed a project you should have finished three days ago and you haven't, cheerfully tell him, "Good Christ, no!" and grin. Then steal his pen.
    VISUALIZE SUCCESS
    ..If there is something you want to make happen, visualize it happening.
    ..For example, if you want to ask someone out on a date, visualize yourself asking them. Visualize them saying yes. Visualize the date being a great success. Visualize them coming back to your place and taking their clothes off. Visualize them lying on your bed in an attitude of erotic abandon. Now barricade the door.
    ..This is much safer than really asking them out. They would have just laughed at you anyway.
    SMOKE LIKE A CHIMNEY
    ..Smoking is relaxing, and it gives you something to do with your hands. Otherwise, they'd be fidgeting around and people might notice how gnarled and ugly they are.
    HAVE A SECRET
    ..Having a secret none of your workmates know is healthy for your ego.
    ..It could be quite a big secret, like sending death threats to establishment figures or selling dope to schoolchildren.
    ..Or it could just be a cute little secret, like coming to work in rubber underwear, or having milk-bottle tops sellotaped to your nipples, or keeping a Cadbury's Mini-Egg in your belly-button.
    ..Now look at those peasants surrounding you. They don't know.
    SNIFF SOME KNICKERS
    ..Sniffing knickers is nature's way of releasing calming hormones. That's why racing drivers wear them over their faces.
    TAKE A BREAK FROM THE ROUTINE
    ..At work, sit at someone else's desk for a change. Pretend to be them. Mimic all their mannerisms and only respond to their name. Follow them home and try to sleep with their spouse.
    HAVE A DIVINE MISSION
    ..Feeling you have a divine mission to punish wrongdoers or lead the world towards the light is beneficial for your self-esteem. And if you let other people know about it, they will be more careful of your feelings.
    ..Practise muttering something like this: 'I am Jehu son of Nimshi, appointed by Elijah to slay all sons of Baal.'
    MORE MASTURBATION
    ..Did I say to do it for an hour a day? Try two and then build up to four. Do it on stressful bus and train journeys. Remember to smile at people.
    PRETEND YOU ARE A GOLDFISH
    ..Open and close your mouth. Have to have things repeated to you every 4 seconds. Waggle your ears.
    HIDE IN CUPBOARDS
    ..It's really fun.
    DON'T EAT SENSIBLY
    ..Pretend your elbow joints don't bend and you have to throw food towards your mouth. You'll be surprised how much more fun mealtimes become. In a canteen or restaurant, it will make you lots of new friends.
    LICK A BALD PERSON'S HEAD
    ..Licking scalps is nature's way of releasing natural endorphins.
    CALL AN OLD WOMAN A SLUT
    ..You'll be surprised how empowered you feel.
    LAUGH HYSTERICALLY AT NOTHING
    ..Suddenly sober up. Cry.
    AUTOEROTIC ASPHYXIATION
    ..Taking fewer breaths is very relaxing.
    ..Don't barricade the door in case the police need to get in.
    BE A WINDMILL
    ..Wave your arms around like the sails of a beautiful big windmill. Isn't that fun? Now run down the street like that blowing raspberries at people. Now take your pants off.
    ..Mental hospitals are very relaxing places.

• SOME LIVES OF OBSCURE SAINTS
  • At http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/saints.htm

    'If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her...
    And if the man like not to take his brother's wife...
    Then the elders of the city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;
    Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face...
    And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.'

• Leaflets of the Simplified Spelling Society
  • At http://www.spellingsociety.org/pubs/leaflets/whyeng.html

• WHY ENGLISH SPELLING SHOULD BE UPDATED
  • At http://www.spellingsociety.org/pubs/leaflets/whyenglish.pdf

• A Brief History of the Future - Headlines from tomorrow
  • At http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/future.htm

  • Fresh doubts on ethical foreign policy as British firm wins contract to re-arm IRA
  • Blair apologizes to descendants of fish killed in Dambusters raid
  • Doctor 'ate patient's leg' while nurses laughed
  • Supervirus kills 12, escapes in stolen car
  • Cigarettes to be edited out of classic films
    Bogart and Bacall will nibble carrots
  • EEC prosecutes UK marijuana dealer for using Imperial weights
  • Police must be given dinosaurs, says Hague
    William Hague has called for the police to be armed with dinosaurs as soon as the genetic engineering technology becomes available.
    "People would think twice about snatching a handbag or stealing a car if they saw a policeman riding towards them on a stegosaurus or triceratops," he told a meeting of Conservative activists last night, promising that the next election would be fought on a slogan of "a diplodocus in every street." He continued, "Imagine if police could fly around on a fleet of pterodactyls, swooping down wherever they spotted a crime. That is the kind of Britain I want."
    New Labour spokesmen were quick to respond, pointing out that Tony Blair had first suggested the idea of a police Dinosaur Response Unit in a talk to a group of Girl Guides six months ago and that Jack Straw has repeatedly called for the formation of crack Special Branch squads riding some kind of slimy giant caterpillars.
  • GM crops smash up nightclub
  • EC to enforce hairy armpits for British women
  • Stealth blackboard eraser will give teachers more firepower
  • Archbishop of Canterbury to shave arse for Telethon
  • EC to enforce quota of Edith Piaf songs at Last Night of the Proms
  • Parliament to become Age of Democracy theme park
  • Kelly rescued from prison by 50-foot Catherine Zeta Jones monster
    Police give chase on dinosaurs
  • Royal Family sold to Disney
  • EC bans Union Jack
  • Monroe clone 'may have taste for flesh'
    The bizarre story of the man who cloned Marilyn Monroe in his bedroom took a fresh twist last night when it emerged that the duplicate may be a mutant with a taste for raw flesh.
    Michael Kelly, who claims to be in his late middle twenties and gives his occupation as 'Student of life', is currently awaiting trial after cloning Miss Monroe in his bedroom at his parents' house. Kelly obtained samples of the actress's DNA sequence from memorabilia on display at a Planet Hollywood restaurant and created the doppleganger with a do-it-yourself cloning kit purchased mail-order from Libya. Although the clones grow to adulthood in a matter of hours, they have no knowledge of the world whatsoever and Kelly appears to have trained the Monroe duplicate to think of him as God. He kept her hidden in a wardrobe when his parents were around and his mother first became suspicious when she heard a voice singing, 'My heart belongs to Daddy,' whilst tidying his bedroom.
    Yesterday social workers attempting to de-program the clone, who still refers to Kelly as 'The Master', claimed that something had gone wrong in the cloning process and that the creature was a vicious mutant with unusual carnivorous tendencies and a prehensile tongue. Meanwhile Kelly's mother attested that the corpses of several missing household pets had been found in the wardrobe where the Monroe creature was kept. Their heads had been bitten off and their bodies cocooned in a strange substance resembling a spider's web.
    Kelly has refused to comment on the claims except to quote the last line of Monroe's film Some Like It Hot: 'Nobody's perfect.'
    Speculation was mounting last night that this may not have been Kelly's first attempt at cloning a 20th Century actress. In particular, police may now have to give credence to a local farmer's claim that Sophia Loren has been savaging his sheep. They may also have to re-open the case of Kelly's neighbour Elsie Jennings, 82, who was taken into psychiatric care after claiming a six-inch tall Rita Hayworth had attempted to bite through her jugular. Significantly, during preliminary interviews with police Kelly said that he had been in relationships with women before Miss Monroe but 'they didn't work out' and that he 'had to give them their freedom.'
    Questions will be asked in the House of Commons today about how sophisticated bio-technology came to fall into the hands of a man described by his high-school science teacher as 'a certifiable imbecile'. Frank Bateman, 56, who lost his eyebrows in a freak explosion resulting from Kelly's attempt to follow a simple experiment to find the boiling point of water, said last night, 'God help us all. Christ only knows how many more hideous blood-sucking golems he has unleashed upon the world. The man is a moron.'

• THE NAKED SKEPTIC - Exposing pseudoscientific myths ranging from the highly dangerous to the amusingly crankish - Fly Me to the Moon
  • At http://www.control.com.au/237skeptic.htm

  • Can it really be 33 years since Neil Armstrong spoke the immortal words” “That’s one small step for man”? Yes, it was a third of a century ago when men made the historic journey and walked on the Moon, yet there are still those around who assert that it never really happened at all. Only last year a widely shown TV pseudo-documentary posed the question: “Were the Apollo Moon landings a hoax?”

    Such science-related conspiracy theories usually betray a lamentable lack of understanding of even the rudiments of science in their proponents, and this one is no different. A thread that runs through all anti-Apollo conspiracies concerns the photographs brought back by the astronauts. The most common objection is one that even otherwise intelligent people frequently fall for: “No stars are visible in the sky in any of the photographs taken from the Lunar surface”.

    They are right. Try as you might, you won’t find any stars in photos taken on the lunar surface by any of the astronauts. However, contrary to what the conspiratologists would like us to believe, that is precisely what we should expect to see (or not to see). As with other misconstrued beliefs, there is more than a little psychology mixed in with the physics in this problem.

    Consider some facts. Because we have sunlight and an atmosphere on Earth, in the daytime we see a blue sky while at night we see a black sky speckled with stars. By contrast, on the Moon in the daytime, because there is no atmosphere (but there is sunlight), we would see a black sky, whereas at night we would see a black sky speckled with stars. This is where the psychology comes in - if the sky is black we expect to see stars, but the reason we don’t see stars in the daytime is not primarily because of the atmosphere, it is because of the sunlight.

    Until recently, if you wanted to take a photograph you had to set the aperture, set the time and then focus the camera. In bright sunlight if you wanted to snap a picture of the spouse and kids standing by the family car, you set a small aperture, a moderate speed, focused and went click. We all have examples of these snapshots, so look through the family albums to see just how many of these photos show stars. (Don’t bother, you have none.) The stars were there all right, they were just too dim to be seen by your stopped-down eyes, or captured by the film. To shoot stars you need to set a wide aperture, a very slow speed and wait until the Sun is well below the horizon.

    The same thing applied to the cameras used by astronauts on the Moon. You can’t see stars in their photos for the same reason that you can’t see them in your holiday snaps - their cameras were set up to take pictures of each other, the lander and the surroundings, not the stars in the sky. The fact that the lunar sky was black had nothing to do with it - the fact that the Sun was up (all lunar landings took place in the morning) had everything to do with it.

    Almost as popular an objection is the notion that shadows shown in the photographs are somehow wrong, but this one is just as readily demolished. It holds that, with no atmosphere to scatter the Sun’s light, anything not in direct line with the Sun should be in pure black shadow.

    This would be fine if air is the only thing capable of reflecting light, but it isn’t. The lunar surface is also a pretty good reflector (if it wasn’t we would never be able to see the Moon from here), as are all those shiny panels on the lander and the white space suits worn by the astronauts.

    Slightly more subtle is the objection to a couple of photos that show two shadows that seemingly converge. That shouldn’t happen if the only light source is the Sun, but careful scrutiny of these photos shows that the “convergence” is simply an optical illusion caused by shadows running down a sloping surface.

    Simple facts or rational thought will never convince dedicated conspiratologists that they are wrong, but there is no reason why we should give them credence simply because a TV producer thinks the story would sell soap powder.

    For a comprehensive demolition of the entire “Apollo was a hoax” myth, the best place to start is with the Bad Astronomy web site (www.badastronomy.com).

    Barry Williams is Editor of The Skeptic (www.skeptics.com.au).

• Moon Hoax
  • At http://www.dc8p.com/html/moonhoax.html

• THE MOON: A Propaganda Hoax
  • At http://www.reptiles.org/~madrev/Moon/The-Mad-Revisionist.htm

• Star Trek = Satan Trek
  • Parody is not dead.
  • At http://www.astroatlas.com/tzimisce69/

• Real Water
  • Not sure if this is Parody or the "real-thing"(?)
  • At http://www.real-water.com/
  • At http://www.real-water.com/rwater.html

• Stone Trek
  • Great site and graphics - Star-trek meets the Flintstones (more like Simpsons meets Star-trek with plot line)
  • At http://www.angelfire.com/fl/sapringer/STONETREK.html
  • Stonetrek: (Macromedia Flash Quicktime Animation) at http://www.stonetrek.com/
  • Stonetrek: "The Deadly Ears - Part 2" (Macromedia Flash Quicktime Animation Cartoon): http://www.angelfire.com/fl/sapringer/THEDEADLYEARS2.html

• alt.brotherjed FAQ
  • New address at http://www.eilertech.com/faqs/jedfaq.htm

    If the group were stranded on Gilligan's Island, what would the theme song be? 
    
       "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
       A tale from Brother Jed,
       Some religious types and some alien dorks
       The latters' brains were dead.
       The mate was an anal preacher dude
       The skipper anal too
       The rest were a dirty heathen lot
       A rotten hellbound crew!
       The language started getting rough
       The small N.G. was tossed
       They argued all religious points
       Like the man who'd once been Crossed.
       The group's adrift in the midst of this uncharted cyberspace,
       With Brother Jed
       And Lawyer Jim
       The alien dork
       Disco Queen
       The psycho witch
       The Juggler and Erin too
       Here on Brother Jed's grooooooup!  ;)"
    

• The NOTs (New Era Dianetics for Operating Thetans) Scholars Home Page (Scientology)
  • At http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/NotsStudy/index.html

• In OT III, ("OPERATING THETAN, Section Three")
  • At http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/fishman/ot3.html

• In OT III, ("OPERATING THETAN, Section Three")
  • At http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/fishman/ot3.html

• OT III - Scientologys "secret" course rewritten for beginners - Jon Atack
  • At http://www.spaink.net/cos/essays/atack_ot3.html

  • The following is for inclusion among the Atack files at the internet homepages of Karin Spaink and Tilman Hausherr.

    Not for publication or distribution in the United Kingdom. Copyright Jonathan Caven-Atack, 1996. This material may be published in its entirety in any form, except by members or agents of the supposed religion of Scientology (to include all members of the International Association of Scientologists and their agents, heirs and assigns), who must pay $250,000 to Karin Spainks legal defence fund prior to copying or reading the following. Anyone publishing this document accepts full liability for its contents. Copying or reading or being in possession of this document constitutes an agreement to all of the foregoing conditions. Karin Spaink is hereby given the right to sue any violator on behalf of the author and to put the proceeds of such action towards the defense of herself or anyone else suffering litigation from the cult.

    OT III - Scientologys "secret" course rewritten for beginners

    According to Scientology theory, we are all multiple personalities made up of hundreds of compacted extraterrestrial entities. We have reincarnated for 75 million years since this happened to us all. Scientology has claimed that this is a business trade secret...

    There has been great controversy, and massive litigation, concerning the Scientology cults once secret "Operating Thetan Section Three Course". To save the brain strain of reading this purportedly lethal material in the original Ronspeak, and to save any danger of litigation for violation of copyright, this version is humbly tendered as a gift to mankind...

    Scientologists believe that they have reincarnated from before the beginning of time. They believe that many interplanetary civilizations have existed. Hubbard restyled the spirit the "thetan". Before the beginning of time, thetans existed, separate from one another (thetans were not created they have existed for all time and indeed precede the creation of time). With the creation of energy and matter, thetans have gradually become trapped. The principal method of entrapment is through "implanting", where the thetan is hypnotised and given positive suggestions which limit its powers. This process, according to Hubbard has been going on in this universe for four quadrillion Years (4,000,000,000,000,000, rather than the mere 8-20,000,000 held by astrophysicists). However, this is just one universe in a series of several.

    Scientology seeks to return the thetan's power by stripping away implants and using drills to heighten extrasensory perception and ability. The goal of these procedures is an "operating thetan" - a being who can act independently of his physical body, and can cause physical events to occur through sheer force of will. The "operating thetan" would be capable of dismissing illness and psychological disorder in others at will.

    The Scientologist generally undertakes hundreds of hours of preparation prior to taking the first section of the Operating Thetan level courses - OT 1 (a version of which is available on Karin Spainks homepage). OT 2 consists of over a hundred pages of handwritten lists of opposites, such as "create - create no". These are supposedly the basic positive suggestions from implants administered 75 million years ago. These implants were part of the so-called OT 3 incident.

    According to Hubbard, 75 million years ago, there was a confederation of 76 planets, including Earth. The "Galactic Confederation" (the title comes from the science fiction of E.E. 'Doc' Smith), was ruled by Xenu (also called "Xemu" by Hubbard). Overpopulation had become a serious problem, which Xenu resolved by murdering many of the inhabitants of the Confederation. Hubbard estimated that the 76 planets averaged 178 billion people each. The people were killed and the thetans (or spirits) gathered, frozen in a mixture of glycol and alcohol, and brought to Earth where they were placed near volcanoes which were exploded with hydrogen bombs. The thetans were gathered on "electronic ribbons", packaged together as clusters and given 36 days of implanting, to render them servile and incapable of decision. A cluster is a collection of body thetans containing a leader and an "alternate" leader. The cluster conceives itself to be an individual. According to OT 3, everyone on Earth is in fact a collection of such clusters (Hubbard says that each person doing OT 3 will find "hundreds" of body thetans - many victims of this course believe that they find millions).

    On OT 3, the individual finds "body thetans" by locating any sensation of pressure or mass in his or her body. This is addressed "telepathically" as a cluster, and taken through the cluster-making incident of 75 million years ago. Once this is done, the individual body thetans should be available to be taken through either the same incident or the incident of entry into this universe. This is called "incident one", and supposedly occured four quadrillion years ago. This incident is described in the materials as: "Loud snap - waves of light - chariot comes out, turns left and right - cherub comes out - blows horn, comes close - shattering series of snaps - cherub fades back (retreats) - blackness dumped on thetan." Most scientologists are unaware of the true definition of "cherub".

    The Scientologist spends days or years dealing with "body thetans" (I have known two people who "audited" this procedure almost every day for eleven years). Scientology materials of different dates assert that at the end of OT 3 the individual will be "stably exterior" (from his body - out of his head, it might be rephrased), free from "overwhelm" (i.e., nothing will ever overwhelm him emotionally again), and have total recall of his entire round of incarnations from four quadrillion years ago to the present. Secret materials seen only by those selling the course give the "end phenomenon" as a "big win" urging that the person be put onto the next course - where they pay by the hour - quickly.

    Anyone who encounters this material without having undertaken Scientology courses up to OT 2 will supposedly die from pneumonia.

    OT 3 is of course in substantial disagreement with conventional geology. Geologists hold that almost all of the volcanoes listed by Hubbard and both Hawaii and Los Palmas came into being far more recently than 75 million years ago. On a simple point of logic, it seems strange that none of these volcanoes was damaged by the explosion of the hydrogen bombs. Hubbard was taking barbiturates and drinking heavily when he wrote this material, according to letters he wrote at the time which are kept from scientologists by the management of Scientology.

    OT III glossary for those who have the original materials but cannot make head nor tail of them:

    7s - a set of supposed "implants", part of the OT 3 incident.
    ARC - Affinity, Reality and Communication.
    ARC break - upset.
    auditing - Dianetic or Scientology "counselling".
    basic basic - the earliest traumatic incident.
    blow - leave.
    blowdown - a sudden change in electrical resistance, shown by downward movement of the Tone Arm on the E-meter. Held to mean release of emotional "charge".
    body thetan - "a thetan who is stuck to another thetan or body but is not in control".
    BPC - bypassed charge, q.v.
    
    BT - body thetan.
    bypassed charge - upset stirred up during auditing but unhandled.
    case - personal difficulties, the "reactive mind" and the "implants" and "body thetans" of OT levels.
    C.C. - Clearing Course.
    chain - a string of similar traumata arranged according to time.
    charge - harmful energy stored in the reactive mind.
    circuit - post hypnotic suggestion.
    clear - an individual without a "reactive mind".
    cluster - a group of fused body thetans.
    cognite - realize.
    comm laggy - (comm - communication) hesitant.
    C/Sing - case supervising, overseeing auditing sessions.
    earlier similar - earlier similar incident or trauma.
    exterior - out of the body.
    exterior with full perception - out of the body and able to perceive fully (this is the goal of Scientology).
    flat - finished.
    F/N - floating needle, an E-meter reaction supposed to show that "charge" has been released from the topic being addressed.
    GF 40 - "Green Form 40", an auditing repair list.
    grades - preparatory auditing.
    grades IV & V - preparatory auditing.
    grind - keep on going over a traumatic incident without change.
    HDG - "Hubbard Dianetic Graduate", Dianetic auditor.
    implant - implantation of post-hypnotic suggestion.
    Interiorization processes - designed to return an "exterior" being into his body.
    item - something that bothers the individual psychologically.
    itsa earlier itsa - itsa "it is a", to find earlier realizations.
    LIC - "list one 0", an auditing repair list.
    low TA - unable to face life.
    meter - E-meter (Hubbard Electropsychometer). The psychogalvonometer adopted by Hubbard. A simple lie detector.
    milazzo - an auditing technique used on OT 3.
    none on OT 3 - no body thetans found.
    one-hand electrode - soup can used as an electrode. The "solo auditor" uses two soup can divided by a piece of plastic connected to an E-meter.
    O/R - overrun, q.v.
    OT - "Operating Thetan", a being who can operate independently of his physical body; who can supposedly cause events through intention (or will-power).
    out of valence - behaving as if he were someone else (see "valence").
    overrun - taken beyond the end of an auditing process.
    
    PC - preclear, person receiving auditing.
    picture - mental image picture.
    process - auditing procedure.
    R3R - "routine 3 revised", the procedure of Dianetic auditing.
    R6 - the "reactive mind", supposedly created by the "OT 3 implant" or "incident 2".
    Review - review auditing which seeks to "repair" earlier auditing errors.
    rudiments - upsets, problems or "withholds" that prevent the individual from being attentive to an auditing procedure.
    ruds - see "rudiments".
    running - going over a memory or following an auditing procedure.
    S & D - "Search and Discovery", procedure for finding who is supposedly suppressing the individual receiving auditing.
    soaring TA - increased electrical resistance, supposed to indicate an inability to face a memory.
    solo auditing - on OT 3 the subject audits himself.
    SP - Suppressive Person. A critic of Scientology. Anyone who thinks that OT 3 is nonsense.
    space opera - science fiction.
    TA - Tone Arm action - change of electrical resistance, supposed to show relief of emotional "charge".
    Teegeeack - Earth.
    theta bop - E-meter reaction, supposed to indicate that the thetan or spirit is going in and out of the body.
    thetan - "an individual being ... not a body".
    TR - training routine. Role play drill (which can be practiced to hypnotic excess, leading hallucination, euphoria, heightening of colour and sound and a feeling of floating). The most famous of these is TR 8 where scientologists shout "stand up" and "sit down" at an ashtray.
    TR 1 - a drill to make sure you can be heard (and induce obedience, but that isn't the point here).
    TR 4 - getting questions answered (in the role-play drill the scientologist repeats either the question "do fish swim" or "do birds fly" sometimes for hours on end).
    rim knob - an E-meter control.
    triple flows - what was done to the individual, what was done by the individual and what the individual saw others doing.
    unflat - not finished.
    valence - an adopted personality.
    withhold - an undisclosed moral transgression.

• Subject: Auditing (NOT!) (humor) (Scientology)
  • At http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/NotsStudy/discussion/scott-auditing.txt

  • For anyone wondering what all this NOTs stuff is about, it's time to
    once again comment on the NOTs.  RTC still seems to think this stuff was
    wiped off the internet.  It wasn't, sorry Helena.  NOTs exists on
    thousands of suppressive disks across the planet.
    
    As I read through Vorlon's NOTs (every word, yawn!), there are all these
    admonishments to NOT audit the same old way.  For the uninitiated, or
    those with better things to do than wade through Ron's turgid prose,
    I'll summarize:
    
    OT III (see Karin's homepage for a summary) introduces the concept of
    BTs.  BTs are a sort of spiritual parasite, messing up the harmony under
    the tinfoil hat.  Body Thetans are bad karma.  They can give you
    arthritis if they have Evil Purposes and attach themselves to your
    elbow.  (There are other Medical Conditions that Auditing Can Cure,
    which is the subject of Keith Henson's complaint to the FDA, but I
    digress).  BT engrams are constantly being picked up by your GnAl3y
    0aTte3 telepathy, rendering you UnClear.  That's the excuse ElRong used
    for the remarkable lack of OT3 super-powers.
    
    In actuality, BTs were once people like you and me, though Co$ doesn't
    seem to remember this.  OT III involves direct communication with your
    BTs, telepathically auditing them until they cognite (realize) "I'm me!"
    and stagger off to the pub for a Guiness.  This OT III mini-drama is
    repeated until no more BTs answer the call.
    
    NOTs deals with dormant BTs.  Some of them were asleep!  Surprise!  (go
    pay the Registrar, dude).  The NOTs procedure is similar to OT III,
    except you need to nudge the BT awake first.  NOTs auditing is done
    telepathically.  Yup, that's right - you direct an "attention beam"
    (honest, it's right there in the NOTs) on one BT/cluster, wake up the
    sleepy-head, audit him until he realizes "I'm me" (rather than your
    elbow), and "blows" (leaves).  Repeat this procedure until you perceive
    your body to be transparent (really!  Read the NOTs.  I am not making
    this up).  This is called "exorcism" in other religions.  In
    Scientology, it's called "clearing the planet, one wallet at a time".
    
    As you can imagine, this process creates a large number of disoriented
    BTs in the vicinity of Clearwater, FL and East Grinstead, UK, where NOTs
    are delivered.  They've cognited "I'm me", but haven't quite figured out
    "where am I?".  Xenu's BT Recycling (a subsidiary of the ARSCC) as a
    humanitarian gesture picks up the Clearwater BTs, gives them a hot meal,
    shows them around the universe (they've been asleep for 76 million years
    and a lot has happened, you know), and sends them on their way.  There
    is another ARSCC subsidiary in the UK.  But I digress.
    
    There's a bait-and-switch in NOTs.  The old processing style in D:MSMH
    just doesn't work.  You NEED this new technology (NOT).  Ron says so!
    Talk to the registrar, dude, your immortal thetan is in danger.
    
    Here's the switch:
    
    Clears and OTs have no bank [reactive mind:  see D:MSMH], by definition.
    If you use Dianetics to run a chain [find earlier incidents of an
    engram] on a Clear or OT, you are actually contacting the banks of Body
    Thetans.  BTs compulsively make pictures of other BTs, other BTs'
    engrams, the dog the other BT had on HoiPolloi, etc.  (Kodak needs to
    tap into this market.)
    
    So, BTs may have pictures of engrams [engrams are pictures, according to
    TheRon], but there isn't a "chain" of engrams (see D:MSMH again) or a
    Primary.  The danger is that you may skip around from one cluster to
    another, waking them all up at once, then leave them hanging out, all
    restimulated with nowhere to go.  This is A BAD THING TO DO.  Bless
    Ron's little heart, he alerted us to this problem in the first NOTs
    issue:
    
    HCOB 15 SEP 78 "NED FOR OTs RD, THEORY OF"
    
    "The reason Dianetic auditing messes up Clears and OTs is that when an
    auditor asks for an earlier similar which doesn't exist, you'll probably
    go over into a cluster or BT where it does exist."
    
    [there.  a fair-use NOTs quote.  finally.]
    
    There are a couple other twists in other NOTs issues, mostly involving
    the chorus of BTs and the OT3-completion getting their processing mixed
    up.  If your attention beam wavers (tinfoil hat recommended per HCOB 12
    DEC 85) and you ask a question of BT2 (who happened to be Clear) instead
    of BT1 (who still doesn't realize that he Mocks up his Reactive Mind),
    you've just invalidated BT2's State of Clear, and he has to pay $40,000
    to Co$ next lifetime.  AND HE'S PISSED!!!  So BT2 gives you a somatic to
    the nose, BT1 is still unClear, and all their BT friends are talking
    about how you "goofed the floof".  You have a MAJOR repair cycle, and
    it's gonna cost you, buddy.  Please see the registrar.
    
    Seriously (for a moment), can you see why NOTs can induce schizophrenia?
    You're talking to demons inside your head.  Alone.  Mumbling to yourself
    and watching an over-amplified, underdamped e-meter's random motions for
    signs of BTs.  You have to follow a rigid process to the letter, or you
    could get sick (Ron said so!).  And there are pictures of BT engrams
    inside BTs inside clusters so the task is overwhelming.
    
    So, be especially nice to any OT3 completions.  Don't invalidate their
    case, or they'll have to spend another six hours on the meter reassuring
    themselves that they're really deloused.  That extra bit of self-delusion
    could send them right over the edge.
    
    Perry Scott
    Co$ Escapee
    

• XENU: Operation Clambake - The Inner Secrets Of Scientology
  • At http://www.xenu.net/

  • In the late 1940s, pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard declared:

    "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion"

    Reader's Digest reprint, May 1980, p.1

    Hubbard later created the Church of Scientology...

  • In a Nutshell

    A Second Opinion!

    The Church of Scientology is a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion. Its purpose is to make money. It practices a variety of mind-control techniques on people lured into its midst to gain control over their money and their lives. Its aim is to take from them every penny that they have and can ever borrow and to also enslave them to further its wicked ends.

    It was started in the 1950s by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard in fulfilment to his declared aim to start a religion to make money. It is an offshoot to a method of psychotherapy he concocted from various sources which he named "Dianetics". Dianetics is a form of regression therapy. It was then further expanded to appear more like a religion in order to enjoy tax benefits. He called it "Scientology".

    Scientology is a confused concoction of crackpot, dangerously applied psychotherapy, oversimplified, idiotic and inapplicable rules and ideas and science-fiction drivel that is presented to its members (at the "advanced" levels) as profound spiritual truth.

    The Harm it Does to a Person

    The results of applying their crackpot psychotherapy (called "auditing") is to weaken the mind. The mind goes from a rational state to an irrational one as the delusional contents of the subconscious mind are brought to the surface and are assumed to be valid. It also makes a person more susceptible to suggestion since it submerges the critical thinking faculties of the mind into a partial subconscious state. It results in a permanent light hypnotic trance and so from thenceforth that person can be more easily controlled. The person will, to a much greater extent, believe and do whatever they are told. And of course this is used to the full in persuading them to hand over further money and dedicating themselves further to the cult.

    The results of applying their oversimplified and inapplicable rules in life is to lose the ability to think rationally and logically. A person loses the ability to think for themselves and so they lose the ability to challenge incorrect ideas. This makes them easier to control. It also isolates and alienates the person from society so that they withdraw from normal society and into their "Scientology" society. This further increases their susceptibility to the influence of their group. They end up being afraid of society, believing all society to be controlled by a group of drug companies, psychiatrists and financiers all of whom report to more remote masters. In other words they are in a state of mass paranoia. They therefore avoid reading newspapers and the like since they fear it will disturb their safe Scientology world. It is a downward spiral into madness.

    The science fiction content of Scientology is revealed to them after they have reached the state they call "Clear", meaning freed from the aberrations of the mind. However, perhaps "brainwashed" would be a more applicable word to describe the mental state of someone who has survived the near entire delusional contents of their subconscious mind brought to the surface and presented to them as "truth". On the "advanced" levels (called OT levels) above the state of "Clear" they encounter the story of Xenu. Xenu was supposed to have gathered up all the overpopulation in this sector of the galaxy, brought them to Earth and then exterminated them using hydrogen bombs. The souls of these murdered people are then supposed to infest the body of everyone. They are called "body thetans". On the advanced levels of Scientology a person "audits out" these body thetans telepathically by getting them to re-experience their being exterminated by hydrogen bombs. So people on these levels assume all their bad thoughts and faulty memories are due to these body thetans infesting every part of their body and influencing them mentally. Many Scientologists go raving mad at this point if they have not done so already.

    The "Ethics" Trap

    On the surface the Church of Scientology seems reasonable. The insane content of it is only revealed to a person when the early stuff has done its work and made them more susceptible. After a short while a person "believes" that Scientology is doing them good. They are then persuaded to help their new-found group further by donating money and/or working for the organisation for almost no money. Many people do exactly that.

    "Ethics" is used to good effect to trap a person. A person’s natural tendency to do good is worked upon. Yes - they want to be more ethical, but what is ethical? This is where a clever trick is pulled! "Ethics" is redefined by Scientology in such a way that to be ethical is to be a better Scientologist and obey the "church". Young people, not yet made cynical through the machinations of life and politics, are very keen to contribute to the world and to be ethical. So the "ethics" trick works easily into persuading them to join the "church". Many of them join an elite group called the "Sea Org" where they become brainwashed slaves. There they work a hundred hour week for almost no pay. There they are subject to every cruel whim of their masters. It is a living hell that they endure because of the conditioning they have received and this now perverted sense of ethics that they have accepted. The "Sea Org" is the ultimate in brainwashed slavery. They are expected to work harder and harder to achieve ever higher targets of production. If they fail to meet their targets there are various penalties. One of them is to be put onto a diet of beans and rice and to miss sleep. Another is to be sentenced to a period on the RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force). This is the equivalent to "hard labour". Such is the extent of their brainwashing that they actually write "success stories" when they complete their sentences.

    Brainwashing Bites Back

    There is no doubt at all that L. Ron Hubbard incorporated brainwashing techniques into Scientology to put people under his control. He even wrote a "brainwashing manual" which is still in existence today. However there was a cruel twist in his scheme. He fell victim of it himself. In creating his devoted slaves, the Sea Org, he created an audience that believed every word he said. Now L. Ron Hubbard had an over-active imagination plus delusions of grandeur. The negative feedback he would obtain by being part of normal society was replaced by the positive feedback from his devoted followers. Through this his imagination got the better of him and combined with his delusions of grandeur, his thinking became increasingly bizarre which, on acceptance, led on to more bizarre thinking and the idea that he and Scientology had the job of saving the entire universe He wanted to take over the world in order to further Scientology’s aims to save the universe and so branches of Scientology were set up to try to influence governments and gain positions where they could influence to world to a high degree. So what started out as a mass confidence trick backed up with brainwashing became a monstrous and insane organisation with fantastic, fanatical ideals. Because of this change, the Church of Scientology survived the death of their founder. It is like a runaway monster machine that tramples on society and peoples lives that is very difficult to stop.

• • The Scientology SECRET LIBRARY: http://www.xenu.net/archive/secret.html
  • This is the Fishman Affidavit: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/fishman/home.html
  • Information on Scientology's raid on XS4all: http://www.xs4all.nl/~felipe/cos
  • About the XENU: http://www.xenu.net/archive/OTIII-scholar/
  • An Introduction To Scientology (from a critical perspective): http://www.modemac.com/cos/

  • http://www.entheta.net
    
  • http://www.scientology-kills.net
    
  • http://www.lisamcpherson.org
    
  • http://www.arscc.com
    
  • http://www.factnet.org
    
  • http://www.scientology-lies.com
    
  • http://www.xenu-city.net
    
  • http://www.enturbulate.nu

• Bare-Faced Messiah: Biography of L. Ron. Hubbard
  • At http://home.kvalito.no/~xenu/archive/books/bfm/bfmindex.htm
  • At http://home.kvalito.no/~xenu/archive/books/bfm/bfmpagex.htm

• Who is Keith Henson? And why is Scientology after him?
  • At http://www.operatingthetan.com/
  • Online Scientology critic seeks political asylum : http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19071.html

• Facts About Scientology
  • At http://www.holysmoke.org/theta.htm

• The Attack Against ALT.RELIGION.SCIENTOLOGY
  • At http://www.holysmoke.org/forgeries/forged.htm
  • "Other ideological activist groups have generally wanted to use the 'net to actually promote their agenda, not render it useless." --- FBI agent in charge of investigating the sporgery assault against a.r.s.

• Scientology Versus Lisa McPherson
  • At http://www.holysmoke.org/lm/lm.htm
  • Home Page of the Lisa McPherson Trust, helping those harmed by Scientology and exposing their abuses: http://www.lisatrust.net
  • At http://www.lisamcpherson.org

• Myths of Subliminal Advertising
  • At http://www.snopes2.com/business/hidden/popcorn.htm

• Steven Hassan, Renowned expert on Destructive Cults, Author of "Combatting Cult Mind Control", Help for everyone touched by Brainwashing, Hypnosis or mind control, A better solution than exit counseling, and deprogramming. This site includes: Moonies, Scientology, Boston Church of Christ, Releasing the Bonds, Amway, Children of God, Ching Hai, Christian Science, Church Universal and Triumphant, Chung Moo Doe,Eckankar,House of Yahweh, Jehovah's Witnesses, ISKCON, Hare Krishna,Nation of Yahweh, Order of the Solar Temple, Siddha Yoga, Synanon, Transcendental Meditation, Worldwide Church of God
  • At http://www.freedomofmind.com/

• Cultic Studies: Information about Cults and Psychological Manipulation
  • At http://www.csj.org/

• Cult Awareness & Information Centre
  • At http://www.caic.org.au/
  • At http://www.caic.org.au/zentry1.htm
  • Cognitive Dissonance: http://www.caic.org.au/general/cogdiss2.htm

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
  • At http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Theory/festinger.htm

• Cognitive Dissonance, Halo Effects, and the Self-Esteem Trap
  • At http://www.uta.edu/psychology/faculty/levine/psych2.htm

  • Many therapists confuse GSS with low self-esteem. That confusion arises, I believe, from another effect described by experimental psychologists: the halo effect studied by Solomon Asch (5). The halo effect means that if you see a person doing well under one criterion, that casts a "halo" that will make you rate him or her highly on other, related criteria. So by extension, a person not doing well in one domain is assumed not to be doing well in others.

• Complience/Conformity - Solomon Asch - http://caps.otago.ac.nz:801/grant/PSYC/COMPLIANCE.HTML
  • Ecclesiastica Versus Academia by Wendell W. Watters M.D. - http://wchat.on.ca/humanist/eccvsaca.htm
    cites Solomon E Asch. "Opinions and Social Pressure" in Frontiers of Psychological Research (Readings from Scientific American). W.H.Freeman and Co. San Francisco. 1966. pp 107-111. with the statement,
    Solomon E. Asch, in his classical experiments, has shown that among University students, a majority denied the evidence of their own visual perception in order to conform to the group, the group having been coached in advance to give incorrect answers to the presented visual stimulus.(13)

• Solomon E. Asch 1907 - 1996
  • At http://www.psych.upenn.edu/sacsec/about/solomon.htm

  • PRESTIGE SUGGESTION

    In studying what became known as prestige suggestion, Asch manipulated the attribution of quotations like "I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical." American students agreed more with this quotation when it was attributed to Jefferson than when it was attributed to Lenin. Behaviorists interpreted this result in terms of simple associations, but Asch showed that the attribution affected the meaning of the quotation: Lenin meant blood whereas Jefferson meant politics. Hence, Asch helped establish the dominant view of contemporary social psychology: behavior is not a response to the world as it is, but to the world as perceived.

  • CONFORMITY

    Asch's most famous experiments set a contest between physical and social reality. His subjects judged unambiguous stimuli – lines of different lengths – after hearing other opinions offering incorrect estimates. Subjects were very upset by the discrepancy between their perceptions and those of others and most caved under the pressure to conform: only 29% of his subjects refused to join the bogus majority. This technique was a powerful lens for examining the social construction of reality, and gave rise to decades of research on conformity. Stanley Milgram's studies of obedience to authority were inspired directly by Asch's studies.

  • On method: "If there must be principles of scientific method, then surely the first to claim our attention is that one should describe phenomena faithfully and allow them to guide the choice of problems and procedures."

    On scale: "We must see group phenomena as both the product and condition of actions of individuals."

    On culture: "Most social acts have to be understood in their setting, and lose meaning if isolated. No error in thinking about social facts is more serious than the failure to see their place and function."

    On complexity: “We cannot be true to a fragment of man if we are not true, in at least a rudimentary way, to man himself."

• Complience/Conformity - Solomon Asch - http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html

  • Sherif

    Sherif's experiment involved the so-called autokinetic effect whereby a point of light in an otherwise totally dark environment will appear to move randomly. You may have experienced the effect yourself when looking at the stars. Subjects were invited to estimate the amount of 'movement' they observed. They made their estimates in groups where each member could hear the others' estimates. Ultimately, the group members' estimates converged on a middle-of-the-road 'group estimate'. This would appear to show an urge to conform.

    In effect, it's probably about what you would expect, if you remember that much perception appears to involve 'hypothesis-testing'. For example, with the Rubin vase (click here: if you'd like to take a look at it) there is not enough information for us to decide what we are seeing. We form the hypothesis that we're looking at two faces, then the hypothesis that we're seeing a vase. As there's not enough information to decide for one hypothesis or the other, our brains keep switching between the two. So you could argue that all the subjects were doing was to use additional information from their environment (other people's estimates) to aid in arriving at a decision. (see section on Perception)

  • In Asch's experiments, a group of people were seated around a table. Of these all but one were actually the experimenters confederates. The group was shown a display of vertical lines of different lengths and were asked to say which of the lines (card B below) was the same length as another standard line (card A).

    One after another, the members of the group announced their decision. The confederates had been asked to give the incorrect response. The subject sat in the next to last seat so that all but one had given their obviously incorrect answer before s/he gave hers/his. Even though the correct answer was always obvious, the average subject conformed to the group response on 32% of the trials and 74% of the subjects conformed at least once.

    On the face of it, an astonishing result. The correct answer was entirely obvious. Subjects had to override the very clear evidence of their own senses to give an answer conforming to the others'. Why did they do it?

    Factors affecting conformity

    When interviewed afterwards, subjects all said that they had been influenced by the pressure from the rest of the group. This, on the face of it, may appear to be an example of 'groupthink'. However, we normally associate 'groupthink' with those groups where cohesion has already been established - which was not the case in Asch's experiment. What, then, may have been the factors involved?

    The need for social respect

    Many said that they did not want to appear silly. That ties in with Rom Harré's claim that one of our secondary needs is a need for 'social respect', which includes the need to avoid looking ridiculous in front of others, the need to avoid criticism from others. That need would be likely to motivate us to seek compromise with others (see the section on Motivation) - and seems to be supported by some subjects' reports after the experiment that they wished to avoid embarrassment.

  • Group size

    Oddly enough, research shows that the pressure to conform does not increase as the groups size increases above around four or five. One possible reason, suggested by Wilder (1977) in Baron and Byrne (1984) is that the subjects begin to suspect collusion amongst the group members once the group goes beyond that number. If that is the case, then that suggests that the best way to influence a person would be to get them to receive the same message from a variety of independent small groups, rather than from a single large group. That seems also to fit with Noelle-Neumann's view that, as the interpersonal support for the deviant opinion decreases, so the deviant opinion will be weakened and the dominant opinion become even more dominant (see the section on Spiral of Silence).

    Social support

    In Asch's later experiments, he introduced others who disagreed with the consensus. This disagreement led to a marked increase in the subjects' readiness to disagree with the dominant view. Other experiments have also shown that social support can help us to resist conformity, even if the person giving us the support is not particularly competent and even if she doesn't share our views. It seems that any old support will do. However, the support is more likely to be successful if she is competent and does share our views. It also seems to be especially important that dissent, if it is to be effective, should be voiced early on in the proceedings.

    Genetic predisposition

    It is conceivable that we are genetically predisposed towards social conformism and ethnocentrism (i.e. the tendency to support and conform to the norms of our own group). Such a predisposition would be advantageous in promoting cultural group selection in the same way that in natural selection sharp teeth or the ability to run fast from something with sharp teeth confer an advantage. Sociobiologists found it difficult to account for such behaviours as altruism, co-operation and group loyalty in terms of Darwin's theory of evolution, which would be expected to lead to primarily egocentric behaviour. However, it might be possible to demonstrate (theorists disagree over this) that cultures whose members' behaviour is purely egocentric tend to die out whereas co-operative cultures survive. If so, then it would follow that the surviving cultures are those with the 'co-operation gene'. That would go some way to explaining the behaviour of Asch's subjects.

    As an irrelevant aside, I should say that, personally, though this is an interesting idea, I'm inclined to treat it with a measure of caution. Evolutionary psychology is currently rather fashionable and is certainly challenging and thought-provoking, but it does sometimes seem to depend rather suspiciously on finding an adaptive advantage for every human behaviour. Behaviours which are clearly not advantageous are explained by saying that they 'must have' been advantageous at some point in our evolutionary history and then finding a likely scenario. For example, our sweet tooth leads to massive overconsumption of sugar. This is obviously not likely to give our species an evolutionary advantage today, but it 'must have' done so when a sweet tooth meant a predilection for a diet of fruit. Hmmm..... That rather neatly and conveniently shelters the evolutionary psychologists' claim from any possible falsifiability.

  • Criticisms of Asch

    Asch's experiment has been criticised for being unrealistic to the extent that in the real world we expect to take decisions on subjects more complex and more important than the length of a line. In the real world, therefore, we might put up more of a fight to defend our point of view. On more complex issues, we could reasonably expect that a variety of shades of opinion might be expressed, giving us more chance to argue our point of view. On the other hand, though, just think what the studies reveal. They suggest that group pressure can be so strong that we are willing to deny the evidence of our own eyes for the sake of conformity with the rest of the group.

    There have been other experiments which have tended to confirm Asch's results by and large. Crutchfield's lengthier and more complex experiments seem to confirm a correlation between high intelligence and other personality traits and low conformity.

  • Why people conform is open to conjecture. Hirshleifer and his colleagues propose the explanation of an 'informational cascade'. A person who considers what style of clothes to wear can take into account either their own independent judgment or others' judgment, or a combination of the two. In a culture such as ours which has traditionally placed great value on the individual, simply following the herd may be characterized as weak, stupid etc. Whatever, the fact remains that most of us do go along with everyone else, or flared trousers and Afro haircuts would still be worn by many of us old hippies. There are very sound reasons for doing so, which we have internalized over millions of years of evolution. Picture one of our distant ancestors living out on the savannah. If that person goes off to join a group of forest dwellers, it would be pretty stupid to persist in looking for particular forms of succulent and nutritious grass, rather than conforming to the forest-dwellers' norm of gathering berries and fruits. There is a survival advantage in conforming. Over the course of evolution, those groups which have succeeded through co-operation in their established practices are the successful ones. Thus the urge to conform and copy others' behaviour is one which confers an evolutionary advantage. Of course, we don't simply conform to such practical behaviours as gathering food, we also conform to religions, fashions, fads, extremist political movements and so on. And the evolutionary advantage there is not immediately obvious, but you should bear in mind that we are a species which operates in groups, groups which compete against other groups:

    ... in a small band of hunter-gatherers, it might have been a ... useful habit to obey the fashion. To a large extent, human society is not a society of individuals, as the society of leopards, or even lions, is - albeit the individual lions are lumped together in groups. Human society is composed of groups, superorganisms. THe cohesiveness of groups that conformity achieves is a valuable weapon in a world where groups must act together to compete with other groups. That the decision may be arbitrary is less important than that it is unanimous.

    Ridley puts this even more bluntly elsewhere in his book:

    Humankind, I suggest, has always fragmented into hostile and competitive tribes and those that found a way of drumming cultural conformity into the skulls of their members tended to do better than those that did not.

• Cult Information Centre (CIC), England
  • At http://www.cultinformation.org.uk/
  • Sources for Further Help: http://www.cultinformation.org.uk/help.html
  • At http://www.cultinformation.org.uk/faq.html#cult

  • "When you meet the friendliest people you have ever known, who introduce you to the most loving group of people you've ever encountered, and you find the leader to be the most inspired, caring, compassionate and understanding person you've ever met, and then you learn the cause of the group is something you never dared hope could be accomplished, and all of this sounds too good to be true-it probably is too good to be true! Don't give up your education, your hopes and ambitions to follow a rainbow."
    Jeannie Mills (Ex - member of The People's Temple, later found murdered)

• Enturbulate
  • At http://www.enturbulate.nu/

• The Skeptics Dictionary - Amway (Quixtar)
  • At http://www.skepdic.com/amway.html

  • ZDNet has an extensive article on Amway's entry into e-tailing which is known as Quixtar.

• ISOXADWWP Society - Internet Society Of Ex Amway Distributors With Web-Pages
  • At http://www.ex-cult.org/Groups/Amway/otherside/links.htm

• MLMSurvivor.com (Multi Level Marketting)
  • At http://members.tripod.com/~nomorescams/

• Amway reality check
  • At http://members.tripod.com/~dreamsteal/index.html

• The MLM Survivor's Homepage
  • At http://www.cocs.com/jhoagland/webhq.html

• Inside ScAmway - The alluring life offered by the world's largest 'multi-marketing' business closely resembles a sham.
  • At http://www.rickross.com/reference/amway/amway23.html

  • [Note: WARNING! The Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was recently bankrupted and bought up by Scientology. We strongly recommend you do not contact them for assistance.]

• Cult Awareness Network
  • At http://www.rickross.com/groups/newcan.html

  • The so-called "reformed Cult Awareness Network" is "operated by the Foundation for Religious Freedom." According to the IRS/Scientology agreement this foundation is a "Scientology-related" entity.

  • Twenty years ago, a woman by the name of Jenne Mills wrote, "When you meet the friendliest people you have ever known, who introduce you to the most loving group of people you've ever encountered, and you find the leader to be the most inspired, caring, compassionate and understanding person you've ever met, and then you learn that that cause of the group is something you never dared hope could be accomplished, and all of this sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. Don't give up your education, your hopes and ambitions, to follow a rainbow."

    She was referring to her former membership in the People's Temple and the Jonestown mass suicide.

• Anti-Cult Group Dismembered As Former Foes Buy Its Assets - Network Forced Into Bankruptcy After Long Legal Battle - The Washington Post/December 1, 1996.
  • At http://www.rickross.com/reference/newcan/newcan1.html

• Rick Ross Responds to his Critics First posted May 14, 1998; Last updated October 2003 - "Rick Ross, Modern Day Inquisitor"
  • At http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/Scien47.html

• The Perils of Amway by Russell Glasser
  • At http://www.apollowebworks.com/amway/

• Steven Alan Hassan, cult counselor and mind control expert - Freedom of Mind
  • At http://www.freedomofmind.com/

  • At http://www.freedomofmind.com/

  • Meditation techniques can be used to build awareness and self control, or it can be used as a way of "thought-stopping"-undermining independent thinking and reality-testing. For example, if a person is having doubts and questions about a leader's behavior, and meditates to get rid of "negativity", it might stop the person from taking necessary action.

    There are thousands of different "mind control" techniques which can be used for positive benefit. Some these techniques include: prayer, meditation, chants, singing songs, visualizations, affirmations, positive self-talk, breathing techniques, hypnosis, "speaking in tongues", ecstatic dancing, music.

• Amway: The Untold Story - The AUS Articles
  • At http://www.amquix.50megs.com/aus/
  • At http://www.amquix.50megs.com/aus/articles.htm

• Amway Motivational Organizations: Behind the Smoke and Mirrors by Ruth Carter
  • At http://www.backstreet-publish.com/AMOindex.htm

• the Franz Incident (1979-1980) - Jehovahs Witnesses
  • At http://www.freeminds.org/bethel/incident.htm

• The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society: The Critical Years 1975-1997 by Randall Watters
  • At http://www.freeminds.org/history/critical.htm

• Strategic Interaction Approach (SIA) - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - Steven Hassan's Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves. FOM Press, 2000
  • At http://freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/books/sia-faq.htm

• Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia - The most comprehensive source of scientific facts and statements on origins
  • At http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Index.htm

• The Leo J. Ryan Foundation Conference 2000 - March 17 - 19, 2000
  • At http://xenutv.bogie.nl/panels/leoryan.htm

• Apologetics Research Resources on Religious Cults, Sects, Movements, Doctrines, Etc
  • At http://www.apologeticsindex.org/

• Kook's Museum
  • At http://www.teleport.com/~dkossy/kooksmus.html
  • Includes excerpts of 1930's Joe Gould(Professor Seagull) - http://www.teleport.com/~dkossy/gould.html
  • Excerpts from the book "Kooks: A guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief" - including one on "Did God Destroy the Dinosaurs" - http://www.teleport.com/~dkossy/dino.html
    Summary of the above dinosaur book is "Beware of those who take pity on wolves and crocodiles: they are dupes of Satan!...Nuke 'em, for then you will be fulfilling God's will!"
  • Includes information about the "Voluntary Human Extinction Movement" - http://www.teleport.com/~dkossy/vhemt.html
    With "ECO DEPTH GAUGE" starting, "Superficial, Shallow, Knee deep, Hip deep, Deeper, Profoundly Deep, Radically Deep, Abysmally Deep -defined as "A quick annihilation is too good for humans. A horrible, fatal illness from outer space in only fair")

• God Calling : The Rev. Joanna Seibert - Sermon January 19, 2003 - Epiphany 2B, 1 Sam 3:1-10, John 1:43-51
  • At http://www.stmargaretschurch.org/sermons/20030119.html
  • Our dilemma may be older than we think, for I am reminded on an old English litany framed and given to our oldest son at his birth by his godmother. " From Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long Leggetie Beasties and Things that go Bump in the Night, Good Lord Deliver Us."

• There’s an old Cornish prayer that children pray at night: "From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties, and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us." You can imagine the shadowy evils that keep a child awake at night.
  • At http://wcic.cioe.com/~faithch/00.1.23.htm

• Debabelizing the Web (NNN July 18, 1998)
  • At http://members.tripod.com/~maizell/trans.html
  • "Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?" translated as "But or are snows of antan?"
  • "But where are the snows of yesteryear?"

• THAÏS - BY ANATOLE FRANCE: A TRANSLATION BY ROBERT B. DOUGLAS
  • " Anatole France's novel which caused a sensation in 1890 with its remarkable description of a monk, who converts the Egyptian harlot Thais to the Christian faith but falls himself a victim to the very carnality he professes to reject."
  • At http://209.24.112.224/DrPseudocryptonym/France_PenguinIsland.html

• Penguin Island by Anatole France, 1909
  • "This is among the most widely read of Monsieur France's satirical productions. In its English dress it has already gone through several editions, and its popularity shows no symptoms of decline. How the aged and half-blind Saint Maël baptised a colony of penguins, how, to repair his error, the penguins were changed into human beings, how they were miraculously towed by the Saint to the Breton shore and all the things that afterwards befell them, will be found to afford some vastly entertaining reading."
  • At http://209.24.112.224/DrPseudocryptonym/France_Thais.html

• More Ravings of a Mad Man
  • At http://www.ida.net/users/pharos/Ravings_Essays/More_Ravings/More_Ravings.html
  • Having survived a theology and a war,
    I am beginning to understand
    The rain.
    -- from the Poem "Survival In Missouri" - by John Ciardi
  • "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.
    -- 1984, Chapter One, Section V - by George Orwell"
  • A Christian is someone who is terribly afraid that someone, somewhere, might be committing a sin, and enjoying it. -- August 20, 1989, Milam's Notes - With thanks to H.L. Mencken
  • (O'Brien asked) "How does the Clergy assert its power over its congregation, Winston?"
    Winston thought. "By making them suffer," he said.
    "Exactly. By making them suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless they are suffering, how can you be sure that they are obeying God's will and not their own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of its own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?"
    -- with thanks to George Orwell

• The Bizarre and Unusual
  • At http://xlii.com/bizarre.html

• Hell's Bibliophiles: "Live to Read; Read to Live. "
  • At http://209.24.112.224/DrPseudocryptonym/HellsBibliophiles/

• Devils Tower National Monument: Located in Devils Tower, Wyoming (Where Close Encounters of the Third Kind was set)
  • http://www.nps.gov/deto/

• Redneck Neighbour - USA
  • http://www.knology.net/~carlos/redneck.htm

  • "In case you're wondering, this Web page is about my next-door neighbors. Since my neighbors have been driving me crazy and no amount of civilized reasoning and/or negotiations have worked - I have decided to dedicate a small corner of cyber-space to them.

    My family and friends are constantly asking me to tell them the "latest" thing my neighbor has done so this page will save me from repeating myself. Besides, I thought it would be fun. Everything you read here is entirely true, that's what makes it so funny. Enjoy!"

• The City College Fund
  • http://www.citycollegefund.org/ccny/Timeline/Years2.html
  • http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/pr/history/timeline.htm
  • Reference to Rapp-Coudert Hearings: "The New York State Legislature's Rapp-Coudert Hearings alleged Communists at the College, resulting in the dismissal of over 50 teachers and staff."

• History of Daylight Savings Time
  • At http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html

• Daylight Savings Time in US and Canada
  • At http://inms-ienm.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/time_services/daylight_savings_e.html
  • At http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/b.html
  • At http://www.timetemperature.com/tzca/daylight_saving_time_canada.shtml

• Konzentrationslager: Lego Concentration Camp
  • At http://users.erols.com/kennrice/lego-kz.htm
  • "Danish art critics raved about the display. But Lego officials feared a public relations disaster. They fretted in particular over a statement on each of the imitation Lego packages explicitly linking Libera and Lego. "This work of Zbigniew Libera has been sponsored by Lego System," it states."
  • "Libera maintains that donated supplies amount to sponsorship, but the company says it never gave him the authority to use its name or logo as an implied endorsement. Ambeck- Madsen, the Lego executive, said the faux packaging is so realistic that a Jewish organization in Sweden threatened to organize a boycott of Lego because offended members believed the company had manufactured the boxes."

• Censorship in the Age of Multiculturalism: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury (Coda)
  • "There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches."
  • " For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmild teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. If the Chicano intellectuals wish to re-cut my "Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" so it shapes "Zoot," may the belt unravel and the pants fall. "
  • At http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/451/451.html
  • At http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/library/Coda.html
  • At http://members.iquest.net/~jswartz/jks/humor/451.htm
  • At http://www.mvnc.edu:443/faculty/trearick/english/rearick/readings/suppleme/bradcoda.htm

• Quotations from Ray Bradbury
  • "If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. (Faber in Fahrenheit 451)"
  • "Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction."
  • At http://www.brookingsbook.com/bradbury/quotations.htm

• QUOTES : Good & Evil
  • At http://www.josephsoninstitute.org/quotes/quotegoodevil.htm
  • "The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil." - Hannah Arendt, 20th-century German political philosopher and author
  • "No one ever became extremely wicked suddenly." - Juvenal, Roman writer
  • "No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." - Mary Wollstonecraft, 19th-century English novelist
  • "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke, 18th-century English political philosopher
  • The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means." - Miss Prism to Cecily in "The Importance of Being Earnest"
  • "Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other." - Denis Diderot, 18th-century French philosopher and writer

• Quotes attributed to G. K. Chesterton
  • At http://www.workinghumor.com/quotes/gk_chesterton.shtml
  • "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."

• Quotes attributed to W.C. Fields
  • At http://www.workinghumor.com/quotes/wc_fields.shtml
  • "...more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol. "
  • "Man: "I have no sympathy for a man who is intoxicated all the time." WC: "A man who's intoxicated all the time doesn't need sympathy." "
  • "The cost of living has gone up another dollar a quart. "

• Sampler of Popular Johnson Quotes (The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page)
  • At http://www.samueljohnson.com/popular.html
  • On second marriages: "The triumph of hope over experience." Boswell: Life
  • "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Boswell: Life
  • "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." Boswell: Life
  • "Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young." Boswell: Life
  • "Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed." Johnson: Rasselas [said by the character Imlac]
  • "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Boswell: Life
  • "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." Boswell: Life
  • On London: "Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists." Boswell: Life
  • "The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!" Boswell: Life
  • "This was a good dinner enough, to be sure: but it was not a dinner to ask a man to." Boswell: Life
  • ...much enquiry having been made concerning a gentleman, who had quitted a company where Johnson was, and no information being obtained; at last Johnson observed, that 'he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney'. Boswell: Life
  • "Exercise!! I never heard that he used any: he might, for aught I know, walk to the alehouse; but I believe he was always carried home again." Piozzi: Anecdotes
  • On America: "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" Johnson: Taxation No Tyranny
  • "It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it." Boswell: Life

• Quotations - some of them Borrocks, some of them not
  • At http://www.rscal.demon.co.uk/quotations.html
  • "Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings" John Keats
  • "I am not arguing with you- I am telling you" Whistler
  • "Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. This maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever." Macaulay
  • "Shut the door, Wales" Beau Brummell
  • "O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul!" Prayer of the common soldier (before the battle of Blenheim)
  • "Marriage is the waste-paper basket of emotions" Webb
  • "I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution" Ulysses Grant
  • "All this buttoning and unbuttoning" Anon. c18 suicide note

• Quotations
  • At http://129.49.19.42/ee/msr/quotes1.html
  • "To err is human--and to blame it on a computer is even more so." Orben's Current Comedy
  • "A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel." Robert Frost
  • "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." John Kenneth Galbraith
  • "A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run." Elbert Hubbard, "Epigrams"
  • "What is conservativism? Is it not the aherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?" Abraham Lincoln"
  • "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." John Stuart Mill
  • "A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake, at the moment." Willis Player
  • "It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea." Robert Anton Wilson
  • "A liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. "
  • "Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other. " Francis Bacon, "Of Death"
  • "Death: to stop sinning suddenly."
  • "Isn't it strange? The same people who laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously. " Cincinnati Enquirer
  • "Ask five economists and you'll get five different answers (six if one went to Harvard). " Edgar R. Fiedler
  • "The trick is to stop thinking it as 'your' money. " IRS auditor
  • "Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone" Keynes
  • "I am not an economist. I am an honsest man! " Paul McCracken
  • "When its a question of money, everybody is of the same religion. " Voltaire
  • "Silence is the virtue of fools. " Francis Bacon
  • "Experience is a hard teacher. She gives the test first and the lessons afterwards."
  • "There's no fool like an old fool -- you can't beat experience. " Jacob Braude
  • "He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask reamins a fool forever. " Old Chinese saying
  • "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools. " Herbert Spencer
  • Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
  • "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. " Niels Bohr
  • "Legend--a lie that has attained the dignity of age. " H. L. Mencken
  • "Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is most likely to be creamed? " Solomon Short
  • "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. " Winston Churchill
  • "If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas
  • "We are getting into semantics again. If we use words, there is a very grave danger they will be misinterpreted. " H. R. Haldeman, testifying in his own defense
  • Last Words:
    "I am about to--or I am going to--die; either expression is used."
    Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian (1628 - 1702)
  • Last Words: Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? Socrates
  • "There are 4 kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy." Ambrose Bierce
  • "The crime bill passed by the Senate would reinstate the Federal death penalty for certain violent crimes: assassinating the President; hijacking an airliner; and murdering a government poultry inspector. " Knight Ridder News Service dispatch
  • "I was a pilot flying an airplane and it just so happened that where I was flying made what I was doing spying. Francis Gary Power, U-2 reconnaissance pilot held by the Soviets for spying, in an interview after he was" returned to the US.
  • English Law prohibits a man from marrying his mother-in-law. This is our idea of useless legislation.
  • "Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels. " Goya
  • "Only a brave person is willing to honestly admit, and fearlessly to face, what a sincere and logical mind discovers. " Rodan of Alexandria
  • "Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. " Oscar Wilde
  • "It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. " Arthur C. Clarke
  • "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. " Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • "Intellectual brilliance is no guarentee against being dead wrong. " David Fasold
  • "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. " Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
  • "The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract. " Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
  • "Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. " Elbert Hubbard
  • "Like most intellectuals, he is imensely stupid. " Marquise de Merteuil
  • "The function of genius is not to give new answers, but to pose new questions -- which time and mediocrity can solve. " Hugh Trevor-Roper, "Men and Events"
  • "I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. " Woodrow Wilson
  • At http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/ee/msr/quotes2.html
  • When a stupid person is doing something it is ashamed of, it always declares that it is his job.
  • "The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone else he can blame it on. " Robert Bloch
  • "There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them. " Emile Chartier
  • "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. " Winston Churchill
  • "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppresiion. It is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. " W. O. Douglas
  • "Nothing else in the world . . . not all the armies . . . is so powerful as an idea whose time has come. " Victor Hugo
  • "Hypocrisy is the lubricant of society. " David Hull
  • "We participate in a tragedy; at a comedy we only look. " Aldous Huxley, "The Devils of Loudun"
  • "Nearly all men can stand adveristy, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. " Abraham Lincoln
  • "It is simply untrue that all our institutions are evil, . . . that all politicians are mere opportunists, that all aspects of university life are corrupt. Having discovered an illness, it's not terribly useful to prescribe death as a cure. " George McGovern
  • "The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. " H.L. Mencken
  • "One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. " A. A. Milne
  • "I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted." Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, explaining why we should export toxic wastes to Third World countries.
  • "To those who think that the law of gravity interferes with their freedom, there is nothing to say. " Lionel Tiger
  • "We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming. " Wernher Von Braun
  • "The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think. " Horace Walpole
  • "All power corrupts, but we need electricity. "
  • "Never send a monster to do the work of an evil genius. "
  • "Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory. " John Kenneth Galbraith
  • "Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. " John Kenneth Galbraith
  • "The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. " Abbie Hoffman
  • "If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: PRESIDENT CAN'T SWIM. " Lyndon B. Johnson
  • "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. " H. L. Mencken
  • "In politics stupidity is not a handicap. " Napoleon
  • "Nothing would please the Kremlin more than to have the people of this country choose a second rate president. " Richard M. Nixon
  • "Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too. " Richard M. Nixon
  • "Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." Ronald Reagan
  • "By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me. " Ashleigh Brilliant
  • "Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. " Mike Adams
  • "God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. " Sir William Bragg
  • "The great tragedy of Science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. " Thomas Henry Huxley
  • "If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. " Lazarus Long
  • "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. " Benjamin Disraeli
  • "50% of this country's schoolchildren have IQ's below average. Under our education policy, we can turn that around! " New Zealand National Pary candidate's campaign statement
  • "If you wish to be a sucess in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing. " Napoleon
  • "It's not enough to succeed. Others must fail. " Gore Vidal
  • "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell. " Harry Truman
  • "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. " Winston Churchill
  • "The chess board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But we also know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. " Thomas Henry Huxley
  • "There is no such things as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or bady written. That is all. " Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

• A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
  • At http://naturalscience.com/dsqhome.html

• peaceQUOTES: Breaking the Cycle of Violence Through Circles of Peace
  • At http://www.salsa.net/peace/quotes.html

  • Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters. - African Proverb
  • In the struggle rewards are few. In the fact, I know of only two, loving friends and living dreams. These rewards are not so few it seems. - Anonymous
  • When evil is allowed to compete with good, evil has an emotional populist appeal that wins out unless good men and women stand as a vanguard against abuse. - Hannah Arendt, 20th-century German political philosopher and author
  • The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil. - Hannah Arendt, 20th-century German political philosopher and author
  • Peace is not the product of a victory or a command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions. - Oscar Arias
  • There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for which the word violence was never used...Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they though of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed. - Gil Bailie
  • The finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger may also be pulling the finger. - Dr. Leonard Berkowitz
  • The human mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with a similar energy. - W.H. Beveridge, British Economist
  • The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. - Steve Biko
  • Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too?
    Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?
    William Blake
  • To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. - William Blake
  • We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living. - General Omar Bradley
  • The pens which write against disarmament are made with the same steel from which guns are made. - Aristide Briand, French statesman, Nobel Peace Prize, 1926
  • Beneath the rule of men entirely great
    The pen is mightier than the sword.
    Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
  • When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist. - Archbishop Helder Camara, Brazilian liberation theologist
  • It is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners. - Albert Camus
  • The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? - Pablo Casals
  • The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating. - Cesar Chavez
  • There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence. - Cesar Chavez
  • There are three truths: my truth, your truth and the truth. - Chinese Proverb
  • The miracle of the wicked is reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous. - Winston Churchill
  • To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. - Confucius
  • No one is so foolish as to prefer to peace, war, in which, instead of sons burying their fathers, fathers bury their sons. - Croesus, King of Lydia, in Herodotus' The Persian Wars
  • To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting. - e.e.cummings
  • The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. - Dante
  • War stirs in men's hearts the mud of their worst instincts. It puts a premium on violence, nourishes hatred, and gives free rein to cupidity. It crushes the weak, exalts the unworthy, and bolsters tyranny .. .Time and time again it has destroyed all ordered living, devastated hope, and put the prophets to death. - Charles DeGaulle
  • Justice is truth in action. - Benjamin Disraeli
  • No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. - John Donne (Meditation 17)
  • The pioneers of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military service. - Albert Einstein
  • Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)
  • The absence of risk is a sure sign of mediocrity. - Charles de Foucauld
  • The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. - Anatole France
  • I hope...that mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures, have reason and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting throats; for in my opinion there never was a good war, or a bad peace. - Benjamin Franklin
  • Change comes not from men and women changing their minds, but from the change from one generation to the next. - J. K. Galbraith
  • It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace. - Andre Gide
  • Our friends show us what we can do; our enemies teach us what we must do. - Goethe
  • Being a pacifist between wars is as easy as being a vegetarian between meals. - Ammon Hennacy, US Labor leader
  • It is reasonable that every one who asks justice should do justice. - Thomas Jefferson
  • Compromise does not mean cowardice. - John F. Kennedy
  • If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
  • Aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war. - John F. Kennedy
  • The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people. - Frank Kent
  • Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all. - John Maynard Keynes
  • If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room. - Anita Koddick
  • Is it progress if a cannibal uses a knife and fork? - Stanislaw Lem
  • I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends. - Abraham Lincoln
  • Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional. - Max Lucado
  • The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions. - Robert Lynd (1879-1949), Anglo-Irish essayist, journalist
  • The maxim that people should not have a right till they are ready to exercise it properly, is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. - Macaulay
  • Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you. - Friedrich Nietzche
  • I stand at the altar of murdered men, and, while I live, I fight their cause. - Florence Nightingale, 1856
  • Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared. - Henri Nouwen
  • Forge thy tongue on an anvil of truth and what flies up, though it be but a spark, will have light. - Pindar
  • For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love. - Pythagoras
  • You can no more win a war than win an earthquake. - Jeanette Rankin
  • War does not determine who is right - only who is left - Bertrand Russell
  • If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
  • Someday they'll give a war and nobody will come. - Carl Sandburg
  • When the rich make war, it's the poor that die. - Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind. It is the deed that teaches not the name we give it. - George Bernard Shaw
  • Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. - Baruch Spinoza
  • To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting. - Sun Tzu
  • A bad peace is even worse than war. - Tactitus
  • They make a desert and call it peace. - Tactitus
  • To save one life, it is as if you had saved the world. - Talmud
  • There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting. - Alan John Percivale Taylor
  • What good is a house, if you haven't got a decent planet to put it on? - Henry David Thoreau
  • Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces. - Henry David Thoreau
  • The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. - Alvin Toffler
  • Why does man have reason if he can only be influenced by violence? - Leo Tolstoy
  • The law of violence is not a law, but a simple fact which can only be a law when it does not meet with protest and opposition. It is like the cold, darkness and weight, which people had to put up with until recently when warmth, illumination and leverage were discovered.... - Leo Tolstoy
  • All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what the do not want to do. - Leo Tolstoy
  • The poor cannot be convinced that God is neutral . . . - Author Unknown
  • The arms race can kill, though the weapons themselves may never be used...by their cost alone, armaments kill the poor by causing them to starve. - Vatican statement to the U.N., 1976
  • Wars are not acts of God. They are caused by man, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society. What man has made, man can change. - Frederick Moore Vinson, Speech at Arlington National Cemetery (Memorial Day, 1945)
  • Activism pays the rent on being alive and being here on the planet. - Alice Walker
  • I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. - Elie Weisel
  • When I have money, I get rid of it quickly, lest it find a way into my heart. - John Wesley
  • Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them more. - Oscar Wilde
  • Taking the first footstep with a good thought, the second with a good word, and the third with a good deed, I entered paradise. - Zoroaster

• Sayings and Quotations
  • At http://www.widebay.net.au/~krackatinni/sayings.html
  • "I know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality." - Thomas Babbington Macauley
  • "If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell." - Phillip Sheridan US General
  • "I think I could eat one of Bellamy's veal pies." - William Pitt (Dying words)
  • "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
  • "A good sheep paddock spoiled." - "King" O'Malley, of Canberra
  • "A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierean spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain And drinking largely sobers us again." - Alexander Pope (Essay - On Criticism)
  • "A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience" - Oliver Wendell Holmes.
  • "A man's house is his castle. .. " - James Otis
  • "A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it." - Denis Diderot
  • "All happy families resemble one another. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Leo Tolstoy
  • "Alliance - In international politics, the union of two thieves who have so deeply in one another's pockets that they cannot plunder a third's." - Ambrose Bierce (from "The Devil's Dictionary")
  • "An armed attack against one ... shall be deemed to be an armed attack against them all." - NATO treaty
  • "And so to bed." - Samuel Pepys, Diary entry
  • "That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest." - Henry David Thoreau.
  • "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." - Horace Mann
  • "Be of good faith, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." - Bishop Hugh Latimer to Bishop Ridley, at the stake.
  • "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes." - Henry David Thoreau
  • "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker." - Ogden Nash.
  • "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." ("It is magnificent, but it is not war.") - Marshal Pierre Bosquet observing the charge of the Light Brigade.
  • "Chance favours only those minds which are prepared." - Louis Pasteur
  • "Cherchez la femme" (Look for the woman) - Alexander Dumas "The Mohicans of Paris" Ch.3
  • "Common iron sheds and columns of wood are good enough for a colony like this." - Commissioner John Thomas Bigge Advice on suitable buildings for Sydney
  • "Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked ?" - Baron Edward Thurlow.
  • "Dr. livingstone, I presume ?" - Henry Morton Stanley (Later commented that he couldn't think of anything else to say.)
  • "England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, I trust, save Europe by her example." - William Pitt, British PM at Lord Mayor's Banquet
  • "Every goddam day" (- asked if he read the Bible ) - General George Patton
  • "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but not himself." - Leo Tolstoy
  • "For de little stealin', they puts you in jail. For de big stealin', they makes you Emperor." - Eugene O'Neill
  • "For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in Marble: and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust." - Sir Thomas Moore
  • For privileges shall have an end, but the people is forever." - Compte de Mirabeau
  • "For Satan finds some mischief still, For idle hands to do." - Isaac Watts
  • "Forbidden - Invested with new and terrible charm." - Ambrose Bierce (from "The Devil's Dictionary")
  • "From Cooper to Copper" - anon, referring to Allan Pinkerton's former occupation of Barrel Maker.
  • "God can stand being told ... that he does not exist." - J.B.Priestley
  • "God is alive and well and working on a much less ambitious project." - Graffiti, Pub, Greenwich UK.
  • "Guy Fawkes was the only man to enter parliament with honorable intentions." - anon.
  • "He died on 13.3.38, from almost 81 years of living." - Irving Stone Biographer of Clarence Darrow
  • "He that loves not his wife and children feeds a lioness and breeds a nest of sorrows." - Jeremy Taylor
  • "He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression." - Thomas Paine, English philosopher.
  • "Here I stand. God help me, I can do no other." - Martin Lutherè
  • "Historians may explain Tobruk. The Eight Army has done better - it has avenged it." - Sir Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the victory at El-Alamein
  • "I am perplexed." - Aleister Crowley, last words
  • "I don't believe in princerple, But Oh I du in interest". - James Lowell
  • "I heard the mournful wail of millions" Fredrick Douglass, an former slave and US Presidential candidate (He lost the election to Abraham Lincoln) addresses the American people at Rochester, NY on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
  • "I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself." - D.H.Lawrence
  • "I pledge you - I pledge myself - to a new deal for the American people." - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
  • "I pray you, master Lieutenant, to see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.". - Sir Thomas Moore, Last words, mounting the scaffold.
  • "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." - Nathan Hale, at his execution by the British
  • I would like to be there, were it but to see how the cat jumps." - Sir Walter Scott
  • "I would rather have my political economy founded on the everyday experience of the puddler or the potter than the learning of the professor." - William McKinley, US President.
  • "I, too, had thoughts once of being an intellectual, but I found it too difficult." - Dr. Albert Schweitzer
  • "Instead of this absurd division into sexes, they ought to class people as static or dynamic." - Evelyn Waugh
  • "It be necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in not believing, it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe." - Thomas Paine (Age of Reason)
  • "It had many defects and teething troubles and when they became apparent it was appropriately re-christened "The Churchill". These defects have now been largely overcome." - Mr. Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister In a speech to the House of Commons about a newly designed tank for the war effort.
  • "It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain." - John Henry Newman
  • "It is brought home to you...that only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior." - George Orwell (The Road to Wigan Pier)
  • "It is important for a ruler to let people serve him." - Cardinal the Duke de Richlieu
  • "It is very much better sometimes to have a panic feeling beforehand, and then be quite calm when things happen, than to be extremely calm beforehand and to get into a panic when things happen." - Sir Winston Churchill Speech to House of Commons
  • "It's strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel." - William Makepeace Thackeray
  • "Late last night, when we were all in bed Old lady Leary lit a lantern in the shed, And when the cow kicked it over, She shook her head and said - 'There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight.' " - Traditional (The Great Fire of Chicago 1871)
  • "Legislator - One who goes to the capital of his country to increase his own." - Ambrose Bierce (from "The Devil's Dictionary")
  • "Let us drink to the queer old dean" (proposing the Loyal Toast)- Rev. William Archibald Spooner
  • "Life wasn't meant to be easy" - Malcolm Fraser, Australian Prime Minister in his Deakin Lecture.
  • "Mary had a little lamb Its fleece was white as snow, And everywhere that Mary went The lamb was sure to go." - Mrs.Sarah Hale (See 1863)
  • "Mehr Licht." (More light) - Goethe, last words.
  • "Moral force is, unhappily, no substitute for armed force, but it is a very great reinforcement." - Winston Churchill, British PM Speech to House of Commons
  • "My gifts are small - I've used them well, and discreetly." - Max Beerbohm
  • "Nature made him, and then broke the mould." - Ludovicio Aristo
  • "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt Speech to the House of Commons
  • "Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as we do now by accident. - Bartolomeo Vanzetti, on learning of his death sentence.
  • "No greater sorrow than to recall in our misery, the time when we were happy." - Dante Alighieri
  • "No man in American history has attacked more people than you have, or in more violent terms, and yet no man that I can recall complains more bitterly when he happens to be hit. Why don't you stop caterwauling for a while, and play the game according to the rules. - H.L.Mencken of Upton Sinclair
  • "No man is justified in doing evil for the sake of expediency." - Theodore Roosevelt
  • "No pain, no palm. No cross, no crown." - William Penn
  • "No taxation without representation." - William Pitt (elder) to British House of Commons
  • "Nothing is wanting but a few females of our own species to make the "Resolution" a compleate arke." - Captain James Cook last letter to England
  • "One quarter of all booty is to be distributed among the crew, and if any man lose an arm or a leg in solid service he should receive 600 pieces of eight or six able slaves." - Captain Kidd, Diary entry.
  • "Outside every fat man there is an even fatter man trying to get in." - Kingsley Amis
  • "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone." - Edith Cavell Last words,at her execution
  • "Perhaps not, my Lord, but certainly better informed." - Lord Birkenhead, in reply to a judge who had said to him at the conclusion of a trial "I have heard your case and am no wiser now than when I started."
  • "Pray - To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy." - Ambrose Bierce (from "The Devil's Dictionary")
  • "Ridicule often smothers that which is noble." - Sir Walter Scott.
  • "Run the bastards over !" - NSW Premier, Sir Robert Askin to Lyndon Johnson, US President when anti-Vietnam protesters lay down in front of their car in Sydney.
  • "Six hours in sleep, In law's grave study six, Four spend in prayer, The rest on nature fix." - Sir Edward Coke
  • "So little done, so much to do." - Cecil Rhodes Last words
  • "Such is life" - Ned Kelly (aged 25). Last words, on the scaffold.
  • "Thank God, I have done my duty." - Admiral Lord Nelson, Last words
  • "The almighty dollar" phrase coined by Washington Irving.
  • "The cruelest lies are often told in silence." - Robert Louis Stevenson
  • "The cure is worse than the disease." - Sir Francis Bacon.
  • "The devil instigated me to do this deed, and I did it." - John Knatchbull, Last words, at his execution.
  • "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become the fourth estate of the realm." - Thomas Babbington Macauley (Coining the expression "the Fourth Estate" for the press.)
  • "The great artists of the world are never puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable." - H.L.Mencken
  • "The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves that they don't give a damn." - Agatha Christie
  • "The humblest citizen throughout the land, when clad in the armour of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error." - William Jennings Bryan Speech to US National Democrat Convention
  • "The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people." - John Stuart Mill (On Liberty)
  • "The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
  • "The number of deaths speaks for itself." - William Wilberforce describes the horrors of the slave trade to the British House of Commons
  • "The reason why so few marriages are happy is that young women spend their time making nets, not in making cages. - Jonothan Swift
  • "The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel." - Horace Walpole
  • "There are moments in life worth purchasing with worlds."- Henry Fielding.
  • "Those in the cheaper seats, clap. The rest of you, rattle your jewellery." - John Lennon, Beatle, To a Royal Variety Concert audience.
  • "Timeo danaos et dona ferentes" ("I fear the Greeks, even when they bear gifts.") - Virgil
  • "To be good is noble; to teach others to be good is nobler, and less trouble." - Mark Twain (Chairing a meeting in New York at which Winston Churchill was guest speaker. He wrote this inscription in one of his books, which he presented to Churchill.)
  • "To our last man and our last shilling" - Prime Minister Andrew Fisher Pledging Australia's support for Britain during World War I.
  • "To the enemy must not be left a single engine, a single railway car, not a single pound of grain or a gallon of fuel." - Joseph Stalin
  • "Things happen" - Joseph Stalin
  • "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are." - Jane Taylor
  • "Up there, Cazaly !" Australian Rules Footballer Roy Cazaly could leap to a height of 1.5 metres. This phrase, used by supporters to spur him to action, became a rallying cry of Australian troops during WW I, and is the theme of a recent folk song.
  • "V:From ghosties and ghoulies and long leggety beasties, and things that go bump in the night R:Good Lord, Deliver us." - English litany
  • "Votes are to swords exactly what banknotes are to gold - the one is effective only because the other is believed to lie behind it." - Lord Birkenhead.
  • "We have got to know a man of God, Grigory, from Tobolsk province." - Tsar Nicholas of Russia (Diary entry) (refers to Rasputin)
  • "We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be, That no man lives forever - That dead men rise up never - That even the weariest river, Winds somewhere safe to sea." - Algernon Swinburne (The Garden of Proserpine)
  • "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America. - Preamble, US Constitution.
  • "Well may he say 'God save the Queen', for nothing will save the Governor-General" - Ex - Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on the steps of Parliament House after the order dismissing his government is read to the public.
  • "What is found in the effect was already in the cause." - Henri Bergson
  • "When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo, his best friends hear no more of him." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • "When Grant takes possession of a place, he holds onto it as if he had inherited it." - President Abraham Lincoln of General Ulysses S. Grant.
  • "When I am dead I hope it may be said His sins were scarlet, But his books were read." - Hilaire Belloc
  • "Women and children first" - anon, aboard the "Titanic"
  • "You can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time." - Phineas T. Barnum
  • "You may call it a coalition, you may call it the accidental and fortuitous concurrence of atoms." - Lord Palmerston
  • "You will go most safely in the middle." - Ovid
  • "Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day." - Charles Kingsley (The Water Babies)
  • Captain Cook wrote in his diary of the Australian aboriginals - "All they seemed to want was for us to be gone."
  • The following instructions were issued to passengers aboard the first KLM flight. "Don't hang over the side of the aircraft or bother your pilot. - Don't stick your arm or head suddenly overboard, you could lose your hat. - Refrain from alcohol several hours before a flight and don't eat split peas, beans, Brown bread or any food which could cause excessive gas in the intestines. - Visit the toilet before embarking."

• Hedgeline - Campaign for Effective Legislative Control of Problem Hedges of all species, in residential areas of the UK
  • At http://freespace.virgin.net/clare.h/index.htm
  • At http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_331000/331118.stm

• Quotes on Empiricism (scientific method) as formulated by Francis Bacon (1561-1626).
  • At http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/undergrad/Lewis_102/lec03.html
  • "His Novum Organum (a new system to replace Aristotle's Organon) which was inductive rather than deductive: generalizing general laws from observed particulars."
  • "W. H. Auden: "When Bacon defines Science as putting nature to the question-- that is, the torture-- he is rebuking this trust in direct observation, for he implies that nature is secretive and must be compelled against her will to reveal the truth. Modern science begins when, instead of asking what a thing is like, for which simple observation is enough, one asks how long it is or how heavy, questions which cannot be answered without relationship between private and public morality, and Descartes any intelligible relationship between Matter and Mind. Allegory became impossible as a literary form, and the human Amor seemed no longer a parable of the Divine Love but its blasphemous parody.""
  • At http://www.iol.ie/~rjtechne/boyle/refs1.htm
  • "Nandy has scathing remarks about Bacon's 'putting Nature to the Question', given that Bacon's role was to preside over a legal system in which torture was the norm."
  • At http://pages.infinit.net/coexiste/HISTORIQUE_AN.htm
  • "Thinkers, scientists did not hesitate to use the very language of the Inquisition; henceforth science should put nature to the question to test the truth-quality of knowledge."
  • At http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/1215.html
  • "Natural science finds its proper method when the 'scientist' puts Nature to the question, tortures her by experiment and wrings from her answers to his questions."
  • At http://www.bignerds.com/english/atlantis.shtml
  • "Natural science finds its proper method when the 'scientist' puts Nature to the question, tortures her by experiment and wrings from her answers to his questions. "
  • Francis Bacon, "NOVUM ORGANUM" (In Latin): http://www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/CLASSICS/bacon.html
  • Francis Bacon, "NOVUM ORGANUM" (In English): http://history.hanover.edu/texts/bacon/title.htm
  • Selections from Francis Bacon's "Aphorisms concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man" : http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~lyman/english233/Bacon-Novum_Organum1.htm

• Quotes (Conner's Unfamiliar Quotations)
  • At http://www.h2net.net/p/connect2/quotes2.html
  • We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world, and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.- Mark Twain {bsf}, 1835-1910
  • "Reber [Johnson; a violinist] also got off another one, after I'd played over the Second Violin Sonata for him that harmless piece. "After stuff like that" he said "if you consider that music, and like it, how can you like Brahms or any good music?" That is a very common attitude among almost all the well known lilies. They take it [i.e., that attitude] for granted a kind of self-evident axiom, a settled-for-life matter, ipso facto, admitting of no argument. The classical is good for all time, the modern is bad for all time - so if you like one, you can't like the other." - Charles E. Ives {cgs}, 1874-1954, describing the reaction of a typical professional musician to his, and other twentieth-century, compositions. "Lilies" was one of Ives' names for most of the concert goers of his era, who expected all music to be conventional and pretty.
  • No other offense has ever been visited with such penalties as seeking to help the oppressed. - Clarence Darrow
  • Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan. - Abraham Lincoln
  • A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882
  • The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. - F. Scott Fitzgerald {rel}, 1896-1940
  • Almost everybody can be imagined as either a cat or a dog. - Fitzgerald
  • Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. - Thoreau

• Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard's Almanack 1733-1758
  • At http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/loa/bfcont.htm

• Poor Richard's Almanack (1733-1758) by Benjamin Franklin
  • At http://www.shuku.net/novels/english/poorrichard/poorrichard.html
  • Excerpts :
    • He's gone, and forgot nothing but to say _Farewell_ -- to his creditors.
    • Hunger never saw bad bread.
    • A rich rogue, is like a fat hog, who never does good til as dead as a log.
    • Distrust & caution are the parents of security.
    • Take counsel in wine, but resolve afterwards in water.
    • Great famine when wolves eat wolves.
    • He is ill cloth'd, who is bare of Virtue.
    • Men & Melons are hard to know.
    • There is no little enemy.
    • Anoint a villain and he'll stab you, stab him & he'l anoint you.
    • Nothing more like a Fool, than a drunken Man.
    • Innocence is its own Defence.
    • Never mind it, she'l be sober after the Holidays.
    • Do what you ought, and not what you please.
    • Better slip with foot than tongue.
    • He that cannot obey, cannot command.
    • He that is rich need not live sparingly, and he that can live sparingly need not be rich.
    • If you wou'd be reveng'd of your enemy, govern your self.
    • _Necessity_ has no Law; I know some Attorneys of the name.
    • There's many witty men whose brains can't fill their bellies.
    • Pain wastes the Body, Pleasures the Understanding.
    • Three may keep a Secret, if two of them are dead.
    • A Lie stands on 1 leg, Truth on 2.
    • Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.
    • To be humble to Superiors is Duty, to Equals Courtesy, to Inferiors Nobleness.
    • _Sal_ laughs at every thing you say. Why? Because she has fine Teeth.
    • If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the Philosophers-Stone.
    • He that lives upon Hope, dies farting.
    • Admiration is the Daughter of Ignorance.
    • God helps them that help themselves.
    • Why does the blind man's wife paint herself.
    • None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing.
    • Don't throw stones at your neighbours, if your own windows are glass.
    • Pox take you, is no curse to some people.
    • Force shites upon Reason's Back.
    • God heals, and the Doctor takes the Fees.
    • I saw few die of Hunger, of Eating 100000.
    • The greatest monarch on the proudest throne, is oblig'd to sit upon his own arse.
    • A countryman between 2 Lawyers, is like a fish between two cats.
    • The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.
    • Don't misinform your Doctor nor your Lawyer.
    • The noblest question in the world is _What Good may I do in it?_
    • There is much difference between imitating a good man, and counterfeiting him.
    • Wink at small faults; remember thou hast great ones.
    • Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices.
    • He that falls in love with himself, will have no Rivals.
    • An infallible Remedy for the _Tooth-ach_, viz Wash the Root of an aching Tooth, in _Elder Vinegar_, and let it dry half an hour in the Sun; after which it will never ach more; _Probatum est_.
    • Thou hadst better eat salt with the Philosophers of _Greece_, than sugar with the Courtiers of _Italy._
    • Learn of the skilful: He that teaches himself, hath a fool for his master.
    • Quarrels never could last long, If on one side only lay the wrong.
    • He that hath a Trade, hath an Estate.
    • When Knaves fall out, honest Men get their goods: When Priests dispute, we come at the Truth.
    • Death takes no bribes.
    • One good Husband is worth two good Wives; for the scarcer things are the more they're valued.
    • How few there are who have courage enough to own their Faults, or resolution enough to mend them!
    • How many observe Christ's Birth-day! How few, his Precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.
    • If you'd lose a troublesome Visitor, lend him Money.
    • Sloth (like Rust) consumes faster than Labour wears: the used Key is always bright.
    • Where there's no Law, there's no Bread.
    • Those who are fear'd, are hated.
    • A true Friend is the best Possession.
    • _Epitaph on a Scolding Wife by her Husband_. : Here my poor _Bridgets_'s Corps doth lie, she is at rest, -- and so am I.
    • Beware of little Expences, a small Leak will sink a great Ship.
    • Wars bring scars.
    • As often as we do good, we sacrifice.
    • No gains without pains.
    • One Man may be more cunning than another, but not more cunning than every body else.
    • Vice knows she's ugly, so puts on her Mask
    • It's the easiest Thing in the World for a Man to deceive himself.
    • Take Courage, Mortal; Death can't banish thee out of the Universe.
    • Do me the Favour to deny me at once.
    • The most exquisite Folly is made of Wisdom spun too fine.
    • Mad Kings and mad Bulls, are not to be held by treaties & packthread.
    • Changing Countries or Beds, cures neither a bad Manager, nor a Fever.
    • Strive to be the _greatest_ Man in your Country, and you may be disappointed; Strive to be the _best_, and you may succeed: He may well win the race that runs by himself.
    • Tis a strange Forest that has no rotten Wood in't.
    • A good Example is the best sermon.
    • A Father's a Treasure; a Brother's a Comfort; a Friend is both.
    • Despair ruins some, Presumption many.
    • Write Injuries in Dust, Benefits in Marble.
    • The Devil sweetens Poison with Honey.
    • Lost Time is never found again.
    • _Liberality_ is not giving much but giving wisely.
    • Pardoning the Bad, is injuring the Good.
    • Wise Men learn by others harms; Fools by their own
    • Many Foxes grow grey, but few grow good.
    • Presumption first blinds a Man, then sets him a running.
    • If _Passion_ drives, let _Reason_ hold the Reins.
    • If your head is wax, don't walk in the Sun.
    • 9 Men in 10 are suicides.
    • A Man in a Passion rides a mad Horse.
    • There are three Things extreamly hard, Steel, a Diamond and to know one's self.
    • Hunger is the best Pickle.
    • Sorrow is good for nothing but Sin.
    • Many a Man thinks he is buying Pleasure, when he is really selling himself a Slave to it.
    • He that spills the Rum, loses that only; He that drinks it, often loses both that and himself.
    • Little Strokes, Fell great Oaks.
    • Genius without Education is like Silver in the Mine.
    • You can bear your own Faults, and why not a Fault in your Wife.
    • Hide not your Talents, they for Use were made. What's a Sun-Dial in the Shade!
    • _Tim_ was so learned, that he could name a Horse in nine Languages; So ignorant, that he bought a Cow to ride on.
    • The Golden Age never was the present Age.
    • Glass, China, and Reputation, are easily crack'd, and never well mended.
    • Pray don't burn my House to roast your Eggs.
    • Prosperity discovers Vice, Adversity Virtue.
    • We may give Advice, but we cannot give Conduct.
    • There are lazy Minds as well as lazy Bodies.
    • Don't judge of Mens Wealth or Piety, by their _Sunday_ Appearances.
    • To-day is Yesterday's Pupil.
    • Great Estates may venture more; Little Boats must keep near Shore.
    • Drunkenness, that worst of Evils, makes some Men Fools, some Beasts, some Devils.
    • Kings have long Arms, but Misfortune longer: Let none think themselves out of her Reach.
    • For want of a Nail the Shoe is lost; for want of a Shoe, the Horse is lost; for want of a Horse the Rider is lost.
    • Calamity and Prosperity are the Touchstones of Integrity.
    • Success has ruin'd many a Man.
    • Philosophy as well as Foppery often changes Fashion
    • Paintings and Fightings are best seen at a distance.
    • Haste makes Waste.
    • Many have quarrel'd about Religion, that never practis'd it.
    • He that best understands the World, least likes it.
    • _Anger_ is never without a Reason, but seldom with a good One.
    • Serving God is Doing Good to Man, but Praying is thought an easier Service, and therefore more generally chosen.
    • The discontented Man finds no easy Chair.
    • In Rivers & bad Governments, the lightest Things swim at top.
    • A Child thinks 20 _Shillings_ and 20 Years can scarce ever be spent.
    • When the Wine enters, out goes the Truth.
    • Where there is Hunger, Law is not regarded; and where Law is not regarded, there will be Hunger.
    • The Doors of Wisdom are never shut.
    • A Change of _Fortune_ hurts a wise Man no more than a Change of the _Moon._
    • Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.
    • Laws _too gentle_ are seldom _obeyed_; _too severe_, seldom _executed._
    • Tis easier to build two Chimneys, than maintain one in Fuel.
    • Scarlet, Silk and Velvet, have put out the Kitchen Fire.
    • Men take more pains to mask than mend.
    • Dally not with other Folks Women or Money.
    • Work as if you were to live 100 Years, Pray as if you were to die To-morrow.
    • Retirement does not always secure Virtue; _Lot_ was upright in the City, wicked in the Mountain.
    • For Age and Want, save while you may; No Morning Sun lasts a whole Day
    • Fools need Advice most, but wise Men only are the better for it.
    • Silence is not always a Sign of Wisdom, but Babbling is ever a Mark of Folly.
    • You may delay, but _Time_ will not.
    • Prodigality of _Time_, produces Poverty of Mind as well as of Estate.
    • Half the Truth is often a great Lie.
    • The Way to see by _Faith_, is to shut the Eye of _Reason_: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.
    • _Good-Will_, like the Wind, floweth where it listeth.
    • In a corrupt Age, the putting the World in order would breed Confusion; then e'en mind your own Business.
    • To serve the Publick faithfully, and at the same time please it entirely, is impracticable.

• Poor Richard's 1733 Almanack: Benjamin Franklin's First Almanack : and the Hoax that Launched It
  • At http://sln.fi.edu/qa98/musing9/almanack1733.html
  • Excerpts from Franklin's 1733 Almanack:
    • He's a Fool that makes his Doctor his Heir.
    • Distrust and caution are the parents of security.
    • Men and Melons are hard to know.
    • Innocence is its own Defense.

• Poor Richard's Almanack (1733-1758) by Benjamin Franklin
  • At http://www.cnovel.com/english/English%20Literature/F/BENJAMIN%20FRANKLIN(1706-1790)/POOR%20RICHARD'S%20ALMANACK%20(1733-1758)/index.HTM

• Poor Richard's almanack
  • At http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is182/s01/second53.html
  • Poor Richard's almanack; being the almanacks of 1733, 1749, 1756, 1757, 1758, first written under the name of Richard Saunders, by Benjamin Franklin; with a foreword by Phillips Russell, a preface by the publishers, the almanacks in facsimile, certain text set up in type, and numerous and sundry illustrations and embellishments. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Doran, 1928. 55 p. incl. front. (port.) facsims.

• Quotes
  • At http://www.esd165.org/hs/Courses/history/crago/quotes2.html
  • "Climb high, climb far. Your goal the sky- your aim the star." -Anon.
  • "The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer." -US Army Service Corps
  • "Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past." -Harry Truman, 1955
  • "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." -Robert Frost, 1916
  • "And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by." -John Masefield, 1902
  • "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -George Santayana, 1906
  • "The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines." -Frank L. Wright, 1953
  • "Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times." -Sir Winston Churchill, 1920

  • At http://www.esd165.org/hs/Courses/history/crago/quotes3.html
  • Silent enim leges inter arma. "In times of war, the law stands silent." -Cicero, 42 B.C.
  • "History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illuminates reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life..." -Cicero, 43 B.C.
  • "The first law of the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true." -Cicero, 41 B.C.
  • "Damn the torpedoes- full speed ahead!" -David G. Farragut, 1864
  • "Wisdom outweighs any wealth." -Sophocles, 404 B.C.
  • "Force has no place where there is need of skill." -Herodotus, 420 B.C.
  • "We make war that we may live in peace." -Aristotle, 300 B.C.
  • Veni, vedi, vici. "I came, I saw, I comquered." -Julius Caesar, 42 B.C.

  • At http://www.esd165.org/hs/Courses/history/crago/quotes.html
  • "We have 40,000,000 reasons for failure, and not a single excuse." -Rudyard Kipling, 1881
  • "What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right." -Adalai Stevenson, 1954
  • "What ever you do, you need courage. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right." -Ralph W. Emerson, 1867
  • "Upon this point a page of history is worth a volume of logic." -Oliver W. Holmes, 1921
  • "All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions." -Adalai Stevenson
  • "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think." -Ralph W. Emerson, 1841
  • "Ignorance is the womb of monsters." -Henry W. Beecher, 1870

• Quotes - Israel Zangwill
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/zangwill.htm

  • In how many lives does Love really play a dominant part? The average taxpayer is no more capable of a "grand passion" than of a grand opera.

    Scratch the Christian and you find the pagan--spoiled.

    Let us start a new religion with one commandment, "Enjoy thyself."

    The law of dislike for the unlike will always prevail. And whereas the unlike is normally situated at a safe distance, the Jews bring the unlike into the heart of every milieu, and must there defend a frontier line as large as the world.

• Quotes - H.L. Mencken
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/mencken.htm

  • An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

    Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

    Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

    There are people who read too much: bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.

    It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men.

• Quotes - George Orwell
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/orwell.htm

  • The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

    For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle (home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics) he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavouring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him.

    Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.

    On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

• Quotes - Cyril Connolly
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/connolly.htm

  • Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out.

    There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.

• Quotes - George Santayana
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/santayana.htm

  • Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds

• Quotes - Thomas Carlyle
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/carlyle.htm

  • A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.

    In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

    History, a distillation of Rumour.

    Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.

    A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun.

    I don't pretend to understand the Universe--it's a great deal bigger than I am.

    Good breeding . . . differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.

• Quotes - Karl Kraus
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/kraus.htm

  • The secret of the demagogue is to appear as dumb as his audience so that these people can believe themselves as smart as he is.

    The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.

    Sentimental irony is a dog that bays at the moon while pissing on graves.

    It is uplifting to lose one's faith in a reality which looks the way it is described in a newspaper.

    He who sleeps half a day has won half a life.

    Truth is a clumsy servant that breaks the dishes while washing them

    When a culture feels that its end has come, it sends for a priest.

    How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

• Quotes - George Bernard Shaw
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/shaw.htm

  • When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

    If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion

    Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.

    The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.

• Quotes - Italo Calvino
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/calvino.htm

  • Novels as dull as dishwater, with the grease of random sentiments floating on top.

    Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.

• Quotes - Michel de Montaigne
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/montaigne.htm

  • Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities.

    Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm, and yet will make Gods by dozens.

• Quotes - Simone Weil
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/weil.htm

  • Bourgeois society is infected by monomania: the monomania of accounting. For it, the only thing that has value is what can be counted in francs and centimes. It never hesitates to sacrifice human life to figures which look well on paper, such as national budgets or industrial balance sheets.

    The future is made of the same stuff as the present.

• Quotes - Francis Bacon
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/bacon.htm

  • Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

    He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

    If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.

    For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.

    Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

    Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.

    We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

    It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.

    Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

    Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

• Quotes - Samuel Butler
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/butler.htm

  • If there is any moral in Christianity, if there is anything to be learned from it, if the whole story is not profitless from first to last, it comes to this: that a man should back his own opinion against the world's.

    An apology for the Devil--it must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

• Quotes - E.M. Forster
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/forster.htm

  • It is not that the Englishman can't feel--it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks--his pipe might fall out if he did.

    One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.

• Quotes - Pamela Hansford Johnson
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/johnson3.htm

  • You slam a politician, you make out he's the devil, with horns and hoofs. But his wife loves him, and so did all his mistresses.

• Quotes - William Shakespeare
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/shakespeare.htm

  • When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions!

    The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.

    All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances.

    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.

    What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

    Blow, blow, thou winter wind, thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude.

    As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next.

    And do as adversaries do in law, strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

    We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

• Quotes - Hilaire Belloc
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/belloc.htm

  • It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation.

    Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.

• Quotes - William Blake
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/blake.htm

  • Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be true.

    Every harlot was a virgin once.

    Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.

    He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

• Quotes - Sir Thomas Browne
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/browne.htm

  • Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.

    We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.

    Yet is every man his own greatest enemy, and as it were his own executioner.

• Quotes - Charles Dickens
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/dickens.htm

  • It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away.

    There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated.

    It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.

    I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.

• Quotes - John Dryden
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/dryden.htm

  • All heiresses are beautiful.

    Beware the fury of a patient man.

    Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

    Repentance is but want of power to sin.

    War is the trade of Kings.

    Even victors are by victories undone.

• Quotes - John Stuart Mill
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/mill.htm

  • That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.

    The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.

• Quotes - John Milton
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/milton.htm

  • A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.

• Quotes - Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramée)
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/ouida.htm

  • To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.

• Quotes - Alexander Pope
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/pope.htm

  • Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part.

    "Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed" was the ninth beatitude.

    The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

    A little learning is a dangerous thing.

    Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.

    Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.

• Quotes - Evelyn Waugh
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/waugh.htm

  • The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.

    Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

    It is a curious thing that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilised taste.

• Quotes - Otto Von Bismarck
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/bismarck.htm

  • Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.

    Politics is not an exact science.

• Quotes - Bertolt Brecht
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/brecht.htm

  • No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.

    You don't need to pray to God any more when there are storms in the sky, but you do have to be insured.

    Science knows only one commandment--contribute to science.

• Quotes - Karl Marx
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/marx.htm

  • The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the desecration of brick and mortar.

    Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending.

    All social rules and all relations between individuals are eroded by a cash economy, avarice drags Pluto himself out of the bowels of the earth.

    Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

    A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.

• Quotes - Schiller (1759-1805)
  • At http://www.theotherpages.org/alpha-s1.html

  • Against stupidity the very gods Themselves contend in vain. --from The Maid of Orleans

• Quotes - Albert Schweitzer
  • At http://www.theotherpages.org/alpha-s1.html

  • Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always.

  • Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

  • I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

  • In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

  • Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

  • Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

• Quotes - Sir Walter Scott
  • At http://www.theotherpages.org/alpha-s1.html

  • O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive

• Quotes - Lucius Annaeus Seneca
  • At http://www.theotherpages.org/alpha-s1.html

  • It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters.

  • Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

  • Death: A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.

  • People do not care how nobly they live, only how long, despite the fact that it is within everyone's reach to live nobly, but within no one's reach to live long.

  • It is proof of a bad cause when it is appluaded by the mob.

• Quotes - Lucius Senecca
  • At http://www.theotherpages.org/alpha-s1.html

  • Man is a reasoning Animal.

  • Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

• Quotes - Louis Scutenaire
  • At http://www.theotherpages.org/alpha-s1.html

  • It is regrettable for the education of the young that war stories are always told by those who survived.

• Quotes - Orson Scott Card
  • At http://www.premodern.org/~nlanza/quotes.html

  • Nobody controls his own life. The best you can do is choose to be controlled by good people, by people who love you.

• Quotes - Alexis de Toucqueville
  • At http://www.premodern.org/~nlanza/quotes.html

  • The American republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

• Quotes - Olin Shivers
  • At http://www.premodern.org/~nlanza/quotes.html

  • It was a beautiful, almost poetic way to cap what had been a textbook career of brilliant, original mathematical insights punctuated with outbursts of random, deeply unhinged violence.

• Quotes - Oliver Goldsmith
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/goldsmith.htm

  • There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

    Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.

    In all the silent manliness of grief.

• Quotes - George Moore
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/moore.htm

  • Heaven may be for the laity, but this world is certainly for the clergy.

• Quotes - Robert Lynd
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/lynd.htm

  • Every man of genius is considerably helped by being dead.

    There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.

    History may be read as the story of the magnificent rearguard action fought during several thousand years by dogma against curiosity.

• Quotes - Walter Lippmann
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/lippmann.htm

  • The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not the foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose.

    What we call a democratic society might be defined for certain purposes as one in which the majority is always prepared to put down a revolutionary minority.

    This is one of the paradoxes of the democratic movement--that it loves a crowd and fears the individuals who compose it--that the religion of humanity should have no faith in human beings.

    In really hard times the rules of the game are altered. The inchoate mass begins to stir. It becomes potent, and when it strikes, . . . it strikes with incredible emphasis. Those are the rare occasions when a national will emerges from the scattered, specialized, or indifferent blocs of voters who ordinarily elect the politicians. Those are for good or evil the great occasions in a nation's history.

    No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.

    The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.

    When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute.

    There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.

    Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.

    Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all the other virtues; tired of the effort of willing they become fanatics about conservatism.

    Unless democracy is to commit suicide by consenting to its own destruction, it will have to find some formidable answer to those who come to it saying: "I demand from you in the name of your principles the rights which I shall deny to you later in the name of my principles."

    The effort to calculate exactly what the voters want at each particular moment leaves out of account the fact that when they are troubled the thing the voters most want is to be told what to want.

• Quotes - Jonathan Swift
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/swift.htm

  • The want of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.

    I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.

    The most positive men are the most credulous.

    It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind.

    The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.

    I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little, odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

    We are so fond of one another, because our ailments are the same.

    Come, agree, the law's costly.

    Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

    It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.

    Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

    Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.

• Quotes - Henry Brooks Adams
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/adams2.htm

  • As for America, it is the ideal fruit of all your youthful hopes and reforms. Everybody is fairly decent, respectable, domestic, bourgeois, middle-class, and tiresome. There is absolutely nothing to revile except that it's a bore.

    The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing.

    Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

    A friend in power is a friend lost.

    Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.

    Morality is a private and costly luxury.

    He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers.

    Accident counts for much in companionship as in marriage.

    The progress of Evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence enough to upset Darwin.

    Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.

    Everyone carries his own inch-rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.

    No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

    Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.

• Quotes - Frank Moore Colby
  • At http://www.memorablequotations.com/colby.htm

  • We always carry out by committee anything in which any one of us alone would be too reasonable to persist.

    Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humor?

    That is the consolation of a little mind; you have the fun of changing it without impeding the progress of mankind.

    Many people lose their tempers merely from seeing you keep yours.

• The Wisdom of the World - 1,000 Messages for the New Millennium Compiled by Bruce Lloyd
  • At http://www.wfs.org/Q-abc.htm#a

  • "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." - Edward Abbey
  • "The good Lord set definite limits on man's wisdom, but set no limits on his stupidity and that's just not fair." - Konrad Adenauer
  • "What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork." - Pearl Bailey
  • "It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiats can be trusted to speak the truth." - A.J. Balfour

• The Wisdom of the World - 1,000 Messages for the New Millennium
  • At http://www.wfs.org/Q-intro.htm

  • Count Oxenstierna, (Swedish Statesman,1648) "Dost thou not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?"

  • To Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is attributed: "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." A very similar remark is attributed, many centuries earlier, to the Roman Poet, Marcus Lucan (39-65) who is quoted as saying: "Pygmies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves." And another version by Bernard of Chartres ca.1120.AD, "We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size."

• Strategic Planning for Smart Leadership - Chapter 1 - Introduction & Overview
  • At http://www.newforums.com/sample_SPSL.htm

  • If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. -- Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1729)
  • A dwarf standing on the shoulders of giants sees farther than a giant himself. -- Robert Burton (1577-1640)
  • Pygmies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves. -- Marcus Lucan (39-65)

• HowStuffWorks - Learn how Everything Works!
  • At http://www.howstuffworks.com/

• Botany related news, books and web resources
  • At http://utyx.com/botany/

• Counter Punch - American Political Newsletter
  • At http://www.counterpunch.org/

• Mystery Runners
  • At http://www.mysteryrunners.co.uk/

• 118118 UK Phone directory numbe
  • At http://www.thenumber118118.com/

  • Boardroom Motivation
    • The runaway success of the 118-118 runners had caused a scramble among the top corporations to retain them as "Inspirationalist Motivationalist Dedicationists". The runners now tour boardrooms of the world transforming bloodless office drones into thrusting athletes of the business world.
  • Competitor Orientation
    • Follow the runners System for Success and you'll be left in no doubt as to how to deal with those who stand in your way and block your path.
    • Left 118: "Competitors are Scum. Bottom Feeders, Maggots"
    • Right 118: "Be faster, harder and more motivated. Then batter them."

• 118118 Experience
  • At http://www.the118118experience.com/

• Oftel accused of 192 fiasco - Friday, 5 September, 2003, 18:25 GMT 19:25 UK
  • At http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3084412.stm

• More Ripoff Britain - privatising 192 Directory Assistance comments
  • At http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3174225.stm

• Australians Vote Green: History-Making No to US War Plans
  • At http://www.counterpunch.org/jones1025.html

• Institute for Public Accuracy
  • At http://www.accuracy.org/

• Pastoral Ponderings on Just War Theology by David E. Conner
  • At http://www.csd.net/~wrcucc/pastor.html

  • One topic on almost everyone’s mind these days is the possibility of war with Iraq. The prospect of war raises a host of very troubling questions - questions for which I, as your pastor, cannot pretend to have all the answers.

    In the face of moral uncertainty and public controversy it is often helpful to consult the wisdom of our forebears in faith. When the subject of war arises I find myself looking back at the theory of a "just war." The idea of a just war appears in early Christian writings but received its most influential historic development in the work of the Dutch Protestant philosopher Hugo Grotius (1583-1645). Historically most wars have involved not only combat between armed soldiers but the enormous suffering entailed by the destruction of crops and towns, the rape and slaughter of non-combatants, the enslavement of defeated armies, and the forced payment of tribute from conquered nations. Many wars have been fought sheerly for aggression and conquest.

    The theory of a "just war" is an attempt by persons of religious perspective to state the conditions under which a nation may morally engage in war. According to Frederick Copleston, Grotius believed that it is permissible for a state to wage war against another state which has attacked it, or in order to recover what has been stolen from it, or to restrain another state that is obviously violating natural or divine law. Preventive wars, Grotius said, may not be waged unless there is moral certainty that the other state intends to attack; nor may war be waged simply for advantage’s sake, nor to obtain better land, nor out of a desire to rule other peoples under the pretext that it is for their own good. War should not be waged in cases of doubt as to its justice, and even for just causes, it should never be undertaken rashly, but only out of necessity, and peace should always be kept in view. Treaties should be scrupulously observed.

    To this list, other just war theorists such as Francis Suarez (1548-1617) have added the condition that the war must be properly conducted. Generally this means that injury to non-combatants must be prevented, and even enemy soldiers must not be made to suffer unnecessarily or barbarically.

    We are now living over three hundred years after the time of Grotius and Suarez, and no one would suggest that we should follow their specific principles unreflectively. Nevertheless, we are, I hope, still a nation that wishes to be just - and therefore the obligation which we do have is, if possible, to revive the concept of a just war in a form that is valid for our own time. Present world circumstances require each one of us to consider whether we believe there are characteristics or qualifications that can make any war "just." If you had to revise Grotius’ and Suarez’s ideas, what would you say?

    Perhaps, with only slight modification, most of Grotius’ and Suarez’s ideas still make sense. For example, it is very difficult to think that our nation should attack Iraq unless we have some "moral certainty" that Iraq itself is bent on attack. It is very difficult to accept the idea of bombing a city like Baghdad in which 50% of the people are children. It is increasingly difficult to give uncritical credence to our Denver newspapers and TV stations, with their daily banners proclaiming "COUNTDOWN TO WAR" and "SHOWDOWN WITH SADDAM" -as if the impending bloodshed were a new release of Shoot-out at the OK Corral, or just another story to build up ratings - while they downplay divergent responses and demonstrations both in our own country and overseas.

    The idea of a just war reminds us that we cannot go to war just because it is popular in the polls or because it makes for good news stories or because we feel entitled to get revenge on an evil man. If we go to war it must be with profound sorrow, and only because it is truly and absolutely the last option.

    General William T. Sherman, for whom one of our central Denver streets is named, is widely known to have said that ‘war is hell.’ Sometimes we quote his remark in a light-hearted way, but the more complete quotation goes like this. "I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell."

    May God guide us in the days ahead.

    - David E. Conner

• A Sermon Preached by David E. Conner, Pastor - Wheat Ridge Congregation, The United Church of Christ (UCC) - January 19, 2003 - Taking the Church's Spiritual Temperature
  • At http://www.csd.net/~wrcucc/sermons/s_011903.html

  • The news cameras zoom in on the faces of sobbing people, such as a woman whose child was murdered. She wails that since the murderer now will not be executed, she will experience no "closure" regarding her child's death. Now surely our hearts break with sympathy for anyone who has lost a loved one in a violent crime. What a dreadful experience that would be! But as a pastor, allow me to say something about the word "closure."

    Closure is a term used by psychologists and social scientists to describe events or rituals which help to acknowledge an end point to some facet of life. For example, at the close of this worship service we will have a benediction which could be termed an act of closure. Or, a funeral helps to bring closure to our grief when someone has died. Therefore memorial services are of great value for most families.

  • No one in modern America knew this better than Martin Luther King, whose birthday we celebrate tomorrow. King said, "Every genuine expression of love arises out of a consistent and total surrender to God." Following Gandhi, King said "We must resist evil with as much vigor and power as the violent resistor, but we must do so with love instead of hate." For Martin Luther King, the Christian faith was the basic motive in the struggle for civil rights. But Dr. King also knew that there is a cautious and conventional type of Christianity that is not the friend but the enemy of moral progress. Dr. King wrote:

    "In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of an economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say, 'Those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real concern.' And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which makes a strange, unbiblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

    How often the church has been an echo rather than a voice, a taillight behind the U. S. Supreme Court and other secular agencies, rather than a headlight guiding human beings progressively and decisively to higher levels of understanding.

    If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic right, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for modern times."

    Dr. King did of course believe in the church, and served as the pastor of one in Montgomery, Alabama. He believed that the Christian faith, when it serves to motivate human beings to high courage and sacrifice, is the greatest force in the world.

    British pastor Leslie Weatherhead liked to tell the story of a place in Foo Chow, China, where there are three graves side by side. Two of the graves are for two sisters from Australia, Christian missionaries who were murdered by hostile Chinese. When the news of these murders reached Australia, their mother, who was a widow sixty-two years of age, sold all that she had, journeyed to the place where her daughters had died, learned the Chinese language, and set up a school to continue their work. By the end of the story she had given her final twenty years in service to China. She died at eighty-two and was buried by grateful citizens next to her daughters.

• A Sermon Preached by David E. Conner, Pastor - Wheat Ridge Congregation, The United Church of Christ - March 23, 2003 - - Traveling Without Arriving
  • At http://www.csd.net/~wrcucc/sermons/s_032303.html

  • After a family had come home from church one Sunday morning the mother was talking to her little boy and asked, "Johnny, what did you study in Sunday school today?" Johnny said, "Oh, Mom, we studied about a man named Moses." Mom replied, "Well, what did Moses do?"

    Johnny said, "Moses had quite an adventurous life. He went behind the enemy lines, he rescued the Israelites by building a pontoon bridge over the sea, he led the people over the pontoon bridge, and when the enemy chased them onto the bridge he called some air force guys on the walkie-talkie and they came in and bombed the bridge so that all the enemy guys drowned. After that he took them out into the desert and the air force parachuted some C-rations down to them."

    In amazement his mother asked, "Now Johnny, is that actually what the Sunday school teacher told you?"

    Johnny said, "No, Mom, but if I told you what she really said, you'd never believe it!"

• A Sermon Preached by David E. Conner, Pastor - Wheat Ridge Congregation, The United Church of Christ - March 30, 2003 - - Where To Turn in a Time of War
  • At http://www.csd.net/~wrcucc/sermons/s_033003.html

  • We do not have time today to explore this poem at length, as it deserves. Clearly it is a powerful expression about the pain and suffering of war. When Miss Walker read this poem on TV to Bill Moyers, Mr. Moyers paused and let the words sink in. Then he asked Alice Walker a question which seems very important. "It's true," Bill Moyers said, "that American bombs cause the suffering of innocent children." Then he said, "But isn't it also true that Saddam Hussein has bombed his own people and caused the deaths of a large number of innocent civilians? What should we do then to stop him?"

    As Alice Walker answered, I tried hard to listen, but I was unable to perceive that she had any clear response. At least at that moment, in that interview, she had no positive or articulate approach pertaining to the use of force in society. As I reflected on this, it occurred to me that perhaps an African-American woman who was born in 1944 in Georgia in a sharecropper's cabin has never had the option of any ample, effectual force that was hers to wield, never had any coercive power which was available to her to address problems. Maybe, therefore, a woman such as Alice Walker learns, as many women have learned in our society, to adapt to life in a way that is devoid of the use of coercion and force. That may not be good, it may not be right, but perhaps that is the way it is.

    Now, a story about a different person.

    One of the great American theologians of the twentieth century was Reinhold Niebuhr. Reinhold Niebuhr came out of the Evangelical and Reformed tradition back before the E&R merged with the Congregational Christians in 1957 to become the United Church of Christ. Niebuhr told of the time when he was a young pastor in Detroit. It was during the Depression. He was teaching a Sunday school class of junior high boys. They were studying the Sermon on the Mount and, specifically, Jesus' teaching to that you turn the other cheek when someone strikes you on one cheek, and if someone takes your coat, you give to them your cloak also. As the boys heard these words of Christ, a lad fourteen or fifteen years old raised his hand. "Pastor Niebuhr," he said, "my dad's out of work. I sell newspapers on the street corner and right now the little bit of money I earn selling newspapers is our family's only source of income. Sometimes," he continued, "another boy will come along and try to steal my newspapers so he can sell them. Does turning the other cheek mean that I have to let him take my newspapers? Because if I do, my family will go hungry."

    In Niebuhr's mind, as he reported later, this innocent question was like a bombshell. As he mulled this over, it altered his whole theory of ethics. He realized that it is one thing to turn the other cheek on your own behalf, but when you are responsible for the well-being of others a different ethic emerges - an ethic in which some use of force may sometimes regrettably be necessary. Niebuhr certainly did not reject Jesus' teaching about turning the other cheek, but he did come to believe that that teaching may not be applicable in every circumstance.

  • I say all of this in illustration of my original point, that the Bible and the Christian tradition do not provide us with any simple answers to these questions of war and peace. But there is one lesson which both the Bible and the Christian tradition definitely do teach, and that is that in the last analysis people of faith always are called to place their ultimate trust not in human considerations, but in the goodness, and the power, and the mercy of Almighty God. In the immortal words of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, "The Almighty has his own purposes."

  • Point Two is that, if we care at all about the will of God, God calls us to seek what Reinhold Niebuhr called "a capacity for rational self-transcendence."

    This is an impressive-sounding phrase, but "rational self-transcendence" means that we are always trying to use our intelligence in order to look beyond ourselves. It means that we ponder at length what it is like to stand in the other person's place. Rational self-transcendence means that we listen carefully to others, and think long and hard about the impact that our actions and our policies may have on them. And note well that the more power you have, the more important it is to do this. In our nation we do so many things of far-ranging impact, and yet we are clueless, oblivious, regarding the effects on people we never see.

    Years ago I was at home with my youngest daughter, Cathy. Cathy was then three or four years old - old enough to feed herself with a spoon, and at that particular time in her life she was willing to eat just about whatever was placed in front of her. For lunch I had made soup. Some of you know that I am rather fond of hot sauce, and so I had dumped a rather generous quantity of Tabasco in my serving of soup. I also ladled up a bowl of soup for Cathy. Then I put her in her high chair, gave her her soup, and I sat down and began to eat. I was about halfway through my soup when I realized that my soup was far too bland. As I began to think about what had happened it occurred to me that the bowls of soup had gotten switched. Sure enough, I looked over at little Cathy and there she was, cheerfully eating her soup with tears streaming down her face because of all the Tabasco.

    When we have power, when we have an advantage, when we have authority over other people who are smaller than we are or who somehow depend upon us, we have to seek a capacity for rational self-transcendence. We have to pay attention to them. We have to live beyond our own needs and our own standards and our own opinions in the effort to see what effect we are having on others.

    As the most powerful nation on earth, we in the United States too frequently find ourselves unwittingly putting hot sauce in other people's soup - not only militarily, but economically, as when we buy coffee and fruit from Latin America without any knowledge of the wages paid to workers there, or when we buy shoes and clothing from China without any concern for the working conditions of laborers there. Even our entertainment industry is part of this problem. Do you remember those women in Polynesia who almost became malnourished after they obtained televisions and then began trying to look like the bikini-clad women in Bay Watch? Putting our trust in God means that we see our impact on others from their perspective.

• Is God "Neutral"?
  • At http://www.accuracy.org/ipam122001.htm
  • "Christians have a 'just war' teaching that in theory can be used to judge any war. In practice, the teaching serves to bless rather than judge wars," said Sister Evelyn Mattern, a program associate at the North Carolina Council of Churches. "For example, the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops recently invoked the 'just war' teaching with regard to Afghanistan. In their hurry to support the president, they failed even to mention one of the main criteria for a just war: that it can be declared only after every other effort has failed. It has yet to be revealed, I think, what the U.S. tried and failed before it began bombing."

• The real reasons Bush went to war : WMD was the rationale for invading Iraq. But what was really driving the US were fears over oil and the future of the dollar - John Chapman - Wednesday July 28, 2004 - The Guardian
  • At http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4980254-103677,00.html
  • There were only two credible reasons for invading Iraq: control over oil and preservation of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Yet the government has kept silent on these factors, instead treating us to the intriguing distractions of the Hutton and Butler reports.

    Butler's overall finding of a "group think" failure was pure charity. Absurdities like the 45-minute claim were adopted by high-level officials and ministers because those concerned recognised the substantial reason for war - oil. WMD provided only the bureaucratic argument: the real reason was that Iraq was swimming in oil.

    Some may still believe the eve-of-war contention by Donald Rumsfeld that "We won't take forces and go around the world and try to take other people's oil ... That's not how democracies operate." Maybe others will go along with Blair's post-war contention: "There is no way whatsoever, if oil were the issue, that it would not have been infinitely easier to cut a deal with Saddam."

    But senior civil servants are not so naive. On the eve of the Butler report, I attended the 40th anniversary of the Mandarins cricket club. I was taken aside by a knighted civil servant to discuss my contention in a Guardian article earlier this year that Sir Humphrey was no longer independent. I had then attacked the deceits in the WMD report, and this impressive official and I discussed the geopolitical issues of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and US unwillingness to build nuclear power stations and curb petrol consumption, rather than go to war.

    Saddam controlled a country at the centre of the Gulf, a region with a quarter of world oil production in 2003, and containing more than 60% of the world's known reserves. With 115bn barrels of oil reserves, and perhaps as much again in the 90% of the country not yet explored, Iraq has capacity second only to Saudi Arabia. The US, in contrast, is the world's largest net importer of oil. Last year the US Department of Energy forecast that imports will cover 70% of domestic demand by 2025.

    By invading Iraq, Bush has taken over the Iraqi oil fields, and persuaded the UN to lift production limits imposed after the Kuwait war. Production may rise to 3m barrels a day by year end, about double 2002 levels. More oil should bring down Opec-led prices, and if Iraqi oil production rose to 6m barrels a day, Bush could even attack the Opec oil-pricing cartel.

    Control over Iraqi oil should improve security of supplies to the US, and possibly the UK, with the development and exploration contracts between Saddam and China, France, India, Indonesia and Russia being set aside in favour of US and possibly British companies. And a US military presence in Iraq is an insurance policy against any extremists in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

    Overseeing Iraqi oil supplies, and maybe soon supplies from other Gulf countries, would enable the US to use oil as power. In 1990, the then oil man, Dick Cheney, wrote that: "Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well."

    In the 70s, the US agreed with Saudi Arabia that Opec oil should be traded in dollars. American governments have since been able to print dollars to cover huge trading deficits, with the further benefit of those dollars being placed in the US money markets. In return, the US allowed the Opec countries to operate a production and pricing cartel.

    Over the past 15 years, the overall US deficit with the rest of the world has risen to $2,700bn - an abuse of its privileged currency position. Although about 80% of foreign exchange and half of world trade is in dollars, the euro provides a realistic alternative. Euro countries also have a bigger share of world trade, and of trade with Opec countries, than the US.

    In 1999, Iran mooted pricing its oil in euros, and in late 2000 Saddam made the switch for Iraqi oil. In early 2002 Bush placed Iran and Iraq in the axis of evil. If the other Opec countries had followed Saddam's move to euros, the consequences for Bush could have been huge. Worldwide switches out of the dollar, on top of the already huge deficit, would have led to a plummeting dollar, a runaway from US markets and dramatic upheavals in the US.

    Bush had many reasons to invade Iraq, but why did Blair join him? He might have squared his conscience by looking at UK oil prospects. In 1968, when North Sea oil was in its infancy, as private secretary to the minister of power I wrote a report on oil policy, advocating changes like the setting up of a British national oil company (as was done). My proposals found little favour with the BP/Shell-supporting officials, but Richard Marsh, the then minister, pressed them and the petroleum division was expanded into an operations division and a planning division.

    Sadly, when I was promoted out of private office the free-trading petroleum officials conspired to block my posting to the planning division, where I would surely have advocated a prudent exploitation of North Sea resources to reduce our dependence on the likes of Iraq. UK North Sea oil output peaked in 1999, and has since fallen by one-sixth. Exports now barely cover imports, and we shall shortly be a net oil importer. Supporting Bush might have been justified on geo-strategic grounds.

    Oil and the dollar were the real reasons for the attack on Iraq, with WMD as the public reason now exposed as woefully inadequate. Should we now look at Bush and Blair as brilliant strategists whose actions will improve the security of our oil supplies, or as international conmen? Should we support them if they sweep into Iran and perhaps Saudi Arabia, or should there be a regime change in the UK and US instead?

    If the latter, we should follow that up by adopting the pious aims of UN oversight of world oil exploitation within a world energy plan, and the replacement of the dollar with a new reserve currency based on a basket of national currencies.

    · John Chapman is a former assistant secretary in the civil service, in which he served from 1963-96

• The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq: A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth by W. Clark
  • At http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html
  • US Dollar as the global reserve currency vs the Euro becoming the global reserve currency - and putting the US economy in Chaos - petro Euros instead of petro dollars.

• U.S. Dollar vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq
  • At http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/19.html

  • At the time this article was written, the suggestion that Iraq’s move to selling oil for euros had something to do with the US threatening war against the country was just a theory. It still is a theory, but a theory which subsequent US actions have done little to dispel: the US has invaded Iraq, installed its own authority to rule the country and as soon as Iraqi oil became available to sell on the world market, it was announced that payment would be in dollars only (1). But the story doesn’t end there: the US trade deficit is still widening and the dollar falling. More and more oil exporters are talking openly about selling their commodity for euros instead of greenbacks. While Indonesia has only been considering it (2), Malaysia’s Prime Minister Dr Mahathir has been strongly encouraging his country’s oil industry to actually do it (3), which has led the European Union’s Energy Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio, to comment that she could see the euro replacing the dollar as the main currency for oil pricing (4). Iran meanwhile has been giving all the signs that it is about to switch to the euro: it has been issuing eurobonds, converting its foreign exchange reserves from dollars to euros and having warm trade negotiations with the EU. According to one recent report it has even started selling its oil to Europe for euros and encouraging Asian customers to pay in euros too (5). Should US talk of ‘regime change’ in Iran not be seen in the light of these facts? The media largely appear to think not since there has been little discussion of the dollar-euro connection with the ‘war on terror’. What discussion there has been may well be expanded upon in the future as neither the threat to the dollar and the US economy or the US threat to world peace are likely to go away any time soon

• Fresh Failures in Iraq by US Congressman Ron Paul
  • http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=5254

  • The day is fast approaching when we no longer will be able to afford this burden. For now foreign governments are willing to loan us the money needed to finance our current account deficit, and indirectly the cost of our worldwide military operations. It may seem possible for the moment because we have been afforded the historically unique privilege of printing the world's reserve currency. Foreigners have been only too willing to take our depreciating dollars for their goods. Economic law eventually will limit our ability to live off others by credit creation. Eventually trust in the dollar will be diminished, if not destroyed. Those who hold these trillion plus dollars can hold us hostage if it's ever in their interest. It may be that economic law and hostility toward the United States will combine to precipitate an emotionally charged rejection of the dollar.

    That's when the true wealth of the country will become self-evident and we will no longer be able to afford the extravagant expense of pursuing an American empire. No nation has ever been able to finance excessive foreign entanglements and domestic entitlements through printing press money and borrowing from abroad.

• Bush's Deep Reasons for War on Iraq: Oil, Petrodollars, and the OPEC Euro question
  • At http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/iraq.html

• US dollar hegemony has got to go - By Henry C K Liu
  • At http://www.atimes.com/global-econ/DD11Dj01.html

• The End of Empire by WILLIAM GREIDER [from the September 23, 2002 issue of The Nation]
  • At http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20020923&s=greider

• Iraq: Baghdad Moves To Euro (Prague, 1 November 2000 ) - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
  • At http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/11/01112000160846.asp

• From Drugs, Oil, and War by Peter Dale Scott, Chapter Two:
  • At http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/opec.html

• ANALYSIS: OPEC Will Switch From The Dollar To The Euro. A Reemergence of the Ancient Roman Empire?
  • At http://www.888webtoday.com/joyce8.html

• SADDAM’S LAST LAUGH : The Dollar Could be Headed for Hard Times if OPEC Switches to the Euro - Arjun Makhijani
  • At http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm?ID=4110%20

• When will we buy oil in euros? - Sunday February 23, 2003 - The Observer
  • At http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,900867,00.html

• Oil, Dollars, Euros And Dead Iraqi's By Nick Beams (News you won't find on CNN)
  • At http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1554.htm

• Oil, Currency and the War on Iraq - Coilin Nunan
  • At http://64.176.94.191/article1533.htm

  • Since so many foreign-owned dollars are not spent on American goods and services, the US is able to run a huge trade deficit year after year without apparently any major economic consequences. The most recently published figures, for example, show that in November of last year US imports were worth 48% more than US exports1. No other country can run such a large trade deficit with impunity. The financial media tell us the US is acting as the ‘consumer of last resort’ and the implication is that we should be thankful, but a more enlightening description of this state of affairs would be to say that it is getting a massive interest-free loan from the rest of the world.

    While the US’ position may seem inviolable, one should remember that the more you have, the more you have to lose. And recently there have been signs of how, for the first time in a long time, the US may be beginning to lose.

  • Iraq, whose oil production has been severely curtailed by sanctions, is one of a very small number of countries which can help ease this looming oil shortage. Europe, like most of the rest of the world, wishes to see a peaceful resolution of the current US-Iraqi tensions and a gradual lifting of the sanctions - this would certainly serve its interests best. But as Iraqi oil is denominated in euros, allowing it to become more widely available at present could loosen the dollar stranglehold and possibly do more damage than good to US economic health.

    All of this is bad news for the US economy and the dollar. The fear for Washington will be that not only will the future price of oil not be right, but the currency might not be right either. Which perhaps helps explain why the US is increasingly turning to its second major tool for dominating world affairs: military force.

• Oil and the coming war against Iraq By Nick Beams - 19 February 2003
  • At http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/oil-f19.shtml

• February 4, 2003 : Statement by Ralph Nader about Oil and the War Against Iraq
  • At http://www.citizenworks.org/admin/press/feb4-rn.php

• It's not about oil or Iraq. It's about the US and Europe going head-to-head on world economic dominance.

  • >Subject: *** It's not about oil or Iraq. It's about the US and Europe going
    >Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 01:16:19 +1100
    >
    >with all that we try to do the most important commodity in our success
    >of the task is INFORMATION, none of us has it or access to it, with
    >regard to the impending war on Iraq we can only guess. How close is this
    >article, it's written by a Melbourne writer called Geoffrey Heard.
    >
    >is this serious food for thought,
    >
    >*** It's not about oil or Iraq. It's about the US and Europe going
    >head-to-head on world economic dominance. ***
    >
    >Summary: Why is George Bush so hell bent on war with Iraq? Why does
    >his administration reject every positive Iraqi move? It all makes
    >sense when you consider the economic implications for the USA of not
    >going to war with Iraq. The war in Iraq is actually the US and Europe
    >going head to head on economic leadership of the world.
    >
    >America's Bush administration has been caught in outright lies, gross
    >exaggerations and incredible inaccuracies as it trotted out its
    >litany of paper thin excuses for making war on Iraq. Along with its
    >two supporters, Britain and Australia, it has shifted its ground and
    >reversed its position with a barefaced contempt for its audience. It
    >has manipulated information, deceived by commission and omission and
    >frantically "bought" UN votes with billion dollar bribes.
    >
    >Faced with the failure of gaining UN Security Council support for
    >invading Iraq, the USA has threatened to invade without
    >authorisation. It would act in breach of the UN's very constitution
    >to allegedly enforced UN resolutions.
    >
    >It is plain bizarre. Where does this desperation for war come from?
    >
    >There are many things driving President Bush and his administration
    >to invade Iraq, unseat Saddam Hussein and take over the country. But
    >the biggest one is hidden and very, very simple. It is about the
    >currency used to trade oil and consequently, who will dominate the
    >world economically, in the foreseeable future -- the USA or the
    >European Union.
    >
    >Iraq is a European Union beachhead in that confrontation. America had
    >a monopoly on the oil trade, with the US dollar being the fiat
    >currency, but Iraq broke ranks in 1999, started to trade oil in the
    >EU's euros, and profited. If America invades Iraq and takes over, it
    >will hurl the EU and its euro back into the sea and make America's
    >position as the dominant economic power in the world all but
    >impregnable.
    >
    >It is the biggest grab for world power in modern times.
    >
    >America's allies in the invasion, Britain and Australia, are betting
    >America will win and that they will get some trickle-down benefits
    >for jumping on to the US bandwagon.
    >
    >France and Germany are the spearhead of the European force -- Russia
    >would like to go European but possibly can still be bought off.
    >
    >Presumably, China would like to see the Europeans build a share of
    >international trade currency ownership at this point while it
    >continues to grow its international trading presence to the point
    >where it, too, can share the leadership rewards.
    >
    >DEBATE BUILDING ON THE INTERNET
    >
    >Oddly, little or nothing is appearing in the general media about this
    >issue, although key people are becoming aware of it -- note the
    >recent slide in the value of the US dollar. Are traders afraid of
    >war? They are more likely to be afraid there will not be war.
    >
    >But despite the silence in the general media, a major world
    >discussion is developing around this issue, particularly on the
    >internet. Among the many articles: Henry Liu, in the 'Asia Times'
    >last June, it has been a hot topic on the Feasta forum, an
    >Irish-based group exploring sustainable economics, and W. Clark's
    >"The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War with Iraq: A Macroeconomic and
    >Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth" has been published by
    >the 'Sierra Times', 'Indymedia.org', and 'ratical.org'.
    >
    >This debate is not about whether America would suffer from losing the
    >US dollar monopoly on oil trading -- that is a given -- rather it is
    >about exactly how hard the USA would be hit. The smart money seems to
    >be saying the impact would be in the range from severe to
    >catastrophic. The USA could collapse economically.
    >
    >OIL DOLLARS
    >
    >The key to it all is the fiat currency for trading oil.
    >
    >Under an OPEC agreement, all oil has been traded in US dollars since
    >1971 (after the dropping of the gold standard) which makes the US
    >dollar the de facto major international trading currency. If other
    >nations have to hoard dollars to buy oil, then they want to use that
    >hoard for other trading too. This fact gives America a huge trading
    >advantage and helps make it the dominant economy in the world.
    >
    >As an economic bloc, the European Union is the only challenger to the
    >USA's economic position, and it created the euro to challenge the
    >dollar in international markets. However, the EU is not yet united
    >behind the euro -- there is a lot of jingoistic national politics
    >involved, not least in Britain -- and in any case, so long as nations
    >throughout the world must hoard dollars to buy oil, the euro can make
    >only very limited inroads into the dollar's dominance.
    >
    >In 1999, Iraq, with the world's second largest oil reserves, switched
    >to trading its oil in euros. American analysts fell about laughing;
    >Iraq had just made a mistake that was going to beggar the nation. But
    >two years on, alarm bells were sounding; the euro was rising against
    >the dollar, Iraq had given itself a huge economic free kick by
    >switching.
    >
    >Iran started thinking about switching too; Venezuela, the 4th largest
    >oil producer, began looking at it and has been cutting out the dollar
    >by bartering oil with several nations including America's bete noir,
    >Cuba. Russia is seeking to ramp up oil production with Europe
    >(trading in euros) an obvious market.
    >
    >The greenback's grip on oil trading and consequently on world trade
    >in general, was under serious threat. If America did not stamp on
    >this immediately, this economic brushfire could rapidly be fanned
    >into a wildfire capable of consuming the US's economy and its
    >dominance of world trade.
    >
    >HOW DOES THE US GET ITS DOLLAR ADVANTAGE?
    >
    >Imagine this: you are deep in debt but every day you write cheques
    >for millions of dollars you don't have -- another luxury car, a
    >holiday home at the beach, the world trip of a lifetime.
    >
    >Your cheques should be worthless but they keep buying stuff because
    >those cheques you write never reach the bank! You have an agreement
    >with the owners of one thing everyone wants, call it petrol/gas, that
    >they will accept only your cheques as payment. This means everyone
    >must hoard your cheques so they can buy petrol/gas. Since they have
    >to keep a stock of your cheques, they use them to buy other stuff
    >too. You write a cheque to buy a TV, the TV shop owner swaps your
    >cheque for petrol/gas, that seller buys some vegetables at the fruit
    >shop, the fruiterer passes it on to buy bread, the baker buys some
    >flour with it, and on it goes, round and round -- but never back to
    >the bank.
    >
    >You have a debt on your books, but so long as your cheque never
    >reaches the bank, you don't have to pay. In effect, you have received
    >your TV free.
    >
    >This is the position the USA has enjoyed for 30 years -- it has been
    >getting a free world trade ride for all that time. It has been
    >receiving a huge subsidy from everyone else in the world. As its debt
    >has been growing, it has printed more money (written more cheques) to
    >keep trading. No wonder it is an economic powerhouse!
    >
    >Then one day, one petrol seller says he is going to accept another
    >person's cheques, a couple of others think that might be a good idea.
    >If this spreads, people are going to stop hoarding your cheques and
    >they will come flying home to the bank. Since you don't have enough
    >in the bank to cover all the cheques, very nasty stuff is going to
    >hit the fan!
    >
    >You are big, tough and very aggressive but you don't scare the other
    >guy who can write cheques, he's pretty big too, however given a
    >'legitimate' excuse, you can beat the tripes out of the lone gas
    >seller and scare him and his mates into submission.
    >
    >And that, in a nutshell, is what the USA is doing right now with Iraq.
    >
    >AMERICA'S PRECARIOUS ECONOMIC POSITION
    >
    >America is so eager to attack Iraq now because of the speed with
    >which the euro fire could spread. If Iran, Venezuela and Russia join
    >Iraq and sell large quantities of oil for euros, the euro would have
    >the leverage it needs to become a powerful force in general
    >international trade. Other nations would have to start swapping some
    >of their dollars for euros.
    >
    >The dollars the USA has printed, the 'cheques' it has written, would
    >start to fly home, stripping away the illusion of value behind them.
    >The USA's real economic condition is about as bad as it could be; it
    >is the most debt-ridden nation on earth, owing about US$12,000 for
    >every single one of it's 280 million men, women and children. It is
    >worse than the position of Indonesia when it imploded economically a
    >few years ago, or more recently, that of Argentina.
    >
    >Even if OPEC did not switch to euros wholesale (and that would make a
    >very nice non-oil profit for the OPEC countries, including minimising
    >the various contrived debts America has forced on some of them), the
    >US's difficulties would build. Even if only a small part of the oil
    >trade went euro, that would do two things immediately:
    >*  Increase the attractiveness to EU members of joining the
    >'eurozone', which in turn would make the euro stronger and make it
    >more attractive to oil nations as a trading currency and to other
    >nations as a general trading currency.
    >*  Start the US dollars flying home demanding value when there isn't
    >enough in the bank to cover them.
    >*  The markets would over-react as usual and in no time, the US
    >dollar's value would be spiralling down.
    >
    >THE US SOLUTION
    >
    >America's response to the euro threat was predictable. It has come
    >out fighting.
    >
    >It aims to achieve four primary things by going to war with Iraq:
    >
    >*  Safeguard the American economy by returning Iraq to trading oil in
    >US dollars, so the greenback is once again the exclusive oil currency.
    >
    >*  Send a very clear message to any other oil producers just what
    >will happen to them if they do not stay in the dollar circle. Iran
    >has already received one message -- remember how puzzled you were
    >that in the midst of moderation and secularization, Iran was named as
    >a member of the axis of evil?
    >
    >*  Place the second largest reserves of oil in the world under direct
    >American control.
    >
    >*  Provide a secular, subject state where the US can maintain a huge
    >force (perhaps with nominal elements from allies such as Britain and
    >Australia) to dominate the Middle East and its vital oil. This would
    >enable the US to avoid using what it sees as the unreliable Turkey,
    >the politically impossible Israel and surely the next state in its
    >sights, Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of al Qaeda and a hotbed of
    >anti-American sentiment.
    >
    >*  Severe setback the European Union and its euro, the only trading
    >bloc and currency strong enough to attack the USA's dominance of
    >world trade through the dollar.
    >
    >*  Provide cover for the US to run a covert operation to overturn the
    >democratically elected government of Venezuela and replace it with an
    >America-friendly military supported junta -- and put Venezuala's oil
    >into American hands.
    >
    >Locking the world back into dollar oil trading would consolidate
    >America's current position and make it all but impregnable as the
    >dominant world power -- economically and militarily. A splintered
    >Europe (the US is working hard to split Europe; Britain was easy, but
    >other Europeans have offered support in terms of UN votes) and its
    >euro would suffer a serious setback and might take decades to recover.
    >
    >It is the boldest grab for absolute power the world has seen in
    >modern times. America is hardly likely to allow the possible
    >slaughter of a few hundred thousand Iraqis stand between it and world
    >domination.
    >
    >President Bush did promise to protect the American way of life. This
    >is what he meant.
    >
    >JUSTIFYING WAR
    >
    >Obviously, the US could not simply invade Iraq, so it began casting
    >around for a 'legitimate' reason to attack. That search has been one
    >of increasing desperation as each rationalization has crumbled. First
    >Iraq was a threat because of alleged links to al Qaeda; then it was
    >proposed Iraq might supply al Qaeda with weapons; then Iraq's
    >military threat to its neighbours was raised; then the need to
    >deliver Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's horrendously inhumane rule;
    >finally there is the question of compliance with UN weapons
    >inspection.
    >
    >The USA's justifications for invading Iraq are looking less
    >impressive by the day. The US's statements that it would invade Iraq
    >unilaterally without UN support and in defiance of the UN make a
    >total nonsense of any American claim that it is concerned about the
    >world body's strength and standing.
    >
    >The UN weapons inspectors have come up with minimal infringements of
    >the UN weapons limitations -- the final one being low tech rockets
    >which exceed the range allowed by about 20 percent. But there is no
    >sign of the so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMD) the US has so
    >confidently asserted are to be found. Colin Powell named a certain
    >north Iraqi village as a threat. It was not. He later admitted it was
    >the wrong village.
    >
    >'Newsweek' (24/2) has reported that while Bush officials have been
    >trumpeting the fact that key Iraqi defector, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel,
    >told the US in 1995 that Iraq had manufactured tonnes of nerve gas
    >and anthrax (Colin Powell's 5 February presentation to the UN was
    >just one example) they neglected to mention that Kamel had also told
    >the US that these weapons had been destroyed.
    >
    >Parts of the US and particularly the British secret 'evidence' have
    >been shown to come from a student's masters thesis.
    >
    >America's expressed concern about the Iraqi people's human rights and
    >the country's lack of democracy are simply not supported by the USA's
    >history of intervention in other states nor by its current actions.
    >Think Guatemala, the Congo, Chile and Nicaragua as examples of a much
    >larger pool of US actions to tear down legitimate, democratically
    >elected governments and replace them with war, disruption,
    >starvation, poverty, corruption, dictatorships, torture, rape and
    >murder for its own economic ends. The most recent, Afghanistan, is
    >not looking good; in fact that reinstalled a murderous group of
    >warlords which America had earlier installed, then deposed, in favour
    >of the now hated Taliban.
    >
    >Saddam Hussein was just as repressive, corrupt and murderous 15 years
    >ago when he used chemical weapons, supplied by the US, against the
    >Kurds. The current US Secretary for Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, so
    >vehement against Iraq now, was on hand personally to turn aside
    >condemnation of Iraq and blame Iran. At that time, of course, the US
    >thought Saddam Hussein was their man -- they were using him against
    >the perceived threat of Iran's Islamic fundamentalism.
    >
    >Right now, as 'The Independent' writer, Robert Fisk, has noted, the
    >US's efforts to buy Algeria's UN vote includes promises of re-arming
    >the military which has a decade long history of repression, torture,
    >rape and murder Saddam Hussein himself would envy. It is estimated
    >200,000 people have died, and countless others been left maimed by
    >the activities of these monsters. What price the US's humanitarian
    >concerns for Iraqis? (Of course, the French are also wooing Algeria,
    >their former north African territory, for all they are worth, but at
    >least they are not pretending to be driven by humanitarian concerns.)
    >
    >Indonesia is another nation with a vote and influence as the largest
    >Muslim nation in the world. Its repressive, murderous military is
    >regaining strength on the back of the US's so-called anti-terror
    >campaign and is receiving promises of open and covert support --
    >including intelligence sharing.
    >
    >AND VENEZUELA
    >
    >While the world's attention is focused on Iraq, America is both
    >openly and covertly supporting the "coup of the rich" in Venezuela,
    >which grabbed power briefly in April last year before being
    >intimidated by massive public displays of support by the poor for
    >democratically-elected President Chavez Frias. The coup leaders
    >continue to use their control of the private media, much of industry
    >and the ear of the American Government and its oily intimates to
    >cause disruption and disturbance.
    >
    >Venezuela's state-owned oil resources would make rich pickings for
    >American oil companies and provide the US with an important oil
    >source in its own backyard.
    >
    >Many writers have noted the contradiction between America's alleged
    >desire to establish democracy in Iraq while at the same time,
    >actively undermining the democratically-elected government in
    >Venezuela. Above the line, America rushed to recognise the coup last
    >April; more recently, President Bush has called for "early
    >elections", ignoring the fact that President Chavez Frias has won
    >three elections and two referendums and, in any case, early elections
    >would be unconstitutional.
    >
    >One element of the USA's covert action against Venezuela is the
    >behaviour of American transnational businesses, which have locked out
    >employees in support of "national strike" action. Imagine them doing
    >that in the USA! There is no question that a covert operation is in
    >process to overturn the legitimate Venezuelan government. Uruguayan
    >congressman, Jose Nayardi, made it public when he revealed that the
    >Bush administration had asked for Uruguay's support for Venezuelan
    >white collar executives and trade union activists "to break down
    >levels of intransigence within the Chavez Frias administration". The
    >process, he noted, was a shocking reminder of the CIA's 1973
    >intervention in Chile which saw General Pinochet lead his military
    >coup to take over President Allende's democratically elected
    >government in a bloodbath.
    >
    >President Chavez Frias is desperately clinging to government, but
    >with the might of the USA aligned with his opponents, how long can he
    >last?
    >
    >THE COST OF WAR
    >
    >Some have claimed that an American invasion of Iraq would cost so
    >many billions of dollars that oil returns would never justify such an
    >action.
    >
    >But when the invasion is placed in the context of the protection of
    >the entire US economy for now and into the future, the balance of the
    >argument changes.
    >
    >Further, there are three other vital factors:
    >
    >First, America will be asking others to help pay for the war because
    >it is protecting their interests. Japan and Saudi Arabia made serious
    >contributions to the cost of the 1991 Gulf war.
    >
    >Second -- in reality, war will cost the USA very little -- or at
    >least, very little over and above normal expenditure. This war is
    >already paid for! All the munitions and equipment have been bought
    >and paid for. The USA would have to spend hardly a cent on new
    >hardware to prosecute this war -- the expenditure will come later
    >when munitions and equipment have to be replaced after the war. But
    >munitions, hardware andso on are being replaced all the time --
    >contracts are out. Some contracts will simply be brought forward and
    >some others will be ramped up a bit, but spread over a few years, the
    >cost will not be great. And what is the real extra cost of an army at
    >war compared with maintaining the standing army around the world,
    >running exercises and so on? It is there, but it is a relatively
    >small sum.
    >
    >Third -- lots of the extra costs involved in the war are dollars
    >spent outside America, not least in the purchase of fuel. Guess how
    >America will pay for these? By printing dollars it is going to war to
    >protect. The same happens when production begins to replace hardware.
    >components, minerals, etc. are bought in with dollars that go
    >overseas and exploit America's trading advantage.
    >
    >The cost of war is not nearly as big as it is made out to be. The
    >cost of not going to war would be horrendous for the USA -- unless
    >there were another way of protecting the greenback's world trade
    >dominance.
    >
    >AMERICA'S TWO ACTIVE ALLIES
    >
    >Why are Australia and Britain supporting America in its transparent
    >Iraqi war ploy?
    >
    >Australia, of course, has significant US dollar reserves and trades
    >widely in dollars and extensively with America. A fall in the US
    >dollar would reduce Australia's debt, perhaps, but would do nothing
    >for the Australian dollar's value against other currencies. John
    >Howard, the Prime Minister, has long cherished the dream of a free
    >trade agreement with the USA in the hope that Australia can jump on
    >the back of the free ride America gets in trade through the dollar's
    >position as the major trading medium. That would look much less
    >attractive if the euro took over a significant part of the oil trade.
    >
    >Britain has yet to adopt the euro. If the US takes over Iraq and
    >blocks the euro's incursion into oil trading, Tony Blair will have
    >given his French and German counterparts a bloody nose, and gained
    >more room to manouevre on the issue -- perhaps years more room.
    >Britain would be in a position to demand a better deal from its EU
    >partners for entering the "eurozone" if  the new currency could not
    >make the huge value gains guaranteed by a significant role in world
    >oil trading. It might even be in a position to withdraw from Europe
    >and link with America against continental Europe.
    >
    >On the other hand, if the US cannot maintain the oil trade dollar
    >monopoly, the euro will rapidly go from strength to strength, and
    >Britain could be left begging to be allowed into the club.
    >
    >THE OPPOSITION
    >
    >Some of the reasons for opposition to the American plan are obvious
    >-- America is already the strongest nation on earth and dominates
    >world trade through its dollar. If it had control of the Iraqi oil
    >and a base for its forces in the Middle East, it would not add to,
    >but would multiply its power.
    >
    >The oil-producing nations, particularly the Arab ones, can see the
    >writing on the wall and are quaking in their boots.
    >
    >France and Germany are the EU leaders with the vision of a resurgent,
    >united Europe taking its rightful place in the world and using its
    >euro currency as a world trading reserve currency and thus gaining
    >some of the free ride the United States enjoys now. They are the ones
    >who initiated the euro oil trade with Iraq.
    >
    >Russia is in deep economic trouble and knows it will get worse the
    >day America starts exploiting its take-over of Afghanistan by running
    >a pipeline southwards via Afghanistan from the giant southern Caspian
    >oil fields. Currently, that oil is piped northwards -- where Russia
    >has control.
    >
    >Russia is in the process of ramping up oil production with the
    >possibility of trading some of it for euros and selling some to the
    >US itself. Russia already has enough problems with the fact that oil
    >is traded in US dollars; if the US has control of Iraqi oil, it could
    >distort the market to Russia's enormous disadvantage. In addition,
    >Russia has interests in Iraqi oil; an American take over could see
    >them lost. Already on its knees, Russia could be beggared before a
    >mile of the Afghanistan pipeline is laid.
    >
    >ANOTHER SOLUTION?
    >
    >The scenario clarifies the seriousness of America's position and
    >explains its frantic drive for war. It also suggests that solutions
    >other than war are possible.
    >
    >Could America agree to share the trading goodies by allowing Europe
    >to have a negotiated part of it?  Not very likely, but it is just
    >possible Europe can stare down the USA and force such an outcome.
    >Time will tell. What about Europe taking the statesmanlike,
    >humanitarian and long view, and withdrawing, leaving the oil to the
    >US, with appropriate safeguards for ordinary Iraqis and democracy in
    >Venezuela?
    >
    >Europe might then be forced to adopt a smarter approach -- perhaps
    >accelerating the development of alternative energy technologies which
    >would reduce the EU's reliance on oil for energy and produce goods it
    >could trade for euros -- shifting the world trade balance.
    >
    >Now that would be a very positive outcome for everyone.
    >
    >. . . .
    >
    >Geoffrey Heard is a Melbourne, Australia, writer on the environment,
    >sustainability and human rights.
    >. . . .
    >
    >Geoffrey Heard © 2003. Anyone is free to circulate this document
    >provided it is complete and in its current form with attribution and
    >no payment is asked. It is prohibited to reproduce this document or
    >any part of it for commercial gain without the prior permission of
    >the author. For such permission, contact the author at
    >gheard@surf.net.au.
    >
    >SOME REFERENCES AND FURTHER INFORMATION:
    >
    >http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html
    >'The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq: A Macroeconomic and
    >Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth' by W. Clark, January
    >2003 (revised 20 February), Independent Media Center,
    >www.indymedia.org
    >
    >http://www.indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=28334
    >This war is about more than oil. OIL DOLLARS!!!! DOLLARS, THE EURO
    >AND WAR IN IRAQ.
    >This story is based on material posted by Richard Douthwaite on the
    >FEASTA list in Ireland.
    >
    >http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1550023_comment.php#1551138
    >USA intelligence agencies revealed in plot to oust Venezuela's
    >President
    >
    >http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-
    >dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A41444-2003Jan11¬Found=true
    >Washington Post
    >Split Screen In Strike-Torn Venezuela
    >By Mark Weisbrot Sunday, January 12, 2003; Page B04
    >
    >http://www.atimes.com/global-econ/DD11Dj01.html
    >Asia Times online: Global Economy
    >US dollar hegemony has got to go
    >By Henry C K Liu
    >
    >http://www.feasta.org/energy.htm
    >
    >http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/EnemyWithin.html
    >The Observer
    >The Enemy Within
    >by Gore Vidal London, Sunday 27 October 2002
    

• BEYOND BUSH’S UNILATERALISM: Another Bi-Polar World or A New Era of Win-Win?
  • At http://www.hazelhenderson.com/Bush's%20unilateralism.htm

• The Enemy Within - by Gore Vidal - London, 27 October 2002 - The Observer
  • At http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/EnemyWithin.html

• Iran may switch to euro for crude sale payments - 20-08-02
  • At http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntm23638.htm

• Seymour Hersh: "We've Been Taken Over by a Cult"
  • At http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/26/1450204

  • For me, it's just another story, but out of this comes a core of -- you know, we all deal in “macro” in Washington. On the macro, we're hopeless. We're nowhere. The press is nowhere. The congress is nowhere. The military is nowhere. Every four-star General I know is saying, “Who is going to tell them we have no clothes?” Nobody is going to do it. Everybody is afraid to tell Rumsfeld anything. That's just the way it is. It's a system built on fear. It's not lack of integrity, it's more profound than that. Because there is individual integrity. It's a system that's completely been taken over -- by cultists. Anyway, what's going to happen, I think, as the casualties mount and these stories get around, and the mothers see the cost and the fathers see the cost, as the kids come home. And the wounded ones come back, and there's wards that you will never hear about. That's wards -- you know about the terrible catastrophic injuries, but you don't know about the vegetables. There's ward after ward of vegetables because the brain injuries are so enormous. As you maybe read last week, there was a new study in one of the medical journals that the number of survivors are greater with catastrophic injuries because of their better medical treatment and the better armor they have. So you get more extreme injuries to extremities. We're going to learn more and I think you're going to see, it's going to -- it's -- I'm trying to be optimistic. We're going to see a bottom swelling from inside the ranks. You're beginning to see it. What happened with the soldiers asking those questions, you may see more of that. I'm not suggesting we're going to have mutinies, but I'm going to suggest you're going to see more dissatisfaction being expressed. Maybe that will do it. Another salvation may be the economy. It's going to go very bad, folks. You know, if you have not sold your stocks and bought property in Italy, you better do it quick. And the third thing is Europe -- Europe is not going to tolerate us much longer. The rage there is enormous. I'm talking about our old-fashioned allies. We could see something there, collective action against us. Certainly, nobody -- it's going to be an awful lot of dancing on our graves as the dollar goes bad and everybody stops buying our bonds, our credit -- our -- we're spending $2 billion a day to float the debt, and one of these days, the Japanese and the Russians, everybody is going to start buying oil in Euros instead of dollars. We're going to see enormous panic here. But he could get through that. That will be another year, and the damage he’s going to do between then and now is enormous. We’re going to have some very bad months ahead.

• Iraq Body Count: The worldwide update of reported civilian deaths in the Iraq war and occupation
  • At http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

  • The IRAQ BODY COUNT Project

    This is a human security project to establish an independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq resulting directly from military action by the USA and its allies in 2003. In the current occupation phase this database includes all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations. This includes civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order, and deaths due to inadequate health care or sanitation. Results and totals are continually updated and made immediately available on this page and on various IBC counters which may be freely displayed on any website, where they will be automatically updated without further intervention. Casualty figures are derived solely from a comprehensive survey of online media reports. Where these sources report differing figures, the range (a minimum and a maximum) are given. All results are independently reviewed and error-checked by at least three members of the Iraq Body Count project team before publication.

    The project takes as its starting point and builds upon the earlier work of Professor Marc Herold who has produced the most comprehensive tabulation of civilian deaths in the war on Afghanistan from October 2001 to the present, and the methodology has been designed in close consultation with him.

    Professor Herold commented: “I strongly support this initiative. The counting of civilian dead looms ever more importantly for at least two reasons: military sources and their corporate mainstream media backers seek to portray the advent of precision guided weaponry as inflicting at most, minor, incidental civilian casualties when, in truth, such is is not the case; and the major source of opposition to these modern ‘wars’ remains an informed, articulate general public which retains a commitment to the international humanitarian covenants of war at a time when most organized bodies and so-called ‘experts’ have walked away from them”.

• The United States of Oil - No administration has ever been more in bed with the energy industry -- but does that mean Big Oil is calling Bush's shots? - by Damien Caveli
  • At http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CAV111A.html

• Why Bush is sunk without Europe - Even while George Bush growls out his bellicose message, his country has never been in such an enfeebled state - Will Hutton - Sunday January 26, 2003 - The Observer
  • At http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,882358,00.html

  • On latest estimates, its net liabilities to the rest the world are more than $2.7 trillion, nearly 30 per cent of GDP, a scale of indebtedness associated with basket-case economies in Latin America.

    Its industrial base is so uncompetitive that it consistently imports more than it exports; its current-account deficit, the gap between all its current foreign earnings and foreign spending, is now a stunning 5 per cent of GDP, continuing a trend that has lasted for more than 25 years and which is the cause of all that foreign debt. As a national community, it has virtually ceased to save so that government and individuals alike live on credit.

    To finance the current-account deficit, a reflection of the lack of saving, the US relies on foreigners supplying it with the foreign currency it can't earn itself. The Old Europe that Donald Rumsfeld mocked last week has been helping to prop up the US economy, buying shares and bonds on Wall Street, taking over American companies and investing in real estate, compensating for the saving that the Americans aren't doing themselves

• Idiots for Bush
  • At http://www.idiots4bush.com/

• NON-PARTISAN CHRISTIAN VOTERS’ GUIDE
  • At http://www.maplenet.net/~trowbridge/VotersGuide.htm

• Ironic Times
  • At http://www.ironictimes.com/

  • Iraq Turnover Schedule, June 30, 2004
    1:00 PM: Pre-Turnover Special hosted by Dennis Miller
    2:00 PM: Donald Rumsfeld gives ceremonial prisoner leash to Iraqi Security Force
    3:00 PM: U.S.-Iraqi Glee Club sings “Proud to Be an American”
    4:00 PM: Iyad Allawi declares martial law
    4:30 PM: Jerry Falwell leads the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in “Onward Christian Soldiers”
    5:00 PM: Flag ceremony/Ann Coulter striptease, music by U.S. Marine Band
    6:00 PM: Civil war officially begins

• Hand Drawn Digital Clock on the Web
  • At http://www.lares.dti.ne.jp/~yugo/storage/monocrafts_ver3/03/

• Crunch time for Uncle Sam - The United States is a country on the edge, lacking its customary self-confidence. And for that it can thank George Bush. - Will Hutton in America - Sunday January 5, 2003
  • At http://www.observer.co.uk/worldview/story/0,11581,868873,00.html

  • The attack on the World Trade Centre has got under America's skin. A close American friend, puzzling with me why poll returns continue to show how the vast majority of Americans believe in both the devil and personal angels while the rest of the West has either become secular or more subtle in its face, argues that it is a psychological guarantee against a level of insecurity that otherwise would be insupportable. Most Americans are a pay cheque away from a disastrous drop in their standard of living and the erosion of what was never a very robust safety net over the last 20 years has heightened that sense of being at risk.

    Even while I have been in the United States, a Congressional failure to continue the temporary extension of social security from 13 to 26 weeks has, almost casually, placed 750,000 unemployed Americans close to destitution. It has been little reported in the mainstream media, but on the streets people know the implications.

  • Under a different administration and with a more balanced political discourse, 11 September could have been the moment for a national coming-together, a trigger for a re-engagement with America's fundamental problems at home and abroad, and a moment to find ways of addressing insecurity in all its dimensions. But, instead, there is George Bush and Karl Rove, his Machiavellian political adviser.

  • For all but the enormously rich, this is a tough and unforgiving society. This has been my first visit since researching my last book, The World We're In, and while the conservative dominance is even more marked, equally the cracks in the edifice are beginning to show. If only American liberals could develop a coherent narrative, along with a group of convincing political leaders to sell it, they would find a ready audience.

    There is all the tinder for an anti-war movement over Iraq as powerful as that against the war in Vietnam. Distressed corporate America is considerable and growing; even in areas like criminal justice policy, popular opinion is wondering whether denying ex-prisoners access to social security and public housing forever - one of Clinton's so-called welfare 'reforms' - does anything more than create a permanent criminal class beyond the reach of society.

    Now even the pro-gun-control documentary, Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, has been a surprise box-office sensation. The country is definitely on the turn.

    Which is why either being simplistically anti-American or, alternatively, an uncritical follower of a foreign policy that is about to be fiercely challenged within the United States equally makes no sense. Rather, the task is to hold America to account for the values it purports to stand for. America's real friends are those who will do just that.

• Just a touchdown from success - Democrats who despair of getting back into power can find the answer on their very own doorstep - Will Hutton - Sunday January 12, 2003 - The Observer
  • At http://www.observer.co.uk/worldview/story/0,11581,873317,00.html

  • In these macho times, fairness has a poor image. It's the credo of the also-rans, who need it to compensate them for being losers. What matters in 2003 is to be individualistic, entrepreneurial and go-getting - and to make as much money as possible. Equality is out; 'diversity', the codeword that legitimises inequality, is in. The able should get the just rewards for their talents, and if that means sky-high salaries, profits and the entrenchment of 'natural' advantage, who can and should complain?

    The retreat of equality and fairness over the last 20 years as key values around which we should organise ourselves economically and socially has become a rout. The new mantra, justified by hack right-wing economists, is that just as nature is a Darwinian struggle of the survival of the fittest, so we should extend the principle to economy and society. The natural order of things is to give free rein to those animal acquisitive spirits that will benefit us all in the long run. After all, where would be if we tried to suppress those 'natural' instincts with progressive taxation, caps on executive salaries, regulations that tried to make the rules of the game fair and all the rest? That would be - dread word - socialism. And we know where that leads.

    If this bleak philosophy dominates the British national conversation, it is the ideological inspiration of George Bush's Republicans, standard-bearers of the rise of a particular brand of conservatism that has not only polluted American culture, but which, in my view, has become one of the US's least desirable exports. Last week, for example, witnessed one of the most extraordinarily unfair budget proposals made in any Western industrial country. Half the funds consecrated to a tax-cutting stimulus were earmarked for the very rich, whose dividends on their share portfolios would now be free from tax.

  • The result is the most spectacularly competitive and entertaining sporting league in the world. Its core value, though, is not survival of the fittest and rewarding the rich and successful. It is fairness, guaranteed by a complex regulatory apparatus. f I were an American Democrat, I would ram this point home: American football is organised around Democrat principles and succeeds; baseball is organised around Republican principles and is failing. This is also an example for our own Football Association; unless it does more to give every Premier League club a chance by distributing TV proceeds more equally, British football could follow American baseball into crisis. And there is the larger argument. Fairness may not be macho, but without it, civilisations, like sporting leagues, soon decline, In these macho times, fairness has a poor image.

• A dark week for democracy - The stranglehold the far Right has now taken on America will make it a more divided, reactionary and illiberal country - Will Hutton - Sunday November 10, 2002 - The Observer
  • At http://www.observer.co.uk/worldview/story/0,11581,837130,00.html

  • The election in Georgia said it all. The Democrat governor, Roy Barnes, had dared to remove the Confederate symbol from the state flag last year. His Republican challenger wanted to bring it back, to honour, he said, 300,000 Confederate 'veterans'. A Republican has not occupied Georgia's governor's mansion since 1872. After last Tuesday, one does, courtesy of wanting to celebrate a civil war fought to defend slavery.

    Europeans do not understand the curious civilisation that the current America is becoming, and the grip that a visceral and idiosyncratic conservatism has on its national discourse. They especially do not understand the undercurrents of an increasingly self-confident and subtle racism that is its own variant of the forces that in Europe gave us Le Pen and Pim Fortuyn. George Bush Jnr is a chip off the old multilateralist, transatlantic establishment, runs the European argument. He may seem hawkishly conservative but, in the end, he seeks UN resolutions like other American Presidents. Even at home, his bark is worse than his bite.

    Wrong, wrong and wrong again. Anyone who thinks the Tory party is 'nasty' has not encountered contemporary American republicanism. Georgia's Republican Party, for example, is now lead by Ralph Reed, a long-time crusader against abortion, divorce and single parent families. He would regard last week's vote in the House of Lords allowing unmarried and gay couples to adopt as the work of Satan. He is part of US conservatism's ideological hard core.

  • Horseshit. George Bush has al-Qaeda and a low turn-out to thank for his victory. The central message of his five-day tour of 15 key states in the last week of the election was to play on Americans' fears about terrorism, rallying them behind their national leader. When the electorate voted locally, the Democrats had the edge, winning governorships in four of the biggest industrial states - Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The Democrats I have spoken to are so traumatised by the overall defeat that they dismiss these gains as irrelevant; I think they are wrong.

    America is not a happy place. A generation of increasingly conservative policies has shrunk the American middle and induced not just fantastic inequality but a sharp decline in social mobility and opportunity. The US's social contract, never more than minimalist, is now threadbare. Consumer confidence is low; job insecurity high. American capitalism is viewed with deep scepticism. Nor are the majority of Americans social conservatives and closet racists; they do not want the clock put back over women's rights, the environment and race.

    The trouble was that this silent liberal majority was only prepared to voice its preoccupations at state rather than national level, if it bothered to vote at all. The Democrats had to find a way of voicing the concerns of the mass of Americans while not undermining the President during a national emergency, but to do that they had to have a powerful pitch based on a liberal ideology as animating and dynamic as that of the conservatives. They didn't and they lost.

    But the game isn't up. America's conservatives, blinded by their ideology and in control of every lever of government, will overreach themselves and the reality of what they plan will become evident to all, stirring the apathetic voter and reminding the best of America what it stands for. Last week represented the highwater mark of American conservatism and, although it looks bleak, the beginnings of the long-awaited liberal revival. Not just the United States, but the world, needs it badly. In the meantime, despite its flaws, give thanks to the European Union for partial shelter from the conservative storm.

• Where Is the Voice of Dissent?
  • At http://www.accuracy.org/LAT0802.htm
  • "As prominent senators consider the wisdom of making war on Iraq, truly independent thinking seems to stop at the water's edge. But I keep recalling a very different scene: On Feb. 27, 1968, I sat in a small room on Capitol Hill. Around a long table, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was in session, taking testimony from an administration official. I remember a man with a push-broom mustache and a voice like sandpaper, raspy and urgent.

    Wayne Morse, the senior senator from Oregon, did not resort to euphemism. He spoke of the "tyranny that American boys are being killed in South Vietnam to maintain in power." Moments before the hearing adjourned, Morse said he did not "intend to put the blood of this war on my hands."

    It's hard to imagine the late senator going along with claims today that the U.S. government has a right to attack Iraq because of the doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense."

    A fierce advocate of international law, Morse had no patience for double standards. In 1964 he told a national TV audience: "I don't know why we think, just because we're mighty, that we have the right to try to substitute might for right. And that's the American policy in Southeast Asia--just as unsound when we do it as when Russia does it.""

    "Transfixed with tactical issues, none of the senators on television in recent days would dream of acknowledging the current relevance of a statement made by Morse a third of a century ago: "We're going to become guilty, in my judgment, of being the greatest threat to the peace of the world. It's an ugly reality, and we Americans don't like to face up to it.""

• Viet Minh - The People's Army of Vietnam
  • At http://members.lycos.co.uk/Indochine/cefeo/auxilia.html

• Dien Bien Phu - A Fatal Gamble By Wild Bill Wilder
  • At http://members.lycos.co.uk/Indochine/cefeo/auxilia.html

• Edward S. Herman page
  • At http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Edward_Herman.html

  • "The linkages between the United States and the NSSs [National Security States] are clear and powerful ... It is, once again, a testimonial to the power and patriotism of the Free Press that, not only is the terrorism of the NSSs underrated, but the role of the United States as the sponsor - the Godfather - of this real terror network is hidden from view ... the United States is portrayed as an innocent bystander, occasionally making mistakes in its anxiety to protect the citizens of Latin America from the evils of Communism, but regretful of any excesses that may sometimes occur there. This amazing pretense is carried through despite the historical record of an openly announced role of Godfather dating back at least to 1823 (the Monroe Doctrine), the more or less steady interventionism since then, the remarkable degree of homogeneity within the NSSs, and the recent record of our role in sponsoring and managing the terror network."

• Edward S. Herman Quotes page
  • At http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Quotes_RealTerror_EH.html

  • there is a system of terroristic states -- the real terror network -- that has spread throughout Latin America and elsewhere over the past several decades, and which is deeply rooted in the corporate interest and sustaining political-military-financial propaganda mechanisms of the United States and its allies in the Free World.
  • the operative principles dictating U.S. support and hostility in the Third World have been business criteria first, military convenience second, and any humanistic considerations third and thus effectively irrelevant. In fact, they are less than irrelevant -- they are in conflict with the first two criteria, and therefore ... humanizing forces [become] 'threats'.
  • the establishment can't admit [that] it is human rights violations that make ... countries attractive to business - so history has to be fudged, including denial of our support of regimes of terror and the practices that provide favorable climates of investment, and our destabilization of democracies that [don't] meet [the] standard of service to the transnational corporation
  • The immiseration of the majority is an integral part of the Free World package for the Third World, the unsavory aspects of the package -- the terror, the direct spoilation of people and resources, and western complicity -- must be rationalized and, as far as possible, kept under the rug.
  • U. S. business wants a "favorable climate of investment" abroad, and ... military regimes that will crush labor unions and otherwise serve foreign business meet that demand.
  • Claiming a new dedication to fighting "terrorism", this administration [Ronald Reagan] has rushed to the support of the world's leading terrorists, including the rulers of the most torture prone NSSs [National Security States] and assorted other right-wing governments with a marked proclivity to violence.
  • The NSS [National Security State] represents and serves the interests of a tiny elite. Its economic policies of "trickling-up", enforced by the machine gun, are rationalized on the ground that growth in the long run will trickle down to the lower orders. This is a self-serving ideology designed mainly to allow the western public to think well of themselves and their own country.
  • Among Latin American elites, a peasant asking for a higher wage or a priest helping organize a peasant cooperative is a communist. And someone going so far as to suggest land reform or a more equitable tax system is a communist fanatic. There is no word or act suggesting the desirability of elite generosity toward the poor, or the need for education, organization or material advance for the majority, that has not been branded communistic in Latin America in recent decades. The Pope himself, having urged both greater generosity and significant reforms on the local elites, was also denounced in Latin America as a tool o f communism.
  • Since communism is the enemy, and peasants trying to improve themselves, priests with the slightest humanistic proclivity, and naturally anyone seriously challenging the status quo, are communists, they are also, by definition, enemies. In the National Security State, "enemies" are evil, a threat to "security," and must be treated accordingly. No form of violence is excessive in a war between the forces of good and evil. This is why in every NSS in Latin America, Church people having any dealings that involve trying to elevate the status of the poor are suspect and potential victims of unlimited violence
  • The really massive and significant growth of terrorism since World War II has been that carried out by states. And among states, the emergence and spread of the National Security State (NSS) has been the most important development contributing to state terrorism and thus to the growth of overall world terrorism, using the word in its basic sense-intimidation by violence or the threat of violence.
  • Economists have provided capitalists with a comforting concept called the "free market." It does not describe any part of reality, at any place or time. It's a mantra conveniently invoked when it is proposed that government do something the faithful don't like, and just as conveniently ignored whenever they want government to do something for them.
  • No market is "free," all markets are regulated. The question is how they will be regulated, for whose benefit, not whether they are "free."
  • "Edward S Herman puts it, 'One of the most durable features of the U.S. culture is the inability or refusal to recognise US crimes.'"

• The military hazards of depleted uranium by General Sir Hugh Beach
  • At http://www.isisuk.demon.co.uk/0811/isis/uk/regpapers/no78.html

• ld wine, new bottle: the just war tradition and humanitarian intervention by General Sir Hugh Beach & Roy Isbister
  • At http://www.isisuk.demon.co.uk/0811/isis/uk/hiproject/no3.html

  • In developing these ideas further, the Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary could do worse than consider a set of principles which can trace its origins back to Cicero (106-43 BCE) and which has been developed and refined most famously by Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-74). The Just War tradition, long used to evaluate the justice of "traditional" interstate wars, may be of use when considering the relative merits of interventions, especially at a time when, more than ever, these are being undertaken for "humanitarian" purposes. Although some are suspicious of Just War's strong Catholic associations, especially in today's more agnostic climate, Augustine and Aquinas were philosophers of the first rank and took their stance explicitly not on revelation but on the basis of natural Law, and the tradition has been engaged by scholars from right across the religious and secular spectrums.

• From Guatemala to Iraq How the pitbull manages his poodles by Edward S. Herman - Z magazine, January 2003
  • At http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Guatemala_Iraq_Pitbull.html

  • The U.S. mass media, however, had lost interest in Guatemala once the "Reds" were ousted, so the U.S. public was not made aware of the fact that the defeat of the Reds in 1954 had been a victory over democracy and reform and that the United States had ushered in, and for many decades aided and protected, a regime of exceptional terror.

  • Once again the U.S. is organizing for a regime change. As in 1954, it has grotesquely exaggerated the threat to national security posed by a crushed and virtually disarmed target. But the media play the game, just as they did earlier, taking at face value wild assertions of a huge and real threat, pushing this propaganda theme relentlessly, and pretending that the inspections regime demonstrates the international community's concerns over this threat, when in fact it is merely an imposition by the pitbull and his Poodle Number One.

    The media do not remind the citizenry of the history of that dire Guatemalan "threat" of 1954, nor the hugely undemocratic sequel to that earlier "regime change." They rarely mention that the pitbull actually helped Iraq acquire "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs) in the 1980s when Saddam Hussein was fighting Iran, a U.S. enemy of the moment, and that he and Poodle Number One went to some pains to prevent any international condemnation of Iraq for using chemical weapons in those years. The media also fail to mention or reflect on the fact that Iraq didn't use such weapons during the Persian Gulf War when the United States would have retaliated.

    To mention these things the media would have had to be willing to show the monumental U.S. hypocrisy in this demonization process and claim that Iraq's possession or use of WMDs poses a serious threat. They would have to recognize that Iraq can't use them without committing suicide, unless it did so once again against a target approved by the pitbull. This might lead to the further reflection that perhaps the real global problem is the pitbull's possession of WMDs, which he has used lavishly from Hiroshima to Vietnam to its depleted uranium "dirty" weapons employed in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, and which he is actively readying for use in the future as he prepares to dominate the world by threat and violence.

• The Threat Of Global State Terrorism Retail vs wholesale terror by Edward S. Herman & David Peterson - Z magazine, January 2002
  • At http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Threat_Global_Terrorism.html

  • We are living in a very dangerous time, but for reasons almost exactly the opposite of those conventionally accepted. The consensus view in the United States right now is that the danger lies in the terror threat from Bin Laden and his network, and perhaps other terrorists hostile to the West. But Bin Laden and his network, though evidently formidable terrorists, cannot compete in terrorizing with states, and especially with a highly militarized superpower. His is a "retail" terror network, like the IRA or Cuban refugee terrorist network: it has no helicopter gunships, no offensive missiles, no "daisy cutters," no nuclear weapons, and although its death-dealing on September 11 was remarkable (although down from the initially estimated 6,000 or more to below 3,900), it was unique for a non-governmental terrorist organization.

    Really large-scale killing and torture to terrorize-"wholesale" terrorism-has been implemented by states, not by non-state terrorists. The reason people aren't aware of this is that states define terrorism and identify the terrorists, and they naturally exempt themselves as always "retaliating" and engaging in "counter-terror" even when their own actions are an exact fit to their own definitions.

• Pol Pot And Kissinger On war criminality and impunity by Edward S. Herman - from the Internet
  • At http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Terrorism/PolPotKissinger_Herman.html

  • The Times has a solution to the awkwardness of the post-1978 Western support of Pol Pot: "All Security Council members...might spare themselves embarrassment by restricting the scope of prosecution to those crimes committed inside Cambodia during the four horrific years of Khmer Rouge rule." We must give the Times credit for semi-honesty in admitting that this is to avoid embarrassing the Great Powers. It is interesting, though, that the Times finds no real problem in the "dirty hands," and hypocrisy, so apparent in the lengthy support of war criminals, and that it offers no reflections on how "law and civilization" are served if the criminals were protected and supported for more than a decade by the forces of law and order.

    Two Phases of Cambodian "Genocide"

    The Times, along with everybody else in the mainstream media, also fails to mention that before Pol Pot came to power in 1975, the United States had devastated Cambodia for the first half of what a Finnish government's study referred to as a "decade" of genocide (not just the four years of Pol Pot's rule, 1975-78). The "secret bombing" of Cambodia by the Nixon-Kissinger gang may have killed as many Cambodians as were executed by the Khmer Rouge and surely contributed to the ferocity of Khmer Rouge behavior toward the urban elite and citizenry whose leaders had allied themselves with the foreign terrorists.

    The U.S.-imposed holocaust was a "sideshow" to the Vietnam War, the United States bombing Cambodia heavily by 1969, helping organize the overthrow of Sihanouk in 1970, and in collaboration with its puppet Saigon government making period incursions into Cambodia in the 1960s and later. "U.S. B-52s pounded Cambodia for 160 consecutive days [in 1973], dropping more than 240,000 short tons of bombs on rice fields, water buffalo, villages (particularly along the Mekong River) and on such troop positions as the guerrillas might maintain," a tonnage that "represents 50 percent more than the conventional explosives dropped on Japan during World War II". This "constant indiscriminate bombing" was of course carried out against a peasant society with no air force or ground defenses. The Finnish government study estimates that 600,000 people died in this first phase, with 2 million refugees produced. Michael Vickerey estimated 500,000 killed in phase one.

    At the end of the first half of the decade of genocide, with the Khmer Rouge victorious and occupying Phnom Penh in April 1975, Cambodia was a shattered, embittered society, on the verge of mass starvation with crops unsowed and vast numbers of refugees in and around Phnom Penh suddenly cut off from the U.S. aid that had kept them alive. High U.S. officials were estimating a million deaths from starvation before the Khmer Rouge takeover. The Khmer Rouge forced a mass exodus from Phnom Penh, whose population they were in no position to feed, an action interpreted in the West as simply a completely unjustified exercise in vengeance.

    There is no question but that the Khmer Rouge were brutal and killed large numbers. Michael Vickerey estimated 150-300,000 executed and an excess of deaths in the four years of Pol Pot rule of 750,000. David Chandler estimates up to 100,000 executions (Newsweek, June 30, 1997). The Finnish study estimated the total deaths in the Pol Pot years at a million, encompassing both executions and deaths from disease, starvation and overwork. Other serious studies of Cambodia yield comparable numbers.

• Working Families Party - The WFO State Committee approved this resolution against U.S. Military Action against Iraq on January 12th, 2003.
  • At http://www.workingfamiliesparty.org/IraqResolution.html

  • Whereas, military action by the United States against Iraq would bring death and suffering to Americans as well as to innocent Iraqis, punishing Iraqis and not their dictator; and U.S. action would also increase instability in the region, become an excuse and a precedent for other nations to also take lawless aggressive actions, and increase the likelihood of future terrorist attacks throughout the world by fueling anti-U.S. sentiment; and

    Whereas, the war in Iraq will cost hundreds of billions of dollars (former Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey estimated the cost at as much as $200 billion), a cost that will come at the direct expense of working families; and also will divert urgently needed funds from job creation, healthcare and education; and

    Whereas, the sudden urgency to disarm Iraq is widely believed to be a cynical ploy to distract Americans from the Bush Administration's abysmal economic record and to help the Republican Party; and

    Whereas, the September 11 attacks and the "War on Terrorism" has become the guise under which Bush has carried out an agenda that has nothing to do with combating terrorism; and

    Whereas, the "War on Terrorism" has been invoked to silence critics, stifle debate, curtail civil liberties, scapegoat and round up immigrants; and it has further been used as an excuse for union busting, from the administration's intervention in the west coast dock workers' struggle to the efforts to de-unionize federal workers in the Department of Homeland Security; and

    Whereas, the "War on Terrorism" has perverted the very important task of actually reducing terrorist threats and turned it instead into a political weapon of repression and manipulation; and

    Whereas, there is growing opposition to war in Iraq as shown by Congress being flooded with hundreds of thousands of calls and letters opposing the war during the recent debate on the war resolution; tens of thousands of people demonstrating against the war in at least three dozen cities and towns on October 6, including 25,000 in Central Park, and 1.5 million in Italy; 100,000 people demonstrating against the war in Washington, DC, on October 26, while another 60,000-80,000 demonstrated in San Francisco, 10,000 in St. Paul, 8,000 in Seattle, thousands in Denver and Chicago, additional demonstrations in Maine and Vermont, and internationally, 10,000 in Berlin, with demonstrations in 70 other German towns as well, 4,000 in Amsterdam, 1,500 in Copenhagen, 1,000 in Stockholm, and additional demonstrations in Rome, London, Tokyo, San Juan and Mexico City; and over 27,000 U.S. scholars signing an anti-war letter; students mobilizing on college campuses; four U.S. generals publicly opposing unilateral U.S. action in Iraq; and

    Whereas, opposition to the war is also growing within the labor movement and among community organizations; AFL-CIO President John Sweeney recently wrote to Congress expressing concern that "the sudden urgency for a decision about war and peace… has as much to do with the political calendar as with the situation in Iraq. It is an apparent contradiction that there is no similar urgency to take action to address the economic crisis that is also inflicting

    WFP Resolution on the U.S. War Against Iraq, continued

    immediate suffering on so many of our people." Mr. Sweeney further called for assurances that "war is the last option, not the first, used to resolve this conflict." In addition, more and more local unions, central labor bodies and community organizations are speaking out each day as they consider it their duty to act on a matter that directly threatens their members and families;

    Therefore be it resolved, that the Working Families Party oppose the current drive for war, oppose U.S. military action in Iraq, and oppose the Bush doctrine of "preemptive strikes;" and

    Be it further resolved, that the Working Families Party opposes abuse of the legitimate need and effort to combat terrorism and condemn the invocation of the "War on Terrorism" to silence critics, curtail rights and bust unions; and

    Be it further resolved, that the Working Families Party support the growing anti-war sentiment among the people of the United States and publicize its own current opposition to war in Iraq; and

    Be it further resolved, that the Working Families Party send copies of this resolution to Senator Charles Schumer, Senator Hillary Clinton and the New York State Congressional Delegation and express dismay at their votes in favor of the war resolution in the face of massive opposition from their constituents.

• Graph of over 65 poverty rates by country
  • At http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/AntisocInsec.html

• Weapons of Mass Destruction - U.S. is Dropping World's Biggest Non-Nuclear bomb in Afghanistan - by Laura Flanders
  • At http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1108-04.htm

  • They have the destructive power of an atomic bomb, but they can barely make a dent in U.S. news coverage. I'm talking about the 15,000-pound bombs the United States is using against Afghanistan this week. The so-called Daisy Cutters, named BLU-82, are the world's biggest non-nuclear device.

  • AP describes the Blu-82, nicknamed "Big Blue," as being "as large as a Volkswagen beetle, but heavier." Digging for the less charming details, one finds that the bomb got its other name, "Daisy Cutter," because of the shape of the crater it leaves -- and that it has the ability to clear a 3-mile-long path. Dropped from huge transport aircraft, "Big Blue" releases a cloud of inflammable ammonium nitrate, aluminum dust, and polystyrene slurry which is then ignited by a detonator. The result is a firestorm that incinerates an area the size of five football fields, consumes oxygen, and creates a shock-wave and vacuum pressure that destroys the internal organs of anyone within range.

  • The Geneva Protocol is not unclear. You don't have to be in Afghanistan. You can read it on the Web.

    Protocol 1, Article 51.2. states: "The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited."

    Article 57: "Works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dikes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population. "

    Article 51 explicitly outlaws carpet or area bombing tactics: "Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."

    Article 55: "Care shall be taken in warfare to protect the natural environment against widespread, long-term and severe damage."

    The press talked for weeks about whether it was acceptable for U.S. forces to violate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Is it unreasonable to expect at least equal attention to the question of whether U.S. assaults are violating international law?

• Skulls found in Mexico suggest the early Americans would have said 'G'day mate'
  • At http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=440002

  • The accepted theory of how prehistoric humans first migrated to America has been challenged by a study of an ancient set of bones unearthed in Mexico.

    An analysis of 33 skulls found on the Mexican peninsula of Baja California suggests that the first Americans were not north Asians who crossed to the American continent about 12,000 years ago.

• Opium - What Is Heroin?
  • At http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/opi013.htm

• Opium - The Heroin, Morphine, And Codeine Drug Family F.A.Q.
  • At http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/opi005.htm

• Heroin - smack, gear, h, brown, skag, horse, junk
  • At http://www.drugs-info.co.uk/drugpages/heroin/heroin.htm

• Oregon's Raspberries & Blackberries - Some Berry History
  • At http://www.oregon-berries.com/cx1/cx1a.htm

• Russians dash for their cash amid fears of a new banking collapse
  • At http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=539789

  • Problems began in mid-May when the appropriately named Sodbiznesbank went out of business after it was accused of money-laundering. In June, another smallish bank shut, then a medium-sized bank, Dialog-Optim, stopped taking deposits.

• US Illegally Removes Pages from Iraq UN Report
  • At http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/3.html

  • Throughout the winter of 2002, the Bush administration publicly accused Iraqi weapons declarations of being incomplete. The almost unbelievable reality of this situation is that it was the United States itself that had removed over 8,000 pages of the 11,800 page original report.

    This came as no surprise to Europeans however, as Iraq had made extra copies of the complete weapons declaration report and unofficially distributed them to journalists throughout Europe. The Berlin newspaper Die Tageszetung broke the story on December 19, 2002 in an article by Andreas Zumach.

    At the same time, according to the investigation by Michael Niman, the Iraq government sent out official copies of the report on November 3, 2002. One, classified as "secret," was sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency, another copy went to the UN Security Council. The U.S. convinced Colombia, chair of the Security Council and current target of U.S. military occupation and financial aid, to look the other way while the report was removed, edited, and returned. Other members of the Security Council such as Britain, France, China and Russia, were implicated in the missing pages as well (China and Russia were still arming Iraq) and had little desire to expose the United States' transgression. So all members accepted the new, abbreviated version.

    But what was in the missing pages that the Bush administration felt was so threatening that they had to be removed? What information were Europeans privy to that Americans were not?

    According to Niman, "The missing pages implicated twenty-four U.S.-based corporations and the successive Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. administration in connection with the illegal supplying of Saddam Hussein government with myriad weapons of mass destruction and the training to use them." Groups documented in the original report that were supporting Iraq's weapons programs prior to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait included:

    - Eastman Kodak, Dupont, Honeywell, Rockwell, Sperry, Hewlett-Packard, and Bechtel,

    - U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture and Department of Defense,

    - Nuclear weapons labs such as Lawrence-Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia.

    Beginning in 1983, the U.S. was involved in eighty shipments of biological and chemical components, including strains of botulism toxin, anthrax, gangrene bacteria, West Nile fever virus, and Dengue fever virus. These shipments continued even after Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran in 1984. Later, in 1988 Iraq used the chemical weapons against the Kurds.

    But perhaps most importantly, the missing pages contain information that could potentially make a case for war crimes against officials within the Reagan and the Bush Sr. administrations. This includes the current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - for his collaboration with Saddam Hussein leading up to the massacres of Iraqi Kurds and acting as liaison for U.S. military aid during the war between Iraq and Iran.

• US/British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects
  • At http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/8.html

  • British and American coalition forces are using depleted uranium (DU) shells in the war against Iraq and deliberately flouting a UN resolution which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons of mass destruction.

    Nobel Peace Prize candidate, Helen Caldicott, states that the tiny radioactive particles created when a DU weapon hits a target are easily inhaled through gas masks. The particles, which lodge in the lung, can be transferred to the kidney and other vital organs. Gulf War veterans are excreting uranium in their urine and semen, leading to chromosomal damage. DU has a half-life of 4.1 billion years. The negative effects found in one generation of US veterans could be the fate of all future generations of Iraqi people.

    An August 2002 UN report states that the use of the DU weapons is in violation of numerous laws and UN conventions. Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagons DU project says "We must do what is right for the citizens of the world- ban DU." Reportedly, more than 9600 Gulf War veterans have died since serving in Iraq during the first gulf war, a statistical anomaly. The Pentagon has blamed the extraordinary number of illnesses and deaths on a variety of factors, including stress, pesticides, vaccines and oil-well fire smoke. However, according to top-level U.S. Army reports and military contractors, "short-term effects of high doses (of DU) can result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer." Our own soldiers in the first Gulf War were often required to enter radioactive battlefields unprotected and were never warned of the dangers of DU. In effect, George Bush Sr. used weapons of mass destruction on his own soldiers. The internal cover-up of the dangers of DU has been intentional and widespread.

    In addition to Doug Rocke, the Pentagon's original expert on DU, ex-army nurse Carol Picou has been outspoken about the negative effects of DU on herself and other veterans. She has compiled extensive documentation on the birth defects found among the Iraqi people and the children of our own Gulf War veterans. She was threatened in anonymous phone calls on the eve of her testimony to congress. Subsequently, her car, which contained sensitive information on DU, was mysteriously destroyed.

• Weekend drinking 'puts a million in casualty every year' - The costs of alcoholic excess, quitting by computer - and Middle England's big scam - By Steve Connor Science Editor - 12 September 2003
  • At http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=442503

  • "The alcohol problem in the UK is much bigger than the drug problem. In the UK about a third of men and a fifth of women drink above the Government's safe guidelines for alcohol consumption. By comparison, about one in 200 people has a serious drug problem."

    He said he was concernedby a 25 per cent increase in alcohol-related deaths in the past 10 years. This was compounded by a 32 per cent increase in alcohol misuse by young males aged between 18 and 24 in the past 12 years.

    "All the indicators are upwards," Professor Drummond said. "If you look at women of the same age, there's actually been a 70 per cent increase in alcohol misuse over that period. There are huge marketing effects taking place. There's a lot of money spent on making drinking attractive to women and this is part of the reason."

  • "If alcohol is cheap and easily available it is very often the drug that people choose first to cope with their problems and before very long they develop an addiction ... so it becomes very hard to cope with any problem without alcohol," he said. "Alcohol is a drug like heroin or cannabis, and it produces addiction in a small proportion of people. The wealthier we are as a nation, the more we can afford to drink, and in the absence of any intervention to increase the cost of alcohol, you're going to get this upward trend."

• Hidden crimewave committed by the middle classes
  • At http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=442502

  • Britain is experiencing a hidden crimewave costing nearly five times the amount lost through house burglaries, yet these secretive criminals are respectable members of middle-class society.

    Ordinary people who consider themselves honest and law-abiding citizens are involved in a massive rip-off that is costing insurance companies and the Government some £13.8bn in fraud and forgeries, criminologists told the conference. These hidden crimes included a range of non-serious offences from the non-payment of income tax and fraudulent insurance claims to stealing pens from work and a failure to return money that was accidentally "overchanged" in a shop.

    At the same time, insurance companies, shops and services are engaged in a war with consumers, which is resulting in a deliberate policy of trying to rip off customers.

    This includes everything from selling poor-quality food and overstating the benefits of holiday accommodation to unnecessary repairs to goods.

    "We think that these illegal, unfair and shady practices committed by consumers and businesses alike are very important for the understanding of the morality of our society," said Professor Susanne Karstedt of Keele University.

    "I think we have to see it as part of a vicious circle in which producers and consumers are engaging. We find that consumers are hitting back. These are the citizens and consumers of the middle classes who would reject the labels of criminals and crime for themselves and their own actions.

    "We found that the more people were self interested, the more they were legal cynics and the more they were disengaged citizens, that is the lower were their citizenship values.The promotion of self interest in society obviously results in that type of behaviour."

    Stephen Farrall, a criminologist from Keele, said young people were more likely to be engaged in such illegal behaviour, which has been increasing since the early 1990s.

    "The early 1990s ... was, if you like, the high-tide mark for Thatcherite values and the acceleration towards a reliance on a market society," Dr Farrall said. "I don't think any of the people we interviewed would consider themselves to be dishonest or to be criminals.

    "The offending was not just aimed at insurance claims, we have people ripping each other off in second-hand sales ... it's also about being a predator against one's neighbour."

    BOURGEOIS OFFENCES

    * Avoiding VAT by paying in cash

    * Keeping money when given too much change

    * Stealing from the office

    * Not having a television licence

    * Wrongly used ID card

    * Padding out an insurance claim

    * Getting friends to bend rules

    * Accepting refunds from shops when they are not warranted

• Bowling for Columbine
  • At http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/home.php

• Michael Moore - Stupid White Men
  • At http://www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/index.php
  • Free Chapter: http://www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/index.php

  • By September 22, I had no choice but to get back on a plane. I had been scheduled to give a talk in San Antonio, and so off I went on an American flight out of Newark. At the airport there was a newly, hastily put-together list of all the items that I could NOT bring aboard the plane. The list was long and bizarre. The list of banned items included:
  • No guns. (Obviously)
  • No knives. (Ditto)
  • No boxcutters. (Certainly now justified)
  • No toenail clippers. (What?)
  • No knitting needles. (Huh?)
  • No crotchet hooks. (Now, wait a minute!)
  • No sewing needles.
  • No mace.
  • No leaf blowers. (OK, now it's personal)
  • No corkscrews.
  • No letter openers.
  • No dry ice.
  • The list went on and on. A lot of the items made good sense. I wasn't quite sure if terrorists also made quilts in their spare time, and I guess I must have missed the terrorist incident where some poor bastards smuggled dry ice aboard a plane (were they trying to keep their Popsicles cold until they ate them and then used the sticks for their attack?).

  • More importantly, though, I kept noticing something strange. The guy in front of me, while emptying his pockets into the little plastic tray to run through the x-ray machine, would take out his butane lighter or matchbook, toss them into the tray, then pick them up on the other side -- in full view of security. At first I thought this was a mistake until I looked at the list of banned items again -- and saw that butane lighters and matchbooks were NOT on the forbidden list.

    Then came December 22, 2001. Richard Reid, on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, attempted to light his shoes on fire, using matches. His shoes, the police said, contained a plastic explosive and, had some passengers and flight attendants not taken quick action to restrain him, he would have been able to blow the entire plane out of the sky. But his lighter would not light the shoes fast enough, and everyone survived.

    I was sure after this freakish incident that the lighters and matches would surely be banned. But, as my book tour began in February, there they were, the passengers with their Bic lighters and their books of matches. I asked one security person after another why these people were allowed to bring devices which could start a fire on board the plane, especially after the Reid incident. No one, not a single person in authority or holding an unloaded automatic weapon, could or would give me answer.

    My simple question was this: If all smoking is prohibited on all flights, then why does ANYONE need their lighters and matches at 30,000 feet -- while I am up there with them?!

    And why is the one device that has been used to try and blow up a plane since 9-11 NOT on the banned list? No one has used toenail clippers to kill anyone on Jet Blue, and no one has been blowing away the leaves in the aisle of the Delta Connection flight to Tupelo.

    BUT SOME FRUITCAKE DID USE A BUTANE LIGHTER TO TRY AND KILL 200 PEOPLE ON AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT #63. And this did nothing to force the Bush Administration to do something about it.

    I began asking this question in front of audiences on my book tour. And it was on a dark and rainy night in Arlington, Virginia, at the Ollsson's Bookstore a couple miles from the Pentagon that I got my answer. After asking my Bic lighter question in my talk to the audience, I sat down to sign the books for the people in line. A young man walks up to the table, introduces himself, and lowering his voice so no one can hear, tells me the following:

    "I work on the Hill. The butane lighters were on the original list prepared by the FAA and sent to the White House for approval. The tobacco industry lobbied the Bush administration to have the lighters and matches removed from the banned list. Their customers (addicts) naturally are desperate to light up as soon as they land, and why should they be punished just so the skies can be safe?

    The lighters and matches were removed from the forbidden list.

    I was stunned. I knew there had to be some strange reason why this most obvious of items had not been banned. Could the Bush mob be so blatant in their contempt for the public's safety? How could they do this, and at the same time, issue weekly warnings about the "next terrorist threat"? Would they really put Big Tobacco's demands ahead of people's lives?

    Yes, of course, the answer has always been YES but not now, not in a time of national crisis, not NOW, so soon after the worst domestic mass murder in U.S. history!

    Unless there was no real threat at all.

    The hard and difficult questions must be asked: Is the "War on Terrorism" a ruse, a concoction to divert the citizens' attention?

    Accept, if you will for just a moment, that as truly despicable as George W. Bush is, he would not be so evil as to help out his buddies in tobacco land that that would be worth suffering through another 9-11. Once you give the man that – and for once I am asking you to do just that – once you admit that not even he would allow the murder of hundreds or thousands more just so Marlboro addicts can light up outside the terminal, then a whole other door opens – and that door, my friends, leads to the Pandora's Box of 9-11, a rotten can of worms that many in the media are afraid to open for fear of where it might lead, of just how deep the stench goes.

    What if there is no "terrorist threat?" What if Bush and Co. need, desperately need, that "terrorist threat" more than anything in order to conduct the systematic destruction they have launched against the U.S. constitution and the good people of this country who believe in the freedoms and liberties it guarantees?

    Do you want to go there?

    I do. I have filed a Freedom of Information Act demand to the FAA, asking that they give to me all documents pertaining to the decisions that were made to allow deadly butane lighters and books of matches on board passenger planes. I am not optimistic about what the results of this will be.

    And let's face it - it's just one small piece of the puzzle. It is, after all, just a 99-cent Bic lighter. But, friends, I have to tell you, over the years I have found that it is PRECISELY the "little stories" and the "minor details" that contain within them the LARGER truths. Perhaps my quest to find out why the freedom to be able to start a fire on board a plane-full of citizens is more important than yours or my life will be in vain. Or maybe, just maybe, it will be the beginning of the end of this corrupt, banal administration of con artists who shamelessly use the dead of that day in September as the cover to get away with anything.

    I think it's time we all stood up and started asking some questions of these individuals. The bottom line: Anyone who would brazenly steal an election and insert themselves into OUR White House with zero mandate from The People is, frankly - sadly - capable of anything...

• Reasons Why We Shouldn't
  • At http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6420

• Dr Toast's Internet Toast Resources - including the Land of Toast
  • At http://www.drtoast.com/badtoastlinks.html

• The Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner
  • At http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/library/fear/index.php
  • At http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/library/fear/02.php

  • "That last phrase alludes to a danger that by any rational calculation deserves top billing on Americans’ lists of fears. So gun crazed is this nation that Burger King had to order a Baltimore franchise to stop giving away coupons from a local sporting goods store for free boxes of bullets with the purchase of guns. We have more guns stolen from their owners—about 300,000 annually—than many countries have gun owners. In Great Britain, Australia, and Japan, where gun ownership is severely restricted, no more than a few dozen people are killed each year by handguns. In the United States, where private citizens own a quarter-billion guns, around 15,000 people are killed, 18,000 commit suicide, and another 1,500 die accidentally from firearms. American children are twelve times more liked to die from gun injuries than are youngsters in other industrialized nations.

    Yet even after tragedies that could not have occurred except for the availability of guns, their significance is either played down or missed altogether. Had the youngsters in the celebrated schoolyard shootings of 1997–98 not had access to guns, some or all of the people they killed would be alive today. Without their firepower those boys lacked the strength, courage, and skill to commit multiple murders. Nevertheless newspapers ran editorials with titles such as “It’s Not Guns, It’s Killer Kids” (Fort Worth Star–Telegram) and “Guns Aren’t the Problem” (New York Post), and journalists, politicians, and pundits blathered on endlessly about every imaginable cause of youthful rage, from “the psychology of violence in the South” to satanism to fights on “Jerry Springer” and simulated shooting in Nintendo games."

• Review of "The World We're In" by Will Hutton
  • At http://www.redpepper.org.uk/cularch/x-palmer-hutton.html
  • "Hutton's central thesis is stark. There are profound and growing differences between the models of capitalism which have developed in the European Union and in the United States. These are no mere economic or technocratic issues. Their roots lie in a different trade off between capitalism and civil society on either side of the Atlantic. US capitalism is by nature and history deeply hostile to the concept of a social contract which, it sees, as a threat to "liberty". Hutton claims that in Europe capital has had to come to terms an enlightenment generated view that a healthy public realm is essential to any properly functioning society.

    While avowing his fondness for the American people and many of their achievements, Hutton is excoriating about the injustices and inequalities of the US economic model. His is a devastating critique of the economic waste and social cost of its Wall Street finance driven, short termist, high tech bubble style "boom/bust" economics. Radicals will find a great deal of valuable material to mine from Hutton's book in analyzing the price society pays for being shackled by the bizarre excesses of modern American capitalism."

• Florilegia Antonio colligerat
  • A florilegium is a collection of useful or valuable quotes from any number of sources. Usually it refers to a medieval compilation.
  • At http://www.lasierra.edu/~tzbarasc/florilegia.html

• This is a collection of quotes that is still growing
  • At http://www.geocities.com/tangental/quotes.htm
  • At http://www.geocities.com/tangental/quotes8.htm
  • "If the truth is out there, what's in here?" - Nick Humphries
  • "Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt with is determinism, the way you play it is free will." - Jawaharial Nehru
  • "I never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
  • "It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest." - Abraham Lincoln
  • "A good part - and definitely the most fun part - of feminism is about frightening men." - Julie Burchill
  • "I value people with a conscience. It's like a beeper from God." - Robert Orben
  • "When one realises his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels." - Edward Dahlberg
  • "Our prime purpose in life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them." - Dalai Lama
  • "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad." - Aldous Huxley
  • "You can't help my life, but you can hide the knives." - Therapy?
  • "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." - Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
  • "What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no longer believe you." - Frederick Nietzsche
  • "Some goals are so worthy, it is glorious even to fail." - Anonymous
  • "Grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right, even though I think it is hopeless." - Admiral Chester W. Nimntz
  • "I alone understand you... And you are the only one who understands me. The difference between us is that the darkness that holds you prisoner is inside you." - Goldenrod Kleinman, Englehardt
  • "Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching." - Jim Stovall
  • Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair." - George Burns
  • "A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but ought to be." - Rosalynn Carter
  • "Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." - Erica Jong
  • "It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't." - Mignon McLaughlin
  • "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else." - Clarence Darrow
  • "Sometimes a majority simply means that all the fools are on the same side." - Claude McDonald
  • "Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the job done." - Al Bernstein
  • "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
  • "Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it's compounding a felony." - Robert Benchley
  • "There's one thing worse than being alone: wishing you were." - Bob Steele
  • "Why grieve because all your dreams have not come true? Neither have all your nightmares." - Unknown
  • "We are in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They inhabit taverns and have no self-control." - Inscription on a 6000-year-old Egyptian Tomb
  • "Life is never easy for those who dream." - Robert James Waller
  • "Each friend represents a world in us; a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only in meeting them that a new world is born." - Anais Nin
  • "Smoking cures weight problems... Eventually..." - Rod Schmidt
  • "If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
  • "True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance." - Henry David Thoreau
  • "Violence is an admission that one's ideas and goals cannot prevail on their own merits." - Edward M. Kennedy
  • "Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in daytime and falling into at night." - Edna St. Vincent Millay
  • "The nature of men is always the same; it is their habits that separate them." - Confucius
  • "It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them." - Alfred Adler
  • "Violence is, essentially, a confession of the ultimate inarticulateness." - Time Magazine
  • "Violence represents the worst kind of conformism." - Mario Varga Llosa
  • "I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him." - Booker T. Washington
  • At http://www.geocities.com/tangental/quotes.htm
  • "Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right." - Mohandas K. Ghandi
  • "Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong." - Peter T. McIntyre
  • "There is a point beyond which even justice becomes unjust." - Sophocles

• The VEGAN Diet
  • At http://www.ccsi.com/~devorah/vegan.html
    • Health and the Vegan Diet
      
    • Vegan Outreach
      
    • The Vegan Diet and Calcium
      
    • Weight Loss and the Vegan Diet
      
    • Making the Transition to Vegetarianism
      
    • Veggies Unite Web
      
    • Vegetarian Pages
      
    • Vegan Ingredients

• mcVegan lawsuit?
  • At http://www.vegan.org/mcvegan_lawsuit.html

• University of California Hastings College of the Law - AFRICAN AMERICAN SPECIFIC LINKS - COLONIAL ERA TO 1899
  • At http://www.uchastings.edu/wingate/colonial.htm

• "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" - 1852 - by Frederick Douglass
  • At http://www-c.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927.html
  • "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."

• Francisco Goya - The sleep of reason produces monsters
  • At http://www.artchive.com/artchive/G/goya/goya_sleep_of_reason.jpg.html
  • At http://members.tripod.com/jack_bruce_/goya_capachos1.htm
  • At http://www.nospank.org/goya.htm
  • At http://www.cicero-project.com/Goya.1.bis.html

• Francisco Goya: The Sleep of Reason (1799)
  • At http://www.wfsrs.org/newsletters/Newsletter8_1/inside/sleeparts.html
  • "Goya's famous etching, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, is actually one of 80 plates from Los Caprichos: a collection of bound etchings originally produced for sale by the artist in 1799 - akin to the contemporary graphic novel (aka, comic book). In January of that year, art critic Céan Bermúdez described Los Caprichos as "a collection of prints of whimsical subjects, invented and etched by Don Francisco Goya. The author, convinced that human errors and vices can be as much the subject of painting as it is of oratory and poetry, has chosen for his work themes from the multitude of follies and wrong-doings which are common to all societies."
    After moderate sales, it became apparent to King Charles IV of Spain (Goya's monarch and sometime client) that Los Caprichos was actually mocking the throne and other members of the elite ruling class: much the way that contemporary television soap operas focus on the abjectivity and horrific behavior of the "beautiful people" in western societies. To that end, King Charles bought all remaining copies of Los Caprichos and banned all future publications.
    Goya described The Sleep of Reason as, "The author dreaming. His only intention is to banish harmful superstition and to perpetuate with this work of fancy the sound testimony of Truth.""

• Friendship Quotes -
  • http://colleenscorner.com/Friend.html
  • "We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is a last drop that makes it run over; so in series of kindnesses, there is a last one that makes the heart run over." - Samuel Johnson

• Henry David Thoreau Quotes -
  • http://www.transcendentalists.com/thoreau_quotes.htm
  • It is never too late to give up your prejudices. Walden
  • Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Walden
  • Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. Walden
  • Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
  • Things do not change; we change. Journal
  • We do not enjoy poetry unless we know it to be poetry.
  • Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
  • All this worldly wisdom was once the amiable heresy of some wise man. Journal
  • Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. Civil Disobedience
  • Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
  • Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
  • I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
  • Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate oddfellow society.
  • It is not worthwhile to go around the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.

• Quotations of G. K. Chesterton
  • At http://www.chesterton.org/acs/quotes.htm
  • "Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before." - Tremendous Trifles
  • "A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man." - A Utopia of Usurers, CW, V, p396
  • "Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions." - ILN, 4/19/30
  • "The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice." - A Defense of Humilities, The Defendant, 1901
  • "Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance." - The Speaker, 12/15/00
  • "What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism." - Sidelights on New London and Newer New York
  • "He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head." - Tremendous Trifles, 1909
  • "Complaint always comes back in an echo from the ends of the world; but silence strengthens us." - The Father Brown Omnibus
  • "The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are." - Introduction to The Defendant
  • "To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." - A Short History of England, Ch.10
  • "We have had no good comic operas of late, because the real world has been more comic than any possible opera." - The Quotable Chesterton
  • "When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any." - ILN 11-7-08
  • "The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." - Broadcast talk 6-11-35
  • "The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right." - ILN 10-28-22
  • "Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it." - "Charles II" Twelve Types
  • "Do not look at the faces in the illustrated papers. Look at the faces in the street." - ILN, 11/16/07
  • "I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event." - ILN, 10/7/16
  • "My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday." - New York Times Magazine, 2/11/23
  • "Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back." - What's Wrong With The World, 1910
  • "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around." - Orthodoxy, 1908
  • "Comforts that were rare among our forefathers are now multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed, nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably cheap imitation of it." - Commonwealth, 1933
  • "None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them." Ð Daily News 7-21-06
  • "The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of the mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings." - "The New House" Alarms and Discursions
  • "This is the age in which thin and theoretic minorities can cover and conquer unconscious and untheoretic majorities." - ILN, 12/20/19
  • "The past is not what it was." - A Short History of England
  • "[Marxism will] in a generation or so [go] into the limbo of most heresies, but meanwhile it will have poisoned the Russian Revolution." - ILN, 7/19/19
  • "There is a corollary to the conception of being too proud to fight. It is that the humble have to do most of the fighting." - Everlasting Man, 1925
  • "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." - ILN, 1/14/11
  • "How quickly revolutions grow old; and, worse still, respectable." - The Listener. 3-6-35
  • "Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." - Christendom in Dublin, 1933
  • "America is the only country ever founded on a creed." - What I Saw In America, 1922
  • "The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man." - Chapter 19, What I Saw In America, 1922
  • "The unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing. It is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the equality of citizens, which even voting and elections have not destroyed." - What I Saw In America, 1922
  • "Men are ruled, at this minute by the clock, by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern." - The New Name, Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays, 1917
  • "If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer except slanging or silence." - Chapter 3, What's Wrong With The World, 1910
  • "He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." - Varied Types
  • You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. - Tremendous Trifles, 1909
  • "For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers." - All Things Considered, 1908
  • "It is the mark of our whole modern history that the masses are kept quiet with a fight. They are kept quiet by the fight because it is a sham-fight; thus most of us know by this time that the Party System has been popular only in the sense that a football match is popular." - A Short History of England. 156
  • "I have formed a very clear conception of patriotism. I have generally found it thrust into the foreground by some fellow who has something to hide in the background. I have seen a great deal of patriotism; and I have generally found it the last refuge of the scoundrel." - The Judgement of Dr. Johnson, Act III
  • "It is terrible to contemplete how few politicians are hanged." - The Cleveland Press, 3/1/21
  • "There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants." Ð Outline of Sanity CW. V. 192
  • "All government is an ugly necessity." Ð A Short History of England. 63
  • "It is hard to make government representative when it is also remote." - ILN, 8/17/18
  • "It is a good sign in a nation when things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on." - "Patriotism and Sport," All Things Considered
  • "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." - ILN, 4/19/24
  • "It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile." - The Judgement of Dr. Johnson, Act III
  • "I think the oddest thing about the advanced people is that, while they are always talking about things as problems, they have hardly any notion of what a real problem is." - Uses of Diversity
  • "There have been household gods and household saints and household fairies. I am not sure that there have yet been any factory gods or factory saints or factory fairies. I may be wrong, as I am no commericial expert, but I have not heard of them as yet." - ILN Dec 18, 1926
  • "Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men." - ILN 9-11-09
  • "By experts in poverty I do not mean sociologists, but poor men." - ILN, 3/25/11
  • "The modern city is ugly not because it is a city but because it is not enough of a city, because it is a jungle, because it is confused and anarchic, and surging with selfish and materialistic energies." - "The Way to the Stars" Lunacy and Letters
  • "Women are the only realists; their whole object in life is to pit their realism against the extravagant, excessive, and occasionally drunken idealism of men." - A Handful of Authors
  • "Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline." - Manalive
  • "I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princess." - The Victorian Age in Literatur
  • "One of the chief uses of religion is that it makes us remember our coming from darkness, the simple fact that we are created." - The Boston Sunday Post, 1/16/21
  • "The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people." - ILN, 7/16/10
  • "If there were no God, there would be no atheists." - Where All Roads Lead, 1922
  • "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." - Chapter 5, What's Wrong With The World, 1910
  • "The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man." - Introduction to the Book of Job, 1907
  • "The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden." - ILN 1-3-20
  • "These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own." - ILN 8-11-28
  • "Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake." - Blake
  • "If a man called Christmas Day a mere hypocritical excuse for drunkeness and gluttony, that would be false, but it would have a fact hidden in it somewhere. But when Bernard Shaw says that Christmas Day is only a conspiracy kept up by Poulterers and wine merchants from strictly business motives, then he says something which is not so much false as startling and arrestingly foolish. He might as well say that the two sexes were invented by jewellers who wanted to sell wedding rings." - George Bernard Shaw, Ch. 6
  • "The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why." - "On Christmas," Generally Speaking
  • "It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them." - ILN, 3/14/08
  • "The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice." - ILN, 6/11/10
  • "Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it." - ILN, 2/24/06
  • "Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man, and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks." - Daily News, 2/21/02
  • "There'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners." - The Father Brown Omnibus
  • "Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice." - ILN 9/11/09
  • "To the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sun is really a sun; to the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sea is really a sea." - Heretics, CW I, p128
  • "Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified." - ILN 9-30-33
  • "The voice of the special rebels and prophets, recommending discontent, should, as I have said, sound now and then suddenly, like a trumpet. But the voices of the saints and sages, recommending contentment, should sound unceasingly, like the sea." - T.P.'s Weekly, Christmas Number, 1910
  • "All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive." - The Thing. CW. III 191
  • "Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities." - What's Wrong With the World
  • "The world will very soon be divided, unless I am mistaken, into those who still go on explaining our success, and those somewhat more intelligent who are trying to explain our failure." - Speech to Anglo-Catholic Congress 6-29-20
  • "In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn." - The Speaker 2-2-01
  • "Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else." - "The Church of the Servile State" Utopia of Usurers
  • "Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business." - G.K.'s Weekly, 4/10/26
  • [No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them." - The Debate with Bertrand Russell, BBC Magazine, 11/27/35
  • "A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter." - ILN, 5/25/31
  • "Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists." - The Uses of Diversity, 1921
  • "All but the hard hearted man must be torn with pity for this pathetic dilemma of the rich man, who has to keep the poor man just stout enough to do the work and just thin enough to have to do it." - Utopia of Usurers, 1917
  • "The real argument against aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant. For the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is ignorance of work." - NY Sun 11-3-18
  • "Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere." - ILN, 5/5/28
  • "The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms." - Shaw, 1909
  • "The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs." - Chapter 16, Heretics, 1905
  • "Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. but the artists find it harder." - ILN, 11/25/05
  • "By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece." - "On Detective Novels," Generally Speaking
  • "Modern man is staggering and losing his balance because he is being pelted with little pieces of alleged fact which are native to the newspapers; and, if they turn out not to be facts, that is still more native to newspapers." - ILN, 4/7/23
  • "From time to time, as we all know, a sect appears in our midst announcing that the world will very soon come to an end. Generally, by some slight confusion or miscalculation, it is the sect that comes to an end." - ILN, 9/24/27
  • The Verdict: "Only poor men get hanged." - ILN, 7/17/09
  • "Anyone who is not an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down the chimney or even under the bed." - What I Saw In America, 1922
  • "Psychoanalysis is a science conducted by lunatics for lunatics. They are generally concerned with proving that people are irresponsible; and they certainly succeed in proving that some people are." - ILN, 6/23/28
  • "You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion." - "How I Met the President" Tremendous Trifles

• mutual admiration society -
  • http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=634615&secid=.-
  • "A relationship in which two people have strong feelings of esteem for each other and often exchange lavish compliments. The term may signify either genuine or pretended admiration, as in Each of them praised the other's book - it was a real mutual admiration society. The expression was invented by Henry David Thoreau in his journal (1851) and repeated by Oliver Wendell Holmes and others.

    The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer © 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust"

• Finis Africae of blasphemers, infidels, false prophets and artistic diuresis
  • At http://www.screenmedia.com/Excursus/Articles/Piss.htm
  • "Accordingly, the contemporary formulation of the offence owes much to the comments of Lord Coleridge who in 1833 explained that the "mere denial of the truth of Christianity is not enough to constitute the offence of blasphemy". To be blasphemous, expression must be instead "calculated and intended to insult the feelings and the deepest religious convictions of the great majority of persons amongst whom we live"."
  • "As a secular offence, blasphemous libel has not been successfully prosecuted in NSW since 1871. In those countries, such as Indonesia or through the Middle East, which still retain a high degree of religious observance, blasphemy is likely to remain a tool of the state to entrench a particular configuration of social and political power."
  • "No Australian court has authoritatively defined blasphemous libel. The most recent definition of the actus reus of the offence at common law has been made by Lord Scarman in R v Lemon, and in R v Chief Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate; Ex parte Choudhury, where offence was held to consist in the publication of scurrilous material likely to outrage Christian believers. Lord Scarman described this more fully as "any contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous matter relating to God, Jesus Christ or the Bible, or the formularies of the Church of England as by law established". Further, according to the majority in R v Lemon, the necessary mental element for the offence is merely the intent to publish the blasphemous material, not the intent to blaspheme."

• Blasphemy free for all : Court cannot define the crime
  • At http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Igpress/Oct99/followup.html
  • "At first blasphemy laws were applicable only to attacks on the established church; more recently they were applied to faith in Christianity as a whole; and in 1979 the British house of Lords extended the law there to include the religious beliefs and sensibilities of non-Christians. At that time Lord Scarman defended the existence of laws banning blasphemy, saying:

    In an increasingly plural society such as that of modern Britain it is necessary not only to respect the differing religious beliefs, feelings, and practices of all but also to protect them from scurrility, vilification, ridicule, and contempt. . . . I will not lend my voice to a view of the law relating to blasphemous libel which would render it a dead letter, or diminish its efficacy to protect religious feelings from outrage and insult."

• Blasphemy Report 74 (November 1994) - New South Wales Law Reform Commission
  • At http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/nswlrc/rpt74/index.html
  • PREFACE - 1. INTRODUCTION : http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/nswlrc/rpt74/00002.html
  • "Providing a contemporary definition of the offence of blasphemy in New South Wales presents a serious problem. The law of blasphemy was fashioned over centuries by the English courts, reflecting in different periods particular social tensions and the level of social and religious tolerance achieved. A study of English history raises the possibility that the offence of blasphemy was never really suited to the circumstances of New South Wales, established in 1788 as a penal colony and described (with some irony) by one commentator as the "most godless place under heaven". [2] There is a real question whether blasphemy still exists in the criminal law of New South Wales, even if it was "received" as law in colonial times, given the long period of disuse. [3]"
  • "Although the New South Wales Parliament has offered a degree of guidance in sections 574 and 574A of the Crimes Act 1900, resort to the case law is necessary to establish elements of the offence (assuming that it is still part of the law). However, there have been no reported judicial decisions in Australia. The only prosecution in New South Wales was in 1871."

• Scottish Publisher Releases Blasphemous Bible
  • At http://watch.pair.com/canon.html
  • "Mr. Bennett is threatening to summons Canongate for blasphemous libel under English common law, using a definition approved by Lord Scarman which states: "Every publication is said to be blasphemous which contains any contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous matter relating to God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, or the formularies of the Church of England as by law established." "
  • "The Wiccans, a modern version of the Druid cult, recently reprinted King James book, Daemonologie, with the following disclaimer on the back cover:

    "This book was used by many as an excuse to torture, maim, and kill many thousands of women. James became convinced at the Danish court that Witchcraft was real and that the central source of the Witch's power was the demonic pact. James focused attention on Witchcraft because his underlying fear was that magical means might be used to end his life as the divinely ordained king of Scotland.

    "After his return from the Continent in 1590, he became intensely interested in sorcery and Witchcraft trials and particularly the trial of his political enemy, Bothwell (1590-1591). Witches were vigorously hunted and persecuted - to such an extent that some villages had no females left in them. The period ends with the publication of this Daemonologie in 1597. Because of the impact of the Daemonologie on the ruling classes, more trials were now held with the King's approval, and very many more convictions were obtained.

    "This book should therefore be in every true Witch's library, at the very least as a monument to those who died.""

• The Internet, Legal Regulation and Legal Pluralism
  • At http://www.bileta.ac.uk/98papers/jones.html
  • "Already the solution have been suggested, Lord Scarman in Lemon stated:

    'In an increasingly plural society such as that of modern Britain it is necessary not only to respect the differing religious beliefs, feelings and practices of all but also to protect them from scurrility, vilification, ridicule and contempt... When nearly a century earlier Lord Macaulay protested in Parliament against the way the blasphemy laws were then administered, he added (Speeches, p. 116): "If I were a judge in India, I should have no scruple about punishing a Christian who should pollute a mosque" (1922) C.L.J. 127, 135. When Macaulay became a legislator in India, he saw to it that the law protected the religious feelings of all. In those days India was a plural society: today the United Kingdom is also.' (R v Lemon [1979] AC 617, p.658). "

• The Conspiracy Book List v1.1
  • At http://www.etext.org/Politics/Conspiracy/Misc/conspiracy.book.list

• History Primary Resources
  • At http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Resources/Type/primary.html

• Joe Hill - A 90-Minute Documentary Profiles Labor Leader and Protest Songwriter
  • "Born Joel Hagglund in Sweden"
  • At http://www.pbs.org/joehill/about/
  • At http://www.pbs.org/joehill/index.html
  • Joe Hill Songs: http://www.pbs.org/joehill/voices/songs_index.html
  • "The song was poet Alfred Hayes' "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill.""

• Joe Hill (Joe Hillstrom - 1879 -1915)
  • At http://members.tripod.com/~RedRobin2/index-42.html

• Songs of Joe Hill
  • At http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/hill.html

• MY LAST WILL by Joe Hill
  • At http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/3671/lastwill.htm

  • My will is easy to decide,
    For there is nothing to divide.
    My kin don't need to fuss and moan-
    "Moss does not cling to a rolling stone."
    My body? Ah, If I could choose,
    I would to ashes it reduce,
    And let the merry breezes blow
    My dust to where some flowers grow.
    Perhaps some fading flower then
    Would come to life and bloom again.
    This is my last and final will.
    Good luck to all of you,  Joe Hill

• Industrial Workers of the World Songs or "The Little Red Songbook" (London, 1916 Printed and Sold by W. Oliver, No 12, Bartholomew-Close; )
  • At http://www.acronet.net/~robokopp/iww.html

• Utah Phillips (Bruce "Utah" Phillips (a.k.a. "U. Utah Phillips"))
  • At http://www.utahphillips.org/

• XRD.us
  • At http://www.xrd.us/

• Ani DiFranco & Utah Phillips, Fellow Workers (Righteous Babe Records, 1999)
  • At http://www.rambles.net/utah_workers.html

• Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
  • At http://www.iww.org/

• Eugene V. Debs quotes
  • At http://www.igc.org/laborquotes/debs.html
  • Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. - Eugene V. Debs, Founder of the American Railway Union
  • The strike is the weapon of the oppressed, of men capable of appreciating justice and having the courage to resist wrong and contend for principle. The nation had for its cornerstone a strike, and while arrogant injustice throws down the gauntlet and challenges the right to conflict, strikes will come, come by virtue of irrevocable laws, destined to have a wider sweep and greater power as men advance in intelligence and independence - Eugene V. Debs, 1888, Speaking during the strike of engineers and firemen on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Rail Line
  • If it is a fact that after working for George M. Pullman for many years you appear two weeks after your work stops, ragged and hungry, it only emphasizes that the charge I made before this community, and Pullman stands before you a self-confessed robber....The paternalism of Pullman is the same as the self-interest of a slave-holder in his human chattels. You are striking to avert slavery and degradation. - Eugene V. Debs,1894, Speaking in Pullman, Ill., During the American Railway Union's Pullman Strike
  • I told my friends of the cloth that I did not believe Christ was meek and lowly but a real living, vital agitator who went into the temple with a lash and a krout and whipped the oppressors of the poor, routed them out of the doors and spilled their blood and got silver on the floor. He told the robbed and misruled and exploited and driven people to disobey their plunderers, he denounced the profiteers, and it was for this that they nailed his quivering body to the cross and spiked it to the gates of Jerusalem, not because he told them to love one another. That was harmless doctrine. But when he touched their profits and denounced them before their people he was marked for crucifixion. - Eugene V. Debs Speaking to a reporter for Call from his prison cell in 1919 while serving time for making anti-war speeches.

• Eugene Victor Debs (1855-1926)
  • At http://www.ukans.edu/kansas/pullman/texts/debs.html
  • "The presidential race in 1920 was unique because Debs was running from behind the bars of federal prison. During the 1920 election, Deb's image as a martyr began to take many forms. His supporters compared Debs to Abraham Lincoln, Wendell Phillips and most commonly Jesus Christ. Despite Debs running the campaign, from his prison cell he managed to win 919,000 votes, or 3.5 percent of the popular vote. Deb's imprisonment and fame also gave a boost to the amnesty movement. A movement designed to free political prisoners for speaking against WWI. After Wilson's defeat, President Harding ordered Deb's release from prison on Christmas Day 1921. This release was despite well-financed opposition from the American Legion and other organizations who wage a "Keep Debs in Jail" campaign."

• Eugene Victor Debs
  • At http://www.eugenevdebs.com/
  • Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves. - - Eugene V. Debs - From an address on Industrial Unionism delivered at Grand Central Palace. New York City, Dec. 18,1905.

• Eugene Victor Debs
  • At http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdebs.htm

• Grave of Eugene Victor Debs
  • At http://www.findagrave.com/pictures/268.html

• Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce (Online Collection)
  • Refer: http://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/aesop/aesopab.html
  • Refer: http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/bierce/fables.asp
  • Refer: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8109/ff.htm
  • In Aesopus Emendatus, Ambrose Bierce writes of a woman named Truth: "I live in the desert in order to be near my worshippers when they are driven from among their fellows. They all come, sooner or later."
  • Truth and the Traveller: http://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/cgi/aesop1.cgi?ab&TruthandtheTraveller
  • Truth and the Traveller

    A MAN travelling in a desert met a Woman.

    "Who art thou?" asked the Man, "and why dost thou dwell in this dreadful place?"

    "My name," replied the Woman, "is Truth; and I live in the desert in order to be near my worshippers when they are driven from among their fellows. They all come, sooner or later."

    "Well," said the Man, looking about, "the country doesn't seem to be very thickly settled here."

• The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss
  • At http://www.acme.com/jef/reviews/seuss.html

• Yertle the Turtle by dr. seuss
  • At http://www.angelfire.com/mn2/anarchistpoetry/articlesdir/article1.html

  • On the far-away island of Sala-ma-Sond,
    Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond.
    A nice little pond.  It was clean.  It was neat.
    The water was warm.  There was plenty to eat.
    The turtles had everything turtles might need.
    And they were all happy.  Quite happy indeed.
    
    They were... untill Yertle, the king of them all,
    Decided the kingdom he ruled was too small.
    "I'm ruler", said Yertle, "of all that I see.
    But I don't see enough.  That's the trouble with me.
    With this stone for a throne, I look down on my pond
    But I cannot look down on the places beyond.
    This throne that I sit on is too, too low down.
    It ought to be higher!" he said with a frown.
    "If I could sit high, how much greater I'd be!
    What a king! I'd be ruler of all that I see!"
    
    So Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
    And Yertle, the Turtle King, gave a command.
    He ordered nine turtles to swim to his stone
    And, using these turtles, he built a new throne.
    He made each turtle stand on another one's back
    And he piled them all up in a nine-turtle stack.
    And then Yertle climbed up.  He sat down on the pile.
    What a wonderful view! He could see 'most a mile!
    "All mine!" Yertle cried.  "Oh, the things I now rule!
    I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!
    I'm the king of a house! And, what's more, beyond that
    I'm the king of a blueberry bush and a cat!
    I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
    For I am the ruler of all that I see!"
    
    And all through the morning, he sat up there high
    Saying over and over, "A great king am I!"
    Until 'long about noon.  Then he heard a faint sigh.
    "What's that?" snapped the king
    And he looked down the stack.
    And he saw, at the bottom, a turtle named Mack.
    Just a part of his throne.  And this plain little turtle
    Looked up and he said, "Beg your pardon, King Yertle.
    I've pains in my back and my shoulders and knees.
    How long must we stand here, Your Majesty, please?"
    "SILENCE!" the King of the Turtles barked back.
    "I'm king, and you're only a turtle named Mack."
    "You stay in your place while I sit here and rule.
    I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!
    I'm the king of a house! And a bush! And a cat!
    But that isn't all.  I'll do better than that!
    
    My throne shall be higher!" his royal voice thundered,
    "So pile up more turtles! I want 'bout two hundred!"
    "Turtles! More turtles!" he bellowed and brayed.
    And the turtles 'way down in the pond were afraid.
    They trembled.  They shook.  But they came.  They obeyed.
    From all over the pond, they came swimming by dozens.
    Whole families of turtles, with uncles and cousins.
    And all of them stepped on the head of poor Mack.
    One after another, they climbed up the stack.
    Then Yertle the Turtle was perched up so high,
    He could see fourty miles from his throne in the sky!
    "Hooray!" shouted Yertle.  "I'm the king of the trees!
    I'm king of the birds! And I'm king of the bees!
    I'm king of the butterflies! King of the air!
    Ah, me! What a throne! What a wonderful chair!
    I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
    For I am the ruler of all that I see!"
    
    Then again, from below, in the great heavy stack,
    Came a groan from that plain little turtle named Mack.
    "Your Majesty, please... I don't like to complain,
    But down here below, we are feeling great pain.
    I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,
    But down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
    We turtles can't stand it.  Our shells will all crack!
    Besides, we need food.  We are starving!" groaned Mack.
    
    "You hush up your mouth!" howled the mighty King Yertle.
    "You've no right to talk to the world's highest turtle.
    I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
    There's nothing, no, NOTHING, that's higher than me!"
    
    But, while he was shouting, he saw with suprise
    That the moon of the evening was starting to rise
    Up over his head in the darkening skies.
    "What's THAT?" snorted Yertle.  "Say, what IS that thing
    That dares to be higher than Yertle the King?
    I shall not allow it! I'll go higher still!
    I'll build my throne higher! I can and I will!
    I'll call some more turtles.  I'll stack 'em to heaven!
    I need 'bout five thousand, six hundred and seven!"
    
    But, as Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
    And started to order and give the command,
    That plain little turtle below in the stack,
    That plain little turtle whose name was just Mack,
    Decided he'd taken enough.  And he had.
    And that plain little lad got a bit mad.
    And that plain little Mack did a plain little thing.
    He burped!
    And his burp shook the throne of the king!
    
    And Yertle the Turtle, the king of the trees,
    The king of the air and the birds and the bees,
    The king of a house and a cow and a mule...
    Well, that was the end of the Turtle King's rule!
    For Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond,
    Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!
    
    And tosay the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,
    Is King of the Mud.  That is all he can see.
    And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free
    As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.
    

• Religion and Sexual Ethics
  • At http://www.acme.com/jef/religion_sex/

• British Council - Human Rights Web
  • At http://humanrights.britishcouncil.org

• Police get tough with the hobbit-lovers of Kazakhstan
  • At http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=85886#top

• The American Civil War Writings of Ambrose Bierce
  • At http://www.civilwarinteractive.com/writings_of_ambrose_bierce.htm

• Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914?
  • At http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/18661913/lit/bierce.htm
  • It was in the war that Bierce discovered death and destruction. Bierce transformed these Civil War experiences into powerful short stories such as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and "Chickamauga."

• Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
  • At http://www.hycyber.com/HF/bierce_ambrose.html

• Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary
  • At http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Bierce/DevilsDictionary/

• Ambrose Bierce
  • At http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Bierce/

• Ambrose Bierce, Master of the Macabre
  • At http://www.creative.net/~alang/lit/horror/bierce.sht
  • It was during this depressive, uncertain age that Bierce coined his famous motto, "Nothing matters."
  • In fact he denied the title, admitting: "When I was in my twenties, I concluded one day that I was not a poet. It was the bitterest moment of my life." What, then of Black Beetles and his other critical verse? "I am not a poet," he explained, "but an abuser -- that makes all the difference... so I'm entitled to credit for what little gold there may be in the mud I throw. But if I professed gold-throwing, the mud which I would surely mix with the missiles would count against me."
  • "Bierce's most famous work of misanthropy was published in 1906 by Doubleday Page & Co. under the title The Cynics Word Book. Containing 500 "definitions" from various newspaper columns, this was the first edition of The Devil's Dictionary. By 1911 Bierce had written over 1,000 such "definitions" and published this amount in volume seven of his twelve-volume Collected Works under the title we are familiar with today."

• Online Texts of web links relating to Ambrose Bierce
  • At http://www.creative.net/~alang/lit/horror/abierce.sht

• Ambrose Bierce - patron saint of satire
  • At http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8109/main.htm

• Aesop: Androcles
  • At http://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/cgi/aesop1.cgi?1&Androcles
  • At http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0156.html
  • "Gratitude is the sign of noble souls"

• Labor Hall of Fame Honoree: Eugene Victor Debs
  • At http://www.dol.gov/dol/oasam/public/programs/laborhall/evd.htm

• No Justice for Cyclists: What's wrong with this picture?
  • At http://michaelbluejay.com/bicycle/justice/index.html

• THE SOCIETY FOR THE ELIMINATION OF ALL TRUTH - General Information -
  • At http://www.theabsolute.net/seat/seat1.html#info
  • "The Society for the Elimination of All Truth is a socially concerned organization consisting of leading academics, scientists, clergy, business people, feminists and artists. All are united by the belief that the philosophic life is anti-social, anti-human and anti-life, and has no place within a modern democratic society."

  • Basic Principles:

    1. To destroy Truth wherever it may be.
    2. To actively encourage young people to go to university and fall in love.
    3. To alert people of the dangers of thinking seriously.
    4. To actively defend the mainstream political and socio-economic institutions of Australia which have done so much to obliterate human consciousness.
    5. To uphold the concepts and values espoused by all the mainstream religions, including faith, prayer, meditation and compassion.
    6. To encourage men and women to support the ideals of the feminist movement.
    7. To propagate the idea that everything is uncertain.
  • Never lose your ignorance; you cannot replace it.
  • Truth is no road to fortune.- Rousseau
  • Absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullness of it and the pomposities of it. - Samual Beckett
  • It is not truth that matters, but victory. - Adolf Hitler
  • Humankind cannot bear very much reality. - T.S Eliot
  • Consciousness is a disease. - Miguel De Unamuno

• How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. Riis. 1890
  • At http://www.cis.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/title.html

• Dowland, John (1563 - 1626)
  • At http://www.johndowland.com/

• Lute - MP3 and MIDI files
  • At http://www.albany.net/~dowland/sound.html

• Lachrimae of John Dowland
  • At http://members.iquest.net/~jfazli/dowland.htm

• Glossary entry for Dowland, John (1563 - 1626)
  • At http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/~hayward/van/glossary/dowland.html

• John Dowland (1563 - 1626) - Flow my tears
  • Medieval/Renaissance Music (with MIDI files): http://www.fin.ne.jp/~yokubota/medievale.shtml
  • Flow my tears MIDI file: http://www.fin.ne.jp/~yokubota/mid/tears.mid

• John Dowland (1563 - 1626) - Now, oh now I needs must part
  • At http://www.hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp/higaki/cons2/

• Dorian Recordings
  • At http://www.dorian.com/

• The Baltimore Consort
  • At http://www.baltcons.com/

• The Toronto Consort
  • At http://www.alisonmelville.com/consort.html
  • Audio CD: The Toronto Consort: The Little Barleycorn: Winter Revels from the Renaissance - Dorian 93186, November 1999

• The Toronto Consort CDs
  • At http://www.rockian.com.au/dorian/dortoro.htm
  • Audio CD: The Toronto Consort: The Little Barleycorn: Winter Revels from the Renaissance - Dorian 93186, November 1999: http://www.rockian.com.au/dorian/93186s.htm

• Lyrics for "Time stands still" by John Dowland
  • At http://ace.acadiau.ca/score/archive/ftp.htm

• Third Booke of Songes or Ayres by John Dowland
  • At http://www.johndowland.com/thirdbook/

• John Dowland manuscript project
  • At http://www.cbsr.ucr.edu/dmstopframe.html

• John Dowland Midi files
  • At http://perso.wanadoo.fr/gbconsult/musique-ancienne/partitions/dixsept/dowland/index.htm

• Time Stands Still - Lute songs on the theme of mutability and metamorphosis by John Dowland and his contemporaries : EMMA KIRKBY soprano and ANTHONY ROOLEY lute
  • At http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/details/66186.asp

• Go To Heaven - Guaranteed!
  • At http://www.buyintoheaven.com/

• The Black Swan: Why Don’t We Learn that We Don’t Learn?
  • At http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/blackswan.pdf

• Computer Systems Documentation
  • At http://mywebpages.comcast.net/bpayne37/dw/index.html

  • Do not think dishonestly
    The Way is in training
    Become acquainted with every art
    Know the ways of all professions
    Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters
    Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything

    Perceive those things which cannot be seen
    Pay attention even to trifles
    Do nothing which is of no use

• Church Sign Generator
  • At http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/churchsigngenerator/index.php

  • The wages of sin is death, repent before payday

  • If God is your co-pilot, switch seats

  • Join us in the battle against truth decay

  • Dictate, Dominate, Devastate the World for God

  • God wants to kill you

  • On Fire for Jesus

• How to make effective church signs
  • At http://www.fasterpastor.com/autobio1.htm
  • At http://www.fasterpastor.com/signs7.htm

• Cost of Divorce: Love is Grand, Divorce is Twenty Grand
  • At http://www.fasterpastor.com/signs3f.htm

• predictions for 2013
  • At http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/

  • Millions of J.K. Rowling fans will be disappointed with the long-awaited seventh book of her famous boy-wizard series, entitled "Harry Potter and You Losers Can Kiss My Millionaire Ass."

  • Marijuana is legalized, but is taxed so heavily that NORML reverses their position and lobbies to get it made illegal again, to get prices under control.

  • A militant atheist terrorist group sponsors suicide bombers who kill people for no discernible reason.

• The Jesus Dance - dance the millenium away
  • At http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/jesusdance/

• Ernie Marrs and the Marrs Family - Plastic Jesus
  • At http://www.folkways.si.edu/broadside/htdocs/Marrs.htm

  • Ernie Marrs was a prolific songwriter and a frequent contributor to Broadside. It was claimed that he wrote 15,000 songs (Sing Out! 43/1:28, 1993). Marrs was born in Oklahoma but later settled in Atlanta, Georgia. During his career, he worked as a stonemason, served in the navy, and was a migrant worker (Broadside issue 2).

    Plastic Jesus

    This was one of the most heavily debated sings printed in Broadside, as it had been earlier when it was published in Sing Out! (14/2, 1964). Its publication in Broadside led to a barrage of angry letters from subscribers asking, "How can you publish something so blasphemous?" People canceled subscriptions and claimed they would never read the magazine again. In Sing Out!, articles were written defending the song. Gordon Friesen replied, "'Isn't the song sacrilegious?' We ask in turn, 'Where does the sacrilege lie really, with the song, or those greedy for profits, who debase the Savior by producing and peddling these cheap little trinkets in his image?'"(Broadside issue 39). Indeed, the song still provokes outrage from those who fail to recognize that its target is the purveyors of religious kitsch, not religion itself.

    Marrs arranged his version of a song that was already in circulation, although it was frequently credited to him. Actually, it was written by two West Coast musicians, Ed Rush and George Cromarty, who were members of the Goldcast Singers. Ed Rush traced the song back to an African-American camp-meeting song with lyrics "I don't care if it rains or freezes, leaning on the arms of my Jesus," which was the theme song of a religious radio program broadcast from Baton Rouge in the 1940's (Broadside # 41). The parody lyrics are based on the line quoted above. Folklorist Richard Reuss found six variants of the religious words in the Folklore Archives at Indiana University (Broadside #41).

• Paul Newman, Cool Hand LUke and Plastic Jesus
  • At http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/7538/questions.html

  • Q: What is the name of the song that Paul Newman sings after he learns his mother has died in Cool Hand Luke and where can I find a recording of the song? - goozrulz

    A: After much searching, (so much in the interim, goozrulz seems to have disappeared) I have found the answer to your question regarding the song that Paul Newman sings after his mother dies, in Cool Hand Luke. I refer to website (a fabulous review of CHL): www.filmsite.org/cool.html for this info.

    "Dragline pays off the bets following the egg-eating contest and he
    brags about Luke, his deceptively cool, witty performer: "That's my
    darlin' Luke. He grin like a baby, but he bites like a gater." When Luke
    receives notice in a telegram that his mother has died, he is given
    space by the inmates to pay his last respects to her in the privacy and
    quiet of his cell bunk. He strums on a banjo and sings a requiem for her
    - it's a parody of a raunchy pop-gospel tune "Plastic Jesus," a song
    that is about finding temporary solace with a plastic Virgin Mary:

    Well, I don't care if it rains or freezes, long as I got my plastic Jesus, sittin' on the dashboard of my car.
    Comes in colors, pink and pleasant, glows in the dark cause it's irridescent
    Take it with you when you travel far.
    Get yourself a sweet Madonna, dressed in rhinestones sittin' on a pedestal of abalone shell
    Goin' ninety, I ain't scary [sic - 'wary'], 'cause I've got the Virgin Mary, assurin' me that I won't go to Hell.
    Get yourself a sweet Madonna, dressed in rhinestones sittin' on a pedestal of abalone shell
    Goin' ninety, I ain't scary, 'cause I've got the Virgin Mary, assurin' me that I won't go to Hell.

    As for where you can find a copy of this song, I'm not really sure. There doesn't appear to be any soundtrack info for the movie (and if so, anything would be long out of print by now). Other recordings of the song "Plastic Jesus" are by Jello Biafra (featuring Mojo Nixon) on Prarie Home Invasion (1994), Flaming Lips on Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (1993) and ROC on ROC (1996). I'm