A couple of interesting and timely quotes, plus texttoon. Click on in.

Quote(1):
A friend has placed in our hands numbers of the tracts which the corn-law reformers of England circulate among the people. They are about the size and length of the religious tracts of this country, and are put up in an envelope, which is stamped with neat and appropriate devices. These little publications comprise essays on all the topics involved in the corn-law controversy, sometimes in the form of dialogues, sometimes of tales, and sometimes of extracts from famous books and speeches. The arguments are arranged so as to be easily comprehended by the meanest capacities.

The friend to whom we are indebted for these is well informed on the subject, and says that a more advanced state of opinion prevails among the people of England, in relation to the operation of tariffs, than in this nation generally so much more enlightened. It is a singular spectacle which is thus presented to the eyes of the civilized world.

While the tendency of opinion, under an aristocratic monarchy, is towards the loosening of the restraints under which the labour of the people has long suffered, a large and powerful party in a nation, whose theory of government is nearly a century in advance of the world, is clamouring for their continuance and confirmation.

Monarchical England is struggling to break the chains that an unwise legislation has forged for the limbs of its trade; but democratic America is urged to put on the fetters which older but less liberal nations are throwing off. The nations of Europe are seeking to extend their commercial relations, to expand the sphere of their mutual intercourse, to rivet the market for the various products of their soil and skill, while the "model republic" of the new world is urged to stick to the silly and odious policy of a semi-barbarous age.

We look upon the attempt which is making in Great Britain to procure a revision of the tariff laws, as one of the most important political movements of the age. It is a reform that contemplates benefits, whose effects would not be confined to any single nation, or any period of time. Should it be successful, it would be the beginning of a grand and universal scheme of commercial emancipation. Let England--that nation so extensive in her relations, and so powerful in her influences--let England adopt a more liberal policy, and it would remove the only obstacles now in the way of a complete freedom of industry throughout the globe.

It is the apparent unwillingness of nations to reciprocate the advantages of mutual trade, that has kept back this desirable reform so long. The standing argument of the friends of exclusiveness--their defence under all assaults, their shelter in every emergency--has been that one nation cannot pursue a free system until all others do, or, in other words, that restriction is to be met by restriction. It is a flimsy pretence, but such as it is, has answered the purposes of those who have used it, for many centuries.

The practice of confining trade by the invisible, but potent chains of law, has been a curse wherever it has prevailed. In England, more dependent than other nations on the extent of its commercial intercourse, it may be said to have operated as a scourge. The most terrible inflictions of natural evil, storms, famine, and pestilence, have not produced an equal amount of suffering.

Indeed, it has combined the characteristics of the worst of those evils. It has devastated, like the storm, the busy hives of industry; it has exhausted, like famine, the life and vital principle of trade; and, like the pestilence, it has "walked in the darkness and wasted at noon-day." When we read of thousands of miserable wretches, in all the cities and towns of a great nation, huddled together like so many swine in a pen; in rags, squalor, and want; without work, bread, or hope; dragging out from day to day, by begging, or the petty artifices of theft, an existence which is worthless and a burden; and when, at the same time, we see a system of laws, that has carefully drawn a band of iron around every mode of human exertion; which with lynx-eyed and omniscient vigilance, has dragged every product of industry from its retreat to become the subject of a tax, can we fail in ascribing the effect to its cause, or suppress the utterance of our indignation at a policy so heartless and destructive?

Yet, this is the very policy that a certain class of politicians in this country would have us imitate. Misled by the selfish and paltry arguments of British statesmen, but unawed by the terrible experience of the British people, they would fasten upon us a system whose only recommendation, in its best form, is that it enriches a few, at the cost of the lives and happiness of many. They would assist a constrictor in wrapping his folds around us, until our industry shall be completely crushed.
--The Economist(SEPTEMBER 16, 1843, v1i3)

Let us turn our eyes down from such lofty hights and make a visit to a less exaulted view of the lot of man.

Quote(2):
Parson Plaford seemed to be on very intimate terms with his maker. If his little finger ached, the Lord meant something by it. Yet, although he was always ready to be called home, he was still more ready to accept the doctor's advice to take a holiday when he felt unwell. The last sermon I heard him preach was delivered through a sore throat, a chronic malady which he exasperated by bawling. He told us that the work and worry were too much for him, and the doctor had ordered him rest, if he wished to live. He was going away for a week or two to see what the Lord meant to do with him; and I afterwards heard some of the prisoners wonder what the Lord was doing with him. "I speak to you as a dying man," said the chaplain, as he had said several times before when he felt unwell; and as it might be the last time he would ever preach there, he besought somebody, as a special act of gratitude, to get saved that very day.

One of the prisoners offered a different reason for the chaplain's temporary retirement. "He ain't ill, sir. I knows what 'tis. I was down at the front when your friend Mr. Ramsey went out. There was a lot of coaches and people, and the parson looked as white as a ghost. He thinks ther'll be more coaches and people when you goes out, and he's gone off sooner than see 'em."

During the chaplain's absences his locum tenens was usually a gentleman of very opposite characteristics. He was tall, thin, modest, and even diffident. He slipped into your cell, as I said before, with the deferential air of an undertaker. His speech was extremely soft and rapid, although he stuttered a little now and then from nervousness. "I suppose you know," I asked on his first visit, "what I am here for?" "Y-e-s," he stammered, with something like a blush. I said no more, for it was evident he wished to avoid the subject, and I really think he was sorry to see me persecuted in the name of Christ. He had called, he said, to see whether he could do anything for me. Could he lend me any books? I thanked him for the proffered kindness, but I had my own books to read by that time. Mr. Stubbs's sermons were much superior to Mr. Plaford's. They were almost too good for the congregation. He dwelt with fondness on the tender side of Christ's character, and seemed to look forward to a heaven which would ultimately contain everybody.

On one occasion we had a phenomenal old gentleman in the pulpit. He was white-haired but florid. His appearance was remarkably youthful, and his voice sonorous. I heard that he was assistant chaplain at one of the other London prisons. With the most exemplary fidelity he went through the morning service, omitting nothing; unlike Parson Plaford, who shortened it to leave time for his sermon. I wondered whether he would get through it by dinner-time, or whether he would continue it in the afternoon. But he just managed to secure ten minutes for his sermon, which began with these extraordinary words, that were sung out at the top of his voice: "When the philosopher observes zoophyte formations on the tops of mountains, he," etc. How singularly appropriate it was to the congregation. The sermon was not exactly "Greek" to them, but it was all "zoophyte." I heard some of them wonder when that funny old boy was coming again.

The prisoners sit in chapel on backless benches, tier above tier, from the rails in front of the clerk's desk almost to the roof behind. Two corners are boarded off within the rails, one for the F wing and the other for the debtors' wing. Above them is a long gallery, with private boxes for the governor, the doctor and the chief warder, and a pulpit for the chaplain.

Parson Plaford used to make a great noise in closing the heavy door behind the pulpit, leading to the front of the prison; and he rattled the keys as though he loved the sound. He placed them on the desk beside the "sacred volume," and I used to think that the Bible and the keys went well together.

In offering his first private prayer, as well as in his last after the benediction, he always covered his face with the sleeve of his robe, lest, I suppose, the glory of his countenance, while communicating with his maker, should afflict us as the insufferable splendor of the face of Moses afflicted the Jews at Mount Sinai. His audible prayers were made kneeling with clasped hands and upturned face. His eyes were closed tightly, his features were painfully contracted, and his voice was a falsetto squeak. I fancy the Governor must have sighed at the performance. The doctor never troubled to attend it.

The prisoners were supposed to cross their hands in front while in chapel. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to induce me to conform to the regulation. I declined to strike prescribed attitudes. Another rule, pretty rigorously enforced, was that the prisoners should look straight before them. If a head was turned aside, an officer bawled out "Look to your front." I once heard the injunction ludicrously interpolated in the service. "Dearly beloved brethren," said the chaplain. "Look to your front," growled the officer. It was text and comment.

Only once did I see a prisoner impressed. The man sat next to me; his face was red, and he stared at the chaplain with a pair of goggle eyes. Surely, I thought, the parson is producing an effect. As we were marching back to our cells I heard a sigh. Turning round, I saw my harvest-moon-faced friend in an ecstacy. It was Sunday morning, and near dinner time. Raising his hands, while his goggle eyes gleamed like wet pebbles, the fellow ejaculated, "Pudden next."
-- G. W. Foote.

I hope the season has been kind to all of you and I will, no doubt, bend your ear (and mind) again in the coming year. Until then.

Texttoon:
Fumetti : A stock photo of Barack Obama in front of that poduim with blue 'elect' sign. Overlayed speech bubble has him saying; "Riddikulus!" in an ornamental typeface.

A couple of short excerpts, a few thoughts about the USA's post-election post selection mania, and a texttoon.

I do hope some bright person mentions the correct choices to Obama to head up the FBI and CIA. That being Sibel and Valerie, of course. And sends our Mr. Harper our baby terrorist boy back with all charges dropped. I really want to see Harper face him and have to tell him why exactly a Canadian child must spend his youth in a death camp. But there are perhaps too many issues that lay ahead. The quotes used today should blend both needs, that of progresivism and issue resolutionism. A number of subthoughts are implied as usual.

Quote(1):
On the 9th of June the meeting of deputies took the title of the Constituent Assembly. For the first time in centuries the king was forced to recognise the existence of a new power, formerly ignored--that of the people, represented by its elected representatives. The absolute monarchy was no more.

Feeling himself more and more seriously threatened, Louis XVI. summoned to Versailles a number of regiments composed of foreign mercenaries. The Assembly demanded the withdrawal of the troops. The king refused, and dismissed Necker, replacing him by the Marshal de Broglie, reputed to be an extremely authoritative person.

But the Assembly had able supporters. Camille Desmoulins and others harangued the crowd in all directions, calling it to the defence of liberty. They sounded the tocsin, organised a militia of 12,000 men, took muskets and cannon from the Invalides, and on the 14th of July the armed bands marched upon the Bastille. The fortress, barely defended, capitulated in a few hours. Seven prisoners were found within it, of whom one was an idiot and four were accused of forgery.

The Bastille, the prison of many victims of arbitrary power, symbolised the royal power to many minds; but the people who demolished it had not suffered by it. Scarcely any but members of the nobility were imprisoned there.

The influence exercised by the taking of this fortress has continued to our days. Serious historians like M. Rambaud assure us that ``the taking of the Bastille is a culminating fact in the history, not of France only but of all Europe, and inaugurates a new epoch in the history of the world.''

Such credulity is a little excessive. The importance of the event lay simply in the psychological fact that for the first time the people received an obvious proof of the weakness of an authority which had lately been formidable.

When the principle of authority is injured in the public mind it dissolves very rapidly. What might not one demand of a king who could not defend his principal fortress against popular attacks? The master regarded as all-powerful had ceased to be so.

The taking of the Bastille was the beginning of one of those phenomena of mental contagion which abound in the history of the Revolution. The foreign mercenary troops, although they could scarcely be interested in the movement, began to show symptoms of mutiny. Louis XVI. was reduced to accepting their disbandment. He recalled Necker, went to the Hotel de Ville, sanctioned by his presence the accomplished facts, and accepted from La Fayette, commandant of the National Guard, the new cockade of red, white, and blue which allied the colours of Paris to those of the king.

Although the riot which ended in the taking of the Bastille can by no means be regarded as ``a culminating fact in history,'' it does mark the precise moment of the commencement of popular government. The armed people thenceforth intervened daily in the deliberations of the revolutionary Assemblies, and seriously influenced their conduct.

This intervention of the people in conformity with the dogma of its sovereignty has provoked the respectful admiration of many historians of the Revolution. Even a superficial study of the psychology of crowds would speedily have shown them that the mystic entity which they call the people was merely translating the will of a few leaders. It is not correct to say that the people took the Bastille, attacked the Tuileries, invaded the Convention, &c., but that certain leaders--generally by means of the clubs--united armed bands of the populace, which they led against the Bastille, the Tuileries, &c. During the Revolution the same crowds attacked or defended the most contrary parties, according to the leaders who happened to be at their heads. A crowd never has any opinion but that of its leaders.

Example constituting one of the most potent forms of suggestion, the taking of the Bastille was inevitably followed by the destruction of other fortresses. Many chateaux were regarded as so many little Bastilles, and in order to imitate the Parisians who had destroyed theirs the peasants began to burn them. They did so with the greater fury because the seigneurial homes contained the titles of feudal dues. It was a species of Jacquerie.

The Constituent Assembly, so proud and haughty towards the king, was, like all the revolutionary assemblies which followed it, extremely pusillanimous before the people. -- G. le Bon

Still in the same theme, yet from a more traditional statist view point.

Quote(2):
Every good political institution must have a preventive operation as well as a remedial. It ought to have a natural tendency to exclude bad men from government, and not to trust for the safety of the state to subsequent punishment alone; punishment, which has ever been tardy and uncertain; and which, when power is suffered in bad hands, may chance to fall rather on the injured than the criminal.

Before men are put forward into the great trusts of the state, they ought by their conduct to have obtained such a degree of estimation in their country, as may be some sort of pledge and security to the public, that they will not abuse those trusts. It is no mean security for a proper use of power, that a man has shown by the general tenor of his actions, that the affection, the good opinion, the confidence of his fellow-citizens have been among the principal objects of his life; and that he has owed none of the gradations of his power or fortune to a settled contempt, or occasional forfeiture of their esteem.

That man who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to desert his friends, or who losing it has no friends to sympathize with him; he who has no sway among any part of the landed or commercial interest, but whose whole importance has begun with his office, and is sure to end with it, is a person who ought never to be suffered by a controlling Parliament to continue in any of those situations which confer the lead and direction of all our public affairs; because such a man has no connection with the interest of the people.

Those knots or cabals of men who have got together, avowedly without any public principle, in order to sell their conjunct iniquity at the higher rate, and are therefore universally odious, ought never to be suffered to domineer in the state; because they have no connection with the sentiments and opinions of the people.

These are considerations which in my opinion enforce the necessity of having some better reason, in a free country, and a free Parliament, for supporting the ministers of the crown, than that short one, That the king has thought proper to appoint them. There is something very courtly in this. But it is a principle pregnant with all sorts of mischief, in a constitution like ours, to turn the views of active men from the country to the court. Whatever be the road to power, that is the road which will be trod. If the opinion of the country be of no use as a means of power or consideration, the qualities which usually procure that opinion will be no longer cultivated. And whether it will be right, in a state so popular in its constitution as ours, to leave ambition without popular motives, and to trust all to the operation of pure virtue in the minds of kings, and ministers, and public men, must be submitted to the judgment and good sense of the people of England.

Cunning men are here apt to break in, and, without directly controverting the principle, to raise objections from the difficulty under which the sovereign labors, to distinguish the genuine voice and sentiments of his people, from the clamor of a faction, by which it is so easily counterfeited. The nation, they say, is generally divided into parties, with views and passions utterly irreconcilable. If the king should put his affairs into the hands of any one of them, he is sure to disgust the rest; if he select particular men from among them all, it is a hazard that he disgusts them all. Those who are left out, however divided before, will soon run into a body of opposition; which, being a collection of many discontents into one focus, will without doubt be hot and violent enough.

Faction will make its cries resound through the nation, as if the whole were in an uproar, when by far the majority, and much the better part, will seem for a while as it were annihilated by the quiet in which their virtue and moderation incline them to enjoy the blessings of government. Besides that the opinion of the mere vulgar is a miserable rule even with regard to themselves, on account of their violence and instability. So that if you were to gratify them in their humor to-day, that very gratification would be a ground of their dissatisfaction on the next.

Now as all these rules of public opinion are to be collected with great difficulty, and to be applied with equal uncertainty as to the effect, what better can a king of England do, than to employ such men as he finds to have views and inclinations most conformable to his own; who are least infected with pride and self-will; and who are least moved by such popular humors as are perpetually traversing his designs, and disturbing his service; trusting that, when he means no ill to his people, he will be supported in his appointments, whether he chooses to keep or to change, as his private judgment or his pleasure leads him? He will find a sure resource in the real weight and influence of the crown, when it is not suffered to become an instrument in the hands of a faction.

I will not pretend to say, that there is nothing at all in this mode of reasoning; because I will not assert that there is no difficulty in the art of government. Undoubtedly the very best administration must encounter a great deal of opposition; and the very worst will find more support than it deserves. Sufficient appearances will never be wanting to those who have a mind to deceive themselves. It is a fallacy in constant use with those who would level all things, and confound right with wrong, to insist upon the inconveniences which are attached to every choice, without taking into consideration the different weight and consequence of those inconveniences. The question is not concerning absolute discontent or perfect satisfaction in government; neither of which can be pure and unmixed at any time, or upon any system. The controversy is about that degree of good humor in the people, which may possibly be attained, and ought certainly to be looked for.

While some politicians may be waiting to know whether the sense of every individual be against them, accurately distinguishing the vulgar from the better sort, drawing lines between the enterprises of a faction and the efforts of a people, they may chance to see the government, which they are so nicely weighing, and dividing, and distinguishing, tumble to the ground in the midst of their wise deliberation.

Prudent men, when so great an object as the security of government, or even its peace, is at stake, will not run the risk of a decision which may be fatal to it. They who can read the political sky will see a hurricane in a cloud no bigger than a hand at the very edge of the horizon, and will run into the first harbor. No lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They are a matter incapable of exact definition. But, though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet light and darkness are upon the whole tolerably distinguishable. Nor will it be impossible for a prince to find out such a mode of government, and such persons to administer it, as will give a great degree of content to his people; without any curious and anxious research for that abstract, universal, perfect harmony, which while he is seeking, he abandons those means of ordinary tranquillity which are in his power without any research at all.

It is not more the duty than it is the interest of a prince, to aim at giving tranquillity to his government. But those who advise him may have an interest in disorder and confusion. If the opinion of the people is against them, they will naturally wish that it should have no prevalence. Here it is that the people must on their part show themselves sensible of their own value. Their whole importance, in the first instance, and afterwards their whole freedom, is at stake. Their freedom cannot long survive their importance. Here it is that the natural strength of the kingdom, the great peers, the leading landed gentlemen, the opulent merchants and manufacturers, the substantial yeomanry, must interpose, to rescue their prince, themselves, and their posterity.

We are at present at issue upon this point. We are in the great crisis of this contention; and the part which men take, one way or other, will serve to discriminate their characters and their principles. Until the matter is decided, the country will remain in its present confusion. For while a system of administration is attempted, entirely repugnant to the genius of the people, and not conformable to the plan of their government, everything must necessarily be disordered for a time, until this system destroys the constitution, or the constitution gets the better of this system. -- E. Burke

It shall be interesting to see what Obama can do and who he can to find to do it. Until then.

Texttoon:
Fumetti : Stock photo of Joe Lieberman and Barack Obama. Overlayed speech bubble has Joe asking "No hard feelings?" Obama replies "No comma hard feelings." The spoken comma may be in italics, underlined and emboldenated.

Grunting and heaving the Great Satan once again prepares to chop its own head off and select a new one.

The reattachment process takes several months. And is attended by a number of possible events over this unique period of time. Second-term results are the odd one out in the metaphor--so I'll only take to here. The point from an external view remains, however, and this quote may only serve to abuse it more.

Quote:
Gentlemen, I am joking, and I know myself that my jokes are not brilliant, but you know one can take everything as a joke. I am, perhaps, jesting against the grain. Gentlemen, I am tormented by questions; answer them for me.

You, for instance, want to cure men of their old habits and reform their will in accordance with science and good sense. But how do you know, not only that it is possible, but also that it is DESIRABLE to reform man in that way? And what leads you to the conclusion that man's inclinations NEED reforming?

In short, how do you know that such a reformation will be a benefit to man? And to go to the root of the matter, why are you so positively convinced that not to act against his real normal interests guaranteed by the conclusions of reason and arithmetic is certainly always advantageous for man and must always be a law for mankind? So far, you know, this is only your supposition. It may be the law of logic, but not the law of humanity. You think, gentlemen, perhaps that I am mad? Allow me to defend myself.

I agree that man is pre-eminently a creative animal, predestined to strive consciously for an object and to engage in engineering--that is, incessantly and eternally to make new roads, WHEREVER THEY MAY LEAD. But the reason why he wants sometimes to go off at a tangent may just be that he is PREDESTINED to make the road, and perhaps, too, that however stupid the "direct" practical man may be, the thought sometimes will occur to him that the road almost always does lead SOMEWHERE, and that the destination it leads to is less important than the process of making it, and that the chief thing is to save the well-conducted child from despising engineering, and so giving way to the fatal idleness, which, as we all know, is the mother of all the vices.

Man likes to make roads and to create, that is a fact beyond dispute. But why has he such a passionate love for destruction and chaos also? Tell me that! But on that point I want to say a couple of words myself. May it not be that he loves chaos and destruction (there can be no disputing that he does sometimes love it) because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his object and completing the edifice he is constructing? Who knows, perhaps he only loves that edifice from a distance, and is by no means in love with it at close quarters; perhaps he only loves building it and does not want to live in it, but will leave it, when completed, for the use of LES ANIMAUX DOMESTIQUES--such as the ants, the sheep, and so on. Now the ants have quite a different taste. They have a marvellous edifice of that pattern which endures for ever--the ant-heap.

With the ant-heap the respectable race of ants began and with the ant-heap they will probably end, which does the greatest credit to their perseverance and good sense. But man is a frivolous and incongruous creature, and perhaps, like a chess player, loves the process of the game, not the end of it. And who knows (there is no saying with certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is striving lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four, and such positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of death.

Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing but seek that mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it, dreads, I assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be nothing for him to look for. When workmen have finished their work they do at least receive their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to the police-station--and there is occupation for a week. But where can man go?

Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when he has attained such objects. He loves the process of attaining, but does not quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very absurd. In fact, man is a comical creature; there seems to be a kind of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is after all, something insufferable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the normal and the positive--in other words, only what is conducive to welfare--is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact.

There is no need to appeal to universal history to prove that; only ask yourself, if you are a man and have lived at all. As far as my personal opinion is concerned, to care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it's good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things. I hold no brief for suffering nor for well-being either. I am standing for ... my caprice, and for its being guaranteed to me when necessary. Suffering would be out of place in vaudevilles, for instance; I know that. In the "Palace of Crystal" it is unthinkable; suffering means doubt, negation, and what would be the good of a "palace of crystal" if there could be any doubt about it?

And yet I think man will never renounce real suffering, that is, destruction and chaos. Why, suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. Though I did lay it down at the beginning that consciousness is the greatest misfortune for man, yet I know man prizes it and would not give it up for any satisfaction. Consciousness, for instance, is infinitely superior to twice two makes four.

Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or to understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your five senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to consciousness, even though the same result is attained, you can at least flog yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up. Reactionary as it is, corporal punishment is better than nothing. --Feodor Dostoevsky

Satire often gets us into the real meat of the issues and I thought that would be amusing to read that bit before this US election. It shall be an interesting day tomorrow, so I'll head into the bleachers and watch the US populous nibble away at the neck. Until then.

NYAITJ:
51018 : "We want to see the Iraqis take increasing responsibility for their own security. We are making good progress developing an indigenous Iraqi police force," he said. Mr Hoon said there was "no evidence" that either the US or the UK had reduced their commitment to post-war Iraq as a result of the increasing coalition death toll.

88905 : QUESTION: One of those organizations which got the money, according to the report, was also called "Friends of Cyprus Donkeys." May we know at least how many from this specific organization got the money in order to feed or to protect the donkeys in Cyprus on a bi-communal level?

MR. ERELI: I don't know that that information is accurate, Mr. Lambros. I think the point is, it is our assessment that the money disbursed was well spent and effective and consistent with the letter and intent of U.S. law and U.S. policy, which is to foster bi-communal activities.

121319 : QUESTION: Well, why can't you talk more about the allegations of secret camps?

MR. MCCORMACK: Again --

QUESTION: I mean, you talk about the openness at Gitmo, but you don't want to talk about other allegations which are out there and which affect people around the world in Arab and Muslim countries that you're trying to convince you're doing the right thing there.

MR. MCCORMACK: Again, you know, I know the news reports. I've read them myself. And in terms of what was reported, it refers to the CIA, the intelligence community, and I'd refer all questions on that matter to the intelligence community.

QUESTION: Understood. But reports like this that are out there -- true, untrue -- can only make Karen Hughes' job that much harder. How does she deal with that then?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I think that those -- what I was trying to answer Saul's question in talking about the issue that we face. The issue that we face, again, is how to deal with a group of people, with individuals who are committed to killing innocents, who follow no set of rules. How do we as a country of laws, how do we as a country that stands by its international obligations, how do we deal with it, with that problem? And you know, we've had lots of discussions, from here at the State Department, at the White House, at Department of Defense and Department of Justice and elsewhere outlining how we have -- our attempts to deal with that issue.

And what we can do, what Karen can do, what I can do, what others can do, is to try to explain the issue before us, before the world, and talk about how we -- the solutions that we have come up with at this point to deal with this problem. It's a tough problem.

Texttoon:
ink on paper/scanned/jpg : A drawing of a donkey and an elephant. The donkey looks coyly as it hands a tinfoil hat to the elephant. Speech bubble has the donkey saying; "It was all quite fun, but you can have it back now." The elephant replies with "Wut?!?" In the corner a captionesk small drawn black hat with stemmed free text says; "Black helicopters, ho!"

Today's journal entry has been illustrated in LEGO bricks. (850k jpg)

I have also repeated it here in the quote section for anyone who wants just the words. There are some additions in the photocomic that are not included in the quote, so you may wish to read both.

Quote:
No. X.--THE BEHRING-SEA ARBITRATION.
(Scene and Persons as usual. The Conversation has already begun.)

First Well-informed Man (concluding a tirade).

---- so what I want to know is this: are we or are we not to submit to the Yankees? It's all very well talking about Chicago Exhibitions and all that, but if they're going to capture our ships and prevent us killing seals, why, the sooner we tell 'em to go to blue blazes the better. And as for its being a mare clausum----

Inquirer (interrupting).

Who was she? What's she got to do with it?

First W. I. M. (laughing vigorously).

Ha! ha! that's a good 'un.

Inquirer (nettled).

Oh, laugh away, laugh away. That's you all over.

First W. I. M.

My dear chap, I'm very sorry, but I really couldn't help it. There's no woman in the business at all. Mare clausum merely means the place where they catch the seals, you know; mare, Latin for sea.

Inquirer.

Oh! I should have known that directly, if you'd only pronounced it properly. But what does clausum mean?

First W. I. M.

Well, of course, that means--well, a clause, don't you know. It's in the treaty.

Average Man (looking up from his paper).

It used to be the Latin for "closed," but I suppose it's altered now.

First W. I. M. (incredulously).

It can't mean that, anyhow. Who ever heard of a closed sea, I should like to know?

Second W. I. M. (hazarding a suggestion).

It might mean a harbour, you know, or something of that sort.

Average Man.

I daresay it might mean that, but it doesn't happen to be a harbour (relapses into paper).

Second W. I. M.

Oh, well, I only made the suggestion.

[A pause]

Inquirer.

But what are they arbitrating about in Paris? It says (reading from newspaper) "When Mr. Carter, the United States Counsel, had concluded his speech, he was complimented by the President, the Baron de Courcel, who told him he had spoken on behalf of humanity." I thought old Carnot was President of the French Republic.

First W. I. M.

So he is.

Inquirer.

But this paper says Baron de Courcel is President.

Second W. I. M.

Oh, I suppose that's one of Carnot's titles, All these blessed foreigners are Barons, or something of that sort.

Inquirer.

Ah, I suppose that must be it. But what have the French got to do with the Behring Sea? I thought it was all between us and the Yankees.

First W. I. M.

So it is--but the French are arbitrating. That's how they come into the business. I can't say, personally, I like these arbitrations. We're always arbitrating now, and giving everything away. If we think we're right, why can't we say so, and stick to it, and let the French, and the Yankees, and the Russians, and all the rest of 'em, take it from us, if they can?

Second W. I. M.

Take what from us?

First W. I. M.

Why, whatever it happens to be, the Behring Sea, or anything else. We're so deuced afraid of everybody now, we never show fight; it's perfectly sickening. But of course you can't expect anything else from old Gladstone.

Second W. I. M.

That's right--shove it all on to old Gladstone. But you're wrong this time. It was Jo Chamberlain, one of your own blessed Unionists, that you're so proud of, who arranged this arbitration.

First W. I. M.

I know that, my dear boy; but Chamberlain was a Radical then; so where are you now?

[A pause]

Inquirer (who has continued his reading, suddenly, with a puzzled air).

I say, you know, this is too much of a good thing, bringing the Russians into the business. It says--(reads)--"documents were submitted, on behalf of the United States, to prove that Russia had never abandoned her sovereign rights in the manner suggested by Great Britain." How, on earth, does Russia manage to crop up everywhere? And where is this confounded Behring Sea?

Second W. I. M. (vaguely).

It's somewhere in America, or Newfoundland, or thereabouts.

Inquirer.

But how about Russia?

Second W. I. M.

Oh, Russia shoves her oar in whenever we get into a difficulty of any kind anywhere.

Inquirer (persisting).

Yes--but how can she have any "sovereign rights" in America?

Second W. I. M. (haughtily, but evasively).

My dear fellow, if you had followed the thing properly, you wouldn't ask the question. There's no time now to explain it all to you, as it's very complicated, and goes back a long way. But you may take it from me that Russia has got certain rights, and that she means to make things as disagreeable for us as she can.

[A pause]

Inquirer.

It's rather a rum start, isn't it? sending out Sir Charles Russell and Sir Richard Webster. They're on opposite sides of politics.

First W. I. M.

That's just why they send 'em. Russell has got to put the Liberal view, and Webster the Conservative.

Inquirer.

Of course, of course; I never thought of that. By the way, have you ever seen a seal?

First W. I. M.

They've got one at the Zoo. Catches fish, and kisses the keeper, and all that sort of game.

Inquirer.

What, that big beast that looks as if it was made of india-rubber, with long whiskers and a sort of fish-tail?

First W. I. M.

That's it.

Inquirer (with profound disgust).

Well, I am blessed! Is that all they're jawing about?

--Punch, 1893

Many years ago in this journal:
47867 : "But let us be clear: Britain, our international partners, and the Afghan people themselves are united and determined that this shall not happen. Together we shall ensure a future for Afghanistan that the Afghan people deserve." The Afghan people will be given the opportunity to contribute to the drafting of the first post-Taliban constitution in December. It will enable them to choose a system of government that reflects their values and aspirations.

Texttoon:
Fumetti : A photograph of Dr. David Kelly with an overlayed speech bubble saying; "Clank, howl, and all that jazz."

The technocrat.net public discussion site is shut down. Our thanks to the faithful readers, but eventually the site became more of an burden than fun. I have shut it down and will concentrate on other issues. - Bruce Perens technocrat.net

It was fun for us, at least. Thanks Bruce. Also Zog, Guy and the rest.

Texttoon:
Fumetti A drawing of a workman in coveralls walking away with a cut-out life-size photo of Bruce Perens standing up. A few bits of old bunting on the floor, wires tangled in the dust, and an open box of plastic sporks.

Time beacon: T: -14 billion years.

And I see you've found me here. All aboard the time train!

I've scraped out a moment and built the time machine as the movie version of Galaxy Express for this particular journey --hang on, some of that fourth wall is still stuck to your eyebrow there allow me to remove it, pesky stuff. Anyway, let's head on into the bar-car. We can join everyone else there, and I'll begin.

No doubt, as you look out the window here, you'll see why I did. Less obvious, at first, is that the cast and the adventure also seems to resonate with events unfolding in our own time. The iconograpy also fit with the US election news. Thus the Cpt. Harlock sailor outfit I'm wearing, and this strange black bird. Curious, no?

But putting haberdashery, pets, horrid puns, and fowl [sic] allusions aside for a moment, let's ramp up the timeclockspeed and look out onto that which becomes us. That crap, there picked out against the rest, is the beginnings of our galaxy, and so in turn our sun.

And as interesting as that collection of matter forming, into the lovely little solar system we call home, all is... there are some good reasons to bring our viewpoint back this far in time. I will allow some others to expand on that in the quotes today. So drop, smoke, or drink what you like and let's listen to the first of them. Some news, previous entry links, and the texttoon. Oh, he's already started.

Quote(1):
...
How he of the Times has found Velasquez "slovenly in execution, poor in colour--being little but a combination of neutral greys and ugly in its forms"--how he grovelled in happiness over a Turner--that was no Turner at all, as Mr. Ruskin wrote to show--Ruskin! whom he has since defended. Ah! Messieurs, what our neighbours call "la malice des choses" was unthought of, and the sarcasm of fate was against you. How Gerard Dow's broom was an example for the young; and Canaletti and Paul Veronese are to be swept aside--doubtless with it. How Rembrandt is coarse, and Carlo Dolci noble--with more of this kind. But what does it matter?

"What does anything matter!" The farce will go on, and its solemnity adds to the fun.

Mediocrity flattered at acknowledging mediocrity, and mistaking mystification for mastery, enters the fog of dilettantism, and, graduating connoisseur, ends its days in a bewilderment of bric-a-brac and Brummagem!

"Taste" has long been confounded with capacity, and accepted as sufficient qualification for the utterance of judgment in music, poetry, and painting. Art is joyously received as a matter of opinion; and that it should be based upon laws as rigid and defined as those of the known sciences, is a supposition no longer to be tolerated by modern cultivation. For whereas no polished member of society is at all affected at admitting himself neither engineer, mathematician, nor astronomer, and therefore remains willingly discreet and taciturn upon these subjects, still would he be highly offended were he supposed to have no voice in what is clearly to him a matter of "Taste"; and so he becomes of necessity the backer of the critic--the cause and result of his own ignorance and vanity! The fascination of this pose is too much for him, and he hails with delight its justification. Modesty and good sense are revolted at nothing, and the millennium of "Taste" sets in.

The whole scheme is simple: the galleries are to be thrown open on Sundays, and the public, dragged from their beer to the British Museum, are to delight in the Elgin Marbles, and appreciate what the early Italians have done to elevate their thirsty souls! An inroad into the laboratory would be looked upon as an intrusion; but before the triumphs of Art, the expounder is at his ease, and points out the doctrine that Raphael's results are within the reach of any beholder, provided he enrol himself with Ruskin or hearken to Colvin in the provinces. The people are to be educated upon the broad basis of "Taste," forsooth, and it matters but little what "gentleman and scholar" undertake the task.

Eloquence alone shall guide them--and the readiest writer or wordiest talker is perforce their professor.

The Observatory at Greenwich under the direction of an Apothecary! The College of Physicians with Tennyson as President! and we know that madness is about. But a school of art with an accomplished litterateur at its head disturbs no one! and is actually what the world receives as rational, while Ruskin writes for pupils, and Colvin holds forth at Cambridge.

Still, quite alone stands Ruskin, whose writing is art, and whose art is unworthy his writing. To him and his example do we owe the outrage of proffered assistance from the unscientific--the meddling of the immodest--the intrusion of the garrulous. Art, that for ages has hewn its own history in marble, and written its own comments on canvas, shall it suddenly stand still, and stammer, and wait for wisdom from the passer-by?--for guidance from the hand that holds neither brush nor chisel? Out upon the shallow conceit! What greater sarcasm can Mr. Ruskin pass upon himself than that he preaches to young men what he cannot perform! Why, unsatisfied with his own conscious power, should he choose to become the type of incompetence by talking for forty years of what he has never done!

Let him resign his present professorship, to fill the chair of Ethics at the university. As master of English literature, he has a right to his laurels, while, as the populariser of pictures he remains the Peter Parley of painting. --JM Whistler

From one of the true classics and a personal favorite; The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. It was recently posted on PG and just skimming over it, before I stored it in my palette of texts, caused me to mark the above as 'use soon'. There's more there could be presented from it, and the preamble to the above is also of note. However, the idiotic press punditry, Rush flap etc, and general fearmongering of the last while about Obama (and Clinton) pushed me use it today. On to the next quote.

Quote(2):
The story of Medea, whose husband Jason married a new princess, and who then poisoned the bride and murdered her own two children, has been interpreted in various ways.

In some versions Medea is a witch and commits infanticide out of revenge; but the play by Euripides is surprisingly neo-feminist. There's quite a lot about how tough it is to be a woman, and Medea's motivation is commendable - she doesn't want her children to fall into hostile hands and be cruelly abused - which is also the situation of the child-killing mother in Toni Morrison's Beloved. A good woman, then, who does a bad thing for a good reason. Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles kills her nasty lover due to sexual complications; here too we are in the realm of female-as-victim, doing a bad thing for a good reason. (Which, I suppose, places such stories right beside the front page, along with women who kill their abusive husbands. According to a recent Time story, the average jail sentence in the U.S. for men who kill their wives is four years, but for women who kill their husbands - no matter what the provocation - it's twenty. For those who think equality is already with us, I leave the statistics to speak for themselves.)

These women characters are all murderers. Then there are the seducers; here again, the motive varies. I have to say too that with the change in sexual mores, the mere seduction of a man no longer rates very high on the sin scale. But try asking a number of women what the worst thing is that a woman friend could possibly do to them. Chances are the answer will involve the theft of a sexual partner.

Some famous seductresses have really been patriotic espionage agents. Delilah, for instance, was an early Mata Hari, working for the Philistines, trading sex for military information. Judith, who all but seduced the enemy general Holofernes and then cut off his head and brought it home in a sack, was treated as a heroine, although she has troubled men's imaginations through the centuries - witness the number of male painters who have depicted her - because she combines sex with violence in a way they aren't accustomed to and don't much like.

Then there are figures like Hawthorne's adulterous Hester Prynne, she of The Scarlet Letter, who becomes a kind of sex-saint through suffering - we assume she did what she did through Love, and thus she becomes a good woman who did a bad thing for a good reason - and Madame Bovary, who not only indulged her romantic temperament and voluptuous sensual appetites, but spent too much of her husband's money doing it, which was her downfall. A good course in double-entry bookkeeping would have saved the day. I suppose she is a foolish women who did a stupid thing for an insufficient reason, since the men in question were dolts. Neither the modern reader nor the author consider her very evil, though many contemporaries did, as you can see if you read the transcript of the court case in which the forces of moral rectitude tried to get the book censored.

One of my favourite bad women is Becky Sharpe, of Thackeray's Vanity Fair. She makes no pretensions to goodness. She is wicked, she enjoys being wicked, and she does it out of vanity and for her own profit, tricking and deluding English society in the process - which, the author implies, deserves to be tricked and deluded, since it is hypocritical and selfish to the core. Becky, like Undine Spragg in Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country, is an adventuress; she lives by her wits and uses men as ambulatory bank-accounts. Many literary adventurers are male - consider Thomas Mann's Felix Krull, Confidence Man - but it does make a difference if you change the gender. For one thing, the nature of the loot changes. For a male adventurer, the loot is money and women; but for a female one, the loot is money and men.

Becky Sharpe is a bad mother too, and that's a whole other subject - bad mothers and wicked stepmothers and oppressive aunts, like the one in Jane Eyre, and nasty female teachers, and depraved governesses, and evil grannies. The possibilities are many.

But I think that's enough reprehensible female behaviour for you today. Life is short, art is long, motives are complex, and human nature is endlessly fascinating. Many doors stand ajar; others beg to be unlocked. What is in the forbidden room? Something different for everyone, but something you need to know and will never find out unless you step across the threshold. If you are a man, the bad female character in a novel may be - in Jungian terms - your anima; but if you're a woman, the bad female character is your shadow; and as we know from the Offenbach opera Tales of Hoffman, she who loses her shadow also loses her soul.

Evil women are necessary in story traditions for two much more obvious reasons, of course. First, they exist in life, so why shouldn't they exist in literature? Second - which may be another way of saying the same thing - women have more to them than virtue. They are fully dimensional human beings; they too have subterranean depths; why shouldn't their many-dimensionality be given literary expression? And when it is, female readers do not automatically recoil in horror. In Aldous Huxley's novel Point Counter Point, Lucy Tantamount, the man-destroying vamp, is preferred by the other female characters to the earnest, snivelling woman whose man she has reduced to a wet bath sponge. As one of them says, "Lucy's obviously a force. You may not like that kind of force. But you can't help admiring the force in itself. It's like Niagara." In other words, awesome. Or, as one Englishwoman said to me recently, "Women are tired of being good all the time." --Margaret Atwood

The rest of that is online as I found out when sorting through possible texts to use. A google search to see if any of it had been quoted to save me typing it all in from "Moving Targets" had it off her official site. Yay internets! Anyway, moving along...

As much as I'd like to see Dolley Madison's record of double occupation broken in the best way, and also knowing I've gone on record here (long ago) in stating Hillary looked to me as being well on her way to becoming a far better politician than her husband ever could be, I'd like to see a man of colour in the Whitehouse. Not my call to make, and I'm not too worried either way there. Which leaves one ill matched pair unmentioned. This last quote will fill that void.

Quote(3):
I was his last disciple, as you say, I went to him, at seventeen years of age, and offered him my hands and eyes to use,

When, voicing the true mind and heart of Rome, Father Castelli, his most faithful friend, wrote, for my master, that compassionate plea; "The noblest eye that Nature ever made is darkened, one so exquisitely dowered, so delicate in power that it beheld more than all other eyes in ages gone and opened the eyes of all that are to come."

But, out of England, even then, there shone the first ethereal promise of light that crowns my master dead. Well I recall that day of days. There was no faintest breath among his garden cypress-trees.

They dreamed dark, on a sky too beautiful for tears, and the first star was trembling overhead, when, quietly as a messenger from heaven, moving unseen, through his own purer realm, amongst the shadows of our mortal world, a young man, with a strange light on his face knocked at the door of Galileo's house. His name was Milton.

By the hand of God, He, the one living soul on earth with power to read the starry soul of this blind man, Was led through Italy to his prison door. He looked on Galileo, touched his hand "O, dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, irrecoverably dark".

In after days, he wrote it; but it pulsed within him then and Galileo rising to his feet and turning on him those unseeing eyes that had searched heaven and seen so many worlds, said to him, "You have found me."

Often he told me in those last sad months of how your grave young island poet brought peace to him, with the knowledge that, far off, in other lands, the truth he had proclaimed was gathering power.

Soon after, death unlocked his prison, and the city that he loved, Florence, his town of flowers, whose gates in life he was forbid to pass, received him dead.

You write to me from England, that his name is now among the mightiest in the world, and in his name I thank you.

I am old and I was very young when, long ago, I stood beside his poor dishonoured grave where hate denied him even an epitaph.

And I have seen, slowly and silently, his purer fame arising, like a moon in marble on the twilight of those aisles at Santa Croce, where the dread decree was read against him. --Alfred Noyes

"And then you see things/ The size/ Of which you've never known before", he said, and we should be on track here to watch the arms of our galaxy build up from that storm out there, so I'll finish up this section.

What it comes all down to, in my opinion, is what you choose to do at those/these key times. We've all got choices at the junctions of futures. A really-really big broom used on that dust, out the window of this train, and it could never make it to be you or me. Classical-wisdom says we should all just watch and let the/that dust settle, as it may, in fear of altering the course of history or some deity's big plan. I'm not so sure about most, if not all, of that. If we all choose to make our own mark in that dust now, our current state says we must have --or had not, done so [here and now]-- in the past.

There are no locks on the doors of the train. And it's all taken much longer than seventy years to get back up the timeline from here and now to there and now. You may say it's one hell of a way to run a railroad, or a system of government for that matter. But I say, stately-farce it all may be, it is however, one of the better methods found so far. For those of you in the USA, I'll add that it works even better if you do choose to participate.

I've said my piece and I'm going to head on back now. The train is all yours, I'll try to see if I can see any changes when I get there. Until then.

News that doesn't want to fly:
3 out of 4 from the late news. And is on front page now as I edit this JE in.

Lard Tubby in the can. The UK peer will serve his sentence at a low-security prison 50 miles north west of Orlando in central Florida. He will also have to pay back $6.1m (£3m).

Taxi! Bel-Air, and step on it. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said negotiations could only resume after calm was restored. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is winding up a trip to the region on Wednesday in which getting the Palestinians back to the negotiating table has been a key target.

Speaking of key targets... The head of Opec, the cartel of oil-producing nations, has said it is unlikely to increase production at this week's meeting. It had been hoped members would boost the supply of oil to help prices fall from their historically-high levels.

Y helo thar! A controversial new talk show has hit TV screens in southern India. The programme, "Ipadikku Rose", is not only unusual in its subject matter but its new host has certainly broken from the ranks. The programme is hosted by Rose, who used to be a boy called Ramesh.

Previously in this journal:
100386 : QUESTION: This is a new topic, on Italy and the firing of the convoy. I know that you talked a little about it yesterday. But today, General Casey maintained that he did not know that the convoy was going to be arriving at this checkpoint. He couldn't rule out that nobody in the U.S. Government or the Embassy or anybody knew that the convoy was going to be moving in this area, and the Italian Government maintains that the U.S. Government did know. Can you say whether anybody at the Embassy or any U.S. officials out of this Department --

MR. BOUCHER: I'm not going to try do this piecemeal. What we need now, and I think we and the Italians agree on this, is a complete and cooperative investigation and we will be undertaking that with the Italians participating in the inquiry and that -- that's going to commence shortly. We will get to the bottom of this together with the Italians. We will get to the bottom of this and get to the know all the facts together. That's what's important.

I think we've very clearly expressed our deep condolences for the tragic event. We've offered Italy our assistance in dealing with the aftermath of the incident. I think the Pentagon has, in fact, briefed on this. But the important thing now is to get the facts and we'll be doing that and we'll be working with the Italians to do that together.

66476 : The United States is sending up to 2,000 more marines to Afghanistan to step up the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda and Taleban leaders. The troops will join about 12,000 US troops already in the country. Pakistan has also announced it is reinforcing its operation in the tribal areas on its side of the border. Pakistani forces there have launched a full-scale assault against al-Qaeda and foreign militants and the tribesmen believed to be protecting them. "We are pursuing with the Pakistanis parallel, complementary efforts on both sides of the borders," a US military spokesman told the BBC. This amounts to a significant stepping up of the pressure, but is not the final US push against al-Qaeda - nor an explicit mission to capture Bin Laden, says the BBC's defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

6191 : "We have Word, WordPerfect, and Acrobat, but the one that's easiest to manipulate is WordPerfect for the CD-ROMs."

Texttoon:
Colourized clipart/jpg: A drawing of the "Old Grey Lady" and "Rector Time" standing before a man dressed as an oversized schoolboy. Slouched in his seat with his book bag labeled "Radicalism" carelessly at his feet. The old lady tells the rector, "Go on, ask. Nicely!". He leans in and asks, "Excuse me, I was wondering if you could help us out?" The radical replies, "Blow me!!!", and continues over the rectors "What?!?" with, "No seriously. You, the grey Mrs. and all her flashy offspring have choked down the most appalling mushrooms before. Why be so prissy about it now?". The old woman says "This is going to be harder than I thought." with the radical replying "Flattery! Good start."

Just a small pile of soc-pol bile that I thought I'd share with you.

I'm sure you'll recognize the phrase that is being re-rendered here. The original pat-phrase may have pissed off some of you too.

A left-wing libertarian is a conservative-isolationist that has a bong, and likes kittens.
A right-wing libertarian is the same, only they enjoy most animals--with fries.

A key point to note with this Western concept of libertarian is that old daemon Patriotism. It should also be noted that it very often is accompanied by tribalism(s) [always,surly!].

Reading Ben Franklin characterized as having a staunch pro state's-rights position and his being a deeply religious man is just as bad as reading another brand of libtard make claims of Ben's life long support for; pot, free-love and trans-statism. [I'm like a shark!, hehe]

The USA is not alone in this error. It has a German and French version too. Not to mention the British variation, now made more popular with the 'V' movie. And error it is, as none of this addresses what the world will look like once success is at hand. The future beyond the moment of victory is a shadowy place filled with [implicitly] empty hopes and very few ideas.

It can be [and all too often is] argued that the solutions will come to mind once you are there, but you know... in most cases in history it only gets filled with the same old shit--yet again. YMMV HTH HAND ETC.

It leads one to think that the 'all politics is local' adage was out of date once armoured limos and international banking came on line.

Sorry folks(et al), but any ideas now *will have to* save the whole fucking world. No longer are our socio-political boundaries set by the distance you can hit something. Keep thinking though, there's bound to be something that'll work better than this mess we've got now. Until then.

TYAITJ:
#83887:
QUESTION: Can you bring us up to date on what's happening in Vienna? And would the U.S. accept a resolution that did not contain a trigger?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think it's appropriate for us to speculate from here as to the final outcome. We are -- we have made clear what our view is. The Secretary has made clear that we have pushed the view that this needs to be referred to the Security Council, and that we would see whether there's a consensus. That process is still underway. We're -- how far we will get to, whether we can get it or not, still don't know. But there are consultations going on among Board members in Vienna. We're trying to seek agreement on a text that addresses the Board's concerns about Iran's nuclear activities. The Board, we think, is united in the view that Iran must cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, must come clean about its program, and suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.

The Board has called on Iran repeatedly to take those steps since last year. We remain deeply concerned that Iran continues to defy the Board's requests. So those consultations are ongoing, and, at this point, I can't predict exactly where they'll come out.

QUESTION: Yesterday, in an interview, Secretary Powell said that there had been some progress. Can you describe specifically what the progress has been?

MR. BOUCHER: No. Again, the process is underway. We think -- I think Under Secretary Bolton, when he was in Geneva last Friday, and as I said Friday, acknowledged there have been tactical differences between the Europeans and us about how to proceed. We have been making efforts to close those gaps, and thought we were making some progress on that. But whether -- I can't -- it's an ongoing thing. I can't try to define it precisely at this moment.

FYAITJ :
#45884: Colin Powell "...we have a common goal, a common purpose -- and that is to give sovereignty back to the Iraqi people as fast as possible".

Texttoon:
Wax on ruled paper/scan/gif : A child like crayon drawing of a big military airplane flying above a standard green lawn, tree, box house set. Crude text captions the items; house, mom, me, dog, and plane.

Welcome and other bland salutations of no import.

Six years. What should be said? Nice feature, um ...we've all had a lot of fun posting all kinds of odd shit.... Tons of people have read and commented on the users journals. Many of them have been truly outstanding, including some of the comments. FrontPaging JEs is now in place and seems to work well.

On a more personal level, I've done a lot to see how far you could push the content level in these things. Both, on a per entry basis, and over time with some longer sequences of posts. As for the content qualities ... you the reader are, were, and will be the judge.

Many thanks for the use of your eyes and thoughts. Also, my thanks Taco and co, and to those of you who have, and will post here in this Journal System here on Slashdot.

Just a small quote to share. No framing needed.

Quote:
TRYGAEUS:

Come, then, to prayers; to prayers, quick!-- Oh! Peace, mighty queen, venerated goddess, thou, who presidest over choruses and at nuptials, deign to accept the sacrifices we offer thee.

SERVANT:

Receive it, greatly honoured mistress, and behave not like the coquettes, who half open the door to entice the gallants, draw back when they are stared at, to return once more if a man passes on. But do not act like this to us.

TRYGAEUS:

No, but like an honest woman, show thyself to thy worshippers, who are worn with regretting thee all these thirteen years. Hush the noise of battle, be a true Lysimacha to us. Put an end to this tittle-tattle, to this idle babble, that set us defying one another. Cause the Greeks once more to taste the pleasant beverage of friendship and temper all hearts with the gentle feeling of forgiveness. Make excellent commodities flow to our markets, fine heads of garlic, early cucumbers, apples, pomegranates and nice little cloaks for the slaves; make them bring geese, ducks, pigeons and larks from Boeotia and baskets of eels from Lake Copais; we shall all rush to buy them, disputing their possession with Morychus, Teleas, Glaucetes and every other glutton. Melanthius will arrive on the market last of all; 'twill be, "no more eels, all sold!" and then he'll start a-groaning and exclaiming as in his monologue of Medea, "I am dying, I am dying! Alas! I have let those hidden in the beet escape me!" And won't we laugh? These are the wishes, mighty goddess, which we pray thee to grant.

SERVANT:

Take the knife and slaughter the sheep like a finished cook.

TRYGAEUS:

No, the goddess does not wish it.

SERVANT:

And why not?

TRYGAEUS:

Blood cannot please Peace, so let us spill none upon her altar. Therefore go and sacrifice the sheep in the house, cut off the legs and bring them here; thus the carcase will be saved for the chorus.

CHORUS:

You, who remain here, get chopped wood and everything needed for the sacrifice ready.

TRYGAEUS:

Don't I look like a diviner preparing his mystic fire?

CHORUS:

Undoubtedly. Will anything that it behooves a wise man to know escape you? Don't you know all that a man should know, who is distinguished for his wisdom and inventive daring?

TRYGAEUS:

There! the wood catches. Its smoke blinds poor Stilbides. I am now going to bring the table and thus be my own slave.

CHORUS:

You have braved a thousand dangers to save your sacred town. All honour to you! Your glory will be ever envied.

Will more frequent postings return? You may ask (ha surely!). I'm still in visual mode at the moment. And will likely be doing images, mostly, for a while more. However, events may urge me to post at madman speed again.

In that regard I'd point out the date of this marking of dates. My estimation that the 'W'-Key war would end (or be ended) about a year ago is growing more off by the day. Most of the issues I've highlighted still remain dark in the mainstream media(s). The crop of hopefuls for Uncle/Aunt Sam are all quite thick. Several other elections in other places too. Which is bound to keep my bile ducts well stocked with vitriolic spewings. So do take a look in here now and then.

Texttoon:
Fumetti : Stock photo of Rupert Murdoch standing with Hillary Clinton. Overlayed speech bubble has Murdoch saying "I'll make them call you bitch." To which Hillary says "Oh please." He continues with "And make all my cartoonists show you wearing Bill's boxers." Her reply "I am so hot right now."

Texttoon:
Fumetti : Reflective foil on heavy stock. Overprinted caption in red keylined-sanserif at the bottom; "I CAN HAS PEACE?"

Zip it! Sung to the tune of Devo's "Whip It"

Crack that whip/ Give the past the slip
Step up attacks/ Before they see the cracks

When a problem comes along/ You must zip it
Before the cream sits out too long/ You must zip it
When something's going wrong/ You must zip it

Now zip it/ Into shape/ Frame it up
Get straight/ Go forward/ Move ahead
Try to deflect it/ It's not too late
To zip it/ Zip it good

When a good time turns around/ You must zip it
They will never live it down/ Unless you zip it
No one gets away/ Until they zip it

I say zip it/ Zip it good
I say zip it/ Zip it good

Crack that whip/ Give the past the slip
Step up attacks/ Before they see the cracks

When a problem comes along/ You must zip it
When the cream sits in too long/ You must zip it
When something's going wrong/ You must zip it

[repeats to fade]
Now zip it/ Into shape/ Frame it up
Get straight/ Go forward/ Move ahead
Try to deflect it/ It's not too late
To zip it/ Zip it good

News painted with toes:
Ali Abbas.

Texttoon:
Ink on paper : A circle with a bisecting line attended by two radial lines in the 8'o'clock and 4'o'clock positions.