Please note The Green Man is usually accurate however he does tend to drift into the mischievous areas of satire and parody from time to time. Such is the nature of the Green Man. In fact he is not above complete fiction when the fancy takes him.
Here is Barbie nuding up for a bit of action in the barbie equivalent of a spa, the kitchen blender.
Hmmmmm you find it strangely erotic do you? Just lie back on the couch and tell Dr Green Man about your relationship with your mother.
Right, now that you have got that out of your system, and are feeling strangely cleansed, it is time to get down to the real story. After plying Barbie with acetone, which has roughly the same effect on Barbie that alcohol has on her human equivalents, artist Thomas Forsythe convinced her to pose for a series of provocative photos entitled "Food Chain Barbie". Mattal, who own the copyright for Barbie, were not amused by the compromising photos of her and sued Mr Forsythe, as any red blooded American company would.
Mr Forsythe played a trump card in the form of the First Amendment claiming the photo series was meant to critique the "objectification of women" and "beauty myth" associated with the popular doll. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday agreed that a trump card always wins and rejected toymaker Mattel Inc.'s appeal of a lower court ruling in favor of lampooning the dolly icon.
You can see more of Barbies salacious photo shoot here. (It's in french but you are not even pretending you are going for the articles are you?)
Melissa Harrington may like to contact Tom to get a few pointers. Melissa, it seems has been flashing her own pointers, so to speak, in Lincoln, Nebraska and publishing the pictorial results on her website. She now faces a maximum of six months in jail and a $500 fine for public nudity. Not that the police caught her at it but they claim that the photos on her porn site are sufficient evidence.
You can see a couple of the photos that are being used as evidence at The Smoking Gun, with the aforementioned pointers politely frosted over.
It is good to see that the crime rate in Nebraska is so low that the constabulary have time to be cruising porn sites to look for attractive 21-year-old Nebraskans to prosecute for flashing their assets in The Marz Intergalactic Shrimp and Martini Bar.
The Green Man has signed up for Paypal and a "Donate" button is now in the right hand pane. I could try and spin some rubbish about being impoverished and hosting fees being so expensive but I don't expect readers of the calibre that The Green Man attracts to fall for that line (otherwise I'd use it).
Everything on the site will remain free but if I start making some money off it then I will be able to spend more time on the site; unearthing and presenting more valuable factoids of the calibre of the post immediately below. So take an opportunity to get rid of some of that excess cash that you have left over after Christmas and encourage The Green Man in his embryonic journalism/creative writing endeavours.
On the other hand you could buy a hand painted t-shrit, The Green Man expects you will be able to resell it for bags of money when The Green Man becomes famous.
The Christmas/New Year period is a quiet time in science, even the Beagle II is far too quiet at the moment, so it is with a glad heart that The Green Man has discovered some ground breaking social research upon which to report.
Thorough questioning of Pizza delivery drivers reveals the following facts:
- nine percent of people who answer the door in the nude are good tippers, compared with 2 percent of people in pajamas.
- "Paris Hilton" is the No. 1 fake name used by people calling for pizza and 38 percent of those using the name of the socialite model ordered pepperoni topping.
- people with "Dean for President" bumper stickers on cars in their driveways tipped 22 percent higher than people with "Bush for President" bumper stickers
- people with "Bush for President" bumper stickers were three times more likely to order meat-topped pizzas than "Dean for President" drivers
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
'Relax,' said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave!
Recognise those lyrics, you are getting old. They are from that old fogey band The Eagles. A band that The Green Man thought was really cool when he was young and silly. (As compared to now, when he is old and silly)
The lyrics are from a song called "Hotel California" and it used to be a favourite of Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Eagle of the US Air Force (somewhat unsurprisingly for someone with his particular surname). His attitude to the song changed after he discovered that the US Military had embraced the concepts embodied in the song with enthusiasm. Ron was expecting to retire from the Air Force in February 2003 after putting in 20 years service for his country. It wasn't such an unreasonable expectation since that was what his contract said but the Air Force had other ideas. The expiration date of his military service is now listed on his paycheque as sometime after 2030 in other words, "Who knows?"
He is one of 40,000 armed servicemen that The Pentagon has decided can't leave even though they have fulfilled their contracts and many are at retirement age. The more aggressive foreign policy of the US of late has seen the requirements for experienced soldiers balloon and the "stop loss" orders are being seen as a knee jerk reaction by the Pentagon to ensure that it has a constant supply of experienced soldiers for overseas postings.
Ron Eagle's problem is that he is an expert in enemy targeting. It seems that, if you want to be able to leave the US army whilst still on the outside of a wooden box, it pays not to get too good at something important.
Your can find a less frivolous analysis at The Wahington Post.
It seems that Adventure was not the end of an era and the introduction of knock out graphics did not see the end of games in this style. In the comments section of yesterdays post on Adventure Dennis Jerz kindly points us to some resources on the genre, known as Interactive Fiction. Not only can you play it, there are resources available to study it and write your own.
Visit his site to learn more about the genre or explore more of these imaginary worlds at Interactive Fiction .
Thanks for the links Dennis but I am sure it will have an impact on the productivity of a number IT Departments as the readers of The Green Man discover this addictive pastime.
Well I have seen the "Return Of The King" and it was quite good. The end left a bit to be desired. It was one of the few places in the trilogy where there was a major departure in plot line from the book, the other, of course being the ommission of the journey through the old forest where the hobbits encounter yours truely, The Green Man, in the guise of Tom Bombadill.
Whilst generally hailed as a great success BBspot reports that the Ukuk Hai Antidefamation League (UADL) has lodged a formal complaint over the depiction of the magnificent fighting Uruk Hai in particular, and orcs generally, claiming it represents anti-Orc bias. They quote Wratch a spokes-orc for the UADL as saying.
"We feel that more emphasis should be put on the fact that we didn't eat Merry and Pippin. We'd also like included the scene where Lerd and Ugol discuss the geo-political ramifications of an alliance between Sauron and Saruman that was shot but was cut from the film."
They have a point. 
It is understandable that Tolkien, being human, would have a tendancy towards a pro-human stance however he clearly ignores the long and proud heritage of the Uruk Hai.
Uruk Hai in ancient Sumerian loosely translates to "citizen of Uruk" but I am sure you already know that and I am sure that I also don't need to remind you that Uruk is a great walled city situated 250 km south of Baghdad, on an ancient branch of the Euphrates River in Iraq.
Uruk was built by Gilamesh in about 3500BC. Granted it is a bit run down at the moment but as Yoda wisely put it
Look so good in 5,500 years you will not!
Being a citizen of a 5,500 year old city is nothing to sneeze at, except when the dust storms come through, so let's bear a thought for the mighty Uruk Hai whose employment prospects plummetted with the unfortunate confluence of the demise of Sauron and the end of filming of the trilogy.
The mind is a strange thing, if you had asked me this morning about a natural language computer program developed in the 1960s I would have looked at you blankly. After writing the previous entry on Adventure the name of the said program sprang to mind in an instant. It's name was Eliza and it can hold a conversation/counsel you based on the things you type in. It was developed in the mid 60's by Joseph Weizenbaum of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and released in a paper entitled "ELIZA--A Computer Program For the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine" in January 1966.
When in conversation with ELIZA, the user types in some statement or set of statements in natural language using normal punctuation and sentence structures. . . ELIZA then analyzes the user's statement and generates some response which it types out. Control is then again with the user.
After all these years Eliza is still dispensing her advice. She has moved with the times and now converses via a web page. Click here to discuss your problems with her. Click continue reading to see a sample conversation.
Men are all alike.
IN WHAT WAY?
They're always bugging us about something or other.
CAN YOU THINK OF A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE?
Well, my boyfriend made me come here.
YOUR BOYFRIEND MADE YOU COME HERE
He says I'm depressed much of the time.
I AM SORRY TO HEAR YOU ARE DEPRESSED
It's true. I am unhappy
DO YOU THINK COMING HERE WILL HELP YOU NOT TO BE UNHAPPY
I need some help, that much seems certain.
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO YOU IF YOU GOT SOME HELP
Perhaps I could learn to get along with my mother.
TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR FAMILY
My mother takes care of me.
WHO ELSE IN YOUR FAMILY TAKES CARE OF YOU
My father.
YOUR FATHER
You are like my father in some ways.
WHAT RESEMBLANCE DO YOU SEE
You are not very aggressive but I think you don't want me to notice that.
WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I AM NOT VERY AGGRESSIVE
You don't argue with me.
WHY DO YOU THINK I DON'T ARGUE WITH YOU
You are afraid of me.
DOES IT PLEASE YOU TO BELIEVE I AM AFRAID OF YOU
My father is afraid of everybody.
WHAT ELSE COMES TO YOUR MIND WHEN YOU THINK OF YOUR FATHER
Bullies.
DOES THAT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT YOUR BOYFRIEND MADE YOU COME HERE
If that nonsense word brings a nostalgic smile to your face then you are not only a computer geek but an old one and you will recognise this sentence
You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully.
For the uninitiated XYZZY was the "magic word" in the first truely pervasive computer game, "Adventure" and that sentence is the start of a game that will lead you through a mysterious cave in search of precious items and adventure.
Adventure was initially deployed on a DEC PDP 10 but soon it could be found on most computer platforms (PCs weren't invented at the time this game originated); it was purely a text based system and relied on the fertile imagination of the players to supply the graphical images.
The software was based on the latest artificial intelligence software techniques available at the time and could interpret sentences typed by the user. The player typed in instructions which the computer interpreted and responded with a written description.
For those of you who are the veterans of the geekdom, like The Green Man himself, you can find some very nostalgic material on the history of this game at http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html or if you would like to reenter the cave one last time click here.
(via j-walk)
Australia is a big country. It is big and sparsely populated so it was probably a natural consequence that the crasser end of tourism latched on to "The Big ???" as a way of placing your part of Australia on the map.
The Big Pineapple is one of the oldest and my first experience with this cultural phenonemon. Situated north of Brisbane on, somewhat unsurprisingly, a pineapple farm it has been a must stop for every tourist bus for decades.
Inspired by its success other towns clammering for similar financial rewards have built their own big something. Some times it is easy to find a big something that represents your town, other times the links are tenuous at best.
The big something has become so popular in Australia that it has moved from the crass to a cultural art form, well almost.
Click "Continue Reading" to see a, no where near complete, list of Australias big things.
Big Banana Coffs Harbour, Queensland
Big Apple in Donnybrook Western Australia
The Big Koala, The Grampians Victoria
The Big Galah in Kimba, South Australia
The Big Lobster, Kingston Sout Australia
The Big Bull, Wauchope, NSW
Captain Cook, Cairns, Far Noth Queensland
What is the definition of "spam"? Apparently it is
Any piece of unsolicited email except ones that you have sent.
At least that appears to the be the definition of the US congress. The New York Times reports that congressmen, after unanimously approving a law desinged to reduce junk email activity, have been sending out hundres of thousands of emails to unsuspecting constituents.
The purpose of the emails is to get people to subscribe to email distribution lists, which are exempt from a ban on tax payer funded mass distribution of election material for 90 days prior to an election.
The emails are spam in the purest sense because the addresses are sourced from email address lists purchased from commercial operations concerned with building such lists. At least 40 congressmen have purchased said lists. Looks like more "ends justifies the means" politics to The Green Man.
And I heard him exclaim
As he sped out of sight
"Merry Christmas to All!
And to all a good night!"
I am knocking of for a few Chrissy drinks now with some friends from work; then off home to start the marathon that is Christmas lunch preparation.
Regardless whether you are a Christian or not, The Green Man wishes you a very happy and peaceful Christmas period.
p.s. Try not to be rude to that uncle who gets up your nose at Christmas dinner it is really not worth it.
Check this out. What do you think it is? Nope it is not a modern day tardis. (If you don't know what a tardis is then there is little hope for you I am afraid. Click here to redeem yourself.)
It is in fact a toilet at the Tate Gallery in London. This is what it looks like from the outside. From the inside the view is completely different, see below.
You are not imagining things, it is completely transparent. Made of one-way mirrors, noone can see in but inside it is like you are going to the toilet with clear glass all the way around.
It is a bit too much for some people, they find their ability to conduct their business, so to speak, impossible with views of the comings and goings of the visitors to the Tate in full view.
The Green Man thinks it is in the category of "must try".
Read more in The New York Times.
And whilst we are on the topic of toilets, here is one in South West Tasmania. It is in a wilderness area so you have to walk a couple of days to get to it. Accordingly the passing traffic is somewhat limited but not zero. Still they are a friendly bunch in Tasmania and always willing to stop for a chat, even to someone sitting on a toilet in the middle of nowhere.
Here is Captain Warner of the 1-22 Battalion of the US Fourth Infantry Division pointing to a photo of Saddam Hussien that has been doctored to look like santa. The caption, in case your screen resolution is poor, is "First Battalion, 22nd Infantry wishes you a very Merry Christmas!"
It is clearly in contravention of the Geneva Convention to which the USA conforms when it suits it but hey its just a bit of Christmas fun. The sort of thing The Green Man himself may have mischeiviously concocted.
There is a message here for those of you that think this is just some harmless good fun but got indignant at the post that showed photos that compared GWB to a chimp. These leaders aren't the devil incarnate or the sword in gods right hand, substitute Saddam and George in the appropriate spot depending which side you are on. It's about remembering that they are ordinary human beings just like you and me and not above having the mickey taken out them from time to time.
It is a big responsibility running a security alert level indicator on your site. It appears that since the security alert level went from 
to 
(see right hand panel) waves of panic have been sweeping the USA. Christmas shopping is disrupted as people stay home in fear of an iminent attack
One store that is doing excellent business however is Safer America. Formed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it is experiencing unprecedented demand for its products.
For $265 you can equip yourself with
1 Gas Mask: MSA Advantage 1000 + Filter
1 NBC Protective Suit: Tyvek F
1 Package of Iosat Potassium Iodide Pills
1 Pair of Nitrile Gloves + Booties
1 Flash Light 2D
Duct Tape
I don't understand the Duct Tape still I suppose you can never have too much.
If you work in a high rise building none of this stuff is going to be much use without a way of getting down so you might like to go with the "High Rise Kit" that adds an escape parachute to the above essentials, that will set you back $1,085.00. The Green Man has never been skydiving but he suspects that there is a little more to it than strapping on a chute and jumping out of a window. Still if it doesn't work you won't be in any position to be seeking a refund will you?
Of course this is all about "feeling safe" not "being safe" so it really doesn't matter all that much whether they work or not. However, the thing that has got The Green Man really intrigued is the rush on inflatable rafts. When it comes to safety in New York a rubber raft is not the first thing that springs to The Green Man's mind but then he has never lived there.
Further to the earlier discussion on Coca-cola hijacking santa and turning him into a marketing vehicle for their soft drink, here are some Christmas cards from pre-Coke days.
Santa is dressed in green of course and he only needed a more modest set of raindeer in those days.
The images are from a set of cards produced by a company called Christmas Traditions.
You can make a small contribution to the perpetuation of a pre-Coke innocence by sticking to the traditional santa for your cards etc.
Those of you who are vegitarians can leave this post it is of no concern to you.
Now they have gone let us turn our attention to the vexed question of whether you prefer white or dark turkey meat. The Green Man is more inclined to the dark himself, it seems richer and more succulent but each to his own.
The colour arises because of the different types of muscle fibres present the different parts of the bird. Dark meat comprises so-called slow twitch muscle fibers, which are specialized for extended exertion, whereas white meat is made up of fast twitch fibers that fuel short, intense bursts of energy.
At this stage it is time to turn our attemtion to Blimp-1 and that is not The Green Man following the Christmas season that we are talking about. It is a transcription factor protein that controls muscle development. Philip Ingham of the University of Sheffield, having discovered that all the research into world hunger was already taken, decided to research this protein and believes he has identified the gene that controls it. So no more of that dry white meat for The Green Man. He is ordering his turkey dark, mind you it may be a strange looking bird.
When the first series of "Survivor" was on the TV I was captivated. It hooked me in on a number of levels, not the least of which was the amusement of watching "city slickers" try to survive in the rudimentary conditions on a desert island. Not being able to shower oooooh that must have been horrible particularly when you only have the whole pacific ocean to wash in.
The next episode was filmed in Australia I commenced watching with eager anticipation. Sadly the magic had gone. After a couple of episodes I was being to wish that one of those salty's was actually in the river like they kept showing in the intro. It would have broken the monotony.
Anyway several series have come and gone since then that I haven't bothered with, even the men vs women one. Now, in an order to boose the flagging income that invariably comes with flagging ratings, it seems they are introducing product placement in the show. Proctor & Gamble products are to be "subtely" introduced into the format. Procter & Gamble brands to appear in include heartburn antidote Pepto-Bismol, Secret deodorant, Olay skin care and Tide laundry detergent. They will be sitting around smelling sweet in their laundered clothes and not a touch of indigestion amongst them.
Remind me again why I would want to watch this.
The issue of which posts will turn out to be popular is a complete mystery to The Green Man. Some are easy to predict, the Spencer Tunick posts always generate some good attention but nudity will do that for you won't it.
One seemingly innocuous post that continues to get hits and comments is this one on the killing of the worlds tallest hardwood tree in Tasmania. You can read more about the tree in question, known as El Grande, on the Wilderness Society site.
Those who frequent the Victorian or Tasmania wilderness areas will know that the tree was a Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus Regnans). It's specific name being derived from the Latin "regnum - to rule". These are truely regal trees that rule over the Victorian/Tasmanian bush, the one in pictured right standing 330 feet.
Visit the original post 
to read some interesting personal comments left by Walter Savige on his families experiences with these magnificent trees.
It seems that few can experience these giants without being in awe. Experience them for yourself next time you are in Victoria by taking a drive up the Maroondah Valley and over the Black Spur. You can get some perspective on their size from the car in the photo to the left.
It is the summer solstice today in the southern hemisphere, which presumably means that it is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. "Solstice" is Latin for "sun stands still" (sol "sun" and sistere "to stand"). Summer Solstice is so named because to the naked eye the sun appears stationary in its northern and southern progression.
Happy solsticing to you all.
Summer solstice represents the day of the year when the sun is at its most powerful. Marking the commencement of the disent into winter it was a time for planning for the long cold months that will inevitably follow. Fire is an important aspect to Midsummer celebrations. The balefires, bonfires on hilltops, at crossroads, or any place where people could gather reaches far back into antiquity.
Winter solstice, on the other hand, is even more significant in the solar calendar. It was celebrated with feasts and bonfires for thousands of years. Tomorrow, in the northern hemisphere, the Sun begins again to win the battle that it fights in perpetuity with darkness. This is the time when The Green Man begins to stir. Over the next few months he will exert his influence in the old deciduous forests, emerging triumphant from the battle with winter to lead the celebrations of spring.
Here is an image of a black hole in space. I know it is all black it is a black hole afterall. A section of space around an object that is so dense that not even light can escape. A bit like The Green Man's brain is feeling at the moment. These Christmas parties are taking their toll, The Green Man's usually witty demeanor is crumpling under the weight of all the Christmas cheer and I still don't have a Christmas present for Mrs Green Man.
It is just about lunch time so it is off into the chaos that is Melbourne at Christmas time to find a present which I personally think can be classified as "cruel and unusual punishment" for the usually carefree woodland spirit of The Green Man.
By the way here is an artists impression of what a black hole would look like if all the light was not being trapped within.
It is probably complete rubbish and a black hole doesn't look anything like that but how would you know. Let's face it, if you visited one you wouldn't be coming back to talk about it would you? It is a great looking image and that is what is important when it comes to stellar bodies.
Meet doris, she is an ordinary sheep occupied with the things that ordinary sheep are occupied with, eating and baaaing. I had a sheep for a while, Ewenis. At the time I acquired her I was under the impression that sheep ate grass and lived in a paddock. Unfortunately no one had told Ewenis this. She was convinced that she was a "house sheep" and immediately came inside any time the back door was inadvertently left open. Her favourite food was camillia leaves and "wild bird mix" seed, she only ate grass as a last resort.
This post is not about her, or Doris for that matter. It is about a future sheep that will be someones life bouy when they are adrift in a sea of disease. Esmail Zanjani at the University of Nevada is pioneering a technique for growing human organs in sheep. Say your liver is on the way out, a distinct possibility in the case of The Green Man based on his alcohol consumption, stem cells can be taken from you and injected into the sheep embryo. When the sheep is grown, bingo, you have a new liver that is a least partly you. This makes rejection issues minimal.
The ethical dilemma, of course, is that is the animal carrying the liver still a sheep, given that many of its cells are human.
Are you a friendly sort of person? If you are then you will have lots of friends and the chances are that you will make an excellent carrier to distribute the next virus to be making the rounds. If you are very friendly maybe even the next sexually transmitted disease.
This is the logic behind a new approach to preventing disease, computer viruses and even terrorist cells being developed by Reuven Cohen, of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel. The technique is to approach people at random and ask them who their friends are. We don't know that the random individuals are friendly but we can be fairly sure their friends are. By treating these individuals then we can provide a highly effective prevention campaign at much less than the cost of a blanket immunisation campaign.
Mathematically, this method means that only half the population needs to be treated to acheive almost total cover. It's application to the disruption of terrorist networks is by identifying people occupying key nodes in the network and removing them.
The French President Jacques Chirac is banning overt religous symbolism in French schools. This translates into a ban on Muslims wearing head scarfes, as well as wearing christian crosses and jewish skullcaps. Sounds pretty reasonable to The Green Man, afterall identifying symbols like that can be pretty divisive. Just like the divisions that arise in youths wearing branded clothes. Perhaps that should be banned too.
Then there is the divisive nature of school uniforms, they can cause all sorts of rivalries between students of different schools. They should be banned too.
There is a clear and natural conclusion to this problem: nudity. If the school children leave their clothes at the gate then there can be no symbols to cause divisions in the school community. All the French children frolicing naked together in peace and happiness, what an insightful man Mr Chirac is. There is the problem of winter of course, Paris can get very nippy in the winter. Still I am sure Mr Chirac will think of something.
When GWB called for an "coalition of the willing" to invade Iraq, in Australia, we all knew we would be part of it and not because it was a just and honourable endeavour. We knew because, when George Bush sneezes John Howard runs for a hankerchief. John will claim he was simply honouring the ANZUS alliance that has been in place for many years now and probably he was but what value is that alliance? Does it actually mean anything? If it came to the crunch and Australia was invaded by Indonesia, who aferall are the most likely protagonists if only because of their proximity, would the USA come to our aid?
Ashley Leeds, associate professor of political science at Rice University, thinks that probably they will. In a study of alliances entered into between 1816 and 1944 whe found that 75% of the time that they were honoured. The circumstances in which they are broken are typically when there is a massive change of power within a country, such as an overthrow of a regime. Additionally, non-democratic countries major powers that suffer lower costs from reneging are more likely to break alliances.
In conclusion she says
Leaders should assume that under most conditions, allies will fulfill their promises. This means that engaging a state in war when allies have promised to intervene is a proposition that entails a significant risk of war expansion. It also means that the deterrent and compellent properties of alliances should be taken quite seriously
Are you a feminist? Yes? Then you are probably one of The Green Man's older readers. Young people are just not interested in feminism, it is an characteristic of the baby boomers.
What's more.
Women were more than twice as likely as men to think of themselves as feminists.
-Men and women born between 1935 and 1955 were the most likely to self-identify as feminists.
-Racial differences played no significant role in self-identification as feminists.
-Marital status, parental status, employment status and income were not significant factors in self-identification as feminists.
These are the findings of a study by Jason Schnittker, assistant professor of sociology at University of Pennsylvania
Ever heard of recombinant bovine somatotropin? The Green Man hasn't but it appears that he may well have consumed a great deal of it. It is an artificial hormone administered to cows to increase milk production.
In Maine it is OK to not administer it but it is apparently illegal to say that you haven't. Oakhurst Dairy is being sued by the chemical giant Monsanto who claims its label implies the dairy's milk is somehow better than milk from cows treated with recombinant bovine somatotropin.
"We make no claims at all as to other milk," a representative of Oakhurst said in September. "All we state in our advertising on our trucks and on our labels is that our farmers pledge that they will not use artificial growth hormones on their cows."
Hmmm so telling the truth in your advertising is illegal in the USA now. The world is getting curiouser and curioser!
It may be The Green Mans penchant for supporting the underdog but it would be good to see Oakhurst win this one.
Here in Australia we prefer our patriotism a bit on the under done side, a bit like our steaks, well rare actually. All that rushing round waving flags, singing the national anthem and stuff, we find that all a bit embarrassing really. It is a standing joke in Australia that noone knows the words to the national anthem, not past the first couple of sentences anyway.
It is not like that America, patriotism is big there, and it is even bigger than normal at the moment. Since America invaded Iraq, with us hanging on to their coat tails, any questioning of the justification for the invasion has been howled down as unpatriotic, even though it has changed along the way.
Anyway, enough ranting, here is a patriotic cow. It is part of an exhibition of cows that was held in Chigago in 1999, you can see more of the entrants here.
I chose the patriotic cow because American cows have good reason to feel patriotic, not that they will of course, that emotion is far too complicated for your average simple minded cow. America's Department of Homeland Security announced on Friday a $33 million plan for a pair of academic centers to combat possible terrorist attacks on cows.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, isn't impressed by this current flurry of panic about agro-attacks, saying
Why are we getting around to that one, but we're dragging our heels on protecting passenger planes from shoulder-fired missiles?" he asked. "We're spending a couple of hundred million dollars over the next couple of years thinking about it. And that's a proven threat.
The Green Man would have thought it was obvious. If you can't protect your cows what is the world coming. These cows are dying to feed the soldiers in Iraq, they must be protected from being killed at all costs.
It was jubilation amongst most of the Iraqi population today with the capture of Saddam Hussein.
It was becoming clear that a guerilla campaign may well have been what Saddam had been intending all along and that it would continue indefinitely whilst Saddam was on the loose. His capture means that Iraq is one step closer to the conclusion of this current hostility.
Saddam Hussein, as a right wing dictator, was not particularly good at the job American installed him to do all those years ago. Not only did he fail to conquer Iran but he couldn't even get rid of the Iraqi communist party who you see celebrating here. I believe they are currently living under the illusion that they may gain some sort of power in the new Iraqi government, which they stand a snow flakes chance in a Baghdad summer of doing whilst the USA continues to meddle Iraqi politics.
One fatefull day approximately 5 millions years ago there was a serious domestic dispute in a small group of primates. A section of the group stomping off grunting something to effect that they were sick and tired of the stuffy old way things had been done and want to try something new, which in fact they did. They tried being humans and it worked. Today we are clearly the most successful of the primates with most of the others on the verge of extinction but how much have we diverged from our primate cousins?
The answer is not that much really. Scientists estimate that humans and chimps share about 99.2% of their respective genomes but the really interesting bit is to look at those areas in which we are different. These are pointers to the different evolutionary paths that we have taken.
Michele Cargill of the biotech company , Celera Diagnostics in Alameda, California has done this comparison and has discovered that the most significant differences are in the areas of smell, hearing and the way we digest protiens. She compared the sequences for more than 7,500 human, chimpanzee and mouse genes, compiled by the genome projects for each species, the mice providing a useful indicator by which she could eliminate generic mammalian genes. Differences were found in around 50 genes tied to smell with many of the human equivalents demonstrating little functional value, reflecting the lack of importance of smell to our species.
Twenty-one genes linked to hearing also displayed differences which she hypothesised may be linked to the development of language. Eighty genes used to digest proteins also differ between chimps and humans probably arising from the differing diets of the two species over the period since we diverged.
If you see a painting that looks something like this at a fleamarket it might be a good idea to snap it up, someone else did and their 1,500 euros ($1,800) investment, is expected to turn into up to three million euros ($3.6 million) at an auction in France on Saturday.
The painting that they bought was a "lost" painting by Vincent Van Gogh.
Now that is the sort of return on your investment that The Green Man is aiming for. Sadly, at this stage, no Van Gogh's have come his way.
This is a ring necked pheasant. A "hunting party" lead by US VP Dick Cheney shot 417 of them in Dakota the other day. You can tell a natural woodsman when you see one can't you and they don't look like Dick Cheney!
So how did they bag such a catch? Well they arrived in Cheney's chauffer driven limo, accompanied by several secret service vehicles at a private hunting facility where some sycophantic lacky handed them shotguns then released cage reared birds for them to shoot. Being cage reared these birds were unfit and stood little chance of escaping slaughter.
Obviously he was disappointed he didn't get to shoot someone in Iraq himself. This is a way he gets to do some shooting of things with no risk, afterall he had the secret service agents to protect him in case a pheasant turned on him. Sadly the young men and women he has packed off to Iraq and Afganistan don't have a similar chance of returning home unharmed.
To abandon the satire for a moment, The Green Man thinks it is pathetic that someone in as powerful a position as Dick Cheney feels he needs to slaughter caged birds to prove himself a big macho man. Dick, if you want to pretend that you are the "great white hunter", The Green Man suggests you pull on a backpack, grab a rifle and fishing rod and head out into the wilderness where your mental strength and resourcefulness can really be tested.
Read the press release from The Humane Society on the incident.
"The Scream", that iconic painting that captures the internal angst we all experience from time to time was painted by Edvard Munch in Norway in 1893.
A source of interest for many in this painting is the vibrant red sky that provides the backdrop to tortured soul depicted. Donald Olson, a physics and astronomy professor at Texas State University thinks he has the answer to Munch's inspiration. He believes that debris thrown into the atmosphere by the great eruption at the island of Krakatoa, in modern Indonesia, created vivid red twilights in Europe from November 1883 through February 1884.
Olson believes he has stood on the spot where Munch was standing when the inspiration for the painting occured.
One of the high points of our research trip to Oslo came when we rounded a bend in the road and realized we were standing in the exact spot where Munch had been 120 years ago.It was very satisfying to stand in the exact spot where an artist had his experience, the real importance of finding the location, though, was to determine the direction of view in the painting. We could see that Munch was looking to the southwest -- exactly where the Krakatoa twilights appeared in the winter of 1883-84.
The Green Man would be very satisfied too, if he could find someone to pay for a trip to Norway.
The black toenails I received on the last trip to the Wilsons Prom lighthouse have almost grown out and it is time to find another way to remember the trip.
Here is some photos from the trip.
Click on the image to see a bigger version.
Click here to see some photos of the trip.
The invasion of Iraq has been labelled part of the "War on Terrorism" which is, of course, jingoistic spin since a war is
A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.
and terrorism is not a nation or a state or even a collection of individuals, it is a military strategy usually adopted where other military options are unavailable.
Incidents of terrorism are documented in the wars fought by Alexander The Great in 300BC. The French and Italian resistance fighters used it against the Nazis in World War II and were later hailed as heros. The bombing of Dresden in Germany by the English in World War II could be described as terrorism since it was not a military target. Like other military strategies, it is deemed to be "evil" when the other side uses it and "justified" when we use it.
If you want to accept the spin and say a "War on Terrorism" is possible then it can never be won. Like any other military strategy terrorism will be continued to be used into the future, particularly by people who have no other means of resistance to military force. Reading the implications behind comments on my post on Gun Deaths in USA and elsewhere we see that a significant percentage of Americans would happily resort to terrorism if their country was invaded and they had to defend themselves against an occupying force. Should GWB declare war on them as well?
The Green Man has added a new, long overdue, category to the blog, "Frivolousness". The dictionary describes Frivolousness as "Inappropriately silly" or "Unworthy of serious attention; trivial". A category that could fill rapidly based on The Green Man's current track record on postings.
There will be a new icon up the top for this category when I find an image that is suitably frivolous.
Looking for the unusual present and bull semen just doesn't seem to fit the bill. Everyone loves a cuddly stuffed toy and it was only a matter of time until the range of fluffy stuffed creatures was extended to the microscopic organisms. The Anatomical Chart company has released a range of stuffed toy germs guaranteed to find the soft spot in each of us, pretty much like their real life equivalents do.
When I have a conversation with my cousin I can't get a word in edgewise, he will just not shut up. I am thinking "sore throat" germ, which I presume is a staphlococcus, might just be the right gift for him.
Barnardo's, a childrens charity, has been order to withdraw an advertisement they were running depicting a baby with a cockroach crawling out of its mouth. The advertisement symbolised the poverty and depravity in which some babies and small children exist.
The advertisement drew 466 complaints and the Advertising Standards Agency, ruling it was likely to cause "serious or widespread offence", ordered it to be discontinued.
It is an indictment on our society that babies and children living in squalid conditions do not cause "serious or widespread offence". Let's all just pretend they don't exist shall we? That way on Christmas day, after demolishing the food and drink that are making our table bend at the knees we can settle down in front of the tele without seeing any nasty visual images to exacerbate the indigestion we are undoubtedly experiencing.
The Age reports that ASIO (Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation) has been picking up and interrogating associates of terrorist suspect Willie Brigitte. Under their new powers they can do this even if they suspect the people of no criminal offence.
Let's suppose, through misfortune, you happened to have been living next to him. You could be taken into custody and interrogated for up to a week. No only that, you are prevented by law from challenging what they did to you during that time or even telling anyone what they did to you. Doesn't this sound a lot like the very stuff that the government was accusing Saddam Hussien of, after they couldn't find any weapons of mass destruction that is?
What's more Phillip Rudduck, the Attorney General, is quoted as saying
"His intention was to harm Australia's interests and possibly Australians,"
What happened to the presumption of innocence? How could Phillip Ruddock possibly know what Willie Brigitte intentions were when they have not been tested in a court of law.
On 11 September 2003, in an interview with David Speers of Sky News, John Howard said.
Terrorists hate our freedom. They hate the openness of Australian and American and world societies that act as liberal democracy,
The way our government is moving, they won't have much to hate in Australia much longer.
The Walking School Bus is a program where children walk to school instead of being driven by a parent. The idea is that there is a volunteer parent at the front as "driver" and another at the rear as "conductor" with a whole heap of kids sandwiched inbetween. The group takes a fixed route each day to and from school, picking up and dropping off kids along the way.
With the decreases in physical activity and the consequent increase in obesity in children it is being hailed as a positive initiative. The Green Man has mixed feelings, sure it is great that they are walking to school but why the need for the parents. At least in Australia, the streets have never been safer. Once again we are denying our children valuable unsupervised, unstructured time which is so important to their development.
The Green Man suggests the following; teach them road saftey; walk them to school and back once or twice; push them out the front door and say "go to school, I'll see you back here tonight". Go on, be brave, they'll survive and be better for it.
Someone placed a comment on an entry saying that they needed to contact The Green Man and couldn't find an email address on the site. Obligingly The Green Man replied and, to stop the problem arising again placed an "Email The Green Man" icon towards the top of the page.
Within 24 hours Mr. KUMAYE DADA had emailed me informing me that he had US$30.5 million that he would like to store in my account and was willing to pay me 20% commission for the privilege.
Doesn't it warm your heart to know how well our internet technology is working these days. Oh and by the way, you will need to edit the To address in the Email me section in future to make it work.
I have thought for a while now that an elephant would make a great addition to The Green Mans household. One just like this one, so cute. Just image taking it for a walk down the street, it would put those crappy great danes and rottweillers to shame. It could also do lots of useful things around the house. Hmmmm can't think of any right now but I am sure there must be lots.
I know what your thinking. How impractical, it will grow up into a big animal, all that maintenance and leaving it shut up in the back yard all day while you go to work. That's not good.
Perhaps you could apply the same logic to that puppy you are thinking of surprising someone with this Christmas. I know they probably said they want one but it may be just as impractical for them as the elephant is for me.
If you must give a puppy/dog as a present don't make it a surprise.
Here are the rules.
1. Take the person who it is for along and let them help choose.
2. Choose a small dog, noone needs a big vicious dog.
3. Get one from the RSPCA or your local dogs home.
4. Be prepared for the time and cost of owning one.
Let's try and make it a good Christmas for the dog as well as the person.
(Via South Knox Bubba)
Australia took one more step down the seemingly inevitable path towards becoming a banana republic with the leader of the Australian Democratics, Andrew Bartlett, getting drunk and assaulting a Liberal Party senator in the senate chamber during a sitting.
Getting pissed and indulging in a bit of "biffo" is more common than it should be, and one of the less positive aspects of Australian culture, but we have not seen it on the floor of the senate before.
Still it is an ill wind that blows no good. The Green Man is quite fond of bananas.
"you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men's bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men's ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like you can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you stand upright on a cross-piece half way up the mast, and they must lash the rope's ends to the mast itself, that you may have the pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster. "
This is a piece from Homer's classic work The Odyssey written in 800 BC. It is some sage advice given to Ulysses by Circe a sorceress who knew the secrets of the seas and guided him in his great adventure. It is also one of the first recorded references to the legendary Sirens who, through song, lured men to their deaths.
They are a manifestation of the peril that women were seen to hold for men and, to a large extent this perception still exists. The feminist movement has changed the nature of the rocky shore upon which males find themselves dashed but the rocky shore still remains. It is an integral part of the male/female dynamic and you can see it reflected in comtemporary films and novels. The context is changed but the underlying metaphore remains constant. A beautiful young woman can bring a hero unstuck as successfully today as she did in 800BC.
Further to my earlier post on air burshing T-shirts I thought I might share some wisdom on one of the pitfalls of painting on t-shirts. Below is a air brushed impression of Gandalf from Lord Of The Rings.
I painted this t-shirt for a female friend. It looked great until the weather turned cold and then Gandalf's eyes bulged.
It was an auspicous day for The Green Man yesterday. On arriving home there was an order in the mail for an air-brushed t-shirt. My first commissioned bit of art. Here is a photo
Someone saw me wearing a test version and approached me, asked me where I bought it. When I said I painted it, ordered one on the spot.
Before the green dragon called envy eats away at you be assured that I will be selling them on the net in the near future. Naturally you can email me earlier if you are really eager to get one.
Before you say one is an awefully small product range I will be painting up some other images over the next few weeks as well as doing unique images on commission of course.
Those readers who drop by The Green Man for their daily dose of having their sensibilities affronted are going to have a field day with this one.
One of Englands highest prizes in art has been won by Grayson Perry. This is a picture of him at the ceremony where he was awarded the prize dressed as his alter ego, Claire. A style of dress he usually prefers. Perry is a potter of renown and The Green Man suspects that he has something a little more practical set aside for the countless hours that he undoubtedly spends at the potters wheel.
Accepting his award he said
"I want to make something that lives with the eye as a beautiful piece of art, but on closer inspection, a polemic or an ideology will come out of it,"
His vases typically depict controversial topics such as sex and child abuse. Vases depicting sex scenes and child abuse are, however, quite bland for the Turner Prize. Previous winners have included a soiled bed, a pickled cow and a painting adorned with elephant dung. Last year's winner, Keith Tyson, presented lead casts of every item on a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant's menu.
Below is a sample of one of his vases.
See more of Grayson Perry's work in Ceramics Today.
The Green Man did not know that such a thing existed but it does and women are risking permanent disability to improve it. But that's not all some women are having parts of their toes lopped off to fit into the latest Manolo Blahniks or Jimmy Choos. Both of which are, apparently, brands of shoes and it seems that their designers no longer feel constrained to construct shoes that hold a normal foot.
Dr. Rock Positano, director of the nonoperative foot and ankle service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan said that his waiting room is increasingly filled with women hobbled by failed cosmetic foot procedures, those done solely to improve the appearance of the foot or help patients fit into fashionable shoes.
Dr. Suzanne M. Levine, an Upper East Side podiatrist who is an advocate of the procedures says, in response,
Some of these women invest more in their shoes than they do in the stock market,Take your average woman and give her heels instead of flats, and she'll suddenly get whistles on the street,
The feminist movement has made so much progress hasn't it?
Read more on injuries from foot cosmetic surgery in The New York Times.
See these three people above; they all have two things in common. Firstly, and most importantly, they have been granted the honour of having their images posted on The Green Man. What more recognition and fulfilment could they want?
Secondly they are all big fans of the 1993 movie "Groundhog Day". I have attempted to watch this movie several times and never quite made it to the end, which just shows how lacking in religious insight I am because it is being held up by a number of mainstream religions as embodying the core principles of their faith.
Accordingly the Museum of Modern Art has included it in it's "The Hidden God: Film and Faith," retrospective of religious films. Christians believe that "the movie beautifully expresses Christian belief,", Rabbi's are using it because of it's illustration of the Jewish faith and the Buddhists are claiming it is quintessentially Buddhist.
The woman on the left is Angela Zito, a co-director of the Center for Religion and Media at New York University who screens it in her first year Buddhist class because "Groundhog Day," is a cinematic version of the teachings in Mahayana Buddhism, known as "the greater vehicle."
In the middle, is Rabbi Niles Goldstein who sees it as an allegory for the Jewish faith.
On right is a picture of a priest I picked up from the net to balance out the list. Appologies to him if he doesn't like Groundhog Day.
German Universities are old and prestigous, they have served as models for universities in the United States and other countries around the world. Now they are under the same cost cutting pressure that most institutions in the western world are experiencing these days. After a decade of cost cutting the government now wants to shave a further $90 million and the students are not happy. They are nuding up and taking their protest to the streets as any reasonable person would.
Streaking through a Christmas market near the central west Berlin business district, 40 students, wearing nothing but sneakers and smiles, provided an educational alternative to the Christmas windows for the children in town who were out for a bit of festive shopping. On undressing their new Barbie and Ken dolls the young girls present will now be able to make a much more accurate assessment of the anatomical correctness, or otherwise, of their new Christmas toys.
I know, you are sitting there, having read of the Nude Christmas Window Alternative, thinking if only I had been there I too could have been getting frost bite on my sensitive bits all in the name of a good cause.
Well feel depressed no longer. You too can have the opportunity to nude up in an effort to save some bulls from a brutal and painful death in a primative ritual masquerading as entertainment. And if that wasn't good enough, you get to do it in a climate where the risk of frost bite in a sensitive area is almost nill. Pamplona, Spain is noted for its bull fighting and its sunny climate. On July 5, 2004 you get the opportunity to protest against the former whilst getting an all over tan courtesy of the latter.
Visit The Running Of The Nudes website to sign up for this liberating and fun experience.
It has been a slow day on The Green Man today, well stationary actually. Doesn't it get up your nose when paid work get's in the way of your other activities? Never mind. Here is a little something I stumbled across that you can spend an idle minute or two on.
I have been to America a couple of times and my general opinion is that it is a nice enough place if somewhat bland, compared to, say Mexico or Guatemala. Clearly, however, I have been visiting the wrong bits.
The Conspiracy Museum in Dallas, Texas, where else? Whilst the assasination of JFK gets pride of place of course but there is also plenty of other material There is enough information to keep even your most devoted conspiracy theorist going for months. To remember you trip there why not buy a JFK salt shaker, the salt comes out of a whole in the back of the head, how tasteful.
Or how about "World's Largest Collection of World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things" in Lucas, Kansas. It contains a little stonehenge, the pyramids, you get the idea. It is mobile though, in a truck so you might not find it there at the moment.
And if little things aren't your scene how about big dinosaurs and scarry ones at that, if this image is anything to go by, at the Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, South Dakota.
You can find out about all these things and more at Roadside America, your guide to the wacky side of the American pysche.
You may think these guys are a fraction young for the army but they are 18 and 21 respectively. Boys just don't seem to be entering puberty quite as young as they used to, do they? It's probably because they liked their fruit.
Environmental Health Perspectives reports that male school children exposed to the pesticide endosulfan showed delayed sexual maturity compared with similar children who were not exposed. The critical age is 10-19, which is hardly surprising because this is when physical sexual maturation in males occurs.
An estimated 1.4-2.2 million pounds of endosulfan is used in the United States on crops including squash, pecans, and strawberries each year. It has been banned in several countries, including Cambodia, Colombia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Indonesia, and its use is severely restricted in at least 20 other countries.
The one bright light for US citizens is that aerial spraying has now been banned so that secondary contamination with the chemical is now limited.
If your boys want to grow into big stong men get them to wash their fruit.
Jenny is in the early stages of labour. Being her first child it is an exciting time, the hard bits of child birth are still an academic concept for her. I am sure she'll get through it OK though, she is young and healthy. Naturally the baby she gives birth to will be special, particularly to her.
Her baby may be much more special than she realises. Today, somewhere in a hospital around the country some very round woman is about to give birth to Australia's 20 millionth citizen.
This might not seem many people for a country the size of Australia, we are roughly the size of the USA after all and it has 280 million people. Australia, however, is an arid and fragile country and our existing population has done much harm to it already. Soil salinity is devastating large sections of our arable land and deforestation is causing massive losses of valuable top soil. We are in a draught that has lasted 5 years so far.
Realistically, the sustainable population of Australia may be as low as 6 million people and yet our government is targeting an eventual population of 50 million. Such is the spell of the economic rationalists that we will destroy our country in the long term to keep a strong economy in the short to medium term. How sad.
Have you made yourself rich by investing in property? Perhaps you attended a seminar by Henry Kaye, pictured. For a mere $12,000 you could attend one of his introductory seminars on making yourself rich. The Green Man's first response would be, "Hang on! I am actually going to be $12,000 poorer." and that turned out to be the reality for many of the attendees.
Mr Kay was a company director of over 100 companies and two of them, Novasource and Empower Group, claim that he owes them $2.8 million and $2.2 million respectively. Hmmmm $5 million magically evaporated. The cynically minded might be tempted to suspect it has found it's way into a Swiss bank account. Perhaps the odd Swiss chalet has been purchased, who knows, and, if so, it may have been yet another property decision that was doomed to loose money.
The BBC reports that global warming will wipe out entire sky resorts as the snowline rises 300m. An estimated 37% of all Swiss sky resorts will collapse, as compared to Australia where roughly 100% of sky resorts will collapse, we are not very good at snow even in the coldest of winters.
The Green Man recommends investing in that beach resort that is a couple of miles inland. Before you know it it will be on the shorefront.
Looking for that perfect Christmas gift for the person in your life who has almost everything. I say "almost" because I am guessing they don't have a straw of frozen bull semen. Today is your lucky day. Pamela McCullough of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has 5,000 of them she is planning to auction and not just any bull semen either. They are from Beefmaster cattle, a prized breed that mixes Hereford, Shorthorn and Brahman cattle.
They were seized as part of a billion-dollar cocaine smuggling and money laundering network which sets The Green Man a thinking that customers of the network would need to be careful which straws they were sticking up their noses. (For the uneducated, semen is held frozen in straws until required)
So how much would you expect to pay for a straw? Anywhere from $3 to several hundred dollars, depending on the quality of the bull. What an excellent investment. Can't you just see the sparkle in her eyes?
Britain is set to introduce a new law on domestic violence with sweeping new powers to allow the courts to impose a "stay-away" order on partners of individuals claiming to be the victims of domestic violence even when the alleged perpetrator is found innocent.
The solicitor-general, Harriet Harman, said
We often talk in government about the importance of diverting offenders - particularly young offenders - out of the criminal justice system earlier.In this case, we want more offenders diverted into the criminal justice system at an early stage... Because then we can ensure that their behaviour is addressed and they receive the appropriate punishment for their crime
Of course she completely misses the point that these people she is diverting into the criminal justice system are not offenders, they were found innocent. Like Australia and the US, the presumption of innocence underpins the UK criminal justice system. (We have seen it cast aside with gay abandon by the US with the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay but they don't count, they are not people after all, they are illegal combatants)
Ms Harmon is also quoted as saying
This will offer real protection to victims
This is complete fiction as anyone working in this field will know. In Australia, and UK is probably the same, roughly 97% of all protection orders are breached.
Given this, it may deliver a lot more people to prison but it won't protect the actual victims. Sadly, the bill will also be used by unscrupulous women to prevent caring fathers gaining access to their children.
Still we all know that polititians live in faerie land and their statements are more about being good "sound bites" than anything else don't we?
Read more on the new Domestic Violence Laws in The Guardian.
The current economic model of the internet is based on "cut glass/jewel" model. Web sites provide for their casual visitors shiny pieces of cut glass and semi-precious stones to pick through for nothing.
The precious jewels on the site are for sale once you have become tired of the cheaper free material. There is a significant problem with this model, namely that the jewels for sale must be of sufficient value to justify a significant payment. It is just not economic otherwise. Paypal, for example, charges 2.9 percent of a sale plus 30 cents so any transaction under say $1 is clearly uneconomic and besides would you go through the complexities of a Paypal payment for a $1 item, probably not.
Think of parts of the internet as a local market with stall holders, like The Green Man, providing home made goods for sale for small amounts of money. Much of your time at the market is spent browsing but occasionally there is a trinket, or jar of jam, that takes your fancy, it is cheap so you buy it on a whim. This is a problem in the virtual domain that is begging for a solution. Think of placing $20 in your virtual pocket and browsing the virtual market; spending 20c at this stall, $1 at the next one, 50c at another. Establishing this “virtual local market” structure will make the person responsible very rich. Establishing it, however, will not be simple, like the telephone is only truly useful when most people have one, so this system will only be useful when a large number of websites and visitors are participating.
This is a picture of a manatee off the coast of Florida. They are amazing creatures, known as sea cows and close relatives of the elephant. I saw them off the coast of Belize, they are shy and gentle creatures and you must approach quietly to watch them graze.
In earlier times they are believed to be the real life creature that gave rise to the mermaid myths (gratuitous image of mermaid included below). Sailors gaining a glimpse of these shy creatures as they briefly surfaced for air imagined they were having an intimate encounter with a creature that is half woman, half fish.
How ironic that people in Florida, ringing to report a sick or injured manatee, are also having an intimate encounter. They are being put through to a sex chat line entitled "Intimate Encounters". It seems that the number to report injured manatees was replaced with a new one some four years ago. In spite of this many signs and brochures still carry the old number which has now been purchased by Intimate Encounters for those seeking a different kind of errrr biological encounter.
If any of you live in the Florida area the correct place to report manatee injuries is to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on 1-888-404-FWCC. If you are after that other sort of intimate encounter you are just going to have to do it by the road side near one of the old manatee signs.
Read more in St Petersburg Times
or visit the Save The Manatee site.
Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.
This perceptive insight into the known unkown has handed Donald Rumsfeld this years Foot-In-Mouth award. Awarded by "The Plain English Campaign", whose raison d'ętre is "fighting for crystal-clear language and against jargon, gobbledygook and other confusing language. "
The Green Man is launching an appeal against the decision on the grounds Mr Rumsfeld had acheived exactly the degree of clarity he was aiming for.
Mr Rumsfeld joins some prestigous company visit their site to see some other auspicous winners.
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF of New York Times has been disconcerted by the lack of a good name for the current conflict in Iraq and, as you would, offered the lofty prize of a Iraqi 250-dinar note with Saddam's picture for the best name.
There are so many good entries
"The War That Cried Wolfowitz."
"Mother of Oil Wars."
"Mission Implausible: A Job Well Spun"
"The Empire Strikes Out,"
But the winners, each receiving one on the said notes, were:
"Dubya Dubya III" - Brad Corsello, New York
"Rolling Blunder" - Richard Sanders
"Desert Slog" - John Fell, California
"Blood, Baath and Beyond." - Willard Oriol, New York
but my favourite of the winners was
"Mess in Potamia" by Will Hutchinson of Vermont.
Read many more suggestions at New York Times.
