A bunch of things to not make you feel very good about Life, the Universe, and, well maybe Not Quite Everything.

Whistleblower's death not suicide.

http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2004/10/18/1097951631677.html

The Australian Protective Service assistant inspector blew the whistle on what he said was corruption that compromised security at Sydney Airport before the 2000 Olympics. He met the federal MP for Eden-Monaro, Gary Nairn, who contacted the then-Attorney-General, Daryl Williams. But Mr Lee-Rogers was found dead in his Queanbeyan apartment before Mr Williams could reply.

A protective service internal asset audit, disclosed yesterday in the NSW Coroner's Court in Queanbeyan, found that 47 revolvers, two rifles, six shotguns, 30 sets of handcuffs and 18 batons had disappeared from the service's custody. Firearms training systems, video cameras, X-ray equipment and 25 computers were also missing.

Other documents tendered to the court said dozens of security officers were trained by unqualified staff and that failures in asset management extended to firearms' security at Sydney Airport.

Police found Mr Lee-Rogers's body on October 1 last year in his Queanbeyan flat with a blood-stained knife, bloodied pillow and two white plastic bottles in his right hand.Initially they secured the flat as a crime scene. But the death was later treated as natural.

http://dailykos.com/story/2004/10/15/20363/328

Bush is losing his mind by kos

Sat Oct 16th, 2004 at 00:36:03 GMT
You think Bush looked terrible in the debates, check out this video leaked to me by a member of the Iraqi Survey Group. (Big QT file.)

PC: http://www.dailykos.com/images/admin/President_Bush_Thanks_ISG.avi

Mac: http://www.dailykos.com/images/admin/President_Bush_Thanks_ISG.mpg

The clip is a 'thank you' message taped by Bush for the members of the Iraqi Survey Group. It hasn't been altered in any way. The fact he can barely finish his sentences should be a genuine cause for concern. This was no impromptu appearance, like his disastrous press conferences and debate appearances. This was a planned, scripted, recorded address. I'm starting to think rumors of Bush's ill health may have basis in reality. Watch the clip and decide for yourself. It clearly made a stir amongst the members of the ISG.

The comment below really reminded me of the recent Australian election:

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005613.html#59447

Greg London ::: (view all by) ::: October 16, 2004, 11:21 AM:

I had a very odd and unsettling discussion last night with a number of people
who declared they were voting for Bush. But I also learned three new things

...So, the odd and unsettling thing I learned, besides the three points above,
is that this election is SO not about facts. It is more and more a game of
"Thing" where truth is not so nearly as important as persuasion.

[Thing described: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005581.html#58859

Explain Thing? First, look at Mafia.
Thing is much like Mafia, except that the scene is an isolated Antarctic research station.
The game starts with one Thing, a shape-shifter who looks and acts exactly like one of the scientists.
Each night, if the Thing (soon to be Things) aren't caught, they make a new Thing, until the Things outnumber the scientists, and the game is over and the Things win. (If the scientists manage to identify all the Things, the game is also over and the scientists win.)
Every day the scientists can test two of their number. If the second one they test is a Thing, they can test a third. If that one is a Thing, they can test a fourth, and so on.

You can get a good idea of how it works by the discussion in the thread as a whole. Possibly should be compulsory in all 'civics' &/or history courses, as showing how people can be misled.]

Some extracts from an intelligent, interesting & amusing blog.

Liars? Idiots? Liars AND Idiots?http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000180.html

Some time ago, I mentioned ( http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10295
) that everyone in America should be praying to god the Bush administration was
consciously lying about Iraq. Because if they actually believed everything they
were saying, we're REALLY in trouble.

Disturbing, but not surprising at all if true. There are various follow-ups to this later in this blog -- http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000172.html#more

Here I also found this word:

monopsony: A market characterized by a single buyer of a product. Monopsony is the buying-side equivalent of a selling-side monopoly. Much as a monopoly is the only seller in a market, monopsony is the only buyer. While monopsony could be analyzed for any type of market it tends to be most relevant for factor markets in which a single firm is the only buyer of a factor.

And had this drawn [ahem] to my attention.

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000182.html as well as quite a lot of other good stuff, such as "Letters to Americans" and a series of stuff which very well illustrates several of my earlier contentions, and the usefulness of the Mirror Test.

[The greatest victory your enemy can have is to make you a mirror of himself -- Me, based on Frank Herbert]

http://www.michaelberube.com/EE/index.php/weblog/comments/495/

Reality-based community news

There’s a weird new science-fiction piece by Ron Suskind in today’s
New York Times Magazine ... ( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html )

Basically, it’s Alex Proyas’s film Dark City ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929 )
rewritten as a political thriller. Derivative, but compelling. The stuff about
the madman’s crazed, cultish followers is good too, though a little overdone.
Throwing in a stock character who says “I just believe God controls everything,
and God uses the president to keep evil down” and “God gave us this president to
be the man to protect the nation at this time” is heavy-handed, I think. But
overall, as a depiction of an alternate universe inhabited by the insane, it’s
pretty interesting stuff from an outlet that doesn’t usually publish much in the
genre.

Similar ideas are seen at:

http://shetterly.blogspot.com/2004/10/what-if-george-w-bush-had-been-elected.html

http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/archives/005602.html

Aha! And they're also bringing up an older SF work that you'll may detect I've been banging on about the applicability of for some 2-3 years too.
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/NineteenEightyFour/index.html

You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right ... But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external ... Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. (see, for example, at http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/534 )

He wrote a lot more stuff - much of which is still applicable to today - in his essays, as well as other works of fiction. Here is a site which covers these things particularly: http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/ .

For Something Completely Different:

An Exopolitical Perspective on the Preemptive War against Iraq
www.exopolitics.org/Study-Paper2.htm

For some Shakespearean-style light relief:

Toogle!
http://www.c6.org/toogle/

This website is not necessarily recommended for children, minors, or other people of
a sensitive nature, since it will most likely present content that might be
upsetting. Still it was never my intention to pussy-foot around, and I don't
intend on making the site any safer, the net is a big bad dangerous
super-highway and if you get upset by images made from text then you might as
well give up now.

http://extremepumpkins.com/

Welcome to ExtremePumpkins.com where strange pumpkins, pumpkin patterns, and alternative pumpkin carving techniques are developed and demonstrated for you.

Pumpkin carving will never be the same.Today we seize back this ritual. Today is the day we throw away those safe, cute carving tools. Today. We will buy a big, ugly, pumpkin so large one man cannot lift or move it. Today. We will carve that sumbitch into something ugly and plop it on the front porch. October 31st we will light it brightly enough to give visiting children suntans.

Pumpkin carving is reborn.

Did you (Aussies) see any of John Safran v God final episode last night on SBS?

He went to a US exorcist (Bob Larsen?), filled in form about all the 'Satanic' influences he had been exposing himself to, got exorcised (they even roped in some African-Americans to throw out the voodoo spirits).
The exorcist was a real case; smooth & well organised. After exorcism they just cut to the end credits. Assume this is way of him getting interviewed by a lot of people to ask what it felt like, how he came to terms with it, etc, etc.