Tautologous Places

Tautology is putting extra words in a sentence which mean the same thing, so there is no point having them there. Newspapers, in their bid to pad a story out to a certain number of words, are the worst culprits, and you'll often see phrases like "illegal theft" (all thefts are illegal therefore the word illegal isn't needed), "dangerous speeding" (all speeding is dangerous), "dishonest politicians" (well, you get the idea…)

Here's a list of some real place names from around the world, which you can use as examples when you try to Win Friends and Influence People by telling them what tautology is (just before they punch you for being a smart-***):

River River River Avon, England - Avon, spelled Afon in modern times, is Welsh for river.
River River River Río Guadix, Spain - Río is river in Spanish, Guad river in Arabic and Ix is river in Phoenician.
Long Tidal River River Connecticut River, United States - Algonquin.
Big River River Mississippi River, United States - Algonquin.
Lake Lake Second Lake Rotorua, New Zealand - Many NZ lakes have the "Lake Roto-" form.
Lake the Lake Lake Tahoe, Nevada/California - Washo Native American Tribal language.
Lake Lake Lake Nyassa, Malawi/Mozambique - Yao.
Lakeville Lake Michican, USA - The village is Lakeville, the adjacent lake is Lakeville Lake.
Hill Hill Bredon, England - Celtic/Saxon.
Hill Hill on the Hill Breedon on the Hill, England - Celtic/Saxon.
Mount Mount Big Mount Maunganui, New Zealand - Maori.
Mount Snowy Mountains Sierra Nevada Mountains, California - Spanish.
Hill Hill Hill Hill Torpenhow Hill, England - SW-English, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, English.
Hill Hill Hill Pendle Hill, England - "Pen" Cumbric language and the suffix "dle" from the Old English language.
Mountain Mountain Mongibello, Sicily, Italy - Latin "Mons" and the Arabic "Gebel".
Peak Peak Summit Peak, New Zealand - The US also has five hills called Summit Peak.
Sheep Islands Islands Faroe Islands, North Atlantic - Faroese.
Island Islands Gili Islands, Indonesia - Sasak.
Many Islands Islands Polynesian Islands, Pacific Ocean - Greek.
The The Tar Tar Pits La Brea Tar Pits, California - Spanish.
Deserts Desert Sahara Desert, Africa - Arabic.
Waterfall Waterfall Waterfall Eas Fors Waterfall on the Isle of Mull in Scotland
Beech Wood Wood Wood Beechhurst Holt Wood, England - Anglo-Saxon.
View View Elementary School Vista View Elementary School, Minnesota - Spanish.
Valley Valley Beqaa Valley - "Beqaa" is Arabic for valley.
The Rock of The Rock of Tariq The Rock of Gibraltar - Arabic.
Town's Town Townsville, Australia - French.
East East Timor-Leste, East Timor - Indonesian/Malay, Portuguese.
Circle Circle Trendle Ring, Somerset, England.

Land of the Long White Cloud

A Luxer called Philip Lyth, from New Zealand, sent me a 'Thankyou' email for a couple of my other maps, so I was inspired to make one for the 'Land of the Long White Cloud'. But after about 3 attempts I still wasn't sure what era to base it on! So with a bit of modern satellite terrain, some notes of Captain Cook's, and borders that are a mix of modern electoral boundaries, Maori tribal boundaries, and just plain made up ones, plus a few inset enlargements because everyone just loves them(!), here it is! With all these mixed elements in the map it shouldn't work, but somehow it does - which sums up modern New Zealand society perfectly. Enjoy.

Apple, Are You Ready?

Top marks to Apple for replying to my queries about the MiniMac I ordered within 24 hours, even though I still object to being told 24 hours on the website and 14 days on the order confirmation email. Let's stop and think, for a moment, about what is going to go through the mind of a huge number of PC users over the next few months.

1. Yah, Windows Vista is out. I want it!
2. But damn, I have to upgrade my computer before it can run Vista. New hardware time.
3. Hmmm, Mac OSX is really a great OS. I can buy an Intel Mac and still run Vista, AND have a Mac too.
4. Great, I'll order an Intel Mac instead.
5. Wait a minute… buy a PC off the shelf in my local store OR wait a month for an Apple…
6. Well, the Mac would be nice but I want it now so… new PC it is.

Right now Apple have 3-4% of the computer market, despite constantly having the most innovative hardware with none of the security holes, bugs and incompatibilities that the PC market has. And the average buyer has to wait 2 weeks for his new Mac. Windows Vista is going to be the best advertisement for the Intel Macs ever, and there are going to be a hell of a lot of people who will use the opportunity to change over, IF THEY CAN! But they CAN'T. Apple struggles to service 3-4% of the market - how are they going to cope with 30-40% in the next couple of years, or 60-70% two years after that?

Apple, sort it out, NOW. There's no point labouring to till soil and plant seed if you let the fruit rot on the branches when harvest time comes!

E-Plates

There's been a lot of talk this week about a proposal that elderly drivers should have to display an 'E' plate, just as Learners are required to have an 'L' one and Provisional riders a 'P' plate. But the question I ask is, "what would be the point?" A Provisional driver looks just like everyone else on the road, so I agree with that; a Learner can even pass for a normal driver unless you happen to see his face, with that eyes-straight-ahead concentration that is often called "Race Face". But the elderly!? If you can't see that the driver up ahead is an elderly one from a distance of at least 100 metres, based on such subtle clues as the 20 kph speed, the "one inch from the gutter" lane position, the indicator left on for the last 10 kilometres, or the brake lights flashing on and off every 3 or 4 seconds, then you shouldn't have a licence either! If your powers of observation of the road, and other people sharing it with you, are so poor that you find yourself within 50 metres of an elderly driver without realising until then that is was one, shame on you, get off the road and stay off.

Driving on the Left

A policeman in Oldbury, West Midlands, England, pulled over a weaving car. "I attempted to speak to the driver, who appeared to be fumbling around with the controls," said the constable. "At that point the passenger leaned across and stated, 'He's blind'."

Sure enough the driver, Omed Aziz, 31, had lost both eyes and three fingers in a bomb blast in his native Iraq, and his passenger was giving him directions so he could steer. Aziz denied charges of dangerous driving, but was convicted and given a three-month prison sentence, which was suspended, plus a three year driving ban. (London Times).

Apparently the judge thinks that should be long enough to grow new eyes.

From This is True

Throwing the First Stone

A Minister was walking down the street when he came upon a group of about half a dozen young boys, standing around a dog. Concerned that they might be hurting it or planning to, he went over and asked what was going on. The boys told him that the dog was a stray, and they all wanted to take it home and make it their own, so they'd argued about it, then decided to have a contest. Whoever told the biggest and best lie would get to keep the dog.

The Minister was appalled. "You boys shouldn't be having a contest to tell lies!" he exclaimed, then launched into a long sermon against sinning, lying, cheating and generally being dishonest, starting with "Don't you know it's a sin to lie?" and finally ending with a description of how to live a virtuous, honest life, such as he himself did.

When he finished, there was dead silence for a minute, then the smallest boy gave a deep sigh and said, “Alright Minister, I guess the dog is yours."

Sensational Steve Circus

Yesterday saw live coverage of the memorial service for Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. I always saw him as a fairly ordinary bloke who liked animals and had a good way in front of a TV camera, but boy, did I undersell him. Apparently, he was a Saint who never did anything wrong in his whole life, an Aussie Legend and he Changed Our World. The Prime Minister opened the circus proceedings, and the Show went on… and on… and on. If I ever hear John Williamson singing 'Hey True Blue' again I'll vomit, but hear it I will, because it's fairly obvious the ageing, long out-of-stardom Williamson is hoping that the exposure will make him popular again, as well as making his song standard fare at all future funerals. Brave little Bindi, reading a speech about her Dad, and vowing to continue his work, brought a tear to everyone's eye. And that moving climax, one man slowly loading Steve's ute with all his camping gear, while all the other zoo workers formed an avenue of honour, then his ute disappearing out of the arena… The psychologists after the Show, counselling all of us on how to deal with the trauma our kids will be feeling, without once mentioning the most obvious way - tell them he died and what death is.

I'm not criticising Steve. Quite frankly, I think he would agree 100% with me and stick the finger up at the whole thing. It was a media circus put on by morons for the benefit of total strangers with the emotional maturity of five year olds. Expect that sometime in the coming year 20th September will be officially declared 'Steve Irwin Day', and meanwhile, back at his grave, the earth will continue to be disturbed as Steve turns over in his grave… and over… and over.

Mini Movement

I ordered a Mac Mini from Apple's online store yesterday, the dual core Intel and Mac 1.8 gig model. I looked at all the Intel Mac options but it was the sheer size (or lack of it), and cheap price, of the Mini that won me over. For a guy who's losing his eyesight day by day, the main priority was to stick with the 21" monitor I use, which looks to me like a 12" would look to you. Sure I'd have liked one of those spanky new LCD-monitor included iMacs, but one the size I need would set me back a lot of money, compared to the Mini. And once you make the decision to stick with your existing monitor, suddenly all the other Intel Macs become a bit pointless.

On Apple's website, it said shipping in 24 hours. All day I tried to access my Order History only to have an error message pop up saying their ordering system was undergoing maintenance. Finally, today at lunchtime I see my order at last, and the shipping is - wait for it - 8 days until it ships, and I should have it around 4th October, 14 days from now. Now I don't mind a little exaggeration, but 14 days instead of 1 is pushing the limits a bit. So I rang Apple's freecall number to ask why. What I got, of course, was a guy who could barely speak English following a script written out in front of him, and my questions like "How come it takes 8 days to ship?" were answered "First you will receive an order confirmation via email, then a shipping email when Shanghai ships it…" It's not just that he didn't answer my questions that annoys me, but the fact that he probably couldn't even understand me at all.

Eventually I realised myself why the extra delay - because I 'customized' the Mac by ordering 1 gig of RAM instead of the standard 512 meg. If you order a heavily customised system, I can understand there will be a delay while someone assembles it, but adding one RAM chip isn't really in that league. Apart from the fact that it takes 2 minutes to do, it would be a pretty standard order, so why don't Apple have 512, 1 Gig and 2 Gig standard units already on the shelf?

I'm a little disappointed but then I usually am whenever I order directly from Apple. I've had Macs since 1984, a long series of them, and experience has always shown that they are best bought anywhere but from Apple directly. They have the best, most innovative products in the world, and lousy customer service. But then, is it Rotten Apples on their part, or Sour Grapes on mine?

Pope in the Poop

The Pope made a few comments in his speech last week which got Muslims upset. Frankly, I don't blame them. Whether he was quoting from an old text or not, his comments were very insensitive. Following that, the church issued an apology, if you can call it that. The 'apology' went along the lines of 'Well, if what the Pope said caused Muslims to take offense because of their own sensibilities...' This is an apology!? You tell someone he's a bastard, then you say to him, "Well I didn't offend you, but if you took offense because you're sensitive about it, whereas most people wouldn't be…" And how come the Pope apologised anyway? According to Catholic dogma, he's infallible.

Who farted!?

HOUSTON: International space station astronauts pulled an alarm and donned protective gear yesterday after smelling a foul odour that turned out to be a vapour leaking from an oxygen vent, NASA said. My question: If it was an oxygen vent, surely the vapour leaking out was oxygen? Oxygen doesn't really have a foul odour, in fact it's kind of sweet and tangy, and anyway, these guys surely being astronauts should be used to the smell of oxygen! I smell a conspiracy to cover the truth here... admit it, NASA, someone panicked after sucking on a tube of baked beans and you're trying to make the incident more palatable to the public!

Astronauts put on protective gear after odour noticed

Crocodile Tears… of Laughter

The question that we've all been asking, of course, is if Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was killed by a stingray not a crocodile, wouldn't there be a lot of really angry crocodiles out there now? There they are, waiting their turn and commisserating how their brothers have failed more missions than the CIA and FBI put together, then along comes this stupid flat fish that just casually flicks it's tail at him and wham! No more Steve! Candanian funny man Norm Macdonald sums it up beautifully:

Ron Barassi

If you've heard of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, or Michael Jordan, you've got some idea of what Australians think of Ron Barassi. Even though the news of the past week has all been about the crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin, and his media-circus televised funeral, Ron Barassi is never out of the news. Just look at a few of these search results from Google News:

Footy legend Ron Barassi … it's not every day Ron Barassi comes to town … Barassi was the legend … AFL legend Ron Barassi says … affair began when he saw Ron Barassi play … water-walking Ron Barassi … how much torture can a man take, wondered Ron Barassi … AFL legend Ron Barassi, a patron of Melbourne … I was there three weeks after Ron Barassi… Melburnian of the Year Ron Barassi … Ron Barassi revolutionised the game … identities nvolved in the station were Ron Barassi … October's Barassi Cup in Canberra … Carlton went on to win following Ron Barassi's half-time exhortation … action-packed 70th birthday year for Ron Barassi …

You get the idea. Australian football is just like American football, except you can understand the rules in the Australian version and Oz footy players don't chicken out by wearing body armor onto the field. And the fans are just as fanatical, and if there was ever a man who could be called "THE' legend of the game, it's Ron.

Now Australian footy grew up in Melbourne. In fact, for many years the Victorian Football League, or VFL, was the only place in the country you could see it played at anything like professional level. That was Ron's heyday. But time moves on, and other states began to field their own teams, then their teams began to actually be reasonably good. They've improved so much in fact that this year, none of the Victorian teams made it to the Finals. Ron Barassi wants an Official Inquiry into why. Well Ron, legend or not, I'm afraid I'm going to burst your bubble here and save the fans a lot of money here by telling you the answer before the Inquiry even starts. The fact is, they just weren't good enough! That's it, no need to look further. A series of round-robin games was held as usual, in a totally fair way, and all of the Victorian teams lost. You need to look down at your jumper, mate, and notice that it says AFL now not VFL. The League has been the Australian Football League for a while now, and it's inevitable that the number of Victorian teams will go down and that other states will win. Personally, I reckon it's pointless having teams for Fitzroy, Essendon and Carlton, for example, if none of the players in those teams are from those areas anyway! Get over it, Ron. I'd like to see every single Victorian team retired and replaced by a single Victorian team. Maybe then, with the best players from all those useless little clubs, you might have a chance of making the Finals again.

Ron Barassi Website

The Stupidest Species

I take back what I said a few days ago about cows being dumb. I take back everything I ever said that implied that humans had intelligence. I saw this video on YouTube today and thought, straight away, "what could I possibly say on my blog today that said it better than this video?" So here 'tis. Oh, and before the author of the video gets too self-righteous, he needs to ask himself, "how can someone know how to edit videos together and not be able to spell the most basic words in the dictionary?" It's 'graze', you fool.



If 'survival of the fittest' is any rule, then the guy rollerblading from the second story of a house must already be dead. Somehow I don't find any sadness in my heart or sympathy for his relatives, though. If you raised one of the people featured, you need to be asking yourself, "was my whole life just a waste of the planet's limited oxygen supply?"

2+2=5

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…"

I'm confused. For most of my life I was taught that calling someone a Nigger was a bad thing. But nowadays it's quite ok to call someone a Nigger, as long as you're black. White people, no, black people, yes. That's called "equality" apparently. As in, both sides have the same rules. Apparently. The opposite applies too, of course - it's quite ok for a white person to call another white a Honky, but not for a black person to call a white Honky. Yes? No. I'm really confused. Many years ago Australia had a policy which kept people out of the country if they couldn't speak English. It was ruled by the courts to be illegal and racist. And just a few weeks ago, our government complained no-one learned Australian history any more, and most of Oz couldn't pass a history test. Today the Prime Minister announced that immigrants to Australia will soon have to be able to speak English and pass an Australian history exam. I'm very confused. Kids these days apparently spend all their time indoor playing video games and never venture outside into the real world or talk to other people. They also hang about on the streets causing trouble, or sit on their front verandah lazily doing nothing, or meet down by the river or in the park to crack onto each other. I can't quite work out where they would have to be, to be in the right place doing the right thing. I'm totally confused. This week an Australian court ruled that a white woman calling an aboriginal woman an Abo was racial vilification, but the reason, because the aboriginal woman called her a white slut, wasn't racial vilification. I'm completely and utterly confused by this whole idea of what is equal and what isn't. All while I was growing up it never occurred to me that women were any different to men, except for the obvious physical reasons. Now I found our society treats women badly in almost every regard. No-one I know does, but apparently it's common for women and men not to be treated as equals. The Australian government lists 29 departments devoted to women, but not a single one for men. It's ok to run TV campaigns saying "To violence against women, Australia says 'No'", but I have to think that the very fact that women are singled out in the advert is wrong. Why not, "To relationship violence…" or "To violence in general…"? I really can't get a hold of what this word, "equal", is supposed to mean. From empirical evidence, it seems it means "two sets of rules, each applying in a different way to a different set of people". I'm utterly confused, but then, can you blame me?

Cannibalism? Hogwash!

Well I have to say I'm disappointed that the Indonesian authorities didn't jail the Today Tonight crew (see yesterday's "Justice for All" post); instead, they evicted them from the country after they admitted they were there to work not as tourists. And what was this so-important story they were there to film? Oh, Naomi! Oh, TT crew! Where is your research department, and what are they paid for!? The crew were there, ladies and gentlemen, "to save a Papuan orphan from being eaten by his cannibal tribe". Sixty Minutes did a story on the poor orphan boy four months ago but decided it was "too costly" to rescue him, so the TT team went in like Wonder Woman and the Stooges to do what Nine Network wouldn't do. And to top it all off, Seven are saying that Robson and her crew were dobbed in to the Indonesians and flew straight into an ambush set up by rival network Nine!

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Research by a good many historians and anthropologists has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only aren't there any cannibal tribes, there almost certainly never were! Cannibalism is the jungle equivalent of urban myth. No researcher has ever been able to find an actual person who ate someone, it's always "in the old days" or "the tribe over the hill". And it's not hard to see why the legends would have been made up in the first place, either. A vulnerable village or tribe who told every visitor they were cannibals, or lived next door to cannibals, would have been left well alone by raiders. And telling the kids to be back at the hut by dark in case the cannibals got him would have obtained unquestioning obedience.

This isn't conjecture. A simple web search on the truth about cannibalism would have told the intrepid idiots from TT that. But then, I guess current affairs isn't about telling the truth, it's about making the truth. What wasn't even an issue today becomes tomorrow's story, if told in the right way, and that of course makes it next week's paycheck. But come on, Today Tonight and Sixty Minutes, try reporting the real news for a change, you might discover someone is interested in that, too!

The Straight Dope - Is there such a thing as cannibalism?
Courier Mail - Robson Frogmarched Home
The Australian - Robson Set Up by Nine
NineMSN News - Rivals Fight Over Cannibal Myth

Justice for All

Australia's current affairs programs, notably Today Tonight and A Current Affair, are the first to jump on anyone who bends the law for their own gain. We're presented with an endless procession of shonky taxi drivers taking the elderly for a ride financially, young people rioting, and con-men in every trade. How ironic, then, that the Today Tonight crew, along with host Naomi Robson, have been detained in indonesia for illegally trying to enter the country on tourist visas when they were, in fact, there to work. If this were someone from Indonesia who tried to come into Australia, pretending he was a tourist but actually here for a job, the Today Tonight team would have a field day "naming and shaming" him, one of their favourite tactics. Not to mention, of course, they would be pushing the highest court in the land, the Court of Public Opinion, where the solicitors are The Media, for a full conviction, fines, jail, and deportation. Quite frankly, the hypocrisy of this Indonesian event astounds me. I urge the Indonesian authorities not to go easy on them, but to prosecute to the full extent of the law. Fines will be paid by their Network and won't mean a thing. If there is any provision for a jail term for illegal entry into Indonesia, I urge the Indonesian authorities to use it.

We have had The Media lambast the Indonesian authorities for some time here in Australia. In every case where an Australian druggie is apprehended trying to smuggle drugs into or out of Indonesia, we have a picture painted by our media of inept, bumbling keystone cops and a third-rate backwater who wouldn't know what real justice is; a picture of children playing pretend grown-up games who really could never understand what real grown-up governments do. Attempts are made to move the criminals to Australian jails, presumably because they can't expect humane treatment, justice and so forth over there. It's a pathetic attitude, and it's utterly racist, the old white-superiority showing up again. I think it's time the Indonesian authorities hit back and made Australians realise they have as much right to enforce their sovereign laws in their territory as we have in ours, and that whether we have the same justice system or not, we should keep our noses inside our own country and not try to tell people outside it's borders what to do. Send Naomi and the Today Tonight team to jail - they did the crime, now make them do the time.

Nine MSN News - Today Tonight crew face deportation

Dumb & Dumber

Looking through the News today, I was torn between two stories both begging comment.

Firstly, there was the British tourist up in the Northern Territory who has managed to get lost twice in a week, which has cost the taxpayers of Australia a great deal of money and man-hours searching for him. I'd like to be generous toward him and say something like, "These things can happen", but somehow I just can't bring myself to do it. What I will say, instead, is that the man is an idiot! A bit harsh, I know, but look, Fundamental Rule Number One of bushwalking says "Don't do it alone". Not to mention, be prepared, have the right equipment, have a good map, take plenty of food and water, etc, etc. It seems that this moron has failed in every single important respect, in an area of the world where even locals die of exposure from the slightest mistake. That he was found the first time within shouting distance of town, and didn't even know it, is pathetic. Let alone the fact that the second time, police rang him on his cell phone after his hotel reported he was missing again, and he acknowledged he'd been lost for 4 days. So why hadn't he used his phone to call for help? One day without water in that desert means it'll be your last one. Perhaps he was just too embarrassed, but the expression "dying of embarrassment" isn't meant to be taken literally.

Outback Tourist Rescued Twice in a Week

Secondly, one of the cows of the Heazlewood's, Latrobe, Tasmania, is to be given an artificial leg. Apparently, she (the heifer) was "very brave after the accident" and seemed to be "asking us to do something to help her… she also does seem to miss the leg and often acts as if she has a phantom leg there." Reality check, people. "She misses the leg?" No, she's just a dumb animal who doesn't know it's even gone. She has no capacity for rational thought at all. While dedicated animal husbandry is a Good Thing, you're obviously going a bit far. Cows don't talk, and can't ask you anything; they aren't brave, stupid, dynamic or morose, and they don't have immortal souls. Ascribing human emotions and actions to animals is, in my opinion, the first sign of madness. Don't get me wrong, I'm an animal lover and have pets of my own. I even have cows. It brings me joy and peace to feed and protect them, but their response is only instinct. If one is injured, I with great sadness have the vet put it down, because that's the humane thing to do. Your 'animal lover' status is a total pretense, because if you had one ounce of love toward the animal, you'd know it was cruel to keep it alive in the state it's in, let alone strap a false leg to it, all for your own financial benefit because you don't want to lose a good breeder.

The Australian - Theresa's no longer out on a limb

Berkeley Systems?

You remember Berkeley Systems, don't you? They made After Dark, the first wildly popular commercial screensaver. AD was created in a time before Windows 95 made screensavers truly integrated, and it was created with flair. Who could forget the Flying Toasters? Lawnmower Man? The Simpsons version of AD?

Apparently, everyone. AD fell by the wayside as Berkeley hit it big with a little Jellyvision program you might've heard of called You Don't Know Jack. Jack turned out to be the future of the company, and as the 123 different versions of Jack can attest to, it's been profitable. Oddly enough, Jack was similar to AD in that it was a bit of a prelude to what was coming down the pipe: online gaming.

Berkeley's embraced that, too; the game network Bezerk was one of the first commercially successful net gaming sites. But they outsourced that to won.net last year. So what's left at Berkeley? Not much. While you can still buy AD, why? It doesn't work on Win 2000 or Mac OS 9, let alone modern systems, and as their FAQ points out, upgrading software is cost prohibitive. There are dozens of free screensavers out there. And you can still get Jack, but who doesn't have it already?

The interesting part of the whole story is that Berkeley was bought out by Sierra - formerly Sierra On-Line - which also used to be a highly profitable company. Now, Sierra is but a shell of its former self because it didn't keep up with the times. Berkeley, whether under the Sierra umbrella or not, succumbed to the same fate.

9/11 Five Years On

Well, it's 9/11, the anniversary of the World Trade Center attack. At least, it is here in Australia, which is 18 hours ahead of the US. And although the Towers get all the publicity, let's not forget that there were other targets that got hit too. Even the White House was apparently going to be a target for a fifth plane. Like most of the western world, I watched the aftermath on tv and cried as I watched. Even now, as I type this sentence, the memory of those people jumping to their doom, all hope gone, brings tears to my eyes. The 9/11 events were possibly the saddest most of us will ever see in our lives.

I have a couple of acquaintances that are conspiracy nuts, and every single thing that ever happens is a high-up conspiracy by someone, apparently. I firmly believe the truth stands on it's own, so I looked into all the 9/11 conspiracy stories so that I could intelligently argue against them - or agree with them, if the evidence suggested they were actually right. And everything I've read suggests that my initial reaction, that they were nuts, was correct.

Still, 5 years on, there are still a lot of questions that haven't been answered about 9/11. Chief among them is the basic question: "Why did the US go to war against Iraq in response to a terrorist attack by Afghanistan?" Could it have something to do with the fact that, by best estimates, the world has roughly 15 years of oil left, and Iraq has 65% of the world's remaining reserve? And why are the allies still in Iraq? Weren't we assured at the time that it was a quick in-out to stabilize the situation, and that the allies weren't going to become a long-term occupying force? What about all the financial links that Michael Moore made in Fahrenheit 9/11 between the Bush family and Saudi high finance? Sure Moore was as biased as biased can be, knew all the answers to his questions before he asked them and only made the documentary to show his own point of view - but then, that's what every documentary does.

Perhaps the most basic question we need to ask about 9/11 is this: Why, of all targets the terrorists could have chosen, was the US singled out as a target, and why did they hit at the heart of finance? What is it about the US that turns ordinary men into psychopaths who are willing to kill themselves and others to make a point? What can we do, as a tiny, fragile world, to make ourselves better, to bring peace to the world so that no man feels this sort of thing is acceptable?

Sadly, despite the predictions of many, many years of science fiction, I think we're still thousands of years away from that capacity, if it ever happens at all. And that's the saddest thought of all.

New Blog

Many famous Christian books are also, unfortunately, hard to read because they use old, archaic English. One that almost every Christian has a copy of is CH Spurgeon's "Morning & Evening", a twice-daily devotional. I've created a new blog (this one will still continue to operate) in which I will attempt, day by day, to translate "Morning & Evening" into modern language. Whether you're a Christian or not, the lessons in "Morning & Evening" are well worth learning. I admit I'm no Spurgeon, and I hope that in trying to make the book accessible to modern audiences I'm not making him turn over in his grave. I trust I'll stick to the original essence of the lessons as much as possible, and certainly ask that people who feel I've failed or changed the meaning, tell me so. You can also find on the same blog links to an online version of the American Standard version of the Bible, as well as a FREE complete audio version of the Bible in MP3 format (not computer-read, and with music and dramatisation). Whatever your leanings toward Christianity, I urge you to check out my other blog and maybe learn a little more about life while you're there.

morningevening.blogspot.com