After spending nearly a year during my MSc discovering the vileness and disastrous medical consequences of leaded petrol, after writing a 80+ pages thesis (I checked: 86 pages) in which I detailed not only my (most likely flawed) experiments and dabblings with human steroids, but also the detective work of Clair Patterson (link to a lengthy but absolutely beautiful interview with Patterson), who not only established the definite estimate on the age of the earth, but also battled his way to unearth the detrimental effects of toxic levels of lead on the human body.

And then this.

Tomorrow I'll visit a mine shaft so I drove the university car (monstrous cars which make me feel abjectly stupid to drive around by myself) to the petrol station on campus. I ask the bubba what's he pouring into my car so I'll remember the next time.

Leaded petrol.

Knowing that there is a lead-replacement petrol sold by most petrol stations in SA, I queried carefully if it was, indeed, the lead-replacement petrol.

No.

Leaded petrol.

In the heart of Johannesburg academia. Driven by geologists. Who boast how cheap the petrol is on campus.

Insane.

And the worst part: I have to drive the car tomorrow, since I can't just cancel my appointments and there is no alternative transport.

This is eating me alive.

Ah but the more impressive the box, the better the god, I'm sure you can apreciate that.

My profit comes from providing your god with a healthy, happy environment from which to move in mysterious ways.

And Mr afew, I did understand what you meant, but O'Neill is who I meant. I'd love the money, but not the responsiblity. Besides which, "The Manageress" was fiction and I'm not Gabriella benson (cherie Lunghi).


keep to the Fen Causeway

Though I think (hope, for your sake) I've exhausted my OMON/Other Russia billy club party rant...

Thanksgiving... sucked.  SUCKED.  So glad that is over.

Did no shopping the day after.  Did shopping the day after the day after, but only for cards (I know, horrid for the environment, but I can't not send cards.  It's in my genes.  My strange mother would ... yes!  it's true! dress us children up as ELVES each winter and send us around town to hand-deliver Christmas cards.  We loved it and only realized later that we were pawns in her perverse war on basic human dignity.  Anyway, did Christmas cards.  Realized that I don't have your address.  Whoever you are.  If you are reading this, I probably don't know how to send you a card.

Also, bought The Portable Atheist, in some ill-fated attempt to make up for joy of participating in religious holiday or something.

Watched: "Z" and "Quills" ... both pretty brilliant.  

Saw: a very very cute guy locking up shop near Christmas card store, who smiled at me as I passed, but I was all like, whatever.  Then ... yes! it's true! he drove off in a black sportscar with the license plates "RASPUTIN."  Unbelievable.  Must locate Mr. Rasputin...  Only 3 million people in this city.  Should be easy enough...  Right?

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

(I like Blixa's guitar in the background...that particular sound as it rises...)

Einstürzende Neubauten - Stella Maris

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

Mon 26 Nov 2007, 14:38 GMT
The London-based consultancy said oil shipments from 11 OPEC members, including Iraq, averaged 22.48 million bpd on a moving average basis to Nov. 11, down from 22.82 million bpd for 15-28 October loading.

and:

Energy and Oil | Africa - Reuters.com  -  Oil falls on prospect of OPEC supply increase

Mon 26 Nov 2007, 18:24 GMT
Oil fell on Monday on expectations OPEC may increase output to help stem a record rally that has sent prices near $100 a barrel.

I'm next to ignorant about economics, but reading this two articles with only a few hours between them makes my head explode....crying out loud your expectations does more to pricing than the actual output?
Off to my butterflys again.

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

I Want a Referendum campaigners have been across the country, launching local versions of the campaign to keep the pressure on MPs in their constituencies, and persuading people of the need for a referendum on the revived EU Constitution. Together with the giant inflatable ballot box - symbolising the wishes of the majority of voters who want to have a say on Europe's future - IWR has been to Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol and Exeter.

"I Want a Referendum" is a new cross party campaign for a vote on the EU's Constitutional Treaty.

We aim to press the Government to keep its promise to hold a referendum on the revived Constitutional Treaty.

In the coming months we will be building a broad-based campaign, and making the case for a referendum in every area.

We took a lot of crap for it, you understand. Back in those days, a woman who wore trousers had to listen to some jerk say, "Why don't you dress like a woman?" with some frequency. It was always a surprise, though, because it didn't make any sense. "Drag queens have to dress like a woman," I would say. "I am a woman, I don't have to imitate one. What I'm wearing is what a woman wears."

It works on the assumption that three minutes on a Web site generates three grams of CO2 - roughly equal to the amount one person generates by breathing for 4.5 minutes.

But I think the fact that there is in Moscow a "Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES)" takes the cake!

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

R.I.L.K.O.

RESEARCH INTO LOST KNOWLEDGE ORGANISATION

PUBLIC LECTURES  

2007 - 2008

Held at the Theosophical Society Headquarters
50 Gloucester Place, London W1U 8EA
Nearest Underground Stations: Baker Street & Bond Street
Doors open at 6.45pm  (Except on 25th April 2008: 6.30pm)
The RILKO bookstall will be open & drinks available during these periods
£7 (members £5)

THIS FRIDAY

Friday 30th November 2007

THE AUTHENTIC TAROT

Thomas Saunders

This lecture will challenge the popular view of the Tarot cards as a device for fortune telling and set out their true purpose, which is to provide wisdom, guidance and insight into our path through life.

The Tarot deck tells an allegorical story of our quest in life, using a symbolic language of archetypal pictograms and numbers. In its truest form, the Tarot is an ancient tool for self-development and self-realisation.

Saunders will decode what may be the oldest known complete deck of cards - the Ancien Tarot de Marseille - which retains the greatest integrity for their original function and explain the symbolism of the individual cards and their relationships with the other cards.

He will also suggest how the wisdom of the Tarot can help us to self-awareness and the next step forward in our quest, and how the Tarot can be used as an ethical guide for political and business leaders.

Thomas Saunders  is a Tarot reader of many years standing and in the 1980s and 90s was the Tarot reader for LBC Radio and Marie Claire magazine. He is an international consultant architect, a practising dowser and a member of the National Federation of Spiritual Healers.

He lectures and leads seminars in the UK and the US on the Tarot and is the author of The Boiled Frog Syndrome: Your Health and the Built Environment (2002) and The Authentic Tarot (2007).  www.authentictarot.com

I won't be there, but I have foreseen what Mr Saunders will say.....

Modern conservatives engage in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.Galbraith

Undercover restorers fix Paris landmark's clock | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Undercover restorers fix Paris landmark's clock

'Cultural guerrillas' cleared of lawbreaking over secret workshop in Pantheon

FT.com | Willem Buiter's Maverecon

Monday, November 26, 2007 Isn't it time for Britain to join the EU?

Denmark grows up

Denmark is likely to hold a referendum on its relationship with the European Union.  The referendum proposed by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, its newly re-elected prime minister, is not a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty (aka Constitution-lite), although it is possible that Denmark will also hold a separate referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. Instead, the Referendum proposed by Rasmussen concerns the four opt-outs Denmark negotiated as part of the Maastricht Treaty.  The four opt-outs concern Denmark's participation in  (1) the common currency (full EMU membership); (2) EU defence policy; (3) EU cooperation on justice and home affairs and (4) EU citizenship.

NEW YORK - Oil prices edged up Monday after briefly surpassing $99 a barrel on signs of colder weather in the United States and Europe and worries about weakness of the U.S. dollar.

The Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday marked the unofficial start of winter in the United States.

Service members seriously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan after they received a $10,000 bonus for enlisting are being asked by the Pentagon to repay portions of the incentive money, says a U.S. senator who calls the practice an example of military policy gone wrong.

(...)

"Asking wounded service members to repay part of their enlistment bonuses is an outrage," IAVA Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff said in an e-mailed statement.

"Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is pleased to work with Congress to put an end to this unfair practice," Rieckhoff said. "These injured heroes have made enormous sacrifices for our country and they deserve to be treated with the utmost honor and gratitude."

(...)

Because the FED's assets earn interest while the liabilities do not, the Fed makes billions every year. Although it returns most of its earnings to the federal government, the Fed does spend some of it on "worthy causes", such as supporting economic research.

I mean, ok. Worthy causes. Like, saving the world, making it go round kind of causes?

Rien n'est gratuit en ce bas monde. Tout s'expie, le bien comme le mal, se paie tot ou tard. Le bien c'est beaucoup plus cher, forcement. Celine

Strangely enough we can see the Scottish Sun headquarters outside Linlithgow from our windows here at the Grange..

A "single sign on" for Norwegians by 2009 apparently: I'm not convinced that is a good thing, but what do I know....

Modern conservatives engage in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.Galbraith

Stocks tumbled on Monday as investors worried rising mortgage defaults and credit market losses will drag on the economy, fueling fears that consumers will slash spending during the vital holiday season.

The decline, led once again by big drops in financial services stocks, erased year-to-date gains for the benchmark S&P 500 index.

So far this month, the S&P 500 has fallen 9.2 percent, putting Wall Street on the verge of its worst one-month slump in five years. On a points basis, the Dow is less than 200 points away from its worst monthly slide ever.

A hoard of dinosaur bones has been discovered at the site of a planned desalination plant meant to deliver Australia's second biggest city from drought, forcing a re-think of the A$3 billion ($2.7 billion) project.

The fossilised bones, estimated to be 115 million years old and belonging to dinosaurs and ancient marine reptiles, were found on a windswept beach in front of the planned project at Powlett River, southeast of Melbourne.

The keepers of Japan's biggest lake have called on the public to join in one final push to eat the bluegill fish - possibly the most reviled creature in Japan - into extinction before it does the same to threatened native species.

The bluegill's steady destruction of indigenous freshwater fish, almost 50 years after it was touted as a vital source of protein for an undernourished population, is being treated as an ecological emergency and has provoked a rare public show of contrition from Emperor Akihito. As crown prince, Akihito received bluegill as a gift from the then mayor of Chicago, Richard J Daley, during a visit to the US in 1960.

(...)

Two Republican senators said Monday that unless Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki makes more political progress by January, the U.S. should consider pulling political or financial support for his government.

The stern warnings, coming from Sens. Lindsey Graham and Saxby Chambliss, are an indication that while GOP patience on the war has greatly increased this fall because of security gains made by the military, it isn't bottomless.

"I do expect them to deliver," Graham, R-S.C., said in a phone interview upon returning from a Thanksgiving trip to Iraq. "What would happen for me if there's no progress on reconciliation after the first of the year, I would be looking at ways to invest our money into groups that can deliver."

(...)

1. quid pro quo = Airbus order, plus French contract to construct two nuclear plants?
   
2. impact on relatively low-labor-cost (central and eastern European) members of EU?
   
3. part of the slow shift toward abandoning U.S. dollar base?