Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Dear gnome supporters, i sent this email just tonight, 11/25/03. If there be any sympathetic souls in the fair country of America, I implore you yo do what you can to help.
Dear SPRKTHDVL,
Is that a Gnomish name? Be that as it may, our reason for contacting you is that ex-Parish Councillor Julius Blaah is planning an Ideal Gnome Exhibition in Wymsey. This will not go down well with citizens who are famously anti gnomic after the Millennium Gnome debacle.
As a newly independent state, albeit surrounded by the English, we wish avoid the shedding of gnomic blood. At the moment Julius Blaah has been detained under the North & South Disease Regulations after a packet of Spangles were found in his jacket pocket when re-entering Wymsey from England.
The State Council wonder if you would be in a positon to rescue any gnomes that found their way into Wymsey. We will assume that you can as that is what you do and annouce the fact in the up-coming edition of the Wymsey Chronicle. This may well help prevent the shedding of blood as most citizens are at bottom lazy.
Yours,
Mel.
All governmental enquiries should be directed to diplomat@wymsey.co.uk
_Send all donations to:
Mel the Elf
General Delivery
Dudleyville, Alabama
________________________________
NoNomesNohow - the party that performs
Dear SPRKTHDVL,
Is that a Gnomish name? Be that as it may, our reason for contacting you is that ex-Parish Councillor Julius Blaah is planning an Ideal Gnome Exhibition in Wymsey. This will not go down well with citizens who are famously anti gnomic after the Millennium Gnome debacle.
As a newly independent state, albeit surrounded by the English, we wish avoid the shedding of gnomic blood. At the moment Julius Blaah has been detained under the North & South Disease Regulations after a packet of Spangles were found in his jacket pocket when re-entering Wymsey from England.
The State Council wonder if you would be in a positon to rescue any gnomes that found their way into Wymsey. We will assume that you can as that is what you do and annouce the fact in the up-coming edition of the Wymsey Chronicle. This may well help prevent the shedding of blood as most citizens are at bottom lazy.
Yours,
Mel.
All governmental enquiries should be directed to diplomat@wymsey.co.uk
_Send all donations to:
Mel the Elf
General Delivery
Dudleyville, Alabama
________________________________
NoNomesNohow - the party that performs
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Garden Gnome Liberation Front strikes Paris show
November 13, 2003
Web posted at: 8:25 a.m. EDT (1225 GMT)
PARIS -- The dormant Garden Gnome Liberation Front has sprung back to life, stealing about 20 gnomes during a nighttime raid on a Paris exhibition.
"We demand ... that garden gnomes are no longer ridiculed and that they be released into their natural habitat," the Front's Paris wing said in a statement following its weekend strike.
France's first garden gnome exhibition in the exclusive Bagatelle park on the outskirts of the capital opened last month and has been a hit with the public as chic Parisians develop a taste for kitsch culture.
The Garden Gnome Liberation Front vanished from the public eye in 1997 after a northern French court handed its ringleader a suspended prison sentence and fined him for his part in the disappearance of around 150 gnomes.
The only suspected sighting of the organization since then was a mass suicide of gnomes at Briey in eastern France in September 1998, when 11 of them were found dangling by their necks under a bridge.
A letter found nearby said: "When you read these few words we will no longer be part of your selfish world, where we serve merely as pretty decoration."
Now, the sight of 2,000 of the gaudy, colorful creatures dotted around the Bagatelle gardens has clearly proved too big a temptation for the group to avoid.
The supposed leader of the Garden Gnome Liberation Front is someone named Mel.
Not much is known about this individual except that he is very short.
It warned that it would strike again unless the show was closed and all the gnomes released.
Organizers told the daily Le Parisien that they had no intention of bowing to the Front's demands.
the front has recently been suspected of hacking into Web blogs.
Reuters
November 13, 2003
Web posted at: 8:25 a.m. EDT (1225 GMT)
PARIS -- The dormant Garden Gnome Liberation Front has sprung back to life, stealing about 20 gnomes during a nighttime raid on a Paris exhibition.
"We demand ... that garden gnomes are no longer ridiculed and that they be released into their natural habitat," the Front's Paris wing said in a statement following its weekend strike.
France's first garden gnome exhibition in the exclusive Bagatelle park on the outskirts of the capital opened last month and has been a hit with the public as chic Parisians develop a taste for kitsch culture.
The Garden Gnome Liberation Front vanished from the public eye in 1997 after a northern French court handed its ringleader a suspended prison sentence and fined him for his part in the disappearance of around 150 gnomes.
The only suspected sighting of the organization since then was a mass suicide of gnomes at Briey in eastern France in September 1998, when 11 of them were found dangling by their necks under a bridge.
A letter found nearby said: "When you read these few words we will no longer be part of your selfish world, where we serve merely as pretty decoration."
Now, the sight of 2,000 of the gaudy, colorful creatures dotted around the Bagatelle gardens has clearly proved too big a temptation for the group to avoid.
The supposed leader of the Garden Gnome Liberation Front is someone named Mel.
Not much is known about this individual except that he is very short.
It warned that it would strike again unless the show was closed and all the gnomes released.
Organizers told the daily Le Parisien that they had no intention of bowing to the Front's demands.
the front has recently been suspected of hacking into Web blogs.
Reuters
Monday, November 24, 2003
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Stop Oppressive Gardening
I've taken over!!!!
MEL the ELF rules!!!
I have found a cause that Anna and the Horse with no name can buy into.
Any contributions can be sent to me, so that I can help these poor innocent Gnomes.
Send all donations to:
Mel the Elf
General Delivery
Dudleyville, Alabama
Click here to help the cause Stop Oppressive Gardening
/8^)=]=<. Mel
I have found a cause that Anna and the Horse with no name can buy into.
Any contributions can be sent to me, so that I can help these poor innocent Gnomes.
Mel the Elf
General Delivery
Dudleyville, Alabama
Click here to help the cause Stop Oppressive Gardening
/8^)=]=<. Mel
: "Worshipping JFK
40 years later.
By: Bill Buckley
I was asked by a television network to comment on the career of President Kennedy. I agreed to do so and do not know how many other views were solicited, or when the program was aired. I have to assume that it went out because the fortieth anniversary of the assassination seemed to wipe out all unrelated television fare with the exception of Michael Jackson, who got if not equal time, very nearly that. Curiosity just goes on and on about Mr. Kennedy, and I subscribe to it, having recorded (but not yet seen) the two-hour show presided over by Peter Jennings at which we shall have one more chapter of Grassy Knoll. The advertisements promise a computer recreation of the assassination. I think it's about as clearly established that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy as that John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln, but seeing it all again, you can use up a little agnostic curiosity on that morbid episode, draining it for a year or two. It is always exciting to read about the assassination of Julius Caesar, particularly when the tale is told by the greatest tale-teller in dramatic literature, never mind that we know that Brutus did it. It goes that way, also, for JFK.
But the question I was asked didn't have to do with who killed JFK, but with what was his legacy. It was, said I, entirely personal. Nothing that Mr. Kennedy did in the way of public policy was either singular or enduring in effect. In foreign policy, he lost out on Berlin, presiding over the death of the Four Power Agreement over that city. He did not consummate his war against Castro at any level. At the military level, he failed in the Bay of Pigs. At the dirty-dog level, he failed in four or five attempts to assassinate Castro; failed with toxic cigars, impregnated wetsuits, and poison pills. At the diplomatic level, we focus more appropriately on the arrival of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba than on their withdrawal. It is acknowledged by everyone that we very nearly had a nuclear exchange in October, 1962, and historical adjudications correctly deal rather with the fact of the missiles being deployed there, than of the fact that they were finally shooed away.
It is pointed out, even by the school of political thought least anxious to associate itself with low taxes, that JFK called for tax reduction — which he did, though it was left to Lyndon Johnson to consummate the proposal. Civil Rights is adduced, and it is true that Mr. Kennedy came eloquently to the cause — after hearing Martin Luther King give his great speech, and weighing the implications of it. He arrived finally (sooner than I did) to the cause of equality under the law, but was a recruit to it, spurred by others. It was only in the summer of his last year that he turned to the subject of a Civil Rights Bill. In Vietnam, he engaged the Communist aggressors intending two things, the first, to abide by George Kennan's long-standing doctrine of Containment, the second, to challenge the evaluation of him by Khrushchev as a "pygmy." That was the character reading by Khrushchev, who proceeded, after their personal encounter in Vienna, to build the Berlin Wall, and to send missiles to Cuba. Maybe, if Kennedy had lived, he'd have reversed the course he took in Vietnam, adopted by his successor, Lyndon Johnson, who continued to press the doctrine of containment. But it is asking too much, at eulogy time, to compliment a dead man on the grounds that you feel certain he'd have proceeded, if he had lived, to undo what he did when alive. I can think of any number of reforms I would myself undertake, after I am dead.
What I said to the interviewer was that the legacy of John F. Kennedy is his sheer . . . beauty. I have visited yurts in Mongolia, adobe huts in Mexico, and rural redoubts in Turkey and seen framed pictures of John F. Kennedy. He was all-American, splendid to look at, his expression of confident joy in life and work transfiguring. Add to this that he was slaughtered, almost always a mythogenic act, and what we came to know about the awful physical afflictions he suffered, making his appearances as a whole, vigorous man, the equivalent of seeing FDR rise from his wheelchair and play touch football.
That is why JFK is worshipped, which word exactly describes the attitude we have toward him.
"
40 years later.
By: Bill Buckley
I was asked by a television network to comment on the career of President Kennedy. I agreed to do so and do not know how many other views were solicited, or when the program was aired. I have to assume that it went out because the fortieth anniversary of the assassination seemed to wipe out all unrelated television fare with the exception of Michael Jackson, who got if not equal time, very nearly that. Curiosity just goes on and on about Mr. Kennedy, and I subscribe to it, having recorded (but not yet seen) the two-hour show presided over by Peter Jennings at which we shall have one more chapter of Grassy Knoll. The advertisements promise a computer recreation of the assassination. I think it's about as clearly established that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy as that John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln, but seeing it all again, you can use up a little agnostic curiosity on that morbid episode, draining it for a year or two. It is always exciting to read about the assassination of Julius Caesar, particularly when the tale is told by the greatest tale-teller in dramatic literature, never mind that we know that Brutus did it. It goes that way, also, for JFK.
But the question I was asked didn't have to do with who killed JFK, but with what was his legacy. It was, said I, entirely personal. Nothing that Mr. Kennedy did in the way of public policy was either singular or enduring in effect. In foreign policy, he lost out on Berlin, presiding over the death of the Four Power Agreement over that city. He did not consummate his war against Castro at any level. At the military level, he failed in the Bay of Pigs. At the dirty-dog level, he failed in four or five attempts to assassinate Castro; failed with toxic cigars, impregnated wetsuits, and poison pills. At the diplomatic level, we focus more appropriately on the arrival of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba than on their withdrawal. It is acknowledged by everyone that we very nearly had a nuclear exchange in October, 1962, and historical adjudications correctly deal rather with the fact of the missiles being deployed there, than of the fact that they were finally shooed away.
It is pointed out, even by the school of political thought least anxious to associate itself with low taxes, that JFK called for tax reduction — which he did, though it was left to Lyndon Johnson to consummate the proposal. Civil Rights is adduced, and it is true that Mr. Kennedy came eloquently to the cause — after hearing Martin Luther King give his great speech, and weighing the implications of it. He arrived finally (sooner than I did) to the cause of equality under the law, but was a recruit to it, spurred by others. It was only in the summer of his last year that he turned to the subject of a Civil Rights Bill. In Vietnam, he engaged the Communist aggressors intending two things, the first, to abide by George Kennan's long-standing doctrine of Containment, the second, to challenge the evaluation of him by Khrushchev as a "pygmy." That was the character reading by Khrushchev, who proceeded, after their personal encounter in Vienna, to build the Berlin Wall, and to send missiles to Cuba. Maybe, if Kennedy had lived, he'd have reversed the course he took in Vietnam, adopted by his successor, Lyndon Johnson, who continued to press the doctrine of containment. But it is asking too much, at eulogy time, to compliment a dead man on the grounds that you feel certain he'd have proceeded, if he had lived, to undo what he did when alive. I can think of any number of reforms I would myself undertake, after I am dead.
What I said to the interviewer was that the legacy of John F. Kennedy is his sheer . . . beauty. I have visited yurts in Mongolia, adobe huts in Mexico, and rural redoubts in Turkey and seen framed pictures of John F. Kennedy. He was all-American, splendid to look at, his expression of confident joy in life and work transfiguring. Add to this that he was slaughtered, almost always a mythogenic act, and what we came to know about the awful physical afflictions he suffered, making his appearances as a whole, vigorous man, the equivalent of seeing FDR rise from his wheelchair and play touch football.
That is why JFK is worshipped, which word exactly describes the attitude we have toward him.
"
Monday, November 17, 2003
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
A Mother's Salute
My son laid down his life for freedom.
By Julie McPhillips
My son, Brian McPhillips, signed letters he addressed to me, "Love Always, Your Son." It is a great privilege to be Brian's mother — not simply because of his ultimate sacrifice for me, as his fellow American, but because from his first to his final hour, I shared in his gift of eternal love.
As his father, sister, and I wrapped him in our love for the last time, and laid him to rest, I prayed the whole world would grow silent for just a moment to hear his heart beat once more in this, the country he loved, protected and served so well — and in Iraq, where he laid down his life for freedom.
Truly "a man for others," Brian was born with a rare "fullness of life," a gift from his Creator, a gift into which he grew more and more of a man each passing year. It was a joy to watch his independent thinking emerge, to follow him as his new interests peaked, and to understand that his natural kindness toward others had the ability to change hearts and minds forever — to know that he died as he loved to live — as a leader of men.
We will all remember him as a regular boy, a watchful and caring older brother, who shared an extraordinary friendship with his father, and a deep and understanding love for me, for our family, our country, and for the world. We are all in awe of our young hero, not only for the courage that sealed his final hour, or for the four years he served in the U.S. Marine Corps, but for everything about him that culminated into the decision he made to serve America and our world.
Since the predawn hours of April 6, when the walls of our home reverberated with pounding on the door and the solemn pronouncement that our son had died in battle, so many broken hearts have passed our way. Grown men weep openly.
Well-wishers from near and far send their condolences, and we are most grateful.
But I am asking something more. To thank our son for freely giving his life, my response to those who ask what they can do for us is, "Please, in whatever way you can, take a lasting step closer to your God today. Please do this, so together we can go on to build a better world."
Making the ultimate sacrifice, Brian "laid down his life for his friends." A man of faith, he knew to Whom he should turn when life was difficult. We often talked about his role as "father" to his 111 men.
"Pray, Bri, when your men stand in formation before you. Pray for them." "I will, Mom."
When the terror of the battlefield entered my own heart and the agonizing weeks of waiting stretched on and on, I found comfort in knowing that Brian knew his Lord.
When I learned of his death, I was consoled by his true gift of love for all people.
In the days and weeks and months that are ahead — as we get used to our lives without Brian, I will pray that each one of you, who has let me share the "story" of just one of America's great heroes, will help us in our grief, by accepting the light of God's love from Brian's hand.
Hold it and pass it on. Please let Brian who died, and Jessica Lynch and all the rest who lived, know there are many with the courage to rescue our world with love, and make it new again.
To you my dear and faithful son, from earth to heaven I salute you, and may you stand forever in the brilliance and the glory of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
— Julie McPhillips, of Pembroke, Mass., is the mother of 1st Lt. Brian M. McPhillips (USMC), killed in Iraq on April 4. This appeared in April in the Providence Journal
My son laid down his life for freedom.
By Julie McPhillips
My son, Brian McPhillips, signed letters he addressed to me, "Love Always, Your Son." It is a great privilege to be Brian's mother — not simply because of his ultimate sacrifice for me, as his fellow American, but because from his first to his final hour, I shared in his gift of eternal love.
As his father, sister, and I wrapped him in our love for the last time, and laid him to rest, I prayed the whole world would grow silent for just a moment to hear his heart beat once more in this, the country he loved, protected and served so well — and in Iraq, where he laid down his life for freedom.
Truly "a man for others," Brian was born with a rare "fullness of life," a gift from his Creator, a gift into which he grew more and more of a man each passing year. It was a joy to watch his independent thinking emerge, to follow him as his new interests peaked, and to understand that his natural kindness toward others had the ability to change hearts and minds forever — to know that he died as he loved to live — as a leader of men.
We will all remember him as a regular boy, a watchful and caring older brother, who shared an extraordinary friendship with his father, and a deep and understanding love for me, for our family, our country, and for the world. We are all in awe of our young hero, not only for the courage that sealed his final hour, or for the four years he served in the U.S. Marine Corps, but for everything about him that culminated into the decision he made to serve America and our world.
Since the predawn hours of April 6, when the walls of our home reverberated with pounding on the door and the solemn pronouncement that our son had died in battle, so many broken hearts have passed our way. Grown men weep openly.
Well-wishers from near and far send their condolences, and we are most grateful.
But I am asking something more. To thank our son for freely giving his life, my response to those who ask what they can do for us is, "Please, in whatever way you can, take a lasting step closer to your God today. Please do this, so together we can go on to build a better world."
Making the ultimate sacrifice, Brian "laid down his life for his friends." A man of faith, he knew to Whom he should turn when life was difficult. We often talked about his role as "father" to his 111 men.
"Pray, Bri, when your men stand in formation before you. Pray for them." "I will, Mom."
When the terror of the battlefield entered my own heart and the agonizing weeks of waiting stretched on and on, I found comfort in knowing that Brian knew his Lord.
When I learned of his death, I was consoled by his true gift of love for all people.
In the days and weeks and months that are ahead — as we get used to our lives without Brian, I will pray that each one of you, who has let me share the "story" of just one of America's great heroes, will help us in our grief, by accepting the light of God's love from Brian's hand.
Hold it and pass it on. Please let Brian who died, and Jessica Lynch and all the rest who lived, know there are many with the courage to rescue our world with love, and make it new again.
To you my dear and faithful son, from earth to heaven I salute you, and may you stand forever in the brilliance and the glory of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
— Julie McPhillips, of Pembroke, Mass., is the mother of 1st Lt. Brian M. McPhillips (USMC), killed in Iraq on April 4. This appeared in April in the Providence Journal
Sunday, November 09, 2003
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
The David Kay report
by David Kay, c/o nonanarchist Saturday October 04, 2003 08:46 AM
In case you haven't read it, and, judging from comments, you haven't. Neither has the media.
We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN.
[...]
A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
* A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
* Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.
* New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
* Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
* A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
* Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
* Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
* Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.
by David Kay, c/o nonanarchist Saturday October 04, 2003 08:46 AM
In case you haven't read it, and, judging from comments, you haven't. Neither has the media.
We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN.
[...]
A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
* A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
* Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.
* New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
* Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
* A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
* Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
* Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
* Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.
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