Sugarfused

		Friday, November 29, 2002

Public release of the Rendlesham File

Britain to Publish Files on UFO Sightings
Thu November 28, 2002 10:59 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - The British government will publish files on reported UFO sightings as part of a shake-up of its laws on freedom of information.

Among the documents to be published is the "Rendlesham File," which deals with one of the country's best known sightings of an unidentified flying object.

Until now, only about 20 members of the public have seen the file, which relates to a sighting in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, eastern England, in 1980.

According to some UFO enthusiasts, eyewitnesses including U.S. officers at a nearby military base saw a brilliantly lit spaceship land in the forest on two consecutive nights.

Skeptics say the witnesses were fooled by the beam from a lighthouse on the nearby coast.

The Rendlesham file has been available to the public for some time but only at the discretion of the Ministry of Defense.

Now, the government says it will publish it on the Internet before the end of this week, along with other files on reported UFO sightings.

"These first steps mark important progress toward changing the culture of government and extending the public's right to know what is being done in their name," Freedom of Information Minister Yvette Cooper said in a statement.

The government says it intends to repeal or amend up to 100 pieces of legislation which currently prohibit disclosure of information. It aims to replace them with provisions of a new Freedom of Information Act, passed in 2000.

UPDATE 12/03/02:

The Rendlesham File online at The Smoking Gun.

1:16:12 PM

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."
-Julius Caesar

12:48:01 PM

Most Famous Erotic Novel

"Fanny Hill" wins this one hands down. Henry Cleland's "Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" was first published in London in 1749. The author sold it fortwenty guineas to a bookseller, who is said to have made £10,000 from it. The bookwas quickly translated into several European languages. The style of the book is simple and artless, and "obscene" words are avoided by means of circumlocution and euphemism. The theme is straightforward to the point of cliche: a young innocent girl journeys to the big city and finds herself in a brothel, whereupon she quickly falls in love with one of the clients. The book ends with a happy marriage. "Fanny Hill" has been represented as the first truly erotic novel, and as providing useful insights into brothel-life in eighteenth-century London. Like all similar famous books of the genre, it has been prosecuted and praised.

You can find hundreds more of these fascinating sexual records for such things as the most famous ancient nude sculpture and the oldest sex manual at World Sex Records. For the curious....

12:42:09 PM

Butterflies Aren't Free

Have a wedding coming up? Birthday? Anniversary? The perfect gift - live butterflies!

12:28:10 PM