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27 September 2003This was on the news very (obscenely) early this morning. I thought it was a wind up.
Feds snooping on Scotch distilleries for fear of chemical weapons conversions. US Intelligence is closely monitoring Scotch whisky distilleries on the off-chance that they will be converted to chemical weapons factories.
For it has been revealed that Ursula, a spy with the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency - "Our mission to safeguard the US and its allies from weapons of mass destruction" - has been monitoring the island distillery.Link (Thanks, Will!) [Boing Boing Blog]Apparently, it takes just a "tweak" - her words - in the process of making whisky and Bruichladdich could be churning out chemical weapons.
11:06:50 PM
PS-
If you want all the flavonoid goodness in tea, let it brew for > 1min.
11:01:08 PM
Row over student's Caucasian club
in Oakley, California
One thing she herself says she is not is a racist, as she defends her attempts to start a "Caucasian club" at her California high school.
"I think I am doing a great thing," she told BBC News Online in the garden of her home in Oakley, 50 miles east of San Francisco.
"I'm trying to break racial barriers.
"Without a Caucasian club things at school are kind of segregated and I think if we have a Caucasian club it will go along with the rest of the race clubs so the school might be a little bit more diverse."
The school is already home to the Black Student Union, the Asian Club and Latinos Unidos, an Hispanic club.
Pupils of all races can join any of the groups but Lisa says she does not fit in and believes her Caucasian club will help bridge the gap for many.
"I came home from school one day, the day we were signing up for clubs, and I didn't see any that really interested me.
"We were talking about how there are all these other racial clubs but there isn't a Caucasian club and me and my mom talked about it and how there would be nothing wrong with trying to get it started."
But ever since Lisa went public, she and the school have been in the spotlight. The school is already home to the Black Student Union, the Asian Club and Latinos Unidos, an Hispanic club.
Pupils of all races can join any of the groups but Lisa says she does not fit in and believes her Caucasian club will help bridge the gap for many.
..."
An interesting idea; to solve to the problem of segregation, with even more segregation. Whether or not anyone is allowed to join. Ah, marvellous. What an incentive. But I have a question- why call it the Caucasian club?
However, be that as it may, someone should perhaps point out the origin of the word 'Caucasian'. And the past and present politics of the region. Please.
"Caucasus phobia' is the most common ethnic prejudice to be found among Russians today. ....
The Northern Caucasus is also a very complex region in terms of its ethnic make-up. There are over 50 different ethnic groups living on what is a relatively small territory. These groups belong to two races (European and Mongoloid) and to three language families: North Caucasian, Altai, and Indo-European.
The way the different groups have spread throughout the Caucasus makes it extremely difficult to define what territory belongs to one group or another. Even the borders between republics in the Northern Caucasus (there are 8 republics, including Daghestan, which is home to around 30 ethnic groups) are somewhat arbitrary, which often leads to territorial disputes based on ethnicity. ..."
Surely they have Encyclopaedia Brittanica on CDROM? I suspect a little research may enlighten. The region is perhaps not the Bavarian idyll they imagine. Given that,
"The situation has worsened since the Chechen war began, as ethnic minorities from the Caucasus are often identified as a potential source of terrorist activity. During security sweeps this fall, following the spate of bombings, more than 20,000 persons were detained, a majority of whom were dark-skinned. However, even in normal times, ³police officers routinely stop individuals to check their documents; overwhelmingly, they are darker-skinned people (typical of the Caucasus region) known in Russia as blacks.¹² "
A rose by any other name is still a rose. But if truly wanting diversity, why call it the Caucasian club? Chill out, listen to some tunes. Being 15 is all about not fitting in. Even if you look like you do. In fact, especially if you look like you do. It's the end of the world if you don't have the right shoes/hair/music taste. I know. I wish I could tell you it gets easier. It doesn't darling. You just get a thicker skin +/- more used to it.
10:22:25 PM
30% is too much
"Coroner calls on MoD to stop using cluster bombs
A coroner is demanding a review of the use of cluster bombs after hearing how a British expert died trying to make safe unexploded devices dropped by American forces and gathered up by Iraqi peasant farmers.
After hearing how villagers implored Staff Sgt Chris Muir, 33, to help them to clear their fields of explosives so they could harvest crops, Nicholas Gardiner, the Oxford coroner, said it was "unacceptable" that 30 per cent of the "bomblets" contained in each cluster bomb failed to detonate.
The bomb disposal expert was approached by a group of farmers, as he was en route to make safe a bombed Iraqi tank in southern Iraq during the second week of the war. They urged him to follow them to their fields where he saw more than 400 cluster bombs on the ground.
Many of the M42 cluster bombs, dropped in a recent Amercian air raid, had failed to explode, having hit soft ground, and the farmers were attempting to harvest their tomatoes by stepping around them.
Some had gathered up the devices and started to pile them up in a well. Sgt Muir, assisted by a corporal, decided to help the villagers by detonating the bombs. Each cluster bomb contained 60 bomblets and many had failed to explode.
Sgt Muir, a married man from Southam, Warks, had made safe 100 devices when one exploded in his hands, killing him instantly. The coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.
He said: "It is unacceptable that 30 per cent of these bomblets fail to detonate, falling in areas where the local population are not likely to understand the dangers.
"I propose to use my powers to report to the Ministry of Defence and urge them to investigate devices which do not fail 30 per cent of the time, or to use different devices altogether."
Cpl Glen Roberts told the Oxford inquest that Sgt Muir was leading a small team when they were stopped by the farmers. "We communicated by sign language and they were clearly trying to tell us something," he said.
"Suddenly we saw hundreds of bomblets and they all looked recent. I called HQ for an interpreter. We understood the situation and needed to convey that the villagers had to evacuate the farm." He said Sgt Muir showed him how to defuse the bomblets. They divided up the task between them.
"I took one side, and Sgt Muir went towards a large well," he said. "Two hundred bomblets had been placed there. At about midnight I heard a large bang. I knew it wasn't good."
Dr Nicholas Hunt, a Home Office pathologist, said the injuries suggested that Sgt Muir had been kneeling over a bomblet when he died. The inquest was told that the Army had launched an independent inquiry into the death, which discovered that up to 30 per cent of M42s fail to detonate upon impact."
Source: By Stewart Payne, The Daily Telegraph, 18 August 2003
10:17:26 PM
The Dun Cow Pub.
Rugby, August 7th, 2003.
1:30:56 PM
I really could use one.
12:51:07 AM
The Jer Zone
12:31:50 AM
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