Wierd News:Pilot in toilet trip drama

Passengers on a Canadian plane had an unsettling in-flight experience after the pilot found himself locked out of the cockpit after a trip to the toilet.

Instead of slipping back inside, the Air Canada Jazz pilot was seen banging on the door and talking to his first officer on an internal phone. Crew members were forced to take the door off its hinges to let him back in.

"The Scream" returned

Two masterpieces by artist Edvard Munch have been recovered two years after they were stolen from an Oslo museum.

"The Scream" and "The Madonna" were found in a police operation. 'We are 100% certain they are the originals. The damage was much less than feared,' police said.

They had been missing since two armed men ripped them from the wall and threatened staff at the Munch Museum in the Norwegian capital in August 2004.

Lebanon Update

The Lebanon donor conference in Stockholm has raised more than $940m in pledges of new money for rebuilding, Swedish Foreign Minister Jan Eliasson has said.

The organisers of the aid conference had set a target of $500m. The new pledges bring the total amount of money raised to help with the rebuilding of Lebanon to $1.2bn.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is continuing his mission to the Middle East where he is trying to strengthen the cease-fire and dialogue with many of the interested parties in the region.

While there is a certain war-weariness on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border, the current ceasefire is fragile. And while the main parties want the UN to play a role, it is only on their own terms.

UN denounces Israel cluster bombs

The UN's humanitarian chief has accused Israel of 'completely immoral' use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.

UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.

'Ninety per cent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution,' he said.

Orphans Release

What do Tom Waits fans have in common with Daddy Warbucks? Both love to bring home orphans! Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards, a three-CD set of new and rare Waits material is due out November 21 on Anti.

The 54-track release includes a 94-page booklet and over three hours of music, ranging from waltzes to blues and Celtic ballads to lullabies.

According to Waits, "Orphans [contains] rough and tender tunes. Rumbas about mermaids, shuffles about train wrecks, tarantellas about insects, madrigals about drowning. Scared, mean, orphaned songs of rapture and melancholy. Songs that grew up hard. Songs of dubious origin rescued from cruel fate and now left wanting only to be cared for. Show that you are not afraid and take them home. They don't bite, they just need attention."

Political Google bombs

Ever tried to search the term "failure" on google? The result is a political google bomb.

Political google bombs became an Internet phenomenon in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election.

Two of the first google bombs were the 'Miserable Failure' google bomb linked to George W. Bush's Whitehouse bio and the 'Waffles' google bomb that linked to John Kerry's website. At different times supporters and detractors of these political candidates were able to shift around the results so that searches for 'miserable failure' and 'waffles' would return links to the particular targets of the groups trying to influence the search.

Violence in Iraq

Twenty-five Iraqi soldiers have died in clashes with Shia militiamen in southern Iraq since fighting broke out on Sunday night when troops conducted raids against a splinter group of Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army in the city of Diwaniya.

In the capital Baghdad, at least 14 people were killed in a suicide car bombing by Iraq's interior ministry. The violence comes a day after at least 47 people were killed in a series of insurgency attacks across Iraq.

Britain's new ambassador to Baghdad said on Sunday that Iraq was not in the civil war that his predecessor warned was a strong possibility.

Uh... is there a "yet" unsaid there?

Liverpool win the home opener.

Liverpool won their home opener today as the Spion Kop celebrated 100 years. Pennant and Kuyt were exciting contributors to the match!

Chirac doubts Lebanon force size

French President Jacques Chirac has said sending 15,000 peacekeeping troops to southern Lebanon is 'excessive'.

He was speaking to reporters in Paris as EU ministers prepared to meet UN chief Kofi Annan in Brussels for talks on bolstering the Lebanon peace force.

The discussions in Brussels come a day after France pledged 2,000 soldiers and offered to command the expanded United Nations force.

In Israel, reservists are now voicing their frustration and angerwith the government and military leadership. Most reservists supported the fight against Hezbollah and were happy to do their duty in battle. But now that the war is over, they say Israel's political and military leaders were ill-prepared and indecisive during the campaign.

Wednesday Report

I haven't been a good little blogger these past days and shouldn't spend too much time on this note either. I've been working on a massive user segmentation report that we need for support of our marketing initiative -- my meeting this morning means another round of revisions and supplemental detail. It's been a useful exercise overall.

Tonight Karina and I are meeting Nenita and Brideshead for drinks and then dinner. Looking forward to it!

No other major news -- am very delinquent on returning phone calls.

UN Force slow to form

Renewed efforts are under way to build up troop numbers for an expanded UN peacekeeping force for Lebanon. EU officials are meeting in Brussels to try to establish which countries are willing to contribute to the force.

The UN has been disappointed by the response so far from European nations, and says a bolstered force is urgently needed to enforce the fragile truce.

Many nations have been hesitant to commit troops until there is greater clarity about the force's mandate.

That would be a problem.

Israel says it would be 'difficult if not inconceivable' to accept nations which do not recognise its right to exist as part of a UN force in Lebanon.

Israeli UN envoy Dan Gillerman was speaking after Indonesia and Malaysia, which do not recognise Israel, pledged troops for the UN deployment.

Santa visits Huntsville

Santa is coming, and I know him personally

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France to head new Lebanon force

France has agreed to head an expanded UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon until February, the defence minister says.

Intense negotiations have been going on at the UN and in Beirut to build an advance force of up to 3,500 soldiers, to be deployed within two weeks.

The UN has the following objectives:

1. A withdrawal by Israeli forces back into Israel
2. The insertion of a 15,000-strong Lebanese army contingent down to the border
3. The expansion of the 2,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon (Unifil) into an more powerful international force of up to 15,000 troops
4. The removal from southern Lebanon of Hezbollah as an armed force

UN rushes for advance Lebanon force

The UN is trying to get an advance force of peacekeepers into Lebanon in 10-15 days, a senior official has said.

The force would be up to 3,500-strong, to be boosted later to the full 15,000 agreed in the UN ceasefire resolution.

Lebanon says it will start moving its own 15,000-strong force towards the south this week, while Israel says it could pull out within 10 days although stating that it will continue to pursue Hezbollah's leaders.

Weird News: No ugly sheep in Australia

An Australian government campaign called 'Xtreme sheep' aims to study sheep with undesirable wool features to unlock the genetic makeup of the prized merino and ensure production of its high quality fleece.

The South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) said on Tuesday its search for 'Australia's ugliest merino lambs' may hold the key to securing the nation's $2.1 billion wool industry.

Tom Waits = Salvador Dali?

Some more on Tom Waits that adds more context to the discussion of his influence on popular music.

From the Northwest Indiana News - "Waits' genius fusion of skid row-meets Salvador Dali -- and that's a description that merely grazes the surface without getting scholarly -- hasn't aged at all; his first three albums, 1975's 'Nighthawks at the Diner' particularly, would be manna to music fans today if they were brand new and simultaneously confounded the unadventurous ear.

"More than two decades after the fact, his one-two punch of 1983's 'Swordfishtrombones' and 1985's 'Rain Dogs' remain high points in that decade's musical offerings. The masses, to a degree, may have caught up with Waits with his 'Variations,' yet his most recent album, 2004's 'Real Gone,' is arguably on par with 'Trombones' and 'Dogs,' which places Waits in the rare league with the likes of Neil Young and Bob Dylan as artists who remain vital decades past their heyday."

Weird News: Woman gives birth in wrecked car

A pregnant woman in labor, driving herself to the hospital, crashed her car and gave birth while trapped in the mangled, partially submerged vehicle.

No More Planet Pluto

Astronomers from around the world are gathering in Prague over the next two weeks to come up with the first official definition of the word planet - and Pluto might get the boot because of it.

The discovery of an object in our solar system that is slightly bigger than Pluto has brought the issue to a head.

Hezbollah will abide by UN Resolution

Hezbollah's leader has said his group will abide by a ceasefire plan agreed at the UN to end fighting with Israel.

However, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said on TV that Hezbollah would continue fighting as long as Israeli soldiers remained in Lebanon. Israel's Cabinet will discuss the UN resolution on Sunday and says it will only halt military action after taking a vote.

The UN resolution called for a "full cessation of hostilities".

Security Council backs Lebanon ceasefire

The UN Security Council has unanimously approved a new resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The resolution calls for an end to hostilities, and for Israel to pull out as Lebanese troops and a stronger UN force deploy in the south.

The governments of Lebanon and Israel are both expected to discuss the plan over the weekend.
Hours earlier, Israel's PM Ehud Olmert ordered his army to prepare to widen its offensive in southern Lebanon. an adviser to Lebnaese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora gave the resolution a cautious welcome.

Only some evolution in America

It's a statistic that would have Charles Darwin turning in his grave - more than one third of Americans don't believe in evolution, according to a new study.

After tabulating surveys that covered 34 countries, researchers at the University of Michigan have found that U.S. citizens are much less likely to accept Darwinism than Europeans and the Japanese.

The study, published in Friday's issue of Science, found that in countries like Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and France, at least 80 per cent of adult believe that humans evolved from other species. In Japan, 78 per cent of adults believe in evolution.

But in the U.S. only 40 per cent of adults believe whole-heartedly in evolution, while 39 per cent called it "absolutely false" in the 2005 survey, which questioned 1,484 Americans and more than 33,000 people worldwide.

Anti-Terror Measures Remain in Place

The UK security threat level is to stay at 'critical' following a suspected plot to blow up airliners, British Home Secretary John Reid has said.

He said he believed the main suspects were in custody but it was right to 'err on the side of caution'. Everyone faced the threat and everyone 'should respond with a common purpose and common solidarity', Mr Reid added.

Nineteen of 24 people arrested have had their UK assets frozen. The names have been published by the Bank of England. Police have increased their presence in areas with Muslim populations in the UK to deter Islamophobic attacks after the latest terror arrests.

Tom Waits in Concert

My review of Tom Waits in Concert at The Auditorium Theatre, Chicago (August 9th, 2006):

Having sold our spare tickets and hoisted a few rounds in a bar around the corner, Uncle and I entered the Theatre with an anticipation that was shared by the otherwise far-flung faithful who gathered for the concert. We climbed the steps to our seats, admired the hall, admired the many sights seated around us, admired the configuration of the stage and admired ourselves for our good fortune in being able to attend.

When the effort to attend is so great - what with international flights, pleaded permissions, crazed schedules, transit woes and related expenses - you can expect there to be a lot of hype. There is also a great deal of anticipation for a Waits show generally (and the fear it may be your last). And there's certainly baggage attendant to the experience as you think about previous concerts and recordings.

In this show there were some notable differences in the performances - more bluesy, some surf-rock touches - but it delivered in spades nonetheless. I never really understood why "Day after Tomorrow" was considered a great anti-war anthem until this show - once you hear it live (and more melancholy) it really strikes home about the plight of the "returning combatant". And Tom Traubert's Blues, done on the piano with only upright bass for accompaniment, was touching, heart-felt and fantastic. There was a good mix of new and old in the set list (the show ran over two hours). Shore Leave, Trampled Rose and Time were also personal favourites (admittedly in a list of favourites).

After the second encore (and the guy behind us doing loon calls) finished, the lights came back on. We were delighted and excited; satisfied for making the journey.

The prophet was in Chicago. We saw him there.

Here's a set list for the show that I poached from eyeballkid. It looks pretty accurate to me.

Make It Rain
Hoist That Rag
Shore Leave
God's Away On Business
All The World Is Green
Falling Down
Tango Till They're Sore
Tom Traubert's Blues
Eyeball Kid
Down In The Hole
Don't Go Into That Barn
Shake It
Trampled Rose
What's He Building In There
Who's Been Talking / Till The Money Runs Out
Lie To Me Baby
Get Behind The Mule

Day After Tomorrow
Singapore

Whistlin' Past The Graveyard
Time

Escape from Chicago(It's not that easy!)

I have returned from my trip down to Chicago for the Waits show - although heightened security at the airport almost meant that my stay would be indefinitely prolonged as I was bumped into stand-by hell.

Waking at 5am this morning, I hopped in a taxi and sped to the airport for my 7am flight. Arriving at 5:45, I was greeted with a giant and slow moving line-up and the news from the Air Canada counter that I was definitely not going to make my flight.

The cause? Significant delays as a result of heightened security at O'Hare following the interception of terrorists in the UK who had planned to bomb US-bound aircraft. Fortunately, after an hour of waiting (and moving 70 feet) the TSA seemed to cease hand-searching (and perhaps added more staff) and things sped up considerably and at 7:20 I was through normal security measures and discovered that Air Canada was holding the flight (until 7:30).

So the short version of the story is that I was at my desk by 10:30.

On My Way to Chicago

OK, I've been wasting my pre-flight time all these years - Uncle has taken me into the Maple Leaf Lounge pre-flight and it's pretty swank. And there's free internet (a subject of a previous airport rant). And free food. And an open bar.

One annoying thing though - United (our carrier) has completely distanced itself from the superior Air Canada check-in. They had perhaps a quarter of the staff and no kiosk. Meant that we had TO WAIT to check-in.

The customs guy asked me what Tom Waits was like - I balked and mumbled something about Country, Rock and Roll and German theatre. He's "going to look out for him". Uncle agrees it's a difficult question.

Love to tell you more, but I couldn't bring my Guinness into this area.

Lieberman loss bad for Republicans?

Washington insiders from both parties have long been muttering that George W Bush's Republican party is going to lose ground in elections in November. The only question, they say, is how much ground. Enough to lose control of one or both houses of Congress?

They may have had the beginnings of an answer on Tuesday night with , but the scalp that was claimed was not Republican - it was Democrat Joe Lieberman who lost to a political unknown. His support for the Iraq war was a major factor in his loss of the primary, experts say. Note that Connecticut is one of the most consistently Denocratic states in the Union.

'Damage is done' to Lebanon coast

An oil slick caused by Israeli bombing of a power station now covers 120km (75 miles) of the Lebanon coast. The coastline could take up to 10 years to recover from the massive oil spill, the nation's environment minister has said and it is impossible to tackle the problem while the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel continues.

Marine experts have warned the spill could pose a cancer risk to people living in the affected areas.

Waits Tomorrow.

The Tom Waits show is tomorrow in Chicago and I can't wait.

The other shows on this tour have reported to be great successes and he's doing a range of material which is great.

Here's an abstract from a Atlanta concert review:

"Needless to say, [Tom's] voice isn't for everyone. But its grainy texture and peculiar expressiveness, along with [his] mysterious persona and noirish songwriting, have made this avant-garde crooner one of popular music's most adored cult figures.

"Enough people know and care about Tom Waits that his tour-opening show Tuesday night at the Tabernacle sold out in less than half an hour. He has no new record to promote, which hardly mattered. Waits rarely tours - this was his first Atlanta performance in about 30 years - and you never know when the 56-year-old artist is going to hang up his performing career and devote his life to some marginal pursuit, like junk collecting or knife throwing."

Weekend Thoughts

Watching late-night TV yesterday, trying to stretch my hamstrings post-yoga and wondering how Karina is faring (she's away in SF), I was also given to wondering what is the deal with actor Michael Ironside and his choice of films.

Yes, Scanners is a cult classic and Total Recall was a good commerical film to be attached to, but why nothing with better depth or more breadth in film selections? I think the guy is a decent actor. And yet films like Highlander II, Red Scorpion II and Starship Troopers don't crowd the mond of fine cinema. Although never flying, looking at Ironside's filomography, it would seem that Highlander II (in '91) might have been the career kiss-of-death.

All this comes as his appearance on screen in the horrible and yet delightfully campy "Bloodsuckers" came as a groaning mild surprise.

We need new energy sources

World leaders have been urged to put more money into developing new energy technologies to tackle global warming by the President of the Royal Society.

"If we look at what is happening worldwide, there is a greater and greater demand for energy, especially in the developing world, India and China in particular, and at the same time carbon dioxide is rising very fast and it's clear that unless we can control the carbon dioxide then we will run into a dangerous level of potential climate change 50 years from now.

"And that's why there's urgency, because if you want to meet the expectations of the developing world, we need new kinds of energy.

"None of the kinds of energy that we can produce now routinely are going to really be sustainable in the long run at the scale we need."

The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2030 global energy demand will increase by 50%.

Waits Chicago show but a few days away...

Setlist from From Tom's Asheville Show -

Asheville (NC) Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, August 2

Singapore
Make it Rain
Hoist That Rag
Shore Leave
November
Gods Away on Business
'Til the money Runs out
All The World Is Green
Tango 'Til Their Sore
Invitation to the Blues
You Can Never Hold Back Spring
Clap Hands
Whistling Past The Graveyard
Heartattack and Vine
Who's Been Talkin'
What's He Building in There
Trampled Rose
Get Behind the Mule
Murder in the Red Barn
Goin' out West
Down In The Hole
Blue Valentine
Dont Go into that Barn

City Building - Boston goes Wi-Fi with non-profit

Boston is considering an unusual approach to creating a citywide, low-cost wireless Internet network: putting a non-profit organization, rather than a private service provider, in charge of building and running the system.

A City of Boston Wireless Task Force Report released Monday recommended that Mayor Thomas Menino assign an as-yet unidentified non-profit to raise the $16-million to $20-million (U.S.) in private money that the city estimates it will need to build and begin running the Wi-Fi network.

Other U.S. cities launching wireless initiatives have created various layers of oversight to ensure private contractors serve the public interest by keeping prices down, expanding access to low-income neighbourhoods, and, in some cases, opening up the network to rivals.

Boston is one of more than 250 communities nationwide that are preparing or have deployed Wi-Fi service, which uses radio waves to connect users to the Internet at high speeds.

Israel resumes Beirut air strikes

A day after a new far-reaching ground offensive, Israeli aircraft have resumed attacks on Beirut. In southern Lebanon, Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas are battling for control of several border villages.

Diplomats at the United Nations say the UK, France and the US are close to agreeing on a UN resolution calling for an immediate end to the fighting.

The three countries are hoping to present the first part of a two-stage peace plan to the other 12 members of the UN Security Council later on Thursday.

Amusing Bad Writing Awards

"His mistake, Shut-eye McBlamaway reflected, was not in standing up to a gang of desperadoes and rustlers on the high country, but in standing up to a gang of desperadoes and rustlers who had just left the set of a Sergio Leone shoot, and were thus equipped with those guns that never run out of ammunition. "

"A Lodgepole Pine grew straight and tall in front of his cabin, sort of like a lodgepole, only with branches."

"Grasshopper, the three secrets of life are as follows: first, keep your eyes and ears open; second: don't tell everything you know."

Click for more 2006 Bad Writing Award Winners

US carmakers suffer drop in sales

US carmakers have been hit by further falls in sales, with the big names racking up double-digit declines.

Ford said sales sank 35.2% in July compared with last year, Chrysler sales fell 37% and General Motors 19.5%. Part of the fall was blamed on the fact that heavy discounts seen last year were no longer on offer.

But rising fuel costs and interest rates have led consumers to opt for smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles - delivering a boost to Asian carmakers. A 16% rise in sales at Japanese group Toyota pushed the automotive firm to the number two carmaker slot in the US - ahead of both Ford and DaimlerChrysler.

Meanwhile, BMW has reported record quarterly sales and revenue figures, as its range of cars continues to enjoy a surge in popularity.

Reporting its results for the second quarter of 2006, sales of its BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce vehicles rose 3.2% from a year earlier to 365,547 units.

Rugby Last Night - No Injury!

Last night in the 30'+ heat the fat and old men of our pickup rugby game ran for about an hour. Happily there were no signficant injuries (last week I rolled my ankle and Sunshine blew out his knee) and we even had 10 players out! Amazing!