Now move back to the earlier file for Lost Worlds - Year 2007 - Year 2006 - Future for Environment

Interested in dates/events in history? Try Hyperhistory: http://www.hyperhistory.com/

Link to Lost Worlds at your leisure, if that is your pleasure. Warning: this page may be a slow download due to its graphics.

Contact via the convenient (and virus-free): e-mail form

Look for this Home Page navigation button as you travel. This page updated 8 August 2008

www.danbyrnes.com.au

New Digest News Digest News Digest New Digest

Lost Worlds Year 2008

We live in days so far beyond satire: We live in days so far beyond satire: We live in days so far beyond satire: We live in days so far beyond satire: We live in days so far beyond satire: We live in days so far beyond satire: We live in days so far beyond satire:  

This website apologises... for being late this year with the update file for 2008: Time pressures have been problematical for work on this website. Work on this file for this year did not start till mid-March. Unbearably bad behaviour. The webmaster admonished himself severely.

We failed at the end of 2007, as well, to make the usual annual Lost Worlds Award for World Stupidity, but we can now reveal that it went to the madman of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.  We might even get around to making the 2007 Lost Worlds Stupidity Award in the usual proper way, if we can find a suitably photoshopped image of Mugabe. But we'd really prefer (by April 2008) he was quietly taken away by the men in white coats, and suitably medicated, so that life in Zimbabwe can return to normal.

Russian cult gives inb>: "The final members of a Russian doomsday cult yesterday quit the cave where they had been waiting six months for the end of the world after the stench of rotting corpses threatened them with intoxication. Nine survivors emerged from their muddy bunker." (SMH 17 May 2008)

Australian holocaust denier continues his workb>: "Holocaust denier Frederick Toben aggravated charges of criminal contempt of court by attacking federal judges and the judicial process, a court has heard." Dr. Toben, a former school teacher, was given orders in 2002 by a federal court to remove certain offensive material from his website, which suggested that The Holocaust did not happen and doubted the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz concentration camp. The current hearing continues. Toben has spent seven months in a German prison in 1999 for inciting racism. (The Australian, 6-8-2008)

China in Tibet: Zen Buddhism question: what is the sound of China in Tibet? It is the sound of one hand slapping. Question for Dear Chinese Government. How can face be saved when face has much egg on it, and what will be mostly be saved, the face or the bits of egg?  Problem is lack of historical understanding. Chinese Government fails to understand the peace-treaty background of the tradition of Olympic Games in Ancient Greece. While Olympics are being held, all hostilities are called off. Has implications re China in Tibet now. Chinese art of war, study the enemy, very wise. Chinese art of hosting Olympic Games? Slap Tibet around a bit, very unwise. Dear Chinese Government, welcome to modern world. Egg problem on face is simple. It's Tibet. Have a nice Games. Be athletically wise. Nothing wrong with a little Zen Buddhism. Enjoy. (-Ed 11-4-2008)

This website feels vindicated: This website today feels vindicated as to its long-term editorial policy on the Iraq War (which is probably called in Iraq, The American War, though no one in the West seems to ask). We have just seen on TV a former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, giving her considered opinion, about which she is gravely troubled - the Iraq War is the greatest disaster in the history of American foreign policy. This is correct, we feel. (Australia, Evening TV news, 26 March 2008)

Health notice nails Easter "rituals": Phillipine health officials have warned people taking part in Easter crucifixion and self-flagellation rituals to get a tetanus shot first and to sterilise the nails to avoid infections. Every Good Friday, dozens of men re-enact the crucifixion of Jesus by having themselves nailed to wooden crosses. Hundreds whip themselves as a way of atoning for their sins of the past year. (Sydney Morning Herald, 20 March 2008)

Iraq surge a definite victory says Bush: "The US President George Bush has marked the fifth anniversary of the [outbreak of] the Iraq War with his most optimistic assessment yet of the unpopular war's progress, declaring the troop surge had "opened the doors to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror. ... In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin-Laden, his grim ideology and his terror network - and the significance of this development cannot be overstated." Shades of Lawrence of Arabia!  (George of Arabia?) And, ya da ya ya da ya da. Meantime a recent CBS poll indicates that 29 per cent of Anmericans thought the loss of life was worth it in Iraq, 64 per cent said not worth it, 7 per cent undecided. (Or as a critic recently noted, the Bush administration's capacity for self-delusion seems quite unassaugable. Meantime, what can one say about Osama bin-Laden's capacities for self-delusion, these two men seem to need each other! Well, what of the US, with since Nixon's day its also-failed war against drugs. Well, what of Afghanistan? It seems from recent TV reports in Australia that new supplies of Afghanistan's recently produced opium-heroin are now reaching Sydney - the Americans in Afghanistan have never heard about napalm? They can't napalm those opium crops and then pay-off the affected farmers for their problems - so defusing the Taliban plan to benefit from dope sales? The US certainly used a lot of napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam, with no compunction, to what effect, to what end? Is there a reason the opium crops of Afghanistan are not being regularly napalmed? Who is asking? Nobody! Which measure would cost less re the war in Aghanistan? Remember, both US military and commercial satellites both have the photographic capacity to pick up a match-box on the White House Lawn, but they can't identify where Osama bin-Laden is and they can't identify newly-growing opium crops in Afghanisatan - is there a huge disconnect here? Is bin-Laden still needing regular medical attention via dialysis as was reported years ago? Ed) (Sydney Morning Herald, 20 March 2008)

Tibet: Those who know Tibet, know it is now a better place: It is sad for those of us who love Tibet and the Buddhist philosophy of life to watch the nonense being promoted about that country. Most of the "Tibetans" protesting in Australia, Europe and the United States have never set foot in Tibet. The flag they drape themselves in is a fake. It has never been the flag of Tibet. Those of us who do visit Tibet experience a different place from the Hollywood version. The Dalai Lama abandoned Tibet because the CIA had promised him and his supporters that their corrupt, cruel and autocratic government would be reinstalled when they had defeated the Communists. He left behind a country with 37 per cent of children dying at birth or within days and women dying in childbirth at rates not seen in Europe since the 16th Century. There was one school (for the ruling class), and the population was intimidated into sacrificing at least one son or daughter to the monasteries. If you visit Tibet today you will find infant mortality down to Western best practice and modern hospitals that are mini St- Vincent's [A famous Sydney Hospital - Ed]. There are more than 1000 schools, with widespread attendance, and modern roads, cars, tractors, railways and airports. The road from Lhasa looks like Paramatta Road. Perhaps the people of Tibet would welcome the return of the Dalai Lama. They definitely would not accept the return of the old system. (Bob Clayton, Elizabeth Bay, Sydney: Letters-to-Editor, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 March 2008)

Islam pronounces at last on the terrorism problem: It has taken this long (since, say, 9/11), but at last, an authoritative conclave of Muslim clerics, meeting in North Africa, we understand, has issued a statement, which we hope is binding for all Muslims, to the effect that radical/violent jihad, the ultra-radical, politically and physically violent forms of Islamist vehemence, are not in keeping with proper Islamic faith. The statement seems intended to put violent Islamists and eg, suicide bombers, firmly in their place. This website has long wondered when Muslim clerics will bite this bullet, is immensely glad they have now bitten it, and will follow-up this news as soon as possible. Where is the place of an intending suicide bomber? This website thinks, in a padded cell in a very secure mental hospital, heavily sedated for as long as need be. (Weekend radio news, Australia, 16 March 2008 and we later found, this item has remained little reported in mainstream media, not followed-up - Ed)

New books we've noticed lately: John Burrow, A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances And Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century. Allen Lane, 2008, 576pp.  Michael Burleigh, Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism. HarperCollins, 2008, 320pp. Philip Shenon, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation. Little Brown, 2008. (Contemporary US history and then some, "only in America") Taylor Clark, Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce and Culture. November, 2007. Lisa Appignanesi, Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to The Present. Virago/Little Brown, 2008.

Don't just sit there. Sit and read a book. Even a newspaper.

Timetables for departing Afghanistan: Australian troops could be in Afghanistan for another five years, Australia's Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has suggested, rather signalling support for the US timetable for conduct of that war.  No precise exit date has been set. Part of the US plan for Afghanistan is to see peaceful elections held there, a trained army of 70,000 and a police force of 82,000. Inside a month, the US will ask NATO countries to provide more troops to operate in Afghanistan. (In Afghanistan, a saying is, that The Taliban begin where the paved road ends.) (Sydney Morning Herald, 15-16 March 2008)

World outrage over death of kidnapped bishop: In Iraq, al-Qa-ida militants have apparently by last Thursday killed Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, whose body has been found in a shallow grave near Mosul in Northern Iraq. The Archbishop, aged 65, was kidnapped in a shoot-out situation last February 29, but it is also thought he may have died from natural causes, under stress, as he had reportedly become ill. (Most of Iraq's Christians, who are a mere three per cent of the population, are Chaldeans. The Archbishop's home has been bombed in July 2004. Six other clerics of the Chaldean Catholics have been harrassed in recent times. (Weekend Australian, 15-16 March 2008)

Saddam had "no link" to al-Qa'ida: A new Pentagon study confirms that there was no direct link between the now-executed Iraqi leader and the al-Qa'ida network, contradicting the long-held views of President Bush, Vicer-President Cheney and top aides.  The study considered 600,000 official Iraqi documents and evidence from thousands of hours of interrogations. Records indicate however that Saddam's regime did cultivate links with other terror groups, including Palestinian militants, and giving financial support to the families of suicide bombers of Gaza and the West Bank. The US government has apparently refrained from posting the study's results on the Internet. (Weekend Australian, 15-16 March 2008)

Biofuel backlash: The rush to use of biofuels is threatening world food production and maybe the lives of billions of people, a scientistic adviser to the British government, John Beddington, has warned. Beddington simply cannot see how humanity can produce enough food to feed itself, as well as crops to be used as renewable energy. UN World Food Program director Josette Sheeran on this theme has told the European parliament that the shift to biofuels has moved land-use out of the human food chain. Beddington in particularcites the destruction of rainforest to clear land for growing biofuels as an "insane" use of a renewable energy option. (The Weekend Australian, 8-9 March 2008)

Satire more Satire more Satire more Satire more: Reality TV: Question: Why don't "they" make a reality TV show about the making of reality TV shows? What's happening on the sets of a variety of production companies around the world. How they rate. Personality clashes, power struggles, questions of who gets to rule, ok. Suggested working title: Shenanigans. (2008) Opinions: Item from a movie The Dead Pool, starring Clint Eastwood, who utters the deathless line, "Opinions are like arseholes - everyone has one".

More controversy about The Hobbit: Observant readers of this website will have noted that the website failed to get excited about the recent "discovery" of a "new species" of humanity, The Hobbit, Homo floriensis. The reason for our caution here is that this website lives in a university town which is home to one if not more of the noted academics associated with original work on The Hobbit. It is also home to several academics who know their science of human genetics and who remain somewhat sceptical about claims made about The Hobbit. So we record the following. "The row over Homo floriensis fossils found on the Indonesian island of Flores had taken another twist, the BBC reported. According to the latest theory, published in the scientific journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society, H. floriensis, was a true human but did not grow to normal size because of environmental factors. A team led by Peter Obendorf, from the School of Applied Science at Melbourne's RMIT University, wrote that they [floriensis] developed a dwarfism condition because of nutritional deficiencies. Peter Brown of the University of New England, one of the researchers who discovered the [floriensis] remains, said the conclusions were "not supported by the facts". (From The Weekend Australian, 8-9 March, 2008)

Film uproar: Netherlands has raised its terrorism alert level to from limited to "substantial" due to the planned release of an anti-Islam film (titled Fitna) by a far-Right politician Geert Wilders, the Netherlands Justice Ministry has said. Wilder's film views the Koan as "a fascist book" and has been subject of media attention internationally. Iran,  Egypt and Pakistan have voiced concern about the film, protests about it have been held in Afghanistan. The Dutch government has twice failed to urge Wilders to not screen the film. (The Weekend Australian, 8-9 March 2008)

Grand Canyon now ages rapidly: Estimates of the age of the Grand Canyon, or parts of it, have been tripled after new research findings from University of New Mexico have been lodged. Now, it seems that its western portion was formed by rushing water from about 17 million years ago, the eastern portion was not carved out till about six million years ago (the earlier-estimated all round age), when the entire canyon was thought to be eroded. The Grand Canyon is 445km long, up to 29km wide and up to 1760km deep. (From an issue of journal Science recent by March 2008)

Biofuel backlash: The rush to use of biofuels is threatening world food production and maybe the lives of billions of people, a scientistic adviser to the British government, John Beddington, has warned. Beddington simply cannot see how humanity can produce enough food to feed itself, as well as crops to be used as renewable energy. UN World Food Program director Josette Sheeran on this theme has told the European parliament that the shift to biofuels has moved land-use out of the human food chain. Beddington in particularcites the destruction of rainforest to clear land for growing biofuels as an "insane" use of a renewable energy option. (The Weekend Australian, 8-9 March 2008)

Another book on The Prophet: It's almost as though it's impossible that any remark about Islam will not be controversial. Muslim author Tariq Ramadan, regarded by some as the most dangerous Islamist in the West, had produced a new biography ("an intimate portrait") of the prophet Mohammed, The Messenger. A Swiss Muslim, writer Ramadan is a Senior Research Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford who has been accused of using a forked tongue, speaking softy to Westerners, but being more hardline when speaking to Muslims. Ramadan also objects to events which might happen to celebrate the founding of the state of Israel, for example. Ramadan, a leader of opinion on relations between Islam and The West, is unpopular with The Left in Europe, who regard him as reactionary and fundamentalist in outlook. Ramadan happens to be a grandson of the founder of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of a radical group of Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood and has been accused of being an unthinking echo-box for his grandfather's views. Ramadan is a Salafist, one of those who believe that Islam was at its best in the lifetime of Mohammed and during the next two generations or so, so that those times should be admired if not emulated. Ramadan has also written Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. (Weekend Australian, 1-2 March 2008, See www.tariqramadan.com/)

Advertisement

Muslims and meaning: What does it mean to be a Muslim in the West in 2008 or so? This question has now been worked on by Pakistani-born Professor Riaz Hassan at Australia's Flinders University. Hassan has produced several books on the topic, Inside Muslim Minds (2008) and Faithlines: Muslim Conceptions of Islam and Society (2002), after researching internationally in seven countries since 1997. He has found, and it is hardly surprising, that older and better educated Muslims, and women in general, are less sympathetic to Islamic extremists. Hassan tends to feel that as political, social and economic conditions change, and partly due to the role of education, attitudes that help bind-up interest in Salafism will tend to be undermined, and that trends to Islamisation are relatively recent. Across a century or so, he regards Islamic fundamentalism as a challenge or reaction to modernity. Or, to the indeterminacy of the Western World. Muslims may also react to abstractions such as colonialism, post-colonialism, modernity-globalisation, and failures of national development in Islamic countries. Hassan has also looked into the political motives and attitudes of jihadists and finds them somewhat similar in an Onwards Christian Soldiers sort of way to the radical Puritan Christians of Europe's Reformation periods, say, with the time of the Cromwellian Protectorate in England, with the persecuted Huguenots of France, or with the disgruntled Puritans who settled the New England area of North America, especially Massachusetts, for the purpose of living in a rightly-ordered society. Which is to say, that any Westerner curious about jihadists have simply to look in more detail at the careers of the most radical Protestant Christians appearing since the time of Martin Luther, and reactions to those radicals, to begin to understand the mindset of young Islamist suicide bombers. To this website, none of Hassan's findings or conclusions seem especially remarkable, at all, so it only depends on whether his data and findings are relatively valid. See Hassan's Inside Muslim Minds. (Melbourne University Press, 2008, $45) (The Islamic world makes for 16 per cent of world population.) (Weekend Australian, 1-2 March 2008)

Advertisement

"Terrorists" produce courtroom humour in Australia: There's an old saying in Australia, to the effect that if you're really determined to get into trouble, you may as well be hung for stealing a sheep, not just a lamb. We're reminded of this by a report on 12 Muslims with over-active imaginations now up on terrorism charges in Melbourne. Even their defense lawyers are having fun at their expense. They may be silly young men, even clowns, but they are not terrorists. They formed a religious discussion group, not a terrorism cell. They bullshitted each other about "jihad", talked big and fantasised about becoming heroes in their own lunchtimes." One defence lawyer said that alleged terrorist leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika "couldn't lead ants to sugar ... couldn't organize a booze-up in a brewery ..." Another defence lawyer said, "In Australia, we have the right to say stupid things, provocative things and downright wrong things. The saying of these things does not make you a terrorist." So far, though, it's not reported that prosecution lawyers have said anything remotely funny. (Sydney Morning Herald, 1-2 March, 2008)

Advertisement

Scattering your cremains is ok by The Vatican: "Cremains" is a new word used in some parts of Australia  for the remains of persons cremated. (And a good many people evidently find this new word tasteless, to say the least.) But moving along, cremation has at times seemed controversial with Catholics. But now, The Vatican has ruled that it is permissible for believers to have their ashes scattered after crematon, if they wish this to happen. The ruling has been given after complaints were made that a parish priest in the Italian Alps had refused to hold a funeral service for a man who wanted to have his ashes scattered in the mountains. The priest, at St Etienne Parish in Aosta, told a widow that cremation was against the Church's dogma on the resurrection of the body, and informed her that ashes-scattering would be "a pantheistic communion with nature in dath, which is not part of our religion".  But Bishop Luciano Pacomio, head of doctrine at Italian Bishops Conference, said this reflected an out-of-date mentality. The catholic Church, apparently, prefers the rites of burial but permits cremation in certain situations. Specific prayers have now been produced for use at cremations. The Church's Second Vatican Council lifted an earlier ban on cremation in the 1960s, provided the body was present at the funeral service, and cremated later. Various rules have been modified since. and in Italy, cremations are more comon due to overcrowding of cemeteries. Till 2001, the Italian state permitted cremation but prohibited the scattering of ashes. Cremation was not utilised in Italy till Napoleon arrived, and recommended its use "for hygenic reasons". In some Italian circles, a preference for cremation can be interpreted as a sign of anti-clericalism, or secular revolt. (Reported, Weekend Australian 12-13 January 2008)

Advertisement

UN gravy train festers further: The disgrace continues: "UN corruption" staggers auditors: New York: "The UN's internal auditing bureau has investigated 250 corruption cases over the past three months, including alleged sexual abuse and financial irregularities. More mismanagement and fraud had beenuncoved than was expected, and two-thirds of the cases investigtaed had been with peace-keeping missions. Of about AUD$16 billion which had been involved for peacekeeping contracts, some $600 million had been entangled with fraud "at some level". (Weekend Australian, 12-13 January 2008)

Jokes Jokes Jokes:  Germain Greer (reported March 2008) says she thinks a certain Paris Hilton sex video is so funny, she's going to use some of it as a screen saver.

Advertisement

Animal culls controversies: 

There's an animal lover's disconnect here somewhere: By mid-March, 2008, an international controversy has arisen about government-type plans to cull kangaroos hopping about Australian Captail Territory (the area surrounding Canberra, Australia's capital city). Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney is just one international voice protesting the planned kangaroo cull. Yet, yet, elephants in Zimbabwe, up to 500 of them, were reportedly culled by government employees to be turned into biltong, a popular local dried-and-flavoured meat snack often eaten at sports venues and great with a beer, though it is usually made from beef. Zimbabwe, where shooting elephants for ivory is illegal, but shooting them for meat is not illegal (go figure), has about 100,000 elephants, and fears in Zimbabwe, which is hardly a well-run country, were that up to 6000 could be slaughtered for biltong. (Elephants, reported 12-13 January 2008, Weekend Australian).

Abu Ghraib officer cleared

The US Army has overturned a conviction against Styeven Jordan, the only officer to be court-martialled over the Abu Ghraib scandal. This now means no US officer or civilian leaders wil be held criminally liable for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in that jail outside Baghdad. (Sydney Morning Herald, 12-13 January 2008)

Quotes:   "Indu Aneysekara may be correct in stating that whites 'invented racial superiority' but has omitted to mention that it was the fair-skinned Aryans who arrived in India around 1500BC from South Europe and North Asia that invented the caste (race in Portuguese) system as a means of maintaining social order."  - Letter to editor from Wayne Mills of Jarrahdale, WA (Weekend Australian, 12-13 January 2008

Scientology getting authoritative on an impossible mission: Actor Tom Cruise surprised no one, certainly not this website, when as Scientologist he has lately been found (on a certain well-known social networking website) to be starring in a kind of home-made video recommending Scientology. Speaking to converts to Scientology, Cruise, who is a Senior (an Elder?) of the cult, and speaking along with FX of music/sound from a Mission Impossible movie, Cruise claimed amongst other things that Scientologists can become "authorities on the mind". He said he personally was dedicated to [improving] other people's lives. Scientologists, he said, were the authorities on getting people off drugs, were authorities in the mind, on improving conditions. 

Quotes: "We are programmed by our inheritance to see other living things as mainly something to eat, and we care more about our national tribe than anything else." - James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia, 2006.

Was it an accident that release of the video to the public happened to coincide with the US release date of an unauthorised biography of Tom Cruise? We don't think so. This website will meantime keep a look-out to notice the latest research findings from Scientology on finding a cure for Alzheimer's Disease. (Sydney Morning Herald, 19-20 January, 2008)

:::::::::::::Ends ::::::::::

[Top of Page]

Stop Press: For late entries

View these domain stats begun 18 December 2005