Global crisis just around the corner
The end of the publication by the American Federal Reserve of the M3 monetary aggregate (and that of other components) will destroy transparency on the US dollars in circulation worldwide.
The decision has been vehemently criticized by economists and financial analysts,
[Monetary aggregates (M1, M2, M3, M4) are statistical economic indicators. M0 is the value of all currency - here the dollar - that exists in actual bank notes and coins. M1 is M0 + checking accounts of this currency. M2 is M1 + money market accounts and Certificates of Deposits (CD) under $100,000. M3 is M2 + all larger holdings in the dollar (Eurodollar reserves, larger instruments and most non-European nations' reserve holdings) of $100,000 and more. The key point here is that when the Fed stops reporting M3, the entire world will lose transparency on the value of reserve holdings in dollars by other nations and major financial institutions.
Speech at National Economists Club, Washington DC, November 21, 2002.]
Monday, February 27, 2006
DEMOCRACY THREAT
No paper trail
Pencil and paper voting still the safest
Diebold AccuVote TS electronic voting machines have an infrared (IrDA) port installed. This is a remote communication port through which another remote device could communicate with the touch screen and change either its data or its software or both.
If your county uses Diebold touch screens, let your county officials and election judges know that it is crucial to cover the IR port with opaque tape.
[Dibold makes many of the ATM machines used in Australia. They all provide a paper receipt, why do their voting machines not produce a similar receipt of their vote.]
Sunday, February 26, 2006
SCHRODINGER'S PC
From a New York Times science writer, the first book on what will be the next big breakthrough in cyberworld: the development of a quantum computer. (Bookshop)Quantum computer works best switched off
Even for the crazy world of quantum mechanics, this one is twisted. A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.
The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a “superposition”, a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger's cat to hit "Run".
[Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign send a photon into a system of mirrors and other optical devices, which included a set of components that run a simple database search by changing the properties of the photon. The system uses a quantum trick called the Zeno effect.]
BEAUTIFUL MIND
Victims of War Are Not To Be Seen Or Heard Or Mentioned
On March 18, 2003, two days before her son launched the invasion of Iraq, Barbara Bush appeared on Good Morning America. Our nation's "First Mother" asked Diane Sawyer, "Why should we hear about body bags and death and how many? . . . Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that."
[Joseph Bonham was an American soldier. He lost both of his arms and legs and all of his face to an artillery shell. He could not see or hear or speak. Other than that he was healthy and lucid. That was Joe's nightmare. He could be kept alive a long time...]
On March 18, 2003, two days before her son launched the invasion of Iraq, Barbara Bush appeared on Good Morning America. Our nation's "First Mother" asked Diane Sawyer, "Why should we hear about body bags and death and how many? . . . Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that."
[Joseph Bonham was an American soldier. He lost both of his arms and legs and all of his face to an artillery shell. He could not see or hear or speak. Other than that he was healthy and lucid. That was Joe's nightmare. He could be kept alive a long time...]
SPIN CYCLE
Fox News talking head takes in new factor
Bill O'Reilly suggested that the United States "hand over everything to the Iraqis as fast as humanly possible" because "[t]here are so many nuts in the country -- so many crazies -- that we can't control them."
O'Reilly has previously called those advocating immediate withdrawal from Iraq "pinheads" and compared them to Hitler appeasers.
[Audio clip here.]
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
WHAT I SAY, NOT WHAT I DO
Hipocrisy rules in the US Government
Vice President Dick Cheney bitterly complains that national security leaks are endangering America. Unless, of course, he's doing the leaking, tapping Scooter Libby to reveal national security information to punish a political critic.
President Bush says he will not talk about specific security threats to America. Unless, of course, he needs to talk about a specific threat to Los Angeles to confuse the public and gain some cheap political advantage.
The White House says it has done everything possible to protect the homeland. Unless, of course, it hasn't. Then it can lie to hide the callous portrait of Incurious George in Crawford as New Orleans drowned.
The attorney general can claim that torture and warrantless wiretapping are legal, and can mislead Congress. Unless, of course, enough Republicans stand up and say, as Arlen Specter told The Washington Post, that if that lickspittle lawyer thinks all this is legal, "he's smoking Dutch Cleanser."
The president doesn't know the Indian Taker Jack Abramoff. Unless, of course, W. has met with him a dozen times, invited him to Crawford and joked with him about his kids.
The Bushies can continue to claim that the invasion of Iraq was justified because Saddam was a threat to our security. Unless, of course, he wasn't, and the Cheney cabal was simply abusing the trust of Americans to push a wild-eyed political scheme.
Vice President Dick Cheney bitterly complains that national security leaks are endangering America. Unless, of course, he's doing the leaking, tapping Scooter Libby to reveal national security information to punish a political critic.
President Bush says he will not talk about specific security threats to America. Unless, of course, he needs to talk about a specific threat to Los Angeles to confuse the public and gain some cheap political advantage.
The White House says it has done everything possible to protect the homeland. Unless, of course, it hasn't. Then it can lie to hide the callous portrait of Incurious George in Crawford as New Orleans drowned.
The attorney general can claim that torture and warrantless wiretapping are legal, and can mislead Congress. Unless, of course, enough Republicans stand up and say, as Arlen Specter told The Washington Post, that if that lickspittle lawyer thinks all this is legal, "he's smoking Dutch Cleanser."
The president doesn't know the Indian Taker Jack Abramoff. Unless, of course, W. has met with him a dozen times, invited him to Crawford and joked with him about his kids.
The Bushies can continue to claim that the invasion of Iraq was justified because Saddam was a threat to our security. Unless, of course, he wasn't, and the Cheney cabal was simply abusing the trust of Americans to push a wild-eyed political scheme.
Monday, February 13, 2006
WOBBLY SCIENCE?
The Earth’s Wobble Has Paused
For at least three and a half weeks there has been almost no movement of the spin axis in the normal spiral track of Chandler’s Wobble.
For the past 21 days there has been no discernable wobble motion in the Earth. Have we come to a profound change in the geophysics of the Earth? Why this sudden change in what usually has been for the past 100 years or more a fairly regular, fairly predictable wobble track.
As is well known, the wobble is generated by the differential pulling of the Moon and the Sun on the Earth's equatorial bulge (and any other concentrations of mass in or on the Earth). This differential pulling is caused by the oblique angles of the orbital planes which bring the Sun and the Moon alternatively above and below the equator, thus tending through orbital time to push one side of the Earth or the other to move faster or slower than the other side to the North or to the South.
The Earth's Wobble has a 7 year cycle which produces two extremes, a small spiraling wobble circle and a large spiraling wobble circle, about 3.5 years apart. The Earth was in October 2005 moving into the small spiraling circle (the MIN phase of the wobble), which should have slowly unfolded during 2006 and the first few months of 2007. (Each spiraling circle takes about 14 months).
But suddenly at the beginning of November 2005, the track of the location of the spin axis veered at a very sharp right angle to its circling motion. The track of the spin axis began to slow down and by about January 8, 2006, it ceased nearly all relative motion on the x and y coordinates which are used to define the daily changing location of the spin axis.
[Article found in discussion forum here.]
For at least three and a half weeks there has been almost no movement of the spin axis in the normal spiral track of Chandler’s Wobble.
For the past 21 days there has been no discernable wobble motion in the Earth. Have we come to a profound change in the geophysics of the Earth? Why this sudden change in what usually has been for the past 100 years or more a fairly regular, fairly predictable wobble track.
As is well known, the wobble is generated by the differential pulling of the Moon and the Sun on the Earth's equatorial bulge (and any other concentrations of mass in or on the Earth). This differential pulling is caused by the oblique angles of the orbital planes which bring the Sun and the Moon alternatively above and below the equator, thus tending through orbital time to push one side of the Earth or the other to move faster or slower than the other side to the North or to the South.
The Earth's Wobble has a 7 year cycle which produces two extremes, a small spiraling wobble circle and a large spiraling wobble circle, about 3.5 years apart. The Earth was in October 2005 moving into the small spiraling circle (the MIN phase of the wobble), which should have slowly unfolded during 2006 and the first few months of 2007. (Each spiraling circle takes about 14 months).
But suddenly at the beginning of November 2005, the track of the location of the spin axis veered at a very sharp right angle to its circling motion. The track of the spin axis began to slow down and by about January 8, 2006, it ceased nearly all relative motion on the x and y coordinates which are used to define the daily changing location of the spin axis.
[Article found in discussion forum here.]
THROWING MUD
DuPont rejects Teflon health risk claims
DuPont says: Teflon® is a brand name and a registered trademark of DuPont. Teflon® is not PFOA. The improper use of the Teflon® brand as a synonym for PFOA is not only inaccurate and misleading to consumers but also constitutes a trademark violation. More +
However: Independent Science Panel to EPA: Teflon Chemical is 'Likely' Human Carcinogen
A panel comprised mostly of independent scientists advising the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found today that DuPont's Teflon chemical, PFOA, is a "likely human carcinogen."
The company could face the maximum fine from EPA of $314 million for illegally suppressing birth defect and safety studies. Agency officials, however, have hinted that they are considering a much lower fine of $13 million.
DuPont is also the subject of a federal criminal probe into its suppression of the studies.
"Scientists independent of chemical industry money looked at the toxicity of this chemical, and the verdict is clear: This Teflon chemical should be considered a likely human carcinogen. If EPA officials needed a reason to level the maximum fine against this $24.6 billion company, they have it now," said EWG Senior Vice President Richard Wiles. "DuPont might be politically connected with an army of lobbyists, but it should still be held accountable."
[]
DuPont says: Teflon® is a brand name and a registered trademark of DuPont. Teflon® is not PFOA. The improper use of the Teflon® brand as a synonym for PFOA is not only inaccurate and misleading to consumers but also constitutes a trademark violation. More +
However: Independent Science Panel to EPA: Teflon Chemical is 'Likely' Human Carcinogen
A panel comprised mostly of independent scientists advising the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found today that DuPont's Teflon chemical, PFOA, is a "likely human carcinogen."
The company could face the maximum fine from EPA of $314 million for illegally suppressing birth defect and safety studies. Agency officials, however, have hinted that they are considering a much lower fine of $13 million.
DuPont is also the subject of a federal criminal probe into its suppression of the studies.
"Scientists independent of chemical industry money looked at the toxicity of this chemical, and the verdict is clear: This Teflon chemical should be considered a likely human carcinogen. If EPA officials needed a reason to level the maximum fine against this $24.6 billion company, they have it now," said EWG Senior Vice President Richard Wiles. "DuPont might be politically connected with an army of lobbyists, but it should still be held accountable."
[]
WORKING FOR THE MAN
Imported labour driving down Australian pay and conditions
'Imported' Indonesian workers have allegedly been paid as little as $40 a day to dig ditches in the South Australian desert.
Drilling company Halliburton Australia employed a team of Indonesians for labouring jobs at its gas extraction operations in the Cooper Basin late last year.
Australians who worked alongside the Indonesians said the imported staff worked 80 days straight, were housed in poor work camp accommodation and had some meals laced with pork so they were unfit for the Muslim employees to eat.
Halliburton last week confirmed the global company employs imported workers.
[Despite three days of requests to Halliburton in Australia and the U.S., they have not answered the claims.]
'Imported' Indonesian workers have allegedly been paid as little as $40 a day to dig ditches in the South Australian desert.
Drilling company Halliburton Australia employed a team of Indonesians for labouring jobs at its gas extraction operations in the Cooper Basin late last year.
Australians who worked alongside the Indonesians said the imported staff worked 80 days straight, were housed in poor work camp accommodation and had some meals laced with pork so they were unfit for the Muslim employees to eat.
Halliburton last week confirmed the global company employs imported workers.
[Despite three days of requests to Halliburton in Australia and the U.S., they have not answered the claims.]
Sunday, February 12, 2006
PLOUGHSHARES INTO SWORDS
Things change … Middleback Station owner Andrew Nicolson is resigned to the army's acquisition of the land his family has worked since 1919.
South Australian sheep stations swallowed up by Australian Army
Station owners have met the army's land acquisition proposal with mixed reactions.
Middleback Station owner Andrew Nicolson said the decision has been made, things change and life goes on.
"It's a decision you wouldn't have arrived at yourself," he said. "At the end of the day the decision is not ours.
"The army will make the decision and life goes on."
Although Andrew was unsure how much of Middleback Station the army wanted, he thought it was about 80 per cent.
"At this stage they would take the whole lot," Andrew said. "It would leave us with something unviable."
The Nicolson family has owned Middleback Station since 1919 and Andrew has run it since 1988.
"Of course it's sad to see it go," he said. "I have loved the farming and the family's loved it."
Andrew said the acquisition would provide another use for the land.
Because of its hardy ecology, the land was well suited to the army's heavy vehicle and troop training activities.
Having such a large area of land would allow areas to recover and regenerate between training sessions.
Cultana to triple in size
The Cultana defence training area could triple in size within the next five years, according to parliamentary secretary for defence Teresa Gambaro.
The Defence Minister has approved land acquisitions between the existing training area and Iron Knob.
This land, in addition to the current 48,000 hectares, would make Cultana one of Australia's largest military training areas.
Just how much land was acquired would depend on negotiations with leaseholders of nearby stations. However, the defence department proposed to acquire all of Tregalana Station and all or part of Roopena and Katunga stations.
The stations surrounding Whyalla have significant historical value for Whyalla and its residents and this would have to be safeguarded if the expansion went ahead.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
NOT FUNNY
New Evidence Suggests Cartoon Riots Are Staged Psyop
More evidence has come to light that confirms fake and misleading caricatures were bundled in with the more tame cartoons that were printed in Danish newspapers. Muslims were misled into believing that all the images were printed in newspapers when they were not.
More evidence has come to light that confirms fake and misleading caricatures were bundled in with the more tame cartoons that were printed in Danish newspapers. Muslims were misled into believing that all the images were printed in newspapers when they were not.
REDS UNDER THE BED
The Man Who Terrorized America For Five Years
The film Good Night and Good Luck contains many striking performances - by George Clooney, Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels, Robert Downey Jnr and especially the lean-faced, perma-smoking David Strathairn as crusading TV news anchor Ed Murrow.
But one performance doesn't quite fit with the others. It's simply a face, mouthing lazy threats from a TV screen, but what a face - a boxer's mug, hostile and pugnacious, the eyes deep-set and hooded, a witch's peak of hair arrowing across a pasty brow.
The performance failed to impress some of the preview "test" audiences. They thought the actor was, they said, overacting. What they didn't realise was, this was real. They'd been looking at a real-life broadcast, taken from archive footage, by Senator Joe McCarthy, the man who terrorised America for five years.
NEW WORLD ORDER
U.S. steps up force-feeding at Guantánamo Bay
United States military authorities have taken tougher measures to force-feed detainees engaged in hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after concluding that some were determined to commit suicide to protest their indefinite confinement, military officials have said.
In recent weeks, the officials said, guards have begun strapping recalcitrant detainees into "restraint chairs," sometimes for hours a day, to feed them through tubes and prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward. Detainees who refuse to eat have also been placed in isolation for extended periods in what the officials said was an effort to keep them from being encouraged by other hunger strikers.
[In short, this is nothing more or less than a particularly violent suppression of protest.]
United States military authorities have taken tougher measures to force-feed detainees engaged in hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after concluding that some were determined to commit suicide to protest their indefinite confinement, military officials have said.
In recent weeks, the officials said, guards have begun strapping recalcitrant detainees into "restraint chairs," sometimes for hours a day, to feed them through tubes and prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward. Detainees who refuse to eat have also been placed in isolation for extended periods in what the officials said was an effort to keep them from being encouraged by other hunger strikers.
[In short, this is nothing more or less than a particularly violent suppression of protest.]
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
FREE SPEECH
Burning crosses ... on Danish flags
The complained-of cartoons first appeared in October; they have provoked such fury only now. As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it turns out that a group of Danish imams circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries. When they did so, they included in their package three other, much more offensive cartoons which had not appeared in Jyllands-Posten but were lumped together so that many thought they had.
The complained-of cartoons first appeared in October; they have provoked such fury only now. As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it turns out that a group of Danish imams circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries. When they did so, they included in their package three other, much more offensive cartoons which had not appeared in Jyllands-Posten but were lumped together so that many thought they had.
POLICE STATE
Taser guns to be trialled in NSW
New South Wales' newly-formed riot squad will be allowed to trial an electrical stun gun to incapacitate offenders. The taser guns incapacitate people with a five second burst of an electrical current.
Police Minister Carl Scully dismissed concerns about potential misuse.
The circumstances of their use are yet to be determined and it is unclear how quickly they will be put into operation
[US police have a long history of abusing this weapon on the elderly, children, teens, and even people who don't obey commands immediately after being electrocuted (because they are paralysed).
One out of every four suspects shocked with Tasers was unarmed, nonviolent and not posing an apparent immediate threat.
While health risks from Taser shocks remain under debate, officers have fired them at the very young and the very old -- at least 35 people 16 and younger, including a 13-year-old girl, and seven people 61 or older, including an 86-year-old man, were shocked. At least three women claiming to be pregnant were shocked.]
Monday, February 06, 2006
NOT FUNNY
'Yes, there is the right to caricature God,' says French newspaper France Soir
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned the violent protests: "I am totally shocked and find it unacceptable that because there have been caricatures in the West, extremists can burn flags or take fundamentalist or extremist positions which would prove the cartoonists right."
Cartoon row highlights deep divisions
A great deal of the Islamic literature about Muhammad is hagiographic - that is, unstinting in its praise.
It elevates the founder of Islam to a unique level of perfection and infallibility.
Despite the Koranic emphasis on the fundamentally human nature of Mohammed, the hagiographic tradition continues to dominate perceptions of the Prophet.
The row over the Danish cartoons would probably have remained a local dispute between some Muslims and a Danish newspaper had it not been for three factors:
* the rise of violent political Islam
* America's war on terror
* modern transnational media.
[America's war on terror is still largely perceived in the Arab world as a war on Islam - a perception reinforced by the fact that it is happening exclusively in Muslim countries, namely Iraq and Afghanistan.]
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
Pentagon propaganda to 'Go Army!' aimed at schools
All over the country, organized citizens are fighting to restrict the military’s presence in schools. But having recruiters troll high schools cafeterias is just one way the Pentagon inundates our youngsters with messages to “Go Army!”
Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has spent a half-million dollars a year creating a database it claims is “arguably the largest repository of 16-25 year-old youth data in the country, containing roughly 30 million records.” In Pentagonese the database is part of the Joint Advertising, Marketing Research and Studies (JAMRS) project. Its purpose, along with additional millions spent on polling and marketing research, is to give the Pentagon’s $4 billion annual recruiting budget maximum impact.
[Students who ‘opt out’ of having their information turned over to recruiters by their school are just shifted into another column in the JAMRS database, called the ‘suppression list.’]
All over the country, organized citizens are fighting to restrict the military’s presence in schools. But having recruiters troll high schools cafeterias is just one way the Pentagon inundates our youngsters with messages to “Go Army!”
Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has spent a half-million dollars a year creating a database it claims is “arguably the largest repository of 16-25 year-old youth data in the country, containing roughly 30 million records.” In Pentagonese the database is part of the Joint Advertising, Marketing Research and Studies (JAMRS) project. Its purpose, along with additional millions spent on polling and marketing research, is to give the Pentagon’s $4 billion annual recruiting budget maximum impact.
[Students who ‘opt out’ of having their information turned over to recruiters by their school are just shifted into another column in the JAMRS database, called the ‘suppression list.’]
BRAVE NEW WORLD
Customs `camps' cause for concern
Maybe a lifetime in the news business makes one paranoid. Or maybe it was just a matter of timing.
The story showed up in Tuesday's Press-Telegram, as I was reading "Night," Elie Wiesel's horrifying autobiography of a teenager in Buchenwald and Auschwitz.
Appearing on page A5, the story said the federal government had awarded a $385 million contract for the construction of "temporary detention facilities." These would be used, the story said, in the event of an "immigration emergency."
[The new detention camps will be built by Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's defense-related corporate giant with fists full of contracts involving the war in Iraq.]
Maybe a lifetime in the news business makes one paranoid. Or maybe it was just a matter of timing.
The story showed up in Tuesday's Press-Telegram, as I was reading "Night," Elie Wiesel's horrifying autobiography of a teenager in Buchenwald and Auschwitz.
Appearing on page A5, the story said the federal government had awarded a $385 million contract for the construction of "temporary detention facilities." These would be used, the story said, in the event of an "immigration emergency."
[The new detention camps will be built by Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's defense-related corporate giant with fists full of contracts involving the war in Iraq.]
CRYPTO ARCHAEOLOGY
Rock paintings book causes Kimberley controversy
A book on the controversial rock art paintings, the Bradshaws, is causing a stir in their homeland in the Kimberley before its release in the region's bookshops.
Ian Wilson's book Lost World of the Kimberley suggests that the paintings scattered across the Kimberley could have been the work of a race which flourished in Australia before the last ice age.
But his theories have disturbed native title holders like Donny Woolagoodja, who claims his ancestors created the art.
[According to legend, they were made by birds. It was said that these birds pecked the rocks until their beaks bled, and then created these fine paintings by using a tail feather and their own blood. This art is of such antiquity that no pigment remains on the rock surface, it is impossible to use carbon dating technology. The composition of the original paints cant be determined, and whatever pigments were used have been locked into the rock itself as shades of Mulberry red, and have become impervious to the elements.]
Friday, February 03, 2006
OVER REACTION
One of the cartoons said to incite death threats ... Quid pro quo.
Danish PM 'deeply distressed' over cartoons
Danish Prime Minister Andres Fogh Rasmussen has told Al Arabiya television that he was "deeply distressed" that Muslims were offended by cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
Twelve cartoons of Mohammed first published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten last September, including a portrayal of the Islam's founder wearing a bomb-shaped turban, have provoked a firestorm of indignation in the Muslim world and a boycott of Danish products in most Arab countries.
Editors of French and German papers that republished them said press freedom was more important than the protests and boycotts the cartoons have sparked across the Muslim world.
The Danish embassy in Damascus was evacuated after a bomb threat that turned out to be a hoax and Syria recalled its ambassador from Denmark in protest against the cartoons, one of which shows the Prophet Mohammed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb.
Denmark's largest selling broadsheet finally admitted it had made a mistake, and published an apology (in Danish, English and Arabic)
Honourable Citizens of The Muslim World
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten is a strong proponent of democracy and freedom of religion. The newspaper respects the right of any human being to practise his or her religion. Serious misunderstandings in respect of some drawings of the Prophet Mohammed have led to much anger and, lately, also boycott of Danish goods in Muslim countries.
Please allow me to correct these misunderstandings.
On 30 September last year, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten published 12 different cartoonists' idea of what the Prophet Mohammed might have looked like. The initiative was taken as part of an ongoing public debate on freedom of expression, a freedom much cherished in Denmark.
In our opinion, the 12 drawings were sober. They were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims for which we apologize.
Since then a number of offensive drawings have circulated in The Middle East which have never been published in Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten and which we would never have published, had they been offered to us. We would have refused to publish them on the grounds that they violated our ethical code.
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten attaches importance to upholding the highest ethical standards based upon the respect of our fundamental values. It is so much more deplorable, therefore, that these drawings were presented as if they had anything to do with Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten.
Maybe because of culturally based misunderstandings, the initiative to publish the 12 drawings has been interpreted as a campaign against Muslims in Denmark and the rest of the world. I must categorically dismiss such an interpretation. Because of the very fact that we are strong proponents of the freedom of religion and because we respect the right of any human being to practise his or her religion, offending anybody on the grounds of their religious beliefs is unthinkable to us.
That this happened was, consequently, unintentional.
As a result of the debate that has been going on about the drawings, we have met with representatives of Danish Muslims, and these meetings were held in a positive and constructive spirit. We have also sought in other ways to initiate a fruitful dialogue with Danish Muslims.
It is the wish of Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten that various ethnic groups should live in peace and harmony with each other and that the debates and disagreements which will always exist in a dynamic society should do so in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
For that reason, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has published many articles describing the positive aspects of integration, for example in a special supplement entitled The Contributors. It portrayed a number of Muslims who have had success in Denmark. The supplement was rewarded by the EU Commission.
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten takes exception to symbolic acts suited to demonise specific nationalities, religions and ethnic groups.
Sincerely yours, Carsten Juste, Editor-in-Chief
TENTH PLANET
Xena, or UB313, on the left is just smaller than our Moon (Image: Nature)
Xena bigger than Pluto
Xena, the possible 10th planet in our solar system, is even larger then Pluto, research shows.
Astronomers led by Professor Frank Bertoldi of Germany's University of Bonn say Xena, or 2003 UB313 to give it its official name, has a diameter of about 3000 kilometers, about 700 kilometres larger than Pluto's.
This would make UB313 the largest solar system object to be spotted since the discovery of Neptune in 1846.
Astronomers have been debating the status of UB313 ever since the announcement last year that it had been discovered 15 billion kilometres from Earth.
Pluto's defenders blasted it, saying it was not a planet ... but a vulgar rock.
The polite term for such abuse is a KBO, Kuiper Belt Object, for the estimated 100,000 pieces of icy, primeval debris that slowly encircle the Sun on the outskirts of the solar system, far beyond the orbit of Neptune.
[Since UB313 is decidedly larger than Pluto, it is now increasingly hard to justify calling Pluto a planet if UB313 is not also given this status]
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