Given the eternal, unending...

... peregrinations through that most fundamental law of US democracy otherwise known as the the Second Amendment, I recommend this line of antique and up-to-the-second weaponry.

My personal favourite just has to be The Goliathon 83 Infinity Beam Projector

I am NOT here...

... because for the next ten days I am withdrawing from this care-filled world.

In emergency, I will be found on a beach in sunny Savai'i.

No phone.
No net.
No radio.
No tv.
No cares.
No worries mate.

Only my fine woman and BLISS!!

I don't even care that Dave the Justus deleted my penultimate comment. The tags were bad, I have to admit.

Old vistas, new printings.

This one took me a bit by surprise - and I must keep a weather eye for the book.

An obscure book first published in New Zealand in 1881 and republished last month, is being called as significant as Pride and Prejudice.

The Great Romance deals with "ground-breaking" themes such as interplanetary colonisation by humankind, sexual relations with aliens and the problems of space flight _ including space shuttles, spacesuits and air locks _ academics and reviewers say.

Written by an anonymous author who used the pseudonym "The Inhabitant", the novella was published as two separate volumes.

The first comprised 55 pages, the only known original of which is held in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.

The second instalment is just 39 pages.
...
The Los Angeles Times reviewer Ed Park described it as a "slim, oddly proportioned book, a hybrid of utopian and space exploration narratives that reaches out to grasp the reader's hand, unexpectedly and vigorously, from the equally remote milieu of late 19th-century New Zealand".

"The unfinished masterpiece is as strong a myth as literature holds," he wrote.

Publishers Weekly claimed: "This may have been the first time that anyone described space suits, air locks or the difficulties of landing on an asteroid or entering a planetary atmosphere.

"This reprint will be of considerable interest to specialist scholars of science fiction, if not the casual reader."

Now you betcha on that!! The pity - that we will probably never know for certain just who was "The Inhabitant".

"Bad karma"

I can not help but wonder if, as Sharon Stone is recorded as having said, the Chinese earthquake was the consequence of "bad karma" then what is she going to say about the floods in Cedar Rapids, and the earthquake in Japan.

And please, TF, do not get me wrong. I have as much sympathy for the victims of these latter examples of nature at work as I had for the earthquake in China.

This is about the colossal stupidity of that Stone(d) woman.

Nothing else.

Madelaine Albright resurfaces...

I have always had a regard for Albright, despite her persistent refusal to speak truth about Rwanda; she has always given the strong impression of consideration and regard in her doings.

So it is this time with this op-ed in the SMH.

A recommended read, and one that is a fine summation of the problems in the world of international aid and assistance.

She concludes -

Governments in the developing world are now determined to preserve the principle of sovereignty, even if the human costs are high.

Thus, Burma's leaders have been shielded from the repercussions of their outrageous actions.

Sudan has dictated the terms of multinational operations inside Darfur.

The Government of Zimbabwe may yet steal a presidential election.

Political leaders in Pakistan have told the Bush Administration to back off, despite the growth of al-Qaeda.

African leaders (understandably, perhaps) have said no to the creation of a regional American military command.

And despite efforts to enshrine the legal doctrine of a "responsibility to protect", the concept of humanitarian intervention has lost momentum.

The global conscience is not asleep, but after the turbulence of recent years, it is profoundly confused. Some governments will oppose any exceptions to sovereignty because they fear criticism of their own policies. Others will defend the sanctity of sovereignty until they again have confidence in the judgment of those proposing exceptions.

At the heart of the debate is the question of what the international system is. Is it just a collection of legal nuts and bolts cobbled together by governments to protect governments? Or is it a living framework of rules intended to make the world a more humane place?

We know how the Government of Burma would answer that question, but what we need to listen to is the voice - and cry - of the Burmese people.

Which is a fair question. As is also the question of Zimbabwe, and Somalia, and even Fiji. What she does not address, nor do I have the answer, is the question of method. The implied message from Albright is that the military response has failed...