Weekend in Wellington. Wake up in Waterloo hotel by the railway & wharf Up to Wilton, Wet dark trees close to the house, Would burn in NSW. Big blackbacks, stepping amongst pungent kelp on Petone Esplanade. a touching hopeful "Sydney" street, named in 1840. Sequoias huge in the gardens. Three frog fountain, the concrete frogs corroded to warty toads, where three children squirted each other 50 years ago.
____________________ Bangkok 8 John Burdett 2003 "What we don't realize, we Thais, is just how simple life is in the West. Too simple," says Sonchai, "The most modest of contributions -- a forty-hour week at the least demanding of mechanized tasks -- earns one a car, an apartment, a bank account. Other gifts of the system -- a spouse, a child or two, a small collection of friends -- arrive automatically and gift-wrapped with support of every kind. A whole hemisphere, in other words, lies dying from event-starvation."
There are several inches of slack within which every car can shunt, and our colleagues show considerable skill and cunning in making a space. In no time at all I am able to drive up onto the sidewalk, where the siren terrorizes the pedestrians. Pichai grins. I am skilled at very dangerous driving from the days when we used to take drugs and steal cars together, a golden age which came to an end when Pichai murdered our yaa baa dealer and we had to seek refuge in the Three Jewels of the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha. There will be time in this chronicle to explain yaa baa.
While I practice close encounters with cooked-food stalls, sex traders and oncoming traffic, wheel spins, split-second lurches and even one hand-brake spin, I try to remember what Dao Phrya Bridge is famous for. Why have I heard of it at all?
We are very happy. Sabai means feeling good and sanuk means having fun. We are both as we race toward the bridge in demonic haste, with Pichai chanting in Pali, the ancient language of the Gautama Buddha, for protection from accidents. He asks also of the Buddhist saints that we do not accidentally kill anyone who does not deserve it, a touchy point with Pichai.
SEAsia fiction always has Euro heros, indigenous characters always paper thin. Even Timothy Mo from Honkers could only come up with an offensive parody. Bangkok 8 verges on breaking this rule. Locals rule, almost rounded characters. Yet No-one has captured the BGirl. LonelyPlanet speaks of 'pitiful' men with teenage girlfriends. Somehow I think they mean repulsion, not pity. Beta males are just not supposed to score sexy. Dennis O’Rourke's "Good Woman of Bangkok", which I didnt see, annoyed the local agitfems with a scene where the woman complains about being filmed. This was seen as 'reality', real abuse. O’Rourkes's wry response was that the scene was the fifth take.
Comment heard in Chaweng "She's not your girlfriend, you give her money". Fortunately I am not on the Euro central computer registry for non-back-payed alimony, else I might have been annoyed. I did give my wife a house, its unclear if this confirms she is, or is not, really my wife. Perhaps the house would require a 2 car garage to validate matrimony. There is no car access down in the barrio.
Also in Bangkok8... odd insights into Buddhism. _________________________ _ Sun Shuyun 'Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud' "You are following Xuanzang." She ran out. In a minute she was back with a big map. In the lower right-hand corner was Xuanzang, like the portrait in my rubbing from the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. "He is a great hero for us," Galina said. "He almost lost his life here, on the Heavenly Mountains. That's why we honour him by putting him on this map." With a big smile, Galina folded up the map and handed it to me. "Please keep this as a souvenir." Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud
moths, Inca Strings, Indian Point cans, Eusebius, carbon pushers
moths, Inca Strings, Indian Point cans, Eusebius, carbon pushers
Weird Science...
printmaker Joseph Scheer..six years..pictures of moths.. ..The scanner records 67 million data points per square inch ..Two small moths fill an entire compact disc. ..enlarged to 86 by 116 cm
Indian Point in Buchanan, NY. ..two operating reactors are two buildings packed with highly radioactive spent-fuel rods, in pools of water 12 meters deep and tinged Ty-D-Bol blue by boron ..pumps ..keep the water cool.. Without that cooling water, the fuel cladding might overheat, melt, catch fire, and release radiation. Whether the impact of a Boeing 767 like Flight 11 could drain one of the pools and disable backup water pumps, starting such a fire, is far from clear.
In Babylonia, the 3rd-century historian Eusebius writes in recounting the lost histories of Berossos the Chaldean, a large number of people ..lived without discipline and without order, just like the animals. A frightening monster named Oannes then appeared to the Babylonians after clambering out of the Red Sea. It had the whole body of a fish, but underneath and attached to the head of the fish there was another head, human, and joined to the tail of the fish, feet, like those of a man, and it had a human voice. The monster spent his days with men, never eating anything, but teaching men the skills necessary for writing, and for doing mathematics, and for all sorts of knowledge. Since that time, Eusebius adds regretfully, 'nothing further has been discovered.'
..80% of greenhouse gases are produced by 122 corporations, carbon pushers ..these 122 corporations are jeopardizing the integrity of the entire global ecosystem, endangering the future for all children, and holding the world's people and their governments hostage by a combination of bribery and brute force. ..
Icky sweet jasmine scent from th yard, cheap chardonay, Humous by the spoonful The other RayBans found under a pile of laundry. The new Norco bike out along the Woolloomooloo finger wharf. Dull Spring dreams from sleeping too much.
Shahab-3B ..Iranians wanted to develop a missile that would.. deploy a steerable re-entry vehicle during the terminal dive phase. Shahab-3B is a result of this effort.
Around one year ago Iran claimed.. a laser gyroscope INS system coupled with GPS as backup. .. the Shahab-3B could archive an accuracy of around 30-50m CEP or even less. .. warhead weight .. decreased - to.. 500kg... sufficient for pin-point target attack..improved range..between 1.700 and 2.500km. __________________ August, Iranian Rear-Admiral Ali Shamkhani said; "We will consider any strike against our nuclear installations as an attack on Iran as a whole, and we will retaliate with all our strength... "Where Israel is concerned, we have no doubt that it is an evil entity, and it will not be able to launch any military operation without an American green light. You cannot separate the two." .."We have assessed the American armed forces in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan ... they are not unknown or mystical to us any more," he said. _________________________ _________
Mosul Mosul Girl
19Nov ..at least 51 American servicemen have been killed and 425 wounded in the city since Nov. 8, Lt. Gen. John Sattler, c1MEF at Camp Falluja 18Nov "Clashes are still continuing the southern and eastern edges of the town. US forces have so far failed to storm the northern al-Julan neighbourhood," he said. ..US-led forces had abandoned al-Julan and the northern parts of the city, resorting shelling and aerial bombing
1920 "The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster. Our unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the willfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad but the responsibility, in this case, is not on the army which has acted only upon the request of the civil authorities." T.E. Lawrence, The Sunday Times, August 1920 History
Baghdad 11Nov * Residents of the areas of Al-Dora, Abu Ghraib, and Amiriyah areas of Baghdad are reporting that the resistance have taken over control of parts of those areas. * Iraqi Police checkpoints are present in much greater number throughout the city in enforcement of the new curfew. * Petrol lines are now, in some places, stretching for 2-3 miles long. * Most of Baghdad, which I saw while driving through the city tonight, is without electricity and running on generators. * In the Al-Aadhamiyah district, they have been without power today since 9am (It's nearly 10pm now) [NOTE: Aadhamiyah is a center of the resistance in Baghdad and residents frequently assert the power cuts in the area are due to deliberate policy rather than lack of power-generation capacity, a charge that I find plausible but unconfirmable]. * I'm in central Baghdad, one of the best areas for electricity, and since I've been here this past week, we are averaging 10 hours of electricity per 24 hours [NOTE: the Iraqi Minister of Electricity, Aiham al-Samarra'i, was on PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer yesterday and he claimed that the average provision of power was something like 16 hours per day, in a segment that was riddled with claims that are in sharp contrast with all other sources of information I've seen]. * Many shops are now staying closed, even in Baghdad as the fighting continues to spread. * The "Green Zone" continues to be bombed by mortars every day, sometimes for extended periods of time. * The US base in the old Saddam Palace in Aadhamiyah has been mortared every single night now for at least a week straight.
_________________________ ______________
Jamming JDAMs
JDAM bombs using GPS are very popular with USA military. They apparently use a truck based GPS corrector for final calibration. Accuracy is better than design specs.. well within 10 meters. Works in dark or sandstorm. No target illumination required. The Russian GPS jammers reportedly delivered to Iraq appear to have failed What is needed is espionage to obtain the list of frequency-hoppings, or crypto keys, or an EMPulse device to jam all bands. EMP devices typically detonate explosives onto a magnetic coil, so cannot operate continuously. But they are very cheap. http://www.drmenlo.com/abuddh... They would also tend to fry local MOSFET chips (most computers) and 10T cabled systems( most)
"in combat when in Iraq, an enemy GPS jammer was taken out with a JDAM"
WADGPS Wide Area Differential GPS (WADGPS) .. in the US Air Force EDGE and WAGE trials...a network of precisely calibrated GPS receiver ground stations surrounding the theatre .. which continuously measure the error in the recieved GPS signal .. Data.. fed.. to a central ground station.. parameters such as solid earth tide (bulge) .. continously computes a set of correction parameters for use in an enhanced Kalman filter, these are encrypted and broadcast via a radio link (EDGE) or unused encrypted GPS Almanac page (WAGE). The compensated GPS errors achieved using this technique are as low as several inches in all three axes.
DGPS Precision accuracy will be attained by using differential GPS (DGPS) technology demonstrated on programs such as Enhanced Differential GPS for Guidance Enhancement (EDGE) and Miniature Munition Technology Demonstration (MMTD) ..Small Smart Bomb is a 250 pound weapon that has the same penetration capabilities as a 2000lb BLU-109, but with only 50 pounds of explosive. With the INS/GPS guidance in conjunction with differential GPS (using all 12 channel receivers, instead of only 5) corrections provided by GPS SPO Accuracy Improvement Initiative (AII) and improved Target Location Error (TLE), it can achieve a 5-8m CEP.
New Cruise missiles render Carrier groups obsolete.
I know I claimed to be over the war, but these times feel more dangerous than even the 1961 Cuban crisis. Khrushchev was a cunning peasant, JFK was an East Coast Intellectual. Our fear was high, but bounded. Now we have a USA governed by oily apocalyptic mean minded morons.
Tech Talk: Exocet and supersonic cruise missiles are unstoppable, Nuclear capable. Essentially radar invisible, with a smaller ignition thermal signature than a ballistic missile, the point of origin may not be evident. So if Tel Aviv or Teheran experiences a 200kTon blast. it may be impossible to sheet home the blame.
Iran has 'hundreds' of exocet style missiles and 'Some' Moskit supersonic missiles Carrier groups in the Gulf have no effective defence against these. Russia may have stationed nuclear Moskits in Syria
Quotes _____________________ ..those otherwise very ordinary [PRC] destroyers were, in fact, launching platforms for Russian-made 3M-82 Moskit [Sunburn] anti-ship cruise missiles (NATO designation: SS-N-22 Sunburn), a weapon for which the US Navy currently has no defense. _____________________ The Sunburn can deliver a 200-kiloton nuclear payload, or: a 750-pound conventional warhead, within a range of 100 miles ..Mach 2.1 speed ..a flight pattern that hugs the deck and includes 'violent end maneuvers' to elude enemy defenses. The missile was specifically designed to defeat the US Aegis radar defense system.
..US ships in the Gulf will already have come within range of the Sunburn missiles and the even more-advanced SS-NX-26 Yakhonts missiles, also Russian-made (speed: Mach 2.9; range: 180 miles) deployed by the Iranians along the Gulf’s northern shore. Every US ship will be exposed and vulnerable. When the Iranians spring the trap, the entire lake will become a killing field. _____________________ the Kremlin decided to turn the military wick up the same week as the Yukos debacle, by discreetly leaking a report showing the devastating Sunburns would be progressively replaced in 2004 by the even more devastating SS-N-25 'Onyx'. Though at first glance it might seem impossible for the Russians to improve on the unstoppable Sunburn, they have managed to do so, thus ensuring absolute Russian and Chinese supremacy in the Eastern Hemisphere for at least the next two decades
Though Sunburn can fly 150 kilometers at Mach 2.1.. at .. 60 feet .. Using the same launch tubes as Sunburn, Onyx .. 200+ kilometer flight path at .. Mach 2.9..altitude .. 45 feet.
so great is the kinetic energy ..Onyx can sink an American aircraft carrier using only a conventional penetrating warhead... .. Russia or China can sink American aircraft carriers at will without ever having to escalate to nuclear warfare, which gives both countries a massive strategic advantage. ___________________ Will Iran be next? Sunburn in the Gulf Helen Caldicott "Bush's win meant "endless war and I think it could mean nuclear war" _________________________ _ there was a possibility that at any moment there might be a special bulletin from the Ministry of Peace. The news from the African front was disquieting in the extreme. On and off he had been worrying about it all day. A Eurasian army (Oceania was at war with Eurasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia) was moving southward at terrifying speed. _________________________ _
Fearing booby traps, the troops generally entered the houses only after tanks rammed through walls or specialists put explosive charges on doors.
Weekend, down to Tumbalong for Thai food, nice, but it aint Thailand... Over to the Newtown festival where "Evermore" played, 3 brothers from Fielding - a very small town indeed. They have a sound, but lack the craziness of the early Finn bros Split Enz [Actually I saw the Enz in Auckland Uni cafe (1973?) before Neil joined)
I'm so over the USA & Neo-zionists, but one last look at the map: Who said the Rightists in USA could use red as their colour? "The workers' flag is deepest red, It shrouded oft our martyred dead;"
Sadly ucomics.com have cycled the classic Calvin & Hobbes 1993/10/31 into oblivion Moral: if you see a neat image, steal it, store it & link to your store. Dont trust the original source...
heres another link...
(AlJazeera seem to be keeping images more than 24 hours now. I hope they keep everything, they are a "Journal of Record" for these Imperialist wars.)
Kill Bill
(Not sure about flying the Jihad flag. I'm not happy about civilians having their heads sawn off. But I also dont like Neo-Zion crushing houses with people inside.)
Waiting at Tien Pier on the Chao Phraya (white & yellow flag ferries are express no flag is all stops) coarse water weed piles at the dock. Huge barges of big logs going UP the river past Wat Arun Hectares of dead rainforest passing us.
Chiang Mai Sunday night market (the one Inside the moat, not the crass one outside the walls) round lacquerware bowl. just like the one he has been rolling over for 25 years.
4 species of butterfly at Koh Samui airport KS artists paint brilliant fakes: ..Okeefe, Rivera, Warhol Marilyn Miro, Klimt,Matisse cutouts, Francis Bacon A brilliant Van Gogh Self portrait B2500, no bargaining
"Maybe he became ill and couldnt leave the studio"
Concrete stepping stones to my hut big leaf impressions deeply cast Huge hazy sun. Evening elephants returning
Barracuda bar refuses to play my Ojos de Brujo "Bari" sticking with Progressive House until a group of skinny bikini kiwi & brits get Oasis & Clash
"Fashion TV" 24/7 ..endless catwalk channel..
Talking plastic surgery with lady boys at Nama Plaza Eating chicken liver barbecue, not properly cooked wondering if next week we will all be dead from bird flu.
Music trend : Belize Aurelio Martinez Garifuna Soul
What is it men in women do require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
But the look of soft deceit Shall Win the lover's hire.
Soft Deceit & Idleness, These are Beauty's sweetest dress.
Like a fool he leaves her, but weeks later he finds her again, they fly to Chiang Mai. 20 years old, In that critical first month on Silom. Pon wants to do all the Wat She gives a little Wai as they pass the foyer shrine in their one star hotel on soi 7/1 He loves to watch a girl have her first ice-cream soda, her first plane take off. Wat Pra Singh they see a class of young monks graduation ceremony Wat Chedi Luang they visit the town tree (planted 1796, a podocarp, looks like a kauri) Rented scooter up the steep winding forest road. Wat Phra That Doi Suthep , they get blessed. How long should the white string remain on the wrist?
Chiang Mai is his birthplace He died here in 1979 Town full of smack He & Bom would re-roll 555 cigarettes with Buddha stick & #4 Bom left him after she caught him with a Cambodian girl (who had escaped who knows what horrors) he got an outfit, OD'd. Bom came to his room, found him. He came back with an ambulance driver leaning over Him. Another lifetime. He feels a fondness for the town walls still. ............................ He wakes in the dark, dont know where he is. From a bad dream, pursued by derisive laughter... The woman in my bed, a succubus? who is she? He find Pon's witches' nipple The mole beneath her right breast. A wonderful relief encompasses him. ................................ They spend hours in the bath. They visit her place in the Bangbon burbs, he meets her sister, her mother Concrete room, blue tiled floor, cushions, old wardrobes, new stereo. Her mothers glance, younger than him. Concern & conciliation. ......................... They zoom over Temples and construction sites serene above the haze BTS skytrain. Sitting in Sports bar Sukhumvit Soi 13 Sunday heat in the shadows, Tiger beer & chilli noodles English blimp couples pass, man flashes a glance into the shadows.
Ten Breaths: On the Fourth breath a wave of sadness compassion for one's self and its follies This vanishes instantly as the realisation that pity too is an attachment ............. The Fifth Breath One understands that the Buddha Statue (gold specular reflections) is a device engineered to overwhelm the perceptions [mandala,tanka] ............... On the Sixth Breath the device takes hold. A golden pyramid, hourglass,cartoon machine, fixed gaze, afterimages sensory refractory period, entrancement .................. Seventh Breath distractions arise One can lose count. One realises that it would take a decade of monastic discipline to attain that Tenth Breath ................. Eighth Breath One becomes aware of the others in the Wat, not in Zazen or Lotus, rather, sitting relaxed, comfortable Thais do the triple wai, palms to the ground flowers, candles cassock & surplice incense of his Altar-boy youth Holding the Bishops mitre in the Basilica 40 years ago............... ...................... Ninth Breath remembers his companion, where is she? wandering amidst the stupa, ceramic flowers brilliantly coloured. Love, longing, imperfection so suddenly detected, learned to seek perfection Not recognising it when one finds it ................ Tenth Breath If one has managed to keep count. Now we are back, planning tomorrow pharmacy,travel agency, alcohol Aching in feet ................
Orchids Monks Mankut Nam Crabs Sum Dam Street vendor, soi Surawong handful of tium (garlic) & handful of chiles some small crabs (for flavour only, discard the legs & shell pieces) other mysterious ingredients grind in great wooden motar & pestle Some Mankut (fruit) for desert Stop in 711 for some hard to find size 54 condoms and Nam - spicy Chaing Mai style sausage. none of your tired franks in this street.
Flower Girls of Chaweng Beach. Selling garlands of flowers and polystyrene beads. An apt mix for the toxoc strip that has replaced palm trees. The girls cant sleep until theyve sold all. Skipping at 7pm , tired at 1am when some are still out. more flowergirls
A dream a few of us had 25 years ago, around a bamboo bong & magic mushrooms. Careless Dreaming brings forth monsters. Jet-skis buzz like blowflies back and forth trapped too late in a bottle of desire. Loung Por Ruam's mumified body sits still surprised by life, by death.
It's Sita Devi herself! Behold her sparkling golden skin
Wait! Who's that asleep on that golden bed just to the left of King Ravan? It's Sita Devi herself! Behold her sparkling golden skin, her wavy hair dark as the monsoon clouds of sravan, bedecked with jewel nets, the perfection of her limbs, her soft, full fingers each sparkling with bejewelled rings, her body adorned with just the right ornaments, her clothes a little dishevelled because clearly she had fallen asleep in the throes of revelry... The room is littered with golden goblets, her ripe red lips slightly parted barely revealing a couple of pearly teeth. (Hanuman is mistaken, the figure is not the chaste Sita (Nang Sida), but the chief queen, Mandodari)
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Kill Bill
