Sydney Swans Win AFL Grand Final

The morning after...
25 September 2005
Jennifer Witham
Sportal for afl.com.au

Sunglasses hid blurry eyes, teammates leant on each other for support, and beers continued to be cracked despite the early hour, as the Swans took a final opportunity to thank their Melbourne-based supporter base on Sunday morning.

Congregating at the Lindsay Hassett Oval in Albert Park the morning after Sydney broke a 72-year premiership hoodoo in a nail-biting win over West Coast, the Swans turned out to say a final farewell to thousands of Victorian followers before taking the premiership cup back to New South Wales.

Most had not slept, few were walking straight with confidence, and some still even wore the guernseys from Saturday's grand final. But one thing remained constant – each player proudly boasted a premiership medal and a broad (but bleary) grin. - More

Recommended Listening For The Week

Sunburst Finish
By Be-Bop Deluxe


Be Bop Deluxe was a '70s British rock group led by guitarist Bill Nelson (born on December 18, 1948, Wakefield, Yorkshire, England) who veered between glam rock, pop, and heavy metal, with lots of demonstrations of Nelson's guitar prowess. After recording with Gentle Revolution and on his own, Nelson put together the first lineup of Be Bop Deluxe in 1972: Ian Parkin (guitar), Robert Bryan (bass), and Nicholas Chatterton-Dew (drums). But after the release of the first album, Axe Victim, Nelson sacked the band. The second album, Futurama, featured Nelson with a rhythm section of bassist Charles Tumahai and drummer Simon Fox. Keyboard player Andrew Clark joined for the third album, Sunburst Finish, which contained the U.K. chart single "Ships in the Night." Be Bop Deluxe released a fourth album, Modern Music; a concert recording, Live! In the Air Age, that became their only U.K. Top Ten hit; and a fifth studio album, Drastic Plastic, before Nelson folded the enterprise, briefly tried another group, Red Noise, and went solo again in 1979. Since then he has recorded prolifically, if experimentally, and handled occasional production jobs. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide - MP3.com

Messiah Of The Left

Che Guevara: The Killing Machine

Alvaro Vargas Llosa
The New Republic

Che Guevara, who did so much (or was it so little?) to destroy capitalism, is now a quintessential capitalist brand. His likeness adorns mugs, hoodies, lighters, key chains, wallets, baseball caps, toques, bandanas, tank tops, club shirts, couture bags, denim jeans, herbal tea and of course those omnipresent T-shirts with the photograph, taken by Alberto Korda, of the socialist heartthrob in his beret during the early years of the revolution, as Che happened to walk into the photographer's viewfinder -- and into the image that, 38 years after his death, is still the logo of revolutionary (or is it capitalist?) chic.

Che products are marketed by big corporations and small businesses -- such as the Burlington Coat Factory, which put out a television commercial depicting a youth in fatigue pants wearing a Che T-shirt, or Flamingo's Boutique in Union City, New Jersey, whose owner responded to the fury of local Cuban exiles with this devastating argument: "I sell whatever people want to buy."

The metamorphosis of Che Guevara into a capitalist brand is not new, but the brand has been enjoying a revival of late. This windfall is owed substantially to The Motorcycle Diaries. Beautifully shot against landscapes that have clearly eluded the eroding effects of polluting capitalism, the recent film shows the young man on a voyage of self-discovery as his budding social conscience encounters social and economic exploitation. At this year's Academy Awards ceremony, Carlos Santana and Antonio Banderas performed the theme song from The Motorcycle Diaries, Santana showing up wearing a Che T-shirt and a crucifix. - More @ The National Post

Homeless Saints Win Season Opener

Saints overcome tragedy, Panthers 23-20

Football is no longer a simple game for the New Orleans Saints. They'll play this season for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, a burden they'll carry every time they step on the field.

The Saints won for their deluged city and the displaced victims of the Gulf Coast region, getting two touchdowns from Deuce McAllister and a 47-yard field goal from John Carney with three seconds left in a 23-20 season-opening win over the Carolina Panthers.

"In the back of our minds, we know we have to give them one tiny bit of hope," said New Orleans quarterback Aaron Brooks. "We have complete faith in what we are doing because every time we go out there, it is our job to give them hope that every day will be a better day."

The Saints have visited shelters in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, spending time with fans who had lost everything. Each time they heard the same request: Win a game for us. - More @ NFL.com

I Hope We Get Credit For This

Canadians Beat U.S. Army to New Orleans Suburb

A Canadian search-and-rescue team reached a flooded New Orleans suburb to help save trapped residents five days before the U.S. military, a Louisiana state senator said on Wednesday.

The Canadians beat both the Army and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. disaster response department, to St. Bernard Parish east of New Orleans, where flood waters are still 8 feet (2.4 meters) deep in places, Sen. Walter Boasso said.

"Fabulous, fabulous guys," Boasso said. "They started rolling with us and got in boats to save people."

"We've got Canadian flags flying everywhere." - Epoch Times

Related Story: Wires get crossed in Canada's relief effort
Sailors can't reach Ottawa for supplies; they called wrong number, officials say - National Post

Better Late Than Never

No Sharia family tribunals in Ontario: McGuinty

Ontario will not become the first Western jurisdiction to allow the use of a set of centuries' old religious rules called Shariah law to settle Muslim family disputes, and will ban all religious arbitrations in the province, Premier Dalton McGuinty told The Canadian Press on Sunday.

In a telephone interview with the national news agency, McGuinty announced his government would move quickly to outlaw existing religious tribunals used for years by Christians and Jews under Ontario's Arbitration Act.

"I've come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough," he said.

"There will be no Shariah law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians." - More @ CTV News

What a concept, one law for all. Who'd a thunk it. - KS

Recommended Listening For The Week

Frantic City
Teenage Head

Original Release Date September 1980

Great Canadian band, great live shows in the old days. - KS

Welfare Kills

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

by Robert Tracinski

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster. - More @ The Intellectual Activist

Via WND

Lost Opportunity

Governor Acts - Sort Of

Press Release
Date: 9/1/2005 (Thursday)


Contact:Denise Bottcher or Roderick Hawkins at 225-342-9037


Governor Blanco Announces Executive Order

Baton Rouge, LA— Governor Blanco today announced the following Executive Order:

Executive Order NO. KBB 2005- 31- provides that pursuant to the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act, R.S. 29:721, et seq., grants emergency powers to the governor, where, she has in consultation with school superintendents, utilized public school buses for transportation of Hurricane Katrina evacuees. As you are aware most public school districts will not begin school until Tuesday, September 6th 2005.

The full text of the above mentioned proclamation is available on the Internet at www.gov.state.la.us.


Lets See Those Busses Again:




















"With the improved resolution we count 255 buses in that one lot. That means at a capacity of 66 on board, 16,830 New Orleans residents could have been evacced out in one trip. Even if you have a lower capacity per bus, say 50 per bus, you're still getting nearly 13,000 out in one run. In an emergency mandatory evacuation, you could probably get away with putting more than 66 on each of those buses.

When we said that the buses are now expenses instead of assets, this is what we meant. Not only are those buses ruined, their disuse resulting in lives lost, but now they're spilling oil and gas out into the already polluted water. A spark near that slick could cause yet another fire and a whole new set of explosions."

Via Junk Yard Blog & LGF

It seems some 20 percent of New Orlean's residents chose not not evacuate, even when told to do so on August 28th, before the storm hit. Granted many did not have the means to evacuate themselves. The responsibility for this lies with the Mayor of New orleans and the Governor of Louisiana. - KS

Weyburn SK On LSD

LSD Finds New Respectability

It was the drug of choice on university campuses, the drug that spawned psychedelic culture as well as countless jail sentences and fines, but LSD actually has respectable roots—roots that a McMaster University researcher is uncovering.

"Far from being fringe medical research, trials of LSD were once a legitimate branch of psychiatric research," explains Erika Dyck, a doctoral researcher in the Department of History at McMaster. "LSD produced a "model psychosis," meaning people who took the drug exhibited symptoms of illnesses such as schizophrenia. Doctors used this as a new method for studying mental illness."

...

Dyck discovered another interesting fact while researching LSD: The term "psychedelic", it turns out, was a Canadian invention – coined in Weyburn, Sask. in the 1950s. More @ McMaster U

Read the report here.

Mayor Blame Thyself

Interview With The Mayor Of New Orleans From The National Post:
'I need troops, man. I need 500 buses'

Quote: Nagin: I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. They're talking about, you know, one of the briefings we had, you know, they were talking about getting uh, uh you know, public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here. I'm like, 'You gotta be kidding me!'

This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans. That's, they're thinking small man, and this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man.

This is crazy! I've got 15,000 to 20,000 people over at the convention centre, it's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines parish, they're air-vacing people here over to New Orleans. We don't have anything and were sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines parish. It's, it's, it's, it's awful down here, man. More @ National Post


As seen on Drudge and other blogs:












Looks like the mayor had a few buses before the storm and chose not to use them. How many died because of that bit of incompetence? - KS