The Kyoto Protocol comes into effect on Wednesday, 16 February 2005. This is ninety days after the Russian Duma gave its formal ratification.

Kofi Annan made a statement yesterday. The UNFCCC issued a press release outlining the requirements from February 16.

The proof is out there. Now be honest, you haven't seen the two of them together, have you?

I'm devastated by the news John Ashcroft is leaving. Do you think we'll see tits on statues in Washington once more?
- Molly Ivins, The Progressive, December 2004 edition.

A ten-year old cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary is currently up for bids on eBay. Knarf.ca, a Canadian blog devoted entirely to ebayrama (or is that ebayrilia?), picks up the story.

I'd love to see an NRL team do something similar to this!

The Guardian of October 19 reported that Inter Milan has donated €5000, an ambulance and the number 4 jumper of Javier Zanetti to the Zapatista guerrilla army in the Chiapas region of Southern Mexico.

So this is what Canadian football does to the locals:

Ticats fan jailed for Argo ear bite

CBC TORONTO - A Hamilton Tiger-Cats fan has been sentenced to six months in jail for biting off part of a Toronto Argonatus fan's ear.

Christopher Stevenson, 28, was convicted of attacking a Toronto man following the 2002 Labour Day game between the Argos and the Ti-Cats at Ivor Wynne Stadium.

The identity of the assailant was the central issue at the trial.

Stevenson testified it was not him, but a friend who bit the victim's ear.

6 May 1953: Airman Ronald Maddison died less than hour after sarin gas was deliberately dripped onto his arm as part of an experiment at a chemical weapons facility at Porton Down, Wiltshire. Fifty-one years later, a fresh inquest has decided that Maddison was unlawfully killed. His relatives intend seeking compensation from the Ministry of Defence, and more than 500 claims from exservicemen who were involved unwittingly in the WMD tests (and survived) could be forthcoming.

We shouldn't be too surprised about this. Everyone does it to everyone eles, abd we just don't hear about it except when spooks get caught, like the Mossad agents in New Zealand.

Channel Nine's Sunday did a report yesterday morning. Included is an interview with retiring Indonesian intelligence chief General Mahmud Hendropriyono.

Transcript at http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/cover_stories/transcript_1683.asp

He seems to have secured a mandate based on his policies of pre-emptive war, war on the environment, crony capitalism, veiled racism, homophobia and a fundamentalism that would make the Taliban proud... our country is split down the middle creating a cultural civil war that is not going away any time soon. It is a fight over values in which there is very little middle ground remaining. The stakes are extremely high for all we hold dear.
- John Passcantando, Executive Director, Greenpeace, 4.11.04

Some photos from our visit to the Adelaide Zoo during our recent holiday in South Australia are on-line now in my little-publicised gallery site.