It just never stops...

*Kenya, in addition to the usual problems of a developing African nation (poverty, tribal frictions), has recently endured the rise in power of the Mungiki, which is a secret society that is "part Sicilian Mafia, part Chicago street gang, with a little of the occult sprinkled in." Police say the members aim to destabilize the country in the midst of the current political campaign by devil-worshipping acts of violence (skinning heads, drinking human blood from jerrycans). A district commissioner in Nairobi said the Mungiki had threatened her with genital mutilation. The gang originated in the 1990s much as organized crime in the U.S. did, by taking over such urban enterprises as bus transit and garbage collection.
*Once-classified reports obtained by the Associated Press in May revealed that three times in late 2005 and early 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense issued espionage alerts regarding newly designed Canadian 25-cent pieces, which the Pentagon warned may contain embedded transmitters capable of eavesdropping, and which perhaps were given purposely to U.S. contractors working in Canada. Some time later, according to the reports, the Pentagon learned that the coin's coating was not a film-and-mesh transmitter but merely a covering to preserve the limited-issue coin's unique design.!!!!!

Nektar

Oh, my...

A blue diamond, artificially manufactured by the LifeGem company, perhaps would not be that interesting at first sight, apart from its price of a million dollars, if it were not made from Ludwig van Beethoven`s lock of hair. LifeGem specialises in producing artificial diamonds from carbon of a deceased person`s body and customers can wear it as decoration (!). They obtained hair from the dead composer through John Reznikoff, a collectionaire of celebrity locks of hair, who has the largest collection in the world, according to the Guinness book of records. Apart from Beethoven`s hair, Reznikoff possesses with hair which belonged to other celebrities, including Albert Einstein, George Harrison and many others.The blue diamond is placed on auction at eBay !!!

Student nije zapalio...

The Knights Templar, the medieval Christian military order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for 700 years.
The Templars, whose full name was Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, were founded in 1119 by knights sworn to protecting Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099. They amassed enormous wealth and helped finance wars of some European monarchs. Legends of their hidden treasures, secret rituals and power have figured over the years in films and bestsellers such as "The Da Vinci Code". The Knights have also been portrayed as guardians of the legendary Holy Grail, the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper before his crucifixion.
The Templars went into decline after Muslims re-conquered the Holy Land at the end of the 13th century and were accused of heresy by King Philip IV of France, their foremost persecutor. Their alleged offences included denying Christ and secretly worshipping idols. Templars were burned at the stake for heresy by King Philip's agents after they made confessions that most historians believe were given under duress. Templars helped Philip finance his wars, and getting rid of them was a convenient way of cancelling his debts.
Their initiation ceremony is believed to have included spitting on the cross, but Frale said they justified this as a ritual of obedience in preparation for possible capture by Muslims. They were also said to have practised sodomy.Despite his conviction that the Templars were not guilty of heresy, in 1312 Pope Clement ordered the Templars disbanded for what Frale called "the good of the Church" following his repeated clashes with the French king.

Vangelis

FASCINATING PEOPLE, Part 17.

Religious thinker, philosopher and reformer, Jan Hus was burned at the steak in 1415, in the German city of Konstanzi. The Catholic church pronounced Hus a heretic, and excommunicated him in 1411. After five centuries, Pope John Paul II voiced “a deep regret for his cruel death”, and proposed an investigation to see if Hus can be freed from the charge of being a heretic.
Hus played a key role in the Protestant movement, and his teachings strongly effected European countries, and especially Martin Luther. He is responsible for many written works of Czech literature. He implemented diacritic symbols into the Czech language, according to which one symbol is added to one letter in the aim of easier reading. Despite the secular trend in the Czech republic, Jan Hus is considered to be a national hero today.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

*A Japanese clothing manufacturer, Kochou-fuku, announced a line of air-conditioned shirts, with two tiny battery-operated fans inside to evaporate perspiration ($95). (One drawback: The shirt billows out, suggesting that the wearer is overweight.)
*New product - a $60,000 mattress from the Swedish manufacturer Hastens, introduced to the US for people who "might believe that they're so special that they're entitled to a luxuriously rejuvenating night's sleep"
*Wayne Enterprises of Linden, Calif., is selling Holy Drinking Water in half-liter bottles, which supposedly obtained blessings from Catholic and Anglican priests for the ordinary purified water.

Jimmy Dean

The annual James Dean memorial service brings people from all around the world to Back Creek Friends Church. During the service, more than 100 motorcycles passes by the church and cemetery where Dean is buried to visit his grave. The legendary Nicky Bazooka said he drives around on his 1950s motorcycle while dressed in a 1943 Harley-Davidson jacket, a scarf signed by Dean, black aviator sunglasses with a picture of Dean in the lenses and a black-and-white cap. Bazooka said he only celebrates two holidays: Elvis' birthday on Jan. 8, and the day Dean died, Sept. 30, 1955 in a car wreck in Cholame, Calif., at age 24. Dean did a road traffic commercial where they asked him if he had any advice for kids, and he said drive safely because the life you save could be mine. Then he died in a car crash.

Royal Flush

87-year-old British novelist Doris Lessing said she was delighted at winning the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature:"I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one. I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot...It's a royal flush."
Her body of work delved into human relationships and inspired a generation of female writers. The academy called her an "epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".
Lessing debuted as a novelist with "The Grass is Singing" in 1950, a book that examined the relationship between a white farmer's wife and her black servant.
Her 1962 novel "The Golden Notebook" was widely considered her breakthrough work.
She was born to British parents in what was then known as Persia and is now Iran.

Looking for a good excuse?

*British physician Stuart Brown, 37, was sentenced in August only to a small fine after a conviction for brutally beating his wife. Brown had explained the fight by saying that a "red mist" had descended on the room, causing him to lose control.
*Helene de Gier filed a lawsuit against the National Postcode Lottery of the Netherlands, claiming emotional distress from not winning, even though she never entered. That particular lottery picks a geographic postal code at random and awards prizes to all of its residents who have entered that lottery. Since so many of her neighbors were flaunting prizes, she felt particularly humiliated, she says. (Seven people on her street won the equivalent of about $18 million each.
*The largest school district in Montreal, Quebec, was ordered by an arbitrator to rehire a teacher whom it had fired in 2004 for illegally failing to disclose a conviction for killing his wife. The arbitrator ruled the firing improper, in that homicide is unrelated to the teacher's classroom work.

Floyd-less Gilmour

Worst Lyricists

Maybe Sting should start writing more instrumentals. The school teacher-turned-rock star topped list of the worst lyricists, thanks to lines that betray "mountainous pomposity (and) cloying spirituality,". Rush drummer Neil Peart is at No. 2, Creed frontman Scott Stapp at No. 3, Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher at No. 4, and soft-rocker Dan Fogelberg at No. 5.
Sting is condemned for such sins as using name-dropping Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov in the Police tune "Don't Stand So Close to Me," quoting a Volvo bumper sticker ("If You Love Someone Set Them Free"), and co-opting the works of Chaucer, St. Augustine and Shakespeare. Canadian rocker Peart's lyrics are considered "richly awful tapestries of fantasy and science," and Gallagher "seemed incapable of following a metaphor through a single line, let alone a whole verse."
Further down the ranks, Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant (No. 23) was derided for his Tolkienesque musings on Gollum and Mordor in "Ramble On."
Carly Simon (No. 31) was mocked for rhyming "yacht," "apricot" and "gavotte" in "You're So Vain."
Paul McCartney made No. 38, thanks in part to "Ebony and Ivory," his socially conscious duet with Stevie Wonder.
Love statistics? Check out the Blender list of 50 Worst Songs Ever.

Oh, that Van Der Linden!

Rick van der Linden passed away in 2006. The Netherlands most leading keyboard player, source of inspiration to many was no more.Because of his fabulous technique; because of his fabulous knowledge of Bach’s music; because of his pioneering work of making classical music more accessible to a younger generation, during the late sixties, beginning of the seventies by combining it with Rock and Jazz. Reviled by the classical musicians later admired… Adored by many starting and more advanced pop keyboard players… Through him this occupation had become interesting… Rick, himself inspired by giants such as Keith Emerson, led the band Ekseption to great heights. Friends of Rick’s spontaneously played his music during his memorial service, unrehearsed, unprepared. Seldom shall the music of van der Linden be played with such love and passion. "AN EKSEPTIONAL TRIBUTE BAND” was erected with two original Ekseption members. The sounds of this legendary band are heard again. Not only will material of Ekseption be heard but also solo pieces of Rick.
Van der Linden lives on!

Aphrodite's Child

Do it yourself...or not!

Mike Harstad of Jamestown, Calif., attempting to eliminate a wasps' nest with a can of Pledge and a cigarette lighter, ultimately burned down his mobile home and contents and destroyed an outbuilding, a truck, a boat and a trailer.
A Whitehall, Pa., man, William Sekol, 82, attempting to destroy a yellow jackets' nest beneath a storm sewer grate in his front yard, put a dried tree over the grate, doused it with gasoline, and lit it (supposedly to suffocate the yellow jackets underneath). However, some gasoline ran into the sewer, where its fumes combusted. In the resulting explosion, Sekol's mustache and eyebrows were singed.

Blanka - European Queen in Sports

Blanka Vlasic, a Croatian high jumper is the winner of the “Waterford Crystal European Athlete of the Year”. She surely deserved this award because she lost only one out of 19 competitions. She jumped over 207 cm in Stockholm and she won the world league title in Osaka. In history, only the world record holder Stefka Kostadinova managed to jump higher than Blanka, and considering the young girl’s performance of this year, even this could change. The audience loves her because of the contagious enthusiasm she carries with herself on the competition, dancing after every jump.

Fela Kuti & Ian Anderson

World is taking yet another turn

*Oral-B's Triumph SmartGuide toothbrush, available in the United Kingdom for the equivalent of about $280, uses navigation technology to transmit the exact location of the toothbrush to a base unit so that the user can see which areas in his mouth the brush might have missed. The wireless LCD mouth display can be mounted on a mirror or held in the free hand.(!!!!!)
*The adolescent offspring of some well-to-do parents are serious art collectors, and their interest appears not to be motivated solely by parents' strategies to shield income from the tax collector. Ms. Dakota King, 9, for example, owns 40 pieces and specializes in animals and "happy colors." Ms. Shammiel Fleischer-Amoros, 10, who admitted, "I'm really scared, but Daddy told me I have to negotiate," succeeded in getting $200 knocked off of a $3,200 sculpture she really wanted. An 11-year-old last year "waved a paddle" to win a $352,000 Jeff Koons sculpture...
*Pentagon investigators discovered that a small South Carolina company fraudulently collected $20.5 million in shipping costs, including one invoice of $999,798 for sending two washers (cost: 19 cents each) to a base in Texas. According to Bloomberg News, the Defense Department was said to have a policy of automatically and unquestioningly paying shipping bills labeled "priority."

Robbie Williams

Call me...hmm

A Roman Catholic bishop in the Netherlands, Martinus Muskens, suggested that Christians start referring to God as "Allah" as a way of relieving world tensions. "Allah is a very beautiful word . ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem."

A priest in Rome said Muskens' intentions were good, "but his theology needs a little fine-tuning." Muskens said he spent eight years in Indonesia, where Catholic priests used "Allah" during Mass...