[music] sgt. pepper's still tops

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has been voted Britain's favourite No.1 album. With more than 200,000 votes cast, only 201 separated The Beatles' 1967 hit from Michael Jackson's Thriller in second place. The nationwide survey of music fans was commissioned by BBC Radio to mark the 50th anniversary of the official UK album chart. U2's Joshua Tree was third, with Rumours by Fleetwood Mac taking fourth place. Interesting - I always thought Abbey Road was much better and Thriller was vastly over-rated. Tastes differ.

[gruzia] not worth commenting on

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who held talks with ministers from the NATO alliance Friday in Slovenia, complained bitterly about Georgia's actions in this matter of the so-called spies. Ivanov charged that Georgia was provoking a conflict to try to oust Russian forces from two breakaway parts of Georgia that pledge loyalty to Moscow. Precisely. This is just a beat-up for political ends. Ignore it, like the Orange Revolution which turned out to be the Orange Power Grab.

[strange flora] mexican jumping beans

Probably the most interesting thing about Mexican jumping bean shrubs are the remarkable "beans" that jerk and roll about with seemingly perpetual motion. It is doubtful (or very rare) that they actually "jump" above the surface of the ground, but they can certainly roll and tumble along in different directions. Just as pineapples are not apples and peanuts are not nuts, the jumping bean is not a bean, nor is it a seed. It is actually ... continued here.

[voyages] nouvelle zélande

Malgré la distance lointaine qui la sépare de l'Europe et ses conditions climatiques parfois moins chaudes qu'en Australie, la Nouvelle-Zélande reste un pays fantastique. Je n'aurai pas eu la chance de beaucoup voyagerdans l'île du nord mais là aussi j'espère que ce n'est que partie remise. Suivez.

[foreign office] the only word is treason

On the Afghanistan debacle, please muse one more time on Capt. Leo Docherty's words, as he described how British troops managed to capture the Taliban stronghold but then had nothing to offer by way of development: "The military is just one side of the triangle," he said. "Where were the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office?" As forces sat back with little to offer, the Taliban hit back and British troops there were bunkered up and under daily attack. "Now the ground has been lost and all we're doing in places like Sangin is surviving. It's completely barking mad." More than one blogger has written about the pro-muslim, anti-jewish bias of the FCO and if you put that together with Docherty's words and if you accept both as containing at least a grain of truth, then what we have here is nothing short of actual 'treason' somewhere within the FCO. Someone knowingly allowed this to occur and is thus betraying the British army in favour of a foreign group of insurgents. How else can the military interpret it?

[usa] putin’s message should at least be privately mulled over

From inside the former USSR, the article by Paul Saunders on US/Russian relations seems close to the true state of affairs, especially in gauging the mood of the Russian public: President Vladimir Putin succeeded in impressing a group of foreign experts on Russia at his official residence outside Moscow recently, displaying his command of major issues and his endurance during the nearly three-hour conversation and in his not-so-subtle message. Putin said Russia would not work against US interests, but would instead uphold its own interests. Relations would only be effective, he said, "if our interests are taken into account". How this is interpreted is the interesting part.