[principles] which should prevail here

So, John Howard is to meet the Dalai Lama in Sydney. A report says:

Australia is one of the best placed countries in the world to benefit from China's economic development. Beijing has condemned the meeting, saying the Dalai Lama is a political exile engaged in what it calls splittist activities over Tibet. But Canberra says Australia is one of the world's great liberal democracies.

The issue here is that a country is dealing, at diplomatic level, with a known opponent of a regime that that country is trading with. The other side is that China unilaterally annexed a sovereign nation and the leader of that nation is now visiting another nation, to meet with its leader.

What are the rights and wrongs of this?

Preparations continue for July 1st...

Some of those planning to attend the ceremony have set up their Second Life accounts and stopped by to visit the sky-borne Blogpower Awards Hall. Here is NotSaussure, relaxing by the pool on the roof of my "sky-box"


More details over at Defending the Blog, The Last Ditch and the Blogpower Express...

Tom Paine
(cross-posting from Defending the Blog)

[ellee seymour] of greece and carving knives

Sometimes I don't know if Ellee is putting us on or if she's for real:

And of course, the Greeks invented many things so important in our lives today, including the wheel, which Shirley Valentine reminds us of so brilliantly.

To show it's no fluke, she goes on to explain the origins of her name:

Did you know there was an Ellee in Greek mythology? I have seen a unique painting of it in a restaurant in Volos. Mythology says that I have a brother called Frixos and our father was a Greek God who remarried ...

This is brilliant stuff. But Ellee's appearance in a certain category of a recent awards competition, inviting us to ban knives, was a piece de resistance, not unlike Lord Nazh's definitive and highly acclaimed climate change post:

With our knife culture increasing, surely we should be banning their sale from shops. They should be as difficult to buy as guns. Those who require them for countryside pursuits or any genuine activity will have to prove it, get a letter of consent from local police.

The mind drifts to this early evenng conversation:

"Tea's not on the table, love."

"Couldn't get a consent form from the rozzas today. You'll have to eat spam instead."

"I don't like spam!"

"Shh, dear, don't cause a fuss. My blog eats spam - 343 eaten today. It loves it."

The thing with Ellee is, she's so genuine. I don't think she has disingenuity in her vocabulary. but it does produce some very heartfelt girlishness and many people like that style. I do.

Often people come to our blogs not for the most apparent reasons and I think this could partly be so with Lady Ellee.

May she blog on forever.

[blog hiatus] june 18th to 29th

The good news is that Tom Paine, of The Last Ditch has graciously agreed to keep an eye on this blog during the two weeks my apartment is being overhauled and all but destroyed and there are some exciting things coming up on this blog.

About a dozen of our fellow bloggers and one or two heavyweights have agreed to put something on the blog - the thing is, we don't know what and we don't know when. You'll have to keep checking [he chuckles].

I've thought long and hard about this, trying to ensure you get some first class reading with a slight edge to it. If you look in the sidebar, you'll see some examples of guest blogging here already.

Problem will be that when I return it might seem so dull by comparison. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

[timex] albanians and world war three

Could this be the incident which sparks [Theo] World War III? Remember Sarajevo! President Bush did NOT, repeat "NOT" have his watch stolen by Albanian fans:

He slipped his Timex Indiglo off his wrist and into his pocket - a truth that has left many Albanians deeply offended.

What follows in the linked article is a view of him doing it [enlargeable], then a photo of :

"George W. Bush's wristwatch on his left arm … seen during a photo event in the Oval Office of the White House June 13, 2007" [plus various photos of George and the watch in various poses and juxtapositions] ..."

The article goes on:

It appeared that the President had taken to heart guide book warnings about the need to guard valuables in the country.

One Albanian noted:

"He didn't want his watch to get stolen by the Albanese "fans", who he clearly deeply trusts!"

Anti-Albanians added:

"Bush took off his watch cause he knew they'd steal it! Bush did his homework on Albania and Albanians. He knew better than to keep that watch on his wrist!"

The article continues for several paragraphs with the Whitehouse spokesandroid adding her bit. What I want to know is:

Are we going to stand for this? Are we just going to sit back while thieves and conjurers hijack the airwaves and hold us all to ransome [Arthur]? I say we act:

NOW!

We invite you to our Awards Ceremony on 1st July, 2007

Tom Paine writes [this is also at Blogpower]:

Where in the world, we asked ourselves, could we hold the awards ceremony for the Blogpower Awards 2007?

Our nominees are from all over the world. There is simply no convenient place for them all to meet. So I suggested to James Higham, founder of both the awards and of Blogpower itself, that we hold the ceremony in another world entirely; in Second Life.

For those of you who don't know it, Second Life or "SL" is a virtual world hosted on the servers of Linden Labs in California. Linden Labs provide the landscape. All the buildings and objects to be found there were built by SL "residents." Anyone can get an account, download the free software and wander about for free.

You only have to pay if you want to own "land". For this purpose that's entirely unnecessary as you will be my guests. I invite you to join me for the ceremony in my "sky box", 500 metres above my SL "home", "Last Ditch House".

The award ceremony will be on Sunday 1st July and will begin at 0900 New York time (1400 in Britain, 1500 Central Europe Time, 1700 in Moscow and 2200 in Australia). Please put it in your diary and come along. The drinks are free and you will be most welcome. Please tell all your friends.

If you don't have a Second Life account, please download the software, register and set one up entirely free of charge. You must select a surname from SL's standard list, but you can choose a meaningful first name. My SL name is "LastDitch Writer" and that's my "avatar" you can see in the pictures (click to enlarge). If you can also choose a first name that corresponds to yours, or to that of your blog, it would make things easier in a crowded room at the ceremony.

Between now and the ceremony there is plenty of time for you to set up your account, change the appearance of your avatar to suit your taste and work out how to get around. Don't worry though. On the day, you won't need to navigate to find us. There will be links like this one here and other Blogpower blogs which will launch the software and connect you directly to the venue. You will materialise on the welcome mat you can see in the picture, so step quickly away before the next guest arrives!

Send me a message in SL when you have set up your account. You are more than welcome to visit the venue in the meantime and take a look around. The right hand teleport on the balcony leads to my home on the ground. The left one takes you to my office in another sky box nearby. Make yourself at home, but watch out for the security robots!

The drinks robot will provide whatever you like so ask away. It's free but also virtual and (sadly) tasteless. I look forward to meeting you - at least virtually - at the awards.