The Nutlog Archive

15th November
The Happy Hour gallery - the quirky and fabulous art of Yoshitomo Nara. I bought a set of postcards of these pictures from the Japan Centre in Piccadilly today. A friend compared them to Teletubbies with psychotic facial expressions... I just think they're great.

Update - After checking my ISP's helpdesk's page, I see there have been routing and DNS problems in the US in the last few days which may have caused some of you not to see the Nutlog. Sorry about that, hopefully normal service will now be resumed.

Apologies for any problems that you may have had trying to see the site over the last few days. This address should always work :- http://193.238.120.48/nutlog.html . You can always mail me - nutcote@nutcote.demon.co.uk .

BBC - 'Smallest primates discovered in Madagascar.'
Register - 'NSI dodges naughty domain name lawsuit.'
The Guardian has a go at guessing how global warming will affect different parts of the world. Very interesting.
Fun collection of US election humour, compiled by Gael.
Build your own virtual fish tank. Via Pop Culture Junk Mail, via Swallowing Tacks.
AFP - 'Men cleared to wear frocks in Australian state.' 'Men in Tasmania who like to wear frocks in the evening no longer risk arrest following the lifting of a 65-year-old ban on cross-dressing.'

Zippygirl wants to know what I think about the US election mess. Awww, I'm flattered *g*. Well, you asked, so I'm going to produce an uncharacteristically long post... Various possibilities may include a shoot-out, a hamburger eating competition, a pro wrestling match, or 'rock paper scissors', but this is what I think ;).

Personally, I think that both the Gore and Bush camps are behaving very poorly; a few hundred votes here or there is not, and should not, be a mandate to govern a country the size of the US. Whichever side wins, there will be a lot of bitterness and pain on the part of the people who supported the losers - about half the country in either case. With an evenly balanced Congress, the new President will be severely weakened, and more likely than not will lose by a landslide in four years' time. Who would want to be President under those circumstances?
One solution would be for the two sides to work out a coalition, with one as President and the other as Vice-President, and the Cabinet divided 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats, governing from the centre. There are plenty of countries which have had this kind of 'grand coalition' government after extremely close elections.
Ultimately, democracy means government for all of the people, not just the slightly-more-than-half who voted for the winning candidate. That seems to have been forgotten.
Unfortunately, since the impeachment crisis two years' ago, the political atmosphere in Washington is absolutely toxic, with very little room for compromise on either side; at least that's the perception from the outside world.
The lawsuits and accusations flying around are not helping the situation. It might be worthwhile for the two sides to take a timeout, possibly even take Bush and Gore outside normal politics and let them talk face-to-face somewhere that is off home territory for both of them; Camp David, perhaps ;). Someone who is respected and viewed as impartial by both sides could help in the negotiations. Former Senator George Mitchell, who was so helpful during the Northern Ireland peace negotiations, has all the right personal and intellectual qualities, but as a Democrat might not be seen as completely neutral. Another possibility might be to introduce someone from outside the United States, an experienced international mediator with no axe to grind. Kofi Annan of the UN might be one possibility; another might be Martti Ahtisaari, the Finnish politician who played an important role in negotiating an end to the Kosovo conflict; or even Britain's very own Mo Mowlam. One would hope that the present dispute is less intractable than any of those conflicts!
Also, if there are going to be recounts, it might be helpful to introduce international mediators, who would be seen as truly neutral, to assist in the counting. I originally suggested this as a joke, but after seeing all the poison that's been flying around, I think it might actually be a good idea.
One final point; I don't think that people who voted for Nader (or for that matter, any of the other minor candidates) should feel at all bad that their votes may have contributed to this deadlock. Their votes don't belong to any party by divine right, and it's much better to vote out of principle than out of political expediency. Actually, after all this week's goings-on, I'd feel very good about voting for the 'right' candidate rather than the 'expedient' candidate.
(I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this, but well, that's life *g*).

14th November
BBC - 'Amazon vaccine claims disputed.' 'An influential body of US scientists has disputed claims that one of its members killed hundreds of Yanomami Indians during experiments with a measles vaccine.'
Also read this :- Guardian - 'Scientist 'killed Amazon Indians to test race theory'.' This article contains details of the original allegations.

Register - 'US Presidency up for grabs on eBay.'
How to build an igloo. Via The Age's weblog.
Reuters - 'Hospital sends live woman to mortuary.'

Guardian - 'Scots solution to riddle of the pyramids.' 'Robert Lomas, of the University of Bradford, says builders in Orkney developed the complex techniques and methods of measurement needed to construct the sophisticated buildings more than 1,000 years before Egyptians started using them.'
'Dr Lomas believes the Egyptians heard of the Orcadians' ideas after they spread across Europe, and copied them. He said remains of buildings on Orkney dating from 3800BC show an extremely sophisticated construction technique.'

13th November
A good humour site... Ironic Times. Lots of funny US election stuff in the current issue.

Daily Express - 'Mars plague that could kill off Earth.' 'A group of scientists are trying to persuade Nasa to abandon plans to bring back a soil sample from Mars because they fear an extra-terrestrial plague could be unleashed on Earth. ' Thanks, Unknown News.

The Nutlog intends to participate in a Day Without Weblogs this year.

SatireWire - ' 'Hackers-for-Nader' deliver surprise victory.'

12th November
Register - 'Tiny sovereign state set to open for e-business.' Good for those Sealanders.
Discovery - 'King Tut gets paternity test.'
Sunday Times - 'Scientists claim nothing will stop climate change.'

11th November
Reuters - 'Police find locked ballot box at Miami hotel.'

BBC - 'New dinosaur unearthed in Italy.'
BBC - 'Lone neutron star speeds through space.'
Reuters - 'Twenty blind cricket fans to get 20 corneas.' 'Twenty blind Bangladeshi cricket lovers will be donated 20 corneas by the Sri Lankan cricket board to mark their country's first official test match, board officials said Friday.'
Got a suggestion for ending the US election impasse? Post it here.