Sunday, September 30, 2001

"National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 200-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved."

http://www.nanowrimo.com/about.htm

A friend of mine wrote: "Anything that values enthusiasm over talent suits my caffeine-honed attention span, particularly when the stakes are low (29 of 140 participants finished last year). Up for a challenge?"

(@_@)

Looks like the Bush family and the Bin Ladens have known each other for a while. This smells rotten, kiddies, make no mistake. The Saudis have just said that they won't be letting soldiers set foot in Saudi Arabia, but they can use the airspace if they like.

The following article, from June `92, mentions a few key names: like Bush Jr., and one character named "Saudi Sheik Salem M. Binladen" ...

--- begin forwarded text

Status: U
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:09:29 -0700
To: "The Eristocracy"
From: Jon Callas
Subject: Coincidence Department

[Editor's note: Make sure you pay attention to the date of the article
(June 1992), and some of the names. -- jdcc]

HOUSTON CHRONICLE ARCHIVES

Paper: HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Date: THU 06/04/92
Section: A
Page: 21
Edition: 2 STAR
Feds investigate entrepreneur allegedly tied to Saudis
By JERRY URBAN
Staff



Federal authorities are investigating the activities of a Houston
businessman -- a past investor in companies controlled by a son of
President Bush -- who has been accused of illegally representing Saudi
interests in the United States.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network -- known as FinCEN -- and the
FBI are reviewing accusations that entrepreneur James R. Bath guided
money to Houston from Saudi investors who wanted to influence U.S.
policy under the Reagan and Bush administrations, sources close to the
investigations say.

FinCEN, a division of the U.S. Department of Treasury, investigates
money laundering. Special agents and analysts from various law
enforcement agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service and the
U.S. Customs Service, are assigned to work with the FinCEN staff.

The federal review stems in part from court documents obtained through
litigation by Bill White, a former real estate business associate of
Bath.

White contends the documents indicate that the Saudis were using Bath
and their huge financial resources to influence U.S. policy.

Such representation by Bath would require that he be registered as a
foreign agent with the U.S. Department of Justice. In general, people
required by law to be registered are those who represent a foreign
entity seeking to influence governmental action or policy.

An Annapolis graduate and former Navy fighter pilot, White, 46, claims
that Bath and the judicial system, under the veil of national
security, have blackballed him professionally and financially because
he has refused to keep quiet about what he regards as a conspiracy to
secretly funnel Saudi dollars to the United States.

White became entangled in a series of lawsuits and countersuits with
Bath, who for some six years has prevailed in the courts. White says
the legal action has financially devasted him and Venturcorp Inc., the
real estate development company in which he and Bath were partners.

In sworn depositions, Bath said he represented four prominent Saudis as
a trustee and that he would use his name on their investments. In
return, he said, he would receive a 5 percent interest in their deals.

Tax documents and personal financial records show that Bath personally
had a 5 percent interest in Arbusto '79 Ltd., and Arbusto '80 Ltd.,
limited partnerships controlled by George W . Bush , President Bush 's
eldest son. Arbusto means bush in Spanish.

Bath invested $50,000 in the limited partnerships, according to the
documents. There is no available evidence to show whether the money
came from Saudi interests.

George W . Bush 's company, Bush Exploration Co., general partner in
the limited partnerships, went through several mergers, eventually
evolving into Harken Energy Corp., a suburban Dallas-based company.

Bush , known informally as George Jr., is a shareholder and director of
Harken, which has been granted lucrative offshore drilling rights off
the coast of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. One of the top shareholders
of Harken, a public company, is Saudi businessman Abdullah Taha
Bakhsh.

Bush said that to his knowledge, Bath's investment was from personal
funds, and no Saudi money was invested in Arbusto.

Bath, 55, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, declined to comment for the
record. Spokesmen for FinCEN and the FBI also declined to comment.

According to a 1976 trust agreement, drawn shortly after Bush was
appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Sheik
Salem M. Binladen appointed Bath as his business representative in
Houston. Binladen , along with his brothers, owns Binladen Brothers
Construction, one of the largest construction companies in the Middle
East.

According to White, Bath told him that he had assisted the CIA in a
liaison role with Saudi Arabia since 1976. Bath has previously denied
having worked for the CIA.

In a sworn deposition, Bath said he was the sole director of Skyway
Aircraft Leasing Ltd., a company that a court document shows is owned
by Khaled bin Mahfouz. Bin Mahfouz had been a major shareholder in the
Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a banking empire that has
been accused of money laundering and of using Mideast oil money to
seek ties to political leaders in several countries. Mahfouz and his
family own the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia.

In 1990, Bath bought the Express Auto Park garage at Hobby Airport for
$8.4 million, which included a $1.4 million loan provided by Mahfouz,
according to transaction documents. Bath received a 5 percent interest
in the companies that own and operate Houston Gulf Airport after
purchasing it on behalf of Binladen in 1977. After Binladen died in
1988, his interests in the airport were taken over by Mahfouz,
according to court documents.
--- end forwarded text
------------------
R. A. Hettinga
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

Saturday, September 29, 2001

my dad's just been diagnosed as diabetic.
which means i'm more likely to get it.

my mum suffers from depression.
also genetic.

looks like i lucked out then :-/

fuck.

oh well then, only got 2 more novel things to go : & i've put a section up on me website for it, but i'll put them here for completeness & to fix the spelling mistake that fuzz noticed!


  1. It's like trying to breathe glass.

  2.  

  3. if i hold you like tomorrow you might die, well that's because you might.

  4. caught somewhere between the burning and the blisters.

  5. Blink & move away.

  6.  

  7. fell ill inside eternal winter, stood still beside eternal flame.

  8. Random acts of senseless violence

  9. Eat, sleep, dream, die



so got a female character & i think it might be about her returning home...she ran away...from something. & she's decided to go back....need to work some violence + tension in there though :)

Friday, September 28, 2001

for those of us not in the park at lunchtime.

miss noodle was really, really funny.

Damn, Harry, I think I used up all my funny in the park at lunchtime.

hhhmmm,
you think you have a good idea & then someone else comes along with a better one!

still,

1) It's like trying to breathe glasss.
2) -
3) if i hold you like tomorrow you might die, well that's because you might.
4) caught somewhere between the burning and the blisters.
5) Blink & move away.
6)
7) fell ill inside eternal winter, stood still beside eternal flame.
8) Random acts of senseless violence
9)

& i've decided the main character needs to be a girl, because all of the female characters i write always seem to end up having something bad happen to them. not sure if this is some deep rooted psychological trauma manifesting itself or not & anyway there's so many other ones i don't think i'd notice another one :)

i was thinking about the whole thing a bit more & i've got loads of little phrases jotted down as well, that i might try & work in outside of the chapter starts.....we'll see though.

Thursday, September 27, 2001

i've got a shooting stars video.

i'll get it brought over as well.

more titles
1) It's like trying to breathe glasss.
2) -
3) if i hold you like tomorrow you might die, well that's because you might.
4) caught somewhere between the burning and the blisters.
5) Blink & move away.
6)
7) fell ill inside eternal winter, stood still beside eternal flame.
8)
9)

almost there, only 4 to go!

Hmm, what can I blag from the UK? Does anyone know if Vic and Bob ever released a DVD of cool stuff? Even having a series of Shooting Stars or maybe People Like Us or something... *thinks hard*

Can they bring me a pony?

Nintendo.

On the list.

"So let's see - this frontlight set me back $30 in a low quantity order from a third party. Nintendo could easily order a huge batch of these for less than $5 a unit. The GBA's battery life with a front light will still probably hit the 8-10 hour mark, and the addition of the frontlight does not make the system any more delicate than it already is. And if you are willing to believe my testimony, the frontlight does not degrade the LCD's image quality when you compare it against a GBA in all but the most efficient lighting arrangements (i.e. a well-positioned lamp or a window with sunlight pouring in)."
more

well.
all of that is very interesting.

thank you people.

my parents'll be here in less than a month : wednesday 24th october......bugger, haven't even been here a year! still, if anybody wants any UK stuff :)
i'm gonna rummage around for any chris morris stuff. i know i've got the day today videos back home, but i might see if either blue jam, or brass eye made it to video :) oh, & all my music books too....get your orders in soon, they're pretty stoopid & will take ages trying to find anything.

on an unrelated note i think i've figured out how to do my novel. i'm gonna split it up into 3 acts, 9 chapters, about 5400 words per chapter & i'm gonna come up with a single line between now and then to start each chapter with...so far i've got :

1) It's like trying to breathe glasss.
2) -
3) -
4) caught somewhere between the burning and the blisters.
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)


i had more, but i'm not sure they'll fit...oh well got me a month & a bit..................

Wednesday, September 26, 2001

For those of us flying the flag for Infogrames, or ex Beamers, does anyone remember Zac? Apparently, one time, he got trapped in the men's toilets here, cause he was very paranoid about germs, and usually went home for a poo at lunchtime - but one time, he miscalculated, and had to go at work - getting into the men's room was ok - as all the doors push to open. But unfortunately, the way out was not so easy, and he was stuck in the men's room until someone else turned up to open the doors...

As for washing your hands after you go to the toilet - surely the washbasin taps must be hives of germ activity anyway?

hmmm

I think there's something in that for all of us.

I'm off to find some gas mask porn

There's been a rush on gas masks in the UK too... people freaking out about afghanis flying crop duster planes or something. Now, I don't think I've ever in my entire life seen crop duster planes in the UK, despite living around plenty of rural areas - maybe it's something that's been a recent development - but generally, we use far less pesticides/cow hormones etc than the USA, so any crop dusting fantasies British farmers are having are just that - fantasies.
Is it me, or has the whole world truly gone mad? Does anyone else think that there has to be a better way of solving all this?

Tuesday, September 25, 2001

and for those of us who are wondering what exactly miss (ms, or mz?) noodle is on about:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1562000/1562427.stm

weird eh?

at least one reason to stay here, rather than over there.......

Still, could be worse, at least they're not introducing identity cards at Cthulu's place.

ummm.

Friday, September 21, 2001

The Second Coming
-----------------

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

--
I fathom the psychiatrists are doing a roaring trade at the moment. Do you like the last two lines, as much as I like them? They piqued my interest in alt.slack when They were talking about something, referring to Cthulhu, Cthugha, (hi Zaph!) or maybe even one of those nice Wampa-like fellows from Quake, a Shoggoth, being 'released' by the crash at the Pentagon, "Last seen slouching towards Bethlehem, ha ha".

One thought I had was that the Pentagon was a good place to keep the Military, in the same way that America was a good place to keep Americans. But now the cage is open, or rather, the circle has been broken, and the spell, America's military, is now free to run amok across the earth. Ye gods.

While on the subject of elder gods and the rituals that were supposed to keep them in check, a thread running through the collective unconscious at the moment draws a comparison between the burning (and collapsing)
World Trade Centre towers and the Wicker Man sacrifices of pagan days. Depending on your perspective, the buildings were either full of criminals, or full of innocent, virginal souls. The poor and disposessed
of the world would call them all criminals, especially those that profit from or work in the legal system or the financial systems. The lower-class temps, office workers, cleaners, etcetera, more innocent,
and most famously, the firemen who perished, could all be seen as virginal, or at least pure in spirit. Pagan sacrifices were usually criminals or virgins, I don't really know that much about it, but I don't think they were ever both knocked off at the same time.

Fuckin' hell, look at those first four lines again.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The planes that were hijacked, when shown in the tv reports, turned away from their intended courses and did indeed wander all over the place before they reached their infernal destinations.

The falcon cannot hear the falconer

Transponders were allegedly turned off, and there seems to have been little if any communication between the planes and the FAA.

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold

Well, apart from the bleeding obvious, the moderates (centre) appear to have lost their voice in the US Senate, the one person daring to question the bills being passed now receiving death threats.

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

I guess we're up to this part. Sleep safe, kiddies, and remember: we're either with America or against it. So much for the 'third way'.

Alex
___________________________________________
Get Your Own Free Secure Linux Distribution
From The NSA at http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/

Thursday, September 20, 2001

Childhood trauma #47:
I can't listen to Ravel's Bolero. Cause when Torville and Dean won the ice skating thingy in about 1980, this really bossy kid at school (you know who you are, Beverley Dawson) decided that for about 3 fucking months we would play torville and dean - a game which comprised of pairing off with another kid and making up a "dance routine" so that you could pretend you were figure skating on the bumpy sloping tarmac, after which, she'd judge you to be not quite as good as her, and the next day, you'd have to play as the Belgian team. And cause Beverley Dawson was inexplicably popular, if you didn't play, there was no one else to play with. (I wasn't gonna play with boys, for god's sake!)

I got my own back though. Later, we had a craze where you'd stand in the middle, two friends at either side would hold your hands tightly, and you could basically do a kind of forward roll in mid air, with your two friends supporting you. Beverley Dawson was the tallest girl in our class. So when it was her turn to do the forward roll, and it was mine and Kimberley Devine's turn to hold her hands, we accidentally let her head scrape on the same bumpy sloping tarmac.

Oops.

you know when you listen to a song & it brings back memories of a person.

therapy? : bowels of love.....reminds me of a girl i used to know called kate.....i really liked her....my friend at uni shagged her.

she got depressed & left.

Wednesday, September 19, 2001

I used to do high jump at school (I was a li'l athlete - hard to believe, I know - and it did nothing to help the 80's goth image I was trying to cultivate) but when people started doing Fosberry Flops (sp?) - where you effectively bounce and twist yourself over backwards and just kind of hope that you hit the nice comfy mat rather than the hard, splintery gym gloor - I knew I had to bow out gracefully by painfully twisting my knee.

Tuesday, September 18, 2001

that's true.

if only i could make it a living from it.

the problem is that i'm like a sprint jumper. i can jump really high once & then it takes me a bit to recover.

in order for it to be truly useful, i'd have to maintain that kind of height over a prolonged jumping period. Something which requires extensive bouncy training & to be honest my heart isn't really in it.

so i'll just need to find something else.

coming soon : harrys tori-amos rant :)

Harry, things might not always be great for you, but at least you can jump really high...

*bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce...*

Friday, September 14, 2001

hey everyone.

it's friday & in a polar opposite to feistys thing about the america stuff (which i feel terrible about, but unfortunately i still need to decide what to have for dinner) here's a little personal rant, just because i'm sick of bottling this stuff up & sick of trying to explain it to people & sick of wanting to talk about it, but not & sick of how it'll affect people.

don't worry there's no awkward little goth poems about misery & lost love & how much it hurts being alive!

so....

Turns out i'm depressed & have been for a really, really long time & i have no idea how to do anything else, or how to relate to the world in any other way. Which in itself, i guess is kind of weird....what do other people do? all i wanna do when i'm talking to people is tell them how much i hate myself & how i sometimes lie in my bed & want to die. i'm thinking that is probably not wise, for people i've just met & for people i know. It's like having everything just kind of spilling over into the real world & wanting to explore it & deal with it every second of every day, in case there's some insight that'll drag you a little further back from the brink. but still i hold it & i suppose for most of the time i'm acting & behaving like a normal human being. one who doesn't look like he hates himself & wants to die. This in itself is a good thing...although it's small and easily lost.

The flip side of it all is that little tiny things that people take for granted become these monumental achievements......like going out for lunch with people & not having an anxiety attack, like managing to go out to a party, like managing to go for coffee. it's kind of strange how important these things become, but imprtant they are, if only because they allow some semblance of life.

And like a fool, & not for the first time, it all gets mixed up with this one person who's been a really important part in your life & somehow their attention takes on this far more importance than it really should......stupid, stupid, stupid. but it can't really be helped.......it's really easy to fall for someone who makes you feel good about yourself.

so what do i do???????

i go to see a counsellor,

i get really depressed,

i sometimes think about killing myself,

i somehow manage to make it through the day,

i present the face of the person my friends think that i am.

i hold it together for the most part.


so there......badly written, self indulgent, feeling sorry for myself, mostly bullshit stuff.

but now you know.

the one thing that has struck me recently is that there are loads of depressed people....loads of people angry at their lives, loads of people depressed about who they are & where they're going & why they are the way they are.

Some of these people make it.
Some of these people dont.

all you can really do with all of it is hope that you are one of those people who does.

Thursday, September 13, 2001

I feel like I should write something about the horrific events in the USA the other day. But I'm not sure words are gonna come. I'm normally up for pouring scorn on the Americans, even more so than the Welsh, but no matter how many times you romp off overseas and pick fights with various third world countries, nobody deserves to have something like that happen. Note the word *nobody*. I'm not about to start defending all the heinous things the US government has done, I'm just saying that it should never happen, rather than it should only happen to you if you made it happen to us.

In 1994, over 100,000 Rwandans were massacred in the space of about a weekend. I heard it on the radio. It came on after some local celebrity news (something about Johhny Morris doing a book signing.) I just find it really strange that the judgement of a human life is largely based on the economy of the country they're living in, and how famous they might be.

In case you're wondering, I don't think I actually have a point here. I need some panadol. And I kinda liked the world trade towers.

Sunday, September 09, 2001

holy crap.

bloody internet & it's evil time-sapping powers.

bought a 25 hour pre-pay thingymabob last sunday & i'm down to 6:30.

crap.

bloody computers. i hate them. i'm gonna live in a cave.

and write my novel in the blood of my enemies on the walls. Got the plot all worked out. it's about my tribe & them hunting an antelope across the plains & some of the getting killed, but eventually we triump and have dinner....easily 50,000 words there.

Thursday, September 06, 2001

The novel idea. I'm going for it (the idea of writing 50,000 words from the 1st to the 30th of november, I don't have any novel as in novelty ideas - I'm not about to invent an anglepoise lamp that sways to music or demonstrates gimble lock or anything.)

And I think I'm going to blog it, being that I don't have a laptop.

And judging by the sheer content of my brackets above, the weird tangent enclosed within, and the fact that every word had a spelling mistake in it until I proofread it, it could be hell. And if you're bad, I'll make you read it.

I think I need to lie down.

Tuesday, September 04, 2001

and before i pootle off to bed & because i haven't written anything substantial, or interesting in ages, i thought i'd share this little thing with you peeps:

Blister

I had held the flame in my hands, cupped as it flickered between my fingers.

Somewhere between the burning and the blisters.

There was a moment where it had been not too hot and not too cold.

It passed.

Leaving me with the scars.



I'll get my own web-site soon, for these morbid little things. i promise.

it's late & i'm off to bed.

finally, i be back on-line & here be my e-mail;

paul_callaghan@breathe.com

or, less good : paul_callaghan@bigpond.com

use the top one (please) it's my web one & i'm just gonna forward everything.

i'm gonna have a web page soon as well....just for me writing.....maybe.....might be a bad idea....we'll see.......