IN NEWS : ALIEN FOUND

Look close...Do you see some thing???!!!!
The footage of the alien seen in Denver..
for more information on the footage checkout the fox news site...

IN NEWS : THE GALAPAGOS IN DANGER...

QUITO, Ecuador — A volcano on the largest of the Galapagos Islands has begun erupting and authorities are evaluating possible dangers to the island's famed plant and animal life, officials said Friday.

Rangers and tour guides spotted lava flowing down the northeastern flank of the Cerro Azul volcano on the seahorse-shaped island of Isabela late Thursday, the Galapagos National Park said in a statement.

Ecuador's Geophysics Institute said that satellite data and a flyover of the island by park officials showed a "small amount of ash" coming out of the volcano, located on the southwestern edge of the island.

The eruption is not endangering people on the island, park official Vinicio Pauta said.

The 5,600-foot Cerro Azul — one of five active volcanoes on the island — last erupted in September 1998, causing minor damage to plant life. Cerro Azul is located in the unpopulated southwestern corner of the island.

The Galapagos Islands, 625 miles off of Ecuador's Pacific coast, are known for unique plant and animal life, including giant tortoises, marine iguanas and seabirds known as blue-footed boobies. Charles Darwin's observations of the islands' finches helped inspire his theory of evolution.





IMAGE GUIDE
$ Top : the galapagos...
$ Bottom : the galapagos turtle...

TRUE : 4 BULLS A DAY...

A 40-year-old supermarket worker who suffered a fatal heart attack drank as many as four cans of Red Bull energy drink each night.

Pathologist Dr. Ian Roberts said this week Alfredo Duran, 40, of Wheatley in Oxford, England, had an enlarged heart and the excessive caffeine he consumed each day may have contributed to his death.

"My feeling is — given the evidence available — it was a cardiac arrest possibly contributed to by subtoxic caffeine ingestion," Roberts told the Daily Mail.

Each can of Red Bull is said to contain 80mg of caffeine — about the same amount as a cup of coffee.
Duran collapsed at the end of his nightly shift at Asda supermarket in September 2006 and could not be revived by workers.

Source: FoxNews, DailyMail

TV, HELLS KITCHEN : WAS THAT YOU WHO ORDERED A FINGER TIP FOR LUNCH?

Did ya see that??? Chef Matt cuts off the tip of his finger while furiously cutting under pressure.

Later, they can't find the missing tip and fear it's been served to their guests.

Vomit!!!!@#$@#%#^@^&*(^&(%&%^

IN NEWS : Brad and Angelina's New Home

It's always bothered us that Angie carelessly took drugs, swapped blood with people, adopts children randomly, has children out of wedlock and still gets the mother of the year award, but we're kind of wishing we were one of those of those kids now.

Brad and Angie just purchased this pre-Roman, 1,000-acre estate in the south of France for $60 million, called Chateau Miraval in Brignal, which is a village near Aix-en-Provence. It is surrounded by a forest, has 35 bedrooms, a vineyard, lake and a moat. It's also has a swimming pool, billiards room, indoor pool, his-and-hers gyms, sauna and jacuzzi and a banquet hall.

They have already started to move a few a things and have spent a million on furniture. Can you image Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have the appropriate taste to fill this massive beauty?

The home also has cascading stone-walled terraces which have been replanted with 13 different varieties of olives, 20 fountains, aqueducts and a stream that runs through hidden tunnels, passes through the moat and fills the lake.
Famous neighbors Johnny Depp and his wife Venessa Paradis and Bono, also live in the area.




IMAGE GUIDE
$ Top : Anjelina Jolie...'she sure luks hot even now!!'
$ Middle $ bottom: "Home sweet home..."

TRUE REPORT : SCALING THE HEIGHTS...

After the Chinese torch relay reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 8 and the mountain was cleared for the rest of the waiting parties to climb, a slew of amazing and interesting ascents took place over the past few weeks.

Perhaps the most amazing was the senior citizen ascents. On May 25 Min Bahadar Surchan, a 76-year-old Nepali grandpa, became the oldest man to reach the world’s high point. The next day the second oldest climber, 75-year-old Yuichiro Miura from Japan topped out. Everest, for Miura, is not a new place. He climbed the dark peak in 1978 and 2003. On the 1978 expedition he became the first to ski Everest’s Lhotse Face.
Everest News notes that as of May 28, 269 people have summitted Everest and there has been only one death. Swiss guide Uwe Gianni Goltz expired on May 21 after attempting an oxygenless ascent. This remarkable number of successful ascents and along those still on the mountain will undoubtedly go down as the highest number of climbers to reach the top in a single season.

Nepal News reports that “legendary climber and former mountaineering guide Appa Sherpa scaled the world's tallest mountain without artificial oxygen for a record 18th time” on May 22. The day before Farouq Saad Hamad Al-Zuman, called “The Edmund Hillary of Saudi Arabia,” became to first Saudi to reach the summit. Australian News reports that on May 24 Cheryl and Nikki Bart became the first mother and daughter team to climb Mount Everest, which was also the last of the fabled Seven Summits for them to ascend. Lastly Dave Hahn, with International Mountain Guides, became the first non-Sherpa to reach the summit after his 10th ascent.





IMAGE GUIDE
$ Top :Mr Sherchan : The oldest to scale the highest...
$ Middle :Old guys rule! Surchan and Miura after climbing the big one...
$ Bottom :Yuichiro Miura feels on top of the world.

MEGA STRUCTURES : DESERT SNOW

This Ski Park in the middle of the desert of Dubai is unbelievable, especially when gas prices are rising, it makes you think...

"This is a self contained ski resort, Ski Dubai that has 22,500 sq. meters of snow all year round with beginner and black slopes, the temp is kept at 28º to 30º F and it's about 25 stories high and equally as wide."

THE STONEHENGE MYSTERY

The people who built Stonehenge in southern England thousands of years ago had wild parties, eating barbecued pigs and smashing up pottery. This is according to recent work by archaeologists—history experts who investigate how human beings lived in the past.

Archaeologists digging near Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain last year discovered the remains of a large prehistoric village where they think the builders of the mysterious stone circle used to live.

The village was shown to be about 4,600 years old, the same age as Stonehenge and as old as the pyramids in Egypt. The village is less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from Stonehenge and lies inside a massive manmade circular earthwork, or “henge,” known as Durrington Walls.

Remains found at the site included jewelry, stone arrowheads, tools made of deer antlers, and huge amounts of animal bones and broken pottery. These finds suggest Stone Age people went to the village at special times of the year “to feast and party,” says Mike Parker Pearson from Sheffield University in England.

He said many of the pig bones they found had been thrown away half-eaten. He also said the partygoers appeared to have shot some of the farm pigs with arrows, possibly as a kind of sport before barbecuing them.

An ancient road which led from the village to a river called the Avon was also unearthed. Here, the experts think, people came after their parties to throw dead relatives in the water so the bodies would be washed downstream to Stonehenge.

The experts believe Stonehenge was a like a cemetery where ancient Britons buried the dead and remembered their ancestors. “The theory is that Stonehenge is a kind of spirit home to the ancestors,” Parker Pearson says.

Next to the village there was a giant wooden version of the famous stone circle. Archaeologists say this timber circle, which was only temporary because it eventually rotted away, was a symbol of life. Stonehenge, on the other hand, was a permanent symbol of the afterlife.

Parker Pearson says the recent discoveries made around the newly found village show that Stonehenge didn’t stand alone but was part of a much bigger religious site.

People still come to worship and celebrate at Stonehenge today. They meet there when the sun sets on the shortest day of winter and when it rises on the longest day of summer. But the days of barbecuing whole pigs there and throwing family members into the river are a thing of the past.

FUNNY COMMERCIALS

The new commercial by Zach for Absolut Vodka.

Absolut vodka has hired comedian Zach Galifianakis to create a second film for their website, with the same conditions as the first time. Zach was asked to make an ad for Absolut Vodka as part of their ongoing artist series.

He agreed as long as he got to do what he wanted without any restrictions.

Weirdies Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job are back as well, and I think this one is even funnier.

VIDEO : BATTLE @ KRUGER

The most amazing animal footage ever. After being nearly eaten by lions, then a crocodile, then lions again, a baby buffalo gets free after the parents come back with the entire herd of water buffaloes to save the one baby.

Humans should take action in the same way for their young.

VIDEO : PORK AND BEANS

Here is Weezer's "Pork and Beans" video featuring Youtube sensations. Unfortunately Chris Crocker made it in there... barf!

CELL PHONES : Hop-On 1800 $10 GSM Cell phones

For those of you who don't consider the cell phone a status symbol, and could do without live updates on mysterious Apple cargo ships, comes the "disposable" 1800 from Hop-On. The $10 GSM phone is another in a long line of cheap, no frills Hop-On cell phones, but before you decry the company for creating more e-waste, hit the jump for specs and the company's rebate program.
Phone maker Hop-on Inc. apparently found success at CTIA in Las Vegas with its disposable cell-phone concept, a $20 (13 euros) phone with no LCD screen that can be thrown away or recycled after use. The company said on Thursday that a European distributor has purchased 10,000 of the phones for an initial test run. The phone uses a Texas Instruments chip set and works on the 900/1800 MHz frequency.

Hop-On markets the phone as an ideal choice for kids, teens, seniors, and world travelers. If you ask me, it also sounds like a good option for anyone who... well... may not want the government tracking their activities, if you know what I mean. [Telecoms.com]

IN NEWS : THIS HAS ALWAYS REMAINED ONE OF MY FAVOURITE VIDEOS...THOUGH ALL THE ISSUE HAS BEEN SETTLED DOWN FOR A WHILE I JUST THOUGHT TO POP 'EM UP...

AN OLD NEWS ITEM I FOUND RECENTLY : (CBS/AP) Eight teenagers have been arrested after filming the beating of another teen and threatening to post the video on the Internet, sheriff's officials said.

Victoria Lindsay was attacked on March 30 by six teenage girls when she arrived at a friend's home, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said.

Two girls confronted Lindsay when she walked in, yelling and threatening her, an arrest report showed. Another girl struck her in the head several times and then slammed her head into the bedroom wall, knocking her unconscious.

When she woke up, she was on the couch in the living room surrounded by the six girls. The teens blocked the door, held Lindsay down and began beating her, the report said. Two teenage boys waited outside the home as lookouts.

"That is animalistic behavior. It's pack mentality. They lured her there to beat her," Sheriff Grady Judd said.

Portions of the video were released by the sheriff's office and posted on CBS affiliate WTSP-TV.

"There was talk about apparently after the fact, apparently there's other students that knew that they were going to post this just for the thrill of everyone to see it," Lindsay's mother, Talisa, told CBS News' The Early Show. "Which is just outrageous."

All eight were charged last week with battery and false imprisonment, which are third-degree felonies, the report said.

"When we had them in custody at the station, they were laughing about it, saying, 'Well, I guess this spring break we won't go to the beach," Judd told The Early Show. "One of the suspects asked the detective, 'Am I going to get to go to cheerleading practice tomorrow?"

"They showed absolutely no remorse at all," Judd said. Lindsay was taken to the hospital by ambulance and treated for a concussion, damage to her left eye and left ear, and numerous bruises, the report said.

Lindsay's father, Patrick, said the teens' motivation for the attack was to produce a video that would become popular on YouTube, a video-sharing Web site.

He told The Early Show that he has not been able to watch the video, that he is too distraught, although his wife has.

But the mother of one of the girls said that Lindsay had provoked the other teens by threatening and insulting them on MySpace, a social networking Web site.

After the girls were arrested, Christina Garcia told the newspaper she looked at Lindsay's MySpace page and saw the message: "hahaha all in jail."

"A lot of people think, 'I can say whatever I want on here and nobody's gonna say anything,'" Garcia said. "A fight is a fight, but this was a beatdown. She did not deserve what she got, but I don't know how she's that messed up and able to get on the computer and talk about that."

HUMOUR ; TRUE : "IT'S A BIRD....IT'S A PLANE...IT'S...!!!"

Last weekend, former chess champion Garry Kasparov was giving a speech to unite opposition political forces, when all of the sudden a little remote controlled friend came flying in to liven up the extremely boring speech... that is until a man with a case of envy smashed it out of the air...

CAUTION : PLEASE DO PLAY THE VIDEO ONLY IF U HAVA HEART TO LAUGH!!!

GOOD NEWS : NEW FORUM COMMING UP

Hello regular readers of "the GAIO" blog,
heres a happy news for you "THE GREAT ALL I ONE BLOG" is happy to announce the launch of its new forum....
Log on to any of the 3 url links given below to reach your destination.....
bloggerlog.999.org
bloggerlog.tt.cx
bloggerlog.x.am

Google Friend Connect - New Social Network

Look out MySpace and Facebook, Google has decided to enter the social networking game. Google announced the launch last weekend and has just opened up beta testing to a select number of people. I think this is a great move by Google and will quickly become a contender in this space.

Google Friend Connect is a service that helps website owners grow traffic by enabling any site on the web to easily provide social features for its visitors. any website owner can add a snippet of code to his or her site and get social features up and running immediately without programming — picking and choosing from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting, and reviews, as well as third-party applications built by the OpenSocial developer community.

Google Friend Connect boasts the following high-level features:

• Attract more visitors to your site - Visitors bring along friends from social networks like Facebook, orkut, and others to interact on your site.
• Enrich your site with social features - Choose engaging social features from a catalog of gadgets provided by Google and the OpenSocial developer community.
• No programming whatsoever - Just copy and paste snippets of code into your site, and Google Friend Connect does the rest.

There are a couple of demo sites already setup which you can test and interact with.

If you’re interested in being part of the beta testing group, you can apply directly on their site here. I just applied today so hopefully I will get accepted and can start using Google Friend Connect on my blogs...

CHECK LIST : EARTH DAY VIDEO

BOOK REVIEW : SHATTERING GLASS

Shattering Glass - Fat, clumsy Simon Glass is a nerd, a loser. Everyone picks on him, until Rob Haynes showed up. Rob, a transfer student with charisma to spare, immediately becomes the undisputed leader of the senior class. And he has plans for Simon. Rob's mission: Turn sniveling Simon from total freak to would-be prom king. But as Simon rises to the top of the social ranks, he shows a new confidence and a devious side that power-hungry Rob did not anticipate. And when Simon uncovers a dangerous secret, events darken. The result is disquieting, bone-chilling . . . and brutal.

California Young Reader Medal Winner - 2007

GAME ZONE : KEBAB VAN

DAILY LIFE : CLEVER AD's : SOME OF THE WORLDS CLEVEREST AD's

A print of a cup of Folgers coffee was placed on top of manhole covers in New York City, USA.
Holes on the print allow the steam to come out. Wording around the cup reads, "Hey, City That Never Sleeps. Wake up. Folgers."

An innovative idea on a large billboard in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It really makes people want to grab that "Heineken".

Life-size stickers of people were stuck on automatic sliding doors at a mall in Mumbai, India. When someone approaches, the doors move apart and it feels like the people on the door are moving away. The person entering finds the message, "People move away when you have body odor".

An advertisement found in Malaysia. A sticker was placed on the high voltage box depicting that powerful Duracell batteries were used.




A giant mirror was built that allowed passers-by to stop and look at themselves wearing Individual clothes at a shopping mall in Tokyo, Japan.




Advertisements for a job-recruiting company in Berlin, Germany depict people working in vending machines and ATMs. It delivers the message, "Life is too short for the wrong job".





Stickers were placed in selected car park locations and car workshops where M-Tech Plasma HID lights are sold in Malaysia. It delivers the message that these headlights are 300% brighter than regular headlights. The burn-effect sticker from the headlights really leaves an impression.




This is an advertisement found in Vancouver during their National Non-Smoking Week. The car was placed at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the message. It reads, "Death from car accidents: 370. Death from smoking-related causes: 6,027. Quit now before it kills you."

Life-size images were stuck on glass doors at shops and airports in South Africa advertising the glass and window cleaner, I.C.U. The expression on the face is priceless.



In another creative idea by The Fitness Company, "dumbbells" were placed at various subways in New York City, which create an illusion that the person holding the safety bar is doing weights



A very cost-effective advertisement in Hong Kong for a yoga school showcases the prowess of a yoga practitioner on the flexible stems of drinking. straws. Enquiries and enrolment went after up this promotional stunt.



A creative ad by Mini Cooper placed at the Zurich, Switzerland train station, shows people climbing into or out of the car, when they are actually entering or exiting stairs.

HISTORY : THE MUMMY'S CURSE

Movie mummies are known for two things: fabulous riches and a nasty curse that brings treasure hunters to a bad end. But Hollywood didn't invent the curse concept.

The "mummy's curse" first enjoyed a worldwide vogue after the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt.

When Howard Carter opened a small hole to peer inside the tomb at treasures hidden for 3,000 years, he also unleashed a global passion for ancient Egypt.

Tut's glittering treasures made great headlines—and so did sensationalistic accounts of the subsequent death of expedition sponsor Lord Carnarvon.

In reality, Carnarvon died of blood poisoning and only six of the 26 people present when the tomb was opened died within a decade. Carter, surely any curse's prime target, lived until 1939.

But while the pharaoh's curse may lack bite, it hasn't lost the ability to fascinate audiences—which may be how it originated in the first place.

Birth of the Curse

The late Egyptologist Dominic Montserrat conducted a comprehensive search and concluded that the concept began with a strange "striptease" in 19th-century London.

"My work shows quite clearly that the mummy's curse concept predates Carnarvon's Tutankhamen discovery and his death by a hundred years," Montserrat told the Independent (U.K.) in an interview some years before his own death.

Montserrat believed that a lively stage show in which real Egyptian mummies were unwrapped inspired first one writer, and subsequently several others, to pen tales of mummy revenge.

The thread was even picked up by Little Women author Louisa May Alcott in her nearly unknown volume Lost in a Pyramid; or, The Mummy's Curse.

"My research has not only confirmed that there is, of course, no ancient Egyptian origin of the mummy's curse concept, but, more importantly, it also reveals that it didn't originate in the 1923 press publicity about the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb either," Montserrat stressed to the Independent.

But Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo and a National Geographic Society grantee, believes the curse concept did exist in ancient Egypt as part of a primitive security system.

She notes that some mastaba (early non-pyramid tomb) walls in Giza and Saqqara were actually inscribed with "curses" meant to terrify those who would desecrate or rob the royal resting place.

"They tend to threaten desecrators with divine retribution by the council of the gods," Ikram said. "Or a death by crocodiles, or lions, or scorpions, or snakes."

Tomb Toxin Threat?

In recent years some have suggested that the pharaoh's curse was biological in nature.

Could sealed tombs house pathogens that can be dangerous or even deadly to those who open them after thousands of years—especially people like Lord Carnarvon with weakened immune systems?

The mausoleums house not only the dead bodies of humans and animals but foods to provision them for the afterlife.

Lab studies have shown some ancient mummies carried mold, including Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus, which can cause congestion or bleeding in the lungs. Lung-assaulting bacteria such as Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus may also grow on tomb walls.

These substances may make tombs sound dangerous, but scientists seem to agree that they are not.

F. DeWolfe Miller, professor of epidemiology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, concurs with Howard Carter's original opinion: Given the local conditions, Lord Carnarvon was probably safer inside Tut's tomb than outside.

"Upper Egypt in the 1920s was hardly what you'd call sanitary," Miller said. "The idea that an underground tomb, after 3,000 years, would have some kind of bizarre microorganism in it that's going to kill somebody six weeks later and make it look exactly like [blood poisoning] is very hard to believe."

In fact, Miller said, he knows of no archaeologist—or a single tourist, for that matter—who has experienced any afflictions caused by tomb toxins.

But like the movie mummies who invoke the malediction, the legend of the mummy's curse seems destined never to die.

Courtesy : NatGeoTV

IN THE NEWS : What US is doing to others!!!---Long but a good one!!!

This article which had appeared more than a year back has some stark
realities which the world is facing now.
It also corroborates the hypothesis that the REAL reason why the US
attacked Iraq was because Saddam Hussein had decided the move Iraq 's
Oil trade from US$ to Euro.
Why US attacked IRAQ???? Why the Dollar Bubble is about to Burst -
Little lengthy but worth every bit !!!

London - 24 May, 2006
The Voice (issue 264 - 11th May) ran an article beginning, " Iran has
really gone and done it now. No, they haven't sent their first nuclear
sub in to the Persian Gulf . They are about to launch something much
more deadly -- next week the Iran Bourse will open to trade oil, not
in dollars but in Euros." This apparently insignificant event has
consequences far greater for the US people, indeed all for us all,
than is imaginable.
Currently almost all oil buying and selling is in US-dollars through
exchanges in London and New York . It is not accidental they are
both US-owned.
The Wall Street crash in 1929 sparked off global depression and World
War II. During that war the US supplied provisions and munitions to
all its allies, refusing currency and demanding gold payments in
exchange.

By 1945, 80% of the world's gold was sitting in US vaults. The dollar
became the one undisputed global reserve currency -- it was treated
world-wide as `safer than gold'. The Bretton Woods agreement was
established.
The US took full advantage over the next decades and printed dollars
like there was no tomorrow. The US exported many mountains of
dollars, paying for ever-increasing amounts of commodities, tax cuts
for the rich, many wars abroad, mercenaries, spies and politicians the
world over. You see, this did not affect inflation at home! The US
got it all for free! Well, maybe for a forest or two.
Over subsequent decades the world's vaults bulged at the seams and
more and more vaults were built, just for US dollars. Each year, the
US spends many more dollars abroad that at home. Analysts pretty much
agree that outside the US , of the savings, or reserves, of all other
countries, in gold and all currencies -- that a massive 66% of this
total wealth is in US dollars!
In 1971 several countries simultaneously tried to sell a small portion
of their dollars to the US for gold. Krassimir Petrov, (Ph. D. in
Economics at Ohio University ) recently wrote, "The US Government
defaulted on its payment on August 15, 1971. While popular spin told
the story of `severing the link between the dollar and gold', in
reality the denial to pay back in gold was an act of bankruptcy by the
US Government." (1) The 1945 Bretton Woods agreement was unilaterally
smashed.
The dollar and US economy were on a precipice resembling Germany
in 1929. The US now had to find a way for the rest of the world to
believe and have faith in the paper dollar. The solution was in oil,
in the petrodollar. The US viciously bullied first Saudi Arabia
and then OPEC to sell oil for dollars only -- it worked, the dollar
was saved. Now countries had to keep dollars to buy much needed oil.
And the US could buy oil all over the world, free of charge. What a
Houdini for the US ! Oil replaced gold as the new foundation to stop
the paper dollar sinking.
Since 1971, the US printed even more mountains of dollars to spend
abroad. The trade deficit grew and grew. The US sucked-in much of the
world's products for next to nothing. More vaults were built.
Expert, Cóilínn Nunan, wrote in 2003, "The dollar is the de facto
world reserve currency: the US currency accounts for approximately
two thirds of all official exchange reserves. More than four-fifths of
all foreign exchange transactions and half of all world exports are
denominated in dollars. In addition, all IMF loans are denominated in
dollars." (2)
Dr Bulent Gukay of Keele University recently wrote, "This system of
the US dollar acting as global reserve currency in oil trade keeps the
demand for the dollar `artificially' high. This enables the US to
carry out printing dollars at the price of next to nothing to fund
increased military spending and consumer spending on imports. There is
no theoretical limit to the amount of dollars that can be printed. As
long as the US has no serious challengers, and the other states have
confidence in the US dollar, the system functions." (3)
Until recently, the US-dollar has been safe. However, since 1990
Western Europe has been busy growing, swallowing up central and
Eastern Europe . French and German bosses were jealous of the US
ability to buy goods and people the world over for nothing. They
wanted a slice of the free cake too. Further, they now had the power
and established the euro in late 1999 against massive US-inspired
opposition across Europe, especially from Britain - paid for in
dollars of course. But the euro succeeded.
Only months after the euro-launch, Saddam's Iraq announced it was
switching from selling oil in dollars only, to euros only -- breaking
the OPEC agreement. Iran , Russia , Venezuela , Libya , all began
talking openly of switching too -- were the floodgates about to be
opened?
Then aeroplanes flew into the twin-towers in September 2001. Was this
another Houdini chance to save the US (petro)dollar and the biggest
financial/economic crash in history? War preparations began in the US
. But first war-fever had to be created -- and truth was the first
casualty. Other oil producing countries watched-on. In 2000 Iraq
began selling oil in euros. In 2002, Iraq changed all their
petro-dollars in their vaults into euros. A few months later, the US
began their invasion of Iraq .
The whole world was watching: very few aware that the US was
engaging in the first oil currency, or petrodollar war. After the
invasion of Iraq in March 2003, remember, the US secured oil areas
first. Their first sales in August were, of course, in dollars, again.
The only government building in Baghdad not bombed was the Oil
Ministry! It does not matter how many people are murdered -- for the
US , the petrodollar must be saved as the only way to buy and sell oil
-- otherwise the US economy will crash, and much more besides.
In early 2003, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela talked openly of
selling half of its oil in euros (the other half is bought by the US
). On 12 April 2003, the US-supported business leaders and some
generals in Venezuela kidnapped Chavez and attempted a coup. The
masses rose against this and the Army followed suit. The coup failed.
This was bad for the US .
In November 2000 the euro/dollar was at $0.82 dollars, its lowest
ever, and still diving, but when Iraq started selling oil in euros,
the euro dive was halted. In April 2002 senior OPEC reps talked about
trading in euros and the euro shot up. In June 2003 the US occupiers
of Iraq switched trading back to dollars and the euro fell against
the dollar again. In August 2003 Iran starts to sell oil in euros to
some European countries and the euro rises sharply. In the winter of
2003-4 Russian and OPEC politicians talked seriously of switching
oil/gas sales to the euro and the euro rose. In February 2004 OPEC met
and made no decision to turn to the euro -- and yes, the euro fell
against the dollar. In June 2004 Iran announced it would build an oil
bourse to rival London and New York , and again, the euro rose. The
euro stands at $1.27 and has been climbing of late.
But matters this month became far, far worse for the US dollar. On 5th
May Iran registered its own Oil Bourse, the IOB. Not only are they
now selling oil in euros from abroad -- they have established an
actual Oil Bourse, a global trading centre for all countries to buy
and sell their oil!
In Chavez's recent visit to London ; he talked openly about
supporting the Iranian Oil Bourse, and selling oil in euros. When
asked in London about the new arms embargo imposed by the US
against Venezuela , Chavez prophetically dismissed the US as "a
paper tiger".
Currently, almost all the world's oil is sold on either the NYMEX, New
York Mercantile Exchange, or the IPE, London 's International
Petroleum Exchange. Both are owned by US citizens and both sell and
buy only in US dollars. The success of the Iran Oil Bourse makes sense
to Europe, which buys 70% of Iran 's oil. It makes sense for Russia
, which sells 66% of its oil to Europe . But worse for the US ,
China and India have already stated they are very interested in the
new Iranian Oil Bourse.
If there is a tactical-nuclear strike on - deja-vu - `weapons of mass
destruction' in Iran , who would bet against a certain Oil Exchange
and more, being bombed too?
And worse for Bush. It makes sense for Europe, China , India and
Japan-- as well as all the other countries mentioned above -- to buy
and sell oil in Euro's. They will certainly have to stock-up on euros
now, and they will sell dollars to do so. The euro is far more stable
than the debt-ridden dollar. The IMF has recently highlighted US
economic difficulties and the trade deficit strangling the US--
there is no way out.
The problem for so many countries now is how to get rid of their
vaults full of dollars, before it crashes? And the US has bullied so
many countries for so many decades around the world, that many will
see a chance to kick the bully back. The US cannot accept even 5% of
the world's dollars -- it would crash the US economy dragging much
of the world with it, especially Britain .
To survive, as the Scottish Socialist Voice article stated, "the US ,
needs to generate a trade surplus to get out of this one. Problem is
it can't." This is spot on. To do that they must force US workers into
near slavery, to get paid less than Chinese or Indian workers. We all
know that this will not happen.
What will happen in the US ? Chaos for sure. Maybe a workers
revolution, but looking at the situation as it is now, it is more
likely to be a re-run of Germany post-1929, and some form of
extreme-right mass movement will emerge.
Does Europe and China/Asia have the economic independence and strength
to stop the whole world's economies collapsing with the US ? Their
vaults are full to the brim with dollars.
The US has to find a way to pay for its dollar-imperialist
exploitation of the world since 1945. Somehow, eventually, it has to
account for every dollar in every vault in the world.
Bombing Iran could backfire tremendously. It would bring Iran
openly into the war in Iraq , behind the Shiite majority. The US
cannot cope even now with the much smaller Iraqi insurgency. Perhaps
the US will feed into the Sunni v Shiite conflict and turn it into a
wider Middle-East civil-war. However, this is so dangerous for global
oil supplies. Further, they know that this would be temporary, as some
country somewhere else, will establish a euro-oil-exchange, perhaps in
Brussels .
There is one `solution' -- scrap the dollar and print a whole new
currency for the US . This will destroy 66% of the rest of the
world's savings/reserves in one swoop. Imagine the implications? Such
are the desperate things now swimming around heads in the White House,
Wall Street and Pentagon.
Another is to do as Germany did, just before invading Poland in
1938. The Nazis filmed a mock Polish Army attack on Germany , to win
hearts and minds at home. But again, this is a finger in the dam. So,
how is the US going to escape this time? The only global arena of
total superiority left is military. Who knows what horrors lie ahead.
A new world war is one tool by which the US could discipline its
`allies' into keeping the dollar in their vaults.
The task of socialists today is to explain to as many as possible,
especially our class, that the coming crisis belongs purely to
capitalism and (dollar) imperialism. Not people of other cultures, not
Islam, not the axis of evil or their so-called WMDs. Their system
alone is to blame.
The new Iranian Oil Bourse, the IOB, is situated in a new building on
the free-trade-zone island of Kish , in the Persian Gulf . It's
computers and software are all set to go. The IOB was supposed to be
up and running last March, but many pressures forced a postponement.
Where the pressure came from is obvious. It was internationally
registered on 5th May and supposed to open mid-May, but its opening
was put off, some saying the oil-mafia was involved, along with much
international pressure. Just google `pertroeuro', and the story lies
before you.
From now on, anyone in the know will wake up every morning and, even
before coffee, will check out the latest exchange rate between the
euro and dollar.

HUMOUR : A JEWEL OF A SHOT

Zacheria Mc Grew had a really embarrassing injury. But far more humiliating was how he got it...
When the 23 yr old discovered that his car speakers were missing, he figured he knew who'd swiped them - a teenager from a nearby neighbourhood.
The teen was in his front yard when a white toyota zoomed up and Mc Grew jumped out of the back seat. He ordered the youth to jump into the car and to take him to his speakers, which the terrified boy refused to do. McGrew then pulled out a handgun. At that point the teen took off at a sprint, and Mc Grew fired atlest 2 shots at him, missing his mark.
Once the boy was out of sight, McGrew slid the gun back to his waistband. Maybe he fumbled things, because his pants had begun to sag. McGrews finger sqeezed the trigger, firing off a perfect shot into his own testicle. That can cause a guy to flinch, which he did, pulling the trigger again and sending another trigger into his left calf.
His 2 friends, who were in the toyota, immediately drove him to a hospital, where McGrew shuffled in crying with pain. Police were quickly summoned and and struggled to make up what McGrew told them through tears.
He first tried to escape by telling that he was shot by a strange Hispanic man. But finally, he confessed that the damage to his privates was self - inflicted....

HUMOUR, TRAVEL : DIGESTIVE GLAND, ANYONE?

Author Charlie Croker collects examples of poorly translated and quaint language from information leaflets, signs and menus round the globe...Here are some highlights from his latest compendium, "Still Lost In Translation"(Arrow) :

Small hotel, Cornwall : "Will any guest wishing to take a bath please make arrangements to have one with Mrs. Harvey".

Sign on a twisty road in the Himalayas : "Be mild on curves".

Notice on a door in Sana'a, Yemen : "Physio the rapist".

Restaurant, China : "Dumpling stuffed with the ovary and digestive glands of a crab".

Sign in Japanese Park : "Keep Japan green. Dont burn the fire chief".

At a desert in Oman : "Drowning accidents are now popular".

Tourism brochure trying to say "Jerusalem - there is no city like it". : "Jerusalem, there is no such city".

HEALTH : SNEAKY SOURCES OF CAFFEINE

You know you shouldn't have too much caffeine, since it can cause anciety and insomnia. Now its time for the best part...."What you didn't know" : Some foods packa caffeine wallop nearly the size of your morning java jolt [a cup of coffee has about 80mg of caffeine].
Food manufacturers aren't required to list the amount of caffeine in a product, so many people are in the dark. There are no government guidelines on how much safely we can consume, but dietitians say 200 to 300 mg a day is okay for a normal adult.(For kids the maximum must be 85 mg) Surprising sources :
FIZZY DRINKS : A can of cola has typically about 45mg while moountain dew has 55.
COCOLATE : Sweet chocolate: about 20 mg per 30 gm, and baking chocolate about 35 mg.
ICED TEA : Contains around 30 to 75 mg per bottle.
MEDICINES : Analgestics like Anacin: 64 mg. Some diuretics amy contain upto 200 mg per pill.

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COMPUTERS ; POWER SAVING : SAVING YOUR LAPTOPS BATTERY

All laptop users face one problem. The battery going dead while travelling on a plane or attending a meeting where a plug poin may not be available for a recharge.
Utilize the software. Both Mac's and Windows - based laptops have inbuit power-management software. Set it for power "save" mode.
Screen brightness. Conversion of electricity to light uses power. Reduce your screen's brightness to a comfortable minimum.
Run fewer programs. You may simultaneously have photoshop, excel and MS word running on your laptop when all you need is Ms word. Quit all others that you dont need especially the DVD.
Reduce attachments. How many USB ports are being used? Unplug all unnecessary attachments, including, any mouse and use the touchpad instead.
Discharge. With older Nickel-based batteries let it discharge fully at times.

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HUMOUR : FLIGHT SIMULATOR

A Delhi [INDIA] businessman is giving people the chance to experience air travel for just Rs150-on a plane with one wing that takes off.
In a country where 99 percent of the population has not been on a commercial flight, passengers an Bahadur Chand Gupta's Airbus 300 happily buckle themselves in for a trip to 'nowhere'. Attendats serve drinks and do safety demonstrations while captain Gupta makes regular announcemets, including "We will sune be passing through a zone of turbulence" and "We are about to begin our descent into Delhi" - even though the view from the window never changes.
Mr gupta brought the aircraft from an insurance company...

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HEALTH : WHAT TO EAT ABROAD

The dangers of dodgy local food may make you think twiceabout travelling to exotic locations. But there's no need to worry - here are some tips for avoiding the dreaded "Delhi Belly".

• Drink plenty of fluids and take time to adjust to the environmaent - don't justwolf down whatever's available. If you are not used to spicy food, keep your diet bland for first few days. Meanwhilediscover the best places to eat.
• Take basic precautions. Boil water and milk before you drink it. Opt for bottled water if you are suspicious about the source.Only eat fruit that you can peel and steer clear of uncooked foodsuch as salads and chutneys.
• Freshly cooked food is the best option. Buffets and anything cooked on the streets usually attract flies. Check that fish has been caught recently and make sure the food you order is "well done" as this will kill off the bacteria...

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