The Stones

Sylvia Plath - read by Plath herself

Photo Hunt - string

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is string. Sadly I used my best string shots in a photo hunt fairly recently so here's a pair of morning glories. The string is blurred in the background suporting the plant.

Robert Calvert - Ejection

Film footage of my avatar in action is pretty rare. I was delighted to see that someone had uploaded some videos of Calvert performing with Inner City Unit in 1985.

Ted surprises everyone by looking annoyed

This week's entry for Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats

IRA Army Council defunct

The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) declared that the IRA has disbanded its terrorist structures and relinquished the leadership necessary to wage war.

In a 12-page report the IMC said: "We are aware of the questions posed about the public disbandment of (Provisional Irish Republican Army's) PIRA's leadership structures. We believe that PIRA has chosen another method of bringing what it describes as its armed struggle to a final close. Under PIRA's own rules the Army Council was the body that directed its military campaign. Now that that campaign is well and truly over, the Army Council by deliberate choice is no longer operational or functional."


The report concluded: "The mechanism which they have chosen to bring the armed conflict to a complete end has been the standing down of the structures which engaged in the armed campaign and the conscious decision to allow the Army Council to fall into disuse. By taking these steps PIRA has completely relinquished the leadership and other structures appropriate to a time of armed conflict."

Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said the report confirmed that the IRA had ceased to function. "This groundbreaking report by the IMC makes clear that the Army Council is now redundant... As the IMC made clear, 'the leadership structures have definitely ceased to function in the way they did during the ‘time of conflict'

The British and Irish Governments had asked the IMC, made up of security experts and politicians from the UK and Ireland, to compile a special report on the status of IRA structures. Prior to the official release of the report today, it was speculated that the IMC would conclude that the Army Council remained in place, but was not engaged in any illegal activity.

Today in its report the IMC, which monitors paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, said the IRA's redundant structures were gradually disappearing, but said it did not expect any announcements from the republican movement as that process concluded. "We believe that for some time now it has given up what it used to do and that by design it is being allowed to wither away," said the report. It added: "In our view the way in which the leadership has adopted an entirely different course, disbanded terrorist-related structures and capacity and engaged in different activities, and members have moved on to other things, means that the PIRA of the recent and violent past is well beyond recall."

Here's hoping that the effective disbandment of the Army Council is the final nail in the PIRA coffin. Here’s hoping, therefore, that the PIRA is now just part of Northern Ireland’s bloody past and not its present.... and that the “dissident” IRA groups remain a toothless rabble.

Oops 2

Last week the Shanghai Daily carried an item about a bizarre incident that took place in Eastern China. A man was struck by lightning just as he lifted an iron bar over his head to swear that god would punish him if he had taken money from his friend.

The man, who was identified as Xu, had borrowed 500 yuan (US$73.21) from a close friend surnamed Huang three years ago. Xu, who lived in Fuqing City, Fujian Province, later forgot all about it, but Huang remembered and complained before other friends that Xu had taken money from him.

Last Tuesday, Huang took a wooden rod and rushed to Xu's home asking him to return the money. Xu too confronted Huang with an iron bar and stood his ground. Huang then told Xu that he should swear before god that he was not in his debt. Xu lifted the iron bar over his head and said if he owed Huang money, the god would punish him. Just then he was struck by lightning.

He was later taken to hospital, and doctors said his injuries were not serious.

I am in a reasonably good mood today hence the silly-ish posts. My father went into hospital for an operation which seems to have been successful. Unless something intervenes he will be discharged later today. At his age (82) there is always the worry that procedures could have an adverse outcome. While he doesn’t teach judo anymore (he did until well into his 60s) he is still in pretty good shape.

Oops...

According to today’s Guardian Japanese police have been left red-faced by an apparent murder that turned out to be an unusual case of mistaken identity.

A frantic call from was received from a couple who had spotted a "corpse" while out walking their dog in a mountain forest in Izu, central Japan. Fifteen officers were dispatched to the scene, where they discovered a human form wrapped in plastic and tightly bound around the neck, midriff and ankles, with hair protruding from one end.

The body was left untouched and taken away for examination, and the crime scene duly secured by a police cordon. Back at the local police headquarters, officials notified reporters who had turned up early the same morning to cover an annual earthquake drill. They began preparing to write up the launch of a major murder investigation.

By mid-afternoon, the body was in the hands of police pathologists. But when they sliced open the wrapping, they were confronted not by a decomposing corpse, but by a life-sized sex doll. A police spokesman apologised for the commotion but defended his officers, saying they had simply been following protocol by leaving the concealed "body" untouched until it was in the hands of pathologists.

Though no crime had been committed, the spokesman could not resist admonishing the doll's mystery owner. The doll, he told bemused reporters, showed signs of repeated use. "Our guess is that the owner didn't want to take a risk by throwing it away with the rest of his rubbish," he said. "It was an incredibly irresponsible thing to do."

The police did the right thing even if the victim turned out to be of plastic rather than flesh. Somehow I doubt the owner will be coming forward....

WW - Oscar Wilde's grave

Oscar Wilde's grave at Pere Lachaise cemetery. This week's entry for the Tuesday and Wednesday edition of Wordless Wednesday.

Arsenic breathers

Bacteria are the ultimate extremophiles being able to survive and indeed thrive in the most inhospitable of conditions. According to this ABC story scientists have found some living in hot springs that uses instead of oxygen for photosynthesis. The new organisms, found floating in Mono Lake in California, are reported in today's issue of the journal Science.

Since the 1990s, scientists have discovered about 20 species of bizarre bacteria that "breathe" arsenic. They are typically found in environments where oxygen is scarce and have been forced to survive on whatever strange substance is easily available. "Just like you and I inhale oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, these bugs breathe in Arsenic (III) and breathe out Arsenic (V)," said researcher Ronald Oremland.

Arsenic (III) is the most poisonous form of the element, because it acts much like phosphorous. Most life on Earth needs phosphorous to build the molecule called ATP, which supplies cells with energy. Arsenic can substitute for phosphorous and upset the ATP molecule, essentially starving cells to death.

In the arsenic-rich, oxygen-poor waters of Mono Lake, Oremland and team found that bacteria turn the lethal toxin to their advantage through photosynthesis. With the help of sunlight, the microbes oxidise Arsenic (III) ions into Arsenic (V) ions, stripping away electrons in the process. The electrons are then used as the energetic push needed to build ATP.

More than a mere biological oddity, the discovery adds weight to Oremland's theory that the bacteria's ability evolved billions of years ago, when the first life was just getting started on earth. At the time, the planet's oceans were devoid of oxygen, but hydrothermal vents spewed elements such as sulphur, iron and arsenic into the water column. In this ancient stew, arsenic may have been an important nutrient to life. The life-forms would have used whatever they could to survive these noxious waters, and sunlight and arsenic were probably plentiful. As the life-forms found they could make a living off of these odd bedfellows, one of the first forms of photosynthesis was born.

Modern photosynthesis is thought to have evolved between 2.3 and 2.7 billion years ago. The arsenic-based form may be much older.

File this one under fascinating!

Lady Lazarus

Sylvia Plath