tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335723742012-01-16T14:13:38.604+10:00This is a blog about everything. Well, everything that matters. Graham Storrs is a writer and musician who lives and works on a mountain top in rural Australia. His natural troglodyte tendencies are offset by a wife, daughter and dog who just don't understand a man's need to have his cake and eat it.graywavenoreply@blogger.comBlogger2851100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-38208740653713926622012-01-16T14:06:00.002+10:002012-01-16T14:09:24.076+10:00

The other day someone pointed out an article for me by David Weinberger which appeared in The Atlantic, plugging his new book Too Big to Know. It was a strangely breathless article, but I'm not sure that Weinberger's point is a very interesting one. Essentially, he seems to be saying that we have been developing data sets that are so vast they are beyond what people - with our limited brains

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-42754177446974628142012-01-09T08:57:00.000+10:002012-01-09T08:57:17.453+10:00

What kind of rubbish is this? An online newspaper I read just published an article about an article in a print newspaper called The Australian. Since when was quoting another news outlet's opinions considered news? The piece in The Australian - a newspaper famous here for being a mouthpiece of the Rupert Murdoch view of life and a front-runner in his stable's race to the bottom -  was about how

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-60688251181326734652011-12-22T16:02:00.000+10:002011-12-22T16:02:34.060+10:00

Nerfreader: Giveaway: TimeSplash by Graham Storrs! The audiobook of my time travel thriller, TimeSplash is being given away free at Nerfreader. Three copies of the audiobook are up for grabs, plus, as a bonus, there is a short story prequel to the novel, read by me, for each winner.Just saying.

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-24487533047620462402011-12-10T09:14:00.000+10:002011-12-10T09:14:51.339+10:00

Reviews By Martha's Bookshelf: Giveaway Three Audiobooks of Timesplash & Prequel!...: A month or so ago I posted a review of a good audiobook, Timesplash ! The author, Graham Storrs, has written a prequel, in the form of a s...

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-76444461514115565682011-08-16T22:01:00.001+10:002011-08-16T22:02:39.129+10:00

I can sum up everything that is wrong with the world in three words: People Are Stupid. We like to think we are the pinnacle of evolution (in itself a stupid misconception of how evolution works) and that our vast intelligence separates up from the animals (sorry, stupid mistake, the other animals, I mean), but the fact is that we're not all that bright. We have a few advantages over, say

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-65059201427643656622011-08-04T11:39:00.002+10:002011-08-04T12:06:49.341+10:00

It is a sad and terrible indictment of the society in which we live that a woman like Yasmin McKillop might die because she can't afford the surgery that could save her life. Yasmin is a young woman, a nurse who cares for old people at my local hospital. She's one of those lovely people you take to immediately. She is married to my friend James, who is blind, and they have two young boys.

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-68774536431056748982011-06-28T10:05:00.000+10:002011-06-28T10:05:21.692+10:00

I tend to say things like "I believe in reality and nothing else." Possibly seeing the world "reality" as a potential chink in the armour of my belief system, someone asked me recently to define what I mean by it. You know, it's a hard question, and I can only think of long answers to it. Basically, like Samuel Johnson, I'm a rock kicker, not a solipsist (that Occam's Razor thing again). Once

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-4994029386798287972011-05-20T10:16:00.000+10:002011-05-20T10:16:58.664+10:00

Just a quick note to give you a couple of predictions about the future. Here they are: The Rapture will not happen tomorrow (as predicted by the Christians). The world will not end in 2012 (as predicted by the Mayans). No prediction from any religious text, or any ancient text whatsoever about the end of the world will ever be correct. I will absolutely stand by these predictions and will happily

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-32261406587945812422011-05-08T14:14:00.001+10:002011-05-08T14:16:53.364+10:00

There are a couple of short stories of mine appearing soon in anthologies and I'd like you to look out for them, please. Since I almost never try to flog my books here, I thought you might forgive me. Two of these anthologies ('Hope' and 'Nothing But Floweres') I donated stories to for free because they are being sold to benefit good causes. In Situ – a spec fic anthology from Dagan Books, ed.

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-38532094649138473212011-05-03T13:44:00.001+10:002011-05-03T13:48:08.184+10:00

So what? Here are a few early thoughts on what it might mean that the "world's most wanted man" has finally been tracked down and executed. 1. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Bin Laden was waging war. Sometimes wars don't go the way you'd like them to and, even when you're a big-shot general, sitting safely in your stronghold, well away from the fighting, sometimes the enemy gets

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-5924409016596284112011-03-31T17:38:00.000+10:002011-03-31T17:38:44.469+10:00

They should make it illegal to talk crap. I can't think of any other way to stop the flood of bullshit that threatens to drown out all sensible discourse. It should be a crime to say or write anything for public consumption that is provably wrong at the time it was said. The irritating and most visible manifestation of the untrue rubbish people spout is in advertising. I don't just mean ads that

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-5850278915816054852011-03-03T17:30:00.000+10:002011-03-03T17:30:14.161+10:00

Remember what  my 2010 end of year report said was the one thing 2011 would be all about? Or when I tried to find a single word to describe my hopes for 2011? Yes, this was going to be the year that I got myself a literary agent, someone who would represent my work to the big-league publishers, someone who would promote me in circles I simply cannot reach, someone who would talke my writing

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-59624246158502393632011-03-02T17:17:00.000+10:002011-03-02T17:17:30.252+10:00

Wifie has just been scammed by a company she got involved with online. It's an American company that ran a print ad in an Australian women's magazine offering a free trial of their product for the price of the postage. She paid the $7 postage with our credit card and the product duly arrived in the post. Then, when the credit card bill arrived, we saw the company had taken over $200 on top of the

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-62877973051213466312010-12-03T12:03:00.000+10:002010-12-03T12:03:46.880+10:00

December 1 One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you? (Author: Gwen Bell) 2010 – Publisher 2010 was the year I achieved a lifelong ambition and had my first novel published. TimeSplash - a rollicking sci-fi romp set in the near future - was by no

graywavenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-87914207468352900132010-08-24T08:16:00.001+10:002010-08-24T08:18:52.856+10:00

(This review first appeared in The New York Journal of Books on 23rd August, 2010.) The Artificial Ape is a book with a plausible idea, but that is all it has. If you are looking for a convincing argument that “technology changed the course of human evolution” or even some compelling evidence, this is not the book for you. However, if you like informed speculation about humanity’s

graywavenoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-74929871581762430842010-07-14T14:53:00.000+10:002010-07-14T14:53:44.741+10:00

You may remember I wrote a couple of months ago about a strange conundrum regarding time. I mentioned this post on a number of lists I belong to, hoping that someone with a better grasp of physics than I would be able to explain it to me. I got many, many responses but, sadly, not one seemed to understand what the issue was and the great majority assumed I just needed a quick primer in special

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-49551692933682964702010-07-13T20:31:00.003+10:002010-07-13T20:36:51.294+10:00

(This review first appeared in the New York Journal of Books on 13th July 2010.) Why Does E=mc2? is one of those questions that educated non-physicists must have been asking themselves for over a hundred years, ever since Albert Einstein derived the equation back in 1905. Now, in this easy-to-read little book from Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw, we have the answer. The authors are both

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-44183002261208045172010-05-27T17:02:00.002+10:002010-05-27T20:42:09.946+10:00

There's something wrong with my notion of time. I used to think it was all subjective - by which I meant relative to one's frame of reference, as general relativity tells us. I am more than happy to accept all the experimental evidence that says moving very fast, or being near a large mass, will slow down the passage of time relative to an observer outside your frame of reference. There is so

graywavenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-56191816340326599332010-05-14T09:41:00.000+10:002010-05-14T09:41:48.667+10:00

(This review first appeared in the New York Journal of Books on 12th May, 2010) Epitaph Road is the latest in a string of successful young adult novels by David Patneaude. In 2067 a world reeling from recent nuclear brinkmanship between the USA and China is suddenly devastated by a virus that kills almost every male person on the planet. Only those males at sea or in remote places

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-17717183588561246712010-05-03T08:29:00.000+10:002010-05-03T08:29:44.839+10:00

(This review first appeared in The New York Journal of Books on 2nd May 2010.) By any standards, Brian Fagan is a leading authority on archaeology, and, with 46 books on the subject to his credit, he is among the world’s leading popularizers of the field. In Cro-Magnon, he gives us an easily digested round-up of what is known about the pre-history of modern humans in Europe. Fagan presents

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-22473139460725205702010-03-22T20:20:00.000+10:002010-03-22T20:20:03.933+10:00

I received this email from EFA and I reproduce it here in full, in case anyone out there would also like to help in the campaign against Internet censorship in Australia. Electronic Frontiers Australia needs your support to protect online civil liberties in this country! Over the past few months, EFA has been working hard campaigning for an Open Internet against Government censorship of the

graywavenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-65172648539286427732010-03-12T14:27:00.001+10:002010-03-12T14:35:04.459+10:00

This review originally appeared in the New York Journal of Books, where you can also find other reviews by me. Einstein’s God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit by Krista Tippett (Penguin Books, February 2010) Krista Tippett has spent the past decade interviewing people about religion and spiritual ethics as the host of public radio’s “Speaking of Faith.” Einstein’s God is an

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-40621625053877944302010-02-20T08:58:00.003+10:002010-02-20T09:17:37.777+10:00

You know what? You don't cure cancer with magic. You cure it with medical procedures. You take thousands of scientists, thousands of doctors, and they work on the problen night and day for decades and decades. They train for the best part of a decade, they devote their lives to chipping away at this monstrous problem, they spend their whole careers doing it, just so they can pass a few, precious

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-35006099649637539502010-02-16T09:51:00.003+10:002010-02-16T09:55:33.083+10:00

The TimeSplash Non-Stop 24-hour Round-the-World Twitter Tour starts soon. The process is complicated but all you need to know is that I'll be in your timezone between 7pm and 8pm during the next 24 hours. To shout out to me as I go by, send me a tweet on Twitter. This is my Twitter ID: @graywave ( http://twitter.com/graywave )I'll be using the hashtag #timesplash if you'd like to follow the

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-66144497246839574432010-02-15T19:38:00.001+10:002010-02-15T19:42:19.804+10:00

At last, it’s February 15 New York time, and Once Upon a Bookstore, my publisher’s own online bookshop, is selling copies of TimeSplash. Get your copy here Please, everybody, pass on this message. Retweet it, Digg it, Stumble it, and tell all your friends on Facebook. You can even mention it to people in real life, if you like. And, if you do me the great honour of buying it and reading it, I’m

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-62384993370763874452010-01-03T10:58:00.005+10:002010-01-03T11:13:20.942+10:00

Hello, and welcome to 2010! Or should that be 1010? I'm a bit confused. The Irish government has just extended its blasphemy laws, you see, taking the world just a step farther back towards the Dark Ages.Fortunately, not all the Irish are insane - just the government. Some are actively opposing this new law and the constitutional basis for it. Have a look at the Atheist Ireland website for more

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-60978491632878296802010-01-02T09:38:00.006+10:002010-01-02T14:43:18.709+10:00

Nearly three years ago, I wrote a post called "Why Ordinary People Make Intelligent Kids Unhappy". It was immediately, and still is, one of my most popular posts. It is clearly an issue that concerns many people. Yet, looking back, I see it is a post in desperate need of a follow-up. The original post merely analyses the problem and offers no solace, and certainly no solutions. Most likely, many

graywavenoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-38572315080356820282009-12-23T09:00:00.003+10:002009-12-23T10:00:54.055+10:00

I see that a priest in York, England has recommended that his parishioners steal the things they need this Christmas since no-one else is going to help them out. Is conspiracy to commit a mortal sin a sin too? The theology could get tricky. However, the humanity is plain and simple. The plight of the homeless in the UK - while not nearly so bas as that of the homeless in the USA - is

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-79724540424537339922009-12-13T20:57:00.003+10:002009-12-13T21:40:19.823+10:00

I don't want to get all hard-nosed and cynical about it but why do people insist that you can achieve your dreams if you just believe in yourself and work hard? I know there are some cases where this has happened, but surely there are a thousand cases for every one of those where it hasn't.I suppose ideas like this can persist because there is no evidence. How do you run a study where one group

graywavenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-44293948497643413712009-12-03T05:47:00.002+10:002009-12-03T05:50:50.119+10:00

The e-Fiction Book Club has very kindly let me guest-blog with them. Jump across to that wonderful site and see what I had to say about opting for electronic publishing for my upcoming novel TimeSplash. While you’re there, why not browse the site? In a world where mainstream reviewers still won’t review anything but paper, e-Fiction Book Club is providing a great service to people who want to see

graywavenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-48483270762431576532009-11-08T14:52:00.005+10:002009-11-08T16:16:21.466+10:00

You know that thing women are always telling blokes about how men can only do one thing at a time while women can multi-task? Well I think I now know why. Women are taught to cook and men aren't.In the past few years I have taken over all the cooking in my household. Unless there is something very special needed on a very special occasion, I do it all; breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all snacks in

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-8806028327574061302009-11-02T10:35:00.003+10:002009-11-02T10:45:10.772+10:00

I just wanted to let everyone know that my soon-to-be-published novel, TimeSplash, now has its own website - and its own blog! It also has its own promotional video :-)And, while I'm here, let me just share this great quote from Stephen Jay Gould:In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-41101527982716200192009-10-27T09:37:00.005+10:002009-10-27T10:14:42.047+10:00

The Australian government is considering measures that would force property owners close to the sea to give up their properties if threatened by coastal erosion or repeated flooding. It is estimated that about 80% of Australians live by the coast. The figure is not so high for other countries but everywhere faces the same problem: global warming is causing sea levels to rise, possibly by as much

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-75168678650729495722009-10-16T16:00:00.005+10:002009-10-16T17:21:00.589+10:00

Calling all Americans. I need your opinion on something.I've written a book and it's going to be published in February 2010. It's a near-future thriller set in Europe. The background to the tale is that the world is just recovering from a very serious depression brought on by us hitting peak oil. The depression, which lasted fifteen years, was worse than anything experienced yet - millions

graywavenoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-67090911920805912422009-08-28T10:58:00.003+10:002009-08-28T14:29:59.814+10:00

This article made me smile. It's about a group of prostitutes in Rio who are running their own fashion label called Daspu. The inspiration behind it is an activist called Gabriela Leite, who says, "When my hooker girlfriends parade pretty and proud, they are speaking about themselves and become revolutionaries." Why did I smile? Because it was just so damned heartwarming that these people were

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-40335427077533542082009-07-17T17:25:00.001+10:002009-07-17T17:27:42.175+10:00

Someone asking for recommendations for good speculative fiction for children and teenagers got me thinking. As a culture we tend to feed young people the most awful rubbish in this genre. I don't mean books that are badly written or poorly plotted, I mean unrealistic fantasy.People picking books for youngsters tend to avoid sex and violence, quite reasonably, but will not balk at choosing a book

graywavenoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-13808826753099711662009-07-14T16:41:00.005+10:002009-07-14T16:49:19.258+10:00

I don't usually post videos here - in fact, this is the first one. Mostly that is out of consideration to people who have slow Internet connections (for example, Australians using Telstra's NextG wireless 'broadband' service.) However, this one just made me smile and I thought you might like to see it.It was filmed in Antwerp's central railway station. It features over 200 dancers and is a

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-90738380886835222152009-07-11T10:13:00.005+10:002009-07-11T10:28:56.751+10:00

Just thought I'd point this out in case any Rudd government ministers are reading.Even children's groups like Save the Children oppose the Australian government's plans to censor the Internet. Since the government censorship plans are ostensibly to protect children, surely this should give them pause.Or maybe they would rather just go ahead and put their censorship technologies in place and then

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-87202771782170351102009-07-04T09:15:00.003+10:002009-07-04T10:20:14.656+10:00

Language evolves. New words are coined; old words change. The end result is the rich and complex lexicon we have today. Some of this growth and change is acceptable and understandable. New words are needed as new concepts arise, as new social activities develop, and as new objects are made. But some of it arises for less acceptable reasons. Sometimes the person who coins a word - and the people

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-91469962955868314912009-06-07T08:34:00.007+10:002009-06-07T14:11:42.954+10:00

Yes, me. I just realised it. I jump in on people's blogs with comments that are (somewhat) off topic and (sometimes a tiny bit) rude. I even do it on blogs and to people that I like.Maybe it's a sign of my extreme old age, or maybe just an unpleasant side to my otherwise-perfect personality. The thing is, I have a number of strongly-held opinions. (No, really.) Sometimes I read things that

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-8833337596137607862009-05-22T09:07:00.007+10:002009-05-22T10:08:32.242+10:00

I was born just ten years after World War 2 ended. I was raised in Hull in Yorkshire, a major fishing and cargo port and one of the worst-bombed cities in England. When I was a kid, my friends and I played 'Jerrys and English' in the bombed out ruins of buildings still not yet rebuilt. Every adult male I knew back then had been in the army or the navy. All my friends' fathers, and all their

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-91456982036983360052009-05-07T11:16:00.005+10:002009-05-07T12:11:43.887+10:00

I'm not saying I'll never twitter again, but I have noticed that I havent tweeted for several weeks now. So the grand experiment is over. It seems I'm not the twittering type......unlike millions of others. According to research by A C Nielson from March this year, unique visitors to the Twitter site grew by 1,382 percent year-on-year, from 475,000 in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009.

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-89556859543856430642009-05-01T09:20:00.003+10:002009-05-01T10:01:41.298+10:00

Last Wednesday, the World Health Organisation pushed its pandemic alert status for the recent swine flue outbreak up to 'five' (out of six). As far as the WHO is concerned, then, a pandemic is imminent.The Australian government (and many others around the world) has its own pandemic plan which is keyed to the WHO alert levels. At 'five' various announcements should be made and actions taken under

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-16682696776768408752009-04-27T20:56:00.003+10:002009-04-27T21:25:39.387+10:00

Sorry everyone but I'm going to turn comment moderation on for this blog. It's not that I want to moderate your comments. I'm happy to have them and I don't want to suppress any opinion at all, but spammers recently found two of my other blogs and the only way I seem to be able to keep the scumbags off my pages is to use moderation. (Also, Blogger's facilities for letting me delete spam comments

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-19917418035325158912009-04-25T10:15:00.005+10:002009-04-25T14:31:41.281+10:00

Amazon's recent 'glitch', which de-ranked a whole load of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgener books, along with others of an explicitly sexual nature (including Lady Chatterley's Lover!) was another dismal consequence of the way certain people think - or would prefer not to have to think. Religious and right-wing types don't like sex. Some think their magic god creatures have told them not to

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-47849988162738491722009-04-18T16:24:00.004+10:002009-04-18T16:49:53.885+10:00

Echidnas are cute but, until now, I didn't know just how cute. I saw one near the house once. It must have been young and confused because it was quite small and trying hard to be invisible when Bertie (the dog) trapped it in a corner. (For those who don't live in Australia or New Guinea, an echidna is a monotreme - an egg-laying mammal - which resembles a large, variegated, long-spined hedge-hog

graywavenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-23598934631275386022009-04-17T11:01:00.004+10:002009-04-17T11:19:09.453+10:00

I despair. President Obama's dog now has its own series of books for children.Why do I despair?1. Because people refer to this pooch as 'The First Puppy'. Doesn't that just make you want to throw up? It's not the dog's fault, of course. If the Obamas had bought a tortoise we'd have books about the First Damned Tortoise instead.2. The world is full of aspiring writers, some of them writing very

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-74588160692828407482009-04-07T10:10:00.004+10:002009-04-07T10:17:26.519+10:00

Here’s a question that has been puzzling me for many years. Was Abelard’s cooling towards Heloise due to his castration? Was it because, chemically, he was no longer the man that had loved her so passionately? From the tone of his letters, fifteen years after the event, it sounds as though he can no longer even understand what had driven him to such passion whereas poor Heloise remembers it all

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-37633159799089441352009-03-29T08:46:00.005+10:002009-03-29T09:18:27.828+10:00

In the UK yesterday, Trades Union Congress general secretary, Brendan Barber, said this to world leaders assembling for the G20 summit meeting next week. "The old ideas of unregulated free markets do not work, and have brought the world's economy to near-collapse, failed to fight poverty and have done far too little to move to a low-carbon economy."The Metropolitan Police estimate that 35,000

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-42983840189356332292009-03-18T06:31:00.003+10:002009-03-18T06:58:17.078+10:00

I've been heavily involved lately in the design and construction of a gazebo on the garden. This is a fabulous, palatial building, five by four metres by 2.4 m to the eaves. I did the design myself and I'm at the point where all the materials have been ordered and delivered, the site has been levelled and the post-holes dug. Now, with Wifie's help, the first few uprights have gone in and it is

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-76895449257487249502009-03-13T07:43:00.003+10:002009-03-13T08:00:13.846+10:00

Another damned mass murder, this time in Winnenden in Germany.The boy who did it was described by Heribert Rech, interior minister of Baden-Wuerttemberg state as "completely unremarkable, there was nothing in his background to suggest this could have happened." Except the boy was a trained marksman! Except he had access to firearms! Except that he was an isolated loner who played computer games

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-12359487559061314872009-03-12T07:37:00.006+10:002009-03-12T08:21:20.225+10:00

At last I understand why babies cry.I've puzzled over this for many, many years. A baby's cry is loud, grating and nerve-wracking. My own sweet little daughter used to bawl so loudly that the woman in the house across the street could hear it. And that should have been a clue. But I was so caught up in the idea that a baby's cry was to alert the mother to its needs - even if every predator for

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-34065509559989020422009-03-10T16:40:00.004+10:002009-03-10T17:14:44.636+10:00

I just finished watching an open source movie - and it was awful.Now I like open source software. I use it all the time. It's great. So it seemed worth a look to see what an open source movie was like - especially since this one is a sci-fi movie called 'Jathia's Wager'. Go and see it at the Moviepals site if you have 20 minutes to spare.I suppose it's early days and open source movies might get

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-20252911419509666162009-03-06T07:08:00.005+10:002009-03-06T07:38:12.683+10:00

Once you start believing in things that are not real, they can lead you into all kinds of bizarre ethical quagmires.If a nine year old child had been raped by her stepfather and became pregnant, most people would see the whole affair as repugnant and awful. Most would see the stepfather as a monster and the child as the victim of a hideous crime - especially when the pregnancy, according to her

graywavenoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-50004714622337918682009-02-23T08:42:00.003+10:002009-02-23T08:45:47.512+10:00

(Cross-posted from my writing blog)Remember that four-part magazine I told you about - put together by speculative fiction fans and full of stories and artwork donated by Australian writers and artists? Well, the first edition has now been published. All the money raised by the sale of this magazine will go towards the disaster relief fund for the survivors of the recent catastrophic bush fires

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-25426110989877029842009-02-23T08:05:00.004+10:002009-02-23T08:17:52.882+10:00

Apologies to all my regular readers!I don't know what happened to my front page but Blogger seems to have had some kind of psychotic episode, removed all the posts and rearranged all the widgets. Everything is still here (thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster) but you now have to look a little harder to find things!I'll be sorting it out a little later in the day (got to go and measure up the garden

graywavenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-37598784478116723732009-02-12T11:38:00.000+10:002009-02-12T11:39:52.175+10:00

(Cross-posted from my writing blog)If you'd like a really great way to help the victims of the Victorian bushfires, you should order your copies of Hope. This is a four-issue spec. fic. fanzine created by enthusiasts in Western Australia, with all proceeds going to support fire victims. Issue One should be out this weekend (Valentine's Day). The other three should follow at weekly intervals.It's

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-17171307680480802292009-02-11T20:20:00.005+10:002009-02-11T20:53:01.241+10:00

Here's an organisation that has just been begging to exist since the days of Reagan and Thatcher dehumanised society to the point where just being alive became a cruel and unusual punishment: The Grumpy Group.The vision of The Grumpy Group is "to exploit grumpiness in any ethical way that can be creatively imagined and implemented". Specifically, they want to harness the hithertofore untapped

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-38416626949049747232009-02-10T08:56:00.004+10:002009-02-10T09:14:08.425+10:00

At the time of writing, the bush-fires that are still burning in south-eastern Australia have claimed 173 lives, with hundreds more injured and almost a thousand homes burnt down. It is Australia's largest natural disaster ever. Whole towns have been wiped out. Whole families.Up in the north-east, there are record floods. Some towns have been cut off for weeks. Several people have died, several

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-23964976407377078742009-02-03T12:41:00.002+10:002009-02-03T12:55:59.810+10:00

Well, you're about to find out. Look near the bottom of the left-hand column and you'll find my new twitter stream.I've been resisting Twitter for quite a while now. Honestly, it just looks like a waste of bits. Yet so many people rave about it - people I would otherwise think quite highly of - that I suppose I ought to give it a go.First impressions:1. It's easier to do than I expected. I just

graywavenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-73744266681237654492009-01-20T16:52:00.004+10:002009-01-20T17:38:04.171+10:00

Yes, I know it's really nice that Obama's going to be president in a few hours - almost as nice as the fact that it won't be Bush - but I can't help feeling nervous.After all, the USA is the place where a significant number of voters at the last election believed Obama was a Muslim. It's the place where people are rushing out to buy guns because they worry that Obama will tighten the law to make

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-26783512548916614262009-01-08T10:50:00.007+10:002009-01-08T12:49:09.525+10:00

I just had an interesting conversation with the National Australia Bank. The NAB is our credit card service provider and has been for many, many years. Yet, while Wifie was in town this morning attempting to pay for a ride-on mower we just had delivered (see picture), the eftpos machine in the mower shop said our card had been cancelled.She called me and I transferred some cash (we have our other

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-83161031277519762622008-12-31T11:30:00.003+10:002008-12-31T12:11:48.289+10:00

Some year, huh?From the Obama election win to the all-but-collapse of the world economy (see 2009 for the grand finale) there have been some major world events none of us will forget in a hurry.On a personal level, this has been an amzing year too. I finally ran down my consultancy business and retired - just in time for my savings to be halved by the America-led economic collapse. (Thanks, guys.

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-80990676086222925552008-12-23T15:09:00.003+10:002008-12-23T15:16:02.682+10:00

OK, last post before Christmas. My daughter turns up in an hour - she passed her driving test just a few days ago and is driving herself down from Brisbane for the first time, so we're sitting here with crossed fingers and baited breath - then the festivities begin. It's also my 19th wedding anniversary today! N-n-n-nineteen, can you believe that?So I'm going to be busy with loved ones - much,

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-33259437963561042892008-12-20T08:40:00.003+10:002008-12-20T09:16:36.399+10:00

Dr Jerry Burger, of Santa Clara University, has repeated Stanley Milgram's famous 1960's experiments and found that people are still willing to inflict severe electric shocks on other people just because an 'experimenter' tells them to.Personally, I'm satisfied that Milgram did a pretty thorough job of investigating this effect and all its various parameters. Of course, it's nice to see

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-36604363106709633182008-12-20T07:50:00.003+10:002008-12-20T08:35:22.852+10:00

A poor kid in New York who robs a liquor store and gets away with $50 would almost certainly be locked up pending trial. So how come self-confessed, $50 billion thief Bernard Madoff is under 'house arrest' in his $7 million New York apartment and not in remand? Does he have 'friends' at the Justice Department as well as at the Securities Exchange Commission?Or is this because scum like Madoff

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-56706591918786622922008-12-15T12:00:00.004+10:002008-12-15T12:12:43.839+10:00

I wrote to the Minister a little while ago regarding my concerns about the new Internet censorship scheme planned for Australia. His office sent me back a pro-forma PDF document explaining the scheme and the various additional measures (including additional policing and public awareness campaigns) they intend to put in place.It was interesting and I'd love to share it with you but the

graywavenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-8434739566509423322008-12-12T16:09:00.007+10:002008-12-12T16:57:09.001+10:00

I bought a new printer yesterday. Funny thing is though, I only went into the shop to buy some printer ink.My last printer (a Canon MP160) I bought after the one before that broke down. I found it in a KMart going cheap. At $67, I didn't much care what it's features were as long as it worked. And it did. Very well. When I ran out of ink, I went to but a new cartridge and found myself paying $94

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-34631393501923541852008-12-06T09:41:00.003+10:002008-12-06T10:36:22.245+10:00

While I'm moaning on about the Australian Labor Party's support for religious fundamentalist and moral pigmy James Bidgood and how this reflects on the party's ethics, I should also mention the new Internet censorship laws they're about to introduce.Ostensibly a measure to filter out child pornography, Australia's new net censorship laws will allow the government to manage a blacklist of all the

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-48484555465189902322008-12-05T14:31:00.004+10:002008-12-05T14:45:08.376+10:00

The House of Representatives Speaker says there should be no further action against James Bidgood, the religious fundamentalist MP who took a photograph of a man trying to set himself on fire and then sold the image.This incredible conclusion was reached after the man's actions were investigated and, apparently, were found not to have interfered with 'the security situation' - whatever that means

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-51261265810134878422008-12-04T16:09:00.003+10:002008-12-04T16:35:38.180+10:00

Here is an article from the Australian Online dated 4th December 2008 and attributed to Samantha Maiden.LABOR MP James Bidgood, the first-time MP under investigation for selling pictures of a protester attempting to set fire to himself outside Parliament House, has declared the global financial crisis an act of God.Mr Bidgood, who was carpeted by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd over his actions

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-66108339276400952102008-11-26T16:55:00.004+10:002008-11-26T21:12:36.859+10:00

Having a dog is a strange experience for me. Having spent all my life striving for order, dignity and tranquility in my domestic arrangements, my Airedale puppy, Bertie, arrived in my life like a hand-grenade.The name, Bertie, by the way, is short for 'No, Bertie! Stop that!' He's a handsome fellow, no doubt about it. And cute! God, that nose! I often feel my life has become the emotional

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-26169992145602805262008-11-05T19:58:00.006+10:002008-11-05T20:26:07.602+10:00

For eight years now, you've been a rogue state. You've held and tortured people without trial. You've invaded and occupied a country with no good cause. You've undermined the authority and effectiveness of the United Nations. You've refused to ratify important, global climate change agreements and have bullied and suppressed scientists who tried to speak out on climate change issues, delaying

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-69219439258044521062008-11-03T08:19:00.004+10:002008-11-03T09:56:27.899+10:00

The mechanics of getting a book from the brain of a woman living in London to a small mobile library in a tiny village in rural Australia are daunting. In many ways a metaphor for our whole global economy. The improbability, the number of unlikely choices made across a ten-thousand-mile chain of unrelated people, that put me and that particular book in that converted coach on the same day, in the

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-78120788973581920392008-11-01T08:05:00.004+10:002008-11-01T08:20:14.597+10:00

I've seen news items in the past few days wherein Americans were interviewed about their support for McCain and (shudder) Palin. Several people told the interviewer that they can't vote for Obama because he's a Muslim. They said it with a straight face, and I honestly don't think they were kidding. They reall, truly, honestly were that stupid.Leaving aside the moral issue of allowing people with

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-7438661700499610802008-10-16T15:10:00.004+10:002008-10-16T15:21:43.980+10:00

It's hard not to panic. Since I retired, ten months ago, my superannuation fund has fallen in value by 40%, the cost of living has gone up by 5%, and 'the economy' has become the number one item on the evening news night after night. Of course, as my financial adviser keeps reminding me, the stock market goes up and down all the time. When it's low, the worst thing you can do is sell (unless you

graywavenoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-71123534706578365482008-09-15T16:20:00.005+10:002008-09-15T16:58:33.831+10:00

Here's something very, very strange. Over on the Huffington Post is a piece about a Baptist Minister, Marty Parrish, who stood up at a 'town hall' meeting and asked McCain whether he had actually called his wife a 'c**t' as alleged in Cliff Schecter's book, The Real McCain. Schecter alleges that in 1992, McCain angrily called his wife a "trollop" and a "c**t" in front of aides and reporters. The

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-52740452309264244922008-09-12T15:18:00.005+10:002008-09-12T15:38:51.741+10:00

I'm a bit of a linguist, you know. Alright, I never learned to speak more than a few words of French and German and I have an awful lot of bother with all that grammar stuff, but when it comes to idle and largely uninformed speculation about words, I can't be beaten! Take the word 'crap'. Now, obviously, this is a very recent word, being derived from the famous Thomas Crapper, inventor of the

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-38719082555796912502008-09-11T14:16:00.005+10:002008-09-11T15:18:46.761+10:00

Maybe I shouldn't get so upset about American politics. I mean, I'm living in Australia. It's not my problem, right?Wrong. The half-wit they have as President at the moment has led the whole world into recession after screwing up the USA's economy about as badly as is humanly possible. He has stalled and delayed everyone's attempts to tackle climate change, leaving us teetering on the edge of

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-77990134562236594222008-09-03T08:32:00.005+10:002008-09-03T10:10:46.063+10:00

Barak Obama is right to say that it is wrong to politicise his opponents' family problems. That kind of politics is about as low as it gets. However, I think he's missing the bigger picture here. Sarah Palin's 17-year-old, unmarried daughter is five months pregnant and that's a shame and, frankly, who cares? She's probably a very screwed up young woman - what with a mother who is in politics and

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-70090094959630455112008-08-31T14:53:00.011+10:002008-08-31T16:27:33.270+10:00

I've mentioned before what an idiot presidential wannabe John McCain is. Well this week he rose to new heights of folly by choosing Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running-mate.What makes a man - even a man who can't think straight - choose a woman who is known as 'the barracuda' to help him run the country? Why, when America is reeling from the right wing fundamentalism of George Bush Jr.,

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-22229131392325283702008-08-30T10:53:00.005+10:002008-08-30T11:56:49.120+10:00

I see that Comcast, over in the States, has just put a cap on its broadband packages of 250 Gb/mo. SprintWireless, however, still has its service uncapped for $50/mo. This puts into grim perspective the awful day I had yesterday but to appreciate it, you'll need a bit of background.I'm a Telstra NextG wireless broadband customer - by necessity - there are no other broadband suppliers in my area

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-25144049339304175202008-08-09T12:32:00.006+10:002008-08-09T12:56:40.358+10:00

Never mind that they throw dissidents in prison. Never mind that they routinely use torture and execution. Never mind the corruption, the oppression, the people who were thrown out of their homes to make way for Olympic venues. Let the games begin!Of course we all know that China is a dictatorship. We all know that human rights there are allowed or disallowed at the whim of the ruling politicians

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-45973222515508834722008-08-04T14:19:00.003+10:002008-08-04T14:34:30.582+10:00

Hey! Guess what I've found. An Atheist Blogroll.Cool, eh? Now I can support a poor, oppressed minority - people who are not insane - by adding the blogroll to my blog. You'll find it down at the bottom on the left. To quote the blogroll's organiser;The Atheist blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to join,

graywavenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-29213601018141234232008-07-28T12:16:00.002+10:002008-07-28T12:31:00.515+10:00

It's snowing!Big white flakes of wonderful snow are drifting down out of the sky. It is something I haven't seen for twelve years, not since I lived in Switzerland.Snow isn't completely unknown in Australia - they even have skiing here on the high ground around Canberra - but it's quite rare in Queensland. In fact, it's only because I live at 1,000 metres in the most southerly part of this

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-39043262121168293892008-07-19T17:37:00.001+10:002008-07-19T17:41:08.409+10:00

You could knock me over with a keyboard! I made it to two hundred blog postings! And you, my probably first-time visitor, are looking at number two hundred. So, as I always do in my 200th blog posting, I'll take the opportunity to reflect on blogging and the nature of life in the tag clouds. I started this, you may recall, because I wanted my voice to be out there with the tens of millions of

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-42776845336172754742008-07-15T16:35:00.004+10:002008-07-15T16:56:12.094+10:00

Don't you think it's sad that the Chinese feel they have to take dog off the menu in Beijing during the Olympics? I mean, for heaven's sake, this is your country, people. If squeamish American tourists don't like what you eat, tell them to stay at home and eat Macdonalds.Sadder by far, however, is the fact that so many people will be going to China to watch a bunch of people throwing things and

graywavenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-92026432692983031552008-07-05T11:52:00.006+10:002008-07-05T12:37:55.832+10:00

If you want to know why petrol costs so much these days, you need look no further than the phenomenon of 'Peak Oil'. This refers to the point in time when we are extracting the maximum amount of oil per day from the world's reserves. And that point in time appears to be with us. In 2005 we reached a rate of extraction of 74 million barrels a day and we have stayed there ever since. Oil fields are

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-31338247255919298062008-06-24T21:41:00.004+10:002008-06-24T21:56:24.850+10:00

What do you think? I haven't personalised it much yet but I like the look. The columns are a little wider than the old layout, all the navigation and fun stuff is now on the left (the jukebox is still at the bottom though) and I've rearranged the order of things. You will also notice the absence of ads. What the heck. They were making more money for Google than for me and only cluttered up the

graywavenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-17811599676633481742008-06-19T12:06:00.006+10:002008-06-19T12:27:54.188+10:00

An uncharacteristically brief posting from me today I'm afraid, but I wanted to tell everyone about a great article I just read. It is called Magical Thinking and it is by Matthew Hutson. (Actually, the wrap-up on the last page is a bit lame but the rest is excellent.)One of the pleasing things about modern psychology is that it seems to have taken on board the task of explaining superstitious

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-49644631719106997362008-06-14T20:53:00.007+10:002008-06-14T22:05:20.305+10:00

Getting a new puppy is not unlike having a baby. Our new puppy (pictured below) arrived on Thursday, age: 8 weeks, weight: almost nothing, sex: male, breed: Airedale, name: to be decided - but probably 'Bertie'. It was a difficult labour.We set off on the Wednesday and drove to Brisbane, stopping first at Warwick and then Toowong to buy a bed, cushion, bowls, chews, toys, food, harness, lead, etc

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-12881207708363402552008-06-01T12:31:00.003+10:002008-06-01T12:37:41.169+10:00

I've been reading a bit lately about focus fusion – a radically new approach to producing power from fusion reactions. The research is spearheaded by Eric J. Lerner and his company Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Inc. (LPP) and has been financed mostly by Government organisations like NASA and the Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission . The basic principle is to use Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) to

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-6684517956165409452008-05-26T17:16:00.004+10:002008-05-26T17:35:44.854+10:00

Just congratulations and thank you to NASA for continuing to inspire the world. Their Phoenix spacecraft touched down in the Martian arctic last night (zulu) after a damned-near perfect flight and descent. The ship has travelled 422 million miles and was right on target! The pictures are starting to come in now but it's the science I'm waiting for.Part of Phoenix's brief is to drill into the

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-76825684489575481612008-05-22T08:42:00.006+10:002008-05-22T09:50:34.052+10:00

Does US Presidential candidate John McCain believe in witches, I wonder?I ask because on Tuesday night, local time, a mob rampaged around a district in Kenya with a list of suspected witches burning down their houses. They burnt 30 houses in all, killing 11 women in total, most of them between 70 and 90 years old. And it got me thinking.It's always shocking to me when people let their fantastic

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-31336740234871387952008-05-16T11:10:00.004+10:002008-05-16T11:21:34.093+10:00

I'm getting pretty fed up with Blogger. It has been nothing but trouble in the past week or so.One of the big problems is in the page layout code. I can't change the layout on my pages and I can't add new page elements. Irritatingly, the error message is simply 'errors on page'! Not exactly user friendy! Blogger's 'Help Centre' is a morass. There is almost no chance of finding a fix there. I

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-83979301629633166802008-05-09T21:33:00.007+10:002008-05-09T21:49:37.257+10:00

David Attenborough is someone I admire immensely. I saw an episode of his latest series Life in Cold Blood the other day and I was impressed all over again by the incredible complexity, diversity and beauty of Life. It's enough to make you feel sorry for those poor people who believe in gods.There was a frog in the episode. The male, who looks about a quarter of the size of the female, is too

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-58595827894247012092008-05-06T10:29:00.001+10:002008-05-06T10:31:26.597+10:00

So now I'm a writer. Maybe.Thing is, I write all the time. I write this stuff. I write stories. I write books. Trouble is, I'm a disillusioned, cynical writer who feels that getting anything published is such a lottery that it isn't worth even trying. I don't buy lottery tickets, or scratchies, or raffle tickets, and I don't submit my writing to publishers for the same reason - the odds are too

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-44837986616411839422008-04-13T12:00:00.004+10:002008-04-13T12:35:04.864+10:00

Almost 25 years ago, I got my first experience of using an Apple Macintosh computer. Until that point, I had used various other machines, each with its different operating system. My favourite, at the time, was Unix, with which I had become quite proficient. Yet the moment I saw the Mac, I realised that command-line operating systems were dead and buried. The new windows-based operating systems

graywavenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-36386491983400075532008-04-02T16:31:00.005+10:002008-04-02T16:40:07.233+10:00

One of the things I really like about Australia is that people wear hats here. I like hats. I suit them. Wifie looks good in hats too. I don't know if I'd love her quite so much if she didn't – or vice versa.When I lived in the UK, I used to wear hats from time to time. People I passed in the street there used to think I was a pretentious git. Now I wear hats as often a I can and the only people

graywavenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33572374.post-46619176561771386122008-03-14T14:56:00.004+10:002008-03-14T15:10:58.739+10:00

Surprise, surprise! There was no link between the former government of Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Pentagon has just released a report after studying 600,000 official Iraqi documents and thousands of hours of interrogations of Saddam Hussein's co-workers that concludes the Iraqis really weren't collaborating with Al Qaeda after all.Instead of spending millions and millions of dollars on this, the US

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