Archive

"SEATTLE — West Coast ports were shut down on Thursday as thousands of longshoremen failed to report for work, part of what their union leaders said was a one-day, one-shift protest against the war in Iraq.

Cranes and forklifts stood still from Seattle to San Diego, and ships were stalled at sea as workers held rallies up and down the coast to blame the war for distracting public attention and money from domestic needs like health care and education.

“We’re loyal to America, and we won’t stand by while our country, our troops and our economy are being destroyed by a war that’s bankrupting us to the tune of $3 trillion,” the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Bob McEllrath, said in a written statement. “It’s time to stand up, and we’re doing our part today.”

About 25,000 union members are employed at 29 West Coast ports, but the protest took place only during the day shift. A spokesman for the main West Coast employers’ group, the Pacific Maritime Association, said it appeared that about 6,000 workers did not show up for work, which meant that about 10,000 containers would not be loaded or unloaded from about 30 cargo ships."

Image courtesy of The New York Times

Original Source

A deep below the deep,
And a height beyond the height!
Our hearing is not hearing,
And our seeing is not sight.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

The 2008 Olympic torch’s 85,000-mile, 20-nation global journey is the longest in Olympic history. The 130-day round-the-world tour begins on Monday, March 24, with the lighting of the torch in ancient Olympia, Greece, an ongoing tradition from 766 B.C.

Image courtesy of Google LatLong

(quote)

PARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent an emotional letter to a disabled Chinese woman who was attacked while carrying the Olympic torch in Paris, his office said Monday.

The letter to "Mademoiselle Jin Jing" hailed her courage and criticized the "inadmissible" attack on her by a pro-Tibet protester during the flame relay earlier this month.

"I want to tell you all my emotion over the way you were jostled in Paris on April 7 when you were carrying the Olympic flame," Sarkozy wrote in the letter, which was dated Saturday. The president of the French Senate gave the letter to Jin on Monday in Shanghai.

Sarkozy noted the "bitterness" in China over the attack, and insisted that several incidents by protesters during the Paris stopover "do not reflect the feelings of my countrymen toward the Chinese people."

Outrage over what is portrayed as foreign interference in Tibet fanned protests across China over the weekend - some directed at French supermarket chain Carrefour.

Sarkozy also is dispatching his top diplomatic envoy to Beijing this week, seen by some as a bid to limit the damage to France's reputation - and businesses - in China.

"I have the impression that the president and the government are trying to cling to the branches after the calamitous episode when the flame came through Paris," said opposition party legislator Andre Gerin.

"It's a way of restoring France's image when it comes to the respect that we owe China," added Gerin, who is also vice-president of the "Friendship China" group at the National Assembly.

Christian Poncelet, president of the French Senate, gave the letter to the Chinese torchbearer Monday as he arrived for a weeklong visit to China, the first of a string of high-level French visits to the country.

In the letter, Sarkozy said he would like Jin to return to Paris as his "personal guest" in the coming weeks "to try to erase this painful moment."

(unquote)

Related Article:
(quote)

"I think this is damaging to the Olympic movement. I think it is very sad. I get angry," said IOC vice-president Gunilla Lindberg. "Using the torch this way is almost a crime."

"I will be telling people that for every protester, there are a million Americans who support the Games and want them to be a success," DeFrantz said.

"This is a day about sports and about peace. Why are they making this about politics?" said a 25-year-old economics student who lives in Paris.

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of ChinaRen.com

Original Source

(quote)

To celebrate the 18th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope launch, the Space Telescope Science Institute has released 59 beautiful images of galaxies spinning and colliding into each other.

About Hubble
The Hubble Space Telescope is a collaboration between ESA and NASA. It's a long-term, space-based observatory. The observations are carried out in visible, infrared and ultraviolet light. In many ways Hubble has revolutionised modern astronomy, by not only being an efficient tool for making new discoveries, but also by driving astronomical research in general.

The mission
The Universe is gloriously transparent to visible light over journeys lasting billions of years. However, in the last few microseconds before light arrives at telescope mirrors on Earth it must travel through our turbulent atmosphere and the fine cosmic details become blurred. It is this same atmospheric turbulence that makes the stars appear to twinkle on a dark night.  read more »

"The Bush Administration has praised Canada's conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, for his commitment to the war. But its toll has unnerved Canadian citizens and opposition leaders. A recent poll showed that 47% of Canadians wanted their soldiers to leave Afghanistan immediately, and only 17% supported maintaining a combat role.

The Afghan war had broad public support in Canada in 2002, but is now seen as one front in George W. Bush's hugely unpopular "war on terror." The discontent also has deeper roots.

Perhaps most important, Canadians do not see the Afghan conflict as directly relevant to their own security. Al-Qaeda has never staged an attack on Canadian soil…Canadians worry that fighting alongside the U.S. will increase--not decrease--the risk that they will become a target. "

Images courtesy of Time

Original Source

Photo courtesy of Aha! Jokes

Original Source