Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Ouch! Guess which bad dog tried to run away and has lost her ride-in-the-car privledges for a week? I scraped up my hand catching her…

Yee-haw! Check out the CCoBM stamp that Rev. Gary had made up for us. For those of you that don't already know, Gary's the guy that gets your member packs out to you and is your first point of contact into the Church.

People have been terribly upset that most of the “bad” news that I link is about the US. Overall, I link to two kinds of stories. Stories about various human rights violations, and stories about various scientific and technology issues. Most human rights violations (including war issues) that are in the news right now (and that includes the US news like the NY Times and the Washington Post) are about America. At least a third of the tech articles are about the US as well. I link them as they come.

Anyway, I tried to go out of my way today to find a few relevant stories that were not US based. I've mentioned recently that documents were finally released positive linking the US government to the East Timor attrocities. On a similar note letters have been revealed showing that the British attempted to cover up the horrors of Boer War death camps.

A long time ago (my great grandfather on my maternal grandmother's side) my family was “in charge of” Papua New Guinea. As such news about it always seem to catch my eye… What I'm mentioning now is not new news at all, but just something I thought some people here would appreciate. This is from the website of The Liberation Army of the Free Papua Movement (TPN/OPM):

We are not terrorists!
We do not want modern life!
We refuse any kinds of development:
religious groups, aid agencies, and governmental organisations
Just Leave Us Alone, Please!

Anyway, do take a look at their site. It's a very interesting approach to the battle that indigenous peoples all over the world have experienced.