A ten-year old cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary is currently up for bids on eBay. Knarf.ca, a Canadian blog devoted entirely to ebayrama (or is that ebayrilia?), picks up the story.

I'd love to see an NRL team do something similar to this!

The Guardian of October 19 reported that Inter Milan has donated €5000, an ambulance and the number 4 jumper of Javier Zanetti to the Zapatista guerrilla army in the Chiapas region of Southern Mexico.

So this is what Canadian football does to the locals:

Ticats fan jailed for Argo ear bite

CBC TORONTO - A Hamilton Tiger-Cats fan has been sentenced to six months in jail for biting off part of a Toronto Argonatus fan's ear.

Christopher Stevenson, 28, was convicted of attacking a Toronto man following the 2002 Labour Day game between the Argos and the Ti-Cats at Ivor Wynne Stadium.

The identity of the assailant was the central issue at the trial.

Stevenson testified it was not him, but a friend who bit the victim's ear.

6 May 1953: Airman Ronald Maddison died less than hour after sarin gas was deliberately dripped onto his arm as part of an experiment at a chemical weapons facility at Porton Down, Wiltshire. Fifty-one years later, a fresh inquest has decided that Maddison was unlawfully killed. His relatives intend seeking compensation from the Ministry of Defence, and more than 500 claims from exservicemen who were involved unwittingly in the WMD tests (and survived) could be forthcoming.

We shouldn't be too surprised about this. Everyone does it to everyone eles, abd we just don't hear about it except when spooks get caught, like the Mossad agents in New Zealand.

Channel Nine's Sunday did a report yesterday morning. Included is an interview with retiring Indonesian intelligence chief General Mahmud Hendropriyono.

Transcript at http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/cover_stories/transcript_1683.asp

He seems to have secured a mandate based on his policies of pre-emptive war, war on the environment, crony capitalism, veiled racism, homophobia and a fundamentalism that would make the Taliban proud... our country is split down the middle creating a cultural civil war that is not going away any time soon. It is a fight over values in which there is very little middle ground remaining. The stakes are extremely high for all we hold dear.
- John Passcantando, Executive Director, Greenpeace, 4.11.04

Some photos from our visit to the Adelaide Zoo during our recent holiday in South Australia are on-line now in my little-publicised gallery site.

Los Tomateros de Culiacan are leading the Mexican Pacific League! They are 16-9 after beating Los Venados de Mazatlan 10-9 in 11 innings on Thursday.

Come on ye Tomato Growers!

Some classic home-town political commentary from former Sydney Morning Herald columnist and former independent Leichhardt councillor Padraic McGuinness in November's Balmain/Rozelle edition of the Village Voice (no, not that Village Voice):

Greens ideology flexible on pole position.

Imagine John Howard ordering the Federal Police to raid a News Limited newspaper office to seize documents. A ridiculous concept, of course. He would never upset Rupert Murdoch like that. Nor would he disturb the Fairfax corporation, or the West Australian, or Rural Press, or any other newspaper publisher in this country... would he?

If it's the National Indigenous Times, he would.