fallujahinpictures.com - a photo blog of disturbing images from Fallujah of the victims, military and civilian, of the appalling and unnecessary battle for that Iraqi city during this month.

The images aren't pretty. How could they be?

The Guardian reported yesterday that Vieux Boulogne is the world's smelliest cheese. It then proceeded to give a list of the fifteen smelliest (authentic Somerset cheddar coming in 14th).

The conclusion was reached following a series of scientific tests at Cranfield University.

All I will say is go to eBay and enter "cheese virgin mary" as your search keywords.

Interesting email arrived on the ImpeachBlair mailing list on Wednesday, and I quote:

Dear Supporter,

We apologise if you have experienced difficulties visiting the www.ImpeachBlair.org website. It was removed yesterday without warning by the hosting company.

It means absolutely zippo to us here in Australia, unless we watch the NFL double-header on Fox Sports on Friday morning. Thanksgiving does, however, have parallels with our own Australia Day - the celebration of a hostile, and ultimately successful, invasion by foreign forces.

Alexander Downer, Australia's foreign minister for the past eight years and a certified Global Village Idiot, has made this country an international laughingstock yet again.

Downer has named ten religious figures to represent Australia in a delegation to Indonesia next month for a summit on Islamic terrorism. The Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj el-Din al Hilaly, is not among the ten.

The news of Dan ("Ted Baxter") Rather's impending retirement from the CBS Evening News has been headline news in itself, especially coming so soon after the botched report of GWB's national guard dodge. This coming less than a week before the retirement of Tom ("Ted Baxter") Brokaw from the NBC Nightly News. Peter ("Ted Baxter") Jennings continues to hold the fort at ABC The World Tonight. I hope Walter ("Walter Cronkite") Cronkite is enjoying his retirement.

I've finally decided to retire Jabberbot (in the guise of my Jabber account with the UNESCO server in Kazakhstan) from blog duty. Press releases from Greenpeace, WWF, Human Rights Watch and ICG will appear in RSS feeds posted in the appropriate places on this website.

Jabber, in case I haven't mentioned it already, is the open source instant messaging format of the future (if not the present), but the XMPP protocol has potential way above and beyond that. Trust me on this.

We haven't heard much about this in the international media. Filipino police and army dispersal officers opened fire on a demonstration of striking sugarcane farmers and mill workers at Hacienda Luisita, near Tarlac City, last Tuesday. Fourteen people were killed and at least 35 others shot and wounded.

The Central Azucarrera de Tarlac Labor Union and United Luisita Workers Union issued a joint press release on Friday condemning the massacre and calling for international support.

Glenn McGrath's maiden Test half-century at the Gabba yesterday was a masterpiece of cricket surrealism - not to mention a heartbreaking experience for the New Zealand team.