Stateside With Rosalea: Full Moon Over The Teacups

::I know whodunnit::

Completely unreliable sources have informed me that the person who poisoned that Russian spy bloke was born in the Year of the Horse. Or is a Mafia Don. Maybe even a Mafia Don born in the Year of the Horse and with a predilection for smallgoods.

The thought of polonies had not entered my head once in the past seven years, yet the day before the polonium poisoning story broke I looked in the fridge and thought, "I wish I had some polonies." That morning, I'd woken from a dream about being in the basement of a nuclear research museum looking at an old-fashioned hospital bed with an asbestos screen surrounding it.

In order to disguise its utilitarian purpose of protecting the person on the hospital bed from harmful radiation, the screen was covered in asbestos bas relief sculptures, and the one which I most noticed was of a horse's head.

::Whassup?::

Not that I watch the telly day and night, but the coup in Fiji seems to have made not a jot of news here in the Bay Area, at least not on the free-to-air stations that I get. I've been following the story at the BBC, Oz and NZ newspapers online, and the Fiji Times online. The FTO is running a poll at the moment which asks:

We rejected the military's demand to check our news pages and check our sources last Tuesday night, instead refusing to publish a "tainted" newspaper. Were we right?
- Yes. Censorship should be fought at all times
- No. We need all the news we can get, even if it's only what the military wants us to hear
- Whatever - we only read your website, anyway

Another interesting read on that site is the "Your Say" thread, which changes its topic daily. It's a very puzzling coup; I hope it hasn't been done just to enable Fiji to develop the type of tourism that many Asian countries are notorious for.

::Here's Maggie in yer eye::

From THOMAS, the online record of goings on in the House and Senate:

S.1 : A bill to award a congressional gold medal to Margaret Thatcher, in recognition of her dedication to the values of free markets and free minds.
Sponsor: Sen Martinez, Mel [FL] (introduced 12/8/2006) Cosponsors (6)
Committees: Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Latest Major Action: 12/8/2006 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

If I'm not mistaken, though it was introduced on the final day of the 109th Congress, this is numbered as the first Senate bill of the new Congress, which convenes on January 4th. Take that, you Democratic anti-free-marketeers!

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

--PEACE--

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