Dear Kitty. Some blog

New discoveries on ancient fossil fish from Quebec, Canada.

Endeiolepis has been discovered to have lamprey-like gills.

See also here.

And here.

See also: Mesomyzon mengae, New Early Cretaceous Lamprey from China.

Fish to amphibian transition fossil in Canada: see here.

And here.

Human fetuses, fish, and reptilians: here.

The BBC reports:

North Sea fossil is deepest dino

The first dinosaur fossil discovered in Norway is also the deepest one that has been found anywhere in the world.

The 195-210-million-year-old specimen was found 2.3km (1.4 miles) below the floor of the North Sea by an offshore oil drilling platform.

Norwegian palaeontologist Jorn Harald Hurum, from the University of Oslo, identified the fossil as the knucklebone of a plateosaur.

Details of the discovery are to appear in the Norwegian Journal of Geology.

“It’s the first time a dinosaur bone has ever been found in such a deep core,” Dr Hurum told the BBC News website.

Marine reptile fossils have been found in some previous North Sea drill cores, but to find a terrestrial animal at such a depth is rare.

“To drill through a terrestrial animal is much rarer because there are so many more marine sediments there,” Dr Hurum, assistant professor of vertebrate palaeontology at Oslo’s Natural History Museum, explained.

The crushed knucklebone was identified in a long cylinder of rock drilled out from an exploration well at Norway’s Snorre offshore field.

Enigmatic specimen

The geologists who drilled the core spotted the curious specimen in 1997; but they were discouraged by colleagues who thought it was plant matter and tucked it away in a drawer.

Only in 2003 did they pass the specimen to Hurum, who thought it looked like a dinosaur.

Plateosaurus fossils are known from across Europe

After consulting palaeontologists at the University of Bonn in Germany, a microscopic examination of the specimen showed it to be identical in structure to bones from a Plateosaurus species.

This dinosaur is the most common type found in Europe. At the time it lived, there was a desert between Norway and Greenland crossed by meandering rivers.

“We knew there was food there, so something must have been eating it; but we didn’t know what animals were there,” Dr Hurum said.

Dr Hurum describes himself as Norway’s only dinosaur researcher. Successive ice ages have eroded dinosaur-bearing rocks in mainland Norway.

But the scientist thinks fossils could be found on the northern island of Spitsbergen.

See also here.

German plateosaurus video: here.

Dinosaur tracks in the USA: here.

This video is called Ladrang Kampung - Steve Everett. It says about itself:

This work is part of a two-hour shadow play, KAM, for Javanese puppeteer, gamelan and western musicians, and interactive sound and video, based on the play Ki Ageng Mangir by Indonesian author and political dissident, Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The composer met with Toer in Jakarta on two occasions in developing the work.

News today: famous Indonesian author, and opponent and ex-prisoner of dictator Soeharto, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, dies.

See here for more information.

Toer interview: here.

Close to where I live, today I saw a great cormorant flying across water and streets.

From English daily The Morning Star:

Album round-up

(Saturday 29 April 2006)

New challenge

Bruce Springsteen

We Shall Overcome (Columbia)

Ever since Ronald Reagan attempted to co-opt the Born in the USA album (1984) for his own political ends, Bruce Springsteen has worked hard to gain control of his musical message.

We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions is a celebration of socialist folk singer Pete Seeger and his songs and should, therefore, leave nobody in doubt about Springsteen’s progressive credentials.

Considering that the instrumentation is entirely acoustic and that he is singing songs from the normally serious genre of folk, Springsteen sounds like is having a ball.

Just listen to the opening communal hootenanny Old Dan Tucker.

The mood darkens on the Irish ballad Mrs McGrath as a mother, welcoming home her legless son laments: “All foreign wars, I do proclaim, live on blood and a mother’s pain.”

Other standout tracks include the slow-burning African-American spiritual Eyes on the Prize and the otherworldly Shenandoah.

We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions is further proof of Springsteen’s remarkable journey as an artist and his ability to challenge his audience without completely alienating them.

A worthy addition to his canon.

IAN SINCLAIR

Shades of Pink

PINK

I’m not Dead (LaFace)

Pink has successfully released r’n'b, pop and rock. This last persona sees her latest album at its most successful.

However, the album’s lead single is a spectacular failure. Stupid Girls mixes cod reggae with the well-worn and cynical theme of lampooning women in the music industry who conform.

But the album recovers quickly with a number of rockier, introspective and angst-ridden tracks such as Who Knew and Nobody Knows.

Her collaboration with the Indigo Girls on Dear Mr President is a weapon of mass destruction aimed straight at George Bush and is her best track to date.

The review continues, also on the new album by System 7.

Ben Harper album review here.

From London daily News Line:

Friday, 28 April 2006

‘TONY BLAIR SAID HE WOULD SEE ME ONLY IF I GAVE HIM A LIST OF QUESTIONS IN ADVANCE’ – says Beverley Clarke of Military Families Against the War

OVER 100 bereaved relatives whose loved ones have been killed in the illegal war and occupation of Iraq were joined by MPs, peace campaigners and ex-servicemen in a march on Downing Street yesterday.

Led by a piper in full regalia, tearful relatives marched from Parliament Square to the Cenotaph to lay wreaths for their loved ones, after a meeting with MPs in the House of Commons.

At the front of the protest, organised by Military Families Against the War, was Rose Gentle.

Among those accompanying her were MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Adam Price and ex-MPs Tony Benn and Martin Bell.

She asked everyone to pause for a minute’s silence, before heading to the gates of Downing Street to hand in a letter to Prime Minister Blair.

Rose Gentle wept for her son Gordon, who was killed in Iraq, before wiping away the tears to tell everyone: ‘If we stop, Tony Blair and his government have won.

So we can’t stop.’

Mr and Mrs Craw, – who lost their son in Iraq – spoke to News Line outside parliament.

James Craw said: ‘I’m here on behalf of my son.

He got killed on a firing range in Iraq on January 7, 2004.

‘I’m here to ask for justice for my son.’

His wife Ray Craw said: ‘We’ve still not had an inquest yet. It’s been two years and three months.

‘We want to see the troops withdrawn from Iraq. I think it’s about time.

‘I don’t think it’s benefiting anybody, neither the soldiers nor the Iraqis.’

They said they blamed Blair for their son’s death.

George Solomou also took part in the protest.

He told News Line: ‘I was a soldier for five years.

‘I’m part of Military Families Against The War and we’re lending support to those against the war and supporting families that have lost sons and daughters in the war in Iraq.

‘We have got in the region of 60 families represented here today.

‘I think when the general public begins to hear and see and find out about what’s happening in Iraq – and they can put faces to those who have lost sons and daughters in Iraq – they will begin to realise that this war has a human cost, and it needs to end as soon as possible.’

He added: ‘In a historic sense this is outrageous, that we have a leader who is unwilling to meet those who have lost family members or even discussing with them the tragedy of their loss.

‘Blair constantly says that he believes the British soldiers are doing a good job out in Iraq, that they are standing up for democracy, but he’s still unwilling to meet the injured or the bereaved.

‘Or even the dead: when their bodies are flown into the UK, he should be there, commemorating the loss of those individuals.’

George Solomou also called for the release of RAF man Malcolm Kendall-Smith, who was court-martialled for refusing to go to Iraq.

He said: ‘Kendall-Smith made a courageous stand, to stand up against the Ministry of Defence and say that every soldier has a responsibility to abide by international law, which clearly says this war is illegal and any soldier that participates in it, participates in an illegal war.

‘Military Families Against The War believes the Iraq war is illegal and is calling for his immediate release.’

Bereaved relatives had gone into parliament to meet MPs and get them to persuade Blair to meet with the families and lobby him for the end of the war.

Hayley, from Somerset, who didn’t want to give her full name because of relatives serving in Iraq, walked out of parliament, saying: ‘I’m angry about what some of these MPs are telling us, that they’ve been lied to.

‘We are the ones who have lost members of our families in Iraq.

‘They may have believed what Blair told them, but we didn’t necessarily believe it and they’re the ones who made the decision to send our relatives to war.

‘My brother was sent to Iraq.

Now he’s back in Britain, but it’s possible he could be in Iran by next Christmas, or Afghanistan.

‘How can they tell us they understand and have sympathy for the military families. They have no idea.’

Beverley Clarke told News Line: ‘They keep saying there is freedom of speech, but if I was to stand up in the middle of Parliament Square and say exactly how I felt about this war, I’d get arrested. There is no freedom of speech.

‘I lost my son. He was killed on March 25, 2003.

‘Tony Blair said he would see me, but only if I gave him a list of my questions in advance.

‘This is just Bush’s way of thinking he can finish what his father started.

‘Bush said when he came to Britain that he would meet certain military families.

‘But when we asked if we could go to meet him, we were told we did not meet the criteria.

‘So what is the criteria? We are all relatives who have lost loved ones out there.

‘My son went out there and died for a lie.

‘He could have chosen to stay in this country a little longer and been a firefighter.

At least he would be protecting his people.

‘If he had known he was being sent to Iraq on a lie, I honestly don’t believe my son would have wanted to go.’

Beverley Clarke added that: ‘We were told two weeks after David’s death that they had recovered a body and they were trying to identify who it was.

‘It took them another nine weeks to tell us it wasn’t David they’d brought back.

‘We’ve never been told officially why there was such a delay.’

‘I’ll never forgive the MoD,’ said her son’s grandfather. ‘To get my family to go through this has made me ill.’

Reg Keys, whose son Thomas was killed in Iraq on June 24, 2003, stood against Blair on a anti-war platform during the general election last year.

He told News Line: ‘We are here to highlight the ongoing issue of Iraq.

‘We can’t have a prime minister walk through such a catastrophic political blunder as Iraq with impunity.

‘I think Iraq now is deemed a strategic failure and there should be a phased withdrawal from a conflict that’s unwinnable.

‘We’ve lobbied MPs on this issue and we now go to the Cenotaph to lay a wreath and then go on to 10 Downing Street, handing in a letter asking the prime minister to meet with the families, to ask him some questions about our sons.

‘They were deployed into a conflict without international backing and against international law.

‘I think Mr Kendall-Smith is a man of his convictions and I support his stand,’ Reg Keys added.

‘It’s a pity there’s not a few more.

‘He should be immediately released. He’s a prisoner of conscience.’

Jonathan Williams, an ex-RAF serviceman, said: ‘I want the immediate withdrawal of British troops from all war zones they’re involved in as part of American imperialist aggrandisement and the release of Malcolm Kendall-Smith.’

Peace campaigner Brian Haw, who is mounting a non-stop vigil outside parliament against the Iraq war, made serious allegations about police conduct at Westminster.

He alleged: ‘An Indian man had his face ground in the dirt by police.

‘He was standing up with a piece of paper.

‘It was “only’’ a “little bit of blood’’, but he was one of those speaking out against the greater violence taking place elsewhere.’

Blair’s identity card scheme: here.

Australian protests against Iraq war here.

Big anti Iraq war demonstration in New York City, USA: see here.

By Martin Kreickenbaum:

Amnesty International report exposes European complicity in secret US rendition programme

Part 1: The fate of three Yemenis

28 April 2006

The following is the first of a two-part article.

The CIA’s illegal abduction and secret imprisonment of alleged terror suspects has come into sharper focus in recent months.

At the beginning of April, the human rights organization Amnesty International presented new details on the so-called practice of “rendition.”

The report also exposes the complicity of the European governments in the illegal activities of the CIA.

The Amnesty report titled “Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and ‘disappearance’” charts in minute detail the odyssey of three Yemeni citizens through four US secret prisons in Afghanistan, Djibouti, and probably Eastern Europe, and documents the hundreds of landings and take-offs at European airports by planes used by the CIA for illegal abductions.

Bush and John Negroponte: see here.

Update on torture flights: here.

MAY DAY, Monday 1 May 2006

All Working People’s Demonstration

WE REMEMBER WILLIAM DAVIDSON
1781 - 1820

Black African (born in Jamaica) freedom fighter and labour movement activist, member of the Shoe Makers’ Union

Hero of the Cato Street Resistance to the 1819 Peterloo Massacre

Hanged in London by the English Crown Court, I May 1820

Join the African May Day Movement at the May Day 2006 demonstration

12pm, Clerkenwell Green, London EC1
Farringdon tube

JOIN THE AFRICAN MAY DAY MOVEMENT ON MAY DAY 2006

Who was William Davidson?

William Davidson, an African from Jamaica, was one of the first trade unionists in Britain.

In August 1819, in St Peter’s Fields, Manchester, 1,500 British soldiers attacked a peaceful demonstration of 80,000 people protesting against laws which made food so expensive people were starving.

The soldiers killed 11 people and injured over 400, including many women and children.

Disgusted by the Peterloo Massacre, William Davidson became a leading member of a group in London which demanded the nationalisation of land, and also organised food uprisings.

They planned to overthrow the British government.

However, a Home Office spy infiltrated their group. Five of them were arrested in a flat in Cato Street near Edgware Road in London in February 1820.

William Davidson was hanged in public on 1 May, May Day, 1820.

What has the May Day march got to do with Africans?

May Day, Labour Day, is celebrated as working people’s day in Britain.

It has been won as a public holiday.

It recognises the importance of workers, the people whose labour produces all the goods and services we use, buy and sell: for example, nursing, working on farms, factory work, housework, extracting minerals from the earth, office work, office cleaning, teaching.

African and black workers deserve Labour Day more than any other workers.

The system that William Davidson resisted and we today resist was built on Africans’ backs.

The enslavement of Africans, beginning in the 1400s, enabled European businessmen to grow enormously wealthy and to pay for the development of the technology which characterises capitalism.

Capitalism took off in the 18th century, in William Davidson’s time.

Why an African May Day Movement?

Trade unionists and political activists in Africa and the Caribbean led the fight against colonial occupation, and continue to fight against Africans’ new enemies.

The Union of the Peoples of Cameroun, for example, was founded by a trade unionist in 1948.

Today the IMF and World Bank and the multinationals they assist are the new colonial masters.

They come disguised as aid donors, loan dispensers and foreign investors.

Labour movement activists in Africa are persecuted by African governments, who do what the IMF and World Bank tell them and take backhanders at the same time.

African World struggles are part of the global movement against criminal neo-liberal policies.

These struggles must be seen, heard, and, crucially, understood, if they are to gain solidarity from non-African workers.

African workers continue to fight against slavery

William Davidson and his comrades fought against the slave-like conditions people in Britain worked in. May Day celebrates the achievement of the 8 hour working day, which took at least 150 years to win, from William Davidson’s time till the late 1900s.

But Africans’ experience of slavery and forced migration to the west has not stopped. In the west they earn enough money to survive and to create about one third of Africa’s income with the wages they send back home.

They leave their homes in Africa because of political repression, wars and poverty.

The millions who stay behind have to be kept going, when African governments have failed to do so.

Many Africans in Britain work in near slave conditions, and with the immigration authorities constantly threatening.

They do two, three or four jobs at once, in the lowest paid and most unregulated sector.

Trade unions in these sectors are rare. But, like William Davidson, African workers continue to fight for their rights.

African Liberation Support Campaign Network
07984 405 307 nkexplo@yahoo.co.uk

May Day this year in the USA: here.

From BirdLife:

Holy moley!

Survey team finds new mammal

25-04-2006

A field expedition to survey and assess the biodiversity status of Chu Yang Sin National Park in the Central Highlands of Vietnam was carried out in March by a joint team including staff from BirdLife’s Vietnam Programme.

Among the many interesting animal and plant species recorded was a mole (Talpidae sp.) that is believed to be new to science.

Six of the ten bird species that originally qualified Chu Yang Sin as an Important Bird Area (IBA) were also found during the survey.

These were: Collared Laughingthrush Garrulax yersini (Endangered); Black-hooded Laughingthrush Garrulax milleti (Near Threatened); Grey-crowned Crocias Crocias langbianis (Endangered); Short-tailed Scimitar-babbler Jabouilleia danjoui (Near Threatened); Germain’s Peacock-pheasant Polyplectron germaini (Near Threatened); and Crested Argus Rheinardia ocellata (Near Threatened).

North American star-nosed mole smells under water: here.

Dear Kitty,

Unfortunately, it seems that the businessmen in the USA who bought ModBlog have let the site go down the drain without warning about 25 April 2006.

In this way, destroying the work of ten thousands of webloggers, including mine at dearkitty.modblog.com.

This blog here at Blogsome up to now was a reserve blog.

So, it has only a minority of the archive entries which used to be at my ModBlog site.

In the future I may try to restore some of which was at my ModBlog here (all is unfortunately impossible).

However, this will have to wait a bit.

As my blogging priority right now is to post up to date blog entries here.

I hope to get as good or better quaility here as at ModBlog.

Thanks to all people who paid the over 170,000 vistits to Dear Kitty ModBlog since January 2005.

Sorry for the loss of most of my archive due to faceless greedy business bureaucrats.

Life goes on.

Blogging goes on.

Here.

UPDATE 3 June 2006: ModBlog comes back every now and then.

So, at least today, you can see the archives up to the end of May there.

UPDATE 16 October 2006: ModBlog seems to be gone forever.