WHEN YOU HAVE NICE WEATHER COMING ON THE HEELS OF THE WEEKEND, and said nice weather being perhaps the last likely chance before the rain arrives late in the weekend into the week ahead, it's probably enough to have blogging take a back seat to taking best advantage of the mild conditions as long as they're extant.

Not to mention opportunities to do a little yardwork for a friend or two needing to get some done as long as the weather allows it. Which will probably be the case tomorrow; hence, be warned if you see fresh material posted to the weblog a little later than usual.

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IF YOU THOUGHT THOSE "USAMA BIN-LADEN VIDEOS" POST-9/11 WERE RATHER INCREDIBLE (especially considering the likelihood in certain circles that such were fabrications from His Fraudulency's Great Within to keep the hoi polloi all the more in fear of Notorious Terrorist Acts as are probably "inside jobs" "just to keep people scared and in line"), consider what's been found on "martyrdom videos" submitted in evidence in the current trial of eight Muslims in Great Britain accused of plotting wholesale terrorism on a series of eight flights between London Heathrow and North American destinations.

The BBC elaborates:

Six of the eight men recorded videos in which one warns of "martyrdom operations" that would "rain down" on non-believers, jurors were told.

They also researched other targets, including power stations and London's Canary Wharf, prosecutors said.

All eight men deny conspiring to murder and endangering aircraft in 2006.

After their arrests in August that year, passengers were banned from carrying most liquids on board aircraft.

The jury at Woolwich Crown Court was played parts of one of the martyrdom videos featuring a man said to be defendant Umar Islam, who was shown speaking of a desire to kill non-Muslims.

He was shown describing his plans as "revenge" for the actions of the United States and its "accomplices such as the British and the Jews".

"This is a warning for the non-believers that if they do not leave our lands there are many more like us and many more like me until the law of Allah is established on this earth," he went on.

He was then heard warning: "Martyrdom operations upon martyrdom operations will keep on raining on these kuffars [non-believers] until they release us and leave our lands."

He argued British citizens were legitimate targets because they had paid taxes that funded the Army.

"Most of you are too busy watching Home and Away and EastEnders, complaining about the World Cup and drinking alcohol, too busy to care. I know because I come from that," he said.

In a second video, which was said to feature a number of the defendants, a man described as defendant Abdulla Ahmed Ali was heard saying: "Sheikh Osama [Bin Laden] has warned you many times to leave our lands or you will be destroyed, and now the time has come for you to be destroyed."

The man, who described himself as the leader of the group, was also heard warning of "floods of martyr operations" against non-Muslims which would scatter "the people and your body parts and your people's body parts".

A man in another recording, which the prosecution claims is Waheed Zaman, a former student who studied biomedical sciences, denied being "brainwashed" and warned: "Remember as you kill us, you will be killed. As you bomb us, you will be bombed."

And in what the jury was told was Tanvir Hussain's suicide video, a man said he wished he could "come back and do this again, and just do it again and again until people come to their senses and realise, you know, don't mess with the Muslims".

Which begs the question of whether these several defendents were really patsies set up by Her Majesty's Government to whip up fear and suspicion in the Crown's name.

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WITH ZIMBABWEAN GOON SQUADS RANSACKING THE MOVEMENT FOR DEMOCRATIC CHANGE (MDC) HQ IN HARARE, AND DETAINING SEVERAL FOREIGN REPORTERS for Lacking Proper Credentials in the wake of the recent elections--and ensuing uncertainty over the result--there's been whispers going around that longtime majordomo Robert Mugabe may be set to resign quietly and seek exile in some class of a "safe harbour" for Known and Notorious Criminal Elements in exchange for avoiding Serious Charges in the International Court of Justice, Den Haag.

But will Mugabe go quietly into that good night, to paraphrase the poet?

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IN ANOTHER SIGN OF WHAT AMOUNTS TO HARD-WIRED COMPLACENCY OF OUR AIR-MINDEDNESS AS A "MORALLY-SUPERIOR" SOCIETY (or so the Religiopolitical Right wants us Americans to accept and believe as an article of faith) being put to the test, Indianapolis-based ATA has shut down its operations concurrent with its filing for bankruptcy.

As our English friends would say, ATA is now "in Carey Street." (Which, until some 30 years ago, was where the Bankruptcy Courts were located in London; "being in Carey Street" is a metaphor, in effect, for bankruptcy between Land's End and John O'Groats.)

Or, as our Australian brethren would put it, ATA has "gone to Gowing's." (The allusion being to a now-closed Sydney department store which first used the phrase in advertising around World War II--just in time for the same being a popular expression among Australian troops to refer to vehicles, weapons or other materiél of war as broke down. In time, the expression became an Aussie colloquialism for anything as went broke or otherwise beyond repair, or--sometimes--to explain one's hasty departure from the scene.)

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NO WONDER PAT "700 CLUB" ROBERTSON IS ALL THE MORE DESPERATE TO HAVE VENEZUELAN MAJORDOMO HUGO CHAVEZ killed off all the sooner, preferably by the CIA (and excusing such as necessary for G-d, Country and Cheap Gasoline):

Just last night, Senor Chavez announced in a televised address that he had issued a decree nationalising the cement industry, concurrently banning cement exports in the name of his national social-housing initiative being hastened.

Just how much longer will it get before the Venezuelan National Debt gets all the worse to levels of farce and absurdity?

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RECOMMENDED READING IN THE INDECISION 2008 RUNUP: The just released Free Ride: John McCain and the Media by David Brock and Paul Waldman with Media Matters for America (which you can buy from Amazon.com online), revealing the extent of slavish devotion the MSM is giving John McCain @ the expense of The Real Story.