Sorry, I am so late in writing this email to all of you. I have been kind of overwhelmed with media calls, reading emails and catching up on sleep.

When I set out for Australia last May, I had thought I might have a memorable trip, maybe a little snorkling, learn to surf and maybe network with some activists and do some skillshares. And then this happened. Never in my wildest dreams.

This has been a combination of the most surreal yet inspiring week of my life. I am completely overwhelmed and blown away by all of the events and even more so by the response of all of you and lots of other people in your country and around the world.

‘At last history hits pay dirt. For years it was pap for television.

The nation's rulers needed scientists for guns, linguists for trade and economists for mistakes. History was for nuts and numismatists.

Now up pops Charles Clarke jingling bags of gold. The home secretary has promised the prime minister that he will lock away for five years anyone who "glorifies, exalts or celebrates" a terrorist act committed in the past 20 years. He does not care if glorification was not meant. If someone, somewhere takes anything that I say or write as encouraging to terror, even if they do not act on it, I have committed a criminal act.

‘Government officials & American media officials have repeatedly denounced the al-Jazeera network for airing grisly footage of Iraqi war casualties & American prisoners of war.

The legal fight over whether to release the remaining photographs of atrocities at Abu Ghraib has dragged on for months, with no less a figure than Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Meyers arguing that the release of such images will inflame the Muslim world & drive untold numbers to join al-Qaeda. But none of these can compare to the prospect of American troops casually bartering pictures of suffering & death for porn.

How to disassociate Parkin from Halliburton?  Don't mention the comany's name any more.

As this story continues to play throught the media, where once you'd see at least one mention, if not several, of the company Parkin had been protesting in Australia against. instead we see, at the end of two weeks of print and airplay, the man but not the cause.

It will be interesting, in the new Howard Government, to see if Bob Brown's motion for a Senate inquiry over the Parkin incident results in any action.

Referring to the activities of the “coalition of the willing

In the wake of the July terrorist attacks in London, a group of Church of England bishops today issued a report criticising American foreign policy, the US war on terror & the misuse of biblical texts by some Christian groups to shape American thinking & to support the Bush administration’s political agenda in the Middle East.

The report accuses the US of using illegitimate & dangerous rhetoric, describing some millennialist views as “deeply worrying & illegitimate

“More however, could have been achieved.  And there has been understandable disappointment & criticism at the lack of language on disarmament & non-proliferation, particularly given the risk of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

Sorry about the title length, but this needs to be google-screamed!

You can hear the iParkin's Houston Community Radio interview here (MP3 download)  I'll transcribe tomorrow.  Sorry, but I need to sleep.

Labor counterterrorism spokesman Arch Bevis said in a media release today "The detention of any citizen for an extended period of time must be based only on sound intelligence of a credible threat and be authorised by a judge, not a bureaucrat or politician."

Why weren't The Federal Opposition making more noise about Parkin's detention?

Hurricane Katrina's financial impact could be reduced by US$10 billion through a tax on windfall profits from the oil industry, according to calculations by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. 

Since the oil industry anticipated much lower prices when it made its investment and production decisions, it can cover its costs and make a normal profit at prices that are less than half the US$60-US$70 a barrel price now seen in world markets.