From The Times: 

China Willing to Spend Big on Afghan Commerce

I am pleasantly surprised - I feared that, like three of his bodyguards he was dead. The fate of the fourth bodyguard is, as yet, unknown.
Peter Moore, the Briton held hostage in Iraq for two and a half years, thought he was about to be executed when he captors led him out to be released, his family said today.
The IT consultant, 32, was kidnapped in May 2007 with four other British citizens. Three of the hostages were killed and their bodies have been flown back to Britain. Alan McMenemy is still unaccounted for but it is believed that he is also dead.
Mr Moore and his security guards, Mr McMenemy, Jason Swindlehurst, Jason Creswell and Alec MacLachlan, were taken from a Finance Ministry building in Baghdad in May 2007.
The group was captured by about 40 men disguised as Iraqi policemen.
The kidnappers, from Asaib al-Haq (the League of the Righteous), a Shia splinter group, were believed to be holding Mr Moore as well as the body of Mr McMenemy, as bargaining chips in talks with the Iraqi Government.
The Prime Minister said that he was "hugely relieved by the wonderful news" and praised those who had helped to secure the release.
Mr Miliband said the joy felt by Mr Moore and his family would be mirrored by the grief felt by the family of Mr McMenemy, who the Foreign Office believe has been killed. Mr Miliband called on the kidnappers to release the body as soon as possible.
Mr Moore, an IT consultant from Lincoln, was working in Iraq for Bearing Point, an American firm of management consultants.
It seems from information acquired at the time the bodies of the three bodyguards were released that they were separated from Mr Moore early on, and killed early on, while the UK Government were lead to believe ( will give them the benefit of the doubt) that they were alive and negotiations would prove fruitful.
My personal suspicion is that an employee of a US company was perceived as valuable, while the bodyguards, as ex UK soldiers, were perceived as of no value for randsom, and that  there  would be no threat of rescue or reprisal. Which is a tragedy and another damning indictment of the Brown regime.

Israeli Cartoonist, "Dry Bones" has this latest comment on what might happen in Iran in 2010.

We hope his message becomes a reality.

An exclusive from The Times
The Christmas Day airline bomb plot suspect organised a conference under the banner “War on Terror Week” as he immersed himself in radical politics while a student in London, The Times has learnt.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, a former president of the Islamic Society at University College London, advertised speakers including political figures, human rights lawyers and former Guantánamo detainees.
One lecture, Jihad v Terrorism, was billed as “a lecture on the Islamic position with respect to jihad”.
Security sources are concerned that the picture emerging of his undergraduate years suggests that he was recruited by al-Qaeda in London. Security sources said that Islamist radicalisation was rife on university campuses, especially in London, and that college authorities had “a patchy record in facing up to the problem”. Previous anti-terrorist inquiries have uncovered evidence of extremists using political meetings and religious study circles to identify potential recruits.
It emerged last night that Mr Abdulmutallab featured on the periphery of one counterterrorism intelligence operation in Britain. US intelligence authorities are also looking at conversations between him and at least one al-Qaeda member.
He is the fourth president of a London student Islamic society to face terrorist charges in three years. One is facing a retrial on charges that he was involved in the 2006 liquid bomb plot to blow up airliners. Two others have been convicted of terrorist offences since 2007.
Mr Abdulmutallab left UCL last year. The Times has learnt that his attempt to renew his student visa in May this year was based on an application to study “life coaching” at a non-existent college. That visa refusal may have saved Britain from an attack. His terrorist training took a new turn in August when he moved to Yemen, ostensibly to study Arabic, and was schooled by al-Qaeda there.
President Obama said that it was “totally unacceptable” that US agencies had not prevented the attack with the information available and demanded preliminary results from two security reviews by tomorrow. He is facing criticism for leaving two key federal security agencies without leaders 11 months into his administration.
Dutch authorities dismissed claims that Mr Abdulmutallab boarded the flight in Amsterdam without a passport. A spokesman for its counter-terrorism office said: “He had a passport and a valid visa for the United States and KLM had clearance on the passenger list to carry him to the US.”
As one of the most recommended comments says " why has it taken the security services so long to figure out what Joe Public figured out 10 years ago? Now, what are they going to do about it?"
The Muslim colleague of a friend attended the prayer room at the nearby London School of Economics one Friday, maybe 12 years ago and came out shaking. He had gone to pray and praise his Maker, not listen to anger and hate and vowed to pray at his desk without the gymnastics in future.
The University of East London, which I knew as North East London Polytechnic could bear investigation in my opinion. A University in East London should fill my Cockney heart with pride, in theory, but that place doesn't.

While my mother was staying with me over Christmas I took her to a favourite restaurant that I normally go to with friends. The owner was delighted to meet the mother of a regular, tactfully refrained from telling her how much I normally drink, and dispensed, along with a glass of port on the house, a well-worn compliment:

"Mama? I thought you were sisters!"

My mother laughed, taking the remark with a pinch of salt not needed for the food. I laughed too, but should I have? Perhaps he meant that I looked as old as my mother.

That the remark is always taken as a compliment to the mother rather than an insult to the daughter shows that neither believes it.

More at Wikipedia. What do you get when you cross a Persian with a Siamese?

A twinning combination:

From The Telegraph
Eight US civilians were killed by a suicide bomber in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, a US embassy official said.
The attack took place at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province, in eastern Afghanistan, said the official, who declined to be named.
No US or Nato troops were injured in the blast, the official said.
The number of foreign civilians in Afghanistan is mushrooming as the war takes a turn away from concentrating on battlefield fighting amid a growing emphasis on development and aid.
As civilian teams arrive, they are being sent to provincial military bases, where many they are billeted to work alongside military reconstruction teams.
The attack on the Americans comes as the international forces in Afghanistan - numbering 113,000 and set to grow to 150,000 next year - are embroiled in controversy over the deaths of Afghan civilians in an operation on Saturday.

"I didn't know what day it was when you walked into the room," rasped Rod Stewart some time in the Seventies. Perhaps he was in the Phillipines, Alaska or Samoa.

It's New Year's Eve tomorrow. In the meantime (geddit?) here are some Quite Interesting facts about the International Date Line:

The Philippines, as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, long had its most important communication with Acapulco in Mexico, and was accordingly placed on the east side of the date line, despite being at the western edge of the Pacific Ocean. 00:01 Tuesday in London was 17:21 Monday in Acapulco and about 08:05 Monday in Manila. During the 1840s, trade interests turned to China, the Dutch East Indies and adjacent areas, and the Philippines was changed to the west side of the date line. Monday, 30 December 1844 (ending up as a 365-day year, despite being a leap year) was followed by Wednesday, 1 January 1845.

Until 1867, Alaska began Russia's day, with the date line following the partially defined border between Russian Alaska and British North America, including the colony of British Columbia. The day before the purchase by the United States took effect, it was Friday, 6 October 1867, in the Julian calendar (used by Russia at the time), which would have been 18 October in the Gregorian calendar. The time in New Archangel would have been 12:00 when it was 12:02, Thursday, 17 October, at the future site of Whitehorse, Yukon, and 12:49, 17 October, at the future site of Vancouver, British Columbia. With the transfer of governance, the date line was shifted (moving Alaska back a day), and the calendar was changed (moving Alaska ahead 12 days), and being effective at midnight the calendar moved ahead one day as well, for a net change of 11 days. Friday, 6 October, was followed by Friday, 18 October (not Saturday, 7 October).

Samoa changed in 1892, eight years following the international conference that would result in de facto development of the Date Line. The king was persuaded by American traders to adopt the American date, being three hours behind California, to replace the former Asian date, being four hours ahead of Japan. The change was made at the end of the day on Monday, 4 July 1892, so there were 367 days (1892 being a leap year), including two occurrences of Monday, 4 July.

The central Pacific Republic of Kiribati introduced a change of date for its eastern half on 1 January 1995, from time zones −11 and −10 to +13 and +14. Before this, the country was divided by the date line. This meant that the date line in effect moved eastwards to go around this country. As a British colony, Kiribati was centered in the Gilbert Islands, just west of the old date line. Upon independence in 1979, the new republic acquired the Phoenix and Line Islands from the United States and the country found itself straddling the date line. Government offices on opposite sides of the line could only communicate by radio or telephone on the four days of the week when both sides experienced weekdays simultaneously. A consequence of this time zone revision was that Kiribati, by virtue of its easternmost possession, the uninhabited Caroline Atoll at 150°25′ west, started the year 2000 on its territory before any other country on earth, a feature which the Kiribati government capitalized upon as a potential tourist draw. But Ariel and Berger comment that the international community has not taken this date line adjustment very seriously, noting that most world atlases still ignore this Kiribati dateline shift and they continue to represent the International Date as a straight line in the Kiribati area.^[1

Suppose the Biltmore Clock, often referenced at this site, had been in Kiribati. What then?

Listen here.

it should be six geese a laying.
I have two geese, both from the Goose chain. Which is a nice enough sign the first time you see it, then you realise that every pub owned by the chain is now called the Goose or Goose and something and the only thing to distinguish each sign is the arrangement of bird proofing.
Top left is the Goose in Romford, which was previously the Morland Arms, although when I first knew the pub it it was the Sunrise Inn. Top right is the Goose in Walthamstow (or Goose and Granite)which was the Tower, then trendy (by the standards of 1975) Flanagans Tower, with Rapunzel waving hair and hanky just about where the goose sits now, which I think was the first home of the Tower Folk club, although there was such a thriving folk scene in the borough from 1967 that I can't remember every one.
Geese lay eggs, which is a foodstuff so below are two pub signs representing food.
The Ribs of Beef on the bank of the River Wensum in Norwich, which has as its sign a glass window featuring the Guinness Toucan (another bird. See how I justify everything) and a nice glass of the dark stuff.
The Cauiflower in Ilford, another music pub, recently restored to gin palace spendour. The owner noticed me taking the photo and was proud of his new, especially painted sign.