Now here’s a fine endeavour for the man who has tried everything. Get one bike…

A 59-year-old Italian has set a world record in the sport of underwater cycling, pedalling his bicycle, weighed down with ballast and water-filled tyres, to a depth of 61.7 metres under the sea near Genoa.

Times Online | Link

This weeks email from the march.

Dear Fellow Marcher,

As we continue our trek across America, new leaders with big ideas emerge in the fight to stop global warming. Last week, MTV joined the ranks of the 75,000 already marching, featuring the Virtual March on their student network, mtvU.com, and hatching big plans for the fall.

This week, the Virtual March stops in South Dakota, where the leaders of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation have given us a powerful example of how clean energy can harness nature’s power without destroying it.

Find out more about the exciting potential of wind energy here.

Are your legs getting tired yet? Well, lets hope not, because we’ve got a long way to go.

Keep on marching. And send the March to 3 new friends this week.

Laurie David
Founder

This morning I received a link to a letter written to the London bombers. It was sent to me by my eloquent and highly amusing cousin. She is a real writer who lives and works in London.

The letter starts:

What the fuck do you think you’re doing?

This is London. We’ve dealt with your sort before. You don’t try and pull this on us.

Do you have any idea how many times our city has been attacked? Whatever you’re trying to do, it’s not going to work.

The article reminded me of how adversity can draw a city like London together. It reminded me of growing-up in the East End. Of having to deal with fascism and the likes of Colin Jordan and Oswald Mosley and their nutty followers who tried to beat me and any other Jew they could find to pulp.

It reminded me of those righteous and bloodthirsty Catholic terrorists — the IRA, who for years were constantly trying to bomb the crap out of any pub or train or department store I happened to be in.

I remembered times when I was just about to take a drink, or buy a pair of socks and someone would call out, “…sorry there’s been a bomb threat, you’ll have to leave.”

And so we’d all file out and drink our beer and continued our conversations on the footpath. We’d wait for the police to arrive to search the place and to give us the all clear hopefully before the pint you had ran out.

London survived these nutters, as it will again…

… Our city works. We rather like it. And we’re going to go about our lives. We’re going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we’re going to work. And we’re going down the pub. | Link

After living and traveling around various parts of Japan, Kobayashi Issa returned to his home in the Nagano Prefecture at the age of 51 and remained there until his death in 1827, age 65.

These are two more of his haiku that I like:

Till your clothes can barely be
seen in the distance, my love,
I keep looking back at your house.

Haiku by Kobayashi Issa

~~~

In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers.

Haiku by Kobayashi Issa

William Higgins wrote, in The Four Great Masters of Japanese Haiku, (Basho Matsuo, Buson Yosa, Issa Kobayashi and Shiki Masaoka) — Kobayashi Issa was a country bumpkin compared to ascetic, priestly Basho and worldly, sophisticated Buson. The majority of the Japnese who like traditional haiku probably know and like Issa better than any other poet.” Link

Let me understand this correctly — our more visible pollutants, like soot and dust are making the effects of our less visible pollutants, like CO2, seem less of a problem.

If that is the case then the short answer to Global Warming is simple. Diesel Cars, Log Fires and Deforestation — let’s create more dust and keep this planet cool!

Global warming looks set to be much worse than previously forecast, according to new research. Ironically, the crucial evidence is how little warming there has been so far.

Three top climate researchers claim that the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere should have warmed the world more than they have. The reason they have not, they say, is that the warming is being masked by sun-blocking smoke, dust and other polluting particles put into the air by human activity.

Fred Pearce | NewScientist | Link

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso often says:

I am just a simple Buddhist monk — no more, nor less.

Living in a small cottage in Dharamsala, India, the Dalai Lama rises at 4 A.M. each day to meditate. He then pursues an ongoing schedule of administrative meetings, private audiences and religious teachings and ceremonies. He concludes each day with further prayer before retiring. In explaining his greatest sources of inspiration, he often cites a favourite verse, found in the writings of the renowned eighth century Buddhist saint Shantideva:

So here’s another little prayer right back at ya, Tenzin Gyatso:

The above image from NASA TV is a view from Deep Impact’s flyby showing the impactor colliding with comet Tempel 1. I watched it live on the Net and you can see it and read all about the comet and the spacecraft here.