What's wrong with you people?

"ORANGE CITY, Fla. -- A 41-year-old woman was knocked unconscious and then trampled by a mob of shoppers who continued to step over her as she suffered a seizure during a Friday sale at Wal-Mart in Orange City, Fla., according to Local 6 News.
Authorities said that Patricia Van Lester arrived at Wal-Mart at 3 a.m. for an early sale on a DVD player for her mother. When the store's doors opened at 6 a.m., Van Lester grabbed the DVD player but was quickly overcome by hundreds of shoppers rushing into the store."

From Lileks: "Just on the heels of yesterday’s hosannah to the LORT 47-hour special expanded edition, “The Two Towers” arrived today. There’s my weekend, right there. (In the new expanded edition, we learn that Sauromon is actually a woman! And she’s Ann Coulter!)"

From ITN: "Concorde has touched down for the very last time after a special flight from Heathrow Airport to the site where the supersonic plane was made.

Thousands of aviation fans and aerospace workers braved the showers at Airbus UK's Filton airfield in Bristol to see Concorde 216 fly overhead at 2000ft and then land.

The aircraft will eventually go on display at the site."

There'll be one on display on this side of the Atlantic too. From ABC News: "NEW YORK Nov. 26 — Six years after setting a speed record for a commercial jet crossing the Atlantic, a British Airways Concorde took a slow boat up New York harbor to its new home at a waterside museum.
Lashed to the deck of a gray barge, the slender white jetliner on Tuesday rode under the Verrazano Bridge and past the Statue of Liberty, made a brief pirouette for the television cameras off lower Manhattan and moved majestically up the Hudson to the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum."

to the bus tour bit, anyway, if not to the receptions w/ the Queen and PM. From the BBC:
"England will mark their Rugby World Cup success with an open-top bus tour through central London on Monday, 8 December.

The tour will began at 1200 GMT at Marble Arch, proceed down Oxford Street and turn right into Regent Street.

The two buses will then travel down Haymarket and are expected to reach Trafalgar Square at 1300 GMT."

From the BBC: "England's victorious Rugby World Cup team received a heroes' welcome from thousands of fans as they returned home from Australia on Tuesday.

The squad landed at London's Heathrow Airport at 0435GMT and were given a rapturous reception when they emerged from their plane 20 minutes later.

Captain Martin Johnson, grasping the William Webb Ellis Trophy, was the first to appear and was greeted with a deafening rendition of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", England's unofficial anthem.

He was closely followed by coach Clive Woodward and fly-half Jonny Wilkinson, who secured England's triumph in Saturday's final against Australia by slotting a last-gasp drop goal.

There was a huge roar as the England party were led through passport control and into the arrivals hall by Woodward."

"England's rugby World Cup winners will receive a heroes' welcome when they arrive back in the United Kingdom on Tuesday.

The squad left Sydney on a British Airways plane specially named Sweet Chariot and are due to land at Heathrow airport at 0500 GMT." From the BBC.

is already in the planning stages: "The Rugby Football Union are planning their own celebrations and have organised a match against the New Zealand Barbarians at Twickenham on 20 December.

It will provide an opportunity for supporters to pack HQ, although it is unclear at this stage what sort of team Woodward will parade.

Most of the players will have returned to action long before then. Some may even play for their clubs this weekend."
From the BBC

GME.jp, and this is the jewel of the London posts, although not the most reflective of the new content. Any thoughts, Gareth, on President Bush's visit, since you were temporary Londoners together?

"Quote from Robert Downey Jr. interview:

RD: Have you ever stayed up all night on amphetamines searching through the garbage for a cigarette butt?

Interviewer: No, but I once got drunk and woke up in a mixture of my own urine and vomit

RD: You say that like it's a negative thing."

on Rugby Round-Up, as well there should be. Check it out for the Sydney atmosphere.

From the French RFU Website, oddly enough:

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home.

I looked over Jordan, and
What did I see,
Comin' for to carry me home ?
A band of angels comin' after me,
Comin' for to carry me home.

Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home.

If you get there before I do
Comin' for to carry me home,
Tell all my friends I'm comin' too
Comin' for to carry me home.

Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home.

Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down,
Comin' for to carry me home;
Yet still my soul feels heavn'ly bound,
Comin' for to carry me home.

Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home.

From RugbyRugby.com: "England are the new Rugby World Cup champions, with a Jonny Wilkinson drop-goal in the last minute of extra-time handing them a 20-17 win over a game Wallaby side at the Telstra Stadium in Sydney on Saturday. The English deserved to raise the Webb Ellis Cup after 100 minutes of drama, excitement, tries (yes, tries!) and bravery, with skipper Martin Johnson quick to pay tribute to his players, the management and a horde of English fans who made the trip out to Australia."

From the BBC: "England's historic 20-17 victory over Australia in the Rugby World Cup final has drawn praise from all quarters of the rugby world.
Fly-half Jonny Wilkinson secured the game for England with a last-gasp drop goal in extra-time, and in doing so sealed the nation's greatest sporting triumph since 1966.

Skipper Martin Johnson produced one of the performances of his career to become the first player to lead a northern hemisphere side to the world title. "

From ITN: "Jonny Wilkinson believes that his World Cup-winning last-gasp extra-time drop-goal against Australia was just reward for the hard work Clive Woodward's men put in in their bid to be crowned world champions.

Wilkinson, who was England's inevitable hero in their 20-17 World Cup final win over the Wallabies, fired four penalties before striking an amazing kick in the last 20 seconds of world rugby's most prestigious showpiece final."

From the London Times Breaking News: "England heroes win Rugby World Cup

England won the Rugby World Cup in a historic victory over Australia by 20 points to 17 in a pulsating final in Sydney. Jonny Wilkinson was again England's hero, with a last minute drop-goal to complete the nation's greatest sporting triumph since 1966. And as in 1966 the match went into extra-time - and again England were triumphant.



Queen and Blair congratulate England

The Queen has passed on her compliments to the England rugby side after they lifted the World Cup with victory over Australia. A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: "The Queen has sent a message to Clive Woodward congratulating the team on a great victory."Prime Minister Tony Blair also sent his congratulations to the England team following their 20-17 extra-time victory."

From the London Times Online: "With nerves already stripped raw in the emotion of a final played in heavy drizzle at the Telstra Stadium, Wilkinson lined up the goal which brought the cup to the northern hemisphere for the first time. Matt Dawson, his half-back partner, made the crucial break from a ruck which gave England an attacking position in Australia's 22, Martin Johnson took it on and the fly half, sitting in a pocket some 30 metres from the posts, swung his right foot - his less-favoured foot - to make the sweetest connection in English rugby history.

But how their supporters, a white army in a crowd of 82,957, suffered on the way. They had watched their team achieve domination towards the end of the first half and a lead of 14-5 with a rhythm which Australia could not match. Then, in the second half, they seemed to step back from glory: a series of handling errors and penalties allowed Elton Flatley to kick his side back into contention, a team which held its nerve where others might have cracked."

Australia 17-20 England
"England won the Rugby World Cup with a breathtaking drop goal from Jonny Wilkinson just 26 seconds from the end of a thrilling final in Sydney.
Millions watched around the world as captain Martin Johnson became the first player to lead a northern hemisphere side to the world title as they edged out defending champions Australia in the rain.
Wilkinson's last-gasp effort was all that separated the sides after 100 minutes of rugby."

as England take Australia to the cleaners, with either the Rugby Rugby live match tracker or the BBC live scores page. I'm sure Auntie Beeb will have a live commentary page too, but I don't know what the URL will be...

for a trip to Pittsburgh: From ABC News: "In the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination, Andy Warhol took images of a smiling first lady in a pillbox hat and contrasted them on blue, gold and gray panels to images of her as a stoic widow.
To Warhol, Jacqueline Kennedy's image captured the sorrow of a nation. He honored her with hundreds of silkscreen portraits akin to holy cards.

Warhol's Jackie portraits will be displayed as part of the museum's newest exhibit titled "November 22, 1963: Image, Memory, Myth," which opens Saturday on the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination. The show, featuring images of John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's casket and the grainy stills of a home movie shot by Abraham Zapruder capturing the entire assassination, was done in collaboration with The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas."

From the San Diego Tribune: "Prince, Bob Seger and five other major artists who came to prominence in the 1950s, '60s and '70s will be honored at the 19th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies early next year in New York.

The other inductees include: quintessential Southern California singer-songwriter Jackson Browne; Texas blues and boogie-rock mainstays ZZ Top; veteran Chicago R&B vocal group the Dells; the category-leaping English band Traffic; and former Beatle George Harrison.

The induction ceremony will be held March 15 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. All living inductees are expected to perform at the ceremony, which will likely be televised later that month on VH1.

Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record under their name. Harrison, who was inducted as one of the Beatles in 1988, died two years ago this month. He was first eligible for induction in 1993."

is this... the blog fire escape, a one-click exit from a fire-escape equipped blog to a more professionally appropriate virtual location. Interesting.

don't want anyone to get fired for blogging. Here's how to keep your job....

sounds like the French didn't care:

"New Zealand 40-13 France

New Zealand strolled past a second-string French side to win a largely flat encounter for third place in the World Cup in Sydney.

The All Blacks, stung by their 22-10 semi-final loss to Australia, opted for a full-strength team and eased to victory with six tries at the Telstra Stadium." From the BBC.

from the Guardian: "It is not often you can say a website has changed the face of the web, and had an impact far beyond the confines of its own domain. But, for many, Blogger is such a site.
For a little over two years now, Blogger ) has brought its "Push button publishing for the people" to the net, making it easy for net users to create simple, easily updated websites. In doing so, it has brought the kind of vibrant discussion previously seen on the net's chatboards to an area previously noted only for its dormancy - the personal homepage. Better still, you can use it for free. It's used on around 400,000 websites - and it is run by one person, Evan Williams." Read the rest.

must be having a field day with this whole thing. The St. Albion Parish News has a couple of gems:

A Message From Rev. Dubya, the Grand Tabernacle,
Salt Tears City
My fellow Righteous Brothers in Englandland!
I am greatly looking forward to my visit to your beautiful country, wherever it is! Mrs Dubya and I are counting the days until we can break bread with you and take a tour of your fabled heritage sites:

Windsor Palace
Buckingham Castle
The Leaning Tower of Harrods
Shakespeare-upon-Avon
Brother Rumsfeld says he is very sorry not to be with us on this occasion, but he and Sister Condy are having to stay home to keep ever vigilant lest Satan creeps in in the middle of the night “seeking whom he may devour”
Yours in the Lord!
Rev. Dubya

Mr Straw writes: We are all hugely looking forward to the visit which is shortly to be paid to the parish by our good friend the Rev. Dubya of the Church of the Latter-Day Morons.
I know that a tiny minority of 100,000 or so troublemakers are thinking of trying to spoil what should be a wonderful day of celebration, so let me just warn them that the long-range weather forecasters are predicting torrential rain, hurricane winds, deadly lightning and a possible collision with a 75-million-tonne asteroid! So it is my advice to any would-be troublemakers that they would be well advised to stay at home and watch the Rev. Dubya driving down the High Street with the Vicar in glorious sunshine on our local TV news! J.S.

On the BBC "Have your Say" website there's a couple of interesting links that go together like oil & water. First off, an opportunity for the public to review the state visit. That's up against memories of JFK on the 40th anniversary of his untimely assassination. Have times changed, or does time passing just infuse everything with a delightful rosy glow?

From ITN: "England boss Clive Woodward has recalled Mike Tindall and dropped Mike Catt for Saturday's World Cup final clash with defending champions and hosts Australia at Sydney's Telstra Stadium.

Woodward, adopting a "horses for courses" selection policy, has named the same XV which beat the Wallabies 25-14 with three tries in Melbourne five months ago with the exception of Matt Dawson, who takes over from Kyran Bracken at scrum-half.

Tough-tackling centre Tindall was dropped in favour of his Bath club-mate Catt for last weekend's semi-final win over France.

But the 25-year-old Yorkshireman returns to Woodward's starting XV to face Eddie Jones' Wallabies as England bid to silence the critical Australian media by lifting the Webb Ellis trophy on Saturday. Catt returns to the bench."

are going to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.....

...and toys are included:

From the Seattle Times via Google News. PRINCETON, N.J. — Toys R Us said yesterday it will close its money-losing Kids R Us and Imaginarium chains, eliminating about 3,800 jobs. None of the closures are scheduled for Washington state.

The company's shares plunged 12 percent after it reported its third-quarter loss unexpectedly widened and it cut its annual profit forecast.

The chains will be shut by the end of January and include 146 Kids R Us clothing stores and 36 Imaginariums, which sell educational toys. Three distribution centers also will be closed. Toys R Us will incur about $280 million in pretax costs, the company said.

Chief Executive John Eyler said he decided to close the businesses after results worsened faster than the company expected. Kids R Us has lost money the past three years as same-store sales fell. Eyler, who finished remodeling more than 600 U.S. Toys R Us stores last year, has failed to attract shoppers amid competition from discounter Wal-Mart, analysts said.

"They can cut some costs and expenses," said Touk Praseuthsy, of Ariel Capital Management, which is Toys R Us' fifth-largest shareholder with 7.4 million shares as of September. "The driver is going to have to be top-line growth. They need to bring more people into the stores."

The retailer's third-quarter net loss of $38 million, or 18 cents a share, was twice as wide as analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected.

Toys R Us, which has 1,629 stores and had 65,000 employees as of February, fell $1.56 to $11.18 yesterday.

The company will try to relocate some Kids R Us and Imaginarium employees to other divisions, spokeswoman Susan McLaughlin said.

The Imaginarium sections inside Toys R Us chains will remain open. Imaginarium is about a $30 million business, Eyler said in an interview. The company will continue to sell clothing at its Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores.

The job cuts come on top of about 900 announced earlier this year after Toys R Us posted disappointing holiday sales.

Sales at U.S. toy stores open at least a year dropped 3 percent after an 18 percent decline in the video-game business. Sales outside the United States rose 1.7 percent.

Eyler said he wasn't interested in buying the assets of FAO, owner of the FAO Schwarz, Zany Brainy and Right Start toy chains. Eyler came to Toys R Us in January 2000 from FAO Schwarz, where he was chief executive, before the company was bought by Right Start and renamed FAO.

FAO has said that unless sales pick up it may not be able to operate normally this month and next. The toy seller, which emerged from bankruptcy in April, told an investment banker to seek a potential buyer and has asked suppliers to reduce shipments and accept later payments.

isn't buying it. I'm glad someone isn't:

"This era in British politics has been not unlike Johnson's construction of the Great Society, with huge new social programmes rolled out in the biggest public-spending programme of our political lifetime. With much of the same optimism and endeavour of early 1960s America, Labour came to power in 1997 determined to tackle poverty, social exclusion and unemployment. Health and education spending are leaping up to meet the EU average for the first time. Poverty abolition is on target to meet its quarter-way mark by 2005 - 1.1 million fewer poor children. Most of Labour's ideas, energy and funding has gone to programmes concerned with social justice. We can argue round the edges about whether choice is the wrong way, more tax could be raised or more could be done faster, but the spending facts speak for themselves: this is a successful social democracy.

Now compare that to the devastation George Bush and his neo-conservative ideologues are wreaking upon America. The last vestiges of the Great Society programmes are in the process of being dismantled, if the White House gets its way. Programmes that survived the depredations of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr are falling under the Bush Jnr axe. The axe is the natural result of the phenomenal tax cuts of the past three years - $1.3 trillion in 2001, $96bn in 2002 and $330bn this year.

Nearly half of the main tax cut went straight into the pockets of the richest 1% of Americans. The Bush plutocracy is led by a cabinet whose wealth is 10 times that of Bill Clinton's. Now they plan to abolish inheritance tax - which only the top 2% pay - and capital gains taxes. Cuts in federal social programmes are an ideological as well as a financial twin to tax cuts. The neo-conservatives are on an ideological crusade to slash and burn big government in Washington, whatever it takes, shredding taxes and social programmes as they go: the wild right mindset of the militias has seized the citadel."

Funny how George is the most vocal advocate for global democracy, and yet he is quietly dismantling many of the key structures of the greatest social democracy in the world.

but protestors impersonating him will....

"Meanwhile, protests across central London against Mr Bush's visit began in quiet but colourful fashion today with a mock state procession.

Peace campaigners dressed as the US president and the Queen in a horse-drawn carriage headed the procession, which also included a pink "love tank" and demonstrators dressed as weapons inspectors and Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Around 200 protesters gathered at Jubilee Gardens on London's South Bank for the parade, which was due to finish at Trafalgar Square."

has SO much in common with West Texas.

""We believe in private markets humanised by compassionate government. We believe in economies that reward effort, communities that protect the weak, and the duty of nations to respect the rights and dignity of all.

"Whether one learns these ideals in Co Durham or in West Texas they instil a mutual respect and they inspire common purpose." "

From The Observer:

"Home Secretary David Blunkett has refused to grant diplomatic immunity to armed American special agents and snipers travelling to Britain as part of President Bush's entourage this week. In the case of the accidental shooting of a protester, the Americans in Bush's protection squad will face justice in a British court as would any other visitor, the Home Office has confirmed.

The issue of immunity is one of a series of extraordinary US demands turned down by Ministers and Downing Street during preparations for the Bush visit." Read the rest. There's some goodies in there.... especially the whole thing with the tank-mounted mini-gun.

Protests, economic impact, Brits at Gitmo and the footman, from The Times.

From The Times: "At its outset, one prominent historian observed, the American Revolution had the support of one third of the colonists, was opposed by another third with the remaining third indifferent. The polls published in the past week, even in the left-listing Guardian, indicate that George W. Bush’s visit to these shores is backed by comfortably more than a third of British people."

er..... NO !!!

"The Daily Mirror said its reporter Ryan Parry managed to get a job despite unprecedented security arrangements throughout London in the run-up to [George Bush's] presidential visit."

Nice one, Daily Mirror. What a huge waste of everyone's time.