Several years ago I wrote book about the Internet and I had to research pornography and other "offensive" things because it was obvious that I would be asked about this in most, if not all, promotional interviews. Nothing I found then offended, saddened, upset or angered me as much as a web site belonging to an organisation called the Vaccination Awareness Network, where, in perfectly rational and calm language, parents were advised to kill their children with measles and cripple them with polio. It was the closest I have ever come to being converted to the cause of censorship.

In 1999 I discovered that the organisation had changed its name to the Australian Vaccination Network and had a new web site. I can only assume that this change to a more neutral name was made to deceive people into thinking that the organisation was about vaccination, not about preventing children from getting it. That name change and web site were the inspiration for The Millenium Project.

The AVN again has a new web site, with a new domain name this time. I don't know why they have the new domain name unless they are planning to move the organisation into the more lucrative US market. I expect that the organisation name will also change to something a bit more international. It will probably be something a bit more innocuous as well so that more parents can be deceived into thinking that this organisation is interested in the welfare of children.

This image of dripping blood is from the "Hit List" page of a web site belonging to a group called Hindu Unity. The hit list is of people who have committed crimes against the Hindu religion, and includes such diverse people as Pope John Paul II, Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson, Osama Bin Laden and David Duke. Apparently, Robertson is especially disliked because he doesn't want people to convert from Christianity to Hinduism. The odd thing is that I thought it was impossible for anyone to convert to Hinduism. What makes Hindu the most ridiculous of all the world's major religions is the caste system, based on reincarnation and the predestination dictated by birth. If people could convert to this nonsense, wouldn't they all choose to be Brahmins so they could lord it over all the lower forms of humanity? I suppose I will get added to the list now, and if I am I will celebrate with a barbeque. There's nothing I like more to eat than a steak, especially when I remember that steak is made from a cow.

In a fit of insanity, a television network was preparing a show featuring "psychic" John Edward who was going to contact the spirits of the people who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Luckily, public opinion and ridicule in the media caused the network to rethink this absurd and offensive idea and it was abandoned. I would have thought that it would be reasonable to ask Edward why, if he is so psychic, he didn't foresee the public outrage at his proposal to exploit the families and friends of the people who died. But then, if he was so psychic he should have foreseen the September 11 tragedy and warned everyone, or, if his "psychic" powers only extend to talking to spirits of the dead, perhaps he could have issued a list of casualties on September 12 and eased everyone's doubts and grief. Parasite. Fraud. Liar.

On November 24, 1997, Alan Yurko murdered a ten-week-old child. He is now serving a life sentence for the murder. At the time of the murder, Yurko was on parole from a 10-to-25 year sentence for four cases of burglary with violence. As the baby was born about five months after Yurko was released from prison it was probably not his child anyway, and the severity of the sentence suggests that the judge felt that this was not a case of impulsive shaken baby syndrome but was a deliberate killing by someone removing the inconvenience of someone else's child. The baby's mother married Yurko after he was convicted of beating her son to death. Yurko has been adopted by the anti-vaccination liars and chiropractors as a hero and role model and they want to get him out of prison. This award is given generically to all of the "Get the killer out of prison" sites which have sprung up to exploit this atrocity.

It was once my great misfortune to be seated opposite veterinarian Tom Lonsdale at a dinner for small business managers and owners. As we enjoyed a delightful Chinese banquet we were amused and entertained by graphic descriptions of the various and varied consistencies of dog excrement. We were told about sticky droppings and chalky-white droppings and how the result could be influenced by the dog's diet and how evil the pet food manufacturers were and how we could tell which of our neighbours were feeding their animals properly by just walking around looking at the evidence. We were all glad that the colour of the chardonnay wine did not lead to a discussion of other dog effluents. This site used to be an uproarious rant against pet food canners, veterinarians' associations and other such conspirators but now just seems to be a pale imitation and we have to buy the book to get the good stuff. So, Tom, get the site back focussing on the "Bones and Raw Food" issue. Let's all BARF together again.

Lots of things have happened in the last 300 years, not the least of which seems to be a reduction in the speed of light. I feel that this sort of research needs to be encouraged as we need to know if constants are really constant. It is not enough to just look at time and the speed of light, though. Could a factor in Cook's discovery of the right-hand side of Australia within this time period be that distance had changed and he had less far to sail? The beauty of variable constants is, of course, that they allow you to calculate everything in a tidy way. You could even prove, for example, that the world is only 6000 years old. And we need many more scientific papers by Lambert Dolphin.

Why should the Muslims have all the fun with Holy Wars? Not only that, but they seem to concentrate on war with other religions. Violent Christians, on the other hand, can declare war on all sorts of things perceived as sin. This site seems to concentrate on the standard sinners like homosexuals, abortionists and false religionists, but surely it could be expanded to include many other sorts of sinners. People who open shops on Sundays. People who read newspapers. People who read. White male rap singers named after chocolates. Women who write Harry Potter books. Women who write. Women. Children who read Harry Potter books. Children who read anything except Bibles. False Bibles. The list is endless.