Here’s a little something to lighten the gloom from my archive of as-yet-un-blogged links – Tea and Coffee – stealth poisons? Dancing – the work of evil minds? All this and more, including a lot of out-dated relationship advice is provided by Miss Abigail’s Time Warp Advice.

Sometimes Salon can be so obvious. A piece on “terror sex“? I can imagine the editorial meeting – “OK we’ve done the serious stuff, now what’s the sex angle to this?”. Next I suppose will be an article on how the military could have caught the terrorists if only they used more open source software?

Could the post-hijack clues be hoaxes? If you are feeling in a conspiratorial frame of mind, the private spies at Stratfor point out that the otherwise meticulous conspirators reportedly left behind pictures of Bin Laden and Korans. They say, “A likely possibility is that the hijackers intentionally left material designed to provide the FBI with an obvious trail leading to low-level operatives with limited knowledge of the attack or its sponsors. While authorities are preoccupied on this investigative track, the real masterminds of the attack could flee detection and plan more operations.”

When can we laugh again? I have just received by email the first joke based on the events of 9-11 and it was funny (at least to those who would understand it – it was also very geeky). But I didn’t feel it appropriate to forward it or put it up on my site – it just seemed disrespectful. It turns out that traditional humour outlets in the US are facing a similar problem. “At the Onion, Hanson said one of the headlines under consideration for its groundbreaking issue, in the publication’s mock-newspaper format, is: “Report: 82 percent of Americans staring blankly at hands.””

Nuclear Safety in the post-9-11 age It seems that according to a 1974 study “some reactor containment structures had zero chance of sustaining a hit by a “large” plane, defined as more than 6.25 tons. The 767s that hit the trade center weighed 150 tons, and were probably moving at top speed.”

What’s more, “a former US Navy Seal until recently ran a program that tested the security at civilian nuclear plants by organizing mock attacks against them. … half of all plants tested failed–and in at least one case, his men were able to simulate enough sabotage to cause a core melt.”

Phew! Taliban clerics say Bin Laden should leave Afghanistan voluntarily… This is just about the best result one could reasonably ask for (though it may not be enough to avert war).

It’s rather belated but here is a look at the Burning Man festival from the Denver Post which really made me wish I could go myself. The images on the Burning Man website are also fascinating…

If you are curious about the Koran and would like to decide for yourself what the real tenets of the religion are (rather than what the zealots from both sides bring out), why not download a copy?
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Better than expected news – so far only two murders of Muslims have been linked to hatred of Arabs after the recent attacks and the FBI is investigating around 40 hate crimes – so far at least a huge wave of anti-Muslim hatred seems not to have arrived. To his credit, Bush has condemned revenge attacks in the US. The BBC’s correspondent in New York talked to Muslims there and found understandable fear but not much evidence of assaults or even abuse.

Cynic that I am I was initially inclined to believe that community arts projects on the Internet from deprived areas, while well-meaning, would be rather underwhelming compared to commercial offerings. I am pleased to find I was wrong. Some are a little rough around the edges, but many I saw at the Creative and Connected conference were quite impressive. Charnwood Arts, for example, offers radio, mp3s, over 1,500 photographs and more – all from a small, economically depressed borough in the North of England.Steve Thompson, aside from being an inspirational speaker, has been responsible for masterminding Tees Valley Communities Online, a similar project. He gives a better overview of his work than I could…