The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello

Purchase your very own quaint English village

An entire English village, complete with 22 houses and cottages, two blacksmiths and a cricket pitch, goes on sale this week. The charitable trust which owns Linkenholt in Hampshire, southern England, has decided to sell up and use the capital it raises elsewhere. The asking price when Linkenholt goes on the open market on Wednesday is 22-25 million pounds ($31-35 million), according to Jackson-Stops & Staff estate agents who are handling the sale.

The archetypal English village is nestled in rolling countryside and boasts a manor house, old rectory and clock tower and is part of a 2,000-acre estate. One of the few things a buyer would not own is St. Peters church, which originally dates back to the 12th century but was significantly rebuilt in 1871.

Locals, who rent their properties, are expected to stay on after the sale, and most hope that a change in ownership does not mean a change in lifestyle. “It would be nice if somebody bought the estate and lived here and was Lord of the Manor to be quite honest, that’s the general consensus of everyone in the village,” said Colin Boast, one of the village’s two blacksmiths. “It would just be nice if somebody looked at the village and said ‘well, let’s keep it as the village it is.’ But you never know.”

Paul Raynesford, a local thatcher, said he thought the asking price for the village was reasonable. “I think if you were to go around and work out the individual bits I think you’d find it’s quite a fair price, taking into account the price of the agricultural land and the price of the individual properties,” he said.

Tim Sherston of Jackson-Stops called the village a “safe and sound investment” despite the economic slowdown. “You’ve got an entire village — 22 houses, a cricket pitch, a village shop, a forge and 1,500 acres of farmland, 450 acres of woodland … We think actually there will be a lot of potential buyers for this.”

The estate is owned by the Herbert and Peter Blagrave Charitable Trust. With no heir, the late Herbert Blagrave, a philanthropic racing figure, left his family fortune to a trust, along with orders that the money should be spent on sick children, the elderly and injured jockeys. Since much of that fortune is still tied up in Linkenholt, the trustees decided it was time to try to sell.

Writing by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato

Survive Falling Through Ice

1. Don’t hyperventilate

As you hit the water, a physiological reaction known as torso reflex will cause you to gasp for air. Force yourself to take slow, deep breaths. You’ll begin to shiver violently and feel intense pain; try to remember that these are natural responses and not life-threatening.

2. Orient yourself

As you bob in the opening you fell through, turn and face the direction you came from. The ice there was strong enough to hold you until this point, so it should be able to support you as you maneuver out. You don’t have time to take a chance on other escape routes.

3. Lift and kick

Stretch your arms over the ice and shimmy your body up until most of your torso is resting on the ledge. (This way, if you lose consciousness before you’re free, you won’t slip back under and drown.) Now, as you pull with your arms, kick your legs dolphin-style to propel yourself out.

4. Recover

Once out, logroll to shore. Resist the urge to rub your arms and legs (which would send the cool blood from your extremities straight to your core) or gulp hot liquids (which would trigger a rush of blood to your skin). Strip, wrap your torso in blankets, and sip a tepid decaf beverage.

Battle brews over Bush library

Former President George W. Bush is preparing for one final struggle against the odds: raising $300 million for a presidential library, museum and policy institute at a time when dollars are tight and skepticism about his presidency runs high.

The former president and first lady have already begun holding small private dinners to persuade wealthy friends to invest in a monument and incubator based on the values and events of his presidency. By this fall, he’ll be armed with architect’s renderings and will hold travel around the country to meet with groups and build support for the complex on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Some of his new neighbors are less than thrilled with the plan, with a handful of history and political science professors lined up to criticize it.. But SMU fought hard to win the library, as one of eight original bidders and then four semi-finalists for the honor.

“We’ve certainly had to defend our decision, but absolutely feel like it was the right one,” SMU’s president, R. Gerald Turner, told POLITICO. “The overall sentiment on the faculty is that whether they agreed with the president personally or not, it’s great to have these papers and this resource on campus.”

Bush has often gotten out of jams by dint of personal charm, and he’s trying that once again. Two weeks ago, to show he wants to get involved in the SMU community, Bush made a surprise visit to political science professor Harold Stanley’s 9:30 a.m. “Intro to American Government and Politics” class.

Turner accompanied him and asked the 29 sleepy students, “Do you recognize the 43rd president of the United States?”

Bush talked for 10 minutes and took questions for another 50, on everything from the stimulus to banking to whether he had seen the Oliver Stone movie “W” (no) to whether diversity was a goal when he was picking his Cabinet (he said he went for the best person).

One woman advised him to use lots of anecdotes when he’s writing his upcoming book about the big decisions he made during his presidency.

The personal touch worked – the kids lapped it up and hung around him afterward.

“Any professor would envy having this rapt a classroom,” recalled Stanley, the professor.

Friends say that besides writing his memoirs and embarking on a lucrative international speaking tour, Bush plans to stay active in such signature issues as combating AIDS and malaria in Africa, and supporting the families of fallen soldiers.

Groundbreaking for the George W. Bush Presidential Center is scheduled for the fall of 2010, with the grand opening expected in the spring of 2013. The center will have three parts — a library, where Bush’s papers will be stored; a museum of exhibits; and a policy institute, with plans for such novel programs as conversations with retired international leaders about their time in office.

The way presidential libraries work, the library and museum will be run by the government after they’re built by the George W. Bush Foundation, which is chaired by Donald L. Evans, the president’s longtime friend and former commerce secretary.

Evans, who has been planning the project since at least January 2005, said that Laura Bush has been very involved in creating the interpretation for the museum. He hinted that the displays will follow a format similar to the president’s book, built around five or six big decisions, such as whether to go to war with Iraq.

Evans promises “an honest presentation of the very difficult choices the president had to make, but certainly an opportunity to highlight the many accomplishments of his presidency, as well,” with an emphasis on “the values and principles that drive him.”

The most interesting – and controversial – part of the plan is the George W. Bush Policy Institute, which will remain controlled by the president’s foundation and will open well before the planned museum opening in 2013.

SMU’s president says the institute will be more “vibrant … than simply being a museum frozen in time.”

The president’s advisers are still chewing over what topics to emphasize. Iraq is unlikely to be one of them. Advisers say they have made a specific decision to leave that verdict to history and not try to defend it at a time when Iraq could still wind up as either a democracy or a disaster.

One of the original ideas was to emphasize the president’s so-called “freedom agenda” of democracy for the Middle East, and there was even talk of calling it The Freedom Institute.

That name — never finalized –was scrapped, in part because many people immediately associated the name with the Middle East, and the institute will have a much broader focus. And lots of other organizations already use “freedom” in their titles; the Bush planners wanted to avoid being confused with them.

Evans said an umbrella topic will be the role of government in a capitalist democracy. But even that may seem a little dated, given the rising role of government in all parts of business – a trend that began on Bush’s watch.

“The president has always had this fundamental belief that government doesn’t create jobs, doesn’t create wealth,” Evans said. “The private sector does that, and it’s government’s role to create the environment for the private sector to thrive.”

Bush aides say focus areas for the institute include are likely to include AIDS relief in Africa; No Child Left Behind and other education reforms; faith-based initiatives; and combating protectionism.

Mark Langdale, president of the George W. Bush Foundation, calls the institute “a place where scholars and people who were involved in the making of history can discuss their past efforts and look forward to craft better policies for the future, regardless of party affiliation.”

“Former presidents have a unique platform to get people to come together and think about bigger ideas that transcend the partisan debate,” he said.

Langdale said one idea for distinguishing the think tank from others is to run demonstration tests or pilot projects based on ideas generated from there.

“That’s a little bit different than what other presidential libraries have done, and it’s a little bit different than defending the record,” Langdale said. “By the time the Institute is focusing on a problem, there’ll be new information and new perspectives shaping the policy debate, beyond what happened in the Bush administration.”

Six prisoners break out of jail using a nail clipper

Six prisoners in Canada used nail clippers and other makeshift instruments to break out of prison. While fellow inmates blocked the guards’ view, they were able to dig through to an outer wall, which they then scaled to escape. They were later recaptured and said they never expected to get away with it but the work gave them something to do.

A government report has made more than 20 recommendations to improve security at the prison in Saskatchewan. It had been examining how the prisoners managed to escape from the Regina correctional centre last summer. The report said investigators could accept inmates deceiving staff on a particular shift but not that “an entire corridor of inmates can deceive at least 87 corrections workers… and engineer an escape of this magnitude”.

The prisoners, four of whom faced murder charges, used modified nail clippers and other tools to remove a heating grill and chip away at the brickwork until they were able to smash through the wall.  They were able to toil away at this while their friends blocked the view of the staff by playing cards in the corridor. The six inmates escaped the compound in the prairies of central Canada by using blankets and sheets to scale the outer walls. “We didn’t think we would get away with it,” one escaped prisoner told the investigating team. “We started working on it. It was something to do and we just kept at it. When we didn’t get caught, we picked our night and just went.” The Saskatchewan government has accepted the report’s findings and said it will build a new C$87m ($68m; £49m) remand centre.

Why the Republicans should keep quiet about earmarks

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wants you to know that he voted against the $410 billion spending bill President Obama signed into law on March 11. His fellow Republicans “tried to cut the bill’s cost. Our ideas would have saved billions of taxpayer dollars. Unfortunately, every one was turned aside.” Well, not every one. According to this spreadsheet prepared by Taxpayers for Common Sense, the spending bill incorporates 53 ideas put forth by McConnell himself in the form of legislative earmarks. Far from lowering the spending bill’s cost, they increased it by $76 million.

Compared with his fellow Republicans, McConnell is a relative piker. Here is a list of the Senate’s 10 biggest earmark hogs, based on dollar amounts in the spending bill:

1. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.: $474 million
2. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.: $391 million
3. Mary Landrieu, D-La.: $332 million
4. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa: $292 million
5. David Vitter, R-La.: $249 million
6. Christopher Bond, R-Mo.: $248 million
7. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.: $235 million
8. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii: $225 million
9. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.: $219 million
10. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa: $199 million

No fewer than six out of these 10 senators are Republicans, including the two top earmark hogs, Cochran and Wicker. Cochran, Wicker, Bond, and Shelby at least had the decency to vote for the bill after they stuffed it with earmarks. Vitter and Grassley followed McConnell’s hypocritical lead, inserting earmarks but then voting against the final bill, knowing it would pass anyway. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), who because of a legal dispute over election results doesn’t even have a Senate seat and isn’t likely to recover it in court, nonetheless managed to rank in the top third of earmark hogs with a haul of $109 million. His Democratic opponent and the likely victor, Al Franken, got none.

Remember this next time you hear Republicans piss and moan about Democrats’ spendthrift ways.

Tony Melendez plays the guitar with his toes

Tony Melendez was born with no arms, a consequence of his mother being given thalidomide during her pregnancy.  Still, Tony has been brought up a deeply spiritual man, and uses his talents to play the guitar and praise God every day.  An inspirational story.

Landing through the clouds at Guarulhos Airport

I imagine you have to have utter faith once you are in the middle of the clouds and fog that the plane is on the right course, and will land on the runway and not on one of the thousands of buildings in São Paulo.

Salgueiro Campeã

Robert Mugabe Prepares Quarter of a Million Dollar Birthday Party

Supporters of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe have raised $250,000 (£176,000) for his 85th birthday party on Saturday, state media reports.

Former opposition leader, now Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, will attend the bash, the AFP news agency reports. The lavish celebrations come as Zimbabwe asks other African countries for $2bn (£1.4bn) to rescue its collapsed economy. They have said they would try to get donors to restore budgetary aid. But the southern African ministers did not offer any concrete pledges themselves. Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation says that 3,894 people have now died from cholera since August last year, from more than 84,000 reported cases.

Mr Mugabe turned 85 on 21 February but his party is being held a week later. The party is being held in the north-western town of Chinhoyi. Harare businessman and Zanu-PF official Philip Chiyangwa donated $110,000 (£78,000), The Herald newspaper says. Last year, Mr Tsvangirai criticised Mr Mugabe’s birthday celebrations as “a gathering of the satisfied few”.

Mr Mugabe swore in his long-time rival in a power-sharing government earlier this month. The leaders of Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) are meeting later on Friday to review their participation in the unity administration. Some are concerned that Mr Mugabe has unilaterally appointed senior civil servants, while opposition activists remain in custody. These include MDC treasurer Roy Bennett, who the party has nominated to be deputy agriculture minister. He has been accused of involvement in a plot to topple Mr Mugabe.

After a two-day meeting of regional ministers in Cape Town, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said: “The ministers responsible for finance and investment undertook to pursue measures in support of Zimbabwe’s economic recovery programme, namely, collectively engaging bilateral and multilateral donors through SADC [Southern African Development Community] and the African Union.”

Western donors have resisted African requests to help rescue Zimbabwe’s economy. They say they are waiting for proof that the unity government is really working. Zimbabwe has asked for emergency aid to revive public services and the business sector. But as the summit began on Thursday, local people expressed concern as to whether their country could afford the aid burden, says the BBC’s Mohammed Allie in Cape Town. He points out that South Africa has recently lost thousands of jobs, particularly in the mining, clothing and motor car industry.

Mr Tsvangirai said last week it would cost as much as $5bn (£3.5bn) to fix Zimbabwe’s economy. The new administration urgently needs to tackle an economic meltdown that has led to the world’s highest inflation, food shortages and a cholera epidemic. More than half the population is believed to need food aid, while just 10% of adults have a regular job. The Herald quotes African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka as saying that Zimbabwe’s economic recovery plan merits support. But he said Zimbabwe’s foreign debts of $5bn (£3.5bn) had to be addressed, before more aid could be sent.