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Friday
1 October 2004
US Presidential Debates
I'm not following today's US presidential debates, because I don't think the first one is all that important. It's the second one I want to see. If Kerry doesn't get a massive boost in the polls after the first debate, I expect to see subtle indications of desperation in the second. If Kerry shows up at the second debate in a stained suit that looks like he's been sleeping in it, sporting a two-day beard, taking pulls on a half-empty bottle of scotch ,and screaming "Make me president, you load of *$%@&ing peasants!" before leaping off the dais to sexually molest a female reporter, then I will suspect that his campaign is not going well.
Speaking of Supermen...
Truth, Justice, and the Swedish Way
The Leisten family in Sweden have run into legal troubles after they tried to name their new-born son "Superman." According to the BBC report, "Local tax authorities refused the request, saying the name could lead to the boy being ridiculed in later life."
It is rumoured that the mother countered that in the event, her son would merely give the offending party a hot foot with his heat vision.
Apologies
Many of you may have tried to access the site only to find all sorts of missing pages and error messages. There was a major problem with the server files that sent most of the site into the æther. After a day of loading, fiddling, and working with tech support, we should be fully up and running. Thank you for your patience.
Monday
4 October 2004
It's So Crazy That it Just Might Work!
I've heard the cracks about Kerry being the French-looking candidate, but this is a new one from the New York Times at last Thursday's debate:
Mr. Kerry moved his hands almost continuously, at one point folding them over his heart like a French mime as he explained that he felt "nothing but respect" for Tony Blair and British soldiers serving in Iraq.
I've heard of the theatre of politics, but this is getting to be a bit much.
Tuesday
5 October 2004
X-Prize Won!
SpaceShipOne has hooked the X-Prize. Looks like the era of private manned spaceflight, at least the suborbital variety, has arrived.
Eugenics for the Masses
Peg Tittle has a sickening editorial in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. In it, she raises the proposal that parents should be licensed and that no one should be allowed to bear children until they have been properly trained and board certified. She tries to justify this on the grounds that sex has nothing to do with reproduction anymore (which should surprise my wife) and we already vet those using exotic reproductive technologies.
This is about as clumsy an argument as they come (for a "philosopher," the woman doesn't even understand the concept of a prime mover or the fallacy of Circulus in probando). Aside from the false analogies with motor cars and the incredibly controversial nature of reproductive technologies, Ms. Tittle also ignores the fact that we do have a way of regulating childbirth and making sure that couples aren't creating children without rhyme or reason; it's called marriage and it's the reason why bastardry held such a stigma in more enlightened times.
Quite frankly, the whole thing smacks of eugenics. Ms. Tittle speaks glowingly of being able to screen out defectives from future generations. Yes, and by her logic "they" can make sure that undesirables are kept down; "overrepresented" races, classes, and sexes (Tittle regards men as particularly undesirable) are suppressed; children are properly indoctrinated in the correct way of thinking (No Christians or other nuts like that); and generally treat us all like the families of pagan slaves, which is what we would become. Once you cede the principle, the rest follows.
Oh, Ms. Tittle does provide the caveat of The Handmaid's Tale as her belated counter argument, but I suspect that from her bleatings about an impending American theocracy she is less bothered by the idea of reinstituting slavery than by who would be holding the whip. I rather think that Ms. Tittle sees herself and her lot as the bestowers of licences rather than the ones being subject to them.
Not that it matters in the case of Ms. Tittle, who is "childless by choice" and says,
In short, those of us who have purpose and value in our own lives have no need of kids - or heaven. Those of us who don't, pass the buck.
A Counterproposal
Philosophers should be licensed by the state and should not be allowed to practice until they can demonstrate a firm mastery of logical fallacies and should not be allowed to express an opinion on any topic that they do not hold an additional licence for. This would be called the shut the **** up about things that you know nothing about clause.
Conkers: the hidden menace
Children at Cummersdale primary, Carlisle are being instructed not to play conkers without wearing protective goggles.
Yes, I well remember my schooldays when sad columns of conker-blinded boys would shuffle across the playground holding on to one another's shoulders lead by a feeble one-eyed lad, limping painfully from a near-fatal hide-and-seek accident, to the basket weaving class. We dare not lose another generation!
Mt. St. Helens
We're keeping an eye on developments on Mt. St. Helens, which is sighing and heaving like an unpunctured jacket potato. Whether it just steams away, blows with a minor cloud of ash, or does another region-clogging explosion is still in the lap of the gods, but we're ready for the worst with our home emergency kit, car kits, and general sense of paranoia working in our favour. I've just laid in an extra supply of soy milk for the daughter and ale for me, so we're set to take the worst in our stride.
Janet Leigh Dies
Actress Janet Leigh passed away on Sunday, age 77. The members of her fan club will assemble at a remote motel bathroom for a minute's shrieking.
Wednesday
6 October 2004
Column Crash
The day was eaten up by major meetings followed by a major family celebration for some major good news, so today's column got the major squeeze.
Thursday
7 October 2004
The Perils of Nappy Changing
"Okay, okay. Vindaloo baby formula was a bad idea."
Friday
8 October 2004
A Modest Proposal
Every
day brings more news that shows that if it’s a choice between the United
Nations and a pond full ducks to deal with security issues, I’m going to
learn to start quacking. Ever since the end of the Cold War we have seen
the UN drop the ball in crisis after crisis. Genocide in Rawanda, Bosnia,
Kosovo, and now the Sudan; The Oil for Food scandal; Iraqi bribery of the
Security Counsel; monstrous regimes such as Communist China, Libya, Syria,
and Zimbabwe, serving on human rights committees; Iraq before the war slated
to head the arms control committee; the bumbling of the UN weapons
inspectors; the mismanagement of every refugee crisis; and the craven
self-interest of every UN mission abroad; these have all brought the UN into
justifiable disrepute. Far from being a parliament of nations and the
arbiter of world peace, it is the talking shop of tyrants and a slush fund
for manipulative bureaucrats dedicated to lining their own pockets while
pushing around Third World peasants.
I’d like to think that this is the result of a good organisation gone bad. Certainly we all remember old movies from the ‘50s and ‘60s showing the UN wisely deliberating about the state of the world with august gravity as the member delegations strove toward a semblance of world peace, but we now know that that was never the case. The Cold War left the UN on the sidelines as the superpowers battled for world domination and because of this, we imagined that the UN simply had its hands tied. But it is clear that the UN wasn’t helpless due to circumstance. It was by its very nature weak, ineffectual, and prone toward favouring the tyrannical and the corrupt. Currently, there is a new effort to expand the Security Council to include India, Brazil, and Germany. That is a classic example of the UN at its worst. The problem with the Council is not that there are too few members, but that there are too many. And the same is true of the General Assembly. It doesn’t matter how vile a dictator you are, all you need is a country and two box tops and you’re in.
No, what we need is not UN reform, but UN replacement. That is why I put forward the following modest proposal. I submit that the US and Britain should walk away from the UN and start their own organisation: the Alliance of Free Nations (AFN). Catchy name? Maybe. Maybe not. Don’t care. What is important is that it be an organisation that is an improvement on the old. To do this, the AFN would differ from the UN in these specific ways:
- The Alliance of Free Nations is a military alliance and network of free trade zones dedicated to the policy of deposing tyrants and installing democratic, free market governments throughout the world
- The new AFN is to be invitation only.
- There are three levels of membership: Basic, Full, and Security Council Member
- Before Basic (non-voting)
membership can be offered, the nation in question must meet certain
minimum requirements:
- Invitation by the General Assembly
- Sponsorship by at least one Security Council member
- Requires supermajority approval of Assembly
- A free, democratic, representative government with a free press and independent judiciary
- A capitalist free-market economy
- Signatory in good standing of the Nuclear Anti-Proliferation Treaty, Geneva conventions, and other agreements that any civilised country would sign
- The ability to pay fixed, flat-rate minimum dues and put up a deposit equivalent to five years membership. After five years membership, all dues and their amounts are voluntary
- Unconditional agreement to the right of existence of all other member states (don’t like Israel or Taiwan? Too bad)
- No nuclear or other WMD arsenals
- Agreement to become a protectorate of the Security Council or a Security Council member state (this only applies to Basic membership)
- Agreement to join free trade zone comprised of Assembly members
- Basic members receive:
- Free trade zone privileges with Basic and Full members
- Right to debate in the Assembly
- Full military protection by the AFN
- Full membership of the assembly
requires in addition:
- Invitation only by the Security Council
- Unanimous consent without abstention of the Security Council
- Supermajority approval of the assembly
- Additional fixed dues and a ten year deposit. After ten years, dues and amounts are voluntary
- Signing a mutual defence pact with all other full members
- Be able to provide minimum required men, ships, planes, tanks, armaments, and support units for mutual defence and sustain a defence budget equivalent to 5% of GDP minimum
- Military units must be compatible with NATO standards
- Agreement in principal to forming a free-trade zone with other Assembly members, though participation is voluntary
- Full members receive:
- Right to vote in assembly
- Right to petition Security Council
- Free trade zone privileges with Basic and Full members
- Security Council membership
requires in addition:
- Invitation only by the Security Council
- Requires unanimous consent without abstention of the council, but no assembly approval.
- Additional dues and a twenty year deposit
- A still active and credible nuclear deterrent force deployed openly previous to 1968 (Yes, it is a closed club)
- Military of a mandatory size (10% at least of US forces) and character (combat capabilities compatible with US forces)
- Possess a force projection capability. That is, able to deploy unilaterally an expeditionary force anywhere in the world and maintain it in the field for an indefinite period of time
- Formal military alliance with other council members
- Forms free trade zone with other Security Council members
- The Security Council also has
these characteristics:
- There are no rotating or temporary members
- Is sole arbiter of deployment of new AFN forces for mutual defence
- Does not prohibit member states from acting unilaterally unless such action is regarded as a threat to member states or world security
- All members recognise formally that the body is not an arbiter of morality or of international law, but a military and trade alliance
- It is an organisation entered into as a multilateral treaty with no designs on compromising the national sovereignty of member states.
- The AFN reserves the right to intervene in the internal affairs of non-members if it is determined that a threat to member nations or world security exists or if the nation in question is engaged in crimes against humanity, sponsoring terrorism, or the development of WMDs
Granted, this will probably be a small club at first, consisting of the USA, Britain, Poland, Australia, Italy with the US and UK making up the Security Council and a few microstates in for the free trade and guaranteed defence, but I’d rather see a slowly building AFN on the side of the angels than a fast growing one that let in a single dictator or slacker state out for a free ride. But if this took off, no doubt we’d see a lot of free countries facing off against a clutch of petty dictators realising that they’re facing a growing military and economic alliance, and every night the Mullahs and Dear Leader lost sleep over it, would be a sign that the world is heading in the right direction again.
Monday
11 October 2004
Enjoy a Day in the Country… Or Else
The BBC has reached the point where you can’t parody it because it does such a good job all by itself. With terrorists running amok, the American elections looming, genocide in the Sudan, and Tony Blair going on about that new house of his, what is the Beeb’s new crusade? Not enough racial minorities are taking holidays in the country!
One would have thought that where people choose to go on their holidays is up to them and if they choose to go to Spain instead of canal boating that’s their business, but not to the hard-hitting reporters at the BBC who cut through the fog and see the real issue:
Is the countryside a no-go area for minority communities? Is there passive apartheid as Britain's race watchdog chief claims?
Ah, yes that must be the reason. If not enough minority picnickers are seen in Ashdown Forest it must be because it’s a “no-go” area. Heaven knows from my own experience that if I go admiring the bluebells with a heavy suntan a local starts screaming, “We don’t want your kind here!” and plinks at me with a small-bore rifle. It usually turns out to be the Lord Mayor of East Grinstead. And “passive apartheid?” The truth of this is so self-evident from the notorious checkpoints on the Yorkshire moors where goon squads routinely assault motor charabancs full of Pakistani day-trippers.
Of course, the BBC hasn’t any facts to back their assertions up other than what they admit are anecdotes and official spokesentities who “believe” that minorities are made to feel “uncomfortable.” Never mind that all it takes to bring the comfort level down for anyone is facing an eccentric landlady in Kendal, or that the sinister statistic (how they tabulated it is beyond me) that “only a tiny fraction of visitors to the countryside are of ethnic minority origin - just 1%” is risible when you consider that the entire minority population of Britain is 5%. But why point that out when you can make thinly veiled accusations that country folk are a load of racist yahoos who bar non-whites from setting foot outside of the major metropolitan areas?
None of this is as surprising as it is risible. The BBC is notorious for being as inbred a society as any place outside of a revival of Li’l Abner. Reporters and editors reinforce one another’s fatuous prejudices and are as unlikely to run up against a sane person who will point out that a man’s holiday is nobody’s damn business but his own as I am to meet the Red Queen in a biker’s pub. That comes with the territory, as does the condescending attitude toward minorities, the contempt for the countryside, and the hard-wired reaction on the part of the BBC that “something has to be done about it”— preferably by a large government ministry at great expense to the taxpayers. If things run to form I have no doubt that we will soon be hearing about questions being raised in parliament, select committees issuing stern reports, naked accusations of racism levelled against anyone wearing wellies, followed by the herding of all crofters into political re-education camps… sorry, sensitivity training courses and a stern announcement that the army will be going into Bradford and Brixton to round up non-white potential tourists and hold them at bayonet point as they are forcibly packed for a government-mandated three day weekend at an officially approved B&B in one of the new Minority Tourist Intensification Zones in Devonshire.
A good time will be had by all.. under penalty of six month’s imprisonment.
Tuesday
12 October 2004
New Ape Species
According to reports, a new species of ape as large as a gorilla and highly aggressive has been discovered in the Congo. The Royal Geographic Society has gone on record as stating that this is either an astounding new advance in primitology, or merely a repeat of that unfortunate episode when “Big Wilf” went on a camping holiday in Nepal.
Flu Vaccine Shortage
There is a reported shortage of flu vaccine in the United States, which means that I probably won’t get one and since my daughter can’t use the vaccine because of its egg base, my wife will be the only one in our family who won’t be at risk this winter. Before she had a chance to get too smug about it, I pointed out that she’d be the one left alone to fight off the technophobic vampires.
Voting with Your Feet
The OAP audience had the most refreshing reaction to the Tom Hank's remake of The Ladykillers that I've seen in years.
If only more cinemagoers would realise that money is money and do likewise when unexpectedly trapped in a hall with the latest Hollywood abomination.
Women "Better at Holding Drink"
A scientist at Kentucky University in the United States has determined that women are better at holding their drink than men. That's as maybe, but I want to know how he got the grant. "Well, I'm going to get a lot of men and women, get them hammered and.... oh, never mind."
How Many Dead Constitute a "Nuisance," Senator?
John Kerry gave the New York Times Magazine an interview where he compares the threat of terrorist attacks to gambling and prostitution. He says: "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance."
The world tried that for thirty years and all we got to show for it was a lot of rubble and corpses. I really do try to give Kerry the benefit of the doubt. I do not want to believe that he regards a twenty dead here, a hundred dead there, and the odd 3000 every decade as a "nuisance," but sometimes I wonder if he is even aware that there is a real, honest to God war going on.
John Howard Wins in Australia
Terrorists unable to pull off another Spain. Media respond with sullen silence.
Christopher Reeves Dies
The
actor who defined the character of Superman for a generation of movie goers
passed away
yesterday due an infection brought on by bed sores.
Paralysed since a riding accident in 1995, Reeves's fight against his condition and campaigning for medical research showed that there's more to being the Man of Steel than bending girders in your bare hands.
Wednesday
13 October 2004
You Can Always Take One With You
A very hard but necessary column by Mark Steyn. It resonates particularly with me because his policy while travelling in Iraq was basically the same as mine.
It's been years, but I still have the cold sweats when I remember the time when I was on an excavation in Israel and a load of us spent our day off at a local beach spot on the Dead Sea. The people we'd come with had already gone home and we'd stayed too late for the bus service back to Jericho where we were based, so we flagged down a taxi driven by a Palestinian and the three of us; a young Swedish bloke just entering University, an American girl not much older, and I got in and we headed north as the sun went down.
It was your typical taxi ride in the desert with the usual dry, samey scenery punctuated by rusty piles of scrap that had probably been sitting there since General Allenby last past through those parts. Suddenly, the driver veered off the main road and bucketed up a side track that wasn't much more than a shallow rut in the ground and before your could say "kidnapping" we were winding through the foothills at high speed in darkness so complete that we could have been going through a coal mine for all I knew. The driver wasn't what you'd call the chatty sort and my Arabic wasn't good enough to ask whether this was a standard terrorist abduction or if this was a private op where the objective was the girl while the Swede and I got the chop.
I slipped my pocket knife out, opened it, and spent the next thirty minutes holding the blade under my thigh hoping the bastard didn't have any friends waiting at the other end. I don't know what the Hell I would have done, but afterwards the Swede and I agreed that it was even odds whether we would have sold our lives dearly to protect the girl or if we'd have tried the Navaho Indian trick of screaming and begging.
All turned out to be academic. In the end we rounded a corner and bounced down a goat path into the lights of Jericho. Thank God the driver turned out to be just a fare gouger adding a few more miles to the meter! He probably spent his ill-gotten gains cleaning the flop sweat out of the back seat, but I still had to grant his initiative. Never the less, I resolved that I was never going to travel in the Middle East unless I had a Walther PPK along.
Today, I'd add an extra clip for good measure.
Thursday
14 October 2004
Iranian Interviews
The BBC took another step closer to cloud cuckoo land with this interview piece regarding Iranian opinions of their country’s nuclear weapons… Sorry, “power” programme. Bear in mind that these are photo interviews, so the local secret police will have it easy to determine whom they should have a little chat with. Not surprisingly, the opinions were overwhelmingly supportive of the mullahs with two qualified “nos.” If you find this at all surprising and feel that it is a reliable reflection of Iranian public opinion, then you are BBC material. Also, I want to talk to you about some swampland in Florida.
I wonder if the BBC realises that man in the street interviews in a dictatorship where they put women to death for being rape victims is not likely to be very credible. Maybe they just didn’t notice the way that the interviewees’ eyes kept shooting left and right warily as they fumbled for their “official answers to be given to gullible infidel journalists” handout from the propaganda ministry.
This sort of thing reminds me of a joke I once heard about the late and unlamented Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu:
A British reporter went to Romania to find out what people really thought about their leader Nicolae Ceausescu, but wherever he went people shunned him like he had the evil eye and refused to speak a word to him. Finally, the reporter found one man who said that he would tell him what he thought of Ceausescu, but that it was too dangerous to do so in the city where there were so many spying eyes and listening ears. The man lead the reporter out of town and into the country. Leaving the road, they followed an overgrown trail into a stand of trees. The man looked around the woods carefully and after a final check of the bushes for hidden microphones, he whispered into the reporter’s ear, “I like him.”
Surgeons 'Rebuild' Patient's Face
That’s what happens when you don’t pay your bills.
The King’s Touch is to be Reinstated
John Edwards claims that if John Kerry is elected president he will make the lame walk! I haven't seen anything like this since the reign of Queen Anne.
Friday
15 October 2004
An Ambiguous Outing
"When Bob said he had something to tell us, I thought it meant he was gay. Mind you, I'm not ruling that out, but..."
Monday
18 October 2004
Invasion ala Carte
The key to dealing with an invasion by the lobstermen is to make sure you have a ready supply of melted butter and champagne on hand at all times.
And some nice, hot French bread.
And maybe a light salad to start.
Excuse me, I'm feeling a bit peckish.
Tuesday
19 October 2004
Farscape Revisited
After making one of the most boneheaded decisions in television history, the Sci-Fi Channel has made partial amends by airing a special four-hour conclusion to the Farscape series. I'm generally sceptical of such "special events," as they are usually warmed over retreads of series and films that jumped the shark long ago, but last night's airing shows that O'Bannon et al haven't lost the edge which made Farscape such a delight to watch. If you haven't seen it yet, I won't throw in any spoilers, except to say that Aryen and Crichton come back to life (no surprise there); our heroes' plans, as usual, fall apart when you least expect it; and that Rigel suffers an indignity that you would have thought even he would have been spared.
Blogging on the Run
I've started a writing contract for a client that will involve a lot of out of office work for a few months and been between travel time and having to juggle Emma minding schedules with Mama some of these entries might get a little sporadic as far as uploads are concerned. Upload I shall, however!
Wednesday
20 October 2004
Today’s Safety Tip
“Mum! Dad’s trying to fix the lights again!”
Thursday
21 October 2004
Invaders with Big Heads
Okay… We’ve got big-headed aliens, grave robbing, and looks like a bit of necrophilia in the offing as well. I am not going to touch this one with a barge pole.
Friday
22 October 2004
Syrian Chemical Weapons Impasse Resolved
LONDON – The European Union appears to have resolved a year-long dispute with Syria over its weapons of mass destruction program.
Officials said Brussels and Damascus have agreed on a clause that addresses Syria's WMD programs. They said the clause does not stipulate that Syria must dismantle its programs, rather that Damascus would not proliferate biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.
Question: Does selling them to terrorists or using them in the Sudan count as "proliferation?"
EU Reacts to Syrian WMD Programmes
"I'm shocked, shocked that the Syrians are dealing in weapons of mass destruction"
EU Prepares Latest Offer to Iran
Diplomatic sources say the European package would give Iran access to imported nuclear fuel and other perks in return for a total suspension of its own work on the nuclear fuel cycle.
That's what I like about the EU! When faced with a load of raving madmen bent on getting their hands on nuclear weapons, they boldly leap into action and offer up perks in hopes of a... wait for it... suspension!
EU Reacts to Iranian Atomic Weapons Programme
"I'm shocked, shocked that the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons."
Monday
25 October 2004
Alfie Update
Alfie, the classic 1966 drama starring Michael Caine and directed by Lewis Gilbert has been remade with Jude Law in the title role. Not surprisingly, it's been received coolly by the critics. That's coolly, as in, "The villagers reacted coolly to Dr. Frankenstein's experiments by storming the castle with torches and pitchforks." Not only has the action been moved from '60s London to 21st century Manhattan, but the whole point of the original story was jettisoned somewhere over the Atlantic. The eponymous Alfie, originally a misogynist who called the women he bedded "it" and hadn't room for anyone in his emotional life except himself has now become a charming operator without the dark Cockney masculinity of Caine. Where Caine's Alfie preyed on women and exhibited the cynicism of a working class bloke fiddling the system, Law's Alfie has been strained through a filter made up of several layers of Hugh Grant and comes out as classless semi-gigolo whose chief sin is being a bit shallow, and is transparent to everyone around him. Unlike the original character, who goes through a harrowing journey of self-revelation and reform, this one just needs to be sat down for a cuppa and a good talking to. To be blunt, the current Alfie comes across more as a women's picture than a straight drama.
If that isn't the worst, the part of Ruby, which was played with such steel-cored ruthlessness by Shelly Winters has been given to political activist and part-time actress Susan Sarandon, whose talent peeked during her days on Search for Tomorrow. As for the abortion of Denholm Elliot's character (Sorry, I couldn't resist), of this I shall not speak.
In defence of this travesty, Jude Law told the BBC that the original story couldn't be told today because things have changed too much. An Alfie who had such a callous attitude toward women wouldn't be believable, therefore it was necessary to tone him down several notches. This would be a reasonable argument if it weren't a complete load of twaddle. Maybe things have changed beyond recognition in the world of Hollywood, but on planet Earth there are more than enough Alfies to go around and more than enough women willing to be used and abused by them. The point about the 1966 version was not that people found Alfie Elkins "acceptable," but that they were willing to have such a bounder, whom they regarded as a bounder, shoved so uncompromisingly into their faces by Gilbert.
Film remakes are a fact of Hollywood life and one could write a fair sized book about them (My idea! I get first dibs!), but one would think that there would be one common sense rule. If "times have changed" so much that the original story can't be placed in a modern day setting, then don't. Make it a period piece and go with that. It's not that difficult to grasp. When Sherlock Holmes was first brought to the screen, Queen Victoria was still fresh in living memory and it was simple to put Holmes and Watson in the present. In fact, it was a practice that continued right through the Second World War. By 1950, however, Britain had changed out of all recognition and since then Sherlock Holmes has been relegated to the world of gaslights and Hansom cabs. The same has happened with hard-boiled detectives of the Sam Spade template, cowboys (remember that the first Westerns took men straight off the ranch and in front of the camera), and Tarzan; and will probably be the fate of James Bond if his popularity holds for another generation. Why not the same with Alfie Elkins?
Maybe someday someone will learn this little lesson and we'll get a remake of Alfie that will be set in 1960s London again. Until then, I'm going to go to the DVD to find out what's it all about.
Hell in a Hand Basket Department
The Royal Navy has accepted its first Satanist rating. I sincerely hope that this is just someone who is having the Navy on and that his superiors are unwilling to rise to the bait. On the other hand, if this man truly does worship the enemy of all mankind and the Admiralty thinks that having a self-confessed traitor to God in its ranks doesn't matter, then our civilisation has just dropped another rung closer to the Pit.
As security risks go, you can't get any worse than this. Being a senior ex-KGB officer in the pay of Iranian intelligence, freelancing for the Red Chinese, and sporting an "I love Bin Laden" badge would pale by comparison.
And to think that I couldn't get into nuclear submarines because I had a Russian girlfriend living in Leningrad!
So, Assassination is On the Table Now?
On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?
I try very hard to give the Left the benefit of the doubt and not associate them with the raving fringe lunatics who think that Karl Rove has cloven hooves, but when the Guardian publishes a piece that ends like this, then I can't help but conclude that the other side has completely lost it.
Update: For some completely unexplained reason the Guardian has yanked the article. Hmmmm.....
Tuesday
26 October 2004
Poachers from Beyond
"I say! This is a private grouse shoot! You can't land that thing here, you bounder!"
Wednesday
27 October 2004
There Were Never Any WMDs… Unless It Suits Us
If you’ve been following the news
you’ve probably heard about the 350 tons of exotic explosives that went
missing from an Iraqi nuclear weapons site. When this first hit the
pavement yesterday it was played up as if the terrorists never had an ounce
of TNT to call their own until now, the entire lot of staggeringly powerful
munitions was lifted right under the noses of an entire US Army battalion
last Sunday afternoon, and that what isn’t being made into A-bomb detonators
will be packed into the foundations of New York skyscrapers by tea time.
Twenty-four hours later, things have calmed down a bit as more reliable facts start coming in. Though it hasn’t been completely nailed down yet, it now seems that the story is more of a non-starter. The explosives in question are nothing special: HDX, RDX, and some semtex thrown in for good measure— not very nice, but not exactly doomsday weapons. Before the Gulf War the weapons inspectors wanted to keep an eye on it because Saddam’s scientists were using it to build nuclear weapons, but in typical UN fashion they didn’t just seize the whole lot because Saddam wanted it for “construction” and he was such a trustworthy guy. Also, the circumstances were such that though the explosives in question may have been stolen after the Allied invasion, it is equally, if not more, likely that they were moved by the Iraqi forces during or even before the war started. In fact, a couple of tens of tons had already vanished by 2002.
This sort of thing wouldn’t normally have got has much attention as it has, but these are not normal times. 350 tonnes of explosives seems a lot until you consider that there is something like 600,000 tons of the stuff floating about Iraq at the moment and that arms going missing is not that strange a thing in war time. If the Coalition had left permanent guards on every weapon cache they found during the invasion it would have tied down 50,000 men easily, and Saddam’s men were actively dispersing armaments ahead of the liberation force, which didn’t make the job any easier. If this had been 1945, no one would have done much beyond issue orders for the disarmament chaps to keep their eyes peeled. This being 2004, however, normal military considerations and even commonsense are out and it can only be a disaster due to the hopeless incompetence of Bushitler and his lackey in Downing Street in handing over to terrorists (who were never in Iraq) the weapons of mass destruction (that were never there in the first place). Or at least, that’s the conclusion that certain people want you to jump to.
What is curious about the story is that it was released to the world through a letter from Mohamed ElBaradei, who is seeking a third term as head of the International Atomic Energy commission, which the Bush administration opposes on the grounds that he couldn’t keep a box of Swan Vestas out of the hands of a two-year old. Also, there are reports that CBS knew about this, but was sitting on the story until the Sunday before the American elections for maximum impact, but their hand was forced when the LA Times got wind of the same lead. But none of the above prevent John Kerry from going full force as if he'd finally clutched the magic sword that will give him the White House and damn the consequences.
It’s one of those episodes that make me wonder if things can sink any lower in this election. After a year of claiming that Saddam was never a threat and that the WMDs were just a pack of lies, John Kerry and his supporters are howling that thanks to Bush’s incompetence terrorists have got hold of Saddam’s Arsenal of Death and will be nuking Chicago before the week is out. You have the UN, who have no love for Bush, releasing this titbit of news just before the election and you have a news service that was already trafficking in forged documents sitting on the story so that it could be released so close to polling day that the president wouldn’t have had a chance to investigate, much less respond.
In peacetime, this sort of behaviour on the part of the UN, “journalists,” and supposedly responsible politicians would be reprehensible. In wartime it is nothing short of doing the enemy’s dirty work.
Badhouskeeping
James Lilek's new book, Interior Desecrations : Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s came out the other day in all its frightening glory. If you enjoyed his earlier Gallery of Regrettable Food, you will love the sweet pain of the Decade that Taste Forgot. Clearly the Amazon reviewers did:
“Sweet smoking Jesus, what was the matter with these people?”
Who knows? But we do need to accept the fact that otherwise sensible American housewives who would never grind a quaalude into their morning coffee or sleep with their tennis instructor nevertheless went daft during the 1970s and performed heinous acts of design on unsuspecting homes.
Thursday
28 October 2004
Column Crash
Recovering from previous night when Emma wouldn't go to sleep until one AM, so Daddy just had a twelve hour snooze orgy, which sort of zapped the writing schedule.
Friday
29 October 2004
Happy Halloween
Happy Halloween from Ephemeral Isle.
A Special Treat!
Ephemeral Isle
And now, Ephemeral Isle presents a restaging of Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre of the Air adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds adapted for Internet:
"Hey look, it's the Martians!"
"They're destroying the world!"
"*Cough*"
'They're dead."
Goodnight, everybody!