Oh Well.
It's been 6 months since my last entry and frankly, I'm not surprised!
This is the thing about blogging, it does seem, so often and so intensly, to be a rather pointless exercise. The total readership of this blog is yet to reach the double-digit mark. Dismal indeed!
And yet.
So. In the past 6 months we've had:
The handover of something called "National Sovereignty" (or some other laughable euphemism) to the unelected (and unelectable) Iraki Interim Council by the American rulers (yes, not "rulers").
The last stretch of the presidential race (if you've just said "what country?" then go away and may you rot in a walmart fridge you bloody timewasters!). Kerry is predicatbly numb and nunbing, Bush is excelling as an amazingly accurate parody of himself and the neck-and-neck polls are sure to give the media here and there lotsa reason to engage in pretty effusive salivation.
Christopher Reeve is no longer. It's a shame.
Derrida is dead. He is Algerian by birth which certainly contributed to that usual tingling of guilt that occurs when you find yourself wishing you had paid attention to someone's work and life as soon as you hear of their death...
This blog is hopefully back into decently-updated-mode so do watch this space...
Monday, October 25, 2004
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
On the menu this past week: Sore Throat, Running Nose and Hearty Coughing Fits... The best of states for lucid punditry you would agree.
When the little guy goes off the script
There we go again, first it was the naughty saddamites (about 12 0r 13 of them) who were repsonsible for the rather impolite reaction to american liberation. Then it was the arab/foreign fighters too hateful to stand the sight of peacfeul free irakis playing monopoly with all-american heroes. Then it was the sunni triangle of square-headed stubborn bitter irakis who hated to see the balance of power restored in favour of the shia majority.
And now for the next trick: The latest shia uprising is by a fanatic militia, followers of a demented clerik who is causing needless trouble and making life hard for his fellow american-loving citizens. The american press has gone wild over the need to "Defang" this heretic and the Pentagon doesn't do ambiguity: "This will not be tolerated".
When the little guy goes off the script
There we go again, first it was the naughty saddamites (about 12 0r 13 of them) who were repsonsible for the rather impolite reaction to american liberation. Then it was the arab/foreign fighters too hateful to stand the sight of peacfeul free irakis playing monopoly with all-american heroes. Then it was the sunni triangle of square-headed stubborn bitter irakis who hated to see the balance of power restored in favour of the shia majority.
And now for the next trick: The latest shia uprising is by a fanatic militia, followers of a demented clerik who is causing needless trouble and making life hard for his fellow american-loving citizens. The american press has gone wild over the need to "Defang" this heretic and the Pentagon doesn't do ambiguity: "This will not be tolerated".
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Oh Well
This is proving to be the Weekly Hich rather than a Daily one but how could anyone be surprised when there's a life to be lived?
And so on and so forth.
NEO-HITCHENS DISAPOINTS AGAIN! BRING BACK THE OLD HITCH
Christopher Hitchens, cultural muse extraordinaire is losing his touch slightly I'm very saddened to report. In his latest piece in slate magazine, The Hitch writes triumphantly that links between saddam's Irak and Al Qaida were known to exist within the Clinton administration. He points out that the current media hoopla over Richard Clarke's book and his 9/11 commission appearance has failed to mention his own pre-Bush assertions that Irak was linked to Al Qaida. Clarke even thought Irak was therefore partly to blame for Clinton's decision to bomb the Sudanese Al Shifa Pharmaceutical Factory in 1998, a much criticsed and rediculed attempt by Clinton to distract from the Lewinsky affair (at its hysterical peak at the time of the bombing), by no other than the Hitch himself.
Well, the problem with Hitchens' theory is that he doesn't seem to make a difference between "Iraki scientists" and "Iraki regime". Of course, it's a natural and reasonable assumption to think Saddam might have something to do with what some Iraki scientists are doing in Sudan (especially if they're providing support to al Qaida) but assumptions are not evidence and should not be treated as such.
Hitchens is of course a brilliant commentator and despite his increasingly eccentric views on the war topic he remains, even when wrong, a much more articulate and challenging presence than pretty much everyone else...
Let's see what the transition to Iraki self-government in June will lead to and I sincerely hope Hitchens is correct and democracy is on the way, despite all signs to the contrary..
This is proving to be the Weekly Hich rather than a Daily one but how could anyone be surprised when there's a life to be lived?
And so on and so forth.
NEO-HITCHENS DISAPOINTS AGAIN! BRING BACK THE OLD HITCH
Christopher Hitchens, cultural muse extraordinaire is losing his touch slightly I'm very saddened to report. In his latest piece in slate magazine, The Hitch writes triumphantly that links between saddam's Irak and Al Qaida were known to exist within the Clinton administration. He points out that the current media hoopla over Richard Clarke's book and his 9/11 commission appearance has failed to mention his own pre-Bush assertions that Irak was linked to Al Qaida. Clarke even thought Irak was therefore partly to blame for Clinton's decision to bomb the Sudanese Al Shifa Pharmaceutical Factory in 1998, a much criticsed and rediculed attempt by Clinton to distract from the Lewinsky affair (at its hysterical peak at the time of the bombing), by no other than the Hitch himself.
Well, the problem with Hitchens' theory is that he doesn't seem to make a difference between "Iraki scientists" and "Iraki regime". Of course, it's a natural and reasonable assumption to think Saddam might have something to do with what some Iraki scientists are doing in Sudan (especially if they're providing support to al Qaida) but assumptions are not evidence and should not be treated as such.
Hitchens is of course a brilliant commentator and despite his increasingly eccentric views on the war topic he remains, even when wrong, a much more articulate and challenging presence than pretty much everyone else...
Let's see what the transition to Iraki self-government in June will lead to and I sincerely hope Hitchens is correct and democracy is on the way, despite all signs to the contrary..
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