Newsflash from the White House! Mandela no longer on official US terrorist list.
The US government's reputation as a world-leader when it comes to pioneering political stances is yet again highlighted by the announcement (less than 48 hours ago and barely twenty years after his release) that Nelson Mandela, someone the rest of the world had so far naively assumed was a notorious, dangerous and undesirable terrorist was, in fact, NOT a notorious, dangerous and undesirable terrorist but a great statesman and the closest thing humanity has to a modern saint..
Our heartfelt thanks to US administrations (present and past) for staying ahead of the curve and leading us all the way to the true, definitive state of enlightenment..
Amen
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
So.... in the news today... historic elections in Turkey, unprecedented floods in England, mayhem in Iraq, dramatic tensions between the UK and Russia....
Yet, as of 12pm today... the most read AND most emailed "news" article is .... *drum roll*
voila! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6913310.stm
It's a crazy world, I tell ya!!!
Yet, as of 12pm today... the most read AND most emailed "news" article is .... *drum roll*
voila! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6913310.stm
It's a crazy world, I tell ya!!!
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Saturday, July 23, 2005
It's not that there's been nothing worthy of comment from yours truly over the past nine months, it's just that I've been increasingly feeling the seriously dispiriting uselessness of words, of thoughts, of ideas...
Gloomy stuff eh? But not to worry, it was just the cheap coffee I've been drinking by the gallon.
If you need adequate political education look no further than www.chomsky.info oh and for those of you spotty bespactacled right-wing groupies who drool over mark steyn's every syllable, feel free to re-heat the anti-chomsky cliche-soup, it's been stale for forty years and will remain so for yet more centuries to come.
Now, the London bombings.
It's quite interesting, watching the bullets fly between the I-told-you-so brigade and the time-to-kick-the-pakis-out nutters but I'm pleased to say there's been some sensical stuff being said too. I'm disappointed The Spectator, of which I'm an avid subscriber and fan, has chosen to go the limp easy way of crass demonisation masquerading as objective tut-tut-ing. But it seems the fashionable thing to do and there's nothing stopping Boris Johnson from trying to ride a trend.
Enough for now. And: Watch this space... No really, I mean it this time.
Gloomy stuff eh? But not to worry, it was just the cheap coffee I've been drinking by the gallon.
If you need adequate political education look no further than www.chomsky.info oh and for those of you spotty bespactacled right-wing groupies who drool over mark steyn's every syllable, feel free to re-heat the anti-chomsky cliche-soup, it's been stale for forty years and will remain so for yet more centuries to come.
Now, the London bombings.
It's quite interesting, watching the bullets fly between the I-told-you-so brigade and the time-to-kick-the-pakis-out nutters but I'm pleased to say there's been some sensical stuff being said too. I'm disappointed The Spectator, of which I'm an avid subscriber and fan, has chosen to go the limp easy way of crass demonisation masquerading as objective tut-tut-ing. But it seems the fashionable thing to do and there's nothing stopping Boris Johnson from trying to ride a trend.
Enough for now. And: Watch this space... No really, I mean it this time.
Monday, October 25, 2004
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...
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...
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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