mr. zilla goes to town

another day at the office for curious george

2007-04-26T08:11:00.000+01:00

WASHINGTON - As the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House clash over an Iraq spending bill, with President Bush vowing to veto it because it contains withdrawal deadlines, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that a solid majority of Americans side with the Democrats.

The pessimism about the war has also likely contributed to the country's overall sour mood. According to the poll, only 22 percent believe the country is on the right track. That's the lowest number on this question since October 1992, when Bush father's was running for a second term — and lost.

Houston, we have a monkey...

it was a squash ball, not a hicksie

2007-03-31T00:41:00.000+01:00

The Age:

Military judge Colonel Ralph Kohlmann asked Hicks if he agreed that he had "never been illegally treated by any persons in the control or custody of the United States" during his detention in Afghanistan and subsequent transfer to the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.

Hicks replied, "yes."

Emphasis added, because a man shut up in a cell barely able to see his OWN lawyer for the last five years is the best person to determine whether the conduct of the US government is illegal. How this matter of fact can be determined by plea bargain is beyond me.

the accountability 10-minute-moment

2007-03-28T23:44:00.000+01:00

Yeah yeah. Abu Gonzales, unwarranted wiretaps, radical politicization of the Department of Justice, underminings of the underpinnings of the very rule of law in the United States.

Wha'ever.

Come warm yourself by the fire and watch GSA muppet Lurita Doan feel the chinese water torture of congressional oversight. Maybe it's just because I used to have to be at Senate Estimates hearings in Canberra, so this gives me a right old laugh.

Seriously though... I just spent a three weeks in Kenya where it's been estimated that 8% of GDP gets flushed down the toilet due to corruption, and by some measures this is one of the better countries in Africa. Entrenched political corruption is the very reason DFID are about to pour GBP 100 million at NGOs - 85% of which pass to southern partner organisations - for their Governance and Transparency Fund later this year.

This video is shocking to me because we're seeing something so shameless in the USA, finally exposed to a little sunlight after over half a decade of the Republican congress's wilful ignorance and coverups. So fuck you very much for lowering the bar so far.

with clouds

2007-03-25T14:01:00.000+01:00

.

Sky first, then shoes.

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excuses, excuses

2007-01-31T09:43:00.000Z

Busy busy busy. Excuses excuses, take 'em as read... now stop wasting your time here and go enjoy the stunning new photography online at Ms Z's Wisteria Station.

This is possibly my favourite, but the images caught in Paris in the December archive aren't to be missed either.

a letter from guantanamo

2007-01-12T07:39:00.000Z

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba —

I AM WRITING from the darkness of the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo in the hope that I can make our voices heard by the world. My hand quivers as I hold the pen.

Read it.

ISG report hailed

2006-12-13T09:18:00.000Z

Borowitz (via Surfdom):

Just days after the Iraq Study Group issued their downbeat assessment of the war on Iraq, Iraqi insurgents announced that they have formed their own study group and have released their own report, one that offers a much rosier picture of the Iraqi conflict.

The Insurgents Study Group, a collection of ten elder insurgents charged with the duty of assessing the war from the insurgents’ point of view, today issued a 147-page report which became an instant bestseller among insurgent readers across Iraq.

“The war in Iraq is going great and is improving every day,” the Insurgents Study Group’s report begins.

In contrast to the Iraq Study Group’s report, which advocates that the United States and its allies change their strategy in Iraq, the Insurgents Study Group recommends “not changing a thing.”

“As insurgents, our strategy could be summarized in three words,” the report concludes. “Stay the course.”

Sad innit.

black gold of the sun

2006-11-29T07:56:00.000Z

Two German scientists, Dr Gerhard Knies and Dr Franz Trieb, calculate that covering just 0.5% of the world's hot deserts with a technology called concentrated solar power (CSP) would provide the world's entire electricity needs, with the technology also providing desalinated water to desert regions as a valuable byproduct, as well as air conditioning for nearby cities.

CSP technology is not new. There has been a plant in the Mojave desert in California for the past 15 years. Others are being built in Nevada, southern Spain and Australia. There are different forms of CSP but all share in common the use of mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays on a pipe or vessel containing some sort of gas or liquid that heats up to around 400C (752F) and is used to power conventional steam turbines.

The mirrors are very large and create shaded areas underneath which can be used for horticulture irrigated by desalinated water generated by the plants. The cold water that can also be produced for air conditioning means there are three benefits. "It is this triple use of the energy which really boost the overall energy efficiency of these kinds of plants up to 80% to 90%," says Dr Knies.

This form of solar power is also attractive because the hot liquid can be stored in large vessels which can keep the turbines running for hours after the sun has gone down, avoiding the problems association with other forms of solar power.

Read the whole thing. And then can someone please explain to me why there's a desperate need to spend the next 40 years building nuclear reactors in Australia?

military jazztice

2006-11-25T09:08:00.000Z

Even Military bands, although I am a pacifist, cheer me up.

Kurt Vonnegut

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

Groucho Marx

As you can see, the value of military music divides some of the greatest thinkers of the modern age. Military musicians, on the other hand, are a wholly less controversial topic - especially when you can point to the example of Salah Ragab, who double-timed as a bandmaster in the army of Nasser, as well as founding the Cairo Jazz Band. You can hear a small sample of his work on the latest textureDJs podcast. Also, other ace music.

single-source-solution sickness

2006-11-21T09:37:00.000Z

A single government enquiry designed to pave the way for the adoption of nuclear energy in Australia, rather than work from first principles to discuss the full range of options and alternatives in a progressive national energy portfolio? It's like offering a no-bid contract to Halliburton: there's no doubt they've got the capacity for large scale service delivery, but by failing to consider all options, you've boxed yourself in for a shellacking down the line.

Oh yeah, and John Howard now comes on board with the idea Australia is a part of Asia, and not in fact situated in the mid-Atlantic? Welcome to 1994, ya wally.

we must destroy the rule of law... in order to save it!

2006-11-15T19:12:00.000Z

Thick as a tin of treacle you left in the fridge by accident one night on the turps, that's Ralph Peters in the New York Post:

To master Iraq now - if it could be done - we'd have to fight every faction except the Kurds. Are we willing to do that? Are we willing to kill mass murderers and cold-blooded executioners on the spot? If not, we can't win, no matter what else we do.

Yes, yes! Because extra-judicial executions of captives is just the ticket for defeating an insurgency and bring hope of victory on the home front! You frickin' moron!

Robert McNamara, and his mea maxima culpa over Vietnam:

We failed then as we have since to recognize the limitations of modern high technology military equipment and forces in doctrine in confronting unconventional highly motivated people's movements...

...our misjudgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of a history, culture and politics of the people in that area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.

We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of large scale U.S. military involvement.

...we didn't recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are on a mission. To this day we seem to act in the world as though we know what's right for everybody. We think we're on a mission. We aren't. We weren't then and we aren't today. And where our own security is at stake, I'm prepared to say act unilaterally, militarily. Where our security is not at stake, not directly at stake, narrowly defined, then I believe that our judgement of what is in another people's interest, should be put to the test of open discussion, open debate, and international forum. And we shouldn't act unilaterally militarily under any circumstances. And we shouldn't act militarily in conjunction with others until that debate has taken place. We don't have the God-given right to shape every nation to our own image.

(applause)

Well, you can clap but we're still trying to do it, and that's sad.

This speech was given in 1995.

he's back.

2006-11-11T02:27:00.000Z

Part the I, Rusmfeld redux: Bush picks out of retirement a flunky of his father's who has a usefully vague memory around Iran-Contra and was known to politically massage intelligence.

Part the IIeux, seafood reflux: whale sushi is on the menu. I suspect the delusionary would enjoy the odd bite.

from the kosophere

2006-11-08T23:57:00.000Z

I know some of my 17 readers aren't quite so cut to the quick on US politics as I am, though you'd be hard pressed to live on this planet and not notice the rout (some would say: thumping) that went on last night across the pond. I mean shit, you kick George Bush in the arse and Donald Rumsfeld gets a bloody nose: who woulda thought?

I'm one lazy mofo of a blogger though, and I'll get back to referencing/linking these quotes from dailykos writers tomorrow, but here's the gist.

Not only did we take the Senate, take the House, and destroyed Republicans at the state legislative level, but we didn't lose a single senate seat, we didn't lose any House seats, we didn't lose any governorships, we didn't lose any state legislatures. It was a rout of epic proportions.

Democrats are now the one-party government in 15 states -- including New Hampshire for the first time since 1874, and Colorado for the first time since 1960. No party has controlled as many as 15 states since the Republicans achieved that exact number after the 1994 election.

When you can't get an abortion ban passed in freakin' South Dakota, America isn't trending conservative. When you can't get a gay marriage ban passed in Arizona, America isn't trending conservative. When opposition to gay marriage bans was more than 40% in 5 of the 8 bans that passed, America isn't trending conservative. When a majority of Americans choose Democrats to represent them, America isn't trending conservative.

The question about conservatism has always been could it mature enough as a governing philosophy to replace 20th century progressivism, and provide America with a true alternative governing approach? The Bush era has answered that question, and the answer is no. Given the extraordinary failure of conservative government to do the very basics - keeping us safe, fostering broad-based prosperity, protecting our liberties, balancing the books and not breaking the law - history will label this 20th century conservatism a success as a critique of 20th century progressivism, but a failure as a governing philosophy. It never matured into something more than an ivory-tower led and Limbaugh-fed correction to a progressivism that had lost its way.

Despite the many billions spent in building this modern conservative movement, history will label it a grand and remarkable failure. And we will look back at 2006 as the year this most recent period of American history - the conservative ascendency - ended.

You got it? This is a shutout to end all shutouts. The cleanest sheet since the puritans boarded the frickin' Mayflower. Not ONE Democratic incumbent got 86'ed. That is one hell of a powerful swing - think of Robert De Niro as Al Capone wielding baseball bat to the back of the head. Good night.

2006-11-05T14:32:00.000Z

an end to the clash of ciggalizations?

tim blair = a wally, tim blair = a wally

2006-11-03T17:14:00.000Z

Say, Mr Lambert, do you mind if I borrow your piñata?

Clever clogs climatologist and master logician Tim Blair thinks its inconsistent that I loathe the crappy weather and lack of daylight hours in the English winter, but at the same time also aren't real keen on us givin' the jandal to climate change.

Which, it's expected, will make Britan colder due to the disruption of the Gulf Stream.

Zing zowie kapow! Got me, Blair! I repent!

But seriously, what could prompt a blogger of such stature to take a clumsy swing at this minnow? Well, because I called his position on climate change petulant and idiotic in a thread over at RTS. In case you don't read Blair's blog, and there's no reason why you would except for the occasional pith and vinegar, this is what he said on the issue:

“There is one position even more morally culpable than failing to take preventative measures, and I’m proud to say it’s mine: encouraging the continued (and increased) consumption of fossil fuels.”

Man, the only argument to be had is whether this guy is a turkey or a plastic turkey.

I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor

2006-11-03T08:01:00.000Z

The horror.

The horror.

The horror:

An American general in Baghdad called Iraq a "work of art" in progress yesterday in one of the most extraordinary attempts by the US military leadership to put a positive spin on the worsening violence.

On a day in which 49 people were killed or found dead around the country, Major General William Caldwell, the chief military spokesman, argued that Iraq was in transition, a process that was "not always a pleasant thing to watch."

"Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition. A lump of clay can become a sculpture. Blobs of paint become paintings which inspire," Maj Gen Caldwell told journalists in Baghdad's fortified green zone.

throw the bastards out

2006-10-28T12:22:00.000+01:00

One could go on and on about the scandals and failures of the past six years; to document them all would take . . . well, it would take more than ninety-three fucking days, that's for sure. But you can boil the whole sordid mess down to a few basic concepts. Sloth. Greed. Abuse of power. Hatred of democracy. Government as a cheap backroom deal, finished in time for thirty-six holes of the world's best golf. And brains too stupid to be ashamed of any of it. If we have learned nothing else in the Bush years, it's that this Congress cannot be reformed. The only way to change it is to get rid of it.

Rolling Stone's five step guide to being the worst congress ever.

2006-10-24T08:34:00.000+01:00

unthinkful

Of cheese dreams & stranger things

2006-10-24T08:01:00.000+01:00

Look, Ms Z and I just had to have a 7.15am conference on the curious incident of some decidedly barmy dreams in the nighttime -- mine which involved the geographical relocation of Wales to border upon Austria, from wherein a tiny mountain village in the far east one could press a small button marked "Train to Zlotky, dinner and Madonna: £13", visit the San Francisco Bay Bridge-sized unworld caverns beneath the train station in seach of a loo on the provided tandem bicycle, and decide which small stone marker one would choose to eternally expire by in order that your family would receive a pint of flavoured yogurt, and Ms Z's which involved a mixture of outright sleep-laughing and orca noises -- but none of the above is as ludicrous as this story.

The moral of the story: you can march in lockstep to war with them, you can sign away your quarantine laws to them in the name of free trade, and still a sixty year alliance relationship counts for nothing with this Bush administration. The only appropriate response is to recall the ambassador. (Though I suspect that even now he's downstairs in the second sub-basement of 1601 Mass Ave, arm wrestling with the Defence Attache over the precious black-gold contents of the latest diplomatic baggie, and can't come to the phone).

Also, don't eat greek feta & capers risotto too close to bedtime.

money where the mouthing off is

2006-10-13T08:04:00.000+01:00

Sure, there's a twenty point differential in favour of the Democrats in polling at the moment. But they're usually based on a small sample (usually about a thousand) run nationwide, and not necessarily reflective of where the swing seats will go. But this makes it kinda official where the conventional wisdom lies - the Iowa Electronic Markets reflect a pool of people putting a stake on the upcoming congressional election. And the price of buying stock in 'Democratic House/GOP Senate' just exceeded 'GOP House/GOP Senate' for only the second time this year.

Yay. Now don't fuck it up, Democrats.

axis of failure

2006-10-11T21:58:00.000+01:00

Iraq: A war of choice, on a series of false pretexts, and over half a million dead.

Iran: Their nearest strategic rival has been eliminated, opening the doors to regional preeminence. And blind US belligerence only legitimizes their hardline government... and their nuclear ambitions.

North Korea: It didn't have to be this way.

Any way you look at it, it's an axis of miserable failure.

hot competition

2006-10-01T15:03:00.000+01:00

I recently had the misfortune of some exposure to the recent Robbie Williams single, Rudebox.

Watch the video if you have to, but at least turn the sound off. At least Robbie has the decency to barely show up in the clip - I think he's embarrased to put his face to it. Seriously, this tune might even eclipse the world record for instantly turning the listener from ignorant indifference to visceral distaste, a mark set at 0.3 seconds in 2000 by the Artful Dodger and Craig David.

UNfunny

2006-09-28T09:48:00.000+01:00

The Venezuelan President went to the U.N. and called Bush the devil. You could tell Bush was offended, because his tail stopped wagging. Bush said, "I would love to answer your ridiculous charge that I'm the devil, but I'm a little too busy this week trying to unite my party behind torturing people." — Bill Maher

Via Past Peak.

let the sunshine in

2006-09-27T08:35:00.000+01:00

I recently came across one of the most depressing sites on the internet. It was a brief table that laid out in precise astronomical detail the changing number of hours of daylight that a person lingering in the latitude and longitude of Oxford was in for over the next three months. I can’t bear to repeat the figures it showed for December. Living in the UK is really quite marvellous, but the approaching winter grey & dark is the one thing that fills me with dread.

Still, I’ve been heartened by news that some disinfecting sunshine will at least (and at last) begin to penetrate a couple of other dark corners soon:

The German government has decided to back the European Commission’s campaign to reveal the names of the farmers and farm businesses benefiting from the Union’s €60 billion annual spending on agriculture, according to EU officials.

Germany was one of five member states which were resisting Kallas’s initiative, and its decision to back the campaign is a major boost for efforts to bring the names of recipients into the open. Campaigners for greater transparency over farm support payments welcomed the decision. Jack Thurston of farmsubsidy.org, which monitors which member states publish what information, said that getting Germany on board would encourage the few remaining countries to follow suit. “There is a huge domino effect here. It becomes extremely difficult to sustain a policy of secrecy once other countries agree to transparency,” he said. Berlin’s support is particularly important because Germany is the largest gross and net contributor to the EU’s budget, which will average €123bn a year in 2007-13. It is also a major beneficiary of financial support for farmers and rural areas, receiving around €6.5bn in 2005.

And across the pond, the US House and Senate have now both passed bills to vastly increase the visibility to the public of federal porkbarreling:

WASHINGTON --- House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.), U.S. Senators Tom Coburn (Okla.), Barack Obama (Ill.), and Tom Carper (Del.), and Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis (Va.) today announced that they have reached agreement on legislation to increase accountability and transparency by establishing a public database to track federal grants and contracts.

"This process has focused on enhancing the accountability and transparency in the federal budget process," Blunt, Boehner, and Davis said. "The federal government awards approximately $300 billion in grants to roughly 30,000 different organizations. Each year, roughly one million contracts exceed the $25,000 reporting threshold. We need to be sure that money is spent wisely. Our legislation creates a transparent system for reviewing these expenditures so that Congress, the press, and the American public have the information they need to conduct proper oversight of the use of our tax dollars. The package we've agreed to move requires the Administration to establish searchable databases for both grants and contracts."

Can’t wait to watch the fireworks as the US political blogs get their claws into this database. I do have an autumn resolution though to try to move on from my addiction to US politics. It's been going on two years since I left DC, and it's surely time to divert some time into speculation upon the impending Brown vs Cameron matchup.

After the midterms, anyway.

only the coolest 4 year old on the planet.

2006-09-21T07:05:00.000+01:00

absurd skills. mad charisma. wow.

And now check out what his two year old brother can do.

now there's something curious

2006-09-13T07:04:00.000+01:00

In today's Guardian:

The point at which President Hugo Chávez decided that London should serve as a model for services and governance in Caracas was not immediately apparent. He came in May, visited City Hall amid much controversy and fanfare, and was soon gone.

But the result of his visit is likely to be an extraordinary deal struck with London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, that would see Caracas benefit from the capital's expertise in policing, tourism, transport, housing and waste disposal.

London, meanwhile, would gain the most obvious asset the Venezuelans have to give: cheap oil. Possibly more than a million barrels of the stuff.

I can't wait to see the Tories marching in the street, chanting "No governance for oil! No governance for oil!" But wait, there's more. Turns out to not be completely unique. I knew Venezuela had an oil-for-doctors exchange going on with Cuba, but not this:

Last year Venezuela gave more than 45m litres at 40% below market prices to the poor of Boston and New York.

I found that a rather impressive stat until I noticed the litres part. Who talks about oil in litres? Silly Guardian journos copying out talking points I imagine. That's only about 300,000 barrels, or about 15% of US oil consumption for just 1 day a year, so the one million barrels mooted for London is a slightly larger token then.

I wonder to what extent Chavez' oil-barter diplomacy is a deliberate side-step around supporting the US dollar as the standard of exchange. There's been some talk about the establishment of a Euro-denominated Iranian oil bourse as a counterweight, which would incidentally thoroughly undermine US economic hegemony, causing some speculation that this was in fact one of the key but unspoken reasons for US emnity towards Iran.

But it seems from this recent interview with Chris Cooke, the originator of the idea, that plans for the Iranian bourse aren't as far along as imagined. Nor, at least in this interview, is his intent to upset the strategic apple cart.

CC: If we could just look at the Euro first - there aren't enough Euros to go around to even begin to cope with demand that would be needed if we were to start pricing in euros, and I don't think the European Central Bank would start printing those quantities, that would be almost a declaration of war by the ECB on the US. I don't see that as a practicable proposition. Other currencies I see as pretty peripheral. I don't see any other currency other than the dollar being fit for purpose.

Rather, he's looking to hamstring speculators and decrease volatility and possibly price:

If we could go back to your original proposal idea, which as I understand it is putting producers and consumers together - you described it as a "Napster" of the oil industry?

CC: Yes, the logic of the internet is to cut out unneccessary intermediaries - disintermediation - and to connect the ultimate buyer and the ultimate seller more directly. At the moment the middlemen own the market, and set the rules to suit themselves. Profits are far higher by the middlemen than they need to be. They are making super-profits because of the way the market is. I don't begrudge intermediaries a return on capital, but I do begrudge them a ridiculous return on capital, particularly when they are using unfair or inequitable ways of trading, abuse of market information, that sort of thing, which is definitely what goes on now.

Hmm. Bit of a relief really; a systemic change that would undermine the fragile stability of the US economy at this point would be bad for everyone. What a relief we can get back to only worrying about climate change and nuclear proliferation.

Merry Nine One One

2006-09-11T23:29:00.000+01:00

Georgie:

On this solemn anniversary, we rededicate ourselves to this cause. Our nation has endured trials, and we face a difficult road ahead. Winning this war will require the determined efforts of a unified country, and we must put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us. We will defeat our enemies. We will protect our people. And we will lead the 21st century into a shining age of human liberty.

Ummmm.... kay:

Women's groups in Afghanistan want an urgent meeting with Afghan ministers and MPs to protest against a plan to reintroduce the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice which was first set up by the Taliban.

media matters

2006-09-11T18:31:00.000+01:00

Al-Jazeera presents an object(ivity) lesson:

The summer of 2006 marked an important milestone for Arab media. Israel and Hezbollah were locked in a bitter conflict that would claim the lives of more than 150 Israelis and an estimated 1,000 Lebanese – a third of them children. Each day brought brutal new images of civilian casualties.

On American television, leading journalists, such as CNN's star presenters Anderson Cooper and John Roberts, regularly referred to Hezbollah as "terrorists" or a "terrorist militia," without bothering to attribute the label to Israeli or U.S. sources. But on the news broadcasts of the Arab world's dominant all-news channels, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, such polarizing language was rarely heard.

The irony, of course, is that Al-Jazeera was condemned by the Bush administration for using terms like "martyr," "aggression" and "terrorism" in describing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Arab journalists should be "unbiased" like their colleagues in America, was the constant refrain from Washington.

"The words 'terror' and 'terrorist' are not in our dictionary," Ahmed Sheikh, Al-Jazeera's chief editor, told me in late summer, as a shaky cease-fire took hold in southern Lebanon. "We only use them when we are quoting someone." Nor were dead civilians or fighters referred to as shaheen, Arabic for "martyr."

2006-09-05T08:26:00.000+01:00

He is the larger-than-life legend that leaps from your TV to teach and to fascinate. A man who embodies the purposeful strength and humour that symbolises Australia. A benefactor whose largesse affects thousands of people every year. He is a conservationist with tens of thousands of acres of natural habitat under his care. He's a staunch ally to the animals that call Australia home, and not just the cute ones. He has put himself at the service of governments and animal aid agencies worldwide. He is the publisher of scientific papers on Australian fauna. He is gifted, he is brave, he is a husband, he is a father, and he knows his wildlife. He is also crazy, crazy with a big heart. That's the kind of crazy the world needs more of.

This is Steve Irwin and this is his story.

how green was my valley

2006-08-31T17:02:00.000+01:00

Ferdinand Egede would be a perfectly normal farmer if it weren't for that loud cracking noise.

Global warming got you down? At least someone's happy...

our tomato

2006-08-30T21:08:00.000+01:00

I would say she's one of the most underrated photographers about, except she isn't - in fact there's an enormous photo she took of yours truly in the window of Oxford's premier bookstore that's testament to the fact. Not to mention the recent commissions, publications, sold pieces and 2007 calendar her work is already a feature of.

So hop off today's train a stop early, and stay for a while at Wisteria Station.

.

2006-08-19T19:36:00.000+01:00

Everybody thinks there was a conspiracy at Abu Ghraib. Everybody thinks there was an order from high up, or that somebody in command must have known. Everybody is wrong. Nobody in command knew about the abuse, because nobody in command cared enough to find out. That was the real problem. The entire command structure was oblivious, living in their own little worlds. So it wasn’t a conspiracy — it was negligence, plain and simple. They were all fucking clueless.

Joe Darby, the Abu Ghraib whistleblower, tells his story. Compelling.

Terrorists are amongst us.

2006-08-17T18:23:00.000+01:00

Don't believe me? Here's proof.

blog, interrupted

2006-08-14T11:29:00.000+01:00

Regular sporadic blog service will resume here at some point. In the meantime, here's something catchy to sing to yourself next time you're waiting to be strip-searched in the airport queue...

at last! some good news from Iraq!

2006-06-10T08:19:00.000+01:00

"The Zarqawi psy-op programme is the most successful information campaign to date."

stay the course

2006-06-07T08:06:00.000+01:00

Violent Baghdad deaths top 6,000.

The bodies of 6,000 people, most of whom died violently, have been received by Baghdad's main mortuary so far this year, health ministry figures show.

The number has risen every month, to 1,400 in May. The majority are believed to be victims of sectarian killings.

Still, good thing that the US has trained and armed so many Iraqi police - I'm sure it would be worse without them?

No Escaping Iraq Violence

Clad in camouflage uniforms, the gunmen came peeling through the thick morning heat in police trucks. They stopped at a downtown strip of travel companies where Iraqis gather each morning to board buses bound for the safer lands of Syria and Jordan.

The gunmen leaped to the ground, witnesses said, and they worked fast. They seized more than 50 bystanders, pulling men away from their families and hauling drivers from behind the wheels of the buses. They handcuffed the men, blindfolded them and stuffed them into the backs of the trucks like human loot. They covered some of their captives with sheets.

Witnesses said the kidnappers were outfitted in the uniforms and vehicles used by some of the special forces of the Iraqi police, overseen by the long-troubled Interior Ministry. Police units under the ministry have been accused of working as Shiite death squads on a campaign to eliminate Sunni Arab men. Police have also been accused of kidnapping civilians for ransom.

The straight-laced objectivity of the reporters talking about "kidnappers outfitted in police uniforms" is admirable in some respects, but how many stories about "men with hoses outfitted in firefighter's uniforms" would you have to read before doing away with the pretense?

Still, good thing that the US still has a presence of over 130,000 troops - I'm sure it would be worse without them?

Field commanders tell Pentagon Iraq war 'is lost':

Military commanders in the field in Iraq admit in private reports to the Pentagon the war "is lost" and that the U.S. military is unable to stem the mounting violence killing 1,000 Iraqi civilians a month.

Even worse, they report the massacre of Iraqi civilians at Haditha is "just the tip of the iceberg" with overstressed, out-of-control Americans soldiers pushed beyond the breaking point both physically and mentally.

The wife of a staff sergeant with Kilo Company, the Marine Unit charged with killing civilians at Haditha, tells Newsweek magazine that the unit was a hotbed of drug abuse, alcoholism and violence.

"There were problems in Kilo company with drugs, alcohol, hazing [violent initiation games], you name it," she said. "I think it's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha."

Optimism abounds.

trials & tribulations

2006-05-26T20:38:00.000+01:00

On Wednesday morning I tried to brush my teeth. Usually I don't find this too challenging. But on this special day, I spectacularly fumbled the toothbrush before it could get to my mouth, and sent it spiralling across the room and straight into the toilet bowl. Blip!

Until I get this sorted out, graduate past having a cork on my fork again, stop getting a furrow in my brow when I realise I've written 'latpot' on a sticky note when I meant laptop, deliver a few Key Deliverables, and buy some travel insurance, it may be a little quiet here over the next few weeks.

listen here

2006-05-14T13:51:00.000+01:00

What do Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Baretto, Tito Fuente, Ben Harper, the wonderful Billie Holliday-like Bajka, Jazztronik, Carmen McRae, Thea the barmaid, and some dirty old hip-hop from the Visioneers have in common? They're all featured in a new podcast over at textureDJs, of course. Go put it in your ears!

decisions, decisions

2006-04-24T20:04:00.000+01:00

You might want to go read George Packer's excellent article in the New Yorker that gives you the nuts and bolts of why the US has failed to get to grips with stabilizing Iraq, despite having people on the ground with the skills and passion to do so.

You could also listen to this week's ABC Background Briefing documenting the decay of democratic accountability in Australia's vital quarantine regulations in favour of adherence to WTO and FTA free-trade strictures.

That, or skip straight to listening to a few apologetic speeches by George Bush that just happen to have come from the brains and pencils of seven year olds. I love the one about lowering the prices of kids in orphanages. (But not in a creepy way.)

Whatever you want out there in the internets, you expect them all to come through the internet pipe the same. It's only repressive regimes that might want to block your access to particular content, or stop you having the full spectrum of choice of whatever search engine you want to use, right?

Not quite. What if your ISP has a financial interest in degrading your access to one site or service in preference to another? This trend is arguably the beginning of the end of the internet. So the thought for the day today is 'net neutrality'.

praise be. so long as 'be' is for bunny

2006-04-17T09:29:00.000+01:00

Well I hope you've enjoyed Easter, wherever you're reading around the world. Here in England life hasn't been so rosy lately. There's the bird flu on our borders, the ongoing and ever present threat of terror attacks that make our pants damp even as we play frisbee in the occasional April sunshine, and now this. With the Anglican Communion in dissarray at the country's spiritual borders, the pagan god of Easter - whose body is ritually consumed by the faithful on Sunday morn - has appeared to his followers:

A "monster" rabbit has apparently been rampaging through vegetable patches in a small village in northern England, ripping up leeks, munching turnips and infuriating local gardeners.

In an uncanny resemblance to the plot of the hit animated film "Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit," angry horticulturists in Felton, near Newcastle, have now mounted an armed guard to protect their prized cabbages and parsnips.

"They call it the monster. It's very big -- it's nearly the size of a dog," said Joan Smith, whose son Jeff owns one of the plots under attack.

"It's eating everything, all the vegetables," she told Reuters. "They are trying to shoot it. They go along hoping to catch it but I think it's too crafty."

Seriously what right-minded child wouldn't believe in a god like this? Believe in me and not only shall ye partake of my delicious body of chocolate, but I'll see to it that you don't have to eat your vegies either.

US considering providing nukes to Iran

2006-04-09T09:45:00.000+01:00

The other day I said:

I'm afraid that no matter which way we cut it, short of full scale invasion and permanent occupation of Iran, there is no way to physically prevent the eeevil Mullahs from developing their own nuclear weapons arsenal within the next 5-7 years.

Now you all just pay no attention to me - I failed to think as boldly and laterally as the White House is at the moment. Seymour Hersh has the details:

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.

[...] The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

Go read the whole article. While it's possible to construe this news as a deliberate leak, as brinksmanship and sabre-rattling to indicate to the Iranians just how serious the Bush administration is about making them back down, on past form I think it's better to assume that Bush is quite prepared to do exactly what he is preparing to do - attack Iran with nuclear weapons in an attempt to destroy their nuclear weapons programme.

Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars.

And then, we are in the abyss.

Update: Watch Hersh on CNN discussing the article. The nuance comes across a little more -- that the standard procedure in military planning is to put every option, absolutely everything including nukes on the table up front, and then walk backwards from that, documenting the decision to do so. Except the White House wouldn't:

Hersh: ...And then, of course, nobody in their right mind would want to use a nuclear weapon in the Middle East, because it would be, my God, totally chaotic. When the JCS, the joint chiefs, and the planners wanted to walk back that option, what happened is about three or four weeks ago, the White House, people in the White House, in the Oval Office, the vice president's office, said, no, let's keep it in the plan. They refuse to take it out. And what I'm writing here is that if this isn't removed -- and I say this very seriously. I've been around this town for 40 years -- some senior officers are prepared to resign. They're that upset about the fact that this plan is kept in. Again, let me make the point, you're giving a range of options early in the planning. To be sure of getting rid of it, you give that option.

Update II: Tim Dunlop has the scoop on US planning to invade Australia.

this is how the magic happens

2006-04-07T18:55:00.000+01:00

Just in case any ravers have the wrong tickets, Pearl Jam forbid the sale of glowsticks at their shows. For Pavarotti, there must be no flowers, not one, anywhere backstage. And especially not in the mandatory golf cart.

INXS require two masseurs, a table-tennis table, and a bottle of beaujolias. Frank Sinatra needed everything edible from lifesavers to chicken soup and dijon mustard and a serious bar list, while Jerry Springer expects neither alcohol nor pork, just pina-colada scented fog juice.

50 Cent's catering order includes a box of "Rough Riders" condoms - try not to think about that too hard - but that's put in it's place by James Brown's requirement for a full 186 inches of stretch.

All this and many more in The Smoking Gun's Backstage Pass archive. Now go procrastinate!

"Bush was right"

2006-04-06T08:31:00.000+01:00

Bush was right,
Cheney was right,
Condi was right,
You were right,
The right was right!

Watch out Bono, you've got some competition - soon these guys will be travelling the world, standing up for the enfranchised, sponsoring troubled CEOs, and campaigning against the existence of dastardly minimum wage laws, labour standards and environmental protections. Can you imagine how popular the Baghdad leg (and arm and leg and arm and torso and head, if you can find them all) of the album tour will be!

do androids dream of electric terrorists?

2006-04-01T09:15:00.000+01:00

When you're having dreams that Osama Bin Laden is now a nice polite young man with a tidier Ahmadinejad-style beard attending a Cambridge college, and comes to stay in your house and discuss his unrequited affection for Condoleeza Rice, after which you get out and plug in some guitars and jam together in the lounge room, singing "Bin Laden is staying at my house, my house"; when this is followed by a dream that you have to go down to a local Oxford cafe to provide some aid and comfort to Donald Rumsfeld who's upset because the President won't speak to him anymore, except in cabinet meetings, and even then he's snippy; maybe it's time to cut down on the news consumption just a little.

That, or the echinacea.

next, please

2006-03-30T19:34:00.000+01:00

Tragically, I'm afraid that no matter which way we cut it, short of full scale invasion and permanent occupation of Iran, there is no way to physically prevent the eeevil Mullahs from developing their own nuclear weapons arsenal within the next 5-7 years. It is within US, Russian and European power however to initiate a region-wide strategic de-escalation, which must begin with China and India, with the goal of engendering a virtuous cycle of non-armament, non-proliferation and safeguards on enrichment, if not actual disarmament in the short term.

I know that President Bush and Secretary Rice can do this, and will dedicate their every effort to this end for the closing three years of the Bush presidency. The stakes are too high for further scaremongering or distraction.

Ha ha ha! Just kidding!

Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reports in its latest edition, citing western security sources.

Cicero, which will appear on newsstands tomorrow, also quoted a US military analyst, John Pike, as saying that Saudi bar codes can be found on half of Pakistan's nuclear weapons "because it is Saudi Arabia which ultimately co-financed the Pakistani atomic nuclear programme".

The magazine also said satellite images prove that Saudi Arabia has set up in al-Sulaiyil, South of Riyadh, a secret underground city and dozens of underground silos for missiles.

According to some western security services, long-range Ghauri-type missiles of Pakistani-origin are housed inside the silos.

the money or the gun?

2006-03-27T22:36:00.000+01:00

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this ad in the sidebar of a conservative blog:

With yet another successful election, time may be running out to buy the New Iraqi Dinar before it hits the open market. It's now unbelievably affordable. The same amount that was once equal to over $82,000 can now be purchased for around $45. But, what happens when the oil really starts to flow?

Yes that's right - the Iraq currency has fallen to less than 0.05% of it's previous value. Which can mean only one thing, right? There's never been a better time to buy! Not only will you be getting in at the bottom of the market, but your savvy speculation is also demonstrating your confidence in the ability of the free Iraqi people to triumph over terror and build a prosperous market democracy in the heart of the middle east!

... Or at least that's what the advertisment from the scammers at Bet On Iraq would like you suckers to believe. XE.com has more.

market testing

2006-03-24T08:46:00.000Z

An Australian, a Canadian, an Italian and an Israeli are sitting in a bar.

The Australian notices that the back page of the magazine in front of him is the print version of the latest Australian tourism campaign. It’s got an expansive beach, the less-expansive beach babe Lara Tingle smiling into the camera, and “where the bloody hell are you?” fonted across the page.

So fellas, says the Australian, what do you make of this?

The Canadian, the Italian and the Israeli consider the image.

They consider it a little more.

“Well,” says the Italian, “that’s an attractive woman alright. And the beach, it looks nice. But you know, it’s not like there are no hot women and beaches in France, Greece, Spain, the whole Mediterranean. Brazil too. I say… so what?”

“It’s not really particularly distinctive,” says the Canadian.

“What about the tagline? We worked really hard on that tagline, you know.”

“I don’t get it,” says the Israeli.

“To be honest, it’s a little coarse,” says the Canadian.

$180 million well spent. I go buy the next round.

the immovable object and the irresistible force

2006-03-22T19:11:00.000Z

Bubbleboy:

President Bush said Tuesday that U.S. troops will be in Iraq after his presidency ends in 2009. "I'm optimistic we'll succeed" in Iraq," he insisted. "If not, I'd pull our troops out."

Colonel Larry Wilkinson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell:

I'm hearing from lieutenants, captains, majors, generals, many in uniform, many of whom were my students in years passed when I taught at the nation's war colleges. I'm hearing from the civilians who were foreign service officers, civil service and so forth in our embassy in Baghdad and I can tell you that the morale in the uniformed military is being impacted and I can also tell you that our ground forces are stretched to the point where you hear talk about withdrawal from Iraq. Within 24 months, we're going to have to withdraw from Iraq, whether the situation there, politically, economically and so forth, is adequate or not because we've stretched our ground forces to the point of breaking.

You know what pisses me off? That this failure of purpose, failure of coherence, failure of application called Iraq has surely poisoned the well for US (and probably UK) humanitarian intervention for at least a decade. Darfur? DR Congo? Who? Where?

bang for your buck

2006-03-19T11:18:00.000Z

How much are US taxpayers spending on domestic Homeland Security measures?

The President’s FY 2006 budget request includes a total of $41.1 billion for the Department of Homeland Security. This is an increase in total budgetary authority of 7 percent over the enacted FY 2005 funding.

Within DHS, how much is spent on transportation security?

For Fiscal Year 2006 the President's Budget requests $5.3 billion for the Transportation Security Administration.

That's a fair bit of money, $5.3 billion - practically enough to fund the US occupation in Iraq for weeks. So you think it might buy you a little bit of, say, transportation security? Ummm...

Imagine an explosion strong enough to blow a car's trunk apart, caused by a bomb inside a passenger plane. Government sources tell NBC News that federal investigators recently were able to carry materials needed to make a similar homemade bomb through security screening at 21 airports.

In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials.

Oops.

captain kurt

2006-03-14T19:38:00.000Z

Kurt Vonnegut doesn't know how to pull his punches. Never has. Which is great for us, but for poor Kurt I think it means he's got to bite someone's ear off before he feels like he's properly got the juices flowing:

Vonnegut takes an easy chair across from Prof. Manuel Luis Martinez, a poet and teacher of writing. He grabs Martinez and semi-whispers into his ear (and the mike) “What can I say here?”

Martinez urges candor.

“Well,” says Vonnegut, “I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president.”

Ding ding!

“The only difference between Bush and Hitler,” Vonnegut adds, “is that Hitler was elected.”

And, uh, doo-de-doo-doo:

“If you want really want to hurt your parents and don’t want to be gay, go into the arts,” he says.

Then he breaks into song, doing a passable, tender rendition of “Stardust Memories.”

“To hell with the advances in computers,” he says after he finishes singing. “YOU are supposed to advance and become, not the computers. Find out what’s inside you. And don’t kill anybody."

[...] “We are here on Earth to fart around,” he explains, and then embarks on a soliloquy about the joys of going to the store to buy an envelope.

[...] The greatest peace, Vonnegut wraps up, “comes from the knowledge that I have enough. Joe Heller told me that."

Well, except envelopes, obviously. Still, you know what they say, read the whole thing.

abort thought

2006-03-11T09:29:00.000Z

Come and see the faces of some of the more thoughtful foot soldiers of the US "pro-life" movement, as they experience a few moments of cognitive dissonance.

Yes, I think "pro-life" does deserve scare quotes these days, given they consider that the existence of an hours-old fertilized blastocyst, with precisely zero autonomy or higher brain function, to account for greater moral weight than the future of the women who, by law in South Dakota, must now carry any rapist's child to term.

love at first snippet

2006-02-27T21:08:00.000Z

I've got a crush on a French hairdresser.

i predict a riot

2006-02-25T10:11:00.000Z

It's the anti-vivisectionists versus the anti-anti-vivisectionists, at high noon in Broad Street today.

I hope there are no offensive cartoons involved or things could really get ugly.

Continued. Damn. Just your usual lot of people having a bit of a shout. Bloody ingrained culture of tolerance and free speech, that's what a couple of hundred years of democratizing (and three hundred Thames Valley Police deployed around the town) will do for you. Well done to the anti-vivisectionists for having better team play on the day, louder chants and more whistles in operation -- still, they've had a few more years practice. Top marks to the up and coming anti-anti-vivisectionists though, for having about double the number of players pull on the jumper and stomp about the town, and having a beaut "Vegetarians Against the ALF" banner for the first LCCCXVIII to run through.

don't ask, don't tell.

2006-02-20T23:15:00.000Z

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, in the spirit of open government, there’s a small accumulated backlog of information we thought it necessary to drop on the doormat while you’re off getting your knickers in a twist about Vice-President Cheney’s admirable but patently misguided efforts to personally see off the threat of the H5N1 virus from the American Homeland.

Electro is the new house;
Big room rinse out is the new bog room trance;
Jazz is the new nujazz;
Brokenbeat is the new breaks;
Funk is the new funk;
Reggae just is; and
Apparently, wearing nail polish keeps your hands warmer.

Thank you. You may now return to your scheduled crises du jour. Seriously, you can live on this planet with a y chromosome in your pants for a few weeks shy of three decades, and keep tabs on all the things that strike you as important, but there are some things it just never occurs to you to ask. What else aren't they telling us?

So while you're thinking about that, press this big happy pink button for some spankin' new thinkin' music. Or some thunkin' new spankin' music, if you prefer.

remember guantanamo?

2006-02-08T07:47:00.000Z

A high percentage, perhaps the majority, of the 500-odd men now held at Guantanamo were not captured on any battlefield, let alone on "the battlefield in Afghanistan" (as Bush asserted) while "trying to kill American forces" (as McClellan claimed).

Fewer than 20 percent of the Guantanamo detainees, the best available evidence suggests, have ever been Qaeda members.

Many scores, and perhaps hundreds, of the detainees were not even Taliban foot soldiers, let alone Qaeda terrorists. They were innocent, wrongly seized noncombatants with no intention of joining the Qaeda campaign to murder Americans.

The majority were not captured by U.S. forces but rather handed over by reward-seeking Pakistanis and Afghan warlords and by villagers of highly doubtful reliability.

Details at National Journal. When idiots publish deliberately inflammatory and insulting cartoons in the news, how predictable is it in this kind of climate that other idiots will go a bit na na? We've all got the universal (some would say god-given) right to choose to be proper twats, of that there's no doubt. Some days you just wish that less people would go down that road.

winter of discontent

2006-02-04T09:00:00.000Z

You would think that as friends and readers you would be spared the worst when I come down with a cold. Separated by a few or a few thousand miles, you don't have to sit by and put up with the sniffling, the nose blowing, the strepsil-sucking, the strepsil-chomping, the tossing and turning, the tickling in the chest that erupts into a stutter of coughs like an engine on a cold morning. All these are a royal pain in the arse and and make me just a charm to be around, and as they're going into their sixth day now there's no doubt that you're fortunate to be at more than arm's length. Particularly since there are about half a dozen tissues within arms length at the moment. Eww.

Now I wouldn't want you to feel I didn't love you all enough to include you in this where I can, so it's fortunate that the worst symptom of all without a doubt is the awful self-pitying male-pattern moaning and complaing about it all, that I seem to have about as much control over as a leaky nose. My god, it is pathetic to behold. Still, since I've got to drag myself out to the shops for more lemsip -- and probably into the office as well for a few hours -- maybe just take the rest of it as read, yeah? Cheers.

pop will whip itself

2006-02-01T21:38:00.000Z

via Fat Planet:

the five original members of devo get together in a studio, re-record their back catalogue with one main difference - the vocals are performed by a 12-year old girl called nicole, and the band are now dev2.0. the end result - dev2.0 seem to “belong” to disney, they are the new monkees, five 10-13 y.o.s mousketeers, making new videos to accompany old devo tracks. there’s even two brand new devo tracks on the album, released with a companion dvd on march 14. i’m simultaneously appalled and tickled red raw at the same time.

You can download the video from Disney and watch it here. And for some other froth and bubble video malarkey, go watch Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum liken putting a bumper sticker on your car to serving in the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tch, crazy kids!

get this in your ears!

2006-01-29T16:01:00.000Z

Funky lounge grooves! Just what you need on a Saturday night, and just the ticket to keep you cruising through the week at work. I've bottled an hour from last night's set at the Honeypot, Oxford's little red groove engine that could. Check out the tracklist and download the mp3 for your iPod at the new textureDJs podcast blogstation, or you can just instantly stream the mix via Odeo by clicking on this lovely big black button!

(And while you're over at Odeo, check out the Commonwealth Club of California's channel - most recently featuring a fascinating and damning speech by former UNSCOM inspector, Scott Ritter.)

always look on the bright side

2006-01-26T21:43:00.000Z

So you're Australian. Your conservative government more deeply entrenched in power than ever. It has greater control over the federal parliament than any power in almost thirty years. In the last six months it has set about destroying a hundred years of progress in enlightened labour relations. It's so bored of putting its Labor opponents to the sword, it's now begun to cannibalize its coalition partner, the rural hick inbred half-cousin that's always kept out of sight at weddings. Dickhead surf-bogans are smashing random wogs in Cronulla, and dickhead wogs are bashing random Anglos in Sydney's west.

Still, look on the bright side, at least you've had a century of enlightened labour progress. It could be worse; you could be American.

So you're American. Your radically conservative government has controlled the two electable branches of the federal government since 2000. The executive is so incompetently corrupt that the chief of staff to the Vice President is facing charges of obstruction of justice - the first time a White House official has been indicted for a felony in 143 years. The Republican Congress is so incestuously corrupt that the conviction of a single Bush-pioneer K Street lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, has implicated so many congressmen it could swing the 2006 mid-term elections against them. Your superpower military is grinding itself into hamburger in Iraq, with 70% of personnel rotating to serve in Iraq in 2006 on their third tour of duty. And despite blowing close to a quarter of a trillion bucks on the gambit, insurgent attacks are as frquent and deadly as they've ever been, Afghanistan is going back down the crapper, Osama Bin Laden is still podcasting his little kidneys out, and despite the addition of a cock-ring of a World War Two Memorial on the Mall, the Washington Monument when viewed from the feet of Abraham Lincoln still looks like the world's biggest double ended dildo.

Still, look on the bright side. At least you're still fighting the terrorists. Over in Palestine, they've just elected them to run the joint.

So you're a Palestinian. You've just elected Hamas to run the place: an organisation ideologically committed to the destruction of Israel, and responsible for dozens of suicide bombings and around 500 deaths since the intifada began. Israel, by the way, have in all practical (if not ideological) terms over the last few years committed themselves to the destruction of Hamas. If they don't behave themselves in power, then even by the perverted logic of the aforementioned podcaster Osama Bin Laden, the Israelis are gonna be sleeping so soundly behind their monster wall at night they won't even hear the random hellfire rockets landing in your towns.

Still, look on the bright side. Your newly elected leaders might be terrorists, but at least now they've got a slim shot at respectability. It could be worse, they could be the parliamentary wing of the British Liberal Democrats.

So you're a member of the parliamentary wing of the Liberal Democrats. After (I think) your party's strongest ever showing in a UK national election in 2005, you and your fellow members rounded on your virile, chummy and hard-boozing (but then apparently determinedly ex-boozing) leader Charles Kennedy and pulled the rug from under him. Christ, it'd be as if Graham Richardson had gone the squirrel on Hawkie after one too many lemonades celebrating the America's Cup victory in 1983. In the current leadership contest that has followed the spill, of the four gentlemen candidates in the gates, already not one but two have been forced out of the closet, one of them both married and having fornications with the occasional rent-boy, the other just a such a hypocritical ning nong even the readers of the Daily Mail can smell it.

If this disgraceful display - in political terms, I could give a toss about how some other people may see the "moral character" issues - leads to the dissolving of your support and relevance over the life of the current parliament, you'll know that you bunch of gormless gits have handed the next election to the Tories on a plate.

Still, look on the bright side. At least you've got a party to go to. (And chances are that after a few pints of gin, at least somebody is gonna get some, somewhere - with or without a mighty national cockumental dong.)

It could be worse, you could be George Galloway...

good morning iraq

2006-01-24T22:27:00.000Z

...because beheading videos are so 2004:

Shrouded in woollen ski masks in a makeshift television studio, members of one of Iraq's most ruthless militant groups debate tactics in a propaganda video aimed at gaining new recruits for the insurgency.

Insurgent group Ansar al-Sunna, which has kidnapped and killed foreigners and Iraqis, seems to have embarked on a more dynamic appeal to sell holy war -- the television studio interview. A masked man smartly dressed in a sport coat and identified as the head of the group's information section asks his guest about military strategy. The interview is interspersed with video images of young fighters firing mortars.

"Rockets are preferable in attacks on U.S. bases because they are outside cities and attacking police stations puts civilians at risk," says the interviewee, identified as a military expert from the same organisation. It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the video. But it contained images seen on many other militant discs.

The video looked like the insurgent version of breakfast television in Western countries, but with one crucial, incongruous difference -- both interviewer and interviewee conceal their faces with black woollen masks to avoid capture.

Now that's what I call embedded journalism. These guys might be a few years behind the US in media sophistication -- where current and former military personnel have been fixtures of the television pundit class since about 1990 -- but clearly they're quick learners. Still it seems that the lessons aren't all flowing in one direction in Iraq. How lucky we are that the strategists of the Axis Of Good are equally adaptive and responsive in their efforts to win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, as No Quarter's Larry Johnson in Washington reports:

Had dinner last night with an old CIA buddy who has just returned from Iraq with some discouraging news. Although our troops and intelligence operatives are killing scores of insurgents (my friend estimated the kill rate at 160 enemy per each friendly) the insurgents keep coming. As Sy Hersh predicted in last month's New Yorker, the military commanders decided to shift from ground confrontations to high altitude airstrikes. According to press reports on Wednesday, for example, the United States carried out 53 strikes inside Iraq. One of these, the mistaken bombing of a civilian home north of Baghdad, was condemend by Iraqi officials.

There should be no doubt our tactics have changed. The United States is relying more on aerial bombing, most of it high altitude or stand off, rather than close air support for troops on the ground engaged in a fight. Despite the promise of "precision" bombing, aerial strikes are anything but precise. They are very lethal and very powerful. On that front, a lot of insurgents, mostly Iraqis, are dying. But a bombing campaign, short of nuclear strikes that vaporize the whole country, cannot defeat an insurgency. We do not have enough planes or pilots, not to mention bombs.

Be in no doubt that dropping bombs from 15,000 feet on urban neighbourhoods is about as discriminating as a 1940s Alabama bus. Still, willy-nilly slaughter of random innocent victims seems to be doing wonders for the jihadi insurgency, so why not learn from the best, eh? You just wonder which side is going to trot out the "we have to destroy Iraq in order to save it" line first.

don't mind if I do

2006-01-23T20:21:00.000Z

I think if we're going to survive the mass culture world we live in, it behooves us to create. Yes really, bloody behooves. That's the damn word and the only word that sockets into my mind when I think about this.

At first I thought it was a way to survive, of escaping the slow fatality of consumption for something both higher and lower: the class of producer, not consumer. One whose choices are not chosen for them. He who writes scripts is more than the sum of his choices between the red shoe and the blue shoe. She who puts paint on canvas or light through a lens is more alive than the red or the blue. They who read, blog, ingest, synthesize, mix, remix, secrete and excrete their culture back at the world are more in control of how they relate to it. They who think about the lives in centuries past thrown willingly on the gears of the satanic mills to give us a mere eight hour day, revulse at millions of lifetimes each year spent motionlessly enthralled to a glowing, flickering, marketing delivery system.

But you know, I think it's not a dichotomy between being a producer or a consumer. The person who is one without the other must be one in a ten million: Mozart writing tunes stolen straight from the tongues of gods. We all have a choice though between active and passive consumption, and engaging in that more forcefully than reaching for the remote.

So let's all think. Talk. Write. Create. Do.

Choosing the time and place of our battles is surely the secret of our self-defence.

guidocalypse

2006-01-22T20:01:00.000Z

And you thought bad hair was owned by the 80s.

girona street art

2006-01-18T08:13:00.000Z

Girona is about an hour north of Barcelona by train.

The medieval town and old Jewish quarter are on the east bank of the Onyar river are a very enjoyable walk, and the Cathedral de Santa Maria nestled at the top of the hill, with the widest Gothic vault in Christendom, is quite a space. It was even enough to shake me momentarily from my growing cynical curiousity about the sheer decadal volume of extracted peasant labour that went into funding and building these pre-modern skyscrapers. But it's the other side of the river, throughout the modest and fashionista-focussed downtown, that has some of the most thoroughly prominent urban art murals I've seen.

homage to Catalonia

2006-01-15T14:42:00.000Z

If you enjoy reading a historically thorough, useful and measured travelogue of a European city, then you might like to head over to the list of travelogues written by my very good friend and Igougo 2005 member of the year, Owen Lipsett. Since Owen hasn't yet put pen to keyboard on Barcelona and the nearby Catalonian region, here are a couple of less erudite words and a few pictures.

Getting out from under the eternal low grey cloud and mid-afternoon nightfall of the English winter, and into a mediterranean latitude with 93 minutes-per-day longer between sunrise and sunset was brilliant: the brilliance of actual colour and solar illumination. Blue! Purple! Green! Vitamin-fortified fruit loops for the optic nerve.

A Gaudi's eye view through one of his fountains in Park Guell, atop the city.

About 90 minutes by train north is Figueres, the birthplace of Salvador Dali, and home to Dali's mausoleumuseum. A day inside this building no doubt contributed in some way to my state of mind when posting last Friday night!

Is this the way to Amarillo?

2006-01-13T00:54:00.000Z

Ms Z and I ended up in London this Thursday night for some coverband pop - well, the 94 year old London Bar off Nuo de la Rambla in Barcelona anyway. Seriously, until you°ve heard "Back in the USSR" in the original Catalan, you don°t know how lucky you are.

In light of this Damascene experience I have at last made a resolution for the coming year: namely to further develop, or adopt anew, a joyous personal eccentricity. While facial tics and garden gnomes are old hat, and limps and penguin fetishes are completely passé, Iàm sure there°s still a niche market in amateur cartography.

Anyone know where I can get a second hand theodolite?

it's alive!

2006-01-02T21:32:00.000Z

In what will be a thrilling regular addition to mzgtt in 2006, I'd like to introduce you to the as-yet unnamed bonsai that the zilla household is raising.

Bonsai, cute little trees, yeah? Now I'll have to ask my sister back home whether human babies pass through a 'maniacally scary' phase when they're newborns before becoming absurdly cute, but on first impressions this little creature is one scary. little. fucker.

I think we pissed it off when we followed the instructions and drowned its seed in water for three days before burying it headfirst and leaving it to claw it's way out of the darkness...

Honeytones Volume 1: Autumn

2006-01-02T09:37:00.000Z

Honeytones. It's a place, a space, a night, a sound devoted to the art of lounging...

Better late than never with this: Back in October, I put together a mix to sell, that is I mean, "give away in exchange for a donation" for the fundraiser we ran for the Asian earthquake. Here's a link so you can all enjoy the same good stuff.

Honeytones is a saucy mix of funk, future jazz and soulful broken beats that captures the flavour of Saturday nights in The Honeypot bar in Oxford.

Download the high-quality (192kbps) mp3 here: http://texturedjs.com/mixes/Honeytones-Volume1-Autumn.mp3

Here's a linkalicious tracklist to act as a different kind of honey pot for all the googlers...

1. Povo - Hi Fly - Raw Fusion
2. Ben Horn - Stripped Down - Fuego Records
3. Skeewiff - Pinstripe - Jalapeno Records
4. Mr Scruff - Shrimp (edit) - Ninja Tune
5. Fort Knox Five - The Brazilian Hipster - Fort Knox Recordings
6. Paula Lima - Quero Ver Você No Baile - Audiopharm
7. Akiko Kohara - Miracle Starscraper
8. Roisin Murphy - Sinking Feeling - Echo
9. Peggy Lee - Fever
10. Marschmellows - Swoundosophy (RAS Remix) - Infracom
11. Som Tres - Take It Easy My Brother Charles - Mr Bongo
12. Season feat. Ernesto - Juice (Math Union Mix) - Nuevo Ritmo
13. Big Bang - Smile In Your Eyes (Mark De Clive Lowe Remix) - Arision
14. Reel People - Spiritual (Opaque Remix) - Bitasweet
15. Backroom Bandits - You Don't Know What Love Is - Soul Groove Records
16. Toy Division - Budapest Resonance (Andrew J Remix) - Juice Records

the four worlds formed, again and yet again

2005-12-30T10:15:00.000Z

Yobbo is always worth an occasional look in, but it's this tidbit of news that has the thirteen-year-old in me excited today:

A new version of the popular 70s series “Saiyuki” (Monkey) is to be broadcast from January 9 on Fuji TV, and will be the first Japanese drama to be shown at the same time in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. The show will feature SMAP star Katori Shingo in the lead role, supported by comedy duo Uchan Nanchan’s Uchimura Teruyoshi.

The show is sponsored by JAL and the PR event was held at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport yesterday. JAL unveiled a jet decorated with Katori’s Songoku character from the drama, a historical first. The theme song, “Around The World” is to be sung by the group Monkey Majik, made up of two Canadian brothers and two Japanese.

Ms Z, a SMAP watcher from way back, also excited.

marching maketh the man

2005-12-28T20:41:00.000Z

After a lapse in attention to the blog here I usually feel some nagging obligation to provide an erudite bloat of an apologetic catch-up post. Well, sod that:

After four days nestled in a village in the Wiltshire countryside in which I did nothing but gorge, swill, and lie python-like upon the rugged hearth in an attempt to sleep off the previous few months' caffeine habit, the roundabout trip home saw me and a few travelling companions stopped in the Oxfordshire townling of Wantage (population 9,564 and a horse). World reknown as the birthplace of Alfred the Great, it's a travesty that the Wantage pub The Bell Inn isn't known and loved more widely, since it's the only place in semi-rural England you can obtain hot food after 3pm on a Bank Holiday. (It's the one on the right. Please form an orderly queue.)

Now it's hard to believe, but even better than the statue of His Alfredress through the window, better even than cream of tomato soup-tin, after arriving ruddy-cheeked and gasping for a pint in The Bell you can also peruse the promotional literature for the Royal Green Jackets, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire regiment of the Territorial Army. I tell you, such loin-stirring prose hasn't been seen in a pamphlet since Thomas Paine put quill to printing press.

For along with the usual guff slipped in by PR types and recruiters the world over about pretty uniforms, bonuses and defending the Kingdom from the rampant Danes like your mighty forebears, you'll find the most wonderfully honest statement I've ever had the pleasure of coming across in any military recruitment propaganda.

"We traditionally search for men who display intelligence and intitiative, and turn them into men who are proud to be Riflemen."

It made my day.

homage to Sutton Courtenay

2005-12-05T22:51:00.000Z

Recently Ms Z and I caught a bus about 30 minutes to Abingdon, a small satellite townlet outside Oxford. From there we walked off through some country roads...

... across and back across the Thames a couple of times...

...till after a few miles we came to the mist laden and unremarkable village of Sutton Courtenay. Next to a pub called the George and Dragon stands All Saints Church.

Behind the church there is a very humbly marked plot, quite concealed by a rosebush.

It is the final resting place of Eric Arthur Blair, also known as man of the sword and pen, George Orwell.

Although apparently never a man of this particular church -- or indeed any other -- he was still very much a man of England, and let it be known before the TB took him that he wanted to rest in an English country churchyard.

Rest well, Eric. You saw pretty clearly through the fog around you, calling bullshit on the totalitarian apologists of the left perhaps even moreso that the ones on the right, even if only because they were closer to you. I patted the stone, asked his help to go forward with even a tenth of his courage or a hundredth of his voice, and went home through the mist to sensibly re-read Politics and the English Language.

Vale, Eric Arthur Blair.

pointing a few things out

2005-11-15T19:52:00.000Z

1. Yes, I really should get around to telling you all about the exciting past few weeks, but that's best put under the heading of "when lunch comes to town" in a post forthcoming. I hope.

2. Burning the candle at just one end really is just wasting half the candle.

3. But try telling that to the silvery hairs that appear at your temples after a few months of (2), which are the sure sign you're falling down the final few months to age 30 and not 20. At least the primordial urges to buy real estate haven't kicked in yet.

4. Nevertheless, (3) is put in the shade and (2) is paid in spades when an example of the kind of thing stopping you getting around to (1) is when a girl runs up to the DJ booth and asks you to write the name of a track on her, um, skin. Killer by Boozou Bajou, take a bow.

(Oh alright it was her arm, but didn't you think it was saucier when you didn't know that?)

tune in to trade justice

2005-10-26T13:46:00.000+01:00

Generation Why sez:

Whether you're in London listening on 104.4fm or via the internet worldwide, tune in to Resonance FM from 7.00 pm tomorrow (Thursday) night to catch Oxfam festival DJ Cynan and our London campaigners Rajinder and Claire on air. They'll be talking about the upcoming Mass Lobby for Trade Justice, Claire's recent visit to some fair trade projects in Honduras, not to mention dropping some choice tunes!

Yep, little old me is going out live in London at 7pm GMT, so tune in... *ulp*

order in the court

2005-10-26T10:42:00.000+01:00

The absolutely cracking afrobeat outfit Antibalas released a bold as brass, dragnet-flavoured tune in 2004 by the name of 'Indictment', in which the first line is:

Order in the court!

Karl G. Rove! Indictment!

Last time I got a belt of this it was in a crowd of people screaming along to the band live in the Black Cat in DC in the fevered days of the 04 campaign.

Tonight it's time to take it slow, settle back in your chair, set the mood by getting an earful of this gorgeous discordant monster yourself, (Indictment by Antibalas), and get your fitzmas on.

Today's the day, so they say. My trousers are damp and BOY I'm excited.

earthquake benefit

2005-10-23T13:46:00.000+01:00

Last night's earthquake benefit raked in over 350 quid (or about AUD 850) for the DEC appeal, with more to come. Hooray!

Update. Right, so the gross was a round £360 and less the costs to make the CDs, net donations came to £340. Now special thanks must go to Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs, who with the merest tick box on a donation receipt, allow the underlying income tax to be instantly and conveniently folded back in to increase the pot by about 28%. So we're up to 435 Sterling, or over a thousand redbacks. God save the Queen!

Sober reflection (which was quite an impossibility on Saturday night) says that given the scale of the disaster it's not much in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless its very satisfying that at least we've been able to drum up much more than Ms Z and I could afford to put in personally, and great to be able to transform good tunes and good times into a small part of something necessary and worthwhile.

Big ups to the Honeypot owners who dropped a big whack of the night's gross in, to fellow Oxford DJ Dan Ofer from Bossaphonik who dropped in with some killer latin & nu-jazz tunes, but most of all to the tireless efforts of my most wonderful Ms Z. Between slaving over a hot laptop for many hours designing the posters and CD artwork, and bouncing around the bar collecting the cover charge and enticing CD sales, I'm quite sure she put in the lion's share of the effort over the last week.

Now stay tuned for the online leg of the appeal... once I figure out exactly how to run it!

the price of failure

2005-10-21T08:38:00.000+01:00

Back in August, I said:

The ethnic and religious factions in Iraq might be about to kick off one of the worst civil wars we’ve seen in a decade... and with such instability (and likely loss of two million barrels at day to the world’s oil supply) within two to five years the US will have to be right back where it has been since 1991: with a huge military garrison presence in Saudi Arabia. To our eyes this is the ultimate guarantor of Saudi stability and with it global oil supply. To other eyes, it’s an infidel military presence in the land of two shrines that, along with the Palestinian issue, gave fuckers like Bin Laden and his associates the blinding fury to carry them across the world and into the lives and bodies of innocent people at six hundred miles an hour.

Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell as Secretary of State, thinks it's worse than that:

We can’t leave Iraq. We simply can’t. I can make that case. No one in this administration has made that case. They have simply pontificated. That’s all they’ve done. Now, I’m not evaluating the decision to go to war. That’s a different matter. But we’re there, we’ve done it, and we cannot leave. I would submit to you that if we leave precipitously or we leave in a way that doesn’t leave something there we can trust, if we do that, we will mobilize the nation, put 5 million men and women under arms and go back and take the Middle East within a decade. That’s what we’ll have to do.

If you've got a few minutes, the transcript of his speech on Wednesday makes for very interesting reading. Even beyond the very deliberate comments about the US government being in the hands of a dysfunctional cabal, which we've heard before from folks like Sy Hersh.

2005-10-18T11:48:00.000+01:00

autumn oxfotography

2005-10-16T18:42:00.000+01:00

The season is turning here in our corner of the English countryside, and we've been out amidst the fields and streams today to enjoy the changing colours. Come and see.

you go to war with the army you have

2005-10-15T10:39:00.000+01:00

"As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want."

You may recall these choice words used by US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld in December 2004, when publicly questioned by a US soldier in Kuwait about why his battalion was heading into Iraq in vehicles they were being forced to up-armour with scrap metal from landfills.

It came immediately to mind -- along with a deep chill down my spine -- as I read quotes from Shiite soliders serving in the US-supported Iraqi Army this week:

"There are two Iraqs; it's something that we can no longer deny," [Major Swadi] Ghilan said. "The army should execute the Sunnis in their neighborhoods so that all of them can see what happens, so that all of them learn their lesson."

"In Amariyah last week, a car bomb hit a U.S. Humvee and their soldiers began to shoot randomly. They killed a lot of innocent civilians. I was there; I saw it," said Sgt. Fadhal Yahan. "This happens all the time. If they keep doing this, the people will attack them. And we are part of the people."

Sgt. Jawad Majid chimed in: "We have our marja'iya and we are waiting for them to decide when the time to fight (the Americans) is, when it is no longer time to be silent."

"The people of Hurriyah deserve to be doused with gasoline and set on fire," said 1st Sgt. Khalid Jabar, while driving through a local Sunni neighborhood last week. "When they kill Shiites no one asks why. But when they found out it was their turn to be killed they ask the whole world to help them."

Last week, as Sgt. Hussein Jabar manned a checkpoint underneath a bridge, a sniper's bullet pierced his left side, tore through his organs and flew out his right side. Iraqi troops carried him away, his body limp and pouring red onto the sidewalk. Two days after the shooting, Sgt. Ahmed Sabri stood outside the Umm al Qura mosque, home to the militant Sunni Muslim Scholars Association. The mosque is just down the road from where Jabar was shot.

"Every man we've had killed and wounded is because of that mosque. Thousands and thousands of Shiites are being killed, which is why they're joining the army," Sabri said. "Just let us have our constitution and elections in December and then we will do what Saddam did - start with five people from each neighborhood and kill them in the streets and then go from there."

With the army you have, you go to war.

the poor man is so money

2005-10-14T08:15:00.000+01:00

and here is the money quote:

The Bush administration is pretty much freeze-dried fuck-up - hurricane Katrina just showed what happens when you add water.

Nice. Share it with a friend today.

freshers week finale

2005-10-10T21:35:00.000+01:00

Lest the tail end of Tuesday's post not leave you completely disabused of notions about my glamorous lifestyle, or at least lack of willingness to sell out for some easy squid, may I now have a Jamie Oliver moment and present...

Mr. Zilla's recipe for an Oxford freshers’ week bop

14 lb. cheese

3 cups school disco

2 cups summer festival hit parade

1 cup butter (of the "Build Me Up" kind)

34 tbsp. of dancefloor 80s tunes, last put to thorough use playing an 80s party in a club in DC in July 2004 while wearing a tight-fitting US Navy flight suit with the nametag "DJ Maverick"... but the less said about that and the ensuing sunburn, the better

6 pints of stella

1 dollop of top tips from your workmates who get a load of BBC Radio 1 during the day

0. Play half an hour of cool tunes for a couple of mates who've dropped in early.
1. Take the poncy part of your brain that likes a fine remix of 1970s West German jazz, and drop it into the first pint of Stella. Blip! Leave it happily swimming around in there and get stuck into the other five.
2. Combine funk and hiphop until party simmering.
3. Throw all other ingredients in, inadvertently making noises like the Swedish chef. Could be that was half a pint too many back in step 1. Shh, ok, no one noticed.
4. Mix well* and watch the room go crazy. (* -- ie, whenever deciding which of 2 tracks to play next, go with the one you can sing to better. Albeit not like the Swedish chef.)
5. Sorry miss, I forgot the Britney Spears.
6. See step 5.
7. Shout out to Rick who requested the B-52s! Sure he requested it at work around lunchtime Friday, but you've got to get in early at these things. And yes, ok, technically he's not here. What do you think it is, a school raffle?
8. See step 5.
9. Play that funky music, white boy. Play that funky music right.
10. Groove is in the heart, always unstoppable!
11. See step 5... gah.
12. Up comes a construction worker, motorcycle cop, an indian, an cowboy and a sailor. You want some UB40? Just kidding!
13. Bloc Party! Woo!
14. See step 5. Bloody seppos...
15. Does it look like this turntable can play your CD? Umm... no. No it doesn't. Kudos to you for asking though.
16. Yes, the song goes "are you gonna be my girl", but no, you're not meant to take it personally. Just do me a favour and don't pick a fight with anyone this time?
17. Michael Jackson? Mmmm, well I guess he was acquitted wasn’t he... so yeah, hell yeah!
18. An American girl approaches at pace, screeching "I'm on the college entz committee! And if you don't play [some shithouse R&B track] RIGHT NOW you're never playing here againnn!!" Friends lead her gently away. Absolutely officially the funniest shit like EVAR.
19. Close out with Coldplay, and some AC/DC, and, er, stuff, etcetera.
20. College bar guy & social steward offers seemingly heartfelt but utterly damning praise: "that was great, here's my email address, give me your card, I get requests for weddings all the time here and I can pass them on to you". Cry into your beer. What have I done? Count the cash, still feel icky, but better. Pack up and go home.

Serves 301.

now listen here

2005-10-08T14:17:00.000+01:00

Go listen to this very tidy mix by Ryota Nozaki (aka Jazztronik) on milk audio.

Then pop over to Sonar Kollektiv and pick up the second last track, Wahoo's Take Over Me, for less than a Euro. Bargain at twice the price. Which, er, is exactly what I paid cos I stuffed up the one-shot download the first time, and just paid the 60p for it again instead of emailing the SK staff to give me another go at it, on the off chance they'd be slow getting back to me and I wouldn't have it on hand to play tonight. See? It's that groovy.

have your cake, and drive it too.

2005-10-07T08:31:00.000+01:00

The Governor of Montana outlines the way forward to a back-to-the-future technology wherein the American lifestyle and urban planning become insulated from the current costs and geostrategic risk of oil. Further comments by the Governor here.

Still I hope the synfuel technology is as mature as he says it is; it might be a decades-long dodge of the peak oil problem. I'm more interested in the possibilities of hot-rock energy though. In Australia alone, the energy reserves in the Cooper Basin in South Australia has been pegged at the equivalent of 50 billion barrels of oil. Scaling up operation of this source could conceivably switch off every coal fired power station in the country for a very, very long time:

About 11% of these [hot rock] energy resources, or 2.5 million petajoules, or more than 800 times the current annual demand for electricity in Australia, are thought to be in granite rock which is the most favoured host rock for heat extraction.

Mmmm, cake. It's renewable, it's cheap, its CO2-free, it's perfect for baseload generation unlike solar and wind, and best of all, it isn't yellow.

around the grounds

2005-10-04T08:06:00.000+01:00

Barista links us to an ably captured and absolutely gutting post-Katrina photoblog & personal narrative. Start from the bottom and scroll upwards, I'm still working my way through it.

Tom 'the hammer' DeLay scores another two indictments, this time for money laundering. Man, I hope he gets the full perp-walk treatment.

On the same day, Bush demonstrates once again how the wafting stench from the rot of corruption in the GOP is the only oxygen he knows. With the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, Bush shows a passionate regard for the equality of the human rights of all people in his close personal orbit, regardless of gender, race, or demonstrated experience and ability in a role. (Come on, I'm sure poor Brownie is just a persecuted Incompetent-American!) Following through on his policy of abject cronyism at the highest levels, nominee Miers has in the past been Bush's personal lawyer, has spent most of her career hitched to the Bush family wagon, and has never been a judge. He's like a rat in a sewer. No, that's not right. He's like a turd in a sewer. Fortunately (?), hardline conservatives are also up in arms about the proposed appointment, albeit for different reasons.

Closer to home, former Tory MP, British diplomat and current Oxford University Chancellor Chris Patten has just released his memoir in which he reveals that Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende "really does look like Harry Potter" and that US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton is "the Pavarotti of neo-conservatism". This delightfully slanderous prattle will no doubt make for amusing dinner conversation around town, but it must be juxtaposed with the brutal crushing of democratic counter-dissent on the streets of Oxford. The Pavarotti of pikey-bashing and Oxford University Not-chancellor Phil Mosley copped a caution for visually retorting to the recent Oxford bunny huggers' march:

In other Oxford news, Blind Freddie can tell the academic year is just beginning and its freshers' week. How's that you ask? Well the overpowering stench of vomit that pervaded the dancefloor at my Monday night gig would be an indication. Curiously, the smell disappeared unbidden about 10 minutes later - despite the bar staff searching high and low and failing to find anything to apply a mop to. It was like a Miss Marple mystery, the Strange Case of the Intermittent Dancefloor Whoopsie. I mean, WTF? Was it some plastered young fresher lass who felt that upholding Oxbridge etiquette required her to insert the contents of her stomach neatly into her handbag, and that decorum dictated a period of no less than 10 minutes to linger and finish her drink before heading out? If so, who was this girl, and did someone get her number to pass on to her college rowing squad captain?

Freddie might not have seen the fight that broke out between a couple of guys ten minutes before close though. I can't help feeling slightly responsible; I think the gents involved took me dropping Jet's 'Are you gonna be my girl' as the signal to decide who was going home with the two lasses in the corner, who had spent the preceding few hours grinding against each other, the walls, passers-by, and probably even the Dutch Prime Minister had he popped in. (The answer, of course, is neither.)

Fortunately there are salves out there for such late night shenanigans. Jazz Picante in Lisbon is my favourite new radiostream discovery. The 30 Sep show is true quality. Check it out.

third bush twin revealed

2005-10-02T20:33:00.000+01:00

... and she's got her sights set on a music career. Flora Bush, take a bow.

queen vs the republicans

2005-09-29T10:57:00.000+01:00

(There's very few days in the year when over your morning coffee you read news that makes you cackle, dance with glee and want to sing. Which I can't do for shit so I'll step aside and let His Majesty do it for me. Take it away, Freddie!)

“Oh ev’ry night and every day
A little piece of you is falling away
But lift your face the western way
Build your muscles as your body decays yeah…”

Federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the sale of HCA stock by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., whose family founded the company. HCA is the nation's largest for-profit health care chain. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has given subpoena power to investigators looking into the stock sales by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, said sources familiar with the matter on Wednesday.

Toe your line and play their game yeah
Let the anaesthetic cover it all
Till one day they call your name
You know it’s time for the hammer to fall

WASHINGTON -- Shadowed by scandal, House Republicans face an uncertain new era after a day of upheaval that left Majority Leader Tom DeLay under indictment and forced to surrender his powerful post. DeLay's indictment marks "the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people," said Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader.

(Oh yeah! Give it to me one more time, Freddie!)

You don’t waste no time at all
Don’t hear the bell but you answer the call
It comes to you as to us all
We’re just waiting
For the hammer to fall!

free fall

2005-09-26T08:07:00.000+01:00

Check out this compelling, strangely hypnotising, artistic representation of Bush's poll numbers. (Via Direland.)

Honey Pot Sounds Good, 24 September 2005

2005-09-25T09:06:00.000+01:00

It's been about a month since I've posted up a tracklist and there's a two reasons for that. Firstly, it's been fairly busy at zilla HQ between going off to the V festival, the Bestival, working days, working nights, doing an abysmal amount of study, and moving house. Twice. That last word has a whole story of its own which I'm prevented from blogging about, owing to my thumb heading gobwards, and my posture foetal, with any attempt to relive the drama.

The second reason is that one night not long before Bestival, some genius in these parts (we won't say who - there's no need for blame-gaming) got distracted and managed to attach his 120V Korg mixer from the US directly to the 240V UK power grid.

...

This is a public service announcement. Whether you're nine years old with cordial and a fork in your hand, whether you're nineteen years old with a disco biscuit in your hand, or whether you're twenty-nine years old with your dandy mixer in your hand:

Don't drink and plug, kids. Don't drink and plug.

...

So though there's no shortage of residential time on the decks in venues around Oxford at the moment - around 18-20 hours a month in fact - I've nonetheless felt quite discouraged from buying new records. This sad state of affairs came to an end on Friday with the delivery of a new power supply, and the joy was unconfined. You might say I suitably honoured the unfortunate plugging incident's accompanying odour of burning plastic by making my credit card smoke as well.

The results were superbly enjoyable and made a stellar contribution to last night's set. Recent buys are linked:

1. Kokolo – Good Noose, Bad Noose - Afrokings
2. Antibalas – Pay Back Africa – Ninja Tune
3. G Corp - Peace Time – Different Drummer
4. Baby Mammoth - Moonburn – Pork Recordings
5. Yoshinori Sunahara – Music For Robot For Music (Armed Mix) - Bungalow
6. DJ Food – Dark Aeco – Ninja Tune
7. Pushipullyu – Twohands, Forearms, Legs Eleven (The Food Mix) – Woolly Mammoth Records
8. Wicked Beat Sound System – Everyday Dub – Mushroom Records
9. Season Feat. Ernesto – Juice (Math Union Mix) – Goya Music
10. Bebel Gilberto – Winter (Nuspirit Helsinki Reinterpretation) – Six Degrees Records
11. Femi Kuti – Do Your Best (Faze Action Remix) – Guidance Recordings
12. Suba – Felicidade (Funky Lowlives Breathless Remix) – Audiopharm
13. Jazztronik – Set Free (Parts 1 And 2) – Flower Records
14. Tricatel Inc – Friday Night (Moodorama Mix) - Audiopharm
15. Koop – Summer Sun (Marcus Enochson Remix) – Jazzanova-Compost Records
16. Fort Knox Five – The Brazilian Hipster - Audiopharm
17. Paula Lima – Quero Ver Voce No Biale – Audiopharm
18. Jazzanova – Introspection (Calm’s Outerspect Mix) – Compost Records
19. Klaus Doldinger – Ju-Ju Man (Fauna Flash Remix) – Warner Strategic Marketing
20. Akiko Kohara – Miracle Starscraper – Pony Canyon
21. Roisin Murphy – Sinking Feeling - Echo
22. Marschmellows - Swoundosophy (RAS Remix) – Kriztal Records
23. The Allenko Brotherhood Ensemble – Leroy (Tony V. Allen Tweak) – Guidance Recordings
24. Thievery Corporation – The Heart’s A Lonely Hunter (Feat. David Byrne) – ESL Music
25. Big Bang – Smile In Your Eyes (Mark De Clive Lowe Remix) – Arison Recordings
26. Reel People – Spiritual (Seiji Remix) - Bitasweet
27. Royksopp – Poor Leno – Wall Of Sound
28. Mondo Grosso - Star Suite (Shelter Album Mix) – Sony Music Entertainment Japan
29. Black & Brown – Cool Affair (Eric Kuppe Remix) – Mole Listening Pearls
30. Toy Division – Budapest Resonance (Andrew J Remix) – Juice Records
31. Plantlife – When She Smiles She Lights The Sky (4hero Remix) – Gut Records
32. Kyoto Jazz Massive – Deep In Your Mind – SMEJ Associated Records
33. Zero 7 – In The Waiting Line (Aquanotes Naked Adaption) - Quango
34. Freestyle Man Feat. Wanda Felicia – Que Domingo (Nuspirit Helsinki Montana Roha Jazzmix) - Puu
35. Underwolves - Birdsong (Earthbound Version) – Jazzanova-Compost Records

donahue vs o'reilly

2005-09-24T16:43:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it takes a shouty old bloke to get the measure of another shouty old bloke. Go over to Crooks and Liars to watch the video of Phil Donahue dishing it out to front-line foxwit Bill O'Reilly on O'Reilly's own show.

Why We Went To War (version 4.0)

2005-09-16T09:49:00.000+01:00

So you thought we kicked shit off in Iraq to take out the WMDs? Or maybe you were sold on the "freedom, flowers, democracy and a pony" package? What about the "Mesopotamia as jumbo roll of two-ply terrrrist flypaper" strategy?

Wake up and smell the coffee, bitches:

O’Reilly: The truth of the matter is our correspondents at Fox News can’t go out for a cup of coffee in Baghdad.

Rice: Bill, that’s tough. It’s tough. But what — would they have wanted to have gone out for a cup of coffee when Saddam Hussein was in power?

As Jake Blues once said: Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, I have seen the light! To think, I was so misguided to once think that the Anglosphere's involvement in Iraq had its roots in promoting and protecting the energy security of the global economy. To think, that while dreading the likely failure of their approach, at least I once begrudgingly gave the Bush administration credit for a gasping fiery breadth of strategic foresight in the PNAC approach to the future, based upon the ability to deny the middle east's oil to the waking dragon.

Oh no! Oh, no. Apparently the whole point was so that when fucking Fox correspondents wake up, wherever they are in the world it's still morning in America. As a result they'll have a spring in their step as they cross the street for a fucking frappucino on their way to work in the lower intestines of the neo-con noise machine.

Let this be a lesson to us all - from the lexicographers, to the latte-liberals, to the bleedin' beverly hillbillies. Apparently the true black gold isn't Texas-T. It's not even buck-a-barrel Saudi crude. No, strategic quintessence is freshly brewed mocha java, with a delightful wafting aroma of hegemony and a velvety capitalist crema.

No wonder Starbucks is taking over the world.

2005-09-13T08:57:00.000+01:00

and a busy week it was. still at least we can now just relax. and move house tomorrow...

it goes like this

2005-09-05T17:23:00.000+01:00

Failing to plan is planning to fail. So having now been thoroughly castigatory, let me give you some personal foresights for the next week around these parts. See you on the other side.

Monday: Fresh pineapple for breakfast and a productive day in the office. Go home. Within certain personal cultural boundaries, drop tunes best described as “whatever makes the girlies get up and wiggle” down at Thirst. Said cultural boundaries being, you can ask me for R&B but I ain’t gonna play it! Ner ner, sucks not to be the DJ don’t it? Drink Staropramen beer and vodka-bombed banana smoothies for 5 hours. Home about 3. Sleep.

Tuesday: Tea and toast for breakfast. Stumble through work day. Go home. Catch a nap. Up and out. Drop a couple of hours cruisy tunes in the Brickworks… and keep the Czech Budvahhhhhhhh! flowing. Yummy. Home about midnight. Pass out.

Wednesday: Red bull and toast for breakfast. Crawl to bus stop. Drool on keyboard after lunch and hope no one notices. Go home. Favourite motorbiking vegan DJ from Virginia and her boyfriend hit town, for one night only.

Red mist descends.

Thursday: Perform CPR on liver. Complain about jackhammer headache. Feebly flail from beneath the pillows. Get laughed at by hangover-impervious Ms Z. Blubber and be pathetic until she’s sympathetic. Dry wretching, espresso, and a too-many-too-late dose of multivitamins for breakfast. Catch the wrong bus. Arrive at work in time for lunch. Pass out under conference room table.

Friday-Sunday: Rudely early awakening. Pack stuff. Be pathetically grateful when Ms Z notices you don’t have your headphones. Again. Croissants and mocha to go. Train to Southampton. Sleep. Ferry to Isle of Wight. Sleep. Yippee, it’s the Bestival!! Run around like a monkey trying to see Röyksopp, the Super Furry Animals, 2 Many DJs, The Go! Team, Tom Findlay (from Groove Armada), Bez (from the Happy Mondays), Bugz In The Attic, Gilles Peterson, Dub Pistols & Terry Hall, Hot Chip, Annie Mac, Annie Nightingale, Andy Smith, and the Finger Lickin' Soundsystem. Do a bit of DJing there too.

Monday: hurt.

Once more, without feeling

2005-09-05T08:04:00.000+01:00

As you may have gathered from the previous few posts I’ve spent far too much of the weekend immersed in the awful news of the disaster in the US. As you may also have gathered that the main way I keep a lid on the despair at seeing such senseless loss of life is to pull on the angry pants and let the steam come out of my ears a little. I’m sure I’m not alone there. Perhaps I can try to be a little more dispassionate for a moment and say this.

This disaster is a ongoing complex humanitarian emergency that created in the order of half a million internally displaced persons across four states in the US, for at least a year.

Every disaster has a unique combination of environmental and social factors at play, and this might seem like an emergency that would test the resources of any nation on earth, but consider this. Bangladesh is a country of 144 million people, and in August 2004 monsoon flooding put 60% of the country under water. 20 million people needed immediate food aid. And while every life cut short is a tragedy, under these circumstances it might be fair to use the word “only”, and say only about 2000 people are reported to have died.

The United States, with a per capita GDP approximately 20 times higher than Bangladesh, seems likely to suffer a comparable or higher death toll, primarily due to the failure to adequately prepare and implement integrated community-level response plans across the gulf states, and effectively bring to bear the financial and logistical resources of the government in the immediate aftermath.

If two hundred billion dollars can be borrowed from world financial markets to finance a war ostensibly to make the American homeland and American interests safer, then adequate resources were never an issue, only political will and policy competence. The failures at all tiers of government in the United States – regardless of whomever is found most responsible in the end -- cannot be underestimated and should not be downplayed.

This might seem that I’m shrugging off a few thousand deaths in South Asia but gnashing my teeth over a similar number in the southern US. Well, unfortunately over the last 35 years Bangladesh has had its share of mass-casualty horror and despite some outstanding improvements since the typhoons of 1970 and 1991, may yet continue to do so. I make the comparison not to dismiss any tragedy. Only to hammer home the point that there with immeasurably more resources on hand in the US, and no shortage of very specific historical lessons to learn, the levels of expectation are rightly very high. And in one short week, the gap between expectation and reality has become a yawning chasm.

live and pretty damn direct

2005-09-04T22:43:00.000+01:00

From the Washington Post, via Pandagon:

NBC's levee broke and Kanye West flooded through with a tear about the federal response in New Orleans during the network's live concert fundraiser for victims of Hurricane Katrina last night.

West and Mike Myers had been paired up to appear about halfway through the show. Their assignment: Take turns reading a script describing the breach in the levees around New Orleans.

Myers: The landscape of the city has changed dramatically, tragically and perhaps irreversibly. There is now over 25 feet of water where there was once city streets and thriving neighborhoods.

(Myers throws to West, who looked extremely nervous in his super-preppy designer rugby shirt and white pants, which is not like the arrogant West and which, in retrospect, should have been a tip-off.)

West: I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us!

(West throws back to Myers, who is looking like a guy who stopped on the tarmac to tie his shoe and got hit in the back with the 8:30 to La Guardia.)

Myers: And subtle, but in many ways even more profoundly devastating, is the lasting damage to the survivors' will to rebuild and remain in the area. The destruction of the spirit of the people of southern Louisiana and Mississippi may end up being the most tragic loss of all.

(And, because Myers is apparently as dumb as his Alfalfa hair, he throws it back to West.)

West: George Bush doesn't care about black people!

Just goes to show how politically out of touch people in the music industry can be, especially when they're pushing their own barrows over some perceived slight. Of course the Bush administration cares about black people! After all, around 15% of black voters nation-wide voted for him in 2004! I mean with 85% of a constituency voting for the other team, it's gotta be one of the number one areas of potential growth in the Republican vote!

Yeah, or, maybe not. And while I realise I've become the Billmon redirection service of late, have a look at this post of his comparing and contrasting the response to this disaster to the aid given to Florida during hurricane and election season last year.

The final word, or lack of one, goes to NBC who found West's criticism of the President untenable:

West's comments would be cut from the West Coast feed, an NBC spokeswoman told The TV Column. (The Associated Press later reported that only his comment about the president was edited out.)

I hope their reasoning was that potential donors to the cause might be offended by West's assessment and decide not to donate to the telethon, rather than executive toadying to the administration. In either case I strongly disagree. A free media is a pillar of democracy because it's a core mechanism of public accountability. If NBC won't bare some teeth and claws at the deadly incompetence of the Bush administration over the last week, they shouldn't have the gall to edit out the people who make proper use of their air time to do so.

To be fair to the US cable news media, it seems that CNN and even the occasional Fox reporter on the ground in Louisiana have actually been making a fist of calling bullshit on the press-release pronouncements of senior officials. The post-disaster media dynamic couldn't be more different to 9/11; I'm sure its got everything to do with the lack of an external agressor to blame.

As my friend Owen in Philadelphia said in an email last week, this is not only a national disaster, but a national embarrasment for the country with the lion's share of the planet's wealth. We can only hope the current righteous anger remains stoked and channelled into positive reforms of FEMA and DHS, and an occasional accountability moment or two. It would be a horror if this embarrasment allowed the story arcs to shift quickly to only cover the warmer tales of recovery and reconstruction that we hope are not too far away.

miserable failure

2005-09-02T01:03:00.000+01:00

Get over to Americablog for an inkling of how poorly the US federal and state governments have utterly failed thus far to plan for, or respond to, the immediate relief requirements in Louisiana. This is not outlying Aceh or Tamil-controlled Sri Lanka - this is an iconic metropolis in the heart of media saturated 'murrka. There's no excuse for institutional ignorance of the scale of the problem, nor for the post 9/11 Homeland Security department to have been without comprehensive and complete evacuation and disaster response plans.

The revelation that Secretary of State Condi Rice was observed still shopping for thousand-dollar shoes in Manhattan the day after Bush declared the event America's "worst distaster in a century" is just gobsmacking. I guess with Iraq off the front page for a couple of days she thought she was free to take some time off?

Continued. Kruggles in the New York Times:

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.

...

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

2005-09-01T10:56:00.000+01:00

Ms Z and I spent a couple of days in the Big Easy in the summer of 2003. We had effortlessly tall fruity drinks, found some half-decent Bourbon Street jazz, roamed a few bone yards, and stayed in a lovely hotel in the French Quarter with a swimming pool for a courtyard.

That hotel now has the Gulf of Mexico for a courtyard.

Worryingly for us all, while it might just be possible to drop $200 billion (and counting) on a Mesopotamian misadventure and get away with it by printing a few more pictures of presidents, it looks like Katrina has just sucker punched the US economy. These details gleaned primarily from BOPnews:

Today’s shut-in [offline] oil production is 1,371,814 BOPD. This shut-in oil production is equivalent to 91.45% of the daily oil production in the GOM [Gulf Of Mexico], which is currently approximately 1.5 million BOPD.

Best-Case Scenarios: Oil at $70 to $75 a barrel for a couple of weeks; gasoline prices over $3.00 for a couple of months; and the economy takes a small hit (between 0.5% and 1.0% on growth in the third and fourth quarters).

Worst-Case Scenario: Oil at $100 a barrel for a month; gasoline prices at $3.50 a gallon for a few months; and the economy closer to a recession by the fourth quarter. In such a scenario, oil prices would spike to $100 a barrel for a month before falling gradually to around $70 per barrel by the end of the year.

One of the well-thumbed books in the house that I read as a teenager was one of Tom Clancy’s earlier works, Red Storm Rising. The story begins with Islamic terrorists destroying one of the Soviet Union’s critical oil refineries, after which the politburo assesses that their only viable strategic option is to seize the oil refineries and reserves of the middle east. If the US faces similar turmoil to this, we can only speculate that they too might send a force to occupy crucial middle-eastern real estate. Oh wait… never mind. President Chavez in Venezuela better mind his P’s and Q’s though.

The consequences of Katrina go much further than oil refining though:

The Port of Southern Louisiana is the fifth-largest port in the world in terms of tonnage, and the largest port in the United States. The only global ports larger are Singapore, Rotterdam, Shanghai and Hong Kong. It is bigger than Houston, Chiba and Nagoya, Antwerp and New York/New Jersey. It is a key link in U.S. imports and exports and critical to the global economy.

The Port of Southern Louisiana stretches up and down the Mississippi River for about 50 miles, running north and south of New Orleans from St. James to St. Charles Parish. It is the key port for the export of grains to the rest of the world -- corn, soybeans, wheat and animal feed. Midwestern farmers and global consumers depend on those exports. The United States imports crude oil, petrochemicals, steel, fertilizers and ores through the port. Fifteen percent of all U.S. exports by value go through the port. Nearly half of the exports go to Europe.

The region affected by the storm accounts for just a little over 1% of the U.S. workforce. But about $150 billion, or 20%, of U.S. exports and imports in oil, steel, plywood, grains and other goods pass through gulf ports annually. Industries will have trouble finding alternatives, because New Orleans' port is one of the nation's deepest, and other ports, railroads and shippers were already near capacity, Economy.com estimates.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the lower Mississippi from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico remained shut to all vessels Tuesday, with no estimate on how long it might take to clear the river.

Uh-oh.

situating the appreciation

2005-08-27T19:22:00.000+01:00

In the context of looking at some parallels between aid agencies’ responses to refugee crises in Cambodia (from 1979) and Rwanda (from 1994), I felt parallels and concerns between the turmoil of south east Asia and Mesopotamia jumping out of the page.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the US has its testicles in the wringer on this one in a very similar fashion to the way it did in Vietnam. To be blunt, the only fortunate difference for the people of the US is that in the absence of a massive Cold War era conscript army, the US military is going to reach the breaking point of its capability to project itself after about 3 years and ten thousand casualties (that is, deaths and injuries) instead of the Vietnam War’s 10+ years and hundreds of thousands of casualties.

So despite President Bush’s broken-record rhetoric to stay the course, I’ve no doubt the push behind the scenes in DC is growing stronger every day to figure out just how to go about getting the hell out of dodge without bringing the US (and global) economy to its knees in the event of an oil-disrupting, protracted civil war.

What went on in Vietnam aside, the US engaged in some fairly indiscriminate bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1973, dropping something like half a million tonnes of bombs in the final six months alone. (I’d stop and footnote here, but I’m sorry I just can’t be arsed.) Since the Cambodian government was turning a blind eye, this pushed a lot of Cambodians into the arms of the Khmer Rouge; and we all know where that ended up - fifteen more years of metastasized mayhem and genocide for the region.

The lesson for any region in the world, is that when a gigantic superpower comes to visit, the good china tends to get broken even if they’re trying to play nice. And not just yours, but your neighbours’ too. And in the case of Iraq, US policy has been one of deliberate destabilization – radical democratization – rather than the Vietnam War’s ham-handed attempts to maintain non-communist stability in the South.

There was a very brief period I was back in Canberra before the shit-storm hit in early 2003. I recall nights in late summer around balcony tables with beer, lit only by distant streetlights and the glow of cigarettes, trying to grapple with the idea that the US was going down this course and that Australia was meekly following. I always felt I could make a far less coherent projection of events than many people around me with a much greater appreciation of the problems and the region, but there was one clear thought in my mind even then: this is going to get fucked up in ways that we haven’t even dreamed about yet.

Fast forward to 2005 and despite two years of utter chaos in Iraq, that feeling remains stronger than even before. So with Vietnam, such is the problem once more of US withdrawal from Iraq. The magnitude of the mission means that a casual overstay of 10 years or so, like in Bosnia, is not possible. Therefore substantial withdrawal has to come, be it within 12 months or at most 3 years. And with this vacuum, Iraq has we know it will cease to exist.

The strongest, most coherent elements of the "Iraqi armed forces" are the Kurdish peshmerga. In the south of the country the "Iraqi armed forces" are probably divided in loyalty amongst the anti-Iranian Sistani, the more radical al-Sadr (who, incidentally, just put 100,000 people on the streets to protest against the cobbled-up constitution), and any Sunni elements of the "Iraqi armed forces" are thoroughly penetrated by the insurgency.

The only ones whose primary commitment to the continued existence nation-state of Iraq are the Baathist elements of the insurgency who think they can get back on top, and the factions of the Shi’a (ie SCIRI) who want to keep it together long enough to establish a Iranian style (and Iranian-aligned) Islamic theocracy and incidentally do over the Sunnis once and for all if they can.

At the end of the day, there is no way there is sufficient political intent, or police or military force, both powerful and inclusively nationalist enough that will slow or reverse the descent into fratricidal civil war.

With that in mind, isn't it a good thing the US is making sure that all sides are armed to the hilt before they leave?

Via Billmon, I read this Wall Street Journal article that refers to some of the metrics of the “As the Iraqis stand up, so the US will stand down” Iraqification programme:

Each month, U.S. officers in Iraq compile a five-inch thick book of data measuring the development of Iraqi security forces. With remarkable precision, commanders can say how many assault rifles (177,000), helmets (135,000) and rounds of ammunition (328 million) the Iraqis have received in the past year.

But Gen. McCaffrey also worries that the Pentagon's plan to equip Iraqi forces won't give them enough punch to survive on their own in the long term. He estimated in a post-visit report to Congress that the Iraqi Army needed 120 Black Hawk helicopters, 2,000 armored humvees and 2,000 M113 armored personnel carriers to be effective without U.S. support. "If we want to get out of there we have to make that kind of commitment," Gen. McCaffrey says.

The ethnic and religious factions in Iraq might be about to kick off one of the worst civil wars we’ve seen in a decade, but at least they’ll all be doing it with shiny new guns.

And with such instability (and likely loss of two million barrels at day to the world’s oil supply) within two to five years the US will have to be right back where it has been since 1991: with a huge military garrison presence in Saudi Arabia. To our eyes this is the ultimate guarantor of Saudi stability and with it global oil supply. To other eyes, it’s an infidel military presence in the land of two shrines that, along with the Palestinian issue, gave fuckers like Bin Laden and his associates the blinding fury to carry them across the world and into the lives and bodies of innocent people at six hundred miles an hour.

Look, I am consistently clueless about making calls on way ahead. I don’t bet on sport cos I’m the worst tipper in history. I put my feet on the desk and grinned after Australia thrashed the poms in the first test. If I say (X) is going down then the most likely result in mathematical terms is: not(X). Well we would be in a blessed world if through the actions of a sustained blog rant I could put the bloody mockers on a bloody disaster that has us staring deeper into the hellmouth with each passing day. That would be great and I would love to be wrong.

Nonetheless - or is it therefore? - to sum up all the above:

If you think shit is fucked up now, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

carpentry, again

2005-08-25T22:29:00.000+01:00

As you can see, there are people out there - admittedly, creative people - whose passion for their browser goes a little too far. Nonetheless, could some of you silly people still browsing with internet explorer instead of firefox tell me if the blog is looking all OK and stuff? cheers.

eV Listening download

2005-08-24T00:32:00.000+01:00

Despite the assistance of swarms of wee spiders keen to crawl into the mixer, and onto any record left lying still on the platter for a few moments, over the two days of V I played a good number of hours in the Oxfam-sponsored chill out venue - which is the main reason I missed The Roots, Robert Plant, the Polyphonic Spree, and so on.

Still, I braved the spiders and plugged in the recording gizmo in the back of the mixer for about an hour so as to share the vibe with you all. A more lazy laid back mix you haven't heard from these parts before... so grab 70 minutes of eV listening (tres witty, no?) for your Sunday afternoons, your post-clubbing, your last-train-home ride, your snoozing on the lounge with a book when the TV has nothing but shite again.

How good is it? Well starting with some comatose calypso dub before moving into some soulful dnb and beyond, its, um, really good. Check the old Propellerheads remix in particular, its a gem, as is Jazztronik's arrangement of The Piano. But don't take my word for it. A bunch of people lounging about on a summer's day (while down the back I've disappeared behind the decks in search of a record) can't be wrong!

Tracklist (Artist - Track - Label)

1. G Corp - Peace Time - Different Drummer
2. The Shanti-ites – Jericho Walls – Blue Note
3. Boozou Bajou – Take it Slow – Studio K7
4. Propellerheads – History Repeating (Hip Length Remix) – Dreamworks Records
5. Coolie Coolie Spooners – Cool Spoon – Talkin’ Loud
6. Puracane – Things You Should Leave Alone (Underwolves Remix) – Ubiquity Records
7. Thunderball – Sirocco – ESL Music
8. Alex Reece – Feel The Sunshine – Blunted
9. Intelligent Jazz – Bionics (Jimpster’s Jazz Mix) – Freerange Records
10. Jazztronik – The Piano – Flower Records
11. Cold Cut – Onamission - Ninja Tune
12. Monday Michiru – Fading Beauty (Chillin’ Winter Mix) – Kitty
13. Herbaliser – Sensual Woman – Ninja Tune
14. Bebel Gilberto – Cada Beijo [trans. "each kiss"] (Thievery Corporation Remix) – Six Degrees Records
15. Minako Okuyama – Hana no Yooni [trans. "like a flower"] – Flower Records

enjoy!

V festival phlogging

2005-08-23T23:29:00.000+01:00

Saturday morning and we almost didn't make it to the V festival outside Wolverhampton, as an early start and a minimal breakfast made following this blue siren with her truck loaded full of curry quite tempting. But make it we did, and so did the almost several dozen people you can count in front of the main stage below.

This pic does a great job of summarizing the crowd at V. Lots of lazing about in the sun - yes, half decent English sunshine! praise be! - lots of stuffing chips into gobs, and more than the occasional musclebound lobster pom being brought towards a state of high excitement by the fun on stage.

Speaking of which, Oasis: ehhh, yeah yeah; Chemical Brothers: yeah yeah!!; Scissors Sisters: mmmmm yeah kay I spose...; Franz Ferdinand: yeah, alright, yeah!; Goldie-Lookin "If You Leave Me Now, Can I Fuck Yer Sister" Chain: heh heh yeah but damn these pisstake welsh gits made me miss TISM; The Zutons: oh yeah! (observe response of muscle monkey above); The Roots, Prodigy, Robert Plant, Ian Brown: ah shit! missed em...

... and...

The "where has this woman been all my life apart from in Moloko" moment goes to Roisin Murphy. I'd only heard one of her solo tunes and that was only just mid week, but that was enough to make sure we trooped off to the small back corner venue to catch her. If there's any justice she won't be riding the back of the bus for long, within the first 3 minutes of her set had turned the Volvic stage into a freakin' volcano of show-woahhh-man-ship. Absolutely ripping tunes with all kinds of dub, rock, jazz and reggae undertones, demonic band, and a wildly intense stage presence even before she disrobed mid-set into a foot-high feather headdress and cyborg caberet silver jumpsuit.

Class, talent, brilliant. Highlight of the weekend.

(All pics courtesy of Ms Z.)

Blog A

2005-08-19T07:04:00.000+01:00

I see the bloke who lives down the street a bit is kinda blogging too:

personally it has taken me a long time to get my CONFIDENCE BACK.

after getting a kicking although it wasnt a kicking. was it? commercial suicide.
and proud of it. but it wasnt. just a little stink bomb at a lousy party.
and why does it matter.

Look's like he's up to something too.

PS. Do you know how hard it was to not call this post "OK Computer"?