While I was away this week, I re-read Accidental Empires (subtitle: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date) by Robert X Cringely.
The book, which covers the history and motivations of the personal computing industry, is acerbic, funny and very informative. Originally written in 1992, it has stood the test of time, considering that its subject matter is such a rapidly changing industry. The first couple of pages of the chapter entitled "The Prophet," which introduces the reader to Steve Jobs, stood out to me for obvious reasons:
Bill Gates has no style; Steve Jobs has nothing but style.
A friend once suggested that Gates switch to Armani suits from his regular plaid shirt and Levis Dockers look. "I can't do that," Bill replied. "Steve Jobs wears Armani suits."
Think of Bill Gates as the emir of Kuwait and Steve Jobs as Saddam Hussein.
Like the emir, Gates wants to run his particular subculture with an iron hand, dispensing flawed justice as he sees fit and generally keeping the bucks flowing in, not out. Jobs wants to control the world. He doesn't care about mantaining a strategic advantage; he wants to attack, to bring death to the infidels. We're talking rivers of blood here. We're talking martyrs. Jobs doesn't care if there are a dozen companies or a hundred companies opposing him. He doesn't care what the odds are against success. Like Saddam, he doesn't even care how much his losses are. Nor does he even have to win, if, by losing the mother of all battles he can maintain his peculiar form of conviction, still stand before an adoring crowd of nerds, symbolically firing his 9mm automatic into the air, telling the victors that they are still full of shit.
You guessed it. By the usual standards of Silicon Valley CEOs, where job satisfaction is measured in dollars, and an opulent retirement by age 40 is the goal, Steve Jobs is crazy.
The relevance of this, after all these years, is nothing short of completely fucking grim.
05:44 a.m.
This week, to signal its disapproval of U.S. actions, the State Duma decided under instructions from the Kremlin and Foreign Ministry to postpone the ratification of the Moscow Treaty limiting strategic nuclear weapons that was signed by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin last May.
Putin begged Bush to sign this "legally binding" agreement, while many in Washington argued no treaty was needed. Not many in Washington will cry if the treaty is never ratified.
The move to stop a ratification that Moscow needs more than Washington reflects the confusion of our elite as we see the old world order, in which we were an important player, collapse as a result of our own -- together with France's -- diplomatic insanity.
What a shitter. Regardless of what you think about war in Iraq, such a move is -- at best -- baffling and, to be rather charitable, ill-advised.
Unless, of course, the treaty was only ever a tool of political grandstanding for Putin, and its loss amounts to much less in substance than it does in symbolism. Either way, not a good thing.
02:12 a.m.
There is, of course, a bigger issue at stake for Britain in this whole Iraq situation. Bigger than the decision of whether or not to go to war? You bet. In the words of the Washington Post's Anne Applebaum:
But they [Blair's opponents] won't all come around, because the debate about Iraq in Britain is actually about far more than Iraq. It is about making a choice between two radically different options. Either Britain will become further enmeshed in the world of multilateral institutions, eventually diluting its sovereignty in the European Union; or Britain will continue to have its own foreign policy and a distinct international role. Blair knows this, and said yesterday that the decision to go to war in Iraq "will determine the pattern of politics for the next generation." Putting it more grandly, the British philosopher Roger Scruton has described this as a test of whether Britain will remain a "nation-state" at all.
Odd though it sounds, Blair is asserting his country's independence by siding with George Bush. If he is perceived to fail -- if the war goes badly, if his party votes him out of office -- his career will be at an end, and so will a very old British foreign policy tradition. After such a setback, it's hard to see how any future British prime minister would ever be able to defy European conventional wisdom again. Until now, Blair has always tried to play by the rules of multilateral Europe and to back the United States. Now he knows that he can't have it both ways, and his agony shows on his face.
A very good point by a Labour party member about the implications of a couple of things Robin Cook said in his resignation speech on Tuesday:
First he contrasted the action in Kosovo with EU and Nato support, with the division in both over Iraq. However, the reason no UN support was given for Kosovo was the knowledge that Russia (and probably China) would veto. If Russia had been in the EU, or Nato, the result would have been exactly the same. Would Robin Cook have refused to support action in Kosovo if France had been opposed? (I will not repeat the point about the fact that the UK, France, Russia, China and the US have all taken unilateral military action without the permission of the UN.)
Second, he based much of the argument on the premise that Britain could not stand alone with America. He ignored the support of Italy, Spain, most of Eastern Europe, Portugal and a whole host of others. In effect, those two arguments give France, as a member of the EU, Nato and UN Security Council, a complete veto on British foreign policy.
The Bush-haters insist this is a war for empire and oil. They look at the president and see a tool, a puppet, a usurper too stupid to comprehend the forces he will unleash, or too callous to care. Bush will be responsible for 500,000 deaths -- add 'em to the thousands who died in the Afghan campaign. He's a crusader reincarnated, a man so besotted by God he puts babes and maidens alike to the sword.
Yes, that would explain a year's delay. That would explain the congressional debate. That would explain wading into the swamp of the United Nations, permitting the return of the inspectors, holding our fire after the February report. That would explain deference and respect toward the allies who stiffed us. That would explain the 48-hour ultimatum. Yes, there's no other word to describe it: bloodlust.
[...]
Keep [this] in mind, because to hear the protesters you'd think that once again Fascist Amerika has rounded up the poor and the dark, manacled them in troop ships and sent them off to be flung against cannon fire in futile waves. No: These people volunteered for this job.
It would be stretching the point to say every soldier wants to be there. We don't have 200,000 killbots straining at the leash, eager to bayonet a hapless foe.
[...]
Yet there they are. On our behalf. Underpaid, overworked, ready to fight.
"All of them opposed taking part in a war to end Saddam Hussein's rule, even though most believed that the Middle East would be more stable after an American-led invasion."
Anyone who can make sense of that, please, let me know. My best guess is that these people want the US to sort out Iraq, but don't want their own countries to have any part of it. So much for that imperialistic American hegemony, eh?
10:57 p.m.
Is this really news? Saddam may use chemical weapons on his own people. Gee, you mean like he's been doing for years already? You mean like in the Anfal ethnic cleansing campaign, the most widespread attack of chemical weapons ever used against a civilian population? Hundreds of thousands (no, that's not an exaggeration -- and the Iraqi government doesn't deny it: they brag about it) of people dead due to this form of genocide and the best the Associated Press can do is hit us with a headline about what Saddam Hussein "may" do?
Ethnic cleansing. Genocide. Chemical weapons. Hundreds of thousands dead. Torture. Rape. Displacement. Some people don't like such language, calling it "unduly emotional". Any fool can see that what it is, really, is fact. If it doesn't sit well with you, good: it shouldn't.
As a gay man, it took no effort for me to detest the collectivist ideology of the theocratic thugs of the far Right. But it was quite a while before I began to see something that I had long been feeling: that the victimist egalitopians of the Left are just as much in the thug category. You only need to cross them to find out that Noam Chomsky and Pat Robertson are twins. I live in San Francisco. My mildest dissents from the party line have most often been met with a two-pronged response: "You are far too intelligent to consider such a thing" and "Is something going wrong in your emotional life?". I am in fact far too intelligent not to notice the combined condescension and abdication of thought therein expressed. And my emotional life is indeed in difficulty: Muslim terrorists want to destroy the civilization that makes my very existence possible and they blew a hole in my home town.
I come from a strong Catholic background, was a lifelong Democrat and I am a 60's boomer. So appeals to "Justice and Peace" seemed to me only the Natural Form of Righteousness. Now I see that what is lacking there, and in almost all the Left, is "Freedom". I have watched with increasing dismay as most of the idiots and the savants of the Left have lined up against President Bush's response to 9/11. Not that his strategy is unassailable and without risk (what, in this world, could be?). But the smug and self-satisfied contempt with which they respond, especially to him as a person, has pulled the mask off. (Apparently cultural sensitivity does not extend to Texans and the maligned standard of IQ suddenly is back in vogue). None of them show anything near such a feeling for the Islamist thugs who slaughtered 3000 of their countrymen and women in a single morning.
I am afraid that my generation learned too well to love their enemies without ever learning how to stop hating their fathers. So that now, hatred of the father takes the form of love of the enemy. And inside all that is a toxic self-hatred that appalls me.
09:38 p.m.
Whatever your opinion on this war, I think we can all relate to this at least a little bit:
I would have never believed you if you'd told the 18-year-old me in 1990-91, while my 23-year-old brother was spending nine months in the hellish desert because Saddam Hussein had invaded another country, "Rachel, when you're thirty years old, we'll still be dealing with this sociopathic dictator, who will still be in power. President Bush's son will be president. France, Russia, and Germany will try to stop the United States from attacking Saddam's regime militarily, even though more than 12 years of U.N. resolutions, peppered by weapons inspections, have proven to be completely fruitless and futile. You will be almost thirty-one before anyone finally makes an attempt to bust Saddam's balls."
The Iraqi army is deeply sensitive to what happens on this section of the front line, because of fears that the peshmerga will take advantage of the US air bombardment to recover villages from which they were deported or forced to flee over the past 25 years.
[...]
As war gets closer, a mass exodus is under way from Arbil, the largest Kurdish city, with a population of 900,000. "All my relatives and friends have left because they are frightened of an attack by poison gas," Assur, a moneychanger, said nervously. "I am going soon myself."
Assur must not have put much stock in the idea that Hussein doesn't have such weapons, or Hans Blix's assertion that he wouldn't dare use them if he did have them. Funny, that.
06:33 p.m.
See no evil (written, it should be noted, by yet another person who doesn't let his dislike for Bush and his administration stop him from seeing things for what they quite clearly are):
It sometimes seems that the left is so averse to war, especially war waged by America, that it is prepared to turn a blind eye to even the most ghastly realities. Perhaps it is because the left no longer sees these realities that its antiwar arguments tend to justify continuation of the status quo...
Instead of fighting fascists or other genocidal tyrants as it might have during the Spanish Civil War or World War II or even during the Central American conflicts of the 1980s, the modern left fights war; because the United States is the world's most significant military agent, and because it has so often used military power to support anti-democratic governments, the left understandably fights the United States. Such opposition to war is reflexive, and too often outweighs its outrage on behalf of the oppressed. Its capacity for the kind of muscular empathy that leads to action has atrophied, leaving only the possibility of reaction, of opposition. The antiwar left does not mount massive protests against China, Pakistan or Egypt. Millions do not pour into the streets on behalf of the student-led democracy movement in Iran. And Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are not angrily compared to Hitler -- that treatment is more often reserved for George W. Bush.
Yes, America is guilty of hypocrisy. But there's a lot of it about.
In Congo an estimated three million people have been killed in the past five years of war. More are killed there every month than in the past two-and-a-half years in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But though you'll see plenty of "Free Palestine" posters among the peace marchers, you won't see any "Free Congo" ones.
The five permanent members of the Security Council are the five biggest weapons sellers in the world.
Let me tell you about that gently spoken peacemaker, Kofi Annan. At the time of the Rwandan genocide he was head of UN peacekeeping operations. When the killings started, urgent diplomatic cables were sent from Rwanda to his office, telling of bodies littering the streets and begging for more UN forces. He ignored them. Did not even pass them on to the Security Council. He has never explained why. . . .
Of course it would be safer and sounder legally if the action had UN backing. But let us not pretend having UN backing would mean one fewer Iraqi civilian would be killed.
The most wicked thing is not the action the US and its allies have to take now. More wicked is the neglect and hypocrisy of the past - in which we have all colluded.
Good news for fans of The Office: Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are working on a Christmas special to wrap up all the loose ends of the Wernham-Hogg crew. Better yet, he wants it to go out this Christmas. (Hopefully American audiences will get to see it as well, since the show went down a storm with critics and BBC America viewers alike in 2002.) I like this quote from the above linked BBC site for the show, which is the character David Brent's answer to what the plot for a film of his life would be:
Working class kid with very good O-levels discovers he has above-average number of talents. Despite popular demand to pursue career in rock music, he discovers his real passion is for managerial role in light industry. Introduces radical new management style. Fat-cat money-men label him maverick loose-cannon, but co-workers (friends) quickly grow to love him and rally behind new leader like scene from Spartacus. At Christmas, receives complimentary bottle of champagne from shareholders.
05:29 p.m.
Sheryl Crow posted her thoughts on the Iraq situation on her website yesterday. It was a rambling, surprisingly (I guess I gave her more credit than she was due, prior to reading her words) illiterate post full of inaccuracies and nonsensical utterances. Just like her co-kook Michael Moore tends to do, she yanked the post as soon as the criticism started. But it's been saved for posterity if you're interested in wasting a few minutes of your life that you'll never get back. A random newsflash from Ms Crow:
There will be a price to pay..[sic] environmentally and financially. The question of recovery is one that no one can speculate....[sic] and more than likely, the bill we be paid by generations to come.
Josh Chafetz and David Asenik handily rip to shreds an op-ed piece in today's New York Times that was apparently written with absolutely no research done to support it. I don't have the words to say how angry it makes me, knowing that people read this kind of shit, think, "Hey, it's the New York Times! It must be fit to print!" and take it as gospel.
04:58 p.m.
In support of Daniel Drezner's point about the rallying support for the US in the Far East, I have to tell you that a good (British) friend of mine was in Japan last week and said that the pro-US sentiment was overwhelming. According to him, the French are taking a sound beating in the press as well. This is the same friend whose 80-year-old parents insisted on going to TGI Friday's for lunch at the weekend, so they could "show their support for America". (Yeah, TGI's is run by Whitbread plc in the UK.) Very cute: they also expected me to be wearing a ten gallon hat when they first met me, "as [I'm] an American".
04:44 p.m.
Okay, I know I've been totally masturbating over Tony Blair recently, but damned if he hasn't earned it. Even the most stridently, unabashedly anti-war newspaper in the UK -- the home of Robert Fisk, for fuck's sake -- is now getting in on the act:
Mr Blair has not shrunk from debate. He has taken the argument to all quarters of his restive party. He has allowed the Commons its say. And despite all the doubts about this war, Mr Blair has shown himself in the past few days to be at once the most formidable politician in the country and the right national leader for these deeply uncertain times.
Y'damn skippy, boys. It's a bit overdue, but better late than never. (And to think, only days ago this same newspaper was calling for him to step down. It's a funny old world, n'est-ce pas?)
"[T]he impression has been given, on the BBC in particular, that public and expert opinion is strongly and almost exclusively opposed to military action. This expectation has entered the cultural stratum that the majority of broadcasters exist in, and so dominates that it has become that most dangerous of wisdoms - not so much orthodox, as axiomatic.
A senior figure in one broadcasting organisation emailed me a fortnight ago telling me that even to suggest that Blair might have a point about Iraq had "all the young executives in their expensive clothes" behaving as if he'd just broken wind. He wasn't talking about news people, he was talking about everyone.
So, fashion T-shirts argue unilaterally, "No War, Blair Out", women on TV programmes slow handclap the PM, reports from round the country focus without fail on protesters, dissidents and angry Muslim groups. Local news shows you the Muswell Hill anti-war campaigners and features striking schoolkids. Religious leaders are collectively described as being anti-war, as though they had taken a vote, and no one had voted the other way. Jacques Chirac, it is quipped, speaks for the majority of Britons..."
04:32 p.m.
Yikes. I was at Gatwick Airport this weekend, so this made me sit up a bit. As if airports and Underground stations weren't nerve-wracking enough these days. (No, this is nothing new to a country as accustomed to terrorism as Great Britain has become over the last few decades. That doesn't make people approach current terrorist threats with any degree of nonchalance, though. Not if they're being honest, anyway.)
05:41 a.m.
It's nice to read the thoughts of another liberal who's not a fan of George W Bush but who still supports the use of military action in Iraq. He also has an interesting view of Bill Clinton:
My opinion on Clinton: what a tragic waste of potential. All those brains and yet he failed to really recognize the opportunity he had to profoundly shape the world order in the obvious power vacuum of the post-Cold War. Nothing makes me angrier than thinking he was perfectly well aware of the growing discontent in the Third World and mounting threat of terrorism, watching as thousands marched through Bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan and yet, instead of recasting the role of the CIA and using his ample charms and intelligence to try to lead the direction for the New World Order -- or even just keep tabs on who Bin Laden was training -- he spent his time gloating about the bubble economy, hand-holding in Northern Ireland, befriending North Korea while they schemed behind our backs, morphing his party into Republicans Lite, and getting blow jobs under the desk. What a sorry self-aggrandizing ass he turned out to be. I'm so glad I voted for Nader in '98.
I can practically hear the chorus of "But at least Clinton was popular!" now. (Full disclosure: I did vote for the guy, and campaigned for him, but felt terribly let down by what he did with his two terms. Matt Bruner touches on a few reasons why in the above quote.)
Clare "The Lady is For Turning" Short was passing notes to Jack Straw outlining her plans for the reconstruction of Iraq, as if Donald Rumsfeld is going to ask her.
I have a real problem with this woman -- always have done, and likely always will do if she continues in the vein she's been conducting herself for the last four years or so. ("Clare Short's political transformation has quietly shifted her from leftwing firebrand to centre-right technocrat. Happily for the government, most people in Britain have yet to notice her metamorphosis." -- George Mobiat, 1999.)
But the fact remains that she labelled Tony Blair's handling of this issue "reckless". Yes, the same Tony Blair who convinced George W Bush to go down the UN route in the first place. In the words of Robert Kagan:
The irony is that Blair has largely succeeded in the first part of his mission, convincing the American hegemon to act within the international legal framework. It is ironic because that is where his critics suggest he has failed. But it was Blair, and Blair alone, who convinced President Bush last summer to go to the UN security council to seek a new resolution on Iraq. It was Blair who convinced the Bush administration - perhaps the least inclined to multilateral action of any in decades - to allow one final test for Iraq. And it is Blair who today has managed to convince an evidently impatient American president to take the risky course of seeking yet another security council resolution before acting against Iraq. This is despite the possibility of a messy political failure at the UN.
Those who simply oppose the war under any circumstances may judge Blair a failure for not stopping Bush, although the charge is a bit absurd given that Blair himself is not opposed to war. But those who claim their primary concern is the upholding of international law and the strengthening of the UN security council as the only legitimate authority for declaring war against Iraq - as so many of Blair's Labour party critics do claim - have no business at all being critical of Blair. Rather, if they are sincere in their assertion that the issue is international order and not peace for peace's sake, then they should be applauding and supporting Blair and turning their anger elsewhere.
Simply put, Clare Short's criticism of Blair's handling of this issue as "reckless" marks her as someone who is largely ignorant of what has actually, as the kids say, gone down. Regretfully, I'd expect that from the man or woman in the street. But from an MP -- and a Cabinet member? It's disgusting and shameful. I wish she'd done us all a favour and handed in that resignation letter she wrote. Hopefully, Blair will be giving her a pink slip in the not too distant future.
03:45 a.m.
I had to laugh at this segment of the Guardian's live minute-by-minute coverage of yesterday's Iraq debate in the House of Commons:
William Hague stands up - and cannot avoid the temptation to have a go at the leader of the Lib Dems - saying if the Iraqi army "collapses under fire as quickly as his argument, it will be a short war indeed!"
Mr Kennedy picks his nose and turns red.
Mr Hague then compliments Robin Cook on his speech last night, before commenting on Clare Short that he has never seen "a more spectacular failure to resign".
He jokes that Mr Blair has had his revenge on her by forcing her to stay IN the cabinet ... Mr Blair laughs.
[...]
Mr Hague commends the prime minister's stance, urges colleagues to vote for it, and receives a nod of thanks from Mr Blair.
I'd love to see such debate and exchange in Congress, between the President and the legislature. Not in my lifetime, sadly.
02:31 a.m.
On a lighter note, I just placed my votes for the British Soap Awards 2003. My ballot is as follows:
BEST BRITISH SOAP: Coronation Street -- honestly, Eastenders will always be number one in my heart, but Corrie has come up trumps this last twelve months. Apart from the wonderfully done Richard Hillman storyline, the writers have kept up the comedy very nicely. Blanche and Norris are nothing short of hilarious.
BEST ACTRESS: Natalie Cassidy, Eastenders
BEST ACTOR: Raymond Quinn, Brookside -- I don't even watch Brookie these days, but Quinn plays little Anthony Murray, and has always done an outstanding job in that role. If the world was just, Haley Joel Osment would be starring in Brookie, and Raymond Quinn would be making big budget films in Hollywood.
SEXIEST FEMALE: Stirling Gallacher, Doctors -- I don't watch Doctors, but Stirling was fantastic in The Office and she's way more attractive than any of the other women on the list (Kim Medcalf?!).
SEXIEST MALE: Shane Ritchie, Eastenders -- because he should have been up for Best Actor. The character of Alfie Moon is the best thing about that show these days, and he really does make the whole half hour.
VILLAIN OF THE YEAR: Brian Capron, Coronation Street -- a tough call, what with Alex Ferns being up for his portrayal of Trevor Morgan in Eastenders, but this was the year of mad Richard Hillman, no doubt about it.
Hans Blix gives Saddam Hussein far, far too much credit:
If Iraq has chemical or biological weapons, it will probably refrain from using them against attacking US troops, Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix said. He told a news conference that Iraq was "capable of building warheads" to carry toxins, but said it was an open question whether it had the weapons.
The main constraint was not technical but political, Blix said.
"World public opinion, which they study quite a lot, is feeling in large measure that going to war is too early. That skepticism would turn immediately around if they used chemical or biological weapons," he said.
I wonder if Saddam looked to "world public opinion" in 1991 when he took the decision to lob SCUD missiles at Israel. I mean, he's clearly a reasonable enough bloke...right?
The point is that Washington wants to punish Baghdad for adopting the Euro, potentially ruinous in the long term to the US economy.
You really couldn't make it up. (Link via Emily Jones.)
01:14 a.m.
18 March, 2003
The House of Commons has voted 412 to 149 to support the government's position on Iraq.
10:35 p.m.
You know, Tony Blair's speech to the House of Commons today was spectacular. His leadership over the last month or so has been awesome to watch. This, and the general climate of what passes for debate these days, made something he said in his speech today resonate with me:
People who agree on everything else, disagree on this and likewise, those who never agree on anything, [are] finding common cause. The country and parliament reflect each other, a debate that, as time has gone on has become less bitter but not less grave.
I do have issues with Blair and his government, which I will surely continue to catalogue as the months go on. But with his ratings shooting up in Britain and pro-war sentiment doing likewise (it has now overtaken the anti-war sentiment amongst men, Labour party and Tory party voters alike), I hope the rest of this country is seeing what a Prime Minister we have in this man. At the darkest hour, when many in his party abandoned him in the hopes of riding the tide of what appeared to be public opinion, he never did back down from his firmly held belief that Saddam Hussein's leadership of Iraq is a threat to the world at large. I can't think of a time I've ever been genuinely proud of a politician, much less Tony Blair. Today, a precedent was set.
Our fault has not been impatience. The truth is our patience should have been exhausted weeks and months and years ago. Even now, when if the world united and gave him an ultimatum: comply or face forcible disarmament, he might just do it, the world hesitates and in that hesitation he senses the weakness and therefore continues to defy.
What would any tyrannical regime possessing WMD think viewing the history of the world's diplomatic dance with Saddam? That our capacity to pass firm resolutions is only matched by our feebleness in implementing them. That is why this indulgence has to stop. Because it is dangerous. It is dangerous if such regimes disbelieve us. Dangerous if they think they can use our weakness, our hesitation, even the natural urges of our democracy towards peace, against us. Dangerous because one day they will mistake our innate revulsion against war for permanent incapacity; when in fact, pushed to the limit, we will act. But then when we act, after years of pretence, the action will have to be harder, bigger, more total in its impact. Iraq is not the only regime with WMD. But back away now from this confrontation and future conflicts will be infinitely worse and more devastating.
[...]
11 September has changed the psychology of America. It should have changed the psychology of the world. Of course Iraq is not the only part of this threat. But it is the test of whether we treat the threat seriously.
09:32 p.m.
Ugh. Robbie Williams is jumping on the 'peace' song bandwagon, and his efforts are less than impressive:
I won’t go to war, lay down your guns,
What are we fighting for?
I’m gonna buy a farm, write a song.
It won’t change the Earth, just the people on it.
Oh hear the sound of a million people sitting down.
Hip to hip, lip to lip, free love, free love.
But what's this?
“I’m really scared, to tell you the truth. It’s a really serious thing for me. I don’t understand it.”
At least he's willing to admit it. I have to say, I give the guy more credit than I do Martin "Inspections Work!" Sheen.
“I’m scared for everyone’s future because I don’t know who to trust...This is the first world event I’ve been grown-up enough to watch and have a point of view about.”
Robbie Williams is 29 years old, people.
I'm meant to go see Robbie at Knebworth in August. I really hope he stops saying dumb shit before then.
09:00 p.m.
From the Financial Times comes word of dissent and defection within Saddam Hussein's own ranks:
Saddam Hussein's most important Kurdish ally has defected to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq in what officials here say is an indication that the Iraqi president's internal support is beginning to crumble.
Jowhad Herki is chief of the powerful Herki tribe and since the 1960s has supported successive Baghdad regimes in putting down revolts by fellow Kurds. He arrived in northern Iraq via London after travelling there from Baghdad for medical treatment. He is a former member of the Iraqi parliament.
And I thought Robin Cook's resignation from Tony Blair's cabinet was welcome news!
06:52 p.m.
Well, he was dumb enough to marry Julia Roberts, but it looks like Lyle Lovett has wised up.
06:50 p.m.
Why do people shy away from using words like "evil" where it is clearly the only word to adequately describe the nature of things like government-mandated murder, torture and rape? (Funnily enough, many of those same people are happy to apply the word to George W Bush and America. Twats.) Anne Clwyd's witness statement on atrocities in Iraq brought a few words to mind, amongst them "evil":
"There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein's youngest son] personally supervise these murders."
That there are people happy for such things to continue, just as long as those coloured chappies don't dare come near us or our loved ones, is -- if not evil -- shameful and disgusting.
06:42 p.m.
I want to make babies with Rachel Lucas.
06:34 p.m.
I remember as a child feeling a warm sense of relief when I saw officials inking treaties with that beetle-browed gouty hack Brezhnev - how could there ever be war? We’d signed papers in front of everyone. It’s as if the devotees of diplomacy think that international negotiations are like a mortgage closing. But if mortgage closings were like Security Council resolutions, we’d all be living on the lawn, waiting for the housing inspectors to verify that the previous owners not only didn’t fix the leaky gas line, they weren't still holed up in the attic with shotguns and canned food. I can see them through the window! They're still there! Well, send in some more inspectors. But I have the title, and the keys, and the movers are here with all my stuff. Let us not rush things; let the closing process run its course. But the movers will leave at the end of the day, and I'll still be stuck out here. There are still options yet unexplored; we are constructing a timetable that will let the previous occupants live in the storage closet for a month - Screw that! It's my house! I have the deed, right here, and my first payment is due in a week! We must not rush to evict. Remember, they have signed on to the house-transfer process, and we sincerly hope they live up to their obligations. Right. Fine. I'm calling the cops. No! That would destroy the legitimacy of Hank's Belgian Mortgage Collective! No one would get a mortgage from us again! For the sake of the international mortgage broker community, please consider sleeping on the lawn for 30 days.
06:27 p.m.
Can we put a moratorium on use of the word "unilateral," now?
"We now have a coalition of the willing that includes some 30 nations who publicly said they could be included in such a listing," Powell said, "and there are 15 other nations, for one reason or another, who do not wish to be publicly named but will be supporting the coalition."
06:25 p.m.
11 March, 2003
Diabloggerpoints out the multiple contradictions, oversights and outright errors in the New York Times' Sunday editorial. This is what I love about political blogs: time and time again, the good ones really show up the mainstream press. Really, the Times ought to be ashamed of themselves for publishing such a pile of steamy shite. There are some very good arguments against going to war (or so I'm told), but damned if I can see any in the Times' piece.
03:58 a.m.
Andrew Sullivan has some interesting -- if appalling -- information about those ridiculous "Code Pink" anti-war demonstrations at the weekend. (Just to give you an idea of the kind of people we're dealing with here, a quote from the Washington Post: "'The White House is definitely afraid of women in pink and the power of love,' said CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans.") Sullivan happened upon the demo while walking his dog:
In the few conversations I managed to have without losing my cool, I asked some of the demonstrators whether they were aware of how many people Saddam Hussein had killed in his short time on earth. "Not as many as Bush," came one reply. "America is the true terrorist nation," another opined. Now I am second to no-one in defending these people's right to say whatever they believe, and it was a beautiful day for a feisty demonstration. But what can one make of the arguments one hears? Maybe it's because I'm surrounded by these sentiments, but it's hard not to wonder what these people will say or do once this particular phase of the war actually gets under way.
Quite.
And, in an email, a friend of Sullivan's who actually marched gave a more detailed account of what went on:
Everybody assembled at Malcolm X Park and then marched down 16th street to the White House. I marched with a contingent of local anarchist friends who had formed up the "F.A.G. Bloc." I spent most of the march carrying one end of a banner that read: "FISTS ARE 4 FUCKING, NOT FOR FIGHTING." We also had signs that read "MASTURBATE FOR PEACE" and my favorite, "TIT CLAMPS NOT WAR CAMPS." We were joined at points by the radical cheerleader bloc ... If we're going to have rallies and marches like this, I think this style is the way to go. ;-)
In Sullivan's words: "What does one say about this - except that some part of our culture doesn't even begin to know how to grapple with grave matters of peace and war, life and death?" And in my words: how come they're banging on about sex like this when these are the same people who always insist that things like war are down to "Angry White Men with very serious penis issues"?
02:15 a.m.
SCREAM, Barry's been sacked from EastEnders! I'm shocked at how upsetting I find this. Who will replace him as the biggest loser on television?
01:59 a.m.
"We've done all that we can," said a dejected-looking Mr. Bush. "I guess we were just wrong. I have to agree with the verdict of the Security Council, after all the United Nations is boss."
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein applauded the U.S. move, calling it a "victory for justice and multi-national unity."
U.N. delegates from France and Russia called on President Bush to come to the United Nations and formally apologize for distracting the Security Council from its important work of passing resolutions condemning Israel.
“I am not anti-Bush. I am not pro-Iraq. I am pro-peace. I hope this provokes thought and dialogue.”
The only thought it's provoking with me is that Madonna needs a stepladder to get over herdamnself. As for dialogue, I'm thinking "Fuck off, you silly bitch" just about covers it. (See also: "American Stupidity: Selling Che Guevara".)
12:40 a.m.
10 March, 2003
For anyone who reads antiwar.com (nah, no link) or the Chicago Sun Times and thought there might be a scintilla of merit to Debra Pickett's ignorant-ass attempt at arguing that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is someone who was only "suddenly" and "mysteriously" portrayed as an al-Qaeda grand fromage after he was captured, Bill Herbert's already debunked that one. I'd like to see a retraction from antiwar.com and the Sun Times; needless to say, I'm not holding my breath.
11:53 p.m.
Jaed has a very thought-provoking piece on what the UN means to Americans versus what it means to Europeans, and how this fundamental difference has really only become glaringly obvious as late. An excerpt from "Europe, Multilateralism and Moral Imperatives Redux":
As an American, I tend to see the UN in utilitarian terms, much the way I see the government. (The UN's not a government, but it occupies - or tries to occupy - a similar niche, and is - or was - seen by many as a step toward a world government.) It's there to ensure security. If it fails to do this, or if it actively damages security, altering or abolishing it, and replacing it with something that works better, comes to mind right quick. It's a major step, but not an unthinkable one; the UN's moral legitimacy arises from its utility, and to get rid of it for non-performance is more like firing an incompetent worker than tearing down a temple.
For Americans, protecting international security is the UN's purpose, its reason for being. Looking at the organization's recent history, we can see many instances in which it has failed to accomplish its purpose: the genocide in Rwanda, the incredible fuckup in Srebrenica, UN soldiers stepping aside and allowing the 1967 attack on Israel, and on and on. Clearly not much good at protection.
Now it seems that the Security Council is not only unwilling to aid in ensuring security, it's engaged in strenuous attempts to prevent America from ensuring its own security. (For those who do not think Iraq is a threat to America's security, please note that the Security Council isn't adducing that position as a reason for blocking an eighteenth resolution on Iraq or for opposing American military action.) The UN is not only not useful, it's become actively harmful - not in a trivial "Let's spout some anti-Semitic rhetoric today" way, but in a way that if allowed to succeed will have a real price in blood. To me - having grown up in Jefferson's tradition - it looks like "alter or abolish" time.
And on the subject of "unilateralism":
(Summarized: to Americans, "unilateral" means "acting alone", while to Europeans, "unilateral" means "acting outside transnational organizations".) One thing I didn't bring up is that to Americans, even "acting alone" is not ipso facto wrong or immoral; in fact, the lone man who speaks and acts to bring justice, against the opposition of all, is a common part of American myth. Unilateral (in the American sense) policy may be imprudent or dangerous in a given situation - one may need the help of friends to successfully carry it out, for example - but it's not a bad thing in itself. And, of course, there's the fact that we do have allies - not the Germans and French to be sure, but "without Germany and France" does not equal "acting alone".
Go read the whole thing.
11:40 p.m.
Clare Short keeps her job...for now. I can understand why Blair's keeping her on at the moment, but I really wish he'd just cut her loose. I've found her distasteful for years, and would love to see her out on her arse. As George Mobiat noted in the Guardian in 1999:
Clare Short's political transformation has quietly shifted her from leftwing firebrand to centre-right technocrat. Happily for the government, most people in Britain have yet to notice her metamorphosis.
I noticed. She's an ineffectual and, worse, downright destructive Member of Parliament. The sooner she's gone, the better.
11:29 p.m.
As a native Ohioan, it pleases me somewhat to see that Jerry Springer scored the Ohio Poll's highest unfavourable rating in fourteen years. On the other hand, I'd still rather have Jerry Springer as an Ohio Senator than Republican George Voinovich, who I've loathed since he was Ohio's governor and I was a kid: one's just more up-front about his sleaziness than the other, really.
11:14 p.m.
