This entry was posted on
Tuesday, May 4th, 2004 at
2:42 pm and is filed
under Uncategorized.
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Date
20040504
Updates
Time
14:42
Sorry, no updates today bar my swiftly expressed opinion that the torture images published by the Mirror are almost certainly of the staged variety (up a bit with the rifle; left a bit, left a bit – great, now give me pain *click* – give me agony *click* – give me outrage – *click*) and the news that Labour: I See Red has climbed to 12th position for the search query ‘labour leadership’.
Head down, arse up… and onwards we go.
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Date
20040504
Christianity Watch
Time
15:02
How could one possibly find fault with the notion of corporate prayer?
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Date
20040505
It’s War! And Things Is Getting Ridiculous!
Time
10:26
I’ve been watching the two main tabloids and their coverage of the Iraq torture issue very carefully.
Rebekah Wade at The Sun deserves a blasting for brushing US torture aside.
Piers Morgan at the Mirror and the twats that shifted the obviously staged photos of British troops ‘brutalising’ an ‘Iraqi prisoner’ deserve a right and proper shafting for – amongst other things – giving Wade just the ammo she needed to breeze right over this.
Day One
Friday 30th April 2004
The Mirror
There are boobs on the front page, but a significant amount of room has been left to highlight ‘torture-lite’, US-style. The core story runs at 486 words. 5 images are shown, including those that are most damning (and most likely to outrage your typical tabloid reader).
The Sun
Murdoch’s Sun buries the story on page 6. Less than a quarter of the page. They show one picture (the chap standing on a box). They do not show grinning soldiers watching naked bodies in obscene poses or building human pyramids. The coverage is limited to 130 words. No editorial. No outrage. Well done, Scum.
Day Two
Saturday 1st May, 2004
The Mirror
More front page coverage and several articles, but this time with similar accusations levelled at British troops – based on what can only be described as carefully staged photos. The most damning thing this collection of images could turn out to be would be a reconstruction commissioned by the armed forces based on an actual or alleged event. But instead they are presented as genuine candid shots, and the damage is done.
The Sun
The Sun finally comments on the US torture images; but they only do so when they can lead with the words of George W. Bush. Today’s coverage is expanded to a mighty 229 words (not including the editorial headlined ‘Bad Apples’) and begins with; President George Bush yesterday condemned US soldiers responsible for the “despicable” torturing of Iraqi prisoners. The more damning images are finally published, but not in print; only on the website. The front page is dominated by a Beckham non-story and Michael Jackson. Conspiracy theorists will note that Mr Jackson seems to get arrested, charged or searched every time Dubya has a PR disaster on his hands. Myself, I think the front-page priority this time around is more likely to be the result of Rebekah Wade’s pathological hatred of (alleged) kiddy-fiddlers.
Sunday – a day of rest and tabloid alternatives.
Day Three
Monday 3rd May, 2004
The Mirror
The Mirror stand by their exclusive (or knee-deep in shit, depending on your point of view).
The Sun
The Sun finally run with a front page about the torture of Iraqis, but only when the images concerned can be dismissed as fakes. This time they show every image in a multi-page spread that goes to 929 words. There is no further mention of the genuine photos but, God help me, they say something in their editorial that I can actually agree with; If the experts are right and the Iraq photos are fakes, they are the most dangerous forgeries ever.
Day Four
Tuesday 4th May, 2004
A celebrity gets caught having Interweb sex or some such and the front pages return to business as usual. For anybody depending primarily on The Sun for information, the impression is left that there were some torture allegations, but authorities are Right On Top Of It and Doing The Right Thing – and the pictures were faked anyway, weren’t they?
Richard Littlejohn mouths off today, and is paraphrased on the front page of the website as saying; Something about photographs of British troops abusing an Iraqi prisoner didn’t ring true. (When what he actually says is; But something about those photographs of British troops abusing an Iraqi prisoner didn’t ring true. They looked suspect from the off.)
Strange that they would be forced to shape the words of our own version of Rush Limbaugh.
But even stranger is this…
To make sure that everybody gets the ‘point’, The Sun again tackles the faked photos (in yet another multi-page spread) while ignoring the importance of the real ones. Wade sets out to prove how easy it is to fake such images by setting up two teenage boys (aged 14 and 17) to do exactly that. The result is – in a newspaper headed by someone normally rabid about child pornography – images of teenage boys posing in their underwear and pretending to urinate on each other.
UPDATE – Guardian – Pressure grows on Mirror editor: Pressure was today mounting on Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan as he faced growing calls to resign if the paper’s pictures of Iraqis being tortured by British troops prove to be faked. And he is expected to be called before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about the provenance of the photographs, which rival newspapers today claim to be part of an elaborate hoax.
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Date
20040505
The Bush Administration
Time
10:41
The Claim Vs. Fact Database is the mutt’s: The Center for American Progress has launched this new database project to chart conservatives’ dishonesty – and compare it with the truth. In this database, each conservative quote will be matched against well-documented facts, so that users can get a more accurate picture of the issues.
Not that you’ll be able to do anything with this information…
Washington Post – Patriot Act Suppresses News Of Challenge to Patriot Act
Washington Post – Cheney Praises Fox News Channel – Vice President Calls Network ‘More Accurate’ Than Others: Fox News styles its coverage as “fair and balanced,” but it has a heavy stable of conservative commentators that makes it a favorite around the White House. It is unusual for a president or vice president to single out a commercial enterprise for public praise.
Oh, and George W. Bush was so outraged by the torture of Iraqi prisoners (note – don’t forget to mention that things were far worse under Saddam Hussein) that he kept a lid on this investigation for close to 4 months. (While you’re browsing the always-useful Memory Hole, do take the time to look at their expanded gallery of images of abuse.)
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Date
20040505
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
10:55
Pat Tilman’s brother says: “Pat isn’t with God. He’s f — ing dead. He wasn’t religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he’s f — ing dead.”
George W. Bush says: “There’s a lot of people in the world who don’t believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren’t necessarily — are a different color than white can self-govern.”
John O’Neill says: I was on Mr. Kerry’s boat in Vietnam. He doesn’t deserve to be commander in chief.
Too much for you? Why not instead fill your mind with Hollywood gossip Popbitch-style, Pacmanhatten and bunny rabbits re-enacting The Shining in 30 seconds?
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Date
20040505
Labour Needs Leadership Change
Time
11:18
Parties launch local election battle.
Blair attacks Howard as ‘high priest of Thatcherism’.
The ammo Blair is using looks awfully familiar… dare I say ‘I told you so’ again…?
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Date
20040505
Pluggage
Time
11:36
Remember those USB Swiss Army Knives everybody got so excited about a month or so ago? They’ll be shipping pretty soon, and Giltsharp are keen to give a few away. There’s also an added bonus for bloggers. If you nab a link from Bloggerheads today, please make it this one:
Giltsharp’s Swiss Army Knife Short Story Competition
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Date
20040505
Activism
Time
13:40
FCC inundated with Oprah complaints. A glorious lunch-time read.
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Date
20040506
Scam Alert
Time
09:48
Cheers to Neil from the European Ecommerce Association for the heads-up on this one:
This is neat and classic little scam that relies on the usual mix of brand-related trust, urgency, greed and stupidity.
Hey, you’ve won an X-Box! All you have to do is go to the site (now removed) and claim your prize. There is the small matter of $19.99 for shipment costs, but that’s no big deal, right? Of course, if you want to pay for the shipment and get your prize, you need to provide details of your debit card (“no credit cards due to technical reasons”) and your PIN number…
From: “Ken Kawaguchi” kkawaguchi@pikoprizo.com
Subject: Youve won a Microsoft X-Box. (This is not spam)
Greetings,
Your email address was entered into our Microsoft X-Box promotional competition by either yourself or a friend, or perhaps a family member, at http://www.pikoprizo.com
This is a prize draw, you have actually won a brand new Microsoft X-Box Gaming Console!
Your package also includes these top 5 games:
– Halo
– Metal Gear Solid 2
– Max Payne
– Splinter Cell
– Panzer Dragoon Orta
You are now invited to login to our website and claim your prize that you have already won. There are only 5 winners in total this month, out of thousands of emails, so do count yourself lucky!
We have provided the following web link for you, it is temporary and expires in 72 hours. If you do not login within this time, your winning shall unfortunately be returned to the prize pool.
Here is your link! http://www.pikoprizo.com/cgi-bin/script.cgi?code=C3498349349&winner=il@eeauk.com&ref=L2384938493493
On this page you will need to enter this pass code number to proceed:
209581
This is very important. Do not lose that number!
Put in your address, and we will send your X-Box to you.
We hope that you will enjoy your new X-Box gaming console.
Congratulations on winning,
From Microsoft and the PikoPrizo.com team!
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Date
20040506
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
10:14
In the top spot, MSNBC’s (originating) version of the Memory Hole document blogged yesterday:
Complete text of Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade
Dominating most of the rest of the top ten is a number of different versions of the same link. This one is the print-friendly version. Heaven knows why Disney thought they would come out looking good with this little effort (mind you, the keyword ‘Eisner’ should be a bit of a giveaway). FFS, it was one of the lead stories on BBC radio and online this morning:
New York Times – Disney Forbidding Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush: Mr. Moore’s agent, Ari Emanuel, said Michael D. Eisner, Disney’s chief executive, asked him last spring to pull out of the deal with Miramax. Mr. Emanuel said Mr. Eisner expressed particular concern that it would endanger tax breaks Disney receives for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Mr. Bush’s brother, Jeb, is governor.
This news item from the ‘and they walked away’ department is doing nicely:
Construction worker survives nail gun accident. Six nails were embedded in his skull and spinal column.
Also nudging the top ten and due further attention, the chaps who set up their own ‘right wing think tank’, dedicated to the collapse of the liberal welfare state. The stunt they pulled was inspired. I won’t spoil it for you; go and see.
Finally, today’s main distraction (I smell B3tan) is:
Badgers and banana-phones!
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Date
20040506
Christianity Watch
Time
10:16
This isn’t me.
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Date
20040506
It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!
Time
11:26
Washington Post – New Prison Images Emerge – Graphic Photos May Be More Evidence of Abuse: The collection of photographs begins like a travelogue from Iraq. Here are U.S. soldiers posing in front of a mosque. Here is a soldier riding a camel in the desert. And then: a soldier holding a leash tied around a man’s neck in an Iraqi prison. He is naked, grimacing and lying on the floor. Mixed in with more than 1,000 digital pictures obtained by The Washington Post are photographs of naked men, apparently prisoners, sprawled on top of one another while soldiers stand around them. There is another photograph of a naked man with a dark hood over his head, handcuffed to a cell door. And another of a naked man handcuffed to a bunk bed, his arms splayed so wide that his back is arched. A pair of women’s underwear covers his head and face.
Isn’t human nature wonderful? Actually, this is kind of related, but we’ll have to get back to the point very quickly after this; a porn site has released graphic images showing US troops raping and sexually abusing Iraqi women (watch out for NSFW ads). The images are obviously fakes, but are reported to have been used as propaganda tools by ‘at least two Arabic-language websites’. The core site involved – iraqbabes.com – appears to have been hacked, and today features this lovely picture of a horse.
Right, back to the point…
Iraqis unmoved by Bush’s TV offensive. Even in damage-limitation mode, he still can’t bring himself to say the ‘s’ word; that was left to Rice. I particularly love this nugget: Mr Bush said the people of Iraq “must understand that what took place in that prison does not represent the America that I know”.
Given that Bush doesn’t read newspapers or watch television and only meets ‘real people’ carefully vetted by his PR team, one can only wonder what the America he knows is – and if it actually exists anywhere outside of his tiny little mind.
Moving right along…
Bush scolds Rumsfeld. There’s talk of Rummy being for the chop. Right now it’s only talk, but one more shocking image should be enough to do the trick.
$25b sought for Iraq, Afghanistan. I remember very clearly the reaction to Bush’s request for $87bn in September ‘to continue the fight on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan’. News that some of this money was used to brutally quell protest at home instead of fighting terror passed most by, but the bulk of them sure felt that hit to the hip pocket. Many Americans found their voice as a result. And f**k me if they aren’t need now more than ever…
Talk-show host Jay Severin seems to think that “the vast majority” of Muslims living in the US are not at all loyal to the country and stand ready to take over when the time is right (that will probably be when you’re in the shower and have soap in your eyes, so do keep a head-towel of your own handy – just in case). When it was suggested by a caller that listeners befriend them, Severin said: “You think we should befriend them. I think we should kill them.”
But not before stripping them naked, putting sacks over their heads and piling them high in the nearest corner, right? I mean, come on – swarthy middle-eastern peeps are less than human. That’s why the death of a US soldier is a tragedy and the death of an Iraqi civilian is a statistic. (One that you probably wouldn’t even be aware of without independent reporting.)
It’s also worth noting that when Saddam’s soldiers played this game, it was called ‘torture’ – but now, when Bush’s soldiers do it, it’s called ‘abuse’…
The final word on this I leave to Riverbend, from this, her latest post: And you know what? You won’t hear half of the atrocities and stories because Iraqis are proud, indignant people and sexual abuse is not a subject anyone is willing to come forward with. The atrocities in Abu Ghraib and other places will be hidden away and buried under all the other dirt the occupation brought with it…
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Date
20040506
The End of Democracy
Time
11:29
Diebold critics hail California decision: Last week’s announcement that California had decertified its Diebold electronic voting machines and recommended criminal and civil investigations into the company had local Diebold critics cheering, but Maryland’s elections chief said nothing has changed.
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Date
20040506
The Bush Administration
Time
11:37
Tucked away in an Atrios thread is this very interesting comment that tracks several evasive answers from the White House regarding what Bush knew about the atrocities in Iraq and when. With this, you have to keep in mind that – when the search for WMDs was scaled back to the search for possibly-maybe-potential-WMD-programmes – the one bit of ammo that Bush kept falling back on was Saddam’s ‘rape rooms’ and how they were a thing of the past, praise Jebus.
What did the pResident know and when did he know it? The army knew about it in January. Bush was still banging on about rape rooms in February:
“Saddam Hussein now sits in a prison cell, and Iraqi men and women are no longer carried to torture chambers and rape rooms …” – Bush, remarks on “Winston Churchill and the War on Terror,” Feb. 4, 2004
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Date
20040506
Labour Needs Leadership Change
Time
12:13
Labour: I See Red continues to find an audience amongst disaffected voters. Robin has very kindly credited it as ‘perhaps the UK’s first political viral campaign,’ but I’m not sure how correct that description would be.
The Greens claimed a first with this ‘online viral film advertising campaign’ in 2002, and this anti-Euro campaign was launched in 2000.
I watched the last general election with interest and even ran a commercial/subversive element during it, but don’t recall anything that stands out apart from a variation of Dancing Paul, the Stereo MPs. This performed well, but had no message.
There was also Labour’s lame text to a bunch of young voters at 11pm on the eve of the election, promising 24-hour pubs. Which turned out to be a broken promise, BTW.
Anyway, I have Something Better in mind for the Bush administration. This would be a plea from the international community to the American people.
Core Message:
America is bigger…
America is better….
… than George W. Bush.
You saved our asses in WW1
You saved our asses in WW2
This is your chance to save our asses from WW3
(extract tongue from cheek)
There’s more, but I want to keep it at secret-squirrel status for now.
To make it happen, I need a choir, recording equipment and a bunch of other stuff I don’t got. Finding the right people could make it happen on the cheap, but often this takes time and leads to disappointment.
So really I need money. Anybody got any bright ideas? Who would agree with that core message and be free & willing to part with the cash that would allow me to deliver it?
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Date
20040506
Pluggage
Time
12:15
Cheers to WTFAYBOA, The Whole Wide World Of Fat Buddha and The Ultimate Insult (and now Ghost of a Flea) for their pluggage of Giltsharp’s Swiss Army Knife Short Story Competition.
Something to keep in mind is the fifty (count ’em – fifty) Swiss Card Quattros on offer to bloggers. Response rates for creative-based competitions hover around 10% or thereabouts. You also have to consider that only 2-7% of web users own and run their own website. Do the maths. Then get typing.
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Date
20040506
Doing The Rounds
Time
12:33
Man’s hole makes him world-famous on the Interweb, crashes his website. No Goatse jokes, please.
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Date
20040506
Only Interesting to Bloggers
Time
14:22
Oi!
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Date
20040506
Activism
Time
14:28
Urban75 reports on the May Day picnic and Unreality TV needs you.
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Date
20040507
Bunch of Stuff
Time
09:46
I’m going to be busy today with a little project. Oh, and some work.
Here are a few things to tide you over…
Happy Posters:
Kev and his mate had to make a news report for uni, and chose The Happy Poster Project as their subject. I got a solid kick out of it (actually, it pretty much made my week), but you may not care quite as much. At least, not enough to download a file this size. Your call. You can visit Kev’s site and have a poke around first, or download the video directly (25.6mB MPEG).
Labour Needs Leadership Change:
Watched ITV news last night. Trevor MacDonald said this in his headline rundown:
“Seeing red; John Scarlett is named as the new head of MI6.”
No connection, just spooky is all.
Oh, and Labour: I See Red is today the top search result in Google for the search query ‘labour leadership’.
Thanks to all who linked for your support and Google-juice. (A special nod goes to Dave Weeden for his unprompted, keyword-weighted whoring.)
Torture, Bush & Rumsfeld:
What did they know and when did they know it?
What did they do to rectify the problem? Or did they simply try to hide it…?
Is this an isolated incident, or simply one visible result of a wider culture of torture-lite?
Well, here are some bags, smiles and reports from July 2003.
They knew. They had to know. And for quite some time. They’re only feigning outrage now because the wider population found out about it.
And that’s what my little project is going to be about.
Please stand by.
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Date
20040507
Activism
Time
12:04
OK, here it is. Grab a sack and get ready for action:
Sack Bush: The Bagged Statue Experiment
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Date
20040507
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
14:50
I bet this helps.
I bet this doesn’t.
UPDATE – Bloody hell! Take a look at how many people are buying into Bush’s photo-op. And here’s another touching moment for your delectation.
You tell me that this isn’t staged; I put it to you that the timing is awfully convenient. (Oh, and for future reference, you might want to file ‘It almost sounds like a corny email chain letter’ under the same category as ‘this is not spam’.)
UPDATE 2 – So who can the RWCs blame for the torture (sorry, ‘abuse’) besides Bush and Rumsfeld? Try women, feminists, Muslims, and the academic left. (Link via Atrios.)
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Date
20040510
It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!
Time
10:57
Have you bagged a statue yet? I got my morning off to a good start with a cracker in Guildfrod High Street. With that done, I can get on with some late bloggage…
Let us begin with some levity…
Bush Apology Sparks Torrent of Global Goodwill
We begin on such a note because Rush Limbaugh is a hero to me…
CBS – Rush: MPs Just ‘Blowing Off Steam’: “I’m sorry, folks. I’m sorry. Somebody has to provide a little levity here. This is not as serious as everybody is making it out to be.” (Link via Ionicus.)
And so it goes on. You really need to take this on board, because – as ridiculous as Limbaugh may sound to us – this argument will win many over. Especially those that still buy the Iraq/911 lie. I actually heard some woman from Lynndie England’s home town defend her on the basis that perhaps this was a natural and understandable reaction to that terrorist attack. That Iraq had nothing to do with.
You also need to take a close look at the people who swallowed Bush’s Great Humanitarian Moment hook, line and sinker.
Back to the matter at hand:
Slate.com – Rape Rooms: A Chronology – What Bush said as the Iraq prison scandal unfolded.
And a quick word or two on what our own Dear Leader knew and when he knew it:
CNN – Red Cross warned UK of abuse: The Red Cross told British officials as early as February that British troops had been accused of mistreating Iraqi prisoners, a government spokesman said Sunday.
The argument that keeps this report under wraps (yet another selective use of ‘precedent’ by the Blair government) won’t last. I think we can expect to see something by Thursday at the latest. Meanwhile, you may wish to chew on this:
Guardian – UK forces taught torture methods: The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.
These are also troops and contractors that are quite likely to believe that Iraqis were behind the September 11 attacks, who see their government detaining alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay in breach of the Geneva Conventions and hear their pResident refer to these ‘killers’ in a way that makes it quite clear they deserve no such rights. These are troops and contractors who work within a culture where prisoners are bagged and tagged upon capture as a matter of course, which basically means that they’re represented as less than human before they even arrive at the prison.
All together now: “It puts its bag on its head and it gets into the truck.”
Grab a bag, find a statue, and leave a reminder. Today.
UPDATE – CNN – Pentagon culture led to prison abuse
Y’know, one thing I’ve seen very little focus on so far is the purpose of the interrogation sessions that follow this ‘preparation’… do you think that maybe – just maybe – most of the questions focused on the search for WMDs that don’t exist?
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Date
20040510
Orwell Was Right
Time
11:00
Halliburton Pulling the Plug on GI Communications: A week after a scandal broke involving photos of American troops torturing Iraqi prisoners, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, & Root is pulling the plug on private electronic communications with the folks back home, apparently at the request of the Department of Defence.
Well, the soldiers have been clamped, but the citizens haven’t. Yet. Read the latest post from Baghdad Burning: Everyone knew this was happening in Abu Ghraib and other places… seeing the pictures simply made it all more real and tangible somehow…. We heard about it all… we heard stories since the very beginning of the occupation about prisoners being made to sit for several hours on their knees… being deprived of sleep for days at a time by being splashed with cold water or kicked or slapped… about the infamous ‘red rooms’ where prisoners are kept for prolonged periods of time… about the rape, the degradations, the emotional and physical torture… and there were moments when I actually wanted to believe that what we heard was exaggerated. I realize now that it was only a small fragment of the truth. There is nothing that is going to make this ‘better’. Nothing.
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Date
20040510
Only Interesting to Bloggers
Time
11:05
The Great Blogger Relaunch
StopDesign comments on the new Blogger
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Date
20040510
The Happy Poster Project
Time
11:11
Bit of a strange day to blog this, but Limbaugh has called for levity, so here we go:
James has submitted this picture of happy people and Nick has been busy pasting posters around the Warwick University campus.
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Date
20040510
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
11:15
Washington Post – Dissension Grows In Senior Ranks On War Strategy: Their major worry is that the United States is prevailing militarily but failing to win the support of the Iraqi people. That view is far from universal, but it is spreading and being voiced publicly for the first time.
MSNBC – The Price of Arrogance: Since 9/11, a handful of officials at the top of the Defense Department and the vice president’s office have commandeered American foreign and defense policy. In the name of fighting terror they have systematically weakened the traditional restraints that have made this country respected around the world. Alliances, international institutions, norms and ethical conventions have all been deemed expensive indulgences at a time of crisis.
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Date
20040510
Labour Needs Leadership Change
Time
11:17
Even spookier news for you on the Labour: I See Red front:
Guardian – Labour trains its guns on Howard
Blair’s strategists have decided to launch an attack on the Tory record, specifically that of leader Michael Howard. They have decided to do this not with a 30 second TVC, but with a two-minute+ music video. Sound familiar so far? Hang in there; it gets better:
The soundtrack has been provided by… Simply Red.
UPDATE – You just have to check out this excellent post by Bykersink, a link-annotated version of REM’s It’s The End Of The World As We Know It.
UPDATE 2 – I couldn’t possibly comment, but I encourage you to.
UPDATE 3 – Bwahahahahahaha!: Angry Conservative chairman Liam Fox fumed: “This sort of negative personal campaigning will only reinforce the impression among voters that the Government has no real ideas.”
Could this be the same Liam Fox who was on the judging panel of Let Down By Labour, the official Tory party request for fresh ideas for negative campaigning?
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Date
20040510
Pluggage
Time
11:30
Win a SwissMemory USB Swiss Army Knife. It can’t all be doom and gloom, now can it?
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Date
20040510
Church & State
Time
11:45
The Silver Ring thing is coming to the UK!
Guardian – Teens told a silver ring and a vow of chastity are best way to combat sexual epidemic
Independent – Over sex and over here: US virgins to preach restraint to British teens
First, I’m going to remind you of this entry from Bloggerheads back in January, then I’m going to warn you – and them – that a warm welcome is being prepared. If you want to help in any of the target cities, drop me a line.
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Date
20040510
Consume!
Time
12:20
Wear your Lion of England Diamond and Gold Ingot with pride!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Date
20040510
Flash Music Video
Time
12:48
Hey Hey 16k!
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Date
20040510
Photoshopping
Time
14:10
More levity for our friend Rush Limbaugh.
Also, there’s this defining moment.
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Date
20040510
Jolly Good
Time
16:02
Check out socialscrutiny.org – ‘your one-stop shop for Government propaganda’.
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Date
20040510
In The News
Time
16:42
Oops, almost missed this: Michael Moore responds to ‘engineered story’ claims.
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Date
20040510
Photoshopping
Time
17:02
The 4007th Project has just hit home with these lovely people (it’s nice to be nice to the nice).
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Date
20040510
Inneresting
Time
17:08
Belly Dancing – How To Be An Appreciative Audience Member
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Date
20040510
“The same thing we do every day, Pinky…”
Time
17:49
Voice. Found.
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Date
20040510
Google
Time
17:49
Proogle works just like Google, but is thoughtful enough to display PageRank. It’s sure to be taken down within the next couple of days, so play with it while you can.
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Date
20040511
Activism
Time
09:29
My bagged statue remains bagged.
What’s the bet that a dozen council workers walked past it yesterday and assumed the bag was there for a jolly good reason?
Do yourself and the folks around you a favour and bag a statue today.
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Date
20040511
It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!
Time
09:31
Dug up by Joe:
“After being hooded I was led to the helicopter and I was thrown bodily into the helicopter. During this exercise my hands and wrists were hurt due to the others handcuffed to me not being pushed equally. (Before being led off to the helicopter, I understand that one of the hooded men, now known to be F. McGuigan, collapsed when the hood was first applied.) On being put into the copter, the handcuffs were removed and were applied to the back of the hood to tighten it around the head. The helicopter took off and a journey which I would estimate to have taken about an hour began. The helicopter than landed at a destination unknown to me and we were taken from the copter and led into a building and eventually into a room where I was made to stand in a search position against a wall. My position was the same as for other men – fully stretched, hands as far apart as humanly possible and feet as far from the wall as possible. Back rigid and head held up. Not allowed to relax any of the joints at all. If any relaxation of limbs – arms, elbow joints, legs, knee joints – someone came along and grabbed the limb in a rough manner and put it back into position again. After being against the wall for a few hours. I was taken away and brought, I was told, to a doctor. Sometime during this period I was taken out of this room, put into a helicopter and flown away. I was always handcuffed and hooded. When the ‘copter landed I was put into a lorry, driven a short distance, transferred to a jeep, five-minute journey, put into another ‘copter, taken for half-hour journey. End of journey put into a police van, driven short distance, five-ten minutes, beaten about the face and body, transferred to other vehicle. Holding my face, asked why, said that I did not want to be beaten again. Assured that I wouldn’t be. Brought into a building, hood removed, shown detention form. Hood replaced, return journey as before.”
Iraq? No, Ireland.
Entirely unrelated link follows…
Guardian – Troops broke the law, admits Hoon: British forces broke the law when they forcibly placed hoods over the heads of Iraqi captives last year, Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, was forced to admit yesterday as he faced intense criticism over the government’s handling of a Red Cross report into alleged abuses.
Whoops, and here’s another one…
Army Times – Editorial: A failure of leadership at the highest levels: (But) while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership. The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes.
Damn it, don’t these people ever shut up?
Time – How a Pentagon email sought to contain the prison abuse scandal: It’s not exactly every day that the Pentagon warns military personnel to stay away from Fox News. But that’s exactly what some hopeful soul at the Department of Defense instructed, in a memo intended to forbid Pentagon staff reading a copy of the Taguba report detailing abuse of detainees at prisons in Iraq that had been posted at the Fox News web site.
Ah, finally, some common sense; this is all Jimmy Carter’s fault. Him and the rest of us filthy liberals and appeasement monkeys…
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Date
20040511
Only Interesting to Bloggers
Time
09:33
Finally, Google has a blog.
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Date
20040511
Established Media
Time
09:35
Boston.com – Blogs colliding with traditional media: But this new form of media is colliding with old-hand political structures, such as the House of Representatives Press Gallery, the initial gatekeeper for credential requests. Officials there decided that independent blogs do not fit their standards of “media,” and passed their applications down the ladder a rung, to the convention staffs that handle credentials for student and weekly papers.
Meanwhile…
Oregon Daily Emerald – Esteemed journalist lectures on ethics: The media industry has been infested by the rise of pseudo-journalists who go against journalism’s long tradition to serve the public with accurate information, Los Angeles Times Editor John S. Carroll told a packed room in the Gerlinger Lounge on Thursday. “All over the country there are offices that look like newsrooms and there are people in those offices that look for all the world just like journalists, but they are not practicing journalism,” he said. “They regard the audience with a cold cynicism. They are practicing something I call a pseudo-journalism, and they view their audience as something to be manipulated.”
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Date
20040511
Animal Kingdom
Time
09:41
Beware the Hornets From Hell! (Link via Everlasting Blort.)
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Date
20040511
Consume!
Time
09:43
Find out who holds your testicles.
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Date
20040511
Flash Thingies
Time
09:45
Hooray for the BNP and their ability to make me spit blood.
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Date
20040511
Church & State
Time
09:51
Guardian – America’s virgin soldiers are on their way – ignoring the dangers of abstinence for teenagers
I won’t quote from this, because I want you to follow the link and read it all. I’ll have a another link to follow this one, hopefully later this morning.
In the meantime, I’d urge you all to contact the press office of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and request that he make a statement regarding the abstinence movement.
UPDATE – Here ’tis: Read Angel’s comments on The Silver Ring Thing.
Then blog your own. But not before you’ve contacted the press office of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, requesting that he make a statement regarding the abstinence movement.
Hey, you could even kill two birds with one stone and blog the message you send. (I know there’s no email address, but a call will be more effective. But, if you wish, you can use these instructions to send an email to his fax machine.)
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Date
20040511
Free Speech
Time
10:47
Brian Haw, the Parliament Square peace protestor who has spent almost 3 years in a continuous anti-war protest vigil opposite the Houses of Parliament, has been arrested and his possessions / extensive protest display removed, in a sudden midnight police operation.
The bastards! The goose-stepping, freedom-hating, protestor-baiting bastards!
UPDATE – Brian Haw has been released, and his possessions have been returned to him, but this live webcam shows that his presence isn’t quite what it used to be. More soon.
UPDATE 2 – Does anyone here work in London and have the time to pop down to Parliament Square for a first-hand update? I’d love a few choice words from Brian.
UPDATE 3 – From the above press release: Apparently, police were concerned about a suspect vehicle, some distance away. They imposed a security cordon under the terrorism act and the area was cleared of other members of the public before an incident took place in which Mr Haw was arrested, and 3 supporters (including 2 women) who were present at the time, were also threatened with arrest.
Ah, no witnesses. No cameras. God bless the terrorism act.
I ask you, is this a responsible use of laws designed (supposedly) to combat terrorism?
You’ll remember the recent and quite ridiculous claim by Charing Cross police that Brian Haw poses a security risk and his placards could be used by terrorists to hide a bomb. You may also recall that the ‘security’ screens installed in the House of Commons came just a few weeks after Tony Blair was heckled from the public gallery.
How much longer does the Blair government expect to get away with using the terrorist threat to quiet dissent amongst the locals?
UPDATE 4 – BBC – Commons war protester is charged. Some very telling details in this short report. Please keep in mind that this is only my impression of how things panned out:
The cops spark a security alert, which legally obliges Mr Haw to leave the area. Past behaviour and/or what is said by police at this time leaves Mr Haw with the clear impression that his camp will be disrupted or dismantled as part of the security operation (over a vehicle we still know sweet-bugger-all about). Mr Haw refuses to move. Police attempt to move him bodily, he struggles. Now they have him on assault, too.
Brian Haw is due to appear in court on the 18th. I’m going to suggest to the Stop the War Coalition that there be two shows of support on this day. One to celebrate (and protect) the sanctity of his patch at Parliament Square and another protesting police harrassment at the courthouse.
UPDATE 5 – Now I think about it, having too many people at this location gives the police an excuse to clear everybody from the area. So perhaps what we really need is an outstanding stand-in. An anti-war MP perhaps?
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Date
20040511
Photoshopping
Time
13:04
Had to be said.
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Date
20040511
It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!
Time
13:17
Fox ‘News’ attempts to defend the indefensible with a triple-reverse-spin.
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Date
20040511
Weapons of Mass Distraction
Time
14:04
Oh, FFS… New Bush space speech planned (link via ScaryDuck).
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Date
20040512
Inneresting
Time
09:27
An early day motion brought to our attention by BigDaddyMerk.
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Date
20040512
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
09:28
Lots of the same ol’ same ol’, but there is news that the Internet Archive can now store one petabyte. A petabyte is a million gigabytes.
There’s also this…
Wired – Browser Hijackers Ruining Lives: Browser hijackers are malicious programs that change browser settings, usually altering designated default start and search pages. But some, such as CWS, also produce pop-up ads for pornography, add dozens of bookmarks — some for extremely hard-core pornography websites — to Internet Explorer’s Favorites folder, and can redirect users to porn websites when they mistype URLs.
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Date
20040512
Christianity Watch
Time
09:35
Weeping cardboard Christ draws Texas pilgrims
Oh, and you have contacted the press office of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, requesting that he make a statement regarding the abstinence movement and the Silver Ring Thing, yes?
(Don’t forget; you can send an email to his fax machine using these instructions.)
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Date
20040512
Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace
Time
09:48
CNN -Mexican Air Force pilots film UFOs: A videotape made widely available to the news media on Tuesday shows the bright objects, some sharp points of light and others like large headlights, moving rapidly in what appears to be a late-evening sky.
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Date
20040512
It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!
Time
10:34
Right, this is not going to be pretty, but it has to be done. Please bear with me….
Independent – American beheaded as torture backlash grows: A group linked to al-Qa’ida released a video last night showing five of its members beheading an American businessman in Iraq, in what it said was revenge for the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail by US troops.
Let’s get one thing straight. Taking the torture of Iraqi detainees (there’s an excellent new feature on this issue at rotten.com) and merely using it as political ammo against Bush is wrong. Highlighting that this abuse is symptomatic of everything that is wrong about the invasion of Iraq and the Bush administration’s conduct in the War on Terror is not. IMHO.
Washington Post – Mistreatment Of Detainees Went Beyond Guards’ Abuse: Problems in the U.S.-run detention system in Iraq extended beyond physical mistreatment in prison cellblocks, involving thousands of arrests without evidence of wrongdoing and abuse of suspects starting from the moment of detention, according to former prisoners, Iraqi lawyers, human rights advocates and the International Committee for the Red Cross.
What al-Qaeda have done here is shameful. They’ve jumped on the bandwagon and hijacked the issue for their own ends with this outrageous execution ‘in the name of the Iraqi people’. Oh, and they’ve chopped some guy’s head off, which is also in itself more than a little bit naughty.
This is a direct link to the complete video.
(5.3Mb WMV file)
This is a direct link to footage of the execution.
(1.5Mb WMV file.)
It’s not pretty. I certainly wouldn’t advise downloading it purely out of curiosity.
With a steady head, we move on to the always-sensible words of Rush Limbaugh:
Left Will Blame Terrorist Savagery on Bush
Well, I won’t. I’ll blame it on al-Qaeda. Because they know just how to manipulate Bush. Him and all his little wingnuts.
Rush ‘Wingnut-Prime’ Limbaugh himself actually delivered the ‘obvious’ message on behalf of Mr Bush in this same broadcast (so please do excuse me as I quote him wildy out of context): This is what this is all about. Al-Qaeda is in Iraq, huh? Al-Qaeda is in Iraq, is that right? I thought there was no connection.
Well, there wasn’t. Until Bush charged into Iraq without UN backing and lying through his teeth about that connection. But that’s not going to stop Bush and Co. from spinning their own atrocities with a little bit of ‘this is what we’re fighting’ bullshit. (Instead of, say, blaming it on Bill Clinton letting homosexuals into the military.)
It’s a blatant lie, of course – but that won’t stop it from working. And so the violence will continue. Bush will make out that he’s calling the shots, but he’s being played by al-Qaeda every step of the way.
UPDATE – Flame wars. The only winning move is not to play.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Date
20040512
The Bush Administration
Time
10:53
Bush diverted money earmarked for Afghanistan to staging areas outside Iraq. Months before the war started. Without approval from Congress.
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Date
20040512
Told You So
Time
11:01
MSNBC – Abu Ghraib and Beyond: “There was extraordinary pressure being put on MI [military intelligence] from every angle to get better info,” says Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the former 800th MP Brigade commander, who at the time was responsible for Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. “Where is Saddam? Find Saddam. And we want the weapons of mass destruction.”
(See the end of the first post in Monday’s bloggage.)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Date
20040512
It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!
Time
12:03
U.S. Sen. James Inhofe: “I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations, while our troops, our heroes are fighting and dying.”
What was that about flinching from the facts?
UPDATE – Today seems as good a day as any to view the World Press Photo of the Year for 2003.
UPDATE 2 – A mouth being fired off without first engaging the brain? Sounds like a cue for Rush Limbaugh to speak up again: “(James Inhofe is) what I will call a ‘real guy.’ This is a man who is in touch with the people he represents.”
Let’s be fair, now. That statement could be true, but only if … (I’m sorry, but finishing this sentence would involve me saying something very unkind and not at all true about the good people of Oklahoma).
UPDATE 3 – Guardian – Too easy to blame Bush: It’s time this smug bubble was burst. For the abuse epidemic in Iraq is not an exclusively American disease; it infects us too. We cannot sit back and watch the senate hearings and the Rumsfeld press conferences as if this were only their story: we are up to our necks in it. That remains true, even if you believe Geoff Hoon over Piers Morgan. What’s at issue here is not a single disputed incident. Assess the evidence and what you see is not a blip or a lapse by a few “bad apples” (to deploy another complacent cliche). What emerges is a catalogue of abuse over a long and sustained period.
Grab a bag and get to work. Reminders are needed here and abroad, now more than ever.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Date
20040512
It’s War! And Somebody’s Making Babies!
Time
14:13
LNR – Lynndie England: up the duff without a paddle: Four months? Do the math. She got herself impregnated in January – at precisely the moment she knew trouble was heading her way – because she reckoned that pregnancy would earn her more lenient treatment.
UPDATE – Ooooh, I’m such a bitch.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Date
20040512
“The same thing we do every day, Pinky…”
Time
14:28
Well, not quite. Tonight I shall be spending time with people. Instead of hiding in my web-shed and grinding my teeth at the injustices of the world.
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Date
20040512
Flash Thingies
Time
16:34
Let us pray.
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Date
20040513
Bunch of Stuff
Time
10:40
I’m incredibly busy today. Please excuse the short post.
Annie has a short report on last night’s blogger meet if you’re interested. Following the links should lead to more.
I was thinking last night that a weekend/daytime meet (say, a picnic at Richmond Park) might be a good idea for all those bloggers with partners and kids. Would this be a cool thing, or a little bit too weird for some people? Let me know what you think.
Angel has emailed the Archbishop of Canterbury an excellent letter, prompting him to make a statement on the developing incursion of the abstinence movement in the UK. Please, please call his office today or write a letter of your own. We have to do something to curtail these shouty Christian fundamentalists who dress up a recruitment drive as a health programme, and a statement from Rowan Williams would be a bloody good start. The contact details you need are here and there are instructions for sending an email to the fax number supplied here.
Two weird things from last night:
– Tart-carders have started spraying the inside of phone booths with perfume. Presumably to get you in the mood for lurve.
– There were some video screens above the upstairs urinals, designed to show advertising. They don’t have any takers at the moment, so right now the screens show the logo of the company that built them. This mostly involves a very realistic animation of flames, so basically you get to stand there and watch something burning. While you pee.
From Blogdex:
One for the wingnuts. (Oh my gosh, look where the trail starts).
How long does it take to fill up 1 Gig of storage with spam?
Timeline showing the history of the English language.
Independent – The story of Nick Berg – a tale that haunts America.
Warning: This isn’t a gruesome picture, but it’s more disturbing than the video.
BBC – New abuse photos are ‘even worse’: US lawmakers have been viewing yet more photographs and videos of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers. The unpublished images are reported to include examples of US troops torturing and humiliating captives. Senators shown the pictures by Pentagon officials in a closed-door session described them as “disgusting” and “significantly worse” than anticipated.
New York Times – Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited in Top Qaeda Interrogations: The Central Intelligence Agency has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials.
And finally, no, I can’t find the FT article this mentions, either. Anyone?
UPDATE – Thanks, Jez:
Financial Times – Comment – The saviour of democracy is run by a unilateral bully
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Date
20040513
Activism
Time
11:21
Emergency Demonstration – Saturday 22nd May 2004, 11am – Central London
“The whole world is horrified at the terrible pictures of torture of Iraqi prisoners now emerging. They are the tip of an iceberg of abuse – dozens of civilians have died in custody of British and American troops in occupied Iraq. The Stop The War Coalition has responded to calls from groups and individuals, for a emergency demonstration to respond to the atrocities being committed in Iraq.”
Details and links will follow as soon as they come in.
I’m still kicking myself for not making the time to drop by to see Brian Haw yesterday, BTW. Oh, and on the same day Brian is due to appear in court on bullshit charges, George Bush Snr will be having a special dinner to raise funds for sonny-boy’s ‘re’-election campaign.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Date
20040513
Consume!
Time
12:09
How to make banks hate you.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Date
20040513
Updates
Time
12:27
Bloggerheads will now go quiet until next Monday, while I switch to a new server.
Silent running engaged. Data transfer commencing…
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Date
20040517
Updates
Time
10:06
Friday’s post that didn’t quite work out….
If you can read this, the new server works just fine.
Panda Golf should keep you busy for a while. But turn your speakers off first.
Announcement.
Perspective.
UPDATE – Clarification.
The external development aspect comes just in time for me. MT would be my format of choice, but when I make a post, I want to be able to click a button that makes the post indexable only if I wish it to be. This is only one of about a dozen issues I have to think about, but I will be changing to a new blogging format soon. Details later.
Tony Blair is an arse. And he picks his nose (pass it on).
The Scotsman – How to sort out our teenage-sex muddle: Ostensibly, the motivation behind The Silver Ring Thing is to stop teenage pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, but its founding father, the Rev Denny Pattyn, makes no secret of his belief that the end of the world is nigh. If that doesn’t send his impressionable young audience rushing off to have as much sex as possible while they still have the chance, nothing will.
Pfft!
A great letter from Balders to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Have you written yours yet?
Cold Turkey by Kurt Vonnegut: But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.
A nicely thought-out and well-put piece, which is more than can be said for the efforts of this game-playing wingnut.
More wingnuttery from one of the masters of the genre; apparently the media have been letting us down by obsessing over torture issues and not playing the footage of the execution.
Moving right along and wrapping up quickly…
Friends in Iraq – 1
Friends in Iraq – 2
Friends in Iraq – 3
The Outrage Family! Brilliant! Genius! Mooorrre!
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Date
20040517
World Famous in….
Time
10:10
A word from Abnu (amongst others): I just about freaked on Friday night watching Aaron Brown interview Andrew Sullivan live in the 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. EST timeslot. Throughout the interview with Andrew Sullivan about bloggers the headline caption on the TV screen displayed the word “Bloggerheads” so, I suppose somebody owes you some money, or at least an apology…uh oh.
The end result of this fleeting fame was 21 people searching for ‘bloggerheads’ in Google and finding this site. Probably as a result of them thinking; “Hey, that’s a cool name for a weblog. I wonder if….”
UPDATE – Folling that Andrew Sullivan link may well lead you to this ’email of the week’: For me, the Abu Ghraib photos acted as slate clearer. Like you, after I first saw those photos I fell into a deep funk where I started to question everything that had made me a staunch supporter of the war. While in this funk I realized that much of my rationale for going to war was underpinned by an unformed, yet felt assumption that it would go well. Those photos yanked that all away. So then what happened? Into this void gets poured the images of an innocent civilian being savagely beheaded. Now unencumbered by unspoken assumptions that this would be easy, I see the true nature of what we are up against, and am more committed to winning this thing than ever before.
*sigh*
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Date
20040517
It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!
Time
10:19
Newsweek – The Roots of Torture: The road to Abu Ghraib began after 9/11, when Washington wrote new rules to fight a new kind of war.
New Yorker – The Gray Zone – How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib: The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.
New York Times – Illuminating blacked-out words. That headline is spot-on. The results of are very illuminating.
Of course, I shouldn’t say anything about it. Just in case..
Loïc Le Meur – French blogger arrested by the Police because of his blogging: Christophe criticizes the city management so much that they have tried to stop him for months, the city mayor has even sent him threats over the phone… that he recorded and blogged, of course.
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Date
20040517
Tony Blair
Time
10:21
Blair must be in trouble if one of the best ditto-heads he can dig up is Geoff Hoon. We heard all sorts of stuff over the weekend about the ‘froth’ of leadership discussion within the Labour party, the most interesting developments being the comments of John Prescott and the reports of a secret meeting between Prescott and Brown.
Blair’s latest line (he daren’t play the ‘B-b-b-ut what would you do without me?’ card this time around) is that he wants to stay the course and finish the f**k-up he started.
Sadly, the bottom line is that he doesn’t have the currency to do this or address any issues at home. The lies that led to the illegal war in Iraq and the mismanaged, misrepresented war on terror just keep getting in the way.
Blair is a spent force. Damaged goods. And he has to go.
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Date
20040517
It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!
Time
10:31
BBC – Baghdad blast kills Iraq leader: The current head of Iraq’s US-appointed Governing Council has been killed in a car bomb blast near the headquarters of the US-led coalition in Baghdad.
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Date
20040517
Fake Images
Time
10:34
Warning; this opinion-piece is not worth paying for.
In the final paragraph, Philip Knightly states that; “The Iraqis struck back with their own terrible images: the execution by beheading of Americna hostage Nick Berg.”
What was that about ‘perception’ again, Philip? Me, I could have sworn that al-Qaeda was behind this. Mind you, they did do it in Iraq, so I can understand the confusion….
Change of subject….
Independent – The fakes that finished an editor, and the truth that won’t go away.
I’ll be developing a special poster campaign sometime soon for the march this weekend and beyond. The theme will be ‘fake images’…
One thing I need and don’t got is a scan of the Sun’s ’45 minutes from doom’ front page. Any ideas of where and how I can get my hands on a copy of this without paying Mr Murdoch for access to his archives?
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Date
20040517
Established Media
Time
10:54
The Daily Mail is finally online with a halfway-decent presence. (Link via Tom.)
1. I love the property search on the front page, but this feature really needs an additional ticker that tracks rising/falling house prices due to asylum seekers, street hoodlums, cancer in mice…
2. Will they dare to publish any of their all-too-regular Interweb scare stories online?
3. How about the many ‘original’ stories and features they print that are actually stolen/plagiarised from sites on the Interweb (where everything is free)?
UPDATE – Ah, yes. I forgot about this interim website that has served the Mail well ahead of this most recent launch.
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Date
20040517
Music
Time
11:41
Eurovision. I just wanted to state for the record that I picked the winner. (I loved Germany’s song, but knew it wouldn’t stand a chance.)
