Iraqi Elections: Riddle Me This
Friday, January 28, 2005

The Iraqi people go to the polls this weekend in the country's first "free and fair" election in decades.

Much has been made of the fact that most candidates standing in the election have not been able to campaign through fear of assassination and intimidation. Most Iraqi voters have no idea who they are voting for.

Which follows that, on Monday morning, the Iraqi people will have no idea who is forming their elected government. Quite clearly these people aren't going to pop up first thing next week and introduced themselves as the duly elected member for Baghdad East. The insurgents are just going to say, "fair enough,you've survived this long so we'll give you a fair shake".

Which begs the question: Won't these people in effect be a government in exile? Not able to show their faces on the streets or advertise the fact that they are members of the new administration, how will the Iraqi people be able to hold them directly to account? By sheer necessity the new government is going to have to operate behind closed door which has worrying implications for transparency and accountability.

Hang on, what am I talking about? Iyad Allawi, running a transparent and accountable government, with his reputation? What am I talking about?
Back, back, back!
Thursday, January 27, 2005

Rochenko returns after a sabbatical to bring us more Smokewriting.

Kneel before him, puny mortal.
Get A Grip, Pinko II
Thursday, January 27, 2005

Unlimited? "They will cause death and destruction on an unlimited scale"? Unlimited?

What? Have they got a fucking Death Star or something?






Get A Grip, Pinko
Thursday, January 27, 2005

BBC News: Blair defends 'grave' terror plan
"They will cause death and destruction on an unlimited scale and they will and are trying to organise such terrorist activity in our own country. I just hope people get this in perspective."

Got that? We're all going to die. Terrorists are coming to kill us all. Horribly. They will not might cause death and destruction on an unlimited scale.

Now stop causing a fuss about civil liberties. Get things in perspective before you embarrass yourself and terrorists kill us. And we all die.

No, no, that's alright. Don't worry about it. Don't be frightened.

You're going to die.
The Labour Voters Who Walk Into Doors
Thursday, January 27, 2005

It'll be interesting to see the likes of Roy Hattersley bending themselves double now to justify Charles Clarke's latest abomination and tell us how we should all still vote New Labour at the next election.

Like a lot of people who find themselves in abusive relationships, no doubt Hattersley and Aaronovitch and all the other useful idiots will soon be bleating, "Don't leave, please don't leave. They can change, they can change. Please, just one more chance."

And then after the election there'll be flowers and chocolates, apologies and humility. But soon enough there'll be the loving slap, the affectionate punch: "I love you but...". And more people will find themselves going slowly insane in Belmarsh and more bodies of brown children in far off countries will be thrown on to the pile uncounted, unlamented.

Between the present Government and Michael Howard the general election is going to come down to who has the shiniest jackboots.
If I had somewhere to go, I'd go.
Thursday, January 27, 2005

In his introduction to the collection of his excellent, and seemingly never out of fashion, V For Vendetta, Alan Moore had this to say:

It's 1988 now. Margaret Thatcher is entering her third term of office and talking confidently of an unbroken Conservative leadership well into the next century. My youngest daughter is seven and the tabloid press are circulating the idea of concentration camps for persons with AIDS. The new riot police wear black visors, as do their horses, and their vans have rotating cameras mounted on top. The government has expressed a desire to eradicate homosexuality, even as an abstract concept, and one can only speculate as to which minority will be the next legislated against. I'm thinking of taking my family and getting out of this country soon, sometime over the next couple of years. It's cold and it's mean spirited and I don't like it here anymore.

Moore's words were very prescient of the future and not just his, then, present. Only the names, it seems, have changed and little else. We still have a Thatcherite government with its claw on the rudder. Yesterday, today and tomorrow belongs to them.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine Charles Clarke stamping on a human face - forever
IRANWATCH: Here we go...
Thursday, January 27, 2005

The Guardian: Iran nears nuclear 'point of no return'
The Israeli defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, warned yesterday that Iran will reach "the point of no return" within the next 12 months in its covert attempt to secure a nuclear weapons capability.
Paging Chris Morris, Paging Chris Morris
Wednesday, January 26, 2005

BBC News: Blogging 'a paedophile's dream'
Online journals and camera phones are a "paedophiles' dream" which have increased the risk to children, the Scottish Parliament has been warned.

They are, of course, talking Nonce Sense.
New Labour: Slightly less awful than the Tories Part 2
Tuesday, January 25, 2005

The Guardian: Minister, how far you've come
Freedom of information is now beginning to reveal the raw mechanics of government. And one of the latest batch of released papers tells a story of brazen political corruption by big business, with which Patricia Hewitt seems to have felt forced to collude. One can only feel for her.
Future War
Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Those guys were in hog heaven out there, do you understand, man? They had the big weapons catalogue opened up. "What's G12 do, Tommy?" "Well, it says here it destroys everything but the fillings in their teeth, helps us pay for the war effort, well shit, pull that one up. Pull up G12 please." (missile explosion noise). "Cool, what's G13 do?"
Bill Hicks

BBC News: US plans 'robot troops' for Iraq
The US military is planning to deploy robots armed with machine-guns to wage war against insurgents in Iraq.

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you.
The Commandant, Rommelwood Military Academy, The Secret War of Lisa Simpson
Suffer the Little Children
Tuesday, January 25, 2005

BBC News: Bush hails anti-abortion 'gains'
The US is "making progress" towards more reductions in abortions, President George W Bush has told pro-life campaigners rallying in Washington.

...

On Monday, Mr Bush said, in what was described as a passionate speech, that "the strong have a duty to protect the weak".

Children's Defense Fund: 2003 Facts on Child Poverty in America
12.9 million American children younger than 18 live below the poverty line.
More children live in poverty today than 30 or 35 years ago. The number of poor children reached a recent peak of 15.7 million in 1993, fell for eight years, but has risen for three consecutive years since.

"If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're preschool, you're fucked!" - George Carlin
Lest we forget
Tuesday, January 25, 2005

BBC News: World 'must learn from Holocaust'
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged the world to make sure evils such as those perpetrated in the Holocaust are never repeated.

Sudan Emancipation & Preservation Network: DARFUR MORTALITY UPDATE
The international news cycle continues to be dominated by attention to the apparently inexorable rise in tsunami casualties toward a figure of 200,000 throughout Southeast Asia. And yet at the same time, evidence strongly suggests that total mortality in the Darfur region of western Sudan now exceeds 400,000 human beings since the outbreak of sustained conflict in February 2003. In other words, human destruction is more than twice that of the recent tsunami---and has now surpassed the half-way mark for the most commonly cited total for deaths in Rwanda during the genocide of 1994 (800,000)...
Coming around again...
Tuesday, January 25, 2005

October 11 2001: BBC News - Straw denies split with US over Iraq
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has denied there is any split between the US and the UK on whether military action should be extended to countries outside Afghanistan.

January 25 2005: The Guardian - Straw emollient on Iran rift after US talks
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, played down a rift with the US about possible military action to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon after talks yesterday with the incoming secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

2001: "There is no such action on the agenda at present," he told a news conference in central London.

2005: "I think it was indicative that in the discussions I had, the issue was not raised once by either side. It was not on the table," Mr Straw said.
...but at least they're *our* bastards
Tuesday, January 25, 2005

BBC News: Iraqi forces 'committing abuse'
Iraqi security forces systematically abuse prisoners, a leading US-based human rights group reports.

Read the Human Rights Watch report here.

New Statesman: Rule of the Death Squads
He had a strong suspicion about who was behind most of these killings, he said. "You can look no further than the Governing Council. There are political parties in this city who are systematically killing people. They are politicians that are backed by the Americans and who arrived to Iraq from exile with a list of their enemies. I've seen these lists. They are killing people one by one."

John Negroponte: US Pro-consul in Iraq.
A pox on all our houses
Monday, January 24, 2005

Independent: Outcry over creation of GM smallpox virus
Senior scientific advisers to the World Health Organisation (WHO) have recommended the creation of a genetically modified version of the smallpox virus to counter any threat of a bioterrorist attack.

As if we haven't got enough stuff that could potentially kill us all. Aren't global warming, global dimming, George Bush, megatsunamis, supervolcanoes, the decline of male fertility and all enough that we have to create another genie that could slip its bottle? Oh, look:

Four years ago, scientists in Australia genetically modified a mousepox virus and inadvertently created a highly virulent strain that could not be stopped by vaccination.

Shouldn't we be trying to cure the old diseases before we start creating new ones? It's not as if medical science hasn't got some real challenges already. Did some scientists get together and say, "Cancer? AIDS? Bollocks. Let's create a real show-stopper"?
New Labour: Slightly less awful than the Tories Part 1
Monday, January 24, 2005

For those of us with nowhere else to go - just remember how deep the trap is.

The Telegraph: Labour back-pedals on reform of the Lords
Labour has abandoned a firm commitment to announce its final plan for House of Lords reform before the general election because of deep divisions on the issue, a Cabinet minister has revealed.
Own Goal?
Monday, January 24, 2005

So just who was Michael Howard trying to appeal to with his odious blackshirtery this afternoon?

One statistic that's been bandied about in the last few days (as recently as the PM show on Radio 4 this evening) is that one in three people (read: bigots) are concerned/worried about the issue of asylum.

So generously taking this statistic at face value, that's a third of the electorate getting steamed up about foreigners. That's leaves two thirds who just don't care or know the facts and aren't worried.

In the News of the World survey on January 16, the support for the Tories in the UK's 120 most marginal seats is 32%. Which fits quite neatly with the one in three concerned about asylum - Howard's preaching to the converted. He's shoring up his core vote.

Those people who read the facts about asylum seekers and immigration aren't worried about these twin bogeymen. Daily Mail readers, Tory voters (and let's face it, quite a few johnny-come-lately New Labour voters) and other ignoramuses who would rather be told how to think are worried about a mythical tide of filthy foreigners who want to bleed the welfare system dry and give us all AIDS.

There is also the chance that this rancid little piece of button-pushing might well backfire. It may have the unintended consequence of galvanising the lacklustre Labour vote that the New Labour high command are reportedly so worried might stay at home on polling day. Disillusioned Labour voters might drag themselves out, hold their noses and vote to keep Howard and his morally bankrupt little crew out of power.

It's not much of a choice and a worse reason to vote Labour - because they're slightly less evil than the Tories - I have yet to hear. Labour might spoil it all when they announce their own asylum policy but after Howard's display today I might just have to change my plans and get out of bed on polling day after all.
Lessons from Bubba
Monday, January 24, 2005

In other news, this discouraging little nugget from the Financial Times:

Tony Blair has drafted in a US-based polling strategist who helped masterminded Bill Clinton's re-election as president in 1996, Labour confirmed. Mark Penn, 50, who urged Mr Clinton to send out strong messages on crime and the economy, is helping the party's general election team and visited its campaign headquarters in London last week.
Notes from a small island
Monday, January 24, 2005

From Nick Cohen's Pretty Straight Guys
Clinton's "reality therapy" begain in 1980 when he was governor of Arkansas, a state in the old Confederacy. Cuban refugees being held in an Arkansas lock-up rioted, and the pictures of a racial struggle between white policemen and brown-skinned aliens helped lose Clinton the governorship. Bill and Hillary plotted what was to be a successful return to power and resolved "never to be out-negatived again". Christopher Hitchens, Clinton's best and least sympathetic biographer, says that the origins of the "out-negatived" phrase were familiar to everyone who knew the politics of the South. When George Wallace lost the state of Alabama to a more nakedly racist opponent he swore in public that he would "never be outniggered again".

And so, with weary inevitability, New Labour meet Michael Howard's pronouncement on immigration not with charges of stirring up racism, or declaring such spewings hypocritical coming from a man whose father fled Romania in 1939 to escape the rising tide of anti-Semitism. No, never knowingly out-flanked on the right (to paraphrase George Wallace), Labour rebutted Howard's advertisement in the Telegraph by attacking him over how he would pay for his plans. Not that the plans are racist or they might prevent genuine asylum seekers reaching the UK. Or for that matter, seeing as immigrants provide a net gain to the British economy, that immigrants should be welcomed.

No, New Labour refuted the advert because they say the plans aren't costed properly.

Welcome to grey, dismal, unwelcoming Little England.
Kiss Me Son Of God
Friday, January 21, 2005



I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage
Called the blood of the exploited working class
But they’ve overcome their shyness
Now they’re calling me your highness
And a world screams, kiss me, son of god

I destroyed a bond of friendship and respect
Between the only people left who’d even look me in the eye
Now I laugh and make a fortune
Off the same ones that I tortured
And a world screams, kiss me, son of god

I look like Jesus, so they say
But Mr. Jesus is very far away
Now you’re the only one here who can tell me if it’s true
That you love me and I love me

I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage
Called the blood of the exploited working class
But they’ve overcome their shyness
Now they’re calling me your highness
And a world screams, kiss me, son of god

Kiss Me Son Of God, They Might Be Giants





Empty rhetoric
Friday, January 21, 2005

Empty rhetoric

(via Bloggerheads)
...but at least he's *our* bastard
Thursday, January 20, 2005

Sydney Morning Herald: US official confirms Allawi shot six dead
A former Jordanian government minister has told The New Yorker that an American official confirmed to him that the Iraqi interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, executed six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station last year.

I remember this story being dismissed at the time, most notably by Tony Blair at a press conference. Let's see how widely this gets reported.
No trading opportunities with Dalai Lama shock
Thursday, January 20, 2005

Jack Straw's off to China this week. No doubt trade will be on the agenda. Particularly as some countries want to lift the EU arms embargo with China which was put in place after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Can you guess at any country that is particularly gung-ho about lifting the embargo? Go on take a guess. Nice country, the people like drinking tea, sells lots of weapons.

Still, what's a trip abroad if you can use it as an opportunity to shill arms to a country at loggerheads with its neighbours.?

And while Straw's pressing the flesh with those lovely chaps in Beijing, you might recall the Dalai Lama's visit to the UK last year. Tony Blair didn't meet him. "Diary pressures" apparently. Plus, why waste your time with a man of peace when there's no money in it?

The US are against the lifting of the embargo apparently. Jack Straw said this would create a "presentational problem".

He really is an irritating little tick, isn't he?
Here we go again...
Wednesday, January 19, 2005

BBC News: GM beet 'can benefit environment'
Some genetically-modified crops can be managed in a way that is beneficial to wildlife, a UK research team believes.

But wait there's more...

The study, Management Of GM Herbicide-tolerant Sugar Beet For Spring And Autumn Environmental Benefit, was funded in 2001 and 2002 by a consortium of GM industry interests, the Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC).

But the researchers say they accepted the support on condition that they could publish their work with no restrictions or reference to the ABC.

Fair enough. The research is being carried out by Broom's Barn Research Station which is part of Rothamsted Research.

Let's have a look at some of Rothamsted Research's senior management:

Dr David Evans
"He joined ICI Agrochemicals in 1989 as Research General Manager and after demerger became Director of Research and Development of Zeneca (later AstraZeneca) Agrochemicals. Following merger with Novartis in 2000, he was appointed Head of Research & Technology and member of the Executive Committee of Syngenta International AG, based in Basel, Switzerland."

and...

Professor Sarah Gurr
Her collaborations with industry and research stations include Aventis, Dow Agrosciences, Syngenta, Stiefel, Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research and Rothamsted Research.

The research may be above board and the researchers claim no allegiance with the ABC. But Rothamsted Research has some close links to industry.
Golden Opportunity?
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

BBC News: Bangladesh 'endorses' GM rice

The Bangladesh Agriculture Ministry says it hopes to release a type of genetically modified rice to farmers if on-going research is successful.

Apparently, this is a new wonder rice:

He said beta carotene - which the body develops into Vitamin A - had been taken from daffodils and added to the rice. This made it useful in fighting conditions such as poor sight and blindness.

I wonder if this is the same "golden rice" that Anuradha Mittal wrote about on the Alternet website a couple of years back:

Alternet: 'Golden' Rice Is Tarnished
This altered rice was given the honorific "golden" because a daffodil gene was inserted, giving it an orange color. This gene produces beta-carotene in the rice, a nutrient humans can convert into vitamin A. Because vitamin A deficiency contributes to blindness and infectious diseases among the poor in developing countries, golden rice was aggressively advertised as a miracle grain to end suffering for millions around the world. More importantly, golden rice was the first of several foods the biotech industry said would make it possible to eradicate world hunger.

...

Developers of this grain have been vague on how much golden rice a person must eat to get enough beta-carotene for the recommended daily vitamin A needs. But an analysis of industry data shows that in order for those most vulnerable to blindness -- infants -- to get enough vitamin A from breast milk, their mothers would have to consume almost 40 pounds of cooked rice per day.

Let's hope the formula's been concentrated a little more since that article was written in July 2003.

As in all these things, you have to ask in whose interest would this rice be introduced and why.

Research into the new crop is being carried out by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute. Back in 2003, the BRRI worked with Syngenta Bangladesh Limited to develop a method of protecting Bangladesh's rice crop from the yellow stem borer. A venture funded, interestingly, by the Crop Protection Programme of the UK's Department for International Development (DFID).

There's a mention of Syngenta on the BRRI's links page

Syngenta Bangladesh Limited is a subsidiary of Syngenta, the "world-leading agribusiness committed to sustainable agriculture through innovative research and technology".

Syngenta, also owns AstraZeneca, formerly (before a merger), Zeneca which owns the exclusive commercial rights to "golden rice".

So, a connection between the institute evaluating the viability of the new strain and the company who owns the commercial rights to "golden rice". The research's findings will make interesting reading.
A concerned prude with too much time on his hands
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

So well done to Peter Luff, Conservative MP for Mid Worcestershire. After beavering away in eminent obscurity for a number of years, our puffed-up little popinjay seems to be enjoying something of a 15 minutes of fame. How he must be hugging himself at the number of column inches he's got tonight.

And what did Mr Luff do to earn such attention? Was it highlighting poverty and injustice? The rising civilian death-toll in Iraq, perhaps? No, he's made himself famous by telling people what they should and shouldn't be watching on television and trying to spoil children's fun.

First he criticises the BBC for showing Jerry Springer the Opera. Well, that particular bandwagon was rattling along at such as pace it must have been nice for Mr Luff to have the wind in his hair.

"To show it on television where there is a danger children could see it is irresponsible," he told anyone who would listen. Now, I'm not sure about other parents out there but my kids were tucked up well before the opera started. If anyone let their children stay up late who then subsequently saw the show, I'd argue it's the parents and not the BBC who are being irresponsible. Still, it's easier to attack the BBC than potential voters.

Clearly feeling he was on a roll, Luff then went to great lengths yesterday to lay into the BBC's Saturday morning laff riot, "Dick and Dom in da Bungalow" and it's associated website.

"Is that really the stuff of public service broadcasting?" he said.

To which I would reply: "Is that really the stuff of a public servant?"

He's not happy about the show's "lavatorial" content and a game on the website called "bunged up" - a rather spiffy take on Donkey Kong - where players have to dodge - erm, how to put this delicately? - number twos in a sewer. Now, I'm more concerned about my kids having to dodge real turds in the street because thoughtless bastards lets their dogs shit (there, I said it) willy nilly but Mr Luff obviously doesn't see the same mileage in public health as he does in shrill witchhunts.

DaDidB goes out every Saturday morning on BBC1 and on Sundays on the CBBC channel. Frankly, it's genius. If only the rest of the BBC's output showed a tenth of the imagination and talent, it truly would be an institution to treasure. The show's got everything - ace gags, brilliant direction and those boys can ad-lib like the pros they are. And it's a damn sight less patronising than the Heaven And Earth Show which goes out at the same time on a Sunday on BBC1. Sure, it's lavatorial in places and it's not trying to be Shakespeare. Luff was on the PM show on Radio 4 this evening wondering why the Dick and Dom website couldn't have an educational aspect. What does he think children do with the quality hours of the working week? Let the poor little sods have some time off from being groomed into empty-headed drones, please.

It's harmless. And certainly a lot less offensive than some if the jokes Luff's parliamentary colleague Ann Winterton was peddling a little while back.

He seems to be the kind of prig who would have got hot under the collar about Flanders and Swann singing "Ma's out, Pa's out, Let's talk rude! Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers. Dance round the garden in the nude, Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers". Someone, somewhere is having a good time and must be stopped.

I wonder if, when he was a child in the school playground, he used to put his fingers in his ears and shout, "la la la, can't hear you" when his friends sang "My brother Billy had a ten foot willy".

Of course, it's become fashionable to kick the the BBC right now. Who cares about freedom of speech when you can touch populist buttons about wasting the licence fee. It'll be interesting to see how the Murdoch press treats this story. They rarely miss an opportunity to castigate the BBC. Will they have another go this time or will they rein it in for fear of appearing humourless killjoys? I await with interest.

Now wash your hands.
Gilliam
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

There's an interview with Terry Gilliam over on the Independent's website.

Despite having never met the man, I have a fierce affection for Gilliam. He makes insane, beautiful, elegiac, memorable movies - Time Bandits, Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, Baron Munchausen, Fisher King - films that most directors would love to have in their canon, I'll wager.

And yet there's an almost tragic air of thwarted ambitions about the man. His path seems strewn with obstacles of philistinic studio executives, financing nightmares and, in the case of the disasterous The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, sheer bloody awful luck. The production of his latest movie, Brothers Grimm, has also been rather troubled, it seems. And, just for good measure, it's being released in the US the week after the new Harry Potter movie. Somebody's really got it in for Gilliam.

I've said this before, but won't some kindly billionaire with a romantic soul please give him $200m?
Priorities, priorities
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

So, Tony Blair found time to visit Toulouse to see the unveiling of the Airbus A380 but can't fit in a flying visit to Auschwitz on January 27.

Mind you, Holocaust Memorial Day doesn't seem to have been very high on New Labour's to do list this year. Jack Straw's only going because Ivor Caplin, the lickspittle defence minister, and Denis MacShane, the gobshite Europe Minister, were deemed too lowly to be the UK's representatives after the witless antics of a certain ginger royal.

Not that I've got a bee in my bonnet about Holocaust Memorial Day. My views on the day are very much mirrored by Nick Cohen who's written at length about it, particularly in his book Pretty Straight Guys.

It's just that in the past Blair's appeared at bashes or spoken out on all manner of subjects - dead Diana, dead Sinatra, poor banged-up Deirdre Rashid off Coronation Street - when he thought he'd get his grinning fizzog on the telly, in the papers or one step closer to posterity. Just don't mention Tsunamis.

But the reason why Blair was in Toulouse becomes clear when you study what he had to say at the Airbus unveiling:

Blair also said that some 20,000 UK workers had been directly involved in the project, over 400 companies would benefit and there would be billions of pounds of export gains.

Ah. Of course. The Prime Minister is a salesman. Quite clearly, he sees it as his job to shill these things. He's spent, hopefully, a profitable afternoon selling lovely shiny aeroplanes. Just think of all the gravy those 400 companies' shareholders will see.

Just how Tony's presence in Toulouse this afternoon helps you and me I'm not quite sure. But it might have helped him. After all, he's going to need quite a few directorships very soon to pay the mortgage on that lovely new flat.
For the last time: It's not about the oil
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Turkish Press: Iraqi government chooses BP for oil-field study
British oil giant BP said it had signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to study an oil field in the south of the country.

...

The spokesman gave no further details of the project but said BP was keen to develop relations with the Iraqi oil industry.

"We're delighted to have the opportunity to collaborate with the ministry of oil on such an important project," the spokesman said.

I bet they are.

One to watch...






Result!
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Ignorant Bigots
The black dog descends again
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Amnesty International: 61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights - Amnesty International calls on Members to demonstrate unequivocal commitment to human rights
"Amnesty International takes the opportunity of today’s election of the officers of the Bureau of the 61st session of the Commission on Human Rights (the Commission) to urge governments to take careful account of the findings of the High Level Panel on Threats and Challenges about the Commission as they prepare for the upcoming session. Members of the Commission must act now to re-establish the credibility and professionalism of the Commission. Amnesty International calls upon Members of the Commission to end their use of double standards in dealing with human rights violations, to demonstrate a real commitment to human rights, and to enhance the human rights expertise of their delegations to the Commission."

The cheek of these people. What next? Firefighters to be expected to extinguish fires? Yeah, right.

So, how depressing is this? The UN Commission on Human Rights is so mired is deal-making, back-scratching and bigotry that it has to be exhorted "to demonstrate unequivocal commitment to human rights".

The writing was on the wall when Libya was elected the committee's chairman.
Rice confirmation hearing
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Condoleeza Rice's confirmation hearing might be worth keeping half an eye on.

She's often cited as having a formidable intellect (speaks x languages, piano player etc.) But after watching her performance at the September 11 Committee hearings, I got the impression she wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the box. Which isn't necessarily a barrier to advancement in a Bush cabinet.

It's possible the hearing will get to the bottom of her thinking on a range of issues - she'll be the face of the Bush administration in the rest of the world, after all. And if the Democrats can get a rise out of her on issues such as Iraq and September 11 (or Iran, even?), we might see some fireworks.
Bear defecates in the woods shock
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

BBC News: Blair 'in the clear' over holiday
"A watchdog has concluded Tony Blair did nothing wrong by failing to declare a holiday with a tobacco industry figure, Downing Street has said."

Well, what the hell were you expecting? Calls for his resignation? The caption under the photo of Blair in this BBC piece says, "Tony Blair's holidays are often a subject of controversy". The use understatement was the most shocking part of the item.

But at least we can revel once more at how much class the Blairs have. Freebies from Big Tobacco, open necked Burberry shirts with a nipped-and-tucked Silvio Berlosconi, a gratis sojourn to Egypt (they've since been shamed into forking out like everybody else) with a blind eye turned to the country's human rights record. Cliff Richard?

Like I said: classy.






Quintessentially New Labour
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

I wonder how warmly grassroots Labour Party members will be welcoming Tory defector Robert Jackson.

Not just taking into account the integrity of a man who can be out canvassing for the Tories on a Saturday and announcing his defection the next day, and then the childish timing of his defection to cause maximum damage to the party that's given him a free ride (a less than 50% voting record in eight years isn't exactly the sign of a driven, committed politician) - there's also his voting record:

Against the ban on fox-hunting but for the war in Iraq (now there's a man with his priorities in the right order). He's for an all-appointed House of Lords and against an elected one. He doesn't want homosexual and unmarried people adopting children (but strangely voted in favour of the homosexual age of consent being lowered to 16). He's also a strategic abstainer.

Tony's going to love him. Robert Jackson is such the quintessential slippery New Labour pol, it's to be wondered what he was doing in the Conservative Party in the first place.
The return of the semi-detached ayatollah
Monday, January 17, 2005

All these journalists currently going berserk over Omar Bakri Mohammed clearly haven't read the chapter on him in Jon Ronson's completely brilliant Them: Adventures with Extremists.

Bakri Mohammed is a publicity-seeker par excellance and you only have to read the opening pages of Ronson's chapter about him ("A semi-detached ayatollah") to get the measure of the man.






But whatever shall I wear?
Saturday, January 15, 2005

"Thousands of performers - marching bands, color guards, pompon dancers, hand bell-ringers, drill teams on horseback and Civil War re-enactors - will be bused early in the morning to the Pentagon parking lot across the Potomac in Virginia. While performers disembark and go through metal detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs will search the buses. Then everybody will get back on the buses for a trip to the National Mall, where they will spend most of the day in heavily guarded warming tents. Participants have been warned that they will not be allowed to leave the tents except to go to portable toilets accompanied by a security escort. Other instructions given performers include a warning not to look directly at Bush while passing the presidential reviewing stand, not to look to either side and not to make any sudden movements."

The inauguration is certainly shaping up to be the social event of the season.
Now, let me get this straight...
Saturday, January 15, 2005

The Guardian: Government drops plans for child protection database
'The Home Office confirmed it has dropped plans to set up the database because it would be "prohibitively costly and impractical to implement" given the size of the workforce, with 3.5 million people working with children alone. The register would have covered staff and volunteers in social care, health, education, sports coaching, private tuition and domiciliary care.'

But it's not too "costly or impractical" to catalogue the whole population of the UK under a £3bn (yeah right, watch that figure expand faster than Charles Clarke at a free buffet) national ID card scheme.

I'm not going to get into the whole hysteria of the paedophile child-killer lurking on every corner. After all, the vast majority of children killed in the UK every year are done so by close family members and cars. The database was never going to catch abusive parents and reckless drivers.

But it just seems to prove again that someone is asleep at the wheel of the New Labour charabanc. They could have put the child protection database into action in an even half-hearted fashion, and be seen to be doing something. And in the greater scheme of things, in terms of cost, for buttons. Instead they've given their critics, particular those elements of the right-wing press who love a bit of paedosteria when sales are flagging, yet another stick to beat them with.
Well, now we know...
Friday, January 14, 2005

In the US military, murdering an unarmed, injured Iraqi is exactly twice as bad as being a gay conscientious objector:

BBC News: US soldier jailed for Iraq murder (14/1/2005)
"A US soldier has been jailed for a year for the murder of a severely wounded 16-year-old Iraqi."

Gay.com: Marines jail gay objector for being AWOL (8/9/2003)
"On Saturday, a jury of four Marines in New Orleans found a gay reservist who missed 47 days of duty without permission during the Iraq war guilty of unauthorized absence and recommended a sentence of six months in prison."

The tariff system used by these military tribunals must be a thing to see. The sentencing of Abu Ghraib Master of Ceremonies Charles Graner is awaited with interest.

UPDATE 15/1/05: Graner got ten years. Which, while it's gratifying to see such a man getting his just desserts, I'm still puzzled at how the other guy only got a year for murder.

Plus, the constant drip of stories of torture coming out of other US bases (Bagram air base in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay) and the views on torture from the likes of outgoing US Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge and incoming Attorney General Alberto Gonzales show that Graner and his gruesome crew are anything but just a few bad apples.
Ann Coulter (almost) makes sense shock!
Friday, January 14, 2005

In her recent Two-Minute Hate, 2004: HIGHLIGHTS AND LOWLIFES, Ann Coulter says:

'The single biggest event of 2004 was the Election Day exit poll, which, like John Steinbeck's "The Short Reign of Pippin IV," made John Kerry the president for a few moments. But in a move that stunned the experts, American voters chose "moral values" over an America-bashing trophy husband and his blow-dried, ambulance-chasing sidekick.'

I love her use of the quotation marks around "moral values" - what can she mean? For added effect, try reading the above sentence out loud and do the quote fingers when you get to "moral values".






Never Mind The Ballots
Friday, January 14, 2005

Tim's got something cooking for the upcoming General Election over at Bloggerheads:

"This will mean - at the very least - some time and real estate on your weblog, but I will also be asking you to reach into your pockets and get off your arse and do stuff."

Sounds like it's going to interesting. And coming from the thoughtpeach of the man who came up with the "Out of Order" and "Bare Your Bum At Bush" campaigns there should be a few chuckles along the way.

Get on board.
Unremittingly Depressing
Friday, January 14, 2005

"Unremittingly New Labour" is certainly a phrase to chill the blood. Especially coming from a prime minister steeped in so much horror and death as Tony Blair. We can only guess at the cost of a third unremittingly New Labour government. But you can bet your last penny there won't be an official count of the the bodies.

The fundamental problem, it seems to me, with Blair and his ilk is their disturbing ability to view humanity as an abstract concept. How many times have you heard an minister in an interview say, "well of course, I can't comment on specific cases"? It's almost as if they see people as well, not really people. How else to explain their sanguine attitude to the deaths of tens of thousands in Iraq? It doesn't help that they're aided and abetted by a complicit media. I bet you'd struggle to get mainstream publicity to raise money for the victims of the US assault on Falluja. There hasn't been any poignant footage of the bloated corpses on the street of Iraq as there has been from Indonesia.

But the same can be said of ministers' attitudes towards people at home. Apologist for New Labour talk about the minimum wage, the New Deal, Jobcentre Plus, Sure Start, Working Families Tax Credit et al. But this is all cosy middle class complacency.

Have these people actually spoken to somebody for who the minimum wage is still a poverty wage?

Or the people on the dole who can't get advice at their job centre because there's a shortage of advisers.

Or those on the New Deal, victims of a system operating for profit, overseen by undertrained and demoralised staff extolling a one size fits all approach that can't accomodate those aspiring to a career and better life and not just a job stacking shelves.

Or those on Working Families Tax Credit who have been the victims of a poorly implemented computer system with its late payments, under payments, over payments and the only form of redress being through a network of disparate call centres again staffed by undertrained, demoralised and, in some case, disinterested staff.

But at least New Labour are doing something if only in a fuzzy abstract sense that massages middle class guilt about the proles. They can feel better about the poor getting a few extra quid a week and get back to discussing whether Germaine Greer was a sell-out for going on Big Brother.

And the people at the heart of this sausage machine are the kind of people who, if you got stuck next to them on the bus, you'd look for another seat:

Geoff Hoon, a man whose moral compass is so comprehensively knackered, once said that Iraqi victims of coalition cluster bombs might one day thank those who dropped them.

Or Jack Straw, the now Foreign Secretary who is not remembered as the most authoritarian Home Secretary in modern history only because his successor was worse.

Speaking of which. David Blunkett, a Home Secretary who boasted of his prodigious memory and grasp of the minutest details of his brief only to have these superpowers fail him when he was asked to recall the details of a grubby scandal that might have prevented him making a return to the cabinet after the general election.

And the Chancellor. A hulking sulk of man with his thwarted ambition, who sees the road to the Premiership as a right of succession and not a democratic process. A man who those on the left claim as saviour of their party and yet a man yoked to marketisation, PFI, multiple announcements and counting of the same expenditure and other post-Thatcherite sleights of hand.

The list goes on. A Culture Secretary calling those who didn't want their towns inundated with casinos "snobs". Whose best interest did she think building super casinos would serve? Who lobbied for these casinos? I bet it wasn't the Child Poverty Action Group. And then there's the Trade and Industry Secretary who wants to soften the laws on corporate bribery.

And at the centre of the web, the Prime Minister with his delusional Billy Liar stories about Jackie Milburn and stowing away on airliners (why did alarm bells not begin ringing the second these bon mots tripped from his mouth?). His love of a freebie and the thrill of the chase of a good headline. The half million pound property deal that was orchestrated by a conman and yet the Prime Minister knew nothing about. The Mittals and the Ecclestones. The bifurcated mind that can argue black is white, that can ignore the suffering of thousands in Iraq but lament the suffering of thousands in Asia and Africa, that can chair meetings about what to do with David Kelly but can deny having anything to do with the "naming strategy". The moral hole at the heart of unremitting New Labour.
The hunt is up, the hunt is up, sing merrily we, the hunt is up!
Thursday, January 13, 2005

"Iraq manufactured three nerve agents: sarin, tabun, and VX. Some people who want war with Iraq describe 20,000 munitions filled with sarin and tabun nerve agents that could be used against Americans. The facts, however, don't support this. Sarin and tabun have a shelf-life of five years. Even if Iraq had somehow managed to hide this vast number of weapons from inspectors, what they are now storing is nothing more than useless, harmless goo."
Scott Ritter, War on Iraq, September 2002

"We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd."
Tony Blair, 18 March, 2003

"You cannot believe how hard it is to motivate people in the field who know that all they are doing is going through busy work motions because they themselves know there are no weapons there."
Former US inspector David Kay, January 2004

BBC News: US gives up search for Iraq WMD




Tsunamis and Armies
Thursday, January 13, 2005

"Indeed, the admirable outpouring of media and public compassion for the victims of Asia's natural disaster makes the near-total indifference to the suffering of Iraqi civilians under Western attack even more stunning. Who would believe, looking at the images of devastation from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, that Britain and the United States are responsible for bringing a comparable disaster to a single country, Iraq? While the US government has so far pledged $350m to the victims of the tsunami, and the UK government £50m, the US has spent $200 billion on the Iraq war and the UK £6bn."

New Media Lens Media Alert
Digging the Entrenchment
Thursday, January 13, 2005

So just what was he thinking? What made him do it?

Sifting through the news cuttings you can find plenty of examples of the Royal Family's other-worldly attitudes to the concepts of race and the deeply held belief that they really do exist on another plain.

You don't have to go very far back into the archives to find a startling insight into Prince Harry's thinking. Only last week when asked about a putative Zimbabwean girlfriend, Harry replied, "She's not black or anything, you know."

At Prince William's 21st fancy dress birthday party at Windsor castle which was famously gatecrashed by Aaron Barschak, some of the guests arrived blacked up. William, it seems, was quite willing to tolerate their presence.

But where do these attitudes come from? Francis Wheen in his book Hoo-Hahs and Passing Frenzies gives us some broad clues. As an antidote to the hagiographical bobbins that spewed out on the death of the Queen Mother, Wheen relates some of the views she expressed to friend and diarist, Woodrow Wyatt.

During tbe Apartheid era in South Africa, she said she thought "it is awful how the BBC and media misrepresent everything that [P.W.] Botha is trying to do". On the Germans she said, "never trust them, never trust them. They can't be trusted." They do, however, make a super fancy dress outfit it seems. She was pro Chamberlain and anti Churchill during the war. There's oodles of the stuff.

And don't get me started on Prince Philip's myriad slitty-eyed, spear-chucking gaffes.

Would Prince Harry be publicly hanging his head and mumbling apologies if the - soon to be - notorious photograph hadn't been taken? He obviously thought it acceptable behaviour at the time just as his brother's friends thought nothing of painting themselves up as nig nogs.

But is it any wonder Harry is wrong-headed? His father, after all, has a flunky whose job is to put toothpaste on his master's toothbrush.

UPDATE: BBC News: 'The picture was taken at the weekend at a friend's birthday party in Wiltshire, which had the fancy dress theme "colonial and native".'

Which just about says it all.
Ignorant Bigots
Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Ignorant Bigots.
When the twin obsessions with politics and Star Wars collide
Friday, January 07, 2005

I was quite upset today to find I wasn't the first person to realise that Tony Blair sounds like C3PO.
Public Service Announcement: The Daily Show
Friday, January 07, 2005

For those of us in the UK who are fans of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart but don't have access to Comedy Central, help is at hand.

Get yourself a bittorrent client for downloading files from the web. I use BitComet.

Once you've got that installed, go here where some kind soul is posting, on an almost daily basis, recent editions of the Daily Show (among other things, West Wing fans) that are downloadable via a bittorrent client.




Groovy Virgins
Friday, January 07, 2005

SO ANYWAY. I'm very taken with the rash of adverts on our screens at the minute shilling those collectable series of model classic cars, rally cars and - best of all - a part work which allows you to build your very own miniature model of the Cutty Sark. Only a hundred instalments at 5 pounds a pop.

The reason I'm fascinated by these adverts is because all three campaigns feature a different late-twenties/early-thirties guy with a groovy shirt and expensive haircut lovingly fondling a tiny E-Type Jag, Escort Cosworth or expertly splicing a miniature mainbrace. It's genius. The ads scream, "Look! It's not just anoraked berks and 40 year-old virgins who live with their mums that buy these things you know!".

My favourite ad is the one for the tiny rally cars. The groover stands in his shiny, minimalist, and no doubt expensive, flat, lining his extensive collection diagonally on a set of glass and chrome shelves.

This guy's quite clearly a handsome, rich chap. I can't help but picture him on a Friday night, taking home his latest conquest that he's met in a nightclub. Imagine her look of horror upon entering the flat as she spins, gazing in horror at shelf after shelf of tiny toy cars. And then the blessed relief she feels as our hero buries his big shiny Patrick Bateman axe into her reeling skull.
Willkommen
Friday, January 07, 2005

Welcome to Chicken Yoghurt.

I used to run a blog a few years back that attained a small level of success. You may remember it.

I'm not going to say who I am or what my former blog was just yet - I want to see if it was a flash in the pan or if I can generate a similar level of wild adulation on my second attempt.

Come back soon - the place will be growing in the next few days.