Category: News and politics

…three to go? The inimitable Steve Bell puts out his take on the latest Bush rumour. Meanwhile, al-Jazeera staff have started a blog to plead Bush not to bomb them.

Boris Johnson looks like a buffoon. Sometimes he behaves like one. But not always.

 

The news story – that Bush wanted to bomb the al-Jezeera news station in Qatar – is still rumbling on. It wasn’t helped by the appearance of Frank Gaffney on Newsnight the day the story broke. As CuriousHamster reports, Gaffney said two things: a) the allegations weren’t proven and b) al-Jazeera probably should be bombed by the US government. Way to go, Frank. Mind you, even though he’s the president of the Center for Security Policy, he does seem to have a habit of saying some pretty ridiculous things.

 

The art of the polemic is not dead – or, as yet, illegal. Warning, may be slow to load, but stick with it.

 

(hat tip to CuriousHamster)

 

It’s a pity he hasn’t been honing his morals at the same time. Those might have had a better effect on the rest of the world.

This is an extraordinary story, if true. And I hope that if it is true, then Bush was making a crass joke. The alternative – that he was being perfectly serious – is almost too horrifying to contemplate.

Apparently, Osama bin Laden wants the United States to convert to Islam, ditch its constitution, abolish banks, jail homosexuals and sign the Kyoto climate change treaty. These are from his statements now gathered together in a book, according to this story in The Telegraph. Well, the shenanigans of the current US administration are doing their best to deal the Constitution a mortal blow, so that’s one down I suppose. And I’m sure many on the Christian Right would just lurve to return to the days of jailing us pesky homosexuals, so number two is not beyond the realms of possibility. But I’m not sure about signing the Kyoto treaty though. I suspect that before that gas-guzzling culture would sign, Hell would first have to freeze over, except it wouldn’t have a chance, if you see what I mean.

 

Update: Ophelia nails the bastards.

… but rather than pushing up the daisies, it was blasted to smithereens. It was a sparrow – an endangered species here in The Netherlands. Its crime? It knocked over a domino, which in turn knocked over 22,999 others.

 

The Dutch animal protection agency is investigating the crime. The execution of the sparrow, that is, not the pushing over of a domino.

God, I love Steve Bell.

Justin, over at Chicken Yoghurt, dissects the hypocrisy of Blair and the media in a piece of barely contained fury. Can’t say I blame him. He also refers to the article written by John Tulloch in yesterday’s Guardian. That’s worth reading too.

 

Oh, and in particular, read this piece by Rachel – she was caught in the bombing, but she eloquently demonstrates why Blair and Clarke are posturing, not thinking.

The news that George W Bush has ordered all his senior staff in the White House to take a "refresher course in ethics" smacks seriously of attempting to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. There’s also the delicious irony of that word "refresher". It presumes that the current denizens of the White House had any ethics to start with.

Rosa Parks died yesterday at the age of 92. Her refusal to give up her seat on a bus was the spark that led to the civil rights movement taking off in the US 50 years ago. RIP, Rosa.

Orwellian Newspeak rears its ugly head again – this time by the head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller. She said:

"Detainee reporting" strikes me as a particularly slimy phrase. As Justin, over at Chicken Yoghurt points out:

Read the rest of Justin’s piece. It’s worth it. And I know that if I was being tortured, I’d say whatever it was I thought the torturers wanted to hear in a vain attempt to get them to stop, just stop, please stop. So the phrase "can be accurate" has very little real meaning as far as I can see.

I do realise that that is not supposed to be the appropriate reaction, but I confess that it was my first reaction when I read this story. I never did like the Smurfs – irritating little creatures without any redeeming features whatsoever as far as I’m concerned.

I mentioned last week that the word "choice" tends to make my hackles rise. It’s because I often think it’s used in false circumstances. For example, New Labour apply it to services in the public sector. Well, I’m sorry, but to me, a public hospital should be the best that it can be, and funding should not be driven by a mythical sense of choice. When I’m ill, I don’t want to consult fucking league tables, I want to go to my local hospital and be rest assured that I am getting good treatment. Anything else is a travesty, and poking free market practices into places where I don’t want them to be. Eddie explains this very well over at The Sharpener.

Martin Rowson hits the nail squarely on the head with his cartoon in today’s Guardian. Meanwhile, Simon Hoggart writes lightly on the topic. It’s left to Curious Hamster to put into words what Rowson put into his image – pure unadulterated bile aimed directly at a deserving target.

What is it with Tony Blair’s manner of speaking? Can’t he manage joined-up sentences anymore? His address at the Labour Party Conference was a prime example. That, and the fact that it was also a brilliant example of newspeak. Thankfully, Justin McKeating over at Chicken Yoghurt was able to control his growing feeling of nausea long enough to be able to give a pertinent analysis of the dear leader’s tendentious twaddle. I’m afraid I reached for the sick-bucket pretty early on.

Some of us are old enough to remember Spitting Image, with the running joke about Ronald Reagan; to whit: The President’s Brain Is Missing.

 

Now, Curious Hamster, over at the Big Stick and a Small Carrot blog alerts us to the very real problem that perhaps the brain of the UK’s beloved Prime Minister has gone AWOL. I think he’s right to be concerned.

At last, the European Parliament has launched a new web site, which promises to make the process of the parliament much more transparent and accountable to the likes of you and me. There’s even live video streaming of the debates. Now, where’s my bag of popcorn?

Philip Pullman, writing in today’s Guardian, offers some ironic advice to the UK’s Conservative party on how to get votes with a new manifesto. It’s good advice, too; I’d vote for a party that implemented his ideas. Unfortunately, the old ideals of noblesse oblige, service and looking after each other in society seem to have been swept away. Thatcher started the rot, and we’ve all been gleefully stoking the fire ever since.

Professor Simon Schama, writing in today’s Guardian, ably outlines why we should not be conflating 9/11 with Katrina. Go and read it.