Saturday, March 1, 2003
Oderint Dum Metuant «
US Diplomat’s Letter of Resignation.
The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq.
Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America’s ability to defend its interests.
oderint dum metuant let them hate so long as they fear Accius Atreu Fragment IV quoted in Cicero Philippica 1 xiv (Source: Chamber’s Dictionary)
Hurriedly scribbled @ 2:19 pm GMT
Sunday, March 2, 2003
Duck Soup «
It is, I agree, a cheap shot to rail against ’mindless political correctness.’ It’s also insufferably bourgeois. So, in a cheap bourgeois shot, I hereby join the protestors against the RSPB’s proposed cull of ruddy ducks: Telegraph, Independent, BBC. Does reification mean nothing to these people? Ruddy ducks are real. Each ruddy duck you shoot or poison is a real death. White-headed ducks qua (a word I had to go to university to learn how to pronounce) white-headed ducks are not real. Real white-headed ducks will die. So will real ruddy ducks. The species is not real. Whether you believe in gradualism or punctuated equilibrium, species are no more than collections of individuals: if you prick them, they do not bleed, if you tickle them, they do not laugh. Individuals are born and die, but to kill any one is murder.
If white-headed ducks die out, it is not because they have been killed. The offspring between ruddies and white-heads won’t be white-headed ducks, but then they won’t be ruddy ducks either. (We won’t trouble ourselves that the sullied here are ’white’ and the overly virile are a kind of brown.) The word the RSPB are looking for is miscegenation. Racial purity in the 21st century. Next year, having disposed of the ruddy ducks (whose main crime according to the Independent is having an "8in penis"), there’s the Kurds to dispose of, and then those nasty mixed race kids in Britain. And then… Wasn’t it Napoleon who ordered figleaves be added to statues? You can’t trust prudes. And I thought Mary Whitehouse’s problem was because her name rhymed with toilet…
Hurriedly scribbled @ 11:45 pm GMT
Monday, March 3, 2003
After the Gold Rush «
Nigerian diplomat shot dead in Prague by a 72 year old man who may have been the victim of the Nigerian email scam. An old link, but pertinent, after Scotland on Sunday reported that 150 Britons were stung last year alone, to the tune of £8.4m, an average loss of £56,675. (The source seems to be the National Criminal Intelligence Service but it’s nowhere on their site.)
Source: /.
I’ve always been irritated by the inference that I am both stupid and greedy (not to mention the poor grammar and spelling). So I wouldn’t be too upset if someone did shoot one of the scammers, but like quite a few slashdotters, I’m aware that the only people who get caught out may be stupid, but they’re also willing to break the law. I don’t believe in the ’prosecute the lot of them’ argument because it makes it harder to catch original criminals.
A perhaps more effective way to strike back.
I still don’t know why it’s called the 419 scam.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 1:17 pm GMT
Thursday, March 6, 2003
All in the Genes «
James Watson wants stupidity to be eliminated. New Scientist calls this a cure, but it’s not. Watson isn’t interested in taking those who are stupid, and making them smart: he wants society to be cured of stupidity by the extermination of the stupid. See The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould.
Black cats may be the more fortunate felines according to New Scientist. I think it just hides the dirt. Mind you, both of mine wash a lot.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 4:39 pm GMT
Friday, March 7, 2003
The Thousand Natural Shocks «
Yesterday, the Today programme carried an anti-therapy ’Thought for the Day’ which apparently resulted in lots of emails. Now, I’m disappointed that the website doesn’t reproduce these, as I’m ambivalent. I think that therapy can work: I was impressed with Pat Barker’s Regeneration, but I also think that it can be harmful. My father suffered several strokes — in 1994 he was hospitalised and in 1995 transferred to a nursing home as a result of the one of these (not the final one, but I’m assured by doctors that medication masked the effects of subsequent ones). He was a devotee of therapy and comtinued to see his psychoanalyst in the home. As far as I can tell (I only paid the bills), he blamed his parents for his depression, his paralysis, etc, as though their putrescent, bony hands reached out from the grave and somehow caused his heart to block. She took the money with righeous indignation. (She had to bear my invective, but she had a thick skin, and I’m sure, like old Sigmund himself could ponder her smartness or doze while her clients waffled.)
So, anyway, I may not have much time for Anne Atkins, but once in a while she gets things right.
The spin-off from this is Today’s email of the day (not an archived link, so not one I’ll include) is on ECT. I’d just like to link to ECT: how shock therapy works. I know nothing about Dick Cavett or Thomas Eagleton, but I know about Lou Reed, Plath, and Hemmingway. Reed is still resentful — the other two are dead. Is there a moral? Probably not, but I wouldn’t recommend something that there’s no good reason for, and no known mechanism behind. ECT, IMHO, belongs in the punitive 50s.
And therapy? Therapy belongs in the garbage.
There’s still art. There’s always art.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 10:33 pm GMT
Saturday, March 8, 2003
Oh! The Irony! «
Do Americans really have no sense of irony?
I try to keep a review journal alongside this one, though I don’t see as many films as I used to. And I’m trying to say something more profound about Adaptation than merely ’s wonderful. What I didn’t realise when I saw it is that all the characters are real (even if the events aren’t). This includes Robert McKee, the guru-like screenwriting teacher. Now McKee’s site has a page on Adapation, which is fair enough, how often do you get protrayed on screen, especially by Brian Cox (who was Hannibal Lecter before Anthony Hopkins, and for my money, better at it), and Jonze and Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich is included as one of the films discussed by McKee in the Course Outline. But, the Kaufmans intentionally break every rule of McKee’s: they have voiceovers, a ’deus ex machina’, and the drama is obviously Hollywood and fake. Donald Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is told that he behaves like he’s joined a cult by his brother Charlie (also Cage).
McKee’s course gets a good going over, and I’m surprised that McKee not only didn’t sue, he embraced the portrayal. But then, some people have thick skins.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 12:12 pm GMT
Sunday, March 9, 2003
Life Savers «
Learing something every day department: Henry Heimlich (the inventor of the Heimlich Manoeuvre) is still saving lives at 83. I count myself among those who’ve heard of the technique, but didn’t know what it is. So this is what to do if someone chokes.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 4:56 pm GMT
Monday, March 10, 2003
My Own Private Kurdistan «
Being an emotional and moral coward, I’ve held back from phoning my recently widowed cousin for a few weeks, hoping that someone else would do the looking-after thing. Well, last night I phoned her and did my bit, and was keeping the conversation neutral — listening and making comforting noise when she asked what I thought of the war. I’ve not had to explain my views to anyone I don’t see often, so it was a start-from-the-top job.
I said that I agreed with Anne Clywd in that Saddam seems word-defyingly horrible, and that the last Gulf War should have finished him off. (I didn’t go off down my other track, which is that it didn’t, and I’m sure that there were good military reasons why not. I don’t know what has supposed to have changed since to make the proposed regime-change practical this time around. And looking at the ’friendly’ neighbouring states, like Saudi Arabia, doesn’t convince me we want more of the same.) At the same time I believed that legitimacy only could come for me from a UN resolution. I’m more convinced by the hawks than I was now that they seem to have dropped the Al-Quaeda link nonsense. When they were patently lying, I was anti-war. Now, I am less so, but I’m still not keen. I don’t know if Saddam does pose a threat to us — us being the UK. I’m sure he posses a threat to Israel and to Turkey. Turkey aren’t helping their case by not allowing the deployment of US troops, and I’d like to see promises that they won’t harm the Kurds in a war, and that they’d support the setting up of Kurdistan. And I’ll be more sympathetic to Israel when they elect someone more doveish and tolerant than Sharon (and note that this includes almost everyone on the planet bar Saddam).
She agreed. She’s always been a Tory, if a slightly liberal one, so I was a little surprised, but it’s getting harder to find anyone in favour at present. I thought that the anti-war march represented a kind of watershed, and squeezing of the pimple, a telling TB to shove it, after which apathy would set in again, but it’s not like that. I met two friends in the pub last night whose son is in the army and has just arrived in the Gulf. They left early as they were expecting a call from him. They don’t want a shooting war.
It’s a long way from this letter from a soldier, which though nicely argued, assumes that the war has something to do with terrorism in the September 11th sense, as opposed to the rogue state sense.
Also well argued is this Andrew Roberts and Ben Pimlott discussion. Andrew Roberts is particularly persuasive and cogent on the faults of the UN route.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 10:09 pm GMT
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Unique «
I’m the only result for this search. (The name means ’black pig’ if you need to know, and it used to be called the Gamekeeper.) Well, almost the only one, if you read the bar at the top: Results 1—1 of about 2. Search took 0.11 seconds. Now if I understood that, I’d be a Google guru.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 3:34 pm GMT
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Signals «
SETI are reported to be about to recheck certain signals. Is it because a war is imminent as suggested at /.? The success of the SETI@home program always seemed dubious to me when you consider the Drake Equation, and that the Targeted Star Search only considers "140 stars within 20 parsecs (65 light years) that are very similar to our Sun in color, size and temperature". 140 seems a lot until you realise how old the earth is (4.5 billion years), how long it has been habitable (at least a billion of those), how long mammals have been around (since before the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago), the possibilty that the existence of the earth as we know it, and the moon as we know it, are an accident when an object the size of Mars collided with the Earth. We’ve also got by for the last several thousand years without radio, and we’d be more likely to survive a few thousand more without modern technology. The Osama bin Ladens of this world would intentionally turn back our knowledge — so would most fundametalists of any religion.
Not only that but some technology, like email, seems to halt progress.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 5:16 pm GMT
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Chips with Everything «
White House cafeterias change names for ’french’ fries and ’french’ toast.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 4:47 pm GMT
Sunday, March 16, 2003
Revelations «
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
George Orwell, Animal Farm
America’s deep Christian faith is one of the things that divides us from the US. Bush could do with the advice of Oliver Cromwell I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken. (Though Cromwell seemed to mean, I’m right and you ain’t.)
Hurriedly scribbled @ 2:21 pm GMT
MS Word considered harmful. Step Away From the Spell-Checker. Note that this is only because it may make you lazy. Most documents I see written in Word could use a spell check, and its preference for the active voice is commendable.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 12:28 am GMT
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Taking a Stand «
The Idiot Prince Will Have His War, a pessimistic article on the US invasion.
Cook wins Commons ovation with his resignation speech. What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected we would not now be about to commit British troops.
Robin Cook on Why I had to leave the cabinet.
Robin Cook’s resignation letter and Tony Blair’s response to Cook.
Cook has been polite, civilised, and statesmanlike throughout. This makes Clare Short’s decision not to resign look foolish, for want of a better word. If Blair is strengthened (and he is by her decision) then he’ll want to punish her for calling him ’reckless’ — if not, Gordon Brown’s chances of leading the parliamentary party look slimmer than Cook. He’s relied on the alleged pact between him and Tony Blair. TB was supposed to stand down for Brown. If he’s pushed, it’s a different story. Cook looks like he’s in the better position, so Short seems to have chosen the wrong friend. (I wouldn’t rule out Blunkett as the next leader either.)
Hurriedly scribbled @ 11:44 am GMT
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
More of the Same, I’m Afraid «
The Arrogant Empire, an analysis of how the US got where it is now. The title sort of says it all, except that it was true when Clinton was still in the White House, and it’s more true now.
Poet Ian McMillan on resignations.
Andrew Marr on oratory.
Did your MP support the rebels? Mine (Alun Michael) didn’t, but 22 of the 40 MPs of all parties in Wales did. The conditions in Iraq look terrible.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 1:39 pm GMT
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Visionaries «
First, Dean Allen uncovers an old but oh so relevant Onion piece: Bush: ’Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over.’
And then Dean, and everyone links to Raed’s take on inside Iraq. Raed (and there should be a link to the right) is fan-fucking-tastic.
There’s a lot of Blair-Churchill comparisons around just now. Churchill was just about the only prominent politician who was against Hitler, and he was right, blah blah. I don’t think these obtain. The UN was not appeasing Saddam, it was imposing sanctions and weapons inspections. War in Churchill’s time became necessary because the League of Nations didn’t do these things. If anyone is being Churchillian, it is Robin Cook, standing by his principles, and letting them fly in a devasting speech. Of course, Cook may be being petulant, he may be taking an enlightened gamble, but so, in many ways, was Churchill. He was always a politician who was better kept inside the tent than allowed to stir up trouble. He was an ex-soldier, and his approach to war was more Colin Powell than George Bush.
Cook has made his point, and he hasn’t alienated Blair. He hasn’t alienated anyone. He hasn’t called anyone names (like ’reckless’). Whether he can mount a future coup is a question for the future, but he’s not dead. Clare Short seems to be. Tolstoy, at the end of War and Peace says something about memories being formed collectively, until a few weeks after a battle, everyone thinks they were in the same place at the same time. History is not being kind to Short. At first, some people did seem to accept that she had taken the harder course. Not any longer.
To come back to some sort of point. Debates like we’ve seen remind me that we do live in a democracy. And if our military commanders give speeches like this, maybe we really are the good guys. I hope the US troops have the same put-out-no-flags attitude.
Now why do I doubt that?
Hurriedly scribbled @ 3:52 pm GMT
Australia’s Prime Minister has sent 2,000 troops to the Gulf, the largest force since Vietnam. He seems not to have persuaded the country, to judge by the current articles in The Age. Senate condemns conflict: it passed a historic motion 37-32 to condemn the war and call for the immediate return of Australian troops. However, The House of Representatives voted 80-63, along party lines, to support Mr Howard’s resolution backing war to disarm Iraq.
Scott Burchill, a lecturer in international relations at Deakin University, argues that The humanitarian arguments for this war are spurious.
Margaret Atwood on comparisons with Napoleon. Another North American, Thomas L. Friedman, says the US needs to get off its high horse: Though the Bush team came to office with this Iraq project in mind, it has pursued a narrow, ideological and bullying foreign policy that has alienated so many people that by the time it wanted to rustle up a posse for an Iraq war, too many nations were suspicious of its motives. The President says he went the extra mile to find a diplomatic solution. That is not true.
I’ve tried hard not to editorialise. My opinion is as confused as anyone’s, though I admire Jason Kottke’s views on the war.
My friend Dave Price has been far more succinct than I can be:
It’s a very confusing position, and until the last couple of days I have been unable to make my mind up on the issue. Although my views are likely to keep on changing, I’m currently here:
Chirac’s opposition to 2nd resolution is equally duplicitous as Bush’s (and Blair’s?) motives for intervention. Chirac is motivated by France’s own interests in the region and, more importantly (I think), he is looking to Europe in the long term. His primary objective is to marginalise the UK.
In that context, the issue of the "legality" of war is moribund. Having a second resolution might have made things easier in presentational terms—i.e. the war would be said to be legal, but it would make it no more or lesslegal than without an agreement.
The issue is not about the legality of war, it is about the ethics of starting a war. Trouble is the situation has got far beyond such debates.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 2:50 pm GMT
Friday, March 21, 2003
Greatly exaggerated «
Rumours that Saddam may be dead now seem to be untrue.
Paul Boutin, Technology writer for Slate, Wired, The New York Times, Salon, etc finds the the Dear Raed, the Baghdad Blogger, is for real.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 9:38 am GMT
Sunday, March 23, 2003
The Horror, the Horror «
Hard to believe, but Brian Sewell, has some things to say about WWII in A horror too deep for tears.
al-Jazeera, the Arabic broadcaster, has some disturbing images of the wounded. (Thanks to Warblogger Watch for finding the images, even if they didn’t supply a link.) Martin Bell, ex-MP and former war journalist, warned before the start of the war that precision bombing was not perfect. He was right.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 12:58 pm GMT
Monday, March 24, 2003
I Vant to be Alone «
The UK Daily Mail (I can’t find the article) criticised the MOD for insisting that PoWs faces be hidden. This is in line with Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Article 13: Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity. Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited. Now that Allied, or as they seem to be called this time, Coalition, troops, have been captured, they change their tune. Once again, I’m glad that our leaders show respect for international law, and humanity in battle. I hope that this will last.
Yahoo (among others) have a picture of British soldiers and the bodies of two Iraqi soldiers … in their trench with a white flag. This isn’t proof that the soldiers failed to respect the Iraqis right to surrender. Shelling is pretty indiscriminate. But it isn’t reassuring.
Human Rights Watch wrote to Condoleezza Rice on the convention and prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 4:05 pm GMT
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Home Front «
While I’m glad that Salam Pax is alive and well, I’m now sick of this war. I wish I’d been more against it from the first — enough to go on marches, at least. But, like a lot of people, I thought that there was some merit in the arguments that international law is not binding, that Saddam has to go (see for instance I was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam or Anne Clwyd who has campaigned for years for the indictment of Saddam). So, even though I thought that Bush wanted the war for the wrong reasons (Oil) and pretended to have other wrong reasons (September 11, 2001), I sort of hoped the war would come off, and maybe the world would be a better place. But now, it’s starting to look like we’re just going to alienate the neighbouring countries, and, more pertinently, the local Iraqis we’ve always been assured will turn on Saddam.
Not only does it look like we’ll have street fighting in Basra (which will be given to British troops), as well as fighting in the capital, my hopes that Blair and Bush were wrong about chemical weapons look less secure. If no weapons were found, that’s a point against Blair, and fewer bodies come home. If he’s right, and if they get deployed, that’s almost certainly another term for Tony, and we can only hope they’re ineffective in battle. (Though as they worked in the Iran-Iraq war, this is pretty feeble.)
One threat which has not come to pass is the terrorist attack at home. No strikes in the US, and no action here. I still expect loud explosions when I go outside, but I think that’s an effect of flipping to the news every quarter of an hour.
And now I have lots of bottled water to drink.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 4:39 pm GMT
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Traitor Scum «
Well! I’ve been called traitor scum (Oops, I deleted comments when I moved the site), by someone too brave and upstanding to leave any kind of contact details. I haven’t seen any pictures of Coalition casualties. Nor has The Memory Hole, though there are pictures of Iraqi civilian casualties, US POWs, and military casualties from both sides. There may be pictures of Coalition casualties, and I believe that Technovia found one, but the al-Jazeera site doesn’t seem to be working. Perhaps it got bombed. I can’t get anything other than the home page, but al-Jazeera in English is available. al-Jazeera is not a propaganda station. I deprecate Iain Duncan Smith’s call for it to be bombed almost as much as I resent the Allies for doing so. I thought that a free press was a cornerstone of democracy.
(However, these problems seem to stem from hack attacks.)
A selection of letters to the Guardian headed by the author Iain Banks, who makes one of those futile gestures [he and his wife tore up their passports and sent them to the Prime Minister], which I can admire while considering pointless and stupid. Who’s not going on holiday now, then? War only makes sense when you consider how comical peaceful methods are. But better to be peaceful than a murderer.
Meanwhile, there are no reports on Basra. Troops seem to be gearing up for a seige, but Donald Rumsfeld’s insistence on using a small a force as possible makes laying seiges difficult. Since cities aren’t walled these days, I’d be very surprised if some Arabic speaking agents haven’t just walked in, although soldiers being out of uniform is exactly what we’re accusing of the Iraqis of doing, and when it’s them, it’s cheating.
Basra is important because it’s the first real test of the popularity of the invasion. MSNBC reports that the British ring Basra, and goes into the problems.
We shall, not for the last time, have to wait and see. Right or wrong, the Coalition can’t pull out now.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 4:04 pm GMT
Thursday, March 27, 2003
Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Fogs of War «
Ebay does not "ship to, or accept bids from, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany or any other country that does not support the United States in our efforts to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. If you are not with us, you are against us."
The BBC isn’t having the best war. There are a lot of tedious right-wing hacks who think everything should be privatised and can be relied on for regular mortar attacks when other fronts go quiet. I’m not going to link to them, or even name them. But the BBC coverage is a little boring. Sometimes it seems to be studio journalists interviewing other journalists, followed by some commentary, interupted by speculation. And a lot of it is dull.
War reporters face new challenges isn’t the best article on what’s happening, but it’s one of the best of what it’s like to be reporting in Iraq. It’s rather like the photographer who sneaks out of the photoshoot of a celebrity and gets the shot of the scrum. Though there’s some worth in that, it gets a little boring when you see it every day.
But for today’s sermon, we have the lesson of the perils of speculation. I wrote most of the above last night, but couldn’t be bothered to go online to publish it. At the same time, I ’realised’ that, despite Tony Blair’s good intentions, the US weren’t going to allow the UN a role in the reconstruction of Iraq. I think Tony is a clever man, and a subtle man, and I’m sure that he sees that while the UN was slow to military action (which he believes was necessary), that does not mean that it can’t handle the peace. Now I think this too, but I think that the UN was the only force which could wage a legitimate war. However, if the UN, and in particular, member states such as France, can’t get themselves together for the war, the case for their role in the following peace is really not tenable.
This is the position of today’s Torygraph leading article. It seemed to be the accepted wisdom overnight that even the multilateralist Colin Powell would not accept a UN role. The BBC, in Looming rift over Iraq’s future, even point out that several UN members won’t even accept that there is no current (legitimate) government in Iraq. However, this morning, things have moved on: the VOA reports Powell: UN Expected to Play a Role in Post-War Iraq. So, it’s One-two-three-four, what are we fighting for?
Hurriedly scribbled @ 9:53 am GMT
Sunday, March 30, 2003
Making Connections «
The Tocquevillian Magazine reports on The Al Qaida Connection: Nabeel Masawi, the Chief of Intelligence for the Iraqi Opposition Leadership, is reporting on Fox that the person who drove the taxi and blew it and himself up, killing four US soldiers, is a Saudi National and a member of Al Qaida. (Emphasis in original.) I’ve no idea what the relevance of being a Saudi is. Perhaps it’s there to prove that Arabs are streaming over the borders to fight the invading force. Perhaps it’s to line up Saudi Arabia as the country to target next after Syria.
Baghdad will be near impossible to conquer, according to Simon Jenkins, who forensically picks apart the Shock and Awe policy "the most braindead doctrine in the recent history of war" Thanks to Welshcake.
In the past week, Andy McNab, SAS, Gulf veteran and author, said on Radio 4 that there would be resistance in the cities. And Boris Johnson, Tory MP and columnist writes No matter how much I might dislike the Blair regime, I would have mixed feelings about a "liberating" force that destroyed the MoD, the Foreign Office, the BBC and Number 10. Much as I dislike Bush and Rumsfeld, I felt I knew who was on ’my’ side when al-Quaeda tried to fly a plane into the White House, and did fly one into the Pentagon.
Let’s send Rumsfeld and his hawks to war instead. Robin Cook’s call to bring our troops back home. Will Clare Short resign now? Mm… Being a minister means a nice car and mon-ey. Mm… mon-ey. D’OH!
Hurriedly scribbled @ 12:43 pm GMT
I gave blood on Friday, more or less by accident. I was going to Tesco’s mostly to clear out my recycling, and there was a mobile donation centre in the car park. I couldn’t remember when I last gave blood — I thought that it was in December, and probably too recently to donate again, but I thought that I’d ask anyway.
November, December, same thing really. I last donated in November, as I probably recorded here, so I was just able to give again, and, having gone so far, I handed over nearly an armful of the red stuff. This is turn meant that I decided not to train in the evening so I was at my PC when Mr Black, my cat, came in smelling of something chemical that was really pungent. There seemed to be two explanations. Someone had given him some kind of flea treatment, but had got the stuff on his back where he could lick it. Or he had rubbed against something like turps, or even been maliciously splashed with it. He didn’t seem distressed, just more purry than usual. The stench was so strong that I mentioned in an email, and then thought that I ought to do something. I rang the vets and took him round, feeling embarrassed. I’d wanted a vet to look at his few remaining teeth anyway, but not in these circumstances.
I’m a little ambivalent about the vets’ practice I take my cats to. I got one of them from there, through a friend’s girlfriend who worked there until she developed MS, when they did everything they could, short of sacking her, to push her out. But the nurses are caring, and the vets intelligent.
Mr B was seen by an older vet I hadn’t seen before and a young student. The vet said that he had no sense of smell, and the student didn’t recognise it. They didn’t see any effect like burning, so they concluded that it was harmless. The vet went off to get an injection and left the student to look at Mr B’s teeth. Mr B put up a good fight and wouldn’t open up. The vet managed to look in, saw that he only had three teeth left anyway, and concluded that he was about 15–20, older than I thought he was. They thought that he was very healthy for his age, and had many years left. I was told to feed him on mashed up food, especially oily fish which ought to slide down his gullet even if he doesn’t chew.
So that was £14 for what I knew already, apart from the age thing.
He won’t eat the fish.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 12:05 pm GMT
Monday, March 31, 2003
What Makes a Hearse Horse Hoarse? «
The ’Millionaire Trial’ gets ever more farcical. I had a discussion on this in the pub last night. It turns out that I know someone who once shared a house with co-defendant Tecwen Whittock. I think they’re innocent. There seem to be two pertinent facts. Whittock was supposed to know all the answers up to the million pound question, but he didn’t do so well when he was in the seat. As the defense say If the Major decided to keep all the money himself, what is Mr Whittock going to do?
However, another question was raised last night. Where are all the phone-a-friends? Are they backstage somewhere, guaranteeing that they’re not out or on the phone (or the internet)? We should be told.
A: Coffin.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 4:43 pm GMT
In an emotionally ambivalent piece after my own heart, Robert Harris supported the war, quoting Churchill on Suez I would never have dared … and if I had dared I would certainly never have dared stop. In other words, having come so far, having rattled the sabre for so long, we were obliged to follow through. (At one point, I hoped that the build-up was a bluff, a way to ease the regime out. If it was, Saddam called it.) Robin Cook must have been aware of this problem when he called for the withdrawal of troops. How can it be achieved?
The Allies are still divided on the post-war shape of Iraq. The options seem to be:
- Impose a US selected interim leader;
- Bring in the exiled opposition.
The former would be unpopular with the nationalist Iraqis (nearly all of them), and make nationalists of the rest. The latter would be a government of those who have made a living out of criticising and sniping, but with no experience of administration.
One scenario looks more likely now: we can repeat Gulf War I. We calculate that regime change isn’t worth the cost, assume that we’ve weakened Saddam enough, impose sanctions, and pull out. This will disappoint the Iraqi opposition, as well as those US businesses hoping for reconstruction contracts. I now think that this is the most likely result. I could never envisage Baghdad falling easily. As Sciatica says Let’s say the Chinese, as one of the only other countries that can give us a good fight, decided that we needed a regime change. They started landing paratroopers in my neighborhood to liberate me. I would be out on my balcony trying to take out as many of them as I could. … I say this as someone who thinks our Leader was elected by a vote of 5–4. I will effect regime change at the ballot box.
Realistically, we can’t withdraw. The consequences would win us no friends and make us look weak. But staying in looks like giving us Ulster with suicide bombers.
Since we dared to do this, we ought to have done it properly. However, Rumseld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq, and sent in a force too small. The good news is that a rolling attack through the Arab nations, effecting regime changes in Syria, Libya, Iran, etc, looks much less likely now. The bad news is that we’ve got a new enemy: the Iraqi people. Previously, they didn’t hate the US and Britain. Now they do.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 4:30 pm GMT
A Warmonger Explains War to a Peacenik.
SETI@home Returns to the Scenes of its Most Promising Candidates! Results have still to be processed, and how we will recognise a signal is still debateable. I seem to remember that when this lark started in the 70s some researchers worked out a possible message about life on earth, composed of a certain number of bits which was a product of two primes. They sent this to some other academic department (ie one composed of people with similar educational backgrounds, knowledge, and tools, and working within similar academic paradigms). They failed to decode it. You see the problem?
Hurriedly scribbled @ 9:33 am GMT
