It was better to deal with this threat, to remove him from office and I do genuinely believe the world is a safer place as a result.
Even before you invaded, the CIA and FBI disagreed with you on that Mr Blair. And we all know how much you passionately believed in intelligence agencies.
When it suited the aims of you and your corporate sponsors that is.
Like every other government inquiry, the Chilcot Inquiry will be a whitewash. The findings aren’t due to be published until 2011 anyway and when it is, it will conclude something like “mistakes were made”, “intelligence was flawed” but there was no “criminal intent” by Blair and his cohorts.
By that time, Tony will no doubt still be earning £1,000,000 a month with his after dinner speaking engagements while the rest of us have to live in the infinitely more dangerous world that he helped create.
Considering the subject of the last post I wrote, today seems an appropriate if rather sad occasion to start blogging again. I’m very sad to learn that Howard Zinn has died of a heart attack at the age of 87. I was only listening to a talk by him a few days ago and his mind was still so lucid, its hard to believe he has died so suddenly.
Zinn will be sorely missed as one of the few American historians who told history from the perspective of the people and not the powerful and always encouraged listeners that the lessons of history are that they can confront power and change things for the better. Zinn started his life killing thousands in World War 2 bombing raids and spent the rest of it trying to raise awareness about the realities of American abuse of power throughout the ages.
It’s a funny world he leaves behind. As I highlighted in the last post, try and tell history from the perspective of working people nowadays and you’re labeled a “Marxist”.
Send thousands of young people to their deaths, and you’re awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s not difficult to get accused of being a Marxist nowadays – especially if you’re in Hollywood. Just try to suggest that the perspective of the poor and oppressed is important and watch how they chase you down Hollywood Boulevard with burning copies of the Communist Manifesto.
Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the USA is one of the best selling history books in America. It attempts to do something that most history books don’t – report history from the point of view of common people involved in the fight for civil and working rights. Recently, it has been turned into a star-studded documentary that yesterday got its first showing on the History Channel.
I haven’t seen it yet and I’m not sure when it will be aired in Europe where there are even more Marxists sitting around enjoying their free health care, public transport, worker’s rights etc. What’s impressive however is the conservative backlash in the USA against the documentary. The History Channel’s official forum and right-wing entertainment websites are outraged that this work of Satan has been turned into a documentary. Some examples include:
Have you people lost your freaking minds – or just your objectivity. Enter Howard Zin: Zinn has spent a lifetime teaching college students about the evils of capitalism, the promise of Marxism, and his version of American history – a history that has, in his view, been kept from students.
Howard Zinn?? Howard Zinn?? The History Channel expects us to believe Howard Zinn and his hand-picked crew of Hollywood leftist are about to give us an accurate and unbiased account of American history..,. Shame on the History Channel… Shame, shame, shame………
This two hour special full of the spewings of a twisted Marxist like Howard Zinn is the last straw.
Shame, shame, indeed!! This is a vitriolically anti-American editorial and does not deserve to be shown on a channel whose business it is to present facts, not opinions. Leave it to a bunch of Hollywood types to spit in the face of a country that has given them everything!
This is an act of war, the clear intention here is to plant the seeds of revolutionary hatred into a whole generation of youth. Such brainwashed youth will regard the generations before them as vermin who are pure evil and in need of punishment. This is the beginning of training for future revolutionary soldiers who will happily make the streets run red while thinking of themselves as white nights.
(There was ONE happy viewer incidentally):
I guess it’s just a relief to see some “History” on a channel that still calls itself HISTORY, and not some fat guy doing some scripted ‘dangerous’ job.
And the bile just goes on and on. So basically, according to these guys, be very careful if you go to Hollywood because nowadays it’s full of liberals and communists that are trying to suggest that the plight of the poor and working population in history is worth hearing (even if it is from the mouths of a bunch of rich film stars). I mean, they might as well rename Hollywood Boulevard Karl Marx Strasse and give Fidel Castro the green light to invade from the Hollywood Hills!
Where have the good old days of Hollywood gone such as Showgirls and Basic Instinct 2?
It seems wholly appropriate that a decade that has been punctuated by death and destruction, from the nightmare events of 9-11 to the illegal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, should end with a man winning the world’s most prestigious peace prize for waging war. In a world of Orwellian political discourse such as The “War On Terror”, “A War for Freedom and Democracy” in Iraq and a “Moral War” or “War of Necessity” in Afghanistan, a picture of a man being lauded by intellectual elites for recently sending another 30,000 troops into an already impoverished country seems very fitting.
Not that this is anything new of course. Powerful interests have to cloak acts of aggression with pretty words otherwise the public they rule over wouldn’t let them get away with it quite so easily. It’s just that the whole thing with Barack Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize – when there are millions of charities and aid workers out there working for genuine peace – has reached rather bizarre extremes. Even the authors of the Wikipedia entry on Nobel Peace Prize Laureates have been a bit naughty and said that Obama “doesn’t deserve it” (scroll to the bottom of the page).
And it’s no secret that Obama will soon be “bringing peace” to Iran with missiles and bombs which is what this peace prize is really all about. The main reason Obama has been awarded the peace prize is apparently because of his rehtorical “commitment” to reducing nuclear weapons. Words are cheap though and any rational person judges someone on their actions and not their words.
Unfortunately, Obama’s actions on nucelar proliferation don’t paint a pretty picture. The International Atomic Energy Agency recently passed a resolution calling on Israel to join a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (N.P.T.) and open its nuclear facilities to inspection. The USA, along with Europe, tried to block it (to the general silence of the media) although unfortunately for them it passed anyway. But while it’s OK for Israel to be armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, Obama has made it quite clear that it’s not OK for Iran to do so.
Even more tellingly, the day before Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize, the Pentagon announced it was accelerating delivery of the most lethal non-nuclear weapons in the arsenal: 13-ton bombs for B-2 and B-52 stealth bombers, designed to destroy deeply hidden bunkers shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete. Ideal for attacking a well protected country like Iran unlike a feeble one such as Iraq or Afghanistan.
It would be nice to think that those naive Scandinavians have awarded Obama the Peace Prize to “encourage” him towards real actions towards peace. To give them the benefit of the doubt, they did award it to him in a moment of madness after getting a little over excited about his election just a few days after he took office. However, as they very well know, it has been interpreted as a ringing endorsement of what Obama is doing now. The unfortunate effect is that it looks like the European intellectual elite’s way of giving Obama a green light to go steaming into Iran when the US administration feels the time is right.
As the decade ends, Orwell’s 1984 depiction of a world where “War is Peace” has been given new meaning by this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s logical that those in power absolutely hate democracy because it threatens to make them accountable for their actions and words.
The internet is therefore one of the most reviled mediums of expression by those in positions of power because it allows anyone to challenge what they say or do. This was illustrated to me personally by Nelson McCausland who is the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland. In his blog, “Nelson’s View – The Ministers Pen“, He recently criticized Amnesty International for their choice of “far-left” Noam Chomsky to be the speaker for their annual lecture.
I responded by leaving a comment saying:
I think the reason Chomsky was chosen is because much of his work focuses on human rights not because of his “politics”. Since Amnesty International and the Human Rights Centre at Queen’s are both concerned with human rights, this makes perfect sense.
Labeling Chomsky as being “far left” is also inaccurate. If you think that corporate interests have far too little power in politics, then to you, yes he is “far left”. If, as I think the majority of people believe, that precisely the reverse is true, then he’s barely left of centre.
Today, I notice that the comment, including a follow-up by another reader, have been deleted.
Unfortunately for Minister McCausland however, Google’s cache still contains the comments which I’ve saved for posterity. I’ve since reposted another comment which was held in moderation but has gone online – for now at least.
So if you read this Mr McCausland, my advice is not to engage in blogging if you don’t like your views being politely challenged. The internet is an extremely democratic medium and may not be to the liking of government ministers like yourself who don’t believe in freedom of expression.
I find it incredibly ironic that someone who belongs to a political organization which calls itself the “Democratic” Unionist Party believes in censoring what is merely an opinion on a blog post.
Whatever you think of Amnesty International and Noam Chomsky, at least they believe in open and honest debate.
10th Dec Update: The comment has now been “mysteriously” re-instated since this post was written
In the summer of 1997, I served Tiger Woods a frozen margarita in a bar in Monaco. I had been backpacking through France with a friend of mine and while he disappeared with some stoners in Nice, I decided to carry on to Monaco where I intended to terminate my trip and head home. However, I ended up getting a job in Le Texan – Monaco’s only Tex-Mex restaurant – and one day, Tiger Woods came in.
He wasn’t there for a drink however. Or a bite to eat. He was there to pick-up two of the bar’s gorgeous barmaids that the old Texan lady owner Kelly had pimped promised him for the evening. Before sailing away with them however, the owner told me to serve him the Texan house specialty drink which was frozen margaherita pumped out of a Slush Puppy type machine.
As I remember, he was standing outside the bar on the pavement waiting for the girls. I went over to him:
“Hi, I’m Nick from Huddersfield” I said.
“Hi, Tiger” he replied as I shook his hand and gave him the frozen margarita.
It was 1997. Woods had just won his first major title the US Masters and was one of the hottest properties in world sport. He was 21 years old but I remember thinking he looked like a baby faced teenager.
Why am I telling you this? Well Woods promptly whisked away the two lovely ladies and the next day we were all curiorus to hear what had happened from the gorgeous horses mouths. They were very cagey and said nothing happened. That’s it basically.
But was this one of the first signs that Tiger had quite an eye for the ladies?
In other Tiger Woods news, it hasn’t been a good few weeks for Gillette has it? First Thierry Henry is caught cheating, then Tiger Woods is caught cheating accidentally smashing his car into a fire hydrant while pulling out of his own drive. Makes you wonder what revelations are going to emerge about Rodger Federer. Is he working for Bin Laden maybe?
Anyway, whatever you think of Tiger, I implore you not to believe not the second reconstruction below of what happened at the Wood’s house this week. It was definitely the first reconstruction. OK?
Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet has revealed that key decision makers at the World Health Organization (WHO) are also being paid by the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing the vaccine.
In the run-up to declaring swine flu as a pandemic, the WHO held an “Emergency Committee” which consisted of 18 “secret” scientists and medical professionals who met to decide whether to recommend upgrading swine flu to a pandemic. No one is allowed to know the name of these 18 people and the final decision is taken by the head of the WHO Director-General Margaret Chan.
Svenska Dagbladet thought this sounded a tiny bit undemocratic so decided to dig into the mysterious identities of this secretive board and guess what? Some of them are moonlighting for the pharmaceutical industry in consultation and advisory roles. Three of the fifteen members of the Emergency Committee have contacts with the pharmaceutical industry and receive money directly from vaccine companies according to the paper.
I notice that very few media or internet sites have picked-up on this story yet which is a little strange because it’s a rather serious conflict of interest don’t you think?
There is a rather complicated graphic here illustrating various links between the WHO and the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing the swine flu vaccine.
One of the greatest moments in TV history in my mind was the Graham Taylor documentary “The Impossible Job”. Many memorable catchphrases emerged Apart from “Do I Not Like That”, “Platty!!”, “Two-touch and just clip your area” and of course “Can we not knock it!?”.
One of my favorites was “I know that you know” when he sarcastically protested to the FIFA linesman that he was “in” on some kind of plot to prevent England from qualifying for the 1994 World Cup.
Well imagine my delight when yesterday, I discovered a board game called “Novem” that was using this very phrase to promote itself. Novem – the board game that knows you know.
And here’s the great man himself doing “I know that you know” (Fast forward to 5m 45secs)
PS I reckon it will be Barcelona 3 Real Madrid 1 tonight. Messi scoring 2, Puyol 1 and Ronaldo 1.
Update: 1-0 to Barca, Zlatan scorer. I was close enough anyway.
It’s not often that my hometown makes it into the heady heights of The Guardian. We did make it into the not-so giddy heights of the Daily Mail a few weeks back but that was only because er, a 13 year-old boy is about to become a father. Actually, we’re already streets ahead of the UK in this respect. Poole already had one of the youngest mums in the country back in 1997 – a 12 year old named Jenny.
They grow-up so quickly nowadays.
Anyway, the reason good old Poole is in The Guardian today is not because of it’s über-randy 12 and 13 year-olds (some elderly locals say it’s due to Poole’s proximity to “the French” who are just 45 minutes across the English Channel on the Hovercat) – it’s because of this year’s Christmas Tree.
Now normally, a big Christmas Tree for the Town Centre costs around 500 quid. But Poole council have seen fit to splash out on a 15 grand tree instead this year. And it’s fake. And shaped liked a cone. The reason?
Because if it blows over and kills someone then somebody is liable for it.
according to the bright spark behind it, Richard Randall-Jones.
The result is what one local shop worker has called something that looks like:
A big wizard’s hat or a lump of AstroTurf or something that belongs in roadworks.
Now I might be a bit ignorant when it comes to conservation but I’ve heard of protecting the rainforest and tree conservation – but protecting humans from trees is a new one to me.
It seems to me what the council have done here is spend 15,000 pounds on what at night looks effectively like a huge illuminous traffic cone. By day it looks like something out of an Astroturf remake of the Wicker Man. It would have been cheaper, and probably less ridiculous, to have issued the whole town with hard hats in case of falling branches from a real Christmas tree.
Rest assured that when I go back home this Christmas, I’m going to make sure this thing electrocutes the hell out me.
Update: Oh dear, we have made it into the Daily Mail again. At least the cone trees are keeping the pre-pubescent parents off the front pages.
Bolivia have found Wally (or Waldo if you're American)
Police in Bolivia have managed to catch a criminal using what’s been called the world’s “worst” photo-fit. For legal reasons, the criminal’s face wasn’t allowed to be shown on TV so the TV station cleverly masked his face with an “enhanced” version of the “artist’s impression” on the right.
While Bolivia’s policemen might need to work on their drawing skills, the country enjoys one of the most impressive democracies in the world. How many Western nations would be able to elect a working class president into power like Evo Morales? In 2006, Morales cut his salary by 57% to $1,875 a month to help fund public schooling – can’t imagine that kind of gesture being made by a leading Western politician either.
Maybe Morales could go even further though and start sending his police on a few drawing courses
