Reading an article on the Guardian about the different approach to politics in the UK vs the US. After describing a speech to the Tory faithful by Michael Howard, the author continues…

“The faithful were giddy with excitement. Well, almost all of them. One loyalist with a bottle-green flying-ducks tie, was still barking over the State of the Country. ‘Are you optimistic about Thursday?’ I asked tentatively. ‘I TRY to be,’ he conceded, ‘though I was going to desert the sinking ship.’ ‘Where to?’ ‘Montenegro.’ ‘Montenegro?’ ‘Yes, Montenegro. Not many people know this, but the wine is wonderful and -’ (he whispered confidentially) ‘- they have the most beautiful women in the world. Though, of course they do tend to be a bit hairy.’”,1),
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You can almost picture him: Major So-and-so, with a greying moustache remarking how the cucumber sandwiches are “bladdy mahv-less”. Priceless ;-)

Turns out that the NSA is illegally spying on US citizens:

Between January 2004 and April 2005 the National Security Agency has received between 3,000 and 3,500 requests to reveal the names of American citizens caught in the Agency’s listening network. The NSA fulfilled every single request. According to Newsweek’s sources the identities and private conversations of more than 10,000 American, British, Canadian and Australian citizens were supplied to American officials.

Article

Commentary

The rate of birth defects in Iraq is up 20% in the last two years. Glad to see the US and UK are using radioactive weapons. If you can’t find WMDs by all means bring your own. Fucking wankers!

The new Pope’s an ex-Nazi. That’s just the sort of qualifications you’d want in god’s representative on Earth!

Tom’s Dispatch has a very interesting article on the future emergence of China as a true superpower. While the article starts off documenting recent U.S. and Japanese attempts to rile China, and the potentially disastrous consequences of a Taiwanese secession-bid, it then goes on to give an insight into the deals China is making with many countries around the world, and how it is rapidly becoming the major trading partner with Europe, Iran and Latin America among others. Worth a read.

One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.

Source: USA Today

“Ah, the freedom. Look, we have the gas-line freedom, the looting freedom, the killing freedom, the rape freedom, the hash-smoking freedom. I don’t know what to do with all this freedom.” – Akeel, Iraqi Translator

…for nothing left to lose.

The battle against fundamentalist christians continues in the US. Kansas is battling attempts to have the theory of intelligent design taught alongside evolution in science classrooms:

But the largest applause of the evening was reserved for a silver-haired gentleman in a navy blue blazer. “I have a question: if man comes from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Why do you waste time teaching something in science class that is not scientific?” he thundered.

That quote illustrates the problem quite nicely- we didn’t come from monkeys, we are related to them, meaning we share a common ancestor.

Interesting article on the house-of-cards economy in the U.S. and what issues may have the potential to trigger a collapse.

An account of a visit to Fallujah by an Iraqi doctor, pulished in The Guardian.

According to Colin Powell, the US’s $350 million aid donation gives “the Muslim world and the rest of the world an opportunity to see American generosity, American values in action.”,1),
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Someone did the maths and it turns out that the $350m is equivalent to 42.27 hours of spending on the War in Iraq.

I don’t think that’s quite what Powell had in mind.

Very good article on how, in the space of 100 years, the aerial bombarment of densely populated cities has become such a part of our daily life that it attracts almost zero press coverage. From Tom’s Dispatch:

I have yet to see any cumulative figures on air strikes in Iraq per day, week, or month, maps of the reach of the air war, or more than a few photos of its results; nor, in fact, have I found a single article of any significance on the air war in Iraq itself, discussing military strategy or even the problems Air Force strategists or pilots feel they face, no less what it’s like for civilians (or rebels) in most of Iraq’s major cities to experience such periodic attacks, or what kinds of casualties result (or who the casualties actually are), or what, if any, may be the limitations on the use of air power, or what its effects on the insurgency seem to be, or, in fact, anything on any aspect of the regular bombing, missiling, or strafing of city neighborhoods."

Worth a read.

“The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows." – T.E. Lawrence, The Sunday Times, August 1920

Fallujah is apparently a symbol of revolution since at least 1920 when the British got took heavy casualties there. Hardly surprising then that it’s now the hotbed of the fight to get America out of Iraq. Here’s a history lesson from In These Times.

In other news, the U.S. are claiming that there are no civilians in Fallujah, which is why they refuse to let the Red Crescent in with humanitarian supplies.

Front page of the Daily Mirror, November 4th, 2004.

Source: Daily Mirror

His new video is massively anti-Bush and exhorts viewers to get out and vote to get rid of Bush. Very good video and the lyrics almost advocate an uprising.

Here’s an article in the New York Times magazine which basically says that Bush thinks he’s on a mission from God. Funny how God’s missions always involve killing shitloads of other people.

I caught part of Andrew Denton’s interview with Bill Clinton last night and it was bloody good. Thankfully Monica Lewinsky was only mentioned once. He managed to criticise Bush’s policies in a very measured way, pointing out exactly what was wrond with them and what he would have done had he been in the same situation. When you compare it to Bush’s interview for Irish television earlier this month, the intellectual chasm between the two presidents is clear: Clinton was articulate and quite capable of thinking on his feet, whereas Bush seemed to have a limited repertoire of answers and got quite rattled when he got a question which wasn’t a perfect match for one of the pre-canned answers. Poles apart…

I think I’ll have to read his book. I almost bought it a couple of weeks ago but changed my mind at the last minute.

George W. Bush was interviewed by RTE‘s Carol Coleman recently. Despite the fact that she submitted her questions three days in advance, Bush still comes across like an idiot. You can see him stumbling as he tries to formulate answers to followup questions, then relaxing as he settles into the well-worn “terrorist, freedom, democracy, freedom” groove. It would be funny if this guy wasn’t the most powerful guy in the world!

View the video feed here, or download the audio-only version as an MP3 <ahref =“http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/rte-carol-coleman-bush.mp3”>here.

Has anyone noticed how crazy Americans have become? I’m not talking about Idiot Bush, but rather the attitudes of the America populace as a whole.

I’ve always found it very revealing that Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about having sex with an intern. So far, Dumb Ass has lied about WMDs in order to start a war which has resulted in the deaths of 500+ of his own countrymen, and there’s no sign of impeachment hearings at all. That’s just crazy if you ask me.

And now we have the furore over Janet Jackson’s breast making an appearance in the SuperBowl. Quite a few ads have women bouncing around in next to nothing (5 Cougars thanks!), yet a couple of seconds of real breast causes consternation.

Finally, just when you’d think everything had calmed down again, we get this: NBC asks ER to remove a scene where an 80 year old woman’s breast appears for two seconds.

It’s laughable.

Excellent article by John Pilger on the current state of play in Afghanistan, and how it fits into the U.S’s strategic ambitions.