Why John Lydon Still Matters

Every now and then someone from my pantheon does something to remind me why I admire them so. From John Lydon.com, the Sex Pistol's official communique to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame upon notification of their induction therein:

Now I feel dirty for having enjoyed the museum when in Cleveland back in 2001...

I think the world of John Lydon. His passion reminds me of Dylan Thomas's battle cry that I've adopted as my own guiding principle. I'm sure it is bad for my health but for me its the tight knotted belt of anger at injustice and unfairness that drives my motor rather than the emollient oil of utopian visions.

Two Little Things

This is becoming a tradition. This week's spam message title that grabbed me:

Further arise the dogfish.

I thought that was a Somerset Maugham novel until I discovered Smirnoff.

Secondly, I like Listmaker's confidence in showing off his soap to the world. Suitably inspired, I took the digital camera into the bathroom with me this morning in emulation:


Although not the best at cutting through accumulated facial grease, Goodwill® Brand Body Soap is at least cheap. Much like the famous Goodwill rag bags are made from strips of donated clothing too damaged to sell on the charity shop floor, Goodwill® Brand Body Soap is made from soap residue scraped from donated shower curtains, soap dishes, bathroom fixtures, and face cloths.

Many people think the distinctive scent of Goodwill® Brand Body Soap is due to it being a masala of soap bits from a variety of sources. Not so; only the clean smelling elements of the bouquet come from the soap slivers. The vague tuna scent comes from the day labor hoboes who make the soap out back of the stores. Naturally they sweat a fair bit when stirring the soap vats and this of course is incorporated into the finished bars. Every cloud of tramp-sweat has a silver lining however, as hobo perspiration is a well-known lather enhancer, especially in areas of hard water.

Goodwill® Brand Body Soap has long had a cult following among Hollywood's glitterati, and among the select it has been an enduring tradition to donate the bars back for reblending after only a few washes. As the raw materials for Goodwill® Brand Body Soap are famously never cleaned before incorporation, the lucky celebrity chaser might find one of Richard Marx's pubes in their bar, or even perhaps Milla Jovovich's false eye. Adding to the celebrity cachet of the soap, it was recently announced that all the euphemistically named "rennet" lost by Kirstie Allie on the Jennie Craig diet would soon be added to Goodwill® Brand Body Soap for an even more creamy texture.

Next time, how I proved that while Dial handsoap might be anti-bacterial it sure ain't anti-fungi:

Country Mouse is sure to tell me off for this post. Sigh. Such is the high cost of low art.

Dubai, Dubai Doo, Exchanging Glances...

See? Them A-rabs even got to ol' Blue Eyes.

With so many splenetic words expended over the Dubai Port World purchase of British company P&O* and their consequent assumption of the role of absentee employers of American stevedores protected by American Coasties etc etc I'm loathe to jump into the thrombotic fray. Instead I'll just point out that nobody in Congress seemed to have a problem with a British company running American ports (despite our way with your women). Indeed, there seems to be admirable bipartisan hurrumphing about what pukkah chaps the Brits are, oldest pals, etc. Given the odd coincidence that I'm currently re-reading Blood, Class, and Empire, a book by the incorrigible Christopher Hitchens about American anglophilia and British attempts to profit politically from it I must admit I do find this rather odd. Oh for the days when we were still considered a threat:



(*I'm more worried about the possibility of sharia law on P&Os ferries between England and France, curtailing booze cruises to the Pas de Calais).

This Is Not An Olympic Blog

From the sublime flights of linguistic hair splitting to the ridiculous game of pretended mistaken identity I love so much (this one courtesy of Country Mouse):

British funnyman Sasha Cohen, aka 'Ali G'.

American ice princess Sasha Cohen.

And not relevant to either but proof of what a great thing google image search is,
The very much alive Seymour S. Cohen, esteemed Bacterial Virologist.

Unthink

Uncorroborated Evidence
From the BBC: "US attacks UN Guantanamo report: The White House has rejected a UN report demanding the immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp calling it "a discredit to the UN"."

From the conservative New York Sun: "The findings are based almost entirely on uncorroborated accounts of former Guantanamo detainees."

Un·cor·rob·o·rat·ed (ŭn'kə-rŏb'ə-rā'tĭd) pronunciation. adj. Not corroborated: uncorroborated testimony.

At my most cynical I've long held that politicians attack their tormentors at the point they themselves are weakest. As reflected in the quote from the New York Sun (a handy, almost word-for-word, recitation of the first White House talking point used to counter this story) the big push back against the UN report this week was centered around the refusal by UN investigators to visit the detention center at Guantanamo Bay to conduct interviews and collect evidence under strict American conditions and on their collecting testimony from released detainees around the globe. The word "uncorroborated" featured heavily in White House dismissals and was let pass on news broadcasts uncontested. The implication is that the UN report is fatally flawed as the investigators did not enter the camp and instead spoke to people who were likely to have a grudge about having been held at the prison.

A factitious person could of course make a comparison with the reports that reached the outside world about Saddam's excesses inside Abu Ghraib when he still held the reins in Iraq. After all, most of the evidence of torture, miscarriages of justice, and ill-treatment came from disgruntled former inmates with a chip on their shoulder about having been in the clink. Did the US or UN ever get to inspect the "rape rooms" and torture chambers, to hear the claims of the wrongly imprisoned or pressure Saddam to hold judicial reviews before the 03 invasion? Alas no, but enough circumstantial evidence and victim testimony accumulated to supply a retroactive casus belli and to turn Christopher Hitchens into a raving war-hawk. But I digress.

Back to the issue of corroboration. The unspoken suggestion by the White House of course is that all these former detainees- Afghans, Kuwaitis, Pakistanis, Britons, Somalis, and so on- were all working from a script ("We know that al-Qaeda terrorists are trained in trying to disseminate false allegations."- White House Press Officer Scott McClellan, 2/16/06). Every single man-jack of them was a) in Guantanamo for a reason; b) was in or affiliated to Al Qadea or the Taliban (but apparently not so affiliated as to preclude their release); and c) despite having been held for large stretches in solitary confinement and with many of them being closely monitored by the security services in their own countries upon release were able to come together in some sort of bizarre alumni club to coordinate their stories to the point where they passed muster with a multinational team of UN investigators. These folks are mad and they are lying seems to be the Bush administration's sotto voce commentary; If only the UN had come to Gitmo; we would have been glad to show them around. However, there would have been a few teensy rules.

So, "uncorroborated". And exactly who was going to "corroborate" the testimony of this geographically diverse bunch? The inmates at Guantanamo whom the UN inspectors would not be allowed to talk to? The prison authorities, who still deny the use of coercive "torture lite" tactics despite continued reports from a variety of respected organizations (Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo: NYT, 11/30/04)? The Pentagon? The White House?

Of course, uncorroborated is a great word; worthy of the great malevolent genius Karl Rove himself. It doesn't mean "untrue", merely "unproven", but the calculation was made that to Joe Six Pack it was a legal enough sounding word to be thrown about on blogs, in bars, and at the water cooler, a great way to sound smart and batter the wooly liberals and bleeding hearts who don't seem to get that the Bush Administration never makes mistakes or mishandles situations. I mean, just look at the missing WMD, the lack of credible links between Saddam and Al Qadea, the post-war situation in Iraq, attempts at social security reform, Medicare Part D Hurricane Katrina, or quail hunting. These guys are top notch, disciplined, and play by the rules. And no amount of uncorroborated testimony is going to prove otherwise.

The use of "uncorroborated" is just another example of the calculated assault on the English language conducted by the Bush adminstration and its predecessors (as opposed to the uncalculated mangling of syntax by Dubya). Indeed, the very reason the prison at Guantanamo Bay exists- the War on Terror- is a prime example of this governmental lexiographical vagueness. We no longer declare war on countries, only nouns; poverty, drugs, terror and so on. A war on "terrorism" would at least give us a broad strategic definition; in our current terminological mire I'm left wondering if I could get the president to bomb clowns, as I am surely not alone in feeling terror at the sight of their garish faces. As a hysterical lefty screaming from my chair as the mice of deception run around my kitchen floor, I'd like to point out as I hyperventilate that this is the sort of thing Orwell was warning against in 1984; not the physical manifestation of totalitarianism but rather the shutting down of the intellectual capacity for oposition by the mutilation of language.

I'm not one of those types who believes that Bush and Co. are hell-bent on unleashing a new form of fascism on the world. Elites learn from their mistakes and they are aware that such overt horror didn't work in the middle of the 20th century it certainly won't work now. It would be like trying to force through free health care for all; enough people are watching for it and there are enough shrill voiced tub thumpers to make it near impossible. My question for my left wing fellow travelers who unlike me subscribe to the Worldwide Plot of the Illuminati* is why when you are already on history's winning team would you have to disrupt the anesthetized lifestyles of the folks below you? Instead, like in one of my other favorite books about imaginary dystopia Brave New World, you metaphorically release calming clouds of gas while a loudspeaker murmurs soothing words to ease the troubled minds of the masses.

The findings are based almost entirely on uncorroborated accounts of former Guantanamo detainees- go back to sleep- The findings are based almost entirely on uncorroborated accounts of former Guantanamo detainees- move along, nothing to see here- The findings are based almost entirely on uncorroborated accounts of former Guantanamo detainees- Did you see last week's American Idol?- The findings are based almost entirely on uncorroborated accounts of former Guantanamo detainees, The findings are based almost entirely on uncorroborated accounts of former Guantanamo detainees....

Can I prove any of this? Of course not: it's all uncorroborated.

(*I hold that people who hold common interests- holding onto their vast wealth, for example- tend to form alliances of shared values. Is that a conspiracy? only if you are using the same crappy dictionary as the White House. Besides, even if it is, it has to be the most out-in-the-open, plainly visible conspiracy ever concocted).

Haircut

Overheard half an hour ago while sitting in the barber's chair at Doug's Haircuts, Rockland, Maine:

"I was in Sports Illustrated once; they came up to do a story on the toboggan championships- 1996 or 97. The fellah comes up to me and asks can he interview me- who you with I ask (Doug the barber interjects: "what, did you call your agent?"). Sports Illustrated he says. Sure I tell him. He asks me what my team name is and I tell him 'IDK'. What's it stand for? He asks. I tell him I don't know. 'Well, its your team, isn't it?' He's getting all uppity. We do this 3 or 4 times before he figures it out.

Well then he sees all the racers waxing up their toboggans and he asks what I do to prepare my sled. I reach into my pocket and pull out my can of wax and I tell him its my special wax and that he can't tell none of the other racers about it. He asks what makes it special. So I ask him if he's seen all the dead raccoons on the side of the road on his ride up here and he says yes so I tell him all summer, fall, and winter I collect the raccoons, skin them, and boil them down. Rendered raccoon makes the best toboggan wax I tell him. Well he's scribbling all this down and of course it makes the magazine. Boy, I got him good.

What was in the can? Regular old wax. And I keep a candle stub for the tips of the runners. Did you know that they get a different Sports Ilustrated out west than we get here?"

Nostalgia Burst

Monkey is being brought back.

This show used to give me a headache due to it's frenetic action and convoluted plot when I was 9. God alone knows what damage it will wreak on me now that I'm 32 and special effects have become so advanced.

The monkey curious should visit Monkey Heaven for some breathless and obscure fan rantings displayed on ill-advised background colors in clashing fonts.

Media Literacy (Olympics Edition)

NBC Wanted To Blame The Skis
After successfully avoiding the opening ceremony I've been intermittently watching the Turin Olympics. I keep running into the figure skating which results in some furious remote action ("Anything but the frost ballet! 100 Greatest Child Stars? Sure.") but every now and then I manage to catch some skiing or speed skating.

On Sunday evening (or afternoon? I don't completely remember) I got to see one of my favorite events, the men's downhill skiing. As the competition unfolded the commentators started to make a big hubbub about how American favorite (and member of Maine's Carrabassett Academy class o' 95) Bode Miller had a) not inspected the course before his run; b) was alleged to have been out late in a bar the night before; and c) was going to use a brand new pair of skis used only once in a practice run. I understand that Bode's unconventional approach to his sport is the defining element of his TV narrative but the commentary seemed a bit odd. A nagging suspicion began to tickle my brain that NBC had taken advantage of the time difference and the delay in broadcast to tailor the package they put on air.

The competition took place at 12pm Turin time; 6am here on the American east coast. With the lack of live coverage here in the States the footage didn't air until 15 hours or more after the racing was done and dusted.

I of course had no proof nor anything to suggest that NBC was doing anything evil per se, but as I watched the broadcast I became convinced that the Peacock Network's producers had tasked the camera guys to shoot every possible storyline- Bode drunk, Bode cocky, Bode reckless and many more- in order to ensure that the event lived up to its pre-billing as the equivalent of the 100m in the summer games if Bode or any other American failed to medal. And throughout the coverage, up until the moment Bode finished a disappointing 5th, the commentators wouldn't shut up about his new skis. We had footage of the ski tech waxing 'em, we had breathless on-the-spot reports about how Bode was going to use them, and we had close ups of the skis themselves to the point where I began to wonder if Atomic had paid the producers. Relatively little mention was made of the crucial error Miller made in the last jump turn which added crucial 100ths of a second to his finishing time and which cost him the chance to win a medal. I suspect that would have been too boring and esoteric. Besides, they had all that footage and verbiage about his skis.

Perhaps it is the propensity of NBC to present the Olympics as a combination sporting event/reality show/soap opera, with tear jerker stories about sick grandmothers and stock athletic characters from central casting (the bad boy, the prodigy, the comeback, the tiny but steely woman) but I can never escape the feelings that a) I'm being manipulated and b) I can't be trusted to simply enjoy the events as pure sporting spectacle as opposed to some greater existential drama. If I want the fluff I'll turn to a newspaper or website, or wait for Bob Costas to pull his Edward R. Murrow of Athletic Competition routine in the studio afterwards.

I don't know why this irks me so- perhaps it is the lack of a "recorded earlier" logo on the screen, or the lazy commentating conventions of talking heads who know they will be edited before air to sound the best possible, or the decision of NBC to only show me the athletes they deem worthy of attention. Whatever it is, its the inability to watch the events in real time (even with someone else choosing the angles I see it from and the b roll that fills the lulls) makes me highly suspicious that I'm being sold a story line predetermined by network execs and advertisers. Perhaps the cow bell so beloved of ski fans should be taken from our hands and hung around our necks.

So if he feels like it, I call upon our resident Blogosphere sports broadcasting expert Mitch over at Handwashings to spill the beans....

WW Comics Presents "Horror Comix #1"

I've always like those photostory comics, but I've never tried to make one myself before now:

"Suck it up, asshole. I've had four heart attacks- cry me a river."

Mondale beat me to the punch with this splendid poem in relation to Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shooting and wounding his chum while out hunting. It sort of reminds me of this:

The Upper Class Twit of the Year

The more sober story can be found here.

New Profile Image

Let it never be said that I am the sort of chap to hide behind an anoymous, abstract avatar on my profile image. Introducing, me, the new wisdom weasel logo:

Text of a Spam Message I Recieved Today

I don't usually read spam but this one caught my eye:

"Everybody knows the great sexual scandal known as "Klinton-Levinsky". After the relations like this Klintons popularity raised a lot! It is a natural phenomenon, because Bill as a real man in order not to shame himself when he was with Monica regularly used Voagra. What happened you see. His political figure became more bright and more attractive. It is very important for a man to be respected as a man!"

Quite.

Memory Hole

"No, no, Earlene: type this- 'Among his other achievements Representative Delay was also the 563,873rd shopper at the Houston PD gift store.'"
Disturbing news about congressional abuse of one of my favorite go-to reference points on the web, Wikipedia:

Congress 'made Wikipedia changes'

Online reference site Wikipedia blames US Congress staff for partisan changes to a number of political biographies. Computers traced to Capitol Hill removed unpalatable facts from articles on senators, while other entries were "vandalised", the site said.

Using the public history of edits on Wikipedia, researchers collected the internet protocol numbers of computers linked to the US Senate and tracked the changes made to online pages. The site lists half a dozen prominent biographies that had been changed by Senate computers, including those of Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, California Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.

Senator Coleman's office has confirmed that staff there had made a number of changes to his online record. Where he was described as a "liberal" back in college, this was changed to "activist". Among other changes, staff also deleted a reference to Mr Coleman voting with President Bush 98% of the time in 2003, despite running as a moderate the year before.

Wikipedia said staffers of Senator Tom Harkin had removed a paragraph relating to Mr Harkin's having falsely claimed to have flown combat missions over North Vietnam, and his subsequent recantation.

A handful of miscellaneous vandalism edits had been made to some senators' articles, it said. One example was the entry for Republican Senator Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma, who it was falsely alleged had been voted "most annoying senator". (EVERYONE knows that title belongs to Ted Stevens of Alaska. Edit by WW.)

Senator Coleman's chief of staff, Erich Mische, said editing was done to correct inaccuracies and delete information that was not reflective of the politician.

"They've got an edit provision on there for the sake of editing when things are not accurate," Mr Mische told the Associated Press. "I presume that if they did not want people to edit, they wouldn't allow you to edit."

Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it. It said the Congressional computer network has been blocked from editing for brief periods on a number of occasions in the last six months due to the inappropriate contributions.

The article on President Bush has been altered so many times - not just from within Congress - that Wikipedia's volunteer monitors have had to block further "editing".

But it also says its investigation showed the vast majority of edits from Senate IPs were "beneficial and helpful".

Massachusetts newspapers disclosed last month that staffers for Representative Marty Meehan had polished the boss's Wikipedia biography. Deleted were references to a long-abandoned promise to serve only four terms, and to his campaign war chest.

Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and has since grown to more than 1.8 million articles in 200 languages. Some 800,000 entries are in English. It is based on wikis, open-source software which lets anyone fiddle with a webpage. Anyone reading a subject entry can disagree, edit, add, delete, or replace the entry. A December 2005 study by the British journal Nature found it was about as accurate on science as the Encyclopaedia Britannica. But it has been criticised for the correctness of entries, most recently over the biography of prominent US journalist John Seigenthaler - which incorrectly linked him to the Kennedy assassinations.

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

Time for Another Painting

Golconde
Rene Magritte, 1953

Coming From The Mill
L.S. Lowry, 1917
Is posting two paintings, of which only one is on the list, to a top ten list of favorite paintings cheating? Probably, but I think if we get these sort of things out in the open we can move past them, don't you?

The listworthy painting is the Magritte because the general pedestrian oddity of Belgium greatly appeals to me. This time however I'm not going to ramble on about what I see in the paintings and what I think they have to say to the world. Rather I'm going to leave the juxtoposition of a pair of paintings deeply ambivalent about the lot of the social classes they represent to speak for itself.

(Collect them all: #1, #2, #3)

Do As I Say, Not As I Do.

I know its President Bush's job to take a line on the cartoon furore, and I know he was doing his level best to sound balanced, but the man just can't help leaving himself open every time he opens his mouth:

"We reject violence as a way to express discontent at what is printed" (GWB, 2/8/06)

Well, perhaps against what is printed, but other media?

11/22/05: Bush Plot to Bomb Arab Ally. "President Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals."

Tuesday, April 8 2003: Al-Jazeera reporter killed."Al-Jazeera TV says one of its journalists was killed Tuesday when a U.S. airstrike hit a building housing Arab media..."

And so on.

Norfolk Alien Found Shocker!

From my spiritual homeland, Norfolk (England, not Virginia):

Alien crash lands in the attic.
Builders working in the attic of Barney Broom's cottage in the village of Gunthorpe found an old jar containing what appeared to be a model of an alien, about 12 inches tall, made of clay and preserved in a liquid which smelled of vinegar.

The jar was wrapped in a 1947 copy of the Daily Mirror. The alien appeared to have a serial number on its foot.

Intrigued by the discovery, Mr Broom's initial suspicion was that the model was somehow connected to nearby United States' airbases. Not quite knowing what to do with it, he approached the Sci-Fi Channel, which is now carrying out investigations into whether the serial number is a form of military identification.

I am surprised that no one has suggested that this could be a leftover prop from a middle school health class warning of the perils of cousins marrying.

From the Man Who Liberated Kabul...*

I like BBC Foreign Affairs Editor John Simpson's take on the various reactions around the world to the Danish cartoon controversy. Very measured, very sensible.

(*Sometimes even the best reporters get a little carried away).

Yet Another Winter Weekend Outdoors.

Enough of the politics and global undercurrents for now. Its Saturday, a time to kick back, and also this weekend the day all midcoast Mainers know as The US National Toboggan Championships (it is worth following the link and watching the lamely edited movie from 2004 to see what it is like to go down the run).

Our friend Milja and her son Rex were in town so after a late brunch we moseyed over to the Camden Snow Bowl for the festivities. Weeks of above-normal temperatures had turned the ground to mud and the surface of Hosmer's Pond where the tobbogans come to rest held a fair amount of slush (and open water further out) but the team that collectively weighed 1000lbs didn't go through and the organizers were just about keeping ice in the chute and so the racers kept on coming.

Rex, our guest of honor, trying to eat cardboard.

Rex, Milja and Country Mouse await the sliders.

Through this gate pass the bravest sledders in the USA....

...like these foil-wrapped munchkins.

Land rescue is ready.

As is lake rescue.

I wish I had a cowbell to clang.

The true contenders recline more.

Out onto the lake. Brake! Brake!

More like a log flume ride at a theme park than a toboggan time trial.

A sighting of the species Maineus Dudeus with the tell-tale prehensile snow shovel. They usually feed on tobogganists after stunning them with a whack from their orange appendages.

Back up the hill for the second run...

..but stop to check your time on the way up.

Our pals "Team Morning Wood". Rick (holding gloves) is all smiles here, but all business when the camera is out of sight. This is what happens when four professional sailors spend an extended period on shore; they need to get their oilies on at least once a month. They would of had a faster time if they hadn't tried to tack on the way down.

On the way home. While the girls are buying the fixings for dinner, the boys amuse themselves by singing the "Jingly keys" song.

As Promised...

For what is worth, some context, lest I be mistaken for a Falwell type..

1) I don't think islam per se is any better or worse than any other organized religion.

2) I'll admit to being an atheist, but I hold to the "whatever floats your boat" variety of personal values systems. Militant atheists are just as annoying as fundamentalist religious types.

3) Therefore, my unconcious biases are going to be a combination of atheistic thoughts and having been raised in a broadly christian/western liberal* culture.

4) That said, I have been a student of Middle Eastern/ Maghreb/ Turkish/Central Asian history, culture, politics and society since 1991.

5) Therefore my beef cannot be with islam as a faith as I am deeply aware of the great scientific and humanitarian tradition of the Ottoman, North African, and Mughal empires and countries from the middle ages to the early 20th century.

6) It also means that I am aware of the impact of the twin forces of fundamentalist islam- Arabian Wahhabism and Iranian shi'ism- on islamic societies coupled with the damaging stagnation caused by autocratic governments.

7) I therefore regard much of contempary islamic "thought" as tainted or controlled by the financial ability (thanks to debts of gratitude being paid or internal stability being purchased through oil wealth) of extremist elements within the religion.

8) Ultimately, much of the reaction we see today to the publication of the Danish cartoons has come about thanks to the financing by these extremists of centers of islamic learning and fringe political groupings. It would be as if our public discourse was being monopolized by Bob Jones "University" and if the 700 Club had a militia.

9) Speaking of the Danish cartoons, I don't think they are particularly clever or interesting, and agree with those who see them as borderline racist. However, I sort of feel like I'm in the same position as the ACLU in the famous Onion story: "ACLU Defends Nazis' Right to Burn Down ACLU Headquarters". The attack was on the religion, however cack-handed it might have been, not the religion's practitioners.

10) Finally, throwing powdered milk on the floor of a supermarket and threatening to shoot people for a thought is fascism as it amounts to group punishment and an attempt to intimidate people into silence. Whoever does it.

A little weak for such a series of bold statements perhaps but my dinner is the table, I have beer in the fridge, and its Friday night.

(*As in the classical post-enlightenment sense, not the political epiphet sense.)

Wisdom From Beyond The Grave?

Further to yesterday's post, here's some interesting arguments about the cartoon fuss from Lenin's Tomb. I don't agree with half of what he says and I think there is a fair bit of conflation going on there, but its well argued and I learned a lot from it. Check it out, if apathy and inertia haven't got you by the goolies. Also, I found some pithy counter-punching to some of Lenin's positions this over at Backword (found via Doctor Vee). It all boils down to who is being more of a fascist: the islamosceptics or the islamists?

Also, I think I need to expand on yesterday's bit a little tonight, lest I give the impression of being an out-and-out islamophobe. Like almost all my positions and beliefs it is infinitely and needlessly more complicated than that. More anon.

Selective Outrage and Utter Hypocrisy

This is apparently the gravest insult imaginable in the universe and the entire fabric of a religion is threatened by these ink lines on paper......
If an angry and hysterical mob wants to run about burning flags, hitting people, and waving their fists there is very little anyone can do about it, least of all try to apply reason to the situation. It is not just an islamic phenomenon as the recent race riots in Australia demonstrate; anarchic mobs running amok are incredibly popular across the globe. Perhaps its genetic; do chimps riot?

However, it is depressingly familiar to see cynical displays of outrage by the governments of these countries who understand all too well that whipped up hysteria and incandecent anger directed at an external outrage deflects attentions from shortcomings at home.

As for the claim that Islam does not mock or slander other religions, would the various state sponsors of one of the world's most offensive lies care to explain the central place held by the blood libel against judaism in many text books and television schedules throughout the muslim world?

...but this sort of thing apparently makes for a good book cover. From The Matzah of Zion written by Syrian Defense Minister Mustapha Tlass in 1983. Now in its 8th printing it remains a bestseller throughout the Arab world.
(And lest any conservative types out there take heart from my opinions on this, I'd like to emphasize that not least because of things like this, this, this, and him I think fundamentalist christians are c**ts too. To my mind fundamentalists of any stripe are unpleasant coves.)

Wordsworth Lives!

An example of free verse
The influence of Britain's 19th century Lakeland poets seems to have found its way into municipal government in that region:Parking fine sparks poetic muse

History Friday on a Wednesday

Just one more. And it is totally relevant, so lay off with the egghead, boffin business:
On This Day, Feb 1: 1979: Exiled Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran

The Ayatollah - a title meaning Gift of God - emerged from his chartered plane looking tired and tearful to meet the 1,500 religious and political leaders allowed to meet him in the terminal building....He was openly belligerent towards the current government of Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar.

"These people are trying to bring back the regime of the late Shah or another regime. I will strike with my fists at the mouths of this government. From now on it is I who will name the government," he claimed.

Dr Bakhtair responded by saying: "Don't worry about this kind of speech. That is Khomeini. He is free to speak but he is not free to act."

Ooops, Dr. Bakhtair. Misjudged that one, didn't we?
"You like me! You really like me!"