26 September 2002

I have seen various references to an interview with Nelson Mandela in Newsweek, round about the anniversary of September 11, in which he made several astounding and sweeping statements, indulging in cheap racist generalizations among other things.  As much as I admire the old man, I thought he was a bit off.  How can he support a regime like Saddam Hussein's, with all of the well-documented human-rights violations?  How can he consider Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a Coptic Egyptian with a very pale skin, or the Iraqis for that matter to be black people?  How about all the black Israelis, from Ethiopa, Morocco and Yemen? Does it have anything to do with business ties between SA and Iraq. Is SA one of their African suppliers of Uranium?  One is aware that the Pahad brothers seem to be very close to Iraq, what else is going on? Anyway, I came across this very detailed and lengthy rebuttal of the Mandela interview, on an African news site which is new to me, again pointed to by Instapundit (I could spend days following his links - how the hell does he do it, and still have time to be a law professor, presumably husband and father etc?).  Like him, I would be sceptical about the motivation of the site, but I'll go along with most of what they say in this particular article. 9:32:35 PM    comment []

I love it, I love it!! A Laura Bush 419 scam letter.  Absolutely hilarious.  I am going to copy and paste into an email message and send to all the guys in my Nigerian scam museum (email log file - currently up to 30-something entries). (Courtesy of Instapundit). 7:04:21 PM    comment []

How about this?  The SA Apartheid regime responsible for the ongoing supply of high-quality Ecstasy to SA ravers, courtesy of Wouter Basson. This is actually not a new story, it came out in Basson's trial a couple of years ago, but it seems to be updated by news from the street that "Basson's Brownies"  are good stuff. (Courtesy of a weblog called "Shithappens").   6:54:04 PM    comment []

Look Who's Playing Politics (washingtonpost.com) [Daypop Top 40] Al Gore's blatant politicking and sniping a couple of days ago has not escaped attention.  Here's a delicious demolition of the previous VP by columnist Michael Kelly.  How about this sharp thrust? Gore's speech was one no decent politician could have delivered. It was dishonest, cheap, low. It was hollow. It was bereft of policy, of solutions, of constructive ideas, very nearly of facts -- bereft of anything other than taunts and jibes and embarrassingly obvious lies. It was breathtakingly hypocritical, a naked political assault delivered in tones of moral condescension from a man pretending to be superior to mere politics. It was wretched. It was vile. It was contemptible. But I understate.  (Emphasis mine). More measured criticism, but equally devastating, from William Safire in the NYT: Al Gore's speech in San Francisco attacking the Bush pre-emption doctrine was the opening gun in the 2004 presidential campaign. Andrew Sullivan weighed in also, in the hallowed pages of Salon.  And Joe Conason responds from the other side. Somehow seems a shame that there is an election coming up at the same time as a war:  politicians have to do what they have to do - but the hypocrisy is sickening LATER:  Instapundit (as usual) also reports on the Gore issue, with lots of other links, including this nasty one. 12:11:25 PM    comment []

"When Bloggers Commit Journalism" [Daypop Top 40] I can't say that I get too excited about arguments (or discussions) about blogging vs journalism.  But here's a fairly detailed report on a panel discussion held at Berkely recently addressing this issue, written by one of the panelists.  As someone still learning the craft of blogging, and being very sporadic about it, there may or may not be insights for me in this or other reports.  To be read later (maybe). 11:35:52 AM    comment []

Bob Wallace, Software Pioneer, Dies at 53 [New York Times: Technology] I hasten to advise my legions of fans and readers that rumours of my demise have been exaggerated (to coin a phrase), and that the Robert Wallace referred to in this obituary is not me.  I am happily alive and kicking, having passed gaily through 53 five years ago;  besides, although I did create some software in the 60's and 70's that may still be running on some mainframe somewhere (Y2K permitting), I cannot really describe myself as a software pioneer. I do have a small link with my namesake who has sadly passed away at a very young age:  he was one of the creators of Shareware software, and the author of PC-Write, which I acquired at the same time as my very first IBM PC at Christmas 1983, original PC-1 motherboard, 16K of main storage, 2x160KB floppy drives (5.25 inch), PC-DOS 1.1, which later got upgraded with a new 64KB motherboard, 320K floppy and 10MB hard drive, and even an external 1200bps external modem, and was my faithful companion until 1989.  I remember folding up $15 saved from an overseas trip, and mailing it to the author, congratulating him on his software and choice of parents.  Even in those days I was fairly scrupulous about licensing and similar issues (I think I'm probably the only person I know who has paid for WinZip!).  PC-Write was my word-processor of choice until 1993, when I broke down and acquired the Windows version of AmiPro, running under OS/2, of course, but that's another story. So farewell, Bob, and thanks for your contribution to our industry. 11:17:50 AM    comment []