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Sunday, February 16, 2003
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Is Tony Blair toast?
Sara, who sent the link, wrote the following of the London demonstration.
The crowds were so large and so well behaved. No one expected anything of this size. There was a delicious sense that the people had taken democracy into their own hands. This may be the beginning of some serious regime change in Europe.
People believe Mr Bush will get the war he wants, but that may well be between him and the American people rather than Europe as a whole.
In the UK we appreciate that Mr Bush was not elected by a majority of the American voters, but we were worried that somehow he was running the game here through his poodledog Mr Blair.
If Mr Blair is a thinking person he will just pack it in.
7:59:03 PM 
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Scottish Gaelic is in decline .. sad as it is a beautiful sounding language.
Mike Russell of the Scottish National Party said:
Language expresses where you live and your angle to the world; it is a way of seeing. There are things we say that you can only express in a certain language. It has huge impact. Are we saying we can preserve a building here and a bird there but we can?t preserve that?
9:46:54 AM
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Of course Desert Storm 1.1 will happen indepent of what our allies think. Bush wants it and possibly needs it to survive politically as other efforts have soured (a cynic would note that in 1984, The Leader used a constant state of war to push other agendas). He probably even buys the line from theorists of the far right that this will improve the world.
What is stunning is what is not taking place in the media. In the past twenty years we have gone from real news to entertainment driven time slots. At this point the "news" is serving the administration well, but one wonders what happens is public opinion changes to the point where negative drama outdraws pro-administration pieces.
This proxy for real reporting is unhealthy. It strikes me that the real news of the buildup to DS 1.1 is the relative lack of debate in most of the media (there is some in a few newspapers and NPR/PBS, but this is out of the mainstream).
8:09:25 AM
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Checking various papers for commentary on the public perception of the upcoming war I looked at the Great Falls Tribune --- Eric Newhouse writes about attitudes in Choteau, Montana.
It is interesting seeing real cowboys refer to Bush as a cowboy. If places like Choteau (a place where Republicans are considered liberal) are not solidly behind Bush the president's support on this question must be thinner than his people believe.
It was astonishing to watch Powell's reaction to Villepin's speech on Friday. He appeared to be stunned. It is difficult to believe that the administration plays poker so poorly - any observer who has been following the foreign news was aware of the growing space between the US and European positions. This mis-reading by Rice, Powell and others in the administration is malfeasance.
There will clearly be a war as Bush thinks he needs it, but the post war world may be more compicated than he and his theorists would like. Even little things like European consumer boycotts would be unhealthy for our economy (ask Israel).
7:52:04 AM
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The Boeing project to provide net on commercial airliners is slowly moving along.
This seems like a good move - assuming businesses will pay the steep rate (and I imagine many would). Of course this puts pressure on seat pitch. I'm not that tall, but on many airlines I can't lower the tray fully as it hits my knees.
It is surprising that they provide both Ethernet and 802.11b. I wonder how many people will set up nat servers on their laptops and share net with their fellow travelers.
7:44:37 AM
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Looking at the Incredible Adventures site for information on the Deep flight submarines, I happened on something I can afford... paper airplanes.
I've made better, but these are nice and easy to make. The trick is finding a high quality paper. The best stuff I've found for this sort of airplane is 67 pound Vellum Bristol - you can find it in any good office supply store and a good brand is Wausau Exact Vellum Bristol. In a pinch you can buy post card stock from a print shop.
7:37:49 AM
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