vendredi 27 février 2004

Sacred rage B.C. Now I see why so few blogs I know are bothering with politics outside the United States. An awful lot of people are scribbling about that film. The one I don't currently plan to see. There's talk of another one: "We here at the Museum Of Stupidity are hard at work on our pitch for Sodom and Gomorrah. No context. No explanation as to why this is happening. Just an hour of raw, graphic, demented sex in the streets, followed by God's bloody wrath, as the city collapses around them, crushing them, impaling them, causing their eyeballs to explode from their heads, and more arterial spray than the last five Takashi Miike movies." (Museum of Stupidity) 10:18:51 PM  link   your views? [] Short in pyromaniac firewoman scandal My head was under the shower nozzle when Clare Short again turned her flame-thrower on her "boss" about bugging Kofi Annan, so I misheard the gist until I got to the Factory, where we learned this afternoon how "Blair resists calls to come clean on UN spying allegations" (AFP/Yahoo). Am I surprised? Of course not. Were you? There was a pretty good piece today on 'How Britain and the US listen to the rest of the world' (The Guardian). The only serious remark I have to make about this "revelation" is that I'm struck by how fast this kind of story comes to light in today's democracies, such as they are, compared with just two or three years ago. At this rate, investigative journalists, already an endangered species, may face total extinction. The blogosphere was unusually silent, as far as I can see, apart from the dependable Scott Ort: "Spy Tapes of Annan Show No Evidence of 'United' Nations (2004-02-26) -- Secretly-taped conversations involving U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reveal no evidence of the so-called 'united' nations that Mr. Annan 'hyped' in the run up to the Iraq war, according to a former British cabinet secretary who has read the transcripts" (more at Scrappleface). And this: "Blair: Bugging UN 'essential' for safety of Britain (...) Mr Blair went on to say that some members of the UN were 'dangerous', as had been shown by Iraq. 'These people invade sovereign countries – start wars, which cost thousands of lives and devastate nations – at their whim,' he said. 'They are very dangerous, and we have to know what they are doing.' When asked to confirm if he meant the United States, he declined to comment on 'specific cases' (...)" (from Deadbrain). 9:43:36 PM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.