A couple of political rants for today…

First of all, even more evidence has surfaced today that Bush decided to use 9/11 as a stick to beat Saddam Hussain with on the basis of, er, NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER, according to today’s edition of “The Daily Mis-Lead,” Moveon.org’s excellent daily e-mail newsletter.

I also found out last night from a friend that the so-called “contractors” that were killed and whose corpses were brutally mutilated in Fallujah recently were employees of Gary Jackson’s Blackwater USA, a shadowy and frightening private army made up of ex Navy seals and other highly trained and dangerous nutters. As their website proudly says, “Blackwater EXECUTES WITH SPEED and EFFICIENCY.” I feel safer already. What happened to them was still horrible of course, but to pass these mercenaries off as “security guards” is more than a little disingenuous. Securicor they ain’t.

I had my follow-up visit with the oral & maxillofacial surgeon this last week, following the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (see blogs passim, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and Broken Face).

It turns out that I don’t need to have surgery on my jaw to correct my occluded bite after all (although I could still have it for cosmetic reasons for $8,500!), which is a relief, although I do still need some more bite correction (i.e. sanding my teeth down) and possibly some orthodontic work (braces! At my age!).

So, it’s back to the dentist.

Thought I’d post a few random links — there’s no common theme between them, except that I came across them all recently.

Florida Election Fraud — lest we forget what happened in Florida in the last U.S. Presidential election, here’s a powerful warning about what can go wrong for the MTV generation (680kb Flash movie, broadband recommended).

“Electronic Ink” eBook reader — this new gadget has a display resolution that’s as good as newsprint, which will make it just as easy to read electronic text as the printed word, plus it’s static, so it only needs power when the display needs to be updated. This technology will revolutionize ebook readers and, when a colour version is eventually developed, all digital displays.

Lego World Builder — I spent more late night hours than I care to admit playing this addictive Shockwave game last week (I always loved Lego as a kid). Fortunately you can turn the awful music off (broadband recommended).

I’m reading a book about archaeological expeditions in central Asia at the moment called “Foreign Devils on the Silk Road,” primarily because I’ve been spending a lot of time at work lately preparing the Mellon International Dunhuang Archive for delivery via ARTstor, and it’s interesting to find out some of the background behind the material.

Basically the story behind these artifacts is not far from being a real-life version of Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones; around the turn of the last century, sundry European adventurers were running around Central Asia excavating ancient sand-covered settlements in various inhospitable deserts (such as the Taklamakan, Lop and Gobi deserts), bribing the locals and shipping back crates of ancient manuscripts, paintings, sculptures and frescoes to museums in Europe, India and Russia.

By far the most famous and controversial haul was that made by Sir Aurel Stein, a Hungarian-born British archaeologist who, among many other notable exploits, managed to smuggle out of China the entire library of manuscripts — some 500 cubic feet — from the “Caves of the Thousand Buddhas” in Dunhuang, China. To this day, Stein is held by the Chinese in the same regard as Lord Elgin is held by the Greeks.

Apparently, one of the many manuscripts he brought back is a 1,000 year-old “model letter” for an apology to a host for drunken behaviour at a social function, which I found amusing:

“Yesterday, having drunk too much, I was so intoxicated as to pass all bounds; but none of the rude and coarse language I used was uttered in a conscious state. The next morning, after hearing others speak on the subject, I realized what had happened, whereupon I was overwhelmed with confusion and ready to sink into the ground with shame…”

The model letter also provides a helpful template for the host’s response:

Yesterday, Sir, while in your cups, you so far overstepped the observances of polite society as to forfeit the name of gentleman, and made me wish to have nothing more to do with you. But since you now express your shame and regret for what has occurred, I would suggest that we meet again for a friendly talk…”

Anyway, it’s not exactly a blockbuster read, but here’s a filthy lucre link to the book at Amazon anyway:

Lots of interesting revelations coming out of the publication of Richard Clarke’s new book, Against All Enemies… Basically he’s saying that the Bush administration, far from being “tough” on terrorism, were actually doing very little prior to 9/11:

“Frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he’s done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We’ll never know. . . I think the way he has responded to al-Qaeda, both before 9/11 by doing nothing, and by what he’s done after 9/11 has made us less safe, absolutely. I think he’s done a terrible job on the war against terrorism.”

From an interview on “60 Minutes,” CBS, 21 March 2004

This is top-quality whistle-blowing which could cause serious damage to the Bush administration; Dick Clarke has been a senior terrorism advisor to 4 successive adminstrations, stretching right back past Daddy Bush to Reagan!

Of course, the Bush administration is now busily engaged in trying to rubbish his allegations, which suggests they’re feeling very ruffled by all this unwanted attention on their pre-9/11 ineptitude. There’s also a great interview where Clarke describes Cheney as an “attack dog” in Salon.

Incidentally, I discovered from Channel 4’s excellent Snowmail service that the Madrid train bombings occurred on 11 March 2004, which in the U.S. could be written as 3/11, and which is exactly 911 days after 9/11!

Finally it seems as though Rumsfeld’s lies and duplicity are starting to catch up with him, and his trademark bombastic demeanour is starting to crumble — check out this classic excerpt from Face the Nation on MoveOn.org’s website, showing him flailing and backtracking after being stitched up like a kipper for talking out of his arse.

And don’t forget to click the “Tell Congress to Censure Bush” link at the end of the video.

Are the governments of the USA and UK planting evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq for well-timed pre-election bonanza finds? Certainly this article in the Tehran Times seems to allege that is the case…

Personally I’m surprised they haven’t planted some WMD’s to “discover” already (see Blogs Passim).

This would be funny (if it wasn’t): It seems that Bush is selling campaign clothing emblazoned with the “Bush Cheney 04” logo that is made in Myanmar (Burma) — a country that Bush himself banned from trading with the U.S. because of its human rights violations, the war on drugs etc. etc.! See The Daily Mis-Lead for more info.

A couple of music links to post today…

Just been tipped off about Broken Beat Radio, a “nu jazz and broken beat mix show based in Philadelphia.” Haven’t listened to it much so far, but it currently features a set by Patrick Forge, so that’s good enough for me.

Secondly, my pal Zo? Keating, who is a member of the cello band Rasputina in addition to being a talented solo cello musician, has had an article written about her in something called Tastes Like Chicken.

I’ve been sent links to some very funny websites recently.

The first, from my friend Paul Facer in the UK, is a story about a guy who managed to scam a “419” scammer. If you’ve used e-mail for more than the last 20 minutes or so, you’ll have experienced the 419 scam; it’s when you get a spam e-mail from someone in Nigeria (and it’s always Nigeria) who claims to have a vast sum of money, and they need YOUR help to get it out of the country, because they’ve heard how honest and trustworthy you are. I can’t believe that anybody actually falls for these scams, but apparently it’s something like the 4th biggest industry in Nigeria, and the fact that I get a steady stream of them indicates that they must work. Anyway, here’s a funny story about a guy who scammed a 419 scammer.

The second one is a commercial website that sells anti-motivational products that are parodies of motivational products; you know those cheesy posters with a picture of a mountain climber or an eagle or something, and some kind of positive motivational message underneath? Anyway, check out Despair.com, especially the “demotivators” product line. Pure genius. Thanks to Scyld Bowring for pointing me to that one.