Could happen to anyone....

The British Government a few days ago lost a bit of data (although it did not tell anyone until now). It was not a record or two, an inadvertently corrupted file affecting a couple of people at most. No, this ancient pillar of Western democracy, this holder of the special relationship with the leader of the Free World, this administration which keeps ever sleepless watch in its mission to guard the Nation against terrorism, lost the lot.

By that I mean the lot - all the information relating to child support payments in the UK (which means everybody, apart from a few recluses) - all the names of the parents, the addresses, telephone numbers and emails, the names and dates of birth of all the children, and in many cases, the bank account numbers and details of the families. All of them - 25 million of them.

For connoisseurs of IT history, this should rank as the most spectacular data security catastrophe case study of all time. And all because a little clerk downloaded this critical information on to a couple of CD's, (how was he allowed to do this?) and mailed them through the post. They did not arrive. Let us hope they landed in the dustbin of a bent postman who was hoping to score a couple of Amy Winehouse CD's. Otherwise, the opportunity for identity theft and paedophilia on a national scale beggars belief.

Could one contributory factor be the Labour government's merging of Revenue and Customs and excise, creating a bureaucratic behomoth, where nobody knows what anyone else is doing?

At the head of all of this stands the Chancellor of the Exchequer (minister of finance) - as you can see from the picture not the sharpest looking tool in the box. What can you expect anyway from a man who dyes his hair white and his eyebrows black?

I'm absolutely delighted

first of all that I'm back (can't believe I've been away for 3 months) and happy birthday to me

but much more importantly that Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize. Almost as satisfying was the inevitable knee-jerk howl of fury from the fascists, flat-earthists, creationists, climate change denialists, and supporters of the war in Iraq. It proves that the rest of us are on the right track.

Yes of course, dubious characters have previously been awarded the prize - like the last apartheid president who had to be given a podium share with Nelson Mandela. But that does not detract from the importance and worth of the present award.

Congratulations to the prescient columnists like Christopher Hitchens who predicted this, and also in the aftermath urged him to run for President. Will he? It's an agonising question. No well wisher would want the new impetus to the environmental movement to be damaged by his essential side-tracking into petty politicking which the campaign would entail. And the unthinkable disaster if he lost. At the same time, the temptation to displace the shrill, fake Hilary is irresistible. The only Bush prediction which one can definitely agree with is that she would win the nomination but lose the election. I hope he does run, though first he must overcome the Democrats' unerring instinct to nominate a loser as their candidate.

And if he wins - eight years of wrong would be put to rights. What a resounding epitaph to, and what more fitting way, to nail down the coffin of the catastrophic Bush era.

photo with ack to slate.com

Alan Johnston
freed!


and congratulations. Thanks to Hamas, the new government of Gaza, for not only facilitating but implementing his release unharmed. Not a case of Hamas 'attempting to claim credit' for his release, as one one his BBC colleagues sneeringly put it, but credit earned and deserved. One might hope that this achievement will lead to some thaw and new openings in the stagnant mid-east peace process, but with the West's mind as tightly sealed as a jar of ten-year old jam, it is unlikely. Yet we can hope.

Good luck to Mr. Johnston - by right he should return to Gaza as correspondent, but that may be too much to ask in the short term. He looks fine, still running on adrenalin, as many have observed, the only discordant note being an Israeli flag plonked behind him as he was giving his first interview - the arsonist being given credit for putting out the fire.

Total Rage

at the latest news; at the stage when you can’t even bear to listen to a bulletin



Of course, it’s to do with Gaza and Hamas. But the fury is not caused by what some may assume – it’s fury at the wooden-headed West: at Bushie, Blair and Condi – these people at whose disposal is the best information, communications and presumably advice in history. Can these people never learn anything? Until their dying day (or last day in office) will it be the same broken phonograph record – “we don’t talk to terrorists, beacon of democracy, Iran’s nuclear threat, north Korea’s missile program, looking for moderate Arab states, pledge solidarity with Mahmood Abbas” etc. Mahmood we are coming to. What about the quest for ‘moderate’ Arab states? Maybe, first, the Arabs are looking for ‘moderate’ Western states to deal with. Ones that do not invade them, for instance..

The West wanted democracy in the Middle East. It didn’t work out too well in Iraq, so the next hope was Palestine. Elections were held there, but unfortunately the wrong party won – Hamas? What to do? Obviously, cut off all contact, dialogue and aid to the Palestinians and their authority. Because Hamas is a ‘terrorist’ organisation, and they don’t recognise Israel. Forgive me for getting confused, but I though there were a load of ‘respectable’ countries that don’t recognise Israel – Kuwait, Bahrain, Libya, Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, but the US deals very amicably with all of these, especially if they have oil reserves. The other demand of Hamas is that they respect any previous agreement mid-east agreements. That’s rich – presumably Israel was and is exempt from any such obligation.

So we refuse any dealing, and Israel even withholds the Palestinians’ own money – shared customs dues for instances. What a brilliant formula for a stable and ‘moderate’ Palestine and what encouragement for the Western ideal of the opportunity to cast a vote for the government of your choice. The Israeli’s left Gaza, but only for the purpose of turning it into the world’s largest open air prison – their very own Warsaw ghetto; an ominous comparison with Israel’s intent to obliterate with ‘Hamasstan’ on their doorstep.

So the Palestinian’s attempted to compromise, after the first outbursts of frustrated violence, to form a ‘unity’ government. Although Hamas had won the elections, they agreed to share power with their defeated rivals Fatah and old Abby was back at the centre of things again. Better? No chance. Israel and its American satellite will refuse any dealings with the unity government, because it still contains some Hamas. But they still ‘pledge support’ to Mahmood Abbas, the Palestinian president. What does one discuss with a (largely figurehead) president if we don’t deal with anyone in his government? Ask him for tea and discuss the weather? I don’t know – ask Dubya or Condi.

So, of course, frustrations boil over, Hamas are fed up of beings the mugs, no salaries are being paid and the people are basically starving, so of course Hamas seize their chance in Gaza where they are strongest and topple who they see as Western stooges – with or without Iranian help, who cares. Abby back in the West bank dismisses the government and its Hamas prime minister (it is not at all clear that he is empowered to do this) and declares a West Bank purely composed of his Fatah cronies. The West of course (and Arab states) pledge solidarity with Mahmood Abbas. He is a lame duck but who cares.

Suddenly it struck me that this is code for washing your hands of the problem. If you haven’t a clue what to do, you 'pledge your support for Mahmood Abbas’. He must be the most pledged politician in history. Everyone loves him. Why – because he will cause no problems, because he won’t and can’t do anything. Some American Indian tribes, I think, used to hold a pow-wow with a carved totem pole. They expressed their opinions and intentions to the pole, and if it did not answer, they assumed there was no counter to their arguments and they were free and justified to act as they desired. Mr Abbas is they a rather chubby totem pole, a placebo for the conflict. Is it any wonder that he is seen, not just by radical Arabs, a pure stooge and puppet of the West?

A final word on ‘terrorism’. There is a fact, not of course understood by the broken phonograph players, that there are two sorts of terrorist. One is the insane sort, typified by al Qaeda, which is impossible to deal with not only because it is fanatical, but also because it objectives are unattainable or even incomprehensible. The other sort of terrorist, usually nationalistically based, does have a political agenda, which can in principle be talked about. For instance, the IRA wanted British ruled Northern Ireland to be incorporated into the mainly Catholic Republic. That was a no-go. But what was the root problem? Discrimination against northern Catholics? Would the IRA settle for guaranteed equality and fair treatment for the Catholic community, and the reining in of the more extreme Protestant militias and assorted lunatics? Eventually, they did. And ETA – a bloody group, but with an agenda – independence of the Basque regions from Spain. They do not want actually to exterminate every Spaniard. Spain would not allow independence. But how about 75% autonomy, or call it what you will? A deal is surely possible.

Hamas I am sure are in the second group. They have a negotiable agenda, even if unpalatable. But unpalatable does not mean impossible. Sure, their young hotheads fire rather ineffective rockets into Israel. But even if they didn’t, Israel will find some other excuse not to talk to them. Just as the British refused to talk to IRA for a wasted bloody quarter-century. Eventually, a deal will be done. People cannot go on fighting forever. But don’t expect anything soon: not while the leadership of the Free World is a broken phonograph.

25 years

since the Flaklands war

I remember it well, and the above is the iconic photograph of the conflict - like the collapsed statue of Saddam in the present stupid war. What a ridiculous conflict! On one side, the music-hall (but deadly) Argentinian duo, General Valdieri and Admiral Lami Doso, famously picked up by one British paper as the reverse of "O sod em all". On the other, Mrs. Thatcher, whose corpse was propped up today to proclaim it as a great victory. Obviously, the unctuous Mr. Blair was at hand at Westminster Abbey to pay tribute to the 255 British dead of the war. He should be spending some time in the future, paying tribute to more British dead, as well; those of his making.

What of the Falkland Islands? Apart from having the most distinctive shape on the map of any territory in the world (they remind me of two copulating shrimps), they are in fact the last vestige of the little remembered British empire in South America - British missionaries and sheep farmers in the 19th century effectively controlled huge stretches of Pategonia and the Argentinian pampas. They were gradually pushed off the mainland and the Falklands are their final toehold. A bit like the Channel islands then - an empire of residuals.

The Argentinian strategy, like that of all military dictatorships, was totally dumb. Had they just waited it out, Britain, who were desperately looking around to cut costs and dump the unproductive colony, would have basically given it them. But no, the generals decided they needed an issue to whip up the masses and invaded. After hundreds of lives, they were pushed out again, Britain getting a little help from its ally, the even less savoury dictatorship of Chile.

There was a positive outcome; but on the Argeninian side. The military fell, and democracy returned to this civilised and cultivated nation. Now, after some celebrated economic hiccups, they have a huge tourist industry and are laughing all the way to the bank. But even in a democracy, the sting of defeat remains.

The Falklands, inevitably, remain a backwater, with a British population whose political views are somewhat to the right of the white Smith regime in Rhodesia. Nice scenery, but not a great attraction for visitors.

Relations between the islands and the mainland after enjoying a temporary thaw, have returned to deep freeze; but now, instead of imperialism, the issues are the modern practical ones of oil exploration, air links and fishing rights.

Would that Britain had stood up for the democratic rights of the people of Hong Kong, against the Chinese take-over a couple of years later. But of course the Chinese are big, and could not be bullied.

The IOC is visiting London today

for a progress check-up on 2012. I’m sure that the amount of money spent will not be a problem, if that is what the IOC is looking for.

The Olympic logo, unveiled a few days ago, is a perfect microcosm of the London Olympics itself: of how prices of any undertaking balloon unbelievably when someone else’s money is paying for it, and how ‘national’ projects provide the grimmest examples. Like the National Stadium at Wembley, which has ended up costing £ 800 million of semi-public money, in contrast with the beautiful (and £40 million) Stadium of Light at Sunderland. OK, twice the capacity, at 20 times the price.

The PR-spin government which the UK has been inflicted with these many years, are the ultimate enthusiasts for throwing uncounted billions of (other people’s) money at the Olympic project. Then tens of millions are spent on ‘consultants’ to advise on how to minimise further cost overruns! The London Olympic will feature in future project management textbooks as one of the worst budgeted and cost-managed project of all time. Like Eurotunnel, but at least you can travel through a tunnel.

For now, back to the logo. It debuted with a video, hastily withdrawn since it reputedly caused epileptic seizures; and evidently devised by hairy videographic-survivors of the 70’s when flashing darting coloured lines and streaks were cool. (I used to program similar things on my first graphics-capable PC). The logo reminded some of ‘two rhomboids bonking’ and drew objections from Jewish groups because its angularity was slightly but disturbingly reminiscent of a swastika. See for instance

It was ages before I even twigged that it was an arty rendition of the digits 2-0-1-2. Mr. Blair, needless to say, thinks it’s fantastic. And the cost – wait for it - £400 000 or nearly 6 million Rand/N$ - a logo ? [Query: if the Olympic logo costs half a million pounds, what will the built from scratch Olympic Stadium cost? No, of course we can’t use Wembley]. Commentators in the ad industry said that young designers could have done the same job for £ 10 000. What a snip! Depends on the customer again. If a disadvantaged young people’s sports club wanted a new logo, paying for out of their own money, they probably could get one done for £ 100. But a National project, where national Prestige is at stake (and National funds are available)? Ah then, add a factor of 400 thousand percent!

What a brilliant

in swinger

(or curve ball to our American friends, since presumably neither Pres. Bush nor Pres. Putin understand cricket) -

Putin bowled to Bush at the G8. The radar shields/missile bases or whatever they are, to be based in Poland and the Czech republic - directed against Russia? Perish the thought. All to to with those nasty guys in Iran and North Korea, who may be minded to lob things at the US. (Question: my school geography is a bit rusty, but does the quickest path from North Korea to the US go anywhere near Poland?)

Anyway, if this were the correct reason, Putin has a brilliant and helpful suggestion. Why doesn't the US 'borrow' the Soviet-era missile tracking base in Azerbaijan - much closer and more relevant to Iran anyway? Why, Russian and the US could collaborate and share technology in combating skuds from rogue states.

"Interesting" says President Bush, while the spin doctors scramble for a face-saving response. Very interesting.

40 years


since the 6 day war


I always remember the joke of my science teacher : "why did the Israelis fight a six day war ?"
Answer, of course, is that they had only hired the uniforms for a week.

Rarely if ever, could there ever have been a conflict between two sides, let alone multiple sides, all of whom supposed to be professional and well-armed fighting forces, where the result was so massively and abruptly one-sided.

People throughout the world, whether they were Israeli supporters or not, were stunned and thrilled by the outcome. Total victory is highly intoxicating. And in those dim, far off days, it did seem that Israel was in the right: its leaders and policies were moderate, and it really was threatened with extinction by all its neighbours, in a territory ridiculously vulnerable - only 12 km wide at its central point.

From the outcome of the war, Arabs have never lost the reputation of big-mouths, long on violent and vituperative rhetoric, short on ideas, capability or delivery, whether military or political. They and the Palestinians have never been taken seriously to this day.

The legacy of the war has been the assumption of total Israeli supremacy, never dented until the Lebanese debacle last year, and the image of the Arabs as blustering cowards. The casualty has been the Palestinians, and their legitimate cause and grievances.

WHAT IS THE LESSON

from Wolfie's departure?

Well, as my good wife said, every man thinks with his dick, and the more powerful and exalted the man, to the greater extent his thoughts are thus preoccupied.

Getting another job and a pay rise for his 'girl friend'? Was this actually necessary? Doesn't Wolfie have a good enough salary so that his better half could give up work, if there is a conflict of interest, and they would still be able to afford a little place in down-town Washington somewhere - maybe not in the best area but... (Or I hasten to add, for fear of being thought sexist, the other way round).

No, good riddance again, not just because of dick-related problems, but this was a shameless political post, as the cartoonist above acidly noted, whereby Dubya abused the control that the US administration has over WB presidential appointments. This to ensure neocon influence over the Bank, at a time when the position of deputy Defence Secretary was looking a little shaky. Killing two birds, in other words. It was difficult to understand what commitment Wolfie might have to impoverished 3rd world development (the third of a trillion dollars so far spent on Iraq might have gone a long way...)

Anyway, it's Wolfie's girl friend's job now to find him a job...

Meanwhile, what of a successor? Remember, the post of president of the World Bank is traditionally given to someone with extremely close links to and sympathies with the US administration, an American citizen, and someone who is finishing one illustrious job and at a turning point in his career. Yes, of course, ta-rah, ta-rah : Tony Blair. As we speak, Blair is spending a good part of his final month in office on a sunset tour of Africa (mightn't be an idea to spend this time at home?) burnishing his development credentials and impressing the interview panel. You have been warned. At least there'll be no sex scandals - will there ?

BBC international news,

for the past several days, in the morning, afternoon and evening bulletins, has prominently featured. among reports of more US deaths in Iraq, more bloody fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, even EU-Russia summits, one news item.

It is the fact that, in the face of strong protests, the makers of Mars Bars have dropped the ingredient of animal derived enzyme rennet from their product. This outraged Britain’s vegetarians when the inclusion of the material was made known. A Mars bar, incidentally, is a product largely comprised of sugar and empty calories, a chocolate covered toffee confection more usually known as a Bar One in this part of the world.

The prominence of this item puzzles me. Is the Mars Bar the snack of choice of BBC journos? Are many of them vegetarian? What about the milk in the milk chocolate anyway? Isn’t that an animal product? If you don’t like them, don’t eat them.

As for me, I’d rather continue with a boycott of the product, and not jeopardise my already dodgy dental bridgework, or promote a bulging waistline, premature diabetes or hyperglycemia. An apple a day sounds a much better proposition.

Why is Eurovision sneered at?

I actually think it's brilliant - the colours, the nations cheek by jowl, and so many more of them, since the disintegration of the Soviet block and the enlargement of the EU. And behaving, performers and spectators alike, in a cheerful, not too serious, slightly self-satirical context, much better than a political or sports-oriented gathering. The moans about the biased voting, and 'blocks' of next door neigbours voting for each other - well, in what other situation would you find Armenia enthusiastically supporting Turkey, or Georgia Russia? Yes, it's true that nobody votes for the UK, thus nearly always ending up with 'nul points', but that is the fault of the crap performances they offer up.

It's also not true that the music is always 60's bubblegum - many of the acts, at least from Eastern Europe, seemed serious attempts to convey the culture of their country, albeit in a rock music form. In fact, one might detect an air of determination to be taken seriously, and to claim recognition as a part of the New Europe. The Western contributions by contrast seemed plastic, flaccid and vaccid, and were rewarded accordingly.

I was especially pleased to get to see Eurovision at all - our satellite TV in the wilds of Africa usually offers only 15 year old movies, miscellaneous sports event and Big Brother. They will no doubt say the rights are too expensive - luckily we found Portuguese TV which was carrying the event, and it was fine, given that the presenters were not to be compared to Terry Wogan. The live Finnish presenters really did look like Ken and Barbie, as they should, and everything was perfect.

The winner was also richly deserved - the intense little lady from Serbia rendering a haunting ballad darkly redolent of the Balkans - backed by strange tall blonde-wigged ladies - an act mysteriously described by an over-excited BBC journo as lesbian soft-porn - some symbolism definitely but I'm not sure what. It was also great that the song was sung in the proper language and not in Barbie English. The act was certain to win from the moment it rolled.

There are of course political overtones to Eurovision - for instance the UK group tends to do worse than usual since the Iraq war - but in this case I especially hope that the event,, to be held in Belgrade next year thanks to Maria Serifovic, will mark Serbia's final emergence from the Milosevic era and into the family of Europe.

If so, Eurovision will have achieved more than politicians have been able to do for the past 10 years. Go for it.

and good riddance.

In what has been called the world's worst kept secret, Mr. B-liar announced his decision to step down today. As one of his fellow spinnakers, the equally unctuous Mr. Peter Mandelstam, the former Minister of the Dome, rhetorically asked in a TV docu-appreciation: "Why has Mr. Blair become so unpopular?"

Why? Let's see now. How about leading his country into an unnecessary war, under cover of deliberate lies and false pretences, in which hundreds of thousands, the vast majority of them innocent, have died? For what reason is still uncertain. It is difficult to believe he gave a tinkers for the welfare of the people of Iraq. To make his mark on history? To look Churchillian? To affirm his loyalty to the US special relationship? If the latter, he was reminded in no uncertain terms by President Bush as to who was the junior partnership in the relationship, whenever he looked like stepping out of line. As for the theory that he exerted a moderating effect on US policy, the idea is risible.

In what way then, should his deserved fate be different from that of Saddam Hussain?

Anyway, in the next few days his 'legacy' is going to be commentated and picked over in paralysing detail. Leave your radio and TV off for a week and get a life.

Regarding his 'legacy', as far as the transformation of the image of Britain, the country does not seem, on my occasional visits, to be all that different from the 90's. There are differences, in that it is virtually impossible now for a young person ever to afford to buy a house. The standard of the National Health service is as dire as ever. Yes, Britain won the Olympics, but with costs now ascending to truly galactic proportions. Britain's expanding economy and industry? In what area, apart from that of on-line gambling and super-casinos?

Did anyone notice the vehicle parked outside the hall where Mr. Blair was making his farewells? Yes, a nice white BMW. There was no remaining British-made car in which he could make his getaway. Enough said.

It's very good news


that Nicholas Sarkozy won the French presidential election. Even though I would normally support the candidate of the Left, Soggy-lene Royal was not what France needed, any more than a diabetic needs to be given a bag of bons-bons or more accurately, a slumbering patient needs another dose of morphine or a shopaholic a new credit card.
No, Ms. Royal is a disturbingly intact 1940's socialist, somehow teleported into the 21st century. A commentator said of her, that when asked any question, her Google-like brain picked up a keyword, then regurgitated a programmed paragraph containing that keyword but which in no way answered the question. Sarkozy said of her that she had the classic socialist assumption that Work was like a cake, a fixed yummy entity to be divided into peices and shared equitably, whereas of course employment is an infinitely extensible process - the more people in work, the more work opportunities there will be.
France needs a strong dose of 'tough love' - I hope the 2nd generation Hungarian provides it, and returns France to her greatness - and role of counterbalance to the US in Europe - we need her.

The so-called
International
Cricket World Cup



is finally over – a strange combination of drawn-out yawn, rip-off, farce, and sinister mystery.

The sinister mystery of course was the murder of Bob Woolmer, an event probably not directly caused by his team’s (Pakistan) premature exit from the tournament, or the impulsive fury of a disappointed fan, but the well-planned execution of a stringer who either was not playing along with agreed match-fixing arrangements or was about to blow the gaffe on the billion dollar industry. Everyone knows the one-day game is riddled with corruption, and every unexpected result, and even every unexpected episode – like two wickets in an over - is automatically suspect.

Bob Woolmer may have been a big man, but he was a midget in comparison to the godfathers of illegal cricket betting.

The on-going plodding efforts of the local police were derisory – the murderers would have been out of the country within an hour of the deed being done – creating a new simile in the English language – as useless as a Jamaican pathologist.

The drawn-out yawn was the two month long tournament itself – from 16 original teams, some of which could hardly hold a bat the right way up, we reduced to a mystifyingly named “Super 8” phase, the participants of which played every combination of each other and which therefore seemed to go on for ever. There was and is one cricketing superpower – Australia – just as there is a global political superpower – with all the other teams being also-rans, so there would never be any doubt of the result.

The rip-off was the huge expense of the proceedings for any fan wanting to attend – hanging around in the West Indies for two months is not the cheapest part of the world, not to mention the costs of flying around from island to island to follow your team, plus the ticket prices in the vast, newly built stadiums, which therefore remained largely empty and will stand as terrifying white elephants for the future of these small nations, whose arms were twisted to build them.

The farce was the siting of the tournament on tropical islands where it rains all the time, and came fittingly to a head in the final on Saturday, which limped along on an on-off basis due to the weather, was shortened, and ended twice – in the almost total darkness! Don’t we have weather forecasts these days? If on/off rain was predicted for the whole day, why not postpone the whole event until Sunday? Do teams spend several years in properation for the final, only to be fobbed off with a truncated parody of a match, because of rainy weather? Since everyone had been waiting two months, another day would not have made much difference.

All of this is based on One Day International cricket, a pantomime version of the ancient game, where the players wear neck to toe coloured pyjamas (some of which must be excruciating in the heat) and play a game which has the most Byzantine arcane rules of any sport, including the so-called Duckworth-Lewis rules, where one needs a laptop and statistics degree to decide who won! And not even then, because officialdom in the final match could apparently not fix on the winning figure, leaving the losing team (Sri Lanka, the winning one being of course Australia) to battle on literally in the dark. Imagine a football cup final whose length could be reduced to a 15-minute play each way at the whim of the referee, or a match decided by 1.35 goals!

Oh yes, and as another part of the farce, we have the 'umpires', relics of an earlier gentlemanly era, mostly elderly portly figures with acute visual and hearing impairment, who made decisions, chiefly on leg-before-wicket and catches at the wicket, seemingly at random. Where do they get them? We could only hope that the number of batsmen given out when they were obviously not, were approximately equal to the converse case, and so cancelled out. If not due to incompetence, the inevitable suspicion, for every incomprehensible verdict, is of course match fixing again.

We have the (awesome) computer graphics technology to make decisions of hair-fine accuracy now, so for heavens sake use it, and relegate the human ‘umpires’ to field supervisors, holding bowlers’ glasses and setting up the stumps etc.

So next time please, shorter and simpler.

Boris Yeltsin





is dead and buried; the tributes have been made, the pundits have opined, and the journos have moved on.

I was very sad to hear the news last week; not that I am a believer in coincidences, but I had been wondering what had become of him when the flash came through.

He was a man who fundamentally changed his (vast) country - not many can say that; and a person who emerged from his conventional communist political background to show enormoous personal courage, to climb on that tank, face down the still very dangerous forces of the past and avert an unimaginable civil war.
Of course he has his detractors, from the minnows who moaned that he drank too much, to the ordinary Russians for whom idealism mattered less than the disappearance of their life savings.

The truth is that, although he was quintessentially Russian, Russians distrusted him - as in the communist era and now, they preferred a resulote leader who told them what to do and kept Russia strong, than an experimenter with newfangled and disorganised theories of 'democracy'.

His name will be remembered for centuries to come; though I hope not as the figure in the narrow window of the sole democratic Presidency of Russia - a slim episode between the country's last communist leader and the first fascist one.

The latest numbing catastrophe from the schoolyard

comes again from the US, where, as the world knows, 32 were shot to death in, not a schoolyard, but the 2000 acre Virginia Tech campus.

However, not out of the blue, as the usual cliché has it – in fact, the Tech seems rather a flaky place, with a shooting incident on the first day of the academic year, and death threats to unspecified persons just this week. The CNN commentator, with unaccustomed frankness, posed the questions: why always schools or colleges, and why (usually but not always) America? Good questions. Why schools? I suppose because unstable and often affluent teenagers, sated by violent TV and websites (and NOT desperate deprived individuals, as some social apologists would have it) enact their bloody fantasies on the environment they know best – their schools And why America? Forgive us if we mention America’s gun culture. In a country where the absolute right of a wild-eyed adolescent to buy the automatic weapon of his choice, no questions of ID asked, is enshrined in the Constitution, it is somehow more likely that these incidents will take place in the US than elsewhere. Of course, the gun lobby are already rushing in. If only the kids in the college had had their own automatic weapons, this would never have happened – the assailant would not have dared to shoot etc. Funny that hours after heavily armed (as well as heavily overweight) police arrived at the campus, the gunman was still merrily shooting away.

This raises another strange point. There was at first apparently a shooting incident involving a mere two deaths, at around 7am. The authorities naturally assumed that this was a normal American college morning (“I don’t like Mondays” etc) and did not react seriously. Meanwhile, the gunman walked unchallenged to the other end of the mile long campus, and started shooting up an engineering building, two hours later! He got as far as another 30 deaths before turning his gun on himself – the authorities were still running around sending emails, updating their website and taking videos. Could not the police have taken him out hours earlier?

President Bush called on a 'loving God' to provide consolation for those bereaved. I have one question: "why did the loving God not prevent the attack in the first place. Strike the perpetrator with a heart failure, or jam his gun? Shouldn't have been too difficult.

As I said, the ‘conservatives’ are already rushing in, blaming liberal college culture etc. Actually, I think one of the solutions would be to round up conservatives and the NRA, arm them to the teeth, if they are not already, take them to an appropriate locale, say Death Valley, and let them wipe themselves out – it would leave the world a better and cleaner place (and a few fewer gun lobbyists).

The iconic author and great humanist Kurt Vonnegut has died. His attitude to life, and the inspiration for his greatest work, came from his experience as a POW in world war 2, imprisoned at Dresden, when the Allies, preferring a classical city with little military signifance as a target, to the by then well-known locations of the Nazi death camps, flattened it in a one night fire storm than killed 100 000 civilians. Vonnegut survived because the prisoners had been temporarily held in an underground meat storage facility - hence "Slaughterhouse 5".

One of his lesser known jobs was that of a car dealer specialising in SAAB's. This enterprise failed, and he blamed this on the crap product. SAAB's have improved in the meanwhile, and I dedicate my trusty chariot (above) to his memory. I hope GM will belatedly recognise him as one of their more illustrious salesman. He also joked that because of this, he never received the (Swedish managed) Nobel prize for literature..

He seemed to have had writer's block in later life, not producing much. However, when the president incumbent of the White House incumbed, probably the worst President since Franklin D. Pierce, the ensuing outrages forced him to come out of retirement for his last work - "A man without a country" which says it all. It applies (or should apply) to many. Read it.

Battle of Britain

stuff it ain't

This is Faye Turney (Turkey?)

the intrepid if rather overweight British gender equality sailor who in company with 14 of her fellow 'coast patrollers' was captured and then released by Mahmood the Munificent last week. Mr. Blair of course raised an emetic high moral storm about perfidious Iran and how the sailors were well within Iraqi territorial waters. How you define territorial waters in an enormous ill-defined muddy estuary is a bit puzzling, and begs the ur-question: who gave the Brits the right to be in Iraq or its waters in the first place? Why were the Brits so upset - I mean, it's not as if the Iranian navy is patrolling the coast of the Isle of Wight. No, these sailors were simply pawns in the sad little charade of the last act of Empire, and not very well equipped ones, in a little unarmed and unprotected rubber dinghy; so they rightly thought: why should they sail Mr. Blair's ducks for him?

So, in a very un-stiff upper lip manner, they sang whatever tune the Iranians wanted: apologised for straying into Iranian territory, thanked their captors for the good treatment etc etc.

When released, the predictable happened - Ms. Turney headed straight for the media, as fast as her pudgy legs would carry her, offering her 'story' for a 6 figure sum, meaning presumably more than £ 100 000. According to British military relulations, serving members are not allowed to give their accounts to the media - this time the rules were relaxed - why? was the MOD promised a percentage? And of course this time Ms. Turvey was singing a different tune, to up the ante - how she was threatened with death and rape, and stripped almost naked (could not have been a pretty sight). At least she must have felt under some honest impulse to earn her £100 000 plus. Only when howls of rage from the public intervened (for instance from a mother of one service person killed in Iraq, who unfortunately never had the opportunity to sell his story) did the British Ministry of Defence pull the plug and forbid any more of the gallant mariners blabbing to the telly. Wouldn't have been much to their stories anyway.

Moral of the story: if you start a shabby little war under false pretences, don't expect the hapless soldiers sent there to be heroes. As Slate magazine said, they are not defending their country; they are just pulling down their salaries. And who ever died for a salary (especially not good ones)?

This is Carlos Alberto Parreira,
the famous Brazilian (football) coach,

headhunted (or foothunted?) to coach the South Africa side in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup, to be held of course in South Africa. Not to be confused by the way with that other iconic Brazilian coach, Luiz Filip Scoleri – they look vaguely similar, except one with a moustache and one without.

Anyway, Mr. Parreira signed the contract, and arrived in South Africa at the end of last month. There were awed articles showing him emerging from his Sandton multi-star hotel to go house hunting for some suitable des res which start thereabouts at R20 000 per month. Mr Parreira would be able to afford this, since his contract stipulated a fee of US$ 250 000 per month, or R 1 800 000: about US$ 8000 per day (you can play around with a calculator for a few other parameters).

All started off well: he attended a couple of matches, and set up a training camp. Then a tiny problem – the South Africa Football Association had neglected to apply for a work permit for him (they probably reasoned they are God, with the destiny of the universe in their hands, so why should they consider such minutiae?). But the SA immigration authorities took a different view – Mr Parreira, on pain of arrest is not allowed to attend any games, takes notes off a televised game, or do anything which could be construed as ‘work’. So he is sitting around, at a cost of US$8000 per day. If South Africa, is anything like Namibia, where a work permit even for a celebrity can take 6 months to a year, we may be talked about a lot of dosh down the tubes.

This seems all to symptomatic of the hallucination and obsession, which is gripping the South Africa football authorities and the Government around 2010. Billions are being spent, for instance, on vast stadia holding five times what normal (post-cup?) crowds will be able to sustain. When any soul has the temerity to timidly suggest that one could manage by spending say a billion or two Rand less, he/she is accused of having an apartheid mentality. Government assume that the World Cup will be an event of cosmological significance, changing the destiny of a country and a continent, but it won’t be. It will be great, it will be amazing, but it will be a 4-week football tournament. And that’s it. Six months after Deutschland 2006, can anyone remember anything about it apart from the head butt? The only part of South African society which will, one can predict, make a huge killing (unfortunately probably literally) is the criminal industry.

That’s the long term. In the short term, I hope that work permit comes through soon.

I know it’s

a few days ago, so apologies for old news, but I’m still puzzled.

What led John Howard, the Australian PM, to lash out at Barak Obama, the latest candidate for the Dem nomination? (Or “08-ama”, as the cartoonists have obviously dubbed him). Is he (Howard) feeling increasingly isolated now that his buddies B&B are in the twilight of their careers? Is it because everyone else is ‘distancing’ himself or herself from his greatest love, the Iraq war? Why did he say that bin Laden must be circling the election date in 2008 and praying for an Obama/Democratic victory? Why is he still calling the Democrats the friends of the terrorists, when even Bush has given up on that one? Or maybe the news hasn’t reached the remote shores of Australia yet?

It need hardly be commented that Osama (not Obama) would most likely be praying for a Republican victory in 2008, since under Bush, al Qaeda has done brilliantly, and recruited staggeringly more supporters (the latest, a violent faction in Algeria) than Osama could ever have hoped for. As the other classic cartoon had it: “Is it not wondrous, O Vile One, that the more Bush talks, the less we have to do?”

Beyond this, why the sudden (and status-enhancing) attack in particular on Barak Obama, who is not by a very long shot the Dem’s confirmed candidate yet. After all, Howard has not launched a public attack on Senator Murtha or Speaker Pelosi, both vociferous anti-war Democrats. Could there be a niggly little racialist aspect, that Howard is infuriated by a cheeky Abo upstart daring to criticise his policies? especially towards a country whose policy has been, for a century, in all but name, the extermination of the Aborigine population?

Obama, as would be expected, gave a dignified reply. If Australia was concerned about troop commitments in Iraq, he said, she was most welcome to send more troops of her own. Since Australia maintains a derisory contingent of 1400 troops, about 100th of the US’s level, the suggestion is very apt.

It’s not often

that one agrees with everything that President Putin says. But in yesterday’s address at a high level security conference in Munich, he said, among other things, that the US was acting as the world’s sole superpower in a unipolar world, that it was exercising an almost uncontrolled use of military force to get its way, that it was flouting international law, that it was making the world a more dangerous place, that it was inspiring terrorism and forcing smaller countires to seek weapons of mass destruction for their protection.

In other words, that US policy is having the precisely oposite effect from what was ostensibly intended.

I would say the speech should get a 100% accuracy grade. Using the US’s (then) military supremacy to achieve dominance in world affairs, correct me if in error, was precisely the neocon’s agenda, as made specific in the writings emanating from the wood-panelled right-wing think tanks, in the early years of the Bush administration.

‘Surprising and disappointing’, was the State Department’s reaction. I’ll bet. ‘An unnecessary confrontation’ said someone. “If Russia wants meaningful relations with the West…” pompously began the overweight, superannuated Republican John McCain. It might actually be a case of things being the other way around.

‘Back to the cold war?’ posed the Babbling Broadcasting Corporation.

No, none of these things. Just a (re)emerging power flexing its muscles, and laying out a few, long overdue home truths. The US would be well advised to listen.

Over $ 7 billion

has been promised in aid by various countries at a recent conference for the reconstruction of the Lebanon.

I wonder how much of this was contributed by Israel.

Also to be wondered is, in the event of a Hizbollah governemtn coming to power, even legally, how much of this will be handed over??

“Where’s the outrage?”

as a former (and better) US president once said. I’m referring to Somalia, where a few months ago, after a decade of anarchy, a de facto but functional administration grew up, seemingly spontaneously, in the glaring absence of the so-called provisional government, which felt so popular and secure in its own country that it chose to base itself in Nairobi; its leader never having been to Mogadishu. Anyway, this de facto administration, unlike the products of innumerable hot-air conferences, actually started to get things done. The seaport and airport of Mogadishu were opened. Government offices started to function. You could walk around the city without being instantly mowed down by militias. It seemed to be a government by consent, whereas the ‘official’ government, a cobbling together of warlords, was nowhere to be seen, or at least languished in a far southern town. The administration was called the Union of Islamic Courts – the very name indicating that it was primarily a clerical and administrative organisation, rather than a political one. Religious extremists? No more so than the Christian Democrat party in Germany is an extremist religious organisation.

But the UIC, though not fundamentalist, made two fundamental mistakes. One was simply by virtue of being successful. Somalia’s neighbours, Ethiopia, which fought several border wars with Somalia in the 70’s, and the comically corrupt regime of Kenya, must have concluded that a stable and functioning Somalia represented a competitor and a threat to them. They decided to take action, using the installation of the recognised but moribund ‘provisional government’ as a pretext.

The other mistake was the inclusion of ‘Islamic’ in their name, which would guarantee that sooner or later they would get bombed by the US. No matter that the organisation was overwhelmingly a moderate one, the paranoid delusionals in Washington could very easily be convinced (by some “reliable intelligence” again) that they harboured dangerous wanted-list al Qaeda suspects. So Ethiopia, Kenya and the US ganged up on the UIC, and of course defeated them by sheer weight of firepower. The UIC retreated, saying that they did not want to cause civilian casualties, an attitude somewhat different, we may note, from that of the US.

The US navy blockaded the Somali coast to prevent UIC members from escaping (why should they wish to ‘escape’ from their own country?) : and is not the blockading of a neutral country’s coast an act of war in international law? And of course, the US duly bombed the UIC’s last remaining stronghold in the far south, with evidence of civilian casualties but very little evidence of slain al Qaeda militants.

So now the provisional government holds sway in Mogadishu, propped up by 8000 troops of the Ethiopian army. As far as the US is concerned, the Ethiops made an ideal low cost proxy force. They will leave ‘in a few days’ stated the Ethiopian prime minister. Fat chance, seeing that in their absence the half-life of the Somalia PG would be about 10 minutes.

There is an attempt to legitimise this exercise by claiming that it is only temporary, pending the arrival of an AU peacekeeping force. The only show-willing contributor to such a force so far is Uganda, which seems rather suspiciously eager to get in on the act. Few regional countries wish to get involved in Somalia; and anyway the AU is fully stretched doing an essential job in Dafur. So I would bet the Ethiopians will stay put for the time being. Why not? They have effectively a client state, if not a colony, and a new coastline, the former one lost to Eritrea.

In the last couple of days there has been another disturbing incident. One of the leaders of the UIC, conceded by even the EKUS ‘coalition’ to be a moderate, 'turned himself in' in northern Kenya, flown to Nairobi, and then ‘handed over’ to US officials. By what right or law is this done? He is presently being ‘held’, as a citizen of a sovereign country (which Somalia is now touted to be) on no other ground than that he is an official of an organisation unpopular with the US. Next stop, Guantanamo!

What are we to make of the statement/admission by the US ambassador to Kenya that ‘some’ members of the UIC were moderates and should play a part in the new Somalia order? It seems like an exercise in PR and window dressing. If you had just been driven out of your office by a foreign army, covertly backed by the US, would you be inclined to slink back and ‘play a part’? It is highly unlikely that the provisional government would trust anyone in the UIC, and rightly so.

So there we have it. A Christian army invading and forcibly occupying a Muslim state. Sound familiar? The army is bound to be popular, Not too many signs of a full insurgency yet (the attacks on Ethiopian troops are starting) but watch this space. Certainly, there are no flowers in the street. What do you expect from a new war, from the folks who brought you Iraq? (As the commentator Gwynne Dyer said).

A justifiable cause for outrage? I think so.