Olbermann'd, or The Sound of Worms Turning

I remember way back when, before the Iraq war was a twinkle in Rummy's sclerotic eye, being flamed horribly on usenet for suggesting that Americans were being bamboozled by their news and media outlets. They were most insulted: you'd've thought I'd suggested that all Americans committed incest as a matter of course considering the hysterical reaction.

So I never thought to see this tirade from Keith Olbermann, condemning Bush & Rummy and all their works, on US mainstream media - and on MSNBC no less.

He's a bit tendentious (not to mention pompous) in parts, but you've got to applaud the sentiment. You can tell he's been saving this up for a looong time.

Read more: War on terror, Islamofascism, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, YouTube, Video, Bush, Rumsfeld

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Posted 5:29 PM by Republic of Palau

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Throw back the little ones and pan-fry the big ones

Is it hip to be a Steely Dan fan again yet? Whether it is or no I've always liked them and I've been relistening to Aja lately, which is why this odd little snippet of gossip in the Grauniad caught my eye:

Please, if anyone knows what Steely Dan duo Walter Becker and Donald Fagen are on or up to then let us know. As previously reported they recently wrote an open letter to actor Luke Wilson complaining that his actor brother Owen used their song Cousin Dupree as the basis for his character in You, Me and Dupree. Now they have posted an 1,800 word open letter to Wes Anderson, who directed the Wilsons in The Royal Tenenbaums and Bottle Rocket. "Surely," they write, "we are not the first to tell you that your career is suffering from a malaise." They then write suggested lyrics for Anderson's next film and end up asking that a cheque for $400,000 (£210,000) be FedExed to them.

I sensed some backstory here, so I did a little google. Here's the full text of the letter to Luke Wilson. nd here's the letter to Wes Anderson. I love the language, very 1975.

It's like a little window back in time. Pass the bowl man. The whole thing'd be kinda sweet, if it weren't just so goddamned breadheaded.

The whole letter reads like a comedic screenplay. In my mind's eye I see Donald Sutherland as Fagan and Kevin Spacey as Becker ( ymmv, obviously) but I'm really not quite sure about the director ... the Coen brothers maybe, or the Farrelly's or some other indy-type sibling duo. Perhaps that's just a tad obvious. I know who - Kevin Smith! Dude! Whatever, it just has to have a crazed John Goodman in it somewhere. He'd be perfect as as the psychotic Russian hired muscle... I'm feeling the excitement here, this could be a real pitch. Major studios please note, I thought of it first.

See how it works? Little fleas have bigger fleas upon their backs to bite 'em and bigger fleas have bigger fleas and so ad infinitum. I await my royalty demand from Becker & Fagan with bated breath.

Read more: Music, Gossip, Steely Dan , Seventies Nostalgia

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Posted 9:11 AM by Republic of Palau

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This Does not Inspire Confidence

There's a good reason why they're called the plod.

Watch Mark Thomas with a video camera runs rings around a bevy of beefy transport police at Highbury & Islington tube station - it's the funniest thing I've seen in ages. This lot couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery, let alone a bloody war on terror.

Read more: War on terror, London Underground, UK Police, Tube-bombings, Video, YouTube, Agitprop, Mark Thomas

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Posted 1:54 AM by Republic of Palau

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Playing Tony's Game

Times Withholds Web Article in Britain
By TOM ZELLER Jr.
Published: August 29, 2006

If Web readers in Britain were intrigued by the headline “Details Emerge in British Terror Case,” which sat on top of The New York Times’s home page much of yesterday, they would have been disappointed with a click.

Details Emerge in British Terror Case (August 28, 2006) “On advice of legal counsel, this article is unavailable to readers of nytimes.com in Britain,” is the message they would have seen. “This arises from the requirement in British law that prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial.”

Well, fuck that. The article is reposted below in full, for those of my compatriots who'd like to read it. As the UK government knew they would.

Tony Blair and his loyal satrap and namesake Sir Ian Blair are playing a cynical political game with the British legal system. On the one hand they're feeding information by proxy to the New York Times while on the other telling them they can't print it because it's all sub-judice and might prejudice the trial.

The NYT, coward that it is, meekly complies and blocks online access to the article from the UK and pulls any and all UK-bound print editions. "Yellow NYT gagged by UK D-notice", now there's a Times headline we're unlikely to see.

Doesn't the NYT know it's being played by Downing St.? There's a reason for all this leaking, it's a way of having a trial without the necessity for all that irritating legal stuiff like due process and testing the evidence. The UK government knows damned well that bloggers with NYT access will republish the article straight away. The ban is just cosmetic - it's as good as published worldwide and they know it.

This way Blair & Blair get the PR result they want ("Look how tough we are! Look at all the scary conspiracies all around! Don't worry, we'll save you!") by putting their case out in the media where the accused can't challenge it; the alleged conspirators'll be tried and found guilty there and the real trial will have to be abandoned because of it, or they'll have to be acquitted.

The government's much-trumpeted evidence will never have to be tested. They can say they found all this stuff, but it'll be never be brought to proof in court.Neat eh?

We'll never know if this deadly terrorist plot was in fact just another mare's nest.

Details Emerge in British Terror Case
LONDON, Aug. 27 — On Aug. 9, in a small second-floor apartment in East London, two young Muslim men recorded a video justifying what the police say was their suicide plot to blow up trans-Atlantic planes: revenge against the United States and its “accomplices,” Britain and the Jews.

“As you bomb, you will be bombed; as you kill, you will be killed,” said one of the men on a “martyrdom” videotape, whose contents were described by a senior British official and a person briefed about the case. The young man added that he hoped God would be “pleased with us and accepts our deed.”

As it happened, the police had been monitoring the apartment with hidden video and audio equipment. Not long after the tape was recorded that day, Scotland Yard decided to shut down what they suspected was a terrorist cell. That action set off a chain of events that raised the terror threat levels in Britain and the United States, barred passengers from taking liquids on airplanes and plunged air traffic into chaos around the world.

The ominous language of seven recovered martyrdom videotapes is among new details that emerged from interviews with high-ranking British, European and American officials last week, demonstrating that the suspects had made considerable progress toward planning a terrorist attack. Those details include fresh evidence from Britain’s most wide-ranging terror investigation: receipts for cash transfers from abroad, a handwritten diary that appears to sketch out elements of a plot, and, on martyrdom tapes, several suspects’ statements of their motives.

But at the same time, five senior British officials said, the suspects were not prepared to strike immediately. Instead, the reactions of Britain and the United States in the wake of the arrests of 21 people on Aug. 10 were driven less by information about a specific, imminent attack than fear that other, unknown terrorists might strike.

The suspects had been working for months out of an apartment that investigators called the “bomb factory,” where the police watched as the suspects experimented with chemicals, according to British officials and others briefed on the evidence, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, citing British rules on confidentiality regarding criminal prosecutions.

In searches during raids, the police discovered what they said were the necessary components to make a highly volatile liquid explosive known as HMTD, jihadist materials, receipts of Western Union money transfers, seven martyrdom videos made by six suspects and the last will and testament of a would-be bomber, senior British officials said. One of the suspects said on his martyrdom video that the “war against Muslims” in Iraq and Afghanistan had motivated him to act.

Investigators say they believe that one of the leaders of the group, an unemployed man in his 20’s who was living in a modest apartment on government benefits, kept the key to the alleged “bomb factory” and helped others record martyrdom videos, the officials said.

Hours after the police arrested the 21 suspects, police and government officials in both countries said they had intended to carry out the deadliest terrorist attack since Sept. 11.

Later that day, Paul Stephenson, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police in London, said the goal of the people suspected of plotting the attack was “mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” On the day of the arrests, some officials estimated that as many as 10 planes were to be blown up, possibly over American cities. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described the suspected plot as “getting really quite close to the execution stage.”

But British officials said the suspects still had a lot of work to do. Two of the suspects did not have passports, but had applied for expedited approval. One official said the people suspected of leading the plot were still recruiting and radicalizing would-be bombers.

While investigators found evidence on a computer memory stick indicating that one of the men had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to cities in the United States, the suspects had neither made reservations nor purchased plane tickets, a British official said. Some of their suspected bomb-making equipment was found five days after the arrests in a suitcase buried under leaves in the woods near High Wycombe, a town 30 miles northwest of London.

Another British official stressed that martyrdom videos were often made well in advance of an attack. In fact, two and a half weeks since the inquiry became public, British investigators have still not determined whether there was a target date for the attacks or how many planes were to be involved. They say the estimate of 10 planes was speculative and exaggerated.

In his first public statement after the arrests, Peter Clarke, chief of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, acknowledged that the police were still investigating the basics: “the number, destination and timing of the flights that might be attacked.”

A total of 25 people have been arrested in connection with the suspected plot. Twelve of them have been charged. Eight people were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and preparing acts of terrorism. Three people were charged with failing to disclose information that could help prevent a terrorist act, and a 17-year-old male suspect was charged with possession of articles that could be used to prepare a terrorist act. Eight people still in custody have not been charged. Five have been released. All the suspects arrested are British citizens ranging in age from 17 to 35.

Despite the charges, officials said they were still unsure of one critical question: whether any of the suspects was technically capable of assembling and detonating liquid explosives while airborne.

A chemist involved in that part of the inquiry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was sworn to confidentiality, said HMTD, which can be prepared by combining hydrogen peroxide with other chemicals, “in theory is dangerous,” but whether the suspects “had the brights to pull it off remains to be seen.”

While officials and experts familiar with the case say the investigation points to a serious and determined group of plotters, they add that questions about the immediacy and difficulty of the suspected bombing plot cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the public statements made at the time.

“In retrospect,’’ said Michael A. Sheehan, the former deputy commissioner of counterterrorism in the New York Police Department, “there may have been too much hyperventilating going on.”

Some of the suspects came to the attention of Scotland Yard more than a year ago, shortly after four suicide bombers attacked three subway trains and a double-decker bus in London on July 7, 2005, a coordinated attack that killed 56 people and wounded more than 700. The investigation was dubbed “Operation Overt.’’

The Police Are Tipped Off
The police were apparently tipped off by informers. One former British counterterrorism official, who was working for the government at the time, said several people living in Walthamstow, a working-class neighborhood in East London, alerted the police in July 2005 about the intentions of a small group of angry young Muslim men.

Walthamstow is best known for its faded greyhound track and the borough of Waltham Forest, where more than 17,000 Pakistani immigrants live in the largest Pakistani enclave in London.

Armed with the tips, MI5, Britain’s domestic security services, began an around-the-clock surveillance operation of a dozen young men living in Walthamstow — bugging their apartments, tapping their phones, monitoring their bank transactions, eavesdropping on their Internet traffic and e-mail messages, even watching where they traveled, shopped and took their laundry, according to senior British officials.

The initial focus of the investigation was not about possible terrorism aboard planes, but an effort to see whether there were any links between the dozen men and the July 7 subway bombers, or terrorist cells in Pakistan, the officials said.

The authorities quickly learned the identity of the man believed to have been the leader of the cell, the unemployed man in his mid-20’s, who traveled at least twice within the past year to Pakistan, where his activities are still being investigated.

Last June, a 22-year-old Walthamstow resident, who is among the suspects arrested Aug. 10, paid $260,000 cash for a second-floor apartment in a house on Forest Road, according to official property records. The authorities noticed that six men were regularly visiting the second-floor apartment that came to be known as the “bomb factory,” according to a British official and the person briefed about the case.

Two of the men, who were likely the bomb-makers, were conducting a series of experiments with chemicals, said the person briefed on the case.

MI5 agents secretly installed video and audio recording equipment inside the apartment, two senior British officials said. In a secret search conducted before the Aug. 10 raids, agents had discovered that the inside of batteries had been scooped out, and that it appeared several suspects were doing chemical experiments with a sports drink named Lucozade and syringes, the person with knowledge of the case said. Investigators have said they believe that the suspects intended to bring explosive chemicals aboard planes inside sports drink bottles.

In that apartment, according to a British official, one of the leaders and a man in his late 20’s met at least twice to discuss the suspected plot, as MI5 agents secretly watched and listened. On Aug. 9, just hours before the police raids occurred in 50 locations from East London to Birmingham, the two men met again to discuss the suspected plot and record a martyrdom video.

As one of the men read from a script before a videocamera, he recited a quotation from the Koran and ticked off his reasons for the “action that I am going to undertake,” according to the person briefed on the case. The man said he was seeking revenge for the foreign policy of the United States, and “their accomplices, the U.K. and the Jews.” The man said he wanted to show that the enemies of Islam would never win this “war.”

Beseeching other Muslims to join jihad, he justified the killing of innocent civilians in America and other Western countries because they supported the war against Muslims through their tax dollars. They were too busy enjoying their Western lifestyles to protest the policies, he added. Though British officials usually release little information about continuing investigations, Scotland Yard took the unusual step of disclosing some detailed information about the investigation last Monday, when the suspects were charged.

A Trove of Evidence
“There have been 69 searches,” Mr. Clarke, the chief antiterrorist police official from Scotland Yard, said Monday. “These have been in houses, flats and business premises, vehicles and open spaces.”

Investigators also seized more than 400 computers, 200 mobile phones and 8,000 items like memory sticks, CD’s and DVD’s. “The scale is immense,” Mr. Clarke said. “Inquiries will span the globe.”

He said those searches revealed a trove of evidence, and officials and others last week provided additional details.

Four of the law firms that are defending suspects declined to comment.

When police officers knocked down the door to the second-floor apartment on Forest Road, they found a plastic bin filled with liquid, batteries, nearly a dozen empty drink bottles, rubber gloves, digital scales and a disposable camera that was leaking liquid, the person with knowledge of the case said. The camera might have been a prototype for a device to smuggle chemicals on the plane.

In the pocket of one of the suspects, the police found the computer memory stick that showed he had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to the United States, a British official said. The man is said to have had a diary that included a list that the police interpreted as a step-by-step plan for an attack. The items included batteries and Lucozade bottles. It also included a reminder to select a date.

In the homes of a number of the suspects, the police found jihadist literature and DVD’s about “genocide” in Iraq and Palestine, according to British officials. In one house searched by the police in Walthamstow, the authorities found a copy of a book called “Defense of the Muslim Lands.”

A “last will and testament” for one of the accused was said to have been found at his brother’s home. Dated Sept. 24, 2005, the will concludes, “What should I worry when I die a Muslim, in the manner in which I am to die, I go to my death for the sake of my maker.” God, he added, can if he wants “bless limbs torn away!!!”

Looking for Global Ties In addition, the British authorities are scouring the evidence for clues to whether there is a global dimension to the suspected plot, particularly the extent to which it was planned, financed or supported in Pakistan, and whether there is a connection to remnants of Al Qaeda. They are still trying to determine who provided the cash for the apartment and the computer equipment and telephones, officials said.

Several of the suspects had traveled to Pakistan within weeks of the arrests, according to an American counterterrorism official.

At a minimum, investigators say at least one of the suspects’ inspiration was drawn from Al Qaeda. One of the suspects’ “kill-as-they-kill” martyrdom video was taken from a November 2002 fatwa by Osama bin Laden.

British officials said many of the questions about the suspected plot remained unanswered because they were forced to make the arrests before Scotland Yard was ready.

The trigger was the arrest in Pakistan of Rashid Rauf, a 25-year-old British citizen with dual Pakistani citizenship, whom Pakistani investigators have described as a “key figure” in the plot.

In 2000, Mr. Rauf’s father founded Crescent Relief London, a charity that sent money to victims of last October’s earthquake in Pakistan. Several suspects met through their involvement in the charity, a friend of one of them said. Last week, Britain froze the charity’s bank accounts and opened an investigation into possible “terrorist abuse of charitable funds.” Leaders of the charity have denied the allegations.

Several senior British officials said the Pakistanis arrested Rashid Rauf without informing them first. The arrest surprised and frustrated investigators here who had wanted to monitor the suspects longer, primarily to gather more evidence and to determine whether they had identified all the people involved in the suspected plot.

But within hours of Mr. Rauf’s arrest on Aug. 9 in Pakistan, British officials heard from intelligence sources that someone connected to him had tried to contact some of the suspects in East London. The message was interpreted by investigators as a possible signal to move forward with the plot, officials said.

“The plotters received a very short message to ‘Go now,’ ” said Franco Frattini, the European Union’s security commissioner, who was briefed by the British home secretary, John Reid, in London. “I was convinced by British authorities that this message exists.”

A senior British official said the message from Pakistan was not that explicit. But, nonetheless, investigators here had to change their strategy quickly.

“The aim was to keep this operation going for much longer,” said a senior British security official who requested anonymity because of confidentiality rules. “It ended much sooner than we had hoped.”

From then on, the British government was driven by worst-case scenarios based on a minimum-risk strategy.

British investigators worried that word of Mr. Rauf’s arrest could push the London suspects to destroy evidence and to disperse, raising the possibility they would not be able to arrest them all. But investigators also could not rule out that there could be an unknown second cell that would try to carry out a similar plan, officials said.

Mr. Clarke, as the country’s top antiterrorism police official in London with authority over police decisions, ordered the arrests.

But it was left to Mr. Reid, who has been home secretary since May and is a former defense secretary, to decide at emergency meetings of police, national security and transport leaders, what else needed to be done. Mr. Reid and Mr. Clarke declined repeated requests for interviews.

Prime Minister Tony Blair was on vacation in Barbados, where he was said to have monitored events in London; Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott did not attend the meeting.

“While the arrests were unfolding, the Home Office raised Britain’s terror alert level to “critical,” as the police continued their raids of suspects’ homes and cars. All liquids were banned from carry-on bags, and some public officials in Britain and the United States said an attack appeared to be imminent. In addition to Mr. Stephenson’s remark that the attack would have been “mass murder on an unimaginable scale,” Mr. Reid said that attacks were “highly likely” and predicted that the loss of life would have been on an “unprecedented scale.”

Two weeks later, senior officials here characterized the remarks as unfortunate. As more information was analyzed and the British government decided that the attack was not imminent, Mr. Reid sought to calm the country by backing off from his dire predictions, while defending the decision to raise the alert level to its highest level as a precaution.

In lowering the threat level from critical to severe on Aug. 14, Mr. Reid acknowledged: “Threat level assessments are intelligence-led. It is not a process where scientific precision is possible. They involve judgments.”

Reporting for this article was contributed by William J. Broad from New York, Carlotta Gall from Pakistan, David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.

UK Terrorism. UK Bombings. New York Times, Internet Censorship, UK law, Sub-Judice, UK Trials

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Posted 1:02 AM by Republic of Palau

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Here Comes The Rain Again

Sorry for the absence of posts for the past couple of days, but life intervened in the form of a collapsing wardrobe and the realisation that it's nearly autumn, none of my clothes fit me, and I really own a lot of crap I'm just too sentimental to throw away. A big sort-out was definitely required, which led, as it tends to, to root and branch reform of domestic arrangements, and a big bag of clothes to go to the recycling bin (which no doubt will still be in the hallway waiting to be taken there come Christmas). Not really what I wanted to be doing in August. This time of year is for draining the last dregs of summer, sitting out drowsing in the hot sunny garden with a book, half-listening to the bees sporific droning in the lavender and hibiscus, not getting out the winter boots and sweaters.

Instead August has come and gone in one endless blur of constant thunderstorms and torrential downpours that still show no signs of stopping. The poor garden that I worked so hard on, that should be in full bloom now, is a bedraggled sodden mess. It's getting to the point where the drainage systems can't handle any more water in some southern parts of the city - this August's been the wettest ever and given Amsterdam's precarious situation vis a vis flooding, it's a bit of a worry. Thank you so much, industrial revolution! Thank you even more the Rijkswaterstaat for saving the city from drowning, the danger of which the Katrina anniversary is a salutary reminder.

Unlike regular, sensible rain, where you can just take an umbrella with you and maybe just get a bit damp if you're unlucky, these tropical downpours have meant my being mostly confined to quarters other than for the occasional walk across the road to the supermarket, which doesn't even have the saving grace of being any good. I'm going pale, wan and stir-crazy because after 3 weeks of sitting at the computer either staring at the endless rain or at the endless brutality, venality and corruption of politics onscreen it's all just getting to be a little bit too much.

So a collapsing wardrobe was actually quite a pleasant distraction. Now for the trip to IKEA, what larks. At least it's out.

I was trying to find video of Mitch Benn in a horned helmet and furs singing the IKEA song to illustrate this post, but it's one that YouTube appears not to have yet. So we'll just have to make do with 'Hezbo-hezbo-la-la-la.'

I guarantee you'll be earwormed for days.

Normal blogservice will be resumed as soon as the wardrobe's put together (about 3 months, then) and all the stuff's put away tidily.

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Posted 11:44 AM by Republic of Palau

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You Can Tell Which Way The Wind Blows...

When big cosmetic companies like Lauder subsidiary MAC start running ads like this, in which comedian Sandra Bernhardt refers to "thin-lipped Republican bitches":

On the whole it's a crap ad apart from that one outburst, but it was withdrawn immediately once the predictable howls came from those who immediately recognised themselves in Bernhardt's description.

But I don't think the withdrawal was due only to the right-wing bleating. Any canny advertising bod would know that an inflammatory internet ad would be immediately YouTubed, so any later withdrawal would be an empty gesture and I'm sure MAC's advertising agency knew exactly what they were doing in making this ad and that they took that into account.

What's odd is that MAC owners The Lauder family have long been out & proud Republicans. Take Ronald, for instance:

Lauder is the son of Estée Lauder and Joseph Lauder, founders of Estée Lauder Companies, and the younger brother of Leonard Lauder, chairman of the board of the Estee Lauder company. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and holds a Bachelors degree in International Business from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He studied at the University of Paris, and received a Certificate in International Business from the University of Brussels. He is married and has two children. Lauder started to work for the Estee Lauder Company in 1964. In 1984 he became a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO policy at the Pentagon. In 1986 Ronald Reagan named him as the US ambassador to Austria, a position he held until 1987. As a Republican, he made a bid to become the mayor of New York City in 1989. Lauder manages investments in real estate and media, such as Central European Media Enterprise and Israeli TV.

It's interesting tp speculate whether this might be a testing of the zeitgeist for the massive, Republican-inclined Lauder cosmetics empire, and if so, whether it presages a general shift towards liberalism in the boardrooms of the US. Are we finally seeing a commercial backlash of sorts against the prevailing values of the administration ?

It maybe so, but at bottom it's just another way of making a profit from womens' insecurities, this time by dressing them up in politics .

[Thanks to Pandagon for the tip.]

Read more: Advertising, Marketing, MAC, Cosmetics, Make-up,Fashion, Beauty products, Sandra Bernhardt, Republicans

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Posted 10:25 AM by Republic of Palau

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Irony Is Dead

Or at the very least it's gasping like a landed fish. Consider this morning's headline:

Washington to investigate Israel's use of cluster bombs in conflict

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 26 August 2006

The US government is investigating whether Israel has broken secret agreements with Washington with its use of cluster bombs in the Lebanon conflict.

Officials confirmed yesterday that the State Department had launched the inquiry into a possible violation by Israel of an undertaking to use the munitions against only organised armies and defined military targets. The Pentagon has also postponed a shipment of M-26 artillery shells, according to The New York Times.

[...]

And this from just 3 years ago:

Cluster bombs kill in Iraq, even after shooting ends
By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY

When Jassim al-Qaisi saw the canisters the size of D batteries falling on his neighborhood just before 7 a.m. April 7, he laughed and asked himself: "Now what are the Americans throwing on our heads?" (

The strange objects were fired by U.S. artillery outside Baghdad as U.S. forces approached the Iraqi capital. In the span of a few minutes, they would kill four civilians in the al-Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad and send al-Qaisi's teenage son to the hospital with metal fragments in his foot. The deadly objects were cluster bomblets, small explosives packed by the dozens or hundreds into bombs, rockets or artillery shells known as cluster weapons. When these weapons were fired on Baghdad on April 7, many of the bomblets failed to explode on impact. They were picked up or stumbled on by their victims.

The four who died in the al-Dora neighborhood that day lived a few blocks from al-Qaisi's house. Rashid Majid, 58, who was nearsighted, stepped on an unexploded bomblet around the corner from his home. The explosion ripped his legs off. As he lay bleeding in the street, another bomblet exploded a few yards away, instantly killing three young men, including two of Majid's sons — Arkan, 33, and Ghasan, 28. "My sons! My sons!" Majid called out. He died a few hours later.

The deaths occurred because the world's most modern military, one determined to minimize civilian casualties, went to war with stockpiles of weapons known to endanger civilians and its own soldiers. The weapons claimed victims in the initial explosions and continued to kill afterward, as Iraqis and U.S. forces accidentally detonated bomblets lying around like small land mines.

[...]

Silly Israel. The US has no ethical problems with cluster bombs per se. The IDF just didn't drop them when and where they were told to. Now the WH thinks the announcement of an 'investigation' will soothe the outrage and shut the public up. But it won't shut up, not when we see that the investigator is investigating a crime it regularly commits itself. You might as well as Tom DeLay to investigate Jack Abramoff.

Read More... USA, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, War, Bombing, Cluster bombs, Munitions, Human rights, Arms trade

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Posted 8:11 AM by Republic of Palau

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This Pic's For All The Sadly No'ers...

... who hotfooted it over here when they saw the phrase 'red-headed librarian' in my comment here.

I guess if Lindsay and Amanda have the gumption to be front and center, I should be too. A feminist knows no fear, except maybe for very large spiders.

Happy now, ya bunch of pervy geeks?

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Posted 5:42 PM by Republic of Palau

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Help!

A Texas man was browsing Liverpool webcam sites, looking at locations associated with the Beatles, when he noticed 3 men scaling a ladder. He called the Liverpol police, who swooped and arrsted the burglars on the spot.

The man from Dallas, Texas was using a live camera link to look at Mathew Street, an area of Liverpool synonymous with the Beatles as it is home to the famous Cavern Club where the band regularly played.

He saw intruders apparently breaking into a sports store and alerted local police.

We did get a call from someone in Dallas who was watching on a webcam that looks into the tourist areas, of which Mathew Street is one because of all the Beatles stuff," a Merseyside Police spokeswoman told Reuters.

"He called directly through to police here."

Officers were sent to the scene and three suspects were arrested.

Read whole story...

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Posted 4:09 PM by Republic of Palau

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Feh, Enough Seriousness. It's Friday, Bring On The Pole-Dancing Kitten!

Read more... YouTube, Friday cat-blogging, Kittens pole-dancing, Cuteness

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Posted 1:55 PM by Republic of Palau

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A Load of Bull? LRB On Hardt, Negri, Sovereignty and Totalitarianism

The London Review of Books has this thought-provoking review, by Malcolm Bull, of Hardt & Negri's influential Empire.

Bull posits that Negri has substituted Spinoza for Marx in his political reasoning on sovereignty (which is based in the autonomist movement) and that this distorts their whole thesis:

[...]

It's easy to see why Empire has proved the most successful work of political theory to come from the Left for a generation. Not only is it written with unusual energy, clarity and wit, but it addresses directly the central political issue of the moment: the perceived distance between ordinary people trying to live in the way they want and the systems of power that defeat them. By simultaneously redefining globalisation as a form of sovereignty and recasting the autonomist project in the republican tradition, Hardt and Negri offer an exceptionally optimistic analysis of the problem: remote as it may seem, sovereignty is nothing that a few like-minded people cannot create for themselves [My emphasis]. Today's anti-capitalist protests may look like mob violence, but that is half the point: the street mobs made America, too; this is counter-Empire in the making.

[...]

But Bull also says that replacing Marx with Spinoza results in a kind of shadow neoliberalism and says that Negri has misunderstood Spinoza entirely in espousing the view that power is only power if you take it. Negri has aligned himself with those who say there is no such thing as civil society, which Bull says was not Spinoza's point at all.

It is not at all obvious that Negri's interpretation of Spinoza is correct. In the Theologico-Political Treatise Spinoza had maintained that some sort of social contract was necessary and that natural right was transferred. In the Political Treatise, the contract disappears, but whether its elimination means the continuation of natural right in the civil state or the elision of the difference between the civil and the natural is less certain. Spinoza sometimes says the former, but he also emphasises that in the state of nature where 'the natural right of man is determined by the power of every individual, and belongs to everyone . . . it is a nonentity, existing in opinion rather than fact.' Only on entering the commonwealth does natural right become more than a fiction: 'men in the state of nature can hardly be possessed of their own right.' On this interpretation, civil right is the only form of right there is; in the state of nature there is so much risk that men are virtually powerless against each other; far from taking their unalienated power into the commonwealth, they experience it there for the first time. For man, the social animal, if not for God or nature, potestas creates potentia.

I have to admit that I gave Empire only the most cursory read, as I do so many things these days due my declining eyesight. (It's much easier to read online and until they put brightness and contrast controls on books it'll stay that way.) But I will make the effort to go back and read it in the light of Bull's review.

I'm firmly of the view that sovereignty resides in the people, but why does it? Is it because of their innate potential for force or because we agree that it does? It's arguable, which I suppose is Bull's point.

Whether you agree with him or not Bull does flag up interesting issues about globalised social control and totalitarianism in this article. Well worth reading.

Read more: London Review of Books, Globalisation, Hart& Negri Italian Autonomism,Socialism, Marx, Spinoza

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Posted 1:12 PM by Republic of Palau

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No Child's Behind Left.

The question "What's the matter with Kansas?" is often asked by US liberals. Perhaps what they should ask is 'what's the matter with the religious right?' Because it's not confined to Kansas...

Pastor, his family accused of molesting children
Wife accused of assisting in religious ritual, prosecutor says

WASHBURN, Mo. - The minister of a rural Ozarks church, his wife and her two brothers have been accused of molesting young girls from their congregation for years, sometimes as part of a religious ritual, officials said.

The county prosecutor says the Rev. Raymond Lambert, 51, of Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, repeatedly had sex with two underage girls with the help of his 49-year-old wife, Patty, according to court records.

For 10 years, the pastor told the girls, “We are preparing your body for service to God,” the prosecutor said.

Read whole story...

Time and time again there are media reports of church officials and fundamentalist Christians being involved in organised abuse. Many of the perpetrators and alleged perpetrators have ties to or are actual Republican party operatives and politicians.

Even where no known abuse is known of there are still those in the Republican party who have serious issues with sex and violence.

If you think I exaggerate let's revisit the list of Republican child sex offenders I posted a few months ago:

Republican County Constable Larry Dale Floyd was arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex with an 8-year old girl. Floyd has repeatedly won elections for Denton County, Texas, constable.

Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation. Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo was arrested for having sex with a 5-year old boy.

Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty to sexually molesting 13 and 14 year old girls.

Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.

Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.

Republican Mayor John Gosek was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls.

Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.

Republican Committeeman John R. Curtain was charged with molesting a teenage boy and unlawful sexual contact with a minor.

Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.

Republican zoning supervisor, Boy Scout leader and Lutheran church president Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered.

Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.

Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.

Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.

Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.

Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.

Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer was charged with molesting his 9-year old step-daughter after including her in an anti-Gore television commercial.

Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

It just goes on and on, doesn't it? But wait, there's more...

Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.

Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.

Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.

Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.

Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.

Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.

Republican Judge Ronald C. Kline was placed under house arrest for child molestation and possession of child pornography.

Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.

Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.

Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.

Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.

Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.

Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.

Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.

Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.

Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.

Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.

Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.

Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was found guilty of raping a 15-year old girl. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.

Read original post.

Ah fuck it, it's too sickening to continue this rollcall of perverts. I think the pattern is sufficiently established. You can read the full list of sicko wingnut offences here.

What's scary is that these are just the reported ones. How many women and children are suffering in silence? I've no doubt there's been more since that was published and the list could be amended daily.

But here's one Republican sicko that absolutely, definitely shouldn't be left out:

Republican Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the rape of children in Iraqi prisons in order to humiliate their parents into providing information about the anti-American insurgency.

...and he did so on US citizens' tax dollars.

Hmmmm. I wonder if the accused Misssouri pastor has any faith-based federal grants at that 'church' of his? How many other of these globs of human slime have committed offences on the taxpayer's dime? (The question may be moot according to Republican Rep. 'Bazoongas Katy' Harris, who says there is no separation between church and state.)

So what conclusisons can we draw from this list? Is there something in the Republican version of christianity that breeds child molestors and sex offenders, or do the said offenders gravitate to the Republican party because it's the party in power and power's what they're all about? If it were the Democratic party in control, would they join that instead? I wonder.

Which came first, the chickenhawk or the egg?

UPDATE: A child molestor can get elected, no problem. But be elected as an out lesbian and your own party can reverse the will of the electorate and nullify the result on atechnicality. Factor that one in when considering which party the misogynists and sex-obsessed gravitatate towards. Neither party's hands are clean.

Read more... US politics, Republican party, Child abuse, Sex Offenders, Fundies, Christianity

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Posted 9:36 AM by Republic of Palau

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By Eck, Gromit, That's a Funny-Looking Sheep.

That's one unhappy looking cat.

I'd be pissed off too if i were the poor love, since he or she also bears a striking resemblance to a feline Bin Laden.

Read More... Wallace and Gromit, Sean the Sheep, Sean of the Dead, Fancy Dress, Feline transmorphism, Cats, Cats in hats, Cats in hats with bats on rats...

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Posted 12:34 PM by Republic of Palau

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Milky Milky. Linky Linky.

British European Parliament member treated as a terrorist at EU airports. Tsk. Shouldn't've been traveling while Asian.

Yes, segregation is indeed back, live and in colour - CBS has a new series of the execrable Survivor, but this time they're pitting different ethnic groups or 'tribes,' as they charmingly put it, against each other. Yes, really. Of course you can trust Rush Limbaugh to take the bigot ball and run with it.

"Who us? Worried?" The Republicans issue a nasty little memo on Markos Moulitsas of Kos that's more revealing about their own inadequacies than about any left-wing conspiracy. And do they really want to tie party policy to bloggers bloviations? They forgot that guilt by association works both ways. I think they may come to regret that little poison missive.

No more stripping allowed at funerals. Bugger, that's my memorial plans scuppered then.

Mooo-arrrr.

Needs must when the devil drives... Indiana mother and son enlist in US army, graduate basic training together., saying they need the income.

Beware the wrath of the femosphere - Forbes magazine, the vanity publication for people with more money than sense and their hangers-on, gets hit with a shitstorm of criticism after publishing sexist drivel, getting scared, withdrawing it when the flak started flying, and then lying about it. Silly Forbeses.

The Right are being even dimmer than usual this week, and no wonder, when the Dear Leader's disintegration is clear for all to see. Here's his summer reading list. Yeah, right, we truly believe, as my kids used to say.

Does Josh Marshall really want these people's ad front and center on his site?

UK Channel 4 planning drug addict intevention reality show. Sick fuckers.

Read more: Forbes, Sexism, US Army, Puns, ISIHAC , Cow Parade , China, Funerals , Daily Kos, Republican party, Racism, Segregation, Survivor, War on Terror, Ethnic profiling. Josh Marshall, Channel 4, Drug addiction, Reality tv

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Posted 9:45 AM by Republic of Palau

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Give 'Em The Old One-Two

Think Progress looks to be taking a leaf out of The Independent's playbook:

35. Number of words the current issue of TIME magazine devotes to Judge Anna Diggs Taylor’s ruling that President Bush’s warrantless domestic wiretapping program is unconstitutional.

1,109. The number of words in the same issue on the extradition of John Mark Karr. (HT: Bill in Portland Maine) August 21, 2006 1:06 pm

Read more: UK media, US media, Framing, Statistics Political tactics, US Constitutional crisisGeorge Bush.Anna Diggs Taylor

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Posted 4:32 PM by Republic of Palau

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It's All About The Tubesteak

The Guardian's Oliver Burkeman reports in G2 on the Burger King Quad Stacker and the recent US phenomenon of 'politically incorrect' fast food. In a generally interesting post Burkeman takes several paragraphs to expound on received wisdom from fast food industry insiders and food pyschologists on portion size expectations, before he gets to the money paragraph:

[...]

Of course, you could argue that there is a refreshing honesty in products such as the BK Stacker Quad - it's a fatty pile of meat, and doesn't pretend otherwise - and there's some evidence that this approach is gaining a foothold elsewhere in the consumer economy. The best example is probably a US television ad for Hummer, the manufacturer of preposterous, lumbering, military-style SUVs, which non-owners like to explain as compensating for their owners' feelings of inferior manhood. (You can watch the ad online at tinyurl.com/mea23.) In the first scene, a man is at the supermarket checkout, buying tofu, carrots and soy. A second man arrives in the queue behind him, with a trolley full of meat and barbecue supplies.

The first man, looking queasy and insecure, completes his purchase, then immediately drives to a Hummer dealership, where he buys a massive new vehicle. "Restore the balance", the on-screen slogan reads. The man drives off, secure at last in his masculinity.

[...]

Read whole article...

Oy. Refreshing honesty? Hardly. Try deep political cynicism

Is there anything in the US marketing strategy playbook that isn't about male impotence? It seems to me that the ad, the product it promotes and its competitors from the likes of Hardees are precisely micro-targeted. The fast-food chains certainly know their constituency - male Bush voters and wingnut bloggers, NASCAR Dads and Fox News viewers - and they're blatantly and cynically taking advantage of the idiocy diplayed therein to to boost the profits of a flagging industry.

Hardees even sells a Low-Carb Thickburger ( see below) to which the only reaction is - WTF?

Description: The Low Carb Thickburger maintains the same substantial 1/3-pound Angus beef hamburger patty as the original, but varies slightly in toppings. In order to reduce the amount of carbs, the bun was removed and the burger is served wrapped in iceberg lettuce leaves. The amount of ketchup was also reduced. The burger is also topped with mustard, mayo, cheese, tomato, red onion and dill pickles. The result is 49 fewer grams of carbohydrates.

The Hardee's Low Carb Thickburger is served in a paper "half wrap" and comes in its own cardboard carton, both of which make eating a lettuce-wrapped, bunless burger a much easier task than would be the case with typical fast-food packaging.

And how many calories? Doesn't matter. It's meat - and more meat = bigger penis according to the market metrics.

This is the Viagra strategy, which Falafel Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, and many other low-rent products use to great effect. It works - so why shouldn't it work for fast-food?

All you wannabe Instawankers rolling up to the drive thru in your stars 'n bars-tricked-out, fat-tyred pickups - yeah you, you who think that by eating a squashed, oozing mountain of industrial fats glued together with cow-tails, hooves, and testicles you're bucking the liberal trend and striking a blow for the little (in all senses of the word) man... Hey Sucker! You've been had, but you won't really know it till your first heart attack, when you can't afford healthcare.

I have to say that thing looks bloody vile. With all that dripping fat I'd be heaving before I got my second mouthful down.

But then I don't have a tiny penis.

Read More... Food Blogging, Fast Food, Burgers, Burger King, Bad Nutrition, Marketing, Public Health, Impotence, Viagra, Fox News, Falafel, O'Reilly

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Posted 2:19 PM by Republic of Palau

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Meta Hari

...or Seduce Your Readers.

This excellent article from 2003 at How To Save the World popped up in the referrer log today. Oddly enough we're thinking about a full-on redesign as it's way past time, so the reminder was very timely.

Prog Gold's look and feel is certainly very dated and the content and archiving could be organised a lot better. With the recent explosion in the volume of blogging and the increasing sophistication of blogging tools the look of a blog is now as much a factor in attracting readers as the content and we've been slipping a bit lately.

Which reminds me that Prog Gold appears to have devolved from a Flappy Bird to a Slithering Reptile in the TTLB ecology. Not sure whether this is because of the dilution of the blog pool, or whether you the readers dislike the content, or whether it's the design, which although good on accessibility is a bit clunky by 2006 standards. I don't care about TTLB that much; if I must be classified in that way I'd much rather be a Komodo dragon than a booby anyday so feh. (Actually, I'd be even more happy to be classified as Archaea but hey, that's just me. I'm a natural fogey. If I could line the blog in chintz, pipe in Radio 4 and install a TeasMade. I'd be happy. )

Anyway it's the quality of the links that counts and TTLB rates on numbers. It's also a Pyjamas Media blog so fuck 'em sideways with a barbed wire cluebat. Because of my innate tendency to read politics into everything, I've yet to find a milieu that is completely apolitical, even geology becuause where there's people there's politics. So it's worth noting that that same circular linking that made the wingnut blogosphere explode into political prominence so quickly, the continuing process of call and response that amplifies volume and influence, is now also being used by many of the more prominent progressive blogs. For some it's the reason why they are prominent. In blogging, as in life, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and UK/NL/US cross-blogging from a socialist perspective is not very squeaky. So it could also be that we don't fit into any political kool kidz clique and are not getting the linkage for that reason.

I've also noticed an odd thing about blogads: blogs with ads somehow seem much more authoritative than blogs who don't. Somehow the imprimatur of commerce seems to add gravitas and credence, though you'd think the opposite would be the case. We don't do ads, never have, never will (or at least only under massive duress, if the minimal income derived decides the choice of staying online or off) so that could also be a factor in the slippage.

But leaving politics and navel-gazing aside, Dave Pollard's article is a very helpful exposition on the structural aspects of blogging and has lost nothing in usefulness since its original publication. I urge every blogger, no matter how experienced, to read it, ancient as it may seem in internet years. There are those who would say (and you know who you are, Martin) that old news is old news but to my mind a good post is worth reposting no matter how old it is. (As an aside to all the Johnny-come-latelies who pontificate on blogging from the great height of a year or so's experience, blogging's older than you think. So stfu.)

Some of the most popular blogs are indeed a bugger to read and could certainly use his advice. If I were to have the self-discipline to follow all David Pollard's admirable blogging precepts this blog would be a much better read all round, that's for sure. I need to go off and inwardly digest it for a while and then see how the advice can be put into practice on this blog, because there's certainly huge room for improvement in looks, usability and content.

The good counsel starts from the very first paragraph:

1. Use Titles: Almost all blog tools allow titles for each post, and they're invaluable for readers who browse dozens of blogs every day. Make the title clever if you can, or must, but first and foremost make it clear what the post is about. And make it stand out like a real headline: Use a larger font size than you use for the body of the post, or at least use bold face. Example: Xian Crumlish's Radio Free Blogistan -- big, coloured, clear titles, and use of a 1-by-1 table with a different background colour to further set off each post. [Added Sept.2: Christian actually uses CSS style rather than a 1-by-1 table, but the effect is the same, and tables are easier for us non-techies]. Filchyboy also has distinctive, prominent titles.

2.Abstract Long Posts: If your post is significantly longer than one screen, consider writing a one- or two-sentence abstract summarizing the thesis of the post. This is especially important if the first couple of sentences of your post can't or don't serve this purpose. Example: I decided I needed an abstract for my post on The Blogging Process because my post had two separate and ambitious goals, and I didn't want the audience for the second to stop reading too early. It turned out to be one of my most popular posts, as much for the second half (how blogging tools need to be improved to enable conversation) as for the first (a detailed chart of my blogging process).

Read whole article...

One of my own particular blogging weaknesses is for the convoluted, obscure punning title that makes little sense to anyone but me. I do it just for the momentary smug pleasure of it. I probably use too many pictures too and I've also been known to hotlink when blogger won't upload images, which really is a no-no. Much of the blog is also NSFW due to my penchant for swearwords, pictures of unusual sex toys and Marmite.

But all these little idiosyncrasies only add to the gaiety of nations and we could certainly use some of that right now - just in a more readable and aesthetically pleasing format.

Read more... Internet, Weblogs, Blogging, Meta, Blogosphere, Blog ecology, Kool Kidz

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Posted 10:51 AM by Republic of Palau

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Hmmmm.... Donuts....

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Posted 7:23 PM by Martin Wisse

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What A Bloody Waste. UPDATE: Read that, then read this, then go find a wall to punch, because you'll want to. Read more: Iraq war, Women, Feminism, US armed forces

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Posted 10:28 AM by Republic of Palau

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"Some of My Best Friends are Ferengi..."

Apparently those imaginary television characters the Ferengi are really the Jews, which obviously means that Star Trek's writers are anti-semitic. Oh dear.

The Protocols Of The Elders Of The Ferengi

by Gavin Edwards

Star Trek, in all its incarnations, invites its audience to consider alien race narratives as parables for the earthly human condition. The Klingons act as a sign for aggression and its effect on a society, the Bajorans invite us to reflect on the Palestinians and other refugee people, and the Cheron people, with their half-black/half-white faces, keep on slapping us upside the head until we say, "Okay, race relations! I get it!"

So what, then, of the Ferengi? Why is this alien race different from all other alien races? Because the Trek creators have drawn them in such a way that they constantly evoke anti-Semitic images and archetypes. The Ferengi seem to be inviting us to engage in arrant racism about international Jewish banking conspiracies.

More...

It gets more elaborate from there. It amuses me no end to imagine the empurpled reaction of certain prominent wingnut (cough, Jonah Goldberg) Star Trek fans to this challenging new hypothesis. I predict a nerd-riot.

Thanks to Jesus' General commenter John for the tip.

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Posted 9:24 AM by Republic of Palau

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Comment of The Day

Maybe on her next tour, Madonna can stimulate herself with fluorescent multi-colored sex toys shaped like crosses, crescents, and stars of David while in the background a chorus of eunochs with enormous nipple piercings burn the Bible, Talmud, and Koran with a penis-shaped acetylene torch. The resulting common sense of injury and outrage that would pour forth from all the offended theists could lay the foundation for lasting peace in the Middle East.
Zachary Drake | Homepage | 08.21.06 - 2:04 am | #/

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Posted 7:23 PM by Republic of Palau

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Never Let It Be Said I'm not Bipartisan...

Oh! Oh! Yes, Minister!

Another political sex scandal breaks. Yet this time it's not John Prescott but a 'senior Tory' and his book of lurid confessions. Marie Woolf investigates.

Published: 20 August 2006

An explicit book telling of the athletic, complex and serial sexual shenanigans of a "senior Tory politician" is about to be published. It promises to be about as welcome to David Cameron's newmodel Conservatives as a cloudburst at a true-blue garden party.

And, with the author coyly hiding behind the by-line "Anonymous", all Westminster is now agog with speculation about his identity. In the words of one observer: "He's either got a very fertile imagination, or an awful lot of people are going to be wishing he kept the cap on his pen."

The memoir, provocatively entitled Unzipped, recounts encounters with prostitutes in hotel rooms, orgies, and flirtations with girls half his age. With echoes of Alan Clark's diaries, the author describes how he buys presents for his lovers in the House of Commons gift shop, identical "baby doll" basques for two in a lingerie shop near Parliament and visits to brothels at party conferences.

But the identity of the author is a closely-guarded secret and already the hunt is on at Westminster to unmask the serial Tory seducer, who reveals himself as a 46-year-old Tory councillor, former parliamentary candidate and political lobbyist.

The married politician, known simply as "Anonymous", recounts a string of sexual adventures, in explicit detail, including watching a male friend being buggered by a "lady-boy" prostitute.

The book is so lurid that the publisher, Virgin, has printed an "Adults Only" warning on its cover telling parents this political memoir is not suitable for aspirant teenage politicians.

Billed as "Scandalous sex secrets: the very private journal of a public servant", it describes its author meetings with MPs, lobbying to get motions put down in Parliament and tells how his hopes of becoming an MP were dashed by the 1997 Labour landslide.

He describes flirting with "a rather pretty" political researcher he is having lunch with in Portcullis House, the new parliamentary building, before heading off for a seedy encounter with a Czech prostitute in Harrow. "You would be forgiven for thinking it is fiction, but the events in this book are all true," said a spokeswoman for the publisher. "Unzipped is a fascinating insight into what really goes on among politicians, and inside the mind of a middle-aged man."

The author himself lays a few clues to his identity, saying he "is an insider, a very minor player among those who make the rules and uphold the value systems you have to live by. To meet me you, would correctly guess that I am in early middle age, but beyond that I bear remarkably few distinguishing features. I am neither fat nor thin, neither plain nor good-looking, neither ideologically left wing nor right".

He adds that his motivation to write the book was that "after a lifetime in politics I have fallen out of love with the establishment and broken free from the shackles of social convention."

Last week, there was talk at Westminster that the author had not done enough to cover his tracks. So recent are some of his social encounters, which begin in 2002, that some political figures believe they remember them. They believe the author may also have stood for the European Parliament and is a "wet" Conservative with pro-European links.

The whispers are that his vivid description of his attempt to seduce a young beautiful political Labour hack whom he admits is "someone young enough to be my daughter" contained enough details to out him. Thinly-disguised references to New Labour haunts have already been identified. A party he describes at the Cosmopolitan Club, is believed to be the Commonwealth Club, a central London restaurant popular with Labour ministers.

While his description of how his quarry changed political allegiances from Labour to the Tories has already got tongues wagging among Labour hacks who believe they know who she is - not least because he includes the giveaway detail that her parents, who are divorced, both live on the same street.

When The Independent on Sunday put the name of a senior political lobbyist, former Tory candidate and councillor to the publisher yesterday it refused to confirm or deny his identify.

"We are not saying whether it is or isn't him," said a spokeswoman.

But, colleagues of this figure, well-known in political circles, have for some reason recently been made to sign gagging clauses preventing them from talking to the press.

The memoir, a page-turning romp which leaves so little to the imagination it could be a bonkbuster novel, could prove highly damaging if the identity of the author is revealed, not least because of the "kiss and tell" nature of many of his revelations could also reveal the identity of other figures he describes, having affairs and liaisons with prostitutes.

The father of two describes how at a political dinner his wife told him she would give him her blessing to having sex with other women. Perhaps she did not realise how enthusiastically he would fulfill her wishes.

Extract: 'In love, and she's young enough to be my daughter'
"On our 20th wedding anniversary and at the age of 46, I fall ridiculously, hopelessly, head-over-heels in love with someone young enough to be my daughter: 'Angela'.

It is the birthday of Paul, 'New Labour' and therefore a political opponent, but also a friend. Together with a fellow Conservative, John, I join him and his party in a very trendy wine bar that's all late 20th-century Scandinavian minimalism amid Victorian splendour. On one of the sofas sits Angela... Do I believe in love at first sight? The answer has to be 'yes' though I do think it's conceptually more complicated than that. The initial reaction has to be reinforced by interaction to turn into love. Nonetheless, the attraction is instant and massive. When she stands, I can scarcely take my eyes off her; she has the figure of a model topped by the fine, even features of an English rose, framed by long chestnut hair."

Taken from 'Unzipped', by Anonymous, published by Virgin Books at £12.99

I can't wait to read this, it sounds a hoot - and there'll be the fun of trying to identify the living people featured. I'll keep the blog updated as names are named.

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Posted 2:22 PM by Republic of Palau

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