News round-up: Chilcot, Blair and Brangelina

Another picture in the frame this week.

News of Gordon Brown and his offer to loan Barack Obama the painting that inspired Barry in his youth — Hope by Victorian English artist George Frederic Watts. It would have hung in the Oval Office except it's indelibly associated with preacher Jeremiah Wright, the man who introduced it to him and nearly sunk Obama's bid for the presidency when he suggested that vicious US foreign policy might have something to do with terrorist attacks. The devil lying in the detail, it's revealed that Tony Blair's artwork gift to Bush was ... a bust of Conservative Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill (since replaced by one of Martin Luther King). Considering the first former PM Blair invited into Number 10 wasn't his own party's James Callaghan but Margaret Thatcher, I think this says a lot about where his tiny shrunken political heart truly lay.

A picture speaks a thousand words but still not as many as the ban on the autopsy report of the death of Dr David Kelly for a whacking 70 years. Hmm, I wonder what it is that could worry the government so. After all, we all know that Kelly commited suicide by opening his tiny ulnar artery in one wrist with a blunt garden knife. Don't we?

The body of former United Nations weapons inspector Dr Kelly was found in July 2003 in woods close to his Oxfordshire home, shortly after he was exposed as the source of a BBC news report questioning the Government’s claims that
Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, which could be deployed within 45 minutes.

Days before Tony Blair appears at the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, Home Secretary Alan Johnson raises UK terror threat level to "severe". Some wags have commented, "Iraq Inquiry not going too well then..." Should we expect something "severe" just before Blair's appearance at Chilcot on Friday? Images of tanks at Heathrow might be handy.

Suzanne Moore on moral compasses versus cowboy boots in today's Mail On Sunday:

[Straw] remains in the Cabinet though he now says the war he backed was ‘self-evidently unlawful’. By this he meant getting rid of Saddam militarily without a UN mandate. Hoon apparently felt the same. ... Though we are talking about thousands of dead Iraqis, hundreds of dead British soldiers, the issue that appears to be most important is that they only did what they were told to do even if they had private doubts. ... Alastair Campbell says he has learned some lessons from Iraq. That you can get away with murder might be one.

Remember this, kids, when they are blinding you with bureaucracy and touting United Nations Security Resolution 1441 as being the Golden Ticket for taking us into war with Iraq:

[Of France and Germany not tabling the second resolution] But they did not table it because we gave assurances to the French and Germans (and Russians and Chinese) that our draft of UNSCR 1441 did not authorise military action. The instructions were to inform those governments that UNSCR 1441 contained "no automatic trigger" which would lead to military action. ... all the FCO material at the time of the adoption of UNSCR 1441 and for weeks afterwards right up until March, took the view that UNSCR 1441 did not provide legal grounds for the invasion.

Aside from getting help to Haiti hours ahead of the US and their 5,000 troops, China has just announced a further $2.64 million in aid to the devastated nation. (Haiti, that is, not the US.)

Brangelina split but agree to divide the kids and $200 million.

News round-up: Chilcot, Blair and Brangelina

Another picture in the frame this week.

News of Gordon Brown and his offer to loan Barack Obama the painting that inspired Barry in his youth — Hope by Victorian English artist George Frederic Watts. It would have hung in the Oval Office except it's indelibly associated with preacher Jeremiah Wright, the man who introduced it to him and nearly sunk Obama's bid for the presidency when he suggested that vicious US foreign policy might have something to do with terrorist attacks. The devil lying in the detail, it's revealed that Tony Blair's artwork gift to Bush was ... a bust of Conservative Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill (since replaced by one of Martin Luther King). Considering the first former PM Blair invited into Number 10 wasn't his own party's James Callaghan but Margaret Thatcher, I think this says a lot about where his tiny shrunken political heart truly lay.

A picture speaks a thousand words but still not as many as the ban on the autopsy report of the death of Dr David Kelly for a whacking 70 years. Hmm, I wonder what it is that could worry the government so. After all, we all know that Kelly commited suicide by opening his tiny ulnar artery in one wrist with a blunt garden knife. Don't we?

The body of former United Nations weapons inspector Dr Kelly was found in July 2003 in woods close to his Oxfordshire home, shortly after he was exposed as the source of a BBC news report questioning the Government’s claims that
Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, which could be deployed within 45 minutes.

Days before Tony Blair appears at the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, Home Secretary Alan Johnson raises UK terror threat level to "severe". Some wags have commented, "Iraq Inquiry not going too well then..." Should we expect something "severe" just before Blair's appearance at Chilcot on Friday? Images of tanks at Heathrow might be handy.

Suzanne Moore on moral compasses versus cowboy boots in today's Mail On Sunday:

[Straw] remains in the Cabinet though he now says the war he backed was ‘self-evidently unlawful’. By this he meant getting rid of Saddam militarily without a UN mandate. Hoon apparently felt the same. ... Though we are talking about thousands of dead Iraqis, hundreds of dead British soldiers, the issue that appears to be most important is that they only did what they were told to do even if they had private doubts. ... Alastair Campbell says he has learned some lessons from Iraq. That you can get away with murder might be one.

Remember this, kids, when they are blinding you with bureaucracy and touting United Nations Security Resolution 1441 as being the Golden Ticket for taking us into war with Iraq:

[Of France and Germany not tabling the second resolution] But they did not table it because we gave assurances to the French and Germans (and Russians and Chinese) that our draft of UNSCR 1441 did not authorise military action. The instructions were to inform those governments that UNSCR 1441 contained "no automatic trigger" which would lead to military action. ... all the FCO material at the time of the adoption of UNSCR 1441 and for weeks afterwards right up until March, took the view that UNSCR 1441 did not provide legal grounds for the invasion.

Aside from getting help to Haiti hours ahead of the US and their 5,000 troops, China has just announced a further $2.64 million in aid to the devastated nation. (Haiti, that is, not the US.)

Brangelina split but agree to divide the kids and $200 million.

Obama wouldn't hurt a fly ... heh, heh!

Aw! And he didn't even use chopsticks.

Obama wouldn't hurt a fly ... heh, heh!

Aw! And he didn't even use chopsticks.

What technology can do: gigacam pic of Obama's inauguration

Click here for the Gigapan picture of Obama's 2009 inauguration in which every face in the vast crowd can be made out using the sort of sci-fi technology you see in Google Earth satellite shots.

And the police are bleating because we might capture their pretty faces on our cameras? What a total diversionary cheek!

John Williams together with Yo-Yo Ma on cello, Anthony McGill on clarinet, Gabriela Montero on piano and Itzhak Perlman on violin.

The inauguration, if you can stretch your memory back that far, was where in best Milli Vanilli tradition it turns out the classical band were miming to a soundtrack. Itzhak Perlman looked like he was in some sort of ecstatic reverie, so overcome with the sense of occasion was he, and the pianist, Gabriela Montero, wore mittens to protect her hands on an icy midwinter's day. Yes, the whole pantomime was most impressive. But unlike the Beijing Olympics when one little girl was lip-synced by another little girl, and the whole of the west rose as one to condemn it, we heard very little about this subterfuge.

At least the glorious Aretha was keeping it real.

What technology can do: gigacam pic of Obama's inauguration

Click here for the Gigapan picture of Obama's 2009 inauguration in which every face in the vast crowd can be made out using the sort of sci-fi technology you see in Google Earth satellite shots.

And the police are bleating because we might capture their pretty faces on our cameras? What a total diversionary cheek!

John Williams together with Yo-Yo Ma on cello, Anthony McGill on clarinet, Gabriela Montero on piano and Itzhak Perlman on violin.

The inauguration, if you can stretch your memory back that far, was where in best Milli Vanilli tradition it turns out the classical band were miming to a soundtrack. Itzhak Perlman looked like he was in some sort of ecstatic reverie, so overcome with the sense of occasion was he, and the pianist, Gabriela Montero, wore mittens to protect her hands on an icy midwinter's day. Yes, the whole pantomime was most impressive. But unlike the Beijing Olympics when one little girl was lip-synced by another little girl, and the whole of the west rose as one to condemn it, we heard very little about this subterfuge.

At least the glorious Aretha was keeping it real.

Obama reads Bush's letter

Obama Reads Bush's Letter - watch more funny videos

Barack Obama shares the letter Bush left for him in the oval office. We need a bit of funny in this Vale of Tears and this video does the job.

Obama reads Bush's letter

Obama Reads Bush's Letter - watch more funny videos

Barack Obama shares the letter Bush left for him in the oval office. We need a bit of funny in this Vale of Tears and this video does the job.

Obama placates angry Asians: How politics works

President-elect Barack Obama’s appointment of pugnacious banker Rahm Emanuel as his Chief-of-Staff couldn’t have been more controversial, what with Rahmbo’s volunteer service in the Israel Defence Forces, his support of Bush’s Iraq war, and advocacy of compulsory “universal sevice” for all young Americans.

But then Obama nominated New Mexico governor Bill Richardson for commerce secretary, an appointment which pitched Latinos and Asian-Americans against each other. Richardson displayed none of the racial sensitivity he reserves for his Hispanic constituency when he helped prosecute Taiwanese-American Wen Ho Lee, a former nuclear scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, for spying ten years ago.

"This was the major Chinese-American civil rights case in the last 30 years,'' said Albert Wang, a Fremont physician. "And there was a feeling among many Chinese-Americans, particularly in Silicon Valley, that Bill Richardson did a lot to promote the notion that all Chinese-Americans are potential spies.''

"Wen Ho Lee bore the brunt of Richardson's actions, but there were many Chinese-American scientists who felt great fear,'' said Der, who once headed Chinese for Affirmative Action in San Francisco. "Even I got a visit from the FBI, and I'm not a scientist.''

Gee, how was Obama gonna get all the US Asians on board?

Hmmm, how to mollify a substantial minority with financial clout and an eye on political power?

Meanwhile, and entirely unconnected, Obama’s cabinet gets an Asian. It looks like science super-egghead and Nobel Laureate Dr Stephen Chu will be Head of the Department of Energy where his remit is biofuels, a poisoned chalice if ever there was one.

Hated by the big coal producers AND loathed by environmentalists, I don’t fancy Chu's chances.

Madam Miaow says ... Hey, Steve, the vessel with the pestle has the pellet with the poison. The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true. Doh! No, the flagon with the dragon holds the brew that is true ... Don't trust the gweilo!




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Obama placates angry Asians: How politics works

President-elect Barack Obama’s appointment of pugnacious banker Rahm Emanuel as his Chief-of-Staff couldn’t have been more controversial, what with Rahmbo’s volunteer service in the Israel Defence Forces, his support of Bush’s Iraq war, and advocacy of compulsory “universal sevice” for all young Americans.

But then Obama nominated New Mexico governor Bill Richardson for commerce secretary, an appointment which pitched Latinos and Asian-Americans against each other. Richardson displayed none of the racial sensitivity he reserves for his Hispanic constituency when he helped prosecute Taiwanese-American Wen Ho Lee, a former nuclear scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, for spying ten years ago.

"This was the major Chinese-American civil rights case in the last 30 years,'' said Albert Wang, a Fremont physician. "And there was a feeling among many Chinese-Americans, particularly in Silicon Valley, that Bill Richardson did a lot to promote the notion that all Chinese-Americans are potential spies.''

"Wen Ho Lee bore the brunt of Richardson's actions, but there were many Chinese-American scientists who felt great fear,'' said Der, who once headed Chinese for Affirmative Action in San Francisco. "Even I got a visit from the FBI, and I'm not a scientist.''

Gee, how was Obama gonna get all the US Asians on board?

Hmmm, how to mollify a substantial minority with financial clout and an eye on political power?

Meanwhile, and entirely unconnected, Obama’s cabinet gets an Asian. It looks like science super-egghead and Nobel Laureate Dr Stephen Chu will be Head of the Department of Energy where his remit is biofuels, a poisoned chalice if ever there was one.

Hated by the big coal producers AND loathed by environmentalists, I don’t fancy Chu's chances.

Madam Miaow says ... Hey, Steve, the vessel with the pestle has the pellet with the poison. The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true. Doh! No, the flagon with the dragon holds the brew that is true ... Don't trust the gweilo!




Bookmark on Delicious

Obama's dark secret revealed: election hypnosis

Barack Obama hypnotises America

America's wingnuts demonstrate how to admit defeat with grace and style.

I particularly like the bit that goes: " ... Assigning a meaningless task to the rational mind to distract it thus leaving the subject unguarded by the rational mind. ..." (Hmm, not unlike my time on the left.)

Whereas this is how it really went ...


Homer Simpson tries to vote

Johann Hari on four ticking timebombs for Barack Obama

STOP PRESS: Back to Earth with a bump. Barack Obama appoints right-winger to be his chief-of-staff.

Obama's dark secret revealed: election hypnosis

Barack Obama hypnotises America

America's wingnuts demonstrate how to admit defeat with grace and style.

I particularly like the bit that goes: " ... Assigning a meaningless task to the rational mind to distract it thus leaving the subject unguarded by the rational mind. ..." (Hmm, not unlike my time on the left.)

Whereas this is how it really went ...


Homer Simpson tries to vote

Johann Hari on four ticking timebombs for Barack Obama

STOP PRESS: Back to Earth with a bump. Barack Obama appoints right-winger to be his chief-of-staff.