2007 March

Someone on CNN called me a ‘Dirty Jew’ Imagine that Iran decided to invade Mexico in the face of near universal international condemnation, because it claimed Mexico had weapons that it turned out it didn’t. And that it then waged war for several years, de-stabilising the American continent and causing Mexicans to stream across the border into America. Imagine that Iran had the audacity to setup a Pensicola prison, actually in America but controlled by Iran. Here they could put people that they captured and not have them subject to the Geneva Convention or domestic law. Then imagine that Iran had its navy patrolling the area and inspecting fishing boats, just off the coast of Texas. Imagine the Americans decided the Iranians were messing too near their border, like with the Russians and Cuba, and captured several Iranian seamen and showed them on TV looking unharmed physically and possibly much…

Its pretty amazing when you come accross something you actually know a little about, how you discover how naive a supposedly slick PR machine is. Today Bush cited ‘Iraq the Model’ as an example of success in Iraq – because there are bloggers you see. Some time ago I added 20 or so Iraqi Bloggers to my RSS reader. About a third of them have since fled the country, a third have disappeared and the remainder are a woeful tale of human misery and sufffering, leaving a sample of 1 – Iraq the Model. In fact Iraq the Model is the potential online equivalent of ‘Mission Accomplished’, something championed too soon that could go the other way. Carl Rove is not so much a genius (an incumbant Republican sock puppet would have won after 911) but a rather out of touch ‘spinster’. Bush Cites Upbeat Bloggers From Baghdad

Which one of these two buildings was built by slaves? The one built 4000 years later. Protester disrupts Westminster Abbey service marking 200 years since slave trade abolished – International Herald Tribune

Chris Jordan does some fantastic art pieces that represent quantitative information visually. Amount of money spent per hour in Iraq as a giant picture of Benjamin Franklin made out of dollar bills. Number of people admitted to hospital for painkiller abuse as an abstract shape made from the same number of Vicodin pills etc. Thanks Cori. current work