Some British and American Luminaries, an open letter to Mr. Bush, courtesy of Grauniad
From the Blogosphere's own, Salam Pax
Dear George,
I hate to wake you up from that dream you are having, the one in which you are a superhero bringing democracy and freedom to underdeveloped, oppressed countries. But you really need to check things out in one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom. Georgie, I am kind of worried that things are going a bit bad in Iraq and you don't seem to care that much. You might want it to appear as if things are going well and sign Iraq off as a job well done, but I am afraid this is not the case.
Listen, habibi, it is not over yet. Let me explain this in simple terms. You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up. I bet if someone had explained it to you like that you would have been less hasty going on our Rambo-in-Baghdad trip.
To tell you the truth, I am glad that someone is doing the cleaning up, and thank you for getting rid of that scary guy with the hideous moustache that we had for president. But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service. We are a bit disappointed. So would you please, pretty please, with sugar on top, get your act together and stop telling people you have Iraq all figured out when you are giving us the trial-and-error approach?
Anyway, I hope this doesn't disturb you too much. Have a nice stay in London, wave hello to the demonstrators, and give my regards to your spin doctors. I bet they are having a hell of a job making you look good.
Regards,
Salam Pax
The Baghdad Blogger
and from the Right:
Dear Mr President,
Today you arrive in my country for the first state visit by an American president for many decades, and I bid you welcome.
You will find yourself assailed on every hand by some pretty pretentious characters collectively known as the British left. They traditionally believe they have a monopoly on morality and that your recent actions preclude you from the club. You opposed and destroyed the world's most blood-encrusted dictator. This is quite unforgivable.
I beg you to take no notice. The British left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilisation against Adolf Hitler and worshipped the other genocide, Josef Stalin.
It has marched for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov. It has slobbered over Ceausescu and Mugabe. It has demonstrated against everything and everyone American for a century. Broadly speaking, it hates your country first, mine second.
Eleven years ago something dreadful happened. Maggie was ousted, Ronald retired, the Berlin wall fell and Gorby abolished communism. All the left's idols fell and its demons retired. For a decade there was nothing really to hate. But thank the Lord for his limitless mercy. Now they can applaud Saddam, Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il... and hate a God-fearing Texan. So hallelujah and have a good time.
Frederick Forsyth
Novelist read the rest here,
Courtesy our man in London, Glasgow's own David Walker sends us protest scenes from Trafalgar Square.
David has this to say, "Ahem: click here for more photos Just to drop off a quick url for the Stop The War conference pics of the 18th from London (Tony Benn in particular was magnificent, Harold Pinter a close second), also pics from the Alternative Royal Motorcade Cavalcade Thingy from the 19th (many times expected numbers showed up as per usual.)
Here it be. All I could manage from this webcafe PC is a geocities account, so there's a bit of a bandwidth issue going on... more pics from the HUGE march as soon as can be. Toodles! Love.
Sorry Geocities has blocked hotlinking.... please use above link to see protests from London
The cannon fodder is to be the poor and minorities, if a country is going to send people to war, governing principle must be that of shared sacrifice, with people of all economic backgrounds shouldering burden equally; and that those trumpeting war would be more circumspect if their own children were to be placed in harm's way and might bring about greater willingness to work out situation peacefully. Mind you this is just my personal opinion. There is a funny satire at www.whitehouse.org
Here's a bit of it:
PRESIDENT BUSH OPPOSES REP. CHARLES RANGEL'S PROPOSAL TO WEAKEN THE MILITARY BY REINSTATING THE WHITE IVY LEAGUE DRAFT
Statement by the President
THE PRESIDENT: "Good afternoon. As many of you know, this morning saw the publication of an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times by liberal Congressman Charles Rangel, in which he calls for a reinstatement of a military draft which is blind to both the color and socioeconomic status of potential draftees. Well I speak for all Caucasian millionaire war hawk Republicans with no relatives pathetic enough to be slumming it in the military when I say that I am categorically and inalterably opposed to such a dangerous and repugnantly Populistic move.
Now inasmuch as I strive to create the illusion that I collaborate with my political enemies, I called Congressman Rangel this morning, and I told him outright how I feel. I said, "Now listen Unky Remus (that's my little nickname for him) - I am NOT for this little Reverse Affirmative Action draft of yours. I am for an army of lower-class teens whose dreams of a better life instill in them a compulsion to march into napalm grenades all for the benefit of Ivy League princes such as myself whose lives must be protected if this country is to continue its proud tradition of inbred plutocratic rule." Well, the Congressman disagreed with me, and that's still his pre-war right. But as President, I want to assure all affluent Americans that there's not a chance in hell they're going to see their blue-eyed, blond-haired trust fund babies march off to die in a biochemical war just so some colored Harlem crybaby can work out his racial blood lust in the name of "shared sacrifice" and the "citizen soldier."
But here is what is really going on. Reinstating the Draft.
**
This FY 2004 APP identifies the activities and strategies that will take place during the
fiscal year to achieve Agency goals and objectives. It also identifies relevant performance
measurement target goals to be achieved. The performance goals for FY 2004 are:
1. Develop an Area Office Prototype Exercise that will test the Health
Care Personnel Delivery System (HCPDS) work flows and support
programs.
2. Redefine Agency infrastructure based on a Quinquennial Workload
Study.
3. Prepare and conduct an Area Office Prototype Exercise which tests
the activation process from SSS Lottery input to the issuance of the
first Armed Forces Examination Orders.
4. Ensure 90% of people tested are capable of implementing activation
procedures.
5. Ensure that 95% of the predefined readiness objectives are attained
and validated during an Area Office Prototype Exercise.
6. Train 90% of assigned State Directors (SDs) and Reserve Force
Officers (RFOs) on HCPDS and Timed-Phased Response (TPR)
functions and responsibilities.
7. Attain a 92% or greater compliance rate for men 18 through 25 years
old.
8. Attain and appoint Registrars in 85% of the Nation’s high schools.
9. Obtain 75% of all registrations electronically.
10. Maintain an average systems change request implementation time of
39 days.
11. Maintain a functional proponent and customer satisfaction level of
87%.
12. Have a telephone call completion rate of 93% or higher.
13. Answer correspondence in less than 10 days.
14. Train 90% of assigned SDs and RFOs on Alternative Service plans
and procedures.
ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT
An annual report providing the results of the implementation of these performance
measures will be submitted by March 31, 2005. This report will address attained versus
planned levels of performance, explain unattained target levels, and identify where and
how strategies, performance goals, and performance indicators should be changed to
ensure that the SSS reaches its strategic and annual goals and objectives.
"The Beatles are what they always were - the safe, money-spinning, housewives' choice. Their albums are easy listening (fine for 50-somethings, but the Beatles were cardigan-wearing duffers in their 20s). Sgt. Pepper, their much-trumpeted "psychedelic" album was as mindbending as an Asda mushroom pie. Give or take Helter Skelter, they never even rocked, really. Next to the Stones, the Who or the Troggs, the Beatles are the low alcohol lager of the 60s." more here
As far as I'm concerned he should be stripped bare made to wear a signboard, saying "Oasis is better than the Beatles" and marched through some of Liverpools more sylvan neighbourhoods, like the Dingle and Speke, then let Scouser nature take its course.
I will be blogging from home, as I sit on my well-toned bum and contemplate financial ruin. My contract has ended. This is the shameless bit where I go begging for employment. Well, I do have work publicising a particularly horrible book in the chutes. But surely there must be something better out there for moi!
also from Grauniad, wahey just for dear Melo, an interview with Hanif Kureishi. Don't know who Kureishi is, think Salman Rushdie, with something really to say.
"Hanif Kureishi used to know who his readers were. They were "hip young kids", riding the tube, reading The Buddha of Suburbia, his novel about sex, drugs and race in 70s south London. When the book came out in 1990, he was a rebel hero and 13 years on, although no longer sure of who his fans are, Kureishi retains the air of a man slightly too cool for his surroundings. Now 48 and smoothly turned out, he sits on a sofa in his publicist's office, legs akimbo, and observes the world with imperious ease. He has written a film, The Mother, about the sex life of a woman approaching 70. "I can't imagine hip young kids queueing at the Odeon to see a film about an old girl," he says laconically. "I don't really care. I didn't write it because I thought it would make me a rich man. I wrote it because I was interested in it." more insights into Kureishi here
A friend is off to the protests in London with any luck we shall have pics and an accounting of the welcome being staged for Mr. Bush.
A bit of an update on an earlier story, right in the middle of tropical Miami, World Capital of the dowagers hump, thousands are preparing. Negotiators from 34 nations are in the area until Friday, working toward an accord that would create a Free Trade Area of the Americas. They say open markets would spur economic development and raise living standards throughout the Americas.
Thousands of protesters also are in the region or heading this way. Ranging from retirees associated with the AFL-CIO to teenage anarchists, they say the free trade zone would take jobs from the United States and exploit cheaper labor elsewhere.
''We are . . . people just like you who wish to work with communities in Miami to challenge [the FTAA] meetings and work toward a world based on justice and equality,'' read a flier handed out by protesters Monday.
In other developments:
• A three-day, 34-mile march by about 140 opponents of the negotiations that began Sunday in Fort Lauderdale moved through Southeast Broward County on Monday and reached North Miami by evening. Ultimate destination: Miami, this morning.
STRIPPING DOWN
• A dozen activists associated with a group called the Gapatista Road Show stripped to their underwear outside a Gap store in Miami Beach to protest what they claimed were the company's exploitative labor practices.
''We'd rather wear nothing than wear Gap!'' they chanted.
• The SunTrust at 1400 NW 20th St. was evacuated shortly after 4 p.m., after a peculiar odor made several employees and customers cough and choke. One person was treated at the scene after fainting.
Miami police said two empty pepper-spray cans were found in a garbage container. It was not clear what connection, if any, the incident had to the FTAA talks.
Elsewhere, small scenes told the story.
An eight-foot-high fence surrounded AmericanAirlines Arena. Tourists strolled through Bayside Marketplace, but shoppers seemed in short supply. Prospects were especially gloomy at Let's Make a Daiquiri, where manager Roland Diaz bemoaned a ''rainy-day'' level of sales, as the sun shone brightly.
GLASGOW has been crowned the curry capital of Britain for the second year in a row. The city retained its title as the country's hot-spot at a prestigious ceremony in London. Evening Times readers chose the Shish Mahal, Creme de la Creme, Mr Singh's India and Ashoka Ashton Lane to represent Glasgow.
I can heartily attest that this is true. Glasgow has some of the best Asian cuisine EVER and at much better prices. Perhaps its the prodigious amounts of alcohol imbibed in this City. Bradford and Edinburgh were runners-up, beating Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester, Sheffield, Newcastle and London.
Each city was judged on its four nominated restaurants and a dossier put together by the local council.
Glasgow also won the accolade of Kingfisher Curry Capital of Britain last summer - the first time the title had gone to a city outside England. Curry Capital judges decided Glasgow "gave a very professional submission and the city has really taken this award to its heart".
Charan Gill, managing director of the Harlequin Group which owns the Ashoka in Ashton Lane and Mr Singh's India, said he was "ecstatic" about the city being awarded the Curry Capital title for the second year running.
Mr Gill's restaurant, The Ashoka at the Mill, was one of those which helped the city scoop the title last year.
He added: "The council put this bid together and showed its support for us."
The restaurant boss praised the staff in the city's restaurants, whom he described as "fantastic and totally committed".
Mr Gill said he was not surprised Glasgow had beaten off stiff competition from restaurants all around Britain including Bradford, Birmingham and London. He added: "The quality of food in Glasgow is second to none and our restaurateurs in this city serve up quality time and time again."
Greater Glasgow and Clyde Valley Tourist Board said the award would help attract tourists to the city.
A spokesman said: "One of the reasons people come to the city is because the wining and dining experience is vibrant and eclectic.
"There are a good range of eateries in the city and people can dine in a different country each night of the week.
"The fact our Indian restaurants are superb helps the tourist board to promote the city as a destination.
"It gives us another reason to tell people to come to here and this award will be good for attracting customers to Glasgow both for business and leisure tourism." Lord Provost Liz Cameron was delighted with the accolade. She said: "This is wonderful news - our restaurants deserve recognition and our representatives in the competition are excellent ambassadors. "The title will give our restaurant trade a tremendous boost and encourage visitors to come to Glasgow and sample some great food." A council spokesman said Glasgow's Indian restaurants were legendary around the world. He added: "People come from far and wide to taste the delicious food and to sample the wide variety of dishes which originate from the Indian sub-continent."
TIMESFILE
•Glasgow's love affair with curry goes back to the 1920s, when a caterer opened a curry house on the Broomielaw for Indian seamen.
•The city's first proper Indian restaurant, The Taj Mahal, in Park Road, opened in the 1950s.
•Around 219 million Indian meals are eaten every year in the UK.
•Glasgow curry king Charan Gill is one of Britain's most wealthy Asians.
•Licensing laws helped. Pubs had to stop serving after 10pm, restaurants could serve alcohol later.
•Chicken tikka masala tops the £2.5bn curry industry in Britain, with Sainsbury's alone selling 1.1 million meals a year.
•In Scotland, a curry is known as a Ruby Murray, after the Irish singer. GLASGOW has been crowned the curry capital of Britain for the second year in a row.
Alba Gu brath!
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges --
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and wating for you. Go!" Arabella O'Buggery's World Tour of the Blogosphere
Ever winsome Arabella always up for a challenge has given herself a new assignment, a world-wide tour of blogs. Imagine if you will a cross between, Michael Palin, Phineas Fogg, and Nigella Lawson, all wrapped up in one delicious, jodhpur and pith helmet wearing package. Follow Arabella through the more dodgy corners of the blogosphere where she attempts to edify and entertain her one loyal reader. Where in the World is Arabella O’ Buggery???? Just follow the trail of kebab crumbs.
