Hard News: Unhappy Birthday
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and as for that freaking moron dubya. ever single business be has ever owned has cost a lot of other people a whole load of money.
but he gets richer.
at one point in 2001 i remember thinking, "jesus... they gave this fkcer a country now? how long till he breaks it?"
seven years apparently.
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Ben & Sam,
Well, well, its your lucky day, the alternative universe arrives!! There are plenty of people in the US who share my views (and quite a few in other countries, such as the UK) but when I come back to NZ I am certainly a voice in the wilderness. I am amazed at the views of people who I would expect to think differently.
Oh well, it would be a boring world if we all thought and said the same.
Re Iraq, here is an interesting article about a recent poll in Iraq that shows good reason for optimism.
http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/story?id=4444000&page=1
I am at a conference and at the airport on the way here I picked up a Conde Nast Portfolio with the headline, "Boom! Business is thriving, oil deals are flowing, McMansions are rising ... in Iraq" It was about Kurdistan and is was pretty amazing. The model they are following there is Dubai. While the rest of Iraq is not like Kurdistan, as the article linked to above there is plenty of reason for optimism, if the US stays for a few more years and helps the Iraqis stand on their feet. If the US just ups and walks out too soon, that is a generally accepted recipe for disaster, which is why neither Obama and Clinton will do it if they are sworn in in 2009.
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OK, Hall of Shame moment. Last time we were in Sydney, Dave and I walked past this store, with takeout coffee in hand, and just couldn't resist staring in the window while crooning 'Moon River'. God, they must get sick of dizzy queens having moments of Audrey worship and scaring off the paying trade. :)
Well you don't have to be a dizzy queen for that. Having stayed in New York on E71st St next door to the doorway that Audrey exits at the start of 'BaT', we also had our own little starstruck moment and had to have the ubiquitous photos taken. The guy that owned the place was an Italian lawyer but was very understanding about our need to capture the moment.
Great to be able to just walk 2 blocks down to 5th Avenue to Audrey's Tiffanys store as well, just like in the film.
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I/O I knew if the war went on it would ruin the American economy. I just didn't think it would happen this fast or have been calculated to collapse the US economy in order to benefit Bush.
The war being 'positive' for the American way of life, I thought was to secure cheap oil but maybe it was about just securing oil.A collapse in US economy and a drop in pay/standards of living in the US & would regenerate industry in America as wages would be competitive with China. A race to the bottom where only the shareholders would win.
And after WMDs any conspiracy theory is plausible.
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Well, well, its your lucky day, the alternative universe arrives!!
LOL. it's like evoking the candyman.
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"Boom! Business is thriving, oil deals are flowing, McMansions are rising ... in Iraq"
It sounds like Saddam's back...all these mansions whilst this this world exists.
From Patrick Cockburn who, I would suggest, has a substantially better track record on Iraq than Dick Cheney.
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Well, well, its your lucky day, the alternative universe arrives!
Hoorah! In this one I'm married to Nastassja Kinski.
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Hoorah! In this one I'm married to Nastassja Kinski.
Don't go for any short strolls in the desert.
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Hi James
While the rest of Iraq is not like Kurdistan, as the article linked to above there is plenty of reason for optimism, if the US stays for a few more years and helps the Iraqis stand on their feet.
LOL, if the US was actually in 'Kurdistan' then what you're saying might make sense. In actual fact all you're doing is showing just how these crazy Mesopotamians can actually run a country by themselves right now without any US help. If the US even formally recognized Kurdistan, then they could claim to be helping. Right now all they're doing is standing by with their huge airforce while Turkey mounts bombing runs inside the very Iraq that we are meant to feel so optimistic about.
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The latest opinion poll in Iraq bares out what James says about the Kurds - 73% saying life was "quite good or very good".
But with Sunnis it's pretty much the reverse - 67% stating things weren't going well, to say the least.
72% oppose the presence of US troops but 63% believe the Americans should leave only after a period during which security and government get stronger.
On the invasion itself, there's a big divide - 95% of Sunnis say the invasion was wrong. 65% of Shia say it was right, as do 87% of Kurds.
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Thank God I was cured of incipient diamond-lust young - in 1969 in fact, when within a few weeks I had visited Tiffany's in New York and clapped eyes on the Tiffany diamond, and then the Sancy diamond in Paris. Then the Koh-i-Noor and the Cullinan etc in the British crown jewels. Shone like torches, they did.
This had the effect of making all lesser stones look like gritty dust and chips in my eyes, and ambition died on the spot. I own some, regardless. Well-meaning blokes have given me diamonds (usually pendants for some reason), bless them, and I've inherited some, but given a choice I said no to an engagement ring.
It's not that big sparkly things are to be despised - lordy, who doesn't enjoy the brash swagger of a bit of stage bling ? Those giant fake jewels that are currently decorating formal table settings are especially hilarious. It's just that 99 people out of a hundred can't distinguish prettily cut jewels from prettily cut glass, a fact which a whole extensive Far East gem-swindling trade relies on.
So who's being fooled by what?
And why become the last link in a chain of undoubted exploitation? -
Ben & Sam,
Well, well, its your lucky day, the alternative universe arrives!!
Anyone would think it was still my birthday. Was I right about the Google Alerts? In any case, a sincere welcome back.
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On the invasion itself, there's a big divide - 95% of Sunnis say the invasion was wrong. 65% of Shia say it was right, as do 87% of Kurds.
Which pretty much backs up Patrick Cockburn's assertion that Iraq as a nation has ceased to exist.
All those armed to the teeth, former "insurgent", Sunni private armies are gonna be fun in the next year or two, as well.
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I don't get the attraction of diamonds anyway. As daleaway says, most people can't tell them from glass. Why not just use glass, if it's the look that people like? I'm sure it's because the look is only 1/100th of the value to most people - it's the price tag attached that is the real buzz.
For the record I feel much the same way about most precious metals. If asked which metal is the most beautiful, I'd have to say stainless steel is the prettiest by far.
On the other hand, fake breasts are horrid. Unless they're so well done you couldn't tell the difference.
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I don't get the attraction of diamonds anyway. As daleaway says, most people can't tell them from glass. Why not just use glass, if it's the look that people like?
It's the representation of rarity on earth. And because 50Cent has them in his teeth.
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Heh, they're not that rare. Everyone I know has some.
I hear that man made diamonds are now distinguishable only by their lack of imperfections. Won't be long before we laugh at our precious old diamonds.
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Which pretty much backs up Patrick Cockburn's assertion that Iraq as a nation has ceased to exist.
although from that poll -
Overall, our poll found Iraqis still want to be Iraqi.
When asked if they support a "united Iraq", 66% responded positively.
but yeah, the reality is there's a lot of people with guns and most of them are probably in that other 44%.
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"All those armed to the teeth, former "insurgent", Sunni private armies are gonna be fun in the next year or two, as well."
Which was Bushs aim when he disbanded the entire Iraqi military & police.
From European history where did the Nazis come from = the disaffected unemployed soldiers of WW1. And want did this militia do?
Was it IBM who leased typwriters to the allied and the axis forces. (Enabling the Holocaust) Then when a typewriter was capture by the otherside charged them a lease for the use of the same typewriter while still charging the orininal leasee.
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queens having moments of Audrey worship and scaring off the paying trade. :)
Well you don't have to be a dizzy queen for that. Having stayed in New York on E71st St next door to the doorway that Audrey exits at the start of 'BaT', we also had our own little starstruck moment and had to have the ubiquitous photos taken. The guy that owned the place was an Italian lawyer but was very understanding about our need to capture the moment.
Audrey Hepburn really made that role work, but it would have been such a different film if Holly Golightly had been played by Marilyn Monroe, as Truman Capote had intended. I love Audrey Hepburn but it's hard to believe AH in the role if you remember the actual story is about a hilbilly white trash girl who runs away from her generations-older husband to NYC to be a prostitute and forget her past.
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Was it IBM who leased typwriters to the allied and the axis forces. (Enabling the Holocaust) Then when a typewriter was capture by the otherside charged them a lease for the use of the same typewriter while still charging the orininal leasee.
You forgot the people that supplied the paper and the ink. Damn enablers.
I believe the story is actually that punch card machines produced by an IBM subsidiary were used as part of the information processing. A suit brought against IBM was dismissed.
Peter Hayes, professor of history and Theodore Z. Weiss Professor of Holocaust Studies at Northwestern University says it's a non-story in this review.
If the issue was typewriters... well Germany was perfectly capable of making their own typewriters.
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<quote>Which pretty much backs up Patrick Cockburn's assertion that Iraq as a nation has ceased to exist.</qoute>
Except that Cockburn implies (by omission) Iraq as a nation had remained intact through the gassing of the Kurds in the 80s and the mass killings of the marsh Shia Arabs in the 90s only to be broken assunder by the American invasion.
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but yeah, the reality is there's a lot of people with guns and most of them are probably in that other 44%.
From that Cockburn piece:
There was also misconception among Iraqis about the depth of the divisions within their own society. Sunni would accuse me of exaggerating their differences with the Shia, but when I mentioned prominent Shia leaders they would wave a hand dismissively and say: "But they are all Iranians or paid by the Iranians." regarded the Shia as heretics as worthy of death as the Americans.
Since there is some agreement that parts of the Awakening are former Al-Qa'ida in Iraq, I'm guessing you are right. I'd love to be able to be more optimistic about the country's near future but grim seems more realistic once you leave the US back patting fraternity.
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The latest opinion poll in Iraq bares out what James says about the Kurds - 73% saying life was "quite good or very good".
There's a very detailed set of poll results from Channel 4 that bear out a cautious, growing optimism and better perceptions of quality of life, but I think that's a testament to the resilience of the people than a return to anything we'd recognise as a good life.
Overall 81% had experienced power cuts or no electricity in the past month, and 43% had had trouble finding clean drinking water. Experience of a car or suicide bomb in the past month ranged from single figures to 32%, depending on ethnic or religious group. The Sunni Arab north sounds an awful place.
Overall, a quarter of Iraqis have had a family member or close relative murdered since 2003. A majority say "the Surge" has not been a success compared to 26% who say it has been fairly or very successful.
A third of the sample reports that their family members have been displaced since 2003, either externally or internally. Half the Christians say family members have fled the country, and a third of people in Baghdad.
70% want the multinational forces to leave, with 65% saying they should leave asap.
There's a lot more. Overall impression: these people are really very brave, but we should take care to know what we're on about when we declare success, or even that things are getting better, because things are coming from a very low base.
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...but we should take care to know what we're on about when we declare success
Marc Lynch has a bit of a break down of that BBC -reported poll which indicates the very mixed nature of poeples' experiences and opinions.
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Business is thriving, oil deals are flowing, McMansions are rising ... in Iraq
Yes. Those. Are. The. Warlords. Doing. The. Business. And. Building. The. Mansions.
Thieu and his cronies had nice houses, as well. With helicopter pads, if they had any sense.
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