I was very briefly mentioned in The Guardian a couple of weeks ago in an article on the Lazyweb idea. This is my first appearance outside the Guardian’s letters page. I admit it: I’ve written letters to the Guardian, just one small step away from writing letters to Home Truths. Which I have to confess, I listen to every weekend. I also plan to grow a proper beard one day, but I digress.

A relatively large website which I struggled to maintain way back in the mid-1990s was once Slashdotted, back in the days when that meant something*, and was later recommended as reading material to the USA’s Department of Justice in a letter by Ralph Nader and James Love. I’m still quite proud of this. Alas, the pressures of fame, Claris HomePage and my site’s god-awful colour scheme proved too much for me, and I passed the site on to someone else, and retired with the $40 of Amazon Associate fees I’d earned. I let the dotcom bubble pass me by, (which wasn’t difficult) and focused on my day job and reading a dangerous number of O’Reilly books.

*Back before the term was actually used, I suspect, which makes that statement mean even less.

Asterix and Obelix return to the village and find that the Village Chief Vitalstatistix has apparently invited the Romans to stay. From now on, all heroic defences of the village will have to be approved by five Roman officers before proceeding. Getafix the druid may only use Roman-approved herbs. Will Obelix have to carry a Roman altar, despite being a menhir expert?

John Bull printing sets have vanished, and not just from toy shops - the Internet, (full of more 1970s trivia than you can shake a stick at) contains almost nothing about them.

To prove I’m not imagining things, here a page describing how John Bull compatibility issues determined Mathew Bennett’s name with a good description of the kits.

Link: John Bull

There are seven year-olds with John Bull printing kits that have more readers than this blog (and probably better content too) but just in case I may offend someone who’s American and doesn’t know much about me, here’s a disclaimer. If you decide that I’m “Anti-American”, please click on the “more” link below.

It’s fashionable to brand people as “anti-american”. I’ve also seen the phrase “European attitude” used as an insult. I was once flamed in a discussion forum for writing “Black Hawk Down isn’t exactly a documentary” - I was told that I’m full of “anti-American hatred” simply for using that phrase.

I’ve been deeply in love with an American for over ten years. I’m very fond of my American in-laws. I have American friends. I enjoy visiting the United States, it has wonderful landscapes, people, food*, music. All my favourite TV shows are American. I enjoy American literature. The United States has its flaws and its faults, some small (American dairy products are awful) and some big (great health care if you can afford it) but overall I can’t honestly say if I prefered the UK or the USA, at least until Bush started dismantling the Constition. I have to admit I’m very worried about what’s happening.

There is only one thing that I could be described as “hating” about the United States: its foriegn policy. Internal politics in the US is a fascinating mix: there are things I like (very strong local democracy, the Constitution) and things don’t like (very weak national democracy, ignoring the Constitution), but the barely changing way the US has interacted with the rest of the world this century is often deeply unpleasant.

I think that US governments have been involved in or largely responsible for a very large proportion of the terrible things that have occured worldwide in the last century. In the century before that, Britain had a similar role. I hate neither country for this, or the people of the USA or the UK. I hate the things that Kissinger did - I believe he was responsible for truly evil acts - but I can understand his motives and rationalisation.

Recent research has shown that almost no-one in the entire world is “anti-American”. Even hardcore religious fanatic/terrorists in Egypt admitted to being big fans of American films and music. Almost everyone wants to holiday the US. The USA is the land of fun.

What just about everyone on the planet dislikes is the USA’s foreign policy. We don’t particularly like the US Government. But this isn’t “Anti-Americanism”.

“It’s just as sane as what George W. Bush is proposing - and, in contrast to what he’s intending, my policy will destroy only one street. ”

Thinking like Dubya is not a good idea.

Link: I’m losing patience with my neighbours, Mr Bush

Rogue state? I’ve just seen the amazing Mr. Dick Cheney say that the USA will ignore the UN, and world opinion, and international law, to do what it thinks is right.

WMD threat? A couple of weeks ago a US Gov. spokesman said that the US is willing to use nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are not actually illegal under internation law, but threatening to use them is.

Killing civilians? “There will not be a safe place in Baghdad. The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before.” Shock and Awe.

Chemical weapons? Depleted uranium + children - medicine = dead children.

Biological weapons? British and American aircraft have bombed water purification plants in Iraq in a deliberate attempt to cause disease.

Aiding terrorism? Who founded, funded and trained Al Qaeda? Let’s just say it wasn’t Iraq.

Saddam Hussein is a nasty dictator, although he’s not unusually nasty for the Middle East. George W. Bush is a nasty and (possibly) fairly elected president, although he’s not unusually nasty for a president of the USA.

Both leaders are surrounded by groups of rather unpleasant people who see war and death as a way to make people’s lives better - those people that survive, of course. They can believe this because they aren’t likely to die in a war, and their children aren’t in the front line.

Mr Bush and Mr Hussein both have armies, mainly made up of nice people who will follow orders. They follow orders because they’re trained to, and they don’t want to die. They don’t want their comrades to die. A few of these soldiers are psychopaths, others will become psychopaths during the war, as the stress breaks them. These sick soldiers will do terrible things. Most won’t. If their side wins, they may get medals. Some nice soldiers will destroy distant shapes, too small to be real people, and real people will die. Many of the soldiers will be killed, usually the cheaper ones with the smallest guns.

Finally, Mr Bush and Mr Hussein have civilian populations. These are mainly made up of nice people too. They probably didn’t choose their leader. They want to watch TV, go shopping, go out for a meal, or play in the back yard. They don’t hate each other. They don’t want to die, and they don’t want to kill. Most Americans would find the people of Iraq to be smart, well education and polite, and suprisingly keen on American media and food. Manchester United is very popular in Iraq.

Which of these groups are to blame for the problems? Which of these groups will suffer terrible losses in The War?

Since World War I, wars have usually killed more civilians than soldiers. The nasty, cowardly shits who start wars for their own profit rarely die as a result. Many young soldiers will die, but many more civilians will die, and many of them will be very, very young. Most real war casualties don’t get the luxury of bodybags and a plane trip home - they die in their homes, their fields, their offices and schools, or huddled in a shelter.

The war will kill many Iraqi civilians. It will also kill American civilians later, when terrorist groups use The War as further justification for their attacks. I don’t want Iraqi civilians to die, and I certainly don’t want my American friends to die.

It is never right to kill civilians as a means to an end. It’s pure, cowardly, evil, the evil of strategy documents and “acceptable collateral damage” statistics. I resigned from the UK’s Labour Party when Tony Blair defended the bombing of a TV station in Serbia. How can deliberately killing hairdressers and TV technicians be a just act?

George Bush is intent on starting a war that will kill many innocent people in both America and Iraq, just as his father’s role in funding Al Qaeda killed 3,000 people one terrible day in September. Defenceless people will die to further the political and economic aims of the United States government. Not in the interests of its people - they will be more at risk - just the interests of the tiny American elite. How is this morally different to the repression of Saddam Hussein? And who is “anti-America”: the people marching against The War, or George Bush?

Examining the role of the press

Link: Goebbels - A Beginner’s Guide

Just before Christmas I managed to hurt my wrists and arms by not following the instuctions on a yoga CD. Yes, I managed to injure myself using an introductory yoga CD. This is why I’ve avoided sport and thus managed to reach the grand old age of 30 - I was designed to sit around reading. The next time I think “Surely my hands should bend further than that?” I will try to resist the urge to experiment.

I will also not demonstrate how I hurt my right wrist by starting to repeat the experiment on the left wrist. D’oh.

I’ll return to yoga once I’ve recovered enough common sense to not be a danger to myself in a few weeks. In the meantime I’ve been taking anti-inflamatory tablets, and managed to rest my right arm (the worse one) for over two weeks. Lunch away from my desk every day, and as little typing as is possible for a unix-using sysadmin.

I’m pretty much repaired now, as long as I’m careful. Time to get back to hacking about with projects and clearing/ignoring the backlog of blogable trivia. And cooking. And shopping for groceries.

“The current American elite is the Third Reich of our times”. Pilger is rather direct in his comparison, but as a first hand witness to mass bombings in Vietnam, he’s speaking from personal experience. Bush and Blair claim that the ends justify the means. Pilger has witnessed the means: he fell into a crater filled with the shattered corpses of children killed by carpet bombing.

Link: Pilger: Blair is a coward