informage

Jack Mottram of Submit Response - a sharply written scottish blog - points to PNAC.info, a site exposing the details of the previously mentioned shadowy Project for a New American Century.

I still can't get my head around PNAC, because the organisation is a strange sort of open conspiracy: it bears all the hallmarks of the shadowy military-industrial complex cabals that litter conspiracy theory, with suitably sinister aims, but it carries out its business in the open. (Of course, the paranoid amongst us will take this as evidence that, if this scary shit is out in the open, the shit behind closed doors must be really scary.)

Personally I feel no need to be so paranoid. I've often thought that shadowy conspiracy theories just take our eye off the ball, there's plenty enough bad shit going on out there in full public view, just most of us are relatively blind to it.

This is deeply disturbing. Two guys get detained and threatened for several hours by police in New York for being in the wrong Indian restaurant at the wrong time. Yikes, and I'm gonna be visiting this country soon?

It transpires that the US military are offering two hundred thousand buckeroonies in prize money to any kind soul who will provide them with the merest morsel of evidence that Saddam really did have nasty weapons, in a desperate attempt to prevent the drooping meringue of their pre-war justifications from collapsing altogether into an inspid blancmange of waffle.

So the real two hundred thousand dollar question is: why no plant? The CIA, given its years of "covert" drug operations, must by now have mastered the technique, and it seems likely that this nugget has managed to float over to their five-faced friends in the military. Even Ron Reagan Junior thinks so.

Seriously, if the Iraqi elite didn't even have time to stash their personal wealth before they fled the country, why would we think they had time to hide the weapons?

And in other news Ali Abid Minqash, the Iraqi farmer who allegedly single-handedly shot down a US helicopter is now denying it. I can't imagine why he'd do that.

(it behoves me to point out that my use of words from the langue francaise in the first paragraph has ruled me out of US electoral contention for eternity. And I don't even look that French).

(I know, I know, I was going to stop this yankbashing - fortunately being cigarette-free is going substantially better)

I promised myself I'd wean myself off my obsession with the irrationality of all things americano, but this has to be read to be believed. There is much to love about the us of a, and yet when a nation appears to dispense with rationality altogether... Anyway like most of the world my relationship is love/hate with a lot of both.

This visual breakdown of the process by which a historical moment was created is fascinating. Found via Tom Tomorrow

Brazilian Paulo Coelho writes some positivity in today's Observer. Much-needed in a sea of otherwise negative - one way or another - media.

Tim Bray gives his view of the peace movement's worst nightmare, countering a pro-war blogger's assertion that this is Iraqi children happily greeting US soldiers.

Well said Mr Bray.

Protests continue.

Even blogs I read for geek reasons suggest that Bush has far less support than our media portrays.

Think dialectics, think synthesis, think positive.

Tim links to Salam Pax's blog Where is Raed ?, a small but potent taste of life as an Iraqi.

Not a blog, but Suzanne Godlberg's article Suddenly, the war is very real is a very human angle.

I must work hard myself to stay aware of the human tragedy that is this war. Bush et al aren't merely wrong, they are doing evil things with horrific consequences for people just like me.

And to remind me that some Americans are still cool (beyond being reminded daily by my wife-to-be) This Modern World is a blog by Tom Tomorrow, author of the razor-sharp eponymous cartoons.

Found this here:

"Two fish cutters from New York report that a carp about to be made into gefilte fish uttered dire warnings for the fate of humankind. "

I hate to say it, but I can see where the fish is coming from...