Category: Uncategorized

Here’s another clock, courtesy of Dominic Olivastro. Move the mouse around as instructed. Dominic writes:

You probably know this, but I’ll mention it anyway. All these clocks are useless. They just give you the time that your PC is set to. So if you can look at it, you have a PC, and if you have a PC, you may as well look at the clock set-up screen, or, in windows, the little icon in the bottom right corner.

I didn’t know it. Nice clock, all the same.

Ken MacLeod has posted a response to my comment (December 8 at the old site) on his blog essay The Pro-War Left and the Anti-War Right. I shall reply, in turn, as soon as I can – by which I mean in a matter of days (I hope), not a matter of hours.

As posed by James Lileks:

Many have noted that the sight of Saddam looking like Nick Nolte’s mugshot will have a harsh effect on our old seething friend, the Arab Street. They will see him looking like a piss-soaked bum with matted hair and bags under his eyes that look like Kathy Bates’ bosom, and they’ll see the Proud Example brought low, the man who had stood up to America humbled and unmanned. (That always makes me wonder how many fellow Arabs a man can kill before that crime exceeds the virtue of Standing Up to America. Half a million? One? Two?)

I received the following email from Alan Johnson this morning – about his good day yesterday:

We will all remember where we were, I guess. I was with Michael, my son the Arsenal fanatic, in the Highbury shop just before the Blackburn game. And there it was on the screen. People were noticing, turning to each other, and just smiling. Big smiles. And my joy mingled with Michael’s joy at being at Highbury, where he finally got to be with his tribe and chant ‘We’ve Got Denis Bergkamp, We’ve got Denis Bergkamp’ from ‘The North Bank HI-BU-REE!’. Arsenal win, go top of the league, Michael is in seventh heaven, tells me I am the greatest dad in the world for taking him, and, all the time, I am just smiling about Saddam being caught. All in all one of the best days of my life I think.

Alan is a long-time socialist and – this needs to be added for the fullness of the story – long-time Liverpool supporter.

Just suppose you’d woken up this morning in an isolated spot, away from all human community, with only a radio for company (from which you would be in the know, of course, about yesterday’s big news); and you wanted an idea of what some dinner party conversations might be like in, oooh, let’s say Islington, in the coming days. What could you do? You could tune in to the Beeb and listen to how their people talk, that’s what.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pointing towards anything too obvious, like a news item thus:

At a dinner party last night in Islington, at which one playwright, two novelists and a distinguished professor of Communication Studies are thought to have been present, the assembled gathering spent several minutes practising saying a group hooray through gritted teeth.

No, I have in mind things altogether more subtle. Here are three which I heard in the space of maybe 10 minutes on Radio 4 some time round 9.00 this morning.

First, an interviewer asking two pundits about Saddam: ‘But won’t the fact of having had to undergo a humiliating medical examination make him less likely to cooperate with the authorities?’ A medical examination, yeah. Even on camera. How dreadful for the poor man.

Second, same interviewer, same pundits (who, for their part, seemed perfectly intelligent): ‘But it’s unlikely Saddam Hussein could have been coordinating anything from a hole in the ground.’

Third, in a closely following news bulletin, some words to this effect (but with the ‘though’ exact): ‘Even though Saddam has been captured, there have been two explosions…’ and so forth. Try to construe it – the ‘though’. You would think such things should have stopped already? Or: He was obviously of no consequence (in his hole in the ground)? Or: They may be pleased they’ve got him, but meugh heugh keweugh, they’re still in trouble? Search me. It would be nice, though, to listen to a higher grade of question and reporting at this time of the morning.

Suppose, finally, that as you sit there in your lonely shack (yes, this indeed is where you are), a lost newpaper kid happens to happen by with a copy of the mighty Dragunia. Then, you may be quite sure that somewhere in it there’ll be another figure, trope, theme or even meme, of the aforesaid dinner party conversations. And bingo, you only have to turn to today’s Seumas Milne page (p. 16), and there you will find a cartoon by Martin Rowson (no link that I can find) which, cutting a short story even shorter, shows the Saddam capture as… a ‘saving’ relief to George Bush and Tony Blair, as in ‘Christmas comes early’. This is Martin’s best, his chosen, angle on the career ending of a political monster.

(Updated at 4.40 PM.) Lawrence Krubner in a comment here: ‘I’m disappointed to say that most of my friends reacted to the news of Hussein’s capture with “Oh no, now Bush will win reelection!”‘

If you just don’t have any damn thing by which to tell the time right now, don’t worry; I can help you. Here are a couple of interesting clocks. The first one you might find just slightly irritating; and the second… all I’m going to say is that it, too, gives you the time. (Hat tip John Abeles.)

No longer early morning; I know that. But it was early morning then. Then, when? Then, when I was playing this: Gerry Mulligan/Paul Desmond – Quartet (1957). The album has also gone under the title Blues In Time. All Music Guide to Jazz: ‘Mulligan’s baritone and Desmond’s alto fit together perfectly and they bring out the best in each other.’ Cook and Morton: ‘There has probably never been a saxophone sound as finely blended as this… The best moments are, as in “Body and Soul”, when Desmond moves to the front and Mulligan plays what are effectively piano chord-shapes behind him. Glorious.’ I couldn’t have put it any better.

It’s been a good weekend. These were eight things I enjoyed about it – apart, that is, from the main thing.

> Manchester United beat Manchester City 3-1 in the derby. (My friend Morris, with whom I watched the game, had some interesting observations on Manchester City as a concept.)

> At one point during the game, to the tune of ‘Feed the World’ the fans at the Stretford end sang out the following: ‘Feed the Scousers, let them know it’s Christmas time’.

> Liverpool lost – again.

> Chelsea lost.

> I got ‘normalized’ by Larry Solum thus: ‘Normal Geras scores 100% for John STuart Mill’.

> These pictures at Harry’s Place.

> This question over at The Truth Laid Bear.

> The sight of some people trying to say ‘hooray’ through gritted teeth.

There are reports of Palestinian reactions here:

RAMALLAH (Reuters) – Disbelief and gloom seized many Palestinians Sunday at news of Saddam Hussein’s capture as Israel fired off a telegram of congratulations to Washington.

The former Iraqi ruler was a hero to many Palestinians for his stand against Israel and its U.S. ally, as well as for helping families of Palestinians dead in an uprising.
…..
“Maybe they captured someone who looks like him,” said Laila Abusharigh, 55, in the Gaza Strip. “Saddam is a real man and all of us are with him.”

Fifteen youngsters from Arafat’s Fatah movement tagged onto a rally in Gaza for the Islamic group Hamas, holding up posters of Saddam.

And here:

Many Palestinians are saddened by the capture. A Gaza man says he loves Saddam so much, he can’t stand to see him in custody. Saddam had sent checks to families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

And here:

Palestinian legislator Mohammed Horani typified the conflicted response to news of the capture.

“Saddam is a dictator and the Iraqi people suffered under him, but on the other hand, it was the (American) occupation that caught him,” he told The Associated Press.

“There will be a sense of confusion in the public.”
…..
In Nablus, a Palestinian man told CTV News that if the reports are true, it’s not cause for him to celebrate. “I don’t think someone else will fill his place again… he was special for us,” he said.

And here:

Even though many in the Arab world acknowledged Hussein was a tyrant, he was also widely regarded as modern-day Saladin…

So that’s not so bad, then. A son of a bitch but theirs. A shame for the Iraqis, though.

Take the Ethical Philosophy Selector test and see how you score. These were my results (top 5):

1. John Stuart Mill (100%)
2. Jeremy Bentham (88%)
3. Kant (74%)
4. Epicureans (73%)
5. Prescriptivism (68%)

I don’t know why Mill and Bentham get first names and Kant doesn’t. (Via Alan Brain.)