Next, a quote from a talking head on BBC Radio 4 this morning: "You see the painstaking care the archaeologists use when they dig up these relics and now there is all this bombing. It's the history being destroyed, not just the people. The history is being shot at—and for what?" How about the removal […]
Read MoreThis is a work of art.
Read MoreI'll say one thing for visits to the Grassly-Khalifehs: they always give me something to put in my 'Blog. It was a baby-packed party to celebrate Maryam's first birthday—and excellent fun it was too, hanging out in a sunny Hampstead garden with a crowd of well-behaved children of ages up ten (I think). Maryam is […]
Read MoreHostilities have broken out on a noticeboard at work. Just before the outbreak of the real war, there was a pre-emptive strike: someone posted an emotional article by Ann Clywd, a Left-wing Labour MP and long-time campaigner on behalf of Iraqi exiles, justifying military intervention by describing atrocities committed in Iraq under Saddam. This was […]
Read MoreTuned into Radio Bloke expecting the England football team to get "lost in a thicket of mediocrity" against Turkey—because the front page of today's Telegraph today told me so. In fact England won 2–0. Wow, surely it couldn't have been another example of British journo hyperbole at its hysterical best?—and with our newspapers being so […]
Read MoreThis 'Blog is a year old today. Yes, I know I was late to that particular party, but don't sneer: I was on the Web when it was competing with Gopher; my dotcom had dotgone before most people had heard of one; and my Slashdot user number has only four digits. So I suppose it's […]
Read MoreRichard sent me a link to this today.
Read MoreI came across SaveTheHumans.com today. It's a satirical Website with a promising front page manifesto Welcome to savethehumans.com, a magazine of humor, satire, and commentary for people who prefer thinking over screaming for "peace", stripping for "peace", puking for "peace", cross-dressing for "peace", or otherwise rallying in favor of brutal, Middle-Eastern dictatorships. The site then […]
Read More…that leads to my sister's place has a number of distracting branches. I usually manage to take a couple of them on my way to visit her and her family. Today was no exception. My sister is darker than me; my niece is a scarily pale, blue-eyed, blonde six-month-old. I watched her squeal and blow […]
Read MoreYes, I know, I still haven't put up my "Scientific Myths" page. Looking for a quick-and-dirty approach to the problem?
Read MoreThis story is hilarious. I am otherwise lost for words.
Read MoreJust before the war started, Claire mailed some of her arguments in favour and I failed to post them as my 19Mar03 Weblog entry as I intended. Here they are.
Read MoreSorry to keep harping on about the war. Mine is not a "warblog", but if you can think of a more important topic to cover let me know. (Today another publisher invited me to write a bioinformatics book and the best I can do with that is put it in parentheses.) Now I am about […]
Read MoreMuch more thoughtful stuff from the anti-war side seems to be appearing in the mainstream media. Here's some (partisan, but challenging) commentary from historian Arthur Schlesinger.
Read MoreHouse prices may have been rising in Iraq recently, but I have a feeling there are going to be few takers for this particular home swap. Thanks to NTK.
Read MoreAgeing 'Net bores like me enjoy quoting Godwin's Law, so it's doubly surprising that (not even in the interests of balance) I link to an excellent anti-war piece that invokes comparisons with the Hitler era. It is in the interests of balance that I link here too.
Read MoreWhile the massed ranks of the spoilt and ignorant continue to talk rubbish about "indiscriminate" "carpet bombing", the Iraqis, who are supposedly about to suffer "carnage", have been looking forward to the change of management by investing massively in their own stock market. Given that they live in, er, Iraq, and that they are, er, […]
Read MoreHere's Claire's case for war.
Read MoreA few weeks back we had the massed intellectual might of British popular music eloquently making the case for "peace" at the Brit Awards . By "peace", of course, they meant letting the fuzzie-wuzzies die quietly and slowly away from our TV screens, rather than conspicuously and in rather smaller numbers with someone from CNN […]
Read MoreFollowing on from yesterday's speech by Robin Cook, she also points out that (as did an Economist article from several weeks back that I am not allowed to link to) that Israel has not clearly been in breach of resolution 242—as everyone lazily claims every time they have an argument about this. Here is her […]
Read MoreClaire points out that the French seem to have changed their minds somewhat about supporting the U.S.. Interestingly, they'll only help if things get dirty. Now I wonder why that might be. If I was a cynical person I'd suspect that the French might have something (else) to hide…
Read MoreSorry if there are mistakes in today's multiple entries. I have lots to cover and I am knackered after travelling to London and back to attend the opening of Imperial College's Bioinformatics Centre. I have even more to write, but really need to sleep. I'm also fucking angry and really need to calm down. (See […]
Read MoreOne of the few reassuring things about being "pro-war" has been the stupidity of the opposition. Even when you count George W. Bush among your friends, the average intelligence of the anti-war bloc is still comfortably low by comparison. Hey, these people are in bed with the clone-crazy Raelians. Unfortunately for Tony Blair, whose job […]
Read MoreYes, Stevie Wonder is a genius.
Read MoreSo a third of academics want to quit? I can think of a third of academics who I want to quit. Unfortunately most of that third would have trouble persuading McDonald's to take them on.
Read MoreThis one is for Amber, who, despite her contributing to it from time to time, won't read my Weblog on principle. Before you click on the link, turn off your browser's ability to open new windows with JavaScript or you will be plagued by a thousand pop-ups. You'll need to have Flash installed to appreciate […]
Read MoreToday The Times continues its assault on English: The amount of incentives to lure companies to enter into deals are also rapidly increasing.
Read MoreToday, Judith, our Israel correspondent, sent me this [click for image]. This little kid waving the Palestinian flag in front of masked, machine-gun-carrying Hamasniks is wearing a Maccabi-Tel Aviv sweatshirt. Maccabi-Tel Aviv is an Israeli basketball team. Is all this being scripted somewhere? As one of my own work colleagues pointed out, this is like […]
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