18Jul04 — 6

Godzilla Versus Moth-Ra

So far, I've had five pieces of non-comment-box correspondence about the “Oliver Kamm Is Getting Sloppy” post.

One, from a non-partisan US voter, might best be summed up as “ouch”. To which my answer is: if Oliver Kamm wants to go around beating up the idiots in school, he'll have to deal with it when the class clown points out that Oliver's forgotten to put his trousers on.

An instinctive Bushie wrote to say nice things about the post and agree with its main point. She also expressed disappointment that the original piece in The Times did nothing to back her instincts with any worthwhile argument. To which my answer is: I feel your pain—but I don't share it.

Yesterday morning, a Kerry supporter wrote to express his disappointment that I didn't make the case for Kerry, and, in his email, made a reasonably good case himself. He subsequently wrote to make a kind, but completely unneeded, apology for his earlier message. I must answer his question of why I haven't declared for the challenger.

I believe that, if I were an American citizen, I would probably vote for Kerry—with reservations.I believe that the presidential race will not be as close as it looks now, and that Kerry will win it. (Even Mark Steyn has been reduced to saying in an uncharacteristically pleading way “I still think Bush will win” [free and worthwhile registration]) I believe much of what I wish Kerry hadn't said during this campaign can be dismissed as posturing. I believe that the Right-leaning 'Blogosphere writes a lot of shit about Kerry. (You only have to go back to the intern-story-that-wasn't to see how things were going to run on the Web and the old media.)

Would I be able to defend these beliefs in open debate? No. So I'm not going to tell my American readers how to vote. I'm just going to hope you don't make fools of yourselves exercising your right to do so.

I would also like to make a clarification in the light of GSTQ's gracious response. I apologize in advance for doubling up my tenses, but I want to make sure everyone understands that I was wise both before and after the event and I will continue to be wise, even if a loaded, second-hand Minuteman silo is found hidden under Saddam's empty Winnebago. [Hey, kids, check out the Cold War theme park!]

I did not and do not discount all arguments for war on Saddam relating to WMD. My problem was and is with certain logically flawed constructions and the unjustified confidence with which certain people built on them. I have been a longstanding supporter of pre-emptive, humanitarian military action. Members of the anti-war lobbies have re-written history to exaggerate the importance of WMD arguments in public justifications of intervention in Iraq, but many in the pro-war lobbies offered the “Stoppers” easy points by failing to look at parts of their own case as critically as they did aspects of their opponents'. Ironically, one of the main reasons for this was that their opponents failed to see those real weaknesses themselves. This saddens me because it has made it that much harder for us to do the right thing in the future.

The fifth email said “Thank you”. It wasn't from Oliver Kamm.

And finally, on the subject of the rigorous and mature discussion of WMD and the Iraq war, I would like to take this opportunity to say “Wankers!“

17Jul04 — 1

Metapost

Up late looking at a pending PooterGeek entry called “Should You Use Your Last Bullet To Puncture The Vat Containing The Cloned Brain Of Adolf Hitler's Mother?” and I just cannot bring myself to finish it. As my friend Bill didn't exactly point out, I've been 'Blogging rather too much lately.

I am willing to sell the outline of the aforementioned post to a humorous political 'Blogger looking for an item combining moral philosophy, David Blunkett, and The Daily Mail. The new owner will probably have to remove the bit where I talk about how Claire Berlinski inspired it by writing about racism in Marseille. What do you reckon? 10p on eBay maybe?

17Jul04 — 1

An Unpaid For Plug

As The Fast Show would put it, The Economist is bloody brilliant! This week's edition, delivered promptly to my door this morning, contains a gripping investigation into the man who is pulling at De Beers's ever more gobsmacking grip on the diamond “market”, a fascinating survey of the rising costs of healthcare around the world, and a piece about guinea pigs full of what Harry Hutton would call “killer facts!”:

Peruvians already get through 22m guinea pigs a year. Mr Escobal and his team hope to persuade them that cuyes should not be kept for special occasions, but eaten far more regularly. To that end, they have developed some new breeds. On July 16th, they launched a new super-cuy, known as Peru, weighing up to three kilos (seven pounds).

Take out a three-year subscription now! You get unlimited personal access to the online edition free. Read it from cover to cover every week and I guarantee you will never lose an argument again.

17Jul04 — 1

Separate Questions

There's a difference between approving fully of Sharon's policies in dealing with the threat of Palestinian terrorism—I don't—and acknowledging seriously that they are working—they are. This is a difference too subtle for Barbara Plett of the BBC. In saying this, I am assuming that her disapproval of Sharon's approach is the reason she chooses to view the fall in attacks on Israeli civilians through the Beeb's reality distortion field.

16Jul04 — 18

Oliver Kamm Is Getting Sloppy

Yesterday, while snuffling through her head cold, my friend Judith was complaining on the phone about the depressing choice facing her in the upcoming US presidential elections, even (especially) as an ex-pat American. We know that every last vote counts. Like a lot of us 'Bloggish types, she wants a leader who will push for sound economic management and a robust response to global terror. Sadly, Tony Blair is not an option. Looking at Bush and Kerry I can understand her difficulty in making a choice. Oliver Kamm can't.

I don't always agree with Oliver Kamm, but I usually like the way he reasons and writes. His site is serious and unshowy, but it has made a big impact in its short time online. This post of his from Friday appeared in the Times. In it, he argues that liberals should support Bush. It's not very good. I'm not saying that just because I disagree with it. Kamm offers insufficient evidence to condemn Kerry in the way he wants to and the weakness of his prosecution is betrayed by hype and bluster. Laban Tall enthuses, I think rightly, about Stephen K's God Save the Queen, but, puzzlingly, also recommends Kamm's thin essay. Tall writes:

“As usual, Oliver is Olympian, measured, full of historical references, lovely style. If that guy went to a State school I'll eat my copy of 'Adventures of Aeneas'.”

Call me a narg, but I prefer political arguments to rest on facts as well as allusions and rhetoric. I suspect that Laban Tall is correct, though, and Oliver Kamm has never seen the inside of a comprehensive. In his boosting of Bush, Kamm's presentation is what you could call “coached for Oxbridge entrance”: if you haven't swotted up sufficiently to answer a given question, hide behind imperious phrase-making. It's appropriate that, in his latest post, (as well as resorting to the clichés “lost by a landslide”, “crushing defeat”, and “the applause … was long and loud”) Kamm criticizes Lindsey German for “a massive non sequitur“. Kamm's case against Kerry contains non sequiturs that would embarrass even a schoolboy bluffer:

“Liberal internationalism envisages an order founded on constitutional democratic principles. It stands, as Woodrow Wilson declared in 1917, “for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience”. It advocates maintaining peace through collective security and non-discriminatory trade.

“John Kerry is no inheritor of this tradition. His foreign policy reveals a conservative pessimism about the limits of political action (a stance that will be familiar to Michael Portillo from his service in a Government that declined to confront Serb aggression against Bosnia). Kerry's distaste for American exceptionalism runs deep. Lawrence Kaplan recently recorded in the American political journal The New Republic that when, in 1997, President Clinton described the United States as the “indispensable nation”, Kerry retorted, “Why are we adopting such an arrogant, obnoxious tone?””

If the quote is accurate and misses no important context then the remark Kamm cites provides no support for Kamm's assertion whatsoever. Kerry explicitly criticized the way Clinton sounded, not the truth of what Clinton said. In fact, Kerry asked (and asks) a perfectly reasonable question: “The World knows that we carry a big stick; why do we not speak softly?”

In this war, intelligence is our best weapon and the goodwill of bystanders is worth the pretence of modesty. Bush's, surely unintentional, use of the word “crusade” in referring to the War on Terror, for example, cost us dearly. Cruise missiles are expensive, but (public) tact is cheap. Here is Kamm's preferred candidate for 2004, George W. Bush, in debate with Gore in 2000:

“They ought to look at us as a country that understands freedom where it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from that you can succeed. I don't think they ought to look at us with envy. It really depends upon how [our] nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us. Our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power. And that's why we've got to be humble and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom. We're a freedom-loving nation. If we're an arrogant nation, they'll view us that way, but if we're humble nation, they'll respect us.”

Here is a picture of a parakeet. Whoops—this non sequitur thing is catching.

If we look at the other half of Kamm's summary of Wilsonianism, Kerry, so far, has said foolish things about free trade, but Bush has made more foolish, and more damaging, decisions.

Time for some more Kamm (or perhaps that should be “some more hysteria”):

“No more facile remark has been uttered about the Iraq war than John Kerry's lament that it diverted the focus of the War on Terror. Overthrowing Baathist totalitarianism was a humanitarian cause, but it also buttressed Western security. Recent academic research suggests that—contrary to numerous confident episcopal assertions—the “root cause” of terrorism is not poverty but political repression.”

At the very least, this is hyperbole. Off the top of my head, I can think of half-a-dozen more facile remarks that have been “uttered” about the Iraq war. Even Kamm can manage two:

“By some margin the most facile argument of the anti-war campaigners—I heard it, unsurprisingly, from Shirley Williams, Liberal Democrat leader in the House of Lords—was that containment of Saddam worked, as containment of the Soviet Union had worked, and that we should continue to rely upon it.”

“…facile analogy (Iraq is the new Vietnam etc.) comes naturally to those who wish to beat up on the President without engaging in the tiresome business of critical inquiry.”

That tiresome business of critical inquiry has proved a little too tiresome this time, but, as my legally minded sister would put it, perhaps Kamm knows something we don't about what the “root cause” fallacy has to do with the price of cheese. (I'd blame the second jump in logic I quote on bad subbing if I hadn't taken it directly from Kamm's own Webpages.) Here is Kerry, quoted in a negative article in the Weekly Standard, which at least has the patience and decency to give his words in full—and counter them with some substance:

“I don't fault George Bush for doing too much in the war on terror, as some do. I believe that he's done too little and done some things that he didn't have to. When the focus of the war on terror was appropriately in Afghanistan and on breaking al Qaeda, President Bush shifted his focus to Iraq and to Saddam Hussein. He pushed away our allies at a time when we needed them the most. He hasn't pursued a strategy to win the hearts and minds of people around the world, and win the war of ideas against the radical ideology of Osama bin Laden.”

Nothing there to justify Kamm's detour into sociology, just a boringly sensible complaint about resource allocation, international relations, and propaganda.

The danger of lost focus has always struck me as being one of the most powerful arguments against the war in Iraq. The war has stretched the US and UK military; it has been enormously unpopular with otherwise (foolishly) indifferent powers; it has put stockpiles of previously hidden weaponry into circulation.

All of these results are less important than the consequent improvement in the lives of the Iraqis, but all of them were predictable and predicted, and all of them are bad for western security in a struggle in which reserves of strength, access to information, and continued disarmament of our enemies should be priorities. Bush was right to fight, but the results were always going to be a problem for those—like me, like Kerry—who believe fundamentalist terrorism to be the biggest current threat to global security.

I used to think that Oliver Kamm's 'Blog had only one real weakness: it intermittently indulged superstition. Why does such a sharp mind blunt itself picking apart the weavings of the Pope and other celebrities of the world of revelation-over-reason? (It's his 'Blog and his mind—he can write about what he wants to.) Why is its lively skepticism flattened by “pricing mechanisms”? (This is more pseudoscience than pure faith—the word “mechanism” a mark of physics envy.) Why does it sell and re-sell a WMD argument for war with Saddam, as speculative and superfluous as a coursebook in Dianetics, both before and after the war? (I supported our intervention on more substantial grounds.) Recently, Kamm's establishment seems to be suffering from a new problem: the proprietor hasn't been paying enough attention to the quality of his material.

A recent post from the relatively obscure God Save The Queen contains the same quote about American exceptionalism, appears in the same discreet colours and fonts, but is both more interesting and persuasive. In a couple of places it's funny too. I'll be visiting Oliver Kamm from time to time because it's a damned fine 'Blog, but I'm going to be following the the newcomer more closely from now on.

15Jul04 — 4

Win A Spouse In PooterGeek's Exciting BBC Online Challenge!

About half of the visitors to this site hand over a significant wedge of money annually to pay for their access to the marvellous products of the BBC. I don't because I don't have a television. If I did, however, I'd like to know where to write to complain about, say, my getting poor value for my money.

PooterGeek's exciting Web competition invites you to visit the BBC Website via the link I have just provided and obtain a postal address (that's snailmail, people) to which such a complaint could be addressed. As I wrote, you must enter at the top of their Web tree and find, in four clicks or fewer, real co-ordinates for the Beeb—including a postcode. You are not allowed to use Google or any other search engine, except the one provided by the BBC itself.

First person to send me a plausible page history (no revisionism, you sneaky bastards) wins my hand in marriage. You are not obliged to claim your prize; even without my love until death, the adoration of the millions here will, I am sure, be sufficient. Winning heterosexual male/homosexual female entrants get Maoi, a real-life Filipina bride. All entrants must be at least 18 years old or have attractive older sisters. The judge's decision is final. No correspondence will be entered into—unless you can find my postal address on the PooterGeek Website.

The comments are open. Let the games begin!

14Jul04 — 0

And For My Next Trick

Now, in a dazzling demonstration of ninja 'Bloggology, I am going to link all three of my preceding posts with a single weird image. [Drumroll] I took this screen grab of an ad' that appeared while I was browsing the Washington political gossp 'Blog Wonkette a week or so back, but for technical reasons I've been waiting for an opportunity to upload it from the machine where I saved it. Americans do indeed do irony, but it's often a Jewish thing.

14Jul04 — 0

An Odd Confession

I don't know if it's because half of my best friends are Jewish, but every single time I see the cover of Bill Clinton's autobiography I imagine him shrugging his shoulders and delivering the title in a north London accent. For example:

“My life! The girl has this einredenish that I loved her! And that platke-macher friend of hers? Oy!

Now, if you are correctly predisposed, you'll suffer from it too. Sharing these internal strangenesses is one of the great joys of 'Blogging.

14Jul04 — 1

Road Traffic Accidents And Sex

I was once witness to a spectacular but non-fatal and non-crippling crash. The sequence of events was shockingly clear in my mind. A careless driver was turning right into the road where I lived. He drove straight across the path of an oncoming motorcyclist who was certainly not speeding. I know he wasn't speeding because he didn't die when, after the impact, he was thrown off his bike and hurled against a wall.

I ran towards the victim, checked that he was okay (he actually tried to stand up), rang 999, and, perhaps foolishly, gave the police my name and address when they also turned up at the scene with the ambulance. Inevitably I was asked to give a statement and testify in court. At the hearing, after some confusion caused by my arriving at security in a three-piece suit and giving my name as “Counsell”, I went into the waiting room to discover I had been completely wrong about the colour and age of the driver and the colour of the motorcyclist. For all I remembered of their appearance, they might as well have been crash test dummies.

Fortunately for the feeble lawyer cross-examining them, the driver and his passenger girlfriend were deeply stupid. They had concocted a story about the incident that Jeffrey Archer would have scoffed at. No one thought to mention that the star witness couldn't have identified the driver in a line-up of Marilyn Monroe lookalikes. Her Majesty won.

My first scientific job was with a group working on HIV. As well as studying a lot of immunology papers, I read plenty of academic work about sexual behaviour, and even visited the local STD clinic rather more often than a good Catholic boy ought to. Both of these activities were somehow more interesting than the pure biology, and, until we have a vaccine, changing people's sexual habits will also be more important to our controlling the spread of AIDS than the science. The United States government could have saved millions of dollars if they had accepted the conclusion of my research:

No one tells the truth about sex.

No one tells the truth about road accidents either. And they certainly don't tell the truth about sex during road accidents. [via Arts and Letters Daily]

14Jul04 — 0

Technical Improvements?

You should now be able to preview your comments before you submit them to PooterGeek and this 'Blog should now be compatible with the nifty Bloglines system for keeping track of new postings to Weblogs. Please tell me if you have any problems with any of PooterGeek's features. If I don't know about them I can't fix them.

13Jul04 — 0

Live And Let Die

Ah, we've been expecting you, Commander Blair. Do please sit down.

Thank you, schir.

I and my fellow members of this inquiry are fully aware of the sensitivity of your role. Rest assured that no information about you nor any specifics of your professional activities will leave this room and that the transcript of our meeting will be censored by the relevant authorities before publication. Everyone present at this gathering has been cleared to the highest level. You can speak freely here. Have I made myself clear?

Cryschtal schir.

Excellent. Well, let's not beat about the bush. We are all familiar with the events of the night of your assault on Mr Hussein's headquarters in 2003. I have to say that, based on my own service in the Royal Marines, and having read the classified documents about that raid prepared for the committee, I am, frankly, startled.

Schtartled?

Commander Blair, the tactical approach which you and your comrades-in-arms chose to adopt could be described at best as dangerously unconventional and at worst as downright reckless. Given that this official residence-cum-military installation was believed to contain nuclear, biological and/or chemical weapons, some sort of protective clothing might have been in order at the very least. But, really, to launch a commando raid clad in black tie?!

Well, one wouldn't want to visit a palasche underdreschsed, schir.

Ah. Exactly as I was warned. It didn't take us long for us to spark your famous dry “wit”, Commander Blair.

And I was wearing a wetschuit, schir.

Yes, so that you could approach Hussein's patio via one of his swimming pools—I've read your account. Very discreet, I'm sure. Again, please forgive me for being out of touch with current military practice, but do you not think you were placing yourself at something of a disadvantage by spearheading this particular mission alone, armed only with a small handgun, a watch, and a fountain pen, having sped across hundreds of miles of exposed desert road on a motorcycle?

An invischible, rocket-powered motorschycle, schir. Armed with heat-scheeking misschiles.

Yes, yes, I'm sure you had the very latest toys, though they don't always survive your playing with them. I have heard that your damages and expenses claims are a perennial source of entertainment for my colleagues in Intelligence. And, goodness knows, they're going to need some light relief once their part in this business becomes public.

Well, schir, I think one would have to agree that the ultimate kill raschio of thisch operaschion compared favourably with almost any other Britisch military adventure in the pascht schixty years.

Oh, you certainly deliver results, Commander Blair, but is it always necessary to take such enormous risks?

“He who dares…” and all that…

It's one thing to “dare” on one's own behalf, Blair, quite another to endanger the lives of citizens of longstanding allies. Present on the evening of your assault was a Mademoiselle Totté of the French Secret Service, who suffered multiple cuts to one arm, concussion, and bruising to her thighs.

[Raises eyebrow.] I don't think sche acquired the bruisches during the operation itschelf, schir.

And Mme Totté already has enough to explain, having ignored specific orders from her own government as to how Mr Hussein should be treated. Did you have anything to do with her disobedience, Blair?

We may have discussched geopoliticsch in the abschtract, schir, but Mme Totté is a schtrong head on her schoulders.

Hmm. I think we are, as often happens with these things, drifting away from the central question. According to all reports and the testimony of the members of the special forces who arrived at the scene in time to assist your and Mme Totté's escape from Hussein's elite bodyguard, no significant stockpiles of strategic weapons were to be found anywhere on the premises; this is even allowing for the quite spectacular destruction wrought by the explosive devices you somehow managed to arm and distribute around the site during the confusion of battle—a battle, I might add, in which you came under direct fire seven times, sustaining only two superficial bullet wounds.

I wasch wearing my lucky bowtie, schir.

But you weren't very lucky when it came to locating these much-discussed weapons of mass destruction, were you?!

No, schir.

Did you find any weapons-grade Uranium?

No, schir.

Biological warheads?

No, schir.

Modified SCUD missiles?

No, schir.

Giant laser beams, trained on the International Space Station?

No, schir.

Even allowing for the small and lightly armed force deployed, and for the remarkable speed of the victory, this was an enormously expensive operation, Blair. I fully recognize the collateral benefits of Hussein's removal from this theatre of operations and the modest improvements in the material circumstances of the locals, but you called in this action on the basis of your “hunch” that Mr Hussein was in possession of something rather more unpleasant than sitting-rooms full of 70s kitsch and a number of over-made-up mistresses. We at the ministry might not expose ourselves to the same physical threats as you do in your line of work, Blair, but you don't have to justify this kind of costly farrago to the Treasury, or, indeed, to the ordinary people who work hard every day to pay for your vodka Martinis. Surely there was something this despot was guarding and hiding out in the wilderness? My God man, if you didn't find banned weapons, what did you find on this expedition of yours?

Corpsches, schir.

“Corpshces”?

Dead bodies, schir. Thouschands and thouschands of dead bodies. No weapons of massch destructschion, schir; juscht men, women, and children, murdered and buried under earth.

Well, I'm sure that uncovering the remains of Hussein's victims was thoroughly unpleasant, Blair, but they were hardly worth starting a war over, were they now?

12Jul04 — 3

Biting

Some stories are timeless. Mark Steyn wrote this in September 2003. This is from today's Guardian. Next people will be advocating our hunting smallpox or polio to extinction.

12Jul04 — 1

Hidden Among Us

At least coloured people have the community-spiritedness to make their status as such more-or-less obvious, thereby sparing innocent bystanders unnecessary unpleasantness and their enemies the inconvenience of having to mark them out with little stars—or bigger swastikas.

(The photo accompanying that article reminds me that it would have been helpful to all the budding neo-Nazis at my school if someone like John Cleese had been patrolling the corridors to explain to them which way round the arms of the Hakenkreuz went and how to spell “National Front”. That's the trouble with British bog standard comprehensives: the pupils don't get a proper grounding in history or spelling and most British Jewish families care too much about their offspring's education to send their kids to them any more. Already deprived of a traditional education, the remaining pupils are still further deprived of a traditional hate group to victimize. This country's going to the dogs, I tell you.)

11Jul04 — 2

What Part of “No” Did I Misunderstand?

“Hello.”
“Hello. Damian?”
“That's right.”
“Hi, Damian. It's Ollie.”
“Oh. Hello, Olivia. Goodness. It's been a long time. I haven't seen you since… since that night you threw my Palm Pilot in the Thames.”
“Did I do that? Are you sure? I think I knocked you and it slipped out of your hand.”
“Yeah. Maybe. How are you anyway?”
“Oh I'm fine. Fine.”
“Still seeing Stig?”
“Who?”
“Y'know, Stig. The guy at SOAS with the flat in Camden.”
“Oh him. Nooo. That finished ages ago. You really haven't been in touch much, have you?”
“You told me 'you really didn't want me to be around you, confusing you', because all the stuff with Stig was 'doing your head in'”
“Did I?”
“Well you wrote it actually. On a Post-It Note.”
“I can't believe I wrote that. What happened to you anyway? We always used to do so much stuff together.”
“Together with rooms full of other people.”
“What about that night we went to the Almeida?”
“With Stig and Charlie.”
“Charlie?”
“Yeah, the drummer in that indie band. 'Flump' I think they were called.”
“Oh Chas. I wonder what happened to him.”
“You slept with him and Stig broke his nose.”
“But I wasn't seeing Stig then. I was trying to make you jealous.”
“Bedding Charlie 'no visible means of support' Latham was intended to make me jealous? You slept with someone else in the hope that it would make me want to sleep with you?”
“That's a rather crude way of putting it.”
“You certainly made me envious.”
“'Envious'?”
“Yeah. Jealousy is 'I wish she was with me instead of him'; Envy is 'I wish I could find a woman with bad enough taste to overlook my manifest deficiencies, like Chas has'.”
“We went to that pub in Putney together.”
“And you left with that rugger bugger who groped you on your way out of the Ladies.”
“You could have asked me out. Why didn't you ever ask me out?”
“I did, Olivia. And you said 'no'. Three times.”
“Three times?”
“Well, four, perhaps. Do you think I should count your telling me to 'just fuck off, okay?'”
“Damian! You always have to be so confrontational about everything. Look, I was only ringing to ask if you wanted to meet up with me and the gang again.”
“'The gang'? Do you think their tiny imaginations could stretch to my being part of their 'gang'? I was one of that minority of your 'friends' in a paying job, yet I always seemed to have less disposable income than any of them. They all had shelves full of Lonely Planet books; I came from somewhere too nasty for them to go 'travelling'.”
“What? Birmingham?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Look. I'm having a party next week. Just let me know if you'd like to come. It's Friday evening.”
“Is it your thirtysomethingth birthday party by any chance?”
“Oh! You remembered!”
“I didn't actually; it was just an intuition.”
“Well? Will you be there to watch me blow the candles out?”
“Can't make it, Ollie, luv.”
“Why not?”
“That night I'm washing my hair.”

11Jul04 — 0

Transgender Transgressions

A couple of weeks back, I saw Shrek 2 with the Anonymous Economist and the Clandestine Celt—not only do they not want to be named in my 'Blog, they want their romance to be kept secret too :-O —and afterwards said to them that it was the kinkiest, campest mainstream cartoon I'd seen in ages. Now, according to Backword Dave, it seems that the film was so kinky it's managed to upset the Moral Minority. Nice work, Dreamworks.

11Jul04 — 3

Eng-er-lish

This one is mainly aimed at my American posse. Shouts out to you all, brothers and sisters.

This piece in The Telegraph [probably requires free registration] begins as typical Sunday supplement filler, with some random musings on the significance of Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart's choosing to taking a “vacation” in the English countryside. Later, though, it perks up. It seems that, after years of having our vocabulary Americanized, we're polluting American English straight back at-ya:

The US academic Ben Yagoda recently wrote an article bemoaning the influx of “Briticisms” into the American language. Alien phrases such as “gone missing”, “sell-by date”, “one-off” and “spot-on” are infesting such venerable organs as The New York Times.

Oprah Winfrey recently scandalised the country by declaring that she was going on “holiday” instead of “vacation”. Trendy young things have taken to “booking” rooms instead of “reserving” them, and “ringing” rather than “phoning” their friends.

All this, of course, is as balm to the British ego, for so long tormented by American linguistic imperialism. But we are fools to take succour from such flimsy triumphs. Britishness is not cool because of anything we have done, but because the real trend-setters – Americans – fancy trying something new.

I think 'Blogging may have something to do with this phenomenon. It's not that Americans are reading English English 'Blogs, so much as that American geeks are fascinated by English English pop culture and show their in-ness by sharing its vocabulary online. And 'Blogs are currently cool. The very American 'Blog Slashdot, for example, is full of references to the creations of: J R R Tolkien, J K Rowling, the Pythons, Ian Fleming, Rowan Atkinson, and others.

According to the timezone data from my Webserver, PooterGeek now has about the same number of American visitors per day as British ones (though not around 3 o'clock yesterday morning when the bloody thing went down again for three hours). Perhaps it's because I say nice things about you at a time when saying nasty things about you is so fashionable over here. Any country that so offends the complacent, snobbish, anti-meritocratic English middle classes has to have something going for it. And, obviously, as far as I'm concerned, your charming, freedom-lovin' ways just rock.

10Jul04 — 0

Email Glitches

I'm having problems sending out email from my main email account. Apologies if any of you are not getting messages from me or getting multiple copies of the same message from multiple sources. NTL claims to be working on the problem.

10Jul04 — 1

Softball

This is a cute little account of a Michael Moore press conference from the Canadian Globe and Mail. Why do British newspapers so rarely write about controversial people in such a light and thoughtful way? Shame about the “typical American arrogance” line.

09Jul04 — 2

Me Me Me!

I don't usually post pictures of myself in this 'Blog (apart from the passport-sized thing over there ->), but I am being interviewed at Normy's place today so it's ego time!

My friend Leasey took the photo last month in Eat in Cambridge. Eat is an excellent sandwich bar—with flattering lighting. I'd like to thank her, Norman Geras, my family, all my other friends, my colleagues, my hosts UKshells, and all of you lovely, lovely people out there for being such a wonderful audience. I'd also like to thank Stephen Kingston of God Save The Queen who independently had the same idea about the relationship between the respective constitutions of the UK and the US and inspired me to polish it up for this post by advancing it on his own 'Blog recently. [Turns to lawyers: “Will that do?”]

We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this Moore. Shame on you, Mr Fisk. Shame on you!

09Jul04 — 1

Grown-Up Totty For A Dress-Down Friday

Since I can't think of anything worth 'Blogging and Norm's post will guarantee PooterGeek hundreds of hits without my lifting a finger, here is a gratuitous picture of Nigella Lawson. Scott Burgess wasted energy writing something interesting to justify the one on his 'Blog this week. For balance, here's one of George Clooney. George and Nigella may be better looking than me, but they don't have 'Blogs and they've never been interviewed by Norman Geras.

08Jul04 — 0

Goo Goo Ga Ga

Google exemplifies many of the best things about the Web. It even catalogues and copies the best things about the Web—and the worst things too. Its founders are self-mocking academics with a brilliantly simple idea, who hire hordes of PhD graduates to keep refining that idea in a never-ending race against nutters of every kind: Scientologists, porn spammers and 'Bloggers. Google runs open source software. It has a sense of humour. It has the best philosophy of any dotcom yet:

“You can make money without doing evil.”

(a philosophy I enthusiastically and expensively subscribed to before the company existed). Lastly, and most importantly, Google works.

Now Google is also big enough to attract bullies and bloodsuckers.

Since it noticed the Internet about thirty years too late, Microsoft has been infesting this new sales territory with worms (crawling through the holes in its software); with its ugly, non-standard additions to the languages of the Net; and with patches to fix bugs in its products. Recently the company has decided it wants a piece of Google's action.

Neater, though, I think, is that the pure, rational, goodness of Google should be challenged by the cloying, touchy-feely gibberish of the Googles. According to an article by Amy Doolittle in the Washington Times, the Googles are

“fictional creatures from the land of Goo … sent on a special mission to planet Earth where they help children learn about wellness, self-esteem and the environment. They also sell merchandise.”

With their public offering coming up, Google's people will probably want to reach some reasonable out-of-court agreement with their rivals.

I say set the attack lawyers on them. I want to see the four-eyed Googles and their garish, Flash-infested, politically correct nest of rancid HTML go down hard. Let the day-glo blood of the Googles flow like Sunny Delight!

08Jul04 — 0

The Cycle Of Vileness

This week the west bank of the Thames was witness to yet another of the Blogosphere's attempted character assassinations. It is believed that the revered leader of the Humafis group, the blind cleric Sheik Mohammed Blunkett, was intended to be the victim of what the government of Blogland admits is an official policy to stop those it says are attacking the freedom of its citizens to go about their daily lives in peace.

Anthony Cox, a senior figure in Blogland, widely known for his repeated public denials that the Bloggist Entity is in possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, is thought to have been behind at least one of the most devastating attacks.

In his daily preaching yesterday, the Sheik denounced a conspiracy by the so-called liberati, a shadowy alliance of muesli-eating giant lizards believed by some to run the World's databanks.

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