Worse than Watergate? More political scandals

The Valerie Plame Affair.

The Evening Standard: The Paper that Hates London

As El-Attar points out in his unpublished letter to the Standard, the only hatred and terror for sale in this case was the hatred and terror being incited by Robert Mendick and sold by the Evening Standard.

Craig's BookNotes has a new address AGAIN: now at http://booknotes.weblogger.com/ - cut and paste it where it counts.

Meanwhile in 2004:

The Hutton Report seems to be largely forgotten now. Most people remember the '45 minutes' claim, and the 'sexed-up' assertion, which all seem to distract from the hundreds of deaths in Iraq that continue to this day. Hutton Inquiry.

Book: Blair's Wars: war without end which reminds me everyone should read Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four to understand phoney wars. Of course it all goes wrong when people believe they really are the enemy just because we are killing them and destroying their country's infrastructure. 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead. Why?

Attack on Faluja: Screams will not be heard.

MPs give harsh reception to ID card scheme - those were the days. Everyone's against it except the three or four people who can drive it through, it seems.

Greenpeace Oceans campaign to ensure we have food in the future.

Save or Delete is Greenpeace's campaign to protect ancient forests, so that we can breathe in the future.

News from Palestine: Arabic Media Internet Network. (Edward Said used to be here.)

Ben Hammersley on software patents.

Bush-backers-only policy riles voters at RNC rallies is an appalling example of control that Britain's New Labour woud be proud of. I find I am reading the US press as if I lived there now. And weblogs like Emphasis Added.

Secret Services harass blogger: We Interrupt This Madness...

U.S. Military Orders. Three Questions for President George W. Bush. US clears RFID chips for people.

They Voted for this Mess - the church in the US is telling people to vote Republican, despite it all. Good rant.

Book: Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting 21st Century Philistinism apparently not written by an intellectual, according to the comments on Amazon, but the question is valid.

Children not welcome: The War on Youth.

British Apples: Fallen fruit.

Blunketty-Blunk

They had that Blunkett on the Frost programme this morning. He seemed quite human, as if he has calmed down since his resignation. He now wants to "let people get on with their private lives" and "not lose my faith and trust in people". Strangely warm sentiments from someone who wanted to reintroduce ID cards in this country.

Jam-Packed

I've had no reason to pause at Edmonton, North London, since I saw Hawkwind at the Edmonton Sundown thirty years ago. Oh yes, and various traffic jams on the North Circular Road - the famed A406.

This morning in Edmonton, Ikea opened a new shop - their biggest in England - just after midnight and although only about 4,000 people turned up, chaos ensued: fights as rabid marketing victims jumped queues and congestion as bargain-hungry shopping zombies parked cars back along the NCR instead of in the car park. All this for a three-seater leather sofa for £45 until 3am and a double bed frame for £30 between 3am and 8am?

Channel 4 News: "There were 22 persons suffering from heat exhaustion and crush injuries ... and approximately 3,000 members of the public were discharged from the site by the police."

Ikea's new flagship superstore remains closed this morning while they repair the front doors.

BBC: Crush chaos at Ikea store opening: "Police said the stabbing of a man, in his 20s, near the store at about 0130 GMT was unrelated."

Reuters: Man stabbed in IKEA store chaos

ITV: Chaos outside furniture store

Tut tut, modern Britain, how people behave in a crisis expresses their character.

Apple didn't have this problem when 3,000 people queued patiently to get in their new Regent Street shop. Different kind of people.

A New Shrubbery!

I think it was when Thatcher won her second term that I learnt some political realities: pander to reactionary hatreds and get the rich folks who own the media on your side (or at least get them to not be too critical) and you're laughing, even if most of the electorate are crying. I had watched the overnight election coverage at Gis's flat with Woodcraft Folk posters on the wall and we could not believe what had happened after all the terrible things she did to education and the health service and the arts and so on... but she won. Four more years of hopeless depression followed. And now: that post with the photos was my reaction to the Bush victory. I am hopeful, but... the elephant in the corner that everyone is ignoring is whatever new atrocity they are planning, like invading Iraq. This time, regime change has not been leaked in advance.

How much better would things be if Kerry had won? Maybe he could address the US economy and stop spending like Bush, perhaps he could rescue US relations with the rest of the world, but things might not be better for Cuba and Latin America as a book Cuba: a new history by Richard Gott opines. In fact the US could continue bombing people as before. They would probably continue their inflammatory intervention in Colombia.

The next US election might well be Condi vs. Hillary. Condi - the Girl who Cracked the Ice is a long article on Condoleezza Rice, a very interesting person, which only left me puzzled as to why she would support the Iraq invasion. Maybe she should write a book too. Or Hillary vs. Arnie. Save Us.