Monthly Archives: February 2003

Applying dynamite

to feet of clay: John Leonard (Andrew’s dad) “takes down”:http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16115 Norman Mailer in the _New York Review of Books_: bq. But his footwork is fanciest when he gets to style. _Why Are We in Vietnam?_ does not seem to have … Continue reading Continue reading

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overheard

On a train to Manchester bq. well, the chief executive thinks were being a bit too generous with this chap, so I thought, why not ignore the first fifty million? Nothing odd about that, you may think: but the middle-aged … Continue reading Continue reading

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Random

This morning I dreamed that Neal Ascherson and I were hunting a childhood neighbour of mine through some woods with submachineguns; I got bored and confident left Neal to kill him. The bursts of fire moved further off into the … Continue reading Continue reading

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Pax Americana

Barlow makes the “best case(via the IP list)”:http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200302/msg00186.html for a strategy behind the war that I have ever read. I hear you laughing already. But it’s time that someone put the serious argument in favour of imperialism explicitly. Continue reading

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A modest proposal

“Ben Hammersley”:http://www.benhammersley.com/archives/004137.html#004137 cuts through an enormous amount of the crap that has been written even by sensible people like “John Naughton”:http://molly.open.ac.uk/Personal-pages/archive-index.htm about how blogging democratises journalism: Want to be a journalist? Write something good. Continue reading

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unpatriotic

I’ve always thought “this(Dubya says atheists can’t be patriots)”:http://atrios.blogspot.com/2003_02_23_atrios_archive.html#90364641 was a myth; but apparently it really happened. I don’t doubt he _believes_ it. Just odd to find he would say it. Update. It turns out it was his father. Still, … Continue reading Continue reading

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Alden Pyle comes clean

Thomas Friedman is one of the rare American journalists who understands that foreign affairs involves dealing with foreigners. He walked with Robert Fisk thorugh the steaming remains of Sabra and Chatila after the massacre. He doesn’t believe most of the … Continue reading Continue reading

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smug

The “Conquest profile(from Saturday’s Guardian)”:http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/poetry/story/0,6000,895613,00.html just got linked from “Arts & Letters”:http://www.aldaily.com. Continue reading

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Two documents

Douglas Feith is now a very senior Pentagon official: the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. “Here (thanks to Robert Fisk)”:http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm is what he had to say in favour of invading Iraq in 1996. Note all the weird mystical stuff … Continue reading Continue reading

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An interesting explanation

for the triumph of American conservatism comes from “this (from Calpundit)”:http://calpundit.blogspot.com/2003_02_09_calpundit_archive.html#88901126 interview with “Eric Alterman”:http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/bio.mhtml?id=8 bq. There are some good liberal funders, but it’s a very complicated question. The genius of what Scaife and Coors and those people did is, … Continue reading Continue reading

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