The US launched attacks on targets in Afghanistan last night, so one ear was tuned to the radio, the other to the Indycar race in Houston. Bizarre. And no NFL commentary on the AFN.

Turning to today, and I finally lose sympathy with my manager. She calls in sick in order to evade a meeting of all the managers. Our #2 goes instead, and finds the department is top of the agenda. We have a meeting with the general manager, where we learn that there will be a consultant (one of many we're employing at the moment) coming in to look at the department, and see where we might do things more efficiently. GM also takes charge of some of the jobs we have in hand, delaying some and deploying me on a round-the-regions install of a couple of machines in remote offices early next week.

War Goes Bang Sara
I'm sure that we have done many things wrong in the past to upset certain people, but we're not worse than any other country around.
What have the Swiss done to upset you? The worst thing they've done in the past century is import Celine Dion for Eurosong 88.

I do'nt know much about Bin Laden (and still don't, though I keep meaning to read up about him)
Then I respectfully suggest that you do the research.

Nobody that I know, in real life anyway, is saying, 'oh what have we done to hurt these people???' They are saying, what on earth gave them the right to do that to us!!!! and I agree with them.
I really do think there's a little bit of point-missing taking place here. The two are interlinked. The US has backed Israel for many years. This gave legitimacy to complaints from Arabs that they were being denied land, which grew after Israel's 1967 annexation of the West Bank. It was a driving force behind the radical "Islam" that rose to power in Iran in early 1979, and deposed the Afghan King at the end of that year. However, as time went on, and the US became more critical of Israel's actions, the hatred started feeding off itself, burning up in the past month.

(This is a *gross* over-simplification.)

I don't know what we've ever done to Afghanistan, as far as i know, we had been helping them, and were sending them money for food and such each year
No, the US was paying them not to grow opium poppies, even though they (er) were growing opium poppies. Before that, the US backed the opposition to the USSR puppet regime, including (er) a Mr bin Liner.

I came back from england really proud of myself for being able to see the US as not perfect. and then this happens, and I realize just how many of my ideas have NOT changed.
Would you deem the US to be perfect in any regard?

I say 'us' in quotation marks, because from what I've heard, Bin Laden doesn't actually hate the USA. He hates capitalism, and he sees us as the epitome of it.
That's a new one here, I'm given to understand that he's motivated by the anti-Israeli and US feeling outlined above.

I feel we MUST do something in order to preserve our dignity.
An interesting argument. The nation has been spited, so it's going to smash something to relieve the frustration.

Would we tolerate this from a toddler?

I personally think we should just find those responsible, and kill them. not just kill them..make them suffer..a lot.
I'll sing, if it helps.

I have that feeling of abosulte rightness about going to war.
Can a war ever be absolutely right? Especially one where the aims are so opaque as the current one? I have no idea *why* targets in Afghanistan are being pummelled on a nightly basis. Nor do I have much of a concept of what this will achieve, or how this will work against the Qaida network. And nor do I much trust the citations against Mr Liner.

I mean, someone attacked us. We have got to defend ourselves.
Is this self defence? As noted above, I have no idea whether it is or not.

Not only that but we are a part of NATO as well. first off, if we were terrorizing people for no reason, they would demand us to stop.
Ah, such naivety, it's touching. NATO was, for forty years, the US nuclear umbrella against the rain of USSR missiles in Europe. It's only since the demise of the USSR that NATO has been less US dominated.

Nicaraguan Contras. Vietnam. Chilean insurgency. Angola. Korea. Nigeria.

thats hardly the US terrorizing someone, it would be all the countries that are in NATO.
The above was the US acting alone, outside of NATO auspices. Just as the UK acted outside NATO when recapturing the Falklands in 1982.

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Katalin Torok:
The food drops will, but they are not enough for such a big and poor country.
Aid charities in the UK are lambasting the US government on this. Apparently, it takes 2500 planes loaded with supplies to feed Afghanistan for *one month*. The US dropped 25,000 one day rations into a country filled with minefields, and in places where it's going to be taken by those who are already fit and strong. It's less than 0.00001% of the monthly total. Even if all 25,000 rations were used on Monday, by Tuesday the people were back at square one, still not knowing from where their next meal was coming.

Me too. And also i am very interested in what action the air strikes are preparing. There had better be a major plan behind these strikes, or else... well we shouldn't even think about that...
Someone should. And I hope that there's a proper plan, right the way through this one.

My day is fairly quiet, finally resolving a knotty little problem that has been bugging us for the past fortnight, and doing a write-up for future reference. Also taking advantage of a relatively quiet day to look through my logs of open jobs and close many of them down as history.

Amazing revalations from the Government. Four weeks ago, as the rest of the world was watching the crimes against humanity unfold in New York, one uncivil servant pointed out that this would be a really good day to release any announcements the department wanted to keep quiet, as the press would be concentrating on other stories. On one level, this may be good news management, but it's rotten public relations, and it doesn't play well with the voters.

Marxism and health care Tom Panarese:
Marx hated capitalism and foresaw a bloody uprising of the proletariat to form a communist utopia (I'm probably oversimplifying this, but in the interest of space and trying to think back to sophomore year of college...). And trust me, you need look no further than our country's healthcare system to find places where capitalism goes wrong.
As a summary, it's not too bad. Readers do need to remember that Marx saw this uprising coming in an industrialised country, such as the UK or the US, not the feudal system of Russia around 100 years ago. There are those who argue that Marxism has never been given a fair trial.

I'm no defender of the US healthcare system, which fails on two grounds: it doesn't care, and it's not a system. Neither am I a defender of Britain's centrally planned system, which forces people into sub-standard care without any hope of escape. A system like the French seems appealing.

Why discuss this now? It's one of those issues that won't go away. It's something that will require attention, and sensible proposals, from World President Blair. It's the issue most likely to unseat him in four years' time.

Conversative party leader IDS makes his first speech to his party. Well, he croaks through it, with a clear frog in his throat. Many of the soundbites are fluffed, and the attack is lost. The strategy: that Labour is failing to deliver on public services, and it's going to be a recurring theme when President Blair's call to moral arms has gone the way of his work against the Forces of Conservatism (1999), the National Grid for Learning (1997) or Cool Britannia (1995.)

The US government calls on its organs not to show any video of Osama bin Liner, lest he give hints and instructions to his plants in the West. KY News has a studio guest, who is asked what he thinks is happening. "Well, bin Liner might not wear his watch on that wrist, and I don't know, the silver cup might have some significance. But I don't know what he might be saying, he might have no hidden message." This is not what WOK News wants to hear.

Bang goes a man with a gun Tanya Urrutia:
Hey Iain!
I just agree perfectly with you. :P, what gave you the right to read my mind?
Maybe we're hooked up to the same mind. Honestly, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to park cars...

No one sees oneself as the bad guy. Tell me, when you saw "He-man" as a kid, did you ever jump up and down for skeletor?
Er, quite often actually. It was the way he never managed to overcome this chap that made me root for the underdog.

(small note: if you never saw he-man, don't worry... really DO NOT WORRY :)
Oh, I saw he-man. He was *cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute*. In a beefcake way.

The US (or at least CNN) is saying that they are bombing the terrorists so that they can never strike again.
Oh, pull the other one, it's a direct line to Daffy Duck. This is a battle against the Taliban.

Or, if you believe World President Blair, ""Even when al-Qaida is dealt with, the job is not over. The network of international terrorism is not confined to it." A theme echoed by the Republican's shadow ambassador to the UN, who says it's going to require "further action against other organisations and states."

How many millions and billions of $$$ do you have to invest to do such a "war on terrism"?
Enough to make British finance minister Gordon Brown worried, lest his long-time companion Prudence ups and leaves him.

How many $$$ will be cut from research projects such as cancer (obNobel Medicine Prize this year)?
How much will be cut from *accepted* social goods, such as basic healthcare, education, roads, railways? A penny off is 3p too much.

I don't understand what is so new about this war. Is it new, because it is public now?
It's new because a US politician has opened his mouth and put in his foot.

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paulo:
Well, let's put it this way: what good was it doing to try to judge general Pinochet for events that happened almost 30 years ago? What will it solve? Will it resurrect the dead? That was pretty much the argument of the former fascists when the general was arrested a couple of years ago.
An argument that they have lost, now that Pinochet is facing trial back in Chile. IIRC, this came out on Sept 10. You may be excused for having missed it.

Bin Laden must be punished for the same reason why Pinochet should have been. And Kissinger, since we're at it (but I'm afraid that the chances of that are even slimmer now...)
We can always try him in his absence. Whichever "him" we talk about, we can always try him in his absence.

Another question, of course, is whether the measures taken (and the money spent) are really effective or just a show-off, but I'm not against safety measures as a matter of principle.
[cough] Notional missle defense [cough]

please, *please*, solve at fucking once the israeli-palestinian conflict; as long as it exists, terrorists will have an excuse to keep attracting outraged muslims to their cause.
It's odd that you should mention this... there are reports from credible sources that the US planned to broker a new round of talks to coincide with the Jewish new year a few weeks ago.

World President Blair steps up the propaganda war, telling bin Liner "We know the game you are playing. And I'm going to say gridlock green A2 and claim my 50 points." Blair was in Cairo after talking with Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. He might have visited Saudi Arabia, but the leaders of that country and this couldn't get their diaries to meet up. Serves Blair right for entrusting his to Failtrack.

Geri Halibut performs for British troops on exercise in Oman. "There are plenty of guys here who would love to take her out." Most of them are music fans.

The two remaining listeners to long wave dance station Atlantic 252 are said to be "underwhelmed" with news that the station is to be sold and turned into another national sports station. German media giant RTL has sold its 80% stake in the station to Teamtalk for GBP 2 million.
The station launched in 1989 as the home of great new music, and was responsible for making hits out of records by the Simpsons, Tasmin Archer, Mr President and Rialto. It went off the boil in 1999 after letting most of its decent staff go and relaunching as a dance station, using a sound quality that is far worse than regular AM radio.
Tributes have been few and far between. Charlie Woolf said "Atlantic paid the rent for a few years, but you can't beat life on the ocean wave." Holly Wood said "Do you have any idea what time it is here?" Eddy Temple-Morris said "I moved to Xfm and doubled my listenership at a stroke."

The NI minister deems that two Loyalist groups have ended their ceasefires, following some nights of rioting and petrol bombing in Belfast.

Premier League footballers are to be balloted on a potential strike over television money. The strike would be the first in British sporting history.

Switzerland Sara :)
>What have the Swiss done to upset you? The worst thing they've done in the
>past century is import Celine Dion for Eurosong 88.
okay, so now I'm confused..what am I missing?
Switzerland, rather a good democracy. The only evil thing that I can remember from Switzerland is their entry to Eurosong 88, performed by Celine Dion.

What's worse, it won.

a few questions though if you know the answers :) a) why did we care if they were growing opium poppies in the first place?
Because opium poppies make opium, which goes on to make heroin, which is (according to the generals of the ongoing but oft-forgotten War Against Drugs) A Bad Thing.

b) why were they still growing them if we were paying them not too (unless they were double dealing?)
Ask a silly question... Because they are all monks eating custard on the third Tuesday after Pentecost.

>>not just kill them..make them suffer..a lot.
>I'll sing, if it helps.
-->LOL go ahead then :)
Actually, let me hand the mike over to the Swiss Eurosong from 88.

Not to be passing the blame, but its actually Ross that gave me this idea *grin* I can't remember what we were talking about in specifics, but I had said something to the effect that it was the US's decision what to do about this, and he said, no its not, its NATO's, because everyone is involved, and it has to go through NATO. so yeah...
Nope. NATO is a self-defence organisation, that doesn't have that much of a role now that the Cold War is over.

but then I don't know what countries are in NATO either, other than the US, UK, and I would assume Canada and a few other countries that I know of.
Deep breath: Lots of countries around the North Atlantic, comprising... USA, Canada, Newfoundland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Turkey.

Main absentees: Austria, neutral Ireland, neutral Sweden.

Also in town today, a train that doesn't work. I know; I was on it. Pulls in to Silly Oak station on time, and doesn't leave owing to a door that won't close. 30 minutes before the guard has the sense to shift the train down the line and stop blocking. I was minded to abandon the journey and claim a breach of contract refund; instead, as the train was 30 minutes late, I get to complete the journey *and* claim a late refund of 50%. Cue nastygram...

Silly sisters Sara :
According to my yucky sister Serena, Ross is gay.
A gay man writes: Nope.

one of them was because Ross didn't care about whether we had a boy or girl when we were having our first baby - he just wanted the baby and me to be healthy. Serena says that 'real men' always want a boy LOL its so funny :)
And she's basing this statistic on a random sample of - how many real men, exactly? How many real men does one meet by chance in upper Wisconsin? Indeed, how many real men does one meet in the US?

Jaeda
she says your *husband* is gay? Apparently the fact that you're pregnant again has escaped her?
There's not much that gets past Serena's mental blocks.

I think your mom and sister and my mom and sisters need to all go on vacation together...how about it? we'll just ship them off, and take over the houses?
Can we turn one of them into road filler, to ensure there isn't that alarming hole in the road next to your mother's house? It's a very big hole, it's appeared, and police are looking into it.

Serena can tell everyone that's straight that they're gay
Wouldn't get very far if she tried this on Mr Jae's Dad.

my sister Jamie can tell all the gay people that they're really straight.
Then she can go discuss politics with Jerry Springer.

Richard Carlson:
How I long for the days of the Iranian hostage crisis, when the only song we were subjected to as a nation was Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree."
In a spooky way, this brings me to VH1's Worst Videos Of All Time, Ever weekend. Here are four I wish I'd not seen.

1) Baltimora's "Tarzan Boy." A 1985 Eurodisco hit, complete with cheap synths and cheesy yodelling. As a song, it's not the worst in the collection. The video, though, was gratuitously over-done computer animation effects, ones that looked dated and pisspoor even at that early date.

2) Cliff Richard's "Wired For Sound." Top five in 1981, alarmingly. The chorus is cringeworthy enough: "Power from the needle to the plastic / AM, FM, I feel so ecstatic / Now." To make a bad thing far, far worse, the vid features the King of Pop wearing massive silver headphones, on rollerskates, accompanied by professional skaters in dayglo lycra bodysuits, doing their wheeled thing round a shopping centre in Milton Keynes.

3) Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby." 'Nuff said.

4) Chas & Dave and the Matchroom Mob's "Snooker Loopy." A charming ditty about five of the players managed by Barry Hearn. Cockney plonkers Chis & Des banged their piano like Colin Sell on a bad day, while five people proved that snooker players cannot sing. With each verse lifting by three semitones, there were hooks aplenty. The video could only make things worse, and clearly had a budget of almost �1. Alarmingly, this made the UK top 10 in 1986, and wasn't even the worst record of the year. Not by a long shot.

Downing gets the better start, but Newcastle comes back. Newcastle gets a lucky break as Paxo accepts "Dundee" for "Dundee United" - two quite distinct football sides. The Toon also gets a set of biographies of US talk sh ow hosts (Springer, Winfrey, Lake.) Downing is answering literary questions. Incorrectly.

The music round sees Newcastle begin a slow march forward; many starters, few bonuses gives the side a brief lead. Downing can't get many bonuses, and we're set for a to-and-fro finish. At the gong, Newcastle has the win, 225-220. That Dundee error proved vital.

But! By the time the teams came back to film their second round matches, the production staff had spotted that Dundee and Dundee United are different teams. So, knock five points off, and it's a 220-220 tie. Kit everyone out in the same shirts, and film the tiebreak starter. Newcastle gets the tiebreak, the victory, and safe passage to the second round. Downing will be back as one of the highest-scoring losers at the start of next month.