The latest Crikey email carried this spray:

If the Brits could stop crashing into each other's helicopters & shooting their own war correspondents, and the Americans didn't harbour rogue soldiers rolling grenades into their own tents, the War on Saddam would be a resounding success.
The self-inflicted wounds have marred enormous territorial gains, as the Coalition rolls forward.
Yesterday, it seemed veteran ITN correspondent Terry Lloyd, cameraman Fred Nerac and translator Hussein Othman were killed by friendly fire.
There was Australian photographer Paul Moran killed by local terrorists in Northern Iraq.
And the bizarre case of the US soldier who killed and wounded his own comrades in Kuwait.
It seems that the pinpoint accuracy of the 'Shock & Awe' bombing campaign means the safest place and occupation so far seems to be a journalist in Baghdad.

I presume Crikey hadn't heard about this before the email went out:

A British Royal Air Force aircraft returning from a mission in Iraq was possibly shot down by Patriot missiles near the Kuwaiti border, British and U.S. military officials said Sunday.
A senior Pentagon official confirmed to CNN that a Patriot missile probably shot down the RAF plane.

As I was saying the other day, our side appears to be doing better at attacking itself than the Iraqis are. Pinpoint accuracy is fine, but only when you're aiming at the right pinpoint.

posted by James Russell | 9:56 PM

Happy birthday William Shatner.

posted by James Russell | 7:16 PM

If truth is the first casualty of war, is this the second?

Radio station and music video channels are keeping to guidelines to avoid playing offensive or insensitive material during the war with Iraq.
The guidelines are similar to those used in the first Gulf War of 1991, when songs were banned if they had dubious titles or lyrics.
Several stations contacted by BBC News Online on Friday said they were making sure they did not play tracks that could cause offence.
A spokeswoman for BBC Radio 2 said: "In the event of hostilities, Radio 2 operates a policy of sensitivity to the music played on the station.
"We do not have a banned list of records but are careful to reflect the mood of the country as events unfold."

They may not have a list as such, but don't tell me they haven't been specifically warned off playing certain things.

posted by James Russell | 7:07 PM

Liberals sharpening their knives already for John Brogden?

As the blame game flares, shell-shocked Liberals are asking whether it is worth persisting with Mr Brogden or whether the experiment should be terminated and a new leader chosen.
The front-runner is Barry O'Farrell, MP for Ku-ring-gai and a former Liberal state director, but he has indicated he will re-nominate Mr Brogden for the leadership at the first post-election meeting of MPs.

I remember when Paul Keating challenged Bob Hawke for the ALP leadership in July 1991 and lost, he vowed not to do it again. As we all should know, by the end of that same year he'd not only challenged him again, he won that time. Moral of the story being, of course, that the mere fact that a politician says something doesn't mean shit, especially not when it comes to questions of leadership. Not to say that Mr O'Farrell necessarily will stab Johnny boy in the back when the crunch come, but you never can tell...

posted by James Russell | 6:57 PM

Alex, you're a fuckwit.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today the government did not know whether threats of a terrorist attack in Indonesia's second largest city were linked to the war on Iraq.

Two things to be said here:

1) There's talk of a terrorist attack against westerners in an Islamic country at the same time that westerners are conducting their own attack on another Islamic country. I think we can say there's got to be some connection.

2) Why doesn't the government know? What are you doing to find out one way or the other? The foreign interests of this nation are in YOUR hands, Alex, and if there's a threat against them it'll be in your interests to get the fucking information...

posted by James Russell | 6:48 PM

Stewart finds yet another OzBlog I hadn't previously known about, one of the snazzier-looking Movable Type blogs I've seen. Say hello to Raena, everyone.

posted by James Russell | 6:36 PM

Gummo ruminates on Lt-Col. Tim Collins' speech from the other day.

These are the sort of words that you address to mature adults who face serious risk and know that they face serious risk. Although there are obvious differences between Collins' situation and that of Howard & Crean when they addressed us on this war both speeches could have benefited if we had been addressed not as worried children refusing to go to sleep without the lights on but as citizens of a democracy. Collins' respected his men enough to address them as soldiers: it's long past time that we received similar respect from our politicians.

I missed Howard's speech to the nation, though I suspect I didn't miss much; I did see a bit of Crean's speech, and what I saw suggested to me that I wouldn't be missing much if I tuned out, so I did. The only thing I remember about it was the way he seemed unable to keep his hands still. Gareth has more to say about Crean here.

posted by James Russell | 6:26 PM

Rob Schaap's in fairly bleak mood here. Unfortunately I suspect he's right.

posted by James Russell | 6:18 PM

Wayne Wood makes with the funny.

While we were reading the weekend papers my wife looked up from what she was reading and asked "What do you reckon they should do if they capture Saddam Hussein?" I replied "The British forces should take all six imposters, line them up against the wall and shoot them out of hand. After executing all the lookalikes they should round up the whole of SH's family; brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, nephews etc, 'unto the biblical seventh generation', and execute the lot. Totally raze Tiklit and remove every mention of the dictator and his family. Capture the whole lot on video and send copies to Al-Jazeera with instructions that this fate will befall everyone who threatens any and every form of terrorism in the future. Only by being thoroughly ruthless is there a reasonable probability they will eliminate the establishment of Saddam as a martyr."
At this point I should declare that I am absolutely and totally against this war.

HA! Actually, no, I won't laugh cos that would be rude and I otherwise do see the point of what he says in the rest of the post. I just found the conjunction of that opening paragraph and the first line of the next one amusing. The problem I have with his idea is that if you want to avoid making a martyr of someone you need to entirely wipe out all memory of them. As long as someone remembers the existence of Saddam Hussein and remembers what the (excuse me while I choke on the catchphrase) Coalition of the Willing did in Iraq, there's the possibility that someone will make a martyr of him. To completely extirpate all traces of a person's historical being from the record, to erase all memory of them... I personally can't even begin to imagine the effort that would require, and frankly I shudder at the thought of it. Which is why I suspect for all the carnage Wayne envisages, it still wouldn't work...

posted by James Russell | 6:16 PM

Matt on the image that defines the war for him so far.

NBC correspondent David Bloom atop an M88 Recovery Vehicle (ostensibly a big winch on tank tracks) powering through the desert of Southern Iraq.
The image was so obviously constructed in an executive producers' meeting months ago ("I want guns! I want unopposed, relentless motion! I want Bloom to suck sand everytime he opens his mouth!") that it makes a metaphor for the whole war - utterly without meaning, totally superficial, and really really cool to look at.

posted by James Russell | 5:24 PM

Angela Bell warns against cliche.

On the topic of repeating worn-out expressions, I came across a recent book review in The Observer that pointed out how Shakespeare knew something now confirmed by brain scans:

'Modern studies have shown the more a word is used in conversation, the less the brain responds to it. Our neurones get tired of hearing it. You can see this effect in the electrical activity of the brain's word centres. They stop sparking so much. 'Shakespeare knew that intuitively. Hence the rich variety of his vocabulary and his use of unexpected words or odd combinations of them.

Case in point: "weapons of mass destruction". I've heard that phrase bandied about so many times lately I just don't even take it in any more. A Google search reveals over a million web pages out there bearing that combination of words at some point.

posted by James Russell | 5:19 PM

Our first war casualty.

An Australian cameraman on assignment for the ABC has been killed in a suicide car bombing in Iraq.
Paul Moran died instantly when a taxi pulled up beside him and exploded in the northern Iraq town of Sayed Sadiq yesterday, ABC radio reported today.
Moran was reportedly getting "one last shot" when a taxi pulled up beside him and exploded.

Yes, we can time it so that $400m dollars worth of missiles hit Baghdad all at once, yet we can't stop one fuckwit with an explosives-laden car. All right, then, W, when you've finished wiping the ground with the collective pansy asses of the Iraqi military, can we expect you to turn your attention to this ongoing terrorist act?

posted by James Russell | 4:31 PM

"We have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us."

One of the 13 soldiers wounded in a grenade attack on a tented camp in Kuwait today has died of his injuries, CNN reported.
Time magazine correspondent Jim Lacey told the broadcaster by telephone from Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait that he had been told of the death by several people.
"We're allowed to talk about it," he said.

Good heavens, the media actually allowed to talk about something in wartime? Someone clamp down on that!

The US military said earlier today that 13 US soldiers were wounded in a suspected terror attack at the heavily-guarded Camp Pennsylvania in the northern Kuwait desert, updating the figure from 10. [...]
News reports have stated that a US soldier was being held after the attack left 13 troops injured.
Charles Clover, a reporter with the Financial Times, said in a telephone call to CNN that the American was being held but said he could give no further details at the request of the US military, such as whether the soldier was suspected of being directly responsible for the attack or of aiding the perpetrators.

FoxNews has more:

An American soldier caught in a Sunday morning grenade attack in Kuwait is dead.
A suspect in the attack, also a member of the 101st Airborne Division in Kuwait, has been detained. Three of the thirteen hurt when grenades were apparently tossed into tents are undergoing surgery, military officials said.
The suspect, a Muslim American, went missing shortly before the incident, and was later found nearby hiding in a bunker. The motive in the attack "most likely was resentment," said Max Blumenfeld, a spokesman for the U.S. Army V Corps. He did not elaborate.

We can presume that Fox were more interested in specifying the fact that the suspect is a Muslim rather than the fact that he's an American. Cue outraged questioning about how a cowardly anti-American towelhead like that ever got into the heroic ranks of the US military, especially at this crucial time in world history...

posted by James Russell | 4:24 PM

Adam links to 10 stories which have nothing to do with people killing each other.

posted by James Russell | 4:16 PM

At least the Razzies still went on.

Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie swept away the competition at the Razzies, an annual spoof of the Academy Awards singling out the worst achievements in film.
"Swept Away," the island-romance bomb that starred Madonna and was written and directed by Ritchie, took five Razzie Awards on Saturday, among them worst picture of 2002.
Madonna tied for worst actress with fellow pop queen Britney Spears, who made her starring debut in "Crossroads," another worst-picture contender.
Ritchie was chosen worst director, while "Swept Away" earned Madonna a second award for worst screen couple with co-star Adriano Giannini. A remake of an acclaimed Italian film about a rich snob stranded with a hunky sailor, Madonna's "Swept Away" also received the trophy for worst remake or sequel.
Madonna was named worst supporting actress for her brief cameo as a fencing instructor in the James Bond flick "Die Another Day," for which she also sang the theme song.
"She's not even in the movie for two minutes, but she's so awful in that one scene, that for the whole rest of the movie, you cannot forget that your eyes and ears have been assaulted with the stupidity of her appearance," said Razzies founder John Wilson.
Madonna's latest Razzies bring her career total to nine, tying her with Sylvester Stallone for most awards ever. Three years ago, the Razzies also chose Stallone and Madonna as worst actor and actress of the 20th century.

posted by James Russell | 12:49 PM

It has to be said that I am largely dead to poetry. I don't mind a bit of narrative verse now and then—I recall liking Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad and some of Lord Byron's tales—and I don't mind verse drama either. But with a few exceptions other than those, poetry does not do it for me. Prose I can look at and judge whether or not it works. Poetry doesn't speak to me enough even to be able to tell whether I thought it was good or not.

Unusually for me, then, I'm going to recommend this week's installment of "the weekly Billy Collins" as presented by Tim Dunlop. Tim has been presented stuff by Billy Collins, America's poet laureate, for a few weeks now, and this week's item is a particularly good one. Go read it.

posted by James Russell | 12:32 PM

In other news, the Iraqi forces are proving to be a right bunch of masgouf-eating surrender monkeys.

posted by James Russell | 12:06 PM

So I am paying for my night out with a hangover (almighty, but mercifully fading) and an all round body ache (still just almighty, particularly in the legs). When you don't do these things for a while it's amazing how out of shape you get with them. Still, no complaints from me, I enjoyed it... and it served as a kind of protest, too, to tell myself if no one else that no fucking war is going to infringe on my civil liberty in a democratic society to dress up in black, go to a badly lit club in Surry Hills, and make semi-rhythmic gyratory motions on the dancefloor with fifty other sweaty goths to the sound of 80s music, in-between drinking vodka cruisers and uttering the standard goth club lament of how much that song sucks and how you can't dance to it. You're not taking that away from me.

posted by James Russell | 12:03 PM