No time-out in the war after all?

posted by James Russell | 6:06 PM

Kim Il Jong's bizarre fear of triplets.

ALL triplets in North Korea are being forcibly removed from parents after their birth and dumped in bleak orphanages.
The policy is carried out on the orders of Stalinist dictator Kim Jong-il, who has an irrational belief that a triplet could one day topple his regime.
The number three is thought to be auspicious in North Korea and triplets are revered. It is believed they are likely to rise to positions of power, which accounts for Kim's insistence that they are all raised in state-run orphanages, where their development can be controlled.
Officially, the policy was introduced to help poverty-stricken parents in a country where hunger is widespread.
But aid agencies and diplomats have dismissed this: triplets born to high-ranking officials are also seized.

posted by James Russell | 6:05 PM

India, where human sacrifice is somehow not yet a thing of the past.

posted by James Russell | 6:02 PM

Michael Jackson voted most foolish American.

posted by James Russell | 6:01 PM

Pedro Almodovar bites the hand that gave him an award.

posted by James Russell | 5:43 PM

Meanwhile, the war and the terror go on.

A suicide bomber in a taxi killed four American soldiers in an attack Saturday. Iraq (news - web sites)'s vice president identified the bomber as a noncommissioned Iraqi army officer and said suicide attacks will now be "routine military policy."
"We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land and we will follow the enemy into its land," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said. "This is just the beginning. You'll hear more pleasant news later."
The suicide bombing was the first against U.S. and British forces since the invasion began.
The bomber struck at a U.S. checkpoint on the highway north of the city of Najaf, U.S. military officers said. A taxi stopped close to the checkpoint, and the driver waved for help. The soldiers approached the car, and it exploded, Capt. Andrew Wallace told Associated Press Television News.
Wallace said the victims were part of the Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division.
U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar, confirmed the incident, saying the soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division were killed at 10:40 a.m. when a car bomb exploded at the unit's checkpoint in central Iraq.
Maj. Gen. Gene Renuart said that kind of attack was "a symbol of an organization that's starting to get a little bit desperate."

Yes, it may well be a sign of desperation, but it's a sign that's curiously resistant to being hit by missiles. Still, now that Iraq has used suicide bombers against the Good Guys as opposed to a mere Australian cameraman, perhaps W will now see fit to try and do something about it...

posted by James Russell | 5:40 PM

Right then. We have black background, white text, plus two slightly different reds for links, dates and section dividers. Not too bad. I just need to go into Bravenet now and change the design of the poll so it's legible again...

posted by James Russell | 3:25 PM

And experimenting with colours.

posted by James Russell | 2:52 PM

Experimenting with a larger size font.

posted by James Russell | 2:23 PM

TV viewers getting "war fatigue".

The number of people who say it tires them to watch war coverage was 42 percent from Tuesday to Thursday this week. Less than a third of poll respondents said that on Sunday and Monday, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Pew's surveys also found a steady increase in viewers who found the coverage "frightening to watch." Fifty-eight percent of respondents agreed with that statement in the most recent poll, versus 51 percent earlier in the week.

No shit.

posted by James Russell | 2:18 PM

Of course the really disconcerting thing about daylight saving time is that when you mention it being a specific time, the next day when you set the clock back in your Blogger settings it throws things out of whack. Trust me, the time-stamp on the post below about it being after 10pm may now read 9.11pm, but it was 10.11pm last night when I posted it. Damn daylight saving. I didn't change the clocks back last night, so when I woke up this morning I saw "10.00" on the bedside clock, thought "fine, time to get up"... except when I went through to say good morning to Dad he reminded me to put the clocks back an hour, whereupon I suddenly realised it was actually nine, not ten. And nine o'clock on a Sunday morning and me do not normally mix well. See, if I'd put the clocks back last night, I'd probably have woken up around the same time, seen "9.00" on the display and thought "mmm, I'll just lie here for another hour or so"... and of course by that time I was up and relatively awake so I didn't want to go back to bed. Grrr. I will be in a foul mood all day now. (And how will that differ from the mood you're in every other day?) Oh shut up...

posted by James Russell | 12:16 PM