Quite Random

Dat der big hole wuz maid ba Gawd aalmighty’s holy flud

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: News Releases.

Oh, the horror. The horror.

Hang ‘em high

So it appears that time really is running out for Saddam Hussein. His belongings are to be collected – he is likely to be hung soon. No-one will know until after it has been done – expect to see the image of another dead arab on the television, final incontrovertible proof, just like when we all had to see the corpse of Nicolae CeauÅŸescu. It seems we need to see a body to be satisfied, or at least someone thinks we do.

And yet George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair are free, no closer to seeing the dock than ever. Hussein is being hung for his role in the deaths of 148 Shias in the 1980s. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Blair and others are responsible now for more deaths than 9/11 and Hussein combined, hundreds of thousands of people. Civilians and children. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the whole war stinks of corruption and hypocrisy, Iraq now has a civil war to add to a shattered infrastructure, the whole world is afraid of Al Qaeda, and they never even caught Osama Bin Laden.

I would suggest that if these people never end up on trial for what they have done, there is something very wrong with this world – but there already is something very wrong, or this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Venomous spouting

Adrianne’s fighting Weenies. Dough’s commenting on the area he lives in, and fighting a rear guard action against his tyrannical employers. Wascally Weasal is getting in to the history of Malta. Mum’s contemplating the prospect of an afterlife. Blogs are wonderfully diverse things. I’m getting tired of ranting about religion however, because as Dough points out, it’s almost a complete waste of time. Arguing with the devoutly religious is like shouting at a brick wall, and I sometimes do feel bad about attacking the religion which is shared by people I know and like – moderate religious friends of mine will agree with me about the lunacy of the neo-conservative Christian right in the US, faith schools, or the wearing of burqas, so in the end, the divide may not be between believers and disbelievers, simply between rational people and fundamentalists. Most of us, at least in this country, do seem to agree on the important things – at least the ones who have bothered to think about it. The people who really deserve a kick up the arse are all the intellectually lazy, conceited Weenies that would sooner die than use their brains, form an opinion, express it and argue it. Apathy will kill us all.

The argument for ranting against ‘dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads’ (as Richards Dawkins has put it in about a million interviews recently) is that their energy for coersion, manipulation, indoctrination, lobbying, fundraising, killing, terrorising and generally fucking up the world in multivarious other ways is almost without limits, and there has to be a balance. That’s why I will carry on, but try and achieve my own balance. Talk about religion maybe, but only if I can find something constructive to offer as an alternative.

As an afterthought, it appears the birds in St James’ Park are turning cannibal, where a Pelican has just swallowed a pigeon. Poor pigeon maybe - but is this a new, rather surreal form of pest control?

Webcameron? Ohhh, I get it…

Dave is now giving speeches from his kitchen via his new blogging site, Webcameron. For those of you who don’t get the pun, it’s like Webcam with ‘eron’ on the end. Yep. That one actually took me a second.

Dave is desperate to show us that he is a compassionate, modern Conservative, an oxymoron to start with. His speechlets are interrupted by his darling child somewhere in the background whittering about finishing her bread and jam, and his washing up is done with Ecover washing up liquid. How homely.

I use Ecover as I am a left-wing Guardian-reading wooly liberal who thinks he can save the planet by buying Ecover products - presumably, I was supposed to see Dave using Ecover and welcome his to my bosom immediately as a kindred spirit.

Labour is currently running a campaign called Dave the Chameleon, highlighting the apparent ‘flip-flops’ in Cameron’s political stance so far. Dave the Chameleon, and Webcameron, are both amusing ideas, and Webcameron is certainly an innovative way of engaging with the electorate, considering that previously, initiatives to increase public access to politicians using the web as a medium had been through sites like Write to Them.

Cameron is infuriating - he says all the right things, looks earnest, isn’t smeared by scandal, had his party’s symbol changed to an oak tree… it’s just he’s a Conservative. No, that’s not it, he’s a politician.

Teebeegeebees

Methinks somebody at the BBC News website is having a laugh… the choice of photos is priceless.

Exit right… now

A leaked memo (they’re always good, these leaked memos) has suggested that Tony Blair’s retirement is to be ‘stage managed’, to ensure that his exit from Downing Street is on a wave of euphoria after his ten years in power. Presumably we are to experience a week-long series of programmes on new channel BBC Condescending, documenting humble Tony’s rise to power, his liberation of the oppressed Middle East, his extensive education reforms and his overseeing the greatest period of growth and development ever seen by the NHS. Important figures from world politics will appear to give their own personal thoughts, and the final night will see a concert of thanks with luminaries from the entertainment world pausing their songs to give mawkish words of thanks to the Man. Later, commentators will suggest that Tony Blair truly was the finest premiere our country has ever seen – but he was let down by the idiots working for him. He’ll get a big oil painting on the stairwell of Number 10, and his face on the fifty pound note.

Meanwhile, George W Bush will turn out to have an IQ of 250, Donald Rumsfeld will turn out to be an evil robot who was controlling Bush through evil robot mind implants, Tom Cruise will admit that Scientology is a big old load of crap designed to extort money from gullible people, those silly insurgents and Taliban will shake hands with our boys in the Middle East and say they’re sorry, we will discover how to extract unlimited safe energy from the mews of kittens, and visitors from Mars who all look like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt will share with us the secret location of a staircase through a magic portal to a new home planet where there is no reality TV and they do the best cheesecake in the universe.

Aw, we was only ‘avin a larf!

Hizbullah last night admitted it would not have captured the two Israeli soldiers last month had it known a war would follow.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Hizbullah leader: we regret the two kidnappings that led to war with Israel.

You can almost imagine Hassan Nasrallah coyly staring at his foot as he taps at the floor… “Who knew?”, he says, as everyone has a good laugh. “We were only doing it for a bit of a giggle, like… but Israel – pheee-ew! They went ape! I mean!”.

This goes down as Example 94 in the new series Why All Leaders Of Major Political Organisations, Terrorist Groups And Governments Are Unbelievable Morons.