buggery.org

William Gibson:

It gets harder, the more I think about it, to see that causing many of the remaining pool of undecided US voters to go Bush. I think OBL needed a logo moment, though, in terms of the ongoing validity of his global brand, and look what he’s been able to pull off, with virtually no outlay: The world’s full attention, as both candidates drop everything to respond.

You know who would’ve completely gotten OBL? Andy Warhol.

“When smashing monuments,” the Polish Holocaust survivor and satirist Stanislaw Lec once remarked, “save the pedestals — they always come in handy.”

A German auction house is flogging off the left leg of the famous statue of Saddam Hussein pulled down for the benefit of the TV cameras on 2003-04-09 after the American-led war on Iraq.

The auction site is in German, but with the help of Babelfish I can report that:

With arguable symbolism and at the same time usually-broadest pictures, the conquerers of the world and particularly all Iraqi citizens showed that the dreaded dictator so for a long time does not govern any longer over its country.

Wizzo!

If you happen to have about a hundred thousand euros lying about the house you could own this piece of trash, which would mean you could decorate your home in the style of Edina Monsoon from the BBC TV show Absolutely Fabulous:

(via Boing Boing, Edina’s house pics from BBC)

“It feels like – like someone putting a hot washcloth on you, over every part of your body at the same time, inside and out.”

Brent spent the day in the Alfred Hospital Emergency Department yesterday, his second trip there in less than a week. It was a long and, at times, difficult day.
(more…)

Ten years and one day ago was the last time I spoke to Daren. (more…)

After my moaning and groaning about being blue the other day, I’ve decided to pull myself up by the bootstraps and count my many blessings. Probably nothing I need to do in public (but that could be said of many things I’ve done) so here goes: (more…)

Globalvote2004.org is offering the other 97 percent of the planet a chance to vote in the US Presidential election:

Even if you are not a US citizen, the November 2 presidential election will have a huge impact on your life. The very idea of democracy requires that you should have a say in choosing who determines your destiny. This site therefore allows non-Americans to vote in the 2004 US presidential election.

Well, it’s a non-binding vote, and hugely open to abuse, but so’s the official poll if last time is anything to go by. I voted for Walt Brown, the Socialist Party candidate, and I strongly urge you to do the same.

(via Antiminke)

I’m a bit blue at the moment. Not depressed, exactly, just not quite as bright and shiny as I’d like to be. It happens from time to time.

There’s no reason for it that I can identify – I could attribute it to the re-election of the Howard kakocracy, but that isn’t it. And there’s no solution, except to ride it out. It will pass, soon I hope.

In the meantime, I’m finding it difficult to get things done, and finding it hard to enjoy the things I usually enjoy. I don’t sleep well, can’t focus, everything’s a chore. But it will pass.

The Guardian © Steve Bell 2004

I’m not going to write or, if I can manage, think, about politics for at least a week. Every time my mind wanders anywhere near the train wreck that was/is our new Alien Overlord government I get physically sick. I have to close my eyes and do what my dad always advised me to do when I was frightened of the boogie monster: “try to imagine a peaceful scene with a sailing boat on a lake in the sunshine beneath a clear blue sky,” he’d say. My dad liked sailing boats. And hated Tories.

I’ve spent the last 36 hours hiding from a world I don’t understand any more. At least I hope I don’t understand it, because when I look at the results of last weekend’s election the picture I see is very scary indeed.

History will record that, against the odds but in line with almost everyone’s predictions except mine, John Howard won the 2004 general election. He increased his party’s vote and will hold a majority in the House of Representatives that will be practically unassailable three years from now. The Liberal-National coalition will continue in government until at least 2010.

At the same time, it’s clear that the Labor Party, Australia’s oldest political party, has lost its way, with its share of the vote eroding for the last four elections in a row. Unless Labor finds a way to reverse this trend, it is headed for oblivion, and a new opposition party isn’t going to spring into existence, fully-formed, to take its place any time soon.

Compounding this, for the first time in a quarter of a century the Senate will be controlled by the government, with the coalition holding at least 38 of the 76 seats, and with the (conservative, evangelical christian) Family First party making up the numbers. In recent history neither of the two main parties have had a Senate majority, leaving the government of the day to deal with minor parties (the Democrats and the Greens) and independent senators to pass legislation.

Opposition in disarray. A compliant Senate. This is not a recipe for good government, regardless of who is in power.

It is very difficult to overstate the significance of this. For the last eight years, as they’ve slashed and burned their way through Australia’s social and moral fabric, the coalition has nonetheless been restrained from implementing some of the more radical parts of their agenda by the Senate. That all changes on July 1 next year (the new Senate comes in on that date). Howard and his gang will be free to sell the rest of Telstra, destroy the independence and diversity of the media, continue to restict the rights of unions and workers, and turn the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission into a toothless tiger. That’s just what we already know is on the agenda. What other measures they might have filed away in the too-hard (until now) basket I shudder to think.

What is clear is that Howard has won. Not just this election but he has done what he always set out to do: he has changed this country forever. On Saturday Australia abandoned the ideals of decent, caring, honest government for low interest rates. It doesn’t matter to the majority of Australians that their government joined an illegal war, is actively campaigning against human rights and the UN, and has a thinly-veiled policy of turning Australia into a nation of winners and losers. What matters is tax cuts. Interest rates. National security. Border protection.

My country – the country I always believed was populated, in the main, by good people who placed the good of the community above self-interest, seems to have disappeared from view.

I don’t want to harp on about this – there will be plenty of opportunity for more reflective analysis in the weeks and months ahead – but I do think we witnessed more this last weekend than a change of government. And I think it’s deeply disturbing.