sing little sparrow sing / sing before you go / sing

Like, I guess, most people around the world, I scratch my head and wonder how the United States (and please don't try to tell me this was an "Iraqi" thing) could make such a complete mess of their revenge killing of Saddam Hussein. Regardless of how one feels about the death penalty, or the the oft documented crimes of Hussein, it continues to amaze me how such an allegedly sophisticated nation, with all the money, expertise and great minds it has at its disposal, continues to pile fuck up on top of fuck up. Why is the screamingly obvious not obvious to these people. James Wolcott puts it best:

Bush and Blair could fuck up a baked potato. When they put their heads together, there's nothing they can't get wrong about Iraq, and that includes the botched execution of Saddam Hussein, a low-tech lynching that neither is man enough to condemn.

He also links to this rather good commentary from the, always, incisive Patrick Cockburn in The Independent (which I'm a little late in coming to as I've been away). And as Lindsay says:

Executing Saddam Hussein was no more meaningful than pulling down the Saddam statue after the invasion. Hussein's trial and punishment could have been an opportunity to get Saddam's crimes on the record and administer real justice to a war criminal. Like every other opportunity in this war, the Americans managed to squander it.

Mas que nada / Sai da minha frente (for PU)

Hello 2007....I went to a party in Denpasar, followed by a party in Kerebokan. About 2.30 in the morning I found myself stuck in a macet (traffic jam) in Jalan Legian, stopped at pretty much the point where the 2002 bomb went off....I wasn't worried, I just found it ironic, or at least curious. I had two Americans in the car who are newly arrived in Bali, one of whom, at that moment asked "where exactly did that bomb go off"....there was a silence in the car for while after I answered.... The last couple of days have been spent doing very little in Candidasa, by the sea, or in the sea..... Sadly, I missed the birthday of my very old friend, Peter Urlich, a few days back...50 he was...god, indeed....I've known him since we were both about 17 and he remains one the people I love most on the planet....we met at a party somewhere on the Panmure Ellerslie Highway. He was in a band called Chillum, way before Th'Dudes, and I have no idea why I was there. Happy Birthday Luigi....