Reminded myself yesterday to mention this movie, due to seeing guys with briefcases on the train into work on Friday. And I was like, what on earth do you put in those briefcases, thinking it, not saying it out loud, and then thinking of D-Fens (Michael Douglas) only having an apple in his briefcase after actually being laid off months before. And then thinking, yeah if Douglas was hot and pissed off in 1993 when the movie came out, just imagine how stressed he would be this year, what with for starters mobile phones which can track you down anywhere LOL.
Life in the West has just gotten faster and faster paced in the last ten years, and thinking the term jobless recovery, and terrorism endless credit that is going to catch up with us all in the end and a fear election campaign yippy skip LOL. Hmm, another DVD to add to the must get list LOL.
Ah good time to take a break from politics and all, the World Series is starting as I write LOL - still before the top of the first, some ceremony going on - god I wish I had pay TV LOL, maybe at the next house :)
Hmm, but back into it though, good Economist article about how oil prices are going through the roof - and isn't it during summer that it is supposed to be cheaper, the northern winter and heating oil needs always spikes it a bit more? That's the thrust of the article, saying that stockpiles in North America can't be guaranteed - ick, $60 a barrel perhaps? LOL of course the Economist was predicted $5 barrels before OPEC got annoyed at the low price about hmm four or five years ago.
Hmm, wondering how much coverage the damage asbestos mining has done in Australia has made it to the rest of the world. Basically up until hmm twenty years ago I think they were big into asbestos mining here, before they realised it was very very dangerous. One of the major companies that did the mining, James Hardie, has scurried off to set up an offshore head office in the Netherlands I believe, leaving the compensation fund for the sick miners a few bob short (bob is slang for pounds, lol back before decimalisation, pounds shillings and pence etc). Basically the company board and executives is made out to be like kitten killers or something equally as repellent, unAustralian even (worst insult you can give over here LOL), and then they go handing out a huge compensation package when they resign.
That 'James Hardie' link is a good background actually, even if it is written by a union LOL. The most background I had before reading that was a Midnight Oil song LOL, Blue Sky Mining. Mmm, hearing that song in the Outback, Antipodean pub in London :)
Mmm, and mention of the Canadian bar just around the corner in Covent Garden - think I went in there to watch some ice hockey once, waiting for the rugby to start at one of the other pubs around. God I loved London :) OMG, is the only pub outside Canada to serve Molson on draught - that's bizarre actually, would have thought the whole I Am Canadian thing would have meant more expat places would have had it, what not even Michigan or Florida LOL.
Four one to Boston bottom of the second, bases loaded for Boston... early in the game but I just feel that this will be a blow out to the Sox, what with being at Fenway, having beaten the Yankees in the pennant race, and the whole twenty years since a World Series and eighty years since a World Series win, they will be up for it. Smack me if the Cards turn out to win it LOL.
And going back to Euro travel days again - it was kinda surreal having a Cold Chisel tribute video in a bar/restaurant in Goreme, central Turkey - although the country does get flooded by Aussie and Kiwi tourists in late April, but yeah, still surreal LOL. What must the locals think of us? Easy marks probably LOL.
Hmm, the New York Times has had some attack dog coverage of Iraq and September 11 the last few weeks - today's target is the reset of military justice a la Guantanamo etc. Didn't even talk to the national security advisor, secretary of state or Congress hmm. 560 people who have stayed in Cuba care of the US Marine Corps, and only four of them have been charged bleah. And don't even get me started on the whole Abu Gharib sort of stuff happening. Very good article actually, as all these in depth ones are - just a bit of a question mark about the timing though, Mr or Ms NYT - right before an election hmm. But good investigative reports over the last week or so.
I would have to say that in my opinion the setting up of Guantanamo outside the juridsticion (sp?) of either the federal courts or the Geneva Convention has done the most damage to America's image over the past few years - yes, even more so than the war in Iraq - politicians lie, wars get started for the wrong reason, governments put through tax cuts at the wrong time of the business cycle LOL, but to just lock up people who MIGHT have done something wrong for indefinite time frames, well, that is just WRONG. Part one of an ongoing series LOL, the NYT article.
Hmm, and a Guardian article on the upcoming battle for Fallujah. I can't see why this isn't a bigger part of the story with the US election, because from my view, asking for Brit troops to cover non Fallujah central Iraq at this point in time just seems to be waiting for the US election to be over before the likelihood of high casualties. It is good to see that the casualty rate this month is 'moderate' compared to the last four months especially, but is it just me getting the feeling that the Americans maybe aren't being aggressive against the insurgents this month, before the election and everything? It's a scandal that a town the size of Wellington is being bombarded daily - the thirteen years of Iraqi no fly zones in microcosm perhaps.
This on the supposed difference between April's fighting and November's (?) - 'This time military planners say the US Marine assaults will be led by special forces, who will pinpoint insurgent positions as they move through the city block by block, pushing the fighters back until they are stopped by the river and trapped by a cordon around the city. That is the theory. Iraq has a nasty habit of turning the theories on their heads. Nowhere more so than here.'
LOL, Maureen Dowd from the NYT on Kerry hunting goose - 'The senator is desperately trying to prove his regular-guydom. He's using more contractions and dropping G's, T's and N's, as Ms. Wilgoren points out, and he drank Budweiser with his male aides while watching a Red Sox game, when you know he was dying for an imported beer.'
LOL, talking of the Red Sox, and no, not just going to do a score update - here is the Guardian's take on their pennant win. Athens versus Sparta indeed LOL.
Lunch time here - time to post this and hope it gets through LOL. Cut and paste Paul cut and paste...
Laters
Pauly
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