To the alternate Emperor
The man who coined the term Information Superhighway or the guy swerving all over the fucking thing. Hmm, now let me see..

I did think Al Gore ran a lacklustre campaign - mind you I base this somewhat illogically on the one campaign speech I saw in which he managed to be as charmless as possible and basically shout at people. Anyhow he has well and truly made up for it with this incisive and worldbeating speech.

Espresso
It makes sense that a network service provider could be anywhere in the world (wide web).

Vending machine
As you may have noticed I tend to break up the frivolity with fierceness and the ferocity with flippancy so you can please yourself where you go here.

Or you could bookmark the 15th of June and just see where the 'favourite' link goes each week. I enjoy that. I don't want to give anything out about the methodology but I will say that it has wider application - and more potential enjoyment - than some of my other entries because the links are to objects not ideas.

I do always try to give good link.

As freedom fries
Here you've got to put the two together as a phrase: 'Drink it black as freedom fries'

You know it's been a long time since mainland Europe copped a serve from their friend Uncle Sam yet the outcome of the Iraqi incursion was that Germany, and more particularly France, were on the receiving end of some cutting remarks.

It seems boorish to dismiss France's concerns. True, they don't have a stirling history internationally if the nuclear atoll tests and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior are anything to go by. But what they do have is intrinsic links with the United States. The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France and an especially thoughtful one. It should serve as a boost for American citizens in knowing where they stand but also serve as a reminder of the vigilance required to see that it is not a hollow symbol for something lost.

They share Thomas Paine, the great overlooked figure of two Revolutions - the American and the French. An American founding father, Paine nearly lost his life in France. Paine had a great mind and a strong sense of what could best ensure democracy and freedom of thought. He was a deist who believed the only proof of God could be in His creation; in nature. His texts are well worth the read, being more soundly reasoned and more clearly expressed than more famous thinkers.

France and America both have lively intellectuals who can contribute much to the debate from their specialist fields. I don't mind politicians doing more than their fair share of gloating when things go right but I do object to them stifling discussion on important issues.
I think the fact that the Coalition of the Willing were prepared to defy the judgement of some of their closest allies on the basis of wonky intelligence speaks volumes as to who out of France and the US emerges best from this lamentable episode.

Taste
So if the good ol' US of A is full of iggerant buffoons who only naturally want a leader who thinks like they do (I'm being devil's advocate here as there are clearly a huge percentage of Americans who are appalled with the system but are outnumbered or outmanouevred), then where is a good spot to migrate?

Poland, anyone?!

Burn your fingers
I have seen this list of discrepancies in the action and reaction of the Bush administration on September 11 but thought I would post the essence of it again as a reminder. I don't doubt that there's a cottage industry in alternative takes of the Bush goat story. It's just disturbing that it has not been roundly refuted, or in the case of the conservative media, rated so much as a mention.

Nor is Bush's behavour now any better. It's customary among detractors to nominate the incumbent as 'worst of his kind' but Dubya does have the dishonour of being "elected" through somewhat dubious means and it would be instructive to grasp how other Presidents would have handled the simultaneous hijacking of passenger jets to fly into key US sites and monuments.

Watching the latest enactment of the events surrounding Hitler's rise to power was particularly chilling as the Nazis stage an attack on the Parliament House and the next speech Der Fuehrer delivers is one severely curtailing citizens rights and freedom of speech. Essentially, to take away our rights, the government needs something "bigger than all of us". God or country for example.
I propose that every American at regular intervals insists on telling a complete stranger that they won't let Rumsfeld take away 'freedom x. If everyone does this then it will become harder to take away freedoms guaranteed under their Consitution and it will serve to remind one another that this is the potential goal of this administration - under the guise of protection from terrorism or weeding out of "dangerous elements" (i.e. anyone who doesn't think or act like they do).

You don't need to be a liberal, a Democrat, a Green, a freethinker, socialist or [insert label here] to feel the need to safeguard your own individuality and freedom.

There is something to be said for a 'leader of the free world' whose mocking of death row prisoners recalls Stalin, whose intolerance for dissent (among allies) recalls Mao, whose simple bloodymindedness recalls tinpot despots, whose election campaign has all the sophisticated transparency and fairness of third world 'democracies' everywhere. He's up to shit and his people aren't savvy in sufficient numbers to realise the fact.

And while I'm sticking the boot into this awful man - who even has the old Pope wishing he was a younger man so he could take him on!!! - here's a final thought:

There's something to be said for our ancestors: any warmongering leader would naturally have the courage to lead the battle (as General Eisenhower did), not hide in a bunker and only surface for photo ops like the showboat

Grounds
I dipped into most of the newspapers that came out: the Daily News when Perth still had two daily papers; Western Mail, bastion of halfbaked journalism; Sunday Times, which I only bought for the classifieds; the West Australian

Before I left WA I was buying the two Saturday papers - the West and the Weekend Australian and I kept up this pace by replacing the West with the Sydney Morning Herald after moving across.
It meant that, even if you didn't buy the daily paper, you'd end up reading sections of newspaper on the bus for most of the week.

In this little survey of local papers, I suppose I should mention Brisbane's Courier Mail (I lived in New Farm for a year) and the late National Times

Hangover cure
The daily newspaper is de rigeur for many of my fellow train commuters. My reading attentions are more sporadically focussed on newsprint as it does have to attend its brief; even if that is the third day's evidence of scandal against someone you hoped would just dry up and blow away the first you heard of them.

I see some people chuck their papers in the bin and I think they miss the point. The newsprint media is meant to be shared. No one wants your old juice container or chewing gum but they will find a usefulness for the TV guide, the gig guide, the IT liftout, the job classifieds. I suppose they've not been in a situation where finding the bit of the paper you want on the train is a real bonus.

Between RAM with their freebie sampler from Stiff Records, and the music section of the Sunday Independent by Ray Purvis I got a hand up on my music tastes. He gave lipservice to the likes of Peter Frampton and Boz Scaggs but he also chose Kid by the Pretenders and Teenage Kicks by the Undertones as best singles of the year. Purvis also had a show of "new wave" music on 6NR, Shake Some Action, that I used to struggle bravely to listen to every Wednesday night from over two hundred miles away.

Bit at the bottom
Well now I AM going to slow it down as I have only been doing this for a month and already I'm archived. What are the chances that people are going to go digging back for the gold?

Meanwhile.. Singapore is one of the few places I've been to overseas and what a strange repressed society it is. All city, fines for growing your hair long or spitting gum on the footpath. Yet hideous acts of torture and cruelty lovingly carved in their public park. Is there a correlation between a gruff nanny state and stone depictions of hapless victims being ground under a wheel?
The most boring team-up of all: Johnny Farnham and Little River B(l)and, even managed to produce a record of interest when talking about this island state.
Now there's the noise police!

Star*ucks
America wants a bob each way; it wants to go interfering in the affairs of other nations - either through advisors/economic means or attack, depending on the stance of the nation it is dealing with, but doesn't want to be brought to brook in an international forum.

We may not like US gun laws or the use of the electric chair but have no right to interfere in the nation's inner workings. This is alright as far as it goes (trying David Hicks, an Australian citizen, is a far different story). Live and let live - or die as the case may be.

But, no, the US goes butting its nose in everywhere, telling other peoples what to do and how to do it. Then they refuse to be judged in return. This is rank hypocrisy. What is so special about the US that it can seek to impose its will without holding itself up to accountability? It's bigger and stronger. Bad reason. China is a mighty nation also. And North Korea is formidable. But their human rights record and international adventuring suck. And wouldn't it be nice if an international body could have just waved its finger and said 'you back those tanks right out of there and let the people be'? Or "Get the fuck out of Tibet. Now"

By being selective in deciding when international agreements should be adhered to, the US provides no reasonable guidance for arrant nations to follow. In fact, I would not recommend that any country follow their lead.

I mean, what can the US reasonably say?
Don't rig your elections like we did in Florida.
Don't overturn democratically elected governments like we did in Chile.
Don't attack or invade sovereign nation states unilaterally like we did in Iraq.
Don't oppress your minorities and native population like we did with the African Americans and Native Americans (to use the modern pc terms).
Don't discriminate in your immigration policy like we do with our Green Card.
Don't spend on military at the expense of social programs like we do in the extreme.
Don't pollute the environment as we do so ostentatiously (ah for the day when the US adminstration is run by solar energy and windpower barons!!)