Saddam's Speech
Well, that was an odd experience. Having just watched Saddam's "Speech to the Nation" [24 Mar] on BBC, CNN, and SkyNews (hell, an hour later and still nothing on their website, lamers), I'm inclined to favour the BBC translator. His slightly stutter-start translations are in a more resonant tone than that of the SkyNews trier, and the guy CNN got, hells bells, did they just go out and hire Death? His slow bassy monotone rendered Saddam's merely mundane performance into a total snoozer. Anyway, the weird thing was flicking between the three translations that were all happening on the fly, and trying to compare the nuance of interpretation. I couldn't do it of course, I'd have needed three video recorders. Duh. Anyway, the post-analysis was fantastic. The BBC went to a tidy looking brit-reporter guy in Baghdad who quickly said: "yeah, not live, Saddam's not done live broadcasts for months. Hard to know, nothing conclusive, really." Sky News went to some studio talking heads, so I flicked to CNN and watched Amarnpour and some glammed up anchor launch into it...

Seriously, the first the thing they talked about for on length was "whether or not it was live." This after the BBC had just said, seconds before, "the idea that Saddam would be doing a live broadcast is ludicrous." Ahahaha. How I laughed. Of course, the beeb brit-reporter could be wrong, but he seemed to have a pretty good grasp on what was going on in Baghdad. (What I thought was interesting was his observation that Iraqi TV shows a lot of of Saddam in its propaganda. And yet we see none of it on the western TV news services. I mean, despite the fact it's propaganda, I'm intrigued to see what form it takes. Although, if Salam's take on it is worth anything, maybe not.)

Speaking of propaganda, it was interesting to see this on CNN
"EDITOR'S NOTE: CNN's policy is to not report information that puts operational security at risk"

Bummer that Al Jazeera didn't get their english-version channel up and running in time for 'Strike on Iraq.' A non-western point of view with the same sort of scope as CNN, BBC, SkyNews would be fantastic. Yes, it's on the web, but TV is so much easier on the OOS.

As long as the USA doesn't sabotage the attempts for the channels growth (remembering that they've tried to 'reign in' the channel in the past) (although, now that I look, the US does recognise a useful information source in times of need.).

Oh, and I enjoyed stumbling upon this, particularly the story on the USA changing it's name to "The Coalition." Ahahaha. And this (discovered by my favourite web girl as an offshoot to a geeky web lookup for something totally non-related to what I was supposed to be doing).
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Live from Baghdad
Aren't blogs great? Here's one by a guy sending posts from Baghdad as the bombs rain down. Good on ya Salam.
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Oh, the humanity!
The wife and I were channel-surfing between various news sources last night looking for bit of an update on Iraq. BBC had a nature show on. Sky News was doing an Aussie news replay, CNBC was on the weather, so we settled on CNN, which had a satellite interview going on with a reporter in Kuwait. Promising stuff, you'd think, 'man-on-the-ground', 'finger-on-the-pulse' and all that. Where are the troops at? What do the locals think of the upcoming hostilities? What's the average muslim's position on the future of the Kurds in Northern Iraq?

But no. Conversation turned to various groups who were 'fleeing' Kuwait in expectation of Iraqi reprisals. 'Fleeing' for me, has always conjured up images of running from the house with nothing but the shirt on your back, but this was very orderly fleeing: bags neatly packed, house windows taped up and sandbagged in case of bombing, gas turned off, the electricity cancelled, and, of course, the pets get taken to a shelter (too much of a nuisance taking fluffy through quarantine for a war that might only last a couple of weeks, after all). And that was the angle of the story. The pets! Oh, the humanity! They'd trucked the CNN news team down to the animal shelter to film all the poor cats and dogs and birds that had been deserted by their 'fleeing' owners. It was, as the sombre voice-over told us, yet another example of the 'unseen suffering' caused by the Iraq crisis.

Now, of course, I don't watch CNN every hour of the day, so I expect there were plenty of worthy reports regarding the upcoming conflict and likely aftermath: I'm sure the CNN audience are sick to death of reports on the likely oppression of the Kurds should the Turks be given 'responsibility' over Northern Iraq; the probable bloodbath when the majority Shia muslims finally get to have a go at the Saddam's Baath mob; and the role of depleted uranium munitions, which are even more radioactive than the type used in the 1991 war (and which caused cancer in thousands in the years after the conflict).

But this was just insane. We're into the last 24 hours before Bush's 'Saddam-must-leave' ultimatum expires, and CNN are doing fluffy animal stories.
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Wisdom Teeth
I had my bottom two yanked shortly after arriving here in Wellington.

Having put up with a dull throb for about six months, I figured I might as well get it over and done with, so toddled off to the dentist for what must have been the first time in about six years. After the x-rays had been done, it was revealed to me that these wisdom teeth were 'big', and these wisdom teeth were 'deep'. It didn't sound good. I returned a week later, two shots of vodka under my belt to steady my nerves. God I hate dentists.

So they popped a couple of valium into me, which mingled nicely with the vodka, and, after a short chilling-out period on a bed in a waiting area, the pretty nurse guided me to ... the chair. There seemed to be a lot of industrial-strength hydraulic equipment at hand. And the rubber gloves and smocks donned by dentist and assistant didn't augur well (I got a bib the size of a table-cloth, which was also less than reassuring).

And then, well, out they came. In lots of little bits. My overwhelming memory was of the dentist saying, 'mmm, we'll have to cut this bit of bone out as well,' and of this colossal CRUNCH and bowel-shuddering vibration as they shattered the bit of my jawbone into which the larger of my two wisdom teeth had impacted. 'UCK!' I managed to gurgle through the blood.

A good mate was looking after me for the rest of the day, and he took me back to his place where we had a couple more vodkas, and then (I don't know how I managed this), scoffed down a few 'special' cookies (purely for the pain-killing aspect), whipped out the guitars, and launched into a three hour jam. Apparently (my memory grows hazy after the first 20 minutes or so) we were inspired, and actually wrote some songs that ended up being recorded on our next album (although I had to relearn them all the next time we played together, naturally -- "Jesus, I played that? I'm better than I thought!").

Pity about the bloodstains around his flat though. It looked like we'd sacrificed a cat.
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