HARD NEWS 23/01/03 - Hypocrisy In The Morning

NOTE: A double dose of Hard News…. Russell Brown’s latest follows… and then a PublicAddress.net bulletin form the 21st of January.

HARD NEWS 23/01/03 - Hypocrisy In The Morning

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning |Jan 23, 2003 10:10

Russell Brown's Hard News

So the President of the USA says he's tired of waiting for UN weapons inspectors to finish doing their job. Saddam has been given "ample time to disarm".

But why the hurry? There is no prospect of Iraq amassing, let alone using, weapons of mass destruction while UN inspectors are crawling all over the place, is there? Why not allow a full and proper inspection to take place and then make a decision? Wouldn't that be sensible?

After all, the US spent seven years in technical non-compliance with the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. And even now, it's years behind schedule in destroying its own stockpile. Evidence was presented only a few months ago that it was conducting a chemical weapons research and development program in violation of international arms control law.

But let's not have any illusions about the Iraqi regime. Although, as this handy clickable map shows, it's far from the biggest producer of chemical and biological weapons in the Middle East (that's Syria), it stands out for its willingness to use such weapons in the past quarter-century. (For a history of the use of chemical weapons, read this timeline.) Although it offers greater freedoms to women and adherents of non-Islamic faiths than many of its Arab neighbours, its suppression of dissent, particularly amongst ethnic minorities, has been savage.

For the rest of this posting including embedded links see…
http://www.publicaddress.net/default,hardnews.sm#post231

HARD NEWS 21/01/03 - What we did on our holidays

Hi folks,

I trust that those readers in this hemisphere are enjoying summer, and that those of you enduring winter are bearing up well enough. As promised, we all blogged thgrough the holidays and you're warmly invited to catch up on recent weeks' Public Address postings.

The latest posts are listed below. Jolisa's is particularly good. And you'll also notice the arrival of another contributor, the Sydney-resident New Zealander Rob O'Neill, who, like Chad and I, has come over all rock 'n' roll ...

Anyway, we should have a significant technical advance to announce next week, but until then, Happy New Year!

Cheers,

RB

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Holidays III: Blow-off valves in paradise |Jan 21, 2003 11:35

Russell Brown's Hard News

They have blow-off valves in paradise. "OOOOsssshhh!" The sound of boy-racer Queen Street now penetrates not only the rich, golden sands of Kaiteriteri, but creeps over the hill to Golden Bay. The South Island doesn't need Aucklanders: it already has too many Cantabrians...

http://www.publicaddress.net/default,hardnews.sm#post230

Kraftwerk live / Jan 17 |Jan 18, 2003 01:05

Now playing in the Muse Lounge

We never heard more than three songs each from the first three bands we encountered at the Big Day Out: Pacifier because we were restless; Queens of the Stone Age because their power kept cutting out; and PJ Harvey because some prick scheduled her at the same time as Kraftwerk. Do the kids know Peej? She's been at the BDO before but her core audience is surely a little older; folks who know her before ...

http://www.publicaddress.net/default,muselounge.sm#post224

Rocking Up |Jan 20, 2003 14:35

Rob O'Neill live in Sydney

The Datsuns at the Gaelic Club, Surry Hills, 18 January According to the booking agent this gig was outselling the Queens of the Stone Age, in town for the Big Day Out and like most of those bands doing a few shows on the side...

http://www.publicaddress.net/default,heat.sm#post229

Summer in the City |Jan 20, 2003 10:03

Damian Christie - Cracker With Attitude

Holidays are a shocker, aren't they? At least in terms of news, in most other regards I guess they're pretty sweet. Parliament closes down, sure, and responsibility for the entire Government is covered by the duty minister, who this year was Trevor Mallard. Lucky New Zealand, eh, good to know he's at the helm should anything important crop up ?

http://www.publicaddress.net/default,cracker.sm#post225

You talkin' to me? |Jan 16, 2003 12:43

Jolisa Gracewood in NYC

It's good to be back in the city. I missed it. The brass-monkey wind off the Hudson River, the extra dollar you pay for every pallid veggie at the cramped little supermarket on the corner, the car alarms, regular as cuckoos. Increasingly, I feel like a local here - it may be a city in America, but it's a world city, and one that's easy to feel at home in. Then I read an article ...

http://www.publicaddress.net/default,busytown.sm#post223

John Scott DVD |Jan 12, 2003 15:30

Debra Daley's astral plane

John Scott is a New Zealander, based in the UK, whose status in the esoteric world of ashtanga yoga would be practically Olympian, if ashtanga went in for that kind of competitive calibration. The Eight-Limbed Path abjures hierarchies, but if you could get a black belt 7th dan in ashtanga, John Scott would have one. When his DVD of the primary series was released on 17 December I ordered it with ...

http://www.publicaddress.net/default,chant.sm#post218

ENDS

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