Sabres rattling

Oh dear. Jack Straw's trying to sound like Tony Blair - adopting that sincere intensity. Except it doesn't quite work.

It's very obvious that this speech was written by New Labour's usual speechwriters, and doesn't really respond to todays report - same old, same old.

Heresy info

For those who were interested:

Heresy site: http://freespace.virgin.net/robert.lee4
(not quite up to date - I think Rob's revamping it with the updates soon)

Rob's email address is discreetly linked to at the the foot of this page.

Meanwhile...

Two bits of non-Iraq news

Goodbye, Dolly
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2764039.stm

Iran's Supreme Court shows signs of life
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2763807.stm

[Iraq again] op-ed and a bit of political wibblings...

Firstly, the opinion columns...

We're in the grip of a faulty metaphor - a deeply sensible (IMHO) analysis of the US War on Terror, from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

And, from the Washngton Post, Powellian Propaganda, an open letter to Colin Powell. Worth reading just for the penultimate paragraph...

As for the wibbling, just one short(ish) observation - I wonder how much of the mainstream US media will pick up on the fact that those isolated "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" (that's the French, for those who've not been paying attention) and dodgy Russians had their "more inspections" speeches to the UN greeted with applause. Powell's wasn't. Straw's wasn't, either. [Remind me again... just who here is "isolated"?]