4th February 2004 - The claim for war...

The Hutton report is out and Tony Blair hasn't resigned... What does this mean? It means he believes he has been vindicated; that all suggestions that he misled the people over the case for war are an attack on his integrity - that in future any such claims will require a full apology, if not a few resignations.

Yet despite the Hutton report I remain unconvinced. The Prime Minister claims that intelligence was not "sexed-up" to bolster the case for war. He claims that the evidence he and the cabinet had available made it clear that Saddam was a "present threat" to our security. In a TV address to the nation on the 20th March 2003 he went as far as implying that there was a risk that Iraq could equip terrorist organisations with WMD:

"But this new world faces a new threat: of disorder and chaos born either of brutal states like Iraq, armed with weapons of mass destruction; or of extreme terrorist groups. Both hate our way of life, our freedom, our democracy.

My fear, deeply held, based in part on the intelligence that I see, is that these threats come together and deliver catastrophe to our country and world. These tyrannical states do not care for the sanctity of human life. The terrorists delight in destroying it."

I don't think it's unreasonable to interpret "based in part on the intelligence that I see" that he had evidence that suggested there was a high risk that Saddam would provide terrorists like al-Qaida with WMD. This clearly made a very good case for war.

Yet apparently:

"An assessment prepared by the JIC on February 10 [2003] - little more than a month before the invasion - entitled International Terrorism: War with Iraq, said there was no intelligence that Iraq had provided chemical or biological materials to al-Qaida.

Nor was there any suggestion of any intention by Saddam Hussein's regime to carry out chemical or biological terror attacks using Iraqi intelligence officials or their agents.

However, the JIC did judge in the event of the regime's collapse, there would be an increased risk that terrorist groups would be able to get their hands on such materials."

This could easily be interpreted to suggest that the evidence used to justify war was carefully selected for that specific purpose. I appreciate that it may be that the JIC's assessment was contradicted by other evidence - but wouldn't this lead a reasonable person to question any evidence coming from them and the intelligence services (including the 'dodgy dossier' used to justify the war to the public)? Wouldn't a reasonable person take this to mean that they should be very careful about the evidence they were using to justify war - that it could be wrong?

Mr Blair made it clear that:

"Should terrorists obtain these weapons now being manufactured and traded round the world, the carnage they could inflict to our economies, our security, to world peace, would be beyond our most vivid imagination."

Yet he took us into a war which, if one source of intelligence is to be believed, was actually likely to worsen the risk...

I don't think this is a debate over whether the war should have happened or not - it's a debate over whether we can trust this government and its leader. If they decide to put evidence in the public forum (e.g. the 'dodgy dossier', the PM's address) then they have to ensure they present a balanced view - not simply one that backs up their viewpoint - especially in a matter as serious as this. Otherwise they will be at odds with the principles of democracy they claim they are trying to protect.

Sources: PM's speech, JIC Assessment

31st January 2004 - Site updated

Well - despite my best intentions the site hasn't been updated in a while... but I've been busy in the last few days and after a herculean effort have managed to update some of the text, fixed a couple of the external links, and added a few new pages to the gallery. Without question the best addition is Jun Maekawa's origami devil. Though relatively complex it's an extremely satisfying model to fold and isn't so complex that I haven't been able to memorize it... which I haven't yet managed with Yoda.

Recent events have left me feeling like having another rant, but that's for another day!

11th August 2003 - Site updated

I've been getting a little lax about updating the site... Learning new job and getting used to a new home are partly to blame. The current heatwave and the fact my office is in a loft, and therefore akin to a cooker, is also contributory... it's currently 22:43 and I'm sat here sweating: it's unbearable!

Anyway - I turned 30 on the 8th so I now have to be responsible. with that in mind I've added a new page... a guestbook. It's something of an experiment started as a result of current work so I don't know how long it will be up (so it's only linked from my homepage and here at the moment) but if you want to comment on the site, my art - or even these ramblings - click here for guestbook.

I'll hopefully make it up into the furnace again soon and upload some recent oekakis...

9th July 2003 (posted 11th August 2003 - don't ask me why) - Words of mass deception

OK - I've kept quiet on this for too long... I didn't want to come out and say how much I opposed the war when it happened because it was such a contentious issue, but now I've got to say something. They sold it to us that Saddam had 'weapons of mass destruction' and that he could either launch them himself or they'd get into the 'wrong hands'. So now Saddam's gone and we haven't, as yet, found any WMD. Are we worried? It appears not: "it could take another six months before we find anything." Aren't we worried that in those six months these, alleged, WMD will have found their way into the wrong hands? Apparently not. Well if they really ever existed in the way it was suggested we should all be feeling rather worried at the moment. Otherwise, it will come to light that all the WMD talk was hype designed to persuade us war was the only option...

13th May 2003 - A new life

Just finished my second day at my new job! Meeting huge numbers of people and having to remember their names is not easy. I keep thinking I should do what the guy on Memento did and take polaroids of all of them and write their names on the back... Don't think I'd get away with it though! It looks like I'm going to have to learn lots of new things too - not least something called Plone: an open source content management system, or somesuch.

Despite the recent busy-ness I've still found time to draw on Oekaki Central and I've also been working on a tutorial in an attempt to explain how I achieve some of the textures and 'transparency effects' on my pics. I've no idea how helpful it will be to people... but if you want to see it, the tutorial is here and should hopefully appear on the OC site soon.

More information on Plone can be found at Plone.org.

14th April 2003 - Where have I been? II

I finally feel that the 'end' is in sight... The reason for my fairly severe lack of updates in the last few months is that I've been having to devote all my time to finding a job. Fortunately my search has not been in vain, and I start soon... which is going to be interesting: new job, place and people: lots of things to get used to! Anyway, the upshot for anyone who reads this - though I suspect no-one bothers because of my lack of updates - is that I will have more time to devote to this section and the site as a whole.

13th March 2003 - Where have I been?

3 months is a long time... Well it isn't in the grand scheme of things of course - it's an inconsequential amount of time - it just feels like along time to me. And it has been a busy time which is why not much has happened to my site - and that's why I'm sat here recovering from flu working on it!

I guess I'll go and add a few more pics to the gallery or something :)

17th December 2002 - Bah humbug

It's that time of year again when most of the Western 'civilized' world goes mad over Christmas. People with no money spend it all on presents they can't afford so they have to spend the first few months of next year paying off their debts. We all eat and drink to excess (well in this country anyway) and spend Boxing Day with a hangover.. joy! And of course we're all told to be cheery and happy... the thing is, you come to realise as you get older that what made Christmas important when you were younger wasn't the presents - though I'd be a liar if I said I didn't enjoy them - but being around people who you cared about. Not everyone gets to do that at Christmas, for whatever reason. So if you see someone looking glum, don't just run up to them and say "cheer up, it's Christmas", because you risk making them feel a whole lot worse.

On another note, the lovely hunt-supporters were out in force again yesterday protesting that they might not be allowed to ride around the countryside with the express purpose of seeing a defenceless (unless you're a chicken) animal ripped to pieces by dogs at the end of it. Maybe I'm being naive, but surely the real entertainment in fox-hunting (or hunting of any sort) is the bit where you get to ride around through fields and woods and jump over hedges - isn't that why people do it? The hunt-supporters actions seem to be saying that actually the only reason they do it is for the final bloody spectacle - which really doesn't reflect well on them. I believe some hunts have managed to keep up with the times and use scenting as a way of getting the dogs to follow a certain route: everyone gets their fun and no foxes are chewed to pieces. And the hunt has to employ one more person to lay the scent down - so in fact this solution would create jobs not lose them. They might even find that more people start getting involved, but had been put off by the animal killing part. The protesters are either going to have to follow suit or admit that their motivation is simply blood-lust. (The pest control argument really doesn't wash: my understanding is that fox numbers changed very little during the foot and mouth crisis when the hunts couldn't ride - hardly proof of their efficiency in this respect...)

24th November 2002 - How time flies
A couple of people have commented on the fact I don't update this page very often. I know I don't, but then I really didn't expect anyone to be reading it. I really just set it up because I sometimes get a little worked up about something and feel the need to rant... it doesn't happen that often though; which is why I find over a month has passed since I last wrote anything here. It's funny really - I didn't set up a counter with the site: it was meant to be a showcase of my work for potential employers; so I wasn't too bothered about how many hits I got, just that all the information and images were available... I'm now left wondering how many visitors I am getting - it means I may have to be a little more careful about what I say here: I have a habit of generalising that has landed me in trouble in the past... and I wouldn't want to upset anyone.

So sticking to a 'safe' subject... The infamous KB (ex-regular at Oekakicentral) pointed me in the direction of the 'Art Duel' site the other week. It's an interesting concept: two artists post pics (these are divided into various categories based on media used and subject matter) and the public are invited to vote for the one they prefer. I felt the urge to enter and, given that the 'graphite/surrealism' category didn't have an opponent, I entered my Alien frottage (look at Alien to see it on this site). Whilst this may seem more sci-fi than surreal, the drawing method was based on surrealist 'automatic drawing' techniques. There are a few days left before the 'closing date' for votes so if you would care to express your opinion I include a link below. I should just say though that I'm not expecting people to just vote for me: decide which of the two you prefer and vote away!

Art Duel site. Update - 14th March 2003 - I lost! :( Actually it probably happened ages ago and people have been clicking on the link that was here and wondering why my pic wasn't there... Well now you know.

30th September 2002 - Memories... of what used to be
Memory is a dubious gift... My body... remembers. It remembers the space around me - to perfection, if I don't think about it. I could walk around this house with no eyes... my hand reaching out and touching an object, a wall, just where I would expect it. To do that consciously would be impossible - inconceivable, yet I can do it in my dreams.

Our bodies are capable of far more than we give them credit - perception is dimmed so we can cope with the onslaught of information... and yet - I don't remember the last time I saw my mother. Is this a gift? Or a curse?

I don't even remember all that I did... yesterday.

23rd September 2002 - Rant
I've just been listening to 'Tony', the noble leader of this country if you didn't know, spouting about Saddam's 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'. He seemed to suggest that it was our moral obligation to ensure he (Saddam) didn't have any such weapons for the good of his neighbouring countries as well as the world. It strikes me that we in the West have little to worry about this situation (at least in terms of our safety) - after all we seem to be able to justify having a rather large pile of weapons of mass destruction and apparently can be trusted to use them 'appropriately' - so surely Saddam would be a fool to risk becoming the target of an attack from the West... At the very worst we're looking at a Cold War situation - he attacks us - we attack him - we both lose; though the impression I get is that he really doesn't have the capability to cause us that much concern. So there has to be something more, some other motive for attacking him. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it doesn't just come down to money - oil money. There are other countries of 'dubious moral intent' (from our perspective) that may well have such capabilities, but I don't hear anyone suggesting we go to war against them. If it's not money then it's something a lot worse: There's nothing like a war to boost someone's flagging political position...

As for the argument of stabilising the situation in the Middle East - it's clear that going to war against Saddam will lead all the countries in the region to see the West as meddlers in their affairs who are only involved for their own gain. Surely if we were genuinely interested in improving stability we would have made more efforts to resolve the Israel/Palestine affair - this is clearly the biggest problem there and our inaction consolidates the belief that the West is 'anti-Islam'. I'm not suggesting we be anti-Semitic either, but I can't help but be surprised that a people who have been persecuted in the way the Jews have can't show some tolerance. Obviously it's not all that simple and the Palestinian bombers aren't doing their cause any favours. And being neither an Israeli or a Palestinian I don't understand all the issues involved - does this mean I shouldn't get involved? I don't know - I just wish they could find a peaceful solution...

Well it looks like this has become a place for my rantings, rather than ramblings... Maybe I'll try and find a less contentious issue for next time.

12th September 2002 - Remember, remember..
Well 9/11 has been and gone and there's been a whole lot of 'remembering'... and that's only fair enough. What happened one year and one day ago was hideous beyond belief - such a terrible waste of life. But the problem for me is that it's going on all the time: that wasteful loss of life, and no-one seems to notice it, no-one is telling us to remember it in the same way that the media is telling us to remember 9/11 - it doesn't even have a name like 9/11... but it's happening: people are dying of disease and starvation in incredible numbers whilst the West gradually becomes more obese.

"But surely you can't compare them", I imagine people will respond. One was an act of terrorism, a choice to kill thousands of people. The other is just a 'fact of life'... but it isn't a fact of life for us: we don't suffer those problems. In fact we're dying because we're eating too much. So I'm just wondering whether we should have a 'remember the starving' day: maybe on that day the media should print a tally of all the people who died the previous year through our neglect, our ignorance, our choice to let it happen and do so little to stop it (I heard the other day that in the West we spend enough money each year on dieting to feed the entire Third World - unfortunately this was second hand information so I can't verify it - but it makes you think... doesn't it?)... maybe then people would take notice... because I have no doubt that the number is far greater than those lost in 9/11.

I guess it's also worth pointing out two other dates that should be remembered but seem to have been forgotten for some inexplicable reason... I had to look these up; no-one mentioned them in my history classes; they don't make the news - no-one seems to say anything when they come around. Maybe because it happened over 50 years ago, maybe because it was the 'other side', but the way people are talking about 9/11 it's never going to be forgotten, by the USA or the whole world. So let me take a moment to remind anyone who actually reads this about the 6th and 9th of August - two days that should also always be remembered: the two days when nuclear weapons were first used against a countless number of innocent civilians.

19th August 2002 - To chat or not to chat
"The Net is vast"*... and most definitely bizarre. Here I am sitting in my little hole (a.k.a. my study) tapping away at this machine. Who would have thought just a few years ago that we would be given such a wonderful means of communicating with people? And what do we do with our new found technological wonder? Chat - apparently.

I've got to say that I find most chat rooms a total waste of time. The appeal of chatting to people you don't know, are never likely to meet (probably just as well anyway), with whom you have little in common, and having no way of confirming their identity is at the very least... questionable. And yet I've seen teenagers with poor personal hygiene and limited social skills getting excited about chatting to someone they're never going to meet and who would probably not want anything to do with them in a real situation. Now it may seem rather callous to look at them in this way but I can't help it. I'm sure they have confidence problems and the anonymity a chatroom provides helps them overcome these... and yes there are obvious benefits to meeting people from different cultures... but I can't help wondering whether they could be doing something to overcome their problems instead - like doing exercise, taking a bath... living in the real world. At some point they're going to have to do it - and it's going to be a shock.

The way things are going I can see all public meeting places being fitted out with devices to let you type messages to people around you to save you the effort of actually talking to them face to face... sudden realisation: someone already invented the mobile phone.

Maybe I'm just getting old...

*the last line of Masamune Shirow's Manga 'Ghost in the Shell'... a good read, though in some ways I preferred the Anime version.

12th August 2002 - Site Design
I've managed to avoid being eaten so thought I'd take a moment to explain my reasoning behind the design of my site. I guess it may seem rather simple to a lot of people. There's no Flash, no fancy animations, not even image based navigation buttons...

One thing I've noticed surfing the web is that people seem more interested in style over substance. To me this is a grave mistake - sure there's nothing wrong with style - but the main purpose of the web is to disseminate information and if information is hidden behind layers of costly (in terms of download times etc) 'style' it is virtually worthless. So I've opted against all the fancy trappings so people can get to my pictures with a minimum amount of effort.

The only real exception to this 'policy' is my homepage which does use image based navigation. I have however done my best to make it as 'effective' (as in memorable) as possible with the minimum possible cost to the end user.

18th July 2002 - Cannibal
We were walking up a quiet street.
A small man crossed the road. He walked up behind us.
"Can I eat you?", he said.
"Excuse me", I replied thinking I'd misheard him.
"Can I eat you?", he repeated...
I laughed nervously...
"Don't you f*****g laugh at me you c***!"
"We're just walking up the road here...", I said rather pathetically in an attempt to calm him.
"Don't you f*****g laugh at me you c***! I'll eat you. I f*****g will!..."
...He continued with various expletives and repeated his desire to consume my flesh.

We did our best to ignore him in the hope he would go away. He did.