Mark Twain was a funny man. A very funny man. And also not called Mark Twain. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was his real name.

Anyhow, he had a hell of a way with words, so much so that you can see I've changed my thing with the words and the wisdom and the hey hey hey...

Like a lot of people I know, I'd come to a point where I thought that there were no people in government you could possible look up to - that government had been reduced to charisma and soundbite instead of substance and statesmanship. But I'm wrong, it seems, and glad to be.

There are two men in the US senate who stand out as being of that statesmanship cast.

First we have Joseph Biden, who in an interview on NBC News this morning was asked about whether Iran was set to be the next country in line for a "regime change". His response was that the coalition has not yet won the fight in Afghanistan, has not yet won in Iraq - NBC, he pointed out, had just shown a five minute feature talking about the difficulties in changing the role and percerption of the Iraqi police force - talking about regime change in Iran, who have turned over more known terrorists than any other Middle Eastern nation, was not something he thought anyone should be talking about right now.

But who's Biden to say that? Well, he's the ranking member of the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee. Which just means he's served on it longer than anyone else. He's one of the few people talking sense about the role of the west in democratizing the Middle East. And he was one of the few Senators to suggest that a second UN Resolution on the consequences of finding WMD in Iraq would work. And now it appears obvious why the Bush Administration was so opposed to military action being dependent on the discovery of nuclear and biological weapons in Iraq.

See a transcript of his appearance on Meet The Press (NBC) from Sunday morning here.

The second person is Senator Pete Dominici.

He was Ari Fleischer's employer between 1990 and 1994, and you have to wonder: How did Ari go from working for this admirable statesman to working for the arse-weasel he's most recently been employed by?

Anyhow - I'm just impressed that anyone gets it right anymore - and these guys seem to be able to bridge the gap between serving their state's local issues and serving the nation (and sometimes its President's loony ideas).

Over there on the left is a link to Mike Lukovich's page of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

He's one of the best political cartonists working in the US today and it's certainly worth catching him when you can.

Liberty Mourns is his award winning response to the September 11th attacks.

Com-poo-ter

The wonders of modern technology know no bounds, apparently. After Microsoft's UK office leaked a joke document which was picked up by the press and then confirmed as a real product in development by the US office. Go here to see why the internet is being renamed the InterNetty...

Which makes me wonder why anyone would need internet access while they were umm...downloading...

Or maybe, it's best explained by a capella group, Da Vinci's Notebook, who I think you should check out - at least Internet Porn (lyrics below), Enormous Penis (lyrics to be posted in the future, I suspect) and Three Little Words.

Internet Porn - Da Vinci's Notebook

Back in the not too distant past
When I would need a quick repast
Or a temporary break from my agenda
Off to the bedroom I would head
Pull out the Playboy from 'neath the bed
And sneak a peek at all the portraits of pudenda.

My alternatives were slim
If I tried to find another source for sin
I'd have to hang out with the losers in the backroom
Of my local video store

But last month I finally made the call
I got a brand new cable modem installed
And it opened up the floodgates on a whole new universe of...
INTERNET PORN

Internet Porn
Roman orgy scenes
Internet Porn
Dominatrix queens
Internet Porn
Girl on girl on girl on girl
On girl on guy on sheep
Internet Porn
Gross anatomy
Internet Porn
Pam and Tommy Lee
Internet Porn
When you're given so much to choose from
Who has time to sleep?

[Honestly, honey, I don't know how the link got on there]

After my girlfriend goes to sleep
And I get out of bed and down the hall I creep
So I can hunker down and wallow in depravity
Until three or four
You'll always find me in that same tableau
Silhouetted by my monitors warm glow
And observing all the bounty from the cornucopia of
INTERNET PORN

Internet Porn
Barely legal teens
Internet Porn
Naughty figurines
Internet Porn
Geriatric German grandmas
Spanking Spanish men
Internet Porn
Erotic Asian art
Internet Porn
Guys with Extra parts
Internet Porn
I don't think I'm ever going to
See the sun again
Internet Porn
Melon Love dot com
Internet Porn
There's my neighbour's mom
Internet Porn
Bikers wearing diapers chasing
Nurses dressed like Smurfs
Internet Porn
Maison Les Clevage
Internet Porn
Un, deux, trois menage
Internet Porn
Every kind of smut from every
Corner of the Earth

So I'm watching TV tonight and I see an ad for the new 2003 range of Fords. Nice looking cars, despite the horrifying miles per gallon.

Anyhow,the ad says:

One hundred years ago, the Ford motor company tempted employees by offering to pay them five dollars a day. Now, a hundred years later (I suppose they have to say that for the adding-impaired) you can own a Ford for just five dollars a day.

And the caption says something about it being $148 a month.

Now, surely I don't have to spell out the insult to history: Hey, you with the children and the weekends at Ikea...you can own yourself one of these ecological disasters - and all it'll cost every year is the same amount of money as your great grandaddy earned in a year.

Now, you can tell me it's inflation and that what great grandaddy could have got for five dollars is vastly different to what you and I can get for the same amount. But let me ask you this: how much of the things we can't buy with five dollars are things we've decided we can't live without in the last hundred years?

My cellular phone costs a dollar and a half a day. Cable internet costs around a dollar seventy-five and cable TV about the same. Insurance for the car is three dollars a day and a Starbucks coffee here in Atlanta will set you back anywhere from a dollar eighty to four dollars and seven cents.

While I'm glad that cholera, smallpox and tuberculos are diseases I will very probably never have to worry my pretty little head about, I'm wonding if the social advances made over the last century are enough to pay for the moral delinquency and excesses of greed that have come with them.

In other news

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I sometimes had to tell myself that songs like Bridge Over Troubled Water were actually written by real people. You know,they just sat down to write one day and suddenly there was a timeless masterpiece that would move generations.

When I think of it I am sure that the list of songs that were just there, waiting for someone to discover them, is a short list. I'd include Let It Be...much as I think McCartney's writing is often times juvenile and overly simplistic (to the point of being stupid) that one there...it's a great song.

Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" is one, I think, and so is "That's Entertainment" by The Jam.

There are more and the thing that I reckon they have in common is that they all connect the listener, not to the musician, but to the muse that first moved them to start writing that particular song, and in a way that makes the song transcend the artist - songs like "Easy", totally embarassing that it's a Lionel Ritchie tune, but come on...it's just so perfect. Songs like "Under Pressure" by Queen and Bowie, despite it being the thing Vanilla Ice chose to sample; songs like "Under The Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers which managed to survive a terrifying cover by All Saints.

These are songs whose greatness is defined, not just in sales and radioplay, but also in the way that even as you hear them for the first time they're already familiar.

Feel free to pick this by-no-means-comprehensive list apart or add your own. I'm thinking it's mostly personal, but the ones that really count are the ones, like Easy, where you say - yeah, the guy's a complete dick, but that one song...

So, Happy Birthday Vice Emperor of the World, Prime Minister Tony Blair. Fifty years young today. They'll be partying in the streets, I bet. Or perhaps not.

Happily, also today, is my last session of physio for my back. I have these stupid exercises to do. And best of all I have to do them in a big room with a lot of other people, just to make sure I'm getting them right.
I feel guilty, though. Going in there, a young, mostly fit chap, exercising alongside a woman who has a huge scar on her left leg, evidently from some major traums; an old guy who still has bandages around his chest but is doing arm exercises, and a chap who has a medical boot (the kind for broken legs) on when he comes in, takes it off and starts lifting weights with his bad leg. I think I have it lucky, but still I complain. Just shows that how bad things feel and how bad they could be aren't always related.

Last night was the first round of the Democratic Party Debates to see who can beat Kaiser Bush who is apparently one of the most popular Presidents ever. A fact which, surely, frightens hundreds of million of people. However, in a debate that should have focused on who thought fastest and with the widest range of understanding and managed to articulate those thoughts in an intelligent and understanding way, two candidates, Senator John Kerry and Governor Howard Dean decided to just slag each other off. Now, I've heard both of these men talk before in a broadcast of a debate from California and I admire both of them. Good, fast thinkers; witty and articulate...but party leaders say that Senator Lieberman is most likely to get the nod in the 2004 Democratic Party Primaries.

The full list of hopefuls is:

• Senator John Kerry
  
• Governor Howard Dean
  
• Representative Dennis Kucinich
  
• Senator Joe Lieberman
  
• Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun
  
• Senator Bob Graham
  
• Rev. Al Sharpton
  
• Senator John Edwards
  
• Representative Dick Gephardt
  

For more information on who these people are go here - and it even has stuff about George and Dick, how nice of them.

Given that this is a government agency site I'd ask questions about its bias and accuracy, but it's a good starter for information.

There's also an article about how Al Gore raised money for one of the re-counts in the last election then used it somewhere else - the article says "Some have raised ethical questions about the expenditures, saying the Gore campaign should not have spent recount money to run for president." It says nothing of the ethics of the Congressional elections last year where, in Georgia alone, Democrats won 5 of 13 seats. Then within a week of the election three of them declared themselves Republican after all and kept their seat in Congress, just on the other side of the house. Apparently, though, that's copmpletely okay.

In other news, Arsenal lost their title to my boys. I know a lot of people don't like Manchester United, but I defy anyone to say that they don't deserve to win it after clambering back from 8 points down and, yes, with a little luck and help from other clubs, take the title on their day off. That's not to say they didn't do anything to help themselves - a bucketload of goals in their last few games - including hat-tricks from Scholes against Newcastle and Van Nistelrooy against Charlton, was pretty useful. Here's to the competition being just as tight at both ends of the table next season.

And "thanks" to my brother's boys, you made Jen really pissed off on Saturday. So thank you. No, really.

Dubya-English Translator

From GWB's victory speech last night:

Statement: By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed they could destroy this nation's resolve, and force our retreat from the world.
Translation: ...of course, we began our own retreat from the world with the abandonment of the Kyoto Agreement on Greenhouse Gases, the disregard of the UN Security Council, the alienation of many Eurpoean nations and much more.

Statement: And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because that regime is no more.
Translation:...and besides, they didn't have any in the first place.

Statement: Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I have made clear to all.
Translation...and will continue to change until they become clear to me

Statement: Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country, and a target of American justice.
Translation:...unless it's an organisation committing the crime of mis-informing the public and assisting in the suppression of the freedom of thought and speech in an environment free from judgement or retribution. So, Fox News, on you go.

Statement: Any person, organization, or government that supports, protects, or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.
Translation:...unless it's us murdering the innocent in the name of our ideology and our brand of freedom. Because that's not actually terrorism. No, sir.

Statement: Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups, and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction, is a grave danger to the civilized world, and will be confronted.
Translation (i): Unless they definitely do possess those weapons, and I mean you, Mr. North Korea. In which case it's a purely regional issue and therefore someone else's responsibility.
Translation (ii): ...yes, possessing the firepower makes you a grave danger; which, as I think you can see, I've clearly proven that to be the case.

Statement: And anyone in the world, including the Arab world, who works and sacrifices for freedom has a loyal friend in the United States.
Translation...unless your sacrifice for freedom is the kind where you do mean things to the US; what I mean is that anyone who is prepared to die for my cause is alright by me.

Statement: Our commitment to liberty is America's tradition - declared at our founding, affirmed in Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, asserted in the Truman Doctrine, and in Ronald Reagan's challenge to an evil empire.
Translation: But obviously none of those bleeding heart liberal, pinko, commie fuck-shit Democrats have ever done anything worthwhile for freedom. No, just us Republicans.

Statement: The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to undermine the appeal of terror in the world.
Translation: ...and obviously as the top guy in the nation we can surely call the Defenders of Freedom, if I was in charge of every country there'd be peace everywhere since I'm unlikely to argue with myself - you need to be capable of seeing two viewpoints to do that and I need a shit-load of help to see the one I have already.

Statement: American values, and American interests, lead in the same direction: We stand for human liberty.
Translation:...human liberty and capitalism. And surprise. Fear, surprise, human liberty and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.

Statement: The United States upholds these principles of security and freedom in many ways - with all the tools of diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence, and finance.
Translation: ...and a fuck-off big army when you don't willingly do as I say. So not really the diplomacy. I was just fucking with you there.

Statement: We are working with a broad coalition of nations that understand the threat, and our shared responsibility to meet it.
Translation:...the threat of disagreeing with us and being twatted, that is.

Statement: Yet all can know, friend and foe alike, that our nation has a mission: We will answer threats to our security, and we will defend the peace.
Translation:...especially if it means we get to go to war to do it.

Statement: Our government has taken unprecedented measures to defend the homeland - and we will continue to hunt down the enemy before he can strike.
Translation:...often before they even know they're going to strike. Sometimes even before they know they're an enemy. Possibly before they know who we are. Can't be too careful.

On the loss of allied troops in the Gulf:
Statement: Their final act on this earth was to fight a great evil, and bring liberty to others.
Translation: Well, except those ones we blew up in their tanks, planes or trucks accidentally. I suspect their last action was to wonder "Why the fuck are we being shot at by our own allies?" Still, they might have turned traitor...(see above).