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31. januar 2004
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Baby dragon on a jar
Now this is a funny story about scientific and national rivalries.
With tiny teeth and claws, a little tail and soft-looking white skin, could this really be what it seems - a baby dragon?
Yesterday Douglas Adams, today Terry Pratchett.
5:59:10 PM 
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Gilligan quits BBC
 Andrew Gilligan (picture), the journalist who started the row between the British government and the BBC by accusing Tony Blair of having "sexed up" the Iraq dossier and deliberately mislead the public, has resigned from the state broadcaster. While quitting, he maintained that he was right and Lord Hutton was wrong.
"If Lord Hutton had fairly considered the evidence he heard, he would have concluded that most of my story was right. The government did sex up the dossier, transforming possibilities and probabilities into certainties, removing vital caveats," he said.
Hutton did fairly consider the story. Obviously, not everything Gilligan said was false. However, it was Gilligan, not Blair, who deliberatly mislead the British public. The key accusation was that Blair's government inserted a claim ("45 minutes") in the report that it knew to be unfounded. Facts: 1) They did not insert it, the intelligence bosses did; 2) Both the top intelligence chiefs and the government had every reason to believe it was correct. Gilligan's most serious allegation was, in Hutton's words, "unfounded".
When the BBC is being all shocked and whining about a "whitewash" because Hutton's report found against them, it just shows how out of touch with reality they are. What has happened is exactly what I predicted would happen before Hutton even started his work:
I am sure the criticism of the Blair government will continue, but since Dr Kelly is officially beyond criticism, being dead at his own hands, there is little doubt that BBC is in for a beating. Dr Kelly is unlikely to be the last victim of this conflict.
It didn't require enormous prophetic powers to write the above. I could see it, but obviously the BBC exists in its own little bubble where inconvenient facts are kept out.
Good riddance, Gilligan. I am sure there is a vacancy for you in al-Jazeera.
10:27:30 AM
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More on Saddam's bribe list
ABC News, not exactly known as a rightist news source, adds it weights behind the discovery of Saddam's bribe list. It includes France's Jaques Chirac, Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri, British parliamentary George Galloway (who we already know is a traitor, bribes or not), a lot of Russian leaders, some of whom are close to President Putin, Firas Mostafa Tlass, son of Syria's defense minister, and a long list of others, some of whom are in the US and Canada.
2:38:51 AM
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Syrian cartoonist rejects award named after Jew
From the NYT:
A Syrian cartoonist rejected a United Nations Correspondents Association award yesterday because it is named for an Israeli, Reuters reported. "As a matter of principle, I refuse to accept an award linked to a Zionist Israeli no matter under whose patronage it was," the Syrian cartoonist, Raed Khalil, said. "There is no honor in it for me. Most of my cartoons are against Israel and Israeli policies." The award is named for Ranan Lurie, a much-honored cartoonist who served as a combat major in Israel's armed forces before immigrating to the United States in 1968 and becoming a citizen. Mr. Khalil said his prize was for a cartoon about "peace and love in the world." The cartoon showed two men on either bank of a river, watering a plant that linked the two sides. "It is not about peace between Syria and Israel," he said. Syria is officially at war with Israel.
Daryl Cagle has more, including samples (browse down to Jan 27).
This is so 1930s Germany.
1:45:00 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.02.2004; 20:42:46.
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