Music

...I only noticed yesterday that 'Talented Mr Ripley' and 'Moulin Rouge' have a song in common. Granted, very different arrangements, and the TMR version is instrumental-only, but I'm normally so good at recognising music.

And knowing what the words are that aren't being sung when that piece appears in TMR makes it all the more moving.

Must get around to watching the rest of the director's commentary on TMR.

(no subject)

In addition to the scores of prisoners who were humiliated and demeaned, at least 14 have died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has ruled at least two of those homicides. This is not the way a free people keeps its captives or wins the hearts and minds of a suspicious world...

Myers, Rumsfeld and their staffs failed to recognize the impact the scandal would have not only in the United States, but around the world.

If their staffs failed to alert Myers and Rumsfeld, shame on them. But shame, too, on the chairman and secretary, who failed to inform even President Bush.

He was left to learn of the explosive scandal from media reports instead of from his own military leaders.

On the battlefield, Myers’ and Rumsfeld’s errors would be called a lack of situational awareness — a failure that amounts to professional negligence...

This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential — even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war.

- excerpt from an editorial running in those well-known bastions of pinko liberalism, the Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force Times.

Something to bear in mind next time an armchair pundit tells you how supporting Our Soldiers means not questioning the handling of this war.

More photos, not yet released; even if the Pentagon try to keep these suppressed, I'll be surprised if they don't leak. Red Cross reports of brutality at Abu Ghraib back in October, and estimates that 70-90% of those imprisoned in Iraq are there by mistake. Prison abuses used as a justification for the murder of a hostage (who seems to have been a genuine civilian). And perhaps most serious of all, rumblings of more whistleblowers coming up, threatening to implicate senior command - which would run contrary to Rumsfeld's claims that the abuses didn't go up the chain of command.

Things are starting to heat up for Donny. Don't stop now, please.

The horror, the horror...

(Completely unrelated snippet: one of the real estate agents we talked to last weekend was called "Atilla". And apologies for posting so much lately... have been feeling restless and stressed about various things.)

Culled from responses a recent post on bad_rpers_suck, some splendid examples of atrocious character description. The saddest part is that several of these are supposed to be advice on writing good description...

( AARRGGHH! )

And just one more for today.

Something to think about, the next time the murder of Nicholas Berg is used to whip up outrage:

The man believed to be responsible for Berg's murder is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of a terrorist group with ties to al-Qaeda that was active in Kirma (northern Iraq, outside the region that was under Saddam's control) before the war. He has also been connected to the ricin lab found in London, and around 700 terrorist killings in Iraq. Allegations of links between al-Zarqawi and Saddam's regime were invoked by Colin Powell in February 2003 as part of the White House's case for war on Iraq.

According to this MSNBC article, the Pentagon was aware in June 2002 that al-Zarqawi had a weapons lab at Kirma producing ricin and cyanide, and no less than three times drew up plans to wipe out this camp with cruise missiles and air strikes - but each time, even after additional intelligence indicating that al-Zarqawi intended ricin attacks in Europe, these plans were killed by the White House because destroying the camp would weaken their case for war on Iraq.