The Iraqi National Olympic Committee's been suspended by the International Olympic Committee.

Torture equipment has been found in the basement of their headquarters.

The guy in charge of the INOC before the war? Uday the fucked up psycho.

From a BBC News Online report on a survey to find the Top 100 Good Reads:

"Charles Dickens and Terry Pratchett are the most nominated authors, each with five books on the list."

Dickens and Pratchett in the same sentence... cool.

Hmm, just realised that my music collection's incomplete. Not in the way that means I have to buy a certain CD or I'll die, but in the way that says, where the fuck is my 'Music R-S' CD-R?

I've only got up to Robbie Williams, and then it's straight onto Sex Pistols.

Where's Roy Orbison and Roxette?

And what the hell else filled that CD?

Just spoken to kate, one of my flatmates. Apparently about 2pm, I came home and spent about 15 minutes violently vomiting. She didn't see me, but she heard me, from the other side of a goddamn fire door. Quote: "It sounded like someone was dying out there."

There were patches of blood around the light switch and on the wall beside and behind the toilet, but she wiped those up (thanks Kate). Presumably it was from the graze on my hand, and I vaguely remember trying to hold myself up while peeing (accurately, I'd like to point out) into the toilet. Apparently there were other patches of blood on the wall of the corridor as well, but they've been cleaned up too (again, thanks). This lends credence to my memories of my Pong-like movement along the corridor.

Hmm, if I'm still drunk, I could still be in line for the fucker of all hangovers. I drank a lot of vodka last night, and the only time I've been hungover before now was after drinking vodka all night.

Okay, I admit it, I was home alone at Anny's house last summer - she'd gone to a club and I was too tired, so I stayed at home and watched Friday night Channel 5 films for about half an hour before getting bored and finding an Elvis Presley live show. Got to say, the King might not be my kind of thing, but he was a damn good singer.

Parents have just left, having not noticed that I'm still drunk (or at least not mentioning it).

They also didn't comment on the stain on my bedroom floor, or the one on the corridor.

Which reminds me, mop and bucket time...

(I'll probably end up posting a list of various randomly resurfacing memories as and when they come to me.)

There's a cut on the palm of my hand, and what looks like a bloodstain on the recently painted wall.

Oh shit......

I am never drinking again.
(Until next week)

Just found my glasses on the corridor, amongst an either-side-of-the-head shaped spew stain.

Thank god I hadn't eaten much. It's just transparent.

So bad it's hilarious.

Oh my god.

It wasn't a dream...

I have stuff on my face. There is a strange stain on the floor, underneath where I dumped my clothes.

I am never drinking that much again...

[embarrassed, and thinking that possibly Amy had a point]

A Mac built of Lego...

Fuck, the second big 'Al Qaeda' bombing in a week. 19 dead in Saudi Arabia earlier, now there's 'at least' 39 dead in Casablanca (which is in Morocco, by the way).

Operation Iraqi Freedom, destroying terrorism everywhere except where it exists.

What time did I leave Revolution last night?

I remember going in, and deciding I was going to hang out in there til closing time, to chat with Anny when she got off work, but I also vaguely remember difficulty walking, downing drinks through a straw, taking more than my fair share of a pitcher (two, actually).

Distinguishing between reality and fiction isn't really helped by the dream I had of a never-ending stream of vomit gushing from my throat, and of bouncing from one wall to another as I got home.

At least, I hope it was a dream, and I won't find pools of spew when I go out onto the corridor.

That would just be ick.

(This time, I was too drunk, I hope, to leave messages in other people's blogs, although I did accidentally leave the computer on overnight, waking up to two MSN conversations, one from Lorna, one from Claire, both asking why the hell I was still up.)


My parents are on their way up to deliver birthday presents and stuff, and the room is still swaying. I think I'm still drunk. This could be fun...

In response to Vicki's guestbook comment - there have been people in this country with SARS, before the case I picked up on the other day, but they all caught the virus overseas.

This was the first person to develop the disease in this country.

Everything done. I strolled onto campus and calmly handed in my last ever piece of coursework. Strolled off campus, went home.

Now feel as if I'm about to collapse after pulling my second all-nighter this term. However, I only have five hours in which to sleep, before I need to head off to the Writers Guild and Pulsar. Currently trying to decide whether to stay awake or grab a few hours sleep.

Something happened on Wednesday, and no one's mentioned it to me. A breakup, I think, but I don't know whose, or why.

Helena referred to it directly. Mish talked about her attitude towards relationships again, tying it into a comment on the breakup.

George may or may not be referring to it when she talks about Thursday morning being weird, but I'm not sure about that.

Trying to think of who was in a relationship before Wednesday, and who would have broken up in the rational, sensible way that Mish was complaining about.

Oh well, I suppose I'll find out tomorrow night at Pulsar.

Damn it, I've just received an email from Erfalaswen organising her 21st birthday meal, which reminded me...

It's my 22nd on Monday.

Nearly forgot about that one. Oops.

The first UK SARS case. Full recovery, fortunately, but it's here.

Saving Private Lynch story 'flawed'


Private Lynch was almost shot by US soldiers

By John Kampfner

Private Jessica Lynch became an icon of the war, and the story of her capture by the Iraqis and her rescue by US special forces became one of the great patriotic moments of the conflict.

But her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived.

Private Lynch, a 19-year-old army clerk from Palestine, West Virginia, was captured when her company took a wrong turning just outside Nasiriya and was ambushed.

Nine of her comrades were killed and Private Lynch was taken to the local hospital, which at the time was swarming with Fedayeen. Eight days later US special forces stormed the hospital, capturing the "dramatic" events on a night vision camera.

They were said to have come under fire from inside and outside the building, but they made it to Lynch and whisked her away by helicopter.

Reports claimed that she had stab and bullet wounds and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and interrogated.

But Iraqi doctors in Nasiriya say they provided the best treatment they could for the soldier in the midst of war. She was assigned the only specialist bed in the hospital and one of only two nurses on the floor.

"I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle," said Dr Harith a-Houssona, who looked after her.

"There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only road traffic accident. They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury."

Witnesses told us that the special forces knew that the Iraqi military had fled a day before they swooped on the hospital.

"We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital," said Dr Anmar Uday, who worked at the hospital.

"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital - action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."

There was one more twist. Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance.

But as the ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, approached a checkpoint American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch.

When footage of the rescue was released, General Vincent Brooks, US spokesman in Doha, said: "Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen, loyal to a creed that they know that they'll never leave a fallen comrade."

The American strategy was to ensure the right television footage by using embedded reporters and images from their own cameras, editing the film themselves.

The Pentagon had been influenced by Hollywood producers of reality TV and action movies, notably the man behind Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer.

Bruckheimer advised the Pentagon on the primetime television series "Profiles from the Front Line", that followed US forces in Afghanistan in 2001. That approached was taken on and developed on the field of battle in Iraq.

As for Private Lynch, her status as cult hero is stronger than ever. Internet auction sites list Jessica Lynch items, from an oil painting with an opening bid of $200 to a $5 "America Loves Jessica Lynch" fridge magnet.

But doctors now say she has no recollection of the whole episode and probably never will.

Huge mass grave found in Iraq
Iraqis have uncovered what is thought to be one of the largest mass graves found since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime.

BBC correspondent Barbara Plett says the remains of up to 3,000 people had been found so far, and the total uncovered could be as many as 15,000.

The grave was found in the small village of al-Mahawil, located near the city of Hilla, about 56 miles (90 km) south of Baghdad.

Among the remains are thought to be the bodies of political prisoners killed after a Shia Muslim uprising against Saddam in 1991 but also entire families.

BBC correspondents say the stench at the site is unbearable and a group of US marines who visited said it was like looking into hell.

Human rights groups believe that up to 200,000 people may be buried in sites across the country.

Search for loved ones

Iraqis dug using a mechanical digger and even their hands to find the bodies at al-Mahawil, which they painstakingly attempted to identify from clothing and identity cards on the bodies.

One young man told Reuters news agency he was sure he had found the remains of his brother because he recognised the shirt he always used to wear.

One woman clutched a plastic bag of bones she said had belonged to her husband's best friend, weeping as she waited for her husband's remains to be found.

"We expect many more here," said local doctor Rafid al-Husseini.

"We are trying to match the remains with the names... provided by families in the area.

"We found bodies on top of each other. Relatives are identifying them from their glasses or other personal effects found among the bodies."

Evidence

Rights groups have urged the international community to protect such sites, saying they are crime scenes containing evidence which may prove crucial to the prosecution of the remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime.

However US Marine Major Al Schmidt told the BBC that they had to be respectful of the Iraqis who had suffered.

"This man [Saddam Hussein] committed a lot of atrocities [but] we are not going to stand here and disrupt them from their mourning," he said.

"We're going to come in as best we can and do what's best for these people."

Graves across Iraq

Families desperate to find loved ones have also been searching plots at the graveyard in Khan Banisaad, a village 30 km (19 miles) north-east of the Iraqi capital.

BBC correspondent Anu Anand says that squeezed between the graves of local villagers are hundreds of plots believed to contain bodies.

In their desperation to give their loved ones a proper burial, the families are disrupting the remains, destroying evidence that would be needed for any war crimes trials, our correspondent adds.

15,000... Human rights groups (not the coalition governments, but the independents) are estimating 200,000 Iraqis buried in mass graves. Twenty years, and that's 10,000 a year. Nowhere near the Holocaust or Rwanda, of course, but still utterly inhuman.

Or maybe just depressingly too human.

Hmm, here's an article from The Smirking Chimp.

Pretty scary, really.

I got the link via Amy's site, in the entry below.

Interesting.

Amy Paxson, some other blogger who's at university 'west of the Mississippi', has reviewed my blog as part of one of her classes. Dunno how she found me - randomly, I assume, although the fire background apparently had something to do with why she decided to review it.

Hope she doesn't mind if I reproduce her entry about me under here (or me linking to her):

"For my tenth and final blog review for portfolio three of a certain class at a certain university in a certain part of the U.S. (West of the Mississippi), I am taking a shot—I mean look—at “Archangel Online.” This blog belongs to Richard who, like Biz Stone but with evident self-deprecation, claims that his blog contains: “The occasional random musings of Richard Cowen, bestselling writer, acclaimed genius, renowned love god, deluded fantasist.”

I first chose this site because of the background he chose. I don’t care for fire in real life, but the look is pretty cool. Richard writes in tiny little bits of entries and, like Michael, Catherine, and Erin, he too takes those on-line quizzes. The one he took on 7 May told him that he was a candidate for Mahayana Buddhism. I took the quiz and found that they give you a list of pre-selected religions (including Mormonism and Scientology—which I wouldn’t ever join) and ranks them with percentages of something (maybe how close your answers matched the tenants of those religions?). I also found that you can “click to learn more” then copy the code on that page and where ever you place that code, it will say that the religion that you just clicked on is your number one match. So, if I clicked on Mormonism to learn more, grabbed the code to put my results and a link to the test on my blog, the table that would pop up on my site would say: “According to the SelectSmart.com Belief System Selector, my #1 belief match is Mormonism.”


So, you won’t see my match on my blog because neither of us could say if it was verifiably true or not, and I don’t necessarily believe that Richard could be a Buddhist either. He drinks and his friends drink, he hates being single, and he says things like “Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.” Who knows what religion he actually practices but even he says that he doesn’t have the discipline to meditate. That is another reason why I don’t think that I can be a Buddhist, but actually, I don’t think it is about discipline as much as selfishness. You need to be selfish and set aside time to be still and quiet. The discipline part is trying not to think or snore while you are meditating.


Okay what else. Richard has links to some weird and “mature” sites including a big brother cam and a role-playing magazine (digital fiction?). The best, by far is the link that says “Lego Caricatures,” which is a link to reasonablyclever.com. I made a Lego me and I don’t look very happy as a Lego girl, either! I’m far too busy. I have no idea if Richard posted his Leggo image but based on posts in the archives, I’d say that he might choose the Darth Vader head!


His site is a lot of fun and because he’s been working on a dissertation (in the UK is that for a PhD or is it like a research paper?). I can empathize with his stress and I only wish I were drinking as much as he seems to be able to—but alas, my stomach and my bank account forbid it. Richard’s site is cool and I hope he passes or gets a good grade on it or whatever, and I hope he falls in love so he stops pouting! One tiny annoying thing: his site is set too big for my monitor’s screen so I have to scroll horizontally to read everything. Other than that—groovalicious!"

On the off-chance that she comes back, I'll address a few of the points she made:

- The reason I went for the fire background's a bit tenuous. I nearly went for the one that George uses on her site (with all the stone heads), but realised that quite a few other people were using it, so went for this instead. I rationalised it as flaming swords, vaguely archangelic, I suppose.

- Self-deprecation. Well, yes, a lot of people say that. I have low self-confidence and a lot of the time, I'm not actually that special.

- She raised some good points there about my Buddhism, or lack of it. No, maybe I couldn't be a Buddhist. (I'm actually a non-proselytising atheist.)

- Mature sites? Makes me sound like it's linking to porn or something. :-) There's some with a fair bit of good old swearing, but that's about it. Students Unzipped is only really up there because it's local and Mish is one of the residents. I normally wouldn't be bothered with a site like that.

- The dissertation's a module for my BA (straightforward, normal degree).

- My drinking. I really don't drink that much, or often. It tends to be the Friday night Pulsar bar crawls (or the Fringe Society bar crawls, as Mish tries to bring along more Writers Guilders, and seeing as how most of LURPS and LUBBS turns up as well). I'm a binge drinker, come Friday night. Fortunately, I'm almost immune to hangovers. [EDIT: And Americans drink less than Britons, or at least it's less socially desirable, which could have something to do with it.]

- I pout about being single? Well, I suppose I do. It's just... I love the feeling of being with someone, even in a casual relationship. Although, recently, I've been making the most of singleness. The thing is, I'm a romantic at heart.

- Too wide? That seems to have resolved itself, actually. Occasionally, when I import bits of code from quizzes that include graphics, it automatically throws itself beyond the usual 800x600 ideal resolution, so that even on my 1024x780 monitor I'm having to scroll sideways, and can only just fit it on if I leave off the left hand bar. It's an annoying problem, and one that I haven't worked out how to kill yet.

I would have posted all this in her guestbook, but she hasn't got one.


Christ, I've been very negative in my posts over the past few days, haven't I? Constant "Oh for fuck's sake"s and so on.

The Bastard Test

You are certifiably:

26% bastard!
14% of which is Tard

The worldwide average is 44% bastard.

How others compare:
2% (same as you)
13% (less bastard than you)
85% (more bastard than you)

Of the 3,597,857 test takers so far:

72% like to drink
56% gamble
52% will lie for sex
46% have cheated
17% would have sex with a relative
7% hate homosexuality, 100% of whom will die stupid and alone
7% like childporn

From BBC News Online:

US drills for terror attacks
The United States is embarking on a five-day simulation of attacks on two major cities by a terrorist group using radiological and biological devices.

The training exercise, which aims to prepare local, state and federal government agencies to deal with simultaneous terror attacks, is due to begin in Chicago and Seattle later on Monday.

About 8,500 people will take part in the operation, which will begin with a simulation of a radiological weapon, a "dirty bomb", being set off in Seattle.

At roughly the same time, there will be a simulated biological attack on Chicago, with thousands of patients showing symptoms of serious illnesses beginning to appear in the city's hospitals on Tuesday.

The BBC's Justin Webb says the people of both Seattle and Chicago have had plenty of warning of all this activity, with posters and news bulletins announcing the mock attacks for the last week so as to avoid panic.

The exercise is planned to end on a positive note, with suspects being arrested at the end of the week.

The mock attacks - which will also see the participation of the American Red Cross and the Canadian Government - will be co-ordinated by the new Department of Homeland Security in Washington DC.

Known as Topoff 2, the exercise is costing a total of $16m and being run according to a 200-page Hollywood-style script.

It is the first large-scale counter-terrorism exercise since the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

'Test and improve'

President George W Bush's Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, has described the five-day event as a full-scale exercise responding to plausible threats to the US.

Mr Ridge will spend the five days in the White House, keeping the president briefed.

"Protection against terrorism requires that organisations at every level of government and in the private sector work together in partnership to prepare for events and deal with their consequences," he said in a statement.

"Topoff 2 provides the opportunity to test our preparedness, and at the same time identify ways to improve response in the future."

Can I just say, 'Oh, for fuck's sake.'

What use is a massive drill on a nationwide scale, designed to prepare the country for the possibility of a sudden terrorist attack, if there are posters up all over the target cities?

I seem to recall New York was a little surprised on 9/11.

Has Al Qaeda changed its strategy - it boasts about biological and radiological attacks now? (Please note, ladies and gentlemen, Al Qaeda has never used either of these types of weapon, relying instead on fucking big explosions and shattered buildings, which look so much cooler on television than a couple of ambulances and fire engines.)

So two densely populated American cities will be attacked by weapons which have never been used before (if you ignore the rogue scientists who released that anthrax to see how nasty it was, allegedly - the evidence points more closely at them than at any Arabs), and the drill will proceed without any panic.

No, no no no. Fraid not. You irradiate one city and flood another with deadly viruses, you're going to have millions of refugees trying to get out. Declare martial law, US troops will be shooting and killing US citizens who try to break through the lines, people in other areas will be fleeing from (or be panickedly violent towards) refugees, and the unrest and bloodshed spreads.

Is this being simulated?

And at the end of the week, the suspects will be arrested. Wow, and that's scripted as well. Surely, for it to be a proper drill, DON'T FUCKING SCRIPT THE ARRESTS, YOU FUCKING MUPPETS!!!

Just taken a look at the Top Officials 2 website, at the FAQ .pdf file:

QUESTION: How will ordinary citizens be affected by exercise play? Will
traffic be disrupted?

ANSWER: Day-to-day disruption will be minimal in each TOPOFF 2 venue. Extensive
planning efforts have been made to minimize the effect of simulated exercise play on the
general public. In Seattle, Chicago, and the surrounding counties, TOPOFF 2 events
will be focused into specific areas and should have little impact on the public at large.

No traffic jams? So ambulances, fire engines, police cars and NBC-sealed armoured personnel carriers will be able to just breeze along deserted highways in the middle of a national disaster, in a state of emergency?

Ah, and look, May 13th, the terrorist safehouse is going to be discovered. And then, on May 15th, 9pm, Illinois, there's going to be a raid on a clandestine biological weapons laboratory at 1700 West 39th Street, Chicago. The media are, of course, invited.


It's not a drill, it's a half-arsed, $16 million, propaganda film, just to remind the US public that yes, you're in deadly danger from evil darkies with beards, and yes, we are winning the WAR ON TERROR [dramatic music]. But don't worry, because we've scripted the arrest of the evil killers who hate our freedoms.

Hey, there's an election coming soon. Bush needs a happy ending...

Hee hee hee hee...


You are the Marquis Da Sade. Even stripped of
exaggerations, Your real life was as dramatic
and as tragic as a cautionary tale. Born to an
ancient and noble house, you were married
(against your wishes) to a middle-class heiress
for money, caused scandals with prostitutes and
with your sister-in-law, thus enraging your
mother-in-law, who had you imprisoned under a
lettre de cachet for 14 years until the
Revolution freed you. Amphibian, protean,
charming, you became a Revolutionary,
miraculously escaping the guillotine during the
Terror, only to be arrested later for
publishing your erotic novels. You spent your
final 12 years in the insane asylum at
Charenton, where you caused another scandal by
directing plays using inmates and professional
actors. You died there in 1814, virtually in
the arms of your teenage mistress.
You are a revolutionary deviant. I applaud you.


Which Imfamous criminal are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Dammit!

I've jutht given mythelf a paper cut on the fucking tongue!

Hurtth like thit!

Something nabbed from RPG.net, about running games in The Matrix:

A Rant on Subversive Political Allegory

I've heard a lot of people analyze the Buddhist, Christian, and Epistemological metaphors woven into The Matrix, but am I the only one who sees the subversive political allegory? Humans are being controlled by a quasi-governmental "machine" whose agents are the archetypal men-in-black. They turn everyday citizens into their eyes and ears, using their bodies as meat puppets whenever they wish. Both Agent Smith and Morpheus mention "paying your taxes" when alluding to the Matrix. The free minds are often characterized as "terrorists." One of the movie's signature songs, "Wake Up!" by Rage Against the Machine (also too appropriate to be coincidence), is all about government cover-ups and the suppression of political dissent. It's not about humans versus machines, people! It's about freethinkers versus The Man! The revolution will not be televised!

Just one more reason I love The Matrix.

The Red Pill - Running Adventures In The Matrix

My first visitor from Yahoo, searching for "archangel hints", and finding an entry about Mick giving me hints on the dissertation.

It seems he was looking for hints for the computer game Archangel.

Here's a hint:

Don't play it. It's fucking awful. One of those games that could have been good, if they'd put more effort into certain bits, to bring it up to the standard of other bits. Doesn't help that the voice acting (with scripts translated from German) sucks like a Lewinsky. Okay, there's lack of acting talent, that's one thing, but when a simple sentence is said with the stress in exactly the wrong place, to make it mean something completely different, that's a sign of an incompetent sound director/editor. Didn't they give the actor guidance for the line? Maybe having more than one actor in the studio at a time might have helped.