tobyslater CARE IN THE COMMUNITY issue 8: gig tonight, iLoo, airlines

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>>issue 8: thurs may 08 2003
unsubscribe details below
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>>LONDON GIG TONIGHT

** tonight THURSDAY 08 May, stagetime approx. 9pm

THE BETSEY TROTWOOD, 56 Farringdon Road, London, UK.
Nearest tube: Farringdon. Map available from site.

Acoustic, solo and very cosy. £4 with flyer available from site.

Also playing: Ben Dalby & Last American Tourist. The Betsey is a really lovely venue. Please do come along.

More info: http://www.tobyslater.com/gigs/

Buy tickets online: http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=uk&query=detail&event=58138

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>THIS IS WHAT A MASSIVE FIRE LOOKS LIKE

http://www.coudal.com/fire.html (QuickTime movie)

Forget those fake Hollywood explosions - these web geeks captured on video a fire in a neighbouring building. The dialogue's not much good though.

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>> MICROSOFT IMITATES 'THE ONION'

Bill Gates' company is claiming that it will provide Internet-enabled toilets for British festivalgoers this summer. The cubicles will be called iLoo and are being dubbed by Microsoft's PR as "WWW.Cs"

Here's the press release: http://www.shorl.com/gedubrybydyje
Here's a mockup pic: http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/p/2003/050203msn_iloo.jpg

All oddly reminiscent of a story from parody site The Onion:

"New E-Toilet to revollutionise online shi**ing"
http://www.theonion.com/onion3536/e_toilet.html

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>DELICIOUS & NUTRITIOUS AT 30,000 FEET

http://www.airlinemeals.net/

Useful for those people who decide their flight schedule based not on price or destination but on the airline's culinary expertise. Photos of every meal! Some particularly tempting dishes from the 60s and 70s also pictured.

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>> THOUGHT OF THE WEAK : how was it for you?

discuss on the messageboard: http://www.tobyslater.com/board

So the War in Iraq is nearly over, or at least according to George W. Bush, who called in "one victory in the war on terrorism" - despite the fact that so-called links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda get foggier by the day.

Thankfully the majority of combat in Iraq is drawing to a close, but already there are indications that Syria or North Korea could be next for the loved-up Bush liberation treatment. "Any outlaw regime that... seeks to possess weapons of mass destruction... will be confronted", says Bush - which narrows down potential targets to most of the developed world.

But I can hear the hawks asking when liberals like me are going to admit we were wrong and that the "liberfication" of Iraq was a success. And I must say that it was certainly fun for me, watching from England: for a while there we were all couch commandoes and armchair generals. The end result - Iraq being freed of a highly questionable dictatorship - is undeniably positive, and one I support wholeheartedly.

Did the end justify the means? For the answer to that I look to http://dear_raed.blogspot.com - a weblog written by an Iraqi citizen who posts whenever he can get Internet access (which has been rarely until now).

"Let me tell you one thing first", writes Salam Pax. "War sucks big time. Don't let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street yo don't think about your 'imminent liberation' anymore." However, he continues, "Aren't we just really glad that we can now at least have hope for a new Iraq?... The truth is, if it weren't for intervention this would never have happened."

So I'm left with mixed feelings, as it seems are the Iraqis themselves. Media estimates suggest that around 2,500 civilians died, which is close to how many civilians died in the World Trade Center attack. It's easy for we British or American people to say that it's a price worth paying, but of course it's never a price worth paying if it's your brother, sister, mother or daughter who dies.

One thing I'm certain of is that the reasons we were given for this war were wrong. They were mostly lies. Mr. Blair went through a list of excuses, each of which eventually slipped through his fingers like sand.

There was the UK intelligence dossier plagiarised from a student's thesis. There was an accusation of a nuclear link between Iraq and Niger which was proved to be a forgery. There were the "weapons of mass destruction", although even during occupation of Iraq our forces aren't having any more luck finding them than UN weapons inspectors. Then there was the liberation of the Iraqi people, which we didn't seem too concerned with over the past two decades - and of course we still support non-democratic regimes throughout the world.

What were the genuine reasons behind the war? I'm not sure - perhaps a combination of things. The desire to send out a signal to other countries that US military might is absolute. A need to station troops in the Middle East during a time of intense dispute between Israel and Palestine. A need for Iraq's oil (the second biggest source in the world) to be priced in dollars, not Euros.

Regardless, the good thing is that we're all more attuned to politics now than ever before during my lifetime. And I think our patience has been tested. Can we take any more war as George Bush continues his World Tour?

discuss on the messageboard: http://www.tobyslater.com/board

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> FUTURE GIGS

For more details see http://www.tobyslater.com/gigs/

Thur 22 May - Crown and Two Chairman, Soho, London
Fri 13 June - Arts Cafe, 28 Commercial Street, London E1
(with Nizlopi - http://www.nizlopi.com )

Check if there's a 'window' in your diary for those dates.

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>>>ALLEGED AL-QAEDA MEMBER SENDS US GOVT. MULTIPLE CHOICE QUIZ

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/zmoulist1.html

Zacarias Moussaoui, in court for his alleged involvement in the September 11th attack, appears to be taking the James Bond Villain approach to criminal law.

In the first part of this court filing Moussaoui quite understandably criticises Attorney General John Ashcroft for changing his mind about the existence of an alleged fifth hijacked plane. Then things go a bit melodramatic, with Moussaoui adding a quiz designed for Ashcroft which ends "I, Ashcroft don't know / Let's kill him anyway."

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>tobyslater SONG TO PLAY

Lachrymosa

http://www.tobyslater.com/music/realaudio/lachrymosa.ram (REALAUDIO)
http://www.tobyslater.com/music/clips/lachrymosa_clip.mp3 (30 SEC MP3)

LACHRYMOSA and 10 other songs available from http://www.tobyslater.com/songs/

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>> THIS WEEK'S CHOSEN POST FROM http://www.WarFilter.com

Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10888-2003May3.html

"A specially trained Defense Department team, dispatched after a month of official indecision to survey a major Iraqi radioactive waste repository, today found the site heavily looted and said it was impossible to tell whether nuclear materials were missing." How very reassuring.

Posted by homunculus

View and add comments at http://www.warfilter.com/index.cgi?i=view&id=184&f=1
(Please read the guidelines before posting a comment or front page article)

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> EXPLANATION OF BAND NAMES

http://www.8ung.at/nina_m/bandnames.htm

Detailing the origins of band names. Some are enlightening - "Scritti Politi is Italian for 'political writings'' - others are not so helpful ("Aerosmith is some random word that drummer Joey Kramer used to tattoo onto his textbooks in high school."

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>> THE LOOTING CONTINUES...

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,449436,00.html

... but this time it's high-ranking diplomatic officials raiding a UN cafeteria, reportedly stuffing their face with free food, glugging down stolen booze and stripping the place bare because kitchen staff had gone on strike. The UN states that no complaints have been received regarding the alleged theft of silverware.

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END TRANSMISSION
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