Posted 9:18 PM by David Morgan
I'M NORMALLY suspicious of Grauniad articles about 'Bush's America' (does he own it?) but Patricia J Williams of Columbia Law School sounds dangerously reasonable when she talks about the risks of racial profiling:

"Random checks or profiling aren't going to stop the determined operatives who are trained to defy visual expectations. The moment one has a fixed image, say of a man, it'll be a woman next time." Both the British "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, and the Chicago Latino al-Muhajir, bucked the expected profile of an "Islamist terrorist".

She also asks how we'll know when we've won:

"I appreciate the necessity for extraordinary measures in wartime," she says, "but an indefinite period of emergency measures worries me more than a list of finite military objectives. We need a clearer definition of what we're at war with."

Posted 10:04 PM by David Morgan
EVEN THOUGH Carl Robinson, an American-turned-Australian, writes in praise of Australia, it's not the kind of praise we actually welcome. He's like Michael Caine in Educating Rita ending up going to Australia because he's a washed-up drunk and 'there's a place for a man like me out there'. On hearing that line in a Sydney cinema back in 1983, someone behind me said, 'Great, that's all we need.'

Posted 9:48 PM by David Morgan
BLAIR IS right to want a Maremma. This Italian snow dog is big, loyal and affectionate - but you don't want to be a bad guy when it's around. My former London flatmate Jacqueline (now in Derbyshire) has a Maremma called Namba, who's outlasted her marriage. She knows who really loves her.

Posted 9:40 PM by David Morgan
HEY, WASN'T there a soccer match on today? Apparently The Samaritans are on standby.

Posted 11:46 AM by David Morgan
A FURTHER benefit of globalisation.

Posted 1:03 PM by David Morgan
BEAM US UP, SPOCK, WE'RE IN CANBERRA. An ANU team has successfully teleported a laser beam. (Found by Natalie Solent.)

Posted 10:32 AM by David Morgan
DADDY WARBLOGS gets the Congo dictator's widow email, I get the Nigeria one:

From: MRS MARIAM ABACHA [mailto:mariamab007@qrio.com]

Subject: Assistance and subsequent investment

DEAR SIR /MA,

I AM MRS MARIAM ABACHA THE WIFE OF THE IMMEDIATE PAST MILITARY PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA WHO DIED ON 8TH JUNE 1998. MY MAJOR REASON FOR WRITING THIS LETTER TO YOU IS THAT MY HUSBAND LEFT A LOT OF PROPERTIES AND HUGE AMOUNT OF CASH MONEY BEFORE HIS SUDDEN DEATH.

THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT OF OUR COUNTRY THAT SUCCEEDED MY HUSBAND IS NOT FAVOURABLE TO OUR FAMILY AND INDEED HAS SHOWN THIS, BY THE CONFISCATION OF MANY OF OUR LANDED PROPERTIES AND LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY BELONGING TO MY HUSBAND.FORTUNATELY, WE HAVE DISCOVERED MY LATE HUSBAND'S WILL. THIS WILL STATES THAT THE SUM OF US$18MILLION HAS BEEN DEPOSITED WITH A SECURITY COMPANY IN NIGERIA FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY. WE HAVE CONTACTED THIS SECURITY COMPANY AND IT HAS BEEN CONFIRMED THAT THE US$18 MILLION IS STILL INTACT AND THAT WE ARE ABSOLUTELY FREE TO COLLECT THE BOX CONTAINING THE MONEY ANY TIME WE WANT. DUE TO THE DEATH OF MY HUSBAND AND RECENT ARREST OF MY ELDEST SURVIVING SON (MOHAMMED ABACHA) THE HANDICAP AT THIS MOMENT IS THAT THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT OF OUR COUNTRY WILL CONFISCATE THIS MONEY IF WE MAKE USE OF IT IN THIS COUNTRY.

WE NEED THE ASSISTANCE OF A FOREIGNER WHO WILL HELP TO INVEST THIS MONEY OUTSIDE OUR COUNTRY. THIS IS WHY I DECIDED TO CONTACT YOU TO ASSIST US. NOTE: I WILL PAY YOU 20% OF THE ENTIRE AMOUNT AND THE REST TO BE RELEASED TO ME. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN GIVING THIS ASSISTANCE, PLEASE INDICATE YOUR INTEREST THROUGH MY CONFIDENTIAL E-MAIL ABOVE AND FURNISH ME WITH YOUR PERSONAL TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBER I WILL THEN GIVE YOU THE ENTIRE MODALITIES FOR THE BUSINESS ON RECIEPT OF YOUR EMAIL MESSAGE.BY MY OTHER SON ABBA. IMMEDIATE ACTIONS NEEDS TO BE EXPEDITED BECAUSE WE ONLY HAVE SOME WORKING DAYS FROM THE DAY OF NEGOTIATION. PLEASE KEEP THIS BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL.

BEST REGARDS,

MRS MARIAM ABACHA

Go on, email her. I dare you. What have you got to lose?

Posted 10:10 AM by David Morgan
ANOTHER BIZARRE search (this time via Yahoo) that found me:

'naked posing sexists'

Posted 9:34 AM by David Morgan
THANKS TO Scott Wickstein for discovering this whinge by Melbourne Uni historian Janet McCalman. Yes, serious history writing in Australia is in a poor state. Odd, then, that she mentions 'remarkable book men' like Peter Ryan, former head of Melbourne University Press. This is what Ryan wrote in 'The Charge of the Lightweight Brigade', Quadrant, October 1994:

[T]he state of history in Australia is depressing...History in the sense of our civic story and a source of national wisdom is less significant than the endless construction of specialised papers of interest to few.

It's still true. There's a huge demand for Australian history. That's why Gallipoli by Les Carlyon was such a bestseller - but then he's a journalist. And, far from being a 'propagandist' or 'myth-smith', Carlyon energetically tackles many of the Gallipoli misconceptions.

'Why was there a sudden burst of writing, both fictional and scholarly, from the early 1970s?' McCalman asks. 'Because of the Australia Council grants and the "book bounty".' It might also have had something to do with the fact that writers then had something to say, and knew how to say it. Former Keating speechwriter Don Watson sums up the situation today:

If only a handful of young Australians now study their own history it is possibly at least in part because our myths no longer feed them and were never real enough, or big enough, to reproduce themselves. (From his book Caledonia Australis: Scottish Highlanders on the Frontier of Australia, 1997, p. xxvii.)

Jason Soon's comments about what makes a public intellectual make me wonder: where are our public historians? There's Geoffrey Blainey and...er, that's it. Compare that with Britain, where they've got Simon Schama, David Starkey, David Cannadine and Niall Ferguson all creating meaty yet popular history.