An interesting little aside here in Britain. Geoff Hoon, who was British Foreign Secretary during the buildup and aftermath of the Iraq war, came out and said that the US ignored British warnings about how Iraq could go wrong.

No surprise there. However, what makes this story particularly interesting is Hoon's comments about how they covered Rumsfeld, Powell and Bush but underestimated the influence of the vice president in making major policy decisions.

A big topic that's fascinating and worrying me in equal measures these days is the possibility of armed conflict between the US and Iran. A lot has been documented (aerophany, goinsouth et al) on the consequences of an Iran war and the build-up to it. There are many scenarios from a small bombing campaign with no retaliation (the administration's plan, hoever mind-numbingly dumb and unlikely that is to happen) all the way up to retaliations bringing in the Nuclear option from pakistan, Israel and more, resulting in large parts of the world being under threat.

I found this whilst browsing. The original copy comes from the Pakistan Times.

WASHINGTON: Israel will strike Iran's nuclear facilities in the next "month or two or three," an Israeli official has been quoted here as saying.

The unnamed official told Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-in-chief of the United Press International (UPI), at the recently held national day reception at the Israeli Embassy that he believed Israel would strike Iran first in the next two or three months and that fighter bombers would not be involved as they had been to take out Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor before it went critical in 1981. For Osirak, Israel had used 14 F-15s and F-16s. This time, the Israeli said, it would be missiles. Asked if Israel would employ Cruise missiles, he replied, "with a gesture of his hand that went up and down again", which meant that it would be the weapon of choice.

After  DemfromCT's front page diary on Birdflu I got thinking about what we could do to minimise risks.

When a catastrophe occurs a lot of modern civilisation can fail - things like shops and services are the most vulnerable, especially with a bug that is contagious - public places are a no go, and looting rapidly occurs, as seen in New Orleans.

The best way to avoid an epidemic like Avian Bird Flu is by shutting yourself away until the outbreak has mutated into a safe form and the deaths have stopped.

In a modern city, this is difficult to achieve. The dependence on outside sources for the essentials of life mean that most people in this modern society will struggle to survive without the electricity, foodstuffs and fresh water they rely on.

For the last eighteen months or so, the chips have been stacking up against the Republican party's corrupted culture. Abramoff's tangled web of lobbyist bribes affecting numerous incumbents, links to officials being bribed by prostitutes, Scooter Libby's potential indictment epidemic - there's so many contagious corruption bugs out there that it seems everyone in red is vulnerable and hasn't backed up their immunisations.

The one intact prevention against corruption, NSA spying scandals and the rapidly disintegrating Iraq (civil) war has been the media. Even as the president's approval ratings slumped to new lows, the bought-and-paid-for journalists refused to admit the diseases to the public and although many people now realise it, they've been intact from major challenges.

Until Stephen Colbert stepped up to the plate, criticism of the partisanship of the WaPo and Fox could be shrugged off easily. Not anymore.