America a bullying, predatory superpower? Not at all! Warm, humanitarian chap that he is, Uncle Sam has spent the past week asking the Iraqis ever so nicely not to fight back when they bomb the fuck out of them a week next Thursday.

Along with around the clock propaganda broadcasts from neighbouring Kuwait, U.S. planes have been carpeting the country with leaflets bearing such cheery messages as, “Coalition air power can strike at will. Any time, any place.” It appears that before joining the military, their copywriter worked for Martini.

“The Coalition dropped six types of leaflet today,” www.centcom.mil reports matter-of-factly. “One of the leaflets provided information about radio frequencies on which Coalition forces are broadcasting information about several topics, including United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime. The other leaflet encouraged Iraqi troops not to risk their lives or the lives of fellow Iraqi troops. ‘Leave now and go home’, the second leaflet said. ‘Watch your children learn, grow and prosper.’ Other leaflets discouraged military units from employing weapons of mass destruction, mining waterways or releasing oil into the Gulf as well as emphasising that Coalition Forces do not want to fight the Iraqi people.”

Top of the drops, though, with five million leaflets is the full colour jobbie that urges, “Do not use weapons of mass destruction.” Seeing as they’re being so polite, I’m sure Sadaam will acquiesce.

And you thought Michael Jackson was a plastic surgery junkie! That fine figure of a woman who used to be a fine figure of a man, Pete Burns, can be examined at www.deadoralive.com

“You’ve got to live, say, 70 years in your body and it can be a very boring place to be,” he says. “There’s a person inside, and you should be able to express it. It’s just that my ideas are quite spectacular.”

Happy surfing!