Internet Magazine reports that a group of archaeologists and art historians have established a website in an attempt to publicise Iraqi treasures looted in recent weeks so that they become too high-profile to sell.

This comes on the same day as paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Picasso were “liberated” from a Manchester art gallery.

The paintings in question have been immediately valued at £1m… not so the Iraqi treasures.

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Even when you’re working from home and doing what you want to do you still have to put up with Mondays. A typical Monday today, grey and depressing, and not much done. At one point I was so bored I even Googled for myself. As usual I didn’t appear within about the first 342 pages of search results but I was intrigued to read the comments of one Richard Cooper who did, in this story about a wax museum in Las Vegas which has added a Saddam Hussein figure to its range of exhibits. This has, naturally, proved so controversial that visitors are flocking from all over to see it, denounce it and pose for photos with their hands around its throat. The Richard Cooper in question (a Vietnam vet and retired firefighter from Virginia) says about Saddam, “I believe in the Old Testament: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Hmm… one to add to Thoughtcat’s “Richard Coopers I’m Not” page (under construction). Also quoted is a relative of one of the people killed in the World Trade Centre attacks, who tragically proves what propaganda can do by saying she believes 9/11 was the work of Saddam. She comments that she’s “totally offended” by the statue, adding: “Killing him wouldn’t be enough.” Eh?