July 2003

RAF will after all buy more BAE Hawks The cost overrun may begin. But at least there’s a few that won’t be sold to mutant dictators…

BACK, back, many years ago, in 1996, the Conservative government sold the Ministry of Defence’s married quarters – housing estates for servicemen and their families – to a Japanese bank, Nomura Securities. The deal worked like this. The houses were originally run by a thing called the Defence Housing Executive or DHE. This body sold…

Beirut Calling, the Lebanese blogger whose efforts can be found under Blogs of Distinction, has done it again. Apparently the Italian woman who claims to have been the source for the claim that Iraq had been buying uranium from a mine in Niger – although Niger had nothing to do with Iraq and the mine…

Much media attention has been focused on Mr. Tony Martin’s release from jail. Mr. Martin, we may remember, was the Norfolk farmer who killed a 16 year old boy, Fred Barras, who he suspected of burgling him. Mr. Martin had before the crime given every sign of being obsessed with burglars, weapons and security measures,…

Conrad Black, Daily Telegraph owner and Canadian immigrant, has been at it again, printing a lengthy tirade against “the greatest menace facing the country” in his rag. What might that be, Connie? Innurnashnal trrism? Global climate change? Economic decline? AIDS? Don’t tell me – the danger of a ban on fox hunting? The lack of…

Well, the Americans have something to cheer however briefly. The corpse photos are out. I see the point, after all there are plenty of people here who don’t really believe in scientific proofs – but it’s a tad barbaric. Why not stick their heads on a pole and parade them through the streets of Baghdad..that’s…

This is an act of god-like genius.

Now that’s just plain un-American

Beirut Calling blogged a very interesting story concerning that US/Syrian frontier incident…here it is.. EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Syria raid killed 80 By RICHARD SALE, UPI Intelligence Correspondent Depicted by the Pentagon as a mere border skirmish, the June 18 strike into Syria by U.S. military forces was, in fact, based on mistaken intelligence and penetrated more…

It didn’t take long for the government’s line of attack to become obvious after the death of Dr Kelly, and it could hardly have been more depressing, more unworthy or more dishonest. The strategy is obviously to whip up a BBC-bashing campaign in the Murdoch press, always willing to have a pop at their oh-so-inconvenient…