August 2004

Here at the Ranter, one of my regular targets is the delusion held by many Conservatives that somehow, if they could just get into the Foreign Office, they could create a mighty alliance with such great powers as – er – Denmark and Estonia to rewrite the European Union treaties in such a way as…

The Smoking Gun has a list of pornographic comics and films that were either seized or permitted by Canadian Customs on the US border. “Housewives at Play” – verboten! “Housewives and Hot Moms at Play” – all well and good. How d’you reckon they work these things out?

Some time ago it was suggested to me that the US Government fuel contracts with Viktor Bout’s airlines had some connection with the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British tax paradise in the Caribbean. You may recall from the Ranter passim that the contracts were numbered in the series TBTC followed by 2 digits. The…

Link Thurlow said he had lost his medal citation for that incident over two decades ago and stood by his account that there was no enemy fire at the time. His account was further called into question by a battle damage assessment report on another Swift boat, PCF-51, involved in the March 13 action. The…

The Ranter is no.2 on Altavista for “x-ray photo public domain”.

It’s the time of year for the Washington Post Blog Awards. Click the button in my sidebar to nominate me. Please.

The Torygraph reports on what must have been a memorable day at the independent inquiry into Gulf War syndrome after the former medical adviser to the MoD’s own “health assessment programme” turned up in a US Army uniform and accused British servicemen of alcoholism and malingering. “He was scathing of the British soldiers he examined,…

“Muqtada said that calling Iyad Allawi (he didn’t mention him by name) a “Shiite” was like calling Saddam Hussein a “Muslim.” From Juan Cole. I have to say, right back to last year, Cole has consistently pointed out that Allawi was nothing but trouble. His actions in the current crisis have only borne that out.…

Doug Farah has an interesting new post on Viktor Bout and Jetline International. Apparently an aircraft registered 9L-LEC was leased by Jetline to something called Skylink and used in Iraq. Mr. Farah requests info on Jetline. He shall have it. Skylink may be a a Russian company, Skylink Express, listed as operating between 1994 and…

I’m about to do the stereotype blogger “A funny thing happened at the supermarket” thing, so please bear with me. It’s the only one so far. Round our way, there’s a council-owned car park behind the Tesco, and the tickets are sold for fixed periods (1 hour, 2 hours, whatever). A custom has grown up…