July 2005

Everyone knows what we should do about the danger of home-made jihadis. The Muslim community must do more to confront the extremists in their midst! And, on the other hand, we must strive to understand how these people came to commit such sickening acts. That’s the robot consensus. As Tim Worstall’s strapline would put it,…

It’s worrying me just how many bloggers are flipping over into tinfoil land lately. There may have to be revisions to the blogroll…

David McDuff@A Step At A Time: “While Yushchenko believes that the Ukrainian troops have shown themselves “to be true professionals and patriots,” (Channel 5, August 10, 2004) other coalition members do not share this opinion. During military skirmishes last year, Ukrainian troops reportedly retreated and U.S. and British troops had to be called in to…

So we know now: the terrorists set off from various parts of Leeds, some unfamiliar, some familiar to me. This depressed me so much I couldn’t really be bothered to blog about it, but we may as well let it slither out in the open. Leeds was always very different to Bradford; it wasn’t in…

Last night, having walked from work up to Highgate (in an hour, which I think isn’t bad going and at least got me there before it rained), I spent most of the evening with curry and a few beers, watching the blanket wall-to-wall TV terror until I decided that I didn’t want to see the…

Well, I’ve taken my life in my hands and gone out to our local Italian caff to get some lunch. The streetscape is surprisingly normal, perhaps rather quieter than usual but even that could be explained by the rain (the Policeman’s Friend in action). People are going about their business, traffic is moving; not very…

A succession of explosions has occurred at Underground stations in central London. The entire system has been shut down. A bus is reported to have blown up in Russell Square. The British Transport Police originally gave out that the Tube bangs were due to a “power surge”. Presumably, then, the bus was one of the…

I am the fifth result on Yahoo! for “spetsnaz anorak”. I am also the 13th result on Google for princess diana assassination. And why on earth am I getting referrals from www.about-swinging.co.uk/wife-swapping-yorkshire.html? (I’ve no idea whether the link is SFW, because I’m at work and don’t dare click on it.) They seem to head for…

A Step at a Time quotes French philosopher Andre Glucksmann: “Et j’ai vérifié cela très vite par la suite, parce qu’en Yougoslavie, l’ancien chef communiste, Milosevic, a gardé le pouvoir, et a organisé des épurations ethniques, c’est-à-dire qu’il a fait des guerres qui ont fait 200 000 morts au moins. Il a martyrisé, torturé, exercé…

I write about, mostly, the abuse of power in a variety of forms. I’m pretty sure I’ll never run out. But that isn’t enough. You look at the title of this blog, and the strapline, and the link as to what the original Ranters were after. But I don’t think it’s clear enough what I’m…