..Texan complains that the book assigned for his son to read in his school’s “Banned Books Week” is “just all kinds of filth”. Wants it banned. The work in question? Fahrenheit 451. I wish I could find enough enthusiasm to laugh, but what with things like Sir Ian “Four in the clip and one in…
Read More I am probably the last blogger to blog this, but..This Martin Kettle op ed from the Grauniad regarding General Dannatt’s act of random reason and senseless honesty really annoys me. First up, this quote from Samuel “Clash of Civilisations” Huntington, and Kettle’s approving comments: In the end, although the generals might propose, it was the political leaders who disposed, even in the heat of…
Read More Dannatt, elite consensus and Samuel HuntingtonIn my head-on-the-block post regarding the unlikelihood of an attack on Iran, I mentioned that most of the Royal Navy is engaging in a large exercise off Sierra Leone, with the involvement of the Fleet Lead Commando Group, HMSs Ocean and Bulwark, and a large supporting cast. Now, many miles away indeed, the Royal Marines…
Read More Tony Blair: ChopperRemember the flight and arrest of Charles “Fiddy Cent Thousand Dead Child Soldiers” Taylor back in March? Sure ya do. You may also recall the bizarre involvement of Kilari Anand Paul, an Indian Protestant evangelist and – to be brutally frank – charlatan with a Boeing 747. Paul, who claimed to be Taylor’s “spiritual adviser”,…
Read More Kilari Anand PaulIraqi parliament votes to revoke an MP’s immunity. Details: Earlier this year he was caught at Baghdad airport carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in a suitcase, reinforcing the belief of many that he was engaged in illicit profiteering. During the debate on lifting his parliamentary immunity, the head of the integrity commission said that…
Read More A quick Iraq round-upReid wants to change the law so you can be tortured if he says you’re evil enough. Not only that, he wants one of the people who the courts found innocent of preparing ricin in the great no-ricin no-plot tortured, presumably to get out of him why he didn’t prepare any ricin. This is an…
Read More Recidivist with alert populationsSo, the redeployment of the Queen’s Own Hussars battle group from Abu Naji to the border. How’s that going? Ellen Knickmeyer of the Washington Post goes to the non-front and finds out. A few hundred British troops living out of nothing more than their cut-down Land Rovers and light armored vehicles have taken to the…
Read More Test the theoryBoingBoing: Wow! a sculpture of someone being shot in the head, and doubts about hypoallergenic cats – are they against open-source? Anna Politkovskaya shot in the head, in the lift up to her flat, while the shopping bags waited in the car.
Read More PrioritiesIf the Americans were going to attack Iran, you’d think they would do it when they had a ship or two available. Various people have been getting their knickers in a twist because the Dwight D. Eisenhower and her task group sailed for the Indian Ocean on the 3rd of October. (The Nation, this means…
Read More There will be no attack on Iran this yearD2’s post on statis (it’s the new change) and crap government IT brought something to mind. Dan mentions the success of the Bank of England-run Crest settlement system for the London Stock Exchange, contrasted with the hellbroth of disaster the NHS National Programme for IT is descending into. One thing I think he should have…
Read More Why BT’s bit of the NHS IT contract works