Among the bad news from Iraq, I seem to have forgotten that our old friends the New-Old Iraqi Army are back. In early 2005, this blog covered a succession of big, sophisticated, company-sized or more assaults launched by Iraqi insurgents on a number of targets – notably Abu Ghraibh prison and the Palestine Hotel. Worrying…
Read More NOIA is BackSo the Tories are going to sell Smith Square in order to pay off their chunk of those dodgy loans. That’s funny – didn’t they sell it before? Back in 2004, after Michael Howard won an election of one to become Tory leader, one of the first things he announced was that the Tories would…
Read More Future Reminiscences of a Real Estate OperatorNot so long ago I posted regarding the LEO computer and the question of what a British-dominated geek culture would look like. This post was picked up by a certain high-traffic blog, with the result that it saw shack rocking levels of page requests all week. Some answers from readers included a recommendation of Francis…
Read More More on alternate geek historyTYR, 15th of May 2005: South of Baghdad, they will find it harder to make progress, as they will be running up the demographic hillside and into both the Badr Corps and Sadrist heartlands. The Sunni insurgents are probably more militarily capable, but don’t have the numbers. Somewhere along the demographic transition line, the front…
Read More Quotes without commentThis is cool: blogger observes the cyclical growth and collapse of an Argentine glacier. Apparently ice cubes hacked from it have the property of making Argentine-produced whisky drinkable. I liked this bit: Someone has inevitably hung up a “LAS MALVINAS SON ARGENTINAS” banner on the side of the hill, but this just seems to provoke…
Read More Glaciology and WhiskyAnd, it would seem, phone tappers..After the Vodafone Greece hack of their Ericsson AXE switches led to the Greek elite’s phones being monitored by persons unknown, a new phobia has spread through the Greek meme-pool: surveillance phobia. The afflicted show all the signs of a classic phobia,’ said Dr Dimitris Souras, an Athenian psychotherapist. ‘I…
Read More Nothing to fear..but fear itselfDoes anyone else feel that General Jackson really shouldn’t be sending out press releases to demand more fawning from a hostage his soldiers have rescued? Isn’t it part of the tradition that you do your duty not because you expect adulation but because it’s your duty? I remember Jacko being interviewed by the BBC just…
Read More Who’s Bad?I’m absolutely delighted to see that, after the chap responsible for the Tebay rail accident that killed four workers got nine years, the employers of the 21 Chinese cockle pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay have been convicted. Now come on…let’s see a proper sentence.
Read More Another Killer Boss Sent DownFor some reason, otherwise sensible people go flappy around the edges about the UK nuclear deterrent. Critics of the force often like to talk about how independent, or otherwise it is. This is a good point: after all, the rockets are leased from the US. But for some reason, from this starting point they rapidly…
Read More How Not to Write About the UK Nuclear DeterrentIf this post worried or angered you, fear not. Our best man is on the case. Defence Procurement Minister Lord Drayson, no less, is heading the negotiations on F-35 technology transfer and RR workshare. That’s the Lord Drayson who gave Labour £100,000 and got a huge government contract, then a peerage, and then gave Labour…
Read More VAACing hell!