John Redwood has a secret plan to solve the pensions crisis and boost the economy; change the fire regulations so you can cram more codgers per square foot into your “care home” (Orwellian of the decade; they don’t and it’s not). Given a brief to banish Teh Curse of Regulation, this is what he comes…
Read More Still crazy after all these yearsIt’s quite surprising literally no-one during the recent reopening of the missing Iraqi guns story has thought fit to mention the delicious kicker that the shipment travelled in an aircraft chartered by a company that had just been shut down for cocaine-smuggling. Except for various random forum users. Jet Line International, for it was they…
Read More 99 Tonnes of Guns, ReduxIraqi employees: suddenly they’re everywhere. On the front of the Times. In its leader. On the main news. On BBC Radio 5 Live. In Ming Campbell’s talking points. In Gordon Brown’s inbox. Even here. You might almost think there was some sort of campaign going on. Now, there’s more; video. There’s also a useful sidebar…
Read More Roll Bandwagons, Roll!The Board of Inquiry into the loss of the Hercules C-130K XV206 on landing at Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan on the 24th of May last year (see here) has reported (pdf link). More documents are here. After much effort, and extensive exploration of all sorts of other options, the Board concluded that (as was blindingly obvious…
Read More Reading the Documents: XV206So, Barack Obama is now an evil warmongering bastard like all the others who wants to invade Pakistan or a girly man who doesn’t want to nuke Pakistan, depending on ideological preference. The reason was a speech on foreign policy he recently gave, and subsequent reporting. You can see how it happened. It spooked me;…
Read More Reading the Documents: Obama vs PakistanThere is no reason for anyone to think that the National Identity Register will not be compromised. Nobody serious in IT thinks that any networked computer system is immune to hackers, and that’s before you consider extrusion rather than intrusion; it’s a horrible misuse of English, but it’s the term used for attackers who come…
Read More The NIR Can and Will be CompromisedAntonov An-12BK serial 9346904, now with something called “Meridian” in the Ukraine as UR-CAG…formerly ER-AXY with the following roll-call of Viktor Bout operations. Aerocom, Asterias Commercial, Astral Aviation, ATI, ACS, Jet Line International…
Read More On the road againDid I say it would be difficult? Damn right it was. Did I mention gnarly old schemers like Stacey Jones and Jason Croker? Damn right I did, and they certainly schemed gnarly. But nobody expected the Catalans’ tactics; not many teams set out to whack Wigan in the chops early doors and get away with…
Read More Blogging Rugby League: Wigan-Catalans