Predicting Iraqi election results is one thing this blog has been so awful at that it basically gave up. I will, however, venture a couple of comments on the results of Iraqi provincial elections. It seems more than clear that the current Iraqi government’s Dawa side gained over the ISCI (ex SCIRI) side, that the…
Read More ill-considered Iraqi election postStrangely, there has been little mention in the media that the Government is talking Iraq withdrawal blues again. It’s being mentioned in news reports, in passing, as if this was certain already; the dates mentioned are some time next year. Well, that’s all good; but this of course raises the question of Iraqi employees. We…
Read More Iraq withdrawal; what about the Iraqi employees?Packer vs. Kilcullen in the New Yorker. Here’s the key paragraph: Police are another main issue. We have built the Afghan police into a less well-armed, less well-trained version of the Army and launched them into operations against the insurgents. Meanwhile, nobody is doing the job of actual policing—rule of law, keeping the population safe…
Read More a network of friendly militiasAn interesting document was turned up in the course of the row about John Brennan, the CIA officer who was the Obama team’s original choice as intelligence chief before he was dropped as being insufficiently opposed to torture, under a volley of criticism from the blogosphere. (“Opposition was mostly confined to liberal blogs,” said the…
Read More Is this the CIA? Is this the IRA? Is this the UDA? No, it’s the Grauniad…Conrad Black: it has come to this. It’s been an intermittent amusement to see his rants issued from jail, what with their deluded certainty that the courts would eventually understand him. Now, however, he’s given up on vindication to beg for mercy. In a signature move, he’s also tried to bill his old newspaper for…
Read More conradblackaliciousOK, so about them Iranian superbomb spookologists. We’re not convinced. Even at the height of the nonsense, a lot of the military in Iraq were regularly quoted pouring cold water on the tale. Later, we looked into just how hard it would be to find out how to make an EFP. (All you need is…
Read More beating the statue with my shoesThis is fascinating; Laura Rozen has details of the Italian inquiry into the Abu Omar rendition case. You know the one – when the CIA agents foolishly brought their own roaming mobile phones and spent a fortune staying in Bondesque hotels. The really interesting thing is that the inquiry is throwing up more and more…
Read More the blog cabala and a wall of fireDSR of the week: Pierre Falcone lives in Hong Kong. From an IP address somewhere in China Netcom’s Beijing metro-area network, too. If you follow the link you’ll find one of the best results is this act of citizen journalism, raising the question of whether or not Jacques Chirac is the Anti-Christ. Astonishing, the kooks…
Read More who’s the anti-Christ now?So Hazel Blears thinks blogs are terrible, rightwing, shallow, cynical, contributing only snark to the debate, no new ideas, no policy analysis, no organising. Her evidence for this consists of cites to Iain Dale and Paul Van Der Staines. Well, you can see how she got those ideas. I should, I suppose, Engage More Fully,…
Read More may the work speak for itselfJust to say that the Viktorfeed/Google Maps mashup is now working, and it’s here. Relatedly, the URL for the GeoRSS feed is changing; replace seagrass.goatchurch.org.uk/viktorfeed.xml with www.harrowell.org.uk/viktorfeed.xml.
Read More participatory panopticon python programming post