I’ve been meaning to get to this. Now, he’s bound to be out telling us to give up this or that to fight the terrorists, so here goes. OK, who’s this? The fault lies with our leaders, not with the people who came for a better life. There has been a huge gap between our…
Read More The Radicalisation of David GoodhartHere is a blog post on the fate of horrible Internet troll “Old Holborn”, who seems to have decided to insult the whole of Liverpool, and succeeded in inspiring at least one Liverpudlian to dox him and report him to the police in his home town. I haven’t laughed so much in years, as this…
Read More A glimpse of the libertarian utopiaMark Ballard of Computer Weekly is trying to get the details of government meetings with the IT industry, and struggling. Among other things, this seems to be yet another use case for an enduring Freedom of Information Act request. It’s also one of the reasons why I like the idea of a central contacts register.…
Read More MeetingsDeeply unprofitable Crooked Timber thread produces an interesting point. Not so much “why do libertarians hate Fairtrade coffee?”, but why on earth do they insist on lying? From the link: By guaranteeing a minimum price, Fairtrade also encourages market oversupply, which depresses global commodity prices. This locks Fairtrade farmers into greater Fairtrade dependency and further…
Read More coffee and stupidityLaura Rozen takes us to meet the Iranian government’s loyalist bloggers. The hardliners have fielded hundreds of pro-regime bloggers, most writing in Persian, emphasizing particularly the importance of supporting the Supreme Leader. The bloggers range from students to clerics, with many claiming to be members of the Basij and children of war veterans or martyrs.…
Read More trolls of the AyatollahAh yes, the summer and autumn of 2004. The beaux jours of rightwing horseshit, back when an actual neocon disinformation job was targeting a short who’s who of blogging. It seems to be time for some of those years’ shit to float up to the surface. Here’s Dan Rather, suing CBS. Rather contends not only…
Read More covering the story: a glimpse of the press in actionWhile I’m randomly abusing the government, what about this? The document classes 1.6 million families with children aged between two and 11 as “high risk”. It states: “Food has become an expression of love in ‘at risk’ families. The horror. Food should be an unpleasant necessity shoved down because authority says so. Everyone knows that…
Read More foodShouldn’t this story be getting just a little more air? So the editor of the News of the Screws is found by an employment tribunal to have bullied one of his reporters to the point that it seriously affected his health, to have tried to exert influence on his doctor, while both the sports editor…
Read More I am now surrounded by liars, clowns, fools, drunks, sycophants and the desperateThe Rude Pundit has a very good point. You can’t even picture Obama pardoning a fucking turkey. Sure, he’ll probably do it. But unlike Bush, who approached such obligations with dunce-like glee, for Obama it’ll be like a kick in the groin. As usual with Rude, there’s a serious point here, sneaking past the guards…
Read More a short film about killing turkeysI’m not so sure about this; arsewit wingnut blogger runs out of money, goes bankrupt, various people who should know better jeer. The whole point of everything from some way to the right of centre – Bismarck or thereabouts – leftwards is that IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good…
Read More a cheap holiday in other people’s misery