The Yorkshire Ranter

SpyBlog reports that contracts have been issued for a database of information on children in Lewisham, partly at least as a pilot for the national record of all kids planned under the Children Bill. Now, this idea came up as a result of the investigation into the Victoria Climbie case, but it’s very hard not…

Insurgents Display New Sophistication The Washington Post reports that Iraqi insurgents have apparently been tracking the movement of the US 1st Infantry Division units sent south from the Baghdad area and arranging for bridges to be blown up ahead of them. “”The dropping of the bridges was very interesting, because it showed a regional or…

New York Times: Troops in Iraq Strain to Hold Lines of Supply This is not good. Some news stories recently have given me the strong impression that the world focus on the centres of drama in Iraq – Fallujah and Najaf – has obscured a worsening crisis in the countryside, and that the coalition is…

Well, resuming blogging after a break over Easter, it’s time to round up the Iraq situation. (I know, it’s been a very Iraq blog lately but it’s hardly surprising, no?) Although the initial crisis now seems to be past, or at least in suspension, we can’t honestly believe things are getting any better. Not when…

In a long post on the Shia uprising in Iraq on Tuesday, I argued that the Mahdi Army was following a strategy seen in numerous civil wars – seizing the locations of legitimate power and co-opting the police and administration. According to this story in the Indy, I was right.. “”The Americans are just as…

Damn good coverage from the Washington Post of the Fallujah battle – which rather invalidates the last sentence of the last post. The US Marines have an institutional history of being rather better at political war than the Army, going back to their 19th century role in Latin America – as evidenced by this quote:…

CNN link “Supporters of maverick Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr controlled government, religious and security buildings in the holy city of Najaf early Tuesday evening, according to a coalition source in southern Iraq. The source said al-Sadr’s followers controlled the governor’s office, police stations and the Imam Ali mosque, one of Shia Muslim’s holiest shrines. Iraqi…

Thanks to the excellent Spy Blog, the blog operated by the Watching Them Watching Us campaign for the regulation of surveillance technology, I now know that the controversial Anti-Terrorism, Crime, and Security Act 2001 made it a criminal offence to “detonate a nuclear weapon in the UK without permission”. What? All these years it was…

Well, it has all finally happened. The potential for trouble represented by the Shia militias has been converted into actuality, and General Abizaid’s staff have supposedly been given 48 hours to think of possible sources of reinforcement (link). A cynic might say that Muggins Britain will be top of the begging letter list when it…

I’ve just taken a peek into our search referrals. The horror..the horror..and that’s without the horde of perverted googlers who the last post will no doubt draw to us like flies to shit. (Still, it’s all traffic..) Who the hell searched for “email a-z information of churches” and hit the Ranter? Now that’s just filthy.