The BBC and The Guardian: as long as it’s only the fuzzy-wuzzies that are dying, and not rich white people, then terrorism is a figment of the imaginations of our oppressive Western governments.
Read More24Oct04 — 2
World Affairs
24Oct04 — 16
God Bless Islington!
Dear British Guardian Readers I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be able to write to you on White House notepaper. I cannot thank you enough for your cruciate support in our country’s recent presidential election. When my colleagues used to show me cuttings from the opinion pages of your newspaper, the cartoons, […]
Read More18Oct04 — 1
Too Busy To Fisk
Apparently “Sudan’s Darfur” is “‘safer than Iraq’“. I’d been wondering where those millions of Iraqi refugees had gone to. I think Sudan’s Foreign Minister, Mustafa Osman Ismael, makes everything clear to Europeans when he says that “the international community should leave the complex ethnic politics of Darfur alone” because… “This is an African problem—it needs […]
Read More14Oct04 — 1
Unintended Consequences
Many Americans see in Tony Blair the leader they cannot elect. Many also feel the same way about Arnold Schwarzenegger and are campaigning to make it possible for California’s “Governator” or any naturalized citizen meeting certain requirements to be permitted to become their president (subject to the other usual conditions). At least one commentator here […]
Read More12Oct04 — 25
But Is It Art?
SUE FROM BBC LOCAL RADIO: I’m standing in the grounds of an ordinary central Cambridge apartment block where local resident Damian Counsell has found himself at the centre of a controversy following his construction of a sculpture he has called, somewhat provocatively even he must admit, “You Bet Your Sweet Ass It Was In My […]
Read More10Oct04 — 1
The Tories Warned Us
This is the kind of thing that happens when you let the Germans reunite and people stop hunting wild animals.
Read More10Oct04 — 1
Mucho Macho
I saw Collateral some time ago, but haven’t got round to writing about it, have nothing original to say, and feel slightly let down by Michael Mann (who is a god). It’s not that it’s a bad film; it is, in many ways, superb, but, like others who’ve seen it, I think that Mann or […]
Read More10Oct04 — 4
The Unfreeing Of The American Press
The Anonymous Economist has emailed me this New York Times article which says something important about the state of the USA’s institutions: “Last Thursday, a federal district judge ordered a New York Times reporter, Judy Miller, sent to prison. Her crime was doing her job as the founders of this nation intended. Here’s what happened […]
Read More09Oct04 — 4
Blood On His Hands
“From the crowds that hailed New Labour in 1997 to the despair of Kenneth Bigley is a vast emotional distance.” —editorial in The Independent, 09Oct04 This week, the same Tony Blair who had promised “Decapitation, decapitation, decapitation” at the 2000 Labour Party conference finally made good on his chilling promise. Standing before an endlessly looping […]
Read More08Oct04 — 0
Black And White
This is funny. [UPDATE: Link above now fixed.]
Read More06Oct04 — 5
Nerr Nerr Nerr-Nerr Nerr
There are some broken “arguments” that stupid people deploy with a smug smile and a fold of the arms time and time again. Subject to even superficial analysis these supposedly debate-clinching gambits break. You know the sort of idiot offerings I’m talking about: “I’m not racist, but flooding this country with people of another culture […]
Read More05Oct04 — 0
Satan, Meet The Observer
On Monday, in an email generously entitled “Disgusting”, Claire sent me a link to an Observer article making much of quotes from unnamed aid workers. These quotes implied that the United States was exaggerating the severity of the crisis in Darfur for political ends. In the same email she linked to this story from the […]
Read More04Oct04 — 9
Over And Over
I also no longer buy either the London Review of Books or The Independent (daily or Sunday). I think I should go further and stop reading spare copies of either journal. Reviewing paperbacks in the broadsheets is occasionally delegated to some emptyheaded twentysomething trustafarian, but Laurence Phelan in the Sunday Independent should be given a […]
Read More30Sep04 — 11
Willkommen in der Schweiz II
As a follow-up to this, right now I am listening to BBC Radio 4. They are broadcasting a documentary about Switzerland. The narrator has just told me that one third of the Swiss (that’s one third of the 80 percent of residents who have citizenship) voted for a party that produced a poster showing the […]
Read More29Sep04 — 0
The Lancet Supports Freedom Of Information
Related to my own essay, this week’s Lancet also has an editorial about terrorists and the advantages of keeping genome data free. As you’ll discover if you follow that link from outside a subscribing institution, you can’t read the article, entitled “Keep Genome Data Free”, unless you hand over $30.00.
Read More28Sep04 — 12
Willkommen in der Schweiz
Even if you, your father, and your grandfather spent their entire lives in Switzerland you do not automatically qualify for Swiss citizenship. The Swiss voted any change in this and their other naturalization laws down this week. This report on the vote is graced by a poster used in the referendum campaign. The poster shows […]
Read More22Sep04 — 0
Biting The Hand
This is a fun, skeptical report on the various genome projects. I didn’t catch it when it first appeared in Ha’aretz: ” The circumstances which led to a visit by the head of the U.S. National Human Genome Institute astonished scientists in Israel. Collins has received many invitations to participate in scientific conferences in Israel, […]
Read More20Sep04 — 0
A Drink In The Desert
Adam spotted this one.
Read More16Sep04 — 9
Underestimating My Audience
I’ve been far too easy on you lot. Yesterday, in his eponymous and epurating ‘Blog, Oliver Kamm wrote of Johann Hari’s (silly) attack on Opus Dei*: “[His] term Catholofascism is not accurate. There was in the 1920s a group known as clerico fascisti in Rome and Northern Italy, which aimed at a synthesis between Catholicism […]
Read More16Sep04 — 8
It’s The Terror, Stupid
[Please, Miss, I wrote this post a day or so ago and my software ate it.] I’m sure Hak Mao will correct me if it’s not, but this BBC News article reads to me like a balanced account for outsiders of the importance of international security considerations in the election race in Australia. Shocker.
Read More12Sep04 — 1
Wigging Out
While we’re on the subject of ARMAGEDDON, Harry Hutton of Chase Me Ladies also feels that The End Is Nigh, but for a different reason. “Nuclear test”? Pah! Kim Jong-il’s hair, slathered in an experimental and barely stable obsidium dye, has finally exploded. UPDATE: A man whose hair has already exploded backs me up.
Read More11Sep04 — 6
To The Point
Hak Mao pleads a lack of eloquence, but she says all that needs to be said today. I’m with her all the way—though obviously I’ll need to learn a bit of Cantonese and find some undiscriminating women first.
Read More09Sep04 — 0
Killing Muslims Again
88 percent of the population of Indonesia is Muslim. If you can’t kill a Jew or a Christian or an atheist, you have to make do. “Bloodied victims lay sprawled and screaming in front of the embassy, as dazed survivors desperately tried to locate colleagues and missing family members. A severed leg, human scalp and […]
Read More08Sep04 — 0
Fit To Print
On my doorstep this week, I picked up a pile of Labour leaflets that I will be delivering around my patch [thanks, Allan!] and I also picked up a copy of the Liberal Democrat’s “local” “newspaper”, Cambridge Herald. [I make no apology for the ‘Blogtastic scare quotes.] This publication’s factual news reports by members of […]
Read More06Sep04 — 1
Count Yourselves Lucky
I wrote a violent movie spoof last week that I didn’t post because of what happened in Russia. Yes, PooterGeek had a rare attack of taste and decency. Rest assured that it will appear once everyone in the media has forgotten the latest “9/11”. Next week, probably. Now, however, might be a good time to […]
Read More05Sep04 — 19
Today’s Headlines
Further to Eric’s observations, I bring you the main frontpage banners from England’s Sunday papers. The Independent on Sunday: “Inside School Number One: the full horror of Russia’s 9/11” The Sunday Times: “Terrorists hid bombs weeks ago” The Observer: “The Last Goodbye” The News Of The World: “322 DEAD” The Sunday Telegraph: “Russian school death […]
Read More04Sep04 — 0
The Dark Side
According to the Susurrator, Norm is the Obi Wan Kenobi of UK Leftie pro-war ‘Bloggers. As wisecracking skeptic, that makes me Han Solo. I pass you on to the wizard for reflection on yesterday’s atrocities.
Read More01Sep04 — 3
Hello?
200 Russian schoolchildren have just been taken hostage by terrorists, some wearing bomb belts. Israel has destroyed the house of a “militant” who was involved in a suicide bombing on Tuesday that killed 16. Yesterday, twelve Nepalese hostages were murdered by terrorists in Iraq. Meanwhile, the last three items on the The Today Programme have […]
Read More30Aug04 — 4
Mark Thatcher: A View From The Right
[Eric the Unread draws our attention to one way that evidence might have been gathered against Mark Thatcher.] A commenter at PooterGeek suggested that my assessment of Mark Thatcher’s contribution to civilization to date might be biased by my instinctive antipathy towards the Thatcher family. For the sake of balance I have collected some opinions […]
Read More
Recent Comments