Archive for February, 2007

On Newsnight last night, Blairite fatster Sion Simon MP demonstrated that he is too stupid to be trusted with glue. And Jeremy Paxman demonstrated that he no longer has any credibility, but we’ll get to that later.
Well, let’s deal with the fool before the knave. Simon was on the show to defend the government against [...]

Whilst I’m on the topic of last night’s TV: what the fucking fuck is fucking Jeremy Paxman doing pretending not to know the basic facts on the Anti-Terrorism, Crime, and Security Act 2001?
Recap: this legislation made it possible to deport or lock up foreign nationals on the basis of secret evidence, which did not have [...]

A close shave

Apparently, the Red Army in Afghanistan called the kind of raid it calls a “zachistka” in Chechnya a “prichyoska” or haircut. “An unnecessarily brutal cordon-and-search operation, sir, and something for the weekend?”

Looking at this inspiring achievement, I fell to wondering exactly how YouTube is serving up its videos. Now, so far I can remember seeing YouTube content from hostnames with the form lax-vXX.lax.youtube.com or ash-vXX.ash.youtube.com, where the x stands for an arbitrary number. Clearly those are either LA or Ashburn, Virginia, where the big Equinix East [...]

This time, Blair seems to mean it about British troops beginning to draw-down their presence in southern Iraq. All the usual provisos still apply - so far, it’s just part of the extra force that is going, and the last squaddie is scheduled to leave in three Friedman units’ time, like he has been since [...]

This time, Blair seems to mean it about British troops beginning to draw-down their presence in southern Iraq. All the usual provisos still apply - so far, it’s just part of the extra force that is going, and the last squaddie is scheduled to leave in three Friedman units’ time, like he has been since [...]

Over the last few months, I’ve done a succession of posts which can be read under the tag TWOS, for the war on stupidity, which explore various forms of ideology and consensus. More related posts will be tagged as I go. But is this just an exercise in pooflinging? Beyond tirades about managerialism, Tony Blair, [...]

The party of business, again

Anyone remember this post from March last year? The Tories somehow managed to swing a deal on the freehold of their HQ in Smith Square that would have left them paying a yield of 6.42% to the buyer, a £2.2m hit to cashflow. I had originally had the impression that the deal had been suspiciously [...]

It’s come to my attention, again, that the fine Samuel Smith’s Brewery of Tadcaster, West Yorkshire produces beer that a nontrivial number of bloggers enjoy and recommend. Smiths is best-known outside Yorkshire and the real ale community for the clutch of pubs it owns in central London, much favoured for their low prices and scruffy [...]

Over the last few months, I’ve done a succession of posts which can be read under the tag TWOS, for the war on stupidity, which explore various forms of ideology and consensus. More related posts will be tagged as I go. But is this just an exercise in pooflinging? Beyond tirades about managerialism, Tony Blair, [...]