Archive for June, 2007
It’s incredible what you can find out if you read the newspaper closely enough (said I.F. Stone, apparently). He wasn’t wrong. Yesterday, a soldier from the 4th Battalion, the Rifles (ex-Green Jackets, for those who aren’t keeping up..) was killed in Basra. Note the detail, though: Major Harding was killed by mortar fire onto the [...]
Dan Hardie wants to know what is happening in the area between the southernmost US troops in Iraq - around Najaf if memory serves - and the northernmost British, now that the withdrawal to Basra Air Station is complete. Call it the grey zone - the populous, Shia-dominated gap astride the main supply route to [...]
Jamie K remarks that Thaksin Shinawatra’s botched attempt to buy Manchester City FC and install Sven-Goran Eriksson is the worst deal he did, except for the time he tried to swap SARS-condemned chickens for Russian jet fighters.
It’s more impressive that Man City’s management’s due diligence appears to have consisted of running around the office waving [...]
So our fine Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne is going to launch an “international marketing campaign” in order to attract more immigrants. Does anyone now remember that David Blunkett launched a propaganda campaign to put immigrants off, emphasising fine British institutions like rain and railway disruption? Clearly Byrne doesn’t.
But perhaps he’s hoping to target the right [...]
Dan Hardie wants to know what is happening in the area between the southernmost US troops in Iraq - around Najaf if memory serves - and the northernmost British, now that the withdrawal to Basra Air Station is complete. Call it the grey zone - the populous, Shia-dominated gap astride the main supply route to [...]
Jamie K remarks that Thaksin Shinawatra’s botched attempt to buy Manchester City FC and install Sven-Goran Eriksson is the worst deal he did, except for the time he tried to swap SARS-condemned chickens for Russian jet fighters.
It’s more impressive that Man City’s management’s due diligence appears to have consisted of running around the office waving [...]
So our fine Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne is going to launch an “international marketing campaign” in order to attract more immigrants. Does anyone now remember that David Blunkett launched a propaganda campaign to put immigrants off, emphasising fine British institutions like rain and railway disruption? Clearly Byrne doesn’t.
But perhaps he’s hoping to target the right [...]
Charlie Stross’s space-colony überthread brings a couple of things to mind. First up, the best thought-through space elevator project is costed at $40bn, not far off £21-22bn. The Al-Yamamah contract was £43 billion - two space elevators. The degree of corruption involved is, literally, mindblowing. Perhaps the BAE managers and Tory bagmen I regularly insult [...]
The Dallas Observer reports on Richard Chichakli’s lawsuit against the feds, and also runs his reply. Essentially, the court threw out his case, but good.
The Observer also gets the honour of Chichakli comments spam - like this blog and Eurotrib, a sockpuppet calling itself “Graceland” rocked up to claim that he’s innocent, on the grounds [...]
Back in December, 2004 this blog was after the details of Bernie Kerik’s brief, mouvementé tour of duty in Iraq. We discovered that, essentially, he did nothing constructive, posed with South African mercs, and vanished into the distance after the first big carbombs, leaving the mess to DCC Douglas Brand of South Yorkshire Police and [...]
