The rise of the male handbag
The Guardian: Patrick Barkham on the rise of the man bag This is what they were talking about on the Vanessa Feltz show yesterday: the phenomenon of some men carrying what amount to handbags...
Monthly Archive: June 2006
Zahid died in jailers’ game
The report on the murder of Zahid Mubarek, the Asian youth jailed for “going equipped” and murdered in his cell in Feltham young offenders’ institution in March 2000, has just been issued, and a press conference can be seen at that page (see this earlier post). It was alleged on Channel 4 News that evidence existed that the staff at the institution had a game called “Gladiators”, which involved putting unsuitable inmates in the same cell so the staff could see the fireworks.
Imperialist fairy-tales
Thanks to Pickled Politics for reminding me of this … a quite comprehensive article in today's Guardian debunking recent attempts to whitewash the British empire: Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | The story...
More on conspiracy theories
Something that made me wish I'd written this post a few days earlier (like, when I first saw the report on the PGAP survey): this article about conspiracy theories surrounding the July bombings, and...
Bill Gates and his billions
The Independent's Extra section today published this article about Bill Gates' recent announcement that he is reducing his commitment to Microsoft to concentrate on his charity work. One sentence that stuck out was this:...
British Muslims, alienation and terrorism
The Guardian recently carried two related depressing stories about the Muslim community here and terrorism. The first was that, according to some survey carried out by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, British Muslims had more negative views about their non-Muslim fellow citizens than do Muslims in Europe and more likely to believe conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks
Zia Sardar on intelligence
Zia Sardar in the current edition of the New Statesman on the folly of “intelligence-led” police operations:
Don’t be fooled by the mantra that intelligence is an extremely difficult business, prone to absurdly wide margins of error. If that were so, Britain would have lost the Second World War. The remarkable success of British intelligence, including counter-intelligence, during that war proves that we can produce reasonable – say, 25 or even 50 per cent – rates of success.
Spencer, the NDU scholars, the securocrat and his books
Robert Spencer today posted to his blog *Jihad Watch* [a memo](http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/011960.php) by one LTC Joseph C. Myers, Senior Army Advisor at Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, in reply to [an article](http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2006/20060622_5489.html) on...
My Mac and Ubuntu
On Sunday evening I finally got round to ordering the new hard drive for my Mac (a 120Gb Seagate). It arrived on Tuesday morning by standard first-class post, which was unexpectedly early, though they...
The perils of off-the-peg American policy
Two interesting articles regarding the British government's enthusiasm for adopting US policies into British criminal law: First, from this week's New Statesman: Martin Bright explains why our ministers seem always to look to the...
Some good news from Somalia
Richard Dowden (of the Royal African Society) in today's Independent argues that the Islamic Courts militia which recently seized power in Mogadishu (and may take control of other areas) is not a new Taliban,...
Guardian: Israel boycott debate triggered email attack
The Guardian's Education section today reports on how recent debates on boycotting Israeli universities produced a flood of often abusive emails: Following a heart attack earlier this year, Paul Mackney, then general secretary of...
Police chief: government ARE caving in to press
Finally, the head of a police force comes out and says what a lot of us have been saying for months if not years: that the Government is caving in to bullying from the...
Talking of service …
Saracen just made the point (entry below) about how on the High Street, "stock, price and service sometimes leave a lot to be desired", which is why he buys much of what he buys...
Buying computer gear
Earlier this evening I ordered a new hard drive for my Mac, one which has approximately triple the storage space of the one in there at the moment (120 gigabytes instead of 40). The...
Nick Cohen on last Sunday’s demo
Here is what Nick Cohen has to say about a demonstration I attended outside Scotland Yard (London police HQ) last Sunday in response to the bungled Forest Gate raid. He is suggesting that everyone...
Mad Mel in the Guardian
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Jackie Ashley meets Melanie Phillips I'm sure some of you are getting sick to death with this and wondering if I have an infatuation with Melanie Phillips, but...
Idiot Marine mocks “Hajjis” in video
The Council on American-Islamic Relations – 'Marines' Cheer Song About Killing Iraqi Civilians I got this via Lenin: a four-minute video, posted on YouTube and later deleted but archived by CAIR (see link at...
Simon Heffer on “Londonistan” (with replies)
Simon Heffer has written what amounts to a puff piece for Melanie Phillips' book Londonistan in the Daily Telegraph, alleging among other things that Phillips had difficulty "exercising her freedom of speech" on account...