What on earth is happening in Rostov?
This surreal turn in the 2023 plotline is a bold stroke, but if the writers can pull off the swivel from tragedy to black comedy, I could get to like it. Russia-Ukraine war live: Wagner chief claims to...
View ArticleWe answer, you reply, they skew
“Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow.” To the Guardian’s Steven Morris, responding to a government consultation is another of those famous irregular verbs that changes its form according to who...
View ArticleLin Biao welcomes Prigozhin to the club
From the Wikipedia entry for Lin Biao: Lin became instrumental in creating the foundations for Mao Zedong’s cult of personality in the early 1960s, and was rewarded for his service in the Cultural...
View Article“The UK’s Online Safety Bill, an idea too stupid to notice it’s dead”
The Register’s Rupert Goodwins is right to describe the Bill as “stupid” but, I regret to say, probably mistaken in describing it as “dead”. It has long since passed the Commons. Its progress through...
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What I did on my holidays
Switzerland is a great country. In most respects Machiavelli’s description of the Swiss as “armatissimi e liberissimi”, “most armed and most free”, still applies. But… It says, Mandatory shooting...
View ArticlePeace-lovers love using the passive voice
Soon after Hamas attacked Israel, Jeremy Corbyn made a speech. Kyle Orton noticed something odd about it: “young people who died in the Negev desert” “young people who’ve been killed by Israeli forces...
View ArticleTen years ago, Brian Mickelthwait predicted the response to Covid-19
Ten years and ten days ago, the sadly missed Brian Micklethwait wrote this: “What if there is a real collective disaster?” Brian quoted this article by Paul Murphy which said that the response of...
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Lest we remember
In my recent post, “Peace-lovers love using the passive voice”, I asked you to supply particularly egregious examples of media attempts to downplay murders by Hamas and other protected groups. Ben did...
View Article“Despite police not revealing the suspected knifeman’s identity or motive”
“Violence in Dublin after five hurt in knife attack” reports the BBC: There are violent scenes in Dublin after an earlier knife attack in the city centre in which five people were injured It is not...
View ArticleWhy you can be a free speech absolutist and still think the presidents of...
David Burge explains all: Fun facts: (A) calling for genocide against Jews, if not delivered to incite a mob to violence, is 100% Constitutionally protected speech- only in the sense it can't be...
View ArticleScottish people pay taxes so that an Iranian-linked mosque can get £372k for...
The Times reports, A mosque which has been linked to the Iranian state received £372,000 from the Scottish government. Exiled dissidents claim the Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre of Glasgow has become an...
View ArticleSad about all those people killed in the Lockerbie air disaster. I guess the...
On the 35th anniversary of the Lockerbie air disaster, First Minister @HumzaYousaf has expressed sympathies to those who lost loved ones on board Pan Am Flight 103 and on the ground. He also paid...
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