Here’s a thought. Why don’t we legislate for a statutory, independent inquiry after every war (except, perhaps, those started by others)? The inquiry should be given certain inviolable powers in advance – the right, for instance, to examine relevant intelligence and to require senior figures to testify – to prevent Governments from limiting the range… Continue reading Inquiring into war
Month: January 2004
Blair’s political cojones
Assuming that the top-up fees rebellion was ultimately put down (and pretty brutally put down, by the look of it) by forcing a wedge between the two distinct groups of rebels – those who want to see Blair gone and those who object only to the policy – this is obviously not a great result… Continue reading Blair’s political cojones
Londonistan
Illuminating forensic examination of Britain’s increasingly shabby War On Terror from lawyer John Upton in old school liberal conscience, The LRB (I think you only get the first half of this story without a LRB subscription – but that’s still a pretty chunky 6,000 words).
Ordinary licence fee-payer maxes out BBC
Crazy economics you got there. The more people that listen, the more it costs you – up to your server licence limit, of course. Illustrates potentially loony outcomes of on-demand media distribution and makes quite a good argument for the retention of the broadcast model.
Optimistic caller
The phone rings at home. “Hello”. “Is that Abbott’s Engineering?”. No, it’s not. I think you’ve got the wrong number.” “Never mind. Do you sell welding spares?”
Huh?
Billie, 4, made this at school today. What is it? No idea. I’ll ask her in the morning and let you know (click the small pic for a bigger one). Update: it’s a Barbie Car!
Nix the upgrade
I was sort of idly thinking of upgrading the teeny tiny hard drive in Juliet’s original, Blueberry iBook (too small even to upgrade to Panther, now) but then I read this terrifying account of the sixty five-step operation required to do so.
Out of his box
This is the kind of thing those insrutable Finns were after when they abducted Matt Jones and sequestered him in their arctic circle underground think-o-tron. I think it’s quite a good idea.
Gaming eMusic
Here’s a good game. See how many albums you can get within your 40 track per month download limit over at eMusic. It hadn’t occurred to me, of course, but eMusic members have already started to pass around their lists of ‘albums with really long tracks‘ and ‘1- and 2-track albums‘. Looks like there’s no… Continue reading Gaming eMusic
A new standard for online news?
So I’ve been living with The Guardian’s Digital Edition for a few weeks and I’m even more convinced. It really is the first good analogue for a real newspaper I’ve come across. I would seriously consider dropping the printed paper for this. I’m inspired because I’d sort of concluded that this would never happen. The… Continue reading A new standard for online news?