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Tonight the cream of the British and European blogerati is descending on Chelsea once more for one of our famous Blogger Bashes… and thus there may be rather less output than usual on this blog (and quite a few others) tonight.
but hopefully not too much… July 5th, 2003 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
 Silvio Berlusconi has crossed the line. It was bad enough that he is wealthy businessman and not a bureaucrat. His right-of-centre views are distasteful but containable. Even his support for America could be overlooked in the circumstances. But, now, Berlusconi has gone too far. He has brought disharmony to Brussels and insulted a left-wing Eurocrat. That is beyond the pale. That is unforgiveable. Now he must be destroyed:
As evidenced by this frothing-at-the-mouth, hysterical denouncement in the Guardian, the lefties have struck up the cogs, wheels and pistons of their considerable propoganda machine to churn away at full steam and not stop until Berlusconi has been drawn into the mincer and disposed of. This is not going to be allowed to simply blow over. You cannot commit the ultimate crime of cocking a snoot at the Euro-left and expect to get away with it. Over the coming months the left will deploy the entire range of their customary demonology against Berlusconi in the same way they have deployed it against George Bush. In fact, Berlusconi is now the George Bush of Europe. Signor Berlusconi has got a lot of money and a lot of moxy but what he needs most of all now is a set of brass balls. I hope he has got those too. July 5th, 2003 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
Sharon Stone is getting divorced. Not good news for Sharon but a significant chunk of the rest of the planet rejoices at the news she is ‘back on the market’. 
45 years old and still hot Update: As a commenter reminded me… “Consider that a divorce” July 5th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I’m afraid I don’t have a link for this – the FT’s web-site wouldn’t let me find the story. One of their columnists suggested a way to beat spam: this is roughly the gist: Each ISP identifies mail addressed to more than, say, 100 receipients. An employee retained for the purpose glances at the mail, and accepts or rejects the mail. This should be relatively easy, as most spam is readily spotted, compared to mailing list entries, etc. The employee reviews, say, 1 a minute, for 7 hours a day, stopping 60 * 7 * 100 = 42,000 pieces of spam a day. Over a 200 day working year, and at a salary of say £20,000, that works out at about a quarter of a penny per spam stopped. The author went on to suggest given the global volume of spam, only a couple of people would be needed to stop it all. This seems fallacious, as EACH ISP would need to employee their own blockers. I think most people reading this site would see the implications for privacy – ISPs would (perhaps be legally required to) read any mail sent to large numbers of individuals. This is not something I’d look forward to. Hopefully, the idea will die the death of a thousand rapidly knocked up columns, but it’s worrying that privacy didn’t even strike the writer (or his editor) as an issue. Particularly as, once the proposal had been brought in, there would be a natural pressure to reduce the number of receipients that “triggered” checking. Spammers would drop the size of their mailings, and so the checkers would have to look at an ever higher proportion of mails to have any effect. July 5th, 2003 | Comments are closed
In a welcome turnabout for US citizens, MIT has launched the Government Information Awareness website. The website developer Ryan McKinley explains
The method that McKinley uses is pilfered straight from the government itself.
A nice touch! The site itself is a bit limited; also, when I tried it out it was very slow. It might have underestimated the demand for it. This is a work in progress, but it’s a great start. This gives Big Brother a taste of his own medicine, and we need something like this in Australia. Cross posted at The Eye of the Beholder July 5th, 2003 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
I must commend the BBC for not allowing the victims of the Bali massacre to be forgotten. Indeed, they have devoted a whole page on their website to the father of one of the young victims; a man who displays far more magnanimity than I could ever muster:
The BBC doubtless felt that Mr.Braden’s thoughts were worth sharing with the world. And they are. But, strangely, no mention whatsoever about the thoughts and feelings of some of the other victims:
Clearly Mr.Ryan wasn’t ‘repentant’ enough. [My thanks to Tim Blair for the link to the article on Mr.Ryan.] July 5th, 2003 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
Having been published last month, this article, in blogosphere terms, is verging on the archaeological but it is well worth a delve into the archives for a sobering illustration of just how despotic and deranged our ruling classes have become. Not content with having turned our justice system into a playground for victimologists, parasites and professional race-baiters, the Home Office is now preparing the ground for an arbitrary police-state:
The article deserves to be read in it entirety in order to understand the extent to which the Home Office has deliberately ignored or manipulated statistical data in order to justify their insistence that male violence in the home is far worse and far more common than it actually is. Another case of tailoring the data to fit the political agenda. These wicked and spiteful proposals are not on the books yet but they are clearly on the drawing board and, as per usual, it is only a matter of time before they are enacted thus ending the protection of the law for every man in this country. The scope for abuse of powers like this is simply enormous and any case of abuse will lead to a man losing his home, access to his children and possibly even his livelihood all on the basis of an unproven and unanswerable allegation. The damage this will cause to families and the fabric of society remains to be seen but, tragically, it will be seen thanks to a regime which is deeply in thrall to dangerously extremist femininst ideologues and which has now run out of easy targets. July 4th, 2003 | Comments are closed
Having been published last month, this article, in blogosphere terms, is verging on the archaeological but it is well worth a delve into the archives for a sobering illustration of just how despotic and deranged our ruling classes have become. Not content with having turned our justice system into a playground for victimologists, parasites and professional race-baiters, the Home Office is now preparing the ground for an arbitrary police-state:
The article deserves to be read in it entirety in order to understand the extent to which the Home Office has deliberately ignored or manipulated statistical data in order to justify their insistence that male violence in the home is far worse and far more common than it actually is. Another case of tailoring the data to fit the political agenda. These wicked and spiteful proposals are not on the books yet but they are clearly on the drawing board and, as per usual, it is only a matter of time before they are enacted thus ending the protection of the law for every man in this country. The scope for abuse of powers like this is simply enormous and any case of abuse will lead to a man losing his home, access to his children and possibly even his livelihood all on the basis of an unproven and unanswerable allegation. The damage this will cause to families and the fabric of society remains to be seen but, tragically, it will be seen thanks to a regime which is deeply in thrall to dangerously extremist femininst ideologues and which has now run out of easy targets. [My thanks to Dr.Chris Tame who posted this link to the Libertarian Alliance Forum.] July 4th, 2003 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Today being the date that it is, here are two pictures, which I took today, of two of the statues in Parliament Square, which is a walk away from my home. As you can see, I have much to learn about photography, and these images are weak on detail, especially Lincoln. Plus, ever since I had it ‘mended’ about a year ago, my camera has imparted a pinkish hue to any bright light that it sees, of a sort that my knowledge of Photoshop is insufficient completely to remove. The sky over Lincoln started out bright pink, I kid you not, and the blossoms behind Churchill likewise. My camera sees the world through a rose tinted lense. (Helpful Photoshop comments would be welcome.) Nevertheless, I hope that the thought will count for something.   These two personages are both commonly regarded as that grandest variety of politician, known as statesmen, and what is more they were neither of them exactly shrinking violets when it came to expanding and strengthening their respective state apparatuses. So, given how we feel about the state and all its works here, maybe they aren’t perfect for all the nuances of the sentiments being expressed. But they’ll do. July 4th, 2003 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
When the state of California was hit by rolling power blackouts two years ago, some commentators at the time daftly blamed it on privatised electricity generation, when of course the real cause was the partial deregulation of power in the state. There was no market incentive for power generation firms to increase production, and ferocious environmental controls and “not in my back yard” planning wrangles also crimped capacity. Well, looks like we could be headed for a similar fate here in Britain, for the first time since the unlamented 1970s, according to this article. If we have a bad winter in say, 2006, the lights could go out for part of the time. Not all of this can or should be blamed on the current Labour government. But there is no doubt that its determination to suppress nuclear power, its failure to genuinely liberate energy supply and production, could leave the UK facing a serious problem. The economic consequences could be disastrous. So when you find yourself brushing your teeth in the dark, think of the insincere, smiling visage of Saint Tony. July 4th, 2003 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
The visibility of accidents has gone up due to the mushrooming of TV news channels and that’s causing all the worry. July 4th, 2003 | Comments are closed
Gabriel Stein, the Swedish economist who gave the UK the concept of a Tax Freedom Day, should be pleased today, on the growing success of his campaign. Brother of the famous Peter Stein, another Swedish economist who helped P.J.O’Rourke write the oxymoronic “Good Socialism” chapter, in O’Rourke’s Eat the Rich, it is a tribute to Gabriel Stein’s tenacity that the meme of Tax Freedom Day is spreading. To put Gordon Brown under further pressure, after a recent series of Treasury financial gaffes, the Tories have proposed an “Annual Tax Freedom” day (more here, 2nd piece down). Lord Saatchi, the Tory Treasury spokesman, has called for a public holiday on the day when the British taxpayer stops working for the Treasury and starts earning for himself, currently June the 2nd. Personally, I’d like to see the Chancellor put into the stocks, in Trafalgar Square, each year, on this day, for a ritual pelting with rotten fruit. To add incentive to the incumbent, for each week the Chancellor reduces the Tax Freedom Day by, this reduces the fruit stockpile by seven of the squishiest items. Lucky citizens, drawn by lot, will throw one piece of fruit each, for every other rotten day of the year their income is stolen! But just a simple holiday, perhaps replacing ‘May Day’ and re-named ‘Trafalgar Day’, would be a good start. And a great way to highlight any future stealth-tax rises to the tax-serfs of this country, and tie the hands of any future government by making it clear exactly how much they are robbing from us. Great work, Gabriel, and his sponsors, the Adam Smith Institute. July 4th, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
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