What a dreadful pickle the whole Iran saga has become. Iran´s desire for nuclear power seems perfectly reasonable, and positive Western engagement on the issue should really have been welcomed – but then sabres were rattled and stupid talk of an “Axis of Evil” painted Iran as one of the three troublesome rogues that Bush [...]
Iranian Pickle
Scott Adams on the Hamas election victory
There has been a great deal of rhetoric, both ideological and realist, since Hamas won the Palestinian Parliamentarian elections. Some welcome the result, arguing Hamas will shake up the peace process, bringing Tel Aviv back to the table. Other have condemned the result and labelled Hamas terrorists.
My favourite assessment was a short post by cartoonist [...]
On the Canadian election
From The Globe and Mail: -
Conservatives win minority; Martin to step down as leader
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was headed to Parliament Hill as Canada’s next prime minister after capturing a fragile minority victory in Monday’s election, picking up votes in Quebec and making inroads in Ontario but failing to scale the heights early polls had [...]
Hold on a minute… #2
tyger on the duplicity of South American neo-socialism
From rabble: -
This is the socialism of the people, participatory and decentralized, that the Caracas student was talking about.
Surely decentralised-collectivism is oxymoronic? Ahh the realities reconciling Marxism with the Realpolitik!
It goes on: -
“We are building socialism of the 21st century, socialism with participatory democracy,” the young political [...]
US Overstretched
It seems that the only people who don´t think that the US armed forces are dangerously close to breaking point are the political chiefs at the top of The Pentagon – Democratic Party reports can be dismissed as politically motivated of course, but their findings should be at least examined as a matter of due [...]
Only Hamas Can Deal With Israel
When John Bolton goes to sort the UN or when Ariel Sharon pulls out of Gaza, clever people nod sagely and say “only Nixon could have gone to China”. The same could be said of Hamas engaging with Israel in the peace process.
Having seemingly secured a resounding victory, Hamas have to choose between trying to form a [...]
Max Boot – Brain not included
I have just read a stunning commentary in the LA Times, not stunning because of its luminosity or brilliance, but stunning because I was rendered speechless by its utter dislocation with the realpolitik.
Those who know Max Boot are aware of his neoconservative contextual view of the world; a contributing editor to the odious Weekly Standard, [...]
Bittersweet Moment
Ah, the sweet smell of The Torygraph losing a high court libel appeal. As Louis Armstrong taught us, “What a Wonderful World”. The so called quality broadsheet, famous for its shoddy journalism and hopeless bias, has been beaten by none other than the bronzed self-publicist George Galloway! And therein lies the sting in the tail, [...]
Pain in Spain
The Spanish are up in arms. As the curiously inept-looking PM says, Spain has always been an uneasy union of Catalonia, Basque, Castille and other provincial regions, it´s never really been one happy nation – except when Fernando Alonso won the F1 drivers´championship.
Now the ruling “socialist” party, PSOE, in the pockets of the Catalan nationalists [...]
Hold on a minute… #1
tyger on the outcry about school and hospital league tables and targets
I understand totally the publics point about the misrepresentation and queering of statistics, but I must protest about the general hostility towards statistical analysis. We have a saying in business that goes What gets measured, gets done. It’s true to a point [...]
