This is going to cause some ructions:
Why did the former Labour leader take money from Moscow for years, asks Charles Moore .
No, the allegation is not that he was a knowing agent (as is said of Jack Jones) or worse (Philby, Burgess etc etc).
Just that he took money from the KGB during little chats for [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Current Affairs'
Michael Foot taking KGB money
March 6th, 2010 · 5 Comments
Tags: Current Affairs
BA wages
March 3rd, 2010 · 2 Comments
Just a little thing:
With basic pay of £19,000 a year, Ms Parks can expect to take home £2,000 a month once allowances for overnight stays and antisocial hours are taken into account.
Those allowances for overnight stays aren’t the hotel bills you understand: they’re the cash paid to compensate for having to [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
The difference between wealth and poverty
February 28th, 2010 · 5 Comments
I’m sure others will be pointing this out but:
“The power of nature has again struck our country,” Bachelet said, declaring six of Chile’s 15 regions “catastrophe zones” in the aftermath of the 8.8-magnitude quake…..”This is a catastrophe of immense proportions, so it will be very difficult [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
I dunno about this
February 12th, 2010 · 5 Comments
The Institute said it strongly condemned the actions of the Sea Shepherd activists, noting that Japan’s whale research vessels are conducting legal research activities in the Antarctic.
Now, however we might wish that it weren’t so (yes, even I’m an enviroweenie when it comes to whales) they are right. What [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
This is cruel of me I know
February 11th, 2010 · 4 Comments
But is this really going to help all that much?
And Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues,” is working with Unicef to build a City of Joy here to train women — some of them shattered by war — to transform their communities. City of Joy will teach legal rights, self-defense and skills for economic [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
Fascinating stuff
January 30th, 2010 · 4 Comments
You know all those wibbles about the US Military not allowing aid flights to land? About how it is is troops that get priority etc, and this shows that there’s a military takeover going on?
Well, geek is as geek does and this is well geeked.
It’s all about the shortage of forklifts in Haiti (I paraphrase).
Tags: Current Affairs
James McAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff are expecting their first child
January 27th, 2010 · No Comments
Please assume that the obvious joke has been made.
Tags: Current Affairs
In which we praise Charlie Simpson
January 25th, 2010 · 6 Comments
A seven-year-old boy has raised more than £50,000 for survivors of the Haitian earthquake in one day after seeing images of children being pulled alive from the rubble.
Charlie Simpson set out to raise £500 for the Unicef Haiti Appeal by riding his bike five miles around his local park. Instead his efforts inspired hundreds of [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
Well I dunno
January 23rd, 2010 · 2 Comments
Some of the West’s biggest, and richest, nations – the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Canada, Belgian and Holland – are rushing through adoption applications in order to airlift children out the death and destruction in Haiti.
However, Save The Children, World Vision and the British Red Cross have called for an immediate moratorium on new [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
Just a thought about aid to Haiti
January 17th, 2010 · 8 Comments
Apologies for this, it’s very much off the top of my head and I’m not quite sure how sensible it is. But a suggestion for aid to Haiti.
There is gross and disastrous destruction in Haiti as a result of the earthquake. Tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands have died or are at risk [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
Sigh
November 23rd, 2009 · No Comments
Two men in a car containing the device drove through a barrier at Clarendon Dock, near the offices, at about 7pm on Saturday. The car then appeared to catch fire and the two men ran off.
The attack was blamed on dissident Republicans, who are also thought to have [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
In praise of Ms. Harris
November 4th, 2009 · 1 Comment
It isn’t just because this blogger has a thing for redheads who obviously enjoy their food that this blogger thinks that perhaps there ought to be a little praise for a certain Ms. Teanne Harris.
Tags: Current Affairs
Friday beer movie
October 30th, 2009 · No Comments
The trailer for Tim Burton’s 9
Tags: Current Affairs
Fall forward
October 25th, 2009 · 1 Comment
Spring back…
Did you remember to reset* your clocks?
*See comment one.
Tags: Current Affairs
Disturbing but not new
October 18th, 2009 · 8 Comments
Forgive me for working from memory here:
A government sting operation targeting hundreds of employers across Britain has uncovered widespread racial discrimination against workers with African and Asian names.
Researchers sent nearly 3,000 job applications under false identities in an attempt to discover if employers were discriminating against jobseekers with foreign names. Using names recognisably from three [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
Hillary Clinton
October 16th, 2009 · 1 Comment
She’s going to make world farming better.
Excellent.
Step 1: kill the US Farm Bill.
Step 2: Kill CAP.
Strangely, she doesn’t mention either of those two, both of which need to happen before anyone goes on to the more trivial things she does.
Tags: Current Affairs
Statistics, statistics
July 22nd, 2009 · 1 Comment
I’m not convinced that this tells us what they think it tells us:
Lawyers who entered the profession in the 1990s typically grew up in families with incomes 64 per cent above average. Those starting out in the 1970s came from homes with incomes 40 per cent above average.
We’ve been told, endlessly, that [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
Well, yes
July 18th, 2009 · 2 Comments
I can see this might be true:
Investigation into MI5 torture allegations could jeopardise national security
Imagine that the investigation found that they had in fact been torturing people? Or even just standing by while it was done?
That would damage national security, would it not?
Tags: Current Affairs
Plumber ‘gives birth’ to twin in scene reminiscent of Alien
May 9th, 2009 · 1 Comment
This isn’t entirely unheard of. Rare, but not never.
Gavin Hyatt, 30, explained that the lump forced its way out after lying inside his abdomen since he was born.
Medics said the 4cm growth was a parasitic twin that died in the womb early in their mother’s pregnancy.
Mr Hyatt, a former firefighter, from Witney, Oxfordshire, said: "Four [...]
Tags: Current Affairs
Food banks
May 1st, 2009 · 1 Comment
Nardella says she longs for the day when she is out of business because food banks are no longer necessary, and that it is a poor reflection on the US that there should be hungry people in the richest country in the world.
"I think it’s a shame, because we have plenty of resources in this [...]
Tags: Current Affairs