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February 09, 2010

The right to evaluate risk for oneself

Mark Steyn has almost certainly violated (some new) English law by publishing the following (via Five Feet of Fury).

As they say over there, it’s Health & Safety gone mad, innit? Or as a lady put it after the funeral, as we were discussing the fracas, “There’s only one thing that annoys me more than Health & Safety gone mad, and that’s when people say, ‘Ooo, it’s Health & Safety gone mad.’” I know what she means. In Britain, the distillation of any daily grievance into a handy catchphrase seems to absolve one of the need to do anything about it. As long as they can grumble the agreed slogan, they’ll put up with ever more absurd incursions on individual liberty. No state can ensure its citizenry against all risks, although in Nanny Bloomberg’s New York City and hyper-regulated California they’re having a jolly good go. And that’s the point: The goal may be unachievable, but huge amounts of freedom will be lost in the attempt. The right to evaluate risk for oneself is part of what it means to be a functioning human being.

Silver lining: It turns out all you have to do to get kicked out of the EU is go bankrupt. Britain is closer to safe harbour than I had suspected.

That said, there are rocks at the harbour mouth; Greece is not the only European country with a political class so shy of responsibility they cede national sovereignty they do not own to a power they have imagined into being for this purpose.

When the European Commission placed Athens under EU supervision last week, Greece was almost bankrupt. Brussels has forced the Greek government to present a plan to drastically reduce its budget deficit from 13% to 3% by the end of 2012. The plan will cost the Greeks blood, sweat and tears. It includes a freeze on civil service wages and the postponement of the retirement age. Brussels has invoked new EU powers under Article 121 of the Lisbon Treaty, which allow it to reshape the structure of Greece’s pensions, healthcare, labor market and private commerce.

At some point, I have to stop reporting news from England: White Cliffs of Dover to be sold to the French to help reduce Government's debt

The Port of Dover is being recommended by Government advisers for sale to the French authorities. It is one of a string of public assets which have been earmarked for privatisation as the Government battles with a record £830billion national debt.

The proposal for the port has prompted outrage.

"Outrage." I am certain that will have the blighters quaking in their boots.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:24 AM | Comments (0)

In defense of simplisme

The UK: UK minister says Iran not part of 'axis of evil'.

"Iran have not invaded any other country," the Times quoted Straw as saying Monday during the testimony.

"They [Iran] couldn't stand al-Qaeda … or the Taliban anymore than we could," said the British minister who asserted that the country's inclusion in former US President George Bush's "axis of evil" incomprehensible.

"I think it's simplistic to regard Iran as a bogeyman," Straw said.

The US of A: Palin beating drums of war on Iran.

US conservative darling Sarah Palin says she thinks President Barack Obama should declare war on Iran.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:23 AM | Comments (0)

Reporting from the Dark Ages

Barbarism confronted by tenuous forces of civilization: Turkish man faces life for burying daughter alive.

Prosecutors in Turkey are seeking life in jail for the father and grandfather of a girl who was buried alive for befriending boys, local judicial sources said Monday.

The pair were arrested after the body of 16-year-old Medine Memi was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a hole in a chicken pen outside her house in Kahta town, Adiyaman province, 40 days after she went missing.

A post mortem showed a significant amount of soil in her lungs and stomach, meaning she was buried alive, forensic experts have said.

Barbarism endorsed by tenuous forces of civilization: Lahore, Muslim lawyers will "burn alive" anyone who defends murdered 12 year old Christian.

Because of the threats posed by the powerful Lahore Bar Association – an umbrella organization of city lawyers - no Christian or Muslim lawyer is ready to take on the defence in the murder of 12 year-old Shazia Bashir, it was reported yesterday by The Pakistani Christian association that deals with legal assistance.

The girl, of Christian faith, died on Jan. 23 as a result of violence - even sexual – at the hands of her employer, a wealthy and powerful Muslim lawyer in Lahore. The alleged murderess, Chaudhry Mohammad Naeem, is a former president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association. The girl, just 12 years old, had worked as a maid in the home of Naeem in the last six months.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:22 AM | Comments (0)

Donate your old yoga mat to Haiti

The apotheosis of leftism.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:21 AM | Comments (0)

Glee: Push It

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:17 AM | Comments (0)

February 08, 2010

Follow Me

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The War of the Poses.

The provocateur.

Kathy's salvo!

Update: The rules of engagement at Blazing Cat Fur.

May God have mercy on us all.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)

UK sees challenge; Canada sees opportunity

Education in the UK:

Part of the problem: Christian teacher forced out after complaining Muslim pupils praised 9/11 jihadis as heroes.

Mr Kafouris, 40, told how one pupil said to him, ‘Don’t touch me, you’re a Christian’, when the teacher accidentally brushed against him with his arm.

Others said, ‘We want to be Islamic bombers when we grow up', and 'the Christians and Jews are our enemies, you too because you're a Christian', he added.

Part of the solution: Britain plans to cut flow of foreign students.

In the face of mounting concern about abuse of student visa rules by migrant jobseekers and potential terrorists, Britain said Sunday that it was planning an immediate tightening of its border controls that could reduce the flow of people entering the country as students by tens of thousands a year.

Canadian challenge round:

Part of the problem: Ryerson University told to crack down on racism (unless it is racism against Jews in which case they will probably give you a grant tenure).

A sweeping year-long probe into racism at Ryerson University has found a staggeringly diverse campus where some visible minority students say they feel harassed and excluded, where profs don't always deal with offensive comments made in class and some non-white staff report a "chill" that shuts them out of the power loop.

Part of the solution: New rules help draw foreign students: Colleges laud move to speed visa process.

Until nine months ago, prospective students from India had to wait up to eight months for a visa to study in Canada – with many of them being rejected after a long delay or missing the course deadlines.

But a pilot program to fast-track applicants by Citizenship and Immigration Canada has dramatically reduced the visa-processing time to mere weeks...
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)

Generalizing from experience

Test subjects were able to accurately identify candidates from the 2004 and 2006 U.S. Senate elections as either Democrats or Republicans based on black-and-white photos of their faces (hat tip to the Sister of the Flea).

To investigate the basis of these judgments, subjects were asked to rate photos of faces on a seven-point scale assessing personality traits such as assertiveness, maturity, likeability and trustworthiness. Subjects consistently associated Democrats with warmth (likeable and trustworthy) and Republicans with power (dominant and mature). These findings were independent of the gender of the person in the photo.

The authors concluded that people possess "a general and imperfect" ability to infer political affiliation based on facial appearance, which is related to stereotypes about Democrat and Republican personalities.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:54 PM | Comments (1)

Multi-national

Methinks he doth protest too much.

Even as India kicked off the largest ever edition of its ‘Milan’ set of exercises, in which 12 countries from the region are participating, Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma has said the multi-nation exercise is not aimed at creating a security bloc against China.

Elsewhere: France plans to sell as many as four Mistral assault ships to Russia.

Possessing a Mistral, which can carry 16 helicopters, would significantly increase the Russian military's capability to mount quick offensives. France sent a Mistral, which weighs 23,700 tons (21,500 metric tons) and is 980 feet (299 meters) long, to visit St. Petersburg last year in a clear sign of interest in a potential sale.

Which may go some way toward explaining a change in Russian inclinations: Officials from the United States, France and Russia called Monday for stronger measures against Tehran.

How serious is Russia? They have already suspended missile shipments to Tehran, until now somewhat quietly
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)

London Sound Survey: Outside Charing Cross Station

Many more recordings from the London Sound Survey at http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk.

A busker sings and plays acoustic guitar to a reggae backing. Sounds of night-time crowds in Villiers Street, traffic, and a police siren.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)

Benga: 26 Basslines

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)

February 07, 2010

The male curiosity motive

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Tasmin Egerton finds sex scenes "horrendous", apparently. But to report the fact is not my motive in drawing the story to your attention.

She could always refuse to do them. It hasn't done Julia Roberts any harm. When an actress does these scenes at 21 she destroys the male curiosity motive, and her career tends to go downhill thereafter.

I have no clue who "Jim Hason, Ilford" might be but his comment - absurd as I think it might be - is more interesting than anything in the Daily Mail's reportage; a fact I am happy to generalize across the entire MSM presence on line and, perhaps, the salvation of their business model.

With this in mind, if anyone might suggest a straightforward comment system I might use to replace TypePad, please let me know. I am after some combination of simple registration, CAPTCHA and/or spam blocking in a system I can plug in to my creaking Moveable Type 3.2 set up. Something a bit more user friendly too, please. This might go some distance toward a proper conversation.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:58 AM | Comments (1)

What would Byzantium do?

Edward Luttwak: If the west really wants to fix Afghanistan, it should learn from an ancient, brutal empire (via In Harmonium).

Sounds like a plan.

Unlike the Romans, the Byzantines wrote official guidebooks on statecraft, foreign relations and espionage: writings I find especially fascinating, as I once helped compose the main field manual of the US army. These ancient techniques centred on a single, paradoxical principle: do everything possible to raise, equip and train the best possible army and navy; then do everything possible to use them as little as possible.

With Afghanistan, the west faces a simple strategic calculus: too costly to stay in, too risky to leave. A Byzantine response would be, first to withdraw the west’s scarce, expensive troops, and arm local proxies instead. This was the standard remedy for turbulent, worthless lands where no taxes could be collected, but which were to be denied to enemies: an improvement over the Romans’ fondness for battles of attrition and annihilation.

RTWT. Not that I am entirely convinced. All I am saying is give battles of attrition and annihilation a chance.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:57 AM | Comments (0)

Ender's Gamers

StrategyPage suggests something I had long suspected: Video games make you smarter and faster. That said, I am open to the idea smarter and faster people are drawn to video games rather than simply made smarter and faster by them, a possibility I hope the Office of Naval Research took into account (the following lifted in its entirety from Quotulatiousness, with thanks).

The U.S. military has long suspected that troops who have long experience with video console and computer games have made Americans better soldiers, at least when it comes to operating high-tech military equipment. But now a study (by the Office of Naval Research) has found that such experience also enables troops to solve problems faster, and act more quickly with those solutions. In technical terms, the computer game experience increases perceptual and cognitive ability 10-20 percent, over those with no computer game experience. The navy was interested in this because most sailors have technical jobs, and many of them involve operating electronic equipment. Officers and chiefs (NCOs) have noted that, over the years, the new recruits appear to be more skilled when they first show up. It didn’t have anything to do with new training methods, so many supervisors suspected video games. That proved to be the case, but the increased problem solving ability and responsiveness was a generally unrecognized bonus.

The army noted the same thing, especially under combat conditions. For example, because so many troops had years of experience with video games, they took to CROWS (the remotely controlled machine-gun turret on many vehicles) quickly, and very effectively. The guys operating these systems grew up playing video games. They developed skills in operating systems (video games) very similar to the CROWS controls. This was important, because viewing the world around the vehicle via a vidcam is not as enlightening (although a lot safer) than having your head and chest exposed to the elements, and any firepower the enemy sends your way. But experienced video gamers are skilled at whipping that screen view around, and picking up any signs of danger. The army now has a CROWS trainer built into its America’s Army online game. Many NCOs believe that all that multitasking kids do with their computers (and other electronic gadgets) have made the combat troops more effective.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:54 AM | Comments (0)

Canada, j'accuse!

Christopher Hitchens and I are of one mind on the following: The Olympics and other international competitions breed conflict and bring out the worst in human nature.

Well, especially the bloody Olympics. If it is a European Cup final conflict and the worst in human nature are more by way of a feature than a bug.

But I want these words tattooed on the foreheads of every Canadian Michael Moore fan.

...genial, welcoming, equable Canada, shortly to be the host of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, is now the object of a stream of complaints from British and American sports officials, who say that their athletes are being denied full access to the venue's ski runs, tracks, and skating rinks. Familiarity with these is important in training and rehearsal, but the Canadians are evidently determined to protect their home-turf advantage. According to one report in The New York Times, the Whistler downhill skiing course was the setting for an astonishing scene, as "several medal contenders were left watching over a fence as the Canadian team trained. 'Everybody was pushing to get on that downhill,' said Max Gartner, Alpine Canada's chief athletic officer. 'That's an advantage we cannot give away.' " Nah nah nah nah nah: it's our mountain and you can't ski on it, so there, or not until we've had the best of it. "We're the only country to host two Olympic Games [Montreal in 1976 and Calgary in 1988] and never have won a gold medal at our Games," whined Cathy Priestner Allinger, an executive vice president of the Vancouver Organizing Committee. "It's not a record we're proud of." But elbowing guests out of your way at your own party—of that you can be proud.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:53 AM | Comments (0)

Genesis: I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:48 AM | Comments (0)

February 06, 2010

Liquid can be heard when the crates are moved

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Five pine cases of rare 101-year-old Mackinlay's Rare Old Whisky (and some brandy as well) have been discovered intact in the ice under Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic hut.

Gentlemen: We have an objective.

The crates show almost no damage from the ice and the company's stag head logo is clearly visible. The team now hopes to drill down into the ice and remove some of the century-old bottles.

Distillers Whyte and Mackay, which supplied the whisky, hope the drink can then be analysed so they can replicate the original forgotten blend.

'This is a gift from the heavens for whisky lovers," said Richard Patterson, master blender at Whyte and Mackay. 'If the contents can be confirmed, safely extracted and analysed, the original blend may be able to be replicated. Given the original recipe no longer exists this may open a door into history.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 01:20 PM | Comments (1)

Is James Cameron high on crack?

The U.S. Government doesn't build your computers, nor do you fly aboard a U.S. Government owned and operated airline. Fair enough.

But does this make me a cynic to believe Barack Obama is the last President to turn to for a free market solution to anything, let alone space exploration?

I applaud President Obama's bold decision for NASA to focus on building a space exploration program that can drive innovation and provide inspiration for the world. This is the path that can make our dreams in space a reality.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)

Outlaw lampshades

Theodore Dalrymple has worked out how to save the planet.

Now it so happens that the other night I went to dinner to a friend who is that most reprehensible character, a skeptic. He says that global warming, if it occurred, would be more likely caused by sunspot activity than by anything we — mankind — did. To think otherwise is to be like the madman in Doctor Johnson’s Rasselas who believes that he controls the rising and setting of the sun.

As my friend was uttering these heretical words — I am sure he would be burned at the stake for them, if it were not for the carbon emissions thereof — he happened to be screwing one of those new, energy-saving (and now mandatory) light bulbs into a light fixture. These new bulbs always seem to me to cast a kind of yellowing gloom rather than light, the color approximately of the pages of bad-quality paper in old books, reminiscent — perhaps not coincidentally — of artificial illumination in the Eastern Europe of the good old days.

Then it came to me — the solution.

At the link!

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)

The emotional deficiencies of the masses

Charles Krauthammer calls it "The great peasant revolt of 2010" (via Five Feet of Fury).

For liberals, the observation that "the peasants are revolting" is a pun. For conservatives, it is cause for uncharacteristic optimism. No matter how far the ideological pendulum swings in the short term, in the end the bedrock common sense of the American people will prevail.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

Non serviam

In Canada, this orthodontist would face the drumhead at two or three of many human rights commission.

An orthodontist in the state of Baden-Württemberg has reportedly turned a 16-year-old boy out of her practice because she was offended by his name – “Cihad,” an alternate spelling for “Jihad,” which she interpreted to mean “holy war.”

The doctor in Donaueschingen told local daily Schwarzwälder Bote on Friday that she believed his name was a declaration of war against all non-Muslims and refused to treat him.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)

Pat Condell: The crooked judges of Amsterdam

Via Blazing Cat Fur.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)

Men at work: Land down under

This has been going round and round in my head said I read about the lawsuit. Tag!

Related: Chunder.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)

February 05, 2010

Anna Paquin and crisps

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Anna Paquin is marrying somebody who plays a vampire on tv. Gripping stuff. Thought I should bring it to your attention. Also, crisps.

The couple, who met while filming the HBO show, have announced they plan to marry. They share an intense on-screen chemistry, playing telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse and her 172-year-old vampire love interest, Bill Compton.

Images: Marie Claire.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:28 AM | Comments (3)

Lancing the boil

I will be curious to learn if it is still racist when a Labour cabinet minister says it.

Migrants would be forced to 'earn' the right to benefits and council housing over several years under explosive plans outlined today by a senior Labour minister.

Margaret Hodge warns British values of openness and tolerance are under threat because of an increasing sense of 'unfairness' over immigration. The Culture Minister is calling for a new points system - based on length of residence or national insurance contributions - to determine that only migrants who have made a fair contribution to society get the same rights as local families.

Mrs Hodge, who is facing a General Election challenge from BNP leader Nick Griffin, told the Daily Mail it was time to 'lance the boil' of growing discontent over the wave of economic migrants entering Britain. Labour strategists fear there are signs that the far-Right BNP will mount a 'serious challenge' in her Barking, East London seat.

Note here the problem as it is construed by the Establishment. To the Culture Minister, the points system is not meant to redress actual injustice but only the perception of injustice on the part of Britain's white working-/permanent under-class. Not only does this formula absolve the Establishment of its policies these last 40 years but so too the divine terror atrocities, child sexual mutilation and chattel ownership of women practised by the victims of white working class "racism".

Perhaps most grotesque of all is the spectre of the Establishment promising legislation it believes to be at best misguided, at worst racist, now at long last it comes time to appease the British people.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)

Operation Catapult

When The Daily Mail publishes this sort of twaddle, what hope is there for England?

French sailor Andre Jaffre still shakes with emotion as he recalls the moment in July 1940 that the enemy opened fire on his battleship, the Bretagne. 'A shell exploded underneath, where there were munitions and a fuel store. I saw a friend who'd had his head blown off. His blood dripped off me. I wanted to be sick.'

Moments later, the Bretagne capsized. 'The water was black with oil that was smoking and bubbling, like a chip pan, and men were struggling and screaming in it. But I had to jump in. I fell into that oil and I let myself sink, sink, sink. I was so burned.'

Jaffre had joined the navy determined to fight the Nazis. But the shells that rained down on him that morning were not German ones. They were British, fired by men that Jaffre knew well.

'Only two weeks before, we'd been with the British in Gibraltar, out on the town,' he says, 'and then suddenly they're firing on us. It was unthinkable.' Jaffre's comrade Leon Le Roux remembers the same shock. 'Today we're allies, tomorrow we're enemies. The reasons for it? For that see Sir Winston Churchill.'

No. The reasons for that? The French Navy, preferring to side with Vichy and the Nazis than man it up and fight the war (though I realize to ask such a thing is to mock a French disability and in so doing risk bringing Vichy and the Nazis into hatred and contempt).

Well, they got to fight the Royal Navy instead and, at the time, that still meant only one thing.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

Corpse-man

The fruit of an Ivy League entitlement, if not an education.

While speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama mispronounced the word "Corpsman" as "corpse-man."

Video and schadenfreude at the link.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)

Something in common

Proposed high speed rail network.

2008 election map.

Via.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)

Pajama Jeans

Hat tip to the Sister of the Flea.

Pajama Jeans . Pajamas to live in. Jeans to sleep in. PajamaJeans are the best of both worlds. Great for travel or everyday wear.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

Chase& Status: Madhouse

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:17 AM | Comments (0)

February 04, 2010

This is what terrorist prisoners did to me

And why they should be tried at Guantanamo. Content warning (via Ace).

I was a federal prison guard at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. In 2000, I was with a prisoner, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, taking him back to his cell. His cellmate was Khalfan Khamis Mohamed. They were accused of bombing two embassies in Africa in 1998. Later they said that they worked with Osama bin Laden and that they helped set up al Qaeda.

We were back at their cell. It's only me and those two guys. No supervisors. Just the three of us. Somehow, they slipped out of their handcuffs.

They sprayed me with some kind of hot sauce. I couldn't see. They pulled me into the cell and hit me — boom, boom. They hit me so much, I swear to God, like a hundred times.

I hit my radio. I thought help would come.

They wanted the keys for the other prisoners, but they couldn't find them. They were in my front pocket. I used to be big, 300 pounds, and I was laying on them. I gave them my car keys.

About halfway through, they used a comb — thick and long, about 10 inches, with a handle. They'd taken the teeth out and sharpened it like a knife.

They put it in my left eye. It went three inches into my brain.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:33 AM | Comments (0)

Walesa's warning

Lech Walesa sees America under Obama, an America that apologizes for everything, kowtows to rather than confronts dictators and has started down a slippering slope to socialism.

Walesa no longer thinks America is the last best hope for mankind.

"The United States is only one superpower. Today they lead the world. Nobody has doubts about it, militarily," the Polish leader said. "They also lead economically, but they're getting weak.

"But they don't lead morally and politically anymore. The world has no leadership. The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations. There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we lost that hope."
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:28 AM | Comments (0)

The end of the RAF

Sir Jock Stirrup, who is not a P.G. Wodehouse character but Air Chief Marshal, said it was only "plausible" the Royal Air Force would still exist as a separate service from the Royal Navy in ten years time.

The drastic cuts needed and the growing cooperation between forces in Afghanistan raised the controversial possibility that the air and sea service could unite.

Sir Jock made his comments at the unveiling of the Government's Green Paper on military reform, which lays the groundwork for a full-scale strategic defence review after the General Election.

More bad news: Anyone care to guess what it will cost to process - let alone house, medicate and educate - the barbarian horde at Calais?

Not to worry, let's destroy the Royal Navy instead.

The Navy is having to pay for two of the Government’s biggest military equipment procurement projects. Gordon Brown and the Conservative leader David Cameron say that they are committed to replacing Trident and to building two £4billion, 64,000-tonne aircraft carriers.

However, with a strategic defence review only months away, that will inevitably lead to cuts — particularly in the Navy and RAF — naval commanders believe that the cost implications for the Senior Service have not been fully grasped.

If you live in downtown Toronto, it would be difficult to find a soul who would not put "housing immigrants" ahead of "military procurement" in a list of spending priorities. The failure of the West is not a technological failure, not even an economic failure, it is a failure of reason.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)

Vanity Fair's "New Hollywood" issue completely lacks diversity

This is what Leftists worry about. This is the result of a half century of grievance studies instead of education. This is the Obama administration writ small.

While we'd like to think celeb bible Vanity Fair puts a great deal of thought and planning into its annual "New Hollywood" issue, this year the editors really limited their scope when it came to choosing the next big stars. (Or perhaps they overemphasized the "Fair"? ) Every woman on its new cover is extremely thin and very, very white. Unless Vanity Fair considers one redhead to be diversity, we feel the need to cry foul.

I believe I know which part of this failure to represent "diversity" has Shine Staff writer Joanna Douglas pissed off.

Related: Real women, by contrast, have something else to worry about beyond their appearance.

Britain risks losing its national identity if immigration is not dramatically reduced, a major women's campaigning group claims. The Townswomen's Guild, established when women first won the right to vote, said it had been overwhelmed by responses when it asked its members' views on migration.

Ninety-five per cent believed current immigration levels would 'cause us to lose our national identity to some degree', according to a survey published in the group's magazine.

And 28.5 per cent of respondents to the survey - which attracted five times the magazine's usual number of poll replies - said Britain should have a ban on immigration. Fifty per cent said there should be a 'one in, one out' policy.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:24 AM | Comments (0)

The Open Road London (1927)

Stunning colour film of 1920s London.

This wonderful film was made in 1927 by Claude Friese-Greene. Colour film from the 1920s is exceptionally rare, and this is a very powerful example.

It shows scenes of London Bridge, the Thames, the Tower of London, Greenwich Observatory, the London docks, Whitehall, the Cenotaph, Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Petticoat Lane, the Oval, the Changing of the Guard, Rotten Row, and the Houses of Parliament.

The Cenotaph sequence from around 3:37 to 3:54 is very poignant. This was filmed only nine years after the end of the Great War. The women and looking at the wreaths would very likely be wives and mothers of the men killed, and the Second World War was, at that time, inconceivable.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:23 AM | Comments (2)

Ceri Frost: Dead All Along

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:21 AM | Comments (0)