Just a few coppers more

LENIN'S TOMB: They call it "pay restraint".

So, there are grumblings about illegal strike action. Now, they're not everyone's cup of tea, but I think we can cut a deal with the coppers.

Put it like this: you don't bust up our illegal picket lines, and we won't bust up yours

'An experience beyond human'

Yep, sounds like Mike Huckabee alright.

I must get some low energy bulbs

Blood & Treasure

According to the FT, China has added electricity generating capacity equivalent to the entire UK national grid this year alone: 85% of it is coal fired.

I vant to sign alone

Brown will now go to Lisbon and sign EU treaty - but by himself

Gordon Brown provoked ridicule among EU supporters and critics alike yesterday as he bowed to pressure from European leaders and agreed to attend the signing of the controversial Lisbon treaty, but arrive late and miss the main ceremony..."Some will react with mirth, some will react with horror and some will react with pity, and he's ended up with the worst of all worlds," a senior EU diplomat said.

What a perfect summation of the man. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when he started this job but it now seems that the Blairites were right all along. Brown is not fit for purpose.

What's in YOUR wallet?

James Wolcott

It seems that the crime level in New York may have dropped so much that the NYPD are having to generate their own criminals:

here in New York the police department has come up with a gotcha program dubbed (with appropriate ironic cynicism) Operation Lucky Bag. Here's how it works.

The decoy operation involves planting shopping bags, purses, backpacks and wallets around the subway system, where unsuspecting passersby are watched to see how they react. The plants used to be worth a few hundred dollars at most.

"Sting operation" seems to be the more appropriate term, and the word "entrapment" also floats to mind. Operating on the principle that finders aren't keepers, those who made off with the goodie bags risked being arrested if they didn't return them to the proper owner, which in this case was the police department. But decoy/sting, whatever you call it, it was a ruse that only nabbed small fry. Until the ante was upped.

Now the [strategically dropped decoy bags] contain real American Express Cards, issued under pseudonyms to the Police Department. Theft of a credit card is grand larceny, a Class E felony, so anyone cops believe has the intention of stealing the decoy wallet or bag could face up to four years behind bars.

Yes, let's create a crime which we can crack down on and make sure our prison facilities never lack for inmates.

Calmly failing

Iraq calmer, but more divided - Los Angeles Times

The U.S. troop buildup has brought down violence, but that has failed to spark cooperation among politicians. If anything, the country appears more balkanized into ethnic and sectarian enclaves.

"Iraq is moving in the direction of a failed state, a highly decentralized situation -- totally unplanned, of course -- with competing centers of power run by warlords and militias," said Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group. "The central government has no political control whatsoever beyond Baghdad, maybe not even beyond the Green Zone."

The capital's Green Zone mirrors the chaos outside. Once the base of Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime, it is now the seat of Iraq's fractured and dysfunctional representative government.

This article at the LA Times requires registration but you can read the whole thing, without the hassle of giving out your inside leg measurement, at URUK. The emphasis on reducing violence has diverted attention away from the fact that Iraq is still in a complete mess. If the aim of the occupation had been to reduce violence the best way of achieving it would have been to stay the fuck out of the place from the start.
 

You get a plastic knife and fork!?

Reason Magazine - Where's the Beef?

McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy's are the scapegoats for expanding US waistlines. But it's those homely, 'heart of America', Ma and Pa diners that are the real culprits.

Suppose reformers...get their wish and fast food chains are regulated out of existence. Would the diners and dives we celebrate on basic cable start serving five-pound veggie burgers with five pounds of kale on the side? Only diet hucksters and true chowhounds would benefit from a world where the local McDonald’s gave way to places serving 72-ounce steaks and burgers that reach toward the heavens like Manhattan skyscrapers. The rest of us would be left longing for that bygone era when, on every block, you could pick up something relatively light and healthy, like a Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl’s Jr.

'Ahmadinejad Has Screwed Us Again!'

How They Stole the Bomb From Us

Uri Avnery:

For the military and intelligence services, the report is an unmitigated disaster for another reason too. The Iranian bomb plays an indispensable part in the army's annual fight for its massive chunk of the budget cake. For right-wing demagogues, the effect is even more disheartening. Binyamin Netanyahu has built his whole strategy on the Iranian scare, hoping to ride the Bomb right into the Prime Minister's office.

Furthermore, when the Iranian issue cools down, the Palestinian issue warms up. That is especially true in Washington DC. President Bush is in trouble, his fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq are still dragging on. Any American effort to install a stable government in Iraq, with its Shiite majority, depends on the backing of Shiite Iran. Bush's dream of delivering a lightning stroke against Iran and thus leaving his imprint on history is going up in smoke.

What can he do in order to leave any positive legacy at all? The default alternative is Israeli-Palestinian peace. Perhaps he will now give stronger backing to poor Condoleezza. Perhaps he himself will get more involved. Fact: he is soon going to visit Israel for the first since entering the White House. True, this effort has not much chance of success, but people in Jerusalem are worried nonetheless. That's just what we need - Bush acting like that anti-Semite, Jimmy Carter, who twisted Begin's arm and forced him to make peace with Egypt!

Curtains for guests

Window Wear: Expected Curtain Gives the Lonely Friends to Come Home to

Designed by Mino Kodama, the Expected Curtain is a sort of instant virtual posse, aimed individuals who either have no friends, or who are plagued by stalkers*. Hang the curtain in your window and, while the three shadowy “friends” won’t show up during the day (thus making your neighbors fear you are a work-shy fop and endeavor to have you thrown out of your co-op) but appear once the lights go on and making you look like a truly popular person.

Fine if you don’t mind having curtains like tissue paper I suppose. Wouldn’t work for me. I’ve got wooden shutters and heavy, lined curtains which don’t let in (or out) a single chink of light. I think if I had these I’d do something like this >>

Now that would get the neighbours talking!

Lamark or wide-of-the-mark?

Tim Worstall: Getting Greg Clark Wrong.

...No, I’m not going to try and prove that culture is transmitted in a Lamarckian manner. Rather, I’m going to prove that you and everyone else already believe it is.

For I think we all agree that the children of teenage mothers are more likely to themselves become teenage parents? That is the inheritance of an acquired characteristic. We note that children who grow up in a home without books do badly at school: and then go on to note that those who do badly at school tend to have few books at home to instruct their own children. We note that the middle classes tend to transmit their social success across the generations: it’s most unfashionable these days to attribute that to genes, rather, to social networks, to the privilege that a secure upbringing and a decent education provide. We note that children whose parents have a university education are more likely to get a university education themselves.

Anyone pondering the family networks that infest UK journalism, or the Law, will be observing exactly the same thing. No, we don’t believe that the ability to write leader columns has been genetically transmitted from Lord Rees Mogg to Annunziata Rees Mogg (he at The Times, she at The Telegraph: and having once read one of hers where she refers to "sclerosis of the liver", if we did I’d be expecting someone to be having a very serious and intimate chat with Lady Rees Mogg sometime soon) but we do indeed believe that a combination of education and the extended network of the family have contributed to the daughter following in the old man’s footsteps.

Indeed, this is one of the arguments forcefully put forward againt the existence of private schools in the UK: that they permit the transmission of exactly this form of cultural inheritance and thus privileged positions...

Is it cos I is white?

Black gets six-and-a-half years

Former media tycoon Conrad Black has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison. He has been told to report to prison in 12 weeks and will remain free on $21m (£10.3m) bail until then.
The sentence was at the lower end of the guidelines outlined by the judge, Amy St Eve. He was also fined $125,000 (£61,000) by the Chicago court. The member of the House of Lords was found guilty of three counts of fraud and one of obstructing justice.

If his skin had been black as well as his name and he'd nicked a few hundred bucks rather than swindling millions you can bet your life he'd be looking at doing more than 78 months. And he wouldn't get three months to sort things out before getting thrown in the slammer. And this slippery old rogue isn't finish yet. He could still pull off an appeal.

Quote of the week

Booze Bandit: Thief Nicks 40,000 Pints Of Guinness!

With the Christmas party season getting into gear it's boom time for Guinness - but one crafty criminal decided to help himself to some of their festive spirit. The sneaky thief drove a truck into the Guinness Brewery on Dublin's Victoria Quay on Wednesday and made off with a trailer full of booze. 

Local police say the villain drove away with 180 kegs of Guinness, 180 kegs of Budweiser and 90 kegs of Carlsberg worth an estimated £45,000. The 450 kegs contain around 40,000 pints.

Grainne Mackin, spokeswoman for Guinness's owners Diageo Ireland, said it is the first time such a robbery has taken place on the company's premises.  "We've never had such a breach of security prior as this and we're taking it extremely seriously," she said, adding,  "What could they possibly want with all that beer?"