January 2004

Russia Said Planning Nuclear Exercise (washingtonpost.com) The Russian armed forces are about to stage a major transition-to-war exercise simulating a nuclear conflict right up and including test launching several missiles and sending Tu-160 and Tu-22 bombers out on simulated mission profiles over the Arctic and North Atlantic. How very Cold War – I suppose it’ll…

I’d like to apologise about the disruption to this blog, which was caused by a missing html tag.

He’s resigned. Supposedly after the NUJ discovered that many of its members wouldn’t support him. If nothing else, this at least proves what I call the AHAB principle – all hacks are bitches. Journalists have in common with economists, psychoanalysts, bloggers and various other tribes the trait of enjoying nothing more than a good internecine…

Thar she blows! – Sydney Morning Herald A sperm whale weighing 50 metric tonnes has burst in the Taiwanese city of Tainan. It was dead at the time – but it certainly is now! The motor scooter is the feature that makes it, I think. The whole sad story remind me of the whale falling…

After the European Court ruling on subsidies from airports to the airline also known as Eire O’Flot, its chief executive and union basher Michael O’Leary was moved to quote Winston Churchill concerning his planned appeal. “As Churchill said – in defeat, defiance”. link Yes, he did. He said it as part of the “Moral of…

The BBC Director General, Greg Dyke, has resigned. Link Staff seen in tears on the steps of Broadcasting House as he read a statement. God, this is getting dramatic again. Lord Ryder, the acting chairman, has issued an apology to the government. And he was a Tory! Some backbone please, somebody? Mr. Dyke had this…

More things – what became of Susan Watts and the taped interview with Kelly that confirmed Gilligan’s report? It doesn’t appear at all. I suppose she was only a little woman and therefore it wasn’t really a tape? Mind you, she certainly earned the title of the most useless journalist in the world – the…

We welcome two new blogs linking to the Ranter: Disposable Man and The Man who Bought a Field. Links are of course in the links section.

Ironically, given the last paragraph of my last post, I was myself writing in a hurry at the time and some of it might not quite say what I wanted it to. The “perfect example” referred to the situation where the only reason for mis-reporting was pressure of time and the need sometimes to publish…

A few points I jotted on in the dark watches of the Night after the Whitewash…for a start, Lord Hutton argues that the 0607 broadcast was “unfounded” on the grounds that Andrew Gilligan could not know that the government had included the 45 minutes claim knowing it to be false. Now, the content of this…