April 26, 2004

April 26, 2004 by yorksranter 0 comments

The CIA, the Swansea police and the neo-conservatives

I don’t think this story has been covered much in the UK, which is a great pity as not only is it good, it is also a fine piece of Ealingesque British farce. Imagine. The former director of the CIA, James Woolsey, snooping around a college in Swansea trying to prove that one of its…

April 26, 2004 by yorksranter 0 comments

Improving parliament’s security

As is now well reported, our MPs recently voted to spend £2 million on building a huge glass wall across the House of Commons, in order to protect them from putative terrorists ensconced in the public gallery. Or perhaps from the justified fury of the citizens, but let that pass. Apparently, this is to protect…

UK whistleblower ‘morally compelled’ to speak out on Afghan withdrawal | Civil service | The Guardian
She was suspended and then sacked after a BBC reporter tweeted the emails and “unintentionally” disclosed Stewart’s identity. The case will decide the extent of the rights of civil servants to make public interest disclosures to the press.
False evidence by Post Office’s expert contradicted his own report - BBC News
Mr Jenkins, Fujitsu's former chief IT architect, is currently being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for potential perjury, the BBC understands.
Cost of Birmingham council equal-pay claim probably far lower than £760mn
Both the GMB and Unison unions and Max Caller, the commissioner appointed by Michael Gove, secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities to oversee the council, said the original estimate far exceeded any likely payout. The real liability may be closer to £250mn. Based on the higher projection, however, Birmingham has already agreed […]
Meta struggled to monetize AI products in near term
The in-house MITA chip has been used to support core inference workloads and is now being deployed for tasks such as advertising and organic content recommendations starting in 2024, with hopes for broader support in AI training and certain generative AI applications.
Anglesey: Solar farm plans described as frightening - BBC News
What's "frightening"? What are they frightened *of*? It's House Prices of course
In ‘Morning After the Revolution,’ Nellie Bowles takes aim at today’s left - The Washington Post
“Morning After the Revolution” demonstrates that, if leftism is a hazard of adolescence, conservatism is all too often an unfortunate symptom of aging, not unlike senility....Now that Bowles is employed by the Free Press, a bastion of free thought, what free thoughts is she thinking? Very few, as it turns out. In fact, it can […]
Wenn Empathie dich fies und ungerecht macht
„Ich bitte darum, dafür zu sorgen, dass solche unmenschlichen Taten unterbleiben oder an einem Ort geschehen, wo es niemand sieht“, schrieb die Frau aufgebracht. Würdest du, liebe:r Leser:in, sagen, dass diese Frau eine gute Nachbarin war? Ein guter Mensch? Sicher nicht. Aber was würdest du sagen, wenn ich sie als besonders empathischen Menschen bezeichnen würde?...Sie […]
Is America’s oldest Chinese restaurant in a tiny suburb of Sacramento? Historians investigate | California | The Guardian
Ben Ruilin Fong, a comparative literature PhD candidate at UC Davis who is of no relation to the restaurant owners, said the Fongs seemed to be constantly negotiating with their identity as natives of Taishan, a city in China’s Guangdong province known as the “first home of overseas Chinese”. Like many others from the region, […]
How to Actually Implement a Policy - by Santi Ruiz
The bigger principle at play here is that decisions are a hot potato in government. Nobody wants to be the person who made the decision, because making the decision is risky. And, not only can you shove decisions to another person, you can shove it all the way to the process, and say, “Look, this […]
A simple theory of cancel culture - by Joseph Heath
As the institution of the charivari makes clear, people in medieval European societies took a keen interest in one another’s domestic affairs. Private life, as most of us understand it, is an 18th century innovation. The important point is not that society is reverting to an older set of norms, but that the scale of […]