January 2005

Sighted in the referral log – lye2.latimes.com at 2217 17/01/05, sent from a Google search for “Yorkshire Ranter”, two requests for http://yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com out of a previous 35.

The New York Times takes some steps towards recovering from its outbreak of Kilroy-worship with an excellent and intriguing report on the role of the Ukrainian secret services in the revolution. As so often before, the key moment came when “they” decided it was time to pull the plug. Now, back at the time, on…

A reader writes asking about Afghanistan’s KAM-Air. Well…. Afghanistan was a considerable market for Viktor B during the 1990s, and is now perhaps the most famous thanks to the stories about involvement with the Taliban. In fact, they’d been supplying the Northern Alliance for years, perhaps on behalf of Russia, but they certainly did supply…

Paul Krugman has an interesting example for Americans concerned about their social security system: Britain. And we’re the “How not to do it” section. It’s good reading – sometimes the best view on your own problems comes from watching other people’s. The UK has basically chosen a sort of negative social partnership, after all: government,…

On the one hand, we have the announcement that the FBI has scrapped its huge new computer system because it’s already obsolete (as well as late and overbudget) and doesn’t provide the features they want. This comes, let’s not forget, a day after BA Flight 175 was turned back mid-Atlantic on the basis of one…

Despite statements to the contrary, British Gulf International Airlines are still flying to Iraq. At least, Sharjah Airport seems to think so: Link There seems to be a daily flight to Baghdad at 0200: that isn’t haphazard. The flight number is BGK 1225. The return gets in to SHJ at 1050 (no. BGK1226). There would…

I think it’s time for an update on the Bout story. Information received suggests that British Gulf International Airlines (one of the Boutcos listed in the US Defence Department fuel contract) may have a structure and history radically different to what we thought. Now, BGIA officially began in Sao Tome and Principe in 2000, before…

The Guardian has uncorked a big investigation series on Britain’s horrible no-rights employment world. “Over the last year the Guardian has investigated some of the networks of labour agencies operating around Sussex, to throw a spotlight on the gangmaster system. The findings highlight a historic pattern to the allegations of abuse which suggests the problems…

The New York Times‘s much-reported crisis must be real, I am forced to concede. They have published a truly odd, six-page profile of none other than Robert Kilroy-Silk! And, worryingly, they seem to take him at face value. (“The Raging Squire”, I kid you not.) Things start going wrong from the first sentence. Is UKIP…

Well, another day, another Blair/Brown feud. The Observer headlined that they had gone “out of control” yesterday – my first reaction was along the lines of “Gordon was so furious with the Prime Minister that he nearly said something”. And frankly, I just get bored of this stuff – “Sources close to a senior Government…