August 1, 2005

August 1, 2005 by yorksranter 1 comment

And Now for Some Rugby League Blogging

We haven’t had anywhere near as much sportblogging here as I thought..so it’s time to remedy that. Yesterday saw a first in league’s history, as a French team ran out in a Challenge Cup semi-final. Toulouse made it by beating Widnes soundly, in a match held on their home ground. However partisan you may be,…

August 1, 2005 by yorksranter 0 comments

Tony Blair, Formula One – old post revisited

No doubt everyone else noticed the report that the Govt. was again interfering with the exact details of the ban on tobacco advertising, exactly as a large donor to the Labour Party from the Formula One racing world would have wanted. I’m just trying to work out why Blair loves F1 so – clearly he…

August 1, 2005 by yorksranter 0 comments

The Orwells, No.2, and a note on policing

Given that the Orwells are meant to be a regular feature, I really must get one out for the last seven days quicksmart…and here it is. This week’s Orwell nomination for the political misuse of the English language goes to Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, for inventing the concept of a “Shoot-to-Kill-to-protect…

August 1, 2005 by yorksranter 0 comments

Admin Time

Well, here we are on August the 1st, which is of course Yorkshire Day! You may be interested to know that, according to the team of dedicated Germans from Blogcounter.de who monitor my traffic stats, last month saw a three-figure average daily unique hit rate for only the second time in Ranter history. On average,…

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 […]