ninme

(I wouldn’t usually recommend Simon first thing, but, well…) Telegraph – We pay to have an underclass. By Simon Heffer That welfarism should allow people to pass their duties to the state was certainly not envisaged by Beveridge when he drew up his blueprint for a welfare system in 1942. As a Liberal of the [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

I don’t have the energy for this. I just don’t. Telegraph Blogs – Warsaw’s new Old Town When is an Old City not an old city? The thought struck me while wandering around Warsaw last week. Its main square is a delight to behold, like so many other in Eastern/Central Europe. The colourful narrow fronted [...]

Categories: Art and Literature

The things the 82nd Airborne gets up to nowadays.

Categories: War and Peace

fsssst <–the sound of the steam going out of her Idaho Statesman – Men’s room arrest reopens questions about Sen. Larry Craig<br/> Idaho senator pleads guilty to disorderly conduct after incident at Minnesota airport that echoes previous allegation of homosexual conduct. (Finally, a Washington scandal approaching Britishness. But still falling sadly short.) LGF – Washington [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

Telegraph – Why have weddings become so grotesque? By Andrew O’Hagan Last year, your run-of-the-mill wedding cost the couple – or the bride’s parents – £18,000. Young couples were often to be found topping up that figure with bank loans worth tens of thousands. The average couple thinks a big wedding is more important than [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

Part three of a series. Parts one and two Telegraph – Queen’s 60th wedding anniversary: ‘Mam’selle placed the tulle on my shoulders…’ Betty Foster still has the scrap of ivory satin on which she practised a row of tiny buttonholes until she was competent enough to be let loose on Princess Elizabeth’s wedding dress. Until [...]

Categories: History

The Times – Beyond Basra<br/> Britain cannot be seen to ‘fail’ in southern Iraq Armies that are perceived to be in damage-limitation, not winning, mode cannot impose their will. Their enemies harry them to call it a day; it is only a question of when. This has been the British predicament in Basra. The signal [...]

Categories: War and Peace

Well, if I don’t start posting something soon, I’m going to lose my carefully nurtured readership to some unscrupulous shark with an ability to string together multiple sentences without running out of steam. So here’s all the stuff I’ve had opened since Saturday. I won’t quote it, even though that does horrible things to my [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

Out of desperation, I’ve decided to sweat it out of me. I don’t have a fever, so I have to do it myself: on the couch, under a quilt, being radiated by the laptop. Oh my god I’m hot. I hate being hot.

Categories: People and Current Events

I spent the afternoon lying on the couch under a quilt sipping on grapefruit juice while watching Peter play video games. Mmm, recuperative. Or so I hope. Normal service to hopefully resume tomorrow?

Categories: Wildcard

Because I’m sick (as just announced in the Twitter), I’ve decided to whine. This is my immediate neighborhood (never mind exactly where I am) and the blue stars represent construction projects. The four together are the fire station, which is surrounded by a single project which is so big it takes up that whole side [...]

Categories: Wildcard

By now we’ve all seen this line from Bush’s big Vietnam speech: In 1972, one antiwar senator put it this way: “What earthly difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos, whether they have a military dictator, a royal prince or a socialist commissar in some [...]

Categories: History

Ah, summer’s winding down, August is waning, the maples are turning red and it’s only a matter of time before politicians and journalists alike return from the Hamptons and the world starts turning again. But before all that, let’s take a moment to review… American Digest – The Summer of Our Discontent giggle

Categories: People and Current Events

Remember this? WSJ – Are We Teaching Our Kids To Be Fearful of Men? by Jeff Zaslow When children get lost in a mall, they’re supposed to find a “low-risk adult” to help them. Guidelines issued by police departments and child-safety groups often encourage them to look for “a pregnant woman,” “a mother pushing a [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

Some are concerned with disproportionate responses and misplaced relativism, but I think I’m linking these two (three?) stories together for a different, subtler reason: The Times – ‘He fired more shots. He held both hands on the gun. He never flinched’<br/> The shooting of 11-year-old Rhys Jones has left a community in mourning, struggling to [...]

Categories: People and Current Events