I Have So Many Windows Open Right Now But Absolutely Zilch Attention Span
So, it’s quick links time!
Telegraph Blogs – Daniel Hannan: The Internet is dragging Britain away from Europe and towards the Anglosphere
Brett McS sent me this one within moments of me reading an excerpt from it in The Corner. It’s an interesting and perhaps obvious point, though I think perhaps a little optimistic. And I’m not [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
Peter Recommends CXXV
“I love the internet sometimes”:
Auto-Tune the News Hits the Billboard Top 100
Watch the videos. The first half of the first one if you haven’t seen it already, then the second one, then go find a dsl line and hug it.
Categories: Electronics
Saving Teenagers, Walking Visas
This is very good:
The Times – The British girls disappearing into forced marriages, by Lucy Bannerman
“I was told I was staying here for ever,” she says [Tania (pseudonym), 16]. “For ever” often used to mean until 18 – the minimum age at which a Briton could sponsor a spouse’s entry [...]
Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs
Executions in Japan
John Derbyshire (an Englishman) mentions two criminals executed in Japan despite the leftyish Justice Minister’s abolitionist stance, and says at the end:
Executions in Japan are by hanging: The Japanese at least understand that capital punishment is an act of state violence, not a medical procedure, as in the dishonest and despicable system of [...]
Categories: Politics
Ghost Stories
Hmm, what to link to today…
Corner – Wikileaks vs. Democracy
It will take time to assess the real harm caused by this dump of some 92,000 classified documents into the public domain by Wikileaks. But as I argue this morning, the Obama administration’s warning that there would be damage seems highly credible. It’s hard [...]
Categories: War and Peace
Journalists Struggling to Cope With This “Democratic” Modern Age
Telegraph – Raoul Moat and the unacceptable face of Facebook
In David Cameron’s clash with Facebook we can see the key cultural question of our time, says Jenny McCartney
So, she goes from describing the elitist but responsible days of old journalism, where:
Letters to newspapers that were full of violent views, or just [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
More On Iran’s Curious Moral Habits
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has been “spared” stoning (she might still be hung though), but it’s brought up a subject we don’t often hear much about:
The Times – Is female sexuality more wicked than murder? By Janice Turner
Last week I met an Iranian woman who, if she had remained in Iran, could have been [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
The Stuff You Find in Autoblog…
Autoblog – Report: Former Audi employee convicted Nazi war criminal
Yeesh.
Categories: War and Peace
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani’s Unhuman, Inhumane Fate
The Times – ‘Stop the stoning’
The execution of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, who has already spent five years in prison and received 99 lashes for alleged adultery, would “disgust and appal the watching world”, the British Government declared, as Sir David Hare, Robert Redford, Emma Thompson, Juliette Binoche, Katherine Hamnett, the fashion designer, [...]
Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs
Some Refuge
The Globe & Mail – The immigration debate we don’t want to have Aqsa’s murder raises some extremely troubling questions about integration, by Margaret Wente
The Parvez family history is not uncommon. Aqsa’s father and her oldest brother arrived in Canada in 1999 as refugees from Pakistan. In those days, it was easy to buy [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
On Using “Pimp” As a Verb
I cautioned a guy at work the other day (who’s first language isn’t English (not that you’d notice, it’s so good)) against using “pimp” as a verb, as in “pimp my ride” (except “ride” was something more relevant to where I work). I said it was a bit …negative. I’m feeling very righteous (and relieved) [...]
Categories: Entertainment
Childhood Obesity Is All The Sun’s Fault
Telegraph – Parents wrongly believe that abduction is a greater threat to children than inactivity and obesity Parents wrongly believe that abduction is a greater threat to children than inactvity and obesity according to a survey published on Tuesday.
RC2 once had a line about only tackling crime will solve the childhood obesity issue, but it would [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
Psychoanalyzing Islamic Pathologies
On Muslims’ Locus of Control and Western arrogance, a few key points:
New English Review – Muslims and Westerners: The Psychological Differences, by Nicolai Sennels
This one is amazing. I have never noticed this. It’s been remarked upon, all these doctors from the Islamic world (and not just the ones that blow themselves up, but that work [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
I Just Bought a Car!
Yesterday Peter bought me a nice sensible station wagon (wagen!), with a 6-disc changer, heated seats, a connection for the iPod (charges, too!), and a diesel engine (be green!). It’s a VW Jetta Sportwagen, and in the corner of the showroom they have a 1947 green Beetle, and the sign says that it’s the most [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
A Report From Red’s Favourite City
National Post – Odyssey in the U.K.: Glasgow’s new reality
As Britain faces its tightest election race in decades, the National Post’s John Ivison returns home and travels the length of the country to catch the mood. Today, he stops in Glasgow, where it is hard not to believe Britain is “a broken society.”
Yesch.
Categories: People and Current Events
