Urban terrorism 101: don’t kill furry animals

John Chappell’s got the latest on the anarchist bomb down town this morning. Everyone hated the squatters anyway–squatting has largely become a licence to run tax-free, non-H&S compliant drink & drugs bars that keep the whole neighbourhood awake–but now they’ve killed a dog, and that’s going to finish them. Killing a dog is about the…

Making it up

Daisy-chaining the “they’re lying to us” theme, additional evidence that a journalist is much more than a blogger who gets paid not to fact-check.

Bush more singable than Rumsfeld

That’s what I reckon on comparing Mark Liberman’s transcription of Bush’s 7/7 remarks and Rummy here. I’m not an expert on these things, but my distinct impression is that Bush’s West Texabonics work best as 30s blues from the region.

Victorian Albert

Arcadi Espada’s “Victorian Albert” museum conjures a delightful vision of an old building full of cuddly Alberts rather than the Touch Me trendiness that I so adore. (No Berts in the V&A: as the Queen said, “This will not change our way of life.”))

Beacons

David de Ugarte writes that “Al-Qaeda is the first distributed armed organisation that is open and based on open-access technology, ideology and gear.” The rest is debatable, but the word “first” is wrong. What about all those networks of early-warning hill-top beacons in Scandinavia 1000 years ago, used to rouse people with home-made weapons and…

Evil neo-liberal consumers threaten the book trade

“Fixed book prices are sacrosanct for this government,” said (via David Millán) socialist minister of culture, Carmen Calvo, after a meeting with booksellers, who are pissed off about discounts offered by larger, more efficient operators under legislation introduced by the previous government. Lots of subsidy for the industry gets laundered through the education system, but,…

Whys & wherefores

Livingstone doesn’t travel well, but I thought this was really good. Galloway is deranged and has no place in London, but even he doesn’t go as far as the charming anti-whateverist who told me last night that, in her carefully considered opinion, 9/11 would never have happened had it not been for the invasion of…

The way things are

When you’re halfway up a mountain and someone in London texts you to say they survived and are walking home, the context takes care of itself.

The Wonderful Wizard of Hinternet

Lots of people use “beacuase” instead of “because”, but I don’t think anyone writes “Uase” instead of “Oz”. (I’m having a bit of a Dr Heckle and Mr Jibe day, and mistakenly read this headline as “Anagram hits out at Tory election plans”, which seemed like an interesting tech rehash of traditional rapid response strategies…