ninme

Telegraph - Hot air, hypocrisy and a revolution in Bali. By Charles Clover

As an exhibition of hypocrisy, the UN climate change conference in Bali takes some beating. The Indonesian President Yudhoyono is there, playing delegates the video of a song he wrote about saving the planet, while his government, though making splendidly conservationist [...]

Categories: Science and Nature

IHT - In Italy, a winter of discontent

ROME: All the world loves Italy because it is old but still glamorous. Because it eats and drinks well but is rarely fat or drunk. Because it is the place in hyper-regulated Europe where people still debate with perfect intelligence what, really, the red in a [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

Times Online - Afghan flag flies over ex-Taleban stronghold Musa Qala

After a five-day operation to take back the only remaining town in Afghanistan under the control of Taleban insurgents, the Afghan flag was flying today over Musa Qala. British and US troops began the operation on Friday, before Afghan forces [...]

Categories: War and Peace

I don’t really feel like it (never did mention, Saturday afternoon Peter said the movie looked like it was edited by a Drexel sophomore) but I have nothing else to do so I’m starting The Subtle Knife. I’ll be updating this post with my comments, since turning it into a community-enriching effort here at ninme [...]

Categories: Art and Literature

It took me a full 25 seconds to even get what was going on. Brilliant. SFW, but only because idle eavesdroppers won’t get what’s going on at all. The accent will convince them otherwise.

Curtsy: PC Copperfield

Categories: History

So, some thoughts about my previous post, which I’ll put here, separately, so they don’t get lost.

First of all, I’d like to point out that if this girl, even without being mentally impaired, just 16, and with such a pitiable history, had been gang-raped by her Muslim cousin and his friends for some Western-style transgression, [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

The Australian - Child safety failed rape girl

A senior departmental official yesterday told The Australian that the child involved was sexually abused at age seven and, as a safety measure, was put with various foster families, eventually ending up in 2005 with a non-indigenous family in Cairns. But she was returned nine months [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

Toronto Star - Hijab can divide families But tension can also be caused by girls who chose to adopt headscarf against parents’ wish, say some

The suggestion of violent disputes between a 16-year-old girl in Mississauga and her father over her desire to show her hair and live a “normal” lifestyle raises questions about tensions [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

The Times - Forget trying to talk to Khartoum In the post-teddy bear era there is a new way to try and make progress in the Darfur crisis, by Nick Donovan, Head of Campaigns, Policy and Research at the Aegis Trust

In their public actions, if not their private words, international diplomats tend to be [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

The Times - Africa must drop the guilt card to strengthen its hand, by Bronwen Maddox, Chief Foreign Commentator

The poorest countries have a powerful case, backed up by many development academics, that their markets should be protected until they are better able to compete. The excuses have come too fluently, [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

Daily Mail - What is the point of our useless Foreign Office? By CRAIG MURRAY, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan

I’d like to be the former Ambassador to Uzbekistan. A big country, and an important one, but not an obvious one.

Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi are to be congratulated for unconventional diplomacy, which succeeded [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

Some of you might remember back in May I had a wee vent about our local hardware store. Ending (sarcastically) with,

So yeah, it would be a real shame if this place closed.

Well, they’re closing. They’ll be gone by the end of the month. So now I’m in possession of my very own $16 [...]

Categories: Business & Media

Augh!

thump

Categories: Science and Nature

Times Online - Paris Weblog - France bends its imminent smoking ban, by Charles Bremner

French smokers are counting down the days. On January 1, the national ban on indoor smoking will be extended to bars, cafés, restaurants, night clubs and the other “places of conviviality”. These were given a one-year reprieve last February [...]

Categories: Science and Nature

Yesterday, Gordon Brown went to Iraq:

The Times - Britain and Basra Brown must show a willingness to confront extremists in southern Iraq

Yet, despite these circumstances, the contrast between recent trends in Basra and Baghdad is uncomfortable. In the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam, the British establishment took pleasure in celebrating the comparative peace [...]

Categories: War and Peace