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The Times - Steamed Up The enduring popularity of a little blue tank engine

Children can be frighteningly modern. Immune from nostalgia, excited by futuristic robots, and better than their parents at computing, one would scarcely believe that the sentimental anthropomorphism of a clerical trainspotter would appeal. And yet, as outmoded as the technology is, [...]

Categories: Business & Media

Macleans - Previously on The United States vs Conrad Black…

Before our mid-season hiatus, the nefarious mastermind Lord Black of Crossharbour and his three accomplices had been convicted of …well, very little when you look at the mountain of spaghetti the US Attorney threw at them in order to get a few forlorn strands [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

AP - China unilaterally changes joint document, Japan wants correction

China released a unilaterally rewritten Chinese-language version of a joint document issued with Japan on the occasion of a recent ministerial economic dialogue in Beijing after both nations agreed on its content and Tokyo wants the version corrected, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura and a [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

WaPo - Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002 In Meetings, Spy Panels’ Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials S

For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to [...]

Categories: Politics

The Corner - Steynophobia, by Stanley Kurtz (I closed the window without doing all the links. Sorry.)

Late yesterday I stumbled across an article about a “human rights complaint” filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) against Maclean’s, Canada’s most widely-read news magazine, for running a “flagrantly Islamophobic” excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book, America [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

Canadian Free Press - Hands off Hans Island. By Alexander Rubin

The treaty of 1973 listed 127 points between the Davis Strait and the end of Robeson Channel, and drawing geodesic lines between these points, used them to form the border. However, because no line was drawn from point 122 to point 123, a [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

The second in a series.

The Telegraph - Hell will freeze before a BBC Mohammed film. By Charles Moore

What the judgment exposes, though, is how far we have travelled. Until perhaps the 1990s, it would have been inconceivable for the BBC to depict the adult Jesus wearing a nappy. It was at its founding, [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

The Times - War or Peace? The break-up of Yugoslavia could turn bloody again

After an estimated 10,000 civilian deaths, 38,000 Nato combat sorties, seven years of United Nations administration and fifteen months of intensive diplomacy, a final report is being delivered to the UN Secretary-General this weekend on progress towards resolving the incendiary question [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

Well, I saw the movie.

If I’m offended, it’s not because of any religious sensibilities, it’s because of the violence they did to the book. Which wasn’t even that good.

They didn’t take out the religion, they added it in. Who the hell were all these old dudes in robes supposed to be? And the poison scene [...]

Categories: Entertainment

Ireland, being exceptional again.

Telegraph - Mrs Tiger Woods wins fake pornography case

At the bottom they’ve printed the text of the apology in full. Remarkable. Whoever wrote it should do speaking tours around the rest of the English-speaking world. American politicians (especially liberal, anti-war ones) should be forced to watch six-hour tapes of these talks while [...]

Categories: Sports and Leisure

Categories: People and Current Events

Not that I’m saying the movie’s crappy, the issues people have with it doesn’t surprise me in the least, given it’s source material and its (and its source material’s) reason for existing (nicely summed up below).

Telegraph Blogs - Golden Compass falls flat in the US? by Catherine Elsworth

Nikki Finke, the sleep-deprived Hollywood blogger [...]

Categories: Entertainment

Macleans - When it’s no country for old men Once we decide we don’t need to give up our bus seats, the societal safety lock’s already off, by MARK STEYN

Once it’s no longer accepted that something is wrong all the laws in the world will avail you nought. The law functions as formal expression [...]

Categories: History

The Middle East Quarterly - Exposing the “Flying Imams” by M. Zuhdi Jasser (a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, is chairman of the board of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (www.aifdemocracy.org))

A bit of quoting, mainly for archival purposes:

On November 20, 2006, airline officials in Minneapolis removed six imams from U.S. Airways flight [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

Somebody tried suing the producers (and the BBC) of Jerry Springer - the Opera under blasphemy laws last used by Mary Whitehouse in the 70s.

The Telegraph - Ridiculing Christianity

Given the secular nature of our society, that makes a successful prosecution for blasphemy against Christianity, the sole religion covered by the law, virtually impossible. [...]

Categories: Entertainment