Off go sundry Crawfs to Poland for a few days, myself mainly working. Not much posted here this month. Am I running out of steam for this blogging business? Or is it just grey, muggy, flat August malaise time? Sigh. Quickies to keep you amused for a few days while […]
President Obama has pronounced on the Cordoba Center (aka Ground Zero Mosque) controversy.Speaking to a Ramadan gathering he said this: Recently, attention has been focused on the construction of mosques in certain communities -– particularly New York. Now, we must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of […]
Here is a round-up of interesting links on the so-called GZM controversy in the USA – should a Muslim cultural centre cum mosque be built close to the site of the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York? Or not? If not, why not? Peter Beinart […]
UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg offers this thought: All parents have a responsibility to nurture the potential in their children. I know how difficult it can be to find the time and the energy to help with homework at the end of a busy day. But if we give […]
The Daily Telegraph reports that the new EU Ambassador In Washington Joao Vale de Almeida is bent on elbowing out of the way such diplomatic minnows as HM Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald: Mr Vale de Almeida has stressed to Washington officials and politicians that under the EU’s’ Lisbon Treaty, he has […]
The grim profile of the US Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. Volcanic?
Here’s an interesting one. The German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is homosexual. He has decided not to take his partner with him on official visits to countries where homosexuality is a prosecutable crime. His somewhat obscure argument as quoted in the excellent Spiegel Online: We want to promote the concept […]
When the Soviet Union broke up, an interesting issue emerged: how should the FCO/HMG name (in English) the many new countries which had appeared on the world scene? Those of us at the policy coal-face had a radical idea. Go for the simplest option, ie the one most easy to […]
What was Kim Philby really up to when he started working for the Soviet Union? Boris Volodarsky follows the complicated story: Stalin had decided that one of the ways to solve the ‘Spanish problem’ would be to assassinate Franco. In 1937 Soviet military intelligence, the GRU, sent several operatives on […]
Is hosted by a Very British dude. Including a deft analysis by The Melangerie about the impact (or not) on the British economy of abolishing slavery in the C19. It responds to a piece by Johann Hari which attacks working conditions in China. And farewell Nee Naw. Oh, and here […]
