Peter Risdon

Disgraceful:
Letter from Pearl Cornioley to the War Office, October 20, 1945: “I am honoured that the British Government should wish to decorate me, but I consider the MBE as inappropriate and do not wish to accept it.

Heartless conservatives, eh? Not like those caring Liberals:
If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:
• Although liberal families’ incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative [...]

You know it’s going to be a stupid article when it begins:
Suddenly, atheism is the new religion.
And Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor of The Times does not disappoint:
While science answers the “how” questions, it leaves the “why” questions hanging in the air.
This is so hackneyed it’s surprising to see in print, yet again. I suppose there’s [...]

LiveLeak:
** 30/3/2008: Liveleak Update **
On the 28th of March LiveLeak.com was left with no other choice but to remove the film “fitna” from our servers following serious threats to our staff and their families. Since that time we have worked constantly on upgrading all security measures thus offering better protection for our staff and families. [...]

Platform independent, built on Open Source, networked, stateless:
Google has been recruited by US intelligence agencies to help them better process and share information they gather about suspects.
Agencies such as the National Security Agency have bought servers on which Google-supplied search technology is used to process information gathered by networks of spies around the world.
Google is [...]

Remember E Day, when a call to reduce electricity consumption for a day in the UK actually led to an apparent increase in power use?
Well, it was Earth Day worldwide a couple of days ago, and… can you guess?
Yup. It’s happened again. Power consumption rose.

What could have led to the cease fire called yesterday by Moqtada Sadr? Let’s ask the BBC:
Moqtada Sadr’s statement on Sunday said: “Because of the religious responsibility, and to stop Iraqi blood being shed… we call for an end to armed appearances in Basra and all other provinces…”
The BBC’s Adam Brookes in Baghdad says this [...]

From the Judge, to the jury in the pointless Diana inquest:
“No one except you and I and, I think, the gentleman in the public gallery with ‘Diana’ and ‘Dodi’ painted on his forehead has sat through every word of evidence.

Andrew Sullivan quotes one of his readers:
The “Iraqi people” have been at each other’s throats at least since Britain cobbled together the territory nearly 100 years ago. To think that we can outlast these ancient hatreds with our military presence is folly.
The idea that part of the problem is inappropriate national boundaries that are the [...]

Some advice for muggers.