Tag: UK

Charlie Stross on Syria [Article]

Sane voices are rather hard to find when everyone wants vengeance – whether warranted or not. Charles Stross explains.

proposals in the UK and USA to carry out bombing strikes against the Assad regime in Syria are not only criminal (in the absence of a firm UN Security Council ruling on the matter), they’re stupid. One such imperial adventure might be an accident, two might be a coincidence, but embarking on a third one within a decade of the blood-spattered fiasco that was Iraq and the traumatic counter-insurgency occupation that was Afghanistan should be grounds for incarcerating any western politician proposing it in an institution for the criminally insane.

Sicksad was sick of the UK govt’s porn filter, so he built one himself! [Article]

So i hear the UK government wants to make a porn filter. About bloody time i reckon. I’m fed up of happily browsing the Internet for boobs, only to have non-porn related subject matter thrust down my face hole.
So taking inspiration from other great Internet filtering nations such as North Korea, China, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, Uzbekistan, Saudia Arabia and Vietnam I decided to help out the UK government and build an Internet filter that only allows pornographic material through.

Read on:

Cameron & India’s Nero [Article]

The Guardian examines Why David Cameron is doing business with India’s ‘modern-day Nero’.  This link provides some context to what happened during the Godhra riots in Gujarat in 2002. Warning: The image of the man begging for his life to be spared may disturb you deeply, as it did to me when it was published on the front page of every major newspaper in India the day after the riots erupted.

Britain and US to scale down military capability due to debt crisis

IOW, “We’re broke, living on borrowed time, & these smashing toys are bleeding us faster than ever”

Britain and US to scale down military capability due to debt crisis:

UK defence secretary to say global economic slump is ‘greatest strategic threat to future security’ of transatlantic allies

Britain and the US, close allies who are both victims of the debt crisis, will today agree to scale down their military capability and back away from the kind of armed intervention they have enthusiastically supported in recent decades.

That will be the clear message from the first meeting between Philip Hammond, the UK’s new defence secretary, and Leon Panetta, his opposite number in the Pentagon, officials say. The Washington meeting will also be the first opportunity for Hammond to confront the US over particular British concerns, notably the availability and soaring cost of the US-made joint strike fighters destined for Britain’s new aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales.