Pommygranate: June 2006

Monday, June 19, 2006

They're watching you

Over at UK leftist site PooterGeek, an unwlecome visitor left a particularly unpleasant message for the site's host that 'niggers smell of shit'.

What was the reaction from PooterGeek? Ignore him? Ridicule him? Bad-mouth him?

Nope.

They traced him through his IP address back to his school server and called the Headteacher. For the unwelcome visitor was in fact a schoolboy.

The blogging community thrives on anonymity. This heavy handed approach will surely curtail the free and frank exchange of views that pass through blog sites.

A scary development.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

White Man's Burden

A new book from William Easterly looks at why the $2.3trn spent on foreign aid over the past fifty years has had almost no discernable effect.

Easterly is an ex-World Bank economist and writes in 'The White Man's Burden' of the split between the traditional 'Planners' such as Bono and Geldof and the new 'Searchers' who seek more market oriented, bottom up approaches to Third World Aid. He makes three main criticisms of the traditional approach;

i) Planners announce good intentions but dont motivate anyone to carry them out.
ii) Planners raise expectations but take no responsibility for meeting them
iii) Planners at the top lack knowledge at the bottom

Read on...

Friday, June 16, 2006

The insidious dominance of the State

Stumbled across these prophetic words on the power of the State from Alexis de Tocqueville in his 'Democracy in America'.

"Government extends its embrace to include the whole of society. It covers the whole of social life with a network of petty, complicated rules that are both minute and uniform, through which even men of the greatest originality and the most vigorous temperament cannot force their heads above the crowd. It does not break men's will, but softens, bends, and guides it; it seldom enjoins, but often inhibits action; it does not destroy anything, but prevents much being born; it is not at all tyrannical, but it hinders, restrains, enervates, stifles, and stultifies..."

Just perfectly sums up Blair's Britain. Nothing overtly sinister, just constant strangulation.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

We are losing the war

The world is rapidly dividing into those that believe these events are connected and those that believe they are incidental.

Baghdad: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi found himself on the receiving end of 500 pounds of U.S. ordnance.

London: Scotland Yard arrested a cell of East End Muslims allegedly plotting a sarin attack in Britain.

Toronto: The Mounties busted a cell of Ontario Muslims planning a bombing three times more powerful than Oklahoma City.

Mogadishu: An al-Qaida affiliate, the "Joint Islamic Courts," took control of the Somali capital, displacing "U.S.-backed warlords."

Paris; A French court has jailed 25 alleged Islamist militants for planning attacks in France in support of Chechen rebels.

Rest of the article by Mark Steyn.

Last week Islam lost a general but gained a nation. Not a bad result, really.