Unhelpful advice.

A Labour Party allied think tank, the Fabian Society, has offered advice to the Lib Dems regarding equality. Shockingly this advice could cause internal discord in for them.

Rory Bremner does excellent sung epitaphs of Prime Ministers.

Yeah that title could've been a bit more catchy but its true. Heres Gordon Brown's Swansong:



and going a good way into the past Tony Blair's:



(some knowledge of British Politics required for you to fully understand these)

A video of all nuclear detonations that have occured up to 1998.

Well thats not quite technically accurate, South Africa / Israel may have carried out a test in 1979 but thats splitting hairs. A Japanese artist created this animation of where all the nuclear explosions that we know about have occurred and plotted them onto a world map. You can see it here.

Its more interesting than you might imagine.

It really reminds me of primates hooting and hollering at each other to mark their territories. But we're way more advanced than those fucking chimps, we use the power of the atom for our petty displays!

thanks jonny

FBI bust deep cover spies, Republican plot?

Yes you see the GOP are in league with Russia and you must all wear tinfoil hats. Or such a major case breaking very shortly after Obama and Medvedev announced renewed ties is unquestionably embarrassing for Obama and one has to wonder if a lurking Bush appointee or simply someone who doesn't like Obama in the FBI decided to use this to show him up. That there are spies in the US is hardly a shock, everyone spies on everyone. So either Obama approved this and was happy to have himself shown to be contradicted or someone is trying to screw him over /maintain hostile relations with Russia. After all the GOP loves having everyone being hostile with the US, it justifies higher defence spending.

Just in case this news has passed you by here is the Guardian's summary

With this gem:

The indictment also relates how the FBI recovered a bag Chapman discarded after she bought a mobile phone. The customer agreement was in the name Irene Kutsov and the address was registered as 99 Fake Street. Chapman did not turn up for the meeting to hand over the fake passport.

George Monbiot owns.

George Monbiot is the very stereotype of the woolly upper class British do-gooder. He is also an intelligent and passionate man who I live in constant fear will kill himself because he seems so damn aware of the environmental mess we are in. He has a high public profile for taking on various climate deniers and other unpleasant people. He also attempted a citizen's arrest on Michael Bolton which alone should earn him the respect of decent people everywhere.

I'm working through a backlog of his articles, being mostly accurate they can be really depressing but still they're worth reading, here are a few highlights of recent times:

Universal Cure An examination of how much privilege contributes to success in life in the UK (a lot) and then he references a novel solution first suggested by Peter Wilby a decade ago. I don't know if it would work but its certainly interesting.


Its likely this idea is worth applying to America too, you're just a teasy bit more socially mobile than us

Carbon Graveyard In which he points out that the UK has outsourced rather than reduced its' greenhouse gas output and how much of a problem consumption and tying economic stability to consumption is for the environment.

Northern Rock the Planet A short description of just how hypocritical and deceitful bankers can be.

I'll try to keep more on top of Monbiot editorials in future thus link them in a more timely manner but even if I just keep linking blocs of articles from time to time they're well worth reading.

"Joke" party seems better than most mainstream ones.

Last month a party with comedic sounding policies won both the mayoral and city council elections for Reykjavik, Iceland's capital. This victory is credited mainly to a protest vote but their intentions at least far outshine those of most career politicians and are certainly better than the protest votes Britain (BNP racist scum) and the US (teabagger libertarian fake scum) get. A funny and vaguely optimistic article.

thanks jonny

Edit: The article links this video but just to be sure you don't miss it:

Stealth Prime Minister

I'll probably link a good overview of the UK Budget later on today but for now take a look at this picture:



Note that Cameron is sitting behind Osbourne, a place he would know was practically invisible to TV Cameras. Happily Cleggy boy and Danny Alexander (both Lib Dems) are front and centre to take the fall in the coming months for anything bad the budget causes.