Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
Noted without comment: A bizarre decision to ride an inflatable doll down a flood-swollen Yarra River blew up in a woman’s face yesterday when she lost her latex playmate in a rough patch. The incident prompted a warning from police that blow-up sex toys are “not recognised flotation devices’’. Police and a State Emergency Services
Back in the rare ould times you could always rely upon Fianna Fail’s instinct for self-preservation to kick-in and heaves against the party leadership were a reliably entertaining fixture of Irish political life. The remarkable aspect of this present crisis was that that, for a while at least, it looked as though Brian Cowen might
Bloomberg Businessweek has a fascinating article on how, starting from nothing, Glock has come to dominate the American handgun market. You may not be surprised to discover that ill-conceived gun control legislation played a major part in shifting gun owners’ preferences towards ever larger magazine capacities and so on… When Karl Walter, a firearm salesman
Thanks to at least a dozen interruptions the whole address lasts 34 minutes but if you don’t want to watch it all then skip straight to the last six or seven minutes. This was Obama at his best and perhaps his finest speech since he won the Presidency. True, the bar had been lowered by
There is, as you would expect, lots of good stuff in Nick Cohen’s article on the Lib Dems in this week’s edition of the magazine (subscribe today!) Among the several notable passages there’s this: Leaving the disputes between pollsters aside, not even Nick Clegg’s closest friends deny that he is the most hated politician in
Since Labour are all set to prevail in the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election (as was always likely) the government, and specifically the Deputy Prime Minister, will need a line to sell. It’s made a little awkward by the fact that this unecessary election is the consequence of a lawsuit brought by the defeated Liberal Democrat
Plenty, obviously and not the least of it is the sort of person that gets elected to the world’s most insufferably self-regarding body. But what really annoys high-class liberals such as Hendrik Hertzberg and Ezra Klein is the Senate’s supposed lack of democratic legitimacy. Well, that’s what you get when you choose to build a
I hope one can still use cooking metaphors in this new age of low-key rhetoric, right? Anyway, this has been another Bad Week for Palin Inc. She’s been traduced this week and the statement she’s released today, while typically punchy, isn’t likely to change anyone’s opinion. Nevertheless, the fall-out from the Tucson shootings has damaged
At some point it seems wise to suppose that Ed Miliband isn’t playing any devious or subtle long game and that, far from being baffling, his public pronouncements are probably a pretty reasonable guide to what he actually, truly believes. And he really doesn’t think that Labour made any significant errors while in office. Surpluses
A coup for the Royal Zoologocial Society of Scotland which announced today that it will take delivery of and house two Giant Pandas, courtesy of a deal with the Chinese government. A coup too, I dare say, for Alex Salmond who will be happy to accept whatever credit you may care to bestow upon him.
Alastair Campbell, of all people, shows how the ghastly Tucson shootings are to be exploited for political purposes: What the right are now doing is trying to portray the killer of Tucson, Arizona as a crazed loner operating in some kind of vacuum. But even if it turns out that he had never heard of
Washington is such a small place that it’s little surprise to discover that I know people who were friends with at least one of the people murdered in Tucson yesterday. The attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords during which six people, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old, were murdered is an appalling atrocity that
I’m afraid this blogging-hiatus is likely to continue for another day or so. Or at least until the batch of plague from which I’m currently suffering moves on to victims new. Assuming it ever does… Meanwhile, here are the answers to the 2010 edition of the Christmas Quiz: CHRISTMAS QUIZ 2010 ANSWERS: 1. Where could
And so another year passes, replete with the usual misadventures, follies and debacles. Of course there were better moments too but this is no time to be dwelling on those. Anyway, thank you all for your company here this year and may the New Year bring you great joy and encouragement. See you again in
Their lowest total at home against England since 1936. Perth is looking like a blip, not a fundamental change in the series. More later, i dare say, but consider this an open thread to talk about the cricket. I fear my brother’s French girlfriend – present at the MCG for her first ever day of
Hope y’all have a splendid day that delivers all you want or, more reasonably, could sensibly hope for. Here’s the best (non-religious) Christmas song of them all:
Just like last year, it’s time for a Christmas Quiz. So here is this year’s edition. You could, I suppose, use Mr Google to get the answers but where’s the fun or honour in that? And it’s only for fun and honour, I’m afraid, since there are no prizes beyond the usual measures of personal
Snowgoat: [noun] Inclement weather blamed, expediently, for the failure to be at all organised. Especially in the matter of sending Christmas cards, purchasing proper presents, etc. [verb, trans], Make a snowgoat of. Derivatives: snowgoater, snowgoating, snowgoatism. eg, Florence was unimpressed by her uncle’s attempt to use a snowgoat this Christmas.
As y’all know, this website offers plenty of content for free. That’s the Spectator’s choice and one I support (not that they ask me about these things). But even website content costs money and while online advertising is good news it’s not nearly as lucrative, in general, as adverts in the print edition. So, a
Like Doug Mataconis, I confess I didn’t expect to see Pat Robertson come out in favour of legalising marijuana possession. But he has. The British situation is not wholly comparable to the American one but the arguments remain broadly similar. And mandatory sentences are just as grotesque on this side of the Atlantic too.