'Nother Solent

Awwww

, he's gone to sleep in his little bed.

Good thing we put lots of newspaper down.

Look,

he's found his chew-toy!

Oo's got the cutest little waggy tail, den?

This is the last post I shall ever write with a free mind.

I can feel the irrestistible pull of an all-enveloping mind control making inroads into my every synapse. A fundamental overturning of my identity is taking place, in its own way as irrevocable as giving birth. Nothing will ever be the same again.

People talk about the two paradigms being able to coexist, or even to flourish together. Foolish delusion! True devotees surely know that there can be no compromise with them.

Must resist. Must remember our glorious motto, Feles regunt, canes salivant. To those who have already succumbed to the madness, I hurl defiance! In the dying moments of my former identity I write these last, desperate words:

I am a cat person.

I am a cat person.

I am

Iain Murray thinks a bill before parliament is daft. It would criminalise public snogging by under 16s. The Cowboy thinks it's not just daft but downright frightening.

"Please don't mug me today, I've got the entire payroll in this briefcase."

According to the Scotsman the latest Fringe show Osama like it hot wasn't.

On Wednesday, after being confronted by a scrum of journalists and being dubbed a "talentless git", the comedian decided to ask newspapers not to send reviewers for the first few performances.

Which is why I think it would be nice if you didn't click on the link.

Mean old Uncle Robert!

Still from the Telegraph, Mugabe has said that his relatives can only have one confiscated farm each and not the three or four they are accustomed to.

A British family

have been arrested, beaten by police and given a ludicrously inadequate trial in Greece, oh what a surprise. Their crime appears to be 'being the same nationality as lager louts'. Oh, and the even more heinous crime of coming to the attention of the authorities at a well-timed moment for some politician's populist campaign. In other words, the same sort of thing that would cause Deep South police chiefs of a few years back to arrest any passing black when a crime had been committed.

The good news is that the Greeks can't come and arrest you for being the same nationality as lager louts. Yet.

But don't worry! Here's what the Home Office FAQ page has to say to reassure us.

Doesn't the example of what has happened to the Greek planespotters demonstrate the dangers of relying on other EU Member States' criminal justice systems?

We welcome the quashing of the convictions of the plane spotters on appeal.

The Government remains committed to the principles of mutual recognition. All Member States of the EU are stable democracies founded on the rule of law in which individual rights and freedoms are guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights and national constitutions.

No, I don't know

why there's a big and growing blank above the top post on my blog, or what I can do about it. Do you? Send me an email with "Solution to the blanketty blank" in the title if you do.

UPDATE: Ha! The problem has now apparently been solved. I used the oldest method known to man: magic. Immediately I mentioned the problem it disappeared. This works on cars too, "Honestly Fred, it was rattling fit to burst before I took it in for you to look at."

FINAL UPDATE OK, I know what's wrong and I'm going to cure it. Thanks to all those who wrote in.

Val-e-Diction has provided what amounts to a short course in Chile's recent history, drawing on works by right wing and left wing authors. One of the comments describes it as 'epic.' Allende's continuing role as an icon of the left gives this post particular relevance.

Coincidentally, this post from Normblog mentions Allende. "That earlier September 11" he calls it, which coming from a writer who is quite clear about the evil of September 11 2001, shows how strong the Allende icon is. Norman Geras is committed left winger, a man who can address his readers as 'comrades' without any irony that I can see, but despite the gulf between us, I felt his defence of the Iraq war was strong and to the point - particularly in its healthy elevation of the moral above the legal.

Incidentally, we libertarians claim, with some justice, that we are unfairly ignored in mainstream political discourse. Conservatives make the same claim, and it is often true for them too. But the two groups who really have cause to complain about neglect by the media are Ulster unionists and the internationalist left. I mean internationalist in the Spanish Civil War sense; I can't think of a better term at this late hour.

Just to make clear, and getting back to the Chile issue, I have no sympathy with that torturer Pinochet. I don't think his support for capitalism had much to do any love of liberty or trust in human beings to be the best judges of their own interests - though I will grant that as I learn more about Allende I have no choice but to regard Pinochet as less culpable than I once did. Less culpable, but still culpable. As far as I'm concerned it's a testimony to the correctness of free-market policies that they work even when bad men operate them

The Speculist is a new blog with an interest in the cutting edge of science, and nice and nasty stuff we might be getting in the future. The little slogan under the blog title is just so cool.

Remember

I praised Tony Sewell's contribution to the Guardian debate on black youth, where he was arguing with Lee Jasper? Well, reader Kevin Richardson has heard him speak:

...One particular point: he reckoned that black children as young as seven start to realise that their teachers are a bit afraid of them, being reluctant to act firmly in response to bad behaviour for fear of being labelled racist. This possibly contributes towards the culture of
underachievement among black boys.

This and other points he made struck me as highly plausible, and yet they are ones which a white person might be reluctant to make.

It's very belated e-mail night

at this blog. Back on 22 July a sharp-eyed reader wrote:

To answer your question
>How long you reckon before someone who didn't give a flying f*** about
>leaving them in power to torture and murder thousands of Iraqis starts
>moaning about due process?
Less than 12 hours

Rangel: U.S. Acted Illegally in Killing Uday and Qusay
link

Incidentally, I try to quote reader's names as they sign themselves within the body of the message. In other words even if I know their name from pressing the "Details" bit in the header, I don't use it unless they do. This caution is because the results of quoting someone's name when they wanted it kept secret are worse than the results of not quoting it when they wanted it quoted. Obviously, if I get it wrong, let me know.

Getting back to my original question, Robert Hinkley suggested this link if you wanna see hearts bleed for Uday: BBC Talking Point.

Damian Penny said that he couldn't bear to excerpt any one paragraph from this survey of anti-semitism by Jack Schwartz, it was all so good. I can, just:

The critical tactic in carrying out an anti-Semitic agenda is to attack the Jewish people at its strong point — where, ironically, it is both most exposed and most vulnerable. In the Middle Ages and beyond, the target was the Court Jew who had the ear of the ruler; during the Inquisition it was the Cristianos Nuevos — the Spanish Jews who had thrived after their conversion to Christianity. Under Hitler it was the entrepreneurial and professional classes who were the first victims of Nazi boycotts and exclusion. And today it is Israel, the most powerful symbol of Jewish national resurgence in two millennia.

But like the man said, you simply must read the whole thing.

A rusty bicycle has appeared in our local pond,

plus a whole load of other junk. Why? Here's one possible reaon.

OK, I'm really sorry about the mail.

I never did catch up after my illness. If you are wondering why I have not responded to your e-mail, it's almost certainly just my general disorganisation, plus the summer holidays and the stern yet joyful challenge of learning about my new overlocker.

Or it could be because I hate you and this is the first step in my master plan for your destruction.

Someone thought up

an innovative and low-cost way to combat terrorism. So they axed it.

Iain Murray has uncovered an unelected cosmopolitan cabal, linked by ties of shared ritual and common history, and engaged in ceaseless activity to gain disproportionate influence on the political life of this country.

I'm a member.

Das Überlocker.

Enough of politics, I have got me an overlocker. It cost more than my last car but two. These beasties are to proper sewing machines what the microwave oven is to a proper oven - the quote comes from Jan Saunders of Sewing for Dummies fame, and it's true. An overlocker can't do some things that a proper sewing machine can but it does its more limited range of tasks much faster and, once you have one, the change in the relative cost in effort of each action inevitably changes the whole style of cuisine, sorry, sewing. For benighted readers who do not know what an overlocker is, take off your T-shirts. Yes, very nice. Now turn the T inside out and look at the seams. They were sewn, bound and cut in one operation by an overlocker. The fluffy, softer thread used is distinctive, and overlockers are better at not distorting stretchy fabrics than an ordinary sewing machine is. In the opposite direction, they are also better at not puckering up thin, fray-prone "brittle" fabrics. I have already had the guts to make a child's dressing-up cloak from some ridiculous shiny stuff that I had kept for years waiting for the day when I got my Black Belt.

This machine - a Janome MyLock 644D for the hordes of sewing-geeks who infest this blog like swarming locusts* - is actually my second machine. My first one cost twenty five quid second hand for a machine that would have cost sixty new. Counting twenty-five quid as the cost of a lesson in what not to buy, that was money well spent. Where my first machine was plasticcy this one is heavy and even the plastic is posh heavy plastic.

My husband has kindly translated sewing geek language into Engineering: the overlocker is to the ordinary sewing machine what the vertical mill is to the lathe; you can do almost anything on a lathe including vertical milling - but a mill does the job so much better.

*but not in the swarming season. I.e. one or two mildly curious locusts might happen to amble by.