They're getting rid of the speaking clock!

I've been trying to keep up with the news, insofar as one can with all the Olympics coverage on both BBC channels and the Mediterranean season on EuroNews, and it's struck me over the past couple days that there's something wrong in the pictures we're getting of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
( To writ: )

...is performing at the Festival, at the Stand.  We saw the show on Saturday, and it was magic..  (He's also getting a show of his own on BBC Scotland, after a stint on Video Gaiden.)

He's also pro-independence, and after watching the following rant on Britain's Got Talent, I'm convinced.

Click to view

( Read more... )

Five years ago today, a Foreign Office lawyer decided to resign because she believed the Iraq invasion was illegal without a UN resolution backing the operation- making it a crime of aggression, not a lawful international move.  (The French gave word the same day that they would use their veto for any UNSC resolution giving acquiescence to an ( Read more... )

Be Kind Rewind.

Oh. My. God.

Go see it!

"Situating combinability within a dynamic context further highlights the importance of the stability of combinations and their response to contestations, and the role of 'facts' in stabilizing or undermining established constructions of identity and policy."

I do not like discourse analysis.  No sir, not one bit. 

I am 31 flavours of skeptical about the US remake of How to Look Good Naked, hosted by Carson Kressley.  For me, the only reason why the Channel 4 version works is Gok Wan- the man is magic, the antithesis of Trinny and Susannah's brash and harsh style.  He seems to really care for the women he's making over, cuddles instead of cajoles, and uses ( Read more... )

...I'm away haim to be a moose-hunter.

On this day in 1920, the League of Nations held their first general assembly in Geneva.  It was the first truly international (as opposed to regional) idealist organisation, based on the idea that multilateral collective security was the best prevention to conflict.  Unfortunately, like its successor the United Nations, the League of Nations soon ( Read more... )