Drawing Breath

So, the car crash that is Pete Burns bragged that the coat he has been flouncing around in on Celebrity Big Brother was made from the fur of the endangered gorilla.

The police subsequently seized the coat, and the Natural History Museum have found that it is in fact made from the hides of colobus monkeys. [...]

Wow, I actually got a little teary watching the live footage of Space Shuttle Discovery touching down at Edwards Air Force Base in California. It’s a great relief to the see the Shuttle down and safe. Congratulations to the crew and to NASA. This mission has been a nail biting time for spectators, and I [...]

Good luck to the crew of the shuttle Discovery when they begin re-entry later this morning. Fingers crossed that they make it back to Earth safe and well.

The Shuttle is about 25 years old now. Surely it’s about time NASA retired them and went back to the drawing board?

From a Macworld article: First family of Windows Vista viruses unleashed

An Austrian hacker earned the dubious distinction of writing what are thought to be the first known viruses for Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Vista operating system. Written in July, the viruses take advantage of a new command shell, code-named Monad, that is included in [...]

The British attitude to America’s less than positive reaction to the London bombings is delivered very nicely by Armando Iannucci in today’s Telegraph.

Via Tim Worstall.

A big thank you to the US military for effectively telling every American not to visit London. As Londoners defiantly use public transport hours after the bombings, America demonstrates the same spirit that had them staying home in droves in the months immediately after 9/11. I’m sure the American citizens that live and work in [...]

On Thursday last week, as the full horror of the London terrorist bombings was starting to unfold on the news, I had the following brief IM exchange with a young lad I’ve been chatting to regularly for months now (I’ve changed his name, in case he has the good grace to be embarrassed by his [...]

I’d just like to extend my thanks to the French internet user (I didn’t have the wherewithal to ask his name) who contacted me out of the blue yesterday to offer his sympathies and condolences. Even though I am a long way from London, and untouched by the immediate effects of the terrorist outrages, I [...]

Fair play to the people of London. Watching the news this morning, the overwhelming reaction from people travelling to work seems to be “screw the terrorists, life goes on as normal”. People are shocked and angry, but not scared, and certainly not willing to let these lunatics win. The London News Review carries an open [...]

On 8 April, Polly Toynbee wrote an article in The Guardian condemning the unconditional genuflecting and mourning that followed the death of Pope John Paul II. She highlighted many of the atrocities that result from the actions and teaching of the Catholic Church, but which were conveniently set aside while the grieving, the unctuous and [...]