I just found pdfbit, a .pdf search engine. Rather terrific.
And now Spain turns to the Left
The mould has been broken in Spain. Yesterday, in Spain’s general election, yesterday, the two Parties that have dominated Spain’s post fascist democracy both lost seats and votes. The new parliament has no natural majority. The PSOE, in particular, has some interesting challenges in front of it and the next few weeks and months may act as a signpost for the politics of Europe. …
On an informed citizenry
I was invited to attend Tom Watson’s speech building on much of his campaigning work and presented in the New Statesman as reclaiming civil liberty for the Left, although sub titled by him as “David Cameron is governing from the shadows”. In this article I review the speech; I try to report on it and to comment by adding some personal views and insights, in some cases new ideas provoked by Tom’s speech. It was quite a long speech and it takes a diverse route to get to its polemical heart which is that Democracy is the choice by an informed citizenry of a government, subject to the rule of law and that the Freedom of Information Act is one of the pillars of this contract and should not be diminished or repealed. …
Five vowels
They have renamed Warwick Avenue Tube station, and added the phrase “for Little Venice”, thus making it only the second TFL station to have all five vowels. …
Working with others
In this blog, Hopi Sen, allegedly a Labour Party member argues to fight Corbyn and the party until the day of the election and to resign from it for the election so as not to breach the rule prohibiting campaigning against it. This could only be suggested by one of the majority of LP members who only read the rules they want, or more accurately only quote the rules they like. …
Snail mail latency
Just signed in to see where my book on the Spanish Civil War is an they say not ’till the 8th January; just under a month and it was despatched in days. Another reason to renationalise the Royal Mail, I say! …
Bears
The Stock Exchange lost 135 points today, what caused that? …
Why FLOSS?
Consequences and accountability
There’s no such things as unintended consequences, just poor planning. Last Wednesday the House of Commons voted to authorise RAF bombing of Syria. In the following hours, RAF jets attacked civilian oil installations in Syria. This was reported as using high level free fall bombs. Were there reports of civilian casualties? The government announce an increase in security for the Queen. The government of Syria announces that the RAF attacks are illegal acts of war. Seventy two hours after the vote, Londoners were attacked on the tube, albeit in only one incident with a knife. At the time of writing, there has been no fatal casualties from the London incident. …
Chasing
Does “Bridge of Spies” have a car chase with Trabants? …