There is a very good reason for this. If it was announced that George Bush/Tony Blair/A.N. Other War Criminal was visiting Baghdad/Kabuk/A.N. Other Bombed-out Shithole, every yahoo with a shoulder mounted anti-air missile would be gathered around Baghdad/Kabuk/A.N. Other Bombed-out Shithole airport in order to try and bag themselves a prize amongst prizes as said bastard’s plane (or any other plane for that matter, just to be sure) came corkscrewing in to land.

Or maybe the same yahoos would make every effort to get a suicide bomber or sniper within striking distance of George Bush/Tony Blair/A.N. Other War Criminal.

That being the case, why are the media saying that Barack Obama will ‘probably’ be visiting Iraq and Afghanistan during his tour of Europe and the Middle East?

Update: As if by magic, A.N. Other War Criminal turns up unexpectedly in Baghdad on a ’surprise visit’. Why weren’t we told he was ‘probably’ going?

I am pleased to inform the House that the Ministry of Defence has concluded a teaming agreement with the industrial grouping known as Team CW to take forward, to the next stage, the Government’s intentions for the UK complex weapons sector

In other words, the armed forces are going to be getting a new consignment of hot death. The Indirect Fire Precision Attack Loitering Munition is my favourite:

The Loitering Munition is so called because it gets fired off into the sky and then lurks about for up to ten hours. At any time, it can be ordered to suddenly plunge down onto a target and explode. If no target crops up, it will self-destruct before running out of fuel.

I can’t wait to see the failure rates on these babies. That said, footage of parents dragging their dead kids out of wrongly bombed houses has never had that much effect on arms manufacturers shareprices (or consciences).

(Link via Matt Wardman)

In the film, both comes to sticky ends. These days however, thanks to proposals made by the Serious Fraud Office this week, white collar criminals can look forward to an easier life than their gun-toting compadres:

The director of the Serious Fraud Office plans to spend less money prosecuting and investigating in order to pursue alternative “harm reduction” initiatives, including educating on fraud prevention, alerting potential victims and civil court actions to disrupt potential criminality.

As the SFO proved a few months back, when it binned Saudi arms investigation, they don’t mind you selling guns as long as you’re not using them.

But why not extend this thinking to violent robbery as well? ‘Harm reduction’ initiatives like stab and bullet-proof vests for all. Educating on stab prevention and alerting potential victims. Put the onus on them to protect themselves rather than getting the stabby and shooty crew to pack it in. You’d certainly save money if that’s your priority in a criminal justice system.

Still, its easier to sell feckless single mothers and disaffected youth to the media and public. Fraud and its besuited perpetrators just don’t fire the popular public imagination in the same way. Why bother dragging them through the courts?

A couple of years ago the US Congress established an expert commission to develop a language or symbolism capable of warning against the threats posed by American nuclear waste dumps 10,000 years from now. The problem to be solved was: how must concepts and symbols be designed in order to convey a message to future generations, millennia from now? The commission included physicists, anthropologists, linguists, neuroscientists, psychologists, molecular biologists, classical scholars, artists, and so on.

The experts looked for models among the oldest symbols of humanity. They studied the construction of Stonehenge and the pyramids and examined the historical reception of Homer and the Bible. But these reached back at most a couple of thousand years, not 10,000. The anthropologists recommended the symbol of the skull and crossbones. However, a historian reminded the commission that the skull and crossbones symbolised resurrection for the alchemists, and a psychologist conducted an experiment with three-year-olds: if the symbol was affixed to a bottle they anxiously shouted “poison!”, but if it was placed on a wall they enthusiastically yelled “pirates!”

There you have it. Nuclear waste will be one of humanity’s longest lasting cultural artifacts. Let’s hope that’s not lost on future archaeologists when they’re killed by horrible tumours after misreading the ancient runes. It’s going to be a disaster. We can barely communicate with each other let alone a civilization 10,000 years away.

Imagine being given hours with the Prime Minister and only coming up with this. I’d never write a public word again. I imagine the only reason the editor didn’t spike it was because there was no way of sending the ‘political editor of GMTV’ back to do it properly.

He talks about his holiday plans and asks about my work and my parents, but has the politician’s knack of ignoring awkward questions. “You really need to hold on to Glasgow, don’t you?” I ask at one point; he appears not to hear - maybe he doesn’t - and continues to flick through his notes.

THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU REPEAT THE SODDING QUESTION, TORQUEMADA?

Who knew GMTV had a political editor. Or needed one. It’s an oxymoron, isn’t it? Like a Bolivian Vice Admiral. That’s probably why she was allowed into Gordon’s presence rather than somebody who would have asked unanswered questions twice and maybe refrained from asking him what he bought his wife for her birthday. Maybe the Prime Minister thought he was being interviewed for Take a Break rather than the New Statesman.

Shocking. Just shocking.

So it’s completely consistent with that ethos that he’s spending 40 chuffing grand turning all the logos on the Greater London Assembly’s website blue.

I’d suggest that he get out there and get a second quote. When I’m avoiding work I like to rebrand Chicken Yoghurt. It takes a couple of hours if I’m really spinning it out.

I worry that Boris went to the meeting with his web designers and said ‘look here chaps, I know nothing about computers, so I’ll leave it to you, ok?’. The webmonkeys would have left the meeting high-fiving and making kerching! noises. There hasn’t been a quote for a job of work in human history that hasn’t been garnished in the face of a client who’s been far too honest as to their ignorance.

Now, I appreciate that the GLA website is a little larger than mine but the trick with templates and centrally-held graphics is that you make one change and it cascades through the rest of the website. Easy.

Forty grand? Boris, I’ll do it for five.

A laudable pipe dream but at the current speed of movement on climate change, he might as well have said he wants all family cars to fly.

Jockeying for the Labour leadership election has already started among Gordon Brown’s Cabinet ministers while the Prime Minister is in Japan for the G8 summit. One Cabinet minister has told friends: “I’ve even put out feelers to the Campaign Group [the left-wingers led by John McDonnell]. You never know who you might need.”

So what you’ve got here is an anonymous journalist telling us that an anonymous cabinet minister is talking to anonymous ‘friends’. (Those damned ‘friends’ again.) That’s some going. I’m wondering how you top it.

No doubt state-funded gossip Nick Robinson, right now, is trying to shoehorn into tonight’s report a minister telling his friends that sources have revealed that they believe allies of the Prime Minister are saying this evening that those close to Gordon Brown can say categorically ministers are weaselly little shits indulging in mutual dry humping with political journalists. Or similar.

There are so many people in this Chinese Whispered-chain, I wouldn’t even bank on that quote being accurate. That game being what it is, I wouldn’t be surprised if that minister actually said, ‘Five evil shits put beetles in the plantain soup. You never go poo-poo at light speed.’

Didn’t most of us put this cloak and dagger bullshit behind us when we left puberty? Why am I reminded of a gaggle of sniggering schoolgirls passing ‘SUM1 FANCIES U LOL!’ notes in class?

Until now - he’s back. Hello again, Owen.

(via his Dad.)