His present “resident scholar” status at the American Enterprise Institute should also give pause for thought.  It is, after all, the AEI that has been so pivotal in forming American neocon foreign policy.

For those interested, Wikipedia reveals a great many more facts about this unsavoury but influential individual.

And yet.

His article in the current issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review is a plausible comment on the current state of the Chinese regime.  The fact that this issue of the FEER has been banned in China should give you a clue that it’s got right up the authorities’ noses.

Ledeen makes a good case that present-day China should be viewed, and dealt with, as a “mature fascist state”.  He writes:

Imagine Italy 50 years after the fascist revolution. Mussolini would be dead and buried, the corporate state would be largely intact, the party would be firmly in control, and Italy would be governed by professional politicians, part of a corrupt elite, rather than the true believers who had marched on Rome. It would no longer be a system based on charisma, but would instead rest almost entirely on political repression, the leaders would be businesslike and cynical, not idealistic, and they would constantly invoke formulaic appeals to the grandeur of the “great Italian people,” “endlessly summoned to emulate the greatness of its ancestors.”

This is an interesting analogy.  He then goes on to draw some devastating strategic conclusions that I’ll analyze in the next post.

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing calls to drop out.”

It’s clear that the subject of her remarks is the date at which nominations have been decided in the past – specifically, June.  She is not saying, “I’ll stay in this race on the off-chance that the other candidate might be assassinated”. However, that’s what many people are understanding her to say (for example, Keith Olberman).

Hilary is guilty, however, of a cardinal political sin – speaking incautiously, and not thinking ahead. Maybe she was tired – maybe she was just tired of speaking obliquely. Whatever the reason, something of a turning point now seems to have been reached.

Just one of the many ways in which McDonalds are prettifying our inner city streets. Thank you, Ronald!

“A massive government database holding details of every phone call made and letter sent by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism. The Post office would open and copy every letter before delivery, and would hand over their records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials.”

The Times, yesterday

I’ve slightly changed the above extract - the original Times report refers to phone calls and e-mails, - not letters.  My reason?  I wanted to see whether substituting “letters” for “e-mails” would make these colossally outrageous plans any more shocking.  We have, after all, been groomed for years to consider the Internet a playground for terrorists, and in dire need of regulation.  I, for one, will be encrypting all my e-mails from on on.  It may not be fully adequate protection - but it’s a gesture.

In related news, Tory leader David Cameron intends to be the new Margaret Thatcher.  “With a growing lead in the polls”, says the Daily Mirror, “Mr Cameron is believed to be increasingly confident of setting out a right-wing agenda.”

More right wing than the present lot? 

God save us all.

That is the whole point of prostitution, Ms. Springer, and I’m rather surprised no-one has pointed that out to you before.

photo credit: dewet

Google has become an indifferent search engine, largely unimproved in its core functionality since its inception. Anyone used to “proper” database searching is frustrated by its shallow command set – nor do casual users have the benefit of true “natural language” searching. It’s also my own impression that an increasing number of junk results are being generated these days.

This may be a minority view currently, but I’ll bet in 18 months time, Google will have fallen from favour.

At precisely the time that Google needs to take its core product to the next stage, it is making hungry eyes towards Wikipedia.

Google’s“ knol project” is a cynical move aimed fairly and squarely at knocking Wikpedia out of its usual top-ranking search spot. There may be good marketing reasons for this – why should Google surrender control of its users by linking them away to a third party website, when it could retain control of them with its own version of Wikipedia? Think of all that juicy advertising revenue!

This is not just profoundly against the spirit of the internet, it’s also a dumb business move. Mark my words, if Google doesn’t pull its search engine socks up – someone else will oblige them.