Ironicaly the javelin is an anti-tank weapon

War on Terror
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The British Army is going to put anti-aircraft missiles on the top of towerflats in London, to protect the Olympics:

Leaving aside the lack of consultation about this and the failure to ask the residents, we get to the question of what good these missiles could actually do. Presumably these missiles are to guard against aircraft piloted or hijacked by terrorists which might be flown into Olympic venues 9/11 style. In the event that such an aircraft was identified, unless it was shot down over open ground the wreckage will fall directly onto London streets and buildings. These hardly look like long range missiles; they look like the target must be in visual range. (Correct me if I am wrong here.) We knew from previous announcements that there would be missiles on board ships in the Thames, but I certainly didn’t realise that there would be more dotted around London. I expected the missiles that had been mentioned to be of the sort that could be fired at a plane a bit further away where plummeting debris might not have such an awful effect. Use of these missiles to bring down a hijacked jet would simply move the devastation from the intended target to somewhere else in London.

And yet despite this there are still people who’d think it a good idea to get the Olympic Games to the Netherlands.

QotD: the existential dillemma of the modern tory

Tories, Wingnuts
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Carloshasanaxe neatly lays bare the existential dillemma of the modern tory: unhappy but unwilling to change:

A lot of people with addictive behaviors will admit they have a problem. They’ll talk your ear off of about it, and then ask you for a twenty. It’s a step, but it’s not a big step.

Since the modern world is not going to change to accommodate refugee50s — nor should it, since it would mean a radical diminishment of millions of peoples’ lives, and for what? just so he can feel like a real man? — he has to change himself to accommodate to the world. But his resentment forms so much of his self-identity, he has based his entire worldview around it.

It’s not a real change. He doesn’t have the empathy for it; he probably thinks empathy is a dirty word, since that’s become a partisan shibboleth.

Can he learn? Can he change? Can he grow? I would truly like to think so. But as it is, he’s pretty low. And so he’ll probably die unhappy, but blame everyone else first in the process.

The bullet next time

Policing, Race, US politics
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Ajani Husbands sends a letter to his unborn, Black son:

You will not survive your encounter, so it is important to remember to show investigators, the courts, and critics alike that you were in fact the victim. This will be difficult as the assumption is ever-present that somehow, in some way, you did something wrong. That perhaps there was something different you could have, should have done. Perhaps you should have worn something different or walked in a less suspicious manner. I assure you, my son, this is not the case. Regardless of your actions, you were not meant to survive. All you can hope for is an easier postmortem investigation. This will be of some comfort to your mother and I as we cope through your loss, and so I ask you to follow these directions carefully.

See also how to talk to young Black boys about Trayvon Martin and Etan Thomas talking about how and what he will need to tell his six year old son soon.

Uncreative destruction

Cameron, Economy, UK politics
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But it’s something else living in a working neighbourhood, which in normal times flails along with its collective head just above the water, being gradually and through the systematic application of government policy suffering a kind of collective punishment; and the organic commerce which had evolved to serve it beginning to go down with it. The top end of Cheetham Hill Road was always low-margin. Shops would come and go, but there always seemed to be somebody else ready to have a try. These days it’s looking more than a bit gap toothed. It’s an odd feeling watching economic repression imposed around you; like living in the middle of a crime in progress.

Jamie on the consequences in his own neighbourhood of the ConDems’ economic policies.

How the Irish get burned on debt repayal

Crisis? What Crisis?, Life under Capitalism
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But I pointed out to him that the money the Irish people were repaying by accepting decreases in government spending and increases in taxes was simply going to the central bank and from there it was being destroyed. I explained that what had happened was that the central bank had created a load of new money and thrown it into the crumbling Irish banking sector. Now the Irish people were paying back this newly created money so that it could be destroyed by the central bank.