Part one in an occasional series.
It means nothing to me.
I blame Vuijlsteke for this one.
I can’t blame anybody but myself for liking that last one, both in the original as in the Gary Jules cover below.
video
The referee is checking the doors
We may not understand cricket, half our national team may just be amateurs but the Netherlands just thrashed England in the opening game of the World Twenty20:
This wasn’t to be the case as Tom de Grooth steered the Dutch to victory with a game winning 49. Early in his inning de Grooth even managed to hit a marvelous reverse sweep off the bowling of Adil Rashid for 4 into the Tavern Stand much to the delight of the large number of Dutch fans around the ground.
With ten overs gone the prospect of a stunning Dutch victory started to gain momentum. Peter Borren was playing a key roll in the middle order for the Dutch taking quick singles to ensure de Grooth took more of the strike.
De Grooth finally fell in the 13th over but the damage was already done.
No idea what this all means but it was certainly exciting watching it on the BBC replay.
Pirates and emperors
I first saw this sometime in 2002 or 2003 or so, during the runup to the War on Iraq. These days it’s strangely relevant again.
War on Iraq: not quite over yet
The activities of al-Qaeda in two of Iraq’s most troubled cities could keep US combat troops engaged beyond the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, the top US commander in the country has warned.
US troop numbers in Mosul and Baqubah, in the north of the country, could rise rather than fall over the next year if necessary, General Ray Odierno told The Times in his first interview with a British newspaper since taking over from General David Petraeus in September.
He said that a joint assessment would be conducted with the Iraqi authorities in the coming weeks before a decision is made.
Combat troops are due to leave all Iraqi cities by the end of June. Any delay would be a potential setback for President Obama, who has pledged to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq by August 2010 as he switches his focus to Afghanistan.
Imagine our surprise. Via Eli.
RedTube: BMW and Visteon
Compare and contrast the difference between the mass firings of agency workers at the BMW mini plant this February: workers angry and upset, but cannot do anything with their anger while their union abandons them in favour of staff workers.
With what happened when the workers at various Visteon plants in the UK and Ireland got told they were all sacked: quite spontaneously the factories were occupied in an attempt to force the owners to at least give all sacked workers the compensation they had a right to.
In one case, justified but ineffective anger, in the other equally justified anger and well directed action. What’s the difference? Better union reps? A more militant climate in general? some proper lefties on staff that took the lead here? Seeing examples from abroad that inspired the Visteon workers?
It is important to get answers to these questions, as this sort of direct action is the first line of defence of us workers against the crisis. in the BMW sackings the union knew since before Christmas that these people -socalled temp staff that in many cases had been working there for years– was going to be sacked, but did nothing to defend them, but deemed these sackings a necessary sacrifise to safeguard the jobs of staff workers. This will happen again, as the current unions are ill prepared to handle the crisis, have evolved to be part of the system and think in terms of compromise rather than resistance. As just one example we have the shameful spectacle in the Netherlands of unions agreeing to fifteen percent pay cuts to avoid firings at the post office despite massive profits, without even bothering to fight these cutbacks. You cannot trust the unions to defend your rights, so we need to get back to the roots of worker solidarity and do it ourselves, as the Visteon workers seemed to have realised.