British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stands in a British tank during a visit to British forces in Fallingbostel, some 120km (70 miles) south of Hamburg, Germany. on Sept. 17, 1986. Thatchers former spokesman, Tim Bell, said that the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had died Monday morning, April 8, 2013, of a stroke. She was 87. (AP Photo/Jockel Fink)
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The British leader, in her natural element.
Hey readers in Britain and Ireland: If you bought your burgers from Tesco, there’s a chance they might include horse meat. Holy cow. (photo by Simon Dawson/Bloomberg)
I would expect it will be significant, which means thousands, not hundreds, but I would not expect it to be the majority.British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond • Discussing the planned troop withdrawals out of Afghanistan next year. Roughly 500 troops will get removed by the end of 2012, leaving about 9,000 still in the country — so based on Hammond’s statement, as many as 4,500 troops will get withdrawn in 2013.
An elderly couple have unwittingly grown the “biggest cannabis plant” police officers had seen after buying what they thought was a shrub from a car boot sale.
The couple, who live in Bedford, had planted the drug in their garden.
Police officers were astounded when they spotted the plant. They have collected it and a spokesperson said it would be disposed of.
The couple will face no action from the police.
Something tells us that you aren’t going to find a police department here in the U.S. that’s willing to be this forgiving, or with such a great sense of humor about the whole thing.
We are using all our strength to get rid of him, either by killing or kidnapping. We have informed our commanders in Helmand to do whatever they can to eliminate him.Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid • On the manpower and resources the Taliban plan to divert towards accomplishing their new top priority: killing Britain’s Prince Harry. Only two weeks removed from his naked escapades in a Las Vegas hotel, the 27-year-old British royal is now flying helicopters in Afghanistan. For what it’s worth, the head of NATO forces in the region isn’t particularly worried about young Harry’s health. ”We do everything we can to protect all our troops deployed to Afghanistan ,” said Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, adding, “Whatever might be their personal background.”
It’s not that Romney struck out against a major league pitcher. I mean, here, he struck out playing t-ball. This should have been easy and it wasn’t for him apparently.Obama campaign aide Colin Kahl • Pulling out the dagger against Mitt Romney, who spent a week overseas, stretching out his foreign policy legs in other countries. Problem — he kept making headlines for doing stupid things. First, he criticized Britain for being unable to handle the Olympics. Then he made a negative comment about Palestinian culture. Finally, he bashed Obama for scrapping a missile defense system — a criticism which the Slovakian foreign minister didn’t like. So yeah, kinda rough — though he did score points with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, for what it’s worth.
There’s literally no reason I can think of why it has to be heard in America … at no point was the site ever in America. I think they’re trying to use my website as a sort of guinea pig to try to scare everyone else making linking websites.British student Richard O’Dwyer • Discussing the potential extradition order he’s facing from the United States. He’s being targeted for running a Web site that merely linked to other Web sites where you could watch TV shows and movies online. (His site hosted none of the shows in question.) He’s not from the U.S., but customs officials are trying to extradite him to make an example out of him, after pressure from the entertainment industry. Sound a little like SOPA? Effectively, what’s happening to O’Dwyer is an example of the kind of thing SOPA was meant to enforce. Mind you, it’s not like search engines don’t link to these sites already. (A full timeline of the case is over here.)
Is unity behind the statues? The new theory for this mysterious circle of statues claims that the rocks represent bringing the cultures of the area together. “Stonehenge itself was a massive undertaking, requiring the labor of thousands to move stones from as far away as west Wales, shaping them and erecting them. Just the work itself, requiring everything literally to pull together, would have been an act of unification,” said Mike Parker Pearson, study leader from the University of Sheffield. We may never know the true reason this monument was built — calendar or burial site are the two leading theories — but Pearson now suggests a bleeding-through of cultures. source
I’m moving back to New York in a few days. Unlike past...
OMG. I got so...
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
I am so rooting for you tomorrow not just as a personal friend but because professionally we’re definitely in this together. Speech of your life? Yes, he Cam!Former News International exec Rebekah Brooks • In a text message to current British Prime Minister David Cameron, on the brink of a speech Cameron was about to make at a Conservative Party conference. News International had to hand over the text messages between the two as part of the Leveson Inquiry that grew out of the company’s phone-hacking scandal. It’s been a fun one so far, with such luminaries as Tony Blair (who also had a tight relationship with Brooks) and Rupert Murdoch being forced to testify. Today was Cameron’s turn.
The British are celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee today, the anniversary of her 60th year as the nation’s monarch. The festivities are planned to span four days, and as you can see above involve a fair measure of grandiose presentation — we’re especially amused at the horse-mounted brass band whose instruments became mere props, due to fears of rousing the royal family in the early morning. Queen Elizabeth is 86 years old.
(Source: Washington Post)
» The NATO action, according to British PM David Cameron, was “extraordinarily difficult” to decide to go through with. He nonetheless approved the plans after increased concern as to the hostages’ safety, among them 28-year-old Brit Helen Johntson. The kidnapped four (two of whom were Afghans) who were held in Gulati, a town in Afghanistan’s northern region near the Tajikstan border. It’s reported that numerous Taliban members were slain in the operation, but the NATO forces escaped unscathed. “We will never be able to publish their names,” Cameron said, “but the whole country should know we have an extraordinary group of people who work for us who do amazingly brave things.”
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Hey hey, what’s shakin’ Tony? We heard you had to speak in front of the Levenson Inquiry today regarding your cozy relationship with the media, particularly between yourself and Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch’s already spilled the beans about a few things in his conversation with Lord Justice Leveson, but hearing from a former prime minister certainly makes for a fun time, right guys? Here are a few of our favorite highlights from the four-hour questioning session:
» Blair also called Rebekah Brooks … with condolences: When Brooks, who is facing criminal charges in the phone-hacking scandal that led to the current inquiry, resigned from News Corp., Blair was one of the first to call. ”I’m somebody who doesn’t believe in being a fair-weather friend and certainly I said I was very sorry for what happened to her,” he explained. Because, hey, they were pals, too! (photo via the World Economic Forum)
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