clawsfour

How many judges does it take to...

Lord Bingham has retired. Never retiring he has taken the opportunity to say the advice given that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was lawful was, in fact, wrong.

So, that's Lord Goldsmith 1 v 1 Lord Bingham.

The Guardian, like the child who is losing at conkers, now wants it to be best out of three with a public inquiry. Or best of five, no seven, until they get their nose in front.

There is never any suggestion that an inquiry should be held to identify how decisions to go to war could be taken in such a way that they would command universal support - facile and pointless though that would be. No, the Guardianistas merely want to be able to say that their coffee cup conclusions about the right and wrongs of this war (why not the Balkans, Kosovo, Rwanda) were so, so correct.

There probably should be an inquiry in to all conflicts (although we won't have any spare judges to try criminal cases which would be a bit of a blow) and no doubt there will be here. But let the terms of reference be of benefit to all the people of the UK and to those who will have to take dreadful (in the true sense) decisions on our behalf in future.

Face-off in the States

As the polls in the States close again, the Republicans have unleashed a (they thought) powerful attack site against Barack Obama.

Modeled on Facebook, BarackBook shows a whole range of 'friends' of the Democrat candidate and seeks to damn him by association. The site itself is a pretty poor parody of Facebook, and as an amteur production makes the Republican use of the net seem, well, amateur. Even worse for McCain, the offical facebook application which points to BarackBook has been over-run by Democrats.

BarackBook is, however, a one-stop shop for the major Republican attack videos. Once people have got over  wetting themselves with laughter at the ineptitude of the McCain geeks, those pages may gain some traction. Although this attack site isn't landing punhes yet, it's still in the ring.