No It's Not

A 'smurf attack' not especially nasty, that is.  It is, however, old news. 

The attack consists of a flood of ICMP echo reply packets generated by exploiting the "broadcast address" feature of the Internet Protocol.  It is defended against by dropping packets aimed for such addresses outside of local networks (i.e. at routers).  See here, as well as the CERT-CC advisory.

The 'fraggle attack' is a similar concept but using the UDP protocol rather than ICMP (after many people just started blocking ICMP at the firewall.)

Smurfs, on the other hand, are truly hideous.

Regionalised Aid

Martin Jacques (h/t Mr E), writing on "Cretinous & Feeble", has produced considerable dissent with his "Hands Off Independent Myanmar, You Evil Imperialist Swine" diatribe. Not surprisingly, given his communist politics and work profile, he hasn't exactly made many friends.

More surprisingly, once you dig under the "I hate the West, the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, and all it stands for¹" nonsense, there are actually some limited but valid points there.

I believe that aid should, where possible, be provided from within the local region. Immediately neighbouring countries may not be entirely practical - regional enmities may make a wider focus more appealing but, as Martin states, there is ASEAN². There are clear advantages with local culture, local food (remember American maize flour, from yellow maize, being rejected in Africa because it was so different from the local white maize - never mind US rejection of British emergency rations in the aftermath of Katrina, due to BSE concerns³ and, to localise it - the inappropriateness of possibly meat-based European rations in a largely Buddhist community) or merely not being white (let's be honest, the colonial record, whether we are British, Spanish, French, American or, especially, Belgian, is quite reasonably held against us in many parts of the world.)

He, among others, also has a point regarding the "invade and distribute" idiots. Burma is a military dictatorship - their Army may not be doing much on the disaster relief front but they seem to be doing a reasonable job at catching journalists and, I'm sure, could make any invasion quite a difficult proposition. And, given the success we are having at 'Military Aid to the Civil Power' in Iraq and Afghanistan (as opposed to simple military success against conventional or near-conventional opposition), recent history suggests that we would make such a great job of it.

Except, there is one important factor, for local aid to work, the local organisations or countries need to be able to provide it. Often, although it wasn't too bad in the specific case of Burma and Cyclone Nargis, they have suffered from the same disaster as the poster-child country. Very often, they also are poor and need the food, equipment and skilled people for their own projects and issues. And when they can deploy, they don't come up to standard. African (OAS) troops for African conflicts hasn't worked well. Third World troops on UN deployments have done the remarkable and worsened the reputation of the light blue beret / helmet.

The ICRC was founded in Geneva, Oxfam in Oxford, Médecins Sans Frontières in France. Aid, at the moment, means either the UN or the West. And the UN has all the problems of any large bureaucracy. The people of Burma need aid. The West should and should be both allowed and encouraged to provide it. And if that offends a Burmese General or two? Fuck them with a schiltron full of 15 foot pikes (either the not-quite-a-spear or the fish, I don't care!)


1. Except Marx and Stalin, of course, and, even then Mao and 'Brother No 1' did it better.

2. Go on, why .org? This sort of organisation is exactly what the .int domain is for. And it's even free!

3. Not fit for starving Yanks, therefore foisted on to the developing world - the mind-boggling (lack of) ethics of aid!

Preaching from Ignorance

Johann Hari, from Monday's 'Independent':

More amazingly still, Britain's weapons do not have a secret launch code. They can be fired or detonated by the commander in charge of them simply by opening them up manually and turning some switches and buttons. Every other nuclear power has an authorisation code known only to the country's leader, which has to be read out to the soldiers in charge of the weapon before it can be used. Not us. Whenever the British government has tried to introduce this basic safety procedure, the Navy has got huffy and refused to participate, saying it is "tantamount" to claiming their officers are not "true gentlemen".

Now, I have to be careful here because, unlike Johann, I actually know what I am talking about, so all this is open source material:

• Johann is not talking about a "secret launch code" - of course these exist (and change, regularly), he is talking about 'Permissive Action Links' - PALs - in American parlance. These don't stop the weapons being launched or dropped - they are part of the warhead interlocks and stop them going bang. And, it must be admitted, some countries have them fitted on their warheads and the UK doesn't.
• "Every other nuclear power" - just utter bollocks. Israel, India and Pakistan? I doubt it. I don't think the French have them either.
  
• "known only to the country's leader" - Nope. The Soviets had them known to the Political Officers (Zampolit) - not just to the President. In the USA, although the President is the "National Command Authority" when alive, the "National Airborne Operations Centre" (formerly known as the "National Airborne Emergency Command Post" - less formally as 'Kneecap' and before that as 'Looking Glass') is available to take over in the event of mass untimely death^* of politicians by means various. They have the codes available.
• Part of the role of the submarine deterrent force, regardless of which country it belongs to is 'retaliatory strike'. This means that if you attack us with Weapons of Mass Destruction, we will rain buckets of instant sunshine down on you, even if you have killed all of the political leadership. As Jonty Powis (more famous for his part in the rescue of the crew of a Russian mini-sub) pithily but inaccurately put it (I believe on television), we listen to the Today programme and, if we don't hear it, we get worried. Without the expense of NAOC and Airforce One (remember the 'Blairforce 1' farce - and the 'Queen's Flight' is not appropriately equipped), you cannot use PALs in that context.
• Gentlemen? I believe (and was certainly indoctrinated) that Naval Officers are not considered to be gentlemen anyway. Something to do with Queen Victoria and us hanging a load of mutineers after promising them we wouldn't. Hence the carried swords (as opposed to the Royal Marines and the Army who have them on hangers or on a Sam Browne) etc, etc.
• And the killer: "They can be fired or detonated by the commander in charge of them simply by opening them up manually and turning some switches and buttons." Utter, utter crap. While not actually requiring everybody on the submarine to take an active part, missile launch requires many people to co-operate, has numerous interlocks and specifically requires keys held under '2-man control'. And that is just the rockets. The warheads themselves have additional safety features.

Hari, you are an utter fucking cretin.


* Is this actually possible? Or, walking away from the nuclear option, would 'timely' for our political classes be 'three score years and ten' (i.e. McCain is well up for it), as opposed to piano-wire garrottes, candiru fish and sharpened cockroaches at the hands of a riotous mob of libertarian bloggers? Just musing.

And the bloody Torygraph

Who is Mary Riddell? What is a fan of the great clunking fist doing writing in Telegraph Comment? I mean:

When did decency become the mark of Cain on an honest politican?

is a reasonable enough question. But asked of our inglorious Prime Minister, the Great Ditherer himself? Hero of the War on the Low Paid?  Decent and honest? Damn fool of a cretinous and credulous hack. Get back to ghost writing for Terry, I say.

Ed notes: She's actually a columnist for those well known conservative and (classically) liberal journals, the Observer and the New Statesman.  And a professional quango-crat leach:

Outside journalism, she sits on a number of commissions and advisory boards for organisations advancing justice and liberty, including Smart Justice and Rethinking Crime and Punishment. She is also a patron of the Children’s Rights Alliance for England.

Get thee hence, foul witch!

A note for "London Lite"

Folks,

Your front page headline, yesterday, is crap: no matter how well trained, a drunk with a shotgun is not a "sniper".

Sniper implies long range (not achievable with a shotgun) and accurate (although a small amount of an appropriate sedative may improve accuracy, alcohol is unlikely to be the cheat's choice - the blurring of your distance vision really does your grouping no good at all.)

Security Shitstorm

While I am perfectly happy that it appears unlikely that Poole Council passed the necessary tests in S.28(3) of RIPA for the authorisation of directed surveillance (see al-Beeb, the Torygraph and the Gruniad):

(3) An authorisation is necessary on grounds falling within this subsection if it is necessary—

(a) in the interests of national security;

(b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder;

(c) in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom;

(d) in the interests of public safety;

(e) for the purpose of protecting public health;

(f) for the purpose of assessing or collecting any tax, duty, levy or other imposition, contribution or charge payable to a government department; or

(g) for any purpose (not falling within paragraphs (a) to (f)) which is specified for the purposes of this subsection by an order made by the Secretary of State.

unless the evil shits that run this country have made an Order defining school entrance as so enabling, I must object to the tenor of the BBC coverage this morning and the other journalistic nonsense.  RIPA is not just for terrorists (as the mother apparently alleges) and serious crime - it covers many, many things.  For example, there has been directed surveillance for years by the DWP and its predecessors checking that invalidity benefit (and its predecessors) claimants are not working on the side, running marathons, entering martial arts competitions, etc.

Note that this is not interception (S3, 4 & 5) or 'intrusive surveillance' in S32, which aside from the limited exceptions for interception (consent, the owner of a private system etc), the requirements for justifying both of which are more severe.

While I agree with Liberty that this may be disproportionate (I am not sure using your current address on a school application and then later moving a mile counts as criminal, whatever Tim Martin thinks) but the challenge has to be on that basis, not that 'it isn't terrorism'.

Phorm, for example, mendacious charlatans that they may be, are not 'terrorists', and we certainly want RIPA to apply to them.

Crisis? What crisis?

I thought Belgium seemed to be operating perfectly ably without their masters intervention but, according to the BBC, the crisis is over:

Yves Leterme has been appointed Belgium's new prime minister, ending nine months of political deadlock which threatened the unity of the country.

Ah, buried at the bottom of the nu-Beeb verbiage:

In December, thousands of trade unionists took to the streets in Brussels, complaining about the political stalemate and rising food and fuel prices.

The European Commission had warned that the political paralysis was beginning to affect Belgium's economy.

There we have it. If the trade unions say it is a crisis (and, of course, high oil and food prices are something a Belgian government is ideally situated to fix - and the country seems not to have descended into Chaos in the last three months) and the eurocrats agree, then it must be true.

Bollocks on the News, Part II

1. Dog shows. I frankly don't care whether "traditional Crufts breeders" think that dancing dogs are bringing the show into disrepute. I think that dog shows bring the country into disrepute.


2. From today's Indefensible, as part of an otherwise reasonable article suggesting that possibly deporting gay people to Iran might offend the British sense of fair play and justice and breach the bit in the Human Rights Act which says that the death penalty isn't quite right nowadays:

   Unlike gay websites, their email network cannot be shut down because it does not have a home page.

   
   
   Regardless of the near ubiquity of web-mail interfaces nowadays, let me contribute to the world-wide fascist state by introducing the Iranians to the DNS 'MX' query. Err, which tells you what the FQDNs (Fully Qualified Domain Name) or IP addresses of the email servers are for an internet domain or subdomain.

   Like, for example, independent.co.uk^*:
   

   Domain	Type	Class	TTL	Answer
   independent.co.uk.	MX	IN	3600	cluster5a.eu. messagelabs.com. [Preference = 20]
   independent.co.uk.	MX	IN	3600	cluster5.eu. messagelabs.com. [Preference = 10]



3. Also from the Independent, referring to new public sculpture:
   

   Anthony Gormley says "There is an awful lot of crap out there"

   
   
   Now, as much as I like the iconic "Angel of the North", I must agree with Andrew. "Firmament", on show at the White Cube gallery and available to your local council for the waste of a mere £850k, shows just how right he is. Except, that's his.

   For pompous art snobs 'naive' and 'representational' ≠ 'crap'. Particularly for Marjorie Trusted, neither does 'old-fashioned' equal bad.

* Here are some of the relevant IP addresses:

Domain	Type	Class	TTL	Answer
cluster5a.eu. messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	193.109.255.19
cluster5a.eu.messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	193.109.254.3
cluster5a.eu.messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	193.109.254.115
cluster5a.eu.messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	195.245.230.51
cluster5a.eu.messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	85.158.136.83
cluster5a.eu.messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	85.158.140.179

PS. Yes, I know that the tables display in a manner best described as "crap". If you can help as opposed to moan, please let me know. Update: I may have corrected bodged this.

No Sympathy for Alice Miles

Sorry and all that, but ...

In the Comment section of today's London Times, M(r)s Miles berates the Government, Ofstead and the local council for the mind-numbing bureaucracy involved in 'running' a local nursery school.  Now, whereas I certainly have some sympathy for normal people caught up in all this, alongside the trials and tribulations incumbent in just being the parent of a small child (Mrs S-E was chairwoman of the local primary school board until school boards were abolished up here in favour of "parents' councils"), I cannot bring myself to find one iota for a journalist.

Whenever there is an accident involving a kid, especially where there is a tragedy, the tabloids of the Murdoch stable have been in the forefront of a broad press stampede, bellowing in high point capitals, "Something MUST be Done".  Short of "The Matrix"-type capsules, or DK's "Toynbee Podding Hutch ^(TM)", you cannot stop small children choking, eating mud or worms, falling over (even off of flat balconies), wandering into the road, etc.  It cannot be done.  They are small, agile, fast and possessed of both the intellect that has allowed Hom Sap to achieve so much and the low cunning that does the same for squirrels.

So, Alice, I am afraid, you have brought it upon yourself.  The CRB checks for parents, the fees, the "Going Out For a Walk Policy" you so correctly, now, deride.  As "Columnist of the Year 2007"^*, you are a poster child for the professional commentariat.  It is you, not the admittedly Stalinist tendencies of local government of all political persuasions, that has brought this upon this once-great country. 

Either just shut the eff up about it and bear it like we all have to or, better (but you won't), start doing something about it.  Campaign to unwind the red tape - not just when it affects you, and not on the inside pages, but on Page 1 when the next set of parents are grieving for their beautiful child who has drowned in a stream / broken their neck / been abducted.  Throw your skinny latté into the face of your colleagues who are calling for mandatory 6-foot 1.8288 metre fences, child tracking implants or other obscenities.  Campaign for more freedom, not less.  And keep your noses and your cameras out of the family's grief.

Then complain.

* Exactly whose "Columnist of the Year 2007"?  Your bio doesn't say and, if the award had any real prestige, you would expect it to?  Google is remarkably silent too.  Pollyanna won the "British Press Awards" version, as ably reported here.  Ahh - eventually, the BBC "What the Papers Say" awards.  Well the BBC thinks they "are now a fixture in the British press calendar" and are "traditionally handed out by major politicians."  Lucky you!

Startling Investigative Journalism

From the front page of today's Guardian, Polly Curtis not La Toynbee:

Tuition fees favour the rich - new study

Children from poor familes say fear of debt deterred them from university.

I mean, it is not as if it is basic economics, is it? You make something more expensive and it means that it is more difficult for poor people to afford it? What next?

Ferrari and Aston Martin accused of discrimination against unemployed petrol heads. "I just can't afford a new Fiorano on my dole", says Sid, 23, from Harlow, "even if I can persuade them to give me Incapacity Benefit!"

Top Chefs reject feeding the poor! One arrogantly told your reporter, "If they can only afford £3 for a meal, there's a MacDonald's round the corner." We interviewed one diner, A*** R********r, a modest and unassuming man just leaving, who said "Yes, £10 for a bottle of mineral water to start with, what an extravagance, never mind the couple of bottles of 1990 Premiers grands crus classés with the entrees. Luckily, I'm on expenses."

Another Screeching Harridan

Not content with having Toynbee, Clinton, Smith, Harman, and Blears inflicted upon us, a large set of teeth has arisen from its media sinecure to spew forth bile:

Blogs are surely the musings of the socially inept, those people you sidle away from at parties after a couple of stabs at conversation. They are the product of the internet that has given a "voice" to millions of people who have nothing to say apart from the fact that their pet has just exited via the cat flap and the baby has soiled another nappy.

Without wishing to dwell on the inappropriateness of Janet Street-Porter criticising anybody, even for example Tracy Emin, for shameless self-promotion and not wishing to compare the blogosphere with a "viewspaper", I do realise that there are endless execrable blogs out there but there is gold among the dross.

She is also confusing the medium and the message. Much crap is written on paper, often by people paid to write it. Some is relevant, a little is good, a miniscule amount will still be being read or re-read in 100 years time. There are excellent blogs out there - you just look for them and come back to them, and ignore the others.

For your information and as I am certain you are interested - it is beneath our cats' dignities to use the cat flap. They insist on having the front door opened for them.


Footnote: A remarkable statement from one of the usually guilty, Paul Flynn MP:

When will politicians realise that not all of life’s irritations can be solved by legislation and prohibition?

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

Another Clarkson related post:

"I opened my bank statement this morning to find out that someone has set up a direct debit which automatically takes £500 from my account," he said.

"The bank cannot find out who did this because of the Data Protection Act and they cannot stop it from happening again.

"I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake."

No, no, no. Whoever has done this is committing an offence. There is nothing in the DPA which prevents the investigation of alleged offences. Some company's (I assume a telephone company here) DPA policies make it more difficult - they need to determine who you are and why you have a right to the information before they release it outwith their declared disclosure policy but it is not "cannot". Inform the police and they have the powers to obtain the data.

And he was correct in his initial point about the widespread knowledge of your basic account details - every cheque, direct debit or standing order contains the same sort of bank information that was on the HMRC CDs. Those, also contained your address and other details (of which we have yet to be informed?) as well. And I blogged about the ease of setting up direct debits some time ago.

Malice of Some Sort

I followed the link on Theo's post to the "Real Clarkson Manifesto" in the Sun. He makes some sense. But anyway ...

The web page tried an advertising pop-up (irritating but they need to make money) which contained 'Trojan-Downloader.SWF.Gida.a':

http://v0zemili0garan0n.com/statsg.php?u
=1199391035&campaign=z00latrymy

(if you really want to try it, don't. If you really, really want to try it, I've replaced some of the letters.)

And the domain? Reasonably newly registered, through Yesnic in Korea - a company I remember well from my days in the incident response trenches. No registrant details:

Domain Name: VOZEMILIOGARANON.COM
Registrar: YESNIC CO. LTD.
Whois Server: whois.yesnic.com
Referral URL: http://www.yesnic.com
Name Server: NS1.VOZEMILIOGARANON.COM
Name Server: NS2.VOZEMILIOGARANON.COM
Name Server: NS3.VOZEMILIOGARANON.COM
Name Server: NS4.VOZEMILIOGARANON.COM
Status: ok
Updated Date: 05-dec-2007
Creation Date: 23-nov-2007
Expiration Date: 23-nov-2008

This seems to be one of the usual small bits of malware (downloaders) that then go off and fetch tons of shit that really fucks your computer. Well done, Kaspersky.

A high status advertiser for Britain's most popular daily comic? Nil out of 10 to News Group Newspapers Ltd. Hope you've made sure the cheque cashes properly.

Hello Girly

This is just so much fun.

To boost sales, Sanrio has also recently launched a slightly raunchy range where Hello Kitty cheekily displays her knickers.

Errm. Hum. "Missing the Point"^(TM) (and ^dot.com)

We (blokes) don't give a shit about the cartoon kitten. Really. Honest. Swear it on our mothers'¹ graves and all. The whole ****ing point was always to get young² females to display their knickers. Normally, it has to be said, by throwing them artistically over their shoulders while yelling "Take me, big³ boy".

While researching this article, your scribe would like to admit being slightly surprised by the "Hello Kitty" vibe, moderately embarrassed by the "Hello Kitty" panty liners, but this (NSFW) was fine.

Update: This is even better. The "Hello Kitty assault rifle". I know I can't have one but ...


Update 2: Here is the home for all men (or women, though they are somewhat rarer) who cannot get their brains around the phenomena that is "Hello Kitty". Welcome to "Hello Kitty Hell".

1. Once we've killed 'em for the 'surance, 'course.

2. But legal. Honest!

3. Yeh, I know. "Fat chance". Thanks.

News at 10 and other cultures.

Oh, this surprised me (online here):

Three out of the five British residents imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay may be back in the UK before Christmas.

Like, err, 'Christmas' would matter to a devout Muslim of Salafist or Wahhabi ilk? Or maybe they have a booking on "Liverpool Nativity".

Update: edited for mong spelling of "Salafist".

BBC Inconsistent in Terror 'News'

Compare and contrast this:

On Tuesday, thousands of Spaniards paid their respects to the dead officer in Madrid under a banner which read "For freedom and the defeat of Eta".

With this "On this Day":

ETA carried out its last fatal attack in May 2003.

The group declared a permanent ceasefire on 22 March 2006.

Update your propaganda, please. If you have to have it up there at all, make it consistent.

Mark Ward talks (security) bollocks

RIPA Part III. You have been warned about it for some time. It is now in the mainstream news. However there are some small accuracy issues ... Well, we can't ask those loyal public servants at the BBC to get everything right:

If those receiving the letters do not comply with the request or a formal S49 notice they can be imprisoned for up to two years.

Err. No. Complete bollocks, in fact. The penalty for failing to comply with a formal S49 notice can be up to 5 years imprisonment if the case relates to nation security under s15 of the Terrorism Act 2006 (thanks, Richard), with 2 years and a fine, as the maximum for other cases.

However, that is just pedantry. Your egregious failing is not pointing out the maximum penalty for failing to comply with a request from the CPS (or anyone else, for that matter) for key disclosure (or just decrypting the data) is that you then get issued with a formal S49 notice. With the previously mentioned penalties. FFS it's not hard.

And, as the activists in question appear just to have had letters from the CPS as opposed to formal notices, the whole thrust of your article is wrong. And, as walking on a cycle path can be spun as terrorism, I'm sure that animal rights activism (some of whom have history with mail-bombs and other violence) can be readily pigeon-holed as national security, so your numbers are crap too. Well done, the main-stream media. Perhaps, Mark, you might want to get a job as a facts-researcher for Polly?

You Might, I Don't

Johann has a rather too inclusive view of "we":

If the wife-beater/rapist/attempted murderer can write novels, kick a ball, create songs or pose as a liberal politician, we treat their misogyny as an irrelevance or, worse, as a laddish affectation imbuing them with the testosteroney tang of authenticity.

Now, Johann and his metro-socialist media crowd might feel that way but let us consider his examples:

Mailer. Nope. I don't idealise Mailer. I wasn't forced to read his novels at school and I have no interest in reading them now. I didn't know that he beat his pregnant wife and nearly killed her (I am assuming that as this has passed the Indy's lawyers this is an accurate reflection of the facts), nor did I know that he said women are "low, sloppy beasts; they should be kept in cages" but as I had no opinion of him before I just have a low opinion of him now.

Best. Now, I did know Georgie-boy was a wife beater. I also know that he was a great footballer but I, unusually for a bloke, think professional soccer is a massive waste of time and money. I definitely don't think that his skill made up for his failings as a person. His alcoholism may have provided a reason, rather than an excuse, for some (although not all) of them - that just makes him sad, or even tragic, rather than evil.

Tupac Shakur. If I have a low opinion of professional footballers, my opinion of (c)rappers is at a distinct nadir. I haven't followed this guy's career but, let's say, it doesn't surprise me. The endless misogynism of male (c)rap music singers is hardly news. His singing hardly excuses his rape.

Clinton. Well. I am not entirely convinced of his guilt but neither am I convinced of his innocence. He is clearly an enthusiastic womaniser but, if he is a rapist, let's have him tried and, if found guilty, punished.

Johann may well go to parties where people believe:

"Let the bitch die," Mailer growled, his hands covered in blood – and still we applaud him to the grave.

As far as I go and, as far as I am aware, my friends would agree, we would certainly applaud him to the grave, as the best place for him. Johann, I think I might have better taste in mates than you. Maybe you should hang around with a few more right-wing libertarians :).

More polymath

I'm more than a bit behind, so this is from Tuesday's broadcast from the Minister for Correct Thought (my emphasis):

In non-religious primaries 20% of children have free school meals, but only 11% in Church of England schools, 15% in Roman Catholic schools and 3% in Jewish schools. But look at the damaging reverse in Muslim secondary schools: 34% are on free school meals, compared with 15% nationally, dangerously segregating Muslim children by class as well as by race and religion. Geography anyway segregates them, but faith schools make it 10 times worse.

Okay. Statistics time. Put your hand up if you are having difficulty following me. I will, for the purposes of this demonstration, accept her statistics.

Now, first we have an incorrect comparator (pace endless comparisons of male full time and female part time wages) - %age of children in some denominational primary schools versus different secondary schools. Hmm. We may already be on dangerous assumptions territory here.

Then, okay, we have children in Muslim secondary schools 2.3 times more likely to be on free school meals. Cause, or effect? Are poor Muslim parents more likely to think that a madrassa-style education in 7th Century Arab lifestyle choices good for their childrens' futures than their more successful co-religionists? I don't know. Neither does she.

10 times worse? Now how did she calculate this? I have tried to get the stats but was not willing to stump up $15 for access to possibly relevant papers. Is she suggesting that Muslim geographical segregation is of the order of 3.4% (or 1.9% - using the difference between her Muslim figure and her national figure)? I don't know. Neither, I strongly suspect, does she.

Pollymath

From here:

Bonuses that hit an epic £14m last year may drop this year,

I think you may be out by a small thousand-fold. An excellent achievement, even by your standards (although Bishop Ussher still, for me, holds the record at over 800 thousand-fold.)

but not because managers or CEOs are doing their job less well. Sub-prime mortgage lending in the US is hardly their fault. This will show that the "performance-related" bonus culture is nonsense.

Err, nonsense. It could be either because companies have less profit (possibly) because of the general market conditions, therefore (quite rightly) less in the bonus pool or because bonuses may be tightly linked to share price, therefore the general fall in the market does actually count as "doing their job less well" (their job being to increase the market value of the shares) even if it is "hardly their fault".

Update: Edited to correct my math - £14b is not 1000% of £14m, it is 100,000% - therefore her error is 99,900% rather than my initial 999%.