Give this man a promotion. And a medal.

According to British magazine Private Eye, Britain's new Secretary of State for Defence was visiting the troops when a young soldier asked him what he knew of the military.
"Not a lot," admitted the minister. "But do you know about politics?"
"I know how to lie quite well," answered the soldier.

the wonders of English

From the blog of Ruth Gledhill (surprisingly capable religious affairs correspondent for the otherwise wretched London Times):

I was particulary proud of this piece, because after 19 years on The Times, I finally managed to get what I think is the longest word in the English language, antidisestablishmentarianism, into the paper. Of course I could only ever have succeeded in that enterprise in an article about Rowan Williams... Meanwhile, Philippe Naughton from Times Online has emailed me saying: 'Please don't accuse me of floccipaucinihilipilification, but didnt you mean disestablishmentarianism?' Oh dear, I think perhaps I did. Proud no more, just fallen....

An observation

Approximately once every six month or so, someone starts a thread in f_w or the like for the express purpose of defaming me. As we all know, the last such instance has been a few days ago. However, I noticed that of late, even quite vicious f_w items are no longer followed, as they used to, by a rush of dozens if not hundreds of trolls to my LJ or other designated targets. I suppose it is just possible that f_w's stated policy against attacking targets on their LJs has succeeded; though in my experience trolls do not have much by way of restraint (except in the use of their name) or acceptance of common standards. I suspect they may find it easier to do things as much as possible behind my back, without having to suffer the stressful experience of being actually answered back.