Del.icio.us links for January 11th through January 15th:
- LENIN’S TOMB: Nil desperandum – A job. Only six months and two weeks of free labour and someone hired her. And all she had to do was work fourteen hour shifts. There’s jobs out there for them that wants them. You know how you get it? Bloody hard work, love. No one owes you a wage packet, not even your employer.
Tags: britain employment labour recession - Heresy Corner: Libel: counting the costs – “Many articles have recently appeared in the press concerning libel tourism and the effects of current libel law and the costs regime,” writes Lord Justice Jackson. “I am not aware of any comparable papers in defence of the status quo by those who act for claimants.” But don’t worry, he’s here to redress the balance. In the section of his new, and very weighty report (pdf – warning, large file) into legal costs concerned with libel he makes a number of recommendations. The most striking is that, instead of the lawyers for people who win libel actions being able to claim cost bonuses from the defeated party, all defendants should have to pay their own costs. In effect, Jackson wants to shift the costs burden from the libeller to the wrongly sued. His reforms would benefit unsuccessful defendants – those found to have actually libelled someone, in other words – at the expense of those who have been able to show that they have done nothing wrong.
Tags: britain libel law - Letters of Note: Slaughterhouse Five – In December of 1944, whilst behind enemy lines during the Rhineland Campaign, Private Kurt Vonnegut was captured by Wehrmacht troops and subsequently became a prisoner of war. A month later, Vonnegut and his fellow POWs reached a Dresden work camp where they were imprisoned in an underground slaughterhouse known by German soldiers as Schlachthof Fünf (Slaughterhouse Five). The next month – February – the subterranean nature of the prison saved their lives during the highly controversial and devastating bombing of Dresden, the aftermath of which Vonnegut and the remaining survivors helped to clear up.Vonnegut released the book Slaughterhouse-Five in 1969.
Below is a letter he wrote to his family that May from a repatriation camp, in which he informs them of his capture and survival. Transcript follows.
Tags: letters writing literature history war kurtvonnegut ww2 - Cameron: I’ll cut immigration, not bankers’ bonuses – Attacks on immigration are almost invariably an opening shot in a class battle. Those who intend to attack the working class must first divide the working class. Start by singling out immigrants, then move on to public sector workers, trade unionists, welfare recipients, and any other likely target of invective from the steaming shit-sewer of the scum British press. Then tell everyone that focusing on class is petty and juvenile, and beneath the conduct of responsible statesmen.
Tags: britain politics conservativeparty davidcameron class publicservices immigration racism - Liz Prince – Punk rock is ruining my teeth – The 1st of two ace punk rock comics by Liz Prince (2nd is linked to from the sidebar) hosted by If You Make It.
Tags: comic punk label - Dillinger Four interviewed by Soyamilk zine – Erik Funk and Lane Pederson of Dillinger Four were recently interviewed by Glasgow-based Soyamilkzine.
Tags: dillinger4 band music video interview