Yank in London
occasional musings on politics, culture and life in general from an american in exile


"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Tom Paine - Common Sense

"A republic, sir, if you can keep it."

Benjamin Franklin

"War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"

Norman Whitfield / Barrett Strong

29 February 2008
  Hey! Maybe this could work with Captain Codpiece
A teacher in California who is a member of the Religious Society of Friends has been sacked from her job for inserting a signing statement into her loyalty oath*. Marianne Kearney-Brown inserted the word "non-violently" into her signed statement and that was enough to get the axe.

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  17:21:00 0 comments links to this post
  It's not the story, it's how you cover it
For example I can imagine that some lofty group like Answers in Genesis will cover this story with something like the following headline.

Prominent scientists says that Darwin was wrong about the wild origin of the chicken!

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  16:50:00 0 comments links to this post
  Just it time for the weekend!
A nice big burst of Schadenfreude. Baron Black of Crossharbour has to go to jail like the common criminal that he is.

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  16:36:00 0 comments links to this post
  Damn meddling socialist Europeans
How dare they try to tell us how to run things in a bit of Cuba that isn't even part of our country!

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  16:29:00 0 comments links to this post
  Jesus - it never ends with these guys
The US Environmental Protection Agency has sacked a top scientist after pressure from the chemical industry that she is not biased in their favour.

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  16:17:00 0 comments links to this post
  And this is a problem how?
According to the eminent Lord Mancroft, one of the hereditary twats peers still left in the House of Lords, the nurses at his local NHS hospital in Bath are "grubby, drunken and promiscuous". I suggest Lord Mancroft go private and leave the NHS nurses for those of us who like them that way!

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  16:07:00 0 comments links to this post
  Will the sub-prime crisis claim another scalp?
Will Michael Jackson lose Neverland? Does anyone actually care?

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  16:05:00 0 comments links to this post
  No Child Left Behind indeed!
Sad, sad, sad. But just the kind of uneducated voters the politicians will love and optionless employees the service industry needs!

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  16:01:00 0 comments links to this post
  Just like a $20 streewalker after the john runs off without paying...
...the Republi-cons are bemoaning the fact that the nation's telecoms companies aren't coming up with the cash now that Bush's party has dropped its trousers and grabbed its ankles to get the companies a great big get-out-of-jail-free card!

Shame, innit?

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  15:46:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in infamy - "now how did that spit get in my hair?" edition
Five years ago today then deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz assured the US Congress that less than 100,000 troops would be needed to secure Iraq.

Here's some footage of Wolfie in action!

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  15:33:00 0 comments links to this post
  Bring the troops Prince home now!
Thanks to the Drudge Report's hard working investigating slime merchants journalists Prince Harry has had to be recalled from service in Afghanistan because he is in danger!

He is (or was) a bloody soldier in a war zone OF COURSE HE'S IN FUCKING DANGER.

I have nothing against the young man personally but I don't see why he is allowed to be in the armed forces if his life is deemed any more valuable than any other soldier. If he is not to be allowed to serve then he must resign. (Aren't we paying him for just being him in the first place?)

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  15:26:00 0 comments links to this post
  Attention Crystal Palace supporters!
Black arm bands should be the order of the day if you're going to tomorrow's away match. Mike Smith, lead singer of the Dave Clark Five, has died.

And don't forget to sing this....



(And a win would be nice as well.)

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  15:21:00 0 comments links to this post
  Shorter Charles Krauthammer
"It's OK to find new meaning in the Constitution as long as it is a meaning that I approve of."

(How many blow jobs did lobbyists have to give him before he wrote this sack of excrement?)

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  15:08:00 0 comments links to this post
  Hypocrite hoisted on his own petard
Republi-con Congressman Jack Kingston tries to explain that it is OK not to wear a US flag lapel pin whilst criticising Barack Obama for not wearing a US flag lapel pin as long as one intends to wear a US flag lapel pin. Do enjoy it.



All of which earns a reprise for John Prine's "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore".

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  I do believe he is losing his mind
In another snippet from yesterday's rare Captain Codpiece press conference, available to be seen at Crooks and Liars Our Great Leader asserts that it is "patently unfair" not to give telecommunications companies after the fact immunity for breaking the law. He pounds the podium and, for just a moment, I thought he was going to cry.

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  14:35:00 0 comments links to this post
  Is it proof of Godwin's Law...
...if I now accuse Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai of Nazi-like speech after he threatens Gazans with a holocaust? Of course Mr. Vilnai says that the Gazans are bringing this holocaust upon themselves which is something that the real Nazis never would have said about the Jews. Right?

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  14:13:00 0 comments links to this post
  Will the buck stop here?
Not bloody likely as the once mighty US dollar crashes against the Euro and the yen.

Gold up. Oil up. Economic prospects - down.

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  14:09:00 0 comments links to this post
  And all without a constitution!
The European Court of Justice has prevented Italy from deporting a Tunisian terror suspect to his home country citing an absolute right to protection from torture. I wonder if this can be used to void the one sided US-UK extradition agreement.

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  14:04:00 0 comments links to this post
  The 1% (non)solution
One out of every ninety nine adults in America is in prison at an annual cost of over 55 billion USD and not one of them is I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

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  And damned right too!
The brave nation of Turkey has refused to submit to the calls of the cowardly cut and runners in the US administration and will not commit to timetable for its withdrawal from Iraq. After all we all know that setting a timetable for withdrawal means that the evil doers have won.

Hey, wait just one minute, the Turks are pulling out! The terrorists hiding behind the US military in non-existent Kurdistan have won!

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  13:49:00 0 comments links to this post
  Out of touch...out of (his) mind
Captain Codpiece displayed his ability for keeping in touch with the common man by being surprised at the prospect of $4.00 a gallon gasoline.

"Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?...That's interesting. I hadn't heard that. . . . I know it's high now."

I guess they don't speculate on petrol prices on the Cartoon Channel.

(Note to Americans: 4 USD a US gallon is still ridiculously cheap and the product would still be priced less then the damage it does! The current British price is around £1.05 a litre which comes to just under 8 USD a US gallon.)

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  13:36:00 0 comments links to this post
  Baseball banned in Italy!!!
Yes - America's national sport will no longer be played in Italy now that an Italian court has ruled it illegal for men to scratch their balls in public. Nose picking still allowed as far as I can tell.

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28 February 2008
  I just can't decide
I caught the second half of Captain Codpiece's press conference. Was he testily arrogant or arrogantly testy?

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  16:32:00 0 comments links to this post
  A wee reminder
In case you had forgot that neither the insurance industry nor the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent invisible hand of the market deserves a place in ensuring that all Americans have adequate access to health care read this.

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  15:16:00 0 comments links to this post
  918,142 and counting*
Sometime this summer the US government's terrorist watch list will get it's millionth name. It could be you!


*As of 14:12 GMT 28/2/08

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  R.I.P.
Drummer Buddy Miles, perhaps better known today as the voice of the "California Raisins" then for his stint with Jimi and the Band of Gypsies, has died.

Here he is with Carlos & "Them Changes"

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  13:49:00 0 comments links to this post
  But if the generals quit...
...then they won't be "Generals on the ground" anymore and Captain Codpiece won't have to listen to them anymore. The Times reports that a group of top US brass has promised to resign if he (illegally) attacks Iran. According to sources in the British Department of Defence:
"There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran...There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible...All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them...“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations." (Emphasis mine.)
Of course should it come to this expect the chorus of accusations from the neo-con draft dodging community of "traitors" and "cowards".

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  13:08:00 0 comments links to this post
  Be very, very afraid
That's what the Republic-cons want you to be and they have a new ad to help you on your way.

I must give them credit for picking the right "artist" for the voice over though.

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  13:04:00 0 comments links to this post
27 February 2008
  R.I.P.
William F. Buckley Jr - 1925 - 2008. I didn't agree with him often but he was bloody smart, articulate, witty and willing to listen to an argument until the current crop of right wing toads, on all counts.

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  17:05:00 0 comments links to this post
  Lies, damn lies...
...and Philly tour guides. My personal favourite? "George Washington and Abraham Lincoln ate together at the Powel House."

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  16:16:00 0 comments links to this post
  Sixties flashback?
Somehow this story about the vault full of plant seeds now carefully hidden away in Norway's Arctic North so that they will be available after humanity destroys the planet and itself harks back to the bad old days of the Cold War (and my childhood).

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  15:57:00 0 comments links to this post
  IDF dodges another close one
The Israeli Defence Force, so named because they never engage in anything but defense, has, after careful consideration of all of the facts in evidence have found that the IDF is in no way responsible for the killing of 21 innocent Palestinians, including 7 children, in Beit Hanoun a little over a year ago.

Nice one guys!

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  15:51:00 0 comments links to this post
  News from the Sunshine State
A Republican lawmaker wants the state of Florida to issue Confederate Heritage vanity license plates. This is a very bad idea on so many different levels that it will probably pass with a two thirds majority.

  15:38:00 0 comments links to this post
  "Take a memo to Secretary Gates"
Dear Secretary Gates,

Perhaps you were unaware that a "first in, first out" (FIFO) policy is generally considered best practice that the "last in, first out" (LIFO) policy that you seem to be recommending is generally reserved for situations where it is expedient to defer or understate profits; hardly the case here. (Refer to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles for further guidance.) You should therefore consider retracting your statement at the earliest opportunity.

Thanks for listening and good luck in your next job.

Sincerely,

Yank in London

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  14:50:00 0 comments links to this post
  Unsubtle, probably ineffective
Comcast Corporation hired ringers to fill the seats at an FCC hearing on net neutrality; probably to keep opponents of their policies from being heard.

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  14:44:00 0 comments links to this post
  Call me hard hearted...
...but I have little to no sympathy for Americans as regards "high" petrol prices. Even if the price reaches $4.00 a US gallon it will still be well below the retail level in most western countries. It is not as if there hasn't been every sign for the past 20 years that an oil crunch was coming and yet the American people have consciously chosen to ignore it and live a profligate life style driving obscenely large and inefficient automobiles, living in obscenely large homes that are obscenely distant from their place of employment.

Sorry - but I'm not not sorry!

By the way the fact that the dollar is worth shit because of a chronically mismanaged economy might have something to with the price of "gas", don't you think?

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  14:29:00 0 comments links to this post
  I felt the earth move under my feet
Actually I didn't but it seems that we had the worst earthquake since 1984 at around 1 AM this morning. I do recall waking up at some point but whether it was the quake or just a bog standard waking up in the middle of the moment I will probably never know.

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  14:24:00 0 comments links to this post
  The gang that can't shoot straight
These guys can't get anything right can they? The right side of political spectrum in America has been lauding the "draw down" of US troops from Iraq after the "success" of the surge. The only problem with this is that once the "draw down" is complete there will be more American soldiers in Iraq than there were a year before. I am certain that this incredible success story will be of great comfort to the families and loved ones of the additional troops in Iraq, not to mention to the soldiers themselves.

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  14:17:00 0 comments links to this post
  Too good to be true?
Senator Larry Craig (Not-Now-and-Never-Has-Been-Gay - ID) is looking for summer interns. Although not noted on his website it is believe that width of stance will be a primary consideration in the selection process.

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  14:07:00 0 comments links to this post
  "Goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob"
He is the Egg Man! Republican Presidential Not-So-Hopeful-Anymore, Mike Huckabee has endorsed a proposed Colorado state constitutional amendment that would magically turn fertilised eggs into human beings!

Will this instantly make everyone 9 months older (or in my case, I was a premie, 7 1/2 months)?

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  13:56:00 0 comments links to this post
26 February 2008
  Today in infamy - "big hair - bad music" edition
On this day in 1953 Michale Bolton was born. I will say no more (and pray that no Michael Bolton songs now get stuck in my head).

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  News from the Grapefruit League!
Roger Clemens to throw batting practices to minor leaguers.

Minor leaguers demand urine sample first!

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  18:40:00 0 comments links to this post
  Now this is a relief
There was panic in the streets of Philadelphia area after it was believed that there was a WILD BEAR loose in the city* after the discovery of suspicious footprints off Bryn Mawr Avenue. After the city finally tracked down a public servant who could count past three it was determined that the prints where left by a dog, admittedly a big one. Dogs have four toes; bears have five.

*Why the presence of an unarmed bear in a city that has more than one murder per day should be a cause for concern is beyond my understanding.

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  18:20:00 0 comments links to this post
  BREAKING NEWS! YANK IN LONDON EXCLUSIVE!
Following on from the incredible and disturbing revaltions on the Drudge Report that Barack Obama once wore a turban on a visit to Africa, an act which obviously unmasks him as a (not so well) hidden Muslim, I provide conclusive proof below that Laura Bush is also a closet Muslim! This is clearly big news. Shouldn't Captain Codpiece have told us he was half of a mixed marriage?

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  18:04:00 0 comments links to this post
  Incurious Clarence
America's favourite Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, has bothered to ask a question in oral arguments before the court in over two years (or 142 cases if you are counting). He's probably just too busy counting the pubic hairs on the rim of his Coke can.

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  17:45:00 0 comments links to this post
  $3,000,000,000,000.00
Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz tells us that the illegal war in Iraq in going to cost one trillion greenbacks.

Did I get the zeroes right?

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  17:39:00 0 comments links to this post
  How low will they go?
Baring an unexpected success of the "Draft Yank in London" effort at the Democratic National Convention this summer it looks like the Republi-cons will be running against either a mixed race man with African ancestry or a woman. They are therefore interested in discovering just how much sexism/racism (pick one) the American people will tolerate.

Well based on past performance we know that they will go as low as possible.

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  17:30:00 0 comments links to this post
  Just wondering
Is it a bad omen for the campaign of John McCain that No Country for Old Men cleaned up at the Oscars this weekend?

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  17:23:00 0 comments links to this post
  This is going to mean a whole lot of remakes
It seems that the Vikings were much more concerned with their sartorial splendor than we have thought to date.

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  17:16:00 0 comments links to this post
  A taste of things to come?
As the planet increasingly struggles to feed its human inhabitants wheat prices soar. It can only grow worse.

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25 February 2008
  I don't know about you...
...but I think this looks more like Casper than Jesus.

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  14:47:00 0 comments links to this post
  Ah, childhood memories
In fifteen or twenty years time how many young adults are going to look fondly back on their Spongebob Squarepants musical rectal thermometer? Not very many I reckon, not very many at all. I mean who wants to hear music coming out of their arse, even if they are ill?

(Will there be a collectors market for this? As long as the item is in the original packaging and unused of course.)

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  12:19:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in infamy - special heavyweight edition
On this day in 1964 Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion of the world. And the rest, as they say, is history.

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  12:09:00 0 comments links to this post
  Why can't Yanks act?
All the acting Oscars are won by Europeans.

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  12:03:00 0 comments links to this post
  Surely this is treason!
The proprietors of some posh New York shops have started accepting Euros (because the US dollar is now worth shit)!
1.00 USD = 0.675415 EUR

1.00 USD = 0.509087 GBP

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  11:59:00 0 comments links to this post
  Why commercial pilots shouldn't have a sense of adventure
(Or in this case ex-pilot.) It is not a good idea to buzz an airport's control tower in a passenger jet, especially if the airline's chairman is safely tucked away in first class.

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  11:56:00 0 comments links to this post
  Mark your calendars!
14 March is Talk Like a Physicist Day. I may give it a try on the day but I suspect I will quickly be found out.

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  11:52:00 0 comments links to this post
  An endorsement too far?
I am not at all certain that having Louis Farrakhan singing his praises is going to aid Barack Obama in either the primaries or the general election, should he win the nomination. It will certainly give the wingnuts one more target at which to aim.

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  11:42:00 0 comments links to this post
  Let them eat (fairy) cake
A 34 year-old man has died in a bar in Wales after choking whilst competing in a fairy cake eating contest.


Americans will know the pastry by another name I think.

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  11:30:00 0 comments links to this post
24 February 2008
  To the victor goes the spoils
So I guess the news that Western oil companies are queuing up to get at Basra's oil means we have declared victory! (Can we leave now?)

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  15:46:00 0 comments links to this post
  In case you've forgotten why...
...the insurance industry neither deserves nor can be allowed a place in any universal health plan for the United States read this. The only problem is with the award is that the punitive damages aren't nearly enough.

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  15:39:00 0 comments links to this post
  Here we go again
Let me preface this by saying that I neither dislike nor hate Ralph Nader. I think he has quite a lot of good things to say and that I probably agree with him more often than I do with members of either of the so-called "major" parties. Nonetheless until the US Presidential election process is reformed so that a majority, as opposed to a plurality, of the popular vote is required to win his candidacy for the presidency can only harm one party.

Will he make a difference? Quite possibly. If he can take enough Democratic votes in one of the big swing states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania) to allow McCain to get the electoral votes the answer is "yes he can".

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  15:33:00 2 comments links to this post
  We're all going to die!!!!
Wait a second; no we're not! Ever so sorry (and this wasn't really a lie).

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  15:28:00 0 comments links to this post
  The Green Zone - it's the safest place in Baghdad
It's just not all that safe.

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  15:24:00 0 comments links to this post
  Swiftboating was nothing!
Here we go! The right wing Zionist lobby is getting ready to smear Osama, possibly because of his middle name, as an anti-Judaist! Fasten your seat belts.

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  15:15:00 0 comments links to this post
  Wait just one second!
I thought timetables for withdrawal were evil, a sign of surrender and ensured that the terrorists and associated evil doers would win. So how come US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants Turkey to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq? Aren't they fighting the Eternal Global War on Terra too?
  15:05:00 0 comments links to this post