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 June 2008
  For your listening pleasure
Dr. John.

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  16:27:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 60: little the man he so wishes to replace he doesn't know what the price of petrol is AND he doesn't see that as a problem.

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  16:19:00 0 comments links to this post
  Maybe you can fool all of the people all of the time
You can certainly fool most of them as this Gallup poll about attitudes to income redistribution clearly demonstrates. Most Americans really do believe in the "trickle down" Ponzi scheme.

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  16:06:00 0 comments links to this post
  I fear I know where they are going with this
The Supreme Court of the great state of Texas has ruled that a church cannot be held liable for physical abuse that occurred during an exorcism at a Pentecostal church. The court felt that to allow the damages would entangle the court, in an unconstitutional way, with religion. I can hardly wait for the first First Amendment defence of torture enhanced interrogation as protect religious and/or symbolic speech!

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  15:56:00 0 comments links to this post
  Gay Jews to trigger Armageddon!
At least that seems to be the opinion of Christian Zionist Jim Hutchens, president of the Jerusalem Connection International. I wonder what I should pack...

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  15:39:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 59: even though the Mrs. is worth around $100 million she can't seem to scrape together enough cash to pay the property taxes. Given that they have approximately seven or eight different homes I imagine that they just forgot they still owned the one in La Jolla!

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  15:35:00 0 comments links to this post
  Bobby's big week
One of the rumoured candidates to be The Ancient One's running mate, the Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal, must really want that right wing support bad given how hard he has worked for it this week. First he signed into law a bill that essentially introduces Shari'a law for sex crimes, (how long until they start cutting off hands for robbery?), and now he has signed a law that should ensure that an entire generation of Louisiana school children is unqualified to work or study in the life sciences. What will he do next?

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  15:26:00 0 comments links to this post
  Why we shouldn't always listen to the "generals on the ground"
They don't always know what they're doing. E.G. sycophant extraordinaire General Tommy Franks, whose decision to restructure the command the Iraq shortly after Captain Codpiece's stunning appearance on an aircraft carrier anchored just out of sight of land has been severely criticised in a new, unclassified study from the, [drumroll], US Army! For those of you with too much time on your hands all 700 odd pages of On Point II are available here.
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  La plus ça change...
...la plus c’est la même chose. Where there is blood money to be found usually one will find Tories lurking not too far away. This summer's edition comes to us courtesy of Zimbabwe.

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  14:51:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 58: even though he has heard about them he can't work those internets things. Really John. How's your "youth outreach" campaign going? Making any inroads with those pesky under-sixties?

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  14:45:00 0 comments links to this post
  Quote(s) of the day

"He was a patriot - the best sort, the kind who do not walk around with American flags in their lapels."

"Twelve wrecked homes. The chaplain's words echoed. That's twelve wrecked homes. The doctor and I think in terms of human suffering not statistics. I thought about Sullivan again. He was one of the statistics, just like the four enemy soldiers killed that morning. The only difference was that they were in different columns on the colonel's scoreboard. Twelve wrecked homes. I thought about Sullivan's young widow in Pennsylvania, and a chill passed through me. Maybe her husband had died for nothing, maybe for something. Either way, it could not make much difference to her now."



Both come from Philip Caputo's book, Rumor of War, about his time as a US Marine in Vietnam in the Sixties. Not that much has changed.

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28 June 2008
  Fun with War Crimes!
Episode 3.

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  16:38:00 1 comments links to this post
  Shari'a law comes to Louisiana
The truly frightening Governor of Louisiana and rumoured Republican VP contender Bobby Jindal has signed into law a bill that will see convicted rapists and other sect offenders chemically castrated, possibly after a first offence. Now I consider rape to be a truly horrible crime and those guilty off it certainly need to be punished but to do that by reverting to the practices of millennia past is hardly the mark of a civilised nation.

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  16:26:00 0 comments links to this post
  What a shitty idea!
But in a good way. The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco already has more than enough signatures on its petition to get a measure on the ballot in November that would see the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant renamed the George W. Bush Sewage Plant and what better time to be reminded of this great President after he is gone than when one is reading the sports page whilst having one's morning "constitutional"!

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  16:04:00 0 comments links to this post
  And God said "let there be guns"...
...and there were guns and God saw that this was good. Get ready for the mayhem as five activist judges on the US Supreme Court have written into the Constitution an individual right to possess weapons as opposed to what the framers intended. I am certain that good right wingers everywhere will soon be actively decrying this terribly flawed decision.

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  15:26:00 0 comments links to this post
  I don't know about you...
...but this has me worried! 36% of American commercial bee hives have been lost this year alone. Without bees much agriculture is impossible. I think the implications are obvious.

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  15:24:00 0 comments links to this post
  Double standards?
Brown-skinned and Muslim suspected evil-doers are kidnapped and interned without rights or hope at the Guantánamo Bay Beach and Leisure Resort and elsewhere. When the US government eventually gets bored with this these unfortunates are sent off to various and sundry countries without so much as a "sorry mate".

Meanwhile white-skinned and presumably Christan suspected evil-doers get to stay at home and end up with a cheque for $4.6 million.

Just doesn't seem fair does it?

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  15:02:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 57: he's only just stopped beating his wife. Even he admits it!

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  14:53:00 0 comments links to this post
  R.I.P.
George Carlin, 1937 - 2008. Surely at least some of his words are allowed now, right?



Meanwhile you should probably be aware that the enlightened and cuddly Reverend Fred Phelps knows where Mr. Carlin is now!

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27 June 2008
  A hiatus
I am, after an extended period of idleness, part voluntary and part not, starting a new job on Monday so for a month or two, until I acclimate to the new schedule, posting shall be severely limited.

I hope no one minds!
  16:21:00 2 comments links to this post
22 June 2008
  Proving my value as a football pundit
Once again I demonstrate that I am a negative indicator as far as picking winners in football tournaments is concerned. My two favourites for the final of Euro '08 were Portugal and Holland. Portugal went out to the bloody Germans on Thursday and last night the Dutch went down to the Russians. Great football from the Russians by the way. Therefore I am now backing Russia and Germany so if you are a betting man (or woman) it might be a good idea to head down the betting shop and put a bundle on Turkey.

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  15:09:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today's Schadenfreude moment
Captain Codpiece waves; no one waves back. They've always said it will be lonely at the top!



I confess to having felt just a wee bit sorry for the poor man and then I got over it.

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  14:44:00 0 comments links to this post
  A message to the good people of Vincenza Italia
You have won a battle in your fight to prevent the US from hugely expanding its military base in or near your town. Now keep on fighting until you win the war!

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  14:42:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 56: if elected he is going to develop a drinking problem. Isn't it about time someone asked The Aged One what he is going to do about his wife's business interests should he be elected? Clearly she cannot remain in charge; actively or inactively.

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  14:29:00 0 comments links to this post
  Sorry Scott...
..but somehow I doubt that Captain Codpiece will be listening to your advice to not pardon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby even though I agree with you.

no pardon

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  14:23:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in infamy - "thank God this could never happen today" edition
On this day in 1633 Galileo Galilei was sentenced by a Shari'a Roman Catholic court for having the temerity to believe the truth. Fortunately, 475 years later, America is a country ruled by reason where nothing of this sort of ever happen again!

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21 June 2008
  Well where the hell are the statistics?
Lies and damn lies.

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  14:36:00 0 comments links to this post
  R.I.P.
Frank Blackmore; traffic engineer, inventor of the mini-roundabout and designer of Swindon's famous (infamous?) Magic Roundabout (see below); 1916 - 2008.

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  14:17:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 55: his trophy wife/sugar mama Cindy doesn't even have a cookie recipe to call her own. Given that she is worth around $100 million and owns eight or nine houses (she probably can't find the kitchen in any of them) this probably should not come as a surprise.

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  14:03:00 0 comments links to this post
  Bill-o leave our ads alone
As if he doesn't have enough to worry about in America Bill-o O'Reilly has now launched an attack on a advertisement for Heinz mayonnaise airing only in Britain because of a scene with two blokes kissing. Bill-o apparently consumes only 100% American straight mayonnaise! If I'm not confused, and I often am, Bill-o also seems to admit to some minor gender confusion of his own.



I'm just surprised that Bill-o forgot to mention the rather obvious Heinz-Teresa Heinz Kerry-John Kerry-oh my God liberal America is poisoning our kid's minds with gay mayonnaise connection!

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  Fighting back
A suit has been filed in Federal Court in Ohio against John Freshwater, a teacher for the Mount Vernon OH school system, alleging that he taught creationism to eighth graders despite a school policy forbidding such blatantly religious instruction. The teacher had also refused to remove a Christian Bible from his desk despite orders from the school system to do so.

It has also been alleged that Mr. Freshwater branded his students with crosses using an electrostatic device; a charge that should, one would think, lead to criminal charges of child abuse. Or perhaps not, it is America after all.

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  13:45:00 0 comments links to this post
  I hope you feel safer!
Because Big Brother IS watching, and listening, and taping and trolling.



Go here to help.

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  13:09:00 0 comments links to this post
  Come the revolution...
...I think we should start with these people.

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  13:06:00 0 comments links to this post
  Guns don't kill people...
...complete fucking idiots with AK-47s kill people. Surely there is no one out there who would argue that, once Michael Johnson of Vancouver Washington is convicted, barring him from owning or using firearms for the rest of his days would not be either unconstitutional or unwarranted.

Mr. Johnson was firing his weapons, including an AK47 and two handguns, into a lake across from a crowded camp ground. His shots were ricocheting into the ground sending campers scurrying for cover. Fortunately, by dumb luck, no one was injured. When told that he shots had ricochet off the water into the camp ground the 25 year old Mr. Johnson apparently replied that "he didn't know bullets could do that" and presumably returned to picking his nose.

The appropriate punishment? No guns; ever again and maybe some jail time.

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  12:55:00 0 comments links to this post
  Is La Cosa Nostra running the country?
You just cannot make this shit up! During former White House Press Secretary (and current pariah of the wing nuts) Scott McClellan's testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday he was asked by Representative Steve King (R - IA) "could you not have taken some of this to the Grave with You?". Is there now an initiation ceremony in the Oval Office for all new hires where they swear to uphold the omertà?

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  12:45:00 0 comments links to this post
  Yes, I'm disappointed
Barack Obama, along with scores of other Democrats in the Senate and the House is set to cave in on the FISA "compromise" and give Captain Codpiece what he wants; warrantless surveillance and telecoms immunity. From my perspective this is hardly an encouraging start but I can understand why he may have taken this position from a purely calculated political perspective. We are watching you Senator Obama, and watching very closely indeed.

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  12:33:00 0 comments links to this post
  What do Captain Codpiece and Robert Mugabe have in common?
They both hear voices in their heads that tell them stuff. Mugabe's voice tells him that God appointed him to rule Zimbabwe, presumably with an iron fist and the Captain's voice told him to illegally invade Iraq!

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  12:16:00 0 comments links to this post
  "Psst. Hey buddy, wanna buy a Eurofighter?"
Eat our dust America!We're number one! The United Kingdom catapulted to the top of the world league table of merchants of death with a record £10 billion of overseas arm sales. And Britain is not picky either. The sales include weaponry destined for such beacons of freedom as Saudi Arabia, Israel, Colombia, China, and Russia.

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  12:11:00 0 comments links to this post
  Crude pro quo
Well finally the American soldier American taxpayer planet's gargantuan oil companies are getting some payback for all of the blood and treasure sacrificed by the planet's gargantuan oil companies American soldier and taxpayer. And who better to safeguard this trust fund for those who have paid so dearly than ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and BP, eh?

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  11:51:00 0 comments links to this post
  Well surprise, surprise!!
Captain Codpiece and his evil minion at the Environmental "Protection" Agency, Stephen L. Johnson, have claimed executive privilege rather than release documents relating to how Mr. Johnson relied on oil company talking points his own sound judgement to overrule the recommendations of the scientists who work for him in deciding to not grant the state of California and 17 other states permission to regulation vehicular emissions of greenhouse gases. Apparently the "original intent" of the constitutional drafters to ensure that there were working checks and balances between the branches of government is not applicable to the Imperial Presidency.

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  11:44:00 0 comments links to this post
  Gitmo means never having to say you're sorry (or just bloody wrong)
So far the United States government, in all her magnanimity, has found that 38 of the "evil doers" it had (illegally) held at the Guantánamo Bay Beach and Leisure Resort to be "ex-evil doers". So they get flown somewhere with a few clothes, maybe a Qur'an and no apology, no compensation for the years that they have spent on the lovely Caribbean isle of Cuba.

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  11:32:00 0 comments links to this post
20 June 2008
  For your listening pleasure
Johnny Winter with "Highway 61 Revisited" from the Bob Dylan tribute night at MSG in 1992.

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  16:28:00 0 comments links to this post
  Cool! (Pun possibly intended)
This is what space exploration is all about. The Phoenix probe has found what is believed to be ice on Mars.

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  14:49:00 0 comments links to this post
  Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water...
...comes the attack of the killer electric marbled sting rays, courtesy of non-existent global warming. So much for going for a swim in West Sussex!

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  14:42:00 0 comments links to this post
  Meanwhile at the other end of the Keystone State...
...one Daryl Metcalfe (R - Butler County) scuttled a vote in the State House on a resolution honouring the "60th annual convention...of the U.S. chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community" by stating, and I quote, that "[t]he Muslims do not recognize Jesus Christ as God and I will be voting negative". One wonders which word or words in the First Amendment he doesn't understand. It is not as if it includes any real tough ones.

The people of Cranberry Township must be awfully proud!

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  14:22:00 0 comments links to this post
  A letter to the City of Brotherly Love
Dear Phil-delph-yuns,

I spent most of the first 37 years of my life living in the Philadelphia area and I still have a great affection for the city. Perhaps the thing I have always loved about it is that, in opposition to New York, it always seemed human scale rather than gargantuan. So please don't ruin this by building a building a huge, fuck all building on Logan Square, OK?

That is all.

Kind regards,

Yank in London

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  14:14:00 0 comments links to this post
  Shorter David Brooks
"I must be an elitist. How else to explain why I spell "naïve" using a diaeresis over the "i" whilst penning a column intended to be a (unsuccessfully) humorous critique of Barack Obama."

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  13:58:00 0 comments links to this post
  Israeli government exercises restraint after rocket fire!
In what can only be described as an unusual event the firing of a homemade rocket in illegally occupied Samaria has not led to reprisals by the Israeli Offence Defence Force. The fact that the rocket was fired by a Jewish yeshiva student at an Arab village may have featured in the non-reprisal by the IDF.

Rabbi Yitzik Shapira, the head of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in Yitzhar, said that the priority for the students is "net Torah study" and that rocket attacks by the students are only authorised once all of their schoolwork is completed.

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  13:44:00 0 comments links to this post
  Look, the omniscient hand of the market at work
As petrol prices in the US approached 4 USD a US gallon American drivers drove 1.4 billion fewer miles in April than they had the year before. I'm sure someone will try to ruin this by calling for a petrol tax holiday or something equally stupid.

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  13:14:00 0 comments links to this post
  Sold down the river
I would like to express my gratitude to the congressional Democrats who have seen fit to provide immunity to telecoms companies that knowingly broke the law, admittedly at the behest of Captain Codpiece and his evil minions, by allowing for the warrant-less surveillance of American citizens on American soil.

Well done everyone; especially Steny Hoyer of Maryland. I'm sure you will sleep well tonight in the Land of the (Not So) Free (as It Used to Be).

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  13:08:00 0 comments links to this post
  World Refugee Day
Today is World Refugee Day on which we should celebrate the inestimable contribution of the United States to the creation of refugees across the global both directly in Iraq and Afghanistan and indirectly through its efforts to continue the warming of the planet.

Have a nice day.

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  13:00:00 0 comments links to this post
  Is it time yet?
Robert Mugabe's reign of terror continues unabated in Zimbabwe as the world looks on and yawns (although Sir Beefy thinks we ought to boycott their cricket side). Unfortunately for the people of Zimbabwe there just isn't enough oil in their country to make regime change of interest at the White House or in Downing Street.

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  12:46:00 0 comments links to this post
  Europe the Evil!
As if we need more evidence that the effete, America hating atheist socialists at the heart of the European Union want the evil doers to win we learn that the EU is dropping sanctions against Cuba, charter member of the Axis of Evil!

I reckon that means I should head down the pub for a large Cuban rum, thereby violating America's most ridiculous law!

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  12:24:00 0 comments links to this post
  This no longer qualifies as a "slip of the tongue"
Yet another Republi-con, this time Mark Kirk of Illinois, has "accidentally" confused the Democratic Presidential candidate with a bearded lunatic in a Pakistani cave. The quote? "[I]f we see Obama there's a shoot on sight order."

I simply no longer believe that these occurrences are accidental any more but rather part of a none-too-subtle campaign to associate Senator Obama with terrorists and further confuse those addled voters, who make up more than 10% of the electorate, who believe that the Senator is a Muslim.

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  12:09:00 0 comments links to this post
  Blackwater goes Muslim!
A subsidiary of internationally renowned mercenary firm Blackwater has filed a motion that a suit brought against it over a plane crash in Afghanistan in 2004 be adjudicated under Shari'a law. Presidential Airways wants the case shifted to the Afghan courts where it would be dismissed as "Shari'a law does not hold a company responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their work". How handy for them.

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  11:50:00 0 comments links to this post
19 June 2008
  Your tax dollars not at work
America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is cutting back on climate research to save fuel costs. That's some clever thinking. They need about $1.7 million to keep up with rising fuel costs. That's about what 7 minutes of the war in Iraq costs.

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  13:45:00 0 comments links to this post
  Surely this can't be right, can it?

Is it possible that Australians are fatter than Americans?

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  13:36:00 0 comments links to this post
  Have there been inspections?
In an undoubtedly failed effort to keep Royal Ascot the domain of old money and to exclude the chavs and chavettes a new dress code has been introduced this year. Amongst the rather stringent new rules it is noted that women must wear knickers but they must never been seen. So, one wonders, how are they going to enforce this?

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  13:23:00 0 comments links to this post
  Why do they hate marriage so?
At least three counties in California, (Butte County, Kern County and Calaveras County), have stopped performing wedding ceremonies entirely rather than allow ho-mo-sexuals to wed. Clearly they wish to see the end of marriage entirely which will destroy the nation!

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  13:11:00 0 comments links to this post
  Not so fast you two!
Both The Aged One and Captain Codpiece have spoken out to demand the repeal of the ban on off shore oil exploration in the US. After all Americans' God given right to cheap petrol trump the preservation of the planet. At least in the case of the Captain he's being consistent whereas TAO used to be against it!

Nonetheless the two of them shouldn't get carried away as, even if the ban were lifted tomorrow, there aren't enough drilling rigs to go around as it is and the situation won't improve for several years if at all.

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  Question of the day
When the hell is Gary Trudeau due back from holiday? We need Doonesbury now more than ever!
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18 June 2008
  If a bandwagon goes "off-shore" does it become a bandboat?
In the blink of an eye after John McCain decided that he only was against off shore drilling if the price of petrol was less than 54p a litre $4.00 a (US) gallon Captain Codpiece decided he wanted a piece of the action and said that he wants to do it too. At least we need to be sure that if this unfortunately comes to pass that we don't actually let Captain Codpiece do the drilling. Because if there was one thing that he proved in his career before politics, other than he couldn't run a business, it was that he couldn't find oil - in Texas.

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  15:42:00 0 comments links to this post
  You've been Condi-ed
It must be tough being the US Secretary of State, at least at the moment. It seems that Israeli announcers use Ms. Rice's name as a verb to describing going "endlessly around in circles, accomplishing nothing".

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  15:25:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in panspermia
Scientists at Imperial College - London have uncovered evidence that the precursors of genetic material probably came to Earth from outer space on meteorites. I checked the Book of Genesis and I think this must have happened on day two.

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  R.I.P.
Cyd Charisse - (1921 - 2008)

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  14:48:00 0 comments links to this post
  Why does the Israeli government...
...hate Israel? Because there is no other possible explanation for their ceasefire agreement with the evil doing Islamofacists in Hamas?

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  14:06:00 2 comments links to this post
  In which I explain why I am not proud to be an American
Because it is now becoming clear that, with absolute certainty, both the US military and the US "intelligence" community have engaged in systematic, intentional and highly managed horrific abuse of prisoners and detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and places unnamed. We have finally lost any remaining moral authority we may have had. These are crimes against humanity and someone, hopefully several someones, high up needs to pay and pay dearly.

Key quote: "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong".

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  13:42:00 0 comments links to this post
  Perhaps it is time
There is absolutely no chance that the upcoming presidential run off election in Zimbabwe will be in any way "free and fair". The megalomaniacal Robert Mugabe has taken to threatening the voters with death if they fail to vote for him. Finally some are calling for intervention from the west of the world. Can we reasonably sit by, vomiting forth platitudes about freedom, democracy and self-determination any longer? I say not. The free world cannot sit idly by and spectate whilst this truly horrible human being continues his reign of terror.

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  13:32:00 0 comments links to this post
  See Blackwater run, see Blackwater run away!
Whatever deal Captain Codpiece and his evil minions manage to coerce the Iraqi government into is likely to mean an end to contractor immunity that has allowed them to act, harm and kill with impunity. Will Blackwater and its mercenaries hang about for that? Somehow I doubt it. Let's hear it for democracy, eh?

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  13:24:00 0 comments links to this post
  R.I.P.
Esbjörn Svensson - jazz musician - 1964 - 2008.



Enjoy.

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  13:21:00 0 comments links to this post
17 June 2008
  "He said it, not me!"
Well known America hating radical left winger (and billionaire) T. Bone Pickens says that we have reached peak oil.

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  19:36:00 0 comments links to this post
  Get out of jail free (at least for now)
One doesn't have to like Silvio Berlusconi's politics, and I certainly don't, to admit that the man has chutzpah.

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  19:33:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in war crimes
Somehow I had always imagined that on the day that a Thatcher was named as a probable war criminal in a court of law, (even if the court is a dodgy one), that it would have been the mother and not the son. That said, Mark Thatcher is one irritating toss pot and I am certain he is guilty of something!

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  19:12:00 0 comments links to this post
  "Stop - you're killing me here!"
Sometimes you just have to laugh. Crooks and Liars has the most recent example of Republi-con attempts at stand up as Republican House leader John "Rhymes with Boner" Boehner tells us that the Republican Party is the true agent of change in America. all they have to do is to convince (extremely gullible) Americans that the party has "solutions, which we do, for the economy, gas prices, our national security and health care". Apparently they have been keeping these solutions under wraps for the past seven and a bit years just waiting for the country's citizenry to become well and truly desperate!

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  18:58:00 0 comments links to this post
  Paging Maxwell Smart
Scientists from Imperial College London think they may have discovered the cone, or at least the cloak, of silence.

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  18:54:00 0 comments links to this post
  This is just one expert's opinion - your experience may vary
The rabidly right wing sober and moderate Murdoch owned Faux Street Journal seeks out the patron saint of torture, John Yoo, so that he may explain to us the irreparable damage done to America by the freedom hating members of the Supreme Court of the United States who voted in the majority in Boumediene v. Bush. And who better indeed?

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  18:44:00 0 comments links to this post
  Your tax dollars (hardly) at work
A former senior auditor for the US Army in Iraq is contending that he was sacked after refusing to pay over $1 billion ($1,000,000,000) in questionable charges to KBR. The army contends that failing to pay in the invoices would have led to a deterioration in services to the troops even below the abysmal level that KBR was already supplying!

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  18:33:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 54: carefully reversing a position that he had held for at least twenty minutes The Aged One has decided that he is only against off shore oil exploration as long as petrol stays under $4.00 a gallon. Well at least we now know the value he puts on the planet. My God Senator don't you read the papers? Haven't you heard that flip flops are bad for you?

(Is it just me or is he harder to pin down than an epileptic eel coated with Vaseline?)

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  18:14:00 0 comments links to this post
  It can happen here (and I think it just did)
Captain Codpiece has just signed two more imperial fiats Presidential directives authorising the American government to collect, retain and share biometric data pertaining to "known and suspected terrorists [and] other persons who may pose a threat to national security." One can only assume that this will all occur without warrants, court authorisation or those pesky checks and balances but don't worry; there's nothing to worry about if you're not guilty.

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  18:03:00 0 comments links to this post
  I have no words to describe this so I'm afraid....
...that you'll just have to mosey on over to the wacko website of Alan Keyes's Renew America and read it. Let's just say in this scintillating "issues analysis" one Fred Hutchison quite brilliantly and practically effortlessly disproves the Theories of Relativity without a single equation although some might think it cheating that Mr. Hutchison listens to the voices in his head.

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  17:52:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in infamy
On this day in 1972, when I was still in high school, a bunch of Republican criminals broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex in Washington DC and the rest is history.

The saddest thing of all is that, after nearly 8 years of Captain Codpiece and his evil minions, the Nixon Republicans are looking better and better (and not nearly as criminal)!

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  17:41:00 0 comments links to this post
  Yes, everything is bigger in Texas...

...especially the bigotry.

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  17:34:00 0 comments links to this post
  R.I.P.
Traditional marriage - (sometime shortly after creation - 2008). Gays are getting married in California and once people have gone to a gay wedding why would they want to go to a straight one? The food won't be as nice, the clothes won't be as trendy and, let's face it, straight men can't dance!

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  17:31:00 0 comments links to this post
  What they did next
Now that some Swedish scientists have discovered that the brains of gay men and straight women share a number of physical characteristics, as do the brains of straight men and gay women, expect the Christian right to embark on a "crusade" to explain to us just exactly how gay men choose to alter the shape of their brains.

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  17:24:00 0 comments links to this post
  Every journey begins with a single step
Personally I believe that there exists sufficient evidence to suggest that Captain Codpiece is guilty of war crimes and/or crimes against humanity including waging an aggressive war (see Count 1 of the Nuremberg indictments). Ergo I think that the plans by the Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover to assemble a conference to discuss prosecution of Our Great Leader is not without merit. Expect the normal chorus of outrage and accusations of treason from the usual suspects.

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  17:16:00 0 comments links to this post
  The Veepstakes
There are a lot of pundits (and others) throwing around a lot of names for the Vice Presidential slots on both tickets. Frankly I could give a toss who the Republicans pick. On the Democratic side there are several choices that I absolutely hate; Hillary Clinton (too bitter), Al Gore (too many bad memories), Ed Rendell (WTF???), Joe Biden (will winning Delaware help?). There is one possible choice that I keep coming back to who I think has the potential to help the ticket immensely even though I don't think he is someone I would pick if I were doing the picking. That choice is Wesley Clarke. Watch this.

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  17:04:00 0 comments links to this post
16 June 2008
  Shorter Conrad Black
"American judges are way too stupid to try the likes of me!"

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  12:02:00 0 comments links to this post
  "If we showed you we'd have to kill you!"*
When US Military's Office of Show Trials Military Commissions told the Washington Post that detainees will have the right to see classified information presented to the juries that will be convicting them with "no exceptions" what they really meant that detainees will have no rights to see classified information nor will they necessarily be able to question their torturers interrogators. Justice, American Style.

*Note: we reserve the right to kill you anyway.

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  11:44:00 0 comments links to this post
  Get your fear out!
Great American Newt "I'm an Amphibian Not a Reptile" Gingrich has decided that the US Supreme Court's recent decision in Boumediene v. Bush is the "the most extraordinarily arrogant and destructive decision the Supreme Court has made in its history" and that it could cost us a city. Not New Orleans though; that's already spoken for.

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  11:28:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 53: I think that he thinks that this "McCain Cribs" videowill give him street cred with the young folks. You know who I mean - those people under 65!

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  11:16:00 0 comments links to this post
15 June 2008
  "Don't even think about it! Gordo"


The European leg of Captain Codpiece's Legacy '08 Tour ends in London tomorrow and he's come will all guns blazing as he warns our beleaguered Prime Minister againstwithdrawing troops from Iraq. He also paints himself as a Simón Bolívar for the 21st century as he claims that he has liberated "50 million people from the clutches of barbaric regimes", possibly single-handed. He also threatens to write a book.

He is clearly a man capable of extraordinary self-delusion.

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  15:42:00 0 comments links to this post
  Now this could prove more than a wee bit tricky
Should Afghanistan launch military strikes against Afghanistan, as threatened by the Afghan President, whose side will the US be on. Afghanistan's? Pakistan's? Neither? Both?

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  15:38:00 0 comments links to this post
  Saving the nation (and the world from judicial activism)
I am certain that true conservative Americans will be rejoicing the recent US Supreme Court ruling in the case of Boumediene v. Bush in which Justices Kennedy (app. R. Reagan), Stevens (app. G. Ford), Souter (app. Bush the Father), Ginsburg (app. W. Clinton) and Breyer (app. W. Clinton) preserved the ancient right of habeas corpus, a right so sacrosanct and universal that the Founders found no need to include it in the Bill of Rights* or the Constitution proper except to state the circumstances under which it could be suspended. These brave men and woman held fast against the onslaught of the activist judges Roberts (app. Bush the Son), Scalia (app. R. Reagan), Thomas (app. Bush the Father) and Alito (Bush the Son) who wished to invent new law from the ether simply to satisfy circumstance that they see in the world today. The thinking and arguments of these four vile men should be, and I am certain is, anathema to any conservative anywhere.

It is also possible that I could be wrong in this and that this carefully crafted conservative legal philosophy is only followed as long as convenient. Hard to tell.

*Should you not believe Mr. Dean or myself I give you the following from Federalist Paper (84):

"It may well be a question, whether these are not, upon the whole, of equal importance with any which are to be found in the constitution of this State. The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus, the prohibition of ex post facto laws, and of TITLES OF NOBILITY, to which we have no corresponding provision in our Constitution, are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it contains. The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious Blackstone, in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital: 'To bereave a man of life, [says he] or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.' And as a remedy for this fatal evil he is everywhere peculiarly emphatical in his encomiums on the habeas corpus act, which in one place he calls 'the BULWARK of the British Constitution.'"

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  14:56:00 0 comments links to this post
  Is this a crime?
I am an uncompromising defender of free speech, including offensive speech, and have long thought that many countries in Western Europe as well as Canada have gone far too far in regulating "hate" speech. To me, the right to be offensive, cruel and even hateful is part and parcel of living in a truly free society. I do, however, draw the line at incitement to violence and I think that there is a question that must be answered as to Michael Reagan's comments in the clip below. Is he inciting violence, even murder, and if he is will he be prosecuted? I would answer those questions with a "yes" and a "of course not".

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  14:40:00 0 comments links to this post
  "Hurry up, please, it's time!"
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has suggested that, if the US and Iraq cannot agree on a military pact, he may have to ask US forces to leave the country. (Please don't slam the door on the way out.) One would think that he has deluded himself into believing that his country is actually a sovereign nation.

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  14:32:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 52: he thinks that it is "tough" to be proud of America and that clearly is not the kind of blind, irrational chauvinism we need in a President now is it?

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  14:24:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 51: should he win one wouldn't want to be a woman for the next four years.

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  14:15:00 0 comments links to this post
14 June 2008
  Your Saturday Beer Quiz!
I scored 9 out of 10!

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  12:49:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 50: either he and his stinking rich wife are too stupid to realise that if you are worth around $100,000,000 that there are cheaper ways to finance your lifestyle than running up $100,000 on your credit cards. Either that or they are so rich that they just don't give a fuck. Either way it doesn't really help his attempt to seem an ordinary Joe.

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  12:37:00 0 comments links to this post
  Topsy turvy world
An ostensibly left wing government, if only by American standards, has just pushed its draconian 42 day detention without charge bill through the lower house of Parliament. New Labour's probable replacement, the right wing Tories, plans not just to scrap the 42 day limit but to reduce the limit below the current 28 days! I knew I shouldn't have had the mushroom omelet for breakfast.

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  12:32:00 0 comments links to this post
  Follow the Blair
Now this is weird. The Independent is reporting rumours surfacing in Rome that Captain Codpiece might convert to Catholicism just like his ex-poodle St. Tony Blair. I don't think the right wing fundamentalists will be too happy with the idea.

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  12:29:00 0 comments links to this post
  Shorter Melanie Morgan
"Barack Obama wants you to eat old people." At least, I think that's what she is trying to say. It's a bit hard to follow her "thinking". I'm fairly certain she's gone off her meds again!

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  12:23:00 0 comments links to this post
  Hot enought for ya?
Remember all that ever so righteous right wing outrage after a heat wave in Europe led to many deaths two summers ago? Remember how scornful they were because socialist Europe was allegedly incapable of caring for their people. I wonder what they think about this? I'm sure they will have a rational, market based explanation.

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  12:15:00 0 comments links to this post
  "Is this heaven?"
"No - it's Iowa."

And it's not fairing too well at the moment. But don't worry. I'm sure FEMA's ready and raring to go!

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  12:08:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 49: he hates the Magna Carta. His comments on the Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush say it all as he said that the court had "rendered a decision yesterday that I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country". Dred Scott v. Sanford is outraged!

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  11:59:00 0 comments links to this post
  R.I.P.
Tim Russert - 1950 - 2008; journalist and longtime host of Meet the Press.

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  11:51:00 0 comments links to this post
  In the name of peace
Israel plans to build 1,000 more Israeli Jewish homes in East Jerusalem. I expect the condemnation from the White House, and the Presidential campaigns, to be swift, virulent and unequivocal.

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  11:48:00 1 comments links to this post
  The future's bright! The future's orange!
At least in European football it is. The Dutch would appear to be the team to beat in Euro 2008 having beaten both the Italians and, last night, the French in style. I would make the Portu-geezers the second favourites although the announcement that their coach, Luiz Scolari, is headed to Chelsea FC after the tournament might put them off their stride.

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  11:35:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 48: he may be trying to run away from Captain Codpiece now but he really wants to be bush III. If you don't believe me, just ask him.

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  11:32:00 0 comments links to this post
13 June 2008
  This can only be a good thing
Nouri Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, has said that talks with the Americans that would allow the US to have up-to-58-not-really-permanent-since-we're-fucking-off-once-the-oil-runs-out-military-bases are at an impasse. Should an agreement not be reached bilaterally the US will have to seek an extension of the UN Security Council Mandate, the one that made the illegal occupation legal after the fact, before it expires in December.

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  15:04:00 0 comments links to this post
  Good news for Cardinals' fans

If InBev takes over Anheuser-Busch maybe you'll be able to get a pint of Stella at newly renamed InBev stadium!

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  14:55:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 47: he seems to have trouble keeping his mind made up.

oh mccain

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  14:50:00 0 comments links to this post
  And the number one new word in the Oxford English Dicitonary is....
SUBPRIME (adj): "Of or designating a loan, typically having relatively unfavourable terms, made to a borrower who does not qualify for other loans because of a poor credit history or other circumstances; (also) designating such a borrower."

See also "disaster", "greed" and "runaway neo-liberal, free market capitalism".

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  14:44:00 0 comments links to this post
  Yesterday in infamy
Somehow I missed the fact that yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Medgar Evers by a cowardly, white, Christian, full blooded American terrorist.

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  14:34:00 0 comments links to this post
  I hope they didn't spend too much on this
A study from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center shows that head injuries for motorcyclists have soared since the Keystone State eliminated the helmet requirement. Well what a surprise. I'm sure no one saw this coming.

Maybe they should amend the law so that motorcyclists not wearing helmets lose their "rights" to sue for injuries sustained given their reckless disregard for their own safety. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that though as there is no constituency to pander to by doing that.

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  14:06:00 0 comments links to this post
  From the department of "not exactly news"
How can you tell that US Vice President "I'm a Big" Dick Cheney is lying?

His lips are moving; again.

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  13:50:00 0 comments links to this post
  Next rumour please
Barack Obama's campaign has released his birth certificate and, quelle surprise, he wasn't born in Kenya, Moscow or Mecca!



I am a bit suspicious as to the length of time it took the registrar to record the birth however. Who knows what kind of skullduggery his crack campaign staff could have got up to in those four days!

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  13:38:00 0 comments links to this post
  How to tell we are well and truly well down the slippery slope
I think that when America's elected representatives start suggesting that the US Constitution be amended to start removing rights, even when said elected representative is loony Bush apologist Lindsey "No It's Not a Girl's Name" Graham, it is time we need to begin to seriously worry about the state of the Republic.

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  13:28:00 0 comments links to this post
  What do you do when then isn't enough abstinence to go around?
Give 'em twice what they asked for! It also helps if the wife of Republi-con blowhard Bill Bennett is running the programme in question.

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  13:07:00 0 comments links to this post
  Don't be too hasty Barack!
At at town hall meeting in Wisconsin earlier in the week Senator Obama apparently scoffed at the suggestion that a retired Captain Codpiece could have a role in Iraq should Senator Obama become President. I agree that a role as an Ambassador of Reconciliation would be unseemly but I think sending him to the country he illegally invaded for reasons that remain unclear as a working clearing unexploded bomblets from cluster munitions or perhaps collecting bits of depleted uranium with his bare hands might be consider appropriate and fitting by many, if not most, Americans AND Iraqis. So I think Barack should pause and perhaps give the idea some additional consideration.

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  12:45:00 0 comments links to this post
  "Holy Gay Holy Land Batman!"
This past Friday Israel, the country most beloved of America's rabidly anti-gay Christian right, celebrated it's 10th Gay Pride parade. The article from Jewcy goes on to explain that the Hebrew word for gay, "Ge’eh", actually translate into English as "proud". How dare they?

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  12:40:00 0 comments links to this post
  I thought we didn't do peacekeeping
Through a policy of appeasement which has seen a number of truces agreed with terrorists Iraqi freedom fighters the US military has been able to shift from war fighting to peacekeeping in Iraq. Of course none of this matters to John McCain who thinks American troops should stay as long as they aren't being killed. He doesn't mention the level of Iraqi carnage that he views as acceptable but then it is the Iraqis country and I assume that he feels it is fitting that they should die there.

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  12:32:00 0 comments links to this post
  In which it is explained why you should vote Republi-con
Don't forget to watch the whole thing. There is a little treat at the end!

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  12:27:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in infamy - "well how the hell are we going to get them to Grannie's by Xmas now?" edition
On this day in 1920 the US Post Office ruled that children could not be sent parcel post as live animals. I reckon that means that they may still be posted as long as you kill them first.

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  12:09:00 0 comments links to this post
12 June 2008
  I thought these guys were bought and paid for
Why does the Supreme Court of the US hate freedom so much that they would dare to rule that the guilty evildoers held forever without charge at the luxurious Guantánamo Bay Beach and Leisure Resort have the right to access to civilian courts in order to contest their internment? Apparently these misguided justices believe that the framers of the Constitution intended for evil doers to have rights. I am shocked, appalled and not a little disappointed.

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  16:01:00 0 comments links to this post
  Once again Iran proves itself to be the worst country in the world...
...by executing a seventeen year old boy. Fortunately something as heinous as that can never happen in America; at least it can't since 2005!

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  15:51:00 0 comments links to this post
  Good news for Jack Abramoff and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
There are moves afoot to encourage government agencies to hire ex-offenders. But I don't think that they should get their hearts set on something in the White House straightaway.

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  15:22:00 0 comments links to this post
  Benvenuto in Italia
Captain Codpiece should expect a raucous but not rapturous welcome as the European leg of his Legacy '08 Farewell Tour visits Italy. I'm sure he will want to get out in the street and have serious discussions with those waiting to greet him!

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  15:17:00 0 comments links to this post
  In which I praise a Tory
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis is resigning from the Conservative front bench and from Parliament over the passage of the government's 42 detention without charge bill. To quote the honourable (and I mean that) Mr. Davis:

"Up until yesterday I took the view that what we did in the House of Commons, representing our constituents was a noble endeavour because with centuries of forebears we defended the freedoms of the British people - well we did up until yesterday."



Are there any (probably not New) Labourites who wish to follow his example?

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  15:07:00 0 comments links to this post
  Scolari, oh, oh
The fans at Stamford Bridge will get a chance to cheer what the fans at Wembeley missed out on as Chelsea FC, and their mega-billionaire owner Roman Abramovich, have landed former Brazil and current Portugal coach Luiz Scolari. And he better not be thinking that second in the Premiership and second in the Champions' League is good enough because that is what got the last bloke sacked!

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  15:00:00 0 comments links to this post
  "Cause we're out of here the minute the oil runs out!"
Whilst seeing the sights on the European leg of his Legacy '08 Farewell Tour Captain Codpiece paused for a moment to assure the world that the US will have no permanent bases in illegally occupied Iraq. I believe him. Don't you?

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  14:54:00 0 comments links to this post
  The precautionary principle at work
New European Union regulations, coming into effect soon, will require manufacturers to demonstrate that a chemical is safe before it enters the market and American companies are worried about its impact. After all the European Union is a huge and affluent marketplace that they can ill afford to lose, especially if the American economy remains in decline.

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  14:38:00 0 comments links to this post
  The headline says it all
"Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'". And before anyone goes on about the damn liberal press the paper in which we find this story is none other than that right wing rag, once owned by Baron Black of Crossharbour, The Torygraph!

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  14:35:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in infamy - "just don't take it as carry on" edition
111 years ago today the Swiss Army knife was born thereby ensuring that no Swiss soldier would ever be with a cork screw, screw driver, bottle opener or nail file again!

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  14:30:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 46: he's having a hard time finding anyone willing to let him use their music for a campaign theme.

Why not try some Lawrence Welk Senator? It's bound to be a hit with your core constituency as long as the batteries in their hearing aids are fully charged up.

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  14:01:00 0 comments links to this post
  War in a time of cholera
It's been over five years since the illegal invasion of Iraq and things have gotten so much better for the people of Baghdad that they have decided to celebrate by infecting their municipal water with cholera. Not how I would have celebrated but perhaps it is a cultural thing.

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  13:46:00 0 comments links to this post
  Think before you buy
Today is World Day against Child Labour so before you stimulate the economy by buying that $4.00 t-shirt make sure you know where it was made and by whom!

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  13:15:00 0 comments links to this post
  The perfect economic storm?
American maize prices have soared to record levels on the back of wet weather in the corn belt which have led to concerns about supply. I wouldn't switch the Hummer over to alco-gas just yet!

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  13:07:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 45: he's just about as good on current affairs and geography as the current Oval Office resident. He seems to think that Vladimir Putin used to be the President of Germany.



A word of warning Senator: I wouldn't try and give him an impromptu neck rub if I were you. He knows karate!

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  12:56:00 0 comments links to this post
  Keeping democracy safe from the Shirley Preisses of this world
Shirley Preiss is a 97 year old woman from Arizona. She would like to vote in the election in November but it doesn't look like she'll be able to. "Why not?" one wonders. Because Arizona has one of those new "voter ID" laws, intended to make it difficult for Democrats illegal aliens from voting, that's why. In order to register to vote in Arizona one has to be able to prove that one is a bona fide American and, as Ms. Preiss was born in 1910 in Kentucky before they started handing out birth certificates, she can't do that. There is an option whereby she could get testimony from someone who witnessed her birth but I think that 115 year-old former midwives from Kentucky aren't all that common. It makes you proud, doesn't it?

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  12:45:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 44: he doesn't think that it is all that important to bring the troops home from Iraq (and seems almost smug about it as well).

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  12:39:00 0 comments links to this post
  And this time he's angry!
The man behind the shameful and false Willie Horton ads had moved onto the web with the subtly named ExposeObama.com. It's going to be a very rough six months indeed.

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  12:08:00 0 comments links to this post
  Let's be prudent
Look, I don't think that this lunatic from Texas is right that doomsday will start today with a nuclear conflict but let's keep Captain Codpiece away from that briefcase today just as a precaution!

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  11:59:00 0 comments links to this post
  R.I.P.
Habeas corpus - (c. 1215 - 2008). It is fitting I suppose that, bring back memories of the last days of John Major's premiership, Gord-o only won because of the support of the Democratic Unionist Party.

A sad day indeed. Hopefully the House of Lords is not as foolish.

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  11:51:00 0 comments links to this post
11 June 2008
  Shorter E.D. Hill
"If you believe this you are a complete and utter moron!

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  15:32:00 0 comments links to this post
  "You fucking idiot! Iran's the other way, stupid!"
The Pakistani Army is blaming the US military for an air strike in Pakistani territory that killed 11 members of the Pakistani military. With friends like these...

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  15:20:00 0 comments links to this post
  How did Kucinich miss this one?
Not one of his 35 counts of impeachment mention the fact that Captain Codpiece is little more than an appeaser in a codpiece! Brace yourself for the righteous and justified right wing outrage (not to mention a good talking to from "I'm a Big" Dick Cheney)!

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  15:14:00 0 comments links to this post
  Is our Senators learning?
It doesn't seem that Jame Inhofe (R - OK) is. His new campaign ad tells us that Iraq is in Africa. Well all of those brown people continents look alike to me too Senator!

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  14:54:00 0 comments links to this post
  In which I admit that...
...Bill-o O'Reilly is capable of nearly making sense as he does in this clip where he admits that the market doesn't work and that it will take big government intervention to fix it. (Of course, his solutions don't actually make sense or will make things worse but remember that every journey begins with a single step!)

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  14:43:00 0 comments links to this post
  What have we become?
I strongly suggest that you go and read Human Rights Watch's disturbing report on conditions at the Guantánamo Bay Beach and Leisure Resort. Grown men wept. I know I did.

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  14:33:00 0 comments links to this post
  It depends on what the meaning of "everything" is!
Remember poor Linda Lay? She was the wife of the late "Kenny Boy" Lay of Enron fame who stood in front of her home after the collapse of her husband's Ponzi scheme and told they world that her family had lost everything. Well either her idea of "everything" is different from my idea of "everything" or she's picked up one hell of a part time job as she's managed to come up with nearly $110,000 to pay off the condo fees on her tasteful little 12,500 square foot flat in Houston which is valued at over $30 million.

Should have a pity party for the lumpen lass?
  14:24:00 0 comments links to this post
  Your tax dollars at work
That institution most beloved by American neo-cons, the British Broadcasting Corporation, has investigated the huge scale fraud and waste that is American "aid" to Iraq and found 23 billion USD "missing". Unfortunately if your American your government won't let you know this as most of the fraud and incompetence is covered by gag orders obtained by the Pentagon.

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  14:09:00 0 comments links to this post
  Looks like they're weeding them out!
Discharges from the US military under the "don't ask - don't tell" policy as regards sexual preference continue to decline. Do you reckon that any of them have been for asking?

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  13:54:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 43: he's not exactly a ladies' man, is he? It kind of reminds me of the Newtster.

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  13:49:00 0 comments links to this post
  Peut-être il regrette quelque chose?

Say it ain't so! It looks as if the Captain is considering retiring his Codpiece as he expresses regret over being such a wanker. No word as yet as to whether he regrets lying but I am sure it is only a matter of time.

Do you reckon I will be able to find it on eBay?

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  13:40:00 0 comments links to this post
  A joy to watch
The energy market in the state of Texas is the most deregulated in the nation and given the omniscience and omnipotence of the market one would expect that Texas would be free of any difficulties in these troubled times as the price of oil soars. One couldn't be more wrong. Unfortunately some meddling commie-types at the Texas Public Utility Commission look set to prevent the market to work it majestic magic!

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  13:31:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in infamy - "ain't no nigras goin' here" edition
Forty five years ago today George Wallace, the courageous Governor of Alabama, stood in a doorway at the University of Alabama in a vain attempt to prevent two African-American students from enrolling.

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  13:12:00 0 comments links to this post
  What will I learn at Electoral College?
OK. We now have two (and a bit) candidates. But how will the electoral college pan out? Obama promises a 50 state strategy but I doubt he's going to spend much time or money in North Dakota, Alaska or Alabama. My own in depth analysis, using this a starting point, comes in at 286 - 252 to Obama if, and only if, he wins Ohio. I still hold to my prediction that whichever candidate wins two out of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania wins. No matter what I reckon I'm going to have to stay up late again.

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  12:56:00 1 comments links to this post
10 June 2008
  I reckon someone is not going to like this
The European Union is preparing to end the EU's sanctions on Cuba. Why do they hate freedom?

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  19:22:00 0 comments links to this post
  How to know you're having a bad life
1) Have a row with your partner.

2) Get so angry you set fire to £17,000 worth of bank notes.

3) Get found guilty of arson for burning said bank notes.

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  19:01:00 0 comments links to this post
  Gate open? √
Cattle escaped? √

Close gate? √

Captain Codpiece has come out in favour of the (memory of) the strong dollar. According to the Captain:

"We believe in a strong dollar and that the relative value of economies will end up setting the valuation of the dollar."

In this case I very nearly agree with Our Great Leader. I believe that the "relative value of economies" has set the "valuation of the dollar" but "strong" is not the word I would have chosen to describe that valuation.

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  18:50:00 0 comments links to this post
  How to guarantee panic buying
Step 1: as the head of government tell the public not to panic buy a certain commodity.

Step 2: there is no step 2.

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  18:42:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in infamy - "because nothing like Sharia could ever happin in America (again)" edition
On this day in 1692 Bridget Bishop was the first, but not the last, woman hanged in Salem MA for witchcraft.

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  18:24:00 0 comments links to this post
  If it ain't broke don't fix it...
...and I am certain that there will be those on the right who will argue that the fact that there are now 25 million under insured Americans, in addition to the millions of uninsured, is not a symptom of a terrible malaise in the American health care (lack of) system but rather that these 25 million citizens are simply making intelligent and uncoerced free market choices about how best to manage their health care (and still have enough to eat). The free market at work is a beautiful thing to watch indeed.

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  18:13:00 0 comments links to this post
  Well 58 is a nice round number, innit?
McClatchey is reporting that, according to Iraqi MPs, the US wants 58 military bases in the country; one for every point in Captain Codpiece's IQ.

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  18:01:00 0 comments links to this post
  Why the wing nuts should learn to love Iran
If only companies in America and Europe had the courage and integrity to take as firm a stance on marriage as the Pars Special Economic Energy Zone Company. I reckon they won't accept "I'm gay" as a valid excuse either.

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  17:52:00 0 comments links to this post
  If only they had had guns
Yes - that is the argument the nut cases over at World Nut Net Daily are making re the recent horrible violence in South Africa and the ongoing horrors in Zimbabwe. They are blaming it on gun control legislation.

Curiously these normally careful and thorough researchers are silent about the shameful US-imposed gun control measures in Iraq!

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  17:41:00 0 comments links to this post
  Now this could prove interesting
Scott McClellan is to testify under oath, something Karl Rove seems to be reticent to do, before the House Judiciary Committee next week. Will the White House try to stop him? If he testifies to illegal acts what will happen? (To be continued...)

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  17:32:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 42: he's declared war on beer and that just won't do.

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  17:25:00 0 comments links to this post
  My hero!!!!
You may have noticed, or perhaps not, that I have still not dropped my endorsement of Dennis Kucinich for President in 2008. I have two reasons for this. One, he is the candidate who consistently came closest to my own thinking and two, he is, unlike many of America's craven politicians, a man of courage. He has officially entered into the House 35 counts of impeachment against Our Great Leader George W. Bush, aka Captain Codpiece.

Now it is up to Pelosi and I reckon we all know what that means. Nonetheless it had to be down.

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  17:16:00 0 comments links to this post
  In case you missed any of it
The Democratic primary process in eight minutes courtesy of Slate.

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  17:06:00 0 comments links to this post
  Does this make me gay?
I love Ute Lemper, especially when she sings Kurt Weil. Unfortunately I'm unlikely to be in New York in October.

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  17:02:00 0 comments links to this post
09 June 2008
  Dear Captain Codpiece,
I have some summer reading for you. It's only a magazine article so it will still leave you time to read More of My Pet Goat. This weekend's Guardian included a little primer from Jimmy Carter on how to be an ex-President. I thought it might prove useful for you. Maybe you'll manage one of those Nobel thingies!

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  17:45:00 0 comments links to this post
  Shorter Grant Swank
Atheists (and agnostics and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Sikhs and Taoists and Confucians and Bahá'ís and animists) aren't real Americans.

Sorry Grant but you're wrong. I reckon you must be used to that by now.

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  17:37:00 0 comments links to this post
  Let me preface this by saying...
...that as a man I do not know, and will never know, what it is like to give birth to a baby but I think I can state with great certainly that giving birth to a sumo baby would not be a walk in the park. That is all.

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  17:20:00 0 comments links to this post
  Why they hate us for our freedoms
There is no doubt that the Islamofacistbastards hate America and I can clearly demonstrate why using this simple but persuasive example from, (where else?), Texas. In the city of Dallas there is a rundown thoroughfare known as Industrial Boulevard. The city council would like to rename it as part of redevelopment plans so the city council sponsors a poll to find out what the people of Dallas would like to call it. The people of Dallas firmly and unequivocally say "César Chávez Boulevard".

The city council responds by saying "you didn't think that was a real poll, did you". It's just we have some friends in the polling business and we wanted to throw some money their way.

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  17:08:00 0 comments links to this post
  Why does no one ever answer me?
I ask and ask and ask and yet no one can explain to me who these 28% of Americans are who still approve of the performance of Captain Codpiece nor does anyone bother to tell me what is wrong with them. I beg of you please. I need answers!

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  17:05:00 0 comments links to this post
  Is Laura Bush a terrorist or just trying to sell doughnuts?

The soon to be ex-First Lady is visiting Afghanistan to let us know how well things aren't going there. But what is that around her neck? I, for one, am suspicious but I shall let others claim the credit!

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  16:59:00 0 comments links to this post
  Holidaying in America?
Whatever you do don't eat tomatoes. It really is slipping into the third world and not too slowly either.

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  16:53:00 0 comments links to this post
  Uh oh, I don't think he cleared this with the neo-cons!
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki has displayed incredible hubris by daring to act as the head of government of a sovereign nation and assured Iran that Iraqi territory would never be used to attack Iran. At best he's going to get a stern talking to and at worst...

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  16:47:00 0 comments links to this post
  It's not such a problem if you live on a hill...
...but there are literally billions of people world wide, living in low lying areas, who are at great risk from climate change and rising sea levels. The residents of the Oceanic nation Kiribati are perhaps foremost amongst them. The country's president, Anote Tong, believes that his nation will soon disappear and has asked for assistance in evacuation and resettlement. I have no doubt that American immigration will treat them fairly after deciding that they are economic refugees who are just using the fact that their country now longer exists to gain access to the wide range of minimum wage jobs available in America's service industry.

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  16:39:00 0 comments links to this post
  I thought I might share this with you
Yesterday's Independent on Sunday carried an opinion piece by Sarah Churchwell about Barack Obama and his chances for victory in November. It is thoughtful and well worth a read but I don't mention it for that. I mention it because the following quote highlights the much more sensible policies of all of the major British papers towards the use of obscenity in print. Ms. Churchwell, in discussing Senator McCain's character has the following to say:

"I would put nothing past a man who, it has been alleged and not denied, has called his own wife a cunt."

The use of the justifiably reviled "C" word in this case is not gratuitous. How can one possibly discuss the (alleged) incident without using the word? The American press would simply report, had they not already chosen to ignore the accusation, that "McCain cursed his wife" or "McCain called his wife an expletive". Neither of those does justice to what may, or may not, have occurred between the two. If it is duty of the press to report then they must report, and report truthfully, including the use of often offensive language when it is necessary and germane to the story.

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  16:28:00 0 comments links to this post
  Well what the hell else are they good for?
Evel's kid Robbie jumped over 21 apparently abandoned Hummers in Texas at the weekend. I reckon that counts as news somewhere.

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  16:18:00 0 comments links to this post
  It's not really what I expect from IHoP
They sure know how to have a good time down in Louisiana so no one should be surprised that the International House of Pancakes Prayer in Shreveport celebrated the coming of summer with a good old fashioned book burning. After throwing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and, for good measure, some porn into the conflagration one Adriane Banks is quoted as saying:

"As I tore the pages, I felt a generational curse of immorality and perversion breaking off my family...I felt it."

Like I said they sure know how to have a good time down there.

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  15:51:00 0 comments links to this post
  You had better get used to it
As the US dollar's value plummets the United States is no longer the market of first choice for multi-nationals as Nintendo's decision to send four times as many Wii Fit units to Europe as compared to American in order to maximise profits.

Now repeat after me - "shareholder value, shareholder value, shareholder value". See. I' certain that you feel better already.

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  15:41:00 0 comments links to this post
  All Bill Moyers, all the time
At forty minutes it is rather long for our sound bite age but I think you will enjoy Bill Moyers's speech to the National Conference on Media Reform at the weekend.

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  15:38:00 0 comments links to this post
  Should I cancel my haircut appointment?
According to Texas prophet Yisrayl "Buffalo Bill" Hawkins doomsday will happen next Thursday or sooner in the form of a nuclear war starting in the region of the Euphrates River. Please don't tell Captain Codpiece. I'd rather he didn't start getting any ideas.

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  15:18:00 0 comments links to this post
  So who the hell wants it then?
Parliament is due to debate and vote on the proposed new 42 day internment detention limit this week. Yesterday Home Secretary Jacqui Smith admitted that MI5 has not asked for these new powers simply saying that the ghostly security service has said that the "scale of the threat" is growing. Today The Guardian also reports that at least four of the nations top police executives are attacking the plans saying that it will damage the reputation of the police, damage the police forces' relations with the Muslim community that is clearly the target and lead to pressures to manufacture evidence against those held without charge.

Gordon, I think you're hanging your hat on the wrong peg.

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  15:03:00 0 comments links to this post
  Have you heard about it yet, Numb Nuts?

Remember that press conference about three months ago when Captain Codpiece was surprised when a reporter suggested that gasoline could shortly be hitting $4 a gallon?
"That's interesting. I hadn't heard that."
Well it seems that it happened yesterday.

Note to Americans: 4 USD a US gallon still sounds terribly cheap to me.

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  14:02:00 0 comments links to this post
  Isn't there a crime here or are we no longer a "nation of laws"?
The Pentagon explicitly urged interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay Beach and Leisure Resort to destroy any and all notes relating to the interrogation and treatment of prisoners in case they were called to testify. I'm sure that the Department of Justice will get right on this.

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  13:59:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 41: he seems to think he's Baldrick. At least he seems to think that he has a "cunning plan" that will seem him winning 25% of the black vote and sprinting to victory in November.

It's good to laugh, innit?

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  13:46:00 0 comments links to this post
  Goodbye and good riddance
Captain Codpiece's extended Legacy '08 Tour visits Europe this week and there doesn't seem to be anyone who is sad to see him go. Bless.

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  13:33:00 0 comments links to this post
  Out-Fauxed!
A producer from Bill-O O'Reilly's show tries, and fails, to ambush Bill Moyers. The young, eager and annoying Porter Barry* was trying to fight well out of his class.



*Is it just me or does "Porter Barry" sound like a name that could only come from a family deeply immersed in the East Coast, old money, intellectual elite that Bill-o and those of his despicable ilk so like to scorn?

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  13:23:00 0 comments links to this post
  Whose oil do they think it is anyway?
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries has found no reason to pump more oil despite the hardships being encountered by God-fearing, Hummer driving, McMansion living Americans. Do we have to invade them all?

Note: towards the end of the article you will find a quote from the head of Libya's National Oil Corporation, Shokri Ghanem:

"The easy, cheap oil is over...Peak oil is looming."

Is this first time an OPEC member has publicly used the term "peak oil"?

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  13:17:00 0 comments links to this post
  This can only be good news
The McCain campaign is, so far at least, failing miserably with Ohio Republicans and it doesn't take a genius to know that whichever candidate wins at least two of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania is probably going to win the Presidency.

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  13:05:00 0 comments links to this post
  But we stole it fair and square!
I think Captain Codpiece is going soft in his (thankfully) final months in office. The US Park Service is considering returning half of the Badlands National Park to the Ogala Sioux. Clearly there is no oil there. Just don't anyone start thinking that this is any kind of precedent, OK?

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  12:52:00 0 comments links to this post
  Well it is an interesting conceit
It seems that The Aged One's campaign has decided that an Obama presidency would represent a third Bush term. Well given that 10% of Americans think Obama is a Muslim means that anything might work.

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  12:42:00 0 comments links to this post
  Gone-zo goes temping!
Former US Attorney General Alberto "Gone-zo" Gonzales hasn't found a real job since his resignation in disgrace sometime ago. He has however found a part time, temporary job that should tide him over until some wealthy "friend" takes pity on him.

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  12:23:00 0 comments links to this post
07 June 2008
  For your listening pleasure
Somehow this Jackson Browne tune still seems oddly topical.

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  16:01:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in infamy - "where the hell are we going to put the spoils of the Empire?" edition
On this day in 1753 King George II gave royal assent to the bill establishing the British Museum. By the way the Greeks still want those statues back!

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  14:37:00 0 comments links to this post
  So when are England playing again?
Euro 2008 kicks off today. Who do England up against first?

What the hell am I going to do for the next month? I reckon, given the amount of time I spent working there, I'll have to support the Dutch. Do I look good in orange?

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  14:30:00 0 comments links to this post
  Standing up for independence
Resistance to the US Iraq (not really a) defence treaty that would see the Republic of Iraq ceding sovereignty over much of its defence and military to the United States continues to grow as this opinion piece in The Independent by former finance minister Ali Allawi demonstrates. With any luck the voice of Allawi and others will put an end to this neo-imperial "agreement" and Captain Codpiece's beloved "Freedom Agenda" will be the better for it!

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  14:08:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 40: Flip flops are bad for your health and given The Aged One's age that's the last thing he needs!

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  14:04:00 0 comments links to this post
  I smell another rich folks tax cut coming!
Captain Codpiece is said to be exploring new ways to stimulate the US economy which is not, I repeat not, either in recession or crisis!

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  14:00:00 0 comments links to this post
  Welcome to Sex Chester
It seems as if, for now at least, the battle over a lingerie shop in West Chester PA is over but I'm sure that the forces of darkness reason will be back and this time they'll be angry.

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  13:55:00 0 comments links to this post
  A tale of two cities
Yesterday in Berlin (the real one in Germany not the one in New Jersey) the Bundestag passed a climate change law targeting a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. Meanwhile in Washington DC Senators didn't even get a chance to discuss a woefully inadequate climate change bill because Republicans didn't want to. Somehow Senators such as Boxer (D - CA) and Lieberman (Republi-dent - CT) tried to spin this, unsuccessfully I think, as a victory.

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  13:23:00 0 comments links to this post
  Has anyone seen the moral high ground?
There used to be a time that the United States could stand proudly on its record as regards freedom and human rights, sometimes justifiably and sometimes not, but now that is frankly impossible. Yesterday a panel of experts from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child severely criticised the US for its continued detention of minors as "threats to security" at the Guantánamo Bay Beach and Leisure Resort and elsewhere as well as the recruiting campaigns run by the US military that specifically target underage and disadvantaged youths. US officials have, as yet, failed to respond to the criticism.

How the mighty have fallen.

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  13:03:00 0 comments links to this post
  Walk softly and carry a big (if borrowed) stick
Occasionally one is pleasantly surprised by events in American politics. Yesterday provided one of those moments as 95 year old Charles Edwards travelled over three hours by car to see Barack Obama speak in Virginia. He is a retired black coal miner who, in his own words, "was afraid [there]would not be [a black President] in [his] lifetime". He got to meet Senator Obama and gave him his stick which Barack promised to use to "whoop" Congress if they vote against his health care package. More of this and he just might win.

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  12:10:00 0 comments links to this post
  Fucking kids!
Oil leaps 10 dollars a barrel in one day setting yet another new record. The Dow Jones index drops nearly 400 points. The US jobless rate jumps 0.5% in a month, the biggest one month jump in over two decades.

What is the reaction of Captain Codpiece and his evil and incompetent minions? Everything is OK. The jobless rate only went up because of a bunch of useless (and unemployed) teenagers. Fortunately a financial reporter on CNN calls them out on this and notes that the US economy, if not technically in recession, is certainly in crisis.

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  11:52:00 0 comments links to this post
  See what you get with socialised medicine?
The world's worst state, an enemy of freedom and imagined sponsor of terrorism, Cuba is to allow free sex change operations for its citizens. Isn't it vastly superior to live in a country where only the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent invisible hand of the "free" market can decide if you have to stay a man (or a woman) or you live or you die? Really. It is.

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  11:44:00 0 comments links to this post
  Loony as can be Islamaphode Daniel Pipes predicts a war crime
According to the pseudo-thinker Captain Codpiece will attack Iran if Senator Obama defeats The Aged One in November. And this from a man who was once a temporary employee of the euphemistically named "Institute of Peace"!

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  11:32:00 0 comments links to this post
06 June 2008
  Breaking news!
There may have been time before the Big Bang. (Just as long as it wasn't more than 6,000 years ago!) So this would mean that our universe isn't really a uni-verse then, right?

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  16:49:00 0 comments links to this post
  In which I answer my own question
Yes, they are putting something in the water in America that they didn't when I lived there.

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  15:14:00 0 comments links to this post
  Do you usually take your saviour with ketchup, vinegar or mayonnaise?
Today's Friday madness is Jesus on (in? of?) a chip. Are they putting something in the water in America that they didn't when I lived there?

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  15:06:00 0 comments links to this post
  Say it ain't so!
The Canadian Broadcasting Company is dropping the theme music for Hockey Night in Canada. Yet another great institution sadly abandoned.

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  14:18:00 0 comments links to this post
  Meanwhile back at the ranch
Whilst the war in Iraq continues (with moderate recent success) and the war in Afghanistan continues (with increasing failure); whilst the price of energy soars and America's (and western Europe's) conspicuous consumption drives global climate change perhaps beyond the tipping point; whilst poverty in America and the world spirals upwards and more and more go hungry my senior Senator, Arlen "Single Bullet" Specter remains convinced that the US Senate should be spending more of its valuable(?) time investigating what the Americans call football. [Sigh]

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  13:48:00 0 comments links to this post
  Finally an edorsement that means something!
American songwriter and rock legend Bob Dylan, who is also my personal saviour, tells The Times that presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama is "redefining the nature of politics from the ground up". Sounds like an endorsement to me.

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  13:41:00 0 comments links to this post
  US officials sacked for incompetence!
Let us hope that the sackings of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and the service's chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, for their incompetence in nuclear affairs is the start of a trend. Just think how much money the government could save if every one of the incompetent officials appointed by Captain Codpiece had their employment terminated. It would probably cover a couple of hours of the illegal occupation of Iraq!

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  13:29:00 1 comments links to this post
  "Well maybe after all this it isn't you money after all"
As I noted yesterday if Iraq wants to remain become a sovereign nation it needs to deliver an emphatic "no" to Washington's "offer" of a defence alliance (not to be confused with a defence treaty) that would see permanent US bases, immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and officials and American control of Iraqi air space. Now I learn from Patrick Cockburn in The Independent that Captain Codpiece and his evil minions are playing hardball with the Iraqi "government" by threatening with seizure around 50 billion USD of Iraqi assets held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

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  13:02:00 0 comments links to this post
  Paging David Horowitz
I am sure that the erstwhile champion of "academic freedom" will be eager to take on the case of Francisco Marroquin University in Guatemala where any left wing thinking is banned and only "free" market economics, Ayn Rand and Adam Smith* are considered worthy of study. I eagerly await his loosing of the attack dogs.

*Adam Smith must however be heavily redacted to eliminate the thread of socialism and government intervention to fight poverty and inequality that permeates his work.

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  12:46:00 0 comments links to this post
  And quite right too!
Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, (will someone please tell Hillary Clinton?), was seen to have rather stern words with Senator Joe Lieberman (Republi-dent - CT) on the floor of the Senate yesterday. The conversation came after Connecticut's disloyal ex-Democrat harshly criticised Obama's speech to AIPAC. One can only hope that, should the Democrats pick up enough Senate seats in the autumn to give them a clear majority, Lieberman is stripped of his committee chairmanships and any other perks he has from pretending to be a Democrat.

ABC has video of Obama leading Lieberman away.

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  12:33:00 0 comments links to this post
05 June 2008
  From the department of not exactly news
Bush lied and so did Cheney.

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  17:08:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President

Number 39: "If he sees less far than most it is by standing on the shoulders of midgets". (Apologies to Sir Isaac Newton.)

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  16:49:00 0 comments links to this post
  Sydney's happy hookers
Sydney's sex industry is predicting a firm upsurge in sales for 2008-2009 on the back of the Catholic Church's World Youth Day.

Well as long as they don't use condoms I reckon it's OK.

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  16:46:00 0 comments links to this post
  It's official
One can't sue Faux News just because they're blithering idiots.

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  16:40:00 0 comments links to this post
  Headline of the day
"Hairy blobs found in acidic hell."

I haven't actually read the article as yet simply out of fear.

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  16:31:00 0 comments links to this post
  When they came for the superheroes...
...I did nothing because I was not a superhero. Sadly I have to report that Spiderman has been arrested.

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  16:26:00 0 comments links to this post
  Do you want the good news or the bad news?
The good news is that they have found something that cuts the odds of developing rheumatoid arthritis by about 50%. The bad news is that, as it is drinking alcohol, it is unlikely to make walking any easier.

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  16:18:00 0 comments links to this post
  Is it possible for something with no value to "crash"?
If this Reuters article is to be believed the answer is "yes". The headline? "Zimbabwe's currency crashes, prices rocket". The Zimbabwean dollar is now approaching 1.5 billion, that's right billion, to the USD or about 3 billion to the pound. If you've ever wanted to be stinking rich this could be your big opportunity.

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  16:06:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 38: (and I'm serious with this one), the Supreme Court. America might never recover.

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  15:52:00 0 comments links to this post
  I think we finally have real evidence of a war crime
Assuming that the quotes from General Ricardo Sanchez's new book are accurate I would think that Captain Codpiece is certainly guilty of incitement to murder as well as to indiscriminate slaughter. In his "pep" talk with his generals he said, and I quote:

"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"

If you don't think that's a crime trying saying the same thing on a street corner in Washington DC.

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  15:35:00 0 comments links to this post
  What's wrong with kids these days?
They're having less sex, doing less drugs and, worst of all, using condoms. I fear that all of the hard work of my generation paving the way forward might now be in vain!

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  15:09:00 0 comments links to this post
  Ok Iraq if you want to be a soveriegn nation, and a democracy, this might be a good time to start
And the best way to start is by simply saying no to the deal that the US wants you to sign up to. The military accord, which Captain Codpiece continue to insist is not a treaty and therefore outside of the scope of Congressional approval, would see "US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law". The US would also control Iraqi airspace.

I say let freedom ring!

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  15:00:00 0 comments links to this post
  OK - who raped Captain Codpiece?
The courageous and brilliant Bill-o O'Reilly says someone did and that Scott McClellan sat back and watched*. There are a few interesting moments in the interview. For instance McClellan tells Bill-o that "we have to get rid of the venom and the hatred" without pointing out that Bill-o is a major force of venom and hatred. Bill-o goes on to note, about Captain Codpiece, that "we all know he made mistakes" and, of course, fails to note that the Captain is blissfully unaware of having made any mistakes.



*Bill-o actually says that McClellan sat back whilst his interviers "verbally raped" the Captain. I am assuming that Bill-o was think of phone sex, a subject in which he has some considerable expertise.

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  14:52:00 0 comments links to this post
  Today in infamy - "best President we never had" edition
Forty years ago today Robert Kennedy was assassinated in California and a minimum of 10,000 new conspiracy theories were born.

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  14:29:00 0 comments links to this post
04 June 2008
  Justice Scalia wants to oppress me
The outspoken US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia seems to think that freedom of religion doesn't necessarily apply to atheists. How old is he? When does he hit retirememt age?

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  14:33:00 0 comments links to this post
  1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President
Number 37: he'll be watching you, and listening to you, and reading your emails and he don't need no stinkin' warrant either.

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  14:23:00 0 comments links to this post
  White man wins nomination!
Apparently some guy named Osama Obama has claimed the Democratic nomination for President. Rumours that Hillary Clinton has hired Tonya Harding as a tactical advisor for her campaign cannot be confirmed at this time!

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  14:02:00 0 comments links to this post
  How times flies...
...whilst you're waiting for electricity. Iraq's Minister of Electricity expects that the country's electricity supply should be "nearly stable" in only three years time. Well done everyone.

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  13:53:00 0 comments links to this post
  Oh, how they suffer
If you think that America's obscenely rich haven't noticed the economic downturn you would be very, very wrong indeed. They're having to sell off their spare Rolexes and are only chartering private jets rather than buying them outright but they are determined to hang on to their Bentleys and Picassos. God I hope they make it!

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  13:49:00 0 comments links to this post
  And after everything we've done for them!
Let's face it Blackwater USA has gotten a pretty good deal from the American taxpayer. They have received tens of millions of US dollars in contracts for supplying mercenaries for Iraq and Afghanistan and the US government has seen to it that said mercenaries are exempt from all Iraqi, American and international law should they be naughty. And how do they pay us back for this largesse? By buying a fighter jet from Brazil rather than from America.

I also have this nagging question in the back of my head as to why Blackwater needs only one fighter jet. Won't they need more than one when we outsource (illegal) attacks against Iran to them?

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  13:39:00 0 comments links to this post
  Maybe America is building a fence on the wrong border
I know that America's wing nuts have their knickers all twisted up over the hordes of illegal visitors crossing into America from the south and justifiably so as these people are brown and they don't speak English American. But at least they are proper Christians unlike many of those up north. What if atheists suddenly start sneaking in? Won't that destroy America's status as a Christian nation blessed unto God?

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  13:32:00 0 comments links to this post
  "Stop it Dick, you're killing me here!"
US Vice President "I'm a Big" Dick Cheney tries stand up. Fails. Offends West Virginians and incest lovers everywhere!

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  13:30:00 0 comments links to this post
  Save the phone box!

BT plans to destroy the country's heritage by close down a large proportion of its red phone boxes. If Britain loses these treasures where will prostitutes leave their calling cards? I am certain that there will uproar in the shires and question asked in Parliament.

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  13:22:00 1 comments links to this post
  Yet another traitor in our midst!
Can't these once loyal Americans just wait until Captain Codpiece shuffles off to Texas (or Paraguay) before embarking on the character assassination? First little Scottie McClellan had a treacherous and clearly deceitful go at Our Great Leader and now General Ricardo Sanchez thinks the President is fair game! Key quote (from Captain Codpiece's blessed lips):

"Kick ass!...If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal."

Is he taking advice from Ms. Coulter or does he think he's still a cheerleader?

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  13:08:00 0 comments links to this post
  All men are pigs...
...all men have always been pigs*. A new study from Durham University tells us that ancient man used kill his rivals and steal their women.

*All pigs are not, however, men.

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  12:35:00 0 comments links to this post
  Quote of the day
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."

Mark Twain

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  12:32:00 0 comments links to this post
  Another day...
...another Republi-con pleads guilty to fraud and agrees to roll over on his mates. Life is good, innit?

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  12:19:00 0 comments links to this post
  Won't someone please do something?
Terrible news from Alaska where ammunition prices have soared to such ridiculous prices that gun owners can no longer afford to buy by the case! Fuck the $4.00 gasoline, Congress needs to act now before America's most important freedom is lost.

At least Chris Rock must think this a step in the right direction.

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  12:11:00 0 comments links to this post