He's also not giving back Checkers

Disgraced, but not impoverished, former RBS chairman "Alright! Said" Sir Fred Goodwin is refusing to return one red cent of the £16,000,000 pension pot he clearly didn't earn during his 10 year stint at the helm of the now foundering, if not grounded, bank.

This means that over the decade he "worked" at RBS the company put in roughly £133,000 a month; approximately the annual salary of about five of the bank's frontline workers. Should Sir Fred suddenly discover his honour, an admittedly unlikely event, and return his ill-gotten gain perhaps the bank could use the funds to keep about 600 of the 20,000 RBS workers about to get the sack in employment for an extra year. Or maybe not.

All right said Sir Fred

I'm doing something wrong. I'm obviously not incompetent enough. This cunt works for ten years at RBS, drives into nationalisation and at the age of 50, younger than me, ends up with a £16,000,000+ pension pot returning him £650,000 a year!

"A spectre is haunting Europe..."

Wingnuts beware. Today is the 161st anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto. Undoubtedly that fifth columnist in the White House has some private secret celebration planned.

You will note that the good folks at The Spectator seem to have cropped the words "fifth columnist" from the article as written by pre-eminent right wing nut case Melanie Phillips but, once again, they have been found out by Google cache!

Come the revolution

Ameica and the world may look to McDonalds corporation to provide tasteless and expensive meals oozing with saturated fat, sugar and salt but, in Little Rock AR at least, don't look for them to provide for their minimum wage employees as they have denied worker's compensation to former employee Nigel Haskett after he was shot by a patron who he ejected after he abused a women in the store. Apparently the job description doesn't stretch to human decency.

Today in "you gotta be fucking kidding me"

Former British Premier St. Tony Blair has won a prestigious $1,000,000 dollar prize for global leadership. I am certain the fact that it is awarded by a university in Tel Aviv will do wonders for his status as an honest broker in the Middle East.

Well, at least we're fucking rid of him!

If Mick says it it must be true!

Without actually explaining why radical Christian (but cuddly) Christian conservative Mick Huckabee claims that the American stimulus package is "anti-religious".

I assume he doesn't actually mean "anti-religious" but rather "anti-my-peculiar-brand-of-right-wing-fundamentalist-protestant-Christianity".

In praise of the great state of Arkansas

As the state legislature brings new meaning to the old phrase "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition"!

Dear Mr. Rodriguez

I don't really care what you think as far as I am concerned cheating and drug abuse is far worse than stalking. Surely it's time you grew up.

And I certainly hope that you plan to personally reimburse every young man or woman, under the age of 18 say, who bought one of your shirts (or shoes or whatever), under the false pretense that you were playing by the rules. Perhaps someone should initiate a class action suit.

And he's not even a banker

Chelsea FC have sacked Luiz Philipe Scolari and as reliable news source The Daily Mash notes he as once again displayed his tactical brilliance by banking £15,000,000 for a mere seven months work. I think his performance is superior to even that of those bastards are Merrill Lynch.

In praise of the efficiency of Michael Steele

The new Republi-con National Chairman has managed, in one simple visit to George Stephanopoulos on a Sunday morning, to increase the US unemployment rate to somewhere about 25-30% as he brazenly announces that government jobs aren't jobs at all. I certainly hope that the good people of the great state of Maryland invoice this upstanding American for the somewhere around $500,000 he didn't earn as the Lieutenant Governor of Maryland as, after all, it wasn't a job.

He may be black but there is no doubt of his authenticity as a Republi-con, now is there?

Weather report

You know those miserable, dark, torrential downpours lovers are always running through in old war films based in London? We've been having one all day and it's fucking miserable.

Come the revolution...

I'm not sure what the point of this NY Times article is meant to be but I am absolutely certain that people who are making (well) in excess of $1,000,000 a year but have virtually no funds available at the end of their year, who are therefore living pay cheque to pay cheque, ARE INCAPABLE OF MANAGING THE PUBLIC'S MONEY and therefore we won't be needing them in their $3,000,000 or, if the President has his way, $500,000 a year jobs. I'm sure that they will enjoy their live on the dole.

A message to all Italian women (and Italian men with a conscience)

I certainly hope that any of you who may have been so foolhardy as to vote for your current President, Silvio Berlusconi, will consider his comments as regards Eluana Englaro and demand his immediate resignation. Ms. Englaro has been in a vegetative state for over 16 years and her father has finally won a protracted court battle to allow her force feeding to be discontinued; thereby allowing his daughter to die with some dignity. Sr. Berlusconi has seen fit to pander to the Vatican, despite over 75% of the Italian population believing that she should be allowed to die, and has issued a fiat demanding that the order of the Italian Supreme Court not be honoured. The Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano, has refused to sign this imperial decree but Berlusconi is attempting to have the Italian Parliament ratify and nullify the court order.

However my outrage is not at Mr. Belusconi's blatant attempts to seize imperial power in Italy and go against the order of the court and the will of the electorate in order to placate Il Papa. My own position is in opposition to his. My outrage is at his comments to the effect that Ms. Englaro, despite having been in a coma for over 16 years, is "in the condition to have babies". Clearly any politician who holds the female citizens in such low esteem that he considers them little more than equipment for breeding deserves immediate retirement; and a shameful retirement at that.

I certainly hope that the women of Italy agree and see to it that he must leave his office; immediately and in disgrace.

So this would be the farce bit

Karl Marx (am I allowed to say his name as an American?) once famously said that "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce".

With that reminder I bring you the news that not-Joe the non-plumber now seems to have a job as a non-adviser to the Republi-cons. It just doesn't get any better than this...

The land of the free....

...except perhaps in Texas.

Jesus wants you to buy a Ford!

Is this who the salesman is going to see when he says he has to talk over his offer with his manager?

Just not good enough

Former ex-Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson who denies that the holocaust occurred has "agreed" to examine the evidence to see if there just might have been a few Jews, gypsies, homosexuals or communists killed by the Nazis and their allies before and during the Second World War. It would seem that former ex-Bishop Williamson wants to give this effort due diligence and has indicated that this will take some time.

I can only assume that until he gets his finger out ex-Hitler Youth member his Holiness and sole representative of (at least one of may) God(s) on Earth Pope Benedict XVI will re-excommunicate the former ex-Bishop.

I wait with bated breath.

And grown men wept

Presented without comment a poem written by an American soldier after he returned from Iraq and before he killed himself; submitted by his father. There's a link to more for those with the stomach for it.

Terrorist fifth columnists expose themselves in Washington

US Representative Pete Sessions (Republicon-TX) admits that his party views the Taliban as role models.

If you're of certain age, like me, and...

...grew up around Philadelphia you will probably watch this video and think Horn & Hardart. And you would be right.

Hey Gone-zo - don't throw your shoulder out

Disgraced, and possibly still unemployed, former US Attorney General Alberto "Gone-zo" Gonzales has decided that he did a heck of a good job whilst running the US Justice Department AND repeatedly breaking the law. He better be careful; it is possible to do serious damage to yourself whilst patting yourself on the your back.

The end of an American dream

World renowned football star David "Golden Balls" Beckham has announced that he fancies a move from third rate US "soccer" team the LA Galaxy to better known and, well, better AC Milan after his loving spouse Posh determines that the Milanese shopping is acceptable.

Ex-VP lauds effeciency of Obama administration

Former VP "I'm a Big" Dick Cheney is effusive in his praise of the new Democratic administration as he claims that in a mere 15 days they have endangered all Americans and made it almost certain that Islamofacistragheadbrownpeople (and possibly Democrats) will attack America with a chaotic mix of nuclear weapons, anthrax and box cutters.

What a cunt. Now if he would only disappear quietly into the slime from which he emerged, eh.

Come the revolution...

...one Mr. James F. Reda must surely be high on the list. Mr. Reda is an "executive pay consultant" and his reaction to the pay cap mooted by President Obama for those starving fat cats running taxpayer financed banks in the US is the following:

“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus”

Well if Mr. Reda smokes I will be happy to provide him with a last cigarette.

And if you think $500,000 per annum is "draconian" he ought to have a look at the pay packet of American living in the real world; assuming said American is getting a pay packet at all anymore.

I, for one, am not all that sympathetic

In the middle of a recession a federal judge from Connecticut is resigning because he can't seem to get by on his salary of $169,300; an income that, without any additions and I'm sure he has some, puts him well within the top 5%. Of course, he is a Republican!

It must be God's fault!

The Vatican has admitted to "management errors" in its decision to reinstate noted anti-Judaic Catholic priest Richard Williamson. And, given that God surely sits on the board of the Roman Catholic Church, surely She must be held to account.

In memorium

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Day the Music Died.