Why do Americans hate America

They want cap and trade, gays in the military and the end to the senseless embargo of Cuba. Thank God America's not a democracy or some of these terrible things might actually happen!

Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

It certainly wasn't in the Alanis Morissette song but it certainly seems to be in real life. An assistant bank manager in Scotland has been jailed for a little over a year for stealing £31,000 from customer accounts. In today's environment this seems rather curious. Perhaps her real crime was stealing ONLY £31,000. Had she stolen £31,000,000 or better yet £31,000,000,000 she probably would have been made a Dame!

I guess that Carol Barclay will have to accept her fifteen minutes of fame coming from the fact that she will almost certainly be the only HBOS employee to be punished for stealing money from taxpayers.

The green shoots of recovery!

There is a shoe shop in Bromley that has, for roughly the past 24 months, been advertising its "Going Out Of Business Sale". This evening on the way home I noticed that the large placards have been taken down and they are advertising their new "spring range"; possibly circa 2007.

Has anyone seen Rush Limbaugh?

Ten beached whales have been refloated off the west coast of Oz.

Sad, sad, sad

Nicholas Hughes, the only son of the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, has committed suicide in London. His mother famously committed suicide when Nicholas and his sister Freida were both infants.

All singing, all dancing!

Should you be in Beijing soon you really must make an effort to see Das Kapital - The Musical. I shit you not.

They will be heroes

Today is the 175th anniversary of the sentencing of the Tolpuddle Martyrs for having the temerity to form an insidious trade union. Thank God that can never happen today!

Strange enough to be true

The Daily Mash imagines some advice from Il Papa to the residents of Africa on safe sex.

All hail Honkball

The Dutch have beaten the Dominicans at baseball. No word if they might have slipped the Latino side a few space cakes before the match!

Murder Inc - "I'm a Big" Dick Cheney style

Investigative reporter extraordinaire, Sy Hersh, tells us that former US Vice President "I'm a Big" Dick Cheney was running a hit squad out of his office. One can only hope that if America won't prosecute this scum bag, and lock him away for the rest of his (un)natural life, that he will eventually make the mistake of leaving the country and a true democracy will do it for us!

Nancy Reagan...

...baby killer. Who'd have thunk it, eh?

BREAKING NEWS!!!!

Noted American evangelist Billy Graham defines Christianity as a cult! I quote:

"One characteristic of cults is that they strongly believe they alone are right in their beliefs and everyone else is wrong"

I find the fact that he then goes on, in the very same paragraph, to suggest that this seemingly does not apply to Christianity ("thus they reject the central truths of the Bible that Christians have held in common for almost 2,000 years and substitute their own beliefs for the clear teaching of Scripture") I assume to be untended but hilarious irony!

Why the Pope and all his evil minions are going to Hell

A nine year old Brazilian girl was raped and fell pregnant. She had an abortion on Wednesday. All of the medical staff who assisted in the termination are about to be ex-communicated for their part in this heinous act. The rapist however is undoubtedly still allowed to receive communion.

My day so far

Before 0405 - wake up

0405 - look at clock and realise it is 0405

0425 - give up battle to return to sleep

0425 to 0630 - shower, eat, drink coffee, write emails, do some work

0630 - depart for Bromley South

0652 - arrive Bromley South - notice that ALL TRAINS are delayed or cancelled due to "very severe weather conditions in Kent" (this means it got a bit chilly last night)

0659 - my 0704 train to Ramsgate is cancelled but 0736 train to Canterbury West is listed as "on time"

0731 - 0736 train apparently goes missing and is listed as delayed

0736 - 0830 - wait outside the barriers, occasionally popping off for a double espresso, whilst getting buffeted around for 3,127 commuters who, despite the rucksacks strapped to their backs, the kit bags over their shoulder or their hand bags the size of Luxembourg, naively fail to realise that they take up more space their body without the luggage.

0831 - just before going through barriers hear the following announcement: "the train now standing on platform 1 is the 0614 Blackfriar's service.

0832 - share chuckle with woman standing next to me

0842 - board marginally delayed 0736 Canterbury West train

0944 - arrive Lenham where all evidence of "very severe weather" has magically vanished and it is a lovely sunny spring morning.

0958 - arrive work and warn colleagues that today is not a day to fuck with me.

0958 - 1718 - work (it doesn't go very well)

1908 - arrive at the Partridge and begin consuming London Pride. This will continue until morale improves (or chucking out time arrives)

I thought that you should know.

What is 8.426149773176359....

...and the other joys of Square Root Day.

Hint: the answer is the 20th prime number.

Happy birthday Dr. Seuss

He would have been 105 today. He is the source of many fond memories from my childhood!

They see them here, they see them there, they see them everywhere!

Socialists. Socialists. Socialists. Socialists. Socialists. And I could go on and on and on but all of this reminds me of a song....

What a shame Bush 41 didn't do this to Bush 43 when he was a kid, eh?

I can only imagine that there are hordes of right wingers out there in America scorning the fact that one Hugh Spencer didn't let his 13 year old son Evan play a violent World War II based video game until he had read the Geneva Conventions. Not only that he had to abide by them when he played undoubtedly meaning he never wins.

Meanwhile on this side of the Great Water...

...those dangerous and evil lefties at the Guardian have hired some real scientists to write about real science once a week or so. Now surely that can't a good idea, can it?

I can hardly wait for Mad Mel to weigh in.

Only Jesus can save those Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys now!

Without further ado I direct you to PrayforFrance.org. One can never be certain these days but I don't think this is a piss take.

Come the revolution...

Oh the hubris! A group of wealthy, probably obscenely rich, American is suing Swiss Bank UBS from turning over their names to the US Internal Revenue Service as part of an investigation of possible, one might say probable, tax evasion on the part of these unnamed Yanks.

The list grows longer; even if I have to leave their actual names off of it for the moment.