John he be!

Not quite so spine-tingley good as the original but more amusing and perhaps more enlightening.

The few, the proud...

...the reviled! The American atheist; a club of which I am a proud member. Although I do think we might still be marginally ahead of recent immigrant, lesbian Muslims!

Don't forget!

Tomorrow is Darwin Day! It will be the 199th anniversary of his birth. If I have time I hope to get out for a bit of a walk at Downe House. It's only a half hour bus ride at most.

The emphasis is on "simple"

Our quote of the day comes from the lips of none other than Captain Codpiece himself (speaking the estimable Chris Wallace of Faux News):

"You're the pundit. I'm just a simple president."

The first sign of panic?

Hillary Clinton has responded to what she will not look back on as her best week by sacking her campaign manager. How much difference this makes remains to be seen as she has simply replaced one long time insider with another one.

Time for the "Save Barack - Vote Hillary" campaign buttons?

Doris Lessing, this year's Nobel Prize winner in literature, has never been afraid of controversy. She has predicted that Barack Obama will be assassinated if he wins the presidency.

"He would certainly not last long, a black man in the position of president. They would murder him."

(Being a British tabloid the Mirror goes on to note that Obama is the bookies favourite to win the whole shebang.)

The trouble is Ms. Lessing may be right. There are certainly enough committed racist madmen in America. Thank heavens they can't own guns!

Oh how I laughed!

Courtesy of God Spam the five funniest greatest God Tube anti-evolution videos.

Number 5 - "Fish Out of Water"



Number 4 - "What Was That Noise in the Garage?"



Number 3 - "Whatever Happened to the Monkey Fish?" (with extremely curious sound track selection)



Number 2 - "Only If He Fits in the Carry-on Gauge" (somewhere past 12 minute mark) - starring C list perennial Kirk Cameron and some Aussie



Number 1 - "The Fairy Tale of Peanut Butter"



I would personally like to thank Gwynne for shifting through all the GodTube rubbish so I wouldn't have to!

Why does he think this would take editting?

US Vice President "I'm a Big" Dick Cheney has his lawyers, actually OUR lawyers are they are paid for by the US taxpayer, hard at work trying to prevent the release of video recordings of depositions given by two of his aides. He wants to prevent the recordings ending up on YouTube where devious yet clever enemies of freedom will edit the material to make his staff "look boorish, mendacious, or unintelligent". Aren't those characteristics in the job description anymore?

Think of it as an act of mercy

Sleep with me and save my life.

At least that is what the National Health Service is recommending for those of us who struggle to get enough exercise. You are going to like socialised medicine after all. I direct you to the NHS Direct "Improve Your Sex Life" page, covering such critical topics as orgasms, sexercise, aural sex, masturbation, using sex toys and, not to be forgotten, safety first!

Are any Republicans missing?

The New York City Police are trying to identify this man after a serious mishap at The Nutcracker Suite in the city.

"Want to kill yourself? Fine with us!"

A soldier who had attempted suicide and was being treated in the US for bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse was pulled out of the mental health facility before his treatment was complete by his superiors and redeployed to the Gulf. Undoubtedly he was just a shirker and clearly deserved this treatment (or worse).

The pull out that isn't

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has seemed to indicate that US troop "withdrawals" from Iraq will cease this summer leaving American force levels illegally occupying the country at exactly the same level before last year's much lauded "surge".

Victory is ours!

Ya think?

Deliberately and incredibly understated headline of the week: "President Bush Remains Unpopular in U.S."

I don't think anyone else much likes him either.

Calling all young & foolish New Mexicans

The New Mexico Military Institute needs your help. Enrolment is down thirty percent, largely due to the Iraq war. The board of the institution claims that one of its biggest obstacles is making people aware that NMMI even exists. Another couple of years of 30% enrolment declines and that shouldn't be a problem anymore.

Note: the Institute is located at Roswell which is, I believe, famous for something really doesn't exist but people believe that it does (or did). Perhaps this is just keeping the planet's karma in balance.

I'll bet you won't be hungry again in 45 minutes after eating this (or indeed ever again)

In honour of the Year of the Rat the Ho-la Diner of Chiayi (Taiwan) has offered up a wide selection of rat dishes. One can even pick one's own rat from the carcasses hanging in the window.

Perhaps this is a good year to become a veggie.

I would just like everyone to know...

...that it is a beautiful spring-like day here in London. Currently 15C (59F). I spent the late morning and early afternoon sitting in a t shirt in the park reading and catching some rays. I also saw my first blooming daffodil. Not even mid-February yet.

Today in infamy - the day they almost got me edition

On the tenth of February 1996 American financed terrorists tried to kill me when they exploded a bomb at South Quay in the Docklands. The bomb, which went off at 7 PM, killed two young men at a newsagents from whom I had bought a birthday card for a mate only about two hours before. The building in which I worked (pictured above) was destroyed and fortunately there were few injuries amongst our staff although two men were fairly badly injured by flying glass.

I would normally have been home, or more accurately down the pub, at that time on a Friday but as there was a young American who had just got through his first week of a six month secondment I took him out for a few pints at a nearby pub, the Waterfront. After having two pints we debated having another and, fortunately, succumbed to our weakness. (I certainly shouldn't have had another as I was driving.) No sooner had I got back to the table with our pints of Guinness then the bomb exploded. To this day neither Rich nor I can recall if we hit the floor. I maintain that we didn't whilst he maintains that we did. In any case had we not had the third pint we would have been walking towards South Quay station at the time of the explosion and I don't know how well cordoned off the station was from the quayside. (The police had not evacuated our building which was only metres from the station although they had told everyone to remain indoors.) I still use this as an excuse to have at least three pints when I go in a pub (or else I will die).

I can tell you that experience leaving the pub, into what I can only describe as a scene out of Beirut or Dresden, and trying to get home afterwards, with powdered glass in the air and the smell of burnt fertiliser, was an experience I would not like to repeat. When I did manage to get back to Beckenham about two and a half or three hours later, after walking to the bottom of the Isle of Dogs and going through the foot tunnel to Greenwich where I managed to convince a black cab to take me home, no one in the pub knew what had happened and couldn't understand why I was such a complete and utter mess.

After what I consider to be one of the worst nights of my life I woke the next morning with a dreadful hangover. This was particularly irritating as I had failed to get drunk the night before despite drinking copious amounts of whiskey.

My only advice is to avoid bombings and other acts of terror if at all possible.

Another view of the building I worked in below.

"Where did you put the reasonable doubt?"

The US military has "accidentally" lost a years worth of records relating to the detention of Salim Ahmed Hamdan just as his case is ready to come before the kangaroo entirely unbiased and fair military court at the Guantánamo Bay Beach & Leisure Club and his lawyers are preparing his defence.

This should make for an excellent Secret Policeman's Rave Ball

Police in Liverpool have accidentally found one million hits of E after responding to the site of a suspected burglary. When asked what would become of the drugs a police spokesperson said simply that he "just really loved everyone" and "can't wait to dance".

Oh yes please, please, please, pretty please, please

Towards the end of this clip over at Crooks and Liars indicted felon Tom Delay suggests that my former junior senator Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum would make a suitable running mate for the not nearly fascist enough John McCain. It would be too good to be true.

Would this be so bad?

On his way out of the 2008 door on his way to the 2012 door failed Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney warned that America could "turn into the France of the 21st century".

And he views this as a bad thing?

This must make for an interesting Service Level Agreement

Is the CIA outsourcing torture? What are the measurable objectives and targets in the contract? Fastest false confession? Interrogations to fatalities ratio (IFR)? What?

Today in infamy - special déjà vu all over again edition

On this day in 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy (Psychotic - Wisconsin) launched his paranoid campaign against the commies infesting America by claiming in a speech that the State Department was riddled with reds. Somehow 1950 doesn't seem all that long ago.

Captain Codpiece disses his dad!

He claims that "I'm a Big" Dick Cheney is the bestest Vice President ever!

Can we have the same "warnings" on Adam Smith as well please?

The evolutionary dead end that is the state legislature in Florida are considering introducing a bill that would require that evolution be "taught as just a theory and not as fact". I would also suggest that they describe Captain Codpiece's "victory" in the state in 2000 as something less than a fact. This could be fun.

Why did she do it? (For Phil-del-phuns only)

Why did Philly's former "glamorous" news anchor try to isolate the Middle East off from the internet?

Actual headline: "Abandoned Anchor Cut Gulf Internet Cable"

Is he allowed to moonlight?

US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns seems to believe that he is the Iranian Energy Minister as he says that he sees no need for Iran to construct additional nuclear power plants. Of course at the same time the US government sees an urgent need for more American nuclear power plants.

Is our childrens learning?

A Philadelphia area primary school apparently held a mock trial to determine if Columbus discovered America or whether Native Americans were already here. The "trial" ended up in a hung jury apparently and the Columbus supporters (think "Intelligent Design") crowed that the supporters of the Native Americans couldn't prove that they were "civilised". Isn't that the way all colonial tyrannies have justified their theft, rape, pillage and genocide; by claiming that the natives were uncivilised savages and not truly human?

Taking "strict constructionism" too far

The good folks at the Conservative Political Action Conference greeted Captain Codpiece with chants of "four more years" yesterday quite ignoring the twenty second amendment. I reckon to be a truly hard core constructionist one must ignore all amendments and only pay attention to the articles. At least this approach would get rid of that second amendment problem; you know where "strict constructionists" ignore the framers' intentions for this amendment only!

"Bush Is Too Horrendous to Be Forgotten"

For those of you who are interested Der Spiegel currently has an excellent interview with Philip Roth.