02 November 2007

We're all going to die...

...if we don't stop asking inane little questions about "torture" and get on with confirming Michael Mukasey as Attorney General. Don't believe me? Just ask Captain Codpiece!

Not only that but Codepink and MoveOn.org are such great threats to our freedom and safety that our President took it upon himself to warn us! (That's the terror watch list for them then!)

Victory is ours!

Down in Australia, just in time for the upcoming election, victory in Iraq for the ever dwindling Coalition of the Less and Less Willing has officially been declared.

Veracity warning: Sydney's Daily Telegraph, which published the piece, is a News Corp publication.

Bottoms up!

Our heartfelt congratulations go out to Kristina Dimitrova of Bulgaria and Andrei Andrei of Romania who are the deserving winners of the Most Beautiful Bottom In the World competition recently held in München.
(Note: the Der Spiegel article contains pictorial goodness!)

Déjà vu all over again

Headline of the day - "Guilty, but Blair refuses to go". Either the Guardian is sadly behind the times or they're talking about someone other than St. Tony!

Another traitor in our midst!

Retired US Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, who was Captain Codpiece's hand picked envoy to that group of freedom fighters/terrorists the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), now has the temerity to suggest that Bush and his minions should make good on promises that they made to Turkey to confront the group and keep them under control. Because the US has failed to do this, much like everything else it has promised to do in Iraq, Gen. Ralston believes that the Turks may feel that they have no alternative other then striking against PKK voices in Iraqi Kurdistan. In response to a question as to whether he believes that the Turks will enter Iraq territory he responded: "They're going to have to, in the absence of the U.S. doing anything."

Cue the pre-recorded chorus of outrage!

Holiday madness!

One does wonder how these folks ever got on the telly in the first place, let alone how they stay there. Sean Hannity pronounces to the nation that Halloween is an (evil) liberal holiday because it teaches "kids to knock on other people's doors and ask for a handout". Well how else are they going to learn to grow up to executives for defence firms?

Perhaps we should give some thought to the holidays celebrated throughout the year and across the nation and see what moral value we can assign to them. Undoubtedly we will find a terrible liberal bias which threatens to brainwash the country's children and destroy the white Christian America all right thinking Americans hold dear.

    New Year's Day - this is a bit of a tricky one. Properly observed it ought to be a good and moral conservative holiday during which the nation's menfolk sit around drinking beer, eating nachos and watching (American) football matches whilst the ladies rustle up something in the kitchen. However if you live in or near Philadelphia it is entirely possible you will spend the day watching men dressed in bizarre costumes marching down Broad Street wearing rather a lot of feathers and looking rather like minor characters out of La Cage aux folles So for most of America a good Christian holiday but in eastern Pennsylvania something balanced dangerously on the edge of gayness. Half a point to the right.

  • Martin Luther King Day - do we even have to discuss this? Clearly a day celebrating the destruction of states' rights, affirmative action and interracial breeding. A point for the left.
  • President's Day - again a bit of a tricky one. On the surface this would clearly appear to be one for the right celebrating the births of two slave owners. However the inclusion of Jefferson makes it a bit tricky for anyone who has ever read his writings. Fortunately this does not apply to 99.99% of Americans and therefore we can award one full point to the right.
  • Memorial Day - this holiday is to honour men and women who have died in the armed services in defence of their country. It should belong to everyone but right wing clearly believes it belongs to them because the dangerous, anti-patriotic, un-American "hard left" clearly do not want service men and women to die for their country and therefore want to cheat them of their opportunity to have a day of their own. A half point to the right.
  • Independence Day - again a day that should belong to everyone but which the right claims as their own. Again the dangerous sub-humans on the left show their seditious spirit by refusing to drape themselves in red, white and blue for the day. Again a half point to the right.
  • Labor Day - this ought to be a day that is the sole preserve of the left but something happened to the trade union movement in America before I was born. Most Americans actually forget why they get the day off and just drive to the shore for the weekend to get pissed and grab a last bit of sun. Minus one half point to the left for having lost their way.
  • Columbus Day - this holiday that celebrates imperialism and genocide so splendidly clearly belongs to the right who claim it celebrates the true American spirit of the true Americans who have no American blood whatsoever. A full point to the right.
  • Veterans Day - seem Memorial Day. Half point to the right.
  • Thanksgiving Day - this should be a simple harvest festival belonging to everyone (if one can overlook the shadow of imperialism and genocide) but somehow the right claims this "Christian" festival is about family values, meaning gays get no turkey, and God. The left has allowed this to happen so a full point to the right.
  • Xmas Day - if one approaches Xmas as a holiday devoted to gluttony, greed, wholesale consumerism and America's place as a Christian nation it clearly is a right wing holiday; if one reads the New Testament one would most probably argue that this is a holiday devoted to community spirit, sharing and general socialism. Unfortunately we do not make this argument often or well and therefore one full point awarded to the right.
  • So after reviewing the official holidays the score is five full points for the right and only a half point for the left. Where oh where is this bloody liberal bias. Perhaps we shall find it tomorrow when I review the unoffical national holidays!

Soon long gone


Today's disappearing primate is Cercopithecus diana roloway (aka the Roloway monkey) of the Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.

01 November 2007

A note to readers

To whoever found their way here doing a search for
kate moss+wank
I hope you have a pleasant, if lonely, evening.

Prince Harry's bird trouble continues

The Norfolk constabulary have handed a file over to the Crown Prosecution Service relating to the shooting of two rare hen harriers on the Crown Estate at Sandringham. Prince Harry and two others who were with him at the time, he was out shooting, were interviewed by the police. The handing of the case to the CPS would suggest that the police believe that there is a case for someone to answer.

The Old Bill loses one

The Metropolitan Police have found guilty of endangering the public* in the shooting death of the (completely innocent) Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes. The force has been fined £175,000 and will also have to pay another £385,000 in costs. Mr. de Menezes was shot five times in the head with hollow point ammunition which are generally illegal.

*Technically this is a (very extreme) violation of health and safety law.

Is this the end for America's favourite church?

The father of a US Marine slain in Iraq has won an 11 million USD civil judgement against the lovely folks at Westboro Baptist Church for their "God hates fags" protest at his son's funeral. It is unlikely that the church can come up with anywhere near that kind of money and even the wackiest of the wacky right wing nut jobs generally steer clear of Fred Phelps and his family.

What do you do with an empty half a billion USD embassy?

When then asked for volunteers not enough US State Department staffers wanted the plum posting in Baghdad so now they are going to have to order staff to go. The staff aren't taking this well at all.

R.I.P.


Washoe, the signing chimpanzee, (???? - 2007), aged approximately 42 years.

Today in infamy

The United States military exploded Ivy Mike, the world's first hydrogen bomb, fifty five years ago today on the Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

Why did no one tell me?

The World Toilet Summit opened yesterday in New Delhi. Even if I rush off to Heathrow straightaway and catch the next plane I'm going to miss most of it!

This gives me an idea!

First the US had the "do not telemarket" list and, since that was such a success (for consumers if not for telemarketers), the Federal Trade Commission may introduce a "do not track" list that would prevent the use of cookies to track the Internet habits of those who sign up.

That if the federal government will just start up "do not eavesdrop on my conversations" and "do not spy on me" lists we'll be all set!

I hope this wasn't one of those pesky milestones

The good news is that the United States admitted 450 Iraqi refugees in October. The bad news is that, in order to meet the country's ridiculously low commitment, 450 is only 45% of what was needed.

Attention all rabid free marketeers!

You may say what you wish about the British "nanny state" but at least our Food Standards Agency is working to keep us safe from the great evil that is low alcohol wine!

Valerie Plame fails to bare her covert breasts...

...and we demand to know why!

I'm sure it was just an oversight

Our bold and serious Prime Minister accidentally forgot to mention human rights when he had a wee chat with Saudi King Abdullah. I would imagine that bribery in arms sales didn't come up either. What did they talk about then? Horses? Women? Their plans for the weekend?

But won't all the fat people just move away?

The British government is planning to create a series of "fit towns", to house up to 200,000 people, as part of its plans to combat the creeping Americanisation of Britain's waistline. Somehow I don't think it's going to be quite that easy.

Because a picture is worth a trillion words



I would like to wish the young of American a happy and prosperous future, even if it seems incredibly unlikely that they will have one.

Eternal Global War on Terra no longer eternal and certainly less global

Japan is pulling out of Afghanistan, even if it was only in the Indian Ocean. I certainly hope that Captain Codpiece notes this reduction of the size of the "Coalition of the Less and Less Willing" the next time he makes one of his public pronouncements.

In praise of David Wasserman

Mr. Wasserman is a middle school teacher in Madison WI who yesterday refused to give his students a standardised exam in protest of the euphemistically named No Child Left Behind Act. To my eyes this horrendous legislation, much lauded by no less a personage than Captain Codpiece himself, is specifically designed to ensure that schools cannot teach students the most important things; a love of learning, the need to ask questions and to challenge "authority". Instead its object would seem to be to churn out unquestioning worker bees for a service economy.

Mr. Wasserman had planned to continue his protest throughout the exam period but, after having been threatened with being sacked, will most likely participate from today. After all Mr. Wasserman lives in America and he "can't jeopardize health insurance for [his] family".

Nonetheless perhaps his lonely protest has done some little good and others, parents and teachers alike, might actually choose to think about the factory education that this bad law requires as a result of his actions.

At least I now know not to share my acit with my pet elephant

New Scientist Magazine has compiled a list of what it believes to be the bizarre scientific experimentsever including elephants on LSD and two heads-one dog.

How's that Eternal Global War on Terra going for you?

Why don't Captain Codpiece, "I'm a Big" Dick Cheney, Conocoleezza Rice or any of the wing nut punditry seem to mention Afghanistan anymore?

The up and up

Crude oil price hits a new record. I suspect that Captain Codpiece and "I'm a Big" Dick Cheney, with the "blind" trusts stuffed full of oil stocks, probably finally believe that the mission is finally well and truly accomplished. I'll bet they even have a banner in the Oval Office.

I should warn you that this may be your last chance to trade in the SUV before it has value left.

Good and good for you

If even a Murdoch paper is reporting that organic food has been proved healthier than intensively farmed foods it must be true. At least we have a major, scientific study on the subject.

Irrespective of this organic farming is not going to feed 9 billion people in 40 year's time so, even though I do eat some organic foods, I do not rely wholly on organics.

GI Joe under attack by evil UN lovers

Just ask Glenn Beck.

I am just thankful that I fled the country before he gained "prominence".

Soon long gone



Today's example of the world's 25 most endangered primates is Procolobus badius (aka Miss Waldron's red colobus) from the Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana in West Africa.