Britain (fails to) lead the way

The British Treasury is insisting that aid to poor countries to deal with the effects of climate change (caused by us) be in the form of loans that have to be repaid with interest. What happened to the kinder, gentler Gordo?

How do you say "no can do George" in Arabic?

Captain Codpiece's Legacy '08 Tour touched down in Riyadh yesterday where he planned to hold hands with some princes and to beg for oil. He left empty handed. So far this trip has failed to live up even the practically non-existent expectations that existed on his departure. So it's on to Cairo where the President is expected to ask to meet with Cleopatra.

So go ahead, convince me.

I am not a huge Obama fan even though I favour him over Clinton. There are still far too many unknowns and in some areas, especially health care, I think he is dead wrong. Nonetheless he has had to face any number of challenges from the Republicans and from Hillary and he has stood up to them steadfastly, honestly and articulately (all of those qualities that Americans seem not to desire in a leader). Yesterday's response to Captain Codpiece's disgraceful speech before the Knesset (and John McCain's equally loathsome defence thereof) was another example.




Keep up the effort Senator Obama. I can be persuaded.

First came "don't ask" followed shortly by "don't tell"...

...now the good folks at the US Veteran's Administration bring us "don't diagnose".Nice, innit?

The next logical step is "don't enlist".

The war on vowels

Same-s_x 'marriage' gets go-ahead in Calif.

The above was the title of an email I got from the lovely folks over at about the hateful ruling from the California Supreme Court yesterday. But what's with the "s_x" thing? You're writing in English not in Hebrew (or Arabic) where the vowels generally aren't written. What's up with this anyway?

Are they so afraid of S-E-X that they can't bring themselves to evenly spell it? I pity their husbands/wives.

Can we make this retroactive?

There are plans afoot to put the US "Intelligence" community on a pay for performance basis. If we can back date this I reckon that Ahmed Chalabi, amongst many others, owes us a great big refund cheque!

Is "malarkey" better or worse than "bullshit"?

I was born in Delaware and until I was 17 lived less than 5 miles from the PA/DE border so I reckon I have Joe Biden (D - DE) as my honorary Senator. This means that I can claim him when he makes considerable sense, which he often does, and I can disown him when he talks a load of bollocks, which he does nearly as often. Yesterday was a day when I reckon I am safe in claiming him. His comments on Captain Codpiece's incredible and damaging speech in Jerusalem are I think concise and on point:

"This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset ... and make this kind of ridiculous statement."

In which I praise Chris Matthews

At least I do for the moment after this performance in which he exposes one of the countless wing-nut talking heads for having little or no understanding of anything. His clear ignorance doesn't say much for the quality of education at either the University of Oklahoma or the University of Houston law school. (This guy has a law degree?!)

1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President

Number 21: he wants the terra-ists and the evil doers to win. How else would you explain his setting a time table for withdrawal from Iraq; even if it's not a very aggressive one?




He also seems to have picked a rather odd time to start his re-election campaign but then at his age he probably just forgot his first term hasn't happened yet!

Watch out California!!

Now that you have become the second US state to recognise a right to marriage between same sex couples you should expect a wave of immigration to your state by ho-mo-sexuals, lesbos and other assorted deviants.

Er, on second thought, I wouldn't worry.

We write letters

Dear Mr. President,

As an American who has lived in Europe for the past fifteen years I often find myself in the position of having to try to explain or defend either the policy of my government or the statements of its leaders to my friends and colleagues. Your comments yesterday before the Knesset in Israel, in your role as America’s head of state and the country’s chief diplomat, have led to a flurry of communications from those I know well ranging from simple requests for an explanation of your intent to expressions of outrage.

You and I are roughly of the same generation as are many of my European friends and acquaintances. As such they have lived through a period in which Europe was recovering from and rebuilding in the aftermath of the Second World War and therefore they understand, in a way neither of us can, the price paid for appeasement. Even though many of these people speak English as a second (or third or fourth) language they cannot understand your apparent confusion between the concept of negotiation and acts of appeasement.

It is not appeasement to talk to one’s enemies. It only becomes so if one one-sidedly accedes to their demands. If there is no conversation between sides in opposition there is only one means left to resolve their differences; violence and war. Certainly we all agree that in any and all circumstances acts of war must be a final and ultimately regrettable resort and that to engage in war is an expression of our failure as human beings.

In addition to the many concerns and queries of my friends and colleagues, which I find I am unable to adequately address, I find several other aspects of your remarks to be of great concern.

First of all it seems to many of us that your poorly worded statements appear to be a direct attack on Senator Obama, a Democratic candidate for President and the probable nominee of that party. In your remarks to the Knesset on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the state of you were acting in your role as head of state and representing all of the American people. This attack, if it was intended as such, was inappropriate in that role and it was especially unbefitting as your were speaking on foreign soil; soil whose status is in dispute. There can be no adequate explanation for your misuse of such a forum. If you intended these comments to be directed at Senator Obama you must retract them forthwith and apology. If you did not intend the Senator as a target you must explain to whom your statement was directed and why.

Secondly choosing the occasion of a speech on the anniversary of the state of Israel to launch such an attack, whilst inexplicably failing to talk about peace and the painful concessions that will be required of all sides in order to achieve a lasting peace, will allow some parties to the conflict to legitimately dismiss you and your administration as honest brokers in the search for resolution and peace for all of the peoples in Israel and Palestine.

I hope that you have already taken the opportunity to reconsider your remarks. If not, I hope that this missive may prod you to do so. I am certain that you will, given time to reflect, realise that damage has been done by these statements; damage to the peace process between the state of Isreal and the Palestinian people, damage to America’s stature in the world and damage to the American political process. I trust once you recognise this that you will urgently take steps to undo this damage to the extent that it is still possible.

Sincerely,

Yank in London

Having put an end to war, poverty,...

...hunger, human suffering, child abuse, disease and possibly gayness God is looking forward to new challenges. I think that She has found one in the new Starbucks logo of a nearly naked mermaid. For some unexplained reason God seems to believe that the mermaid in question has "her legs spread like a prostitute"; an act one would consider a technical impossibility for the legless.

Cherie we hardly knew ye!

The British press this week has been full of utter rubbish startling revelations mined from Cherie Blair's forthcoming memoirs. These include her husband's shameful use of her miscarriage to avoid speculation about Iraq, the fact that someone (either her or her husband) forgot to bring the condoms (which she, as a devout Catholic, should not have been using anyway) along to a weekend at Balmoral and they ended up with Leo and that her husband just couldn't believe that Di was dead.

Her apparent disdain for confidentiality in her intimate recollections has lead to calls for her to be sacked as a judge by prominent members of the legal profession including a former senior judge and a senior barrister.

I hope she isn't counting on her judgely earnings to finance her families burgeoning real estate empire.

Crossing the line

One would think with all of that fancy-dancy elitist Ivy League education behind him that Captain Codpiece would at least be aware of the difference between appeasement and negotiation. One would be wrong! I guess G.H.W. Bush pissed all that money down the drain.

This thinly veiled attack on Senator Obama also ignores the fact that his own Secretary of Defense has called for talks between the US and Iran and that his own government has spent considerable time negotiating with appeasing state sponsors of terror in Tripoli and Pyongyang.

Despite the clear inaccuracy of his intended point it is also well beyond the pale to use the forum of a speech, in his role as head of state, to a foreign parliament to embark on issues related to domestic politics. It also makes clear that he has no intent to act as an honest broker in the middle east thereby eliminating any slim chance that there might have been to see any progress towards peace during the thankfully short remainder of his term.

Somehow I doubt that will bother him much. After all peacemakers don't wear codpieces!

And in other news...

...that Muslim guy got the endorsement of some guy with expensive hair. Some folks seem to think this is important.

(In all seriousness it is an excellent speech from Mr. Edwards and is worth watching.)

"Single Bullet" Specter loses the plot (again)

I have had Arlen Specter as one of my Senators for a very long time and we have had a difficult relationship. At times he seems almost like a normal human being in possession of a spinal column only to disappoint; time and time again.

Now he has decided that there is a problem in American so severe that it requires that an independent Federal investigation is required. "What is this problem?" you ask. Is it high gas prices? The firing of US Attorneys for political reasons? The politically motivated prosecution of a southern Democrat to prevent him regaining the governor's mansion in his state? The suppression of science for political gain and the profit of huge multi-national businesses?

None of these?

What then? I don't know how I overlooked the scandal that is how the New England Patriots used video cameras to cheat at American football!

Paging John Hagee

Dear Mullah Hagee,

With the death toll in the recent terrible earthquake in China now estimated to be approaching 50,000 souls I am hopeful that you can explain to me how much worse the tragedy would have been had there been plans for a gay pride event in Sichuan province.

Sincerely,

Yank in London (an apostate Christian)

"How I Got Preggers" by Cherie Blair

At issue is the critical question: "Did the Prime Minister forget the condoms and when did he forget them?".

Be afraid!

Some really big beetles have been captured trying to sneak into Pennsylvania illegally!

Today in infamy - "where was John Yoo in 1252?" edition

On this date in 1252 Pope (Not So) Innocent IV issued a bull which authorised the use of torture against evil doers heretics as part of the Inquisition. Thank heaven that in our civilised times we don't have to worry about any authority in power doing anything remotely like that.

He's not a toff, really, he's not!

We're about to have a by-election in Crewe and the Tory candidate, one Edward Timpson, has sent out some of his mates to canvass on a local council estate. On the surface there is nothing wrong with that but to send them out in a £50,000 Bentley might be misinterpreted. Mr. Timpson had been running slightly ahead in the polls but then Crewe isn't exactly Mayfair or Notting Hill.

It's good to see we're still tackling the big issues

Who could believe that we could have managed to get to the year 2008 without a clinical definition of "premature ejaculation" but thank God we have one now thanks to the International Society for Sexual Medicine and the American Urological Association. And the definition is:

"a male sexual dysfunction characterized by ejaculation which always or nearly always occurs prior to or within about one minute of vaginal penetration; and, inability to delay ejaculation on all or nearly all vaginal penetrations; and, negative personal consequences, such as distress, bother, frustration and/or the avoidance of sexual intimacy."

Meanwhile back in the reality based community...

...global warming isn't coming, it's already here. But nothing to worry about I'm sure Captain Codpiece doesn't read Nature so he can pretend, for another eight months, that nothing is happening!

I can't decide which is worse

Captain Codpiece's specious claim that his courageous decision to give up golf is the best he can do to show solidarity with the troops he illegally sent into harm's way or the fact that he is lying about the timing of his decision.

But let's face it folks. He is the son of privilege and in the circles he travels in giving up golf would be considered just as terrible a sacrifice as having to sell one of the holiday homes (at a huge and barely taxed gain) or deciding not to buy a fourth car.

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

The good news is that the US government has finally, in a long over due decision, decided that the polar bear is "threatened" but not "endangered".

The bad news is that the Department of the Interior has carefully worded the finding to ensure that off shore oil and gas drilling in areas of the bears' habitat is not effected, at least until the oil and gas runs out, and is taking steps to prevent the regulation of CO2 and other greenhouses gases because they "don't have the science to do that".

Oops!!

It seems that the Republi-cons are anxious to get on the change-wagon and are to adopt a new slogan (because there's nothing that spells c-h-a-n-g-e like a new slog): "the change you deserve". There's only one wee problem with this. "The change you deserve" is already the trademarked slogan of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals for thei anti-depressant medication Effexor XR. And it gets even better. According to the Huffington Post the side effects of the drug include "nausea, apathy, constipation, fatigue, vertigo, sexual dysfunction, sweating, memory loss, and - and I swear I am not making this up - 'electric shock-like sensations also called 'brain zaps''". And, as this is truly the gift that keeps on giving, Wyeth ran into trouble with the FDA when they began marketing the drug because of what the FDA termed "unsubstantiated superiority claims". The tag line from the offending ad? "Reality: You have options."

How may days until Xmas?

Oh how I wish I were an alien*

According to the Vatican intelligent life on other planets probably get to skip the whole religion thing. And I thought that humanity was the pinnacle of God's creation.


*Note: I mean the little green man space kind not the Spanish speaking, river swimming, coming to steal my hard earned lifestyle kind!

In which I admit that Captain Codpiece in one heck of a guy!

There are no half measures for this man. When President George W. Bush believes in something he is willing to go the whole distance and hold nothing back which is why we shouldn't be surprised to learn that he has chosen to support the troops dying in his illegal war in Iraq by swearing off golf. He better hope that McCain doesn't win,; he'll have to give up for ever!

I wish I had his courageous patriotism but I'm afraid I'm flag-lapel-pin-aphobic.

In which I reluctantly admit that Captain Codpiece is a genius

How else to explain the sequence of events that begins with Our Great Leader, instead of urging Americans to conserve energy, suggests that growing energy is this answers to fuel shortages and climate change. This then leads to rapidly rising food prices; they are also driven by increasing population and poor weather. The price of food skyrockets so rapidly that Afghan farmers switch from opium to wheat thereby solving both the problems of the narco-economy in Afghanistan and driving many addicts to give up their drugs! We still have to work out how these millions of ex-junkies will be able to afford to eat but I'm sure he has a plan for that up his sleeves!

Captain Codpiece: "Olmert is a lying bastard"

At least that is how I interpret Captain Codpiece's comment to the effect that the Israeli Prime Minister is an "honest man. I am basing this interpretation solely on Our Great Leader's track record at analysing the souls of other national leaders!