The first is at Freemania:
The really important thing about Iraq: us
Today Gordon Brown gives evidence to the Chilcot inquiry. This weekend, amid violent attacks on polling stations, Iraq holds an election. I wonder which will get the most coverage?
The rest of the world exists primarily as a mirror for us.
The second is at Skuds’ place:
A week is a long time […]
The BBC News Website has changed its original headline:
SARAH PALIN LASHES OBAMA AT FIRST TEA PARTY CONVENTION
—bring your houseboy, and let’s party like it’s 1779!—to this one:
SARAH PALIN CONDEMNS OBAMA AT FIRST TEA PARTY CONVENTION
but, Liz Jones’s latest wibble—search for it if you like; I’m not going to link to it—retains its banner:
HONOUR KILLINGS? WHAT WE’VE DONE TO YOUNG EMMA […]
Foes of President Barack Obama and his policies can vent their frustrations by engaging in fictional warfare, thanks to a new online strategy game with a heavy political component.
The satirical game 2011: Obama’s Coup Fails, launched last month by a group of Ron Paul supporters that call themselves The Founders, throws players into combat against the […]
Via Paulie’s “Shared Items” feed at Never Trust a Hippy, I read on the Democratic Society Blog one of the best “Did Magna Carta die in vain?” comments ever [see foot of the post I link to] and, on Tory Troll, an account of yet another FAIL by frontline interviewers.
Here’s a tip for the meedja and […]
I’ve been known to be uncomplimentary here about Tamworth, the town where I grew up. Back in the 80s, an Australian barman once told a friend of mine that, travelling around England, it was the place where he had been beaten up most frequently for being Australian. And he was white.
Thanks to Paulie for drawing my […]
Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One chief, said yesterday that he preferred totalitarian regimes to democracies and praised Adolf Hitler for his ability to “get things done”.
Mr Ecclestone endorsed the concept of a government based on tyranny.
“Politicians are too worried about elections,” he said. “We did a terrible thing when we supported the idea of getting rid of […]
Every single “serious” newspaper in the UK led with Iran this morning. But The Daily Mail devoted its entire front page to an attack on Gordon Brown and the Iraq Inquiry, and The Express (alongside a photograph of a Euro Lotto winner cradling a giant cabbage) to asylum seekers, the largest group of whom before the war came […]
The resignation of Hazel Blears reminded me again that this nation’s government now has a “Department for Communities”. Letting that phrase pass my lips without implied quotation marks would be like vomiting into my mouth without washing it out.
Thanks to Kevin Harris’s “neighbourhoods” blog, I can sample a little of that department’s output, a review document […]
Tom Freeman doesn’t see the sense in The Times capitalizing the words “Left”, “Right”, and “Centre” when its writers use them to describe political leanings. I think the newspaper is right to do so.
Language is a communication channel, and shouldn’t be a fashion accessory or status symbol; however, in this country, more than many others, it […]
Back in the 80s, I used to be in a band with a guy called Martyn Hope—indeed, we went to school together. Back in the 90s, having read that, surreally, Elvis revivalist Shakin’ Stevens was a closet Red1, I went searching online to find out if he was a member of a late 70s cohort […]
Paul Evans worked for a company that built Websites for political organizations long before the current crop of johnny-come-latelys started twittering about “digital engagement” and “campaigning 2.0”. This post of his about the kinds of people who use the Net to harass politicians and the kind of people politicians should listen to—two groups that, in […]
For some lucky and rich people who describe themselves as Left-wing, one of the worst things about free markets is that they have given the oiks the freedom to enjoy the pleasures that were previously restricted to their betters. A real “socialist” state would provide the lower orders with more suitable goods: perhaps they would […]
I’d like to express my profound regret to everyone reading this post for any offence I might have caused by thinking of writing this post while listening to Radio 2 in the shower at the same time as rubbing my naked body with shower gel. In mitigation, my Webcam was switched off at the time—and in […]
From a letter to the Halifax and Calderdale Evening Courier by Jason Smith, the Bradford Chairman of the UK Independence Party:
GREEN’S ARREST SHOWS WE ARE BECOMING DICTATORSHIP
As unaccustomed as I am to defending Tory MPs, I feel I must speak out about the arrest of Damian Green, who was apparently held for nine hours and his […]
Millions of Britons are refreshing PooterGeek every other minute in the hope of reading my views on the issue of the moment. I am pleased to bring your wait to an end: it’s “Damian” with an ‘A’, not “Damien” with an ‘E’. Get it right.
I’ve been very busy this weekend, but here are three things that I enjoyed reading in between upgrades and back-ups: Minette Marrin on Jacqui Smith and UK prostitution1, Shuggy on Barack Obama and the US constitution, and an obituary of William Donaldson:
[Donaldson] first came to prominence in 1961 as the London producer of Beyond the […]
Via Paulie and thanks to qwghlm comes YouTube footage of Hitler discovering that his membership of the British National Party has been leaked. If you understand German then watch with the sound turned down.
TIGER WOODS WINS 2008 US OPEN DESPITE KNEE INJURY CAUSED BY ILLEGAL KARATE ATTACK FROM EVIL MAFIA GOLFER ROCCO MEDIATE. OBTAINS CRUCIAL PAR SCORE ON SUDDEN-DEATH HOLE USING “CRANE KICK” BEFORE COLLAPSING ON THE FINAL GREEN IN AGONY, MUTTERING “I DID IT FOR YOU, ELIN!”
LEWIS HAMILTON CLINCHES WORLD F1 DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP IN HIS MCLAREN, “HERBIE”, DESPITE […]
I’ve been reading “a blog from the back room” and “Conor’s Commentary” for a few months. Now I’ve added them both to the roll here.
John.
[originally uploaded by Ryan Brenizer]
Excellent shots of the candidates for the US Presidency taken at the Alfred E Smith dinner by a wedding photographer are here on flickr. I wish there were more to look at. (And I wish the photographer hadn’t added that crappy “exposed film” border. It’s digital. Get over it. Don’t tart up […]
Imagine several million small children across the planet waking up on Christmas Day to discover that six of Santa Claus’s reindeer had had pixie dust blowouts at 30 000 feet over the North Atlantic, leading to a catastrophic loss of power and Santa’s sleigh plunging into the freezing ocean, killing all on board and scattering the […]
Here are two I enjoyed: Hopi Sen’s “What would Bertie Wooster do?” and The Daily Mash’s “Government takes 60% stake in Al-Qaeda”:
The prime minister said : “We must ensure that, as an institution, it continues to provide a useful, ongoing threat without actually blowing things up.”
The Daily Mash is a free online site. The Guardian is a […]
You could argue that Mick Hartley won this game when he collected
Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal.
from The Huffington Post, but I think quoting Naomi Wolf is cheating. Here’s a good one from yesterday’s International Herald Tribune. Roger Cohen writes:
From an inspirational notion, however flawed in execution, that has […]
I keep meaning to write something about the response of the liberal Left media to the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States—there are parallels with the way parts of the Right responded to Bill Clinton’s sexual incontinence—but, as I bring my fingers to the keys, I […]
I’ve just had an email from Yvette Cooper. My first thought was: “Bloody hell, after all these years!” Then I remembered that, since leaving college, I have become a washed-up nobody and she has become a member of the Cabinet with two houses—both of which I am paying for. Not that I’m bitter.
Coincidentally, property was the […]
[WARNING 1: The Dark Knight has been out for long enough now that most of you interested in seeing it should have seen it. To those of you who haven’t, know now: spoilery follows.]
[WARNING 2: As usual, I was late to this particular party, so I just wanted to publish this blasted blog post before everything […]
It was quiet here last week because I had a lot of things on—to the extent that I had to stop off at the 24-hour Tesco superstore in the small hours of Saturday on the way back from singing at a gig to do my week’s shopping. I’ve read some extreme tales about the goings […]
British luvvies are a rich source of entertainment to me—as long as I am careful to keep my theatre-going to a minimum; it’s the stuff they say in interviews that puts a smile on my face. So many of them talk cobblers. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter because (apart perhaps from the likes of Mackintosh and […]
One of the nicest things about blogging is being able to congratulate other bloggers on (what you believe to be) good blogging, so it’s unfortunate in a way when you are seen as part of a gang because, if you congratulate another supposed gang member, then doing so looks like cliquey back-slapping. Worse, if the […]
