Thursday 30 September 2010

Brilliant!

One of the rare occasions when the grin on my face when reading something from the Guardian isn't homicidal and Joker-like....

Tuesday 28 September 2010

A Little Perspective, Please

I have, in my lifetime, seen the civilised world overrun by the Russians, the Saudis and the Japanese (well, they DID buy up all the good golf courses with money they didn't have). Now it is the Chinese, the Indians and the Brazilians that will put us in our place.

It is true that all three have burgeoning economies, driven by Western consumption of plastic crap and cheap clothes in the case of China, oil exports in the case of Brazil and call centres in the case of India. It is also true that Brazil is home to a population beset by bone-crushing poverty, that China cuts the kidneys out of the politically inconvenient when it is not using them for slave labour and India can't organise a piss-up in a brewery.

The little matter surrounding India's complete and total inability to manage the upcoming Commonwealth Games points up the fatuousness of the argument that India is on track to displace the UK and Western Europe, and the US for that matter, in economic dominance.  Could there possibly be a headline more unfortunate than this?:

Trained monkeys guard athletes at Commonwealth Games

The highly intelligent primates have been patrolling stadiums and accommodation blocks to scare off other wildlife including wild monkeys, dogs and even snakes.
Handlers from miles around the Indian capital have been drafted in to patrol the athletes’ village as the final preparations are made for the games.

Some teams threatened to boycott the competition after complaining that the accommodation was inhabitable and overrun with animals.

One shocked South African competitor even discovered a deadly cobra snake in his room.

Heavy monsoon rains have caused flooding near the Games Village causing many snakes to seek refuge.

Commonwealth Games organisers have also been particularly concerned buy the arrival of packs of wild monkeys which have been creating a nuisance around the venues by stealing food and attacking humans
No, really.  Seriously.

Half of the population still live in mud huts. Half of all the produce grown in India rots before it ever gets to market because of their inability to organise a road network or a functioning transportation system.  In a move so filled with poetry that it moves me to tears of hysterical laughter, Indians bought Jaguar.  You remember Jaguar.  The car.

Get real.

UPDATE:  Oh, dear!  Can it get worse?  Yes. Yes it can!!   Sheila Dikshit launches 'Ho Ho' tourist buses

Why I Voted Green...(h/t Iain Dale)

This is absolutely hilarious...

Friday 24 September 2010

If The Smiths Were Ukranian...

Actually, on second thought it doesn't bear thinking about.  But the music is interesting.



(h/t Lucie)

You're Not Wearing THAT Are You?

I have always admired the erudition and analytic skills of His Grace, the disembodied spirit of Archbishop Cranmer, only recently returned from the blogging wilderness.

His latest tour de force, however - The Pope in Westminster Abbey – the finest ecclesiastical gag ever? - is an eyebrow-arching look into the slightly creepy sartorial shenanigans that went into Pope Benedict's recent visit to Westminster Abbey.

Not since...oh....CherylColeStyle.com has anyone had so much fun dressing up!

WTF??!!?

Last year I paid £263 for my comprehensive auto insurance policy.  I have - touch wood - never had an accident, a traffic citation or made a claim after seven years.  I am also in a highly desirable 'demographic' for insurers.

So how have the venal little f*ckers in the insurance industry rewarded me for my earnestness and clean-living?  By almost trebling my effing rate for this year to £729, that's how.

When I called the insurer to point out to them that 'there must be some mistake' they very glibly informed me that there was no mistake and that they were using the same protuberant device on all drivers - sans lubricant!  After a quick recitation of my famous 'customer service' speech, I put the phone down and tried to find out what the bleedin' heck was going on.

Okay, look, I know it's the Guardian but at least they have an explanation....

...there has also been a big rise in organised fraud, where criminal gangs work to systematically defraud insurers. The most common way of doing this is via a "cash for crash" scam, where criminals stage accidents, typically at roundabouts, by slamming their brakes on suddenly causing the car behind to crash into them. The fraudsters then claim for the cost of repair or replacement of their vehicle on the innocent driver's insurance.
Yes, that's right.  Bulgarians.  I know it doesn't say Bulgarians but that is because it is the Guardian.  It's Bulgarians.  Freaking Bulgarians, and we get the treatment!

Is this an immigration issue?  Possibly, but not really.  Is this yet another example of a state that finds it easier to allow an industry to bully and bludgeon the innocent rather than solve a criminal problem that will require getting tough with unpleasant people (yes, the insurance people too!)?  Most assuredly.

Nick Cave Goes All Squiggly

Nothing beats moral equivocation when it's got a nice tune!

Thursday 23 September 2010

It's Been Coming For Some Time...

Former Vice President Walter Mondale has had a lot to say this week about comparisons between Jimmy Carter - once regarded as America's worst ever modern president - and the man who has made Carter look positively statesman-like, Barack Obama.

With all fairness to Mr Mondale, it's not like no one saw this coming, oh, two-and-something years ago.  But come it did.

Like a lot of things though, this could be much more entertaining set to music. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the delightful Shirley Bassey:



(As an aside, it is unfortunate that the current Vice President, Uncle Fester-impersonator Joe Biden, could not give equal cover to Mondale in the personality department. Biden can only make Mondale look sane, but that was never Mondale's problem. Mondale is still a bore. Biden, however, could make Francis Bacon's housecat look sane.)

The Dead Zone

Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal:

The political status quo, whatever good it did at times over the past 50 years, has arrived at a dead zone. The status quo—a vast, aging network of appropriators, Beltway enablers, bloodless public unions and private-sector pilot fish—budgeted the federal government, California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois and other states to the brink of effective bankruptcy.

The Obama administration is the dismaying, logical end-point of decades of public spending, a Gargantua that now threatens to smother everything else in the American economy. Velma Hart's confronting Barack Obama at that town-hall meeting Monday about the stalled economy—"I'm waiting, sir, I'm waiting"—may have been the central moment in what is happening now. It was the parable of the Emperor's New Clothes: He isn't wearing anything at all!

The torpid political world, the ancien regime, has put the nation at long-term risk. It is killing America's ability to revive from this punishing recession and compete with fast-running nations like China, India, Brazil and South Korea.

What the tea party and independent voters sympathetic to it are about is giving the United States the tools to compete again in the big global game. It starts with Stop-the-Spending. To the Democrats now demonizing the tea party and its candidates, those three words mean Armageddon, the end of their game.

Tuesday 21 September 2010

Wes Pruden Nails It

To the mast...right about here