Are We Clear?

“Crystal clear”

According to the BBC News website: –

“Green Party leader Caroline Lucas pledges her support for a change in the voting system, saying a switch to the Alternative Vote would be “liberating”.”

So if you had any doubts about the wisdom of AV, that should settle the argument once and for all.

Did I Fall Asleep?

“For a little while” (© Joss Whedon)

Apologies, but 13+ hour workdays don’t leave much time for blogging (or rational thought).  Just about managing to strain up under the bear*, as my late, lamented chum John used to say.

Promise to be back soon (bet you can’t wait).

* Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes, well, sometimes the bar eats you.

YOUR POLICE FORCE IN ACTION

It’s been reported that the Met Police are not going to bother trying to find the persons responsible for issuing flyers threatening “snitches” who might be thinking about passing on information following a recent shooting in Peckham.  Presumably they might have to get out into the fresh air rather than sit in the canteen.  (Not that I’d want to wander around Peckham if I didn’t need to; driving around in a MetPol marked van was enough for me.)

Of course, if the fly-posters had lost their cat then they would really have been in bother.

VAN ROMPUY IS A CNUT* – OFFICIAL

* see here

Yes, our esteemed leader (the real one, not iDave) thinks that the market is unfair to the failing Euro currency states.  That’s what the market is for, matey.  If it treated everyone the same, regardless of their credit rating, we’d be in even more of a mess.  (See soviet states passim.)

Nice to know the men in charge of our destinies have absolutely no idea of business or economics (not to mention democracy*).  As long as they can manage to fill in an EU allowances form they’re happy.

*I asked you not to mention that! (© S. Milligan)

I FIND YOUR LACK OF FAITH DISTURBING . .

. . . is just one of the things you’ll hear on this excellent demolition of the great AGW scare.  (H/T The Filthy Engineer.)

SORRY, I DON’T UNDERSTAND THE RULES OF THIS ENGAGEMENT

Let me get this straight: –

1) It’s OK to imply that the shooting in Tucson was somehow due to the Tea Party and S. Palin within hours of the event*.

2)  But it’s not OK for S. Palin to defend her position a few days after the event, as this is insensitive.

As long as I know.

*It was expected that the BBC, Guardian, etc. would jump in with both feet re: the accusations (not even hedging their bets, let alone waiting for evidence “It’s all Palin’s fault!”) but sad to see that even the Sunday Torygraph got in on the act.

DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY* . .

. . . when the long Christmas/New Year break disturbs your concentration?  Not exactly a restful period for your grovelling author, what with spending most of Boxing Day trying not to catch anything infectious in the A & E waiting area (standing room only, bring all your friends and family for a grand day out).  Good job I could adjourn to the hospital restaurant and sit alone with a cuppa and a portion of turkey tikka masala.

Then there’s the family crisis that threatened all sorts of mayhem for later in the year (luckily sorted out after a couple of days).

That’s my excuse anyway.  Believe it or don’t!

*In line with the non-sweary policy of this blog, the clip here is the version ruined dubbed for US TV.  If you want the real one, rent the movie  If you don’t know the movie, I really don’t know where you’ve been (© Rod the Mod).

Separated At Birth?

Just to show I’m not partisan . . .

Iggle Piggle

 

iDave

Separated At Birth?

Mr Potato Head

Millie Edband

Whither The Daily Telegraph?

The downhill trend in quality of the DT has been commented on many times, but that isn’t going to stop me from having my tuppence-worth.

To start with, why is it that their columnists have gone so far off the boil? Peter Oborne (to take one example) has gone off-message as far as us right-wing fanatics are concerned. He writes “. . . the status of David Cameron has risen sharply, both in Westminster and around the country. He may not be liked, but he is increasingly respected.” Respected by whom, Charles? Not by many of those who voted for him, I suspect.

Saturday’s piece by Charles Moore is so bad I don’t know where to begin. Let’s take this example, “Thirty years ago, (the Tory) party was stuffed with the justly named Wets . . Today, there are no Wets left. All Wets, and some Dries, used to be Europhiles. These, too, have departed. The Tory Right may be suffering an identity crisis, but it is the Tory Left that has disappeared.” So there are no Europhiles in the Tory Party? FFS, iDave is as bad as Ken Clarke!

Then we have to endure the likes of Geoffrey Lean, the warmist’s friend. To think they shuffled Simon Heffer off to the edge of a page so that they could make room for Lean’s eco-garbage.

Last, but not least, we have Robert Webb. Now, I enjoy his radio and TV performances but he really would be more at home writing for the Independent. On Saturday he posted a mock quiz in which every answer was a repeat of the same dig at Clegg for the about-turn on student fees. Once may have been regarded as amusing (if you like that sort of thing) but he repeated the same joke twelve times. It was the behaviour of a 9-year-old who, on reading out a Christmas cracker joke and finding that the grown-ups laughed, kept on saying it over and over. I suspect much of his motivation is simply to annoy the stereotypical DT reader.

Can we have our newspaper back please, Messrs Barclay?