Check out this hilarious analysis of what you can infer from how people sleep after a one night stand.

Was it as good for you as it was for me?

Warning: for the irony-challenged, this is a spoof.

Or maybe not.

All I can say is... hehehe.

Read the testimonials... hilarious.

Via this website is a list of the ten most annoying taxes. I am not sure if I agree with the rankings, but still.

The website does seem to have many attractive features (absolutely! Ed).

I must say it is about time that we found out what the South Park kids made of the bailout. This is probably not entirely work-safe.

There is no stated national consensus that as a country we should substantially reduce overall masturbation, but such a reduction would benefit the health of many who wank – and those affected by passive wanking- the concept I invented a few sentences ago and am now treating as a genuine problem.

In 2006, 180,000 people died from pornographic-related causes. Wanking has a major impact on individual wanker's health: it causes cancers of the liver, bowel, breast, throat, mouth, larynx and oesophagus; it causes blindness, hairy palms, a pale pallor and insanity ...

Some point to the potential benefits of self-pleasuring, but these tend to be greatly overstated.

Despite its known harms, one-quarter of the adult population – about 10 million people – now wank above the recommended low-risk levels. I made this figure up but as the Chief Medical Officer I can cite myself because I am in a position of authority.

Here is a graph to illustrate how many people are killed by masturbation. It actually represents something completely different, possibly cat food sales, but I'm guessing that most of you are actually too stupid to actually look at the graph in any detail ...

- some Unenlightened Commentary sadly not actually supplied by Sir Liam Donaldson (with thanks to Obnoxio the Clown)

...and Carla Howell has just the song to put you in the mood!

This is pure genius.

I must say that things are going sour for The Community Organiser quicker than you can say the words "Andrew Sullivan".

I do not like all of Will Farrell's movies. But this one, about a nutty US TV anchorman, is wonderful. I wonder if any actual broadcasters have ever dreamed of doing this? I bet Jeremy Paxman has.

Inspired by a rather popular children's book and the truth, my colleague Minxuan came to work today sporting a t-shirt which I can only grant my heartiest approval:

Aside: It is great to work in an office where one can appear in excrement-themed clothing without any fuss. (You can get the t-shirt from Threadless.)

TARP - Troubled Assets Relief Program - is not an acronym that has yet made its way across the Atlantic in a big way. But it surely won't be long coming because yesterday it reached me, in the form of an email from Michael Jennings, containing this, which is a pictorial explanation of what it means. Apparently, some of MJ's Aussie stockbroker mates have been circulating this amongst themselves. A few seconds of googling also got me to a TARP song.

Obviously sanity is losing all the policy battles at the moment, big time, but at least sanity is speaking - and singing - out, and may yet win the ideological war. As I said in a comment on a recent Johnathan Pearce posting here, this bodes well for our great grandchildren, if not for our children.

This is on my Amazon wish-list. I love the mad, over-the-top style of the late Terry Thomas and from a young age, was delighted by his crazy turns of phrase, his hilarious demeanor and wonderful portrayal of the upper class cad. I must say that every time I am unfortunate enough to see Gordon Brown, The Community Organiser or Sarkozy on the television, it is hard not to shout out in true TT style: "What an absolute shower!"

Where did the expression "absolute shower" come from, by the way?

This is hilarious. All together now: aaaahhhhhhh!

(Hat-tip, Noodlefood).

Here is something very topical for today, Inaugaration Speech Generator:

A grassroots internet campaign helped Barack Obama get elected. Now he's calling for the internet's assistance one more time – to help him craft the best inauguration speech ever...

This is the result of my humble efforts to help out:

My fellow Americans, today is a psychadelic day. You have shown the world that "hope" is not just another word for "moon", and that "change" is not only something we can believe in again, but something we can actually fly.

Today we celebrate, but let there be no mistake – America faces confusing and rigorous challenges like never before. Our economy is embarassing. Americans can barely afford their mortgages, let alone have enough money left over for spaghetti. Our healthcare system is lethal. If your nostril is sick and you don't have insurance, you might as well call a dustman. And America's image overseas is tarnished like a aubergine bullet. But cookin' together we can right this ship, and set a course for Hebrides.

Finally, I must thank my excruciating family, my beautiful campaign volunteers, but most of all, I want to thank bankers for making this historic occasion possible. Of course, I must also thank you, President Bush, for years of shootin' the American people. Without your rotting efforts, none of this would have been possible.

God Bless... the Internet!

Via Tom Palmer's blog, here is an excellent picture summing up what I think of bailouts.

I am deeply concerned about the sort of world we will bequeath to our children and I promise you, the minute I get back from my holiday I will write a letter to my MP demanding that they do whatever it is you want them to do. But please, for the time being, fuck off bastard hippies.

- A fictional character articulating the sane human response to PlaneStupid, courtesy of the Daily Mash.

I fear that for a lot of campaigners, being a nuisance is an end in itself, and other people's annoyance is taken to signify how stupid and morally worthless ordinary people are - and thus as reinforcement by comparison of the overweening self-esteem of the campaigners themselves. Something similar is found in the shock-jockery of the blogosphere. I frequently spot the attitude in some NO2ID-ers but I do try to counteract it. People are entitled to want to get on with their lives in a way that is meaningful to them. If you want to persuade them, then give them a reason to care and listen, don't bully and excoriate them. In the words of Dale Carnegie: "You can't win an argument."

I could not resist this:

Why did the chicken cross the road?

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a change! The chicken wanted change!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure - right from Day One! - that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road.. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. T he chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here. DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his current problems before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth? That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay, too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the other side.' That chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and as simple as that.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting ? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of moulting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2008. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra.#@&&^(C%..........reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

And someone added SARAH PALIN: I'm not really qualified to answer that question [wink], but I can assure Joe six-pack [wink] and all the hockey moms [wink] out there that I know what really matters to them [wink]. Incidentally [wink], I can see a road from my house, so I must be qualified to cross it...

Via the wonderful Boing Boing site, I came across this rather, ahem, interesting luggage. And the website is French. Quite what the airport security people will make of this is anyone's guess. I suspect that many airports will not see the joke.

Tee-hee.

This is magnificent.

Tee-hee.

We could all use a bit of cheering up in these worrying times. Surfing the Net, I re-read some of the funniest content in the blogsphere, thanks to Harry Hutton. This post still makes me laugh out loud. It has not dated at all.

From the Spectator:

If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214. So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle.

This is from two weeks ago, so adjust for the financial turmoil since... the advice still stands.

This is simply brilliant:

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude. I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Henry Paulson

The serious point here, of course is that Americans are being asked to bail themselves out, or their more feckless citizens, many of whom are far richer than they. And this is meant to save "unregulated capitalism", apparently.

Thanks to Bob Bidinotto for the link. Bob has been on fire recently.
Update: here is an excellent summary of how the crisis has erupted, at Reason.

My favourite commentary on all the financial mayhem of the last few days and hours is this, from Scrappleface:

"To sustain this shining city on a hill," Mr. Bush said, "we need to rescue the ignorant, irresponsible folks - from Wall Street to Capitol Hill to Main Street - who got us to where we are today. We must guarantee that no American suffers the soft bigotry of being forced to live with the consequences of his bad decisions.”

The president, in remarks to the news media clearly aimed at reluctant Republicans in Congress, said, "Our financial system rests on a foundation of huge banks, brokerage houses and quasi-governmental agencies that followed Washington’s lead by gambling on long-shot, poorly-collateralized investments. Now this glorious way of life is threatened, and we must act to preserve it.”

"We need to guarantee that the structures, systems, people and products that got us to this point won’t be tossed on the ash heap of history," said Mr. Bush. "If these giant companies fail, then America will be left with nothing but thousands of small to mid-sized financial firms that made prudent investment decisions during the past 15 years."

I'll skip the next paragraph, if only so that I can say read the whole thing without having already stolen the whole thing, but the final paragraph demands inclusion:

"It is a moral imperative that we guard the civil rights of these idiots," he said. "If we fail, then we face the specter of free market capitalism run amok, and millions of Americans will feel the painful lash of personal responsibility across their backs."

One of the reasons I like this is because it makes me laugh, while at the same time allowing me still to be Thinking About It All, rather than just escaping into pure escapism.

One thing I do strongly believe ("know" would be putting it too strongly) that is relevant to all this mess is that the Great Depression was not caused by the Wall Street Crash, but by the mistaken things done before and after – especially after - the Wall Street Crash. To say that the Crash caused the Depression is that old folly of blaming the messenger for the message. It is now clear to us all, to those to whom it was not clear at the time, that the mistakes made during the previous few years have done a lot of damage. But I fear that the mistakes being made right now will prove even more costly.

And if I had to decide about all this, right now, knowing only what I know now, I'd say: let the market now do its job. The economy has been fatally mixed in recent years. Unmix it. If you have just lost your shirt, the taxpayer won't buy back so much as a button for you. Yes, cruel, and I certainly wouldn't say that every shirtloser has been stupid, as Scrappleface's Presdent Bush does. And such cruelty is certainly not how you win elections. But far more cruel would be (will be?) changing the rules of the entire game for the worse.

Update: Von Mises Institute Bailout Reader.

Something for the weekend:

I guess the Bloomberg editor who transmitted this story in error has suffered the equivalent of being thrown into a pool of sharks, as happened to a baddie who got on the wrong side of Largo in Thunderball. There has always been a Spectre-like feel about the Bloomberg news operation, not to mention a cultish aspect, even. In their London office, there are lots of fish-tanks dotted about, presumably designed to make the staff feel calmer, but you never know what sort of beasties might lurk.

There is this wonderful story - I am not sure if it is totally accurate, though - about how an employee who fell out with a notorious Bloomberg editor, called Matt Winkler, managed to transmit headlines on the service that repeated for hours, with the words: "Winkler is a Wanker - Official".

I just love the news business.

A new film is out later this year in the US taking the p**s out of Michael Moore. It looks quite amusing. Here's the trailer. Some of the one-liners are excellent.

“I thought I'd begin by reading a sonnet by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.”

Spike Milligan

Make: has a wonderful way of dealing with security cameras.

This balloon-based anti surveillance camera project by Brooklyn-based artist William Lamson is an easy way to fool even the most sophisticated forms of surveillance technology. Helium filled rubber balloon set to the correct height and covered with enough static electricity to stick to any surface, such as a public camera. Now if only they made robotic pins for security officers to pop them.

"Weren't the eighties grand? Cash grew on trees or, anyway, coca bushes. The rich roamed the land in vast herds hunted by proud, free tribes of investment brokers who lived a simple life in tune with money. Every wristwatch was a Rolex. Every car was a Mercedes-Benz. A fellow could romance a gal without shrink-wrapping his privates and negotiating the Treaty of Ghent. Communist dictators were losing their jobs, not presidents of America and General Motors. Women wore Adolfo gowns instead of dumpy federal circuit court judge robes. The Malcolm who mattered was Forbes. Bill Clinton was only a microscopic polyp in the colon of national politics, and Hillary was still in flight school, hadn't even soloed on her broom. What a blast we were having. The suburbs had just discovered Martha Stewart, the cities had just discovered crack. So many parties and none of them Democratic...Back then health care was a tummy tuck, not an inalienable right. If you wanted a better environment, you went to Laura Ashley."

- PJ O'Rourke

It may be disgustingly authoritarian, but it is risibly incompetent too. It appears the Home Office has just spent a very large amount of UK readers' money making a vast online advertisement for NO2ID. We'd despaired of reaching 'the youth' ourselves, too expensive. I'm very glad they decided to do it for us.

With audience participation. Which embarrassingly for the Home Office shows 'kids' not to be quite the suckers they'd hoped. Enjoy.

Via the Boing Boing website - is this superb picture. Enjoy.

"Two substantive political issues are the federal budget deficit and the war in Iraq. Now, if you're electing Democrats to control government spending, then you're marrying Angelina Jolie for her brains. This leaves the Democrats with one real issue: Iraq. And so far the best that any Democratic presidential candidate has been able to manage with Iraq is to make what I think of as the high school sex promise: I will pull out in time, honest dear."

- PJ O'Rourke. He is still the greatest.

Via Tim Worstall's blog, I came across this imagined encounter between Polly Toynbee, and her political Mr D'Arcy, Brown, by this guy:

As for poor Pol, where to start? Imagine the despair, so raw you can almost taste it. Imagine the sense of crushing disappointment. For years now, she has waited for her prince to come - her dashing Norse warrior, who will sweep away all the effete detritus of the Blair years and unload a torrent of resources into child poverty and public services. Night after night she has left the red light on for him; lying in the bed in her Agent Provocateur lingerie, maybe some crotchless pants and a peephole bra, striking an uncomfortable pose lest he come charging through the door at any moment to sweep her up in his powerful arms.

Oh my god.

This is hilarious.

Well, the daffodils are out, even the shrubs in my small garden are starting to grow. The weather has been rather nice of late. So, in this spirit, take it away, Mr Tom Lehrer:

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don't you? 'Course you do.
But there's one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes every Sunday a treat for me.

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Every Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.

When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.
The sun's shining bright,
Everything seems all right,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

We've gained notoriety,
And caused much anxiety
In the Audubon Society
With our games.
They call it impiety
And lack of propriety,
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names.
But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon.

So if Sunday you're free,
Why don't you come with me,
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel* or two,
While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

While I'm linking to what is probably common knowledge here at Samizdata, let me throw in a link to Iowahawk's new Canterbury Tale for Bishop Rowan. In the unlikely event you haven't seen this already, you really, really owe it to yourself to click through.

Just a little taste:

41 Sayth the libertine, "'tis well and goode

42 But sharia goes now where nae it should;

43 I liketh bigge buttes and I cannot lye,

44 You othere faelows can't denye,

45 But the council closed my wenching pub,

46 To please the Imams, aye thaere's the rub."

I had run across some of David Wong's work in the past and really enjoyed it, so I was delighted to find his home base at Pointless Waste of Time. He is one smart, funny guy. Browse around, but I particularly recommend the classics "Inside the Monkeysphere," "The Ultimate War Simulation", and "The God Fuse".

The first two I had run across before, so they've gotten some exposure, but I was glad to find their home, as they are definitely worth re-reading.

If you do not read Michael Totten's blog regularly (and why the hell don't you? It is one of the best damn things on the internet!) then you may have missed this treasure.

And this comment is pretty good too:

This video proves that the surge has failed miserably. The Iraqis are running wild with their scissors and refuse to drink milk and wear seat belt. The pitiful American forces can't even muster the courage to summon insurgents to a shootout themselves. Instead, they have to order random drivers on the road as "human invitation cards". This is sickening.

Heh indeed.

Peter Briffa is on great form.

Tomorrow evening we are doing a blogger bash and one of the Samizdatistas, Michael Jennings in a bout of generosity is bringing a whole leg of Serrano ham to share. Another blogging groupie is kindly bringing a ham stand and a knife. So the video below is particularly relevant and wonderfully silly:

via dropsafe

cross-posted from Media Influencer

The Daily Telegraph asks:

"Just what do chalet girls get up to?"

I have been skiing several times and judging by the partying I er, saw (honest, guv), quite a good deal. As for the chaps, well...

Apparently, the reason Senator Hillary Clinton (New York) won the recent New Hampshire Democratic party US presidential primary was as follows:

No, it appears at this early stage of analysis that the pieces were in place for this win all along, and that the "secret weapon" of the Clinton campaign was their field program to significantly boost turnout with their strongest demographic, single women and women with less than a college degree.

I wonder what we should call "single women and women with less than a college degree"? Not "Soccer Moms" obviously. I have a horrible feeling I know what Chris Rock would call them...

BTW, I note there are no Samizdata category sections for "witchcraft" or "elections". This might be a case for either or both.

"The loss of a leg may generally be regarded as a more real calamity than the loss of a mistress."

- Adam Smith.

I think I agree, although I guess it depends on the mistress.

I am feeling rather groggy after a wonderful party yesterday - I also watched the excellent Barbarians-South Africa match in a pub - but this item on a website called Sharp as a Marble is an instant hangover cure. Good heavens - the stuff you can find on the web.

Important data on the meaning of curves and wiggles.

Not this kind of back up though.

via Make Marketing History

Standing ovations have become far too commonplace. What we need are ovations where the audience members all punch and kick one another.

- George Carlin, US comedian.

David Friedman has some thoughts on the whole business of human mating and money. I suppose I will be deemed incorrigibly flippant, but I could not help but immediately think of this crackerjack of a funny post on such matters by the one and only Harry Hutton.

Deplorable, obviously.

I just ran across the apocalyptic biblical quote:

And in those days shall men seek death and not find it and shall desire to die and death shall flea from them - Revelations 9:6

In a sudden heavenly flash of deep preternatural understanding and prognostication the true meaning of this ancient prophecy suffused my being.

We are going to capture all the suicide bombers and lock them up for life! I also inferred from it that we will soon have the nanotechnology necessary to extend life to lengths most find unimaginable. This will allow us to lock up these self-portable munitions for even longer.

Cartoons, where would we be without them...

via Nasty, Brutish & Short

The British master of literary parody, Craig Brown - who lives in my old stamping ground of Suffolk - had this absolute blinder of a sendup of the whole, ghastly Prince Diana industry of ropey biographies and kiss-and-tell stories that cropped up after she was killed in that Paris car crash almost 10 years ago (I remember the headlines the following day so clearly, I cannot believe 10 frickin' years have elapsed).

Here's a sample of Brown in action:

A forthcoming book, Diana Ablaze (HarperCollins), carries an interview with an unnamed "highly placed" eyewitness to the blaze at Windsor Castle who claims to have spotted Princess Diana skulking in the shadows with a packet of Zip firelighters peeping out of her top pocket.

I nearly spilled my coffee all over the desk at that one.

I can also recommend this for students of history with a twist.

The other week, I wrote about the Bridge card game ploy known as the Yarborough - taken from the third James Bond story, Moonraker. The names given to various card game gambits can be wonderful. Consider this one:

The author has an amusing, though unkind, name for a holding of Ace King. He calls it ‘Kournikova’ because it is very pretty but never wins.

Well, I rather liked her.

In the beginning God covered the earth with broccoli, cauliflower and spinach, with green, yellow and red vegetables of all kinds so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives.

Then Satan created Dairy Ice Cream and Magnums. And Satan said, "You want hot fudge with that?
And Man said, "Yes!" And Woman said, "I'll have one too with chocolate chips".
And lo, they gained 10 pounds.

And God created the healthy yoghurt that Woman might keep the figure that Man found so fair.
Satan brought forth white flour from the wheat and sugar from the cane and combined them.
And Woman went from size 12 to size 14.

So God said, "Try my fresh green salad".
And Satan presented Blue Cheese dressing and garlic croutons on the side.
And Man and Woman unfastened their belts following the repast.

God then said, "I have sent you healthy vegetables and olive oil in which to cook them".
And Satan brought forth deep fried coconut king prawns, butter-dipped lobster chunks and chicken fried steak, so big it needed its own platter.
And Man's cholesterol went through the roof.

Then God brought forth the potato, naturally low in fat and brimming with potassium and good nutrition.
Then Satan peeled off the healthy skin and sliced the starchy centre into chips and deep fried them in animal fats adding copious quantities of salt.
And Man put on more pounds.

God then brought forth running shoes so that his Children might lose those extra pounds.
And Satan came forth with cable T.V. with remote control so Man would not have to toil changing the channels.
And Man and Woman laughed and cried before the flickering light and started wearing stretch jogging suits.

Then God gave lean beef so that Man might consume fewer calories and still satisfy his appetite.
And Satan created McDonalds and the 99p double cheeseburger.
Then Satan said, "You want fries with that?" and Man replied, "Yes, and super size 'em".
And Satan said, "It is good."

And Man and Woman went into cardiac arrest.
God sighed. And created quadruple by-pass surgery.
And then Satan chuckled, and created the National Health Service.

Or the same familiar foaming...

Perfect for a lunch break...

A tip - here is the same video but with better translated subtitles. Alas, the embedding has been disabled, which is rather stupid. Fits the spirit of the thing.

via Boing Boing

The British government has issued a formal apology for Britain's conduct during the Second World War.

Speaking from the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett described Britain's conduct in the 1939-1945 period as "shameful":

We recognise that British military aggression between the years of 1939 and 1945 led directly or indirectly to the deaths of many, many people in Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere. It is time to acknowledge this fact and to apologise for it.

The opposition Conservatives roundly condemned the Foreign Secretary's remarks as not going far enough and being "too little, too late". They urged the Government to issue a further apology for all the environmental damage inflicted on the world by British forces during the war and since.

In Germany, a spokesman for an association of SS veterans described the apology as "a good start".

Okay, enough serious stuff from me. Quick question to you all - what is the funniest book/film you know, and why? My personal favourites include Dr Strangelove, Animal House, A Shot in the Dark, Code of the Woosters and Carry on up the Khyber.

Thanks to my investigative reporting skills, I came across the following draft of the Conservative Party manifesto for the next General Election. It makes for fascinating reading:

"A Tory Party will be a Green government. Global warming, along with terrorism and capitalism, is the greatest threat to our lives. Today's Tory Party has shed its outmoded addiction to markets, freedom and selfish individualism. Instead, we pledge to shut down industrial civilisation during the course of our first term of office, although we realise that this goal is an ambitious one. Flights will be banned, along with cars, buses, trains, central heating, electric power stations, ports, ferries, factories, foundaries, shipyards, computer stations, everything.

We do of course accept that this policy is a radical one. However, under the funky leadership of David Cameron, a man who has already been prepared for the big challenges of life by his career as an old Etonian and executive for Carlton Communications, we believe our policy of returning to a glorious pre-industrial age is one that is sure to capture the public's imagination.

Vote Conservative.

Sounds like a real winner to me.

People will bet on anything these days.

"I always felt this country was going down the tubes when the television folk replaced Basil Brush with Roland Rat."

My dad, with his finger on the pulse as usual. Here is a tribute page to television's most superior fox.

Spring onions are spring onions (or scallions). Aussies might have recently beat us at a pointless activity (it isn't sport if you can do it in a chunky-knit tank-top) but they lag well beyond the Northern Hemisphere in the recognition of common-place veggies. And your water goes down the plug-hole the wrong way round... And that's moral turpitude that is, not the Coriolis effect.

- Commenter Nick M

According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, Cuban doctors have performed a number of experimental ass treatments on the 79-year old president-for-life since he first fell ill in July 2006. These treatments have reportedly included cork blockage, cork removal, high-pressure steam cleaning, violent stomach-punches from the Cuban national boxing team, Santaria chicken sacrifice, and mandatory public anti-constipation rallies.

Seeking to reassure citizens that El Jefe remained in control, a photo in Havana's official newspaper last week showed a him relaxing and chatting with visiting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez while receiving a colonoscopy. This appeared to be administered via an auger bit attached to the rear axle of a 1953 Plymouth.

- Iowahawk

"I think we should take Iraq and Iran and combine them into one country and call it Irate. All the pissed off people live in one place and get it over with."

- Denis Leary.

Moving past discussions of endlessly increasing government responsibility over our daily existence and on to the really weighty matters of the day!

Gentlemen. Do not be fooled by recent television commercials depicting comely young hetero chaps guzzling that horrendous, barely alcoholic, sweet, creamy, Celtic muck known as Baileys (girl's drink). See this for what it is - a shameless attempt to broaden the demographic that consumes Baileys (girl's drink). It will not work. I do not care how many advertisements are broadcast showing Baileys (girl's drink)-clutching studly guys and their mates in bars catching the eyes of implausibly hot women. Baileys (girl's drink) is a girl's drink, and no amount of telemarketing sophistry can alter that fact.

Sex Dispute Ends In Tractor Rampage

Hot diggety dog. Don't they always?

(Via Drunkablog)

Okay, another plug for a funny piece of entertainment following my previous posting. My kid brother bought me the DVD of the first series of 'Look Around You', which is a glorious send-up of the 1970s programmes which were used to teach pupils and college students about science, maths and other subjects. The production styles: slightly fuzzy camera shots, corny old folk music, guys with Frank Zappa haircuts wearing tweedy jackets and black-rimmed spectacles, brought back scary memories of how long ago in style terms the 1970s now appears. I went to primary school in that era of flares, British Leyland cars, Roxy Music and endless labour disputes. The education programmes used to be narrated by some posh-sounding gent, or occasionally woman, normally with a perfect received pronunciation and heavy touch of condescension. The programme-makers would sometimes be a bit daring and let the vowels of Edinburgh or even Wales onto the show.

It may be unlikely material for a spoof, but the show Look Around You is in my view the funniest television comedy I have seen in years. I do not know if someone who was not brought up in Britain when these original programmes were made would 'get' the gag. However, if you are British, aged about 40 and your blood runs cold at mention of the words NHS spectacles or "modular study guides", then rent out or buy this DVD. We like to bash the BBC here at Samizdata because of the tax-financing of it, sorry, the licence fee, but this is a gem and is in the same bracket in my opinion as 'The Fast Show'.

(Health warning: I laughed so much at this show that my jaw is now actually quite painful. Avoid liquids).

The Monty Python purists may be offended - I tend to find such people awkward company - but if you want to have a fun night out and laugh yourself hoarse, then the crazy musical/panto/ "Spamalot" is a must-see event. It has been running in London's West End for a few weeks now and has already been a smash in Broadway.

"We are the Knights who say neeeee!"

The latest edition of The Onion has some invaluable advice on avoiding being "irresponsible" when it comes to drinking booze this Christmas.

God, I love that publication.

"Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy".

Groucho Marx (the Marx who actually had intelligent things to say about money).

Despite it being a highly sinister state, one of the most notable aspects of the façade North Korea presents to the rest of the world can be found in the unintentionally rich comedic value sincerely dished out by Pyongyang's global network of propagandists. Exhibit A would have to be the depiction of the country's kooky leader, Kim Jong il, who was famously and brilliantly lampooned in the movie Team America: World Police. Further evidence can be found in Samizdata postings on earlier oddball giggles courtesy of North Korea's propaganda machine - review these here and here.

But wait, there's more. A brief glance at recently-discovered Songun blog (looking through the comments threads there, it is quite remarkable how many people do not realise the site is satirical - hint, hint) prompts further amusement at the cack-handedness of the North Korean P.R. people. Did you know that North Korea is planning to host an international rock festival in early-mid 2007? It's true. According to the North Korean English language website, Voice of Korea, ROCK FOR PEACE

will be the 2007 version of Woodstock rock festival in 1969 but in a different location and with a different goal.

Riiiight. And like crazy ol' spontaneous and unregulated Woodstock of 1969, Rock For Peace promises

few restrictions and conditions on participation but any band will be considered even though you are from USA. The lyrics should not contain admirations on war, sex, violence, murder, drug, rape, non-governmental society, imperialism, colonialism, racism, anti-DPRK, and anti-socialism. There are few restrictions and conditions on participation but any band will be considered even though you are from USA. The lyrics should not contain admirations on war, sex, violence, murder, drug, rape, non-governmental society, imperialism, colonialism, racism, anti-DPRK, and anti-socialism.

I am not sure there are any American acts who would satisfy the criteria. Perhaps the Brits could send Rolf Harris, preferably on a one-way passage.

There are, however, indications that the North Korean propaganda machine is starting to come to terms with the concept of producing convincing copy. Displayed at the bottom of the Voice of Korea website is a photo of a few hot and bothered middle-aged Euros posing with a group of male teenage soccer players. Songun (and this Guardian article) quotes the caption of the picture in question as reading

HEY, AMERICANS, YOU SHOULD LEARN A LOT FROM OUR NORWEGIAN FRIENDS WHO ARE HAVING REALLY GOOD TIME WITH NORTH KOREAN YOUNG SCHOOL BOYS.

No doubt to the Norwegians' immense chagrin, a really good time with the boys is no longer being had over at Voice of Korea. They're learning - one step at a time.

"Jokes about polonium 210 will be half as funny 138 days from now"

Via the Adam Smith Institute blog I came across this excellent essay over at the LewRockwell site about South Park. Definitely worth a read. Of course it is not the first time that the outrageous but wonderfully sharp series has been noted for its libertarian, anti-puritan content. Blogger Andrew Sullivan even coined the phrase - I think - South Park Republicans. I doubt that the makers of the series would want to be seen dead with many modern self-styled conservatives, and I would love Parker and Stone to have a go at our own benighted David Cameron's Tories. There was a whole book on the subject by Brian Anderson called South Park Conservatives, which I quite liked, although it had some flaws. Reason magazine had a recent nice article about the characters.

Of course, arguably PJ O'Rourke was ahead of them all with his Republican Party Reptiles, which is essentially a libertarian credo in most respects. The nearest we have in Britain to such a celebration of brash material wealth and fun, irreverence towards do-gooders of all forms is motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson.

WASHINGTON, DC—After months of aggressive campaigning and with nearly 99 percent of ballots counted, politicians were the big winners in Tuesday's midterm election, taking all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, retaining a majority with 100 out of 100 seats in the Senate, and pushing political candidates to victory in each of the 36 gubernatorial races up for grabs.

The Onion notices the awful truth. Their overall election coverage is quite chuckle-inducing, too.

Update: All right, there are a couple of decent ones in there. I like Dr No.

(h/t: Avatar Briefs)

Count this against the serendipitous beauty of found objects, but I just got suckered into opening an email I had not intended to, and found this bit of salient, nonsensical prose heading up a doubtless spurious offer to buy stocks in some ethanol company that I suspect is not incorporated anywhere near the State of Delaware:

Some fire hydrant conquers the ball bearing. When you see a fruit cake related to the deficit, it means that the accurately proverbial fairy takes a coffee break. Now and then, another purple power drill eats a freight train defined by the tornado. For example, a demon defined by a spider indicates that some pig pen sells the recliner to the salad dressing over a rattlesnake. When a cantankerous support group reads a magazine, the federal deficit starts reminiscing about lost glory.... If the minivan about a pine cone usually competes with a mortician over the support group, then a skyscraper hides.

This is as good a bit of expiatory nonsense as any I have ever read. And I have read a lot.

Corporate executives used to avoid talking about their war experiences. But today's educated executives thrill and eventually bore you with their high-altitude conquests. A quarter of them seem either to be just back from one of those instant-glacier expeditions or to be deep in the midst of training for one...You get the impression that every spot on earth over 10,000 feet above sea level is packed with magneta-clad millionaires luxuriating in their thin-air hardships.

- David Brooks, Bobos in Paradise, first published in 2000, page 209.

The hardest part about 'libertarian' is learning how to roll your eyes

- Ze Frank

See if you tell the difference.

With our troops safely back, the people of Iraq can then begin building a faith-based society emphasizing the same traditional values that motivate conservatives like you: women at home, prayer in school, capital punishment for homos.

- Howard Dean (channelled by blogging über-wit Iowahawk) is sniffing out votes in unlikely places.

Is a credit card. But James, I hear you cry, the availability of capital credit supercharged Western civilisation's development through the Renaissance and beyond, and a credit card is an instrument of a developed debt market - arguably the most socially beneficial institution we possess! Have you gone quite mad?

No, dear reader, just clumsy; I meant to write that the most ill-considered banking product ever devised is this credit card. It is a National Australia Bank (NAB) Visa Mini - confoundingly counter-intuitively, this card's most notable feature is that it's about half the size of a conventional credit card. Apparently this distinction alone will irresistibly and relentlessly reel in the target demographic - fashion conscious twenty-somethings (I think that might include me!) - but NAB has other slick devices in store to simultaneously deliver a KO in the coolness heavyweight championship of the banking world whilst obfuscating the somewhat steep interest rate levied on any transactions billed.

So let us dive in to this treasure-trove of modé. Before our young charges sally forth and actually use their Visa Mini cards to - you know - buy stuff, they need to know that The Bank wants them to be creative and flamboyant in the way they carry their card on their person, so it has thoughtfully provided some accessories to give each trendy young Visa Mini cardholder a dash of inspiration. Why not hang your Visa Mini on your mobile phone using the purpose-built attachment, o budding sophisticate? Does it look cool, and it is also great for the person who finds your misplaced Nokia; if they exhaust your mobile credit telephoning Siberian astrologers, they'll be thanking their lucky stars because instant replenishment is quite literally on hand! Now that is convenience. Of course, NAB's not saying we should trade the security for the superfabulous - ho ho, quite the opposite! Just read the small print on the "accessories" page (linked above):

Remember, you have to look after your Visa Mini Card and companion card as you would cash. So the best place to wear them is up close and personal.

Yes, yes, excellent advice. The long strap should come in handy for that. See? And where would we be without a safety clip? Silly question. For the truly elite - the style aristocracy - why not subtly incorporate the Visa Mini into a piece of bespoke jewellery, like so? Yes, it probably would require less effort to don a prominent sign displaying "ROB ME" painted in large flourescent letters and then wander down the darkest, dodgiest backstreet alley in an effort to discover a smackhead suffering profound withdrawal symptoms so you can shove your Visa Mini between his chattering teeth. But that's simply not how they do it in Europe, philistine. So, point made and henceforth disregarding your obvious shortcomings, I'm sure by now your head is no doubt spinning with credit card couture-related possibilities. Yet do try to keep up, because what if I threw a choice of "five must-have metallic colours" into the mix? Yes, you heard the man - he said "must-have". So that'll be five Visa Minis for you, sir? Madam? Thought so - the experienced eye can always pick the slave to fashion!

Hang on a tick, says the Voice of Reason, this financial superstyling is all well and good, but what if the cardholder wishes to transact via an automatic teller machine or a manual imprint device or a vertical-loading swiper unsuited to such generation-NEXT Mini cards? Oh ye of little faith, those clever folk at NAB and Visa are one step ahead of the likes of you and I. If you are one of the select fashionistas who manages to successfully obtain a Visa Mini card, you will also receive a Visa Mini Companion Card, known in-house as Visa non-Mini Mini, which financially functions identically to your Mini card as it is linked to the same credit account. Instantly, it should be obvious to all that the inclusion of this extra card represents rare value - two cards from just one application! - but do not neglect to observe that the Companion Card has also been ingeniously designed to share the exact same dimensions of a conventional bank card! This comes in handy if you are ever concerned that your cute Visa Mini card might get shredded by one of those aforementioned dashed démodé - and rather expensively repaired - Mini munching machines. Or forever lost in a hopelessly antiquated, outsized wallet (this will not be a problem in the future, for wallets will shrink in lockstep with credit cards, which will in turn shrink in counter-lockstep to the increasing speed of CPUs. It's my rule). Sure, the Companion Card cannot be trendily worn dangling from a hog-style nose piercing like its Mini brother - in fact, Visa and NAB expressly forbid such inappropriate displaying of the Companion - but its "re-optimised" size does allow it to fit snugly into the card pockets of most purses and wallets. Now that's thoughtful design.

Okay, let me come clean. I believe the Visa Mini concept is rather less clever than the glowing words above might suggest. The more perceptive may even have detected a touch of cynicism creeping into the latter half of this post. Perhaps I am wrong to criticise - the virtues of this particular credit card might well have escaped my puny comprehension - so in the spirit of justice I will consult that estimable arbiter of financial products, The Hindu Business Line, to give its opinion on an Indian bank's version of the Mini:

ICICI Bank's Visa Mini Card is almost half the size of a normal credit card and, thus, handy.

There's not much I can say in the face of such irrefutable logic - evidently the press pundits are mad about the Mini. However, in a demand-driven market, surely the customer deserves the final word. Wheel in amateur product reviewer Caroline Liang who really throws egg in the face of my scepticism:

The good: I love this card. The annual fee I'm paying now is only 19 bux. Being female I like all the little things and it was throughtful of NAB to give me accesories with my card like a safety clip, a long strap, phone attachment and a card cover. The phone attachment is useful for all those people who lose their cards but dont lose their phones(LOL)

The bad: nothing yet-only if they rase the rates

Overall: Love the card-its joined my collection of credit cards....

If NAB is "throughtful" it's because NAB loves you like it loves few others, Ms Liang. Cha-ching times one.

It seems the NO2ID campaign is starting to build up some momentum. We are not just nerds and rabble-rousers any more. We are nerds, rabble-rousers and comedians.

Yes, it is time for a comedy benefit. When 10 of the sharpest acts from the London stand-up circuit turn out on a Sunday night to support a two-year-old pressure-group, you feel we might just be getting somewhere...

By numbering everybody and everything, the world is going to be a better place? Unless you’re a bureaucrat, that’s a laughable idea. So why not laugh at it? That's what we intend to do at the Hackney Empire on the evening of October 1st.

Those of you in other parts of the world will just have to content yourselves with sending money to help save what remains of British liberty... but if you are handy for London, please come along. You can even book online (£12.50 a seat) by clicking the jolly banner:

A few days ago, I was sifting through the intranet noticeboard of the large Australian bank I work for, and I stumbled on an organisation-wide message from our CEO. Anyone who has worked for a large multinational knows the breed - conversational in style, it is usually a somewhat ingenuous effort to create a collegial nexus between upper management and the ungrateful hoardes below. Amongst other rather tedious developments mentioned, the boss noted a recently deceased former customer of the bank who had, "in a rare display of loyalty and reciprocity", left a substantial portion of his estate to the bank in return for a lifetime of what must have been absolutely brilliant service.

I was, however, disappointed to read that the bank would be donating the bequest to charities in the deceased's region of abode. This will not do at all - the banks are going all wobbly-kneed and PC on us! What will the shareholders think? I would be tickled pink if our namby-pamby CEO cocked a snook at the "good corporate citizen" brigade and gratefully donated the entirety of the bequest straight to the bank's bottom line. Better still if he sallied forth proudly stating "that money will be used to refurbish the executive bathroom for the third time this (financial) year." Steve Edwards suggested he should blow the lot on a nice new tie. Anyone else have any ideas as to how the bequest might be spent? I am looking for the wildest corporate caricatures - the sort that would make Gordon Gekko blush. The funniest wins a degree of transient notoriety.

My team, The Royal Philharmonic, are facing relegation after our key bassoonist was hit by a hamstring injury, and we had to play Terry Butcher on the kazoo.

- Harry Hutton responds to The Times publishing a "league table for British orchestras".

How many Islamists does it take to change a lightbulb?

The spoof post below about how the wretched Tory leader 'Dave' Cameron might react to the case for abolishing inheritance tax - a thoroughly good idea - prompted some commentators to wonder about the UK media. It reminded me of an old quote attributed to the late British broadcaster, Brian Redhead, who is supposed to have said (I paraphrase):

"The Times is read by people who run the country. The Daily Telegraph is read by people who fear we are being run by the French; the Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country, while the Daily Mirror is read by people who delusionally think they run the country. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Sun is read by people who do not care who runs the country so long as she has very large tits."

The Conservative Party has launched a fierce attack on cabinet minister Stephen Byers following the latter's call for the abolition of Inheritance Tax.

According to the Party's Shadow Treasury Spokesman:

"This is neo-liberalism gone mad, a selfish Thatcherite appeal to naked greed and self-interest".

He added:

"This ludicrous idea of handing out tax cuts to the rich is outmoded and has no place in 21st Century Britain. We in the Conservative Party are committed to increasing the rates of Inheritance Tax in order to build a fairer society based on inclusion and social justice".

Party Leader, David Cameron has confirmed that his party will "fight tooth and nail" to save Inheritance Tax and "conserve the post-war walfare state settlement".

Roy Bacon seems to have a talent for finding the silver linings in dark clouds.

The panic ban on books and electronic gadgetry aboard transatlantic airliners throws into relief our terror at being deprived of the means to insulate ourselves from other people.

The shock of losing our personal entertainment bubbles should give us pause for thought, and make us wonder if there is a better way of enduring the enforced collectivism of a long-haul flight.

Five hundred people is more individuals than most of us can hope to know intimately in a lifetime. It is the population of a small village. If a packed Jumbo is a community, then aisles are village streets. All right, they are a bit narrow for a full-fledged passeggiata, but there is no reason we should not loiter, chew the fat, shoot the breeze – indulge in those unhurried activities that are so out of kilter with the rush of modern life. With a little lateral thinking the jet airliner, the destroyer of worlds, could be the means of regenerating some homely values.

If you do not like the idea of talking to your neighbour, and in the absence of printed matter, why not get a tattoo to entertain him or her? Depending on your physique you might be limited to a short story or a few haikus, but less – in terms of skin and stanzas – has always been more. Airport novels are not thousand-pagers out of literary necessity.

Or have a random word inscribed on your skin: from an authorised British Airways or United Airlines list, of course. Stewards could ask us our syntactical preference as we get on board, and arrange seating in a narrative way. Even with a 500-word vocabulary there would be the chance of dramatic developments as a YES fell into company with a PLEASE, or failed to see eye to eye with the MAYBE two rows back.

We should start thinking about this stuff. The War on Terror is here to stay, and it is only a matter of time before they take things to their logical conclusion and ban us from carrying anything at all onto aircraft beyond ourselves. And would that really be so bad?

It is often observed that a series of power cuts in a developed nation precedes a spike in the birth rate nine months later. A planeload of naked adults flying through the night: surely they could all find something to do!

Tri-Cities Police Waste No Time Finding Stolen Doughnut Truck

I am proud to announce the launch of the brand "spanking" new adults-only Samizdata site. You can expect the following from the Samizdatistas at our new, saucy digs:

The "Rugmuncher" Samizdata people are a fomping bunch of sinister and heavily creamed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the wad pulling felching enters of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many screws is a sense of humour and the titty fucking intermittent use of British spelling.

And you thought us such a pedestrian bunch! Viewing by subscription only. Paypal is on the left.

(Pornolize link via India Uncut)

Some headlines just speak for themselves. (Via Andrew Sullivan)

Tim Blair updates the Australian version of the English language.

but still a good one:

Three white collar prisoners are hanging around the yard comparing notes:

Former Exxon executive: They say I charged too much for oil. I'm in for price gouging.

Former Microsoft executive: They say I charged too little for software. I'm in for unfair competition.

Former Samsung executive: They say I charged the same price as everyone else for computer chips. I'm in for price fixing.

What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 523 Mentos mints? EepyBird.com has the answer in the form of the Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments.

Hrm. Sorry to plunge you all into the bizarre depths of DailyKos twice in the space of a week, but some of the goings on there are quite amusing. If I was a psychologist, I would say professionally intriguing. Take DailyKos commenter "CheChe" and the - erm - unusual relationship he appears to have with his daughter. Here's an excerpt from his post, which is so tragi-comic it is hard not to laugh out loud when reading it:

I don't think I've ever seen such a look of misery and dejection on the face of my daughter as I just did a moment ago.

I sat down with her on the sofa and (as calmly as I could) tried to explain to her why the Senate Republicans want to drain the treasury in order to give every American a $100 check. I tried to keep my voice steady, but it became increasingly difficult - the rage and feelings of helplessnes were just too much. I think my daughter could tell something was wrong. I found myself at such a loss for words - nothing made any sense; nothing makes sense anymore. I finally had to admit, "Honey, I just don't know - I don't know what's going on in this country anymore..."

When I finished her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes began to fill with tears, "Daddy" she said, "why are the Republicans doing this to the country?" Well, that was it for me: I finally fell apart. She just fell into my arms and we both began sobbing for several minutes.

Er...right. How old is this child? Does she even know what $100 is worth? Of course, the policy itself is utterly ridiculous, but that's hardly the point.

Now, there is something really odd about this CheChe character's comments. He takes the exact same wordage from a previous comment he wrote relaying his daughter's earlier misery, and then superimposes another Kos talking point as the source of his little girl's current terror and sadness to create a new saga:

I don't think I've ever seen such a look of misery and dejection on the face of my daughter as I just did a moment ago. She just couldn't understand why the President would be spying on everyone. "Even my Grandma?" she asked pitifully. [...] When I finished her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes began to fill with tears, "Daddy" she said, "why are the Republicans doing this to the country?" Well, that was it for me: I finally fell apart. She just fell into my arms and we both began sobbing for several minutes.

They have a lot of these kinds of chats; here's another. Same scenario, different bogeyman:

I don't think I've ever seen such a look of misery and dejection on the face of my daughter as I just did a moment ago. She just couldn't understand why the President would be going to Iraq when so many things are wrong in this country. "Doesn’t Mr. Bush care about us anymore?" she asked pitifully.

I sat down with her on the sofa and (as calmly as I could) tried to explain to her why the President seems to be abandoning his country. "Honey, I think his boss, Mr. Rove, sent Mr. Bush out of the country in order to keep himself out of the newspapers. You see, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be arrested today or not, and so he planned Mr. Bush’s trip ahead of time just in case...”

And so on. By now, most would have twigged to the fact that this CheChe fellow might be playing a little jape on the Kos kids. But no. Check out the number of people who "recommended" one of his posts (26), versus those who pointed him out as a troll (2). It is amazing that these plainly fictional tales of crocodile-tear woe hold currency with parts of the American left. To be fair, some people on the thread pointed out CheChe as a rather obvious fraud. His subsequent denial was true to form and hilarious:

I'm simply not going to apologize for loving and comforting my daughter. [...] There's just not enough time to always be writing a new story each and every time something happens, and since this is what happened, it seems fair. Since we lost her mother there hasn't been a lot of free time around here.

Classic.

(Hat tip: Zoe Brain)

One of my all-time favourite bloggers - who also happens to be the funniest man in the blogosphere - is under attack from DailyKos contributor 'dday', who does not think Harry Hutton is particularly funny at all. This post raised the ire of 'dday' and provoked this response from the little pet. 'dday' starts off by qualifying his monumental whinge with a "some of my best friends are black, but..." type defence of his sense of humour :

I'm not above making fun of people. Actually I do it for sport.

For one so allegedly adept at the art of piss-taking, he does not seem to understand that whole irreverence thing. Later, 'dday' flashes his humour credentials again - just so everyone is sure it is not him with the problem :

I make jokes continually, so I'm pretty up on my joke construction.

You can imagine the sort of emasculated, PC jokes this guy would crack. I bet he's about as funny as a gender feminist. Anyway, if the plight of those living in intellectual poverty concerns you, take a look at the "debate" via the links provided above. The related comments thread on DailyKos and that attached to the offending post at Hutton's are also worth a read if you enjoy the spectacle of uncomprehending, outraged mewling from humourless dolts.

In the Nanny State, you can never have too many warning labels, so they might as well be scientifically based:

Warning: This Product Warps Space and Time in Its Vicinity.

Caution: The Mass of This Product Contains the Energy Equivalent of 85 Million Tons of TNT per Net Ounce of Weight.

Handle with Extreme Care: This Product Contains Minute Electrically Charged Particles Moving at Velocities in Excess of Five Hundred Million Miles per Hour.

Note: The Most Fundamental Particles in This Product Are Held Together by a 'Gluing' Force About Which Little Is Currently Known and Whose Adhesive Power Can Therefore Not Be Permanently Guaranteed.

The Onion just keeps on getting better.

This vacancy should send my career into orbit!

This is the kind of stuff one can find probing around 'social networks' in companies. Makes my job worthwhile and goes some way to restore my faith in the individual within a large corporation. I came across this video recently, an employee of a company I consult for is into online video and is a dedicated supporter of Revver, an online video marketplace.

I guess I could have found him though his blog but the blogosphere is too large these days. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you... an interview with the founder and employees of CubeBreak.

Quicktime required to play the video.

The other day I received a letter which contained this message: "Darling, I adore you and I cannot live without you so if you don't marry me I'll kill myself". I was rather disturbed by this and even more so when I saw that the letter was addressed to "occupant".

The inimitable Tom Lehrer, composer of 'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park' and other gems.

George W. Bush in free fall.

Nudge with cursor as necessary.

And speaking of secret police, the KGB's secret weapon, the ZiL 41041 (sedan) and 41047 (limousine) is now available for purchase on the free market:

The soft suspension is hiding the roughness of the road. Automatic 3-step transmission is conductive to tender starting and speeding up of the car. Multi-stage system of noise reduction, the effective sound isolation suppresses all the unwanted sounds in the car.

Perfect for any amateur truth-seeker!

Andrew Sullivan:

It strikes me that people with a secure sense of their own faith are often the least liable to get upset by parodies or comedies about it. Religions may deal in divine truths, but they are run by human beings. And the combination is often funny. True believers know that; and don't care when they're made fun of. Insecure believers - and they often need fundamentalism to keep their own souls untroubled by doubt - are the touchiest.

I am writing this in the wee island of Malta, a country which has one of the largest church attendances per head of any country in the world, from what I understand. (The Maltese have churches with the same frequency as golf courses in Florida). And yet the good-natured folk of this island strike me as taking pretty much the sort of robust attitude to their faith as Sully mentions. (Why are you blogging and not on the beach, Ed?)

And interestingly, his point applies just as forcefully to other, non-religious beliefs too. Humour can be a weapon but it is also a shield.

Tessa Jowell is the first British minister in recorded history to retire from her family on order to spend more time with her government.
- Andy Hamilton

Heh. Who was that speaker again?

From an email circular promoting think-tank events around Europe:

London

21/02/06 Policy Exchange "Why the Agenda of the Future cannot be delivered by a person stuck in the Past" - William Hague MP, Shadow Foreign Secretary

RSVP: info@policyexchange.org.uk

Seeing as Perry is dabbling in the kingdom of Animalia, I feel I should wade in with my own weighty observations. As it is summer in Australia, cockroaches are making their presence felt in even the most salubrious of households. This must be so - I live in a shared-house dump and they are everywhere.

Tonight, as I was in the shower, I noticed three large brown cockroaches (not the more numerous but less offensive small types) scurrying about the bathroom. This convinced me to abandon my do-not-kill-if-not-necessary morals and I thus plunged the three big brown blighters into the tiles with a - erm - plunger. You know - that rubber implement you use to unblock the drains. Well, it was the first thing that fell to hand. Anyway, this did the trick and happily broke the cockroaches perfectly in half. Fine - let them dry out a bit, sweep them up in a few days and be done with it. I am a student living in a shared house; cut me some slack.

I leave the bathroom after performing my twice-daily cleansing rituals - it is summer in Australia, after all - to attend to this and that. I return two and a half hours later to find the upper part of each cockroach still wiggling its (remaining) legs lamely; unsurprisingly, for it's stuck on its back and missing half a body. The lower part - sadly disconnected from the mothership - was not returning calls.

Am I the only one who thinks this an amazing natural phenomenon?

This item from America's satirical Onion site is too funny for words. Would advocates of "intelligent design" get the joke?

Even Homer J. Simpson is affected.

If I were a Dane I'd be getting more than a tiny bit sick of this whole "plucky little Denmark" meme that is evolving in line with current events. I cannot help but think of some small but tenacious dog - perhaps a Jack Russell - when anything is described as both "plucky" and "little".

This does not compute. As we all know, in the canine world Danes are rather greater.

Linux has been growing in popularity, now enjoying a higher market share than Mac OS. However, I fear that in all the hype and hysteria, the dangers have not had enough attention. We face a real possibility that the future of the creativity will be a barren world: a "tragedy of the digital commons" in which no one will create any content.

The truth is that Linux is one of the biggest threats to human creativity worldwide Some of you will find that statement remarkable, but it is true. As Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer has said, "Linux is cancer." Ken Brown of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution has said that: "Linux is a leprosy; and is having a deleterious effect on the U.S. IT industry because it is steadily depreciating the value of the software industry sector."

Moreover, because it is uncontrolled by a single entity, and because the source code is freely available and open to modification by anyone, it is a key way that pirated content can find its way onto the internet. Put a copy-protected CD into a Windows machine, and the copy protection kicks in. (OK you can get round it at the moment by doing things like pressing Shift while you put the CD in, but that's just teething troubles.) But put a copy-protected CD into Linux and it just ignores the copy protection. The software on Linux to rip CDs does not check whether publishers want their CDs copied. It will be easy to legislate against Microsoft's and Apple's tools that allow copying, but Linux is just too uncontrolled.

Fortunately, the US Congress is waking up the the threat of the tragedy of the digital commons. A new bill introduced to the US House Judiciary Committee before Christmas would ban the "analog hole". In other words, any equipment that can play music or films, like a DVD player or CD player, would be banned from having analogue outputs that could be used to pirate the content. Any outputs would have to use a "rights signaling system". Of course, certain professionals need access to analogue outputs and of course they would be allowed to have them.

That's the hardware side. But we will not succeed in fighting the evil of piracy unless we also deal with the software side. At the moment it is too easy to write software that can pirate content. Linux is just an anarchy and we need to ensure that all computer motherboards sold prevent Linux from being installed. We need a licensing scheme, headed by the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization, for all programming tools so that only trusted individuals may use them, and that inappropriate use of them is communicated via the internet to the government. To put it simply, either Linux dies - or the whole of human creativity will become a stagnant swamp. Anyone who disagrees with this is a communist.

"'We're not heroes. We're from Finchley".

A line from the film Narnia, based on the C.S. Lewis fantasy adventures. Strongly recommended.

One of our team brought this bit of aviation humour to my attention.

It is guaranteed to give you a bit of a smile.

I have long gotten a laugh from Dilbert, the socially inept engineer comic created by Scott Adams. Usually, Dilbert is harmless, but occasionally he causes real damage. Last Sunday's cartoon, which features Dilbert's mother in an excessive shopping adventure that ends with organ harvesting struck me as rather amusing, but according to Scott Adams' blog, dozens of people failed to see the humour in it:

Recently I killed thousands more people. I don�t have exact numbers yet. The problem stems from my comic that ran on 11-20-05, implying that retail stores might harvest organs from bad customers and sell them on eBay. I�ve received dozens of letters (long ones!) from very angry people who assure me that the Dilbert comic will reduce the number of organ donors. The concern is that people will think their parts will end up on eBay and so they won�t be inspired to donate.

This would only have an impact on exceptionally dumb potential organ donors. But as you know, that�s a large block of the general population. Now I have to wonder how many people are smart enough to read an entire Dilbert comic and still dumb enough to think that the first person on the scene of an accident might be there just to harvest organs for eBay. It can�t be more than 1%. Let�s see, we estimate 150 million people read Dilbert, so 1% would be 1.5 million. And only 10% of them might have donated an organ anyway, so I�m probably killing 150,000 people.

It�s times like this when �oops� doesn�t seem sufficient.

I bet you did not know that cartoonists could be so dangerous. If you ever meet Scott Adams, approach with extreme caution.

Those strange-sounding financial entities known as hedge funds, which are sometimes depicted as the Darth Vaders of the modern market, often have rather odd or dull names. So I was glad to come across a firm in the United States with a name that proudly celebrates the free market with unabashed gusto.

The firm has a great merchandise selection, too.

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

- Ali Rahimi, Ben Recht, Jason Taylor, and Noah Vawter of MIT, getting down to the really important research. I wonder what they think of lampshades? (Link from Scott Wickstein).

"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards."

Robert A. Heinlein. Sackloads of other quotes by the great man here.

When you spend as much time reading think-tank proposals as some libertarians do, there is a danger of losing all sense of proportion. For instance, there is a proposal to "reform" the state pension system, because it is due to become bankrupt in the next twenty years. Unfortunately, it may cost more to implement the changes (and bankrupt the system anyway). There is the call for "social justice", using the term in exactly the opposite way that it is understood to mean, in the hope of confusing your opponents into voting for you. Instead, they call you a liar and your normally loyal supporters stay at home. Then there is railway privatisation. Instead of allowing train operators to own the track themselves, we end up with the shambles of "National Rail" (and no doubt more subsidies wasted in the long run).

I have been looking for a term to describe such cunningly silly policy-making. So here goes:

Willetts, n. [pron. whil-itz] A policy proposal that is exactly twice as complicated as the problem that it is designed to solve.

David Willetts is by no means the only culprit, and his policy proposals are not always wrong, but with a nickname like "Two Brains", you're asking for trouble.

After returning from a few free drinks at an opening, care of a new venture of Slugger O'Toole (News and photos at 11... er tomorrow) I have returned and done some random reading. I highly suggest these two lampoons, another alternate history report set in 1944 from Rand Simberg and the Attack of the Blog by Iowahawk.

Enjoy!

"Don't fear failure. After all, without aiming high and occasionally hitting something else entirely, we'd never have discovered how tasty Northern Spotted Owls can be."

Stephen Green, of Vodkapundit, making a wonderful line in the course of an article where he writes about learning about individuality from Cary Grant. (The article is in the latest edition of the Objectivist publication, the New Individualist. Not yet on the web, as far as I can tell. Cary Grant is the patron saint of all well-dressed guys the world over).

The great Peter Briffa speculates on who should lead the Tory Party. He has three suggestions. Which one should we go for?

I promise only mild amusement, but sometimes mild amusement is what one needs. And there's a subtle mordancy underneath.

The latest splendid animation from Will Flash for Cash Productions in aid of the UK campaign against ID cards is here, and will explain the title of the post.

For those who missed it, their earlier biting attack on Mr Secretary Clarke and the glorious scheme using a cute musical puppy is here.

Welcome to a strange world. Sound, and familiarity with British political figures, most definitely an advantage.

"Hi, we're aliens from another planet and our intentions are purely hostile."

The Simpsons.

I was sorry to hear that Robin Cook croaked. When he was alive I wanted to toss him into a vat of hot tar, to make him howl; but now he's a stiff I realise what a loss he is to our nation.
- Harry Hutton

After watching this I just had to do a hatchet job on an old standard:

500 Pounds

If you miss the plane I'm on,
I will know that you are gone.
Cause I've dropped 500 pounds upon your head.
Five hundred pounds, Five hundred pounds,
Five hundred pounds, Five hundred pounds,
Cause I've dropped 500 pounds upon your head.

Lord it's one, Lord it's two,
Lord it's three and Lord it's four,
Lord it's five hundred pounds upon your head.

Not a shirt on your back,
Not a penny left intact.
Oh, I will blow your arse to hell this-away
This-a way, this-a way,
This-a way, this-a way,
Oh, I will blow your arse to hell this-away

If you miss the plane I'm on,
I will know that you are gone.
Cause I've dropped 500 pounds upon your head.
Five hundred pounds, Five hundred pounds,
Five hundred pounds, Five hundred pounds,
Cause I've dropped 500 pounds upon your head.

A powerful tornado has swept through the city of Birmingham in the West Midlands.

The twister struck earlier today, cutting a swathe of devastation through the districts of Kings Heath, Moseley, Quinton, Balsall Heath and Sparkbrook.

Mercifully, there are no reports of any fatalities but initial estimates put the cost of the damage as high as £7.50.

The Sage of Edmonton has been listening to the cricket, and has stumbled on Australia's dirty little secret:

The Australian networks are picking up the BBC feed, so the network observes a strict one-Brit one-Aussie rule at all times in the booth. This leads to a lot of barbed, culturally volatile exchanges covered by a transparent shellac of collegiality. The English are generally poor at hiding their commingled fascination and horror at the gusto and glowing health of the Australians. The Aussies, for their part, maintain a suitable Zarathustran superciliousness--but it sure seems like homo australis is awfully vulnerable to the verbal stiletto that every Englishman above the age of four carries in his boot. Every time the various English broadcasters start to wax acerbic, their Australian colleagues become flustered and try changing the subject to the events on the field (as well they might, since their squad is making England's cricketers look more like Scotland's). Has any attention been paid to the Australian sense of humour, or absence thereof? They seem to mostly export soap and pop stars to the wider world while their British and Canadian brethren airlift comedians. It's not a good sign when your most sophisticated national ironist is Dame Edna Everage.

Most Australians will deny it, but Colby Cosh is right on the money. In my own case, I never had a chance; not only am I Australian, but I am descended from Germans. I could not tell a funny joke to win the Ashes.

This is not to say that Australians do not have a sense of humour. Comedy is a big thing here, but Australian humour does not translate well, being full of allusions that only the locals understand. And I sadly suspect, the quality is not that good either.

Why is it so? Or is it obvious, and, me being Australian, I missed the punchline?

Could this be linked to anything?

Plans by an alliance of rightwing extremists and football hooligans to exact "revenge" on Muslims after last week's bomb attacks are being monitored by police.

The Guardian has learned that extremists are keen to cause widespread fear and injury with attacks on mosques and high-profile "anti-Muslim" events in the capital.

And so another unfortunate spoke is added to the growing cycle of violence. But beneath the predictable roar of indignant outcry, it behoves us all to take the time and trouble to examine the plight of the native British working-classes; a plight which is all too often trodden underfoot in the wholesale rush to judgement.

Over the last few decades, the British working-classes have had to endure the indignity of watching their homelands colonised by foreign settlers, while oppressive "zero-tolerance" policing and so-called 'anti-social behaviour orders' have made them virtual prisoners in the few, dwindling communities that remain to them. At the same time, their jobs have been exported abroad, while the trade unions that used to promote their interests have been politically neutered. Thus despised, impoverished and persecuted, is it any wonder that some of their activists have taken it into their hands to strike back?

Nor should it be forgotten that they have no guns, no helicopters, no batons, no dogs, no infra-red detectors, no CS gas sprays, no tazers or other quasi-military means of defending themselves. Instead, they are forced to use what few pitiful resources they do have in a despairing bid to restore some dignity to their lives.

Of course, violence should not be condoned because it actually further damages the patriotic cause. But the victims of that violence would learn a great deal from an honest reflection of what role they may have played in driving these patriotic campaigners to such desperate measures.

Few, it seems, are prepared to face up to the simple truth, let alone articulate it. Instead, there is likely to be a chorus of demand for more security measures such as surveillance cameras, ID cards and oppressive police powers, all of which will merely add fuel to the fires that rage within the activists, reinforce their sense of hopelessness and humiliation and virtually guarantee further patriotic operations in the future.

We can all agree that the violence has to stop but in order to achieve that end we must urgently and sincerely address the legitimate grievances of the patriotic community.

"A libertarian is a conservative with an acknowledged vice, like say, a teenage girlfriend."

The as-ever brilliant P.J. O'Rourke (hat tip Catallarchy)

... hears that his friend, an economist, is in Addenbrooks [in the US version of this joke, in Mount Auburn] with a badly broken leg, and goes to visit.

Physicist: What happened?

Economist: I had just stepped off the balcony, and wham! -- I fell and broke my leg.

Physicist: You stepped... off... the balcony? What on earth for?

Economist: How was I to know there would be gravity failure?

This story raised a dry smile.

Sorry but this was too funny to leave languishing in the comments section. For our non-UK readers, the Eurostar train currently terminates at the railway station in London rejopicing in the name of Waterloo:

Now that our relationship with France has reverted to its traditional millennium-long condition, can we be assured that before the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is finally completed in a year or two, the Eurostar London terminus at St Pancras will be renamed to align it more closely politically, historically and emotionally with the name of the present terminus south of the river?

Trafalgar, Salamanca, Vittoria, Blenheim, Crecy or Agincourt are just a few of the most obvious candidates history has so bountifully provided us with. A rather more modern choice, from 1940, might be Mers-el-Kebir...

Would not the choice of name make a particularly fine subject for a referendum?

Heh! I vote for Mers-el-Kebir as we can probably fool the multi-cultis into thinking we are being 'culturally inclusive' by choosing a non-European name!

This gem is of unknown true provenance but I found it amongst the Freepers:

If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraqi theater during the last 22 months, that gives a firearm death ratio of 60 per 100,000.

The firearm death ratio in DC is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of ... WASHINGTON, DC!

Sounds like an excellent strategy to me.

This arrived in my inbox via the Crikey email

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named ��Governmentium�.

Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete, when it would normally take less than a second.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of four years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganisation in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each re-organisation will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as �Critical Morass�.

When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which radiates just as much energy, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.

Selected research on bread:

More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.

In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.

More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.

Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.

Newborn babies can choke on bread.

Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

Providing all the scientific support any nanny-stater will need to implement controls.

Cricket will be suspended indefinitely at Albion College from now on, in order to preserve the playing fields, it has been announced.

Head Boy, Mr ARP Blair said: "The groundsman has explained to me that it is vital to maintain the cricket square and outfield that have nurtured Albion's spirit of fair play for nearly 300 years that we stop cricket immediately. Of course we must do what the groundsman says. His staff have have had great difficulties arising from boys running up and down on the pitch and using bats and balls in a most irresponsible manner. By stopping play indefinitely, he has explained, the mystery of the soil and their special gardening techniques (which he will explain to boys sitting the Rural Sciences exam), will allow them to keep the playing surfaces safe from any boys who might tear up the grass.

"We have to trust the groundsman in this. He, after all, knows more about fields than any number of cricketers. I've heard that some people are saying he only wants this so that he can spend more time drinking in the pavilion, and that I'm only supporting him to curry favour with those boys who have never seen the point of games or latin and would like this to be an agricultural college. Anybody saying such things is a traitor to the school's tradition, and if I find out who they are they will be very severely dealt with."

[Apologies to overseas readers for over-British allusions. Glossary available on request]

The Great International Petroleum Exchange Uprising was noted here earlier, and plans for a T-shirt commemorating the event are in the works.

According to Dutch health investigators, going to church can cause lung cancer and other respiratory problems, because of the carcinogenic effects of candles and incense. Dr Theo de Kok, says that it is "very worrying". With Christmas approaching, levels of pollutants would be expected to rise.

The solution is obvious. The European Union must immediately ban church-going for all children, impose a tax on adult church-goers, put health warning signs on the outside of all churches and copies of the Bible.

Oh, and ban Christmas.

Obviously, the EU must also impose diplomatic and economic sanctions on any country that does not comply with this (the USA).

In dreaming up appropriate health warnings for church-going, I like the following:

God kills!
Do not worship God in the presence of children
and cutest of all:
God can seriously damage your unborn child

The Onion does not always crack me up like it used to, possibly because it grows more and more difficult to effectively satirize an increasingly bizarre world. But this piece, Housemates Reject Third-Roommate Debt-Relief Plan, is just devastating. They manage to sneak in a reference to virtually every conceivable critique of the IMF, from both the left and the right, from moral hazard to environmental degradation. They even address the topic of "conditional" loans whose conditions have nothing to do with improving debtworthiness or economic performance:

Although the donor roommates supplied additional aid in the months that followed, the AMF placed strict conditions on the loans. These conditions were designed to accomplish three goals: to prevent corruption and misuse of funds, to ensure that the monies were spent wisely, and to reduce third-roommate economic isolationism, integrating the debtor's personal economy more fully into the interdependent apartmental community.

"We only asked for three things, man," Huygens said regarding the structure of the loan. "First, that Chad quit partying so much. Second, that he open a checking account so he can budget his cash. And third, that he bring his kickass stereo system out of his bedroom and into the living room where we can all enjoy it. It was only fair."

The only way this could have been improved upon might have been to lampoon the "debt for nature" swap; Chad's debt might be forgiven in exchange for certain herbal products, for example.

Well done, gentlemen. More like this, please.

According to recent reports, Yasser Arafat is in a state of superposition. Palestinian and French sources state he is dead and alive at present. If true, this represents the greatest breakthrough in applied quantum physics of the still youthful 21st century.

Professor Unzer N.T. Katz, a Quantum Mechanic, told reporters: "This is the most amazing event in the history of Quantum Mechanics! We experimentalists have managed to superpose an electron here and there, or perhaps a few measly atoms... but to superpose an entire human being! The implications are staggering! They are beyond imagining!"

French doctors were unavailable for comment.

I have received this letter from an Iraqi concerned citizen, who wishes to remind U.S. voters of the historic importance of their choice on November 2.

Dear voter,

I am an elderly man. Under the Clinton administration I had an excellent well-paid job. I took many vacations and had several holiday homes. Since President Bush took office my life has completely changed, and in every respect for the worse.

I lost my job.

I lost both my sons in the terrible Iraqi war. I lost my homes. I lost my medical insurance. In fact, I lost practically all of my possessions and found myself homeless.

Adding insult to injury, when the authorities found me living in bestial conditions, far from helping me, they arrested me.

I shall do whatever Senator Kerry wishes to ensure that a Democrat is returned to the White House next year. Bush must go!

There. I thought that all Americans would like to know what a man of my years thinks of the Bush administration.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Best wishes,

Saddam Hussein

[thanks to the French libertarians for forwarding this to me from this blog.]

I am really looking forward to seeing the new Alien vs. Predator movie, the tagline of which is...

But I also find it very appropriate to see those sentiments applied here as well regarding the other big fight epic due to be released a few weeks hence. No, I am really not looking forward to that one.

After a hard day of wearing a new butt-crease in my chair in our conference room refereeing various committees drafting policies and procedures, allow me to unburden myself of a few pet peeves regarding the use and abuse of the English language:

"Utilization" and "utilize" are a blot on the English language. They are polysyllabic abominations spawned by the regulatory/consulting complex, suffering, as well it should, from an inferiority complex that renders it too insecure to use the perfectly good word "use."

"Literally" is never used to mean literally. Rather, it is universally used to mean "figuratively," its exact opposite (e.g. "He literally tore my head off for utilizing bad data in my report").

Serial commas, by contrast, are God's gift to careful draftsman, and are scorned only by those too illiterate to comprehend that they do, in fact, serve a purpose.

When, and why, did people stop using two spaces after periods? For that matter, when, and why, do people use apostrophes before every single frickin' terminal "s" regardless of whether it is possessive? Or should that be irregardless of whether it is possessive?

No peeve too petty, that's our motto. Readers are, of course invited to submit their own peeves in comments.

You've all seen trolls, and know that they come in various guises. You might even be a troll yourself. To find out which sort, some bright spark has put together the Internet Message Board Wandering Monster Table, an essential resource for any blogger with comments.

(Via A.E. Brain.)

I cannot help but suspect that Babbage and Turing never really envisaged the marvellous uses to which computing devices would be set.

Cats? Fish? Click here.

Here, at last, is the truth that the US Government tried to suppress.

They did not want the world to know but, thanks to the painstaking forensic skill and integrity of the Fourth Estate, the skeleton is finally out of the closet!

"We stand by the authenticity of this document" - CBS

".....the smoking gun" - Reuters

"...incontrovertible proof" - Guardian

"...a major setback for the Bush Whitehouse" - BBC

"What else are they trying to cover up?" - New York Times

Case closed.

The old saying is that "dog bites man" is not news, but "man bites dog" is.

Well, how does "dog shoots man" fit in?

James Lileks, riffing on John Kerry's nomination speech last month:

My life today would have been much easier if I hadn’t been struck with the vision of a former president taking the podium in Boston to announce “I’m Bill Clinton, and I’m reporting for booty!”

God isn't interested in technology. He knows nothing of the potential of the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time! Forty three species of parrot! Nipples for men! Slugs! He created slugs! They can't hear! They can't speak! They can't operate machinery! I mean, are we not in the hands of a lunatic? If I were creating a world, I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, Day One!
- from Time Bandits

From David Carr's posting (quoting the Independent newspaper):

Childhood immunisation would provide adults with protection from the euphoria that is experienced by users, making drugs such as heroin and cocaine pointless to take. Such vaccinations are being developed by pharmaceutical companies and are due to hit the market within two years.

I have a cunning plan.

Immunisation is crude and easy to avoid, especially for immigrants and people who move. What is needed is a form of treatment that is visible and difficult to fake. Vaccines can be expensive and there is a whole problem of producing and storing them. The paperwork involved in ensuring that all children have been vaccinated is complicated and errors can creep in.

So the obvious solution is a full frontal lobotomy with a tatooing on the forehead. Consider a few benefits of such a scheme.

1. The pharmaceutical companies lose some business, but they avoid being associated with any screw-ups from the scheme. (This could be spun as an anti-corporate greed measure)
2. No more juvenile delinquency, except the occasional suicides. (Blamed on tobacco companies)
3. No more worrying about education standards: all children will be morons.
4. Arguing about teaching methods will not matter. (Peace at last!)
5. Parents no longer need to pretend to raise their children.
6. The law can be changed: leaving a child alone at home will be no more dangerous than leaving the television switched on.

What is a little puzzling to me is how many schemes are being done to children which would be considered highly objectionable if applied to say 'black people'.

Part-birth abortion is virtual infanticide, we have NHS doctors calling for premature children not to be incubated. We have conscription into schools, prohibitions of all sorts, cameras in classrooms to allow parents to watch, ID cards for children. Child rapists and killers can get shorter jail sentences than a child has to spend at school, (and they sometimes gets jobs in schools). Child criminals are effectively told to "do it again, you have to kill someone before we do anything", so the honest children get preyed on.

The only short-term way of preventing this sort of abuse would be if children had the right to vote. Would four-year olds come up with worse lunacy than that which they have to endure?

This is the best animation I have come across in a good while.

It it appears to be a genuinely non-partisan poke at the Bush vs. Kerry contest and although it may take a few minutes to download it is slickly produced and very funny, even for an Englishman.

Now where did that come from?

Japan's economy is actually growing at more than a statistically obvious rate for the first time properly since the 1980s. The fact that a heatwave is being credited with boosting business leads to the obvious conclusion.

Global warming is Good for Capitalism. Light those brown coal fires now! Chop down those hedgerows! Hunt those whales! Bring back leaded gasoline!

The New Yorker(!) teed off very nicely on the rather stuffy account of a certain testy exchange between VP Dick Cheney and Senate Minority Lead Pat Leahy.

The background: The Veepster has been accused by none other than The Honorable Mr. Leahy of profiting (via Halliburton) on the blood of American soldiers spilled in Iraq. When Leahy approached Cheney at Senate function recently, full of smarmy bonhomie, Cheney told him to fuck off, or to go fuck himself (accounts vary, but everyone agrees the F-bomb was dropped).

The Washington Times reported this as follows:

Vice President Dick Cheney cursed at Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, in a confrontation on the Senate floor while members were having their annual group picture taken earlier this week. . . . According to [an] aide, Mr. Cheney . . . responded with a barnyard epithet, urging Mr. Leahy to perform an anatomical sexual impossibility.

The New Yorker, well, took it to the next level.

And now the important news of the summer: a record crop is expected of grapes in the Champagne region [French link]. The absence of frost last Winter and mild weather in Spring is a hopeful sign for a good vintage, although quantity and quality do not necessarily follow. Over the coming weeks vines will be pruned of some of the grape bunches to ensure a greater concentration of sugar and acidity.

So the next time some tree-hugging Greens moan about penguin habitats, they can console themselves with a nice bottle of Veuve Cliquot.

By now of course, all right (read 'left') thinking people are fully conversant with the theory that the Moon landings were faked by the US government in a warehouse decorated with papier-mache and pieces of screwed-up tinfoil somewhere in the Nevada desert. This elaborate hoax was perpetrated as an underhand PR attack on the Soviets, who would never have indulged in any such below-the-belt behaviour, being too busy with stuff like this (hat tip: The Bleat).

I don't know this for sure, but I am guessing that probably most of America's nukes were fake as well, and possibly even some of their presidents. We already know that Star Wars was fraudulent (the strategic defense initiative, not the popular sci-fi movie series, which was, of course, entirely true to life) and it has been suggested in the past that Ronald Reagan himself was actually a puppet from 'Spitting Image'. Although I suspect that particular theory may have arisen from some confusion about the difference between real life and what one sees on television. Clearly human evolution still has work to do.

Anyway, for those of you who have not seen this already (not new itself, but possibly new to others than just me) irrefutable proof of the faking of the moon-landings can be found right here. Those of British origin will particularly appreciate these pictures. Essential viewing for all human beings who still have brains.

(hat tip: Chicago Boyz)

A mugger jumps out and threatens a well-dressed man with a knife, and shouts:
"Hand over your money!"

"You can't do this," says the outraged man. "I'm a local councillor!"

"In that case," replies the mugger, "hand over my money!"

(via the Adam Smith Institute)

Some readers will have observed that I fight an often lonely battle against the forces of the militant lesbian, anti-humanist, fascist, tree-hugging puritan conspiracy to wipe out masculinity. We know as a scientific fact that the best lovers are larger men. I have previously commented on the sexual inadequacy of skinny types.

It is therefore clear that the current obesity obsession in this country is part of a nefarious conspiracy aimed at wiping out Great Britain. Was Henry VIII skinny? Did Winston Churchill eat tofu?

Help is at hand in the form of a marvelous new book Eat What you Want and Die Like a Man: The World's Unhealthiest Cookbook. The reason for this masterpiece is set out in the Foreword:

I wrote this book because I was tired of being told what to eat. I was tired of the Food Pyramid and vegetable oil and small food. I was tired of pinch-faced little people who actually got angry when I talked about lard and egg yolks. I felt it was time for a backlash. Time to celebrate things like bacon grease and heavy cream. Don't we have better things to feel guilty about? Like the resurgence of velour?

This is not a serious cookery book, says the author. No doubt he could be sued by the pinch-faced little people.

Imagine the European People's Democratic Front.
Imagine their first press release...

We, the people of Europe, hold the following truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Unfortunately, we don't consent to a junket-ocracy, which is what the proposed EU will be.

As such, we undertake to occupy and subvert any referendum in Luxembourg, a country with a conveniently tiny voting population of less than 350,000. One residential mailing address (with 50,000 registered residents) later, and the constitution will be consigned, where it belongs, to the dustbin of history.

Naw, it could never happen...

SlowJoe

Michael Moore bans Michael Moore?

It seems the new stupid campaign finance regulations in the USA (the result of Michael Moore's years of vomit among others) are about to be used to restrict distribution of Moore's latest wind-up.

Because the law attempts to prohibit all sorts of 'in kind' donations to the Republicans [I meant political parties], making a movie that plugs one candidate at the expense of another in election year could be ruled "interference" by the Federal Electoral Commission. I wonder how Michael Moore feels being felt sorry for by the US Libertarian Party.

Of course it is a shocking abuse of the US constitution. (sigh) How sad!

Today I did something I do not normally do, but ought to do more often. I bought the latest issue of Viz, which looks like this:

What a fine British institution this is! Dirty jokes. Merciless send-ups of political and any other sort of correctness, attacks on the high and mighty (especially God), and lurking under its lewd surface is a fiercely freedom-loving political agenda, not unlike that pushed in a similarly subversive manner by the creators of South Park.

I have been feasting in particular on the wonderful Viz letters pages, where, in this issue, there is to be found a thoughtful exchange of views on the nature of the terrorist menace, and the concomitant threat to civil liberties posed by the various state measures that are allegedly being taken to curb it.

T. Harris of Leeds starts the ball rolling:

So the Home Secretary plans to force us to carry identity cards with our iris patterns encoded onto them. That's rich. How dare David Blunkett judge people on their eyes when his don't even work. It would be like the head of the DVLC not having a number plate on his car.

Les Barnsley of Barnsley pursues the theme of iris patterns:

Could the Home Secretary explain to me how biometric checks on iris patterns and fingerprints are going to help keep tabs on muslim cleric Abu Hamsa.

Good points both, I think we would all here agree.

Londoner Charles Nylon has this reflection to offer concerning the nature of terrorism:

These suicide bombers really get my goat. What an evil way to kill innocent people, running screaming into a crowded place like madmen, blowing themselves and everyone else to bits. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned gentlemen terrorists like the IRA, who'd quietly pop a nail bomb under a pub table and leave without making a song and dance about it.

But Bamber Ross of Ross ripostes:

Mr Nylon (above letter) does not know what he is talking about. Gentlemen terrorists, indeed. When you get stang off a wasp, it just flies off to sting again and again in the style of the IRA bombers that Mr Nylon so admires. However, when a bee stings, it pulls its arse inside out and, like a suicide bomber, dies. And I think we' all agree that bees are much nicer than wasps.

But Prof. J. Shiels of the Dept of Entomology, Maudling College, Oxford, rejects this bee/wasp metaphor in no uncertain terms:

I'm afraid Mr Ross's insect/terrorist analogy (above letter) doesn't hold water. The reason that we agree that bees are nicer than wasps is nothing at all to do with their stringing ability. It is because bees are furry, like little black and orange flying teddy bears that make jam. Wasps on the other hand are all hard and have them Darth Vader faces. And they chase you when you run off.

Good to see the academic classes contributing to the debate there.

And the profundities just keep coming. Says Tracey Cusick of Cumbria:

The NSPCC keeps going on TV and saying that unless I send them three quid a month, a baby called William won't be so lucky next time. I suggest that we don't give in to these extortionists and blackmailers, or they'll be back with a threat to top him if we don't send them a fiver.

Wise words indeed.

Viz. Gentlemen intellectual terrorists. At all good newsagents now. And I have not even mentioned the Fat Slags.

Four people were bragging about how smart their cats are. The first was an Engineer, the second an Accountant, the third was a chemist, the fourth was a Government Worker.

To show off, The Engineer called to his cat, T-square, do your stuff. T Square pranced over to a desk, took out some paper and pen and drew a circle, a square, and a triangle.

Everyone agreed that was a pretty smart cat, but the Accountant said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said, Spreadsheet, do your stuff. Spreadsheet went out into the kitchen and returned with a dozen cookies. He divided them into 4 equal piles of 3 cookies each.

Everyone agreed that was really good, but the Chemist said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said, Measure do your stuff. Measure got up, picked up a 500ml graduated cylinder, walked over to the fridge, took out a litre of milk, got a 300 ml glass from the cupboard, measured and poured exactly 275 ml of milk into the glass without spilling a drop.

Everyone agreed that was good too. Then the three men turned to the Government Worker and said, "What can your cat do"?

The Government worker called to his cat and said, Coffee Break, do your stuff. Coffee Break jumped to his feet, ate the cookies, drank the milk, pooped on the paper, screwed the other three cats, claimed he injured his back while doing so, filed a grievance report for unsafe working conditions, put in for compensation, and went home on sick leave.

It's a tough job but somebody has to do it.

I have been doing my bit for the War against woman-hating, religious bigotry by checking out the Miss Universe finalists. Personally I think the registered Republican Miss USA looked much better than Miss Australia, the eventual winner.

Useful sociological experiment: check out Miss Sweden and try to focus on horrible tax rates in that country. So if Sweden had the burqah, perhaps they would have lower taxes. Tough call.

Cecile Dubois begins a longish post here with a discussion of the fact that her classmates, teachers, etc., have now found out about her blog, and are all reading it. Where will that lead? Somewhere interesting, I feel sure. Her English teacher is reading all of it.

So what will her English teacher make of this, which comes at the end of the very same post? Here's Cecile taking a pin to the Great Blimp bimself:

� Michael Moore is my idol. His posters plaster my walls, and I'm dying to see his next film. I seriously like want peace in the world, and we should so elect him as president. Kerry is such a Nazi for me � we should kick his arse, man! We shouldn't have any enemies at all! I think we should instate Muslim traditions so another 911 doesn't happen, that way those funny people (heh heh) over there don't nuke us, and can freely migrate over here. Don't you just love France? I want to bring their culture here! I love America � but to make it even better, we should have more diversity! Let's celebrate the Palestinians � I'm going to dress up as a suicide bomber � it would fit me so cool. Don't I look sexy in that belt? I'm da bomb! (Tee hee!) Ah, Michael Moore. Amen to him. We shouldn't have guns. If a burglar comes in with one, I'll just roast him a pig and kiss him on the cheek � let him come in and steal my TV set � I so don't deserve it. We should also welcome the proletariat to power! We rich people are scum. Yo dude? Yeah, I'll meet you in front with your Mercedes Benz. OMG, did I say Mercedes Benz? Whoa! I meant electric car � gas kills! Peace out! �

What she should make of it is that Cecile must be encouraged to stick with the writing.

Gotta give Matt Drudge credit for these back to back headlines:

Putin fights off 'authoritarian' charges...

Report: Russia Guards Told to Smile More...

The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has once again pledged to introduce a compulsory national ID card scheme saying that ID cards were an essential tool in the fight against global warming.

Speaking to the BBC today, Mr. Blunkett denied that ID cards were merely a fetish and emphasised that they were a much-needed response to a fast changing world:

"Everbody understands the need to take serious steps to tackle the growing menace of global warming but we cannot even begin to do this without a proper national ID card system".

Mr. Blunkett was also dismissive of the scheme's critics:

"These so-called civil libertarians who try to suggest that there is no link between ID cards and global warming are simply dangerous and deluded. They are terrorists in all but name."

According to a recent opinion poll, every single person in the UK has pledged that they will murder their own children and then kill themselves horribly unless the government issues them with a biometric ID card immediately.

Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion
- Seen used as a signature on a games forum

Europhile, n. (pronounced "yew-ro-file") Person or institution with an enthusiasm about the merging of the European States into a single State, usually regardless of any other considerations. A Europhile is often reluctant to be identified as such, especially when he is a politician.

Urophile, n. (pronounced "yew-ro-file") Person with an enthusiasm for being subjected to showers of urine. A Urophile is often reluctant to be identified as such, especially when he is a politician.

Now it would be easy and gratuitous of me to imply that both are one and the same, but this is obviously unfair.

One is a harmless pervert who engages in fantasies in private that involve no coercion against other people. The other is a dangerous pervert who conspires in private, and who needs to be exposed and subjected to public embarrassment.

The 'e' makes all the difference.

Don't let's be beastly to the Germans!
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun!
- Noel Coward

Former celebrity brain tumour sufferer and Labour politician Dr Mo Mowlem reportedly believes that we need to "negotiate with Bin Laden", along the lines of terrorism appeasement in Northern Ireland.

I agree.

In the spirit of reconciliation I propose the following gestures of good faith:

1. Remove all British forces from the Middle East and Afghanistan.


2. Break off diplomatic relations with all non-Islamic countries.


3. Ban women from holding any educational qualifications past primary school.


4. Ban women from holding any jobs other than primary school teacher, nurse or doctor in women only clinics. Especially remove all women from political office.


5. Ban all Jews from holding political office, working in the public sector, the media and the legal profession.


6. Prohibit the sale or consumption of alcohol between 3pm on Fridays and noon on Saturday.


7. Release all Moslem terrorist suspects.


8. Order the Archbishop of Canterbury to publicly abjure Christianity [Editor's note: is this not already the case?] and exhalt the supremacy of Islam. Convert the established churches of England, Scotland and Ireland to Islam.


9. Prohibit all religious education in schools, except Islam.


10. Order the abdication of Her Majesty the Queen in favour of a male relative (her husband perhaps).

Obviously, we should hold back on some Islamist demands until we have some reciprocal agreements from Mr Bin Laden, for instance:

1. No mass public executions of homosexuals and female adulterers.


2. No public flogging of drug or alcohol addicts.


3. No enforcement of the veil for non-Moslem women.


4. No declaration of war on Israel and the USA.


5. No handing-over of British nuclear, biological and chemical weapons technology to al-Qaeda.

After all, we must have something to bargain with!

Just an after-thought. Am I confused, or did negotiating with the IRA lead to a split with even more violent factions launching even more deadly bomb attacks?

The Jews are behind materialism, animal sexuality, the destruction of the family and the dissolution of society. Principal among them are Marx, Freud, Durkheim and the Jew Jean-Paul Sartre.

Sayid Qutb, former leader Muslim Brotherhood, quoted by Barbara Amiel.

Well I disagree with the conclusion, but I must admit that the pantheon of evil is pretty exhaustive.

Marx: the inspiration for all the best serial killers
Freud: the apologist for all the best serial killers
Durkheim: serial killer of brain cells
Sartre: creep

Hmm...

The good Professor Bunyip has a modest proposal for reforming the welfare state:

Fire all the public servants, social workers and ministers of the new and godless Christianity and replace them with the very people to whom they have been sending everyone else's money.

The newly uplifted wouldn't actually have anything to do, since there would be no further funds to distribute, but they would have salaries and somewhere to go in the morning. Meanwhile, those laid-off social engineers could sample the poetic justice of penury -- the very condition they have encouraged in the underclass whose positions at the bottom of society's ladder they would assume.

We taxpayers would notice no difference but a positive one: Bureaus of social engineers would cost less to support while achieving just as little. And we could also expect to see crime rates diminish, since the pool of formerly downtrodden malefactors would be otherwise occupied giving each other tattoos with government-issue ballpoints and microwaving infants in their departments' lunchrooms -- a kinder, quicker, cheaper and altogether more efficent way of squandering human potential than the current method. As a final advantage, the newly designated poor, being composed of a better class of person, would be less likely to burn down railway stations.

I say its worth a try.

Every decent and right-thinking person must surely condemn today's tragic events in Madrid.

BUT...while our thoughts go out to the families of the innocent victims this must not cause us to forget that horrible incidents such as we have witnessed today are the wholly predictable result of the Spanish government's wrong-headed, meddling foreign policy and their continued brutal occupation of the Basque homeland.

Of course, no one can ever condone such senseless acts of bloody violence but that does not mean we cannot sympathise with the plight of the ruthlessly oppressed Basques who are struggling for dignity and nationhood beneath the jackboot of Spanish domination. Such people, who are condemned to a future without hope or self-worth, can hardly be blamed for the state of desperation that may have forced some of them to indiscriminately slaughter hundreds of people on public transport. What choice do they have?

While the rash and the thoughtless among us may seek scapegoats here, a more mature and nuanced analysis is required. The truth is that there are no perpetrators here, just different types of victim. The real culprit is Spain's ultra right-wing fundamentalist Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar whose lunatic extremist policies are the root causes of today's shocking violence.

This dangerous demagogue (who some have compared to Hitler) has surrounded himself with a sinister, shadowy cabal of Neo-Conquistadores and, together, they have hijacked this country and brought the shame and opprobrium of the world upon it with their wicked plan to establish a Global Iberian Empire. It is the policies of Aznar and his government that are driving Spain, and maybe the whole world, into catastrophe. Until they are stopped, there will be more horrific carnage of the type unleashed on Madrid today.

The Spanish people would do well not to squander the sympathy they have earned as a result of this attack. They must immediately distance themselves from their own deranged leaders and join in with the efforts of the rest of concerned humanity in ending the occupation and bringing Spain back into the fold of civilised, peaceful nations.

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, held a press conference today outside No.10 in response to the nationwide strike by civil servants.

Mr. Blair informed the assembled members of the press that the Government had decided to respond to the threat of industrial unrest among public servants by arranging for the entire British state sector to be outsourced to India.

Stunned journalists pressed Mr. Blair for an explanation for this radical and controversial move. Mr. Blair said:

We have considered the matter carefully and we have consulted with various experts in the field. The conclusion we have come to is that it is simply too expensive to go on governing Britain from Britain.

The news was greeted with a mixture of boos and cheers but the Prime Minister continued undaunted:

It is the only logical solution. Young, well-educated Indians are quite capable of running the British state at a fraction of the current cost. We have taken steps to ensure that there will be no reduction in either the quality or quantity of public services while saving the taxpayers money.

Though confronted with some angry questions about the fate of the NHS, Mr. Blair declined to comment further:

Look, I'd love to help you but the simple fact is that the NHS is no longer my responsbility. If you have any questions about the continued provision of public sector health care in the UK then I suggest you telephone 08700 4568000 and speak to Jasvinder in Bombay.

Mr. Blair then ended the conference and, ignoring the protests, walked back into No.10.

A spokesperson for the Civil Service Trade Union, Unison, said he was "shocked and saddened" by the news and that he would be ballotting his members on further industrial action.

We Brians must stick together, so here is a plug for this campaign by Brian Whiley (linked to by b3ta.com) to replace either Greg Dyke or That Bloke From The City as BBC DG or BBC Chairman, whichever.

What was Gilligan's crime? That, early in the morning � at a time when nobody except insomniacs and farmers would be listening � a bleary-eyed journalist embellished a report that, in all honesty, probably needed it. My first duty would be to defend to the last BBC journalists from a Government that feels the need to hound reporters whose only error has been to make a boring story a little more interesting by inventing conversations that never took place.

I particularly like the promotional products peddled on this website, which downplay the "Whiley" aspect of the situation in a way that will surely meet with widespread approval here.

I last logged out leaving the Samizdata just as I like it. There was a place for everything and everything was in its place. Yes, it may have been a bit shambolic and démodé but it was comforting and familiar like an old friend or a favourite armchair.

Only look at what has happened! I turn my back for a few hours and some anally-retentive busybodies have gone and called in the Feng Shui consultants. Now my loveable, historical old Blog has been has been consigned to the scrap heap and replaced with this ultra-hi-tech, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art thingy which they are probably going to tell me has been conceived for 'balance' or 'harmony' or 'enhanced Chi' or something.

And as if that act of wanton cultural vandalism was not enough they have also furnished me with a new-fangled set of coding instructions with 'stylesheets' and 'javascript' and 'xhtml' this and 'attribute' that. The whole thing reads like stereo-assembly instructions. How is this old dog supposed to learn all these new tricks? It took me look enough to programme me the first time round. They will doubtless have to ship me off to the manufacturer now to be re-chipped and re-booted.

Or maybe they are planning to give me a make-over. Yes, I bet they are. After all age and experience counts for nothing these days. It's all about image, image, image and daresay I am no longer regarded as sufficiently 'happening' anymore. I can see myself now, being prodded and poked around by a squadron of invidious design-gurus ("Dahhling, that haircut is just sooooo 2003").

I would write a letter of complaint to these soulless technocrats but what good would it do? Besides they have all probably swanned off to some fashionable Islington eatery where they are quaffing down the polenta with rocket salad and feeling very smug about being so 'cool' and a la mode.

Bah! It's all humbug.

See what happens when I do not pay attention to what The Dissident Frogman is doing? He sneaks off goes and makes another side-splittingly funny flash animation. I visit his site often but for some reason I neglected to 'press the red button'. Big mistake.

I suggest you go and do so... right now.