Staying alive

Meanwhile, over at Baghdad Burning, democratic elections are apparently not the first thing on the population's agenda.

A good day for The Guardian. Not only....Monbiot on PFI. In Walsall (A small Borough near Sandwell) a street lighting replacement programme, estimated to cost between 4 to 5 million pounds, was converted into a £65 million PFI contract!
but also...

Steve Bell.... genius!!!

Wissable, highly wissable

Newcastle United Chairman, Freddie Shepherd, claims Man Ure have "lost their way, on and off the field." Now, I cannot stand the glory hunters, or their team, but they have dominated football in this country over the last decade.... and they are currently sailing away from the under achieving geordies... and the last time Newcastle won a major domestic trophy, Winston Churchill was Prime Minister! Bet your advice will be heeded, Freddie.

Blair has at least treated the tittle-tattle about Blunkett at the nonsense that it is, unlike Michael Howard who showed Boris the door for his private indescretions (or for being more popular than him?). Still, if you can mislead a nation into going to war over weapons of mass destruction and 45-minute warnings of armaggedon and not a single person resigns, I suppose the odd leg-over pales into insignificance.

Election Day

I have spent the first two-and-a-half hours this morning, freezing my extremities off, sitting on a polling station in the next Ward to mine where we are fighting a by-election to try to win a Tory controlled seat. The previous Tory incumbent vacated his seat on the Council when he got a job working for the FBI (!). Polling was very, very quiet, only just over 20 voters in two hours. I hope it picks up, just to show the BNP candidate what people think of the crap they have been putting out. Best of luck to our candidate anway, Trevor's a decent bloke who has worked tremendously hard during this campaign, and the one that he narrowly lost in June.

"The prime minister is the real beneficiary of all this nonsense since he is the one who exercises these crown powers of patronage, war-making and treaty-making that allow him to behave like a dictator. " Tony Benn on why Prime Ministers need the Royal Family.

Just when you thought it was safe to go outdoors...

The loathsome Blue Chip Casinos have revived their planning application to try to convert a local pub in my ward into a monstrosity of an all-night casino, supposedly designed to look like an ocean liner. Blue Chip applied for planning permission a year ago and the Council threw out the plans. They tried an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate who also had the good sense to kick it into touch, much to the relief of hundreds of local people who had protested at the notion of this 'thing' appearing in their neighbourhood. When will Blue Chip get the message? We don't want your bloody casino!

The design from hell

If you've got $15,000 to spare, this could be an absolute bargain! Courtesy of ebay pulse. Just make sure the kids don't eat it (or her).

With God on their Side

A victim of America's other significant September 11th writes to explain that Guantanamo does not represent a break with tradition.
Over at Baghdad Burning Riverbend describes the difficulty of explaining away the actions of the liberators to children.

It would appear that the CIA have not paid their domain bill and We're Not Sorry (see below) has been cut off. However, so they don't feel left out, the ever inventive Manic has devised a site specially for them. Check out We is not sorry, particularly the photo section.
My second favourite blog at the moment (after Bloggerheads, of course) is The Honourable Fiend. From there I was put in touch with this site which allows you to write your own alternative Band Aid lyrics. One suggestion being "Where the only water flowing has been sold to multinational companies".

Forget about ‘freedom fighters’. Discard the notion of Iraqis fighting the invaders. This has nothing to do with that. Margaret Hassan was not ‘executed’ she was murdered, in exactly the same way as the defenceless injured Iraqi murdered in Fallujah. Ms. Hassan was not one of those latter day arrivals in Iraq, bravely broadcasting from Baghdad’s best hotel and greedily devouring every US press releases before regurgitating them for our consumption. Hassan was, like her friend Felicity Arbuthnot and Robert Fisk and others, someone who genuinely cared about the people of Iraq. Cared about them for the last ten years whilst they were being slaughtered by Saddam, bombed by the US and UK, and dying in their hundreds of thousands from a sanctions regime designed to push them back into the stone age.
The world, and Iraq in particular, is a worse place this morning as Margaret Hassan's name is added to the death roll of victims of this war for oil.

The world turned upside down

Shurely shome mistake! In an exclusive interview, Michael Howard says Tony Blair has stolen Tory policies... and he's a crap Prime Minister. Shouldn't he be happy, and us who are complaining?

Bandwagon rolling... (jump) ....he's on it!

Yes, Charlie (ride two horses) Kennedy has jumped on board the anti-social behaviour bandwagon. As a councillor who has to try to deal with the problems caused by people who have absolutely no consideration for other people in their community, I say, welcome on board Chas. Thatcher's children, those who believe there is no such thing as society, just individuals, and make it their life's work to terrorise decent working class folk, must be stopped. I don't have all the answers, and I'm sure the sociologists would rabbit on about alienation et al. But for the time being, let's try to make the ASBO's work.

Two more classic saddos from the pro-Bush camp at We're not sorry. These guys would be really scary if they didn't seem so completely batty... actually, perhaps that should be more worrying.

"and leave more burgers for my pal on the left"

It would seem that some of our 'New' Labour MPs are so indistinguishable from the Tories that even Michael Howard cannot tell the difference. Link courtesy of The Honourable Fiend, which also contains this warning for bloggers. Bearing that in mind... I should point out that Martyn Jones MP is nothing like a Tory really, only joking Martyn.... honest.

Different Class

Pulp's Jarvis Cocker pushes all the right buttons with this farewell to John Peel.

I've got fond memories of Tom Waits. His Tom Traubert's Blues was playing on the car stereo going to the hospital on the day my daughter was born, and the tune echoed through my head all day and half of the night as I waited anxiously for her debut.

In response to the Sorry Everybody site the pro-Bush squad have raised their ugly heads with a site of their own.
Travis Bickle, eat your heart out!

How about... "I am not sane"

Masters of War

"Blair (with the Europeans behind him) is singing the siren song of appeasement." There can be few more loathsome journalists in the country than Melanie Phillips. Just to prove the point, she uses her latest blog entry to congratulate Bush for his resolute stance in support of Sharon.

They may be in the gutter... but they're looking at the stars

Every now and then you read something like this which is very, very funny. Apparently, they have now turned their attention to this man... and if they can't get him, they will be making an offer for him.

Yasser Arafat was buried amongst scenes of chaos as the adoring hordes flocked to pay tribute. Would Blair or Bush excite the same emotions amongst their people.

No comments, now, come on, let's keep this tasteful!

Hell hath no fury...

...like a Cabinet member scorned. Robin Cook on The Great Self-Deception