A Fan Of Weiner

When you're Weiner, don't send people photos of your weiner as it makes it too easy for the tabloids:

US Rep. Anthony Weiner yesterday spent the day on the grill after a lewd photo purporting to be of him was sent to a pretty Seattle coed from his Twitter account -- but the young woman insisted a stalker was the culprit.

The six-term Democratic congressman struggled to play defense as rumors swirled, continuing to insist that the illicit tweet -- a below-the-waist photo of a man in bulging gray boxer-briefs -- was the work of a hacker.

His rep called the incident nothing more than "a distraction."

The woman on the receiving end of the tawdry tweet -- 21-year-old Gennette Nicole Cordova -- said in a statement published in another New York newspaper that she was sure the questionable photo came from a person who had harassed her many times "after the congressman followed me on Twitter a month or so ago."

She insisted that while she's a "fan" of Weiner, she'd never met him in person.

Hurr hurr, snigger, fnarr fnarr chortle.

I'm not a fan of his, he always seems a bit stiff to me.

Ratko Mladic

The arrest of Ratko Mladic- a general who was very good at shooting unarmed civilians in the head but not so good when his opponents could shoot back- is certainly welcome news and maybe means that some of his surviving victims can get some peace.

As with Osama Bin Laden, it is pretty clear that he must have had help avoiding detection for over a decade and that revulsion at his cimes is by no means universal in his homeland.There are also apologists in the West but as more and more evidence mounts their credibility sinks lower.

It is a tremendous pity that the Hague does not have the death penalty.

Neckbeard Of The Day

The great thing about Islamist fashion is that it makes wearers look exactly like what they are.

"Accidentally"

A TRUCKER blew up "like a balloon" and thought he was going to "explode" after he accidentally sat on a compressed air hose.

Yeah right.

Milidoomed

In the Grauniad, Dan Hodges argues that Ed Miliband needs to reach out to"Labour's lost Tories", who voted for Blair in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Which is true in one sense- to win a majority Labour need to get a number of habitual Tories to vote for them not rely on the "progressive majority" which isn't a majority.

Having said that, Blair in 1994 was appealing to Tory voters who hadn't endured Labour misgovernment for 15 years. Miliband can't do what Blair did.

He faces the same problem that William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith faced as leaders of the Conservative Party- trying to reach a centre ground that isn't listening risks alienating the core voters which sinks parties at a low ebb even lower. Hague and IDS both had to retreat to a core vote strategy after early efforts to reposition the party were rejected.

Miliband's best option is to rebuild Labour's infrastructure so that when voters are ready to give them another go they are able to campaign on the ground to win them. Mopping up left wing Lib Dems is part of that as is gaining local councillors.

He probably won't gain anything from this personally but he will his successor a much better chance of being Prime Minister. A fine fraternal gift.

Truly Vladly Deeply

Texas teacher with 'man crush' on Vladimir Putin granted rare interview

Move along, nothing to see.

Rapture Blogging

10:03- So far little sign of rapture. Going to do the lawn.

10:48- Talk to next door neighbour, Mike, he hasn't seen any rapturous events yet but says his highly religious mother hasn't called him as usual. A sign?

11:03- She's called now. No rapture.

11:30- Off to town to see if it's happening there.

11:56- No

12:03- Looking stormy.

12:08- OMG!!!! Mr Parker the mechanic has been taken up into the sky, he's heading towards a bright light!!!.

12:09- A pigeon flew right into him. lol. he's okay and in heaven but the pigeon seems stunned.

12:12- Mrs Parker is crying. Meanwhile three more people have been raptured.

12:15- Holy shit a car just mounted the pavement and almost killed me! The driver has of course been raptured.

12:16- Really picking up now dozens now being taken up to God. Cars are now being abandoned, rather than risking a repeat of earlier event. Paul reckons people are being taken up in order of piety, makes sense I suppose.

12:19- LMFAO dozens of local thugs, drunks and reprobates now outside renouncing their sins! Some of them are being taken though.

12:25- Reverand Michaels hasn't been raptured yet, looks well pissed =)

12:28- Still haven't been taken. Bit worried now. I'm not a big sinner am I?

12:40- Town centre more or less deserted 10 of us left, flashing lights coming from local prison. Even they are being taken before me. Mind you haven't helped my cause by taking Philippa's iPod after she went up. lol

12:49- Just me, Reverend Michaels and Gemma left now, Gemma's got no chance though.

13:00- Shiiiit.

13:03- OMG! A light is now on me, pulling me up I might not have time to fin

Arrest The Queen

Surely laying a wreath at Dublin's Garden of Remembrance is in direct contravention of the Terrorism Act 2006 which prohibits the glorification of terrorism.

Okay I'm being facetious but it was wrong to lay the wreath. The people celebrated in that garden were terrorists of no greater moral standing than the Real IRA today, as the likes of Kevin Myers have pointed out:

There are many things that truly nauseate me about the celebrations for the Easter Rising. The most central is the misrepresentation of facts, as if the Rising was a civil-rights poetry-reading that was cruelly interrupted by British guns. The Proclamation was a late adornment to the Rising, not its inspiration, and the "volunteers" knew nothing about it.

Indeed, most of them had been unaware that this was actually a genuine insurrection, in which real people would be really killed. So here we have Pearse, the schoolmaster with his teenage pupils, suddenly all decked out for war, and here James Connolly, with the 14-year-old-son he had just "commissioned" -- God help us -- into the Irish Citizen Army, all embarking on a killing spree, which started soon after Pearse's largely unheard words. Thomas Playfair, aged 14, was hunted down and shot dead by Volunteer Holohan at the Phoenix Park. Constable O'Brien, unarmed, murdered in cold blood at Dublin Castle. Constable Lahiffe, unarmed, murdered in cold blood in St Stephen's Green. The arming and deployment of underage boys, the murder of unarmed civilians: these are violations of all the laws of war.

The Queen should not have been laying wreaths to honour a bunch of suicide terrorists who went on a killing spree in order to gain an independence for Ireland that was pretty much inevitable in any case (and probably would have happened by 1916 but for the First World War.

Super Injunctions

Ryan G**** is suing Twitter over revealing his affair with Imogen Thomas. I don't get this, if Twitter hadn't been served with an injunction then how could they be breaching it by claiming that R*** Giggs cheating on his wife.

The problem with these kind of injunctions is that by protecting his privacy it impinges on the right of the other party to freely talk about what they have done. Doing that requires an exceptional reason and protecting someone cheating on their wife is not worth it.

The arrest of Dominique Strauss Kahn also highlight why preventing the press reporting on the affairs of rich and powerful men is a bad idea. Without assuming that he is guilty of the crime he is being charged with- it is clear that his "private life" which the French press could not report, involved serially predatory behaviour against women- which is surely a very public matter.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.....

.....Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!

Socialism

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF chief currently accused of sexual assault is a French socialist:

Strauss-Kahn, who had a meeting planned for today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, has an arrangement with Air France that allows him to get on any flight and sit in first class, the sources said. 

Nothing's too good for the workers!

Chickens Can Run Around After Decapitation....

But this is even more impressive:

Beheaded UK woman 'sought help'

Prostitution Propaganda

Remember how the campaign against sex trafficking in the UK was shown to be largely bunk? How in fact there weren't tens of thousands of sex slaves in the UK and that the whole thing was hyped up by various charities and opportunistic campaigners?

Well interestingly the same thing has happened in the United States where widely repeated "studies" into underage prostitution have turned out to be nonsense.

Running a fake charity "rescuing" prostitutes is a great scam- you get to pose as a hero and if anyone contradicts* your facts then you imply that they are supporting child rape or slavery.

Meanwhile their efforts to keep prostitution illegal have inevitable consequences.


* Not many people want to get into arguments defending legalised prostitution in case it is assumed that they have a personal interest in the business.

Blogger Is Playing Up

Some comments have disappeared into the ether and access to the site has been limited today. Just so you know I haven't been deleting comments.

We Were All Thinking It.

Disabled people to march in London against cuts to benefits and services

They can't be that disabled then.

One Reason Why YES2AV Lost.

Daniel Hannan writes:

Before the last election, a high-profile Conservative MP rang the Electoral Reform Society to offer his support. He was subjected to a cross-examination by its campaigns director, Carina Trimingham (coincidentally Huhne’s mistress) who took issue with a number of policy statements he had made in the past. Understanding that there was no place for Rightists who might support electoral reform for their own reasons, he dropped the issue. How different the Yes campaign might have been if it had made use of him, and others like him.

Boring Interview.

Strange article in the Daily Mail about how an actor has revealed nothing interesting in an interview:

Downton Abbey fans were mystified yesterday by an interview with actor Hugh Bonneville – tantalisingly titled My Secret Life – which appeared to reveal no secrets.
In it, Hugh, who plays the Earl of Grantham in the hit ITV1 period drama, chose to detail banal aspects of his life: how he wanted to be a town planner when he was young and the fact that his grey cashmere hoodie is his favourite item of clothing.

Even high lighting the Twitter reaction to a boring interview, almost as though they want people to look up the actor's name on Twitter.

Last night Hugh guest-starred in Doctor Who, playing a pirate captain whose ship is in peril from a beautiful siren – an event that made the gossip columns. ‘Where can they have drawn inspiration for such a role?’ asked one writer.

But then Hugh’s devotion to wife Lulu is so strong it is understood he is known to fellow thespians as the Ryan Giggs of the showbusiness world, after the famously family-orientated footballer.

Hmmm.

Death Celebrations- A Guide

Wrong: Celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Right: Celebrating (in advance) the death of Margaret Thatcher.

Scottish Independence Is More Likely Than Not

The SNP have had a sensational result in Scotland winning an overall majority in a parliament designed to prevent anyone winning an overall majority. Labour's rout has been incredible and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have gone backwards from an already weak position.

The polls suggest independence is very much a minority position within Scotland-, especially after the financial crisis hurt small European nations like Iceland & Ireland- so the SNP might like to avoid the issue for now. However with an overall majority Alex Salmond will have to hold some kind of referendum or admit that they are abandoning the idea.

However while independence isn't popular yet, a campaign will be headed by Salmond who has demonstrated that he is by far the best campaigner in Scottish politics. It will also be opposed by relatively unpopular Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties and a Labour party led by the hapless Ed Miliband. There is a real opportunity for the Nats to win independence.

Even if independence is a bridge too far for Scotland right now, the SNP would surely win any referendum on anything short of independence such as more powers for Holyrood- a situation which would put more pressure on the Union in the long term.


The reason for the SNP's success is surely at least in part because it is the one party whose focus is purely on Scotland- Labour's best politicians (a relative term) go to Westminster hence their campaign was largely directed against the irrelevant Conservative Party, the Scottish Tories have flat lined in the polls for the best part of two decades and the Scottish Lib Dems have no real reason to exist as a 3rd party already does very well.

Meanwhile the SNP march on.

I Post Stuff

As I said earlier in the week my internet connection has been down so I've not been able to post stuff. The problem is now sorted. So things I was going to say but didn't include:

1. The strange behaviour of the US authorities regarding the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden and the disposal of his corpse is potentially damaging as it will fuel conspiracy theories and most conspiracy theorists end up hating America.
2. The AV referendum is today. I voted yes despite my contempt for the pathetic campaign YES2AV have run which has seemed designed to alienate rather than convert centre right voters.
3. The Canadian general election confounded my prediction and delivered a seismic shift that saw 2 of the 4 main parties suffer cataclysmic losses. The tantrums by Canadian left wingers are as hilariously over the top as those by their British counterparts following the London mayoral election in 2008. I'm sure the right does this sort of thing as well but I'm probably blind to it.
4. Let's abolish council houses.
5. I don't get what's so great about Pippa Middleton's arse- which has been one of the most searched for subjects this week.

On The Bin Laden Coverage

Watching the coverage of Bin Laden's death on BBC and ITV I wondered what was more distasteful- the fact that both stations (in response to viewers) were sneering at the "triumphalism" of Americans celebrating or the salivating over how it improves Barack Obama's reelection chances.

Pakistan- 2 Options

Bin Laden's compound was almost next door to a military bases. So either

1. Pakistan's military is so unconcerned about security, despite being a frequent target of massive suicide bombings, that they wouldn't think to investigate a mysterious high walled  compound right next to their military academy.
2. They were protecting him.

Damned Internet

Lost my internet connection on Saturday, good thing nothing major happened between then and now.

Apart from the death of the world's most evil man and all that.


Normal sporadic service will be resumed now.