Trawling through the Blogosphere I came across something written by the Gray Monk in reply to a friend who had in turn forwarded an appeal for a petition against the release of the Jamie Bulger killers. As the Monk has evidently put some considerable thought to this, I shall not attempt to improve it, May I suggest a visit to his pages and his post entitled “The evil in our time” by clicking here.

Should any of our seemingly innumerable adornments to that well known house of destruction and calumny in Westminster be reading this, may I suggest that you take careful note of what he says about the wisdom of turning loose, among an unsuspecting populace, murderers provided with new names and faces when you cannot even manage the mentally ill properly in the community, may be worthy of further thought. Before you all rush off on your summer hols at the tax payers expense please?

While I agree in principle (I would wouldn’t I? After all my own departure was a trifle messy!) that the death penalty does have its draw backs, I would have to say that in some cases it is not only deserved, but an essential defence of society. How you manage to balance that is another question …...

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

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He’s put a lot into it, and it’s all very tasteful, except the stripper poles.

There’s a new house on the market.

More pictures here.

the blog québécois

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Sorry for the outtage for those few days. It seems that we hit our bandwidth limit rather early this month and I was rather distrated by a wedding. Anyway its all sorted and you chalk yet another technical hitch down to the law of sod.

Thanks to my contributors for keeping the blog going while I am gone. Return to blogging Friday after a rather late flight in on Thursday.

Weather was nice here in Cancun now its just humid as hell and regularly having deluges.

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Here safe & sound (stop)
Natives friendly (stop)
No need for reinforcements (stop)

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Ananova:

Jeremy Clarkson has been rapped for calling a car ‘gay’.

The Top Gear presenter said the Daihatsu Copen was “a bit gay” and “a bit ginger beer” – rhyming slang for ‘queer’, reports the Daily Mail.

Ofcom [the broadcast regulator in the UK, similar to the CRTC or FCC, and apparently just as useful] said use of the word “gay” was not necessarily offensive, citing the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word as “foolish, stupid and occasionally inappropriate, disapproved of and lame”.

But Ofcom added: “In this edition of Top Gear, the presenter’s use of a Cockney rhyming phrase made clear he intended to give a particular meaning to use of the word gay . . . ie, not to restrict its meaning simply to foolish or stupid, but clearly linking the reference to homosexual people.

“This, in Ofcom’s opinion, meant that the use of the word became capable of giving offence. In the context, there was no justification for using the word in this way.”

Now, I’m not an expert on cars like Jeremy Clarkson, so I have to defer to his opinion, though some might find it harsh.

I will only say that I would expect to see great numbers of Daihatsu Copen in the parking lot of the local Judy Garland Film Festival.

the blog québécois

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I had seen this picture of Jayne Mansfield before, but it was cropped to show her alone. Maybe because an unamused Sophia Loren, Evil Eye ablaze (I hope I, or rather Google, got the translation right), detracted from her charms.

Doing a bit of research, I found it was taken in 1957, at the Romanoff restaurant in Beverly Hills. Apparently Mansfield was notorious for these publicity stunts. At left, another photo from the same encounter.

the blog québécois

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An interesting question, one provoked, I have to say, by a reading of a book I acquired recently for another project I am engaged on. It contains an intersting and very logical explanation for the reason that the Western Roman civilisation collapsed as swiftly as it did – just 70 years is all it took to vanish almost completely from France, Spain, the Low Countries, Britain, the Southern Rhinelands and even, for a while, from the Itallian peninsula itself.

Various authorities, Gibbon among them have ascribed this collapse variously to the rise of Christianity and its message of “love your enemy even if he’s killing you” and to the corruption of the elite in Rome and the savagery of the barbarians. Now Thomas Cahill postulates a new view of this event, and it is one, I have to say, that we can see mirrored in our present society and culture. Cahill puts forward a theory that embraces all of the pressures visible and blamed by previous authors and comes up with a startlingly obvious answer. It is so obvious, in fact, that we should consider this seriously – but, please, without attempting to treat any part of it in isolation as the PC brigade will, undoubtedly, wish to do. The truth is always uncomfortable, no matter who is uttering it and this vision is no less so.

Cahill’s picture is of a Rome that, from the moment all executive power moved from the senate and the bureaucracy to the Emperor, found itself with a large organisation with little purpose and nothing to do. So they busied themselves creating systems, rules and subsets of rules, tying everything and everyone up in knots. Compounding this, they created a society in which social mobility was first discouraged and then prohibited. The middle class, the curialis or tax collectors were despised, and had to make good any shortfall in the txes they collected, but, initially, could hope to ascend the ranks of Roman Society and join the moneyed class. Changes to the law made the position hereditary after about 250AD and one can only imagine what it must have been like for a teenager to discover that he had no choice but to follow his father into collecting taxes for an ever more corrupt system.

It became increasingly fashionable to disparage the military and to avoid serving, by “buying” mercenaries to serve for you. Eventually more than two thirds of the army was made up of the very “barbarians” they were supposed to defend the Empire against. Almost uncontrolled migration into the Empire changed the population mix significantly as well, particularly in Gaul and the Northern Provinces. In a mantra familiar to us today the populace were told that these immigrants brought skills and crafts needed by the Empire.

As the curialis class found itself squeezed by ever more rapacious demands for taxes they were unable to collect, many sold their patrimony and sought the patronage of the wealthier Patrician Classes who had bought their farms. Ironically, Christianity may well have played a part in the decline, but not for the reasons usually assumed. Priests and clergy were exempt from tax – ergo; become a bishop, priest or deacon and drop out of the tax loop altogether. This meant that those that could afford to buy their ordination did, to the detriment of the Christian Church since it simply took the church down a secular rather than the spiritual route. Perhaps this explains some of the peculiar Councils and decisions made during this period – certainly many of those claiming to be leaders of the church seem to have had very little spirituality to them!

Looking to our own society we find several parrallels, including:

– mass migration into Europe, particularly Britain, – expanding bureaucracies in every EU State, which contribute very littel to our society other than to increase the tax burden, – the gap between the rich and the rest of society is growing rapidly, – already social mobility is becoming difficult, governed, as it is, by patronage, access to better education and money, – our armed forces are treated with suspicion by the political classes – especially the civil servants, and regularly derided by the news media, portraying them as either buffoons or psycopathic killers, – the political classes are increasingly unable to identify with the real concerns and aspirations of the middle and working classes since they are isolated, by the very bureaucracy they have created, from the realities of the lives of those they supposedly serve, and – the endless stream of pointless legislation, much of it badly thought through and hugely expensive to police, is a direct result of the withdrawal of executive power from the House of Commons and the Lords and taken into the hands of the PM, Cabinet and the Chancellor of the Exchequer/ HM Treasury.

Personal freedom is everywhere proscribed and increasingly the EU is beginning to resemble the Soviet Union in so far as the Commission is entirely unelected and answerable to no one. The Council of Ministers doesn’t count since the Ministers are the ones who appoint Commoissioners and the Commssioners remain in post even afther the Minister who put them there has been kicked out of office.

Could our society collapse as dramatically as the Romans did? I believe it can – all the ingredients that saw Rome fall to the Visigoths. WE will, I am convinced, ultimately go the same way. Some Alaric like figure will sit down with our negotiators and tell them, “My army will sweep through your city and strip it of gold, of jewels, of everything of value!” And our “negotiators will echo the Roman team “But what will that leave us?” and the answer will be the same as Alaric’s, “Your lives!” Unsurprisingly the Roman’s surrendered and the Empire collapsed like the house of cards it had become.

The Roman Empire was swept away in that single confrontation, having become an empty shell, a facade propped up by an overweaning bureaucracy and venal political class. The parallells with our own society are strong and I have a strong suspicion that it will go the same way. Watch this space.

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Salon: (You need a “site pass” —by clicking on the featured ad—to read the article in full.)

Free from handcuffs, but under the watchful eye of guards, the two brides wore street clothes during the ceremony, which was performed by a minister. The Mrs. and Mrs. inmates’ names were not released, but one is serving a 34-month sentence for breaking and entering, assault with a weapon and aggravated assault, while the other has been doing six years hard time for manslaughter, assault and assaulting a peace officer. The wedding night was reportedly chaste, since the prisoners must continue to sleep in separate cells. But both brides are scheduled to be released by the end of this year, on Nov. 18 and Dec. 6, respectively.

Not everyone involved in the wedding shed tears of joy. The Canadian prison guards’ union opposed the match. “It’s the value and ethics of getting married in jail while they’re serving time together in the same institution,” said Kevin Grabowsky, president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. “It’s not Club Fed, where you go and meet your spouse.” He raised theoncern that the union might cause security problems; for instance, if the couple had a “marital spat,” or if one spouse had a dispute with a guard, the other might try to exact revenge. Talk about a killjoy. C’mon, Grabowsky, lighten up, it’s a wedding! Also, haven’t you ever heard the one about how love will find a way?[emphasis mine]

Edmonton Sun:

Two female inmates, who married in a quiet ceremony in January at the Edmonton prison – the first time a same-sex marriage was held inside a women’s prison – have endured a stormy relationship right from the very beginning, said Grabowsky.

And when the pair get into squabbles, like the one that left one of them suffering a swollen eye, the other takes out her frustrations on the guards, he said.

Guards have had a door slammed in their face and have had profanities hurled at them, he said. The inmates have also smashed up appliances and broken windows.

CSC offered the women counselling to get through their rough patches and the warden even played Yagtzee [sic] with the pair to ease their tensions, Grabowsky said.

But nothing has seemed to work.

Not even Yahtzee? That never fails to tranquilize me. It’s like Thorazine in a dice cup.

“These two feed off each other,” Grabowsky said. “If one does something to piss off the other, we’re the ones who take the heat.”

Separating the pair by sending one to another institution would put an end to the situation, Grabowsky said.

It was when all else failed that guards at the jail hoped one of the pair would be transferred.

But when the Correctional Service of Canada balked, 14 of 15 guards at the jail asked for transfers out of the maximum security cell block where the female inmates live in different cells.

the blog québécois

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Here’s a little diversion for you. MorphThing merges the faces of famous (and infamous) people. That’s Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein at the right. Looks like Mel Gibson to me.

Click on the picture to go to the site: I haven’t counted, but there’s hundreds of choices (click on Start Morphing! at the top of the page to select your own. You’re not restricted to just two faces—you can add as many more to the mix as you like. If you know which names you want to use, you can type them in, which spares you having to scroll through the list.

the blog québécois

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You Are 100% Capitalist, 0% Socialist

You’re a capitalist pig – and proud of it. You believe that business makes the world great… And you’d never be ashamed of being rich!

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If you enjoy live music, please read the petition below, click on the website link, and sign it!

There is a government move to make it very difficult for musicians to perform live in small venues, or for schools, pubs and charities to raise money for causes through musical events. The new legislation will inhibit the central role music making has in our lives and communities.

If you circulate this to your musician (and non-musician!) friends, all each person has to do is go to the government’s petitions website below, give your name, email and address – it takes about 30 seconds.

It could make a vital difference to the nurturing of community music making, and enabling young musicians to find their feet in the performing world.

The live music/licensing e-petition now has nearly 5,700 signatures.

It currently stands at no.19 in the list of 1,702 petitions on the Number 10. This is good, especially in just under a month – and there are five more months in which people can sign.

But the petition needs to do much better to make an impression on ministers, and to encourage DCMS to implement music-friendly amendments.

Please circulate this to ALL your musician (and non-musician!) friends.

This petition is valid for UK residents, expatriates in an overseas territory, a Crown dependency or in the Armed Forces.

Colin

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When one gets married one adds to ones own family and becomes a part of another. Its interesting to find out what combinations it to result in your significant other and you. Genealogy is popular all over the world and something the Dodges have been fascinated about for many a year. In fact, while my mother had a newborn, ie me, my mother traced both sides of my family back to before the Norman invasion (the Dodges were Normans). There are lots of supposed aides online to helping people find out about their family’s distant past, many of which are useless.

There is one such product that has lots of potential to help people with their quest to find out where they came from all those years ago. This genealogy information organizer is interesting in the fact that it is 3d making it far easier to trace the family lines back and forth. Its quite a clever way of using 3d and one that could prove very useful to those searching their history.

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If you have been wondering why I have been less that prolific these last few days it is because last week was my “wedding week” culminating obviously in my becoming husband to Kim Theresa Benson. As we are a modern technological family we have a wedding blog and as we are in a band we have two songs written and recorded for the wedding Found and New Moon Woman.

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If you have investment property, whether a large portfolio or a rather more modest one house, there are times when things can get complicated. As with everything these days a bit of technology makes things easier to manage and more accurate. If your property investments involve apartments you might want to look into this bit of Condo Management Software. It allows rental property and association managers work smarter and more efficiently by streamlining tasks from any computer connected online. You have an internet connection you can do what you need allowing alot more flexibity.

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Fred Thompson seems to be getting some grassroots support going. Here is the Maine site that is a fan of the great man. I do rather hope he puts his hat in the ring as FDT seems to be the clear frontrunner and the best of the bunch. I am in no doubt that Thompson can beat any of the Democratic contenders.

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Well it has been a rather busy weekend for us here at Dodge central. We added a new member of the family by the name of Kim Theresa Dodge, the new Mrs Dodge.

Mom & Dad presents Allowance Insights posted at raising4boys.com.

Nickel presents How I Dodged a Speeding Ticket posted at fivecentnickel.com.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents A Biting Limerick posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

Brandon Peele presents An Open Letter to My Parents posted at GT.

Thanks for all of those that sent in entries without my weekly nag email.

And if you want to hearing a cracking piece on the death of Rev. Falwell from Laurence Simon on the newest edition of SNN. There is an interesting interview covering the anti-right-of-centre mcarthyism in American Universities.

Those of you who might want a bit of a snicker might be interested in reading a piece on the plight of girly-boys in Thailand.

Just before the wedding I, in the form of Marty, wrote a bumper crop of band reviews for my column.< Stuff reviewed include Marillion, Rush and Beatallica.

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As you might know, the longest and most savage feud in the Canadian blogosphere is between me and Bruce Gottfred (or, as I refer to him, spit Gottfred! spit) of Autonomous Source for traffic bragging rights. As with university politics, the essential worthlessness of the prize makes the fight all the more vicious.

spit Gottfred! spit has certain unfair advantages; namely, two cute kids whose pictures he posts at every opportunity. As I have no kids, cute or otherwise, this is unfair.

Anyway, I think I’ve got him beat on this one. Click on over to his site and look at the right sidebar. You’ll see that he’s installed a Marble Madness-type game. But do not attempt to play it. I’ve tried every key combination I can think of, and I can’t get the ball to move. So come back here and click on the play button above. Behold, a working copy of Marble Madness (or something like it.)

Use the arrow keys to steer (to the golden square). There’s no sound, but as I’m unable to get past the first level, I can’t guarantee anything after that.

I said that the game works. Me, not so much.

I had to shrink the game somewhat to fit my format. If you’d like to play the larger version, go here.

Eh. Wordpress stripped out the embed code. So click on the link immediately above.

the blog québécois

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FuelmyBlog and MyBowlAd.com are holding a contest to find a star of a Superbowl commercial early next year. As part of it I have been asked to write 300 words on why it should be me who flies to LA and makes a prat of himself stars in a Superbowl commercial with a potential viewership of millions and millions of people worldwide.

I think my reasons are two fold. First of all it would be cool to see myself on worldwide watched telly as so far all I get to see is my wife Kim and her brother Perry in various British comedies and films. Why shouldnt I get a crack at having fans and the kudos like those two? Free drinks and admiration would be quite nice it has to said. As far as stalkers go, this blog has provided a few so I have no need of any of them. I want to get in on the family act(ing) thing and am too old to go through the whole acting school thing.

The other reason I would love to get this gig is it might be the highest level of exposure, me the singer of Growing Old Disgracefully, will ever get. I owe it to the lads and Kim to see if I can do the best for the band as possible. After all they have worked really hard on all our music and deserve some recognition for their toil. And you have to admit that doing a Superbowl commercial at my age is a supreme act of growing old disgracefully.

I think I got the quirky looks, the charisma (or so I am told) and the ability to get it right while filming. And after all I am one of those types who is willing to try anything once. Oh yes and unlike most people, even proper actors and musicians, I dont get stage fright at all. I get post-stage fright. It happens once I have done whatever I am doing, so it does not affect the performance.

Oh and as this is a blog post one last thingcan you imagine the blog hits if I win?

The contest has changed a bit and they want an amusing picture as it seems many didn’t understand the first contest. So my original entry above will remain but here is my funny pic taken on honeymoon. We found this item on the menu most amusing.

And as a bonus we have a funny one from the desert tray…

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In an apparently more-civilized age, the Kentucky congressman and senator Henry Clay was once asked if the death of a political foe pleased him. He replied (this might be a paraphrase, as I was unable to find the quote):

No. When God puts His hand on a man’s shoulder, I take mine off.

What triggered this memory was the recent death of Jerry Falwell. The nutroots responded with their usual unbounded glee:

Jerry Falwell collapsed in his office this morning, and hes in the hospital, and hes “gravely unresponsive.”

At a time like this, people deserve sympathy and good wishes … except for Falwell, who is an evil sonofabitch.

I didn’t have much time for Falwell; but I had even less for one of his main antagonists, Larry Flynt, publisher of the repulsive Hustler. So it was a bit of a surprise to read this statement from Flynt today:

The Reverend Jerry Falwell and I were arch enemies for fifteen years. We became involved in a lawsuit concerning First Amendment rights and Hustler magazine. Without question, this was my most important battle—the l988 Hustler Magazine, Inc., v. Jerry Falwell case, where after millions of dollars and much deliberation, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in my favor.

My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face to face you will find characteristics about them that you like. Jerry Falwell was a perfect example of that. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends. He would visit me in California and we would debate together on college campuses. I always appreciated his sincerity even though I knew what he was selling and he knew what I was selling.

A graceful and—dare I say it?—almost Christian rememberance.

the blog québécois

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Betwixt logistics and watching the appalling weather outside and in Boston. I have stumbled on a couple of good articles. One called The Silencing which deals the Islamic Society of Boston’s censoring tactics.

The other one is more fun and about a band who is getting somewhere using online promotion methods that I have tried with my band.

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This bit from CMU caught my eye. It is wonderful to see the Liberal Democrats have their finger on the pulse of what is important to the average British citizen.

Liberal Democrat MP Richard Younger-Ross has called for the voting system
for the Eurovision Song Contest to be changed because, he says, countries
vote for their neighbours instead of the best song, something which, he
maintains, is “harmful to the relationship between the peoples of Europe”.
Don’t know whether his constituents have called for this in anyway, but,
nevertheless, he’s spent some of his no doubt valuable time tabling an EDM
(early day motion) which has been backed by fellow Lib Dem Colin Breed as
well as two Labour MPs, John Robertson and David Drew.

Actually, not everyone agrees with Younger-Ross that Eurovision is 100%
biased. One Derek Gatherer (really, that’s his name) has spent some of his
own no doubt valuable time studying Eurovision voting patterns and he says
voters aren’t quite as biased as many say, although he admits geography can
be a factor. He says: “Less than a third of the total votes for the winning
entry were ones which seemed to have been influenced by block voting. It
does make it rather harder for us to win, but it’s not to suggest that all
the votes are necessarily given out according to these local alliances”.

That said, Younger-Ross isn’t alone in expressing concern about Eurovision
voting rules this week. Elsewhere, the Malta contingent have implied that
it’s all a bit of a fix, and that the phone voting system isn’t being
properly monitored in eastern Europe, whilst Germany’s national tabloid Bild
is asking why the Western entrants should be paying shitloads of cash to
fund a contest they’re seemingly no longer in with a chance of winning. I’ve
been thinking similar thoughts myself, though Bild perhaps aren’t taking
into account the cash that it also generates for those countries. However,
Bild do have something that I don’t, and that’s a quote from this year’s
German entrant Nicole, who says: “It is obvious that Eastern European
countries engage in dirty trade with points every year. Germany should
withdraw from the competition”.

What a palaver, eh? Last word to Paul Gambaccini, who told Radio 4 that he
thinks it’s all political: “Britain’s votes plummeted with the invasion of
Iraq and have stayed in the basement with the occupation. There has always
been a political dimension to Eurovision, the love-fest between Greece and
Cyprus has been noted for a long time. Now with the public voting instead of
the panel voting it is really extensive”.

Lets make sure that a band like Lordi, who are actually good and talented, never win again. The Eurovision drones are still upset about it. They don’t seem to realise that Eastern Europe think Europop is a load of ole’ rubbish.

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Brutal torture at Guantanamo Bay:

An accused enemy combatant held at Guantanamo Bay told a military hearing he was physically as well as mentally tortured there by having to read a newsletter full of ‘crap,’ being forced to use unscented deodorant and shampoo and having to play sports with a ball that would not bounce.

Majid Khan of Pakistan denied any connection to Al Qaeda and said he was tortured and his family hounded by U.S. authorities, according to a redacted transcript released Tuesday by the Pentagon.

Khan told an April 15 hearing called to determine whether he was rightly classified as an “enemy combatant” that he also had his baby pictures taken from him, that cleaners left marks on his cell walls and that detainees have no DVD players or other entertainment.

At one point, Kan said he wrote on his walls, “stop torturing me, I need my mails, newspaper and my lawyer.”

Khan was captured in Pakistan in 2003. The military says he has provided support to Al Qaeda and has expressed a desire to assassinate Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharaff. U.S. government authorities have said that Khan was also involved in plots to blow up American gas stations and poison U.S. reservoirs. The April 15 hearing is the first step in possible war crimes charges against him.

[. . .]

He said he has been unable to see his daughter, was denied communal recreation for 11 weeks, went four weeks without sunlight and fresh air, was deprived of basic or comfort items for three weeks, had his beard shaved twice and was forced to wear a protective suicide prevention smock.

And he complained that he was only given cheap unscented soap and shampoo, and that in the recreation room there is “no weight lifting machine, no toilet, no sink, ho hoops, and even balls them self have little air in them; they hardly bounce.”

“They know my weaknesses – what drive me crazy and what doesn’t,” he said.

Apparently it doesn’t take much. No doubt they decided that waterboarding this one wasn’t worth the effort.

the blog québécois

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About regionals assemblies in the UK that is…this piece borders on a rant but makes very good points. The author quite rightly had to contain his angst and seems to have done it rather well. Its people like this lot that are keeping tabs on government creep and lets us all know where the waste is going.

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In the early 70s, the two entered Cardozo High School in Bayside, NY. Tenet and Jeremy (who’s real last name is Hyatt) played on the soccer team together.

Now we can begin to understand the unlikely career of porn star Ron Jeremy: A furious overcompensation for his miserable time in high school. Unless looking like a drowned ferret was all the rage back then, I’m thinking he didn’t see a lot of hot girly action.

Not so with future Director of the CIA George Tenet, whose swave, studly unibrow must have driven the ladies into a frenzy. You can just imagine then combing through it with their fingers.

the blog québécois

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Here is what I have for the BOMS this week. Below it you find links to other interesting stuff.

Greta Christina presents Greta Christina’s Blog: Ninth and Bryant Parking Garage: A Review posted at Greta Christina’s Blog.

Nickel presents How is Your FICO Credit Score Determined? posted at fivecentnickel.com.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Amusing Wine? posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

Elvis D presents Looks Like Rain posted at 365fiction.

Michael Emilio presents Commercial Real Estate Investing Using Triple-Net Leases posted at South Florida Realtor.

And now for some other things. Here is the Britblog roundup.

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We have the flag outside the house for James as he arrived for lunch today. It will be on a far larger flag poll round the Dodge family house in East Boothbay on the wedding day. The flag is rather large but does the trick.

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As the housing market in the US flattens out and in some places dipping a bit there are some people who are getting rather worried about their financial position especially in regards to their position in regards to outstanding loans. Now when one is worried about ones finances one can be rather desperate and in great need of a good source of info. A person in such a situation is looking for a site like debthelp.com.

The site specialises in help for those who have both secured and unsecured debt. They aim to make finding information about how to sort your finances out as easy as possible. The site has a helpful “start” button right in the middle of the site to direct you to what you need to get help. As you know from my other reviews of sites I am keen on a site that runs well and loads quickly. This site is no exception with none of the waiting times you can see with even the largest of sites.

debthelp.com works by helping you build a relationship with the some of the largest debt consoidators in the US. Putting a name to a face and to a debtor.

If you are in debt and want to get out head over to their site and get the help you need.

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Farewell to the Illustrious Leader, pity its only the IL and not the whole damned Party aren’t going with him, but I suppose we can live in hope. What have we too look forward to in his wake – and note that his swan song is a world tour for no other purpose than to press the flesh with all his fellow crooks and charlatans around the world at our expense. Pretty rich for the leader of the Party that demanded public scrutiny of the Queen’s travel expenses and which whinged and whined about her extravagnace and “cost to the taxpayers”. He has managed (and his ministers are even worse!) to spend around five times as much as we paid for the Queen’s travel. And I know exactly who I would rather spend the money on – and it certainly isn’t any of the shower infesting the Palace of Westminster.

What have ten years of this fraud and frontman given us? Higher tax, bigger bureaucracy, an ever growing gap between the rich and everyone else, more state interference than ever before. A war we have no business being involved in and now cannot in conscience pull out of, armed forces that are demoralised, “managed” by complete a***h*les of civil servants who buy the wrong equipment at four times the real cost, refuse to listen to the soldiers, sailors and airmen and who lay our forces open to abuse by every two-bit lawyer trying to make his fortune by prosecuting them under one or more of the cockamami laws Blair and his shower of wastrals have brought in without due thought to the consequences. Our airforce is reduced to a squadron and our “fleet” is reduced to the same level. Watch this space, the promised Super Carriers will never be built. Labour hate them, and want to squander the money on lining their own pockets and gerrymandering of votes, the Civil Service have been trying to prevent them and by the time they are all finished there won’t be the money to build them anyway – oh, and the Fleet Air Arm is no more – it hasn’t any aircraft for them anyway.

Then we have Public Services that are now so top heavy with Civil Service “Managers” that they are unable to actually deliver what they are supposed to and which are, moreover, so obsessed with Political Correctness and “minority” rights and “targets” that they refuse to even deal with anything that isn’t in one of those categories.

Blair arrived proclaiming he was a Christian and a Church goer. Anyone noticed he’s stopped attending church (unless there is a camera opportunity) and that Christianity is now under attack? Don’t be too surprised if, once the latest attack on personal freedom, the new “guidelines” on schools which Ofsted are to enforce to make sure that all our schools are reduced to the same mess as the inner city sinkholes Blair has promoted are introduced, it is only the Christian schools and the rural, and by definition, predominantly white anglo-saxon schools are targetted as “failing to comply” with the requirements to admit people from other backgrounds. Blair leaves behind him a trail of destrruction that is surely unsurpassed in a “democratic” society. Our freedoms, enshrined originally in the Magna Carta are in ruins, circumscribed and reduced by the abyssmal Human Rights Act, whose only beneficiaries seem to be assylum seekers and criminals, our freedom of speech proscribed by various Acts prohibiting any criticism of Islam which may “incite racial or religious hatred”. Our freedom of choice is now reduced to anything Blair approves of and nothing he doesn’t.

Tax. Well, what can one say about a man who rode to power on the promise that “personal” tax would not rise. Ah, well, that depends on how you define “personal”. Those thieves at the Treasury and the denizen of Number 11 (Let us not forget that he is a Scottish MP who votes in Westminster on matters that have no impact on HIS constituents at all!) have defined it as meaning “direct” taxation, as in Income Tax, Death Duty and so on. But National Insurance has gone up, by the simple mechanism of raising the ceiling so everyone above the threshold now pays vastly more for even less than they got before. VAT has risen, because, as prices rise, so does the taxman’s cut. Stamp duty has gone up, so has fuel duty, vehicle or road tax, council tax and the list goes on and on. Nor should we forget that he has raided the pension funds to the tune of 5 billion a year since his initial grab – and he still refuses to acknowledge that he is responsible for the decline in investment. (Tory’s please note – the Pensions Tax is one you would do very well to reverse immediately you get into power. And SACK the first b*st*rd Civil Servant who says it can’t be done. It can, and the Civil Servants who say otherwise are all and without exception liars!).

One more interesting little wriggle for Mister Blair’s Premiership – Robert Maxwell’s newspapers were major Labour donors right up to the point that Maxwell was exposed as the charlatan he was. We should be asking the Labour Party to refund the money stolen from Maxwell’s pensioners whose pension fund paid for Blair’s election. They certainly need the money more than the Labour Party does.

History will, I think I can predict without fear of contradiction, judge this period as the point in time when Great Britain ceased to be a nation, ceased to consider it had anything worth surviving for – and committed suicide. Blair may yet win in his ultimate objective and see England split into eight Euro Regions, stripped of it’s Sovereign and ruled by Dictat from a Socialist stronghold located in Brussels. We may be certain we have not seen the last of this nasty little man – his ambition will drive him to seek some high profile post such as “President of the United States of Europe”.

I shall say nothing at all of the news that that bloated buffoon that disgraces the office of Deputy Prime Minister wants to be our Ambassador to Washington. God preserve us! It is too ghastly to even contemplate.

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

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There is an interesting company that is doing their best to help people get to grips with e-commerce. The company offers courses in e-commerce for those who think the entire thing is a bit beyond them. Conpanies are realising they need an online prescence and a knowledge of the online business world is an excellent add to any knowledge base. Its called prosper learning and the company has made a success of post-secondary niche learning. There is personal mentoring and the instructors are experienced in online commerce. If you think its all a bit too advanced, it might be a good idea to get some instruction on the subject.

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You know that things are a bit tougher, grittier and more down to earth in Maine. People drive a lot of 4×4s and pick-ups, most of which are Dodges, and even the dogs are…well just a wee bit harder than other places.

You wouldn’t want to spill this poodles pint water now would you?

Oh yeah and the poodle rides a Goldwing trike just in case you were wondering. Up front, not in some basket.

His mistress is a former kick boxing champion and her master is a large lad as well.

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