'Something nasty in the woodshed'

‘Private Eye’ has the same take as me about the Blair Tome. ‘Eye’ did a parody of it, but I have read a compilation of critiques of the book and it is beyond parody. Much of the demotic language Blair uses is of the ‘I’m a regular kind of guy’ calibre, and one half expects him to describe himself as a ‘diamond geezer’.

What does Grub Street tell us about the Strange Death of the Welshman from MI6, Dai the Spy?

He was both 30 and 31 years old. There’s clever, look you.

He was found in a large sports bag and a suitcase.

He was stabbed several times or even dismembered.

He was poisoned, strangled, asphyxiated, and drugged.

He was assassinated by Al Qaeda.

He was attacked by a friend or casual acquaintance.

He was murdered by a ‘Mata Hari’ honey-trap assassin.

He was killed by a gay lover.

He was the victim of sex game that went wrong.

He died innocently.

He suffocated after locking himself inside a sports bag in some autoerotic session. The key was found outside the bag!

None/all of the above.

Next we will be told that his nickname was ‘Lucky’. Whatever, there is definitely something nasty in the woodshed.

And the Potty Pastor has been landed with a bill of $180,000 for police coverage during his ‘Burn the Koran’ campaign. Ah, the law of unintended consequences; where would we be without it?

So farewell Pope Benedict. The visit got massive coverage in the meeja, with TV news broadcasting every moment of the grand tour to the exclusion of all else. Needless to say, the occasion brought the worms out of the woodwork, with protest marches and celebs mouthing off their vapid opinions. The UK doesn’t need a bout of Catholic-bashing, but I blame the equal opportunities/anti-discrimination wowsers for making constant mischief. For example, a small town in England has traditionally made a big thing of Bonfire Night. Now the wowsers are saying that it is a hate crime against Catholics. I doubt whether there is more than a microscopic minority that know that the Gunpowder Plot was designed to overthrow the state and restore Catholicism. Drawing attention to it only causes bad feeling for spoiling a harmless bit of fun. Both Rome and the Anglican Church come across as obsessed with sex – gay bishops, women priests, kiddie-fiddling. Not much about morality, Christian values, etc. According to the suppressed Gospel of St Peter, Mary Magdalene was not a ‘fallen woman’, but a leader of the early Church and possibly the first Pope, so what’s the argument?

The US economy and O’s ratings seem to be accompanying each other on a flight south. The Economist reckons recovery will take 7 years provided the right decisions are made. So far all measures seem to have failed. The housing market is down the tubes, consumer confidence appears to be at a very low level, the stimulus package has failed and the deficit is terrifying. It seems to me that O’s approach is inflate away debt. I have news for him. Nobody will lend you money if they think that it will be only worth half on maturity. POTUS seems bent on a Broonite ‘tax and spend’ regime; it will all end in tears.

It is ironic that Cleggikin’s absurd diatribe about it being ‘immoral’ to avoid paying tax that the taxman is not entitled to in the same week that it is revealed that the Revenue has made a cock-up of humungous proportions in overcharging or undercharging millions (and has decided not to pursue the undercharging claims). All this from a man who in his entire life has never earned a penny that was not contributed by the tax-payer, as a civil servant, an MEP, an MP, and now as Deputy PM. And we require no sermons from a member of a profession that as a consequence of the MPs’ expenses scandal, has become a byword for venality, dishonesty and deviance. His pompous lefty colleague, the Business Secretary, has appointed as a top advisor a billionaire businessman who has ‘everything in the wife’s name’ in a tax haven.

It must be true; I read it in the papers............

‘Hundreds of competitors flocked to Ramsbottom for the World Black Pudding Throwing Championships. Vying for a £100 top prize, contestants were given three black puddings with which to dislodge as many Yorkshire puddings as they could from a 20ft ledge. ‘Some people say it’s a strange world championship, but it depends where you come from. We’re from Lancashire,’ said the organiser’.

And finally.........

An ode to Hillary Clinton, courtesy of Ogden Nash and Andrew Mason:

Sure, deck your lower limbs in pants,

The choice is yours, my sweeting.

You look divine as you advance,

But have you seen yourself retreating?

Done and dusted Deepwater.

Your idea about extraditing our mad pastor is compelling. Please, take him; he is all yours under whatever legislation you might muster. It is about time we began shedding our religious fanatics back from whence they came. Then again, never mind, his moment on the stage has passed along with that of the now permanently capped, cemented, sealed, entombed, done and dusted Deepwater Explorer.

Further to my heads up about the rise of a third party in the form of a conservative/libertarian coalition, the plot thickens. A nobody mystery woman, Christine O'Donnell, has just emerged in a Delaware primary as the republican nominee for the November mid-term election. Her debut run for the senate unseated a long-term RINO who was a shoo-in for winning against the democratic candidate.

Christine is a tea party conservative and a pleasant looking young woman capable of speaking her mind to the public. As for the state her mind the following is exemplary. She is anti abortion, gays and stem cell research. Her education agenda demands a curriculum that includes teaching creationism. She had some youthful encounter with witchcraft followed by spearheading a public campaign against masturbation. Would you kindly extradite her along with the mad preacher?

Republicans, notably Karl Rove, are aghast at Christine's win and are outspoken about the need for her to clear up several past issues that could easily combine to give the democratic candidate a landslide in November. Moreover, to his credit, Rove insists that republican candidates should have a clean and clear record and be able to demonstrate integrity of character.

Christine was strongly supported by the tea party movement which, as you will recall, is the avant garde of the conservative/libertarian persuasion. These are the ultra right politicians that include Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich and numerous others. The interesting part is that one major spokesperson for the conservatives, Rush Limbaugh, took umbrage with Karl Rove's attack on Christine and earnestly defended and endorsed her. Hence, we have the classic republicans characterized by Karl Rove on one side and the emerging and expanding tea party conservatives characterized by Limbaugh on the other. Given the popularity of Limbaugh, Hannity and similar conservative talk show hosts, there is enough popular momentum to generate a third party. The raging battle between republican and conservative also acts to divert energy and money away from their battle against the democrats in general and O in particular.

Meantime, O is going his merry way seemingly in a dense fog and without ground truthing his ideology. In short, he is out of touch and many of his previous supporters, including the highly respected Colin Powell, are taking him to task. Their message to O is get back on track with your promises of reform beginning with immediate, focused and determined efforts to reduce unemployment. O's ideology is beginning to take shape and has crystallized into one of a social welfare state complete with big government, an expanded civil service, newly established commissions appointed by the President and responsible directly to him and a strong alliance with minorities of color and the trade unions.

One need not be very far to the right to react adversely to this ideology. Indeed, O is haemorrhaging support from his own party, especially the middle class who so believed in him as a figure of destiny. It is basically his inability to manage the economy and to take congress to task for their greed and glut that alienates the middle class. Nor are people very excited about O's medical care reforms. A recent cartoon shows him as a conductor with sheet music entitled Obama Care Part II. Problem is, the orchestra seats are empty and the remaining performers are seen running for the exits.

Yes, the Teflon Tony book-signing was a fiasco and yes, the Yanks still love him. Do you recall my telling you that in the initial stages of Iraq II, commentators on Texas radio were calling for Tony to join W as his vice president? We still don't know any better.

'Out of hubris comes nemesis'

The solution to the Mad Pastor-Koran burning debacle was very simple. The UK Government should have issued an extradition warrant, as there was clearly a prima facie case of incitement under anti-terrorism legislation and for conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace. Since the Pastor’s posturing had received enormous publicity in the UK and there had been disorderly demonstrations as a result, the jurisdiction of the English courts was established. Then he could have been comfortably tucked up in the slammer until 9/11 had passed. That would have stopped his farting in church.

If the warrant had been denied, this would have presented an ideal opportunity to abrogate the extradition treaty with the US which is grotesquely one sided and unfair. If the warrant had been granted, this would be the first time the treaty has been used to deport someone from the US on a terrorism charge. In fact, it has only been used once for its ostensible purpose, although it has been misused over 1000 times for non-terrorist offences. A win-win situation.

The Government says it is already ‘looking at it’. Expect no urgent action from Kitten Heels May; she is like the woman who reads the obituary column and wonders how people could die in alphabetical order.

‘We are all guilty’ seems to be the outcome of the BP Deepwater report. My analysis at the start of the drama seems to be justified that accidents are caused by a combination of events which are not necessarily catastrophic in themselves coming together to make a disaster, and that accidents never have a single cause. When I was learning to fly certain safety routines were dinned into me. For example, a pilot takes off, has an engine failure after take-off, turns back to the field, stalls and crashes. The cause of the crash was engine failure, yes? No. The pilot neglected to do the routine fuel test on pre-flight inspection. The engine failed because of water contamination in the fuel. The pilot then broke the golden rule ‘Never turn back’. It was a succession of events that caused the crash.

So who are the guilty men?

Nobody is going to come out of this smelling of attar of roses. The Sunday Times did a major feature the general theme of which is hubris. It says that the rig survivors were forbidden to take mobile phones and radios on board the rescue boat. It took 28 hours to get them to port where they were first forced to be checked for drugs and urine samples taken, and then ‘strongly encouraged’ to sign a statement that read ‘I was not a witness to the incident....and have no first hand or personal knowledge of it. I was not injured as a result... .’

Inspections before the spill revealed 26 components of the blow-put preventer to be in bad condition. The government official who should have checked the BOP didn’t. The rig crew had constantly warned of serious safety threats, but were ignored. BP, Transocean and Halliburton seemed to have been at constant loggerheads. The crux appears to be money; the rig was 43 days behind schedule at a cost near $1 million a day. Safety considerations took a poor second place.

The handling of the aftermath was the job of the Chairman of BP, but he was away on a cruise in the Far East on his luxury yacht with his mistress. The company’s spin doctor was invisible. POTUS seemed to prefer acting Mr Tough Guy instead of Presidentially. He reminded me of King Lear –

‘I will do such things --

What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be

The terrors of the earth’.

The media coverage was appalling and may well have done more economic damage than the spill. The maladroit Tony Hayward is low on my list – he was left to take the flak, but he’s a geologist not a PR man.

The Federal agency comes out of this as venal and ineffective, with an unhealthy relationship with the oil companies. An internal report 2 years ago found that employees were having sex and taking drugs with oil executives, falsifying contracts and receiving gifts.

Who comes out with credit?

The fishermen, restaurateurs, boatmen and ordinary people who got stuck in to minimise the damage would be top of my list, accompanied by the engineers and technicians who capped the well through almost unbelievable technology and inventiveness. Then there would be the Secretary for Energy who recruited five top-rank scientists to come up with a solution.

And who gains? Well, m’learned friends, of course!

Truly, out of hubris comes nemesis.

Back in la-la land, the Blair book-signing fiasco is a great irony. In the US he is still held in great regard. In the UK so many people detest him that he is unable to appear in public. If a Crazy Cleric could have been found to burn Tone’s tome, what a blaze that would be. People have been going into bookshops and shifting it to the ‘crime’ section.

Cameron’s judgment is being seriously called into question over the nefarious activities alleged against his spinmeister. The Trade Unions are threatening a winter of discontent over service cuts. The Brokeback Coalition is proposing to reduce the size of the armed forces in the middle of a war whilst ring-fencing the aid budget. It’s déjà vu all over again! Welcome to the 1970s.

I have been having a look at the blog stats, which are quite interesting. We have had hits from the US, Canada, UK, Thailand, South Africa, China, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, and Ireland. However, with no comments there is no indication as to whether our stuff is actually being read or whether the 500 hits represents a lot of people or just a lot of hits.

Grub Street news: 'The Queen and Prince Phillip are shooting guests at least twice a week at Broadlands'

'I never vote; it only encourages them!'

We are all abuzz here by the comments made by the round heeled Carla Bruni Sarkozi about Michelle Obama. Evidently, Carla is one to kiss and tell. Her reputed statements about Mrs. O are easily being dealt with and its business as usual at the white house. This Marie Antoinette reincarnate is making husband Nicholas look smaller every day; and he already has a handicap in that direction. I seriously doubt there will be another gala in DC featuring the King and Queen of France at the head table. Pity, O needs friends badly. I believe the diminutive frog realized from the start that our Commander in Chief was all boots and no cattle as he uttered words to that effect early on during O's Washington honeymoon with the presidency.

Jeff Randall's column today on UK government spending being actually more than last year and indeed more than any of the labor years is an eye opener. His analogies to Sweeny Todd added a touch of humor and reality. Better still was Janet Daley's recent column on the insanity of one man's ability to hold America hostage while he decides whether or not to burn a Koran. The depth of her article lies in her explanation of why common American's have such an intimate relationship with our constitution. The reasons behind the constant and frequent talk in the street about human rights, individual rights, and the freedoms so covetously espoused in our Declaration of Independence by the founding fathers is extremely well articulated. The backup material in her article is far more interesting that the burning Koran lead.

Preliminary elections leading up to the mid-term elections in November are dynamite. A huge rift is evolving on the political right between republicans and conservatives. So much so, that the bitter attack against O and co. from the political right has weakened in intensity. The primary gripe among those who call themselves Conservatives is their disaffection with the middle of the road tendencies associated with many republicans. The conservative mantra is individual freedoms, guns, pro life, small government, capitalism and God. Vote getting efforts on the part of many rinos (republicans in name only) violate the mantra and therefore grate on conservative principles. We could easily have a third party in the US what with the large numbers of conservatives and allied libertarians gaining in political strength. Witness their efforts to create and populate the tea party movement. Tea party candidates are winning in enough preliminaries to take heed of their burgeoning power.

The ultimate test, however, will come in November when the grit of the conservatives elected over republican rivals will be put to the test against democrat rivals. There is another trend that is partly fogging the issues. Namely, that of ousting incumbents in favor of new blood. As I have noted earlier, the American public is becoming more and more fed up with senators and representatives who appear to have life-long sinecures and who behave as if they were royalty. In particular, the cozy relationships between elected officials and large political campaign donors such as corporate America and lobbyists, compel growing numbers of the public to believe that their interests have been ignored. The public is voting for new candidates in a decidedly anti-incumbent movement. To what extent the new candidates are elected because they are new or because they are promoted by the tea party movement remains to be seen.

The tea party is a basically conservative power play that has capitalized on the frustration of politically active right wing voters who feel they are no longer represented by elected officials. In particular, and as their name indicates, they complain bitterly about having been Taxed Enough Already. This complaint is mirrored in the public at large and I am quite sure the tea party movement will attract many center and left wing activists who also believe we are being taxed to the extreme. As I write, there is a major debate over extending the Bush administration tax cuts to higher income earners. You know the arguments and particularly so because a very similar debate is going on in the UK over tax rates and national debt reduction. As the tax cuts enacted by W are due to expire at the end of 2010, a sense of urgency prevails; but urgent to some means tax the rich while to others it means extend incentives to job creators to create more jobs.

‘The world is getting to be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive’.

Poor old Willie Hague seems doomed to employ the world’s worst PR spinners. The outrageous Amanda Platell did for him by getting him to pose in a silly baseball cap, attend a Gay Pride march, and boast of drinking 14 pints of beer a day when he was a lad. Now we have his disastrous public statement about his Special Advisor and all that guff about his marriage. This gave the story legs; without it the whole fiasco would be over. Who cares if he walks on both sides of the street? There have been whispers amongst the chatterati that Willie’s sexuality has been a matter of speculation since he made his well-remembered speech at the Tory Party conference when he was only 16 because he never had anything to do with girls. Why? It seems much more likely that Willie never thought about rumpy-pumpy because he only ever thought about politics. He married the charming Fi when he became Welsh Secretary; she was a prominent member of the Taffia.

An excess of testosterone is part of the essential make-up of a politician. Exposures of toe sucking, copulating in a Manchester United football shirt, self-starring porno videos made within the hallowed precincts of Westminster, ‘Shagger’ Norris with his plethora of concurrent mistresses, Jeremy Thorpe and the Great Dane, Mandelson and his Latino catamite, fatalities during weird sex-games, and John Prescott laying his secretary (anything is possible, even that unlikely episode) – I tell you, it’s like the Ball of Kirriemuir’ in there. Going back further, we had the Profumo Affair, and Harold Macmillan’s wife was the long-standing mistress of Bob Boothby who sodomised the queer Kray brother when Dorothy was not about. Ambidextrous was our Bob. These guys are game for anything as long as it stands still long enough. I don’t care, although I draw the line at the strange activities of one (ex) Lib-Dem MP whose tastes ran to rent boys and excrement. But I guess some of the women MPs will die wondering.

The Great Pakistani Cricket Scam will not go away, either. It now emerges that the Old Bill has been following the go-between for months. It will be a very complicated enquiry, so there won’t be any closure in the short term. If the players are charged in London, which now seems increasingly likely, they will be bailed. The intriguing question is whether they will answer bail and return from Pakistan to face trial. If they don’t, I foresee the future of Pakistan cricket as being extremely uncertain. The Pakistani authorities have handled this appallingly, with the High Commissioner suggesting that the News of the World video was a fake. Bad move. The News of the Screws will be all over him now. England have been playing international cricket since the 1870s, but big money and big temptation only arrived with satellite TV coverage a few years ago. The rot centres on the Indian sub-continent because that is where the illegal bookies operate.

Interestingly, a week-end opinion poll showed overwhelming support for Willie; the vast majority believed him to be telling the truth (as opinion polls of politicians’ veracity are concerned, this one should get in the Guinness Book of Records). The wisdom of issuing the Press Statement was about equally divided, although my firm practice has always been to follow the military maxim ‘never explain, never complain, never apologise’. The ST did a good commentary piece about voter hypocrisy and the prurient interest in the admittedly diverse and inexhaustible sex lives of politicians. Of course, this can cut both ways. If Edwina Currie had published her memoirs revealing not just her affair with John Major but also the impressive contents of his Y-fronts in 1996, he might have won in 1997. When rumours spread during an election campaign in eighteen hundred and frozen stiff that Lord Palmerston had been caught in flagrante delicto in his 80s, the leader of the opposition said ‘Don’t let it get out; he’ll sweep the country’.

This seems to be ‘Gotcha’ time in UK politics. Andy Coulson, Dave’s spinmeister, is also under the spotlight, with the comrades implying that he is or has been deeply involved in hacking into MPs’ mobile phones. He was accused of this when he was Editor of the Screws of the World, but exonerated – or rather it was ‘not proven’. The deeper question is what Dave thought he was doing in appointing the head hack of the lowest of the Red Tops apart from Sunday Sport.

I have not seen any reference to Dr Kelly in the Blair apologia; he does observe that the Queen was ‘haughty, which I take to mean that she was not impressed with Tone’s charm or Cherie’s vulgarity. When Cherie asked Princess Anne to call her ‘Cherie’, HRH replied that ‘Mrs Blair’ would do fine. Ouch. But the masterwork is flying off the shelves, to the benefit of old soldiers. Tone admits that it was deliberate policy to encourage immigration purely for the sake of enticing the Tories to react adversely so that he could shout ‘nasty party’ again. The Tories were not falling into that obvious trap. But when immigration became a major issue in this year’s election, Cameroon said that a Tory government would bring it under control with a system of quotas and vouchers, and all others would be deported.

A slight snag here. Immigrants from Eastern European countries that are members of the EU can’t be sent home. Back to the drawing board, Dave. Tsarkozy is up to the same stunt to repair his terrible ratings. He is beating his little chest and chucking out the Roma. They will just come back again, as they are entitled, but it does boost the wee chap’s Napoleonic image, which needs all the help it can get. And a new book implies that la grande horizontale might have to be buried in a Y-shaped coffin.

A revealing comment from Blair when asked why he never sacked the awful Broon was that it would have split the Labour Party; instead he merely ruined the country. So that’s alright, then.

Returning to the theme of the danger to one’s freedom of telling Irish jokes, we came back from Cape Town in 1991 on the ‘Canberra’. The resident comedian was a Paddy (pardon, Irish male) called Pat Noonan. He told the story of going into a bar in Dublin. The barman told him it was the ‘holy hour’, the one time during the day when pubs were not allowed to serve. ‘Then I’ll wait until you open’ said Pat. The barman replied ‘Will you have a drink while you’re waiting?’ Some years later I went into a pub in Waterford with my son-in-law, Paddy Keogh (no kidding). He ordered two pints of Guinness. The barmaid said that the pub was not open for another quarter of an hour. Paddy said in that case we would wait. Can you guess what the barmaid replied? Goddit in one. Truly life follows art, as that great Paddy, Oscar Wilde, memorably said.

Quote of the week.

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

When did I last see my little Willie?

Will Hague is taking a beating in the press; and much of it is self-induced. His efforts to deflect aspersions made the situation worse, especially after bringing his wife into the fray. His clumsy public statements cause me to wonder how he came to be such a close advisor to Margaret Thatcher. Much of what I read about him is less than complimentary and this has to give him a handicap when dealing with foreign affairs. Nor did it help that his young advisor ran away. I believe your assessment of Hague's character, but the manner in which the ordeal is being handled has many of the earmarks of a guilty conscience. Just for the record, I could give a toss if he is gay, but it is important that he be a man of substance and good judgement or his opponents will have him for lunch.

Situation America is going from bad to worse. O's ratings are falling by the day and it now looks as if the opposition will win a House majority and come close to winning over the Senate as well in the upcoming mid-term elections. The Republicans have managed to exact sufficient party and pundit discipline to focus their attacks on O's management, or mismanagement, of the economy. In the process, they have seriously eroded public confidence in the dollar, the Fed, major banks and our twin housing regulation authorities, Fannie May and Freddie Mack. The strategy has been well executed; perhaps too well because the Republicans will have a difficult time regaining public confidence in the economy once they get back into power.

O has also been tagged as seriously pro labor, partly because the unions have contributed gazillions of dollars to his campaign and the campaign of his fellow Democrats. Accusations are that the newly proposed roads, rails and runways infrastructure development legislation is contaminated with promises of union jobs. After Reagan's successful effort to break the air traffic controllers strike, the image of unions in general has declined, strikes did not happen and the larger unions such as teachers and government workers unions were relatively quiet. It was nearly a situation in which we felt we could get along without the unions, until O came riding in on a flotilla of union dollars. To many, he made a pact with the devil and to his enemies, this pact is another string in their bow of contention about his mismanagement of the economy.

Then there is the high strung evangelical preacher who wants to burn the Koran in protest against the Muslims. This has certainly got up the nose of Muslim groups who are undoubtedly prompted and propagandized by militant Mullahs seeking their own power structure and path to paradise. The government, in the form of Hillary Clinton for one and General Petraeus for another, has openly criticized the misguided missionary who seems totally oblivious to anybody's feelings other than his own. He is behaving like a martyr and is backing up his intended deed with references to the need for our saintly Christian religion to combat and defeat the evil of Islam. Jesus Christ!

Deepwater Horizon is off the radar, at least until the results of testing the blowout preventer are completed. As soon as it surfaced, the BOP was formally 'arrested' and placed under the care of one agency or another, I don't recall which. I have no idea when the BOP tests will be completed, but I can only imagine how difficult it must be to ensure that the tool is properly handled and that it is kept away from unauthorized persons. Every effort will surely be made not to contaminate the evidence. Who knows, BP may be fully exonerated

'If heaven ain't like Texas, I'm stayin' at home'

Mid term elections, Blair revelations, and three hurricanes all in a row liven up the world news. We here on the prairie, however, take little stock of such events and are content to lull ourselves into an isolated sense of security while listening to one of country western's latest, 'If heaven ain't like Texas, I'm stay'n home'.

The truth is now being told. Bush and Blair plotted to arrest Brown's rise to power. A rise so fraught with emotion that Teflon Tony was driven to drink. Plus, he is deeply sorry for the Iraq war. All that would drive anyone to a Catholic confession. The more TB says, the deeper into the sierra, hotel, india, tango he sinks. All this by his own admission. And now, he wants to reveal the temptations of public office. He and our increasingly popular Glenn Beck should get together with God for an expurgation of public and private sin.

I believe we are witnessing the rise of a modern day prophet in the form of one Glenn Beck. He quit Catholicism in favor of Mormonism and has unbelievably emerged as the peoples choice. He staged a risky rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and drew a crowd of more than three hundred thousand. Traditionally, MLK commemorative events are monopolized by black personalities, one of whom, Rev. Al Sharpton was holding a competing event nearby. The people's vote was for Beck if numbers of attendees is the measure. Glenn was in his full glory and spiced his heartfelt address with lots of prayer and appeals to the Almighty to save us from evil and its many manifestations. You heard it here, Glenn will become a religious icon and in his name miracles will be attributed. Incredible, but true. Glenn is the sort of speaker who comes across as if he is talking to you personally in your very own parlor. He conveys a sense of sincerity that eclipses the hogwash that he is preaching. His pouting and sometimes teary eyed Fox TV presentations capture the imagination of the right, the religious right, and most importantly, the gullible. Mankind is insane, but perhaps this is what it takes to wake people up to the cruel and corrupt ways of our contemporary military, industrial and political complex. We have Tony Blairs all over the bloody place as well as elected politicians who hold institutionalized positions to which they firmly believed they are entitled.

Then there is the cricket scandal precipitated by your blessed Pakistani brothers. I understand why you like them . Actually, there are lots of Pakistanis whom I have met that are really first class blokes, at least they were when I met them. I suspect, in this case, that the scandal goes much deeper than just the Pakistan team and that other players and teams will emerge with a black eye. Also, when sports like cricket go international, they need to understand and accept the baggage that accompanies such moves.

The expose on William Hague was a bit of a shock. I have no problem with gay, but I do wish they would come into the open and thereby get rid of the suspicions. My radar heats up when people heatedly deny accusations and yet there is little alternative if the accusations are not true. I recall the many, many times during my overseas career when I was accused of being CIA. The more I denied it, the firmer my accusers believed themselves to be correct. One particularly embarrassing and nasty episode came while I worked in Zambia and happened to office next to a young Zambian who had been educated somewhere in the Soviet Union. He was adamant about my professional origins and did not hesitate to tell everyone he knew and many who he did not know. Frustrated beyond reason by his continual harangues, I finally asked him if he actually believed that the CIA would pay me lots of money to have him as an office mate. End of conversation on that topic.