Instant Reaction to Scottish Political Sucide Bomb

Can I just say I have absolutely no idea whether Brown's resignation will actually pave the way for a realistic 'rainbow coalition'.

But it has already cheered me up immensely for three reasons:

1. The Times Live Blog reports it's not going down well in Murdoch land:

"5.50pm Fight! Fight!

The Cabinet is meeting now but meanwhile Sky's Adam Boulton is on the verge of a fist-fight with Alastair Campbell.

"You, totally unelected, have plotted this!" shrieks Mr Boulton. Another presenter has to intervene."

2.Heseltine hates it:

"This is mind blowing. I don't know how anyone would have such a barefaced nerve as to put such a proposition in the circumstances ...

"The only viable solution is for David Cameron to become the prime minister."

3. Even if it doesn't work, the Lib Dems have to appear to take the offer seriously - and if they visibly do this then even if their negotiations with Labour fail, the Tories will never really trust them again.

No So Much An African Grey, More A Govan Bluenose..

I really should be above this sort of thing, but this makes me laugh at all sorts of levels. The clue as to why is probably in the surname I use on this blog...

"Jim Watt, from Horizon Housing Association, confirmed a complaint had been received from another tenant but said Linda and Rio had been cleared of the bigotry claims.

He said: "We spoke to the tenant with the pet as well as other neighbouring tenants. We took the view that there had not been anti-social behaviour which would include sectarian behaviour.""

Via Slugger

"Them Good Ol' Boys Were Drinking Whiskey & Rye..."

& also knocking back the burgers by the look of it. So this might well '...be the day that they die'.

The map is from my current obsession: Sociological Images.

Do check out some of the French and German anti-AIDS adverts on the site. & I defy anyone to make sense of this French Orangina advert:

"The sexual availability of the female…um…wildlife, all of whom are sexy and sexualized and dancing with the one male, the bottles of Orangina erupting from between the female zebras’ legs, and the female octopus squeezing Orangina out of her boobs…there’s a lot to work with."

Cause of Death

We Shall Not See His Like Again

"Rocking Robin"; "Beat It";"Billy Jean";"Thriller" - all that creativity and he still found time to be Chief of Staff of the British Army and Deputy to the NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Polymath or what?

I think Jim's Donkey blog best captures the popular mood.

Not Me Gov

In view of this little spate, I'd like to make clear that I have never, ever considered allocating genders to the figures in, and off stage from, the cartoon to the right of this posting. No Sireee Bob. Not even in the privacy of my own imagination.

Goodbye Judean Popular Front

Forget Life of Brian. A new gold standard in satirical references to left wing practices has been established over at the Irish Left Review. In fact it's more or less a complete 11 point guide to establishing a small left wing newspaper. Everyone will have their own favourite but my personal top two are:

*Always see things from the perspective of the international working-class. The perspective of the international working-class is - regardless of superficial appearances - the same perspective as your own

* Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways. The point is to shout at it.

Ejh - we who are about to be polemicised, we salute you!

(via)

A Strategy for Overthrowing Capitalism

Forget Lenin. Luxembourg's old hat. Gramsci's a bit fragmentary. Trotsky always had a glint in his eye I never quite trusted.

Naw, I'm going with Dilbert.

1 min 56 seconds for all non-economists

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

I nicked this from Alice, but it seems to be a Onion production.

Prawo Jazdy, Irish Road Lout

Ah, some small flaws in the free movement of labour unearthed.
Via Johnny Guitar

Principles of Economics Explained in 5 mins 20 seconds

Now I'm Really Apprehensive...

...I've just listened to the BBC One O'Clock News on the radio. Robert Peston sounds like he's coming down with some sort of a bug.

& we all know the old economic adage, don't we? "When Robert Peston sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold."

"Bleed the World."

Another Roll of the Dice

It's not a photoshopped illustration: it is - or possibly was, as I doubt it is still in production - a real game, invented by a leftie academic in New York. Once upon a time I owned a copy. As a game it was basically dreadful once you got passed the initial fun of learning the rules and hoping to land on a confrontation square. But I've always had a soft spot for it because of its involvement in a true story I've been telling for 30 years now.

My girlfriend in the mid 1970s came from Oxford - her Dad was a shop steward in the car plant at Cowley. For some reason or other I left my copy of Class Struggle at her parents house. But they were moving. Their buyers had some hitch in their chain, so my girlfriend's parents ended up taking out a bridging loan, moving to their new home and still owning their old house round the corner . Furniture was thus moved in bits and pieces over several weeks rather than all in one go.

Then, to add to their property woes, the old house got squatted. My girlfriend's father, the shop steward, discovered this one Sunday morning when he went round to get some furniture to find a group of leery squatters sitting in what had been his living room playing Class Struggle. An entertaining conversation ensued.......

Why do I mention this? Well I've just discovered (via) there is an equivalent for our own benighted decade: War on Terror,the board game. I can only hope Al-Quaida don't do squatting...

Dilbert Does Banks

Middle America stirs?

Er, could I just do the paper sale instead?

The British ultra-Left tend to confine themselves to head-banging targets involving absurdly unrealistic numbers of paper sales. Not so their Japanese comrades who are clearly made of sterner stuff.

Shown here are the "Japan Revolutionary Communist League Revolutionary Marxist Faction" steaming towards the USS George Washington in Yokosuka harbour on Sept. 25th.

Note to editors: it is lazy and possibly racist to make any reference at all, even in jest, to kamikaze practices.

The correct term is Kaiten.

The Global War on Terror Continues on All Fronts

Everyone’s favourite anti-mullah has provided the cow’s arse as the target; the banjo wielders of the Left line up here, here and, most entertainingly of all, here, to do their pre-ordained duty.

But they all concentrate on the Obama angle. They slide over the breath-taking assertion that Bush's Treasury is, "...about to open the way for sharia law to be imposed upon America’s banking system."

It’s worse than I thought: the Islamofascists control Hank Paulson.Now that's cleared up I'm going to look at the causal factors of the current economic crisis in a completely different light.

Why Bother Blogging?

Because, if I practice really, really, really hard , I might one day to be able to write something a tenth as good as this.

Global Recession Hits in Unexpected Places

Even the Jamaican drug cartels are having to find other work....

Who Guards the Guardians?

"About the Audit Commission

The Audit Commission is an independent watchdog, driving economy, efficiency and effectiveness in local public services to deliver better outcomes for everyone. Our work across local government, health, housing, community safety and fire and rescue services means that we have a unique perspective. We promote value for money for taxpayers, covering the £180 billion spent by 11,000 local public bodies...
Created in 1983, as the world around us evolves, so do we. As most public services continue to improve, we have pioneered ways of targeting our work at public bodies most in need. Working with other regulators, we will continue to reduce the burden of regulation on local public services. However, our primary focus will always be safeguarding the interests of taxpayers and promoting better outcomes for everyone using public services." (emphasis added)

Yeah, right.