[offending people] the mc cain letterman way

While Letterman fumed:

"Here's how it works: you don't come to see me? You don't come to see me? Well, we might not see you on Inauguration Day."

... McCain felt he was doing vital stuff, dealing with the crisis. I'd like to know what he was actually doing and with whom he was negotiating. Did the SPPNA* or S. 853 come up in his discussions at all? Now, as for Obama and his non-admittance, despite this link, does his wife influence him at all?

* Left wing rebuttal of the concept

[top 100] conservative blogs

For someone who railed against the big boys and demanded justice for the little blogger in 2006, do you think I've sold my soul by being particularly pleased by this list?

I do feel there is hypocrisy in some people's version of the tall poppy syndrome - that if someone gets somewhere, then they're criticised for enjoying that. With a straight face, I say that it was never to keep new bloggers mediocre that Blogpower was set up - it was to help them upwards.

Ditto Bloghounds now. Good luck to all on this list.

H/T Steve Green

Total Politics

[swanwick] don't you want to stay home

Don't know how many of these have been affected by the Swanwick computer downtime:

BAA, Gatwick Airport, Stansted Airport, Luton Airport, Bristol International, Heathrow Airport, Southampton Airport

... and it's not the first time, is it? Tell you honestly, there are currently five things this blogger has zero desire to do:

1 Travel by plane;

2 Travel by train, bus or car to get there;

3 Be unemployed;

4 Make love;

5 Get sick.

Maybe one or two of those delights will return with time.

[day in the life] mustn't jinx it

All right, so today hasn't been a bad day [so far]. Advances were made and this in itself is causing me anxiety. It's certainly a long journey getting re-established over here and there are factors seriously militating against and threatening to scupper the whole thing but the advances currently have their noses in front.

Tomorrow will tell.

How was your day today? If you can see your way clear, I'd like to know about it. Did you axe murder anyone or make a killing on the markets or meet the girl/man of your dreams? Or were you just glad to get out of it alive?

[favourite marques] in no particular order

What are your five current [in the last five years] favourite models? You can't include collectibles like Austin Healeys or the old Bristols in the list.



The Holden Commodore, which is now making inroads into the American market, is a large engined sub-compact designed for long haul trips in Australia.


Needs no introduction - the Aston Martin Vanquish has to be the sexiest and most menacing thing on four wheels.


My personal choice if I ever get back to some sort of financial position - the BMW Mini is a great car for the UK.


The Miata is a bit aged now but in its soft top form is one of the niftiest around. I've always liked all but its front nose styling.


If I still had a family, this or the Volvo Estate would be the choice - usually wagons are ugly but in this case, the A6 is better in Estate form.

So there are my five. What re yours?

[macintosh] even used to help pcs

I'm constantly being told that the Mac is a toy and that no businesses bother with them and yet this story about the presenters of the "I'm a PC" ad all turn out to be Mac users and the ads for Microsoft were even partly made on Macs:

The new ads are a direct attack on Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads, which portray the Mac as cool and intuitive and the PC as boring and clunky. Microsoft has ignored Apple's ads at its peril, allowing the Mac maker to own the narrative and frame the PC's image. Now the company is looking to use Apple's stereotype to its advantage.

Microsoft hurriedly scrubbed out the data references to Macintosh but the story still got out. Hey, there's all the proof you need, methinks. Once you've used a Mac and it's fitted itself to your personality, which it can do, it's difficult to go back to a PC.