[sheik taj] weeding out the foxes

John Howard - reason to believe he was Australian but apparently not

Victory for logic:

Muslim cleric Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali has declared himself more Australian than Prime Minister John Howard.

Speaking to The Australian newspaper from Istanbul, the mufti also vowed to return to Sydney next week to weed out the "foxes" who had accused him of using donations raised by Australians to support proscribed terror groups in Lebanon, such as Hezbollah.

Yeah, right. Taj the Man is really, really Australian. He's an all round Ozzie cobber, isn't he?

[iran hostage crisis] just wondering

Mr. Eugenides:

Poor old Des Browne. There he was yesterday, in full mea culpa mode, telling all and sundry that he "took full responsibility" for the tawdry decision to allow the 15 sailors to sell their stories; that "the buck stops here".

Wonder how much Des Browne would get in kickbacks from the 15?

[python] an expression for every occasion

The thing with Monty Python was that they really did have an expression for every occasion. See how you go with these:

1] You've just broken your best piece of china, best cup et al, you sit down, rocking back and forth, moaning: "I've ... broken it, I've ... broken it …" Which Python character?

2] You're rejected by a potential lover, social security, the visa office et al, you pause, sigh and deliver: "Yes, well that's the blinkered, philistine pig-ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome, spotty behinds …" Which sketch ?

3] You appear unexpectedly and someone says: "Oh, we weren't expecting you so early today," to which you reply, in a silly, high-pitched voice: "No-body was expecting me so early today." Sketch?

4] Someone mentions he or she is bored and you reply: "For [insert person's name], this was not to be the start of any trail of events which would not, in no time at all, involve him [or her] in neither a tangled knot of suspicion, nor any web of lies, which would, had he [or she] been involved, surely have led him [or her] to no other place than the central criminal court of the Old Bailey!" Who was the insurance company file clerk originally lampooned?

5] Some blogger is writing about a world issue he's worried about and you reply, in the comments section: "I'm so worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow." Song? And which Python sang it?

The essential problem with Pythonizing your speech is that when you and your wife go to buy a mattress, you start asking for the Comfy-down Majorette dog kennel. This can result in the shop assistant putting a bucket over his head.

Don't say you haven't been warned.

Answers: D.P. Gumby, the Architect sketch, the Spanish Inquisition, Ralph Mellish and Terry Jones

[pensive friday] nice surprise last night

Two incidents almost made me quit blogging in the early days, last August.

The first was when I accidentally came upon, I think, The Englishman's sitemeter and it registered 625 unique visitors and 34 in the last hour and it was still lunchtime. Maybe it was Monty Lionheart's - I can't remember.

The second was visiting one American teenager's site and the posts read like a bad rap song. He hadn't even bothered to do anything other than grab the base Minima, he'd been blogging for one month and his visible counter showed he was pulling in about 1200 hits a day.

This was mortifying. The Englishman, at least, was a fine blog.

Chris Dillow, Tim Worstall, Stephen Pollard, Oliver Kamm, Clive Davis, the now entitled Cleanthes [The Select], Euroserf and Johnathan Pearce of Samizdata set me on the right path and this explains my penchant for those sites.

Yes, this is Oliver Kamm of recent fame, who is actually a thorough gentleman and clearly had an agenda for his recent comments.

Then came Blogpower and a new world opened but last night took the biscuit. Helped greatly by the guest bloggers, I've never seen visitors in such numbers as last evening.

Don't know what to add to that really.

[recommended] primitive cossack democracy

Here.

[blogfocus thursday] north america strikes back

The offerings this evening are all North American and the question, for ten points, is: "Who is the Canadian?" Let's start with an enigmatic American, of Italian extraction, who is currently taking a small section of the sphere by storm:

1 Ruthie Zaftig blasts off with one of the major U.S. scandals of the moment:

Evidently this is the new scandal that we're all supposed to latch on to. I shouldn't bite.

Oh, but I will anyway....

Look, Don Imus is a jerk. He's always been a jerk. He makes his living by insulting people. Sure, calling a bunch of black women "nappy-headed hos" was way out of line. But where was the outcry when he called Jews "money-grubbing bastards?"

Why now? Why this nasty, insensitive remark? Even Al Sharpton (Tawana Brawley, anyone?) has jumped on the bandwagon, ensuring that this will turn into a giant circus.

On a similar note, I've been trying for months to put my finger on what bothers me about the media coverage of Sen. Barack Obama and his possible run for the presidency.

Last night I finally figured it out.

He's always referred to as "black." As in, "Sen. Obama could become this nation's first black president." But of course, he's not simply "black." He's biracial-- black and white. But I've only ever heard him referred to as "black." So what is his white mother, who raised him and loved him? Chopped liver?

2 Sisu takes up the baton and adds her take on the matter:

"Seems to me that MSNBC needs to remove a lot more than "MS" from the network to improve its image," writes Michelle Malkin re the cadaverish Don Imus's latest gratuitous trashing of a woman who doesn't please his eye, in this case MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer:

That skank has to spend three hours with makeup in the morning . . . Who's she kidding? . . . Plus, she's dumber than dirt . . . Oh, my God, what a pig.

Who's a pig? 'Can't help but wonder how Deirdre feels about her husband's venomous misogyny. We used to watch "Imus in the Morning" when the old boy was trashing Bill "it depends upon what your definition of is is" Clinton years ago but haven't been tempted since GW moved into the White House.

Presumably, Imus's ratings are still healthy amongst a subset of our fellow Americans (misogyny is universal and can rear its ugly head at any time), since the best the bottom-line guys at MSNBC -- soon to be The NBC News Channel -- can muster in his defense is "We have expressed our displeasure to Don."

3 Lord Nazh, Mr. Consistent and a blogger we're pressurizing to join Blogpower, tackles a sporting conundrum:

When asked, ESPN (and generally anyone that is on this crusade) will tell you that the numbers are that high because the best players get to play. Regardless of race. I totally agree, but why is it that the best players get to play, but the best coaches don't get to coach?

Granted, there are people (and will always be) that are racist and will not look at hiring a minority (in this case, black person; ESPN doesn't really harp about the other minorities much) and that is plain wrong. But if your team just fired it's coach and you KNOW the guy you want (proven winner, hall of famer, whatever) then why should you not hire that guy? If he's not someone that ESPN can talk good about and up it's 'minority hiring in the {sport}' numbers, should that really be a problem?

4 Ariel is testimony to the efficacy of MyBlogLog. I saw her visit, followed her back there to her site and was mightily impressed:

These are strange days, filled with oozing and grapefruits and tiny pieces of grass that fly into my eye and come out hours later in a leak of tears. Days of curling up on the couch under a blanket even though it's sunny out and my favorite time of year. Days of spending five hours in my favorite tea shop and enjoying the waves of people coming and going. Days of wondering what's worse: no answers or bad news.

5 Tea and Margaritas has virtually done the whole house now and here's her latest update:

I have no idea really what I`m doing but hopefully it all turns out in the end. Here are a few steps. If all ends well, I`ll put all the steps together eventually. I used an old tablecloth for the underside in which the cushions will sit on top. Not sure about the fuschia as a small accent. I`m still thinking about accent colours. We need an area rug to match this green and then it`s best to go from there I think as I`d originally planned until these sheets came about on sale...

6 I'm not sure if Charles Robertson wishes to free Jersey or wants a Free Jersey. Either way, he touches on the sub-letting scandal:

The JEP is reporting that the Housing Minister, Terry Le Main, has been hiring retired Police Officers (as "Compliance Officers") to collect evidence of illegal sub-letting of States properties, in advance of "early morning raids"!

The problem, apparently, is that some residents have low declared incomes and so qualify for rent rebate - but are making a little extra through sub-letting. What is not revealed, however, is the cost to us, the Taxpayers.

[OOPS: EGG ON THE FACE, PART 2: People, I'm really losing it here. Why didn't I see the "Housing Minister" and realize that the Jersey here is not American but closer to home. No matter, Charles remains in the Focus, dammit and to hell with accuracy on this occasion! For the evening, Charles can be an Honorary North American.]

7 A quite important blogger, JMB, has the eyes set on a safari and mine are also there:

I would really like to go on Safari to Africa, to Kenya and to Tanzania. I once heard a story about a man who took his wife on a surprise safari for their 25th wedding anniversary. At the time we were a year or so before this and I suggested it to my husband. Since I am the organizer in this family, it never happened. For to have planned it myself, after suggesting it to him, didn't seem right to me. So next month, we will have been married 46 years and I still haven't been. A friend went just last month and said how much she enjoyed it, so I am beginning to consider it again.

8 Jonathan Swift winds up the evening with a highly interesting and highly amusing [to us, not to him] spot of bother he got himself into. I'd dearly like to know what he was supposed to have done wrong in the first place. Apparently there was the threat of litigation:

Some of you were also quite critical of the image that accompanied my unfortunate piece. I thought it was obviously the work of Photoshop, especially since the smoke, which I had some trouble with, was clearly not very realistic, but many of you seem to have been fooled. A number of people also saw something quite lewd in the photograph that I certainly did not intend and am embarrassed even to think about. All that I can say to those who could see something so obscene in something so innocent is that you should get your minds out of the gutter and perhaps get out a little more. I was also surprised that no one questioned a photo that so clearly defied the laws of physics. While evolution and global warming are clearly hoaxes, no one has disproved the laws of physics as far as I know.

And his comment on the Imus affair?

It's really hard to say anything anymore. Don Imus has been suspended for two weeks by CBS and MSNBC for referring to the black women who play on the Rutgers basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." Isn't this is terribly unfair? How was Imus to know that referring to black women as "nappy-headed hos" is now considered offensive?

Sadly, I couldn't run Political Beachgirl, Buckeye Thoughts, Gates of Vienna, Ballpoint Wren and International Will this evening but they're in the pipeline for the near future.

Bye for now.