Who'd have thunk it?

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City bonuses helped cause banks crisis, says CBI chief
The director general of the CBI yesterday singled out the bonus culture that has turned thousands of bankers into millionaires as one of the main causes of the financial problems now engulfing the world's banks. Richard Lambert said the bonuses rewarded success but did not penalise failure, and that if bankers had been staking their own capital they might not have taken such big risks...If it had been their own equity at risk, things might have played out differently." The bonus culture has turned thousands of relatively mediocre performers in the banking industry into multi-millionaires, while top performers have earned vast sums. The head of Barclays investment banking, Bob Diamond, was paid £36m last year even though Barclays took a £1.6bn hit from the US sub-prime crisis.


Is it 'cause he's Black?..Well, yes, actually.

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Yes it's politically incorrect but race matters
The 2008 US election has all the makings of a Greek tragedy, in which noble heroes and heroines are forced to follow a course to catastrophe, divinely preordained as punishment for sins and blunders committed by their forefathers in the dim and distant past. In acting out their ineluctable doom, the eloquent protagonists do not just destroy themselves but also their cities, their nations and even their entire civilisations. If this description sounds too grandiose, consider yesterday's results from the Pennsylvania primary. The outcome seemed to be precisely calibrated by the gods to maximise the agony of the Democrats. It gave Hillary Clinton just the support she needed to stay firmly in contention, but not quite enough to turn the tide in her favour. Worse still, this result underlined the fear that senior Democrats have long been aware of, but have never dared to express in public: America may not yet be ready to elect a black President.
The most shocking revelation from polls in the US is that millions of Clinton supporters would either not bother voting or would actually vote for McCain rather than vote for Obama.

Double Standards

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Media Lens
The media reported last week that at least 22 people, including five Palestinian children, had been killed during Israeli ‘incursions’ into Gaza. The Israeli military ‘operations’ were ‘sparked’ by a Hamas ambush that had left three Israeli soldiers dead. Reporting followed the usual script that Israel’s state-of-the-art weaponry is deployed as ‘retaliation’ for ‘militant’ Palestinian attacks.

The latest deaths followed the killing in early March of over 120 Palestinians under a massive Israeli assault on Gaza.  One of last week’s dead was a Reuters cameraman, a 23-year-old Palestinian, killed by a shell fired from an Israeli tank he was filming. Few details emerged of the other numerous victims of Israeli violence.


Talking Bollocks In A Mosque

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Brendan O'Neill can be an arse but when he's right you just have to acknowledge it:

It’s official: it is now a crime to be arrogant
There was a time when ‘inciting terrorism’ would have meant convincing and cajoling an individual or a group of individuals to commit a terrorist atrocity. And there was a time when ‘fundraising for terrorists’ would have meant, well, raising funds for terrorists: that is, collecting money and handing it over to a terrorist group for the purposes of buying weaponry, semtex, flying lessons or some other item or thing likely to be useful in the commission or execution of an act of terrorism.

Not any more. In the trial of Izzadeen and his accomplices, there was not a jot of evidence that anyone had been incited to terrorism by their words, or indeed that their words had been intended as a direct form of incitement, or that Izzadeen, his mates or anyone else who listened to their cranky sermons had sent money to terrorist training camps in Iraq. No, Izzadeen was found guilty and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on the basis of a rambling, incoherent 11-hour ‘protest sermon’ he gave at Regents Park Mosque in November 2004. During the sermon, Izzadeen, who was surrounded by a tiny group of like-minded losers, slated the actions of the American and British armies in Iraq and praised 9/11.


Relentless

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Truthdig - Clinton Threatens to ‘Obliterate’ Iran
How proud the Clintonistas must be. They have learned how to rival what Hillary once termed the “vast right-wing conspiracy” in the effort to destroy a viable Democratic leader who dares to stand in the way of their ambitions. The tactics used to kneecap Barack Obama are the same as had been turned on Bill Clinton in earlier times, from radical-baiting associates to challenging his resolve in protecting the nation from foreign enemies. Sen. Clinton’s eminently sensible and centrist—to a fault—opponent is now viewed as weak and even vaguely unpatriotic because he is thoughtful. Neither Karl Rove nor Dick Morris could have done a better job.


Party pooper

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Low-level party funding 'a myth'
Political parties have benefited from "huge and ever continuing growth" in hidden state subsidies, says a study. It says parties already receive about £1.75bn of taxpayers' money every four years, including indirect subsidies like expenses and free TV ads. Its author, Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, said it was a "myth" that financial aid to political parties was low.

Dr Pinto-Duschinsky, a political finance expert at Brunel University, calculated the total cost of political parties to the taxpayer over a four-year electoral cycle, in a report for the Policy Exchange think tank. He said his £1.75bn figure was an under-estimate, as costs grew all the time and he had not included benefits like free premises, use of official cars and telephones.


Let's hope Hillary gets 'obliterated' first.

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Clinton Would ‘Obliterate’ Iran
Democratic presidential Hillary Clinton has threatened to “obliterate” Iran if it launches a nuclear attack against Israel as she fights for her own political survival. 0422 07 “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Senator Clinton told ABC News, asked what she would do as president were Iran to launch a nuclear attack on Israel.”In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”
What the interviewer failed to ask was what she would do if Israel (which already has a massive nuclear capability) were to launch a nuclear attack on Iran. I think we know the answer.

Madness averted

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Baggy Pants Bill Blocked in Louisiana
BATON ROUGE; A state Senate panel rejected a bill on Tuesday that would make it a crime to wear one's pants too low, even as Cajun-country towns around Louisiana have been banning saggy pants from their streets. Sen. Derrick Shepherd's bill would have made it illegal to wear, in public, clothing that "intentionally exposes undergarments or intentionally exposes any portion of the pubic hair, cleft of the buttocks or genitals." Violators would have faced a fine of up to $175 and eight days of community service. Exceptions included thong swim suits and clothing worn in fashion shows.


I wonder if a wheelie bin would hold two bodies?

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Father fined for overfilling bin
A father-of-four has been left with a criminal record for overfilling his wheelie bin by four inches. Gareth Corkhill, 26, of Whitehaven, Cumbria, received a £110 fixed penalty notice after Copeland Council staff photographed his raised bin lid. When he refused to pay he was taken to court where magistrates added a further £115 to the fixed penalty.

Copeland Council has defended its actions and pledged to continue to take action against overfilled wheelie bins. Mr Corkhill, said: "First I heard of it was from a neighbour who said someone had taken a picture of my wheelie bin, but I thought nothing of it. Two days later two enforcement officers turn up on my doorstep wearing stab vests, read my rights and then issued me with an on-the-spot fine."