For Mad Mel the US election is all about dealing with the ragheads (plus ça change)

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Melanie Phillips's broken record, in The Spectator
The flames of the urban uprisings in France, of the train bombings in Madrid, of the subway blasts in London and the school massacre in Beslan are only handwriting on the wall. The OPEC aggression against the US economy, the formation of gas cartels by Iran, Qatar and Venezuela with the enticement to Russia to join; all that are just ominous signs of what is ahead... The penetration of our systems, including educational, legal, bureaucratic, technological, defense and security by the Jihadists is ongoing and is projected to expand...
It's called monomania, dear.


'The Mockery of Manuel'

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‘Brandgate’: turning crudity into a crisis
With the media masturbation quickening its stroke, another 1,500 people also decided, over a week later, that they, too, were offended enough to complain. By Wednesday morning, a further 16,500 people found themselves vexed after the fact. These days, it seems, one doesn’t have to have found something offensive at the time it was said in order to have been offended by it later; you don’t even have to have heard the broadcast in question – simply being offended on behalf of another (in this case Sachs and his granddaughter) is enough.

If they keep this up, generations yet to be born will still be jamming the Ofcom switchboard, demanding the posthumous prosecution of Wally Woss and Shagged Brandy. All too aware of the historical import of The Mockery of Manuel, the BBC has even created a ‘timeline’ of the incident on its news website, a move usually reserved for the little things in life, like wars and recessions.

Maxing out on Pallin

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Best of the ’08 Campaign V: Northern exposure
Were it not for the determination and fearlessness of Max Blumenthal, we would now stand one week before the election largely ignorant of Palin’s Christianist political theology. His work was invaluable, but it has been under-exposed and under-appreciated.

Here is an essential library of Blumenthal’s work on Palin. Is Sarah Palin a “whack job”? Watch the clips, particularly those of her speaking in her own church, and call it for yourself.

“The Witch Hunter Anoints Sarah Palin”

“In the Land of Queen Esther: The YouTube Version”

“New Footage from Inside Palin’s Church”

Sarah Palin Discusses “Master’s Commissions”

“Did the Palin Administration Exclude Blacks?”

“Meet Sarah Palin’s Radical Right-Wing Pals”


Blood and Gore (Vidal)

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John McCain in the Echo Chamber
Mr. McCain seems to be in the terminal throes of a self-love that causes him to regard himself as a great American hero. From time to time, he likes to shout at us, "I have fought in many, many wars," and, "I have won many of them," but he has, so far, never told us which were the ones that he has actually won, since every war that he has graced with his samurai presence seems to have been thoroughly lost by the United States. Consistency is all-important to the born loser as well as to the committed liar.

So what little fame he has rests on the fact that he was taken a prisoner of war by the Vietnamese—hardly a recommendation for the leadership of the "free world"—and thus aware of the meagerness of his own curriculum vitae, for his vice presidential choice he then turned radically, in the age of the awakening to power of women, to an Alaskan politician; a giggly Piltdown princess out of pre-history.

What a writer!


The oldest (human) organ in the world

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Meet the Man With a 123-Year-Old Cornea
An 80-year-old Norwegian man named Bernt Aune "had a cornea transplanted into his right eye in 1958, from a man born in June 1885. At the time it was expected to work for only 5 years," reports a New Scientist blog, which also wonders if the antique eye might only see in black and white. The cornea is still kicking 50 years later, making it the oldest functioning organ around.

Doh!

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George Monbiot: How these gibbering numbskulls came to dominate Washington
Like most people on my side of the Atlantic, I have for many years been mystified by American politics. The US has the world's best universities and attracts the world's finest minds. It dominates discoveries in science and medicine. Its wealth and power depend on the application of knowledge. Yet, uniquely among the developed nations (with the possible exception of Australia), learning is a grave political disadvantage.

You cannot be serious

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Brain Makes Tennis Call Error More Likely
The eyes often don’t have it. Tennis referees, for example, sometimes mess up when calling a ball in or out. And a new study finds that refs are much more likely to make a mistake by calling a good ball out than by calling a bad ball in.

It takes at least a tenth of a second for us to become aware of an image striking the retina. So we all have to construct our perception of moving objects. And the way the brain works, we consistently think something has gone slightly further than it really has. It’s not surprising then that we misjudge the position of hundred-mile-an-hour tennis balls.

Education, education, education.

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No 'right to education' for Palestinians

The right to education is a fundamental human right - one not often honoured in the occupied Palestinian Territories, where thousands of students are blockaded by the Israeli authorities who refuse them the right to freedom of movement.

Rami Abdu, who last month succeeded in crossing the Rafah border to take up his PhD in finance at Manchester Metropolitan University, is one such victim. "I got a full scholarship to Manchester one and a half years ago. I tried to cross the border four times and I sent messages to human rights groups, but like many students I was unsuccessful.

"As the offer was only valid for a short period, I lost my scholarship. I reapplied to Manchester amongst other universities this year and after waiting for four days without sleeping at the border, I have become one of the lucky ones able to take up my place in England...

...Israeli prime minister-elect Tzipi Livni - foreign minister under Ehud Olmert - summed up Israel's official position in a letter on July 7: "The policy of not permitting exit abroad for students from Gaza is part of the Security Cabinet decision from October 19, 2007 which defined Gaza as a hostile entity and placed restrictions on the borders for passage of goods and movement of people... except for humanitarian cases." Israel declared Gaza a "hostile entity" after they failed to overthrow the elected government in an attempted coup, assisted by US-trained Fatah fighters during summer 2007.

Doing OK, old sport.

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Trim the fat and cut the crap. Tough times demand an austerity Olympics
Brown was vociferous in attacking City bonuses. What about his Olympics gravy train? At the last count there were 200 officials in the Olympic Development Authority. The lowest-paid member of its management team is on £243,000, and the highest, David Higgins, £624,000.

They are apparently not up to the job and need a consultancy firm, CLM, with a further 300 staff, to help manage the project, at an astonishing fee of £400m over four years. This firm had the effrontery last year to charge (the taxpayer) a further £10m in staff bonuses on a project that has tripled in expense.

A quite separate body is the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, whose head is paid £557,000 and whose members get a reported £1,000 just for attending a meeting. How can Brown insult City bankers when allowing this sort of greed to continue?