Now there's sunshine, just too late to do anything. Doh !!

keep to the Fen Causeway

Charles Clarke was a dork for stating the obvious that Brown is a hopeless leader.

Brown is being give time to improve his performance till "after the Conference (in october)", "after the Scottish by-election" (sometime before mid-nov), "until Christmas", "until Spring". Because...well just because.

David Milliband has precisely zero support for his leadership bid.

There is no credible alternative (...except Blair).

and last but not least. Whatever it is that David Cameron is doing, it's upsetting someone somewhere cos he's got a lot of critical lines about it. Tories briefing against him already ???

keep to the Fen Causeway

John McCain's choice of Governor Sarah Palin was the last straw. It makes American politics look like a sick comedy. My faith in my native country had already been shaken by other elections and by other wrongs, such as the Iraq war (which I at first supported, to my shame). But the moose-hunting pitbull with lipstick is too much. I have never used my vote in the past, but if I had, I would usually have voted Republican. Today no rational conservative can vote for the Palin and McCain ticket. It makes America an international laughing stock. The fact that there has been a Palin bounce, after her charismatic speech, fills me with dismay.

This has little to do with Palin's views.
[....]
All the same, her selection was a shock. What horrified me was not so much the woman herself, though she is clearly entirely unfit to be vice-president or president. It was McCain's cynical and sudden choice of her.
[....]
Though he didn't know Palin personally, he must have known a few facts about her. He must have known that she compares feebly with previous vice-presidential candidates. Her education is minimal, her real political and managerial experience very slight.
[....]
In short Palin is an ill-educated, inexperienced hypocrite. The Republicans are trying to sell her to the voters as something she isn't, and McCain hardly cares what she is. It's a bad day for my native land.

Am I supposed to do [Murdoch alert] for this ?

keep to the Fen Causeway

Poland claimed first place in the Eurovision Dance Contest, which was held in Scotland on Saturday.

Actor Marcin Mroczek and dancer Edyta Herbus won the votes of watchers throughout the continent with a routine set to Michael Jackson's music.

Russia finished second and Ukraine were third, while hosts UK finished ninth out of 14 competitors.

A television audience of millions watched the 135 minute programme, which came from Glasgow's SECC.

Several Russian ships and 1,000 soldiers will take part in joint naval maneuvers with Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea later this year, exercises likely to increase diplomatic tensions with Washington, a pro-government newspaper reported on Saturday.

I knew it wouldn't be long before our region was dragged into this whole mess.

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne

However, he has always had relatively conservative economic views and provided a cross-party fig-leaf for many of Mrs thatcher's ideas (a sort of Lieberman/Sell Miller figure).

Now however is this

Sunday Times - Frank Field leads calls for curbs on migrants

The leading Labour rebel, Frank Field, has teamed up with senior Tories to demand a cap on the number of immigrants settling in Britain.

[.....]
A former welfare minister under Tony Blair, Field will join Nicholas Soames, the Tory MP, to call for a huge reduction in the numbers of non-European Union workers who settle permanently in Britain. Soames, a former minister under John Major, is a hate figure among many Labour MPs.

Together with the pressure group Migrationwatch, Field and his allies will launch the first cross-party parliamentary immigration group. The move has tacit support from at least one government minister.

Field aims to push Brown to end Britain's open door immigration policy, which he says is costing British jobs and is deeply unpopular with voters.

The open door immigration policy only applies to EU member staes, and Field knows that, so he is lying to make his case. Most immigration to the UK is from the EU and nearly all of the evidence he cites about the social difficulties resulting from immigration came about with the sudden influx of ex-eastern bloc workers from the EU. (A lot of whom have returned home now their own countries are in a good state).

But being allied to Soames and, particularly, MigrationWatch, is worrying because both are extremely hostile to immigration, particularly those of less than lily-white complexion. Especially as he appeared in an episode of the "White Season" on BBC about Enoch Powell's racist 1968 Rivers of Blood" speech stating that "a lot of people are migrating from the united kingdom and the main reason is because they don't like what has happened to the uk".

Again here, although he claims to be talking about all immigrants (after all most non-EU migrants are wasps from S Africa and Australia/NZ with close relatives here). But when you look at his moans and complaints he's really complaining about black african and asian people, the ones who are settled in East London and cause massive resentments because of the general lack of social housing.

A genuinely progresive politician would be making a case for better care of all sections of the community to ease the strains and tensions. But not our Frank. Together with his right wing demagogue chums they want all immigrants stopped.

Tho he hasn't called for us to leave the EU yet (migration watch have)

keep to the Fen Causeway

(it's just 13 seconds)

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

There are 2 loose wires that I don´t know where they hook to, so what do I do now?  :-D

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. --Charu Saxena.

Despite a delay by the U.S. Congress in voting on the Colombia free trade agreement, U.S. trade with the South American country is growing strongly.  In fact, Colombia is the Latin American country that is seeing the strongest growth in trade with the United States, according to a Latin Business Chronicle analysis of trade data from the US Census Bureau for the first half of the year.

Meanwhile, Peru is the fastest-growing market in Latin America for U.S. goods, while Ecuador is the fastest-growing Latin American exporter to the United States. And Venezuela is again the second-largest U.S. trading partner in Latin America after losing that position last year to Brazil.

PICKING UP
All in all, U.S. trade with Latin America reached $318.9 billion in the first half of 2008, an increase of 19.7 percent from the same period last year, according to the Latin Business Chronicle analysis. That means U.S. trade with the region is picking up. By comparison, total trade last year only grew by 6.2 percent. ...

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne