Saturday, October 13, 2007

More than irritating.

Awarding the Nobel peace prize to Al Gore was an act of political hostility, ironically. Personally I hate such backslapping affairs and would rather recognition were spontaneous- in which case the moronically inclined could whoop it up for Al all by their ownsome. It's the astonishing lack of attention given to their detractors which makes the Nobel committee's decisions so much like a kind of open suicide note to history. Recognise Carter, Annan, Gore, and you're pinning your colours to the mast and inviting a reprisal through public opinion. But so what?

Guess which British broadcaster was busy doing some loud whooping? Yup, that one. Another group whose demise would have me saying, "so what?".

Al Gore seems to think, by the way, that Hillary is unstoppable for 08.














It's true she's been a well-oiled machine of late. However, her almost preternaturally attractive image (seen above) is a bit of a Dorian Gray- someone's bound to find the real picture over time. She's clearly got image consultants that "silky" Edwards would die for- she's just not that attractive and powerful-looking, never has been, and truthfully the falseness there is indicative of her wider flaws: a skin-deep philosophy hiding a neurotic desperation for power.

People will prefer Fred, who is my tip for '08.

And that's the real danger for our Norwegian friends and the Rev. Al Gore as well- vanity will out in the end. Can't wait.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Champion of the blogosphere

No, not Al Gore, who only invented the internet. Damien Thompson, who lays into the old fraud here.

Comment of the day though comes from John B:

"Well, that proves it. The Nobel peace committee is entirely predictable, unlike the earth's climate."

Reason: from Ayaan Hirsi Ali

"reason dictates that you can only progress when you can analyze the circumstances and act accordingly"

Lovely little essay on ConHome by Louise Bagshawe about Gordon and the Conservatives.

We have contributed to Brown’s “Ratner moment” – one week when he totally trashed the careful image he’s built up over ten years, and showed the nation he’s a spinning (Iraq), bottling (Andrew Marr), bogus (“the polls had nothing to do with it”) bog-standard new Labour apparatchik.


One question: wasn't "Gordon Brown" (as we knew him) in fact a figment of Tony Blair's imagination?

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Interesting things noted.

I have noticed recently some action on the Pakistan front. Not the Afghan one, the cricket one. First the retirement of Inzamam ul Haq, the captain. He is 37, apparently, so that's not surprising in a way. Then the banning of Shoab Akhtar for 13 games for allegedly hitting a colleague with a bat.

Two of the most senior players gone in a matter of weeks.

Well, it's been around six months since the death of Bob Woolmer, in circumstances we were assured afterwards - long afterwards - were not suspicious.

Apparently Shoaib hit his fellow player Mohammed Asif on the thigh. Interesting- it's difficult to call that a serious act, since being hit there is not very dangerous and actually not so unusual in the ordinary course of cricket when fielding close to the bat. It's often worse then because the batsman is actually trying to wallop the ball and instead hits the close-in fielder- ouch!

13 games is an awful lot, but then Shoaib is a bit of a bad boy. He has had brushes with drugs for which he was banned for 2 years and then soon after reprieved, and was actually replaced in the Pakistani team just before the World Cup where Pakistan lost to Ireland and Woolmer died.

Shoaib was fined in January for a row with Woolmer. A fight between them had previously been denied.

Btw, in looking into this situation I found out that before he died, Woolmer had started a blog. In it he notes, shortly before the World Cup began "We also hear with pleasure that Sami and Yasir Arafat will replace Shoaib and Asif." With pleasure?

Shoaib is currently being disciplined for hitting Asif, it appears- both men restored to the Pakistani dressing room only to fall out, it would seem. Asif had also- like Shoaib- been found guilty of using the drug nandrolone, and his withdrawal from the Pakistan world cup team was rumoured to be about more than just an injury.

Ah, dressing room politics. It seems that there was just an extraordinary amount of that going on in the Pakistani one prior and subsequent to the death of the cricket coach.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Gordon Morphs

It's really very funny watching Brown trying to imitate Tony Blair in his press conference today. He even dropped a 't' just now- "wha' I want to do" is show my vision etc etc.

Another thing noticed in Gordon Brown's recent presentations: the number of times he mentions some variation of "honest". Blair was master at doing that without over-egging it- managing to plead without ever descending into desperation, pleading before people saw it as necessary and thereby coming off as "sincere".

What is clear is that Brown, having sat back and observed Blair all those years, now does a pretty passable impression of Blair with some vital aspects missing, and some very Brownish tics visible.

Much better when talking about figures than about politics.

 
Google Custom Search