LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Sunday 6th January 2008

US President: Who should I vote for?

Not that I have a vote, of course, but skipping past that… Via Doctorvee comes a quiz which identifies Democrat Mike Gravel (who he? 77-year-old former senator for Alaska apparently) as my best pick for US President: 77% Mike Gravel 75% Dennis Kucinich 74% Bill Richardson 73% Barack Obama 73% Chris Dodd 69% Hillary Clinton 68% John Edwards 67% Joe Biden 45% Rudy Giuliani 41% Ron Paul 40% John McCain 33% Mitt Romney 31% Mike Huckabee 25% Tom Tancredo 19% Fred Thompson 2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz Obama comes out top of the big hitters, with all of the Republicans ...

Attention

Spotted in King’s Cross St Pancras: Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, a sign marked "ATTENTION" in bright red lettering, warning you not to become distracted. Share This

BritBlog Roundup 151

The roundup visits Amused Cynicism for the first time (though it has displayed that quality before).

How will the Lib Dems do in the South West at the next election?

Sean Fear has an article on politicalbetting.com looking at the likely results in this vital (for us, at least) region at the next general election. He pays particular attention to the impact of constituency boundary changes.

Strangelove: Time for the Rest of Your Life

I am aware that most of my Sunday video choices have fallen into the oldies but goldies category. So here is one from as recently as the 1990s. There is an entry on Strangelove and some links on Wikipedia.

There's something rotten in the state of Pakistan

Shouldn't we all be concerned with what is going on in Pakistan if their government does not understand the difference between a bump on the head and a bullet hole ?

Proving that even bad publicity can be good sometimes

I am personally not a believer in the old adage that "All publicity is good publicity". For example, I cannot see how the headlines "Leading Tory in Rent-Boy shock" could possibly be good news for the Tories or how "Tesco admit they are Bastards" would make people rush through their doors. Just ask Gerald Ratner and I am sure he would agree that the publicity he received for his statement about his cheap jewellery in the Ratners stores he ran didn't exactly do him or his firm a lot of good. However, if you look at today's music chart you ...

Liverpool show lack of love for football

Most unbiased fans would have been hoping for a Luton victory over Liverpool this afternoon in the FA Cup. But for many real fans, there was another reason to see the multi millionaire foreign owned premiership club be brought down to earth, and that was their failure to help Luton Town out of their financial predicament. Luton are currently in administration and, if the rumours are to be believed, had they not qualified for the third round and got such a plum tie and the Sky TV cameras there, they may well have been out of business by today. So ...

In tabloid land, only slim women wear pyjamas

Having stumbled on Marks and Spencer's "anti-MRSA" pyjamas whilst out shopping for a new collar yesterday, I've been scouring the internet to see what the story is behind them. To be fair - there does appear to be some serious science, and if a relative of mine was whisked off to Walthamstow Dog Hospital for an operation, I might be tempted to buy the four-legged version (in fetching Burberry) to help keep them safe from disease. Whilst on my internet searches, I discovered, surprise surprise, that all the tabloid newspaper articles on the subject I could find which had a ...

George Galloway to 'Stand for the Greater London Assembly'?

I read news that the flamboyant George Galloway is seriously considering not only standing for the GLA, but to head up the list for the elections due to be held on May 1. He believes that the 'progressive swath of the population in London, deserves representation' Apparently, GG is in discussions with civil rights campaigners, and Latin American acitivists, and those from the 'traditional left', to stand on a 'progressive list for the GLA' I suppose that given he has declared that he will not be contesting Bethnal Green and Bow, at the next general election, and instead standing in ...

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #46

Happy New Year! And welcome to the 46th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (30th December, 2007, to 5th January, 2008), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed In the first week of 2008, these were the [...]

Where have Labour supporters gone online?

Interesting (and good!) to see that my piece about Prime Minister's Questions over on Liberal Democrat Voice has generated quite a lot of comments - and, despite my general scepticism about the quality of comments on many political blogs, a good quality debate too. Several Tories - hello Justin! hello Roger! - have joined in too, but no-one it seems from Labour. Curious that. I could understand only getting comments from Lib Dems on a Lib Dem site, but getting comments from Lib Dems, Tories and those of no apparent political party - but no obviously Labour comments - seems ...

A lesson in pots and kettles from the Muslim Council of Britain

The Bishop of Rochester has made some outspoken, but I am sure heartfelt, statements today about the attempt by certain islamic groups to radicalise and impose an 'Islamic' character on certain areas", for example, by amplifying the call to prayer from mosques. You might imagine, given the elevated status he holds in the country that the Muslim Council of Britain might have taken on board his concerns and tried to address them. But no, instead they choose to attack him and make out that the Bishop is simply scaremongering. Perhaps the Bishop is not 100% correct. but should the MCB ...

Enfield Kicks off 2008

Enfield LibDems kicked off the political New Year this afternoon, with an ‘At Home’ hosted by the new Chair, Paul D Smith and his wife Simma. This was deliberately not a fundraising affair, nor were there any speakers. Instead, the idea was that local members could get to know each other better, socialise over a [...]

The Truth Shall See Ye Fret

Pratchett not included in "Liberal Voice of the Year" poll.

Visiting Zachary

This afternoon Annemarie and I visited Zachary Ian Langston Holmes, and his parents Faye and Ian. Apart from being a bit grumpy this afternoon he is a lovely little boy.

Nick Clegg finalises his team of Shadow Ministers

From the party’s news release today: Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg today completed his reshuffle by announcing the full list of Shadow Ministers. Commenting Nick Clegg said: “I am delighted to complete my reshuffle. This is a very strong team and I am looking forward to working with them to take the Liberal Democrat message to the country.”

PPP getting concerned over ability to form government

It looks as if the PPP is now wooing other parties as the outcome of the election still seems uncertain. There are 65 PPP candidates which have yet to be approved by the Election Commission. Three PPP Candidates have been given Red Cards which means that they are disqualified from running in the by-election which [...]

Vote on the Liberal Voice of 2007

Lib Dem Voice’s poll for Liberal Voice of 2007 opens today. We’re asking you to vote on who your favourite public champion for liberal values in Britain was over the last year. What ‘liberal’ means is up to you to decide in the vote. There’s a twist to the contest, too. While we are all likely [...]

The UK Carbon Footprint Project via Google

Just wanted to pint out another good thing from Google. Not the first to do this by any stretch, but their new UK Carbon Footprint Project is a really quick and easy way to calculate your carbon footprint, and has some good, if rather basic, suggested actions. Tell all your friends! Blogged with FlockTags: google, environment, green politics

Identity cards: another good reason to oppose them

{ID cards button} Today's news that the Government lost a record number of pieces of personal data in 2007 is another good reason to oppose their plans for identity cards. (The Telegraph has more details on these figures, released today by Nick Clegg.) There are many problems with Labour's scheme (such as the huge cost - the money would be far better spent on other ways of fighting crime which we know would work, unlike a huge new IT project - which may well fail!) - but one of them is the risk to our own privacy and safety from ...

Snowmen in Thailand

I could not resist this opportunity to get a picture of Snowmen on my blog. On arrival at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok we were surprised to see so many Snowman in different guises. Not something we recall seeing on previous visits at this time of year. Mind you it has taken three days to find [...]

Andrew Olmsted RIP

Andrew Olmsted, an American soldier who died in Iraq, has posted a message that he asked to be posted on his death. Let his eloquence in death by a lesson for us in life.

Mapping political views

Over on Facebook everybody is completing the Political Compass application. Unfortunately, it appears very much designed for an American political market and as such it is difficult to relate to the British situation. The red dot is where I sit on the compass: Economic Left/Right: -5.62 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.05 James Graham has drawn our attention to another test put together by the late Chris Lightfoot, which better reflects our circumstances. My results are below: Left/Right: -5.9240 (-0.3566) Pragmatism: +0.2284 (+0.0137) There is a fuller explanation here. Take the test yourself here.

Just to recap - summed up

Nick Clegg, quoted in the Telegraph, sums up the listing in my last post very neatly. 37,000,000, that's 37,000,000, yes, I said 37,000,000 pieces of private and personal data confidential to people in this country, lost last year. ID card, anyone?

Twelfth Night / Xmas tree recycling

Well, it's Twelfth Night, and traditionally we're supposed to be taking our Christmas trimmings down. So what can we do with our real Xmas trees? Can we recycle them? The answer is yes. South Glos Council tells us: "Provided they are not too big, then Christmas Trees may be chopped up and put into your green bin" "Branches or the trunk should be no more than 4 inches in diameter. Please make sure that the lid closes and that all decorations have been removed" "If your tree is too big then it can be taken to your nearest SORT IT!* ...

Prime Minister patronises public sector...again

Gordon Brown has this morning urged MPs to limit their pay rises to 2%. This is a highly patronising and insulting move intended to placate public sector workers...I would have advised him straight away that this move will not work. My prediction is that this is a token gesture which he can overturn at any moment as the Senior Salaries Pay Board has recommended a 2.8% rise for MPs. It only makes him look even more mean. It's a token gesture. It patronises the police, nurses, doctors and local government workers who have taken a pay cut and has further ...

Ad of the Week: Kerry's Lifetime and Heart

This week's Ad of the Week returns to Bush vs. Kerry, 2004; to the Kerry ads that get totally slated in the first pages of Drew Westen's The Political Brain. Is Westen right? What should Kerry have done? Kerry launched his campaign with two very similar ads; here's "Lifetime"; and here's "Heart", which is the version Westen was looking at. Westen thinks Kerry lost it after 10 seconds, at the moment the script says "went to college at Yale". He also criticises the ads for mixed messages: we start out with heroism. Then we get Kerry doing things in the ...

My First Post on the 2012 American Presidential Election

It might be carried out on a more even basis: "A Stanford University computer scientist named John Koza has formulated a compelling and pragmatic alternative to the Electoral College. It’s called National Popular Vote (NPV), and has been hailed as “ingenious” by two New York Times editorials. In April, Maryland became the first state to pass it into law. And several other states, including

Old Jokes Revisited No. 978

Because some people haven’t heard this one. Barack Hussein Obama is one of the current front runners for the US Democrat presidency nomination, but there’s one small problem: his name. Barack - Sounds like "Iraq". Hussein - As in Saddam. Obama - One letter away from Osama. This man is the war on terror. He’s the one George W. [...]

Nick Clegg reveals loss of 37 million pieces of personal data

It is very good indeed to see Nick Clegg's continued presence in the media. This story links back, again, to Nick's call for ID cards to be scrapped. The Telegraph reports: A record 37 million items of personal data went missing last year, new research reveals.Most of the data was lost by government officials but councils, NHS trusts, banks, insurance companies and chain stores also mislaid or

Gordon Brown: worrying about the environment is short-termist

Well, it’s a novel argument. But perhaps not terribly convincing. The Observer today trails moves from Gordon Brown to bring in more nuclear power, build in areas that conservationists won’t like and expand Britain’s airports. His argument? That opposing such policies for environmental reasons linked to the planet’s long-term future is, er…, short-termist and opportunistic.

US election news

1. Romney has won the very low profile Wyoming caucuses. The Democrat contest is at a latter date. The Republican contest was brought forward to between Iowa and New Hampshire in an attempt to get more attention paid to Wyoming. Although Wyoming got a deluge of direct mail from Republican candidates, there were hardly any [...]

And so it begins, Obama destroys the myth that white people will not vote for a black man

I've always been a backer of Barack Obama, ever since I saw his speech at the democratic convention in 2004 I was captured. He was moving, inspiring and energetic and although I know good speech making is not a good reason for supporting politicians in my rather vain and callous way I fell in love with Obama. I would watch every interview he did, I visited his website everyday and generally believed there was nothing that could stop such an inspiring and yet so down to earth man. He strangely seemed to resemble Lincoln in background and stature yet had ...

The Good, the Bad and the Videos

I decided to take a bit of time off this evening from politics and casework to catch up with some of my video editing. I got back from Kenya 3 weeks ago (before the violence flared up). I edited 6 videos from the safari I went on to Kimana, in the shado of Mount Kilimanjaro. These are now up on YouTube and the links are below if anyone wants to see them. I've also added in a couple of links to

Sunday 6th January 2008

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