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"MAJOR BUSH ADMINISTRATION PERSON"

Would that be a "clippie"?

POOLED DIFFERENCES

I cannot help feeling the Americans are trying to win back some of the money they paid the Sunnis to be on their side.

Western affront to Eastern sensibilities is imprinted in their collective psyche over many generations. As Sadam delighted in pointing out, they had high culture, high civilisation and scholarship, long before we devised our disastrous industrial-based variety. I am frequently at my most friendly to those I find anathema. I sustain myself in the knowledge that the situation is TEMPORARY. Does the Koran have anything to say about Pool-playing Infidels?

I suppose playing pool is infinitely better than taking pot shots at each other. Just makes me wonder why we then still have our troops in Iraq?
Expensive game of pool!! Hope the MOD has given our troops the right kind of cue?

"We are all middle class now."
John Prescott

"Middle-class professionals patronise..."
Hazel Blears

The problem is, in the not too distant past (i.e. before Trots in disguise took control of the government) in the days when sensible people believed that higher education wasn't a money making business but the selection and grooming of innate disposition for the top 5 or 10 percentage of the bell curve, people used to turn to professionals because they trusted they knew better, i.e they were better educated.

Now any such presumption is allegedly 'patronising'. Now, people who demonstrably don't know what they're talking about have to be listened to with respect.

I guess Hazel thinks it worked for her?

They TALK themselves into believing it. The really scary thing is that as the elite is winnowed through dysgenic and differential fertility (i.e. by sending too many females into higher education and the workplace) the numbers available to staff much needed professional services and infrastructure are reduced, which in turn reduces professional standards...which in turn....

And so, it seems to me, we get this self-fulfilling prophesy of New Labour (and before them, blue Neoconservative) anarchists.

Forgive me if you think I'm being 'patronising'.

CDS shrink 12% as banks tear up contracts. Other derivatives increased by 22% to 464 trillion. So the freight train is still speeding down the tracks.

Church calls no regulation free marketeers as 'fundamentalists'.

There is no doubt there is a fundamentalist 'insurgency' opposed to any regulation.

Sound money depends on sound financial institutions. That will never happen till there is the 'right regualtion' [neither heavy nor light] andeffective oversight of those regulations.

One of the regulations should be forbbiding any financial institution from giving political donations as in fannie and freddie. it just corrupts the system of oversight.

'Will there be a bailout deal and what would the terms be?'

The FT carried this proposal from Charlie Calomiris - which has won support from
Willem Buiter.

It involves both public and private sector sharing risk instead of just being the US
taxpayer issuing the large blank cheque.



Calomiris is a banking historian and he was an advisor to John McCain's 1999-2000 Presidential Campaign.

NB He also played bouzouki on street corners in Washington when at the IMF
but reportedly did not make much cash!

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With the Middle East Peace Process being so important to global stability how come Tony Blair is not responding to Aid agency criticisms?

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#5 bookhimdano

Well said. That seems to me to be a very cogent and important argument.

#5

I agree with you and specifically on -

"One of the regulations should be forbbiding any financial institution from giving political donations as in fannie and freddie. it just corrupts the system of oversight."

But I would go further and say only voters (citizens) should be able to give political donations and further more that should be restricted to $50, stop the rich from buying democracy !

What has happened to the political funding reform debate in the UK ?

Did it get too public a debate for the main parties comfort zones ?

Look forward to seeing the Iraq film tonight, has the surge worked ?

If it has, I would still like to see some Coalition Troops maintain a few bridge heads there for at lest a general election or three, just incase one side decides to stay in power longer than the Iraqi constitution allows for.

Plus that part of the world is very volatile and Iraq will need protection and help training it's defense forces still for awhile yet.

Nation building takes along time !

Apparenly Labour activists in Glenrothes have been told to gear up for a byelection on November 6 - two days after the US
electorate goes to the polls. Brown may
be hoping for an Obama bounce in Fife?

Steve-London,
Yes the surge worked, but "they will be back" as soon as we leave.

Bridgeheads- that has connotations of the film a "Bridge too Far" and means we will expect trouble for an infinite time, 3 elections by 2025 on your worst prediction.
Yes they will try to stay in power for longer and so----- we stay a little bit longer with the possibility of never ending fighting.

How do I know all this? Well a bloke called Steve-London writes "that part of the World is very volatile". You are telling me so unless and until the Iraqis et al stop being "volatile" then our forces will be there for another 100 years war.

Nation building does take a long time but by then if Mr.Brown in America has anything to do with it, we will be broke and even counting our bullets.
Save the last one for me!!!

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Jeremy's supporting a charity called ByteNight - a charity for the homeless children who have fled from abusive homes.

The charity is raising money, either by donations or by sponsoring someone to sleep rough for a night on October 3rd 2008.

LOLLIPOP LADY (#4)

Hazel Blears' irrepressible 'Good Ship Lollypop' routine, is a marker for the maturity of those chosen by political parties to do THEIR bidding in OUR name.

Gordon Brown's finger nails are another.

Then there is the 'meme' of the 'Blair Glottal' which has spread inversely proportionately to marbles possessed. Hence the Milibands (more D than Limited Ed) and Hilary Benn (funny name funny guy) are persistent exponents.

Remember Cleavage Kate at the dispatch box?

Watching these ciphers is like interviewing job hopefuls. Your heart sinks and you know you must get another lot in. SPOIL PARTY GAMES.

FURTHER TO #17 - THE FREUDIAN SMILE

Re the Brown psyche aka neediness.
One of the usual suspect interrogators of TV prefaced a question to Brown with: 'You are famously' (the man who said no boom and bust - or similar). The moment that FAMOUS fell on the air, a reflex GENUINE SMILE OF DELIGHT, lit the face of Dismal Jimmie Brown, as if the chapel bells had all started ringing, just for him. In my boys' book of Freud - very telling.