Owner: A View from Middle England by Arden Forester URL:http://ardenforester.blogspot.com Join Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 07:00:34 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: A Conservative-minded Midlander from the Forest of Arden, with a slight libertarian streak in his make-up. For positive Transatlantic co-operation - backing Ron Paul's Revolution and watching events. Site statistics:Click here
Hospital stay 2008-03-16 11:35:20 Tomorrow I go into hospital for what's described as a routine operation on my prostate gland. Thankfully the day has come, but I was a little perturbed to read in the local paper that a ward at the hospital has the c-diff bug lurking in there. When mentioning it to someone this morning, she said, "Well, you've got the percentages in your favour!". I suppose I have.The actual operation is considered reasonably easy. Apart from picking up something I haven't already got, I'm not looking forward to potential constipation (from the food!) and headaches (from living temporarily in a hermetically sealed environment!). I got both last time. Although the food is not cordon bleu, I will eat it, as the thought of contributing to the £14 million national hospital food wastage bill is not so appetisi
The Boris, Ken and Uncle Tom Cobley handicap stakes 2008-03-26 10:28:36 Boris Johnson is a Conservative who has broken quite a few moulds. Ken Livingstone is a socialist who has cracked many moulds. This mayoral contest in London seems more about personalities than about policies. Is Boris bananas, bohemian or brilliant? Is he all three? Much is written about his pereceived character, but not so much on his political ideas. Red Ken, Cheeky Ken, or just plain KEN! is a man living on the edge. Tony Blair tried the full-frontal Caesar attack, then aped Brutus, but still Ken stood standing. I think Londoners would have a fit if the mayor was boring. Nothing to talk about in the offices or cafes or bars.The others in the contest are equally flamboyant, controversial, or mould-crackingly suitable. The Liberal Democrats have an openly gay ex-police chief in Brian Pad Read more:Boris
, Uncle
Obama sees President of Canada visiting Windsor Castle! 2008-03-26 08:05:30 Recently Barack Obama
has been mocked for describing the head of state in Canada
as a president. Natural slip, I'd say. I very very much doubt if many Americans would have batted an eyelid on this. It is only because we are in election year that the media thought to have a go. John McCain was right. None of us can think straight ALL THE TIME!! Including the media.I used to have great fun telling Americans about the opening of the Niagara Falls hydro electricity plant by President
Eisenhower for the USA side and the Queen of Canada for the Canadians. "Queen of Canada!?! Who's she?" was the response I'd get. 100% I think. The average American isn't bothered by, with or from Canada.Today President Sarkozy of France is coming to see the Queen. The same queen as the Queen of Canada but with her Read more:Windsor
, Castle
Ford says Tata to Jaguar and Land Rover 2008-03-26 07:28:46 Car giant Ford has sold its luxury UK-based car marques Jaguar
and Land Rover
to the Indian company Tata. We knew it was happening, but a deal is not a deal until it is signed, sealed and delivered. For those of us in Warwickshire and beyond, this is good news. It means Land Rover
at Solihull continues.Tata is a huge business, created by entrepreneurial Indians. They obviously know something that the British and American car giants don't. Soon all the former brands run by the US/UK businesses will be in the Tata camp. They have global ambitions. And the best of luck to them. if they can do it, why not?I think that a country that has grown up with the need to keep battered Morris Oxford lookalikes on the road knows something about persistence as well as customer requirements.
The inadequacies of the FSA! 2008-03-26 07:06:55 After all the posturing by Gordon Brown and his puppet next door over the Northern Rock fiasco, we now get a full blown admission from the FSA that they were not up to the job over vetting the antics of this bank. Hector Sants, FSA chief executive, said that it was "clear that our supervision of Northern Rock in the period leading up to the market instability of late last summer was not carried out to a standard that is acceptable". Probably because they were either mesmerised by the bald eagle named Applegarth or they just thought the prevalent policy of legalised money laundering would eventually come up trumps. I think it a bit weak that this is the official response for their lacklustre activity.My father always said that big business "took in each other's washing". Here, Northern Rock
The Iraq culprits! 2008-03-25 18:46:17 The Conservatives have lost the Commons vote concerning the application of an inquiry into the Iraq
War. With a shifty Miliband in charge, no inquiry will be held for some time. There were some excellent speeches, but I thought Robert Marshall-Andrews was an exceptionally well spoken advocate of such an inquiry. He said during the debate -"The first is what was revealed in the Downing street memo of July 2002, reported by The Sunday Times in an unusual contribution to the debate. It was recorded that at that meeting in Downing street in July 2002 Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of secret intelligence, or “C”, as he was known, had reported from America to the War Cabinet, which included Jonathan Powell, that: “There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as i
Why Ron Paul Scares the GOP 2008-03-25 18:05:40 This piece comes from Newsweek which hasn't always given Ron Paul a favourable shout. But when the evidence hits you in the face, it's time to agree."The real significance of the Paul campaign is not the ubiquitous bumper stickers and lawn signs or the online fund-raising records ($6 million in one day, plus another $4 million, hilariously, on Guy Fawkes Day) but the mirror Paul held up to the modern Republican Party. When his fellow candidates denounced big government, Paul was there to remind them that President Bush and the G.O.P. Congress had shattered spending records and exploded the deficit. When they hailed freedom, Paul asked why they all supported the Patriot Act and other expansions of executive power. And when they called themselves conservatives, Paul asked what was so conserv
"We ain't dying quickly enough for them" 2008-03-25 08:00:35 If Londoners want a Mayoral candidate who speaks his mind, then maybe 78 'years young' John Flunder of the Senior Citizens Party is the chap they should be voting for! As he tells BBC London, he has no intention of going gently into that good night. No, he's standing for Mayor of London because "I want to show all the elderly Londoners what they could do and how many votes they could muster if they all came in one direction. Old Londoners will either split their vote between the candidates or sit indoors and say all these politicians they are just same." He's got views on all sorts of things.The only problem, which appears to have been sorted out, is that one of the founders of his party didn't know him. "I'd never heard of him," said Graham Leon-Smith. Read more:quickly
Home from hospital! 2008-03-25 07:41:24 Well, I'm back home from the hospital
visit. In fact, I got out last Wednesday afternoon, but haven't felt like doing much until now. I am now free of catheters, bags and tubing!! What a relief! I can only marvel at the way modern medicine is able to rectify such problems. A century ago I would have literally passed away on the basis of not being able to "pass water", as the hospital refers to it. A brilliant operation, if somewhat painful. Even with my low pain threshold my reasoning has conqured my fears.Going into an NHS hospital can mean that many things can happen. The main non-medical fact is that it is egalitarian. You will never know what kind of person will be occupying the beds alongside you. As it happens, I was the youngest by far, dealing with deafness and doubtful understand
Euro to replace dollar? 2008-03-28 08:44:38 Following on from the Today giggling episode, I noticed they had a piece on the Euro and the Dollar. The programme asked "Could the euro replace the dollar as the world's largest reserve currency within ten to fifteen years?"I've long since believed that part of the Iraq War strategy was to stop Saddam Hussein buying and selling oil in euros. Seems that might be overtaken by other events. Interesting piece.Story is here.
Radio 4 News giggling fit is naughty but nice 2008-03-28 05:52:02 I was listening this morning to the Today programme on Radio
4. Charlotte Green, the newsreader, had to read a piece about the oldest known recording of the human voice. Green's hysterical outburst started after a studio member remarked that the recording of a woman singing the French song Clair de Lune, made in 1860, played, sounded like a "bee buzzing in a bottle". I thought it a good laugh, just like many others who have contacted the BBC. Makes the show all that more human, I'd say. Jim Naughty managed to follow on with what sounded very straight-laced voice!It reminded me of the newsman in Seattle, I think, who commented on a report of a golfer who somehow took his golf kit through a car wash with the top of his car down. Without sensing any irony, the newsman said "I suppose he's got
GOP playing machine politics with Ron Paul delegates! 2008-03-27 19:03:55 As I've said before, don't you just love democracy! In Missouri, those who were rash enough to vote for Ron Paul are being given the runaround by the party bosses. What's the point of having a caucus, if some armtwister tells you you voted the wrong way?The Paul campaign believes that a handful of GOP officials are playing machine politics
and breaking their own rules to disenfranchise Paul supporters. “The Republican party is in trouble and needs more participants in 2008, not less,” said campaign manager Lew Moore. “It makes no sense for Missouri party leaders to exclude and marginalize the new activists they badly need to work at every level this fall.” Quite so!I thought I would publicise this bit of intrique as good American democracy! Read more:delegates
Arnie terminates Clint's day job! 2008-03-27 18:42:24 Clint Eastwood, former Mayor of Carmel, California, got a day that he wasn't expecting to pan out the way it did. Arnold Schwarzenegger had decided that his actor pal and mentor could be replaced on the State Parks Commission. All because Clint is against a plan to build the Foothill South toll road through San Onofre State Beach, a park in Orange County that is popular for its surfing and scenery. The project was defeated by the California Coastal Commission in February.Arnie may think a six-lane highway will help global warming, but I would have thought that Eastwood had more in the way of local support. But if you've got opposition, why not "terminate" them? Eastwood seems more bemused than annoyed. "I think it was just somebody got a bee under their bonnet at the right moment, so there Read more:day job
Damian Hockney quits London mayoral race! 2008-03-27 18:21:52 Well, it's going to be a kind of ten green bottles, etc. One down, twelve to go. Damian
Hockney, One London leader, has quit saying, "The BBC, ITV - they give a kind of what I would call uncritical patsy coverage". They do, don't they.What they don't get is that most people don't vote now. It's only us pure bred political creatures that seem interested. It's a very incestuous relationship - media and politicians.Hockney's remarks could easily have fitted Ron Paul's campaign. Uncritical patsy coverage, I like that. Agree with it mostly. There's a lot of it around, excluding the fine John Humphrys, who gave that weaseler Straw a few dodgy moments this week.The race continues...........
Pregnant man's sex is not his gender! 2008-03-27 14:55:50 I've long since stopped worrying about the oddities in the world. This story just takes me aback, though. I'm all for happy families. I'm glad my father didn't wear dresses and call my mother dad! But medical science and times are a'changin'.In Bend (good name for a transgender
person to live!), Oregon, a man who was born a woman claims he is five months pregnant. He now calls himself Thomas Beatie and married a woman named Nancy. However, he kept all his sexual organs from his time as a woman. So the possibility of a pregnancy is high up on the radar. Not with Nancy, of course.Now I've got nothing against people going in for transsexual surgery. This person may be very sure she is now a man. But I do have issues with bringing children into a world where manipulation and personal greed may
Horrors in Heathrow's New Terminal 5 2008-03-27 13:28:42 The check-in procedures have been suspended at Heathrow
's new £4.3bn Terminal 5, which opened to the public today. It seems to get worse. One worker said, "The computer cannot cope with the number of bags going through". Oh yes! Is that so? What sort of management have the shareholders of British Airways hired?It is all crazy! British Airways, which has sole use of the terminal, cancelled 34 flights due to "teething problems" and was later forced to stop the luggage check-in. In a statement, BA said it had experienced "initial teething problems" first thing in the morning, which had caused delays in staff arriving at their posts. Difficulties included car parking provision, delays in staff security screening and staff familiarisation and "some baggage performance issues", it said.It's all Read more:Horrors
Chelsea Clinton ticks off questioner 2008-03-27 13:02:27 Maybe ChelseaClinton
should consider running for president if her mother fails to get the nomination. Obviously not now, she's barred by the 35 years old rule, but later on.When a questioner at Butler University, Indianapolis, asked if her mother's credibility had been injured by the infamous sexual relationship her father had with the White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, she replied like this. "Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know, maybe 70 college campuses I've now been to.'' Then she fired, "And I do not think that is any of your business."Quite right. Maybe the questioner would like to be asked publicly about personal activities affecting his/her family life? Chelsea added, "And I also don't think that should be the last questio
Back to baggage trouble at Heathrow! 2008-03-27 09:50:49 Baggage problems have hit the Terminal 5 public opening at Heathrow
Airport. Some wag employed by British Airways blamed glitches with the bags on problems with "staff familiarisation". Many passengers apparently faced problems with their baggage. A BBC reporter on a flight to Paris said no passenger bags had arrived. Luggage belonging to travellers landing in the UK also failed to arrive.What is it with large companies today? They take the pounds but appear to have little or no interest in customer service. It beggars belief that British Airways, trumpeting this big hangar as the be all and end all of flight delays and passenger problems, sees this cock-up as a lack of "staff familiarisation"!! They've had years to plan to get it right!Do those running the company deserve their top jobs?
Hillary's Highs turn to Low Poll Ratings! 2008-03-27 07:44:03 MSNBC have conducted a poll and they seem surprised that Hillary
Clinton is dipping in the Democratic race. "As expected, one of the two major Democratic candidates saw a downturn in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, but it's not the candidate that you think," reports Chuck Todd. How come he thinks we would be surprised? It only goes to show how out of touch these pundits really are!It's not going to be rocket science, Chuck! Obama will get the nomination and Obama will beat McCain. Obama will be President! Always assuming that no skeletons are about to come out of an unknown closet somewhere.Why do I think this? Because Americans want change. They want it to happen, so that the sleazebags and legalised crooks are no longer in control. Obama has been given the airtime to vent this message. If only Read more:Ratings
Cameron's Conservative Conundrum 2008-03-27 07:30:00 There would be a time when I couldn't wait to vote Conservative. With both my head and my heart! The very idea of voting Labour filled me with a shiver. After all, they were a bit "commie", wanted nationalisation, were into pip-sqeaking taxation, and generally were economic trouble. It was a no brainer for me.Then two things happened. The Berlin wall collapsed, so who were now the socialists, who were now the anti-capitalist campaigners? And along came Blair, a political hybrid with a "well, yeah" response to all matters in his way. We now have a three party set-up in a two-party system.It was all so easy when it was just Conservative and Labour. Straight fights were the norm. The Liberals came in just for the ride. They had to do deals with the Conservatives in Bolton and Huddersfield jus Read more:Cameron
, Conundrum
Family seeks $8 million in Phoenix airport death 2008-03-27 06:31:31 The family of a woman who died last year while in police custody at Phoenix
, Arizona's, Sky Harbor International Airport haved filed an $8 million
claim against the city of Phoenix and its police department. This is the first step in filing a wrongful death
suit.Such deaths occur relatively frequently, not just in the US but around the world. The UK has had its fair share of custodial deaths. Without wanting to prejudice anything, it does seem that police and prison officers sometimes overeact when confronted with hysteria or abnormal activity. It is always put down to the apprehended person just being a damned nuisance at best or an evil-minded terrorist at worst. They seem oblivious to senility, or diabetic/epileptic fits, or any other complaint. I've been in the company of someone havin Read more:Family
, airport
Egg McMuffin Inventor dies at 89 2008-03-27 05:17:22 Herb Peterson, inventor of the Egg McMuffin, has died, a Southern California official of McDonald's restaurants said yesterday (Wednesday). He was 89. Now that must be some testament to so-called junk food. I bet a lot of those posers, as Sir Alan Sugar calls them, who frequent restaurants where you get such things caramelised seaweed sitting on top of seared tuna steaks don't live as long. But it won't be the food that shortens their lives, it will be the attitude!Now I don't frequent fast food restaurants that much, but I'm not snobbily opposed to them either. I'd rather a thousand Herb Petersen's served me food than one self-righteous foody, lips all smothered with sour sauces and red meat! McDonald's has taken a battering recently. Funny how fish and chip shops (where you get a literal Read more:Inventor
Experts Deride McCain’s Mortgage Crisis Fix! 2008-03-26 19:52:20 Just following on from my post below, I run into this piece from the New York Sun. John McCain
, who is a self-confessed economics amateur, has been derided for his call for a meeting of the nation's top mortgage lenders as part of a solution to the rise in home foreclosures. He reckons 0% financing will help. Help whom, exactly? Certainly not the bankers, who would be more out of pocket than they are now. Certainly not the borrowers, who would have property at inflated prices.No wonder the economists scoffed at this idea. Has the fat lady finished her song? I'd say it was about time there was a national debate between Ron Paul and John McCain on TV. Then McCain could tell the people of America how he plans to run the economy.To hell in a handbasket might be one answer! Read more:Experts
, Mortgage
, Crisis
Time to Listen to Ron Paul? 2008-03-26 19:16:33 Interestingly, just as the last puffs of the active Republican Party campaign to nominate are expiring, Fox News offers this intriguing question. Time to Listen
to Ron Paul
? This is posed by Elizabeth MacDonald on the FoxBusiness site. Pity she's a bit late in trumpeting his message.She says "Time to listen to Texas Congressman Ron Paul, the lone voice of reason in Congress today who’s got to feel like he’s shouting into a field of cotton with his repeated warnings about the dangers of a collapsing dollar, while the administration goes AWOL on the problem." One wonders if the American people are so used to the admen's messages that they are walking over the cliffs on this one. Why did none of the other Republican candidates say ANYTHING on this. For heaven sakes, Mitt Romney is suppose
Divide and Rule? Gordon Brown's Britain! 2008-03-26 10:40:58 This is a good You Tube presentation from the English Democrats. Our part-time, job-sharing Prime Minister thinks this is all OK. So much for his talk of "Britishness" and constitutional reform! With Jack Straw in charge, it will all end in tears.Watch it and weep! Read more:Divide
, Gordon
, Brown
, Britain
, Gordon Brown
States rights? Some think they're wronged! 2008-03-30 17:54:43 When 9/11 happened, the world went into shock. It was a terrible crime. Something had to be done, of course. But was G.W.Bush the right person in the right place at the right time? Americans now are being vetted, checked, spied on, and processed as if they were chickens lined up for Colonel Sanders!This REAL ID is nothing short of a way for the state to keep tabs on everyone. "MR JOHNSON OF ATLANTIC CITY!! WE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!!" How wretched! Is this a true and proper response to a rag-headed, gun-totting caveman's demonic actions? I don't think
so.Some states are up in arms about it. REAL ID is a controversial post-9/11 law that aims to make drivers' licenses more secure. Nearly all states are opposed to the Department of Homeland Security's requirements, which set Monday as the deadlin Read more:States
Five killed as plane crashes into houses 2008-03-30 17:13:43 Two pilots and three passengers in a Cessna Citation 1 jet have been killed after it crashed into a housing estate in Farnborough, Kent. The plane had left London Biggin Hill Airport just after 2pm but apparently got engine trouble almost immediately after take-off.All crashes are horrendous, but this one has left a memory on many eye witnesses. Because the plane was so low, one person could actually see the faces of the people in the plane. They lost their lives and it is only miraculous that there were no further victims on the ground. The house that took the direct hit was unoccupied at the time, as the owners were away.Executive air travel is usually extremely safe, but the numbers of plane trips are increasing. Biggin Hill use to be a small airport where people learnt to fly and is fa Read more:houses
Ron Paul's supporters make inroads at Texas GOP conventions 2008-03-30 08:33:43 The Texas
Republican Party bosses seem to have taken a few leaves out of the Robert Mugabe Book of Election Procedures! It's amazing that, although these caucuses and primaries are about choosing a candidate, the grandees of the party appear more concerned about manipulating the outcome.Ron Paul
is seen as a man who should never have entered the race. They made it a handicap. Like the Grand National at Aintree, they hoped Paul would fall at the first hurdle! But his supporters continue to fight for their legitimate places at conventions. Texas is not alone.In Senate District 10, Paul supporter Jeremy Blosser challenged longtime Republican organizer Stuart Lane for chairmanship of the convention. Blosser bristled at Lane's characterization of Paul's supporters as "outsiders bent on taking o
US actors' unions go separate ways 2008-03-30 07:26:37 Hollywood is often seen as a business operating on hardball bases rather than softball. In the union politics it is no different. Screen Actors Guild, representing mainly those in the cinema and TV movie business, have fallen out with their TV news anchor and radio jock colleagues. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is going in separate
direction so that they can negotiate their own contracts. The movie moguls must be pleased. I've read Larry Hagman's autobiography and he explained quite candidly how brutal the business can be. Usually it is the bosses that try the divide and conquer technique. It's not usually the unions that set about promoting a divided front.The war of words has begun. "It's really tragic," said SAG president Alan Rosenberg. "It's tough enough to c Read more:actors
Jacqui Smith is out of touch! 2008-03-30 06:45:08 Home Secretary Jacqui Smith
has appeared on the Andrew Marr Show to dismiss claims by a fellow minister that the government is out of touch
. She said Ivan Lewis was wrong. She had the brass neck to say that it was "fundamentally important that we listen to the British people". Since when has New Labour listened? Over Iraq, devolution, top-up fees, EU referendum, ANYTHING????I say hold on, Jacqui! I'll give you a good example of political dumb insolence.Ruth Kelly is supposed to be Transport Secretary. She has taken a vow of silence it seems, as British Airways fumbles over baggage problems. She's not even out of touch. She's out of hearing too!
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