Be Excellent To Each Other

Fuck off, cunt. Don't destroy the world as we know it on your way out.

From The Big Picture

My day has been ruined by the Beeb
I was all ready to sit down and watch a once-in-a-lifetime television programme about a successful Black man in his prime, only to discover that the bastards at the BBC have swapped Ready Steady Cook for something about some American wannabee politico.

I'm struck by the realisation that there are exactly the same number of fucking nutters over there with pretty much exactly as much power and influence as they had before Obama got elected. He's the president, not a dictator.

Anyways, when important stuff was happening, there was complete silence in the room,

I don't know about you, but I think fluffing the oath is a very human response. He was taking on a bit of a responsibility.

[Preach mode]I did shudder as I listened to the oath. It represents, after all the peaceful transfer of power - despite our cynicism about politics we should be grateful that such handovers are conducted without bloodshed. [/preach mode]

As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.
Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expediency’s sake.

I don't know about you, but I think fluffing the oath is a very human response. He was taking on a bit of a responsibility.

Well at least I can applaud this new feller as he's suspended trials at Guantanamo Bay and is looking to close it down. Good on him.

Obama's not going to be much better for us. He dislikes the British anyway.

Really? [citation needed]

For despite Westminster's glutinous admiration for the new administration, there are signs the Obama White House is not that interested in the UK. The Ministry of Defence report pointing to doubts in Washington as to the effectiveness of Britain's armed forces is only the latest sign of a cooling in the "special relationship". Aside from the friendship education minister David Lammy enjoys with the president-elect, there has been a lack of government engagement with the transition team. Indeed, Downing Street officials came away from last summer's Obama talks with little sense of the future president's commitment to Britain's broader, global concerns outside of strategic US priorities. And it was not without note that Obama gave his signal address in Berlin, not London. None of which should have come as a surprise. Given that Dreams From My Father has topped the bestseller list since November, we should all be aware of Obama's ambiguous regard for the British. Of course, there is an abiding suspicion of Britain as the former imperial power in Kenya, with allegations that Obama's grandfather was tortured by British forces during the struggle for independence. Equally painful no doubt are Obama's memories of attending a stag do in Wokingham in 1996 involving a St Trinian's strippergram.

But whenever the British appear in Obama's autobiography, they play the caricature of reactionary old-world fogeys. On his flight to Kenya, Obama sits next to "a pale, gangly youth" in an ill-fitting blazer who condones apartheid South Africa. On safari, he meets the Wilkersons - British doctors working in Malawi who found England "terribly cramped" but could never really call Africa home: "'Sins of the father, you know'." And as Obama boards the train out of Nairobi, he thinks of his grandfather's struggle and conjures up "some nameless British officer" surveying the imperial landscape: "Would he have felt a sense of triumph, a confidence that the guiding light of western civilisation had finally penetrated the African darkness?" Finally, he imagines his late grandfather sitting out his old age in a freshly scrubbed hut but still hearing "the clipped voice of a British captain, explaining for the third and last time the correct proportion of tonic to gin".

Frankly, I think a trial separation from the "special relationship" would be a good idea all round.

I'm not surprised we'd be out of favour, as Bush toadies and Iraq war enablers, quite apart from anything else.

Frankly, I think a trial separation from the "special relationship" would be a good idea all round.

I don't see Germany or Italy or anybody else pal-ing up to another country because it feels so bloody vulnerable and weak.

Which other major power should we ally with in case of emergency? The Chinese? The Russians? The French?

They're still in NATO, however.

If only there was a union of states about the same size as the US, but closer to us geographically, culturally and in terms of general interest, and of which we were already a member. Say in Europe, perhaps.

Nah. Too far fetched.

And the European Union, but being part of a "panel of nations" is different than this "special relationship" poo.


_{sticks tongue out at Dimrill}

As long as he doesn't actively hate us, I'm not really that bothered. It'll do us better in the long run to become bosom buddies of Europe than the US.

Why have no high-ranking politicians mentioned the Euro as a possible solution to the credit crisis and the devaluing pound?

It would do something about the weak pound - but we only think the weak pound is a problem because we've had a strong pound for so long.

Because it isn't one. Switching currency doesn't suddenly make businesses profitable, increase availability of lending, or restore consumer confidence.

It would do something about the weak pound - but we only think the weak pound is a problem because we've had a strong pound for so long. That and because Curio speculated on the currency market with the most important day of his life

Is the Eurozone in a significantly better state? I thought Greece, Spain and Italy were even more screwed, with France and Germany not massively better off.