I told you I'd be quiet if we lost Wolves 0 - 3 Reading!

…and it’s super Reading, super Reading FC…Oh Yes, the boys did it again, we took top of the table Wolves apart in their own back yard! Now they can take a comprehensive 3-0 victory back to the Mad stad for the first time this season. Such an emphatic win will send a clear message to the rest of the league that Reading are the team to beat. Though I'm not sure that will help our cause.

Other than a 15 minute period towards the end of the first half Reading dominated throughout, great movement, and a total team effort. It's hard to single anyone out, but after Wolves front line have been scoring so freely this season, and as the brilliant Bikey put away his fourth of the season, I have to give a special nod to our back four: Liam Rosenior, Andre Bikey, Ivar Ingimarsson and Chris Armstrong.

Here's what Coppell had this to say...

"Their three-pronged attack which has been very effective gave us a little bit more freedom to go forward and score more goals.

"We had to try and have a go at Wolves. If you sit back they can maul you. It was a very conscious point of ours to 'have a go' as much as possible. But you don't just win games by running around - you have to try to be composed in possession when you can. It was a solid performance all around....psychologically I think a good performance was important. If you come to places like this, play a team who are playing ever so well, and don't perform, then it's a reflection on what you are about. So it was important that we played and I felt as if we were always trying to play. It wasn't just a backs to the wall rear-guard...it was important that we had a go at them."

'Have a go' Yes Sir Stevie! Let's be doing that a bit more often.

It's so good to see my team, a team that are more than capable of walking this league, start to perform to their ability. Tonight's result was a major step for us, and it'll help shake off the remnants of that horribly depressing relegation last season. Results like this, will get our players enjoying their football again, and if that happens, Reading will be back in the premiership next summer.

The victory is all the sweeter when you start reading what the Wolves fans are saying about it. Here are a couple of reactions from Wolves fans on the BBC's 606 boards.

superFlameWolf (U10874375) says...
"well went to the game expecting a good performance but afraid the same problems occurred, and we was totally outclassed by a superior team. it could of been like 6 or 7 if we are all honest."

while Buddhawolf (U8757790) concludes...
"...My view is that Reading will prove to be head and shoulders above this league and we will be left with a clutch of other clubs to fight for second spot. We got done by a sharper side and a more tactically astute manager."

and jackiegallagher (U13171373) reckons...
"We will not play another team with the quality of Reading with the exception of Birmingham maybe. Let's not get carried away here, we are still a good side.
Half that Reading team could hold their own in the Premier league, so to lose to them is no disgrace.
Let's keep things in perspective here boys."

We have another important game at the Mad stad on Saturday, we play Burnley the team just below us in the league. Our boys love playing at home, and if they keep up their level of performance, and play like they have for the last couple of games, they'll be too much for the team placed fourth. Now that would really send a message to the league.

C'mon URZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Big game tonight, Reading travel to Wolves

OK, so it's 10am, which means the lucky few Reading fans are well into their 2-3 hour journey to the midlands to watch the Reading vs Wolves match, for those that don't know Wolves are based in Birmingham.

Wolves are storming the Championship this season and are undefeated so far, they've only dropped two points since the opening day. At home they have an even more imposing record, their defense have only let in 2 goals in 4 matches, while their front line have scored 13.

Now my lot - After a slow start, especially away from home, the team seem to finally be shaking off the cloud that's hung over their heads since being relegated from the Premiership last season. They're improving with each game away from home, but are still looking to register their first win. At home we don't have any such problems having scored a stunning 10 goals over the last two games while not having a single goal scored against us.

There's not doubt this is gonna be one of the hardest games we'll play this season, whether Wolves can keep up their impressive run or not, they'll still be right near the top come the end of the season.

For impartial football fans the two teams couldn't be playing each other at a better time, Wolves are in cracking form scoring goals for fun, and as I've pointed out above their defense is tighter than a gnats chuff at home. And Reading are coming off another stunning win at the weekend having totally dominated Swansea, our forwards seem to be free scoring too at the moment, Doyle having recovered his form, Noel Hunt settling in well and Steve Hunt playing sublime football at the moment.

In a weird way I feel that my lot may by playing Wolves at the right time. Wolves' record has to be broken at some point, and so has Reading's inability to win away from home. There's no question we have a quality team, and as a result they'll go into most games this season as favorites to win, but that brings it's own pressure as expectations are high. Tonight however is probably the first game we've gone into where we can't be considered favorites, and I'm hoping that'll work to our advantage.

Having said all that on paper it's gonna be one of the toughest tests Wolves will face this season too, and there's nothing like beating a team that was in the Prem last season, and prove you're Premiership quality yourselves. Whoever wins I'm sure it'll be a hard fought game, if you read nothing more about this game on this blog it'll be a pretty good indicator that we lost, if we win I'll be crowing for a couple of days.

Staying with football, I discovered this great blog, written by a professional footballer who plys his trade in the lower leagues of English football. His name is Gavin Strachan, and at 29 years old he's reaching the end of his career.

People's perception of professional footballers is that they're over paid prima donas, ala billion dollar Beckham, and it's true many of them are, but many, many more are not. Gordon's one of them, and his blog offers us a look at the flip side of the same coin. Gordon's career didn't bend like Beckham's, he hasn't been able to earn enough during his career not to worry about money when he retires, so he's worrying about money when he retires. He's married with kids and so the pressure is on, he's playing out his last couple of years, and going to night school at the same time studying for a media degree, in the hope that it'll help him find work when it all comes to its inevitable end.

I can't think of seeing anything like this in the past, I mean maybe the odd article, but nothing as deep. It's all pretty abnormal when you think about it, I mean it's strange that a young man should have to face the end of his career at the point in life when most others are just beginning. All credit to the BBC for giving space to Gordon to write about his woes, although the mere fact that he's writing this blog will almost certainly end up impacting his life in some way, hopefully in a positive way. Perhaps he'll discover opportunities that may have otherwise evaded him, but good luck to him if he does.

This great insight into the not so glamorous side of professional football is called Gordon Strachan's Blog and is updated weekly.

House Republicans dump the bail out, and DOW falls nearly 800 points..

This just gets better and better, now all the finger pointing begins. The MSM are desperately trying to put a positive spin on McShit's roll in all this, and make sure the Democrats get their share. Of course McRubbish is holding one person to blame for all of it -- that man Barack Obama.

The media pundits are all over the place, basically no one has a clue...

I was watching MSNBC and Chris Mathews was the first to put a mavericky spin on McCrap's political posturing late last week. Claiming that this proved it was difficult being a maverick, according to Mathews he had opposed Bush for the last 7 years, and this was the first time McCrap had tried to lead, but had sadly failed...

Then on came Chuck Todd who wasted no time pointing out that nearly a hundred Dems also voted against the bill, a bill that was first proposed by the incredibly unpopular Republican administration....well duh!

Frankly, it's gonna be difficult for the Republicans to blame Democrats for this, and all because a few of them had their feelings hurt by something Nancy said. Barney Frank claimed that if it would help get Republicans actually doing something for the country, he'd personally go and visit each one who had their feelings hurt, and be really, really nice to them.

Great economist minds like Markos from the Daily Kos informed us what a terrible deal this was for middle-class Americans, but even the great man himself didn't have a clue what should be done, he just felt this wasn't the answer.

I did hear Ali Velshi, one of the few voices on CNN I respect, tell us that for every day Congressional Republicans posture 10,000 Americans will lose their jobs, and houses down the line. Taking them out of the 'could help the economy by spending' column and into the 'further strain on our economy' column.

Ali's firmly behind the plan, and tells us there isn't time to wait while Americans learn about economics to try and understand what's happening. Instead we needed to trust the few true leaders who have come out steadfastly behind it, and back them while they act NOW.

Then Glen Beck chatting with his fellow neo-con Wolf Blitzer told us that he was against the bail-out, but warned other Americans that were against that they needed to understand why they were, adding that he understood why some were for it....confused?

If that wasn't enough, he went onto say how sick he was of all the politicking, then promptly started politicking asking where Obama and McCrap had been, conveniently remembering that McCrap had at least tried...aaahhh. Still, apparently that wasn't the point for him, he was just upset with all of them....what a load of bollocks you lying Republican turd!

I know who I'm blaming for all of this and it's those frauds in the MSM, they've irresponsibly set out with an anti bail-out theme, before understanding what the fuck it meant.

They're absolutely against it, at the same time as absolutely demanding something be done!

I have no doubt that regular Americans will lose because of what happened today, somehow we always do.

You know, in such dangerous, challenging times, this nation is screaming out for leadership, but sadly America doesn't have any. What Americans look for in a president is the facade of leadership, Americans want Ken and Barbi, not the ugly truth. You only have to look at the Republican Vice Presidential candidate to see that our standards have reached an all time low.

We want leaders to be people we'd enjoy having a beer with, leaders that don't make us feel insecure by being smarter than us. We want our leaders to be tough, but we know that talking tough is easy, being tough is another thing altogether. Americans never vote for the best presidential candidate.

Whatever happens, this latest debacle should act as a stark wake up call to all of us. Our leadership standards can't be allowed to continue to fall. There's a smart, principled young man running for election this November, Americans need to take a chance for once, and elect him our president.

This problem wasn’t caused by an ethnic minority, this problem was caused by a Republican majority!

As I’ve already mentioned Eric Cantor’s outrageous comments made to Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday, offered a disturbing insight to the extreme thinking of the modern Republican party, but they also highlighted a worrying misperception about the current banking debacle.

Cantor’s comments were aimed at blaming ethnic borrowing as the cause of the banking meltdown, which he did via Jimmy Carter’s equal opportunities bill. The reason he made the outrageous comments is because he knows the public believe that all the troubled mortgage loans were made to greedy, and/or foolish people who couldn‘t afford them. Cantor wants to ensure that ethnic borrowers take the brunt of the blame, because ethnic equals Barack Obama.

The reason that this scandalous plan is doomed is because it’s untrue, and the rest of America didn’t wake up wearing brown shirts this morning. But, it’s frightening that Republicans feel they can ‘sell’ a widely respected 30 year old equal opportunities bill, as the cause of our country’s banking meltdown. Cantor's distortions were not made by mistake they were made to appeal to the party base, which indicates just how extreme the 21st Century Republican party has become.

Also, I have to address this terrible misperception about borrowers, regardless of race, are to blame for all this shit. There’s no doubt that the Republican administrations of the last 30 years or so have encouraged speculation in the housing market, and backed up by Banks offering special mortgages for second, and third houses, they lured increasing numbers of middle-class Americans in. Although I’m sure that speculators will account for some of the failed loans, and greedy and foolish borrowers will account for a few more, but there's no doubt that the vast majority were just regular working people trying to get on.

Let’s be clear the cause of the mass defaults was not consumer greed, but banker greed, and political incompetence.

The banks, desperate to make interest, pushed ever more credit into the market, then due to no fault of the borrowers there was a worldwide economic downturn, the economy slowed, and people began losing their jobs. These people weren’t greedy or foolish, they're normal people that had been working for years, and only became homeowners because loans were cheap, and were finally able to afford it!.

Like everyone else, their homes were based in the communities where they worked, so when a company shut down, and lots of people lost their jobs, people would start moving out of the community looking for new work. It was a double edged sword, because as there was no work in their community, no one was moving in, and so house prices fall. Maybe close to the end, as a last resort they borrow against the little equity they had just to keep up the payments, but without work and unable to sell their house, and no income coming in they finally stop making the mortgage payments.

Suddenly, that regular, decent, honest, hard working family of four that used to live next door are out on their asses, homeless...horrific.

The system just created a few more statistics.

How dare people look to blame their neighbors just because their timing was off. The same could’ve happened, could happen, to any of us. Don’t believe the main stream media with their own corporate interests.

The downturn happened because the Republican administration, backed by those same Congressional Republicans who are crowing about ethnic minorities today, ran riot over regulations governing finance, and all for the sake of creating a market bubble that would inevitably burst.

Instead of looking at ways to reduce our oil consumption and look at new technologies, they kept their big oil masters happy by throwing billions and billions into a pointless war for control of oil. Instead of renegotiating foreign trade agreements that were costing millions of American jobs, those caring Congressional Republicans kept schtum so they could keep collecting backhanders from lobbyists representing our foreign trading partners.

Make no mistake, this is down to a lack of regulations governing greedy, and ever more desperate banks and bankers. It was fuelled by two insanely expensive wars, in treasure and lives, and was fanned by the atrocious management of our foreign trade agreements.

This problem wasn’t caused by an ethnic minority, this problem was caused by a Republican majority.

If any good at all has come out of this, it’s that over the last fifteen years as the Republican party has lurched ever further right, they have become more and more marginalized. They are in genuine danger of becoming extinct in the North East, an incredible but very real possibility.

The moderates that used to abound in their party are gone, there’s no room for them any more, Republican’s hold seats in rural areas, they are becoming a provincial party of provincial thinkers with provincial fears, and they try to sell that as small town thinking...small town! Is that good?

I’m not convinced the country is changing it’s political shape at all, it’s always been seen as center right, and sadly that’s pretty much where Barack Obama and the modern Democratic party finds itself. However, as the Republicans controlled government they’ve become ever more extreme, and attempted to drag the rest of the country along with them, center right policies are now called liberal, and liberal policies are now socialist.

The Republicans are not what they say they are on the bottle anymore, and fortunately, at last the people seem to be seeing past the name tag.

Evangelical Churches break law as they endorse McDreadful from pulpit today, and Blitzer stands by as ethnic minorities are blamed for banking crash

So today pastors at Evangelical churches across the nation will be endorsing McCain from their pulpits. This contravenes the rules governing their IRS tax exempt status, which prohibits pastors engaging in partisan political support, lets hope the great IRS hold these renegade churches accountable and remove their tax exemption status. But, my problem is not so much with the fact they are breaking the law, but that I’ve always thought churches aimed to bring communities together not divide them, partisan politicking will only outcast those whose opinions differ from the rest of the flock.

I guess it shouldn’t surprise us that this little nugget of a morally and ethically challenged PR stunt for McCrappy has been coordinated by a group of extreme conservative churchy people called Churches Against Black People or something.

How can a pastor whose purpose surely is to spread the love of Jesus, bring his flock together, and breach any divides in his community take such a partisan political stance? Surely the mere suggestion of endorsing one political party over another effectively segregates those members of the church and community who may support the other side.

Is it that you have to be a Republican to enter an Evangelical church, or live in an Evangelical community?

It seems to me that the US church is turning the clock back to Medieval times when they held all the political power, maybe because they can no longer sell you a relic to ensure your spot in heavan the next best thing is to vote for one.

Staying with Republicans it seems they have a longing for the good old days themselves. On the neo-con Wolf Blitzer’s morning show today he had Democrat Barney Frank the Banking Committee Chairman ,and Eric Cantor the lead negotiator for the House Republicans, you know the guys who are so desperate to keep their seats this November that they will say anything or do anything and politicize any position to win.

I was stunned to learn that the Republicans have found who it is they’re blaming for this meltdown, it’s not fellow neo-con George Bush and apparently it has nothing to do with any of the Republicans that held Congressional power in Washington for 6 of the last 8 years. No, they blame Jimmy Carter, and what’s worse a particular piece of Carter legislation, let me try and explain…

During a split screen interview with (the amazing) Barney Frank and Eric Cantor, Cantor explained that the current financial meltdown had not been caused by corporate greed, or lack of regulations governing procedure, but by a Jimmy Carter bill that in Cantor’s words ‘forced banks to lend to bad credit risks’.

Now, if Jimmy Carter really wrote a piece of legislation as idiotic as that, forcing banks to lend money to people who couldn’t afford to pay it back, then it would surely have had a negative effect on our economy. Although, as a bad credit risk myself, during my many attempts to borrow money from banks I had no intention of repaying, at no time did anyone inform me that the banks were breaking the law by declining my business. So, Cantor's claim left me a tad confused, and more than a little suspicious, could it be that Eric Cantor was adopting that age old Republican technique of over simplifying, or in other words lying about the issue? Good old Barney put me right.

Barney Frank waited for the slimy looking Cantor to finish mangling history, then displaying a keen knowledge of the specific legislation Cantor had been referring to, he put him firmly in his place.

Frank explained that the Carter legislation had nothing at all to do with forcing banks into bad loans, but that the cad Cantor had been distorting an equal opportunities bill that Carter had forced through Congress to put a stop to the racist practice of denying loans to people based solely on their risky zip code address, or in other words the color of their skin.

Carter’s legislation outlawed the practice and forced banks to put all applicants through the same process, and approve or deny based on their individual credit worthiness and nothing else.

Cantor’s words are shocking, blaming the ethnic minorities for our current plight is as scandalous and outrageous as it is dangerous, and offers a frightening insight into the ever more extreme right wing thinking of 21st Century Republicans. I was surprised even that Republican stooge Blitzer should draw the line somewhere.

'Horse Shit...Horse Shit' - McCrappyLiar's mumblings during presidential debate exposed

Thanks to Taegan Goddard's Political Wire I can bring the three readers of Pants this incredible excerpt from last night's presidential debate. You'll have to skip to around the 4.30 mark, but turn up the volume and listen carefully when you do

You'll have seen most of it already but if you skip forward to 4.30 on the tape you'll clearly hear McCrap mumble, under his breath and on national television, the words Horse Shit, TWICE!

This all happened as Barack Obama informed the US public how McRubbish had refused to meet with the president of (NATO ally) Spain.....unbelievable!

So now Johnny McShittyLiar is trying to blame BO for injecting politics on thursday...unbelievable!

On Tuesday McShitty's little Alaskan helper told Katie Couric that if a financial aid package for Wall Street wasn't agreed by friday, then this coming Monday the nation would slip into a depression as bad as that of the late 1920s. Later that afternoon after lying to Dave Letterman and freeing up some time up to talk to Katie Couric's bigger audience, McLiar confirmed his little Alaskan helper's prophecy, saying that unless a bail-out plan was immediately agreed, then we'd all be eating grass by Monday.

Yet, today there's no agreement, apparently our representatives had been close at one point, that's until McCrap got involved. He fucked it all up by trying to hijack the event, and claim credit for something he hadn't been involved in, and what's more he wasn't even sure if he wanted the credit anyway. It became a big pickle and he was right smack in the middle of it.

So, per the prophecy of the brilliant economist Palin, and as we have no agreement in place and it is the weekend, I guess we'll all be eating grass on Monday. I've got some salt put away just in case. Btw what's with the stock market making triple digit gains during the two days since the collapse of the bailout talks?

Apart from the imminent collapse of the nation's economy, it was refreshing to see McLiar for once staying true to his word and remaining in Washington until a deal was....oh! he's not?....oh, ok then, well forget that...As it turns out McShittyLiar has stayed true to character and not his word, as I'm informed he's now planning on coming to the debate, which according to his campaign was what he had intended all along....yeah, right!

Did you notice during the mayhem that was this week, McCrapLiar admitting that he hadn't even read Secretary Paulson's three page proposal? But, somehow he was miraculously able to make suggestions as to what he felt was missing.

The whole thing, I mean the whole thing is a farce. This campaign continues to insult the American people‘s logic, this man and his crew of crooked cronies are playing politics with people's lives, we're living in dangerous times, yet McBombit seems to take it all as a joke. He says one thing today and a different thing tomorrow, it's almost impossible to keep up with the lies, turnarounds, and endless bullshit emanating from his campaign, on election day they must be hoping that American people forget which candidate is which.

It’s unbelievably insulting, no politician in history has lied so openly and so often as McCain has during this campaign, and we have four weeks to go.

The people of this country need to show that self-serving politicians like McRubbish cannot get away with it. The man possesses none of the character traits required by a president of this country, or any country for that matter! He is impetuous and erratic, he's a walking time bomb, and there's not a single American that can say they weren’t warned!

Finally, if you needed any more motivation to ensure that he does not become our President, take a look at the woman who as his VP would be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Btw hang on for Jack's barely disguised anger at the end.

Talk about a week being a long time in politics, what about a day!

I'll go into the mess left in Washington courtesy of Johnny McCrappyShit later, but right now there's something far more important happening on the other side of the cold pond.

A couple of days ago a mediation panel announced it's findings after hearing details of a long standing dispute between West Ham Utd and Sheff Utd. I can't go into all the details cuz it'll use up all the server's memory, but below I've given an abbreviated version, the squabble stems from West Ham breaking league rules when signing Carlos Tevez (pic below) from Argentina....

Tevez was only at West Ham for a short period towards the end of the 2006/2007 season, but had an almost immediate impact on the team's results. Until Tevez' arrival, West Ham had been rooted in the bottom three of the table, and were facing certain relegation. But, led by Tevez the club completed a miraculous turnaround, winning something like 8 of their last 10 matches, including beating Man Utd at Old Trafford on the last day of the season to ensure their survival, with Sheffield Utd being relegated in their place. In that match only one goal was scored, and who else but, Carlos Tevez scored it. West Ham had survived by a single point.

Shortly after the end of the season, and with the entire football world watching and wanting to sign the previously unknown Argentinian, the predatorial Man Utd determined to get their man quickly set about cutting throats, bludgeoning heads, and crossing palms.

Within a fairly short period of time Man Utd had beaten off all other interested clubs, and despite West Ham's reluctance to sell Tevez managed to lure their player away with promises of gold and glory. Finally, an announcement of Man Utd's successful signing was made, and that's when the claims and counter claims about the player’s 'ownership' began to surface.

As it turned out West Ham had an agreement with the player's 'owners' that he would not be sold without their consent. Someone else owned his contract. This practice of third party ownership of player's contracts is widely practiced internationally, but illegal in the English leagues. Big problems lay ahead.

I won't go into the court mess that was the actual agreement, but of course Man Utd got their player and were happy, and West Ham were still in the Prem and were happy. But, with relegation from the premiership estimated at costing a club at least $120 Million/season in lost income, Sheff Utd who had been relegated in West Ham's place were not at all happy, and they went to court.

Sheff Utd initially tried (unsuccessfully) to get themselves reinstated to the Prem on the basis that West Ham had broken the rules, and the player they broke the rules for was key to their survival. The court cases came and went as Sheff Utd continued their fight, and to cut a very long story short(er), ultimately the new seasons began and Sheff Utd began plying their trade in the Championship. Still, having been so badly wronged Sheff Utd were determined to get some form of justice. Finally, after a year or so of court wrangling both clubs agreed to go to mediation with both agreeing not to appeal the outcome, Sheff Utd won and are about to be awarded a very large sum of money, but it doesn't stop there.

After hearing about the club's good news, the players, all of whom had to suffer 60% pay decreases, and long term damage to their careers felt that they had been wronged too, and on advice from lawyers ten of them are now going to sue West Ham for damages such as loss of earnings etc....just brilliant!

But, it get's even better, I had this thought to add to West Ham's nightmare.....

On the basis that the Sheff Utd have a legitimate claim, and their players have been advised that they do too, what's to stop players from other effected teams claiming damages as well?

Players whose teams were relegated after losing points to a team that shouldn't have been in the league in the first place.

Seems to me there's nothing to stop Reading players claiming as well. If West Ham hadn't broken the rules they would've been relegated, and if West Ham had been relegated then Reading wouldn't have lost points to them the following season, Reading were relegated by a single goal, one point would've kept us up. So West Ham's rule breaking can be blamed for our subsequent relegation.

That's another fine mess you've gotten me into Stanley.

Today's electoral college map

So, today Ohio swings back to a marginal McCain lead, and despite New Hampshire's fondness of all things mavericky it looks like McBombit's solid cardboard maverick facade is starting to wobble a little, as BO holds a marginal lead. But, most interesting today is seeing Virginia in BO's column for the third straight day....nice.

A few critical swing states seem to look much firmer for Obama, they are; Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico. In the same token, it seems McBombit has convinced the majority of the good people of Missouri that he's the right madman for the job. However, regardless of polling a month out, one thing's guaranteed they will all be fought to the bitter end, and it's not too late to make a difference. So if you're anywhere near any of the states you need to get yourself down to the local BO campaign office, and get door knocking.

As for the other traditional 'swing states'; Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, Virginia, PA and Florida. Currently BO is holding that slight advantage in Virginia, and a stronger one in PA, but he's still remaining competitive in Nevada, Ohio, Florida and Indiana they will all be tough fights, and there is plenty of time for us all to make a difference.

Finally, there are a few other states that could yet turn into tight fights, a couple of them are not good to see; Washington and Oregon. These should be BO's but he's not quite been able to consistently pull ten points clear, which is what you want to see before feeling safe, so there's still work to be done.

The other state, and perhaps more of a surprise to many, not me of course! is West Virginia. Yeah, that West Virginia, the state that Hillary won by a forty point margin or something. The state that's just jam packed full (97%) of all those 'hard working white folk' that aren't supposed to like the guy with the funny name. Anyway, that state has recently been polling only at around +4 points for McBombit, remarkable and as such can only be considered marginal for McCain.

There are many reasons why this state is worth fighting for, WV feels a bad economy worse than just about any state, and when Obama talks about 'the forgotten' the people of WV are precisely the kind of American he means. It's traditionally Democratic, Bush only took it for the first time from Gore in 2000.

The coal industry, whether it's the oxymoron that is 'clean' coal or just plain old dirty coal, has got problems there. WV is being both sustained and destroyed by it. There are fights to take up for coal worker's rights; better wages, working and living conditions. Wages have shrunk while the coal corp's profits increase, and a stronger union can only help those that work in it.

Also, just about anybody who doesn't work in the industry has been outraged by its disregard for the laws of the state. In collusion with it's Washington DC Republican lackeys, legislation has even been adopted retrospectively to cover corporations that had previously broken the law. There's plenty to get our teeth into in West Virginia. Even if the state is to be lost this time around, fighting for it will force McBombit into spending money where he doesn’t want to, and it will lay a solid foundation for a follow-up win in 2012.

If you want to get a bit of an insight into WV and the people there, check out this entry about the Democratic fight for Appalachia. I wrote it sometime ago, and even if I say so myself it's well worth a read, and it features a must watch documentary.

Do me a favor McBombit you dirty dog...

So you care about Americans do you, you'll always put Americans first will you. Well, when I sat watching your press announcement lunchtime I nearly began to believe you. I even thought to myself, right on! maybe the old goat isn't just a desperate vote grabber after all, but then came the news.

I guess it was inevitable, of course it turns out that it was the Obama campaign, indeed Barack Obama himself, who called McCain at 8.30am this morning to ask the old liar if he would consider working with him to help solve this crisis. Apparently McCain couldn't decide for himself, and deferred to his advisers, then finally called Barack Obama back at 2.30pm, to agree to the Senator's request. During the call however, McBombit made no mention of holding a press conference 30 minutes later, in which he told the world that he was asking Barck Obama to follow his lead.

What a miserbale fuck that man is!

I really, really hope Americans can see this for what it is, it's in the best interests of all of us that you do.

Oh Yeah! you heard it here first...

Buffet's Billions

Well maybe second, or third or something, but you definitely heard it here before you heard it on Headline News....that is, if you watch Headline News, and logged on to Dirk's Pants before switching on the TV, or something.

Buffet throws $5 Billion into 'struggling' Goldman Sachs...

Am I just becoming a complete sceptic? why is it when I see something like this...

Buffett invests in Goldman: Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) said late Tuesday that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is investing at least $5 billion in the bank through a preferred stock purchase and could buy up to $5 billion in common stock over the next five years. Separately, Goldman said it is raising $5 billion in common stock.
Buffett's investment could be seen as restoring confidence in the storied Wall Street firm, amid the ongoing credit market fallout. Goldman shares gained 3.5% Wednesday morning.
Over the weekend, federal regulators said they were converting Goldman and Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) into bank holding companies, allowing them to buy smaller regional banks and have more direct access to Federal Reserve funding. The move also puts the banks under the Fed's supervision.

from CNN Financial Pages

I get ever-so-slightly suspicious that those Wall Street tycoon-types are taking us for the fools we are. When that rat Buffet makes a move as obvious as this, it's because he's desperate, despetrate to get his grubby hands on his share of all that taxpayer cash that's gonna go flooding into Wall Street, gratis.

Let's face it we're fucked!

Meet the three people who could decide the next President...

Now don’t get me wrong I’m trusting in the great American public to provide the world and Barack Obama a landslide win come November 4th, but and it’s an ever-so-tiny but, something scary happened yesterday as I was making my daily visit to CQ's groovy scenario builder, I split the swing states like this:-

Obama; VA, NH, PA, IA, CO, IA, NM, MN, WI

McBombit; FL, MI, OH, NV, MO

I’m never confident about my predictions at the best of times, and I'm definitely iffy about giving McBombit Michigan, as it could easily go to BO, but in the same token Virginia and Colorado would shock no one if they ended up as red states. Of course they're all going to be tight scraps, and a LOT can change between now and Nov 4th, but for the sake of this scenario lets say I got it right.

Well, for the first time I saw that a split decision was a genuine possibility, my scenario came out 269/269. Yes, it was enough to send shivers down my spine, but thanks to a recent article on electoral-vote.com and their dogged pursuit of all things political, I may be able to allay your fears some.

The article, which due to the fact I was too shortsighted to see a split occurring, I initially ignored, perhaps prophetically pointed out that in the event of a split college the House of Representatives take a vote to decide on the winner. But, and it's a big but, with the caveat that each state cast a single vote regardless of population density. Meaning that a state as unpopulated as dear old Alaska receives the same voting power as say California, which is just jam packed full of fantastic Americans, and it is with this caveat that the shenanigans begin.

There are 435 members (representatives) sitting in the House of Representatives and they are proportionally divided between the states, a densely populated state like California receives 53 representatives, and a less populated state such as Virginia receives 11. However, under this ruling with each state receiving one vote, California will bring all its representatives (Republican and Democrat) together and take a vote to decide which candidate will receive California's vote. In California’s case there are a majority of Democrats holding seats so it is most likely that California will cast its vote for Barack Obama. Whereas Texas has 32 representatives, and the majority are Republican, so Texas will probably cast its vote for John McCain and so on.

When the states with a single representative come to place their vote, the representative will either be a Republican or a Democrat, and as such you would’ve thought they'd cast their vote accordingly, but ironically this is where it can get complicated. It is exactly this scenario that the electoral-vote.com article focuses on.

There are seven sparsely populated rural states that receive a single House seat, they are; Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. Three of those states are likely to vote Republican in the general election, but elect Democrats to Congress, they are; North Dakota, South Dakota and of course, Alaska!

Alaska has been looking to throw out the old guard of Alaskan politics. The people of the state have become fed up with the endless corruption associated with their congressional delegation and want a change. Until McCain's inspired choice of running mate, Alaska had even looked like a race the Democrats might've won. Still, although Alaskans are now likely to vote for one of their own on the presidential ticket, they don't have that problem when it comes to the congressional races.

Electoral-vote.com have closely followed the hotly contested Republican primary between Lt. Governor Sean Parnell and veteran Don Young. Don Young has served 18 consecutive terms as Congressman for Alaska, and has been partnering Ted Stevens for 35 years, they are the old guard, both are under investigation, Stevens already having been indicted.

The Democratic Party candidate for Congress is Ethan Berkowitz, who had been running badly in polls against Parnell. The funny thing is that Parnell would’ve almost certainly beaten Berkowitz, but the Republicans, being Republicans, elected Don Young in the primary and Berkowitz is running 15-20 pts ahead of Don young in the same polls. So, it looks like a shoe-in, confused? I was.

Basically, it seems these people are Republicans at heart, they believe they are conservatives, but they are honest conservatives first, or at least the majority are, and as such are not prepared to trade their honesty and dignity for the sake of getting a crook elected. So left to chose between re-electing the criminal Don Young, or breaking ranks and voting Democrat, most prefer the Democrat.

Here’s what Electoral-vote.com had to say...

...As expected, the renomination of Rep. Don Young (R-AK) for Congress may pretty much end the GOP's hopes to hold the seat against Democrat Ethan Berkowitz. This seat is an especially important one because the presidential race is so close that a 269-269 tie is certainly a possibility. In the case of a tie, the new House elects the President with each state getting one vote.

That would mean Berkowitz gets as much say as all of California. Like Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) and Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (D-SD), he would be in a situation of being a Democrat in a state that went wildly for McCain. Pomeroy has been around for a while and can probably withstand the pressure applied to him to vote as his state did, but Herseth-Sandlin and Berkowitz as relatively newbies will get introduced to power politics real fast. A situation in which Berkowitz, Herseth-Sandlin, and Pomeroy got together for lunch in a smoke-free room to pick the President would be kind of unprecedented.

Electoral-vote.com went on to show what they looked like, and as they could be the three people who end up deciding the fate of the country (and the world) sometime after November 4th, I thought it prudent to show you too, here they are...


Ethan Berkowitz(D-AK) is on the left of Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin(D-ND), and Earl Pomeroy(D-SD) is on Stephanie's right.

Today's Electoral Vote Map

At the bottom of this page you can view the latest electoral vote map, courtesy of electoral-vote.com, it's long been known that BO needs to secure all the John Kerry states, and depending on which ones, steal two or three from the Bush column. Well, interestingly today's map shows him doing precisely that, safely holding all the Kerry states and gaining Iowa (by double digits now), New Mexico, and Colorado. If this is the map on Nov 4th BO gets his mits on that big iron key for the White House door.

Despite all the talk of North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio this is probably the map most likely to take BO to the White House, and as you can see it's gonna be tight. All of you on the east coast better prepare yourselves for a long election night , you’ll be sat huddled drinking your Horlicks as you wait for the officials of some remote county in southern New Mexico to recount their 185 votes, it's gonna be a night for the ages, not one for the feint hearted.

WTF? Part III

So all’s well on wall street again, phew! that’s a relief, that was a close one eh? My God all those mega-rich bankers nearly had to face up to their losses, but fortunately the US tax payer jumped in to underwrite it all and cover them, they say that it'll cost us around a trillion bucks...nice.

But, do you know what a trillion is? it's a thousand billion, or a million million. I figured I'd try and help you visualize what an awful lot of money a trillion bucks is, and to help I've posted a $10,000 bill up there. I scanned it this morning, so apologies if my scan seems a bit rough. I was lucky to have it on me actually, I don’t usually carry many of them, but I just happened to be having lunch with a banker friend of mine today, and I'm told it's quite standard currency for bankers who like to have a half decent bottle of wine with their lunch!

Anyway, that single bill represents one hundred $100 bills, in other words a lot of money. Now try and imagine a hundred million of those $10,000 bills and you've got your trillion. The ten thousand dollar bill is just over 6 inches long, and if you were to take one hundred million of them and place them end to end, apart from taking an enormous amount of time, your line of ten thousand dollar bills would stretch for ninety five million miles, give or take a few yards.

In other words, if physics allowed, your cash trail, and it is your cash, would reach the sun, and you’d have a few billion dollars to spare for lunch when you got there....WTF?

This is the mother of all bail outs, we’re buying up all the crappy defaulted mortgages, you know the ones that should never have been loaned out in the first place, but were by greedy mortgage brokers and greedy buyers. The bail out ensures that the brokers, and agents get to keep their ill-gotten gains, and all the people that couldn’t afford to buy houses in the first place, but did, will get to keep their houses too. Hell! some of them are gonna make tidy profits once all is done and said.

The only losers here, are those who were foolish enough to buy what they could afford, or even worse didn’t buy at all, because they knew they couldn't afford it. It’s the responsible people among us who will end up losing the most, and it‘s just unbelievable.

I mean, I’m British, and really I shouldn't give a crap, in fact I should be cheering from the roof tops, after all the London FTSE gained even more than the Dow today, and a couple of our previously struggling banks got to see their share prices increase by over 50% in a single day! Rewarded by the American taxpayer for being greedy and making bad decisions, amazing!

So, everyone's cashing in now that the US taxpayer are so kindly picking up the tab for it all.

A trillion dollars, when I think how many schools and hospitals could’ve been build for that, and universal health care? well that would seem like a drop in the proverbial ocean by comparison, we could’ve operated a universal health system for the entire population of the planet for that, what a fucking joke!

Still, who cares? it’s only money, right? It’s gonna be the US taxpayers’ children and grandchildren that’ll be left to pay for it all, and suffer even greater consequences because they’ll have absolutely no money left to invest in little things like the country’s infrastructure, you know things like bridges and roads and rail lines. Then they’re gonna have to lose all the services like police and fire, and social programs like schools and healthcare, they’ll be a luxury, a long lost dream, and of course we shouldn’t forget about the over extended military and beaten up veterans. They’ll all be fucked.

The dollar will be devalued to such an extent that things will perpetually cost more, with wages going down accordingly. Still, on the bright side perhaps the Chinese will find it cheaper to get their shit built here, using our decedents as bonded labor, and it’s a big place, we could take everyone else’s nuclear waste, there’s good money in that, we could even cover the interest on our loans for a few months if we took it all. That would help them pay off some of their father’s debts, or rather the debts caused by the greedy fucks among us who just borrowed too much to be called out. This country has set itself up for a mighty crash.

The grand philosophy of capitalism without regulation, that system so preferred by McBombit, is that markets will find their own way if they are left alone. Things may hurt for a while, industries may fail, but ultimately a free market will find itself a way out. The problem is it doesn’t work. Our market is about as free as the communists.

We now have banks nationalized in all but name, we have mortgage lending that’s nationalized in all but name. This is the very thing capitalists so decried of communism, the problem is communists would’ve done it a lot better, we’ve got the worst of both worlds a hotchpotch.

And you watch what happens next. This bail out is being funded by US taxpayer’s money, no one else’s, the money belongs to the US people. Yet, you watch some newly created ‘independent’ agency quarantine the cash. Mark my words, all this money will be lost in the secrecy of independent private companies like the Fed, which give us no right to look at their books.

Hell! we can’t even find out who owns the Fed, you know actual names of people, and I bet you thought it belonged to We The People. I have news for you, there’s a very good chance that not even an American is involved in the ownership of the Fed.

WTF? Part II

So, the country continues to fall apart at the seems, as secret meetings are held between foreign octogenarian bankers and their multi-billion dollar families, cooking up new schemes to enslave the US public and make more money while their at it. The stock market reacts like a fucking yo-yo, opening 200 points up only to find itself an hour or so later languishing at a 200 point drop, then a net four hundred point rally as it reclaims earlier gains at 200 points up only to swing back again and as I write this the dow-dow stands at about even 4 points up....now as I edit this the market has closed 400 points up....unbelievable!

Meanwhile we have the republican campaign desperately tracking the Dow before deciding what to say next, then understandably fucking it up anyway. McCain's first response to the crisis was to remind everyone of his lack of economic credentials by reiterating that he (alone) felt that the 'fundamentals of our economy were strong', but once realizing that it hadn't gone down too well and he was on his own in with his views on the fundamentals, he spent the next 24 hours backtracking, trying to convince us that by fundamentals he meant the workers, of course!

But, things get worse, realizing that the US public were not buying his 'fundamentals' line, he decided to come out and take action, make a statement of substance, and show the world that he 'gets it'. And what better way of doing that than finding someone to blame for it all. Knowing that even by Americas standards placing it at the feet of Barack Obama would be stretching it to breaking point, he went with Christopher Cox, chairman U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Yeah, that same Christopher Cox leading republican lawmaker and close ally of the Bush administration.

In classic McCain style he irresponsibly undermines his own party, government and president by pointing the finger at the head of the SEC, saying if he were president (oh Lord please no!) he'd have fired him. I'm not sure whether he realized at that point that Mr Cox had been appointed by President Bush, because Mr Cox shares the same crappy republican financial philosophy that if you leave the market alone it'll be alright on the night. Mr Cox was recruited as SEC Chairman specifically because he wouldn't regulate anyone, after all the market would work it all out eventually, right?....oooops!

Ten minutes after McCain let the whole world know he was holding Mr Cox personally responsible for all America's woes, the White House came out saying that the president was fully committed to the SEC chairman!

So, it seems Mr Cox is purely McCain's fall guy, Bush must have someone else in mind, perhaps himself, or John McCain for constantly voting against any proposed regulations aimed at governing Wall street and the greedy sub-prime mortgage fuck-wits, you know people like ex-McCain campaign chairman Phil Gramm. Confused? Don't worry McCain is too...

A bit of good news from accross the pond...

Good old blighty! not only do I hear this morning that the Brits are slowly buying up the failing American investment banks, which will ensure you'll be indebted to the Queen and not some Chinese dude in a weird jumpsuit. But, I also get the news that Reading FC thumped Sheffield Wednesday 6-0 at the Mad stad last night.

As a special treat I've dropped in a picture taken last night at the Mad stad, now you know where all the beautiful people go on a tuesday night. Is that Ray Winston with his shirt off?

I can tell you it helped take my mind off the horror that is the US economy, and the thought that half of all Americans still believe that McBombit and the Bambi eating Bimbo can stear us a steady course out of it all.

Everyone played their part, a true team performance, Wednesday never had a look in. After failing to score a goal at the Madjeski stadium for nine months the Doyler popped in his second hatrick in two home games. But, that wasn't all, there were a couple of other major positives to come out of the match: Noel Hunt opened his account by slotting in two on his first full start, and Bikey came back, topping off a solid performace partnering our teenage Center Back sensation Alex Pearce by scoring a goal in grand superman style.

All in all it was a complete performance now if only they could do that every week I'd be able to watch them on Fox Sports again next season!

Can someone tell me WTF is going on?

So, our revered financial markets seem to take on the look of a global Craps game, with people’s retirement funds and life savings being gambled on a roll of the dice. The only guarantee of our financial markets is that the multi-millionaire bankers and corporate CEOs have their hands wedged far too deeply inside the US tax payer’s pocket in order to lose. Though exactly how much those money grabbing republican reptiles will end up costing the coal miners of Appalachia , or the steel workers of Michigan is anyone‘s guess. Still, one thing’s assured, their descendents are gonna be paying off the Chinese for generations to come.

But, don’t worry as there’s been a whole lot of hot air coming out of the republican ticket, telling anyone that’ll listen how they’ll never let it happen again, and again, and again.

On top of all the republican self-regulated free trade fuck-ups that have been happening, the MSM finally admit that they’ve been aware of the McCain camp’s lying all along. They’re aware that McCain’s been lying to the American electorate for ages now. Lying on just about everything, from what his running mate has, or hasn't done, and things that McCain himself has or has not said, to misrepresenting his opponent's policies and feigning outrage at Barack Obama’s innocuous statements. Yet I click on to my favorite electoral map of the country this morning expecting to see Obama holding a comfortable 350-400 electoral vote lead, only to see that he’s actually lost ground to McCain.

Lost ground!!!

How the fuck does that happen? are we living in some alternate reality? has Spongebob declared that it's opposite day or something? I am just stunned.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the stupidity of the US electorate, after all they did return GW to power four years ago. But, how can they support the aged candidate of a party that’s all but ravaged this country over the past 8 years? how can a sound majority of them prefer more of the same? How can they be convinced that this 100 term Senator and two week Mayor of a village in Alaska are the perfect team bring us the change this country so desperately needs?

Don’t they value their savings? Can’t thay see the damage this regime is doing to this country? I’m English but I care, I worry for my American cousins, honestly I worry. One thing’s for sure there would never be a Christian uprising in blighty, we stopped all that nonsense years ago, something like 8% of the population go to church and that’s on a good week.

But, I’m vested in this country, my son was born here, and sees himself as an American, well an American that’s very aware of his British roots. So this is my adopted country, and I actually care about what happens to it. As I've said before I’ve grown to appreciate and respect your amazing constitution. Though it seems that 'piece of paper' has disappeared of late, perhaps the US government gave it to the British Civil Service and asked them to file it for safe keeping!

The way things are going there will not be an America in a few years. The Chinese and Indians must be laughing all the way to the bank. here you are in a struggle for the world's greatest economy and you're giving it all away, you couldn't make it any easier for them. Please, citizens of my adopted country, please, please, read the policies that these candidates stand on. Don’t just believe to Rush Limbaugh's invented versions, read them yourself. Leave your petty prejudices behind for a while, there‘s far too much at stake. At least wait until the young black dude has managed to secure your life savings and your pensions first.

Americans, get rid of this regime, throw the republican machine out of power, they deserve nothing from you, they’ve done nothing for you, only lined their own pockets while you suffer. Only Obama can rectify this horrific situation we're in, we won’t get a second chance.

Liar, liar pants on fire!

Deary, deary me, even loyal old Mitt can't keep schtum about McBombit's lies anymore...

WTF is going on? Today, Friday September 12th the Republicans under McCain have taken a lead in electoral votes...

I just can't believe this is happening again, as things stand today, greater numbers of the American electorate support the republican candidate than the democrat. A majority of Americans support reinstating the same republican bandits that have all but destroyed everything we held dear.

A religious highjacking of our government is taking place before our very eyes, this regime is virtually ran by Christian fundamentalists. We have a 'Creationist' VP candidate, one who refuses to believe in evolution. The constitution suffers ever greater smudging of the borders between church and state.

The once great United States of America is teetering on the edge, is becoming unrecognizable to those that founded it. The country is in serious peril, and in very real danger of becoming a religious police state. It is becoming a country of meek citizens afraid to question anything their government undertakes in their name. Happy for their privacy to be invaded, happy with a non-existent health service, happy with a crashing economy, happy with the loss of more jobs, happy to play their part in as many wars as our military can bear, this has to stop.

This is the candidate who referred to our country's constitution as 'just a piece of paper', no surprise really when he’s part of a regime that refuse to answer questions asked of them by the people's representatives in the executive branch of government. These thugs believe that executive privilege permits those that have it to break the law, but is that what the founding fathers really intended?

This administration cannot be allowed to continue they are shrouded in secrecy, there’s no sign of the ‘open’ government they speak of, where are the examples of that ‘openness’? Is stifling an investigation into alleged abuses of power by their VP candidate ‘open’ government? It was a bi-partisan investigation started long before Palin was foolishly selected as their VP candidate, surely they would want to clear this up quickly, fairly and openly, why then the cover up?

But the litany of allegations against both McCain and Palin should not matter, these people, this party, their awful regime, should not be allowed anywhere near the government of our country. They’ve done enough damage already, some of it irreparable, they have destroyed so much that had been built by greater men and women before them.

These thugs should not be anywhere close, yet, somehow they are.

The corporate controlled media are desperate to stop the democratic candidate from winning, but Americans have to stand up and be counted. America has to wake up, this cannot be the result on November 4th. You cannot allow these charlatans to distract you from the issues. You owe it to your children to ask them where the money will come from for their plans. Are we just to continue borrowing from China? are our children to inherit a worthless country indebted to foreign powers?

I have been stunned by these latest polls. How can a party and a candidate be leading when they have offered so little substance? There are no policy discussions, Americans can’t let this happen again. They cannot be allowed to lie so brazenly, and mislead the American public, if the media are not going to do anything about it, then the American people need to.

The media have gone missing on the issues in this election, and seem to only want to hold one side accountable, where is the republican accountability? Where are the real journalists? Do you have no shame?

Croatia 1 England 4 -- Oh Yeah! we won, Oh Yeah! we're the best...

Oh Yes indeed Cappello's (without the r) England destroyed the Croats tonight on their home turf.

If for some insane reason you weren't glued to your TV/PC screens watching the glorious game of football played to perfection by a new look England, you missed out badly.

England simply gave Croatia a lesson in football. The youngster Theo Walcott was knocked unconscious by one of the Croat thugs, but picked himself up and smacked in a hat-trick, it was just sublime football, even Rooney put one in!

Going into tonight's game Croatia had never lost a competitive game of football in Zagreb, but that was to change in the most shocking manner.

Croatia, the team that put paid to England's Euro '08 dreams, by beating them at Wembley last year, were the victims of a well executed revenge attack.

Apart from a nervy first ten minutes, and in spite of some horribly thuggish play from a frustrated Croatian team, England totally dominated. I don't know what happened to Croatia, last year they looked light on their feet and a decent footballing team, but maybe they were suffering a little over-confidence going into their home match against a resurgent England.

They seemed to have no answer to the new found spirit of Cappello's England, and resorted to some of the dirtiest play I’ve ever seen in a world cup qualifier. Their team would've been better served by kicking the ball rather than their opponents.

England's heroic players will be sporting their share of cuts and bruises tonight, but two of them suffered far worse than the others.

England play-maker Joe Cole was stretchered off after a cynical Croat elbow smashed into his skull, leaving him unconscious with blood spewing from his head. The offending Croat was sent off, without complaint. But, unbelievably when virtually the same treatment was meted out to Theo Walcott the offender got off with just a yellow card. Although Theo’s hat-trick will have gone a long way to anesthetizing the pain of the knock.

Maybe FIFA have a new rule; if a player returns to the field of play after being knocked out, the offending player will only receive a yellow. Only if the victim is taken to hospital will an offender be sent off.

The referee was atrocious, England had a clear penalty denied, when Heskey was literally wrestled to the ground in the penalty area, and had a great individual Lampard goal disallowed as Heskey was harshly deemed to have fouled a player although they were not interfering with play. In addition, the clearly intimidated referee allowed a Croat consolation goal to stand even after their forward had kicked the ball off Terry's head, dangerous play in most referee’s books, but not one judging a match in front of 100,000 angry Croats it seems. Croatia got their undeserved consolation.

With the un-awarded penalty, the disallowed goal that should’ve stood and the Croatian consolation that shouldn’t have the game could’ve easily finished 6 or 7-0. That’s aside from the amount of dangerous play, and a hat full of red card offenses left unaddressed, still a contrived 4-1 will have to do.

Although I like things being even and fair and in this case they palpably were not, I am still happy with the result. England stay top of their group and what’s more important they looked like a quality team for the first time under Cappello today.

If I wasn’t English I’d say this was a sign of brighter things to come, but then again, I am….

INGERLUND! INGERLUND! INGERLUND!

You must watch the video in the top right corner...

This is a must view video, directed by Aaron Hodgins Davis it's enjoyed nearly 350,000 hits on youtube, and should be watched by anyone considering returning the republicans to power. The video is a tragic reminder of precisely what's at stake for us in this coming election.

I have long maintained that should the republican party be returned to power yet again, innocent people will lose their lives. Unfortunately, this video only reinforces my unpleasant assertion by reminding us of just how dangerous McBush is.

People need to be clear; McCain is going to be even worse than Bush, and Palin worse than Cheney. If we're lucky these two Christian warmongers will only take our country to the brink, and not actual total destruction.

There's long been talk of 'useable' nuclear missiles, as unpleasant as that concept is, I'd always taken some limited comfort from the fact that those weapons would still need to find a president that is prepared to actually use them. But, with McCain a few electoral college votes from the presidency, I feel we are careering towards a key inopportune moment in history. A moment when all the wrong cards are coming together at the same time ensuring some tragic destiny for all of us.

Listen carefully to Scott Ritter, Scott is an openly verbal critic of the Republican war machine. He worked at the IAEA in Vienna (incidentally with my ex-father-in-law), and was one of the weapons inspectors that cautioned this administration that there were no WMDs in Iraq.

This video captures Scott making an impassioned plea warning us of the dangers of 'useable' nuclear weapons, informing us that, should we use them in Iran (or worse Russia!), we will be hit back, and it will cost us one of our cities. It's an horrific thought, but sadly not one from the realms of fantasy, as the republican party and their mega-corp masters open up new markets to raid, it becomes one that's not only plausible, but a very, very real possibility.

Because I feel it is so important that people see this video I'm going to leave it posted in the top right hand corner of this page in the hope that people will visit. I will leave it there until election day or until something even harder hitting is produced. This message must get out.



OK, there's so much more to rant about today, but I'll save it for another time, after watching that video I’ve been left feeling a tad humorless. The one thing I will say is that for next year’s final the US Open need to employ linesmen and women that can actually see the ball. Though Fedex played supremely well, poor old Andy wasn't helped in the least by some dreadful line calls at key moments, one that would've ensured him a break and quite possibly the second set.

Still, not to worry, eh! We might have lost the battle, but not the war, the new guard are arriving in the form of Murray, Djocovic and Nadal.

Cultural oxymoron discovered as Louvre and NASCAR are linked! Plus, Olbermann fired for truth, and Founding Fathers just loving where we're headed!

NASCAR and the art of Numerology...

Recently I was doing some e-sniffing trying to dig up info about the Louvre Pyramid, you know the one featured in Dan Brown’s Davinci code and much favored of conspiracy theorists. Yeah, obviously I have a little more time on my hands than is healthy, but don’t judge, just don’t judge...

Anyway, on my virtual travels I stumbled across this confusing, yet somehow entertaining blog; HolyspiritVictorious4ever. It read like complete gobblygook (to me anyway), which I guess makes sense when you consider it‘s title, and I can attest to the fact you don’t have to be a keen numerologist to enjoy it. I was stunned by the number of dark satanic messages being sent using vehicles as innocuous as the latest lottery numbers, and perhaps understandably, with so much going on, the blog is updated frequently. Keeping track of so many events must be tiring, the keeper of the blog seems to be extremely committed, and I’m sure some would argue that they would need to be committed.

Though I have to admit, I’ve always wondered why it is that someone doesn’t just ask Ieoh Ming Pei whether he’s part of some grand satanic plan, or not, it would seem preferable to endlessly theorizing about it. After all, he seems like a nice enough bloke, approachable an’ all that. Then again, I have to admit when I took a ganders at the list of his upcoming projects one could argue that they’d sit neatly with a servant of Beelzebub. One project slated for next year (2009) is the NASCAR Hall of Fame, in Charlotte, North Carolina. I for one will be keeping a close eye on the precise number of bud lights consumed during its construction!

BTW I just don’t think we should ever forget that moment...


Other news -- as I reported un-exclusively yesterday, Andy Murray managed to finish off Rafa and ensure he'll be the first Brit since Greg Rusedski in '97 to contest a slam final. That occasion was also the US Open, unfortunately for us long suffering Brits Greg lost in straight sets to Pat Rafter. But, it get's better than that, if and it's a big if Andy manages to beat Fedex, he'll become the first Brit to win a slam since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977, and the first British man to win a slam since Fred Perry in 1936, who won both Wimbledon and the US Open that year.

So it's been a long time, even longer than the last time England won the football world cup. Saying that a lot rests on Andy's 21 yr old shoulders would be an understatement of extreme proportions.

Another understatement of extreme proportions would be to say that I am pissed off at the news that the right-wing media machine has successfully ensured that both Keith Olbermann and Chris Mathews are to be dropped from anchoring future MSNBC political events, you know like the fucking election in November.

This move ensures that there will be no liberal voices to be heard on election night, only right wing nuts. What price Fox calling the election for McBush before sunset on the east coast?

Here's a picture of Keith holding his flag, and looking more presidential than McBush. It's ironic that his love of country and fundamental belief that he should tell the truth has cost him media credibility. There has been no questioning of what he's said, no one has contradicted a word of what he's reported, yet they manage to marginalize him in this way, shame on NBC for bending to accommodate the right-wing and allowing this to happen.

Combined with the recent news of police arresting people in St Paul on suspicion of organizing a protest rally, it's nice to see we're taking a few significant strides towards a police state, something I've no doubt the socially minded founding fathers intended all along....

Murray beats Nadal at the US Open now for Federa in the final...

I just had to celebrate this moment and try to give you some perspective of what it means to us Brits. A Brit hasn't won a grand slam final since Fred Perry in 1936. Yup! 82 baron years, which is why the whole of Britain will be tuned into the final tomorrow.

Murray played a brilliant semi-final crafting a well deserved win against the much fancied world # Rafa Nadal in NYC this afternoon. He's now given himself a shot of actually winning this thing, and will face Fed in the final tomorrow.

Andy has a 2-1 winning record over Fed, having won the last two meetings between them. There's no question Andy has the game to beat Fed, but it'll be a tall order delivering against the five time US Open champion, someone who happens to be on a mission to win his world #1 spot back. Of course Andy's win would be a great thing for Britain and British tennis, but I also believe if Andy accomplishes the unthinkable (well unthinkable for any Brit) tomorrow, it would be great for tennis in general. It'll be the first time in my lifetime the world's top four players all have a genuine chance of finishing the season at #1.

The thought of these dudes being head and shoulders above the rest of the field and regularly meeting eachother in any combination in the slam and masters' finals will be scintillating.

Great new grassroots ad about to air in Ohi and a couple of other swing states...

Anyone from The Daily Kos will already be familiar with cartwrightdale's brilliant home hashed commercial, it was picked up by Truth and Hope who will be airing it in Ohio and Florida this week.

If you want to help support this ad you can drop in a donation here.

and here it is...

Shock horror England beat Andorra and even more shocking and harrowing Andy Murray is two sets up against Nadal

OK, I know the Murray/Nadal match is nowhere near being over, but Andy's performance has gotta be worth a shout out.

Murray has previously lost all 5 of his matches against Nadal, but he came out and stunned everyone by controlling the early sets. No mean task against the form player on the men's tour at the moment, and newly crowned world #1 Rafa Nadal.

Contrary to popular opinion it seems Americans don't like underdogs, the crowd at the Louis Armstrong stadium were totally on the world #1's side. Cheering Andy Murray's double faults even sighing if a Nadal shot hit the net cord but failed to crawl over to Andy's side. They were one of the most partisan crowds I've seen in tennis, you would've thought it was a Davis Cup match between Britain and Spain, being played in Spain, not a grand slam semi-final debutante taking on the all powerful world #1 in NYC.

The partisan nature of the crowd makes the fact Andy took the game to Nadal all the more impressive.

But, it seems he has to do more than just battle the world #1 and the NYC crowd, the organizers are doing their best to influence the outcome too. After rain delayed play in the early stages of the third set, they took the decision to suspend all play until tomorrow, and also move the semi-final match to a different stadium. Now, Andy will resume battle on the slower Arther Ashe court. Perhaps the organizers felt that Nadal hadn't been given enough of an advantage with just the crowd and felt they could help him out by slowing things down.

They had been playing on the faster Louis Armstrong court, but that could be suiting Murray's game too much. I guess Nadal can thank the rain and the US Open's desperation to see a more profitable final between Federer and Nadal #1 vs #2.

Whether Andy pulls it off tomorrow, or not, he's already earned his place among the elite. He's proved that he can more than mix it with Nadal, and deserves huge credit for it. You almost make me feel proud to be British again.

Well done son and good luck for tomorrow!

PS Try and get a grip on that non-racket hand, looks a tad spacky mate ;)

Alright, now onto the greatest footballing nation on earth's national football team, that'll be Ingerlund. Oh yes! It would appear that they passed the part timers of Andorra with consummate ease winning 2-0. For the record here's a nice a picture of Joe Cole celebrating scoring his second.

But, I have to say 2-0, 2-0! WTF! Is it just me or is Crappello as crap as every other manager we've ever had except for the great El Tel? If we struggle to beat a bunch of firemen and dentists 2-0 what hope have we got against the Croats next Wednesday in Croatia? I tell you what hope....no hope!

I guess I'd better prepare myself for another four years of complete and utter disappointment, when oh when will those fools at the FA actually give the job to an Englishman who cares?

Long time associate of Sarah Palin's lets us know just who Ms Palin is....

The letter below has been circulating the internet these past few days. It was written by Anne Kilkenny a long time associate of Sarah Palin's, Anne is also a resident and one time council member of Wasilla, AK.

Anne blieves in voters being 'informed', and her letter is primarily aimed at giving the US electorate some insight into Ms Palin.

The letter is well balanced, and points out both Ms Palin's positives and negatives. It will help you form your own opinion of Ms Palin before the GOP or the media frame her for you.

So, without further ado here's Anne Kilkenny's letter...

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Gov. Sarah Palin since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first-name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99 percent of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice for vice president and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe."

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life." She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her lifestyle ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time) and less than two years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration, most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings, which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative." During her six years as mayor, she increased general government expenditures by more than 33 percent. During those same six years, the amount of taxes collected by the city increased by 38 percent. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax, which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefitted large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenue during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list, though — borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt but left it with indebtedness of more than $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? Or a new library? No. $1 million for a park. $15 million-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex, which she rushed through, on a piece of property that the city didn't even have clear title to. That was still in litigation seven years later — to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5 million for road projects that could have been done in five to seven years without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as governor Sarah proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenue: Spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire our highly respected city librarian because the librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the city librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys." Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the city and as governor, she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal — loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the state's top cop.

As mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's police chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than two dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town, introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal city administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Gov. Frank Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission — one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil and gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job, which paid $122,400 a year, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this commission (who was also the state chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club," when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Sen. Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects — which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance — but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork."

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The state party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla, there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiaitive that would have either protected salmon streams from pollution from mines or tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on whom you listen to). She has pushed the state's lawsuit against the Department of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as a threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for president; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being president.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there are a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

Claim vs. Fact
"Hockey mom": True for a few years
"PTA mom": True years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since
"NRA supporter": Absolutely true
Social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, but vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
Pro-creationism: Mixed. Supports it, but did nothing as governor to promote it.
"Pro-life": Mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby but declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation.
"Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
Political maverick: Not at all.
Gutsy: Absolutely!
Open and transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
Has a developed philosophy of public policy: No.
"A Greenie": No. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
Fiscal conservative: Not by my definition!
Pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
Pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents
Pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.
Pro-labor/pro-union: No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.
Why am I writing this?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name, you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "bad things happen when good people stay silent." Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the city librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

Caveats: I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending and taxation two years ago (when Palin was running for governor) from information supplied to me by the finance director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: Did I adjust for inflation? For population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall — they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000" up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced, a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-1990s.

Anne Kilkenny is a homemaker and education advocate in Wasilla, Alaska.