[blogfocus] the burning issues

Continued …

Apologies for the radio silence, but your humble Devil is in London. I have a job interview on Monday (wish me luck!) and have been wandering around getting a new suit and haircut and all of that gubbins.

James Cleverly added to this debate: Yet again I find myself apologising for the lack of posts over this weekend. Here are a couple of things which caught my eye on Saturday. 1 Saddam Hussain found guilty and sentenced to death, no surprise there. 2 Tony Blair's mate has the veto over the investigation into the "loans for peerages" investigation, it will be very interesting to see whether he does the decent thing.

Then Doctor Vee nailed it: I’m shocked at how I don’t have any time to do anything these days. Where does all the time go? I had a ‘reading week’ [i.e. half-arsed week off] at uni this week, yet it was still non stop. To see if I can start doing something productive, I’m thinking of perhaps going for a week without going on the computer except to check my emails.

There it is – the blogmonster is chewing us up and unless you’re a professional, it soaks up every free minute until you cease to have an independent life. Every one of us knows how much it does take to keep a blog up and running and finding the formula for sanity would appear to be a very high priority.

Saddam [10 bloggers]

As James Cleverly suggested, Saddam was the other big story.

Norman Geras observed: Any chance that the great spokesthing of the coalition of the right-minded virtuous might give itself to a forthright expression of moral satisfaction over one of the worst tyrants of recent times being found guilty, finally, for a small fraction of his crimes? Forget about it.

Tim Worstall seconded that: Saddam. You can find apologists for anyone in The Guardian, eh?

Also on this theme – Guido Fawkes: Next week on Comment is Free - Hitler : His Brilliant Integrated Transport Policy

Serf was uncompromising: So the Iraqi Dictator will be strung up, hopefully it will be a painful death, though not everyone agrees with me.

Halls of Macadamia was in agreement: If there really was such a thing as divine justice, Saddam would be turned over, in series, to the families of the tens of thousands of people he had tortured & murdered and they would all be invited to carve a little piece off of him as a token of retribution.

The Tin Drummer was not so sure about this: Saddam is to hang: well I can't say I am surprised and I can't say I am too pleased either. It is politically stupid and will serve no interest other than the insurgency's. Apart from that I am still not sure about executing war criminals.

Paul Linford agreed: As a Christian I believe that the only way to break the cycle of violence is not vengeance, but forgiveness. It may sound idealistic, not of the real world, but in actual fact we see this principle played out again and again in the real world of international politics, and in life generally come to that.

Notsaussure said the whole thing was conducted improperly: Lynch him if that’s what people feel appropriate, and call it ‘popular retribution’ or something, but don’t try to make it out to be the result of anything we’d recognise as proper legal proceedings.

Steve went off at a tangent: Okay, I feel like the little boy in the emperor’s new clothes for saying this but how on earth do we know this is the real Saddam and not just an actor or a double. Saddam was known to have many doubles and his wife did say many months ago that this was not her husband on trial.

… and Quinlan showed us a rogue’s gallery and asked: See if you know the ages of those in the Dictator Room and how they died.

Britpolitics [7 bloggers]

Brit issues were a little overshadowed this time.

Tim Montgomerie had: Tony Blair makes case for ID cards.

Monty Lionheart, also on ID cards, said: He [Blair] rejected claims that the concept of ID cards and the collection and storage of biometric data - that would be shared among various agencies and made available to overseas governments - was an infringement of civil liberties, calling it an issue of 'modernity'.

Wat Tyler continued his relentless scrutiny: The TaxPayers' Alliance has just published more information on public sector pensions, in this case the eye-watering size of top mandarins' pension pots.

… and Dave Hill summed Tony Blair up: My problem with Tony Blair is that I think he is capable of convincing himself he's right about anything, especially if people usually on the same side as he is think he is wrong.

Iain Dale addressed the UKIP: Their membership is reportedly declining, the number of people who attended this year's conference was half the total of last year and now they seem to have lost a whole constituency. Click HERE.

Chris Dillow stuck to economics: Gordon Brown likens opponents of free trade [such as the European Union] to the Luddites who opposed technical progress:

Prodicus touched on football and the Beeb: Not that I give a damn, but... I just heard someone on the Beeb say: 'Of course, Sir Alex [Ferguson] no longer talks to the BBC, but...' Eh? What did I miss?

Books [3 bloggers]

Bryan Appleyard offers this heavily linked piece on POD publishing: My posts on new publishing technologies - here and here - as well as my Sunday Times article on the subject were about, primarily, POD - publishing (or printing) on demand. Using POD, books can be printed and bound only when they are sold. Bookshops could thus be reduced to a series of screens for browsing and a few POD machines into which the customer inserts his credit card.

Oliver Kamm introduced a new book: Another new book you might consider is called Britain's Bomb: What Next?, edited by Brian Wicker. One of the essays, arguing that Britain needs an independent deterrent, is by me.

… and Vox Day addressed the question of e-publishing first and then people buying your books: I prefer to buy books that I've already read, in fact, because I can avoid polluting my library and wasting my money on stuff that I don't like.

Bush and Co [2 bloggers]

There was less on Bush and Co this time.

Clive Davis quoted Charles Moore: Who in Britain knows that neocons are a phenomenon of the Left and that neither George W. Bush, nor Dick Cheney, nor Donald Rumsfeld has ever been one? Clive agrees with this up to a point only.

Bryan Appleyard, in his second appearance this evening, possibly had it right about Bush and Co’s motivation: Here is a likelier interpretation: neither is deluded, Bush doesn't believe Iraq is going well and Haggard didn't believe his gay frolics were consistent with his religious beliefs. Both simply find themselves committed by their actions to public postures which they have no choice but to defend and sustain.

Roundups [2 bloggers]

Blog roundups are becoming the rage, it seems.

Chicken Yoghurt wrote: A small roundup roundup Tim Worstall’s weekly Britblog Roundup and Mr E’s Swearbloggers Roundup. Personally, I’d like to know what happened to the EU Sceptic roundup, Dave Hill’s Sunday roundup and my own little Blogfocus?

I scoured Mr. Eugenides’ swearblog for language which could be printed in front of the children but failed miserably so you’ll just have to go there yourself.

Bits and bobs [11 bloggers]

Of course this was the second largest section this time round and the topics were varied.

Tom Paine is a Climatechangesceptic: Climate change is an ideological construct masquerading as science. It is a construct designed to justify the political end of an ever more powerful State, with ever more reasons to interfere in citizens' lives.

Gates of Vienna wrote of the huge Muslim population in one town in Sweden: The Fox interviewer spoke to a civil servant in Malmö: Q: You have a thousand students in a Swedish school? A: Yeah.Q: How many are Swedish?A: Two.

Sam Brett wrote of sex appeal [note this, boys]: Instead it all comes down to the three C's: Confidence, charisma and being carefree...

Deogolwulf had another Fewtril, #138: From what we see around us, we may deduce that the fear of seeming stuffy surpasses that of appearing boorish.

Cllr Gavin Ayling is quite taken with The tree of life: It's a fascinating tree that shows that we are more closely related to lizards than frogs are to lizards…

Colin Campbell touched on school meals: In the UK, healthy school meals are proving so unpopular with pupils that some school caterers are facing a financial squeeze as students vote with their feet and eat elsewhere or opt for packed lunches.

Lady Ellee of Ely was taken by Greenpeace: … like me, do you have a sneaking admiration for the high-profile tactics they devise to gain attention to serious global issues, though I admit they don’t get it right all the time …

The Englishman takes on the taxman, who is still making 4,300 nuisance calls a week. The maximum fine for each of these silent calls is £50,000 so the tax man could be asked to pay a fine of over £200 million a week.

After the latest Aussie win, Tim deLisle doesn’t believe that that can be extrapolated to indicate the results of the Ashes: And Test cricket is a half-different game, perhaps more so for England, because they are hopeless at one-dayers and good at Tests.

Blognor Regis builds a complicated argument on this premise: Think back if you will to the supposedly pivotal pieces of 60s liberal legislation passed by parliament during Harold Wilson's Labour government such as getting rid of the death penalty and decriminalising homosexual acts.

And finally, this little pearl from Daily Propaganda: I grew up in Wisbech - I lived there for 18 years. Another blogging friend of mine - Ellee Seymour - is from Ely. From my time in Wisbech, it was the drug capital of the Fens - possibly even East Anglia. Wisbech - it has been a drug infected cesspit for centuries.

That’s it until Saturday evening at 21:00, London time. Cheers.