[blogfocus saturday] 17 more lambs to the slaughter

Here they are …

4 Melanie Phillips has a mission and that mission is to expose subterfuge, collusion, falsification and distortion, particularly of an anti-semitic nature. Her most cutting remarks are reserved for the BBC [an organization so biased it’s a wonder it doesn’t topple over] plus other worthy recipients of the Phillips Pen. You can run, you can hide but this ladylike nemesis will get you in the end and she’ll do it with a turn of phrase that is often eye-opening:

After the fauxtography scandal, in which Reuters was caught falsifying photographs, comes another and even more series scandal involving Time magazine – more serious because this cannot be laid off onto flaky stringers. On the photo-journalists’ website Lightstalkers, Bruno Stevens has exposed an outright falsification by Time editors of a picture taken during last summer’s Lebanon war. This was captioned as the wreckage of an Israeli jet shot down by Hezballah… TIME not only changed the caption to state falsely that Hezbollah had scored the notable victory of downing an Israeli jet, but had suppressed the most important revelation of collusion between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah. Why should we now believe anything that TIME ever says?


5 Oliver Kamm polarizes opinion and I can’t say I always agree with him but what he writes is painstakingly thought out and one needs to have done one’s homework to take him on. On the personal front I have much time for Oliver and his encouragement in the early days of my blogging will always remain at the back of my mind. I would also love to read the e-mail correspondence between him and his good friend Stephen Pollard – it would no doubt reveal much. Known for his pro-war stance which he has explained in detail, here he takes time out to tackle the Bard tacklers who ascribe the authorship of his works to other pens:

The most favoured candidate among these conspiracy theorists (which is what they are) is Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. As de Vere died some years before the usual dating of Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest, his enthusiasts try to establish an alternative chronology for the writing of the plays. If they can find an eclipse visible from England in the late 16th century, then - ergo - they find the approximate date for the writing of Hamlet. The kindest thing one can say is that this is a monument to misplaced ingenuity.

6 Stephen Pollard is the BlackBerry toting, Shimon Peres acquainted, gastronomic gourmet by whom I came to blogging. For some time an avid commenter [I’m trying to get back to that once again] I once took on an avid atheist in a three day debate on Stephen’s blog and he never turned a hair, never protested. He does indeed believe in free speech and now the blogosphere must ask itself for how much longer they will have the never-knowingly-understated klaxon on its hands, after his recent appointment:

The Centre for the New Europe, Brussels' leading free market think tank, is delighted to announce the appointment, with immediate effect, of Stephen Pollard as its new President. Mr. Pollard said: “Alongside my Brussels colleagues, I look forward to stepping CNE's activities and output up a further gear. Now, more than ever, the time is right for EU policy makers to listen to the solutions offered by the market and individual freedom.”

7 Serf, more properly named Euroserf, who firmly believes we are on the The Road to Euro Serfdom and who runs the enormously popular banner system Rightlinks [seen in my and countless other sidebars] has been strangely silent lately but promised me I’d see something interesting in the next few days. Well, I’m still waiting. Serf was one the first commenters in my early days and I follow his comments around various blogs as well. Hard to get a line on the man, his David Davis for Leader and Anyone But Ken blogs give you an idea of his politics at least. Oh how sweet it would be to be blogrolled by Serf.

Please explain to me why France and Italy should care about how long British Workers work? This is a subject which, forget EU level, should not be discussed at national level either. An individual's labour is his own, to do with as he chooses. I can understand Europhiles when they talk about common action on the Environment for example, they might have a point. But to take away individual choice and give it to Brussels, is just tyranny. [Apologies but Blogger just won't accept Serf's link]

L'Ombre de l'Olivier is the man of olives, sometimes masquerading as Dirty Dingus. Usually found snapping photos in the shadow of an olive tree and disgracefully residing in a virtual paradise on the Côte d'Azur or taking long trips during which he snaps olive trees among other things, the ardently well read L’Ombre writes on a bewildering variety of subjects, including his Friday Olive Tree blogging. I’d dearly like to share a glass of wine or eight with him but must make do for now with his summation of Sege versus Sarky:

No matter what we might hope for, I am absolutely positive that foreign and EU affairs, not to mention topics like global warming or terrorism, will not play a large part in next year's election. The election will be fought on internal French issues, primarily crime and (un)employment, with next in line mention of pensions, the economy (inc privatisation) and "the French way of life".

9 Chicken Yoghurt is a major blogger I’ve only recently arrived at and so I can’t get stuck in to him as I can with, say, DK. Furthermore, I’m scarcely in a position to judge. From the changing cartoon graphics in the top corner to the biting posts, he is, as he says, an exiled Northerner, living under sufferance in Brighton with his infinitely patient partner, two young daughters and a roaring hangover. That almost qualifies him as an expat, so welcome to the club, Justin. Here he writes of one of the Frighening Femme set or one of the Scary Ladies, as Bryan Appleyard puts it:

In the new James Bond film, there’s a scene where ‘M’, Bond’s boss, goes on national television and declares that she knows who the villain is, where he is, what he’s up to and, furthermore, that her agents are following his every move. Now, you’re probably thinking ‘what a preposterous load of old bollocks, that’s far-fetched even by the standards of Bond movies’. Ordinarily, we’d agree (we did make it up after all) but that was before we read the speech given last week by head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller.

10 David Farrer is the libertarian returned to Scotland who runs a side-blog of snazzy photos called Scottish Clouds and apart from explaining libertarianism with the help of charts, he delivers savage rebuttals to pompous fools and generally furthers the cause of right-thinking individuals, not only of a Scottish hue, whilst partial to the occasional drop of the nectar spelt without the penultimate ‘e’. One thing to be thankful for is that he doesn’t own even one slave on his vast property, as he explains here:

I've never owned a slave and I object to Tony Blair's "rush to apologise". Why doesn't he emphasise Britain's role in opposing the slave trade? That's what a real Prime Minister would be doing. All of this nonsense is coming from a man who makes us work for him for almost half of the year.

11 Monty Lionheart defends England and believes its northern neighbour can do very well on its own, thank you very much. Interestingly, his recent posts have been an unrelenting scrutiny and expose of the Muslim menace in Africa and elsewhere, long after many other bloggers have given it away and thus he remains the portal for the latest information on this. He’s not averse to a little cartooning either which probably means he has a fatwah upon his head – he’d best put up the barricades forthwith and hope for the best of British. Given to devoting time to his day job and going for trips north, it’s a wonder he can blog at all. Here he states a sad truth:

It is a classic example of the culture of denial that permeates many quarters of Islamic society today. Unless people in positions of responsibility within the Muslim community - not just here but overseas too - start to accept there is a problem that needs to be dealt with, the problem with continue and maybe even grow.

12 Deogolwulf is a gentleman steeped in Curmudgeonry whom I can read a lot of when he deigns to drop the tone sufficiently below the abstruse and esoteric. For those who prefer the short story to the novel, he provides fewtrill after fewtrill on diverse topics, making him possibly the Samuel Johnson of Lancashire. Having arrived at his site via the Pedant-General, I can only surmise that Lancashire might refer to a regiment but possibly not. Deogolwulf is not easy reading but he’ rewarding reading for those who remain long enough to absorb the eminent sense of what he writes. This piece is in a lighter vein:

There is a thumb-rule which states that any journal of philosophy that publishes contributions from graduates or lecturers in Film Studies or somesuch fluff is a journal unworthy of serious attention. The rule serves to remind us that, for the sake of precious time, one had better attend to more important matters — to weeding the garden, to cleaning the lavatory, to seeing how many mints one can balance on one’s tongue — than to reading such likely piffle.

13 Dave Hill writes from the heart, as is evident in his latest piece on Fourness and though the subject matter is a distant memory for me, nevertheless it’s nice to read of such unashamed gooeyness, plus all the other surprising minutiae such as the man in green tights [Robin Hood], Roddy Doyle and others. Check out Dad's Life (Paperback), Man Alive and Out of His Skin: The John Barnes Phenomenon (Paperback) for further insight into the gentlemanly Dave Hill. Here he addresses one of his vital issues, complete with photos of the available varieties of said liquid:

At ten to eight this morning I nipped out to one of my local mini-markets and returned with a bottle of Fairy Liquid whose fragrance is described as "Passion Flower Storm". It seems important to share this information with you, and when I've worked out why I'll let you know.

14 Colin Campbell’s own blurb says he is a transplanted Scot, with an Australian partner, a six year old would be Darth Vader/Spiderman/Batman.., eight year old all Singing and Dancing/Barbie Lover/Artist, Spotty the annoying but friendly dog, 9 budgies (more babies every day), Mr and Mrs Quail, 5 goldfish 3 wannabe frogs and thousands of worms. There, in a nutshell, is his main life and blogging, his other two lives being environmental solutions and visiting us in the blogosphere. Heavy on the graphics, Colin’s blog is more a work of art than hard hitting and I’ve yet to find anything less than interesting, with the possible exception of the religious views he shares with Tom Paine. His blog is well worth a daily gander:

Reading the Oztralian today, my understanding of the sporting world was greatly enhanced by the knowledge that an Englishman had become this years Rock Paper Scissors Champion. Apparently they have a world championship in Toronto every year, complete with referees and MCs and assorted razmataz. They have a very nice website if you are interested.

15 Black Quill is the blog name for fellow expat Quinlan, who has really become a mate, I suppose, over the last few months. Both starting around the same time, he favours the stark Japanese black and white design, reflecting his place of residence, whereas I go for the lush earthy tones you see before you. Into web design, he helped me enormously with the setting up of my blog and we’re both planning to go into tandem soon in a superblog, once we can work out our mission statement and find a few spare minutes for it. I probably exchange more e-mails with Quinlan than any other blogger. He watches my progress and I watch his. A Mac devotee, he is not a man to mince words:

Perhaps what Bush means, when he says there are lessons to be learned from Vietnam, is that certain US interests can gain a lot of money by lying to relatively weak countries and then stabbing them in the back under the pretext of ideological differences.

16 Stuart A is sadly dormant in the blogosphere at Indecent Left but I was determined to cover him this time round. In his heyday he was a fearsome adversary and when I saw some amateurish reply to him on one blog I just waited for the mayhem in return. I won’t debate him on anything except Christianity because he knows too much and I state now that his vocabulary store is unsurpassed by any blogger I’ve yet seen in the sphere. He is the originator of the theory that one of Stephen Pollard’s commenters, Joshua, is actually a composite or alter-ego, rather than a real person. A little too obsessed with Oliver Kamm and SP for mine, nevertheless I see him as a sort of mate, in a way. This is typical Stuart:

Furthermore, regardless of preexisting grievances, or whether Iraq was the primary cause of 7/7, the Iraq War is widely recognised by analysts as having exacerbated the Islamist terrorism problem that Blair claims to be fighting. If anybody who holds that view is an “apologist for terror”, then these include at a minimum the US and UK intelligence services, Chatham House, and a third of the UK population in the immediate aftermath.

17 The Select hosts a bevy of writers but the one I’ve followed longest is the man named Cleanthes, in his other persona on the outrageous Infinitives Unsplit blog, now sadly dormant. An absolute stickler for correct form, I’ve been on the end of more Pedant-General keyboard lashings than you’ve had boiled eggs [which must always be eaten with an implement of bone, by the way]. Behind the prickly exterior lies a heart of gold who has supported me in my hour of need more times than I care to remember. Incisive in politics, deluded in religion, this man sports a coat of arms I’d dearly love to peruse and here is a little mini-bio of him. Fond of the Frazerian ‘we’re doomed, doomed I tell ye’, here the P-G explains mercury thermometers:

Do you know why mercury is used? No? Because it is a) liquid at room temperature and pressure and b) very very dense. You could make a column barometer using water. It’s just that instead of being a nice thing to put upon your wall, it would be 30 feet tall. Not exactly a decorative item then. And you have to be at the top of it to take a reading. Not very useful either. I had a colleague who had one of these and … Wait for it … it broke.WE ARE ALL DOOMED! DOOMED I TELL YE!

Those not scrutinized this evening will be under the microscope on Tuesday evening, at 21:00, London time. So sorry Blogger has caused mayhem this evening. Bye for now.