Is Melanie Phillips as mad as a badger?

Someone drew attention towards this posting on the Spectator website, a place I don’t visit and a person I haven’t heard of. But What she wrote…

The perception of which is all very interesting. There was me, sat there watching an election campaign conducted between two intelligent and reasonably sympathetic social and economic conservatives, one old and white, one young and black. Meanwhile Melanie seemed to have been watching a black power communist jew-hater storming the barricades of decency…

I don’t know what was more scary, the article or the comments from the readers.

Apologies to any Badgers out there who may be offended by the association with Melanie Philips.

Lost In Translation…

This is a sign in Wales, which as you can see has English and Welsh translation at the bottom. Unfortunately, the Welsh part while confusing those of us who can only speak English, also confused the Welsh speakers with what it said, which was:

“I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated”.

Have I told you how much I despise this man?

The man in question is Rupert Murdoch. Alot of American’s will know him by his ownership of the Fox news network, while in the UK he owns Sky and a number of newspapers, including the Sun.

This clip, demonstates how much I dislike this man who uses his media to promote his own right-wing politics. Free trade Mr Murdoch? You mean the free trade that has crippled the World’s economies? Whats that? Freetrade is the only way to lift billions out of poverty? Do you honestly beleive that?

You think that Europe wants to have protectionist laws? Or is it because they don’t share your political views? The sooner we rid ourselves of this Odious runt from his influence over UK politics, the better the UK will be.

It’s over.

After all the campaigning and finally the election, Obama wins. But you knew that. The question is, where do we go from here?

For me, an observer from across the pond, I’m glad he won. The position of president does have a profound influence on the world as a whole, as seen by what the current president did. The voter turn out was large…but was that because people were voting for Obama and his message or simply to rid themselves of Bush and the republican party?

One thing that struck me in the 2004 election was American citizens loyalty to President Bush, They knew he had done wrong, but felt that it was unpatriotic to vote out the “commander-in-chief” in a time of war. The mistake (in my opinion) of the Republican campaign this time around was…Sarah Palin.

I don’t envy the position that President-elect Obama has. His presidency will be all about clearing up the mess of the previous incumbent and my fear is he may not be able to make the impact that people expect him to. Expectations are so extraordinarily high, I think even God would have trouble living up to them.

But his election win will have an effect In Europe. The leaders of particular countries who have largely avoided engaging with the Bush administration over Iraq and particularly Afghanistan because they knew his influence was having a negative impact on the World will now have no excuse when next year there will be a more Liberal president in charge. Hopefully Obama will use his influence to prevent them from trying to avoid taking more responsibility as Nato partners rather than relying on a few countries to commit their forces, while they sit on the sidelines trying to avoid casualties.

I know the issue of race has reared it’s ugly head, the picture in the post below of a man with a placard calling Obama all those things…you kind of got the feeling that some of these people just said all those slurs as a round about way of calling him the “N” word. Me, I would not care if he was a purple Lesbian.

As I’ve stated before, I don’t envy Obama’s task, I don’t think I’ve seen politics played in such a way anywhere else in the World than in America, the hate, the entrenched views, Vitriol, the complete devisiveness…

But at least the we can all start talking again. While the current President divided opinion, I hope Obama will re-unite opinion. And it’s like I said before; The president of the USA no matter who it is will have a profound effect on the rest of the World, Positive or Negative.