KILLER FACT!

The Palace of Westminster has seven bars. In fact, they are not so much bars as villainous drinking dens, since none of them has a licence and they are completely illegal. The Mother of Parliaments is fundamentally a low shebeen selling bootlegged gin. That, I’m afraid, is a fact.

REUTERS EMPLOYEE SUSPENDED IN THROAT-SLITTING BROUHAHA

Charles Johnson of LGF has managed to get a Reuters employee suspended, because of a humorous email they sent him. "I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut...," they joshed.

What’s the matter, can't he take a joke? I’m always sending prank emails threatening to cut people's throats. It's a bloody funny jape. Here's one I sent yesterday, to the editor of The Daily Telegraph:

Greetings, you cur.

We gonna slit your throat like a goat.
Have a great day. Love the paper.

Jeremy Al-Majnoon
The Islamic Headbanger Army
PO Box 32402
Chipping Sodbury
Gloucestershire

Technically it is illegal to cut Telegraph employees' throats, but then so are a lot of things. Anyway, LGF is based in Los Angeles; the prankster who sent the email is more than a hundred miles away, in Sweden. So I’d say they can probably afford to relax. I’m prepared to bet you a pound that nothing comes of this death threat. My Uncle Algernon used to get death threats all the time. He didn’t let it worry him. Just ignored them, and went about his day.

Mind you, they got him. Threw him in a vat of boiling cheese.

VIDEO

A naked lunatic charges into a restaurant and screams at people through a megaphone, for no very obvious reason. Like many of the best ideas it's so simple that you wonder you never thought of it yourself.



It must be the last thing you need if you’re trying to eat your dinner.

A THORNY ISSUE

"The Respect MP George Galloway has said it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to murder Tony Blair."

Blowing up Blair is a thorny potato: it has its pros and cons. I see that Harry’s Place have come down very firmly on the 'Don’t blow up Blair' side of the fence –no doubt they feel the time is not ripe- but there are strong arguments to be made on both sides.

No one would seriously deny that Blair should to be put to death, but after a fair trial. You can’t just go blowing people up willy-nilly. Sorry, Abdul, but that’s not how we do things over here. You have to go through the proper channels.

But what if the trial drags on for years? What if Blair escapes to Switzerland and cheats the noose? There is always that risk. Others would argue that blowing him up will only give him the publicity he craves.

Opinion on whether we should assassinate the PM has become dangerously polarised in recent months. It is time to take a step back and consider these questions calmly and dispassionately. And let us focus on the things that unite us, not those which divide us. At the end of the day, it is a matter of individual conscience whether one assassinates the Prime Minister.

"3 million overfed zombies ruled by a deranged dynasty, surrounded by 300 million starving, loincloth-clad Muslims waiting patiently for the day when they pour out of the jungle and descend on the arrogant Chinese settlement to finish it off with their poison darts and machetes, leaving nothing but electronic road pricing equipment standing."

Description of Singapore.

ASIA-PACIFIC CRISIS

-Rival military factions in East Timor continued to engage in gun battles throughout Dili on Wednesday, after two people were killed and five injured in clashes on Tuesday.

-Vietnam struggles to deal with the aftermath of Typhoon Chanchu. Hundreds still missing.

-Australia battles to cope with the problem of tubby pets. One third of Australian cats are overweight; four in ten Australian dogs now major porkers.

                               
Timorese refugees struggle to survive.            An Australian struggles to lift an overfed cat.

LEGALISE POT, BAN PINK FLOYD

The minister for drugs said he had had "one or two puffs of marijuana" while a student but had not enjoyed the experience and decided not to repeat it.

Like a lot of Labour MPs, this guy seems to have made the transition from 1960s-style twerp to right-wing hoodlum, without at any point passing through common sense. All it takes is a haircut, apparently, and before you know it you're in favour of starting wars, golf and imprisonment without trial.

Full disclosure: when I was a student I dabbled with being Minister for Drugs, but I didn't enjoy the experience and decided not to repeat it. (I recommended that they legalise marijuana, but ban Pink Floyd. This is clearly contrary to common sense, but common sense can go and fuck itself, as far as I'm concerned.)

It's certainly true that one gets more right-wing as one grows older. When I was a kid I used to give money to the homeless. In my twenties, I would ignore them. These days I say, 'Get up, you lazy fleabag.' By the time I'm forty I expect I'll be giving them a rousing fine kick as I go past, on my way to gas some badgers.

Vote Labour, by the way.