…for buggering up my Sunday plans.

Right-wing dementor Kaye Grogan has this to say about US domestic politics:

It does not matter to terrorists like Osama bin Laden, who is president in America.

Blimey. That would certainly explain the administration’s ‘anti-terror’ policy, not to mention John Ashcroft’s role at the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue.

Via the Gentleman of Poverty. And not via Backword, who had the same thought independently.

Israel adds further weight to the “you can never have a liberal democracy in the Middle East” theory.

No surprise really… this is the country that invented “this may look terrible to your Western eyes, but at least we’re better than the Arabs” – the line that the Americans now also seem to be following.

Did Bush bomb it because he heard it was a *gay* wedding?

Not some kind of Flash animation, unfortunately, merely a rant against the incompetence of my ISP.

I found out on Sunday that they haven’t charged me for Internet access for over three years.

I didn’t, as one might have expected, find this out through receiving my monthly bills for three years: they state the monthly amount owed rather than the cumulative total, and say at the bottom “if you’re paying by direct debit this is for your information only”.

Nor did I find this out by receiving a phone call or a letter saying “you owe us an enormous amount of money and we’ll take you to court if you don’t pay”.

I found this out because they cut off my Internet access, rang up to ask why I couldn’t access the Internet, and was told that I owed them £650.

Now, assuming the billing department actually gets around to restoring my connection by the time I get home today, I won’t have lost out too much. I’m fortunately (well, *was* fortunately) reasonably cashed-up this month, managed to argue the amount owed down to £500 as compensation for their utter uselessness, and paid the lot over the phone.

However, I’d have been very displeased, not to mention living off beans for several months, had this happened while I was poor.

What kind of accounts department doesn’t chase unpaid bills until *three years* after they’re rung up? Also, what’s a good ADSL ISP to switch to?

There’s nothing in this world I’m afraid of, except Morrissey. Excellent gig, surprisingly good new album. Hurrah!

Why’d you never listen to us?

We could be invisible to you

Anyway it doesn’t matter now

‘Cos we have found somebody new

Sorry if your heart is broken

Why’s your mouth just hanging open?

Don’t look so surprised

We found another guy

Kerry’s in this photograph:

Kerry says the war will last forever

And he should know

That boy Kerry’s not the kind

To mess around and change his mind

Kerry is as tough as Marlon Brando

No-one thought you were a smartie

And Kerry knows about karate

There’s other things he’s good at too

Kerry’s not a bit like you…

(apologies to the memory of Kirsty McColl. But I think she’d broadly have approved of the concept).

UK libertarian commentator Sean Gabb is a comedian in a wide variety of senses of the word, if not the traditional one. Unusually for a libertarian, his latest article is a wonderful piece of ridiculous, unjustified, snobbish, borderline-racist Yank-bashing – deriding them as (among other things) terribly insecure.

More amusing still is the enraged reaction from American commenters, who are falling over each other in the race to point out that they’re not insecure, don’t have an inferiority complex, and anyway are better than the socialist, snobbish Europeans, who would still be slaughtering each other and living under tyranny today if it weren’t for America baling them out, so there.

My milk stout brings all the boys to the yard.

And damn right, it’s better than yours.

(further suggestions welcome).

I agree entirely with Stephen Pollard.

Although it’s a shame he didn’t have the balls to write his Maxine Carr piece in a tabloid newspaper.