KZ7 Wins Again

Ted Haggard Gives Richard Dawkins a whipping

YouTube is full of interesting clips. I was watching some clips of Richard Dawkins who is a famous athiest who travels the world laughing at religious people and promoting himself and science instead. (He does not look like a happy man to me). Here he interviews the infamous Ted Haggard. Ted Haggard gives him a verbal whipping…

If you want to see another confrontation, search on YouTube for Bill Clinton on Fox network. He lets the interviewer have it. Recorded a few days ago.

Bill Clinton’s homemade video

This is really different. It’s a video starring Bill Clinton! It’s not a bunch of clever editing, it’s actually his video… Haven’t quite worked out what it’s about though.

Jokes

An Irish man locked his keys in his car. It took him two hours to get his family out.

A nun is taking a bath when there was a knock on the door. “Who is it?” she asks. “The blind man,” comes the reply. She tells him to come in and he says, “Nice boobs. Where do I put the blinds?”

David Bain

It seems that David Bain is being welcomed back into the community as a hero (by everyone except his family). He looks a lot more respectable now. The picture of a pimply-faced sick looking youth who could easily pass for an axe-murderer has been replaced with a smart suit and the looks of a politician. Who knows what he will do now? Perhaps he will use his high profile and continue in the public arena. We may see him on Dancing with the Stars or Survivor…

Looking forward to coming home….

American Politics

American politics is actually quite an interesting thing, even if it is corrupt. And it is getting more interesting as the presidential race heats up.

I just watched a You Tube post by Mitt Romney – one of the leading candidates in the Republican line up. He is a Morman (a wealthy one – est $200 million) and he is very presentable unlike some of the others. Mitt was declared the winner of the last Republican debate. Anyway, he asked You Tubers to post videos replying to his question, “What do you believe is America’s single greatest challenge?”

It is amazing the waffle that people replied with. I watched about 10 replies and most thought the biggest issue is something like energy or education or proctecting individual rights… One said the war in Iraq but his response was isolated to the Iraq conflict and mentioned nothing about all the other countries that America is troubling. But there was one good reply and in his own words he talked about statesmanship. In my mind this is America’s biggest challenge – dishonest and short-thinking leadership.

This week I watched a DVD called, As Goes Ohio, So Goes the Nation. It was a fascinating look at the 2004 election between John Kerry and GWB. The Republicans did an amazing job at winning the election. The movie was not about all the corruption and pregnant chads etc, but about the campaign strategies employed. The Republicans realised they had an unpopular president and without increasing his popularity, they got him re-elected. They did this by a number of very cunning methods. Essentially, they blinded people with a few main issues: defending America, abortion and gay marriage. The war in Iraq appeared to mean nothing to anyone – it was just a part of defending USA.

They documentary showed people saying, “We’re Christians and we usually don’t vote. We don’t much like George Bush, but we’re going to vote for him because this is not about politics anymore – it’s about the Bible!” And this is how GWB won. His approval rating stayed at about 46%, but more people than usual came out to vote for him.

It made me realise something about the current presidential nominations that parties are going through. They need to be careful not to elect the person they like, but rather the person who is most likely to win the presidential election. In others words, they are more likely to win if they elect the most popluar candidate rather than the best candidate. For example, Sen. Obama may be a great guy and make a capable president, but will he be able to overcome the racism that the Republicans will whip up during election time? The Reps will no doubt play the race card.

Hillary is a toofer (that is a two-for-one.) She has Bill’s experience and contacts backing her. Bill is the most popular man on Earth which would help a lot in the election. Al Gore is also a good guy, but can he win? From this point of view, I think Hillary is the best bet for the Democrats.

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus is regarded as one of the greatest emperors in Roman history; he is numbered among the “Five Good Emperors.” Marcus ruled the vast empire from 161 to 180 AD. A highly intelligent man, he stands out as one of the greatest intellectual rulers in Western Civilization. Although a great military leader, Marcus was impressed with a firm desire for peace that manifested itself in his philosophical writings.

Rupert Murdoch Goes Green

In one of the most unexpected conversions since Saul of Tarsus hit the road to Damascus, Rupert Murdoch is turning into a green campaigner. He is making the whole of his worldwide operations carbon neutral and setting out to “educate and engage” his readers and viewers about global warming.

He believes his companies’ “global reach” presents “an unprecedented opportunity to raise awareness and to stimulate action around the world”. A former sceptic who confesses to having been “somewhat wary of the warming debate”, he laid on his first global webcast for all his employees on Wednesday to tell them that he was “changing the DNA of our business”. He added that he had started with himself, buying a hybrid car.

Mr Murdoch’s conversion, which may surprise employees like Jeremy Clarkson, was heavily influenced by his son James – who took BSkyB carbon neutral a year ago this week – as well as by Tony Blair and former US vice-president Al Gore. All three attended his annual meeting for senior executives in Pebble Beach, California, last year where he was convinced to take the lead on the issue.

Mr Murdoch has bought a Toyota-made Lexus GS450H “green” car, and other practical measures include solar-powered golf carts to carry people round the Fox film lot in Hollywood, building environmentally friendly studios, replacing company fleets with hybrids, using renewable energy, and offsetting remaining emissions by financing windpower in India.

The Blair Rich Project

One thing is for sure: this time next year, Tony and Cherie Blair will be richer than they are today. No longer will they have to struggle by on Tony’s annual salary of ₤187,611 ($511,225), Cherie’s earnings as a barrister – estimated to be about ₤100,000 a year – plus the ₤30,000 a time she receives on the international lecture circuit and the knockdown rent of ₤96,000 a year, minus fees, from their house in Connaught Square. Soon they will be able to make serious money.

However, on June 27, the day Blair goes to Buckingham Palace to hand in his resignation, his income will first of all take a dip – though not a big one – as he becomes a ₤60,675 a year backbench MP.

The family will also lose the flat over 11 Downing St, and Chequers in Buckinghamshire, which have been their weekday and weekend homes for 10 years, and will have to move to Connaught Square. They bought the house in 2004 for ₤3.5 million, saddling them with mortgage payments that have been estimated as being as high as ₤16,000 a month. They will also lose the rent.

To tide them over, Blair will be entitled to a redundancy payment of ₤31,734, under a rule that came into force 15 years ago, that applies to all ministers who leave office.

A slightly older and more obscure piece of legislation, which applies only to retiring Prime Ministers, means he will also be entitled immediately to a ₤63,468 pension. That is for life, and in addition to the pension that he will be allowed to start collecting in 2013, when he is 60, for his long service as an MP.

Assuming that he has been paying the maximum contributions since he entered Parliament in 1983, it will be worth about another ₤40,000 a year.

And it is only the start. It is now a ritual that an outgoing Prime Minister writes his memoirs, for which he receives a huge advance plus the guarantee of lucrative serialisation rights, regardless of whether anyone reads the book.

Blair is reputed to have done a deal already with Random House, which is run by Gail Rebuck, wife of the Prime Minister’s long-serving pollster, Philip Gould. The Sunday Times has reputedly bought the serialisation rights. How much the Prime Minister will make from the book remains to be seen, but it almost certainly will not be a penny less than ₤4 million.

He does not, incidentally, need to write anything himself. Sir Edward Heath’s memoirs, which did not reach the bookshops until 14 years after he left Downing St, were ghost written.

However, Tony Blair is likely to write the bulk of his memoirs, though he will doubtless call on assistants for background research.

Then there is the international lecture circuit. In 2004, the Harry Walker agency, in New York, which represents many of the world’s highest paid after-dinner speakers added Cherie Blair to their list.

She has carried out several engagements in the United States for around ₤30,000 a time. She also collected ₤100,000 for a brief speaking tour of Australia. If she can command that sort of money, then her husband will be able to trouser a six figure sum every time the master of ceremonies bangs the spoon against the table.

There are other vast opportunities – but not every one is going to tempt him. Multinational companies would happily shell out enormous sums to add Blair to their boards of directors, but he has indicated he is not going to accept any offers of that kind for now.

A seat in the House of Lords would also be his for the asking, but he has gone on the record as saying that he will not accept it. He is also entitled to a knighthood, and the idea of becoming Sir Tony and Lady Blair might resonate with the couple.

He is certainly not going to stay in the Commons beyond the next general election, though his agent, John Burton, has said that he will stay on for the next two or three years, to avoid a by-election, unless a “big job” comes up. He has been speculatively nominated for a number of major international jobs, like heading the World Bank, should the current President, Paul Wolfowitz, be forced to leave. But the indications are that, for now, he does not want to be held down in one time-consuming role.

He is expected to opt, like his old friend Bill Clinton, for an informal roving brief that lets him straddle the world. In January, it emerged that the American restaurateur, Martha Greene, who helped the Blairs find their Connaught Square home, had registered the domain name www.blairfoundation.org.uk. This could be simply a precaution, to prevent anyone else using the name to embarrass Blair, but it is more likely that it will soon be an active website.
Blair is expected to launch a foundation to foster greater understanding between Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It will also give him a base from which he can involve himself in the other issues expected to engage his attention, including global warming, development in Africa, and peace in the Middle East.