:: 2/09/2002 ::

A great deal of people are having a laugh at the expense of the Conservative (UK) Party's leader, Iain Duncan Smith. It seems Madame Tussaude's is refusing to do a waxwork of IDS becuase he is not "exciting" enough. Besides being an affront to tradition and in bad taste, it seems MT is sucking up to the Blair government in a disgusting way. You think the owners might just want a government bail-out for their losses since 9/11? In the great leftist tradition, I think we shoud all boycott the place until they give the poor man his due.

Of course to be honest, I find MT's a vile tourist trap. Now I have a great excuse for missing this "cultural" landmark.

In more pleasant news, I have just added a great link to the left side of this page.More than Zero, a great site. It is well worth a daily visit. Why I haven't added it before now, I will never know.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/09/2002 02:01:00 PM [+] ::
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I have heard some really bad news for all that love their rock to be hard. VH-1, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to can the Friday Rock Show with Tommy Vance from its line-up. This post-pub classic is a fixture in a european based rocker life. To say I am mad is an understatement, what the hell are VH1 thinking? I think VH1 is going to get a lot of hate mail for this one.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/09/2002 01:41:00 AM [+] ::
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Uthant has a wonderfully witty piece about American TV "personalities". He is a bit harsh on Greta, ex-CNN now moved to FoxNews, but overall its great fun. He wonder why there aren't any fat hosts, every other body type is represented, but not fat people. Fat men seem to have been related to covering sports and doing the weather.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/09/2002 12:52:00 AM [+] ::
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Busheyspon is a new blog from my old mucker Rob Mallows. Be kind to the new guy, actually be really kind, he learned about blogging from the Guardian! Once he gets going, expect some witty comment about life, XTC and his beloved Fulham FC.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/09/2002 12:34:00 AM [+] ::
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Sorry for the lack of posts today, for the last 12 hours I had no phone connection. I am just getting back up. There is a great post by some bloke named Lagwolf on Libertarian Samizdata about the odd sex stories in the news this week.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/08/2002 05:34:00 PM [+] ::
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The link between Enron, their fraud and Star Wars is examined here: The Force was (sort of) with Enron. An extremely humerous article putting a bit of fun in the whole Enron debacle. However I feel for Chewbacca being dragged into the whole fiasco. Thanks to Troll-boy from Shoggoth.net for pointing me there.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/07/2002 04:48:00 PM [+] ::
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I would like thank all of you have visited Dodgeblog since the beginning. We have officially hit 1000 hits. Fellow bloggers who have linked to me have made a great difference to my hits, I raise my tea to them as well. My fellow bloggers, especially Perry from Samizdata and Natalie Solent of Samizdata & her own blog, have been very helpful in pointing out my blogging blunders. Most useful for a newbie like me. Anyway enough gushing, I wll try my best to make each visit, worth it.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/06/2002 05:30:00 PM [+] ::
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Over in the Insolvent Republic of Blogistan it is being reported that Utah officials are finally finding a link between low ticket sales for the Winter Olympics and the lack of alcohol in Utah. It has gotten so bad that foreign embassy staff are setting up temporary bars for their countrymen. Anyone, with any knowledge about Utah, knows about the Mormons view on alcohol and tobacco. I wonder if IOC took this little aspect of Mormon culture into to account when they choose the venue.

Of course Utah officials are trotting out the wheeze: "you don't have to drink to have a good time!" Oh please, maybe not, but it bloody well helps.

I really feel sorry for all the sports hacks whole will be forced to go without booze, fags and their morning coffee. For the first few days of the Olympics, the entire press corps will be going through withdrawl. Not a good enough reason to watch the silly games, but something to think about.

With any luck Utah and IOC will take it in the shorts for this one. Then maybe the IOC might re-examine the travesty that is the modern Olympics. Besides the atheletes and their families, who really cares about the Olympics any more? I do feel sorry for all the taxpayers of the "host" cities who have to see their taxes rise to pay for the curruption, fraud and bloat involved with the games.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/06/2002 04:38:00 PM [+] ::
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It is Ronald Reagan's birthday and the aniversary of the Queen Elizabeth II's accension to the throne today. It has to be said that it is the anniversary of the death of the the Queen Mother's husband, the King. So without further ado, I wish best wishes to Reagan, the Queen and the Queen Mother. You have been inspiration to millions and may you continue to do so for a great deal of time to come.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/06/2002 02:31:00 PM [+] ::
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Walllowing for many a moon.

On Libertarian Samizdata, Brian Micklethwaite laments being a small fish in a large pond. Other members of the team have weighted in on the issue as well including Dale.

Like Dale I have been wallowing in cyberspace for many a moon. My adventure began in the early 80's with the legendary bbs(s). The place where we all go together and opined about things, and traded information. Back in the day with my lot it was mostly hacking info and backdoors, but it was a rudimentary blog. I was the generation they wrote the movie WarGames about, because hackers managed to hack things like Los Alamos, banks and major government organisations. Slowly but surely a lot of our number were either jailed, got bored, distracted by sex or hired by our targets.

The great thing about blogs is it allows those of us with a great deal to say the ability to get it into the public domain. Opinionated twits like me will always express our opinion, however we now can try to at least aim it at people who will be willing to read it. It is generally hard to get a soap box these days, unless of course you are mainstream (read: left wing) or establishment. The internet, in one form or another, has always been there to allow us the forum to express our views. The internet is the perfect construct for the libertarian.

Brian need not worry, he may be a small fish, but he is a puffer fish. He certainly makes an impression way beyond his size in the ocean that is the internet.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/06/2002 01:30:00 PM [+] ::
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Heretical Ideas pointed me to a very interesting and though-provoking article about the rise of anti-semiticism. In it Mr Halkin makes a strong case for the theory that anti-Isreali feeling around the world is actually hidden anti-semiticism. While at first I thought this was a bit of an overstatement. Mr Halkin makes a very convincing argument for this theory.

One aspect that he did not touch on which I would have like have seen is the problem with the left. It seems almost cruel to point out that Jews in the west are more often than not supporters of the left and socialism. It is these self-same left wingers who are the ones who are most anti-Isreal currently. The apologists for Islamic extremists and Palestinian terrorists are almost universely on the left of the political spectrum. Some of the most avid gentile supporters of Isreal in the US and UK are the Republicans & Conservatives. Surely it is time for Jews to re-examine their, mostly, erroneous belief that parties of the right are anti-semitic.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/05/2002 04:24:00 PM [+] ::
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Bush and Blair have been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by a Norwegian MP. Currently there is a poll on the BBC site and as one would expect, the vote is almost 60% against. No doubt the anti-war/pro-Islamic apologists have gotten their networks buzzing to skew the vote.

Well two can play at that game, I encourage all my readers to go vote for the men. The BBC believes the two men's chance of winning is "unlikely" because one of the judges was against the war.

One can just imagine the fit that the BBC and the left will have if Bush & Blair win. Can you just imagine the column inches that would fill Le Monde, the Guardian and the other European organs of the left?

This is yet another reason for admiring the Norwegians. First they voted against entrance to the EU and now this.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/05/2002 03:33:00 PM [+] ::
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Natalie Solent has an interesting post on her blog. It is one that made me feel less of a freak. She claims to routinely, even daily, search for her name on Google. She wants to see who mentions her.on their site.

"And I love it. It sends adrenaline zooming through my veins, fills me with vim, zest, zip and other monosyllables containing letters that score high in Scrabble." Confesses Natalie to her, obviously, stunned readers.

She is not the only one who does a personal search every day on Google. I used to it, every so often. most often after a few, and often with a friend. It usually led to us typing in the names of all the people we knew to see if they had a secrets "hiding" on the internet. Now I do it daily, to make sure I know who mentions me. Then I know what blogs need to go on my link list.

One wonders how long it will take some well-meaning sociologist to call it a condition. "Personal Search Syndrome" will be written up in great detail in the Guardian. This is, of course, after the government has funded an expensive study into those who suffer from this malady. It will be decried as yet another sign of the breakdown of society. There will then be calls for the government to pass legislation to deal with PSS. ISPs will be forced to block all searches for one's own name.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/05/2002 03:13:00 PM [+] ::
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Front Page has an excellent article in defence of Isreal. In it the author pleads that we do not "sacrifice" Isreal for sake of peace. His reasonings for this are biblical. Was this written by a Jewish author? Far from it, the author is a professor and a Comanche. A clever piece, whether or not, you happen to be a believer.

One can only imagine the hoopla once word of the article gets out. Front Page is probably preparing itself for hate mail by the ton. The irony is that Yeagley will get mail from both Arab fanatics plus their apologists and the neo-nazi/Christian identity race nuts. It might soon be possible to argue these groups are one in the same, after an Egyptian government newspaper produced an anti-Jewish document said to have been written during the American War of Independence. Read more about this latest hoax and other anti-American/Isreal/Western hartred at Middle East Media Research Institute. MEMRI makes very disturbing reading it has to be said.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/04/2002 03:54:00 PM [+] ::
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As Americans wake up from their SuperBowl hangovers, people in the New England are pleased and fans in the mid-west aren't. One side won, the other side lost, move on to next year. This is the simple way of looking at last night's events in New Orleans. There is a lesson to be learned far beyond the borders of New England.

Those of us who have spent time there appreciate in the significance of the New England Patriots' victory over the Rams. This is even the case for those, like me, who don't really understand the attraction of sport. Long suffering fans, like my father, have finally been rewarded for their patience (30+years), their pain (two crushing Superbowl defeats) and humiliation (More horrid seasons than one cares to count.). It is to them I raise a glass in congratulation.

Those, who support a party who have fallen on hard times, should take heed of Patriots fans. They stuck with it and were rewarded in the end. Patience, as in any endeavor, is its best reward. It is very easy to jump ship when the going gets tough. Very easy to jump to New Labour or Manchester United/New York Yankees when they are dominating. Loyalty is much harder to hold on to, but the reward in the end is all the greater.

Patriots' fan, I raise another glass in toast to you. Enjoy it while it lasts, for victory is a fleeting pleasure, defeat lasts a lot longer. I may not get "it" but I do understand.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/04/2002 02:11:00 PM [+] ::
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You might have noticed that the look of Dodgeblog has changed. I was having trouble with my template and it disappeared for some reason. So when replacing my template, I decided to go for a new look. Hope you like it.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/04/2002 12:09:00 AM [+] ::
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Instapundit is reporting concerns about blood collection and distribution problems in the US. It seems the American Red Cross was overwhelmed by 9/11 and has yet to recover. They are being forced to use European blood in New York due to a shortage.

This is rather amusing since my father and I are no longer able to give blood. We both traveled to the UK during the mad cow disease epidemic. This resulted in a permanent ban on giving blood forever. This paranoia has lead to the Red Cross losing two donors who gave every chance they get. This unreasonable decision probably cuts quite a few people out of the donor pool. After all, the UK is fairly popular destination.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 2/03/2002 08:32:00 PM [+] ::
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