No more blogging for a couple of weeks. The lovely Mrs P and myself are hitching our caravan to the Toyota Verso and heading for Normandy via the Channel Tunnel. After a couple of days we head past La Rochelle and meet up at a campsite with our son and his family.

So plenty of wine, cheese and fish and, hopefully sun, sea and sand. We’ll try to take some pics to show when we return at the end of August…..meanwhile – the caravan….

and us in camping mode……

In the earliest days of the Obama presidency the UK press was as sycophantic and complicit as their colleagues in the US. But there are two important differences between newspapers in the two countries. A significant tranche of the British press is right wing and, more importantly, these papers dominate the market. Many more Brits read the Telegraph, Mail and Sun than any of the other titles.

In addition British hacks, even on the left, tend to be less obsequious to “the great and the good” and much more robust in uncovering their idiosyncrasies and misdemeanours. Politicians of all shades are generally classed on the same level as estate agents, car salesmen and lawyers – professional hucksters who will use deception and half truths to squeeze as much money as possible out of the pockets of the naive and unsuspecting.

Thus the clay like nature of Obama’s feet are beginning to be noticed over here.

The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip to Marbella and the complete disregard for public opinion and concerns over excessive government spending is symbolic of a far wider problem with the Obama presidency – the overarching disdain for the principles of limited government, individual liberty and free enterprise that have built the United States over the course of nearly two and a half centuries into the most powerful and free nation on earth.

The Pravda style tunnel vision of the US media in it’s attitude to the administration is also coming under the microscope…

While the liberal-dominated US mainstream media have largely ignored the story, it is all over the blogosphere and talk radio, and will undoubtedly add to the President’s free falling poll ratings. As much as the media establishment turn a blind eye to stories like this, which are major news in the international media, the American public is increasingly turning to alternative news sources, including the British press, which has a far less deferential approach towards the White House.

And the conservative backlash, initially ignored and/or belittled by the UK media, as it still is in New York and Washington, is beginning to be treated with a little more respect in London.

There is however a political revolution fast approaching Washington that is driven not by mob rule but by the power of ideas and principles, based upon the ideals of the Founding Fathers and the US Constitution. It is a distinctly conservative revolution that is sweeping America and is reflected in almost every poll ahead of this November’s mid-terms. It is based on a belief in individual liberty, limited government, and above all, political accountability from the ruling elites. The Obama administration’s mantra may well be “let them eat cake”, as it continues to gorge itself on taxpayers’ money, but it will be looking nervously over its shoulder as public unease mounts.

This doesn’t mean that the UK press has gone Tea Party or that every hack has sold their Obama stock. But there are slight shifts in the wind. One or two articles are even beginning to be a little bit less disdainfulof Governor Palin. Above all a newly crafted image of Obama is beginning to take shape – an empty, vacuous windbag, elevated to a position way above his experience or abilities by a claque of shifty snake oil salesmen and now spinning helplessly in the conflicting winds of gathering storms like a broken weather vane.

Here in the UK Obama might be starting to go Ozymandias……

The totally sane and rational Shannyn Moore (just a girl from Homer, Alaska) was vindicated today in her long struggle against Sarah Palin and her reign of terror in Alaska. She managed, with the help of fearless SEIU blockade runners, to smuggle out a video showing how Palin had to run in fear from thousands of Alaskans demanding their basic human rights.

With Palin in hiding Shannyn Moore (still in disguise after threats from Bristol Palin) held a secretly filmed rally of her fellow left wing Progressive Alaska bloggers ordering them to spread the message of resistance throughout the land. ……..

h/t  victor 82, from Hot Air comments

Though as a schoolboy and then a university student in the 1950s my first love was for the rawness and energy of rock & roll I found that sometimes it felt important to lay back with music that was a little more reflective and experimental yet which still possessed a rhythmic beat – and that was when I got into cool jazz….

The heat and urgency of bebop began to relax with the development of Cool Jazz. Starting in the late 1940s and early ’50s, musicians began to develop a less frantic, smoother approach toward improvising modeled after the light, dry playing of swing-era tenorist Lester Young. The result was a laid-back and even-keeled sound bearing a facade of emotionally detached “coolness.”

Even to this gangly South London teenager in the 1950s appearing to be cool and laid back seemed the very mark of a man especially in the presence of those mysterious feminine figures suddenly manifesting themselves on my radar – and the idea of being Jimmy Giuffre gliding in and out of the music with his sax was just the essence of cool (yes the clip is a little scratchy but just watch the lean way he moves….and sounds…)

But the father figure of cool jazz was Miles Davis

Trumpeter Miles Davis, one of the first bebop players to “cool it,” emerged as the greatest innovator of the genre. His Birth Of The Cool nonet recordings of 1949-’50 are the epitome of Cool Jazz lyricism and understatement.

In 1959 Davis cut what is often called one of the greatest jazz albums of all time – Kind of Blue – with colleagues who were giants in their own right….John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans……sublime….

Bill Evans, who played on that seminal Davis album, is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and influential  pianists of modern times. Unfortunately drug addiction led to an untimely death but, like many creative artists, once his hands touched the keys all weaknesses and burdens were thrown aside and pure, unadulterated genius reigned…

Dave Brubeck, on the other hand, was a brilliant jazz revolutionary whose experiments in unusual time signatures produced what is probably still the most famous modern jazz number of all time – and he continued to play well into this 21st century….

I first came across Chico Hamilton in the gritty 1957 film noir “Sweet Smell of Success” where his band provided background to that taut urban tale of media corruption and nightlife hustling. but this piece is far from that world, a beautiful piece of chamber jazz drawing an elegant picture of a…..nice day……

…and next….the MJQ….no need to say any more, the coolest of the cool……

Not forgetting those cool vocalists – and none cooler than Anita O’Day. If Brubeck’s Take Five is the insrumental number most people associate with modern jazz then Anita’s gig at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, captured forever on film in “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” is the essence of style – the hat, the dress, the heels, those gloves and the voice……jazz nirvana……

Keith J Roberts (Mr Forever Cool) recommends these albums as the core of any cool jazz collection – it’s a personal choice (like my clips) but a good start. If you fancy getting any of these then do me a little favour and order them from the Amazon links on the sidebar…..it will help augment my pension….lol….

In the meantime – stay cool…..

For a pensioner like me, living on a fixed income, these are hard times – so any extra money coming in is always very welcome. Therefore, in a blatant and unashamed  punt for your support PLEASE USE THE LINKS ON THE SIDEBAR TO BUY YOUR STUFF FROM AMAZON.  You’ll get something you wanted and I will get a modest financial reward from Amazon so EVERYONE’S A WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for your anticipated support.

End of shameless plug……

BTW…..top link = Amazon USA

                    bottom link = Amazon UK

                     for other countries – go to US site and scroll down to bottom of page

Greg Mitchell at The Huffington Post (why am I not surprised?) thinks the USA should apologise for Hiroshima. Likewise, in Britain, there is a steady stream of books and articles proclaiming the bombing of Dresden as a war crime.

I have no tolerance for those who condemn the bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima. The Germans and the Japanese were brutal in the extreme against civilians and POWs. They both celebrated the cult of racial superiority and used slave labour. There is very little evidence that these regimes lacked popular support in their countries. One has only to imagine the nature of the world had the Axis powers won – and they very nearly did.

The Allied leaders did not have the advantage of hindsight. There was no reason to doubt that the Japanese would have resisted an invasion with massive fanatacism. Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved millions of lives, both Allied and Japanese, in the long run.

Terrible things happen in war and sometimes political and military leaders have to take brutal decisions but that is the nature of conflict. Why is it that in the UK and US there are always these characters whose first reaction is inevitably “my country, always wrong”?

Mitchell should be down on his knees every day of his life in thanks to those who paid the price in blood, bone and mind for his right to play the weasel….

Sarah Adams lost her 21 year old son, Private James Prosser, when he was killed by an IED in Helmand last September. Unable to face Christmas at home she went with her family to Barbados, partly because previously in 2004 James had won a holiday in Barbados in a competition and he had given it to his mum.

While in the Caribbean she and her other children wrote letters of love to James, saying how much they missed him – they then decided to put the letters into an empty Sambuca bottle (James’s favourite drink) and threw it into the sea.

Mrs Adams said she wrote how much she missed him and also wrote an open letter to whoever found the bottle.
She said: “I wanted to make everyone aware that we’re responsible for the world we live in, not to forget the soldiers who have given up their lives and to be aware that we are a country at war.”

She also wrote a note to her dead father, asking him to look after James.

Seven months and 1,300 miles later the bottle was found.

The bottle was found by team from Progressive Pipe Management on July 15, who were working on Horn Island, Mississippi cleaning up oil leaking from a BP pipeline off the coast of Louisiana following the explosion in April.

Each member of the team took a letter and read it. They wanted to get in touch with Mrs Adams but couldn’t make out the address although they knew it was in South Wales. So they contacted The South Wales Argus.

Crew supervisor Doug Kirchoff, 38, said: “It’s taken everybody by heart. It’s amazing how we’re thousands of miles away but how we’re drawn so close by something we’re all affected by. It’s pretty touching, it’s like we actually know the family just by reading the letters.”

When they got Sarah’s address they wrote her a letter.

Words cannot express our heartfelt sympathy for your family over the loss of James.
Your letters describe a remarkable young man who was very loved by his family and friends. We extend our gratitude to James for the service he did in Afghanistan and we recognise the courage, the strength and the bravery it requires to serve in the armed forces. You and he are in our thoughts as we all continue to pray for the safe return of our soldiers worldwide.”
As we are certain he did before his death, James has continued to touch the lives of many people in a positive way. Finding that bottle is something we will never forget.

Sarah Adams was deeply touched by their reply, which reached her just before her birthday, always a difficult time after a loved one’s death, looking for the birthday card that will never come.

Sometimes I feel disheartened and miserable about life but there are people there and people who we’ve met who are so caring and thoughtful.

Amen to that……

Pass the sick bucket, Alice…..

Letters from two senior back benchers published in today’s Daily Telegraph lay bare the growing sense of frustration among MPs of all parties with the work of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
They were written in response to an article Andrew McDonald, the chief executive of IPSA, and a speech by Sir Ian Kennedy, its chairman, who both defended the new system and accused MPs of failing to accept the “cultural change” needed following the expenses scandal.

MPs are frustrated and angry about the new expenses system, claiming it is bureaucratic and slow.

Tough.

It might well be bureaucratic and slow – just like the taxation and pension claim systems the political class have foisted on us for years so they are getting a taste of their own medicine.

The chief moaners are Labour MP Denis MacShane and Tory Michael Fabricant, both well established windbags and classic examples of the rentier class who inhabit the lower reaches of political life.

At a time when hundreds of thousands of people are either unemployed or on short time or reduced wages, when small businesses everywhere are struggling to survive the sight of MacShane, Fabricant and other assorted blowhard MPs whingeing about their expenses is about as welcome as a fee limit proposal at a lawyers convention.

Get over it – or, even better, get out of Parliament and find yourselves a real job….

Actually her State Dept officials said it but who is going to check the fingerprints?

We have received isolated reports that racial prejudice may have contributed to the arrest or detention of some African-Americans travelling in Spain. Recently, two African-American U.S. Government employees were questioned by police in Barcelona for no apparent reason. One was detained and suffered physical injuries in the process.

The US State Dept’s advice to Americans visiting Spain had until recently included the above warning about racism in Spain. But, in an amazing overnight turnaround, as a result of Michelle Obama’s arrival in Marbella, the people of Spain have sloughed off their racism.

The evidence for this Damascene conversion?

The racism warning has been removed from the State Dept’s website. Clearly Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has decreed that Spain can now no longer be regarded in the same way as the Tea Party.

Which means that the First Lady’s discreet and understated visit to Marbella (4 days, 40 friends, 60 rooms at about $300 per room per night) can go ahead with the NAACP seal of approval.

Until recently Marbella and the surrounding area was known as the Costa del Crime because it appeared to be very popular with members of Britain’s criminal fraternity. As a result it developed a reputation for tackiness and tasteless displays of newfound wealth. Clearly the town hopes Michelle Obama’s visit will transform that image although not every local is convinced….

Click here to see pictures of the understated visit.

Click here to gush with HuffPo.

Click here to see another famous American woman’s idea of a holiday…….(a clue – she is in the Time 2010 top ten of people who most affect our world)

And click here to discover Allahpundit’s take on it at Hot Air…

BTW, perhaps Mrs O and her bodyguards could look out for these chaps while they are sipping their cocktails……

Since April 20th – Animals found dead but not covered in oil: 1,675 birds, 82 turtles, 53 dolphins

the oil will destroy fewer marshes than the airboats deployed to clean up the oil.

the spill prompted harsh restrictions on fishing and shrimping, but so far, the region’s fish and shrimp have tested clean

Media hacks eager to send back pictures of suffering wildlife are complaining about having nothing to photograph and/or report. Clean up personnel are spending more time looking for something to clean than actual cleaning.  It was known right from the start that this was light crude oil and, since the Gulf has experienced many natural oil seepages over several millennia, it is teeming with oil eating microbes.

This spill is the equivalent of less than a drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. For all but a tiny bit of the Gulf, it will be back to normal within a year.
The beaches will be normal before Christmas, fishing will be back in two months and the shellfish industry in two years. It’s not that the oysters and clams are poisonous, it’s just that they won’t taste very nice.

Could it be that the dangers of the spill were exaggerated by both politicians and the media?
Surely that cannot be true.
Why on earth would they want to do that?

Also – why isn’t the US company  running and operating the rig that was crippled by an explosion that killed eleven men receiving as much heat from Obama and his Democrat dominated Congress?

Could it be that there is more political mileage in grandstanding against a British company whose HQ is in England than publicly humiliating an American company based in Switzerland?

I think we should be told……..