Fr. Philip O'Dowd RIP

For those of you following events of recent weeks, you will know that Philip had been very ill since the start of the year, the effects of spreading prostate and bone cancer. He sadly died this afternoon in a hospice in Nottingham. The love shown to him by many, many messages on his Facebook page show just some of the great many friends and admirers he had. After all, how many Catholic priests in this country have their own Appreciation Society on Facebook?!

His death is sad, but I'm also very grateful that his suffering is over and he is now at peace. He would always look for the positive in each day, no matter how bad it was. I agree wholeheartedly. I had the privilege of Philip's wisdom and insight over a number of years, as my parish priest at the Nottingham University Chaplaincy, then as my boss, and most importantly as my friend. He will be missed by a great many people whose lives he touched, but a great many people will take away lovely memories and the important lesson that he taught us all: that God loves us and the world is a better place because we're in it but only if we do something about it. Amen to that!

Rest in peace, Philip. With love from this writer here and all your friends from Nottingham University.

Start Trek.

Well, for me, The City on the Edge of Forever remains the classic from the original series, but this "prequel" looks great.

Anything's got to be better than Scott Bakula in Enterprise.

Campaign stop?

Given some of the nastiness been directed at Barack Obama by John McCain's supporters, I hope no-one is giving any thought to holding a rally here.

(In fairness to McCain I should point out that he's been forced to tell his supporters off, as this video shows, although watch out for the "Arab" hating old biddy).

25 days to go, fresh from the latest debate...

...and worrying signs that John McCain might been morphing into Ronald Regan with his capacity for mental slip-ups....



Either that, or the FBI have just arrested the Republican party.

A bit more politics....

....and the anarchist in me is still hoping for a tie in the US Presidential Election because, according to the Washington Times, it's going to be a lot of fun.

And our Prime Minister has been speaking at the Labour Party conference and came out with this bit of insight:

This last week will be studied by our children at school - as the week the world was spun on its axis - and old certainties were turned on their heads

Erm..."the world was spun on its axis"....isn't that quite normal?? I mean, I might start getting worried if the Earth *wasn't* spinning on its axis.

I'm fresh out of lipstick

Away from the debate as to whether someone who believes the world was created in seven days should one day have access to the nuclear button, I'm more interested in who actually might win the US Presidential Election on November 4. Obama, or the other guy? So I have brought to Life of Brian all the power of polling I can muster in attempt to predict the result. You will notice a nifty little electoral map of the United States on the right hand side there which will be updated daily. Aren't the colours pretty?

If you want something a bit more in-depth then I can recommend fivethirtyeight.com to you all which is basically just sheer polling porn.

Because that is the beauty and the fun of the US Presidential Election. Rather than just get everyone to cast their votes for Obama or the other guy, total them all up and declare a winner, someone in their wisdom invented the US Electoral College instead. So all those national polls which say that other guy is leading over Obama mean diddlysquat. You have to look at all the polls in the individual states to work out what *might* be going on. Here in the UK it is simple. The Queen dissolves parliament and 18 days later we have general election. One day after that we either have the same government or a new one. What could be simpler?

But in the US it runs like this.....

Nov. 4 - The people vote for electors in 50 states plus D.C.
Dec. 15 - The chosen electors meet in their respective states to cast their electoral votes
Dec. 24 - The electoral vote totals must have arrived at the Senate and the Archivist
Jan. 5 - The 111th Congress is sworn in
Jan. 6 - The electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress

And if Obama and the other guy both get 269 votes and there's a tie, then the it gets even more complicated.

Better to vote in the lipstick wearing pig perhaps for all the good it will do?

Oh, yes, and any predictions what day Bin Laden might turn up on the TV screens this time around?

Would you?

I mean, would you, actually borrow money from a company that it called itself "Fanny"?