Even Shakespeare had to start somewhere...

You can read my cover story 'Ye Olde Taxes' in the latest issue of Renaissance Magazine, available from all good bookshops and newsagents now.

Ed Hardy Clothes

Hey, I don't consider myself that stylish a guy, but I know what I like.

What I don't like is loud, expensive, ostentatious clothes. However, I'm apparently in the minority, as designers like Ed Hardy are all the rage with their stunningly colorful shoes, jackets, belts and shirts. You'll know you're dressed stylishly in Ed Hardy as most of his clothing line costs as much as a second-hand Honda Civic.

The success of Ed Hardy's clothing line is in his use of panthers, eagles, tigers and other exciting animals to spruce up his designs. There's nothing that says 'I'm a tiger' like having a flippin' great tiger emblazoned on your t-shirt.

It's such bold designs which justify paying $41.95 for a pair of flip-flops - which is a bargain, when you think about it (he adds, with no justification whatsoever.) I don't know - I've never owned a pair of flip-flops so perhaps $41.95 is the going rate.

That being said, I've looked through all the Ed Hardy clothing line and I have to admit that some of the clothes in the 'ladies' line would look damn sexy on a curvy lady (like my missus.)

The Five Fatal Mistakes of American Conservatism

Rush Limbaugh by Ian Marsden

Is this the end of American Conservatism?

At a time when American conservatives should be regrouping and re-recruiting, they've circled their wagons; embracing a siege mentality that suggests their period of political relevancy is at an end.

What contributed to the collapse of this once-powerful political movement?

The Five Fatal Mistakes of American Conservatism:

Country Club Conservatism: During the movement's birth, in the lead up to the 1980 Presidential Election, conservatism triumphed because of its accessibility. Evangelical leaders like Robert Grant and Jerry Falwell gave America's disenfranchised conservatives a unity of purpose - allowing conservatives the opportunity to overlook their differences and work together to achieve a common goal.

Today, the opposite situation exists. The title of 'conservative' is no longer one that voters can adopt for themselves - instead of a unity of purpose, there's a doctrine of dogma; and failure to live up to the standards set by so-called 'leaders' like Rush Limbaugh leave many more moderate conservatives out in the cold.

As long as conservatives pick and choose their supporters, like members of a country club committee, their ranks will dwindle.

Failure to Evolve: Many conservatives don't believe in Evolution, which explains why their movement is still stuck in the seventies.

The success of the 'moral majority' during the election of Ronald Reagan came down to conservative Christians uniting together to support timely, relevant and effective political positions. Times have changed dramatically since then - but, in most cases, those political positions haven't.

Unless the conservative movement is willing to address the issues of our time - environmentalism, war and economic uncertainty - they will continue to represent an era and an outlook whose time has passed.

A Dying Breed: It's a documented fact that each new generation is progressively more liberal than the last. Nowhere is this more apparent than America, where the grandchildren of segregationists just elected the nation's first African American president.

However, in its failure to address the changing beliefs and values of young Americans, the conservative movement excludes those who could offer conservatism its future.

The Democrats have successfully courted the under-30 vote in every presidential election for the past fifteen years. This trend shows no sign of changing. Until the aging core demographic of the conservative movement grows up and accepts that young Americans aren't so militant about issues like homosexuality and explicit sex education, they will always be marketing an agenda that alienates the very people it's essential they win over.

The Lowest Common Denominator: Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin may have bemoaned the 'liberal elite media,' but in the arena of Talk Radio, conservatism is king. Political pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin rule the airwaves with their angry rants about the state of the country.

But it's that anger which is so damaging to the conservative movement. While it does resonate strongly with the conservative core, it was proven in the last election that America is looking for a message of hope and change, not anger and frustration.

As long as the public face of conservatism continues to be bitter, angry little men like Levin and Limbaugh, that's going to be the only demographic it appeals to.

Eating Themselves Alive: The final mistake of the conservative movement is the one that will hasten their ignominious demise - a self-destructive urge to tear their party asunder from the inside out.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the public arena - where the GOP leader, Michael Steele, was recently eviscerated by Rush Limbaugh for 'daring' to imply that abortion is a woman's choice, not merely cold-blood fetal murder. When we see the de jure head of the Republican party skewered by the de facto head of the conservative movement, we witness a party and a movement that's in no position to govern itself - let alone the country.

David Hannan skewers Gordon Brown

British politics. I don't discuss it much, because it's dire.

Therefore, it's a delightful surprise to see Scottish potato Gordon Brown skewered with unswerving accuracy by Conservative MEP David Hannan. I'd never heard of Hannan before (despite living in his constituency for four years) but I have to admit, I'm impressed with the performance.

I find it ironic where Labour is right now. Leftists like Neil Clark label Gordon Brown and his party as 'neo-conservative' while Hannan attacks them for nationalizing swathes of the British economy. The truth is, they're not 'right' or 'left.' They're wallowing in the middle - not championing compromise, but mediocrity.

I think Hannan is sharp, measured and meticulous in his evisceration of the Prime Minister. Sadly, despite a lot of curiosity being generated by this speech, I don't think it'll take us anywhere new.

Hannan's too forthright and direct - not to mention (as David Cameron has illustrated) nobody who speaks with a Received Pronunciation accent gets taken seriously in British politics any more.

Pity.

Toxic Assets: Giving Worth to the Worthless

An old maxim: Something's only worth what others are willing to pay for it.

In many respects, that's the simple problem behind our complex economic crisis. Banks have been lending out billions of dollars to American consumers and then 'selling' these loans amongst themselves.

These loans were theoretically valuable - ultimately returning the value of the initial loan and the interest.

Unfortunately, as millions of customers defaulted on their repayments, these 'valuable' resold loans suddenly become effectively worthless.

What we're left with are banks with billions of dollars of 'toxic assets' that aren't actually assets at all. In previous years, they would have been able to loan out additional money using those securities as capital. Unfortunately, that capital doesn't now (if it ever did) exist, so the banks simply don't have the 'real' money to keep on lending. Hence our credit 'crunch.'

Tim Geithner, the head of Obama's treasury, believes that he can fix this credit crisis by getting the 'bad loans' off the bank's balance books. What he proposes is essentially having the taxpayer buy the dodgy securities.

The problem with that plan?

Why should we, the American taxpayer, be left paying top dollar for something that's essentially worthless? Currently, none of the banks are willing to 'man up' and write down these assets at their true value. If they did, those banks might be wiped out - much of their perceived 'capital' comes from ownership of now valueless securities.

So if the taxpayer is forced to buy these 'toxic assets,' we'll find them resembling stereos bought from the Blackbush market. After we've paid your money and got them home, we'll find those fancy, brand-name boxes actually contain nothing but bricks and old newspaper.

Who's to blame and who's going to fix it?

The banks got themselves into this mess, by lending out money to people they should have known would never be able to repay it.

The securities companies were equally guilty by buying these 'assets' - simply assuming that they'd be worth what they were sold at.

The collapse of the economy just exacerbated the situation, as millions of formerly solid mortgage 'assets' have now joined the 'toxic assets', sent 'underwater' as mortgage payers are left owing tens of thousands more than their houses are actually worth.

If Geithner goes through with his scheme and pours real capital into the system, the banks will quite literally be 'bailed out'. They'll receive something for nothing - getting 'real' money for worthless assets. Considering it was their greed and mismanagement that got them into this fix in the first place, is that right? Is that fair? (Do we have any choice in the matter?)

Money for Nothing

As for those 'toxic assets' themselves - if Geithner has his way, they'll belong to the American government - or, more accurately, the taxpayer (i.e. us.)

Some of these loans might still be repaid, meaning the taxpayer will ultimately benefit from their 'investment.' Many, however (something the banks are aware of, which is why none of them are lending any money off the back of them) will inevitably be written off - the taxpayer's billions will have bought nothing when (not if) that happens.

Wherefore art thou, millions?

At first appearance, it might look like billions upon billions of dollars have simply vanished from the system. The truth is that none of them existed in the first place. As the housing bubble grew, inflated by the Democratic mismanagement of Freddie Mac and Frannie Mae, people bought, sold and wagered billions of dollars not on cold, hard cash itself, but on the 'potential' value of risky loans.

Much like a stock is worthless until the moment it's sold, none of these assets were ever actually worth anything until they got repaid - which they didn't.

Therefore, the economic crisis isn't about billions of dollars disappearing - it's more like the story of 'The Emperor's New Clothes.' The crisis came about when somebody whisked away the 'magic screen' and revealed that we'd been growing rich on monopoly money for the past decade.

Which is where what I said earlier becomes so ominous: Something's only worth what others are willing to pay for it.

Nothing for Money

If Tim Geithner spends the taxpayer's billions buying these worthless 'toxic assets' at their 'perceived' value, he gives them value - making real a financial fantasy that never existed in the first place.

He'll be pouring billions into the financial system that simply don't belong there. That 'value' we claim to have lost never existed in the first place. We were only ever playing with monopoly money - fortunes were being made and lost off the back of 'Disney dollars,' not real cash.

Obama's got plenty of sound financial strategy in his 'fix' for the economy, but buying these toxic assets is the worst (even if it is the only) strategy available. It's smoke and mirrors, that will simply save the same financial institutions that got us into this mess in the first place (and doubtless will again.)

What America REALLY needs to do is buckle down and bide by the words of Shakespeare. In Hamlet, Polonius warns: "Neither a borrower, nor a lender be."

From President Bush to President Obama, from the biggest corporations to each of us humble citizens, it's that advice we should listen to. When things are bought on the promise of decades of debt, we don't own them. They own us.

Run, Fat Boy, Run

Director David Schwimmer, best known as 'Ross' in 'Friends,' is becoming something of an Anglophile - directing not just several episodes of 'Little Britain USA,' but also the cute London-based romantic comedy 'Run, Fat Boy, Run.'

'Fat Boy' is the story of Dennis (Simon Pegg), an directionless Londoner still yearning for the love of his life Libby (Thandie Newton) who he abandoned at the alter five years earlier.

When she hooks up with suave, marathon-running Whit (Hank Azaria - best known as the voices on The Simpsons), a re-inspired Dennis decides to win Libby back by running the London marathon.

It's a predictable, yet appealing romp. Although Schwimmer never steers it far from the footsteps of gentle comedies like 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', there are still some surprisingly hilarious scenes and the schmaltz isn't laid on as thickly as you might fear.

Although 'Fat Boy' markets itself on the appeal of its two stars, popular funnymen Simon Pegg and Dylan Moran, this is no 'Sean of the Dead.'

While both play their trademark characters (the lovable loser and the cunning drunk) 'Run, Fat Boy, Run' ultimately performs like one of the marathon runners it portrays: Measured, well-paced, competent - but ultimately unadventurous.

It's perfect for a night in with a loved one, but unlike Pegg and Moran's other collaborations, 'Fat Boy' is not a classic you'll watch again and again or quote incessantly.

Obama Press Conference

Last night President Obama gave a press conference - which I watched because I'll do anything to get 'American Idol' off the air!

Overall, it was as slick as everything we've come to expect from the Obama administration - although it was fairly obvious when he was improvising answers and when he was just reading off his teleprompter.

Some of the most telling moments - when you can see how confident Obama really is - came between the questions and answers, when he bantered blithely with the journalists. He's a smooth guy, that Barack!

I gathered two things from Obama's conference:

First off, I can see both the cynical and practical aspects of his upcoming budget and its trillion dollar spending plan.

Obama justified this spending by highlighting how fragile America's infrastructure is - and he's absolutely right. I've mentioned in this blog before how America seems completely jerry-rigged to me.

The problem with a traditionally capitalist society like ours is that private industry doesn't want to spend their profits developing infrastructure. This means things like the electricity grid are hopelessly primitive (explaining why a fallen branch knocked out the electricity of the entire Eastern Seaboard in 2003.)

I'm no fan of socialism, but I do identify that this lack of infrastructure development is always going to be the Achilles heel of privatized industry.

Just compare the railway networks of France and Britain. The French one is subsidized to the tune of millions of Euros - but is the envy of the world. The British rail network, on the other hand, is a crumbling joke.

Likewise, America's roads, bridges, public buildings and networks have been left to crumble for decades. 'They'll do,' is the motto - and they will, until events like the bridge collapse in Minneapolis highlight the fact that they should have been fixed years ago.

So Obama's trillion dollar spending package will benefit all of America, no matter how unpopular it is. Obama was absolutely correct when he said that America needed to invest in industry, education, science and technology - otherwise India and China would eclipse us in a few years.

What was slightly less salubrious was the timeline of Obama's deficit slashing. He has boasted that he'll halve America's deficit in the next four years. His current budget suggests he'll do just that (in time for election season.)

However, five, six and seven years from now, the deficit is forecast to grow again (as Obama doesn't have a reelection to worry about.)

It was a cynical little ploy by the administration and it will be interesting to see how it plays out in 2012. However, that's still mitigated by the fact (which Obama incessantly reminded us of) that his administration inherited America's current deficit disaster. Whatever progress he makes reducing that nightmare would presumably be more effective than the Republican's spendhappy-silliness that created it.

The only big question mark over the whole thing were these carbon offset trade caps.

These seem a bit woolly to me. It's difficult to remain competitive in the world economy when you're tying your hands behind your back with trade caps. Added to that, I'm not sure the science (or politics) of this tactic really make sense to me. I think these trade caps are difficult to justify given the fact that India and China are both churning out pollution at a prodigious rate (which is propelling their unprecedented profitability.)

I will have to do more research.

All in all, however, Obama gave a convincing conference that still leaves me confident about his ability to govern the country during this difficult time. As he told the journalists, his focus is 'fixing the economy.' That's something we should all hope he's successful at.

Twilight, the DVD

Editorial Bear Recommends: "Dissecting Twilight by Militant Ginger"

Like Harry Potter before it, it seemed like the incredibly hyped Twilight saga could never be translated to the movie screen without a cacophony of criticism - but director Catherine Hardwicke actually does a very respectable job.

Just as in the novel by Stephanie Meyer, the movie of Twilight opens with transplanted teen Bella adjusting to her new life in rainy Forks, Wa. It's a long way from the blazing sunshine of Arizona that she's used to.

Bella, played rather morosely by Kristen Stewart, seems like an intensely unlikeable girl - rude, dismissive and practically monosyllabic. Yet she effortlessly attracts the friendship of the school's cool 'clique,' plus the eye of sullen, solitary Edward Cullen - the high school heart-throb who all the girls in Forks are lusting after.

After a tedious courtship, Bella discovers the truth about Edward - he and his family are vampires, living in seclusion and surviving off a 'vegetarian' diet of woodland animals. Bella worms her way into the affections of Edward's family and they're the ones she turns too when a roguish trio of bloodthirsty bloodsuckers roll up in town with Bella on the top of their 'to bite' list.

The Cullen Clan - Hitler's Aryan ambitions finally find fruition.

Twilight is a fun, flimsy fantasy. It's a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel, but because the book was so emotive and introspective, it leaves the final script feeling a little lightweight. Some of the plotting is jiggled about to make the arrival of the 'bad' vampires more ominous, but the ending still feels like a bit of an anti-climax. The bad vampire, James, is grossly outnumbered by Edward's family and that deflates the dramatic tension.

Bad vampire 'James' makes a very bad decision picking a fight against all five Cullens

Much better is the cinematography - Hardwicke makes use of Washington's rainswept beauty almost reverentially. The screen comes alive with green and grey and you can almost smell the fresh rain and pine needles as you watch it.

Washington State - very pretty (but don't forget your umbrella)

Robert Pattinson, the quintessential teen-throb playing Edward, is also excellent. Despite being a British actor, best known for playing ill-fated student Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter saga, Pattinson's American accent is flawless and he broods with sizzling intensity.

Catherine Hardwicke's loyalty to the source material actually highlights some of the flaws in the Twilight saga. Bella and Edward's love affair seems trite and inconsequential, while the emphasis on physical beauty and material possessions seems rather shallow (Edward drives a sexy Volvo C30 and his family live in a gorgeous Skylab Architecture house.)

The 'Hoke' house by Skylab Architecture. Don't give them a hard time about the landscaping (or lack of it.) If all seven Cullens live in this two bedroom, they're obviously not that well off.

Nevertheless, fans of the saga will have already made peace with its more debatable details and will probably be thrilled that the entire movie sticks so closely to the story.

Nobody can deny that Stephanie Meyer's novel resonated with an immense audience - I believe much of what made it popular has been translated into the movie adaptation, too.

Twilight, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, is available from Amazon for $17.99

How much is a trillion dollars?

Big shout out to CK for this one, as I gratuitously stole it from his blog. But I found it fascinating.

I, like many other people in America, am in a kind of daze about all this money being redirected towards 'bailing out' America.

To me, $1,000 is a lot of money. However, when they start talking about hundreds of billions, we leave the territory of the tangible and enter the realm of the ridiculous. What is a billion dollars to the likes of me? Monopoly money (unfortunately, that's closer to the truth than I'd like.)

CK linked to a graphic illustration of how much a trillion dollars ACTUALLY is. It's very thought provoking. It makes me slightly more alarmed about the fact that America's soon going to be $11 trillion dollars in debt. That's just...

It's just silly money. No wonder nobody can take it seriously. The whole country's shell-shocked and when people are thinking in billions, what's one or two more either way? It's not our money (although it actually is.)

We start off with a single $100 bill - a 'Benjamin' as they're commonly known.


One hundred, hundred-dollar bills makes a stack about half an inch thick and is worth about $10,000. That's serious walkin' around money as far as I'm concerned.



One hundred stacks of $10,000 would equal a million dollars - which would (as you'll know from Hollywood) fit neatly into a briefcase. Consider; that small pile of cash is enough to buy a luxury house, or live off comfortably for a decade.


$100 million dollars is a serious chunk o' change. You'd need a fork-lift to cart this about.


...and a billion dollars looks like something like this. Remember, Obama's bailout bill was in excess of 700 billion dollars. That's nearly a trillion dollars.


...which looks something like this, if you're wondering.

That's how much (at a minimum) we're currently spending to bail America out of it's self-inflicted bankruptcy. That's a thousand, thousand million dollars.


If we had to pay America's bills in cash, perhaps it would make us all think a little more about what we're doing (or, at least, give union fork-lift drivers a serious boost!)

That's the ticket...

In the amusing comedy Run, Fat Boy, Run, there's a heartbreaking scene when down-on-his-luck dad Dennis (Simon Pegg) tries to score some last-minutes tickets to Lord of the Rings from an unscrupulous scalper outside the theater.

After finding a man selling his tickets, Dennis gives him the sad story about how excited his boy is to see the show - and then gets busted for 'scalping' by the very same man who'd offered to sell him the tickets in the first place - an undercover policeman!

What makes it so sad is that scalping isn't just the domain of illegal entrepreneurs outside the stadium any more. The free market economy and the Internet have conspired to make scalping big business - huge, in fact.

Just take Bruce Springsteen, for example (you can see him perform on April 1st in San Jose - HP Pavilion Tickets) Recently, tickets went on sale for his performance in New York's Madison Square Gardens - but people watching to buy them were redirected to another website selling those very same tickets for up to double the price. Somebody clever and unscrupulous had abused the Internet system and scalped not just the odd ticket, but all of them.

Websites like stubhub.com have sprung up in certain states and made scalping easier than ever. These websites are designed to allow people to sell their unwanted tickets online - but those same sites are perfect for scalpers who want to streamline their operation. Tickets for the St Louis Cardinels, for example (see them at Busch Stadium, here - Busch Stadium Tickets) are largely sold out, unless you want to buy them for an instant $30 percent markup online.

The sad fact is that scalpers aren't just the odd individuals any more, standing outside stadiums like the Cricket Wireless Pavillion in Arizona (which, ironically, doesn't feature games of cricket - Cricket Wireless Pavilion Tickets.) These days, they're just as lucky to be sitting in the comfort of their den, scalping ten times as many tickets as they could have done dealing with people face to face.

Technology has made the crook's job easier, but made it harder for all of us to get tickets to events at reasonable prices.

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

Unfortunately, what with a new baby, we're lacking both the spare time and the spare money to 'invest' in a video games console. It's a pity, though. The Nintendo Wii looks like a ton of fun. Although it's not as powerful as the new generation of super consoles like the Playstation 3 or the X-box 360, it's inherently superior for one simple reason - you get to 'do' things with it.

You see, the secret appeal of the Wii (which is making it the best-selling video games console by a wide margin) is that you control it actively - waving the control 'nunchucks' around to get your onscreen character to do things, instead of using just your thumbs on a traditional games console.


This is especially exciting when it comes to upcoming new games like Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings - because you don't just get to control Indy as he roams around China and other exotic locales. You get to actually crack his whip, throw his punches and basically do all the stuff Indy does. After a good session fighting the Nazis and saving the world, you'll end up just as sweaty and exhausted as Dr Jones does!


This new level of interactivity, pioneered by the Nintendo Wii, is the way forward with video games. I can't wait until we get games like Grand Theft Auto with fully interactive controls. Instead of complaining about couch potatoes wasting time on video-games, they'll be an essential part of our fitness routine!

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings is going to be released on June 9th. Maybe I'll have a Wii by then!

The Mazda malcontents - Alike in all but name...

My 1989 Lincoln Town Car is a pretty impressive chunk of car. It's not just eighteen feet long, with a five-liter engine and enough luggage space to stash a snowmobile in - it's also a museum.

Because the gubbins of my Lincoln - the engine, chassis and other automotive accessories - were practically antiques before they'd even rolled off the assembly line.

My Lincoln Town Car shared it's underpinnings with rear-wheel-drive Lincolns as far back as 1970.

In fact, the Hayne's manual for my car covers ALL rear-wheel drive Lincolns from 1970 to 2002 - basically meaning that the cars hadn't evolved mechanically at all in the course of 32 years.

That's even more remarkable when you think that the same mechanics were used for the long-running Ford Crown Victoria (most commonly recognized as the standard American 'Police Cruiser') and the identical, re-badged Mercury Grand Marquis. Funny to think that Ford owned three companies, marketing three different vehicles that were all, essentially, the same.

And this attitude hasn't changed. Just look at Ford's current lineup of vehicles. Their Ford Fusion sedan is built on Mazda's CD3 'platform.' The Ford Fusion, it turns out, is essentially the same car as the Mazda 6, just with a different face. And while the 2009 Mazda 6 is the only Japanese car to use this platform, Ford are up to their old tricks, using the same design for their other brands. The Mercury Milan, for example, is built on the same underpinnings as the Ford Fusion, along with both the Lincoln Zephyr MKZ and the Lincoln MKX.

The new and original Mazda 6

The Lincoln Zephyr / MKZ - basically, a Mazda 6 by any name...

The Mercury Milan - are we noticing a pattern here?

The Ford Fusion. Definitely a resemblance here, too!

You've got to wonder if all this redundancy is one of the reasons why Ford's sales are being hit so hard by the current recession. It's been bad for almost all motor manufacturers (Toyota's reported it's first loss in almost four decades.) Ford has weathered the storm comparatively well, but you do end up having to wondering about their marketing strategy.

What's crippled the American automotive industry is a total lack of understanding of the market. Consumer want smaller cars, with more reliability and better fuel economy. That's why Hyundai, for example, have actually increased sales during the economic crisis.

Ford, in common with GM and Chrysler, have just continued doing what they've always done - churned out the same cars (and, after the fact, wondered why nobody's buying them.)

This is especially relevant when it comes to their range of vehicles built on Mazda's CD3 platform. On offer are five similar vehicles - all with comparable engines and options. When a customer walks into a Ford or Mercury showroom, they want choice. Instead, they're offered five identical options, just with different badges.

It you look at the Mazda 6 reviews you'll see that they're generally better than the reviews of the Ford-family of cars. Perhaps this is because the Mazda 6 is one car, trying to do one thing (with a wide range of options, from different engines to manual or automatic transmissions.)

The Ford family, on the other hand, have one car trying to be five different cars. The Fusion, Marina and both Lincolns all have fairly restrictive options, with gearbox and engine combinations that are unique to each 'brand.' This means they waste a huge amount of effort in redundant marketing.

Whereas Mazda only need to market one car, Ford need to market five. If both Mazda and Ford had the same advertising budget overall, the Mazda 6 would end up five times more 'visible' because their message isn't diluted across three different brands.

Advertising is cumulative - like a snowball, the more of it there is, the more effective it becomes. Ford, on the other hand, is already shooting itself in the foot by dividing it's marketing assets before it's even hit the marketplace.

In the current climate, it's no way to sell cars. Ford need to pare down their range of vehicles and concentrate on single cars from single brands. If they could successfully manage to do that, perhaps they'd manage to weather the economic storm. History, however, suggests otherwise.

Gay Marriage legalized in Vermont...

Vermont Senate panel approves gay marriage bill

MONTPELIER, Vt. – A Vermont Senate committee has unamimously approved a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Full story here.

What with Washington state approving Domestic Partnerships last week, it looks like what the conservatives call the 'homosexual agenda' is inexorably marching forward.

I liked Washington's compromise - creating a 'partnership' that had all the rights and protections of marriage, but without the thorny problem of actually labeling it marriage.

It was a compromise - and compromise is the lifeblood of progress.

Vermont's decision is sure to infuriate conservatives across America, because it genuinely does redefine the currently accepted notion of marriage (as being between a man and a woman.)

But it's a sign of things to come. It will take years for other states to come on board with what's happening in Massachusetts and Vermont, but eventually they'll have to.

Otherwise this issue will become as sticky as segregation in the 1950s and 1960s - and whatever they might have thought at the time, these days you don't see South Carolina proudly touting achievements like the fact that their Bob Jones university banned interracial dating until 2000.

By the time my son's grown up, I foresee gender being as inconsequential to marriage as race (theoretically) is today.

Is Television about to vanish?

Horror of horrors, Mummy Militant and I had to survive without a television for an entire week last month! While this would drive most Americans into apoplexy, we managed to survive by relying on antiquated alternatives like 'conversation' and 'reading a good book.'

That being said, there were four highlights to our week that we risked missing due to a lack of a television. Monday's 'House,' Wednesday's 'Knight Rider,' Tina's favorite show, Thursday's 'Ugly Betty' and the sci-fi saga that is 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' on Friday.

But astonishingly, we were able to watch all of them via the Internet!

Each network's website actually shows streaming video of each episode (after they've aired, of course) meaning that we could watch all of our favorite shows without a television!

Admittedly, they were slightly 'buggy,' with annoying adverts crammed into inconvenient places and a rather clunky interface... But more than serviceable enough for somebody like me to get my head around.

Which begs the question: Is TV about to vanish?


It's certainly something Wifey and I have been talking about. We have a DVD player and the Internet, so it's more than likely that we could eliminate our television without missing any of our favorite shows. Then we'd eliminate the insipid 'background noise' that most televisions become (ours is on from 7pm until 9pm every night - longer if Wifey has HGTV on.)

Services like YouTube and Hulu offer the opportunity to watch episodes of all sorts of TV shows on your computer screen (at varying levels of quality) and that makes the whole thing seem like a viable proposition...

The problem?

Our cable network.

Most residential neighborhoods have a cable company or Direct TV to provide not just their television, but their Internet and telephone services as well. I think Direct T V call it the 'triple play' or something along those lines.

The problem is, the price of each service is linked to having the other services. For instance, if you have television, Internet and telephone services through DirectSatTV, each one is priced at $29.95 a month, meaning you're paying about $100 a month. However, if you decide to ditch the television part of that deal, they jack up the cost of your telephone and Internet services so you end up paying - you guess it - about $100 a month!

So, really, it's worth having television services through DirecTV just because it's essentially 'free.' You're paying the same either way!

I think it's this clever scheme which keeps people glued to their television. If people weren't blackmailed into having television service with their Internet and telephone - perhaps they wouldn't!

That would be incredible. I wonder how it would affect the way people watch TV. I know Wifey and I would certainly watch less of it - becoming a la carte consumers who only choose to watch the shows we want, when we want.

I imagine that's a terrifying prospect not just for television networks, but for advertisers in general. Unless people are glued to the 'idiot's lantern' every night, how are they going to be crammed to the gills with all the commercialized nonsense that's slathered over American television?

Considering that telephone service is fast being overtaken by Internet-only services too (we talk to my parents, in France, via Skype each week) perhaps it's only a matter of time before Wifey and I finally take the plunge and scrap both television and telephone service from Directtv.com - finally meaning we actually save money by only having Internet service from our cable provider.

The fact is, we wouldn't save that much money and we'd be reliant on a single Internet provider for all our modern 'essentials.' Given how our Internet crashes at least three times a day, I think that's a plunge niether of us are quite yet willing to take.

But it's coming. Whichever way you look at it, the days of television (and telephone) as we know it are numbered. Ultimately, I think that's going to be a great thing.

Oh the humanity!

I can't stand Disney.

As an unrepentant aficionado of the James Bond/Renaissance/Simon Templar/Cowboy/Dukes of Hazzard lifestyle, the idea of a 'Disneyfied' world - devoid of alcohol, swords, premarital sex and gratuitous bad language - fills me with dread. I've spent enough time at Disneyland Paris to know it's not the sort of place I'd want to live in.

No lipstick lesbian shenanigans for the Disney Princesses! Except for the occasion during which this photograph was taken.

Yet sometimes - rarely - Disney comes through with something golden. Pirates of the Caribbean was a good example. That had rum, cleavage, sword-fights and skullduggery enough to satisfy even the likes of me.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Disney Princess Miley Cyrus - she plays the teenage pop-sensation Hannah Montana in the interminable TV show of the same name. Her goody-two-shoes onscreen persona is only bearable because it's in complete contrast to her 13-going-on-30 real life reputation (Miley's dating a 20-year-old, posing [Sort of - Editorial Bear] topless and posting naughty pics of herself on MySpace.)

Miley Cyrus: So adorably virtuous it's sickening...

The twee morality, virginal virtues and Disneyfication of Miley's onscreen world has me reaching for the barf-bag. And yet...

The other day, listening to SIRIUS radio's country channel, The Highway, I caught an awesome song that really appealed to me. Much to my horror - it was sung by Miley Cyrus!

The haunting lyrics, smokey voice and aspirational motto all emerged from the lungs of that lightweight lady! How can somebody who's not even old enough to buy a packet of cigarettes have a voice like Kathleen Turner on twenty a day?

I don't know... It boggles the mind. All I do know is that The Climb, by Miley Cyrus, is actually a pretty cute song. Curses, Disney! Your stank of saccherine sermonizing is polluting everything I hold dear. Now it's country music... What's next? Winnie the Pooh branded beer?

Regardless of my continued scorn for Hannah Montana and all that's twee and hemogonized, I think it's only fair to put Miley's song here for all to see. She might be working for the enemy, but the girl still 'done good' with this one.

Television shock!

On the surface of it, America remains superficially similar to Britain. We speak a (fairly) similar language and most of the things a civilized man craves (pork scratchings and gin) are available if you know where to look.

That does mean, however, that when you run into one of the the few cultural differences between the UK and USA, they really hit you by surprise. One such example is television:



Television back in England is a pretty decent affair. Not overly commercialized, full of original programming and with a 10pm watershed to make sure the kids didn't see anything naughty. A very satisfactory arrangement, in fact.

I'd even go as far as saying, having spent time in various countries, that British TV remains the best of all of them (although I do have a fondness for German telly, which tended to show soft core pornography after midnight.)

This is the sort of 70s-era, grainy, gratuitous titillation German TV features after midnight on most of their TV channels.

Okay, when I was growing up there were only four TV channels in the UK, but they were still pretty good channels. Best of all, BBC1 and BBC2 didn't have any commercials and Channel 4 showed most of the American TV shows I wanted to watch (with only a single commercial break in the middle.)

This screen used to be on the BBC during the middle of the night. I think it's called the 'Test Card.' Nobody explained why the little girl was playing naughts and crosses against an creepy disembodied clown. It gave me nightmares.

It was all those American TV shows whet my appetite for American TV. Programs like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Frasier made me think that all American TV was going to be similarly slick, polished and entertaining. When I first moved to the states - to an apartment that had Direct TV, no less - I was enormously excited at the prospect of over 150 channels of all-American entertainment.

Nobody in the UK 'got' Seinfeld, but we all thought Frasier was hysterical. It was a comedy of snobbery that translated sublimely to us class-obsessed Brits.

But, much to my horror, the reality didn't live up to the hype.

Sure, I now had hundreds of channels - but what they were filled with was a big shock for somebody used to the uncommercialized style of British TV.

For a start, American TV is prudish. Ridiculously so. Nudity - even so much as a nipple or buttock - is strictly verboten. Presumably, the guardians of American morality fear such wilful acts of nakedness might corrupt the youngsters plonked in front of the television for hours by neglectful parents.

When Janet Jackson flashed a (covered) nipple during the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, the FCC fined the network $550,000 for 'indecency.' The nipple was revealed for exactly nine sixteenths of a second.

Secondly, American TV is violent. Nudity might be banned, but blood, gore and guts isn't. In England, horror films like Hannibal are banned until the 10pm 'watershed.' In America, you'll often see them shown uncut (except for aforementioned nudity) at 10am!

The 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre,' which features no nudity or sex, is deemed perfectly acceptable fare to sit the kids in front of while you have a natter on the telephone to your mum.

Next, you'll find that American TV is stuffed full of commercials. There are three or four minutes of commercials between shows - and then between the opening credits! Immediately after the opening credits, you'll have another commercial break - then at least two more before the end of the show. To drag the whole thing down to the level of farce, you'll find a final commercial break wedged between the end of the show and the final credits!

If that wasn't bad enough, there's so much dead-air on 150+ channels that hours of airtime are sold over to 'infomercials.' These are basically fifteen minute commercials, advertising fitness machines and vacuum cleaners. Some of the more obscure channels, like the Sci-Fi Channel, basically run 'paid programming' for at least six hours a day - making the already annoyingly commercialized channels basically unwatchable.

Everything offered in America infomercials is priced at $19.99 except, ironically, the one example I'd decided to show you.

But lets imagine you do manage to find your favorite show and work up the patience to sit through the insipid commercial breaks. Next comes more idiocy from the television networks:

Let's say you like Knight Rider, which is on NBC (that's button #4, folks.) It's scheduled for 7pm every Wednesday - or so you'd think...

Except, instead of having a new episode every Wednesday, they're seemingly randomized. One Wednesday, you'll have an 'all-new Knight Rider episode!' The next week, it'll be a repeat, or something else entirely. In fact, it's only via a combination of clairvoyance and computer surveillance that you'll be able to keep track of your favorite show at all (which is, ironically, why many popular shows get terrible ratings and pulled off the air.)

Knight Rider - pornography for petrol heads.

Let's not forget the final injury to all this insult: The fact that you're paying for all this.

TV in America isn't free (unless you want just six channels of 'all-infomericals, all the time.') 93% of Americans sign up to a cable or satellite TV company like DirectTV.com to get even 'basic' cable packages.

This existing setup is so frustrating that it's spawned a monster - subscription TV.

It shows you can only push people so far. Now, instead of all the commercial rubbish, if you sign up for Cable or Direct Satellite TV, you can pay a monthly premium to get 'special' channels - like Showtime, Starz and HBO (which stands for Home Box Office.)

These are channels which show hit movies, totally uncut and uncensored, without commercial interruption. They also have some awesome original TV shows, like the Sopranos, Sex and the City and my personal favorite, The Tudors.

The Tudors - packed with all the nudity, violence and gross historical liberties that today's demanding Direct TV audience demands.

All these shows do filter down to 'regular' television at some point, but by that time, they're been hacked up and split into commercial-filled chunks, the nudity's been shredded and the swearing's been bleeped. Most people think it's worth the money to get them promptly and unadulterated.

In addition, Cable television and DirecTV offers the ability to record shows on digital boxes, meaning you can watch them whenever you want and even fast-forward commercials. It makes me wonder how those remaining channels which support themselves through advertising revenue manage to sell spots any more, since people can just flip right through them.

But while Cable television and DirecTV deals in a different level of television entertainment, the drawback to all those goodies is the fact that you have to pay primo dinero for them. A full Cable package can run you over $100 a month - every month! And there's no such thing as discount DirecTV - although the deals they offer these days, for about $35 of month, include those fancy gadgets I talked about the like the recordable digital TV box.

Wifey and I get a package which includes telephone, Internet and cable TV. That way, it's fairly cost effective. If we didn't have the 'package,' though, we wouldn't pay for cable at all. I'd just read a book or watch DVDs!

In any event, I've discovered that American TV is a thoroughly different animal to British 'telly.' It's more expensive, it's more commercialized and it's just more complicated. There are hundreds of extra channels, but seemingly not that much more to watch on them!

With digital 'Free View' boxes and the increasing popularity of Direct Satellite TV in the UK, I wonder if the situation in America is a foreshadowing of what's going to happen in Britain. I hope not. The few British TV shows we do get (like the wonderful Doctor Who) are not only a slice of nostalgia for me - they're also a reminder that some things are better when you don't commercialize the crap out of them.

Blogvertise? Does advertising demean one's blog?

It's astonishing to think how much this blog has changed since I first starting writing it, back in June of 2006. I was Sales Manager of a radio station in Berkshire then. Now I'm living in New York - still working in the radio biz, but in a totally different capacity.

This blog has actually opened a lot of doors for me. It was one of the reasons I was featured in the BBC documentary 'F**k off, I'm Ginger!' and has helped me meet some wonderful people in a variety of different fields, including writers like Fiona Walker and Robyn Young, who've inspired me to keep up with my novelist aspirations.

This blog has evolved too - it's sprouted some pretty funky header pictures (I like the current one, especially) a third column and, I arrogantly believe, my writing has improved enormously as a result of it.

However, another less welcome addition to Militant Ginger has been advertising.

This photo is included to represent the commercialization of Militant Ginger and is in no way included purely for the purposes of titillation/pimpage. Honest.

I like to think I've kept it fairly discrete. I have commercials for The Beer Machine and several Renaissance-themed stores, because they're businesses I've used myself and am rather fond of. So far, I've made virtually nothing from this compromise to commercialism.

Similarly, I've taken to posting links to Amazon when I review books and movies. Again, this hasn't netted me a cent in terms of revenue - yet - but feel like I haven't 'sold out' because these are books and films I'm viewing and reviewing on my own terms.

Now I'm considering adding the services of Blogvertise to Militant Ginger.

The question is - does commercialization detract from this blog? Have I already gone too far, with links to products embedded in my posts? Does the commercial aspect of this blog still remain fairly discrete? Or have I 'sold out?'

It's an interesting question. I'd appreciate any thoughts.

As a blogger, I've realized that the opportunities to commercialize this blog are limited. One book I read recently, ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett, highlighted the importance of having a 'blog niche.' As in, a specific 'thing' your blog is about (which gives people a specific reason to go there.)

Militant Ginger isn't really about anything. It's a mishmash of political opinion, reviews of books and movies, pictures of my baby, rubbish about cars and whining about how shitty British people are to redheads. And (you'll be relieved to know) I like it exactly like that! Militant Ginger gives me an opportunity to write about what I want, when I want.

But it's not very commercial. People aren't going to visit Militant Ginger unless it's to read a specific article (Stephen Fowler is netting me a thousand hits a week) or because they actually know me, either in real life or as part of my bloggy friend network.

I launched a secret 'commercial' blog and it proved messieurs Rowse and Garrett right. I started receiving more 'hits' per day on that site than on Militant Ginger - within just a week of being launched! Still haven't made any money off it, yet...

So, even though I might flirt with companies like Blogvertise, I just wanted to let you know that I like to think I haven't 'sold out' yet - and don't intend to.

I might be a wee bit too 'advertise-y' occasionally (Hell, I'm in marketing, what do you expect?) but to the best of my ability, the content you see here on Militant Ginger will remain exactly as Amazon and the others consider it - totally worthless!