Democrats win Senate - it's official

BBC reporting that Republican George Allen has finally admitted defeat in the Virginia race for the US Senate.

It is now official: The Democrats control both legislative houses in the US.

Interesting times...

A donkey called Bruno, cocaine and speeding...

I wondered what my friend Bruno the Skegness beach donkey had been up to when I read the shock headline "Bruno caught doing 90mph on county A1" in today's Lincolnshire Echo.

But I needn't have worried. The driver of the Mercedes 4x4 car snapped by a speed camera on the A1 at Grantham was not a donkey at all. Apparently.

It was another Bruno who claims to be a former boxing champion and I've found this BBC photo of him pretending to give another donkey called Iron Mike Tyson a lesson.
Apparently Frank Bruno, like the famous donkey, is also a bit of a celebrity - know what i mean 'arry - and was on his way to give an after-dinner speech at a charity dinner near Lincoln, in aid of Cancer Research UK.
He already had six penalty points on his licence.

According to the Echo, yesterday's fine and further points on his licence came days after the father-of-four issued a public apology for relapsing into cocaine use.

I'd like to make it clear that Bruno the current UK champion beach donkey who is based at Skegness, has a clean licence and has never used cocaine.

In case of fire, first find your donkey…

A fire brigade leaflet giving practical tips of what to do if trapped in a blaze made perfect sense in English. But when translated into Urdu, the Mirror says it advised occupants to grab the nearest...donkey.

The English text, designed to cut deaths from household fires, read:

"Never jump straight out of a window. Lower yourself on to cushions etc."

But in the Urdu version it said:

"Never jump out of a window straight. Put yourself on a donkey etc and come down."

Teacher Ilfan Malik explained:

"The Urdu word for cushion is gadda. But the word for donkey is gadha. It appears whoever translated the leaflet has mixed the two words up or the spelling has been printed wrongly."

Mohammed Iqbal added: "Everyone has had a good laugh."

Strathclyde Fire and Rescue produced the brochure for ethnic communities across
Scotland.

Time to honour soldiers shot at dawn...

More than 300 British soldiers executed in the First World War have been officially pardoned with yesterday’s Royal Assent of the Armed Forces Act 2006 – just in time for them to be included in Acts of Remembrance this weekend.

The Government pardons remove the dishonour of execution and recognise that the firing squad was not a fate the deserved by such soldiers as 20 year old Privates George Collins and Charles Kirman, both of the Lincolnshire Regiment.

(see my August archive for details of their cases).

Many of them were brave men who volunteered, served with distinction, but were shot for cowardice after suffering shell-shock after months in the hell-hole trenches.

Pardons for the 300+ men shot at dawn by their own side - even 90 years late - finally removes the awful stigma their families had to live with for decades.

At Remembrance Day services this weekend, as we honour those who gave their lives in countless conflicts of the past Century - as well as those serving us today - I hope that the executed soldiers of the First World War will be given special mention for the first time.

21-year-old dies driving 192mph super-racer on A16

How tragic to read of a 21-year-old killed while driving a Lamborghini sports car on our local roads.

When I saw the horrific wreck on the front page of this week’s Lincolnshire Free Press, I thought the car looked more suited to a racetrack than the A16 at Spalding where the tragedy happened.

Charlotte Chinn was driving her husband’s car on Saturday evening when it collided with a Ford Fiesta. The 17 year old Fiesta driver had to be cut out of the wreckage by fire-fighters. He has since been released from Boston hospital.

I looked up the Lamborghini sales brochure on the internet. The car Charlotte was driving appears to be a Gallardo model, a extreme lightweight compact two-seater supersports, powered by a massive V10, five-litre engine. One of its selling points is that is

as suitable for driving on race tracks as it is on long distance journeys and city roads

The £130,000 supercar produces a staggering 500 brake horse power – ten times more powerful than a standard Fiesta!

The brochure also claims a top speed of a breath-taking 192 miles per hour.

For all I know, Charlotte may have been an qualified advanced driver or race-qualified in some way and there is of course no suggestion that either she or the Fiesta driver were breaking the speed limit.

In fact, I have no knowledge of the fatal crash other than what I have read in the Free Press, so perhaps I’ve already said enough, particularly at this time when her friends and family will still be trying to come to terms with such a terrible loss.

I believe Charlotte was the 58th victim to die this year on Lincolnshire's roads.

The 59th lost his life last night in Lincoln.

Is Tory policy crazy as Tory MP Quentin says...?

The Labour Party is calling on all Conservative MPs who failed to support their leadership's call for an immediate Iraq enquiry to say whether they agree with Quentin Davis MP who branded their party's policy as 'crazy'.

Labour have published a full list of the senior Tory MPs who joined Stamford and Grantham MP Mr Davies in failing to support the Tory leadership's decision to follow the Nationalists in their motion.

Mr Davies went on to say that he was 'amazed' and 'sorry' about Cameron's stance on these serious matters and that soldiers in Iraq would have been amazed as well.

Evangelist Pastor in gay-sex scandal confesses to a “problem…”

Just when the Republicans were hoping the latest sex-scandal would go away, CNN are reporting tonight that evangelical Pastor Ted Haggard has admitted he's "a deceiver and a liar," and has confessed to a "lifelong sexual problem" in a letter read to his so called “megachurch” congregation.

"There is part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life," says the letter read out - after the church had been cleared of children.

Haggard is a fire and brimstone preacher who campaigns against gays from the pulpit, but was accused this week of paying a male prostitute for drugs and sex over the past three years.

Yesterday, he was sacked by his church in Colorado Springs who said their initial investigations clearly showed he was guilty of “sexually immoral conduct”.

With just 36-hours to Tuesday's crucial elections across America, the scandal couldn’t have come at a worse time for George W. and the Republicans who have been cosying up ever closer to the Christian Conservatives.

They hoped they were getting over the negative publicity which hit them following the high-profile resignation of Republican Congressman Mark Foley after his raunchy emails expressing an undue interest in a 16-year-old male page were exposed to the nation.

We will have to wait until Tuesday to see if the American people give them what they deserve.

The truth about the nuisance email chain letter...

Kate Belson at the office of the premium rate telephone regulator has shed some light on the mysterious scam that turned out to be a nuisance chain letter which the county council, the Lincolnshire Echo - and me - were sucked into.

ICSTIS is clearly fed up to the back teeth with this chain email which is diverting her from dealing with legitimate complainants.

Here's what Kate has to say:

Parcel Delivery Services operated in 2005. Consumers did receive cards inviting them to rearrange delivery of a digital camera and around 250 complaints were received by ICSTIS.

On 29th December 2005, all numbers relating to Parcel Delivery Services were ordered to be terminated by ICSTIS and the network involved cut off all lines. If any of you take the trouble to call 0906 6611911 you will discover that it is a DEAD LINE.

ICSTIS issued a statement to all telephone networks alerting them to the case and reiterating their obligations under the ICSTIS Code of Practice to ensure that their service providers comply with our regulation.

Since the PDS case only one other ‘delivery’ company has been in operation but ICSTIS ordered the numbers involved to be cut off and they were terminated. The second company was called De Sotto. We received 7 complaints, acted immediately and ensured no consumer harm could be caused.

Neither PDS nor De Sotto is in operation.

Neither of these companies profited from their efforts because ICSTIS introduced a ’30 day payment procedure’ in order to cut down on ‘scam and scram’. This means no money can pass through the value chain until 30 days has passed.

Please refer to the ICSTIS website if you require consumer literature:
http://www.icstis.org.uk/publications/consumer_booklet.asp

or if you would like to receive ICSTIS alerts:
http://www.icstis.org.uk/news/subscribe.asp

I have informed the Lincolnshire Echo of their misunderstanding.

Lincs Tory MP attacks 'absolutely crazy' Tory leadership

Stamford and Grantham MP Quentin Davies says Tory Leader David Cameron was "absolutely crazy" to vote for an immediate inquiry into the Iraq war earlier this week.

The Lincolnshire MP is the first senior Conservative to openly attack his Party’s opportunist behaviour in the House of Commons.

Cameron instructed his MPs to support an unsuccessful motion by Scottish and Welsh nationalists calling for an inquiry to be held while British troops are still in action.

Quentin, former Tory defence spokesman, abstained from Tuesday's vote.

Thanks to Ridiculous Politics for picking on BBC Radio 4's Week in Westminster report

Quentin told the BBC he could not understand why anyone, especially his party, would vote for it. He said:

"I was quite incredulous when I heard we were going to vote for that [SNP/Plaid] resolution.

I didn't vote for it but most of the party did. [That] left me really quite amazed and I'm very sorry about that as a matter of fact.”

He said it would be unprecedented to hold an inquiry during a military campaign.

To have an open inquiry would be

"signalling to the enemy all your plans and all your weaknesses...That can't make any sense at all, and I think that soldiers serving out there in these very difficult conditions would have been just as amazed as I was."

He said the party should be careful to base its actions on "analysis of national interest" and not to give the "slightest sliver of suspicion" that it was playing "party politics with these serious issues".

But Mr Davies added the credibility of the party as an alternative government would be seriously damaged if it gave the impression of "cynically" shifting with the prevailing party political wind.

Another senior Conservative who was absent from the crucial vote - but who declined to be named - described Mr Cameron's decision as "intellectually and morally indefensible".

The MP suggested a number of Tory MPs were deliberately absent. And the BBC reported that there are suggestions that the issue has caused splits within Cameron’s cabinet.

Will gay sex scandal impact on Tuesday’s US elections?

American blogs like this one are going crazy over the famous anti-gay evangelist who is facing claims that he paid a male prostitute for sex for the past three years.

With the hours counting down to Tuesday’s crucial mid-term elections, this huge national scandal could play a part in what many expect will be meltdown for the Republicans.

For national scandal it now is.

Rev. Ted Haggard’s fame as Leader of 30 million American evangelists and his links to President Bush put the story on every American front page this weekend. As one of the leading campaigners against gays in American, Haggard is given weekly contact with the White House.

It's just one example of how the Grand Old Party and the religious right have obscenely groomed each other over recent years.

Hours after a male prostitute went on radio this week to claim that Rev. Ted Haggard had been paying him for drug-fuelled sex for the past three years, my contact with the Democrats was eagerly feeding me newsfeeds as the story developed.

The male prostitute says he was sick of the hypocrisy of Haggard’s anti-gay preaching in public while having gay-sex in private. You can see Haggard’s fire and brimstone anti-gay message on You Tube

And you can hear Haggard’s initial rather curious denials of the accusations HERE

Later Haggard resigned as President of the National Association of Evangelicals and also as leader of the mega-church he helped create in Colorado.

But Haggard has now admitted he did buy drugs from his accuser – apparently out of curiosity. He never actually used them of course.

He’s also admitted receiving a massage from the male prostitute after being “referred to him” by a Denver hotel.

That’s taking research - or curiosity - to extremes!

Whatever happens in the elections, maybe the vice-like grip the evangelist lobby has on the private parts of the Republican Party will be finally loosened.

Book 'em Gary: Parking 1.

Our new sector Inspector Gary Stewart rightly ordered a crack-down on parking offences – after listening to a load of residents’ complaints about illegally parked cars.

But now he’s received a stack of complaints about the crack-down!

He told the Stamford Mercury:

"The people of Stamford asked me to enforce the issue, which we did. The question now is, are they asking me to stop?"

I hope Gary keeps up the blitz on bad parking. In my book, illegal parking is inconsiderate anti-social behaviour.

Pop in to meet your Neighbourhood Police Team this Saturday…

Deepings residents are invited to drop in to meet the local neighbourhood police team this Saturday.

Community Beat Manager for The Deepings Neighbourhood Policing team, PC Jim Capp says:

The aim of the National Neighbourhood Policing Model is to boost the accessibility and visibility of local officers in the community.

We identified that one of the major concerns of local people was that the station was not always manned. So we decided to start this surgery where people can drop in to the station between 11 and 1 every Saturday.

Police Community Support Officer Catherine Wright says:

I hope that this surgery will help make myself and my colleagues PC Jim Capp, Helen Hibbit and Christopher Clarke more accessible to the public as they will know where and when we are available rather than having to rely on seeing us in passing or by going through the control centre.

We hope that people will come and talk to us about any community issue they may have, such as anti social behaviour and that they come with as much information as they can gather (i.e. times, places, descriptions of the offenders etc) so that we can look at ways of tackling the problems.

We don't promise immediate results but we want to be engaging our partner agencies in dealing with the real issues that are having a negative impact on residents quality of life and not on those things that we think are a concern.

Anyone who goes along to the surgery can talk to the PCSOs in confidence about any issues as well as gather information about crime prevention.

Neighbourhood Policing is a Government initiative which aims to boost accessibility, visibility and responsiveness to local needs.

So far the south division of Lincolnshire - which covers Stamford, Deepings and Spalding - has 16 teams comprising of an experienced police officer and a PCSO or small team of PSCOs.

Supporting these teams are officers from the part-time Special Constabulary.

Can someone please tell me, is this a genuine scam, or what?

I wasn’t the only one to be caught by the telephone scam that wasn’t.

But I'm now totally confused, as the Lincolnshire Echoreports that there is a similar variant in circulation that asks residents to call an extortionate premium rate phone line.

I removed my warning on the scam at the request of ICSTIS, the premium rate service regulator, who assured me that the scam was no longer operating and that the warning was a false one.

But the Echo carries an interview with ICSTIS that seems to contradict that view.

The Echo reports an ICSTIS spokesperson as saying: who says:

"This is a totally unacceptable practice and we are determined to stamp it out.

"We managed to track Parcel Delivery Services to a firm in Belize and we have frozen their activities, but the DeSotto Delivery example is the most recent and is being circulated now.

"Everyone needs to be vigilant of any variation on the scam, especially in the run up to Christmas when it is likely to be used more.

"Please report it if you receive one of these letters."

The Echo goes on to quote Lincolnshire Trading Standards officer Andy Bukavs said county residents and businessmen need to stay on their toes.

He confirms:

"There have been a number of cases recently and we need people to report them as soon as they receive the communication,"

And he adds:

"It is very easy to fall foul of these scams.”

I know exactly what he means…

I’ve been caught by chain letter scam within a scam…

At the request of ICSTIS, the premium rate service regulator, I’ve removed yesterday’s post “Beware of latest telephone scam” and offer sincere apologies to all for any inconvenience caused.

The warning that Lincolnshire County Council asked me to pass on turns out to be nothing more than an inaccurate nuisance chain letter

I’m afraid I have to plead guilty to being a bit of an old luddite when it comes to anything remotely concerned with IT.

But I thought I was on safe ground and providing a helpful warning to pass on what seemed to be a news of a genuine scam which could cost £15 if you were caught.

The warning originated from an email sent to a county council officer in the Leader’s office from someone called XXXXXX XXXXXXX an officer at City of Lincoln Council (I'm now checking to see if he exists!).

(see March 10th 2009 Update below).

The county council officer quite reasonably sent the email to the IT-Postmaster (at Hyder Business Services, an outside company contracted to the County Council who are paid millions a year to provide various services).

The IT-Postmaster sent it to me – and presumably every other county councillor, and who knows how many officers.

I posted it in good faith, y'honour and then left for London for the rest of the day, thinking I'd been helpful...

Within a couple of hours, Kate Belson at ICSTIS was on my post:

Please follow this link to our latest news page and see the first entry about PDS.

I would appreciate it if you could update your website accordingly as we are receiving numerous calls from consumers who are very upset by this false news.

If you are keen to educate your audience about premium rate please refer to our leaflet, are you protecting yourself against premium rate scams.

But first off the blocks to point out that I was merely propagating a nuisance chain letter was the Rev. Mark Warrick at dsj-exchange@yahoogroups.com quickly followed by Carole and Albert.

So if Mark, Carole and Albert know in an instant that this is a hoax, how come our IT-Postmaster didn't?

You can bet I’ll be asking questions…watch this space!

UPDATE: Turns out the council officer who received this chain letter and passed it on to his contact list does indeed exist. He's contacted me and at his request, I've amended the above post by removing his name...it all happened over two years ago and I would not wish to cause him any further embarrassment. Phil - 10th March 2009.

Mandela's tear for the crocodile who locked him up...

The incredible Nelson Mandela has paid tribute to the PW Botha, the symbol of all that was evil in apartheid, the man who defiantly refused to release him from prison, who sent death squads into the townships which murdered children, who destablised the whole of southern Africa and who took his own country to the brink of bankruptcy in the cause of white supremacy.

PW was known by his friends as the Great Crocodile for his iron fist in dealing with opposition to apartheid.

And under pressure even from his own side to release Mandela, he famously said: “What would you say if I release him today and we had to re-arrest him tomorrow?”

Yet on his death, some of the first tributes reported on the BBC have come from Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress - outlawed under Mr Botha but which now governs South Africa.

"The African National Congress extends its sympathies and condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of former President PW Botha, who passed away. The ANC wishes his family strength and comfort at this difficult time," it said today.

Mandela himself said: "While to many Mr Botha will remain a symbol of apartheid, we also remember him for the steps he took to pave the way towards the eventual peacefully negotiated settlement in our country."

Those words tell us something about PW. But don't they tell us much more about the greatness of Mandela?