The Virtual Stoa

Bastille Day brings comfort to objectively pro-French Presidential candidate John Kerry with today’s instalment of the Electoral Vote Predictor after eighteen new statewide polls have been published. Splendid!

It’s only just gone noon (UK time), but I see that Richard Virenque has already led the Tour over the top of three hills as he begins to rack up the points in the King of the Mountains competition.

All I can say right now is that it would be splendid if he won the stage and finished the day in the polka-dot jersey.

UPDATE [Just past 3pm]: Yes, Virenque’s still on the attack, has been first to the top of all nine summits today, and looks set for the stage win. (And the live coverage of the Tour de France is proving much more gripping than the unfolding of the Butler saga…)

I’ve just signed up for Tim Collins’s emailing list, and you can, too. Just follow the link.

(In other Tories-on-the-web news, do visit the WiddyWeb, not just for the usual pics of cats but also for details of how everyone’s favourite rightwing nutcase has come to the aid of neglected Israeli donkeys.)

Because liberals are hotter, apparentlly.

Over here (but possibly not if you’re at work).

Some Virtual Stoa readers will be sad to hear that Mike Woodin, psychology tutor at Balliol College, Green member of Oxford City Council and “co-speaker” of the Green Party (apparently) recently died of lung cancer at the shockingly young age of 38.

There’s a snippet from the google cache here, a piece in the Guardian and a note about his funeral, which took place earlier today, on Oxford Indymedia here.

UPDATE [13.7.2004]: Matt points out in the comments that there’s an obituary in today’s Independent.

UPDATE [14.7.2004]: Caroline Lucas has written an obit for the Guardian.

I was pleased to learn a few days ago that estimable Oxford socialist Ann Black had been re-elected to Labour’s National Executive Committee, topping the poll of party members.

Then I felt a little guilty that I hadn’t voted for her. Then I decided that I had never received a ballot paper.

But now all is clear: the ballot papers come along with copies of the party’s new magazine Labour Today, and since Labour Today is one of those things I get through the post that goes straight into the bin without being opened, so too on this occasion did my democratic rights and responsibilities.

Turnout was apparently 18% in this election.

(Now try to guess what proportion of party members read Labour Today?)

From today’s Independent on Sunday (p.14):

A woman is awaiting trial in Memphis, Tennessee, for battering her boyfriend to death with an iPod. Arleen Mathers was most put out when she discovered that Brad Pulaski, worried about her illegal downloading of songs, had erased 2,000 of her tracks. So she allegedly took her digital music player and bludgeoned him about the face and chest and estimated 40 to 80 times.

Just below it there’s another fine story about a man who went into a restaurant in Sweden saying that he was the “alcohol inspector from the local council and that he needed to check the alcohol content of each drink they served… Only when his investigations began to involve slurred speech, loss of muscle control and throwing things around did the owners realise he might not be all he claimed.”

Maurice Thorez, France’s Top Stalinist, born 28 April 1900, died forty years ago today, 11 July 1964.

Here’s one, found as they ride towards the finish at Quimper today. Haven’t looked to see if it’s any good or not, but it’s good to see that it exists.

The Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby Association has just announced its team for the Paralympic Games in Athens in September, and I’m delighted to say that my friend Justin Frishberg is in it.

If you haven’t read it already, do go and have a look at “Sex Tips For Red State Girls” over at the New York Times, before they stick it in their archive and make you pay for it in a few days time. It’s all about tryin’ to make a livin’ sellin’ vibratin’ sex toys and other useful things in the Bible Belt.

… or automatic left-wing cant generator is clearly a very useful tool. Here’s a sample:

Nevertheless, Donald Rumsfeld’s worldview leads our attention to the police state which has come to pass. It appears that the pro-Sharon neoconservative cabal represents the crushing of internal dissent in order to propagate the predatory imperialist aims outlined by the crypto-fascist Project for a New American Century. It is not heartening that the unstated purpose of this war represents the repudiation of international law in order to bring about an act of international violence that exceeds even those of the “liberal” Bill Clinton. This suggests that the Pax Americana of the future can be seen in the light of the apparent fabrications which lead to the theocrat Ashcroft’s suspension of our civil rights.

Now that’s not bad at all, as automatically-generated leftist cant goes. I could do with one of those.[via SIAW, I think]

Simple Soviet Style Soda!

[thanks: SM]

Thinking of people who didn’t get where they are today by knowing the difference between foreign countries, everyone’s favourite Iraq analyst Juan Cole has a nice reminder of candidate Bush’s knowledge of foreign affairs back in 2000.

So farewell then, John Barron: obituary in today’s Guardian.

By one of those funny coincidences, Jo and I have just finished watching our way through The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, two episodes at a time, me for the second time, she for the first, on DVD. And there is still much joy to be had from John Barron’s performance as C.J., boss of Sunshine Desserts…

C.J.: We aren’t one of those dreadful firms where people can engage willy- nilly in hanky-panky with their secretaries.�Reginald Perrin: Certainly not, C.J.

C.J.: Neither Mrs. C.J. nor I have ever engaged willy- nilly in hanky-panky with their secretaries.�

Perrin: I imagine not, C.J.

More scripts, etc., here.

Crooked Timber is one year old today…