Shake me up Judy

'Thankyou and goodnight' - Steve Christian

'We want information' 'You won't get it !'

Thilvester would thort out the thilt problem alright. (Sorry boys and girls. I jumped threads there)

I've avoided that Creg back road for years Woolley. I used to use it fairly often until the occasion I slid down that hill for over a hundred yards, completely unable to stop the momentum of the car on the icy road. I'd stopped at the top too while I judged the conditions, but the car decided it wanted to go down anyway. I was very lucky not to hit another vehicle that was stopped at the bottom of the hill. That road seems to be a particularly bad one when there's ice / snow about.

I thought the book was much better. They should have shot the film from the Jackal's point of view, never letting us see his face. It would have made for a far more suspenseful movie.

Good question on Gasworks Media in Tynwald tomorrow. How did Steve Christian subcontract his end of the Pinewood deal to his own company Gasworks Media, and did he have the vires from Treasury to do it ? At least I think that's what Kate's asking

It's justice, and it's got nothing to do with vengeance, but it suits some people's argument to believe it. If Lucia's mother is correct in her interview with Manx Radio this morning; then this lad has shown no remorse whatsoever; which leaves some of the straw arguments we've heard on here, kind of blowing in the wind.

I don't believe the vehicle was going at 40mph either, certainly not immediately prior to him losing control. Why does vehicle speed always seem to be minimised in cases like this, when more often than not it's the prime factor in fatal incidents ? Is it because there was no speed limit ? As to the sentence: it seems about right to me. There's very little mitigation here and a young life was lost. Three years was surely the minimum he could have expected. In a month's time they'll be jailing people and ruining lives for being a few points over the drink-drive limit. Not that I condone drink-driving, but let's get things in perspective.

A cynic might think that Cannan or his policy advisers are being very clever here. In taking a tax to which everyone's equally opposed, and dumping it on to an already deeply inequitable rating system, he has already created division and the wedge that will ensure it will get through Tynwald. There are already people on here who are beginning to think it's a good idea.....

I'm surprised that nobody has said it yet, but isn't Cannan just looking after his constituents here ? Isn't Kirk Michael a low rate area, so many of his voters will be better off with this proposal. Unlike me. My rates are town rates and sky-high as it is, so I'll be paying double or treble the toilet tax that some others will pay under Cannan's new 'fairer' scheme. He knows this and you could tell by his defensive tone in the interview with Manx Radio this morning.

I thought Chumpsky was T.J.s hero ? Watching America's useful idiot and the Western Left's poster boy blow smoke up his own ass I actually thought at first that this was a spoof.

Some of us (ahem) older gentlemen are somewhat 'charmed' by Tiger Lily's naif contributions to these forums.

Chomsky's a fool if he thinks that the two-state solution is still the easy solution to this conflict. How he thinks it would or could work is beyond me, and it would only condemn the region to another hundred years of conflict. Events in the wider region are overtaking the received wisdom anyway, and it's in Israel's neighbouring Arab states interests, and the West's, to have a strong modern democracy that can defend itself in the eastern Mediterranean. The one-state solution with full democratic rights for all citizens, federalist government and a degree of devolved regional autonomy is the only option worth pursuing.

You do have to wonder why, when the international media are embedded in Gaza, we never see any Hamas activists or soldiers in the news clips, no men (or women) and youths with their faces covered, no rockets, no guns or hardware, nobody digging tunnels....nothing. Only civilians - some of whom I doubt are civilians. You could be forgiven for thinking that Hamas aren't even in Gaza, such is the media's inability to ever catch any of them on camera. I don't think the West's media in Gaza are intentionally biased, but they're certainly being lead around on a piece of string like a pig in the ring by Hamas.

As the Yiddish saying goes: 'Only a Jew can really play the fiddle'

Perhaps if the Israelis sent the IDF babes into Gaza the fighting would stop, or there'd be at least a temporary truce while the Hamas lads scratched around for a hotel room that hadn't been rubblized. 'Oy Vey......'

Hahahahahahahaha.....go on then, you know you want to. Shall I start you off ?

It has always fascinated me how one culture, arguably more than any other, could produce such great music. Perhaps it's something to do with centuries of persecution. So many of the greatest musicians, composers, and performers of the 20th century for instance, come out of the modern Jewish diaspora, and in particular the Jewish emigration to America.

As I think Sam Harris said in the blog a few pages ago; there is perhaps a sense in which 'we're all Israelis now' and Hamas and all it stands for must be defeated. It's important not just for Israel and its neighbours, but for the whole West, whose complacency and collective guilt has informed its thinking for far too long. I'm tired of hearing the half-witted argument from the brainwashed left that the biggest enemy to peace in the region is and has been Tony Blair. I talk to people all the time who really believe that.

Yeah, I'll give you an answer to that one Ballaugh Biker. Kick Hamas's ass into the Mediterranean where they belong. They're the problem right now. They don't represent the legitimate grievance of the Palestinian people but rather the wider aims of Islamic Jihad. Innocent Palestinian men, women and kids are dying because of a medieval religious terror group with a genocidal charter. How's that for you ?

I wonder if someone could put Newsnight's excellent work into layman terms for those of us who don't know one side of a balance sheet from the other. I know this whole thing stinks of fish but I struggle to make sense of all the digging that Newsnight has done.

That picture says it all Quilp.

Anywhere else in the world would have a speed limit over the mountain for the two weeks of T.T. to calm the lunatics. But we don't do that. Instead, we put thousands of cones down, make it one way, and let everyone go as fast as they like. We close the road every hour or so to mop up after the inevitable carnage, then open it up again for a bit so the lunatics can have another blast. Then someone else comes off and the road is closed again. Then it's open again. This is repeated ad nauseam for two weeks. I doubt many people elsewhere would even believe it happens.

I wonder what the impact of the flooding in the Thames Valley and Shepperton area will have on any future planning applications for housing development by Pinewood ? Looks like our investment could be floating down the Swanee Thames......

I thought Teare crossed the line this time, and the Speaker should have insisted he answered the question. It's taxpayers money and we're entitled to know the answer. The commercial confidentially argument didn't wash this time, and I consider his refusal to answer was contempt of court. No better than Anderson's misleading Tynwald over the Nobles consultants letter.