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“What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”

“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let’s be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy. The other kills her own food.”

Notice, though, that the joke relies on the comparison being made between the Democratic Presidential nominee and the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee.

Well, exactly.

From Tim Worstall, I see that Marta Adreasen is attempting to stand for election to the European Parliament.

If you’d like to know a little more about the disgraceful treatment by Europe of Marta Adreasen, start with her entry on Wikipedia.

Is it true that Sullivan can’t become a US citizen just because he’s HIV positive? If so, that’s absolutely disgraceful. Some knee-jerk twattery that accidentally made it into law. Repeal it.

Might explain why he wants the Dems to win.

Let’s put aside for the moment Sullivan’s recent hurricane of innuendo. Let’s look just at his weirdness today:

[John] Edwards was a national figure …Palin has been several time zones away in the Alaskan wilderness

Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, A New Paradigm?

Is Andy really trying to insinuate Palin’s unreadiness because of geography? Such an early adopter of blogging and the immediate worldwide reach of communications might think twice before mentally consigning anyone living outside the Beltway to a frightening terra incognita, populated by the Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, and hockey moms and all the other people trying to live lives without too much time spent thinking about their betters in DC.

This outsider meme will come back to bite Mr Sullivan on his enthusiastically-employed arse. If change is what’s wanted then why not look away from Washington?

A soldier home on leave after being injured in Afghanistan was refused a room by a hotel when he showed his military ID card at reception.

Corporal Tomos Stringer, 23, from Gwynedd, was visiting a wounded colleague in Surrey when he was turned away from the Metro Hotel in Woking.

He spent the night in his car after being told it was management policy not to accept military personnel.

BBC, Soldier is refused room at hotel

The hotel is Metro Hotel, Woking. I suggest everyone simply boycotts the place.

I’ll leave you with a bit of Kipling:

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, 'We serve no red-coats 'ere.
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed and giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again, an' to myself sez I:
Oh, it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, go away':
But it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to play -
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
Oh, it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to play.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?'
But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes' when the drums begin to roll -
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
Oh, it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes when the drums begin to roll.

Kathy Shadle repeats the question:

why do Muslims read or memorize the Qur’an without understanding it? … This leads not only the illiterate and poor Muslims, but also the highly educated and rich Muslims to read the Qur’an in Arabic without trying to understand what they are reading or reciting in their prayer.

Kathy Shadle, Five Feet Of Fury, Is Islam the world’s dumbest religion? Or what?

But I had a similar experience growing up in Wales. At school assemblies we often had to sing baffling hymns in Welsh. Our ‘school song’ was the most laughable; we sang it only once annually, at Speech Day. The words were particularly incomprehensible and even unpronounceable and nobody ever remembered the tune from the previous year.

There has been some rash speculation about the cause of Andrew Sullivan’s recent blizzard of Daily Kos-style posts, including a suggestion of dementia – which, given Sullivan’s medical condition, is a possibility I suppose. Whatever. His latest:

Did I just see Cindy holding Trig? I mean: can we have it one way or the other? Either the family is out of bounds or it is in the spotlight. Brandishing a child with Down Syndrome as a campaign statement is daring the press to ask questions about him.

Andrew Sullivan, Parading the Baby

Not parading, Andrew, holding. In the audience. Very unlike Michelle Obama and her two children appearing on stage at the DNC. Remember?