Last week, Amanda and Rocketboom were the story. This week it's Hugh McLeod, Thomas Mahon and Giorgio Armani - they want to go in to the bespoke tailor's version of WrestleMania. Make of that analogy what you will, but it sounds like "it's on!" Who shall be the client for the competition? I think that Marc Canter would bring a certain gravitas to this enterprise that nobody else can. 
I've finally registered for online banking. I tried to register three years ago but I could never finish my registration because they didn't support the Mac platform. I phoned them up today and I should be able to bank online from Monday and use 24-hour telephone banking (you know, just in case I decide at 3am that I want to know whether cheques have cleared). Before today, my interactions with the financial establishment are exactly the same sort that my grandma must have had back in about 1937 when she worked in the drawing offices of the Civil Service. We may now be able to be in Paris in two hours for less than £50, we can now transmit electronic representations of the Bible, Shakespeare and Plato down a piece of copper cable to any place in the Western world in less than a minute, but banks will never change. It will still take the best part of a week to process a cheque, it'll still take ages to process bank transfers, they'll still take extravagant amounts of time to do simple things like setup direct debits and standing orders.
I read the Norm Geras/Nick Cohen/David Horowitz debate over on FrontPage Magazine. Two words: train wreck.
Ask MeFi has a great question about Roman history.
I've got a great idea. Imagine if someone made a mobile phone that doubles up as a taser. Why? Well, to stop meddling government agents intruding on the privacy of those who can't fight back. Or maybe for the more liberal states, just a phone with more security options.
Just imagine how much more fun having a TiVo would be if it didn't work. That's what ABC's President of Advertising Sales wants.
Free Faith For Schools! Collect now and help your children get ahead! 
The Guardian has an excellent article about faith schools and how barmy it all is. Perhaps the government thinks that families of Jews or Muslims traipsing off to the C-of-E once a week is a superb method for helping integrate communities or whatever it is they now think is their responsibility.
The paragraphs where an American lady dubbed Sally Sellick is interviewed are pretty much as cogent an analysis as you can get: "I know of other non-believers who dress it up as wanting the children to have a moral education, or they say it's nice being part of the community. So I thought we'd try it. But I couldn't take it. I think you have to be really cynical to do it if you don't believe. My husband found it easier than I did, I think - he's from a former communist country and is used to having to do stuff he doesn't believe in. But I found it so uncomfortable, saying these prayers I knew I didn't believe in. I couldn't take my son up for the blessing. It was farcical."
The state is sponsoring "choice advisers", costing nine million pounds a year, to help parents with their difficult decision between - what to some - is a rock and a hard place. If I were to have a child (Cthulhu forbid), there is almost no choice at all in my area. The vast majority of the schools in my area are run by the Church of England. There are a handful of Catholic schools on top of that. What's left? Well, there's about two 'community schools' (the C-word!) nearby - compared to about 12 C-of-E schools. A few of the schools which do not express a religious affiliation in their name - which would seem to be community schools - do in fact have daily worship and all that rubbish.
The continued existence of faith schools and the lack of any effort on the part of any political party to do anything about are the best adverts for emigrating and/or getting a vasectomy. That and a big old revival in secular home-schooling.
