Fun Online Polls: Make up your own question & How much money is there in the world?

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were:

Make up your own question...

Kim Jong-Il - 40%
Osama Bin Laden - 12%
Donald Neilson 12%
Colonel Gadaffi - 8%
Other, please specify - 28%

The winning questions were:
UKIP Webmaster: Who is no ronger ronery in herr?
John Pickworth: Whom would you like to marry?

And the winning 'Other' was:
Richard Allan: Justin Bieber
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Just to see whether everybody was paying attention (see recent posts here or here), this week's Fun Online Poll asks "Taking assets and liabilities into account, how much 'money' is there in the world?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Who says Libyans don't have a sense of humour?

Spotted by MBK at News24:

The regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Wednesday called for British Prime Minister David Cameron to step down, saying he had "lost all legitimacy" because of the riots shaking Britain.

"Cameron and his government must leave after the popular uprising against them and the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations by police," official news agency Jana quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaaim as saying. "Cameron and his government have lost all legitimacy. These demonstrations show that the British people reject this government which is trying to impose itself through force."

Kaaim called on the UN "Security Council and the international community to not stay with its arms crossed in the face of the flagrant violation of the rights of the British people".

Nightly riots which began in London and quickly spread to other major cities have gripped Britain since Saturday when an angry crowd marched to demand justice after 29-year-old Marc Duggan was shot dead by police in London. Britain and France are spearheading Nato's aerial bombing campaign against the Gaddafi regime since March, when the United Nations approved action to protect Libyan civilians.

Wouldn't it be better to kill him beforehand?

Headline in The Metro:

"David Cameron hints Gaddafi may be killed hours after it is deemed illegal"

Short List

Political leaders who like(d) to hold meetings in a tent.

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
2. Colonel Gaddafi.

And from history: Genghis Khan. Only all his people lived in tents, so I'm not sure if that counts.

Next list: Songs which both Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan performed.

Posted from an internet café in Scarborough.

Short List

Singers who performed a completely new song for their solo career which had exactly the same title as one they'd written and performed with their old band:


1. Wham! Freedom/George Michael Freedom
2. Rolling Stones Think/Mick Jagger Think

Next list: Political leaders who like(d) to hold meetings in a tent.

Colonel Gaddafi

Fun Online Poll results & Conspiracy Theory Of The Week

I'm pleased to see that 71% of us would allow Laura Dekker to try and sail round the world single-handed, or as Lola said, 71% of us wouldn't try to stop her. A couple of commenters said they wouldn't let their own children do this, but that wasn't the question, was it? I certainly wouldn't encourage my children to do this either (not least because I'd be no good at the fund-raising bit), but maybe other parents think I should be fined for exposing my children to the occasional bit of second-hand smoke. How about we all just leave each other in peace?
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Anyways. The debate rages as to whether al-Megrahi was released in exchange for favourable oil deals with Libya. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't - and I'm not actually bothered either way. Now, I ask myself, is it a coincidence that he was released a few days before Gadaffi's 40th anniversary celebrations, at which they showed "a video clip of al-Megrahi stepping off the plane from Scotland to roaring cheers", allegedly.

So, coincidence or conspiracy: what do you think? Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Colonel Gaddafi - surprisingly libertarian

From The Times:

Forty years into the revolution he unleashed on Libya Muammar Gaddafi has announced plans to dismantle the Government, hand the riches from Africa's biggest oil reserves to the people and nationalise foreign oil operations that have recently been allowed back into the country.

“The administration has failed and the state economy has failed. Enough is enough. The solution is, we Libyans take directly the oil money and decide what to do with the money,” he says. To end the corruption that has sapped the vast oil wealth, bundles of cash should be delivered to the poor, three quarters of the ministries should cease to exist and the workers should run hospitals and schools.

He'd be stupid to nationalise oil operations, of course, it is far better to let the experts get on with the job and let them pay for the value of the oil they extract, and I don't like the sound of only paying cash to "the poor", a flat rate Citizen's Dividend is always better, but hey, apart from that, it sounds good to me. It's a bit like Tom Paine's idea of two centuries ago, except he probably hadn't realised how valuable oil would be in future, and so suggested raising the tax from usage of other natural resources.