“We make it our mission to tell you about every last cheap meal in the city, be it breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, whether it’s at a cafe, diner, pub or steakhouse, we’ll get you fed for less.

“Discover what’s cheap in Tulsa tonight by selecting a day from the list on the right and browsing our continually updated database of restaurant deals. “For regular updates on new Tulsa restaurant deals why not become a fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.”

Yahoo Buzz’s Top Searches

Yahoo Buzz 26 June 2009 10:00am London

The top search term is ‘Dead Sea’. Well they got one word right but Michael Jackson doesn’t appear anywhere.  Not good.

AOL Hot Searches

AOL Hot Searches 26 June 2009 10:00am London

They’re stuck two days ago with their Stig story. Surely Jacko
has to top the story about a cougar?  Very poor show.

Bing USA got it – just.

Bing US June 26 2009 10:00am London

Michael Jackson was top of the ‘Popular Now’ bar which appears on the bottom right of the search engine portal in the US.  But next to UCLA medical centre.  Surely those aren’t in order?

And the winner is Google Hot Trends

Google Trends June 26 2009 10:00am London

Michael Jackson is all over the top 25. All over the top 100 actually. Responsive and thorough. Credit where credit is due.

“This is our second office,” she tells me unabashed, other than that she makes no apologies for her down-at-heel surroundings. A green poison bait box sits next to the skirting board on one wall. Yes, they have a rodent problem.  

But in this tiny room on the second floor of an office building on Borough High Street, Green MEP, Jean Lambert, is planning her campaign for the European Parliament elections in June. 

She looks harried, and it takes a moment for her concentration to settle on me, as though always needed elsewhere.  She has been an MEP since 1999, and a member of the UK Green Party since there were just 50 members in the whole of London, 31 years ago. 

“We’ve been the vanguard on so many issues,” she says. 

A woollen cardigan hangs off of her shoulders, comfortable and well-worn.  For a politician she seems refreshingly unconcerned about appearances.  Before becoming an MEP she worked as a French and an English teacher at a school in Walthamstow, East London, and she would be well cast on Grange Hill.

“The new member states still have politicians who haven’t taken the environmental agenda on board,” she says, as though discussing an unruly class,  ”And Italy have a regressive government and don’t give a monkeys.” 

Then, as though exasperated by a particularly naughty schoolboy, she says, “I’d put Berlusconi well up there.” 

Balancing life commitments with parliamentary work is difficult and Jean acknowledges that as an MEP her family life has suffered.  “It’s difficult for almost anybody in some ways, but that’s also true for MPs.  My husband and I have to try hard to remember who it was we married.” 

A committed MEP’s workload can be considerable, especially when combined with party campaigning and establishing a constituency presence. 

“I think you need a willingness to take things as they come at you,” Jean says, “If you’re the kind of person who gets highly stressed under pressure or when things don’t go your way this is not the job for you.” 

I get the impression that she’s putting a brave face on it. She feels stress like anyone, I can see she’s feeling the burden of a heavy back-log even as we speak, perhaps she just has a higher tolerance than most. 

“I take it very seriously,” she says.  “Even if there’s something we don’t support, if we think it’s an important piece of legislation we will work hard to get it changed and to rewrite it so it’s the best that it can be.”

Being an MEP is not a glamorous job, struggling always for compromise, between parties, between nations, struggling to get the attention of a petulant national press.  Jean has spent much of the past seven years trying to change the public perception of the Green Party as a single issue party by developing a progressive human rights agenda.  She was named Justice and Human Rights MEP of the year in 2005, but her message has barely registered with the British media. 

She is a work horse, peculiarly suited to the grey job of legislation, primed by long-held ideals for the endless disputes of a collaborative parliament in a media vacuum. 

“One of the things I love about the European Parliament is you’re working beyond borders,” she says, “It’s why I want to be in Europe and not Westminster.” 

But Jean Lambert could be lost on the backbenches of Westminster, a lone green drowned out between larger parties.  She’s not very showy, she doesn’t seem to have the front or the self-interest. 

As Vice-President of the 43 member Greens/European Free Alliance in the parliament she is twice as influential as the majority of British politicians and she gets a fraction of the recognition. 

She’s a rare kind of politician, an efficient one whose efficiency doesn’t depend on who happens to be watching.

Visiting the site returns the message “Project offline”.

The report, put forward by Italian MEP Marco Cappato of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, aims to make information on attendance available to the public through the Parliament’s website before the 2009 election.

Cappato’s report said that, “Accessing information relating to the EU institutions still remains an obstacle-strewn path for ordinary citizens, due to the lack of an effective citizen-oriented inter-institutional policy of transparency and communication.”

An article on Schuman Square suggests The European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee may not not have passed the measure with such a majority had they read the fine print closely. 

 In addition to the attendance figures mentioned in the Euractiv article, Shuman Square reports that disclosure “Would include their participation in roll call votes,” and would be “Searchable by the MEP’s name, plenary, committee, delegation, vote, day or term.”

Reading the report I notice it also calls for information to be made available on MEPs allowances, spending and financial interests, and for National Parliaments and elected bodies to be invited to do the same “by establishing a Register of parliaments’ and parliamentarians’ activities”

This is an opportunity to throw some light on the inner workings of the EU, on the activities of MEPs and go some way towards encouraging transparency in member states. Cappato is right, there can be no real Democracy without transparency. If this measure makes it through the Plenary it can only improve the credibility of MEPs and the European Parliament, much as the excellent They Work for You has for MPs in Britain.

 The idea has its critics, Euractiv quoted Statewatch Editor Tony Bunyan’s response:  

“Under the Commission’s proposal, only the final document would be a “document”. All the draft proposal documents would not be ‘documents’, which means that all the changes, options, discussions would be secret and hidden from public view and scrutiny. The lifeblood of a democracy is the ability of parliaments, civil society and citizens to know what is being discussed and to make their views known before the final ‘document’ is set in stone.”

Mr. Bunyan is right to point out the shortcomings, but in practice the majority of voters will only dig so deep. A list of final votes should be fit for purpose in the run up to the June election, after which further transparency can be sought.  Cappato makes this aim clear in the report, which states, “The EU institutions should now take further steps towards greater transparency, openness and democracy by moving towards an “EU Freedom of Information Act”.  

The move was welcomed by London’s Green Party MEP Jean Lambert who said that generally attendance was a good sign of engagement.

“I’m willing to bet,” she said, “That when that info comes out there will be people who hardly ever set foot in the place.”

Discussing the usefulness of attendance figures in measuring an MEP’s engagement James Stevens posted the following on Jon Worth’s blog.

 ”Plenary attendance is indeed a very crude measure of MEP effectiveness and in some cases probably more related to collecting daily allowances than anything else.”

1) Always collect your paycheck
2) Take all the free food you can get unless you’re on a job, in which case accept nothing.
3) Check the archives, but don’t believe everything you read, some writers are inacurate.
4) Dress smart but always have a change of clothing in your car in case of emergencies (see blue jeans exceptions).
5) Be accurate, especially with names.
6) Never flip anyone off on the way to a meeting, you might be meeting them.
7) Keep your cool.

The five blue jeans exceptions (when it’s okay to dress casual):

1) When interviewing country music stars Brad Paisley or Garth Brooks.
2) When you pay into an office collection for the privilege.
3) When the University of Oklahoma football team are playing for the national championship.
4) When covering a farming event.
5) In the event of a tornado.

If you ever find yourself reporting in Oklahoma you’ll be way ahead of the curve.

Results by County Nov 4 2008

Christian Pastors across America broke Federal tax laws to endorse John McCain’s presidential bid, now that the results are in it’s clear that their congregations ignored them.

Barack Obama attracted 8 per cent more votes from regular church goers than John Kerry did in 2004, up to 43 per cent

There are blue churches as well as red, black as well as white. Michelle Obama’s appearance at the General Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, during which she made an appeal for votes on behalf of her husband, may also have been a violation of Federal tax laws, according to campaign group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Some Catholic bishops warned congregations that voting for pro-abortion Obama would be against their faith, yet there was a 9 point jump in Catholic support, up to 54 per cent.

Faced with the choice between an eternal conservative administration and eternal damnation they chose damnation. They may fear for their souls, but in the current economic climate they fear more for their jobs.