James Ogley

Democrats getting ready to shoot themselves in the foot

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:48 +0000

West Virginia Democrats vote today in a primary that Senator Clinton will win. Not will probably win, she will win it but it hardly matters now. The scorecard of delegates is shaping up to an Obama candidacy now. Senator Obama has more regular delegates and more Super-delegates than the New York senator and there aren't a great deal left to play for.

Now, were I an American, I could personally support either of the two Democratic candidates. Were I an American and a member of the Democratic party, it would have to be Clinton for me. Why? Look at the Electoral College situation based on the latest polls. I've blogged about this before but the difference between a Clinton-McCain race and an Obama-McCain contest is now even more marked. The latest polls show Clinton beating McCain by such a large margin that even if the tied states all went to McCain, Mrs Clinton would still win. On the other hand, the polls show McCain crushing Obama by an even larger margin than Clinton would beat him by.

So, what happens now? It's hard to see Obama not winning the candidacy and that's why I think Clinton is still pushing hard. If she shows the determination not to quit and the resolve that it takes to fight to the last, she can begin her campaign to stand against McCain in 2012 on November 5th, as soon as the votes have been counted. Then, who knows, perhaps a Clinton will unseat an incumbent Republican for the second time, twenty years on...

Sermon: Hebrews 4.14-16 - Confidence in Christ

Mon, 12 May 2008 15:29 +0000

A bit of a delay in getting this one uploaded because of a wee problem with the CD but it's now available.

Recorded May 4th at St Paul's in our monthly Celebration service, 19 minutes, 45 seconds long available as Ogg Vorbis or MP3:

Happy Birthday

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:55 +0000

Happy Birthday, Roger.

Changes to my site

Sat, 10 May 2008 16:41 +0000

Apologies to maintainers of Planet type sites that aggregate my blog (including to myself for Planet SUSE) as those sites will be picking up some of the non-blog bits of my site at the moment. As part of sorting out the site, I've moved those pages into the blog tree rather than having to maintain two versions of the look of the site (one for the blog script the other for the PHP pages) and, having also edited some, they now have a datestamp of today.

I've also changed the look of my site slightly, tweaking the style I launched at the start of the year. There's less dead-space now and larger fonts make it easier to read. It also defaults to the Free DejaVu fonts when they're available.

About Me

Sat, 10 May 2008 15:57 +0000

Given that you're here, and apparently reading this tripe, I assume you want to know something about me. Well, I'm in my early 30s and I currently live near Southampton on the south coast of England. I've been married to Amanda since March 1998 and we have a son, Callum, who was born in January 2007.

I used to be a UNIX Systems Administrator for an insurance company. Before that I was Network Manager at SUSE Linux UK. I am probably best known for my work on the openSUSE GNOME repositories and for running Planet SUSE, where you can read the latest blogs from the openSUSE community.

I've been a curate at an Anglican church here since July 2007 and before that I was training at St John's College, Nottingham. Before starting my training, we lived in Watford, which is in Hertfordshire, just north-west of London.

Google Summer of Code on Planet SUSE

Fri, 09 May 2008 09:12 +0000

Participants in the Google Summer of Code will now be recognised on Planet SUSE by having GSoC in front of their names at the top of their posts.

If you're a student on the GSoC and you don't see this with your posts, please drop me a line and let me know.

A haiku for a sunny summer day

Thu, 08 May 2008 15:48 +0000

In the summer time
When the pollen count is high
I wish plants would die.

Making my life easier

Thu, 08 May 2008 08:26 +0000

For those who either have to use Windows occasionally or (poor, poor people) all the time, there are kick-ass OpenOffice.org 2.4.0 builds now available at Go-OO.org.

Why does this make my life easier? The presentation PC at church runs Windows and this means I can now upgrade the OOo install on it.

Green, scaley and oh so cute!

Wed, 07 May 2008 11:10 +0000

It's great to see openSUSE Lizards launched. People blogging on Lizards will soon start to appear on Planet SUSE (basically as soon as they start posting). Where they have an existing blog and both will continue to be active, their entries from Lizards will be prefixed with Lizards:

Mmmm, irony!

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:08 +0000

'Free Tibet' flags made in China