Saturday, January 31, 2009

Gordon Brown: Talking utter shite.

Gordon Brown's latest... well, pronouncements is probably the best word:
"This is the first financial crisis of the global age. And there is no clear map that has been set out from past experience to deal with it."
We've had financial crises before now, Gordon. This isn't the first recession. In fact, you should know this, Gordon, as you claimed to have abolished boom and bust. And in the past recessions, there has been a global economy. There are maps and blue prints out there, Gordon, in the history books - both examples of what to do and what not to do.
"I'm reminded of the story of Titian, who's the great painter, who reached the age of 90, finished the last of his nearly 100 brilliant paintings, and he said at the end of it, 'I'm finally beginning to learn how to paint', and that is where we are."
What, fucking painting? Is this this shittest analogy of all time? What the fuck does this have to do with the global economy? Is Gordon going to paint his way out of recession? Because, whilst that is a bollocks idea, at least it would be cheaper than his constant bank bailouts. But Titian's false modesty has very little to do with the arrogant ignorance of our total cuntwad of a Prime Minister. 
"We're learning all the time about how to deal with what are real problems for which we have no historical analogies to fall back on, because when the 1930s problems hit them, they did not have the global financial markets that we have today."
Extraordinary - again, Gordon, there have been recessions before. The 1930's do not represent the sole economic problems ever experienced by the world, ever. And there were global financial markets before now; which is how, in 1929, the problems of Wall Street managed to bring down the economy of the whole fucking world.
He said a "laissez faire" attitude was not permissible...
Why not, Gordon? By your own admission, you haven't got the first fucking clue what is going on, and you are learning all the time. Perhaps what you are about to learn is that there is nothing wrong with a laissez faire attitude. Because your interventionist attitude has achieved nothing other than the waste of billions of pounds and the achievement of the square root of bugger all.
...and added that "there is implicit protectionism I'm afraid in what is happening at the moment".
Like standing by your call for British jobs for British people, Gordon? Or have you forgotten that you said that, because it passed from your cracked, grey lips more than five minutes ago?

Fuck me, it is bad enough being in a recession. It is even worse to hear the unelected Prime Minister talking such abject nonsense. It isn't even self-serving crap any more. It is simply ill thought out, staggeringly ignorant nonsense that shows that Brown has no concept of what is actually happening in the real world, and no real concept of what life is like outside of his narrow, mental bunker. The policies of Gordon Brown have nothing to do with the policies required by the national or international economies. Gordon Brown would be better off being the Prime Minister of Narnia; at least by living in a fantasy world he would only be damaging himself, rather than every other poor fucker in this country. 

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Friday, January 30, 2009

Translating political speak

There are some detailed posts to come about Gordon Brown's insanity (and whether it matters) and about why we should be nicer to bankers. But this morning my brain is a little like stew and both posts require more thought before I belch them forth onto the interweb. So whilst they ferment away, like mould in an unwashed coffee cup, I give you the Nameless Libertarian's guide to translating the phrases that spew from the malformed gobs of modern politicians:

I have complete confidence in the minister: Either he resigns, or I sack him.

I can categorically deny all wrong-doing: I cannot believe you caught me!

Change you can believe in: Policies to follow. Maybe. But the phrase sounds nice, doesn't it? So vote for me anyway.

We've decontaminated the brand: Any policies or ideological backbone of this party are dead and gone.

I'm a pretty straight kind of guy: Ha ha, I'm fucking lying and you know it.

Economic stimulus package: If we throw money at it, maybe the recession will just vanish.

We are going to do all we can for those who have lost their jobs: We're really hoping that a meaningless platitude will make you feel better, because it is all we've got.

These measures are vital for national security: It is always easier to rob you of your civil liberties if we scare you a bit first.

The committee completely exonerated me of all wrong-doing: The committee effectively called me a cunt but I'm going to hone in on the smallest of small loopholes in their verdict to try to disguise the fact that I am utterly, utterly corrupt.

That's it from me - if you can think of any others, stick them in the comments section...

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Another day, another political internet quiz - this one I spotted at Hell Patrol on a post by David Cameron's Forehead. Here are my overall political views:

My Political Views
I am a right social libertarian
Right: 5.63, Libertarian: 7.88

Political Spectrum Quiz


Right-of-centre Social Libertarian... hmmm, sounds about right.

And in foreign policy:

My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -4.88

Political Spectrum Quiz


Again, spot on.

And finally, in terms of culture:

My Culture War Stance
Score: -8.14

Political Spectrum Quiz

Absolutely right. Jeez, one of these crappy quizzes that actually works... who'd have thought it?

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Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Underbelly of the Environmental Movement

It happened – third runway, here we come! This can’t be a massive surprise for anyone – after all, the government wanted this bill to pass, and since they have a healthy working majority, it was going to take a lot to stop this proposal from taking on an certain edge of inevitability. I’m quite apathetic on this issue – rather being a NIMBY, I’m more NMFP*. After all, I’m not on the flight path and tend to fly from Gatwick anyway. However, I’m expecting a howl of impotent rage from those who oppose the third runway.

Which leads me back to a point I have already made – just what, precisely, to those who oppose this third runway expect Heathrow to do about all their problems? Yeah, we have Boris’s plans to build airports in the river**, but I don’t hear many of the third runway protestors supporting that idea. Partly because the real nub of the issue isn’t so much the location of the extra runway, but rather the desire to expand air travel. I’d say most of the protestors simply don’t want there to be more air travel for environmental reasons.

However, this makes the question of what exactly is the alternative even more pertinent and urgent. If we want to stop the expansion of air travel, or, indeed, reduce it, then what precisely is the alternative? Because so much of the modern economy is based around air travel. If we stop the expansion of air travel, or even reduce it, it is going to decimate a global economy that is already floundering badly.

And there’s a further point. Air travel is not alone in being a potentially environmentally unfriendly mode of transport. Yet all the modern modes of transport exist for a reason. They are there to meet the demands of the growing global population. And this isn’t just demands for people to take their annual holidays to Tenerife. This is about the mass transit of commodities people need to survive. Sure, you could reduce this mass transit system across the globe a little bit, and impact on the quality of life for some. As soon as you start radically attacking that system, you are going to start hurting people in crucial ways.

The problem, therefore, is the size of the global population. Some environmentalists concede that only a substantial reduction in the number of humans on this planet can actually save the environment. Which leads us to the unsavoury, brutal, extreme underside of the environmental movement – how we reduce the population. And the ideas are not pleasant. This sort of mindset is, for me, best summed up by this old comment from a radical environmentalist character calling themselves Miss Ann Thropy way back in the 1980’s:

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human population back to ecological sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS. So as hysteria sweeps over the governments of the world, let me offer an ecological perspective on the disease (with the understanding that the association between AIDS and homosexuality is purely accidental and irrelevant - in Africa it is a heterosexual disease, and is destined to be everywhere).

I take it as axiomatic that the only real hope for the continuation of diverse ecosystems on this planet is an enormous decline in human population. Conservation, social justice, appropriate technology, etc., are great to discuss and even laudable, but they simply don't address the problem. Furthermore, the whole economy of industrial affluence (and poverty) must give way to a hunter-gatherer way of life, which is the only economy compatible with a healthy land.

Of course, such a decline is inevitable. Through nuclear war or mass starvation due to desertification or some other environmental cataclysm, human overpopulation will succumb to ecological limits. But in such cases, we would inherit a barren, ravaged world, devoid of otters and redwoods, Blue Whales and butterflies, tigers and orchids.


Barring a cure, the possible benefits of this (AIDS) to the environment are staggering. If, like the Black Death in Europe, AIDS affected one-third of the world's population, it would cause an immediate respite for endangered wildlife on every continent. More significantly, just as the Plague contributed to the demise of feudalism, AIDS has the potential to end industrialism, which is the main force behind the environmental crisis.

None of this is intended to disregard or discount the suffering of AIDS victims. But one way or another there will be victims of overpopulation - through war, famine, humiliating poverty. As radical environmentalists, we can see AIDS not as a problem, but a necessary solution (one you probably don't want to try for yourself). To paraphrase Voltaire: if the AIDS epidemic didn't exist, radical environmentalists would have to invent one.

Now, I’m not trying to imply for one moment that every environmentalist is like that evil fucker quoted above, but this does point out a fundamental problem at the centre of the environmental argument. The human population needs to decrease, not increase. Making the environmental movement anti-human. And how is this reduction in the human population going to be achieved? The quote above – as odious as it might be with phrases such as “the possible benefits of this (AIDS) to the environment are staggering” – shows that something radical needs to happen. The problem is that any radical solution that fundamentally reduces the human population is, against the parameters of nearly any ethical or moral code, staggeringly evil.

A seismic reduction in the human population – or a radical contraction of the world economy (which would probably cause the former anyway) – may well be the only way to truly achieve these environmental objectives, but it is also worth revisiting why these objectives exist anyway. Some environmentalists argue that the planet is already beyond the point of no return. Which does leave me wondering why we would want to do anything to stop what is now inevitable. Or, as Mr Eugenides puts it:

“…on the "urgent need" to combat global warming (though if it's irreversible, where's the fucking urgency?)”
And if the status quo is reversible, then I think it is still worth challenging some of the fundamental assumptions of the environmental case. DK takes a look at some of the facts around climate change for a US Senator:

Yes, yes it is. Still, here are some facts for you, Senator Cardin:

 The world may or may not be warming. Honestly, we don't really know.
 The world may or may not be warmer than at any time since the last ice age. But, honestly, we don't really know.
 If there is some warming trend, man may or may not be contributing to it. Honestly, we don't really know.
 Ah, fuck it—you get the idea...
So, we don’t know whether we are causing some of the environmental damage to this planet. Therefore, we don’t know whether pursuing an environmental agenda would actually stop that damage. Culling the human population, or fucking with the global economy, is problematic even if you think it will do some good. When we are lacking in any real evidence that it would make a blind bit of fucking difference anyway, it becomes even more nonsensical.

Digging into the environmental and ecological movements shows that there is far more to both of them than a bit of fashionable airline bashing – and I dare say some environmentally minded people would be surprised where the extremes of their movement are at, ideologically speaking. However it also sums up nicely why I could never be an environmentalist – I refuse to sign up to an ideology that, deep down, is anti-human. And I’m also happy to be called a climate change sceptic*** - because, although conclusive proof will be next to impossible to come by, I would like something a little more concrete than the incoherent and utterly inconclusive “evidence” of the climate change lobby.

*NMFP – not my fucking problem.
**Can’t help but think of recent events in New York here, but I know I am being deliberately obtuse.
***Not denier, please not. Sceptic. Climate change happens; it is the causes of it and what we can do about it that I am sceptical about.

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LA Fitness seem to be doing this campaign at the moment to get people up by using the imagery of Full Metal Jacket - right down to shouty, angry looking drill sergeant and all. It is a bold campaign, and I dare say it will work with some. Although I can't help but remember how that particular section of Full Metal Jacket ended.

Yet it is not just the ever present threat of murder-suicide that puts me off this campaign. It is everyone I have seen on the streets handing out leaflets for it. They have been, without exception, fat. And not just a little bit tubby. But fat. Even the faux-drill sergeant who was leading his platoon of human teletubbies up and down the road outside work on the first day back after Christmas had something of the beached whale about him.

Which I just don't get. Surely, the people advertising this tiresome gym should not only look like people who would actually use the gym, but also people who have used the gym successfully? Maybe I'm missing the point, but by having tubs of lard handing out leaflets for a gym makes me think that by joining that gym you pile on the pounds and end up a heffer. And I don't need to join a gym to end up like Billy Bunter. I could just sit in the comfort of my own home, eating pies...

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Palin for President... Already?!

With almost indecent haste (Obama has only just been inaugurated, for fuck's sake) I give you the start of the Sarah Palin for President, 2012 campaign.

I don't know whether this is a new record for the start of a presidential campaign, but I can't help but feel that this is a little premature. It is going to be difficult to keep the momentum going for the next four years, though. There is a danger of candidates peaking too early; in the case of Sarah Palin, she might peak at around September 2010 at this rate.

Still, if I was Obama, I'd be supporting Palin's bid to run for the presidency in the first presidential election of the next decade. After all, it is his best bet for winning re-election!

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Should we let Auschwitz rot?

There is some debate on what to do with Auschwitz. A crucial site in one of the worst crimes in human history is slowly decaying into the earth. And some wish to preserve it, others feel that it should dissolve away into nothing.

I don't know what to feel. I have some sympathy with the idea that whilst there are still some living survivors of the Holocaust then the site should be kept as a means of closure, for those who suffered so much during that awful period of human history. Yet I can also see how it is almost perverse to wish to maintain a site of such utter carnage. Somehow, letting that scene of evil dissolve away with the years might be a poetic way of letting the human race move on from the crimes of Hitler and the Nazis. And that's move on, rather than forget.

The simple truth is that the horror of the Holocaust will never been forgotten. The scale and the deliberate nature of the millions of murders carried out in the name of Nazism means that the Holocaust is burned onto the psyche of humanity in perpetuity. Aside from assorted far right lunatics, just the mention of the word Nazi is enough to provoke a shiver down the spine, or a wince, or a moment of anger. Nazism means mass murder, and few political ideologies have been as utterly debunked as the ideology expounded by Hitler and his dreadful, ignorant ilk. Do we really need to have such a reminder of the horror of the Nazis such as Auschwitz when the very word stands as a testament to the mindless evil of that regime?

And, anyhow, can anyone actually argue that such reminders achieve anything practically, other than being a source of pain and misery? After all, Auschwitz still standing has done nothing to prevent subsequent outbreaks of mass murder - in the USSR, in Cambodia, in North Korea, in Rwanda and in Zimbabwe - to name but a few. Hell, as I write this, we even have a man standing trial in the Hague for turning kids into rapists and murderers! Just a brief look at human history since the liberation of Auschwitz shows that the lessons have not been taken on board, and the killings continue.

So I'm tempted to say let the remains of Auschwitz crumble away to nothing. The horror of the Holocaust will still be remembered, and there will be further examples of the appalling, murderous underside of human nature as the history of our race rolls on. But I am genuinely interested to hear what other people have to say on the topic. So, as the title of this post asks, should we let Auschwitz rot?

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The Daily Mash "quotes" Gordon Brown:

At any point I could have stepped in and made the necessary changes that would at least have protected the UK, what with me being chancellor of the exchequer and everything. But then I thought 'where's the fun in that?'. I was watching that new Batman film the other night and there's a bit where Michael Caine - he plays the butler - says that 'some men aren't looking for anything logical, some men just want to watch the world burn'. That's me, that is.
The above is, of course, fiction. It reflects reality, but Gordon would never be that honest about things...

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The EU Datasbase - Are you going to get a place on it?

Via DK, I see that Raewald has a list of the offences that could get you dumped on the EU database of "subversives." The list itself makes for eye-opening reading, but I'd just like to point out two of the things on the list that have my eyes wide open with both incredulity and fear:

Insult of the State, Nation or State symbols
Insult or resistance to a representative of public authority
Insult to the state or the state's representatives? Surely that is the sign of a healthy democracy, rather than being something that should have you listed as a subversive? Holy Mother of Fuck, the contents of this blog would probably have me listed as a subversive and, as we all know, any state that has a lits of subversives is not going to tolerate those subversives for long.

And just go look at the list, and see where you might fit onto the list. Another favourite of mine: "Prohibition from frequenting some places". That could mean being barred from a frigging pub by an awkward publican!

There are caveats attached to the list, as is pointed out in the comments on DK's place. But fucking hell, any organisation that is pulling together a database of subversives should be a massive concern to its citizens. And this should be a warning to any politician who blindly accepts the EU status quo. It needs to be resisted - even if by doing so, you end up on the database of subversives.

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Red Dwarf to Return!

Geek that I am, this news has me stupidly excited:

Cult comedy Red Dwarf is returning to TV, 21 years after its initial launch.
As always, there is that sense of anticipation mixed with a healthy dose of wariness - after all, it could be good, or it could be completely fucking shite. But I'll keep my fingers crossed, and hope for the best. After all, Red Dwarf at its best is outstanding. If you haven't seen them, then I'd heartily recommend picking up the second and sixth season on DVD asap. But even at its nadir - see Series 7 for details - it still managed to be mildly amusing. Even hitting the mid-point between the two extremes (like, say, Series 4) is a damn sight better than a lot of the pap that passes for comedy on television these days.

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Monday, January 26, 2009

"Deeply Concerned"? What about "Fucking Outraged"?

Another howl of primal rage followed by a deep, impotent sigh escapes from my lips as I read of yet another example of gross corruption from those who make our laws. This time the problem lies in the House of Lords, which just goes to show that no matter what reforms the Labour party have pursued since they came to power with regard to the House of Lords, they still haven’t stopped there being corrupt fucks in that venerable institution.

It is simultaneously interesting an disgusting to watch the peers concerned furiously trying to back-pedal from what, as far as I can see, is a clear case of corruption. The police should investigate this and, if the peers are found guilty, they should be imprisoned and stripped of their titles. There is simply no excuse for any legislator in this country selling their law-making influence to anyone. It is not acceptable.

And yet, I doubt that this latest example of gross corruption will be punished:

The leader of the House of Lords says she is "deeply concerned" over allegations four peers were prepared to accept money to put down amendments.
The leader of the House of Lords is “deeply concerned.” Deeply concerned? Deeply concerned? What the fucking fuck? Couldn’t she do better than that? Couldn’t she say that she was appalled by these allegations? Couldn’t she say that this behaviour is fucking outrageous? People are deeply concerned when the fucking air conditioning isn’t working. Not when people legislators are caught effectively taking bribes. Her lacklustre comments make me further convinced that nothing will really happen to those at the centre of this scandal. I would love to be proved wrong on this. I just doubt I will be.

Which is the insane position we find ourselves in these days. Not only do we expect atrocious and corrupt behaviour from our politicians, but when they are caught, we don’t expect them to be punished. Now more than ever, we can talk about a ruling elite: an elite that is above the law, but held in utter contempt by those they should be serving. Looking at our politicians today, it is next to impossible to talk about idealism or hope for the future. Any notion that someone might seek political power to make the lot of the British population better now seems staggeringly naïve. People seek office to line their own pockets; nothing more.

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Remake? Remodel.

I noticed on Saturday that we are about to have a remake of the old movie The Last House On The Left unleashed on the unsuspecting cinema going population.

For those of you not in the know, The Last House On The Left is an old horror/revenge movie. It is a curious movie, that focuses on brutality and sadism interspersed with the comedy stylings of two cops who wouldn’t look out of place in a Police Academy movie. Most famous for being dubbed (and banned as) a Video Nasty back in the eighties, this movie is far from being a cinematic classic. Perhaps the best thing it did was launch the career of cinema auteur Wes Craven. Sadly, it also launched the career of cinematic hack Wes Craven.

Quite why such an odious little movie has to be remade I don’t know. Although I suspect that money is the reason for not just this remake, but for other equally pointless remakes. I mean, did we really need to have The Fog - one of the best directed movies I have ever seen – remade with the cast of fucking Smallville? And what did anyone really gain by having the jaw dropping and genuinely staggering The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remade into a vehicle for R Lee Ermey to do his now hackneyed brutal Southerner role once more? And don’t get me started on that fucking remake of Psycho - a motion picture that just remade a classic film scene for scene, yet managed to make every one of those scenes 93% less effective.

I can’t see why studios don’t save themselves millions in production costs and just re-release the originals. Sure, some of the hairstyles in The Fog look a little dated, but when you think about how creepy the original movie is, it would still be just as effective today as it ever has been. Likewise, some people might clock the outrageous flares in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but they’ll soon forget about them when Leatherface appears with his hammer and his unique, meathook related method of storing unwanted trespassers.

And if studios really feel the need to remake a film because the original is too dated or just not suitable anymore, then a reboot works better than a remake. Try to do something original – and the results may show themselves to be more popular than the originals. But when it comes to remaking largely shitty films such as The Last House On The Left my advice would be far simpler: don’t bother.

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The Longest Sentence. In The World. Ever.

Despite his politics which are, shall we say, to the far left of mine, I still enjoy reading Charlie Brooker’s work. It is always good to read the rantings of a fellow testy borderline misanthropist.

However, with this statement, he goes just too far:

There are a thousand valid reasons for opposing ID cards and questioning everything the government does, but instead both the host and her interviewees spent most of their time talking about how we're all going to have microchips planted in our heads as part of the New World Order (which, naturally, orchestrated the 9/11 attacks), intermittently breaking from this theme to dismiss the general public as idiotic, docile sheep with such towering self-assurance it made you actively wonder whether labouring under a fascist police state in which government computers monitored your dreams and doled out electric shocks each time you had a subversive thought would be preferable to living in freedom alongside these massive wankers.
Nothing to do with the content, which is as cynical and droll as you might expect from Mr Brooker. It is just the length of the sentence. Seriously Charlie, don’t be afraid to break it up a bit. Full stops can be your friend. Because, seriously, that sentence is just too long. It seems to last longer than one of those piss-poor Lord of the Rings movies. Break it up a bit, Charlie, and remember that there is a difference between a sentence and a paragraph.

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Sunday, January 25, 2009

Random Quote

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

Milton Friedman

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Saturday, January 24, 2009

The Limitations of a Political Web Strategy

It is becoming the mantra of politicians across the country: “we must have a coherent web strategy!” Derek Draper’s increasingly laughable LabourList is the latest addition to numerous attempts by political parties to “capture the power of the web.”

I can see the appeal – after all, the web is cheap (over a thousand posts over several years and this blog has still yet to cost me a penny) and the web is also fashionable. After all, the internet helped Obama get elected and if it worked for Obama, then everyone else must jump on the bandwagon. If nothing else, then at least you look hip.

The problem that both the Labour party and the Tories find and will continue to find in relation to exploiting the web is that the web is simply a tool for communication, and it works best if a party is struggling to get into the limelight. Put simply, the Labour party doesn’t need another mouthpiece – pretty much the whole of the population learns what the Labour party is saying as soon as a government minister opens their mouth. It hits the front pages, it hits the newspapers – if people don’t hear of the government policy, then it is because they choose not to interact with numerous different media outlets and, let’s be honest, probably don’t want to hear about government policy. The same applies to the Tories. By trying to hit people with information through, say, Facebook, all the Tories and Labour are likely to do is piss people right off by effectively spamming them with unwanted information.

A web strategy produces better results for smaller organisations and insurgent campaigns. One of the many, many failings of UKIP is that it has failed to get a decent online presence and spread the word through the online world. The Lib Dems have also failed to truly grasp the potential of the internet. Likewise, I’d argue that the success of LPUK may yet hinge on how we use the internet as a tool to spread understanding of what Libertarianism actually is and why it should appeal to people across the UK. One of the reasons why Obama is now resident in the White House is because his campaign realised the potential for both spreading the word about the then little-known candidate, as well as enabling his at one time quixotic campaign to make millions through small donations.

And, as well as not automatically suiting larger parties, there is a further problem with pinning your hopes on a good web strategy. You actually have to have a good candidate to promote. Howard Dean over in the US had a great web strategy – yet as soon as he started screaming like a man possessed, web strategy or nor web strategy, John Kerry over took him in the 2004 Democratic primaries. So, and I’ll direct this comment in particular towards Labour – if your candidate is crap, nothing is going to save you. The Labour party could have the whole internet behind them, but as soon as that glowering, grey gimp Gordon opens his inarticulate and bitter mouth, they are, against every available parameter, fucked.

Ultimately, I’d say this. It really doesn’t matter what your web strategy is if you don’t have something to communicate. And that is the problem that both the Labour party and the Tories have. They can pour thousands of pounds into their web strategies and potentially millions into their communication schemes. But they don’t actually have anything new or inspiring to say. They need to work out why they want to be in power first – actually figure out what they have to offer people. Once they have done that, then it will be the time to worry about how to communicate their message. As it stands, a lack of a valid web strategy is not the main problem for the ideologically inert and flaccid Labour party. And the Tories can continue to be better than Labour at the whole interweb thing, but whilst their message is one of broad consensus with those they wish to oppose, they aren’t going to achieve a great deal.

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Friday, January 23, 2009

When binge drinking isn't binge drinking...

There’s an epidemic of middle class binge drinking. Apparently:

A comprehensive survey claims that middle aged, professional Britons are more likely to exceed recommended daily levels of alcohol consumption than the working-classes, with twice as many drinking every night of the week.
Which would be far more concerning if they recommended daily levels weren’t, well, made up:

Mr Smith, a former Editor of the British Medical Journal, said that members of the working party were so concerned by growing evidence of the chronic damage caused by heavy, long-term drinking that they felt obliged to produce guidelines. “Those limits were really plucked out of the air. They were not based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee,” he said.
Of course, that doesn’t stop our leaders treating these stats as the gospel truth:

Dawn Primarolo, the Public Health Minister, said: "We are only now beginning a sustained programme to inform people about the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption. However, initial tracking from our Units campaign, launched in May last year, shows more people know how much is safe to drink and know how many units are in their drinks."
Except, Dawn, those limits are still made up. So people may be aware of how many units they should drink based on your pointless yet no doubt expensive campaign, but realistically it is of fuck all use to them. Since the limits are “plucked out of the air”, the government may as well have launched a campaign to convince people of the existence of Santa.

However, there are some people who actually admit to the truth about these limts:

James Le Fanu, a family doctor in south London, said it would not be dangerous for a couple to drink slightly more than the recommended allowance, particularly if they only did so once or twice a week.

He said: "They are arbitrary levels and set low so as to catch as large a section of the population as possible and lecture them about their drinking levels. Mortality levels only begin to climb when you're hitting 50 or 60 units a week."
It is just a shame that James Le Fanu is “just” a family doctor, and therefore is likely to be ignored by the powers that be.

So to summarise, we have politicians complaining that middle class drinkers – private citizens with the right to chose how they live their lives – are exceeding made up, arbitrary limits of how much alcohol they can drink. I, for one, am glad that our politicians have a sense of perspective and are focussed on issues like made up alcohol limits rather than less pressing issues like the Iraq War, the economic melt-down and the possible bankruptcy of the UK.

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Thursday, January 22, 2009

Northern Rock: Bonuses All Round!

I work in the private sector and part of my remuneration package is a bonus based on the performance of my company. Whilst the company is doing ok, it isn’t doing as well as the analysts thought it would this time last year, due in no small measure to the crippling financial situation in the economy as a whole. This means I’m not going to get a bonus. Clearly, this isn’t ideal – but I balance my natural frustration at this turn of events by being glad that I still have a job and can pay my bills.

What disrupts this balance is this sort of thing. I cannot, I cannot believe that the workers of Northern fucking Rock are being paid a fucking bonus. Seriously, their company was saved from disappearing down the shitter by the government. How in the name of all that is holy (and all that isn’t) is it appropriate for them to be paid a bonus? Their business basically went to the wall, through largely shitty business decisions. It is one thing to save the bank for the sake of those who have investments in it; it is another thing entirely to pay people bonuses for being there whilst the business put itself in a position where it was on the point of collapse.

Let’s not forget who is financing these bonuses as well. The money will be coming from Northern Rock whose money comes from… us. From the taxpayer. So, ladies and gents, you are helping to pay the good people of Northern Rock their bonuses. Unless you are a total philanthropist, then this is likely to be a source of irritation. For me, this is something that pushes me towards apoplexy – especially when you consider that the fucking government, spearheaded by the Class Warrior in Gordon Brown, was talking about an end to the City culture of big bonuses and calling for an era of new responsibility. Evidence – as if we needed further evidence – that the government rhetoric is simply hot air that is escaping from Gordon Brown’s anus – an anus that is, curiously, located where Brown’s mouth should be.

Jesus Titty-fucking Christ, at a time when people are accepting pay freezes or four day weeks or even losing their jobs and their homes, the employees of a part government owned bank are not just secure in their jobs, but are being paid bonuses. Further proof that the public sector is the best place to be. Because if you work for a part-nationalised bank, then it looks like you’ll get your bonus this year. Other people’s taxes will ensure that.

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MPs and their expenses

Imagine you have a kid. And you suspect that your kid is holding something that they shouldn’t be holding – perhaps a stolen toy, a bowie knife, some crack cocaine; whatever it is that kids play with these days. Your child says “no, don’t want to show you what is in my hands.” What do you, quite naturally, immediately expect? That the child is guilty of something; that the child has done something wrong.

Which is the position we have found ourselves in with our MPs. Their refusal to show the nation what they have been spending money on has led most of us, quite naturally, to assume that they have something to hide. There are some who – farcically – are defending our politicians’ outrageous behaviour. These arguments have been nicely dealt with here and here, so I don’t have a great deal to add to the debate. What I would like to stress, though, is this.

Actually, we are not asking for a great deal. We are simply asking them to publish their. Not reduce their expenditure (although this hopefully will follow), not limit them or their powers in anyway – just simply publish details of what they are spending our money on. Surely this is not too much to ask? Well, judging by the cross-party alliances, the vicious back-stabbing and the sudden government U-turn that we all witnessed yesterday, yes it is apparently too much to ask.

Politicians spend small fortunes on focus groups and surveys to find out why people don’t trust them. They spunk away further fortunes on campaigns and gimmicks to make people trust them. The reason why people don’t trust them is partly down to issues like this – they are like the child in my analogy; frantically trying to hide something. And the more they try to hide it, the more clear it becomes that they are feeling guilty about something.

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The Wrestler

Went to see The Wrestler last night. For those of you not in the know, it is a film about, well, a Wrestler (see what they did with the title? Clever!) More than that, though, it is a film about a washed up wrestler. A past his sell by date Wrestler. As a subject for a film, well, it hardly screams “must-watch” to me.

The director of the piece, though, is one of the most interesting filmmakers out there at the moment. That said, his films tend to be, shall we say, intense. I’ve seen two of them. π is an odd, migraine inducing film that manages to present a scenario where the protagonist drilling a hole in his own head is actually the best thing he can do. And Requiem For A Dream presents the other side to addiction, rather than the faux glamorous idea presented in films such as Trainspotting. Addiction in that film is a world of limb amputations, brutal prison farms, nightmarish hallucinations, ECT and double headed dildos. So a Darren Aronofsky film about a washed up wrestler had the potential to be harrowing to say the least.

And don’t get me wrong, there are some brutal scenes. If you are squeamish, then the wrestling match involving the staple gun, the barbed wire and the glass will have cringing in your chair. Like wise, the wrestler’s meltdown on the Deli counter will also have you wincing and looking away from the screen.

Also, if you are expecting a clear cut resolution for the main characters, then you are watching the wrong film. Our wrestler friend doesn’t find redemption – in fact, it is strongly implied that the end of the film sees him facing his ultimate destruction. But despite the violence and despite the lack of a Hollywood ending, the piece is actually restrained and very sensitive. The world of the wrestler is neither glamorous nor awful. On so many levels the wrestler is content with his roles, and never seems happier than when he is talking to other would-be and washed up wrestlers, who all look to him both as a good man and as something of an icon.

The film also has some extraordinary performances within it, none more so than the central performance of Mickey Rourke. I suspect that Rourke was able to put some of his own experiences into playing a character past his prime and fighting to stay on top in a world that seems to have passed him by. Whatever Rourke’s methods, he produces a truly exceptional performance, that is striking, affecting and compelling all at the same time. He takes a character who could easily be turned into a villain or a comedic role, and instead makes him into a real person who is both likeable but deeply flawed. The wrestler is someone who wants to do what is right but is incapable of doing anything other than living in the moment.

The Wrestler is an exceptional film, and comes heartily recommended from me.

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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Gordon Brown, Drunken Gamblers and General Elections

I haven’t really commented on the second banking bailout. Mainly because I can’t really get my head around just how insane it all sounds. I keep on thinking that I must have misread something, or misunderstood what I read, or had some sort of mental breakdown and slipped into a reality where the government has less economic sense than a dead pigeon. But no, it does appear that our government really is going for the definition of throwing good money after bad.

Part of me wants to find a silver lining in this second bailout plan. After all, the idea is just so bad that there must be some good coming from it somewhere. The closest I have got to finding that silver lining is that Gordon Brown won’t be able to go on spending our money forever. Because that money will simply run out. So the silver lining I’ve found is that this second banking bailout may lead to Britain going bust. To be honest, as silver linings go, this one really isn’t great. In fact, it makes me want to take all of my money out of the bank and put it under my mattress. And stock up on canned goods.

The absolute insanity of Brown’s behaviour* is staggering. It must be abundantly clear to most people now that the first banking bailout did not work. So what does the government do? Follows the age-old prescription for madness – it does the same thing, but expects a different result. But calling Brown mad is done so often now that it is a veritable cliché. To me, Brown now resembles a drunken gambler in a bookie’s. He’s put a lot of money on a horse that doesn’t come through for him. But rather than accepting the loss and moving on, he staggers back to the counter and puts even more money on the same horse. Even though the race has been run and lost.

Just weeks ago, those claiming that the UK might go broke could be dismissed as tin foil hat wearing paranoids. Now, they look quite sage. But whatever happens, this second bailout – actually, fuck it, let’s state exactly what this is: the part nationalisation of the financial sector – will further cripple this country in the future with massive, unmanageable debt. Gordon Brown is literally mortgaging our future. His behaviour and his policies are utterly, utterly terrifying.

And yet the British people – the poor fuckers whose money is being spent by this terrible abortion of an administration – have no say on what is happening. There is only one way to redress this problem: this country needs to have a General Election. Now.

The British people must be consulted on whether they feel Brown’s ludicrous policies are acceptable or not. We need to have a say on what Gordon Brown is doing, because the ramifications of his policies are going to affect every man, woman and child in this country. And before we forget, the electorate has had no say whatsoever on Brown or his policies. At the last election, the British people voted** for Tony Blair to run the country in strong economic times, with an ambitious yet contained spending programme. We now have Gordon Brown running the economy in one of the worst recessions in living memory – and spending his way through it like there is no tomorrow. Gordon Brown is fucking this country and its economy up good and proper; no-one in this country, barring the Nu Labour drones in the House of Commons, has been allowed to have any say on his outrageous and destructive policies.

So spread the word. Mr Brown, we want a General Election. Now.

*And make no mistake about this, it is Brown doing this – his badger faced cunt of a Chancellor just follows Brown’s lead, like a crippled dog needing to be put down urgently.
**Actually, a minority of them, as it turns out.

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Cheney Embraces Obama's Style for a 2012 Presidential bid.

Well, it made me laugh.

Source.

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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

What if... McCain had been elected President in 2000 rather than Bush?

Today is a remarkable day for a remarkable man: today, Barack Obama will become the first black President of the United States of America. But it is also an important day for another remarkable man – for today, after eight turbulent years in power, President John McCain is standing down and heading back to Arizona.

McCain is a man who has both powerfully and controversially dominated the political landscape of the USA for the best part of a decade. Despite governing resolutely from the centre ground, his out-spoken views and his professed desire to govern from both the head and the heart have meant that, for everyone lamenting the end of his time in the White House, there is another person celebrating – not least those in his own party.

And, lest we forget, it could all have been so different. Had McCain not won the South Carolina primary in 2000, then he would have struggled to win the Republican nomination from the favourite candidate, George W Bush. And winning that nomination enabled him to fight an energetic Presidential campaign later in 2000, and snatch victory from the heir apparent to the White House, Al Gore. History would be very different had Gore, or even Bush, become President.

McCain’s success in winning the Presidential Election in 2000 should not be under-estimated. Bush Junior had the firepower, the money, and the family name to win the nomination. Bush’s campaign also had no compunction about fighting dirty. Yet McCain, with his desire for “straight-talking” and his obvious relish for the underdog status, captured the public imagination, and with it, the Republican nomination.

Even then, his victory at the national polls looked far from assured. He trailed Gore in the polls, despite uniting the party by making George W Bush his running mate. However, his honest and enthusiastic manner, which undermined the cruel jibes about his age, meant he soon started to win over the nation as a whole. His real triumph came in the debates, when his warm, open speaking style brought into sharp relief the much more stilted and intellectual approach of Al Gore. It is one of the lasting debates surrounding the 2000 Presidential Election – whether McCain won it or whether Gore’s lacklustre campaign lost it. But the remarkable political rise of John McCain was completed on Election Night when Florida fell into his column and with it, the White House.

The First Term

Yet, once president-elect, McCain seemed to lose his way and with it his identity. He remained resolutely in the centre ground, leading many in his own party to comment that they seemed to have accidentally elected Al Gore rather than a Republican. His Inauguration speech in 2001 was poor, filled with truisms about more honest government delivered by a old man visibly shivering against the cold. During his first few months in power, the now President McCain seemed to be lost, offering few initiatives and appearing to treat water in the White House. Some wondered whether McCain was actually up to the job of President.

All this changed in September 11th, 2001. McCain’s angry, defiant call to arms after the planes hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, as well as the plane brought down by its own passengers, showed a confident leader rising to the challenge. Despite the advice of the Secret Service, and the danger involved in going into a disaster area, he was in New York City within hours of the atrocity – talking to survivors, and making sure that the rescue attempts and investigations were being co-ordinated effectively across the country.

After it became clear that Al-Qaeda was behind the attacks, McCain was quick to work on a response. Through diplomacy he was able to get troops on the ground in Pakistan – with the blessing of the government of Pakistan. However, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan proved to be more difficult, and as they refused to hand over bin Laden, McCain worked hard to bring together an international coalition to deal with the problem. With UN backing, McCain ordered the attack on Afghanistan.

The Afghan war is probably the most divisive part of McCain’s legacy. Whilst the out-going President remains defiant over his decision to invade, US troops are still fighting in Afghanistan, with no sign of bin Laden or an end to hostilities. For every patriot who praises McCain for his tough stance in Afghanistan, there is a peace lover calling for the return of US troops. McCain has gone on record as arguing that the death toll could have been worse, had he listened to the hawks in his administration. Nonetheless, the US occupation of Afghanistan remains a poisoned chalice for incoming President Obama.

McCain also showed himself to be a tough fighter when it came national politics as well. He was scathing of the failings of both the CIA and the FBI in the run up to 9/11, eventually replacing the directors of both. He also fought hard to introduce new accounting laws after the collapse of both Enron and Worldcom, controversially (in his own party) putting big business on warning that any fraudulent directors would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Perhaps the most surprising, and interesting, aspects of McCain’s first term in power was the relationship he had with his Vice-President, George W Bush. Bush was a hawk within the administration, and on several occasions broke ranks with his President to call for a War on Terror on Iraq. McCain steadfastly refused to countenance such a step, arguing that whilst there was some evidence that Iraq was sponsoring terrorism and that a regime change would be a good thing, there was no real evidence that Iraq was connected with 9/11. As the first term went on, though, it became very clear that there was little love lost between President and Vice-President.

As the 2004 election drew near, few thought that there was any real danger of McCain not securing the nomination again. And, indeed, that proved to be the case. However, as soon as it became clear that he would not be opposed in running for the nomination, McCain announced that he would not be running again with George W Bush. The Bush camp was enraged, but it was too late for them to oppose McCain. However the move threatened to destroy Republican unity just before an election. Some speculated that McCain was about to announce he would run as an independent. However, the President had another trick up his sleeve. He announced Joe Lieberman, Gore’s Vice-Presidential candidate, as his running mate. The selection electrified the political seen as it was genuinely a cross-party ticket. It also proved to be a strong political move for the election, despite the problems it created in his second term. It stole all the glory from John Kerry’s campaign, and redefined the McCain administration as centre-of-the-road politically. Whilst McCain may have lost some votes from the Christian Right of the party, he gained them from the Democratic Party.

In the event, the 2004 election was something of an anti-climax. John Kerry never stopped training in the polls, and as one of his team pointed out, he was simply the wrong candidate in the wrong place at the wrong time: “We were running a Vietnam war hero against an even more heroic Vet, running an experienced Senator against an experienced Senator and President, running with a centrist candidate against a President who had taken on one of our own as his candidate.” In the end, the result was a foregone conclusion: McCain won in a landslide.

The Second Term

McCain won further plaudits after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. He put troops on the ground and ploughed money into the rescue efforts, leading some to claim that he saved hundreds of lives. His independent investigation into the disaster recommended millions should be ploughed into flood defences; something which McCain was happy to do. But despite his successes here, his Presidency was increasingly being undermined by his own party.

Many were unhappy with his decision to dump Bush and take on a Democrat; this was not helped by several on-the-record, scathing remarks about various Republicans suffering corruption scandals. Events reached a head when a group of Republicans attempted to have McCain expelled from the Republican party. McCain laughed off the attempts and they came to nothing. Nonetheless, McCain appeared increasingly isolated from his own party, and declined to do too much active campaigning for his own party in the 2006 mid-terms. The loss of the control of Congress to the Democrats hurt McCain, and he became increasingly reliant on his Vice-President to liase with the Congress.

He was also hurt as the economy began to freefall. In contrast to his prompt action in the face of both 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, McCain seemed to struggle to find a path to deal with the economy. He was also hurt by Lieberman’s decision not to stand, and watched with mounting horror as the Republican party fell into a bitter fight between the moderates under Mitt Romney and the Republican Christian Right under Mike Huckabee. In the end, the moderates won through, with Romney as the Republican candidate and little-known Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. But as the economy collapsed, and leading a party torn apart by infighting, a resurgent Democratic Party, headed by Barack Obama, won the election comfortably.

In his most recent interview, McCain candidly described his years in the White House as “six of the most challenging, and rewarding years you could ever hope for, followed by two of the most challenging and depressing you could ever dream of.” He appears now as a tired man, looking forward to retirement. Time will tell how his time as President is truly judged; but he leaves behind a mixed legacy and has lead the USA through a roller coaster eight years.

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George W. Bush - The Verdict

Today is undeniably a historic day. Barack Obama becomes the first black President of the United States of America. But there is another reason to celebrate. Because, after eight long years in power, George W Bush – one of the worst Presidents in US history – leaves office.

It would be nice to write a balanced account of Bush, but there is so little that is positive about this most vilified of presidencies. So this isn’t a historical account of what happened, it is more a political autopsy of what went wrong.

That Stolen Election

It is a cliché, both in America and now across the world, to talk about how Bush and his cronies stole the 2000 election. And as with many a cliché, there is more than an element of truth to the accusation. Bush became President not because the voters elected him, but because the Supreme Court made him President.

Now, there are a lot of different reasons why Bush became President in what was one of the most farcical elections of recent history. The Florida electoral system, the rush to lawyers, the intervention of the Supreme Court, the refusal of Gore to fight on – all of these factors pushed Bush further and further towards the White House. Bush cannot be blamed entirely for the stolen election; but the reality is that he began his first term as a deeply compromised politician.

You can compare and contrast Bush in 2000 after his election “win” with Obama after his real election win last year. Bush was seen by half his country as a winner, and by the other half as a thief. Whereas there was a real surge of goodwill towards Obama. Obama enters office elected by a majority of voters and with a real sense that he should be there. Whereas Bush was “elected” by a minority, and entered office with half of his country resenting him.

Sure, Bush could have recovered his presidency. It was a bad way to start, but he could have turned it around. Yet at every important test he faced, he failed.

September 11th, 2001

9/11 gave Bush perhaps his best moment as President, and his one great display of leadership. Stood on the rubble of Ground Zero, shouting through a megaphone, he managed to unite his country.

Yet the immediate response of Bush to the emerging crisis – blankly staring into space for several minutes after being told of the attacks before going into hiding for the rest of the day, then later referring to the terrorists as “folks” – probably showed the real George W Bush. Cowardly, incompetent and lacking eloquence. You could argue that 9/11 was unprecedented, and no president would be able to respond in a flawless way. And I’d concede that point – to some extent. But the post 9/11 actions of the Bush administration were terrible and damaging – both nationally and internationally.

Bush’s attempts to increase the internal security of the US manifested itself in the utterly draconian Patriot Act. This Act represented the Republicans finally, and utterly, abandoning the small-state ethos of Ronald Reagan, and handing massive powers to the federal government. It will take years to roll back and fully unpick the devastating impact this terrible piece of legislation has had on the Land of the Free.

And internationally, Bush has managed to create not just one Vietnam but two – America is bogged down in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Even when the troops leave and US citizens stop dying in both of those countries (whenever rhetoric turns to action and that actually happens) there will be no stability in either country. Bush’s foreign policy adventures have not make terrorism less likely – in fact, the opposite is true. And he has not brought democracy and stability to either Iraq or Afghanistan. Bush’s global response to 9/11 has wasted the goodwill and sympathy may felt towards the US after 2001 atrocity, and leaves the incoming President Obama with a nation hated by many across the world.

Make no mistake; 9/11 would have tested any President; it certainly tested Bush. But his response to that attack would almost be used as a textbook example of what not to do in the face of a terrorist atrocity.

Hurricane Katrina

But – amazingly – it wasn’t Iraq or Afghanistan that broke the Bush Presidency. In fact, many supported him because he was “doing something”. He appeared decisive (you can be both decisive and wrong) and it appears many Americans respected that. Yet when the US faced a disaster caused by nature rather than terror, he was found to be wanting. He did nothing. He sat and waited, whilst New Orleans drowned.

And as New Orleans succumbed to the waters, so did the Bush presidency. I maintain that the Bush response to Katrina – or rather the lack of it – killed his second administration. Once Bush was seen as a ditherer and not taking actions that could have saved American lives, two things happened. The horrific Republican losses in the 2006 mid-term elections became inevitable, and Bush became a lame-duck President.

The polls reflect this; but Bush’s second term had to go on, even after the people turned against him. Which is one of the reasons why the 2008 Presidential Election became one of the longest and most expensive in history – almost as soon as he had been elected, the US was longing for his replacement.

The 2004 Presidential Election

Of course, no-one – not even Bush Junior – could be a total failure. Some point to his programme of aid to Africa as a resounding success. I’d concede this point, but would also point out that it is easy to be generous with money that isn’t your own.

Another apparent triumph for Bush was the 2004 election. Love him or hate, and regardless of whether you think he was the winner or the loser in 2000, you have to concede that he won in 2004. Yet, the extent to which this victory was down to Bush is open to question. The malign genius of Karl Rove was behind that election success, and Rove was aided no end by John Kerry – a compelling yet incompetent contender for President. Bush won; yet his victory was not because of Bush personally.

Perhaps, at the risk of being cynical, Bush’s real triumph was to stay alive during his time in the White House. Because by staying alive he was able to save us from the one person who would have been a worse President – the demon goblin himself, the bald Prince of evil, Dick Cheney.

So against every parameter and in the face of every test, Bush failed. The successes he did have can be attributed to others. And as such there can be only one verdict on the presidency of George W Bush; failure.

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Monday, January 19, 2009

Ken Clarke - back from the dead.

I’d imagine a lot of the political comment today is going to be focussed on Ken Clarke’s return to the Tory front benches. Fair enough – it is a big event, and I can’t too critical of people jumping onto this story as I am about to do exactly the same thing. But before I do comment, I think it is worth putting on record my thoughts on Ken Clarke.

I cannot stand Ken Clarke. I find him less easy to stomach than a rancid mussel that has been liberally garnished with sewage. It is difficult to know where to start when criticising Clarke. He isn’t so much a big beast as a positively elephantine oaf. I cannot stand his unwarranted and grating swagger, and his colossal ego that is only matched in size by his gut and his arrogance. And his political views are about as much fun for me as his aborted personality; politically centrist, mindlessly pro-Europe; why Kenny didn’t just piss off and join the Liberal Democrats decades ago is completely beyond me.

But I’ll try to leave my feelings about Clarke to one side for a moment, and instead try to focus on whether this is a good idea for the Tories or not.

Clarke’s new position is interesting; many were prophesising his return to the Shadow Cabinet, and many foresaw his new role as being Shadow Chancellor. And it isn’t. Cameron has avoided the pressure of the media and of the blogs, and has kept Osborne on. Whilst I find it about as easy to get excited about Osborne as I do about a heavy head cold, at least the Boy Blunder is marginally less egregious than that beached whale Ken Clarke.

And Clarke’s appointment will probably be popular with the voters, although Lord alone knows why. Clarke’s popularity with the general public is beyond me. Perhaps it is because he is fat, and he smiles a lot, that makes people want to like him. I don’t know, but I do believe that if anyone spent too much time actually in the presence of Clarke, then they would end up wanting to give him a slap in his jowly chops as he sits there and chuckles away at his own greatness.

But that is where Clarke’s appointment being a good idea stops. I’d doubt Clarke’s appointment will be popular with the rank and file members of the Tory Party. After all, whenever the party gets the chance to offer an opinion on Clarke, it is overwhelmingly negative. Clarke keeps on standing for the Tory leadership, like and angry rash that just won’t go away. And every time, he is told to go fuck himself. When faced with Ken Clarke, the Tory party literally seems willing to cut off its nose to spite its face – hence the election of Iain Duncan-Smith.

Part of the reason for that is Clarke’s stance on Europe – something that is likely to bring him into conflict with Cameron. Whilst Cameron is far from being anti-Europe, he is at least a little more Euro-sceptic than Clarke. Some reports are saying that Clarke and Cameron have agreed to disagree on Europe; which is fine for the moment, but will lead to trouble in the future. Clarke will show his loyalty to his European beliefs first, and his loyalty to his party second. I can see a future policy row between the Tory leader and his appointed big beast in the future, leading to much embarrassment, and an angry, resentful resignation.

Finally, Clarke’s appointment is clearly a retort to Brown’s decision to put Mandelson back in the Cabinet. But Mandelson’s appointment was an act of desperation on the part of Gordon Brown; Cameron did not need to respond in kind. Yes, he can argue that he wants to have a Shadow Cabinet of all the talents. But does he really need past-it, worthless *talents* like Clarke around him? And if Cameron really believes that Clarke is so talented, how come he hasn’t put him into the Shadow Cabinet before now?

No doubt there will be much back-slapping and gleeful self-congratulation in CCHQ this morning. How long that will last for as the months go by and the political reality sinks in, I really don’t know.

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

Random Quote of the Day

"What has always made the state of a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven."

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Saturday, January 17, 2009

Banks, Government: Transparency for one, nothing for the other

Gordon Brown is calling for more transparency from the banks:
The prime minister has demanded that banks admit how many "toxic assets" they have on their balance sheets. Gordon Brown told the Financial Times the banks had to "come clean" about these bad debts so people could trust them again.
Uh-huh. This would be the same Gordon Brown who is heading up a government with precisely no intention of coming clean about their own expenses, let alone their own toxic assets. Although the latter could be embarrassing; imagine Gordon saying "yeah, we've got this massive toxic asset on our books. You may have heard of it. It is called the NHS." It would be nice to see the government here leading the banks by example, though. 

Although Gordon does have a point; if the banks do come clean then maybe people will trust them again. It is a measure of how delusional, intellectually stunted and emotionally retarded Brown is that he does not realise that the same thing applies to him and his cronies in the House of Commons. 

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Friday, January 16, 2009

Christanity, Starkness and Getting On With The Job

See, if I turned up to work and then refused to my job, I'd get a warning. And if I did it often enough, I'd be sacked. Quite right too. But then again, I'm not a Christian:
A Christian bus driver has refused to drive a bus with an atheist slogan proclaiming "There's probably no God".
Well, we all know that those who have "faith" are believe themselves to be beyond criticism in the workplace - that's nothing new. What is particularly striking about this god-bothering lackwitted fucktard are his powers of reasoning:
"I think it was the starkness of this advert which implied there was no God."
Uh-huh. So this advert was stark. Let's hold on for one moment, and remember what the advert actually says:
There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
So, the advert encourages people to enjoy life. And says that there probably isn't a God. It is optimistic, and it does not deny that there might be a God. This is not a stark advert. If anything, it is too neutral. If this muppet wants to see a stark advert, then it would go something like this:
"There definitely isn't a God. He's made up, dumb fuck. And if he was real, he'd be a cunt."
Now that's stark.

And is this Ron Heather's faith so weak that he really feels challenged by a fucking neutral advert? His Christanity is hardly rock-solid, is it? As an atheist, I don't see an advert for the Alpha course or some other preachy bag of shite and suddenly find faith, so I don't see why this advert should create any problems for someone with the Christian faith.

Also, buses will carry adverts. I'm surprised Heather hasn't noticed before. Is it part of his make-up that he has to agree with whatever his buses are advertising? If so, how does he cope when there is a horror film out? Or is the advert for, say, Saw IV less stark than the humanist one?

I try to be tolerant, I really do, but I have to say that had I been Heather's boss I'd have told him to shut the fuck up and to get the fuck on with his job. Or piss off and find a new one.

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Miracle in the Hudson

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my fear of flying. And as well as making every single flight into what I would call an abject misery, this phobia has other symptoms. I am morbidly fascinated by air disasters, and have wasted many a terrifying hour on airsafe.com. It isn't a healthy thing to do; it is the mental equivalent of scab picking. But somehow, air disasters mesmerise me.

Furthermore, I scour news reports of air crashes, looking at the photos like one of those godawful gawpers at the scene of a road accident. I study the photos, looking for the causes of the crash - something I am neither professionally qualified not emotionally capable of doing effectively. I want to know what caused the crash, and how it could have been avoided. And I know any sort of knowledge is not going to help me; in fact I know that it will just make things worse as I will know exactly what could go wrong.

Except... except sometimes reports of air crashes can be amazingly comforting for me. Take yesterday's events in NYC - a plane goes down with over a hundred people on board, yet they all walk away*. This is wonderful - obviously for those concerned, but also to those who are afraid of flying. Because, as this great essay makes perfectly clear, it isn't a fear of flying. It is a fear of dying. In a plane crash. Of burning to death in a sealed coffin of raging flames, melting plastic and redhot mettle. It is being smashed into a thousand pieces as the plane hits the ground. It is... actually, I'll stop there. That talk just isn't helping.

Because whilst some talk of this being a miracle, it really wasn't. A combination of factors meant that disaster was averted. The actions of the pilot, the quick response of the emergency services, the fact that the aircraft was designed to float - that saved the lives yesterday. Not a miracle, but procedures, training and design all working together to save lives when birds take out aircraft engines**.

On balance, if something goes wrong with your aircraft whilst it is in the air, then you're fucked. However, stories like this change that balance slightly. Yes, you're probably fucked. But engineers have considered that your plane might need to float, the pilot is highly trained and will do what he can to deal with the issue and the emergency services will be with you ASAP. It is a small comfort, sure; but where flying is concerned, I'll take all the comfort I can find.

*Re-reading the article, I see someone had two broken legs. In fairness, they probably didn't walk away from the air crash.
**Bloody birds. Never trusted 'em. Hitchcock was right.

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Comment of the Day

From Lord Digby Jones, on the Civil Service:
"I was amazed, quite frankly, at how many people deserved the sack and yet that was the one threat that they never ever worked under, because it doesn't exist."
The threat of the sack doesn't exist. Sheesh. Proof, if any further proof was needed, that the public and private sector are not just worlds, but universes, apart. As so many people look down the barrel of a gun marked called "redundancy", I can't help but look at jobs in the public sector with a degree of envy. And the phrase "if you can't beat them, join them" is swimming through my mind. 

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Thursday, January 15, 2009

Mr Eugenides reports on the latest attempt by our elected overlords to quietly bury the amounts of our money they spunk away on their own perks. I think his concise yet irate comments sum up the issue effectively:

Let's make this clear; if you are furnishing your home with my money, then I demand to know how much is being spent on what. This is not a burdensome requirement; it is the basic fucking minimum I am entitled to expect. No agent of the gigantic state apparatus that these people have constructed to empty my pockets would accept my airy assurances in place of a receipt, so why should we accept it of them?
Quite; the government is quick to demand transparency from others, but they seem to think they are above the rules and above the law. And the more people who know about their blatant hypocrisy the better.

So pass the message on - politicians literally believe it is one rule for them, and one rule for the rest of us. And that, quite simply, is unacceptable. But politicians won't get this message until we start screaming it in their faces, and making it absolutely clear that this two-faced cuntish behaviour is not acceptable in spoilt children; so it sure as fuck ain't good enough in our supposed leaders.

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Being an Idiot, the David Irving way.

Stating that David Irving comes across as an unpleasant human being is really stating the obvious, but it is always eye-opening to read an article like this one, that really hammers the point home. Take this part of the article:

When I suggest that all dictators have a loyal clique who like them – it means nothing – he keeps dodging the question. Eventually, he responds by arguing dictators are often misjudged: Idi Amin gets a unfair press, for one. Irving says he owns a medallion that belonged to the Ugandan dictator, and he likes to wear it secretly below his clothes when he is delivering a lecture. But, I respond, he ethnically cleansed the Ugandan Asians. He shrugs: “Expelling people is something that's been going on for a long time.”
Uh-huh. Idi Amin gets an unfair press. And Pol Pot is frowned upon for no reason. And Stalin was actually just an avuncular guy with a mildly intolerant streak. Dictators? Pah! They are just lovable rogues.

What glaring idiot actually takes it on themselves to not just defend Hitler but also Idi Amin?

But Irving also shows himself to be almost delusional in another part of the same article. See, apparently Hitler was waiting for him:

Irving sits back with an expression of beatific calm. “So [when] I phoned the doctor and he said ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ the Messiah had come. The one he had been waiting for all these years. And of course all the other historians hate that because they don’t fit.” I stare silently for a moment. To clarify: you actually think Hitler wanted you to be his biographer? “Yes. Yes and I am not ashamed of that. Hitler knew that. Hitler himself said that for fifty years they won’t be able to write the truth about me.”
Riiiigggghhhht. Hitler, in the midst of a war and just after an assassination attempt, was thinking about a future English biographer of the next generation who he did not even know existed. That seems logical. I mean, Irving is 70 now, meaning when Hitler died, Irving must have been circa seven years old. So Hitler was thinking about a seven year old boy. Sweet Jesus, this is the sort of thing that gets people committed.

Go read the article, and come away convinced of what seems to be an invioable truth - David Irving is a dickhead.

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Illustrating Expansion

I'm not one of these people who wants to bang on endlessly about how biased the BBC is. Yeah, I think there probably is a bias there, but I reckon there is a bias at every news source. It is a mark of the readers intelligence that they are able to differentiate the facts of a story from that bias.

That said, every now and again I see something on the BBC news website that really jars with me. Like this photo, attached to the link to their latest story about expanding Heathrow:

Sweet Jesus, it is difficult to think of a less appropriate image for a story about airport expansion short of posting a picture of 9/11. In that picture the plane looks like it is intimidating the house at best. At worst, it looks like the plane is about to land on the house. Or just crash straight into it. It seems to shriek "if the airport is expanded, then planes will land on your house."

There's going to be a big debate about expanding Heathrow; pictures like this simply do not help that debate.

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

If Doctor Who were a politician...

…he’d be a Libertarian. No, really, he would.

Think about it: he has an innate scepticism of authority. When he becomes involved in a situation, he tends to side with the little man (or woman). He left his home world to travel around the universe in a battered time and space vessel because they were too stuffy and bureaucratic. He values freedom of thought and freedom of action far above the relative security but complete lack of action offered by controlling states.

And many of his adventures see him fighting and other-throwing dictatorial and oppressive powers. Look at some of his major enemies. The Daleks are creatures of hate, who wish to wipe out other species. The Cybermen want to remove free will and emotions, to control everyone and have them all thinking exactly the same thing. And the Master is a megalomaniac who wants nothing less than the whole universe under his control. The Doctor fights all these enemies – and many more – who want to subjugate others and remove their free will. He doesn’t do it to win power for himself; in fact, when offered power, he turns it down. Hell, one adventure actually sees the Doctor fighting a high-tax regime. You can’t really get more Libertarian than that.

Part of not seeking power for himself means that the Doctor seldom hangs around after bringing people freedom. Again, this is very Libertarian. He removes the dictator, gives power back to the man/woman in the street, then leaves them to take responsibility for their own actions. The end of the story Vengeance on Varos makes this very clear – having freed the people from a dictatorial regime built around public torture and execution, two of the citizens are left wondering what to do next. The Doctor has done his job and given them the freedom to choose what to do next; he doesn’t hang around to tell them what they should be doing.

It is true that the Doctor, in his third incarnation, did work for the government. Yet even when doing so, he was blatantly disrespectful to authority and had no compunction about siding with aliens and other enemies of humanity if he saw them as having the right point of view. He never became a slave of the state, and he always remained an outspoken critic of humanity as a whole if he saw it as appropriate.

Anti-authoritarian, anti-bureaucratic, anti-tax, pro-freedom, pro-responsibility and out-spoken: really, it is difficult to think of a more Libertarian character than the Doctor.

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Too Fat to be a Foster Father

A gent has been told he cannot adopt because, frankly, he’s just too fat. The council said:

"I am writing to confirm that we are unable to progress an application from you at this time. This is due to the concerns that the medical advisers have expressed regarding Mr Hall's weight. I have discussed this with our medical adviser... who considers that it is important to alter lifestyle, diet and exercise in a sustainable way so that any weight reduction can be maintained in the long term.”
It may seem a tad arbitrary that the same state that left Baby P with his mother and let Fred and Rose West be foster parents to several children would also dismiss a man from being a foster parent for being fat. That said, both Central and Local government are not well known for the thoughtful implementation of policy, and their decisions do tend to be arbitrary choices made around draconian yet flawed procedures.

Plus, this guy isn’t just fat. He is huge. I believe the official term is morbidly obese. Now, I’m not doctor, as regular readers of this blog will know. However, terms such as morbid and obese are never good. And this fella isn’t just carrying round a couple of extra pounds – he literally ate all the pies. And pasties. And pizzas.

Now, I’m not going to turn this post into a stream of fat jokes. So I’m not going to say this guy should be known as Fatty Mc Fat Fat Fat Fat, or call him Chunks O’Lard. Likewise, I’m not going to ask “whatever happened to his chin?” Nor am I going to say that, given how fat he is, he could intimidate whales and probably eat the Isle of Wight in one sitting. No, such comments just aren’t helpful.

What I would say is that, from a Libertarian perspective, it is tempting to rally behind this Fatmeister General – sorry, sorry, man – because it could be a case of a one man being browbeaten by the insensitive, bureaucratic state. Then again, we also need to take into account another central tenet of Libertarianism – the potent doctrine of personal responsibility. So I’d say this guy that if he really, really wants to adopt a child and give that child a loving home, he should take some responsibility for himself and shed some of his weight. Because it won’t just be to for his benefit, but also for the child he wants to adopt. And for his wife, who could be left a widow because of his size. We could shout about the state over this issue; equally, we could tell this guy to get off his huge arse and do something about the situation he finds himself in.

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The Labour party employed a convicted sex offender to assist their candidates in the 2005 General Election. But that's ok, because they said this in a statement:
"If we had known of this conviction then the offer of his help would have been
refused"
Thanks for clarifying; it makes all the difference if we know that the Labour Party didn't intentionally employ a sex offender.

There'll be some who might expect the ruling party of this country to check the backgrounds of those they employ, even if they are only employed on a voluntary basis. To them I say "get real." Why would a government so committed to checking up on its citizens bother to check up on the people it employs? Head in the sand is the way they operate. Head in the sand.

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Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Expanding Heathrow

The protest about Heathrow airport rumbles on with typical tedium. This time, those scampish protestors have come up with a very different idea to highlight their concerns. Yes, in this recession* and at a time of crashing property prices, they've only gone and bought a ruddy piece of land:

Greenpeace director John Sauven said: "We've thrown a massive spanner in the engine driving Heathrow expansion."
Yep. In fairness, this may well piss of those expansion types no end. But no doubt they will find a way. Even given the reach of this, *ahem*, eclectic group of protestors and now land barons:

The campaigners - including actress Emma Thompson, Tory front bench spokeswoman Justine Greening, Lib Dem MP Susan Kramer and impressionist Alistair McGowan - bought the land for an undisclosed fee.
One of the most intriguing things for me is that two of the group named above are MPs. It really comes to something when MPs feel their best way to influence policy is to indulge in Greenpeace led campaigns. And I also find it it intriguing, and mildly irritating, that they have the money to (part) finance the purchase in West London.

I have a limited amount of sympathy for these protestors. Unsurprisingly, I am not that bought into their arguments about climate change - the problem of noise pollution would be more concerning for me (and, I suspect, a lot of the people who this campaign will need to win over in order to be successful). But there's something else that is worth highlighting, since most of the media coverage we see is about the protests and is effectively airing the views, opinions and theories of the protestors.

See, there is a reason why Heathrow airport needs to expand. It isn't coping with the volumes of air traffic it is expected to deal with, and something needs to be done. And this isn't purely about airlines and BAA making money, although they all will do so from any expansion to the airport. There will be a net gain to the whole of London by expanding the number of passengers that will come into Heathrow. It will create wealth and jobs in London. And given the economy is getting more and more horrific by the day, wealth and jobs coming into this nation's Capital City can only be a good thing.

Libertarian bloggers are often accused - sometimes with merit - with being long on complaints but short on actual solutions. Yet we could say exactly the same thing about these protestors. They are certainly vocal with their complaints, and they are taking direct action to stop Heathrow expansion. Yet they are not offering any alternative to the expansion of that airport - given the current economic climate and the implications of not expanding that airport, doing nothing is not an option.

Whilst the group quoted above are probably not typical of Greenpeace members, I find their professions quite telling: two are MPs, who can quite happily live off the public purse, and the other two are celebrities working in media. None of them are really going to be affected by the recession in any real way. And none of them are directly exposed to what, if I were to be scathing, might be called "the real world." Their protest is certainly eye-catching, but in reality is nothing more than a gimmick. And if they really want to win people over to their campaign, they need to offer an alternative, as well as headline grabbing stunts.

*Well, we will officially be in recession in a few days, but you have to be pretty fucking naive - or Chancellor of the Exchequer - to deny that right now regardless of whether the nation has hit certain criteria or not.

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George W. is leaving the building...

...or will be in a few days time. 

The BBC has an article about what Bush might do with the sudden increase in free time for him. For a lot of people, it is probably difficult to care what one of the worst Presidents in history is going to do with his retirement. But one comment in the article did stand out to me - from Bush himself:
I think it's going to be real important for me to get off the stage.
Yes, George. In more ways that you could ever possibly imagine. 

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Monday, January 12, 2009

LabourList

LabourList is up and running; it is the latest attempt by the Labour party to embrace the internet/blogging revolution. It is difficult to get too excited about the site, unless you happen to be Derek Draper, and for the record, I’d agree with pretty much everything DK has to say on the matter. But I would expand on a couple of points.

Firstly, the roster of writers is not just dull, it is a firm indicator of what this website is going to be like. Any roster of writers that includes Peter fucking Mandelson is going to be anything other than neutral and objective. Make no mistake about it, this website will be part of the Nu Labour propaganda machine, whatever it might claim to the contrary.

Which leads nicely onto the second point – their comments policy – which shows that the transition to banning anything that does not back the Nu Labour line is happening right now. Because Derek Draper is apparently responding to demands (well, three of them) for tighter comment moderation:

Clearly there are those who want to use this site to interrogate Labour people (usually me!) about our policies. There is nothing wrong with that, in principle, of course. The question is whether a few people are acting as trolls and getting in the way of the kind of Labour-minded (albeit questioning) community we are trying to build here.
Personally, I love the idea of their being nothing wrong with questioning “in principle”. The rough translation of that means there is nothing wrong with questioning as long as the questions (1) aren’t too difficult to answer and (2) are in line with whatever flaccid platitudes pass as Nu Labour ideology and policy in this day and age. If your questions fall outside of that, then you aren’t going to be able to comment:

"In order to ensure an insightful, engaging debate we will also place other comments judged to be grossly unintelligent or obtuse or trolls in our trash can."
And there’s the problem – it comes down to personal judgement. Or, to put it another way, Draper’s judgement. And something tells me that Draper’s judgement will be that any comments that don’t follow the Nu Labour line will be deemed unintelligent and obtuse. Therefore, any debate or dissension will be heading to the trash can.

The best blogs are those that allow the publication of dissenting opinion. That way debate can be sparked off and the writers of blog posts will be forced to reconsider and defend their views. If you start deleting comments on the basis of thinking them unintelligent and/or obtuse, you are going to radically cut back on the debate. It is natural to think that those you don’t agree with are unintelligent or obtuse. But it is also personal opinion. After all, if I was deciding what was obtuse and unintelligent, then just about everything written by Derek Draper would be heading towards the trashcan.

Even Terry Kelly allows for the printing of (some) dissenting opinion on his blog, which puts LabourList in the unenviable position of being less democratic that Kelly’s website – before it even officially launches. They’ll be no real debate at LabourList; it is or will become very soon part and parcel of the Labour government; a government that despises debate and lusts after complete control. It is tempting to set up a LabourList Watch style website right now, just to point out the numerous flaws of this site and watch the transition of this website from being an independent site to being part of the Nu Labour media machine. Because as the comments moderation policy already shows, that journey is well and truly underway.

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