Tuesday, 1 March 2005
Playing Politics »
From today’s Telegraph: [Piers] Morgan spills beans on Blair, his wife and vain spin doctor.
If the diaries do contain a bombshell, it is the revelation that Mrs Blair told the Sun that she was pregnant.
The Daily Mirror had lined up the story as their exclusive, having paid Max Clifford £50,000 for the privilege. Then Morgan rang Campbell for confirmation.
Just as the paper was going to press, the Daily Mirror discovered that the Sun also had the story. Furious phone calls ensued between Morgan and Number 10, culminating in Mr Blair’s assurance that the leak did not come from Downing Street. ” ‘I don’t want you thinking we have been playing politics with our baby’,” he said.
Morgan later discovers that Mrs Blair telephoned her friend Rebekah Wade, then deputy editor of the Sun, to tell her about the pregnancy.
These 15 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:26pm GMT Permanent link.
This Is Fun »
In the Telegraph this morning, Clarke says ‘no more concessions’ on anti-terror bill.
Charles Clarke, Home Secretary, warned he was not prepared to make any further concessions on his anti-terror bill as it goes to the House of Lords.
He must have balanced his bobbie’s helmet on his ears and stamped his feet, because he seems to have forgotten that he wasn’t prepared to make any concessions in the first place.
He made a last-minute announcement that he would introduce an amendment in the Lords to ensure that the toughest control orders, amounting to house arrest, would be imposed by a judge, not a politician.
MPs reacted angrily that it would deprive them the opportunity to debate the changes in detail.
Debate? That sounds like that nasty D-word. Demo-something. Not the marches Trots go on … rhymes with “trashy” … We don’t want none of that ‘ere.
The Guardian is even better: Terror bill climbdown by Labour.
In the debate the embattled Mr Clarke had cited yesterday’s guilty plea at the Old Bailey by the would-be British “shoe bomber”, Saajid Badat, to justify his bill.
But he did not mention Mr Blair’s claim about the number of terrorists at large in Britain until challenged by the former Tory cabinet minister, Peter Lilley.
Was Mr Clarke right to predict that only a “small number of people” might be subject to house arrest or otherwise restricted by control orders or was Mr Blair right? Mr Lilley asked.
Mr Clarke glossed over potential embarrassment by arguing that most suspects can be prosecuted in the normal way.
No 10 also made light of the prime minister’s remark. But talk of “several hundred” active plotters — made on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour — is far in excess of what intelligence officials estimate.
What can we make of Blair? If the truth don’t fit, let’s stretch it a little. So the 45-minute claims weren’t actually true but they sounded scary. And no one in intelligence reckons there are hundreds of terrorists (not counting the IRA anyway), but it’s a good frightening number. If Tony Blair actually means it, he reminds me of someone.
But a few years ago I met PJ O’Rourke, and he told me a sad tale. He said he and Thompson were on Rolling Stone assignments in London at the same time. Thompson had been commissioned to write “Fear and Loathing at Buckingham Palace”. O’Rourke phoned him at his hotel for a joke and said, “The royal family are onto you! They’ve got their people on the roof and they’re going to break into your window and get you!”
Thompson apparently screamed, hung up the phone, locked himself in his hotel room, and didn’t come out until it was time for him to fly back to America.
At least Hunter was fun to be around.
These 150 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:37pm GMT Permanent link.
A Modern Society Should Abolish All Blasphemy Laws »
Mick Hartley and Marcus are both impressed (rightly, IMO) by Camilla Cavendish. It needs to be said. (If the Times take the story down, as I believe they do after seven days, Mick has most of it anyway.)
Muslims may be worried about insults to their religion — but those aren’t going to come from ‘traditional’ racists, like the BNP, or even Jim Davidson. As with Behtzi, or The Satanic Verses, blasphemy will only be committed within the community (to use the jargon). The effect of the proposed law will be to prevent an integrated multi-faith society by trapping Muslims and other minorities in their religious orthodoxies. So Charles Clarke will be able to prosecute Muslims for being fundamentalists and for not being fundamentalists. What a wonderful idea.
These 128 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:26pm GMT Permanent link.
It's Usually The Other Way Round »
Found through Oliver Willis: Ann Coulter calls talk show host Alan Colmes ‘a liar’ (linked page gives Windows and Quick Time options).
Coulter, after initially dodging the question altogether, in pure wing nut fashion responds, “I refuse to respond to your characterization of the facts because you lie.” (Nevermind that it’s a FRIGGIN’ QUOTE!!)
- DEAD SILENCE -
Furious, Colmes cranes his head in a fashion I’ve never seen and asks, “ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR?”
Coulter: (quivering laughter) Come on, you can’t be serious.
I’m not sure the transcription is 100% accurate, but she certainly said “because you lie.”
Doctor Vee says all that needs to be said about the Biased BBC.
These 50 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 6:58pm GMT Permanent link.
This Crazed Lunatic »
But not as odd
as those who choose
A Jewish God
But spurn the Jews.
Cecil Browne
All this damn blogging politicizes me so. In reality, I’m a mild-mannered cat owner, it’s only when I read all this news crap that I turn into this crazed lunatic who’s angry about absolutely everything. I hate joining things. I don’t like marches: if I want to move myself a few miles on foot, I’d far rather run, it’s quicker. I marched against the invasion of Afghanistan (for reasons ably articulated by Nick Cohen; thanks to Chris Bertram) but not since. I was trying to read Nick Clarke’s biography of Alistair Cooke — I’ve seen central London lots of times, I lived there long enough — and I never do one thing well when I can do two things badly.
Anyhoo, I’m not sure how I found it, but the National Secular Society is the sort of organisation I ought to at least send money to.
The NSS was at the forefront of campaigns to make contraception available, and against censorship. It was especially active during the period of liberal reform in the 1960s when women’s rights were reinforced, certain homosexual acts were decriminalised and abortion legalised. It has fought strongly for the repeal of Sunday trading laws, for easier divorce and for an end to the fiscal advantages enjoyed by the Churches. It has campaigned tirelessly for disestablishment of the Church of England, arguing that no denomination or religion should be privileged as this creates discrimination against others. It has also added its name to campaigns to protect the environment and to recognise the rights of animals to be free from cruelty and exploitation. It has agitated for better sex education in order to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies and the spread of venereal diseases. It supported the push for the legalisation of human embryology research. It was at the forefront of opposing capital punishment and demanding prison reform. The NSS would support the reform of the laws relating to prostitution in order to protect sex workers and make exploitation less likely. It works with the Voluntary Euthanasia Society to promote the legalisation of dignified self-deliverance.
It has also vigorously opposed the influence of religion in state schools, and is challenging the Government’s proposals to increase the number of religious schools. The NSS believes that indoctrination of any kind has no place in education, and would like to see religious instruction restricted to home and places of worship.
In my last post, I mentioned the Ann Coulter interview where she said of the Democratic Party “this is a party that supports abortion, adultery, and you can’t contest that — abortion ought — it could change its name to ‘The Abortion Party’ …” (solecisms in original). By supports, Ms (?) Coulter must mean “fails to oppose” as I don’t recollect any Democrat campaigns based on ‘leaving your lover’ (soundtrack by Paul Simon perchance) or saving the Mid-West from over-population. Technically, I support those things; it’s no business of the state what I do with my body: where I put my cock provided the recipient is a consenting adult, or what drugs I ingest, or what operations I need. I’m largely a “statist” in libertarian terminology, but the frontier of my person starts at my skin. I support gay marriage because I regard the right to marry whoever one chooses as immament in the US Constitution, and any other right-headed one; it may not have been spelled out, but just as if you know the lengths of two sides of a right-angled triangle, so you implicitly know the length of the third without measuring it — in Euclidean space anyway — it’s there. Since gay love is explicit in Plato — on whom much of Christianity is based, consiously or not, it’s a case of “But not as odd/As those who choose/Greek philosophy …”
I’m fascinated by religion. Here’s a little known fact from Jeff Keezel posted as a comment on one of Slacktivist’s excellent Left Behind series.
Okay, this whole “turn the other cheek” thing has been completely misunderstood for eons and it is plain to see that the misinterpretation lives on in spades.
If you read the text exactly, Jesus says, “…if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also…” Matthew 5:19, RSV
Note how specific he is - “the right cheek.” Middle Eastern custom dictates that the left hand is never to be used to touch another person. So a strike to the right cheek would have to be a back-handed blow. Hebrew law allowed backhanded blows if the person doing the striking was of a higher social standing than the person being struck.
In other words, a rich man could backhand a poor man and it was all legal. And the poor man could not fight back.
Law also dictated that a person could not backhand an equal. You could only strike an equal with your fist. And your equal could hit back.
Jesus is clearly talking to the poor. He is saying to them, “if some rich hotshot backhands you, you look at them and show them the other cheek and tell them to hit you there.”
This puts the rich man on the defensive. He must either back down, or strike with the fist, thereby elevating the social status of the poor man and allowing him to fight back.
All this serves to point out how tricky it is to interpret 2000 year old texts. And to show what a cool guy Jesus really was. Definitely in your face…thekeez
The comment which follows has a certain something too.
I’ve always thought that anyone who presumed to say who was going to heaven was being blasphemous by presuming to speak for God.
I’m thinking of a US politician here, oh, what’s his name?
If you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden you are deemed fit for the bin. If you believe in transubstantiation, parthenogenesis and the rest of it, you’re deemed fit to run the country.
Jonathan Meades. When I say I hate Blair, I mean it. Christ, they want 22 quid, just for joining hands with them against the nutters. Fuck it, when you die, you die alone. You might as well be sociable while the brief candle burns. And you can’t take it with you, even though that’s a decent bottle of wine.
These 484 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:44pm GMT Permanent link.
Wednesday, 2 March 2005
Outage »
Dedicated readers (if they exist) will be aware that this site was down for a few hours between 10am and 3pm. This wasn’t due to my hacking the new Python-powered version (as if). I’ll let my hosts explain:
As you are probably aware, we suffered a serious outage of all services
today. This was caused by a total failure of the power supply in the
Redbus data centre. We do not yet have a full report from Redbus, but
the failure of the power supply appears to have caused a power surge
which caused a large number of fuses to blow, including those in the
power distribution units for our equipment. This affected a large
number of Redbus customers, and in the ensuing chaos it proved extremely
difficult to get an engineer to look our problems - despite numerous
calls, this only happened when we arrived on site in person.
The power surge damaged a number of items in our rack, including one of
our masterswitches. This caused a further delay in restoring service to
our virtual dedicated servers, and some customer machines.
You will not have lost mail during this incident - all Internet mail
servers are configured to hold mail and retry if it cannot be delivered
to its destination. I would expect the backlog to have been cleared by
now.
Such events do cause us to re-evaluate our decision to host in Redbus,
but it is our belief that we will not be able to find a data centre with
better power supply equipment - only perhaps one with better luck.
However, Redbus’ handling of aftermath of this incident was very much
lacking and we will be pressing Redbus to improve their procedures.
We can only apologise for the inconvenience caused by today’s outage.
We know only too well that when such things occur, lack of information
about cause and time to fix is extremely frustrating. Whilst we hope
that we will never encounter such an incident again, we have created a
web-site that we will keep updated with information during any future
outage. This is available at:
http://status.mythic-beasts.com
and is hosted on a server in the US.
It was extremely frustrating, but I knew they’d come round and explain in plain English, as they have done. My previous hosts would not have been so clear or prepared to think laterally.
Sorry for being unavailable. As you can see, all the garbage got uploaded eventually.
These 85 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:08am GMT Permanent link.
Sigh »
Tom Watson parrots the party line:
I’ve been saying it for months now. I’ve said it to Tim as well. You’re taking a big risk of getting the Tories if you want to arrange a protest vote campaign. That’s exactly what Lynton Crosby did with John Howard and it got him elected.
I think I once said that I was tribal like Alastair Campbell. Well, I’m not. I’ll vote for the decent human being. Last Thursday’s Torygraph gossip column.
Double congratulations to James Mawdsley, the human rights campaigner who was jailed on three separate occasions in Burma for his pro-democracy campaigns.
Not only did he get married last month, but he has just been selected to stand for the Conservatives in the Lancashire seat of Hyndburn at the next general election.
“I want the very best for Hyndburn and will fight tooth and nail for the people here,” he tells me.
“It’s time to replace Labour complacency with enthusiastic, compassionate Conservatism.”
He is aiming to oust the Labour incumbent, Greg Pope, in what I gather will be his second encounter with a Pope this year.
“Elizabeth and I were married on January 2 and spent our honeymoon in Rome,” he adds.
“We were blessed by the Holy Father himself while we were there.”
I’m dubious about the Holy Father bit, but I’d vote for him. Pro-democracy fighters — the sort that went to prison, rather than the hortatory Paul Wolfowitz (pronounce those “W"s, what are you, a Nazi?) sort — used to be in the Labour Party. Not any more. And the problem with voting Tory is?
These 87 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:06am GMT Permanent link.
Useful Shit »
This is the problem with blogging drunk. You collect all these threads through the day, and you hope to remember them all after a few. Except, of course, you don’t. I missed Back of the Bible from an earlier post.
Everybody loves the Bible. It’s shit-full of good advice you can apply to everyday life, from “turn the other cheek” to “God hates fags.” What many people don’t know, however, is that the Bible isn’t just the basis for highly collectible Jesus plates—it’s also an enormous goddamn thousands-years-old book.
A lot of it’s still applicable today. If you’re looking for sage advice as to the spiritual direction of your life, Jesus apparently knows the score. I’ve never spoken to the man personally — but he’s gotten enough thumbs-up reviews from friends that, fictional or no, he’s probably at least as smart as Oprah. A guy could pay attention to Jesus and do well for himself. Worst case scenario: you don’t get to fuck your neighbor’s wife, and everyone gets to slap the shit out of your face.
But keep in mind, the Bible’s as thick as a phone book. For every chapter about Jesus wind-sprinting across a lake to tell you how much he loves kittens, there’s another with God making a smoking peasant fireball because they sacrificed a goat to Him with the wrong knife.
And I thought the man said “One is to love your neighbour till his wife gets home” but a small voice tells me:
TB: I love kittens! They wriggle, and I bite their heads …
Cherie: TONY!
TB: But Georgie told me, if I wanted to join the ‘Skull and Bones’ society I had to do it …
These 63 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:59am GMT Permanent link.
Letter To Alun Michael »
I’ve written to my MP, suggesting that he get himself a blog.
Dear Mr Michael,
may I congratulate you on your website (http://www.alunmichael.com/). As you say in “Getting the Public’s Priorities Right” (http://www.alunmichael.com/pages/news/news.asp?ID=86), “My constant contact with constituents suggests to me that it is often the media which is out of touch with the concerns of the general public.” If you wish to communicate directly with your constituents, get yourself a weblog. See Tim Ireland’s advice for MPs: http://www.bloggerheads.com/mps_weblogs/
Tim produced the first weblog by a Labour MP for your colleague Tom Watson: http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/
If you communicate directly with your voters, unhindered by the distortions of the media, you might be able to explain how you voted for the abolition of habeas corpus, the imposition of house arrest, and whatever measures better suited to the regimes in Burma or Apartheid-era South Africa cross Charles Clarke’s skull. Some people might suspect that you never rebel against the government because you are a spineless time-serving creep. With a blog you have the opportunity to set these mistaken people right by exposing them to your rapier-like logic,
yours
David Weeden (ex-Labour)
PS Loved the photo of you cleaning up litter, wearing a very neat suit and tie, on the leaflet that came through the door. Very persuasive.
I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
These 21 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:57am GMT Permanent link.
Very Generous Of Her »
Tim has discovered the proxy blog for Louise Ellman, MP, which kicked off with a wonderful post. It seems that Ms Ellman has been instrumental in getting government money (ie ours) for the redevelopment of Lime Street Station, by Liverpool Vision. But what’s this? This Board Member looks familar.
If I didn’t know that everything Tony Blair said was the Gospel truth, I’d suspect sleaze.
These 65 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:46pm GMT Permanent link.
A War On Terrorism I Can Believe In »
Gerry Adams drops US fundraising plan. Aw, go on Gerry, rattle the can for a few more Armalites and Kalashnikovs. You know you need ‘em. Mr Adams is suspected in some quarters of liaising with terrorists, even of being a senior officer in the IRA. I wonder if they’ll whip him off to Syria? Just for a few questions mind.
These 60 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:58pm GMT Permanent link.
Things You Should Know »
Jim Holt in the New Yorker on the old sockless wonder.
Yet his June, 1905, paper on relativity was rejected when he submitted it as a dissertation. (He then submitted his April paper, on the size of atoms, which he thought would be less likely to startle the examiners; they accepted it only after he added one sentence to meet the length threshold.) When Einstein was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, it was for his work on the photoelectric effect. The Swedish Academy forbade him to make any mention of relativity in his acceptance speech. As it happened, Einstein was unable to attend the ceremony in Stockholm. He gave his Nobel lecture in Gothenburg, with King Gustav V seated in the front row. The King wanted to learn about relativity, and Einstein obliged him.
Give that king a cabbage! That’s two brilliant anecdotes in one paragraph. Einstein only changed physics forever. (If you read anything on scientific revolutions, it’ll mention 1905. Tectonic plates? perhaps. Evolution? maybe — not so original. Meteorite impact the cause of dinosaur extinction? explains some things, not others.) He did so, so succinctly that his dissertation was too short. Don’t read some kind of proof of the stupidity of orthodoxy into the Nobel committee’s stipulations. The Nobel is still one of the highest honours in the world. Relativity and quantum mechanics are so difficult that if you don’t think they are wrong, and think that several times, you’ll never get as far as the foothills. And almost no-one gets any further.
These 132 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:26pm GMT Permanent link.
Thursday, 3 March 2005
Like A Drunk In A Midnight Choir »
Like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Leonard Cohen
Readers may have realised by now that I don’t have much time for conservatives. I’m conservative in my own way, even, now I think about it, reactionary. (Something I aspired to being since I read that Dostoevsky was a ‘reactionary’ when I didn’t know what it meant.) But, well, most conservatives are dorks. One of the concerns of right-wing blogs at present seems to be liberal Hollywood. How it doesn’t “speak for” America. When I turned vegetarian, which must be 20 years ago now, I experienced a feeling of freedom. Adverts no longer spoke to me. I was a person apart, a creep, a weirdo. I relished that. I still do.
Look, the box office decides which films make money. (I think the issue of “are popular” as in “liked” is different: there’s a poster campaign for Will Smith’s next film at the moment, and I suspect that it’s a forgettable stinker — it’ll make money though.) Most industries are full of people striving to do better. The Oscars get media coverage because there’s a demand to watch. They’re also an attempt to rate films after seeing them, which the box office rarely claims to do. (I think Star Wars was the great exception.)
John Band wasn’t impressed with A Tangled Web, and neither was I. I don’t agree with Norm too often, and I was far more taken by Sideways than he was but when I saw Million Dollar Baby, I had to agree with Norm’s view that it was the better movie. Once I’d seen it, I feared that some of the backlash could be traced to it featuring an old guy, a black guy, and a girl.
Andrew McCann saw fit to award the best movie Oscar to The Aviator because it starred “one of [his] favourite young actors” and was a “biographical depiction of the late reclusive millionaire, Howard Hughes.” Sadly, the “PC brigade instrumental in awarding Oscars” took the heinous step of reviewing the competition instead of making up their narrow minds on subject matter (and pretty stars).
What a sham!! Is anyone telling me Million Dollar Baby was a superior production to The Aviator? If so, they should review their credentials as a film critic.
I’m not, because I missed The Aviator. OTOH, our Andrew doesn’t seem to have watched a frame of Million Dollar Baby, so he’s not one to carp. However, he does make a good point.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not one of the nihilistic cretins who believes women should be shackled to the kitchen sink. On the other hand, I like women to look feminine; to be proud of their femininity; and refrain from activities which endanger essential feminine characteristics.
I’m not a woman, but I like to think I know what they like and consider ‘essential masculine characteristics’. Have you ever read a book called — I understand that it’s restricted from certain lower classes of people — Lady Chatterley’s Lover? It’s about this frustrated hussy, you see, because her husband got his balls blown off in the war. Terrible things, wars, you know. Men! Avoid them! They endanger your essential masculine characteristics. Be like Paul Wolfowitz (and pronouce those Ws as wuhs like his friend Christopher Hitchens). War is for stupid people. What a dork that guy Kennedy was! Only the poor fight.
Freedom if it means anything, to paraphrase the Orwellian (both senses, I’m afraid) banner of Harry’s Place means being treated as unique — not as a member of a class. To be a woman first, and a boxer second, is to answer someone else’s view of yourself. The Taliban, you’ll be glad to know, had similar ideas.
I am, as regular readers will be bored by already, a distance runner, and interested in the same. Last year I tore into Germaine Greer (whose early writings I admire). Let’s have women-hater Anne Tyler (from Morgan’s Passing).
Once Morgan asked her what she was running for.
’I just am,’ she told him.
’I mean, your heart? Your figure? Your circulation? Are you training for a marathon?’
’I’m just running,’ she said.
’But why push yourself?’
’I’m not pushing myself.’
She was, though. After a run, there was something intense about her. She’d be glossy with sweat, strung up, a bundle of wiry muscles, vibrating. Her hair, loosened, flew out in an electric spray, each strand as crinkled as her amber-coloured, crinkly hairpins. She was so different from other women than Morgan didn’t quite know how to go about her. He was baffled and moved and fascinated, and he loved to slide his fingers down the two new, tight cords behind each of her knees. He couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be Emily.
Imagine that! I can’t, you can’t, Thomas Nagel can’t, imagine what it’s like to be a bat. But can being another human being be so difficult? Nietzsche says somewhere that the worst fate of art is being understood: of being ordinary.
Let’s have more women in sports and less of this “The world should shrink to my narrow borders”. Man, being the measure of all things, is infinite; and each person is incomprehensible.
These 650 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:53am GMT Permanent link.
I Agree With Mick Hartley Shock »
Mick has an excellent post which ends thus:
When I was at school I was banned from wearing my lip ring and nose ring, and sent home for dyeing my hair blue. I can only assume that in the light of this ruling, all pupils will be allowed to dress in a way that they choose, to reflect their own cultural beliefs. Otherwise, why are members of organised religion getting privileges of self-expression that are denied to others?
The answer is very simple: Tony Blair is a arse. I thank you.
These 21 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:21am GMT Permanent link.
Hmmph! »
And now the Syrians sniff freedom: Boris Johnson.
Well, my friends, I can understand your pique at the way in which history is apparently vindicating Mark Steyn. If there is one thing worse than a stridently triumphalist American neo-con, it is a stridently triumphalist American neo-con who seems to be right.
But in so far as the Americosceptics think the Syrian army has been good for Lebanon, they seem to be at odds not only with the Lebanese people, but also with most of Arab opinion. The Syrians have been intermittently brutal in their occupation; they have taken Lebanese water; they have kidnapped and detained without trial. It is time that Bashar Assad removed all 14,000 of them, and so say 77 per cent of the Arab world, according to Al-Jazeera, and newspapers from Jordan to Kuwait to Egypt.
The protests in Lebanon have hugely increased the likelihood of that withdrawal and, if Jumblatt is right, those protests have been sparked by democracy in Iraq. We may be on the verge of a process as wonderful as he thinks; and we should not allow any anti-Americanism, any hatred of Bush, any doubts about the war, to tempt us to hope otherwise.
He’s right. Damn.
These 11 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:54am GMT Permanent link.
Saturday, 5 March 2005
A Unique Consistency »
Good egg! DNA shows Blunkett is not baby’s father, Blunkett ‘did not father child’, Blunkett ‘did not father Quinn baby’. These tests were Blunkett’s idea.
The letters demand a DNA test to determine whether Mr Blunkett is, as he believes, the father of the boy. A similar test has already established that the MP is the father of Mrs Quinn’s other son, two-year-old William. Court proceedings in which Mr Blunkett is demanding access to William are already under way.
David Blunkett, the former home secretary, has launched a legal challenge to try to prove that he is the father of the newborn son of his ex-lover, Kimberly Quinn.
Lawyers for Mrs Quinn, who gave birth to her second son on February 2, have received “six or seven” letters from Mr Blunkett’s solicitors, Bindman and Partners, dated from around the time of the baby’s birth.
Mr Blunkett’s solicitors are also understood to have warned lawyers for Mrs Quinn and her husband, Stephen, that they should not have registered Mr Quinn as the father of the newborn baby on his birth certificate while his paternity is in dispute.
The result doesn’t let Stephen Quinn off the hook — he could still be guilty of lying on the birth certificate. The Telegraph:
[The Sun] reported that the baby might be of mixed race after speculation that Mrs Quinn’s husband, Stephen, was also not the father.
I was hoping for Simon Hoggart, but still.
I was talking in the pub the other night about the awfulness of newspaper and TV coverage of statistics (inspired by Chris Dillow) and we got on to how the Labour poster campaign seemed to be using unemployment figures which the party had sought to discredit when in opposition. Apparently there’s a new one showing Thatcher and the figure 3 Million, Major ditto, and Howard with a question mark. I said that that was pure Alastair Campbell, and said that one of Tony Blair’s weaknesses was rehabilitating disgraced friends too soon: if Mandelson had served any time as an outsider and earned his comeback, perhaps the press and the public would revile him a little less. (Tony Blair’s other great weakness is having friends so prone to disgracing themselves. Some of us think that honest Labour politicians: Glenda Jackson, Robin Cook, Clare Short, Bob Marshall-Andrews, Frank Field, Diane Abbot, Kate Hoey, etc, etc outnumber the scheming New Labour creeps.) Now Blunkett starts comeback with yob call. We should judge him, not on his love life but his political career: Blunkett’s e-University condemned.
A failed Government scheme to offer British university degree courses over the internet has been condemned as a “disgraceful waste” of public money after it attracted just 900 students at a cost of £50 million.
Studying at the UK e-University, which folded last year just six months after the launch of its first courses, cost an average of £44,000 per student - more expensive than going to Oxford or Cambridge — a report by the influential House of Commons Education Committee found.
Perhaps Mr Blunkett could prove useful as a sort of weather vane for policy. Should Sheffield declare itself Nuclear Free? David Blunkett: Yes. Correct answer: No. Should we start a Vichy-style identification scheme? David Blunkett: Yes. Correct answer: No. Should we lock people up without trial? David Blunkett: Yes. Correct answer: No. Does the country need an internet university, when we have the OU, and lots of the old kind? David Blunkett: Yes. Correct answer: No. Should one declare oneself to be the father of a child when the mother is also sleeping with her husband, a Guardian journalist, and at least one other person? David Blunkett: Yes. Correct answer: No.
You see where I’m going with this. David Blunkett has a unique consistency.
These 367 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:52pm GMT Permanent link.
I'm Not Very Good At These Quizzes, Perhaps »
Via the splendidly named Jarndyce & Jarndyce, I took the Moral Politics quiz.
Your [sic] scored -3 on the Moral Order axis and -1.5 on the Moral Rules axis.
The following items best match your score:
- System: Liberalism
- Variation: Moderate Liberalism
- Ideologies: Capital Democratism
- US Parties: Democratic Party
- Presidents: Jimmy Carter (92.03%)
I think that if I hadn’t become so disillusioned with the state of state, I’d have been closer to Social Democratism. And then there’s the What Gender Is Your Brain?:
Your Brain is 66.67% Female, 33.33% Male
Your brain leans female
You think with your heart, not your head
Sweet and considerate, you are a giver
But you’re tough enough not to let anyone take advantage of you!
Which came as something of a surprise.
These 50 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:42pm GMT Permanent link.
My Bad: Dave Weeden An Idiot Non-shock »
Oops. Mick Hartley noticed that I misrepresented his belief by confusing what he wrote and what he quoted. I was dense.
Mick does not actually articulate his position.
What I think (most of the time) is more complex than I stated. I do think this is a bad ruling. I think this is caving in to certain extremists. I think that, assuming our schools are properly regulated (which means that headteachers and school boards are both decent and allowed to act on what they perceive as the interests of their pupils), parents do not have a right to withdraw their children from certain classes. Parents do have a right to say this or that class is one-sided indoctrination (I know that’s a tautology, but ‘indoctrination’ by itself seemed too feeble), but they don’t have the right to deny their children (who are citizens too) education which they don’t like.
I went to a school which became co-educational and comprehensive the year before I started. Someone invented a school uniform for girls. Where do you see women wearing ties apart from certain wine bars or restaurants? Where do you see anyone in coloured blazers apart from the stock markets? School uniforms are an anachronism. And they can be expanded or changed by the school governors. If they wish to include headscarfs, they can. Mine would have insisted on black. As far as I know, Islam only demands covering up the female form; it does not specify how. There is such a thing as a compromise. School uniforms (for those schools which have them) could be extended to include Jilbabs, which are described in the school dress code. Girls can wear either a) blazer and skirt, or b) Jilbab. The ruling seems to deny schools this compromise, instead granting a licence to fundamentalists which is denied the rest of us. This is inequality.
In this I disagree with fellow leftist (ok perhaps I’m no longer a leftist) Meaders:
The case for socialists and progressives should be obvious: Muslim women are as competent to dictate their own appearance as any other, and attempts to deny them this right should be treated — not just as an assualt on religious freedom — but as a denial of women’s rights made on flagrantly prejudicial lines.
Yes, but (isn’t that so liberal?) women are, but children are not. I can’t think of a country which allows children to vote (if there are any, I’m sure readers will tell me), yet no one calls the UK a tyranny because toddlers can’t pick the next Prime Minister. Adults in this country are compelled to do very few things, yet children have to go to school. Children have different rights. This isn’t oppression. Children not compelled to go to school, not forced to learn to read and write, would be the losers. Would America be better if a poor boy like Thomas Edison had stayed in natural ignorance? You owe it to yourself to share the education of your neighbours.
Teenage girls have enough embarrassment about their bodies as it is. There’s a brilliant line in an Anne Tyler novel where a 13-year-old about to go to summer camp cries “My knees don’t match.” Any responsible adult who feeds that self-doubt is — well if not criminal, pretty unpleasant in my view.
These 499 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 8:57pm GMT Permanent link.
Another Apology »
While I’m beating myself up, I may as well point out that I also told DL that his future brother-in-law voted for Charles Clarke’s shockingly illiberal anti-terrorism bill. I received a text at 1:30 the following morning assuring me that the future brother-in-law hadn’t, and when I checked, I was wrong. Um, I’m sorry for doubting.
On that debate, Frank Field raised:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When the Home Secretary introduced the Bill, he said that the country faced a threat the like of which we have never faced before. Looking at the rest of this week’s business, I would suggest that nothing on our agenda ranks higher than the consideration of this measure. Clearly, there has been pressure from both sides of the House for the Government to give us more time to consider whether it is proper or appropriate given the level of threat that we face. The Opposition parties have a day’s debate this week. If the Government are unwilling to give us some of their time to extend the timetable, might not the Opposition give us their day so that we could at least have two days’ debate on the Committee and Report stages?
Dominic Grieve accepted for the Conservatives. This seems to have been rejected. It’s all very well spreading democracy to the Middle East. Abolishing it here is unacceptable.
This is like being in a 50s movie. The Government are not Labour. I don’t know what they are, but I doubt it’s human.
As Simon Hoggart says today:
For a long time the BBC’s charter has contained what is nowadays called a mission statement: “To inform, educate and entertain.” There is a lovely simplicity about those five words; it would be almost impossible to encapsulate the aims of a great broadcasting organisation with more precision.
So of course New Labour, with its itchy hatred of anything that is clear and easy to understand, wants to add five new purposes “to sharpen up the BBC’s remit”, whatever that might mean.
It’s hard to know what any of it means. The green paper on the BBC says it should “sustain citizenship and a civil society”. Eh? Does that mean programmes telling us to be polite, or how to find a polling station? It should “promote education and learning”. Um, wasn’t that covered in a single word of the original? It should “stimulate creativity and cultural excellence” - and how in the name of Lord Reith could you possibly define that? And as well as representing “the UK, its nations, regions and communities” it should “bring the UK to the world and the world to the UK”.
At this point the brain begins to wrinkle like fingers that have been too long in the bath. Do they mean more programmes about South American wildlife? Or documentaries from Darfur? Or earnest men in front of chromakey pictures of the White House? What can it add to what we know already?
Nothing. It’s just that this government can’t see anything that is straightforward without wanting to make it complicated and, if possible, devoid of real meaning.
When was the last time you saw “New Labour” used as anything but an insult? If you haven’t been keeping up, I suggest you link to Tony Blair when mentioning the Prime Minister in future, and if there’s a New Labour site, “pod people” would be a good link text.
These 168 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:40pm GMT Permanent link.
Evil »
I don’t believe in the idea of ‘evil.’ (I’m an eliminative materialist, and I don’t believe in temperature or society either.) I do believe in wrongness of a limited sort. Here’s Alastair Campbell by Simon Hoggart.
I always thought Alastair Campbell would finally lose it, and now it looks as if he has. Years ago he spoke movingly at a service for the late John Merritt, the Observer reporter who died leaving behind a young family. While Alastair was in hospital, recovering from an alcohol-fuelled collapse, John had appeared at his bedside and given him a handful of marbles, saying: “There you are, don’t lose them again.” Hearing this I thought that he was an addictive personality, the addiction merely shifting from drink to power.
I have to admit that I thought it would happen sooner. After he hit my colleague Michael White for making a joke about Robert Maxwell, and he monstered Robert Peston, the political editor of the FT, one of the few papers to back Labour in the 1992 election, and son of Lord Peston who was then part of Tony Blair’s front bench team, I assumed that he would crack up within a year of entering Downing Street. To be frank, he has done remarkably well to stay the course as long as he has.
Amid all the unsavoury attempts to apportion, or shrug off, the blame for the suicide of David Kelly, we’ve tended to forget some curious things about the death itself. I don’t join the conspiracy theorists who seem certain it was murder, but I wonder why he did it. The much quoted email to a friend shows a man looking forward to getting back to Baghdad. He would have been able to gather all the information he knew was there but was unable to winkle out while Saddam was in power. It would have been an entirely fascinating trip for an expert like him.
I have had an email correspondence with the psychologist Dorothy Rowe. She says that suicide often follows a sense that we “have not lived up to the standards we have set ourselves. We can find ourselves overwhelmed by shame, so ashamed that we try to shrink, to disappear from the face of the earth.”
That sounds as if it might be right. One of the sillier articles, in the Times, suggested that he had been driven to the brink by sudden exposure to the harsh, vengeful, backbiting world of politics and the media. Well, some of the politics must have been a nasty shock, but Dr Kelly knew all about the media, and clearly took satisfaction in briefing journalists. Feasting with panthers doesn’t mean you should be eaten, but you know what your companions are like.
And was there a note? If so, we haven’t been told of it. One daughter had just got married, another is about to be married. Their new lives have got off to a horrible start, yet he apparently didn’t even feel the need to apologise or explain.
Robert Maxwell was, to everyone except arselickers like Ali Campbell, a total cunt who robbed his workers, abused his immediate staff and should have been hung from a lamppost in the 60s as a fascist.
As one of the few business men who liked to proclaim his socialism, Maxwell stood for the Labour Party in Buckinghamshire in 1964.
He won and held his seat until 1970.
His relationship with the Labour party was an uneasy one, with the political party wary of angering the man who owned newspapers sympathetic to Labour principles.
Many people cowered from criticising him, not least because of his readiness to confront his critics in the libel courts.
Imagine that Maxwell upsetting Labour by being a selfish bastard. Well Ali had to cover that up. As the son of a vet, with a Scottish name, he knew his mission was: sod the working class!
Oh, Ali, if only you knew the interwebthing, or culture:
Charles Foster Kane: Read the cable.
Bernstein: “Girls delightful in Cuba. Stop. Could send you prose poems about scenery, but don’t feel right spending your money. Stop. There is no war in Cuba, signed Wheeler.” Any answer?
Charles Foster Kane: Yes. “Dear Wheeler: you provide the prose poems. I’ll provide the war.”
These 164 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:26pm GMT Permanent link.
Monday, 7 March 2005
Just Because It's In The Daily Mail, Doesn't Mean It's Rubbish »
Chris Brooke called Shabina Begum’s triumph in the Appeal Court a “great victory for stylish dressing.” The more I know about the case, the worse it seems to be. Harry has a very thoughtful post which seems to come down to accepting the judgement.
But as long as we are allowing religions or beliefs to be displayed in schools then it is simply unjustified to discriminate.
Harry usefully links to the court ruling, which, not being a lawyer, I find very unsatisfactory. The final paragraphs by Lord Justice Scott Baker completely throw me.
Had the School approached the problem on the basis it should have done, that the claimant had a right under Article 9(1) to manifest her religion, it may very well have concluded that interference with that right was justified under Article 9(2) and that its uniform policy could thus have been maintained. Regrettably, however, it decided that because the shalwar kameeze was acceptable for the majority of Muslims the claimant should be required to toe the line.
As Brooke L.J. has pointed out, there are two different views in the Muslim community about the appropriate dress for women one, held by very strict Muslims, being that it is mandatory for women to wear the jilbab. The fact that this view is held by a minority, or even a small minority is in my judgment nothing to the point in considering the issue whether Article 9(1) is engaged. There is in my view force in the criticism that it is not for school authorities to pick and choose between religious beliefs or shades of religious belief.
The United Kingdom is not a secular state; there is no principle of denominational neutrality in our schools. Provision is made for religious education and worship in schools under Chapter VI of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. Every shade of religious belief, if genuinely held, is entitled to due consideration under Article 9. What went wrong in this case was that the School failed to appreciate that by its action it was infringing the claimant’s Article 9(1) right to manifest her religion. It should have gone on to consider whether a limitation of her right was justified under Article 9(2) in the light of the particular circumstances at the School. As it did not carry out this exercise it is not possible to conclude what the result would have been. The way matters progressed the claimant was excluded from the school without following the appropriate procedures and her Article 9(1) rights were violated in the process.
I think this comes down to ‘the school may have been right, but the arguments presented in court were inadequate.’ If any party promises to bash through legislation redefining the UK as a secular state, I’ll vote for it. Jenny McCartney, in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph called the case a victory for bigots.
It takes courage and nerve to face down fundamentalism when it comes knocking. The Muslim headmistress of Denbigh High School displayed exactly that courage, as did Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, the leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, when he pronounced himself “saddened” by Shabina’s victory. They understood what this case was really about: the advancement of a minority strain of fundamentalist, highly politicised Islam into a secular space under the banner of “devotion”.
The philosophy of extremist groups such as Hizb ut-Tharir echoes Lenin’s advice for the onward march of Bolshevism: “Probe with the bayonet: if you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.”
In Denbigh High School, the fundamentalists’ probing met steel from the Muslim headmistress. In the High Court it met the same steel. What a pity that in the Court of Appeal — in a weak and naive judgment — it finally met mush.
Best comment on a blog: John —
And there’s a nice political touch with dear Cherie handling the case. There, there, men in beards, goes the subtext, never mind that we’re going to stop and search you ‘til the cows come home, never mind that we’re gonna keep some of you under house arrest for as long as we deem necessary without trial or even without telling you what we think you’re up to. Never mind all that, your daughters’ pretty little heads are safe with us.
Harry sees what’s missing from others’ arguments.
I’m presuming the ideology is held by the schoolgirl and it is not a Guevarist father who wishes to send his daughter to school reflecting his ideology. But then that rather tricky issue of exactly whose beliefs are being manifested by children’s dress and who chooses the clothes and the religion of kids isn’t covered by those two paragraphs from the convention and wasn’t dealt with by the judge either.
Ms Begum was fourteen when she “decided” to start wearing the jilbab.
At the start of the new school year in September 2002 she attended the School dressed in a jilbab. She was accompanied by her brother and another young man. They saw the assistant headteacher, Mr Moore, who told her to go away and change into proper school uniform. He felt that the young men were being unreasonable and threatening. The three then went away, with the young men saying that they were not prepared to compromise on this issue.
Approved Judgement, para 15. I understand that children don’t have beliefs in the legal way that adults do. (If they have, why do they have to go to school? why can’t they vote?) Roughly speaking, children have more “freedoms from” and adults have more “freedoms to.” Children require looking after, which includes making some decisions for them. I don’t think she was qualified to assert her religion in the way the court decided. The victory, if there was one, was not Ms Begum’s, but her brother’s and his friends’, as they kept her out of education, which seems to be one of their goals.
These 253 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:49pm GMT Permanent link.
Hooray! »
Peers inflict defeat on anti-terror bill. Much good news here, though my favourite paragraph is the third.
The government was defeated by 130 votes, while two further concessions — to raise the standard of proof for a control order and to confirm there was no possibility of prosecution before issuing one — were made without a vote.
Only last Tuesday, Charles Clarke, Home Secretary, warned he was not prepared to make any further concessions on his anti-terror bill as it goes to the House of Lords. Charles Clarke: tough on concessions, and tough on the causes of concessions. Charley the Safety Elephant? Elephants are smart.
These 65 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 6:34pm GMT Permanent link.
Look, Only Gay Men Watch The Oscars, Anyway »
Some fusses are too trivial. I often find Jackie D interesting, but I only hope she’s jet-lagged or otherwise mentally not all there, as I can’t see anything like a hammer hitting a nail in this pointless rant she linked to.
It starts with nonsense, and then nosedives.
Show business glamour is gone, long gone.
I think showbusiness was glamourous back in the old days, when the Holy Roman Empire really was Holy, Roman, and even an Empire. (Joke tip: Michael Berube.) And even if it’s not and never was, who cares?
That was clear from the moment crude Chris Rock stepped on stage to host the 77th annual Academy Awards and received a standing ovation—for just being there. By contrast, one of the show’s classiest hosts, the late Johnny Carson, received a polite round of applause after a taped tribute. Thirty years of a top-rated show and several Oscar telecasts, no ovation—one minute of one show hosted my a foul-mouthed cable comedian, instant ovation. Is it any wonder more people don’t watch?
Look, if I did watch, it would only be in the hope of seeing some interesting breasts, so it’s no big deal. But, Scott, don’t you think that Johny Carson’s being dead might account for the lack of ovation? And Chris Rock was there. I suppose in the old days, the elite just rattled their jewelry, but even the elite are commoners now. O Tempora!
Not that it matters; Hollywood’s elite is too busy inflating their own importance, that is, among those who attended (and most stars—Hanks, Cruise, Gibson—did not). Sunday’s awards were dominated by a gaggle of shrill, red carpet mongers, twittering about something called swag (free stuff), bling (flashy clothes and jewelry) and the Academy’s stupid new rules. Presenters were relegated to the aisles and nominees were herded on stage as if they were being lined up for a firing squad, not an Academy Award.
See nasty commoners, dressed like Goldie Looking Chain with dosh! Some of them are black! And young! In Scott’s day they respected comedians like Bob Hope. He wasn’t funny, but he’d been around forever. Three aging pretty boys are not “most stars.” Beyonce was there. So was Natalie Portman. What’s your problem?
At times, the show reflected the drift from director Martin Scorsese’s Hollywood—where ability can be measured by how deeply one cares about making movies—to actor and director Clint Eastwood’s Hollywood, where you get noticed with a slew of squints, sneers and gimmicks in pictures that are typically tragic and really about nothing at all.
Christ knows what this means. The Aviator may have been shot in California, but … Scorcese is Hollywood? I loved that scene in Taxi Driver where Travis Bickle hangs out in Beverley Hills. And who can forget the trip to Disneyland in Goodfellas? I’m on the other side of the Atlantic, and even I know that Martin Scorcese is a New Yorker who shoots his films in New York with New York actors.
But as for Eastwood, well, ever since he appeared as a ‘Lab Technician’ in Revenge of the Creature, he’s been digging away at Old Glory in tragic films about nothing at all. Some say that the big moral stories teach you about life. How many people do you who’ve killed their father, married their mother, and then ripped out their eyes? Who was the last person you met whose uncle poured poison in his father’s ear, married his mother, starts acting crazy, has a girlfriend who kills herself, while his old university chums are done in by the uncle’s minions, and everybody ends up dead? Give me the ones about nothing at all: neurotic women who can’t even get on the train to Moscow or two blokes who wait under a tree for someone who never comes.
Million Dollar Baby’s toothy Hilary Swank chimed in, citing her own subculture—trailer trash—as a claim on the Best Actress award.
Toothy? Whether “trailer trash” is a subculture is debatable, but she didn’t:
“I don’t know what I did in my life to deserve this. I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream. I never thought this would ever happen let alone be nominated — a working actor for that matter, and now this,” an emotional Swank said in her acceptance speech.
Hilary Swank Wins Best Actress Oscar. Starting to get the impression that Scott Holleran is something of a snob?
We watch the Oscars for a sight of Hollywood at its best.
No we don’t. It’s tits and ass, and maybe someone will trip over or start a fight.
The glow of Hollywood’s Golden Age stems from splendor on the screen, and that was replaced by unending assaults on both sense and sensibility long ago.
Ah the classics! The sensitivity of The Creature From The Black Lagoon. The philosophy of the Three Stooges. How my heart aches for the class of those days.
Then there’s innuendo if not outright lying.
Mr. Eastwood, like other conservatives, appeared content to have gained the approval of others, especially liberals.
Eastwood doesn’t identify as a conservative though he’s been a Republican politician: he’s a film maker, and he deserves to be judged on that, rather than political affiliation. Where does anyone writing about an awards ceremony get the gall to sneer at gaining “the approval of others”. Especially liberals — there weren’t any of those in Hollywood in the 50s.
Update: it just occurred to me that Eastwood is a known conservative, and one who had doubts about the Iraq venture, but intentionally shut up once the war started. Scorcese vocally opposed the war, went on marches, and told interviewers. We don’t know how the vote broke down, and we don’t know the voters’s motives. Might it be possible that some Academy members didn’t vote for Scorcese because of his politics?
His Best Picture winner, Million Dollar Baby, seems to have dragged even producer Albert S. Ruddy—who produced Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and once sought to make Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged—into what Miss Rand called “the cult of moral grayness,” which in Mr. Eastwood’s case means a bleak world drained of color, purpose and life.
I defy anyone to make sense of this. Is Mr Eastwood in a cult or not? What the hell is “moral grayness"? While Miss Rand may have thought that capitalism was all about people making long philosophical speeches, film producers look to produce films people actually go to see. Mr Ruddy turned a profit — that’s his job. As long as Hollywood is capitalist, films will get made which make money. There isn’t a pattern or a common denominator. If there’s a gap, scrape some cash together and take your chances, but stop whining.
My favourite line — and I’m not making this up is: “over superior work by Andrew Lloyd Webber …” The piece had to be a spoof. My irony detector needs replacing.
These 680 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 8:05pm GMT Permanent link.
Po-Mo »
Through Michael Bérubé the simply splendid Preposterous Universe. The first post I read Six scientists in search of an author is a goldmine.
We also had several readings from works of fiction, including Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, and Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams. But the most memorable performance was turned in by none other than David Gross, playing the role of Richard Feynman in Peter Parnell’s play QED. It’s difficult, in dramatic depictions of scientists, to get the science itself right, but even harder to get the voice right, the unmistakable dialect in which scientists talk about their work. But David’s Feynman was spot on (although he didn’t attempt the Far Rockaway accent). As Janna Levin said, it was the best dramatic performance of the conference.
Feynman was pretty unique; I don’t know that he was like anybody else ever. (QED here stands for Quantum electrodynamics not quod erat demonstrandum.)
At the end of the conference I suggested to David that, now that he had the Nobel Prize, perhaps it was time to conquer new worlds by moving to Hollywood and taking up acting. He admitted that he had dabbled in theatre in high school. He also noted that Feynman himself was constantly performing, and contributed quite consciously to his myth-construction. And then he pointed out that he himself was performing all the time, and he couldn’t help noticing that I did as well. (Moi?) Indeed, isn’t everybody? We are all postmodernists now.
Indeed, we are, and indeed we’re not. Everybody performing: it’s in Sartre (you know, the waiter thing) and Shakespeare.
He’s also wrong in not disputing this:
David also made an interesting point during the discussion, when he claimed that both science and theatre have retreated from their ambitions over the last few centuries. Theatre, of course, had a somewhat loftier status during the Elizabethan period than it enjoys today. Science, we might think, has only been growing in importance over the years, but one could argue that it has backed off from its Enlightenment aspirations to remake the way we live.
Oh dear. It’s very cold outside, not to mention several hours after sunset, yet I’m awake, not shivering, and reading. My cat had jaundice recently. It killed people in Pope’s time. Medical science alone has remade the way we live, never mind the rest.
I nitpick with Sean Carroll because he’s normally so good. He has a post on Dark galaxies which is very smart (except that he leans toward the belief that ‘dark matter’ exists, and I doubt it very much: I think that a new exotic material, which happens to be everywhere but here, and makes up most of everything, is too implausible for words).
These 181 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:37pm GMT Permanent link.
Roundup »
Tim Worstall did his third British Blog Roundup. Many of my favourites included. I must say, he gives space to his political enemies, which is the mark of a gentleman.
These 30 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:53pm GMT Permanent link.
Gentlemen »
Both Mike Power and John Band find the muslim hating vitriol amusing. But John notes an exception: the admirably honest Charles of Obsidian Wings.
Obsidian Wings’ Sebastian’s limpid comment on Crooked Timber:
Perfectly implemented maybe this [the segregation of black males in schools] would be a good idea. But there are so many ways for the idea to go horribly wrong that I doubt it be wise to try it.
succinctly puts my drift to the right. I used to think that the state ‘ought’ to work and therefore ‘could’ work. Now I think there are so many ways for everything to go horribly wrong. (I don’t, however, have much faith in privatisation: Microsoft, for example, still need three releases to debug software; governments don’t have that luxury.)
I don’t claim to be inventing a new philosophy, but if any answers your system produces include ‘segregation’ or ‘bombing’, I suggest that there’s a flaw in your logic. History is very clear that these spread misery.
These 127 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:38pm GMT Permanent link.
Veiled Threats »
If there is a conflict between culture and feminism (and why not? feminism is a subculture) am I for the rights of women or the rights of culture? I’m a leftist (or ex-same); I believe in gender; I see it every day: I don’t believe in race — I know enough about genes to doubt any underlying racial differences; and culture, to me, boils down to what’s between an individual’s ears: you can’t taste or smell it. And are there rights of women? Yes, they’re just like the rights of men. (The state, which is what we’re talking about, can’t grant or deny fertility.) They’re the rights of individuals. Cultures aren’t individuals. They’re constructs, and more importantly, masks for those in power (and for fans of Machiavelli, power doesn’t imply any kind of principle). I don’t believe that a culture can be harmed. So every fight is a fight for a person. I keep hearing in the culture wars that God or Allah or whoever may be offended if his name is spelled wrong: I sort of think that if you’re big enough to make the universe, you can take the odd setback.
Whatever, I’ve been persuaded (by email) that the Begum ruling was, um, coherent, cogent, and inevitable. (I think that, reading between the lines, the judges wished that the school’s case had been presented differently — and there’s the rub: had the school done what it did, but glossed it in nicer legal language, all would be well. Ms Begum was denied damages or further legal recourse, and the school was not penalised; these are significant.)
I’m confused. I’m reading Why so much fuss about ‘a piece of clothing’? (found through Butterflies and Wheels). And I feel like a racist.
Apologists claim that veil is worn voluntarily by millions of Muslim women around the world as a symbol of cultural pride and in opposition to western imperialism. Along with the Islamists who marched against the ban in the streets of Paris and London, these apologists call the ban a ‘racist law.’
If we’re so bad, there’s always Syria. If they hate ‘western imperialism’ why do they choose to live in the West? It is a choice. If they’re so persecuted, what will they have to lose?
G: Buying on credit is so nice
B: One look at us and they charge twice
G: I have a new washing machine
B: What will you have though to keep clean?
Sondheim: America. I don’t agree with much of the piece: I don’t know what ‘impose’ means in this context.
In my view, veiling in general and veiling of young girls in particular, is not about a piece of clothing; and banning it, is defending the essence of the human rights of young girls and women in Islamic communities across the world. Banning the veil is essential and an important step forward in the defence of secularism and children and women’s rights.
Of course, Islamists, ardent Muslims and apologists will tell us that the girls themselves ‘choose’ the veil: ‘Freedom of the Veil’! This is absurd! How can one believe that a little child would don “attire” that deprives her from playing freely and openly with her friends? Not to be able to adjust her dress to the changing weather, not to be able to swim, climb a tree or pat a cute animal or do what children always have done all over the world! I ask why subject any young girl to this ancient curse? But, sadly and unfortunately, it has become a standard in our society to force and coerce a young child under a veil. It really is inhumane and socially unacceptable. It is said that girls choose the veil willingly. How do we expect a girl child resist veil? Can anyone really expect a loyal and loving child stand up and rally against the strong will of her parents and thus be able to escape from being confined inside veil?
This stirs something: it appeals to a naive empiricism of playing freely. Is this why so many liberal arts academics hate it? It leads to the sciences and experimentalism, not book-learning.
Up to the age of 16th, most children merely reflect the religious views of their parents. Most children do not have sufficient education and knowledge at early ages to make an informed belief choice.
I thought that my earlier post today was note-taking rubbish, but I may have said something.
Their parents should be restricted from imposing religious attire on them. For children veil is not a matter of choice. If they are veiled, it is their parent’s decision, not theirs. Banning veil for children is similar to banning child labour, and protecting children from abuse and providing them with access to education. What seems often to be overlooked in discussion about the French ban is that dressing children in religious attire imposes a belief system upon them, and is therefore a form of indoctrination. Do we support the rights of parents and schools to indoctrinate children or do we uphold the rights of children to be free from indoctrination?
If I understand this, then by granting ‘equal rights’ to Islam as a whole, we’re granting rights to men and not women. We’ve had several brave intellectual revolutions in the last few centuries. Let’s stand up for women. Those who don’t like it, can go home to Saudi Arabia. May the friends of George Bush protect them. For they are mighty. And they also exist. Which is useful. More so than non-existence, anyway.
Well, before anyone writes in, let’s think about this. Here’s Osama, a simple goat-herder, who’s 6’6 and needs a dialysis machine. Who is mightier, all-seeing Allah (who left multiple interpretations of His divine word) or the US Air Force? I have to hurry you.
These 510 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:42pm GMT Permanent link.
Tuesday, 8 March 2005
Referrers »
Remember folks, googling is an art.
Why would anyone search for:
who has kimberley quinn slept with? (something everyone wants to know)
are commoners good in the government or bad
in which month dose remembrance sunday fall?
national be nasty day (I can’t find a link here from the results)
what positive effects does soccer have on you
d’ye ken john paul (a suberb and topical Mondegreen)
All from here. Well, it passes the time.
These 87 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:03pm GMT Permanent link.
Now This Will Really Upset The Right »
Hands up everyone who thinks ‘Million Dollar Baby’ shouldn’t have won any Oscars because women shouldn’t box? Keep your hands up if you think scientists are a bunch of confused lemmings who believe in global warming because their colleagues do, and they don’t read Tech Central Station and Melanie Phillips.
Prepare to be appalled.
Arm wrestling robots beaten by a teenaged girl. Girls fighting robots? Is there no end to this moral turpitude? It wasn’t like this during the Inquisition.
These 80 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:23pm GMT Permanent link.
Third Stone From Rosetta »
Pictures of Earth from the Rosetta probe. Even in black-and-white, it’s a beautiful planet.
These 14 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:05pm GMT Permanent link.
Two Years Ahead Of The Guardian »
Sometimes I think newspaper journalists will print any old crap. This Guardian story really was published today Tuesday March 8, 2005 and somehow I got the same thing from Slashdot 729 days ago (that’s two days short of two years: 2004 was a leap year) on 10/3/2003. I don’t normally give any credence to the death of the mainstream media, but I’ve been known to be wrong.
These 67 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:33pm GMT Permanent link.
Well Done To Tim And Tim »
Mark Holland discovers that Tim Worstall’s fuckwit Googlebomb made the Telegraph. But he misses another Tim’s success:
The most interesting British political blog I read at the moment is www.backingblair.co.uk. It lists constituencies that are Labour-held but vulnerable, names the Tory candidates and urges readers to vote for them.
So far, so upcheering, eh? But backingblair is not a conservative blog. Or even a Right-wing blog. It’s an anti-Blair blog, and was set up “to register a highly visible and damaging protest vote against Tony Blair, his style of government, his Right-wing leanings, and his lies about the ‘war’ on terror and Iraq”.
The Number 10 geeks hate this blog, and no wonder: it’s a lot sparkier than their official stuff. But it leaves questing, small-c conservative voters like me in a pickle. Nobody knows what’s Left or Right any more in Britain. Only in America.
I’ve been trying this for a while, Googlebombers: Tony Blair.
These 27 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:59pm GMT Permanent link.
Wednesday, 9 March 2005
The Expense Of Spirit In A Waste Of Shame »
I like the cut of Ophelia Benson’s jib: she’s very good here:
Where to begin. How about with that ridiculous misleading essentially meaningless phrase ‘an organisation that represents the views of women’? The views of women. Does it mean all women, or some women? Notice that you can’t tell. It could mean three women, for all we know.
and here
“Suicide bombers also die in the name of a better life for others”. That’s what I wanted to say more about. No they don’t. Not all of them. Some may, but certainly not all. Some die in the name of, or for the sake of trying to attain, a much much worse life for others.
As we all should know, All generalisations are wrong.
The ‘organisations that represent the views of — ‘ idea is interesting. It recently occurred to me that when people say that the BBC (for example) considers the views of Muslims but not Christians when Stephen Green goes on the attack, what they miss is that there are well-known people who ‘represent the views of Christians’ — like the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Tony Blair, even, who have a lot more credibility than a jumped-up lay preacher with a following of dozens.
Anyway, Karl in the comments to the second post, brings up:
About ten years ago I actually heard some New Age hippie dipshit musicians in San Francisco pining for the raw passion and vitality of the Balkans. “Sure, there’s horror going on there, but my God these people feel so much! Imagine what it must be like to have such commitment in your life!”
By coincidence, the Shakespeare Sonnet-A-Day (scroll to bottom of page) for today was CXXIX.
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Who needs the Balkans, eh? There’s quite enough excitement in your local — if you know where to look. And get your leg over.
These 154 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:00pm GMT Permanent link.
They Don't Get It, Do They? »
Martin McGuinness has refused to condemn the IRA’s offer to shoot killers. Perhaps what the McCartney family and the rest of the world want is justice. Gerry Adams was especially weaselly when he spoke about the IRA’s internal investigation. As this has been in camera how is anyone supposed to know that the expelled members are the guilty ones (and not just the annoying ones) — or as IRA membership is secret, that they ever were members?
[McGuinness] added: “I totally and absolutely disagree with any punishment shootings whatsoever.
“But I think we shouldn’t lose sight of the other messages that are clearly in this because I think it dispels absolutely any notion whatsoever that the IRA would cover up for or protect the perpetrators of the murder of Robert McCartney.”
No it doesn’t. Without a trial, all the punishment shootings would show is that the IRA are trigger-happy thugs. And we knew that already.
Meanwhile, kudos to Bush. Maybe he really is against terrorism.
These 111 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:34pm GMT Permanent link.
Hey Everybody, Link To This »
A beautiful rant by Eugene Volokh. Found through Ogged.
These 9 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:04pm GMT Permanent link.
Thursday, 10 March 2005
Some Thoughts On The Law »
Apologies: this will be a confused post, with more weight on note-taking than argument. Let’s start with Winston Churchill (whom I admire):
Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
The quotation is fairly well known but I copied and pasted from here. I think that’s right. There is much to criticize about the country as it is now; it’s not always apparent what one’s cross on polling day actually supports, or what practical effect it has. (I think lack of clarity is ultimately a good thing — I’m continually surprised by the profundity of Robert Graves’ In Broken Images.) I support First Past The Post (FPTP) after years of doubting it: I prefer the clear responsibility of an MP toward his constituency. A dishonest MP can lose his seat on the whim of his electorate; not his party’s string-pullers. (Readers may find this appeal to clarity confusing. I flirted with Aristotlean physics for a while. Assume there is a ‘upward attractive force’ as Aristotle did: a helium balloon when loosed will fly upward — but you can’t say where. But drop a stone (as Aristotle, Galileo, Newton and others agree) with falls ‘down’ from a high point (say the top of a tower) and you know where it will fall. Roughly, this is my present political metaphor: you know what’s below, but you don’t know where rising would take you.)
Ah, where was I? (I’m a little drunk, and when I post drunk, people link to my wittering. Really, I’m far smarter sober.) When I was young, and I have to add, foolish, I considered the law an oppressive force, and judges to be confused out-of-touch old farts. Now I’ve discovered fellow bloggers, and judges are far more attractive.
Eric asks:
On a wider note, how many good ideas are being stymied because of concerns about the law? Is the law becoming an obstruction?
(He’s talking about Trevor Phillips’s idea of racial segregation in schools which, far from being a ‘good idea’ is particularly stupid, IMO.) “Is the law becoming an obstruction?” I hope it always has been an obstruction. I wrote something similar earlier, but Edward_ is splendid on why The IRA Doesn’t Get It. Trials, Courts, Evidence, Proof. Good things. The say-so of Gerry Adams, not good. The say-so of Policeman’s Helmet wearing lardy-boy Charles Clarke, ditto.
I don’t mean to beat up on Eric, who I’m sure is a splendid person (he links to me), but he proposed an amendment to Pastor Neimoller. (He is right about the various distortions according to political bias.)
First we went for the National Socialists,
So they couldn’t come and get the rest of us
Here in the UK, we had a movement similar to the National Socialists: Oswald Moseley’s Blackshirts. Moseley had been a Labour MP. I’m clearer as to who Pastor Neimoller meant by ‘they’ than whom Eric means by ‘we’ — but no one came for the Blackshirts.
The leader of the British Union of Fascists, Sir Oswald Moseley had planned to invade the East End with his blackshirts to intimidate the Jews. Moseley was stopped at Royal Mint Street by the police and the Battle of Cable Street actually took place between the anti-fascist demonstrators (mainly Jewish) and the police.
Jewish East End Celebration Society. I’ve never understood why fighting the police — who stopped the fascists — was considered such a monument to Jewish politics. As James Hamilton noted recently, Tim Worstall is spot on here:
I realise this is a bit of a stretch but I do think that PG Wodehouse was influential in making sure that Mosely never really got anywhere with his Blackshirts. The invention of (Roderick Spode was it? who also ran a lingerie firm?) the satire of the movement, the BlackShorts, simply provided his vast readership with a mental image, one that every time there was another march, another mass rally, there was a huge giggle. No political movement can surmount such laughter.
A bit too British and unsexy, perhaps? No doors kicked in by dawn’s early light, no vicarious thrill of the punishment beating asserting the beef of Old England. Some police got in the fascists’ way (and then they all fought for their country in WWII) and some joker who lived in France!
Still, there’s enough literature on Fascism stalking up on complacent democracies (Philip Roth, Harlan Ellison). Can we be sure that James T Kirk will travel back in time to let peacenik Joan Collins fall under a car? Captain, I’m frightened.
One day soon, man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom, energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in… some sort of spaceship. And the men that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future. And those are the days worth living for…
Day-um, I knew I was living in the wrong time-line. (It’s not as if Ellison thought the space race might have something to do with the Cold War, and perhaps the idea of hope and a common future for the Vietnamese seemed laughable. Nothing like that at all. This was in the classy days of Hollywood. Johnny Carson was alive, and there were no liberals, no sir! I’ve read Ellison’s collected TV reviews and I can say that the man who wrote those vitriolic attacks on California’s then Governor, Ronald Wilson Reagan, and President Richard Nixon, and VP Spiro Agnew considered AmeriKKKa inconceivable.)
“To many people in Great Britain, the outstanding feature of the record since 1934 is the series of trials of highly-placed Soviet citizens for high treason. That so many men in high official positions, mostly active participants in the revolution of 1917 and some of them companions of Lenin, should have committed such crimes has seemed to Western observers almost incredible. That in the course of the customary private investigations prior to the judicial trials the defendants should one and all have made full and detailed confessions unreservedly repeated in open court of the guilt not only of themselves but also of their fellow criminals seemed to raise the tragic story to the fantastic madness of a nightmare; it seemed that the confessions must have been forced on the prisoners by torture or the threat of torture.
“A distinguished Irishman hints that what needs explanation is the British procedure in criminal prosecutions, which differs so remarkably from that of all the other nations of Europe. In his view, the conduct of the prisoners in these Russian trials is in full accord with the Russian character. In England, our friend remarks, a prisoner indicted for treason is practically forced to go through a legal routine of defence. He pleads not guilty; his counsel assumes for him an attitude of injured innocence, demanding legitimate proof of every statement and setting up a hypothesis as to what actually happened which is consistent with the prisoner’s innocence. The judge compliments the councsel on the brilliant ability with which he has conducted his case. He points out to the jury that the hypothesis is manifestly fictitious and the prisoner obviously guilty. The jury finds the necessary verdict. The judge then, congratulating the prisoner on having been so ably defended and fairly tried, sentences him to death and commends him to the mercy of his God.
“May not this procedure, which seems so natural and inevitable to us, very intelligibly strike a Russian as a farce tolerated because our rules of evidence and forms of trial have never been systematically revised on rational lines? […"]
I’ve quoted the Webbs on the Show Trials before, and I’m sure I’ll do so again. No one’s coming for anyone without evidence and the protection of the law while I’m around.
These 708 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:38am GMT Permanent link.
Tony Blair »
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.
Tony Blair. Matthew Turner has doubts, but they’re based on Roy Greenslade in the Guardian. I knew I posted on Roy Greenslade. Richard Littlejohn has many faults — being an arselicking crawler is not among them. (I found the relevant post — ah — reading my own stuff.) Robert Maxwell was a cunt. Death to all who worked for him and had a choice not to.
These 66 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:39am GMT Permanent link.
More On Law »
I could be getting boring here, but I’ve just discovered some more links I saved for the post before the last one.
I think there is much good in the law — with the exception that it’s apparently assumed that school heads act with the EU Constitution in mind. When was the last time you were really cross with someone? I mean really really cross. Did you not kill him/her because some law says not to, or because one doesn’t act that way? One law that says not to is the Sixth Commandment. (Yes, either Moses scrambled the Decalogue, or God didn’t consider murder all that important.)
Here’s a good old joke dressed up as a discussion on morality.
President Josiah Bartlet: Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.
Dr. Jenna Jacobs: I don’t say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does.
President Josiah Bartlet: Yes it does. Leviticus.
Dr. Jenna Jacobs: 18:22.
President Josiah Bartlet: Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? Here’s one that’s really important because we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing: while you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.
I was looking up West Wing quotes for the moment when Will Bailey told Speaker Walken that he had to resign as speaker, and Walken agreed, saying, “Yes, I do. It’s illegal to hold offices in two branches of government at once.” I could almost hear the collective hiss from bloggers over here: “You used to be Roseanne’s husband, you fuck, what do you know? The President’s daughter is being held by terrorists, and you’re concerned with the niceties of law? Let’s just torture some Nigras. Only a librul could sigh such a trite-rous thing.”
In the Houses built on slime and spin, they cry in their parliament, Don’t panic, don’t panic! We’re doomed! …
We might have to depend on the colonials after all.
These 244 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:36am GMT Permanent link.
David Blunkett »
As Guido says, re Honesty? Its Worth a Try…, David Blunkett has an interesting relationship with truth. Maybe it’s po-mo, maybe it was the 60s, but the poor little innocent straight-arrow got all cowwupted.
He didn’t lie now, lying is for those outside the Party.
These 45 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:00am GMT Permanent link.
Friday, 11 March 2005
Bullshit Bingo »
Hogwash. Eyewash. Whitewash. Sometimes the critical thinking level of the Guardian is so low, its only value is unintentional comedy. Is Richard Norton-Taylor stupid on purpose?
It seems clear Sandhurst will be asked to teach officers more about the need to communicate better with non-commissioned officers, who are often older and less experienced — an age difference which is part of the problem.
My emphasis. Most non-commissioned soldiers start straight after school — in fact very few people join the forces at 30, having done something else. If the NCOs are older; they’re also more experienced.
[A senior British army source’s] message was that young officers should adopt a more proactive approach towards their soldiers, based on more sophisticated training rather than knowledge of battlefield tactics.
If these really were the words of the unnamed spokesperson, Mr Norton-Taylor could have put them in quotation marks; if they’re a paraphrase, surely he can do better than bullshit bingo phrases like “a more proactive approach” and “based on more sophisticated training"? (I can’t tell who the training is for: are the officers supposed to train their men, or be trained themselves? Both? Neither?)
The abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers is the result of inadequate training of young officers, a senior British army source said yesterday.
…
The cases are worrying army commanders. Some of them relate to non-commissioned officers, such as corporals, who in recent years have enjoyed a lot of freedom, with young officers delegating authority to them.
So the corporals lack training therefore they’re responsible. The officers also lack training, therefore they’re not. I see. Delegating authority inappropriately ought to be a disciplinary offence. But officers are being allowed to get off with “I didn’t know nothing,” and “Are we supposed to talk to the oiks?”
I’ve misjudged the jingoes. I thought all the fat bastards would support the war while they knew they were safely miles away. Now I see that they’re perfect officer material. “Carry on men. I’ll be in the mess having a nice cup of tea, and surfing the net for porn. If there’s any shooting, I expect you all to die bravely.”
Our troops deserve better.
Page 2 of the Telegraph has a picture captioned “A British soldier guarsd an Iraqi prisoner. The practice of hooding prisoners for interrogation has been forbidden since 1972.” The prisoner is hooded. It’s moot whether he should even be photographed:
Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.
Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity. Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.
The part about protection from public curiosity was cited when the Iraqi army put US prisoners on display (which was clearly a war crime — if less egregious than most), and I fail to see how Coalition troops could have remained ignorant of the standards we held our enemy to, even if their training was inadequate.
MI6 officers broke law by interrogating hooded Iraqis.
An inquiry conducted by Parliament’s intelligence and security committee found that the officers involved were not aware of any rules against the hooding of suspects even though the technique was specifically forbidden as long ago as 1972.
Why is ignorance by officers in ‘intelligence’ deemed an excuse? Squaddies are held responsible, but management have to have everything spelled out for them or they’re not culpable.
Nice to know Labour is reinforcing class divisions.
The committee said the circumstances under which the intelligence officers were working were almost unprecedented since they were interviewing detainees held by another country as the result of an armed conflict.
Didn’t we interrogate Nazi officers who’d been captured by the French Resistance? And after Italy fell to the Allies? Armed conflict? Check. Held by another country? Check. Of course, the Second World War was something Britain had only a peripheral interest in, and it’s been poorly documented. Ignorance by the British Army is only to be expected.
These 435 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:45am GMT Permanent link.
Phone Taps »
Isn’t the whole “we haven’t got ‘evidence’ against any alleged terrorists” all about phone taps? It’s good to know who the spooks are tapping:
A tense day for Labour whips in the Lords yesterday, and perhaps for no one more among their number than former party general secretary David Triesman. According to some, there is a vague irony in his having come round to the idea of draconian anti-terror powers when he himself was on the sharp end of the same in the few weeks following 9/11. Then, we learn, David mentioned in a phone conversation with an old friend that he was in favour of the proposed Afghan bombing, prompting his anti chum to say that though neither of them had children, Tony Blair did, and it would be them who had to live with the consequences of it all. That, you might think, would be that … except that some time later, David was summoned to a meeting with some spooks. Not only did the general secretary discover that his calls were being monitored, but it was his friend’s understanding that the comment about the Blair progeny had been ludicrously misinterpreted as a coded threat. Hard to know what David found most unsettling about the encounter, but we imagine the moment he was shown surveillance photographs of his father’s funeral and asked about various Communist party attendees was something of a standout. David’s Downing Street pass was subsequently revoked for around six months, he later told friends, forcing him to endure the same security checks as hoi polloi each time he visited. The whole business is said to have upset him considerably, but hey — it’s good to see him back on the horse.
Remember — there are those who want to take your freedom. They’re members of the Communist party and they meet at funerals. Be on your guard. I wonder if Mr Triesman’s friend’s comment was one of the things that made Sir John Stevens’ hair stand on end. (A frightening thought.) The whole thing is splendid today, especially the last story about the “Ladybird Guide To Iran.”
These 90 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:11pm GMT Permanent link.
The Penalty For Inciting Religious Hatred Is Death »
Thou shalt not take the name of LORD thy GOD in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Exodus 20:7
RIP Dave Allen: a good man lucky enough to miss the coming bad times.
These 14 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:24pm GMT Permanent link.
Too Right »
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty not safety.
Benjamin Franklin
Hear hear! I agree with Eric: this is a “day for remembering civil liberties and those who would take them from us.”
The pigman and the liar are still promising no concessions.
Balders says it all about the anti-terrorism bill.
These 42 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:34pm GMT Permanent link.
Little Liar »
Splendid Garland cartoon today. (NB if you read this tomorrow I think the last number should be ‘2’ and so forth; but I’m not certain).
Well the fat bastard won. He may live to regret this. He little knows what he does, as the Torygraph’s Andrew Gimson explained yesterday:
But some of us persist in believing that Mr Clarke was born for better things. It was evident yesterday afternoon that he did not really understand the legislation he was pushing through. He hated taking detailed interventions from those who did, including Douglas Hogg (C, Sleaford and North Hykeham), Bob Marshall-Andrews (Lab, Medway) and the Official Unionist leader, David Trimble, and was able to reply only in the most general terms.
Mr Clarke was out of his depth, but so was the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which is yet again being forced by the high-minded Mr Blair to do something which it believes in its heart to be wrong.
My emphasis. It’s a splendid piece. Mr Clarke will live to regret this. The horrible thing will be sharing a cell with the pseudo-left/liberals.
“Are you guilty” said Winston.
“Of course I’m guilty!” Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. “You don’t think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you” His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. “Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,” said sententiously. “It’s insidious. It can get hold of you without your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep! Yes, that’s a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit — never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?”
He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to utter an obscenity.
“‘Down with Big Brother!’ Yes, I said that! Said it over and over again, it seems. Between you and me, old man, I’m glad they got me before it went any further. Do you know what I’m going to say to them when I go up before the tribunal? ‘Thank you,’ I’m going to say, ‘thank you for saving me before it was too late.’”
These 74 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:22pm GMT Permanent link.
Fifteen Days To Go »
Harry Brighouse posted on the second/third coming of Doctor Who. Yes I’m excited. Which is odd, as I never watched it after Tom Baker left, and not much before. I’m sentimental about Patrick Troughton (though I now think some of the stories were scientifically illiterate) and Jon Pertwee (though being stuck in the same place so long waiting for attacks by various aliens grew dull). Schopenhauer said somewhere that if two acquaintances met each other after several years, fear of death would make them act like close friends. I don’t know if his reasoning was right, but look at Friends Reunited.
When I last saw Christopher Eccleston, he looked like he needed a second heart more than he loved life.
On Week 1 of shooting there’s a photo captioned “English police cars and Welsh telephone boxes used on location. No Police Telephone Boxes, however.” Ah yes. The filth round here drive vehicles marked “Heddlu.” If you say Heth - li, people might get you. Only the chavs round here will understand Head-Loo. But why does the Doctor have to be in London? The good news is that more episodes seem to be in the past — if always the English-speaking past.
These 201 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:07pm GMT Permanent link.
Bugger Bloggers »
One way for journalists to attract hits to their online pieces is to write about bloggers. Who naturally flock like bees to honey, moths to flames, and all that. So I’ll link to the commentary: Mike Power; Norm Geras; Harry; and Scott Burgess among others, no doubt.
Yet the ground did shake under me. Earlier threats to the press came from new conduits of news and information. Today’s goes to the heart of my trade. It peddles opinion. I can pretend to occupy a higher plane. I can try pleading factual accuracy, consistency, uncorruptibility and a quote or two from Shakespeare. But in truth I too am a blogger, snatching at some item of passing news to argue a case and persuade. And I charge for it. The blogger does it for nothing. I am on my mettle as never before.
So move over, Caxton, the mystery is no more. The whistle-blowers, e-babies, inside-outers, wonkettes, quacks and cranks have globalised Speakers’ Corner. They have rebuilt the Tower of Babel and put microphones on top of it. Amid the noise, a still small voice of reason will still be heard. But it may require the help of Microsoft, not dead trees.
Where to start? “The mystery is no more” eh? I give you Unweaving the Rainbow. Rationality in the 21st century or Mystery Busters and The Enemies of Obscurantism. I said somewhere on his blog that I disagree with just about everything Scott Burgess believes but he was right about Mr Jenkins’s claim about bloggers seeming to be “semantically meaningless.” I understand that Mr Burgess is on the ‘right’ and I am on the ‘left’ — I ought to approve of the 17th Century Puritans image; the Quakers, the Ranters, these were the ‘good guys’ in The World Turned Upside Down. Yet I know I’m being insulted, and, worse, patronised: these were the uneducated of the time (the ‘mute inglorious Milton …’ etc) which a good Tory like Mr Jenkins wishes to keep down. I can think of several bloggers (so many in fact that naming a reasonable number insults the many whom I’d forget or leave out) who are more qualified that journalists in their fields.
This reminds me of a rant I meant to write. Chris Dillow mentioned near-total statistical illiteracy of the media. A couple of weeks ago I met a very pretty Norwegian girl (that detail was for John Band, though I can’t find his Norwegian post at present) at a circuits class who’d studied journalism at Cardiff. I hadn’t known that Cardiff had an undergraduate journalism course. I shared a house with some Journo post grads in my final year, and the post grad course seemed fine. Two things. Statistical literacy comes from doing statistics, not being taught them. I only got stats in my final year when I had to work out ways to analyse my own data. When it mattered, it made sense. Until then, it was “yada yada yada.” You can’t teach journo undergrads stats; if they do it, they’ll get it.
And the other thing. I was a Psychology undergrad. I wrote for the student paper. Because I’m like that. I can’t escape thinking that journalists write because they have to, but study other things. If journalists are statistically illiterate, papers aren’t recruiting enough from the sciences. If someone objects that scientists are dull, they should try reading the navel-gazing humanities girls on the Indy or the Graun.
Blogs are written by people who have to write; journalism is written by drudges.
I know that Cardiff has the undergraduate journalism course because there’s a demand (because I know DL) — IMO the demand is wrong. Editors should look elsewhere. They should publish less pure opinion; back up what opinion they do with references on their websites for those of us who want to check sources; and argue with, rather than insult, critics.
These 499 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:36pm GMT Permanent link.
Saturday, 12 March 2005
Feeling Inarticulate »
John Band is a star.
I despise almost everything about the Conservative party’s policies, leadership and supporters. However, they are actually a political party, rather than a concerted campaign to destroy the British political system and replace it with something weird and Imperial. I’ve seriously almost reached the stage where I’d prefer a Tory victory to a Labour victory, and that’s something I never thought I’d say.
Me too. I want Labour back. There may be a period where the party has to recuperate from the removal of the cancer. We’ve been in the wilderness before. We’ve come back.
Update: edited.
These 178 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:56am GMT Permanent link.
They Are. Are You? »
Since Matt raised the issue of an independent candidate standing against Tony Blair in Sedgefield, I’ve discovered other prospective independents.
Last year, Political Betting asked Could Martin Bell do a Tatton in Sedgefield? It would be fun if he were: when I went to a lecture by him, I said that he “clearly wants to get back into parliament” and “[l]ike everyone else, he has fallen out of love with New Labour, but from the position of being able to watch it closer than most.” If he were to challenge Tony Blair, would he be independent or not independent?
Craig Murray is an independent, and he’s standing against Jack Straw.
Blackburn Deserves A Backbone
Why Vote For Craig?
- Blackburn deserves an MP who tells it how it is. Who better to replace Jack Straw than the man whose uncomfortable truths he tried to silence?
- Blackburn deserves an MP who stands up for what’s right, not what’s politically convenient. As an independent MP, Craig Murray will put Blackburn first every time.
- Blackburn deserves an MP who can do the job well. With 20 years senior diplomatic experience, Craig Murray’s record is unparalleled.
Reject the Man of Straw
Why Vote Against Jack?
- A vote for Jack Straw is a vote for a dossier of lies. Jack Straw was in charge when MI6 when produced its “dodgy dossier” on Iraq. Then he led us into an illegal war, based on lies, against the wishes of the UN security
council.- A vote for Jack Straw is a vote for torture. Jack Straw expressly agreed that MI6 should use intelligence material obtained under torture, in tyrannical regimes like Uzbekistan.
- A vote for Jack Straw is a vote for George Bush. Under Jack Straw, our Foreign Office has slavishly sold out Britain’s principles for blind support of the USA.
The Sunday Herald reports Ex-ambassador slams Straw over torture.
“The UN has said torture is widespread and systematic in Uzbekistan. But the Uzbeks know fine that their security services are passing on to the CIA and MI6 the results of the torture, and they’re lapping them up,” Murray said.
“So even though the Foreign Office will tell you, ‘Oh, we have condemned torture in Uzbekistan’, it doesn’t mean anything, because by accepting the intelligence you are tipping them the wink to carry on.”
He added: “I think Jack Straw has chucked any notion of an ethical foreign policy completely out of the window.”
Murray, 46, a Scot and graduate of Dundee University, also criticised the Home Office decision to place suspects under house arrest without trial on the basis of intelligence reports, saying that the reliability of evidence obtained under torture was “questionable”.
Demitrious Panton is is going up against Margaret Hodge.
Demitrious Panton is standing against the MP because she had “the sheer arrogance to take the job of minister for children” after leading Islington council for 10 years while paedophiles abused children — including himself — in its care homes.
The Guardian covered the story well: Margaret Hodge’s horrific smear on Demetrious Panton; the Timeline: Margaret Hodge row. When Hodge defend[ed her] child minister role, she said:
“I never ignored one single allegation of abuse against a child.”
The Guardian
The London Evening Standard claimed that she ignored warnings about paedophiles operating in Islington, including within the council’s own children’s homes.”
Results for Evening Standard are lot lower down on Google than the Guardian, but New social worker condemns Hodge could be the story.
And in a sensational new hammer blow to the beleaguered minister, another former Islington senior social worker has said that he attended a meeting - called by Hodge when she was council leader — in which she flatly told all senior social workers: “Sexual abuse does not exist in Islington.”
Well, someone has to be lying.
Good luck to both candidates.
These 191 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:24pm GMT Permanent link.
Sunday, 13 March 2005
Semi-Housetrained Polecats And Other Animals »
Good editorial in the Sunday Telegraph today: The dogs are out (reproduced here because of the Telegraph’s subscription demands, and because it’s short, and not worth extracting):
After John Reid’s outburst on Newsnight, in which he accused Jeremy Paxman of mocking his working class Glaswegian origins by referring to him as an “attack dog”, one might have thought ministers would have avoided using canine imagery to describe their oponents. Yet, not to be outdone by Mr Paxman, the Leader of the Commons, Peter Hain, yesterday described the Conservative leader as an “attack mongrel”.
Given Michael Howard’s Jewish origins, Mr Hain was clearly sailing into dangerous waters: John Townend, the former Conservative MP for Yorkshire East, was condemned when he accused Tony Blair of turning the British into a “mongrel race” before the 2001 general election. Yet Mr Hain would be scandalised to be accused of racism. The point is that Labour politicians see no reason to impose upon themselves the strictures against offensive language they demand be observed by others. We can say what we like, they assert, because you know we mean well; the Conservatives insult people because they are plain nasty.
If Labour is going to build its election campaign around spurious claims to the moral high ground, it isn’t going to do much for political debate.
(My emphasis.) I think that’s right. “We can say what we like, they assert, because you know we mean well,” could have been written for Ken Livingstone. Double-entendres which Millbank could spot in a Tory speech from 100 light-years (such as “mongrel” or “pigs") pass into otherwise bland-of-detail Labour publicity.
Insults often have this double-edged nature. Michael Foot’s two most famous were “like being savaged by a dead sheep” (of Geoffrey Howe; it may have been a reference to a ‘Goodies’ episode) and calling Norman Tebbit “a semi house-trained polecat.” The first is witty and insulting; the second has a subtext of compliment to me: beneath Foot’s expensive education, didn’t he see himself as passionate, feral, romantic? He knew the right words, but, by God, his heart was untamed. The put down is in the noun. Foot saw himself as something more majestic — like a lion or a tiger.
But I could be projecting. I admit, I admire Norman Tebbit. I dislike him intensely; but for a working-class lad to climb the often snobbish Tory ranks takes some doing.
These 207 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:12pm GMT Permanent link.
Monday, 14 March 2005
Does He Take More Sugar? »
I don’t know if I can should admit this, but in the midweek ratings battle, I’ve been flipping between Jamie Oliver (the default choice) and Alan Sugar (in the ad breaks). Perhaps I agree too readily with the premise of Jamie’s programme — food is, uh, vital, and we’re feeding kids crap. In the first or second episode Jamie put it well — additives are linked to hyperactivity which disrupts learning for everyone. What some kids eat can upset yours. We should care about basic health and education for everyone — the mute, inglorious Miltons, the Cromwells innocent of their country’s blood, and all of that. I was in Asda today and I paid almost as much as the 37p Wandsworth allocates to each school meal for a tomato! (Well a pack of four came to over £1:20.)
Whatever. When I’ve flipped, I’ve stayed flipped. I was intrigued by Adele who had a sort of Debby Harry-ish appeal, but week after week she’s been an unsympathetic cow.
But nothing prepared me for the admiration I’ve built for Alan Sugar. This week, he lectured the budding entrepreneurs on giving “respect” to the Harrods staff. Translation: don’t throw your weight around. Sir Alan throws his weight around, but he’s earned it.
When the apprentices were in Harrods, one team made the mistake of placing items priced at (I think) £20 on a shelf marked (I think) £7:99. Whatever it was, Trading Standards would have seen the person responsible fired. Ignorance of the law is not considered an excuse when being misleading.
The intelligence services in Abu Ghraib need someone like Sir Alan. They claim that they didn’t know the Geneva convention, or that the use of hoods has been prohibited for more than 30 years. I can hear Sir Alan barking out, “Why didn’t you know?” and “You let the side down. Give me reasons, not excuses.”
Jamie is doing something for the country which the Labour government should have done seven years ago. Sir Alan should be leading it.
I don’t know what Geoff Hoon does for Tony Blair, but I can’t see the spineless twit lasting under someone with, ah, working-class — read straight —, principles.
These 366 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:02am GMT Permanent link.
It Never Rains »
You may not find this funny … Pakistan is gripped by an unprecedented heroin and opium crisis — a product of the poppy boom in Afghanistan.
Why is there a poppy boom in Afghanistan? (Warning: lazy Google search ahead!) Taliban still have Reagan’s Stingers:
ONE of the most dangerous weapons Western pilots could face in Afghanistan is an anti-aircraft missile provided by the United States during the Reagan presidency.
However could that have happened? Terrorism is black and white! (Note to Republican readers: that statement may be read as ‘black and black’ or ‘white and white’ or ‘white and black’. You will not remember reading this disclaimer.) The Taliban was bad! Therefore we never helped them! Nothing they did was good! We were at war with the Taliban! We have always been at war with the Taliban! What is this moral relativism you speak of?
Moral: Reagan, for all his faults, was only an addled senile fool. He didn’t wipe his brain with coke. (What’s that? Turf wars in Latin America? But I don’t speak Latin!)
These 151 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:45am GMT Permanent link.
All To Play For »
As Eric says “Dave [that’s me] and John [Band] want the Tories back in power, so they can get the old Labour party back. Bless em.”
W-e-e-ll.
This story may be in the Torygraph, but it sounds right. Blair allies: this is Brown’s last Budget.
According to well-placed Downing Street insiders, however, Mr Blair has yet to make up his mind whether to offer Mr Brown the “consolation prize” of the post of Foreign Secretary.
The Prime Minister is said not to want Mr Brown to become a powerful globe-trotter who would take control of foreign affairs, which until now Mr Blair has jealously kept for himself.
Where do ex-Chancellors go if not up? Any job other than Foreign Secretary or PM would be a insult, and Brown could probably make more money staying at home and playing with his investments. Now if Labour lost, Brown’s still the most likely successor to Blair. If they win, he’s in the wilderness.
The Telegraph has learnt that the Chancellor will reject calls for a tax-cutting, giveaway Budget to reignite Labour’s faltering campaign in favour of a “steady as she goes” approach.
We have allies in the strangest places.
These 105 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:18pm GMT Permanent link.
Tuesday, 15 March 2005
Hooray!!! »
Government to sacrifice ID card bill. Poor widdle David Blunkett’s pet bill. As Mark says, “Aw” (and read the comments; Squander Two is bang on). Blunkett’s lack of judgement continues: Guido reads something into a Jim Naughtie interview (as does the Evening Standard — which defines “withering attack” somewhat differently from the present writer).
The Graun thinks that the casino bill will survive, but I don’t. It looks to me like a bribe of some kind to overseas billionaires to come here and make some cash (and then pay their taxes to GWB, and toss some small change in the Labour party coffers) Jowell plans for regional casinos foolhardy and irresponsible.
Far from being cautious, the culture secretary’s proposals for regional casinos are foolhardy and irresponsible. They will very greatly increase the level of gambling in the population. They have to, for the economic model for a regional casino is based on achieving, through advertising and promotion, a throughput of at least 5,000 gamblers every day of the year. As the level of gambling increases, so does problem gambling that cannot possibly be avoided or dealt with by the pusillanimous measures in the bill.
Whatever Ms Jowell says, this bill has to increase gambling, and has to convert more people to gambling. But demand is stable. Anyone who wants to bet in this country can. Honest British bookies do all right.
As the Graun says, Labour ministers don’t have many negotiations skills.
Though ministers seem resigned to losing former home secretary David Blunkett’s pet project — a British ID card to counter fraud and terrorism — they will fight to save Tessa Jowell’s gambling bill, if necessary by warning Liberal Democrats it is “all or nothing”.
The opposition should go for nothing. There’ll be time for legislation after the election.
These 173 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:30am GMT Permanent link.
What Are We Going To Do Tonight ... ? »
It’s all very well for Scott Burgess to sneer at eco-Luddites. Me, I’m scared.
These 15 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:19pm GMT Permanent link.
An Enemy Of The People »
Jamie a couple of hours ago:
Perhaps it reminds you that Old Labour used to be hostile to poverty while New Labour seems to be hostile to the poor: ASBOs and abortions — two means of keeping the rabble in line.
Hmm. I’ve got something to say about abortions, but I’m not sure what it is — I haven’t written it yet. But as Jamie and I are both reading Guido — Guido has been reading the Times on Asbos.
Caroline Shepherd, 27, from East Kilbride, was served with an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) after her neighbours claimed she was deliberately goading them by dressing provocatively.
Under the interim order, Shepherd could be jailed for six months if she is seen in her garden, at her window or at her front door “wearing only her undergarments”.
WTF? I say again WTF??
Her neighbours complained to South Lanarkshire council, which advised them to record Shepherd’s activities in “anti-social behaviour diaries” that it provided.
The dossier they compiled included sightings of the mother of two scantily clad at her window, her front door and in her garden.
The council is giving out “diaries” and encouraging neighbours to snoop on a young mother and try to catch her in her underwear?
Once again, WTF?
These 76 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:18pm GMT Permanent link.
Thursday, 17 March 2005
A Clarification »
[O]ne must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing…
Oscar Wilde [attrib]
Eric takes me a little too seriously. (I was attempting to channel the good Doctor of Journalism, rather than make a serious point.) I didn’t say (in so many words) that Reagan supported the Taliban — only that the Taliban inherited the weapons his administration sold to the Mujaheddin. And whom Ronald Reagan unquestionably supported:
“The Afghan Mujaheddin are the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers of America.”
True, the Founding Fathers didn’t give to vote to women, and kept slaves, so he may have been on to something. The admiration went both ways, consider Saudi radical, Osama bin Laden
“I like Reagan. He believes in God. He’s helping us. He’s better than the others.”
And then, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia sounds like a book I ought to read.
One striking observation that he makes about the difference between the Mujaheddin and the Taliban fighters early on was the cultural ignorance of the Taliban. When Rashid met and talked with Mujaheddin fighters during the 1980s while they were on maneuvers, they spoke to him as tribal members. Many did not have formal schooling, but they all knew their ancestry back many generations, and they had a trade or could make a living from the soil. Many Taliban fighters, on the other hand, had been raised in refugee camps in Pakistan, often as orphans. They were ignorant of their ancestry and tribal customs. Though they had attended “school”, it had been at madrassahs, were they got rudimentary training in the religious ideas of mullahs, many of whom were unqualified as Islamic scholars. As refugees, they knew no trades, and had no connection to the land. Many had grown up outside of family structures and had no memories of interactions with women, not even with close female relatives. Thus it wasn’t surprising that they had no skills at running a government or even interest in such activities once they came to power, or that they seemed to want women to just disappear.
The chapter on the Arab-Afghans is especially interesting. In it, Rashid documents the early influences the Saudi government and the CIA had (under the leadership of William Casey) in laying the groundwork for the Taliban. As far back as 1982, Pakistan had been allowing Islamic radicals free passage so they could fight Communism with the Mujaheddin. In 1986 and 1987, Casey got the CIA to support the Pakistani ISI in recruiting Islamic terrorists worldwide to fight with the Mujaheddin. The Saudis joined in, eager to both push Wahabbism in the region, as well as to provide a worthwhile cause for their own radical malcontents like Osama Bin Laden. Rashid describes how these radicals established terrorist training camps both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the relations between the Taliban and these foreign thugs.
When I read Eric, I did think of writing some sort of Livingstone-style retraction, but having reread myself, I still find it funny. We fucked up Afghanistan when we armed them. Then we fucked them up again when we disarmed them. That’s hilarious.
These 150 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:52pm GMT Permanent link.
Friday, 18 March 2005
Liar »
Things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler
As Tim says, Googlebombs away! (surely there’s no ethical problem in bombing? not even the innocent?). Tony Blair is a liar. Balders is pretty good on the lying, but Guido, as ever, is splendid.
ITV reporter Nick Robinson single-hand[ed]ly demolished the press launch for the poster, leaving the PM floundering with a single line of questioning. Gordon smirked throughout Blair’s discomfort. Robinson asked: “Why do you persist in misrepresenting your opponents’ policies? You know they are saying they will increase spending but at a slower rate?” “Actually, that is not what they’re saying,” the Prime Minister lied. “You can’t cut money that hasn’t been spent,” Nick said. “You’re alleging they’ll make cuts. But now you’re saying they’ll spend less. The words are different!”
“They’re not different,” lied the Prime Minister again.
I happen to think that NHS spending is a very important issue, and one of Labour’s strengths. I also think that the parties diverge on ideological grounds over what they consider being “a soft touch,” “sensible and pragmatic,” and “downright mean.” Roughly, this means that the Tories will believe that the NHS requires less public money than Labour thinks. I also believe that there is, in principle, an optimal amount to spend on health given each ideology. Labour’s claim makes several assumptions:
- that the amount they promise is optimal — that’s it’s not as stingy as the Tories, nor as wasteful as the Lib Dems; it may be, but they don’t justify this;
- that the difference between the two main parties’ budgets is going to be spent on substantive health care; many Tories (for instance Boris Johnson) believe that Labour has needlessly boosted public-sector employment, mostly in the form of bean-counters and middle-managers with nugatory effect on the treatment of patients; again, Labour have to justify themselves;
- that it’s sensible to talk in the value of 2012 pounds — and that these figures will mean anything; and of course that we can afford it; my money’s on a stock market crash before the end of the decade, and any speculation as long term as this is pissing in the wind.
Why does Tony Blair say such things? I think it’s because with all the focus-groups and Alastair Campbell’s tabloid hack scorn for the neurones of the huddled masses, he believes that he’s forced to simplify and reduce facts to single statements. If he can do it without verbs, all the better. And why say ‘badthink’ when ‘ungoodthink’ is in many ways simpler? Unhappily, the arguments which David Kelley believed justified the Iraq invasion were a good deal more nuanced than the “45 minutes” claim, and not as sexy. Others would call Tony Blair a pathological liar. I just say that he has problems recognising the actualité.
These 362 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:46pm GMT Permanent link.
Saturday, 19 March 2005
A Clean Roll Of The Dice »
Gott würfelt nicht [God does not play dice]
Albert Einstein
Oh Lord, drunk, emotional, and confused again. Been trying to explain my take on the next election to people I hardly know. At some point some friend of a friend said, “I don’t get your ‘clean roll of the dice’ thing.” So I tried to explain, in a hand-waving and bleary-eyed way that elections, in my opinion, are much less about predictable deformations of previous results, but instead like a new round of craps or roulette or the lottery: if last week the numbers ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6’ came up the odds against them coming up this week would be exactly the same (about 1 in 14 million). Peter Snow may talk of ‘swings’ but my conception of psephology is far more like the end of “Nausea” with its eyes popping out of cheeks and pieces of meat skipping down the road: a Humean warning against induction. I don’t accept that there is thing-ness to the electorate between one mandate and the next which can be transformed by mathematics. Rather, as the Greek proverb has it, you never step into the same stream twice. According to tacticalvoter.net my constituency is very unlikely to change hands at the next election. But, as we all know, barely a majority scraped out to vote. That big red line doesn’t represent the voters where I live, only those who could be arsed to turn out last time. And they’re a very small minority of those entitled to vote. But, I was told, they’re representative. And says who, says I. There’s no evidence of that. Suppose many of those Labour supporters stay home (as I think they will) or suppose that the population has changed: there are far more young couples and first time buyers than there were at the last election, and more asylum seekers. Their brethren were extremely keen to vote in Iraq for example (no, I’ve no more idea than you what that achieved; the removal of Paul Wolfowitz from the Defense Department, perhaps); perhaps they’ll turn out here — and pull the ladder up, like their predecessors. (Michael Howard, am I looking at you?)
Perhaps there’ll be an election and no one will come.
Where was I? Oh yes. I live in what Cherie Blair would call “a filthy plebian ghetto” (had she the vocab).
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Blair. Will my fellow voters pick those who sold them out so many times before?
I very nearly joined the Liberal Democrats. I may still do, but my guttering ardour was dimmed by two things — first, their lack of will to win (and I don’t want to beat Alun Michael; I want to humiliate him and show him up for the brainless, spineless, cowering fraud he is), and second the lack of interest in redeveloping the Valleys. Now, I don’t know who to align with, but whoever it is has to be out to win. I mentioned dice earlier. My “representative” ‘hardly ever rebels’: either he is extraordinarily lucky in his political penchants or he is a tool of Downing Street advisor John Birt. I used to think that independence of thought was a Labour virtue. I still think that — minus the six-letter L-word. The People’s Party used to select the members of the Awkward Squad that other members considered unreasonable. We used to be the party for those who could pick a fight in an empty room; those who considered Lenin indecisive and Alex Ferguson biddable. Mark Seddon told the irritatingly loyal Guardian how it’s become. Eat your chocolate mouse and shut up already!
These 594 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:36am GMT Permanent link.
Crap »
Can’t sleep, so let’s get angry. Just followed my own link to a well-known liar. There’s the creepy photo. Why does the scowling “fuck off” look of Churchill impress you more than the “me sir, me sir, meeeeee sir, meee, meeee” look of earnest young Blair? Answers such as “Blair is a cunt” will receive zero points. We encourage original argument here; not stating the fucking obvious.
“Education is the best economic policy there is.”
Make sense of this sentence. You have until the end of Michelmas. Stop messing about, this is harder than it looks. “I give up” is not acceptable. Marks are awarded for originality. Previous winners “Fish!” Ogham Parsley-Bisham; “Because neo-endogenous growth devours its sucklings.” Robert “Bob Bob Bob” Maxwell; “Please to find muchos strling inclosed” Kim Il-Jung, Jr.
The son of a barrister and lecturer, Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh, but spent most of his childhood in Durham. At the age of 14 he returned to Edinburgh to finish his education at Fettes College. He studied law at Oxford, and went on to become a barrister himself.
You see, this gets me before the first verb. Was “Tony” (some of us thought his parents called him “Anthony") the son of a) a lecturer and b) a barrister, or was this barrister/lecturer some quantum-entangled state? If the latter, what did his mother do? Or do women not count, unless they are stunningly beautiful and glamourous like Cherie. (Stop laughing at the back there!) Did Anthony Blair “return to … Fettes” on his own volition at 14? If so, why does he need instruction in everything he does now from George W. Bush?
After the 1992 election Labour’s new leader, John Smith, promoted Blair to Shadow Home Secretary. It was in this post that Blair made famous his pledge that Labour would be tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.
That pledge was written by the better-looking, harder-working, more intelligent, more honest … oh just admit it! the natural, the rightful inheritor, the once and future leader of the Labour Party … Gordon Brown.
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, etc…
These 261 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:56am GMT Permanent link.
Education, Education »
Billmon is simply superb on the David Horowitz agenda. (Now you can see how Horowitz and erstwhile Viet Cong supporter Chris “The Dupe” Hitchens are such soul buddies. Well that and greed, of course. As the saying goes, “You can take the personality out of the cult, but …")
God only knows what this dribble is about.
We’re told that applications from out-of-state students — who subsidize Colorado students by paying six times the resident tuition — have fallen off sharply. Here’s the perfect remedy: Convert CU into a bastion of conservative thought, making it the only big-time state university in the country of that kind. The pent-up demand for such a school is overwhelming.
Well, one way to recruit students is take on a charismatic chancellor. And Simon Hoggart (the subject of a “withering attack” by his co-shagger) is shocked, shocked by the brain-dead conformity of Colarado students.
I’m just back from Colorado, where I spent part of the week teaching at the university campus in Boulder. American students are good at surprising you. …
But then some guy in a backwards baseball cap will display an impressive knowledge of the subject. I spoke to two classes about the EU. I guessed they would want some basic background; instead they peppered me with questions about the new constitution, the relationship between the EU and Nato, and even the services directive. Luckily I have developed a convenient ability to change the subject with a cheap joke, otherwise the limits of my knowledge would have been embarrassingly apparent.
Curse those lefty liberal academics! Instead of teaching that dinosaurs lived with people before the flood using the pedagogic documentary “The Flintstones” they dare to teach that the French culture extends beyond grunting “hawhee-hawhee-haw,” eating cheese, and surrendering. These so-called facts are reactionary bourgeoise distortions of the truth of the dear leader.
These 143 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:55pm GMT Permanent link.
Wales Win Grand Slam After 27 Years »
Photos from around the screen in the civic centre.
These 23 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:42pm GMT Permanent link.
Sunday, 20 March 2005
Pond Life »
Sad but true life stories.
Almost every part of the borough has been touched by the activities of a small but loutish minority. Visitors and passers by on the A2 are greeted by the scribblings of ‘Denton Boyz’. Perry Street and Sun lane have both been ‘given the treatment’ in recent months. And last week, I joined residents of Shears Green to hear their stories of vandalism, graffiti and intimidation.
Over the past few days, I have had reports from local schools about violent and offensive behaviour either on school premises or at the gates. One school has seen a section of its newly erected perimeter fence destroyed, presumably by people who object to having their access restricted.
Disruptive Behaviour. “[P]eople who object to having their access restricted” are vandals who deserve Asbos.
Let’s start with the issue at the forefront of most people’s minds — loutish and anti-social behaviour. One of my new responsibilities is to decide whether we should go ahead with a plan to dock people’s housing benefit if they are found to be involved in anti-social behaviour. …
We’re already pushing through legislation, such as the new anti-social behaviour bill. Should we do more, by reducing the amount of housing benefit that people receive? Is it fair to do so? Would it have any effect? If you’d like a copy of the Consultation Document, contact me at the House of Commons. Or just let me know what you think.
Same article. The astute reader may be thinking as I did. “But suppose someone engages in anti-social behaviour, shafting someone else’s wife for instance (not a crime, but not very nice) and then harassing her by all means at her disposal including ringing her up late at night and playing loud music down the phone at her? Should such a person perhaps lose his flat? Funnily enough, the writer declines to tell us that.” All crime is committed by the underclass, the lumpenproletariat, chavs, gypsies, and other scroungers.
Anyone who visits Gravesend Town Centre on a Saturday evening will know of the problems that can be caused by antisocial behaviour and youth crime.
Anti-social behaviour (again).
Now, let’s consider the author of these pabulums. He looks from his website photo exactly like the sort of smug moralising Tory bastard you’d expect. The sort of greedy, hypocritical little arse you hoped you’d seen the back of when you voted Labour in 1997. You’d be right, that’s exactly what he is; and you’d be wrong: he’s a government minister. Did I say hypocritical?
As you’ve read, he’s rather keen on Asbos. You will perhaps remember the enforcement of an Asbo on a young mother for the thoughtcrime of answering her door in her underwear. Mark Holland considered the logic of Asbos the other week.
I don’t understand this. He’s not entitled to park in that disabled spot anyway so now, by way of punishment, he’s been given an order not to park in it. Huh?
Yes, Mark, but he’s not on housing benefit is he? Look, if you don’t live in your gaffe, and the government covers your rent, and you around annoying people, steps will be taken. Won’t they?
In doing that I have to accept I made a mistake. If leaving traces of glue on the door constitutes criminal damage I have to take responsibility for it.”
Anti-social behaviour (another one). So he admits doing something with glue on someone’s door. Sounds like vandalism to me.
Mr Pond’s immediate superior, Work and Pensions Secretary Alan Johnson, told BBC News: “My actual reading of it is that it has been blown out of all proportions, but that is a matter for Chris — it is something that happened in his personal life.”
Well, isn’t that lucky? No one is going to cut his housing benefit.
Minister cautioned over ‘parking rage’; Parking Rage Causes Ripples for Chris Pond; Minister comes unstuck over ‘glue gate’.
Naturally, I’ve written to him at pondc@parliament.uk.
Dear Mr Pond,
I am writing to you because I greatly admired your articles on anti-social and disruptive behaviour. However, I am troubled by your suggestion that stopping housing benefit is a fair punishment for these criminals.
It has come to my attention that a person in your constituency has accepted responsibility for grotesque anti-social behaviour: intimidation and vandalism. The culprit is not claiming housing benefit, so perhaps some other punishment would be suitable. I am told that this person is a member of Her Majesty’s Government. Such acts are incompatible with high office. I’m therefore writing to you to request that you do all you can to ensure that this disgrace steps down and shuts up forever, as whatever he has to say can only be the vilest canting hypocrisy,
I remain, sir, your humble servant,
David Weeden
What with Wales winning the Grand Slam yesterday, some days it’s just great to be alive.
These 330 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:27pm GMT Permanent link.
Well, I Was Wrong -- Again »
This is an all too-regular feature — when I fess up to dodgy reasoning, slack research, and the general miscasting of aspersions. Dave Heasman wrote to point out that I incorrectly attributed “like being savaged by a dead sheep” to Michael Foot. It was, of course, Denis Healey.
The meat of today’s mea culpa though is that I’ve doubted the likelihood of guerillas in our midst. Was I ever wrong. If it comes down to it, I’ll have to vote against any party who might be soft on terrorists. Luckily, if they do strike, it’ll only be a “pipsqueak of a bomb in a trashcan at the mall.” Nothing to worry about.
These 111 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:16pm GMT Permanent link.
The Man In The White Suit Of Pajamas »
See the sage of Sedgefield. I wrote about Mr Berlusconi and the judge last year. Stephen Pollard wrote:
“There is only one story which really gets some commentators’ wickers up and that is that the Blairs have chosen to holiday in homes belonging to Sir Cliff Richard, Prince Girolamo Strozzi and Silvio Berlusconi.”
The meaning of ‘wickers’ is still a mystery. Some of us old school lefties seem to think that just because when the proles go on their hols they have to pay for their accommodation, our betters should do so too. This doesn’t take into account the shockingly low pay of high office.
The Prime Minister draws his or her salary not as Prime Minister, but as First Lord of the Treasury. He or she receives £121,437, in addition to his or her salary as a Member of Parliament (£57,485). Although the Prime Minister is undoubtedly the most powerful figure in British government, his or her compensation is not the highest amongst ministers: that distinction goes to the Lord Chancellor.
Answers.com: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Cherie Blair is rumoured to earn twice as much, surely no one living in such penury can afford a hotel room?
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Not even if you are very naive or very stupid — or a liar. If Berlusconi offers hospitality, he wants something. To be seen on the arm of beautiful woman perhaps? Forget it, he lives in Italy. Not that I know why Tony Blair would even want to be seen with Berlusconi.
On another occasion, he [Berlusconi] stated that “Mussolini’s regime hadn’t killed a single person” and that Mussolini “just used to send opposers on holiday” thus apparently denying or dismissing a long series of fascist crimes, from the murder of Giacomo Matteotti to the ill-famous fascist concentration camps (Rab, Gonars, etc.). Berlusconi later claimed that he did not mean to white-wash Mussolini, that he only reacted to a comparison, which he felt unfair, between the fascist dictator and Saddam Hussein.
Poor widdle Fascist leader Mussolini. You can tell a man’s character by who he stands up for.
The known facts about Silvio Berlusconi, never mind the unanswered questions, rule him out for high office. This matters because the eminently sensible James Hamilton writes:
I trust Blair to run the country — not without difficult compromises, or even big mistakes, more, than I do any of the available alternatives.
I don’t trust Tony Blair. I think he’s a liar and a cheapskate. Someone who is so prepared to cadge a holiday that he’ll it take off of anyone — even the most corrupt politician in Europe. (So, sue me, Mussolini apologist.)
And now it’s payback time. An honest man does not accept freebies.
These 257 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 6:41pm GMT Permanent link.
Chris-tians »
My friend, Labour party member, and ungainsayable leftist (although his beliefs are by no means straightforward) Chris Brooke recommends his “friend and favourite vicar-in-training” in the Guardian.
I’m a little cold on this. I’m disappointed by Rowan Williams’s stance on the gay clergy. (Supporting gays doesn’t make one left wing of course — there’s always Andrew Sullivan; not supporting them is problematic — for me, anyway.) I don’t dislike Christians — as long as they stay out of my hair. A continuing theme of my real-world conversations seems to be my defence of smoking in pubs (snicker qu’and vous parler Français) and fox-hunting. Neither are pursuits I have any desire to be involved in; and both seem private to me. I’ll support the hunt ban when the government outlaws every kind of animal slaughter. You believe what you believe; you’ve no cause to force it on me.
The question for me is, ‘what Christian allies?’ There were left-wing Christians:
The Benns were authentic Puritans. Ever since the writings of George Eliot and Matthew Arnold, Puritanism has been associated with the provinces, with the energy, ambition yet narrowness of the outsider. But the metropolitan puritanism of the Benns was no less intense. The Benn family were — as Benn still is — teetotal. They were not intellectuals. His parents showed no interest in whether the young Tony read or what he read: “All my life I have lived in the oral tradition, learning from listening and watching rather than reading.” This helps to explain why Benn retains such an unruffled belief in a Manichean world in which the forces of good are in perpetual combat with the backsliding and corruption of false friends. From the Old Testament stories of his mother, Benn learned to honour prophets, not kings. In this picture of politics as a modern day Pilgrim’s Progress , Marx (despite his atheism) is honoured as “the last of the Old Testament prophets”.
But I don’t think that Tony Benn is the hero the modern “left” is looking for. (Me, I think he’s great.) Instead, Fred Clark (streets ahead in the bloggers-I-disagree-with-yet-still-love stakes) nails it, or something like it. (Read the whole blog for what “left wing” but/and Christian could be.) He starts by nailing it (sorry if you’re a Christian, and the term is offensive; it just seems colloquially right to me) with a Mark Twain quote I didn’t know, “Be virtuous and you will be eccentric” but which seems right in so many ways to me. There are very many ways to be right. (Which is not to say that there are no ways to be wrong.) If the left (which I cannot speak for, of course) admits Christians, let it admit Dave Allen whose valediction was “Good night and may your god go with you” before paedophilia apologist Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor.
Fred Clark surprises me with every post. Not just his intelligence and humanity, which I’ve come to expect, but the comments. This shocks me, and may shock you (if “look away” is possible on the interwebthing, please look away, the following is disgusting):
As a young teenager, I used to go to the local Christian bookstore and buy fiction — Peretti and the like. I picked up some book about a radio DJ that got involved in some Satanic plot, I don’t remember it all that well.
But I do remember, unfortunately, the part detailing a 7-year-old girl performing fellatio on all the members of a satanic group. I had to look the word up, and I have never run across anything as perverse as that since — probably because I stopped reading “Christian” fiction.
If I have no other reason for this post, I can only second Fred’s approval of this Jack Chick tract parody.
As I may have said before, I grew up in Christian schools. I recognise that Tony Benn is a Christian. Tony Blair and the Gimp may worship a supernatural being when they pray together ("die retarded black person, die [edited for language], bwah-hah-hah-hah"), but I’m very very wrong if it’s Jesus. “A supersized prole will pass through the eye of a needle before anyone not in the Party will be admitted to heaven.” The Good Book, Peter Mandelson revision #114.
These 454 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:27pm GMT Permanent link.
Biased BBC »
Tim reminded me to watch Panorama on Tony Blair.
Updated Drunken rubbish removed.
These 156 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:11pm GMT Permanent link.
Monday, 21 March 2005
Billy »
Billy Connolly is on TV just now. He’s doing Cardiff, and he’s doing it very well. He’s making me proud. I’ve never been proud of Cardiff before.
Updated Drunken rubbish removed.
These 184 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:40am GMT Permanent link.
David Blunkett »
Is this sleaze? Guido has doubts about David Blunkett’s honesty. I’m not 100% sure he’s right. The relevant section of the Ministerial Code says:
140. On leaving office, Ministers should seek advice from the independent Advisory Committee on Business Appointments about any appointments they wish to take up within two years of leaving office, other than unpaid appointments in non-commercial organisations or appointments in the gift of the Government, such as Prime Ministerial appointments to international organisations. Although it is in the public interest that former Ministers should be able to move into business or other areas of public life, it is equally important that there should be no cause for any suspicion of impropriety about a particular appointment. If therefore the Advisory Committee considers that an appointment could lead to public concern that the statements and decisions of the Minister, when in Government, have been influenced by the hope or expectation of future employment with the firm or organisation concerned, or that an employer could make improper use of official information to which a former Minister has had access, it may recommend a delay of up to two years before the appointment is taken up, or that for a similar period the former Minister should stand aside from certain activities of the employer.
Also, Guido may overestimate the former Home Secretary’s earnings. £10K is the upper limit. At least he declared it.
Adviser to Indepen Consulting Limited, giving seminars on relationship between government and business. (£5,001-£10,000)
The Indepen website describes the company thus:
We are independent and focus on advisory work that adds value to our clients. Since 1990 we have worked with organisations providing services that have public value and are addressing the challenges of regulation, competition and restructuring, frequently at the interface between public policy and private provision.
As Guido implies, it’s pretty close to the knuckle. Still, the Advisory Committee cleared it. It can’t have taken them long if he’s earned at least five grand already, and that’s on a part time basis for only one month, and I thought being an MP was a full-time job.
I want to know when he’ll move out of his Belgravia pad; it’s Charles Clarke’s by right.
These 117 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:20pm GMT Permanent link.
Tuesday, 22 March 2005
When He's Right, He's Right »
I don’t, as a rule, buy the Torygraph on Tuesdays, mostly because I think Mark Steyn is a pompous bearded gnome and an unthinking mouthpiece for neo-con propaganda, and I want to do nothing that would encourage the editor to continue his employment. But, as I’ve probably mentioned before, the Torygraph’s female columnists are uniformly strong and intelligent — unlike those in the liberal press, who seem to have been employed solely on having the right genitalia.
Tim Worstall has clearly recovered from Vicki Woods’ non-attribution of his fuckwit Googlebomb. When Tim is right, he is right. Ms Woods is superb today. Tim quotes her on Margaret Hodge. Let us not forget that Margaret Hodge said
“I never ignored one single allegation of abuse against a child.”
when several witnesses recollect Margaret Hodge telling a meeting:
“Sexual abuse does not exist in Islington.”
Nonetheless, I disagree with Tim and Ms Woods. It’s not that Mrs Hodge has been in power too long. She was always on a different planet.
Ms Woods has a friend who has “never not voted Labour.” But now she’s changed her mind.
What has suddenly turned this lifelong Labour voter against the man who finally made his party electable?
She said: “Backing faith schools, for one thing. That stupid legislation against ‘religious hatred’ for another. And the anti-terrorism Bill, obviously.” I made a mental note to put £50 on a Tory win.
“But mostly,” she said, “it’s the fact that every single time I see him on the telly, I think: why are you lying to me?”
Because he can.
These 172 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:47pm GMT Permanent link.
Another Reason Not To Vote For Blair »
At this rate even Nick Cohen will have doubts.
Religion should play greater role, says Blair. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
Tony Blair told faith leaders in London that churches made a “visible, tangible difference” for the better in society.
The Inquistion, the Taliban, the Puritans, all top blokes. So many people burned at the stake who’d be out there reading books and things and corrupting the young, spreading dissent, can’t have any of that.
“Government can’t raise your family, Government alone can’t get you a job,” he said.
“We can help do these things. But increasingly the ultimate difference has to be made by the creativity, ability and dedication of those on the ground.”
I’ve asked this before, but where does the “increasingly” come in? Is government weaker than it was in Jesus’s time, or Shakespeare’s or Dickens’s? It’s just a rhetorical tic. I think it’s obvious that “the ultimate difference has to be made by the creativity, ability and dedication of those on the ground” — so leave the god-botherers out of it.
Jamie finds an explanation for Labour’s enhanced lead. On the same issue, Mike Power takes exception to Howard’s being called a “Nazi” (particularly unpleasant as Michael Howard is Jewish, and the child of refugees). I saw the Hate Mail front page headline, and I failed to be roused, because, like Ken Livingstone, I think the Mail is pretty Nazi. But the allegation against the Conservative leader is as unfounded as Bush = Hitler. Like Chicken Yoghurt, I’m disturbed by the subtext of the Conservative campaign, but like Mike, I think the stated objectives are perfectly reasonable, and Kevin McNamara is an ass.
I understand (but don’t sympathise with) Mr Howard’s concerns about immigration. I’m disappointed that, given his own family’s history, he can talk about capping the numbers of asylum seekers we admit. Ken Livingstone was drunk when he compared an intrusive journalist’s jobsworth defence to Eichmann’s excuse. Mr McNamara should know the Leader of the Opposition’s ethnicity, and, if he’s flinging mud, he should have a sense of shame.
These 289 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:29pm GMT Permanent link.
Wednesday, 23 March 2005
Keep You Hair On »
Via Jamie, a strange fetishistic ritual. The sensible Americans I know brag about how their country threw off the tyranny of a mad king. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, indeed.
If I were Damian, I’d be worried.
These 41 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:17pm GMT Permanent link.
Now I'll Have To Watch Dr Who »
Andrew Marr is in it:
In short, I have a vanishingly small part in the new run of Doctor Who.
Thanks to a small miracle of lateral thinking, I play a bat-eared political reporter.
He’s more than just “bat-eared” of course; he’s incredibly sharp.
First, there was one £35 billion to worry about — the £35 billion that is the difference between projected Tory and Labour spending in six years’ time, on the “warning” Labour poster. Then another came along: the £35 billion that adds claimed Tory savings on public spending to Gordon Brown’s planned savings …
But that is only the start. There is also the £35 billion that, apparently, is the extra real spending on the NHS by Labour. And there is a fourth, subtly different £35 billion that some economists claim will be raised in new stealth and other taxes if Labour is returned to power.
One £35 billion was bad enough; four is impossible. Why that figure, again and again? Is it something to do with the age of the political advisers involved? Key words describing the four 35s are, I notice, “projected”, “claimed”, “apparently” and “if”. Perhaps better to rename them, blue elephant, green elephant, pink elephant and white elephant? Simpler, and about as pin-sharp accurate.
Ach, back on politics agane …
These 21 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:39pm GMT Permanent link.
Like Some Watcher Of The Skies Time Yet Again »
First glimpses of 2 distant planets. That’s visible confirmation and a New Era in Planetary Science.
Many planets discovered so far have been exceptionally massive: far larger than Jupiter (the links on this page compare newly discovered planets to Jupier); larger, even than some stars.
And now it’s the turn of small rocky worlds: Smallest Extra-Solar Planet Yet Discovered.
Wolszczan and his colleagues earlier had discovered three terrestrial planets around the pulsar, with their orbits in an almost exact proportion to the spacings between Mercury, Venus, and Earth. The newly discovered fourth planet has an orbit approximately six times larger than that of the third planet in the system, which Konacki says is amazingly close to the average distance from our Sun to our solar system’s asteroid belt, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Wasn’t that what Kepler and Newton predicted?
“Because our observations practically rule out a possible presence of an even more distant, massive planet or planets around the pulsar, it is quite possible that the tiny fourth planet is the largest member of a cloud of interplanetary debris at the outer edge of the pulsar’s planetary system, a remnant of the original protoplanetary disk that created the three inner planets,” Wolszczan explains. The small planet, about one-fifth of the mass of Pluto, may occupy the same outer-boundary position in its planetary system as Pluto does in our solar system. “Surprisingly, the planetary system around this pulsar resembles our own solar system more than any extrasolar planetary system discovered around a Sun-like star,” Konacki says.
Pluto is an exceptionally small planet. In the comments to this Matthew Turner post, Peter Cuthbertson recommends Michael Crichton where the best-selling author says of the Drake Equation:
The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated.
Yes, they can, Michael. Not estimated, known.
These 102 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:07pm GMT Permanent link.
Obligatory Terri Schiavo Post »
Not a great deal to say: I’m on the left, I believe in autonomy, and I think most religious people (especially those in-your-face about it) are nuts. Can you guess what I think yet?
I’m not a Republican sympathiser, nor am I ever likely to be one, but I am appalled that Bush interrupts a holiday (OK he has a few more to interrupt than most) to micro-manage the USA.
Yet in a frantic weekend’s politicking, which underlined the power of the religious right, the Republican Congress came back from holiday to pass a highly unusual bill giving Mrs Schiavo’s parents the chance to appeal to a federal court. George Bush flew back from Texas to sign it at 1.11am on Monday.
The sad case of Terri Schiavo: The Economist. There are all sorts of justifications flying round, and I’m acutely bothered by Squander Two’s argument in John Band’s comments, — if Bush’s private reasoning was on those lines, I support him.
However, I’m an avowed Katherine of Obsidian Wings fan, and her post on hubris is a marvel. Hilzoy also of OB also posted on Terri Schiavo (again RTWT), importantly giving a link to the judge’s findings (from now, I’ll refer to this as “Greer pdf"). It’s this that I want to discuss.
Ogged deleted his short post on this, considering it redundant in the light of Lindsay Beyerstein’s splendidly detailed account. The lie which Ogged mentioned was the nutjob strangulation theory. In short, this is character assassination by innuendo.
If Michael Schavio (the husband) is so craven, why did he turn down a million dollar bribe? Because he’s in the control of his lawyer, according to Mrs Schavio’s family:
“It was with tremendous surprise that we learned yesterday of the offer to save the life of our daughter, Terri Schiavo, by Mr. Robert Herring,” the Schindlers said in a statement released Friday. “We are not at all surprised that Mr. Schiavo’s lawyer, George Felos, will not allow him to entertain such an offer. It seems to us that the case law has become far more important to Mr. Felos than making any attempt to mediate the matter outside of the courts.”
I’m not a lawyer, but I’m sure that any lawyer who controls a client in the way that the Schindlers’ allege is guilty of gross malpractice, and that this is a bizarre allegation. It’s especially odd considering what Judge Greer found. I sympathise with the judge’s exasperation.
The court heard testimony as to various issues; most of which having little or nothing to do with the decision the court is called upon to make. The court also hear from witnesses who ran the gambit [sic] of credibility, from the clearly biased who slanted their testimony to those such as Father Murphy whom the court finds to be completely candid.
Greer pdf, page 3. I’ll come back to this if I remember. For now, I think courts are very good at deciding on matters such as credibility and consistency of account; they’re much less well qualified in judging what is best for an individual than someone who is close (like a family member, lover, partner, or good friend would be).
It has been suggested that Michael Schavio has not acted in good faith by waiting eight plus years to file the Petition which is under consideration. The assertion hardly seems worthy of comment other than to say that he should not be faulted for having done what those opposed to him want to be continued.
(Greer pdf, p4) Remember that it’s being alleged (not by the family, but by interfering do-gooders) that Mr Schavio has attempted to kill his wife, and is interested in her money. The paragraph above continues:
It is also interesting to not that Mr Schiavo continues to be the most regular visitor to his wife even though he is criticized for wanting to remove her life support.
The BBC (which I still believe in) attempts impartiality in The two sides of the Schiavo case. Here’s Terri’s mother, Mary Schindler:
My daughter is in the building behind me starving to death. We laugh together, we cry together, we smile together, we talk together. She is my life.
And her sister, Suzanne Vitadamo:
Michael has his family now, he has a fiancée and children. We’re asking him to take care of his family and let us take care of ours.
I think judges sometimes make bad judgements, on the other hand, what Judge Greer said was on the record and is his professional opinion, Mrs Schiavo’s family have, ah, more licence. The reader will notice the discrepancies.
Under oath, Mrs Schindler is more rigourous. Eventually.
There was a lot of testimony concerning the Karen Ann Quinlin case in New Jersey. Mrs Schindler testified that her daughter made comments during the television news reports of the father’s attempts to have life support removed to the effect that they should just leave her (Karen Ann Quinlin) alone. Mrs Schindler first testified that those comments were made when Terri was between 17-20 years of age but after being shown copies of newspaper accounts agreed that she was 11 perhaps 12 years of age at the time.
(Greer pdf, p5) As to Mrs Schavio’s present condition (see Katherine’s post above for various politicians take on it):
Turning to the medical issues of the case, the court finds beyond all doubt that Theresa Marie Schavio is in a persistent vegetative state …
(Greer pdf, p6) I’m struck by how similar to the judgement of Solomon story this is. Of the two sides in this dispute, Judge Greer seems to have decided (with evidence) that Michael Schiavo is the party with Mrs Schavio’s interests at heart. As for the prayer parties and rigmarole: where are they when someone dies of AIDS in Africa? where are they for the starving millions?
I’ve held off writing this up for most of the day, instead allowing various arguments to cross my mind like the shards of dreams. Mark Holland (who is often right; and amusing when he’s not) discovered Brian Walden on big versus small government. Walden, whom the younger among you will not remember as a Labour MP turned broadcaster, expresses admiration for the small government ideas of Franklin D. Roosevelt, perhaps the most leftist of all US presidents, and, IMO, an economic giant, who tempered capitalism into something humane. At the opposite end of the (sane) spectrum was Margaret Thatcher, who once ad libbed to a women’s magazine, “There is no such thing as society; there are only individuals and families.” (She initially trained as a chemist, if you couldn’t tell.) That remark has haunted and disturbed me ever since. I still use the term ‘society’; I even believe in it — as a heuristic, in the same way I believe in cold, phlogiston, or evil. Now I certainly do believe that there are husbands who beat their wives, and parents who abuse their children. I don’t believe that being a parent or a spouse is sufficient proof of “rightful” intentions (by which I mean something Kantian, of wanting the ends others would want), but I do believe a) that courts are very good at discriminating between the ‘honest’ the ‘genuine’ or whatever it is I mean here and the ‘purely self serving’ (and none of these terms are even close to adequate); and b) that I trust ‘honest’ love (/affection/family ties) over ideology, religion, or law.
In short, I think the court has determined who best understands Mrs Schavio’s interests. And it’s not Congress.
These 814 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:32pm GMT Permanent link.
050505 »
I’ve been rejected by Bloggers4Labour. Andrew (a human, and a nice one, or my name’s Turing Machine) was polite but firm, as the cliché has it, that I wasn’t for Labour. Still, all’s fair in love and the fight for freedom.
C4 News tonight and the BBC site covered Prime minister’s questions. The PM (Tony Blair the well-known liar) was off on some junket as per usual, so the PM in this case was John Prescott. The story of the day being that he gave away the date of the election. Bloggers know better, of course.
These 96 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:21pm GMT Permanent link.
Religion »
I missed most of The Apprentice tonight, blogging and everything. But I caught the vital firing scene.
Paul: I’m a Roman Catholic, and as God is my witness ….
Sir Alan Sugar: I’m Jewish, and I don’t give a monkey’s …
Sweet enough already, eh? What a guy. I was impressed by Paul’s tenderness toward Saira, but I still think it’s between Raj (a bit of the Big Brother never-up-for-eviction syndrome) and Tim. Am I being sexist? inversely racist?
These 55 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:38pm GMT Permanent link.
Friday, 25 March 2005
Blasphemies »
I said, “You know they refused Jesus, too”
He said, “You’re not Him
I seem to be saying rather a lot these days, “I’m not a …, but …” but I’m not a theologian but … I’m having trouble understanding where ex-communication is supported by Biblical scripture. The pro-life mob may have gotten all bothered by Million Dollar Baby, but I don’t remember the priest in that, despite years of ragging by Eastwood’s character, turning round and saying something like:
I know what you’re thinking. “Did he run out of wafers again?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as these are holy communion wafers, the most powerful communion wafers in the world, and by representing the body of our lord Jesus Christ, they bestow eternal life, you’ve got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?
Adapted. So what’s up with this? Via John Cole, whose comments are, as always, interesting. When, exactly, did Jesus ever turn anyone away?
Meanwhile, through Butterflies and Wheels, I find book-burning Jews merely weird.
Twenty-three ultra-Orthodox rabbis had signed an open letter denouncing the books of Rabbi Slifkin, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli scholar and science writer. The letter read, in part: “He believes that the world is millions of years old — all nonsense! — and many other things that should not be heard and certainly not believed. His books must be kept at a distance and may not be possessed or distributed.” Rabbi Slifkin, the letter-writers continued, should “burn all his writings.”
That’s one of the funny things about heresy. To be a proper heretic, you have to be a dedicated scholar of the holy books, and have thought deeply for years. Rabbi Slifkin’s opponents seem to me to be somewhat flip:
The letter against Rabbi Slifkin is not the only recent outburst against science among the ultra-Orthodox. Last November, during the annual conference of Agudath Israel, Rabbi Uren Reich, the dean of Yeshiva of Woodlake Village in New Jersey, said, “These same scientists who tell you with such clarity what happened 65 million years ago — ask them what the weather will be like in New York in two weeks’ time.”
The polite answer would be an explanation of margin of error. The more tempting answer is, “You’re an idiot.”
These 160 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:10pm GMT Permanent link.
Wrist Bandwagons »
Brian: Please, please, please listen! I’ve got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t NEED to follow ME, You don’t NEED to follow ANYBODY! You’ve got to think for your selves! You’re ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We’re all individuals!
Brian: You’re all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Man in crowd: I’m not…
The Crowd: Sch!
Mark Holland vents some snark over the Telegraph’s article on the compassion of the Prime Minister (aka Tony Blair, aka liar). Seems appropriate to me: a cheap plastic wristband on a cheap plastic politician. Yet more of Blair’s “I’m a leader” schtick. He’s so far behind the curve, he’s out of sight: I wrote about the wristband thing last year, inspired by Anthony Cox.
These 64 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:55pm GMT Permanent link.
Saturday, 26 March 2005
OMG, Americans And Irony Redux »
Well, I was going to write about something else (which I shall, dear reader, I shall), but when researching that, I went to Glenn Reynolds’s site and beheld the ads!
Far be it for me to intervene in a dispute between Meaders and Harry of the Place (both of whom I consider wrong-headed most of the time), but when I saw the lovely (if greying) lady to the right, I was minded of Harry’s contribution:
Yes what a shock that Dead Men Left, a blog which has a phobia about attractive women who support democracy … [wasn’t nominated for the Guardian Backbencher Awards.]
I sort of know what Harry means by “attractive women who support democracy” now. It was when I clicked on the ad, and came across this T-shirt, which I could easily buy, and this one, and this one, and this one, that I realised that some Yanks don’t do irony.
These 126 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:22am GMT Permanent link.
Why I Read The Telegraph, Pt 7,965,823 »
Well, it pisses Harry off (for being patronising to Manchester, despite Jim White’s being educated there).
Yeah, but Mark Holland found the online version of the paper’s Perfect playlist: Bruce Springsteen.
Born In The USA
From Born In The USA (1984)
This was the moment when Springsteen rocketed beyond being merely “big” to become a stadium super-rocker par excellence, all bandanas and biceps. In spite of the brawn and bombast, Born remains one of rock’s great statements, its message about foreign wars and their consequences still potent 20 years later.
That would be Born In The USA:
Nowhere to run ain’t got nowhere to go
My life is lit up by moments like this.
These 47 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:46am GMT Permanent link.
Sunday, 27 March 2005
Madeleine Basset Lives! »
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn :
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
Wiser after the event:
He told the programme: “When you go through a trauma like that you come out, as we say in Sheffield, burnished in the steel sense because that experience has an impact.
“It can do two things. It can either make you bitter and angry, or it can make you a little wiser and I believe strongly it’s the second.
“I’ve learnt a lot about myself. I’ve learnt a lot about the world. I’ve learnt how wonderful people can be as well as how difficult the world can be.”
Ah poetry, please! You burnish things by rubbing them, not by bashing them. I wonder if he
laughed the tinkling silvery laugh which was one of the things that had got [him] so disliked by the better element.
Incredible. To think the man once charged with “making Britain more secure” (according to Rose which seems to a glossy free propaganda sheet of what was once the People’s Party) turns out to be
one of those soppy girls riddled from head to foot with whimsy. She holds that the stars are God’s daisy chain, that rabbits are gnomes in attendance on the Fairy Queen, and that every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born, which, as we know, is not the case. She’s a drooper.
These 55 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:41pm GMT Permanent link.
Belief »
I keep saying, like the raven, “Nevermore!” but I continue to buy the old Guardian on Saturdays. (This time my excuses were: the Torygraph still has a horoscope on Sats, and The Guide had Daleks on the cover.)
The magazine has a long running questionnaire called “Q&A” which has a couple of questions which bother me. “Do you believe in monogamy?” seems to use “believe in” differently from “Do you believe in capital punishment?”
So anyway, I’ve decided these would be my answers.
Do you believe in capital punishment? Do I believe capital punishment exists? Sadly, yes. Do I believe capital punishment is a good idea? Absolutely not.
Do you believe in monogamy? Do I believe monogamy exists? Yes for pigeons or Catholics. Do I believe monogamy is a good idea? Probably. (The word, of course, is wrong. It only means “one woman” — therefore Stephen Quinn and David Blunkett are possibly monogamous. Not so Simon Hoggart.)
Update: oh dur. Brain in neutral again. ‘Gamy’ would be “marriage”; ‘gyny’ is “woman”.
Do you believe in God? Do I believe God exists? No. Do I believe God is a good idea? Don’t be silly. (That’s no.)
These 181 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:37pm GMT Permanent link.
Fly Like Bastards »
The Guardian Guide yesterday contained the memorable phrase “fly like bastards.” Did this refer to al’Qaeda plans to attack the UK with malaria? Or was it a typical Guardian misprint fly like bustards? Nope. It’s Russell T Davies’ description of the new Daleks.
Kevin Drum hears good things about Who; and the Telegraph (frequently sceptical of the BBC) likes it too (though I think Stephen Pile is wrong to think that “Russell T Davies’s script is vastly better than anything before it” — I can remember better scripts — the one with Daleks behaving like children and adults behaving like Daleks; long before Guardian media writers had to include an idiotic reference to “post-modernism” in everything they wrote). The Guardian irritates as always:
Things have changed since 1963 when everyone in Doctor Who was Home Counties and white. The Doctor (William Hartnell) was a grumpy old man, with a mimsy obedient grand-daughter whose strange antics attracted the attention of two very proper teachers from her school. …
In 2005 all that remains of the old Doctor is his police box (strangely unadorned by graffiti), the weird whooshing noise it makes when heading into hyperspace, and the theme music. The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) is now a craggily good-looking bit of trouser with a fine line in leather jackets and a pronounced northern accent.
Well OK Patrick Troughton was born and educated in Mill Hill (in North London, if you’re outside the Home Counties yourself), and I thought he was Irish. But Jamie was triumphantly Scottish; William Hartnell went to the Middle East. The new series is made in Wales, but that’s of no significance to Robin McKie, who’s only interested in Ecclestone’s Northern accent. (The Guardian, however implausibly, still thinks of itself as prefixed by “Manchester” and the north is cool; Wales is not. Now look who’s being parochial.)
There is some unintentional comedy in the production values as the Bay end of Grangetown is used to impersonate Hampstead, the pedestrianised St David’s Centre pretends to be Regent Street, and the fruit and veg market (with the Cardiff UGC in the background) fills in for the South Bank.
But still, much much better than I expected.
Since I’m writing about this, and you’ve read this far, you don’t need a degree in statistics to realise that the blogosphere is not exactly a reflection of the greater society. But then if you’ve read this far, you might like what John Cole calls the Funniest Film Ever (30MB zip with .mov inside). John served in Gulf War I, and it’s funny to him. Probably not if you’re Paul Wolfowitz, Christopher Hitchens, or one of those guys.
These 344 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:37pm GMT Permanent link.
Monday, 28 March 2005
Right-wingers »
Right. I’m adding Blithering Bunny to the blogroll following Tim Worstall’s splendid 6th BritBlog Roundup. Not that I agree with the Bunny, and his blogroll makes me shiver, but he’s, ah, perceptive. (BTW, cheers Tim; I felt that I pressed you into including DrVee a couple of weeks ago, so thanks for the approval of Harry Hutton.)
BB can be right and wrong (IMO, of course) at the same time. In the post Tim liked, Tories should be more flighty, he says:
Of course, Flight’s gaffe was not that he put forward different views from the party leaders. Political parties can hardly go around sacking every MP whose views differ from the leaders — if they did, then the Labour would be left with about a dozen MPs.
Well, it’s not just Labour. If the Tories really are as like-minded as that sentence suggests, then they just dropped a long, long way in my estimation. (For new readers, and to repeat myself, I don’t believe that “everything is true” or “all views are equally valid” — I don’t believe that there is, ever, a solution to an equation like ax2 + bx + c equal to “fish.” I do believe that there may be a very large (and possibly infinite) set of internally consistent, and logically explicable, answers to any given problem; many of these, including this belief itself, may be incompatible with other solutions.) For me, the capacity for having beliefs at all, necessitates, a fucking priori disagreement with every other being on earth.
Anyhoo, that’s just a digression. The Bunny is wrong further down.
The difference is that socialism had been discredited, whereas the free market philosophy continues to sweep the world. So why would anyone believe that a right-wing party really has given up on the free market?
At times like this, I’m sooo glad that I know my Paul Feyerabend. Do ideas really get discredited? Well, maybe, maybe not. Is “socialism” so discredited? Yes, if your exemplars are Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong-Il, Christopher Hitchens, and so forth. No, if you mean some form of central planning: most economies of the EU are ‘mixed’ with a social-democratic balance which would appall Milton Freeman. America was really successful under the “New Deal” of Roosevelt — more so than under the gargantuan Military-Industrial Complex favoured by the Reaganites. And then there’s Japan …
And then the good stuff:
After 7 years of Labour pouring in money [to the NHS], little has improved.
Now there’s the rub. I’m all for more money for extra wards, more nurses, and so forth, but I worry that it’s all been squittered away in hiring extra tiers of managers in the John Birt mould through expensive ads in the Graun; and a Jo Moore-like obsession with massaging figures, which makes Norman Tebbit’s approach to employment statistics look as flexible as the Forth Road Bridge.
This is because the Tories, having been spooked, have let the debate on privatization go cold. They’ve let Labour spread the nonsense that spending cuts means cuts in the important services, like doctors and teachers. The only way they think they can compete in the next two months is by promising to spend a little less, and a little more cautiously, than Labour.
I’d be very interested in any demonstration that spending cuts don’t mean “cuts in the important services, like doctors and teachers” (and also don’t mean firing/pissing on bottom-rung workers like trainee nurses, cleaners, and clerical staff). Because “spend a little less, and a little more cautiously” looks like the correct approach to me.
If the Tories lose, they must immediately change tactics, and start promoting the free market again as early as possible. They have to turn the debate around, and to do that they need to start as soon as they can. I fear, though, that they will do precisely the opposite, and turn to the young centrists.
This is what the Tories should not do. It all depends on what you mean by the “free market” and the Bunny strikes me a wild-eyed Randian idealist. Plenty of centrists believe the market works for some things, some of the time, and where failure is cheap, and knowledge is easy to acquire. If the Tories drop the centrist approach (which, again IMO, has been the hallmark of British politics for decades) they’re doomed to extinction.
The Bunny is also perceptive in his following post, If I don’t approve of it, it must be right-wing and Even Daleks can handle non-flat surfaces these days is good too, if light on Daleks.
Otherwise, right wing blogs can be useful: some idiot didn’t read Tim Worstall.
On, I should stress, a very different sort of right-winger, Jim White (who was largely right about Sideways) states the too-obvious —Hitler was madder than a bucketload of snakes — there’s no mystique. But there never is. When you need heroes, anything will do. Short-arsed demagogue with one ball, toothy vicar, brain-damaged cocaine survivor, it’s all the same. Watch the parking meters.
These 624 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:47am GMT Permanent link.
April Is The Cruellest Month »
Via Panda’s Thumb, Kos scoops the Scientific American editorial.
There’s no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don’t mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense, and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is turning over a new leaf, so there’s no better time to say: you were right, and we were wrong.
In retrospect, this magazine’s coverage of so-called evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it. Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.
Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by lumping them in with creationists. Creationists believe that God designed all life, and that’s a somewhat religious idea. But ID theorists think that at unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful entity designed life, or maybe just some species, or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That’s what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn’t get bogged down in details.
Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to present everybody’s ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories simply because they lack scienfically credible arguments or facts. Nor should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do. Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups say things that seem untrue or misleading, our duty as journalists is to quote them without comment or contradiction. To do otherwise would be elitist and therefore wrong. In that spirit, we will end the practice of expressing our own views in this space: an editorial page is no place for opinions.
Get ready for a new Scientific American. No more discussions of how science should inform policy. If the government commits blindly to building an anti-ICBM defense system that can’t work as promised, that will waste tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars and imperil national security, you won’t hear about it from us. If studies suggest that the administration’s antipollution measures would actually increase the dangerous particulates that people breathe during the next two decades, that’s not our concern. No more discussions of how policies affect science either - so what if the budget for the National Science Foundation is slashed? This magazine will be dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced science, and not just the science that scientists say is science. And it will start on April Fools’ Day.
LMFAO. Heh or, indeed, Yay.
These 14 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:12am GMT Permanent link.
This Is Not An April Fool »
This is something of a first: I have cause to thank Oliver Kamm and Peter Cuthbertson for their comments on Matthew Turner’s post on Our electoral system. I’m presently reading (and greatly enjoying) Martin Bell’s An Accidental MP.
The book came up because Peter queried Oliver’s role in Bell’s campaign — he is indeed mentioned, first on page 24:
He never need to look anything up: he carried it all in his head. ‘If you walked by him quietly,’ said John Sweeney, ‘you could hear the hum of deep thought like the buzzing you hear under an electricity pylon.’
Despite the hum of deep thought, while Oliver’s experience of the politicking may have “a ramshackle affair” and while he is unquestionably correct to say that “the only outsiders involved in its political direction comprised the candidate’s publisher, cameraman, daughter and nephew (me)” (my emphasis), Bell admits that, unknown to him, Labour and the Liberal Democrats had split his legal fees between them (page 73-4): he paid them back. Despite this, Bell appears to have been properly independent in his views and his voting — he certainly wasn’t part of the Labour Party machine.
However, this is only why I read the book, not what interests me now. That would be chapter 8, “Minefields” (p100-12).
That was why my maiden speech was about minefields. It would have been impertinent to talk about pay or pensions; but about land mines I hoped that I might receive a hearing, as the Member of Parliament most often nearly blown up by them.
(P101.) As you will see, Bell feels strongly on this.
Because of the energy and curiosity of children, who would poke around in ruins almost as soon as the guns fell silent, the anti-personnel mine was unique among the weapons of war, in that it had the effect of seeking out the innocent.
(P102.) You get the picture; mines are nasty.
The soldiers, by contrast, were schooled in survival and more or less untouched by it. It was a weapon of trench warfare whose time had passed … To a main force unit in manoeuvre warfare, armed with the technology of high intensity assault, a belt of land mines had about as much deterrent effect as a field full of garden gnomes.
(P102, again. My emphasis.) Outdated, as well as nasty. So the next bit won’t surprise.
The campaign against land mines was subsequently joined , on military as well as moral grounds, by General Norman Schwarzkopf, the American commander of Operation Desert Storm. A former Commandant of the US Marine Corps, General Al Gray, was of the same opinion. They had both been colonels in Vietnam, where a high proportion of the Americans’ casualties were caused by their own land mines.
(P102. My emphasis.) So, in short, land mines are nasty, out-of-date, and dangerous to your own side. (They are, however, cheap.) Naturally, the government of the time (1998) was against it, and proudly so.
The British government was devoting one twenty-fifth of 1 per cent of its aid budget to mine clearance, and yet claiming a position of leadership in the campaign.
(P103.) This doesn’t make the government dishonest: it only shows that others were worse. Bell goes on in the next paragraph.
This was the same government which, in March 1999, committed the Royal Air Force to dropping more than 500 cluster bombs on Kosovo, as part of the NATO action against the Serbs. Each bomb had 208 bomblets in its casing. A high proportion of them failed to explode, and fell in a wide pattern or footprint, because of the height from which they were dropped. The bomblets, which looked like pineapples with spidery fins, had all the characteristics of land mines — except that they were sown from the air. When the military intervention was over, they claimed more lives and limbs than the Serb-laid land mines. Yet we were invited to applaud a famous victory.
Then the story takes a turn, Princess Diana takes an interest, meets Martin Bell, and dies in the Paris car crash. Our narrative resumes on p110.
By then I was beginning to get the hang of things. The way to make things happen in the House of Commons is to get the government’s attention outside of it. … I was invited to discuss the ratification [of the land mines treaty] issue with George Robertson, the Defence Secretary [on the Today programme]. … George recited the usual reasons why, with the best will in the world, nothing could be done. I countered that it could be done — indeed it had to be done. MPs could forfeit a day of their long recess, and come back to ratify the treaty on 31 August, the anniversary of the Princess’s death. What better way to honour her memory?
Just to make sure you’re keeping up, George Robertson is Labour, Martin Bell is Independent. Not hard is it? Good.
This simple idea was taken up by the Express, which turned it into a front-page campaign. That afternoon the government capitulated, and mysteriously managed to find the time which it had previously declared unavailable.
That is, found the time to vote on the ratification of a treaty to ban the use of a weapon which is useless against a prepared army, dangerous to one’s own, and harmful to civilians. Hooray!
Jamie was deeply unimpressed by New Labour’s top 50 achievements. They include:
16. Banned anti-personnel mines
Perhaps Martin Bell’s memory is at fault. He is getting on a bit, and, as he says, has been blown up and shot on occasion. As Jamie says, “Fucking weasels.”
Updated to correct typos.
These 382 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:55pm GMT Permanent link.
Mocking The Differently Abled »
I haven’t been really, out-and-out tasteless in a while, so it’s time to change that.
Consider the image to the right. I got it from horkulated which was found by LGF Watch which in turn was found by Mike Power.
- If you scumbags want a holy war, stop this vehicle! Holy Moly, is he talking to me? Given the other stickers (you’ll have to visit one of the links above to read the whole thing), the driver of the wannabe tank in front doesn’t like A-rabs.
- Well, what have we here? He’s in Kentucky! I haven’t been to Kentucky, I admit. But I’ve been to Tennessee. Lots of black people, oh yes. Not many A-rabs though. Who is he talking to?
- The lengths some people go to get a good parking spot! For someone so belligerent (most of the other stickers talk about killing) the owner doesn’t have any regimental insignia. I’m thinking he’s not a veteran. Oh yeah, not a man to pick a fight with. He must scare non-existent A-rabs all the way to Arkansas.
These 180 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:01pm GMT Permanent link.
My Life Is Complete »
If anybody asks (not that anybody would), “What has been your best blogging experience?” I’d have to say, “being linked by Gary Farber!”
The guys (in the ‘and the girl’ sense) at Unfogged have set up the Gary Farber Fundraising Drive, and now John Holbo of Crooked Timber has joined in. Go on, he’s a nice fellow, and would appreciate it. (I’m credit card-free being regarded as a bad risk, otherwise I would have donated: I’ll send anyone a personal cheque provided they’re prepared to give evidence that they’ve passed on a proximate sum in dollars once it’s cleared.)
If anyone cares (not that anybody would), “What has been your second best blogging experience?” I should say “being sent Matthew Parris’s autobiography by Maria Farrell” — even though I promptly lost it and had to buy a replacement before finding it again. Though that’s another story.
These 146 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:27pm GMT Permanent link.
Blog Triv »
Blog posts so far: 4. G. Glasses of wine: 2. VG. Cigs 0 (but I don’t smoke). Darling, I … no I can’t do this at all. Can’t get the voice. Which is probably why I’m not a suspect for Belle de Jour. According to the Sunday Times, Rowan Pelling, long-time victim of Scott Burgess is. (On page 2 the Times website, both Ms Pelling and the other “author,” Lisa Hilton, deny all knowledge, but why spoil a good story, eh?) So the hack fooled the bloggers? Perhaps.
These 88 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:51pm GMT Permanent link.
Tuesday, 29 March 2005
No News Is Good News, I Suppose »
I’m lazy. Some days I take the car when I go to circuits, some days I just run (or, these days, jog). Whatever, the Welsh Institute of Sport (warning: slow loading, and bleeding annoying, site) used to strictly observe bank holidays (Wales is sort of backward, like) but this year they actually had classes on today, so I felt obliged to go, but not so keen, so I drove. (The guy who promised to do it, changed his mind. So we got stuck with Kevin, who decided to kill me, he usually does; this time he nearly succeeded.) Whatever, driving is usually marginally quicker than running. Driving back this time wasn’t. At the lights at the bottom of Cathedral Road (ie outside Transport House, which I’ve been in more often to give blood than as a party member) there was a police van parked across the junction, and a police car with its blue light on in the opposite lane. And there was a car (I’m not good on makes; it was a four-door family thing, not a Volvo or a Beamer or a Merc, I recognise those; something normal) upside down, its roof flat, between the traffic island and the calf-high metal fence round Transport House’s lawn, neither of which looked damaged. I mean how? How do you flip a car, just after a junction, where there’s no ramp or slope of any kind. I’ve checked the local news obsessively (it’s why I’m on the net at all). There’s nothing. Just the one car, and an ambulance tore away while I was stuck in the queue. I’ve seen crashes. But they involved hitting something. This was — weird.
These 279 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:01am GMT Permanent link.
Not This Time »
Wave goodbye, say hello. It didn’t happen — the wave that is, the earthquake certainly did. May the death toll be much lighter this time. Both Hak Mao and John Band impressed upon me that simple measures (like walking a few miles) could saves lives in plenty of time, following December’s tsunami. Now something similar has happened again. Let’s hope — I hope — that experience and history have taught something.
I can’t resist making a feeble political point here. (I do know it’s unwise, and I’ll regret it in the morning.) God is so bothered by one white person with no brain in Florida (I mean Terri Schavio, not Jeb Bush), but not by 300++ non whites in Indonesia. Well, yeah, incomprehensible, that is.
These 125 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:22am GMT Permanent link.
Mixing Business And Pleasure »
That is, geekiness and wonkery. Andrew Ian Dodge says that he doesn’t like the new Who. He says, “There are lots of elements of PCism which were bleedingly obvious and rather mis-placed.” which I don’t understand at all. Though one of the comments says, “That mother and bf were just horrid.” Eheu! Proles! Who let them in? I had a girlfriend who used to refer to things as “just horrid” but she was mocking the speech patterns of one’s betters.
Will Howells of No Geek is an Island liked it very much.
Rose track the Doctor down online (using TV world search engine search-wise.net) and meets Clive, who’s been tracking the Doctor on his website ("She? She’s been looking at a website about the Doctor and she’s a she?” asks his wife). I’ve read other reviews that questioned Clive’s inclusion but his inclusion works on several levels. Apart from poking a bit of fun at fans, he also helps to imbue the Doctor with more mystery and, at the end of the scene, he succeeds in making the Doctor’s travels sound scary. The dramatic irony, of course, is that it is Clive who dies, and this is his other role: to show that in this new series likeable characters will die. Without Clive, extras and an unseen electrician would have been the Autons’ only victims.
I liked the Clive character too. I wasn’t sure at first, and I thought they’d goofed when he has all these images of Christopher Ecclestone in the past, when it’s clear (from his looking in a mirror in Rose’s flat) that he’s just regenerated. But he travels in time — Russel Davies et al are clearly signalling that this incarnation has a lot ahead of him, as it were. Clive’s killing was splendid drama too. It’s a bit of a shame that his website has been updated to include the auton attack, when he’s supposed to be dead.
OTOH, there’s a splendid page of sightings.
This looks like a homeless guy who used to hang about on Whitworth Street in Manchester, back in the eighties. I once saw him having an argument with Tony Wilson. If you tried to give him some money, he’s just quote poetry at you.
…
I saw him a few years ago at the Louvre in Paris, he was gazing at the Mona Lisa muttering ‘I prefer the original’.
…
Clive. I’ve seen this man. As the senior librarian at York Central Library, I had to ban him for defacing books. We caught him using a hand-held electronic ‘eraser’ device to remove whole paragraphs (and then add his own scribbles) from the biographies of HG Wells, Bodica, Tancred Norman, Xenocrates, Blaise Pascal and Margaret Thatcher (he scribbled “Nessie was here!” in the erased section). We haven’t seen since but we have applied for an ASBO to legally ban him from all UK libraries.
All the names are good too, but my absolute favourite is from ‘Winnie Malcolm Smith’ (wasn’t there a W Smith in some book by an Eric Blair?)
Outside Fettes College, Edinburgh, 1972. He was telling some longhaired teenager not to worry about being nicknamed ‘Cynthia’, and that he should stick with the school drama group. The man you call the doctor seemed quite keen to stress that a career in politics would be a big mistake. At first, I thought that the doctor meant it would be a big mistake for the young man…but he went off muttering something about ‘global implications’. It seemed such a strange conversation, that I couldn’t help eavesdropping, and I’ve often pondered it over the years. The thing that struck me most about it was that ‘Cynthia’ had such a stupid grin.
These 224 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:16pm GMT Permanent link.
Splendid »
That’s Matthew Turner on David Aaronovitch. Why the Observer employs any political columnist who ever thought that politicians were honest, and says that he won’t believe them ‘if …’ (and then believes them anyway) is beyond me. Maybe he’ll start wearing military fatiques to highlight his courage in asking hardball political questions like, “Tone, I mean, Mr Blair, sir, what is your favourite colour?” (A stunning likeness of David Aaronovitch.)
I’ve never admired the US media as much as I do today; the real journalists won’t do a pimp’s job.
These 90 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:07pm GMT Permanent link.
Conclusively And Forever, A Figure Of Ridicule And Contempt »
David Horowitz and Peter Collier were wrong, in the syndicated article announcing their joint conversion to neoconservatism, to say that Chomsky hailed the advent of the Khmer Rouge as “a new era of economic development and social justice.” The Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. In 1972, Chomsky wrote an introduction to Dr. Malcolm Caldwell’s collection of interviews with Prince Norodom Sihanouk. In this introduction, he expressed not the prediction but the pious hope that Sihanouk and his supporters might preserve Cambodia for “a new era of economic development and social justice.” You could say that this was naive of Chomsky, who did not predict the 1973 carpet-bombing campaign or the resultant rise of a primitive, chauvinist guerrilla movement. But any irony here would appear to be at the expense of Horowitz and Collier. And the funny thing is that, if they had the words right, they must have had access to the book. And if they had access to the book…. Well, many things are forgiven those who see the error of their formerly radical ways.
Christopher Hitchens on the accusers of Noam Chomsky, 1985.
Is this a sign that he’s moving rightwards? Could he end up like Paul Johnson, or indeed like his brother Peter Hitchens, who used to be an international socialist and now writes hang ‘em flog ‘em columns for the Mail on Sunday? ‘Well, I don’t mind if people think that I am moving rightwards. It’s an accusation that would once have stung me more than it does now. But as to ending up like Paul Johnson - no, I’m incapable of doing that. The profile of the defector, the turncoat, is that they repudiate everything they’ve ever done. I don’t do that. When I look back on what I did for the left, I’m in a small way quite proud of some of it - I only wish I’d done more.’
Christopher Hitchens in conversation with Lynn Barber, 2002.
On one occasion, a memorial service for his friend Kingsley Amis, Johnson became so apoplectic at a eulogy given by the leftish journalist Christopher Hitchens that he had to be escorted out. Johnson is said by some to have his temper and his drinking under control these days. His wife, Marigold, recently referred to him as “far less barmy than he used to be.”
Paul Johnson, described by interviewer Jacob Weisberg, (New York Times [March 15, 1998]) on the Random House (his book publishers) site.
I say, “If I was doing Johnson as a political figure, and if I was Johnson doing it, I’d do it like this,” just to show him how it feels. Then, I hope successfully, I make a transition into the rest of the article and say, actually, that’s all for show; that’s not the point. The problem with Johnson’s theory about Norm Chomsky, who he attacks revoltingly, about Voltaire, about Marx, about other great figures of the modern world can and should be attacked in other ways.
Christopher Hitchens, in conversation with Brian Lamb, on the shortcomings of Paul Johnson, 1993.
It’s both satisfying and unsatisfying that Spanker Johnson is now, conclusively and forever, a figure of ridicule and contempt. He ought also to be remembered for his bigotry and spite and bullying.
Christopher Hitchens on Paul Johnson, Salon, 1998.
Thanks to Lenin and Chris. The deposit is $500; the total cost is a secret. O arbiters of intellectual honesty!
What these three former lefties intend to show gormless Yank tourists include: “The Tower of London with private viewing of The Crown Jewels,” “The Changing of The Guard,” “Westminster Abbey,” “a short scenic tour of the west End of London to include some of the most beautiful squares in the City,” “The House of Lords,” “Oxford ‘That celestial city of Dreaming Spires,’” etc.
The Tower of London also proudly saw the execution of heretic and holy terrorist, Guy Fawkes, the Osama bin Laden of his day: it was — and is —vitally important to keep the Micks down. There are some sad people who think Marx wrote ‘Capital’ in the British Library, that Tom Paine and Edmund Burke cames from these shores, that this was the country of Milton, or of Blake, where Orwell wrote, and Arthur Koestler and Isiah Berlin found refuge. Nah. Kings and Queens it is sir.
Update: I’m going to bang on some more because I can. Hitchens has criticised “Islamofascism” for what? — lack of women’s rights, workers’ rights, freedom of thought. These are all inventions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Britain has a very proud progressive history; one I’m proud of anyway. The Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the development of the Stock Market, — these all look like the icons of whatever it is the Neocons claim they wish to spread abroad. Then in Bristol, there was the anti-slavery movement (I understand this may upset some of the older families who read FrontPage). After the Afghan election George Bush proclaimed that the first voter was a nineteen-year-old woman. We had the suffragettes here, and the trade union movement. There's not a single woman mentioned in the Horowitz tour; no Mary Wollstonecraft, no Emmeline Pankhurst. There was some good stuff in the Middle Ages, like the Magna Carta, but that’s, as they say, history. Instead these poor marks are given an England which even those who think Jeeves and Wooster is reality television won't swallow. Forgive me if I regard the Frontpagers as a bunch of fatheaded hypocrites. Spread democracy, my arse. All they want to do is sniff round some money. At least readers of Hello! are honest about it.
Who would look at the ‘some of the most beautiful squares in the City’ in West London when there is the British Museum, the Tate, and Fleet Street and the City if you care for architecture? And then there’s my favourite museum — South Kensington. The one I always go to when I’m in London, if only to see the dinosaurs. And then it struck me. Of course! That’s why the gelded tour, not going near any actual history. Christopher Hitchens, the brave friend of intellectual freedom, the critic of Islamic oppression, doesn’t want to upset the hicks.
These 231 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 7:07pm GMT Permanent link.
Out-And-Out Tastelessness »
God, I’m an amateur. Yesterday, I said that I hadn’t written anything out-and-out tasteless in a while. Was I ever right.
Terri Schiavo’s Blog via Jamie. So obvious, so funny.
Debate. Splendid. (Not safe for work, or in front of children, or anywhere, really.) Via Chicken Yoghurt.
These 48 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:24pm GMT Permanent link.
Another One For The Blogroll »
Yes, this is tasteless night. I think that there’s so much good stuff on the interwebthing is just the euphoria everyone gets after good news. (Read this story; look at the picture; now write the blog: Mmmmhgghh. Durrrrr.)
Christian Soldier. Via Kevin Drum where a troll asks “Who has died from U.S. torture?”
Well, at least she’s not in denial (like Christopher Hitchens) and knows that torture happens. And not just abroad but in Abu Ghraib, USA.
In a Utah prison, Michael Valent, a mentally ill prisoner, died after spending sixteen hours nude in a restraint chair in March 1997. As it turns out, Valent’s death has a connection to Abu Ghraib. Lane McCotter was serving as the director of the Utah State Prison system on the day that Valent was put in a restraint chair. After Valent died, McCotter resigned. Six years later, McCotter was in charge of reconstructing Abu Ghraib, though he has denied involvement in the abuses.
Though it happens abroad too.
The Red Cross mentioned deaths in prison in Iraq, and the Pentagon is now looking at the deaths of at least thirty-three detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two of these deaths have already been ruled homicides.
That was last year. Those homicides have been confirmed: Military says prisoner deaths were homicides.
The 27 confirmed or suspected homicides occurred during 24 separate incidents, 17 of them in Iraq and seven in Afghanistan. The CID has determined that there were homicides in 16 of the incidents and is continuing to investigate the other eight incidents.
Thus far, the Army has found sufficient evidence to support charges against 21 soldiers in 11 incidents on offenses that include murder, negligent homicide and assault. The five other completed investigations involve personnel from the Navy, other government agencies and foreign armies.
…
Soon after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, Pentagon officials said that the prisoner abuse problem was confined to a handful of low-level soldiers. While subsequent investigations have concluded that senior Pentagon officials were not directly responsible for the abuses, documentary evidence that has emerged over the past year has shown that the scope of the abuse was far wider that the Pentagon first alleged.
My emphasis. What was it the Dupe said about “[t]hugs and torturers, who are always on tap in limitless supply, do their work in the dark"?
Update: this wasn’t supposed to be called ‘Another one for the blogroll,’ merely ‘Another one.’ Safari fills out form fields for you, so it decided that I wanted to repeat myself. I didn’t, and I didn’t check. My bad.
These 123 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:58pm GMT Permanent link.
Wednesday, 30 March 2005
Don't Put Your Daughter On The Stage, Mr O'Toole »
Ah rubbish, it doesn’t even remotely scan. O’Toole lashes out at the state of modern theatre.
“The Old Vic and Stratford were places where the best actors in the English-speaking world did their greatest work,” he told the Radio Times.
“That was their remit - not whether a third-rate biddable arsehole could do 39 productions of As You Like It upside down with red noses. The bulbous state-run theatre provides a healthy living for smart-aleck twats.”
And I can’t find a link to the Noel Coward lyrics.
These 27 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:35am GMT Permanent link.
As I Lay Drooling »
Harry the Wise on Terri Schiavo. Don’t read the comments while eating.
These 12 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:43am GMT Permanent link.
Downing Street And Untruth »
Before I take Martin Bell’s An Accidental MP back to the library, another extract.
Matthew Turner queried David Aaronovitch’s We weren’t lied to.
Here’s Bell, former corporal in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, and veteran war reporter, writing in 2000.
In the early days of the [Kosovo] intervention, when two Gurkhas were blown up by unexploded ordnance, 10 Downing Street tried to convince the BBC’s Nine O’Clock News, at five minutes to nine, that they were victims of land mines rather than NATO cluster bombs. That was an untruth.
(P153.) I feel that I failed to emphasise enough, when I quoted Bell before, that the UK ban on land mines (one of New Labour’s top 50 achievements) apart from being reluctantly given Commons time by the government (if memory serves, it was in the manifesto), was much too selective in leaving out cluster bombs. Still, Big Dave has himself a job for life if he wishes to justify the higher truth of everything Downing Street Says. Must be like scraping barnacles from an oil tanker.
And why, as soon as the troops went in, did the Number 10 press office have its own representative in Pristina? There is perhaps a place for spin doctors. A war zone is surely not one of them. Alastair Campbell himself showed up there, but only when it was safe for him to do so, and for what he later described as a ‘magical moment’. I could reasonable claim to know the war zones better than he did, and to have found few magical moments in them. So how dare he, in his pugnacious defence of NATO’s media strategy, accuse the journalists of cowardice?
Same page. My emphasis.
These 130 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:14pm GMT Permanent link.
Thugs And Torturers »
Thugs and torturers, who are always on tap in limitless supply, do their work in the dark and, when caught, plead exceptional circumstances.
I keep quoting this because its bare-faced chutzpah defies analysis. These pictures are in the dark, right? Or does he mean some subterranean, secretive kind of dark? They look very public to me. Michael Jackson may a better effort in hiding his girlie magazines that US soldiers did in keeping their holiday photos private.
General approved extreme interrogation methods. “Thugs and torturers” get everywhere don’t they?
Given this necessary assumption, all short-cut artists, let alone rec-room sadists, are to be treated, not as bad apples alone, but as traitors and enemies.
Hitchens again, reframing the argument, just so we’re sure that any abuse we see is done by “bad apples” and “rec-room sadists” working “alone.”
Now we have a general, who won’t have got his own hands dirty, so won’t have been indulging in any sadism, endorsing torture.
Dogs should be muzzled and under the control of a military dog handler “to prevent contact with [the] detainee”.
What the general didn’t do, was supervise it at all well. Do you see muzzles in this photograph? Nor do I. How about the first two and the fifth pictures here? Is it in the dark? Do the soldiers look furtive, or for that matter, to be aroused? Does it look covert, at all, to you? Nor to me, either. This was army policy.
A memo signed by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez authorised 29 interrogation techniques, including 12 that exceeded limits in the army’s own field manual and four that it admitted risked falling foul of international law, the Geneva conventions or accepted standards on the humane treatment of prisoners.
Dear god.
These 179 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:10pm GMT Permanent link.
Apprentice Blogging »
I’m glad that Jamie watches The Apprentice rather than his influential namesake. I haven’t seen the US original; because I didn’t care, didn’t know when it was on, and hate Donald Trump: Sir Alan Sugar at least makes things; Trump is merely a spiv.
Still, here’s my prediction just before it starts. James will be in the winning team. One of Saira or Paul will get sacked. We’ll see. It’s always more fun this way.
These 76 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:00pm GMT Permanent link.
Couldn't Be More Wrong »
Well, a lesser man would have scratched my last post. James lost. Sebastian was fired (less of a surprise really). What do I know? I’ll shut up.
These 27 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:09pm GMT Permanent link.
Thursday, 31 March 2005
Doctor, We Hardly Knew Ye »
I nearly posted last night on the second series of Dr Who, but in the newsagents this morning, there were these two deflating “exclusives.”
Lots of planets have a north, indeed. Bummer.
These 34 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:10am GMT Permanent link.
They Do God, Don't They? »
What now for the theocratic junta? First the Gimp interupts a holiday to sign legislation; then he changes his excuse for a mind. (Children, now you see why cocaine is illegal.) It’s worth asking, Why is John Danforth an Anti-Religious Bigot? and Will the GOP need life support?
These 48 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:50am GMT Permanent link.
And Thou Shalt Take No Gift »
And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.
Chris Brooke approves of David Clark’s profile of Tony Blair.
The political consequences of this defensive mindset are profound. Just as surely as you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, you can’t build a fairer society without challenging wealth and power. That is something Blair is psychologically incapable of. In the battle against what George Orwell once colourfully described as “the lords of property and their hired liars and bumsuckers”, Blair will always be with the liars and bumsuckers — not because he agrees with them, but because he is mesmerised by their power.
And Chris recalls an earlier piece in the LRB.
This is a government by no means without achievement, but it has even so been a disappointment: a disappointment in relation to what we had a right to expect and in relation to its own extraordinary electoral strength. Its ambitions are narrowed to those which can be achieved with the least controversy and offend the fewest powerful interests. Blair, we are told, is an admirer of the Asquith Government, but I wonder how much he knows of it. This, after all, was a government which was prepared to take on the House of Lords, the Tory Party, a good part of the ruling class, the rich, even the monarchy, and was dependent on the fruitful relationship between a Prime Minister who in the end sided with the Left and a Chancellor (Lloyd George) who enjoyed offending almost everybody. To read the Liberal Party’s rhetoric during the 1910 elections is to realise that we live in a different world. It is inconceivable that Blair or Brown would behave that way.
Makes me warm to Lloyd George, you know.
The more I think about it, the more I want Labour in. Blair out. Someone suggested (I forget who) that David Shayler should stand against David Blunkett, leaving Reg Keys alone to fight Tony Blair. If the party ends up with a leader with spine, like Bob Marshall-Andrews ("unwhippable” according to Martin Bell) or Paul Flynn, I’d rejoin the party.
And the title and the epigraph? If he’s not a bumsucker, why else would a Labour member visit a fascist like Berlusconi?
These 111 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:32pm GMT Permanent link.
With Friends Like This »
Via John B who got it from Peter C, the Moonie Times explains the PM to the colonials.
This year will see British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been a good friend to President Bush and true heir to Margaret Thatcher, seek a third term in office.
My emphasis. (I added the link too, obviously.) True Heir to Mrs Thatch and a friend of the theocratic junta. He’s got to go.
Why does Goodge Street college need a “board of advisors"? What happened to academics?
These 56 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:30pm GMT Permanent link.
FactCheck Goes Live! »
Channel 4’s FactCheck is now live. First up, Patricia Hewitt is caught out. The “Labour Party formally withdrew the allegation and promised not to repeat it. However, this climbdown by Ms Hewitt has never been made public.”
Then they say that Ruth Kelly is telling the truth about the school dinner money. (What? you thought they caved in to a telegenic chef on the box! Good god no. They’ve been thinking this for years.)
It seems the latter is nearer the truth, as Tony Blair suggested on Sky News. “Of course it is part of the education budget,” he said, “but it is still new in the sense that this is money now specifically allocated to school meals.”
In the budgets for each government department there is a “reserve” fund built in - reserves that a spokesman for the DfES likened to the reserves held by any company. This money is not routinely allocated to projects, but can on occasion be used by Ministers to fund new projects. Ms Kelly has simply decided to use this money to fund the school meal project.
So does this make it “new” money?
Well it was previously allocated to the Education Budget, but not to a specific project. It is therefore “new” in the sense that it hasn’t been taken away from existing project.
But in the end it is a question of semantics.
As for Michael Howard’s plans for travellers, it seems "There is no human rights method of getting round the planning system." So that’s a lie too.
The interweb thing. It’s not just for porn anymore.
These 110 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 6:07pm GMT Permanent link.
The Running Blogs Of Capitalism? »
Good programme on Radio 4 just now Going to the Blogs? I waited to see if the transcript would stop being a 404 — it hasn’t so you can listen only if you have Real Audio. Good selection of speakers, Romsey Redhead, Tom Watson, Iain Duncan Smith, Glenn Reynolds, and others. Reynolds especially cogent (as he usually is in any medium except his own blog) — IMO he subtly swept Iain Duncan Smith’s belief that blogs would revive the Conservatives into the bin. If it gets out that Glenn speaks civilly to the evil empire of the MSM, Roger Simon and Jeff Jarvis will add his to their death lists. Indeed.
These 111 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:51pm GMT Permanent link.