This being a report from the BBC, you have to read on down to get the kicker: Shehzad Tanweer, July 7 bomber who no one in the Islamic community supports, was buried in 'a quiet funeral in the compound of a local Islamic saint's shrine'. Good job they've disowned his philosophy, hey ?
Monday, October 31, 2005
Sunday, October 30, 2005
The Ballard Of St Jean (Part MMXIV)
Sir Ian Blair finally makes the point he should have done in July: there is no ‘shoot to kill’ policy because there can be no such policy. Police officers are legally ‘citizens in uniform’. When a police officer uses lethal force he is acting under the provisions for reasonable force that are available to any citizen. To be sure, it’s an open question whether the courts set the bar a little higher for PC Plod rather than Mr Householder, but that’s a question about interpretation rather than basic principle.
All that measures such as Operation Kratos mean is that the Filth have been running through drills and hypothetical scenarios to deal with potential suicide bombers. Let’s try a little thought experiment here: can you imagine what the Left would say if they weren’t doing this ?
Exactly.
And how does the Al-Beeb counter this argument ? Yep – by invoking St Jean the Martyr. As ever, professional cousin Alex Pereira runs through them ol’ gringo-hating classics, without ever getting round to explaining what he’s doing still living here.
As if the screechy whining of another Third World entitlement surfer wasn’t enough to convince anyone, we also have ‘senior lawyer’ John Cooper, who warns us that the ‘rules were being made in a climate of panic and fear rather than through calm development.’ Y’know, the kind of calm rationalism which lead Lord Hoffman to claim terrorism wasn’t a real threat. You can’t argue with a record like that.
This is how the modern Left arguesl: victimhood and snobbery. Atrocity stories rub shoulders with smug Liberals arguing that all the cool kids are into appeasement these days. Hence why Liberals hate the Internet: such an ideology can not stand up to scrutiny.
All that measures such as Operation Kratos mean is that the Filth have been running through drills and hypothetical scenarios to deal with potential suicide bombers. Let’s try a little thought experiment here: can you imagine what the Left would say if they weren’t doing this ?
Exactly.
And how does the Al-Beeb counter this argument ? Yep – by invoking St Jean the Martyr. As ever, professional cousin Alex Pereira runs through them ol’ gringo-hating classics, without ever getting round to explaining what he’s doing still living here.
As if the screechy whining of another Third World entitlement surfer wasn’t enough to convince anyone, we also have ‘senior lawyer’ John Cooper, who warns us that the ‘rules were being made in a climate of panic and fear rather than through calm development.’ Y’know, the kind of calm rationalism which lead Lord Hoffman to claim terrorism wasn’t a real threat. You can’t argue with a record like that.
This is how the modern Left arguesl: victimhood and snobbery. Atrocity stories rub shoulders with smug Liberals arguing that all the cool kids are into appeasement these days. Hence why Liberals hate the Internet: such an ideology can not stand up to scrutiny.
Your Country Needs You To Drink
This is a good post, but it buys into one of the most widely held, yet most logically dubious, myths about booze, namely the idea that there are huge hooch-related health costs. Obviously, there are costs incurred in the treatment of chronic illness directly related to hooch, although most of these costs arise as a result of a small number of cases of people with a pathological relationship with idiot oil [1]. But the vast majority of 'drink-related health costs' are nothing of the sort.
Certain there are conditions which are more likely to kill drunks rather than lemonade drinkers, but the corollary to that is that the sober are correspondingly more likely to be killed by other illnesses. Surely it is just as valid to total up the costs of treating those illnesses and call it the costs of non-drinking related illness ? But what would that prove ? Nothing, except that it is the dying part that’s expensive, not the actual cause of death.
Now, bring in the other two factors. Obviously, drunks pay an extortionate rate of tax on vitamin XXX, which must offset many of these alleged costs, but there's something else too. The Health Nazis are right: drunks do die earlier. Or, to put it another way, the sober hang on and on, gobbling up pensions, other benefits and healthcare. Think of all the hip replacements the NHS hasn’t had to shell out for because of drunks who worked all their lives, got to 65 then did the decent thing. Hooch related costs ? It’s the sober that are bleeding the country dry.
Certain there are conditions which are more likely to kill drunks rather than lemonade drinkers, but the corollary to that is that the sober are correspondingly more likely to be killed by other illnesses. Surely it is just as valid to total up the costs of treating those illnesses and call it the costs of non-drinking related illness ? But what would that prove ? Nothing, except that it is the dying part that’s expensive, not the actual cause of death.
Now, bring in the other two factors. Obviously, drunks pay an extortionate rate of tax on vitamin XXX, which must offset many of these alleged costs, but there's something else too. The Health Nazis are right: drunks do die earlier. Or, to put it another way, the sober hang on and on, gobbling up pensions, other benefits and healthcare. Think of all the hip replacements the NHS hasn’t had to shell out for because of drunks who worked all their lives, got to 65 then did the decent thing. Hooch related costs ? It’s the sober that are bleeding the country dry.
[1]Of course, alcoholism rarely presents alone, and if considered as just the particular pathology of more generalised depressive illness, then the total cost of specifically alcohol-related disease shrinks even further.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Respect My Victimhood!
It's taken years but I've finally found a victim group I qualify for. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to find that employers discrimate against the grossly fat. Of course, this does put Nu Lab in a bind. On the one hand there is the Nanny State, ever ready to arrest people for possession of Category A pizza, on the other we have the Therapy State, every ready to protect people from the entirely predictable and well-deserved consequences of their actions. All we can really be sure of is that I'm a victim and I deserve a government grant.
Liberal Tourette's Syndrome
Yep, I know lots of Conservatives hate Johann Hari, but I think he's great. He has the Cheriesque disability of saying what Liberal's really believe. No Nu Lab equivocation with him. Take, for example, the sleazy sleight of hand Liberal critics of faith schools usually employ. They try and say that, gosh darn it, they're really big fans of religion, but they just don't think any one particular faith should predominate in a school 'cause, hey, who are we to say how God really feels about bacon sandwiches ? Blah, blah, blah. Now, here's Hari on the same topic:
Segregating children according to their parents' superstitions is a great way to create a volatile, violent town where ethnic groups glare at each other across a chasm of mutual incomprehension.
'Parent's superstitions'. See what I mean ? The Left's opposition to faith schools isn't based on some fuzzy-minded ecumenical thinking. The Left isn't promoting some value-neutral, agnostic worldview, it's promoting militant atheism. They hate religion for one simple reason: they want to replace it with their own faith, fundementalist State worship.
Of course, there's another factor in Hari's case- the same one that motivates Excitable Andy Sullivan:
Of course, there's another factor in Hari's case- the same one that motivates Excitable Andy Sullivan:
Most religious schools preach one chunk of reactionary morality or another, all causing terrible harm to children.
It's the terrible harm of morality. Huh ? Fortunatly, we have an example to hand of what Hari counts as 'reactionary morality':
[I have written] in favour of understanding and embracing despised minorities like gypsies and paedophiles...
Yet, somehow parents keep choosing to send their kids to faith schools instead of to schools full of people who believe we need to reach out to Ian Huntley.
Needless to say, just as Hari's opposition to religion in schools turns out to mean that he thinks schools should be brainwashing the kids into culturally Marxist rubbish, so all this just means he wants to impose his own warped morality:
Needless to say, just as Hari's opposition to religion in schools turns out to mean that he thinks schools should be brainwashing the kids into culturally Marxist rubbish, so all this just means he wants to impose his own warped morality:
Some of the new evangelical city academies - models for the new faith schools - openly admit they are "anti-gay" and urge gay pupils to "choose another path". There is a real risk that, having abolished Section 28 by the front door, the spread of homophobic faith schools reintroduces it by the back door for thousands of schoolchildren.
As ever, the point needs to be made that passing laws preventing public money being spent on, say, promoting bike riding is hardly proof that the government is seeking to run down everyone wearing lycra. Equally, isn't Hari making a moral point of his own here ? He thinks people who oppose the gay lifestyle shouldn't be allowed to teach - whatever you think of Clause 28, there was never any question of purging those teachers who thought wild big man a$z hunting was a fine way to spend a weekend.
The substantive point though is this: Liberals have been enraged by faith schools for years, yet parents keep sending their kids to them, morality and all. Ditto, these schools keep beating their opposite numbers on the Left so hollow that the L3 are forced to resort to whiny special pleading about faith schools using up all the education so kids at Karl Marx Comp end up studying the history of the letterbox and Jackie Collins' novels. So, the public like faith schools and they work, but Hari and his fellow travellors want to destroy them. Hundreds of years of history and culture will be destroyed in an educational Year Zero, with the kids herded into Nu Schools, whence they will be indoctrinated in a foul and depraved ideology responsible for the deaths of over 100 million in the last century alone. And this guy complains about other people trying to impose their morality ?
Tip'o'the'hat to Laban.
The substantive point though is this: Liberals have been enraged by faith schools for years, yet parents keep sending their kids to them, morality and all. Ditto, these schools keep beating their opposite numbers on the Left so hollow that the L3 are forced to resort to whiny special pleading about faith schools using up all the education so kids at Karl Marx Comp end up studying the history of the letterbox and Jackie Collins' novels. So, the public like faith schools and they work, but Hari and his fellow travellors want to destroy them. Hundreds of years of history and culture will be destroyed in an educational Year Zero, with the kids herded into Nu Schools, whence they will be indoctrinated in a foul and depraved ideology responsible for the deaths of over 100 million in the last century alone. And this guy complains about other people trying to impose their morality ?
Tip'o'the'hat to Laban.
UPDATE:
It appears I've had a religious experience - possession by the Demon of Bad Writing. Just to clairfy - I think Hari would be making a defensible point if he wanted schools to follow the old rules for the Officer's Mess ('no religion, no politics') but it's quite obvious that what he wants to impose (not merely offer the choice of) is a school curriculum pushing a very definite religious doctrine (atheism) as part of a very definite worldview (Marxism).
BNP Holds Firework Display, Admit It's A Comedown From The V-2
Mel P on the riots in Birmingham (and the media's near blackout):
If this had been white on black violence, there would have been a media feeding frenzy and the newspapers would have been full of reconstructions, analysis and instant opinions and recriminations. Instead, there has been near silence.
All true, and so is the flipside to that, namely that if it had been black on white violence, we’d be knee-deep in sociologists, race hustlers and other members of the less of worth community assuring us that it was all a perfectly valid response to the intrinsic oppression of ethnic minorities in……..yada, yada, yada.
My metric for all this is always to ask what the MSM would say if the BNP were responsible ? That’s always an interesting thought experiment, except in this case where we do in fact have the answer right in front of us.
Of course, these two cases aren’t quite comparable. The Brum Scum are protesting (in a riotous kind of way) about an alleged assault on an as yet unidentified victim. Das Reichtards are protesting about real offences on known victims (as even Channel 4 admits). More to the point, while the homeboys are mouthing the usual pointless generalities about police incompetence, in Keighley we’re talking about the police specifically disbanding a squad that targets these offences. The biggest difference though is simply this: on the one hand we have a actual outbreak of savagery in Birmingham, meanwhile the Left can only make dark hints about the BNP holding a bonfire on Nov 5.
Sure, the BNP have their own loony agenda, but to use that to avoid asking awkward questions is to fall headfirst into the genetic fallacy. If nothing else, we’re entitled to ask if there are any other circumstances where the axing of a squad investigating sex crimes would pass without any comment by the femiloons. I’ll guess raped children score lower on the Liberals’ ladder of victimhood than ‘Asians’.
My metric for all this is always to ask what the MSM would say if the BNP were responsible ? That’s always an interesting thought experiment, except in this case where we do in fact have the answer right in front of us.
Of course, these two cases aren’t quite comparable. The Brum Scum are protesting (in a riotous kind of way) about an alleged assault on an as yet unidentified victim. Das Reichtards are protesting about real offences on known victims (as even Channel 4 admits). More to the point, while the homeboys are mouthing the usual pointless generalities about police incompetence, in Keighley we’re talking about the police specifically disbanding a squad that targets these offences. The biggest difference though is simply this: on the one hand we have a actual outbreak of savagery in Birmingham, meanwhile the Left can only make dark hints about the BNP holding a bonfire on Nov 5.
Sure, the BNP have their own loony agenda, but to use that to avoid asking awkward questions is to fall headfirst into the genetic fallacy. If nothing else, we’re entitled to ask if there are any other circumstances where the axing of a squad investigating sex crimes would pass without any comment by the femiloons. I’ll guess raped children score lower on the Liberals’ ladder of victimhood than ‘Asians’.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Beeb Buries The Lede
There's a certain air of humbuggery hanging over this BBC article. We're told Khan was filmed speaking to a terror suspect in 2004, with the less than subtle implication that the blame for July 7 lies with the people who warned our defences were inadequate, rather than moonbats like Lord "no threat" Hoffman.
I suppose we're not meant to ask how exactly a known terror suspect was able to press the flesh with up-and-coming sociopaths ? Ah yes. The Left - with the support of the BBC - consistently blocked just about every attempt by security services to deal with terrorism, but now their juvenille posturing has led to innocent deaths, it's the fault of the security services for not...not what, exactly ? What would the Left have had MI-5 do ? I'm guessing proactive detention is out, so all they'd have to do is maintain 24 hour surveillance on Khan (and everyone else the suspect met) for around a year. Dang! It's so obvious.
The thing is though that the Beeb's attempts to blame it all on the security services can't obscure a more interesting, and more significant, part of the Khan backstory:
I suppose we're not meant to ask how exactly a known terror suspect was able to press the flesh with up-and-coming sociopaths ? Ah yes. The Left - with the support of the BBC - consistently blocked just about every attempt by security services to deal with terrorism, but now their juvenille posturing has led to innocent deaths, it's the fault of the security services for not...not what, exactly ? What would the Left have had MI-5 do ? I'm guessing proactive detention is out, so all they'd have to do is maintain 24 hour surveillance on Khan (and everyone else the suspect met) for around a year. Dang! It's so obvious.
The thing is though that the Beeb's attempts to blame it all on the security services can't obscure a more interesting, and more significant, part of the Khan backstory:
A terror suspect held in connection with the 2002 Bali bombings has alleged that Khan travelled to Malaysia and the Philippines in 2001 to meet leaders of extremist Islamic group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), which is closely linked with al-Qaeda.
Somebody help me out here: is 2001 earlier than 2003 ? Yes, I believe it might be. So much for the claim pushed heavily by the Liberal media (the BBC above all others) that Khan and the rest of his exploding merry men were a bunch of fluffy bunnies until radicalised by the invasion of Iraq. Khan was planning to go to terrorism school long before the first plane hit. The 'brutal US occupation of Iraq/Afghanistan/Iceland' wasn't a factor - there must have been something else which preovoked him to kill large numbers of people, mmmmmm ?
Common Enemy Watch
Laban strikes again: a (relatively) sane piece from the Yazzmonster neverthless refers to that most mythical of beasts : hosti vulgaris
Trainwreck Nostalgia
File this under ‘With Friends Like These…’: David Mellor has just penned a crazed attack on David Davis. Yep, the human reification of the sheer awfulness of the Major Years is backing David Cameron. Then again, Captain Trainwreck himself all but came out for Cameron last week. Clearly suffering delusions of relevance, Major informs us that the leadership contest is an opportunity to finally destroy the Right. If Major thinks people vote Conservative because they don’t like right-wing politics, the events of 1990-97 suddenly become a lot more explicable.
Still, it’s worth revisiting the nightmare of the Major Years, if only to remind ourselves what happened last time the Tories ditched an unpopular ideologue, in favour of an electable moderate. What happened was Tony Blair.
If anything, Cameron’s claim to electability seems even weaker than Major’s. What we have here is the combined effects of the Least Conservative Tory Syndrome and the media’s basic narcissim. Sure, the media has persuaded to back a public school Oxbridge graduate (you know, sort of like many of them are), but how relevant is all that ?
It’s significant that the only time Cameron faced anything like a real electoral test, the results were mixed, to say the least. No sign of star quality, for sure. Ditto, Wat Tyler points out one big problem with Cameron. While it may be possible to win an election with the South alone, it’s surely easier to try and pick up seats in the whole country. Considering what a Cameron victory would mean for the Conservative Party, it’s hard not to think of Zell Miller’s description of the Democrats:
Still, it’s worth revisiting the nightmare of the Major Years, if only to remind ourselves what happened last time the Tories ditched an unpopular ideologue, in favour of an electable moderate. What happened was Tony Blair.
If anything, Cameron’s claim to electability seems even weaker than Major’s. What we have here is the combined effects of the Least Conservative Tory Syndrome and the media’s basic narcissim. Sure, the media has persuaded to back a public school Oxbridge graduate (you know, sort of like many of them are), but how relevant is all that ?
It’s significant that the only time Cameron faced anything like a real electoral test, the results were mixed, to say the least. No sign of star quality, for sure. Ditto, Wat Tyler points out one big problem with Cameron. While it may be possible to win an election with the South alone, it’s surely easier to try and pick up seats in the whole country. Considering what a Cameron victory would mean for the Conservative Party, it’s hard not to think of Zell Miller’s description of the Democrats:
Once upon a time, the most successful Democratic leader of them all, FDR, looked south and said 'I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill clad, ill nourished.' Today our national Democratic leaders look south and say, 'I see one third of a nation and it can go to hell.'
But, OK, for the sake of argument we’ll assume that Cameron is a dead cert for No 10. Next question: so what ?
If you’re an MP, you want the Conservatives to win the next election. Ditto, over-committed members may have a tribal loyalty to the Party, but the rest of us ? Folks, name one truly Conservative policy that a Cameron government will push through. For that matter, name one Blairian policy that would be reversed ?
This is where the analogy with Blair breaks down. True, Blair is often looked upon by Lefty purists as a triangulating sell-out but, feints to the right to the contrary, when it comes to the policies that he’s implemented, rather than merely talked about, he has proved himself to be impeccably Gramsican.
Or maybe that’s the argument for a Conservative government ? At least a period of Conservative government could put a stop to this kind of deranged social engineering, right ? Except we’ve tried this before. How we laughed in the mid-80s when we heard of London boroughs introducing ‘Anti-Racist Maths’ and the like – but who’s running the country, now ? Look, for example, at the way femiloon ideology exercises a death grip on social services. Would mere possession of more seats in Westminster change that ? Hardly. In fact, recent history suggests it could make things much worse.
Lady Thatcher is often criticised for being overly concerned with fixing the economy rather than fighting the culture war - much as Churchill let his first term get sidetracked by foreign policy. True or not, at least Lady Thatcher did no actual harm. In contrast, the Major Years were positively disastrous for Conservatism. Socialists had spent years claiming that Conservatives were all secretly amoral, self-obsessed sleazebags, but they never did nearly as much damage as the seven years of the Caligula administration. If Blair had called in an exorcist on May 1 1997, it would not have been excessive (and it might have rid us of Cherie). How much damage could the Major Years II do to Britain ?
Here’s the thing though: just as the elevation of John Major was a disaster for Conservatism, things right now are actually going the right way. Look at how people reacted to the Joan Rivers/Darcus Howe incident. Even ten years ago JR would’ve have become an unperson, now she’s a heroine. That’s reflected in the wider culture – a charge of racism used to be an instant career killer, now more and more people are standing firm and telling the Left to see them in court. Hey – look at the biggest indicator of them all: Little Britain. Hardly a Conservative show, but characters like Vicky Pollard, Lou and Andy and Dafydd would be unthinkable in the 1990s.
Just as the Major Government was the perfect example of Bad Conservatism, Blair is proof that, no matter how carefully managed, Liberalism is still at heart a lousy philosophy. Consider 'Education, Education, Education'. For all that Blair flaps around, the Left is a prisoner of its own metacontext, with its deranged assumptions about social inclusiveness and the like. With every passing day it becomes clearer that there isn't a problem with any particular Liberal school policy, far less implementaion. The problem is that their whole worldview stinks.
Electing a Conservative Government now would give the Left plausible deniability. That would be worth it, if it was a truly Conservative government, but consider that in Cameron we have a potential leader who thinks the Government may be going too far in it's plans to jail the governors of schools who serve too many burgers. Do you think ? Hey, Conservatism is a pretty big tent, but if banging folks up for 'possession of a cheeseburger with intent to supply' seems sane to you, you're probably in the wrong Party.
Who cares if Cameron and the rest of the hollow men get to prance around Whitehall if the Left maintains its grip on the actual machinery of government ? Cameron shows no sign of recognising that there even is a culture war, let alone showing any appetite for fighting it. To Cameron’s breed of Conservative, their key constituency is board members of multinationals who just want their taxes cut and the right to machine gun surplus employees. No doubt it goes down well in Notting Hill, but why would anyone else support him ?
If you’re an MP, you want the Conservatives to win the next election. Ditto, over-committed members may have a tribal loyalty to the Party, but the rest of us ? Folks, name one truly Conservative policy that a Cameron government will push through. For that matter, name one Blairian policy that would be reversed ?
This is where the analogy with Blair breaks down. True, Blair is often looked upon by Lefty purists as a triangulating sell-out but, feints to the right to the contrary, when it comes to the policies that he’s implemented, rather than merely talked about, he has proved himself to be impeccably Gramsican.
Or maybe that’s the argument for a Conservative government ? At least a period of Conservative government could put a stop to this kind of deranged social engineering, right ? Except we’ve tried this before. How we laughed in the mid-80s when we heard of London boroughs introducing ‘Anti-Racist Maths’ and the like – but who’s running the country, now ? Look, for example, at the way femiloon ideology exercises a death grip on social services. Would mere possession of more seats in Westminster change that ? Hardly. In fact, recent history suggests it could make things much worse.
Lady Thatcher is often criticised for being overly concerned with fixing the economy rather than fighting the culture war - much as Churchill let his first term get sidetracked by foreign policy. True or not, at least Lady Thatcher did no actual harm. In contrast, the Major Years were positively disastrous for Conservatism. Socialists had spent years claiming that Conservatives were all secretly amoral, self-obsessed sleazebags, but they never did nearly as much damage as the seven years of the Caligula administration. If Blair had called in an exorcist on May 1 1997, it would not have been excessive (and it might have rid us of Cherie). How much damage could the Major Years II do to Britain ?
Here’s the thing though: just as the elevation of John Major was a disaster for Conservatism, things right now are actually going the right way. Look at how people reacted to the Joan Rivers/Darcus Howe incident. Even ten years ago JR would’ve have become an unperson, now she’s a heroine. That’s reflected in the wider culture – a charge of racism used to be an instant career killer, now more and more people are standing firm and telling the Left to see them in court. Hey – look at the biggest indicator of them all: Little Britain. Hardly a Conservative show, but characters like Vicky Pollard, Lou and Andy and Dafydd would be unthinkable in the 1990s.
Just as the Major Government was the perfect example of Bad Conservatism, Blair is proof that, no matter how carefully managed, Liberalism is still at heart a lousy philosophy. Consider 'Education, Education, Education'. For all that Blair flaps around, the Left is a prisoner of its own metacontext, with its deranged assumptions about social inclusiveness and the like. With every passing day it becomes clearer that there isn't a problem with any particular Liberal school policy, far less implementaion. The problem is that their whole worldview stinks.
Electing a Conservative Government now would give the Left plausible deniability. That would be worth it, if it was a truly Conservative government, but consider that in Cameron we have a potential leader who thinks the Government may be going too far in it's plans to jail the governors of schools who serve too many burgers. Do you think ? Hey, Conservatism is a pretty big tent, but if banging folks up for 'possession of a cheeseburger with intent to supply' seems sane to you, you're probably in the wrong Party.
Who cares if Cameron and the rest of the hollow men get to prance around Whitehall if the Left maintains its grip on the actual machinery of government ? Cameron shows no sign of recognising that there even is a culture war, let alone showing any appetite for fighting it. To Cameron’s breed of Conservative, their key constituency is board members of multinationals who just want their taxes cut and the right to machine gun surplus employees. No doubt it goes down well in Notting Hill, but why would anyone else support him ?
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
It's The Ken Clarke Workout Video
Given that The Guardian yaps constantly about unjustifiable discrimatnion in hiring, it's intriguing to consider its own qualifications to lecture anyone about good practice. After all, it's not like they haven't been warned, but no: recruiting the Max Clifford of Jihad wasn't enough of a clue for them. Now, we're informed that it was only after an exercise in creative writing was exposed that they noted one of their staff was hopelessly unqualified. A-huh. Something to bear in mind next time you read one of their 'special investigations' into somebody else's recruitment practices.
UPDATE:
Link now fixed
UPDATE:
Link now fixed
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Just A Guy Who Helps Pay For It All
This is exactly right. So much for the classless society. The whole 'key workers' scam is just another excuse for the government to channel bribes to the Turkey Army. Obviously, there's the simple fact that without the tax revenue raised by the productive, the gravy train would grind to a halt, but there's more to it than that. Consider the relationship between one of the most loved groups of public sector workers and one of the most hated groups of private sector workers, namely GPs and drug company reps. On the one hand, saintly healers, on the other, grubby, money-grabbing parasites.
Thing is though that things are a little more complex. Reassuring though it is to think of GPs carefully setting aside a day a week to keep up with the jounals, it doesn't happen like that. In fact, most doctors have the same relationship to drugs that taxi drivers have with their cab. Sure, some of them are the equivalent of folks who know every nut and bolt, but most have only the most superficial knowledge (really - if you want to see a doctor panic, wait until he prescribes something, then ask him how it works). So, they don't have the time to keep up with the literature, and wouldn't understand what they were reading anyway. How do they keep up to date ? Government schemes ? What do you think ? Nope - most doctors learn about new treatments from those despised reps. Sure, those reps have their own interests at heart, but as Adam Smith reminds us, there need not be a conflict between self-interest and social good. All of which is by way of saying that without those almost proverbially non-key reps, the NHS simply couldn't operate as it does. Hence, the absurdity of dividing the country into 'key workers' and other ranks.
Thing is though that things are a little more complex. Reassuring though it is to think of GPs carefully setting aside a day a week to keep up with the jounals, it doesn't happen like that. In fact, most doctors have the same relationship to drugs that taxi drivers have with their cab. Sure, some of them are the equivalent of folks who know every nut and bolt, but most have only the most superficial knowledge (really - if you want to see a doctor panic, wait until he prescribes something, then ask him how it works). So, they don't have the time to keep up with the literature, and wouldn't understand what they were reading anyway. How do they keep up to date ? Government schemes ? What do you think ? Nope - most doctors learn about new treatments from those despised reps. Sure, those reps have their own interests at heart, but as Adam Smith reminds us, there need not be a conflict between self-interest and social good. All of which is by way of saying that without those almost proverbially non-key reps, the NHS simply couldn't operate as it does. Hence, the absurdity of dividing the country into 'key workers' and other ranks.
Brum Scum
Events in Birmingham have thrown the absurdities of Liberalism into sharp relief better than Shakespeare could – not that you would necessarily know that if you were reliant on the MSM. Consider, for example, the MSMs bland allusion to ‘tension’ in the area these past few days. As it happens, Mr Free Market pointed out a BBC report on it last Thursday. Indeed, in so far as the MSM (BBC included) is still pushing the ‘bolt from the blue’ line, you need to read his post to see that incidents of mass criminality were already occurring on Wednesday. Think that one through: unless you’re prepared to trawl the regional news sections of the BBC, you’ll get better information from some guy hidden in a hedge with a rifle and a bottle of Scotch than from the whole of the MSM. Ditto, compare the current BBC reporting with Laban’s round up. Shouldn’t an organisation which scores £3 billion p.a. of public dosh sort of do better than some guy with a PC in a country village ?
Still, you almost have to have sympathy with the MSM. These events have shredded their entire worldview. Take the question of prejudice. As Laban reports, Rasputin once tried to claim that Anglican disapproval of homosexual practices could lead to murder (really!). Similarly, a Tory MP only has to mouth the word ‘immigration’ for the MSM to claim he’s practically firebombing black churches, yet sauce for the goose is definitely off the menu. The same people who claim to find racism in the phone book turn a blind eye to statements like this or this. The Left consistently claims that only whites can be racist. We’re treated to lengthy expositions about ‘hegemony’, ‘institutional racism’ and the like, but then we see pitched battles between blacks and ‘Asians’.
No, Mr Liberal, this isn’t a ‘tiny minority’: there are at least enough people who buy into this garbage to return people like Diane Abbot and David Lammy to Parliament. Are the Left sure there’s no connection between an outbreak of mass criminality in Birmingham and a sitting MP who blames a furniture store for not knowing his constituents would behave like animals ? That’s another Liberal shibboleth that’s been exposed in Birmingham. Read Mr FM’s report and you see that on Wednesday our ethnic buds were already blocking roads. Needless to say, PC Plod was the very soul of cringing Liberal appeasement yet despite the Police taking no action to stop an outbreak of mass criminality, somehow mass criminality broke out again. Who’d have thunk it ?
This is the very antithesis of zero-tolerance policing. What underlies it is the absurd Liberal belief that when a group of thugs decide to start blocking roads, they’re actually making an inarticulate, yet eloquent, protest against social injustice. It may be technically true that the law does not approve of rampaging mobs but we have to take into account…..yada, yada, yada. Why was there rioting in Birmingham ? In part, because every less blatant act of criminality in the run-up resulted in nothing but nods and winks from police management.
Consider too the role of the media. For all that media likes to flaunt its anti-establishment credentials, when social issues are involved, they dutifully push the whole spectrum of PC myths. But does it actually help ? Consider that the proximate cause of the rioting is a rumour that a young black girl was gang raped by a group of ‘Asians’. It’s tempting to dismiss it as an absurd rumour, but it’s not as if the Liberal establishment doesn’t have a track record of soft-pedalling cases involving – ahem! – ‘Asians’. Maybe if people had any confidence that they were getting the real story from the media, they wouldn’t be so quick to believe rumours about underwater Jihadi vampires, or whatever the hell else.
As ever, Laban calls it right when he calls attention to the vicious subtext to local MP Khalid Mahmood’s rhetoric. If he appeared on TV wearing a shirt with ‘Save It For The Honkeys’ on it, his message could hardly be more blatant. Thing is though that he’s just taking the last forty years of Liberalism to its (il)logical conclusion – and so are the rioters. Where the ethnic minorities are concerned, Liberal policy has been a toxic mix of entitlement and victimhood. When unrealistic expectations meet paranoia the results can't hardly not be violent.
That was all OK with the Left, just as long as it was properly directed. As long as ethnic minorities served their purpose as shock troops in the Left’s Gramcian culture war, as long as they turned their rage on those pesky hegemons, everything was OK. If the rioters had spent their time murdering middle-class white males with jobs in the private sector, Liberals would now be lobbying to make 22 October a national holiday. Thing is though, what do you do when there’re no more oppressors around ? All that rage has to go somewhere. What we saw on Saturday night was a true measure of the nihilistic nature of Liberalism.
Liberals are often accused of being woolly-minded Utopians. That’s only half-right. The corollary to their vision of the golden future (once they exterminate their opposition) is a fanatical contempt for the world as it actually is. Hence the love for brain dead idiots like Darcus Howe. True, he may be a retarded thug dealing in inflammatory racist garbage, but he hates Britain nearly as much as Liberals do, and that’s about all Liberals have left as far as actual ideology goes.
Still, you almost have to have sympathy with the MSM. These events have shredded their entire worldview. Take the question of prejudice. As Laban reports, Rasputin once tried to claim that Anglican disapproval of homosexual practices could lead to murder (really!). Similarly, a Tory MP only has to mouth the word ‘immigration’ for the MSM to claim he’s practically firebombing black churches, yet sauce for the goose is definitely off the menu. The same people who claim to find racism in the phone book turn a blind eye to statements like this or this. The Left consistently claims that only whites can be racist. We’re treated to lengthy expositions about ‘hegemony’, ‘institutional racism’ and the like, but then we see pitched battles between blacks and ‘Asians’.
No, Mr Liberal, this isn’t a ‘tiny minority’: there are at least enough people who buy into this garbage to return people like Diane Abbot and David Lammy to Parliament. Are the Left sure there’s no connection between an outbreak of mass criminality in Birmingham and a sitting MP who blames a furniture store for not knowing his constituents would behave like animals ? That’s another Liberal shibboleth that’s been exposed in Birmingham. Read Mr FM’s report and you see that on Wednesday our ethnic buds were already blocking roads. Needless to say, PC Plod was the very soul of cringing Liberal appeasement yet despite the Police taking no action to stop an outbreak of mass criminality, somehow mass criminality broke out again. Who’d have thunk it ?
This is the very antithesis of zero-tolerance policing. What underlies it is the absurd Liberal belief that when a group of thugs decide to start blocking roads, they’re actually making an inarticulate, yet eloquent, protest against social injustice. It may be technically true that the law does not approve of rampaging mobs but we have to take into account…..yada, yada, yada. Why was there rioting in Birmingham ? In part, because every less blatant act of criminality in the run-up resulted in nothing but nods and winks from police management.
Consider too the role of the media. For all that media likes to flaunt its anti-establishment credentials, when social issues are involved, they dutifully push the whole spectrum of PC myths. But does it actually help ? Consider that the proximate cause of the rioting is a rumour that a young black girl was gang raped by a group of ‘Asians’. It’s tempting to dismiss it as an absurd rumour, but it’s not as if the Liberal establishment doesn’t have a track record of soft-pedalling cases involving – ahem! – ‘Asians’. Maybe if people had any confidence that they were getting the real story from the media, they wouldn’t be so quick to believe rumours about underwater Jihadi vampires, or whatever the hell else.
As ever, Laban calls it right when he calls attention to the vicious subtext to local MP Khalid Mahmood’s rhetoric. If he appeared on TV wearing a shirt with ‘Save It For The Honkeys’ on it, his message could hardly be more blatant. Thing is though that he’s just taking the last forty years of Liberalism to its (il)logical conclusion – and so are the rioters. Where the ethnic minorities are concerned, Liberal policy has been a toxic mix of entitlement and victimhood. When unrealistic expectations meet paranoia the results can't hardly not be violent.
That was all OK with the Left, just as long as it was properly directed. As long as ethnic minorities served their purpose as shock troops in the Left’s Gramcian culture war, as long as they turned their rage on those pesky hegemons, everything was OK. If the rioters had spent their time murdering middle-class white males with jobs in the private sector, Liberals would now be lobbying to make 22 October a national holiday. Thing is though, what do you do when there’re no more oppressors around ? All that rage has to go somewhere. What we saw on Saturday night was a true measure of the nihilistic nature of Liberalism.
Liberals are often accused of being woolly-minded Utopians. That’s only half-right. The corollary to their vision of the golden future (once they exterminate their opposition) is a fanatical contempt for the world as it actually is. Hence the love for brain dead idiots like Darcus Howe. True, he may be a retarded thug dealing in inflammatory racist garbage, but he hates Britain nearly as much as Liberals do, and that’s about all Liberals have left as far as actual ideology goes.
Personally, I'm Still Waiting For Love Crimes
Compare and contrast the treatment of this crime and this one. In one case we have Liberals claiming that, absent the assailant having ‘Death to the Infidel’ tattooed on their forehead, it can’t be a hate crime, in the other the mere identity of the victim was apparently enough for the Left to indulge in girly hysterics about ‘homophobia’. This is a perfect example of the essential amorality of the modern Liberal: here we have two examples of violent thuggery, yet the Left is only able to process them in so far as they serve the Liberal agenda. They simply can’t see that slashing a child across the face or beating a man to death is evil and should be opposed for that reason alone. No, everything is relative, it’s all power and who are we to say anyway ? If David Morley was straight, the Left would have been just as busy claiming it was an isolated incident, it doesn't prove anything, and besides the Daily Mail made it all up anyway.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Media Bias Barometer
Here's the latest metric for media bias: compare the number of outlets which comment on the symbolism of US fatal casaulties passing 2000 with the number who comment on the symbolism of the British State taking action to silence a critic of Islam on the day we remember Theo Van Gogh.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Beeb Bloke Baffled By Beeston Bomber's Bio
The Beeb sends a guy to Leeds to investigate the back story behind July 7 bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan. In a break with tradition, the guy they’ve sent has ‘a decade of experience in journalism, fluent Urdu and a Yorkshire upbringing’ rather than their usual practice of sending Home Counties Oxbridge grads to write stories on Welsh-speaking drug addicts on Anglesey. So, that’s an improvement right there, even if it does bring to mind sending a little red doggie to investigate a series of sudden deaths in the henhouse.
This being the BBC, the usual suspects are all present and correct. We’re told that ‘What is clear is that many [Beeston Muslims] are either too scared to talk - or scared that if they do, that what they say will be distorted by the media.’ Bad media! Reporting stuff people say ? Whatever will they stoop to next ? Ditto, we get lines like this ‘The local Pakistani lads were heartbroken to learn that Khan could have been responsible for killing people.’ Well, OK, if you say so…
The thing is that the crazy leaks out anyway. Take, for example, one of the loonier aspects of the whole affair:
But there was another barrier to getting at the truth: the willingness of many people to prefer conspiracy theories to some honest reflection about howthree young men in their midst could have carried out these terrible attacks.
I was told frequently that the 7 July bombers were either duped into it
or were innocent victims of somebody else's bombing campaign.
One Muslim young professional spoke for many when he told me that if the
Metropolitan Police could have shot Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent young
Brazilian mistaken for a potential suicide bomber, then they could also be wrong
about Khan.
You can guess the punchline, right ?
The release of Khan's suicide video has diminished some of the
doubts about his role in the attacks.
Well, quite.
There’s something of a Freudian slip when the author writes ‘However as the press began to report stories about radicalisation taking place in local gyms, youth centres and Islamic bookshops, the Muslim residents of Beeston became angry and then wary.’ Not angry and wary that they have homicidal maniacs in their midst, just that those pesky newsies keep reporting that fact.
The thing is though that, to paraphrase Churchill, our little red doggie keeps tripping over the truth then dusting himself off and carrying on as if nothing had happened.
We have discovered that not only, as we suspected, there is "an enemy within" - but that its nature is highly complex. Mohammed Sidique Khan exemplifies that complexity.
Here was a Muslim who was publicly respected and admired. He was neither socially isolated nor economically disadvantaged.
It’s only complex in so far as ‘The Great Gadsby” is a complex novel. Just as Ernest Wright decided to write the whole novel without using the letter ‘e’, so the Left insists that journalists reporting on terrorism must write their reports without any reference to the elephant on the table. Maybe this guy could team up with O J Simpson and track down the real enemy within ?
Fortunately, in the Internet age we no longer have to queue up for whatever news the MSM deigns to report. We can read for ourselves what the ‘highly complex’ enemy is saying.
Don’t think what happened on 7/7 or 9/11 was something new, no, that’s the Sunnah (sayings and actions of Muhammad). There’s never been jihad without casualties.
A user in the room, “veiled flower,” eerily asked what a fiancé of a “mujahadin” should do if he was preparing to martyr himself. She was told by the speaker to encourage him as much as possible in order to assure herself “a place in jenna (heaven).”
Seems pretty clear to me.
Tip O'The Hat to Dave in the comments to this post pointing out the latest fatwa - after all, it's not as if the Beeb would point it out, is it ?
Dogs That Don't Bark
When it comes to Liberal hypocrisy, if CND’s sudden love for nuclear weapons provides the farce, stories like this provide the tragedy. Where are the femiloons ? What the hell happened to zero tolerance ? Sure seems pretty tolerant to me. As a rule, if you’re going to claim you’re taking a hard line, that kind of implies knife-wielding predators serve more time than Jeffery Archer.
Hey – there’s even a specific legal point here. We’re told the scumbag got credit for copping a plea early on – yes, but the nature of the offence means the forensic evidence was overwhelming. Once the Police had the right man, he was always going down.
So where are the femiloons ? These people can whine about MEPs joking about cleaning behind the fridge but when we have a case that appals even the most morally-jaded of us, they're washing their hair. What lies exposed here is the sleazy tactical considerations behind the femiloon obsession with rape and other sexual offences. The femiloons are concerned with violence against women only so far as they can use it to indict the male species – all of us. Hence we end up with femiloons trying to reverse the burden of proof in rape cases (‘prove you’re not a rapist’) while soft-pedalling on actual, real rapists. There’s nothing potential about the threat from Ryder. If you’re wanting to reduce the risk to women, here it is: do not release this freak. But it’s all gone quiet over there.
It occurs to me that the victim would’ve got much more sympathy from the femiloons if she was some City witch called fat by her boss. They would’ve gone full throttle for that, that would have served their desire to define down atrocity. Much of this desire to portray the life of the average British female as a living hell is undoubtedly the product of the urge for ludicrous self-dramatisation common amongst the over-privileged and under-worked, but there’s more to it than that.
Modern feminism fits very much within the Left’s culture war. As such, there is a need to constantly find new grounds for victimhood, to find new proof that Britain is not only the worst nation on Earth, but the worst nation there could ever be. Hence the desire to cast even the most prosaic of social interactions between boys and girls as being ‘practically the same as rape’ while coddling real predators. In the Gramsican neverland, the proverbial ‘pillar of the community’ is an evil oppressor helping to prop up ‘the system’ while criminals are virtual Robin Hoods, making inarticulate yet still valid critiques of capitalism.
The poor lass should’ve claimed she’d been raped by the multinationals. Libs would’ve taken that seriously.
Hey – there’s even a specific legal point here. We’re told the scumbag got credit for copping a plea early on – yes, but the nature of the offence means the forensic evidence was overwhelming. Once the Police had the right man, he was always going down.
So where are the femiloons ? These people can whine about MEPs joking about cleaning behind the fridge but when we have a case that appals even the most morally-jaded of us, they're washing their hair. What lies exposed here is the sleazy tactical considerations behind the femiloon obsession with rape and other sexual offences. The femiloons are concerned with violence against women only so far as they can use it to indict the male species – all of us. Hence we end up with femiloons trying to reverse the burden of proof in rape cases (‘prove you’re not a rapist’) while soft-pedalling on actual, real rapists. There’s nothing potential about the threat from Ryder. If you’re wanting to reduce the risk to women, here it is: do not release this freak. But it’s all gone quiet over there.
It occurs to me that the victim would’ve got much more sympathy from the femiloons if she was some City witch called fat by her boss. They would’ve gone full throttle for that, that would have served their desire to define down atrocity. Much of this desire to portray the life of the average British female as a living hell is undoubtedly the product of the urge for ludicrous self-dramatisation common amongst the over-privileged and under-worked, but there’s more to it than that.
Modern feminism fits very much within the Left’s culture war. As such, there is a need to constantly find new grounds for victimhood, to find new proof that Britain is not only the worst nation on Earth, but the worst nation there could ever be. Hence the desire to cast even the most prosaic of social interactions between boys and girls as being ‘practically the same as rape’ while coddling real predators. In the Gramsican neverland, the proverbial ‘pillar of the community’ is an evil oppressor helping to prop up ‘the system’ while criminals are virtual Robin Hoods, making inarticulate yet still valid critiques of capitalism.
The poor lass should’ve claimed she’d been raped by the multinationals. Libs would’ve taken that seriously.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Not Anti-War, Just On The Other Side
Anyone remember CND ? The loveable collection of Eighties Sean Penns, spending their time assuring us that the USSR was ‘a happy place. They had flowery meadows, and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles’.
All things considered, you’d think these people would recognise that international affairs isn’t their thing, but no: Lefties are nothing if not persistent – much like anthrax spores. If anything, the complete shredding of everything they ever claimed has only made them more shameless. At least when body warmers were fashionable CND made the odd gesture towards an idiotic kind of moral equivalency. Now, they’ve stopped even going that far, to judge by the rock star reception given to the Iranian ambassador at the latest CND freak show.
You can hate the BushChimpler as much as you like, but what Iran is doing counts as disarmament like downing a bottle of Vladivar counts as going on the wagon. There’s simply no way you can embrace Iran and claim to be supporting nuclear disarmament. Now, just as then, when push comes to shove, hatred of the West trumps all else.
All things considered, you’d think these people would recognise that international affairs isn’t their thing, but no: Lefties are nothing if not persistent – much like anthrax spores. If anything, the complete shredding of everything they ever claimed has only made them more shameless. At least when body warmers were fashionable CND made the odd gesture towards an idiotic kind of moral equivalency. Now, they’ve stopped even going that far, to judge by the rock star reception given to the Iranian ambassador at the latest CND freak show.
You can hate the BushChimpler as much as you like, but what Iran is doing counts as disarmament like downing a bottle of Vladivar counts as going on the wagon. There’s simply no way you can embrace Iran and claim to be supporting nuclear disarmament. Now, just as then, when push comes to shove, hatred of the West trumps all else.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Left Say International Law Is 'So Passe'
Hey, who'd have thunk it ? The L3 have finally reaised that 'international law' is just blather. Don't crack out the champagne yet though. They still believe that international law prevents turfing out murderous dictators. They still believe it means we can't deport known terrorists. They still think international law means we can't detain enemy combatants.
Nope - mere matters of mass slaughter weren't enough to persuade the Left to stop chasing this rainbow. The straw that broke the camel's back was.......diplomats telling them to shove it when they tried to shake them down. The good ol' US of A and Das Reich have both told Livingstone's freak show to stick their congestion charge where their collective head is. Given that diplomats have long had exemption from taxes, the Left's case isn't exactly strong.
The Left is trying to claim the congestion charge isn't a tax, it's a charge for service. This is true in the sense that the guy holding a knife to your throat isn't muggin you, he's merely levying a charge for the service of not murdering you. Still, there's an important lesson here. When Conservatives supposedly break international law (what ever that might be), it's to defend civilisation, when the Left does it, it's to pursue some petty shakedown against the US.
Nope - mere matters of mass slaughter weren't enough to persuade the Left to stop chasing this rainbow. The straw that broke the camel's back was.......diplomats telling them to shove it when they tried to shake them down. The good ol' US of A and Das Reich have both told Livingstone's freak show to stick their congestion charge where their collective head is. Given that diplomats have long had exemption from taxes, the Left's case isn't exactly strong.
The Left is trying to claim the congestion charge isn't a tax, it's a charge for service. This is true in the sense that the guy holding a knife to your throat isn't muggin you, he's merely levying a charge for the service of not murdering you. Still, there's an important lesson here. When Conservatives supposedly break international law (what ever that might be), it's to defend civilisation, when the Left does it, it's to pursue some petty shakedown against the US.
Let The Games Begin
Steve rightly points out that the Government's obnoxious religious hatred bill is so loosly drafted that more or less anything can be argued to be illegal. It's actually worse than that: AFAIK, the defintion of religion is left dangling, so that almost anything can be argued to be a religious belief. Or, to put it another way, call our wannabe First Lady 'the Wicked Witch' and the Wiccan's could drop a dime on you. Nice, hey ? After all, we already have Satanists in the Fleet and in prison, so I guess that wraps it up for any more showing of 'Rosemary's Baby'.
Of course, the government will only prosecute in special cases (i.e. those involving Muslims), but there's always private prosecutions. We should start a sweepstake now on when Christian Voice will bring their first case to court.
Of course, the government will only prosecute in special cases (i.e. those involving Muslims), but there's always private prosecutions. We should start a sweepstake now on when Christian Voice will bring their first case to court.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Race Hustling For Fun And Profit
Somebody tell me it was just a nightmare ? Surely Mike O'Conner of the UK Lottery Forum couldn't really have cited providing £4 million for the Steven Lawrence Trust to buy a new HQ as an example of a 'good cause' funded by the lottery. That must be one hell of a building. I guess race baiting pays better than you'd think.
Quite coincidentally, Steve provides an example of the kind of thinking our money is going to support. Personally, I blame the Jews....
Quite coincidentally, Steve provides an example of the kind of thinking our money is going to support. Personally, I blame the Jews....
Cheap At Twice The Price
OK, so we send a hell of a lot of money to the land of transvestite socialists, but it's a small price to pay to keep these loonies up there.
Calling Mr Justice Otis
There’s an old trick in sales – car sales especially – known as ‘Calling Mr Otis’. How it works is like this: Mr Buyer comes into the showroom looking for a price for a motor. The sleazy salesman gives him a fabulous price – so good, in fact, that when Mr Buyer goes round the other garages in town, they’re nowhere near. Needless to say, he shoots back to the sleazy one with his signing arm all revved up. Naturally, the salesman is delighted to see him back – gosh, the others must have quoted higher prices, right ? Feeling suitably smug about the great deal he’s found, Mr Buyer then blows it all by telling our weasel friend what the other prices were. Only problem now is that the salesman just needs to clear the deal with his sales manager, Mr Otis, except – who’d have thunk it ? – Mr Otis says no, he can only offer a deal which just happens to be only just short of the opposition’s best price. Of course, the buyer’s already psychologically invested in the sale – he’s practically driving the car out the showroom already, and it is still the cheapest price available, so he may as well sign, right ?
Why I bring this up is that it looks like Mr Otis has some fans in government. The dangerously subversive one points out that government anti-terror measures follow a certain pattern. Our Government announces a great deal on banging up Islamopaths but they’ve just got to check with the courts. Oopsie! Turns out those nasty courts won't let them take action after all.
Repeat ad nauseaum.
Why Mr Otis ? It’s a company that makes lifts. Going up, geddit ?
Why I bring this up is that it looks like Mr Otis has some fans in government. The dangerously subversive one points out that government anti-terror measures follow a certain pattern. Our Government announces a great deal on banging up Islamopaths but they’ve just got to check with the courts. Oopsie! Turns out those nasty courts won't let them take action after all.
Repeat ad nauseaum.
Why Mr Otis ? It’s a company that makes lifts. Going up, geddit ?
Monday, October 17, 2005
BBC Tortures Truth
Radio 2's flagship 'Jeremy Vine Show' rose to the occasion again today: a top-of-the-program segment based entirely on an outrageous sleight of hand. The whole segment was predicated on the idea that the Law Lords were considering whether evidence obtained by torture should be admissible in court. Of course, this is a serious matter, but as such it deserved better than The Jeremy’s trademark agonised moralising.
The Jeremy ran through the whole playbook. There was the contention stated as fact: ‘is there anyone, anywhere who thinks torture is justified ?’, the sneer quote: ‘so-called war on terror’, the absurd hypothetical: ‘what if someone being tortured in Algeria suddenly names you as a terrorist ?‘ and, of course, the vague hints of racial prejudice ‘[should the authorities] torture people who look a bit shifty’ ?
Lest such subtle hints pass you by, we also had interview with a guy who’d sampled Saudi hospitality. The casual listener could have been forgiven for thinking HMG wanted to install thumbscrews in their local Police station. It’s only when you actually look at the case in question that you see the flaw in The Jeremy’s cunning plan. Here’s the opening line:
The Jeremy ran through the whole playbook. There was the contention stated as fact: ‘is there anyone, anywhere who thinks torture is justified ?’, the sneer quote: ‘so-called war on terror’, the absurd hypothetical: ‘what if someone being tortured in Algeria suddenly names you as a terrorist ?‘ and, of course, the vague hints of racial prejudice ‘[should the authorities] torture people who look a bit shifty’ ?
Lest such subtle hints pass you by, we also had interview with a guy who’d sampled Saudi hospitality. The casual listener could have been forgiven for thinking HMG wanted to install thumbscrews in their local Police station. It’s only when you actually look at the case in question that you see the flaw in The Jeremy’s cunning plan. Here’s the opening line:
The Law Lords are deciding whether Britain can use evidence against terror suspects that may have been obtained by torture in other countries.
Ah yes. Note that reference to the fifth month of the year. Even the BBC can’t claim the evidence was obtained by torture. Despite the absurd reference to the Saudis, the evidence in question was obtained from Gitmo. Yep – the very place where you can’t move for lawyers, Red Cross personnel, activist trash and other oxygen thieves. Despite all that, the evidence for torture at Gitmo is positively anorexic – unless you set the bar so low, the average headmaster is guilty if he schedules double maths on a sunny afternoon. That’s the thing the BBC would rather you didn’t know.
What’s at stake here is whether evidence obtained under interrogation should be excluded if there is any possibility that it could have been obtained by torture. I believe the term for this is ‘blank cheque’. There’s not a jurisdiction on the planet so saintly that a lawyer can not cook up some atrocity stories – particularly so in the post-Gitmo era of defining torture down. To put it another way, should evidence obtained by Ruud Van Driver of the Amsterdam Police be ruled inadmissible merely because it could have been obtained by torture ?
The likely public appeal of this idea can be judged by the Left’s continuous babbling about Riyadh torture chambers and the like. When Liberals are angry, but won’t talk about the specifics, that usually means they’re up to no good. Ditto, the Leftist claim that their position is self-evidently moral must be judged against their determination to recast this case a human rights issue, and so in the sphere of the courts, rather than anyone actually accountable to the public.
Like I said at the top, there are serious questions to be asked about the use of torture, but the Left isn’t asking them. This case is an outrageous attempt to hobble counter-terrorism by conjuring up new rights out of thin air, Liberals are lying about it and the BBC’s covering for them. As ever, we find that the BBC is the only broadcaster in history that doesn’t want to report the news.
What’s at stake here is whether evidence obtained under interrogation should be excluded if there is any possibility that it could have been obtained by torture. I believe the term for this is ‘blank cheque’. There’s not a jurisdiction on the planet so saintly that a lawyer can not cook up some atrocity stories – particularly so in the post-Gitmo era of defining torture down. To put it another way, should evidence obtained by Ruud Van Driver of the Amsterdam Police be ruled inadmissible merely because it could have been obtained by torture ?
The likely public appeal of this idea can be judged by the Left’s continuous babbling about Riyadh torture chambers and the like. When Liberals are angry, but won’t talk about the specifics, that usually means they’re up to no good. Ditto, the Leftist claim that their position is self-evidently moral must be judged against their determination to recast this case a human rights issue, and so in the sphere of the courts, rather than anyone actually accountable to the public.
Like I said at the top, there are serious questions to be asked about the use of torture, but the Left isn’t asking them. This case is an outrageous attempt to hobble counter-terrorism by conjuring up new rights out of thin air, Liberals are lying about it and the BBC’s covering for them. As ever, we find that the BBC is the only broadcaster in history that doesn’t want to report the news.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Classy As Ever
Well, I guessing there won't be any more references to any type of Coke from David Cameron. At least he's in with a chance of the vital Kate Moss endorsement. Needless to say, the media's favorite 'nice' Tory has refused to make capital out of this kind of scurilous rumour-mongering.
Just kidding! The folks at ABC pass on this comment from their hero:
Just kidding! The folks at ABC pass on this comment from their hero:
Kenneth Clarke has brought the issue of hard drug use into the Conservative
leadership race, by declaring he had never taken cocaine.
The denial came at a hustings in Westminster, where the former Chancellor was grilled by a group of right-wing Tory MPs and asked if he had ever taken class A drugs.
Given that one of the effect of nose candy is maniac energy, I think most people had long discounted the possiblity of Jabba being on blow. If nothing else, this kind of nodding and winking reference to unsubstantiated rumours about someone who, one way or another, is certain to be a senior member of the Party for the forseeable future must surely ram home what a disruptive maroon Clarke actually is.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
It's The Fall Of The Berlin Wall All Over Again
Hardcore Lefties have only just got over the shock of finding out that the USSR was a hellhole after all, just like that fascist Reagan said. Now it turns out that another Liberal pin-up has turned its back on Liberalism. All we need now is for the Swedes to decide to bring in shall-issue laws for concealed carry pistol permits and there'll be mass suicides across London.
Actually, I can't see the contradiction. The Dutch are keen on crazy big man a$$ action, but they oppose Islamic fundementalism ? Hey - it's almost like the Dutch have been listening to what the Islamopaths say. Still, it's nice to see the MSM remind us that, in taking measures to defend their civilisation, the Dutch are turning their backs on Liberalism. Thanks, Libs! We always knew you were a bunch of worthless, amoral traitors, now you've admitted that defending your country against a fascist death cult is enough to earn excommunication from the Lib's Big Tent.
Actually, while many of the Dutch measures are great, I can't get too excised about the Burqua. What's tees me off is the double-dipping: Islamopaths claiming the right to dress like Bin Laden, then claiming that we can't draw any conclusions from that fact. Hey - I'm a real Conservative: spend all day in KKK regalia if you want, but if you do, don't complain if you don't get the job at Green, Cohen and Goldblatt. Ditto for folks who shop at 'World of Jihad'.
So, maybe the burqua is important, after all. Maybe it's the perfect metaphor for the Culture Jihad. Here, we have Islamopaths declaring their right to parade through our towns in full death cult regalia, while demanding that they be treated like folks who don't march around dressed as a terrorist. That's the central point of the debate. As ever, it boils down to the demand that Islamopaths be given full rights of citizenship while declaring their own contempt for the corresponding responsibilities. Wearing Islamic regalia is a means of signalling agreement with Islamic ideology. We have the right to judge death cult adherents just as we have the right to judge a guy in KKK robes. Let them wear their beastly paraphenalia, and let the rest of us draw our own conclusions from that choice.
Actually, I can't see the contradiction. The Dutch are keen on crazy big man a$$ action, but they oppose Islamic fundementalism ? Hey - it's almost like the Dutch have been listening to what the Islamopaths say. Still, it's nice to see the MSM remind us that, in taking measures to defend their civilisation, the Dutch are turning their backs on Liberalism. Thanks, Libs! We always knew you were a bunch of worthless, amoral traitors, now you've admitted that defending your country against a fascist death cult is enough to earn excommunication from the Lib's Big Tent.
Actually, while many of the Dutch measures are great, I can't get too excised about the Burqua. What's tees me off is the double-dipping: Islamopaths claiming the right to dress like Bin Laden, then claiming that we can't draw any conclusions from that fact. Hey - I'm a real Conservative: spend all day in KKK regalia if you want, but if you do, don't complain if you don't get the job at Green, Cohen and Goldblatt. Ditto for folks who shop at 'World of Jihad'.
So, maybe the burqua is important, after all. Maybe it's the perfect metaphor for the Culture Jihad. Here, we have Islamopaths declaring their right to parade through our towns in full death cult regalia, while demanding that they be treated like folks who don't march around dressed as a terrorist. That's the central point of the debate. As ever, it boils down to the demand that Islamopaths be given full rights of citizenship while declaring their own contempt for the corresponding responsibilities. Wearing Islamic regalia is a means of signalling agreement with Islamic ideology. We have the right to judge death cult adherents just as we have the right to judge a guy in KKK robes. Let them wear their beastly paraphenalia, and let the rest of us draw our own conclusions from that choice.
Hey, Mandy, What's The Excuse This Time ?
Scott at the Daily Ablution performs a useful public service rounding up some of the more outrageous disparities in the reporting of racially-motivated crimes. Funnily enough, Scott doesn’t mention the incident, or rather pair of incidents that exposed the naked bias in MSM reporting better than any other, namely the grotesquely disparate treatment accorded to the near-simultaneous slayings of Anthony Walker and Richard Whelan.
Recall that the excuse for such radically different treatment was that Walker murder was racially-motivated and that the Whelan murder was not. Let’s leave aside the fairly obvious point that at that stage in the investigation any suggestions as to motive could hardly be definitive. Equally, for the sake of the BBC’s sleazy argument, we’ll take it as self-evident that racially-motivated murder is more serious than the jovial, common or garden sort of homicide. Let’s just consider a more recent case of racially-motivated murder. I think we can safely say that an incident in which an Asian man is beaten to death by a gang of white thugs who then boast about killing an Asian can be considered racially motivated, so why the news blackout ? Hey – we’re not talking matters of tone, factual inaccuracy or the like – the BBC just hasn’t reported it at all. It’s as if it never happened. Why might that be ?
OK, I admit it: I changed a couple of details. Can you guess which ?
Hat-Tip to Henry in the comments.
Recall that the excuse for such radically different treatment was that Walker murder was racially-motivated and that the Whelan murder was not. Let’s leave aside the fairly obvious point that at that stage in the investigation any suggestions as to motive could hardly be definitive. Equally, for the sake of the BBC’s sleazy argument, we’ll take it as self-evident that racially-motivated murder is more serious than the jovial, common or garden sort of homicide. Let’s just consider a more recent case of racially-motivated murder. I think we can safely say that an incident in which an Asian man is beaten to death by a gang of white thugs who then boast about killing an Asian can be considered racially motivated, so why the news blackout ? Hey – we’re not talking matters of tone, factual inaccuracy or the like – the BBC just hasn’t reported it at all. It’s as if it never happened. Why might that be ?
OK, I admit it: I changed a couple of details. Can you guess which ?
Hat-Tip to Henry in the comments.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Shorts
They're called the the 'Treason Party' for a reason: Stephen Pollard reports on the Lib Dems latest star fool. Hey - wasn't Afghanistan the war the Left was supposed to pretend to support ?
Good news on the education front: a much derided ethnic group finally starts making progress - well, it could be true.
The Clarke backlash continues: can't accuse these guys of burying the lede. Actually, I'm thinking the worst is over - most of Jabba's fans have transferred their loyalty to Luke Skywalker, but that's no reason not to put the boot in to the blustering one, lest he yet again he fail to take the hint and just cross the floor at last.
M'learned friends at it again: what price a Conservative leader who'll come out and call this sort of thing the disgrace it undoubtedly is.
Also in the McPeople's Republic: the comrades discover that taxing something lowers demand for it. To think - this was once the home of Adam Smith.
Finally, an oldie but goodie: PETCA - remember we have a duty to treat our little forest friends right. Overcooking them just destroys the taste.
Good news on the education front: a much derided ethnic group finally starts making progress - well, it could be true.
The Clarke backlash continues: can't accuse these guys of burying the lede. Actually, I'm thinking the worst is over - most of Jabba's fans have transferred their loyalty to Luke Skywalker, but that's no reason not to put the boot in to the blustering one, lest he yet again he fail to take the hint and just cross the floor at last.
M'learned friends at it again: what price a Conservative leader who'll come out and call this sort of thing the disgrace it undoubtedly is.
Also in the McPeople's Republic: the comrades discover that taxing something lowers demand for it. To think - this was once the home of Adam Smith.
Finally, an oldie but goodie: PETCA - remember we have a duty to treat our little forest friends right. Overcooking them just destroys the taste.
Bad News
By now I'm guessing everyone has seen how the BBC has been caught presenting staged photos of - ahem! - insurgents in Iraq. Yes - I know that's a dog bites man story but what intrigued me was the sheer shamelessness of the Leftists trying to defend the Al-Beeb in the comments (and in the sister thread here).
Here we have what appears - to put it as mildly as possible - to be case where questions marks hang over the provinance of a BBC report and the Left is banging on about the vital importance of a free press ? Huh ? Defending the publication of bogus pictures on the grounds of press freedom is like claiming the right to pass forged currency is one of the bedrocks of free enterprise. Needless to say, in so far as such an absurd principle would seem to establish the press as being no more than mere propagandists, universal application would imperil rather than strengthen the case for press freedom.
Indeed, this is the central point about much Iraq coverage. The MSM try to depict their critics as crazed Pollyanas yet, stripped of the particular context, much of the media's conduct is simply bad journalism. We're not trying to impose our standards, we're complaining that they're not living up to their own. We've had journos bottled up in Baghdad hotels commenting on events hundreds of miles away, we've had staged news, we've had blackouts on awkward facts, and much else besides. For at least the past forty years, the MSM has posed as fearless seekers after truth, but now it's the MSM which is under the spotlight, suddenly they start channeling tobacco company executives.
Here we have what appears - to put it as mildly as possible - to be case where questions marks hang over the provinance of a BBC report and the Left is banging on about the vital importance of a free press ? Huh ? Defending the publication of bogus pictures on the grounds of press freedom is like claiming the right to pass forged currency is one of the bedrocks of free enterprise. Needless to say, in so far as such an absurd principle would seem to establish the press as being no more than mere propagandists, universal application would imperil rather than strengthen the case for press freedom.
Indeed, this is the central point about much Iraq coverage. The MSM try to depict their critics as crazed Pollyanas yet, stripped of the particular context, much of the media's conduct is simply bad journalism. We're not trying to impose our standards, we're complaining that they're not living up to their own. We've had journos bottled up in Baghdad hotels commenting on events hundreds of miles away, we've had staged news, we've had blackouts on awkward facts, and much else besides. For at least the past forty years, the MSM has posed as fearless seekers after truth, but now it's the MSM which is under the spotlight, suddenly they start channeling tobacco company executives.
Friday, October 07, 2005
Hey, Jabba, Does It Look Dead ?
The main excuse for the Clarke candidacy is that the European issue is currently on ice for the foreseeable future. That’s a dubious idea at the best of times, but look at what happened just about five minutes after Clarke’s little speech.
Yes, yes, yes, Mr Pedant, I know the ECHR is formerly separate from the EU but, in so far as it involves Continental philosopher kings plucking bogus rights out of thin air in order to impose foreign standards on our country even in the teeth of opposition from both public and Parliament, all the key elements of Clarkism are there.
This is what I mean about Europe being a perfect litmus test for Conservatism. Here we have a case where unelected members of the Liberal elite claim the right to overrule the freely expressed will of the people. The whole concept is based on the idea of an ever-expanding list of fundamental rights which, by definition, are not subject to democratic review. Add in the fact that we have foreign justices, naturally enough basing their judgements on foreign principles, ruling on cases involving British people in Britain, and this case is practically an ink-blot test for Conservatism.
If you’re Ken ‘referendums are a silly idea’ Clarke or, for that matter, Cherie Blair, then the prospect of rule by an unelected, unaccountable elite of the soi dissant enlightened is no problem. Real Conservatives may have different thoughts about the prospect of the House of Commons being slowly reduced to the same role as the House of Lords, while the courts assume powers that would have awed Charles I. Similarly, if you think ‘Britain’ is just a nice bit of geographical shorthand, who cares if we now have Greeks ruling on cases in Manchester ? Again, real Conservatives would disagree.
As it happens, and despite what the Left would have you believe, the ECHR doesn’t actually have any real legal power. Though an analysis of recent history may lead you to think otherwise, a British government could quite easily tell them where to stick their rulings. So that’s today’s litmus test right there: is there a single Conservative MP who will object to the possibility that Ian Huntley could help him keep his job ?
Yes, yes, yes, Mr Pedant, I know the ECHR is formerly separate from the EU but, in so far as it involves Continental philosopher kings plucking bogus rights out of thin air in order to impose foreign standards on our country even in the teeth of opposition from both public and Parliament, all the key elements of Clarkism are there.
This is what I mean about Europe being a perfect litmus test for Conservatism. Here we have a case where unelected members of the Liberal elite claim the right to overrule the freely expressed will of the people. The whole concept is based on the idea of an ever-expanding list of fundamental rights which, by definition, are not subject to democratic review. Add in the fact that we have foreign justices, naturally enough basing their judgements on foreign principles, ruling on cases involving British people in Britain, and this case is practically an ink-blot test for Conservatism.
If you’re Ken ‘referendums are a silly idea’ Clarke or, for that matter, Cherie Blair, then the prospect of rule by an unelected, unaccountable elite of the soi dissant enlightened is no problem. Real Conservatives may have different thoughts about the prospect of the House of Commons being slowly reduced to the same role as the House of Lords, while the courts assume powers that would have awed Charles I. Similarly, if you think ‘Britain’ is just a nice bit of geographical shorthand, who cares if we now have Greeks ruling on cases in Manchester ? Again, real Conservatives would disagree.
As it happens, and despite what the Left would have you believe, the ECHR doesn’t actually have any real legal power. Though an analysis of recent history may lead you to think otherwise, a British government could quite easily tell them where to stick their rulings. So that’s today’s litmus test right there: is there a single Conservative MP who will object to the possibility that Ian Huntley could help him keep his job ?
UPDATE:
I am reminded in the comments that I had my philosopher kings confused. It's the European Court of Human Rights that issues these insane pronouncements. The European Court of Justice is part of the EU, and so has a whole different flavour of insanity all its own.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
All Your Children Belong To Us
Regular readers will know I don’t normally mention the Al-Guardian here. That’s not through any reluctance to target fish in a barrel, so much as the fact that I’d have to read it to mock it. But anyway – I had a meeting today in one of the posh hotels with the newspapers all laid out and I couldn’t help but notice one of the most surreal articles ever heading up the Guardian’s Society section.
The Guardian, former employer of sassy Dilpazier Aslam, publisher of columns by Osama Bin Laden and Britain’s premier one-stop shop for Conservatives-as-Nazis metaphors, has decided to come out against the use of intemperate language in politics. All of which proves one thing: when under fire, there are no pots and pans the Left won’t throw.
There’s the implication of lese majeste the Left always like to inject when those pesky proles start questioning Liberal doctrine. More than that though, there’s the girly hysteria which the Left always relies on when the facts are against them. Really, it reads almost like parody. Guess how many words it takes for the Guardian’s near-pathological hatred of a certain other paper to come up ? Put it this way: the first three words are ‘The Daily Mail…’. Yep, that’s a Lefty attempt at a subtle hint that we’re not supposed to take the protestors seriously. It’s all a conspiracy...
There’s the Guardian’s trademark carpet bombing approach to using quotation marks. What’s that about ? Are the El Cubos too retarded to work out what to think without the Guardian there to ram home which opinions are “bad” ?
Consider the Guardian’s own Freudian slip when they refer to social workers as ‘adoption professionals’. A-huh. Isn’t that kind of like describing judges as punishment professionals ? Doesn’t it kind of beg the question ?
There’s the appalling humbuggery. The Guardian snootily calls Father 4 Justice ‘the lobby group best known for its infamous superhero protest stunts at Buckingham Palace and elsewhere.’ Yes, indeed, Mr Guardian, but what exactly have F4J done that hasn’t been done before by Greenpeace – as covered in glowing write-ups by the Guardian ?
Of course, no Lefty whine is complete without unsubstantiated complaints of ‘harassment’, but I did enjoy the irony of the Guardian running complaints about people being unfairly labelled as Nazis. Takes one to know one, I suppose. Thing is though that harassment is an offence, so why haven’t our Lefty friends reported it to the police ? Hmmmmm……
The central problem with the Guardian’s snooty whining is exposed by the very paragraph they cite as proof of their opponent’s evil:
The Guardian, former employer of sassy Dilpazier Aslam, publisher of columns by Osama Bin Laden and Britain’s premier one-stop shop for Conservatives-as-Nazis metaphors, has decided to come out against the use of intemperate language in politics. All of which proves one thing: when under fire, there are no pots and pans the Left won’t throw.
There’s the implication of lese majeste the Left always like to inject when those pesky proles start questioning Liberal doctrine. More than that though, there’s the girly hysteria which the Left always relies on when the facts are against them. Really, it reads almost like parody. Guess how many words it takes for the Guardian’s near-pathological hatred of a certain other paper to come up ? Put it this way: the first three words are ‘The Daily Mail…’. Yep, that’s a Lefty attempt at a subtle hint that we’re not supposed to take the protestors seriously. It’s all a conspiracy...
There’s the Guardian’s trademark carpet bombing approach to using quotation marks. What’s that about ? Are the El Cubos too retarded to work out what to think without the Guardian there to ram home which opinions are “bad” ?
Consider the Guardian’s own Freudian slip when they refer to social workers as ‘adoption professionals’. A-huh. Isn’t that kind of like describing judges as punishment professionals ? Doesn’t it kind of beg the question ?
There’s the appalling humbuggery. The Guardian snootily calls Father 4 Justice ‘the lobby group best known for its infamous superhero protest stunts at Buckingham Palace and elsewhere.’ Yes, indeed, Mr Guardian, but what exactly have F4J done that hasn’t been done before by Greenpeace – as covered in glowing write-ups by the Guardian ?
Of course, no Lefty whine is complete without unsubstantiated complaints of ‘harassment’, but I did enjoy the irony of the Guardian running complaints about people being unfairly labelled as Nazis. Takes one to know one, I suppose. Thing is though that harassment is an offence, so why haven’t our Lefty friends reported it to the police ? Hmmmmm……
The central problem with the Guardian’s snooty whining is exposed by the very paragraph they cite as proof of their opponent’s evil:
If you yourself have an unhappy or non-existent family life you are an ideal candidate to become a social worker. When you get used to breaking up other people's families and taking their children you will forget your own troubles and it will make you feel great. Remember, however, that if you come across a really brutal family where a child is being cruelly abused (like Victoria Climbié), just clear out in a hurry and leave them alone. Don't worry, no one will expect you to risk your own safety.
Sure, the language is colourful, but the basic details ? They really did leave Victoria Climbie to die. Social workers really have broken up families on the most ludicrous of grounds (Orkney, Cleveland, Pembrokeshire…..). Almost no social workers in the country can be described as having a normal family life.
As it happens, we’ve just had approximately four million Tory modernisers telling us that the only way the Party can possibly represent homosexuals is to have even more as MPs. Well, coming back at you Lefties. Just what proportion of social workers have kids as part of a stable, long-term, heterosexual relationship ? Sauce for the goose...
No – just kidding. I’m a real Conservative and I hate all this identity politics stuff. What concerns me isn’t how social workers live their own lives, except in so far as it is indictive of their wider worldview. Social workers have swallowed whole the femiloon view that the conventional family is worse than the Gulags (always assuming they believe in the Gulags). Add to that their belief that the middle classes are a David Lynchesque cesspit of hypocrisy and violence. Meanwhile, the victim classes can’t possibly be held responsible for anything, and besides, who are we to say that they’re raising their kids wrong ? Finally, add in the Gramscian desire to stick it to normal society and this is why Victoria Climbie was left to die, while a pair of GPs get put through the mill by barely-human socialist thugs.
But let’s talk about the Palestinians. Or, more to the point, let’s talk about the Left’s excuses for suicide bombing. All of these revolve around the supposed humiliation of the Palestinians, their powerlessness, the trauma of occupation….That explains suicide bombing, but the Guardian claims to be shocked that children being abducted causes anger ? Let’s take the Left at its word: families are being destroyed on the say so of people so smart they’re surprised that kidnapping children causes outrage. Or maybe not – we just don’t know what goes on. Everything is behind closed doors, independent oversight is conspicuous by its absence, and families are denied the right to proper representation. To put it another way, a family targeted by social services has considerably less rights than Osama Bin laden would have if he sought asylum in this country. Hey – by the Left’s criteria, social workers are lucky the parents aren’t visiting their offices with a semtex waistcoat.
As it happens, we’ve just had approximately four million Tory modernisers telling us that the only way the Party can possibly represent homosexuals is to have even more as MPs. Well, coming back at you Lefties. Just what proportion of social workers have kids as part of a stable, long-term, heterosexual relationship ? Sauce for the goose...
No – just kidding. I’m a real Conservative and I hate all this identity politics stuff. What concerns me isn’t how social workers live their own lives, except in so far as it is indictive of their wider worldview. Social workers have swallowed whole the femiloon view that the conventional family is worse than the Gulags (always assuming they believe in the Gulags). Add to that their belief that the middle classes are a David Lynchesque cesspit of hypocrisy and violence. Meanwhile, the victim classes can’t possibly be held responsible for anything, and besides, who are we to say that they’re raising their kids wrong ? Finally, add in the Gramscian desire to stick it to normal society and this is why Victoria Climbie was left to die, while a pair of GPs get put through the mill by barely-human socialist thugs.
But let’s talk about the Palestinians. Or, more to the point, let’s talk about the Left’s excuses for suicide bombing. All of these revolve around the supposed humiliation of the Palestinians, their powerlessness, the trauma of occupation….That explains suicide bombing, but the Guardian claims to be shocked that children being abducted causes anger ? Let’s take the Left at its word: families are being destroyed on the say so of people so smart they’re surprised that kidnapping children causes outrage. Or maybe not – we just don’t know what goes on. Everything is behind closed doors, independent oversight is conspicuous by its absence, and families are denied the right to proper representation. To put it another way, a family targeted by social services has considerably less rights than Osama Bin laden would have if he sought asylum in this country. Hey – by the Left’s criteria, social workers are lucky the parents aren’t visiting their offices with a semtex waistcoat.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
About Those Extremists
We hear so much from Tory modernisers about the dangers of supposed extremism that’s it interesting to note who they don’t consider extreme.
Hey – the Cornerstone Group may not endorse gay marriage, but at least they aren’t trying to blow up the reception.
Hey – the Cornerstone Group may not endorse gay marriage, but at least they aren’t trying to blow up the reception.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Some Further Moralising.....
Just something I've been thinking about since I posted on the Conservatives' desperate attempts to convince people that they don't really believe anything at all. The Conservatives right now appear terrified of being accused of 'moralising', but where's it at ? Look at what the Left cites as the prime case of Tory moralising: Clause 28. A-huh. A law designed to prevent public money and classroom time being diverted to the promotion (and only the promotion) of a certain lifestyle is held to be the moral equivalent of firebombing Dale Winton's pad. Frankly, it all seems a little weak when you think about it, but fortunatly the Nu Tories rolled over so fast that Labour didn't have to explain how refusing to give special privledges to a particular group was proof that you hated them.
I mention all this not only to point out a certain weakness in Labour's charge sheet, but also the basic humbuggery of their position. The Left are whining about moralising ? Does that mean that even they don't listen to themselves ? Think about issues such as City salaries, the environment and the like. No shortage of finger-wagging there. But the high point of Liberal witch hunting has just been reached. The Left may have hated Clause 28, but they can't actually name anyone sent down during the alleged reign of terror. The Left on the other hand...Not content with locking the kids in during lunch hour, the latest iteration in their Jihad on the wrong food is to threaten to throw school governors in jail.
No, I'm not making it up. School governers - volunteers all - are being threatened with jail if they don't supply a politically-correct diet for the kids. Yowser. I'm not sure even the USSR ever tried something so bizzare. This is truly deranged, but more than anything it should kill once and for all the meme that it's the Right that wants to control people's lives.
oh yeah...since you ask, the Luke Skywalker of the Conservative Party says they support the food fatwa, but they think it goes too far. That's telling them...
I mention all this not only to point out a certain weakness in Labour's charge sheet, but also the basic humbuggery of their position. The Left are whining about moralising ? Does that mean that even they don't listen to themselves ? Think about issues such as City salaries, the environment and the like. No shortage of finger-wagging there. But the high point of Liberal witch hunting has just been reached. The Left may have hated Clause 28, but they can't actually name anyone sent down during the alleged reign of terror. The Left on the other hand...Not content with locking the kids in during lunch hour, the latest iteration in their Jihad on the wrong food is to threaten to throw school governors in jail.
No, I'm not making it up. School governers - volunteers all - are being threatened with jail if they don't supply a politically-correct diet for the kids. Yowser. I'm not sure even the USSR ever tried something so bizzare. This is truly deranged, but more than anything it should kill once and for all the meme that it's the Right that wants to control people's lives.
oh yeah...since you ask, the Luke Skywalker of the Conservative Party says they support the food fatwa, but they think it goes too far. That's telling them...
Dhimmitude Bar Raised Ever Higher
First, we had some excellent dhimmitude from Burqua King.
Next, we had the infamous Dudley Pig Fatwa.
But now we have some truly ground-breaking grovelling:
Next, we had the infamous Dudley Pig Fatwa.
But now we have some truly ground-breaking grovelling:
Chris Doyle, director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, said Tuesday the red cross was an insensitive reminder of the Crusades.
"A lot of Muslims and Arabs view the Crusades as a bloody episode in our history," he told CNN. "They see those campaigns as Christendom launching a brutal holy war against Islam.
"Muslim or Arab prisoners could take umbrage if staff wore a red cross badge. It's also got associations with the far-right. Prison officers should be seen to be neutral."
Doyle added that it was now time for England to find a new flag and a patron saint who is "not associated with our bloody past and one we can all identify with."
Monday, October 03, 2005
Do They Teach Shadow Boxing In The SAS ?
I've got a feeling I should be offended by David Davis' latest policy announcement, but I just think it's hilarious. Davis has come out against the ‘Religious Right’. Huh ? As even he admits, this isn’t America. However well the religious right serves as a bogeyman in America, few people in Britain fear creeping theocracy. Indeed, the whole thing is absurd. Davis may as well have rejected the use of press gangs.
Actually, on reflection, it’s beautiful. The Liberal media has been just about the only group professing to be scared by the prospect of crazed religious maniacs in No 10. Now, by undertaking to bravely take on this non-existent group, Davis has stolen their clothes without alienating a single voter on the Right.
There’s a wider point here though. Now, even normally sane individuals like Davis are yapping about the need for the Party to ‘change’ – hey, is it just me or do other people think of Saddam’s song in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut when they hear that ? The face cards in the Conservative Party have swallowed whole the meme that the Conservative Party’s problem is that it’s seen as too nasty.
Now, I don’t know for sure, but I’m thinking that some of the reason for that might be the ten mile line of Tory ‘modernisers’ queuing up to go on the BBC and tell everyone how awful the Party is. But the main problem is the way the Left has managed to frame the debate. Melanie Phillips sums it up well:
Actually, on reflection, it’s beautiful. The Liberal media has been just about the only group professing to be scared by the prospect of crazed religious maniacs in No 10. Now, by undertaking to bravely take on this non-existent group, Davis has stolen their clothes without alienating a single voter on the Right.
There’s a wider point here though. Now, even normally sane individuals like Davis are yapping about the need for the Party to ‘change’ – hey, is it just me or do other people think of Saddam’s song in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut when they hear that ? The face cards in the Conservative Party have swallowed whole the meme that the Conservative Party’s problem is that it’s seen as too nasty.
Now, I don’t know for sure, but I’m thinking that some of the reason for that might be the ten mile line of Tory ‘modernisers’ queuing up to go on the BBC and tell everyone how awful the Party is. But the main problem is the way the Left has managed to frame the debate. Melanie Phillips sums it up well:
Before they can claim the centre ground, the Tories need to reclaim the language. They have to point out that terms such as tolerance, fairness, aspiration or social justice have been twisted into their very opposite, and that the people the government claims to champion — the most vulnerable — have been left abandoned as a result.
Exactly. That’s the thing. On issues like the Human Rights Act the problem the Tories have isn’t that they have the wrong instincts, it’s that they have allowed themselves to be brow-beaten into accepting the Liberal consensus. If the public was indeed behind the Human Rights Act, then the Left wouldn’t have needed to pass it. The whole point of the Act was to move a whole range of issues outside the sphere of legitimate debate and into the hands of activist Liberal judges, yet no Tory MP dare say this. Now we find that Blair is talking of repealing part of the HRA – or to put it another way, the Conservative Party has found itself to the Left of Blair – the question needs to be asked: what is the point of the modern Conservative Party ?
This is the Party’s central problem. Even in genuinely outrageous cases, like the Human Rights Act, the Party is incapable of taking a stand. Of course they aren’t trusted. Here we have a piece of legislation that is opposed to everything Conservatives supposedly believe, yet they can’t raise any objection to it. It’s symptomatic of a group of people that don’t actually believe anything. Everything is chosen on grounds of expediency. Maybe that would be alright if it actually worked, but two words: Stephen Norris. Here’s a guy who was a moderniser extraordinaire, but who’s Mayor of London ? If the public wants touchy-feely, ideology-free manager-politicians, why did Ken Livingstone whup Norris twice ?
This is not necessarily an argument for more right-wing policies or, indeed, any particular policies. It’s more fundamental. Obviously, any national party is a broad coalition, but there must be certain fundamental principles at the heart of the party. These are what’s lacking here. With a vacuum at its centre, the way has been cleared for Liberals to define the identity of the Conservative Party. The way to throw off the ‘nasty’ libel isn’t to pander to it, it’s to embrace it.
After all, this is what US Republicans have done. It was the Hildebeast herself who coined the phrase Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Ditto, Al Gore and ‘digital brownshirts’. The Conservative Party needs to simply state its policies clearly and let’s the Left make the running. Let Liberals explain why being opposed to Liberal judges giving known terrorists ‘access all areas’ passes to Britain is ‘nasty’. For that matter, let the Left explain why turning a blind eye to soaring MRSA rates in NHS hospitals is ‘nice’.
There’s another lesson from the US, of course. Here’s the divine Ann on the US situation:
This is the Party’s central problem. Even in genuinely outrageous cases, like the Human Rights Act, the Party is incapable of taking a stand. Of course they aren’t trusted. Here we have a piece of legislation that is opposed to everything Conservatives supposedly believe, yet they can’t raise any objection to it. It’s symptomatic of a group of people that don’t actually believe anything. Everything is chosen on grounds of expediency. Maybe that would be alright if it actually worked, but two words: Stephen Norris. Here’s a guy who was a moderniser extraordinaire, but who’s Mayor of London ? If the public wants touchy-feely, ideology-free manager-politicians, why did Ken Livingstone whup Norris twice ?
This is not necessarily an argument for more right-wing policies or, indeed, any particular policies. It’s more fundamental. Obviously, any national party is a broad coalition, but there must be certain fundamental principles at the heart of the party. These are what’s lacking here. With a vacuum at its centre, the way has been cleared for Liberals to define the identity of the Conservative Party. The way to throw off the ‘nasty’ libel isn’t to pander to it, it’s to embrace it.
After all, this is what US Republicans have done. It was the Hildebeast herself who coined the phrase Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Ditto, Al Gore and ‘digital brownshirts’. The Conservative Party needs to simply state its policies clearly and let’s the Left make the running. Let Liberals explain why being opposed to Liberal judges giving known terrorists ‘access all areas’ passes to Britain is ‘nasty’. For that matter, let the Left explain why turning a blind eye to soaring MRSA rates in NHS hospitals is ‘nice’.
There’s another lesson from the US, of course. Here’s the divine Ann on the US situation:
Newsweek reported in 1976 that Republican "party loyalists" thought Reagan would produce "a Goldwater-style debacle." This is why they nominated well-known charismatic vote magnet Jerry Ford instead.
Again in 1980, a majority of Republican committeemen told U.S. News and World Report that future one-termer George "Read My Lips" Bush was more "electable" than Reagan.
The secret to Reagan's greatness was he didn't need a bunch of high-priced Bob Shrums to tell him what Americans thought. He knew because of his work with General Electric, touring the country and meeting real Americans. Two months a year for eight years, Reagan would give up to 25 speeches a day at G.E. plants — a "marination in middle America," as one G.E. man put it. Reagan himself said, "I always thought Hollywood had the wrong idea of the average American, and the G.E. tours proved I was right."
Because of these tours, Reagan knew — as he calmly told fretful advisers after the Grenada invasion — "You can always trust Americans." The G.E. tours completely immunized Reagan from the counsel of people like Karl Rove, who think the average American is a big-business man who just wants his taxes cut and doesn't care about honor, country, marriage or the unborn.
Exactly. Maybe the specifics are different in Britain, but the point remains the same. The problem with the Conservatives reliance on focus groups isn’t that they don’t necessarily provide useful information, but that they need to rely on them in the first place. How did the Conservative Party get so divorced from the country that it wants to lead that its MPs often seem like recent immigrants from a nearby universe ? This is how they let Blair outflank them on issues like the HRA. Conservative MPs are so terrified of losing their invites to chintzy cocktail parties that they swallow whole the idea that the HRA is just the definition of civilized governance. Equally, they are suckers for whatever garbage is being pushed by the Liberal media that week – they have no point of reference to judge it by.
That’s the Conservatives real problem: they’re really, really weird. They have no idea what normal people think, so they’re dependant on ad agencies to tell them what they believe. The public is confronted by a party telling them ‘if you don’t like our policies, just wait a week’. Is it any wonder that faced with that level of cynicism, the public naturally believes that the Tories must really have something to hide ?
What the Conservative Party really needs to do above all else is simply state its case. Sure, the London media won‘t like it. When have they ever ? That’s one more reason to be clear – a simply-expressed policy is harder for someone else to misrepresent. This works even with supposedly soft spots, of which the biggest is the supposed hatred of single mothers. Right about now, Conservative politicians talking about accepting ‘different kinds of families’ sound like the aural equivalent of a dad dancing at his daughter’s wedding. No one seriously believes that Conservatives think families aren’t better with two parents. Let’s not talk about Conservatives hating single mothers, and let’s talk about the Left selling young girls on the myth that having three kids by three fathers by the age of twenty-five is the road to happiness. It’s a cruel, stupid, destructive myth, and the way to beat it is simply to make the Left state it clearly. So it is with most of what the modern Left believes.
That’s the Conservatives real problem: they’re really, really weird. They have no idea what normal people think, so they’re dependant on ad agencies to tell them what they believe. The public is confronted by a party telling them ‘if you don’t like our policies, just wait a week’. Is it any wonder that faced with that level of cynicism, the public naturally believes that the Tories must really have something to hide ?
What the Conservative Party really needs to do above all else is simply state its case. Sure, the London media won‘t like it. When have they ever ? That’s one more reason to be clear – a simply-expressed policy is harder for someone else to misrepresent. This works even with supposedly soft spots, of which the biggest is the supposed hatred of single mothers. Right about now, Conservative politicians talking about accepting ‘different kinds of families’ sound like the aural equivalent of a dad dancing at his daughter’s wedding. No one seriously believes that Conservatives think families aren’t better with two parents. Let’s not talk about Conservatives hating single mothers, and let’s talk about the Left selling young girls on the myth that having three kids by three fathers by the age of twenty-five is the road to happiness. It’s a cruel, stupid, destructive myth, and the way to beat it is simply to make the Left state it clearly. So it is with most of what the modern Left believes.
Ironically Challenged ?
I’ve been accused of flip-flopping on an English Parliament because I followed up this post with this one. Personally, even if you do take the second post seriously, I still don’t see how you could read to the end and still think that was an argument in favour of the Parliament.
For the record, I still think it’s a terrible idea but, and this was the point of the second post, I recognise how the lunatic shenanigans of Celtic nationalists can make it seem less so. Thing is though that most of these peoples dippy policies are self-destructive anyway. Look at this, for example. Sure, it’s plenty annoying – particularly when proposed by people who no difficulty handling certain bits of paper stamped ‘Bank of England’ – but is it really a problem for us if they introduce yet another good reason for the ambitious to head off east ?
Celtic nationalism is absurd – but English Nationalists sure seem like they want to join them down the asylum. They expect us to boil over with rage that our money is sent to subsidise Welsh hill farmers, but they’re sanguine about money being sucked into the black hole that is Livingstone’s folly. Huh ? How does that work ?
The campaign for an English Parliament is guilty of a certain sleight of hand here. Despite their attempts to collapse the distinction, the disposition of taxpayers’ money between the nations and the constitutional situation are only vaguely related. Indeed, it may be considered that English nationalists are shooting themselves in the foot by allowing the government to put the subsidy situation on the back burner until the question of English governance is sorted.
The other point these guys make is that an English Parliament may not lead to bigger government since it will replace, not duplicate, UK functions. But how would that work ? Will there be P45s be flying round Westminster ? Right from day one you’ll have an extra layer of politicians, with all that that implies in terms of empire building. The sums involved may initially be modest, but I’m still not convinced that this option offers any real advantage to working within the exiting structure, for example only allowing English MPs to vote on English matters.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Spot The Difference Revisted
More fun with the BBC, and a tip o' the hat to whoever the commentator was who pointed this out at B-BBC. First up, we have this report:
Four men have been charged over a string of racist attacks in London.
The suspects are white, aged between 15 and 20 and from the Bexley area. Three men are accused of grievous bodily harm and violent disorder.
Now, try this one. More specifically, try to find anything as specific as calling the suspects white, and labelling the attacks 'racial'. Just think: we're wasting all that time with juries when the Sherlocks at TV Centre can decide if an attack is racially-motivated without even the expense of a trial.
There's a serious point here. Beeboids like to repeat ad nauseum that 'one man's terrorist is another man's sociopath' - well, something like that - but when the - ahem! - militants are of a type they don't like, suddenly value judgements are A-OK. Ditto, they have no qualms about identifying the suspects, apparently without any concerns as to whether they were practicing true whiteness.
There's a serious point here. Beeboids like to repeat ad nauseum that 'one man's terrorist is another man's sociopath' - well, something like that - but when the - ahem! - militants are of a type they don't like, suddenly value judgements are A-OK. Ditto, they have no qualms about identifying the suspects, apparently without any concerns as to whether they were practicing true whiteness.
Trouble On HMS Fabulous
The Royal Navy has been shocked - shocked! - by the revelation that one of the gay blokes they were so anxious to recruit turns out to be gay.
The actual casus whini is the decision of a sailor to enter Mr Gay UK - the competition, not the bloke - and their Lordship's decision that sailors are not permitted to flaunt their rigging in public. Apparently, they didn’t believe him when he tried to claim he was just preparing for his next cruise. All of which immediately raises one question: the Admiralty reads gay mags ? Clearly so, since it is obviously absurd to suggest that gay rights activists have cooked this whole scandal up as an excuse for another stroll down the Via Victimhood. The thing is though, in an almost unprecedented occurance, they actually have a point.
Here's the Martyr D'Jours friend d'boy on Navy Policy:
The actual casus whini is the decision of a sailor to enter Mr Gay UK - the competition, not the bloke - and their Lordship's decision that sailors are not permitted to flaunt their rigging in public. Apparently, they didn’t believe him when he tried to claim he was just preparing for his next cruise. All of which immediately raises one question: the Admiralty reads gay mags ? Clearly so, since it is obviously absurd to suggest that gay rights activists have cooked this whole scandal up as an excuse for another stroll down the Via Victimhood. The thing is though, in an almost unprecedented occurance, they actually have a point.
Here's the Martyr D'Jours friend d'boy on Navy Policy:
The Navy say they are pro-gay but it seems that's only if you don't act it."
It's never a good sign when a bloke so young he probably shaves with a toothbrush can see the problem more clearly than the whole machinery of the State apparently can. Then again, some of us called the shot and the pocket, and we have the abusive e-mails to prove it.
Just from first principles, the Navy’s position doesn’t make the slightest sense, based as it is on the idea that they can recruit gay sailors, and then restrict them from doing any of that gay stuff. Isn’t that just a ‘private matter’ ? But what drives this policy deeper into the realms of Insaniaville is the decision to actively recruit folks who live the gay lifestyle.
But let’s give the Navy the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say that their policy makes perfect sense, and all a gay sailor has to do is….What exactly ? The old ‘I can neither confirm or deny that my torpedo is locked onto the buoys’ routine ? Or possibly, considering who foisted this insanity on the fleet, the Dear Leader could take some time out to instruct them in some suitably Blairian evasions like explaing the difference between aspiring to foul their screw on somebody’s stern and being committed to doing so.
All of this might sound ridiculous, but there’s a serious point here. The whole ‘gays in the forces’ idea relies on the paradigm that it’s just a job like any other. It’s an outgrowth of the same mentality that leads to police officers being flown out to Iraq to investigate gun battles. It’s clear no one in this government has thought seriously about what the Armed Forces actually do. Is it any wonder that the combination of complete ignorance and political fanaticism leads to a dog’s breakfast like this ?
Just from first principles, the Navy’s position doesn’t make the slightest sense, based as it is on the idea that they can recruit gay sailors, and then restrict them from doing any of that gay stuff. Isn’t that just a ‘private matter’ ? But what drives this policy deeper into the realms of Insaniaville is the decision to actively recruit folks who live the gay lifestyle.
But let’s give the Navy the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say that their policy makes perfect sense, and all a gay sailor has to do is….What exactly ? The old ‘I can neither confirm or deny that my torpedo is locked onto the buoys’ routine ? Or possibly, considering who foisted this insanity on the fleet, the Dear Leader could take some time out to instruct them in some suitably Blairian evasions like explaing the difference between aspiring to foul their screw on somebody’s stern and being committed to doing so.
All of this might sound ridiculous, but there’s a serious point here. The whole ‘gays in the forces’ idea relies on the paradigm that it’s just a job like any other. It’s an outgrowth of the same mentality that leads to police officers being flown out to Iraq to investigate gun battles. It’s clear no one in this government has thought seriously about what the Armed Forces actually do. Is it any wonder that the combination of complete ignorance and political fanaticism leads to a dog’s breakfast like this ?
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Where We Are
How about this for a revealing insight into Nu Lab's priorities ?
Yet again, the animal rights scum have managed to intimidate law-abiding citizens, while our elephantine State does the governmental equivalent of shrugging its shoulders and saying ‘nowt to do wi’ me, mate’. Meanwhile, it turns out that our taxes have been used to fund round-the-clock protection for a multimillionaire convicted sexual predator.
Yet again, the animal rights scum have managed to intimidate law-abiding citizens, while our elephantine State does the governmental equivalent of shrugging its shoulders and saying ‘nowt to do wi’ me, mate’. Meanwhile, it turns out that our taxes have been used to fund round-the-clock protection for a multimillionaire convicted sexual predator.
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