Still A Prat

While admittedly deserving of some respect for refusing to buy into the crypto-Truther's 'no threat from terrorism' Kool Aid, the fact still remains that Sir Ian Blair is still the defintive case of a PC PC.

Now This Is Comedy

I read this book whilst working in the Middle East. It was popular out there and much hyped, so I thought I better make an effort to find out what all the fuss was about. I have never been so disappointed. A accept that it is an old book, but I still feel it ought to have some relevance and cohesion. All I could grasp from it was that the author had a dislike for all Jews and Christians and that all the readers should follow his illogical and outdated ideals. I also understand that the translation may be questionable, but even so the general idea must be the same, and its not as if they haven't had time to get it right. Quite how it has sold so many copies is beyond me. I'm not surprised that the author never went on to write anything else and am surprised he got a publisher at all. If I had to read this book more than once I would no doubt begin to loose touch with reality. It was also way to long and could have been condensed into about 50 pages, and still been to long. I found J.R.R Tolkiens book, The Lord Of The Rings to be a much more satisfying read.

That's (currently) the top-rated review from here.

Nation Shall Speak Dhimmitude Unto Nation

Don’t be shocked, but the BBC is spinning for Islamothugs again. Ok, first up Cordoba is not a ‘former mosque’. It was a church that was converted to a mosque during the years of brutal Muslim occupation, then converted back as soon as the Spaniards liberated themselves. Against that background, the Muslim’s demand (or ‘plea’ for those who speak dhimmi) takes on a far more sinister cast, reminiscent as it is of the way Muslim invaders throughout history have made a point of seizing Christian churches and converting them to mosques. And no, there is no record of any of them becoming ‘ecumenical temple where believers from all faiths could worship.’ Ancient history ? Yet what does it say about Islamic ideology that these people not only try to invade the cathedral to carry out their own ceremonies, but actually claim victim hood over the fact security guards turf them out.

Needless to say, none of the historical background is included in the BBC’s report, and neither is the more overtly sinister language used in the initial demand. ‘Peace’ it turns out, means what it always means to Islamofascists: the surrender of the Infidel and his acceptance of dhimmitude.

Now Can We Call Them Fascists ?

I said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but when gays keep claiming to be terrified of persecution by Christian OAPs, well, it’s not exactly killing the stereotype stone dead is it ?

Besides, in so far as the harassment of a couple of elderly pensioners was a bridge too far even for our courts, you’d think the Pink Wedge would be investigating the wonders of silence right about now, but thanks to JuliaM, down in the comments to this post, we can see that they’re going with Plan B: Double Insania.

It’s a comment piece in the gay press written by an anonymous media personality. Normally, that means the tea-boy at Classic FM, but in this case, such is the abject failure to distinguish between the private and the public sphere, and between coerced funding from taxation and private support, that it can only be a Beeboid. Apparently, their solution to being exposed as a gang of thugs is…more thuggery.

It's about time that we as a nation got a grip and once and for all decide if we wish to be a tolerant, liberal democracy or continue to allow newspapers like the Daily Mail and its readers to drag us back to a pre-enlightened state.

Tolerance doesn't mean people like Mr and Mrs Roberts loving gays or even thinking that we have a right to act according to our nature. What it does demand is that any negative feelings they have for us are kept to themselves.

Let bigots (not necessarily them) hate us in the privacy of their own homes but please let us not allow them to pollute our libraries, newspapers and airwaves with their hatred and theological misconceptions any longer.

Cameroonatics: US Branch

Yes, they have them too:

My conservatism is aristocratic in spirit, anti-populist and rooted in the Northeast. It is Burke brought up to date. A ‘social conservative’ in my view is not a moral authoritarian Evangelical who wants to push people around, but an American gentleman, conservative in a social sense. He has gone to a good school, maybe shops at J. Press, maybe plays tennis or golf, and drinks either Bombay or Beefeater martinis, or maybe Dewar’s on the rocks, or both.

Approved Hate Speech

Laban asks an important question over here. I’m guessing it’s time to get the cards out. Still, what really hacked me off was this line:

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority denied any anti-British bias and said that the optional unit for Key Stage 3 would foster understanding between the mix of nationalities in England.

Doesn’t that tell you all you need to know about what’s wrong with Liberalism ? To use a Steynism, it’s the nation as an airport departure lounge, with the population as just whatever groups of people are passing through at the time. That’s the irony here: for all their years of quoting Lady Thatcher out of context, it’s now the Left that’s arguing that there’s no such thing as society.

The Death Camp Of Tolerance Is Calling

Don’t be shocked, but a Liberal’s been caught telling the truth. Here’s actor John Barrowman’s comment on his ‘civil partnership’:

It's been a long wait but we legitimised our relationship to each other a long time ago when we signed our mortgages together and this is just something that forces people who don't want to recognise it that they have to.

No room for misquote there, then. Forget all the touchy-feely talk, here he is laying it out: gay marriage was always about sticking two fingers up to social conservatives.

In a similar vein, look at the government’s new rules on supposed ‘equality’ in the workplace. In so far as the nation’s gays have presumably not been living off private incomes until now and it’s already illegal to beat colleagues to death, it’s predictable that these new employment regulations are less to do with any rational conception of ‘equality’ than with imposing the gay agenda.

‘Tolerance’ boils down to minding your own business, but these regulations are about anything but that. On the contrary, companies will be expected to exhibit gay paraphernalia on site. Ditto, employees will be expected to know many of their fellow citizens are working the other side of the street. Und so weiter….

Ultimately, there’s nothing tolerant about using the power of the state to force people to display propaganda, take part in re-education sessions or parrot approved talking points. But, there’s something more here.

As ever, South Park hit the nail on the head. What we’re talking about is a lifestyle – people have the right to live how they want, but they don’t have the right to demand other people's approval. Yet, that’s exactly what these regulations are really about.

Will no one think of poor Lemmiwinks ?

Imagine No Liberals

Is it just me, or have other people noticed that the glorious victories of Islam appear to be disproportionatly achieved against people who are female, unarmed, greatly outnumbered or any combination thereof ? Things don't go so smoothly when they're up against actual soldiers.

Of course, the Ethiopians have one huge advantage: they can actually wage war, not some deranged therapy nation policing exercise. They don't have any Liberals around to insist the fire brigade can only use watering cans instead of hoses, then claim the resulting conflagration proves that fires can't be fought successfully.

But don't worry: while the Ethiopians are busy giving us a vision of the way things should be, there's been one reminder of just how far down the rabbit hole Britain is:

Ethiopia says the SICC has recruited foreign jihadists, and that a handful of almost 300 prisoners taken after one battle for a central Somali town held British passports.

You know, if Liberals spent as much time criticising these actual, real, violent extremists as they do warning about the rise of the BNP, then the BNP wouldn't be rising half as fast.

Should Have Left Him On Genesis

Here’s a question: if UKIP is so pathetic, how come so many senior Tories can’t write a note for the milkman without slagging them off? The latest is John Redwood, hitting all the talking points.

I do, however, find it extraordinary that well intentioned Eurosceptics can think the UKIP strategy is a winning one which will make the problem better. The last three General Elections have shown that neither the Referendum Party nor UKIP can win a single Westminster seat, however strongly and fiercely they put their case for disengagement or withdrawal from the European Union.

Yes, and the result of the last six elections have shown that you can vote for Tweedledum or Tweedledee, but it makes not the blindest bit of difference. The Tories binned one of their most successful leaders at least partly because of her opposition to federalism. On the other hand, since Redwood mentions them, let’s talk about the Referendum Party. These lunatics were dedicated anti-Europeans, with a wagon load of insane policies, like claiming that there should be a referendum before Britain joined the Euro. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the asylum, and what was proof of lunacy 15 years ago is now policy of all that the three main parties.

See, this is the crucial difference. Even Redwood, one of the more deep thinking of Tory MPs, can't see that party politics is just one small part of the wider cultural context. Yes, the Referendum Party was a failure in so far as it never returned any MPs, but in so far as it turned the need for a referendum on the Euro from an obsession of the fringe to an uncontroversial article of faith, it achieved more than most Tory MPs have ever managed.

As far as actual evidence of Tory euro-scepticism goes, we’re stuck with this sort of thing:

Eurosceptics are often asking me what assurances I can give them that the current leadership of the Conservative Party wants to reverse the slide to federalism. They say they do not hear anything from the Conservatives to give confidence. I find this particularly surprising. I am David Cameron’s advisor on economic policy, chairing his Economic Competitiveness Commission. In 1997 I published “Our Currency, Our Country” (Penguin), exposing the dangers of European Monetary Union and setting out the case against joining the Euro. In 1999 I published “The Death of Britain?”, a strong attack on the constitutional changes being forced through by Labour, preparing the ground for Britain to be a fully integrated part of the EU state. In 2001 I published “Just Say No, One Hundred Arguments Against the Euro”, which ranged more widely, opposing federalist transfers of power generally. In my most recent book, “I Want to Make a Difference, But I Don’t Like Politics”, an integral part of the case I make is that remote, bureaucratic unelected and unaccountable Brussels Government is part of the reason people are so turned off politics.

Actually, John, that’s part of the problem: it’s always you saying it. As with IDS’s advocacy of family values there's more that a hint here of the mad woman in the attic being allowed out to toss some red meat to the base. Not to be rude, but how come we never hear this rhetoric from people with actual careers ? How come none of Mr Camoron’s bright young things ever come out with this stuff ? For a principle that's so important to them, they seem awfully anxious not to talk about it.

Eurosceptic critics of the Conservative Party forget that we have now had three leaders of the party who have all opposed the currency and the EU Constitution in principle.

One question: how come you never hear of anyone opposing slavery ‘in principle’ ? Or cannibalism ? Or human sacrifice ? Exactly. Opposition ‘in principle’ turns out to be a post-dated check drawn on a deeply overdrawn account.

Indeed, the only specific promise the boy king made in his leadership challenge was to withdraw his party's MEPs from the super-federalist EPP grouping. And what happened? Nada. So here's a guy who is going to drive through meaningful reform in, say, the Common Fisheries Policy yet bottles it even with a completely anodyne decision of no real importance outside the symbolic ?

There is no pleasing some people. Every time a leader of the Conservative Party talks about some other subject, Eurosceptic critics shrug their shoulders and say, “There you are. You cannot trust the Conservatives as he has made another speech on something other than Europe”.

And that’s the other thing: Tories keep assuring us that they share the same values as mainstream Conservatives, but then the mask slips and they admit that, really, they think the base is a bunch of crazed obsessives.

Most people going into the local department store do not want to get involved in an argument about the company structure, the corporate governance of the shop, its stock policy, what contractual relationship it has with its suppliers, or what its staffing policy may be. They just wish to see a good choice of goods and will buy the ones that are attractively priced and to their liking. The same is true for many of politics.

Well, it's something of a chicken and egg deal, isn't it? The actual mechanics of the EU are plenty tedious, but with around seventy percent of new British legislation actually originating in Brussels, there’s not much you can do where the EU doesn’t have an influence. If the public haven't yet made that the connection, then that might reflect a political class that would rather talk about almost anything else. Just today, we have this. In so far as this measure involves government foisting one of their traditional responsibilities onto industry, what were talking about is stealth tax. Isn't there anything we need £100,000,000 worth of more than this latest eco-lunacy? Whatever, but it is neither insane nor obsessive to raise the question.

The larger point is that Redwood’s argument doesn’t even make sense. In reality, even UKIP itself isn’t just concerned with the EU these days. Tom sums it up well:

Here's what Mr Redwood doesn't seem to have grasped yet: It's not a question of some minor quibbles that conservatives have, regarding one or two changes in the direction of the C.P.'s policies - it's much more radical than that, and this is, I think, what the Conservative Party has got to start getting its head around: For many disillusioned voters, UKIP is not just seen as a "protest vote" party, or a just-about-plausible temporary alternative; to all intents and purposes The UKIP IS the conservative party, and Mr Cameron's party IS NO LONGER the conservative party in any meaningful sense.

Let’s use an analogy here for Mr Redwood. It’s as if he opened his front door and saw Michael Portillo there on the doorstep, dressed in a thong with big tub of KY jelly claiming he’s ‘looking for the hard right’.

See ? That’s a terrifying mental picture right there, and it would stay so no matter how you change the details. It’s the central concept that’s the problem, not the specifics. That’s how it is with the Tories. It’s not the minutiae of policy; it’s more profound than that. It’s Francis Maude claiming that Lady Thatcher made his brother die from AIDS, Brian Coleman comparing England fans to Nazis and, yes, it’s John Redwood depicting Eurosceptics as deranged monomaniacs.

In so far as the modern Conservative Party is, amongst other things, pro-EU, pro-ecolunacy, high taxing, anti-British and anti-family, how exactly would a Tory government provide anything more meaningful than plausible deniability for the Liberals whose insane ideas the Tories accept wholesale? In short, what is the point of the Tory Party ?

The Left Will Want Their Money Back

Don't be shocked but the Islamofascists are involved in another war. Fortunatly, just this once the Infidels are actually fighting back without employing Cherie Blair to make sure they're send the right message. At least this show of manly resolve will stop Liberal waxing nostalgic about Live Aid. Liberals are probably busy trying to find a way to explain how one of their favorite victim groups turn out to be really, really evil after all. I bet it's all these guys' fault.

Make Them Pay

Interesting report here. Obviously, even in America, these folks are up against it, but they do have a point. A company that employs illegal labour is trying to rig the market just as much as if they’d took part in a cartel, so why shouldn’t they be hammered ?

One Degree Of Seperation

It baffles me that the Left is so enraged by the Daily Mail. After all, the Mail has been as dhimmi as anyone when it comes to the war and if wanting your country to lose to a bunch of head-hacking savages doesn’t score points with Liberals then nothing will. It’s not just that the Mail is relentlessly downbeat, it’s that it pushes the ‘Surrender Now!’ line even in the most insane of contexts. Take how it reports on Blair’s latest outrage against good sense:

When you're one of the world's richest rock stars, a knighthood is probably just another string to your bow.

But the premature announcement that Bono is to be honoured has sparked fury among MPs who see it is a cynical political ploy by Downing Street's spin machine.

They have accused Tony Blair of "cheapening" the honours system and trying to shift attention from Iraq by breaking the news about the U2 frontman one week ahead of the rest of the New Year's honours.

So talking about Bono leads the Mail onto Iraq. Of course. Still, the Mail does inadvertently sink one of the Left’s favourite excuses, namely that hoping your country is defeated is actually the highest form of patriotism. In the self-same article we get this insight into what the Mail thinks of Britain:

His decision to accept the award contrasts with the image of an anti-establishment rock star whose song Sunday Bloody Sunday became an anthem for the IRA.

The track about the horror of the 1972 incident when British paratroopers shot 26 civil rights protesters, killing 13, was released in 1983 at the height of the Troubles.

It was adopted by Republicans who interpreted it as an attack on the British occupation of Northern Ireland but Bono later insisted that he had been misunderstood and the song was an appeal for peace.

This is history as Martin McGuiness would tell it. You can hate George W Bush all you want, but don’t claim publishing vile pro-IRA rubbish somehow constitutes patriotism. If the Mail gets any loonier, the BBC will start advertising in it.

Public Service Announcement

The shops have been packed recently. Is something happening ?

Anyway, TDL brings us the tale of Darryl the Diverse Donkey, while Hot Air offers some classic South Park. Meanwhile, I’m stuck here with a blog that’s reached NHS levels of organization, all of which is by way of saying that if next time it’s bright yellow, in Chinese or sundry other disasters, that’s just me trying to remember how it all works.

Turning To The Dork Side

Making Sir Ian Blair sound credible takes doing, but Iain Dale manages it. Things have certainly changed – from chief of staff to David Davis, to flirting with Trutherism. I feel a song coming on:

More Liberal Compassion

Plenty of folks on the Right think the answer to saving the education system is to give schools more autonomy. In theory, that’s a great idea, but it does neglect one vital fact of modern British education: some of the folks in it are howling mad moonbats. Consider this sleazeball:

A seven-year-old boy in a wheelchair was left in tears after being banned from the school Christmas party - because his parents objected to him taking part in Hindu celebrations.

Liam Walker's parents withdrew him from school festivities marking the Diwali festival because they believed the religion's karma theory suggested he was being punished for previous sins.

In retaliation his headteacher banned him from any Christian events, including the school Christmas party where 200 youngsters exchanged gifts and learned about the nativity story.

I don’t care what your beef is with the parents, there’s no justification for extracting this kind of vengeance on a seven year old child. That’s true whoever you are, but for a supposed professional educator to victimise a child like that… well, let’s not have any more sermons from the teaching unions about how teaching is really a profession, at least until we find one guy with a licence prepared to call for this psycho to be given the order of the boot.

As far as the specifics go, yes, the parents’ interpretation of Hinduism is nearly as bad as the BBC’s view of Christianity but, then again, seven year olds aren’t known for their metaphysical sophistication, so they certainly have an arguable case – which is more than Psycho Girl has:

"She warned me I had the right to withdraw Liam from religious education lessons but I did not have the right to pick and choose. I was stunned."

Actually, you can: that’s why we talk about ‘freedom of religion’ rather than, say, ‘licensed religion’.

OK, now I know the thought of a Liberal being unable to handle the idea of freedom will be something of a shock to you, but there you have it.

That’s not all though. While the Comrade Headteacher was insisting on compulsory celebration of the festival of lights, a certain other cultural landmark wasn’t getting quite the same treatment:

But in a further indication of political correctness infiltrating the school curriculum, Jesus was banned from his year's nativity play.

Instead A Child For Peace centred around two tribes whose sparring was brought to an end by a newborn child.

Apparently, they’re celebrating the ancient festival of the passing of the sickbag. Either that or Hindu festivals can stand on their own, but Christian ones have to be rendered down into some anodyne PC drivel. Hmmm…sounds kind of like picking and choosing to me. But I'll bet this is different somehow.

This case is Liberalism in a nutshell…with the emphasis on 'nut'. Of course Liberals are enraged by the thought of any child, anywhere escaping indoctrination. Of course Liberals have to threaten vengeance on seven year olds. Of course, they hate Christianity. Whatever your own beliefs, Christianities 2000 year survival implies some kind of meaning, some worth. Compare that to the nihlistic cess pit of Liberalism. Liberalism cannot survive in the light of day, that’s why they have to indoctrinate the kids young, before their psychic defences are in place. Still, look on the bright side: at least one set of kids have had a perfect introduction to the true nature of Liberals.

Outing: Now Back In

Say what you like about the BNP, but they perform a useful social role in letting us know what Liberals say when there’s no social pressure to dial down the crazy. Take, for example, Liberal outrage at MI-5 monitoring of Islamic groups: they’re shocked – shocked! – at the idea of Five infiltrating these groups, but Liberal journalists infiltrating the BNP ? Why sir, that’s a whole different kettle of fish.

Then there’s the Left’s ever-changing burden of proof when detecting extremism:

In my seven months as a party member I heard very few racist epithets, and no anti-semitic comments. Such language appears almost to be frowned upon in Griffin's post-makeover BNP. Perhaps it is a tribute to the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Public Order Act 1986, and to the gently shifting mores of British life, that racists rarely feel able to express themselves, even among like-minded people. But some of the fear and the hatred remains: it just emerges in code.

Code words, ah yes. As with much else Liberals have written about the BNP, you find yourself asking - who couldn’t that charge be levelled against ? They’re writing about school vouchers, but really they mean ‘kill the Welsh’. I guess our Secret Squirrel is just hacked off because he’s had to admit that BNP members are less anti-Semitic than the average edition of the Guardian.

Even stranger, our Mata Hari constantly mocks the BNP for their obsession with security. Hey, it’s not like they have to put up with, say, sleazy journalists trying to infiltrate the Party to cause trouble for their members, is it ?

Actually, this is the part that really sticks in the throat. The article publishes the names of several party members. Back in the day, the Guardian waxed lyrical about how digusterated they were by the News of the World publishing the names of convicted paedophiles. So, let’s check the scores on the doors here: outing perverts who prey on kids: bad, outing people who support a party the Left disapproves of: good. It’s not even as if the subtext is well hidden so, after a seven months investigation, the only evidence of people subtly endorsing violence or harassment comes from the Guardian itself. Classy!

The strange thing is that in outing several respectable folks who support the BNP, the Guardian contradicts its own line about super-sinister BNPers secretly plotting to blow up the local Tandori. Take, for example, this one:

Among my members, I discover, is Simone Clarke, principal dancer with the English National Ballet. During a subsequent conversation, Ms Clarke says that she believes immigration "has really got out of hand", despite her partner, both on and off-stage, being a Cuban dancer of Chinese extraction. She adds: "If everyone who thinks like I do joined, it would really make a difference."

This is only a mystery if you believe, as Liberals do, that any opposition to open borders must be racially-based. Maybe she just doesn’t see why we should be paying welfare to people who want to blow up the No 27 bus ?

This is the problem when you use the same language to describe people who want to deport mad mullahs as you do to talk about people who want to murder anyone darker than Casper the Ghost. Tell people that wanting Britain to have an immigration policy makes them knuckle-dragging thugs and they’ll naturally conclude that knuckle-dragging thugs are just people who have opinions Liberals don’t like.

Put it this way, there’s more evidence of moderates successfully overcoming violent radical factions in the BNP than there is in the Iranian government, so how come the Guardian isn’t calling for constructive engagement with Nick Griffin ? The same folks obsessing about BNP code words are the ones who think that Iranian President Achmakindofmad is just using colourful metaphor when he refers to Israel being wiped from the map.

See, that’s the irony right there. It’s articles like this that drive people to the BNP. The determination to detect evil subtexts in everything BNP members say contrasts sharply with the Guardian’s relaxed attitude to even the most extreme rhetoric from Abu Hamza, Lee Jasper or the rest of the Left’s insane clown posse. Hell, look at July 7: Islamopaths blow up trains and a bus, and Liberals think that means police officers should be used to protect mosques from a non-existent backlash. However toxic the BNP’s rhetoric about ethnic minorities, it can’t hardly match the intense loathing Liberals have for native Britons.

It's A Feature Not A Bug

Even if, like me, you weren't a big fan of tuition fees, you've got to enjoy thinking about the implications of this. Yes, indeed. A decade from now, kids will be going to Uni to learn marketable skills, and you know what that means: bye bye beardy-weirdy and the rest of his activist friends! Our PC, post-modern, wackademics will be in the gutter holding signs saying 'Will Slander Britain For Food' while working people spit at them as they pass. Plus, once all the departmental subscriptions expire, the Guardian will go bust.

Yeah, But Have They Ever Urinated On A Crucifix ?

Greg Gutfeld has a vision of what media Leftists would do if they really meant what they said. Speaking personally, I won’t be holding my breath, but it does throw these fools' showboating into the proper perspective. As Mark Steyn says, here we have an enemy that ticks all the boxes for a Liberal hate figure , but no one’s answering the phone at Liberal HQ.

All of which is by way of saying that it’s great to see at least one band rise to the challenge. I’ll guess that Nu Metal probably isn’t everyone’s favourite genre, but I think it’s worth making an exception for these guys. Hey, if they’re hacking off ewwwwTube they can’t be all bad, right ?

The BNP: Is There Anything It Can't Do ?

It's always so cute when Beeboids turn out long, agonised pieces about how they're being cruelly ridiculed for being too right-wing. Ah yes.

You will be staggered to find that the people accusing Nick Robinson of being too right-wing both write for the Independent - the paper for Guardian readers off their meds. See, that's a clue right there. When the BBC is being criticised by the Right, it's coming from mainstream rightists, when the criticism is coming from the Left, it's from people who think the CIA killed John Lennon to stop him revealing the truth about how the Jews were plotting to destroy the rainforest.

OK, that’s hyperbole, but not by much. Look at the Indie’s real point: investigating whether or not Blair sold seats in the legislature will strengthen ‘the fanatics in the BNP and elsewhere’ Apart from anything else, what’s with this ‘and elsewhere‘? Hey, they fly airliners into buildings, blow up buses and plot dirty bombings and all they still end up a support act to Nick Griffin and the rest of the folks checking the purity of their essence. What’s a Shahid got to do to get some recognition round here ?

Seriously, how much Kool Aid do you have to drink before the first association you can think of for ‘fanatic’ is ‘BNP’ ? And that’s without considering the myriad possibilities offered by the Indie’s argument that we shouldn’t mention Blair knocking out the knighthood’s through fear of the BNP. Just what can’t that excuse be used for ?

See, there’s Clue # Two. When BBC reporters are attacked by people who think the public should ignore credible charges of corruption lest the BNP Bogeymen attack, that doesn’t prove they’re unbiased, that just proves how low the bar is for BBC objectivity. After all, what does it say about the BBC when the lunatic fringe is shocked and enraged that they've actually reported a story ?

Sometimes, You Really Need A Singing Rabbit To Split Them Up

OK, so the MSM's contribution to the war has been mostly negative so far, but every now and then, you get hints that there's the odd right-winger in there landing the odd punch - sort of like this neat piece of sub-editing.

These Leftists Are So Literate

Sticking (vaguely) with the theme of PC, there's been a new development in the story of the Greatest Crime Ever. Blackface Bob has the hump with the RottyPup and he expresses it in his usual charming style in the comments to this post (and, yes, the original version was unexpurgated):

Have you actually read what was on the post you dumbf***? I didn’t write it….

Oh, why bother, talk s*** to whoever reads the c*** you write and see if anyone gives a f***. As I say, I was wrong, you weren’t being mischievous, you are just a thick t***.

Does the dog read to you, or the other way round.

You can see why this guy would be so annoyed to be accused of making offensive posts.

Unfortunately, that's about as close as he gets to coherency. As far as I can make out, his claim is that the original image of Cameron in blackface wasn’t racist, but it became so when Conservative critics discussing his post showed it on their sites. Here’s a guy prepared to toss round the ‘r-word’ like Santa reeling off the ‘ho ho hos’ but his output is beyond reproach because he uses the special ‘context’ monkey dust. Fine, here’s the context: Blackface Bob posted an image of Cameron in blackface to ridicule a Tory campaign on personal debt (huh ?), Right bloggers discussing his post included the graphic. Call me biased, but I think we can all see who was straining to insert race into the debate.

If you wanted to design a case to demonstrate the sheer humbuggery of the Left’s embrace of PC, you’d come up with something like this. The equation is rarely spelt out this clearly, but there you have it: Conservatives and Leftists can both publish the same stuff, but it’s only racist when it’s published by a Conservative. We always knew that anyway, but it’s nice to hear it from a Leftist.

Why It Matters

Steyn on why the annual KristmasKampf is worth fighting:

This isn't about religion. Jesus is doing just fine in the United States. Forty years of ACLU efforts to eliminate God from the public square have led to a resurgent, evangelical and politicized American Christianity unique in the Western world. What the rabbi in Seattle and the cops in Riverside are doing is colluding in an assault on something more basic: They're denying the possibility of any common culture. America is not a stamp collection with one of each. It's an overwhelmingly Christian country with freedom of religion for those who aren't. But it's quite an expansion of "freedom of religion" to argue that "those who aren't" are entitled to forbid any public expression of America's Christian inheritance except as part of an all-U-can-eat interfaith salad bar. In their initial reaction, Seattle Airport got it right: To be forced to have one of everything is, ultimately, the same as having nothing. So you might as well cut to the chase

Rearranging The Dictionaries On The Titanic

Laban points to an interesting mixed message in the Liberal line on the unfortunate happenings in Ipswich, namely were the deceased the poor, disenfranchised losers in the lottery of life under Casino Capitalism, or were they Amazonian sexecutives in the flesh industry, sticking it to the man and his tired, old views about ‘morality’ and the like ?

This isn’t just a matter of tone or nuance – it goes to the heart of a real pathology in modern Britain. That’s not to say, both lines of argument aren’t garbage in and off themselves. The Welfare State gets a lot of stick, but at least it means women aren’t forced to sell their bodies to feed their families. On the other hand, smackhead hookers as the shock troops of female liberation doesn’t really ring true.

It’s hard enough for the best of us to do the right thing, but these women not only had to overcome their own background, but also a culture determined to tell them that they were either hopeless victims, or worse, defiant rebels.

We have a culture that glamorises dysfunctional lifestyles while denigrating traditional family values. Hell, look at the number of actresses who’ve been Oscar nominated for playing hookers. There’s Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman), Kim Basinger (L.A. Confidential), Sharon Stone (Casino)….and so on. Meanwhile, whenever Hollyweird touches on normal family life, it’s just to remind us, as in American Beauty, that a stable relationship is the worst of all possible fates that can befall anyone.

No, no one wants to bring back the scarlet letter or whatever, but let's face reality: you can have all the drug rehabilitation programs in the world, but if the smackheads don’t see why they should come off the junk, they’ll keep shooting up. Ditto, with swords, oakleaves and gold cluster, the idea that all types of relationship are equally ‘special’. No, they aren’t.

If Liberals want to place the Ipswich murders in some kind of broader sociological context, then they can start with themselves and all the Liberals who depicted snorting coke as delightfully decadent or sexual anarchy as a sign of sophistication. But, true to form, the Left has gone the other way. They’re worried that by calling prostitutes ‘prostitutes’ we’re dehumanising them. Nope, selling their bodies dehumanised them, and everything else followed from that, right up to the horrific final act. Still, isn’t that Liberalism in a nutshell ? They can’t make things better, but they can make people talk about them more sensitively.

Some Thoughts On The Incidents In An Eastern Area Of Land

In the same spirit as Liberals mau-mauing the MSM into describing the victims in Suffolk as executives in the flesh-industry, I'd like to announce I am no longer a drunk: from now on I am a hoochographer.

As Laban says, if only Liberals could work up the same concern for other victims of crime. He also speculates that the assailant may be a recent immigrant. At a guess I'd say that the killer's obvious resources, both material and in terms of local knowledge argue against that, but it would explain one mystery.

Femiloons to the contrary, the average man is not one bad day at the office away from going on a murderous rampage. The vast majority of serial killers have worked their way up to actual murder via a series of more minor crimes. Police officers will be trawling their records looking for offenders with this kind of 'apprenticeship', yet they've had no luck so far. Could that be because the offender isn't in the system ?

Let's not understate the problem here. Our immigration system doesn't just mean there's no way to prevent serious offenders taking up residence in Britain, or that we can't check the back-ground of those who do come here, it means we can't even tell who's here in the first place. The Fred West of Warsaw could be living in Ipswich and no one would even have a name to run by his home town police. Whatever the specifics of this particular case, this is something that surely needs more attention than finding a PC phrase for a lady of the night.

Even When They’re Right They’re Wrong

It’s something of a cliché amongst Conservatives that government should concentrate on protecting the coast and delivering the mail, with everything else being debatable. Needless to say, the Left think somewhat differently, which is exactly why your correspondent is blogging from a concrete bunker, lest one of Patricia Hewitt’s Anti-Obesity Storm Brigades haul me into a room where I’ll be made to listen to Cherie Blair Karaoke tapes until I throw up everything I’ve eaten since 1986. Yes, indeed. We’ve passed through the era of Big Government and into the era of You-Got-To-Be-Kiddin’ Me Enormously Huge Government. So guess where they’re pushing through a strict policy of deregulation and letting the market run free.

Of course.

Giving money to idiots to produce bad films ? Vital role of government. Five-a-day officers ? The epitome of good government. Protecting the nation’s infrastructure ? Easy, tiger!

They Should Be Used To It By Now

Actual headline on the BBC's front page: "Australia fightback stuns England"

Meet The New Boss

I quite like David Davies, and his near-namesake in fact, but Steve is bang on here. This type of insanity was already well developed long before Princess Tony arrived to give it that final push into Insania.

There's a deeper point too. The Conservatives may nominally have been in office, but it was the Left that was pushing its agenda through. Now, the Tory Paty has sold its soul in return for political power, yet Call Me Dave not only implicitly accepts the Liberal agenda, whenever he's pinned down, he specifically disavows any desire to fight the culture war. So vote Tory or don't vote Tory, but don't think for a minute it's going to make a blind bit of difference to cases like this.

Some Thoughts On Dictatorship

I’m wondering just how many of the Liberals who keep claiming that Iraq was better off under Saddam are also the same folks who are sermonising about the evils of Pinochet ? I’m guessing at least 50%.

Of course, the analogy isn’t exact. Saddam never managed to produce a functioning Iraqi economy then turn over power to a democratic government. Then again, Pinochet never managed to gas whole villages, so I guess they both had their weaknesses. Or something.

As far as the case against Pinochet goes, it revolves around two things: he overthrew a democratically-elected government, and he killed a whole bunch of people for no reason at all.

Let’s take these complaints in order. Allende was elected on plurality of the vote then – true to the Marxist template of ‘one man, one vote, one time’ – his government embarked on a campaign of such outright thuggery that both the Supreme Court and the Congress censured him prior to the coup. Or, to put it another way, the folks who claim to be outraged by Pinochet’s lack of respect for ‘human rights’ are the same people who claim that by dint of being elected Allende was empowered to ignore the Chilean constitution and the law of the land – not an obviously coherent position. Neither is complaining about Pinochet's abuses while ignoring Allende’s own crimes – arguing that these were committed by non-government forces, merely puts Allende, at best, in the position of a small town sheriff refusing to act against KKK lynching. Allende must have known what was going on and had a duty to stop it, but instead positively encouraged it – whether or not anyone can track down a written order for each abuse, the responsibility was surely his. By the time Pinochet acted, Allende was acting outside any possible interpretation of his mandate. Pinochet’s overthrow of Allende was only as unconstitutional as anything Allende was doing.

Looked at in isolation, the charges of human rights abuses against Pinochet are harder to refute. It’s true that Pinochet’s government did use brutal tactics, including execution. If, like Liberals, you argue that there are fundamental human rights that governments can never breech, then you won’t agree with Pinochet’s tactics. Of course, when I say Liberals argue this, I mean they argue it when the government in question is on the Right. Left-wing governments are pretty much in the clear. Mass slaughter and Marxism might go together like waste and the public sector, but Liberals would rather you didn’t mention it.

See, that’s it right there. Pinochet no more decided to randomly slaughter people picked out of the Santiago phone book than the USSR really suffered 70 years of bad weather. Before the coup Allende had cheerfully told a crowd of supporters that he wasn’t the president for all Chileans, while his thug supporters rammed the point home with acts of violence against alleged class enemies and 15 000 Cubans took up residence in Chile, presumably not for the opportunities in the copper mines. Chile was hovering on the edge of civil war even before Pinochet acted. After the coup, the form book would have predicted open warfare – and eventual victory for the Marxists.

This is the real reason why the Left hated Pinochet. Marxists had convinced themselves that their opponents were ineffectual fops, like the British colonials downing cocktails in the Raffles bar even as the Japanese closed on Singapore. Pinochet was at the opposite end of the scale, a jungle fighter who met the Marxists head on, and ripped their black hearts out of their chests. What the Left hated wasn’t how he fought, it was that he won. Pinochet was a living rebuttal to the idea of the inevitability of Marxists revolution.

Faced with the utter exposure of their ideology, Leftists switched to Plan B: whining, complaining and special pleading. Pinochet’s tactics were harsh, but hardly disproportionably so. Liberals have spent decades denouncing Pinochet, yet they’ve never been able to show any evidence of indiscriminate violence and certainly no equivalent to the mass executions of ‘class enemies’ seen under Marxism. On the other hand, we do have plenty of examples of nations that tried to play nicely with savages, only to end up as People's Republics.

It would have been better if Pinochet was able to save his nation without using harsh measures. It would also have been nice if Churchill had won the war without firebombing German cities. What both leaders knew was that faced with utterly evil ideologies, the true immorality would have been to lose.

Blowback!

JohnJo gets it bang on about the Greatest Scandal Ever. Do I think the graphic was racist ? Nope, and, in fact, I think there is an important point to be made about Cameron's constant pandering. But then who cares what I think ? It's whether anybody, anywhere, thinks it's racist that matters.

Insane ? Yes, but it's an insanity which Evil Bob supported right up until it was his turn in the barrel. Now he's faced a firestorm of humbuggery. Well, speaking personally, I'll be keeping the pity party on hold until he's been arrested or hounded out of his job - just as so many of the Left's opponents have been, and for far less blatant 'crimes against PC' than this.

Best. Program. Ever.

ITV 2 tonight gives the hours 21:00 - 23:00 over to Ghosthunting With Girls Aloud.

Really. Girls Aloud wandering round allegedly haunted houses. You can't make this stuff up.

Mars Heats Up, Twix Unaffected

I forget who it was who said the tragedy of science was the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact, but it certainly applies right now. I like the quote from the NASA scientist:

If both Mars and Earth are experiencing global warming, then perhaps there is a larger phenomenon going on in the Solar System that is causing their global climates to change.

Well, quite. In so far as the central doctrine of the global warming cult is that an angry Gaia is striking back at us for defiling her Earthy goodness, finding warming on a whole ‘nother globe whence never a 4x4 did drive would kind of sink the whole thing. Well, either that or the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is vaster than even I anticipated.

Don’t Forget The Crusading Lawyer…

John Hawkins with a nice list of Hollyweird stereotypes. It’s the same in Britain, but with a few of our own, like the socially conservative character who turns out to be a pervert.

Them Liberals Are So Literate

Uh oh – looks like IDS has been caught telling the truth. Clearly, when a guy’s just published a report about raising kids, the obvious question to ask is about the role of gays. At least it is if you work for the MSM. IDS answered the question the way most of us would thereby provoking mass hysteria amongst the usual suspects shocked – shocked! – at the suggestion that the world didn’t revolve around them.

Needless to say, first to collapse on the chaise longue was Iain Dale, with a post registering 8.5 Sullivans on the freakout meter. Amusingly, this proved to be too much even for his fanboys, hence a nifty example of rowing back: even if IDS didn’t say what Dale said he did, what he did say sounded like he might have said what Dale said he did.

Hey, this blogging lark’s going to get much easier if that’s the new standard. I feel a post coming on about Dale’s habit of drowning kittens. Not that he ever actually admitted to doing that, but he hasn’t explicitly ruled it out either so, y’know, sauce for the goose, right ?

That’s not it though. What’s really interesting is the response of the Blogosphere's Greatest Living Englishman when a commentator jibed him about his initial post (and remember, comments are moderated on his blog, so there’s no question of impersonation). Read on, and behold the level of argumentation in Mr Camoron’s Nice Nu Tory Party.

Urbane, why don't you just fuck off and read another blog. What about bigots r us? You;d feel quite at home.

So, if you’re filling in your tax return right about now, just remember: it’s because people like Dale know how to spend half your income better than you do.

No, They Really Believe It

The most popular excuse for Cameron is that he’s not really a moonbat, he’s just triangulating for political advantage. That would be just about believable if the lunacy was restricted to political hot button issues, but the Cameroonatics have a nice sideline in insanity even when political advantage points the other way. Take Brian Coleman, leader of the Tories in the London Assembly, comparing England fans flying the flag to Nazis. Take Francis Maude claiming that Lady Thatcher caused his brother to die of AIDS. Or take the latest: Croyden Council’s exercise in dhimmitude. You can’t tell me that the focus groups are reporting back that they like Call Me Dave, but they think he should spend more time grovelling to Islamothugs. No, they did it because they believe in it.

About That 3 Billion.....

Also, on the subject of blogs beating the MSM at their own game, have a look at this post by Natalie over at B-BBC. She’s right about the BBC appalling coverage, but note too just how much actual information is in her post. Blogs are supposed to be parasitic on the MSM, but compare the content of the post to the original report. Which one would leave the user better informed ?

The point is that the BBC’s report isn’t simply biased, it’s also objectively wrong and absurdly superficial. The report isn’t just worthless, in so far as it’s actually, factually wrong, it’s actually has a negative value. Viewers end up less well informed than if they’d given it a miss. That’s the thing with the BBC. The bias is only the most annoying, most visible part of a more general problem: the BBC is really, really bad at its job.

MSM Says 'Trust Us, Peasants'

Associated Press continues its mission to eliminate its own credibility. There’s a nice round up here, while an earlier high point in journalism is remembered here.

Allahpundit makes an important point. Doesn’t AP’s defence rely on some outrageous special pleading –namely the proposition that both Iraqi and US government sources are intrinsically corrupt, but their sources, why, even to raise the question is an outrage ? But isn’t this just the perfect microcosm of the MSM’s worldview ?

At risk of ramming the point home, as a new service AP provides news for media across the globe including, of course, Britain. And have these scandals been mentioned by anyone in the British media ? Nada.

Again, at the risk of repletion, aren’t these the folks who keep yammering about their role in keeping ‘Big Business’ honest ? Now, there’s a scandal brewing in their own backyard, the fearless seekers after truth are busy with the MSM equivalent of cat blogging – well, that and warning everyone else about the dangers of blogs.

Dhimmi ? Us ?

The BBC at it's finest. Haji facts:

The Hajj is a ritual designed to show that everyone is equal.

A-huh.

Mecca is so holy that no non-Muslim is allowed to enter.

It's official: they've now stopped even trying to make sense.

Gilette Axminister

This is what you can do when it’s someone else’s money.

One Study That Won't Feature On The BBC

In a survey of 5,000 Europeans in ten countries, people who believed that the Israeli soldiers “intentionally target Palestinian civilians,” and that “Palestinian suicide bombers who target Israeli civilians” are justified, also believed that “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind,” “Jews have a lot of irritating faults,” and “Jews are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want.

Maybe, for the first time ever, the BBC will agree that just because some guy with a PhD claims something is true, don't necessarily make it so (although the researchers should really have confused the BBC by producing a report claiming that global warming was all a hoax started by Jews).

There's another interesting point here:

The study’s other interesting finding was that only a small fraction of Europeans believe any of these things. Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism flourish among the few, but those few are over-represented in Europe’s newspapers, its universities, and its left-wing political parties.

Well, quite. It's to be hoped that certain folks will tone down the 'Nuke Europe!' rhetoric - either that or accept Bezerkley as a valid exemplar of the US. It should also help to kill the myth of the knuckle-dragging peasants needing guidance from their enlightened betters. It turns out to be the sofisticayted ones who are rambling on about how the Jews control the weather.

Maybe there's something else here ? It's interesting that Judenhesse is one characteristic of the old Establishment that the Nu Brits has picked up whole. Then again, look how many of the top brass in our new, streamlined public services behave almost as parodies of CEO excess, what with 28K showers and the like. There's probaly some profound truth here about how the Left has effortlessly adopted the worst features of the old aristocracy, but it goes way over my head.

More Liberal Heroism

Amongst the million or so annoying things about Liberals is the way they effortlessly combine instinctive cowardice with windy tributes to their own heroism. Consider Channel 4’s latest outbreak of student radicalism, namely having an Islamonazi in full regalia presenting an alternative Christmas message.

Yes, that Channel 4, the one that held a poll to ask its viewers whether or not they should show the Motoons, then when the viewers voted yes, refused to show them anyway as they were too ‘offensive’.

Let’s run through this again. Marking one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar by featuring a broadcast from a representative of a murderous death cult wearing full regalia ? Cutting edge radicalism. Showing the cartoons your whole program is dedicated to discussing ? Pointlessly offensive.

This is what grates. Not that Channel 4 has decided to use Christmas to express their hatred of Christians – that’s par for the juvenile course – nope, it’s the fact that they (and, indeed, most of the MSM) think this is the epitome of heroism. Where exactly is the Christian ‘Theo Van Gough’ (and, no, Channel 4 still haven’t shown ‘submission’) ?

It’s the perfect barometer of the moral decline of modern Liberalism. There really are murderous fanatics out there who want to murder critics of their religion, and the MSMs reaction is to give a platform to one of them to spew their propaganda, while congratulating themselves on boldly standing up to a genuinely peaceful religion. If St George was a Liberal, he'd have teamed up with the dragon then insisted we celebrate his bravery in taking on a dangerous maiden.

Where's The Dawk When We Need Him ?

Uh oh. Crazed Christianist loonies are busily threatening an MP who wants to reform the law on abortion. No, wait.....Using the logic of the Left, I hereby conclude that this proves secular schools should be abolished.

Isn't That The Idea ?

Over at Columbia's School Of Jounalism - alma mater of much of the American MSM's top brass - they have a little problem: mass cheating on an exam. Which one ? Ethics, of course.

Looks like the students will fit in well with the Fourth Estate. After all, it turns out that Captain Can't-Be-Found has been quoted in no less than 61 Associate Press articles (and only AP articles) since April 2006. That's probably why he's disappeared: he's collapsed with exhaustion. And there's more. Maybe the students should use that as their defence ? They'd been assured cheating was OK by Professor John Doe himself.

Religion Of Pieces Round Up

Oopsie! Further evidence that the MSM's wall of noise isn't working anymore.

Could this by an chance be related to the media being caught spinning for the 'splodey dopes again ?

It has to say something that while the dhimmis are left citing mythical mobs of crazed "Islamophobes", on the Right we just let the Islamopaths speak for themselves. Take Turkey and their charming argument that as a completely and utterly civilised nation, they should be allowed to join the EU, and besides, if they get turned down, they'll go an murderous rampage. Apparently, in Islam the concept of 'mixed messages' is ha'ram.

Meanwhile, the Left has a new policy for dealing with Islamofascism: complete surrender. Actually, when you put it like that, it seems kind of familiar. It turns out that British Muslims are peaceful bunny rabbits, except if they disagree with foreign policy, in which case...they'll go on a murderous rampage (is anyone seeing a theme here ?).

Still, if the Jihadbots only express their inner Charles Manson because of Israel, I'm really looking forward to hearing about how the Zionists secretly control Bangkok. Paging Ms Tonge, Jenny Tonge to reception please...

The Guy Gibson De Nos Jours

The Left continues its campaign to render satire obsolete. Keith Allen, geriatric professional lad, talking about BBC ratings bomb ‘Robin Hood’:

We can't ignore Iraq and the war, it's as simple as that. I think the writers have been incredibly brave to have taken it on and included it in the script.

It’s practically Merville Battery all over again! Isn’t that just like a Leftist ? The country’s at war and he's paying tribute to the courage of media luvvies supporting the other side.

Not Really

This is splendid – albeit not remotely safe for work. It’s Devil's Kitchen interviewing The Forehead:

The Devil: You never doubt the direction which you are travelling, you ******* monkey?

Cameron: No. I am very clear about the direction in which we are going. And I'll be even clearer when we help NuLabour to introduce the tracking (and charging per mile) of all cars. I'll have a pretty clear of the direction that you are travelling too.

Lying About Lying

No subject shows up the issue of media bias like media bias. Suddenly, the folks who pen glowing tributes to their own courage in holding ‘Big Business’ accountable decide that they’ve found the one sector where the public good rules supreme.

Consider the near news blackout over the recent travails of America’s MSM. Sherlock Holmes couldn’t find any trace of the LA Times’s ‘Raid That Never Was’ in the British MSM. Ditto, the Mystery of the MIA Police Spokesman. Here, we’re talking about a wire service that provides a lot of copy for the British MSM, there’s every chance some of the tainted reports were carried by the British media but they’d rather you didn’t mention it.

Hey, we’ve had blow-by-blow coverage of Enron and Katrina, and there was far less British involvement there than in Iraq, but now America is a far away country of which we know little. It’s not as if these are minor issues. Au contraire, the thuggish Americans plastering women and children from 20 000 feet, and the Iraqi Civil War are both key memes for the anti-war anti-Western forces. Now we find that reports pushing both memes turn out to be complete and utter rubbish.Isolated incident or the tip of the iceberg ? The MSM ain't saying.

There’s a deeper problem here. There are at least two reasons why these outlets got taken in by these reports in the first place. One is simple bias – they believed because they wanted to believe, but the other is the nature of reporting in Iraq. Most of the actual reporting from the field is done by ‘stringers’ – local, or at least Arab, freelancers. And who’s checking out if they have some kind of agenda ? Well, exactly. And this, you will note, from an MSM which was paranoid about the objectivity of journalists embedded with the troops.

Needless to say, the inherent problems with depending on third parties for coverage are common to both American and British media. Even if you take the politics out of it, the essential problem still remains but the MSM would rather you didn’t think about it. The same people who claimed the Abu Grahib proved the US Army was rotten to the core, are now busily ignoring the utter collapse of reporting standards at two flagship MSM outlets. And these people think bloggers need to learn lessons from their conduct ?

The BBC Does God

From the BBC comes the heart-warming story of how a sportsman’s performance improved dramatically once he found God.

Well, alright. Not God exactly. More like Allah. But hey ? It’s all the same, right ? And never you mind anybody pointing out that the improved performances may also reflect the fact this guy’s no longer faced with being shunned by his team-mates, constant death threats and the other joys of dhimmitude.

Mr Justice Anthony Martin

Apparently you can use a shotgun to defend your property after all. Not everyone though, just people who wear wigs to work (and this, by the way, with someone on the roof in broad daylight, not breaking down the door at 4 AM).

So much for all this talk that citizens finding their families under attack by scum should immediately wall themselves up in the cupboard and wait for the police to arrive. Here we have an insider showing exactly how much credibility he gives to the idea of police officers turning up in time to do anything except make a chalk outline round the bodies.

A Case So Shocking We Had To Lie About It

The BBC has found its Rosa Parks for the new century. Some imams stormed off a flight in the US after they were subjected to the horror of a security check just because they…. Well, actually the BBC would rather you didn’t ask why exactly they’d attracted suspicion. Rottypup gives us a brief rundown of what the BBC would rather you didn’t know, and reminds us of the BBC’s previous form in this area.

There’s more as well. All of which is by way of saying that the BBC’s case doesn’t even make sense on its own terms. Liberals claim to be opposed to ‘ethnic profiling’ – or, as I call it, ‘people who follow the same ideology as 95% of the world’s terrorists profiling’ - not because they’re a bunch of snivelling dhimmis, nope, it’s because they genuinely believe that other profiling indicators work far better. Well, here we are. Six passengers with more red flags than the Kop at Anfield, but Liberals are still whining.

Sounds to me like it’s not the Right that’s obsessing about ethnicity. If this case had involved six priests, the Left would be citing it evermore to prove that ethnic profiling doesn’t work. In contrast, it worked fine in this case. Nasty ol’ ethnic profiling and the type of profiling the Left claims to like both pointed to the same six guys, at which point they stormed off. It would be nice to know exactly why they objected so strongly to being checked over by security, but it looks like the MSM won’t be asking them anytime soon. I’m guessing this is the one case where the Left won’t claim that if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear.

It turns out that profiling is like just about everything else in the war on terror. Liberals claim to be in favour of security screening in principle, but whenever they’re confronted with it in the real world, it’s never quite right. Maybe that’s the answer for the BBC ? Conservatives should claim we’re fully in favour of the idea of a licence fee, but we’re to opposed to the actual specifics of the whole ‘fee’ for a ‘licence’ concept ?

Liberals In Hell

Teachers squaring off against lawyers ? What's a Lib to do ? Produce reams and reams of action plans, strategies and other displacement activities, of course.

Funnily enough, none of these great ideas address the central problem, namely the imbalance that exists built into the legal system whereby m'learned friends can coin it in from a successful case but if it all goes horribly wrong ? Well, who cares ? At least you have to pay a pound to enter the lottery.

Buggy Whip Manufactuers Call For New Curbs On Horseless Carriages

I’m not really qualified for this one. It really takes someone like DK to deal with this (and indeed he has). Still, I got to say, in so far as this speech encapsulates the moral and intellectual death spiral of the MSM, it is the best argument yet why blogs are needed.

Press Complaints Commission director Tim Toulmin said he opposed government regulation of the internet, saying it should a place "in which views bloom".

But unless there was a voluntary code of conduct there would be no form of redress for people angered at content, and there would be no excuse to later claim that the ‘voluntary option has failed’ and bring in restrictive laws.

Actually, I added that last bit myself.

Anyway, where are these country vicars unfairly vilified by blogs ? Just how many ‘innocent civilians’ have been victims of blogging ? 25 ? 10 ? 5? Fortunately, we already have laws in place to protect people who’ve been unfairly defamed and, yes, they apply whether or not that’s done in print, on the net or written in a snow drift. Let’s compare the number of successful libel cases against the MSM versus those against blogs, hmmmmm ?

Some might point out that defamation cases take years, and shed-loads of cash, to come to court. Well, OK, but it’s not like the MSM hasn’t benefited from that for years. It only became a problem when bloggers came on the scene.

Newspapers have a built-in advantage not available to Joe Public, hence the old lines about not arguing with people who buy newsprint by the barrel load. Doubtless, Whiny Tim would claim the Press Complaints Commission offers members of the public some protection – but does it really ? Members of the public wronged by the MSM have to submit a complaint to an MSM body,which will spend several months considering it before either dismissing totally or giving the newspaper in question a slap on the wrist

In contrast, everyone’s equal in the blogosphere. Even if the supposed injured parties – which no one can find – don’t blog themselves, and don’t know how comment boxes work, for every cat blogger, there’s a dog blogger ready to argue the toss. It’s a true market for opinion, with lies torn apart faster, and far more brutally, by fellow bloggers than the pencil-sucking insiders at the PCC have ever managed with the MSM.

But, of course, Whiny Tim isn’t really on about actual, provable defamation at all. He’s talking about people who are merely ‘angered by content’. Lest the point need driving home, look where he was speaking:

He spoke during a session on free speech at a London race conference.

…before retiring next door to the Annual Conference of Jewish Pig Farmers. This isn’t about Sussex scoutmasters being unfairly labelled paedophiles, it’s the MSM and the race hustlers prepping the ground for another witch hunt over ‘hate speech’. But that’s alright, because as Whiny Tim points out:

Mr Toulmin described the phrases "free speech" and "free press" as relative terms because views expressed on the internet are still governed by laws such as libel and data protection.

So, we need new laws because the net is too anarchic, but we shouldn’t worry about them because we already have laws covering the net. I’m glad we got that sorted.

It’d be tempting to ask Whiny Tim just how he thinks a law should be drafted to prevent people being ‘angered’, but that’s sort of the point. The category of ‘stuff that makes people angry' is so broad that almost anything's covered. Except, of course, that it’ll turn out like the Public Order Act which apparently bans handing out leaflets, but not calling for beheadings. But don’t expect the MSM to complain about all this. Just remember, it's the blogosphere that's untrustyworthy!

Enlightening The Ordinaries

James Lileks is actually writing about US senator John Edwards, but the points he makes are more widly applicable. The best line is this one:

...being lectured by the scion of a millionaire trial lawyer is a little like scolding classmates for drinking Tang instead of having Alfred hand-squeeze a dozen Valencias.

Remind you of anyone ?

Life, Liberty And The Fundemental Human Right To Blow Stuff Up

Yep. Someday soon we’re going to find out that Shami Chakrabarti is being secretly employed by the Home Office. I actually think the Times is being too nice to her. She certainly pushes a crypto-anarchic view of civil liberties, but only when dealing with fellow Leftists.

Certainly, there’s been nothing equivalent to the ACLU’s famous defence of the right of the KKK Nazis to march. Au contrair, while Shami keeps a stock of onions ready for use whenever the rights of Islamofascists are impinged upon, she’s perfectly OK with restrictions on areas such as free speech, press freedom and self-defence.

Back to the main point though, namely the absolutely toxic effect of these wackos on the case for liberty. Lest anyone bring it up, Ben Franklin warned about giving up essential freedoms for temporary security. The defining characteristic of the civil liberties loons has been their belief that even the loopiest commandments handed down by judicial activists should be defended as though they were Magna Carta. The thing is though, if Judge Moonbats’ rantings have the same status as our ancient rights, then those rights have the status of wacky rulings from bewigged activists, and that makes it easier for the real authoritarians to say ‘the hell with it, let’s start again’.

UPDATE:

In the comments, Rop points out that even some on the Left are becoming disenchanted with Liberty's humbuggery.

So Which Is It ?

Talking of Cameron, just about the only thing the Cameroonatics have taken a position on is their belief that the whole straight/gay thing is irrelevant. Even mentioning the issue is enough to have the Nu Tories channelling their inner Ayatollah and issuing the low-fatwas. But what’s with Greg Barker then ?

Right now, Tory High Command is spinning that ol’ Greg is a victim of those pesky homophobes. Except take away the whole gay thing and what are you left with ? A guy marries a woman, then decides he’d rather have sex with someone else and does a runner. Classy!

OK, if you think the fact a bloke lacks integrity in his personal life is irrelevant to his professional life, then this won’t bother you, but if you do, then it should. To put it another way, the Cameroonatics demand that we ignore Barker’s homosexuality, but we shouldn’t think badly of him for cheating on his wife ‘cause, hey, he’s gay.

Y’know, a guy could easily think Opus Dave just say whatever’s most convenient at the time.

First Class Ticket To Irrelevance

British Airways have finally backed down in the Great Cross Row Of 2006. I’m guessing that they decided that if even the Church of England thought it was safe to come out against them, they must really be in trouble.

Not to say that I don’t understand why companies are reluctant to have staff advertise their adherence to various worldviews, but in so far as BA is perfectly OK with their staff wearing Islamic regalia, Christians would be justified in feeling a little victimised (although, obviously, nervous travellers could be forgiven for worrying about the combination of Christians and air travel, what with the Jesus freaks flying into buildings so often).

In case you’re still wondering, BA’s excuse for allowing Islamopaths to parade round dressed as Bin Laden, while freaking over a cross the size of a 5p coin, is simply that crosses can be concealed while hijacker suits can’t. As excuses go, this makes ‘the dog ate my homework’ sound positively inspired. Doubtless, the Kool Aid drinkers are even now penning long essays to explain why this issue is very complex.

There are a couple of important points here. The first is that BA have been forced to back down by a genuine grass roots campaign. True, Labour pols soon jumped aboard the bandwagon, but – to put it mildly- these are the type of people who are not normally enraged by this sort of thing. Ditto, the MSM. Nope, it was a genuine sense of outrage amongst the public that forced BA to back down. We’d never have found out about the case in the first place without the resolution of Nadia Eweida herself (oh, and by the way Libs, taking on a massive multi-national that pays your mortgage is a hell of a lot closer to real courage than using an Arts Council grant to paint pictures of Bush as Hitler). Then there are the people who rallied to her cause. Folks like these guys and many others. No wimpy calls for government action there, nope, people simply decided that BA was not the type of company they wanted to deal with. So much for ‘political disengagement’ – the public are interested in politics, it's politicians they don't like.

That’s point two. While Nu Lab pols were taking mighty leaps onto the band wagon, you-know-who was conspicuous by his absence. Hey, wasn’t the whole excuse for Cameron his alleged political genius ? Here’s an easy score, but instead he’s stayed hiding in the closet, presumably so as to avoid alienating the ‘pro-discriminating against Christians’ demographic. See, we keep getting told that Cameron comes out with Liberal lunacy as a short-term political measure, but then when we get cases like this where BA’s behaviour is too outrageous even for Nu Lab, Cameron is still AWOL. It’s not the politics – Cameron really does see nothing wrong in discriminating against Christians. Yet Tories or no Tories, the Right won the argument. That’s the thing, the Tories aren’t just gutless, they’re also irrelevant.

Who’ve Have Thunk It ?

The BBC(!) has an interesting article on one of the first examples of Liberal social policy:

Q Camp was a utopian experiment which tried to get troubled boys to operate a self-governing community in the middle of the countryside...

Staff and boys lived in the most primitive conditions, in ramshackle wooden huts without windows or sanitation. A Probation Service inspector described the camp as "dirty and dismal" in one report. She said the sleeping huts filled her with "horror" and the beds "looked grimy".

Work was shared, but the youngsters weren't compelled to lift a finger. A camp council of staff and boys imposed what little discipline there was. There was also a school but attendance was voluntary and the school hut was set on fire on several occasions.

It was Mr Barron's belief that the young boys should not be told what to do. Smashed windows remained unfixed and obscenities were left daubed on walls because he believed it was better to leave the jobs until the boys responsible agreed to do them. They rarely did.

But the sting is in the tail:

So was it a failure? The Q Camp probably only got away with it for so long because in the middle of a war, and a manpower shortage, the authorities were glad to find anyone prepared to take on difficult children.

But in its determination to move away from the authoritarian model of the approved schools, it anticipated many of the ideas on residential childcare that became common in later decades.

Many of those involved went on to become senior and influential in their field.

As if we ever doubted it.

It takes more than complete failure to derail Loony Left ideas. That’s why we get reports like this from modern Britain:

A much stricter behaviour code was introduced that bought radical changes, says Mrs Edwards, whose educational background centres on inclusions and special needs.

"It's very much about back to basics and zero tolerance, bringing back rules and clear boundaries, rewards and consequences that are consistently carried out," she says.

Really ? Having structure and standards improves a school ?

Seriously, whatever will the Left think of next ? Does anyone who isn’t a) an educrat, or b) David Cameron ever not think that maintenance of good order was a basic requirement for successful education ?

Patrician Snob Embraces Patrician Snob Shocker!

You have to see the funny side of Call Me Dave’s embrace of Toynbeeism. Well, not so much the Tories gobbling down another slug of Kool Aid so much as the reaction from the libertarian wing of the Right. They’re shocked – shocked! – that Call Me Dave could stick two fingers up to a huge group of Conservatives.

Ahem!

Short of personally delivering a sack of horse manure, David Cameron could hardly have done more to express his contempt for social conservatives. I wonder how many of the people who yammered on about ‘theocons’ are amongst those libertarians now professing disgust at Cameron’s latest attempt to purge rightists?

Don’t Mention The….

The BBC carries an article on the unusual success of Iceland. The trouble for the BBC is that Iceland’s success comes from pretty much doing the exact opposite of everything the BBC has ever believed:

In the late 1980s, it was a highly-regulated country and its prosperity depended on the fishing industry. Reforms in the 1990s resulted in the deregulation of the economy and banks, opening up the financial markets and allowing the sector to expand rapidly. Its economy is now dominated by services.

"In the mid-90s Iceland still had a relatively raw economy," says Neil Prothero, economist with the Economist Intelligence Unit. "The reforms allowed the financial sector to expand rapidly, this has encouraged a strong entrepreneurial spirit in the country."

Ah yes. So, deregulation helps the economy prosper.

Because it is remote from the rest of Europe, Icelanders are encouraged to look outside their own country.

Or, to put it another way, there’s no need to be ‘at the heart of Europe’ (in any sense) to prosper in international trade.

But that’s not the biggest thing:

It is part of a strong Icelandic national identity to feel you are a match for the rest of the world, despite the size of the nation…

Because you feel you are far away you make an extra effort to take part in the rest of the world, but you maintain a strong sense of home," says Ms Birgisdottir. "There is always an umbilical cord to Iceland. We are proud of who we are….

There is a strong nationalist movement in Iceland but it not denounced like other movements in other countries.

Call it what you want. National pride. A sense of community. Unapologetic partriotism. Whatever, but it the one thing that enrages Leftists more than any other. In Britain we have the have the cultural cringe, open borders and the inevitable product, balkanisation, all cheered on by the BBC. So now Auntie penning paeans of praise to a country that’s rejected exactly the kind of multi-culti nonsense that the BBC treats as holy writ. Anyone know what ‘chutzpah’ is in Icelandic ?

Pondscum Wars II

We’re saved! Once again fulfilling it’s remit to provide a collective response to issues too big for individual countries to handle, the EU has locked onto the vital issue of….video games. Yes, indeed. The European Commissioner for 'Justice, Freedom and Security' (motto: ‘pick any two’) Franco Frattini has decided urgent action must be taken to suppress ‘obscene’ video games (for the children, natch). And what constitutes an obscene video game ? Well, as far as I can tell, the definition reads something like ‘anything Franco doesn’t like’

Doncha’ just luv it ? It’s another example of how the ‘baby boomers’ have not only become their parents, they’ve actually turned out far worse. Granddad is right: back in the day they did have standards – as in objective measures of whether or not something was obscene. Now we’ve got flatulent Eurotrash lounging round their publicly-funded offices trying to use the law to crush anything which doesn’t meet with their approval.

Liberals often posture as defenders of artistic freedom in the face of ruthless capitalism, well, now we have the worst of both worlds: the artistic freedom of a multi-billion pound industry being crushed for no better reason than that a degenerate exemplar of our new aristocracy has taken against the industry. Somehow, I see him losing a lot of votes over this…but wait: he doesn’t need to bother with the whole ‘votes’ thing. In common with the rest of The EU pond scum, he doesn’t need to bother with actual voters. Instead, he’ll continue to use his position to try and push through repressive legislation insulated from any kind of accountability at all. Now, that’s obscene.

The Kool Aid Ain't Working Anymore

Uh oh...looks like the MSM's wall of noise just ain't cutting it anymore. They can yammer all they want about a Religion of Peace, but the truth is getting out.

Who Could Argue With A Record Like That ?

Providing the latest evidence of the political classes' determination to rebrand themselves as a sub-branch of the media, Princess Tony has announced the government will be employing 'super nannies' to help problem families. Yep, the billion of pounds we already spend each year on medicalising bad behaviour has been a fiasco, but this time they've got it right.

Well, OK, Libs - if the state does such a five-star job of raising kids, let's see what happens to those who've had the most exposure to the state's theories on child rearing. Look at what happens to kids in care, and say 'what the government did for them, it can do for eveyone's kids'.

OK, You Win, Libs (Part II)

You know how we keep getting told that the Tory A-lister aren’t a bunch of hopelessly unqualified victimhood hustlers, nope, they’re whizkid bizness people ? Personally, I’ve never been sure of exactly why flacking for Big Pharma (to choose an example completely at random) necessarily qualifies you to send the country to war, but OK, I give up. Yes, Liberals, I admit it, you can always spot a good politician because they’re good at business.

OK, You Win, Libs (Part I)

The Libs want to redefine paedophilia – but don’t call them soft on perverts. Dyfed-Powys chief Terry Grange claims the law is a ‘grey area’. In so far as the law outlaws sex with under-16s, it’s hard to see how much simpler it could be, but I guess he’s using the phrase in the Liberal sense of ‘grey area’ i.e. ‘perfectly clear, but we wish it wasn’t’.

Still, it’s not totally idiotic. There really is a different pathology between those who seek sex with children, and those who seek to prey on teenagers. That’s not enough to justify buying into the Libs’ latest PC drivel except for one thing. If we’re not allowed to call those who prey on adolescent boys ‘paedophiles’, then that robs the Left of their main charge against the then-Cardinal Ratzenburger. After all, the ‘paedo Priests’ almost exclusively targeted teenage boys, so I guess the Liberal’s charge must be that the Catholic Church was not zealous enough in rooting out gay priests, right ?

Of course, all this leads on to a further speculation. If a network of predatory homosexuals operating in the Catholic Church for decades suggests the Church is corrupt, what does it say for gay culture ? Motes and beams, fatty!

That Teach ‘Em

It’s bad enough hearing Liberals pretend to applaud the teenagers who chased down a predator when you just know that in any less clear cut case they’d be busily whining about vigilantism, but let’s just consider what the final result was of these brave lads tracking down a potentially armed, and certainly dangerous, scumbag.

Ah yes. Just under six years. What kind of 'life' are we talking here ? Dog years ? It’s never a good sign when the judge feels the need to put in a plea in mitigation. Hey, these folks are notorious for pulling laws out of thin air, but now the system demands he give a savage a slap on the wrist, suddenly he’s Captain Jobsworth ? Hell, the judicary may as well go the whole way and just mail the lads a turd in a bag.

A vote of thanks too for the femiloons. This is what I was on about before. Here we have a code one: WARNING! WARNING! Predator identified! But no: they’re too busy trying to broaden the definition of the offence so they can charge the lads as accessories (‘after all, they’re male, so was the attacker. That can’t be a coincidence’)

But who let’s these guidelines go through in the first place ? I say again: ’checks and balances’ is supposed to work both ways. In so far as you could pick fifty names out of the phone book and not find five who believe this is the right sentence, Parliament has failed utterly to represent the views of the public here. It’s the yin to the yang of MPs who want to regulate everything in the whole world – here’s a job they should be doing, but they’ve let the courts go bananas. They were probably busy passing the Toothbrush Regulatory Act 2006.

Sir Elton Comes Out

Sir Elton’s been babbling again. He wants religion banned.

To be sure, Sir Elton employs the traditional insane qualifier. He’s not against ‘religion’ so much as ‘organised religion’. Hey, as Ann Coulter would say, there’re loads of religions with thousands of sects. If none of them float your boat, it’s probably not the form of organisation that’s the problem.

Nope, away with these stupid euphemisms. We know these people hate Christianity, all Fat Reg has done is come out and say so in public. Naturally, Sir Elton’s call to abolish religious freedom has provoked a firestorm of criticism from moderate gays, human rights activists and the Tories. And when I say ‘firestorm’ I mean a complete lack of condemnation, although I do understand twenty Bishops have demanded he be arrested for incitement.

Not really.

As ever, the door only swings one way. You have one guy handing out leaflets out side a Pink Wedge rally and he gets busted for causing ‘fear, alarm and distress’ to the thousands of attendees - which doesn’t exactly undermine the gay stereotype.

Still, this does show into sharp relief the harassment of the Glasgow firefighters. Liberal managers wanted to use public servants to endorse the rantings of a group of people opposed to freedom of conscience, and the guys who refused to take part are the bigots ? Hello ?

See, this is what I was saying. This isn’t some touchy-feely debate about ‘tolerance’ and the like. Sir Elton is, well, Sir Elton, filthy rich A-list celeb knight of the realm. What else does he want ? No, there’s plenty of tolerance there but what these guys want is something quite different.

The Pink Wedge isn’t pushing some uncontentious call for mutual respect. They are completely opposed to both the specifics of religion and traditional morality, and the more general idea of freedom of conscience. If they had their way, Britain would be a very different country, but we’re not allowed to discuss what they believe. Instead, they get to denounce Britain, while calling their critics 'bigots'. In every sense, they are the perfect pin-up boys for modern Liberalism