The PFLD

I'M BACK....in some sense

2008-09-02T15:36:00.001+01:00

Well, I'm back blogging at least. Only, not here anymore.

Don't get me wrong, blogger has served me well these past few years. But I felt it was time for a change, and have much preferred working with Wordpress of late. And so, from now on, I intend to blog at the new PFLD site, which can be found at:

This link.

I think I have moved most links and things over. All the old posts are still there, except some of the stupid ones I decided to prune. But if I have missed anyone while moving over, holla, and I'll be sure to fix it. This site will remain as an archive and spam bot collection facility.

Hope to see you over at the new place.

Busyness

2008-08-28T11:36:00.002+01:00

I'm not going to be around much until Monday. No, I haven't got a job yet, I'm just going to busy and not really have the time to be online much. But hopefully by Monday I will be back in action. And yes, I will deal with Tim Montogomerie's ridiculous website, as promised.

Brown is mad?

2008-08-28T11:29:00.001+01:00

Liberal Conspiracy discusses the "Brown is insane" meme.

I think that we should learn to love, cherish and adopt the term "concern trolling".

When will Tim Montgomerie stop beating his wife?

2008-08-24T15:04:00.005+01:00

No srsly.

I mean, if we're gonna play that game it would be, lets at least do it properly. Going by the site, pretty much everyone who is not at least centre-right hates America.

And while it would be both amusing, and very easy, to make fun of Montgomerie's almost sycophantic website, instead I am putting on my "Internet Is SRS BUSINESS" had and I'm going to have some fun with his sources. Because his sources for some of the anti-Americanism briefings are some of the most disgusting and divisive Americans in recent history, whose absolute hatred at anyone with a worldview that differs from theirs is far more hateful of the Americans who hold those views than many of the descriptions of anti-Americanism on the site.

Firstly, I'm reading about Anti-Americanism and Hollywood, a delightful little playbook taken from the American right, about how Hollywood is undermining all that is good and true about America. And whose name should I see, but Michael Medved.

Medved is not what I would call a good source. In fact, he is a terrible source. This article here, I think, sums up everything that is wrong with his worldview. Historical inaccuracy and naievete are the hallmarks of his thinking. Taking it apart would be a lengthy work for a historian, there is so much wrong with it. Furthermore, his cultural conservativism shows in his contempt for liberal, homosexual and non Judeo-Christian Americans, which is the main point of pretty much every article he writes.

Medved will go to nearly any length to smear liberal, gay or non-Jewish or Christian Americans (in fact, he will smear them too, if they are too liberal for his liking). Why does Medved's contempt for his fellow citizens not disqualify him as a source? Because Montgomerie's site is not about anti-Americanism, its about using anti-Americanism, the concept, as a foil to attack left-wingers with.

This pattern repeats itself with some of his other non-political/NGO sources, who are invariably the worst examples of right-wing Americans, that conflate everything which isn't in line with their worldview as anti-American. As such, it becomes all too easy to claim that everything except one's own worldview is not filled with secret hatred and disgust for the USA. How convienient.

Next on the list is Michelle Malkin. Ah, the Malkin Monster. Where do we start with her? Ezra Klein probably says it best:

To visit Michelle Malkin’s cave is to see politics at its most savage, its most ferocious, its most rageful. They say they’ve spent the past week smearing a child and his family because that child was fair game — he and his family spoke of their experience receiving health care through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. For this, right wingers travel to their home to inspect its worth, they insinuate that the family is engaged in large-scale fraud to receive government benefits, they make threatening phone calls to the family.

Lovely, right? There is plenty more to hold against Michelle Malkin as well. Hold on tight, because its a nasty and sordid little trip we will be taking.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon goes one further:

On a daily basis, Michelle Malkin's hate sites promote violence, rank bigotry, jihad against Muslim Americans, imprisonment of Democratic Party leaders. The comments are not deleted and are virtually never opposed. Her hate sites traffic in content which is the hallmark of white supremacism and violent groups targeting Muslims. And once she is done promoting that, she goes on Fox News and demands that corporate sponsors cut their ties with Daily Kos due to the comments left on that site.

And it gets better (or worse):

David Neiwert does a take down of her book, Liberals Unhinged, her pathetic whining about how American liberals are out of control radicals trying to destroy the country and intimidate conservatives. As David points out:

The only people who will find this book useful are blinkered ideologues who just want more grist for their liberal-hating mills, the facts be damned. Certainly, it will be of little to use for any serious-minded person who is concerned about the state of the national dialogue -- except, perhaps, as Exhibit A regarding the source of the problem.

There is also her book on internment, accurately described throughout much of the American media as historical revisionism and little more than a screed to justify racial profiling against American Arabs, and their possible internment without trial. A full takedown, by two historians with expertise in the case of Japanese internment, can be read here.

We could go into her tedious hatred of illegal immigrants. Or how she enables the harassment of people who she disagrees with. Or her conspiracy theorism. But I simply do not have the time to document all of Malkin's insanity.

On Will Anti-Americanism End if Barack Obama becomes President, I see Robert Kagan, of the infamous Kagan family, making an appearance. Robert, like many of his relatives who, inexplicably are listened to by the American media and foreign policy establishment, was one of those pushing most strongly for the Iraq war, and has continued to support it strongly. As Greenwald points out:

No rational person would believe a word Robert Kagan says about anything. He has been spewing out one falsehood after the next for the last four years in order to blind Americans about the real state of affairs concerning the invasion which he and his comrade and writing partner, Bill Kristol, did as much as anyone else to sell to the American public.

In April, 2003, Kagan declared the war over and said we won. Since then, he has continuously claimed that things were getting better in Iraq. He is completely liberated from any obligation to tell the truth and is a highly destructive propagandist whose public record of commentary about Iraq ought to disqualify him from decent company, let alone some sort of pretense to expertise about this war.

And we should take his word on American foreign policy at face value? I think not.

David Frum gets a mention on the topic of Strategies to Combat Anti-Americanism. Frum is of course most well known as the man who helped coin the phrase Axis of Evil, but there is a lot more to him.

For example, we have his (obvious) implication that those who blame Feith and Michael Leeden for forging evidence to help the case for the Iraq war are anti-Semites. Gary Kayima also has an enlightening review of the book he co-wrote with Richard Perle:

Here are some of the authors' policy recommendations:
Preparing to launch a preemptive attack on North Korea, after moving our troops out of range of their artillery and missiles.
Taking direct action to topple the regime in Iran, by providing aid to Iranian dissidents.
Being prepared to invade Syria, of whom the authors write, "Really, there is only one question to ask about Syria: Why have we put up with it as long as we have?"
Being prepared to invade Libya. "The illusion that Muammar al-Qaddafi is 'moderating' should be treated as what it is: a symptom of the seemingly incurable wishful delusions that afflict the accommodationists in the foreign policy establishment." (Now that those accommodationists in State have been proven right, don't expect an apology from the authors: They'll claim Qaddafi got rid of his WMD programs only because Bush invaded Iraq. All other answers, no matter if they're true, don't fit with their Manichaean, evildoers-respond-only-to-force worldview. Besides, those who are always right must never apologize. It is a sign of weakness, which our evil Muslim terrorist enemies (TM) will exploit with evil terror.)
Taking a superconfrontational line with Saudi Arabia, including letting them know that if they don't reform we would look with favor upon a Shiite uprising in their oil-rich Eastern Province.
Abandoning the Israeli-Palestinian peace process altogether. In a radical departure from U.S. policy, they say the Palestinians should not be given a state. Creating a Palestinian state out of the West Bank and Gaza, they write, will not bring peace to the region, because the Palestinians and other Arabs are only interested in vengeance, not justice. Instead, the Palestinians should "let go of the past" and content themselves with becoming citizens of the Arab countries in which they now live. The authors do not say what should happen to the 3.9 million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories: Presumably they should either agree to become second-class citizens like the other Israeli Arabs, or leave.

Their domestic policies are equally arresting:
Requiring all residents to carry a national identity card that includes "biometric data, like fingerprints or retinal scans or DNA," and empowering all law enforcement officers to enforce immigration laws. The authors admit that such a card "could be used in abusive ways," but reassure us by saying that victims of "executive branch abuse will be able to sue." Those who have done nothing wrong have nothing to fear!
Encouraging Americans to "report suspicious activity." Apparently alone among Americans, the authors lament the demise of the TIPS program.
Changing immigration policy so that the U.S. can bar all would-be visitors who have "terrorist sympathies." The authors define "terrorist sympathies" so broadly that this would rule out a high percentage of visitors from Muslim or Arab countries.
Reforming the CIA to make it more hard-line on the Middle East.

Fascinating stuff. But should we really be taking advice from frothing militarists on how to make people hate America less?

Here is another insight into Frum's worldview, this time in his own words, quoted handily by John Holbo:

The great, overwhelming fact of a capitalist economy is risk. Everyone is at constant risk of the loss of his job, or of the destruction of his business by a competitor, or of the crash of his investment portfolio. Risk makes people circumspect. It disciplines them and teaches them self-control. Without a safety net, people won’t try to vault across the big top.

In short, capitalism is good because it keeps people in their place. It makes them easily controlled, because they are in constant fear of losing everything. It creates social order, by threatening people with losing their jobs, investments and businesses, and thus making sure they do not try and make it too big. Well I'm certainly feeling the love in that argument.

I'll deal with some of the claims actually made another day. I just wanted to point out that anyone using the above people is probably not the sort of person who wants to make a serious effort, and instead is interesting in shutting down debate with accusations of being an irrational hater.

Oh, this is beautiful

2008-08-23T13:10:00.003+01:00

My favouritest Pagan website on the planet, MysticPricks, has sunk to a new low. Not content with promoting woolly thinking, historical inaccuracy, superstitious dogma, sectarian hatred and allowing cryto-racists to have the run of the site, they've now stooped to the level of pimping The Church of Scientology!

As usual, click to view a larger image.

The question is, of course, is what to do with such information? Apparently, the site owner's wife has already stated that to take it down would be to discriminate against Scientologists. You know, in the same way that arresting and incarcerating Al-Qaeda members is discriminating against Muslims. I know only a few weeks ago at least one member on the site made a detailed post listing the wrongs of the Church, so either they didn't read the post (in which case they are bad admins, but then we already knew that), or they just don't give a shit, and are more than willing to promote the Scifag cult because of the filthy lucre it brings in.

Knowing Mol's addictions, I have a good idea of which of those theories I prefer.

Headlines that don't make sense until after your first coffee #1

2008-08-22T09:41:00.001+01:00

Paedophile Glitter arrives in UK

I swear I was thinking "what, glitter for paedophiles? Glitter that attracts paedophiles? Is this a new episode of Brass Eye? WHAT THE HELL IS THE BBC TALKING ABOUT?"

Which just goes to show how necessary coffee is in my life.

This is not the broken society you were looking for

2008-08-21T13:35:00.003+01:00

And thus, Jedi Master Boris Johnson overturns the idea that he may be off message.

I like his style though. It reminds me of a certain fictional lawyer (whose name eludes me), whose tactic was to allege the most preposterous things, then say "withdrawn" before the Judge could punish him, knowing full well that the original statement is out there, and no amount of denial will have the impact of the initial allegation.

Good old Boris.

MI5 state obvious, media goes into shock

2008-08-21T12:48:00.002+01:00

The Guardian has the info.

Am I terribly shocked? No. But then again, I studied terrorism using something other than Parliamentary statements and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam. You know, with people who have spent their entire lives studying terrorists, mapping personalities, conducting interviews, modelling radicalization etc.

Marc Sageman in particular has been noting and publishing the trends MI5 have produced since the publication of his Understanding Terror Networks, if not before. Nothing in this report is really new from that. Religious novices? Check. Socially excluded or removed second or third generation immigrants? Check. Low incidence of mental illness? Check.

I'm surprised any of this is even considered news. Anyone who has been following the academic terrorism literature knew this stuff a long time ago. We have reports going back to the Red Brigades and UVF that rule out mental illness, or a particular personality type.

Other background details are interesting, highlighting the difference between the old Al-Qaeda (the professionals in their late 20s to 30s, who have families etc) and the new Al-Qaeda, the kids in their late teens or early 20s. The diversity of background, from sober, nearly areligious (until recently) professional family man with no criminal background, to the kid who has been caught taking drugs and possibly served a sentence for a violent crime, who cannot even read Arabic, is enormous.

And those are just two of the many profiles one could come up with. Factor in racial background, gender, educational history, geographical location etc and you quickly lose anything that resembles a useful description of a potential terrorist.

Even worse, terrorists often tailor their recruitment methods to avoid profiles. By concentrating on certain segments on the population, you just increase the evolutionary adaption of an organization. As the 7/7 bombings show, anyone who had been looking for foreign born, or all Pakistani radicals, for example, would have been caught out. And yes, you could argue the converse, that in fact some lives might have been saved, but the true mark of terrorism is targeting weak points, taking advantage of the unexpected and unconsidered. As soon as you focus on one area, and it becomes obvious (and believe me, with the internet, it will), then terrorist groups will regroup and attack from unexpected directions.

The best way, as Sageman notes, is to map the relationships between known violent radicals, facilitators of violent teachings and those who are involved in activity which is linked to terrorism. Target the smugglers (people or otherwise), the money launderers, the radical Imams with links to training camps in Pakistan or Indonesia or the Middle East. That is how you deal with Islamic terrorism.

And lets not overlook the possibility of a resurgence of rightwing, nationalist terrorism either. Its picking up in the USA, currently, and there could be international implications, when we consider how many have adapted themselves to narrative of the War on Terror, and the persistent Eurabia bullshit.

Anyway, a welcome report, and I am glad to see MI5 seem to know what they are doing.

Reasons to not drink coffee while reading BBC News

2008-08-20T11:52:00.002+01:00

Tories 'best' to tackle poverty

George Osborne is set to claim that the Tories are best placed to tackle poverty and create a fair society.

I mean, seriously, are you trying to kill me here? I could have choked...

Oh dear, it looks like Boris is "off message"

2008-08-20T00:59:00.002+01:00

Link.

Boris Johnson has described David Cameron's claim that Britain is a 'broken society' as 'piffle'.

In an intervention likely to dismay Tory HQ, the London mayor claimed our success at the Olympics proves youngsters are far from 'aimless, feckless and hopeless, addicted to their PlayStations'.

'If you believe the politicians, we have a broken society, in which the courage and morals of young people have been sapped by welfarism and political correctness,' he said.

'And if you look at what is happening at the Beijing Olympics, you can see what piffle that is.'

Oh dear. It would be terrible if this were the start of the unravelling of the Tory party message, and still 2 years from when the election is due. They'd have to come up with a whole new meme to explain why their plans for radical social reform (hang on, I thought it was the left who did the social engineering?) are so necessary.

Its GO TIME!

2008-08-19T13:18:00.003+01:00

Drop everything, its time to protest!

Today, Littlejohn is bemoaning the lack of protests over Georgia and Russia's recent tangle.

I know in LJ's mind, bands of anarchists and communists sit around the streets of London, promoting terrorism and rape and knifecriming and Islam while the government pays them dole money, and so in theory they should be able to take to the streets and express their hatred for the enemy du jour at the drop of a hat, making their lack of current protesting suspect...but back here, in reality, things don't work like that.

Because, you know, things like permits and buses and placards and, oh I don't know, telling people to turn up, takes time, and by the time people considered doing that, the war was already over.

Of course, we could ask why Notorious RLJ hasn't bothered organizing a protest either, but he is likely too busy quivering from fear of the outside world, in his gated community in Florida, to comment.

Amy Alkon, the emails: Part 1

2008-08-18T17:59:00.002+01:00

I woke up, feeling like something had crawled into my mouth and died sometime during the night. It was no relief to find out it was tongue. Did I say night? Early morning looked more plausible, the light seemed to be coming from all directions, giving me a splitting headache.

Worse, this wasn't even my flat. My heart sunk as I realized I had spent another booze-induced sleep session at the office. Clearing the sleep from my eyes, I managed to sit up straight, feeling the stiffness in my back. I put the lid on the cheap scotch from last night – Glenmorangie – and finished the half empty glass.

It burned as it went down, but I was feeling more alert, more alive. I rocked back on my chair, and looked out the window. Another soulless day, the too bright sun shining off the reflective, all too familiar buildings.

Oh how I hated it here.

I put my feet up on the desk, pulled my fedora over my eyes, and made myself at home with the silence. It was relaxing, and peaceful. In my office with no work to do, no pressing engagements and half a bottle of low quality single malt to get me through the afternoon.

And then she walked in. Rolling off the streets like some primeval force, a whirlwind of passion and destruction.

“I'm sorry”, I said, “I think you have the wrong room. The drag queen's make up class is three doors down.” It was, too. This was a cheap neighbourhood, and you took office space where you could afford it.

“I'm NOT a drag queen! And anyone who says otherwise, or edits my Wikipedia to say so is nothing more than a filthy and childish liar!”

An American. And either in hysterics or denial, possibly both. This wasn't going to end well, I could tell.

“I'm sorry....ma'am” I answered, cautiously. This met with no outburst, so I continued on, “what can I do for you this, uh, fine day?”

“Are you Cain?” she asked.
I looked around discreetly for any recording devices or other listeners. I saw none.
“Yes”, I replied, in a bored, drawn out yawn. “What's it to you?”
“I hear you're a dick. I need someone to be a dick for me.”
I thought about this momentarily. Her jaw looked like it could crack open a man's skull, and there was something disconcerting about that Adam's Apple...
“I assume you mean a Private Detective, of course. Then you have come to the right place. What exactly can I do for you? In a professional capacity, of course.”

She withdrew a sheet from her handbag, and placed it on my desk. Swinging my legs down, I grabbed the paper and had a look. It was a printout, of a Wikipedia edit history page. Some numbers were circled, and highlighted with a marker pen.

“My name is Amy Alkon, Cain”, she said, “and I need you to find a man for me. I need you track down and bring me Gary Ruppert.”

Drug companies are a boon to stockholders, and those who say otherwise are our enemies

2008-08-18T10:55:00.002+01:00

Unfortunately, not a very funny entry for this one, since I can find little humour in someone who so obviously overlooks the role of drug companies in enforcing intellectual copyrights so that they may profit off of human suffering.

Stephen Pollard, on the other hand, has no problem with this. And to do so, he uses the single weakest fucking strawman ever. And I am no stranger to weak strawmen, employing several as useful punching bags when I cannot be bothered to read a ridiculous argument from the BNP before mocking it.

But like I keep pointing out, I am not a serious writer getting paid for my work.

Anyway, back on topic. No Stephen, people don't care about pharmaceutical companies making profits, per se. What they care about is when people like Dr. Yusef Hamied are charged for making affordable generics, because most people in the Third World cannot afford the inflated prices of Western drug companies, and then companies like Dr. Hamied's get dragged over the coals because they violated an intellectual copyright.

Profits over lives. People cannot pay the prices of the best drugs, but hey, who gives a fuck about them, they're poor and foreign, right? Almost not really people, in a way, right? And someone does come along, and does give a fuck, and violates a couple of laws in doing so, and he's suddenly a fucking criminal. Yeah, right. Fuck that noise.

Copyright is the elephant in your article, the thing you dare not mention. Because if intellectual copyright in the arena of drugs research and production was reformed, then these companies wouldn't have such a strangehold over the worldwide production, less people would be dying of perfectly curable illnesses, and more people would be profiting. Admittedly, those profits would not be especially high, being spread out as they are over several companies, but they would still exist.

But that might affect share prices, right? And we couldn't ever have that now, could we?

Oh ho, this is precious!

2008-08-18T07:34:00.003+01:00

Over at The Home of Paranoid Black Helicopter Spotters, johnofgwent has discovered a horrible truth about the recent Policy Exchange report

ITS SECRETLY A COVER FOR THE ISLAMIC TAKEOVER OF BRITAIN!

Of course, long-time Green Arrow readers will ask "what isn't, according to these lunatics?" And they have a point.

However, are we talking about the Policy Exchange that:

Wrote the infamous Hijacking of British Islam report?
That employed the odious Anthony Browne?
That employs the even more odious Dean Godson?

And so on and so forth. I can really see Policy Exchange wanting to shack up with Islamic militants, no, honestly...And in other breaking news, Johann Hari has joined the Nazi Party.

Of course, I can no doubt expect another lovely dose of BNP link-spamming on this blog entry, because riling up the natives gets them restless and angsty. But then again, if they were not engaging in hilariously wrong-headed conspiracy theories, I would not make fun of them so much.

Maybe.

Probably not actually, but I'd least take them somewhat seriously, instead of treating them like the borderline mentally ill, online entertainment system that they truly are.

Must...not...mock...

2008-08-16T15:38:00.004+01:00

Gah! Can't restrain my derision gland any longer! Baron Zemo over at Gates of Vienna is engaging in some world class paranoia today. Apparently a Muslim cemetary in Austria is now a sign that tEh mIgHtY mOoSlIm hOrDe iS tUrNiNg eUrOpE iNtO eUrAbIA or something. But then again, for Baron Zemo so is practically everything, up to and including letting people whose skin looks darker than that of a holiday tan into the continent.

Does it make me a bad person that I consider this sort of thing entertainment, instead of suggesting he seek professional help?

Hitler was a sensitive man too

2008-08-15T10:39:00.004+01:00

A picture of Italian Prime Minister,
Silvio Berlusconi, after the comments
were published

The Italian government is apparently upset by the "fascist" label applied to some of its policies by the Catholic Famiglia Cristiana magazine.

To quote a great American blogger, if they're so upset about being labelled fascists, perhaps they should stop acting like them. Maybe they should stop treating the Gypsy population like congenital criminals, and then perhaps people wont go around drawing obvious conclusions.

Come on Berlusconi, man up. What would Mussolini say if he saw his modern day disciples crying? A disgrace to the movement no doubt. The Blackshirts didn't get infamous by emulating the emo crowd, after all.

Tory Party Election Slogans

2008-08-15T06:24:00.003+01:00

Because I feel it is my civic duty, as a good citizen-to-be, I have come up with several dozen slogans the Tories can use to secure victory in 2010. Additionally, to keep them down with the kids and their crazy internet lingo, I have added a special 4chan meme-slogan compendium at the end of this list.

“Tories: We won’t fix things but we’ll give it a shiny coat of paint!”
“Vote Conservative: Who knows when the next time we’re going to look so appealing will be?”
“Vote Conservative: After the last 13 years of this shit, your standards really can't afford to be all that high.”
“Tories: let us play the Good Cop for once.”
“Unhappy with the status quo? Tough shit. Suck it up and vote Conservative.”
“The Conservative Party: A Better Class of Sex Scandal.”
“Vote Tory: It Will Make Polly Toynbee mad.”
“Tories: We’re not competent either, but at least we might sell you out to someone who is!”
“Vote Conservative. If you can’t hold your own nose, we’ll deduct the cost of a clothespin from your wages.”
“Vote Conservative: We promise to keep Iain Dale away from anything important.”
“Tories: Shit is better than Radioactive Waste.”
“Vote Tory: I’m serious, like when will the Lib Dems will ever do anything?”
“Tories: because money-grabbing opportunists are STILL better than well-meaning psychopaths.”
“Vote Conservative, before we forget how to do corruption properly.”
“Tories: The Other Rich Elite!”
“Vote Tory! What Did Having A Conscience Ever Do For You?”
“Tories: We’re marginally less likely to march the whole country down the slow road to becoming Airstrip One.”
“Conservative Party: When You Like Freedom, But Don’t Like, Like Freedom.”
“Tories: Like you have a choice anyway, so just shut up and vote.”
“Tories: Because you want to believe there’s a difference.”
“Vote Tory! Like you’d really want Gordon Brown to listen up on your phone calls?”
“If you’re ready for slightly less of the same, vote Tory.”
“Tories: With us in power, Labour will be outraged by civil rights violations again!”
“Vote Tory: You may as well, now that Sarkozy has won in France!”

And now, the 4chan/meme-speak version:

“A Conservative PM Is Fine, Too.”
"Vote Conservative: A winnar is you!”
“Bitches Don't Know Bout Our Amazing Policies.”
“Vote Conservative, and receive a delicious cake!”
“Gordon Brown: DO NOT WANT.”
“Vote for Cameron: he has a shuvel.”
“Tories: WE'RE A CHARGING OUR LAZORS!”
“Tories: Political Hate Machine.”
“Voting Labour? ITS A TRAP!”
“Gordon Brown? Not this shit again.”
“i think david cameron is a pretty cool guy. eh isn't gordon brown doesn't afraid of anything.”
“Vote Tory: We'll even put shoes on our heads if you ask us.”
“Voting Labour? YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.”
“Vote Cameron: He'll stick it in your pooper.”
“Where is your socialist paradise now?”

And last, but most certainly not least:

I gotta start reading The Nation more often

2008-08-12T20:50:00.003+01:00

Because if I don't, I'm going to continue to miss out on gems like this.

Corey Robin's piece is a fascinating insight into the intellectual heritage of the American right. However, he also says things that can apply more universally, and those are what really interest me.

For example:

While John Locke, Alexis de Tocqueville and David Hume are sometimes cited by the more genteel defenders of conservatism as the movement's leading lights, their writings cannot account for what is truly bizarre about conservatism: a ruling class resting its claim to power upon its sense of victimhood, arguably for the first time in history. Plato's guardians were wise; Aquinas's king was good; Hobbes's sovereign was, well, sovereign. But the best defense of monarchy that Maistre could muster in Considerations on France (1797) was that his aspiring king had attended the "terrible school of misfortune" and suffered in the "hard school of adversity."

Emphasis mine. As always, I'm eager to point out most of our Tories are quite good in that respect, the majority are most emphatically not wingnuts. However, what we might call the socially conservative populists, those shrill writers who infest the comment pages of many online publications do seem to fall into this category, often making such arguments in order to prop up the socio-economic status quo.

This is the driving force behind ridiculous claims like speeding fines being a stealth tax, or that New Labour are persecuting "the middle class white, hetrosexual male" (I always want to add "sexually frustrated" and "virginal" to that list, for some reason). Its a drive to claim victimhood and wield it as a weapon - cynically or subconsciously carried out by what is usually a fairly privileged class of people.

And it is a somewhat powerful weapon - most people have an inherent sense of fair play, and they do not want to pound on the underdog. Incidentally, the converse also illustrates something important for the British wingnut mindset - the idea of immigrants, foreigners and other groups they disagree with getting "benefits". Usually these benefits are laughably small, but nontheless they justify what would otherwise be the reprehensible attacking of less powerful group in society. Its not the wingnut hates immigrants, so the arument goes, oh no. They just want a level playing field.

Suddenly they're not whiney little pricks, they're valiant freedom fighters and activists, don't you know?

Anyway, moving on:

But how do they convince us that we are one of them? By making privilege democratic and democracy aristocratic. Every man, John Adams claimed, longs "to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired." To be praised, one must be seen, and the best way to be seen is to elevate oneself above one's circle. Even the American democrat, Adams reasoned, would rather rule over an inferior than dispossess a superior. His passion is for supremacy, not equality, and so long as he is assured an audience of lessers, he will be content with his lowly status.

And doesn't that hit a few nails on the head? Instead of fighting, say, for greater equality for all, which may result in some of the best off statistical outliers being brought closer in line with the rest of society, but with major benefits, instead the hope is to retain privilege by subordinating oneself to a hierarchical power structure, even though it may not be in one's best interests. One isn't at the top of the hierarchy, but equally one is not at the bottom either. And so it works because the desire to have someone else to kick around, blame and feel superior to is more powerful and addictive than "dispossesing a superior".

Unlike the New Left, however, Goldwater did not reject the affluent society. Instead, he transformed the acquisition of wealth into an act of self-definition through which the "uncommon" man--who could be anybody--distinguished himself from the "undifferentiated mass." To amass wealth was not only to exercise freedom through material means but also a way of lording oneself over others.

This could very well explain the obsession with Glibertarian talking points, such as the aforementioned speed cameras bullshit. The thinking isn't that of "taxation is inherently immoral" that a more usual libertarian or even anarchist may take. Its that taxing me is wrong, because then I cannot use my wealth to lord it over others.

Mannheim also argued that conservatives often champion the group--races or nations--rather than the individual. Races and nations have unique identities, which must, in the name of freedom, be preserved. They are the modern equivalents of feudal estates. They have distinctive, and unequal, characters and functions; they enjoy different, and unequal, privileges. Freedom is the protection of those privileges, which are the outward expression of the group's unique inner genius.

This ties into the previous statement - inequality is bound up in the wingnut concept of freedom. Presumably unaware of the problem of massive inequality being de facto a danger to freedom. In short, positive freedom is entirely ignored - or derided as against freedom, while negative freedom alone is exalted above all (note: I'm not a fan of either being favoured - I believe a balance of the two is necessary for actual freedom). The Feudal analogy is also very interesting, given the Mail article I posted the other day.

And finally, I just wanted to point this out:

Reactionary theologians in eighteenth-century France mobilized against the left by aping its tactics. They funded essay contests, like those in which Rousseau made his name, to reward writers who wrote popular defenses of religion. They ceased producing abstruse disquisitions for one another and instead churned out Catholic agitprop, which they distributed through the very networks that brought enlightenment to the French people.

Tell me that does not sound like the Spectator Coffee House. I defy you to try. I wonder if that is the first recorded case in history of wingnut welfare?

Pot, kettle, geek...

2008-08-12T05:11:00.002+01:00

Nyeah, human rights nerds!

You know, it may just be me, but I wouldn't go around calling other people "Trekkies" if I looked like the archtypal basement dwelling virgin.

But then again, I'm not an MP sitting on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, referring to my colleagues.

Douglas Carswell, MP for ~~Cardassia~~ Harwich and Clacton, is upset about all these human rights geeks ruining his street cred, hanging around him when all he wants to do is watch Kirk thwart Khan in the second Star trek film.

Obi Wan Doug seems to hold the rather strange notion that the Human Rights Act is simultaneously a useless piece of legislation that does nothing, yet can mystically free terrorists, rapists and murderers all at the same time. The force of stupidity is strong in this one, clearly.

In fact, its so useless and outdated he wants to get rid of it and replace it with another "authentically British" (whatever that means. Printing the paper the report is published on from UK paper-makers?) Bill of Rights, which will somehow, magically, be super accountable, in addition to raising and reducing the cost of beer to a penny a pint. Because, of course, the last time the Tories suggested that, their ideas weren't ridiculous at all.

But apparently, people "resent" these acts. Yes, we know, and they're usually the sort of people who think that Richard Littlejohn is a serious political commentator, that Quentin Letts is funny and that Melanie Phillips isn't completely batshit insane. They're also the sort of people who think a speed camera fine is a steath tax, that Labour are socialist and that the Muslims are going to take over any day now.

Of course, we could just make judges more accountable to the population, but then that would just be silly. Why do something genuinely democratic when you can call for gutting the Human Rights Act all over again?

Moral of this story: I get cranky being up early in the morning...

Oh shit, I know I shouldn't laugh...

2008-08-12T03:59:00.003+01:00

But I did, so there.

Encyclopedia Dramatica's take on the South Ossetian crisis.

In particular, the reference to Dmitry Medvedev as "Putin's altar boy" probably made me wake up the neighbours. Some prescient commentary, hidden among the cursing, memes and general mocking.

ATTN World: I am blogging at 3am

2008-08-12T03:29:00.002+01:00

And do you know why I am blogging at 3am?

Because I was ill on the weekend and spent all Saturday sleeping, thus beautifully fucking up my sleeping patterns.

Oh well, at least I can beat everyone else to the morning news. Blah blah Olympics, Georgia, house prices, murdered couple named, Milliband, tourists, Darfur etc etc. There, happy now?

Time to scalp a wingnut, part 3: Anthony Browne, Culture Warrior

2008-08-10T19:13:00.003+01:00

I realized I had promised some more commentary on Browne last weekend but, for various reasons such as illness, apathy, war-watching, sleeping, drugs, sex, rock and roll, aiding the eventual victory of the Caliphate over Europe etc etc I had simply not gotten around to doing it.

So I will now, while the ibuprofen is still kicking in.

The thing that most comes to mind about Anthony Browne, when he is not talking about EU politics or the environment, is how American influenced his viewpoints seem to be. I know I am one to talk. When I was St Andrews, I hung with a mostly American crowd, and my classes were typically consisted of an American majority - and since my subject was International Relations, I no doubt got a very good grounding in US politics, both internal and external. Also some of my online haunts are American too, and no doubt that does have an influence on me.

However, there is picking up bits and pieces from American politics, understanding the context and the flavour of the political climate, and then there is importing entire concepts and trying to apply them to another country.

I am, of course, referring to the Culture Wars. If you're unfamiliar with the term, the link I give is a quick primer, but you can better understand the divide by reading Daily Kos for a week, then reading, say, Michelle Malkin, or the Pajamas Media crew. In short, it is the irreconcilable culture divide between those who consider themselves progressive and left wing, and those who consider themselves traditionalists and right wing.

The problem is that of boundaries, or the parameters of political debate. The debates have polarized, and each side tends to believe the other is both wrong, yet unmoving in their position. In short, they do not believe the other side is competent as a political actor.

This view tends to be far more prevalent on the American right, which has become increasingly militaristic, nationalist, contemptuous of debate or the rule of law and politicized since 2000. It does not take long to find well known and public commentators who advocate civil rights groups or political leaders be arrested for treason - or worse. Naturally, there is too much of this on the American left as well, especially amongst the more militant groups and ideologies, but it is nowhere as much within the mainstream as it is within the right. The most outspoken on the American right do not just disagree with the Democrats or the American left - they quite literally believe they are not competent to be leading the country, because of their ideologies.

And therein lies the problem.

When you look at some of Browne's statements over at the Spectator, you can see elements of this being alluded to within his writing. Such comments as:

"Only in the last few years has it dawned on the government how dangerous the Left's war on Britishness really is."
Saturday, 23rd July 2005, The Spectator

"The support of Islamic fascism spans Britain's Left."
August 1, 2005, Times Online

"Many of the politically-correct left - including the Guardian, the Independent, most of the BBC… - have chosen to champion those who are deliberately trying to murder innocent civilians."
The Retreat of Reason, page 11

all seriously suggest rather than disagreements with policies or ideology, Browne believes that the left is an actively hostile force within the country, who should be tarred and feathered for their hatred of British culture, love of criminals, politically-correct censorship, promotion of immigration and multiculturalism and support of Islamic terrorism.

Browne's own retreat from reason accuses a good proportion of this country as actively or tacitly seeking to undermine and destroy it, by using lazy tabloid strawmen and grand sweeping statements he cannot back up. The fact that he is treated as a serious political commentator on any subject beyond the environment or EU continually amazes me. And yes, you could easily go back through this blog and find me using lazy strawmen and bad arguments to attack people, but the difference is:

1) I'm funny
2) I'm not paid for it
3) As much as I mock Labour, the Tories, the Lib Dems etc I don't suggest that the ideologies behind them, or a vague, nebulous grouping like "the right" is trying to destroy Britain. Well, except the BNP, but they're fascist scumbags who can choke and die on my magnificent penis if they have a problem with it. Also, while they might be trying, the BNP are comedy fascists who couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery, let alone a concerted campaign to undermine the country.
4) My arguments are not designed to be serious political commentary. They are meant to mock and belittle idiots who try to carry out serious political commentary while having no appreciable talent or knowledge about politics.

The thing is, Britain does not have a culture war like the USA does. There is not that deep divide stemming from the Vietnam War, the resurgence of religious belief in a legally secular nation, that polarization of issues. If anything, politics in Britain is converging, with all parties desperately trying to claim the centre, instead of trying to fight at a cultural level to move society in their favour. That has been the overall strategy of the American right in particular, which is why the proliferation of alternative conservative outlets, think tanks, political action groups, education and reference guides is a worry. Home-schooling, Conservapedia, the Christian rock scene, Pajamas Media and so on are all excellent examples of groups whose aims are to supplant the traditional outlets and politicize content in favour of the GOP and "movement conservatism".

Browne in fact has praised elements of this strategy, namely the American rightwing think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute or Heritage Foundation who:

have helped push the whole political centre of gravity way to the right of that of the UK. The AEI is (in)famous for promoting the invasion of Iraq, while Heritage has kept social conservatism and the importance of religion high on the policy agenda. Cato has helped mute the siren calls of protectionism.

[...]

It would be far healthier for democracy and debate in Britain if our ideas industry managed to step up to the American level."
Wednesday, 14th May 2008, The Spectator

Uh-huh. Because it has been so healthy in America recently, and has not turned their political culture into a slanging match where loudmouthed brownshirts like Michelle Malkin and Charles Johnson are considered serious thinkers.

Oh, wait.

Oh, and another thing, anyone who thinks that the AEI is a centre-right group is seriously out of whack. Any group which has Irving "I love wars of national greatness" Kristol and John "yeah, torture is fine" Yoo, not to mention Fred Kagan, John Bolton, David Frum, fascist sympathizer Michael Ledeen and Newt Gingrich is not, by any sensible measure near the centre. Unless the centre-right now stands for wars of aggression, unchecked executive powers, torture, suspension of haebus corpus and other nasty policies we have come to know and despise all over again, thanks to the Bush administration.

And I, unlike Browne, who would certainly assert such a thing was a feature of the mainstream left if our roles were reversed, do not believe that to be the case.

The attempt to start a culture war in the UK has always been the preserve of crazies. Look at the sort of people who try it, honestly. We have the BNP, Melanie Phillips, Anthony Browne, RESPECT, those Christian nutters on Channel 4 recently, the Muslim crazies like Abu Hamza...

Sensible people across the political spectrum do not want such a fight. It is pointless, wasteful and nasty. It does nobody any good, it degrades the political culture and ruins politics as a means to a better life. It makes enemies of otherwise decent people and sets the entire politically aware population against each others throats.

Its really not worth it. Not to say its not worth fighting, especially in the case of the USA, where the political culture swung scarily to the right for a while (2002-3), but it is certainly not worth instigating. And I have to question the motives, or indeed fitness for the office of political advisor, of someone who chooses act like there is one ongoing.

Dogwhistles working? Check.

2008-08-10T17:16:00.002+01:00

Some interesting news here. An American has been charged with plotting to kill Obama because he is the AntiChrist.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- An Indian Trail accountant is in jail, charged with threatening to kill senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

According to court documents, Jerry Blanchard called Sen. Obama the anti-Christ and said, "If he gets elected, we have a problem."

Then according to the federal affidavit, Blanchard, a father of two teenage daughters, spells out his plan -- all while sitting in the Pineville-Matthews Road Waffle House.

Secret Service agents say Blanchard told two others eating at the restaurant on July 15 he planned to buy a handgun from Hyatt's Gunshop on Wilkinson Boulevard. He also planned to buy a rifle and a laser scope, saying "I’m worth $50 million. Obama and his wife are never going to make it to the White House. He needs to be taken out... that man will never know what hit him... I just may do that, I’ve got the money and the clout."

Now, I wonder where he could have got the idea that Obama is the AntiChrist from?

Whoops

2008-08-10T04:14:00.002+01:00

Just realized while that I had the good people at Chaos Marxism added to the Verwirrung blogroll, for some bizzare reason I had not added them over here. Rectified that bugger now.

Being ill seems to have bought out some sort of bizzare work ethic in me. Or at least made me go through my many links to strange and wonderous sites and wonder if I had added them to the sidebar yet or not.

What part of "bomb" don't you understand?

2008-08-10T04:01:00.003+01:00

Via Greylodge:

GPOD has an excellent radio inteview of Rachel North by Jon Ronson. I highly recommend you check it out at the following link. I also second Pale Rider's comments at the bottom of the entry, about her treatment at the hands of certain conspiracy theorists.

Fucking the corpse of irony...again.

2008-08-09T19:23:00.002+01:00

No comment.

Armchair Generals - Russian edition

2008-08-09T18:53:00.002+01:00

Lets see what the erudite and great strategic minds over at the Daily Mail have to say on the terrible conflict that erupted in the secessionist Georgian regions yesterday:

Well if they have Russian passports then they know where to move to. Georgia has every right to evict them out of their sovereign lands.

- Neil, Frankfurt, Germany, 8/8/2008 11:54

I hope Germany throws you the fuck out, you hideous little cretin.

Nato will defend Georgia - in which case Russia stop meddling unless you want a bloody nose. This whole problem is the Kremlin's making.

- Terence, UK, 8/8/2008 13:42

Yeah, a bigger war will make everything better! Now, we just have to figure out if Russia can overrun Europe before the troops get back from Iraq and Afghanistan...fuck it, Risk was never this difficult.

Why does John think that it is Ossetians desire to be free?!it is Russia who wants to appropriate the land of Georgia.Ossetia and Abkhazia had been georgians too long time ago.And when Russians conquered Ossetia, 80 percent of population were georgians,that is diffference between Kosovo and Ossetia.....Russia has 50 auonomies and if they all bee free like Kosovo there will be no Russia any more.And if we do not know history we do not have right to speak such things!

- maritucka-15, georgia tbilisi, 8/8/2008 14:29

Yeah, Russia started it by making Georgia invade South Ossetia! Those uppity South Ossetians should have abandoned their homes or been killed back in 92, the ingrates.

It wouldn't have something to do with Russia wishing to get control of the nearby Baku Ceyhan Pipeline, the only one which feeds Caspian Oil to the west, which does not pass thru Russian territory, the one that was blown up by "Kurdish Dissidents" a few days ago ???? Perhaps I am being a little cynical. Anyhow let the games begin and forget the fact that one of the wests major energy arteries is about to be cut.

- alan wilson, London UK, 8/8/2008 14:37

Again, the nefarious hand of Russia forced the Georgian invasion. If only they could use their vast influence to control the Georgian government to give them all that oil...

Russia needs to know that it is insignificant in the face of NATO - it no longer has any real power. The EU & US should secure Georgia and access to its vast oil reserves. Then on to MOSCOW!

- W, UK, 8/8/2008 17:31

I mean, seriously, invading Russia as winter draws closer? What could possibly go wrong?

What a situation to develope! And here everyone was concerned about Taiwan/China.
Will Nato come to the rescue?Will the US/UK prosper from equipment sales/service?
Will the US send troops there also? Could this eacalate to Nuclear war? I wonder what Bush is thinking, while 'enjoying' the games! Will the 'Cabal' send in their UFO's?, to fight the Russians? Maybe it will be a fight between USA Cabal UFO Force and Russian UFO Force. How will China respond? These are surely 'interesting' times

- James Cesan, Wardsboro,Vermont,USA, 8/8/2008 17:57

But what if China responds with its own UFOs? And the reptilian conspiracy ally with them? Do we even know where the Bavarian Illuminati stands?

Poignant questions indeed.

Normally I would never be caught dead giving thumbs up to the Russians, but Georgia has no right to blaightantly kill Russian peacekeepers AND civilians and then call for help from It's bigger brothers (the west).

Besides, at the end of the day, Georgia incuring the wrath of Russia is like a rat spittng in the face of the bear.

- Anthony, Erith, England, 8/8/2008 18:37

Thumbs up you Russian dudes! Great job on bombing those Georgian civilians in retaliation.

Good way to try "our" systems against "theirs" without any one important getting hurt. Look forward to the analysis.

War is fun when someone else is playing it.

- Tim Phillips, Tilburg, The Netherlands, 8/8/2008 18:42

REMF. Capische, chickenhawk?

I see that many people are misinformed that Georgians had started this war,Russians said this too.but it is a lie.2 days ago "Ossetians" began the war,our prezident begged them several times to stop it and offered to negotiate, but they refused.and we have our dignity!

- marituca 15, georgia tbilisi, 8/8/2008 19:17

Again, the dastardly hand of the Ossetian/Russian conspiracy, forcing the Georgians to invade and kill them. Is it just me, or does this sound like the sort of excuse a wifebeater would give? "Look what you made me do" and all that.

It was inevitable that this would happen. Russians have always been the same. Unlike China in its political disagreement with Taiwan, Russia always goes for blood. Its the nature of the beast.

- Phil de Buquet, Newport England, 8/8/2008 20:13

Phil understands the Russian mind, from having read Tom Clancy novels.

I never trusted Russia, they still have the same USSR ideals and their presidents have too much power, I hope a ceasefire can be reached soon before Russia tries to claim back all of Georgia which would have the west get involved and restart the cold war

- Connor, Oreogn, USA, 8/8/2008 20:17

So unlike your own dear President, who has limited his power massively and made clear his hatred of war as a part of foreign relations.

Back to the Old Russia, how cynical while the World watches the Olympics they again abuse their power.

Reminds me of NU Labour, "Hide bad news amongst the good".

Seems thay have killed more civilians than the allies did taking the whole of Iraq.

- John, Creigiau, Cardiff, 8/8/2008 20:29

I totally see the New Labour connection. No, really...

With everyone looking at China right now it is a good day to bury bad news.

Russian democracy in action - Putin style.

- peter, Germany, 8/8/2008 20:49

Because the Georgian President would never order crack down on peaceful protests, or spend 70% of his GDP on his military, oh no....

"150 tanks and other armoured vehicles" is not much of an "invasion", especially not by Russian standards. That's about the bare minimum I would need to take control of some fourth world banana republic or to mount a raid into Zimbabwe for 72 hours.
Ask the Czechs and the Hungarians (or even the Afghans!) what a Russian "invasion" looks like....

- Robert, Worcester UK, 8/8/2008 20:51

Gosh yes, when I was playing Civ III the other day and I tried to invade with 150 tanks, I just got slaughtered....

Sorry, how is it that Georgia started this fighting? Are they the ones who amassed an army at the border and invaded Russia? Methinks it was the other way around. Russia planned this long ago as part of a well thought out military strategy. Everyone has the right to defend the country against a rolling parade of tanks and aircraft bombing their land. If you believe that you don't have that right - then it's no wonder your country is being taken over by immigrants, knife-weilding yobs, and religious consorts who say that Sharia law is the way to go. You don't know how to take a stand - at least Georgians in their young democracy do.

- Marilyn, USA, 8/8/2008 21:06

Ah, another American lecturing us. Pray tell, how did Russia invade if their troops had already been in place for 16 years? Is this like...geological style invasion or something? As for your comments on the UK....enjoy the Reconquista, bitch. I hope you like burritos.

The same Russhian tactic: they give Russian passports to some people, and later they are sending the army "to protect them", and " to avoid" further killings, or to "assure peace keeping".

Let face it: this is the Russian method to keep different war conflict zones and to control different areas.

Poor Georgian people, I admire them for their standing. On the other hand if Putin understands to continue under any means the politic of " Peter the Great", then he has to assume all consequences.

And that will drag Russia in bad political relations and bad economic situation. The oil and the gas will be finished in the future.... After that what will they sell more ? What they are trying to steal from different small countries like Georgia ? "Creating" Russians communities in order to have what "to protect" ?

It is a dirty game, and is cinic that they are playing this game with the lifes of the Russians they are saying that are protecting...

It is regretable

- Petre, Bucharest, 8/8/2008 22:04

Yeah, remember how those Russians gave out tons of passports to facilitate the invasion of Germany in WWII? Moron.

It's far to easy to blame the Georgian authorities for this flare up. Yes some of the SO population want to be part of a greater Russia. But a foreign power (Russia) handing out thousands of it's passports to citizens in a foreign country (Georgia) only then to claim that they are threatening military force to protect their 'new' Russian nationals is tantamount to usurping the national government. The anology is simple if pro French Scots, of which there are still a lot, were handed thousands of French passports would that give France the right to invade Scotland to protect it's newly acquired 'nationals'. Of course not the UK Government would object and take action to prevent such an invasion.
The case for an independant Scotland via the ballot box however is another matter.

- pat, South of England, 8/8/2008 22:09

Dont ask why it is different, it just is.

And something more:

I quote:

Medvedev warned: 'I as president of Russia, am obliged to protect the lives and dignity of Russian citizens wherever they are located.

'We won't allow the death of our compatriots go unpunished.'

So where are located the next Russiand to be protected.... You all know the list...

- Petre, Bucharest, 8/8/2008 22:17

Dear god, you mean....Russia might invade Moscow next?

You can't paint every conflict with the same brush, this is nothing like Kosovo. Russia is the aggressor here, Georgia taking back S.O & Abkhazia is no different then we took back the Falklands or Northen Ireland. The problem is Russia dosen't want Georgia becoming an democratic indepant wealthy nation, hence its step in support of the sepratists since Georgia attempt at NATO memebership in April this year.

Russia dosen't give a dam about the 'Russian Citizens' in S.O, its a message to Western leaning nations (Ukraine and other former USSR States) of whats instore if they don't follow suit with the Kremlin and a big middle finger to the US/Nato.

- Jay, UK, 8/8/2008 22:48

Russia is still aggressing by not invading. How dare they???

Once the EU military forces are up snd running, if Britian tries to pull out of the Marxist EU State, the British people will come under fire. We need to leave EU now!

- Catherine Walker, South Kensington, London, UK, 8/8/2008 23:40

One tin-foil hat for Ms Walker, please....

Once the EU takeover is complete, the EU armies will fight the British and Irish, so we all need to pull together and all leave EU now! Do not forget that the English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh are seen as niggling minorities that need to be crushed by EU!

- Patricia O'Rourke, Dublin, Ireland, 8/8/2008 23:49

Make that another, for Ms O'Rourke as well...

Voland of France has hit the nail on the head. International intrigues as ever are behind the scenes . . . . and in our so-called democracies (dumbocracies) all are totally oblivious to the real string pullers. God knows where this will end. All we can be sure of is that the opinionsts of both sides will suffer. And each will blame each other. Man is still a primitive.

- michael, liverpool, 8/8/2008 23:55

Fuckit, make that three....

Who on earth would want to live in Russia it seems they have all got a bit of Stalin in them the way they keep fighting No consideration for human life what ever just keep riding rough shod over anybody what a nation

- Brian Stanier, Stourbridge West Midlands, 9/8/2008 0:24

If only the USSR had an enlightened Georgian ruler, instead of leaders like Stalin...

Where the U.S.A to help the georgian people?

Where the sense of justice from U.S.A?

- Roy Jones, Island, 9/8/2008 3:38

The American military is too busy playing kinky sex games with Iraqi prisoners to help. Sorry.

Russia and Georgia "essentially at war".

2008-08-08T21:37:00.001+01:00

BBC News:

Russian forces are locked in fierce clashes with Georgia inside its breakaway South Ossetia region, reports say, amid fears of all-out war.

Moscow sent armoured units across the border after Georgia moved against Russian-backed separatists.

Russia says 12 of its soldiers are dead, and separatists estimate that 1,400 civilians have died.

Georgia accuses Russia of waging war, and says it has suffered heavy losses in bombing raids which Russia denies.

Is there even any point of making fun of Labour anymore?

2008-08-08T13:21:00.004+01:00

I'm seriously starting to wonder. With the Parliamentary summer recess here, and Labour in an absolute shambles, it just seems a waste of effort now.

And this is coming from someone who spent a lot of time, online and off, attacking Labour from about 2003 onwards. Maybe if they experience a resurgence, it might be worth it...but right now, attention should be paid to the front-runners in this two horse race.

Which, incidentally, is something that really annoys me about the cowardly press in this country. Beyond the usual suspects moaning about "PC Brigades" and "ZaNu-Labour" the spineless bastards in the press waited until Blair was gone to start sticking the dagger in. What a bunch of wet, useless bastards, whose alleigance to opinion polls would put even a spin doctor to shame. "We can't attack teh Blair, he is sooper popular!" And now the country is sick of Brown, rightly or wrongly, they've suddenly found the backbone to kick a party while its down.

Wow. Impressive.

Naturally, of course, this has resulted in more positive attention being lavished on the Tory party. I have nothing in particular against the Tories, except for the fact that I believe their Thatcherite economic policies are unjust and that the social conservatives are a fucking embarassment to the party. Honestly, the more centrist Tories are much more to my liking than, say, the American Republican Party. But come on, seriously. The Daily Mail, just the other day allegedly held an editorial meeting where reporters were told to push the "broken Britain" meme. The same "broken Britain" which is a central plank of the Tory re-election policy.

Its going to be the same shameful shit all over again. The press will only offer token resistance to Cameron in the way they did to Blair. Not because they are necessarily ideologically rightwing, just as the press was not ideologically leftwing during the Blair years (moaning from certain people about "teh librul press!" aside). No, its because reporters are too close to their sources, and believe they have a greater duty to their "friends" within the political system than they do to the public and truth.

And that is where the system is fucked. A good journalist should be treating every statement from a public figure as he might a turd being dropped into his drink. Regardless of political convictions, a politician is the natural enemy of truth, and should be treated as such. There is a price on their head and everything they utter is suspect. Fawning idiots, be they Polly Toynbee or Daniel Finkelstein, are the reason why the press is treated with utter contempt by most intelligent people.

We don't need ideologically charged propagandists. We don't need contemptible, spineless cowards too afraid to upset some politicians writing for national papers. What we need, and sadly lack, are people who care about the truth more than point-scoring Westminster-bubble bullshit.

Unfortunately, very few of those seem to exist.

Surprise! The Daily Mail is in favour of Feudalism.

2008-08-07T15:57:00.001+01:00

No, really. This is getting beyond parody now. The Daily Mail must be charged with killing satire and fucking the corpse.

Aside from the cows, there isn't much in the way of traffic here. There is a bus service, but it comes only once a week and goes as far as the bright lights of Blandford Forum. If you find yourself here for no reason, you are well and truly lost.

The traditional cliche for pretty little villages such as this is 'sleepy'. But there's nothing bleary-eyed about the Dorset backwater of Chettle.

This is a village which defies every statistic and market trend. It has zero unemployment. Its businesses are booming. It has no problem with outsiders buying up second homes - because they are simply not allowed. Rents are way below the market rate.

This is the village the credit crunch forgot. Young couples are not driven out by property prices and there are as many children (22) as there are pensioners.

Everyone knows everyone and crime is virtually non-existent. The last intruder was driven off by a lady pensioner with a pick-axe handle. So what is Chettle's secret? The answer is enough to make a sociologist or a Labour MP weep.

For the past 1,000 years, this entire village and all the land around it - every last square inch of it - have been owned and controlled by the lord of the manor. And that is just how everybody likes it.

BREAKING NEWS!

2008-08-07T01:18:00.003+01:00

Paris Hilton's "policies" are just as stupid as the other two candidates.

As you were.

2 minute BNP blog roundup

2008-08-06T12:12:00.003+01:00

Home of the Green Arrow - "when one darkie steals your money, ALL darkies are stealing your money."

Sarah Maid of Albion - "If only Obama had been white, a failed painter, really right-wing and with a funny mustache, then I'd be swooning over his Berlin speech."

Battle for Britain - "Doing something different from the Green Arrow is too much like hard work, so I'm going to show you the same video of a benefit scrounging Muslim AGAIN!"

Colonel Buckshot - "If I post an article which has plenty of "race" ALL IN CAPS and little else as content, hopefully no-one will realize how pointless and weak this article is."

English Rose - "Cut and paste from the Daily Mail, because commenting is just too much work."

Simon Darby - "ZOMG LABOUR THUGS! As you well know, the BNP despise the violent and hateful nature of the political process. Wait, what do you mean "evidence"?

Swindon Nationalist - "Man with a non Anglo-Saxon name and dark skin commits a crime. Deport the bastard!"

Red Squirrel - "OMG OMG some Muslims looked at me the other day! Hold me tight, Nick Griffin."

Sheffield Nationalist - "Deport faster, or we will all die, DIE do you hear me???"

Up Pompeii - "If only we could be as illiberal and bigoted as Saudi Arabia, its SO UNFAIR!"

And that's your 2 minutes of hate for today, folks! Come back next time I'm feeling masochistic, or have an overwhelming desire to mock fascists, for more wholesome fun!

Discordian torrents

2008-08-05T16:27:00.003+01:00

Just so you know, thanks to the kindness of Iason Ouabache, several Discordian e-books have all been uploaded to The Pirate Bay. Naturally, all these books are Kopyleft and thus free to download or distribute as you see fit.

The full listing is:

Principia Discordia
Aeternus Ille Discordia
Apocrypha Discordia
Apotheosis Psycherotica
Black Iron Prison
Book of Eris
Condensed Chaos
Discordia - A Little Game about a Lot of Chaos
Metaclysmia Discordia
OMITTERRE LIBELLUS
Principia Entropius
Summa Discordia
Wise Book of Baloney

Tories finally learning from their mistakes

2008-08-03T16:11:00.004+01:00

Shorter Conservative Home:

"We're now social progressives because we don't call our dates "slappers" and "tarts"."

Presumably this is meant to be some sort of metaphor, though with the Tories one can never be sure. If it is though, doesn't it suggest that previous Tory leaders have been the moral equivalents of that disgusting drunk at the bar going "heya darlin', fancy givin' me a kiss?" while trying to grope her?

Of course, it would be much easier for me to make some sort of snarky comment about this explaining why Tories never get laid, but even I'm not that low. Oh, damn it...

The Shorter Concept was shamelessly stolen from Sadly, No! and Elton Beard.

Oh, well thats us told then!

2008-08-03T14:32:00.003+01:00

Jonathan Swift once wrote "When a man of true Genius appears in the World, you may know him by this infallible Sign, that all the Dunces are in Conspiracy against him."

Going by this standard, those of us posting at Mailwatch must be the smartest posters on the internet, given the conpiracy of dunces offered against us.

Looks like we upset some morons by daring to criticize their favouritest paper ever! You know, for a group of people who blather on about self-reliance and PC idiocy and the like, the people posting at Don't Start Me Off do seem to be some of the whiniest little bastards on the internets. "Oh no, they made fun of the Mail! Oh no, someone on the site was nasty to me! Oh no, I can't refute them, so I'm going to call them all cunts and think I'm being really clever doing so."

See what I mean? I cringed even at writing that, so just imagine how annoying people who think like that all the time are.

Its not so much the criticism, mainly because their isn't any, its just that they both fail to, you know, either actually make a valid point or be funny about blasting us. In fact, they seem to share those characteristics with Mail and Have Your Say commentators, who think that things like "Gordon Clown" is the height of wit.

Look, I know its probably hard for you, being as you are people blessed without any sort of sense of humour or intelligence, but if you are going to have a go at us, try and at least make it interesting. Replicating the sort of tedious monotony one normally finds in a Peter Hitchens article is not going to get our attention beyond a couple of chuckles at your expense. Also, saying "There is nothing wrong with the Mail" in a non-ironic fashion probably did not help your case either.

Hell, even Quentin Letts is funnier and more cutting than this, and if thats not a damning indictment, I don't know what is.

Anthrax, ANTHRAX!

2008-08-03T12:46:00.002+01:00

It seems at long last the anthrax case in the USA may be coming to an end and the FBI have their man.

Too bad he's dead.

The FBI's lead suspect in the September, 2001 anthrax attacks -- Bruce E. Ivins -- died Tuesday night, apparently by suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to charge him with responsibility for the attacks. For the last 18 years, Ivins was a top anthrax researcher at the U.S. Government's biological weapons research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, where he was one of the most elite government anthrax scientists on the research team at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID).

The 2001 anthrax attacks remain one of the great mysteries of the post-9/11 era. After 9/11 itself, the anthrax attacks were probably the most consequential event of the Bush presidency. One could make a persuasive case that they were actually more consequential. The 9/11 attacks were obviously traumatic for the country, but in the absence of the anthrax attacks, 9/11 could easily have been perceived as a single, isolated event. It was really the anthrax letters -- with the first one sent on September 18, just one week after 9/11 -- that severely ratcheted up the fear levels and created the climate that would dominate in this country for the next several years after. It was anthrax -- sent directly into the heart of the country's elite political and media institutions, to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt), NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, and other leading media outlets -- that created the impression that social order itself was genuinely threatened by Islamic radicalism.

If the now-deceased Ivins really was the culprit behind the attacks, then that means that the anthrax came from a U.S. Government lab, sent by a top U.S. Army scientist at Ft. Detrick. Without resort to any speculation or inferences at all, it is hard to overstate the significance of that fact. From the beginning, there was a clear intent on the part of the anthrax attacker to create a link between the anthrax attacks and both Islamic radicals and the 9/11 attacks.

Ivins added bentonite to the samples of the spores that were used, a chemica that was only used by Iraqi biowarfare specialists. That was how the lie was planted. Unfortunately, the bentonite did not detract from the fact that further analysis showed the spores were grown in Ft Detrick labs.

The letters sent out read:

We have anthrax.

You die now.

Are you afraid?

Death to America.

Death to Israel.

Allah is great.

Implicating Islamic terrorism in addition to Iraq. There is no doubt in my mind that this was part of the campaign to shore up support for a war in Iraq. The anthrax came from Ft Detrick. Ivins worked at Ft Detrick. Reports leaked to ABC implicating by name Iraq as the source of the anthrax came from Ft Detrick. Link Iraq to Islamic terrorism. Link the anthrax attacks to 9-11. 9-11 = Iraq. Osama bin Laden and Saddam are working together.

The narrative is obvious and bears no real repeating.

The most interesting thing though is that the piggybacking technique of this act of terrorism is an idea that originated on the far-right of the US political spectrum, among the militias dreaming of destroying the Federal Government. There are papers that have been circulated among such groups calling for anonymous follow-up attacks in the case of foreign terrorism against the USA - a grassroots strategy of tension designed to throw society to the far-right while dealing some deadly blows to their establishment enemies (notably centrist and left wing politicians).

I tried doing some looking around on sites that track the far right to see what they had on Ivins, if anything. As it turns out, extremely little. His political affiliations do not seem to be listed, only that he has a very violent temper and apparently came up with a plan to methodically murder all of his co-workers just a month before he offed himself.

However, it is worth noting that, attacks on the media aside (which I suspect were done for publicity), the real attacks on political figures were done on those on the left, Daschle, Leahy and Feingold's office. It is also worth noting that the person who sent fake anthrax letters a few years later - piggybacking off the piggyback terrorism - was none other than Chad Conrad Castagana, a Freeper, Michelle Malkin fan and extreme Christian Nationalist who once said:

Liberals and Lefties everywhere in America's institutions are trying to slowly but increasingly ban Christianity from America, from our site, from our discourse !
They have already succeded in banning any sign of Christianity from ourPublic Schools ! !

If THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST were released today for the first time, it would be slapped with an NC-17 rating !

So there is no conclusive evidence of this being militia orientated....however the links in methodology are disturbing, especially when we consider how this came from within high ranks of the US military (Maj. Gen. John Parker perpetuated the lie that the USA did not have powder anthrax, only liquid) and also apparently served the interests of the government of the time - well before most manouvering on the Iraq war had even begun to take place. Of course, some figures within the US administration, notably the Pentagon neocons, were pushing for an attack on Iraq immediately after 9-11 (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith etc) but that was not public knowledge at the time.

This raises a lot more questions than it solves, it seems.

Trolls on the internet! Oh my!

2008-08-02T01:35:00.002+01:00

I suppose I better mention it, since people will be wondering why I didn't if I don't.

Yes, I have read the New York Times article on internet trolling. And firstly, is it just me, or is really fucking embarassing when you have someone writing an article when:

a) they really don't have a clue what they are talking about, and
b) the topic is removed entirely from its natural environment and dissected in the sterile lab of the mainstream media?

Its not just me, I hope.

So anyway, yes, I was alerted to this article by a compatriot troll, Ten Ton Mantis. And now I have finally read through it. The above quibbles above, I'd just like to make some minor points:

Trolls existed before /b/. The first paragraph implies otherwise.
/b/ is not the be all and end all of trolling. In fact, in the last couple of years, it has been downright embarassing.
At least you mentioned Usenet. Thank fucking god. However, the naive-noob tactic was just one of many used back in the day, and really only an entry level tactic. alt.syntax.tactical, for example, favour the longer term, infiltration and sockpuppet approach.
Lulz is not how trolls "keep score". Its an abstract concept, and a massively overused word, when considered against actual instances of lulz. It can be excuse, justification or result, as well.
The troll got it dead on. Article over, amirite?
Um...Anonymous and the trolls were one and the same, at least originally. I understand there was a something of a split between the /i/nsurgents and moralfags, but lets be honest, for the most part, its the same people who took part in both.
The fact that anonymous communications allow for people to be more sociopathic is not new nor interesting. Learn2sociology, plz.
Jason Fortuny is a fun guy, but he doesn't speak for me.
You probably got suckered by one troll or another in the course of your research. Live with it son.
Not all trolls are emotional fuckups. Some of the most extreme ones probably are, but I wouldn't generalize, or imply in the way you did.
Sometimes trolls are social hackers, its true. And literal ones as well. Anyway, the point is, sometimes they illustrate things people tend to overlook, either in their social interactions online, how they present themselves, the amount of information they give out. Something like that. Better to get burned for it by a jerk with an inappropriate sense of humour than by the next Ted Bundy. Its not always a perfect justification, and sometimes a line should be drawn, yes, but thats a very grey area and another debate.
Don't take it all so seriously is pretty much the message I try to relate as well. Sometimes the internet is useful for important stuff, but 99% of it is going to leave a very poor and shallow cultural legacy. I like to think I am doing my bit for people who think "OMFG MY MOM WONT BUY ME A FURSUIT FOR MY BIRTHDAY" or having their "artwork" criticized is a crime against humanity. Twits with no perspective and big mouths are far too numerous.
Weev was trolling you dude. He does have a point though, about certain bloggers. Those few suckup artists who the media like to go crawling to in order to pretend that they are keeping up with the new internet culture and soliciting feedback from voices that would normally be excluded. Like Iain Dale for example. Real fucking excluded, isn't he? Lets try a single mother blogger who is working while trying to raise her three kids. Oh, thats right, people like that don't have time to blog. And even when some people in some part of the world where dangerous and interesting things are happening (such as Iraq) people would rather get their views from the likes of Charles fucking Johnson than someone who actually lives there. Because, God forbid, they may contradict the media narrative.
I like this Kate chick. She has style. Kate, if you're reading...well, you know how to get in touch, I'm sure.
Hatred? I wouldn't go that far...of course, I would expect a MSM hack from somewhere like the NYT to give that line. But I wouldn't try to look too deeply into a troll's motivation. Mine, for example, the above aside, comes from my trickster and showy personality. I like to be the centre of the attention, and yet at the same time, display certain ambiguity. There are also certain people I like to upset, and if you've read this blog for any length of time, you can probably guess what type they are.
I would say trolls are the internet. The interesting parts at least. Just as pirates where the ones who innovated much of our modern world, economy and culture (where would commercial radio be without pirate stations? What about the US government, who stole patented technologies throughout the 18th century?) trolls push the boundaries and in doing so create new online realities. The internet may not be so much the Wild West as a number of armed enclaves among a sea of anarchy. Sure, if you stick to places like Myspace or Facebook or your politically chosen network of blogs you'll be mostly safe...aside from the occasional raider. But in other areas, the only things that exist, from your identity upwards, are those you choose to invent. That anarchy, while terrifying to some, is also a lab for inventing, tampering with and altering all number of social events and processes.
Those state legislators are idiots. You can't police the net, at least not in the way you hope to. Hell, people cant even stop copyright infringement, and "Spartacus actions" among legally threatened bloggers are frequent. Try it with people who know how to conceal their identity and enjoy games where the roles and characters are not as substansial as they may appear, and you're entering a policing nightmare.
Precisely. The law is not your hug-box. I am not responsible for your hurt feelings. I'm sure you could do something more productive with money spent on trying to police jerks on the net, such as nearly catching Bin Laden and then letting him go in order to justify the invasion of ~~Iraq~~ Iran.
Fortuny is right. OpenID and similar schemes for multiple site IDs are doomed to failure because so long as you can get more than one account, you are back where you started. So you either charge for everything, and create a gated community (urgh), or you don't take everything so seriously. Pretty simple, really.
Fortuny's morals are not everyones. Again, there are different motivations.
What a delightfully hopeful note to end your article on. It still doesnt change the 99% of the net which is different, however.

I think that is all I really have to say. I probably shouldn't have had a couple of beers while writing this either, but oh well, too late to worry about that now.

Time to scalp a wingnut, part 2: Browne in his own words

2008-08-01T21:17:00.002+01:00

A follow on from my post earlier today, I've spent far too much time digging around dark and fetid corners of the web, places like The Spectator, collecting some choice quotes from Mr Browne. I'll comment on these later, maybe over the weekend, but for now, I'm going to let them stand on their own, as an archive. So no, no snark for you today.

"A popular topic for discussion on Arabic TV channels is the best strategy for conquering the West. It seems to be agreed that since the West has overwhelming economic, military and scientific power, it could take some time, and a full frontal assault could prove counterproductive. Muslim immigration and conversion are seen as the best path."
Saturday, 24th July 2004, The Spectator

"In Muslim tradition, the world is divided into Dar al-Islam, where Muslims rule, and Dar al-Harb, the 'field of war' where the infidels live. 'The presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule,' wrote Professor Bernard Lewis in his bestseller The Crisis of Islam.' "
Saturday, 24th July 2004, The Spectator

"In the last century some Christians justified the persecution and mass murder of Jews by claiming that Jews wanted to take over the world. But these fascist fantasies were based on deliberate lies, such as the notorious fake book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, many in the Muslim world are open about their desire for Islam to conquer the West."
Saturday, 24th July 2004, The Spectator

"At least, though, the Left in the Netherlands has seen that there is a clash between liberal democracy and cultural relativism; that some cultures are simply not compatible with Western traditions of freedom and tolerance; and that the old distinction between evil right-wingers and cuddly left-wingers no longer makes sense. It is one thing to turn a Christian church into a mosque, quite another to get radical Islam to accept liberal democracy. Outside the Netherlands, however, the Left has yet to learn these lessons."
Saturday, 20th November 2004, The Spectator

"Just as communism could only be upheld by totalitarianism, so multiculturalism is being upheld by curbs on free speech and democracy."
Saturday, 20th November 2004, The Spectator

"Is Hackney the future of the world? You may find it a horrifying thought, but many on the Left hope that it is. I don't mean the extortionate taxes, the crushingly bloated public sector, the government-by-political-correctness, the bankrupt school system, the dehumanising crime, the failing social services, and all the other things the Left love so dearly."
Saturday, 19th February 2005, The Spectator

"Even in supposedly Christian Europe, Christianity has become the most mocked religion, its followers treated with public suspicion and derision and sometimes — such as the would-be EU commissioner Rocco Buttiglione — hounded out of political office."
Saturday, 26th March 2005, The Spectator

"I have spoken to dozens of former Muslims who have converted to Christianity in Britain, and who are shunned by their community, subjected to mob violence, forced out of town, threatened with death and even kidnapped. The Barnabas Trust knows of 3,000 such Christians facing persecution in this country, but the police and government do nothing."
Saturday, 26th March 2005, The Spectator

"No, the real answer to why Britain spawned people fuelled with maniacal hate for their country is that Britain hates itself. In hating Britain, these British suicide bombers were as British as a police warning for flying the union flag."
Saturday, 23rd July 2005, The Spectator

"Britain's self-loathing is deep, pervasive and lethally dangerous. We get bombed, and we say it's all our own fault. Schools refuse to teach history that risks making pupils proud, and use it instead as a means of instilling liberal guilt. The government and the BBC gush over 'the other', but recoil at the merest hint of British culture. The only thing we are licensed to be proud of is London's internationalism — in other words, that there is little British left about it."
Saturday, 23rd July 2005, The Spectator

"Only in the last few years has it dawned on the government how dangerous the Left's war on Britishness really is."
Saturday, 23rd July 2005, The Spectator

"Livingstone also has — how shall we put this? — controversial views on relations with Muslim extremists. His notorious embrace of the Qatar-based, anti-Semitic, homophobic, totalitarian, Islamic extremist imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been roundly condemned. It wasn't only a naked appeal for the Muslim vote but was also driven by the principle that your enemy's enemy is your friend. Livingstone sees al-Qaradawi as a natural ally because they both hate America."
Wednesday, 28th February 2007, The Spectator

"No, it's lefties we should be furrowing our collective brow about. We shouldn't worry about the threat they pose to society (even though successful countries can survive anything except civil war and socialism)."
Wednesday, 5th September 2007, The Spectator

"The Left was definitely right on basic moral issues, particularly on promoting tolerance — whether it be gay rights, women's rights, or combating racism. But on most other social issues, it was wrong. About the causes of crime, family breakdown, the dangers of welfare dependency, personal responsibility, and the drawbacks of multiculturalism, the Right was right. When Iain Duncan Smith visited a rundown estate and was challenged: 'What are you doing here? This is Labour territory,' he replied: 'Yes, and look around you.'"
Wednesday, 5th September 2007, The Spectator

"Whether it is market forces in public services or multiculturalism, the Left first successfully demonises right-wing policies and then, when its own ideas fail, it adopts them without apology. The Left's great triumph has been to remain credible after adopting policies that it had demonised; the Right's failure has been to win the arguments but lose the debate."
Wednesday, 5th September 2007, The Spectator

"Universities are pretty much monopolised by the Left, and seem to rejoice in their lack of real-world impact. A whole raft of lobby groups from Liberty to Refugee Action to the Child Poverty Action Group get endless free BBC airtime promoting pretty uniformly left-wing viewpoints."
Wednesday, 14th May 2008, The Spectator

"In the US, the flourishing centre-right think tanks have helped push the whole political centre of gravity way to the right of that of the UK. The AEI is (in)famous for promoting the invasion of Iraq, while Heritage has kept social conservatism and the importance of religion high on the policy agenda. Cato has helped mute the siren calls of protectionism.

Those on the right of centre in Britain often complain that the Left has been far better at promoting its ideas, while commentators often complain about the shallow state of debate in Britain. But with such a weakened ideas industry, it's no surprise that our ideas aren't thriving. It would be far healthier for democracy and debate in Britain if our ideas industry managed to step up to the American level."
Wednesday, 14th May 2008, The Spectator

"The London magazine Time Out recently interviewed a Turkish immigrant who said that the English were now the foreigners in Stoke Newington. This, of course, was reported as a cause of celebration: we must celebrate diversity. We have to celebrate it, even though for white British people celebrating diversity basically means saying sorry. We have to celebrate diversity, because otherwise it might rise up and kill us: Northern Ireland, former Yugoslavia, Israel, Rwanda, Gujarat, northern Nigeria have all recently suffered mass deaths as a result of diversity."
Anthony Browne, August 07, 2002, Times Online (cross-posted to VDARE.com)

"Mr Blunkett's warning shows just how dangerous it is to ignore the clear democratic will and impose mass immigration on a people that really don't want it. He in effect admitted that his policies of promoting legal mass Third World immigration while refusing to take action necessary to stem illegal mass Third World immigration are bringing Britain, normally one of the most stable democracies in the world, to the verge of anarchy."
Anthony Browne, January 28, 2003, VDARE.com

"The turning point was the murder of a policeman during a raid on a North African Islamic "asylum seeker." Asylum is the favoured means of illegal immigration to Britain, because once you just say "asylum" you get a whole range of benefits, housing, full health care (including free plastic surgery) and free immigration lawyers who will string your claim out for years, and then when eventually your claim to be escaping persecution is rejected (as happens in 90 per cent of cases) you can just stay in Britain anyway because the government finds it too hard to make anyone leave who doesn't want to."
Anthony Browne, January 28, 2003, VDARE.com

"This political earthquake is rumbling in Britain (the "coming storm" as the left-wing Observer newspaper put it) but it will explode once Islamic terrorist illegal immigrants claim the first life of an innocent civilian–not just a policeman–on British soil. The fear that will rip through the country when that happens will force the government to act, but the tragedy is that it will have set back race relations in Britain decades.

In the battle between the British public and the human rights lobby, it is Britain's five million ethnic minorities, and two million innocent Muslims who will be the real losers."
Anthony Browne, January 28, 2003, VDARE.com

"And although the government broadcaster, the BBC, feels compelled to brainwash the people about the delights of multiculturalism at every opportunity, the national newspaper media is both incredibly powerful and overwhelmingly right wing (there are few left wing papers, and
they are the worst selling)."
Anthony Browne, December 07, 2002, VDARE.com

"Islamic radicals, like Hitler, cultivate support by nurturing grievances against others. Islamists, like Hitler, scapegoat Jews for their problems and want to destroy them. Islamists, like Hitler, decree that the punishment for homosexuality is death. Hitler divided the world into Aryans and subhuman non-Aryans, while Islamists divide the world into Muslims and sub-human infidels. Nazis aimed for their Thousand-Year Reich, while Islamists aim for their eternal Caliphate."
August 1, 2005, Times Online

"The support of Islamic fascism spans Britain's Left."
August 1, 2005, Times Online

"Rather than tackling intolerance, it [Political Correctness] now promotes intolerance, brooking no criticism and denouncing any critics. PC has a vice-like grip on public debate and policy making, setting out what can and can't be debated, and what the terms of the debate are: anything or anyone who digresses from the PC script is automatically controversial."
January 4, 2006, Times Online

"But even Britain's new Muslim ally in the War on Terror, Muammar Gaddafi, recently advised of the dangers of admitting Turkey. He referred to it as "a Trojan horse" and warned the West of rising Islamic radicalism on its streets.Europe is already far from a Christian club — there are 15 million Muslims in the EU, more than the population of most individual member countries. Macedonia and Bosnia both have large Muslim populations, and are all already destined to join the EU along with Islamic Albania. It is not Christian intolerance of Muslims that is driving the "clash of civilisations", but Muslim intolerance of Christians and Jews."
March 26, 2004, Times Online

"The sheikh has used his influential sermons to promote suicide bombing by Palestinians in Israel. Before the Left gets too misty-eyed about suicide bombings, it should remember that it can involve blowing to bits innocent children on buses."
July 6, 2004, Times Online

"Compare and contrast 2:
(a) Christmas trees and decorations are banned in Saudi Arabia;
(b) Christmas trees and decorations are banned in Britain's Jobcentres.

The extremes that other religions go to preserve their cultural
heritage is only matched in Christianity by its extreme death-wish."
December 21, 2004, Times Online

"Now the Christophobes are on the rampage again. The heirs of the Puritans and Communists have declared war on Christmas. But this time it is by stealth and guilt-tripping."
December 21, 2004, Times Online

"Once Christmas has been supplanted by a spiritually vacuous post-Christian orgy of consumption, the next phase of the war is to ban it altogether. Simply turn it, as Birmingham famously did, into a generic "Winterval" to make it equally meaningless to everyone."
December 21, 2004, Times Online

"No, the real Christophobes are the self-loathing, guilt-ridden politically-correct liberal elite, driven by anti-Christian bigotry and a ruthless determination to destroy their own heritage and replace it with "the other"."
December 21, 2004, Times Online

"The liberal Left need to ask themselves what they hope to achieve by giving such uncritical support to Islamic extremism. They may believe, in their naivety, that they are helping to combat Islamophobia, which is indeed a real problem. But instead they are encouraging it."
August 11, 2004, Times Online

"But winning arguments with reason, rather than rabid denunciation, is
difficult. Too difficult, too often, for too much of the Left."
February 13, 2003, Times Online

"One of the most powerful psychological foundations of political correctness is liberal guilt. Many in the West from middle-class backgrounds suffer a usually unspoken guilt about their unearned privilege, which in turn can lead to an under-current of self-loathing in their views. Men often feel guilty about being men, and whites often feel guilty about being white, even though these are innate characteristics they can do little about."
The Retreat of Reason, page 19

"The West's refusal to confront contemporary Islamic slavery is a reflection of the inability of PC thinking to engage a non-PC reality."
The Retreat of Reason, page 25

"The politically correct have a particular problem with crime. Their instinct is to support the criminal rather the [sic] victim of their crime, because criminals tend to be more socially disadvantaged…"
The Retreat of Reason, page 63

"Many of the politically-correct left - including the Guardian, the Independent, most of the BBC… - have chosen to champion those who are deliberately trying to murder innocent civilians."
The Retreat of Reason, page 11

"Many on the left in Britain supported the Ayatollah of Iran's call to murder Salman Rushdie for insulting Islam…"
The Retreat of Reason, page 50

"After a few days, the coverage of the terrorist attack was obliterated by saturation coverage of the accidental police killing…The reason was simply that the terrorist attacks, although a far more important story, didn't fit the politically correct agenda."
The Retreat of Reason, page 10

"The rise of political correctness represents an assault on both
reason and liberal democracy."
The Retreat of Reason, page 5

"A country that has long prided itself on its freedom of speech has been reduced by political correctness to a country where, despite endemic levels of violent crime, police spend time investigating and arresting leading writers and broadcasters for what they write and
say."
The Retreat of Reason, page 51

Time to scalp a wingnut

2008-08-01T11:41:00.002+01:00

For those of you haven't been reading Liberal Conspiracy, Sunny has put out a call for information on Anthony Browne.

A week ago the director of the right-wing thinktank Policy Exchange, Anthony Browne, joined London Mayor Boris Johnson as his new policy director. He was replacing Nick Boles, also formerly of Policy Exchange, for screwing up over the Ray Lewis incident.

[...]

Browne is the newest recruit and there has been surprisingly no sense of outrage on the left. As the Evening Standard’s Pippa Crerar pointed out last week:

He first came to prominence at The Times when his series of articles on immigration led to him being denounced by then Home Secretary David Blunkett in the Commons for “bordering on fascism”.

Now anyone who can be called a borderline fascist by David Blunkett without the audience immediately breaking into laughter is, in my book, someone to be worried about.

There are already a number of good comments on the article itself, and probably many more being sent by email, but something in particular stands out. Dave Hill points out that back in 2005 Browne was targeted by bloggers for his:

article comparing Islamic fundamentalism to Nazism and his links with a rightwing US website.

[...]

The piece accuses parts of the British left of supporting "Islamic fascism", criticising the Guardian and the BBC for letting the Muslim Association of Britain "promote sanitised versions of its Islamist views".

The article is, of course, a pretty nasty piece of work. However, it is the site that is of interest. The site in question is the US anti-immigration site called VDARE. Now, as people who read me know, I keep a close eye on US politics, and not just in the mainstream. I keep an eye on their lunatics too, especially on the far-right, partially out of an academic interest in extreme right wing populism (ie; proto-fascism) and partially because the US far right has the largest internet presence of any state, and thus to a degree set the trends that other groups around the world follow.

I also have spent more than a few boring hours ~~mocking~~ debating with the wingnuts who tend to believe and quote these people, so I know their nasty, vile stench when I smell it, and believe me, that scent is all over Browne.

Anyway, to get back on point, I know a fair bit more about VDARE than the average British person. VDARE is originally named for Virginia Dare, the first English child born to immigrants in the New World. And that curious choice tells you a lot about where the group's priorities lie.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, who track extremist and hate groups in the USA, VDARE is a hate group who:

[VDARE] has now become a meeting place for many on the radical right.

One essay complains about how the government encourages "the garbage of Africa" to come to the United States. The same writer says once the "Mexican invasion" engulfs the country, "high teenage birthrates, poverty, ignorance and disease will be what remains."

Its not just a one off case either, but a pattern of hatred directed against immigrants and thinly veiled racism. If one continues to read the SPLC article, you can see how the loathesome Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, a well known white supremacist in American circles, is frequently published on the site.

So is Kevin MacDonald, a Californian professor who accuses Jews of:

"dominating" the "movement to change the ethnic balance of the United States by allowing mass, non-traditional [i.e., non-white] immigration."

He writes that Jews, believing "the masses ha[ve] to be deceived," frame their appeals in universalistic language. But behind that are "the Jewish agendas" of the deceivers. MacDonald also mentions "the famously heavy Jewish role" in television news.

Lovely.

The founder and director of VDARE is also of interest. Peter Brimelow belongs to the US paleoconservative right, that is the wing of the Republican party dominated by Nativists like Pat Buchanan, former Nixon speechwriter and one time leader of the radical Constitution Party. Buchanan's political philosophy is predicated on the superiority of Western European culture, religion, family and tradition:

"I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency of the United States, to the full extent of my power and ability, to defend American traditions and the values of faith, family, and country, from any and all directions. And, together, we will chase the purveyors of sex and violence back beneath the rocks whence they came".

Also

"Who is in your face here? Who started this? Who is on the offensive? Who is pushing the envelope? The answer is obvious. A radical Left aided by a cultural elite that detests Christianity and finds Christian moral tenets reactionary and repressive is hell-bent on pushing its amoral values and imposing its ideology on our nation. The unwisdom of what the Hollywood and the Left are about should be transparent to all"

Buchanan is a reactionary who fully promotes a "culture war" against the left, and also promotes the idea of immigrant invasion and takeover of American society:

"In the next 50 years, the Third World will grow by the equivalent of 30 to 40 new Mexicos. If you go to the end of the century, the white and European population is down to about three percent. This is what I call the death of the West. I see the nations dying when the populations die. I see the civilization dying. It is under attack in our own countries, from our own people."

This is the sort of "intellectual" background that Peter Brimelow has come from. So it is hardly a surprise when he describes:

...the role of race as "elemental, absolute, fundamental." He said that white Americans should demand that U.S. immigration quotas be changed to allow in mostly whites. He argued that spending tax dollars on anything related to multiculturalism was "subversive." He called foreign immigrants "weird aliens with dubious habits."

He worried repeatedly that his son, with his "blue eyes" and "blond hair," would grow up in an America in which whites had lost the majority.

Sound dubious to you? Me too. And it turns out that Mr Anthony Browne has no problem writing for a website rooted in, and promoting such views. David Neiwert, the American freelance journalist who runs the blog Orcinus, has more to say on VDARE:

Groups like FAIR, VDare, and American English like to pose as mainstream organizations offering "thoughtful" proposals for reforming U.S. immigration policy, but in reality their core -- ideologically, financially and programmatically -- is the same bigoted, racist Nativism that has plagued the nation since the time of the Know-Nothings. They are, in essence, all about putting pearls on a pig.

Neiwert also quotes another SPLC report which shows that another frequent contributor to VDARE is Edward Rubenstein, who works for the far right National Policy Institute:

The institute has published two studies: a critique of affirmative action, which the institute opposes; and "Mass Deportation is a Viable Solution to America's Illegal Immigration Crisis," written by Edwin Rubenstein. (Rubenstein, a frequent contributor to the V-Dare hate site, is president of ESR Research Economic Consultants of Indianapolis and has served as research director for the conservative Hudson Institute, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, an economics editor at the National Review, and a contributing editor at Forbes magazine.)

Browne, in short, keeps some very suspect company, and since he writes for a website known to promote nativist, anti-immigrant and racist sentiment, we should question very carefully both his judgements and his policy recommendations. Not least in light of his promotion by the poster-child for thinly veiled fascism, Richard Barnbrooke.

I'm going to dig up more on Brown himself over the weekend, if I have the time. However, for the moment, at least one of his associations seems highly worrying, in light of his own political views, which are of course viciously anti-immigrant.

A blogger after my own heart

2008-07-30T12:59:00.002+01:00

I honestly wish I had got around to this earlier. Unfortunately, I have been beaten to the punch, and someone has written the truth behind Obama's cultlike following - he is the keeper of the Necrocomnicon.

Read more at The Necrobamacon.

ZOMG SAVE TEH WIMMINZ! Now with added New World Order nuttery!

2008-07-30T12:04:00.005+01:00

I'm on a snark role today, so I've decided to roll on over to The Green Arrow who, despite saying he was shutting down, is still going on strong thanks to such fantastic guest posters as "Sarah Maid of Albion", "Albion" and "Elizabeth".

Today's ~~mindless ranting~~ topic of scholarly and serious discussion is that of how women are being terrorized by the New World Order, and Pakistani rapists. One wonder exactly how that arrangement works out. Do they organize this terrorization via timeshare, sub-contracting or is it more of an informal relationship? Enquiring minds want to know.

Today her sisters are being raped daily, at the same time her young under age sisters in the Pakistani dominated English cities are being groomed for prostitution. There is not a whisper of horror, not even a tortured cry of revulsion. Bodecia would weep openly.

Obviously, Pakistani domination = life of prostitution. Those damn Pakistanis, and their 1.3% of the population. DOMINATING OUR BRITISH CITIES, ALL 747,285 OF THEM (as of the 2001 Census).

Also, one presumes, a life of rape and prostitution under Good Decent White British Folk (and cities dominated by) is apparently not a cause for concern.

Imagine if you will your daughter being stalked in a shopping mall by these unwelcome and unwanted black third world sexual predators. The police are too terrified to arrest these pedophiles for fear of a starting a riot by these third world immigrants from Pakistan.

But remember, the BNP isn't racist! Hell, it can't even tell black people from Pakistanis (mainly because all those darkies are alike, amirite?). Now that's true colour blindness, you racist PC-Brigade do-gooders!

These girls are all victims of a subtle transformation, an ongoing process that is the New World Order; Mr. Brown referred to this New World Order using the more acceptable and less threatening word, ‘Globalization’ In fact he said the word 69 times in a speech he gave at Harvard’s Kennedy Centre.

Please check under your seat for a tinfoil hat. When the signal lights, please place the tinfoil upon your head. If you do not have a tinfoil hat, or require assistance, please contact a steward or stewardess.

The swamping of Europe by sometimes violent third world refugees is an integral part of the plan to expedite this Brave New World and nothing, not even the ‘Ugly Spectre of Nationalism’ in the guise of the BNP will disrupt a plan that has been meticulously planned over many years and is moving forward at an alarming and accelerating pace.

*ping*

Now we may proceed, with caution. If at any time you see a Black Helicoptor, please alert the crew, and take cover.

Any opposition to this New World order will be dealt with robustly. The state militia has instituted a zero tolerance policy, as a group of people found out to their surprise when reading out the names of the dead British soldiers killed in the Iraqi conflict.

Of course, if the New World Order is so strong, how come its getting its arse kicked by orphans with no shoes in Iraq and Afghanistan? That zero tolerance policy must really suck, if its causing the NWO, with all its sekrit conspiratorial power (no doubt gifted to it by the Illuminati/Grey Aliens/Satanists/Reptilian shape-shifting monsters in the 4th dimension) to, you know, not get what it wants.

For the pliable and frightened state militia the indigenous person is the soft target, and easily manipulated and threatened by the racial relations act of 1976, this act was specifically enacted to close down free speech and threaten the populace if they objected to this New Architecture that is the New World order. It does NOT protect its people it subjugates them.

Unlike the BNP, who only have your best interests at heart.

Wait, sorry, what was that Nick Griffin?

“[BNP voters backed] what they perceived to be a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan ‘Defend Rights for Whites’ with well-directed boots and fists. When the crunch comes, power is the product of force and will, not of rational debate.”

Um, that sounds a little...oppressive, I must say...

I see a frightening similarity between what we refer to as third world countries and our own, with the national broadcaster now infiltrated by rabid socialists, censoring news on governments orders and blatantly accepting funds from an illegal overseas government to broadcast ‘feel good’ EU messages.

Yes, I remember all those rabid socialists, promoting free trade and the war in Iraq.

DAMN YOU SOCIALISTS!

Not to mention our blatantly pro-EU press. I mean, look at the two largest selling papers in the UK, The Sun and The Daily Mail. So pro-EU, its sickening. Paul Dacre and Rebekah Wade are French stooges, pretending to be British. Its the only reasonable explanation.

I see the state police being used as a government militia, and taking advantage of the draconian laws to crack down heavily and brutally on any political dissention, particularly against its own people. This is not the England I remember.

"The darkies now sue the police for cracking down heavily on them. Just not fair, in my book."

So where are the females, the mothers, the ones that are NOT being exploited and groomed for the sexual delights of the hip hop, cool young black Pakistani males who pimp underage English schoolgirls for aging Pakistani’s? Where are the mothers of these vulnerable young girls when the Pakistani males in their smart suits, bling and BMW’s, are offering gifts and utilizing the art of seduction on their young vulnerable daughters?

As a rule, when you want to use writing to exhort and cajole people into action, its best to not emulate a racist tard with a stupid moustache for your actual content. Just a tip, from one blog writer to another.

I see no march of protest on the television, I hear no raised voices. I am not aware of any petition to the police or government to curb this epidemic.

Like the lioness the mother is the cub’s protector and likewise in a civilized society a mother’s first priority is to fiercely protect her young.

....

There is nothing I could add which would make this seem more ridiculous than it already is. Really.

Oh God, unlike the men, I do hope the spirit of our women has not also been broken.

"Now, where did I put those cheetos..."

And thus goes on another day in the imaginary world of the persecuted BNP member.

Conspiracy of the Week, pt....wherever we got up to now

2008-07-30T11:06:00.004+01:00

I know its been a long time since I done this feature (it came from back in the day, when I used to troll conspiracy forums with half a dozen textbooks on engineering on my desk) but its time to restart this thing.

According to Greg Hands, the true weak link in the War on Some Terror But Not Others is not a flawed foreign policy, the problems of dealing with sub-state actors while promoting an international based around the sovereignty of the state, blatant hypocrisy or the Free World being led by a man who is widely seem as thick as two short planks....but instead a Left Wing Conspiracy (is there any other sort?) at the Lonely Planet, putting terrible propaganda in their guide books!

I know, I know. You feel your trust has been betrayed. I know when I want to know about the recent political history of a country, I too pick up The Lonely Planet Guide to see what its talented geopolitical commentators say. Their editorial stance and books have been cited by leaders the world over as the way to Win This Thing. And all the time, they were secretly manipulating us. *sob*

the books are almost always written from a Leftist political stance. Wait a moment, readers might ask, how can a description of which bus route goes to Tutankhamun's tomb have any kind of political bias? Check out the "history" section of these books, however, and you will see what I mean. Liberal, "progressive" forces are invariably good, battling with the forces of conservatism, all around the world.

History and reality are supposed to have a well known liberal-left bias. So I've been told, anyway, by my secret masters within the Liberal Conspiracy. No, the other one, not that site run by Sunny Hundal.

As expected, this is particularly true of guides to the USA and to the UK. Margaret Thatcher and George Bush are vilified. Clem Attlee, Franklin D Roosevelt and JFK are idolised.

Of course, George W Bush and Magaret Thatcher are the poster-children for compassionate conservatism. The only possible reason someone could disagree with their claims to greatness is because they are a bitter liberal. All those unemployed people and dead bodies and stuff are mere coincidence and as any good empiricist knows, correlation does not equal causation. On the other hand, those people widely seen, across the political spectrum, as statesmen due to their fairly good leadership in times of crisis are liberal stooges.

The brand new Lonely Planet guide to the USA (5th ed, 2008) tells us that "Roosevelt did much to ameliorate the pain of the Great Depression", there is praise for Clinton whose attempts to create socialised healthcare were scuppered by the Republicans, who were then out to get him over Monica Lewinsky, etc. But the real monstering is reserved for George W Bush, who "attacked Afghanistan in an unsuccessful hunt for Al-Qaeda terrorists", he "undid environmental regulations" and "fostered a moral, religious and cultural crusade, espousing 'family values'". The chapter introducing California suggests that Arnold Schwarzenegger's only successes were as a result of him distancing himself from Bush, and on it goes.

Shorter Greg Hands: We're now in Bizarro World! Everything is reversed, and I am now right.

Some readers of this blog might even ask, it's so well-known, why even bother to write about it? Well, the new Lonely Planet Egypt guide (9th ed, 2008) simply cannot go without comment. The book is an apology for radical Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ah yes. This must be part of that neverending struggle in The Lonely Planet to potray Liberal organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, as good guys, and conservative forces as the bad guys. Right? Because the Muslim Brotherhood are all fluffy kittens and free abortions and gay love and stuff.

Any objective view of the Brotherhood is this - it is a jihadist group, whose credo is "Mastering the world with Islam" and "building the khalifa".

Uh-oh. Doesn't this kind of conflict with this statement "Check out the "history" section of these books, however, and you will see what I mean. Liberal, "progressive" forces are invariably good, battling with the forces of conservatism, all around the world"?

You know, Greg, if you want to make your point, its generally best to not quote a part of a book which completely fails to make your point at all, and in fact undermines it. You know, as a general rule. We do things differently here, in reality.

We are told (p. 44) that "despite their use of religion, Egypt's Islamist groups are part of a political response to harsh socio-economic conditions". They have suffered under "a repressive political system that allowed little chance to voice legitimate opposition" and have been "denied recognition by the state as a legal political entity".

"Context is part of the liberal conspiracy."

One can't help feeling that the writers at Lonely Planet desperately want themselves to believe that radical Islamists are a manifestation of protest against economic conditions, and are trying to re-arrange the facts accordingly. Perhaps the Brothers really are sitting around in Che Guevara T-shirts, debating the Marxist dialectic, driven by a desire to alleviate poverty, just like the Taliban were in Afghanistan?

"Poverty, poor education and lack of legitimate opposition have never spawned extremist religious organizations. Ever. Not once at all in history. People who say otherwise are part of Liberal-Left Conspiracy. Also, now, liberal-left means Communist."

Why should we care? Two reasons. First, these books sell well, and the market is predominantly young, well-educated people, gap-year teens, students and former students, whose minds are open enough in the first place to embark on a journey to somewhere like Egypt. Probably exactly the sort of people we don't want to be telling that the Muslim Brotherhood are the good guys.

I love Greg's dichomtomous worldview, where telling people the origins of an organizations key support is SECRETLY HOPING FOR THE OVERTHROW OF THE INFIDEL MURBARAK'S TYRANNY, ALLAHU-AKBAR! Oops, sorry, forgot myself there for a moment. Greg clearly thinks people are too stupid to realize a highly socially conservative religious movement in the Middle East with links to terrorist organizations might just be as bad as a regime that practices routine torture and denial of human rights, despite how their opposition is rooted in economic and political concerns of the nation in question.

Because, you know, pointing out the roots of support for the Egyptian Brotherhood may have some sort of legitimate basis is EXACTLY THE SAME THING as supporting the Jihadists and wanting to establish an Islamic Cailphate. Obviously.

Second, and this never ceases to amaze me, we, the British taxpayer, own Lonely Planet. The BBC bought it in 2007.

We should be asking the BBC why they are promoting Islamism, and in the meantime perhaps we should persuade Fox News to buy Rough Guides, re-balance the editorial line and give travellers a real choice?

Ah yes, the BBC. Main cog in the international liberal-left conspiracy. Once again betraying this great nation by promoting Islam, the eating of aborted fetuses, multiculturalism, marrying men with dogs and other perversions. Only Rupert Murdoch, who would never cosy up to illiberal regimes for the sake of sales, can restore the balance.

Oh hee hee Letts, you so FUNNAY!

2008-07-30T10:54:00.002+01:00

Shorter Quentin Letts:

Women who agree with my politics are brave and courageous figures beyond reproach. Those who don't are evil Feminazis, trying to cut my balls off and emasculate the nation.

The Shorter concept, shamelessly stolen from Sadly, No! and Elton Beard.

We interrupt your daily blog viewing to bring you this important announcement

2008-07-29T14:18:00.002+01:00

I'm uh, busy...

2008-07-27T13:33:00.001+01:00

So if you came here expecting new content, sorry. Here is a music video however, to make your trip worth the while:

Do you know what Blogger really needs?

2008-07-25T15:25:00.002+01:00

A text strike-through option.

Honestly. It would be so useful. Sort it out, Blogger.

Beautify our town

2008-07-24T23:52:00.000+01:00

Beautify Our Town!

One of the excellent ideas to come out of this year's KallistiCon is the BOT project. In short, we have chosen a small town in the midwestern United States that we are going to beautify, Discordian style. Discordians have done some excellent concerted jakes in the past, usually aimed at businesses or governmental bodies. We thought, why not a town? Why not up the weirdness quotient for a whole town?

We have chosen a town. We have a specific project. We need your help.

We are in the preparation stage right now, and the project will commence on August 23rd, the Day of Discord.

Who: You! And your friends!

Where: The location will be disclosed to people who join the project via the project mailing list. We are in the process of compiling a database of addresses.

When: Starting August 23rd, and then on the 9th and 23rd of the month for the next six months.

Why: For the lulz. To make the world a weirder place. To find fellowship amongst freaks.

What: This is a letter writing campaign. Write a letter to someone as if you had bought a product from them, and you are writing to express how happy or unhappy you are with it. Please, get creative! You may have purchased a goat harness and found yourself unhappy that the goat didn't come included, or find yourself extremely satisfied with your new dildo cozy since it keeps your dildo so toasty warm. Aim for the ridiculous! Once you've written a letter you're happy with, print out five or ten copies and send them to different people.

For right now, join the mailing list to hear more as the date approaches. We'll send you contact info for residents of Our Town and a few sample letters. You'll also get to read letters other people are sending out, and be in on our other BOT projects.

Join up!

http://lists.discordian.com/listinfo.cgi/bot-discordian.com

When will Boris Johnson come clean about his radical past?

2008-07-24T12:49:00.002+01:00

"Boris Johnson thinks he wants democracy. But in the course of his adventures he discovers that democracy to him means freedom. It's a banned concept from the Millennium of Religion. Like God."

Civility and Decency

2008-07-24T10:44:00.003+01:00

This is a spin-off from my post yesterday about Quentin Fucking Letts, but its something I've been considering for a while, and wanted to talk about more, as a general trend within current political discourse, especially among the “opinion-formers” in the media.

Its hardly a novel or surprising insight, I'll be the first to admit. I know that its a particular aggravation of the brilliant American blogger HTML Mencken, of Sadly, No! fame and the more I see it within our own papers and political discussions, the more it pisses me off.

Some people, it seems, are far more in favour of civility in a discussion than actual decency. As anyone who reads me fairly often knows, I am hardly the poster-child for civil discussion. I rant, I swear, I mock and I troll. “All your carefully picked arguments can be easily ignored” and all that. But I think, underneath it, I am a fairly decent person. Not in the 'decent left' sense, hell no, those people are the poster children for Civility over Decency (especially as Alan 'Not the Minister' Johnson's lack of concern for human rights shows), but in the basic sense that no matter how nasty or cutting or rude I am, I'm only violent in my presentation of language.

In short, I'm not the sort of person who calls for pre-emptive attacks on enemy countries. I do not condone torture. I despise 'extraordinary rendition', hate racial profiling, cannot stand people who barely disguise their bigotry and blood-lust under the guise of cheerleading the “war on terrorism” and the war in Iraq especially. I don't think we should be throwing out everyone whose skin colour is a little too dark, nor cutting benefits for those most at risk in society. I don't think we should deny gays, atheists, Muslims, transsexuals or anyone else rights that the majority enjoys.

That's decency. Having some motherfucking respect for the people around you, not demonizing people who have never hurt you, not acting like a jerk simply because “I've got mine, and fuck everyone else”. Or cowering in a corner going “oh no, scary people who are different to me are here, this is an outrage!”

Because, lets face it, when you dig behind what is, on the face of it, 'respectable' and civil writing of commenters like Richard Littlejohn, or Mad Mel, or Amanda Platell, or Alison Pearson. Its dressing up ugly and vile opinions in nice sounding tones. A perfect example is that insufferable cunt Peter Hitchens, who just recently denied that homophobia has any real meaning. Well I'm sure gay people all over the world who are being killed, denied rights, attacked and smeared for their sexual leanings will be SO glad to hear that.

But you see, he said it in a nice way, with clean respectable words and no swearing, so he's perfectly alright!

Whereas on the other hand, all those nasty people over at the Guardian who were saying rude things about Thatcher are evil and horrible leftists. Never mind that none of them are contributing to a set of beliefs designed to deny Thatcher any of her basic human rights. Never mind that Thatcher put in place policies that did ruin many peoples lives, to benefit a few. Oh no, the problem is all those terrible and potty-mouthed Guardian types, who refuse to shed a tear at the idea of Our Great Leader passing away.

Well fuck that, and fuck anyone who thinks in that way. Oh boo-fucking-hoo, the nasty little leftists won't be all nice and civil when discussing your sacred cows? Civility is “manners masquerading as morals”, to quote Sidney Blumenthal. Its about an unspoken social code that relates in absolutely no way to the actual ethical ideas. Its a way of controlling the forms of argument, of dismissing people without actually having to refute what they say.

Noting the letters that Lett's reprinted at the Mail, the common theme among them seems to be that Thatcher's leadership did not enrichen or improve their lives, so why the fuck should they have to kowtow to her and her legions of brainless followers and admirers among the press corps? Letts doesn't answer that, because he can't. The idea of treating such a woman as a great leader worthy of such honour is to very many people disgusting, and the level of invective it deserves from those quarters is well beyond that expressed in the Guardian. Presumably Letts would have us all drink tea with our little finger's sticking out while discussing the pro's and con's of torture and genocide as well.

And the worst part is when people on the Left capitulate to such people and cede the ground to them, hoping to engage them in debate. The fact is that you simply can’t fight some people and the ideas they espouse by being civil. You have to let people know that they’re vile, hateful scumbags with no sense of standards or simple human decency. You have to stand up to them and (rhetorically) kick them in the balls. Repeatedly, in some cases. This whole “oh I respectfully disagree with your views on kicking out all the 'Muslim terrorist scum infesting this country with foreign diseases'” bollocks has to stop.

And yes, I am an angry leftist. If you call yourselves a decent fucking human being and you look around at the state of current affairs: a supposedly left-wing government tearing down civil rights and engaging in pointless foreign wars while the gap between rich and poor rises, and a bunch of cretinous reporters in the tabloid media who are willing to give them hell over the only few things they have done right, then you'd be fucking angry too.

And if you don't like it, Letts, you can blow me.

Why wont hateful lefties just DIE SCREAMING WITH SHARP OBJECTS IN THEIR EYES?

2008-07-22T09:38:00.004+01:00

Say what you like about Quentin Letts, you have to give him credit - he's consistently wrong, no matter the issue.

The Letters page of The Guardian, seldom the sanest of arenas, has this week descended to virulent venom.

Unlike the Daily Mail's comment section, where "virulent venom" (surely a redundant phrase) would in fact be an improvement.

there have appeared several letters which gloated at the prospect of Margaret Thatcher's death

Oh no? Really? How terrible. I bet they even gloated about genocide in typically racist terms.

Their vengeful tone, though hurtful about the still very much alive Lady Thatcher, has been instructive. It was a timely reminder that no one does viciousness quite like the Left. Far from the Conservatives being 'the Nasty Party', Labour's preachy brothers and sisters have long deserved that title.

Yes. I absolutely agree. I remember vividly how that Far Leftist Lord Dixton-Smith was hateful towards black people, as indeed is ex-Colonel Patrick Mercer, a notorious Marxist-Liberalfascist. In fact, one can barely move for the number of hateful leftists out there, being all terribly rude and nasty about people*.

The Guardian letters were sparked by reports that Lady Thatcher will be given the rare honour of a state funeral. Even to discuss such arrangements is, let us be honest, a difficult matter.

Indeed. How dare people suggest that Thatcher may die? We all know she will ascend to the Heavens upon a flaming Chariot, in the manner of the Prophet Elijah, once her time among the mortals is up.

Some Guardian readers have taken a markedly less charitable line towards the former Prime Minister.

In contast to Lady Thatcher, who as I recall was rather keen on charity, so long as it didn't involve rich people having to pay for it.

Typical of the response was that of one Chris Gibson, who said that on seeing the headline about a state funeral for Lady Thatcher: 'I thought that the week had got off to the best possible start.' Charming.

Indeed. I often think the best possible start to the week is one where I don't have to look at the pile of shit which reputedly passes for a Quentin Letts article in the Mail. A little perspective is all I'm asking for here.

But the fact such horrible letters were written, let alone published in a national newspaper, tells us something else.

They have Paul Dacre as their editor as well? OMG!

Why is it that socialists, in contrast to their professed humanity and Methodist origins, are so remarkably malevolent? Why is the Left so mean?

"Why is the Left, which I and my employers villify on a basis as being responsible for every social ill in this country, from paedophilia to knife crime to terrorism to littering, so pissed off and nasty towards right-wingers (the all important, yet left out qualification)? I just can't understand it..."

Left-wingers like to talk of ' progressive politics', by which they suppose they mean open-mindedness, but historically they are far more dogmatic than the Right.

Factionalism and drunken intrigue were rampant in the trades unions of old.
On immigration, Left-wingers have been exceptionally illiberal. Commentators and politicians who questioned the pro-immigration consensus were shouted down as racists.

I had to quote that in full, just so you could get a full flavour of the make-believe world Quentin lives in. Apparently, factionalism (and drunkeness, for some bizzare reason) is proof of the Left's dogmatism. Because nothing says "unthinking follower" quite like...uh, spinning off and creating a new group based on minor political or economic interpretation of certain theories.

Furthermore, when people on the immigration debate are making such enlightened comments as:

The British government hates all things British and especially English. Why are we so surprised at this payout and the far smaller ones for servicemen? It is in line with the secret agenda to eliminate any sign of British/English pride.

Then yes, it seems that perhaps, just a few of them, may not be motivated by a deep and abiding concern about depression of wages and stress on local services quite so much as "ZOMG DARKIES!!212!"

The thoroughly decent former Tory leader Michael Howard was cast as something close to a Nazi for daring to suggest that immigration was becoming a problem. His assailants were not shamed by the fact that Mr Howard is of Jewish émigré stock. He'd had the temerity to oppose the Left. He had to be destroyed.

And crushed him we did, like a huge monolithic Red Army. Of course, that Howard was playing dog-whistle politics with the more extreme and xenophobic elements of the right throughout his entire campaign is of no consequence. Context is just leftist tyranny of...something.

Tony Blair's regime was infamously unpleasant to people who tried to stand in its way. Government scientist David Kelly paid for his independence with his life - suicide, we were told, although he was pushed into any such suicide by Labour-ordered briefings

Ah yes, Tony Blair. That chap who is widely admired on the left and considered by some to be the second coming of Marx himself. His deep devotion to the working class, wealth distribution, weakening of social hierarchies and improving social mobility certainly mark him out as possibly more left-wing than Mao himself.

One of the Left's great propaganda achievements over the years has been the idea that it was somehow kinder to support Labour than to be Conservative.

Yes, gosh, I wonder how people ever thought that not supporting the richest and most privileged in society was somehow kinder than doing so? Ooh, my brain hurts, help me figure out this problem Quentin!

It demands communal conformity rather than independent freedom. It seeks to dictate supply rather than allowing the market to find a level. It places the state above the citizen.

And of course, right-wing politicians would never act in authoritarian ways, nor come up with some big, communal idea that everyone must bow down to. You fucking moron.

Some days, I think I may be a prick. Then I realize, if I didn't have to live in a country where idiots like Quentin Letts are paid for shit like the above, and I'm still unemployed, I'd probably have a better outlook on life.

*I'm going to do a follow-up post along this theme soon, as its something I've seen quite a lot in the American blogosphere, and it fascinates me. Also, I haven't forgotten about my promised book review, if anyone was wondering. It's just The Pirate's Dilemma is fairly long, and in depth, and I'm trying to find a job, which is sucking up lots of my time.

But now, a word from our sponsors.

2008-07-22T09:04:00.001+01:00

"Statistics is for sissies!"

2008-07-20T21:40:00.002+01:00

There are times I really hope knife crime is as out of control and as common as certain tabloids are making it out to be. Because then pricks like Keith Waterhouse might get stabbed in the hand and be unable to write such incredible bollocks.*

We are among sceptics

he says as he goes on to give another pronoucement amount knife crime. Now, remind me again, is scepticism that thing where you've already made up your mind about something and fix the evidence around the policy? No? My mistake then, carry on.

There are lies, damned lies, statistics, figures in a plain brown envelope slipped to Pollyanna Toynbee in an alley round the back of the Home Office, graphs and tables from the British Crime Survey and estimates from the National Guesswork Authority.

What a delightful looking strawman you have there, Mr Waterhouse. May I enquire as to its precise purpose?

Stripped of all its flim-flam, the British Crime Survey is about as informative - for one thing, no one under the age of 16 allowed to give evidence, so that loses a whole stratum of new-type knife victims - as a questionnaire on your favourite shampoo.

Oh? And do you have any figures to support this?

The plain fact is that nobody believes a blind word the Government, or its minders and manipulators, say any more. Truth is not a commodity in which they wish to have further dealings.

I'll take that as a "no" then. What then do you base your assessment on?

A few nights ago, as an 18-year-old stab victim lay in a pool of blood awaiting his statistical turn to become the 21st teenager to die violently in the streets of London this year, we learned that crime statistics are dropping dramatically.

Oh, emotional appeal. Interesting, and obviously tragic for the poor lad. However, it doesn't actually disprove the government's figures. Would you like to try something else?

Addresses of interviewees, we're told, are drawn at random from post office lists.

Which means that if you live in a crime-free area, you're going to give crime-free replies.

Well, yes, that's kind of how it works. You know, if there is no crime around, then of course it won't get reported. As opposed to the Daily Mail's wonderful method of statistical analysis, where they used police reports of knife crime to claim that there had been a 35% rise in some parts of the country - which is true - but also failed to report that these were in fact in the minority as crime had dropped in most of the country. Could you please comment on this discrepancy?

And meanwhile the altogether different police figures, based on whatever they have managed to dig out of their hectares of paperwork, are - how shall I put this? - altogether different.

Yes, you could say that. They show that while 4 police forces have seen a huge rise in knife related crime, 18 have seen a drop. All in all, in 20 forces in the country, knife crime has either stayed level or gotten better, whereas in 14 forces in total, it has gotten worse. Now, which of these numbers is larger 14, or 20, 14, or 20? Take your time.

If I was told by some government agency that tomorrow was Tuesday, I should check it against the calendar. Then I would shake the calendar to make sure it was still working.

Well yes. That's because you're a moron, as the above post so clearly illustrates. For those interested in a more thorough debunking of the knife crime panic, Five Chinese Crackers has the relevant material. Surprisingly, David Aaronovitch also has a good article.

*I don't really wish he'd get stabbed in the hand. Mainly because I know he'd dictate his article to someone else, and would probably never shut up about how he was the victim of a "horrifying knife crime!!212!" What about me, having to read this and be the victim of a horrifying logic crime? Never thinking of the little man, these bloody journalists....

Framing and the stigmergic learning potential of propaganda groups

2008-07-19T12:09:00.001+01:00

Stimergic learning is covered here.

The structure of secular conservative "framing" of events is discussed here.

Note the most interesting thing, that actually being an amorphous mass with seperated command structures but all communicating is actually an effective strategy. Its essentially an open-source platform, applied to political and information operations.

In both cases, each rely on various groups innovating and trying varying methods of attack, the communicating their effectiveness back to other groups who share their aims. The techniques are refined, then packaged for mass release. Then the process is repeated. It is constant refinement based on the ability for fast feedback AND, a mass of people willing to try various strategies.

Its essentially a Black Swan approach to events. By allowing groups to experiment, the whole movement can take advantage of successful methods, whereas failures will only impact on those directly involved in them. Its very smart, really.

A list of stupid things that the American right actually believes

2008-07-18T19:01:00.002+01:00

I've had to cut this down after it was reaching essay length, so I'll just concentrate on the most obvious ones.

That they are experts at discovering documents faked using Photoshop
John Kerry is a cowardly traitor
Saddam and Bin Laden work together
Iran has no sense of self-preservation
Europe is being overrun by Muslims
The Free Market works
Jesus will forgive all your sins
Jamil Hussein is not real
Detention camps work
Global Warming can be disproven using papers which are not peer-reviewed, which are not written by scientists with any sort of background in global warming.
Iraq is both simultaneously a pro-American paradise yet at the same time so dangerous it requires eleventy billion troops to occupy it for 10,000 years.
Jonah Goldberg is a serious thinker
George W Bush is a good President
Kathryn Lopez is not insane
"The sanctity of life" means its perfectly OK to keep dead people technically alive.
That Hillary is a Lesbian Communist.
Associated Press enable terrorists
Atheists love Muslims and hate Christians
Joe McCarthy was a True American Hero
Calling for extra-judicial, vigilante punishment against black men suspected of crimes is not "trying to form a lynch mob".
Dick Cheney really cares for the plight of oppressed peoples all over the world.

Diplomacy bad!

2008-07-18T01:50:00.006+01:00

Aaaahh, only in the world of Mad Mel could the news that America is sending diplomats to Iran, along with a senior official to talk about various nuclear related topics, be taken as a sign of impending doom.

Unless this is all an elaborate bluff, the suspicion must be that what the Bush administration is now focused upon is not safeguarding the survival of Israel and the freedom of the world but on winning the presidency for the Republicans.

Wait, Bush was focused upon safeguarding the freedom of the world? Since when?

Meanwhile Israel is being isolated by America, which is giving Iran a further gift of the thing it most craves –

Chocolate? Also, and maybe this is just the coffee talking, but if Israeli planes are being stationed at US bases in Iraq for an attack, and the deployment of another aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf signal some sort of abandonment and isolation, then I'm not sure how much more support Mad Mel would consider to be acceptable. One of Jordan's presumably titanium reinforced bras?

time to build its nuclear weapons capability.

Oh. Not chocolate then. Also, would this be the nuclear weapons program that was stopped in 2003?

What should be happening now is that the Iranian regime should be under the maximum economic diplomatic and military pressure, treated as a pariah state and kept guessing about the possibility of a US attack, all in order to weaken and destabilise it.

Because that sounds so unlike what is currently being done.

History teaches us, after all, that war is the inevitable outcome of appeasement because, instead of preventing bad people from doing bad things, it galvanises them further to do so. When the Americans talked to the Japanese, the result was Pearl Harbour. When Chamberlain talked to Hitler, the result was the invasion of Poland. And when Britain tried to appease the Arab Nazis in 1930s Palestine by offering to reward them for their terrorist intransigence by giving them half the land promised to the Jews, the result was the Arab war of annihilation against the reborn Jewish state -- a war which continues to this day.

Reminder: The history of diplomacy spans 1930-1945. Kissinger, Metternich, Machiavelli et al can fuck right off.

Moreover, Iran is as strong as it is today only because of the astounding fact that America has refused to fight back in the war that Iran has been prosecuting against it now for almost three decades.

Oh psh. Iran was just another bitchy attention whore looking to bait America, Mel. I mean, geeze, haven't you heard the phrase "Don't feed the trolls"? Look what happened last time we ignored that advice, with Bin Laden. He just won't shut the fuck up anymore. Do you really want us to have to suffer 20,000 video messages from that smirking bastard, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Shit, he annoys me enough as it is.

It is however quite staggering to witness this change in attitude towards Israel by a man who had been arguably the most pro-Israel American president in history. Yet now he is giving the impression that – in the prescient cry of Ariel Sharon – Israel is to play the role of Czechoslovakia in 1938, with William Burns about to join the EU in sealing its fate in a re-run of the Munich agreement.

I totally got that from his speech on the 60th Anniversary of Israel's founding:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Clearly a deceitful, shify, tree-hugging Chamberlain fan-boi if ever I saw one. You give him hell Melanie! Incidentally, and as an aside, I am loving this current trend of hard-right commentators and politicians tearing each other apart. May it long continue.

It is that systematic accommodation with genocidal terror and the sacrifice of truth and justice on the altar of appeasement which is the single most important reason for the never-ending Middle East impasse -- and why the whole of the free world is now about to be held to ransom.

Let it never be said that Mad Mel is not capable of reasoned, sober and not at all hysterical pronouncements on world events.

But thank God that article is finally over. My penace to the international blogging community is paid for another week.

I think I may cry...

2008-07-18T01:16:00.005+01:00

No, really. The Home of the Green Arrow is shutting down for the time being. Where else will I be able to find badly cropped, non-researched tabloid stories, framed with the usual BNP-esque nonsense we have all come to know and laugh at?

Oh well, at least the reliably inaccurate Sarah Maid of Albion and other rising dwarf stars of the BNP-blogosphere are still going strong. Unfortunately. But I would miss their tireless screeching about how 2% of the country are going to take over the rest, and their amusing projections about all their enemies being Nazis and similar hilarious musings.

Oil, "Obama Boys" and Iraq

2008-07-16T11:44:00.002+01:00

A very interesting and unfortunately far too brief interview with Naomi Klein on the above topics can be found here. Here are some snippets, so you can get an idea of what its about:

"I just want to add one more point, and I just want to take this opportunity, because I feel like people are being so bombarded with these oil industry talking points, and it really is changing public opinion. I mean, people need to know this. There’s—polls are being commissioned that are finding that 67 percent of Americans support offshore oil drilling, because they think it’s going to lower the price at the pump.

What’s actually going on is the oil companies may not even bother drilling. What they’re doing is they’re stockpiling leases. And what that means is that the oil companies will have a much greater control over the oil supply. When the oil companies have a much larger control over the oil supply, they can turn it on and off. They can control price. They can fix the price. So, in fact, what this is doing is the opposite of what they’re saying. It’s actually giving the oil industry much more power to drive the price of oil up by controlling supply, by just giving them all of these leases. And we keep hearing, well, they have all these leases already, and they’re not using them, and they want more. Why? Why do they want all these leases? Because that is what gives them control over supply. That’s what allows them to fix prices."

[...]

it’s shades of Bill Clinton’s first campaign, where he also campaigned very actively about labor and environmental standards and NAFTA. NAFTA had already been signed, but it hadn’t come into law. And then there was a turnaround, and there was a turnaround in the transition period, after the election but before he took office, where there was a sort of fateful meeting.

And I think the fear is that some of the same people, like Rubin, responsible for, you know, Rubinomics, which turned into Clintonomics, which was, you know, the Democratic full-scale embrace of the ideology of privatization and so-called free trade, that this same sort of group of people are following—are now surrounding Obama. And Jason Furman is a Rubin protégé and worked with him at the Hamilton Project, which is a sort of sub-think tank of the Brookings Institution, which emerged a few years ago to prevent the Democratic Party from embracing what they saw as populist economic policies, the centerpiece of which would have been a reexamine of the ideology of free trade, which is being discredited around the world.

Like I said, a fascinating listen, and highly recommended.

Daily Express headlines - in the style of haiku

2008-07-15T05:17:00.003+01:00

End of the road for speed cameras?

Fining people for
breaking the law is bad
when it affects me

Convicts hug a tree to go free

This headline is
factually incorrect
but never mind right?

'Sex on beach' Briton sorry

What a slut, I
am now in favour of Dubai's
awful Shariah law

Tories attack 'U-turn' over victims

Cameron to Brown:
Damned if you do and
damned even if you don't.

Top knife crime officer: teenagers must do national service

Violent teens? Put them
in the Army. Its the stock
answer to all ills.

95% of Express readers say 'quit EU'

Stand in awe as we
show you the art of stating
the bleeding obvious

OK, that's enough haiku for today.

National Vigilante Organization - Helping YOU fight crime from your parent's basement!

2008-07-14T14:33:00.003+01:00

Unfortunately, it seems I am rather late to this party, but I was directed to the hilarious National Vigilante Organization by the good folk at Mailwatch - and boy, I've barely stopped laughing since.

To get an idea of the mindset, you have to imagine the sort of person who reads The Sun, the Daily and The Express, every single day, and believes it is all true. A scary thought, I know, but keep it in mind.

When Tony Blair was elected in 1997 he promised to be "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".
Today that is just a sick joke !

Because all those filled jails and increasingly illiberal crime policies are just a figment of the liberafascist left's imagination!

Except for the millions who have been betrayed for years by incompetent ministers and a police force which cares more about political correctness than actually catching criminals !

Is it just me, or does anyone who uses the word politically correct never actually seem to know what they are talking about?

Crime in the UK is now running at over ONE CRIME A SECOND - but nothing gets done !

My god, this country has gone to the dogs! Wait, one crime a second? But thats like...33,556,926 crimes per year. So within 2 years, every single person in the country (plus some tourists) has, on average, committed a crime. Even if we include repeat offenders, we're talking what, five years before we lock up most of the population, right? Why not just throw up a big wall around the entire country and call it a day?

Fear of teenage violence is now so widespread that over 1.7 million Britons dare not go out after nightfall because of teenage gangs !

Translation: I fear to leave my parents basement, and so should you. DONT MAKE FUN OF ME, I HAVE A PERFECTLY VALID REASON!!!

The results of their policies can be seen everywhere - mindless thugs roaming the streets looking for innocent victims to attack, elderly people brutally beaten or even murdered in their own homes, and the final obscenity - children who have never known a day's discipline in their lives murdering other children !

I just looked out the window, and I couldn't see evidence of this. I saw some guy drop a chocolate wrapper, but I don't think that counts.

So much so that any attempt to stand up for one's own rights is met with persecution and prosecution by incompetent and gutless police who would rather defend the yobs than arrest them !

Well, it makes sense, yeah? Think about it, what do police need most? Criminals, right? Without criminals, the liberal lefty PC do gooders wouldn't be able to tax us to death. So of course they're gonna be in it together, its the oldest trick in the book. The solution, I believe, is simple. We must abolish the police.

While crimes are now committed at a rate of more than one a second, over 2000 man years are wasted by the police EVERY SINGLE YEAR on so-called "diversity training" !

And if we did it by dog years, it would be 14,000 years! This is an outrage!

Day by day we slip further and further into a police state, where the police consider themselves above any law - building illegal databases in order to criminalise every single person in the country !

Um, hang on a minute...

Anyone can now be arrested and convicted, not of any ACTUAL crime, but merely upon someone else's word - with the police accepting that word as truth - allowing the law to be used as a weapon of destruction against the innocent !

So why are they having such problems arresting yobs then? Ah, of course, the conspiracy. Sorry, carry on.

After decades of liberal claptrap, where thugs and yobs have been portrayed as victims, not the scum they really are, we have a "justice" system totally perverted into a hideous parody of justice, where scum are protected, and the REAL victims are persecuted!

But not me. My tinfoil hat makes me immune to their brainwashing! With my tinfoil, and my strawmen, I will smash the liberal-leftist-yob-police-paedo-conspiracy!

The 1998 Human Rights Act has proved to be a total, unmitigated disaster and MUST be repealed!
The REAL rights of decent honest people to a life free from fear have been replaced by a lunatic system where the "rights" of criminals are put above the rights of innocent people.

Murderers have been set free to kill again because their so-called "human rights" were held to be greater than a decent person's right not to be murdered!

That's actually covered under Article 17 of the Charter, the "murderers rights trump decent person's right" ammendment. When will you silly liberals learn to read before signing up to such things?

Since you are reading this online you can join our CYBER WARRIORS and start FIGHTING BACK !

Oooh, cyber warriors! Just what the UK needs, its own version of the 101st Keyboard Kommandos Brigade.

By using the Internet we can change public opinion, and more importantly, make certain that the failures of the Government and the various agencies who should be protecting us are made public !

Most people would set their sights a little higher and try for logical, fact based arguments. Not NAVIGOR however, who spammed their website all over newspaper comments pages in order to recruit 9-5 office workers to become their CYBER WARRIORS!

I notice they don't advocate fighting back the criminals by, you know, actually fighting. Because thats scary and they have knives and stuff and Navigor's cyber warriors don't want to get fucked over by a bunch of 15 year old kids. They might start having flashbacks to all those times they got beaten up for their lunch money, back at school, and no-one should want to inflict that sort of suffering on someone.

Sadly Navigor has an actual blog, bringing down the average IQ of bloggers everywhere. Fortunately though, it has not been updated for a good couple of weeks now, which is just as well, since LAW AND ORDER weenies give me headaches with their incessant crying.

Pirating The Pirate's Dilemma

2008-07-13T00:10:00.002+01:00

As the title suggests, I just downloaded an online copy of Matt Mason's intriguing book, The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism.

Expect a review in the next few days. Also added Matt's site to the blogroll.

I am outsourcing my comments on the fake Iranian missiles...

2008-07-12T14:53:00.001+01:00

To xkcd:

Neal Stephenson on literary genres

2008-07-11T17:50:00.002+01:00

An interesting 40 minute talk about the breakdown of traditional genres in fiction and literature.

Link via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing.

Teh Atheist Conspiracy...

2008-07-11T17:01:00.004+01:00

I know I really should leave such things to Anton Vowl, as he is so much better at them. But I was trolling around the Daily Mail messageboard on a slow Friday afternoon when I saw the topic title....

"are atheists infiltrating organizations such as education, government etc?"

and I just knew it was going to be a clusterfuck of epic tinfoil hattery and right-wing paranoia. I was not disappointed.

In the thread about the dreaded Heinz Mayo "gay" ad, one respondent stated that atheists are infiltrating organisations that influence government, educational policy, etc.

Can atheists really do that? After all, they are not an organised as such. Is the real truth merely that more people are rejecting religion and becoming de-facto atheists, such that the proportion of atheists in all sorts of organisations is increasing because of that, i.e. it's mere statistics?

Is it really a conspiracy?

A sensible start....surely this cannot last. Atheism debates are like those on abortion...pure flamebait.

YES Mikey my man, oh yes!! Read Peter Hitchins, an ex-communist..

The communist party used to say...go out and submerse Into the establishment, government, schools, authorities...I'm not quoting but find out Mikey. Look at government... the number of ex-communist party members and ex-marxist types...

YES, THE COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY IS BACK IN FASHION! POST #1 BITCHES, AND WE'RE ALREADY BACK TO THE 1950S, BOO-YAH!

Just look at the members in the NUT to find out how far these people have infiltrated education and the 'elf and safety brigade in local councils are teeming with them. Even the higher ranks of the police have them in abundance.

Reminder: if lots of educated people agree, its not because of superb reasoning skills and access to more factual information, its because they are being manipulated by a conspiracy.

I haven't read anything this funny in a long time! "These people" indeed. Atheists were around long before anyone caught religion, and do you know what? We're not communists, marxists or fascists, we're just people who lead ordinary decent lives without believing in any gods - and you sound so horrified, as if we're trying to undermine society!

Atheist disinformation agents have even infiltrated the Daily Mail!

i think you are right. you only have to look at Great Britain with high teenage pregnancies, broken homes, political correctness and not being allowed to make judgements about peoples' lifestyles. There are people being shot dead for being in the wrong place.

I think having christian values did keep people on the right track.

Goddamn those fucking Atheists and their lack of morals making it unacceptable for me to persecute teh gheys. I see no unintentional irony in my previous statement whatsoever, either.

The people that have infiltrated our society have no religious preferences. They probably call themselves atheists but their religion is Marxism. They don't worship a deity, just an idea that is a proven failure. I suppose that's the difference: nobody has ever proven that God does not exist whereas Marxism has been tried and has failed miserably.

But that won't stop those who are hungry for power over the proletariat. Antyjax is obviously familiar with the type, and there are thousands of them, in education, local government and the criminal justice system. It isn't an organised conspiracy, but each of them are following the teachings of Gramsci and the Frankfurt School.

I'm sure that sounded really smart in his head.

Atheists tend to have the evangelical zeal of all religious zealots. They are so arrogant in their personal beliefs and self esteem, that they will not brook alternative belief systems!

All the PC claptrap, about renaming Christmas and the like, are all down to Atheists in Local Government.

What makes their actions all the more disgusting are their attempts at blaming Muslims, or Hindus, etc.. These unfortunates find themselves beset by Press Commentators, blaming them for something for which they have no knowledge, or inclination! To the contrary. They mostly enjoy the family aspects of our CHRISTIAN celebrations!

(The Muslims also hold Christ in high esteem and see no reason why they should not celebrate Christmas alongside Christians!......... Go to Saudi Arabia and you will find that out in short order!)

Yeah, goddamn Atheists and their Winterval! Religious nutters of the world, UNITE and let us be rid of this menace.

The point of the Bible, and Christianity is to promote harmony and a moral life. The 10 Commandments are good rules for morality, and which every decent human being will follow naturally. As our community has gone away from the church and the fear of what comes next (heaven, hell?), we are heading for barbarism. This is already clear by what is happening in every inner-city and now suburban streets with young men and woman being killed in cold blood for little or no reason. All religions have their own version of the 10 Commandments which again are moral pointers for the followers.

To go to the original question, Jax has answered it pretty well in my opinion. So yes I do really believe that atheists have infiltrated government at every level, hence it will reach the education system. Private church schools, I suspect, are an exception.

Britain was harmonious back when peasants believed the King ruled by the divine grace of God, and I approve of this system. Speaking as an agnostic.

I am more alarmed that teachers are using their jobs to poison the minds of our young children with their left wing convictions. It isn't as if the teaching profession can be proud of their acheivements as so many children leave school without the ability to read or write properly. Universities are having to train youngsters the basics before they can persue the courses at Uni.

As for the police they have alienated the majority of the law abiding population with their policy of appeasing criminals and taking ot out on the rest of us.

Because ignorance and irrational brutality are hallmarks of all Atheist thought.

I cannot see God but I can have faith In God's existence. Science may someday come to a proof of the truth or falsehood of a creator, but It Is In no position today to do either. If you say.."I see no evidence that there Is a God" fair enough. But go as far as saying.."I know there Is no God" and you have taken a leap of faith as large as that of any theist.

Although theists are better, because they are right. Or something.

I'm a Christian and I believe In God. It's really quite easy, I believe there Is one God. He actually Loves you, and you try to mock and sneer, and yet he still Loves you. But I don't actually have to explain my BELIEF to you, rather you have to explain your ASSERTION that there Is no God?? And you have to do a lot better than "I know there are no God's because there Is no evidence." You have a BELIEF that there Is no God, and that Is fine. But you don't KNOW. So for all your assertions, you're not being very assertive are you?

Because asserting an unknowable without evidence is an excellent system of logical thinking.

I believe the heading of this post is misleading and would be less so if it read "are the extreme left infiltrating organisations such as education ,government,etc.
the answer is yes they are and always have done just because tony blair denied them the right to stand as labour candidates doesn't mean they have gone away or changed their beliefs they are still out there burrowing away into all aspects of our lives,and i don't believe it will be long before they rear their heads again and feel safe to come out into the open again.

They are in all probability atheists,but that is not the b all and end all of their beliefs but may be the basis for them.
The question is ,are they a danger to our society must be an undoubtable yes,but is far more outreaching than just are they atheist !
Many atheists are content in their non belief,and content to let the rest of us believe what ever we want.

The extreme left are not .

Atheists are a front for the Communists! COMMUNISTS!!12!

I find it unbelieveably funny how non believers get so upset about something they don't believe in

ok, you don't believe in God. thats your choice. but why do you get so angry and upset with those of us who do believe in God? I find that it is especially the Christian faith which gets such anger etc directed towards it

I do not for one second believe in the hindu religion. However I don't get all worked up and angry about it. Let them believe what they do.

atheisem is a belief aswell btw

Well, last time I checked, it wasn't Hindus who had a majority in this country. But of course that couldn't be the reason, could it?

On numerous occasions, I have had an atheist say to me something along the lines of

"we don't know what caused the universe"

yet they will boldly claim that there is no evidence of God. If God caused / created the universe then it stands to reason that the universe (in fact all of creation) is evidence of God. Are you able to prove that God did not cause / create the universe?

Incidentally, to answer your question about why I believe in God, there are two reasons.

1. I believe what is said in the Bible about Him. The central theme is that before God, all have sinned and the punishment for that sin is death. God loved the world so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross so that people can be forgiven of their sins. Only in Christianity can I find this redemptive message where salvation is based on what Jesus Christ has done, not on some works-based method present in all other religions.

2. Since becoming a Christian, I have the testimony in my life as to answered prayer, or how God helped me through a difficult situation. The personal evidence for my faith is therefore my testimony. Now others can choose what alternative explanation they give to what I attribute to God at work, but description of something doesn't alter what it is. It only affects one's perception of it.

Logic is really wasted on some people.

Psychedelics making a comeback as medical treatments

2008-07-11T13:49:00.002+01:00

No, really.

Much greater than usual media attention accompanied the most recent World Psychedelic Forum held in March in Basel, Switzerland, the home of Albert Hofmann. A headline in the May issue of the staid British medical journal The Lancet -- known for challenging the Pentagon's Iraq casualty numbers -- read, "Research on Psychedelics Moves into the Mainstream."
The Lancet article identified a number of early-stage clinical trials being conducted on various "anxiety and neurotic disorders" using psychedelic compounds. As previously mentioned, Doblin and MAPS are conducting three parallel studies in Israel, Switzerland and the United States on the use of Ecstasy for treating PTSD. MAPS is also funding the work of controversial Harvard researcher John Halpern and his Yale counterpart Andrew Sewell, who are studying LSD and psilocybin as treatments for cluster headaches. (Information about their research is available on clusterbusters.com and Erowid, an online clearinghouse for reliable data on virtually every psychoactive plant and chemical known to humans.)
Harvard University, which conducted the last legal research on LSD in the mid-1960s and was the site for one of Halpern's studies on the effects of MDMA on dying cancer patients, is once again considering clinical trials to support Halpern's research.
And in a major milestone, on May 13 of this year, Swiss doctor Peter Gasser administered the first legal dose of LSD in more than 36 years. It was for a study of anxiety in palliative care, which helps terminally ill patients transition more peacefully -- and with as little pain as possible -- into death.
Other complexes like addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder are being treated with what are called the "shamanic plant medicines": ayahuasca, the Amazonian vine preparation whose psychoactive component is dimethyltryptamine (DMT); peyote, the North American cactus whose psychoactive component is mescaline; and iboga, an African rainforest shrub.
Addiction is one of the most important new fields of study, not only because of the sheer numbers of afflicted, which the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates at 23.6 million persons a year at a cost of $181 billion. According to a newly released report from the World Health Organization, the United States is the world's most addicted society. Of those who are lucky enough to get treatment, half eventually go back to heavy use, and 90 percent suffer brief or episodic relapses for the rest of their lives. This makes the search for an effective and long-lasting new treatment more attractive -- and more pressing -- than ever.

So I'm back

2008-07-10T20:04:00.001+01:00

For the moment, at least. Expect updates soon.

They're coming to take me away, ha-ha!

2008-07-05T16:23:00.002+01:00

Interesting article from Threat Level about the whole Viacom-Youtube...well, insanity, I think is the only word I can use to describe it.

I'm sure as you recall, I actually uploaded a 30 second clip from The Colbert Report to showcase our success at ColbertGASM earlier in the year. And of course, since Viacom now have the IPs and usernames of everyone who has ever visited Youtube at any time at all, its only a matter of time before they track me down, charge me with the awful crime of posting a 30 second clip, then throw away the key.

At least its going to take them a damn long time to do so, given the amount of data to be handed over.

Sorry, not around much again

2008-07-02T13:38:00.002+01:00

What with job-hunting and so on and so forth, I've really basically limited my internet access to PD.com for the moment. Too busy with other stuff. Still, right now I seem to have at least one job interview coming up, and once I work myself into a routine, regular posting will resume. Until then...I guess you'll just have to wait!

YES! Hillary/Obama fanfiction!

2008-06-28T13:59:00.001+01:00

Fuck you, I'm sick and this appeals to my sense of humour:

“Hillary,” she heard from behind her. It was Obama.

She stiffened with jealousy. Lucky him, able to wear a suit. Oh, how she envied him, for his popularity and the fact that he was a man.

“Yes, Mr. Obama?” She answered, stifling her anger.

“Hillary, you can call me Barack.”

She turned around and forced one of her fake smiles. “And why would I want to do that?”

He sighed and tossed his head. “Why are you always like this, Hillary? I was going to congratulate you on the debate, but you . . . you always pull this sarcastic attitude on me.”

She gave up on the fakeness, then. “I don’t know. Why are you always so sweet? When you’re out there, heck, when you’re in here, you always make it seem like we’re friends or something.”

“Aren’t we?”

“No, Barack, and I don’t see why you can’t understand that,” she said. She didn’t feel like this right now. She felt like kicking off her shoes and passing out. It was ridiculous.

He was silent. He stared at her. “If I get nominated, do you want to be my vice president?”

It was a nice thing for him to say, but she sighed instead of thanking him. “What, did you and Bill Richardson get in a fight or something?”

“What?”

“Wasn’t he going to be your vice?”

“No. Why would I want that goofy New Mexican?” He smiled.

She smiled, too. The thing about Barack was that he was hard to hate for a long time. “I suppose so, if you’d really like that.”

“I would,” he said. “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to tell you, also, Hillary.”

“What’s that?” she headed for her dressing room, and gestured for him to follow.

He followed. “Well, um, I know that we don’t always get along, but, um . . . ” he stuttered ungracefully.

She narrowed her eyes. She knew that Barack could be a sneaky, sneaky guy, and it was hard to tell if he was acting. Why on earth would such a wonderful speaker like him feel the need to hesitate? “Yes?” she pried, opening the door to her dressing room.

“I...never mind.”

“No, I want to know now.”

He sat down on the couch in her dressing room. “I feel like it would hinder what little relationship we have.”

She sat in the chair across from him and started taking off her makeup. “I doubt something you would say would make that happen.”

He sighed. But then, instead of speaking, he stood, and in a swift movement, he was standing behind her. “Hillary, I don’t know how to tell you . . . ” his hands moved to her shoulders.

She stiffened at his touch. His hands were so strong yet gentle, just like his words. Could it be . . . ? “Tell me what, Barack?” she nearly whispered.

“We’ve . . . even though we’re opponents, I feel like I’ve never been closer to anyone in my life,” he said.

“Nor have I,” she agreed.

His hands gently squeezed her shoulders. It was enough to drive her mad.

She quickly turned around and stood up, knocking his hands away. “If you feel how I feel, Barack, just tell me, tell me!”

“I think I do,” he said. In moments, his hands were back, holding her arms like he’d never let go. “I’ve fallen for you quicker than the youth of America have fallen for my campaign.”

“Oh, Barack! Why?”

“I can’t say. Perhaps I have a thing for arrogant, white women.”

“Perhaps you do. Perhaps I have a thing for overly popular, half-black men.”

He grabbed her and kissed her like she’d never been kissed before.

ATTN retards from MysticWicks

2008-06-28T04:20:00.005+01:00

Your temporal lord and master was too busy trying to get a fix to keep his shitty personal fiefdo-uh, forum, running perfectly. You wont find the answers to why it was down via Google either, and especially not via this place (which emphatically had nothing to do with the hilarity of MW going down for several days). How about you go pick up some books on how the internet works, and maybe some programming, and go away now?

Edit: I forgot to add...behold your beloved webmaster, in all his glory (when he's not flashing kids, off his face on drugs/alcohol or shaving his nephew's genetalia).

Edit 2: I am now currently being linked to in what appears to be a secret forum on MysticWicks. How amusing. I do like being the centre of attention. Secondly, if anyone really wants to know why I don't like MW and take pleasure in its problems, you can sign up here and read all about it. I'll even be kind enough to direct you to several threads on your arrival.

David Icke is running as an MP

2008-06-27T12:03:00.001+01:00

True story.

Icke's own webpage says:

I want to make it clear one more time because a few people have still got the wrong impression. I have not put my name forward in the upcoming by-election because I want to win and nor do I have any chance of winning. I will get a few votes at most in the time we have. Personally I am not in the least bothered if I get zero.

It is not about that. It is about taking an opportunity in a by-election called by the sitting MP on the subject of 'Big Brother' to make the point that this is far, far bigger than even he realises and unless we see the BIG picture of what is going on nothing effective can be done to stop it.

We can sit on our bums and moan, or we can do what we don't want to do (as with me in this case) to communicate what people need to know as effectively as we can.

best wishes,

David

I for one welcome our reptilian overlords.

LOLcats can be used for anything.

2008-06-22T12:46:00.002+01:00

Even informing my few readers that I did fairly well in my exams, as it turns out.

Behold the true face of the modern Labour Party

2008-06-15T15:32:00.003+01:00

Thanks to Luke Akehurst:

Maybe instead of Labour fielding a candidate in Haltemprice & Howden we should find a Martin Bell type candidate - preferably a recently retired senior police officer, or a survivor or relative of a victim of a terrorist attack, to run under the following 5 word candidate description: "Independent - for detaining terrorism suspects".

I'm fed up with us playing softball with the Tories while they posture and pontificate on this issue. If they want to play liberal they should pay the full political price for it and be eviscerated at the polls for being soft on national security. We should have their stance on this issue on every single poster and leaflet at the next General Election and then see how Davis and his mates feel about a referendum on this issue.

Yup, thats right. The party of Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Eric Blair is now aping the Republicans in their desire to show off to the electorate how tough and stern they can be on issues of "national security". Why he just doesn't go around beating his chest and laughing at sissy "liberals" is beyond me - it would be practically the same thing.

I often considered past critiques of the British Labour Party as having a NeoCon disposition as somewhat laughable. Even John Gray limited that description to Tony Blair in his Black Mass book. But since Brown has come to power, with this almost bizzare emphasis on Britishness, British Jobs for British People and pushing ever more stringent national security agendas, I'm starting to think it could be closer to the truth, in the security and foreign policy realms.

This repellent suggestion also reeks of the political manipulation of the 9/11 victims, much of which went towards justifying laws that just as equally as 42 days would have not stopped the event from happening, as well as a weapon to attack dissenters with. I'm glad Brown's government is on the way out if this is the sort of thing that can seriously be floated among the Labour party. I'd rather take a risk on the Tories being frothing nutcases than deal with the ones we currently have.

That said, this issue does seem to have revived some form of support for Labour. The voters seem to be broadly behind it, and while of course it is always a bad idea to guage support based on comment sections in tabloid newspapers (too easy for party political types to astroturf) the fact that a stream of vitriol can be directed at someone of the background of David Davis by Sun readers seems nothing short of extraordinary. I mean, he's anti-EU, anti-gay rights, pro-death penalty, an ex SAS soldier and often makes proclaiments about "moral degeneration." In other words, he's the sort of person the average Sun reader would normally cheer on.

There is no chance that I can see of Davis losing his seat, especially not to a wanker like Kelvin MacKenzie - no matter how much money Murdoch gives him, and how closely the press stick to the government line ("ooh, isn't Davis such an attention seeker? What an egotistical little twat..."). But I still worry about the wider implications of this 'refendum' - with good reason as it seems.

Off for a week

2008-06-15T15:05:00.002+01:00

I'm off for 5 days of debauchery in the capital with my girlfriend from tomorrow, so don't expect much to be happening here.

Police applicant rejected for being too smart

2008-06-13T11:01:00.001+01:00

I don't even have to try to make fun of this...more's the shame.

Via the NYT:

A Federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a man who was barred from the New London police force because he scored too high on an intelligence test.

In a ruling made public on Tuesday, Judge Peter C. Dorsey of the United States District Court in New Haven agreed that the plaintiff, Robert Jordan, was denied an opportunity to interview for a police job because of his high test scores. But he said that that did not mean Mr. Jordan was a victim of discrimination.

Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected.

Mr. Jordan, 48, who has a bachelor's degree in literature and is an officer with the State Department of Corrections, said he was considering an appeal. ''I was eliminated on the basis of my intellectual makeup,'' he said. ''It's the same as discrimination on the basis of gender or religion or race.''

Hey, remember The Family?

2008-06-12T14:45:00.004+01:00

As I'm sure you recall, a while back I decided to do a post on Hilary Clinton's religious links with The Family, a rather scary and theocratic organization with what looks like a lot of clout in Washington DC.

Well today, Alternet has a very interesting post on their seeming fascination with Hitler:

Lindsay Beyerstein: In "The Family," a lot of subjects explicitly state their admiration for Hitler and other authoritarian political figures. How much of that is admiring their style, and how much is admiring their substance?

Jeff Sharlet: I'd argue that there isn't a hell of a lot of difference. I spent a lot of time living with these guys, and I remember at one point asking them, "What's the deal with all this Hitler talk?" And they'd say, "Oh, it's not the ends, it's the means." But to most of us, the means seem pretty bad, too. The means are authoritarianism.

Shartlet does go onto argue that they are not Fascist in a traditional sense, that they lack the belief in the redemptive power of violence, but that they do hover around the 80% mark going by Paxton or Umberto Eco's checklists:

Lindsay Beyerstein: So, they don't literally believe in physical conflict when they describe themselves as warriors for Christ?

Jeff Sharlet: Oh, no. (They think) that's fine, but they don't love violence the way that fascism did. Their leader, Doug Coe, says that the Bible is filled with mass murderers. And it is. The difference is that European fascism was based on this idea that you can only become truly human through violence. The Family will say, oh no, we're pursuing peace. Hitler wasn't pursuing peace. The goal was this constant redemptive violence.

The other thing is they differ in the strictness of their nationalism. The Family is an American ideology, and it has a lot of American ideology involved, but still it was founded by a Norwegian immigrant. It's more pluralist than European fascism that was about cleansing the blood. The Family is an imperial ideology, which is why I think it's ultimately worse than fascism. Since the Second World War, fascism hasn't been a very powerful ideology, but imperialism has.

Which is an interesting way of slicing it. I can't say I totally disagree...its likely such a group could attract proto-fascist elements, as David Neiwert describes them, but it lacks a certain racial component and explicitly thuggish bent/exultation of violence which seems to be a core attribute of fascism. Note he did say "(they think) thats fine" which suggests they could help cultivate such an atmosphere, but its not an end in and of itself. Plus there are a number of problems with the idea of an authoritarian Christian empire based around the world's most powerful nation, without getting into the possibility of fascist connotations.

Anyway, the interview goes on for 5 pages and is well worth reading. The book looks fascinating too, and if I wasn't so poor, I'd immediately consider ordering it from Amazon. Another day, perhaps...

Well I for one...

2008-06-12T12:38:00.003+01:00

Am very glad the government wont be pandering to religious extremists with this new 42 day detention scheme. Furthermore, as I am sure you are aware, I am always glad to see Labour stamp its authority over the potential party rebels on this issue.

Oooh, snark. Its a new direction I'm thinking of taking. It has more satirical potential than justified outrage, for starters, and often makes the point just as well.

Anyway, I'm off to troll retards, authoritarians and Dail Mail readers on Have Your Say, home of such insightful views into the 42 Day Detention legislation such as:

The 42 day period is too short and should be indefinite

Because apparently we can't protect our freedoms without giving them up, which makes perfect sense.

Fortunately, most of the most recommended comments are ones bemoaning this authoritarian free-fall we seem to be in, though I did notice at least one comment generated by the spEak You're bRanes Twat-o-tron got 172 recommendations:

it's sad but true. in my opinion criminals ar islamifying britain because of thir so-called 'humanr ight'. soon we will vote bnp. lets do what the french do and all strike!!!

English_forever, England

Sadly, I think most of those votes are non-ironic, given the next comment says:

The destructive animals who perpetrate this heanous crime, should be allowed no privilages, no sympathy from mis-guided statesmen, and no mercy.

Any foreign creature involved in the plotted deaths of Westerners ought to be put out of their own misery, humanely, and not fawned over by stupid and naive politicians.

I'm sure you also noted the dehumanizing terms here. Of course, he also seems to have missed the point of a trial is to ascertain guilt, and is not some sort of bizzare favour to terrorists, and when someone is charged with such a serious crime, they are normally held until the trial ascertains this.

If they didn't let them into the country in the first place, then they wouldn't have to lock them up. A shame the Government won't deal with border control as a priority issue!

Yeah, because as you know, no Islamic terrorists are born in this country, because all the darkies are from Foreign Parts. And white people don't become Islamofascists.

That was sarcasm, for any passing HYS commentators. I know you may be unfamiliar with the term.

However, by and large it seems that the comments are very critical of the government, which is somewhat heartening. I even saw the quote by Hume "better a murderer go free than a honest man be hanged" be mentioned.

Still, once again the fate of UK politics is now in the hands of an unelected chamber of foppish aristocrats, religious nutters and political loan sharks. Oh joy.

Loving this video

2008-06-11T16:51:00.001+01:00

Song's not bad either.

Chasing Bush II: Operation Manticore

2008-06-11T14:10:00.001+01:00

Clinton supporters update

2008-06-11T11:52:00.001+01:00

You know how there was those Japanese soldiers who retreated into the rainforest in 1944-5, hiding for years, eating raw birds and hunting American troops, thinking WWII was still going on? Or those people who claim Hitler really won WWII, because he ran away to a giant Antarctic base, is now the Chosen One of the Dero who live inside the hollow earth and will soon emerge at the head of a Flying Saucer Army to establish a worldwide 4th Reich?

This is the current state of Hillary's online supporters, basically.

For example, let us consider the hilarious No Quarter USA blog. Here is a perfect example of the sort of thing outspoken and well known Hillary supporters (this man has advised Clinton on national security and defence policy) have been saying:

The recording that shows Michelle Obama saying disparaging things about white folks is for real. It is not part of some elaborate dirty trick. The people who have seen her comments describe it as “stunning” or “devastating.” I have not spoken directly with the people who have seen the tape, but I have spoken to two of my friends who are friends with those who watched the tape/dvd.

....

Why does this “tape” of Michelle Obama matter? The folks who have it are working to elect John McCain. They are using it now to raise money for a 527 effort that will attack Barack Obama. I am told that they fully intend to keep this “off-the-market” until after the Democratic Convention. The Republicans involved with this believe that Barack Obama is a more beatable candidate than Hillary Clinton and see the tape as reinforcing an image of racial division that will hurt Obama.

I support Hillary Clinton for President. I believe she will be a stronger candidate. And if I had the tape I would put it out in a heartbeat. Getting the tape out now does one of two things–either it persuades Super Delegates that Barack is not electable or it gives the Obama campaign time to repair the damage.

I now appreciate somewhat how Cofer Black, the head of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center, must have felt as he tried to warn Condaleeza Rice and the Bush White House about a brewing terrorist attack in the days leading up to September 11th. And please, I am not equating the Michelle tape with the attacks of 9-11. Rather I am focused on the point of what happens when someone has incomplete information, which warns about a future event, and tries to raise the alert. Just because Cofer Black could not say in late July 2001 that the coming attack would be carried out by 19 hijackers on four commercial airliners did not mean his intelligence was wrong.

Those who want to vilify me for having the audacity to raise this warning can have at it. I ran up against similar attacks and skeptics in May of 2003 when I warned that the Bush Administration had cooked the intelligence on Iraq. It is only now that we get a Senate Intelligence Committee Report and a book from Scott McClellan confirming what I said five years ago.

ONLY HILLARY CAN STOP A POLITICAL 9/11 FROM BURYING THE DEMOCRATS FOREVER! OBAMA = POLITICAL TERRORISM!

The comments are even more amazing. Obama and his wife are apparently white-hating Bushies in waiting who use thug tactics, like having supporters make fun of the No Quarter people in lieu of serious debate. And he's an elitist, too!

Of course, I realize I'm going to look REALLY stupid if there is a video, but I somehow doubt it really exists. This conspiracy theory is the last thing the Clintonista have to hold onto, a perfect representation of their fantasy that Clinton is more electable. Clinton stepping down has just made her most ardent supporters go totally off the wire, engaging in the most destructive of dirty politics.

And the most amazing thing, the one that really surprises me, is that if you were to compare the treatment of Obama's wife to any other significant other of a politician in recent history, it would be....Hillary Clinton, who was constantly harassed and the target of near-libellous conspiracy theories and stories by the right and significant sectors of the media throughout the 90s. Amazing.

Thanks to Sadly, No! for the link.

Day of Discord

2008-06-09T16:43:00.002+01:00

9/11 conspiracy theorists in retreat (avec assorted musings)

2008-06-08T17:50:00.005+01:00

An interesting article from The Skeptic about how the ranks of 9/11 Truthers are thinning out:

Today, the 9/11 conspiracy movement is a shell of what it once was. The website masquerading as an academic journal, Journal of 9/11 Studies, has dropped from a high of six or seven articles published per issue to one....The introduction to the main hub of 9/11 denier activity, 911truth.org, welcomes its visitors with a plea that announces, “we’ve cut to the bare bones, but are still far short of our basic budget needs.” Prominent “truthers” like Mark Dice, Dylan Avery, Jimmy Walter... and Kevin Ryan have dropped into obscurity.

I can't say I'm terribly upset by all this. The 9/11 Truthers were probably the most useless and pointless fringe group in the modern world, whose only real purpose seemed to be deflecting the very real criticisms of Bush's leadership and foreign policy, by retreating into a fantasy world of unprovable and outlandish accusations.

The areas of real interest - how badly was the intelligence managed by the executive and various security organizations before 9/11, has faded into obscurity as people have debated ludicrous theories involving missiles, gold, Reichstag Fire scenarios, entirely fictitious terrorist organizations and insurance scams.

I also found the organic growth of a sceptical counter-movement to oppose the Truther's very interesting:

Staking their fortunes almost solely on Internet-based content may have been the 9/11 deniers’ biggest mistake. What seems like a perfect place for pseudoscience — the Internet is un-edited, without fact-checkers or minimum publishing standards of any kind — also became a perfect place for a rapid-response system of blogs and forums to fight back. Drawing on the freely available technical information from the NIST, FEMA, and academic journals which most colleges let their students access for free, skeptical sites like ScrewLooseChange.blogspot.com and debunking911.com are able to defuse 9/11 denier claims as they arise.

Web 2.0 may be useful after all! Now we need to get this going on the media a little more...maybe even the government as well. Government 2.0 perhaps. Its not very catchy, but instant feedback could be interesting.

This also may help explain the failure of US Presidential Candidate Ron Paul, whose internet support was huge, and yet offline was not worth mentioning. Barack Obama, by contrast, has a powerful grass-roots campaign online, but has anchored himself fairly strongly offline too. In Ron Paul's case, the online communities filtered through his policies and discovered many of the key flaws in them....by contrast, the Obama-supporting web in many cases has been used to debunk several myths and nasty rumours about him. Ron Paul's online support didn't translate into offline success and collapsed....Obama by contrast carried his offline success online and it helped him. A parable here, maybe.

Anyway, back on topic. Recently, I read an interesting little document that goes by the name of "The Creators of Loose Change Speak" by Mark Roberts. Its an interesting 98 page long document which shows the general contempt the people behind Loose Change seem to have for...well, everyone really. It pretty much convinced me that one reason behind the attempted spread of 9/11 conspiracy theories, especially this case, was the financial incentive. Because I am a kind and forgiving blogger (and more importantly, I forgot where it was hosted) I have uploaded this PDF document to Rapidshare, should anyone want to read it. Just follow the link.

Anyway, I think that's all I have to say on the topic for now. Cheers to Blairwatch for the link.

Hillary Clinton to form "Surly Eris" party

2008-06-05T15:30:00.001+01:00

Via the Huffington Post:

NEW YORK...Hillary and Bill Clinton announced today that they are forming a new political party to continue her fight for the presidency. Seeking to draw comparisons with Theodore Roosevelt's 'Bull Moose', the new party will be called 'Surly Eris' for the Greek Goddess of discord and strife. According to the press release, the party will "cater to the perceived slights and accumulated frustrations harbored by women of a certain age and Lanny Davis."

Speculation that Clinton would be placed on the Democratic ticket ended earlier in the day when representatives for Barack Obama refused her demand that he do all his campaigning in an open top limousine. Said a visibly indignant Harold Ickes, "Would we have liked Obama to be capable of enjoying pleasant weather? You bet your ass."

Meanwhile, longtime Clinton friend and bagman Terry McAuliffe stressed that the new party would be open to "anyone with resentments and a credit card" including "honest, hard working Americans who just happen not to like blacks."

When pressed by reporters on how Senator Clinton had managed to squander every institutional advantage in her descent from inevitability to runner-up, spokesman Howard Wolfson decried "this endless media fascination with the factual" adding "this isn't about who won what how, this is about something far more important, the future of the Clintons".

Black Swan 101

2008-06-05T10:37:00.001+01:00

I unashamedly stole these from Nassim Nicholas Taleb's wonderful book Black Swan, as a sort of condensed version of his ideas. Have a read through, and you'll probably see why I like him.

What you don't know is far more relevant than what you do.

Being unexpected is what gives the Black Swan its impact.

'Experts' are no better at making predictions than anyone else – only at using technical jargon to maintain a plausible narrative.

Planning does not work, however allowing people to tinker and experiment and get rewarded for fortunate accidents does.

We learn specifically from a Black Swan event. They do not help us generate metarules.

Recursive events (events that cause other events, feedback loops) are key to creating Black Swans and maintaining complexity.

There are few rewards or recognition for acts of prevention.

Platonicity: what happens when we mistake the map for the territory, the abstract for the real, the neat concepts for the messy reality. Potentially useful, but limited and have random and unforeseen side effects when they do fail (Anerstic Delusion).

Sterile scepticism: talk is cheap, talk about language problems, philosophy and pseudo-scepticism that plays around with word definitions to eliminate the problems of randomness are even cheaper.

Stories replace stories. You need a better narrative to replace a bad or ineffective one.

The triplet of opacity: everyone thinks they know more than they do, they assess history retroactively (hindsight is 20/20) and the over evaluation of factual information and “authoritative” persons.

History jumps, it does not crawl or steadily progress.

People will cluster around the same framework of analyses, no matter how non-factual or temporary these frameworks are. This is a result of pathological categorization – wanting to put people in boxes to explain their behaviour.

Events fall into one of two domains: Extremistan or Mediocristan. Events in Mediocristan are scalable and basically predictable. Randomness is mild, it usually falls within the ranges of a Bell Curve. In Extremistan, events are non-scalable and much more extreme. Usually, Mediocristan events are those related to biology (for example, height) whereas those related to Extremistan are socially based (income, or book sales).

Inductive logic is for suckers: working from particulars to general rules is a recipe for disaster. Past indicators are not a guarantee of future performance.

The Black Swan is a problem relative to expectation and lack of knowledge. Those most certain of the future are the most likely to get tripped up and fall flat on their face.

Most people, given the choice, will choose to believe they live in Mediocristan, even when the evidence shows they do not.

Knowledge is domain specific: we have problems translating abstract classroom knowledge into real world applications. Equally, we can easily navigate a social situation which, when presented as a logical problem, totally confounds us.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. No evidence of disease is not the same as there being no disease, and just because we do not know the function of something does not mean it has no function.

Corroborative facts cannot tell us what is true, only what is false. Negative empiricism is superior to naïve empiricism, where one can 'prove' anything with facts. A negative hypothesis is needed, falsification is needed.

Confirmation bias – we only look for evidence that supports our beliefs.

The narrative fallacy – we like to invent causes for events, even where none exist. We put explanations and an element of causality into a sequence of facts. Post hoc rationalization of events without meaning are common.

Narratives allow us to ignore the unusual.

Dopamine will lower your critical thinking abilities: you'll become susceptible to all sorts of fads, such as New Age mysticism, tarot cards or economic forecasts from a lack of it.

Information is costly to obtain – the more random the information the harder it is to store. Hence stories allow us to store more information, but with the downside of a loss of appreciation of the true randomness present.

Both art and science are symptomatic of our need to reduce complexity and inflict basic order on human existence.

People can and will hold incompatible and disparate beliefs based on the same factual evidence.

In the absence of other information, we will rely on stereotypes or even complete nonsense to explain events.

There are two types of Black Swan, the narrated and the truly unexpected. The narrated Black Swan is an overrated and hyped rare event, the true Black Swan is not talked about.

We are biologically constructed to seek small, yet repeatable and sustainable rewards.

The Black Swan is an asymmetry of consequences – either positive or negative.

You can either be a sucker, and run blindly into the danger you didn't know was there – or you can slowly bleed in the face of dangers you knew existed while hoping that it will lead to a pay-off that is worth it.

Silent evidence: often we are mislead by the sample in any experiment, because we do not take into account those who failed to be counted (the dead supplicants fallacy).

The survivor bias: we work from the fact someone survived to find the secret of their success, but in reality the fact that they survived is the secret of their success. People do not write about or promote knowledge of their failures.

The Ludic fallacy: life is not like a game. The sources of uncertainty are not well defined, the “rules of the game” are not totally apparent. If you treat life like a game, where you know all the rules, the unknown and unexpected will hit you like a truck.

Mormon anger at the Discordian Society!

2008-06-04T17:19:00.002+01:00

Remember this?

The Great Googlie Mooglie Cabal, as Ordained Representatives of the Erisian Movement has announced plans for the immediate canonization of Gordon B. Hinckley and the inclusion of him in the pantheon of Discordian Saints as St. Magusundies

St. Magusundies, in life, met all the criteria necessary to prove that he was a special emissary from the heart of the Void and a Child of Eris. We need only point to his temple building, his proselytizing and the fact that before he became President of the LDS, he had dedicated 23 temples to verify his sacred position as a key element, tasked with maintaining the Wobble of the Sacred Chao and its Hodge-Podge balancing act.

Turns out some Mormons are pretty upset over this...

Well, not many really, but at least we got this for the future anti-Discordian propaganda campaign:

So, by canonizing President Hinkley, are they saying he added to discord and chaos? What an insult when he was all about bringing people together and creating harmony where ever he went. Or am I the only one that perceives this?

Hearts and Minds

2008-06-04T12:47:00.001+01:00

Welcome to the modern day war zone. Right now, as I speak, a thousand battles are being waged for your submission and allegiance. Commanders and politicians have decided that the enemy is us and that we are to be bought to heel, as soon as possible.

No doubt some of you think I'm using hyperbole, or metaphor to illustrate an example of our socially fractured society and the commodification of identity. And while those certainly are problems, anyone thinking about those in relation to my rant today are wrong. Right now, you and I are quite literally at war with at least one government, namely that of the USA.

Oh to be sure there won't be running battles with light infantry. No air-strikes are going to be called in on your house, and I'm reasonably certain you wont get carted away to Guantanomo Bay, or any other black site that exists. But just because guns aren't being loaded and blood isn't been spilt doesn't mean this isn't a conflict.

You see, war isn't about the clash of armies on the battlefield anymore. Hell, its barely even about killing, except as an advertising hook or a final solution for people who refuse to stop being a pain in the ass. No, warfare has moved through the gentlemanly period of pitched battles and low casualties, blown apart by Napoleon and perfected in the slaughterhouse of WWI. Its not even the dirty political warfare that characterized the Cold War, marked by futile superpower conflict and strategies designed to bleed a superpower by third world proxies, and on the other end of the scale by terrorism.

No, warfare today is about fighting on the psychological and narrative level. Its about capturing the mind, and shackling it to the agenda of the day, regardless of what that agenda may be.

The thing is, you see, as warfare has become less and less about artful strategy and less bound by codes of conduct – be they religious, cultural or legal – the real issue has not been arms, logistics, intelligence and skill, but about the sheer will to fight. Whoever goes on fighting the longest, whoever is willing to do what it takes to persuade the other side to accept their interests, whoever is able to effectively frame the agenda in a certain manner, is the winner in the modern world. You can even suffer strategic setbacks if your message and will is powerful enough.

And of course, if you accept this as essentially true, broadly speaking, then logically you come to the problem being people who wont get the fuck on with the message. The enemy ceases to be those who threaten certain strategic alliances, deposits of raw materials and the lives of the citizenry. No, the enemy becomes anyone who undermines that message and so weakens that will to resolve the conflict – and that person can be anyone, even your own citizenry.

Back in the day, they used to call this PsyOps. It used to only be a wartime enterprise. Dropping leaflets over enemy cities and troop formations. Doing pirate broadcasts using exiles and friendlies from the nation you are at war with to convince them of widespread resentment towards the government. Smear and ridicule important political and military leaders in any way possible.

Like I said, it used to be only a wartime enterprise. But now, thanks to the Cold War terrorism, carried to its conclusion by the likes of Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, the difference between peace and war only exists in a legal sense. The potentially endless war on terror means actually endless psychological operations – carried out against not just the enemy, but the civilian population at home as well. The media has to hang the enemy with words and discourses and justifications before the military can do it in fact.

Nowadays, PsyOps is only one part of a much broader school, known as Information Operations. Do you operate a blog, report on the failing and lies and crimes of your country? Then you are are, according to this world-view, engaging in warfare against the state. But its not just about information per se. You have to think about this much more broadly. For example, protests. A protest is not just a protest. It never can be. Its an expression of low intensity conflict relying on moral discourses and popular expression of dissidence, aimed at bringing about a political-military confrontation.

And just where do you think something like Operation MindFuck fits into this system of ideas? Since many of us tend to think of O:MF as a way of mentally shaking people up, getting them to question their assumptions, physically deconstructing the popular discourses of the day, stripping away the bare truth hidden beneath self-serving platitudes...well, in that case, it is nothing more than a direct challenge to state power.

That may dishearten some of you. But the simple truth is, thinking for yourself, and then communicating those thoughts to others, will always be seen that way, so long as this world-view dominates. You may as well get used to it, because unless you decide to never share your views, or have a frontal lobotomy, you will almost certainly do something that could be considered an act of war. And if you get really good at it, you may even end up in a real domestic war – as the crazy elements of the thuggish far right, security services and corporate sponsored smear teams conspire to make your life hell through intimidation, surveillance and character assassination.

And to be honest, once you realize that you are in the war, a certain clarity accompanies that knowledge. You can now diagnose this uneasy feeling all of the above has been creating. You know what it is now, the nature of the Beast is discerned and laid bare. Once you know what the problem is, you can set about dealing with it. Few things are insurmountable, once you understand their purpose and context.

Unfortunately, you have little choice about this. The line has already been drawn in the sand, and you're on the wrong side. What happens next is a matter of policy, insanity, personal whim and plain old bad luck. Because you're not quite the perpetual pain in the ass that, say, Al-Qaeda is, you won't be facing the guns. You can be drowned out by voices of far-right harpies, military “experts” who 'just happen' to be taking pay cheques from the Pentagon and spineless journalists more content with attacking those who search for the truth than politicians who hide it.

There is a spectrum of responses, if you will. If you do this, the response will be that. And if you do something else, the response will differ in proportion. But like all Platonic constructs of reality, there are gaps in the conceptual definitions put forward. And it is in such gaps that the game must be played most effectively. Operation MindFuck works best in areas where they are no response. So go beyond blogging, or political protest, or pranks, or sabotage and mild acts of ontological guerilla warfare. Mix and match, be innovative, experiment and push the boundaries. And remember, even though this is a war, unconventional forces always have the advantage over hierarchies.

Its Obama versus McCain

2008-06-04T12:33:00.004+01:00

Well, this should make things interesting. More interesting than the shooting-yourself-in-the-foot strategy that was being deployed by the Democrats, anyway. Perhaps, if I can be bothered, I will trawl the interwebs to find the funniest lamentations coming from the Clinton camp. Maybe.

At least I can now report on McCain and Obama tearing into each other. Praise Eris, this race was getting dull.

Edit: as promised, we have the hilarious Hillary is 44 asking "when will Obama concede?" Obviously not too up on this 'counting' thing...and over at No Quarter, apparently Obama is limping and wounded, and his thugs will do anything to make sure he wins.

Obviously just some slightly sore losers there, then...

Having moved back home...

2008-06-03T14:42:00.003+01:00

Now my degree is more or less over and done with (roll on Graduation Day) my blogging has slowed considerably. Not least since my connection is much slower, but also because I am doing much more reading and catching up on other projects for the moment.

Still, nonetheless, I am around and still noting the events of the world. For example, hearing yesterday morning that Gordon Brown intends to go ahead with the 42 Day Detention scheme, claiming he has come to an agreement with certain Labour dissenters by putting more legislative safeguards into the proposal.

I think he is bluffing however. There is deep scepticism to this plan across the political spectrum, and absolutely no proven pressing need at all. I'm sure some Labour MPs have been assured by this, but I very much doubt many of the rebels have. Which makes the situation rather more uncertain. I suspect Brown is pushing ahead because he knows if he loses....well, it can hardly get much worse than it already is for him, and in the unlikely event his proposals do win over enough votes to pass the legislation, he can try and use this to put the government back on the intitative and claim to be "tough on terrorism" (but of course not tough on the causes of terrorism).

Apart from that, I haven't much to say. Oh, except for when driving though Bradford upon Avon last week, I stopped to put up several signs saying "NOT the birthplace of William Shakespeare" and "please stop asking us about Shakespeare, that's Stratford upon Avon." Needless to say, I have never heard of anyone ever confusing the two, not least because they are on totally different rivers in seperate parts of the country. Still, someone likely will now, which is all part of the fun.

I'm currently reading Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer as well. If you want some background information on the Fundamentalist Mormon Church and their very strange ways, I highly recommend picking up a copy.

FYI

2008-06-01T15:16:00.001+01:00

Rev Cekemp has started an English language version of the Brazilian Discordian blog, Orkutcido.

Linky.

Please check it out, little things would be cooler than building links with the apparently numerous Brazilian Discordians that are out there.

Five hundred and fifty five years to the day...

2008-05-29T18:36:00.002+01:00

Constaninople never should have fucking tested.

Richard Barnbrook's blog

2008-05-28T12:32:00.003+01:00

It seems a little bit of controversy has been sparked in the blogosphere by the discovery of the BNP Cllr and London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook's blog, which is hosted on the Torygraph's site.

I personally am of divided opinion. I've never had any truck with the foolish No Platform policy...I've always felt the batshit insane and hilarious things the BNP wants to do should be publicized far and wide. Some people think that is me having too much faith in the political system and people's ability to think critically, but if its in the open, then its up for debate, and in a Web 2.0 world, its very easy to create a debate. I'm also what some Guardian columnists might call a "free speech cultist" but fuck them. Having principles, as twisted and few though they are was never meant to be easy.

Furthermore, the blogging service is offered to everyone. Unlike say, The Guardian or London Times' websites, where signing up entails a profile that allows you comment, but not add your own articles (relying on invitation for the non-journalists to be given a stage) signing up to the Torygraph service is like signing up to Blogger, in that its not restricted to anyone so long as the Terms of Service are not broken.

On the other hand, I think people have a point when they say that the Torygraph is not like Blogger. It after all, purports to be a news site, and in having an doors open policy (ironically, something the BNP frequently complains this country's immigration policy amounts to), it could easily be abused, while also lending legitimacy to people like Barnbrook, who want to court the Torygraph readers while gaining a degree of respectability for having their logo in the top left corner of the screen. Blogger, unlike the Torygraph, does not have an editorial line, nor does it purport to be a news site, only a blogging service.

Over the past few months especially, I've been reading David Neiwert's excellent blog, Orcinus, and it has helped me clarify some of my own thoughts on fascism in the current context, and especially on the relationship between fascist movments, infiltration of the respectable right and the role of media in all this. His analysis is of course rooted in a US context, but I believe it is still nonetheless useful.

His comments (PDF file, 640 KB) on transmission between the far right and conservatives are interesting

Ideas and agendas began floating from one sector to the other in increasing volume around 1994. I noticed it first in the amazing amount of crossover between between militia types and the anti-Clinton vitriol out of D.C. that eventually built into the impeachment fiasco....This crossover is facilitated by figures I call “transmitters” — ostensibly mainstream conservatives who seem to cull ideas that often have their origins on the far right, strip them of any obviously pernicious content, and present them as “conservative” arguments.

Obviously the most prominent media personalities responsible for such behaviour in the UK would be the likes of Melanie Phillips and Richard Littlejohn, whose rants often hit upon the codewords and phrases of the far right, their fears of an alien outsider plotting to take over the country (whether its the EU or Muslims) and the descent of the country into anarchy because of civil liberties, secularism and liberalism in general and how we are all "going to hell in a handcart" because of it.

And of course, transmissions by their very nature go both ways. The reasons for the likes of the above to do such things are obvious - it widens their audience and gets them a certain about of talked about noteriety. I don't believe such people are fascists - only that they pander to it to increase their reading figures and to appear outrageous without stepping over any definitive lines.

The problem is then, that such ideas get normalized within right-wing discourse and become acceptable - making the mainstream right more radicalized and ripe for infiltration by extremist elements. The memes become talking points which filter back into perception and eventually policy. And that is the role Richard Barnbrook and his "fellow travellers" on the Telegraph will also be taking. While they are not de jure supported by the Telegraph in any way, de facto, their presence on the site will be taken that way by their supporters and, as we have seen already in some of the blogosphere reactions, their detractors too.

You can expect many more thinly veiled rants about the evils of liberalism and immigrants and darkies and homosexuals to come from Richard Barnbrook, and supported by his on-site sycophants (who have already made their presence felt, despite Barnbrook himself only having 3 articles up). The question is, of course, will the Torygraph readers let this slide, or will they actively try to debate and undermine Barnbrook? That is where the focus should be, I believe. I'm still not comfortable with him having a place on the site, for the above reasons, but I'm not against it simply because of the above reasons either. I still believe that his pathetic political views should be combatted by debate, and not censorship, but that doesn't mean I don't think the previously stated worries are not valid, only that I hope they do not turn out to be the case.

And, because I couldn't pass up the chance to showcase some of Barnbrook's frothing at the mouth articles, a few quotes from the good Cllr:

I have no time for these liberals. I despise them.....not for their person, but for their values....for everything that they believe in, although I am not so sure that they even believe it. I am talking about all these dirty politicians and journalists who sit in their homes smoking their drugs and telling themselves they have made Britain better. Well its not. Its a cess-pit and its the young people who have to swim in its filth. Only the dead make the news but there are hundred who are stabbed but only just live. Their lives are wrecked though in many cases. This is liberalism......these are the great values of the left.........they smoke drugs and your children get slaughtered in the streets. It makes me sick. It drags me down into tombstone politics when I would rather be building a better society. It has become so normalised that people think they have to accept it. Well I am going to change it....I am going to clean up the streets, because our society has had enough of their dirty values, their dirty ideas, and their dirty politics.

And:

I have had enough of political correctness. I have had enough of people being afraid to actually say what they really want to say. Yes....It is the immigrants. Labour closed down free speech and criminalised people for telling the truth. Well Labour are in a state of total collapse.

Soon they will be finished and not a moment too soon. Nobody needs to listen to them anymore. The Police chiefs should simply ignore them and not follow orders to boost statistics by criminalising motorists. The real crime is on the streets, and it is the young people who are being attacked every day now by knives and guns.

Well let me tell you that times are changing. This is our city and we are going to take it back. We are going to take all the weapons of the streets even if that means sending in the Army to do it.

The do-gooder liberal human rights lawyers can scream all they want. Human Rights to me, means people being safe to walk down the street. Liberalism to me, means being free from knife and gun attacks. A free society is one where the police can do their job the way they want to do it.

And to think....this moron actually got a lot of votes. *Sigh*...

John McCain's "League of Democracies"

2008-05-28T02:33:00.004+01:00

Following on from this...

From Suu.

Technorati is seriously borked.

2008-05-26T12:58:00.003+01:00

Seriously, wtf? I ping my blog and it takes you hours (if not days) to update, you remove and add where other people have linked to me, seemingly at random and now you've gone and lost all my favourites list.

And that's just when you get get the blasted site to load at all.

Seriously, I wouldn't really be stating this if it was just a one off, because you've normally been good, but this has been going on for weeks now. Sort it out.

"Academic freedom? A likely story...."

2008-05-25T15:40:00.003+01:00

From the Guardian.

A masters student researching terrorist tactics who was arrested and detained for six days after his university informed police about al-Qaida-related material he downloaded has spoken of the "psychological torture" he endured in custody.

Despite his Nottingham University supervisors insisting the materials were directly relevant to his research, Rizwaan Sabir, 22, was held for nearly a week under the Terrorism Act, accused of downloading the materials for illegal use. The student had obtained a copy of the al-Qaida training manual from a US government website for his research into terrorist tactics.

The case highlights what lecturers are claiming is a direct assault on academic freedom led by the government which, in its attempt to establish a "prevent agenda" against terrorist activity, is putting pressure on academics to become police informers.

As you can expect, I find such news pretty worrying, even though I somehow have managed to avoid arrest so far. I also think the point about turning academics into informants is dead on. Never mind that will cripple real investigation into terrorism, oh no. We've got to be seen to be "tough", even if we end up shooting ourselves in the fucking foot while doing so.

This country is retarded.

And in much more humorous news...

2008-05-25T13:56:00.002+01:00

Cultists in Nigeria are clashing and have killed at least five people...after a cat allegedly turned into a middle age woman.

I wish I were making this up.

WHAT could be described as a fairy tale turned real on Wednesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, as a cat allegedly turned into a middle-aged woman after being hit by a commercial motorcycle (Okada) on Aba/Port Harcourt Expressway.

Nigerian Tribune learnt that three cats were crossing the busy road when the okada ran over one of them which immediately turned into a woman. This strange occurrence quickly attracted people around who descended on the animals. One of them, it was learnt, was able to escape while the third one was beaten to death, still as a cat though.

According to a source who witnessed what happened, the cat-woman said she and the two other cat-fellows had travelled from Abuja to Port Harcourt to kill three people. “The woman said they came to Port Harcourt from Abuja and that they came to kill three people. She said they had succeeded in killing two people, but the third person, whom I guess might be a pastor, was difficult for them and that they were preparing to go back to Abuja,” said the source.

More at the link.

Lets be honest, Nigeria is pretty awesome. Jenkem, an economy based on spam emails and now cat-women riots!

Some rather morbid news....

2008-05-25T13:44:00.003+01:00

Via Yahoo

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Another severed human foot has been discovered washed ashore on Canada's Pacific coast, but police are no closer to solving the gruesome mystery.

The foot, still wearing a shoe, was discovered on Thursday on a small uninhabited island south of Vancouver in the Strait of Georgia, and is the fourth discovered in the region in the past 10 months.

The previous cases all involved right feet still in sneakers, and each was found on a different island

Boing Boing also posted about one of the earlier found severed feet back in Feburary. According to forensic experts, it seems the first 3 feet were seperated via decomposition and not forcibly...which lends some credence to the theory that they belong to passengers who were in a plane that crashed in the waters off Quadra Island three years ago. It seems unknown if the latest foot was also a result of decomposition.

Still, having severed feet wash up on shore... not especially nice.

I always find BNP wingnuts loltastic

2008-05-24T19:52:00.004+01:00

It's a bad habit really. Whenever I am bored, or need a laugh, I start surfing around the BNP supporting blogosphere, to find something out of touch with reality, nutty, or just plain hilarious to laugh at.

And it works every time. My faith in the batshit insanity of certain sectors of the British public is restored, I realize I'm actually a fairly good writer when I want to be (current postings are evidence to the contrary, I admit, but I have been busy with finals) and I get a laugh in with the deal.

It's a bad past time, really. Habit forming, almost. But now and again I hit the jackpot, like with Sarah Maid of Albion. Talking of course about my favourite subject....terrorism. In particular, the case of Nicky Reilly, the allegedly failed suicide bomber (I say allegedly for the legal reasons, of course). And its a slow Saturday night, and I have nothing planned, so why not?

Ever since the identity of the man accused of attempting to set off a bomb in an Exeter restaurant was revealed, certain sections of the press have been announcing breathlessly that the suspect, Nicky Reilly, is a white convert to Islam.

Certain sections of the press? Come on, name names! If you've got the goods, don't play coy. As it happens, I did a search on this and found out which media outlets she meant: the BBC, Guardian, Independent and Mirror.

Oh dear gosh, its lining up to be a fiendish left wing conspiracy already. Only, not really. Going by the BBC report, they were reporting a description of Reilly given by the police, which was repeated in the Independent. The Guardian bought up his race in the terms of wider counter-terrorism issues (like Al-Qaeda recruiting white converts to Islam in order to avoid racial profiling measures) and the Mirror didn't even mention it themselves - instead publishing a quote by a member of the public saying he standed out at meetings with a suspicious group of people on a street corner due to his colour.

I hardly think this counts as announcing breathlessly - especially since almost all comments on his race or appearance are well down the pages on all the media outlets that I found reporting it.

The media always get overexcited when they can pretend that white Europeans are as likely to be terrorists as Asians, even if they have to bend the truth into impossible contortions to do so.

So presumably Baader-Meinhof, the Provisional IRA, ETA, Nivelles gang, OAS, Action Directe, National Front for the Liberation of Corsica, The June 2nd Movement, November 17th, Antikratiki Dikaiosini, Hawks of Thrace, Revolutionary Struggle, October 22 Group, the Red Brigades, Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, Aginter Press, the (admittedly laughable) Canary Islands Independence Movement, the Ordine Nuovo (founded by the odious Stefano Delle Chiaie), Meibion Glyndŵ, the Irish National Liberation Army, Loyalist Volunteer Force, Ulster Defence Association, Ulster Volunteer Force, White Aryan Resistance, Continuity IRA and many other groups I can't be bothered to name had or have no white members whatsoever. You know, despite many of them being neo-fascist in orientation, or else ethno-nationalist and thus "real" Europeans.

And if we include ethnically European Americans into the mix...well, where to start? We could go all the way back to the Klan, or right up to the modern day 'Patriot Movement' members, who intermingle with militia organizations such as the Montana Freemen, but who also had links to individuals like Timothy McVeigh, Army of God, Aryan Nations, The Order and other fun loving neo-fascist/Christian groups, many of whom have very clear ideas on what race it is best to be.

But that was unfair of me, using history like that against you. On the other hand, we could always be thankful I didn't decide to start digging into the Russian anarchist terrorists...that stuff goes on forever. We still count Russians as white Europeans, don't we? Don't we? But yes, terribly unfair using history like that, it's a shame we don't have some examples of more modern terrorism carried out by 'white Europeans'.

Readers may recall how hard they tried to present Andrew Ibrahim, the young terror suspect arrested in Bristol in April as “white”, even after it was revealed that his father wa an Asian doctor called Nassif.

I hate to break this to you, but he look's white. I'll link to a picture, and feel free to dispute it, I know you will anyway, but he doesn't really look very foreign, does he? Or is this one of those things where he'd have to be one-sixteenth "Muslim foreigner" to fifteen-sixteenth's "white European" to count?

Whatever the truth may be in this instance, I don't really know why the press get so excited on the rare occasion that a white convert gets involved in attempted atrocities, it proves nothing other than that radical Islam is a dangerously infectious condition.

Well, apart from the fact no-one was getting excited over the fact that he was a white convert, GREAT POINT! The Guardian mentioned MI5 were considering if this was a change in tactics and recruiting by Al-Qaeda, which some might consider to be a legitimate concern. You know, if you want to catch terrorists and all that. I think you'll find more people were worried that someone attempted to partake in a suicide bomb attack, full stop, to note his colour and go "OH MY GOD, AND HE WAS WHITE TOO!" Just because BNP members have this funny fascination with race does not mean everyone else does. Stop projecting.

Dengue fever does not cease to be a tropical disease if an Englishman catches it, and and neither does the fact that a few vulnerable or weak minded individuals have been seduced into embracing its deadly doctrine make Islam a European faith.

Uh-huh. So what makes, for example, Christianity 'European'? Or Judaism (feel free to ask Nick Griffin if Jews are a European faith or not) for that matter. Or indeed anything that is not laughable NeoPagan Reconstructionism. Are they 'European' by virtue of ethnicity of genesis, geographical location, or practice? Because Jesus sure as hell wasn't white, or located in Europe (depending on whether one considers the Levant Europe, of course. I do, but many do not). Can we expect to see the BNP picketing Christmas celebrations soon? They too, have spread like a virus, after all.

The few small Muslim enclaves in the Balkans and Chechnya are the residue left from earlier attempts by Islam to colonise Europe, not to any European tradition.

Oh? And what European traditions are these? When I last checked, Islamic and Christian thought were both heavily based on Greek Classical thinking - especially the works of Plato and Aristotle, though a few Roman's slipped the barrier too. Given the Greco-Roman culture is the bedrock of modern Western civilization, I would find the exclusion of Islam...intellectually dishonest, shall we say? And of course, St Thomas Aquinas and (arguably) René Descartes owe an influence to Islamic philosophers such as Al-Ghazali. There was a lot of intellectual traffic flowing along Asia Minor back then, let me tell you.

Or this the European tradition of being a white European? I just want to cover all my bases here, you understand.

Islam is an alien philosophy, with its origins in a set of beliefs so different to those at the root of our own culture that most can either not comprehend it or refuse to acknowledge it.

OK, I'll take that as an "I'm an idiot with little or no knowledge of the history of philosophy".

There is no European tradition within Islam, it is a force from outside, which we have let in and the fact that it has captured or beguiled some of our children does not make it native to our land.

It's kinda like the Mysterons, when you think about it...those strange, alien, outside forces....

Like all infectious conditions, some will fall victim to it, as Nicky Reilly appears to have done, but all that tells us is that we need to take preventative measures before more succumb.

Unfortunately, the spread of idiocy will go on unchecked...

Now Clinton herself is recklessly spreading the Obama assassination meme

2008-05-24T06:07:00.005+01:00

Via Associated Press.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton quickly apologized Friday after citing the June 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy as a reason to remain in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination despite increasingly long odds.

“I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever,” the former first lady said.

The episode occurred as Clinton campaigned in advance of the June 3 South Dakota primary.

Responding to a question from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board about calls for her to drop out of the race, she said: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing the idea of abandoning the race.

Emphasis mine. Unashamedly spreading the idea that Obama is uniquely open to assassination attempts - all her.

I've already dealt in some detail with the Obama Assassination Meme before, but just to make it absolutely clear to everyone:

Creating a political climate and discourse where the potential asssassination of a major Presidential candidate is constantly referenced and referred to as a possibility, well out of proportion to the risk posed (a risk that is shared by all candidates) will only help create a situation in which potential assassins believe his death is inevitable and will seek to hasten it.

Damn, its not hard.

Update: Keith Olbermann has a special comment on this.

Brain experiments

2008-05-23T19:21:00.003+01:00

Rev. Burns from the PrincipiaDiscordia forums has decided to undertake a blog detailing his experiences of the exercises from Dr Hyatt's Undoing Yourself (and possibly Prometheus Rising, if I recall right).

You can read his ongoing musings on these here.

Giant flesh-eating mice!

2008-05-23T12:45:00.001+01:00

Words cannot express how happy this story makes me.

What is horrifying ornithologists is that the British house mouse has somehow evolved, growing to up to three times the size of ordinary domestic house mice, and instead of surviving on a diet of insects and seeds, has adapted itself to become a carnivore, eating albatross, petrel and shearwater chicks alive in their nests. They are now believed to be the largest mice in the world.

EVOLUTION, FUCK YEAH!

Scientology IS a cult

2008-05-21T19:04:00.002+01:00

I know I'm not telling you anything new here, I'm just taking advantage of my US hosting and First Ammendment rights to tell you, Scientology is a cult.

For those of you slow on the uptake:

SCIENTOLOGY IS A CULT.

Right, glad we cleared that up.

Because apparently, you can now be arrested for calling the Scifags a cult.

From the BBC

A 15-year-old is facing possible prosecution for holding up a placard which branded Scientology a "cult".

The teenager held up a sign which read, "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult" in May, outside its headquarters in the City of London.

Its outrageous that the Co$ has pressed for the kid to be charged. A fucking disgrace. I know I haven't really talked about the Scientology vs Anonymous deal for a while now, mainly because its gotten so big and is so well documented elsewhere that I suspect I'm not really needed, but I still support Anonymous in their efforts. And this sort of paranoid overreaction and heavy handed response reminds us precisely of why the Church of Scientology needs to be dealt with. Apart from being the biggest lolcows on the planet, that is.