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Archives
Wednesday
1 March 2006
Taking a Stand

This
was printed yesterday in
Jyllland-Posten.
I'm going to let it speak for itself.
MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism
After having overcome
fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian
global threat: Islamism.
We, writers, journalists,
intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the
promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.
The recent events, which
occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European
newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal
values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field.
It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that
we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and
theocrats.
Like all totalitarianisms,
Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on
these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal
and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even
despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred.
Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and
secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of
domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the
others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or
discriminated people.
We reject « cultural
relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim
culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular
values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to
renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia",
an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with
stigmatisation of its believers.
We plead for the universality
of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all
continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.
We appeal to democrats and
free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of
Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.
12 signatures
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq
Presentations:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, from somilian origin, is member of Dutch parliement, member
of the liberal party VVD. Writter of the film Submission which caused the
assasination of Theo Van Gogh by an islamist in november 2004, she lives
under police protection.
Chahla Chafiq
Chahla Chafiq, writer from iranian origin, exiled in France is a novelist
and an essayist. She's the author of "Le nouvel homme islamiste , la prison
politique en Iran " (2002). She also wrote novels such as "Chemins et
brouillard" (2005).
Caroline Fourest
Essayist, editor in chief of Prochoix (a review who defend liberties against
dogmatic and integrist ideologies), author of several reference books on «
laicité » and fanatism : Tirs Croisés : la laïcité à l'épreuve des
intégrismes juif, chrétien et musulman (with Fiammetta Venner), Frère Tariq
: discours, stratégie et méthode de Tariq Ramadan, et la Tentation
obscurantiste (Grasset, 2005). She receieved the National prize of laicité
in 2005.
Bernard-Henri Lévy
French philosoph, born in Algeria, engaged against all the XXth century «
ism » (Fascism, antisemitism, totalitarism, terrorism), he is the author of
La Barbarie à visage humain, L'Idéologie française, La Pureté dangereuse,
and more recently American Vertigo.
Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is a Fellow at Yale University and the internationally
best-selling author of "The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for
Reform in Her Faith" (en francais: "Musulmane Mais Libre"). She speaks out
for free expression based on the Koran itself. Née en Ouganda, elle a fui ce
pays avec sa famille musulmane d'origine indienne à l'âge de quatre ans et
vit maintenant au Canada, où ses émissions et ses livres connaissent un
énorme succès.
Mehdi Mozaffari
Mehdi Mozaffari, professor from iranian origin and exiled in Denmark, is the
author of several articles and books on islam and islamism such as :
Authority in Islam: From Muhammad to Khomeini, Fatwa: Violence and
Discourtesy and Glaobalization and Civilizations.
Maryam Namazie
Writer, TV International English producer; Director of the Worker-communist
Party of Iran's International Relations; and 2005 winner of the National
Secular Society's Secularist of the Year award.
Taslima Nasreen
Taslima Nasreen is born in Bangladesh. Doctor, her positions defending women
and minorities brought her in trouble with a comittee of integrist called «
Destroy Taslima » and to be persecuted as « apostate »
Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is the author of nine novels, including Midnight's Children,
The Satanic Verses and, most recently, Shalimar the Clown. He has received
many literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Whitbread Prize for
Best Novel, Germany's Author of the Year Award, the European Union's
Aristeion Prize, the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature, the Premio Mantova,
and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He is a Commandeur of
the Ordre des Arts et Lettres, an Honorary Professor in the Humanities at
M.I.T., and the president of PEN American Center. His books have been
translated into over 40 languages.
Philippe Val
Director of publication of Charlie Hebdo (Leftwing french newspaper who have
republished the cartoons on the prophet Muhammad by solidarity with the
danish citizens targeted by islamists).
Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq , author notably of Why I am Not a Muslim ; Leaving Islam :
Apostates Speak Out ; and The Origins of the Koran , is at present Research
Fellow at a New York Institute conducting philological and historical
research into the Origins of Islam and its Holy Book.
Antoine Sfeir :
Born in Lebanon, christian, Antoine Sfeir choosed french nationality to live
in an universalist and « laïc » (real secular) country. He is the director
of Les cahiers de l'Orient and has published several reference books on
islamism such as Les réseaux d'Allah (2001) et Liberté, égalité, Islam : la
République face au communautarisme (2005).
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Thursday
2 March 2006
Beats a Piranha Tank Any Day

"I think, Mr.
Bond, that you will find my little pet fatally amusing."
The Natural History
museum in South Kensington has placed on display a
28-foot long giant
squid-- one of the most complete specimens ever to be recovered.
Now if they could just bring one back alive, I'm sure that Blofeld would
love one for his office aquarium.
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Slow Worries
Japanese scientists
have published a study that says that
survivors of
Hiroshima are still suffering from health problems. Given that
even those who were babes in arms at the time the atomic bomb was dropped
are now in their late sixties, their poor health is one of the less
surprising developments. I have no doubts that inside of thirty years
they will suffer an alarming death rate as well.
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Wild Wicker
The house in Scotland
where Britt Ekland was filmed cavorting in the all together for
The
Wicker Man is up for sale.
Cue
Major Bloodnok reaction noises.
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Blind Date
A restaurant in
Clerkenwell has made double history. Not only does it employ waiters
who are actually blind instead of just acting like they are, but the
dining room is kept in pitch darkness so the patrons haven't the
slightest clue as to what they are eating.
I know a few eateries where such
a system would have been a distinct improvement.
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Friday
3 March 2006
Alfred Hitchcock, Call Your Service

An
RAF Chinook helicopter that survived the Falkland's War, the Afghan War, and
the Iraq War was downed by a
kamikaze pigeon.
And to think that the Ministry
of Defence spent so much money on missiles.
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Funny Money

The
United States
Treasury is introducing a new ten dollar bill that incorporates a new
colour scheme aimed at foiling counterfeiters.
A Treasury spokesman has
declared that from now on "greenbacks" will be referred to as "greeny-pinky-sort-of-beigey-backs."
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Shape of Things to Come

Over
at the Way of the World,
Craig Brown gives us a peek into Britain's future and confirms why
investing in CCTV manufacturers is the best investment you'll make in your
life.
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Monday
6 March 2006
Too Much Spare Time

Nigel and Leslie
enjoyed a rich inner life.
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But Before We Announce the Best Actor
Award, Let's Make a Few Calls.
 
Owing to the fact that the Best
Picture award this year went to a film that no one had seen and that the
ratings were so abysmal, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science has
decided that next year the Oscar awards telecast will be combined with a
special edition of Dialling for Dollars.
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Charge!
Headline:
Archbishop attacks Guantanamo.
I think he was relying
on the element of surprise.
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Tuesday
7 March 2006
Um... Right

A scientist has
declared that he has solved the mystery of the
Loch
Ness Monster. According to Neil Clark, curator of palaeontology at
Glasgow University’s Hunterian Museum, Nessie is, in fact... wait for it... an
elephant. All these years and such a blindingly simple explanation was
staring us in the face.
Next up: the Abominable
Snowman is a hippopotamus.
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One Day at the Front

"What makes you think our
conversation is bugged, Herr General?"
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The Spaceship that Came in From the
Cold

Has the US government been
operating a super-secret spacecraft that makes the official space shuttle
look like a tin lizzie?
Aviation Week & Space Technology looks into this orbital mystery.
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Wednesday
8 March 2006
PC Ewe
Are
you the sort who lies awake at night worrying about race relations? Do you
fear that your children will come to judge others by their characters rather
than as representatives of officially-sanctioned victim groups? Do you fret
and pick at the coverlet as you turn over and over in your mind the
implications of politically incorrect livestock? Then fear not, for the
nursery schools of Britain have the Party’s…. um… your best interests at
heart.
Take the staff of
Family
Centre in Abingdon and the Sure Start centre in Sutton Courtenay,
Oxfordshire for example. These dedicated moulders of minds have decided
that teaching trivial things like the alphabet and finger painting to
nursery school children must take a back seat to a far more pressing
matter: enforcing political orthodoxy by exposing and expunging the racist
overtones of that hymn to prejudice, “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”
In a spate of busybodyism
that has not been seen since 19th century American spinsters
declared that chicken legs and breasts must henceforth be referred to as
dark and white meat, the nursery schools in question now force their little
charges to sing “Baa, Baa, Rainbow Sheep,” least the under-fives be whipped
into a hate-crazed frenzy and march out en mass after nap time to
join the National Front. And just to prove that the staff have way too much
free time on their hands, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” has had the
dwarf reference removed and the ending of “Humpty Dumpty"
has been changed to spare the tender sensibilities of the children who might
be upset by the sight of yolk. Whether they will also be cosseted from
bruising produced by being exposed to a light breeze is still to be
determined.
Stuart Chamberlain,
manager of the afore mentioned institutions, told the local Courier
Journal newspaper:
We have taken the equal
opportunities approach to everything we do. This is fairly standard
across nurseries. We are following stringent equal opportunities rules.
No one should feel pointed out because of their race, gender or anything
else.
How this relates to the
colour of wool is uncertain. I presume that it comes under the “anything
else” category. At any rate, Mr. Chamberlain in his zeal to avoid
presenting a racist sheep to the children has committed the equally heinous
faux pas of changing it into a homophobic one. I currently reside in
Seattle, one of the most gay-friendly cities in the United States, and one
cannot walk through the bohemian streets of Capitol Hill, “the neighbourhood
that dares not speak its name,” without being confronted with the rainbow
banner of the gay-rights movement on practically every other window and
bumper. Clearly, “Baa. Baa, Rainbow Sheep” is a slap in the face for the
entire gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender-transvestite community— especially
the ovine branch.
Is Mr. Chamberlain saying
that it is wrong to single out sheep for their ethnicity, but their sexual
orientation is fair game? It’s enough to make any dedicated Guardian
reader hang his copy in shame!
And what about Snow White;
true, that vile slur of acknowledging the existence of dwarves has been put
right by denying it. How that is any better, I don’t know, but if
inclusiveness means excluding something, who am I to argue with inverted
logic? It’s not like this is an exercise in knee-jerk contrarianism, now is
it? However, Snow White still stands proud in all her offensive,
neo-colonialist provocation. Have we forgotten that in the story this
brazen symbol of Anglo-Saxon oppression is declared “the fairest one of
all?” Can this affront to decent, right-on, go-ahead thinking be allowed to
stand?
I will not bother to bring
Mr. Chamberlain et al to task over Humpty Dumpty. No doubt they will
be hearing from the anti-war groups about the militaristic overtones of “all
the King’s horses and all the King’s men,” the nutritionist lobby for
promoting a high-cholesterol role-model, and the vegans for referring to an
animal food product at all. They are already in enough hot water for
falling into the typical male, patriarchal, white-supremacist, Christian,
Imperialist, Capitalist, Pro-British trap of allowing the storyline of
exploitation revolving around bags of wool distributed to economic parasites
and class enemies to remain intact. Worse, they also commit the
Anthropocentric crime of allowing the character in “Baa, Baa, Rainbow Sheep”
to continue to be referred to as a “sheep.” And they compound this crime by
invoking the stereotypical taunt of “Baa, Baa” to stand. If this isn’t pure
specism, I don’t know what is.
No, if we are to be truly
inclusive, non-judgemental, and diverse, we must take our principles to
their logical conclusions. In the true light of tolerance and
understanding, the “rhyme” (down with Western verse-structure concepts!)
will henceforth be known as, “Nondescript Sound, Nondescript Sound, Neutral
Coloured Entity” and the story will follow the title character’s efforts to
lobby for social justice and organise a boycott against Israel.
Only then can we expunge our
guilt.
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9 March 2006
One Day in the Lab

"Of course, some people thought the Atomic Penis
Enlarger was a bit silly."
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Friday
10 March 2006
Another Day in the Lab

Sometimes the boys down in the computer lab just liked
to tear loose.
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Monday
13 March 2006
Cheating the Gallows
Slobodan
Milosevic, the former leader of Serbia, has
escaped
justice by dying of a heart attack in his cell in the Hague. On
the surface this is a dictator and war criminal avoiding his appointment
with judgement (in this world, at least), but it gets more interesting as it
goes along.
The
first thing is that Milosevic died on 5 March, yet the news was not made
public until the 11th.
There may be a legitimate reason for this, but given how the mainstream
media almost had an apoplectic fit when the news of Dick Cheney accidentally
shooting a hunting companion wasn't text messaged to them straight from the
grouse shoot, it's telling how silent they are in this matter.
The
other interesting thing is that the attitude of the International Criminal
Tribunal is that this is the
"worst
outcome"-- presumably because it blemishes the court's already tarnished
reputation.
Sorry,
but this is only the third worst outcome. The worst would have
been Milosevic walking free and the second worst would be his living out his
days in a cushy prison facility similar to the one he's spent his last years
in.
The
best scenario would have involved a rope and a sharp drop.
Meanwhile, there is a fight over who is going to get
Slobo's body. His followers want it sent to Belgrade so it can be
used as a totem to rally the faithful while his family want the body sent to
Moscow because the Milosevics would have a bit of trouble attending a Serbian
funeral, seeing as they are facing criminal charges of their own.
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Club Jihad
Meanwhile,
Anne Owers, Britain's Inspector of Prisons, is taking
Belmarsh prison
to
task for treating Muslim terrorist inmates like... well, terrorists.
It's bad enough that the poor little dears have to pine away for missing out
on the jihad to subdue the kufir without reminding them that they are
prisoners of the infidels.
Maybe Ms. Owers can arrange a
bomb-release programme for them.
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Picture of Fear


On the other hand, the Ms. Owers
could always send them a poster of this photo published on
Roger L. Simon's site showing a recent cartoon demonstration in Turkey.
When I saw it all I could think of was the title "Europe: 2035."
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Echoes of the '80s
The
Communist Chinese government has paid Pope Benedict XVI a
rare compliment by accusing him of walking in his predecessor's
footsteps
for
appointing Cardinal Joseph Zen.
Liu Bainian, the vice-chairman
of the "official" Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association said,
Is it like Poland? Didn't the
Church play a big role in Poland?
Let us hope that Beijing's fears
are more than justified.
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Mad Idea
The
mental health charity
Rethink is trying to remove the negative image of mental illness by
unveiling a bronze statue of Sir Winston Churchill in a strait jacket.
According to a Rethink spokesman,
We believe that destroying the
stigma that surrounds mental illness is a matter of national priority. We
also believe that it is the joint responsibility of the media, Government
and the public to achieve this aim, by portraying a more positive image of
people with mental illness.
Leaving aside whether a "positive"
image of mental illness is either possible or desirable, it is a staggering
example of not thinking an idea through to commission a statue of the late
prime minister as a candidate for the rubber room. Rethink claims that
their intent was to show how Churchill regarded his episodes of depression
as a "strait jacket" that he rose above.
Unfortunately, the actual message
communicated is "Churchill was a loony."
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Charter Challenge

The
government has altered the
BBC's
charter requiring the corporation to renew national identity,
citizenship and instil (all together now!) “respect.”
The idea of having the BBC
support British institutions instead of tearing them down is delightful, but
even if the Beeb is a state broadcaster, this sort of government interference
is ominous-- especially when it comes from a
government that has no respect for British institutions itself and when it's written up in the sort of vague mission
statement language that could be interpreted any way one likes.
Good lord, I'm standing up for
the BBC. Can the apocalypse be far behind?
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Last Show

Odds
are that if Labour stays true to form,
any good intentions regarding reform of the BBC will have Orwellian consequences. After months of
reassurance that it would do no such thing, the government has passed the
Animal Welfare Act, which will destroy centuries of tradition and ban
animals from all travelling circuses-- animals which will now have to be put
down.
This is one of this of those
"animal welfare" bills that have nothing to do with animals. In the
best tradition of Oliver Cromwell, Labour is going after the circuses for
the same reason they went after the fox hunters, smokers, and fast-food
eaters: not because of what was being done, but because someone was enjoying
it.
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Nuclear Future
Still,
Labour can surprise. Not only have they pledged to maintain the
Independent Nuclear Deterrent, they're preparing for the next generation of
British nuclear forces.
What would
Michael Foot say if
he were alive?
<He's not dead!>
Oh, Sorry.
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Evolutionary Thought
There's a very good review in
Slate of
the book
Breaking the Spell
by Daniel C. Bennett that explains (or explains away) religion by means
of behavioural evolution. It's a remarkably fair review for Slate
that brings out a number
of problems with Bennett's argument, though it fails to point up the two
most obvious: The first being that his definition of religion is so
narrow that it is really an definition
of Christianity and the second is that his arguments about religion could
just as easily apply to any and all forms of thought.
In other words, it's an argument that invalidates itself by denying not only
religion, but all reason.
Personally, I prefer
this report that claims that mankind survived by boogying through the
ice ages.
Question is, did he samba
through the warm periods?
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Tuesday
14 March 2006
Flying Britrail

Train late?
Sick of delays? Tired of getting to work at noon because the "wrong
leaves" were on the track? Why not try a
flying saucer?
British Rail was going to back in 1970.
In hindsight, it sound almost
sensible.
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What Goes Around...
It had to happen sooner
or later somewhere. A group in Germany has demanded an
indictment against the Koran for it's political impact. According to
Jylland-Posten,
A broad alliance of
grass-roots movements have gone to the prosecutors of several states to
hinder the dissemination of the Quran. According to the indictment, the
Quran is not just a religious and historic book, but also a political book,
which is incompatible with the constitution.
I've always said that one should
be careful about trying to knock down the protections in a democratic
society. It's a two-edged sword, laddie.
Tip o' the hat to
Agora.
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Happy St. Patrick’s Day Season
When did St. Patrick’s Day become a
season? More to the point, when does the bloody thing end? I had enough
trouble dealing with the Christmas (Sorry, “Holiday.” I didn’t mean to use
profanity) season, which now seems to start sometime around Midsummer’s
Eve. Then Halloween started to bleed out all over the place until I
couldn’t look a pumpkin in the face and St. Valentine’s Day hit the starting
gate sometime in late afternoon on New Years Day. Now the St. Patrick’s Day
“season” kicks off while the bloom is still on the Valentine rose— at least
if you listen to those bizarre
Guinness cartoon
characters.
I wouldn’t mind it so much, except that
there isn’t that much to St. Patrick’s Day and it’s a bit difficult to
spread it over an entire season. In Ireland it’s just another saint’s day
marked by just another mass, but in the United States it’s become an excuse
for swilling tremendous amounts of beer and subsidizing the food colouring
industry (green division). True, there are radical fringe elements that
have tried to introduce green wrapping paper for one’s St. Patrick’s Day
presents (whatever the Hell those are) and St. Patrick’s Day bobbles and
cheap bead necklaces for those who still haven’t sobered up from Mardis
Gras, but when a holiday revolves around the Irish proclivity for
single-minded liver abuse, that sort of thing doesn’t get much of a
toehold. St. Patrick’s Day is about focus and that focus is centred on
serious pint depletion.
My problem is that St. Patrick’s Day as a
season puts a hell of a lot of strain on the holiday infrastructure as
foot-sore marching bands slog their way through yet another parade and
gay-rights groups are too weary to protest their exclusion. I mean, I like
getting smashed out of my gourd on Guinness and sub-standard lager dyed a
hideous shade of green as much as the next man, but after a fortnight of
solid booze-ups it starts to take its toll. And I’m not just talking about
on my vitals. Frankly, I don’t think there’s going to be a pub in
serviceable condition left in the district by the 17th. I mean,
the George and Dragon is in ruins, the Dubliner is a burnt-out shell, and
even Murphy’s is only a tired shadow of its former self. The only one left
intact is the Fado and they’re putting up the barricades even as we speak.
And who can blame them? The local riot squad is so exhausted that they can
barely lift truncheon at this point.
Now some people blame this sort of
travelling punch-up on all the booze the revellers have been soaking in, but
there are extenuating circumstances. Irish music is beautiful, but it can
be a bit taxing when the local pennywhistle bands have gone on strike after
being asked to play “Whisky in the Jar” for the 9824th time and
the landlord decides to fall back on canned music. Then it’s all downhill.
Be fair; how long can a man listen to a Chieftains CD before something
snaps— especially if they’re singing “Danny Boy?”
The colour factor comes into play as
well. No, I do not mean racial violence. I mean the laundry effect. Being
either too drunk or too hung-over or both to do the laundry while the
spouse/girlfriend is too disgusted to do it for you, one tends to run out of
green clothing after a few days and this increases the chances of a lapse of
judgment resulting in the selection of a burnt umber shirt, which in the
wrong light might be confused with orange by the intoxicated and
belligerent.
Mind you, things would be a lot worse if
it weren’t for the mitigating effects of weeks of corned beef and cabbage.
All those boiled potatoes slow you down, you see. And then there’s the gas
factor that has forced the local authorities to pass a combination law that
requires open windows in all drinking establishments and a carpet ban on
playing “light my farts” for the duration.
Needless to say, by the 17th the average celebrant’s breath is in such a state that “Kiss
me, I’m Irish” is more honoured in the breach than in the observance. As
for sex, this is either impossible or so possible that one often seriously
considers lobotomy as a means to expunge the offending memories. This is
especially the case if close friends or livestock are involved. Close
friends AND livestock may require emigration.
I haven’t even touched on the subject of
St. Patrick’s Day carols. That’s because to the sober these generally go by
the name of “drunken, discordant bellowing of obscene rugby songs at the top
of the top of the voice by a load of soused yabos at two o’clock in the
morning and why isn’t there ever a cop around when you need one?” This lack
of appreciation tends to introduce an element of strain into community
relations.
On reflection, perhaps a St. Patrick’s
Day season wasn’t the brightest idea to come down the pike. I mean, if this
sort of thing catches on it’s only a matter of time before we have a
Hogmanay season, a Mardi Gras season and a Cinco de Mayo season. And at
that point, I think even cable television presenters who make a living from
egging on drunken excess by the not easily embarrassed will want a quiet
night in.
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Wednesday
15 March 2006
Beware the Ides of March
Tales From the Woodshed

It looks as though the free ride
for the mainstream media is well and truly over as this compendium of
critiques illustrates:
Jim Walsh of the Courier Post took Dan Rather at his word and tried to
ask him the "tough questions" only to find himself censored:
Here's the scene: Former CBS
anchorman Dan Rather is in Cherry Hill, giving a speech about the need for
journalists to do better.
"What's gone out of fashion
is the tough question and the follow-up," he tells an admiring audience of
about 600 people at Cherry Hill's Star Forum.
So how can I, the guy
covering Rather's remarks, just sit there?
When he finishes, I hurry to
a floor mike to ask Rather about an issue that will be part of my story.
"Mr. Rather," I say. "Great
suggestions. But you left the anchor desk last year after your report
questioning President Bush's military service was discredited. Key memos
could not be authenticated. Do you think the failure to ask questions then
affects your credibility now?"
Rather responds with civility
-- if not clarity. He notes, in part, that an independent review "couldn't
determine whether the documents were authentic or not."
Eager to please, I follow up:
"The Courier-Post won't run something if we're not sure it's authentic. Are
you saying it's OK . . ."
But my microphone goes dead
-- and the audience stirs to life.
Some people jeer. Others
glare and scowl (I can now distinguish between the two). This continues
outside as I call in my story.
(Tip
o' the hat to the
Captain's Quarters)
Meanwhile, Danish journalist
Samuel Rachlin has CBS in a pincer movement over its recent 60 Minutes
report that portrayed the Danes as a bunch of mouth-breathing racist yahoos:
This kind of journalism does
not have much in common with the tradition of Ed R. Murrow or what his
associate, Fred Friendly, taught me at the Graduate School of Journalism at
Columbia University when I took my degree there in the late 70ies. The snide
asides and sarcasm that permeated the narrative do not mix with the high
quality journalism I have learned to expect from 60 Minutes. What we got was
a presentation so biased, distorted and corrupted by so many inaccuracies
and innuendos that it was impossible to recognize Denmark. I am sorry to say
it, but it is shameful for the profession that both Bob Simon and I belong
to.
Back in the States, the New York
Times ran a cover story profiling a former inmate of Abu Ghraib who was the
subject of that notorious hooded photo. Only
Salon has had the poor taste to point out that he was no such thing.
It seems that they did the one thing the NYT didn't bother with: They
asked the Pentagon who said,
We have had several detainees
claim they were the person depicted in the photograph in question. Our
investigation indicates that the person you have is not the detainee who was
depicted in the photograph released in connection with the Abu Ghraib
investigation.
And hopping over to Iraq,
Ralph Peters gives the MSM a burr under their saddle by finding a whole
lot of civil war not happening there:
In the wake of the bombing of
the Golden Mosque in Samarra, a flurry of sectarian attacks inspired wild
media claims of a collapse into civil war. It didn't happen. Driving and
walking the streets of Baghdad, I found children playing and, in most
neighborhoods, business as usual. Iraq can be deadly, but, more often, it's
just dreary.
And
Nick Coleman, who writes for
the left-wing New Statesman, takes the Left, including the BBC, to
task for getting into bed with the Islamofascists:
The anti-imperialists see US
power as the greatest threat of our day. The reckless brutality of the Bush
administration appals them, as does Tony Blair’s willingness to go along
with it. This view so dominates the mainstream liberal press and parts of
the BBC that it often seems like the only left-wing view. The danger for the
anti-imperialists is that they will end up on the far right. A few are
already there.
Staying in Britian, the
Daily Ablution fisks Terence Blacker of the Independent, who is
attacking bloggers for the heinous crime of using anonymous sources and
lifting story material from press releases, both common journalistic
practices:
At the risk of sounding
rather more than "prickly", I really can't help but express my amazement at
the combination of disingenuity and chutzpah that Mr. Blacker displays. Of
course one should be wary of trusting what's on a blog - that's the most
obvious thing in the world. But the astoundingly ludicrous assertion that a
newspaper would never print so much as a paragraph from a press release, and
the implication that the MSM therefore constitutes an unsullied bastion of
Truth by comparison, are themselves salutary reminders that the work of
professional journalists must be closely scrutinised as well.
The BBC takes another drubbing
from Peter C.
Glover at TCS Daily by saying that the Beeb comes not to praise Edward
R. Murrow, but to bury him:
Anyone picking up BBC
broadcasts on the Planet Zog might easily come to believe that Public Enemy
No. 1 and the evil empire are not Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but George W. Bush
and the USA. A litany of recent stories on the BBC have implied that Bush is
pretty much responsible for phone taps, denying mass murderers their human
rights (by sanctioning capital punishment), melting polar ice caps, pulling
the levee plugs in New Orleans and ferrying undesirables around to torture
them, primarily, at Guantanamo Bay. And with this last story: "Guantanamo
man alleges 'torture'" (3 March 2006) the BBC even manages to sink below its
own low broadcasting standards.
Having gained the coup of an
interview with a serving Guantanamo inmate — the first by any agency — its
lead story turned out to be predicated upon this gentleman's assertion that
his force-feeding "amounts to torture." In the BBC's view it appears the
U.S. authorities are "torturing" men by ...keeping them alive. Just what
exactly the BBC expects the American military to do — when the same
force-feeding procedure is common policy among all Western nations — they do
not take the trouble to explain.
Just 50 years ago the use of
the name of the BBC and the use of "BBC English" meant one thing. It meant
speaking truth to the world with a posh public school accent. Today Ed
Murrow's moral values and broadcasting ethics would not, it seems, strike
much of a chord with the average BBC news editor. And whatever is going on
at Guantanamo Bay, I doubt that Truth is being "tortured" and abused quite
so systematically as it is in contemporary BBC news reports.
Finally,
The Cassandra Page takes on the MSM in general with a list of great
journalistic lies from 2005.
I thought all of this criticism
was taking its toll when I read this bit over at
Adlyada about a right-wing coup at the Groaniad, but it turns out that
April Fool's came early this year.
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Thursday
16 March 2006
What About Gromit?

Headline:
Wallace to stop being '60 minutes' regular
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Some Are More Equal Than Others
I see that
San Francisco
State University is standing up for freedom of speech. Mind you,
that's only as long as "free speech" is defined as allowing a load of
Islamofascists to physically attack a Jewish "Peace In The Middle East
Rally" and scream "Get out or we'll kill you" at the participants.
Anyone else is just being
"provocative."
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Hal's Heyday

The ever-amusing
James Lileks
has a new section dedicated to press photos from the days when men were
real men and computers were real computers.
Lemurs, on the other hand, were
small kitchen appliances.
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The Revolution Has Been Postponed
The insurrection aimed at
overthrowing the United States government by force and replace it with a
left-wing junta that was supposed to take place yesterday has been postponed
until the 20th. Political
Cooperative. org, which seems to be organising this bit of courteously
forewarned treason, says on their
web site (Warning! Bad folk
music!),
We are calling on all
Member Nations of the U.N., All Representatives and Justices in the
World Court and International Criminal Courts, all soldiers and CIA
agents and government officials who have been blackmailed by the
dictators to go with us and remove Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their
friends from our House. We need a government that is comprised of social
justice organizations who have been fighting for human rights all along.
This is only a truncated version of Darrow Bogganio's
(It seems to be a one-man organisation) call to arms that he posted on the
United for
Peace events calender (since removed) that gives the full glory of his
loopiness and bad grammar,
TAKE THE WHITE HOUSE BY STORM - Stop Genocide,
Torture and Occupation
U.N. SOS - We need your help to end the reign
of international criminals.
It is our duty and the duty of the United
Nations to rescue the people of the world from the U.S. dictators.
Murder for occupation and theft of land is illegal. Murder of
journalists is criminal. Remove the traitors who have stolen the U.S.
budget and used it to commit international crimes against humanity.
If we were being bombed and our journalists
were being murdered here in the U.S. by a foreign country’s military, we
would hope that the people of that country would stop what they are
doing and go to their president’s office and demand that it was stopped.
If we were the ones burying thousands and thousands of our family
members and watching the destruction of the homes, schools, churches and
offices that we had worked for decades to build, we would hope that
someone, somewhere would care enough to do something for us. We must
stop the criminals in our government NOW. There is no meeting with
Congress that is going to change what they are doing. We must put the
power of the people into action and stay there until they leave!
Inviting everyone to the White House for a
protest rally to show that we do not accept the criminal government,
illegal wars and the permanent occupation planned for Iraq and
Afghanistan. For Nat Turner, For Martin and Coretta, For all the Torture
and Assassination in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and many others – We will
not allow the Slave Holders that Still Prevail in this Country to Rule
us any longer. Imprisonment and torture based on race, religion,
resources or region is no different than the slavery we sought to
abolish years ago. The Administration is Criminal and if they will not
step down, we must storm in, show them how many of us do not accept a
criminal government. How can we stand by and watch them kill our
brothers, sisters, journalists and friends for their dollars?
We are calling on all citizens and governments
in every country to stand with us. We are calling on all Member Nations
of the U.N.; All Representatives and Justices in the World Court and
International Criminal Courts; All Human Rights Advocates; All Soldiers
and CIA agents and government officials who have been blackmailed or are
in fear of the dictators to join us in ending this reign of corporate
terror in our government. The World Criminal Courts need to incarcerate
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for admitted crimes and known crimes of
international scope. The Political Cooperative will put a new, temporary
government in place that is comprised of people from Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch and all the organizations that have
finally made us aware of the truth of the savage practices and illegal
policies of our government in assassinating our own officials as well as
people throughout the world who oppose their criminal activity. We need
all of you to save U.S. victims and global victims from their ongoing
criminal activity. We are calling on the military, police, citizens and
religious organizations to stand with us and help us to bring democracy
back to the United States and by doing so, free the world from the
wrath, occupation, theft, torture, blackmail and assassination by the
Criminals in the United States Government. What they have done all over
the world is much worse than what Saddam Hussein has done, so why are
they not in jail too? They have admitted to international and national
crimes, so why have they not been taken to Court too?
You've got to take Mr. Bogannio
seriously. He's got capital letters and he's not afraid to use them!
But don't you dare question his patriotism!
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Real or Memorex?
When I first came across the
above bit of Weather Underground Redux, I thought it was a parody site along
the lines of
Blame Bush.
The New America will also be a nation of
compassion, not greed. Every able-bodied American will be guaranteed
their inalienable right to work, and will be required to exercise that
right to provide for those who choose not to. In our New America, greedy
oil companies will no longer be able to gouge The People at the pump,
for gasoline taxes will be raised to $17 a gallon to discourage The
People from driving altogether. The capitalist exploitation of labor
will be abolished, and corporations will face severe penalties should
they make any more profits off the backs of the working poor. Or if they
make any profits at all, for that matter.
Our New America, damn you, will be a nation of
love, not hate. Men, womyn, transgendered, polygendered, and nongendered
alike will be encouraged to explore their sexuality safe from the
disapproving glares of organized religion, and will be free to enjoy a
life of marital bliss with small rodents, various forms of poultry, and
a wide variety of popular houseplants. Racial bigotry of any kind will
not be tolerated, and everyone will be treated equally just as soon as
the White Devil has paid his debt for the suffering he’s inflicted on
people of color for centuries.
Trouble is, Liberal Larry is so
much more convincing.
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Friday
17 March 2006
Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day from
Ephemeral Isle.
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Big
Cats
Wild boar and now
really big
pussycats; is this the British Isles or the world’s largest safari park?
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St.
Patrick’s Day Extra
A reader has sent in
a link to what must be the ultimate
St. Patrick’s Day accessory: A pill that turns your poo green.
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It’s
Not Just for Neocons
There’s been much talk about how the case
for the war in Iraq is unravelling because a handful of conservatives have
jumped ship. If
this
comment from the Groaniad is anything to go by, they
may have just been making room for leftists climbing onboard.
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Think
of Them More As Guidelines

There’s
consternation in
some quarters that the US Army’s new SWORD combat robot being deployed to
Iraq violates Asimov’s First Law of
Robotics. Would someone please pick up the clue phone and remind these
people that the Three Laws of Robotics are
fictional?
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Robo-carp
Meanwhile, scientists
in Japan have perfected the world’s first
robot carp.
See it in action with
this live, interactive exhibit!
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Google
Mars
Planning a trip to Mars?
Let Google help with its new
mapping service for the Red Planet.
Not
Wasting
His
Life Department
A
high-school student in Salem, Virginia has learned to
recite pi
to 8784 places.
This kid really needs to get laid.
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We’re hoping!
To put this sort of loathsome wishful thinking in
perspective,
Tim Blair
shows that predictions of civil war in Iraq are not exactly a novelty.
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Own a
Bit of Hal
Yes, you to can own a bit of the most
famous homicidal paranoiac
mainframe computer in history. Well, a bit of it, anyway. Sort of.
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20 March 2006
When Office Meetings Go Wrong

Some people felt that Neville had a
slight ego problem.
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I Wish I Knew How to Quit EU
For those of you who get the
allusion in the title, you have a good idea of what the EU is doing to us.
In fact, it's a wonder that any of us can still sit down at this point.
In the latest developments in the road show of the odd and insidious, we
learn that
Church
Organs in Britain may become a thing of the past, thanks to EU
regulations that limit the amount of lead allowed in electrical equipment.
Apparently, having an electric
blower makes a church organ "electrical equipment." By that
logic, a submarine is an airfield because it has a radar set.
Well, at least the voters in France
and Denmark have put paid to the EU constitution, right? None of that
lumbering horror of a document is going to come back and haunt us, right?
Wrong.
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Tuesday
21 March 2006
Where Have All the Protests Gone?
It's been a remarkable week.
First we had the
stealth
civil war in Iraq, then we had the
stealth anti-war protests, and now we have the stealth
coup. It seems that the overthrow of the United States
government that was planned for yesterday came off as less than an
unalloyed success.
At last report, none of the
three major branches of the federal government have fallen before the
onslaught of Darrow Bogganio's forces of progressive righteousness and
continue to function without incident. When the White House Press
Secretary was asked about the attempted insurrection, he could not stop
snickering for a full five minutes.
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With Friends Like These...
Deroy Murdock explores why it is that left-wing anti-war groups seem to
take little interest when the people and groups they supposedly support are
attacked and murdered by the Islamofascists.
It seems that generals aren't the only ones who believe
in employing cannon fodder.
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Grim Milestone Department
Meanwhile, another
Grim Milestone™ was
passed in Iraq where the total American military deaths has passed the
number of American casualties in the worst months of the Vietnam War.
Next on the Grim Milestone™ list,
when the casualties equal the square root of 6,411,024.
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Role of a Lifetime
And
Susan Sarandon is set to take on the part that she was born to play:
Cindy Sheehan.
Thousands of satirists are
organising a march against Ms. Sarandon as they accuse her of taking the
bread out of their mouths.
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Last Dictator's Days Numbered?
The elections in
Belarus
have been condemned as a fraud even by Jimmy Carter-- not surprising when a
hated dictator comes in with 82 percent of the vote.
The only question now is whether
the revolution will be named after a colour or a tree.
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Why Wait?
In a remarkable piece
of hypocrisy and chutzpah, the Blair government has decided to
move Britain into the Continental time zone in an "experiment" that has
"irreversible" written all over it.
Makes sense, though. Why not
be a Good European and surrender to the EU before they even tell you to cave
in? It's so much easier.
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Holy Underwear
God
and knickers: Heaven knows, when I think of one, I think of the
other.
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Cyberbugs
For years we've been thinking
that the coming race of killer cyborgs would look like Arnold Schwarzenegger,
but now we know
better.
The United States military is at this very moment creating an army of
Terminator butterflies that are poised to wrest control of the world from
man.
How they'll work the machine guns
is still not fully explained.
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Wednesday
22 March 2006
Cartoon War Spreads to
Wales
The
Church in Wales
is showing that it is standing up for the highest ideals of liberalism and
the Anglican faith by caving in like a wet paper bag over publication of the
Danish cartoons.
What’s truly so pathetic about this is that
the cartoon in question is not one of the infamous Danish twelve, but
one that was published as a comment
about them!
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Swedish Censorship Minister Resigns
On the upside, the
Swedish minister responsible for shutting down a web site that dared to
publish the cartoons has been forced to resign.
Maybe there is a glimmer of courage in
Stockholm after all.
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Not
Knowing Whether to Laugh or Cry
The attempt by the French
government to buy off the Islamofascists by handing them free jobs has
backfired as Gallic
spinelessness collides with Socialist
shiftlessness.
Maybe the they’ll eat each other.
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Belarus Rising
The people of
Belarus
continue to protest against the rigged elections that returned the current
dictator with 82 percent of the vote. The turnout isn’t large by Western
standards, but in a country that is run like a
Soviet theme park it’s a pretty good showing.
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Cure
or Delay?
Philips Research has
developed a
high-tech wood stove for Third World nations aimed at greater efficiency
and less pollution. Mind you, it still burns wood, so it doesn’t solve the
problem of deforestation that is devastating much of the undeveloped world,
just slows it down a tad.
This is one of those examples
where the West weaning itself off fossil fuels would be an excellent thing,
but in a way that would make the eco-freaks’ brains explode. Want to really
help the Third World? Quick? Then shift the industrialised
world to a nuclear-powered economy and leave most of the fossil fuels behind
so the rest of the world can catch up. That's a damn sight better than
helping them to stay in the 12th century.
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This
is just cool!
Israel has
developed a bullet
with a wireless video camera inside it. It’s a big bullet, mind, but
it’s still like something off of Q’s workbench.
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Is
Lego racist?
According
to the UN it is. Remember, that’s the UN that just reformed its
Human Rights Commission by changing the name and letting the likes of
Zimbabwe stay on the rolls.
Genocide in Dafur? Who cares?
We've got Danish toy makers to go after in retaliation for cartoons they had
nothing to do with!
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Charles: The Dhimmi Prince
Any
hope that
Prince
Charles will be Defender of the Faith was quashed the other day during
his visit to a Cairo mosque where instead of standing up for freedom of
speech he condemned it:
The recent ghastly
strife and anger over the Danish cartoons shows the danger that comes of
our failure to listen and to respect what is precious and sacred to
others. In my view, the true mark of a civilised society is the respect
it pays to minorities and to strangers.
Unfortunately, His Highness forgot that the
“respect” asked for by the ROP is the sort that Mafia bosses want from their
underlings and victims.
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The
Prince, Islam, and Tolerance
Over at the Times,
Ruth Gledhill looks at the Prince of Wales’ attitude and how Islamic
“tolerance” actually works in practice. According to Scottish academic,
Graham Spence, it is less Islamic tolerance is less a matter of principle
than pragmatism.
The Qur’an is not
written in chronological order. It is possible however to link the
different parts of the Qur’an to different periods of Mohammed’s life,
each characterized by a slightly different philosophy. During the early
part of his ministry in Mecca, his followers were few in number, and the
peaceful passages all come from this period. During the Medinan period,
his followers had grown in numbers, were stronger and much more
influential and this is reflected in much more adversarial attitude. The
third period, marked by the return to and conquest of Mecca gives us an
altogether different picture of Islam and an intolerance of other
religions. Surah 2.256 was thus abrogated by a later verse, composed
after Mohammed had conquered Mecca and was preparing his new Muslim
empire for Jihad against the non-Muslim world: "Slay the idolaters
wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and
prepare for them each ambush" (Surah 9.5). This "verse of the sword" not
only abrogates 2.256, but also abrogates well over a hundred earlier
verses that formerly taught peace and tolerance toward non-believers.
When you look at
Mohamed’s life in conjunction with the Qur’an and the Hadiths you can
see a pattern that is reflected in the Islamic world today. In Islamic
societies which are complete i.e. have some form of Shariah law and are
therefore closest to Mohammed’s third period, you see these aggressive
attitudes to other religions writ large. In those who are closest to the
second period, such as the Mogul rule of India, there is more tolerance,
and in those where Muslims are a minority, such as the UK and France the
philosophy of the first period applies. In places like northern Nigeria
we are seeing a transition from stage two to stage three. Some argue
that in the UK, France and Holland we are seeing a transition from stage
one to stage two.
This sort of thing isn’t
just an abstract argument either. Look at the case of
Abdul
Rahman, a former Muslim who faces the death penalty in Afghanistan
for
converting to
Christianity. Aside from the fact that every member of NATO and the
Coalition should be leaning on the Afghan government like a ton of bricks,
it is clear that part of
the war against Islamofascism involves Islam as a
whole facing the hard reality that is must leave
this sort of barbarism behind if it's going to put
some daylight between the "moderates" and the fascists.
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Muslims, Austria, and the Flag
What is astonishing
about this piece from The
Brussels Journal is not that the Muslims did this, but that the Austrian
Army allowed them to get away with it:
Last week three
Muslim conscripts of the Austrian army refused to salute the Austrian
flag because this was incompatible with their faith. The Austrian paper
Die Presse (18 March) reported that three soldiers of the Maria Theresia
barracks, where most of the 1,000 Muslim soldiers serve, refused to
salute the flag at a parade and instead turned their backs on it. The
soldiers were not disciplined. However, an imam was summoned to issue a
fatwa stating that Muslims are allowed to salute the Austrian flag.
And whose side are they supposed to be on?
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Savile Political Row
Savile
Row tailors have come out in protest against high rents and development
plans that threaten their businesses.
The demonstration may not be effective, but
it was impeccably dressed.
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Thursday
23 March 2006
A Win for Civilisation
The House of Lords
has handed down a win for those of us who don’t want to see Britain
groveling at the feet of sharia. The Lords pronounced that Shabina Begum
was not unlawfully excluded from her school when she was barred from
attending in a jibab. In fact, the Lords said that the school had bent over
backwards to accommodate Muslim sentiments and that Miss Begum had options
to attend other schools where the sort of dress she desired to wear was
allowed, so her human rights were never in jeopardy.
Of course, whether it was Miss Begum’s
desire to wear a jibab is still open to question, as the
BBC account
(I love how they filed this under “education.”)
ignores one tiny fact in the case.
At a subsequent meeting about her non-attendance, she was accompanied
not by her father (who died when she was little), nor by her mother (who
spoke no English), but by her brother, Shuweb Rahman
(who has ties to the radical Islamist group
Hizb ut-Tahrir-- ed.), and
"another young man". Both young men apparently acted "aggressively" and
were "not prepared to compromise". Shabina did not attend school for the
next two years.
She said the school
had excluded her unlawfully. The school said she had excluded herself,
and won at a High Court hearing in April 2004. Shabina's mother died a
month before the hearing. It was her brother who was her "litigation
friend" in that case (and the subsequent ones).
Why the court didn’t question whether or
not this girl was putting forward her case of her own free will or was being
used as a cats paw, I’ll never understand.
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Why We Fight
Because the
Islamofascists are trying to
get their hands on nukes,
that’s why. The trial of an Al Qaeda cell in London makes for chilling
reading as court testimony reveals their plans to buy atomic weapons from
the Russian Mafia and their attitude toward their would-be victims in
planning their attacks that reveals where their motives lie:
The prosecution
alleged that Mr Akbar also said: "The biggest nightclub in central
London, no one can put their hands up and say they are innocent - those
slags dancing around."
Clearly, they were desperate altruists
forced to act by Britain’s involvement in Bush’s insane war and nothing so
sordid as hatred of Britain.
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Christian or Crazy
Looks like there’s a
bit of
face-saving going on over the Khyber Pass. Now that the United States,
Britain, Germany, and Italy have brought pressure to bear on Afghanistan
over the trial of Abdul Rahman, who is facing death for the heinous crime of
converting the Christianity, the prosecution has suddenly said that Rahman
is insane and unfit to stand trial.
We think he could
be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn't talk like a normal person.
We didn’t liberate Afghanistan from the
Taliban to allow this sort of barbarism to continue and the Afghans must
learn that they’re being held to a higher standard now. I’d have been
happier if this ended with the Afghan government flatly declaring that
apostasy is not a crime, but I’ll settle for fighting that battle after Mr.
Rahman’s head is out of the noose.
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Charlie Sheen: A World
of His Own
Charlie
Sheen appears to have taken up permanent residence on the planet Zog.
In a recent radio interview, the actor implies that the 9/11 attacks were a
set-up by the US government to provide an excuse to let slip the dogs of war
so that Dick Cheney could wade up to his armpits in the blood of innocents.
Among other gems, Mr. Sheen claims that the aeroplane that hit the South
Tower “didn't look any commercial jetliner I've flown on any time in my
life,” that the towers and the infamous Building 7 were destroyed by
controlled demolitions, that no airliner hit the Pentagon, and that
President Bush must have known what was happening because he carried on
reading to a group of schoolchildren at Booker Elementary School while the
Secret Service brought the car ‘round rather than bolting from the room like
a bat out of Hell.
For those of you who are living on Earth,
Popular Mechanics has an excellent article debunking the claims of the
tinfoil beanie brigade.
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Britain
Stuffs Straw
A
leaked letter has revealed that the British government is ignoring the
bleatings of Jack Straw and will table a resolution at the UN Security
Council threatening the use of force if Iran does not cease trying to get
its hands on nuclear weapons.
As
Captain
Ed points out, going to the Security Council to face down Iran is like
bringing sherbet stick to a knife fight, but it’s a start.
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Lego my Poster
<image>
The UN poster calling Lego
racist has been
quietly removed from Turtle Bay’s site, so here it is, preserved for
posterity.
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They Just Don’t Get It
Charles
Clarke, the Home Secretary believes that Britain’s criminal justice
system is inadequate to fight terrorism and his solution is to follow the
lead of (God help us!) the French.
He also indicated a
continuing view in at least part of the Government that current judicial
procedures are not suited to dealing with the terrorist threat. While he
emphasised that he was speaking in a personal capacity, the Home
Secretary said he would prefer the French inquisitorial system, which
allows investigating judges to question suspects before their lawyers
are brought in.
I would be the first one to condemn the
farce that has Britain trying to fight crazed Islamofascists plotting death
and spewing hate by dragging them through the courts with cases that take
years to prosecute-- if it’s possible to bring a case at all. What I don’t
agree with is the insistence of the government of making the whole country
pay for their willful blindness toward what we are facing. Catching a few
sprats while the mackerels are planting ricin bombs is the height of lunacy,
but changing the way crimes are tried in a way that will diminish the rights
of everyone by introducing undemocratic inquisitions is most emphatically
not the way to go.
Again, the problem here is not the intent
to face the threat of Islamofascists with stern measures, but in the
unwillingness of the Blair government to admit that we are at war and that
the men that we face are not criminals, but deadly enemies who owe
allegiance to a foreign organization and ideology. Until we stop talking
about “arresting” the terrorists, but of “capturing” them, we will always be
at a disadvantage in this war and our liberties will suffer. This is
wartime, so it is time to act the part. If a Jihadist is captured, then
treat him according to the rules of war as a “spy or saboteur” (not a POW)
and lock him up for the duration of hostilities. No crime needs to be
proven, only the status of the prisoner. In other words, if a bomb is
planted to blow a safe, then the detainee goes to the courts for civilian
trial, if the bomb is meant as a terrorist weapon, then he is banged up
without further consideration in the high security section of a POW camp
until we win the war. If a trail is warranted because he has murdered or
been involved in murdering civilians, then let it be done by a duly
appointed and monitored military tribunal operating under the code of
military justice where classified evidence too sensitive for open court can
be presented in camera and
where the defendant faces the gallows rather than the prison cell. That is
what the Americans should have done with
Zacarias Moussaoui
and that is what Britain should do.
In other words, get serious about this war.
And if
you don't like that, there's always the
C of E approach.
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Defence in a Thimble
Dr.
Laim Fox, the Shadow Defence Minister says that with defence spending at
its lowest since 1930, by the time the new Wembly Stadium is finished the
entire British Army could be seated inside, that the Royal Navy will be
smaller than the Falkland’s taskforce, and that the RAF will have fewer
attack aircraft than the RAF Museum at Hendon.
Well, I
feel secure now.
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Friday
24 March 2006
One Day in Westminster

Gordon Brown
puts his
budget into
operation.
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Rescue: Will Gratitude
Follow?
Apparently not. After a
British-led military operation
rescued
three self-righteous
pro-terrorist dupes
anti-war activists from captivity by a terrorist cell militant group,
the whiney
little titty babies peace
group to which they belong posted this spit in the eye
note of
thanks on their web site.
Our hearts are
filled with joy today as we heard that Harmeet Singh Sooden, Jim Loney
and Norman Kember have been safely
released in Baghdad. Christian Peacemaker Teams rejoices with
their families and friends at the expectation of their return to their
loved ones and community. Together we have endured uncertainty, hope,
fear, grief and now joy during the four months since they were abducted
in Baghdad.
We believe that the illegal
occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the
insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and
suffering in Iraq. The occupation
must end.
(emphasis added)
Will someone please explain to me exactly
why Coalition forces risked their lives to rescue this load of ungrateful
Jihadist fellow-travellers dedicated peace advocates?
Because it was their duty, that’s why.
More on this at
Michelle Malkin.
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Rescue Update
It
appears now that the American hostage Tom Fox was not tortured and executed,
but rather was the tragic victim of a terrorist cell on the ropes:
Instead
three bullet wounds were found in his arm and three in his chest. The
bruising thought to be signs of torture was instead seen as evidence of
a struggle.
Investigators concluded the kidnappers had not killed him simply because
he was American. He had been killed possibly while trying to escape -
which would explain the lack of a video of his murder that would usually
accompanies a politically-motivated killing.
The
kidnappers appeared to have lost control of the situation, and their
unintended act had led to new leads. By last weekend hopes of a possible
rescue were increasing.
Later reports show that the
rescue operation of the Christian Peacemaker
hostages was fronted by the SAS and included American and Canadian special
forces. What is really going to put the cat among the pigeons is that
the rescue was made possible after a prisoner cracked under interrogation.
Given that "interrogation" to some on the Left equals "torture," perhaps the
terrorists should claim a "do-over."
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Twit
The
BBC has put up another
Eurabian
whitewash on their site. In an expose that hits with all the force of a
marshmallow hammer, Roger Hardy concludes that Euromuslim youths pose no
threat because they like to party—and he says so in very, very short
paragraphs
My European journey
took me from Leeds and Paris to Amsterdam and finally Milan.
There are many ways
of being a young Muslim in the new Europe.
Many embrace a
vibrant youth culture, while Islam - if it matters at all - is simply a
badge of identity.
Others are finding
a new identity based on an Islam very different from that of their
parents.
The idea that
integration is not taking place at all - and that Islam just will not
fit into European society - seems to me a myth.
That thwacking sound is my forehead
pounding on the desk. Of course they have a “vibrant youth culture” and
Islam is a “badge of identity” (though not “simply”) that is “very
different from that of their parents.” That’s the point of the problem, not
a reason for complacency. They embrace Western culture, but only the most
decadent bits, which both attracts and repels them as it feeds an
inferiority complex instilled by radical Islam and makes them despise their
host country even more. Look at the example of the Islamofascists on trial
in Britain who had very definite ideas about the sort of women who go to
London nightclubs—ideas that were not due to
a priori reasoning. Indeed,
Mark Steyn pointed this out in one of his columns on the recent French
Intafada:
As to the "French"
"youth", a reader in Antibes cautions me against characterising the
disaffected as "Islamist". "Look at the pictures of the youths," he
advises. "They look like LA gangsters, not beturbaned prophet-monkeys."
But that's the
point. The first country formally to embrace "multiculturalism" - to the
extent of giving it a cabinet post - was Canada, where it was sold as a
form of benign cultural cross-pollination: the best of all worlds. But
just as often it gives us the worst of all worlds. More than three years
ago, I wrote about the "tournante" or "take your turn" - the gang rape
that's become an adolescent rite of passage in the Muslim quarters of
French cities - and similar phenomena throughout the West:
"Multiculturalism means that the worst attributes of Muslim culture -
the subjugation of women - combine with the worst attributes of Western
culture - licence and self-gratification. Tattooed, pierced Pakistani
skinhead gangs swaggering down the streets of northern England areas are
as much a product of multiculturalism as the turban-wearing Sikh Mountie
in the vice-regal escort." Islamofascism itself is what it says: a
fusion of Islamic identity with old-school European totalitarianism.
But, whether in turbans or gangsta threads, just as Communism was in its
day, so Islam is today's ideology of choice for the world's disaffected.
During the Cold War, I knew many a
Trotskyite who had a taste for Savile Row suits and Scotch whiskey. It
didn’t mean that they didn’t want to bury us.
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Stability is the Dry
Rot of History
Speaking of
Mark Steyn, the man himself has a new column in which he asserts that
stability is the last thing that anyone should want in the Middle East.
In 2002, Amr Moussa,
Secretary-General of the Arab League, warned that a US invasion of Iraq
would "threaten the whole stability of the Middle East." Of course.
Otherwise, why do it?
Read the whole thing, as the kids say.
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Revenge of South Park
I
have learned one very important lesson last night: Never, never cross Trey
Parker and Matt Stone. In the
new season
premiere of South Park,
Parker and Stone handled the recent
“quitting”
of Isaac Hayes by having his character of Chef “return” using very, very
obviously spliced dialogue by Hayes to put together an episode that saw Chef
brainwashed, accused of being a child molester, struck by lightning, burned,
dropped down a cliff, impaled on a tree branch, shot several times, mauled
by a lion, having his face torn off and disemboweled by a bear, and then
reincarnated as a Darth Vader version of himself—all due to the machination
of a “fruity little club” that looks suspiciously like a Scientology parody.
Do NOT get on the wrong side of these guys.
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A True Example of a
Mistake
Andrew
McCarthy has a very timely piece about the trial in Afghanistan of Abdul
Rahman, who a faces death for converting from Islam to Christianity. It not
only points up the gulf that exists between Islam and Western liberalism, it
also shows the folly of sacrificing our principles in favour of short-term
realpolitik goals. True, it is often necessary to compromise in order to
reach one’s goals and even Churchill once said that if Hitler invaded Hell
he’d sign a pact with the Devil, but compromise is a very long way from
abandonment, which is what happened in Afghanistan over the role of sharia
in running that country in the post-Taliban age.
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Clive of India’s
Tortoise Dies
A
tortoise
that once belonged to
Clive of India died in an Indian zoo at the age of 255. Death was due
to natural causes and not, as first rumoured, due to trying to blow out the
candles on his birthday cake.
Amazingly, I didn’t even know that the late
Baron of Plassey even had a tortoise, but one lives and learns.
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“Moderate” Is Another
Word For Kufir
Moderate Muslims who are
keeping silent either out of fear of the Islamofascists or hope of jumping
to the winning side at the last minute are going to be in for a rude
awakening if they don’t make up their minds soon. As
this story out of Denmark shows, their fanatical co-religionists don’t
make much of any distinction between a “moderate” and an infidel when it
comes to death threats.
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Monday
27 March 2006
Wooden-Headed Nickels
Seattle
has done what no leftist city has ever managed to do. It caused my
wife, a life-long Truman Democrat, to declare that we are leaving Seattle
never to return. (What about the monorail!?!) Just a second, Honey.
I'll get there.
What has caused this sudden change?
Call it the 100% recycled, macrobiotic, fair-trade, organic, co-op vended
straw that broke the free-range camel's back. And that is the decision
by Mayor Greg Nickels to sacrifice Seattle at the altar of Gaia to atone for
man's environmental sins.
The Honourable Mr. Nickels is convinced that global
warming is not a controversial scientific hypothesis with heavy political
stakes, but rather a "planetary emergency" that requires his personal
attention. With suitable modesty, he has spent the last year putting
aside boring little
local-government
distractions like fixing pot holes and making sure the litter is picked up
in favour of doing what the people really elected
him to do: Jaunting around the country
collecting signatures from 219 United States mayors agreeing to his
mini-Kyoto treaty to decrease greenhouse gases-- an effort that has garnered
praise from former vice-president Al Gore.
In any other place, an
endorsement from Al Gore would have been regarded as the kiss of death.
Just ask Howard Dean. Never mind Mr. Gore's odd statements that
sometimes throw the question of his
sanity into
the hazard, I can't think of many people who'd want a green endorsement from
a man who tends to make major speeches about the incontrovertible nature of
global warming
on
the coldest day of the year. In Seattle, on the other hand, the
imprimatur of Gore is controversial only if it isn't shouted with sufficient
volume from the rooftops.
At first glance, Mr. Nickels' being able to
get 219 mayors onboard with him looks like a major achievement. That
is, until you read what they
actually signed on to and it turns out to be a non-binding agreement
that calls for the federal government to do most of the heavy lifting and
for the mayors to endorse a list of boilerplate green policies that are
easily promised and easily forgotten.
Mr. Nickels, on the other hand, seems to be
taking reducing greenhouse emissions more seriously. "Seems," of
course, being the operative word. This plan, remember, comes from a
man who boasts about how Seattle has managed to reduce its greenhouse gases
from power generation to
almost zero while neglecting to mention that the city gets almost all of
its electricity from hydroelectric dams and that the biggest greenhouse gas
source is from the contractors that supply the power company with cement.
The mayor commissioned a "green ribbon"
panel (Get it? Green ribbon?) to study the situation and provide
solutions. In any logical world, such solutions would involves things
like eliminating traffic jams and encouraging people to tune up their car
engines, but that sounded too much like "city government" stuff.
Much better to harken back to the days when Lambeth Council declared the
borough a nuclear free zone and put forward a raft of grandiose schemes
meant to reform the whole of Western civilisation, so the GR committee
came up
with this sort of thing:
-
Increase public transport
-
More bike paths and pedestrian districts
-
Redesign neighbourhoods
-
Increase city vehicle fuel efficiency
-
Increase efficiency of motor vehicles in
general
-
Road tolls
-
Increase parking fees
Notice nothing
here about improving road traffic? You know, all that pollution due to
cars idling as they creep through the permanent gridlock that is Seattle
thanks to choke points that had they been in Iraq would have kept the
invasion force still queuing up in Kuwait? No? I didn't think
so. The fact is that the city of Seattle can't even deal with
replacing a major viaduct that they've known to be an imminent hazard to
life and property since the last major earthquake in 2001. When
it comes to things like building new bridges across Lake Washington or
widening motorways the most they can do is a weak fluttering of the fingers.
As for public
transport, do NOT ask my wife about that if you don't want to be drenched in
enraged spittle. The city has had a record of managing public
transport that would do credit to a Chinese fire drill run by a more than
usually corrupt golf club secretary. Seattle's answer to bus
transportation was a multi-million dollar tunnel system under the city
centre that no one ever used; their answer to a need for rail transportation
was a light-rail system that costs so much per mile that the rails must be
made of platinum; and their answer to a monorail project that was voted in
by popular referendum and hated by the city council was, with Nickels'
leadership, to drag their feet every step of the way, impose confiscatory
car licence fees to finance it, put the project back for a referendum vote
four more times, run up a debt in the tens of millions, and generally
sabotage the project to the point where the end was a mercy killing.
(Nickels--
Ya know, I think reducing greenhouse gases and getting people out of their
cars to reduce pollution are laudable goals and I do my best to make sure my
family does it's best to contribute toward these goals, but how dare you
issue an "Action Plan" to reduce global warming pollution that includes an
objective of reducing the city's dependence on cars by significantly
increasing public transportation mere months after you and your office
worked to undermine an actual, reachable, viable public transportation
project, the Monorail. What can you be thinking?! Listen, you
little...)
Yes, thank
you, Honey.
Where was I? Oh, yes.
Bicycle paths? After a decade,
the flagship bike path, the Burke-Gilman trail is still uncompleted.
And as for bicycles being a general solution, I have only to point to a
topographical map of Seattle to put paid to that.
Redesigning neighbourhoods? Go talk to London. The whole city
burned down in 1666 and they couldn't shift the streets an inch. And
if you think that four and a half centuries have changed things, I would
recommend that you visit Seattle City Hall, dust off the plans for
Seattle
Commons, and learn why Seattle is called the Place Where Urban Planning
Goes to Die.
As for improving motor vehicle efficiency, aside from acting as if no auto
designer had ever thought of it, when did motor car engineering become the
responsibility of city government?
Now, the star prize will go to anyone who can guess which of these proposals
has any chance of being implemented?
May I have the envelope, please?
And the winner is, road tolls and increased parking fees!
So what if Seattle spent decades trying to revitalise the city centre?
Let's strangle it in the name of Saving the World.
Why Nickels couldn't just have said I want to raise taxes and not waste our
time with his environmentalist posturing, I have no idea. But I'm sure
that he'll be heartened to learn that Chez Szondy is doing its part to
decrease its share of greenhouse gas emissions inside the ecotopian
precincts of Seattle.
We're moving.
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Tuesday
28 March 2006
Sauce For the Gander
Abdul
Rahman seems to have escaped the hangman thanks to a legal technicality,
but he's not out of the woods yet. The local "moderate" imams in a
remarkable display of tolerance have called for Mr. Rahman to be torn
limb from limb. Not surprisingly, Mr. Rahman is planning a trip for
his health-- preferably to any country that will give him
asylum.
Mark
Steyn has a nice little history lesson for the Western powers on how
this sort of thing should be handled in future:
In a more culturally confident age, the
British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" -- the tradition
of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir
Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:
''You say that it is your custom to burn
widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we
tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre;
beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom.
And then we will follow ours."
Absolutely.
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Problem? What Problem?
One of
Steyn's favourite subjects is the demographic doom that Europe is facing.
According to statistics, Europe is facing the dubious choice between having
whole nations dying out by the end of the century or having the native
population replaced by Muslim immigrants who are acting more like colonists
these days. The BBC, with its usual razor-sharp nose for news,
has finally decided to look into the matter with three articles discussing
the population implosion in the
EU,
Italy, and
Norway.
The Beeb's conclusion? That
the population is declining, but it isn't a real problem-- at least, nothing
that a bigger welfare state wouldn't cure. In fact, let's just forget
the crisis and talk about who has the best childcare policies.
Oh, and the word "Muslim" was
scarcely to be seen, so immigration is clearly not a factor to be
considered.
Just goes to show that not only is
it possible to ignore a problem, but that if you try really, really hard you
can actually make the very policies that caused the problem to look like the
solution.
Want to really help people to have
more children? How about cutting taxes, cutting entitlements, giving
families massive tax incentives, supporting traditional families,
discouraging abortion and contraceptive use by married couples, make it
clear that only UNWED births are being discouraged by family planning
policies, and putting a stop to making every stay at home mother feel
guilty.
Naw.
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ID Update
What the hurry with
the governments efforts to introduce ID cards?
Henry Porter in the Groaniad explains.
permalink
Thunderbird 6
Not quite, but this
flying hotel is most definitely where I want to spend my next holiday.
So long as I don't have to set foot in that lounge with the transparent
floors.
Acrophobia is go!
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Dolphin Days
And while I'm on holiday, I most
definitely want one of these
for beach day.
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Now Pay Attention, 007
Lethal
credit cards and killer pens. It looks as though Q has gone
private.
permalink
Wednesday
29 March 2006
Death Ray Update

The
Pentagon's
Airborne laser project,
which weds a giant gas-powered laser cannon with a 747 has escaped the
threat of cancellation as is on track for its first missile interception
test in 2008.
This means that Blofeld can start dusting
off those hijacking plans again.
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A Dream Deflated

In the win some, lose some
department, Darpa has cancelled its Walrus programme to build a
giant blimp
the size of an aircraft carrier.
Now where is Blofeld going to mount
that laser cannon after he steals it?
permalink
SCRAM!
On the other hand, a
British team has successfully tested a
scramjet craft in Australia that reached a velocity of Mach 8.
Mind you, the ship was only four
feet six inches long, so there is going to be some upscaling in the future,
but from little oaks do mighty acorns grow.
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Reboot the Carrier!
The Royal Navy is
rather proud of its new Queen Elizabeth Class
aircraft carriers that
are currently being designed. Not only will they be the second largest
warships in the world after the American Nimitz class supercarriers, but
they will have reduced the crew requirements from 2000 men down to 800.
The RN plans to achieve this by
making the new carriers heavily automated. This means that one man can
do the work of ten. It also means that if you lose the reboot disk on
the eve of battle, then things could get a tad embarrassing.
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Nuclear Tallyho
The
man in charge of Britain's nuclear deterrent gets a nice profile in the
latest Sunday Herald. One interesting part of the interview is this
tidbit regarding CND types who try to break into the base, which he sees as
less of a hazard than a challenge:
“Having someone who constantly
causes you to challenge security arrangements is not a bad thing,” he says,
adding that the Royal Marines are the last line of defence in incidences of
security breaches. “They have a policy of ‘Final Denial’,” he says.
Since they banned fox-hunting in
Scotland, I suppose that hippie coursing has become an acceptable
substitute.
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Eat Your Heart Out, Kirk!
Rolls Royce has
presented HMS Illustrious with a spanking-new leather
captain's chair that is a bit
of a step up from the old carved oak and a cushion jobs:
It is based on the front seat
originally designed for the best-selling Rolls-Royce Phantom and has been
specially adapted for its sea-faring role. The chair was officially
presented by Rolls-Royce chairman, Ian Robertson, and a group of Rolls-Royce
staff to Captain Bob Cooling and his crew in Portsmouth yesterday, as part
of the ship’s refurbishment. The interlinked Rolls-Royce monogram is
embroidered on both sides of the headrest and specially modified arm-rests
have been fitted. The seat has been engineered to allow a full range of
electrical adjustment to ensure optimum comfort at all times. A wood
veneered table features in the rear of the chair and a plaque has also been
fitted to mark the occasion.
But does it have cupholders?
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The Future of Seattle
Is
this what is in
store for Seattle if Mayor Nickels' tax hikes
global warming initiatives go into effect?
Very probably.
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Hellbound Train
Now that he's fitted Seattle with
a hair shirt, Mayor Nickels is taking the first step in his bold,
planet-saving mission by improving
public transport. Well, that's "improvement" as in killing the
monorail project and ignoring the bus system in favour of a lakeside tram
that goes not much of anywhere.
Great thinking, you Honour.
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God Save the Theme!
BBC 4 listeners are
not taking the effort to ban the British
theme that started the broadcast day for 33 years. In fact, they
are striking back at the controller in rather a novel way:
As a topless Routemaster bus
repeatedly circled his office at Broadcasting House yesterday, the
threatened medley of tunes was blasted from the top deck.
Not that, but the theme has been
released in the shops and is on its way to becoming a top ten hit.
Irony. You can't beat it.
permalink
Another Nail
It seems that it
doesn't matter whether or not Parliament forces ID cards on us.
If Westminster doesn't do it openly, then the
EU will do it by stealth
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And Another
From the
Anchoress comes news of this sickening bit of PC soft-headeness:
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me…” Has been changed to reflect both the
freedom that comes with salvation - which is very nice - and also the decree
from some publishing house on high that we never, ever sing a lyric that
might suggest a negative. “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved
and set me free…”
Even the hymns aren't safe any
longer.
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Amazing Requim
Amazing
Stories, the world's first science fiction magazine, has ceased
publication after eighty years.
Let us doff our space helmets for a
moment's silence.
permalink
Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006)
Stanislaw
Lem, author of such science fiction classics as Solaris and The Cyberiad,
has died at the age of 84.
The bookshops will seem a little
poorer now.
permalink
The Art of Coffee
Don't try to understand,
just
enjoy.
permalink
Home, Sweet Home
At last, I have
found the home I have
always dreamed of.
Three guesses where my study is
going to be. Sharks mandatory; White cat optional.
permalink
Quick, Robin!
And, of course, something from
these people would be
installed.
I like the clock best.
permalink
Thursday
30 March 2006
Democracy at Work

From
the
Seattle PI.
Polls don't lie.
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Great Musical Moments

Many historians suspect that the
defeat of the Japanese Imperial Army was due to its obsession with brass
band supremacy.
permalink
Spring Scene

Mrs. Donohue took no chances when
it came to UV protection.
permalink
That's Show Biz!
Just thinking about
this story
makes my eyes water.
permalink
His Mistress's Voice
II don't know if
this study has any validity, but I'm using it the first chance I get.
It's my story and I'm sticking to it.
permalink
Thursday
30 March 2006
Evil in Seattle
Seattle
has been in the news again and not in a good way. If you've been
following the major news services you've no doubt heard about the grisly
murder spree last week that left six people dead-- seven, if you count the
murderer, who blew his own head off with a shotgun.
I haven't been writing much about it until
now because I don't usually take an interest in murder cases where the only
interesting factor is the body count and mainly because
I’ve been waiting for the
facts to filter through the typical low standard of local reporting that
turns a quote from the police saying that the killings were “almost
execution style” into “executions.”
The killings were a grisly affair.
There's no getting around that fact. Nor that the circumstances were
as bizarre as they were tragic. They revolved around a load of
teenagers and twentysomethings in the Capitol Hill district of Seattle who
had been attending a rave billed as "Better Off Undead," where the attendees
were encouraged to come dressed as corpses and zombies. Afterwards, a
large group kept the party going at a private house on East Republican
Street.
One of the partygoers was Kyle, Aaron Huff,
28, who was described as "quiet." At seven AM, Mr. Huff went out to
his pickup truck, collected a handgun, a Bushmaster assault rifle, and a
pistol grip shotgun. On his way back to the party, he spray painted
the word "Now" three times on the pavement and then proceeded to make his
way through the house, methodically shooting at anyone he encountered while
declaring "They're's plenty for everyone." When the police showed up,
Mr. Huff turned his shotgun on himself.
This is one of those episodes where two
very strange aspects of modern life collide and leave behind a great deal of
tragedy and not much in the way of explanation.
On the one hand, we have the
anonymity that cities afford,
which allows solitary wickedness to fester and grow. Jack the Ripper would
never have even begun his career if he’d lived in a small village, but in a
place like Seattle one can be surrounded by thousands of people, yet be
cloaked in rock-solid invisibility. On the other hand, we have the
emptiness of people who so lack a spiritual mooring that they define their
lives around dance music and a “scene;" an emptiness that evokes the
sound of a stone dropped in a well and makes it impossible to tell the
difference between a fellow lost soul and a murderous predator. Added
to this was the fact that two of the victims were two girls age 14 and 15,
who shouldn't have been in that house in the first place.
What is frustrating about this case is that
there are so many questions, but there will never be any solid answers.
Perhaps Huff was insane. Perhaps he was in command of all his
faculties. Frankly, I'm more inclined to believe the latter.
Evil is a very hard thing for anyone to look square in the face.
The tendency is to seek an
answer in pathology rather than in calculated wickedness. There
is something reassuring about the idea that acts of cruelty and murder are
impossible in a healthy reasoning individual. Better to look for a
diseased mind than a diseased philosophy.
The other thing about this killing is that
it plays to the impulse of people to Do Something. When something this
awful happens the last thing that people want to hear is that the only thing
that can reasonably done is to pray, bury the dead, console the grieving,
and move on. There has to be someone to blame, but the only one to
blame is dead. So, some scapegoat has to be found-- usually one
against which someone already has a grudge. Raves need to be cracked
down on. Guns need to be banned. Teenagers need to be barred
from dances. Something need to be done about policing, drugs,
overweight men with goatees; anything. Somebody must Do Something.
And that somebody is most often the
government. But sometimes the government is as powerless at the end of
the day as the Man in the Moon. Sometimes the best answer is that
there are situations where the
government can and should do nothing; that the burden must be carried by
churches, parents, and individuals.
Even with the
best intentions, government may try to help, but only end up making things
worse. Take the example of the shootings in Dunblane, Scotland ten
years ago. In that case, another quiet man walked into a primary
school and gunned down fifteen young children and their teacher and then
killed himself. There was a public outcry for the government to Do
Something, which they did. They passed a raft of legislation that
nearly banned every firearm in Great Britain that wasn't in the hands of the
IRA. This effectively disarmed the public over a decade when violent
crime skyrocketed and the police became less interested in stopping
criminals than in organising sensitivity training seminars.
The end result was that the
public became easy prey to criminals secure in the knowledge that they could
rob and assault their victims with impunity.
But it
did nothing to ensure that such an atrocity would ever happen again.
Now, I am not saying that the
proper response to such evil is to meet it with folded hands.
Far from it. There are ways to combat such wickedness beforehand, but
the answer does not lie in government programmes, bans, and profilings.
It lies in each of us reaching out to our brothers and sisters and in each
of us finding something more substantial to feed the soul than pop music and
shoddy fashion.
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