Mr Eugenides

A question to the hard Left...

2009-11-21T17:30:00.001Z

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has defended jailed killer "Carlos the Jackal" and several world leaders he says are wrongly considered "bad guys".

In a speech to international socialist politicians, Mr Chavez said "Carlos", a Venezuelan, was not a terrorist but a key "revolutionary fighter". He is serving a life sentence in France for murders committed in 1975.

Mr Chavez also hailed Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. [BBC]

...d'you ever wonder about the company you keep?

Photo of the day - EU edition

2009-11-20T13:32:00.004Z

Apologies if you've just had a heavy lunch.

Climate change alarmism: a smoking gun? (UPDATED)

2009-11-20T07:27:00.008Z

If this story is true, it is big:

The University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Centre appears to have suffered a security breach earlier today, when an unknown hacker apparently downloaded 1079 e-mails and 72 documents of various types and published them to an anonymous FTP server. These files appear to contain highly sensitive information that, if genuine, could prove extremely embarrassing to the authors of the e-mails involved. Those authors include some of the most celebrated names among proponents of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

The emails purport to prove that climate change scientists have been hopelessly politicised, just as their critics allege: twisting or tweaking data to "fit the facts round the policy", shaping the message being sent out to news organisations (which routinely reprint such press releases as fact), and evading FOI requests from sceptics to release raw climate data, which the Hadley Centre (which is at the forefront of warmenist propagandising) has been doing for some time now.

From the point of view of climate sceptics, it's all too good to be true: proof of the "conspiracy" which excitable types like DK are fond of talking about. And, if it's all too good to be true, it probably is. Like Tim Blair (who has further links), I'd urge caution. There must be a significant chance that this is a hoax of some sort - the words "Hitler Diaries" have been bandied about a lot overnight - but, if so, it seems a very elaborate one: there are, apparently, more than 60MB of emails and other documents in the file, which is being spread around the web as we speak.

If it is not a hoax, on the other hand, and this correspondence is genuine, there will be some very embarrassed scientists out there today, and a lot of people with questions to answer; and the alarmist/hysteric wing of the climate change "debate" is about to take another big hit, if the MSM bother to report it.

UPDATE: The emails appear to be genuine (story in PDF).

UPDATE 2: The BBC is now running a piece ~~of powder-puff churnalism~~ confirming the breach in security, though of course not mentioning the potentially explosive nature of the correspondence. It's very much "move along, nothing to see here", naturally.

No way of knowing if all the emails are genuine, of course - but at this stage there is no evidence whatever to suggest that they are anything but.

Heather Brooke is Reformer of the Year

2009-11-20T07:10:00.000Z

I'm pleased to be able to pass on the news that the think-tank Reform have named Heather Brooke as their Reformer Of The Year for 2009, after she gained a Mugabe-esque 90% of the public vote.

Thankfully, with Parliament now embarking on the task of cleaning itself up, Heather is no longer needed; our MPs will take it from here, thanks very much.

What's that? Oh.

David Curry, the MP who heads the committee responsible for policing Commons expenses, has claimed almost £30,000 for a second home that his wife has banned him from staying in.

After learning of the Telegraph investigation, David Curry resigned as chairman of the Parliamentary Standards and Privileges Committee and now faces a formal inquiry into his claims.

The Conservative MP is accused of having an affair with a headmistress in his Yorkshire constituency and using a taxpayer-funded cottage to meet his lover.

I'm so glad we've been subsidising Mr Curry's knob-polishing, aren't you, reader? Yes, I think that Sir Thomas Page showed great wisdom when designing Westminster Bridge...

Factoids of the day

2009-11-19T09:15:00.002Z

Unsurprising:

Sales of extra-large condoms in Tesco are higher in Glasgow than anywhere else in Britain.

Surprising:

22 per cent of men “regularly include a kiss on texts to their male mates.”

You what?

(h/t: Prospect, where there are several more.)

Beatrix: Potty

2009-11-18T13:49:00.009Z

There's a quite glorious piece up at - where else? - Comment is Free today, written by Bea Campbell, former communist, Morning Star hack and promoter of Satanic abuse 'scandals', announcing her formal conversion to the Green Party, for whom she will contest a seat at the election.

Ms Campbell, a radical Marxist-feminist-gay-green activist and newly minted holder of the Order of the British Empire - you can read her tortuous apologia for accepting the "imperialist" award here - apparently thinks that her long personal journey from Marxist fellow-traveller (complete with state-subsidised propaganda holidays in Honecker's East Germany) to membership of the environmental movement will baffle the rest of us, when in fact it will come as little surprise to anyone who's been paying even scant attention.

But clearly some sort of explanation is called for, and as I said, boy, it's a doozy. There are far too many highlights to fisk the whole thing, so let's select a small handful:

Joining the Green party was a quiet, private moment.

This, to reiterate, is the opening line of a 700-word article for a national newspaper.

It was unusual for quite a loud politico like me, habituated to citizenship as a way of intervening, a mission to make a difference. It was a rather innocent gesture. Signing up. Some meetings maybe, some leafleting, some learning – as a non-geek,

- translation: I don’t understand any of this shit -

Green stuff carried the allure of rocket science and the promise of new enlightenment.

“The allure of rocket science”? I’m pretty sure we don’t Freud to decode that... how’s lesbianism working out for you, anyway?

I'd voted Green, probably in the way that many activists of my generation, who'd felt so busy and alert in the last quarter of the 20th century, had voted Liberal Democrat, Green, Respect sometimes, always to dissent from New Labour's combination of abject and authoritarian populism.

That’s correct, reader: Bea voted Green to dissent from authoritarianism.

My friends and family are typically left of centre

There’s a fucking shock.

[...] some vote Labour because they hate the Tories, some don't vote because they don't see the point, most sign up to something.

Gee, that’s some real shock troops of the revolution you’ve got gathered there, Lady GaGa. As long as you sign up to something, eh? Fight the power!

The communist states of the 20th century did for socialism. I was a dynastic communist –

- translation: I was a communist because my parents told me to be -

my parents were British Bolsheviks

Bingo.

[...] they were good citizens, and became better when Khrushchev gave permission to criticise Stalinism.

"Gave permission to criticise" says it all, really.

I remained a communist until 1989, when it was all over.

As a commenter below the piece notes, that's like saying you were a Nazi right up until the Russians stormed Berlin.

I was part of the anti-Stalinist, Euro-communist wing. We were clever, caused trouble, caught the imagination, but we lost. Or maybe we failed.

In order; no you weren’t, no you didn’t, don’t be ridiculous, and thank fuck.

But hold on, maybe I am being unkind. Because next comes a paragraph of such perfect construction that it is perhaps the most exquisitely unintelligible thing I've read this year:

But it was feminism that clarified the unsustainability of state communism. Macho, manic productionism relies on force, it valorises conquest of nature and other humans. It marginalises the means of reproduction – how societies sustain themselves, breathe, give birth, grow and rest, clean up; how people take care, give pleasure and co-operate. [...] Green ideology represents the reconciliation of production and reproduction – that is what yields sustainability.

If you understood even a word of that, you're a better man than I. Needless to say, the comments are an absolute joy.

Corporate branding

2009-11-18T11:50:00.005Z

An idea from America which might usefully be brought across the pond:

I’d like to see Americans get together and make sure that every state in the union has a referendum by 2012 that forces federal politicians to display their sponsorships. [...] The corporation or lobbyist or PAC that contributes the most to a politician is forced to put the biggest logo on the politician’s uniform. The smaller the contribution, the smaller the logo.

The politicians will be forced to wear the new uniforms whenever they’re are acting in an official capacity. So, they’d wear the uniforms on the floor of the Senate, House and inside the West Wing. They’d wear the uniform when appearing on television, on the campaign trail, at fund raising events and even state visits.

I want to see all the Senators who rail against health care reform do so with insurance company logos all over their expensive suits. I want to see the damned-near-monocled politicians who make the decisions about banking regulations do so with Goldman Sachs embroidered across their backs. And i damned sure want to see the names of the defense contractors on the wardrobes of all the soft-handed sons-of-bitches who send good men off to die without a damned good reason.

Dress them all up like the clowns that they’ve proven themselves — over and over — to be.

Of course, it would need a bit of tweaking to work here, but the idea of displaying donors' logos on their outfits is a compelling one, isn't it?

What would you make our MPs wear, reader?

"Break dance is something special. It is really a promotion of a healthy lifestyle."

2009-11-18T10:06:00.003Z

I am grateful to a friend from Moscow for passing along this priceless clip from a TV talent contest on Russian TV. Even if you are not swayed by his sage words of advice for the gathered yoof, the sight of Vladimir Putin nodding along to Russian rap in a turtleneck is, I humbly suggest, one that will not soon leave your fevered memory.

Full story here. Do I really need to add that I would give everything I own to see Gordo perform a similar feat on X-Factor...?

A code of conduct for blogs, redux

2009-11-17T14:12:00.003Z

Here's an article at Liberal Conspiracy that I can wholeheartedly endorse: a response to the new head of the Press Complaints Commission, Baroness Buscombe, who has suggested that blogs should in future come under the remit of the PCC.

[...] we would suggest that before your even consider turning your attention to our activities, you should direct your energies towards putting your own house in proper order. Should you succeed in raising the ethical standards and practices of the majority of the national press, particularly the tabloids, to our level then we may be inclined to reconsider our position. Until that happens, any attempt by the Press Complaints Commission to regulate the activities of bloggers will be strenuously resisted at every possible turn.

Needless to say my own reply would have contained a few more four-letter words, but Unity's is more than adequate. Fellow bloggers who share his (and my) disdain for the PCC are invited to add their names to the letter.

Straws in the wind

2009-11-17T08:45:00.001Z

"New resources will be necessary for the financing of the welfare state. Green tax instruments are a possibility, but they are ambiguous: This type of tax will eventually be extinguished.

But the possibilities of financial levies at European level must be seriously examined and for the first time the large countries in the union are open to that."

- Herman Van Rompuy, front-runner for the new job of EU President, November 12th

Grab your ankles, citizen.

2009-11-17T07:57:00.000Z

Via Don Paskini, I'm delighted to see that the Daily Mail Headline Generator has received a 2009 refit. Literally minutes of fun...

Out-of-context quote of the day

2009-11-16T12:05:00.000Z

Tim Worstall:

I was outed as a sex blogger three years ago.

Of course - as with so much else - Mr Eugenides was there first.

On apologies

2009-11-16T09:32:00.007Z

Another week, another apology from politicians for a mistake or evil from the past; this time it is the policy of sending underprivileged children from this country to the colonies, where they apparently often suffered abuse or exploitation as a result.

The only unifying theme for such apologies, it seems, is that the politician proferring the contrition is never apologising for his own conduct or mistake, but those of others. As Longrider notes:

There is something deeply disturbing about this hair-shirt-wearing, self-flagellating desire to proffer sanctimonious apologies for the sins of previous generations. Grow up and grow a spine.

Indeed. However, while we are in full agreement on the fairly pointless, gesture-politics nature of these apologies - particularly when, in Brown's case at least, there are plenty of mistakes of his own that might be a more useful topic for remorse - I disagree with Longrider when he says this:

How old was Gordon Brown then? Was he in government? The answers being that he was a teenager when this finished and he was not in government. Therefore, he has no right to apologise and neither has Kevin Rudd as neither of them was involved in the offence. An apology, to mean anything at all, must be proffered by the person or people who caused the original harm. You cannot apologise by proxy.

I don't think this is entirely true. In a liberal democracy, policies enacted by the State are carried out on our behalf and in our names, however vociferously we may oppose or dispute them. Furthermore, these policies have repercussions for all of us, not just the victims of a misguided policy or for that matter the politicians who promoted it. Institutions like slavery or colonialism continue to shape our relations with some countries; events like the Amritsar massacre in colonial India, or the bombing of Hiroshima, provoke strong reactions in those countries even now, and ones which affect those peoples' view of their nominal friends and allies.

Nations and peoples have powerful collective memories, or at least they used to before Simon Cowell destroyed Western civilisation. Try visiting Croke Park with Irish friends and I guarantee it will not be long before you are treated to an impromptu history lesson. "They came in from there, and started firing over there", they will say; but it's hard to shake the feeling that, perhaps by some quirk of the Dublin accent, they actually means you. Is this fair? Of course not; but they do it, all the same.

On a trivial level, I recall being harangued in an Athens street by an elderly Greek gentleman who shouted that Lord Elgin had stripped the Parthenon of its sculptures in order to pay for the expenses of his mistress. (I was seven or eight, and somewhat nonplussed.) On a rather more serious scale, the refusal of the Japanese to acknowledge the brutality of their wartime treatment of subject peoples and foreign prisoners of war is still a huge source of friction, not only in countries like China and Korea but to veterans in this country. Would a proper apology from Japanese politicians or their Emperor, so long after the event, be "meaningless"? Surely not.

Just as the absence of remorse can be a debilitating factor in relations between countries, so its heartfelt expression can help to heal old wounds. There is perhaps no more graphic example of this from modern history than West German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling before the memorial to the dead of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1970.

Brandt wrote afterwards that, approaching the memorial, he felt that he

"had to do something to express the particularity of the commemoration at the ghetto monument. On the abyss of German history and carrying the burden of the millions who were murdered, I did what people do when words fail them."

Brandt had been an active member of a Socialist party when the Nazis came to power, and fled persecution in 1933. Unlike many Germans of his generation, then, he clearly could not be considered in any way responsible for the horrors visited on the rest of Europe by his compatriots; indeed, he had vocally opposed them at some risk to his own life. Was his famous act of contrition, therefore, "meaningless"? Again, surely not.

Modern political apologies may often be pointless or self-interested, and this latest example would certainly appear to be both, however worthy the cause. But that doesn't mean that they are so by definition. The evil that men do lives after them, and there are times when we need to acknowledge that as a nation. In the absence of the possibility of apology from those responsible for the original "crime", I would say that the office of the Prime Minister is an appropriate vehicle through which to say, this was wrong, it should not have been done, and we are sorry.

It's just a shame that the current incumbent of that debased office seems pathologically incapable of acknowledging the myriad mistakes for which he himself is responsible. I wonder if he ever will.

Quote of the week

2009-11-16T06:02:00.007Z

From Clive James' weekly "A Point of View" programme (which you can read here, or listen to here, should you wish):

It often seemed that Ken Livingstone had taken office in order to be controversial. Such was the level of controversy he continuously maintained that when he was replaced by Boris Johnson the new mayor's personality, which on any objective scale is like a hunt ball held in a cricket pavilion, has been experienced as a centre of calm.

This week's broadcast pays tribute to Sir Keith Park, hero of the Battle of Britain, and aims a few well-crafted barbs in the direction of Glenda Slagg wannabe Mary Wakefield, who wrote a column the previous week asking why he was having a statue erected in his honour, and indeed who the hell he was. Nor was la Wakefield the only one questioning the choice of Sir Keith for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square; when I tell you that one art critic described it over the weekend as "a fascist icon", the identity of the newspaper in question will not come as a surprise.

In his discussion of hacks and their right to parade their ignorance as public virtue, Clive James came up with an elegant variation on an old insult:

Right there, of course, is the catch in freedom. If you're born free you're free to think that freedom is a natural state, and free to think that your own freedom owes nothing to some gung-ho old dead guy with a rack of initials after his name.

But if Keith Park had never done what he did, our journalist might have had to compose her column in German, and you can bet that if she was writing about a statue of a Luftwaffe hero to go on the fourth plinth, her tone would have been lot more reverent.

James is not everyone's cup of tea, but A Point Of View is seldom less than engrossing, and I never miss an instalment. I commend it to you also.

101 uses for a live frog...

2009-11-12T16:43:00.002Z

...but I bet you never thought of this one.

(h/t: Carps)

2009-11-11T15:07:00.001Z

Anecdote of the day

2009-11-11T08:35:00.000Z

Daniel Finkelstein describes the first Shadow Cabinet meeting after 1st May 1997:

It wasn't much of one, since a goodly proportion of the members had lost their seat at the election. And instead of the smooth Civil Service taking a crisp minute, they were stuck with me trying to scribble notes down. But, nevertheless, within a few minutes an excitable discussion was taking place about how best to respond to the incoming Government's Queen's Speech.

After letting everyone rabbit on for a while, Michael Heseltine intervened. I can still see him now, pushing his chair away from the table, leaning back languidly and saying: “I think we should just calm down. We are all going to be here for a very long time.”

An asylum of loons

2009-11-10T13:14:00.007Z

Haste ye down to Bristol this weekend, for there's a rare collection of lunacy on show at the Grand Thistle Hotel for the "Alternative View" conference, featuring the best in conspiracy theorising from around the globe. Headlined by 9/11 Truther and general purpose nutjob Cynthia McKinney - and featuring the musical stylings of Gareth Icke (yes) - coming attractions (all summarised in their own words) include:

Ian R. Crane

Ian R Crane, past Chair of the UK 9/11 Truth Campaign, reflects upon UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s overt commitment to the agenda of the New World Order. Ian also introduces Project ZION and presents his startling prediction of what is being planned to accelerate implementation of the One World Government... a False Flag fake Alien Invasion to be staged at 2012 London Olympics.

Terry Boardman

Recall that the World Trade Centre consisted of TWIN towers which were
simply SQUARES, extended skywards. Is this masonic symbolism ? Are not
other skyscrapers in the area also essentially extended cubes surmounted
with pyramids ?

You may also be interested to know that in Canary Wharf, London's
mini-Manhattan financial centre, much of which was built by the very
Orthodox Jewish Reichmann Brothers of Olympia and York in the 80s, two
other towers are now under construction alongside the present 800 m high
tower. The plan is for the present tower to form the apex of a ground
plan pyramid, while the other two towers will be the other two points of
the pyramid. So, if the Twin Towers in New York had not been destroyed, in a year
or two, at this beginning of the 21st century, you would have had the
Jachin-and-Boaz-like Twin Towers in NYC (extended cubes) and a triangle
of extended cubes topped by their own pyramids in London on the other
side of the Atlantic: 23 spanning the Atlantic and symbolising the union
of Anglo-American financial/commercial powers. The 2 have been
destroyed, which will leave the 3... (Opposite the pyramid of towers
on the other side of the River Thames at Greenwich of course, almost due
south of the towers, stands the circular Millenium Dome with its 12
protruding star-like pylons : the pyramid of the Anglo-American 23
standing over the European circle of stars ?

Too far-fetched ? Perhaps.....

Greg Nikolettos

Study World War II closely on how IBM backed the Nazi Regime utilizing the Hollerith Machine . The Hollerith Machine was a punch card system that aided in cataloguing the population. This IBM technology gave the fascist, totalitarian state the much needed technology boost to increase it's rate of human data processing . The goal was simple, extreme nationalism which called for the unification of all German-speaking peoples and eradicating the enemies of the state namely the Jews and other non-compliant races.

Fast forward to the year 2006 , we have IBM funding the parent company of the Verichip namely Applied Digital Solutions [ADSX] . The VeriChip Corporation is both FDA approved and patented with the owner of patent (#6,400,338) granted recently to VeriChip's manufacturer, Digital Angel Corporation, with worldwide patents pending. [...]

When the next 9/11 event occurs and world government, with the use of enforced martial law utilizing paramilitary police, demands mandatory human chipping, will you be considered the NEW JEW if you choose not to comply?

What if you believe a human should never be treated like inventory? What if you find the the thought of being chipped as degrading , degenerative and of feeble mind ? Do you become the enemy of the state because you will not accept a RFID EMBEDDED into your person? We can say this , the day you accept a RFID Verichip is the day you have sold your human spirit .

And... la pièce de résistance...

Norman Baker MP, who will no doubt be flogging copies of his book, The Strange Death Of David Kelly:

My own information strongly suggests that those behind Dr Kelly's death were Iraqi dissidents opposed to Saddam Hussein's regime and angry at Dr Kelly for undermining the case for toppling him. A well-placed source also told me that the British police or security services had been warned of a likely assassination attempt but were not in time to stop it.

Did they then try to disguise the murder as suicide for reasons of political expediency? [...]

According to the information I have been given, the murder itself was carried out by a couple of not very well-paid hired hands.

As to the method used, I am told that they gave Dr Kelly an injection in his backside, which perhaps points to the use of succinylcholine, a white crystalline substance that acts as a muscle relaxant. For less beneficent purposes, it can be used to induce paralysis and cardiac arrest and frequently goes undetected in post-mortems.

I asked Thames Valley Police whether the body had been checked for the presence of this or a similar substance. They told me that they did not know.

If this was not the substance used then, alarmingly, there appear to be a large number of other ways in which Dr Kelly might have been killed that would be difficult or even impossible to trace. [...]

Another ghastly suggestion came to me from someone who signed themselves only as 'Nemesis'. Their letter alleged that he or she had been told by a 'member of the non-English diplomatic corps' that air had been introduced into Dr Kelly's bloodstream through a needle in a vein. Apparently, if present in sufficient quantities, air in the major organs will kill and leave no scar. 'Nemesis' was in no doubt that this was how Dr Kelly's life had ended... [and so on]

I wonder why Norman Baker thinks it is even remotely sensible to consort with these whack-jobs, and whether the good people of Lewes are fully aware of the company their fruitloop MP is choosing to keep. What is it with Lib Dems and lunacy?

In defence of Gordon Brown, redux

2009-11-10T07:21:00.000Z

I really want to let this one rest, because it's not a fucking news story. But, prompted by the revelation that the Sun has a recording of the apologetic phone call Gordon Brown made to Grieving Hero Soldier's Mum Jacqui Janes™, here are two questions:

1. What sort of person, upon receiving a personal telephone call from the Prime Minister, records the conversation and then gives it to a tabloid newspaper?

2. How did Mrs Janes record the conversation? Did she use her mobile? My Mum wouldn't know how to record a voice memo on her phone if you gave her the manual, a laminated card with pictorial instructions, and a week to work it out.

Or did the Sun give her a tape recorder in the hope that Brown might phone to make amends, and they could then nail him?

It is quite an astonishing feat for anyone to make me feel even a shred of sympathy for this appalling man, but Jacqui Janes and the Sun newspaper are clearly working overtime.

Adieu, Lenin

2009-11-09T15:42:00.022Z

A woman in East Berlin has a heart attack when she sees her son arrested by the police in an anti-government protest in 1989, and lapses into a coma. When she awakens it is 1990, but on doctor's orders, her family decide not to tell her about the collapse of the East German regime while she is convalescing and confined to bed, in case the shock is too much for her.

But in a free society, no-one can hide the truth forever.

If you haven't seen it before, I heartily recommend Goodbye Lenin!, which takes a light-hearted but thought-provoking look at the changes wrought by capitalism and freedom - changes both good and, yes, bad.

Is liberty easy, after a lifetime of servitude and fear? Is it all IKEA and BMWs, shit and giggles? Of course not. Relying on the State is, in one sense, easy; freedom is hard. But it's also fucking important. That this is undoubtedly a banal and trite observation doesn't render it any less true. I think of all the people I have met, from Estonia to Serbia and from Russia itself, most of whom are young enough to have little memory of a time before they could do, and be, whatever they wanted. I try to imagine those friends growing up, living, and dying in the perpetual twilight of Communism but, fortunately, it's normally at that point that my imagination fails me.

Once people's creative spirits are unleashed, it's damn difficult to bottle them up again. Difficult, but - if history teaches us anything - sadly not impossible. It's just a shame that there remain, almost unbelievably, idiots out there who hope that it was merely auf wiedersehen to Lenin, rather than adieu. And a tragedy that there are still millions of people in the world who continue to suffer from his baleful legacy. May they, too, soon be free.

In defence of Gordon Brown

2009-11-09T11:59:00.010Z

It's only Monday, but the search for biggest non-story of the week is already over.

Blundering Mr Brown left war hero Jamie Janes's grieving mother in tears by sending her an error-filled letter of condolence in which he even mis-spelled their name.

The hand-written note to heartbroken Jacqui JANES about her 20-year-old son, began: Dear Mrs JAMES. Grenadier Guardsman Jamie was killed by a bomb in Afghanistan on October 5.

PMs write to all next-of-kin of the fallen. Mr Brown's mistakes fuelled claims he does not care about Britain's forces.

He telephoned Jacqui today to apologise for his mistake.

Jacqui, 47, said: "He couldn't even be bothered to get our family name right. That made me so angry. Then I saw he had scribbled out a mistake in Jamie's name.

"The very least I would expect from Gordon Brown is to get his name right. The letter was scrawled so quickly I could hardly even read it and some of the words were half-finished. It's just disrespectful."

I think it should be abundantly clear by now that I loathe Gordon Brown and believe that he is driving the country to the brink of ruin - or, rather, flooring the pedal as the cliff edge approaches - but this is just fucking ridiculous. Lest we forget, the man is all but blind, and the idea that he - even he - would deliberately set out to insult a grieving mother is just stupid. If he really didn't give a shit, he'd get his secretary to type the letters and then sign them at the bottom, and none of this would ever have been a story in the first place.

No, the true cunts in this tale are, of course, the Sun, who are using a dead soldier and his vulnerable mother to smear a PM that just a month ago they were still, formally at least, supporting. Whatever shifts a few copies, eh, boys? Really, it makes me fucking sick. Bashing Brown is a noble pastime and one at which this blog takes an indecent pleasure, but if anyone is guilty of a lack of respect here, it's the reptiles who have turned this into a story when they know full well it's nothing of the sort.

I suppose on one level it just demonstrates the abyss of contempt into which Brown has now sunk, and since it's all his fault that he is in this predicament, it will not surprise you to learn that I have fanny-all sympathy for him. If he had a shred of self-respect he'd have resigned months ago and perhaps, in the style of John Profumo, devoted the rest of his life to actually helping ordinary people, rather than just taking all their money, destroying their employers' livelihoods and getting them fired, as he does at present.

But, if we're talking about "respect", it's clear that there's precious little of it on show from any quarter this afternoon. And I can't help thinking that when a woman who's just lost her son gets a condolence letter from the Prime Minister, and her first instinct is to phone up the fucking Sun to complain about his handwriting, it says at least as much about her as it does about the man who sent it.

Alcohol advertising banned

2009-11-09T08:35:00.000Z

Not in Britain, of course - perish the thought! - but in North Korea. Regular readers may recall this mighty, mighty advert for Taedonggang beer (which carried a heady whiff of Mr Sparkle): by all accounts a tasty brew, and certainly a must-try for any visitors to the DPRK.

The advertisement claimed that the beer was the "pride of Pyongyang" [quite a claim - E] and certified under the ISO 9001 Quality Standard, an international quality management marker. The commercial showed young women in traditional Korean dress serving frothy mugs of the beer to men in Western suits.

Well, it appears the ad has been pulled:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has fired the reclusive regime's top broadcaster for airing television commercials that promote its beer and other local products, sources here said Sunday.

Kim recently made the decision shortly after watching the advertisements on state television, the sources said.

Kim reportedly expressed his strong disappointment with Cha Sung-su, chairman of the North's Central Broadcasting Committee. "They are as degrading as the ones that China had in its early reform," Kim was quoted as saying by a source.

Of course, Kim's objection is not to selling beer, one presumes, so much as to selling beer. Either way, I don't think his government needs to worry about ballooning obesity rates just yet.

Quote of the week

2009-11-07T09:48:00.000Z

Sullivan:

The great thing about shamelessness is that in an amnesiac culture, it works.

Amis on Benn

2009-11-06T08:39:00.001Z

While on the subject of great political anecdotes, here's some classic, classic Kingsley Amis, courtesy of the Ragbag:

[Tony] Benn I have run into only once, early in his career, when by a misunderstanding he arrived on my doorstep expected but not heralded by any name. The door was one of those with a glass panel affording a preview of the caller. At the first sight of the present arrival the thought flashed into my mind, 'Who is this English cunt?' The distinguishing adjective is important. There are Scottish cunts, there are even Welsh cunts, and God knows there are American cunts, but the one in question could have come from nowhere else but this green and pleasant land. Something about the set of the lips.

Other guests arrived at the same time and my silent question went unanswered for the moment. I offered drinks. Someone asked for a gin and tonic. I turned to the cunt. 'Same for you?' He reacted much as if I had said, 'Glass of baby's blood? It 's extra good today,' and somehow in that moment I knew him, recognised him from television. He settled for bitter lemon, 'with plenty of ice, ' he added firmly. (I once heard him say unequivocally, also on television, that his sole interest in life was and had always been politics, which to my mind should debar anybody from standing for Parliament. Even Ted Heath has his yacht and his choirs).

Using divining rods to find explosives

2009-11-05T11:10:00.002Z

Nice to see that British exports are, er, booming:

Iraq’s security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.

The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.

Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.[...]

Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security Center at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of Defense, said the center had “tested several devices in this category, and none have ever performed better than random chance.” [...]

Aqeel al-Turaihi, the inspector general for the Ministry of the Interior, reported that the ministry bought 800 of the devices from a company called ATSC (UK) Ltd. for $32 million in 2008, and an unspecified larger quantity for $53 million. Mr. Turaihi said Iraqi officials paid up to $60,000 apiece, when the wands could be purchased for as little as $18,500. He said he had begun an investigation into the no-bid contracts with ATSC. Jim McCormick, the head of ATSC, based in London, did not return calls for comment. [...]

Last year, the James Randi Educational Foundation, an organization seeking to debunk claims of the paranormal, publicly offered ATSC $1 million if it could pass a scientific test proving that the device could detect explosives. Mr. Randi said no one from the company had taken up the offer.

ATSC’s promotional material claims that its device can find guns, ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at distances up to a kilometer, underground, through walls, underwater or even from airplanes three miles high. The device works on “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction,” ATSC says.

Don't it make ya proud?

(h/t: Foreign Policy)

UPDATE: Unity has much more, as ever.