Between the Hammer and the Anvil

QOTD

2009-12-10T22:16:00.005Z

Question Of The Day: Why was President Barack Obama given the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Because there's no such thing as the Nobel Prize For American Presidents Not Acting Like An Utter Prick About Absolutely Everything.

Nor is there a We'll Turn a Blind Eye To All The Predator Drone Attacks On Lots Of Countries You're Not Even At War With, Provided You Don't Threaten Other Nations With Nuclear Annihilation award, although it's worth noting that while Obama might win one, neither John McCain nor Hillary Clinton would have had they won the Presidency. So it's bombs away in the name of peace, and everyone's happy, except the people they're landing on.

On the other hand, I see that Barry O. is now referring to himself as "Commander-in-Chief of the nation". My American history gets rustier by the year and I'm aware that this is just a continuation of George W.'s bombastic rhetoric, but isn't this rather like the President proclaiming himself Caesar?

There's a lot of stuff in their constitution neatly demarcating "president" from "Imperator," if I recall correctly. Some of the habits of the last administration just turned out to be too tempting to pass up, I guess.

Anyway, my optimistic assessment of the Obama presidency, made the day after the election, still holds good - so far he's been much less of an arsehole than Clinton, either Bush or Reagan. Quite an achievement when you're occupying two countries and your remote controlled flying death machines are running amok over at least another two. Time will tell, though.

And The Assholes Shall Inherit The Earth

2009-12-06T22:38:00.006Z

The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community. Of course, in return, we have rap music, goat curry and a far more vibrant and diverse understanding of cultures which were once alien to us. For which, many thanks.

That from boggle-eyed Spectator bore Rod Liddle, who is one of many who seems to believe that both lies and bigoted boo-hoo are now legitimate weapons in the great battle against the awful liberal elitists.

It looks like the bugle has been blown, and every cheap, nasty bullshitter in the land has acknowledged its message... With the Tories almost certain to triumph at the next election, anyone who's spent the last decade masquerading as a basically decent human being should now rip off their masks and show the world their hideous deformities.

Hence we get the hilarious spectacle of climate change skeptics raving about secret global Commie conspiracies, throwing around accusations of Stalinism and Hitlerian evil while clutching their little pearls about the connotations of the word "denier"; we get the world's Liddles railing against those awful blacks, and a whole load of bluntly racist shite hurled at Britain's Muslim population under the comically transparent disguise of "opposing extremism".... With the inevitable result of open celebration when the Swiss decide they need to curtail the rights of their religious minorities.

All of which is smuggled under the usual silly bollocks about leftist treachery, but is essentially the same populist lunacy that has led the Teabaggers and Sarah Palin in the US into a cul de sac of self-reinforcing, unelectable wingnuttery. With no moderating force to reign in their most paranoid and belligerent pronouncements, the Teabaggers have been swiftly demoted from the status of "hard-working ordinary people/mad as hell/not going to take it any more" to "Gibbering cretins/comedy losers/get the hell away from us, dipshits".

Stuff like Liddle's post could only come out of a net-based operation like the Spectator, which has seen its traffic soar even as its political trajectory has taken it zooming out of the Earth's atmosphere, bound for planet Radioactive Political Embarrassment at light speed. In an era of declining magazine sales, it'd take a brave and strong editor to ignore his readers' demand for the red, red meat of raw right wing insanity. Thus do we get conspiracism, paranoia and outright race-baiting.

To which I can only say, well, good. Despite three decades of tabloid hysteria, most people are basically reasonable and decent individuals, and I am eager to see Britain's right wingers disappear right up their own rectums in pursuit of ever-greater nuttiness. Veiled nastiness is devilishly difficult to combat, but open idiocy and naked meanness defeat themselves. The Labour Party have proved that one single-handedly.

Who knows? Maybe a majority of the electorate would read stuff like that Liddle column and think Finally, somebody said what we're all thinking. Me, I reckon most of them would read it and think, Jesus, what a cunt.

I like the battlefield that the right wing fringe is preparing. They're conceding the high ground of legitimate grievance against New Labour's horrible incompetence and vindictiveness; positioning their guns where they'll inflict maximum damage upon their own infantry. I forget who it was who said that you should never interrupt an enemy when he's making a terrible mistake, but it sounds like good advice. I'm just going to put my feet up, crack open a cold one and watch these jokers cut their own legs off at the knees.

Well, okay, I might poke them with a stick occasionally. Just for fun.

In The Interests Of Scientific Inquiry

2009-12-04T20:31:00.003Z

Regarding this whole climate science emails thing, I can only see one of two explanations for what's going on here.

1) That practically the entire planet's scientific, political, media and business classes have colluded in the greatest hoax ever perpetrated upon mankind, in the teeth of fierce opposition from some of the world's most powerful business interests, in pursuit of a secret, socialist scheme to do, er, something totalitarian or

2) Lots of angry wingnuts are barking like a pack of pissed-off chihuahuas about bugger all, because they are angry wingnuts, and that's what angry wingnuts do.

Now, on the face of it, I can see how many people might plump for 1). After all, when one considers the logistics of a global scam featuring hundreds of thousands of eager participants each adhering to a strict greenie omerta, while forcing through hairshirted measures that cut into the profit margins and personal habits of political backers, industry and electorate alike... Well, you just have to say My God, it's all so obviously a conspiracy of unprecedented propotions!

But readers, I implore you to consider option 2). No, I hear you say. Surely it's impossible that a bunch of angry wingnuts with proven records of barking like pissed-off chihuahuas about bugger all could be doing so all over again, driven by their angry wingnuttery? By God man, have you lost your mind?

I know how unlikely it sounds but please, just give it a go, in the interests of scientific inquiry.

(For a more logical but less direct version of this argument, see John Band).

That's Why They Call It Science Fiction

2009-12-04T06:11:00.002Z

Been watching a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica, and frankly it all seems ridiculously far-fetched and unrealistic.

I mean, okay, Starbuck is a sexy female pilot who dogfights her way around the galaxy doing all kinds of daredevil, hotshot Top Gun stuff, but not once has she reversed her starfighter into an intergalactic lamp-post while trying to parallel park it.

It stretches credulity to breaking point, if you ask me.

Inappropriate Merchandise

2009-11-15T16:18:00.003Z

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the Instapundit classic thong.

Presumably the market for this product consists of individuals looking for underwear that is comfortable, uncomplicated and prone to outbursts of hilariously one-eyed partisan hackery. Ironically, I've always mentally associated the Instapundit with the genitals of both sexes.

So what inappropriate merchandise would you like to see from your blogging heroes? A blow-up Guido Fawkes sex doll? The FlyingRodent Guide to Creative Writing?

Video Games - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

2009-11-11T23:31:00.009Z

(Warning: Total game spoilers ahead)

So Modern Warfare 2 is finally out, with sales through the roof after the inevitable controversy over its questionable content.

For those who don't pay attention to such things, MW2 is the cutting edge in big studio games console whizzbang. Overall, it's basically a deranged episode of 24: Jack Bauer's Disembowelment Splatterfest Christmas Special at its wingnuttiest, featuring some of the most equisitely rendered war porn I've ever witnessed.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was an astonishing game, mixing intense action and set pieces with some moments of genuine pathos. Walking through the swimming baths in a deserted Pripyat to the echo of long-departed children's laughter was spine-tingling, the city itself truly haunting. The game was, as they say, all killer and no filler, tightly-plotted, tense and relentless right up to the blockbuster finale - think Die Hard and Black Hawk Down doing tequila slammers while watching The Matrix on an IMax screen.

MW2, on the other hand, ditches all that wussy tension and plot stuff, and just turns the explosions up to eleven. It's Red Dawn joyfully skullfucking 300 during the opening sequence of Apocalypse Now, with Slipknot handling the tunes.

Charlie Brooker has called it The Citizen Kane of repeatedly shooting people in the face, and it certainly is - an astonishingly brutal and exhiliarating non-stop action extravanza, guaranteed to bring joy to the hearts of teenage boys and thirtysomething office drones with hardware fetishes, and to offend absolutely everyone else.

To be clear, MW2 isn't doing anything new or wildly clever. It's just a very, very flash first person shooter, not so much reinventing the wheel as packing the wheel with high explosives and firing it into an oil refinery. From space.

And yes, it does feature a level where you play a terrorist and can shoot lots of civilians. You also get to shoot Afghan militiamen, Brazilian gangbangers, Russian paratroopers (during a Russian invasion of the United States, for Christ's sake) and, when it turns out your commanding officer isn't necessarily fighting for truth and justice, lots and lots of American special forces. At one point, one of the heroes detonates a nuclear missile over Washington DC. Like I say, there's something in there to offend everyone.

In the end, the terrorist massacre is another big, dumb, flashy attempt at gravitas in a big, dumb, flashy action spectacular that rocks like a thermonuclear hurricane and will make about a zillion dollars.

P.S. Haven't had a chance to play the multiplayer enough to tell you whether MW2 is better package than Uncharted 2, my choice for game of the year so far.

Insert Revolution/Televisation Gag Here

2009-11-10T22:10:00.007Z

You've got to love the British public's pearl-clutching outrage over suspicions of manipulation in the blockbuster ITV moneyspinner The X Factor - three thousand complaints thus far, and counting.

"Simon Cowell has ruined the whole series for me," one of my work colleages informed me today, in tones of profound disgust. She felt that the Clarkson of pop's blatantly self-interested decision to punt one of his wide-eyed cash-cows off the show rather than another, potentially more lucrative act, had cheapened what had previously been an Olympian clash of skill, courage and sheer willpower.

"If you ask me, Simon was more interested in making money than honestly choosing which was more talented," she confided, conspiratorially.

Say it ain't so! Naked avarice? On television?

And to think, just twelve short months ago, people were telling me that the financial crisis meant the downfall of the financial gods and the destruction of the capitalist system itself. My advice - put all your money into gold-leaf toilet roll and champagne fountains, and always, always bet against pitchforks, torches and guillotine futures.

Britain Blogs Its Branez - Going Postal Edition

2009-11-09T21:55:00.007Z

Plenty of questions may soon be answered with the news that Fort Hood shooter Nadal Malik Hasan has regained consciousness. Did his dog tell him to do it, or does Allah just ring him up personally and chant Kill, Kill, Kill into his mobile phone? Is the Major as nutty as a fruitcake or a cold-blooded, calculating killer?

Whether Hasan is a psycho terrorist or just a tosser with a bad attitude, British bloggers were relentless in pursuit of the real bastards in this situation, namely the BBC, the BBC, the BBC, the BBC, and courtesy of BBC-watch site Biased BBC, the BBC, the BBC, the BBC and finally, the BBC.

Maximum hilarity comes from B-BBC blogger David Vance, who decries the corporation's foolish report that Hasan was shot by a soldier rather than, as it later transpired, a civilian police officer.

"You would think," he hoots, "with all that world class journalism they could get the basics right, wouldn't you?".

We should be grateful that we had those major independent American networks to provide the public with viewpoints unmolested by the clammy hand of socialism - between them, they managed to report that there were three shooters involved (oops); that one shooter was dead and two in custody (not quite); that a second gunman had been cornered; that the shooter used machine guns (not so much); that Hasan was a convert to Islam (sorry) and so on and so forth in an avalanche of wildly inaccurate, flatulent horseshit.

Local interest was provided by both Counting Cats and Constantly Furious, who felt that the critical aspect for their British audiences was Barack Obama's insufficiently severe gravitas.

Both remembered to compare Barry O's delivery of his scheduled speech, followed by brief comment on the shooting, to his predecessor's weirdo The Pet Goat 9/11 moment of painful inaction. "Dear God," is Mr. Furious's horrified comment. One can only imagine his horror if the next Islamomentalist to succumb to his inner terrorist decides to pilot a pair of automatic pistols into the Empire State Building.

Hats off to Donal Blaney though, who manages to play every note on his little anti-Jihadist ukelele, cramming "9/11," "Decapitating hostages," "religion of peace," "With us or against us," "Clash of civilisations," "Global caliphate," "Sharia law" and "Barack Hussein Obama" into a Twitter-length jam-session. Long story short - they're evil Muslim bastards, twing twang pluckle aye-yay.

So is Hasan a terrorist or a lunatic? Britain's bloggers are too busy beating up their various bugbears to give the matter any thought, but probably Yes.

Competition time, then - ten points to the first commenter who finds somebody blaming US gun rampages on Gordon MacBottler Jockbastard Ochaye MacBroonface.

2009-11-05T16:08:00.002Z

Bain: Rangers Supporters Unrelated To Rangers Supporter-Related Violence

Annual mass brawls "A huge coincidence," Rangers chief executive tells credulous reporters

BBC News, 5th November 2009

Rangers chief executive Martin Bain today issued a statement denying any link between the latest incident of Rangers-related violence and the presence of a great horde of drunken, belligerent xenophobes.

Instead, Bain criticised the Romanian authorities for failing to provide cake, Margaritas and a light finger-buffet.

"We saw this last year," Bain told a pack of trusting, wide-eyed hacks.

"Rangers supporters travelled all the way down to Manchester, only to discover that the free toilet facilities were substandard, the local pubs insufficiently spacious and that the taxpayer-funded big screen was malfunctioning... When fans attempted to register their objections by politely embarking on a rampage of bloodcurdling violence, they were then shamefully mistreated by the police".

"Personally, I don't know anyone who wouldn't go completely berserk if they arrived in an unfamiliar city to find that the local council had provided such second-rate provisions free of charge".

"We saw this again in Romania, where many supporters who had spent the day getting pished out of their skulls finally arrived rowdy and aggro at the stadium five minutes before kick-off, and were horrified to discover that they were expected to queue up to enter the stadium".

"Imagine, the indignity! UEFA will be hearing about this shameful lack of facilities for inebriated and aggressive away supporters".

UEFA are currently considering whether to take action against European minnows Unirea Urziceni for these disgraceful provocations. Previous experience, including the occasion when the organisation failed to take action against C.F. Villareal for having the temerity to travel to their own stadium in a bus with unbroken windows, suggest that UEFA will once again fail to action.

"It's a disgrace," one fan told the BBC. "I was innocently charging the stewards and attempting to beat them unconcious, when suddenly I was maliciously skooshed in the face with pepper spray".

"I could've been injured or anything".

Previously: Who's Who at the Rangers Riot?

No Point Crying Over Genocided Milk

2009-11-03T22:27:00.005Z

Having just ticked off a noted author for bashing easy targets, I hereby accept the Blogging Hypocrisy Award for Tuesday by turning to the musings of the Spectator's Melanie Phillips.

Now, you can say what you like about critical coverage of Israel/Palestine by the UK's media and political classes - you might think the Israelis don't get a fair kick at the ball, or that certain sections of the press are actively pro-Palestinian. Melanie thinks such public criticism is a verbal pogrom.

It's surely only a matter of sitting back and watching her work up through the gears here. If we're currently witnessing a verbal pogrom, then several oral democides and argumentative megadeaths are surely imminent. So I'm hereby placing this blog on Rhetorical Nuclear Holocaust Watch, a formulation which Melanie will inevitably spit out in her mad dash towards the Defcon 1 of dialogue.

(And while we're on overblown comparisons, let me just note that if Melanie's crack-smoking, wackadoodle opinions were puppies, they would divide their days between sitting in their own faeces and repetitively banging their heads on walls. If her opinions were cars, they would explode like oversized petrol bombs when you turned the key in the ignition; if they were made of chocolate, they would be made of 100% Stupid As Fuck cocoa beans).

Highbrow Clarkson

2009-10-28T21:31:00.004Z

A sudden, breathless hush, pregnant with the promise of brilliance. For a fleeting, giddy instant, the literary world is still as the great man weighs his words. A tarry cough as he contemplates the rhetorical blades in his bristling armoury, and the UK's most Serious author delivers the killing blow...

"That Jordan... She's just a ruddy great pair of tits, eh? No arse on it, mind, but ye'd have a go at that coupon."

Thus does Martin Amis introduce us to his latest work. It bears the ominous title State of England, and surely threatens a joyless regurgitation of whatever shit he's been reading in The Sun.

He used to be good, you know. I've been hard on Mart in the past - no doubt he's ashamed to be so derided by Some Guy With a Website - but I always thought he had a little bit more class than my brother, at the pub, after seven pints of Guinness.

(Cheers for the heads up - BenSix)

The Longest Blog Post About Nazis You Won't Read This Week

2009-10-26T21:05:00.007Z

Shorter right wingers - We must counter the BNP's hysterical, racist fearmongering by stemming the unstoppable tidal wave of grasping foreigners that threatens to swamp our country, choke our cities and overwhelm our public services.

Shorter left wingers - We must counter the BNP's threat of racist persecution by coming up with new and inventive publicity wheezes for breaking down doors, dragging away whole families in dawn raids and interning them or sending them back into warzones.

Top notch internet comedy from left and right recently with this Nick Griffin on Question Time nonsense. For a start, it's been an interesting insight into how Britain's Nazi party has been slyly exploiting some of the prevailing bullshit myths that seem to pass for logical argument in our national press. Additionally, I've been laughing long and hard at their obliviousness to their own political status.

Remember, the BNP are basically the prison bitches in the showers of British politics, forever gullibly bending over to pick up the slippery soap of electoral success. They're lanced from the left to terrify Labour's distrustful supporters into submission, and rammed from the right to make the Tories' belligerent, small-minded hatreds look comparatively reasonable. Meanwhile, the press plays the guard who's been bribed to ignore the sexually enraged bellowing and the gruesome, piggy squeals.

It's an arrangement which suits everyone except, perhaps, the voters who have to witness the whole sorry charade. Nonetheless, having had a run-in with one of their supporters recently, I thought it'd be worth typing up a few points in a post I can link to in future.

The BNP represent the "white working class".

Of all the national myths around the BNP, I think this is their favourite. Note the easy elision between "some working class white people" and "the white working class" and you've basically fragged their bullshit instantaneously - after all, every one of the main parties picks up more working class votes than they do, and frequently do so in elections that actually matter. Plus, you'd think that with the theoretical support of such a large demographic, they'd have done better than two representatives at the European Parliament, but hey ho.

And of course, there's the small matter that Griffin himself is a Cambridge graduate, and that their leaked membership list is not exactly bulging with coal miners and steel workers. It's one thing to be ticked off for posho, elitist contempt for the working man by a rough-handed, plain-spoken son of toil, and quite another to get the same crap from people who pull down twice your annual salary.

Still, it's a commonly-cited point that the BNP are some kind of workers' revolt against metropolitan elitism. Weak support for the notion exists in the fact that the last two big fucknut race-baiting movements in Britain - Enoch Powell's Merrie Band and the National Front - were also largely working class phenomena.

On the other hand, both the British Union of Fascists and the German Nazi Party were middle class/aristocratic phenomena which would back the thesis that basically, working class people can be plain evil-minded dumbasses too.

The fact that we've got a fifty-year history of British fascist arseholes - mysteriously disappearing while Margaret Thatcher addressed working class Concerns by tossing them out of work and sending in the riot police to break their heads when they got uppity - does quite strongly support the notion that, well, there are about a million fascist arseholes in Britain.

Not to mention the very obvious point that the idea that working class people are inherently racist idiots, just begging to be brainwashed with the most hateful and insane propaganda, is a thoroughly ridiculous insult to working class people themselves.

Every voter is a beautiful, precious snowflake.

All of this Me Humble Caveman, Me Represent Working Man stuff is swallowed uncritically by many left and right wing politicians and papers, who seem to believe that if we would just listen to those Very Real Concerns, we'd be able to swing the cretinous Nazi voter back to reality. This is a politically convenient fiction for right wingers, who basically share the BNP's fist-pounding rage at a similar series of modern, new-fangled bugbears, and is also an artifact of a number of sappy left wingers' desire to be all inclusive and open minded about nakedly fucking stupid ideas.

The idea that everyone is a precious snowflake with entirely valid opinions is, as far as I can tell, a hangover from certain strains of sixties hippiedom. That's why we wound up with all those fuckheads on stilts at those anti-war marches - everyone was too polite to tell them they looked like twats, and that they were on a bloody anti-war march.

Well, it's now bled into right wing discourse too, and we're all the poorer for it. Few would contend that we should consider the feelings of 9/11 Truthers or militant Islamists on the future of British democracy, but when it comes to the type of loony who thinks the nation's problems will be solved by emptying the country of black people and Asians, then Whoah! Everybody, put on your Serious Faces and prepare to show some hardcore Respect!

It's bollocks, of course. Truthers are Truthers, and Nazi morons are Nazi morons. As a nation, we should listen to their Concerns only so far as it gives us the opportunity to politely invite them to fuck off with great gales of public derision ringing in their ears.

The Concerns! The Very Real Concerns!

Let's be blunt - the Very Real Concern of BNP voters is that there are too many blacks and Asians in Britain. Since no party with a genuine chance of power can propose either a) repatriation or b) a crackdown on white people shagging their ethnic minority partners, without then being strafed, bombed and obliterated at the ballot box, there is no point whatsoever in trying to address BNP voters' Concerns.

And yes, this means that British Nazis have no chance of serious representation in Parliament. Welcome to the world British Commies, Yogic fliers, religious fundamentalists, hardline libertarians and any other variety of crank has inhabited for the last century, and boo fucking hoo for you. Myself, I want to live in a post-scarcity leisure Utopia where all the work is done by machines, but you don't hear me getting all blubbery about the sad lack of sci-fi Parliamentarians.

BNP voters aren't racist - they're just alienated.

Ha ha, yes, very good... And UKIP voters don't hate the EU, Green voters aren't environmentalists and SNP voters are English nationalists. If a political party is primarily known for their Nazi lunatic tendencies, what possible basis could we have for concluding that people who vote for them are racist? The very thought!

Nonetheless, let's assume it's true, and BNP voters are just making a point. They're showing their displeasure by voting for Nazis, often with the result that they get Nazi councillors. These are people willing to burn their own neighbourhoods down in a fit of pique; electoral toddlers, red-faced, squeaming and squeaming on the floor of the bus, and they deserve the same level of respect.

I'm a great believer in learning through experience - I say, let 'em watch while their new Nazi councillors find providing public services a little tougher than shoving shit through a Pakistani shopkeeper's letterbox or baseball-batting Asian teenagers.

If there's one party capable of making a bigger cock of governance than the mainstream parties, it's the BNP, and anyone stupid enough to vote for Nazi fuckwits deserves to be represented by Nazi fuckwits.

That applies to us all, voters - if we know what we want and tick a box for it, then we all deserve to get it good and hard.

------------------

Really, I could go on in this vein almost indefinitely, but I'll save it for now. My basic point is that this non-stop avalanche of obvious bullshit isn't going to stop until it ceases to suit absolutely everyone involved barring us. Sadly, I think the British electoral system will be able to absorb a lot more fascist bollocks and scaremongering about the same before anyone in a position to change the situation recognises how utterly poisonous this crap is and says so publicly.

Well, if nothing else, we've always got football, unhealthy foods and Modern Warfare 2 coming out at the end of next month...

I Pity The Fool

2009-10-23T15:53:00.010Z

"That was not a genuine Question Time; that was a lynch mob," (Nick Griffin) told Sky News.

I may say more on this later, but for now let us ask the obvious question - is Griffin talking about the old-style, ultraviolent lynch mobs, or the new-fangled, non-violent KKK type that he was telling us about on Thursday?

Lots of vitriolic, torn-faced blubbing today from left and right about how that ghastly old bounder Dimbleby played into Griffin's hands, and they're probably right - a quick tour of the blogs shows that more or less every blogger and journo I'd previously suspected of hackery or idiocy is giving it boo-hoo as an excuse to put the boot into their chosen bugbears. Why, it's a veritable concern-trolls' playground, with slides and swings and seesaws and everything.

My favourite so far is surely Iain Dale, who solemnly informs us that the BBC's performance was a travesty because "Five against one is never very edifying". You'd think Iain would avoid that particular phrase, given that his entire output is essentially a furious and deeply unedifying bout of Five Against One, but I digress.

When we get down to it though, if you are your idiot party's hotshot PR gunslinger and yet are reduced to defending your Ku Klux Klan mates with the glowing adjective "almost totally non-violent," five minutes into your first national television debate, then you've already shot your own balls off before you've even got your gun out of its holster.

As for the various political wheezes about the nasssty BBC, the awful Jack Ssstrawssess and the horrible liberalssess, I feel honour-bound to point out that there are only four simple questions that need ever be asked about anything that BNP ballbags have to say, and these are...

1) Is this bloke a Nazi?

2) Does this Nazi deserve to be whipped through the streets, tied to the stocks and kicked up the arse to death?

3) Are the various tools bleating about "multiculturalism" basically trying to advance their own fucknut political agendas by piggybacking on Nazi bullshit while using a hilariously transparent code for "all these awful blacks and asians"?

4) Do these various tools deserve to be whipped through the streets, tied to the stocks and kicked up the arse to death?

The answer to all of these is, of course, Yes, and this is surely the logical starting point for any subsequent debate.

In Which The Author Attempts to Tackle The Many Challenges Facing Feminism In The Modern Era

2009-09-19T01:49:00.004Z

Women, eh?

Discuss.

Pro-Democracy Iranian Killer Cyborgs From The Future Prove I Was Right Yet Again

2009-09-17T13:56:00.010Z

Did the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the subsequent holding of competitive elections in which many rival Iraqi Shiite parties took part, have any germinal influence on the astonishing events in Iran?

Dear God, I missed this piece of waffle from the Hitch back in July of this year, stumbling across it today by accident.

Some context - Hitchens' article was penned back during the anti-government protests in Tehran, when every UK and US-based bullshit-artist on the blogosphericals was busy painting his ballbag green in solidarity and waving it at a webcam in the mistaken belief that a glorious blossoming of Persian liberal democracy was imminent.

A reasonable summary of Hitchens' piece - A supposedly conservative group has condemned the Iranian government and I once spoke to an Iranian cleric who referred to the invasion of Iraq as a "liberation", facts which I will now use as yet another excuse for me to pretend that I have not, in fact, been absolutely wildly fucking wrong on pretty much every important issue in the region beyond "religious extremism is like, a bummer, man" for the past eight years.

Now, I can see Hitchens' points from two angles here. Firstly, he is undoubtedly far more well-versed in the political and theological traditions of the region and, were he to walk into the room this very second, would surely school me brutally with the fruits of his knowledge and experience. Therefore, his views on the subject deserve a certain level of respect and it is entirely conceivable that the ideological undercurrents of Iranian society are favourable to moves towards greater democratic openness.

On the other hand, bollocks on stilts. I fully expect to open the paper in 2019 to find Hitchens' name under the headline The Sucking-Off Of Sanjar - Did The Toppling Of Saddam Lead to The Esfahan Teenager's Behind-The-Bikeshed Blowjob?

He could lard the article up with anecdotes about Iranian teens responding to his questions by waving loose fists in jerk-off motions at him, plus some snazzy graphics depicting the pre-invasion Iranian blowjoblessness rate, then wrap the whole thing up with some half-assed maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon all Iranian teenagers will experience the gift of freedom's sookie platitude.

Some might think this harsh, but really - Hitchens went to Iran and all he found was a cleric who was delighted the Americans had fragged Saddam Hussein, and this is evidence of... Well, not a democratic revolution, that's for sure. Thanks to that whole Iran-Iraq War that killed about a million Iranians, they were wearing party hats and tooting little kazoos the day Saddam dangled. In terms of predictable outcomes, pro-invasion Iranian clerics are about as likely as stabbed Glaswegians on Old Firm derby day or champagne-and-caviar-canape sick on the streets of Edinburgh in August.

-----

Bonus Hitchens, for anyone who's disgusted by my crude sexual imagery - his most recent article is called Engaging With Iran Is Like Having Sex With Someone Who Hates You.

In a similar vein, reading Hitchens these days is like having your neck nuzzled by an amorous manatee while it slimes a clammy flipper up your shirt and assures you that it will totally respect you in the morning.

Update!: It's only just occurred to me how truly weird the having sex with someone who hates you analogy is here. Any psychologists who read me - and I wouldn't blame you for being here, since you must have a field day - feel free to interpret for the sane.

Tel Aviv Must Be Destroyed

2009-09-17T13:19:00.004Z

I try to avoid taking a partisan line on events in the middle east, but after reading today's reports I can only come to one conclusion - we must attack Tel Aviv as quickly as possible, bombarding them with every weapon in our armoury in an effort to overwhelm their defence using the element of surprise.

It'll be a hard battle and the Israelis will fight to the last minute, but with a little luck we should be able to destroy them before they've even realised what's happening. We'll have to be ruthless and crush any resistance instantly and brutally, and we may even need to target certain key individuals who need to be taken out of play completely, but if we keep our composure we should be able to decimate the opposition and claim victory.

I'd play McGeady in behind MacDonald myself, but the manager is the unpredictable type and so prone to odd decisions verging on tactical genius that I wouldn't be surprised if he subbed on a terrapin at half-time and we still won 4-1 - we'll just have to see. Should be a decent game either way... On to glory, Bhoys!

Update! Curses, foiled once more, this time by a player named Lala. Being defeated by inferior opposition is never fun, but to be undone by a Tellytubby just adds insult to injury.

How Much Bullshit Would The Spectator Chuck, If The Spectator Could Chuck Bullshit?

2009-09-13T21:13:00.008Z

"We went into a desert war in Iraq with Snatch Land Rovers and soft-hat tactics designed for Northern Ireland. By the time we realised the extent of this error, we had lost our grip on bomb-hurling militants and were effectively driven, defeated, out of southern Iraq.

That was the moment America woke up to the truth that Britain was now an empire with no clothes."

Thus spake Trevor Kavanagh in the pages of The Spectator, setting up what I suspect will be the incoming Tory government's grand narrative for how the nation managed to march itself into two catastrophic military clusterfucks and one horrifying financial disaster.

Want the short version? Here it is...

We wuz robbed.

The longer version is rather more frightening, being that because 1) Labour released the Lockerbie bomber, and 2) the British military fucked up Iraq and Afghanistan because it was underfunded, and then 3) the economy tanked because we spent too much on the NHS and Gordon Brown urged the bankers to take too many risks, THEN...

Britain is a nation in decline and the Americans Trevor Kavanagh hangs with hate our British guts.

It's difficult to know where to begin unpicking this ridiculous, risible horseshit. Let's leave the Lockerbie and the financial crisis stuff for another day, because readers' eyes are going to be bleeding by the time we've dealt with the military aspect.

Firstly, it's vitally important to remember that Fuck what Trevor Kavanagh's American mates think about any and all matters military.

Secondly, we must also recall that Fuck them right in the eye 'til their ears bleed. Thirdly, I think it needs to be said that We wuz robbed as an analysis of abject military failures has been the cry of practically every defeated force in history. It has a very recent pedigree, but in American rather than British society, and we should be very, very suspicious of commentators pushing that line today.

After all, Iraq and Afghanistan are hardly the first time that the American military, despite being the most heavily-armed and terrifying war machine on the planet, has wound up reversing itself out of an abject, calamitous bloodbath, grumbling that it never lost a battle and anyway, those damned pyjama-wearing farmers didn't fight fair.

There's a reason why our American cousins spent the seventies and eighties making boo-hoo movies about how much it sucks when a veteran can't even bang a Mexican hooker because he's been shot through the spine* and how much Vietnamese ass Rambo would've kicked, if only those goddamn pen-pushers and hippies had let him do his job.

I mention this because the idea that Iraq and Afghanistan have been heinous, horrifying fiascoes from the word Go because the government didn't cough up the cash for more boots or helicopters is sheer, smearing-your-faeces-up-the-wall-level insanity.

Consider this - the Americans spend in the region of six hundred billion dollars every year on defence, the same as the rest of the planet combined, and you'll notice that they haven't fared any better than our guys. Our enemies daren't openly show their faces by day or night because the Americans can vapourise them from a thousand miles away with mind-bogglingly expensive weaponry in the blink of an eye.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the only effective weapons the local psychos have to hand are garage door openers for setting off ancient mines and shells. We've got complete satellite cover, heavy armour and unopposed air superiority - they have the carbomb. Our armed forces outman and outgun them in every imaginable area bar pure vicious cold-bloodedness.

And Trevor Kavanagh - amongst others - wants to tell us that, with a bit more body armour and a few more choppers, we would've kicked Jihadist ass and retained the respect of our richer, better-armed cousins?

Man, that is some World Cup-winning stupid bullshit. Allow me to offer a more plausible theory on the situation.

If you look across the pond at the post-Vietnam hangover, you'll see that apart from weepy, woe-is-us movies, it produced one major political resource - wingnut idiots - in vast, vast numbers.

This happened because the American right wing spent thirty years telling itself that the Vietnam War was lost because some faggy news presenter went all limp-dick on national TV, and because of the damn longhairs, and because their brave boys weren't allowed to drop quite enough poison or high explosives on the country to convince the locals to stop fighting.

The idea that the war was an impossibly fucked-up and murderous mission that was unavoidably destined for sheer humiliating failure... Not so much.

Well, the Americans got everything they wanted for these new wars - funding, fanfare and all those pinko reporters kept off the battlefield - and it was still a brutal, horrendous debacle from start to finish, one that looks like it might finally tank the Republican Party into fruitcake irrelevance for good.

Here in Britain, however, there's an incoming Tory administration that might like to keep war on the table, just in case, but might have a small problem with the whole insane military adventurism turning to utter shit thing curbing the public's enthusiasm.

Who knows, what worked for the American right might just work here. After all, tying a tasty stab-in-the-back narrative to your political opponents worked a charm for Richard Nixon, and it never hurt anyone, much.

*Much credit due - Taibbi.

Whoever Fights Monsters...

2009-09-09T21:26:00.002Z

...Should make sure that after they've pinned them down, there's still one guy left over to drive the stake through the fuckers' hearts.

Frank De Boer still looks like one of those wolfed-out Buffy vampires, though.

This Week's Faces Of Evil

2009-09-08T19:47:00.012Z

And so to prison for the latest shower of slapstick suicide bombers, who at least managed to avoid setting themselves on fire and getting kicked in the balls by a baggage handler this time.

No doubt that'll be a great comfort to them as they spend the next several years staring at walls, mopping floors and discovering that You know, the Koran's a right good read and proper holy and that, but maybe Razzle isn't so bad after all.

Like so many before them, this particular gaggle of twats played right to the rulebook by recording suicide videos and getting caught red-handed, before demonstrating their hardcore ideological commitment to their cause by pleading not guilty and trying to wriggle out of the charges. Not clear what religious edict it is that says Thou shalt throw thyself upon the mercy of the court like a gaggle of wailing, weepy wusses but no doubt some hook-handed loon will be able to think up a good excuse.

That's not what's caught my eye today though. I don't mean to be nasty, but all I'm saying is, take a look at this joker...

Now, I don't like to draw conclusions about people based upon their appearance, but I'm willing to make an exception for convicts and the only fair summary is surely Johnny No-Stars, Clean-up on aisle eight! Clean-up on aisle eight, Johnny No-Stars!

That was Assad Sarwar, and there's nothing wrong with either looking like or being a moron. Problem is, I'm seeing a pattern developing here - check out the boat race on Benny Hill bomber Muktar Said Ibrahim*...

Again, decent people don't judge a book by its cover, but if Ibrahim's face was a book, it'd be Pooh Goes To Plopland and the reader would require crayons. But that's not all - below, we have shoe-bombing laughing stock Richard Reid...

...I could go on and on.

I've been thinking this through, and I've come to the the amazing realisation that Al-Qaeda are working on the Father Ted model - one schemer, one blubbery drunk and one ignoramus. Obviously, the schemer does the plotting, the drunk builds the bombs that don't go off and the idiot is in charge of fucking everything up beyond belief so that the lot of them spend the next two decades fantasising about virgins in a prison cell.

I can just see scheming one explaining to the idiot how these painted harlots are small, but the ones at Tiger Tiger are far away, while the drunk sits in the corner shouting Arse! Vorgins! Cretinous plans for mass morder! at the television.

That would leave obliterated Pakistan-dweller Rashid Rauf as some kind of beardy Bishop Brennan, forever sweeping into the room roaring and demanding to know why everybody is watching Hollyoaks instead of martyring themselves. Come on, schemer Ted will say, I know we're supposed to love death more than life, but while Rauf shoots them a blazing, disapproving eye**.

Anybody got a number for MI5? I think I'm onto something here...

*The Cue Yakkety-Sax 21/7 bombers, as a Viz reader pointed out, should really have struck on the twenty-fourth instead. The 24/7 bombers sound like they're ready to strike fear and terror into the hearts of the populace at their convenience.

**Literally A blazing eye singular, if it's Abu Hamza. It's an old gag, but the authorities really wasted their time prosecuting the hook-handed cyclops when they could've just made a crocodile swallow a clock and had it chase that lad all over Finsbury Park.

We'll Meet Again... And Again... And Again, Ad Infinitum

2009-09-05T09:19:00.004Z

I won't deluge you with a blizzard of links, because I think this thread at Socialist Unity and this article by Geoffrey Wheatcroft neatly summarise the point I'll be trying to make, i.e. that the mere mention of World War II is enough to make people lose their damn minds.

This week's seen the Mail jerking off over grovelling apologies from German Chancellor Angela Merkel (born 1954); semi-hysterical bedshitting over the Putin/Medvedev whitewash double act (Russian politicians in "self-serving lies" shocker) and wild alarm at Nixon-wingnut Pat Buchanan's revisionist history.

All of this is basically the background noise of British existence, with constant teary-eyed panegyric on the glorious dead and endless TV repeats of The Nazis - History's Most Evil Bastards. The iron rule of international sport is that the British will turn in a flash from reasonable people into snickering seven year olds, and commentators can never resist getting in on the act with snotty comments about the French football team's poor defending and the Germans' fierce aerial bombardment etc.

I mention all this because I'm currently reading Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker, which I picked up specifically because it caused paroxysms of spluttering outrage from some the country's biggest bellends. It's a series of sketches and extracts from journals and newspapers of the time, all aimed at making this central point - World War 2 was one long, grinding atrocity in which all belligerent parties bent much of their power to exterminating civilians.

The individual points that have so enraged the patriots are, in short, that 1) Churchill was a war-mad nut who popped boners for saturation bombing of civilians; that 2) the allies were pretty much indifferent to the plight of the Jews, and that 3) avoiding total war might've caused less deaths than the total war that resulted, my take on these being 1) True 2) True and 3) Maybes aye, maybes naw, and unprovable anyway.

I think this is a representative example of how people react to the suggestion that the allies weren't shy about rubbing out thousands of innocents and that WWII wasn't the bestest and most moral war EVAR.*

Now, I've spent much of my life reading rah-rah histories of the period and watching nostalgic hokum like The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan. I have a damn good grasp of the era and I can be trusted to consider the opinions of pacifists and draw my own conclusions; I don't need to be protected from dangerous, national-myth challenging opinions by a gaggle of angry idiots.

And it's the challenging of national myths, not whether Lord Halifax said (x) to (y) in 1938, that is the problem for some people here. Well-reasoned consideration of our history often leads to uncomfortable conclusions, which may have knock-on effects on present and future policy, and that just Can't Be Allowed To Happen.

Would anyone like an example? No doubt it would be possible for us to spend eight years in Afghanistan blowing up civilians and psychos alike, losing two hundred soldiers while mouthing stock phrases like bad things happen in wars and we will not give in to totalitarianism that threatens our way of life without all the pom-pom waving WWII nostalgia.

One major difference between the two conflicts, of course, is that the Prime Minister didn't need to take the podium in 1947 to explain why we were fighting in the first place. Gordon Brown did it yesterday.

*If you want to test how deeply embedded this stuff is in our society, try saying Nuking Hiroshima was a war crime or Allied bombing killed more French civilians than the Blitz killed Londoners to friends or family members. Oh, and be sure to stand well back.

Let's Take Some Pride in Our Achievements, People!

2009-09-04T21:55:00.003Z

Yet more disgraceful trashing of Great British culture by the MSM this week, as the BBC announces that the UK's teenage girls are the industrial world's worst drunks.

I'm long since past the point where these relentless assaults on our national character annoy me, so I'll just challenge any BBC journalist to visit a random bar in, say, Copenhagen, and track down five sixteen year olds who will even stand their round, let alone down three bottles of Smirnoff Ice in a minute. Best of luck, Beeboids!

And yet here in Scotland, the boozers teem with teens who will not only put their hands in their pockets on cue, but will match you nip and pint 'til closing time, then clatter you round the puss with a bottle of cider and fight the police like the Tasmanian Devil all the way to the back of the van.

Worst drinkers? Beat that, Belgium!

A Couple of Quick Points

2009-08-26T22:19:00.003Z

Relating to my earlier, Trainspotting-titled post about the Lockerbie bomber, in which I basically called book-pimping professorial windbag Tom Gallacher a giant, pulsating clackersack of epic dimensions, here's a brief extract from his latest assault on your intelligence...

(On people offering support to the justice minister) ...Phone in programmes have been deluged by pro-MacAskill callers. Jean Brodie type Morningside matrons and have made common cause with the workshy druggies who feature in Irvine Walsh’s Trainspotting...

It's possible that this is entirely coincidental, I suppose, although I do have a Sitemeter that suggests otherwise. For what it's worth, I'll be up at five in the morning for work tomorrow, same as usual, and Trainspotting was a work of fiction rather than a documentary. And the bloke who wrote it wasn't called Walsh.

On an unrelated matter, well done to Arsenal for pumping my team 5-1 over two legs. I was particularly impressed by Vermaelen and Gallas in defence, who easily dealt with everything we could throw at them, and I appreciate their excellent football. I hope they do well this year.

On the other hand, does Eduardo's hilarious, penalty-winning dive now mean that we won't be subjected to the annual cry of Why, Oh Why, must English teams suffer this relentless cheating?

I mean, at least Michael Owen used to wait until somebody stuck a leg in before he threw himself to the floor.

Lockerbie Bomber - Point/Counterpoint

2009-08-23T18:48:00.009Z

We May Not Agree With The Bomber's Release, But We Must Accept It
by Eleanor De Souza, TIME Magazine

The decision by the Scottish Government this week to release convicted bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has horrified America.

As a nation, we are not accustomed to this kind of weaseling accommodation with terrorists. We Americans recognise that there are some foes so remorseless, so unrelentingly evil, that they deserve neither compassion nor mercy.

Nonetheless, we must recognise that people in other countries do not necessarily share our moral fortitude in the face of danger, nor our passionate belief that those who would do us harm must be hunted down and brought to justice.

We may not agree with the bomber's release, but we must accept it.

Scotland may have surrendered to terrorism and its people may even have chosen the way of appeasement, but it is not for us to pass judgement upon their cowardice. We cannot force our values upon others; we can only act as an exemplar for other nations, and forgive their inevitable transgressions.

I Didn't Sodomise All Them Taxi Drivers So a Loada Pinko Scotchies Could Go All Pussy
by Private Charles A. Buggenheim, 372nd Military Police

Hey Billy, you seen this shit in the paper about that terrorist them Scotch let go and shit?

Says here they let that sumbitch get on a plane and just up and fly his ugly Al-Qaeda ass straight back to Jihadistan for a big ol' party. Man, whats up with that, huh?

I'm just sayin' dude, I didn't sodomise all them taxi drivers so a loada pinko Scotchies could go all pussy.

What you laughin' at? If that'd been me, I wouldn'ta let that motherfucker go. Uh-uh. I'da walked right out into the street, grabbed me a suspicious lookin' taxi driver, stripped that sucker naked and then me and my buddies would justa stuck this here flashlight right up his ass.

That'd show them terrorists that you do. Not. Fuck with the United States of America, unless you want some randomly-chosen cabbie to face American justice, backdoor-style.

Oh what, you think that's disgusting? You think protecting American lives by forcibly buggering taxi drivers with a flashlight or a broom handle, or the muzzle of a rifle is disgusting, huh?

That ain't disgusting, man. Releasing terrorists like them Scotch - now, that's disgusting. That's some weak-ass shit, that's like appeasement man. Especially when you could be ass-ramming an Iraqi cabbie half to death in a torture dungeon instead.

Homos.

Wi Some Cats, You Say "Reason," They Mew "Treason," Ken?

2009-08-20T19:58:00.008Z

So, let's say you're the justice minister of Scotland's minority administration, and you're suddenly seized with a dreadful terror - an inescapable fear that, after years of hard work, you've finally bashed your head on the glass ceiling of devolved government.

What to do?

Well, why not pick a pointless fistfight with the President of the United States of America by releasing a convicted mass murderer from prison, for no damn reason whatsoever?

I imagine you might be able to think of many reasons to avoid such a hare-brained scheme, but rest assured that none of them have occurred to the furious pundits bitching like drag queens at the Scottish Government for granting compassionate release to Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Take numbnuts Spectator hack Fraser Nelson as a fairly representative example...

"It's about projecting that image, of an independent Scotland thumbing its nose at Westminster and even the mighty America. It's about yanking these levers of power because they are there, and because they make a noise".

So, it's all about garnering publicity and freaking out the squares. How's that worked out so far for our attention-seeking administration? Well, I imagine justice minister Kenny MacAskill enjoyed reading "Massacred Then Betrayed," "Scottish Sucker," "A Week To Shame Our Rulers" and "MacAskill Should Resign Over Lockerbie Fiasco" with his scrambled egg on toast yesterday.

Yet that's nothing compared to the histrionics of book-plugging academic cretin Tom Gallacher, for whom the prisoner release is...

"...a virility contest in which Scotland’s ‘only true champions’ stand up for the integrity of Scottish justice and make their will prevail however much it discomfits Washington..."

And how astoundingly accurate those words must've sounded to First Minister Alex Salmond yesterday, as he was repeatedly forced to assure interviewers countrywide that no, he doesn't enjoy licking the hot, salty tears of sorrow from the wizened cheeks of the bereaved.

I imagine he'll also thoroughly enjoy basking in glorious publicity on Monday, when he stands up with his dick in his hand in front of a mob of apopleptic MSPs at a hastily-reconvened parliament and tries to explain the concept of compassion in Scots law. Not that he'll be heard over the bellowing displays of raw machismo from his political colleagues, of course, who will be throwing kung fu shapes like a roomful of geriatric Van Dammes and vowing to retrospectively skullfuck Megrahi to death on national television.

Which prompts the question - what kind of gibbering idiot could believe for a second that the SNP would benefit from releasing Scotland's most notorious terrorist, even for the paltry few weeks it will take him to die a hideous, cancerous death? Not even the most crazed nationalist would buy it. The last time we had a terrorist attack in this country, one of the fuckers was instantly punched silly and kicked in the balls by passing punters while he was on fire, for God's sake.

Well, it makes sense to the kind of gibbering idiot who regards consequence-free, bellicose woofing as a signifier of Ultimate Seriousness, I guess.(1) There seems to be a lot of that around these days.

Myself, I noted the fact that the advice MacAskill received from his officials - civil service, prison service, medical practitioners - all recommended release, and that most of the UK families agreed. Unlike his fucknut critics, MacAskill knew full well he'd receive a merciless kicking from the industrial bullshit factory that is the UK's media, yet he still went on and did what he thought was right.

In my book, that's called "courage", but then, what the hell do I know? Perhaps the modern political titan bares his bulging moral ballsack by doing whatever he's told by the tabloids and the Democrats.

(1)Belligerent, consequence-free woofing - That might be why Tom Gallacher's contribution sympathises with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; a woman who spent her last election campaign veering wildly between pre-planned crocodile tears and insane promises to shower Iran with nuclear warheads. From the debate I watched, the only thing more blatantly obvious than her naked insincerity and political calculation was her collossal, throbbing boner for power.

The Gimp That Keeps On Giving

2009-08-13T18:48:00.007Z

Lots of people fretting over the appropriate response to human fuck-toy Daniel Hannan's appearance on cretin-friendly American propaganda channel FOX News today.

Hannan's schtick - basically, trotting out the same sorry cavalcade of fork-tongued lies about the NHS that have recently been terrifying FOX's audience of cowardly, snake-handling pinheads - has bloggers of all stripes wringing their hands over the illiberal measures that should greet Hannan upon his return.

UK blogs being what they are, the measures proposed fail to meet the level of draconian viciousness that the sleekit streak of piss so richly merits. Naturally, Hannan deserves to be rammed by vans like Stephen King just for being a right-wing Tory, and that's before we even get to his gooey-eyed on-screen love affair with Glenn Beck.

Beck's a revelation for foreigners unacquainted with the fierce pride that the lesser North American wingnut takes in his own emboldened stupidity. Squatting on FOX's gilded primetime lilypad like some kind of malevolent toad, Glenn Beck makes a grand living by feeding America's heavily-armed survivalists overwrought Hitler analogies. By agreeing to take part in such a hilarious parade of public idiocy, his guests might as well don T-shirts printed with the slogan Will Suck a Cock For a Dollar.

And sure enough, where there's a dollar, there's a Dan. Witnessing the blossoming romance between the blushing political ingenue and the thick-jowled, bug-eyed mentalist is an excruciating experience, like watching Stan Laurel being groomed for crazed penetration by a sweating Oliver Hardy. You could honestly cut the sexual tension with a knife - I was seized with mortal dread, certain that at any second Beck would fling away his desk like the Incredible Hulk and throw himself roaring on top of the pencil-necked politician...

But I digress. Some lefties are, predictably, outraged by Hannan's open treachery and are calling for him to be censured upon his return. Obviously, he deserves to be spot-welded to a heavy radiator and hurled into the Thames, but left wingers have once again got the wrong end of the stick.

Liberals, socialists, progressives of every stripe should be clamouring for the perky little geek to be goaded onto every primetime television show going to defend his remarks. Glue a giant royal blue Tory rosette to his forehead and force him to explain his baleful hatred for the NHS - zoom that camera right in on his pallid, perspiring face as he gabbles feeble justifications like he's just been caught whacking off to twink porn on the office computer.

The Tories will lose a percentage point for every minute the man spends speaking.

See, the public may have finally seen through the tissue-thin veneer of fake humanity that New Labour draped over their mean-as-hell authoritarian obsessions, but they're not on the verge of pledging allegience to Satan.

Five minutes in a room with this buttoned-down gimp would have the electorate streaming to the polls to vote for Esther Rantzen, or the Monster Raving Loonies, or a piss-filled balloon with a face painted on it - hell, maybe even the Liberal Democrats. Anything to keep ideological fruitcakes like Hannan out of power.

Slap that sucker on The One Show and he'll crack like a quail egg. Word is bond, peeps.