Least Worst Blogging Of The Year 2007- Part One.

A round up of what I consider my best posts of 2007, if you come back this time next year it will save actually reading the blog for the rest of the year:

January:

• Big Brother Gate. Effigy of Jade Goody gets burnt.
• Robert Fisk confesses to bed wetting.
• The Irish moan a lot.
• I predicted the success of the Surge.
• Rape conviction rates, one of my favourite posts as I explain statistically why the low conviction rates don't mean what the government assume they mean.
  

February:

• Liberal slavery, Johann Hari calls for the reintroduction of slavery.
• Nutters & Liars, two posts about a strange group of Srebrenica deniers.
• Enlightened Liberals In Action, left wing academic bloggers debate whether it is okay to respond to disagreements with asian women by racially abusing them.
• Why the Olympics would be an economic disaster even if they met the budget limits.
• The problem of 'Human Rights' as trump cards.

March:

• Student Stalinists try to get professor sacked for holding different political opinions to themselves, in order to provoke debate.
• Guardianista blames Thatcher for juvenile crime wave, by kids born after she was PM!
• I predict that Al Gore's new book won't sell when his fans are confused by misleading butterfly bookcase.
• Was William Wilberforce a double agent? No.
• A serious post about the problems of the police trawling for evidence in child abuse cases.
• Iran abducted British sailors, the government did nothing.

April:

• Thick bogtrotter nationalist demands that countries have the right to annex smaller islands nearby.
• The NUT annual conference dealt with the critical issues facing our schools, Zionists and white oppression.
• How the Macpherson report led to todays wave of gang murders.
• The Alan Hart guest posts, or why Israel is responsible the Virginia Tech massacre, Yasser Arafat's good looks scared Israel and why Alan Hart will sue everybody.

What A Difference A Year Makes.

David Cameron has just declared that the Conservatives are a libertarian party. This is the same party that was proposing Fat Credits back in January.

Link via Here.

More Petraeus.

On the subject of General Petraeus and the Surge strategy, the General has suffered a lot of criticism by political partisans whose interest in undermining their political opponents outweighs their interest in the truth. Even now this tendency is still pronounced with lots of sneering about how it is all propaganda. So a lot of people are choosing to disbelieve the reports of the Surge's success, to which I would say, fair enough don't believe them, have a look at the recent statement by Osama Bin Laden instead:

Our duty is to foil these dangerous schemes, which try to prevent the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq. The most evil of the traitors are those who trade away their religion for the sake of their mortal life,

Does this desperation sound like the words of a leader of an organisation that is winning?

Man Of The Year.

The Sunday Telegraph is right to crown General David Petraeus as its Person of the Year. His job is far from complete but his accomplishment in turning around a conflict that looked as though it could result in a jihadist victory is immense. At the beginning of the year the vast majority of media and political commentators were dismissive of the Surge strategy but it was a rational response to the problems that had developed. Oliver Kamm recounts General Petraeus's achievements more eloquently than I could before finishing with a bizarre statement at the end:

Had Tony Blair and General Petraeus been, respectively, the leading political and military figures in the Coalition's Iraq campaign from the outset, much more might have been achieved.

Other than a vague misplaced hero worship of Tony Blair why would anyone assume that he would have enabled a better outcome to the Iraq invasion than what actually happened? Did Blair criticise the lack of manpower when he was Prime Minister? In fact the area that he was responsible for, Basra, saw a strategy of appeasing the local militias which now looks to have been seriously misjudged. Now if Robert Gates had been the leading political figure then things might really have improved.

Bloggocks.

I see that I have made 360 posts on this blog so far this year, well 361 by the time anyone reads this, I feel an almost neurotic compulsion to bang out 4 more posts today in order to achieve a nice round average of 1 post per day.

Mixed Messages.

Won't government educationalists make up their minds? Yesterday it was reported that:

Schools have been told to encourage boys to play netball and take dance lessons in the name of equality.

Thousands of schools are being forced to ensure that pupils are more "gender balanced" as part of discrimination legislation introduced this year.

They must also ensure more girls study traditionally masculine subjects such as science, while increasing numbers of boys take options such as drama or dance.

But today I read that:

Young boys should be encouraged to play with toy guns and other weapons at nursery to get them interested in education, according to government advice.

The guidance urges nursery staff to resist their "natural instinct" to stop boys playing with weapons in games with other toddlers.

But teachers condemned the advice and warned that toy guns "symbolise aggression"

The policy might be a bait and switch technique to trick young boys into thinking that school will be fun when they're very young and then once their guard is down stick them in a tutu and force them to prance around.

The dangers of encouraging boys to take up dancing lessons are all too well demonstrated by this story from the China Daily:

Belly dancing has become a new fashion among boys in the southwestern China's metropolis of Chongqing, as a means of body maintenance, especially when developing a flat stomach.

The accompanying photographs make it pretty clear what sort of 'boys' are taking it up:

It looks like a training camp for China's next generation of children's television presenters!

Dynasties & Feminism.

Rona Huq looks at the electoral success of female politicians in the sub-continent and asks why asian women aren't as successful in politics in Britain. The'Asian' part of the equation is pretty straightforward, it's because er we aren't in Asia. Next week I'll solve the enduring mystery of why Slovakian politics is dominated by Slovakians.

The reason for the success of women in rising to the top in the political systems of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is not because women are held in such high regard compared to over here but because their politics is highly dynastic and being part of a famous family is more important than being male or female, this also applies to South East Asia. A quick look at the Wikipedia entries for the various female members of the front benches of the three main parties reveals that almost none of them can really be said to have inherited their status from their fathers or husbands, although god only knows how Harriet Harman has managed to get promoted. If women rose to the top in the same way that they do in south Asia then we would currently be led by Cherie Blair.

Are Assassinations 'Successful'?

When a political leader is assassinated, such as Benazir Bhutto yesterday, the assassins usually hope to influence the future direction of the society they reside in. There is an argument to say that almost all assassinations fail to achieve the intended result, with the results often being exactly the opposite of what the killers intended. A recent example of that tendency would include the assassination of Pim Fortuyn, after which having demonised him so thoroughly in life by making out that he was some kind of Jorg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen figure the main Dutch political parties have all adopted significant aspects of his platform. This kind of result is quite common in stable countries where assassins tend to simply make martyrs of the victims whose successors can pursue the same policies with greater vigour as a result of the ensuing public sympathies.

The problem with the Bhutto killing though is that she did not run her party as a constitutional organisation with defined rules of succession, rather it is a dynastic organisation where the power was far too dependent on one person whose death has the potential to create a power struggle that will negate any sympathy votes the party will receive.

Still the list of assassinations that were successful in changing history to the murderers liking is rather short, the assassinations of Admiral Carrero Blanco and Leon Trotsky spring to mind as isolated examples but those are very much the exceptions.

Politics & Threats To Science.

Like most people in this country I regard creationism as an intellectual absurdity, I was going to say I regard creationists as absurd but I realise that otherwise very intelligent people can sincerely believe ridiculous propositions, Isaac Newton and his belief in alchemy springs to mind. As long as they aren't aggressively trying to assert their idiotic beliefs I have no problem with them. Ramesh Ponnuru of the National Review has a post up about remarks made about evolution and creationism in politics by Marty Peretz of the New Republic:

He writes at the New Republic: "My minimum condition for and from a plausible president is that he accept that men and women are descended from apes and monkeys. Huckabee surely doesn't. But, then, I'm not sure that George Bush does either." Do scientists accept this either? Back when I was in high school, they taught us that apes, monkeys, and humans shared ancestors in common rather than that the last group evolved from the first two. It seems like an awfully imprecise way for Peretz to state a truth he considers so important.

This encapsulates a lot of the problems I have with those who sneer about the views held by certain people about creationism, usually they are just as ignorant and misguided about the science as the creationists themselves. The likes of Peretz who don't understand evolution but know that they are passionately supportive of it aren't a huge concern in any practical sense, they're just annoying. The real danger to evolutionary science comes not from creationists or the Peretzs of this world but rather from those who claim to believe in evolution but try to silence anyone who proposes that it may apply to humans as much as any other species.

E.O. Wilson's landmark book, Sociobiology, was met with immense hostility by the far left, including by supposed scientists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin. He was variously physically attacked and smeared as a Nazi* by members of the far left under front groups like 'Science for the People' a totalitarian anti-science movement. Wilson's offence was to write a book about the biological origins of behaviour in animals, including humans whereas devout marxists like Lewontin believed that this blasphemes against Das Kapital. Whilst creationists and ID'ers believe errant nonsense they pose no serious threat to the advancement of science, the radical left on the other hand have a consistent track record of trying to derail politically inconvenient science.

* I don't endorse the whole contents of this site, I'm only linking to them because they have reproduced one of Wilson's essays.

An Ominous Precedent.

Al Qeada are claiming responsibility for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, although they would probably do so even if they weren't responsible. Individual murders as opposed to general mass murder are not a hallmark of that organisation , in fact the only previous targeted assassination that they have carried out, as far as I'm aware, was the killing of the anti Taliban military leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. The date of his killing is notable, the ninth of September 2001, as it appears that it was a prelude to the World Trade Center & Pentagon attacks that occurred two days later.

The So Called 'Christmas Father'

Hate preacher Omar Bakri, who is barred from Britain, is calling on Brits to boycott Christmas.

Using the internet to post a rant against the festive season, Bakri claims Christmas should be "completely forbidden".

In another chilling post the radical cleric said Christmas Day would be the perfect day to launch a terror attack on the UK.

He hasn't thought this through, Christmas Day would be a crap day for a terrorist attack, because the streets are empty, everyone is at home and apart from the odd pub there aren't many large public gatherings of people to target. Sheesh for an evil genius, he's pretty dumb.

He said: "To have Christmas tree, visit so-called Christmas Father - that is completely forbidden.

Down with Christmas Father!

"Make sure you do not watch TV.

Don't worry, the controllers of ITV and the BBC channels have already ensured that.

Do not let them hear jingle bells. Do not send your children on Christmas trip."

Despite this all those shopping centre managers who rejected his applications to be Santa in their Christmas grottoes were still guilty of islamophobia.

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Merry F***ing Christmas

Festive Christmas Prisoner Propaganda

One of the myriad of anti-prison groups have generated some coverage with this seasonal PR piece, faithfully reported by the BBC as news:

More children will be separated by prison than divorce this Christmas, the Prison Reform Trust has said.

The organisation is calling on people to think about the distress faced by prisoners and their families.

It says putting criminals in overcrowded prisons and breaking up families does nothing to make the public safer.

First of all it is an obviously bogus claim that prison has a bigger impact than divorce in separating children from their parents. There are millions of divorced parents whereas the prison population is stuck at around 80000, most of whom are not parents anyway. Secondly it is equally untrue to claim that locking up criminals doesn't make the rest of us safer, do these people think that if criminals are jailed then someone else will carry out the crimes that they would have committed in order to keep the numbers up?

Lastly if they think that Christmas will make the public more receptive to pro prisoner propaganda then they are deluded. The worst time of year for this sort of thing is when the inevitable spate of burglars nicking the presents of children arrives.

The Enchanting Robert Mugabe,

In an interview in the Sunday Telegraph, luvvie king Richard Attenborough says:

I wonder, though, whether he still has kind things to say about Robert Mugabe, who visited the set regularly when he was making his film Cry Freedom, about the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. 'I thought Mugabe was the cat's whiskers at the time. We would go to his house and drink tea out of bone china with him and his wife, Sally. They were an enchanting couple. He said that the future of Zimbabwe was in this film, that the whole concept of a dual relationship between black and white was an absolute prerequisite. Then Sally died and I think this drove him insane. I think he went mad, turned into a bastard. A shit. That's my superficial reading of the situation.'

Cry Freedom came out in 1987 so was probably filmed in 1986. This was slap bang in the middle of Robert Mugabe's campaign of mass murder and ethnic cleansing in Matabeleland. Attenborough too busy filming a denunciation of racial oppression to notice that his 'enchanting' host was busy oppressing racial minorities as he filmed.

Blog Request.

I did a vanity google search today for 'Unenlightened Commentary' and was surprised to learn that one of the New York Times blogs, 'The Opinionator' linked here two months ago to my very wise words on the James Watson affair. This presumably means that I'm fit to print! Anyway I would like to have found out earlier so I was wondering what is the best gizmo to use to highlight who is linking to this site? I'm particularly interested in something which highlights recent links especially and can be displayed as a side bar.

£1274.25

That's a bloody expensive book. Speaking of book buying I'm thinking that now would be a good time to go down to Waterstones and begin my Christmas shopping, so that my choice of gifts isn't dependent on what I can get in Texaco at 10:00 on Christmas day.

A Compassionate Conservative Shows His Compassion.

The always interesting Britain & America blog (note to self update blogroll soon), has a post about US immigration policy with respect to HIV carriers. A Conservative MEP, Charles Tannock, has complained about it thusly:

"If the new proposal becomes law it could mean that people who are HIV-positive are denied the chance to be reunited with family members and partners, or to work or study in America. The measures amount to an entrenchment of discrimination, in particular because they will disproportionately affect thousands of gay and bisexual people. I've raised this issue in a written parliamentary question to the EU Commission and Council because collectively they are likely to have considerable clout with the US authorities on this particular issue. The US is one of the only countries to place travel restrictions on people living with HIV and AIDS. America's policy places it alongside countries such as Saudi Arabia. It's unworthy of a country like America, with which we share common values of liberty and equality."

I don't have any strong views on the issue itself, although it isn't really the place of British politicians to lecture friendly countries on their immigration policies. There is a balance to be struck between liberty and public health and it may be an over reaction to restrict travel or it might not. It certainly seems a little bit pointless though in the context of the USA having few controls on illegal immigration from Latin America but I digress. The comment thread that subsequently unfolds is what interests me. Another MEP, Roger Helmer writes:

We really must get away from this concept of "indirect discrimination". The fact is that action against Aids is a legitimate public health measure. If it happens that a disproportionate number of Aids sufferers are homosexuals, that is no responsibility of the regulators, and no reason to dilute public health initiatives.

You might as well argue that our smoking ban in buildings is "indirect discrimination" against men, since more men than women smoke.

A reasonable point, one which you can either agree or disagree with, but it is well reasoned and cogently expressed. At which point another poster by the name of Justin Hinchcliffe who appears to be the Chairman of the Tottenham Conservative Association jumps in:

Sadly, and once again, Roger Helmer is showing his ignorance, lack of compassion and outright bigotry. He's a disgrace to not just the Conservative Party, but to the human race.

Er, OK. This must be one of those new fangled compassionate conservatives who believe that any disagreement over whether allowing carriers of an infectious disease into one's country is a reasonable risk to take becomes sub human.

The Problem With Libertarians.

I've personally got a lot of sympathy with libertarian objectives for domestic policy- lower taxes, lower spending, fewer regulations and little interference in people's private lives. However there is one problem that I have with them, on foreign policy libertarian purists are often wildly unrealistic. Take the current challenger for the Republican nomination for president Ron Paul whose candidature is a genuine phenomenon, from a recent interview:

Is this case not different? Religious fanatics hate us and want to kill us because of our culture.

I don't think that's true. It is not Muslim fanaticism that is the culprit. The litmus test is whether we are actually occupying a territory. In the case of Saudi Arabia, that was holy land.

US troops have been in Britain for 50 years yet we've managed to restrain ourselves from shooting at them, almost as though there is another factor at work. If anything expansionist philosophies like radical Islamism go harder on societies that are more pacifistic in their responses.

And if in most of Iraq, some religious fanatic comes to power and has money to buy nuclear weapons, we should just leave him alone?

The Soviets had the technology. They were 90 miles off our shore, and they had nuclear weapons there. But we were able to talk to them. We took our missiles out of Turkey. They took the missiles out of Cuba. We should be talking to people like this. It's the lack of diplomacy that is the greatest threat, not the weapons themselves.

Yep let's sit back whilst countries where the national motto is 'death to America, death to the West' acquire nuclear bombs. After all they won't eventually come to us will they? The rest of his foreign policy would leave an open door to any expansionist regime (except Canada) to destabilise the planet.

If North Korea invades South Korea, we should just leave it alone?

Sure, but it's not going to happen. South Korea's about 10 times more powerful than North Korea.

If China invaded Taiwan?

That's a border war, and they should deal with it.

If Canada invades Montana?

I think that might be a little bit different. Montana probably could take care of it, but we'd probably help them out from Washington if that happened.

That's a role for the federal government?

Oh, sure.

Pointless Gimmick Of The Week.

Primary schools in England will receive about £340 extra each next year to support compulsory languages teaching.

What is the point of this? This works out at around ten pounds per school week so it isn't as though they will be able to afford any additional language tuition. It probably works out at less than 10 pence per pupil per week.

Polly Toynbee Says Something Intelligent & Insightful.

I've always detested the way many on the left use the word "Progressive", for exactly the reasons that Polly Toynbee gives:

"but "progressive" fails the political test: if any party can use it, forget it. Would any party call itself regressive?"

It must be the festive spirit taking hold, but that is exactly how I feel about the word too. It is both meaningless and question begging.

Presidental Rankings.

Seeing as everyone likes lists and my previous post was about ranking US presidents here is my highly authoritative ranking of 20th century Presidents. I won't include any explanations just yet (because it is half past two in the morning) although I have thought through all of them and may add brief explanations tomorrow.

First Rate.

Reagan- After a sustained period of poor to middling government he restored intelligent leadership to both foreign and domestic policy. Faced down Soviets whilst reviving the moribund US economy.
Truman- Plunged in the deep end, but was able to make the right decisions in WW2, and later implemented the Truman doctrine to prevent Soviet expansionism in the face of opposition within his own party. Surprisingly unpopular during his time in office.
Eisenhower- Apart from a fondness for coups his foreign policy was strong in facing up to the Soviets and he oversaw a steady boom period. Also pushed through racial desegregation of the army.
Coolidge- Resisted calls to involve the federal government too heavily in the economy and helped restore the dignity of his office.

Middling

Bush- Reasonable domestic policy and handled the major crisis of his tenure, the invasion of Kuwait, brilliantly.
Kennedy- Buggered up over Cuba, but passed big tax cuts which helped invigorate the economy.
Clinton- End of Cold War meant that his weakness on foreign policy was only a limited handicap. Domestically he appointed a good treasury secretary, passed NAFTA and let the Republicans reform welfare.
Taft- Meh.
Nixon- Good on foreign policy but way to the left domestically with policies including Affirmative Action, wage & price controls and the extension of big government.
Ford- Amoral foreign policy combined with average domestic policy.

Poor.

T. Roosevelt- Started unnecessary wars and demonised business. Almost as overrated as the other Roosevelt.
Harding- Not as bad as he is usually considered, the way he dealt with a severe economic downturn puts Franklin Roosevelt to shame.
Wilson- Buggered peace negotiations after WW1 by failing to keep USA involved in world affairs.
Carter - Only reason he is in the poor rather than disastrous category is because he was too useless even to fuck up properly.

Disastrous

Hoover - Raised taxes and reintroduced massive tariffs into the world economy.
Johnson - Failure in Vietnam, and massive expansion of welfare state and crime levels. In fairness he passed the civil rights act but that was more symbolic than effective.
F. Roosevelt- Prolonged the depression and failed to prepare for war.

The Wisdom Of Crowds.

Iain Dale recently had a reader survey where he asked his readers to rate the US Presidents from Roosevelt onwards. For a blog primarily read by self described Conservatives the results are bizarre:

Franklin D Roosevelt +67
Dwight Eisenhower +59
Harry Truman +53
Ronald Reagan +50
John F Kennedy +40
Bill Clinton + 20
George Bush Snr -4
Lyndon Johnson -19
Gerald Ford -20
Jimmy Carter -40
Richard Nixon -42
George W Bush -48

The adulation of Roosevelt by Conservatives is one of the strangest things there is. I suppose a lot of people think of him as a great war leader, but given the USA's strength it is hard to imagine that any plausible alternative president would have lost the war. The only question was how long it would take and it would probably have been quicker if the USA had had a leader who had taken the precaution of building up American military strength prior to the outbreak of the conflict. Roosevelt was first elected to end the great depression yet through his serial bungling he managed to prolong it for almost a decade. He did this whilst engaging in some truly appalling demagoguery and assaults on freedom.

The same people who declare that fascism is dawning in Bush's America when terrorist suspects have their phones tapped are happy to idolise a president whose administration jailed someone (Jacob Maged) for charging 5 cents less to do some dry cleaning than the New Dealers thought was appropriate. The admiration for FDR is reminiscent of the admiration with which many African countries view Big Man leaders today, it doesn't matter how bad they are at the job as long as they stand up to imaginary enemies.

The rest of the list is less noteworthy some of the decisions are still distinctly odd, I mean how does George W Bush rank below Lyndon Johnson, presumably Bush is unpopular principally for Iraq, yet by any reasonable judgment Johnson's handling of Vietnam was an order of magnitude worse than Bush even on the harshest possible judgment of Bush.

Quote Of The Day.

Following the Tommy Sheridan's arrest on suspicion of perjury Mr Eugenides recaps the socialist swinger's libel case against the News of the World:

Despite being one of those cases to which one was tempted to apply the famous dictum of Henry Kissinger that it was a pity they couldn't both lose, in the end the newspaper came off second best. Tommy was awarded damages by a jury of dribbling, credulous fuckwits his peers in Edinburgh

Indeed.

Still the case did at least inspire me to write a screenplay based on the trial which I've modeled as a sequel to the Henry Fonda classic 12 Angry Men. Obviously with so many studios bidding over the rights to film my script I can't give the whole thing away for free right now, but don't worry, 12 Angry Men...tal Retards will be hitting a cinema near you soon enough.

Robbing The Poor To Give To The Rich.

In the Absurder Will Hutton writes about banking:

The first task of President Franklin D Roosevelt after his election in 1932 was the recapitalisation of the bankrupt American banks by new public agencies - which his Republican critics decried as socialism. But it pulled the US out of slump. Unless the western interbank markets start functioning again soon, the question will arise as to which governments are going to bail the western banks out of their foolishness.

Given that the Depression lasted for 7 or 8 more years after Roosevelt's banking reforms, and bank collapses* continued unabated in that time why should we look to that era as an inspiration. Also why the likes of Hutton who bleat on about widening inequality and income redistribution incessantly, so keen to transfer money from the general tax paying population to shareholders who have chosen to invest in risky banks? Robbing from the poor to give to the "Not quite as rich as they expected to be" is what Hutton's proposals amount to.

* Interesting fact, whilst hundreds of US banks went bust every year throughout the Depression, no Canadian banks did. This was because US banks were over regulated and artificially prevented from diversifying their risks.

Stereotypes Debunked.

Apprenticeships courses in areas such as hairdressing are not just for girls, and providers must do more to tackle gender stereotyping, Ofsted has said.

Ofsted are quite right to challenge this insidious stereotype, after all gay men are equally good at it.

Ed Balls Does It Again!

The OECD education rankings that showed that British children are performing poorly in measures of literacy, science and numeracy were released earlier this month. Oddly enough enough I can't find any reference to the results on the Department for Children, Schools and Families* website. Since the results were released the department has managed to find room for press releases such as:

KEVIN BRENNAN PLAYS FOR LITERACY AND NUMERACY SUCCESS AT WEMBLEY
BALLS AND JOHNSON ANNOUNCE REVIEW OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
ED BALLS LAUNCHES PLAN FOR CHILDREN
ED BALLS ANNOUNCES PILOTS TO HELP CHILDREN WITH DYSLEXIA

I realise that parents, children and teachers are all on tenterhooks waiting to hear about Kevin Brennan's Wembley exploits, but you would have thought that the publication of the most widely recognised international education rankings would merit a brief mention.

Iraqi Employees Of The British Army.

Iraqi employees of the British army are being refused entry into the United Kingdom. It isn't as though the government is particularly selective about whom we allow into this country so it seems perverse that just about the only group who are refused entry are people whose lives are in danger because they helped our troops in trying to bring peace to our country. Dan Hardie who has been conducting a campaign to allow them in has quite a bit to say on this decision:

There are a great many methods which our Government, acting in our name, is using to keep out Iraqi ex-employees at risk of being murdered for having trusted this country. Officials have rejected 125 out of 200 applications for help so far, and one of the grounds that they are citing is absenteeism. One of the skivers, an ex-interpreter named Safa, says that he served UK Forces for two and a half years and was unable to come to work when militiamen began observing the British bases, targeting those working for the Army.

Read the whole thing.

Me, Myself & I.

CiF writer Conor Foley discusses yesterdays suicide bombings in Algiers. Actually that isn't quite true, he uses the Algerian massacres to discuss a topic even more dear to his heart, namely himself. I count a whopping 30 "I"s, 3 "me"s, 3 "my"s, 2 "mine"s and 1 "myself". Plus an assortment of "we"s and "us"s.

Polly Quote Of The Day (Sort of)

Ok not actually a Polly quote but a quote from a Polly admirer in her comment section:

Great news! - if the promises are fulfilled - but there's still a fundamental fla. My experience is as a play-worker, and I know children benefit enormously in their early years from well resourced play provision

Play-workers!? Children generally manage to work out how to play on their own.

Some People Should Not Vote.

People voting in local elections could be offered entry to a free lottery under plans to increase turnout

Anyone who onlyagrees to vote in exchange for a lottery ticket is exactly the sort of person whom I don't want to have any say in choosing local government. What next, a free needle exchange at the plling station?

Russian Election Fraud.

It is becoming more and more difficult to pretend* that Vladimir Putin is anything other than a thug and fraudster, despite the fervent efforts of cranks to lionise Dobby as the arch enemy of those dastardly neo cons, noted brain donor Neil Clark is a case in point here. Anyone who doubts that the Russian election was rigged should check out the extraordinary voting patterns discovered over here. Or failing that just look at the 99% Putin's party won in Chechnya.

Why Putin would rig an election that he was likely to win, and do it in such a brazen manner, is something to ponder. If his true vote was likely in the mid 40s even after the crackdown on internal opposition that would have given him a mandate to govern but not to overturn the constitution and remain in power for life. There is little that the West can do about it but we should not be under any illusions that it is not a democratic country, it is not an ally, it is not a friend and there is no reason to treat their leaders with the slightest respect.

* I have to admit I personally thought that Putin was a good leader up until at least 2004, and was far more dismissive of the warning signs than I should have been.

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Shami, Shami, Shami.

The Daily Telegraph has been plugging a Q & A with Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti and inviting readers to submit queries. So I submitted a question which was one of the ones that she answered which I'll reprint that part below:

Q: Liberty has long opposed the deportation of the likes of Abu Qatada and others with links to very dangerous groups on the grounds that there is a possibility that the poor dear might be tortured in Jordan. Is it the position of Liberty that if someone has entered this country from a another country with a poor human rights record, that they must be immune from deportation no matter how they behave once they are here or how they got here. Do their rights to remain here trump the right of everyone else to be able to get rid of terrorist sympathisers. Posted by Ross on December 4, 2007 3:55 AM

SC: Torture is wrong. This is an absolute principle that distinguishes democrats from both tyrants and terrorists who believe that human life is cheap. The rule against torture cannot just be about what you do with your own hand or it would be permissible to get others to perform your dirty work. If we say that it is fine to deport people to places of torture, why is extraordinary rendition (where people are sent for torture for the purpose of gaining intelligence) wrong? In civilised societies we bring criminals to justice rather than torturing them. If our so-called Middle-Eastern allies in the “War on Terror” clean up their act, there will be no problem with deporting their nationals.

So we only have to wait until Jordan turns into Switzerland before we can rid ourselves of psychopaths from that country. Yes Jordan tortures people and that is a reason for not deporting someone for say insulting their king or campaigning for democracy, however if asylum in the UK doesn't put the beneficiary under any obligation not to whip up violence against us or our allies then it is simply a suicide pact. To put it another way, if someone were being chased down the street by a mob it would be right to let him in your house for protection, however if he then starts setting fire to the curtains and molesting your dog then he has forfeited any right to be protected.

Western 'Radicals' Support Murdering Indians.

One of the most contemptible features of the 'radical' far left is the enthusiasm of its members for sacrificing the lives of people in poor countries in order to indulge their narcissistic preening.

Attempts by India's communist party to rebrand itself has sparked a war of words between leftwing intellectuals in India and those abroad after a violent attempt by the party to seize paddy fields in West Bengal to be turned over to big business.

When armed communist cadres raided the village of Nandigram last month, killing six people and raping several women, thinkers and writers from across India decried the violence as a "bloody capitulation to globalisation and imperialism". Houses were burnt and thousands fled to refugee camps.

But the party has received support from fellow travellers in the west, notably academic Noam Chomsky, historian Howard Zinn and writer Tariq Ali, who put their names to a letter in the Hindu newspaper highlighting the dangers of splitting the left at a time "when a world power has demolished one state (Iraq) and is now threatening another (Iran)".

[my bolding]
These people are complete and utter vermin.

Sumit Sarkar, a leftwing historian, said the western authors had an "ignorance of what is happening in India. They have no idea of the on-the-ground facts."

They don't care about the on-the-ground facts, as far as these sociopaths are concerned the lives of the poor are expendable in the service of their ideology.

Sudan Teddy Update.

Gillian Gibbons is back home, sadly Mo-Ted has not been so lucky.

Rebellious Scots To Crush.

Lord Goldsmith has decided that we need to revamp the National Anthem, and not just because it is a dirge:

The National Anthem is insufficiently inclusive and should be rewritten, the lawyer leading Labour's review of Britishness has said.

Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, said there was "some problem" with God Save the Queen.

He suggested the replacement of little-known verses, such as that which calls for "rebellious Scots" to be crushed

There is one problem with that, well actually there are several but just one which I'm going to highlight. Namely that there is despite a widespread myth no verse in the anthem about rebellious Scots and there never has been. Back in the 18th Century when the song was first written various ad hoc versions commemorating recent events were around and briefly in the 1740s of the century one version contained a verse:

Lord, grant that Marshal Wade,

May by thy mighty aid,

Victory bring.

May he sedition hush and like a torrent rush,

Rebellious Scots to crush,

God save the King.

This was never universal and was certainly abandoned by the time the song became recognised as a national anthem. In other words Lord Goldsmith's proposal is to remove a verse that was removed more than two centuries ago. This isn't something a layman could be expected to know but he is chairing a commission on the subject and proposing to change the words without having even looked up what the words actually are.

If the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries have passed Labour by what can we expect next, their energy commission to come up with a radical new idea to harness the power of steam?

Chavez Loses.

I'm pleased to see that Hugo Chavez lost the referendum he held yesterday, and it is hilarious to watch pampered Western apologists for third world tyranny try to rationalise this rejection. However the tendency to argue that because Chavez lost and because he has publicly accepted the defeat that it means that maybe he isn't so bad after all is misguided. All it means is that his methods of rigging the vote weren't quite up to the task, there are plenty of historic examples of governments going in for vote rigging only to discover that they have underestimated how much they needed to cheat, the Sandinistas screwed this up too as vividly recounted by P.J. O'Rourke at the time in, I think, "Give War A Chance" (his account of the despondency of all the Sandinista cheerleaders like Jimmy Carter and Bianca Jagger back at the hotel is priceless). To illustrate my point about how Chavez's 'graciousness' confounds his critics I would recommend this news report about another president who lost a referendum on constitutional changes and immediately vowed to respect the result.

Dullest CiF Piece Ever?!

Is this the single most boring article ever written?:

Playing complementary roles

It's high time Belgium and the Netherlands put emotions aside and reviewed their differences on the future course of European integration

Belgium and the Netherlands, two founding members of the European Union, are increasingly divided about what that project now means. The EU's reform treaty is now the focus of that dispute, but its roots go deeper. At one point, according to press reports, the row became so serious that the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had to intervene.

Europe cannot afford a dogfight between these two founding member states, so it's high time to put emotions aside and review their differences on the future course of European integration. As a former Dutch state secretary for European affairs and Benelux coordinator, I believe that the Netherlands and Belgium can once again play complementary roles.

And on and on and on.

Morgan The Apostate Mole.

As part of this blog's ongoing effort to expose infidel plots to insult Islam I draw your attention to this story:

A BRITISH children's author who called one of his characters Mohammed the Mole to promote multiculturalism has renamed him Morgan so as not to offend Muslims.

Kes Gray said the case of British teacher Gillian Gibbons, who has been jailed in Sudan for allowing her class of primary school children to name a teddy bear Mohammed, had prompted him to postpone a reprint of his book, Who's Poorly Too, and change the name.

“I had no idea at all of the sensitivities of the name Mohammed until seeing this case in Sudan,” Gray told The Sunday Times.

“As soon as I saw the news I thought, 'Oh gosh, I've got a mole called Mohammed - this is not good'.”

Gray's book, which has sold 40,000 copies in Britain and overseas, also featured the characters Dipak Dalmatian and Pedro Penguin in an effort to be “inclusive”.

If the mole changed his name from Mohammed to Morgan, this indicates that it was a Muslim mole who has since left the faith. It is an apostate mole. Kes Gray is writing stories that encourage children, Muslim children, to believe that apostasy is okay and it is pretty clear who is behind this plot to undermine Islam.

As the Koran says Apostasy is a crime worthy of death, Morgan must be beheaded and Kes Grey sentenced to 1000 lashes.

{ Via Tim Blair }

£830000- The Price Of British Foreign Policy?

The Mail on Sunday has unearthed another Labour donor scandal which appears to once again breach the laws that they themselves passed. An Iranian born French citizen who only acquired British citizenship the day before he donated has apparently given the Labour party £830 000 this year. Two things occur to me, firstly the decision to back the discredited head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair looks like being the only smart decision they've made of late, having someone who so obviously owes them a favour in charge of the force investigating them looks very wise.

Secondly was accepting money from an Iranian born businessman less than a month after the release of the sailors that Iran abducted a wise move. The government's response to the hostage taking was notably feeble and the fact that it occurred at a time when Labour were apparently in discussions with an Iranian born donor looks very suspect.

Good Natured.

There are few things worse than ill natured death threats, so thank god for good natured Sudanese death mobs!

Least Surprising Poll Result Ever.

Is anyone surprised by this?

Plea Bargain Hunt.

I'm not a natural basher of the USA as anyone who reads this blog could tell, however two recent stories that have been in news this week highlight a major flaw with their justice system. The guilty plea of the NatWest three as well as the reappearance of Conrad Black* in the media turn a spotlight on one of the least edifying aspects of the US justice system the use of plea bargaining to ensure convictions.

I've stated before my belief in the innocence of Conrad Black and I have no opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the Nat West 3. However look at the options that were put to the latter group by prosecutors, you can plead guilty to one of the charges and serve three years in prison or you can go to trial on all seven charges and risk almost four decades in prison. In those circumstances I would take the three years regardless of whether I was guilty or not, the risks of not doing so are simply too severe. In Conrad Black's case the prosecutor threw so many charges at Black, because he refused a plea bargain, that some of them were bound to stick.

To claim that the plea of the Nat West 3 vindicates the decision to allow them to be extradited is flawed reasoning, it merely demonstrates that they can calculate odds reasonably well. The end result of plea bargaining is that a lot of innocent people go to jail and a lot of guilty ones get off with a slap on the wrist for very serious crimes. What happens in high profile cases like these must pale in comparison with lower profile victims of this system.

Here is some stuff by those with greater legal expertise than on the dangers of plea bargaining, such as getting people guilty of one crime to admit to different crimes that they did not do or a de facto abolition of the jury system, whether the psychological coercion involved is even legal and most importantly freeing the guilty and convicting the innocent.


* On the subject of Conrad Black the Grauniad asks its readers whether it was right for the Today programme to interview him. The Guardian has given it's pages over to the likes of Gerry Adams, Osama Bin Laden and Fidel Castro to pontificate to their readership, but I guess they have to draw the moral line somewhere.