Quote Of The Day.

From the Viz letters page:

In his public apology, Russell Brand said that all he's ever wanted to do was make people laugh. Okay, Russell, any time you're ready.

R. Tanner,
Hove

Because 'Progressive Thinking' Has Done So Much For Our Schools Already!

There are many reasons to be sceptical about Ed Balls and his proposals to revamp the primary school curriculum, but none of them are as damning as this claim by David Aaronovitch (or his sub editor:

The call for a new primary curriculum has met predictable opposition. But it is in a fine tradition of progressive thinking

Family Business.

Political nepotism is back in fashion, with Michael Martin is allegedly haggling with Labour to allow his son to succeed him as an MP. Tamsin Dunwoody tried this earlier in the year, across the Atlantic a Kennedy is being lined up to replace a Clinton as the senator from New York.

This is a shame as in general people who rise because of who they are rather than what they have done are less able. I'm trying to remember a quote by AJP Taylor to the effect that even the most successful European monarchs were only of the competence of a mediocre politician like Ramsay MacDonald. This might be overstating it but it contains a germ of truth.

What we really need is a system whereby the offspring of the political elite are shuffled off to somewhere that they cannot enjoy a political career. The House of Lords used to fulfill this function, as the prominent politicians became peers and their children succeeded them to the House of Lords from where it is very hard to become a top ranking politician. There are really only two potential cabinet positions open to Lords so the potential for dynastic rule is minimised. It is notable that the most prominent current dynastic scion in British politics is Hilary Benn, son of Tony Benn who renounced his peerage. Had he accepted his role as Viscount Stansgate Tony Benn would never have become a cabinet minister and there would be a good chance that Hilary would not have even been considered as an MP.

Prostitutes Exposed.

A Tennessee prostitute ring was recently busted by the police and the gallery of the lovely ladies involved is up here. Truly the punters of Tennessee are blessed but before you all try and hook up with them, I'm calling dibs on number 2.

New Poll.

The Shannon Matthews case has raised many questions, how could a mother treat her own daughter like that? How did she think she would get away with it? Why was she getting £20000 a year from the government?

Above all the question on everyone's lips is how did she persuade at least 5 different men to provide her with offspring?
(Apologies for the superfluous apostrophe in the poll)

Class War.

As Laban Tall notes the disruption of Stansted Airport by supposed environmental activists looks a lot like a bunch of spoilt brats deciding to wreck the holidays of the lower orders. Direct action often comes across as the petulant rage of a priviliged class (to borrow a phrase) outraged that their opinions of what must be done don't carry any more weight than those of their feudal inferiors in a modern democracy.

Sunday Round Up.

I'm just going to provide a round up of things worth looking at elsewhere which I haven't been able to link to in an actual post. This might become a weekly feature in which case it will be expanded somewhat or I might get very bored, in which case the concept will disappear into the memory hole never to reappear again.

• I have added two new sites to my blogroll, 'They're Joking Aren't They' by North Northwester, who is mostly writing about Islam and Islamic extremism at the moment. Also added is the 'Expat Yank' an American living in the UK who writes about both British, American and other current evens.In other blog related news Blognor Regis is now visible to the great unwashed once again.
• Standpoint magazine has an article about skewed British perceptions of the United States and vice versa.
• EU Referendum has a transcript of a fantastic exchange between Czech president Vaclav Claus and a bunch of MEPs, including a hilarious exchange with a logically challenged Irish MEP by the name of Brian Crowley.
• Shuggy's blog has a call for realism by liberal supporters of Obama.
• Brett over at Harry's Place has a thoughtful post about why liberal's consistantly 'miscast' revolutions, by supporting revolutionaries on the basis of what they oppose without considering what they support. This isn't a trait restricted to liberals incidentally.
• Pub Philosopher has a great piece on 'conspicuous compassion'.
• Obnoxio the Clown has one of the best horse sex posts of the week.

Quote Of The Day

Thoedore Dalrymple wrote an article partly about the Shannon Matthews case earlier this year which is well worth reading in its entirety:

Karen Matthews, who received welfare payments of $40,000 a year, had borne seven children to five different men. She called two of her children with the same father “the twins,” thus transferring the meaning of “twin” from the relatively unusual biological occurrence of double birth to what she clearly thought the equally unusual social circumstance of full siblinghood.

..........

The reasons for Shannon’s abduction have not yet emerged, but again the Guardian managed to distract the reader’s attention from less than optimal family arrangements. Instead, it ran an upbeat story on the housing project where the Matthews family lived; that way, the obvious could be ignored rather than denied. The Sun, a tabloid newspaper whose readership is virtually entirely working-class, had described the project as “like Beirut—only worse.” But the Guardian, whose readership is largely middle-class and employed in the public sector, drew attention to the improvements that had taken place in the project, thanks to the local council’s having spent $8 million on it over the last three years—supplying traffic bollards shaped like penguins, for example. Before the improvements, one resident said, “We’d houses burgled, sheds burned, caravans blown up.” Now, only one house in 90 is robbed per year; and, thanks to the penguins, joy-riding by youths in stolen cars is presumably much reduced. The implication is clear: with more public spending of this kind everywhere in the country, administered by Guardian readers and their peers, everything will be all right. It won’t matter in the slightest if children either have no fathers, or different fathers every few years.

And The Winner Is....

The people who voted in my poll of the most dangerous terrorist threat concluded that radical Islamists were the most dangerous. The full results are as follows:

Which one of these poses the greatest terrorist threat?

Damian Green: 0
Iceland: 4
People who don't recycle: 4
Radical Islamists: 14
Walter Wolfgang: 3

In fairness I should probably admit that I voted for Iceland 3 times. Those Vikings haven't fooled me or our illustrious Prime Minister.

Bea-ing Ridiculous. (Updated)

If there is one characteristic that I particularly envy among professional columnists is their uncanny judge of character, honest. After the conviction of Karen Matthews for the abduction of her daughter Shannon it seems like a good time to revisit Bea Campbell's class war column on the subject from earlier this year:

Karen Matthews has acted appropriately throughout: she was waiting for Shannon at home; she contacted the police as soon as she had exhausted all the obvious locations.

Apart from with the bloke she gave her to.

And yet, our eye is drawn to her poverty, numbers of partners, cans of lager going into her household. Everything about Ms Matthews' life has been up for scrutiny.

This appears to have been quite astute.

Karen Matthews has been subjected to a Today programme interrogation that appeared to position the mother as the perpetrator: Sarah Montague asked her seven times about her lifestyle. Her patronising preoccupation was how many men there have been in her life, not her judgment about them. Has any other, apparently blameless mother been so sweetly assailed?

Sarah Montague 1, Bea Campbell 0.

{the McCann's} resources - money, looks, religion, organisation, focus (all a function of class) - were all mobilised to protect them and to obscure the question of culpability. It was the McCann's photo-opportunity with the Pope that eventually exposed the campaign to criticism as inappropriate, not to say unseemly.

Unseemly!?

No one thought Karen Matthews had abducted or killed her daughter - and yet she has been judged. Some commentators think they can say anything they like about this woman and even to her. She has spoken with reticent dignity, yet her class makes her available for blame.

Nope her obvious unsuitability as a parent appalled most people, who kept their silence because of the awful situation they believed that she was in.


Update: Most spectacular volte face ever? (Via Marcus at Harry's Place and Julia)

"Not Necessarily Antisemitic"

few, if any, Pakistani militants have been known until now specifically to target Israelis. I say, Israelis rather than Jews because the single surviving terrorist noted that they chose Chabad House to avenge the suffering of the Palestinians. Therefore, the attack was anti-Israeli, though not necessarily antisemitic.

Richard Silverstein at Comment is Free doesn't think that targeting a Jewish Community Centre for a massacre is antisemitic.

Green Leaks.

About this whole Damian Green business, although it was clearly ludicrous and thuggish to arrest him for doing what shadow ministers have always done, it doesn't mean that what he was doing was proper. Some of the leaks that he received were legitimate matters of public interest, such as the illegal immigrants working at the Home Office but some were not, such as the list of Labour MPs who were going to rebel over the issues of 42 days detention.

It isn't unreasonable for ministers to have an expectation that they are able to discuss matters in private with civil servants without their deliberations being sent straight to the opposition. It should not be a criminal matter, so the arrests are the most important part of story. It's as if the police started arresting footballers who dive, on suspicion of fraud, it would clearly be an abuse of power but it wouldn't make divers heroes.

Normalising Deviancy.

I don't believe this claim for a moment:

About 1 in 10 children in the developed world is abused each year but official statistics indicate less than a tenth of those abused are investigated

This is a based on a study by the Lancet who as we all know never publish sensational inflated statistics. If there are over one and a half million abused children in Britain today then it would be horrifying. However as the article explains:

The definition of abuse was wide-ranging and included punching, hitting, beating, burning, rape, exposure to pornography as well as neglect and emotional abuse such as making a child feel worthless or unwanted.

Clearly punching, burning, raping and severe neglect are examples of child abuse (although I suspect 'hitting' means corporal punishment) but when you get into 'making a child feel worthless' then that could mean almost anything. A parent who snaps at a child to shut up might make the child feel worthless, but unless it is constant it is hardly abuse.

Is the reason they are defining child abuse so widely to make it appear as though we are all guilty and that real abusers are no worse than millions of normal people.

Update: More Lancet fun here.

Pirates: Environmental Heroes.

According to the Guardian, in an editorial about the pirate situation:

Shipping has become an almost invisible industry, the silent motor of global trade, but its consequences are not all benign. Big ships burn dirty fuel and are not subject to any form of carbon emissions regulation, and pump out polluted ballast water, soiling seas. Now the industry needs assistance. But its behaviour should change too.

How did they get from pirates to global warming? I have no idea.

The Children, Won't Someone Please Think Of The Childen!!!

Australia's government is planning web censorship:

The Rudd Government's plans to censor the internet in an attempt to protect children from inappropriate content and extreme and violent pornography has come in for some criticism.

The plan to impose mandatory filtering on Internet Service Providers has invoked the ire of a new generation of civil libertarians who regard any such move as a threat to their freedom and even some children's welfare groups say that mandatory filters, pointedly aimed at protecting children, are ineffective and a waste of money.

How can civil libertarians possible criticise this, after all they're only depriving people of their freedoms for the children.

Is There Anyone Who Isn't Getting A Bailout?

Okay I can understand why they bailed out the banks, I can sympathise with the motives of those who want to bail out the Automobile industry but this is going too far:

Pittsburgh Mayor Calls for Pirates Bailout

I don't think we should be encouraging these Somali sea bandits. In fact I didn't realise they ha been hit that hard by the credit crunch.

Credit Where Credit Is Due.

Is it me or is Harriet Harman acting as the voice of reason here? Seeing as she is always wrong I can only conclude that Damian Green is actually funneling confidential security to Bin Laden.


Update: Dear God, Ed Balls is being reasonable as well! Is the cabinet on drugs.

Update 2: Yaz borders on the edge of sensible too! This is all just uncanny. If Polly Toynbee says something sensible too then we have to conclude that aliens are taking over the bodies of prominent lefties.

Miserable Days.

Cold, dark Sundays in November must be just about the most depressing, energy sapping days of the year. I feel like a miserable Swede. So if anyone has anything happy or cheerful to say feel free to say so.