Headline Of The Day

Convoy raid condemned as Aussies found safe

Look Australians can be a little bit annoying but surely not harming Aussies isn't cause for condemnation.

People I Have An Irrational Dislike Of- Part Two

The England Supporters Band who follow the English football team making a sodding cacophony for 90 minutes whilst people are trying to enjoy the game.

Actually whilst my dislike of them isn't irrational, the scale of it is. I detest them. They've decided to impose themselves on all the other fans in the stadium and at home who don't really want to listen to their repetitive shite. It destroys the atmosphere because the sound of the crowd should really relate to what is happening on the field of play, not whatever these clowns have on their play list next.

Is there anything more depressing than hearing them churn out "the Great Escape" every 15 minutes? Fair enough if the team has done something that would make that song particularly appropriate by rescuing themselves from certain defeat for instance but they just play it at random points in the game for no obvious reason.

Frankly I hope that their plane to South Africa is diverted to Zimbabwe and they spend the entire World Cup locked in a prison in Harare under the threat of death.

Update: From the Urban Dictionary:

Bunch of "loyal" fans, generally regarded as attention-seeking atmosphere-killers employed by the English Football Association to play at England matches. Home and away. Possibly the most infuriating, pointless, mind-numbing collaboration of idiots the world has ever seen. They have an extensive repertoire of four songs, one of which they can't play properly. Their renendition of the "Great Escape" theme has been going on for about eight years now, it has never once been appropriate. No one likes them anymore, their kitsch, camp appeal died after the first three matches.

David Laws

I'll just cut and paste something I've said about the man on another blog.

I like Laws, he is one of the prime movers in bringing the Lib Dems to a more coherent position and he had been the best performer in the first month of the new government.

However he has to resign as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, how can he be responsible for administering the necessary but painful cuts in public spending when he has been so profligate with the public purse? Telling people they have to accept pay restraint after claiming £40000 he should not have done means that he isn't credible.

I Told You So

Actually looking through my archive it appears I didn't actually say that I thought the hysteria over "Meow Meow" would probably turn out to be completely unfounded.

Anyway it turns out that the teenagers whose deaths were attributed to the drug didn't actually take it:

Two teenagers whose deaths were linked to meow meow had not taken the drug, it was revealed yesterday.

The deaths of Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, sparked fears about then legal synthetic stimulant mephedrone.

The rebuttal will get less attention than the initial allegations.

It turns out that the sudden deaths of heavy drinking teenagers with symptoms consistent with the effects of excess alcohol consumption was due to the alcohol they had consumed. In that sense the coverage of MCAT resembles the coverage of date rape drugs- when spiked drinks are blamed for effects that were pretty consistent with unspiked drinks.

Former government drug advisor David Nutt notes the role of the police in hyping up the dangers of legal highs in this case.

More CGT Fun

As I mentioned the other day, the Daily Mail has been asking property investment companies to find sympathetic investors who are worried about the proposed rise in Capital Gains Tax. This is the sort of thing the stories are being used for. In the case of couple who have owned a second home for years and want to use it to fund their retirement- it isn't obvious to me why the don't simply keep making money from the rental income rather than selling the house.

CGT is neither the best nor the worst tax out there, but if it is a threat to property prices the Daily Mail will act as if it is the reintroduction of the Window Tax.

We've All Been There

Some people are very naive:

A CROSSWORD fan aged 89 used an internet search to solve a clue about a donkey - and was bombarded with hard-core porn.

Jack Sedgewick got stuck on 14 across: "Wild asian ass."

The great-grandad typed "asian ass" into Yahoo's search engine in the hope of finding the answer to the newspaper poser.

That was his excuse anyway..... he hasn't explained why "hot oriental butts" was his next search.

The Ground Zero Mosque.

There are a lot of reasons to be concerned at the plan to build a "mega" mosque at the location of the World Trade Center. Whilst I don't subscribe to the notion that all Muslims are terrorist sympathisers it is certainly provocative to build a mosque at the site where 3000 people were murdered in the name of Islam and if I were a moderate Muslim I would urge a little sensitivity among my coreligionists.

That the mosque is being set up by moderate Muslims who are opposed to the Al Qaeda is fine, but you can't really guarantee that this will remain the case. The Finsbury Park Mosque, which was a focal point for British Islamism for many years, was initially sufficiently mainstream that Prince Charles was the guest of honour at the official opening.

However I can understand why the New York planning authorities decided to allow the building to commence- it is the best possible insurance against future terrorist attacks. In fact the only danger the site will face from terrorism in future will be when politicians stampede to get there after the next terrorist attack in order to forestall the "backlash", that always seems to be coming but never actually arrives.

Note To Self

A hill is a dangerous location to change a tyre.

Joseph Harker Writes About Racism- Who Would Have Guessed?

Joseph Harker is upset that racists are allowed to teach in schools, in particular members of the BNP. I'm also upset that members of the BNP are teaching- because they are largely illiterate. The number of BNP members in the teaching profession is so small that the fuss over the issue smacks of a moral panic anyway and besides people should only be sacked for their beliefs if they intrude into how they do their jobs.

Of course as Joseph Harker has previously stated that all white people are racist by definition he might not be the best person to make the case as presumably this means that white people should be automatically excluded from the teaching profession.

Shameless

The Labour supporting pundits who are wailing and shroud waving over who is going to be hurt by the new government's budget cuts are by and large the same people who cheered the massive expansion of public spending that has left us with a deficit so large that cuts are necessary.

Cuts are brutal, even when they are made in areas where the government shouldn't really have been spending that much they will cause real pain to the people employed there who are not personally to blame for the deficit.

However the likes of Polly Toynbee are like arsonist jeering at the fire brigade because they damage doors when they knock them down. They are at least partly responsible for the complete loss of fiscal discipline by the last government that have landed us in this situation.

Pun Missed

In my post on the horse f***er yesterday, I missed the really brilliant pun, even though I quoted it, so I'll do it again with the key part highlighted:

The 66-year-old man who in April pleaded guilty in Leicester Crown Court to charges of "buggery of a donkey between February 2 and February 5, 1999, and buggery of a horse between March 15 and 18, 2004", has been jailed for 22 months.
Joseph Squires - of "no stable address" - also admitted two charges of damaging property, "relating to the two animals on the same dates".

"No stable address"- brilliant!

Racism Watch

Suggesting that Afghanistan may in certain respects not be at the cutting edge of modernity is racist now.

Which is good to know.

Suspects & Anonymity

The decision to grant anonymity to people accused of rape seems like a sensible move. Given how damaging such an accusation is it is a form of punishment regardless of whether a conviction actually occurs. The argument that it prevents serial rapists like John Worboys being caught seems ill founded- if the media were reporting that an unnamed taxi driver in a certain part of London had been accused of rape then surely that would be sufficient information to prompt any other victims who had been raped by a taxi driver in London to come forward.

One thing that does occur to me though, should anonymity routinely apply to all suspects in serious crimes up until such a time as they are convicted? Someone who is wrongly accused of murder is going to have a pretty tough time reintegrating into society if any time someone googles his name reports of the murder will be there.

Animal Magic

How come cows get to trample humans left, right and centre but when we fight back we're in the wrong?

Speaking of animal cruelty this horse lover has been punished severely:

The 66-year-old man who in April pleaded guilty in Leicester Crown Court to charges of "buggery of a donkey between February 2 and February 5, 1999, and buggery of a horse between March 15 and 18, 2004", has been jailed for 22 months.
Joseph Squires - of "no stable address" - also admitted two charges of damaging property, "relating to the two animals on the same dates".

Time To Sell Shares.....

..... in 18-30 holidays.

Child Trust Funds were always a sure indicator that the last government had simply started spending money for its own sake.

Give David Miliband A Hand

When a YouTube video is embedded on a site then a still image captured from the video appears before you press play. It's unfortunate that the still image of David Miliband in his official campaign launch video makes it seem as though he is indicating that he is a wanker.



In fairness he is at least more realistic about the scale of Labour's defeat than his rivals.

Quote Of The Day

On the subject of the newly emerged opposition of Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Ed 209 to the Iraq war, Nick M makes a good point:

Ed Milliband is on the other hand so much the true believer and people’s commissar that he believes the most important consequence of a war was its effect on the reputation of the Labour Party.

Profiles In Courage

If you opposed the war in Iraq, what sort of candidate for leader of the Labour Party is preferable- someone who supports the war or someone who didn't believe in it but voted for it anyway but didn't think to mention their opposition until they thought it was beneficial to their careers?