Bastardisation of the East

We are moving...

2006-06-08T15:24:00.000+01:00

Dear imaginary readers,

we are moving to a new blogger address at bastardised.blogspot.com. I have copied recent posts to that address. As you will see, there isn't much in the way of the design. But at least the benign little cyst that was once martha is no longer in our address! I look forward to reading your imaginary comments soon.

Sincerely,
Clyde

What simple Simon left behind...

2006-06-08T13:48:00.000+01:00

And should anybody be in any doubt, no the Daily Mail didn't improve with Heffer's departure. The shocking and appalling story on today's issue should reaffirm what a nasty little rag this is. Entitled "Spousal rape to be treated like gang rape", the writer, one Steve Doughty, is actually complaining about this. Obvioulsy for the Mail, rape isn't just rape, and if your husband sexually assaults you than that is a wholly different matter from rape by any old stranger. Meanwhile, in parts of the world like Lebanon the law doesn't even recognise rape by a husband. If he sexually assaults his wife he is simply having he way with her. Hell, she's got a ring on, that's like the keys to the car. She should do what he likes without answering back. This is not an attitude that elevates these nasty men above the animals who carry out rape in the street. The article informs us that until 1991 the same was true in Britain. No sexual assault in marriage. I'm not cynical enough to believe that the writer, in acknowledging this, is secretly yearing for the good old days. He should have just stayed away from the issue.

Of course, being strongly conservative, the Mail has long been a strong advocate of marraige, provided that it is not of the homosexual variety, which past editions claim would "devalue" the sacred bond. One hopes they would see a gay marriage as more 'valuable' than a lifetime of rape and abuse. One thing for the Mail to consider is that, although gang rape and rape by strangers is horrendous and lasts a lifetime, the victim will not have to wake up beside the abuser every morning for the course of their marriage. A wife who reports her abusive husband is just as brave as any other rape victim, and deserves the same peace of mind when justice is being delivered.

From one leech to another: Eff off Simon

2006-06-08T09:21:00.000+01:00

Snotty ex Daily Mail and current Daily Telegraph darling, Simon Heffer has indulged in a seething and irrational rant about Ken Loach in his latest column [you need to naviagte past his erudite and well-researched opinions on John Prescott football and burgers to see it]. Heffer used to write short alarmist rants in the Daily Mail, generally critical of Marxist Britain, pesky gay people and the death of morality all around him, demonstrating how bigotted and out of touch he really was. Therefore, when he moved to the Daily Telegraph in 2005 some believed he had found his natural habitat, forgetting that, while The Telegraph is bad, it is hardly North Korea.

Heffer's main complaint about the Palme d'Or-winning film The Wind that Shakes the Barley [at least we have to asume that is what is raving about. The buffoon never mentions any film by name] is that Loach uses public money to make films that, instead of praising the British Fatherland and its history of perfect foreign policy, criticise the behaviour of the British government and its behaviour towards Ireland in the 1920s. Criticism? We shant be having any of that. If you want to make a film about Britain, do it properly; chuck in some Spitfires and if there are any foreigners involved make sure they're on the wrong side of a good hard machine-gunning.

Unfortunately, Simon gets off to a bad start by claiming that Loach's name looks a lot like "leech". Of course, I would view that as a compliment. Leeches can be used to draw out poison from a wound, an apt metaphor for what Loach has actually been doing over the years in his films, that often side with the oppressed in the face of imperial force. Simon also leaves himself exposed. To me, Heffer looks and sounds an awful lot like "heifer", Simon. Imagine, a mad cow from Great Britain. How absurd...

As George Monbiot points out, Heffer can hardly deny that the events portrayed actually happened. So it seems that Loach's crime is to force the British public to look at - what can't be called their own crimes [despite what Simon, and other right-wing loudmouths like Melanie Phillips might think, it's not anti-British, nor masochistic to critique the government] - but the crimes committed against the Irish at a particular point in history. If a German was to use public funds to make a film about the evil of the Holocaust would he complain? Having read his bitchy Daily Mail columns over the years I already know the answer, and the sad thing is that Simon doesn't think the Germans dwell enough on this point in their history [I say "their" history, but if you subtract the German people who were born after 1945, the German people who opposed Hitler and the German people that would have found the crimes of the Third Reich abhorrent had they seen past the propaganda, that part of German history doesn't belong to many people these days]. It's ok for other countries to flagellate themselves in Simon's world. But an admission of guilt from Great Britain is "repulsive". North Korea would be too good for our Simon.

I suppose it can only get better for Simon after all these double standards and gunshots to the feet. But Simon is on a roll, ad in such a compact columan he manages to fit in one last coup de grace:

"And no, I haven't seen it, any more than I need to read Mein Kampf to know what a louse Hitler was."

He hasn't even seen the film! I don't use exclamation marks lightly, but I think a few more are in order here!!! And of course, we all know that Hitler is universally reviled because he wrote a nasty book. If the xenophobic Simon Heffer was a German he would be the first to sing Hitler's praises, and I should know. I've actually taken the time to read the louse's columns.

The Daily Show

2006-05-09T02:56:00.000+01:00

Two of my latest political comedian faves, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert (or is it Ted Hitler). An old and grainy episode, but sound is fine.

- via Mr Brown

Why men are macho

2006-05-06T19:25:00.000+01:00

An impartial scientific study? Or a scientist with a leftist bias... Seymour Yang of Fusion Magazine reports:

Scientists have shown that men who have had their masculinity threatened are more likely to overcompensate and act more "macho". This includes traits such as behaving in a homophobic manner, supporting the Iraq war and wishing to drive an SUV. In the research at Cornell University, 111 men and women were asked general personality questions. What the participants did not know was that the researcher would assign, at random, a gender rating determining how masculine or feminine they were, based on their supposed questionaire answers. When some men were told that their questionaire answers indicated a more feminine bias, they tended to overcompensate their maleness in subsequent surveys. They also reported more feelings of shame, guilt and hostility than those whose masculinity was not threatened. Women did not seem to be affected by the gender judgment. The idea of masculinity overcompensation is not a new one in psychology, but the study certainly adds weight to it.

Yes, of course. I can imagine Jorge Bush cuddling his little teddy bear every night before he goes to sleep...

Nucear Proliberation

2006-04-30T14:50:00.000+01:00

He may not be in my good books, but he just earned himself one notch up.

Update 4/5/06: Here's more footage from the White House Correspondents Dinner featuring Stephen Colbert. Via Pink Dome.

Canned Food for Thought

2006-04-29T20:12:00.000+01:00

Florencia Prado also struggles to find value in the movie 'United 93':

"My opinion is not necessarily based on whether or not audiences are ready, but whether or not this movie should have been made in the first place. I believe that movies are either for entertainment or to learn something new about a subject. I have not seen the film, but I would not see it for its entertainment value as well as for its educational value. What more can we learn about the tragic events of 9/11? Unless there is some new information regarding the events, it seems a bit heartless to profit on it. Are we supposed to somehow relate more to the families, mourn more over those that passed away. This is not Titanic where the lives of those had long been drowned along with their stories. If some length of time- like 10-15 years had passed, perhaps it would serve the purpose of re-telling the series of events to our children, so they may learn and keep fighting against terrorism. At this moment in time; however, it seems like Hollywood will present any movie, about any topic just to make a buck."

Like I mentioned my doubts about this movie before, Florence would agree that no matter how accurate United 93 will depict the events, it serves neither purpose of entertaining nor educating. I wouldn't imagine a person eating popcorn or having a hotdog while re-living 9/11, nor would I predict any intellectual gain from this movie. If anything, it might serve as a really really expensive memorabilia to the families of 9/11 victims. It does not aim to provide answers nor questions. Merely a re-enactment in honour of those in the hijacked planes.

Some may notice the suspicious timely release of the movie with Bush's latest popularity poll. And it does beg the question if a movie that already holds little or no value, holds potential to perpetuate again anti-muslim sentiments and false associations between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. The truth is that while the film may have been made all with good intentions, people by large are impressionable and misinformed. A movie powerful enough to move the families of the victims is equally powerful enough to rekindle anti-muslim sentiments amongst ~~Republicans~~ those who cannot differentiate.

For those who actually plan to watch it for whatever your reasons, then I suggest avoiding documentaries such as Loose Change or Confronting the Evidence, which I found a lot more intellectually 'nutritious'. A person who goes to see United 93 is likely to accept those events as accurate, and more disturbingly, wanting to accept that as the truth simply because it is the simplest to understand. Easy to digest. Canned food for the mind. While I don't make claim to any particular scenario being the accurate version, I do believe that if you go seeking for answers, you will only find more questions that disturb you way too much to think you're going to spend £5 on a movie ticket about something based on a few telephone calls.

I'm the Decider: The Soundtrack

2006-04-21T17:23:00.000+01:00

I hear the voices, I'm the decider... and I decide what's best. And what's best is that you listen to this!

29/4/06 update: And now for 20 bucks you can afford to feel what it's like to be president of the United States. A great tshirt to walk around in mocking others with your low-level intellect and vocabulary but at the same time letting them know who's boss.

...by the nimble hands of FBI and CIA agents.

Blitzkrieg

2006-04-19T18:37:00.000+01:00

Looks like I could be getting 'Freedom sugar cubes' before I see my 23rd:

"History repeats itself, but always with new twists. We are back to the good old days when a Declaration of War preceded the start of a war. Such declaration occurred on March 16th, 2006. Reversing the old order, we are now in the "Sitzkrieg", to be followed shortly by an aerial "Blitzkrieg" in the coming days.

In the old days, Congress declared war, and directed the Executive to take action. In the new millenium, the Executive declared war last March 16th, then Congress will pass H.R. 282, "To hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran." This bill and previous ones like it are in direct violation of the legally binding Algiers Accords[pdf] signed by the United States and Iran on January 19, 1981, that states "The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs"; however, this is clearly of no interest to the 353 policymakers sponsoring the bill.

The US promised Russia and China that the UN Security Council statement just approved will not be a trigger for military action after 30 days; true to its promise, the US will attack before the 30-day deadline imposed by the UNSC for Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment activity, i.e. before the end of April. The "justification" is likely to be an alleged threat of imminent biological attack with Iran's involvement."

Isn't it amazing that the trigger-happy war president has survived not one, but two elections and has not yet been dragged out of his Oval Office and burned at the stake? He has entrenched the American flag so deep in shit it is now nothing more than a shade of brown. People who support this man, and usually his war as well, seem propelled by their firm, inate beliefs in global threats, and I find it embarassing on their part to not be able to find a single leg to stand on when it comes to supporting the idea of a pre-emptive strike against Iran. Are you really expecting the world to believe the boy who cried wolf on Iraq? I'm reminded of this mentality of fear and pre-emptivity from that cartoon featured in Bowling for Columbine; the white man builds his own dangerous environment with gun-ownership out of an unrealistic fear for the black man. Aaron points this out in an updated context:

"Remember how right you got it on the WMD in Iraq? Try looking in the mirror and saying "Muslims are my fellow human beings". I knew you couldn't! Face it, you guys are the crazed bastards that want do destroy innocent life. Wake up! Eventually you'll have to explain your hatred to your maker."

Let us have peace, let us have life,

Let us escape the cruel night.

Let us have time, let the sun shine,

Let us beware the deadly sign.

An attack on Iran is essentially irony on the part of America's attempt to neutralise terrorist threats and propagate democracy and freedom going by their values (not interests) because:

a) Iran has the right to develop nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes and is given the right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Furthermore, the U.S. hipocritically has its own arsenal of nuclear weapons while aiding India in breaching this Treaty. Doesn't this just reek of "I AM the law!"...

b) viewing Iran as a threat based on its recent comments of Israel and the Holocaust does not make a man a terrorist. Leading a country into war on false pretenses, blowing up civilians and then calling it collateral damage is terrorism. In any case, I believe the President of Iran is entitled to his right to free speech. hmm...

c) the argument that Iran is an oppressive country under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime and justifies war is absurd. There are plenty of other oppressive countries that are oppressive AND/or hold nuclear capabilities but are simply underserving of military attention due to 'national interests'. Care to drop some hate-mail and military threats on China's doorstep?

d) a second "Iraq" (third if you count Afghanistan) will create further instability in the Mid East region. The majority muslim region will see this as an increasing threat not only against their land, but their religion. It is clear insurgency in Iraq is uncontainable 3 years since American forces crossed into Iraqi borders. A second war and occupation would likely propagate more anti-american sentiments and thus generate more sporadic attacks by Jihadists. The death toll will rise, more american parents will mourn, and the country will be in further monetary debt than it already is.

Casus Belli

"There is no casus belli against Iran based on its nuclear program. The IAEA has found no evidence that in the 20 years of its development there has been any diversion of nuclear material to military applications. The Bush administration now officially acknowledges that the issue with Iran arises from a "loophole" in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, that allows non-nuclear countries to pursue uranium enrichment. However it is not a loophole, the right to a full civilian nuclear program is an integral part of the compromise, that made non-nuclear countries agree to it. For the US to call it a loophole means to abrogate the treaty unilaterally and propose a different treaty that non-nuclear countries will have no motivation to agree to.

The Bush administration declares that a civilian nuclear program that gives Iran "knowledge" or "capability" to build a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. It could apply exactly the same logic to biotechnology. The State Department says that "Iran is expanding its biotechnology and biomedical industries by building large, state-of-the-art research and pharmaceutical production facilities. These industries could easily hide pilot to industrial-scale production capabilities for a potential BW program, and could mask procurement of BW-related process equipment." Why isn't the US demanding that Iran stops its biotechnology research and development, and that it transfers all biotech related activities to Russia?"

The day is coming, armageddon's near,

Inferno's coming, can we survive the blitzkrieg.

The final point is perhaps the most crucial and potentially dangerous aspect of using nuclear weapons in Iran. Bush so skillfully avoided the media questions and utterly failed to diffuse concerns over his Administration's plans as an option to use nuclear weapons against Iran. It may only be one of several options on the table, but is still an important one that he failed to address. I sincerely hope his PR guy simply isn't being paid enough. Newswise reflects on physicist Jorge Hirsch's report:

"It notes that there are no sharp lines between small and large nuclear weapons, nor between nuclear weapons targeting facilities and those targeting armies or cities, and that the use by the United States of nuclear weapons after 60 years of non-use will make the use of nuclear weapons by others more likely.

“Once the U.S. uses a nuclear weapon again, it will heighten the probability that others will too,” the physicists write. “In a world with many more nuclear nations and no longer a ‘taboo’ against the use of nuclear weapons, there will be a greatly enhanced risk that regional conflicts could expand into global nuclear war, with the potential to destroy our civilization.”

The letter echoes the main objection of last fall’s physicists’ petition, stressing that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will be irreversibly damaged by the use or even the threat of use of nuclear weapons by a nuclear nation against a non-nuclear one, with disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.

“It is gravely irresponsible for the U.S. as the greatest superpower to consider courses of action that could eventually lead to the widespread destruction of life on the planet. We urge the administration to announce publicly that it is taking the nuclear option off the table in the case of all non-nuclear adversaries, present or future, and we urge the American people to make their voices heard on this matter.”"

Hirsch also makes his predictions of an eminent war and the disturbing mathematical logic supporting it:

"It is unlikely that there will be a public announcement of the impending attack before it starts, since it would generate opposition. Allies do not want to be implicated and will deny any knowledge. Who will be officially notified that an attack is about to take place? Most likely, Iran itself.

Direct conversations between the US and Iran are about to start, nominally on the subject of Iraq only. They will also provide the only direct conduit for the US to communicate with Iran without intermediaries. An "ultimatum" unacceptable to Iran, as was delivered publicly to Iraq on March 17th, 2003, could be delivered privately to Iran through that route.
[...] The "clear" reasons and "just" cause for the administration to attack can be stated as follows: if a bird flu pandemic can cause 150 million deaths and there is even a one percent probability that the "intelligence" is right, i.e. even if there is a 99% "uncertainty about the status of hidden programs", the expected number of deaths that would be prevented by bombing the Iranian facilities is the product of those two numbers, i.e. 1.5 million, vastly larger than the few housand Iranian casualties due to "collateral damage."

Any military reaction by Iran to the attack, perhaps even a verbal reaction, will be construed as "aggression" by Iran towards the US and Israel, and result in large scale bombing of Iranian missile, nuclear and other facilities. Does that sound absurd? Recall that the US and Britain bombed Iraq's no-fly zones well before the Iraq invasion, and Iraqi response was labeled "aggression toward planes of the coalition forces."

Nuclear earth penetrating weapons may be used in the initial attack, and certainly will be used in the large scale attack that will follow.

Why will this happen? Because it was "pencilled in" a long time ago. The actions of the US against Iran in recent years have been clearly directed towards a confrontation, to suppress the rise of Iran as a strong regional power that does not conform to US interests."

Prepare for the blitzkrieg...

Save us from fate, save us from hate,
Save ourselves before it's too late.
Come to our need, hear our plea,
Save ourselves before the earth bleeds.

The day is dawning, the time is near,
Aliens calling, can we survive the blitzkrieg.

- Metallica

The Anarchist's Dictator's Handbook

2006-04-17T18:30:00.000+01:00

- From the TimesOnline.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is just really being a very, very bad boy playing with nuclear weapons in his backyard. And now the little shit is asking to be ass-invaded by proclaiming his new "fancy" missiles and then saying.... 'Israel will soon be history'. Has he been reading the Idiot's Guide to Getting Ass-Invaded by America?

I was in an asian food store the other day and noticed a bag of unusual looking sugar cubes from Iran. And I actually found myself pausing a few seconds to consider buying it. I have a sneaky feeling they will be re-named American cubes pretty soon...

Guess who's back...?

2006-04-14T14:44:00.000+01:00

The Prophet Mohammed! With the boundary-pushing animated series South Park:

"NEW YORK (AP) -- Banned by Comedy Central from showing an image of the Islamic prophet ohammed, the creators of "South Park" skewered their own network for hypocrisy in the cartoon's most recent episode. The comedy -- in an episode aired during Holy Week for Christians -- instead featured an image of Jesus Christ defecating on President Bush and the American flag. In an elaborately constructed two-part episode of their Peabody Award-winning cartoon, "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker intended to comment on the controversy created by a Danish newspaper's publishing of caricatures of Mohammed. Muslims consider any physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous.

[...]"Either it's all OK, or none of it is," Kyle said. "Do the right thing." The executive decides to strike a blow for free speech and agrees to show it. But at the point where Mohammed is to be seen, the screen is filled with the message: "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network."It is followed shortly by the images of Christ, Bush and the flag. A frequent "South Park" critic, William Donohue of the anti-defamation group Catholic League, called on Parker and Stone to resign out of principle for being censored.

"The ultimate hypocrite is not Comedy Central -- that's their decision not to show the image of Mohammed or not -- it's Parker and Stone," he said. "Like little whores, they'll sit there and grab the bucks. They'll sit there and they'll whine and they'll take their shot at Jesus. That's their stock in trade.""

- From CNN

It just wouldn't be South Park if they hadn't made something out of the Jan/Feb Danish cartoons. Rather than attack whether it was the right or wrong thing to do, they challenge the principles of the people who have banned the illustrations of the sacred Prophet Mohammed. If one episode gets pulled or censored, then technically the public and the rest of the world have in their capacity the ability to pull the entire show. The show challenges the hipocrisy of the network equally as it does boundaries of free speech. Isaac Hayes took a hit after his own departure from South Park, which was frankly predictable of Matt and Trey. But again, they highlight the hipocrisy of his actions; leaving after 9 seasons of South Park only when his own religion finally became its target.

I've only seen the first episode in this 2-parter. In the first part, Mohammed is featured on 'The Family Guy' for a brief moment, albeit with a big black censor-strip covering every inch of his body, and is shown having a cup of tea....with Mr T. Meanwhile the rest of the nation have their heads buried in the sand...literally.

Cartoon Wars part 1: Will there be enough sand for everybody?

"If you look closely at the writing in 'Family Guy', you will see that the jokes never derive from the plot. And I think that's totally gay." - Osama bin Laden

You are a non-commital, closed-off anti-socialite

2006-04-12T16:19:00.000+01:00

...with possible career prospects in nowhere. Or so says the free personal pyschometric test, which is basically just a premium version of the occassional personality tests you get in email forwards. On a serious note, if you are looking for a graduate job, you may find the Graduate Recruitment Bureau useful. Due to large numbers of employers preferring pyschometric profiles for candidates, they are now on a free trial period that offers a professional online pyschometric test (worth £70 apparently) for registered users over the next few months. The test comprises of two parts; a personality test and a test of logical reasoning, verbal, mathematical and spatial skills. If you have at least half an hour to spare, you are rewarded with a fairly comprehensive analyis. An interesting summary from my personality test produced this:

Major strengths:
Faces up to issues without delay
Persevering and tenacious
Proactive in sorting out problems
Firm and decisive

Possible development needs:
Might be insensitive to the emotional impact on others of some of his decisions

Well, don't blame me for checking the sentence 'I don't feel upset when I see an animal killed on the road'...

The New Ann Coulter

2006-04-11T01:20:00.000+01:00

Do you really need a synopsis for this book??

"If only liberals were half as angry at the people who flew planes into our skyscrapers as they are with Tom DeLay, we might have two patriotic parties in this country."

- From anncoulter.com

Her latest entry on her website fires off with a remark against liberals so typical of the Right; a reference to something that is completely unrelated to the issue. What is with their obsession with associating Liberal disdain for the opposition with sympathy for terrorists may I ask? It is evidently derivative of Bush's "you're either with us or against us" mentality.

Looking through her reading list, I was slightly bemused at the affirmation of my guess that right-wingers consisting of people such as herself either don't have a clue about Islam, or have a construed concept about it. Well done, Ann. You've read one book on Islam and that makes you an Islam expert, or to have the self-confidence anyway to judge it. Secondly, on further inspection of Ann's Bible to Islam, Unveiling Islam, you will find that the author Ergun Mehmet Caner is not exactly the most credible of authors, who is a muslim-turned-christian. What better person to shine bad light on a religion than to ask a person who has shuned away from it. Sure you may learn something about Islam from the book. But you would be doing yourself a disfavour by limiting it to one book... There is one method of learning the religion that will exceed any book, and that is to ask none other than a muslim (I can already hear the Republicans whipping out their guns). Any guesses as to how many muslim friends the average right-winger has? If there has been one thing that I have learnt from my own muslim friends from across the world, it's that Islam is not only geographically diverse, but practiced and interpreted differently in different societies.

Of course, the Coulter-types will happily read and promote anything that does not stray from their firm belief of Islam. It becomes a them-versus-us, in a gross generalisation of muslims. And they will attack anything from Burkas to your Sharia Laws, to the Halal meat that you eat.

If Ann Coulter's rants and verbal attacks on Liberals sound more like nails on a chalkboard to you, then how bout' a more relevant tongue-in-cheek poke at Tom DeLay at Pink Dome? How ironic as well that they are from Red State Texas...

"How fitting it is! Its called "Godless" The Church of Liberalism. And its fitting that it comes out on 6/6/06 ! Isnt it amazing how she can get liberals to have screaming fits, even before they know what the book is about!"

The devil's in between the lines

2006-04-11T00:03:00.000+01:00

Take a look at this CBS transcript of an interview with Reverend Pat Robertson, where he implies he's better than a psychologist (how smug) in healing people, recounts curing a woman by asking about her sex life, and yet can't quite put a finger on what kind of christian he would consider himself (i believe there is a ban in hell for that sort of thing).

There are also hints he may be Bush's speech coach...

(Not so) BREAKING NEWS: WMDs were in America all along!

2006-04-08T19:52:00.000+01:00

Clyde [stares steadily into camera and holds index finger to ear]: That's right leech. I'm stood outside the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory right now where inside lies lots and lots of weapon-grade plutonium. The Bush administration recently revealed plans to dismantle their nuclear weapons dating back from the Cold War era, but replace them with newer, bigger and better ones! In fact, by the year 2022, America aims to produce 125 new and updated nuclear bombs per year! In addition to the humiliating hipocrisy, the Administration's recent proposal to India effectively allows it to bypass the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Do you hear that...? It's the sound of America's policy on Iran disappearing up its own asshole.

"THE Bush Administration has revealed a blueprint for rebuilding America's decrepit nuclear weapons complex, including restoration of a large-scale bomb manufacturing capacity.

The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernisation of the nation's massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War.

Until now, the nation has depended on carefully maintaining ageing bombs produced during the Cold War arms race, some several decades old. The Administration, however, wants the capability to turn out 125 new nuclear bombs a year by 2022, as the Pentagon retires older bombs that it says will no longer be reliable or safe."

America should hold talks with itself. Then it should impose sanctions on itself. Then it should bomb the shit out of itself. The only difference this time is that I guarantee you will find your WMDs.

She's like tofu in a leotard

2006-04-07T19:04:00.000+01:00

I just thought it my brotherly obligation to forward the bragging of my little sis who is now the official photographer for Singapore Idol (big hoohah). I'm happy for her although at the end of the day, you are still just taking pictures of losers (afterall there can only be one winner right). Naturally, she has been shooting some typical posers (if only with a fully automatic uzi), and ~~tofu in a leotard~~ a fat chick in a miniskirt. I'd be glad to share the photos once they become publicly available. I haven't taken a bashing on stupid dysfunct fashion culture in a while... In the meantime, you can feast your eyes on some arty farty here.

Jesus vs. Jeezus

2006-04-07T18:47:00.000+01:00

- Discovered at whoisgringo.stumbleupon.com

What good can possibly come from this?

2006-04-05T19:06:00.000+01:00

CNN previews and reports on the trailer release for United 93, based on the events of 9/11. I'm not going to jump the gun by placing judgment before I've seen it, but the question remains valid. Is it something that will enlighten, provide some answers, or perhaps offer closure to families of the victims? There is even one brave attempt to compare the film to Schindler's List. Except people actually survived the Holocaust to tell the story for what it really was. Trying to re-enact what went on on Flight 93 based on a few short telephone conversations just before the crash seems a little prone to over-dramatisation to me and I'm at least a little suspicious some Hollywood fat cat is capitalising on this. But we had to see this film being made eventually. Most people interviewed on the street by CNN responded negatively to the trailer. Personally, I'm afraid the only thing worse than learning the truth, is watching a film that potentially offers none.

- Official United 93 website.

Hillary Special

2006-04-04T17:41:00.000+01:00

- From the political humour website NewYorkSlime.

"The liberal media and many of the pundits said I was stupid . . . They misunderestimated me." - George W. Bush, Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000 (more Bushisms here)

The Fuhrer lives on....on the soccer field

2006-04-04T14:21:00.000+01:00

From the Spiegel Online:

"Leipzig's Nigerian midfielder Adebowale Ogungbure was walking off the pitch when hooligans ran up to him, spat at him and called him "Dirty Nigger," "Shit Nigger" and "Ape." He ignored it and walked on. Then, when he passed the main stand and heard fans making whooping monkey noises at him, he decided he'd had enough. He put two fingers above his mouth to symbolise a Hitler moustache and stuck out his right arm in a Nazi salute to the crowd.

Given their behavior, one might think they would have appreciated the gesture and even returned it. But a Halle supporter attacked him from behind with a corner flag and another grabbed him in a stranglehold. Ogungbure pushed them away as a teammate intervened and dragged him towards the tunnel, to the safety of the changing rooms.

"I was just so angry, I didn't care. I could have been killed but I had to do something," Ogungbure told SPIEGEL ONLINE last week. "I thought to myself, what can I do to get them as angry as they have made me? Then when I lifted my arm I saw the anger in their faces and I started to laugh.""

- via Drudge Report

Hmm... any guesses whether the guys who tackled Ogungbure were doing so out of offence for the 'Hitler' remarks? Funny that a racist should take offence to being called a racist. While the 'Hitler salute' may be offensive to a broader German audience than intended, it probably wasn't a good idea in the first place to tempt someone who could easily fire back at the exploitation of your historical shame. Ogungbure wasn't prosecuted for the salute of course, in a PR move that didn't want to say 'we support the racists'. But seems like the neo-nazis and far right NPD party are really planning to exploit this year's World Cup afterall, including a rally for support in Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denied the Holocaust and suggested the elimination of Israel.

Critique of Poor Reason

2006-04-03T09:38:00.000+01:00

Melanie Phillips commits at least two errors, should I say crimes, in the name of logic in her latest post, analysed by Clyde below. I was going to write about Jack straw's smug grandstanding during this tour, but before that, I just thought that I would take some time to go into just what is wrong with her.

Immanuel Kant had a lot to say about logic and ethics. Which is probably why he never mentions Melanie Phillips in any of his long, boring books.

1. The characterization of those against Rice's presence as "anti-American". I listened to her debate with John Gummer. He claimed that the British parliament were misled, that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th and that the only reason that we had to satnd shoulder to shoulder with America on this was because we had gotten into that mess with them. Which part of this is anti-American? She also characterised the protests themselves as anti-American. On TV I saw activists protesting about Guantanamo Bay and the war, no burning flags, no attacks on the country itself. They objected to Rice coming because they quite rightly perceived her as a disgusting human rights violator. In her feverish scarp for the moral high-ground she pulled the most incredible example out of her bag: that the demonstrations were discorteous. Well, I thought I had exorcised the free speech debate from my mind over the weekend but I'll happily revive it to point out that if it is permissible to upset a whole sector of society through some cartoons [which she defgended vigorously, suspiciously vigorously...] then why can't we target a politician who actually has done something wrong and needs to be called to account. She says that we depend on the US for our protection and therefore we must be polite to their government. Such obligations do not exist. If somebody does something wrong they must be called to account, and her lying means that we must never trust her again. We may depend on the US for our protection from the USSR [wait a second...] but we certainly do not have such reliance when it comes to launching wars that have nothing to do with stopping Islamic terrorism. In fact, numerous experts pointed out before the war that the risk of terror would go up because A: it would divert resources from the focus in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Esat Africa, where there should have been an international policing operation rather than a bombing campaign, B: the instability in Iraq would let jihadists in, as it did Afghanistan in the 1980s and C: what we were doing there was so transparent that it was bound to anger people who want to keep a hold of their natural resources. To not stoip the Bush administration from this folly was the real appeasement. And bare we always obliged to suck up to the US government, just because of our special relationship? Would it be rude to insult other US leaders?

"This is because it always was a con-trick. Supposed to provide an alternative to the old right/left division, it was as dishonest as it was vacuous. Its creators – Tony Blair and Bill Clinton -- grasped that the public whose votes they had to win were instinctively conservative." Melanie Phillips, 14.7.03

"If President Clinton had not decided to wait when Osama bin Laden was expelled from Sudan in 1996, the thousands who died on 9/11 might have been spared." Melanie Phillips, 14.3.04

So, Clinton's policies were "vacuous" and "dishonest"? I sure a shell agree, but then I wasn't the idiot who said that it was rude to criticize our allies. And as for blaming his lapse for 9/11, well, tut tut. Whatever Clinton did, we also know that a month before 9/11 Bush received a daily intelligence briefing entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike inside in U.S." It was never too late to deal with the problem. Not that schadenfreude is my cup of tea, but what was the name of the National Security Adviser at the time..? Oh yeah, we're not allowed to talk about her.

By the way, having mauled Jack Straw so viciously [see my post below] for his speech last week, isn't it a little late to get so sanctimonious about our leaders?

2. Whenever an individual or a group fails to criticize another, it is, in her view, because they support them or are willing to tolerate their abuses.

"Here is a country which utters not a batsqueak of protest when Sheikh Qaradawi, who endorses and encourages human bomb terrorism in Iraq and Israel"

This is simply diverting the issue. It does not make Rice less of a lawbreaker simply because there are other lawbreakers. Reversing the logic, where has Melanie's batsqueak of protest been about current events in Colombia, the DRC, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Kashmir and Equatorial Guinea? Where was her cry of consternation when the president of China visited last year? She was angry that Putin's Russia and China for their alleged inaction over Iran, but would she honestly want either of these two countries on her's and Bush's "side"? I would not claim that she supported any of the above, yet under her rules, her refusal to protest makes her an appeaser and morally bankrupt.

And finally, a word on these definitions she uses. The Stop the War Coalition is not Trotskyite. It has socialist elements to it, but Trotsky participated in the destruction socialism in Russia after the revolution. Trotskiyite sounds inflammatory and would be just like me referring to Bush as "fascist" just because he happens to be on the right. The fighters in Iraq are largely not al Qaeda. In late 2004 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi changed the name of his terror group from Tawhid al Islam to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. It was a tactical switch, designed to make al Qaeda look bigger and more omnipotent than it actually was. Up until then al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq, having fled to Pakistan from Afghanistan in late 2001. Al-Zarqawi's group, on the other side of Iran, did have a presence and eventually made contact [somthing he had refused to do when he met bin Laden for the first time in Afghanistan] with the shattered remnants. But with Iraq the September 11 planners are most definately out of the picture and have little more than symbolic value. Then there is Baathists, by which she means the national resistance. When the occupiers disbanded the army they left a mass [I've heard the figure 1 million, could it have been so high?] of dejected but well trained soldiers that had been part of Saddam's army because the alternative was too gruesome to contemplate. They were not policy makers and probably the vast majority don't want Saddam back. They want the coalition out for various reasons given in the excellent BBC programme aired yesterday called The Insurgency. And finally, hysteria, a term she uses to slime those who want the troops out, but might better be used to describe a woman who believes, despite all the evidence, that Saddam's weapons were smuggled out to Syria, that he had a working relationship with al Qaeda, that we need to enforce regime change on Iran [ie: bomb it] and that the left in Britain is engaged in some vast conspirarcy with hardcore Islamists. That, my love, is hysteria.

Mad Cow disease is truly still alive in Britain

2006-04-02T23:23:00.000+01:00

Mad Mel has got her nose so far up Condie Rice's arse that Rice is using it as her tongue:

"What is so striking about these protests is not just the discourtesy shown to a senior member of the government of our most powerful ally; it is not just that it is extraordinarily bone-headed to insult and alienate the ally on whom we continue to depend for our protection [this is so tony blair speak]; it is not just the craven appeasement of intimidation, as I wrote in the Mail this morning. It is the lethal moral inversion of the argument, which is not surprising since these protests are being fuelled -- if not orchestrated -- by the comrades of the Trotskyite/Islamist Stop the War Coalition, as can be clearly seen from their website which provides details of and helpful travel arrangements for marches and demonstrations today and tomorrow.

Here is a country which utters not a batsqueak of protest when Sheikh Qaradawi, who endorses and encourages human bomb terrorism in Iraq and Israel, speaks on a London platform – and indeed is actually embraced by the London Mayor Ken Livingstone as a hero of religious enlightenment – and yet is treating the US Secretary of State as if she is a major war criminal. Why? Because the US is apparently waging war against the innocent in Iraq. Excuse me?? The US is currently in Iraq at the express request of the Iraqis themselves to defend the innocent against the war being waged against them. The US went to war in Iraq to start unpicking the axis of terror that so threatens the world. The US remains in Iraq to help the Iraqis, at their express request, build the institutions of democracy, law and security. It is in Iraq to help protect innocent Iraqis against the forces of al Qaeda and the remains of the Ba’ath party who are determined to stop them and replace freedom by tyranny. It is in Iraq to help defend Iraqi lives and liberty against those who seek to destroy them."

Sometimes I wonder how it is that the leech is able to open his newspaper to Melanie Phillips latest rant and not feel like logical diarrhea [defn: excessive and frequent evacuation of ~~watery feces~~ logic, usually indicating ~~gastrointestinal~~ mental distress or disorder]. First she makes an irrelevant association between Islamists and and an anti-war organisation. So by her definition, I am really a muslim for being anti-war (more so if I posted a map to the next demonstration), and the leech is only pretending to be aethist because it sounds cool.

Second, the US went to war on false intel on WMDs and false associations between Iraq and Al Qaeda. And in any case, it certainly does not seem to have had the effect of deterring extremist ideals in any way. If anything, it's done the exact opposite by fuelling it. Even white people hate America now.

Third, it's obviously easy to isolate those who disagree with your opinion from the definition of 'Iraqi' to say that they 'request' and 'want' American presence in their country. Iraq is already on the verge of civil war. I still think it's bullshit that a man can be on trial for months or years before he is sentenced in the West, yet we can point our finger at someone, accuse him of being a terrorist, and then drop bombs on thousands of his countrymen without solid evidence in a so-called pre-emptive war. So to that I ask Mad Mel, where does your application of democracy begin?

here...?

or here...?

I will think hard everyday when I turn on the evening news and see the new death toll, and think of your argument of what a great job we've done... and even harder about why we are there in the first place.

Always the wrong race in the wrong place.

2006-04-02T18:33:00.000+01:00

From the BBC:

"Home Office Minister Fiona Mactaggart said there was much still to do to combat racially aggravated crime.
"That might be an indication that the progress we have made in investigating and prosecuting hate crime has given people greater confidence to report incidents and been effective in preventing them from happening," she said.

The period covered by the statistics pre-dates the July bombings in London last year. Separate figures for stop and searches under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 show 32,086 were made, an increase of 9% on the previous year.

Black people were two and a half times more likely to be stopped under the terrorism law than white people. Asian people were twice as likely as white people to be stopped."

I'd rather not comment on how justifiable it is to racially profile blacks and asians in the first place for a typical stop and search. But am I missing something here? Nevermind that black people are the most likely to be stopped and searched (6 times more likely than a white person), but even under the Terrorism Act 2000, they remain at the top for being stopped and searched the most?? The nature of such authority without the need for grounds to suspect someone is obviously prone to racial profiling. But it seems like the cops can no longer care anymore to distinguish between blacks, middle easterners....and south americans.

Three Blind Mice - Rumsfeld...Cheney...Rice.

2006-04-02T18:03:00.000+01:00

Fancy a protest song?

Excerpt from Michael Ratner’s speech to the Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration – Jan. 20, 2006

‘What the President has done is basically lay the plan for what has to be called a coup-d'etat in America. It is a small paragraph and it's contained in what is called a 'signing statement.' It was signed on December 30th and it's the signing statement to what is called the McCain amendment. You probably all remember the McCain amendment. That's the amendment that prohibits cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, or supposedly prohibits it. The president as you recall, resisted the McCain amendment. But in the end he had to sign it because it was part of a broader military authorization to pay for what we're doing in Iraq. When a president signs legislation, he sometimes and, more recently with President Bush, almost always, issues a signing statement as to what his understanding of the new law is. The president's statement on McCain is only one short paragraph. But it is historic. It is unprecedented. And if you're looking for the grab for power that allows you, permits you, compels you to call this administration a tyranny, it is that paragraph.

It makes three points and I'll paraphrase. First, speaking as the president, 'My authority as commander in chief allows me to do whatever I think is necessary in the war on terror including use torture. Second, the Commander in Chief cannot be checked by Congress. Third, the Commander in Chief cannot be checked by the courts.' There it is. There you have it. That boring stuff I learned as a junior high school student about checks and balances or about limited law or about authority under law - out the window. Gone. In other words, the republic and democracy is over. In Germany what did they call that? They called that the fuhrer's law. Why? Because the fuhrer was the law. That's what George Bush is saying here. George Bush is the law.”

- From Eskit via Pink Dome.

"How strange that people who worship a God of War and Vengeance should get so lathered up about fertilized eggs and fetuses."

Freedom of expression: what's that?

2006-03-31T00:10:00.000+01:00

The bastardisation of free speech is well under way:

"I think you just answered your own question by contradicting yourself. Yes, indeed, theoretically it may be consistent and all, but if you put it in real practice, we may all find out that steering a car with feet may not sound so ideal. And so this analogy applies to Matilah's comments, that though you may theoretically have the right to offend another (which begs the question of why would you do that in the first place: is there no other way to put it across?), in practice, it is not justified because your rights to do so violate another's rights to be prevented from such an offence, verbal or visceral. Of course, we may want to escalate this into a tit for tat game of violating each other's rights, but at the end of the day, if it is mutual understanding or social justice that we are pursuing, then free speech in the former sense is not going to get you there. Why waste or pervert a good thing and might I say, a right?"

Actually, my comments are not contradictory because while my analogy implies offensive language is not neccessary, in no way would I impinge on the rights of another to offend (or drive with their feet). If you cannot grasp the Right to Ignore, then that is to your own disadvantage. I find it even more incredibly absurd that people cannot excercise this right on the Internet, let alone a face to face conversation. The logic of one's rights to say something potentially offensive having the effect of impinging your rights is a completely construed concept. Because the irony of having a ficticious "Right not to be Offended" conversely impinges another's right to speech. Ask yourself if (a)your civil liberties have been reduced, and (b) if your human rights have been reduced. Answering these and acknowledging that the "Right not to be Offended" is contradictory in itself, and will conclusively show that this concept is flawed.

Let's also remember that Rights in this context is dictated by the Law. If you believe in pursuing social justice and mutual understandings over legislation, then I don't see any reason why you should think that Matilah should face potential prosecution by the Law. This situation is very much similar to the incident where the Danish caricatures offended the muslim community. My own article 'What does a Danish flag look like?' discussed the dilemma of religious appeasement and understanding freedom of speech. Alex Au (Yawning Bread) duly noted the bastardisation of free speech when people become fond of affixing "responsibility" to it. It suggests a freedom you have which must be curtailed depending on how offended another becomes. And it's not hard to see that where legislation is involved, self-censorship becomes inevitable.

My opinion does not deviate far from Matilah's idea of free speech. But one does not have to use profanity or share his opinion of you in order to agree with him.

"I am not a believer that law has complete control to mould society especially where the libertarian system is concerned, but if we head down that path (I am not thinking of Singapore, but the USA), it is clear to see what kind of society we will eventually get."

A truly genuine freedom of speech is a non-negotiable entity. You either have it or you don't. No one has the right to alter or define their own borders which apply to everyone else. To leave control in another individual defies the very meaning of 'freedom'. Where Singapore is concerned, the State is nowhere near a libertarian system and its infamous number of laws have clearly shaped its society for what it is today. If anything is to be clear, it is that the continued cap on progressive minds, free speech, gay rights, and other oppressive elements will eventually drive generations of youth out to greener pastures. Added to a failing birth/replacement rate, the Ruling Party will eventually face their own shortcomings.

Making something out of nothing: Melanie Phillips' Straw Man ravings

2006-03-30T12:08:00.000+01:00

There are more positive ways to make a comeback than by assailing an intellectually impoverished bigot, but such is the negativity in Melanie Phillips' post "Britain's man of straw" that any critical response will do a bit of good.
Phillips doesn't like Jack Straw, one of the men who connived to get the war in Iraq, which she still has only praise for. She has moaned about him on numerous occasions because it seems that this warmonger is a bit too soft for her. Not just in the sense that he looks, behaves, and even sounds a bit like Mr Smithers, but also because she believes that he is fawning and accommodating in the face of Islamic terrorism. Her latest evidence [I'm not going to stoop to the level of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and other Sunny Delight-quaffing airheads, so you can damn-well put your own ironic quotation marks around the word evidence] comes in the form of a speech he gave at the Muslim News awards. I know, I haven't heard of them either. And neither has she, for had she done the two minutes research I have just done she would have found that they are called the Muslim News Awards for Excellence, a cloyingly titled ceremony that aims to honour Muslims for their achievements in all aspects of British society. Past winners include the boxer Prince Naseem Hamid [sad but true: Prince Naseem has never been condemned for Islamic violence, even though he's paid to hit people]. As Jack Straw put it himself: "We are celebrating the very significant contribution which Muslim communities as a whole make year on year to our country."

Her problem Straw's conduct at this celebration was that: "...at no point in his speech did he even mention Islamic terrorism." Now, people from a minority faith who have turned up at their own celebration to see people honoured for their positive role might not appreciate this, especially coming from the man who any other day would be arguing in defence of his cruel war. Melanie Phillips wants these people to be integrated and appreciate British values, but doesn't even need to think twice to attack them at a ceremony about their contribution to this very society. Honestly, how many terrorists did she think were in that room, waiting to receive awards? And what makes her think that anybody in that room even condoned Islamist violence? I know I would feel patronised and under attack if I was lectured on the violence committed by white people, or Catholics or the English simply because others who looked like me had indulged in it.

One subject that had to come up was the issue of those poxy cartoons. I managed to dodge the whole debate on censorship when it was in full swing in late January, one of the reasons being that it seemed obvious: You can print what you like [within the law] because you are entitled to free speech, but you should [and "should" is a loaded term here. I'm using it in a way suggesting what a human being at their best should do, knowing that there are 6 billion others out there that think and feel the same way as them in most situations] not use it to deliberately hurt people. Predictably, and rather sadly, many Muslims shot back by saying that Jews wouldn't like it if the Holocaust was abused. My favoured example is jokes at the expense of the disabled. One of the reasons why Little Britain has become such a pile of shit, and that new film The Ringer will be, is because they apply the same principle the Danish cartoons did against the disabled: "we can say it, so we shall". Jack straw seems to concur with this view, saying in his speech:

"The right to freedom of expression is a broad one and something which this country has long held dear. It was the focus of our human rights work during our recent Presidency of the European Union. But the existence of such a right does not mean that it is right – morally right, politically right, socially right – to exercise that freedom without regard to the feelings of others.
A large number of Muslims in this country were – understandably – upset by those cartoons being reprinted across Europe and at their deeply held beliefs being insulted. They expressed their hurt and outrage but did so in a way which epitomised the learned, peaceful religion of Islam. In doing so they were not being 'unreasonable' or 'un-European'. They were not threatening anyone's values."

Sentiments which don't sit well with our witch, who shot back:

"Thus Islamist violence is sanitised, excused and even airbrushed out of the picture altogether. The crisis in relations between the Islamic and Western worlds is entirely the fault of the West. The protest against clerical fascism represented by the Danish cartoons -- whose target was not Islam but the intimidation practised in its name -- was instead an insult to deeply held religious beliefs. And so it was that protest, rather than the clerical fascism, which should not be tolerated." [my italics]

Her criticism misses the point so much that getting hold of the issues would be like mud-wrestling with a greased eel. Still, lets not let this eel get away. Firstly, Jack Straw is not blaming all Islamic violence on the cartoons. He has babbled about jihadists enoug in past speeches for her to know this. He was referring to Muslim alienation in Britain, and citing the cartoons as a prime example. She uses the word "entirely", not Jack Straw. She is entitled to think that the cartoons were about oppression carried out by Muslims rather than Islam itself [although she has never been rave enough to come out and say that she despises the whole damn faith], but since the cartoonists must have known that using Mohammed as a synecdote for this oppression was going to upset many, and that reproducing them in other newspapers across Europe after the initial bad reception was going to inflame this, her view is totally misplaced here. It would be convenient if Jack Straw didn't mention the nasty element of these largely peacful protests in his speech. But, oh no:

"A handful of Muslims reacted in a distasteful and unacceptable way."

Not the strongest language, but it gets the job done, and I repeat, how many bad eggs were in that room, and why should their crimes be used in a speech addressing decent harmless people? Her piece climaxes with a burst of spiteful insanity, when she labels "ominous" this part of Straw's speech:

"The release of the British hostage, Norman Kember, and two of his companions has been very prominent in the media over the past few days. I believe the calls by many Muslims in this country and fellow British citizens for the safe release of those kidnapped victims and showing their solidarity with their plight may have contributed to their survival."

It's innocent and probably accurate. When the four hostages appeared in orange jumpsuits we knew that these were serious terrorists. The fact that three survived is incredible. But she wants to associate our Foreign Secretary with terror, and she'll be damned if she'll let what he actually said get in the way of that:

"Let us remind ourselves who these Muslims were who made these calls for the hostages’ safe release. After consultations with the Foreign Office, the Muslim Association of Britain – the British arm of the Muslim Brotherhood which works for the Islamisation of Britain and Europe -- dispatched its president, Anas al-Tikriti, to Iraq to negotiate with the kidnappers. The MAB also persuaded Sheikh al-Qaradawi, the Brotherhood’s mentor and supporter of human bombs in Iraq and Israel, as well as the leaders of Hamas, Hizbollah and 23 other Muslim organisations, to sign a press release calling for Kember and three other hostages to be freed. The al Qaeda leader Abu Qatada was also pressed into service to appeal for their release from his prison cell, as did Moazzam Begg, the British man who had previously been detained at Guantanamo Bay, while Muslims at Finsbury Park mosque -- now run once more by the Brotherhood -- said prayers for Kember’s safe return which were played on televisions across the world."

The accusations that the MAB is an "arm" of the Muslim Brotherhood is a deliberate exaggeration on her part and further sloppy use of language to mislead readers. It does seem that they have links to them, but also that they are independent in the way that they act. They condemned the London bombings and held protest vigils several times last year, so their opinion of terrorism perpetrated by Muslims in Britain is quite clear. I have no reason to like them either, and never applaud their members at anti-war demos. But I'll wait for some hard facts before I claim that they are an "arm" and by implication are in existance to carry out Muslim Brotherhood policy in Britain. Qatada volunteered to be filmed and was used as a tactical measure because he knew he would influence the captors. The real proof of how the government regards him is illustrated by the fact that the message was filmed in his current home: Full Sutton jail. Hamas and Hezbollah are regarded as terrorist organisations by this government while Moazzam Begg was released from Guantanamo Bay an innocent man. Perhaps our witless friend might want to bear in mind that presumed innocence is another luxury that democracies enjoy, along with freedom of speech. He should be disregarded in her list of terror-sympathisers, but then, every sentient reader knows that these people were not the Muslims Jack Straw had in mind. Muslims repeatedly joined Christians in vigils for Norman Kember and put their names on the massive public statement calling for their release, while those of the same faith protested at his captivity across the world. Jack Straws failure to recognise the near-irrelevant subject of Islamic terror in this speech is superseded by her stubborn refusal to recognise the benefits of Islamic cooperation and goodwill.

Her final flourish is this:

"The British Foreign Secretary has now said, in effect, that the lives of Norman Kember and the other two hostages were saved thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood. What price will the Brotherhood now exact from Britain in return?" [again, my italics]

Readers of Melanie Phillips know by now what "in effect" means. It means: "if you substitute the words actually uttered with far nastier ones then I have a case". So, if I ate meat for lunch, then "in effect" I could have had roast orphans with my salad. Jack Straw said that Muslims helped him stay alive. Screw "in effect". If there is one lesson I would like her to learn, it is that you are not going to expose a hidden agenda by just altering somebody's words and changing the meaning of their sentence. Jack Straw didn't even claim that Muslims "saved" Mr Kember. He said they "contributed" to his survival. We know the SAS saved him because pro-war advocates have been crowing for days how, if the troops weren't there, these pacifists wouldn't have been saved. Nice. Had the troops not been there, of course, the pacifists wouldn't have felt compelled to go. But that's another debate.

The chronicles of Fetus Spears

2006-03-23T20:02:00.000Z

That's the bastard child crossbreed between white trash and whiter trash:

"I'M SITTING HERE IN THE BABY ROOM WITH ALL THESE OTHER CUTSIE MIDGET F***TARDS. I'M WEARING SOME SORT OF BEANIE. I TOLD MOMMY THAT I DON'T WANT TO BE A JEW OR KABBALAH OR ANYTHING. I JUST WANT TO BE A FETUS SSSSS!!!!! SPEARSSSSSSSDSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

BALASDSAFD...

DAMN I'M HUNGRY . WHAT'S THIS WAITING AROUND TO EAT CRA? IN MOMMY'S TUMMY I BASICALLY ATE WHAT I WANT. NOW I HAVE TO WAIT FOR SOME FATASS NURSE TO COME GIVE ME FOOD...

CAN'T WAIT TILL MOMMY BREASTS FEEDS ME. MANY OF YOU HAVE WRITTEN TO SAY HOW LUCKY I AM, THAT I GET TO SUCKLE O0N THE TEAT OF A POP PRINCESSS. YES, IT'S AWESOME, BUT THIS IS MY MOM WE'RE TALKING ABOUT SO SHUT THE F UP....

I ACCIDENTLY LEFT MY POWER BOOK IN MOMMY'S UTERUS. SHE'S PROBABLY GONNA POOP IT UP TONIGHT..

DOCTOR GAVE ME ONE OF THOSE COOL BLACKBERRY'S THAT EVERYONE
SEEMS TO BE CARRYING AROUND HERE. IT F'ING SUCKS. I WANT A GODDAMN TREO....BUTTONS ARE SMALLER FOR MY SMALL FINGERS....

DADDY'S LOOKING AT ME THROUGH THE WINDOW NOW...SHOULD HE BE WORKING OR SOMETHING...THAT DUDE NEEDS TO GET A LIFE...

STAY TUNED...THIS LIVING THING IS HILARIOUS...."

The coming of the King of white trash has been born, yes. A lot's happened since then. And although the Fetus Spears has ceased blogging soon after birth, it's still quite a funny read. It still saddens me to see newborns brought into this world who are destined to a doom of infamy. Most recently, I've also noticed the UK's own televised chronicles of the sex aftermath by ex-Page 3 girl, Jordan and significant other Peter Andre. Nevermind the bastard children, I'm still trying hard to think of a single successful celebrity couple who have actually been able to pass the test of time.

Suicidal narcissist speaks from hell the office

2006-03-22T19:37:00.000Z

Martha drops an email from work. Work; the one thing that martha and now the leech evidently have too much of and that I lack.

me: Haven't heard from you in ages. Thought maybe you killed yourself or slashed your wrists from all that depression of working in a square cubicle listening to the silent humming of computers all day.

martha: i slashed my wrists ages ago but my blood was so cold that it was practically frozen inside that there was no blood flow exiting the wound so im still here.

Ocassionally I get some email forwards from her, and usually they're somewhat interesting.... like this Toyota Inari 1.1. which she thought would be the perfect automobile for the anti-socialite such as ourselves.

Bigsmall; Put it in your dictionary.

Imagine the amount of awkward silences this car would save you if it went mainstream... Oh well, an anti-socialite can keep on dreaming.

"by the way today lunch time (before i had foood) our fire officer called me up and said there was a baby whale stranded on the beach so i butted in to the rescue but seeing as i was in work clothes and not a swimmer all i could do was stand there under hot sun looking baked yet still deliciously sexy." - martha inserts narcissism where necessary.

Crackdown on domestic terrorists

2006-03-16T20:26:00.000Z

From the Washington Times:

"But the Amsterdam trial has an importance that goes well beyond the sphere of counterterrorism. This verdict is the culmination of a new trend that has been growing in Holland since the van Gogh assassination, as the country has gone through a severe self-examination. The Hofstad group is just the most dramatic and evident manifestation of a much larger problem. Most of the members of the group, in fact, were born in the Netherlands, sons or grandsons of North African immigrants who had grown up immersed in Dutch culture, yet had embraced radical Islam and decided to "wage a holy war against their own country," as Dutch prosecutors defined it. Bouyeri, who had described Holland as a "democratic torture chamber," talked about overthrowing the Dutch parliament and replacing it with an Islamic court. While receiving generous benefits from its social security, the men planned to kill the country's leaders and start a civil war that would have pitted Muslims against Christians."

- Discovered at Vox Popoli

The protests and riots in European cities including the London bombings have shown that an increasing proportion of the muslim community have adopted extremist ideals, waging holy war on their own countries. Widespread fundamentalism is becoming an increasing problem and it's my guess that some of the violent sentiments expressed on cardboard reflect the opinions of many who participated in protests, and who do not value western democracy and freedoms. Yet they exercise their right to take to the streets and shout their anti-west slogans, in a twisted sense of irony.

The problem of discompassionate muslims can be found deeply rooted in racial segregation, and the failure of a generally diasporic community to assimilate in their resident European countries. European born-and-bred 'Jihadists' have no loyalty towards their own nation. Few journalists (including Melanie "Mad Cow" Phillips) I have come across have also noted the errosion of western values due to religious appeasement. I haven't read her latest publication Londonistan (a mockery on Britain's failure to tackle home-grown extremists and the transformation of London into today's European HQ for terrorist recruitment), but I figured it has to do with the errosion of civil liberties as an influx of immigrants bring along with them anti-western values which eventually affect a democratic society where people of every creed are allowed to vote.

It looks like the Dutch are the first to step up to get to the root of the problem, by getting immigrants to assimilate to their culture and values, e.g. learning the Dutch language for starters. Government intervention seems to be an inevitable solution if you don't wish your national identity erroded. The whole issue also begs another question. As anti-voting libertarian Vox Day once pointed out, the voting aspect of democracy has now seen Iraq under the threat of the Sharia law being imposed by nominated parties and deeply suspects a wasted war effort. Is this evidence that voting is not always for the better of a free society? Perhaps the leech can shed some positive light on this.

The vice president and the quail

2006-03-15T00:07:00.000Z

This is a must-see video. A hilarious take on Dick Cheney's "war" on quails with an overtone reference to 9/11.

Suddenly shooting a fully grown man dressed in a fluorescent jacket instead of a tiny bird all seems to make sense...

Dim sums and basketball

2006-03-14T01:27:00.000Z

Ted defends his right to say nothing:

"You guys expect the sky from overseas Singaporean students. Other than the hanging of Nguyen, even for the American students overseas in other countries, they are not fantastically vocal either of GWB's hawk policy against Iraq. The most I ever seen was from a fiesty exchange American student who defended the decision to invade Iraq based on September 11 in a philosophy class, other than that they don't go around waving flags on campus. Yes granted I am describing it in Australia but nontheless it's a valid example. Sheesh.

And yes, organising basketball games and dim sum sessions are ways to gel Singpaoreans studenst overseas for those once in a while occasions,so that they won't feel too homesick. Those who don't participate in such events are able to take care of their own social lives, it's all done on a voluntary basis. Not all overseas Singaporean Student Orgs are representative of the home government's decisions nor should they be expected to defend or attack such decisions as a priori assumption/expectation."

Just to straighten things out, I don't have a problem with dim sum eating, basketball playing Singaporean students abroad. But I will say that Americans don't go around campus with a patriotic flag supporting the war namely because (a)wherever you are in the world today, you will find yourself severely outnumbered by people pissed off that Bush lied and (b) more than half of Americans did not support the war from the beginning and a report by CNN today shows that Bush is as unpopular as ever today.

You have to be one arrogant American retard to try defend the war in this year. If Bush and Blair can't even defend nor explain the absence of WMDs, how is anybody else suppose to... Some americans I come across take it upon themselves in fact to start ranting off about what an idiot Bush is. Hmmm.

The difference between the American and Singaporean student, while involving 2 completely different issues, is that everybody knows what the American probably thinks of Bush and his invasion of Iraq. Show me an apathetic American and I'll show you a Singaporean who doesn't just eat dim sum all day.

Second, and this is strictly from personal experience, Americans seem more sporadic in overseas institutions compared to Singaporeans who seem to cluster at all the popular universities en masse. Therefore it'd make more sense for a sizeable demographic of Singaporeans in Aussie to have spoken up. Take part in a protest. Join a campaign. Either way do something to show an opinion that actually matters. I completely challenge your assumption that student orgs shouldn't be held representative of their country. I challenge the embarrassing culture of apathy and the right to bear the "Singapore Society" tag and not have any association whatsover with government actions that have an impact on the outside world. The absence of politics from the Singaporean identity, whether at home or abroad, is what's completely wrong with the typical Singaporean. The definition of 'uniquely Singaporean' to me right now is for one to be completely divorced from politics...and probably know where all the good dim sum places are. And these are suppose to be the bright leaders of tomorrow?? In a recent article, Alex Au (Yawning Bread) observed how few people he saw whose minds were really at work, in any sort of meaningful way. An overwhelming majority of people immerse themselves in their own worlds, rarely bothering to explore anything else, whether it's another culture, or the political machinery. I see many Singaporeans go overseas, but sadly few ever open their minds.

See, this is the problem with eating too much dim sum and playing ball all day... Eventually you'll find you're still living in Singapore no matter where you go.

Lord of War (or is it Warlord?)

2006-02-27T16:21:00.000Z

I can't seem to think of any great films with Nicolas Cage that amounts to a few. He's been in a number of good films, and if he hasn't been in any single great film, at least his strength is being in consistently good films. Typically he's either in an entirely ficticious, and sometimes impossible, explosive action flick (Con-Air, Face/Off, The Rock) that somehow manages to separate itself from other typical 'explosive' films, or he's in some sort of romance/novel-inspired drama (Adaptation, City of Angels, Family Man) yet not quite the melodrama. At the very least, I can't think of any absolutely shit films he's set foot in that amounts to a few. Although some may beg to differ that his choice of films (The Family Man, Matchstick Men, and more recently, The Weatherman.) are becoming stereotypical like the those of Rob Sneider's movie comedies. So, when I watched Lord of War yesterday, I was really expecting a John Woo or Jerry Bruckheimer styled film with 84% of the budget spent on firearms ammunition. Instead, I got an interesting satire of the illegal arms trading business cleverly disguised as an action flick.

Based on actual events, this black comedy/drama stars Nicholas Cage as international arms smuggler Uri Orlov. The story follows Uri from his humble beginnings as a Soviet immigrant in 1970s Brooklyn and peaks with his involvement in selling off the stockpiled arsenal of post-Cold War Ukraine to--among other top clients--the sadistic African dictator André Baptiste, Sr. (Eamonn Walker). Jared Leto costars as Uri’s little brother Vitaly, whose conscience and a burgeoning cocaine problem get in the way of business. Ethan Hawke is good as a sanctimonious Interpol agent with a vendetta against Uri, but the film's biggest dose of onscreen gravitas comes from Walker, whose Baptiste seethes with a heavy, serpent-like malevolence.
Written and directed by Andrew Niccol, the film makes fine use of the brisk stream-of-consciousness narration style that Martin Scorcese brought to the true crime genre with GOODFELLAS (1992), and a near constant flow of action and classic rock songs that ensure a speedy, riveting ride through three decades of global carnage. Cage, who coproduced, lets his patented oddball magnetism slowly change polarity, until viewers realize they’ve been led into a moral quagmire by falling for his self-delusory spiels about supply and demand, making this one of the bravest and most jet-black comedies of its decade.

- Rotten Tomatoes

The film encapsulates the life of illegal global firearms (including soviet choppers and tanks) dealing by Uri Orlov (Cage), his exploitation of legal loopholes, and the aspects of the illegal trade even to a political level. It does so perfectly right from the introduction as you follow the life of a...bullet in first-person view, from copper plates in the factory of ambiguous nation, into the crate, into the Soviet Union, into an unsettled African nation, into the magazine of an AK-47 assault rifle, into the barrel chamber, and eventually flying into the head of an "militant" African kid with a sadistic splat sound and quickly followed by blackout to end the prelude to the film.

Uri forms the most unusual of friendships with some of the most dangerous dictators in the world, going by a first-name basis even. But the best quote or moment with a client has got to be between Uri and the Liberian dictator, Andre Baptiste, and his take on American culture.

[Uri is sat across the dictator's desk, surrounded by guards, giving the usual salesman pitch while Andre casually opens and inspects the silver-plated Magnum. He notices one of his young guards busily flirting with a girl nearby. He fumbles with the Magnum a bit more before loading a bullet, aims and shoots the young guard dead.]

Uri: "Why did you do that?!?"
Dictator [aims at Uri]: "What did you say?"
Uri [short pause]: "Now you're going to have to buy it. It's a used gun. How can I sell a used gun?"
[snatches gun from Dictator and begins cleaning it]
Dictator: "Ha...a used gun. A used gun! That's a good one." [laughs more as tension in the room dies.]

"You know, there is no dicipline with the youth today. I try to set an example (looks at dead guard being dragged away), but it is difficult eh? Personally I blame MTV."

Some day...some day you will be mine.

2006-02-23T15:45:00.000Z

Oh, my love, my darling,

I've hungered for your touch

Alone, lonely time

And time goes by so slowly

And time can do so much

Are you still mine

I need your love

God, speed your love to me

Lonely rivers flow to the sea to the sea

To the open arms of the sea

Lonely river sigh, wait for me, wait for me

I'll be coming home

Wait for me...

The all-new Ford Mustang: Some women say it's better than having sex and chocolate at the same time.

In the midst of taking my long overdue driving lessons, my boyhood Toys'R'Us urges have strangely been rekindled. Maybe the updated Hollywood film Dukes of Hazzard also brought back my childhood obsessions with the General Lee. But in general, I have always had a thing for American muscle cars. Nothing looks as cool and sounds as hot for the price of a pony car. Sure, American cars are generally notorious for shitty fuel economy and seriously lacking in terms of performance, quality and value for money compared with their european and asian counterparts. They guzzle twice as much as gas and are probably 50% of the cause of global warming and 100% of the reason why Iraq got ass-invaded. If sin ever bore such tasty fruits, this is it.

I'm like a fat kid staring into a candy-store. I know its bad for me (or the environment anyways), but I want one. But of course, given the financial and geographical impossibilities for a first car, I will probably end up driving a shitty car covered in shit.

My first car: I can already smell the pigeons...

Just a dreamer

2006-02-23T15:07:00.000Z

If only we could all just find serenity

It would be nice if we could live as one

When will all this anger, hate and biggotry

... Be gone?

I'm just a dreamer

I dream my life away

Today

I'm just a dreamer

Who dreams of better days

Okay

I'm just a dreamer

Who's searching for the way

Today

I'm just a dreamer

Dreaming my life away

- Dreamer, Ozzy Osbourne

Sometimes I wonder if....

i) Ozzy writes his own lyrics;

ii) Ozzy is capable of writing his own lyrics;

iii) is that really Ozzy singing his own lyrics.

in no particular order.

Happy Valentine's

2006-02-13T17:27:00.000Z

It's that time of the year again when nausea is in the air.

********************

~~£0.50~~ ~~£0.40~~ ~~£0.30~~ £0.15!!!

And don't forget to buy your pack of 10 red-label Tesco cards to last you a lifetime*. This product is eco-friendly** and made from recycled toilet paper and now comes FREE when you buy red-label boquet of roses***!

*Based on UK average marriage lifetime.

**May contain traces of shit. Not recommended for people allergic to shit.

***Not really roses.

What does a Danish flag look like?

2006-02-11T22:49:00.000Z

"Up till yesterday, I never knew what a Danish flag looked like. Apparently it's red and white in colour, and has orange flames coming off the top." - Jimmy Carr.

I'll admit that I was slightly unsure how to react to the controversy that was the publication of insensitive caricatures towards Islam. It did feel slightly unfair of the European press to play the 'Free Speech' card and for the Danish to stubornly refuse to apologise. How does someone publish something like that and not expect a massive uproar from the muslim community? And without any gross generalisation here, it was quite plain to see, in my opinion, the more violent, damaging response from protesters who decided to torch a building, burn flags and make 9/11-like death threats with their "anti-freedom" slogans. It was truly a display of irony for such protesters outraged at caricatures depicting Islam's supposedly violent nature. So if such violent protesters were committed to doing violence, does that mean they weren't really 'protesting' then in the first place? Obviously the publications seemed like just an excuse for such people to practice making molotov cocktails and take to the streets with their anti-western sentiments.

Then I see this picture here with a protester holding his placard and an English cop behind him. How does any man gather the balls to make a threat like that on European soil, I wonder. Instinct would bring me to consider his slogan as an act of treason and have any man threatening the lives of Britons shot on the spot without trial. But of course this isn't the year 1800 anymore and such acts wouldn't be allowed. 2002 if you're from Iraq. They have the right to offend and the right to protest as any citizen of this country and emptying a 23-round pistol magazine into a protester would just be hipocritical of me. Tsk tsk.

So what about the Danish press together with the rest of Europe's tabloids fanning the flames? Do they have a genuine point on freedom of expression, or are they equally responsible for the torching and burning of all things Danish? I quickly realise the fallacy of this logic that would mean that the measure of responsibility is defined by the response of another party. I.e. If 100% of muslims had a sense of humour and didn't take it offensively, would that make the publication of the cartoon drawings any less irresponsible? I tried to fathom this literally for days... I try to answer the much longer-lasting question of what exactly is free expression with responsibility? It sounds like a common marketing freebie with some sort of strings attached. Do boundaries pose greater danger to the very founding principles of such freedoms? And then I read yet another brilliant article by Alex Au who shared his thoughts so articulately on the matter of free speech versus religious sensitivity:

Causing offence should not be confused with incitement. To this some will argue that surely we should be aware that those who take offence will respond in very agitated ways. If the agitation is foreseeable, then it is incitement. This is a very poor argument. It makes the definition of incitement entirely dependent on how violent the other party can work himself up to be. The more violent his response, they more he is likely to get his way and the freedom of the speaker curbed. In the final analysis, such a position effectively rewards violence. Hardly a good way to build a peaceful society.
This is related to the problem with the phrase, "expressing an opinion responsibly". It seems to suggest that if free expression causes offence and possible backlash then that freedom must be curtailed in the name of "responsibility". This woolly-headedness was exactly what the Danish newspaper wanted to contest. What is the meaning of freedom, if that freedom cannot in practical terms be exercised due to various forms of censorship? What is the use of a title deed to a piece of land if you are never allowed to take possession of it?
Thirdly, the Straits Times said that the Danish newspaper was doing "violence to the concept" of free speech. One can easily argue that imposing broad burdens of responsibility and non-incitement does even greater violence of the concept. Fourthly, the Straits Times felt that the governments should act against the newspaper for being "downright dangerous to the national interest". Jyllands-Posten -- and it appears from opinion polls, 75% of Danes supporting them -- could have felt that making a stand to defend the cherished principle of free speech was very much in the national interest. Is it typically Singaporean that we only define "national interest" in economic and trade terms?

Christians and Jews I'm sure have been the subject of many office jokes and caricatures. And I certainly don't think Matt Stone and Trey Parker made any exceptions for their provocative cartoon South Park. So why, considering Christians and Jews are probably the largest religions in America, wasn't there an uproar against that cartoon? A cartoon that was 9 seasons or 225 episodes more successful than the Danish caricatures at provoking people, not able to cause at least one embassy or one flag to burn?

On the TV news Tuesday night, 31 January, Channel News Asia reported that the Saudi government called on European governments "to protect religions." Why should religion be privileged? Why should the beliefs of some curtail the freedoms of others, especially non-believers? Who decides what constitutes a religion and what does not, such that one set of beliefs is privileged and another set is not? What if a Christian sect said the use of the cross for non-Christian purposes caused serious offence to them, and demanded that the entire world stopped using the "+" sign for addition? Are we supposed to comply? It is one thing for a person to live by his beliefs, e.g. a vegetarian who chooses to forgo meat or a member of the clergy that takes a vow of celibacy. We have to respect that person's choice. It's another thing for someone, or an organised mob, to insist that others too must abide by his/their rules. It's even worse when people with a set of beliefs call upon governments to use governmental power to impose those rules upon everybody else.
The Danish Prime Minister was right to stand his ground.

Was it all necessary? you might ask. Couldn't the children's book that started everything have been published without drawings of the Prophet? Perhaps, but it's not my book or yours, and thus, it's not my decision or yours to make whether Kare Bluitgen should have done without. (Personally, I am quite mystified why he didn't think such illustrations would reduce the sales of his book, especially to Muslim
families.... but then, it's his book) Couldn't Jyllen-Posten, the Danish newspaper, have written about Bluitgen's difficulties without commissioning the 12 cartoons, and still made its point just as effectively?

Again, perhaps it could. But at what point do we stop complaining about the erosion of freedom, and actually seize it to prove a point? Do we choose paralysis or action to defend our freedom? Perhaps, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born member of theDutch Parliament said, it is necessary.

The protest demonstrations in the Middle East, and by Muslim communities in Europe too, only prove the point that believers in free and secular societies need to be alert to creeping censorship from religious extremists, the very point that Jyllands-Posten set out to highlight. What are the demonstrators calling for? They are calling for censorship. Not because they have been injured in any measurable way, though some may argue that such cartoons reinforce the prejudices against Muslims that is manifested in other, concrete ways. To that, the reply was given by none other than a Muslim editor in Amman, Jordan. Jihad Momani wrote in his newspaper Shihan, "What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?" (However, he was also reckless enough to reprint 3 of the cartoons. In Jordan! He was sacked before the day was over, and arrested the following day, accused of insulting religion under Jordan's press and publications law. Whether it was because of his words, or his decision to print the cartoons, is not clear. Source: BBC)

Yet this only reminds us of the very reason why the West is leagues ahead in cultural vibrancy and creativity. The freedom to challenge, which necessarily causes offence to some who embrace the status quo, is fundamental to intellectual, economic and socio-political progress. Calling pet ideas into question is essential if we are to use human intelligence in any meaningful way. Of course, Muslim groups are free not to purchase any goods from the Nordic countries and make their displeasure known; and they are free to hold as many protest demonstrations as they wish. But without a better intellectual foundation, the uproar only shows it up for what it is: bullying.

The calling for compromise in western values of free expression in order to be accomodating to religious values shouldn't be answered, unless you wish for values such as these to errode with time. As Alex observes, a shocking degree of self-censorship has already been evident amongst Danish people since the murder of Van Gogh whose film, Submission, was deemed offensive to Islam. The distance between western freedom and some protesters from Eastern countries is accentuated in things like calling for the Danish PM to apologise on behalf of the publication company. And if it's one thing I admire about some aspects of western civilisation, is that they live by their principles and stand up for it. A government in a free nation can never take responsibility for the actions of an independant newspaper. It is a disturbing thought that people are able to take the actions of one entity and expect responsibility to lie on all Danish people. Why are Danish people being barred from some coffeeshops? Why are Danish people overseas now fearing violent retribution from vigilantes?

I am inclined to believe Alex's conclusion that it all boils down to religious bullying; to undermine western values and pressure the west into feeling guilt over its own principles by creating a false pretext of religious insensitivity. It encourages self-censorship and hence one will always be wondering how far is too far? I am sure that majority of Danish people do not feel that Islam is a dangerous religion just as I believe majority of muslims are definitely not the violent people the cartoons made them out to be.

And as Alex writes from a Singaporean perspective, he certainly hit the nail on the head with his mention that the West has always been 'leagues ahead in cultural vibrancy and creativity'. They nourish diversity and freedom of thought more so than many countries that decide to adopt highly conservative and authoritarian values. On a note that hits closer to home, and possibly an entirely different subject of its own, he lightly touches on how the situation reflects on Singaporean media. The one thing the island nation has always lacked amidst its riches, growth, success and prosperity, is any kind of spirit. Perhaps its one of the reasons I find its fascia so plastic. There are no founding principles, unlike say, the American Declaration of Independence. Everything done in the name of "national interest" has something to do with economic gain. Wait, isn't that more like a business company rather than a country? Why is Singapore suddenly sprouting a casino despite its long-lasting conservative stand on such issues in the past? That's right. Purely for attracting business. Throw money at her and she'll do anything for you. To hell with principles. I think 'whore' adequately describes such a character. I honestly don't give a flying shit how many academic scholars you churn out every year. And I think I can safely say I'm not alone in seeing past the materialism and fake.

************************

Alex Au is a truly exceptional author and sociopolitical commentator who is also a significant activist. He should be like the Martin Luther King for the oppressed people of Singapore. Really.

And in case you are reading this bottom-line and still wondering what a Danish flag looks like, here it is.

Apparently burning modern flags made of polyester is dangerous. Pfft...As if that would stop a good ol' flag burning session.

This week, Melanie Phillips is H.A.M.A.S. [that's Held Accountable for Misinformation and Anti-Semitism, kids]

2006-02-01T13:49:00.000Z

Melanie Phillips was abroad last week. Just thought I would point out that rather important piece of information. She certainly saw fit to start with it two days ago in her article on Hamas winning the Palestinian elections, perhaps as a disclaimer to all her salivating readers. In her head she believed that this article was going to be eagerly anticipated, that somehow it would matter. After all, having spouted uninformed nonsense about the Middle East for several years now, why wouldn't we be waiting with bated breath?
In the time between the elections and the return of Melanie Phillips to her disciples [presumably from underneath a rock rather than from behind one], I myself read a lot of comment on this, to be honest, rather worrying event. There was trenchant analysis in The Independent and on ZNet, middle-of-the-road blandness from The Economist [is it just me, or do the eyes tend to glaze over while one reads this magazine?] and just for kicks, some rightwing scaremongering in the yokelish National Review Online. After all this I was understandably not going to learn too much from the return of the Messiah.
She does the basic stuff pretty well, but has a nasty habit of pushing things just a bit too far. Hamas are bad, look at their covenant. This sick piece of work is indeed a worrying sight, but long-term observers of Phillips will know that nothing will ever be good even for her because while she can chop and change her opinions, she will retain her deeply racist and culurally biassed core values. This is evident is statements like:

"...the danger is that Hamas will adopt the brilliant strategy employed by Arafat – to be sufficiently ambiguous in their public pronouncements to enable the west to continue with the farce of the 'peace process' ..."

In other words, even if they reform, by renouncing their threats to take back all of what was historic Palestine before 1947 and giving up on terrorism, that will not demonstrate that they have changed. To an extent I agree. Which then makes me wonder why she has never condemned former terrorists-turned Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, nor Golda Meir [no doubt about to be sympathetically immortalized in Munich] who claimed that the Palestinians did not exist, nor Ariel Sharon, a war criminal who has repeatedly claimed that Israel should emcompass 100% of what used to be Palestine. Except Sharon [again, i theory], none of these leaders effectively renounced these views, or provided the necessary actions to prove it.

Her comparison of Hamas to Arafat is also pathetic. In 1988 the PLO did precisely what everybody now wants Hamas to do: renounce terrorism and accept a two-state solution [as we know the PLO were particularly generous here, lumping the Palestinians with 22% of historic Palestine]. Their reward was to be excluded for a further five years on negotiations over their territory, leading to sideshows like the Madrid peace conference of 1991 that could never have hoped to have achieved anything without them.

Her second exaggeration is brief but staggering. As somebody who has repeatedly highlighted how unique the Holocaust was, she is strangely trigger happy in declaring:

"But the danger is that Hamas will adopt the brilliant strategy employed by Arafat – to be sufficiently ambiguous in their public pronouncements to enable the west to continue with the farce of the 'peace process' while Hamas continues either to kill Jews or plot how to achieve a final solution to the Jews’ presence on the Jews' own, historic, reclaimed land."

That's my emphasis. In this case a reference to the Final Solution is childish beyond belief. She must have known what she was doing in writing this.She has adopted an event, which, through her disgusting manipulation of it I can only assume had nothing to do with her or her family, as a wholescale Jewish tragedy without ever considering whether or not it may have been gravely insulting to the actual victims of the Holocaust. In the past Phillips has smacked down others for allegedly comparing lesser events to the Final Solution. Here she has betrayed those principles in a sickening fashion. It certainly was not Arafat's intention to wipe out the Jews of Israel [Hamas is tricky, I really don't know how to call this one] and given the scant resources of the Palestinian population it certainly was never within grasp. Arafat's "brilliant strategy" must have been even more self-defeating than the Oslo Accords, since under Ariel Sharon his main activity was to stay trapped in his Ramallah compound while Israeli soldiers under Sharon's command bulldozed and bombed it piece by piece. This while wrecking Palestinian police and security institutions. Paradoxically, Sharon held Arafat reponsible for every little act of terror against Israel, claiming that that Arafat should have been there to stop them. And ridiculing Arafat's contribution to the sham "peace process" is a bit rich given Sharon's settlement building frenzy. As I write this the Israeli government is violating the Road Map in this manner; cutting out slices of the West Bank. Sharon himself was reported in 1998 as saying:

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours..."

In previous posts I have called for Melanie Phillips to be ignored, before swinging to the opposite extreme and demanding a "watch" site. While the former is appropraite for those who actually benefit from time wasted giving them them attention [Coulter, O'Reilly, Littlejohn] and the latter, free-speech unfriendly choice hands too much importance to the target [it would be better for the likes of Blair, Bush and Perle], the happy medium here is knowing that by refuting what I despise, I am reaffirming what I truly believe: a just peace in the Middle East. Under these conditions, the ranting that Melanie Phillips directs at her targets becomes a sick kind of endorsement.

Al Qaeda No.2: Bush 'butcher, loser'

2006-01-30T23:55:00.000Z

So the Americans are blowing shit up again for no apparent reason, leaving a trail of civilian death. And this time the Pakistanis, a supposed American ally no less, take a hit. Not only have they 'illegally' executed a lethal military operation on Pakistan territory without permission, but it turns out the only person they mistook for a terrorist was yet again just some muslim guy with a beard. And as usual the bombs go everywhere and kill everything except the target it was intended for.

Like reflex of course, this called for the making of yet another instalment to the series of Al Qaeda videos, featuring ~~Dr Evil's~~ Osama bin Laden's Number 2 man, Ayman al Zawahiri, taunting the American government with an in-your-face message that they can never be caught and further taking advantage of the situation to fuel anti-western sentiments and gather support from the muslim community. But the only difference is that perhaps for the first time ever, I agree with Ayman al-Zawahiri by calling President Bush a loser. A pretty cheap shot don't you think, coming from a man like him. I can't help thinking about how the taunts thrown from Zawahiri seem somewhat childish for a serious terrorist figure like himself. I imagine him speaking on the tape in his own native language (Arabic?) and occassionally you hear him swearing english words scattered amongst his curses, "loser" or "butcher"...or "bite me, asshole".

(CNN) -- Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, appeared in a new video Monday, saying he is alive and well just weeks after a U.S. missile strike targeted him in Pakistan.

He also called President Bush a "loser" and the "butcher of Washington."

"I will meet my death when God wishes," al-Zawahiri said in the three-and-a-half minute video, which was broadcast on the Arabic-language television network Al-Jazeera.

Al-Zawahiri taunted the U.S. president, saying, "Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses, enjoying their care with God's blessings and sharing with them their holy war against you until we defeat you." (Transcript) Al-Zawahiri specifically referred to an attack that was aimed at killing him January 13 in the remote Pakistan village of Damadola.

"Their claim was to target this poor man and four of my brothers," al-Zawahiri said. "The whole world discovered the lies as the Americans fight Islam and the Muslims."

Eighteen people were killed in the CIA-led attack, which prompted large-scale protests across Pakistan. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who al-Zawahiri also blamed for the attack, has said he believed about five or six al Qaeda operatives were killed in the attack, but he also condemned the strike as a "violation of sovereignty." (Full story) Al-Zawahiri did not say if any al Qaeda members died in the attack. He also did not say if he was nearby or if he had plans to be at the homes that were targeted, as some reports have indicated.

"My first message is to the butcher of Washington, Bush: You are not just defeated and lying about it, but you are, with God's help, a loser," he said. "You are bad luck to your people; you brought them disasters and catastrophes, and you will bring them even more disasters."

- Continue reading here...

Ayman al Zawahiri: Bite me.

I'm seriously beginning to think the Americans get their Intelligence from a random British tabloid, e.g. The Sun, and just blow up whatever is on the front page of the day.

This is not a protest blog

2006-01-27T17:02:00.000Z

AOL was wrong. The Internet is not a place where freedom of speech truly exists. In some oppressive countries, blogging may be banned altogether. But on the tiny island of Singapore, suppression of speech comes in the most rediculous and anti-democratic form... for a so-called democratic nation. You cannot help but notice the strings attached to every new freedom that the government occassionally treats its people to. With the looming general elections, the short-term future most definitely has the potential to get interesting. As pointed out by popular sociopolitical commenter, Alex Au, the law with regards to the Internet is still rather murky and opportunity stands for those wish to exercise their civil rights. I for one, intend to exercise mine.

Alex, as usual, provides great insight into the facts of the subject:

('Blogging during elections' by Yawning Bread)

No election advertising

Section 78A of the Parliamentary Elections Act says,

78A.—(1) The Minister may make regulations —

(b) regulating election advertising and the publication thereof during an election period on what is commonly known as the
Internet by political parties, candidates or their election agents and relevant persons, including prescribing the features
that must or must not appear or be used in any such election advertising.

(2) Any person who contravenes any regulations made under subsection (1)(b) shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $1,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to both.

The bold italics have been put in by me, since these terms will be
explained below. These explanations are based on the definitions contained within the same Act.

Election advertising:
This is a very broad term to mean any material that can reasonably be
regarded as intended "to promote or procure the electoral success ... for one or more identifiable political parties, candidates or groups of candidates", or may "enhance the standing of any such political parties, candidates or groups of candidates with the electorate in connection with any election." This seems to suggest that even praise for a candidate's wit, eloquence or sartorial flair would fall within the meaning of this term, let alone more substantial discussion that makes a party or candidate look appealing and vote-worthy.
Election period:
This is the period beginning with the day the writ of election is issued by the President for an election and ending with the close of all polling stations on polling day.
Relevant persons:
In the Act, the definition is very wordy, but basically it means every person or group of persons (other than political parties, candidates and election agents) who publishes anything on the internet.

As I've mentioned above, Section 78A devolves the
details to the Regulations. So now, let's take a look at what the Regulations say.

6. For the purposes of section 78A (1)(b) of the Act, no election
advertising may be published or caused to be published on what is commonly known as the Internet during the election period by or on behalf of any relevant person.

-- Parliamentary Elections Act (Chapter 218, Sections 78, 78A
and 102) Parliamentary Elections (Election Advertising) Regulations

That's it! And since the definition of "election advertising" is very
broad, and "relevant person" means you and me, there's not a lot that we are allowed to say!

- Read more of Alex Au's views on the rediculous Section 78 'Fuck Your Rights' Act.

Alex has brilliantly summarised all the citations relating to freedom of speech and general elections to 'we're not allowed to say anything'. Just brilliant. But of course, these definitions of terms are still rather up to individual interpretation. For example, does "relevant person" really mean everyone, including non-Singaporeans or any person not elligible to vote? i.e. young persons under 21.

Regardless, such an Act, unlike the Sedition Act, serves only one purpose alone and is clearly an attack on free speech and the civil liberties of the citizens of a democratic nation. Just another Act in the pillar of stability of Government control over people political dominance over opposition, maintaining apathy and silence amongst those that might have something to say. But more pervasive yet is the extention of the long arm of the law onto the Internet, where civilised political discussion at the very least would never have been considered for regulation by any right-minded democratic, first world country.

The Internet is ours, to the advocates of free expression and civil liberty. And Singaporean bloggers will have to fight the hardest to overcome apathy and amongst all else, the overcast of fear set over decades of government regulation and control. They can control via censorship of the mass media; tv stations, radio stations and newspapers. But they will not take the Internet. It is the front lawn of your Mid-West country home and when the law steps on it to tell you what you can and cannot say, you should respond accordingly with redneck tradition. Cast away fear and set yourselves free. Prove Orwell wrong.

In the meantime, I have a song I'd like to dedicate to the control-freaks of Singapore. It goes something like this...

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!

- Killing in the Name, RATM.

PS: Please do go out and vote if elligible. You can vote absolutely anyone you want... Just don't vote the knobhead PAP.

Oh, and LKY and offspring are also idiots.

Mobile Montage 2004

2006-01-26T14:15:00.000Z

Those were the days...

You haven't lived at uni until you've stolen an industrial-sized bog roll from the campus toilet, for shit so thick you could stir it with a stick.

Hiding the bog roll and cheesin' it.

I thought the city council was rather stingy with their playground for special kids*.

Men! Don't expect help on a Tuesday...

Housemate Rob: "Uhh...which one's the floor again?"

Housemate Min: Pissed as a chinaman can be.

Housemate Min to Housemate Bea: Pretending your conversation is really interesting when you're way...way too pissed.

And now my absolute favourite...

Housemate Min trying to get it on with Leech. The expression itself is half the picture...

*If you're wondering Leech, the special kid is just Boby being... Boby.

Big Brother should be watching you

2006-01-20T14:56:00.001Z

Have YOU seen this "man"?

Pete Burns: Is this what the super-evolved humans of the future will wear on their backs?

Masquerading as the gameshow host from hell on tacky C4 series Celebrity Big Brother, the very sinister Pete Burns could be in hot water over his choice in designer get-up. Police have already seized a hideous coat, at first thought to be from endangered gorilla but now confirmed as dead colobus monkey. This followed complaints from the animal-loving British public [no coincidence at all that they happen watch Big Brother then]. The BBC reports:

"If it had been found to be gorilla fur then Burns could have been prosecuted under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), which was passed in 1975. "

It's not clear what could happen next [actually, that's a lie. I just couldn't be bothered to do any research. It's only Big Brother for Christ's sake], seeing as the Colobus monkey is under threat too. Are they affected by this trade law? And just as importantly, why has there been no outrage over the two poor endangered dromedary jumping-slugs [Hemphillia dromedarius to their Latin friends] glued to his face?

The British public are a picky bunch, never considering the beleaguered molluscs of the world. If they were kittens they'd be up in arms.

Someone bin Ledeen

2006-01-20T13:17:00.000Z

He was a bit late for Christmas, but Osama bin Laden has offered us another worthless truce. Great, I hate useless presents that I can't return. In his first message in over a year he claimed that:

"In response to the substance of the polls in the U.S., which indicate that Americans do not want to fight Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their land, we do not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions that we will stick to."

Naturally this so-called "solution" is compromised by two things. Firstly, the government of America is not going to go through with this [and lets face it, bin Laden knows this, that's why he feels he can make it] and secondly, it ommits his long-term desire for the establishment of a Muslim Caliphate, somethig the West would never tolerate. This crazy wish [that's all it is, but try telling him that] wouldn't vanish with withdrawl of troops. It is, of course, propagada aimed at making Al Qaeda seem more than the sum of its parts [something bin Laden has been desperate to do since his small organisation was effectively obliterated in Afghanistan in 2001-2002. He is on the run and is trying hard to stay relevant. These days he makes for a good symbol but little else] and also an attempt to win more hearts and minds in the Muslim world, which, knowing al Qaeda is little more than a small vanguard, he sees as a resevoir to further his overblown and unrealistic ambitions [thankfully, apart from a cerebrally-impaired minority, they don't feel the same way]. When missiles from the US hit innocent people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sudan, to name three examples, he pops up, trying to perpetuate his Robin Hood image, either by reassuring the victims that he's in their corner or working on construction projects like the road he funded in Sudan.

This message echoes the sentiments expressed in his previous message when he asked us why he didn't attack countries like Sweden. He wants us to think "because they haven't backed a series of despots in the Middle East or bombed innocent Muslims", whereas the true answer is "you would if you had the resources you evil, evil bastard". Most of us can see by now that this appeal to sections of the Muslim world has been very persuasive and well-orchestrated, exploiting their anger and capitalising on, for want of a better, less loaded word 'empirical' evidence of Western evil. We can also see that this has not exactly been at the forefront of the minds of the planners in the so-called reponse to terror attacks.

Still, it seems bin Laden is still alive and as healthy as one can be when they are advocating mass murder. Hardly a shock for most of us, but over in the extremists paradise that is National Review Online, self-appointed terrorism and Middle East expert [and a favourite of my dear Melanie Phillips] Michael Ledeen must be feeling at least a little stupid. In one of his numerous excruciating columns he claimed:

"according to Iranians I trust, Osama bin Laden finally departed this world in mid-December. The al Qaeda leader died of kidney failure and was buried in Iran, where he had spent most of his time since the destruction of al Qaeda in Afghanistan."

It really makes you wonder what planet this man is on. He isn't some random crank like Phillips. The man is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institue, a well-respected opinion leader and an influence on Bush's War on Terror. And yet he comes out with this garbage.

There are two things to be on the look out for here. Number one, his claim that bin Laden died has been made to look highly fanciful and out-of-step with the real world, since the new broadcast refers to the Daily Mirror story from late last year about Bush's alleged [and frankly, rather likely] desire to bomb Al Jazeera offices.

Number two is his need to drag Iran into this. Iran has been a constant theme in his writing. Some of us want to swim with the dolphins, some would like to climb Everest. He wants to flatten Iran, and he's prepared to talk shit to get his wish. Just like him and his pals did with Saddam Hussein, Ledeen has attempted the impressive feat of making the Mullahs of Iran look worse than they really are, once again by linking them to al Qaeda. As real terror experts like Lorretta Napoleoni have pointed out, after the bombing and near destruction of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, bin Laden and al Zawahiri migrated east, to Pakistan. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, not connected to those two in any meaningful way at the time and based near Herat, West Afghanistan, did pass through Iran on his way to Iraqi Kurdistan, but that's as good as his tin-pot theory is going to get. Does Ledeen really believe what he is saying when he makes these extravagant claims? Or does he feel that he wont get his attack on Iran solely on the basis of the governments' nuclear duplicity and woeful human rights record?

Incidently, these Iranian friends of his [yeah, right...], how do they 'know' he died? Did they attend the funeral? Did they have his address? Because they certainly could have been useful in tracking down terrorists in what should be an international policing operation, not a series of bombing campaigns. Call me cynical, but this sounds infinitely more dodgy than all those mysterious 'intelligence sources' that led us into the Iraq war. Stick with something we can believe, Ledeen.

Anybody interested in seeing Michael Ledeen being cut down to size might want to drop by here. This indefatigable man does know what he's talking about.

Bloghunt: Mel P bashers

2006-01-13T16:27:00.000Z

I've noticed some who stumble here have come in search of Mad Mel. Thanks to Leech, our religious follower of her Daily Mail rants. But I assure you this is not a dedicated Melanie Phillips bashing site. This blog is registered on Technorati, a useful tool to see what other bloggers are blogging about. And here, you will find 157 or so others who have found the itch to also mention that 'unholy cow'.

The Last Ditch is an interesting place to start for the serious reader in the british political blogosphere.

But for a more tasty discussion on Mad Mel, why not try the Commonplace Book.

Unfortunately, Melanie Phillips Watch was probably the only other blog that came close to being a true basher of the uniquely non-logician, which has now faded into non-existence. Yes, yes... the Leech still holds the torch.

/discuss

2006-01-11T15:29:00.000Z

In a surprising, and even slightly impressive, move, AOL has launched a commercial to at least give an impression that they give a damn about what the fundamental service they provide really means to this world. The Internet. This well-thought out commercial is even more impressively so given that it is a company that's been criticised and parodied by amateur comedians for its infamous piss-ass service. Still I remain a skeptic of the service they actually provide. I thought HSBC commercials had me convinced it was a good bank until I couldn't make out anymore the difference between a wet market on a Saturday morning and a HSBC branch.

To quote casually AOL's attempt to discuss the Internet:

Some say the Internet is a good thing.

In the past year, the percentage of donations made to aide organisations for natural disasters overwhelmingly exceeding those made by governments were made through the Internet. Some say that the Internet is truly the only form of free expression*. The Internet is powerful learning tool for propagating and obtaining information at the click of a mouse button. Orwell was wrong. Society could not be controlled but instead flourish into a free-er, more diverse society.

*Except China. And Singapore. And Malaysia. And etc.

Some say the Internet is a bad thing.

With the Internet, you could be robbed blind without criminals even setting foot in your home. With the Internet, you could buy someone's baby if the price is right. It has been used to propagate the most sinful of desires such as child pornography. Without control and restrictions, terrorists preach and spread their extreme ideologies. Orwell was right. Now that society has fallen reliant on the Internet, Big Brother is able to watch your every move.

I am tempted to side with the latter given that I believe the number of stupid people who spew crap at any one time overly exceeds that of borderline intellectual discussions. Which reminds me of that other interesting credit card commercial scientifically stating that the world is in equilibrium so that for every clever thing that happens, something stupid will happen. Unfortunately if that were true, we'd have cured AIDS and cancer by now and probably be populating Mars as we speak.

Alas I conclude that despite the size of population stupid, they surely cannot outweigh the benefits to be reaped from the Internet. In the end, no good thing ever comes without the bad. It is the crumbs and the crust and even the corners of the bread that we must eat to enjoy the tasty white bit (the analogy doesn't work if you insist that a knife will solve the problem... or if you insist that the crusty bit is the best). If like China, a government may not even consider the white bit being the part to eat and you end up with small bits and chunks that ressemble bird feed (OK clyde, enough with the bread talk!) . The Internet boils down eventually to the freedom of expression. The freedom to communicate in a manner more easily than any other form known to mankind. It is often easier to attack the weapon of crime rather than its perpetrator. Where does one draw the line between weapon and tool?

A recent tv one-off show tried to deal with religion in a similar sort of way. Given that organised religion has been used as an excuse to justify atrocities carried out throughout history. Bush and his "God told me to do it, man" versus Bin Laden's "fuck all non-muslims" being the latest holy war. It is of course unthinkable to even mention the abolishment of organised religion, despite the cost of civilian life and collateral damage associated with some form of destruction in the name of God/Allah/etc. No one is going to close down the Vatican City, or Indonesia. Perhaps religion would make for a much better discussion as to why we should think that a greater good can come of it. Why does a gay muslim man, exiled by his own religion and abandoned by fellow muslims still continue to embrace it? Anyway, back to the topic.

Some say the Internet is a bad thing:

And who is to say that the information is correct anyway? No one is held accountable for what is posted on the net, so can you ever really be sure that what you are reading isn't just a load of rubbish?

True, that enough rubbish is already posted on the Internet that one has to sift through carefully. For example, a particular Singaporean blogger (I'm not naming names) once bragged about how great the toilet space for disabled people were and that the handicapped should wait in line for the toilets just like everyone else. Now if you thought, "hmm, that sounds like a good idea. I think I'll try it some time and tell that retard to get back in line next time", then you're the unfortunate idiot. Not the blogger. I am fond of pointing out cyber-idiots, but I concede that to complain about them would be like the captain of the ship complaining about the sea. You just deal with it. This might be the most mediocre interpretation of "wrong information" nor the most suitable example, but it is hardly a case of whether the Internet presents useful information or not. I'd like to believe it encourages the development of objectivity amongst anything else. The Internet does not pose wrong information. It only poses all information. To have everything spoon-fed to your mind is already the death of you should you choose that direction in life.

There are of course, more deviant crimes such as the propagation of racism and hate on the Internet. But chances are if you buy into that crap, you'd probably turn out to be racist anyway whether you had an internet connection or not. Minds are more easily poisoned than we'd like to believe, especially so in young people. Like most other freedoms, responsibility comes with the package. In my final metaphor, the inherent dangers of the Internet towards society is like that of a car. They are ultimately useful. They get us somewhere.

But if you can't drive, don't get in the fucking car.

http://www.aol.co.uk/discuss

"If you can't understand why disabled people need this space, then why don't you go try and break your fucking neck."

Put the Bible DOWN, Pat

2006-01-06T10:34:00.000Z

He's done it again. Pat Robertson, speaking to an audience about one million strong on his "Christian" show The 700 Club, claimed that God was punishing Ariel Sharon - currently fighting for his life - for dividing God's land. Though admitting that he found the bellicose leader "very likeable", Robertson had no problem whipping out the Book of Joel and beating him over the head with it. "The prophet Joel [a very blue collar name for a prophet] makes it very clear that God has an emnity against those who 'divide my land' ", stated Robertson, referring to Sharon's much heralded Gaza disengagement plan. The fact that the plan is a sideshow, contrasting with incursions into Palestinian West Bank territory is no consolation for Robertson, or God, apparently.

Robertson's disgusting comments about a man suffering from a dangerous stroke, and his tactless bleating about his favourite book, have left him in interesting company. President and recklessly mouthy supervillain Mahmoud 'Divine Avenger' Ahmadinejad from Iran. While stroking a white cat wearing a veil in his hollowed-out volcano the president said: "''Hopefully, the news that the criminal of Sabra and Chatilla has joined his ancestors is final*", offering superfluous proof that he doesn't like Israel much in any shape and ruling out any Get Well Soon cards when he has his own crisis [a broken neck from removing his head from his arse is still my prediction].

Of course, Melanie Phillips has her own twisted and fawning interpretation, claiming that Sharon was about to impose a state on the Palestinians [how kind. How many little pieces will it be in?], that assasination-happy nutjob Shaul Mofaz could be a good leader and then making a sickeningly racist link to what the "Arabs" [all of them?] were up to [bad things of course]. She, along with Alan Dershowitz and the Bush administration, is going to expect them to show Sharon some sympathy, a bit rich seeing as all three were very happy indeed about Yasser Arafat dying just over a year ago. Melanie Phillips should stick to what she does best and go out and scare some children. Meanwhile, there is not a person on this Earth I would want dead or suffering, even at God's alleged hands. Stay out of politics Ariel Sharon. And get well soon.

*incidentally, I think this is a fair description. The Kahan report claimed he was indirectly responsible for the atrocities committed in these camps, but that was a whitewash. Ahmadinejad could also have mentioned Qibya. Or he could have just shut up.

Time to get a Watch

2006-01-03T13:53:00.000Z

Maybe it's just my cruddy ham-fisted IT skills, but it appears that the weblog Melanie Phillips Watch has suddenly vanished. It was a relatively young endevour that had great potential, and I am now contemplating putting out flyers hoping for its safe return. My suspicion is that, like the food tasters of ancient times - who had to sample their master's dinner to check for poison - such a job will eventually be the death of you. With this in mind I will fire the first salvo of the New Year. And fingers crossed that soon there will be more than one garbage truck to clean up this mess.

Phillips had taken the rather charitable step of not making posts over the festive season, a case of Christmas stealing the Grinch. But by the third day of the year, a year to which I am pinning quite a fair bit of hope, she had launched a blitz of six posts, some of them predictabaly repulsive. She showed her hypocrisy about individual liberty with short rants about drugs and euthanasia, which she knows full well have more to do with her [admittedly valid and reasonable] opinions than they do about protecting Britain from itself. In a move that tells us so much about her, she "translat[ed]" the term "bigotry" into "social protection", thus coming full circle and revealing to the British public why she once won the Orwell Prize for journalism. Happy New Year everybody! It's 1984.

But the issue I would like to dwell on a bit more comes in a post entitled Kafka's Britain (2). It's about the kidnapping of Kate Burton, the aid worker based in Gaza who was snatched by armed Palestinians last week. They also took her parents, who had taken the questionable decision to visit her in an increasingly dangerous and impoverished area, and held them in captivity for several days until she was released and eventually taken into the care of a Britsih diplomatic team.

My beef with this article is more or less split into two parts, both Phillips hallmarks. Firstly, the inaccurate description of events. Secondly, her demonisation of the Palestinians as a people [outrageous and callous racism in my book] and those who sympathise with their squalid living conditions and need for independence.

So, the article begins:

"The British press carries reports today of the fury and exasperation of British officials who rescued Kate Burton and her parents from their Palestinian kidnappers only to find that she refused to co-operate with them and would not be debriefed, thus potentially putting other innocent people in danger from similar activities"

The "British press" she is referring to is The Daily Mail, a right wing paper that I have on my lap here. On any issue it's a bad source, being right-wing, highly critical of immigration and Islam and is also one of the nasty places where Phillips plies her trade [in fact, she's on page 14 of this edition]. I have grown up with it in my house, becoming familiar with its love of the brutal British empire, its compassionless attitude to African poverty and its need to vanquish the opponents of Great Britain, no matter how insignificant the contest [for example, in the week that the International Olympic Committee decided that London should host the 2012 Olympics, The Mail took the inspired decision to print a selection of jokes about Britain's rival France, including such gems as: "Why do so many French men have moustaches? : To remind them of their mothers." A few more of those and The Sun wont have any BNP readers left]. It was inside The Mail that I first discovered Melanie Phillips and realised that what Einstein allegedly said was true:

""The difference between genius and stupidity is that there are limits to genius."

The impressive thing is that, with her selective citation, Phillips makes a witless, inaccurate and nationalistic article even worse than it already was. She writes that "...British officials...rescued Kate Burton..." The Daily Mail reported the story this way:

"Miss Burton and her parents, Hugh, 73, and Win, 55, were released to British officials on Friday night in a tense handover with the gunmen..." She was released, Phillips. They didn't need to call for a man in a bay costume or a smarmy secret agent replete with gadgets. Released. In fact, rather crassly, the kidnappers claimed they were doing it as "a gesture of goodwill". That she was released should come as no surprise. Hostages had been taken and released in quick succession before and after the Burton family in Gaza, such as the the Australian and Dutch teachers, who were held for eight hours last month. The various groups that do it do so to expose and mock the weakness of the corrupt, often ineffectual Palestinian Authority and to gain international attention for the wretched conditions around them. Or, as they told Kate Burton themselves, "getting their message across". The methodology is put well by Amira Hass of Haaretz:

"Foreigners taken hostage in Gaza have usually been released within hours. The kidnappers, who have tended to demand jobs or the release of prisoners as ransom, generally make contact with the authorities to immediately begin negotiations."

But not only was she released. She was released with the help and mediation of the Palestinian Authority, a fact unmentioned by The Daily Mail. This is going to be a real pain in the ass for those who want to slime the Palestinian people as a band of terrorists [more on that below], or claim that disproportionate use of force by the Israeli Defence Force is justified because Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership have no intention of preventing Palestinian terrorism themselves. British diplomats and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw worked side by side with Palestinains at various levels on this case, while the Palestinian authority at one point even threatened to use force against the kidnappers. Coming from an impoverished wasteland, currently having its infrastructure in the northern "buffer zone" bombed by Israel [in what the Israeli government and defence forces call retaliation for rocket attcks, knowing full well that collective punishment is NOT retaliation] this is impressive cooperation.

Melanie Phillips, along with The Daily Mail, also tries to pin the Stockholm Syndrome on Kate Burton. Citing her aunt, Phillips insinuates that she approved of the actions of her terrorist captors. The aunt's quote in The Daily Mail is this:

"Kate will be very forgiving of these men because she believes they wouldn't do this sort of thing without good reason. She has a very sympathetic nature."

Which sounds like a fairly usual thing for the daughter of quakers to think. And bear in mind that the aunt was merely guessing how she would feel. She is hardly going to attribute a vindictive streak to her cherished relative. Whatever she meant by that statement, it becomes significantly warped when it goes through Melanie Phillips' slime machine and is interpreted thus:

"...the kidnap victim's unaccountable sympathy with manipulative violence"

and

"...Burton appears unable to view her kidnappers as evil people"

As I said ealier, Phillips will rabidly attack anybody who feels that the people of Palestine, including those that she has seen first hand in the swamp of Gaza, are suffering. The best way to see what the victim felt about her kidnappers is to hear her speak. And when she says:

"I cannot forgive them for what they have done"

and

"I feel like I've been stabbed in the back. I was here to help"

then you realise what a ridiculous clown and circus combo Melanie Phillips and The Daily Mail make.

Now, Melanie Phillips has a good reason for all of this distortion. In her second part of the article she conflates the victim's hostage takers, the men who negotiated her release, the terrorist scum of Islamic Jihad and such groups, and the wretched, suffering Palestinian populations of Gaza and the West Bank into one murderous group, which she refers to as : "the Palestinians". She does it repeatedly, burping out noxious gas like:

"The same people - or at least, Kate Burton - regard those practising genocidal terror as the vulnerable to be helped in the Middle East conflict, while viewing their actual victims as oppressors."

and

"...the Palestinians' incitement of their children to mass murder..."

and

..."the Palestinian mass murder of Israeli innocents... "

and

..." the Palestinians were systematically trying to wipe out Israelis - the process which has been continuing without interruption for the past half-century ever since Israel was created. "

Stuff that is not only hateful and semantically sloppy, but also inaccurate. She can correctly claim that Israel comes in for especially harsh discrimination, [and despite Ahmadinejad of Iran trying to hog the dubious attention here, there are many high profile politicians that do it] but terminates any personal claims for the higher ground by actively participating in racism and discrimination of her own. People are not interchangeable, and to bulldoze an avenue of houses, cut the electricity in a municipality or impose a curfew in response to the acts of a terror group is sickening and simple-minded. But if you refer to the victims as "the Palestinians" then it presents them as a unified force with one ideology and fair game for military response when it enacts this ideology. So, if a group like Islamic Jihad launches Qassam rockets at Israeli civillians and the Israeli government responds by clearing north Gaza of its popuilation, then bombs the area, this is "the Palestinians" being punished for actions by "the Palestininas", much more palatable than a thorough investigation of events. A few months ago I wrote about what nonsense such a blanket hostility was and her latest outpourings reaffirm what a one-sided grasp of the issue she has.

Her distaste for Kate Burton is very clear under this context. Those groups which, using international law, criticize the Israeli government for its actions, or demand just treatment for Palestinians, are lambasted and said to be biassed against Israel. In the past she has attacked Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, putting herself in the company of gross little institutions like NGO Monitor. Both Phillips and NGO Monitor hope that, by delegitimizing such NGOs as mere anti-Israeli propagandists, they can stamp on the critics of the likes of Ariel Sharon, who use findings by neutral groups to back up their criticism. She attempts a similar thing here with Burton's NGO, saying:

"With their customary cirumlocution and moral obfuscation, the British media have described al Mezan, the organisation Burton worked for in Gaza, as a 'human rights' charity'. It would be more accurate to describe it as a 'human wrongs' charity. "

She also crtitises its "vile libels and distortions" and santising mass-murder. While the group does focus exclusively on Palestinian casualties on its website and its references to Islamic Jihad and Hamas are scanty, the basis for the group's findings are drawn from well-established human rights laws and international conventions, including those of the UN. So to criticise the IDF activities in Gaza is not a libel against Israel if it is established that they have happened. And the fact that they do not criticize attacks against Israel [more accurately, she couldn't find any criticism of such attacks] does not stop them being a human rights charity. Their mandate only extends to the Gaza strip, not Israel itself, so abuses outside of its borders are of no concern to them. This is troubling [what about gunfire from Gaza into Israel?], but a writer with more perspective would also note that they do not promote terrorism against the Israeli civilians either. What they do cover is Palestinian on Palestinian violence, including assasinations and the kidnappings that Phillips so snidely claims Kate Burton approves of.

So, a happy new year for Melanie Phillips, who has started no doubt as she means to continue. The disturbing incursions being made in the West Bank by Sharon's forces will soon provide more anger and more terrorism for her to sound off about. And when she hits her stride I hope there is a watch site to cut her down to size.

Happy New Year, casual readers

2006-01-03T13:29:00.000Z

And may we see less of this:

...and of this:

...and this:

Epilogue 2005

2005-12-23T23:59:00.000Z

They were crying when their sons left
God is wearing black
He's gone so far to find no hope
He's never coming back

They were crying when their sons left
All young men must go
He's come so far to find no truth
He's never going home

Welcome to the soldier side
Where there is no one here but me
People all grow up to die
There is no one here but me

Welcome to the soldier side
There is no one here but me
People on the soldier side
There is no one here but me

Soldier Side - System of a Down

The "C" Word

2005-12-16T12:47:00.000Z

Next week we can say goodbye to The F Word, which, even by today's standards, is a rather nasty show. In today's Britain we can't get enough of TV programmes dominated with conceited bullies like Simon Cowell and the absolutely loaded but totally uncreative hectors on The Dragon's Den. In the TV cookery world (and regrettably this flourishing world is not facing impending doom from too many gas emissions) Gordon Ramsey is the poster boy for sadism. Over the last few years he has mugged for the camera while browbeating chefs younger than him, coming out with awful, rehearsed one-liners and swearing like a true grown up.

In the F Word we get a good look at what new chefs can expect when entering his kitchen for the first time. If they are nervous than it's perfectly justified; Ramsey oversees a true hell's kitchen full of sweat and testosterone, a masculine world where young chefs can look forward to being called "big boy" (oh dear...) in the brief intervals when they are not getting clobbered. And they shouldn't expect to learn anything. While Ramsey may tell the camera that he is offering a young chef the chance to work in his kitchen (the implication being that he is really rather noble and wants to bring out the best in these young saps), he clearly has no intention of developing their culinary skills, certainly not while the film is rolling. He waves away any young chefs that want to ask him a question, clarify matters or actually learn something, telling them to shut up, and bawls at the ones that don't ask questions, don't learn his methodology and fuck things up. It's a lose-lose situation for anybody who hasn't cooked the recipe beforehand (and bear in mind that these are very obscure and pretentious recipes that a prize-winning 100 year-old martian who has travelled the universe and back while also running a three-Michelin Star restaurant might not be familiar with). Instead they should telepathically know exactly how Big-boy Ramsey wants things done beforehand. Last week he gave one poor lady this precise treatment, telling her to shut up when she wanted a detail of the new recipe made clear. She was visibly shaken and later accidentally served raw bacon, resulting in her being kicked out of the kitchen. It was obvious that she was concentrating so much on not offending Big-boy that more important matters slipped her mind. Yesterday he tried to encourage one of his strapping chefs. "Come on big-boy", he said, "bend those bones". Coming from an ex-footballer who retired early through injury,that is exceptionally stupid advice.

All this creates a very nasty contrast with his other side: Gordon the obsequious schmoozer, who leaves the kitchen now and then (well, quite a lot actually) to gush all other his wealthy guests, especially the celebrities. Many a time he will plonk himself down at a table with a bunch of young ladies and start talking about the food in laborious detail, babbling on about the texture, the essence, the hidden ingredients, how it slide dow the throat, how it slides out the arse. I certainly wouldn't want my night out ruined by some control-freak tit who wants to sit at my table and talk about food. That to me sounds like a miserable evening out. If I want to talk about food, I'll go to a seminar on chicken. Fuck OFF and let us eat. (Actually, a good idea for those who do enjoy prattling on about food, when The F Word comes out on special edition, deluxe, sneezeproof DVD, go to the "extra features and deleted scenes" option that they all have. While Hollywood movies have tiresome documentaries showing how the stunts were done - ["obviously we couldn't ACTUALLY shoot this scene on Mars, so we used a blue-screen" duh!] - The F Word might just treat you to an in focus, blow-by-blow account of how Gordon makes his desserts. Just think: "Gordon Ramsey; Behind the Flan"). It's just as excruciating watching Ramsey talk normally as watching him shout abuse. At normal volume he strains like he's taking a shit, his face curlig up and his eyes bulging in their sockets.

One thing is for sure, this show isn't really done with a cookery-loving audience in mind. Every week he shows us a recipe, without really telling us how to make it. Sure, all chefs have their presenting styles, from Delia Smith overly cautiously spelling everything out to Jamie Oliver liberally dumping his ingredients in a pan. Gordon's technique is to list the ingredients in a gravelly voice, without ever giving us measurements or timings. One monologue on yesterday's show (he was cooking 'Sea Bass with Pepper Sauce') went: "Salt. Basil. White wine vinegar. Reduce" What? For how long, how much? Another went: "Score. Salt. Thyme. Olive oil". He is not so much teaching us how to cook as narrating a competition in his thick head where various ingredients compete to find out which is hardest. He never told us how long to cook our sea bass for, which is handy because I'm still working on the beef wellington I started last month. It's turned grey. Is it ready yet?

And would you want it anyway, this pretentious slop? As I mentioned earlier, this is not food you eat. You might photograph it or paint an oil painting of it. Gordon often looks like he wants to have sex with it (clue: don't kill the animal beforehand Big-boy). It wont feed you. Gordon's fetish for decoratig his meals is most clearly seen in the weekly competition he has with a celebrity guest. Both prepare a dessert, like chocolate brownies or fig tart. There is a recuuring theme with this part of the show: Gordon welcomes the guest (schmoozing), Gordon and guest start recipe, Gordon adds lots of extra shit (nuts in a chocolate brownie? you TWAT), Gordon tells guest they will lose, panel of tasters eat both and declare the guest to be the winner because it tastes like food and not like an antique, Gordon throws a strop and declares that the panel don't know what real food is. The food in his restaurant is even worse. Gordon probably insists that he is adventurous and sophisticated. pah! Strictly for his benefit, here are some ingredients he should try for the next series. Just to help:

The poison dart frog, belonging to the family of Dendrobatidae. They receive their name from the toxin pumiliotoxin found in their skin (cook the skin Gordon). The most poisonous variety is Phyllobates terribilis, also kown as the golden poison dart frog, presumably because it is covered in a crisp, tasty batter. You can separate the poison by roasting them over a fire (don't bother with that part Gordon). And if a fellow chef is pissing him off, Gordon can use the poison on his arrows (you do carry arrows, don't you Big-boy?)

Sulphuric acid. Discovered in the 9th century by Persian physician and alchemist Ibn Zakariya al-Razi, this would be an intersting addition to any meal. While killjoys might point out that this kills (the famous rhyme goes: "Johnny was a chemist's son, but Johnny is no more. What Johnny thought was H2O was H2SO4") people and causes acid rain, real men drink it with their Guiness.

Platypus. The only venomous mammal, this wont kill you, but it will uspset the tummy, forcing you to throw up that shitty appetiser you were served, which sounds nice, but translates from the French as: goat's balls doused in whale semen.

Lithium. One of my favourite alakli metals (behind Sodium, of course), this will turn crimson when you cook it. It can be used to combat mania and depression. So eat up you miserable bastard.

Unfortunately, it gets worse. Gordon is also a bit of a sadist to animals, and if I can get serious for a bit, the events on yesterday's show were absolutely disgraceful. In the preceding weeks Gordon has been growing his Chrsitmas dinner. He has kept a pen of Turkeys in his garden, named them after other chefs he didn't like and let his kids play with them. Every week he paraded them in front of the camera, boasting about how they would end up in his stomach, joking about how they be slaughtered. Yesterday he went through with it, showing their deaths in a mobile slaugher unit in his garden. As he walked them to their deaths he continued to brag, almost as if he was proud in having had the fortune to be born higher up in the food chain.

Now, eating an animal is one thing. Most of us do it. And while we do so, we generally don't fantasize about how it was killed. That's a fetish. It's worse than playing with your food and it implies that Ramsey is a rather small and insecure man who needs to dominate to stop feeling like a retard.

And just like Jamie Oliver has his school meals campaign, so Ramsey has his. To get women back into the kitchen. Apparently too few women know how to cook, not too few people, too few women. That's very Victorian of him. Perhaps I may suggest a campaign to make more children seen and not heard, or one to get more black people back on slave galleys. Get with the times you megalomaniac wingnut.

So, in conclusion, I hate Gordon Ramsey. How mature of me. But seriously, a culture that encourages more of this nasty behaviour is not one I want to prolong. Assholes like Ramsey need cutting down to size. Some may claim he is like that because he is so driven and focussed, a perfectionist. Perhaps, but he is a very selective perfectionist. People skills, communication and tolerance are arts too.

Mel P: Stupid Spice

2005-12-14T14:00:00.000Z

A rather haphazard article on the Australian riots by Melanie Phillips today shows her best and worst sides. She veers on the side of common sense and moderation on a few occasions, but the overall tone of the article is yet another swipe at multi-culturalism, with question marks hanging over her proposed solution to violence by Muslim immigrants (send them all to the Middle East? Ban them coming in?) and what her precise feelings are over a religion which is practiced in a largely peaceful manner. But worst of all, she repeatedly shows what a twisted bigot she can be, in an article that could offend Arabs, Muslims, Aborigines, Swedes and the Danish. Oh, and me. Nice work.

She starts off by writing the few facts we know for sure, and then quotes, at great length, a retired policeman and a journalist. After doing her usual cut and paste job she concludes:

"As in Britain, the white racists in Australia appear to be exploiting a situation which has been allowed to get completely out of hand. Racists are parasites who attach themselves to a decaying organism and feed off it. But the organism wouldn't attract them if it wasn't already decaying. Britain, France, Australia, Sweden — variations of the same phenomenon are happening all over the western world. Aggression and denial, creating a spiral of ever-worsening aggression, all because of a paralysis in acknowledging, let alone dealing with, the true nature of what we are all facing."

~and now, the part where she is taken apart~

Firstly, what is this "organism?" Speak in metaphors all you like love, we can't figure out what you want if you don't state it clearly. We can reconstruct CSI-style, what she might be on about by consulting her previous written crimes. She, like many other more reasonable commentators, demands a reassessment of Islam by people across the world. She wants states in the Middle East to get with the times and the Muslims living here to adopt our values. Putting to what extent this has actually happened aside, how would she want this change effected? Islam is not like Catholicism, where a central authority can decree appropriate behaviour and pass it off as God’s word. Its practitioners are as diffuse as they are voluminous, with liberal movements contrasting with the fanatical terrorists with which we are all well-acquainted. The extent to which Islam can be reconciled with decent values is getting to be a rather tiresome debate these days, but, as always, it might help to bear in mind that the problems come from a tiny sector of Muslims. This is oft-repeated but true.

Not that Islam is the issue. When Jason Burke flayed Melanie Phillips for her drivel on the Parisian riots, one major criticism he had (and which she never responded to) was the way that she repeatedly leapt between labelling the perpetrators Muslims (their religion, apparently. I mean, did some researcher go out into the flames and ask the faith of every dark-skinned man kicking up a fuss?) and Arabs (their ethnicity). He called it “dangerous nonsense” and he is not far wrong. She does it again here, writing:

"These gangs were involved in heroin smuggling, extortion, armed robbery, gun running, organised factory and warehouse break-ins and large-scale car theft and conversion."

Wow, heroin smuggling. Armed robbery. Warehouse break-ins. Gasp! I know the term for these guys. Criminals. That’s what we call them when they are white Brits. Does the fact that these criminals are Arabs prove that multi-culturalism is failing? Does she want multi-culturalism to fail? Her desire to attack Islam with almost any pretext is a sight to behold. The repeated accusations of Islamophobia levelled at her may or may not be unfair (though given her repeated use of the term "anti-semite" against reasonable and moderate commentators she is hardly displaying firm principles when she claims those accusing her are crying over spilt milk). She herself seems to believe that Islam is a largely violent religion and that reasonable practioners are in the minority, writing last year:

"There was a Muslim enlightenment, they both said, and it was the duty of the west to help and protect its proponents. Absolutely right; but in reality, how many moderates are there? Given the terror, no-one knows".

Now, one area that is important is how the initial small-scale crime flared up into several days worth of violence. This will become known in time, and I suspect the answer will be a bit more intricate and demanding of context than multi-culturalism beig intrinsically flawed and a security blanket for liberal sissies.

And what is she referring by including Sweden in the above list? Have there been country-wide riots in Sweden by Muslims? Because if there were, they slipped through mainstream reporting. Last month, when Swedish Prime Minister Persson was warned that it could be worth preparing for riots like those seen in France he called the alarm "unnecessary". Little has changed since then. Could be wrong, but I suspect she meant Denmark, which both she and the media covered quite liberally. Still, Swedes, Danes, same thing I suppose. As long as you are a bigot.

But the worst error of all is her use of the word "indigenous" to describe white Australians. Obviously somebody writes such poisonous garbage about the Palestinians is going to struggle with that particular word. Does she know who the aborigines are? And the conditions they live in for that matter? She also writes that: "the current unrest was sparked by Lebanese Muslim attacks on two indigenous lifeguards", which correlates with what the mainstream media has claimed and so far is as accurate as we can get. Well, accurate if you exclude a second use of the word "indigenous", which clearly shows how badly she wants to differentiate between two groups of immigrants. Commendably, she buttresses the outburst of common sense by stating that "As in Britain, the white racists in Australia appear to be exploiting a situation which has been allowed to get completely out of hand." But since this is with the context of another article that seeks to divide rather than unite people, it should receive only faint praise. The true nature of the Sydney riots will become known, but we know that Melanie Phillips has once again already made her mind up.

Another brilliant poll by CNN

2005-12-12T13:51:00.000Z

From Pink Dome:

"I'm doing what pisses me off when y'all do it to us--being nit picky about grammar. I know 'stupider' is in the dictionary, but oh my God it gets on my nerves. I think 'more stupid' is quite adequate, nor antiquated English. And yes, Ann Coulter is more stupid than anything--regardless of the question."

Nevermind bad grammar... which CNN page do I cast my vote at!

The Connection

2005-12-09T12:41:00.000Z

Not the name of some gormless book on Saddam and Al Qaeda, but a rather pleasant discovery that might assuage the fears of readers passing by our site. What started out as a site about bashing Britain (all in good taste mind) now has a rather tight focus, or more precisely, two of them. In one corner you have a guy with fire in the belly protesting about oppression in Singapore, in the other is a petty young man who wants to see Melanie Phillips tarred and feathered. Any visitors these days would surely demand a connection to justify these apparerently disparate topics. And now I can reveal that such a link exists. Here. Wow, Melanie Phillips praises Lee Kuan Yew. We can't confirm what she thinks of his son, but seeing as he administrates an anally precise nanny state with an all too literal war on drugs we have to assume she would enjoy it there.

Everytime you buy a new Nirvana record...

2005-12-09T11:55:00.000Z

...you are feeding this:

Courtney is US$4 million overdrawn. Cue a 'new' Nirvana record. (Q)

Sometimes I wonder if it is any wonder that the widow of a rock legend has managed to fuck up so bad. A recent string of expensive legal actions associated with her drug abuse and violation of probation amongst other things have thrown her into a hefty debt. And hence Sliver was born. Featuring yet more previously unreleased demo versions of songs including Spank Thru, Sappy and Come As You Are.

I wonder what Cobain would say if he were looking upon this mortal world to see his wife milking his living memory for all its worth. Isn't it a tad bit unfair to begin with that 91% of Nirvana royalties go to Cobain's estate leaving only 9% for the other two former members of the band?

The Toxicity of our City

2005-12-09T11:05:00.000Z

Given the recent spate of natural disasters and tragic events, many have simply sighed in disbelief, some have cried as death took loved ones, but there certainly has been no short supply of people preaching the Revelations, or whatever Doomsday prophecy from their own religion, if any. The natural response of most religious groups quick to play the Armageddon card is to stress the urgency of redemption, and hence propagation of their religion, for all.

Yet I am one to believe that if you truly believe the end is inevitable, then the fight to save ourselves is already lost. An informal CNN poll a few months ago asked what people were most concerned with and which issues should have the highest priority; amongst them were 'crime and personal safety', poverty, the pandemic flu, and global warming. If memory serves correct, the pandemic flu and personal safety came in highest, but the very under-played issue of global warming came nowhere close. In my opinion, gobal warming poses the most imminent threat to mankind on a very real level. It would be unwise to pay a deaf ear to someone you would normally pass off as a 'tree-hugging' activist. While the US has stubbornly downplayed global warming as being an effect of mankind until recently, it is important to know that majority of scientists in this area believe global warming to be a very serious threat that will become exponentially more difficult problem to recover from and prominent as soon as 10, 20, 50 years."With only 4 percent of the population, the United States now produces 25 percent of annual CO2 emissions -- 6.7 billion metric tons annually -- and will remain the chief climate change polluter worldwide for years to come. During the past century, the United States together with other industrialized countries such as Japan, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Canada has produced more than 60 percent of the CO2 emissions that contribute to global warming." - ClimateStar.org

My mentor once described a few key events that gave birth to the concept of global warming. The detection of a change in radiation levels in Europe from a source of origin in America indicated that our atmospheric system is highly sensitive and that the environmental changes in one area had the potential to affect the entire global system detectable very far away. A second key event was the atmospheric measurements (Keeling's measurements) taken by a scientist named Charles D. Keeling since the 50s that has been described as "the single most important evironmental data set taken in the 20th century". His measurements of carbon dioxide levels in addition to measurements taken from polar ice cores show that the levels have been steadily increasing while the latter showed that the levels began to increase sharply during the 19th century, around the time when industrialisation was born.

I found it rather amusing watching the BBC news quite a while back as one anchorman decided to show he had a little more skill than just reciting flashcards in proper English. His story was regarding global warming and the melting of the ice caps. Now I apologise and admit I was not paying attention to the tv just prior to the scientific "stunt" I'm about to describe. But he was claiming that the melting of our ice caps would not cause the sea level to rise. He then prompty proceeds to illustrate this by taking a glass of water, putting some ice in it, fast forward and wala! The ice has melted and the water level in the glass has not changed. Wow. How worthy of a Cambridge degree, no?

Coastal areas: Scientists predict average sea level will rise 1 to nearly 3 feet over the next 100 years. Seaside communities can expect more erosion, flooding during storms, and permanent submersion of low-lying areas and islands.

In addition to the increase in sea level, the polar ice caps are also responsible for the reflection of a significant amount of heat from the planet's surface and hence a reducing surface area will mean more trapped heat in the atmosphere. Ice caps have been photographically documented and the surface area each year has been disappearing at a disturbing rate.

All these factors combined means that the cost of inaction is exponentially rising and the longer we leave ourselves blinded to the consequences, the steeper the slope will be to recover our global climate and the higher the probability of a worst-case scenario where we reach a point of no-return.

"Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep. Disorder, disorder. Disorder!"

Killing in the name

2005-12-07T15:30:00.000Z

Hwee Yee notes Singapore's sense of irony:

"this morning i noticed a sign on the train tracks that said value life; act responsibly.
she says:
If we cannot be sure, can we at least then forgive? Beyond all the complications of the sacrificial culture from which the death peanlty has been produced and the other spirit of Christianity which opponents – Victor Hugo being one – fall back on, can we forgive the unforgivable?

the rules: it is ok for the state to kill you. it is not ok for you to kill yourself. do not circumvent the power of the state.
everyday i die a thousand little deaths in the face of words that fly past my eyes.
a perverse kind of le petit mort."

Protesters outside the Singapore High Commission in Canberra. (ABC News)

"anyway i’m so disgusted and angry. and i really hate it that i still have expectations, that i’m still constantly disappointed by this asshole country.

i can’t wait to get the fuck out of here forever." - SomethingSomething

How the Holy Cow milks terror; Moral Equivalence down on Melanie Phillips's Dairy

2005-12-07T13:15:00.000Z

A few cross words yesterday on Melanie Phillips's Diary. But first, here's a riddle:

Q: What do you call a few cross-words from Melanie Phillips?

A: A cattle grid.

phew! I bet she would have stumbled on that one. I set her a challenge last month: recogise the good deed done by the grieving Palestinian mother, thus proving that she wasn't a cultural supremacist or a racist and was indeed capable of seeing the Palestinians as more than one blood-drinking mass of terrorists bent on genocide. If she could do this before her next racist outburst I would give her a prize, say a medal or some book tokens.

She blew it. A few times actually. But yesterday was a weird one. The Telegraph, the sort of xenophobic rowing club member's read that would float her boat, lost its "moral compass" because it showed a photo of a grieving Palestinian mother. Her son had decided to detonate his suicide bomb outside an Israeli shopping centre, murdering five, a total he would surely have liked to have been higher. Now, unlike Iraq and the London 7/7 bombers, many Palestinian suicide bombers make their intentions to murder Israelis quite plain to their families. Some families encourage it, seeing it as a great honour. Some are compensated for their loss by the terrorist groups, but can live with the proud knowledge that they had contributed to the resistance. It looks doubtful that this was one such case. The anguish on the mother's face does not look like that of a woman who has been preparing for this. She may want to know why her son did it. We don't find out because the article doesn't elaborate. In fact, the photo is a relative non sequitur, since no metion is made of her at all, the focus being entirely on the Israeli casualties. Quite right too? Possibly. But that is never enough for the vengeful Holy Cow, who believes that even running this photo (one of three; there are also images of the blast and of the bomber making an address) "drew a moral equivalence between the grief of the bomber's mother and the grief of the victims he murdered."

Perhaps she would like to demonstrate why she too isn't entitled to feel grief? It's an unexplored question in the article but why does it offend her so much? And unfortunately, since she refuses to recognise the suffering of the Palestinians when they are killed in droves, it is rather poisonous of her in particular to raise such an issue. She continues: "Would the Telegraph have published pictures of the 'grieving mothers' of the 7/7 bombers, I wonder?" I fact she doesn't "wonder". Wondering is what people with open minds do when they want to learn. Mrs Shut-mind here is very abrasive when it comes to new ideas, as seen with global warming, where the fact penetrate her skull with all the ease of a sumo wrestler crawling through a mangle. This is a woman that judges an article, not on how it fits with the real world, but on how well it appeals to her existing prejudices. So, Jason Burke's article here is "mad" and "a smear" because it doesn't sit well with her idea of French muslims as facists. But this shit is worth looking into because it makes her feel a bit less lonely in her beliefs (if you tell yourself enough you start to believe it, that's what they say about fanatics) that Saddam and Al Qaeda were connected in a strong working relationship. What she should be wondering is why there was a serious and vocal debate about whether or nor the families of the London bombers should have been allowed to attend the commemoration in St Paul's Cathedral. Mayor Ken Livingstone and former hostage Terry Waite certainly thought that they should have been permitted to share their grief, the latter's request being covered in The Telegraph that she once revered. How did she miss that one? Perhaps she was too distracted by Rowan Williams' Anti-semitism (see last month's outpourings) to pick up on this.

And on to Moral equivalence. Well, its frequently invoked in the Middle East. To claim that suicide attacks against Israeli civilians is resistance is termed "moral equivalence" on a regular basis by those who like the term. What they are saying is that to carry out these attacks is no worse than the Israeli "retaliation" to them. A question: how do you retaliate against a suicide bomber? Well, putting aside the irritating fact that he is already dead, in Israel you plough down the houses in their neighbourhood and bomb the leaders of terror groups, knowing full well that Palestinian civilians will get caught up in the blasts. You build a "defensive" wall around the country that actually cuts into the state where the civilians live (and which the Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, will become permanent). You impose curfews on ordinary people who are blameless for such outrages. Since attacking people who committed no crime is by definition not retaliation, the question needs to be asked to Mrs Phillips: is terming an assault against innocent Palestinian bystanders as "retaliation" a morally equivalent response to the crimes of suicide bombers and terrorist groups? Is it moral equivalence to say that a soldier, whose crime is shooting Palestinian civilians dead or flattening their houses, is just as bad as those same Palestinians, whose crime is to be in the same neighbourhood as a terrorist? The best thing to do is to bin moral equivalence and condemn each crime as it happens. Sice she is incapable of doing this, I'd politely ask her to sever her typing hand and shut her fat hole.

Melanie Phillips Watch

2005-12-06T15:49:00.000Z

Thanks to Al for the link:

"In which we analyse the outpourings of the notorious Daily Mail columnist, crowned Most Islamophobic Journalist of the Year 2003. We read her filth so you don't have to. This site is dedicated to fighting bigotry and prejudice in any form. Any comments deemed antisemitic, racist or in any other way bigoted will be deleted and the poster barred."

Proof that if you spew out shit long and hard enough, you will eventually draw hate-sites/blogs in your name. A sure Melanie-Phillips-bashing buffet for the Leech.

I Will Not Be Intimidated!!

2005-11-19T03:56:00.000Z

The sounding words from every nationalist's mouth. And also the underlying message that got America into a war that's left them knee-deep in debt, fallen soldiers and a very very unpopular national image amongst other things, that have coagulated into very thick shit indeed.

I often pondered if nationalism should be viewed the same way as racism. Globalisation seems to blur the borders of the world today and I wonder if there is any real need to proclaim how great one's country is considering that everyone's patriotism and loyalty soley depends on the soil on which they were born. But ultimately, I believe the world would be a severely uninteresting place without pride of such individualities, and perhaps like everything else, nationalism should be used in moderation. The line is crossed when supremacy is claimed in the realms of nationality, race, gender, etc.

nationalism (Dictionary.com)
n 1: love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it [syn: patriotism] 2: the doctrine that your national culture and interests are superior to any other [ant: multiculturalism, internationalism] 3: the aspiration for national independence felt by people under foreign domination 4: the doctrine that nations should act independently (rather than collectively) to attain their goals

It is evident from the example of the Iraq war that such self-proclaimed patriots of America will easily heed to immediate retaliations against foreign aggression and only leave them as blind followers and softer targets for support of Bush's ultimate agenda. Like the analogy mentioned in my previous post, a blind man will go out fighting and everything and anything without knowing what it is exactly he's fighting for. Nationalism brings with it arrogance and ignorance. Disregard for public opinion in spite of mass protests on a global scale, disapproval by the UN and even when weapons inspections showed nothing. To say the least, nationalists, just like racists, can never be persuaded by any amount to think otherwise.

And in the wake of Van Nguyen's set date for execution, an Australian drug trafficker arrested in Singapore, the similar stench of nationalism fills the air. The dissent by Australian media and campaigners has incited and brought forth chest-thumping ape-like nationalists hollering "I will not be intimidated!" It's a reflex action of such types of course. Similar to the renaming of 'french fries' to 'freedom fries' amongst other French put-downs by Americans when the French did not show military support for the war. Ultimately, I wonder if Singaporeans will face retribution in Australia. When the world is kicking up political awareness and the Nguyen case in Singapore, only silence is heard from the student societies (and indeed ambassadors of their country). Are the future leaders of the country earning an overseas education lacking spirit to defend their country's name or campaign against it? Or is it more worrying that they are quite comfortable sitting on the fence? The lack of opinion or ability to engage such issues when foreigners clearly have one only seems to highlight an embarassing level of apathy.

Now with calls for boycotts of several Singaporean industries within Australia, there is a mounting tension. Australians are dead serious about the death penalty (no pun intended) enacted on a man who cooperated 100% and even leaked information to authorities. While Singaporeans still seem oblivious. Silent by apathy. Silent for fear of retribution. Life goes on. Only time will tell if boycotts will amount to anything more than a dent in the economy. And if it should snowball such that Singaporeans overseas will face the consequence of their past silence, then you cannot complain except to start stitching the Malaysian flag onto your bagpack.

"Some say better early than sorry. I say better late than never."

Dark and difficult times ahead for Potter

2005-11-11T16:40:00.000Z

Would that by any chance be puberty? I couldn't help but realise earlier as I noticed on a bus-stop ad for the latest instalment, how everyone in the promo poster seems to be wearing very trendy "teenager" clothing..... except for Mr Potter himself and two other dork friends on the left.

Maybe it's just me, but it looks as if at least Hermion is shedding the rediculous cloaks and make-belief fairytales.

...and Harry is somewhat "stuck".

Help me to help you.

2005-11-11T16:05:00.000Z

During the course of the debate over the death penalty, those supporting the clemency for a drug trafficker currently on death row have drawn a divide between those who are for partial abolishment (drug trafficking only) and total abolishment. Some have been called 'hipocritical' for their partiality and criticising them of their real moral grounds.

Eventually when one is pissed off enough, a barrage albeit articulate barrage of words can see some interesting arguments. In particular, I liked this analagous dialogue:

"The problem is that if you do not really what your guiding principles are, then you will essentially end up with a George Bush type of problem.

You invade Iraq and kill people. You say it's because Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and these must be found and destroyed. Then it turns out that Saddam has no WMDs. So you say that actually you're invading Iraq and killing people because Saddam has terrorist links, and so you continue to stick around in Iraq and kill people. Then it turns out that Saddam has no terrorist links, and that terrorist attacks continue to take place merrily around the world even though Iraq is quite incapacitated. So you then say actually you're attacking Iraq because you want to bring peace, democracy etc to Iraq. Then you're found abusing Iraqi prisoners of war in Abu Gharaib, and you're hand out highly lucrative commercial contracts to your own US companies to rebuild Iraq. And up to today, there is STILL no democracy and freedom and peace in Iraq - although their hospitals and infrastructure and water supply systems are still devastated.

And then you wonder why so much of the world hates the US, and why American students travelling in other countries today sew Canadian flags on their backpacks and pretend to be Canadian. Meanwhile your troops are still stuck in Iraq; you have no graceful way to pull them out; and the costs of the war continue to escalate. And your own US citizens distrust you.

This is an analogy to what I think is likely to happen if you're not clear about what exactly it is about the death penalty you're objecting to. You will muddy everything up and cause problems for yourself. And you won't be able to solve them - because you simply don't even know WHAT you really want." - Mr Wang says so (comment on Singabloodypore article: The Death Penalty is Abhorrent. Full Stop.)

Even though I agree with Mr Wang on the total abolishment of the death penalty, I don't think it necessary to attack partial supporters...yet. Common ground is important if we are to have our loudest voices yet against it. And despite is excellent analogy, I don't think people who partially pursue its abolishment will face the same consequences as Bush and the American people.

But really, you have to love everything about the analogy.

Roads to peace in the Middle East

2005-11-10T11:53:00.000Z

This is rapidly becoming bash-Melanie-Phillips week. I suppose a bigger man than myself would indulge in a forget-Melanie-Phillips week, and then, naturally, not have to remember to participate. Anyway, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt between today and the next time she racially slurs the people of Palestine (I'd give her a week) to recognise one sad story with a beautiful ending that shows that these people are not some monolithic movement seeking the destruction of Israel ("The Palestinians", as she repeatedly calls them, regardless of whether they are the PA, Hamas or the ordinary population), but, like every other group in the world, a diverse bunch who canot be tarred with the same brush.
On ITN yesterday it was reported that the family of dead Palestinian 12 year old Ahmed al-Khatib agreed to donate his organs to Israeli children in what they called a "message of peace." While caught in a crossfire in a refugee camp Jenin, Khatib, who was wielding a toy rifle, was shot in the head by an IDF soldier. He died after visits to several different hospitals, leadig to the astoishing annoucement.
It was reported by Haaretz that the IDF were there to aprehend Islamic Jihad operatives. I hope the difference shown between these two factions of "The Palestinians" is not lost on her, and that she finds time, between the anticipated posts wailing about Tony's terror laws failing, to acknowledge this.

The Holy Cow is wholly inappropriate

2005-11-10T10:56:00.000Z

Nice to see that the tumultuous riots in Paris are useful for some of us. Just as bacteria take delight in migrating towards human waste, so various right-wing fanatics like the America satirist PJ O'Rourke jumped at the chance to gloat about the unrest. The registered Republican beefcake-fruitcake-nutcase was questioned on the events on Andrew Marr's political show, and his answer was really rather astonishing. He said that it was funny, since France couldn't have done more to support Saddam, and now, well just just look at this mess. I suppose someone should have told him that grown-ups were talking. So, while Andrew Marr described him as a "satirist", I was left wondering if there was some alternative definition to the word that I had yet to learn. He couldn't possibly have meant a commentator who employs irony and wit to poke fun at current events. His interpretation of "satirist" was a cretin who twists events in a moronic and witless afshion. After all, this was the man who once labelled us as "Euro-weenies" in his highly satirical book Holidays in Hell.

He's not the only right-winger from the US with a chip on his shoulder over France. On 06.07.05 John Gibson of Fox News said that he wanted Paris to win the nomination as host of the 2012 Olympics because it would have been a joy to see how they coped with the terrorist threats. The day after London was savagely attacked, and the same stupid prick remorsely stated that he wanted the Olympics in France so that they could blow up Paris, or, as he so nicely put it: "They'd blow up Paris, and who cares?"

In the UK we also have our fanatical morons. Melanie Phillips is more of a cultural and religious supremacist than a weenie-bashing nationalist. This is once more made evidently clear in her diary entry, where she once again seizes the chance to bash those non-western Muslims.

In the French and the majority of the British papers the riots are seen as the result of unemployment, a lack of integration, disenchantment with life as an immigrant, alienation, living in undeveloped or under-developed areas and poverty. David Aaronovitch, with whom she often sympathises, wrote in The Times yesterday: "c'est l'economie stupide." Such bothersome background details such as these are of no use to someone as stupide as Mrs Phillips. In her diary she angrilly and witlessly demands to know why more is not being made of the fact they are Muslim? Not in the sense that they are from a different culture it seems, but rather because perhaps their religion is turning them into hardcore jihadists.

The obvious reply to her is that their religion is next to irrelevant. It is well-known that the aforementioned background details provide us with the fuse, which was lit when two teenagers died in an electricity substation in a suburb of Paris. We don't kow if they were being chased by the police or panicked near a crime scene, but the result was a riot in the poor suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, which has a large population of penniless North African immigrants. The Islamic factor is rather absent here. As the influential professor Juan Cole wrote this morning:

"The young people from North African societies such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are mostly only nominal Muslims. They frequently do not speak much Arabic, and don't have "proper" French, either. They frequently do not know much about Islam and most of them certainly don't practice it-- much less being more virulent about it than Middle Easterners." http://juancole.com/

I myself have a well-paid job, am well-integrated with my fellow countrymen and feel not a trace of alienation here in my home country. If In were to convert to Islam, would this all go down the tubes in some crazed new quest to petrol bomb London? This woman is unbelievable. When her faith, Judaism, is omitted from a list of four world religions, used as a piece of bridge-building rhetoric (see below), she snarls that her religion is under attack and implies that he is an Anti-semite. Yet she rushes to her keyboard to attack other religions (I'm applying her standards here; if criticizing a Christian or Jew for their actions, religiously motivated or not, is bigottry, then it must follow that the same holds true for those who draw attention to Muslim crimes. In this case she fully deserves her 2003 accolade as "Most Islamophobic Media Personality of the Year" from the Islamic Human Rights Commission) in her diary.

To be fair, she does attempt give some evidence for her case by mentioning some worrying events in Denmark. She cuts and pastes the details out of some blog rather than getting them from a more widely known source, but no matter. On the BBC website it reports that a major Danish newspaper called Jyllands-Posten published some cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. To a Muslim this is outrageous since he is not allowed to be represented pictorially. Two of the illustrators received death threats, while there were demonstrations and riots. Shocking and abhorrent though this is, Melanie Phillips leaves out one detail that, while not excusing the developments, certainly gives them a bit more context than linking them to the Parisian violence (and implying some dormant jihadis are about to errupt on "Eurabia"). This detail is:

"A letter from the ambassadors said the cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten last month showed the Prophet as a stereotypical fundamentalist."

She doesn't allude to this. She reverts to the moronic and witless definition given above. She says they were "satirising" him. Ha ha ha ha. Mohammed as a fundamentalist. Almost as funny as Jesus being "satirised". I wonder what the reaction would be if some bright spark put Jesus in some lewd Jerry Springer opera. Think they would be good sports about it? Funny, because I seem to remember riots and death threats.

Anyway, the events in Denmark were indeed a ridiculous reaction and should not be allowed to encroach on freedom of expression (ditto the film-maker Theo Van Gogh, murdered almost a year to the day by fanatics in Holland). But what is the connection between the two stories? Are the riotters in Paris part of the same "cell" as the fools in Denmark? Who knows. Perhaps it is Jihad. Perhaps Al Qaeda are involved, and are pissed at France for not helping convert Iraq into a giant terrorist training camp and extremist recruitment centre. Or perhaps we should accept multiculturalism's benefits, sensibly address any of its excesses and not pave over or restrict the culture of others.

So is this "appeasement" or not?

2005-11-09T10:05:00.000Z

Hu Jintao is here in London and once again the British government is falling head over heels to accommodate a tyrant. China has been the world leader in the number of executions carried out over the last few years, and its undemocratic rule crushes any dissent.

On Newsnight yesterday I had the pleasure to watch two opposing points of view on this visit. Mike Gapes MP, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Commitee was in favour of the visit, despite the, ahem, baggage. At one point he adequately summed up what the Blair government was saying, and simultaeneously what it should have been thinking, when he spluttered that it was important to have good "democrati- err, diplomatic relations". "Oh shit" he must have been thinking, "I'm a one-man Chinese whisper".

One the other side of the fence (I suppose Great Wall is better, but lets stick with dissing the government) was Liu Hongbin, who participated in the Tianammen Square demonstration, and still suffers under the Chinese government pressure aimed at him and his family. He graciously conceeded that Hu Jintao was a "human being", which is apparently more than Hu Jintao can bring himself to do when he sizez up his Falun Gong, Tibetan and Uighur opponents. But he also strongly criticised the UK for snuggling up to the world's fastest growing economy. Most importantly, he stated that Labour's "ethical foreign poicy was a joke". These are the people we want on our side, not some cruel tyranny which, no matter how rapidly it develops economically, is still in its democratic infancy. Blair and his cabinet should be pressing the Chinese government to develop peacefully in the direction of democracy, and more importantly, to form a strong human rights framework that stamps out torture, the death penalty and the confetti-burst of prison sentences dished out for the most insignificant trangressions. While in the past they have claimed to be doing this, the public are actually in the dark over what is going on here.

Tell Tony he's Right

2005-11-09T09:06:00.000Z

This was the front page of The Sun yesterday. It was also splashed across their website. The Sun want to use their influence to have us believe that Tony Blair is right.

The Sun told us that Tony Blair was right when he sucked up to Bush's America as part of his foreign policy.

The Sun told us that Tony Blair was right when he participated in the vicious and imperialistic bombing of Iraqi civillians.

The Sun told us that Tony Blair was right when he demanded that Afghan asylum seekers, fleeing from the hell-hole that was their country, should be sent back there because it was now safe.

The Sun told us that Tony Blair was right when he trashed the UN, even after Clare Short revealed that him and the US were bugging Kofi Annan's office.

And now they think that he's right because he wants to put terror suspects behim bars for 90 days without charge, just on the suspicion that they may be up to no good.

So yes. Tell Tony he's right. Remind him that he's so far to the right that fascist The Sun backed him ahead of the Conservatives in the last election (in fact today, both Tory leadership candidates, David Davies and David Cameron are "Dumb and Dumber" on the front page of The Sun because they refuse to endorse this draconian measure) because he so effortlessly embraces the sort of neo-liberal domestic and foreign agenda that people like Rupert Murdoch want to see.

Tell Tony he's right. And while you're at it, tell Rupert "shitbag" Murdoch that Hell is a damn-sight hotter than The Sun.

This Holy Cow has some holey arguements

2005-11-08T17:22:00.000Z

It's been a busy week for crazy Melanie Phillips.Her expert analysis of the Parisian riots will come later (for those who don't like surprises, it will not disappoint you to know that she blames the Muslims. Originality is one of the many things that cannot be said to be her strong point), but first I'd just like to take a moment to give her a belated smackdown for her crass and ignorant drivel regarding the address given by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at St Paul's Cathedral. Dr Williams, who I have always found to be a rather intelligent man, well-endowed with humanity and tolerance, was giving a sermon in memory of the terrorist atrocities in London in July.
At one point he said:

‘There is one thing that is always common to any sort of terrorist action, wherever it happens and whoever performs it. It aims at death – not the death of anyone in particular, just death. It does not matter to the killers if their victims are Christian or Muslim, Hindu or Humanist; what matters is that they show that they can kill where they please.’

Which regrettably provided her with a pretext to say:

"Anyone spot the omission in the list of victims? Yup – he left out the Jews. OK, let’s not jump to conclusions here. Let’s be charitable. Let’s think of some reasonable reasons why he omitted the people who are specifically targeted for genocide and ethnic cleansing by Islamic fascism and who in Israel are in the front line of attack in the jihadi war on the free world (not to mention the fact that three victims of the London bombings were Jews). Maybe he just selected a few random faiths with a pin. Maybe inserting a monosyllable here would have ruined the poetic symmetry of his sentence. Maybe his washing machine blew up just as he was typing J… and he forgot the rest of what he was going to say.
Or maybe he just doesn’t think of Jews as being victims of Islamic terrorism at all because he thinks of Jewish victims as Israelis. And Israelis, in the eyes of so many in the CofE, are a different category of people altogether. They are not victims but oppressors. In the new moral order that the church represents, Jews may once have been victims – safely in the past -- but Israelis are the new Nazis. So when Israelis are incinerated by the unspeakable atrocity of human bomb terrorism – merely the latest weapon in the fifty-year genocidal war against them -- they become for the Church of England as invisible as those who fell out of favour with Communism and were airbrushed out of the pictures. Shame on him."

Obviously such noble sentiments were not to the taste of narrow minded bigots. Her definition of not jumping to conclusions is particularly indicative of the mind at work here. Without jumping to conclusions she paints him as a racist and a man who sees some victims as not mattering when they are killed by terrorists (or "fascists, just in case today's buzzwords is not as shocking enough). This is her idea of being charitable.

Well, lets not be charitable. Lets do the obvious thing and LOOK AT WHAT HE ACTUALLY SAID. This is a real drag when you are trying to smear somebody. He said "There is one thing that is always common to any sort of terrorist action, wherever it happens and whoever performs it". Now, does this preclude people of the Jewish faith? Is there a hidden code that everybody who didn't pick up their brain in a second-hand charity shop failed to notice? If Dr Williams thinks differently then it is for him to say, and not for her to fabricate.

Her careless brandishing of Anti-semitism can deceive the wingnuts who read her website on a daily basis with ass-licking fidelity (yet are prevented from making comments on her blog, most the most likely reason being that any dissent would show just how out nof her depth she is) but fall apart under the slightest scrutiny. Unlike Christian, Hindu and Muslim, Jew denotes a religion and an ethnicity. Blurring the two meanings can make anybody look more vicious, and of course racist, than they mean to be. While European Anti-semitism really exploded as a racist and sickening force from the 19th century onwards, its original European roots lay in religious differences. The Christians abhorred the Jews for their religion and culture. They wanted them to convert and repent. Needless to say, you cannot convert or repent your ethnicity, and that is why the Jews in Nazi Germany and the Palestinians today (to different degrees, lest I be accused of comparing Hitler to Sharon) suffered so horribly. This distortion needs to be in the reader's mind, otherwise she will get away with this nonsense.

This distinction becomes particularly relevant when discussing Israel, which was created as a state for those of the Jewish ethnicity after the Holocaust. The fact that its official position is to maintain this religious and ethnic character has caused oppression against the Arab population who live in pitiful conditions. Now, its true that there is a huge amount of Arab terrorism being directed against their oppressors, but this is certainly not a direct response to the fact that the population is Jewish. If you're living as a second class citizen in what you believe to be your own land, you wont give a damn who your oppressors are. Because of the racist policies of the Israeli government, and the often horrendous responses by groups like Hamas (who would be marginilised in more civilized conditions) this cannot be said to be religious oppression. Also, just a thought while we're on the subject of terrorism, it might pay if she recognised now and again that Muslims (I'm using her contextual scheme here. I'd call them Arabs) have also been the victim of terrorism and oppression. She refuses to acknowledge events like Deir Yassin, the Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel, the Stern Gang, the bombing of teh PLO headquarters in Tunis in 1985 and the fact that Begin and Shamir were former terrorist leaders. When Kingdom of Heaven dared to show Muslims as the victims of the Crusades she referred to it as "The moral exhaustion of the west" and "cultural suicide". Pointing out that Christians and Jews are capabale of terrorism too seems bleeding obvious, but since she believes in one set of standards for her favourite groups and another for what she sees as outsiders I feel no guilt whatsoever.

Still, lets be charitable to Mrs Phillips and make this a religious issue. In his address Dr Williams referred to Christians (he is one, so were most of the victims), Muslims (a rather obvious and inclusive gesture; the decent thing to do) and Hindus. This is what really pissed her off. Maybe he didn't want to look too monotheistic. Maybe he didn't want to be too western-orientated. Perhaps, in a fit of democratic political correctness he remembered that there are 900 million of them in the world, while there are only 14 million who practice Judaism. Perhaps he even stooped so low as to remember the very recent atrocity in Hindu-dominated India, which took more lives than the London bombings. Had he mentioned Jews, would Sikhs, who are also more numerous in London and across the world, feel cheated? By any sensible criteria they are not a pre-requisite. The fact that he mentioned humanists reminded us that most terrorist goals today are not religious in their aims, even though their perpetators may hail from different cultures.

This address also displeased the British Humanist Association, who were dismayed by the lack of non-religious representation. It seems very few groups were too happy, but they should all bear in mind that for a Chrsitain to acknowledge them, no matter what their faith, is a sign of how far we have come. To fragment this unity into stupid religious squabbling would be the real cultural suicide. And that was the Archbishop's most important point. His sermon stated that any group could be targetted, and that no matter the faith, it would always be a loss. Such intelligence and consideration washes away the bile of hypocritical charlatans like crazy Melanie, and reminds us that talking tough is no match for thinking clearly.

Melanie Phillips: If you were this stupid you'd tear all your hair out too.

High horses, armchairs and strawmen

2005-11-08T16:58:00.000Z

Phew, the past few days have almost been exhausting in the mental sense of the word. A fire is raging. Or has been raging. The constant battle between logic and illogic, and the constant stream of ignorance leading to an overkill dejavu of arguments.

The debate has been over the death penalty, sparked by the announcement that an Australian drug trafficker caught with over 300g of heroin is to be executed this month (see Singabloodypore). By Singapore law, carrying over 15g of heroin calls for a mandatory death sentence.

Looking forward to a much constructive debate over this issue however, it seems the only real opposition consists of conservative, pro death penalty Singaporeans who come in with all guns blazing away firing 'blank' arguments with nothing to really aim at. How truly disappointing. To see the man dance between the logic and illogic, go to this thread. But I warn you to prepare yourself as it somewhat creates a tendancy to pull head and facial hair out towards the end of the 50 odd comments. It is like a ritual dance between the two that transcends into a spiral of repetitive "strawman" arguments that hold no water, armchair commenters contradicting themselves, and those who just find it too damn comfortable on their high horses, all blending into one strobing light that eventually causes an epileptic fit to the logical.

Personally, I do not support the death penalty. And I have submitted my own perspective on this here. I'm so lucky that stupid people do not transmit their allergens over the Internet.

Love Symptoms: Everywhere. Now.

2005-11-04T10:19:00.000Z

An outbreak of pandemic love is sweeping the nation. SRL News reports.

Originally from Match.com

Generation Jihad

2005-10-29T15:39:00.000+01:00

An insightful article 'The Enemy Within' from TIME magazine discusses the roots and propagation of Islamic extremism within Western countries. Are muslims feeling increasingly alienated from racial segregation within western society? How far should each side of the racial divide go to bridge that gap and what are the compromises? What can governments do to reduce segregation? Should governments tighten control of immigration and hence the influx of radical muslims with no capacity for western values and democracy?

TIME Europe: 'The July 7 suicide bombings in London provided a deadly reminder to European governments of the chilling reality they confront: the adherents of the most radical forms of Islam are found not just on the Pakistan-Afghan border or the violent streets of Iraq. Instead, in Europe, the enemy is within, made up of young men born and raised in working-class neighborhoods throughout Britain, the banlieues of Paris, and the gritty industrial towns of the Netherlands and Belgium. Most Muslims in Europe, of course, are not radicals, and deplore the violence committed in Islam's name. But with disturbing frequency, deeply alienated young Muslims across the Continent, men like Peter Cherif, are finding spiritual and political homes in the most radical, anti-Western strains of Islam — becoming homegrown jihadis, determined, apparently, to bring the fight to the countries in which they were raised."

"While the precise number of European jihadis is impossible to pinpoint, counterterrorism officials across the Continent believe the pool of radicals is growing. A 2004 estimate by the French police found that around 150 of the country's 1,600 mosques and prayer halls were under the control of extremist elements; in a study of 1,160 recent French converts to Islam, 23% identified themselves as Salafists, members of a sect that has been associated with violent extremism. In the Netherlands, home to 1 million Muslims, a spokesman for the Dutch intelligence service says it is believed as many as 20 different hard-line Islamic groups may be operating. Some are simply prayer groups adhering to radical interpretations of the Koran, while others may be organizing and recruiting for violence. In Britain, authorities say that as many as 3,000 veterans of al-Qaeda training camps over the years were born or based within its borders.
What explains the proliferation of Europe's homegrown radicals? Interviews by Time correspondents with dozens of Muslims across Western Europe reveal consistent answers as to why so many are responding to the call of extremism. Some lack a sense of belonging in European societies that have long struggled to assimilate new immigrants from the Islamic world. Many, in particular younger Muslims, suffer disproportionately from Europe's high-unemployment, slow-growth economies. Others are outraged over the bloodshed in Iraq and the persistent notion that the West is waging an assault on Islam itself. “There's a spreading atmosphere of indignation among normal Muslims that is echoing among the younger generation,” says a French investigator with a decade of antiterror experience.
It's echoing loudly, in part because the anger is amplified by 21st century technology. In the past, the alienated would simmer in relative isolation, unable to connect or communicate with those who shared their anger. The Internet has changed that. Critical to the rise of generation jihad has been the ease with which its members can communicate with each other and peruse controversial websites like Tajdeed.net, run by Saudi dissident and London resident Mohammed al-Massari. While his other English site hosts what he calls “philosophical discussions,” the Arabic site shows gruesome videos of U.S. and British troops being blown up by Iraqi insurgents, and beheadings of kidnap victims. Al-Massari says he cannot control what is posted there. These days, the very existence of such sites alarms the British government. Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the wake of the summer bombings, vowed to crack down on “specific extremist websites.”

"It's a critical question: how do second-generation European Muslims define themselves? Many say they feel a part neither of the country of their birth, nor of their parents' heritage. That some often live on the dole, unable to find work, only enhances their sense of estrangement. The attitude of Riad, a 32-year-old French citizen who has been unemployed since 2002, is all too common. Sitting in a café in the Lyons suburb of Vénissieux, he says, “They say we are French, and we would like to believe that as well. But do we look like normal French people to you?” His friend Karim, 27, insists they are discriminated against because of their long beards. “Who will give us a job when we look like this? We have to fend for ourselves and find a way out.”
That lack of connection to their native societies can be aggravated by extremists. Zaheer Khan, a 30-year-old British Muslim who grew up in Kent in southeast England, says his own experience was fairly common among Muslims of his generation. He was drawn to radical Islam while in college in the mid-1990s, he says. The Wahhabi and Salafist recruiters, he says, “would tell you that things like taking out car insurance is against Islamic principles, or voting — this is haram, forbidden. Slowly, the disengagement [from British society] was there. You didn't say, 'Let's explore what it means to be living in Britain.' This didn't come up.”
The feelings Khan had back then — though still devout, he has rejected radical Islam — are wide-spread among second-generation European Muslims. “The problem is that they have no real roots,” says Dominique Many, a lawyer for one of the Muslim Frenchmen taken into custody by French officials on suspicion of volunteering to fight against U.S. forces in Iraq. “In Tunisia, they are considered foreigners. In France, they are considered foreigners. This is the new generation of Muslims.”"

Read the full article at Time.com.

Please Shoot Me, I'm Iranian

2005-10-27T17:54:00.000+01:00

That's the label that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad just pasted on his countrymen's backs. And like a bad American high school movie, jocks Bush, Blair and the entire football team will duly proceed to do some ass-kicking. I'm not quite sure what he was smoking just before his speech, but he is definitely worthy of an autobiography now followed closely by the 'Idiot's Guide to Getting Invaded'.

CNN - During a meeting with protesting students at Iran's Interior Ministry, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad quoted a remark from Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's Islamic revolution, that Israel "must be wiped out from the map of the world."
The president then said: "And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism," according to a quote published by Iran's state news outlet, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

Let's see...

1) Pursue nuclear weapon's programme....check.
2) Denounce the West....check.
3) Incite racism or anti-semitism....check.
4) Denounce the West....check.
5) Make reference to 'God' to muster Islamic extremist supporters...check.
6) Denounce the West....check.

Yes Mr Ahmadinejad deserves a pat on the back. Because even Saddam wasn't as stupid as to publicly announce to the world his desire to commit genocide and crimes against humanity. In fact, I find it quite uncanny that the Iranian President has adopted a '3-in-1' image of recent leaders whom have gained much attention in the world. His comments make him the Kim Jung Il of the Middle East. Racism and genocide (or intention of) makes him the next Saddam Hussein. And look where that got him; in a hole under Iraq hiding from American forces, not to mention his picture of him in the British tabloids wearing nothing but his unmentionables. And then his "God-willing" speech implying support of terrorism makes him the next Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda derivative.

The comments come as so unbelieveable and disgusting to some that I believe some politicians are still having a hard time believing if the Iranian President just said that. I wonder if their government will quickly release a formal statement of apology with their tail between their legs, or continue down this path that the President has chosen. The latter would definitely spell 'biting the bullet' for Iran which will then follow Afghanistan and Iraq in becoming America's 50-something state. It's almost as if.....

as if he's taunting America and the rest of the world, "Come on you pussies! Come kick my ass if you can!" Obviously Mahmoud Ahmedinejad doesn't know what a "wedgy" feels like.

UPDATE: Iran has its tail between its legs. Although I'm skeptical the world can easily turn their backs as if nothing ever happened now that Iran has sort of flashed their cards and true sentiments of Israel while re-affirming their UN commitments. Time will tell...

Haha...oh sorry were you being serious?

2005-10-20T11:52:00.000+01:00

Just as I predicted, Ashlee Simpson's hair was just as fake as her authenticity to sing live. So with the release of her new album 'I Am Me', like most pop "artistes", she came with a new look. Entertainment Weekly also reviews her sophomore release and just as I expected, it got a C-. The popular trend of adolesent girls abandoning a college education for a career in the pop industry only seems to be popping out 'musical biographies' about themselves, not music. That is probably quite evident from Simpson's latest album title.

Entertainment Weekly: The title is also an extension of her shtick. Sure, she screws up, doesn't always sing in key or dance well, and can't decide on her hair color. But that's okay, because she's a regular person, just like you and me! You have a problem with that?

Not surprisingly, an air of defensiveness and self-pity hangs over Simpson's second album. "Beautifully Broken" ("It seems like yesterday that my world fell from the sky") and "Catch Me When I Fall" allude to life after her post-Saturday Night Live lip-synch train wreck, even if the wound was self-inflicted. In "L.O.V.E.," she implores "all my girls" to gather 'round for support; in "Dancing Alone," she asserts that "it's my life, I'm doing fine."

"Hollywood sucks you in, but it won't spit me out," she semi-snarls in "Boyfriend," which finds Simpson rhyming "for sure" and "my tour," certainly two phrases of equal importance in her universe.

But who is this "me," anyway? Little Ashlee was, of course, never the "bad-ass girl" she claimed to be on her debut, 2004's gangly "Autobiography," which proved definitively that ersatz punk was the new middle-of-the-road pop.

"I Am Me" does at least confirm that she's a producer's dream: a singer of no discernible personality who can be altered to suit the demands of the marketplace. With its shameless knockoffs of Gwen Stefani (the cheerleader bop of "L.O.V.E."), U2 (the stadium-rock throb of "Dancing Alone"), and Fiona Apple (the piano ballad "Catch Me When I Fall"), "I Am Me" practically amounts to a NOW tribute album. Every song feels like a retread of some hit you've heard before, somewhere.

Medical science should really classify blonde hair as a disease. Symptoms include low ~~general~~ knowledge and excessive use of the word "whateverrr!" Ashlee exclaims during an interview, presumably in defence of her Saturday Night Live lip-synching fiasco,"It's like, I'm real - I promise!"

New York (AP): "There's always going to be that divide when it comes to pop music," says Craig Marks, editor-in-chief of Blender magazine, which is putting Simpson on its December cover. "Certain segments of the audience are always going to be distrustful of music that they feel is not authentic. If you get all caught up in notions of realness and authenticity, then Ashlee is going to strike you as being girlish ... and not serious."

Those "certain segments" felt vindicated when the wheels fell off the Simpson machine on "Saturday Night Live." In an endlessly replayed moment, Simpson was preparing to perform, microphone at her waist, when a track started blaring her voice singing "Pieces of Me" -- which she had already sung earlier. The mortified Simpson tried to play it off with a hokey dance, only adding to the embarrassment.

In an instant, Simpson became the nation's favorite pinata -- another Milli Vanilli pseudo singer who couldn't hack it live. A Web site petition demanded a refund for her album; she was booed at halftime of the Orange Bowl college football championship.

If only...

2005-10-19T10:48:00.000+01:00

In partnership with the people who brought you Gene Simmons' 'Rock School'.

Due to Health and Safety issues for the dinosaurs, celebrities Britney Spears, Abi Titmus, Pamela Anderson and several others have been excluded from the list of participants due to silicone allergies of some dinosaurs. Nonetheless, we still guarantee wholesome, quality celebrities* for your viewing entertainment.

*Includes previous Big Brother participants. Anyone who wasn't a celebrity before taking part in this show surely will be after. For 2 months anyway...

UPDATE: Some alternative promos. C4 was so impressed, they immediately offered to sign us up for a second season, Park of Triassic Dinosaurs, pending successful cloning of Triassic dinosaurs on the Leech's secret little island of course.

It's all the goodiness of Reality shows in one.... minus the bad aftertaste of their celebrity existence after.

Why I dislike modern music

2005-10-18T17:25:00.000+01:00

While my disdain for certain types of popular music, even some pretentious rock/punk bands, and most certainly chinese/japanese/korean (all oriental) pop music, might seem overly critical to the typical radio-follower, Agagooga's easily eclipses mine and comprehensively describes why modern music sucks....to him anyway.

Breathing

Some singers (usually female ones) seem to take pride in breathing (loudly) as much as they can in between notes, anywhere they want. Whether this is due to:

1) a lack of talent
2) stylistic flair
3) a genuine lack of breath because when they're supposed to be breathing, they choose instead of mutter or shout random words (heavy metal bands are especially fond of this)

is unknown, but either way it sounds horrible.

Case in point: Whitney Houston singing in an extract from "When You Believe". The bolded asterisks represent each loud breath taken by Whitney.

Similar-sounding songs

Perhaps it is just me, but for some reason I think that the Backstreet Boys' "Larger Than Life" and "I Want It That Way" sound very similar, and for some time I had difficulty distinguishing between the two. Moving to more objective measures of similarity, 'Quit playing games' and 'I want it that way' use the same drum machine, and have practically the same beat programming.

Other artistes with similar sounding songs: Michael learns to rock and Britney Spears.

Music Videos and fans' short attention span

Invented to counter the increasingly short attention spans of pop music fans, people in music videos prance around, stare at the camera and generally act like idiots. Especially bad are the music videos by Britney "Big Fake Boobs" Spears.

Frames from Gunther and the Sunshine Girls' "Ding Dong Song". What lesbians necking and groping each other's breasts has to do with touching Gunther's Tralala, I don't know. Maybe it makes them more hot for him.

During live performances, the ever-changing images present in music videos are not available to sate the audience's cravings for action and movement, so to compensate for this partially, artistes sometimes hire dancers to prance around in the background, dazzle audiences with frequent changes between various glitzy and impractical costumes (see Chinese pop concerts by female artistes), smash guitars or otherwise liven up the atmosphere.

Repetitive, meaningless lyrics and sounds

Many song writers endow their songs with simplistic, meaningless, and/or just ridiculous lyrics. Some are overly fond of certain words: "heart", "apart", "fire", "desire" and "dream".

Example: S.H.E's superstar

Others do not even bother to take that effort and instead either write in an abundance of "ooo"s, "yeah yeah yeah"s and other such noises, or repeat the same few words over and over again throughout the song.

Case in point: The starting of Fantasia Barrino's "I believe", where she goes: "Oh... Ohhhhhh... Oh..."
Listen to the WMA file (16s: 48kb)

Another example: The refrain in Eamon's "Fuck It" where he goes:

Oh oh
Uh huh yeah
Oh oh
Uh huh yeah
Oh oh
Uh huh yeah
Oh oh
Uh huh yeah

Read more gripes with modern music by Agagooga.

You need to be based in the UK, but...

2005-10-13T12:02:00.000+01:00

...But I need to vent my spleen, so who gives a shit. Here is my new advertising campaign for C4. It's a well-established format, so they will have no trouble using it.

A SELECTION OF CELEBRITY TALKING HEADS APPEAR IN VARIOUS LOCATIONS. THEY TALK TO THE CAMERA.

Jamie Oliver: Outlaw Big Brother, right, or better still, dump it on those gullible digital TV types. That'll show 'em. Pukka.

Teri Hatcher: Make it compulsary to show new episodes of The Simpsons, at least on Friday nights.

Jon Snow: Instead of counting down the Top 100 of everything, just for a change, put all their money into some decent programming. Then, after a few months, do a countdown of the best shows on C4 and see if you can even scrape together a Top Ten.

Jimmy Carr: Only use me in case of emergency. Better still, give me a two years extended vacation. I have presenter fatigue, and the viewers are sick of me. Anyway, I need to use another 500 Christmas crackers, otherwise I'll have no jokes. Call it "research".

One of the people from Lost: The thing I'd most like Channel Four to do? Carry a public service announcement the next time that they are going to show cricket, so we can evacuate the country. Ditto Big Brother.

One of the less famous actresses from Desperate Housewives: Explain what the fuck those Pizza Hut commercials that I have to endure when The Simpsons is on are all about. Then ban them, and petition that somebody fires the people responsible.

Dermot O'Leary: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP SHOWING FRIENDS FOR FIVE MINUTES. THE FILM IS NOT ABOUT TO SPONTAENEOUSLY COMBUST. IT'S DRIVING ME INSANE.

That old guy off the cricket: Combine Will and Grace, Just Shoot Me, The King of Queens and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy into one condensed five minute show, so that anybody who likes the sound of cats squealing can have the full experience, while the rest of us can turn the TV on without our senses being abused.

Gordon Ramsey: Feed that **** **** from You are What you Eat some ******* baked beans and shove a ******* rocket up her ****. If that doesn't change her facial expression nothing ******** will. ****** **** ******

Moody looking film star: Have the cast of Hollyoaks round up and shot.

MUSIC

That twat from Bo Selecta: The thing I'd most like them to do is reassess those ads where all the talking heads spout complete shit for five minutes. Now, go and make some bloody programmes.

How to talk to a liberal (if you must)

2005-10-12T15:03:00.000+01:00

While browsing through Borders bookstore today, I came across Ann Coulter's series of books including Slander and her latest book How to Talk to a Liberal (if you must). All seemed to have a strikingly similar front cover. Perhaps it was the contrast of her blonde hair on everything else that was just a waste of good paper and trees that would provide the much needed oxygen for our future generations. Yet, I felt compelled to pick up her latest piece of work and read it in more detail. All this talk, however bad, of this right-wing blonde had somewhat created a hype for me personally that I almost contemplated buying the book just to see for myself why this woman yields so much respect just because she isn't afraid to step on anyone's toes.

Unfortunately (or not), $31.25 was quite a turn-off just to find out.

"I am often asked if I still think we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. The answer is: Now more than ever!" - Ann Coulter (How to Talk to a Liberal)

More genius from Channel 4

2005-09-30T12:40:00.000+01:00

...well, in truth VH1, but I'm too busy praying for the rehabilitation of C4 (last Friday they showed such an old episode of the Simpsons in the 9:00 slot, which was originally for new episodes, then for newish ones, and now apparently just another chance to rub our faces in the shit for not getting Satellite or Digital).
Tonight C4 are showing Rock School. The concept is naggingly familiar, but it would be cynical to claim they are borrowing ideas in copious amounts from any famous films. So, tonight I shall watch with an open mind, as Jack Bla- I mean Gene Simmons of Kiss*, tries to form a rock group out of some straight-laced little kids.
This is great news for those who want tro get rich quickly, and I myself am currently negotiating with C4 to give them access to my giant offshore cloned-Dinosaur compoud, which I think would make a good safari park. We could include celebreties (at feeding time, anyway) and each week we could evict/set free a random Dinosaur. There would be such hilarious antics!!!!!! Such toomfoolery and hijinks. We could call it: The Park of Jurassic Dinosaurs.

* obviously if I really meant it as a mistake, I would have erased it, instead of leaving half a name there, like a dirty great comedy fingerprint. In fact I'm very cynical, and I'd like to ask Gene Simmons if he has any shame. Since he's been in Kiss I guess he doesn't need to answer that one

Fall asleep in England. Wake up in Singapore.

2005-09-29T19:15:00.000+01:00

For three men yesterday, two incidents at England's Labour Party conference must have felt somewhat like the British Airways commercial. Not so much to do with the new Club Class soft beds than the political-police atmosphere. One amateur photographer was taking pictures of the queues while another made an attempt to heckle (a common sight in such conferences in the past I believe) during the conference, accusing Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of lying over Iraq. In both cases, security prompty and efficiently went Singapore on their asses.

BBC News: "Mr Mitchell, a keen amateur photographer, was taking photographs of the queues when stewards demanded to know what he was doing.
He said: "The police were called over and asked if they could look at my pictures. I said of course they could but I did not want the pictures deleted.
"I kept repeating that I did not want the shots deleted and the police officer said it was alright because he didn't know how to use the camera.
"After he handed it back to me I found he had deleted every picture. This is security gone mad. And what's the point."

"The latest incident came on the day serious complaints were made over the heavy-handed way an elderly heckler was bundled out of the conference hall after accusing Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of lying over Iraq.
Walter Wolfgang, who is in his 80s, was grabbed by two security officers and removed from the main hall.
Another man who then attempted to complain about the treatment was also lifted from his feet and ejected.
"They claim it is all about security, but it is really to cover up the chaos and shambles the security is causing," said Mr Mitchell.
The security officers' behaviour was condemned as "very heavy-handed" by Labour MP Linda Riordan, whose own attempt to have Iraq debated was blocked by conference organisers."

Well, it's better than falling asleep England and waking up Germany 1941 anyway.

Petition for free speech

2005-09-29T16:21:00.000+01:00

"We are an open, multiracial and cosmopolitan society. We enjoy a good reputation in the world... Our people should feel free to express diverse views, pursue unconventional ideas, or simply to be different." - Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 2004

Singapore film-maker Martyn See, director of Singapore Rebel, is currently under police investigation regarding his short documentary produced earlier this year. His film was classified a political party film and threatened with a 2-year jail sentence before getting the chance to screen it at a local film festival. The film has since been indirectly distributed on websites such as Singabloodypore (also found on the sidebar here), as well as having been screened in foreign film festivals including Malaysia.

The 20-odd minute documentary measures up nowhere close to the depth of a Michael Moore film in almost every regard but yet this film has been deemed a "threat" by the local Films Act. Some even consider it illogical to mention both in the same breath. But oh the hipocrisy once again that the current ruling party (PAP) is able to screen their own party political films on daytime mass media television.

Despite Martyn having withdrawn his film from the festival, police are continuingly harassing him for interviews and asking for the surrender of certain personal items such as his camera and mobile phone, which has eventually led to nonsensical calls by the police to people in his mobile phone's address book who had nothing to do with the making of the film (read more at Singapore Rebel). This is an event unfolding before the eyes of Singaporeans that reveals once again what a sham of democracy the PAP supposedly claim they are. In the wake of this, Amnesty International and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) have simultaneously filed appeals to the government to cease all investigation of an innocent man who has not even been charged with anything in particular to this day. In addition, Steve McDermott, author of Singabloodypore, has created an online petition in support of Martyn See. Please sign regardless of your race or nationality if you support the freedom of expression.

Thank you.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty for a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin Franklin

I REALLY can't stand Melanie Phillips

2005-09-22T13:15:00.000+01:00

The worst thing one can do is legitimise the wild and illogical ravings of this crazy woman by addressing them. Well, all the blood has rushed to my head upon reading the latest outpouring of her garbage which she has written in her internet "diary" (dear diary, today I wrote another column on The War on Terror. One of these days I will actually read a history book or learn some of the basic laws of international relations and logic, but why rush when I can just parrot what my schitzo-neo-con friends across the pond say?)

I've detailed before how she repeatedly uses phrases like "self-hating" (to describe anybody who opposes the lunatic policies of Bush and Blair), "Israel-hater" (referring to those who think there is a slight chance that the Palestinian people are not being made totally at home, or that Israel shouldn't have nuclear weapons or invade and occupy neighbours), "jihadist" (that would be the BBC, or the "Biassed Broadcasting Corporation") and "appeasenik" (to slime those who don't understand the arguement that bombing people will save them and bring democracy to the Middle East). Now she tells us that the Church of England are "on their knees before terror" because, in an article featured in The Times they assert that we should apologise for the Iraq "war" (I have elected to put the word "war" in those "ironic" little quotation marks because the first war crimes committed were not done in a state of war, but in a sadistic bombing campaign which killed many people. How many we will never know).

I happen to think so too, and I think it's pretty obvious why. I am even more extreme because I happen to think that reparations in order. The country, and the lives of most of its inhabitants are a wreck and she has the temerity to dribble out: "apologise -- for what, precisely?"

She's stuck on that question, although I suspect that the answer was given in the very article that sent her into this frenzy, but still she wants to make other clever enquiries, like: "And apologise to whom exactly?" If the answer to this is just a little too obvious, you can rely on the witch to conjure up her own distorted answer: "To the Ba’athists, perhaps, who subjected the rest of the population to a regime of unmitigated horror and towards whom the church – by this logic – feels badly that they have been deprived of power?" I suspect she may be taking things a t-i-n-y bit out of context here, but then, who I am I to judge. I opposed the war too. All hail mighty Saddam!

Her worst distortion happens right before the reader's eyes, when from this part of the Times article:

‘The bishops cite as precedents the official statements by the Vatican expressing sorrow for the Christian persecution of the Jewish people throughout the ages, the repentance by the Anglican Church in Japan for its complicity in Japanese aggression during the Second World War and the regret expressed by leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa for their theological and political backing of apartheid.’ (The Times)

She gets this:

"In other words they are comparing the removal of Saddam Hussein with the persecution of the Jews, the axis against democracy in World War Two and South African apartheid. But it was Saddam Hussein, the butcher of his own people and sponsor of terrorist murder against Israel and America who was the brother in blood to the tyrants of history. To compare these evils with the attempt to remove a similar modern evil is a straightforward inversion of good and evil. One associates such anti-reasoning with moral imbeciles – but the church?" (Melanie Phillips)

Sorry for the patronosing brackets, but we are dealing with children here, I think. "In other words"?? Whose words? Who is "comparing" anything here? By "other words" I assume she means her own straw-man argument, where she changes all the words so that she may refute it more easily. Yes, it's really easy to outwit someone when you change their entire sentence and view, though I suggest that if you want somebody to eat their words, you serve them back to them as you found them. Never one to shy away from playing the "anti-semite" card, Melanie Phillips probably sat at her computer, selectively cutting and pasting, while cackling at the mighty achievement of outwitting an imaginary neo-Nazi. Even a true moral imbecile like her can pull that off. That's when she isn't comparing BBC newsreaders with Osama bin Laden. The woman is a logician's nightmare. She cannot make even the most basic deductions.

All the way through she repeatedly slams the bishops for overlooking the threat of Jihad. I think she means events like 9/11 and the Madrid train bombings, but just in case I'm taking her out of context I'll include Newsnight, the Evening News and Working Lunch. Yet, of course, Saddam Hussein was not involved in any of these things. Melanie, unlike those with a working mind and a fairly up to date knowledge of current affairs, still believes that Saddam was linked to Al Qaeda and friends. She still thinks Stephen Hayes' glorified Tom Clancy novel The Connection is proof, despite it being long refuted by experts, including Dick Cheney, who audaciously denied that he had ever claimed there was such a link in the debate with John Edwards last year (and got away with it). I don't think Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and Iran at the behest of Al Qaeda (who, of course, overwhelmingly opposed the former) and I don't see what the ruler of Iraq had to gain by any attempt "to restore the medieval caliphate." Still, obfuscation and a disregard for the intelligence of her audience comes naturally to her. That does bother me. When she isn't typing in her "diary" (dear diary, I've been writing about terror for two whole years now, and still nobody listens to me. Is it just me, or am I going crazy?) she is popping up in The Daily Mail, which regrettably some people very close to me choose to read at least twice a week. They are not her target audience. They're not bigots, warmongers or uptight schoolmaster types. What they do seek is an understanding of what is going on, and they will never get that from her evil, illogical and insulting discharges.

A real logician, Ludwig Wittgenstein, famously ended his treatise by stating that his work was like a ladder, which had to be climbed, then kicked away once the reader was at the summit. In a similar vein, Melanie Phillips demands to be read, refuted, exposed and ultimately disregarded. After one has cut through her contradictory positions and half truths, they are left with little than childish tantrums on paper, that need not be considered because they desparately scream at the reader as if from an era rapidly passing into irrelevance. Her nutcase defences of the Israeli government, no matter how much they defy international law, her desire to indiscriminately sweep away those threatening her position of privilege, even if it means killing hundreds of innocents in the process. The twisted facts and logic that grow from these core values, like stinking weeds, are easily cleared away, and even the most obsessive types (regretably that means me) know that is time to get down to business and make the world a better place (anti-war demo on Saturday) rather than wasting too many resources on such feeble distractions. At least until she next surfaces. Now, I must get on, lest anybody accuse me of "comparing" Melanie Phillips with Ludwig Wittgenstein.

North Korea. Plus "what the Iraq war was all about, part:654782564"

2005-09-21T13:30:00.000+01:00

In a deal which was initially celebrated as a big success, North Korea's Stalinist government have claimed that they will end their nuclear weapons programme, rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and permit monitoring by the IAEA. In return, the US will "normalize" relations with them, granting economic aid and the guarantee that the US will not attack.

Though it seems a bit premature to take a guy like Kim Jong-Il at his word, a North Korea without nuclear weapons is something to celebrate. But as with all great power foreign policy, there need to be some serious reservations about this affair, and some serious scrutiny. In my opinion this is just one more sign that Iraq would have been attacked under any pretext.

In some ways, cooler relations between that "tyrant" Kim Jong-Il (quoting the Bush administration) and that "half-baked man" Bush (North Korea's words) are a good thing, but not as much as one might initially think. I never wanted to see North Korea get attacked, but then again, the moment it announced that it had nuclear weapons, attacking it ceased to be an option. The losses would have been too great and therefore it was better to topple a flimsier regime. Iraq. The fact that the place had long been coveted by this administration as a source of energy cemented it as the place to bomb and occupy, but that's a different issue for now. The key point here is that Iraq's weakness in military terms ensured that the Bush administration saw an easy win. The country was practically spreading it's legs for entry. North Korea had nothing to fear in this vein. In the first election debate between Bush and Kerry last year, the two discussed how they would negotiate with Kim, not whether they would. Even the more aggressive zealots advising the government had no stomach for a pre-emptive strike. In their appalling school-essay-style tract An End to Evil, the infamously bellicose Richard Perle and David Frum advocated a mere blockade of the country. A good way of killing Koreans without dropping any bombs. Bound to appeal to all the sadists with a love for cutting costs, but not to those who dreamed that Kim would somehow be booted out.

The rationale for the masculine entry into Iraq has been well-documented. WMDs and terrorist links. If the two combined then we would be looking at what Condoleezza Rice ominously described as a mushroom cloud over New York. scary. In this period it was hard to watch the news without some pesky old crustie with a suit blathering on about weapons of mass destruction. It was a very annoying and repetetive phrase.

The argument had worn out its welcome before the invasion, when the likes of former UN inspector Scott Ritter asserted that Saddam had no such weapons. After the invasion it was conceeded, even by many of the hardline fanatics, that there were no such weapons, but that omething far more magical had taken place. The wonder of Democracy. Those same subservient commentators who practically punctuated their sentences with talk of WMDs suddenly rushed to tell us that the Iraqis now had "freedom" (a word that has long since lost much of its meaning in my eyes due to the sheer abuse of it) and "democracy". Various other undemocratic regimes (Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Syria, Zimbabwe) were condensed into the phrase "outposts of tyranny" to maintain the theme. It was the last compelling arguement for the invasion and it stinks as much today as it did then due to what was happening at the same time in other parts of the world.

At the end of 2003 one such example was given of the contradictions that Bush and Blair's governments had talked themselves into. Colonel Gaddafi announced that he no longer wanted nuclear weapons. He didn't have them, and wasn't particularly close to developing them, but it was announced as a success of the War on Terror because it showed that other governments could be deterred from trying to get their hands on WMDs. In exchange for this, Gaddafi got what he actually had wanted all along: a welcome back into the global community and economic ties withe the US and EU, who, as usual, were salivating at the oppurtunity to flog some weapons to any government they could find (the undemocratic and aggressive China springs to mind. And as the gay Chinese man hitting on me yesterday at work gleefully reminded me: "in our country, we hang our criminals"- true story. Nothing happened) Gaddafi needed weapons for the same reasons he always has: to prop up his dictatorship. Aww, no "freedom" for the people of Libya. That's just too bad. Gaddafi can continue to be a small, yet persistant thug, safe in the knowledge that he is in from the cold.

And now it seems the same is true with North Korea. The Bush administration doesn't want to export democracy to that wretched, far-away place. They just want it to pipe down and stop being a nuisance. By apparently helping to get it to back down on nuclear weapons they have restored their relationship to what it was when Bush came to power. It was his bully boy rhetoric that contributed most to the crisis, and having undone his bad work he should not feel too pleased with himself.

This is a country rife with severe hunger and malnutrition. A country which keeps firing squads and hangman's nooses handy in case anybody is foolish enough to question what is going on around them. Like I said, I don't want it bombed, but I do want to know why there was no mention of human rights in the discussion. I want to know what is the actual link that binds the "outposts of tyranny". They all abuse their populations (to VERY varying degrees), but so do Kuwait, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Nigeria, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Colombia. So, Cuba is sanctioned for it's barely visible human rights abuses while Israel and Pakistan can commit great big ones while also brandishing nuclear weapons and threatening to attack their neighbours. Libya can give up their weapons and carry on with abuses while Zimbabwe, who has never produced any, continues to harass its population as outcasts. Since breaking out of the USSR, the dictatorship of Belarus has enjoyed its scarce natural resources in international isolation while the former Soviet tyrannies of Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan have got on like a house on fire withe the west, respectively offering their natural gas and airbases to the US. Why are some welcomed by the Bush and Blair axis, while others are called to account? Could it be a prejudice against those not towing the line? Could the Iraq war have been about oil resources? It all seems so painfully obvious now. The pompous neo-con grandstanding, in which it was claimed America would set the captive populations of the world free, was simply a way of legitimising the crimes committed in self-interest. It will always be an Iraq that gets "liberated" rather than a Burma, because some countries have a part to play. They have stratefic value or plentiful resources.

There is a scene in The Simpsons where Bart takes up smoking, gives it up straight away and gets a reward and a pat on the back from Homer, who tells him "giving up smoking is one of the hardest things you can do". The Homer Simpson of the world has allowed the same thing to happen wioth North Korea and Libya. The moral of the story is: get nuclear weapons. Nobody will attack you and when you choose to give them up you will get the rewards and acceptance necessary to kick start your return to the international stage.

God's name is a copyright

2005-09-19T19:13:00.000+01:00

Last week I received a forwarded email from a Christian friend. Below are excerpts from the email:

The Lord warned, "I will strike . . . with chastening." To chasten is to make chaste or to purify. Thus, it is significant in my mind that the name, Katrina, means "purity" or "cleansing." My faith tells me that this hurricane, as devastating and terrible as it has been, will ultimately produce some measure of spiritual cleansing in our land. Right now, there is much heartache and suffering -- and even defiance in the gay community as they seek to still hold their "Southern Decadence" celebration. However, ultimately our nation will be genuinely closer to the Lord. Still, let us pray that no further wounds are necessary to achieve national repentance. - Francis Frangipane in the widely-circulated article "A Cleansing Has Begun"

I somewhat guessed that sooner or later, an islamic terrorist would make a connection between the Katrina disaster and "Allah's will". But I guess the Christians beat them to it... When I first received this, I admit being slightly pissed off that someone would come up with this bullshit, which only reflects on Francis Frangipane's homophobia and paints him (or her?) as a narrow-minded prude. While I understand Christianity's values, it is often dangerous to extrapolate home-made hypotheses and conclusions in associating God with modern day disasters.

It would be easy for any objective Christian to completely ignore these irrational statements, but alas I fear that one too many will actually start believing this nonsense. Because propagation of things like these lead to false representation of religion and even the loss of faith when one believes God is responsible for such loss of life. So I decided to acknowledge this as a hyopthesis and use this as the basis of my response to my dear Christian friend.

"Many Christians have attempted to show specific reasons why New Orleans, rather than other cities, was apparently targeted for divine displeasure. I must confess that I am tempted to agree with them. The reports I've read from believers who travel each year to proclaim the gospel during the New Orleans Mardi Gras are sickening."

I see the reasons for God choosing "New Orleans rather than other cities" being somewhat irrational. Whilst celebrations like Mardi Gras and those of the gay community are deemed sinful by our faith, it is important for Christians to know that these events occur annually and consist on the most part, visitors from many other States in America and even from other parts of the world. On the other hand, New Orleans is home to its indigent people, 2-thirds of whom are African American and half of which are below the poverty line. And it is no surprise that most able-bodied middle-class people was able to leave the area before the disaster (apart from some oblivious tourists), leaving behind mostly what are the poor, weak and those who have no where else to run to. We must understand that these people, if indeed Hurricane Katrina was an act of God, are the REAL victims of his punishment as they are left to suffer even more than the poverty they are already in, if being homeless was not already bad enough. For some, I'm sure their homes was everything they had. Remember, that there are plenty of other places in this world of sin. Is gambling not a sin? Why not strike Las Vegas with it's 24-hr casinos open to willing sinners? Or Hollywood with its celebrity industry that seems motivated only by money and lust on the most part.

"Perhaps you've heard that since 1972, New Orleans has been the host city of the annual "Southern Decadence Day," which would have been held this very weekend, as it has every Labor Day weekend for the past thirty-three years. It is touted as "one of the gay world's major parties," and a "gay Mardi Gras" when tens of thousands of gay men and lesbians descend on the French Quarter for unrestrained public lewdness and drunkenness. In 2003 it pumped $95 million into the local economy, which is why city leaders refused to shut it down in spite of protests by more decent people."

A double-whammy sin in the eyes of some Christians I suppose. But again, Mardi Gras and the Southern Decadence Day are only held annually, leaving only the innocent residents there to live the remaining 360+ days. Furthermore, Mardi Gras and 'gay celebrations' alike do not exclusively take place in New Orleans.

"New Orleans has also seen an incredible amount of looting, arson, rape, murders, gang violence and general lawlessness after Katrina, something that was not seen in the countries hit by last December's tsunami."

You have to be extremely carefully when placing judgment on a society by what you simply see on TV. I believe this was a topic of racial disscussion in the Katrina aftermath. It is amazing at how much mainstream news and media can place a distorted perception on the mass audience. Some people do 'loot' out of neccessity. When a white man for example breaks into a shop, he is said to be hunting and gathering food to feed his hungry family. When a black man does it, he's looting. They don't say it. But it's implied. And media tricks have obviously affected the person who made the above comment. 'Murders, gang violence, rape and arson' are very speculative remarks. They seem slightly exaggerated and out of context. The fires for example were more probably caused by gas leaks than arsonists who felt like burning already destroyed houses. I don't DOUBT there is proper criminal looting going on. But we cannot judge an entire society by a few bad apples that we see on TV or "hear from a friend" just because we don't see the good ones. But in no way do we have the right to compare them with the Indonesians of the Tsunami aftermath. For one, the death toll in Indonesia was MUCH higher for an affected population much smaller than New Orleans. In otherwords, more of the Aceh population was wiped out and even more so to the villages and towns. We did not see as many survivors huddling under bridges, highways or in arenas as we did New Orleans. New Orleans was flooded, broken and uninhabitable. Affected Aceh was completely leveled with little survivors. In a sense, sad as it may seem, there was nothing TO loot. Nor were there many healthy people capable of looting. But I can only think someone who believes crimes of opportunity only reside in New Orleans as being naive.

"Finally, will the pastors, preachers and prophets in America rise to the occasion to courageously proclaim the truth? Or will they actually work against Christ and assist Satan in what he specializes in - spreading lies about himself and God? "

Nevermind pastors, preachers and prophets. Bush has already done a good job at lying and deceiving the American people and sustaining an illegal occupation of Iraq for his ambition to secure their oil. And the cost is? The precious children of American parents. Furthermore, President Bush seems to have implied the war was God-willing.

It is eerily similar when Christians start throwing God's name into disasters such as Katrina as when an islamic academic from Saudi Arabia started ranting that the Tsunami was "Allah-willing" as well. I cannot possibly believe that God created the disaster that killed thousands of innocent, conservative Aceh muslim citizens to justify punishing a few hundred tourists hundreds of miles away in Thailand. Does it suddenly sound eerily like Osama bin Laden's justification of his attack on innocent victims of the 9/11 attacks for the "greater good" of islam and his use of Allah's name to justify it? Or what about Bush's sacrifice of over a thousand soldiers' lives for the "greater good of freedom and humanity" in God's name? It's hard these days to tell who's doing God's bidding and who's doing Satan's. But then again, when did God ever give us the copyright to his name?

Other recommended reading: Feverish minds cook up the wrath of God (Yawning Bread)

An alternative view of the Death of Celebrity: Roll on the funeral

2005-09-15T10:52:00.000+01:00

When the talented Austrian architect, Adolf Loos, died in 1933, he did so knowing that if his Christian name would probably forever be associated with a terrible human being, at least his surname was safe.

Fast-forward 70 years and unfortuantely his whole name looks like a disaster because a new monster has monopolized it, in no small part thanks to the drooling tabloids of Britain, that presumably drop any item running the risk of resembling actual news. Many are not going to know who Adolf Loos is, and thanks to Rebecca/Hitler [good name] they will automatically file him under Slut/Monster [great job, if you can get it].

I'm not sure if this bothers me even a little bit, and I suspect it doesn't trouble Piers Morgan at all either. Unlike my colleague Clyde, I was not overly impressed with his effort, which had potential, but stopped far too short of the great purge I would have wanted. The first problem was the title: The Death of Celebrity. Well, wouldn't that be tragic? Piers Morgan seemed upset not just that various pieces of human excrement were getting attention, but that other celebrities, worthy ones in his book, were not.

And who are such celebrities? Piers doesn't seem to know, as the various strata of talent on display in today's world were all dovetailed into one hideous concoction. At the start he bemoaned that in the old days it took someone like Frank Sinatra to get the media excited. Later he showcases Martine McCutcheon, who these days is a theatre actress apparently. A spot is given to the Kaiser Chiefs, interspersed with him cackling along with Michael Winner and Anne Robinson. Are these the worthy celebrities? In my view this stinks.

Michael Winner and Anne Robinson are so obviously unfit to be in a position to see their achievements celebrated [basically Piers' definition] that they don't deserve much more mention. I suspect Piers doesn't have them in mind as bona fide celebrities, but he is content to sanctimoniously sneer with them at the pond life in our newspapers without ever questioning what makes them so special.

Martine McCutcheon may well be a great theatre actress. Her award apparently says so. Yet she has been content to do what Piers should also be decrying - cashing in on her original fame [as a bit-part player in Eastenders] to release insipid music records. Not that genuine bands are much better. The Kaiser Chiefs have barely been around. Is now the time to learn their names? Are they truly talented? Surely it's best to let them create a substantial body of work before lionizing them too much. If fame is what Piers wants them to have, then shouldn't they work for it first? And of course, while rock elitists look at the Pop Idol squits with justified disdain, some of the methods of attention-seeking employed by them are equally cringe worthy in their desperation.

As for Frank Sinatra, well, he is supposed to be a proper icon, someone worthy of his fame. I remember the curmudgeonly old git as the guy who wanted to rein in Elvis and all the great music that came after, that never wrote an actual song [and didn't have to, they all sounded the same, damn it] and consequently spent his life peddling weak toxic sludge. He had a good voice, but that is a gift more so than a talent. He was born with it and never set it to work on anything more challenging than a bit of witless crooning. Things have come full circle; his heirs are on Pop Idol every week. It is still considered sacrilegious to assail Frank, which makes me wonder what really has gone wrong. If the smug elitists like Piers Morgan sanction Sinatra's entitlement to such fame [and of course the money that comes with it] then it seems that lurking behind our tabloid/slut-happy-notalentrequired-filth society is an equally wretched bunch who yearn for good-old-days that never really were there and praise those with a glowing reputation without critically thinking about how they got it.

Piers' tolerance for Pop Idol types, who flog their existing gifts instead of developing talent, is seen at the end, when he invites a bunch of Z-listers to prove that they can do something special. This entirely missed the point. When he quite rightly approached that ridiculous Big-Brother pair and asked them if it bothers them that they have no talent, the silly woman who snapped back that she was an actress must have known full well that she is in the public eye for no such reason. When he later tries to test Big Brother contestants and Page 3 girls on their abilities to sing and act the same point applies. That’s not why they are famous. Becoming famous for no reason and then unveiling your skill is precisely the reverse of how things should work. Celebrity is not a title to be earned and retained, but a recognition that you can do something well, people notice you, and that in today’s world of mass media the attention feat gets will be multiplied. Nowhere in this formula should any allowance made for the celebrity's private life, likes and dislikes or opinions. They shouldn’t matter any more than the next man's. Frank Sinatra didn’t earn that status or that money, in fact it’s so out of balance with his actual input that he should been in a permanent state of embarrassment.

This applies even more to today's sportsmen, another group let of the hook by Piers. When David Beckham showed up in the list of the most pointless celebrities, people on the programme rallied to his defence. This legitimacy masks the point that David Beckham the talented, yet limited footballer has this hideous extension off the pitch that we should never ever need to care about because it really doesn’t come with his job. His job, incidentally, entails an easy life, extortionate pay, instant fame and the fact that he is doing what he enjoys, a lopsided combination when you consider all the little underlings being paid peanuts to allow him to continue to do so. Beckham and his ilk are in a different category from Jordan and Abi Titmus, but still cannot claim to deserve the riches they get.

The real message this show should have sent out was that a decent society can reward and respect all kinds of talent, sometimes the ones we take for granted. Why are some talents more worthy of media attention than others [i.e. the useful ones].There are all kinds of contradictions about fame and it’s hard to put them in order. Talent should surely be developed to allow you to achieve your goals, but fame should not be seen as a means to get it noticed, or as an end in itself. The people closest to you will see your talent, and they know you best, so surely their opinion of you should matter more than that of some sap reading The Sun. Plato [and he was talented, if a bit fascist] noted the human desire for recognition that exists within us. It has prompted some terrible atrocities [war, power struggles, Will Young] but on a small scale it is a wonderful motivator. Others may take notice and that’s great. If Sonic Youth were any more obscure I would never have the pleasure of hearing them, after all. But when the desire to maintain fame, as if it were some entitlement, like a Lifetime Achievement reward, comes into the equation it breeds a homogenous and unadventurous output and turns the celebrity into a caricature. The dumb star will do anything and everything to stay afloat until the fateful day comes when they get a negative repsonse to the plaintive: "Do you know who I am?

If you assume celebrity needs to be saved then I would instead recommend that it needs to be revised. But if you want to really get things right in my book, the best idea is to sidestep the issue and acknowledge that it wouldn't matter if it was Janet Jackson, Rebecca Loos' or Hypaatia's breast on show at the Superbowl, there really are more important things going on in the world right now, and it is there that the press should be.

"Excuse me - does it bother you that you have no talent?"

2005-09-12T13:33:00.000+01:00

The question is posed to a vaguely familiar "celebrity" not worth remembering at an awards show equally not worth remembering. Neither was his answer.

Death of Celebrity, hosted by Piers Morgan, is a 1-hr documentary on the decline of celebrity status and was aired on Channe4 at 9pm last night. It brilliantly spotlighted some of the most pointless celebrities including David Beckham (#4), along with his wife Posh Becks (#1), Abi Titmus (who has thought herself worthy of an autobiography), and ALL Big Brother participants. Surely there are plenty more non-English contenders for the #1 position, but bear in mind it's an English programme.

Ex-Page 3 model Jordan also easily makes her way into the list of pointless celebs. Recently married to british pop singer Andre somebody (forgive my bad memory for bad singers), the local news picked up their story. Down the street apparently was a Royal wedding taking place where famous faces such as Prince Charles and sons were attending. Can you guess who's was more popular? Despite the Royal wedding, the whore and the annoyingly bad (or is it badly annoying?) singer still eventually gained the most public attention with one parent describing it as "every girl's dream". Yes, of course every English girl wants to grow up, become a slut and marry somebody famous/rich. At least a small handful of celebs were sensible enough to decline their invitation, with one even saying,"I'd rather stay at home and defrost my freezer."

The point of it all, as I so gleefully agree with, is the dilution of celebrity-hood with the countless numbers of pointless people that plague the face of every tabloid and many a tv programme. England's Worst Celebrity Drivers spotlighted a list of "celebs" that must have been sub-Z list because the only person I recognised was Erik Estrada, and he's not even British! One day we will reflect on celebrities that defined their century. We will see Mozart, Beethoven, DaVinci, and then we will see the 21st century and go "uhhmm..."

At the end of the day, we also send out the wrong message to our current and future youth generations. That to be famous, you don't need any talent. Just simply being married to someone famous or having an ex-partner who was a soap actor (as was the pathetic excuse of one filmed "celeb"). And of course since this is "every girl's dream", that probably explains why our streets are filled with Britney Spears clones (fat or thin) and other [insert pop idol here]. Sad to say I also see a lot of 50cents and R. Kellys too. Imitations of already cheap imitations.

"Abi Titmus' CV reads - 'nurse', 'got tits out', 'dodgy video'." - Interviewee on Death of Celebrity.

Other recommended time-wasters: Bremner, Bird & Fortune (8pm Sundays Ch4)

Of mice and men

2005-09-08T16:01:00.000+01:00

I'm truly sorry man's dominion,
Has broken Nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle,

At me, thy poor, earth born companion,

An' fellow mortal!

In the midst of moving house, and very near deadlines, I felt somewhat compelled to write something of the disaster Katrina, even though the lack of time and internet at home has left me with only the knowledge of what I've gained from glimpses at evening tv news.

Mulch highlights:
"I remember the somberness of 9/11. I remember people putting aside differences. I remember the National Gard arriving in New York the day of the attacks. That has all changed now. While I admit that racism surely played a part in the inaction our federal government used to murder those by apathy, I think it is more indicative of class and poverty. The World Trade towers were the rich and powerful. Those left to suffer the aftermath of Katerina were not. They were those too poor or too weak to flee. They were those who had nothing else but what they had there in their homes, most without vehicles to flee with."

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's win's ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Fact: It took 2 days for Tsunami relief efforts to arrive in Indonesia. It took FIVE for any sign of help to arrive in New Orleans.

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

Fact: Stupid people say stupid things. Welcome to the Britney Spears club, Barbara Bush.
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this... this is working very well for them."

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld.

An indecisive woman governor offers only her tears on national tv while 20-year old Jabbar has nicked a school bus and ferried as many people as those wheels would carry out of disaster.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

- Robert Burns (To a Mouse)

A helpless President offers congratulations to other people who have also offered comforting words. So this post I suppose is for the unsung heroes who had some sort of clue as to what to do.

"In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of refugees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader. They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love."

Ian Wright: Twat

2005-09-08T10:56:00.000+01:00

I suppose non-football fans will be put off by this entry, but then again, since he retired from his soccer career it has been hard to figure out what Ian Wright has to do with the game. And I'm not going to allow anything to get in the way of giving the loudmouth a good slagging off. Especially after watching him throw his toys out of the pram yesterday. The poor thing had just seen his beloved England side trip over against Northern Ireland, and in his moment to explain to the viewer what went wrong, (thus earning his enormous paycheck) he decided to curl up in a ball and start ranting about how unfair it all was.
Ian Wright was employed by the BBC as a football pundit, presumably because A. He has played the game, and B. He's a bit of a "character." Unfortunately these reasons give Mr Wright a chance to have some on-screen therapy, while the rest of us contort in pain at his useless prescence and his determination to show just how ignorant he really is.
It seems that being an ex-player is certainly no guarantee that you can speak knowledgeably about a football match. You can empathise with the men on the pitch a little bit, but unless you keep abrest of current events in the football world you just end up looking like a prat. Last year when Greece won Euro 2004 it was considered a shock, partially because they were outsiders, but also because none of the pundits knew who the damn players were. Jeez, you get paid to watch sport and talk about it, at least learn about the teams taking part. Otherwise there is no point broadcasting a half-hour of tacked-on "analysis" that someone's mum could have written. The worst offender was of course Ian Wright, who simply referred to them as "him", "that guy", "the number 9" and all kinds of other cretinous labels. There are many small countries that football fans don't learn about in school, and here the men on TV surely need to know more, not less about them. The viewer is looking to be informed in these moments, and Ian Wright can't cut it.
As for being a character, well, he has quite a range. Insufferably patriotic windbag, ignorant xenophobe, spoilt brat, tactless loudmouth chewing on sock. He's truly like a one-man Shakespere production. When England win you have to put up with his triumphalist gloating, when they lose he whines so much that someone in the same studio surely feels compelled to go up to the referee and say: "go on, give England five more goals, if not for me, then for Ian's sake." Whatever character he chooses, he never ceases to not be entertaining.

As if to stake his own claim for a role as TV pundit, David Beckham also made an ass out of himself in the post-match interview, another silly ritual that needs to be stopped, since it demonstrates what I said above: playing the game does not guarantee you will have anything smart to say about it. Beckham was asked a number of questions in a three minute interview, but somehow the answers all came back to one theme:

"...tonight has been a bit of an embarrasement for the lads but, um, you know, we stick together, this is what this team is all about, we've always done that, even when we've been criticised we stick together."

"..you know, as I've said, we stick together"

"...together now as a team we stick together, we're gonna get the criticism of course, each player will, but at the end of the day, you know, we stick together"

"...everyone is disappointed, but you know what, we stick together"

hmm, maybe if the team wasn't so stuck together they might not have lost so sluggishly. There is a lot of debate among the current crop of football analysts, scientists, psychologists, whatever the hell they think they are, about what Beckham's "position" in the team should be. Well, I'm no expert, and perhaps tactics have yet to evolve this far, but I recommend him being in a headlock for ninety minutes while being kicked in the balls by fans who are smart enough to realise that they don't get good value for money at football matches these days. That would be entertaining.

TV Idiots

2005-09-05T19:28:00.000+01:00

It's painfully annoying that I am reminded constantly of the number of ignorant people that I come across everyday. Whether it's in real life, TV or the internet. The past few days has seen my new home devoid of any entertainment; no TV, no internet, nothing but the awkward silence that fills the living room when a conversation runs dry amongst my new housemates and I. But suddenly a God-sent 38" is delivered unto our living room (courtesy of the Landlord) to my delight. Hitting the "On" button sends a stream of television crap radiating at me whilst I bask in its glow.

[On an environmental programme, the host shows a woman (whom we shall call dumbass #1) how much trash her household churns out every week.]

Presenter: "So where do you think all this rubbish goes?"
TV dumbass #1: "*stares at heap of garbage* Oh wow, I don't know. I always thought they were shipped off to other countries, or buried under cement or something."

Yes of course, why not. We are so bloody rich why not ship off our problems to some third-world country that's willing to wipe our asses for us. Dumbass #2 exercises his talent at stating the obvious and needs almost no introduction at all.

[On hurricane Katrina...]
TV dumbass #2: "Obviously there are a lot of people dead... People need to stop buying gasoline when they don't need to... (more advice ramblings)"

Maybe I missed out on some of that speech when I flipped to that channel. Maybe it was poor editing by the somewhat biased BBC News. There is nothing really wrong with those words...if it were from a regular civilian.

Maybe I should just switch the damn TV off and bask in the glory of a 38" dark, empty screen.

UPDATE: I had to see this with my own eyes to believe. The BBC (or ITV) is airing their latest reality tv trash "No Sex Please, I'm a Teenager". Put a bunch of British teens together and they can't even keep their legs closed for one bloody second, which is enough to warrant the tv networks an excuse to make a tv show out of. I wonder what the prize is at the end of the show. Pack of condoms?

The Gullibility Test (It beats horoscopes anyway)

2005-08-24T21:45:00.000+01:00

No... I'm not going to ask you "did you know that the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary?" This 'Gullibility Test' is a product of NewsTarget.com, that appears to be a website of a collection of facts and knowledge regarding modern day "myths" associated with health, medicine and technology. I use the term "myth" loosely here because what is considered a myth usually depends on how much you can be bothered to dig up the truth. Some questions are a bit American-oriented for a foreigner, but still should give a pretty good guess at where you stand as a citizen of humanity.

I was pretty impressed with the test results. Maybe it was because it wasn't telling me how I was going to have a bad day, or warn me of future dangers, and other vague/warped/ambiguous advice that applies to almost everybody else like my daily horoscope might say. But I think it's mostly because I thought it described me better than any horoscope could do. Well why wouldn't it? Do you really need a bunch of stars and planets to determine how you will be fucking up tomorrow?

Learner
As a Learner, you're smart enough to know better, yet you're still not fully informed about reality. Around 15% of the population are Learners. You have the critical thinking skills to be a truly free individual, but you haven't exercised them enough yet. From time to time, you're still manipulated by the powers that be, although you frequently learn from those mistakes and refuse to be exploited again. You buy things because they are practical, not because they're cool.
If you were in The Matrix, you would have taken the red pill, but you would still be in a state of mild disbelief about the nature of reality. You are essentially unplugged, but still untrained. With more knowledge, you could become a true free thinker.
Your architects: You have always been an independent thinker. You rebelled against your parents, schoolteachers and always chose to hang out with smart friends who weren't necessarily that popular to the "in" crowd. Increasingly, you shape your own world by deciding what actions to take based on your own internal drive rather than what society tells you is right.
Action steps: Learn more. Educate yourself through alternative media and cutting-edge books. Read the answers below to get started.

I don't think there's a single sentence in there I can disagree with. Except maybe the part about rebelling. I was more of a passive rebel who never really respected authority of teachers, mostly because they never respected their students either. I am pretty curious and maybe slightly disturbed albeit not surprised as to why 15% of the population scores around 70 on the scale. If the distribution of people's scores took the form of a gaussian curve, then I truly fear that the average score of the population lies much lower. Hopefully, the part about not hanging out with the "popular kids" will also be helpful in pointing out that I am not really antisocial by nature. I am simply just surrounded by idiots most of the time.

It's well worth reading the answers to the questions after taking the test. There are some pretty interesting topics there but I won't discuss them so as to not ruin the test for you should you choose to take it.

TAKE THE GULLIBILITY TEST.

Why the soundtrack of the war in Iraq is rap.

Discovered at Knight Shift (the same guy who introduced me to Vox Day)

Why I couldn't bear to see every last idiot disappear

2005-08-24T11:25:00.000+01:00

It doesn't take much creativity to piss people off if you are a nutcase, you just say what you think. It's easy. People who express their opinions frankly are often held in high esteem for "speaking their mind", in other words, not hiding their true feelings behind deceit. Of course, to others they can be seen as tactless, narrow minded or having a head full of rocks. There is an obvious distinction between being brave and too stupid to know the consequences when you speak your mind. And of course, if you are a warped bigot with a twisted interpretation of your own religion, what's on your mind is going to be something very very stupid. So thankyou Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and the man who thinks God put George Bush in the Whitehouse, for speaking your mind. On his evangelical TV show this week, Robertson declared that the US administration should assasinate the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. While the methods may be a bit direct for many Republicans, I'm sure the sentiment is widely shared.

Now, in the twentieth century various US [and occasional British] governments have done their utmost to nip any Latin American democratic or social reform in the bud, with a multitude of interventions aiming to keep the various regimes within the sphere of influence first outlined in The Monroe Doctrine. Chavez is the latest example of a leader seeking economic independence, and since being elected in 1998 he has been subjected to propaganda campaigns, attempted coups and intimidation. The Bush administration positioned a warship in nearby waters, backed anti-government riots and demos and poured scorn on the result of a globally approved referendum held last year which kept Chavez in power. Chavez himself has said repeatedly that he fears assasination, which could be hysterical or could just be in keeping with the historical record. Meanwhile so-called "experts" lined up in the US media, among other things accusing him of supporting terrorism and seeking nuclear weapons [one of the commentators in question listed among his credentials: having a Venezuelan wife. Well, such a qualification clearly puts him at the front of the queue for pointing out what's what in Venezuela. The logic is flawless, especially if one believes that Prince Charles is an expert on racehorses].

The point of these ravings is that although Bush's cronies probably wont send Chavez some exploding cigars, his democratic regime is under pressure, and the pretexts given for undermining it are weak. US policy really hasn't changed since September 11, new justifications have merely emerged for their attempts to safeguard their position at the top of the pile. While Robertson was given a light slap on the wrists for his outburst [a hard slap around the face wouldn't go amiss] it is still worrying to think what will happen in Venezuela [not to mention Iran, Syria, Uzbekistan, now that the US has no military base there, and Nicaragua, should Daniel Ortega reemerge]. Assasination has been ruled out by various officials [no guarantee of course, but lets have fun and take them at their word] but that doesn't preclude a return to past tactics.

Due to my firm belief in free speech, and my vindictive need to pour piss on even the easiest of targets, I feel compelled to revisit one more past episode of the lunatic expressing himself. Anyone who has seen The Power of Nightmares will have seen Robertson come out with this little gem. If only I knew the context:

"I don't like Jesus Christ, who is my Lord and Savior, being dumped in a vat of urine by a homosexual, and then have my money to pay for it."

Ah, free speech. Robertson can use it to demand someone's death, I can use it to state that a gay three-legged monkey with a crack problem is probably closer to God than Pat Robertson.