Pussy Riot

[Syrian] Conflict Intensifies As Blah Blah Blah, Etc. Etc.

From The Onion, 26 April 2007 [as updated]:

MIDDLE EAST — With the [Syrian civl] war in its [twelfth month] and conflict between Israel and the rest of the region continuing unabated for more than half a century, intelligence sources are warning that a new wave of violence in the Middle East may soon blah blah blah, etc. etc., you know the rest.

"Tensions in the region are extremely high," said US Ambassador to [Syria] Ryan Crocker, who added the same old same old while answering reporters' questions. "We're disappointed by the events of the last few months, but we're confident that we're about to [yakety yakety yak]."

The UN has issued a strongly worded whatever denouncing someone or something presumably having to do with the vicious explosive things that raged across this, or shattered the predawn calm of that, or ripped suddenly through the other, killing umpteen innocent civilians in a Jerusalem bus or Beirut discotheque or Fallujah mosque or whatever it was this time.

In the aftermath of a whole series of incidents, there have also been troubling reports of just fill in the blanks. Middle East experts say the still somehow worsening situation has inflamed age-old sectarian tensions between the Sunnis, Shiites, Semites, Kurds, Turks, Saudis, Persians, Wahhabis, radicals, extremists, Baathists, mullahs, clerics, et al, which is likely to lead to more gurgle-gurgle over the coming weeks and months.

The Caring, Understanding New Tories

In a recent post, I quoted this from the BBC to show that we are now truly in the post-ironic age:

David Cameron has said that a Conservative government would train a 5,000-strong "neighbourhood army" to set up community groups. The Tory leader said in a speech this offered a "positive alternative to Labour's big government" approach. "Our aim is for every adult citizen to be an active member of an active neighbourhood group," he said...

Fair enough, you might think, it's only 5,000. What's 5,000 extra taxpayer funded jobs on top of eight million? Hardly an army, is it, against a population of over sixty million?

No, not fair enough. Those are just the 'officers'. Via Obnoxio (from whom I pinched the title for this post), we find that the Tories are, in all seriousness, planning a compulsory-voluntary National Citizen Service for all 16 year olds to provide the 'foot soldiers'.

The first idea was completely insane, and I'm not sure what word to use to describe something that is twice as completely insane as that.

Reader's letter of the day

From The Metro:

Ed Balls' scheme to make parents sign contracts ensuring their children behave in school (Metro, Thu) is both patronising and totalitarian.

Has it occurred to him that not everybody shares his views on bringing up children? That they don't believe in making them go to bed early, wearing uniforms and complying with petty rules or homework?

My view on bringing up children is: no bullying, no cruelty to animals. Otherwise, you don't bug me, I won't bug you.

Mark Taha, London SE26.

What can possibly go wrong? (2)

Obnoxio assesses the impact of The EU Council Decision of 20 January 2009 on the establishment of the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS) in application of Article 11 of Framework Decision 2008/…/JHA*

* I hope this isn't a spoof or something.

Dave don't got no clue (8)

Our Dave was busily airing his general uselessness on The Andrew Marr Show* again this morning:

You can pick and choose a few vaguely promising bits, e.g.

Look, I believe in cutting people's taxes. It's one of the reasons I'm in politics, is to leave people with more of their own money to spend as they choose.. I have an alternative. I mean I think that's what's interesting about politics now: you've got two parties with a very different vision... we have a different approach, which is to say the government has got to tighten its own belt...

Hurray. but here are some of the bits I edited out of that highly selective quote:

My alternative is that the VAT cut was a big mistake - twelve and a half billion pounds really wasted. This week, the Head of Marks and Spencer's, the Head of Next, the former Trade Minister Digby Jones all saying this was a waste.

D'oh! Retailers are falling like nine pins, I am sure that some of that £12.5 billion will make the difference between survival and administration for some; the ones that would have been profitable anyway are now a tad more profitable (and so pay more in corporation tax); for the ones who were going to fail anyway, it's not really a tax cut at all, because once they are in administration, HMRC are nowadays just an unsecured creditor like everybody else and don't get the full amount of what they were hoping for anyway.

And of course do not overlook that it is the entire services sector that has benefitted from the VAT cut - be that car mechanics, solicitors or cinemas.

... government spending should go up, but it should go up by less than Labour plan, and we'd use that money to help savers. There are 18 million people in this country who get some income from saving... This year, the Government's going to spend £620 billion. Next year, they plan to spend £650 billion - an increase of 30. What we're saying is don't cut the total. Increase it, but not by 30 billion but by 25 billion. I think it's perfectly acceptable to say that's an increase, but we're going to trim the increase and use that 5 billion, 4 billion of it to cut the taxes on savings and the rest of it we'll spend in another way.

Dude, WTF?

His alternative vision is one where the government 'only' spunks £645 billion up the wall and not £650 billion? And use that to buy the votes off savers, who would benefit, by his maths by about £200 each? If you can buy votes for £200 each, you'd only have to cut government spending by about £10 billion to get everybody to vote for you.

* Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

Another day, another desperate throw of the dice (17)

Here's another instalment in my occasional series on how the government is doing its best to make sure that the priced out generation stay priced out, with the added bonus that this scheme would also increase taxpayer indebtedness as well as enlarging the power of The State ...

Prime Minister Gordon Brown should buy homes on the verge of repossession to add money to the British economy and save families from being thrown out onto the street, two former Bank of England economists said.

The plan would cost about 50 billion pounds ($76 billion) over five years, Fathom Financial Consulting economists Shamik Dhar and Danny Gabay said in a report today. The program would also provide a new economic policy tool as the central bank’s interest rate approaches zero...

The government should step in and "set a floor" under house prices, protecting taxpayers by paying below-market prices for houses and distressed homeowners by paying more than "vulture purchasers," Fathom said "The average discount will probably be in the region of 10 percent to 20 percent below what asking prices are in the locality for similar properties"...

Dave illustrates Nigel Farage's point

On yesterday's QT, UKIP leader Nigel Farage managed to get a word in edgeways, and pointed out that the three large parties were more or less indistinguishable*.

Dave The Chameleon gives us a good example. Per The Metro:

On GMTV this morning, Tory leader David Cameron said: "The interest rate should** be passed on. If they do not, further action may be necessary."

How is this any different in any way shape or form different from the crap that The Goblin King or The Badger have been spewing recently? "Further action", what's that, exactly? Aren't the Tories supposed to be just a leedle bit more small-government free-market liberal than Nulab? Ah well ... just a thought.

* Let's not forget that even in an authoritarian regime, the dominant political party can come in several disguises. In East Germany, the dominant party was the SED (formed by merging KPD and SPD) but this was in permanent coalition with the National Democratic Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the Democratic Peasant's Party and the Christian Democratic Union.

** Should.

"Brown 'confident' of EU vote win"

They have changed the heading of the article to which I linked earlier and inserted a new opening paragraph.

In other news: Great Leader confident that tractor production will increase 100% next year.

UPDATE 19:30: GREAT NEWS COMRADES! TRACTOR PRODUCTION UP 200%! NICK CLEGG STILL LYING TWAT!

Quangocracy - am I mad or are they?

My "pointless, meddling, expensive and generally sickening quango of the day" award goes to ... The National Obesity Forum. If you have time, try clicking around the site to disover list after list of other quangoes with whom they "work in partnership".

Bastards.

Sleepwalking to totalitarianism

More body fascism and power grabbing from HM Government:

'Individuals can no longer be held responsible for obesity so government must act to stop Britain "sleepwalking" into a crisis, a report has concluded.'

If people are 'too' fat or 'too' thin, I think that is very much their business and within their control, you power-crazed f***wits. So don't try turning this into an excuse for "daily, regimented exercise" and inventing new taxes on tasty snacks.

1984 (4) Photoshop

Brilliant.

There was a story on BBC News 24 just now, James Purnell MP* failed to show up for a photo-opp at a hospital, so Nulab just photoshopped him into a right-hand side of a picture of the actual event. And they did it really badly, they showed the picture on the news**, he stuck out like a sore thumb, the lighting was all wrong, a kid with scissors and sticky tape could have done better.

* He got a first in PPE at Oxford, a bit like Dave, another complete waste of space.

** I have pinched this cut-out from Iain Dale, the full picture shows about five people. Thanks to RM.

1984 (3): Junior Spies

"All [the children's] ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed by in which The Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak - 'child hero' was the phrase generally used - had overheard some compromsing remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police."*

So what, you may be thinking.

Until The Lad came home from school today with a sheet labelled "Food Diary"** in which he had to record what he had eaten for "Breakfast, Snack, Dinner, Snack, Tea and Snack" today. Given that only the daftest parents would enter "Burger, leftover chips, burger and chips, crisps, chips, crisps" or be so brave as to cross out "Dinner, Tea, Snack" and replace them with "Lunch, Dinner, Dessert", what is this really suppose to achieve?

Except to enable The State to single out the daftest parent for a visit from the Thought Police, or "Social Services" or "Health Visitors" or whatever they are called nowadays?
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Update 20.07: The Lad confirmed this evening that the survey had something to do with the whole "five a day fruit and vegetable" concept, apparently some kids got stars on their chart. Right then, next time we shall include a few more apples and oranges under "snack". Bastards.
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* From '1984' by George Orwell.

** c. 2001 Language Centre Publications Ltd.

1984 (2): Rewriting history

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future", summarised Winston Smith in the book '1984'.

Trevor 'Coconut'* Phillips seems to have taken this to heart and now wants British history to be rewritten to make it more 'inclusive'.**

* This is not a term of racial abuse. It means an outwardly black person who has totally sold out.

** See also James Delingpole on the subject of Mary Seacole in 'How to be right', a book I am not ashamed to recommend.