Woof!

Luv a duck

You 'ave to arf.

That the Devil's Kitchen, not a blog I have any time for, chooses to accuse someone else of bad taste is a given. It's what he does. That he expresses it so badly is also something which is in keeping with his blog. The truly wonderful, magnificent shiny bits of his post which you would love to hang up on your Christmas tree are the baublesque gaps of logic:

"The real point is: this report is not the Labour Party's to auction. The report was paid for out of our cash: it belongs to the taxpayer. Yes, the report costs £70 from the HMSO; what I want to know is: has the Labour Party has paid £70 to the taxpayer for every report that it has auctioned?"

Er...how so? You can download it here for nowt. If anyone were stupid enough to pay cash for it, I see no reason why they shouldn't auction it.

"If it has not, it is stealing money from the taxpayers of this country; it is theft. It is also illegal to sell items that you do not own. So, has that money been paid to the HMSO? If not, why not? And if it has not, will those auctioning these reports be arrested and prosecuted for selling stolen goods?"

Now you've lost me entirely. The rationale seems to be that if it cost nothing then it's theft. So if a copy had been distributed to those who gave evidence and were referred to in the report, as is normally the case, then they have stolen the report? Eh? The blogger in question, whilst normally nonsensical and dumb beyond the reasonable and every present bounds of dumbness really does himself proud here by defying logic and common sense.

The Devil's Kitchen really is a dumb blog and I'd only recommend a visit if you either (a) need a boost of moral lifting "I really can do better than that" or (b) are being held captive in Iraq and only have access to the one web page, and you've exhausted the possibilities of self-harming with the shard of glass left by your captors, and even then I'd think twice if I were you.

Rise of the Unions

Pay down your debt, batten down the hatches and prepare for rocky times ahead.

The Unions are trying to reassert their authority in advance of Brown becoming PM.

"Amicus leader Derek Simpson - seen as a Brown supporter - said the chancellor lacked Tony Blair's charismatic ability to sell Mr Blair's "crap" policies.

He said a complete change of direction was needed to save Labour from defeat."

It's not a case of saving Labour. It's saving the country from Brown and those with fruitcake qualities like Mr Simpson.

Loser III

Is that the sunset I can see just behind your career Thierry? Oh and the door please, if you would, on your way out.

Loser II

As they used to say on It Ain't Half Hot Mum, "Oh dear. What a shame. Never mind". Ha!

Cooked up

You've got to hand it to the nutters out there. They're a fine breed and without them wonderful publications like the National Enquirer and the Daily Express just wouldn't exist.

Here's a good example. Seemingly Robin Cook's death wasn't all it seemed. If indeed to most of us it 'seemed' anything at all. Heavy drinker and smoker dies of heart attack whilst hauling his sorry ass up a big hill, isn't particularly noteworthy.

But when you wrap it in a thick slice of conspiracy, pepper with big names and garnish with copious references to the security services, all too quickly it becomes a Dan Brownian feast.

H/T Iain Dale's blog

Second Homes Ban

Sometimes the utter stupidity of it takes your breath away.

Second homes could face even tighter restrictions in 'picturesque' areas of the world. In other words in areas where the 'in-comers' have already splashed the cash, the taps are to be turned off, and the locals can put up their "Local shop for local people" signs.

It's nuts. It's envy. It's going to make the problem worse not better. If however you want to turn your back on the world and marry your sister it's boom time.

Loser

Steve McClaren. A man so good at his job they made him manager of England. A man so good he commands a salary of £2.5m a year.

A is for...

Women and Minorities first says the Indie of Opus Dave's ((c) RecessMonkey) new 'A' list. It's a list intended to move the Tories away from being viewed as the party of the rich and privileged. So which one is multi-millionaire Eton educated dumb as a post Zac Goldsmith?

But just in case you thought they were dumbing down, along comes Adam Ricketts, who performs the astonishing trick of making poor old Zac look smart. Heaven help the poor hapless constituency who chooses the candidate so good they named a disease after him.

Pizza the action

Cowardly Prodi is likely to order that Italian troops engage reverse and hit the accelerator hard, as Italian troops are withdrawn from Iraq.

Bad news for this pizza maker.

Rachel from North London

Rachel from North London writes about her experiences after the 7/7 explosions. Some of it is interesting, a lot of it is complaining about how the Government hasn't done enough to help her. Those of us who were affected by IRA bombings in London (I think in paricular of St Mary Axe) didn't get any help. But we also didn't bang on endlessly about it, demanding that everything was sorted out for us.

One thing we certainly didn't do, in our position as a sacred cow of the weeping left was to move into politics and start whinging about how other people could do their job better. Sure, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but these are opinions concealed within a Trojan horse of other values and views. If it was a pre-conceived method to push an agenda it would be clever, as it is it is merely opportunistic. And crass opportunism at that.

One might even call it lazy and deceitful.

ODPM

...and what about that secretary in Tory Central Office?

Bored with Blaine

And so it continues

"Magician David Blaine has announced plans to spend seven days submerged in a water-filled container in New York.

The illusionist, who spent 44 days in a glass box for a starvation stunt in London in 2003, will use lines giving nutrition and air to stay alive"

The truly magical thing about these events is how on earth does he make money? Who is it who is interested enough to part with cold hard cash to view this talentless tw*t.

Comment is Free Saves the World

In the opinion of Will Hutton Comment is Free is the reason blogging will now assume a greater importance:

"British political internet and blogging are years behind America's. Even now, according to the British Market Research Bureau, 30 per cent of internet users have never heard of a blog. British culture is less instinctively democratic and empowering of individual voices and far more ready to mock the self-appointedly serious than, say, American society.

But with the launch of the Guardian's blogging website ('comment is free'), it may be that we have reached a tipping point. I googled Euston.Manifesto and it posted more than 200,000 results. It is beginning to attract attention not just in Britain, but in the USA, and for a good reason. Although wrong in disabling ways and philosophically illogical, it redeems itself with one golden thread in its thinking: democracy is a universal principle that must be upheld."

I rather suspect that the reason an awful lot of people have heard of Comment is Free is because of the blogs, rather than a lot of people hearing about blogs because of Comment is Free. Hey ho.

Monkey Business

Dear Recess Monkey

White text on a black background isn't good. It looks messy and is a complete pain to read.

That is all.

Yours ever

Woof!

Pot calling Kettle

Martin Kettle has an interesting article about the Euston Manifesto in the Guardian.

"It is also time that both sides looked the question of the United States more fully in the eye. America is not the problem; on that the manifesto is right. But the Bush administration unquestionably is. The pro-war school, both among the authors and in the British government, never properly acknowledges the historic rupture represented by Bush. But it would not have been like this if Al Gore had won in 2000."

Bizarre. Is Al Gore really the messiah, and the American people chose to spurn him? Unlikely, he was a less than effective politician who didn't command a majority in the US and was rightly rejected.

The Bush administration represents a very important departure in US politics. It will be seen as the point at which the US actually began to play a role in the world. Legions of administrations had previously peeked at the wider world from behind net curtains, only coming out after the neighbours had spent time hammering on the door demanding that they come out and help sort out the rowdies from down the road.

The world needs a strong US. There are problems that we've allowed to develop for decades and which we've only just started to address. Hiding within our own borders isn't enough any more. It's time for dictators and rogue states to be afraid, very afraid.

Wheelin' n Dealin'

Where's Charlie Wheelan these days?

No2junkmail No2id

An interesting email reaches me:

"Dear webmaster

As a political web Blog I thought you may well be interested in the eBay auction

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9509747282&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:UK:31

It is designed to highlight the consequences of ID cards and help promote the pressure group NO2ID www.no2id.net. The idea is to encourage people to watch the auction and as a result for it to appear on eBay pulse to in the hope to generate additional publicity for NO2ID.

Many thanks

Michael Cole

--
Stop The Database State

http://www.no2id.net"

Having never even been to or subscribed to the no2id website, I can only presume that this email, correctly identified by my software as junk mail, was compiled by way of a...errr, database.

Oh dear.

Wanted: third rate useless manager

This is, so it seems the short list for the job of manager of the English football team:

"Middlesbrough boss Steve McClaren, Bolton's Sam Allardyce, Charlton's Alan Curbishley and former Celtic manager Martin O'Neill"

What a sorry shower of shite. And get this:

"McClaren remains the bookmakers' favourite following Boro's run to the semi-finals of both the FA and Uefa Cups."

Remind me again where 'Boro are in the league?

Brown's political debt

If Gordon Brown ever actually makes it to Number 10, he's going to owe an awful lot of favours to an awful lot of people.

Clash of Civilisations

I am hugely ignorant about an awful lot of things.

I had not, until today for example been aware of the Hidden Imam. Obviously because he's 'hidden'. Well now I know.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparantly is on good terms with the Hidden Imam according to this article in the Sunday Telegraph. He has had khalvats (kinda audiences) with this 'Where's Waldo?' character.

Let's be honest here. If you were the sort of person who got a little bit worried at the mere possibility of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the UK praying occasionally, you should be crapping yourself really very worried indeed about Mr Ahmadinejad's antics.

"Last year, it was after another khalvat that Ahmadinejad announced his intention to stand for president. Now, he boasts that the Imam gave him the presidency for a single task: provoking a "clash of civilisations" in which the Muslim world, led by Iran, takes on the "infidel" West, led by the United States, and defeats it in a slow but prolonged contest that, in military jargon, sounds like a low intensity, asymmetrical war.

In Ahmadinejad's analysis, the rising Islamic "superpower" has decisive advantages over the infidel. Islam has four times as many young men of fighting age as the West, with its ageing populations. Hundreds of millions of Muslim "ghazis" (holy raiders) are keen to become martyrs while the infidel youths, loving life and fearing death, hate to fight. Islam also has four-fifths of the world's oil reserves, and so controls the lifeblood of the infidel. More importantly, the US, the only infidel power still capable of fighting, is hated by most other nations."

Guess what. The Clash of Civilisations is coming soon to a pavement near you. And guess something else. It would be coming whether we'd invaded Iraq or not. Interventionism isn't an option, it's a duty.

Campbell biography

Word reaches us of a possible new biography of Sir Menzies Campbell, to be written by the recently former editor of a mainstream Scottish newspaper.

Given the identity of the editor it's hard to imagine any horrors emerging, but you never know. And if you do know, and would like to tell, please email me.

International Trade an Unparalleled Evil

No, really.

The Open University and the New Economics Foundation say so in the UK Interdependence Report. A report issued on one of the slowest news days in the year and therefore guaranteed easy lazy headlines (and posts like this one).

It seems isolationism is the new black. Developing countries can just sod off and stop bothering us with their enticing offerings. 'Cos we're suffering an ecological debt and goddamit you're the ones that are going to suffer whilst we pay it off.

"We imported 465 tonnes of gingerbread and exported almost the same volume, 460 tonnes
We sent 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes to Germany, and brought in 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes back from the same place
We imported 44,000 tonnes of frozen boneless chicken cuts and exported 51, 000 tonnes of fresh boneless chicken
We sent 10,200 tonnes of milk and cream to France, and imported 9,900 tonnes from France
We imported 391,432 tonnes of chocolate and exported 170,652 tonnes"

Here's some imported gingerbread and jolly nice it looks too. It's also from the EU - a trading area which is supposed to guarantee free movement of goods and services.

I would be very interested to see the NEF present their findings to the Fairtrade brigade. They talk of sharing knowledge, but what use is knowledge to a developing nation unless it's backed up by trade between countries?.

Free trade isn't a perfect system but it's hard to see how isolationism would improve matters.

We're all Muslims now

Sainsbury's is to require certain 'Lad's Mags' to be sold from behind modesty covers.

"Nectar card Mrs Smith? You have enough points for a new burkha - shall I fetch it for you?"

Colour blind

Ooh, we've gone all redtop. There is no political significance, just trying something different.

Iran - a lovely, cuddly friendly place and all you nasty war mongers should leave it alone 'cos it means us all no harm

Mmm.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who sparked outrage in the US, Europe and Israel last year by calling for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth, created more alarm yesterday. He told a conference in Tehran in support of the Palestinians: "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

Billions to die like chickens

...or summit like that.

Anyway, in between digging plague pits outside primary schools it seems The Royal Highland Show has banned all poultry and "live birds" 'cos of the impending pandemic.

Two things really:

(a) it's probably not the live birds we've got to worry about;

(b) unless of course they're as big as the ones in the BBC picture - trampled to death by a chicken isn't really the way I plan to go.

ePolitix.com

I think ePolitix.com may need some subs:

"In a strongly worded attack, the Liberal Democrat leader questioned whether the Conservatives, and David Cameron, had rally changed in the space of less than a year.

Asked by ePolitix.com how the Liberal Democrats could distinguish themselves from Cameron's party, Sir Menzies said: "As an occasional Presbyterian I know that 'by thee works thou shall no them' is true."

He's alive!

It truly is a miraculous time of year. It seems Sir Ming is still with us.

I had feared the worst after the recent cold snaps, but no longer.

Pope goes mad

He's off his trolley.

Geneticists bad. Fatal diseases good. Is about the only conclusion you can draw from the loopy pontiff:

The Pope will deliver a blistering attack on the “satanic” mores of modern society today, warning against an “inane apologia of evil” that is in danger of destroying humanity.
In a series of Good Friday meditations that he will lead in Rome, the Pope will say that society is in the grip of a kind of “anti-Genesis” described as “a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family”. He will pray for society to be cleansed of the “filth” that surrounds it and be restored to purity, freed from “decadent narcissism”.

Euston?

As a blood thirsty war monger myself, I applaud the Euston Manifesto.

But what is it with the left? Does everything have to be so dreary? I mean, Euston for god's sake. Could it not be a little more aspirational and inspiring?

Euston is a dull, drab, dreary place. A place I associate with overpriced coffee, missed trains, and a road which is invariably denched in rain and cyclists, most often viewed from a taxi window trying to get the hell out of the place.

Come on Norm - next time, make it Acapulco, Taihiti, Primrose Hill. Something a little more aesthetically pleasing and more suitable to us middle class types who take 4 or 5 foreign holidays a year, buy our Bordeaux en-primeur and feel we're doing good if we buy an oak tree to offset the carbon footprint caused by those Virgin Upper Class seats to New York.