Stupefied

I have checked out of the whole blogging business for the past couple of weeks as there are only so many ways of phrasing the utter transferability of all of the main candidates in this election.  When your average non-politics geek says dismissively that they’re ‘all the same’ they’re pretty much right.  At least you used to be able to choose between the ‘socialist lot’, the ‘capitalist-ish lot’ and the ‘woolly lot in the background, somewhere’.  These days you have the career politicians representing the three sides of a metaphysical three-sided social democratic coin, each distinguishable solely by the colour of their tie.  And I have to admit that I have recently switched right off to the point of not being able to write about anything else either.   

There were so many elephants in the room in the leader debates I could’ve sworn one of them was asking questions. The biggest and smelliest pachyderm was that of the scale and nature of the inevitable public spending cuts we are destined to endure.  That they are to happen is not argued by anyone; but no party has come even close to disclosing how they are going to find the cash to plug the self-collapsing vortex in the public ledger.  In fact the first question of the final debate was on just that very point, and the answers were a hypocritical mindboggle. All three were eager to criticise each others’ figures and emphasise the resulting strife of said cuts on the lives of ‘hard-working families’, all the while cooperating with each other in not discussing the sheer scale of the problem they (and therefore we) are facing.  To do so would have shown the economic policies within their respective manifestos to be the fictions that they are: all due to be torn up within a week of the election, when presumably the structural deficit of 160-odd billion will suddenly become apparent and a sight more pressing.

Ah well, only a few more days to go before we get back to mostly-lies rather than total-lies.

 

On a LPUK party note, I’m off to Sutton and Cheam on Thursday as one of Martin Cullip’s designated ‘observers’: where I get to see the majesty of democracy up close – which ought to be good.  At least I get to spend the occasion with a decent candidate, even if I can’t find one to vote for.

Buzz

Due to the fact that work is busy, busy, busy -and also because I am constantly distracted by shiny objects and interesting looking bits of string- blogging is stalled a tad.

So here’s renowned conspiracy-theorist tosspot Bart Sibrel harassing Buzz Aldrin a few years ago about the moon landing (or the lack thereof, in his fuckwitted opinion) and getting banjoed for his trouble:

And lets get another angle:

Glorious.

Normal blogging will resume as soon as I get my head together.

Brief Debrief

I’m off to the northeast today because apparently we have ‘friends’ or some such that need visiting. Harrumph. Mrs Slug needs to do work stuff en route so I am sporting the ‘ubiquitous tit with the netbook in an equally ubiquitous coffee shop franchise’ look today while I wait. 

So, a bit of drive-by blogging is in order.
I watched the first half hour of the ‘Historic’ leader’s debate before switching over to something less depressing, periodically flicking back over when I felt my sprits were being raised too much by imported yank TV drama and Charlie Brooker.  I have been back over the bits I missed, but it didn’t seem to get much better. I’m definitely not sure what Toenails was watching, but Obo has remarked on that already.

For my money, Stuart Sharpe has the whole thing nailed. 
But I shall comment before the staff at Costa kick me out:

Gordon – looked uncomfortable in his own skin and, rather than coming across like an active debate participant, sounded more like he was reading from an old PMQ script that someone had stolen the front page from.  Also, I have to say that watching how disgustingly pleased he was with himself after regurgitating his tired and incredibly rehearsed one-line quips quite turned my stomach.  So no change in my estimation then.

iDave – On for a hiding no matter what and the one with the most to lose, but the endless “I’m in touch with the common man” anecdotes became tiresome very quickly and came across as so artificial it was cringeworthy.  Mediocre but not as bad as it could have gone.

The other chap, you know, Whatsisname – Yeah he did OK, but in this company he would’ve won by staying silent.  Fair play though, he came across as a contender and was far more savvy in his engagement with the audience.  Everyone there wanted to be his friend, which was nice.

All in all, if this and the fictional manifestos are as good as this election season is going to get, I’m going to seek distraction elsewhere until after the main event, I think.  I’ve plenty of draft post ideas to catch up on anyway and there’s plenty of LPUK-related discussions to have.

Bloggers Bash

To save me having to organise another get together (and have that turn into a fight club as well), and because the timing is fortuitous, I’m going to be popping over to the ASI at the end of the month for this:

Bloggers' Bash 2010

Title: A plague on all their houses?
Speakers:

Paul Staines of Guido Fawkes' blog
Tim Worstall of It is all obvious or trivial except…
Perry de Havilland of samizdata.net

Date: 29th April 2010
Title: 6.30pm to 8.30pm
Location: 23 Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3BL
RSVP: events@adamsmith.org

They say to pass it around to all ‘friendly’ bloggers who may be interested. So do so.
And yes, I am even less coherent in real life.

H/T to Dave Chiverton for the reminder.

The Ringleader on TDP

Just watched the boss on The Daily Politics.

I suppose it had the potential to go one of two ways:

1. They could’ve taken the opportunity to gain new insight into the views and perspectives of those from the fringe of the political sphere, seeing as they are unfettered by the homogeny of the mainstream parties and may have something new and interesting to contribute - which I was labouring under the illusion was the entire point of the segment.

   or

2. They could harangue the living fuck out of the representative regarding the content of his personal blog, and berate a small political party for being, you know, small. Oh and they could choose not to discuss the party or it’s policies at all.

I suppose you cannot write as freely as Chris does without expecting it to come back at him later in some form – especially in the political world.  But as it stands that was a pointless farce of an interview, completely devoid of any objectivity whatsoever. 
What is the point of dragging small parties in if Brillo is just going to shout over them for two minutes?  Heaven forbid he be distracted from talking to the ‘real’ politicians for a fleeting moment; I find identical party-line non-answers really engaging.

All in all, it could’ve gone better. 

Libertarians for Drink Driving…apparently

An anonymous commenter over at B&D’s gaff on an excellent post on welfarism, made these statements with regard to that post and DK’s recent TV appearance (whose post on the matter, with associated stats dissection, is here) :

It appears you people also support drink driving, as though kids in the back of a car making noise is in some way comparable to downing 10 pints and then taking the family for a drive. Odd.

I'm pretty sure no-one compared downing 10 pints with having child passengers in the car. What they (update: by ‘they’ I mean Bella) did say is that -like drinking- having unruly, distracting children in the car can inhibit your ability to drive safely. Both are subjective, of course: Drinking affects you based on factors like quantity of alcohol drunk, build, gender and metabolism; and kids affect you by their number, how noisy they are, your ability to control them, tartrazine ingested, voltage-rating of your cattleprod etc. 
The point is, only one of these activities is criminalised, and it is done so in an arbitrary fashion.  You are deemed to be ‘drunk’ if you are over a given universal limit regardless of context and assessment of your ability to drive safely.

But let’s assume for the purposes of this argument that the law as it stands is as good as we can realistically get as an incidence mitigation measure (the police can’t give everyone a driving test and maybe we have to set a measurable limit for practical reasons) and move onto the discussion point of the programme DK was on (about 44min in)- namely, whether the blood alcohol limit should be reduced still further with an aim to reducing alcohol related accidents and associated deaths.  I shall skip over the fact that we are –by definition- increasing the number of ‘drunk’ people on the roads by doing this and move to why this probably won’t work in the manner they expect.

There are many behaviours that we as a society agree on as being unacceptable and which are therefore illegal - robbery or assault, for example.  And while the illegality of the acts almost certainly reduces the occurrence rate, they still happen. There will never be a time when bad things do not happen.  There are also some people who are more likely to commit crimes which one would deem ‘antisocial’ because they don’t care about the effects of their own selfish actions on the rest of the public.  Now, while I’m sure that alcohol is an added risk factor with driving -and maybe the present 80mg/100ml limit is an entirely rational figure- there are people who know the law and drive having drunk beyond these limits anyway, excessively in some cases. And it is these people, when they have drunk to the point of becoming a hazard, who have disregarded their responsibility to others, and it is they who are the problem that needs addressing.  Making this already illegal act more illegal is not actually achieving anything at all. 
There comes a point where you can’t prevent the bad things from happening, not in a world of notional free-will, and have to focus on applying the law to the most egregious transgressors when they visit harm on others.   Being ‘pro-active’ and attempting to legislate away all of our problems before they happen will never work.  Unless we do away with all freedom and have breathalyser ignition systems on all vehicles that is, but I don’t want to give them any ideas.

Having said all that, I can't help wondering if this whole philosophy of lowering the safe blood alcohol limit to an agreed level is sending the wrong message; as although above this level you are now considered ‘dangerous’, it then makes the rash assumption that those below it are now ‘safe’.   It implies that the drinking-and-driving issue is at best a matter of mathematics in adding up pints, bottles or spirit measures, and at worst a sort of cat-and-mouse game in which the drinker's goal is to imbibe up to just under the limit and the law's goal is to catch those who've slipped over it.
In either case, it helps establish the mindset that road safety is the government's responsibility, rather than the responsibility of the person who is closest to the action: the individual.

I don’t know about you, but I don't want drinkers I might be sharing the roads with asking themselves, "Am I safe after my ‘x’ number of drinks?" I want them to be asking, "How’s my hand-eye coordination, awareness and depth-perception doing tonight, seeing as how whether I kill myself or somebody else is down to me?"
That is personal responsibility, and it is a burden we as society are increasingly keen to be rid of, and it is a burden this and previous governments have been more than willing to take off our hands.

(Update: Oh and I shouldn’t forget The other half of B&D’s spirited take on the show here)

Labour Manifesto

Well, I just read the Labour manifesto.  No, I don't know why either. 
It reads like a Fisherprice guide to running your first country - Fabian edition. 
I'm also pretty sure it endorsed gumdrops for currency and was illustrated with North Korean propaganda.   I would love to comment on it’s contents, but as Anna points out, it does not matter in the slightest what it says because they are not compelled to act on any of it.  At all.  And if the last 13 years have told us anything, it’s that they are more than capable of reneging on every sincere promise and core principle in the book for a moment of political expediency.  And it really is just awful.
So bollocks to that noise.

I just need to read the Tory one to confirm my suspicions that we're getting the Underpants Gnomes running the place no matter what.

Someone remind me who came up with that analogy so I can say so.

Bravo, Sir

Some people take being an embuggerance to heroic heights. From El Reg:

This chap was wondering why BT were charging him for paying his account on time, on-line.  It turns out they were doing it because they can.  So he cancelled his contract and decided to settle his account:

"As I'd been paying for over two years to have non-existent cheques cashed, I thought I may as well have something for this outlay, so my last cheque was sent blown up on A3 cardboard. Remember, it's legal to write a cheque on anything as long as it contains the right information - there are famous stories of a cheque written on a cow, or in one case on a fish. In the circumstances, I thought they got off pretty lightly."

Go and read the rest of it, I liked the ‘Plywood’ threat particularly. 
Beware, oh omnicorp, the irked man with a handle on the law and some time on his hands.

Marmite

Mrs Slug is perpetually booking the next holiday or thinking about where to go next, and so frequents the forums on such things. She found this thread on TripAdvisor, where a hapless American asks the enduring question::

So, exactly what IS in marmite? Or will we be happier if we don't know?

And some wag gave them the awful truth:

Marmite is a natural product obtained from the Alpine Marmot. The marmots are brought in from the mountains every spring and autumn equinox and after having their coats shorn the animals are then fed on a diet of oatmeal and black treacle (molasses). This stimulates the secretion of marm from the marmary glands. The marm is whisked with air at high temperature and pressure to pasteurise it and make it spreadable.

Made me laugh, anyway.

Incidentally, remember to vote for the ‘Hate’ party in the only rational election you’re likely to find in the near future.  Mrs Slug votes ‘Love’.  She is so very wrong.

Christian Party

Bit of a distraction today. Via Tomrat on twitter, I’ve been made aware of the manifesto of the Christian Party.  It’s always interesting to see what other small parties come up with, and I was surprised by how much of it I broadly agreed with.  Obviously, that is ratcheted back in other areas, but still.
Reading it from beginning to end caused a regular rollercoaster of reactions from me. 
Observe (my notes):

We’re up….mostly

Taxation

• Introduce a single rate Income Tax of 20 per cent for earnings in excess of £12,000 per annum. (HMRC and accountancy redundancies all round. Halleluiah. Can I get an amen?) 

• Exempt individuals earning £12,000 per annum or less, and married couples whose combined income, being treated as one single income, is £24,000 per annum or less from all Income Tax and National Insurance Contribution.    All other Income Tax exemptions will be abolished. (Generally eminently sensible WRT lowest earners get to keep what they earn.  if the Labour party had even the slightest inclination towards actually helping the less well-off, this would already be policy. Indifferent toward married couples thing)
• Introduce a single rate Corporation Tax of 20 per cent based on revenue minus the purchases of raw materials and inputs from other firms, wages, pension payments to workers and the purchase of plant and equipment.  All other corporate tax relief will be scrapped. (Corporation tax is a combined income, sales and capital gains tax –they’d be better off leaving it out to promote growth and skimming from sales as below)      
• Scrap taxation on interest payments on local savings or dividends on local shareholdings.
• Allow 100 per cent tax allowance for investment in plant and equipment in the year of purchase.
• Set Capital Gains Tax at 20 per cent.
• Abolish Inheritance Tax.
• Increase VAT to 20 per cent whilst maintaining the current exemptions.
• Reduce the size of the Inland Revenue Service. (which ties in to the flat rate tax from above. Happy days)

And we're down....

Respect for the human person (which I shall answer mainly by Stanhope)

• Reject all attempts to re-define marriage. (I default to Stanhope on this matter)
• Outlaw voluntary, non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia by omission or by direct act, including neonatal euthanasia. (Stanhope)
• Support legislation to prevent the patenting of natural genetic material, modifications to the human gene line and the trade in sperm, ova and human beings at the embryonic stage of development. (Stanhope)
• End the practise of human cloning and the destruction of human embryos. (Stanhope’s 44-holed Two-headed girl Baby)
• Seek the nationwide provision of pro-life pregnancy care services, including provision of accommodation for women made homeless by pregnancy, pregnant women with special needs and one-parent families. (Stanhope on Pro-life groups)
• Oppose moves to impose abortion on Northern Ireland. (Why cant they be ecological too?)
• Introduce random audits of abortion cases to verify compliance with present legislation. Where breaches are found prosecutions should follow and clinicians investigated by their appropriate professional bodies. (I’m guessing we’re not going to do the same for all other fields of medical care then.  Lets hound those baby-killers out of town)
• Call for the legal acknowledgement of post-abortion trauma as a women's disease, thereby ensuring recognition for the millions of women who have been violated, and make available funding for post-abortion counselling.
• Withdraw government aid from any agency which promotes abortion or euthanasia.
• Challenge the culture of death by seeking legislation which confers the full protection of the law on all human life from the conception until natural death. (Culture of death? Dude, that is so metal)

We're up.... 

Health

• Sell off state owned hospitals and healthcare facilities to private sector healthcare providers.
• Contract in services from private sector healthcare providers in order to maintain and improve the National Health Service provision.
• Support initiatives, including the use of private medical insurance and compensation awarded by the courts, to bring personal financial responsibility to bear upon self-inflicted medical conditions and injury caused to others as a result of illegal or reckless acts.
• Make private health insurance a visa requirement for migrants.
• Oblige private medical insurers to inform the Home Office when a private medical insurance policy linked to a visa is allowed to lapse or expires.
• Review Health and Safety legislation and reduce them to more appropriate levels. (To be fair, the HSE’s guidelines are mostly common sense, it’s overcautious employers/service providers and an increasingly litigious culture which cause many ‘elfin safety Daily Mail headlines)
• Give parents knowledge and decision making rights regarding the medical treatment of their children.

And then we're all over the place...

Education

• Keep open and resource schools in small towns and rural communities wherever possible. (Indifferent. This is relative –whatever works)
• Review the size of schools in terms of numbers. (see above)
• Re-instate the teaching of ‘Classical’ subjects in every school. (If we’re talking English, maths, science –did they leave? Officially, I mean)
• Introduce an Education Voucher Scheme. (Good)
• Support the use of reasonable force by teachers to maintain discipline in schools.(Good)
• Allow schools to elect to use supervised corporal punishment as a “punishment of last resort” instead of ‘Exclusions’. (Nope –tell me about it and I’ll batter my kid for you.  If I had one)
• Re-instate mandatory Christian religious education in schools. (Would be odd if the CP didn’t have this, but no ta)
• Seek sanctions for schools that refused to comply with their obligation to assemble pupils for an act of daily worship.  Such acts of worship should be Christian. (Again, unsurprising but I’ll pass)
• Ensure that the United Kingdom’s Christian heritage is properly reflected in the National Curriculum. (What, including the burnings?)
• Ensure that proper balanced teaching and debate occurs in schools around the concepts of ‘Evolution’ and ‘Creation/Design in the universe’. (There’s being religious and then there’s being a twat – this policy sprints blindly to the latter)
• Ensure that schools are not forced to change their values by employing those who disagree with those values. (Working on the assumption that Schools are private institutions funded by the voucher scheme above, then yeah, I guess. You’ve got some equality legislation to fight through there, mind.)
• Promote vocational training in schools, Further Education Colleges and universities. (As a valid and respected alternative to inappropriate further academic study - definitely.  Should not be seen as the lesser route it is now) 
• Link the funding of university courses to the medium and long term needs of society and the economy through consultation with industry and community leaders. (Would probably end the arts and humanities, and although I have a healthy disdain for anything not involving maths, that’s not the way forward.  Would be better to privatise them)
• Put an end to university tuition fees funded by student loans. (And have the taxpayer fund them instead (more so, anyway)? the budgets are battered as they are. See my last)
• Call a halt to plans to give sex education lessons in Primary Schools. (I had sex education lessons –at least one establishing the fundamentals in the final year anyway – at primary school about 20 years ago. Has anything actually changed? Honestly don’t see a problem in any case)
• Call for sex education classes to be given only to teenagers on a parental opt-in basis.(which is a passive-aggressive way of frowning on the education in the first place. Yes, best to keep them ignorant, that always works out just great)
• Ensure that chastity before marriage and faithfulness within marriage - as the best and safest sexual practice - will be taught as an integral part of any sex education curriculum. ( This doesn’t work, ask our puritanical trans-Atlantic brethren)
• Call for the end of the promotion and teaching in schools of homosexuality as a family relationship. (*Sigh*. Is it promoted or just acknowledged? ) 
• Abolish SATs testing. (Agnostic. A tool is only as good as it’s wielder)

And then we're up again, mostly...

• Support radical cuts in the public-sector workforce in order to reduce both the size of government and the size of the government spending.
• Support a radical re-employment and training programme so that public-sector workers are not thrown on the ‘scrap heap’, but are empowered for a smooth transition into the private sector.
• Call for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty within the first year of the new Parliament.
• Call for withdrawal from the European Union in the event that the United Kingdom electorate votes against the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum.
• Call for voting in civic elections to be compulsory, and non-voting to be subject to a fine. (Not this one – if you want to be apathetic that’s up to you)
• Give, for the purposes of fund raising, political parties the same status as charities.

And then we're up a bit, down a bit and all a bit confused...

Law and Order

• Stamp out the sex slave trade.  Bring heavy penalties to bear on sex slave-traders and slave-drivers. (This is interesting; sex-slave trade rather than just the sex trade, which is what I expected from the CP.  Guess I have to agree then.  Unless this is a Harman-esque ruse to have a go at prostitution by duplicity, that is.) 
• Raise the motorway speed limit to 90mph. (Fine. May as well bin it altogether though: crashing at 90 is not much better than crashing at 110)
• Enact a speeding fines amnesty in cases where fines were more a matter of revenue collection than road safety. (Bit of a dog whistle one, that, but I see what they’re going for.  Easier just to reduce speed cameras)
• Limit fines for overstaying in car parks to a maximum of the cost of the day rate for parking in the facility. (?!? Do you think one of their policy writers has been shafted by NCP recently? )
• Establish the concept of restorative justice with the imposition of substantial financial penalties on criminals in order to compensate victims and pay for damage done to property. (best of luck getting them to pay, but OK)
• Put in place a zero tolerance approach towards illegal drug possession for personal use through the use of a full range of alternative punishments, rather than prison sentences. (I really don’t see how this is a religious issue for Christians, but prohibition has never and will never work. So no.  Also: Stanhope )
• Ban the use of bailiffs by national and local authorities as the first face to face encounter with those in financial debt to such authorities for whatever reason.  (Bit arbitrary, but I can see where they’re coming from)

And there's more over there, but you get the gist.

Basically this is the Tory party as *I perceived* (lest Mr Rob never, ever stop about it) Peter Hitchens would have it- economically conservative (which I'm all for) but socially 'conservative' in the style of the American Christian right (which I'm definitely not for, and frankly consider that to be the last thing we -those ‘right’ of centre- need to be associated with).  And so while there is plenty there to agree with, they’ve managed quite expertly to have just enough theocratic authoritarianism thrown in to turn me right off again.

It is interesting where we find bedfellows on those issues we do agree on, though.

8-Bit invasion of New York

Watch this for a moment of joy:

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. - Watch original web videos.

What everyone else said – Election boredom

To listen to the news you’d think that election time is when politics becomes interesting.  It does not. This is when it is at it’s most vacuous and boring.  Whereas normally you’d assume every other thing a politician says to be a lie, now everything is a lie, exaggeration, distraction or obfuscation.  Between now and the day itself you will hear nothing but soundbites and weasel-worded vote bait. Nothing of any consequence at all is going to be said or done for a month. Bold, heart-felt assertions will be thrown out based on whatever is currently trending on Twitter, and solemn promises will be handed out like Smarties.
It is all so unutterably tedious.

This year the campaigning has been even more farcical than you’d usually expect because none of the main players have made even the vaguest attempts to explain how exactly they’re to deal with the money we owe or the vast costs we’re putting on tick.  It’s patently obvious what’s going to happen post-election, it’s just no party wishes to acknowledge it – which is understandable because the majority of the non-political-geek public (i.e. pretty much everyone) hasn't the slightest clue as to the scale of the trouble we’re in (see here), and the first party to be honest would be haemorrhaging votes in short order. 
This leaves us with a giant shit sandwich containing the inconvenient truth hidden betwixt the ignorance of the general populace and the superficial, self-serving propaganda of the next wave of would-be rulers we’re to be assaulted by.  It’s an unpalatable meal, but on the upside there is plenty of it.

Shall probably snipe from the wings anyway.  I really need a less depressing hobby.

Troubling

I’ve just watched this video (which I won’t embed because it’s nasty), which contains the gun camera and radio chatter from an Apache gunship in Iraq in 2007.  It shows an incident where an US helicopter happened across what they plainly thought were group of armed insurgents, who they promptly dispatched.  Then, when a van turns up to pick up the dead and injured, they unload on that too.  It eventually turns out that among the dead in the first group were two journalists from Reuters, and that there were two kids in the van who were subsequently injured.   Reuters have an article on it here.  From a military perspective this is from ‘putteesinmyhands’ over at Arrse - whose demographic are a touch more informed than the likes of me (corrected for cat-like spelling):

Mistakes happen in the fog of war and when adrenaline takes over. We're also not seeing the full events - not all shots were fired or observations made by the crew whose footage we see. I'm keeping an open mind, but the video and commentary seem to suggest that at least some US troops are applying the tenet that all civilians are enemy until proven otherwise. Recall that the Geneva Convention requires that attacks be proportionate - attacking three armed men shouldn't result in the deaths or injuries of 11+ unarmed civilians (regardless of where their loyalties may lie).

The editorial line taken by wikileaks in the production of the film is pretty far from unbiased, as is their emotive framing of the footage.  That said, I have some (guarded) first reactions. 
I can understand the case of opening fire on a group of men -some of whom appear to be armed- in the context of the larger nearby battle eluded to by the radio conversation. I’m having trouble making the weapons out (beyond what we know in retrospect to be a camera and tripod), but I’m told there is a longer clip showing them clearly holding rifles.  Glad it’s not my job to discern such things, but ok.
What is causing me real discomfort is the attitude of the gunner, who is taking far too much pleasure in his work. Observe the part where he is urging the wounded bloke to pick up a weapon so he has the excuse of finishing him off.  Also, I really cannot understand the rationale behind shooting up that van as the two (apparently unarmed) occupants attend to one of the bodies.   That looked really rather dodgy, and the amused commentary doesn’t help appearances.

But this is all 3 years post hoc, possibly out of context, from an obviously biased source, and I am exactly no-one to pretend to have an informed opinion, so I’m not rushing to pass judgement ‘till I know some more about what happened.

Perspectives and opinions welcome.

Update:  I didn’t have to wait long.  Informed and well written opinion here.

“Petty Gossip”

I’ve read many people giving many very similar variations on the only decent response to this and previous statements of this kind, but I thought I’d throw my tuppence worth at you. This whole issue makes me more than a little angry and such thoughts are liable to ruin my weekend, so I’m going to be as brief as possible.
If the Roman Catholic ‘faithful’ are not swayed by the institutional protection, obfuscation and outright facilitation of the activities of child rapists, then the opinions and motivations of such people is below both contempt and recognition as that of a rational human being.
That said, I don’t buy it for a second- I’m an atheist and have made my views on religion clear before now, but was raised Catholic and in my not so humble opinion the ‘faithful’ care a lot more about their faith than they do about it’s proliferators and appointed guardians; who have been pushing their luck for far too long. It’s more toleration than veneration that the church has been coasting along on thus far. 

In their perpetual insistence on doing what was right for the members of their racket, rather than what was just right, they have demonstrated just how ethically barren, and therefore just how utterly irrelevant they really are.  Actually, someone remind me what the hierarchy of this -or any large mainstream religion- is actually for above that of individual churches and priests.  Seriously, what?
Back to the article, there were a couple of absolutely peachy quotes upon which I must comment:

The Pope did not mention the scandal directly in his Easter address.

Well, I wouldn’t expect him to raise the affair of that priest he personally let of the hook, who may have been responsible for the molestation of upwards of 200 deaf boys. I’m sure he a has a cracking reason for acting in that fashion and  to be fair it would’ve made the mass really awkward.

He said humanity was suffering from a "profound crisis" and needed "spiritual and moral conversion".

This actually made me laugh right out loud and really brightened my day. Thanks, Padre. 
Oh, you’re serious? 
I’d sooner take moral guidance from Rasputin on an ‘off’ day, you deranged bastard.

Meanwhile, the Pope's personal preacher has apologised for comparing criticism of the Catholic Church over child abuse to "collective violence suffered by the Jews" in a Good Friday sermon.

Wow, I must’ve missed that beauty first time around.  You actually compared the calls for boy rapists to be prosecuted for their crimes -rather than be protected by self-serving old men in fancy dress- with the systematic persecution and destruction of the Jews, who would probably not mind me borrowing ‘Chutzpah’ from their lexicon for the purposes of this post. Fucking hell.

The repeated insulation of offenders from both treatment and punishment is reprehensible, and our (‘us’ in this case being the ‘developed’ world) continued kid-gloves approach to the church who’re hiding these pederasts is absolutely shameful;  especially since every other adult in the country is deemed to be a ‘fiddler until we’ve passed the state-sanctioned not-a-paedo exam.
   
Enough of this distasteful bollocks; I’m getting back to not-working.

Bank Holiday Awesome

Yes, yes, there's been ill-advised and hilariously backfiring campaign posters and members of the shadow cabinet talking themselves into contentious social issue-based knots to talk about; but what you really need to be doing is watching Red Letter Media's review of Attack of the Clones:



In case you somehow missed it, they produced an epic 70min deconstruction of Phantom Menace a few months back, which I must have watched about six times.  This probably says more about my life than I am entirely comfortable with, but watch it anyway:



It was worth Jesus dying just so I can spend my extra days off watching this. Ace.

Utterly Clueless

Having spent of yesterday wondering what to blog about and getting nowhere, the deadly blogging apathy was creeping back in -alongside the clinging existential dread which is the constant companion of any keen observer of modern British politics, that is.  Luckily enough iDave delivers for me once again:

“Jesus, I think I might actually be the biggest dickhead on the fucking planet. Fancy that.” 

If elected, the Conservatives would set up an independent bank, funded by unclaimed bank assets, to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in social action, party leader David Cameron said on Wednesday.

I see.  So you’re going to set up an ‘independent bank’ funded by ‘unclaimed bank assets’, or to put it another way: a new quango is going to steal money from personal bank accounts if people make the mistake of leaving it there long enough, and piss it right up the wall.

The Cooperative Financial Services, which is involved in implementing the Labour government's own scheme to make use of unclaimed assets, said in December that banks estimated there were 400 million pounds in dormant accounts.

Ah well, best not leave it there cluttering the place up and making those nice banks look all untidy. Besides, finders keepers, right?

"We are going to bring in a new Big Society Bank so that social enterprises have access to the start-up finance they need to bid for government contracts," Cameron said at a party event held in a neighbourhood centre in Southwark, London.

So you’re stealing money the new way to pay people to compete for the other money you’ve stolen the conventional way? Sounds flawless. And there I was concerned about the economy.  How is your popularity with the Tory core vote these days, by the way? Oh.
Anyway, tell us more about this ‘big society’ not ‘big state’ soundbite you’ve been throwing around - from the FT (which may or may not be behind a paywall depending on prevalent wind direction):

Britain’s 500,000 civil servants will be expected to undertake regular community service under plans outlined on Wednesday by David Cameron, the Conservative leader, to build a “big society” in place of big government.

Community service? You going to keep us (I’m guessing the like of me are included in this figure) in at weekends or is it going to be a day-release scheme where we get to pick litter with the ASBOs? Fuck it, I needed a reason to go back into the private sector anyway, but I was going to wait until we regressed to the stone age in a couple of years so that I could make my fortune building power stations - guess I'll have to put that plan together a bit quicker.
Also 'build a “big society”'? You do know that societies aren't built right? That people choose to associate with those around them and voluntarily act in a fashion which is mutually beneficial? Except, of course, if a large number of that community see no reason to get along with their neighbours because they live an existence free from responsibility and consequence.  We could address that issue before going all soviet on the problem…oh wait, never mind:  

The Tories also plan to train “a national army” of 5,000 community organisers to help local neighbourhoods tackle social problems, with the organisers then raising funds to pay their own salaries and get projects going.

*Headdesk*
For the love of God, this is not hard: Get the state to do less; don't shovel another tier into the already bloated public sector (because they won't pay for themselves at all, the taxpayer will end up paying them permanently ‘temporarily’ – see fakecharities.org), let people keep more of their own money; if people have more spare cash they will give it –and their time- to causes that are important to them.  

And Mr Cameron said he wanted “every adult citizen to be an active member of an active neighbourhood group”.

Oh, really?  Do we get a choice in the matter?  I’m quite happy not interacting with my community as it is.  If something comes up that I’ve an interest in, I might get involved, but in the meantime I’m busy writing semi-lucid cockwaffle on the intertubes, thanks very much.

The Conservative leader was careful to stress that he wants to build “a big society” better able to tackle a huge range of social problems from crime to housing to local regeneration as something “to add to what the state already does” rather than replace it.

But after 13 years of huge increases in spending on public services many of the same social problems in “broken Britain” remained, he said. The answer lay in a new localism, the encouragement of social enterprise and Conservative plans for a “national citizens service” putting 16-year-olds on a two-month programme in which they will “learn to be socially responsible”.

These two paragraphs cause me such cognitive dissonance that I’m dangerously close to a Scanners moment. You’re not ‘adding to what the state does’, you’re ‘adding to the state’, and someone please tell me how you can put together a course on objective social responsibility for kids without it becoming entirely political (as we’ve seen increasingly in the modern classroom)?  Do you know, I think you can’t.
Oh and he follows with this gem:

That, he said, was the alternative to Labour’s approach in which “for every problem there is a government solution, for every issue an initiative”.

So he suggests a government solution and a variety of initiatives..arrrghh

 
Me, a minute ago

So we acknowledge the failure of previous government interventions with just about everything they’ve tried to do at a societal level, learn nothing from it at all and then describe how it will all be solved by enforced neighbourhood cooperation via diktat with a side-helping of indoctrinated kids and agents of community cohesion.

What could possibly go wrong?

Prof Cox tells us how it is

Amusing.