"Wir gegen, nach Vienna..."

The recent Austrian elections have seen a jump in support for far right political parties. Oh dear, oh deary, deary me. Its not the first time a large number of Austrians seem to favour right wing nutters most civilised people would find hideously offensive in recent years, previous such support earned the land of mountains and schnapps sanctions from the EU. And then there was the unfortunate Kurt Waldheim affair and the disputes over certain parts of his war record before that. And then going back several decades there is, of course, a rather more extreme example of Austrian support for mad right wing lunatics. Its nice to see that Austria doesn't feel it has to tiptoe around its rather unfortunate mid-20th century history. While right wing nutters are everywhere (disgustingly some people even voted for them in some local English councils; those self same people pretend they aren't supporting racism and bigotry but they ain't foolin' anyone) in a country with the still fairly recent history Austria has you would think they'd be keen not to be seen as the sort of people who love a good, strong, right wing orator. Listen to that sound? Is that the sound of many brushes polishing jackboots?

Palin's great grasp of geopolitics

When first announced as the Reptile Party's Vice Presidential candidate one of the first criticisms about Palin - apart from most everyone outside Alaska (which is most everyone, not the most populous state) - was who the hell is she? The second was that she had bugger all foreign policy experience and has only been out of the country once and that was to a meet-the-troops special. Her spin doctors replied, unbelievably, by saying she was governor of Alaska, with Canada on one side and Russia across the sea on the other, so obviously she did know a lot about foreign relations. Understandably anyone with a brain found this hilarious and it did no end of harm to the perception of Americans abroad where most of the rest of the world assumes most Yanks no nothing about anything outside their own borders and are culturally ignorant. Which I know from personal experience isn't the case, but it is a general stereotype which she just confirmed to many.

Even more unbelievably she is still spouting this crap line (and bear in mind the Reptiles have been sniping at Obama for his supposed lack of foreign policy experience, compared to McCain, who has experience dating back to a diplomatic mission during the Boer War). This was her on US TV last night - nice to see the Reptiles following up the Chimp's presidency by continuing to draw on candidates who are sharp, intelligent, well informed and erudite...


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Situations Vacant

Due to recent personnel changes and a retirement we are looking to recruit a new chief executive. Must posses exceedingly fine leadership qualities, charisma, vision and the ability to communicate in ten hour public speeches; experience of communist ideology and smoking large cigars preferable but not essential. Salary negotiable, relocation may be required but location is in beautiful part of the world which enjoys high levels of sunshine; full medical benefits included. Apply the Cuban government, Havana.

"Cities are like volcanoes, they always have to move. If they don't they're dead."

This rather peculiar and somewhat nonsensical comment comes from Allan Murray, one of the architects behind the highly controversial 'Caltongate' scheme proposed for Edinburgh, which would see a major redevelopment of the Old Town leading to the Royal Mile, including demolishing some listed buildings (which also happen to be home to people as well as listed). Strangely enough the company behind this attempt to dump a pile of bland, featureless architecture in a historic World Heritage site has attacked the people opposing this ill-conceived plan as 'thoughtless', while commenting that it is right for democracy to have a say while then dismissing some 2, 000 complaints against them, from private individuals and from important heritage groups. Democracy obviously suits the developers only when it agrees with them, otherwise you are just being 'thoughtless' and emotional (gee, some folks will lose their homes, imagine being emotional over that?!?! Eejits).

The architect who came up with this strange 'argument' in favour of his development (which he obviously has a huge vested interest in) above is also responsible for incredibly dull, featureless modern creations in the city already, which have nothing in common with the city environment or any distinguishing features that would make them stand out from a hundred other developments anywhere else in the modern world, exactly the sort of boring design that makes our cities look so dull and repetitive, and which in a historic city like Edinburgh is worse than dull, it is cultural vandalism. We've had, huge, ill-advised developments dumped on us before and they still blight the city, it is completely right that people are wary of them, especially in an area like the Old Town. That caution doesn't mean the city can't continue to evolve and develop, just that we should be very, very careful how and where we do it and I get the impression the developers are more interested in money than protecting the community in that area and our historical nature. I'm not Prince Charles and have no wish to see only more Neo-Classical architecture, but in World Heritage sites like the Old Town and New Town it is always advisable to err on the side of caution. If a developer wishes to work in that area they should expect that, it shouldn't be a surprise to them.

Oh and Mr Murray, volcanoes don't so much move as erupt and explode. The ground around them may move as a result of their eruptions but the volcanoes themselves not so much (other than the ground moving by floating over the hot liquid rock below, but all ground does that). And I don't think you want to include cities and active volcanoes in the same sentence because that's a scenario which doesn't raise connotations of flourishing life, rather images of destruction, so I'm not sure what point you were making there. Unless it was a Freudian slip acknowledging your oversized development in a sensitive area will be destructive and leave scars on the city for years, just like a volcanic eruption would. Quite why the council approved this in the face of mass rejection by affected citizens and heritage groups I have no idea; if I was a cynic I'd be checking for brown envelopes slipped under doors...

Hypocritical bastard

George Bush asked in a BBC interview if America still held the moral high ground after scandals of violated civil liberties, civilian deaths, tortures and Abu Ghraib: "Absolutely. We believe in human rights and human dignity. We believe in the human condition. We believe in freedom." This from a man who is trying to veto a bill from the US Senate (how very democratic of him) which makes the use of water boarding illegal for the purposes of interrogation. In other words he is trying to make the use of torture legal. How this fits in with his previous statement is beyond me. How this retarded monkey can say things like this then apparently believe he is on the side of Good is beyond me. And just how so many fucking idiots can go along with it, vote for it and support it is utterly beyond me.

The fact that the Senate had to even pass a law declaring this process illegal to begin with speaks volumes - most civilised countries would consider such torture utterly illegal to begin with and not need to pass extra laws. This is how the self proclaimed good guys fight the good fight. No wonder the world is such a bloody mess. Neitzche's cautionary passages on fighting monsters and becoming a monster in the process was obviously not on the reading curriculum for Bush or his supporters. Although since the brain-dead numpty seems to have difficulties with the fairly simple task of putting words together for coherent speech it shouldn't be a surprise that he isn't well educated or well read.

British Olympic Association climbs down on censorship claim

There had been worries recently that the contract British athletes being included in the national team for the Bejing Olympics had been reworded to censor what those athletes may say publicly about the dire state of human rights or politics in the host nation China. The BOA has now apparently clarified this position saying that while it is normal Olympic practise to inform competing athletes that they cannot use the Games as a political platform neither is the BOA in the business of trying to censor what its athletes speak about - they can talk to journalists, answer questions and so on, just not decide to use their position at the Games to stage a protest or demonstration, something which comes from the International Olympic rules. The British Athletes Commission seems to accept this adding that it is the sport which is paramount and that they are going to compete, not to demonstrate.

Which is fair enough, as far as it goes, since that is indeed what they are supposed to do. But I can't help but wonder if the Games weren't being held in a nation with an appalling record in human rights abuses, lack of civil liberties, environmental pillaging and few freedoms then this wouldn't be an issue to begin with. Part of the argument for having the Games there though is that somehow it will magically make the Chinese government more accountable, allowing more freedoms and liberties - the same argument is used by giant corporations like Google and Microsoft for working with the Chinese government, then self-censoring to suit that totalitarian regime and even, allegedly, giving access to web records to track down and silence those bloggers who post opinions considered 'dissident'. Yay for the spread of freedom by example!!!

Its an old refrain of capitalism that it promotes freedom because those are the circumstances it flourishes best in and where political argument fails to persuade those in power money and successful business might. But that's an experiment we're still waiting to see a definitive result on - there may be some more freedoms in China today but equally there are a lot of repressive measures, so the jury is well out on how successfully the market and giving them the Games has worked - it may have helped a bit, but it certainly hasn't transformed the country to a land of freedom. On the Olympians front though, if an athlete does feel very strongly that an international coming together of nations shouldn't be staged in a country where the regime denies basic freedoms, liberties and human rights then perhaps they should consider if they should take part in the Games being held there?

Because I doubt the Games will magically make things better - we're talking about a regime, after all, who when visiting London criticised their UK government hosts for 'allowing' people to protest their visit, that's the attitude they have - they think democratic countries should muzzle free speech critical of them. So I am left wondering if athletics organisations saying that the staging of the Games in China will somehow help improve that country's lamentable record is less wishful thinking than a fig leaf to their own conscience to justify going there - honest I am not just going because I want to take part in the Olympics regardless, I really believe being there will help the people of China. Honest. Okay, perhaps that is pretty cynical, but I find it is hard not to be cynical about the whole thing. (source: the BBC)

Sharia - don't like it
Rock the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
Sharia - don't like it
Rock the Casbah
Rock the Casbah

(with apologies to the mighty Clash)

The Twatbishop of Arsebury seems to have come out with his stupidest bit of pseudo-theological/political mish mash yet - he thinks we should incorporate some aspects of Sharia law into the legal systems in the UK. I'm not even going to get into the following the commandments of your faith debate here because frankly it is totally bloody irrelevant: in a civilised country the Law is the Law for everyone and all citizens are meant to be treated equally before it, enjoy the exact same priviliges it affords and follow the same rules or suffer the same consequences for violating it. The idea that different parts of society should be allowed to run to different legal standards when it suits them is utterly foolish, divisive and a recipe for disaster - where would you draw the line once you allow such a stupid idea into practise? And won't every eejit with any belief system be out demanding special rules for them? Should we have special laws for Scientologists so Tom Cruise feels comfortable here? For Quakers? For those who follow the messiah Brian? Sorry, I don't have to go with your legal code, I'm a follower of the Great Prophet Zarquon...

What's even stupider about the Arsebishop's ill-thought out comments is that they will more than likely make already strained relations in our multi-cultural society worse because many Britons will see this and think, here we go, our way of life under threat from a foreign culture, if they don't like it why don't they go live somewhere else. Sadly that bigoted view is heard all too often already and when a subject like this is brought up it seems to me more than likely all the stupid old fool has done is hand the bigots another weapon so they can turn to alarmed citizens and say, see, we told you these people aren't like us... What the hell was he thinking? Then again what can we expect from a man who can't even control his own crazy eyebrows??

Super Tuesday!

Its that magical time in America they call Super Tuesday. For those who are utterly bewildered by the arcane and frankly crazy workings of the US electoral system (which is almost everyone, including most Americans) the term Super Tuesday is a hangover from the 1940s when Superman used to volunteer to fly the ballot papers from all the states to the counting centres faster than a speeding bullet (which is handy when flying over the southern states where drunken rednecks take potshots at anything flying overhead). In these modern, digital days when Republican party operatives can fiddle an electoral result by computer (a process called doing the Florida Harris waltz) the Man of Steel no longer flies the ballots about the country, but the name has stuck.

Meanwhile in Britain we have Pancake Tuesday, where we all make nice, fresh pancakes and smother them in yummy toppings (sod the healthy living, let's have full cream on there today!). I think I prefer our Tuesday. But whether you are tossing pancakes or voting for a bunch of tossers, we wish you a happy Tuesday!

The sentence for reading is death

Well, it is in bloody Afghanistan at any rate. Journalism student Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has been sentenced to death for reading. His crime? He downloaded a text which - gasp of horror - said that Muslim fundamentalists (those whacky, zany guys, what will they think of next!) who beat people around the head with their own fucked up interpretation of the holy Koran and use it to legitimate their severe repression and control of women were completely wrong and were acting contrary to the teachings of the Prophet. Gee, I can see where they might get a little annoyed at a document saying they might be wrong - after all these are the same shagwits who respond to a simple cartoon by killing people and demanding some beheadings. They aren't just misrepresenting the teachings of their own religion, they are just fucking stupid, violent fools clearly terrified of women and carrying AK47s as a substitute for their very small willies.Take their guns off them and lock them in a room for a week With Anne Widdecombe, that'll teach the buggers.

Oh but it gets better - this death sentence was pronounced by a religious court in Afghanistan (and surely that is contrary to the central Islamic tenant of learning for them to stop people reading??). Now it is bad enough that any country is stupid enough to still consider it civilised to allow religious leaders to hold people to trial (no, don't give me excuses about respecting other cultures, this is just bloody wrong and utterly fucking stupid, its something moronic from the medieval period and they need to learn this. I respect other cultures as long as they aren't bloody stupid). But then the case was referred to the Afghan secular government. The nice ones we put in power and are holding in power with the blood of our troops (the same troops their president recently said were failing, the same troops that are all that is keeping his arse from being filled full of Taliban bullets because his own troops are incompetent twats) - and they upheld the sentence. Yes, that's right, the person we put in power to replace those muderous fundamentalist fuckwits, the Taliban, said yes, kill this student for daring to read something we don't like.

Er, remind me again just why the hell we have our troops being put through the dusty meatgrinder in this godforsaken cesspit of a country? The Independent has an online petition up to give to the Foreign Office to demand they take some action - please consider signing it. (link via Yvonne)

"Look, I'd had a lovely supper and all I said to my wife was that bit of halibut was good enough for Jehovah... I don't think it ought to be blasphemy just saying 'Jehovah'." Monty Python's Life of Brian.

New Cockney rhyming slang


Peter Hain = government's shame

Gordon Brown = what a clown

tricky Alsatian = dodgy donation

minister beware = no money to declare

Gitmo is six

I missed noticing this until today, but Guantanamo Bay's odious prison camp marked its sixth anniversary on Friday, an event marked by Amnesty International. Gee, I feel so much safer, hasn't the world become a much better place as a result of this place and the rest of Bush's foreign policy (not to mention their State Department announcing that under US law it is legal for them to go to another country, including Britain and kidnap someone they think is a suspect)? If only Gitmo made as much sense as most six year olds... (via Boing Boing)

Pardon for witches

A Lothians-based paranormal group, Full Moon Investigations, has asked the Scottish parliament to issue a posthumous pardon to all the people persecuted under charges of witchcraft throughout Scottish history; not the finest part of our long history and not a part the tourist industry likes to talk about too much, preferring either (often wrong) ancient history or extolling the Enlightenment (except, of course, if you are promoting a ghost walk tour!).

I know, I know, some people sigh cynically, what is the point of this nonsense? Every month there seems to be someone demanding a government issue a retroactive apology for something which happened long before most folks in the country were even born and aren't we all fed up with it, isn't it just trying to apply political correct modern sensibilities backwards onto long-past events to make us feel better? Well to be honest it is easy to think that way, but then consider that when we ignore past injustices we tend to allow those patterns to repeat.

What were some of the principal elements of witchcraft allegations in previous centuries? Picking on someone who was a bit different (old woman living on her own with cats), groups who may not have been popular with the majority (ultra Calvinists suspicious of Catholics), people in positions of power encouraging utterly irrational hatred, suspicion and fear of those who are different for their own ends and using them to consolidate their own grip over the populace, justify draconian changes in law and to prosecute actions which would normally be seen as uncivilised... Gee, sound even remotely like certain events in modern society? And if you are still thinking nah, it is just PC nonsense, just remember how the phrase 'witch hunt' has become a phrase we use regularly when talking about the persecution of any individual or small group. Then think again.

Government loses more records

The wonderfully efficient government here has managed to lose even more confidential data on citizens, just weeks after losing sensitive information on some 25 million people (and taking quite some time for Alistair Darling to actually get round to telling citizens and the House) - now they've admitted losing a hard drive with information on some three million candidates for the driving theory test. While not as potentially sensitive as the HMCR balls-up (which included losing data such as children's details, bank accounts and national insurance numbers) it is astonishing that civil service departments can continue to be so bloody incompetent. Sure, mistakes always happen, but repeated mistakes of such magnitude?

If any of us in a private sector job screwed up on that scale repeatedly we'd be fired. Unlike in the civil service or government - the HMCR head Paul Gray who resigned over his department's almighty screw-up was back working in a government post - the Cabinet Office no less - a few weeks after resigning at a salary in excess of £200, 000. That's 200K paid from our taxes, boys and girls, so we work away in jobs where our bosses would fire us for this level of ineptitude (and rightly so) yet folk earning many times more than us (with far better pension and holiday rights as well, plus Honours thrown in regularly) get another extremely well paid job as a reward for mismanaging a major public service. And naturally no politicians are resigning or taking the rap for it, despite the fact their reforms of the civil service contributed in part to the system failing in the first place (and repeatedly). And then our 'leaders' wonder why increasingly we are a nation of people who seem selfish and unwilling to accept personal responsibility when they set these kinds of examples time and again...

Creationist whackos get science teacher fired

Yup, once more the intellectually feeble throwbacks who constantly espouse 'intelligent design' (which is basically the utterly discredited Creationism dressed up in laughably bad science clothes) have made a move to decrease the IQ of the world a bit more: they used a flimsy excuse to get a science education officer in Texas fired. Christine Castillo Comer's crime? She forwarded an email as an FYI which she had received from one science educational professional to some interested groups about a talk by an author in the area, an author who has looked into the fake 'science' these Intelligent Design wankers keep trying to sneak into school curriculums while also trying to have evolutionary teaching curtailed (no, they haven't realised the 19th century is over).

Her boss's boss dropped her in it claiming simply forwarding this message was tantamount to the education board endorsing it, which is ridiculous since she didn't express an opinion, simply passed on details of a scientific talk to science professionals. Besides which anyone who works for a government department or large corporation knows full well their emails are usually issued under a 'the ideas expressed in this email do not necessarily promote the ideals of the blankety blank department'. Interestingly enough this boss is a political appointee - a Bush-loving one. And the head of the board openly endorses Creationist nonsense and talks yet hangs out one of his science professionals for simply passing on details of a talk involving scientific matters to other scientific professionals.

Sadly this sort of attack on actually using our brains to logically interpret massive amounts of careful scientific date amassed over many decades by many people from paleontologists to genetic researchers is not confined to a few religious crackpots in Jesusland (as Richard Morgan terms the Texas area in his recent novel Black Man) since there have been attempts to push this nonsense in schools in the UK too. This really does infuriate me - NPR has a radio interview with Christine on their site and the whole thing stinks of a political-religious set-up for these right wing fundamentalist eejits to shove someone out the way so they can then install a new person who will agree with their retarded ideology. And if you are a Creationist don't bother explaining to me why your view point is valid, because it just isn't. You're entitled to hold your view but please feck off and don't inflict it on others much less try to infect schoolkids with your idiocy. If you believe this crap you are an anti-intellectual moron brain-washed by fundamentalists who like using their religion as a way to gain more control over people and what they can say or think - and that's the nub of it, these idiots don't just believe this fairy tale nonsense themselves, they demand it be taught to the rest of us. Thankfully the few attempts here have been laughed at in much the same way as trying to each that the Earth is flat would be, but these idiots keep trying... (link via Boing Boing)

Yanks to the world - fuck you all, we can do what we want

The Times reports on a rather chilling legal message (and I use the term 'legal' quite wrongly) from the Home of the Free - America claims that it is perfectly legal under their barbarous legal system to kidnap foreign citizens in any country, even kidnapping citizens of allied countries such as British citizens in their own country. Bad enough the extremely dodgy and morally bankrupt practise of extraordinary rendition but now they claim this highly immoral and illegal (at least in any civilised country which has actual rule of law) is perfectly acceptable according to their own legal standards.

Well, what laws they set in their own borders is up to them, of course, but to act in this arrogant, cavalier manner in other countries, breaking the laws of those nations, is normally what we would refer to as the actions of a 'rogue state'. And since that's a rogue state who ignores international law and has weapons of mass destruction then by the warped logic of their own retard monkey president then surely they should invade themselves and impose a regime change? I mean we all know the current administration is of the opinion it can do whatever it wants anywhere and get away with it, but it is chilling to see such a barbarous set of actions given official blessing by the judiciary of a supposedly civilised democratic society. (link via Boing Boing and Warren Ellis)

Breaking the law

So after more fibs from the government and assurances that their latest corruption scandal was a mistake by one party official that no-one else knew about, surprise, surprise it turns out that wasn't the case, even after the Prime Eejit stood up and told everyone it was. Considering this is the same party who has blocked enquiries into how we were lead (and lied) into the Iraq war it can't be a surprise to anyone that they hide other dodgy secrets and illegal activities behind misdirection and bare-faced lies. Tonight most news programmes were reporting that this is a criminal matter and as such should be referred to the police, but come on, who the hell thinks the Met will do much there after they so conveniently looked after the government's interests in the cash-for-honours scandal (the senior officer's appearance in front of a House committee afterwards was also less than convincing).

You know, if you were a suspicious, cynical person you might find it seems rather convenient that just after the Metropolitan police announced no prosecutions after a high profile, very expensive investigation into political corruption the beleaguered and incompetent Chief Constable got given backing from on high to let him ride out the furore over the findings in the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting. With such protection from senior ministers and the Prime Minister no wonder Ian Blair looked so smug and arrogant when he was in front of the committees, he was all but saying up yours, you can't touch me. If, as I say, you were very suspicious you might think perhaps there is a secret link between the cash for honours investigation being dropped and Blair being protected by senior government officials, some shady quid pro quo. And if you thought that you might be even more cynical that any dodgy dealings in this new corruption scandal will be properly investigated, much less see all the people responsible actually charged. But of course, that's just paranoid fantasy, isn't it? Like someone making multiple illegal donations in the guise of different people, the very idea is mad... Oh, hold on...

And they wonder why so many people don't even bother to vote or take part in the political process anymore after setting this kind of example... Still, it was great to see the look on Gordon Brown's dour face when Cable compared the eejit to Mister Bean...

In the interests of honesty and transparency though, I will admit I have made multiple donations to the KLF (Kangaroo Liberation Front) under the names Hieronymoys H Monocle, Lord Freddie of Mercury, Muhammed the Bear, Lady Anastasia Appendix-Major and the Magnificent Montogue and his Performing Koalas. And absolutely no-one else knew of this. Unless someone finds out otherwise. Honest.

Government loses millions of citizen's personal records

In recent years we've seen a continual line of data screw-ups from government departments, from lost records to leaving laptops with Defence Ministry data on them in cars to be stolen to the Department of Health putting all the personal information of junior doctors on a new national system up online with not even a basic level of password protection so anyone, anywhere could access confidential data. But today Alistair Darling (my local MP, I'm afraid to say, the Edinburgh politician who once famously referred to the Scottish Parliament as 'the Scottish Assembly' - I keep voting against the bugger but he never takes the hint) revealed a truly massive cock-up: H.M. Revenues & Customs have managed to lose discs containing confidential data on some 25 million individuals.

That's almost half the bloody population of the UK - basically these incompetent morons put all this data (which includes National Insurance numbers, bank details, date of birth, children, partner... A fraudster's dream ticket) onto a couple of CDs (what century are they living in?) and had them couried to another department (which is against best practise according to the data watchdog), except they went missing and now they have no idea where they went (which is presumably why the data watchdog says they're not meant to do it this way). And it turns out these irresponsible shagwits did this back on the 18th of October according to the BBC; it wasn't reported to the senior managers until 8th of November, the Chancellor (Alistair Darling) on the 10th then he deigned to tell the House of Commons and the citizens of the country today ten days after that. He blames the banks for this delay in telling people saying they demanded time to prepare for possible identity thefts or bank frauds if this information is found and mis-used, but I fail to see why this meant he waited ten more days to tell the House - sounds like they were trying to think on how to limit the damage, or perhaps just pray they would find the missing discs and keep quiet on the whole thing.

This is the same government who urges us all to be aware of identity theft, the same government who wants local doctors to agree to a national system where patient's medical records are put onto a national database despite the fact most doctor's have clearly said no, they believe the system would be too open, the wrong people could access patient's details and it would destroy patient-doctor confidentiality (you have to admit, given the constant string of incompetence in all matters to do with data security and information technology in the government they have a good point). This is the same bunch of power-hungry politicos who have been trying to ram a biometric ID card system down the throat of a reluctant British electorate for years (for our security, presumably so if you are shot in the face by police mistaking you for a terrorist they can tell your family who you are from your ID card, assuming the details on it are actually right, which they probably won't be). Yeah, sure, here's all my data in one handy, easy to alter or steal file that tons of civil servants can access anytime...

As Jon Snow asked a government minister wriggling in his seat on Channel 4 News tonight, how can this government continue to push for a national biometric ID system (and a national DNA database) when they clearly cannot be trusted to safeguard personal information on citizens? Liberal Democrat Vince Cable touched on the same point: "After this disaster how can the public possibly have confidence in the vast centralised databases needed for the compulsory ID card scheme?" I'm sure they will still try to force it through, of course. Meantime the numpties at HMRC don't even have anything on their homepage to inform the millions of citizens they've just left vulnerable, which is pretty pathetic considering it is the very, very least they should have done instead of leaving worried people to have to glean information (belatedly) released to the press after Darling decided he couldn't stall any longer.

Government minister makes twat of himself

How funny was it this week seeing Home Office minister Liam Byrne being done for driving while using a handheld mobile phone? Especially as he is a member of the government which made that a criminal offence. And I loved his limp defence that he had an 'important call'. Eejit. Should have been a bigger fine for him to make a public example of the bugger, especially as there are still far too many arrogant, ignorant, dangerous buggers who are still driving while yacking away on a handheld - you see a score of them every night going home after work in Edinburgh.

In fact I was nearly hit by a stupid woman in a Range Rover (and what is it with the amount of bloody Range Rovers in Edinburgh? Its a city, not a grouse estate you stupid, selfish bastards!) who decided to turn into a side street and through the crossing as I and others were on it, one hand trying to turn the wheel of the huge vehicle, one holding a phone to her brainless head and a whine that said she needed another arm to change gears rather badly. And oh yes, she had the kid strapped in the back too... The stupidity of some people knows no bounds. And you have to assume if you can afford a brand new Range Rover you can afford a hands-free phone kit for it...

How to protect America from dangerous British politicians

Boing Boing has a story which is hilariously funny (and a bit disturbing) on so many levels it ain't true - British Member of Parliament and government minister Shahid Malik, a Muslim, has been stopped for a second time by airport security in the USA. Airport security and immigration have never had the best rep )and US immigration always had a lousy rep for being officious and unfriendly) and since 9-11 they've been even worse, with some obviously delighting in abusing the extra (usually downright stupid) rules and powers they can wield - complain and they can make it even worse. They've even stopped a UN diplomat travelling on a white passport (which should clear customs almost immeaditely as far as I am aware), now the same British minister twice, presumably because he is Muslim.

The fact he is a member of America's strongest ally's government doesn't seem to have entered into their minds and you have to assume if it is a second time then presumably their superiors don't give a crap about insulting an allied government in this manner either, which makes you think what can any of us ordinary citizens expect when trying to enter America these days - not sure I'd care to travel there right now, to be honest. Ah, but it gets better - on both occasions the MP was in the US to take part in talks on how to co-operate more closely on fighting terrorism and tackling extremism! Talk about farcical... Don't y'all feel safer with these fartknocker protecting borders?!?!? Strange we don't often hear of US senators being harassed at UK immigration.

National motto

Should the UK have a national motto? Since this idea of Gordon Brown's was first floated the Prime Eejit has distanced himself, saying that this wasn't actually his intent. Frankly I go with the Jim Hacker rule - when a politician denies something like this it normally means it is true. It seems a curiously old-fashioned idea which belongs to times past when governments and other institutions - education, religion, the monarchy, even the arts - tried their best to create a single idea of national unity. It was cobblers then, a pure fiction and one that would be badly misused too often (such as being used as a rallying point for the slaughter of the Great War, which is, ironically, when a lot of people really started to see it for the insidious nonsense that it is). To try and forge some sort of national identity in this day of multi-cultural societies, international travel and trans-border culture and communication seems simply stupid and as archaic as John Major's famously daft speech extolling a Britain of cricket on the village green and old ladies cycling to Evensong services at the parish church.

Still, no reason we can't have a little fun with the idea, though, is it? America has 'In God We Trust', which is actually fairly recent (only brought in during the 50s) and still controversial since church and state are supposed to be strictly seperate. Not to mention the fact they have ended up with mentally defective retard monkeys like George Dubyah Bush and Ronald Reagan being in charge of the country gives you the inkling that such trust in god may be misplaced... France has 'liberty, egality, fraternity' (unless you're an immigrant from the former colonies in which case it is 'fuck off and live in squalor in a crap overspill development'). But what motto would suit a United Kingdom which has parts which would rather be the Untied Kingdom (apologies to my mate James Lovegrove for borrowing a title from one of his excellent novels, I'm sure he'll forgive me using it)? Here are a few of my ideas, feel free to make your own suggestions:

Britain - please queue here

(this emphasises on of our great national characteristics and at the same time serves to educate those damned foreigners like Italians who seem to have no concept of queueing much to the fury of Britons when they walk in front of us at a big line. Although we are too polite to tell them off for it, preferring to mumble in low tones to our queueing neighbours)

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

(uplifting and inspiring in hard times and a reminder of one of our great cultural gifts to the world)

Nice weather for ducks

(we probably should have a motto that reflects our national obsession with weather. Others don't understand why we have this obsession, but it is simply because we have so much endlessly changing weather, sometimes having sunshine, rain, hail and snow within the same afternoon)

Full up

(one for the xenophobic Daily Mail readers to enjoy waving in front of the immigrant population)

Watch what you say or we'll invade you next

(what a lot of right wing numpties would love)

Britain - now available in HiDef

(perhaps we need one which celebrates our technological achievements)

Britain - Press red button for more information

(for our cabled up digital age)

Five a day!

(to help boost the UK's health)

I think I'll stick to our own Scottish national motto as seen above the gates to Edinburgh Castle: nemo me impune lacessit, roughly translated as no-one touches me with impunity or, as would be more the case these days, we're friendly folks but don't piss us or you're for a kickin'.

Oh, those pesky immigrants!

The chief constable of Cambridgeshire has made a very public case for lots of immigration to the area causing problems for her police force. She made special mention of foreign workers and the carrying of knives and drink driving and how they didn't meet British expectations in this regard. Hmmm, judging by the crime stats for actual citizens if immigrants are drink driving and carrying blade weapons then they are doing their best to blend into the British modern way of life... Seriously though, she may have some points (translation costs and time being an obvious one) but the way she presented this to the eager media made it like some bloody Daily Mail rant about 'damned foreigners'. Isn't this something she should be discussing with relevant authorities and not making press conferences about, especially given the continual xenophobia we have in our tabloid press and the general move to blame everything on immigrants.

I always find it funny when British people talk about immigrants, since we spent the previous two centuries taking over a full quarter of the world and running the biggest Empire in history, settling ourselves wherever we damned well pleased. And we're not the best at blending in when we go abroad today, are we? Most Brits don't even learn how to say so much as 'please' and 'thank you' in the local language when they go abroad, but we are good at shouting loudly in English to make ourselves more understood... Really, considering our history we have no real grounds to go on about other people coming over as immigrants...

Secret service spied on Scottish politicians

A long standing rumour that MI5 and Special Branch spooks spied on members of the Scottish National Party in the 1950s appears not to be paranoia but fact according to documents discussed in Scotland on Sunday today. Perfectly legal political parties and democratically elected representatives of the people seem to be fair game for these shadowy bastards - and we're not talking about intelligence services keeping an eye on extreme parties such as the BNP with many potential hidden links to secret agendas or links to even less savoury (and illegal) sub groups but to a party following a publicly espoused campaign to move for encouraging Scottish independence. Given the intelligence services also spied on Labour ministers and even the prime minister in the 60s and 70s it illustrates how much of a law unto themselves such groups can often be, how little real oversight there is from parliamentary committees and just why we should oppose the present government who want to use Fear to make us agree to an ever expanding range of new powers for them 'to make us safer'.

And given the SNP recently humiliated Labour in its heartland of Scotland to take control of the Scottish parliament this must be even more humiliating for the government, especially since there are still rumours of dirty tricks and spying to this day. Of course, such rumours are rubbished as paranoid conspiracy theory nonsense by Westminster government spokespersons, but since that's what they said of the 50s dirty tricks ops against the SNP who the hell believes a word that comes out of their mouths? As they used to say in the X-Files, "trust no-one"

Referendum? Why would we want to know what the people think?

The three main opposition parties in Scotland have done pretty much what they threatened to do and joined together to try and block any possible referendum on the likelihood of Scottish independence in the face of the new SNP government's attempts. I remain far from convinced that independence is a good idea and so far the SNP hasn't really outlined exactly how it will work, how it can be paid for and sustained and how transnational obligations such as defence or even something as simple as running foreign embassies, will work. However, I am furious that the other political parties are not just campaigning against the idea of independence (which is their right if they choose) but against the idea of a referendum - put simply they are utterly against the idea of the citizens of the country being given the chance to put forward their own opinion, hardly a democratic stance. In fact, quite the opposite. If you don't believe in allowing the people to voice their own opinion and vote then why masquerade as a 'democratic representative of the people'? And I'm especially ashamed of the Scottish Liberal Democrats partaking in such anti-democratic actions - they held this stance before the recent elections and it certainly cost them my vote.

Protesting is terrorism

Well, well, well, what a bloody surprise - the police, government authorities and the multi-million pound business that is BAA are using every dirty trick in the book (many of those tricks were added in recent years by Blair's junta 'to protect us') to gag the climate protest camp at Heathrow Airport. Anyone who has been following the pre-amble to this will not be surprised - sites like Boing Boing have been following the attempts by BAA ahead of the camp to try and pre-emptively gag them and keep them away so no-one sees their protest about the impact of ever-increasing air travel on the environment (not just the pollution in the air, Heathrow is still physically expanding and devouring more land, creating more noise for local residents and if a new runway goes ahead more than likely there will be compulsory purchases of people's homes as they are forced out to make way for it).

"With the current terrorism threat, keeping Heathrow safe and secure is a very serious business. Any action taken by the protesters that distracts us or the police from this task is irresponsible and unlawfu." Mark Bullock from BAA Heathrow. Methinks Mr Bullock is talking bollocks.

So in effect we have a big player in a business which is causing massive amounts of continuing and growing damage to the environment using very dodgy laws to try and stop people protesting the impact that industry is having, at the connivance of the police who are happy to employ very shady anti-terror laws to try and intimidate protesters from turning up and to harass them if they do. I'd guess this also means the usual method of police intelligence (if that isn't a contradiction in terms) units filming people protesting so they can identify them and build a file - can't have people thinking they have the right to freedom of expression and protest in a democracy, can we? This is exactly the sort of heavy-handed action folks like comedian Mark Thomas have been protesting (Mark did a great Radio 4 show which exposed and ridiculed the laws Blair brought in to make legitimate protest in and around Westminster and the seat of government, laws supposedly to protect us but rather obviously there to protect twisted politicians).

Yeah, I know, some of you might be thinking, so what, bunch of eco-hippes, get a job. And maybe for some of them you might be right. But even if you don't agree with their views on the environment (and there are a lot of people who still insist humans have no influence on global warming, it's all nature - these folks remind me of the shagwits who all through the 70s said "there's no scientific evidence smoking harms you") then think about the continuing implications of the actions of the police, BAA and the government. Think about the fact that very dodgy laws rushed through without proper consultation or analysis in the House to cope with 'emergencies' sparked by the War On Terror (WOT?) are again being used to stop British citizens exercising their fundamental right to freedom of speech and to protest. Those are absolutely critical to any democratic society; people fought and died to preserve those rights and here we have a corrupt government that has abused serious global events to push through laws which can be employed in any bloody way they want to try and minimise dissent (and oh the irony of this being a government which says it is leading the world in tackling climate change). Regardless of your views on what the protesters are saying that should worry us all.

Cash, dishonours, whitewash

It looks like no-one will be charged over the scandal of cash for honours. What a bloody surprise that is. If no-one was held to account in government for lying to the House, misleading the citizens, fabricating supposed evidence and dragging us into a war without proper legal moves then what chance any of the scunners would be held accountable for this scandal? Two-faced political leaders whine on about the yob culture, increasing violence among the young, lack of respect for law, the rules and society and morals and while there is a problem of this nature just how the hell are we supposed to tell younger folks to have respect for society, to play by the rules and do the decent thing when they see lying, scheming politicians breaking all sorts of laws again and again and always getting away with it. If society is going to hell, it is rotting from the head down.

All at sea

I came to this story by Johan Hari of the Independent via Boing Boing - Hari joined a regular cruise organised by the ultra right wing National Review in the US, a cruise ship full of rich, white, right wing Americans. I have no problem with the fact that people hold different views from what I would consider reasonable (not to mention humane and moral), but these people are off the scale for willful ignorance, arrogance, bigotry, stupidity and an ability to tune out real events in a manner that would make even Fox News blush in shame.

If they lived in their own little warped world that would be fine, but cry for the world because these are the sorts of shagwits who have urged on the foreign policies of the current US administration and if anyone disagrees they are obviously communist-liberal-muslim-sand-nazis out to destroy The American Way Of Life (TAWOL), which obviously for them includes freedom of expression as long as you express nothing but agreement with them. Warning, reading this article may make you very angry and demand the public disembowelling of Rush Limbaugh.

Elected

Well, finally last night the last result crawled in from Thursday's elections (for local councils and also the Scottish Parliament) - there was a huge mess in counting votes because of a new syste, exacerbated by running both parliamentary and local elections at the same time, meaning three sets for folks to fill in (the parliament has two votes, one for constituency MSPs and another for the list vote, which gives independents a chance) and using two different methods. I found it clear enough to use, but I actually took a few minutes to read the instructions, I suspect a lot of the spoiled papers are a result of people simply not paying attention or because they are so used to the older system they never realised it was now different.

Still, with tens of thousands of spoiled papers and a counting breakdown which delayed everything it is little wonder Scottish political commentators are calling it a 'guddle' (there's a good old Scots term for you). And it means a large number of people have been disenfranchised; since in some places the winner only got in by the skin of their teeth (sometimes as low as 40-odd votes) but the number of spoiled ballot papers was higher than their majority it effectively means there can't be much confidence in their election. Between electoral mess-ups, disenfranchised voters and the recent bout of sunny weather it is just like being in Florida...

So after being neck and neck all day yesterday the final result has come down to the Scottish National Party under Alex Salmond winning by a single seat, to be the biggest party in the Scots parliament. But with such a tiny majority they can't form a proper government without going into coalition, most likely with the Liberal Democrats. The Libs bland leader in Scotland already ruled out doing a deal with the SNP if they stick to their guns to set up a referendum for the people to vote on whether we should pursue independence or not, which I really don't understand. I can understand the Libs may be against independence (I am far from convinced myself since no-one has really, properly explained how we can work it) but to be against the most democratic of things, a public referendum where all the people are asked what they think is simply foolish and undemocratic and, in my opinion, a betrayal of Liberal values, which is another reason why I have no faith in the Scottish Liberals anymore. Agree or disagree with the idea of independence by all means, but how can you be against allowing the people to vote on it??

It is also a big shocker to Labour - Scotland has been a huge block of Labour votes for generations, something they could take for granted, even in the bad old days of Herr Thatchler's evil dictatorship from London in the 80s when Labour lost tons of support they still had a huge block here. Now they have blown that after decades, which speaks volumes for how much people are pissed off with their cronyism, nepotism, corruption and utter inept handling of government. A lot of it was also because of what the Labour party has done in power in the London parliament under Blair - clearly a lot of us thought yeah, we know that isn't the fault of the Scottish parliament, but neither have you stood up and criticised them, so you are tarred with the same brush.

Still, such a small majority means it looks like people didn't vote so much for a march to independence as vote against Labour in disgust. It does means that when the notorious war criminal Blair steps down from the London parliament and Gordon Brown takes over (as seems likely) he is going to be a Labour prime minister in London dealing with a Scottish parliament run by his political opponents (embarassingly the constituency right next to Brown's own in Fife also went to the SNP) which means the relationship between London and Edinburgh is going to be rather interesting in coming months and years - which I am sure Salmond will exploit to push the independence agenda. I wonder if I should declare my own Independent Republic of Woolamaloo and offer to make it the free homeland for bloggerdom?

Enquiring minds

Nope, we don't need a full, independent, public enquiry into the new revelations that the intelligence services seem to have ballsed up a chance to stop the London bombings before they happened, sez Tony Blair. We don't need an independent, public enquiry into the real reasons why I lied, mislead and cajoled and tricked us into war, sez Tony. No, we don't need to have public knowledge of the attorney general's legal advice over the legality of the war, sez Tony. Hey, why is it everyone wants me gone and no-one trusts me? asks Tony.

Wouldn't you love this odious, wriggling, untrustworthy war criminal git to stand right in front of one of the maimed survivors of the July bombings, look them in the eye and tell them why there shouldn't be an enquiry? Do you think if he tried to tell the truth his head would explode?

Election time

It seems to be an election spring this year - Turkey is in the middle of problems with a flawed election, France is in the middle of presidential elections which are now between a right wing twonk (sorry, Le Twonk) and an attractive woman who hates manga but doesn't seem to have much in the way of solid policies. In the UK there are local elections for councils and in Wales and Scotland there are also elections for the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament as well this week. It can be very confusing as political parties jockey for attention like ill-tempered and jealous children with bad attention defecit disorder and every second lampost suddenly blooms with strange new colourful foliage as activists go around sticking up signs entreating us all to vote for their candidate, each trying to place their sign higher than opponent's (shame they are slower to come round and remove this political graffiti they inflict on citizens after it is over). Well, for those in Scotland who are wondering just what the smeg to do this Thursday, here's our Woolamaloo rough guide, prepared in collaboration with Professor Albert Major-Majority of the University of Woolamaloo's Department of Political Science and Bullshit:

The Labour Party - main plank for election: please don't blame us for Tony Blair's war crimes, nothing to do with us, honest, oh and let's stick with the Union because Tony told us to. Er... It's okay, he's going soon, honest and can we just say again he is nothing to do with Scottish Labour, it's just we never got round to criticising him because we were too busy using our own Westminster MPs to support his corrupt regime. Er... Vote Jack!

The Liberal Democrats - main plank of election strategy: er, not sure really. Do they have one? Do they even have a leader of the Scottish party anyone has heard of? Moving on...

The SNP, aka the Scottish National Party but also known to generations of Scottish schoolkids as the Scottish Nose Pickers. Main election strategy - play on the age-old Scots tradition of blaming the English for anything ever being wrong, have total independence without explaining how it will work other than referring to North Sea oil revenues which magically go on forever and never run out... Never mind, Sean Connery loves them, but since he hasn't lived in Scotland for decades what the feck does he know about Scottish politics and life in Scotland these days?

The Green Party - main election ideals: build sustainable new power stations by constructing wind turbines powered from the hot air blowing from the major parties' gobs. Create affordable new homes from hemp. Free sandals for all schoolkids.