Oh Peter Hitchens, when will you learn?

I want to start off by saying that I don't have a Peter Hitchens obsession. I don't hang around his house. I don't want to steal his clothes off his washing line to keep as little souvenirs. I have no intention of turning this blog into a line by line rebuttal of everything he ever commits to his word processor. However when he starts pulling these articles out of his arse. I feel honour bound to step in.

More sex education means more teenage pregnancies. Always.

A pretty bold statement of fact if ever there was one. He goes on to say.

"Sex education has failed. So the Establishment decrees that we must have more of it, and in fact that there shall be no escape from it"

He means in the context of these figures from the Office of National Statistics, that in 2007 the number of teen pregnancies in the UK has risen (albeit very slightly. 1 baby born per 1000 to mothers aged 15 to 17.). However the figures seem to contradict some of what Peter is saying, by showing that overall teen pregnancies have been dropping since 2002, with 2007 being a slight blip in the trend. (see the graph below, orange line.) His claim perhaps carries some validity if you take into account that the government wanted (but didn't reach) to halve teenage pregnancy by 2010. (from 1999 levels) An ambitious goal, but in all fairness, reducing teenage pregnancy requires concerted long term effort, and ground root social shifts. This will be a long time on going work in progress.

This has obviously been pounced on by elements of the press as concrete evidence of council estates brimming with a huge army of slaggy chavettes, popping out sproglets and being paid a million pounds in benefits, free fags and cider, and YOUR paying, do you hear middle England? In fact it only really shows that the numbers of conceptions, which are in a fairly stable declining trend since 2002, have fluctuated upwards for 2007, before regressing back to trend. But as we know statistical analysis will always take a back seat to Fleet Street sermonising about this issue. Sermonising like this.

"Despite the casual massacre of unborn babies in the abortion mills, and the free handouts of morning-after pills (originally developed for pedigree dogs which had been consorting improperly with mongrels), and the ready issue of condoms to anyone who asks, and the prescription of contraceptive devices to young girls behind the backs of their parents by smiling advice workers, and the invasion of school classrooms by supposedly educational smut, the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy has failed, is failing and will continue to fail.
In the week that figures clearly showed that the Government’s supposed target for cutting teen pregnancy by half is never going to be reached, compulsory smut education – a key part of this ‘strategy’ – was forced on all English schools by law for the first time."

I don't really need to paste much more. It's the same old straw man, slippery slope, their having abortions in assembly these days type of article that have been duly trotted out in the press, since as long as I can remember. The dogs comment is irrelevant anyway, all mammals produce the same sort of reproduction based hormones, so yeah they work pretty well across the spectrum. It seems there may be undertones that he thinks that teenage girls who get pregnant are somehow bestial and "improper". All this is beside the point of the article if we are really honest. The last two words are what it is really about.

"Some years ago, I wrote a short history of sex education in this country. I didn’t then know about its first invention, during the Hungarian Soviet revolution of 1919, when Education Commissar George Lukacs ordered teachers to instruct children about sex in a deliberate effort to debauch Christian morality."

I thought he directed "Howard the Duck". His opening statements are so falsifiably shoddy, and the reasoning in the rest of the article is so convoluted, I am pleased that he gets slammed in the comments to the article (and boy there can be some real mindfuckery on display there sometimes.)

"Mr. Hitchens is disingenuous when he argues that sex education in schools has failed to stop the national illegitimacy rate climbing to 46%. Classroom sex education is designed to stop childhood pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, not to dissuade or stigmatise the many stable cohabiting adult couples whose families are presumably acceptable to Daily Mail readership in all but their lack of church and/or state approval.
As for sex education being advocated exclusively by "militant Leftists who loathe conventional family life", this could only be believed by someone who prefers manufactured simplification to reflecting on the real world. Most parents I know prefer schools to teach their offspring some of the biological basics. Sometimes this is due to haziness about some of the finer points of biology (the same reason why we are also sometimes happier about the teaching of first aid and cooking in schools). Sometimes it is sheer embarrassment. These reasons may well be deplorable on other grounds, but they are not evidence of militant leftism. A further reason, laudable from virtually all caring and responsible viewpoints, is that should parents' attempts to instill a sound sexual morality fail, they would rather deal with the emotional fallout without the added disaster of pregnancy.
Oversimplification is usually required to fuel the baser emotions of political reaction, but hopefully most readers will in this particular case have developed an immunity to it through contact with everyday life"

"This column on sex education contains so much misinformation, bias, and slanderous opinions stated as fact that I would hope that most readers would reject it, but I will comment anyway. Notice that he credits a nasty reign with dreaming up the idea and blames liberals for pushing the idea and offers only his own opinion, no references, that the programs always fail. In fact, here in Texas, we have no sex education (or actually are only allowed to teach "abstinence" if anything is taught and we have the highest teen pregnancy and highest second teen pregnancy rate in the country. This program was rammed through by people who believe Hitchen does (along with trying to get creationism into the biology books while already keeping evolution out.) States, such as Wisconsin, which have good well balanced sex education programs have much lower teen pregnancy rates (and lower abortion percentages in the population.) About the only statistic Hitchen actually offers is that the "illegitimacy rate" for one area rose from under 8% to over 40%, but he fails to define whether that applies only to teens or omits the likely fact that as time has passed an increasing number of people of all ages are living in an unmarried but permanent joining, so he may be reporting on a population 10 or 20 years ago that has now grown to adulthood (beyond teens) having children without "benefit" of marriage while those that thought "illegitimacy" was humiliating have grown beyond baby producing age and thus out of the statistics.
And like our abstinence-pushing, information-denying folk, it does not make it clear when young people who plan on holding off until marriage and then not having children immediately are going to learn that birth control is a possibility in arranging their family growth. Or is that a liberal "sin" also?"

"The annual number of teenage pregnancies in the UK has fallen by 13% since 1998, so more sex education clearly doesn’t “always” mean more teenage pregnancies.
The government has indeed failed to meet its own very ambitious target, but there has nevertheless been a significant move in the right direction.
The country with lowest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe is the Netherlands, which has plenty of sex education in its schools.
No doubt there are many reasons for the differences between the UK and the Netherlands, but sex education does not seem to be one of them.
Everyone learns about sex from a variety of sources, and a country’s attitudes to sex have many influences. Sex education in schools is just one aspect of this, and almost certainly not the most significant."

"Peter, sex education has indeed failed but not for the reasons that you state. In my view its failure can be seen in the number of men who die unnecessarily of bladder, prostate and testicular cancer because they are too embarrassed to see a doctor and so leave it to late. My brother works in a comprehensive school and recently they had to take a teenage boy to hospital; he was in agony with a strangulated testicle (caused by a sporting injury) and had done nothing for days because of embarrassment.
If sex education was working boys and girls, men and women would have no problems seeking medical help for problems "down there". I am a middle aged man who has to attend regular urology clinics and have done for 20 years. I know the frustration that staff feel when cancer is left untreatable because of late diagnosis. I believe that gynaecologists and obstetricians and constantly amazed at the ignorance of women and what has to be explained to them. Again a sign of the failure of sex education.
For those who say there should be no sex education and that it should be left to parents should look at the story of the Rev Chad Varah and why he set up the Samaritans. The main reason was that he and his clergy friends were fed up of carrying out the funerals of teenage girls who had committed suicide after menstruation; the girls wrongly thought that they had some terrible, shameful illness. The Samaritans started as a sex advice line; dealing with more general causes of suicide came much later.
So to be against sex education per se I can not agree with. Wanting it to be more about health, understanding medical issues and having a moral element I can agree with."

Now don't get me wrong. I not being flippant about teenage pregnancy. (nor do I condemn them all as sponging slags either.) Even the staunchest advocates of sexual libertarianism will agree that at the very least, 15 and 16 year old girls should go and live life for a while before faffing around with bottles and shitty nappies. Then there's the psychological burden of parenthood/pregnancy at a young age, and the disruption to studies and work that a baby brings. I have no problem with anyone highlighting these to teenagers. But that isn't what Hitchens is concerned with. (He doesn't seem concerned with evidence to back his claims up either. But what's new there?) He is hiding behind a legitimate (but smaller than many actually think) social issue, to promote his fundamentalist Christian philosophy. Attacking those who teach sex education as "educational smut" peddlers, and Marxists, is particularly objectionable. It has nothing to do with genuine concern for teenagers, and everything to do with his own evangelical baggage. We must remember that "sex education" is a broad term anyway. You could argue that teaching the Karma Sutra (I doubt very much this happens in the PSE lessons of secondary schools) is sex education, but then so is explaining the general biology of sex organs, and STD's (I'd think most 16 year old lads would flinch at what a male smear test entails.), and even womens rights. It's amazing how sex education is malleable enough a term to mean whatever a pundit wants it to mean. My own take is that in the real world, teenagers are going to get their info either from unsolicited playground gossip, pornos, or from sex education lessons by professionals. I know which I think is the best source.

Is this proposed BBC trimming a bad sign for Aunties future?

In the Rupert Murdoch owned Times, there has been an article apparently leaked to the paper that outlines a proposed budgetary shake up of the BBC by its director general, Mark Thompson. He will be undertaking a strategic review of the entire corporation next month, and the Times article suggests that he will largely be focusing on budget allocation, and attempting to bring costs down, a priority he believes is all the more urgent due to the licence fee being frozen in 2013 (there is a good chance the Tories will be in power then, and that brings perhaps extra worries to a BBC director general. More on this later.). The - I must emphasise: proposed cuts can be boiled down to the following:

1. HALVING THE SIZE OF THE BBC's WEBSITES.

2. CLOSING RADIO 6 AND THE ASIAN NETWORK

3. POSSIBLY AUCTIONING OFF BBC WORLDWIDE MAGAZINES (i.e Top Gear and Radio Times.)

4. CUTTING THE BUDGETS OF SPORTS AND IMPORTED PROGRAMMING

5. A SHIFT TOWARD MORE "QUALITY FOCUSED" TV AT THE EXPENSE OF "RATING PULLERS"






The Times article and the Big, Bloated and Cunning comment piece (I wonder how much influence Murdoch had in the wording of the editorial? Hmmmm.) is typical "News International" fayre where Auntie is concerned, and with all these types of commentary, there is more half said, than actually said aloud. Murdoch seems to have an obsessive, almost pathological hatred of the BBC. Perhaps for such a profound control freak, the fact that the BBC and its licence fee are ring fenced (for now) from News Internationals grasps on the UK media market is too much to bear. It also makes his attacks so brazenly hypocritical. Attacks like these:-

"In times of uncertainty, of maxed-out credit cards and job cuts, we all seek the comforting embrace of Auntie Beeb."

"The real giveaway in the proposals is that the BBC seems to have no plans to give anything back to licence-fee payers."

"The best way to make that happen would be to make a substantial cut to the licence fee and give money back to people to spend as they like."

The problem with this argument is it is a "how long is a piece of string?" argument. Like any sort of publicly funded thing that, it can seem too rapacious if you don't approve of it. The problem for the BBC is, if they do fall into the trap of cutting back, their enemies can always say cut more.

"It is an empire that schedules TV programmes to wrong-foot its rivals. Proposals seen by The Times look like a welcome recognition that the empire has gone too far,"

This is a bit rich from a news paper group that tried to undercut it's broadsheet opponents in the 90's with a cut price Times, that nearly brought down the Independent, threatened the Guardian, and even created ripples for the Telegraph.

"The BBC ought to be a creative force for entrepreneurship. In reality it stifles innovation. It has planned to expand local news services when local papers are struggling to survive."

The only thing being stifled that News Media really cares about is Murdochs profits. As for the second half of the quote, read the above paragraph.

"The new proposals were written to serve the best interests of the BBC, not the public. The next government will need to take on what Channel 4’s chairman last year described as “the most powerful lobbying and effective organisation in Britain”. Until then, Auntie Beeb’s warm embrace will simultaneously be a stranglehold that is unpleasant and untenable."

It's a typical piece by the Murdoch media. Attack the BBC as a bloated out of touch, cash guzzling black hole that stifles all it's opponents in it's wake. Suggest that the government (presumably David Cameron's Tories) do something to reign it in. It is essentially a call to arms to hack the BBC down to size, (I'd imagine Murdoch thinks that it should be a non-existent size.), and it looks like they are only too willing to oblige.

"Conservatives wanted "a smaller BBC", but did not want "to beat up the BBC". He added that proposals to close digital stations 6 Music and the Asian Network and cut back the BBC website, reported in today's Times, were "intelligent and sensible"."



"We want a smaller BBC because it is doing down its commercial rivals and this seems to have addressed a number of issues".

However, Vaizey called for greater "transparency" on BBC spending."

I don't know if that a tacit admission of a conflict of interest between Murdoch and the BBC by the shadow culture minister, but a potential Tory government cool to the BBC doesn't look promising to those of us like myself who think the BBC is a valuable asset to both quality broadcasting and the nation as a whole and needs preserving.

Now I'm all for responsible monitoring of budgets, but a lot of qualms about the BBC that are often bandied about are ones about it having to reach niche audiences (see BBC6 and Asian Network) (who incidentally pay the licence fee like everyone else.) The BBC by the virtue of its diverse licence payers will always have to be a mixed bag, and this point has to be emphasised, not perhaps to the critics of the BBC, who don't want to know, but perhaps hammered home a bit more, and I think that this is what Thompson doesn't want to do, by the proposed axing of the aforementioned radio stations. I'm not entirely enamoured with Mark Thompson as D.G, and think he may be setting up the BBC for bigger falls - by shedding the types of networks he thinks the BBC critics might like to see go. BBC 6 and the Asian Network are seen as "the trendy pet projects of an out of touch media elite" and "PC" by many of the more vocal (and largely middle aged, middle English pub bore variety) critics, that are (unintentionally I admit) summed up by the prize plank and I'm sure as night follows day, a dead cert for a future repeat offender on here, MP for Shipley Philip Davies, who describes BBC3, which he wanted to be axed in an interview in 2007 as:

"They don't serve a purpose and nobody watches them."

It seems that Mark Thompson appears to be planning a two pronged defence against a hostile Murdoch media, allied to a possible Tory government, that will freeze the licence fee, or worse will place the fee at a lower rate than the the relative levels of inflation. I can assume he; on the one hand wants to stave off attacks of dumbing down with licence payers money, by looking into increasing "quality broadcasting", and then trying to quell the critics by reducing or strimming "niche and unrepresentative" BBC outlets like R6. I have sympathy for him, it's a rock and a hard place to be really. I just feel that like throwing lambs to a hungry wolf, in the hope that it will get full up and lose interest. It will just encourage the attacks on the BBC, get rid of some of the less popular stuff, why not get rid of more? Not showing popular viewing figure boosters? How can you claim to be representing licence fee payers then? I don't think that most of the low level grumblers about the BBC, want to see it abolished totally. It does on some level seem to permeate into the national psyche. (notice how Radio 4, a very costly radio station, seems to escape criticism. This absolutely not dumbed down station does seem "out of bounds" to the low level critics.) It would be a real tragedy if we let short term grumbles about the BBC allow its more determined enemies to use them to hack it away to long term oblivion.


PS. If you do think as some have suggested that privately owned media, and profit based viewing figures make for better quality news programmes, than BBC news, then I put this to you. I once saw two news broadcasters commentating on the appallingly gruesome murder of a 5 year old girl by a relative. The grandparents of the child wanted the details of the post -mortem, for the sake of their dead grandchild's dignity, and the respect of the family in their grief to be spared from having them made public, on the news broadcasts. The news reporters disagreed, saying it was in the public interest that the warts and all account of the post mortem be divulged on the news (the evening news I might add) for all to see. Now I ask, which of the two outlets; BBC or private news network, do you think that was broadcast on? I think we all know.

Bye Bye to Dicky Dawkins Politics and Current Affairs Forum

The closure of the Politics and Current affairs forum on the Richard Dawkins Net is a bit of a sad occasion for me. It seems that in the run up to the upcoming revamp on every ones favourite God bashing site, the P&CA forum was for the chop (in its current form of course), with a 30 day deadline for posting the last comments that would ever grace that entertaining, often frustrating, profound and clever / silly forum. But it seems, that like every unexpected and unwelcome parting, there have been tantrums and fireworks. The 30 day deadline has had to be pulled, with an instant moratorium on any more comments. There have been some commentators who have taken to using this event to finally, really tell other commentators what they really thought about them and their postings. Some of the moderators, released of their burden have been delivering their big electric "fuck yous" to those they were charged to oversee. It all sounds like the plot of, an online version of a comedy film about a well established company staffed by eccentric old placemen, who released from the conventions of their positions, decide to let off all that bottled off steam in an oh so amusing manner, when they discover that their entire outfit is being shipped off to China this coming Friday.

There comes a time when these type of things have to revamp. The nets just one big work in progress anyway. But I will be sorry to see the end of the P&CA forum, even though at times it felt like some of it was being deliberately infiltrated by the religious community to create cipher posters who confirmed all the flaws they associated with the new atheist movement (Brights, are you kidding me!! What sort of names that?) Or that it often felt like some "Who's Who" for the terminally pretentious. Or that reading some of it made me feel that I had an IQ that was roughly in line with the contents of the vegetable isles in ASDA, in comparison to some of the posters. I even have fond memories of when it seemed to attract those barmy free market libertarians, those ones who made fricking Skeletor look like a kindly old granny who gives out buns to local children. But most of all I feel it is a tremendous shame that, when at its best; one of the most literate, interesting and sometimes downright profound forums out there has been forced to come to such a petty and undignified end. But there we are.

Retro Movie Review. Forrest Gump (1994)

As it's still on my DVD hard drive, and as I am now going through a period of low level writers block, here's my take on the very popular, but somewhat polarising 1994 Robert Zemeckis film, Forrest Gump.

Lenin once sarcastically quipped that he couldn't listen to music as it made him want to pat folk on the head and say kind things to them. His point being that certain emotional stimulants can give you a warm, slightly mushy feeling, despite yourself. I find Forrest Gump has exactly this affect on me, when perhaps it really shouldn't have any right to do so. It is no secret this Robert Zemeckis film was a huge hit when released. It is also a controversial hit, with many plaudits, and also many critics as well. It’s sort of the film equivalent of a Concorde that is painted bright pink. Or, if Cheryl Cole’s parents had called her Doris Grimyflanks. The end product is an almost technically flawless in every way, however there is that one glaring problem that if you let it bother you, can and will overshadow all the things they do very well. Well almost.

It isn’t difficult to see why this film won 5 Oscars. It is quite simply, just about technically flawless. There isn’t any one / thing misplaced or out of the general tone in the whole of the movie. Hanks plays Gump, the kind hearted but mentally challenged (IQ a lowly 75) mommy’s boy who through a sense of greater destiny and through the kindness of his own heart embodies the American dream to the fullest. His low IQ begets a contrary BIG CV, successful business man, sports college graduate, decorated Vietnam veteran, using some clever FX, and voice overs to superimpose Hanks into real life footage of US presidents, we can see Gump interacting directly and humorously with the shakers of history, world famous ping pong champion which indirectly leads to him providing John Lennon with the lyrics to “Imagine” and giving us “Shit happens” and the yellow smiley along the way. Hanks rises to the role, counter balancing knowing where to draw the line between parody and pathos, a realistic portrayal of a mental disorder, without straying into the realms of crude, clichéd and weakly observed caricature. This is immensely difficult to pull off and Hanks never falters at all in succeeding. I really think we can forget how difficult this is, and how it could have easily gone awry. The scene where he meets his son for the first time for me are the most well acted scenes in the film. The supporting cast is also universally great. I have to give particular kudos to Gary Sineses superb performance as Lieutenant Dan, the career military man who loses his legs in Vietnam, as we see his parallel journey from bitter and drunken dropout to a sense of quiet catharsis on a beautiful summer day on his and his kindly friends shrimping boat, without ever resorting to Pollyanna type shmuckery from Forrest to reach that moment. I also enjoyed the solid, focused pacing of the film. The humour is generally funny and not laboured. The pathos and emotional aspects compliment this beautifully. This is comedy drama, with equal emphasis on both sides of the coin. The general thread of the plot is how Forrest, Jenny (Robin Wright Penn.) and Lt. Dan experience the rough and tumble of US society from the 50’s to the 80’s. We see a sort of narrative tapestry of postwar US history which interacts alongside and with our characters, sometimes they alter and affect it, sometimes it affects them for ill and good, sometimes it’s palpable to them, other times they seem dimly aware, or not aware of how their society affects and creates them, or vice versa. This narrative sense of changing history, and how it can feel a huge and distant force, and sometimes close up and embracing our characters disparate lives back to the whole again, and changing ideas and norms is almost tangible and almost seems like a living character itself. Quite a lot of Gumps “fortunes” of destiny are stretching plausibility to absolute breaking point, but it is done with good, tongue in cheek humour, the Nixon scenes are a great example. We drop our cynicism and buy it for the ride. And this is perhaps why the films faults are to coin a relevant phrase – whitewashed.

There is a feeling amongst some that this film is (perhaps unwittingly) promoting a right wing agenda, show piecing conservative and conformist, small town values, and portraying the counterculture and civil rights movements in a negative light. I feel a review of this film requires me as a (very amateur) critic to address this, and I feel it does have some basis in truth, but it is not as clear cut as that. Any film that also rewards the kindness of a protagonist can’t be too shifty in my eyes. Yes the film massively overstates the accessibility of the American Dream (emphasis dream.). But the film does showcase the murkier side of the supposed right wing values it embraces. (Lt. Dan being let down by the nation he gave so much for. Jennys awful childhood explaining how she fell by the wayside for a while. Gumps Mom resorting to sexual procurement. The bigotry shown to Gump by his townspeople) and ignores the many obstacles that someone like Gump would face in reality. There is something both touching (and probably why the film was so popular.) and ultimately perhaps condescending in believing that with a kind heart and determination, even the most obstinate hurdles can be overcome. When in reality we need as a society to recognize and alter collective goals and idioms to accommodate the most vulnerable. That I think may not give us the instant gratification we actually do get watching this, but as is life.

Forrest Gump, a feel good film that enriches our well being by telling us that even the most disadvantaged can make it to the top by keeping the faith alive, which is great as we don’t have to change much. It warms the heart, but the head??

The only thing Intelligent Design expels is oh yeah - Science.

I write this short post with a sense of unease. Peter Hitchens has written an article on Intelligent Design on his blog page. Firstly this has made Peter Hitchens, a repeat offender which is a pretty impressive achievement for only 10 postings on quite varied topics, and I'd hate to think I was seen to be singling him out. Secondly Peter seems not to understand (or possibly he's deliberately distorting the issue to be contrarian. I don't know.) either what evolution is, and how science works, which is a bit of a bummer if you writing about both of these. So you have to give him credit for the sheer brass ballsed chutzpah of going ahead with it anyway.

The article concerns the DVD release in the UK of a 2008 documentary Expelled, a "documentary" about how proponents of Intelligent Design are being hounded out of the scientific establishment, by a shadowy cabal of the high priests of the orthodox Darwinians, and yes the Nazi's were all influenced by Darwins theories as well. It's pretty much the usual charges put out by the ID lobby against Richard Dawkins and other well known evolutionary biologists. The film has been pretty much panned across the board (a lousy 10 % positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes) as dishonest and mincing facts. There is a great story on the Pharyngula blog by PZ Myers, the author, on what happened when he went to see it. My stance on the ID lobby, is get some facts to back up your claims, and a your first ever scientifically peer reviewed paper published, before you start wanting acceptance in the greater scientific community. (Though I just cannot see how I.D can be called science at all! How (without saying God did it) do you terminate infinite regression, by explaining who designed the designer of stuff that by your own theory needed a designer to design? re-produce the designer in experimental conditions, and how can you objectively and analytically explain irreducibly complex things, if they are blooming irreducibly complex to begin with! You know the little things!)

Intelligent Design is silly and distracts from real science. (which is the primary issue I have with it.) It's simply semantic mischief, repackaging creationism, by being more coy about Gods role in the whole affair, with a fancy new name to try (it failed) and dodge the 1987 ruling in the US Supreme court that creationism violated the separation of church and state. It is primarily an American issue, which explains (not an attempt to shut off pro I.D literature as he claims) why Hitchens article complains about the lack of publicity (and published books by I.D proponents) of I.D in the UK. These local science "disputes" are nothing new, MMR scares are primarily confined to the U.K, and anti-retroviral treatment for AIDS is common in South Africa. I.D will probably largely remain on the fringes of the consciousness of most UK residents. (largely those educated in faith schools.)

I could if I wanted too, do a point to point rebuttal of what Hitchens has written in the article (there's tons of stuff on the web debunking the core arguments of I.D), but that would not be the point of what I think is my gripe about articles like this. I think this kind of article stems from a misunderstanding of how modern science operates. In common with many similar articles by journalists and layman climate change deniers, and anti-MMR supporters, they like to see themselves as brave dissenters, who are standing up to a cold an unaccountable scientific elite. A distant and orthodox agency who are willing to do whatever it takes to maintain their control over the brainwashed masses. They seem to think that "Scientific Consensus" is the same as "Conventional Wisdom" . Conventional wisdom occurs through anecdote and subjective analysis. Gut feeling and "commonsense approach". It can be right and indeed wise, but often wrong, misguided and a bad way to evaluate something. I have no complaint against those who tackle the wisdom of crowds head on, and know it doesn't always win you friends. Healthy skepticism is a great thing, and should be encouraged. But Scientific Consensus is something quite different. It is formed by peer reviewing, some of the most intense cross examination, and objective analysis there is out there. Challenging established knowledge and building on it. It also has the benefit of publishing its findings, you can be a part of it, if you want. I just don't see that happening in this article. When I read, this sort of thing:

"But it's plainly true that ID is an attempt to smuggle religion into the classroom - or at least the religious world view. Though it might more fairly be seen as an attempt to prevent the science curriculum from making metaphysical claims which it is not actually qualified to make. For the heart of this is the claim by 'science' that by explaining the operation of the universe it has explained its origin, and that there is and can be no explanation beyond the materialist one. ID casts doubt on that rather dubious claim, and so is Theistic by implication, just as modern science teaching is Atheistic by implication."

So there we are, Intelligent Design by his own admission - is to put religion back into science. I could point out the contradiction of saying science is dabbling in metaphysics, by teaching Darwinian evolution (which it isn't), and then saying science says nothing immaterial (by extension metaphysical) exists, but what would be the point? And that is what pisses me off about this stuff. This kind of thing distorts the public consciousness on science issues, when science is struggling to even get into the consciousness. This article has less to do with promoting debate, than trying to promote theology by the back door.

The PCC, Jan Moir and THAT article, a few notes.

Now I'm not going to make this a long post. Pretty much everything that has been said about the original article on Stephen Gatelys (I don't want to do it justice by posting it up. It's as badly written as it is nasty.) by Jan Moir (Charlie Brooker from the Guardian, sums it up brilliantly), and the rejection; by the PCC, (Enemies of Reason cover the outcome of the PCC ruling in more detail)of the 25,000 complaints the article garnered, including one from Andrew Cowles, Stephens civil partner, who understandably thought the article was tasteless and badly timed (it was written before his funeral.). I wasn't originally going to comment on it, as what has already been said about it is so comprehensive. It was a nasty article. A typical Daily Mail finger wagging fire and brimstone affair, loaded with half baked insinuation, ill minded speculation, and homophobic innuendo. Full of sanctimonious and passive - aggressive judgemental reaction, acid tongued sermonising, and being guilty of the ghoulishness it claims everyone else showing about the death.

Now I'm not one for banning stuff, just because I don't approve of it (unlike the Mail, and its columnists.). People should self-police a bit more what they are exposed to. If something says it may offend, you should stay away, not dictate to others what they can and cannot see. And this brings a bit of a dilemma up, and the point of this post. Some have said that these kinds of complaints to the PCC, are an example of trying to curtail freedom of speech. However, I agree with the right of those who complained to complain, and I feel that a sub ed at the Mail should at the very least, have considered deferring the article til after the funeral, (in this case I think the rights of Stephens family and friends to lay him to rest, override the right to print this article before the funeral.) or consulting with Moir about some of the innuendo and insinuations (I mean implying that someone has not been truthful about the coroners report into the death, is on the slippery slope to a very serious media incident.) and possibly re-wording the article. The flaw for the free speech argument is,- for me; this. This is the second most widely read paper in Britain, not an obscure blogger at work. This should bring with it (but often doesn't) a sense of responsibility to journalism, when innuendo and speculation have a chance to inflict harm, due to the size of the audience. Yes she has the right to her opinions, but in an ideal setting, a responsible journalist has to say, just because I can write an article, should I. We accept this quite readily in other lines of work. You can, if you feel like it, tell customers or clients to sod off, if you're having a day but you shouldn't as it is bad for business, and you could get in bother for it. This on one level happened, Marks and Sparks stopped advertising on the Mails site for a start. The article was almost certainly on the periphery of breaching PCC guidelines, I don't see why Moir should have not been reprimanded, by Mail chiefs more than she was (if she was at all.) One thing I am sure of though is that Paul Dacre, who is the chairman of the PCC code committee (who monitor the codes of practice) had absolutely no say in the final outcome. No really ))-:

Don't like immigrants? Become an immigrant then. Christ! How consistant.

Now if you are an assiduous reader of the surprisingly good, and endearingly folksy local newspaper the Bolton News, and you stumble across to the often unintentionally hilarious letters page, you may be aware of the wisdom that is David from Malaga. Although he hasn't written in for a while, (so I can't quote him) he's your typical ultra anti - European Union ranter, you know the spiel, trying to destroy the country by banning bandy bananas and the Union Jack, that sort of thing. Now anti - EU sentiment is nothing new, but I'm sure it's never crossed Davids mind when he sits there typing this stuff, beside his pool in his tacky looking villa, that he looks a bit of a hypocrite claiming to hate the EU, and love his country so much that he took advantage of the horrid EU to piss off for good, from the country he claims to love so much. So I wasn't really surprised to discover that another scream it from the rooftops, tinpot patriot, former Australian fish fryer, turned MP Pauline Hanson has decided that she loves her country so much, she's going to emigrate to another one, The UK. She cites:

"Sadly, the land of opportunity is no more applicable. It's pretty much goodbye for ever. I've really had enough."

Which loosely translates to "My political career is screwed. Better luck next time." (she did 3 years for fraud, claiming she had more party members than she actually did, to be eligible for electoral funding)

Yes Hanson who formed the "One Nation" party, a right wing protectionist, populist organisation, running a severe anti-immigration platform. Hanson, like many of the leaders of these kinds of parties, played the tired old populist "real people" card, by constantly draping herself in the Aussie flag (might bring out the patriot in you, but it is just gesturing), and claiming she was fighting against the out of touch elite who know nothing of what "real people" want:

"My view on issues is based on common sense, and my experience as a mother of four children, as a sole parent and as a businesswoman running a fish and chip shop …"

"I may be only a fish and chip shop lady, but some of these economists need to get their heads out of the textbooks and get a job in the real world. I would not even let one of them handle my grocery shopping."

Now as I've said in this post, this is what these people do, I don't think; on this stand alone issue, that this makes them bad people, they honestly think, like many unintelligent people who enter politics, that cookie cutter rhetoric and simple "common sense" can "solve" very complex and staggeringly mulitlayered social issues.

No what I dislike about her, and what makes this "move" doubly hypocritical, and makes her unlike "David from Malaga" is that Hanson is well known in Australia for her strident views on immigration. Which is why she's come out with nuggets like these.

"I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. Between 1984 and 1995, 40 per cent of all migrants coming into this country were of Asian origin. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country."

"Arthur Calwell said: Japan, India, Burma, Ceylon and every new African nation are fiercely anti-white and anti one another. Do we want or need any of these people here? I am one red-blooded Australian who says no and who speaks for 90% of Australians. I have no hesitation in echoing the words of Arthur Calwell."

Yes this is depressing stuff, and these crude generalisations, and collective assigning of cultural traits to non-whites, has all those half-said undercurrents of "civilisation" being overrun by the dusky peoples. A lot of this appeals to the basest and murkiest sentiments on immigration. Her attitudes towards the aboriginals are particularly unpleasant.

"I have done research on benefits available only to Aboriginals and challenge anyone to tell me how Aboriginals are disadvantaged when they can obtain 3% and 5% housing loans denied to non-Aboriginals … "

"I am fed up with being told, 'This is our land.' Well, where the hell do I go? I was born here, and so were my parents and children …"

"Australians" were subject to "a type of reverse racism ... by those who promote political correctness and those who control the various taxpayer funded 'industries' that flourish in our society servicing Aboriginals,"

Now I know that anti immigrant sentiment is hardly an unheard of concept in some circles. But it seems the height of twattery, even amongst the standards we usually expect in this kind of talk, to actually begrudge a group of people who genuinely were swamped out, when the continent was settled by Europeans. Now no living Australian (of European origin) is guilty of their ancestors crimes against the indigenous Australians. But there is something perverse about denying those who have been there a hell of a lot longer, some redress for the land they lost.

That's the problem you see, when you hold these extreme and unsustainable views, you can't live up to them. You can't claim to be against immigration and then become an immigrant. Or is it OK if you are white? She say's she isn't racially prejudiced, but singles out Aboriginals of all people as receiving special treatment, without acknowledging the historic wrongs against the indigenous Australians.

As it happens I think she will probably fade into obscurity back in the UK. But I do wonder if a convicted fraudster who has questionable views, and has been touted by an organisation with links to individuals who would commit acts of terror and violence against British people, will raise as many eyebrows as others who may fit this profile. What do you think.

(I know she holds dual citizenship with the UK, because her family used to live here, so technically she isn't an immigrant. But since when have these people bothered with technicality. And if they don't care. I don't care either.)

Dr Who. My (not very succesful) part in Thatchers Downfall.

I'm not really a follower of Dr. Who, so it's unusual I should be making a post of it here. But it came to light in this article, that everyones favorite time lord may have been dabbling in a bit of UK politics in the late 1980's. It seems that Sylvester Mccoy (the seventh actor to play the doctor.) and Andrew Cartmel have owned up to making an episode deliberately criticising Mrs. T's policies (as PM), called "The Happiness Patrol." The plot revolves around the Tardis visiting a human space colony, where the downtrodden labourers are forced by law to be happy all the time, lest they be put to death by being gunged in candy by an evil Bertie Bassett lookalike called the kandyman (I'm not making this up.) The Doctor ends up helping the labourers revolt against the tyrannical leader of the colony Helen A. (Shiela Hancock) A sort of futuristic Cruella DeVille lookalike with a stupid wig, and daft looking fake dog puppet.

Cartmel goes on the record to say:

said they brought politics into the show "deliberately" but "very quietly".
He said: "We were a group of politically motivated people and it seemed the
right thing to do.
"Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more
terrifying than any monster the Doctor had encountered," he told the Sunday
Times.
Cartmel said it was almost a job requirement to detest Thatcher.
When asked by John Nathan-Turner, the producer, what he hoped to achieve in
being the shows script editor, he recalled: "My exact words were: I'd like to
overthrow the government.
"I was a young firebrand and I wanted to answer
honestly. I was very angry about the social injustice in Britain under Thatcher
and I'm delighted that came into the show."

Thatchers government and swathes of TV writers, in the BBC and elsewhere;- where hardly buxom buddies. Mrs T. always viewed most public institutions (and definitely the BBC itself.) as sinister and hostile entities, stacked to the brim with bolshy lefties, and the Beeb was considered to be the "enemy" by many of her cabinet. Norman Tebbit said it was run by a "Marxist Mafia.", and this would have been a common sentiment in Downing street at that time. There is probably some truth to the opinion in some right wing circles, that the media, arts and TV writers have large numbers of liberal / left leaning people in the ranks. Creative, over imaginative and slightly abstracted people tend to be more predisposed to these kinds of careers, and these tend to show up more in liberal minded people, rather than your (generally) more straight laced, practically minded, fond of the detail and plain talk, conservatives.

It wouldn't immediately be obvious, from the synopsis, that this episode is a direct attack on Thatcher. I mean the tyrannical battle axe figure is a trope that goes way before Mrs T, thought "I know, stuff making longer freezing ice-cream. I'll have a pop at being a politician!" No-one (and importantly no one involved on the commissioning side at the BBC) apparently noticed at the time, (although the paltry 3 million viewers the show was getting at the time it was canned, probably helped.) a fact that seems to have riled Andrew Cartmell.

'Critics, media pundits and politicians didn't pick up on what we were
doing.Nobody really noticed or cared.'

This as I'll explain in a later posting, is common when we see "non genre fans" relationship to sci-fi, and deserves a separate post, rather than being put in this one. Now I don't particularly like Thatcher, or would ever have voted for her. But, whilst I understand the sentiments of those involved, and I can never condone curtailments of artistic freedom, you have to be very careful when doing stuff like this, for two reasons, one of them especially relevant to a licence funded public broadcaster like the BBC. Firstly, overt analogies; especially when done in response to a grievance on behalf of a writer, are often textbook bad writing. They can be preachy, unsubtly contrived propaganda, lacking in imagination and originality, a crude platform to articulate the writers point of view. (you'll know something written like this, it'll have scriptwriters using character to speak for their behalf, rather than the character themselves.) The other is the fact that the BBC has obligations to partiality in it's programming. Thatchers fans did/ and still do, pay the licence fee as well. Overt criticising of governments and political parties will result in giving the BBC's rivals a huge stick to beat it with, and Labour and the Conservatives are too often, very willing to use that stick. If you want to do politically loaded allegorical tales on sensitive issues (and you should.) use a bit of subtlety and out the box thinking, and you can lob telly grenades at your viewers, right under the noses of the top brass. If you play your cards right with your subtle analogies, in a sci fi show, you can get away with almost everything.

David Cameron, Gordon Brown and That Interview

During the past few days in the news, there has been a number of commentaries on an interview on the ITV1 show Piers Morgans Life Stories (ITV 1 10:15pm 14/2/2010). The subject of the interview is none other than Gordon Brown. This interview is considered somewhat controversial as Morgan questions Brown about the death of his premature baby daughter, aged 11 days in 2002, and Brown understandably gets quite visibly upset talking about this. (though it would be an exaggeration to say that he breaks down and cries in the interview, as some have claimed.)








Now it appears that some have taken exception to him giving this interview as Brown has been reluctant to talk about his children in public. His son Fraser (who has cystic fibrosis) is never seen in photographs, as Brown wishes to protect him from the limelight. It has been argued that this line of questioning should not be directed at a prime minister during the run up to a general election, the main lines of argument being that it a) diverts from genuine political issues and b) is even an attempt to garner sympathy before polling day.



Now I personally don't think Brown should have NOT done this interview. Whether we like it our not we live in a more media orientated society, and sadly personality does influence voting more than it should. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that some of Browns lack of success as a premier is down to his poor PR abilities, and his perception of being a dour, bad tempered loner. Modern politicians have to engage with their electorates on a more human level these days. Whether that gives us better politicians is unclear, but it is silly to think we don't have to do these things, because being "emotionally open" matters to people. It has also come to light that David Cameron has had an interview where he too has reacted; equally understandably, similarly when questioned about his own son, Ivans death last year.


Now let me make it clear, I have no objection to people debating where these kinds of topics in a politicians life have a place. I personally don't think either man did anything wrong at all. It is common knowledge what they have both sadly endured in their personal lives. I also can't get too worked up about public displays of emotion like what we see at Wootan Bassett, as some do. This is a more openly emotive nation (probably more in line with everywhere else to be honest) than in the past, and I don't see that changing any time soon. What I do object too however is some of the vindictiveness of the responses to these stories, and especially the stinks coming from that Pravda for Pricks the Daily Mail. (like that's nothing new.) Remember this is a response to a man describing how his 11 day old child died in his arms.

Here's odious gonk Richard Littlejohns take

I've often wondered why anyone bothers interviewing Gordon, since he refuses to
answer inconvenient or difficult questions, endlessly repeats the line he has
decided to take, and bulldozes on until they run out of time.


Which
makes the fact that he broke down and wept openly over the death of his baby
daughter Jennifer during the taping of an interview with TV's Piers Morgan all
the more despicable.

The heartless bastard, I mean crying over losing a child.

No one is underestimating or belittling the sincerity of his grief, but Gordon
has always been protective of his family's privacy and has consistently vowed
that he would not exploit his children for political gain

He's hardly violating his kids privacy, when it is common knowledge what happened to Jennifer. What is he implying?

But he must have known it was coming. It appears to have been stage-managed,
right down to a tearful Sarah Brown sitting in the audience.
And it smacks
of a cynical attempt to play the victim card, exploiting his family tragedy to
win votes.
The fact that he is now parading his grief on a chat show, in an
attempt to convince the electorate that he is human after all, is a measure of
his desperation and a graphic illustration of his complete absence of principle.

My god he thinks a women crying over her husband recalling the death of their baby is a plot to win votes. God Littlejohn is a prick. As for winning sympathy votes, it doesn't seem to be working, with comments like this.

I'm sorry. I care as much for these morons and their problems as they care
about mine. Zero. Human compassion knows limits and publicly emoting to show
what a nice person you are undoubtedly means the opposite. I only wish I had
taken my chance to emigrate 23 years ago. This country is stuffed and deserves
to be if we elect the sort of offensive parasites we have in recent years.
-
William Orr, Yorkshire,

Fuck off then William, you wanker. The country is better off without the likes of you.

Who cares? Please just get on a run the Country, we are all sinking in debt
and greed from the MP's.
- toto kubwa, Cyprus

Pass the sick bucket.
- Steven Farrow, Kings lynn Nofolk, 14/2/2010 7:44Read more:

Written by tossers for tossers.

Littlejohn's article is nasty, I mean what's new with that? But I think nothing surpasses this disgusting article by Liz Jones.

I want a leader who hurls things at his staff, not a blubbing 'poor
me'

This evening, you'll be able to watch
Gordon Brown squeezing 'poor me-dom' out of every oleaginous pore.
Of the
baby he lost aged only 11 days, he tells Piers Morgan: 'She was baptised and we
were with her and I held her as she... as she died.'
He talks of his son
Fraser, who has cystic fibrosis. 'We sometimes say, "Why, why, why us?"' His
eyes well up during the interview, and he denies accusations in a new biography
that he is a bad-tempered bully.

Now I'm sure being married toNirpal Dhaliwal would screw anyones head. But there is no excuse for an article like this. He's/They are not just blubbing poor me. They lost a child FOR FUCKS SAKE!! I mean you may not like them, or their policies, but my god this is something else entirely. You have to be a major league dick to be so full of hate to a politician, that you don't even feel for them suffering the worst fate imaginable for a parent. Which incidentally is the worst kind of personality based politics you can indulged, which contradicts the bloody thing they are supposed to be condemning! Well what did we expect? Consistency in the Mail?

I don't think there is really more I can add to this. The articles/comments speak for themselves. But I'd like to quote a "Malcolm Armsteen" a commentator from Mailwatch,sums up this kind of journalism very nicely.

This is a new low. This could be titled 'Man Cries at Death of Daughter -
Unusual? - you choose'.The article should never have been written, it is
intrusive, callous and cynical. The comments show that at least some members of
our society - who would no doubt congratulate themselves as being 'Decent
English' - in fact are heartless, cynical and prepared to be vicious in their
senseless tribalism.This is the sort of 'work' that is destroying our society,
not 'feral yoof', immigration or 'socialism'.Malcolm Armsteen, Bolton

I second that.

Review. Avatar 3D (2009)

James Cameron seems to be on a personal mission to establish himself as a ground breaker in film. We have had the Terminator films, Titanic and now Avatar. Avatar isn't so much a film with some gratuitous CGI chucked in for good effect. It has simply redefined what special effects should be in a film. Avatar has pulled out all the stops, every cent of the 310 million dollars it reputedly cost to make has been spent in order to produce a cinematic experience truly unlike anything that has been before. Camerons uber-perfectionist style has meant that no stops have been left out to make the Navi and their homeworld: - Pandora, as believably possible as an alien world on a cinema screen can actually be. I was also impressed that the effects, whilst always in the forefront, were a means to an end, rather than the end themselves. If a CGI scene was put in, it was for a reason. So the film never felt laboured, or gratuitously self indulgent, unlike the Transformers films and the Star Wars prequels. I recommend the 3D version as well, it makes use of the effect without resorting to effects that are blatantly choreographed to take advantage of 3D, such as stuff on the screen, poking you in the face. Highlights for me are when protagonist, Jake Sully's (Sam Worthington) avatar first gets stranded in the Pandora forest and it's weird bioluminescant lifeforms. This felt like the weirdest David Attenborough documentary I'd ever seen, and a scene on a tree top near the vortex mountains. I literally had a wave of vertigo pass through me (no really). The FX are just that spot on. I really can't do them justice with words alone.

The actual plot of the film without giving away too much is a relatively simple one that's as old as the hills. The Blue skinned Navi are a peaceful race of forest dwelling primitives who have a deep affinity and connection with the life forms on their lands. But this way of life is threatened by a greedy mining colony of resource strapped humans, with their zealous, bankrolled marine privateer guards, that wants to mine unobtanium, some made up stuff that is very valuable, and wouldn't you know, is inconveniently plonked under the Navi territory. The humans have made Avatars, which are genetically constructed Navi, whose consciousness are controlled by humans in a lab. These remotely controlled Navi are designed to persuade their supposed countryman round to yielding land to the humans. There's only one way this is going to turn out, and this is the core of the film. It is essentially a morality tale about the need to respect mother nature, and not to exploit less advanced societies. It's hardly the most subtle example I've ever come across, but it tells a competent and focused story, showing us the conflict about how the humans are treating the Navi without going into some major league on screen sermonising. The film is atmospheric enough to show us the humans actions against the Navi, so we see for ourselves, rather than being hit about the head with the moral of the story. Which was a relief to me. It could have been a long 3 hours! The moral of the story as I said is old hat, but is a worthy one and if you want to put it across then you're OK with me. (I'm sure there will be some Republicans in the US ragging the film as green trash, at some point of it's showing.)

The Navi themselves are obviously based on the Amerindians (or common perceptions of them.) and the story is an allegory of the colonisation of the New World. These peaceable 12 foot tall, puppy eyed aliens are your standard nature loving (if overly rose tinted view of primitive societies.) low tech tree dwellers, but Cameron has added a little twist to this old trope, we see there is a pseudo scientific reason for why the Navi can mentally link with other life forms, and how the forest itself may be a giant ultra - consciousness. Has Cameron been tweaking about with the Gaia hypothesis? I'm not big on getting all sentimental about nature, but these (almost on the fringe of plausible) at least try to rationalise this green philosophy, rather than that lazy Hollywood cliche that Indi---,, sorry Navi are just at one with nature, cause they, er.. are like you know, - are. They also feel like real characters (some who probably walked,- alongside some of the plots, off Pocahontas, Last of the Mohicans and Dances with Wolves!)

The acting and dialogue in the film was also above par. Whilst it wasn't the most profound or richest of scripts I'd ever seen put to screen, and didn't have much in the way of plot twists or bombshells to drop. I had no real complaints. This is primarily a visual experience after all, and I don't begrudge it this. I don't think it was under any illusions that it was any other way. The script gets the film along, and never shrivels under the effects, or gets bogged down in exposition and muddled plotting, as I said it is a well paced, tightly woven piece. It would have been easy for the film to neglect the plot points of the toxic atmosphere (to humans) and the leads paralysis, but they are put to good use in the film, so well done there.

As I said this isn't the most subtle of stories I've seen, and my main qualms about the film are in this area. The baddy marines are a case in point. They seem to be hired from the "Rednecks and Hicks, Token Cipher Bad Guys" agency. Honestly when they are trotting out about every red-necked cliche, in the briefing scene at the end, I thought they were literally going to start denying evolution and climate change, whilst heckling Barack Obama as a communist who was born in Kenya. Likewise the Navi are a bit too squeaky clean, all the stubborn traditions, noble spirituality and puppy dog eyes are wheeled out to the utter limit. But then the film wants you to think that way about them, so we'll give that the benefit of the doubt.

But that aside. I really enjoyed Avatar. James Cameron has set out to rewrite the rules in visuals and my god he's succeeded. This is about as close as you can get to seeing a truly alien world as is possible. Brilliant effects with a zappy fast paced plot, that doesn't resort to self indulgent CGI scenes that are just window dressing, that maintains itself over a 3 hours that passes by quickly. That's no mean feat to pull off, and I recommend you go and see it soon as, you won't be disappointed.

Rating 8.5 / 10.

Sarah Palin's speech aint my cup of tea.

This Saturday just gone, Sarah Palin made this speech at the National Tea Party convention in Tennessee. The Tea party protest (TEA conveniently also stands for "Taxed Enough Already." See what they did there?) if you haven't heard of it, is a grass roots; right wing lobbying movement devoted to lower taxation and less big government, the standard kind of fayre the U.S right gripe over Democrat administrations. We also have the fact that they are teed off about Obama's fiscal stimulus packages, and his attempts to pass the health care reforms or "socialised medicine" if you prefer. These health reforms look increasingly vulnerable since Scott Brown ; by a narrow margin defeated the Democrat contender for the Senate seat of the late senator Edward Kennedy. (A traditional Democrat given, a sort of Democrat Kensington and Chelsea constituency.) thus putting a Republican in the senate opposed to Obamas health plans.

Now conservatives in the U.S opposing top down government plans is nothing new, and I'm not at all surprised Palins sticking the boot in, it's what she's supposed to about in these kinds of affairs. Nor was the speech insightful or even very interesting to any degree. She made nothing but the most general of observations about future conservative policies, to right what she perceived were Democrat wrongs. She was obviously trying to pad out a bland and diffuse speech with pauses to take in the frenzied enthusiasm of her "fans". It was littered with cliched soundbites, and peppered with your common or garden right wing sentiment designed to please her friendly audience, who duly lapped it up, cheered; and whooping like groupies at some right wing rock concert. They even laughed uproriously at her unfunny jokes. No my beef with it was the way she used the speech and folksy accent to portray herself and the tea party as "ordinary folk" posed against a disinterested, academically naive and out of touch elite. We had "real people" here, and "beltway politicos" there. "common sense and conservative principles" against an "establishment." Now I'm not saying commonsense and being "in touch" don't have a place in modern politics, they obviously do. No I'm talking about this strange obsession that being a "real person" is somehow the gold standard of leadership. Now don't get me wrong, If politicians are going out of their way to make themselves aware of the people that elected them I'm all for that. There have been way to many big cheeses treating their electorates like an annoying bit of baggage in the hallway of the ivory towers, and by all means, these people deserve to be booted out of office for thinking of the people who voted for them, like this. But we as an electorate have to assess whether this is always a default line to take with those who govern. Governing a large society is difficult, and society has so many parts and facets that make up its structure, that it is highly difficult to initiate policies that will have even a good chance of reaching a desired result. These are hard issues to get around and we need smart, intelligent people (whether we have them is another matter.) at these levels. I'm not saying every politician should have a top class degree from the best universities, but they should be as well prepared for the enormous public service they have bestowed on them by voters. We have to realise (but I don't think it likely) that societal change, and combating social issues require a lot more, and are much more complex than cookie cutter rhetoric, and sticking plaster, knee jerk solutions that are dressed up as " good old common sense". I don't hold my breath but there we are.

But forgive me for perhaps being a bit cynical, but I can't help but think that some of these tea party folks like to play this "elite" line themselves, back at their voters, because on one level it has the added benefit of bolstering their philosophy of conservative individualism. Let God and the dollar look after those who are worthy of them, rather than the nasty old big government propping up all those wasters who are just lazy and deserve to have no money, all the time.

God I'll be believing in the illuminati at this rate.

*Given what we've heard about Palins alleged " knowledge shortcomings" in her field by inside biographers, I assume the folks who cheered "Run! Sarah Run!" weren't being ironic!!??

Random

What I was to post on I now can't because the linking websites gone and broked. Well on the way to being the next Perez Hilton then.

Peter Hitchens posts some pap about the Pope.

I'm convinced Peter Hitchens has to be some elaborate parody, mocking the very set of values he supposedly believes in, through the sheer silliness of his reasoning. Or an ultra devious fifth columnist designed to infiltrate right wing opinion from within and begin a campaign designed to undermine their beliefs through the sheer weight of the wackiness of his Mail on Sunday column. He doesn't just try and shoehorn logic and reason to try and support his beliefs, he actively dispenses with them completely if they have that damned inconvenient problem of negating everything he is trying to say. He does; and this is putting it mildly, have a liberal attitude to rational discourse (It's about the only liberal attitude towards something he holds!) And this is why we ended up getting this weeks freshly laid turd.

Actually, I am uneasy about the Pope telling us what to
do. This is part of being British, or was when I was growing up. I can still
recite great chunks of Tennyson’s wonderful Ballad Of The Fleet, all about Sir
Richard Grenville and the little ship Revenge, with her valiant Protestant crew,
fighting her unequal battle against the great sea-castles of King Philip, ‘the
Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain’

I doubt British Catholics see it that way. About the Tennyson poem. Yeah it's good at getting the action across. But it's loaded with anti-Catholic sentiment. The line quoted is one of the nicer "compliments" paid to RC's. Does he think Anti-Rome sentiment was/is a good thing?

I had relatives who viewed the Vatican as
Babylon. I was taught at school about Bloody Mary, 400 years later still a
loathed figure.

Yeah it's hard to like someone who burnt people alive for having the "wrong" belief. But does he think his ancestors hating Rome is a good thing?

Even now, I like to roll over my tongue the
defiant 37th of the English
Church’s 39 articles: ‘The Bishop of Rome hath
no jurisdiction in this Realm of
England.’

I bet Englands Catholics were pissing their
sides when that doctrine was put in.

Those who are outraged – or claim to be – about the
Pontiff’s warning from Rome
are trying to use a force they don’t really
sympathise with. My anti-Catholic
forebears were Cromwellian Puritans, and
would have loathed the sexual
revolution even more than they disliked the RC
Church

No I think you'll find they're a bit annoyed that the Pope is trying to use his office to give his church carte blanche to discriminate against gay people. People is the key word here. The anti-gay stance of some parts of Christianity is an idea. Yes I'm sure some folk are going to be put out that they may not be able to implement anti -gay policies because it's going against their beliefs. But for my money the welfare of people goes ahead of respecting to the letter peoples "beliefs". Not every idea or belief automatically has some entitlement to be respected or upheld. We must weigh up the cost of upholding a belief (which is a tiny tiny part of the Christian doctrine in the New testament) against the cost of the welfare of gay people, or any other group of people who may be threatened by an ideology. It really is for my money a one - way contest.

No what I really find offensive (not so offensive I would say he shouldn't write it. I'm not that much of a hypocrite as to undermine the point I'm making!) about this article, is that Hitchens probably wanked himself senseless over the self appointed cleverness of his article. He uses all the big words, name drops obscure poems, and religious laws. I'm sure he sees himself as a self styled fogeyish contrarian, sticking two fingers up at modern liberal society. He's the enlightened bible buff looking down on all of us godless, unenlightened proles. He might want to remember that when Europe really took this kind of thing seriously, lots of people on the "wrong" side ended up as human torches. It is actually insulting to the victims of this kind of mentality, to claim that religious intolerance is somehow admirable.

Introductory post for Northernbloke(TTMM) The new 3 million and twohundred and fifty eigth best thing you'll ever read on t'internet.

Hi my names Northernbloke, and this is my first ever blog posting. An event; in internet terms as epoch breaking as when Dawn off petrol at the Tesco's Extra at Sutton Coldfield tweeted that she thinks that Rod out of "Rod Jane and Freddy" on Rainbow has just left the store after buying 25 quid worth of diesel and a king sized bag of Walkers sensations. Well what is this Northenbloke and what is the point of this dowdy looking blog, you might not unreasonably ask? Well it's a general interest weblog, humourously (I hope!!) reflecting my many laymans interests in a variety of eclectic and slightly worrying topics. Posts will include my take on films and tv, especially science fiction. There will be reviews of these types of things posted as well. I will also be mocking the unending deluge of pseudoscientific and ultra religious fundamentalist bollocks that seems to leak out of every corner of the scienceyinternettysphere. My reflections on philosophy and life, and a look at current affairs in the news in a general way. Lastly I will set aside a number of posts to give an electric jab in the eye to my biggest pet hate of all, the lying, bullshitting, immoral and hateful right wing press we have in the U.K. There isn't enough bandwidth on the web I could devote to telling Paul Dacre and his bell end lackeys at the Daily Mail; what a bunch of fucking morons they are. The gutter press in this country are the uiltimate poster boys for power without responsibility, and even if I can get back at them, and thier lying tossery in this tiny way, than that's okay by me. We shall also look at the stupidest of the letters sent into the paper. The letters page of the Mail is singly the most simultaneously the most depressing and hilarious thing ever created in the entire universe.

So there we are. This is a broad topic blog, designed to be entertaining and interesting (I hope) and not bogged down with pedantry and ubercomplex facts. There's something for everyone! Except for people looking to transfer their mortgage. Or the benefits and drawbacks of a devolved bipartite Belgium, or the tensile anomolies of Boron. Or recritment tips for Al - Quieda. You get the gist.