That's it folks. Everything pubished from here on in will be bollocks and media propaganda of one sort or another and I shan't be bothering to read it, let alone link to it. Get out there and vote. Vote tactically, vote from the heart or the head. It doesn't matter. Make your preference known, even if it's unlikely to change the outcome. There is nothing else you can do so at least VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

      

Ratzinger is the perfect pope - Richard Dawkins

"Should the pope resign?"

No. As the College of Cardinals must have recognized when they elected him, he is perfectly - ideally - qualified to lead the Roman Catholic Church. A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds; a man who believes he is infallible and acts the part; a man whose preaching of scientific falsehood is responsible for the deaths of countless AIDS victims in Africa; a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence: in short, exactly the right man for the job. He should not resign, moreover, because he is perfectly positioned to accelerate the downfall of the evil, corrupt organization whose character he fits like a glove, and of which he is the absolute and historically appropriate monarch.

No, Pope Ratzinger should not resign. He should remain in charge of the whole rotten edifice - the whole profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping institution - while it tumbles, amid a stench of incense and a rain of tourist-kitsch sacred hearts and preposterously crowned virgins, about his ears.

The new priesthood of meddling experts | spiked

Criticising this exploitation of the expertise of professional scientists, medical doctors and so on shouldn’t be taken as a denigration of rationality, of our ability to know how things are, whether it’s the increased risk of lung disease amongst smokers or the carbon emissions of different modes of transport. Rather it is to argue that this form of rational knowledge, when used by politicians, merges with their moral reasoning. They don’t just say how things are, they use (and abuse) it to say how things ought to be. And in doing so, they deprive us of our own reason, our own ability to make moral decisions about how we want to live our lives. Under the tyranny of expertise, the only rationality that matters is theirs.

Afghan Atrocity and American Values

They had gathered to celebrate the naming of a newborn child. They had gathered in a family home, in their own country. They were not insurgents -- indeed, they at first mistook the Guardians of Western Civilization themselves as "Taliban," and sought to flee from them. But they were caught, shot, killed - in their own country, in a family home, celebrating the naming of a newborn child...

Covert troops who killed two pregnant women and a teenage girl in eastern Afghanistan went on to inflict “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” on the survivors of a botched night raid, a report by the UN said.

“In a year’s time, Iraq will be, at a bare minimum, the least badly-governed state in the Arab World and, at best, pleasant, civilized and thriving.”
Mark Steyn April 2003








“I mean, Fallujah might not yet be Maidstone, but from what I hear of Iraq, it is infinitely better than it was - there’s a plethora of newspapers, very free markets, a lot of education...
                                                                       Roger Alton, Editor, The Observer, May 2004


Despite the fact that it would be difficult to name a single area of Iraqi life which has improved as a result of the American actions, when the subject is Iraq and the person I’m having a discussion with has no other argument left to defend US policy there, at least at the moment, I may be asked: “Just tell me one thing, are you glad that Saddam Hussein is out of power?” And I say: “No”. And the person says: “No?” And I say: “No. Tell me, if you went into surgery to correct a knee problem and the surgeon mistakenly amputated your entire leg, what would you think if someone then asked you: Are you glad that you no longer have a knee problem? 
William Blum








Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”
Hermann Goering

What is it that’s worth the deaths of half a million children? Their combined weight in oil that’s what.
William Bowles

Education: you can’t buy and sell intellectual capital | spiked

We should remember the liberal philosopher Bertrand Russell’s warning about what happens when government attempts to redistribute intellectual capital from those who have it to those who don’t.

Russell wrote: ‘There is a risk that, in the pursuit of equality, good things which there is difficulty in distributing evenly may not be admitted to be good. Some of the unjust societies of the past gave to a minority opportunities which, if we are not careful, the new society that we seek to build may give to no one.’

Jamie got’s a theme tune for his blog.  And so has Justin. "It’s a brilliant idea and so I got myself one as well. Like Jamie’s, it’s in keeping with the blog’s general theme, tone and subject matter…" 

Nothing more to add but this. It's Wesley Willis. The title of the song will become rather obvious:

 

Under the name of reason: Israeli Crackdown Puts Liberal Jews on the Spot

Liberal has a distinct connotation," Finkelstein went on. "It means to believe in the rule of law. It means to believe in international institutions. It means to believe in human rights. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are liberal organizations. What the Goldstone phenomenon registers and catalyzes is the fact that it is impossible to reconcile liberal convictions with Israel's conduct; too much is now known about the history of the conflict and the human rights record and the so-called peace process. It is impossible to be both liberal and defend Israeli policy. That was the conflict that confronted Goldstone. I very much doubt he wanted to condemn Israel.

We are not in any danger of turning into Russia or Somalia, despite what Peter Hitchen's thinks:

In the Soviet suburbs of Hell and the blasted avenues of Mogadishu, I saw what our society could become

But we are in danger of turning into Canada, which is almost as bad:

Jew haters and 'free' speech

Listening to the cover CD from the latest "The Word"
which includes this great old recording taken from the compilation "Murder- Songs From The Dark Side Of The Soul"

"Heinous discoveries and monstrous crime
always happen at the Christmas time"  Brilliant.

Enjoy!

Do Americans Suffer From an "Allergy to Thought?"

"This is a pattern that I see: an allergy to thought, to complexity [and] nuance - a kind of collapse into an intellectual relativism where opinions become fact... It's a dangerous thing... I think there's a growing hostility to knowledge in this country... Our national progress is being retarded because we have fallen into this discourse by slogan. We have fallen into this relativism where it's a conversation to stop and say, "Well, that's your opinion. [This is] my opinion...' Go back to the Athenian idea of political speech - it was a search for good answers. We're so far from that today that it's almost ludicrous for me to bring that up, but I want to remind us... We don't listen well as a society. When we listen, we listen in feedback loops to people who are likely to say what it is we think is right...
                                                         New York University President  John Sexton

‘New Britain’ was built on James Bulger’s grave | spiked

In 1993, when John Major’s Tories were in power, Labour was starting to repose itself, not as the party of the working man, but as the party of social order and ‘community empowerment’. The defeat and hollowing-out of traditional Labour, which came to a head in the series of electoral debacles in the 1980s, left it an empty shell, a party in search of a purpose.

Between its defeat by Major’s Tories in 1992 and its eventual victory under Tony Blair’s leadership in 1997, Labour did not so much consciously reinvent itself or devise anything like a clear-cut political programme, as feel around for ideas, leap upon anything that seemed to create traction amongst the public, and intuitively redefine itself as the party that could stem the apparent social and moral decay and free-for-all individualism that had been unleashed by the Tories. And such a party, stuck in a kind of limbo between the Old and the New, welcomed high-profile events, scandals and tragedies as opportunities for defining and refining its outlook. The murder of James Bulger became a key formative event for New Labour.

Rachel Corrie Family Finally Puts Israel in Dock

Seven years after Rachel Corrie, a US peace activist, was killed by
an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, her family was to put the Israeli
government in the dock today. A judge in the northern Israeli city of Haifa was due to be presented
with evidence that 23-year-old Corrie was killed unlawfully as she
stood in the path of the bulldozer, trying to prevent it from
demolishing Palestinian homes in Rafah. 

Three Britons and one US citizen, who were standing close to Corrie when she was killed, are expected to challenge Israel’s version of events, arguing that the bulldozer driver knew Corrie was there when he ran her over. The Israeli government had sought to block the activists from entering Israel for the hearing but finally relented three weeks ago, when Britain and the US exerted strong pressure.

Israeli justice. Don't hold your breath!

Read the full transcript at RePub

Today, I come before you to warn of another great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, the end of democracy. It is not a religion, it is a political ideology. It demands you respect, but has no respect for you.

There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is build on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never go away. First, there is Quran, Allah’s personal word, uncreated, forever, with orders that need to be fulfilled regardless of place or time. And second, there is al-insal al-kamil, the perfect man, Muhammad the role model, whose deeds are to be imitated by all Muslims. And since Muhammad was a warlord and a conqueror we know what to expect.

Islam means submission, so there cannot be any mistake about it’s goal. That’s a given. The question is whether the British people, with its glorious past, is longing for that submission.

The end of the road for Barack Obama?

"Obama's big problem," a senior Democrat told me, "is that four times as many people watch Fox News as watch CNN." The Fox network is a remarkable cultural phenomenon which almost shocks those of us from a country where a technical rule of impartiality is applied in the broadcast media. With little rest, it pours out rage 24 hours a day: its message is of the construction of the socialist state, the hijacking of America by "progressives" who now dominate institutions, the indoctrination of children, the undermining of religion and the expropriation of public money for these nefarious projects. The public loves it, and it is manifestly stirring up political activism against Mr Obama, and also against those in the Republican Party who are not deemed conservatives. However, it is arguable whether the now-reorganising Right is half as effective in its assault on the President as some of Mr Obama's own party are.

Littlejohn on Michael Foot

Foot's ocean-going hypocrisy is matched only by that of those New Labourites singing his praises this week. He stood up for what he believed in, they say. He was the true voice of dissent, unafraid to express his pacifist, socialist opinions. Yet when Walter Wolfgang, a near contemporary of Foot, had the audacity to heckle Jack Straw over Iraq at a Labour conference, these same people had him thrown out by the police.

And when a poet started reading out the names of Iraq and Afghanistan war dead at the Cenotaph, they had her arrested under an act introduced deliberately to crush dissent. If Good Old Footy turned up at the Cenotaph these days and started spouting his pacifist protest slogans, he'd get the collar of his donkey jacket felt before his wreath had touched the ground.

11-year-old spends $44 million in Dubai

Even by the standards of a city that celebrates extravagance, it was a spectacular shopping spree: In just two weeks early last year, an 11-year-old boy from Azerbaijan became the owner of nine waterfront mansions.

The total price tag: about $44 million -- or roughly 10,000 years' worth of salary for the average citizen of Azerbaijan. But the preteen who owns a big chunk of some of Dubai's priciest real estate seems to be anything but average.

His name, according to Dubai Land Department records, is Heydar Aliyev, which just happens to be the same name as that of the son of Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev. The owner's date of birth, listed in property records, is also the same as that of the president's son.

14 Visually Stunning Animated Infographics

Infographics are visual illustrations communicating information by means of signs, symbols, icons, maps and diagrams. When these graphics are animated they can be used to represent complex situations and tell stories, or they can address social comment, satire and subversion. At their best, infographics in motion can be informative, involving, funny and at times surprisingly touching. This post brings together fourteen examples of these stunning animations.  Here's an example.

Via Nicholas Patten

Informed Comment: The Decline of the Israeli Right and the Increasing Desperation of the 'Anti-Semitism' Charge

The reactionary parties of Likud, Shas, and Yisrael Beitenu have nothing in common with the vast majority of Jewish Americans, who voted for Barack Obama and are generally more progressive than non-Jewish Americans. The establishment of a liberal Jewish lobby, J Street, which supports a two-state solution (Israel and Palestine side by side), is a manifestation of the increasing unease of progessive Jewish Americans with the policies and aggressive wars of rightwing Israeli governments. Jewish Americans have been key to the securing of many of our civil liberties in this country and a major voice for peace and for culture and the arts, and a thug like Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister surely makes many of them uneasy. It is no accident that the Likud government has snubbed a delegation of US Congress members to Israel who support J Street. The Netanyahu government is all about colonizing more of the West Bank and preventing the rise of a Palestinian state.