Wrong, but right

I happened to be watching a wee compendium of Peter Hitchens' prognostications on YouTube the other day. Now, I don't happen to agree with Mr Hitchens on... well... almost any issue.

However...

If you scroll through that video to about 5 minutes and 15 seconds, he responds to Will Self (who is also an utter cunt), with the following words...

... the time is coming when people who have conservative christian opinions will actually face persecution of one kind or another.

As Mr Self intimates, the idea that conservative Christians will get persecuted for their views is, of course, patently ridiculous.

Oh. Wait. What...?

The sky has fallen in...

... or it must have, because I agree with something that Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett has written in the Grauniad!

When it comes to stumbling blocks, women’s experiences vary. Perhaps the pharmacist has invoked the right to refuse you the morning-after pill, on “moral” grounds. The fact that religious beliefs continue to trump a woman’s reproductive rights in this country is an outrage, though hardly surprising.

Personally, I do find it surprising.

So, let me spell this out for any hard-of-thinking, sky-fairy-worshipping morons out there: the morning after pill prevents conception—it does not induce abortion.

Are we sorted? Do you understand this basic biological fact? Excellent.

Warning: by all accounts, the morning after pill does, however, make you feel like absolute shit.

Quote of the Day

It seems that your humble Devil missed the sixth birthday of this blog, which occurred on the 13th of this month—still limping on!

Anyway, here's a quick quote of the day from Dumb Jon, regarding the Benefits Cap.

See, that's the penalty of basing your policy platform on appealing to a tiny slither of North London. You really do start to think that an income equivalent to £34K gross is the equivalent of Dickensian poverty.

Meanwhile, that creaking sound is one of the central pillars of the left's platform collapsing into dust. They've spent years telling everyone that the Tories are heartless. Now they've got to explain that by 'heartless' they mean 'opposed to taxing people with jobs so they can give some other people more for watching TV than most of the country earns working full time'.

Quite—it is an utter scandal. As far as I am concerned, this state of affairs simply isn't defensible in any way. And it seems that, according to Liberal Voice of the Year (by a massive margin) Mark Littlewood, the majority of the country agrees...

Only around 10% of the electorate oppose the principle of an annual cap on benefits. Approximately 80% support the cap being no more than £26,000 and about 60% think Iain Duncan Smith’s policies are, if anything, too generous.

However, I also think that the Tories are shying away from the most necessary reform—we must cease paying for the unemployed to have children.

If you would like to be kind about it—we don't want retrospective taxes, etc.—then you announce, very publicly, that nine months from now there will be no child benefit of any sort.

Obviously, the unelected and utterly irrelevant Bishops will kick up a stink but fuck 'em, frankly. We cannot afford to keep paying those who will not work to have children (preventing many of them working for another 18 years) who will then also not work—but who will beget yet more offspring who will also not work, and so on and so forth.

Stop all Child Benefits now (or in nine months)! You know it makes sense.

Anyway...

In the meantime, the massive piece of software that your humble Devil has been working on has just been through it's first alpha testing phase—and received an average score (from actual customers) of 4.5 out of 5. Needless to say, we are very happy!

We are now moving into beta and we should be finished, a little behind schedule, in mid-February. And then comes the challenge of the full release...

In addition to this, I have been inveigled into taking part in another Barnes Charity Players production—this time playing the irrepressible, and slightly sociopathic, Frank in George Bernard Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession. This is already proving to be fun but, with the run starting on 20th of February (until the 25th), life is a little full right now!

Anyway, your humble Devil hopes to be a little more active around mid-February, although I shall attempt to post a little more frequently in between now and then.

Even should I fail to do so, I hope all of you have lots of fun in the meantime!

UPDATE: A Very British Dude opines on the Coalition's tactics here, and then finishes up with the kind of sentiment that the vast majority of the people in this country agree with.

The idea that an income equivalent to a salary of £34,000 "will thrust families into poverty" is absolutely abhorrent to the people who are forced, by the threat of expropriation and violence, to pay for it, people who are sneered at as "middle class". I would not be surprised if the Government quietly persuaded enough of its supporters in the Lords to stay away from yesterday's vote, to ensure a right royal battle on ground on which it is absolutely certain of the public's support.

Good luck, lefties, trying to persuade anyone that an income equivalent £34,000 a year salary is going to thrust anyone into "poverty". I suspect the Government is absolutely delighted to have this in the news for a few more weeks. "Labour wants to pay its voters more than you earn".

Quite.

Quote of the Day...

... comes, via Samizdata, from Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller fame). [Emphasis mine.]

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

People try to argue that government isn't really force. You believe that? Try not paying your taxes. (This is only a thought experiment—suggesting on CNN.com that someone not pay his or her taxes is probably a federal offense, and I'm a nut, but I'm not crazy.). When they come to get you for not paying your taxes, try not going to court. Guns will be drawn. Government is force—literally, not figuratively.

I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone. The fact that the majority thinks they have a way to get something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don't want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun, I don't believe you really know jack. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.

If you haven't seen Penn and Teller's Bullshit! series, I highly recommend it: every episode that I have seen is a gem: you can find links to all of the free episodes here...

An Islamic revolution...

One of the defining features of the strictest versions of Islam, as highlighted by Carpsio, is the rulings that imams are asked to make on the tiniest of details.

They happily hold forth on matters like hair dye, whether video phones are ‘permissable’ and how frequently one should shave one’s pwabs—which is a welcome change from our own dear church, which can only answer “coffee or tea?”.

But Carpsio's imagined solution to this mania for religious micromanagement is rather excellent...

In fact, I often dimly wonder if you could spark an Islamic Reformation just by doggedly asking increasingly abstruse questions—is plasticine permissible? Is it allowed for a woman to handle spiders on her period? Can I ride a donkey if I’m wearing shorts? A few thousand questions like that and eventually even the sternest imam is going to throw his hands up and start playing wistful ballads in his mosque like his CofE counterparts, telling his flock to sort their own fucking lives out and, you know, just try to be decent people.

Works for me...

Jesus's voting intentions

In the last couple of days, two remarkably silly articles have been posted by two remarkably silly Christians—each claiming that Jesus would vote for their respective parties. The first, by Andy Flannagan (who is something called a Christian Socialist), claims that Jesus might vote Labour in this General Election; the second, a fisking of the first by the sanctimonious Tim Montgomerie, claims that Jesus might, in fact, support the Tories.

Articles like this have always struck me as being utterly ridiculous. Although I am not a believer, like most middle-class children I suffered my fair share of religious teachings and it always seemed to me that Jesus was outside of Earthly politics: whenever presented with a political question, Jesus always tried to emphasise that such things were not important—he was concerned only with the soul of the individual.

Indeed, it is this point that my wife—who happens to be a Christian—has pointed out in her comprehensive post on the matter.

But Jesus was not a social worker. Jesus was, according to Christians, the Son of God, and according to most Christians, true God from true God, of one being with the Father. I would expect the Director of the Christian Socialist Movement to be at least as well versed in the theological tenets of Christianity as any Catholic child who goes to Mass regularly enough to have learned the Nicene Creed. Why is this relevant? Because Jesus’s teachings, whatever they may suggest to us about the proper ordering of human interaction, were ultimately eschatological: that is, concerned with the final outcomes of death, judgment, and the destiny of the human soul. His advice is to individuals: how to purify the soul in anticipation of meeting God. Actions, such as caring for the poor, working for one’s sustenance, and treating others as equals, are merely the outward manifestation of a genuinely held personal belief that the most sinless soul is the one that wishes only good, wishes no harm, and accepts God’s love as a gift given in spite of our imperfections, not because of our good works.

Good actions that are driven by the desire to perfect an earthly society, rather than the individual soul, are the hallmark of the non-Christian. I am not saying this is a bad thing; far from it, actually. But advocating good works for the sake of perfecting society is not a religious attitude, and Christianity is a religion, not a charity club. And the desire to perfect the soul before God is what differentiates a Christian from a nice person – and we all know the world is full of nice people who are not Christians.

So this characterisation of Jesus and Christianity as being focused on improving society actually strips both of their essentially religious nature. Doing good works is wonderful, because it makes life on earth liveable; but the distinguishing feature of Christianity is that of the perfection of the soul in preparation for death on earth; and each of us dies alone, and will face judgment alone in front of God, with Christ co-substantial and co-eternal at His right hand.

All of this would imply (to me, at least) that Jesus was, in fact, far closer to being a libertarian than either Tory or Socialist: in fact, more than this, Jesus was pretty much an Objectivist.

As Bella has said, the true Christian way is the perfection of one's own soul: one should do good works—helping those less fortunate than oneself or fulfilling the potential of one's God-given talents (or both)—because these are objectively good. And being objectively good, these action will contribute to the purification of your soul.

At the same time, those things that are objectively bad—theft, murder, sloth, etc.—will stain your soul and any Christian should avoid doing them. But since it is your own, personal soul that is in the balance, failing to realise your own potential is also bad—especially if that is achieved through bad means.

In other words, failing to be the very best that you can be—especially through cowardice or sloth—will count against your soul when it comes to judgement; Ayn Rand's Objectivist outlook praises those who make the most of their talents when those talents are used to create—a philosophy that Jesus would, I am sure, also approve of.

Similarly, Rand opined that one should only give to charity if this action had value to you, not simply because you had been asked for charity for such charity might actively harm the recipient (for a crude analysis of how this might happen, simply look at the marginal deduction rates on benefits—rates that incentivise people not to work and, thus, not to fulfill their potential).

This, too, chimes with the Christian route: you should give to charity because you wish to purify your own soul, because it has value to you, not simply because others are doing so. And to give charity when that action will harm the recipient will have no value at all, for it is the good outcomes that are measured in heaven, not your intention in the giving.

And, of course, to force people to "give" to charity under threat of violence is no virtue at all.

So, your humble Devil would submit that Jesus would vote for neither Labour nor Tories; indeed, he would not vote at all. Jesus might, however, be a fan of Ayn Rand.

Rowan Williams on tax

Rowan Williams: a smug, self-satisfied, hairy, diseased Polly-cunt. With teeth. And not in a good way.

I see that the Archbishop of Canterbury—who is, by any measure, a delusional bearded cunt—has decided to open his ill-informed gob on the subject of tax. [Emphasis mine.]

Dr Rowan Williams said that taxation should not be seen as a way of stifling business or redistributing wealth but helping to make the world a better place in which to live.

He called for new levies to be introduced on financial transactions and carbon emissions, and an end to the idea that unlimited economic growth is desirable.

I'm sorry... You fucking what?

Let me explain this to you very simply: "new levies" on "financial transactions and carbon emissions" are a sure way of "stifling business". You might think that this is a price worth paying, but what you are reported as having said makes. No. Fucking. Sense. You. Moron.

Look, Rowan, I think that it is time that we had a little chat. Sit down; yes, here, next to me. Now, let me try to put this simply. Hmmmm, where to begin...?

OK... Ummm... I hate to point this out, Rowan, but you are the top man at the Church of England. You understand that? Good.

Now, the Church of England is haemorrhaging members at a rate of knots; your organisation is selling off land and property in a desperate attempt to balance the books and you yourself command the respect of precisely no one.

To be honest, Rowan, you are the CEO of a failing—and damn near failed—business and I don't think that you have any right to give advice about economic matters to anyone at all.

You, Rowan, cannot even manage your own business properly: why don't you keep your comedy pug nose out of everybody else's, eh?

You are a colossal failure, Rowan, in every conceivable way—economically, socially and spiritually—and I really don't think that you have the authority to lecture anyone on anything.

Understand?

There, there: don't cry. Just crawl away to your palace and shut the fuck up, and no one will be nasty to you anymore. That's it—off you go. You fucking bearded clam, you.

For a more rational dissection of the Archbishop's utter shitness, do feel free to head over to The Longrider's place. I'm got better things to do that to spend any more time on this delusional god-botherer.

Beyond the fucking pale

"If an Ohio punk has the right to have her genitalia operated on, why has not the Somali woman the same right?" Germaine Greer explaining why cutting off the clitoris and labia of eight-year-old girls is fine and dandy in her book.

As regular readers will know, your humble Devil is not a raging feminist: apart from anything else, he thinks that the law should apply equally to all citizens and that all discrimination—positive or negative—is A Bad Thing. Not only that, but he feels that—in most parts of this country—a cultural evolution is taking place that is moving broadly in the right direction.

What does enrage him is the disgusting treatment of women—or, rather, individuals who happen to be women—in certain parts of the world. As long-time readers will know, your humble Devil considers female circumcision, for instance, to be absolutely one of the most evil things on the face of the planet. In that linked post, I attacked yet another one of these filthy cultural relativists...

What it actually is is a product of colonial, Western guilt; it is a morally bankrupt and cowardly position that allows people to turn away from condemning the barbaric practices of others. There are, as I said previously, some things for which there are no excuse: FGM is one of them.
...

And being civilised means recognising and defending those who have no autonomy. I would consider that young girls of under 10 (to whom FGM is most likely to be applied) do not have autonomy; they are held down and cut. As civilised people, it behoves us to help the helpless.

It seems that this kind of crap is still continuing in this country—this filthy cultural relativism that says that it is OK for a woman to be treated like shit, beaten, cut, viewed as property and killed for doing something that their family dislikes. It certainly seems that Germaine Greer—the author of The Female Eunuch—has no problem with the castration of women, for instance (the above quote is entirely genuine, by the way).

What has prompted this? It was the reading of this Prodicus post and the subsequent perusal of the articles recommended.

In the current edition of Standpoint magazine, Clive James has published an article he hoped never to have to write. It is a blazing rebuke to the left-liberal intellectual establishment for its contemptible complicity (my words) in the terrorising of millions of women in the name of Islam.

James is backed up by Nick Cohen who, in another powerful article in the same issue, rails at, specifically, Western feminist apologists who, from the comfort of their Hampstead apartments and in the name of cultural relativism, volunteer as apologists for the genital mutilation of women in third world societies and are therefore, de facto, accessories, in their silence, to the terrorising and oppression of even brown-skinned women who live in the less appealing parts of their own, British, cities.

Both writers express their contempt for those who would accord moral equivalence with Christianity and Western moral sensibilities in general, to principles and authorities which permit, condone or encourage the oppression, terrorising, rape, imprisonment, torture and murder of women in the name of Islam and other oriental religions.

Both writers condemn the veneer of post-colonialist remorse which masks the Left's and Western feminists' cowardice, hypocrisy and self-evident hatred of their own society, and the alacrity with which they leap to champion almost anything which affronts it.

Cohen will make you seethe. James will make you seethe and laugh out loud, as serious as the subject is and as nauseatingly contemptible the hypocrisy of their targets.

When leading men formerly (?) of the liberal consensus finally clamber to their feet to accuse their sisters of complicity in crimes against half of humanity, you know the tide is turning.

Do go and read the articles and—if you do not seethe at the inhumanity of people, as well as the cowardly stance of the liberal intelligentsia—then you are a calmer person that I.

I want to be quite, quite clear about this: these things highlighted in the magazine have absolutely no place in a libertarian state—no libertarian could possibly condone the enslavement or use of force against women or men. Equally, these things should have no place in a liberal Western culture—libertarian or otherwise.

Your humble Devil has absolutely no time for religion at all. I certainly have no time for religions pleading that they should have special exemptions from the law of this country. And I most especially have no time for any culture that insists on treating any person as nothing more than a possession—and a poorly-valued one at that.

No, we cannot go and invade all of those theocratic states that persecute women, but we can fucking well do our damndest stop it happening here.

Yet at the same time, the Archbishop of Canterbury can call for Sharia law to be imposed on British Muslim women, safe in the knowledge that his own women priests will nod their approval. Similarly, the former Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips can call for Sharia at the East London Mosque and women lawyers will not remind him that the mosque is a centre for Jamaat-i-Islami, which in India insists that husbands who throw out their wives have no duty to pay them maintenance.

We should be burning effigies of the Sharia-endorsing bearded goat-botherer and Lord Phillips in the street. They should be relieved of their posts and stripped of all titles, honours and privileges. These people are cheer-leaders for mutilation, rape, slavery and oppression. Instead, they are allowed to carry on peddling their filthy, relativist views from positions of power and influence.

All religious exemptions from laws—Christian, Muslim, Sihk, Jewish, whatever—must be overturned. Now. This country must remove the Church of England from its privileged position (which will probably consign it to the dustbin of history, where it belongs). This country must stop being a refuge for religious zealots of all stripes. There should be one law for all and everyone—everyone—should be equal under the law.

And, quite seriously, if you don't want to live in society in which enforced slavery, mutilation and murder are absolutely against the law in all circumstances and when practised against all citizens, then you can fuck off.

I am, frankly, fed to the back teeth of people justifying their sickening behaviour towards other human beings on the grounds of a belief in a totally fictional sky-fairy which, if it existed, would in any case be imprisoned and excoriated as one of the worst beings ever known in creation.

To sum up, I shall use the same quote from Does God Hate Women? that Nick Cohen does.

Well, what can one say. Religious authorities and conservative clerics worship a wretchedly cruel unjust vindictive executioner of a God. They worship a God of 10-year-old boys, a God of playground bullies, a God of rapists, of gangs, of pimps. They worship—despite rhetoric about justice and compassion—a God who sides with the strong against the weak, a God who cheers for privilege and punishes egalitarianism. They worship a God who is a male and who gangs up with other males against women. They worship a thug. They worship a God who thinks little girls should be married to grown men. They worship a God who looks on in approval when a grown man rapes a child because he is "married" to her. They worship a God who thinks a woman should receive 80 lashes with a whip because her hair wasn't completely covered. They worship a God who is pleased when three brothers hack their sisters to death with axes because one of them married without their father's permission.

And whilst I acknowledge that many decent people are followers of one religion or another, perhaps it is worth contemplating the fact that they might actually be decent people even if they did not believe in some sky-fairy? I think that the answer is "yes".

To be sure, the flip-side is that many of the evil scum who currently justify their behaviour with religion would still be evil scum—but at least we could treat them as such, rather than providing exemptions and special case pleading.

On gods and goddesses...

Cramner examines Caroline "gobby fishwife" Flint's resignation letter from a theistic perspective (unsurprisingly)...

Ms Flint has simply discovered the consequence of Gordon Brown’s failure to find femininity in God. Gordon Brown’s God is a father, husband, king, clan leader and warrior. Caroline Flint’s is a pregnant woman, mother, midwife, mistress.

Now, unlike Cramner, your humble Devil is not a theist—indeed, I am an atheist. However, I do take an interest in just about everything (other than sport, about which I couldn't really give a shit. Commercial sport is just a distraction used to keep the populace from tearing its government limb from limb).

I wouldn't claim to be an expert on religious matters: however, it seems to me that the over-weening dominance of the patriarchy comes through particularly in the monotheistic religions, including Christianity. God has most often been seen as male and Jesus, assuming his existence, was male—as were all of the original disciples.

One might argue that, in a male-dominated society, it could be no any other way. However, in the Celtic religions (for there were many, although all shared certain features), this is not the case.

As a general rule, the great gods also had a feminine equivalent—sometimes the gods even had a female and male aspect within the same entity. In any case, female deities were, in many cases, as powerful as the male, even if they represented different things: the male aspects were usually concerned with warriors and manufacturing, e.g. the Trí Dé Dána of the Tuatha de Danann (although the Morrigan is notable for being a female aspect of battle and death), whilst goddesses were generally more concerned with growth and fertility (although the male Cernunnos was also concerned with these things).

And both technical progress and traditional growth were seen as of equivalent importance: they were two aspects of human life. The deities themselves were essentially more balanced, reflecting the perceived priorities essential to life.

Further, of course, the Celtic religions allowed for the fact that gods can be deposed and, indeed, killed. In fact, their gods could be removed by other gods, or even specially favoured humans and semi-humans. The Celtic gods were responsive to their worshippers, and to the world in which they lived. They were fallible because they were closer to the people who worshipped them—in nature if not always in form. And their gods evolved, whether within themselves or into other sets of gods: there was constant flux, as there is in life.

Contrast that with the Christian religion, in which one god is the all-knowing, all-seeing creator of everything: this one god can never be deposed, or replaced. This god is never—for all the Christ's urgings—the servant of his people, or even of this world.

Further, the god has always been a male aspect, for all that feminists have tried to claim a female or asexual entity. Unlike the Dagda, the Christian god did not have daughters who were as valuable as his sons; his has been an entirely male-dominated history.

Anyway, it's just a thought...

Atheism

Unity has a superb article up which tears a new arsehole in the Theos report on Darwin.

So, naturally enough, when I heard, last year, that the Templeton Foundation had awarded a ‘major grant’ to the religious ‘think-tank’ Theos to allegedly ‘rescue’ Darwin, my expectations of such an exercise were extremely limited.

I expected a trite, tendentious and thoroughly sophistic exercise in abject intellectual dishonesty and, as this week’s publication of Theos’ ‘research’ neatly demonstrated, I have in no sense been disappointed by the outcome.

In the course of said screed, Unity also sums up why he is an atheist—and it struck a chord so I'll reproduce it...

I am not a religious person and never will be, for no better or worse reason than the fact that I simply cannot manage the degree of self-deception and intellectual dishonesty necessary to sustain any kind of belief in a supernatural ‘god’ of any description.

That pretty much sums up why I, too, am an atheist. I am not a "militant" atheist: you chaps can believe what you like. It's just that, if you like to believe in a god, then I think that you're wrong.

A bit like if you believe that socialism is the best way to organise human society...

Quote of the Day...

... from Counting Cats in Zanzibar, in his recent roundup of Islamic lunacy in general and one of our old benefit-scrounging scumbag friends in particular. [Emphasis mine—DK]

So, it’s aid-workers and video games (oh, how valiant are the mujahadeen!) but wait! They get worse! They are targeting Kylie’s little sister, Dannii. And who issued the fatwa against the ITV1 show, The X-Factor. None other than your friend and mine Omar Bakri Muhammed. He is an unmitigated cunt of the first water. Nah, that ain’t strong enough. He is a cunt tetrated. He has a double first in pure cuntology from Oxford and a PhD in Applied cuntological studies from Harvard. He’s an utter cunt. This is the cunt who scarpered from the UK after the 7/7 bombings and then pitched-up in Lebanon and then in 2006 when the IDF made their abortive attempt to clear Lebanon’s Augean stables of Hizbollah Shi’ite begged the Royal Marines to put him on a ship to Cyprus. No becoming a Shaheed for OBM. I mean if you’d listened to his furious rhetoric you’d have thought the bloated sack of camel shit (bloated on bennies from the likes of me, natch) would be totting an AK-47 in the first ditch to repel the Zionists. But no. He wasn’t just a cunt (have I made myself clear on his profoubnd cuntology?) he was a cowardly cunt and apparently cried like a girl when he begged the Royal Marines to evacuate him.

Poetry, sheer poetry.

Plus, all this talk of supreme cunts reminds me that I haven't fisked Polly for a while: maybe that is a task for a lazy Sunday...

The atheist bus

How an atheist bus ad might look: "there's probably no god, so stop worrying and enjoy your life."

A little while ago, inspired by Ariane Sherine, Jon Worth started a tongue-in-cheek campaign to raise enough money to put an atheist advert on a London bus, to counter the large number of sky-fairy promotions.

The pledge didn't make its numbers, but now Jon has started it up again in earnest.

The Atheist Bus Campaign launches today, Tuesday October 21. With your support, we hope to raise £5,500 to run 30 buses across the capital for four weeks with the slogan: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Donate online now!

Professor Richard Dawkins, bestselling author of The God Delusion, is officially supporting the Atheist Bus Campaign, and has generously agreed to match all donations up to a maximum of £5,500, giving us a total of £11,000 if we reach the full amount – enough for a much bigger campaign. The British Humanist Association have kindly agreed to administer all donations.

Sounds like a giggle...

UPDATE: the Beeb have picked up the story.

The atheist posters are the idea of the British Humanist Association (BHA) and have been supported by prominent atheist Professor Richard Dawkins.

The BHA planned only to raise £5,500, which was to be matched by Professor Dawkins, but it has now raised more than £15,300 of its own accord.
...

Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the BHA, said: "We see so many posters advertising salvation through Jesus or threatening us with eternal damnation, that I feel sure that a bus advert like this will be welcomed as a breath of fresh air.

"If it raises a smile as well as making people think, so much the better."

Mind you, comment of the day has to go to that dangerous, joyless fucking lunatic Stephen Green, of Christian Voice.

But Stephen Green of pressure group Christian Voice said: "Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.

Really? Okaaaaay...

"I should be surprised if a quasi-religious advertising campaign like this did not attract graffiti.

Oh look—it's a barely concealed threat!

"People don't like being preached at. Sometimes it does them good, but they still don't like it."

Says Stephen Green, the man who tried to bring an entirely frivolous lawsuit against the BBC and, having lost, pleaded that he shouldn't have to pay them. This man is a hypocritical cunt and even if these posters only annoy him, it will all have been worth it.

UPDATE 2: good god!

If I start an atheist Devil campaign, could I raise £44.7k, I wonder?

UPDATE 3: The Daily Mash is a treat, as always...

BUSES which carry adverts doubting the existence of God are risking their eternal souls, Christian campaigners said last night.
...

But Stephen Green, director of Christian Voice, said: "Any bus which allows itself to be abused in this way will spend eternity in the company of Satan's bus.

"They will burn alongside gay buses, buses that have had abortions and buses that knowingly took people to see Jerry Springer: the Opera."

Unfortunately, I don't think that one can actually satirise Stephen Green: he is just too barking...

UPDATE 4: there are some very bizarre comments on this post. People seem to have little problem with your humble Devil promoting his belief in libertarianism, but doing the same for atheism seems to have raised some hackles. Apparently, promoting libertarianism is fine, but promoting atheism is being "close-minded".

Fucking hellski.

Ah well, for me, The Nameless Libertarian has hit the nail on the head.

The neutrality of the message has won me over as a supporter - I can't be bothered with militant atheism (I can't be bothered with anybody who is shrilly evangelical about any belief - believe what you like, just shut up about it when you are around me) but the message is a nice counterpoint to the increasingly ubiquitous Alpha course and other demented religious advertising.

The advert does not say, you will notice, "everyone who believes in a god is a fucking moron and should piss of and die. And rise again (if they can)" or anything like that. It says, "There's probably no god [allowing for all probabilities, y'see—DK] so stop worrying and enjoy your life." I thought that it was a rather positive message, frankly. But no: apparently

However, as TNL has pointed out, the whole campaign gets even better...

And whilst you are there, take a look at some of the totals. As I write the campaign has made £55,288.90—the target was a mere £5,500.00. And, best of all, the Gift Aid stands at £13,039.22—that's right, over £13k of government money is going towards the promotion of atheism.

I wonder how Gordon Brown, who was raised by a minister of the Church of Scotland, feels about that?

So this campaign is pissing off evangelicals at the same time as probably pissing off Gordon Brown. And as such, it is one of the most worthwhile causes I think I have come across for a good, long time.

Quite. Great: it's annoying two birds with one mischief-making stone!

Although there is a downside: it does mean that we are promoting an organisation that made Polly Toynbee its president, and that does make me unhappy. But—hey!—it wasn't my idea to involve them and Jon is a Lefty, after all...

Oh, and donations are now at £60,623.82, with Gift Aid of £14,051.15. Lordy...

Now what the fuck is...

... Oh, sod it: what's the point? The whole world appears to have gone completely fucking insane.

Although, at least Ruth Kelly has resigned: that is a small comfort, at least. Ruth Kelly was and is a loathesome individual who should never have been born, let alone elected and then (for fuck's sake, HOW?) given a ministerial post.

Perhaps we should have a brief spin through your humble Devil's appraisal of Ruth Kelly, just to remind ourselves of just who the fuck she is. Posts with titles like "Ruth Kelly is a lying shitbag from hell" might give us a clue as to my opinion.

I fucking hate that lying old fag cow, Ruth Kelly. How fucking dare she, the whore fuck cunt bag?

How fucking dare she? How the fuck can she sit there and send her child to a private Specialist school when her fucking government has been closing down this option—and especially as regards specialist schools—for the last ten years? What the fucking hell does she think that she is playing at?

And the cocking BBC is playing the card that she is "acting as a mother not a minister". What? What the fucking fuck? What the fucking hell is this shit?

We might well ask the very fucking pertinent question: "why the fuck should she be able to act as a mother when her government has spent the last ten years preventing anyone else from doing so."

Long-time readers might recall that Kelly also featured on my list of "Ten People I'd Like To Hit In The Mouth With A Brick"...

6. Ruth Kelly. The voice, that awful, annoying voice. And the hypocrisy. And the belief in the sky-fairy. Just an awful, horrible woman. I shall tear out her vocal chords before beating her to death with an especially scabby brick.

So, as you might have gathered, I am not a fan. Nor is my colleague, The Nameless One, although he puts it a little more rationally.

The problem comes, though, if you are a member of a deeply strange Christian cult and are made Minister for Women and Equality. Because for a member of Opus Dei, equality is something dangerous and should be feared. After all, those who don't believe what you believe are wrong. Those who dare to have sexual relations (especially with members of the same gender) for any other reason that procreation, are evil and should be judged. Again, don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong (if you wish to be an archaic moron) with holding these views - it only becomes an issue when your beliefs directly oppose your ministerial brief.

Now you could argue that it is not Kelly's fault for being made Equality Minsiter - that decision was made by Prime Minister Blair. I would argue, however, that it is her fault for accepting the role. What on earth stopped her from saying "actually, Tony, I've had a think and my religious views probably mean that equality will never be one of my priorities, so I will have to turn down the kind offer of being Minsiter for Equality"? Actually, I can take a guess at what stopped her - the Nu Labour obssessions with ministerial posts, ego boosts, and big salaries.

Which is why I am glad that Kelly has gone from the Cabinet - the decision to make her Minsiter for Equality sums up the contempt that Nu Labour seem to feel towards their ministerial roles. Kelly's beliefs made her unsuited to the position she held - fair enough, but it didn't stop her boss from putting her in charge of equality or from her accepting the role. Kelly can believe what she likes, but she shouldn't then be hypocritical enough to accept a ministerial job that flies in the face of her absurd religious beliefs.

So, thank fuck the sky-fairy believing loon has fucked off into the middle of nowhere, ostensibly to spend more time with her long-suffering family. It's her husband I feel sorry for: presumably the rancid old bag will want servicing a little more often.

One down: many, many more to go...

The religion of pieces...

I have not mentioned Islam for some time: many of my articles on it have been extremely intemperate and I was rightly picked up for some very sweeping generalisations. But that doesn't alter the fact that this kind of thing, via Strange Stuff, is extremely worrying.

In a large balcony above the beautiful main hall at Regent's Park Mosque in London - widely considered the most important mosque in Britain - I am filming undercover as the woman preacher gives her talk.

What should be done to a Muslim who converts to another faith? "We kill him," she says, "kill him, kill, kill…You have to kill him, you understand?"

Adulterers, she says, are to be stoned to death - and as for homosexuals, and women who "make themselves like a man, a woman like a man ... the punishment is kill, kill them, throw them from the highest place".

These punishments, the preacher says, are to be implemented in a future Islamic state. "This is not to tell you to start killing people," she continues. "There must be a Muslim leader, when the Muslim army becomes stronger, when Islam has grown enough."
...

The mosque is meant to promote moderation and integration. But although the circle does preach against terrorism and does not incite Muslims to break British laws, it teaches Muslims to "keep away" and segregate themselves from disbelievers: "Islam is keeping away from disbelief and from the disbelievers, the people who disbelieve."

Friendship with non-Muslims is discouraged because "loyalty is only to the Muslim, not to the kaffir [disbeliever]".

To be fair and, indeed, complimentary to Sunny Hundal for a moment—shock, horror!—this sort of intolerance is something that he and his colleagues at Pickled Politics have made a specialty out of skewering.

It is the segregation aspect that I find particularly worrying: creating a self-selecting group of people, preaching evil things to them and then ensuring that they not only see themselves as different (and superior) and but also have little interaction with anyone else in society can only lead to tears. And explosions.

All religion is stupid: you only have one life and it is up to you to live it decently. And stoning and mutilating people is not the way to do that.

Rowan, rowan together, gently down the stream of consciousness...

Via Obnoxio, some more bearded weirdness from the beardy-weirdy Archbishop of Canterbury...

"I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had the about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness."

OK, cheers, Archbish.

Still, I think that we should make it clear that anyone having sex outwith marriage, or a homosexual relationship with "the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness", is still an evil fornicator and should be burned at the stake.

Are we all clear on the church's position? Good.

And now it's time to 'phone the Williams...

DK: Hey, Archbish; how's tricks?

AB: Fucking magic, man. I haven't got a scooby-do what I'm saying.

DK: Yeah, right. Cool. Can I get a quarter off you, mate?

AB: Er... well... I don't think I've got any. Er... a... I mean... er... wait it was... no, hang on... [long pause] Sorry, Devil; not sure where it... what was I talking about?

DK: Some weed, Bish.

AB: Er... don't think I have any. Go some angel-dust though...

[Bzzzzzzzzzzzt.]

That ArchBish: he's fucking crazy!

To paraphrase Fawlty Towers, please excuse him: he's from Wales...

Strike them off and strike them down

Oh look: another example of patrician cunts who set themselves up as arbiters of our behaviour acting like total swine! Who would'a thunk it?

Young women fleeing forced marriages are being betrayed by GPs and benefits staff who "collude" with families to return them against their will, a senior police officer police has revealed.

Doctors and Job Centre workers are breaching confidentiality rules and passing on vital information to families, allowing them to trace and punish Asian women who are attempting to escape coerced marriages and "honour"-based domestic violence.

Commander Steve Allen, who is the spokesman on forced marriages for Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), revealed that some doctors have informed girls' families that they have asked for the contraceptive pill, placing them at risk from fathers or brothers who believe this means the family's honour has been besmirched.

Cmdr Allen also told The Sunday Telegraph that Job Centre workers have accessed the National Insurance details of women who flee violent husbands, tracing where they collect benefits and passing the details on to their families so they can be found and forced back to their marital home.

Now, not to excuse the barbarity of the beliefs of many in this country—beliefs informed by a combination of religion and very, very small penises—these people named in the article are, plain and simply, utter, utter cunts and I hope that they die in screaming agony.

Timmy points out that a database state will make tracing these unfortunate women all the easier in any case.

Having a National Identity Register, one where it is a criminal offence not to update your address, will make tracking down such miscreants so much easier, won’t it? And with the hundreds of thousands of people who will have access to said database, it won’t be possible to stop people doing so.

Finally, a use for it then! To continue the oppression of young Asian women. Makes you glad to be British, doesn’t it?

Are these benefits workers not breaching data protection rules? Should they not be punished?

In the meantime, the doctors most certainly are breaching patient confidentiality rules. They should be tracked down and struck off the medical register.

And if anything happens to the women concerned, then they should be charged as an accessory to murder or assault, or whatever. And then their breach of the medical code should be taken into account and they should be imprisoned forever, without parole.

Utter bastards. These people are scum.

Atheism: a Worthy cause*

There are many things on which Jon Worth and I violently disagree on (me rather more violently than he, to be sure) but there are also some areas in which we definitely concur—the superiority of Macs for example, or the desirability of using anything other than fucking Internet Explorer.

And it seems that religion might be another of those areas.

Preachers on street corners, ads in the underground and on the sides of buses - you can’t spend a day in central London without being confronted by some sign that religion should be your only salvation. In frustration I’ve had a rather sporadic go at this in the past - shouting ‘long live atheism’ at street preachers and even being told ‘good on you that man!’ by another passenger when I proposed atheism in response to a 40 minute sermon from a mad bloke on the top floor of a 345 bus from South Kensington. In short I’m fine with people having religious beliefs, and keeping those beliefs to themselves. What I really loathe is people somehow judging that those with religious belief are somehow superior beings. I have morals, and I don’t believe in god. It’s possible—really.

Yes, yes it is; well said, Jon.

Anyway, so why am I writing this now? Because I’ve come across an amusing column with a serious message at Comment is Free by Ariane Sherine about god adverts on buses. In it she proposes that 4,680 atheists could all contribute £5 and pay for an ad on a London bus for a fortnight. She proposed the slogan: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life.” It’s wacky, but count me in!

Yup, I'd donate towards that: it sounds like a good cause to me.

Oh, and Jon's done rather a spiffy mock-up of how it might look...

UPDATE: thanks to John B in the comments, who points out that Jon has set up a Pledgebank page for this...

"I will pay £5 towards the campaign to put an atheist advert on the side of a London bus but only if 4,678 other people anywhere will do the same."

I've signed up because it would be a giggle...

* Do you see what I did there?

Cunt of the Month: Gordon Mursell

Gordon Mursell says, "if you question anthropogenic climate change then you are a incestuous, paedophile rapist. And now, if the children would like to make their way to the creche where they are instructed to look into the eyes, not around the eyes, into the eyes, you're feeling sleepy... Now, god exists: OK?"

Like Longrider, I am tolerant of religious types; if they want to believe in some imaginary friend in the sky then that's fine, as long as they leave me the fuck alone. However, when total fuckbaskets like Gordon Mursell pop up and use their position of authority in order to write total fucking arsebiscuits, I find that my tolerance is stretched to breaking point.

An Anglican Bishop has compared people who fail to take action to prevent global warming to the Austrian man who locked his daughter up in a cellar for 24 years, repeatedly raping her and fathering seven of her children.

The Bishop of Stafford, Gordon Mursell, said that by failing to face up to the truth about climate change, we were - like Josef Fritzl - denying our children a future.

Now, I don't expect some ignorant, double-chinned cunt who believes in a sky-fairy to understand the rudiments of science because, let's face it, scientific theories tend to be rooted in evidence and few who believe in the existence of a god are going to be conversant with such a word.

On the other hand, the man's claim is so fucking outrageous that I find myself unable to smile tolerantly.

He stressed that he was not accusing those who do nothing about global warming of being child abusers...

Actually, that is precisely what you are doing, Gordon; and you know what? Fuck you, cunt-face.

... but said that shocking analogies were needed to force people to face up to the threat to the future of mankind.

Oh, do fuck off. The science of anthropogenic global warming is far from settled, despite what some would have you believe; further, the idea that said warming is actually a threat is also utterly unproven.

I am not going to go through all of the arguments again: you can find plenty on this blog and others.

In a pastoral letter distributed in parish magazines throughout the Diocese of Lichfield, the Bishop wrote: "Josef Fritzl represents merely the most extreme form of a very common philosophy of life: I will do what makes me happy, and if that causes others to suffer, hard luck.

Well, you aren't entirely wrong there, Gordon; however, as regular readers will know, I ascribe this attitude to the infantilisation of the population by the Welfare State and its adherents. Oh, yeah, and to cunts like this Bishop whose child-like analogy and infantile lack of subtlety is entirely consistent with such a diagnosis.

"In fact you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about climate change, we are as guilty as he is - we are in effect locking our children and grandchildren into a world with no future and throwing away the key.

One could argue that, Gordon, but I really don't think that you should. Because it makes you look like the prick that you so evidently are.

"We are right to be disgusted at these crimes. But mere disgust is too convenient. There are lessons for all of us to learn."

What—that it is entirely possible for people to do extraordinarily evil things?

This morning, Mr Mursell told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "I don't wish to shock people unnecessarily and I am in no way trying to imply that people who ignore climate change are child abusers - of course not.

Yes, you fucking are. At least have the courage of your convictions, you evil little cunt.

"I am simply trying to use an analogy to get people to wake up to the consequences of what we are failing to do, because if we don't there won't be a future for our children either."

Yes, there will. Go fuck yourself.

He added: "The problem with climate change is - as I heard Prince Charles arguing very eloquently a couple of weeks ago - that it is terribly hard to get people to see the seriousness of it, because the consequences are not faced just by the person failing to take action now.

I am sure that Prince Charles is a lovely chap but the man talks to plants, for fuck's sake. Nor is he a scientist.

"(Fritzl) is a revolting person and it is hard to imagine a more monstrous crime.

"I think we have to try to find ways to get people to see the consequences of our failure to act on climate change. If we don't face those, all I am saying is we are destroying the future of our children just as he did.

"Could you not argue that if there is no future for our children and grandchildren, we will have been guilty of committing the most appalling crimes as well?"

Yes, but there is a massive fucking great "if" in there, piss-face. Seriously, go fuck yourself.

Still, it's quite entertaining, is it not, to see the adherent of one religion attacking those opposed to another religion?

Archbishop calls for Communism

Rowan Williams is not merely a bumbling fool but, it seems, a deeply unpleasant man. Let us remind ourselves of his record over the last year or so, shall we?

In January 2007, one of his speeches could be—as was, by your humble Devil—summed up thusly.

The shorter Dr Rowan Williams: "The terrorists of 9/11 had no other option but to fly planes into the World Trade Centre killing over 3,000 innocent people and those people weren't innocent anyway because they were involved in trade and every time anyone trades anywhere it is, in fact, an act of violence."

Fucking hell, it seems that the Church of England is being led by someone who is not just naive, but actively evil. I can barely disguise my contempt for this little shit...

Then, in January 2008, Rowan Williams won your humble Devil's Unspeakable Cunt of the Day award for his attack on free speech.

Wales also produced today's Spectacularly Unspeakable Cunt Of The Day.

In the James Callaghan Memorial lecture, Dr Williams challenged the argument that free speech must always prevail, saying that society had to protect the sensibilities of people who were not in a position to defend themselves.
...

...

The only good thing about Dr Rowan Williams is that, being a Christian, once I've stabbed him in one side of his face, he has to turn the other cheek so I can easily pierce the other side of his smug, hairy twat-face.

And then we can start calling him "Kit" Williams. As in "assembly kit". As in one lamp-post; one length of rope; one illiberal, Welsh, Archbishop of Canterbury: some assembly required.

In February 2008, the bearded clam then called for people in Britain to be able to decide whether they would like to be subject to British law or shari'a.

I would like to echo my colleague's assessment of Rowan Williams's latest piece of crap—why can't this man shut his fucking face?

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the UK is "unavoidable".

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is an utter arsehole who should be strung up by a meathook through his scrotum.
...

You, Williams, are a fuckwit and a dangerous fuckwit at that. Oh, who will rid me of this turbulent priest?

[Waits expectantly for four knights to go and murder the bastard.]

Yes, yes, I know I'm not a king but throw me a frickin' bone here*...


* Preferably one of Rowan Williams's.

Ladies and gentlemen, how can the hairy (corn)flakey bastard possibly top this litany of evil, stupidity and ignorance? By supporting communist policies, of course!

In a pessimistic analysis of modern British life and the economy Gordon Brown has overseen for a decade, Rowan Williams said the Government should impose tougher rules on lenders and demanded action to close the wealth gap between rich and poor.

Go fuck yourself, Williams. Seriously.

Dr Williams warned that an "economy built on spiralling, more or less uncontrolled, credit" is leading to "the erosion of family life and the erosion of self-confidence" for many people.

Oh, really? I'd blame it on authoritarian wankers like Williams and the bastard sodding state, myself.

Christian charities working with the poor have found that as many as one in three of their clients are being driven to consider suicide as they struggle to pay off debts, he told the House of Lords.

You know what? Tough. They voluntarily took on these debts; no one forced them to live beyond their means. No, not even advertising did that. These people are solely responsible for their indebtedness.

And if Christian charities are helping them, well, excellent; that is what charities should exist for—voluntarily helping those in need.

Young people in particular, he said, are under greater pressure, often becoming burdened by "crippling" levels of debt because inadequate financial education leaves them unable to understand the consequences of the loans they take out.

Really? You take out a loan; if you cannot make repayments, then there will be consequences. The loans are based on an interest rate which, in many cases, can fluctuate. You can choose to take out this loan but it automatically means that you are living beyond your means.

There, that's financial education for all of my readers: it wasn't difficult, was it? Oh, and by the by, if the state education system in this country is a massive load of old shit, whose fault is that, precisely?

Significantly, the Archbishop said the introduction of student loans has intensified the problem, helping persuade many young people that large debts are routine and normal.

Oh, well, such is life. One would have thought—from the number of students and ex-students that I know who bitch and moan about the size of their student loan—that "young people" would be extraordinarily keen not to take on yet more debts, wouldn't one?

Amid the global credit crunch, mainstream lenders are increasing wary of lending to people on low incomes, meaning they are forced to rely on specialist loan companies that charge higher rates.

Dr Williams said he was "bothered" by such lenders profiting from charging high rates to the poorest members of society, and called for stronger regulation, and possibly even a legal cap on interest rates.

Look, Williams, you dumb bastard, rates to those most likely to default are always going to be higher. If a reputable lender will not let you borrow money, I would say that it is a message that you shouldn't borrow it. And certainly not from someone who is going to charge you huge amounts of interest precisely because you are a bad risk (and who might break your legs if you default).

The huge salaries and bonuses enjoyed by many bankers and financiers are breeding "envy and cynicism" and leaving less well-off people "alienated from society," Dr Williams said.

"There may be an element of 'I would like some of that' but there is also an element of 'What kind of society is this? How can I trust the system when it rewards some people so disproportionately in a way that doesn't connect at all with where I am?'" he said, The answer, he said, could be the "regulation of high salaries".

Could it now? So, we should legislate to cap the maximum salary, should we? My goodness, Archbishop, how very Communist of you. Seriously, matey, go fuck yourself. Without lube.

Who deems what is a reasonable salary level, Williams? You? And shall we regulate for every job or just those that you don't like? Fuck, but you are a loathesome individual.

Alan Duncan, the Conservative business spokesman, yesterday backed the Archbishop's call. "Too few politicians have appreciated the plight of poorer people trapped in debt," he said.

You fucking what?

Harry Haddock sums up the Archbishop's latest car-crash speech quite nicely.

Not content with demanding an end to free speech, the Archbishop now believes that the Church should tell us how to run the economy, what is acceptable wealth, and various other statist rubbish.

I can’t be arsed to fisk the article ~ some of it is stupid, airy fairy left wing nonsense, some of it (for instance the call for regulation of salaries) is borderline communist, but it strengthens the call for disestablishment of the Church. And then preferably Williams’ head from his body.

Amen to that.

UPDATE: I like this aside, from Finding The Bomb...

I've always found it funny that the guy who supposedly represents the Anglican church has the eyebrows of the fucking devil.

Heh...

The obligatory five years on...

I haven't bothered taking part in the whole Iraq War blogswarm, and Shuggy articulates precisely why.

There are a dozen different reasons why I'm not doing a Johann Hari. I might explain some of them in due course but here's just one: Johann describes himself as having been a 'cheerleader' for the invasion of Iraq and now he feels terribly guilty about it. Fair enough in as far as this goes because I think cheerleading is a fairly accurate description of what he did. But don't invite us all to do likewise because some of us didn't do this in the first place. Some of us were more circumspect. Some of us backed the war even though we knew the outcome wasn't certain. Some of us had misgivings about the whole enterprise from the outset and so felt less need to acquire them after the fact. Some of us were there for the first one and made all the clever anti-war arguments at that time. Then came over a decade of 'containment' over which time we came to the conclusion we'd been wrong. So when it came around a second time, we could do no other but lend our reluctant support. This forms part of the reason why some of us aren't repenting today.

The only difference was that I felt that the First Gulf War was justified: Saddam had invaded a sovereign country and we had a clear mandate to take action. However, the dithering over that war—do we topple Saddam, don't we topple Saddam, how far into the country can we invade, etc.—set an entirely predictable precedent for this one, i.e. a chronic lack of planning and absence of cohesive strategy as to what we'd do once we'd actually "won".

For what it's worth, though, I still think that my posts on why the war occurred and what the likely course was are still relevant.

The first and obvious thing to ask is why Iraq and Afghanistan were attacked in the first place; and here, I am afraid, I am going to have to extrapolate some of the thinking in the White House. When 9/11 happened, Bush and his advisors not only had to find out who did it for security reasons, but also to appease the people who wanted a scapegoat. Much of what happens in the terrorist world is known by security services around the world, notably by Mossad who are—as it were—on the doorstep. The White House were aware of the training camps in Afghanistan (they had, after all, essentially set them up themselves) and, given the weakness economically and lack of popular support for the Taliban—both within and without the country—it seemed an easy, and effective, target. And so, within reason, it proved.

Why was Iraq chosen? Some people have pointed to a motive of postively psychotic, and thus pretty unlikely, pietas; others pointed to the oil. The fact is that the US itself produces the vast majority of the oil that it uses, and most of the rest comes from Venezuela and other South American countries. Sure, they may want to gain control of oil supplies; but would they really go to war, with all the expense—both in terms of money and in the possible loss of American lives (and votes)—that that could entail? As Saudi Arabia, the country with the most reserves, was still more than happy to deal oil to the them, it would seem to be foolish to pursue a course which could, in fact, turn Saudi—and its oil reserves—against the US. In fact, the oil companies specifically lobbied Bush not to attack Iraq. I think there was another reason.

I think that both Afghanistan and Iraq were chosen because they were not Iran.

You will have to forgive the style; they were both written very early on in my blogging career, in January and July 2005. Still, it is worth bearing in mind the attitude of Islamists in Iraq too (unfortunately, the link to The Herald article is now broken, and I can't find anything on their site earlier than January 2007). Here is the quote, and you'll just have to take my word for it that I am not making it up (this was the tenth post I ever wrote, by the way).

Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the terror chief, warned Iraqis yesterday he would wage a "bitter war" against next Sunday's election... "We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it," a speaker identified as al Zarqawi said on an Islamist website. "Those who vote . . . are infidels. And with God as my witness, I have informed them (of our intentions)."

That was written a couple of days before the democratic elections in Iraq, when al Zarqawi (and others) were threatening to attack and bomb any Iraqis taking part in the elections. This wasn't any noble insurgency against evil invaders: it was an insurgency against "the principle of democracy".

Of course, things have changed considerably in the intervening three years: fuck knows what any of us are fighting for now.