The Great Fire through the funhouse mirror

Channel Four is airing a new documentary on the Great Fire of 1666 and bigger load of codswallop I've never seen electrons wasted on.

In an article on the BBC website, the producer airs her view that the significant thing about the fire wasn't how it transformed the architecture of the City, the tragedy of a great natural disaster, nor how it arguably burned out the plague from the capital, but rather that is it a parable of how nasty modern Britain is. According to the producer, the result of the Great Fire was just like that after the 7/7 bombings: A vicious, murderous, utterly gratuitous backlash (for something the English knew was just reprisal) against innocent immigrants who never had an impure thought in their stainless lives.

The fact that the 7/7 bombings didn't "just happen", it really was a conspiracy to carry out an act of war, and that the inevitable-yet-never-occurring-anti-Muslim-backlash never occurred is strangely passed over. Still, aside from having absolutely nothing to do with one another, the producer is happy to use the Great Fire-7/7 as a handy stick with which to bash Britain. Not surpsingly, the entire article is an insult and reads like it was written for ten-year olds from a more than usually backward comprehensive.

The producer claims that the violence meted out to suspected arsonists after the fire was entirely due to an earlier English raid against West Terschelling by the Royal (the producer calls it "British") Navy that year. The Second Anglo-Dutch War is, of course, never referred to by name. With a proper historical perspective, the article refers to this raid on Dutch commerce as "diplomatic piracy" and an "atrocity" and claims that a gulit-ridden London populace awaited just reprisal because:

It was expecting something bad to happen, not because it was superstitious or frightened, but because the government had done something bad.

Translation: Londoners in the hot summer of 1666 went about with wringing hands and shouting ala Dr Hans Kiosk, "WE ARE ALL GUILTY!"

Despite apparently knowing full well that, to paraphrase the Reverend Wright, "England's chickens have come home to roost", the English reacted as all right-thinking historians expected them to with a pointless, utterly unwarranted, and vicious spree of bloodshed and murder against the utterly innocent. The fact that England was at war and that London had been the site of Catholic terrorist attacks within living memory is, of course, ignored as inconvenient to the thesis.

Charles II comes off a bit better in this national character assassination–sorry, documentary:

The king took a very enlightened view and always believed it was an accident.

"Enlightened" apparently now means in accordance with the latest version of events from Minitru. Never mind that it raises the question of whether if the King had been wrong, would he have been "enlightened"? Best not to dwell on it.

As is usual for the farce that passes for modern scholarship and the current prejudice against giving the English a fair hearing, the producer commits the standard 21st century fallacy of condemning the people of a more brutal age for living in a more brutal age; for not being "us". That isn't to excuse the mobs and the injustices dealt by the courts of the day, but none of it was inconsistent with the times and, if anything, the English response was incredibly muted. Had the Great Fire occurred on the Continent and the Dutch had been thought to blame, Amsterdam would have been put to the torch and its inhabitants to the sword before Cheapside had stopped smoldering.

So, what is the conclusion? That the Great Fire was an accident, but if had been arson it would have been justified? That, by implication, we should believe the same thing about 7/7? The writers can't even be consistent. Who was being blamed for fire? Immigrants? The Dutch? Huguenots? Roman Catholics? All of the above? Why? The facts are true, but the conclusion is a stinking muddle as the producer jumps from incident to incident with less of a desire to explain than to imply that the English were inherent brutes then and remain so to this day.

The article ties it all up with the neat bow of a perfect relativist conclusion that we think it was an accident, but other views are equally valid and who are we to judge? Well, except that the English are horrid, of course. That's objective fact and anything else is "airbrushing" to provide a "happily-ever-after sort of story".

I'm going to open a few windows and let the stench of rotting academia out now.

Eigg on their faces

The Isle of Eigg has won all sorts of praise and awards amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds for its go-ahead "green" approach to its electricity supply. According to the BBC, the island's 95 inhabitants "champion" renewable energy production with all manner of wind turbines micro-hydroelectrics, and solar panels (in Scotland?!?).

The thing is, all this sustainable energy isn't sustaining itself. Despite servicing less than a hundred people, the island is still utterly dependent on backup diesel generators and a light rainfall this year means that the Eiggians can't even run their toasters.

This is a shame, because electricity for the Hebrides is a serious problem and not a "green" rathole to pour down money that the country doesn't have and never should waste on such follies. Still, there is one silver lining. At least the Isle of Eigg can stand as a warning example of what the Greens intend to inflict on the rest of us, though not themselves.

Now, if you will excuse me, my toast is getting cold.

Civilising Toronto

Barbarian: Meet civilisation.

Bringrr

First, cell phone technology means that you'll never have privacy again unless you "forget" to take the little snitch along and now the Bringrr makes sure you'll never forget.

Still, you can always use my old wheeze of sticking a paper clip across the battery contacts.

Squadie... of the FUTURE!

They might want to think the helmet through a bit more.

Toronto 2010

A pox on these crazed, right-wing tea partiers. If we don't...

What? Left-wing communist/anarchist demonstrators struggling to free the oppressed through freedom of expression? Oops, sorry. Aside from all the latter's rioting, vandalism, assault, destruction of private and public property, rejection of legitimate authority, and violent crime in general in the service of a totalitarian philosophy, it's so hard to tell the difference.

Cracked

With the Eurozone in meltdown and the entire ghastly union facing everything up to and including civil war, the EU leaps into action and proposes a ban on selling eggs by the dozen. Instead, all products must be sold by weight and weight alone instead of number of items. Why? Because it's officious, confusing, pointless, expensive, and generally a way of rubbing the common man's face in the petty tyranny that Brussels dispenses as a matter of course.

If it wasn't so scary, it would be entertaining.

Update: The British government says that it will fight this ban. If it keeps to it's word, it will be a small indication that Whitehall still has a something resembling a spine, but great changes often start with the small.

My hope is that the government's opposition will take the form of a full-throated denunciation of not just the legislation, but the assumptions and ambitions behind it. My expectation is that it will be a mere quibbling about wordings and exemption.

Roll on the collapse of the EU.

Update: The EU claims that there's no truth to the story, though I wouldn't trust their saying that the Earth has gravity without jumping up and down a few times.

Project Trojan

Click on title link to listen.

The Green Hornet: Chapter 10 - Bullets And Ballots

Tales of Frankenstein

Baracus Obamus Caesar

The rule of law is for little people.

The UN: a giant prison for serious offenders

A knife-free zone

Here's an eye-raiser: a lifeboat-load of men aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig almost fried because they couldn't cut the boat loose. Why? Because in a fit of PC "We think you' re all potential crazed killers" logic, BP banned the crew from carrying knives.

If this is true, it is the most insane thing I have ever heard in my life. I've spent many years at sea both for work and pleasure and I never, I say again, never moved a foot from the pier without a bosun knife on my belt. It isn't just a tool, it's an essential part of lifesaving gear. You never know when you'll have to cut a rope or slash through some canvas to keep from being killed to death and you can't go running to the Captain to check out your blade for the occasion because you're too busy trying not to die.

What's more astonishing than the ban is that any of the crew with an ounce of sense didn't refuse to leave shore because of it.

Via The Volokh Conspiracy.

Too true

From The Hill:

President Barack Obama welcomed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to the White House on Thursday, boasting that the two men have reset their countries' relationship in a way unthinkable when Obama took office.

I can't argue with that. After that ludicrous "reset button" incident, shafting the Poles and the Czechs, sitting pat while Russia invaded Georgia in a manner not seen since the Third Reich rolled into the Rhineland, announcing a unilateral nuclear disarmament deal that had Putin hugging himself with delight, wooing Moscow about applying sanctions on Iran while allowing Russia to do everything it can to help the Mullahs get the bomb short of sending them a warhead, disaffecting every major ally in NATO, and generally going around with a sign on his back saying "Пните меня", I thought it unthinkable back in January 2009, too.

I told you so

Japanese scientists detect a "low-pressure gas" in the sample container brought back from an asteroid.

If six month from now a suspicious plant with giant domes guarded by sinister men with machine guns appears on the Japanese coast producing what glassy-eyed bureaucrats claim is "synthetic food", you heard it here first.

When in Rome...

...Demand that your hosts support you and bend over to a ludicrous degree to indulge your every whim even if you crossed the border illegally. Don't forget to revile your hosts and threaten them with violence while you do so.

For real thrills, try it as a Westerner in a non-Western country. The results would be... interesting. It's one a situation where I have less of a gripe with the immigrants than with the supine governments that allowed it to happen--or, in the case of New Labour, encouraged it as an act of war against their own people.

Battery-fresh lungs

Now they're growing lungs in the laboratory.

Mark my words, we're going to have a national Igor strike on our hands.

We need a bigger boat

Ten foot great white shark? Meet twenty foot great white shark.

I'm with stupid

I imagine that there were words when they got back to base.

Music Muff

Dear Lord, you could get whiplash just wearing the thing!

It's how you look at it

The dirty little secret of the anti-nuclear "Greens" is that nuclear waste's not waste. If we wanted to get rid of it forever, we could do that easily. The problem is that the stuff is more valuable than gold and we want to get it back later.

Age of uncertainty

Global warming forecasts? A crooked fruit machine with the fruit painted over and a broken gear gives better odds.

Nestlé and the nannies

One of the things that annoys me about the Left is how they treat primitive people like they were some sort of wildlife. In fact, it wasn't so long ago that if you were reading an article about a South American Indian tribe on the BBC website it would be filed under Nature rather than South America–as if the Yanamano were some species of exotic parrot rather than living, breathing human beings. When the Left complains about how tribesman are treated, their posturing is less that of a tribune of the people than it is that of an irate gamekeeper.

Case in point is this story from Bloomberg that tells of how the Nestlé SA company has noticed that Brazilians in the upper reaches of the Para and Xingu rivers have become wealthy enough to afford the odd chocolate bar or ice cream. In order to serve this potential market of 800,000 people, Nestle is sending a barge converted into a supermarket up the river to do a bit of business and brighten the lives of people who might be a bit sick of eating plantains three times a day.

You'd think that this would be something to pass over with a smile at a floating tuck shop or at the most hope that this will spur a bit of competition to keep prices down and supply up for the locals. However, a certain Michele Simon, a public health lawyer, takes the "how dare they do this to my lovely primitives, whom I regard as my personal property!" attitude about this "disgusting" development.

I'm not surprised. City-dwelling Lefites of a certain type, who get into a hissy fit with the waiter if their pan-seared talapia with arugula isn't just so, see no contradiction in keeping their brethren in a state of poverty. In fact, they revel in it and call it... God knows what drivel they label it with this week. I had considered comparing them to the Ancien Regime, but at least pre-revolutionary aristocrats were indifferent about their subjects not having bread. Their spiritual descendants are so perverted that they get a warm, fuzzy feeling about it.

Bus jihad

Planning to take your dog on the bus? You can try, but don't do it if one of the Faithful is aboard or you'll be walking.

I wonder if I can get Muslim supremacists ejected from the bus because they offend my sense of liberty. Silly me;of course not. No one is worried that I'll react by blowing it up.

Sums sliders

The BBC has a DIY budget-cutting simulator that YOU can use to reduce the British deficit below the targeted £75 billion.

I notice that at the very top the Beeb includes an increase in VAT, so we know where they stand in the tax and spend equation, but I don't think they'll be too happy when visitors notice that the target can be easily met by a 30 percent cut in the dole and "Other" (i.e. quangos) spending.

In fact, abolish welfare for all except the truly needy, leave house building to the private sector, eliminate the State near-monopoly on education, and privatise health care and Britain ends up solidly in the black.

Who'd have thought?

But I thought I was King!

Does Mr Barack Hussein Obama want out?

Roger Simon feels that a beaten, isolated, and demoralised Mr Obama who merely sits out his presidency would be a bad thing. Given how this tin-plated messiah turned out, giving him an unlimited golf pass seems to me like the perfect solution.

Time Square terrorist pleads guilty

Faisal Shahzad pleads guilty to ten counts of terrorism. The interesting bit is this (CBS News):

He said he wanted "to plead guilty and 100 times more" to let the U.S. know that if it did not get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, halt drone attacks and stop meddling in Muslim lands, "we will be attacking U.S."

In light of this, I hope the judge doesn't reduce his sentence by one second or one inch of rope.

Highway of the Future

An idea worth scrapping

The Welsh Assembly launches a new initiative to get people to stop wasting kitchen scraps.

In related news, freeborn Welshmen point out that unless there is a national emergency that requires food rationing or the Welsh Assembly pays for the food eaten, they are in no position whatsoever to tell people what to do with the food they buy. They can eat it, waste it, or dress it up in little costumes if they wish.

I love how the BBC covers the story without a whiff of dissent. The "case study" featuring a grovelling greenie from Neath is a nice touch that Lord Summerisle would approve of.

Related: Another load of taxpayer-supported busybodies who can take their totalitarian "recommendations" and... (At this point, it was suggested to Mr Szondy that it was time that he have a little lie down somewhere.).

Thugocracy

Not just a thug, but an ineffective thug.

Update: "I'll believe there's a crisis when the people who say there's a crisis act like there's a crisis."

I'm going for explanation No. 2.

A taste of things to come

What we'll be seeing a lot more of (and a lot worse) if the Jihadists aren't recognised for what they are.

Update: “When in Rome, or Paris, or London, or New York, or Sydney, do as much as your cowardice permits. And do it a long way from any mosques, lest there be consequences.”

Egalitarian Superiority

There is nothing more gauche than an egalitarian snob.

Related: The real haves and have-nots.

ALT/1977

1977 design with 2010 technology.

Tomorrow's future today yesterday.

Via Retro Future.

No Asians

Why you should never post adverts over the phone.

The Trap

Click title link to listen.

The Green Hornet - Chapter 9 - The Hornet Trapped

Assignment Outer Space

Don't panic

This entry contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate.

The world of tomorrow: 1962

The wonders of tomorrow from the 1962 Seattle World's Fair.

The television of the 21st century is actually spot on to a point that I can only refer to as "spooky".

Swede power

In a burst of actually taking energy policy seriously, Sweden embraces nuclear power. The legislation only allows Sweden's ten reactors to be replaced and no more to be built, but I don't see anything in the report to indicate that there's any limit in the type or size of the reactors, so Sweden could well be hitting the 80 percent mark on nuclear generating capacity in twenty years.

Socialism leaves a nasty hangover, but that does cause some focus to reappear.

Best friends are doubleplus ungood

All Outer Party members are advised that having a best friend is counterrevolutionary and constitutes thoughtcrime. All Outer Party member interactions must take place in groups with at least one telescreen, commissar from Minitru, or member of the Young Spies within earshot at all times.

Remember, Big Brother is your best friend.

Ten-billion dollar inventions

Modern Mechanix looks at the inventions that industry was clamoring for in 1931.

Sadly, they're still clamoring for a lot of these.

Some are more equal than others

The general public protest against turning Britain into an Orwellian state with surveillance cameras on every corner and the government doesn't even bother to shrug.

Muslim pressure groups object to cameras funded to expressly counter Jihadists and Birmingham Council fall all over themselves because they can't shove plastic bags over the lenses fast enough.

We are in deep trouble on both fronts.

Le Froglet

Sweet spirits of nitre!

Ah, well. Could be worse.

The second front opens

Our determination to fight for the America we want for our children ... even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like.

Uh, yeah.

I haven't said too much about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill* because everyone and his grandmother has been on about it for almost two months. Last night, however, something interesting happened when Mr Obama gave his first oval office speech–or a vapid collection of vague comments that boiled down to, "The solution is to pass the legislation I wanted passed anyway while I play Mussolini with another industry before a round of golf."

I expected right-wing columnists to condemn the speech. What I didn't expect was that it would get attacked by the left-wing as well–and that includes the BBC, which until now used to go around to the White House every Saturday to wax Mr Obama's car.

If this keeps up, I predict that sometime after November, Mr Cool is going to snap, berate the American public for not being worthy of him, and be faced with the choice of resignation or playing World of Warcraft for the rest of his term.

Related: When you've lost Jon Stewart, you've lost (Left-wing) America.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Respect My Authoritah
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

*Or the "wicked, Capitalist BP (I never said British Petroleum) spill that has nothing to do with me and it's really more like 9/11 than Katrina because you all thought President Bush was great after that one, but it clearly had nothing to do with what he did, and now that I've made the comparison you all feel the same way about me now, don't you? Don't you", as Mr Barack Hussein Obama prefers to call it

L'Ajustement

The French once again turn out to be cheese-eating adjustment monkeys.

U-010

Oh, Lord, it's another one of those luxury submarine concept pieces. The interiors are all very pretty, in a chi-chi effeminate sort of way, but as an exercise in practical nautical engineering, I'd rather put to sea in a chocolate teapot.

Come back, Captain Nemo; all is forgiven.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

by

Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four —
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man —
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began: —
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

TRS-80 Model 100

Retro Thing looks at the TRS-80 Model 100, one of the first laptops, the third computer I owned, and my constant companion on four continents until the Internet came along. It not only had a great keyboard and a raft of built-in programmes, but it also came with a built-in 300 baud modem that gave me the incredible power to tap into the AP teletype feed. I even had the battery-powered external floppy drive that, along with a stack of discs the height of a fat dictionary, allowed me to write a couple of books without burning through a small forest of paper during the rewrites.

I had flashbacks to my Model 100 days over the past couple of weeks while the Internet link at Chez Szondy was US and I ended up taking the netbook and camping in the public library, Denny's, McDonald's, and the green room at the local NPR studio in search of a wifi link. Now I've learned that Starbucks has finally noticed that this is the 21st century and announces that it will no longer charge of wifi. That means when I drive the wife and daughter into town on a Friday evening, when the library is closed, to catch the latest animated extravaganza I won't have to choose between checking my RSS feeds over a Big Mac and comparing lumber prices down at the hardware store. It may mean that the trade off is bad coffee, but at least the chairs are more comfortable.

Progress.

Spyder III

Wicked Lasers presents a laser pointer so powerful that it can blind, maim, and kill.

I've ordered two.

Livers R Us

Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital claim to have developed a technique that will one day lead to growing artificial livers.

The good news is that this will mean more livers available for transplants. The bad news is that a lot of Igors are going to be looking for work.

The Map Makers

Click the title link to play

The Green Hornet - Chapter 8 - Dead Or Alive

Attack of the Giant Leeches

Peter Singer is the modern day Davros

Professor Peter Singer, the Dr. Kevorkian of the philosophical world, contends that life is truly horrible and any opinion to the contrary is the result of "pollyannaism" and therefore a delusion. This being the case, Prof Singer raises the proposition that the human race would be far better off if it just stopped reproducing and reconciled itself to extinction, thus saving future generations from the burden of existence.

There are a couple of things wrong with this argument (aside from being bat**** crazy). First, how can he claim that good is an illusion without conceding that so may evil, therefore any suffering is as non-existent as happiness? Second, anyone who refuses to go along with Singer inherits the Earth while the Singerites go the way of the Shakers. Third, the arrogance of playing God by ending life is as bad as Dr Frankenstein's by creating it. Fourth, Singer has not made an argument for destroying the human race, but for preserving it to the end of time.

Singer holds the belief that man is not the only creature to possess sentience, but that he shares it with all manner of creatures on Earth. Indeed, it may be a common property of all life. If human existence is intolerable and better off terminated, the why should we allow dogs, cats, rats, fish, or even bacteria to suffer once we've gone? Surely if our motive for racial suicide is to selflessly end suffering, we would be remiss not to die until we've granted the blessings of death on all our fellow creatures first. Before we go, we must leave this planet as lifeless as the Moon.

But hang on, isn't the Universe supposed to be teeming with life? Even if intelligent life is rare or non-existent, then surely there must be sentient creatures on a par with the animals of Earth. Must we let them suffer? Shouldn't we mount a missionary expedition to destroy them as well? And once we've bestowed them with a quietus, isn't there the prospect that life might arise in the future to feel and suffer? Shouldn't we save them from this horrible fate? Shouldn't we be the guardians and escorts to the sepulcher?

No, Prof Singer, you haven't doomed man to the grave. You have given us a sacred mission to help all our fellow sufferers now and forever to shuffle off this mortal coil. You have given us the banner that we must carry forth to the ends of Creation. The banner that reads:

EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE!

Professor Quatermass, call your service

On Sunday, a capsule from Japan's Hayabusa space probe will land at the Woomera test range in Australia with the first sample of an asteroid ever to reach Earth intact.

We all know where this is going.

Your guide to the World Cup

Unisignal

Yanko Design, the "Bloody Stupid" Johnson of the industrial design world, comes up with a "universal" traffic signal that won't confuse the colour blind.

The fact that we already have a universal traffic signal (Red at the top, amber in the middle, and green at the bottom) seems to have slipped Yanko's notice.

Saving Money

The BBC asks viewers how they would cut government spending and poses the question as if it's as tricky as the Gordian Knot.

Off the top of my head, how's this for starters:

• Eliminate the quango system
• Eliminate benefits for all fit young men without dependents
• Eliminate benefits for all immigrants. In the event of hardship, suggest a change of venue.
  
• Restrict unemployment benefits to nine months maximum
• Restrict disability benefit to only those who are demonstrably unable to work at any available form of employment
• Rethink that whole single motherhood as a career idea
  
• What housing benefit?
  
• Tell the EU to go chase itself
• Stop paying MPs
• Tell Scotland that if it governs itself, it pays for itself
  
• Visit the administration centres of every government ministry and hand out P45s to every other person not in an armed forces or police uniform (including people just passing through the lobby). You may sack someone vital like the tea lady, but that's an acceptable risk.
• Stop paying MPs
  
• Cut all foreign aid that cannot demonstrate a direct benefit to Britain
• If a "jobs" bill must be presented, then do so by increasing defence spending so that the money goes to private British firms who actually produce something that the nation needs and fulfills a core responsibility of government while increasing revenues
• Explain to anyone applying for an art grant that they must prove that they know what the hell they're doing by providing a painting in the style of one of the Great Masters
  
• Stop paying MPs
• Eliminate all programmes that include the words outreach, community, cohesion, solidarity, social justice, gay, lesbian, transgendered, women, racism, equality, green, and global warming
• For every global warming programme eliminated, eliminate three other programmes
• If it can be done by private industries, churches, charities and other private organisations, then the government shouldn't be doing it.
  
• Stop paying MPs
• Strongly remind the NHS that its job is to heal the sick and not expand union payrolls
• While we're at it, rethink the whole idea of the NHS
  
• Cut taxes and eliminate regulation so private businesses can afford to employ more people and make more money so more people can be employed and make more money and the government is actually able to increase revenues.
• Allow the police to concentrate on catching criminals and maintaining public order rather than acting as the paramilitary wing of the Guardian
  
• Stop paying MPs
• Point out to MPs that the passage of any new spending not related to defence or national emergencies will result in their being locked in a phone box with a crazed, club-wielding howler monkey
  
• Build a "B" Ark
• Let people run their own lives and be responsible for their own actions
  
• And finally, stop paying MPs

After that, we can go on to the more difficult bits.

Leather isn't peachy

Why PETA doesn't show up at biker rallies.

Thank you, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation

Car manufacturers want to make your motor into your "plastic pal who's fun to be with".

Great. One of my few remaining refuges is taken away from me.

Share and enjoy.

"Aid" is an ambiguous word

Iranian relief workers prepare to embark.

Iran says that they are sending a pair of "aid" ships to Gaza. According to Iranian Red Crescent director Abdolrauf Adibzadeh,

One ship will carry donations made by the people and the other will carry relief workers.

No doubt the former will be in the form of worn bank notes in small denominations and the latter will be made up mainly of fit young men between the ages of 18 and 25.

Fighting with both hands behind our back and blindfolded

After the 7/7 bombings, the government saw that war had come to Britain's shores, leapt into action, and tried to hush the whole thing up because doing something might (wait for it) upset the Muslims.

Meanwhile, a new poll shows that the British public, who have had to deal with everything up to and including mass murder at the hands of the more excitable of the Faithful, have a negative view of Islam and, of course, it's the British public's fault for not believing the blandishments of their masters rather than their lying eyes about the Religion of Peace^TM.

It's like faulting the Britons of 1940 for not being too keen on the Germans.

Update: Guess the trade off of all that "vibrancy" wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

The Soup Nazi lives!

How to run yourself out of business in a month? Scold the patrons of your restaurant that if they don't clear your plates, then tell them they'll be overcharged and told to eat elsewhere. If that doesn't work, put up snotty notices declaring that the salad is NOT a decoration.

Whether customers are also required to fill out an inch-thick stack of forms and then subject themselves to an abusive interview by a petty bureaucrat is still to be confirmed.

Pebble in the Sky

Click on title link to listen.