"Gary McKinnon, you've been clegged."

[Link removed]

The things you miss when you don't read the "mindwarping shitsheets" (© Charlie Brooker). Luckily others have stronger stomachs. The Hate Mail's latest piece of racist disinformation didn't stand up for long. I reckon Ms. Fardon is just the kind of person Mail readers admire. I wonder if she was paid for this story.

"Driver orders toddler off bus for wearing offensive England football shirt"

"England-Shirt-Issue-Statement"

David Miliband, the only one lucky enough to be an MP at the time, says he supported the war because of evidence of Saddam's famous "weapons", adding he would have opposed it "if we had known then what we know now". But the only reason people believed Saddam had those weapons was because Miliband's government was telling everyone he did. So, he's saying: "If I'd known I was lying it would have been different, but how could I possibly know I was making stuff up? You can't blame me for fooling myself, as I'm very persuasive."
David Miliband is also accused of being complicit in handing suspects over to be tortured, so maybe he'll try a similar defence, saying: "If I'd known at the time that torture could include pain I would never have approved of it. But someone told me electrodes were more tingly than unpleasant, like one of those strange chairs that massages your back. Still, you live and learn."

(Mark Steel)

Last week, the BBC reported Barack Obama’s request to Congress for $200 million in military aid to assist Israel’s construction of a short-range rocket defence system, Iron Dome. The funding will be in addition to the $3 billion in military aid the US annually sends to Israel.

“It grieves me to the core,” said Steele, “to have to admit that today the American government has abdicated her traditional solidarity with Israel”:
Today, Israel truly stands alone among governments. Facing existential threats more dangerous and more imminent than ever before. That’s not to say that Israel has been abandoned, however, by the American people. But there is no denying that the current administration and its Congressional collaborators have left Israel to fend for herself.

"Why is this bastard lying to me?" (Claude Cockburn on interviewing politicians)

Still more than a fortnight to go to the World (yawn!) Cup and I'm sick of it already. It seems that the hucksters can link any product to this competition, from haemorrhoid cream to rosary beads. Every other advert on the telly has a football reference. How these promoters of any old thing love the beautiful game. How they love throwing bucketfuls of money at spoilt millionaires in return for a stupid grin. I hate them all; players, officials, journalists, hucksters, all trying to persuade me that they care. Why am I not convinced?
The most important contribution that we the public can make to this celebration of talent, determination, patriotism, and actual bodily harm, is to purchase and consume gallons and gallons, litres and litres, of BEER (preferably of non-UK origin). We must drink and drink, stagger about shouting Engulund, Engulund, and causing alarm and despondency by urinating alfresco. Some of my neighbours are already getting some serious training in. I just hope they don't peak too early.

Read any gid biks lately?
I've already railed against this affectation of media types - or is it more widespread? - of pronouncing 'good' as gid, gyid, or gyed. Well this morning on Radio4 I heard some "expert" say "What we are licking at ..." LICKING, you prat?
How far will this degradation of the OO-sound be carried? Will we hear singers delivering "These Fillish Things" or "I'm Licking Over a Four-Leaf Clover"? Oh, and middle class tossers already pronounce their ubiquitous "cool!" as "cyul!" If we're going to have conformity in trendy distortions, let's make it "kill!"

Ah Dieu! que la guerre est jolie
avec ses chants et ses longs loisirs

and then the shrapnel penetrated his skull and shortened his life.
Those lines of verse have been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe because of people who claim that war is an integral part of the human experience.
Was Apollinaire genuinely keen on the military way of life? Surely his response to war would have been more complex. But I believe he was reported as having been seduced by the ceremonial and the flag-wagging. Maybe those lines are not ironic, though someone is killed in the poem,

... tandis qu'elle
riait au destin surprenant.


"You would feel that after so many centuries
God would give man to repent; yet he can kill
As Cain could, but with multitudinous will.
No farther advanced than his ancient furies."
(Richard Eberhart)

"Bella, horrida bella."
(Virgil)

"War is the health of the state."
(Randolph Bourne)

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation; the second is war. Both bring temporary prosperity, both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."
(Ernest Hemingway)

"We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened." Liam Fox, our new defence secretary.
On the radio this morning some high ranking officer echoed the British security line. Without that fig-leaf we might think the whole thing was just the UK armed forces on hire to Globocop.

Let's see now -
Invasion of Afghanistan, October 2001
London bombings, July 2005.
Pre-invasion Islamic terrorist atrocities in the UK, 0 (that's a zero).

" ... broken 13th century country", a better description than the one I'm prone to use - (censored). I remember some Yankee bigmouth threatening to bomb Afghanistan back into the Stone Age. Still some way to go then.

I wonder exactly what Fox meant by "global interests".

Ed Balls, another leadership contender who was not an MP in 2003, has in the past said he would have voted for the war. But he tells tomorrow's Telegraph: "It was a mistake. On the information we had, we shouldn't have prosecuted the war ... It was an error for which we as a country paid a heavy price, and for which many people paid with their lives." Saddam Hussein was a horrible man, and I am pleased he is no longer running Iraq. But the war was wrong."

The more I see and hear of this loathsome creature the more I feel the need to witness him suffering great pain. Fortunately a lot of other people will be experiencing similar sentiments, and his chances of becoming a leader instead of a toady are remote.

Ed Miliband too did not approve of the war. He thought at the time that it was wrong, but never managed to put his thoughts into words for public consumption. Then he became an MP in the party guilty of prosecuting the illegal war, and later joined the cabinet of war supporters. He too wants to be leader of his disgraced party.

I wish Rupert Murdoch would hurry up and tell the Labour Party who he wants for leader. I'm getting confused by all these people putting their names forward.

A breathing space for Gary McKinnon and his legal team. Fair play to Theresa May.
Is this an aberration?

Message to Fleming -

If you 'd care to send in a joke insulting Jesus, and one insulting Moses, then I'll post your semi-joke insulting Muhammad along with them. Otherwise I, who have no time for religion, will just assume that you are using your crappy humour as a vehicle for your bigotry; and my blog as a medium for the same bigotry. It isn't going to work, my man.
You just happen to be targetting the monotheistic religion on which it is open season in your benighted country. Try picking on the Christian fundamentalists and the Jewish pro-Israel fanatics for a change. Have a pop at the people who fund your rabid neo-con propaganda machine.
If you lived in Sa'udi Arabia, flem, you'd be sneering at the cross worshippers. You'll always be with the biggest bully in the yard.

What can you read on Jemmy Hope's blog that you can't read in the Financial Times? Just about everything on J.H.'s blog I suppose, including the above advertisement.

(via Pickled Politics)

Well, hush my mouth! I'm just after writing that Rahm Emanuel's background makes him a man to be wary of, and what do I read? A quote from the same Rahm, "I am more hawkish than 50 percent of the people in Israel." This from a bloke whose boss claims to favour peace in the Middle East.
Admittedly the statement was made to an Israeli billionaire who has donated millions to the Democrats, but even that gent appears to have been taken aback by it.

(via Angry Arabs' Comment Section)

Rahm Emmanuel is Obama's Whitehouse Chief of Staff (but of course everyone knows that). I'm sure William Hague, PC, got on like a (Gazan) house on fire when our Foreign Secretary of three days went over to Washington to learn what our foreign policy is. The following piece is lifted from onlinejournal.com

Rahm Emanuel's father specialized in bus bombings in Palestine
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

May 13, 2010, 00:15

A well-placed British source informed WMR [http://www.waynemadsenreport.com] that Rahm Emanuel's father, Benjamin Emanuel, specialized in the terrorist bombings of buses carrying British troops and policemen during the British Mandate in Palestine.
British MI-6 files contain information on the elder Emanuel's participation in the terrorist activities of Irgun Zvai Leumi, a Jewish terrorist organization that targeted British forces, UN officials, and Palestinian Arabs in the lead up to Israeli independence in 1948.
Benjamin Emanuel, a Jew from Russia whose real name was Ezekiel Auerbach, was arrested by British police for terrorist activities in the months prior to Israeli independence. Many of the British policemen killed by Emanuel and his Irgun colleagues between 1947 and 1948 had been transferred to Palestine upon Indian and Pakistani independence in 1947. Irgun saw the increase of British policemen from the Indian subcontinent as a major threat.
The Jewish terrorist murders of British troops and policemen resulted in massive anti-Jewish riots in London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, and Cardiff in 1947. In 1946, Emanuel's Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people, including 28 British soldiers and policemen.
British intelligence also believed that Benjamin Emanuel may have been related to Vladimir Jabotinsky, a Russian Jew from Odessa who founded Irgun. Jabotinksy, who was an admirer of Benito Mussolini and who secretly negotiated for the expatriation of Jews to Palestine with the Nazi government in Germany and Admiral Miklos Horthy's pro-Nazi regime in Hungary, died of a heart attack in New York in 1940.
Wikipedia deleted Benjamin Emanuel's entry in 2008, shortly after Rahm Emanuel was designated as President Obama's chief of staff. Wikipedia is a favorite device for the perception management goals of Dr. Cass Sunstein, Obama's director of the White House Office of Regulatory Affairs.
With a record of terrorist acts contained in his MI-6 files, Benjamin Emanuel was permitted by U.S. authorities to emigrate to Chicago from Israel in the 1950s, becoming a citizen. Rahm Emanuel was born in 1959.

There is a certain right wing British "historian" named Sebag-Montefiore who pretends not to know about those anti-Jewish riots in British cities. Or why did he refer to similar anti-jewish mob activity in Limerick in the 1900s as the last pogrom in the the British Isles?

"Notice something different?" (wikipedia). Yes, it's not working.

Shahid Farzad Kamangar, schoolteacher, trade unionist, murdered in secret by the Iranian régime. He had been sentenced to death after a trial which lasted five minutes.

So the foul deed has been perpetrated and the "fish in a condom"* is our new prime minister. Now poor Adam Boulton can calm down, his master has the result he demanded.
What's that jounalist's rule - don't become the story?

*© Steve Bell

HEY ELTON from John Greyson on Vimeo.

I saw this on Angry Arab's Comment Section and had to clone it. Let's see if it works.

On Thursday morning the BNP had 12 members on Barking and Dagenham Council. On Friday morning it had none.
Applications for the soon to be vacant role of British Fuehrer should be signed in blood (for DNA testing). And the soon to be ousted Fuehrer can console himself with continued nasal insertion in the EU trough (metaphor courtesy of a disillusioned BNP member).

Is this our new prime minister?

It seems that Clegg is getting into bed with Dave/David. Out with the New Labour/Old Tories, in with the New Old Tories propped up by the Lib Dem Tories. So shiny Clegg (rapidly tarnishing) can haggle for a top cabinet post and forget all that nonsense about not arming the Israelis and not being subservient to the US. I feel a "realistic" approach coming on. Up yours, Cleggalomaniacs. Here comes the new politics, just like the old politics.

One Green MP, no Nazis.

This morning - for the first time since 1969 when I began taking note - I heard a reporter on a BBC station say "Derry" instead of "Londonderry". It was only in a long list of airports likely to be closed by the recurrence of volcanic ash in the air, so he might have got away with it. Or he might be admonished. Let's hope he doesn't get the sack.

I see Rod Stewart is appearing in concert in Tel Aviv on the 1st July.
"Before arriving in Israel, Stewart, 65, is scheduled to perform in Romania, Austria and Hungary, as part of his current world tour." While he's in Romania he might like to join the locals in killing a few gypsies.
He will be preceded in his ritual dance on Palestinian corpses by the noble knight Sir Elton John (because you can never be too rich or too callous).
Let's see now, they've been around long enough to have played Sun City in the good old days when the krugerrands spilled out like blood at Sharpeville. I wonder if they did.

There are no parties, there are no policies, there are only three blokes competing to be the next Prime Minister. This is how the media have decided to play the election. This is politics as organised by the Murdoch machine. It doesn't really matter who wins, the country's going down the pan; it'll just go a little faster with the Cameronians, and Murdoch will get to see the BBC dismantled.

This is Charlie Brooker's take on Murdoch's three stooges -

Brown - "Technical in the social situation, sociable in the technical situation? That's the hallmark of a nerd. And most nerds are simply too gawky – gawky, not aloof – to connect with the general public."

Clegg - "roughly 50% daytime soap, 40% human, and 10% statesman."

Cameron - "100% something. He isn't even a man; more a texture-mapped character model. There's a different kind of software at work here, some advanced alien technology projecting a passable simulation of affability; a straight-to-DVD retread of the Blair ascendancy re-enacted by androids."

Same fellow on our press -"Two-faced contempt is the basic mode of operation for many newspapers: mindwarping shitsheets filled with selective reporting and audacious bias. The popular press is a shrill, idiotic, bullying echo chamber; a hopelessly poisoned Petri dish in which our politicians seem resigned to grow."

The "shitsheets" have already written off Brown (though the electorate might decide to vote for a party not a leader). That may be a "mitzvah", because, according to Mervyn King, whichever party forms the next government will have to unleash such a savage assault on our living standards that they will render themselves unelectable for some time thereafter.
Me, I won't be voting for any of them, or their useless parties, or their anti-social policies.

According to the current 'Private Eye' Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has threatened to set the libel lawyers on any newspaper mentioning his association with the Papal Knight Nadhmi Auchi.

Frankie Boyle, "The BBC are cowards."

Well, he's not the first to say that, and he won't be the last.

"I don't understand why everybody lies. The president of my former club Lens, Gervais Martel, said I left because I got more money in England, that I didn't care about the shirt. I said: 'Is there one player in the world who signs for a club and says, Oh, I love your shirt?' Your shirt is red. I love it. He doesn't care. The first thing that you speak about is the money.

Benoît Assou-Ekotto of Tottenham Hotspur.

What a refreshing change!

Comedian Andy Hamilton said (News Quiz, Radio 4, today) he'd heard that Gordon Brown's "bigoted woman" had been offered £30,000 to say that she was voting Conservative in the general election. She turned the offer down. I hope it's true, that there is at least one person in this country Murdoch can't buy.

Tony Blair offers cool support to troubled Labour campaign
(Headline in today's Guardian)
Of course he does, Murdoch has backed the Conservatives.

THE ORIGINS OF MAY DAY

Workers' Memorial Day in Hull.
(Ray Jessop was 53, not 58)

OY GEVALT! I'm just sitting here checking through the blogs when I hear the Missus shout "What are you doing on our roof?" What the hell? I'm off to see what's going on and she's unlocking the back door as I get there (all doors kept locked around here). I'm just in time to see some athletic desperado scrambling over our fence. Of course I shout "Oy, what's going on?" as if he's going to stop and explain. When we reach the back gate he's disappeared but coppers are popping out of every opening. Whatever he's done must have been heavy duty for him to risk life and limb to dodge the consequences, and to have so many muskers on his tail. We could hear car sirens, and a helicopter on its way.
What the missus saw through the window was this young fellow lepping off the fence into our garden, having scrambled over the roof of the bungalow next door. How the hell he managed to get up there without ripping off the guttering has me puzzled.
I'm really wondering what he'd done though.
It's been very quiet round here recently, but the warm weather always brings 'em out.

How many Israelis does it take to change a light bulb?
One - he watches the Palestinian do the job, then beats him up and calls him a lazy Arabushi.

"I'm quite interested in the Middle East, I'm actually studying that Israeli army martial arts. And I know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back." (Frankie Boyle)

Tomorrow, 28th April, is Workers' Memorial Day. The following notice is copied from the UCATT site -

"In Hull UCATT official Dave Oglesby will be attending the planting of a remembrance tree at an event along with Lord Mayor and Council Leaders and local business people. Also in attendance will be members of the family of Ray Jessop a local UCATT member who was killed in an accident in December 2009. The event will take place at The Workers Memorial in Queens Gardens at 11.30am."

The right wing "historian", Orlando Figes, has been caught out pseudonymously puffing his own work on Amazon. He impressed himself with a work that he declared to be "beautifully written" and "a rich and deeply moving history, which leaves the reader awed, humbled, yet uplifted ..."
At the same time he was rubbishing the work of other historians (is that 'other' superfluous?) in the same field of Russian historical studies. He found their efforts "awful", "poorly written", "dull", "dense", "pretentious". Clearly the discipline is fortunate to have Professor F. exercising quality control in the Russian quarter of Academia, weeding out material that fails to attain the Figean gold standard.
When his cover was blown the Professor resorted to weapon of choice of wealthy and well connected Britons - he threatened to sue his detractors for libel. When this didn't work he informed the world that it was his wife who wielded the poison pen.
Finally he came clean. "I am a deceitful shit," he said "who is not fit to lick the boots of his academic peers." Oh no! Sorry, that's what he should have said. Instead he put his hand up to "foolish errors" under "intense stress" and went off on sick leave.
I wonder if it is once again safe to blame the Nazis for the genocide of Europe's Jewish population, and not the Communists, as Professor Figes claimed.

9.4 million viewers watched the first party leaders' election debate.
4.1 million viewers watched the second.
I believe there is to be a third. Maybe they intend to keep plugging away until they've bored everybody stiff.
I wonder if anyone mentioned the w*r last night, or is it still Basil Fawlty rules?

I have two maps of the Iberian peninsula of Spanish provenance. The older one dates back to 1967 and the dark days of the monorchid murderer, Franco; the other is dated 1991. One of these shows the location of the ancient city of Gernika (Guernica), the other doesn't acknowledge the city's existence. I needn't bother to say which of the two is the true representation.
I was reminded of this while watching a programme on maps on BBC4. The series on cartography explains how maps were produced for political and propaganda purposes and were used as indicators of status and power. It made me wonder how well Israeli cartographers are coping in mapping a nation whose borders are elastic, and whose land mass includes territory claimed by Israel, but not recognised as Israeli by other nations. "Hold it, lads, here comes an update."
I also thought of all the extant nations that did not exist when I was born. Israel, Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Mali, Burkina Fasso, Vietnam, Taiwan, etc., etc. There are countries that didn't exist when my kids were at school; Eritrea, Moldova, Slovakia, Croatia. I believe Montenegro's a sovereign nation these days, but I'm not certain about that. Then there's the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", whose name is the product of a Greek nightmare.
When my parents were in their infancy there was no Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan (or Transjordan) Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia. So the cartographers will never be out of work, but how they must be praying for a less disputatious world population.
Countries come and go, and borders shift back and forth. I recall reading in one of Eric Hobsbawm's works that it was possible for an individual living in some district in the Carpathians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to have been a denizen of five different countries without ever leaving their birthplace. Some borders are just lines on a map. So there was a pub on the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic which straddled the border. As closing time came in one local authority the patrons would move to the other end of the room and carry on drinking legally.
Then there was the bloke whose house straddled the border between Russia and Poland. He was ordered to claim citizenship of one or the other. He chose Poland, and when asked to explain his choice, said he couldn't stand the Russian winters.

I read that saint-in-waiting Lech Kaczyński is to be buried in Wawel Cathedral alongside Poland's heroes, such as Tadeusz Kościuszko. Kościuszko fought against the might of the Russian Empire, and lost. Kaczyński fought against Warsaw's gays, and won. Everybody loves a winner.

Zionist extremists in the UK (and elsewhere) are trying to have opposition to Israeli war crimes and human rights abuses labelled "anti-semitism". Their efforts came to naught in a Scottish court -

Sheriff James Scott ruled that “the comments were clearly directed at the State of Israel, the Israeli Army, and Israeli Army musicians”, and not targeted at “citizens of Israel” per se. “The procurator fiscal’s attempts to squeeze malice and ill will out of the agreed facts were rather strained”, he said.
The Sheriff expressed concern that to continue with the prosecution would have implications for freedom of expression generally: “if persons on a public march designed to protest against and publicise alleged crimes committed by a state and its army are afraid to name that state for fear of being charged with racially aggravated behaviour, it would render worthless their Article 10(1) rights. Presumably their placards would have to read, ‘Genocide in an unspecified state in the Middle East’; ‘Boycott an unspecified state in the Middle East’ etc.

TV OR NOT TV
(Steve Punt)

TV gradually took over politics. It reduced political speeches to short, easily digestible slogans; it favoured younger faces over old; it made people's haircuts, choice of tie or sweaty armpits more important than what they were saying. America led the way every time, exporting all the familiar terms of modern politics - not just "soundbite" and "spin doctor" but the fact that we now have a Ministry of Justice and a Supreme Court. All we need is a Minister of Transportation and the right to bear firearms and we're done. Or as we used to say in this country, "we've finished."

So farewell then, President Kaczyński. Who will be blamed for your death? Communists, Liberals, Jews, queers? Now you are a great statesman instead of a nasty little bigot. If only you had predeceased John Paul II, then you would have been canonised within a couple of years. Jaka szkoda!

"For me, Malc was always entertaining. Above all else, he was an entertainer." (John Lydon).
Haven't you left something out, Lydon? "Evil"? Still, nil de mortis ... eh? (Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth these days.)

I came upon this in a discussion of the forms anarchism takes in the USA. It was by someone using the name "Perdonaris". I thought I'd copy it to see if anyone's interested in the subject.

The reason I think Proudhon, Bakunin, and Emma Goldman would find Ayn Rand's company obnoxious is that Ayn Rand and libertarian capitalists are not opposed to government or even big government. They are afraid of levelling and government programs that help the disadvantaged at the expense of wealth and profit. In America (and other countries) there is an immense bureaucracy to protect private property and the freedom of the well off. Without this immense bureaucracy and big government the wealthy would not be able to hold on to their property. If someone steals your computer who do you call? The police. If the police do not help you can try to get a private detective to help you. The average person cannot afford a P.I. to monitor their spouses let alone track down a computer but the wealthy can. This is the libertarian socialist critique of Ayn Rand "anarchism". The rich and powerful need a big state to control their wealth. It does not matter whether it is a private dick (Magnum P.I) or a public dick (the police station) who does your bidding. Just ask a Wobbly about the Pinks. In fact this is what signifies authoritarianism or statism. The Bolsheviks said they had destroyed the State, it was the movement or the revolution that acts. Pinochet got advice from Milton Friedman on how to organize the Chilean economy according to libertarian capitalism. The police in Chile were just as prominent there however as they were in the Soviet Union or North Korea. Your average Chilean was as miserable and living on subsistence wages as your Soviet peasant. There was a wealthy elite ruling both countries. In Chile it was the generals and in the U.S.S.R. it was the politburo. In America it is Wall Street. It is impossible to separate Goldman Sachs and Ayn Rand. Both need the State for support and bailing out when they screw up. They need the State to prevent laid off workers smashing down the factories they once worked in and keeping the same people from stealing bread from the elite's stores when they are hungry. That Wall Street financiers and CEOs live in special gated communities and shop in special stores for themselves where they do not have to observe any poverty...well that was the U.S.S.R. In the U.S.S.R. you could get bread or vodka if you knew somebody that was high up (kind of like mafia connections). The most galling thing about the U.S.S.R. was that the Party which ran everything never took the blame for the mess they created (a new Five Year Plan will fix the old Five Year Plan). It was like being CEO but instead IBM or a consortium like OPEC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce you were CEO of the entire country with the full weight of the forces of the Pentagon and the CIA. The Party lived in special places and shopped in special stores. The media was protected from interference by the Soviet citizens by massive armies around the radio and T.V. stations. The irony of the U.S.S.R. was that it was a paradise for politburo members and misery for the majority of society. If you had connections you could get pretty much anything you wanted just like in America. Without connections, like being related to a Party member or a general you had to wait in line like any other schlub. Walmart for the proletariat and Wegmann's for the Party. In America we have a great deal of freedom because of elections and choice, not capitalism, not competition. The object of competition is dominance, or controlling the market. If you cannot control the market what is the point of competition? Walmart was a small business that has come to dominate America economically and politically through competition. This is the same story with health insurance companies that resolve the problem of competition by demarcating territory to another company while that company respects your territory--kind of like two organized crime syndicates in New York: Italians run this and Irish run that (this by the way is how I would define nations, nationalism etc.--Great Britain has this land and Germany has this land. Don't go into my territory Hitler or we will wipe you out said Churchill to Hitler--2 gangsters planning a war). If the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were given the right to veto legislation then what we would have in America (whether the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is called the Department of Commerce or an independent entity) is the U.S.S.R.

I copied this from the 'Virtual Linguist' website, couldn't resist it -

Teabonics
Teabonics is the name given to the misspellings and odd English phrases that have appeared on protesters' banners in the United States, such as 'Say No to Socilism' and 'Dump the Polititians' (selection here). The word comes from the Tea Party movement, a US protest movement that is opposed to Obama's reforms. The modern name Tea Party is a reference to the 1773 Boston Tea Party, when American colonists protested against taxes imposed by the British. The -bonics part of the word is a reference to Ebonics, the name for African American slang.

From Today's Irish Independent -
"SO, Bono is one of the 10 greatest Irish people ever. And so is Stephen Gately, and so is Phil Lynott. Either we're a joke, or the joke is on us."
And somebody called Adi Roche (who?).

We all know that Nobo is full of it, but I wasn't aware that his condition was infectious. Now it seems that a substantial chunk of the population of the 26 counties has come down with it. As the cartoon points out, no O'Connell. Parnell, Joyce, Yeats.
By a coincidence, this afternoon I bought a copy of Marina Hyde's "Celebrity: how entertainers took over the world and why we need an exit strategy". Quod erat demonstrandum, Ms. Hyde.

Now that the election is set for May 6th*, and the lies, false promises and black propaganda begin to pile up like horse manure at Newmarket, I intend to forswear television news till it's all over.
I'm reminded of a little verse in Evan Hunter's "Blackboard Jungle" -

The wind blew
And the shit flew
And for weeks the vision was blurred.


*Or it might be May 5th, I'm not interested enough to find out.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET AN AMERICAN MAD?

Americans put up with a lot before they get mad….. is it finally happening?

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.

You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.

You didn’t get mad that the government spends 3 Billion dollars a year to support an oppressive apartheid regime in Israel.

You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.

You didn’t get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.

You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans…oh hell no.

From desertpeace via Angry Arab's comments.
http://angryarabscommentsection.blogspot.com/

(OK, fleming, time for a sermon.)

TONY BLAIR, THE ARCH-ZIONIST, AMONG FRIENDS

"I admire the fortitude of its people. I remember attending Independence Day at Mount Herzl. I met a young man. Five of his family had been killed in a terrorist attack. He had been blinded. But there he was standing tall and strong and proud to be carrying one of the 12 torches of the tribes of Israel."
(Oh, those poor Israeli victims - better not mention the thousands of Palestinian victims)

"PM Netanyahu and Defence Minister Barak, with whom I work closely, deserve credit for the steps taken in response."
(I can't believe I said that.)

"Two years ago I could not have gone to Jenin. Now I go freely."
(I couldn't go to Jenin because my Israeli minders wouldn't let me)

"Sometimes people say to me: “Hey you used to be Prime Minister of a great nation, and now you spend your time examining earth mounds in obscure parts of Palestine, arguing why hospital workers should be able to travel into East Jerusalem, getting electricity and water to small villages outside Qualqilya.” They think I’ve gone down in the world; feel sorry for me."
(Actually nobody ever said that to me, but it sounds good. It's a bit like the 'Mondeo Man' bullshit. It's not my biggest lie after all)

"Iran’s regime is the biggest de-stabilising influence in the region."
(Bibi put that bit in. It goes down well here even if nobody else believes it)

"We will lift the scourge of extremism and bring hope to the world."
(I hope people don't think that means I'm surrendering myself for trial for war crimes)

The full emesis can be studied here.

I see that the UK's no. 1 war criminal has taken time off from his world money-hoovering tour to endorse the Labour Party's re-election bid. Asset or liability? My money's on the latter.
Not-quite-New Labour has managed so far to do a Basil Fawlty and not mention the w*r; five pledges like -
We promise to smile more
We promise not to slay the first-born
etc.

So what?

Tone has also taken time from his get rich double quick campaign to have himself painted a rich brown colour. I suppose he gets waived through passport control when visiting the USA, so he's not likely to be subject to special attention at the air terminal.

Just for the record -
1 Jean-Pierre
2 Vincent

This from Angry Arab's blog -

"To Lawyers among my readers
I have received emails from legal minds among my readers. I am told that I have grounds to sue the UK's Home Office for libel and defamation especially that I have received hate mails since the release of the report. If any one would like to take the case, or knows some one who would, please email me to my school email below (down to the left, I think)."

Professor AbuKhalil's 'Angry Arab News Service' was listed by the government's counter-terrorism unit as the third most influential British-based pro-islamic blog. This is the kind of "intelligence" that gave us the the DODGY DOSSIER. The professor is an avowed atheist and leftist who constantly exposes the stupidity of Islamic fundamentalist spokespersons and Iraqi Shi'a cleric-politicians. He is a US-based non-islamist. But he is also a recorder of Israeli war crimes and ethnic cleansing, and of Western collusion in these crimes. He is furthermore a critic of the dictators of the Arab world lauded by the Western propaganda machine and depicted as allies in their war on (some) terror; Mubarak of Egypt, the King of Jordan. He exposes the links between Bin Ladin and the Wahhabis led by their 'Imam', the Sa'udi monarch.
He is, to put it simply, persona non grata to Washington and it's ragbag of allies and clients. He is an Arab who is openly anti-Israel. That'll do for Whitehall and the British secret police. Call him pro-islamic, it doesn't mean much, but it connotes support for terrorism.

(image,Tim Brinton)

"AIPAC doesn't rule America. Nor does AIPAC determine US foreign policy. Capital rules the US, the world, and hence also US policy towards the world, which is all about extraction and domination, and is hostile, not just to the Palestinian people, but to people in general, everywhere and anywhere, but especially if they fail to meet the appropriate standards of docility. Capital hates all people, but it also welcomes people hating each other: it color codes people so that different people can be consumed differently, and some can be the slaves of others."

Gobsmacking revelations - top Labour politicians are crooks! Who would have thought it?

Today a certain Nir Barkat will be in London to address a conference at Chatham House. Perhaps I should say I believe he'll be in London. Visits by Israelis of Barkat's status tend to be cancelled at the last minute. As I can find no mention of this fellow's appearance among us in the press or on the television I can't be sure.
Barkat is the Mayor of Jerusalem, or the non-Arab part of Jerusalem. He thinks that the whole of Jerusalem should be non-Arab and is busy making it so. He is, you see, an ethnic cleanser and a land thief. Perhaps that's why his visit is not being trumpeted abroad; he must skulk in and skulk out with the help of our elected representatives, our secret police and our news reporters. If he manages to do so it will be public relations success for the Apartheid state, and, no doubt for our media, a victory for common sense and moderation.

Lifted from Labour Union Digest -

Come clean Willie - how many more Tory MPs have their snouts in BA’s trough?

Thursday, 18 March 2010 10:47
Unite has demanded that BA comes clean about how many Tory MPs the company has "bought" after it was revealed that the Tory MP who viciously attacked BA cabin crew in the Commons this week may have had up to £15,000 in free flights from the airline in recent years. While cabin crew are fighting to defend their jobs and terms and conditions from BA's slash and burn management techniques, Mark Pritchard, Tory MP for The Wrekin, laid into them on the floor of the House. But, in a clear breach of parliamentary protocol he did not once declare his expensive gifts from BA to the Commons as he spoke.
In recent years Mark Pritchard has regularly enjoyed flight upgrades on his frequent Washington trips, up from economy plus to business class. On one occasion BA's generosity extended to include Mr Pritchard's wife, who was also granted an upgrade to business class. BA business class flights to Washington cost over £2,000 single. Unite estimates then, that in the past few years Mr Pritchard has benefited to the tune of £15,000 in flights - more than a cabin crew member at Gatwick earns in a year.
Tony Woodley, Unite joint general secretary, said: "This is extraordinary hypocrisy from the Tories - their union-baiting charge is being led by someone with his snout
in BA's trough. "This Tory was happy enough to sip champagne in business class and be cared for by the BA cabin crew - but now he launches this disgraceful attack on them today. "Willie Walsh should come clean on how many MPs he's bought - and MPs and the speaker of the House of Commons should demand to know why Mark Pritchard kept his BA kick-backs secret." The full record of Mark Pritchard's BA freebies can be seen at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=11946

... and no doubt Mr. Walsh would like to see a Conservative government in power, so provoking union action at this time is a good move.
But what do Mandelson and the craven Brown get from this? They pay court to the right wing press and in return get kicked in the teeth - no more than they deserve. I wonder if the careerists who manage UNITE will be asking for their members' 11 million quid back.

"Israel is one of our closest allies, and we and the Israeli people have a special bond that's not going to go away," Obama said in an interview with Fox News.

(Angry Arab's Comments Section)
... and AIPAC is his worst nightmare. Gutless creep!

Meanwhile Vice-President Joe Biden has been sent to sit on the naughty step.

St. Patrick's Day once more. I take the opportunity to air a poem I came across on the web, by William Maginn, whose likeness is to be seen here. Now Doctor Maginn was a gent of a hedonistic bent, what we vulgarians would call a piss-artist, and a frequenter of the stews to boot. He was greatly loved by many and hated by some he'd shredded in his magazine articles, including the fellow who tried to kill him in an duel.
One admirer who wrote a novel based on Maginn and his circle described him thus -
"Theologian, Historian, Poet, Mathematician, Philosopher, Phrenologist, Stenographist, Fencer, Boxer, Orator, Dramatist, Reviewer, Sonnetteer, Joker, Punster, Doctor of Laws, Hoaxer, Political Economist, Newspaper Editor, Wit, Duellist, Pedestrian, Linguist, Arithmetician, Scholar, O'Doherty, Pamphleteer, Translator, Epigrammatist, Antiquarian, Conversationalist, Novelist and true Tory to the backbone." O'Doherty was one of many pseudonyms used by Maginn. Unfortunately he also lent out his noms de plume and even his own name to his journalist and author cronies, which makes identification of all his work difficult.
Other descriptions of our man were less wordy, "Learned and libellous", "The hoary old libeller". Maginn's hair was prematurely grey, but he didn't reach old age. His death at 45 years is usually ascribed to a spell in the debtor's prison which laid him low, but surely his way of life must have contributed.
I regard William Maginn as a kinsman, based on virtually no evidence at all; a surname shared with some of my forebears and nothing more. I count him among my "worthies", people not necessarily admirable or heroic, but noteworthy for the way they spent their days. Most if not all have written something or other that has survived. Their lives and times were interesting if not always commendable.
Now to the poem - or is it doggerel? It can be sung, they say, to the tune of "The Night Before Larry Was Stretched", which has been recorded by the Pogues (I think). The main feature of this version of the saint is his fondness for the bevvy. There is also a reference to the snake legend, which brings to mind Brendan Behan's crack; "St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland and they swam across to America and became policemen and judges." Brendan Behan, a worthy? Let me think about that.

Patrick's Arrival

You've heard of St. Denis of France.
He never had much for to brag on.
You've heard of St. George and his lance
Who killed d'old heathenish dragon.
The Saints of the Welshmen and Scot
Are a couple of pitiful pipers
And might just as well go to pot
When compared to the patron of vipers:
St. Patrick of Ireland, my dear.

He sailed to the Emerald Isle
On a lump of pavin' stone mounted.
He beat the steamboat by a mile
Which mighty good sailing was counted.
Says he, "The salt water, I think,
Has made me unmerciful thirsty;
So bring me a flagon to drink
To wash down the mullygrups, burst ye,
Of drink that is fit for a Saint."

He preached then with wonderful force
The ignorant natives a teaching,
With wine washed down each discourse,
For, says he, "I detest your dry preaching."
The people in wonderment struck
At a pastor so pious and civil,
Exclaimed, "We're for you, my old buck,
And we'll heave our blind Gods to the divil,
Who dwells in hot water below."

This finished, our worshipful man
Went to visit an elegant fellow
Whose practise each cool afternoon
Was to get most delightful mellow.
That day with a barrel of beer,
He was drinking away with abandon.
Say's Patrick, "It's grand to be here.
I drank nothing to speak of since landing,
So give me a pull from your pot."

He lifted the pewter in sport.
Believe me, I tell you, it's no fable.
A gallon he drank from the quart
And left it back full on the table.
"A miracle!" everyone cried
And all took a pull on the Stingo.
They were mighty good hands at that trade
And they drank 'til they fell yet, by Jingo.
The pot it still frothed o'er the brim.

Next day said the host, "It's a fast,
And I've nothing to eat but cold mutton.
On Fridays who'd make such repast
Except an unmerciful glutton?"
Said Pat, "Stop this nonsense, I beg.
What you tell me is nothing but gammon."
When the host brought down the lamb's leg,
Pat ordered to turn it to salmon,
And the leg most politely complied.

You've heard, I suppose, long ago,
How the snakes, in a manner most antic,
He marched to the county Mayo
And ordered them all into the Atlantic.
Hence never use water to drink
The people of Ireland determine
With mighty good reason, I think,
For Patrick has filled it with vermin,
And snakes and such other things.

He was a fine man as you'd meet
From Fairhead to Kilcrumper,
Though under the sod he is laid,
Let's all drink his health in a bumper.
I wish he was here that my glass
He might by art magic replenish,
But since he is not, why alas!
My old song must come to a finish

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution.

Just bringing forward some references so that I don't have to trawl back to read fleming's comments.

The whole megilla can be found here.

David Cameron's rightwing 'allies' march in Riga to commemorate the SS

... and Ed Miliband has embraced the BNP. Home to roost.

At last I've managed to drag myself away from LibraryThing and back to these pages. That site is addictive - and informative. I now know that I'm one of 12,616 library users in possession of a copy of Eco's "The Name of the Rose", but I'm on my own in listing Michael E. Ullyatt's "The Fighting O'Kellys".
I've also learned that my booklist (to date) shares 26 works with the late Papa Hemingway, but none with J.F. Kennedy or Tupac Shakur. What did the Stranger say," ... I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that"?
According to wikipedia there were 650,000 LibraryThing users/members by March 2009 with 37 million books catalogued. All those booklists to compare with, to admire or get snobbish about (it seems that J. K.Rowling is big with a lot of readers).
Before I started this I would have guessed I had about 400 to 450 books - out by a mile. Lots of cataloguing to do, no time to swear at the telly.

Michael Foot has died, and Worzel Gummidge has become "a great parliamentarian" and "a great orator". He was also a pacifist AND a privy councillor, no wonder he always wore the look of someone who didn't know where he was. As a member of the Queen's secret council he had to keep his trap shut while the Falklands adventure ran its course. He who lies down with dogs gets up stinking like a dog.
Still he can't have been all bad; a Murdoch hack on Sky News described his political beliefs as extremism. Maybe Foot thought that Murdoch should have paid taxes while he lived in this country. That would be extreme in the eyes of a Murdoch toady.
He was, they say with relief, the last of Old Labour. We won't see his like again, thank Christ! Now let's get back to turning the country into a midden.

A message from Eric Lee of Labourstart -

McJobs -- we all know what those are.

One online source defines a McJob as "a low-paying, low-prestige job that requires few skills and offers very little chance of intracompany advancement".

McDonald's was never very happy about the use of this term.

In fact, the company bought the domain name "mcjobs.com" just to make sure that no one could use it.

But they forget to acquire "mcjobs.org" -- and the global union federation for food workers, the IUF, together with LabourStart, bought the name and today are pleased to announce the public launch of McJobs.org, the website for McDonald's workers around the world.

If you work in McDonald's, or know anyone who does, or are just curious, please do check it out:

http://www.mcjobs.org

Eric Lee

This is the only photograph I ever took of a Hull building, any building in fact. It was the poster I was interested in, not the steel and glass consumer trap it's hanging from. The colours are of HULL FC, one of the town's rugby league clubs. The slogan was probably the brainchild of some overpaid PR parasite based in London. We thick northerners could never have come up with it [hint of sarcasm]. But it strikes a chord.

It's for TGIA, aka Athéedieumerci.

[Gordon] Brown said: "Olive oil production provides an essential part of the West Bank economy. In buying this oil, British shoppers wil be helping the farmers of Palestine to make a living."

It seems that Brown was just warning British shoppers that buying Zaytoun Olive Oil would help Palestinian farmers, not suggesting that they buy it. That's the conclusion I draw from the UK Borders Agency's refusal to allow three Palestinian farmers entry into the country to promote their product at a Fairtade fair.

Anyone who disapproves of this restriction of trade and interference in the free movement of goods in the global economy can express their opposition here.

Hull's bid to become UK City of Culture in 2013 has been kicked into touch. Maybe I should add a "Dog Bites Man" tag to this piece of news, as it was predictable, a very safe bet. Most of the people I know wouldn't be aware of either the bid or the object of the bid. "City of Culture", what the hell is that? Well is not about culture, that's for certain. It's about making money, attracting the refined pound. None of the loot would trickle down to the hoi polloi, though no doubt there would be a big bill at the end of it all which would be settled on the council taxpayers of the city. That's how these things work.
Meanwhile, in the comments section of the local paper, the bigots are at work. 'Chavs', single mothers, fat people, immigrants, illiterate kids; this, in their narrow little minds is the composition of the inhabitants of Hull. That's why we never win anything. I think these keyboard whingers need a label. Everyone who uses the word 'chav' becomes in my book a ptochophobe (neologism, copyright me). One thing is certain, judging by their written comments they'll never be able to spell that. Is there a correlation between bigotry and bad spelling? Perhaps some research could be undertaken.

One particular fanatic is dedicating his labours to convincing us ignorant Hull folks that one of the remaining competitors is called 'Londonderry', not 'Derry'. I seem to recall that the city became Derry officially after its administration was wrested from the grasp of a gerrymandering minority - but really, who cares? The employees of the BBC have clearly been ordered always to use 'Londonderry'. 'Derry' like 'EXTREME right' and 'Loyalist terrorist' is one of those taboo terms. That's the main reason I prefer 'Derry'.
The city was founded by immigrants who named it for London. It was later burnt down by the MacDevitts who became known thereafter as 'Burnderries' to Ulster protestants. These last still sing of guarding DERRY's walls. And they used to insist on foreigners calling the city Londonderry while they called it Derry.
Similarly, we have to suffer fools who want us to give our town its full due and call it Kingston upon Hull, when everybody prefers Hull.

'Tellingly, he admits that the character he played in The Big Lebowski remains the one that's closest to his heart. This shambling, genial slacker likes smoking weed and going bowling and dislikes responsibility and the hard grind of the nine-to-five. The actor, who rarely revisits his old movies, will always make an exception for the Coen brothers' comedy. "It's just such a great movie, you know? Each time it comes on TV, I think 'Oh OK, I'll just watch a few scenes. I'll wait until [John] Turturro licks the bowling ball and then I'll turn it off'. But I never do. Lebowski, man. That's the one that hooks me."'

Me too, Dude, me too.

From my local paper -
"Hundreds of jobs could be created if plans for a multi-million pound power station in east Hull gets the go-ahead."
Let me translate -
Hundreds of jobs won't be created if plans ... etc.
I've complained before about this hyperbole. "Up to ten thousand jobs", and down to no jobs. But it's always the PR person's sales patter that Hull's disinformation sheet prints.

I object to the canonisation of the execrable Philip Larkin, and am appalled to learn that someone intends to pay for a statue of this individual to be erected in Hull. He was a poet; how many poets are commemorated with a statue in Hull?
I am not prejudiced against poets in the collective, in fact I admire many of the craft. But we should take care in our choice of whom we celebrate and raise above the rest.
I remember reading, in a biography of Larkin, a nasty little quatrain he penned for private distribution. It advocated the deportation of non-white immigrants, and, I think, the shooting of trade unionists, certainly some excessive treatment.


"I find the 'state of the nation' quite terrifying. In 10 years’ time we shall all be cowering under our beds as hordes of blacks steal anything they can lay their hands on." Philip Larkin

"We don’t go to Test matches now, too many fucking niggers about." ibid.


"anti-intellectual, racist, sexist, and rotten with class-consciousness." Dr. Germaine Greer on Larkin

Larkin was born in Coventry (or somewhere in the Midlands), the son of a prominent member of the British Union of Fascists. "They fuck you up your mum and dad" is his most famous line of poetry. Maybe he was harking back to his formative years.
Let Coventry commemorate him; or if Hull must be saddled with a statue of this horrible man, locate it in the university grounds out of sight of the people he despised (oh, I'm forgetting, he despised students too).

A friend of mine was a mature student at Hull University when Larkin was head librarian and introduced a new rule. Certain books, usually the most expensive and, apparently some more salacious, were removed from the shelves. The catalogue card for these works was marked with an X to inform the would-be borrower to apply at the issuing desk for a copy. These X-es were written in pencil, so my mate spent every lunchtime pencilling X-es on the books most in demand. He may have been joined by sympathisers in his labours, because the new system soon ground to a halt and the books were returned to the shelves.
People 1, élitist censors 0.

This morning I heard a newsreader pronounce the word nuclear as 'nucular'. Why do they do that? If you can say 'clear' you can say 'nuclear'. Is it a fashion? Like the new pronunciation of good as 'gyid' or 'gyed'. What are these media types up to? Do they have bets on whether they can effect a change in the pronunciation of particular words?
Whoever bet that he or she could get broadcasters to pronounce 'to' as 'teh' won that bet. Now they are all going 'teh eat', 'teh Iraq', the annoying twats.
There is also a tendency for middle class types on the telly and radio to pronounce 'sort of' as 'sudduf' and 'kind of' as 'canna'. Why? We Hull proles have always said 'caanda' for 'kind of', but we didn't go to public schools. That's our dialect, our right, not an affectation. I don't know, maybe it's what they call 'Estuarian', the distorted imitation of prole-speak adopted by the trendy middle class.
Finally, 'Sco'lun' for Scotland; every weatherperson has adopted this version. Again it has always been our way to drop the T and say Sco'land, but that lot used to pronounce the T. What has changed?

I see that the UK's number one war criminal has received a £1 million payoff for his complicity in Israeli war crimes. Or, put another way, he ' ... received the Dan David prize from Tel Aviv University as the "laureate for the present time ­dimension in the field of leadership".' Exactly what those last eleven words mean is beyond my grasp.
So Blair can add another million to the millions he's stacking up as he makes his parasitical way round the world like a one-man plague of locusts.

In 2006 "Terry was asked about fidelity. 'I've never cheated on her or anything like that,' he declared. 'I never would. I can look you in the eye and tell you. There's been stories out there that I've cheated on her but I certainly haven't ... I'm a loyal person, that goes with my girlfriend as well as with Chelsea.'"
(From the current "Private Eye")

Chelsea have proclaimed their unconditional support for their investment, but they'd better watch out, he's as loyal to the club as he is to his missus.

Support Snotty Terry, with the same support he gave José Mourinho.

A stroke of luck - I'm killing time in Whitefriargate while the missus shops elsewhere. I go in that record store I don't really like and, EUREKA! The complete works of Jean Vigo on DVD for twelve quid. That plus another DVD of biographical material, including interviews with people who knew and worked with the little fellow.
I always wanted my own copy of "Zéro de Conduite", but now I've copped the lot. Pure gold. I prefer "Zéro ..." to "L'Atalante", but that seems to be a minority verdict. Maybe now I'll be able to pick out Jacques Prévert among the wedding party in L'Atalante. I've seen it, I think, three times, but I still haven't clocked him.
I didn't know until now that the boy Vigo was present when Jaurès was assassinated. I always thought Jaurès was shot while addressing an open air meeting, but no. He was sitting in a café and Vigo and his dad were there too. Then the old man gets topped in prison by a screw. Vigo claimed to know the name of his father's killer.

My copy of "Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion" claims that Jean Vigo's real surname was Almereyda. Not so, that was his father's pen name, an anagram of "Y a la merde", "there is shit". There was, and the anarchist journalist knew about too much of it to be allowed to live.

J.D.Salinger has died aged 91. I was fond, am still fond, of "The Catcher in the Rye". I'm sure that many people my age feel the same. But nothing he wrote subsequently was of any importance to me. I always had a soft spot for Holden Caulfield; but Seymour Glass, what a strange fellow.

Addenda, 29th January.

"Salinger gave an interview to a schoolgirl from the local paper, in which he explained that Holden's boyhood was based on his own."

" ... his daughter lifted the lid on her childhood with a father who, she claimed, drank his own urine, kept his wife a prisoner and spoke in tongues."

So the young J.D., Holden Caulfield; the older J.D., more Seymour Glass (or perhaps weirder).

Crozier, the champion of slash and burn management, is to take over as chief executive of ITV, having vandalised our postal service to his personal satisfaction. Golden handshake, golden hello. So it's job losses for ITV staff, even cheaper and nastier programming, and a massive pay rise for the chief executive - the chicken's entrails inform me. Then it's look around for a new victim, golden handshake, and stroll away from the débris.

(Cloned from Mick Hall's blog)







A new website -
www.arrestblair.org

Most of us Britons believed the war on Iraq to be immoral, many knew it to be illegal. Now the people who advise the government on international law are telling the gullible minority that the majority was right all along and that Blair is a war criminal. It turns out that there were 27 legal advisers at the Foreign Office and every one of them believed that the war was illegal. The chief legal adviser told Foreign Secretary Straw so. Straw - the coward who sprung the mass murderer Pinochet - informed his adviser that he always ignored lawyers who informed him he was breaking the law, and he'd always got away with it.
Not long ago Straw started rumours which the media picked up, that he'd had reservations about the war. Now we know that that was just another lie that the media willingly promoted.
On Friday the UK's no.1 war criminal will perform his "straight sort of guy" routine before the enquiry, and, with a little luck, a lynch mob will be waiting for him. One thing is for sure, Blair will take the opportunity to smear Brown, and depict him as an enthusiastic hawk. That's why Brown has asked to be interviewed before an election. He knows that some repair work will be needed on his reputation after his old friend has done the dirty on it.
Whenever I watch Blair answering awkward questions I turn the sound down and observe the ill-suppressed aggression in his facial expressions and his gestures. They're not so noticeable when one is distacted by the bullshit, and constantly rolling one's eyes heavenwards.

"Not linking fines with turnover is a gross undermining of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (CMCHA).
"One of the main reasons behind the legislation was public disquiet at large companies who had killed workers receiving minimal or no sentences. New proposals fail to address that concern according to Thompsons Solicitors, the UK’s leading trade union law firm."

I've got a new toy, a website that lets you catalogue your library and, if you wish, find others with the same books - interesting. There are other bibliophilic things that can be done, but being a slow learner, I won't be getting too ambitious.
In fact I'm already weakening at the task I've set myself. I tried to be methodical, working my way through the shelves subject by subject. I started with history, but now I'm getting bored and want to go on to something else. If I had the bloody books in some sort of order to begin with it would have been a help, but no. Big books on the lower shelves, little ones higher up. I try with some success to keep reference works together, but it doesn't always work.
The speed I type at, twenty words per minute if I'm lucky, it's going to take a long, long time. No doubt the novelty* will wear off and the catalogue will join all my other unfinished projects (work in progress is a handy euphemism).
All this sweated labour takes me away from these pages. There may be a darwinian struggle for survival between blog and 'logue, unobserved by the indifferent masses.

*Asterisk marks the nineteenth word typed in a timed minute.

The aid appeal the Zionist BBC and Murdoch TV won't show.

A letter to the Guardian from Selma James, widow of CLR James, author of the seminal historical work, "The Black Jacobins" -

It took a catastrophe to put Haiti back on the political map. Yet its contribution to world civilisation is considerable. Having extended the 1789 French revolution to Haiti, Black Jacobins ended slavery, leading the way for abolition in the Americas. Western governments never forgave this impertinence, imposing crippling debt, occupations and dictatorships.
But Haitians never lost awareness that they could overcome and, if necessary, overthrow. In 1986, a mass movement kicked out the murderous Duvaliers whom the west had backed for decades, and in 1990 elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a liberation theologist determined to move the population "from destitution to poverty with dignity". He prioritised food security, health and education, encouraged agricultural co-operatives, and raised the minimum wage. Within months a US-backed coup overthrew him. Elected again in 2000 with over 90% of the vote, he was again removed in 2004, not by "a bloody rebellion" (Haiti's exiled former president vows to return, 15 January) but by bloody US marines.
Haitians continue to call for Aristide's return. Will the only person with a mandate to govern be kept from leading their recovery and reconstruction?

Oh-oh!

In April, when the first alarm came from Mexico, I was very surprised by the figures the World Health Organization (WHO) was advancing to justify the proclamation of a pandemic. I had suspicions immediately: the figures were quite weak and the level of alarm very elevated. There weren’t even a thousand sick people before there was already talk of the pandemic of the century. And the extreme alert decreed was based on the fact that the virus was new. But the characteristic of flu-type illnesses is to develop very fast with viruses that take on new forms each time by moving in on new hosts - animals, people etc. There’s nothing new in that. A new "flu" virus of that kind appears every year.
...
And it was alleged that the virus was dangerous because populations had not been able to develop immune defenses against it. Which was false for this virus, since we had been able to observe that people over 60 already had antibodies, which is to say that they had already been in contact with analogous viruses. That’s why there were practically no people over 60 who developed the illness. Yet, they were the people it was recommended to have be rapidly vaccinated.
...
Among the things that aroused my suspicions then, there was on the one hand, that desire to sound the alarm - and on the other, very curious facts. Such as, for example, the WHO’s recommendation to perform two injections for the vaccinations. That had never been the case before. There was no scientific justification for it. There was also this recommendation to use only specific patented vaccines. Yet, no reason existed for not adding - as is done every year - specific anti-viral particles of this new H1N1 virus, thus "completing" seasonal flu vaccines.

... it’s an altogether normal flu. It occasions only a tenth of the deaths caused by classic seasonal flu. All that mattered and all that led to the extraordinary campaign of panic we have witnessed is that it constituted a golden opportunity for lab reps who knew they’d make a mint should a pandemic be proclaimed.
...
A group of people at the WHO is very tightly associated with the pharmaceutical industry.

... Klaus Stöhr, who was head of the epidemiological department at the WHO during the era of the avian flu, and who, therefore, prepared the plans designed to confront a pandemic that I mentioned earlier, became, in the meantime, a senior executive at Novartis. And similar connections exist between Glaxo, Baxter etc. and influential members of the WHO. These big firms had "their people" in the system and managed things afterwards so that the "right" political decisions were made, that is, the decisions that allowed them to pump the maximum amount of money out of the taxpayers.

(Wolfgang Wodarg, epidemiologist and President of the Council of Europe's Health Commission)

What's our Middle East peace (sic) envoy up to these days? Selling handbags, according to Tanya Gold. At last he's found his true métier - or should that be whoremongering?
Some pungent comments to this article; I particularly liked the one about Thatcher and Isadora Duncan.

Yesterday my missus called me to the window to see a bird in the garden - a SNIPE. I tried to get a photograph but it flew off before I could get in position. I don't think I've seen a snipe before, I'm pretty sure this isn't snipe territory. A wood-pigeon today, and a fox roaming about the nearby school field during the night. I wonder if the cold weather's making them more desperate, or if they are more visible against the snow.
All kinds of bird scran is available in the garden, and all kinds of birds drop by for a snack - but a snipe?

A-HA!

(via Obsolete)

This morning, listening to Big Joe Williams singing "Baby Please Don't Go", something struck me.
I must have heard that song about two hundred times, sung by six or so different interpreters, and I still don't understand the lyrics. I get the first verse then it all gets vague and mumbly.
"Before I'll be your dog ...", that's what it sounds like; then further along "make your way down here" (maybe). Then another verse, "Turn your light down low ...", and that's it.
After all that time, singing along to the first verse, then being struck dumb. I think I'll do a bit of browsing and see what I've been listening to all these years.

Addendum: got it. Not very impressive, but a good tune. It says by Muddy Waters, but probably refers to the best known singer. I think Big Joe W. was responsible.

DOG BITES MAN,no.18
"I can report to you with confidence that the British government has been lying about the negotiations that led to the release of British hostage, Peter Moore. More on that later." (Angry Arab, emphasis added)

Quelle surprise!

Millionaires 0, Leeds United 1

I'm no fan of Leeds but this is a great result.

Within months of a Conservative victory there would start the most radical decentralisation of power this country has seen for generations. (Independent, quoting David, or Dave, Cameron)
So, lots more quangos populated by Tory Party donors and retired disgraced Tory MPs "living on rations".

Then there's the phone-in democracy proposal -

"Amusingly, the Tories' crowdsourcing wheeze would appear to be a digital version of the Big Conversation, the attempt to harness the collective mind of the British public which ranks at number seven in the list of Imbecilic New Labour Ideas That Didn't Actually Kill Anyone. Crossing over to the list of Imbecilic New Labour Ideas That Killed Thousands, you might recall the Iraq war was opposed by a very large crowd – an analogue crowd, but a million-strong in London alone – who turned out to be very wise. David Cameron and his party ignored them utterly."

(Marina Hyde)

Waxing philosophical on New Year's Eve, it really doesn't suit me. And quoting Joyce's great work looks a little pretentious. But it's the circularity of the thing that appeals to me; no beginning, no end.
I think it was brought on by thoughts of mortality (some things must end, or change in substance). Witnessing an approaching year and wondering if I'll see it out. Eheu fugaces! Positioned Janus-headed at the end of one year and the beginning of another (spurious juncture) I join with my peers in expression of pious hopes for better times ahead. Meanwhile all the signs point to worse to come, in a world in which the warmongers and the grand larcenists are in the ascendant.
Old Machiavelli suggested that "... he who would foresee what has to be should reflect on what has been." In other words, more of the same, my dears. I reckon he got it right.

Soon we'll be hearing less of that cretin's coinage, "the noughties" (sound of teeth grinding). What was the matter with "the twenty hundreds", in the manner of the eighteen and nineteen hundreds? The next decade, one assumes, will be the twenty tens - or will it be "the teenies"?
We will continue to chop up time, to separate history into little parcels, which always have loose bits hanging out. Time is a continuum, it flows like Joyce's

riverrun past Eve and Adam's ...

which flowed from

A way a lone a last along the

A new year, if I'm honest with myself is just a new day followed by other day's; day/night - men didn't invent that duality, they just invented timepieces and calendars, the chopping tools.
We can hope that the cretinisation our language comes to a halt, and that the linguistic barrel-scrapers who saddle us with words like the "noughties" find themselves seeking gainful employment. Call that a new year's wish.

Amen. Sermon over.
And I swear I haven't touched a drop (yet).

Nice video -
I wonder who all this would belong to after we'd paid for it.

(Click on link)

... and talking of big Orson (as I was, sort of) -

I've been trying to find some written record of a story I heard recently. It was told by an English actor, I forget who.
This actor was a friend of the obnoxious restaurateur and piss-artist, Peter Langan. One evening he was sitting at the bar in Langan's place chatting to the owner, when Orson Welles came in and sat at a table. The ensuing conversation went as follows:-
Langan: "Is that Orson Welles?"
Actor: "Yes."
Langan: Do you know him?"
Actor: "Yes."
Langan: "Will you introduce me?"

The actor agreeing, they went over to Welles's table and the actor did the honours.

Langan (to Welles): "You're a big, fat, ugly bastard."

Then he walked off.

Langan later killed himself accidentally while trying to murder his girl friend by setting fire to her. She survived the attempt and "The dog it was that died."
I dare say that there would have been some who mourned the passing of a lovable character.

A jaundiced view of Christmas -

Merry Christmas
I hope you have a white one, but for me it's blue

Blue Christmas, that's the way you see it when you're feeling blue
Blue Xmas, when you're blue at Christmastime
you see right through,
All the waste, all the sham, all the haste
and plain old bad taste

Sidewalk Santy Clauses are much, much, much too thin
They're wearing fancy rented costumes, false beards and big fat phony grins
And nearly everybody's standing round holding out their empty hand or tin cup
Gimme gimme gimme gimme, gimme gimme gimme
Fill my stocking up
All the way up
It's a time when the greedy give a dime to the needy
Blue Christmas, all the paper, tinsel and the fal-de-ral
Blue Xmas, people trading gifts that matter not at all
What I call
Fal-de-ral
Bitter gall.......Fal-de-ral

Written by a gent named Bob Dorough, who recorded the song with the Miles Davis Quintet; he could be the only vocalist to feature on a Miles Davis recording. Dorough's singing is something of an acquired taste and I haven't acquired it yet. Still, you can't knock a musician who worked with Allan Ginsberg, Lenny Bruce, Sugar Ray Robinson, Blossom Dearie, as well as miserable, miserly Miles. I would have thought that these lyrics would have appealed to the old ratbag, but, whatever his opinion of them, he is said to have dismissed Bob D. as "a silly singer". But then how many white Americans did Davis have a good word for?
I have to register an opinion that this potlatch cultural version of Christmas that's taken hold is not to my taste - the feast of the Happy Shopper. Almost makes you long for a little of that old time religion - almost.
I suppose a person would have to be at least 55 years old to remember a different kind of Christmas. Better? I don't know, but more to my taste.
Right, as soon as the soaps are out of the way it's back to the booze and the crappy telly. Well, one programme about big Orson Welles that's a must, even though I saw it years ago.

I don't know much about art, but I know I like this christmas card from a junior member of my clan.

Season's greetings to all who pass this way.
Peace on earth and goodwill to most men (no war but the class war). Come on you Christians, you know your Prince of Peace was talking sense.

UCATT website on the death of Ray Jessop;

and wikipedia on corporate manslaughter.

« Être Français, c’est rester révolutionnaire. S’il faut y aller, je suis là. »
Eric Cantona,
but I can't find an English translation on l'Humanité.

"This week, the winner of Cowell's X Factor, Joe McElderry, was the star guest at The Sun's Military Awards. According to the paper's report, Joe said "his debut was made even more 'special' because he was singing for the nation's very bravest". Among those who obediently trotted along to the bash were David Cameron, who then told radio listeners that he was backing Joe for Christmas No 1 and that politics has much to learn from Cowell, whom he evidently regards as having been added to the list of people too powerful not to fawn over."

(Marina Hyde, the Dean Swift of our times)

The Biter Bit

I don't know much about art but I know what I like.

I don't think I've got the hang of it yet, but this is what I think it says -
Tony Blair (you know, the war criminal) is a partner in a business that is also a registered charity. He has two other partners; they are Tony Blair, and Tony Blair. The declared income from this business is less than the expenditure on legal and accountancy fees. How long before the poor fellow is declared bankrupt?

When has a BBC journalist so much as raised an eyebrow while channelling US-UK propaganda about the "peace enforcement operation" in Afghanistan or Iraq? It is unimaginable that a Newsnight presenter would declare such claims "the kind of Newspeak that would make George Orwell proud".
Our book devotes two whole chapters to the BBC: the first, exposing the magnificent fiction of BBC "balance", and the second presenting a handy A-Z compendium of BBC propaganda.
...
"There are no representatives from the trade unions, green pressure groups, development charities, child poverty groups or other grass-root organisations. We are to believe there is no reason to doubt that these Trust members are independent from the government that appointed them, and from the elite corporate and other interests that employ them. We are to believe, instead, that these privileged individuals will uphold fair and balanced reporting which displays not a hint of bias towards state ideology or economic orthodoxy in a world of rampant corporate power." (Newspeak, p.27)

More on 'Medialens.