Strange News on the Housing Benefit Cap

Boris Johnson has refused to stand by his revelation that mass murder and the use of rape as a weapon are being planned in the British government's 'Kosovo style social cleansing' of London.


Mr Johnson said he was quoted out of context, the said context being a grip on reality.

Despite these allegations one landlord has come out in defence of the governments policy.

Mr Barrington-Smyth said: "I work really hard in the city and for what, my cleaner lives in a house almost as big as mine, in fact it is as big as mine because I rent her family the top floor. That costs her £22,000 a year. That's £22,000 of my hard earned money that goes to the government to go to her to give back to me. It's like some people don't have to contribute to society at all."

Strange News from Party Conference Season

The Lib Dems

The Liberal Democrat conference was barely noticed even though they are in power. Gaining a place in government is clearly not enough to make people take any notice of them, perhaps faking a kid-napping of their front bench would help. You only miss your water when the well runs dry.

Biggest applause of the conference went to Vince Cable for a speech attacking free-market capatalism. Even though Nick Clegg won them power in a coalition with the free-market capatalist Tory party. Apparently the Lib Dems won't vote for a government that would have them as a member.

Labour

The Labour Party conference was massively improved by Gordon Brown not being leader anymore. To add to the excitement a new leader was being announced so they weren't going to let a budget deficit bring them down. The tag-line could have been 'Labour- We are willing to pretend Gordon Brown and a massive financial crisis did not happen.... are you?'

Ed Miliband was chosen as party leader, and the press immediately called him a communist because of his love of the colour red. This also meant David Miliband, the party's best politician and most connected statesmen {Hilary Clinton will be crying as I write this} had to leave the conference and the shadow cabinet, taking the media scrum with him in order to avoid distracting the media scrum from his brother.

Biggest applause of the conference went to David M. for a speech applauding his brother.

Conservative

The Tory party conference started in exhilirating and imaginative confusion, big ideas were stated, then floated, then mooted, then reversed, then reversed from reversal but off-set by other ideas that they won't talk about in case they have to reverse them before they have even counter-reversed the intial idea they brought in thus reversing the off-setting power of the idea they used to help reverse the ensuing back-lash from their first reversal.

It took the Tories just days to work out which way they were facing again and in the meantime they used up all of their air time desperately trying to not answer questions or throw up.

George Osborne's speech made waves in all directions. His policy so far is to save our children's financial future by cutting the deficit which he will do by taking away money from our children. 

  

NBA VS Premier League

This is a cross post between myself and billylayman@blogspot.com on the NBA vs the Premier League. His well intentioned piece of hippy propaganda in favour of the NBA is below,  my embittered rant is below that.

Bill says:

I love the Premier League but you silly English bumpkins have made some crucial errors. We need to look at our clever-dick pals in the US to see how an entertaining and fair professional sports league is really run.

Salary caps, it seems embarrassingly obvious, are better. Next year there are two or three teams that could win the Premier League. Fine. But the problem is that won’t change unless another club is lucky enough to be purchased by a gizzilionaire.

A salary cap means equality across the league. There would still be great clubs and terrible clubs but the difference would be the terrible clubs have nothing to hide behind. Players are less likely to be sucked up by the top teams. And, best off all, no matter what shit-house club you support it’s only a few well managed years away from glory.

There are some horrendous things about the NBA – national anthems and fireworks before every game – but overall it’s a more enjoyable competition to follow.

If you were designing a league from scratch it would be on the NBA model. Sure, there are difficulties in bringing in salary caps. As there would be with other possible improvements like a draft system but that doesn’t mean the league wouldn’t be improved by it.

Not only would a salary cap fix football it would cure all of England’s social problems. Teams would exist on an even playing field and we would all finally live in a beautiful socialist paradise.

I say:

For some reason a non-contact height competition became one of America's favourite sports. Basketball is a sport that developed from pure boredom and didn't develop that far.

When bored one might absent-mindedly toss a paper ball into the bin, we wouldn't say that made us athletes. When at school some of the crueller and taller members of the playground might play piggy in the middle or rather the you-can't-reach-the-item-I-have-stolen-from-you-because-I-am-holding-above-your-head-and-look-I-can-even-afford-to-throw-it-to-my-equally-freakishly-tall-friend game. Didn't make them clever.

Combine the two and you have the start of basketball. Now add a set of rules each designed to increase the score without adding anything to the pleasure of watching. A game that makes even scoring numbingly repetitive has gone seriously wrong somewhere. You can't pass back behind the line, you can't spend six seconds in the D, you can't touch anyone else, we all have to get time-outs when we're tired, all right already auntie what's next a bike helmet for every player, thermos and blankets for us watching.

The Premier League is an open no-holds-barred market of sporting perfection exported all round the world to the delight of every nation. It's the magic of battle between men wearing leather, using brains, needing balls and taking deadly shots, it's basically the wild west without the dry heat. The NBA on the other hand is like modern LA, pernickety yet bankrupt, crass yet pretentious, with a field of play so over-crowded you can't tell the difference between parked cars and a commuter lane.

More Mistakes From U.K.I.P.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2010/04/lord-pearson-worst-campaign-interview-ever.htmle

Hahahahahahahahahahahah.

Sigh.

Following on from the scandal over their racist candidate U.K.I.P. are fighting back with this. Please link above.

Hat tip. Times Comment Central, The B.B.C. and Youtube.

Real Politics: Alive, well and wearing just a little bit of blusher.

Publish and {hopefully} be damned.

When we started this blog we agreed there was no point in criticising individual religions and religious individuals however…

It has to be said the Catholic Church has outdone itself. Famous throughout the ages for inspiring the genocide of natives in South America and torturing anyone with an opinion in Europe now a new generation of merciless bastards has managed to represent this international stain on civilisation and incredibly bring it to a new low. I cannot say I am a disinterested party; I was baptised, I went to Catholic school {and survived no thanks to God} and my name, Dominic, was given to me in honour of a saint, specifically a man who tried his best to kill every heathen in the South of France.

The Catholic Church is the state religion of the banana republic called the Vatican City, one of the few countries where known paedophiles can find sanctuary. Its dictator in chief is elected in a smoke filled room by a cartel, safe in the knowledge they are protected by a hired militia of Swiss Guards { is there anyone the Swiss wont do business with} and two millennia of powerful patronage. Their most recent case to answer: an international conspiracy that attempted to cover up the rape and torture of children by their Priests and Bishops.

One of the men responsible for this is none other than his Holiness himself. The Pope. Once Joseph Ratzinger.

Little Joey Ratzinger, who was once a member of the Nazi Youth, distinguishes himself by being part of not one but two of the most evil groups ever to exist. While he may have been innocent of being a Nazi, he went out of his way to make sure the same cannot be said of his being a Catholic and his part in Catholicism.
Hat Tip Christopher Hitchens at Slate:

“ In 1979, an 11-year-old German boy identified as Wilfried F. was taken on a vacation trip to the mountains by a priest. After that, he was administered alcohol, locked in his bedroom, stripped naked, and forced to suck the penis of his confessor. (Why do we limit ourselves to calling this sort of thing "abuse"?) The offending cleric was transferred from Essen to Munich for "therapy" by a decision of then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, and assurances were given that he would no longer have children in his care. But it took no time for Ratzinger's deputy, Vicar General Gerhard Gruber, to return him to "pastoral" work, where he soon enough resumed his career of sexual assault.”

Not enough for you. How about this. Arch Bishop Ratzinger was placed in charge of the department formally known as the Inquisition. In May 2001 he issued a confidential letter to every bishop.

I quote Hitchens again:

“He reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime, that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone ... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication." Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offence could get you into serious trouble…. (See, for more on this appalling document, two reports in the London Observer of April 24, 2005, by Jamie Doward.)”

It makes me sick to my stomach to think my family ever put a penny in a collection plate to fund this monster's comfort, security and thoroughly debased institution.

The question ‘how do you sleep at night’ is a cliché but in this case it has literal and concrete meaning. Seriously how? I learnt from a pathetic Guardian G2 feature on him he doesn’t even drink, much. The same feature asked euphemistically if he was the most ‘controversial pope’. Controversial, no, taking baths with your socks on is controversial. This man is pure evil. No matter how much cats might like him. Cats do like him apparently. As Saki pointed they are one of the few animals that, like humans, enjoy torturing other animals. So you can understand what they might see in him.

This article is still awaiting approval from Sharon Dean and does not represent her opinion. Although she may well agree.

Patriotism

"My country, right or wrong" is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying "My mother, drunk or sober."


G.K. Chesterton

I will always say "My mother drunk or sober", but I will never say it to her.

Patriotism is an interesting problem. Capitalism is a functioning system of wealth creation that simply needs democracy, the rule of law and a bit of common sense to work well. It also helps to have competing markets to really get going. This is why I think nation states, apart from any ethnic parochialism, work well. They ensure a common competitive ground and protective structure for the pursuit of wealth.

Of course pursuing wealth is not the same as pursuing happiness. Happiness is helped by a sense of community and culture, {although this also creates a lot of unhappiness}. This again suggests that countries, and national identities, are a positive institution designed to protect us from poverty and simultaneously enrich our soul.

Being proud of a country helps foster happiness rather than cynicism, less crime, less pollution, less corruption and better sports teams.

So why do countries and patriotism cause so much war, aggression, and hatred. Is it because patriotism leads to nationalism and then to racism. I don’t think it's that simple. But I must say I prefer the British sense of national cynicism to the more American sense of national pride. Partly because it helps progress.

My policy is you should never let people know just how much you need them. It's not good for you and it's not good for them. Same goes with a country. By all means defend it from any attacks but don’t go buying it flowers for no reason, writing it soppy poetry and telling it how much better it is than all the other countries. Pretty soon it will take advantage of your pathetic neediness.

I think Americans find it hard to change anything about their country because they feel the need to demonstrably love it so much. Just like no one wants to tell their lover they really need to lose a bit of weight.

But remember America; the best parts of the constitution are the amendments. So please US, for your own sake, pass universal healthcare legislation.

And don’t be angry at Obama, the truth is, someone had to tell you to lose a few pounds.

The Brand Factor

The blogosphere is always full of amusing little in-fights that remind me of happier days spent in the playground having my close family insulted and of course responding in kind.

[For the record I would like to say to a certain K. that it is in fact you who are so ugly you give Freddie Kruger nightmares and consequently I imagine any girlfriend you now have, who is charitable enough to sleep with you, is so fat that when she goes camping the bears have to hide their food.
Some wounds never heal.]

Anyways,

Over on Comment Central, one of my favourite blogs, Danny Finkelstein is having an argument with Janet Daley about the Tory brand.

Mr Finkelstein believes the Tory brand was corrupted and consequently David Cameron's modernisation project was a necessity. He cites polling evidence that suggests people are more likely to support a policy on say immigration if it was not associated with the Tories.

Ms Daley seems to disagree with the idea the Tories needed to modernise and has headlined a response to these polls with the insinuation that they are misleading and thus 'New Tory' is a mistake.

I am sure Mr Finkelstein is right about this. I think he effectively wins the debate by citing those small public polls called the last three general elections. If you're out of power for so long it's probably because people don't like you. Any government given more than one term will probably do enough to be voted out given a half decent opposition.

The interesting aspect to this debate on how much people dislike the Tories, is the power of brands.

It reminded me of two things.

Firstly a conversation I had with a friend who works in P.R. who told me that 'Virgin' was an example of near perfect P.R. branding. Most people in Britian like Richard Branson. We like him because we think he is a boy 'done good'. We don't resent him for being rich and allegedly having his own Island with an outdoor toilet that faces the Pacific. Fair enough we say.

The result of the Virgin brand means the company doesn't actually have to provide any better service than its competitors as anyone who has travelled on, or waited for, Virgin rail may already know. Because people like Virgin they buy it regardless of whether it tastes any better, moves any faster, or provides a better deal.

The second thing I thought of was another point by Mr Finkelstein in a post about the Damien McBride/ Derek Draper scandal {link below} and Labour's reprehensible 'Red Flag' website.

Mr Finkelstein pointed out that sometimes people who feel morally superior often allow the ends to justify the means. And so perhaps Labour were behaving so badly because they were up against the 'nasty party'.

The moral of this story is don't believe your own or anyone elses P.R.. It ruins the proper competition we need as citizens and consumers to ensure we get the best service, value and representation.

The Many Mistakes of U.K.I.P.

The label below is a link to the B.B.C.'s news website where you will see Nigel Farage the leader of the U.K. Independence Party in, as Martin Amiss might say 'eagerly ungenerous' form.

UKIP is a strange phenomenom. One cant call UKIP members euro sceptics, scepticism implies some kind of disinterested, rational consideration of the facts. Ukip are Euro haters plain and simple. It website states an 'increasingly resentful English nationalism (is also) brewing''. And lucky for UKIP it is because this is of course where it gets all its support. Now I like to think of myself as a libertarian, (with a social conscience) and a believer in the free market so in many ways I should be against the European Union for being an oversized beurocracy that likes to micro-manage people's lives. And indeed were it not for the fact that it has helped secure peace and democracy across the world's formerly most dangerous continent, increase prosperity across said continent and bring some of the best human rights gaurantees we have into English law, I probably would be against the E.U.. However I think we can all be distrustful of a movement based on 'resentful nationalism'. Another lesson Europe has taught us.

So ukip are a party of rather rediculous contradictions. It hates Europe, but its only elected representatives (13 btw not that I'm superstitious) of the British people are MEP's. These MEP's then do nothing but sit around being rude to the rest of the E.U. parliament and vote no on everything by the looks of it. The party claims to 'reject the ''blood and soil'' ethnic nationalism of extremist parties'. It also 'opposes 'multiculturalism and political correctness and promotes uniculturalism, a single British culture embracing all races, religions and colours.' However it then goes on to state in the 'Restoring Britishness Policy' section of its website that: 'All cultures, languages and traditions from around the British Isles such as gealic, would be celebrated.'
So that a uniculture of many cultures. And all of those cultures have to come from around the British Isles and from historically British peoples. Sounds a bit like 'blood and soil' to me but what do I know. Maybe its more like d.n.a and geography. Or..
Ukip also states in its constitution: 'On withdrawal from the E.U. the party will seek free trade agreements with E.U. and other countries (and/or trade blocks).' However it also states to restore Britishness it would 'create a "British Register" of important companies, products and brands and amend the takeover code to safegaurd these through parliamentary approvals and/or conditions where necessary'. Right so that's free trade as long as we are allowed to keep all the best parts of our economy in a locked box of protectionism. Works for me. I cant see why any of the countries we trade with would have a problem with that.
Ukip aren't just conservatives they are knee-jerk, nationalist, populist conservatives. They are above all a bit weird. If ever elected to government, after giving more money to our poor royal family, they would ( I am not making this up) 'require the U.K theme medley to be restored to B.B.C. Radio 4.' Serious stuff.
Finally back to the link. Ukip considers good manners to be part of being British. These good manners clearly don't extend to foreigners. In the clip you can see Farage berate the new E.U. President for having the charisma of a 'damp rag', for coming from a non-country, Belgium to be precise, (one might guess that to Mr Farage, Britian is the only country worth coming from, and only losers wouldn't come from it) and for not being a greater celebrity. 'Who are you?' he asks. Perhaps Mr Farage was expecting someone more like Bono or David Beckham. Unfortunately he got a European politician.
I think Farage could learn from the words of another great British nincompoop. In the words of the immortal Basil Fawlty:
'I didn't vote for it myself but now we're in I'm determined to make it work.'
Just don't mention the.. too late.

Just so you know...

..this is how genetics works.

Hat tip (not that I wear hats) Comment Central.

Happy New Year

January is the cruellest month. Every January people make great expectations of improved fitness, high hopes of greater prosperity and laudable aims of extinguishing vices and nurturing the buds of happiness. Why? Soon you will have wasted money on a gym you resent and avoid like an ex-fiance, money you sorely needed because your boss is making belt tightening noises and the only consolation is that you can save money on belts because you have to inhale to fit into your trousers. Those buds of happiness are frozen by a cold snap that lasts just long enough for your boiler to explode and it will be the height of Summer before anyone can find a part to fix it. Where do they keep all these boiler parts, does Siberia have them all, are they holding out on us, are they made from metals only found in the Earth's core.
We all have high hopes for the new year born mainly out of our need to escape from the cold pit of reality we have just crawled through otherwise known as Christmas with the in-laws. The arbitrary division we make between one year and the next is an opportunity for yet more disappointment, alcoholism and self-loathing. Which is why it actually suits me to the ground. So in the belated spirit of what I like to call the suicide season let me be the last to wish you a happy new year. You have lived long enough to see another decade raise the spectre of its zeitgeist and win or lose in the year to come you can say with a glass aloft for the sake of the only true success being alive affords; 'I was there.'