Thursday, May 31, 2007

Alexander Cockburn is a cockweasel

This bloke is so hideously sociopathic that he actually claims that peer-review is a corrupt process that has allowed climate science to become dominated by climactic-apocalysts. Now, no-one who understands peer-review thinks its perfect but you have to be utterly ignorant of the process to call it corrupted. Read Monbiot's rebuttals and see how sad this Cockburnweasel is.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Monbiot getting it right again

Although many commentators on CiF don't always agree (I'm convinced half of them are petroleum industry stooges anyway). George tells us why climate change deniers, like religious fundamentalists, cannot be reasoned with. He has also discussed how the UK government, as with all previous governments, is only paying lipservice to the concept of sustainability and is, instead, building the economy upon the foundations of a hydrocarbon economy which is forecast to come crashing down around us in as little as a decade. Fools!

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Trident is shit

Mike Small doesn't use those exact words but its heavily implied in his post on CiF.

An interesting comparison is that made between Gordon Brown's position on Trident in 1984 and his current approval. To followers of the New Labour apocalypse club this is no surprise. After Robin Cook's longstanding criticism of the UK's arms industry and his ethical foreign policy speech (he never actually used those exact words) he promptly made a U-turn of staggering proportion, endorsing the sale of yet more BAE Systems Hawk fighter aircraft to Indonesia where they would be added to their existing arsenal of British-manufactured WMD to be deployed against the people of East Timor and anyone else who gave the junta lip. I doubt this was his preferred option but then I am sure a decision on several hundred million pounds worth of international arms was removed from his control without hesitation by the massed ranks of faceless Whitehall bureaucrats who a cabinet politician must contend with. Here I will quote from the legendary Mark Thomas's book on the Arms Trade, "As Used on The Famous Nelson Mandela":

"Cook took the option to support the deal, stating that cancelling it would create legal difficulties- despite the fact that the Export of Goods (Control) Order 1004 states: 'A licence granted by the Secretary of State . . . may be varied or revoked by The Secretary if State at any time', giving him the legal right to cancel the licenses. Cook could have stopped the deal. Instead he allowed the sale of the very aircraft, to the very regime he himself had condemned.

BAE Systems were, and still are, the heart of British foreign politics. If Cook's attempt to transplant them and replace them with an ethical dimension was genuine, then he must have underestimated the company's political strength. It didn't matter if the decision on the Hawks was made by Cook or Number Ten, British Aerospace had their way. Three months after toasting the ethical foreign policy, Cook had been publically bitch-slapped by the arms trade."

Its funny how this sits in the light of the current furore over the sale, by BAE to Saudi Arabia- one of the most corrupt, authoritarian and downright inhuman regimes in the world- of several billion pounds worth of advanced fighter jets.

Interestingly BAE's iron grip on UK politics is revealed in an even more sinister light by George Monbiot.

The God Who Wasn't There

I just saw this and was very impressed. Its a pleasantly involving polemic against religion in general and Christianity in particular with some excellent insight from Brian Fleming into the irrational nature of evangelicals and particularly their concept of The Rapture whereby sometime in the next 50 years or so Jesus will come back, take all his devout followers up to heaven abd everyone else gets rogered silly by demons for the rest of eternity. Nice.

This quote stuck out when he was interviewing one Richard Carrier:

BF: “Let me give you a scenario- you’re dead- I hope of old age. . . . and you find yourself in hell and your being roasted on a pit and every hour, on the hour, you have to suck Satan’s greasy cock, or whatever they make you do there, its really bad. Don’t you wish that you’d have believed? I mean it would have been so easy just to have believed?”

RC:
“Well no, because it wouldn’t really be any better. If I had to sit in heaven for ever knowing that there are these people- these millions and millions . . . probably billions of people- suffering these eternal, horrible torments and knowing that there was nothing I could ever do for them. That, for me, would be hell.”

This has never occurred to me before but as a humanist it is inherently inhuman to condone such fates for other humans. Therefore the concept of heaven and hell is profoundly inhuman.


Here's a new quote from the bible for all you Jesus freaks to follow to the letter too:

“Those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them- bring them here and kill them in front of me.”

--J. Christ

Luke 19:27

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHahhaHAHAHAHAhAHHAHAhHAHahAHA H ah HAHAhAH ah AH ah AHAHahhahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . . . . . cunts.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

ASBOs for the unborn?

Yvonne Roberts totally rocks! Some pioneering social engineering is being proposed here and I am overjoyed to find such a tabboo subject being discussed in a serious political forum. I wrote this in the comments:

"This is an excellent article and I wholly agree with blanket health visits for all new mothers until a degree of maternal competence has been demonstrated. The moral of this story is that mothering is too important to be left to drunken, chain-smoking, soap-obsessed 16 year olds. To make such an observation publically is brave and groundbreaking. The tabboo of ignoring social dysfunction in the hope that rationality and parental love will win over teenage irresponsibility and the lust for booze and independence is naive in the extreme and must be quashed. Additionally, the naivety of targeted support for new mothers is also laid bare and Gordon must surely be reading this thinking "now where can I skim the extra millions from to fund this . . .?".

Other pioneering statements come in the observation that large families are inherently sociopathic and one is driven to endorse Yvonne Robert's tongue-in-cheek suggestion of banning large families wholeheartedly. The enormous opposition that such legislation would face from ethnic minorities and those others from cultural backgrounds that advocate such sociopathy as some sort of demonstration of health or wealth is a mountain that must be climbed for the benefit those of us with more pragmatic and humanitarian visions for the United Kingdom.

The essence of this article is a balancing of the rights of an unborn child against those of its mother. One of them has to take precedence.

Bravo!"

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Portugal, la la la la la la laaaa, lal aala lalalalaaa

Yes, I am going to sunny Porto to SETAC Europe's annual meeting. There I will hobnob with professors and dine with doctors. Surely a satisfying way to network and expand my understanding of the science behind my PhD. Life is surely sweet!

propaganda war over the translation of a Palestinian girl's words

This is a particularly sinister report that I find typical of the freelance propaganda war within which many US wingnuts are becoming increasingly engaged. Painful memories of Ahmadinejad's mistranslated comment "wipe Israel off the map".

Additional:

LGF Watch has more on shite MEMRI translations . . .

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Secular Arabia

This is a really nice article highlighting the cultural homogeneity of the middle east, including Israel.

Blair's legacy of religious mysticism

CiF has a nice article from Caspar Melville of New Humanist. I like it.


"In Australia, John Howard, another active Christian, has spent years pooh-poohing climate change warnings only to find his country facing the most serious drought in its history. His solution? "Pray for rain.""

Monday, May 14, 2007

Ignorance is bliss in Blair's world

Johann has some fascinating gems here, particularly with reference to Blair's complete ignorance of the bloody and tyrannical history of US covert intervention in the ME and Latin America. He didn't even know who Mossadeq was.

Big, fucking surprise.


Additional:

Some chap called Avi Shlaim agrees.

Money quote:

"Blair has the audacity to say that God will be his judge over the Iraq war. This is a curious attitude for a democratic politician to adopt. History will surely pass a harsh judgment on Blair. He has the worst record on the Middle East of any British prime minister in the past century, infinitely worse than that of Anthony Eden, who at least had the decency to accept responsibility for the Suez debacle."

Saturday, May 12, 2007

the rise of Eco-Fascism

The Bush Administration is continuing to obstruct any meaningful discussion on legislation combatting climate change. I wonder if the democrats are going to be any better?

I doubt it. Corporate Stooges the lot of them (except Kucinich).

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Britain's pseudo-democracy stolen by the Tories again

The dirty fucking tories seem to have come out as winners of the elections. The curse of the first-past-the-post system has condemned many excellent councils to change hands, instantly reversing any gains made in levels of service. Winston Churchill once said: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." If you accept this, as the vast majority of civilised individuals do then you cannot argue against making that political system as fair and representative as possible. FPTP does not provide anywhere close to that. The Electoral Reform Society will tell you why and what we should use instead.

On a similar subject, a passage from the first link really made my blood boil:

"
research from professors John Curtice and Pippa Norris shows that those with the least political knowledge are far more likely to vote under proportional systems, up from 38% in first-past-the post systems to 54%."

I would like to know why it is a good thing for those with the least political knowledge to vote? Why should we be bothered that the Sun readers of the country do not vote? Does no-one comprehend the danger of letting people vote who don't vote rationally? This is a recipe for the sort of reactionary politics that runs much of the US system and look where its got them. I'm not saying that people should be prohibited from voting, quite the opposite- I believe strongly that democracy requires every single person to register their political stance be it Monster Raving Loony, BNP (cnuts) or a simple abstention. The obligation to vote would require that people take an interest and would encourage engagement with the political system.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Brown appears to be moving towards a stronger position on Israel

He's not got a place for Lord Levy in his government and he's made clear that he's going to engage with Iran. He's also got other plans involving a bold, new stance on the Middle East. I don't trust him but I'll wait to see if his words turn into action before I brand him the new Cockweasel In Chief I suspect he'll turn out to be. Fucking politicians, two faced wankers the lot of them.

The Israeli government must be fuming! Ha!

Monday, May 07, 2007

discussion groups on Barack Obama have to be closed because of racist onslaught

This is so revealing about the alarming state of US politics. The poor bastard (ok, corporate stooge) is being verbally bombarded on every comments page on the net. Talk about bigotry and prejudice running the show!

Newsflash! - Evolution is a Jewish conspiracy ! ! !

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahAHahaHahahahAhHahahAhA Ah aha Ha ahA ah ha Ah ah aH . . . cough cough cough. . .splutter . . . .#

I know it sounds utterly absurd but this is a viewpoint espoused by the 2nd most powerful character in the state of texas.

Digby will tell you more.

Money quote:

"Everyone in the country should be very concerned about any group that lies for our own good, whether it's politicians in Washington lying about an unnecessary war, anti-choice activists who make up statistics to advance their cause or religious folks who claim they just want "all theories" taught in science class. It's all part of the same thing. They know they will not prevail if they tell the truth. That is fundamentally undemocratic --- and unamerican."

Add to that last bit "inhuman".

Fuckers.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

when will the absurdity of the formula, more roads = less congestion finally be perceived by government?

I thought this was sort of proposal was a thing of the past but apparently not. Can anyone ever imagione the government allocating £5.1bn to the rail network? Yeah. Right.

These links might elucidate the matter further.

  1. link 1
  2. link 2
  3. link 3
  4. link 4
  5. link 5
  6. link 6

Additional:

In response to the comments I would like to rephrase a sentence above. It should read: "Can anyone ever imagine the government allocating £5.1bn to spend directly on the rail network and rolling stock instead of penalty payments to the regulator, director's bonuses and marketing campaigns?

Saturday, May 05, 2007

the martyrs of Climate Change denial

George Monbiot tells it like it be.

South Pacific nations agree to end bottom trawling

At a conference in Chile the nations surrounding the coast of the Southern Pacific have agreed to restrict bottom trawling less than 5nm from any area with vulnerable deep-water marine ecosystems or within 5nm of any area that is likely to have the same. The New Zealand delegation whinged a lot because they are responsible for 90% of the bottom trawling but sanity won through in the end and the agreement was signed. Yeay!

There is hope, yet.

Friday, May 04, 2007

George Monbiot, Speaker of Truths

Newsflash ! ! !

Britain doesn't have an empire any more!

Blair doesn't realise this. Maybe someone should tell him.

The problem with nuclear generation . . .

. . . is that there are so many hidden costs and its green credentials are not at all proven. Yeah, I know the French have been running nukes for years and have made it shine but the government really really needs to pour money into a comprehensive costings study comparing renewables and nukes before they make any rash decisions. . . . .Oh. What? . . . . They already have? . . . . . .

Oh well then.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

MPs to push through new generation of nuke stations

The consequences of the failure of successive UK governments to act on good scientific advice and embrace renewable generation has finally come home to roost with the endorsement by "ministers" and "senior Whitehall sources" of a nuclear power stations instead. 20 GW of generation capacity is scheduled for decommissioning in the next 15 years and there are only plans to replace 20MW - 1/1000th of the loss, so they had to come up with something pretty substantial. And it was the nuke option.

The way I see it, this demonstrates misgovernment on an enormous scale. How can you neglect to plan for the long-term security of your country's energy supply? The opportunities offered by development of renewable technology, the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and the significant returns on offer for those who develop such technology have been made clear to government time after time. The continued failure to take the difficult decision to move away from conventional generation- for whatever reason, be it economic, strategic or environmental- has been passed from one administration to another. I am fully aware of the enormous cost involved in constructing such generation capacity but there is no excuse for avoiding it because it was too difficult or too expensive when this government is pissing money into an illegal war, illegal weapons of mass destruction, a near-mediaeval education system and a struggling NHS that haemorrages money like a cash-cow impaled upon the spear of New Labour's arrogance.