Do you want water with that?

Police chief blames supermarkets for Binge Britain by selling alcohol 'cheaper than water'

"Why is it we have got ourselves into a position where lager is being sold cheaper than water?" asked the former chief constable of Sussex, who now speaks on behalf of the country's senior police officers.

Simple. It's because there are idiots out there prepared to cough up £1-32 for a litre of fizzy Scottish tap water. It's not that lager is too cheap, it's that water is too dear! 

In any case, are these binge-drinking youngsters actually buying their booze at supermarkets? I find that hard to believe. I suggest taking a closer look at our wonderful local shops for the answer.

Iraq War Blogswarm

March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm

Statement of Purpose This blogswarm will promote blog postings opposing the war in Iraq and calling for a full withdrawal of foreign occupying forces in Iraq. Five years of an illegal and catastrophic war is five years too many.

On the March 19 anniversary of the conquest of Iraq by the Bush Administration, there needs to be a loud volume of voices countering the pro-war propaganda from far too many politicians and corporate media outlets.

Via Justin

Try not to offend anyone...

Reason Magazine - Mandatory Niceness

Last month, when an officer of the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission interrogated him about his decision to reprint the notorious Muhammad cartoons that originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, Ezra Levant did not try to ingratiate himself. Levant, former publisher of the news magazine the Western Standard, called the commission "a sick joke," compared it unfavorably with Judge Judy, and dared the "thug" across the table to recommend that he face a hearing for publishing material that offended Muslims.

..."I reserve maximum freedom to be maximally offensive, to hurt feelings as I like," Levant told McGovern. While he has publicly explained the journalistic reasons for running the Muhammad cartoons many times, he said, "The only thing I have to say to the government about why I published [them] is because it's my bloody right to do so."

And the first (lady) shall be last

Obama sweeps the night by winning over Clinton's core supporters - Slate Magazine

Bill and Hillary Clinton often say that you can learn more about people from their failures than you can from their successes. If that's true, then boy are we getting to know Hillary.

You're all going to die! #683

I was reminded the other day (was in on University Challenge?) of Lord Salisbury's description of the Daily Mail as  "a journal produced by office boys for office boys". We don't have such things as 'office boys' any more so I'm not sure what the modern day equivalent would be. There's the basis for a phone-in competition there somewhere. It  might just be easier just to call it 'a journal produced by morons for morons' and have done with it. The sort of morons who read (and produce) this sort of thing:

As Britain basks in sunshine, why heatwaves and malaria 'could kill thousands within five years'

Yesterday was declared the hottest February 12 ever - as Britain was warned that climate change could lead to thousands of deaths during heatwaves and outbreaks of malaria.
A report said there was a "high risk" of a dangerously hot summer within five years that could kill 6,000 people. But these would be more than offset by milder winters leading to fewer deaths from the cold, currently 20,000 a year.

...Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo said "The UK Government is leading the way in persuading the world that we must all turn our attention to the health effects of climate change - the World Health Organisation recently congratulated us for winning over other countries.

But hold on, what's this? Despite warmer summers from 1971 to 2003, the number of heat-related deaths stayed the same. However, winter deaths fell by 3 per cent as temperatures rose.

And as for the 'high risk': There is a one in 40 chance that by 2012 the South East will have a heatwave that could cause 3,000 immediate deaths and 3,000 more later, it said.

I'm not a gambler but even I wouldn't bet much on a 40 to 1 outsider.

As for Malaria. Despite the Mail article being illustrated with a big, scary picture of a blood-filled mosquito it has this to say: While malaria outbreaks are likely to be rare, health authorities will need to be alert to outbreaks on the Continent.

So, all in all it's great news somehow disguised as doom and gloom. If we continue to get warmer weather there will be fewer deaths overall from the effects of climate. We won't see anyone stricken down with malaria, although if you look carefully you might spot some cases on 'the continent'. And there is only a 1-40 chance of a scorcher which will match the scorchers (mean temperature in excess of 18.5C) of July 1852, July 1921, August 1947, August 1975, July 1976, July 1983, July1995, August 1995, August 1997. And even if there is, there's no evidence it will lead to more deaths.

July 1976, Ah, I remember it well. Ooooh, the mosquitoes and rotting corpses!

The Democrats' imaginary dilemmas

Truthdig- There’s a Republican Under My Bed

It is insane to waste time and energy worrying that somewhere, doubtless in a high-tech subterranean lair, Republican masterminds are cackling over their diabolical plot: The use of reverse psychology to lure unsuspecting Democrats into nominating Barack Obama, an innocent lamb who will be chewed up by the attack machine in the fall. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Or maybe Republicans are using double supersecret backward reverse psychology to exploit the Democratic Party’s congenital paranoia: Let’s say nice things about Obama so Democrats think we really want to run against him, and that will make them play into our hands by nominating Hillary Clinton, who so energizes the Republican base that we can actually win an election that we ought to lose. Cue another round of deranged mad-scientist laughter.

 Amazingly, those are the kinds of things you hear Democrats say out loud these days. Let me suggest that the party has enough to think about without dreaming up imaginary dilemmas.

No Comment

That's more like it!

Our new broadband connection came online this afternoon. 22 Gigs Megs I mean! (Jeez 22 Gigs would be very nice indeed) (still) Not too shabby :) The ping needs working on though. A bit of tweaking is called for to try and get it under 50ms.

I expect it to settle down at around 14 megs which I'll be very happy with, especially as it's costing a fiver less than the previous supplier.



UPDATE: OK it's not going to stay at that speed. Bah! But at least I've recorded it for posterity. I'm getting between 13 and 15 megs consistently which is at least twice what I have been used to and the connection has been solid so far. It would be nice to have a couple of megs upload speed but that's a way off yet.

Aaronovitch on the Archbishop

I've read it so you don't have to - David Aaronovitch

Here is my summary so you don't have to: there are lots of religious people in Britain who look to religious precepts in their solving of domestic and contractual problems, and in directing their behaviour. This is “unavoidable”. Some of these solutions are recognised in English and Scottish law, and some of them aren't. Where they aren't, we run the danger that people will both feel and be marginalised.

Not only that, but with a non-hierarchical religion, such as Islam, we risk this marginalised legal process being controlled at a local level by “primitivists” and not by wise authorities: a bit like, say, the bishops of the Church of England. If we handle this right, we could have sensible Sharia courts with legal standing, and if we handle it wrong we could have a lot of bongo-brains exercising real power, but outside the law. And we won't like that.

That's his argument. And the Archbishop was quite aware of some of the objections. Supplementary courts could not, he argued, be used to undermine human rights.

So we would have a Britain-friendly supplementary Sharia and a “market element” in law for those who freely chose it - and who, sensibly, could object to that? Neither Dr Williams nor his argument deserved the beating-up they received. And if his contribution was “unhelpful”, it was largely rendered so by the reaction to it. Obscurity rarely in itself incites hatred. But he was obscure, because it is only with great difficulty and by seeking for evidence that we can work out where his direction of travel might take us.

There we have it, in four paragraphs. Long-winded bloggers please take note.

Roll on 12,008 AD

The work that we face in our time is great
in a time of war
and the terrible sacrifices it entails
the promise of a better future is not always clear
there's gonna be other wars
I'm sorry to tell you there's gonna be other wars
we're gonna have a lot of combat wounds
and my friends it's gonna be tough
and we're gonna have a lot to do
That old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?
Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb...
I'm still convinced that withdrawal means chaos
and if you think that things are bad now
if we withdraw--you ain't seen nothing yet
was the war a good idea, worth the price in blood and treasure?
It was a good idea
President Bush talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years
Maybe a hundred, that's fine with me
I don't think Americans are concerned if we're there for a hundred years, or a thousand years, or ten thousand years.

Did ANYONE have a clue?

Army Buried Study Faulting Iraq Planning - New York Times

The study chided President Bush — and by implication Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who served as national security adviser when the war was planned — as having failed to resolve differences among rival agencies. “Throughout the planning process, tensions between the Defense Department and the State Department were never mediated by the president or his staff,” it said.

The Defense Department led by Donald H. Rumsfeld was given the lead in overseeing the postwar period in Iraq despite its “lack of capacity for civilian reconstruction planning and execution.”

The State Department led by Colin L. Powell produced a voluminous study on the future of Iraq that identified important issues but was of “uneven quality” and “did not constitute an actionable plan.”

Gen. Tommy R. Franks, whose Central Command oversaw the military operation in Iraq, had a “fundamental misunderstanding” of what the military needed to do to secure postwar Iraq, the study said.

And Uncle Tom Cobley and all...

Why me?

Consortiumnews

"Iniquities of War, Inequities of Life" by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who describes how his bout with cancer has influenced his view of the grotesque injustice of war and the more mundane injustice of American medical care:

For the oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more — always more — even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing. For them, to be is to have and to be the class of the ‘haves.’ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

The cutting was over; the stitches were in; the pain was slight; and there I was, wide awake in a comfortable hospital room, welcoming 2008 with painful questions.

For the hundredth time I found myself asking, Why me? But wait — it may not be what you’re thinking.

The troubling question was why was I privileged to have prompt access to the best in medical care, when such is not available to most of our veterans and some 50 million sisters and brothers in America. We are called to be concerned about our brothers and sisters. It did not seem fair.