Mayoral race revisited

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Liberal England: Labour fears Boris Johnson
... Boris Johnson is the Tory candidate for London Mayor whom Labour fears most. And, as the Labour Party so often does, it is playing the race card against him.
Disgraceful. Playing the race card, what?

Cripes!

Well, what do you expect from Labour?

Oh, hang on a minute...

The sad thing is that Boris's writing rather invites Labour to do so.
Wah, wah, wah, waaaaaaaaaaah.



Orange Satan Worship

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TechCrunch: Facebook Advertising Cancelations
First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, the AA, Halifax and the Prudential withdrew their Facebook advertising after it was disclosed that their advertisements were being displayed on the Facebook page of the British National Party. The ads of the six companies were being rotated through the BNP’s page along with other advertising. Facebook is said to be unable to block campaigns on specific Facebook pages.

It seems a little strange in 2007 that advertisers would have been naive enough to believe that a run of site style advertising campaign on a site as large as Facebook would not have resulted in advertisements appearing next to dubious content to start with. As The Register points out, Vodafone’s UK rival Orange currently have their ads appearing on the Facebook page of The Aryan Satan Worshipers. Of course, no sane person would draw the conclusion that Orange is indeed in favor of Aryan Satan Worshiping, this is how run of site advertising works.

The Register also points out that the two Facebook groups representing the BNP have clocked up just 150 and 31 members respectively. By comparison, the non-aligned group "A Chief Export of Chuck Norris Is Pain" has 12,550 members. 


"I'll thcream and thcream 'till I'm thick — I can, you know"

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A Very British Ennui
The right is suffering from collective ennui, if hissy-fits from Devil and Tom Paine are anything to go by. I too have felt like stamping my feet and shouting "It's not Faaaiaiiiiar"
Tom Paine prefers things in Second Life, the fantasy land where most inhabitants are obsessed with sex and porn, which is probably the best place for most right wing bloggers. With a bit of luck they'll all fuck off there.



Exposing the truth about mixed-race weddings

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PooterGeek
...my biggest fear—as the offspring of a black mother and a white father—is that a mixed-race** couple will try to hire me. If you have to take a natural-light portrait of two faces together and one is very dark and the other is very pale then it’s a bitch to get the exposure right for both of them.


**I think it's 'dual heritage' now.

(Speaking as the father of two 'dual heritage' daughters and two 'dual heritage' grandchildren.)


Hi pop pickers!

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The Devil's Kitchen
I have been asked to compile a list of the Top 20 UKIP Bloggers. However, I have hit on a snag; moving in the rarified circles that I do, I can only think of four or five UKIP bloggers, including myself. If you are a UKIP Blogger, consider your sympathies to be with UKIP even if you aren't a member (and aren't a member of another party) or if you know of a UKIP Blogger or if you've sat next to someone on a bus who looked like a UKIP blogger , (ok, I made that last one one up - MrP)  could you please leave a URL in the comments. Thank you.

 Rather gives a new meaning to the term 'Top Twenty' .



Cash injections

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Big Pharma is Evil - What to do with your feelings?
But what really interests me is what we do with our feelings about this evil: because it is entirely predictable, market driven venality, which can be found in every market sector, but we find it uniquely distressing when we are sick and needing healthcare. Somewhere, deep down, it’s as upsetting as thinking our parents were paid hard cash on a per diem sliding scale with performance bonuses to love and look after us.

This moral discomfort and resentment leaks out in delusional anti-MMR beliefs, or bizarre acts of faith in the vitamin pill industry, as acts of misguided and wasteful political rebellion. Why? Because everybody is a socialist when it comes to healthcare, but nobody knows what to do with those feelings any more.


The mayoral race

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Johnson 'would destroy London's unity' as mayor
Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, yesterday launched a fierce personal attack on Boris Johnson, saying he would destroy multicultural London if elected mayor, and that no informed black person would vote for him.

Ms Lawrence, who does not normally become involved in party politics, said she had been moved to make the criticisms by her anger at Mr Johnson's attitude to the Macpherson inquiry in 1999 into the Metropolitan police's failure to bring her son's killers to justice 14 years ago.

The biggest threat to young black men in London doesn't come from buffoons like Boris Johnson but from other young black men in London. Speak up about that, Mrs Lawrence, and you'll gain some respect from me.

And while you are at it would you mind calling on members of your 'community' to come forward and provide evidence to help the police convict the killer of P.C. Blakelock?  Call me old fashioned but murdering a community copper with the intention of sticking his head on a pole and parading it through the streets doesn't seem to me like a great way of celebrating multicultural London either.



I'm angry, you're a bitch

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Angry men get ahead; angry women penalized:
A man who gets angry at work may well be admired for it but a woman who shows anger in the workplace is liable to be seen as "out of control" and incompetent, according to a new study presented on Friday. What's more, the finding may have implications for Hillary Clinton as she attempts to become the first female U.S. president, according to its author Victoria Brescoll, a post-doctoral scholar at Yale University. Her research paper "When Can Angry Women Get Ahead?" noted that Clinton was described last year by a leading Republican as "too angry to be elected president."


Via 3QD

Bush's Stab-In-The-Back Theory

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Excellent piece from Sidney Blumenthal - The politics of protection:
President Bush's political strategy at home is an implicit if unintended admission of the failure of his military strategy in Iraq and toward terrorism generally. Betrayal is his theme, delivered in his speeches, embroidered by his officials and trumpeted by the brass band of neo-conservative publicists.

How did it happen that "Al-Qaida in Iraq", sworn enemy of Saddam Hussein and his secularism, operating in isolation prior to 9/11 (though almost certainly with the connivance and protection of Kurdish leader and current Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani), has come to thrive under the United States occupation? And since al-Qaida in Iraq represents perhaps 1% or less of the insurgent strength, how can it be depicted as the main foe, capable of seizing state power? The other Sunni insurgent groups increasingly view it as an impediment to their own ambitions and have marked it for elimination. Rather than address these problematic complexities, Bush points the finger of blame at US senators who dare to question his policy. "Those who justify withdrawing our troops from Iraq by denying the threat of al-Qaida in Iraq and its ties to Osama bin Laden ignore the clear consequences of such a retreat."...