Wolcott on Imus

James Wolcott: The I-Man Cometh

It doesn't serve any purpose to cast nuance out the window and characterize a radio host whose daily four-hour broadcast covered everything from politics to country music to sports to the precarious state of Imus's wheezing lungs as if it were a fascist loudspeaker blaring "the most vile sort of dehumanizing hate speech." Most of the time Imus is simply bitching like a bitter old man, and genuine misanthropy has its own kind of craggy integrity in a media biosphere where the on-air talent glisten like fresh produce and need PIN codes to access their emotions. I get the feeling that most of the bloggers recapping Imus's slurs and outrages at the microphone (and those of his former producer Bernard McGuirk) never actually listened to the program, except for a few bites here and there picked up online. Instead, they avail themselves of the Media Matters files or other Googly sites and trot out the same litany of low points, without mentioning the more ennobled sentiments Imus has expressed, such as muttering "war criminal" whenever Dick Cheney was mentioned.

If only there were a few dozen more who could write like Wolcott , browsing blogs might actually become enjoyable.

A place fit for Heroin

Mail online - A Fix on the State - Peter Hitchens

The proper place for people who possess heroin is prison, the proper cure, punishment so bad they won't want to come back, and hard, hard work. This is the 'war against drugs' that has never been tried. I hate to think how many lives have already been ruined (and I am thinking of the relatives and victims of drug takers, just as much of the users themselves) because we haven't the moral guts to fight it.

I posted a comment but I doubt it will pass moderation so I'll post it here:

The proper place for people who possess alcohol is prison, the proper cure, punishment so bad they won't want to come back, and hard, hard work. This is the 'war against drink' that has never been tried. I hate to think how many lives have already been ruined (and I am thinking of the relatives and victims of drinkers, just as much of the drinkers themselves) because we haven't the moral guts to fight it.

Care to tot up the deaths, injuries and ruined lives caused by booze Mr Hitchens?


BTW, I believe your brother likes the odd tipple now and then. Do you?

Drug crazed

Reason Magazine - Richard Paey Speaks

In October of this year, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist signed a pardon for Richard Paey, a paraplegic with multiple sclerosis who had served nearly four years of a 25-year prison sentence for drug trafficking. Paey, who requires high-dose opioid therapy to treat pain brought on by his MS, a car accident, and a botched back surgery, was convicted of trafficking despite concessions from prosecutors that there was no evidence the painkillers in his possession were for anything other than his own use.

When police came to arrest the wheel-chair bound Paey, they came with a full-on SWAT team, battering down the door and rushing into the home of the wheelchair-bound Paey, his optometrist wife, and their two school age children.

Prosecutors offered Paey a plea bargain, but he refused, insisting that he’d done nothing wrong, and that he shouldn’t have to plead guilty to a felony for treating his own pain. Paey was tried, convicted, and given a 25-year mandatory minimum sentence. While in prison, the state of Florida paid for a morphine pump that administered painkillers to Paey at rates higher than what the state convicted him of for possessing in the first place.

Here mate, got any crab's legs on you?

UK drugs trade tops £7bn, study shows

There are about 300 major drug importers into Britain, 3,000 wholesalers and 70,000 street dealers producing a turnover of £7-8bn a year, according to an internal Home Office estimate revealed today.

This official indication of the astonishing scale of the drugs trade in Britain, although very rough, has led Home Office researchers to calculate that by value it represents about a third of the size of the tobacco market in Britain and two-fifths of the trade in alcohol.

The estimates are contained in a Home Office research study published today based on prison interviews with 222 convicted high-level drug dealers. This reveals that about three-quarters of drug dealers attempt to grow their operations, enjoy mark-ups of 16,800% on heroin and 15,800% on cocaine, and now employ salaried staff as runners and storers.

"Drug dealers enjoy mark-ups of 15,800% on cocaine" Really? Well, no, they don't actually unless that is, they grow and process the stuff themselves haul it over to the UK, cut it and turn it all into half gram wraps and sell them all on the street at £25 each. The reality, as clearly shown in the report itself, is that wholesalers pay around £30k per kilo for good quality coke. This is then sold on to street dealers in eighths (3.5 grams) quarters and one ounce bags given an average return of around £42k on the kilo, a markup of around 140%. Even if the entire kilo were traded as wraps the return would be around £50k (more if it was cut) producing a mark-up of 170% - 200%. The street dealer turning his ounce or half ounce into wraps will make about the same markup. Nowhere does anyone make anywhere close to the figures mentioned in this Guardian report.

You'd make a much bigger mark-up trading in King crabs.

Getting away with murder

Sion Jenkins enrols to study law

A former deputy head teacher cleared of murdering his foster daughter is to study criminology and criminal justice, a university has revealed. Sion Jenkins, 49, from Lymington, Hampshire, is embarking on a Masters degree at the University of Portsmouth.

After watching his performance on TV being interviewed by Sir Trevor McDonald, where he inadvertently succeeded in convincing anyone watching that he was indeed guilty of battering his foster daughter to death, I would have thought media studies might have been a more appropriate course.

I'm still waiting for him to sue the police, as he has threatened to do. It's not that he's short of resources. His second wife may look rather gruesome but she is a multi-millionaire. I don't think I'll be holding my breath. The last thing this murderous little shit wants is to have the events of that day exposed once again in open court.

At least Jenkins will have a genuine qualification at the end of this course and not the fake ones he lied about to get his teaching jobs. But then lying came naturally to him. As acknowledged by the first trial judge, Jenkins lied on six separate occasions to the police during the investigation. But, of course, that didn't mean he was guilty.

Piss-up/Brewery

Darling admits 25m records lost

Alistair Darling has blamed mistakes by junior officials at HM Revenue and Customs after details of 25 million child benefit recipients were lost. The Chancellor said information, including bank details of 7m families, had been sent on discs to the National Audit office by unrecorded delivery. The discs had never arrived at their destination, Mr Darling told MPs.

I can't wait until we get our national ID database.

Have a miserabalist Christmas and save the planet

The grinch who stole Christmas cards | spiked

In recent years, as the festive season draws closer, stories inevitably emerge about how ‘political correctness has gone mad’, with council officers censoring Christmas carols on the grounds of ‘religious preference’, re-branding Christmas ‘Winterval’ and preventing people from hanging up decorations or bringing home-made food to school Christmas parties in the name of ‘health and safety’. But for evidence that environmentalism is now overriding ‘PC’ favourites like multiculturalism and health and safety, look no further than Evan James Primary School in Wales, which has banned Christmas cards – on environmental grounds.

The reasons for not having cards are endless’, head teacher Nicholas Daniels claims...Daniels’ argument was explicitly moral. ‘We did take a strong moral ground on the matter… We knew we would face opposition but we decided to do this on moral and environmental grounds. Cards in school cause litter problems and can become a popularity contest about who gets the most.’

The Strange Obsession of Norman Baker

Opinion - Norman Baker MP: Why the death of Dr David Kelly simply will not go away

Oooh, let me think. Might it be because you've got a book to sell?

Norman Baker is to David Kelly what that Egyptian twat is to Princess Diana. An annoying, publicity seeking moron.

For completely unbiased background information please see my earlier post:
Norman Baker MP - is a complete fucking twat

Life on Earth (version 2.0)

Are Aliens Among Us?

No planet is more Earth-like than Earth itself, so if life does emerge readily under terrestrial conditions, then perhaps it formed many times on our home planet. To pursue this tantalizing possibility, scientists have begun searching deserts, lakes and caverns for evidence of “alien” life-forms—organisms that would differ fundamentally from all known living creatures because they arose independently. Most likely, such organisms would be microscopic, so researchers are devising tests to identify exotic microbes that could be living among us.

Via A&L Daily

Where's the remote?

[soul destroying] unrecoverable loss

People out there actually use their blogging application's default editing interface?!

If you are a serious blogger get yourself a remote editing tool and save yourself time, trouble and grief.

Marsedit, (Mac only) Ecto, Qumana, ScribeFire (the one I use), Flock, Bleezer, W.Bloggar, and Windows Live Writer are all examples of easy, to use blogging tools and there are several other blog-specific editors available as well. Marsedit does not have a WYSIWYG interface but the others do.

You can save partially completed posts for later and all editing can be done offline. Some incorporate easy image uploading (drag and drop)  together with some basic image manipulation (resizing, alignment, thumbnails etc). Why do it any other way?

Why? How long have you got?

Why ditch Blairite foreign policy? - David Aaronovitch

Why ditch Blairite foreign policy? The Tories are espousing a ‘conservative interventionism', but how this would have solved world problems is far from clear

The way Blairite foreign policy has 'solved' world problems you mean? Sheesh.

Compassion and sympathy

Langham says child porn viewings compassionate

The comedy actor Chris Langham today claimed he was being "compassionate and sympathetic" when he looked at the child porn that put him in prison. The Bafta award-winner, who was released early from jail last week, denied he had any sexual interest in children but admitted looking at the images was "completely wrong".

Claimed today? Look, he made this claim at his trial, in fact it was the basis of his defence. But after listening to all the evidence and to Langham's testimony the jury (which at the same trial aquited him of having sex with an underage girl) simply didn't believe him. Now he's using his fame and contacts to revisit the trial and put an entirely different spin on events. In my book that makes him a more reprehensible individual that I thought he was. He is saying now that he 'contemplated suicide' but at his trial he said on oath - "I just wanted to die and I tried to kill myself". There is a difference between thinking about topping yourself and actually trying to do it.  Clearly, Langham has a problem with telling the 'whole truth'.