We have stayed out of all the politics

Wootton Bassett, outpost of lost England -  Frank Skinner

It’s as if the town has deliberately placed itself in the unquestioning past — in a time before anti-war riots and Iraq inquiries. Wootton Bassett seems, from afar at least, a glimpse of that Great Britain that makes a lot of people, including the BNP’s Nick Griffin, go dewy-eyed with nostalgia. Maybe Nick Griffin is a bad example. Well, obviously Nick Griffin is a bad example but I mean a bad example in this particular context. One would guess there isn’t often a tear in Nick Griffin’s eye — unless, of course, the wind suddenly changes at a book-burning — however, he does seem to get genuinely sentimental when he hankers for a lost Britain.

I spotted a link to this piece by Frank Skinner and got the wrong end of the stick. I marched over ready to slag it off only to find a thoughtful, considered and well-written piece. Check it out.

The Bully State

The nanny state turns nasty

At the start of The Bully State, his rambunctious account of the nanny state’s recent history, Brian Monteith argues that the term ‘nanny’ is too cuddly a word for the alliance of ‘puritans, control freaks and prohibitionists’ who are waging war on individual freedom on both sides of the Atlantic.

Nanny, he says, has lost her patience with us. Her policies of re-education have failed to ‘nudge’ us towards government-approved behaviour. Targets have not been met. Too many calories are being consumed. Too many units of alcohol are being knocked back. Some of us are even smoking and using offensive language. Not so much disappointed as angry, she has now turned bully. What happens now is going to hurt us a lot more than it hurts her.

About time too

U.S. may take new look at `war on drugs'

If you had asked me 10 years ago whether the United States will ever change its interdiction-focused counternarcotics policies -- and perhaps even decriminalize marijuana consumption at home -- I would have told you, ``never.'' Today, I say, ``perhaps.''  

Earlier this week, in a tacit admission that current U.S. anti-drug policies are not working, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill to create an independent commission to review whether the U.S. anti-drug policies of the past three decades in Latin America are producing positive results.

The US has been the driver of drug control policies throughout the world. Policies which originated in US right wing religious bigotry and racism.

Definition: Hateful or shockingly evil

Get the right payment card and deny Ryanair its hefty fee

Ryanair announced last week that it will only exempt one payment card from its transaction fees – the MasterCard Prepaid. Any other card attracts the £5 or €5 fee per flight, regardless of whether it is credit or debit. So, passengers must now jump through another hoop to avoid Ryanair’s heinous extra charges.

The charge of a few quid for using your card in 'heinous'?!  You get a flight for peanuts and moan about having to cough up another tenner?! And to avoid this you'd go to all the trouble of getting a prepaid card? What you need to do is get a life, dear,  not another fucking card.

Cripples need not apply

Golda Meir told Poland: Don't send sick or disabled Jews to Israel

In 1958, then-foreign minister Golda Meir raised the possibility of preventing handicapped and sick Polish Jews from immigrating to Israel, a recently discovered Foreign Ministry document has revealed.

"A proposal was raised in the coordination committee to inform the Polish government that we want to institute selection in aliyah, because we cannot continue accepting sick and handicapped people. Please give your opinion as to whether this can be explained to the Poles without hurting immigration," read the document, written by Meir to Israel's ambassador to Poland, Katriel Katz. The letter, marked "top secret" and written in April 1958, shortly after Meir became foreign minister, was uncovered by Prof. Szymon Rudnicki, a Polish historian at the University of Warsaw.

Via JsansF

You couldn't make it up #67889

Thomas the Tank Engine attacked for 'conservative political ideology'

Children's favourite Thomas the Tank Engine has been attacked by a Canadian academic for its "conservative political ideology" and failure to adequately represent women.

The show's right-wing politics shows the colourful steam engines punished if they show initiative or oppose change, the researcher found. She also highlighted the class divide which sees the downtrodden workers in the form of Thomas and his friends at the bottom of the social ladder and the wealthy Fat Controller, Sir Topham Hatt, at the top.

The criticism comes from one Shauna Wilton, a professor of political sciences at the University of Alberta (above), aka, The Fat Controller.
.

Sound familiar?

US refuses to allow UN inspectors to investigate its WMDs

Bioweapons Sound familiar? US refuses to allow UN inspectors to investigate its WMDs.

The United States said Wednesday that it remained opposed to international inspections of biological weapon sites, even though it stressed its commitment to a UN treaty covering such arms and invaded Iraq in part over its alleged stalling of -- UN weapons inspectors.

Doh!

I interupt my hiatus to point out this, which made me laugh my arse off.

Say what you like about Rod Liddle but I'd buy him a drink for this reply over at the New Statesman to a comment by the sainted Sunny Hundal.

See you in 2010, maybe.**

UPDATE: Ignore my comments below about blogging. Since giving up Twatting I've rediscovered the joys of my long neglected blog and I shall post here as and when I feel like it. The Christmas wishes stil apply, of course.



I'm off until the New Year. 

I've stopped all Tweeting completely now, for good. Had a good run but it became tedious.  You know when you find a nice little pub but within six months it fills up with shitheads? A nice civilised restaurant that gets reviewed and then fills up with noisy hooray henrys People say, never mind, don't let them spoil things, sit in the corner with your friends and ignore it all. No, you need to find a different watering-hole and if you can't you need to stay at home with a nice bottle of wine and a takeaway!  When (if) I get back I'll revamp this blog and just do my own personal thing. I'm tired of Twitter, blogging, social media blah, blah. It mostly bores me now and takes up far too much time for no great reward. There also seem to be a great many more dickheads around than there used to be and I'm utterly fed up with them. I've got tons of stuff to do and I'd do more of it without the distraction of Twitter and the rest. I also think these things have run their course. Something else will replace them and when it does I've no doubt I'll investigate and give it a try. But for me, the shark has been well and truly jumped.

Truth is, nobody gives a shit. Mention Nadine Dorries, Paul Staines or Iain Dale to most people and they wouldn't have a clue what you were on about. None of this stuff matters in the end. 99% of people on the web would rather read about the women Tiger Woods has fucked or about the death of a member of a poxy boy-band. It's the law of diminishing returns and for me they've diminished to almost nothing.

I'm glad that young people seem to be showing absolutely no interest in blogging or tweeting. It means there is hope yet. 

Have a lovely Christmas and a happy, prosperous and productive 2010. TTFN! :-))

UPDATE: I've completed the design revamp already. Just used an old header, tweaked it and matched the font colours accordingly. Then changed the font and some font sizes and Bob's your uncle! Piece of piss this web design lark! :-))

UPDATE 2: ** Make that - definitely! :-))

Amanda Knox is a psycopath?

After reading this piece of drivel I decided to send the writer an email asking her to clarify a few things.

Dear Dr. Covington,

I am about to comment on your piece about Amanda Knox, in First Post, but I would like to confirm a few details before doing so.

For which subject was your BA awarded? Do you hold a psychology degree? Are you a qualified clinical psychologist? Do you have any forensic psychology qualifications? Did you, or any agent on your behalf, attend any part of the trial of Amanda Knox in Italy? How many murder trials have you attended? How should a murder suspect behave during a long trial? Do innocent people behave differently from guilty ones? In what way? If so, could you point me to any respected, peer-reviewed research results to back this up?

You say in the piece that 'during the next few days, Knox was seen to repeatedly press her hands to her temples, a gesture interpreted as trying to get rid of what was in her mind'. Interpreted by whom? Do you think such an interpretation has the slightest validity? If so, could you again back this up with independent scientific data?

Are you seriously comparing Knox's demeanour to Adolf Eichmann? You are clearly too young to have attended Eichmann's trial but perhaps you have been privy to film footage of him at his trial beyond the very short clips which the rest of us have seen? In any case, what is the evidence that Eichmann was a psychopath? Hannah Arendt, who had the advantage of attending the trial in person and writing a classic work about it, certainly didn't think so. Several fully medically qualified psychiatrists who examined Eichmann prior to his trial agreed with her.  I have other questions but this will do to be going on with.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Mike Power

I'll be interested in the response, if any.  Her doctorate was in sociology.

Last ever PaperRound :(

Make the most of it, people. This is the last Specific weekend)PaperRound I'll be posting. There will be rolling links to news stories in the sidebar again, like there used to be, added as and when I feel like it. But I wont be getting up early on Saturdays and Sundays to find twenty interesting news items to link to! I'm making changes to my online presence (as it is pretentiously referred to) which includes closing down my "MrPower" Twitter account and revamping this blog as a more personal webspace. In the meantime I'm taking a nice break until the new year. I've enjoyed doing the PaperRound over the years and, indeed, I've enjoyed both blogging and Tweeting but things change and both activities are far less rewarding than they used to be. Like many bloggers I know, I hardly read blogs anymore and rarely post anything here beyond these links to news stories. Blogging used to be fun and held out lots of promises very few of which have beeen realised. Twitter is going the same way. Indeed the entire web is going the same way. Suddenly, real life with real people in the flesh, real discussion, debate and argument seems very attractive again. Anyway, enjoy:

PaperRound: 5th December '09