Blogger and Google Translate

What windows they open up on the world. Admittedly somewhat bleary and obscured windows, but I think the translation adds a pleasant element of 'ambiguamente'. The general drift is at least clear.

"Still half lost I looked at around and vi my next wife to the car under the willow and in the distance hindered the vision of its feição, but it perceived that it already had passed for it and he approaches it. I gave attention to its lamúrios and invited it to seat it in varanda of the house where we were. Its firm intention was to follow for the city and looked a transport, said that its father was violent, that he always surrava it that was inebriated and that, as he was drunk, certainly would go to apanhar. I tried to calm it and to convince it that having a bad family he was very worse of the one than not to have family, I tried to clarify that a boy of 8 years would not have possibilities in the city and that could expôr it enormous risks in the hands of pilantras of plantão. Nothing it functioned therefore perceived that all that one my speech was to say that I wanted that it I came back toward house where more early or later he would come back to the routine of the beatings."

Those Daily Mirror Photos - The Truth

Piers Morgan 'fesses up in this UK Commentators exclusive.

UPDATE - Inspired by this story. I love the way that cracking a joke is somehow more offensive than printing fake snaps which will get British soldiers killed - and probably civilians too. Ain't it nice to occupy the moral high ground ?

Beautiful Theories, Ruined Lives

Gender is a social construct, as any radical feminist (or the World Bank) will tell you. [irony]When Daisy plays with dolls and Jack kicks a football they are reflecting the overt and covert expectations of their parents and the wider society. With different parental and societal expectations, Jack might have a bed covered with fluffy toys while Daisy plays Unreal Tournament for hours with her girlfriends[/irony].

So when a baby boy (one of identical twins) had his penis badly damaged in a failed circumcision operation, his distraught parents were relieved to find a doctor who believed the theories. With a little more cosmetic surgery the baby could be brought up as a girl.

"This dramatic case," Time magazine reported "provides strong support for a major contention of women's liberationists: that conventional patterns on masculine and feminine behaviour can be altered."

That baby killed himself last week aged 38.

You can read more about the disastrous consequences of the decision and the lunatic hippy doctor who destroyed a family in this distressing Guardian item - the first thing with Gary Younge's name on that I've ever been able to recommend unreservedly.

Self Hating White Liberalism - It's Infectious

Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, talking on R4, condemns the latest execution video, calls on Muslim leaders to condemn it, and makes a couple of revealing asides on relationships between Muslims and 'the West' (I don't think he includes British Muslims here) - "and there are the Crusades, which are a problem". And on the Abu Ghraib revelations, "it is deeply shameful and indicts us all (my italics) in the West".

Now Lord Carey is by no means a stereotypical SHWL. His comments about Islam a month or two back earned him bad press from Guardianistas and Muslim spokesmen (not many spokespersons yet) alike. He is the kind of Christian who still reads the Bible, worries about human sin and frailty rather than Third World debt, and is not overly happy with homosexual bishops. So his comments reveal just how deeply the SHWL world view is part of educated English culture.

There's no doubt that our European partners (and a few Brits) did some bad things in the Crusades. From the sack of Jerusalem in 1099 (including the killing of the Jewish population, who sheltered in the synagogue only to be burned alive) to the attack on Byzantium, it could be said in President Clinton's words that "mistakes were made".

But there are one or two outstanding issues the other way. The Med was once a Christian lake. Turkey, Egypt and the whole of North Africa were Christian but were overrun militarily by Islam. These peoples weren't converted as were the Saxons and Danes. It was 'convert or die' for most (though not all) of them. Where now are the Galatian Christians to whom St Paul wrote ? Where are today's African saints ? Anatolia is full of ruined churches. Saint Sophia in Constantinople is now a museum (thanks, Fisky) in Istanbul. And of course the site of Solomon's Temple is now the Dome of the Rock.

This is not to say that I believe these issues should inform policy today. Fourteen hundred years is a long time. But apparently Lord Carey, like many others, believes that long memories are for 'them' and not for 'us'.

"It is deeply shameful and indicts us all in the West". Think about that. Does Saddam's regime, the latest horror decapitation video, or Osama Bin Laden indict all Muslims ? I thought stereotyping was one of the most feral creatures in the anti-racist bestiary.

But when 'Westerners' (a code name for white people - you could hardly call us Christians any more) do bad things - we are all indicted. One or several Muslims do bad things - they are not typical. Indictment is for 'us' and not for 'them'.

Labour - Preparing The Ground For What ?

I despair of this Government. I'm starting to get a John Major impression, that the policies get more and more short term and less and less thought out. The decision to liberalise drinking hours while simultaneously worrying about violent assaults being one example. But there are many more. Remember Prescott's pledge about the number of cars on the road ?

One particularly depressing story was the news that Labour want to introduce votes by text, in an effort to get more young voters involved. Not because the higher the turnout the better the democracy, but because "If the proportion of young voters increased, experts believe it would benefit Labour. One opinion poll earlier this year showed a majority of three to one in favour of Labour against the Tories."

Going for the Pop Idol vote in this way may have unintended consequences. What happens when a politically radical teen idol emerges ?

If Labour get their wish, half of all eighteen year olds will soon be in higher education. While this may (or may not) be a good thing, they will to some extent be insulated from the real world and therefore more attracted to a utopian, radical programme. Just think back to your student days. This effect would be greater still if we had votes at sixteen. And I'm sure that's just what some young Labour policy wonks would love.

But you may find your young texters are attracted to a different kind of radicalism and utopianism.

I wrote some months back "I see no sign at all of any (similar) youth movement on the Right. When the coolest kids in school self-identify as nationalists, when their bands are in the charts and girls wear 'My Boyfriend Is An Englishman' shirts - that'll be where the kind of fascism the Left disapproves of begins.

So if you want to prevent fascism, stop creating the objective conditions for it."

I hadn't read this article then.

"The most startling revelation of the report, entitled 539 voters' views: a voting behaviour study in three northern towns, is that, in the areas studied, the younger one is the more likely one is to vote BNP. Around one in three of 18-25 year-olds said that they voted for the BNP. 46 per cent said they had voted for the BNP on a previous occasion. While the Labour Party had strong support among older age groups, hardly anyone in the 18-25 category voted Labour. In this age group, large numbers of young men have been attracted to the BNP's message - making it the only party whose support is predominantly male.

The report suggests that other parties are failing to engage with this group of young men."

539 voters is not a large sample. But this is not necessarily a comforting message. When the girls come on board - that could be the pivotal moment. We shall see in a month. They are ringing their mobiles. But soon they will be wringing their hands.

Blogger ...

I'm not sure how keen I am on the new Primary School Edition.

Fisky, Fisky

When will Harry, Norm and Co. link to Way Of The Intercepting Fisk ? This blog's getting better all the time. Try this. He's got plenty more like that.

UPDATE - Sorry - Norm does link to this blog. Come on Harry !

Interesting Spectator Shock

I suppose the law of averages had to kick in at some stage - this week's Speccie has some readable articles (registration required).

Lloyd Evans wonders what happened to the peace movement, who seem to be all mouth and no trousers. Bruce Anderson suggests that the seeds of last week's depressing photos from Abu Ghraib were sown when women were allowed in the military (whereas the Guardian's Larry Elliott suggests that Brit girls are all too good at fighting - in the local High Street), and Rachel Johnson bemoans the Stepfordisation of women. Even Julian Manyon's depressing report from Iraq is thought-provoking - the thought in question being 'What the hell do the U.S. and Britain do now' ?

And Peter Hitchens is at his best on what happens in countries when the big story is over, and the reporters have gone elsewhere. I shall be interested to see his Mandela documentary.


"Why is it that such reverence is accorded to this flawed human being, who has spent so much of his time as a figleaf for the far-from-saintly African National Congress? I think it is partly because reformist politics has replaced Christian faith as the main expression of moral feeling in this country. But then why revere Mr Mandela rather than some domestic figure? Precisely because he is distant and not actually very well known to us. Our own home-produced political heroes and heroines never keep their haloes for long. We find out too much about them and are personally affected by their failures and mistakes. And we know that in most cases they have failed because we too have failed. Real change is difficult and costly and requires personal moral effort on our part. Most of us vote against it if we get the chance. The task of halting and reversing our political, industrial, moral, cultural and educational decline is huge, daunting and unappealing.

But abroad is different. We do not need to know the inconvenient details. On the contrary, it is better not to know them. The overthrow of the loathed government is all that is required. We will not be there after it falls. "


And finally ... Peter Briffa has sympathy for the subject of this Guardian agony column, entitled "My husband spends all his free time on his computer and won't tell me why. What should I do ?".

He's obviously a blogger, isn't he ? Responses are mostly negative, but Sarah from Argyll and Bute (can you be from both of those places ? One or the other, surely) has words of comfort.

"Our computer is now as much a part of family life as the TV - we tell each other what we have done on it, and using it is often a communal experience, with two or three people in front of the screen."

Well, yes. I think I know what you mean.

The Voice Of Moderation

In this US blog, the Modern Crusader. From its strapline, "Our long term goals are the sacking of Mecca, the defiling and final destruction of the Kaaba idol, and the creation of a Zionist State with Mecca as its capital.", to its report on the alleged mistreatment of prisoners by the Brits ("The Proper Way To Treat Muslims"), this blog is a rare delight.

Reports on Vichy France, links to the Saint Baruch Goldstein, and a thoughtful section on whether Syria or Iran should be invaded next - there's just too much to take in. See it for yourself.

And Now For Something Completely Different


Last Wednesday's Prime Ministers Questions - the VengaBoys Mix. Right mouse-click then 'Save Target As ' to download.

1.3 megabytes MP3, mixed by Laban Tall using Goldwave.

Next project - 'We Shall Overcome' - Joan Baez featuring Tupac Shakur.

"Militants" - Killing Little Girls

People who the BBC style "militants" shot dead a pregnant mother and her four daughters, aged between 2 and 11, in Gaza yesterday. The shootings were carried out at point blank range.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, people who the Guardian style 'militants' poisoned three schoolgirls because they attend school. The BBC quotes Afghan president Hamid Karzai's description of the perpetrators as terrorists, but puts the phrase in scare quotes. After all, one man's 'terrorist' ...

If only Ian Huntley had claimed to be drawing attention to the plight of Iraqi chldren !

Big Ron II

Weekly Worker springs to the defence of the great man.

"Atkinson favours the ‘kick up the backside’ style of management over the touchy-feely, therapeutic-driven approach.". You could say that.

And now that anti-racism is establishment doctrine, it is 'bourgeois anti-racism'.

"Indeed, as the opprobrium heaped so massively upon Atkinson’s head manifestly shows, the footballing establishment is essentially no different from the police force, the home office or the NHS bureaucracy - that is, institutionally and ideologically anti-racist. Frankly, how could it be anything else?

Just to glimpse at the long list of Kick It Out’s sponsors should tell you a lot - the League Managers Association, the Association of Premier League and Football League Match Officials, the Football Safety Officers Association, the Local Government Association, the Metropolitan Police ... It is no accident either that the chair of Kick It Out is no other than Lord Herman Ouseley, the former chair of the Commission for Racial Equality. There is no doubt that Kick It Out is essentially an establishment organisation, and hence promotes the establishment’s bourgeois anti-racism."

Bourgeois anti-racism, eh ? Now the Establishment have hold of it, it's not ours any more. Isn't this the mentality that makes a man sell his Smiths albums when they start becoming popular ?

In the 1930s the Left had a concept of 'bourgeois democracy'. Otherwise known as democracy. When French conservatives wanted to rearm France, the Communist Party leader Pierre Thorez declared 'We will not tolerate the working class being drawn into a so-called war to defend bourgeois democracy'. Good sense of priorities, ne c'est pas ?

And finally ....

some CPGB members are distressed by the Respect Coalition and the CPGBs support for it. Welcome please to the CPGB Red Platform ! All together now : Splitters !

To Every Little Action, There Is A Reaction


How far from this :



(This image, tailored to suit your favourite soccer side and their rivals, is on sale throughout the UK as a rear window sticker for the car. A lot of people have them.)


To this ? :






The Mirror's report sounds remarkably like what happens in Britain every week or two.

"He looked "like an alien" after being kicked like a football."

"Another said he was completely unrecognisable."

"Lads were taking turns giving him a right going over, smashing him in the face with weapons and stamping on him."

"The three others hit and kicked Adam and urged her to do the same, so she punched him in the head, chest and legs as well as in the face."

"He could only speak a few words, pleading 'No, mister' . No, mister'."

"He curled up in a ball and wept as he was savagely beaten."

"The assault lasted about three hours, possibly slightly longer."


Cultural ambassadors or what ?


UPDATE - when the photos first came out, some people commented on their remarkably good quality. Speculation is growing that they may in fact be fakes, and that the Mirror, intentionally or not, may have produced an untrue story which will damage relations between Arabs and Brits and probably cost lives.

The BBC reports

"Sources close to The Queen's Lancashire Regiment believe many aspects of the photographs are suspicious.

They believe the pictures may not have even been taken in Iraq.

They believe the rifle is an SA80 mk 1 - which was not issued to troops in Iraq.

They say soldiers in Iraq wore berets or hard hats - and not floppy hats as in the photos.

They also believe the wrong type of Bedford truck is shown in the background - a type never deployed in Iraq"

The Telegraph has some background on the Queen's Lancashire Regiment in Iraq.

I hope the images ARE fakes - but of course the damage will have been done. The people who believe no Jews went to work in the Towers on 9/11 will say it's a cover-up led by the British State media, and the Guardian bulletin boards will be full of witticisms about the Queen's Own Torturers and the Royal Regiment of Abusers. While there are undoubtedly a fair number of people in the UK capable of such acts, I hope that the Army is still capable of turning them into good soldiers. Good soldiers don't do such things. And if they had eight hours to spare torturing some random individual, maybe our armed forces aren't as stretched as we thought.

Wow

Shelby Steele with just the best thing I've read on the great marriage debate.

Gaberlunzie Man

"And verily, to mak' acquaintance with a man a-come from so far, from the land o' perpetual snow, as we may say, where wolves and wild boars and other dangerous animalcules be as common as blackbirds here-about--why, 'tis a thing we can't do every day; and there's good sound information for bide-at-homes like we when such a man opens his mouth."

"Nay, but ye mistake my country," said the young man, looking round upon them with tragic fixity, till his eye lighted up and his cheek kindled with a sudden enthusiasm to right their errors. "There are not perpetual snow and wolves at all in it!--except snow in winter, and--well--a little in summer just sometimes, and a 'gaberlunzie' or two stalking about here and there, if ye may call them dangerous. "

Thomas Hardy - The Mayor Of Casterbridge

Don't know who he is, except he's Scottish, is acquainted with the works of the great MacGonagall, and chose a hideous subtitle. I wonder if he likes AL Kennedy ?

Elsewhere this Australian site makes me wonder what education is like down under. Our school discos were never like this. Do I hear a cry of 'unfortunately' ? Link from Wendii's Blog.

UPDATE - Gaberlunzie links to the delightfully named Protocols Of The Yuppies Of Zion, which contains this joke :

(two men are moving priceless paintings from a museum)

1st. Guard: Man, this Hieronymus Bosch is heavy!

2nd. Guard: That's because he deals with man's inclination towards sin, in defiance of God's will.

1st. Guard: I didn't mean it like that.

Too Professional To Care

I've blogged before about the politically-driven decline in caring among nurses, but I think this nurse is taking it too far.

A hospital nurse accused of attempting to murder four elderly patients was motivated by a drive to free up beds, a court has heard.

Barbara Salisbury overstepped the line between humane nursing and callous dispatch when she tried to hasten their deaths, Chester Crown Court was told.

Prosecuting barrister Robin Spencer QC told the jury on Wednesday that Ms Salisbury was even heard urging one patient "give in, it's time to go", as she administered an overdose.

Nursing training since the late 80s has been designed to produce 'mini-doctors' for whom feeding, washing, cleaning, hand-holding, talking to patients or making beds is traditional 'women's work' to be avoided at all costs. Next month the Royal College of Nursing will debate the motion that nurses are 'too clever to care' and that the 'compassionate' part of the job should be carried out by healthcare assistants, the lowest form of NHS life.

When Florence Nightingale invented modern nursing, life was more straightforward than it is today,” said Tom Murray of the RCN’s Exeter branch, which put the resolution.

“People knew what doctors and nurses were there to do. Since these far-off days events have moved on.”

Here's an idea. Find out which hospital Tom Murray works at. And try not to be sent there.

UPDATE - Tom Murray appears to be a senior lecturer in the 'faculty of Health and social work' at the 'University of Plymouth' - formerly Devonport Tech. He also seems to be a member of the NATFHE union. Why am I not surprised ?

The bad news is - he teaches nurses.

Another Human Rights Breakthrough

From This Is London:

Murderer Robert Hill has been awarded more than £4,000 by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, because the Home Secretary rather than unelected judges ruled on his unsuitability for release. I presume the taxpayer will have stumped up his legal fees.

His victim was unavailable for comment.

And the Commission For Racial Equality are investigating a disgraceful incident where a new sheltered housing development is for people from the majority community only.

It's not as bad as it sounds though. In Tower Hamlets the minority community is the English.

Grumpy Guardian

Today ... Aaronovitch doesn't like the good people of Portishead (suburban bigots), Joseph Harker wonders why Le Pen doesn't get the Louis Farrakhan treatment, and that great physicist George Monbiot attacks his fellow physicists Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips.

Monbiot asks :

1. Does the atmosphere contain carbon dioxide?
2. Does atmospheric carbon dioxide influence global temperatures?
3. Will that influence be enhanced by the addition of more carbon dioxide?
4. Have human activities led to a net emission of carbon dioxide?

All worthy questions. There's just one he doesn't ask :

5. Do global temperatures influence atmospheric carbon dioxide ?

You see the world is a funny, Gaia-like thing, with feedback going in all directions at once. The oceans hold a lot of carbon dioxide. Warm them up and you'll get more in the atmosphere. Which way does the link work ? Are the temperature rise and the carbon dioxide rise due to our outputs, or is higher temperature causing more CO2 to be present ?

Dunno - but it's worth asking. Were there higher levels of CO2 a thousand years ago, when the earth was warmer and the Vikings farmed Greenland ? If only John Daly was with us still.

UPDATE - the Divine Ms M strikes back. "It is always revealing when an attack merely comprises insults rather than a reply to the arguments", followed by "What's Monbiot ever done, except write drivel for the Guardian?" I do love that woman ...

But there is something to cheer us up though.

"All NHS psychiatrists and mental health nurses are to be put through a national retraining programme to root out the racist attitudes that have undermined the treatment of black and ethnic minority patients, it was disclosed yesterday."

As a psychiatrist, Theodore Dalrymple will doubtless be one of the retrainees.

"So rapidly has political correctness pervaded our institutions that today virtually no one can keep a clear head about race. The institutions of social welfare are concerned to the point of obsession with race. Official anti-racism has given to racial questions a cardinal importance that they never had before. Welfare agencies divide people into racial groups for statistical purposes with a punctiliousness I have not experienced since I lived, briefly, in apartheid South Africa a quarter of a century ago. It is no longer possible, or even thought desirable, for people involved in welfare services to do their best on a case-by-case basis, without (as far as is humanly feasible) racial bias: indeed, not long ago I received an invitation from my hospital to participate in a race-awareness course, which was based upon the assumption that the worst and most dangerous kind of racist was the doctor who deluded himself that he treated all patients equally, to the best of his ability. At least the racial awareness course was not (yet) compulsory: a lawyer friend of mine, elevated recently to the bench, was obliged to go through one such exercise for newly appointed judges, and was holed up for a weekend in a wretched provincial hotel with accusatory representatives of every major "community." Come the final dinner, a Muslim representative refused to sit next to one of the newly appointed judges because he was Jewish."

Soon the nation will be divided between those enlightened ones who work for the State and the suburban bigots who don't.

Big Ron

I didn't like his language - any of it. But Kevin Myers hits the nail on the head.

"We have created a politically correct linguistic apartheid, in which some people have a monopoly over certain words: homosexuals can say queer, the Irish can say paddy or mick, Bangladeshis can say Paki, and Afro-Caribbeans can say nigger or coon. And an Anglo-Saxon Englishman can say Sweet Fanny Adams."

For examples of which, see :

The late Queercompany.com

This whiskey.

This enterprising entrepreneur

And Chris ("I am tired of niggers. I wish they would let me join the Ku Klux Klan. I'd do a drive-by from LA to Brooklyn.") Rock or any US rap artist.

No white entertainer would be able to make a career nowadays using G H Elliott's stage name. My mother saw him in blackface at the Swansea Empire when she was nine. She didn't appear to have been affected by it.

Still, at least Big Ron actually used the bad word. No, not the f-word ! God, some people get offended so easily ! Are you some kind of Christian ? The n-word ! And according to the Birmingham Sunday Mercury Big Ron also called Paul McGrath the c-word when he was Villa manager. No, not THAT c-word ! Don't be such a prude ! The G H Elliott word !

But in the States you can lose your job without using n- or c-words - for describing a budget allocation as 'niggardly'. John H. McWhorter, Professor of Linguistics at Berkeley and City Journal contributor, comments on this and a great deal more. Too complex to summarise but a great read. Recommended.

Free Speech For Tony Martin

Marcus at Harry's Place is disturbed by Tony Martin's latest contribution to political debate (urging people to vote BNP and UKIP), saying that he's revealed his 'true colours' at last. There's also debate at the Tony Martin Forum.

Marcus also finds it 'inexplicable' that Tony Martin became a cause celebre. I'm tempted to respond that if he doesn't understand, explanation won't help. But here are a few suggestions. Look at the burglary statistics. Consider they have risen by around 1000% (ten times) in the last fifty years, so there are people of Mr Martin's age who can remember when crime was low (my children asked me the other day - 'do you know anyone who hasn't been burgled ?' 'Grandma' 'Yes, but she was mugged'.) Look at the risible, pathetic clear-up rates. Look at the statistics on householders killed by burglars - I'm not sure if the Home Office keep figures on those killed by non-burgling 'intruders'. Read Theodore Dalrymple, as I know you do, but think about what it is like to live as a law-abiding person in the underclass world he describes. But enough of this.

Two points here. The first is that the question of whether he should have been imprisoned is nothing at all to do with his views. I'm surprised that Marcus (isn't he a lawyer ?) is able to ignore the distinction between opinion and action. The Birmingham Six were arrested while travelling to the funeral of a Republican activist. One of them after release gave a speech in Belfast urging republicans to send more British troops home in body bags. But vile as their politics may have been, it doesn't constitute proof that they killed twenty-four people in Birmingham in 1974. Only Government front-bencher Chris Mullin knows who did that - and he ain't saying.

The second is that Tony Martin has a perfect right to vote for and support any party he wishes. That's what being free is about. I support his right to be free and his right to self-defence. As far as I know he hasn't applied for a job as Professor of Politics.

"There is going to be a dictator in this country, but there are such things as benign dictators. Too much liberalism is worse than too little. The politicians as we know them are already anachronisms."

I agree with three-quarters of that, and even the first quarter ("There is going to be a dictator in this country") is an opinion which can be argued one way or the other. I certainly hope there isn't - although if there is, as Stephen Pollard reports, it's more likely to be of the Left than the Right.

Of course benign dictatorship is theoretically the best form of government - apart from the small difficulty of how you change them, and what you do if the dictator isn't as benign as you thought.

Just as democracy is the worst form of government - apart from all the others.

The Telegraph article also reveals that TM has no intention of voting himself.

Interestingly the BNP website has ignored this story despite Martin's undoubted popularity - when you're rebranding yourself as squeaky-clean, democratic and user-friendly, the last thing you want is a loose cannon on the deck arguing that he's supporting you and is waiting for a dictatorship. "Vote BNP And Give Britain A Dictator", as the Telegraph translates it, is not the marketing strategy I'd adopt.

TM's habit of speaking his mind means that he's likely to be a liability to any political party. And on a personal note, I was worried for him when he left prison as a celebrity. He struck me as not a worldly man, and I was somewhat concerned by reports of his being wined and dined by the author of "How To Join The Club Of The Rich And Famous" and wife of John McVicar, who has herself been acquitted of murder.

But he also struck me a the kind of chap who didn't suffer fools gladly - what the Americans would call an 'ornery' and 'cussed' type. Not bad qualities in today's world. It was probably always going to end in tears. I'd put money on any attempt to use him by the BNP, UKIP or NF ending likewise.

Stand as an independent, Tony ! In the immortal words of M. Poujade "Throw The Rascals Out !"