Blah Blah Flowers

Another American state wants to take it's schools back to the dark ages. Georgian state education officials, led by a Creationist by the way, want to remove the word, but not the concept (for now) of evolution, from teaching in their schools. It is interesting how, having lost the argument in the public sphere, Creationists now seem to go for the kids through indirect means, teach kids evolution and they'd know the Creationists were full of shit, so the Creationists try to prevent them being taught the truth. I wouldn't mind so much if there were some sort of limits put on what jobs a Creationist-taught kid could go for, and when he or she says "Dad, how come cousin Jerry's an accountant and I'm stuck in Burger King?" Dad has to admit it's because he allowed school to teach his child things that weren't true.

Still, a couple more decades of this, Dubya will seem like some mental giant and we'll have a nation of people too thick to use the internet. So everything has it's upside.

So Gavyn Davies, Greg Dyke and Andrew Gilligan have all resigned from the BBC. It's a strange world we live in when men have to resign due to small errors whilst others get away with large ones. No one really believes the Hutton report unless they have something to gain from the BBC's downfall and by accepting a report that clears them so comprehensively the Government is just making trouble for itself in the long run. A judgement that had accepted the self-evident truth that while Gilligan erred in his broadcast Dr. Kelly was used as a political football by Alistair Campbell for reasons both political and vindictive would have given both sides some consolation and it would all be yesterday's news.

It was perhaps not surprising that Lord Hutton would decide not to rule on whether the intelligence on Iraq was accurate or not, fortunately we have other avenues that have shown that it wasn't. But there was a lot of evidence which our noble lord apparently judged to be irrelevent, on how the information was processed 'tween agency and public. Both Campbell and Powell were shown to have phrases changed to alter meaning. If that is beyond the scope of Lord Hutton we need to have an enquiry that covers it. The BBC may have been wrong in this case, Lord Hutton was unable to prevent the country from seeing that the Government do have a case to answer.

But, whither BBC? The important thing to remember is that this case doesn't mean the BBC News staff are a bunch of anarchic crusty-hippies who all decamp to Glastonbury come the summer. Part of the problem comes from the fact that Campbell complained so much that it was initially difficult for the Government to read it as anything more than him just complaining for the sake of it. What Campbell wanted was sycophantic coverage of all the government's deeds. But if the BBC obeyed and Labour were in Opposition he would have spent the summer complaining as bitterly about Government bias.

If we can't trust the Government in something as major as a war, we can't trust the Government when it comes to the renewal of the BBC's Charter. Check the BBC website here and be ready, when the time comes, to Fax Your MP to make sure that this episode isn't used to turn the BBC back into the propaganda wing of the current British administration.

And page 9 of today's Telegraph, a full page ad in support of Greg Dyke and the BBC's independence paid for by BBC staff. Even listed in what must be about point 4 size type they say they have more names that can fit on the page. Respect!

And now the view from the inside, a BBC worker's memories of Greg Dyke as BBC DG.

This is interesting: For Albania's Kanun followers, dress is an important gender marker... Thus, if a woman dresses like a man, she is a man. [via Metafilter]

You may have noticed the new icon on the right. Go clicky please.

Watched Newsnight last night. Now admittedly Greg Dyke is enjoying being free of the shackles of corporate responsibility to say exactly what he feels about the Hutton Report while his acting replacement, Mark Byford, isn't. Byford also has to act as though he's the Director General of an evil news organisation that made unfounded slurs against the Government when the truth is quite different.

But... did he have to come off as quite such a joyless, grey, drab corporate worm as he did? If he lasts long enough to have impressionists take note of him, his impression wouldn't be that different to John Major, just with a slightly different voice. And those large staring eyes... I swear there were several times when he forgot to blink for minutes. Bland, bland, bland. Even though he seemed to be agreeing with the prevailing opinion that the BBC was treated unfairly by Hutton he was talking like a Labour MP, refusing to answer the question and twisting and turning like a rather large worm on a hook. Hopefully he won't be there long. It would be nice if we use this occasion to get some non-white, non-male, non- public school faces in there. The first female DG perhaps? The first black DG? Anything other than the now apparently deleted breedar suggestion that Ali C get made DG...

I've been working my way through the London Bloggers over the last few weeks in the only way I knew how, yep, from A-Z. And I came across this bloke at Charing Cross. He describes his site as "A love letter from a domminant man to submissive women", yet it gets a bit more creepy when you go there, as this bloke seems to have mixed up 'submissive woman' and 'sex slave'. It contains such gems as Happyness does not come from owning things, or from beauty. It comes from being yourself. A caring domminant can help you escape from these ilusions and So far I have called you a woman. I would prefer to call you a Girl. Mmmm, does that make you horny baby?

Women are more sexual than men. Men are mostly non sexual but have a small part of there personalities entirely devoted to sex. Men will buy magazines on fishing, motorcycles, DIY or any other tehnical subject you can imagen. All of these magazines are entirely sex free zones. A man will then buy a magazine entirely devoted to sex.

Some submissives have a double load of guilt an confusion to carry. Many black submissives find themselves atracted to white owners, and this can be uncomfortable. The submissive may feel that she is betraying both her sex and her community.

Lovely. So, are you a submissive woman, or at the very least, are you someone that can help him with his spelling?

David Hasselhoff demands recognition for his part in the collapse of the Berlin Wall and therefore communism.

The wonderful Daily Mail headline generator!.

COULD GAYS CHEAT THE COUNTRYSIDE?

WILL POLITICAL CORRECTNESS ROB CLIFF RICHARD BLIND?

DOES CHERIE BLAIR IMPREGNATE THE QUEEN?

It's an arresting image...

Dyke comes out fighting. This is what we like to see. Now that he's no longer working for the BBC Greg Dyke is free to say exactly what he thinks. If you've got the bandwidth for it, it might also be worth trying to watch last night's Question Time, available until next Thursday. I haven't watched it yet but the first question is about Hutton, the Government minister on is Margaret Beckett so presumerably she was chosen as they didn't want to have any of their important ministers damaged by the scorn they knew would be heaped upon them.

I'm curious as to the decline of the use of 'please'. Now maybe it's just me, but first I noticed that people weren't saying 'please' as often as they were saying 'thank you' (or making soem grunt of appreciation before loping off into the distance), and then realised I was doing it too. I first noticed it amongst the body of foreign au pairs that come to our libraries every day to use the computers for one hour free a day. Our chief executive might complain about falling borrower numbers, if we could get these au pairs to take a book out each time they come to use a computer, even if they don't read it, then he'd have numbers that more accurately gauge how much we are being used, but I digress.

Most commonly these girls, central and northern European mostly, would present their cards and say something like "computer". Once assigned a terminal they would thank me. But then I realised that amongst people that would claim English as their first language it's much the same. I don't know if it's a lazy vocal thing, in the same way that you might slur 'government' as 'guvment', you don't bother with superfluous words. I did wonder whether we say 'please' when someone important has the metaphorical power of life and death over whatever endeavor it is that you are trying to pursue, there's no 'please' between perceived social equals. Or perhaps that in our rights obsessed culture people will only say please for things they do not think they have some automatic right to. Someone at work suggested that often tone of voice carries an 'implicit please' within it, if you ask someone you know to pass something over in a pleasant tone of voice you may not say please. Or maybe we just aint brung up proper no more. Please give me your views. Thank you.

Well Julie Burchill started her new column in The Times last Saturday and, oh blessed relief, it would seem they aren't archiving it on the website.

But we need something to cheers ourselves up after a couple of depressing days. So how about this article in The Guardian that suggests it was approximately thirty minutes after Lord Hutton started pardoning the Government that a member of Her Majesty's Government libelled two BBC journalists?

An excellent article on the Hutton Inquiry If it went to the West End they'd call it Whitewash. I was looking to The Times to be leading the grown-up people's charge against the BBC on behalf of Daddy Murdoch, but even they didn't seem to think the Government were as blameless as Hutton made them out to be.

Hello Andrew if you're reading. I hope you're not trying to hack my Barbelith account again. If you have a problem, apart from the obvious one, you know my email address, obviously, why not drop me a line and vent your spleen, or you could always apologise. I'm fairly easy going like that.

My current mood? Pissed off. Everyone in the world who disagrees with me is obviously a moron and should be shot between the eyes. Anyone who thinks Hutton's attack on the BBC was not partisan and not severely flawed is an idiot. But we take these things as read. Yesterday's snow has become today's ice, making it 4.354 times more difficult to get to work. However, once at work someone made me a cup of hot chocolate, which I enjoyed immensely. One of our borrowers who has had books overdue for about a year finally brought them in today (typical, he forgets about it for a year, then on the one day when he'd have an excuse for not bringing them in he turns up!). He's the uncle of the kid who got killed in Germany under mysterious circumstances by a far right group. Barring earth-shattering news it's apparently going to be covered in next Tuesday's Newsnight, worth a watch!

Freeserve's work on the email lines seems to be messing my email around and it's cold in my flat. And people still don't acknowledge that I'm obviously the best person to rule the world as tyrant. Some people you just cannot help...

Now Greg Dyke's quit as well. With the news that the Government has changed it's mind and the Hutton Report will give it the excuse it needs to make the sorts of changes to the BBC's charter that could cripple it's ability to report in a way that displeased the Government of the day, or they could just sell it lock, stock and barrel to Murdoch, it's an intensely worrying time for BBC supporters. There is some support lurking around for the BBC but whether it's enough to stop Tony Blair getting medieval on their collective 'ass' remains to be seen.

Some of the key points from Lord Hutton's career. It's a shame this didn't become public knowledge at the start of the Inquiry, then the concept of Hutton coming down on the Government side wouldn't have been such a shock. Last night's Newsnight had Ali C on, even though he no longer works for the Government he put forward what will probably be their point of view for the next few months, "Are you still here? Why haven't you apologised for ever doubting us about anything? Why haven't you quit in disgrace? Why hasn't the BBC shut down?" while other people believe that Lord Hutton seriously misjudged or misunderstood the role of journalism in a democracy.

BBC chairman Gavyn Davies has resigned in the wake of Lord Hutton's criticisms of the corporation's reports. He says that it's the role of the head of an organisation to take responsibility for it's actions and to resign when it goes wrong. It's a shame that the Government and especially Geoff Hoon don't take the same point of view.

Funny, as late as early afternoon I could have sworn the BBC weather were promising the snow wouldn't touch us here in the wilds of North London, yet a cubic fuckload of it has just dropped. It genuinely started at five minutes to five, i.e; five minutes to closing time. By the time we were making our ways to our cars in the car park at five minutes past five there was enough snow on the ground to take a footprint. One of my work colleagues graciously offered me a lift home but rush hour and snow meant it took longer than if I'd walked, so at about two-thirds of the way home I took my leave of them and walked the rest of the way. Fresh fallen snow is a joy, I don't think there's many people who don't like the crunch under foot or the feel of a snowball in the hand. Tomorrow, when the snow has a chance to thaw and then freeze as ice, that's the bit I don't like.

Aaah, anger my old friend, you'll never leave me. Lying scumfuck Tony Blair tries to turn victory in Hutton Inquiry into validation of UK's War in Iraq. Yes, despite the fact that Lord Hutton specifically says that he is not going to pass judgement on whether there are WMD in Iraq or whether the war was right, Tony Blair has decided that because the Inquiry said that Andrew Gilligan was wrong in reporting that David Kelly has said that Ali C made changes to the dodgy dossier to promote Tony Blair's unproven case for war, then therefore the war was valid.

Mr Blair said the "real lie" was the claim he had misled the country by falsifying intelligence on weapons of mass destruction or lied to MPs.

Without the kind of full inquiry that Tony Blair would not dream of sanctioning he will never be able to prove that he did not lie to the country and the Houses of Parliament. The only apology he is warranted is from the BBC for broadcasting Andrew Gilligan's report without checking, though perhaps he'd like to explain why if the accusations levelled at him by BBC correspondent Andrew Gilligan were extremely serious he did nothing about it until Gilligan accused Ali C of being responsible for it in a seperate article for the Mail on Sunday?

And consider the following statement from Lord Hutton's conclusions as to why he didn't find the Government guilty of anything:

Therefore, whether or not at some time in the future the report on which the 45 minutes claim was based is shown to be unreliable, the allegation reported by Mr Gilligan on 29 May 2003 that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes claim was wrong before the Government decided to put it in the dossier, was an allegation which was unfounded.

This was a clear example in the end of how Lord Hutton was refusing to use his Inquiry to judge the validity of going to war, just that, in the case of Andrew Gilligan's report, it was a claim made without proof.

If the BBC found out tomorrow from another source with slightly more evidence that the Government had lied or misled the people of this country I would hope that, after verifying it, they wouldn't hesitate to make that report to the country.

Damn, bugger, bloody, blast. That it would be bad for the BBC had been more or less expected for quite a while, that the Government and especially Hoon and Campbell would emerge without a stain on their character will be a result they couldn't dare dream of.

So, Ali C was justified in his response to Gilligan by engaging all the machinery to Government on his behalf? So the Number 10 press office working with the joint Intelligence Committee on the report the JIC made, based on intelligence from MI-6 was okay, despite the fact that Intelligence Services are supposed to be free from interference from political parties? What about the argument that a news agency has the right to report allegations made against a member of government if it's in the public interest?

This gives a green light to Government to put out information to the public that they know may not be true just so long as they don't know for certain that it's untrue. It means no-one in the Government is to be held responsible for the actions of anyone else. Most ridiculously it means that news agencies should not report accusations about people unless that person confirms the allegation themselves.

The only hope will be whether, once people have been able to read and digest the whole report, it transpires that Lord Hutton thought there was evidence on which to blame the Government but that it went beyond what he considered the limits of his investigation. He does take care to make it clear he's not judging the Government on whether the information they had was accurate or whether there were WMD in Iraq.

This is turning out to be a very disappointing week.

I'll probably need this later today: The Hutton Inquiry website.

At the moment I'm pinning my hopes on The Sun report being wrong, incomplete or a lie. I wasn't expecting Tony Blair to be found guilty of any wrongdoing in this, but for Lord Hutton to conclude that no-one in the Government was wrong of anything just seems beyond belief. I guess we'll find out in four hours time.

Never rely on a Labour backbencher when you've got a job that needs a backbone. It seems like they all wimped out at the last minute and caved in to Blair, causing a bad bill that became a worse bill under concessions that made the bill completely pointless to pass. Once again, Guy Fawkes was the only person to enter Parliament with honest intentions.

Was in central London yesterday so popped into The F. Word. It's a tiny little gallery, one room really, so took all of about twenty minutes to work my way around. What it is is a collection of photographs of people. Next to the portraits are a bit of text about the event in their lives about which they've either seeked for forgiveness or given it, then a bit in their own words. There's a wide range, Archbishop Desmond Tutu about the importance of forgiveness so that South Africa could move on after Apartheid, Brighton Bomber Pat McGee and the daughter of one of his victims, An Israeli and a Jew who are both members of a cross-border group for people who have lost family members, a couple of murderers, the parents of one of the Alder Hay children, Victoria Climbie's parents. Displayed on a plain white wall these testements are often shocking in their simplicity, and the oft repeated message is, the second victim of an act of violence is the person who surrenders to hate.

What was odd though, and made me email the people behind the exhibition to ask, is that one of the photos, in amongst the rest, apparently given no special position, is of the wife of murdered reporter Daniel Pearl. Marianne hasn't forgiven his murderers, quite the opposite. She wrote to the Pakistani government asking for the death penalty for his killers and when one of them asked to see her she refused. So quite what her portrait was doing in an exhibition on forgiveness I'm not sure. We'll have to see what they say.

UPDATE: (28/01) According to an email I received today, the above item was included because it's intended that the exhibition be about all apsects of forgiveness, including Not forgiving.

There's a report from last wednesday's Guardian on BBC plans to make all their TV programs available on-line much as they do at the moment with radio shows. I'm just hoping they don't use the broken piece of crap that masquerades as their radio media player. You can't rewind and can only fast forward in five minute jumps. Using RealPlayer for weather reports isn't much good when you can hardly make out what weather-presenter blob is pointing to on the map, is that a heavy fall of blobs on your home town, or is blobby pointing to somewhere a hundred miles away? And you need broadband to get this quality of picture as it is! Many miles to go before this technology is ready to be rolled out I think.

When we're less than twenty-four hours away from the release of a report which will criticise, directly or indirectly, handling of intelligence relating to WMD in Iraq the government probably doesn't need the single source for their claim that weapons could be deployed in forty-five minutes to admit he had absolutely no way of knowing if that was true. Guess what happened.

Weapons pass screening on flight to Denver International Airport. The scariest thing about this story is how the woman forgot she was carrying weapons about her person. Forget overpowering the Sky Marshalls, perhaps the next time terrorists want to take over a plane they can just tool up from any American passengers hand luggage...

Proving they still aren't coming up with reasonable policies for when they are in Government, Tories promise to cut one tax a year. Well, if it was income tax and the council tax they abolish I'd be interested. The question is, are the public stupid enough to fall for this rubbish? The whole notion that the Government are wasting so much money in red tape that the Tories could scrap it and release money necessary for health, transport, social services and all the things this country needs is just one huge lie. It's taken the Tories seven years to find a leader that can take on Tony Blair, is it going to take them another seven years to come up with policies that aren't a load of headline-grabbing shit?

Teacher 'insulted Muslim pupil'. To be fair to the teacher the actual physical assault part looks like a genuine accident, although I don't think she had any business trying to remove the hijab in the first place.

In an action rather reminiscent of the 'Cthulu for President- Why Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils?' mock-campaign from the good old days, Republicans for Voldemort!

Over at Boom Selection now under January 18th is the amazing 40 minute long 'raiding the 20th century', an audio tour of bootlegs, cut-ups and all kinds of other stuff that I would know about if I was in wiv the kool kidz. Kenny Everet vs. The Sugababes vs. Alvin Lucier vs. John Lennon vs. Madonna vs. some stuff from the Illegal Art CD vs. Intro Inspection vs. The KLF vs... tons of stuff. Check it out!

Just watched American Virgins about abstinence programs in the US. It mainly concentrated on The Silver Ring Thing, which is all about wearing a ring to remind yourself not to accidentally have sex with anyone so you can give your virginity to your husband, or wife, come wedding night. I don't have that much of a problem with abstinence programs, although I think the fact they invariably are connected to religion says more about the reality tunnel they're projecting through than whether sex is truly 'good' or 'bad'. Anyway, from what we saw SRT seemed a fairly benign version of the 'an angel dies every time there's sex outside marriage' shebang, they seem to concentrate on the more valid problems of sexually transmitted diseases (though from what we saw they harped on about this so much they sounded like they were performing hypochondriac porn) and personal choice and freedom (an interesting tack for a faith-based group).

It was only when they arranged for some experts to put up there side in a debate at a university campus that things got unpleasant, not their fault but that of their experts, browbeating their opponents and interupting, it did rather smack of getting nasty because their side of the argument doesn't really stand up. The funniest moment is when the SRT teens in one van hear the other van has been delayed due to mechanical problems and they decide to pray about it. They start off praying that God keeps the other van safe, but then the girl leading the prayer seems to get a bit carried away and asks God (who she keeps referring to as LorGod, as though he's Superman's Kryptonian cousin or something, "Kneel before Zod, son of Lor-God!") to give them super-strength and invulnerability to see them through.

The 50 lies, exaggerations, distortions and half truths that took this country to war.

Meanwhile, Blair is still insisting that there are actual WMD in Iraq rather than just programs. I don't know whether this is stupid pig-headedness or rather canny, by the time that an exhaustive search of Iraq could be completed Blair will be in the Margaret Thatcher Nursing Home for the Permanently Baffled Ex-Politician, if still capable of rational speech he can easily say "Well yes, but by the time the search was done the WMD had been long destroyed, but they were there when we invaded. Can I have a new bedpan please?" I don't think it's unfair to judge Blair and Bush NOW on the fact that to date neither weapons nor any kind of program more concrete than Iraqi generals saying "Wouldn't it be nice if we could somehow make or buy WMD?" have been discovered SO FAR because the clear implication of their speeches before we invaded was that we'd be tripping over the stuff once we invaded Baghdad. All this 'Well Iraq is a very big place' guff is precisely that, Iraq was supposed to have been heavily monitored by the intelligence agencies of at least two countries, I don't believe that we could not have, on day one after fighting had finished, have gone to where they were being hid if they existed at all. There is no need to be patient on this.

Melanie Phillips, who we could call Ann Coulter's British older sister if she admitted that she was Conservative rather than 'progressive', on Dr. Tonge's remarks. Now, when I read them, I understand Dr. Tonge's use of the pronoun 'I' to mean that her comments about how she could see herself becoming a suicide bomber if she lived in the desperate situation of your average Palestinian refer to her and her alone. Ms. Phillips reads it as 'if I were you, I'd stick a load of semtex down my pants and get on an Israeli bus right now'.

Hah! Am cheered up on this dull evening to discover The Sun is pissed off with Islamic Hatemonger Abu Hamza.

We don’t care what lies he peddles about The Sun — being insulted by a creep like him confirms we’re doing our job properly. But when he turns his bile on to our army of loyal, decent readers then he’s asking for trouble.

Of course, all that your average Sun writer needs is a hook and one of those Marilyn Manson fake eye things and it would be truly difficult to tell the difference between them and Hamza. But the idea of arranging a fight between the two does appeal. As Ian Hislop said about the Neil Hamilton versus Mohammed Fayed case, "You just wish that it was possible that somehow they both lose".

Cor blimey, I taste like Tea. I am a subtle flavour, quiet and polite, gentle, almost ambient. My presence in crowds will often go unnoticed. Best not to spill me on your clothes though, I can leave a nasty stain. What Flavour Are You?

Heh heh heh... [found at Visible Monsters.]

The Promised Land. [via Markreed.cjb.net]

Saddam's WMD never existed, says chief American arms inspector. Handpicked by Bush for the job, went in expecting to find WMD, you'd think it would be difficult for the Bush administration to positively spin this but you have to admire them for adapting quickly. Presumably to try and buy time and tread water until the elections they've had both Richard Perle and Dick Cheney giving interviews with the new line, namely that we should make no judgement until every cubic inch of Iraq has been searched, which would mean judging the Bush presidency until long after it had finished, whether he actually wins this election this time or not.

Tony Blair meanwhile seems to have decided to ignore the nuanced approach and is insisting the WMD are still there, waiting to be found. This stubborn ignoring of the facts possibly explains exactly WHY Ali C made the changes to the dodgy dossier, he either shared Blair's belief or believed in Blair so that he thought that there truly were WMD out there, the British Intelligence Services just lacked proof. After all, if the day after we had invaded Iraq we'd found big piles of anthrax, would there have been any complaint about the lack of accuracy in the dossier? An alternative is that if Gilligan did lie and put words in Dr. Kelly's mouth at their interview, then like the 'psychic' in From Hell he made it up, and it still came true anyway.

In news that probably won't surprise anyone, Lib Dem MP Dr Jenny Tonge was yesterday fired from the Lib Dem front brench after showing empathy with Palestinians. It would seem that you're not allowed to pay any more than lip-service to the plight of the Palestinians. It's curious, tabloids are allowed to print screeds about how we should go and bomb the crap out of countries far away, despite the fact that it will inevitably lead to civilian deaths. A member of the British Parliament is censured for saying she understands why such people who feel rather pissed off.

And yet again, there are quotes from people that read as though they were about completely different incidents:

"I can tell you one thing," added [Israel's ambassador Dr Zvi] Shtauber, "We must stand up against such remarks, which are an incitement against the state of Israel and against Jews."

"It recognises that her statement was irresponsible and gave the green light to terrorism," said Ms [MP Louise] Ellman.

I challenge either them or anyone else to explain exactly how her comments are an incitement to anything other than understanding of the desperate situation of the Palestinians.

Crunchy Christs! Perdido Street Station- The Movie?! If this is in any way true and not some wind up it's great, some excellent casting (Lawrence Fishburne), some incredibly bad casting (Jennifer Aniston? Well, at least she's a bug from the torso up) and some worrying casting (Bruce Willis as the Remade Commander? I'm not even sure that character exists in the novel).

For the next week or so I shall be reading The Koran, part of a trilogy of books by Mr. God, though some doubt it's providence due to it's making it's way to us through at least two dictations. Still, he's hopefully learned from and improved on the mistakes he made in his earlier work, The Bible, which I found to be even longer and duller than Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. And though I tend not to get too carried away with the design of books I really do like the Penguin Classics design and the typefaces they use for the text.

Wow, lookit! A strangely beautiful and geographically accurate version of the London Underground map... [via geofftech.]

Sudden Thought: So Christians claim that sex for any other purpose than a man and woman in wedlock having a baby is wrong. But, horny teenagers and abstinence. Christians aren't stupid. Well, there's a certain cunning involved anyway. Abstinence tends not to work more often than it works, so the guilt that the mother gets during the pregnancy for having succumbed to her natural instincts encourages her to push her children towards Christianity after they're born. When Christians promote abstinence, they're not doing it to lower the birthrate or because God frowns on the getting off of rocks. Abstinence isn't what pleases God, it's the Christian way to ensure there're more Christians in the world!

And the Stating the Bleeding Obvious Award goes to...

Lib Dem makes comment about how she empathises with what makes someone become a suicide bomber, Israel supporters in Labour go mental. Let's make no mistake, this is not another Kilroy. A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats says "The Liberal Democrats do not condone terrorism in any circumstances whether by suicide bombers or anybody else" but the MP in question was not suggesting that it was great, rather that she just felt she understood the desperation that drove Palestinian suicide bombers and "I think if I had to live in that situation, and I say this advisedly, I might just consider becoming one myself. And that is a terrible thing to say".

But Labour, who had to contend with similar smears in the 80s with regard to the IRA, are seeing the possibility to try and distract the media from spending the rest of the time between now and next Friday ruminating over the Hutton report and the Student Fees vote. So:

James Purnell, chairman of the Labour Friends of Israel, said: "Having sat down with people who have lost children, mothers and fathers to suicide bombers and to military action in the West Bank I am really appalled by what Jenny Tonge has said. "There is real suffering on the Israeli side and on the Palestinian side. British parliamentarians should be helping to find a way out of the conflict."

Unless the Guardian is neglecting to report that the Lib Dem MP prefaced her remarks by shouting Pro-Palestinian slogans I don't see where Mr. Purnell is coming from. He is saying there is 'real suffering' on the Palestinian side. So is Doctor Tonge. So unless he thinks the only way out of the conflict is for Israel to kill every Palestinian in their way he should be supporting what she said.

(Interestingly, the Labour Friends of Israel website hasn't been updated since 1999. It also describes itself as a lobby group for the State of Israel in the Labour Party, just in case you hadn't guessed from Mr. Purnell's lip-service to Palestinian suffering. Indeed, there is some question over how even-handed members of the LFI really are.)

And what report would be complete without the point of view of the Israeli government itself?

A spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy said such remarks would inflame the conflict by encouraging militants to become suicide bombers. "We were shocked to hear these remarks which were extremely disgraceful. We would not expect any human being - and surely not a British MP - to express an understanding of such atrocities. Her words show something about her moral standards."

Aah, it's always fun when either side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict talk about 'moral standards'. I suppose I could be generous and assume that the spokesperson was basing her comments on either an incomplete or wrong report of the MPs comments, as it doesn't actually seem to have much relevence to the reported situation.

Notably Labour seem to have stopped short of demanding she resign, possibly because if they did so they'd have to insist Tony Blair divorce Cherie for similar comments she made a while back.

Penguin Baseball.

Just in case you were one of the four people left on the Interwebnet not to have heard about it, you should go download Alan Moore and the Sinister Ducks right now. [via everyone everywhere]

Andrew Gilligan is furious about last night's Panorama special and probably understandably so, as it did suggest that his carelessness was what started the whole ball rolling in the first place. But there was little new to anyone that had followed the trial, even the unscreened interview with Doctor Kelly wasn't that exciting. Gilligan started the ball rolling but Ali C was guilty as hell for mobilising the Government to effectively fight to clear HIS name, following the Mail on Sunday article where Gilligan said Kelly named Campbell as the reason for the changes. This was Campbell's own vendetta against Gilligan, including the BBC due to previous skirmishes. He went far beyond any conception of what his role was supposed to be and the fact that he was never rebuked for this was shameful. I don't think there's much for Tony Blair to personally worry about, I think he'll wriggle free on this one, but combined with the row over soldiers dying because they weren't properly equipped I don't think Geoff Hoon should start reading any particularly long government reports right now.

How delightful. Someone's just thrown a half-brick sized rock through the window of the children's library. Luckily none of the class of pre-schoolers in the library at the time were hurt. In fact everyone was so calm about it that when one of the other members of staff told me it had happened I assumed he was joking. Anyway, the kids were all cool about it and have no been taken over the road to see the fire station instead. Likely culprits are the two teenage boys we kicked out of the library yesterday for causing a nuisance, hopefully this is the limit of their spite.

So apparently The Bloggies are the important awards thing for Bloggers and Tom Coates has been nominated for several categories and an article he wrote. I must admit that all this stuff interests me not a whit so I leave them to get on with it, what irritates me slightly is one of the awards he's up for, and it's not his fault but more The Bloggies and society in general. Tom's up for the best GLBT blog. Yes, like so many other things out there which at least admit that there are alternatives going out there, they conflate sex and gender, sexuality and presentation. Is it any wonder if members of the trans-community keep getting asked if they're gay, or lesbian couples get asked "which one of you is the man?" when these things gets lumped in together? As far as I know Tom hasn't touched on L,B or T issues in his blog in the last year, does that mean he shouldn't win the award? I'm dubious enough about what entries for a 'Transsexual' blog would look like, but would it really kill them to have at the very least two categories for the Gays and Lesbians, at least then so we can start moaning about non-representation of people who don't feel comfortable identifying in either. Looking at the Bloggies site it looks like they're striving for non-genderspecificness wherever possible, but how do you compare the queerness of Gayboy and DykeGirl? And what about Transgendero, are they at a disadvantage if they are attracted to Members of the Opposite Sex to the One They Present As?

Aah sod it, I'm going to go have a bath...

Are the BBC trying to tell me something?

Whilst the authorities in France are trying to stop Muslim women from wearing headscarves, the authorities in Saudi Arabia are angry when they take them off.

As we're in to the final week before the Hutton report the BBC have decided to clear their evening schedule for a Panorama special to remind us of what happened where in the fight between the BBC and the Government. News to me however is that the previous October Dr David Kelly gave an interview to Panorama that was never broadcast, in which he made most of the objections he had to what the Government said, with it seems the one exception that he didn't blame Campbell by name. Of course, we will have to watch tonight to see if this gets mentioned, I don't remember seing any of this in the excitement over Kelly getting named as Gilligan's source for his Today report or in the furore following kelly's death or the Hutton Inquiry. But if it's true then it would seem to be yet another example of how the entire 'battle' between the BBC and the Government was at the personal instigation of Ali C, now departed Government Communications Head, because Gilligan named him personally as being responsible for inserting claims into the infamous dodgy dossier. If true it is him that has Kelly's blood on his hands and if true it's shameful he'll never be brought to book for Kelly's death.