Blah Blah Flowers

I'm interested in this report from the New York Times that Conservative parents in Houston don't want President Obama to give a speech at their children's school, not so much for that , I tend to think these kind of nuts have always existed and that, possibly goosed by Karl Rove during the Shrubya years, mainstream media will quite happily give vastly disproportionate mention to Conservative craziness to fill column space (have the Birthers gone away yet?). But what caught my eye was this:

"The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child," said Brett Curtiss, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home.

"I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement."

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this fear of infection a purely right-wing thing? Left-wingers will barrack or ignore or walk out on someone they disagree with, I can see opponents of Shrubya pulling their kids because they don't want them used in a poster moment for the war, or because they don't believe Shrubya won the election in 2000 or so on, but I don't think we've ever heard them say "Little Britney went to hear George W. Bush and now she believes that God is telling her to invade next door to liberate their puppy and toys".

So is this exactly the same impulse which one's political culture educates them to react in a specific way? I'm not saying that everyone who is a Conservative reacts like this and all left-wingers behave the opposite, I'm talking about what might just be small groups on either side and I'm probably trying to speak of groups too small to really statistically matter.

Labels: Barack Obama, Conservatives, George 'Shrubya' Bush, lefties, United States

Hilarious.



They've also knocked up a website too, where they continue to play the game to the hilt.

Labels: Conservatives, humour, music, politics, United States, YouTube

I don't know if, like me, you were disappointed when the giant Flupocalypse of 2003 didn't wipe out all the life on the planet that had worked out how to get the fire out of the rocks. We weren't prepared, we didn't have enough vaccines, Osama Bin Laden was working out how to teach ducks with a cough to hijack planes, and yet, we survived, we go on, and we wonder whether Joss Whedon will ever make another TV show that goes beyond a series. But don't worry, just because Avian Bird Flu didn't get us, those dirty birds have teamed up with pigs and, it would seem, Mexicans? to give us a new killer virus to worry about. This does lead to the interesting question: Has Michelle Malkin already reached the maximum that she can hate Mexicans or will this enable her to take her racism to new heights? We'll wait and see.

The comments on this article are typical of the great minds of the world vomiting forth into the electro-ether.

I strongly feel that children and elderly people will be at risk from this killer flu the most.

Harpreet, Stafford.

Everyone seems to have decided to ignore the second page of the article, where it says:

Avian flu, which has killed 250 people since 2003

Look at that. The media went batshit-mental back then, convincing us we were all going to die and, like the MMR vaccine scare, it turned out not to be the case. Two hundred and fifty people? That's nothing. Somali pirates have killed more than that, and they bankrupt themselves in millet seed for their parrots. So I see no reason for keeping on keeping on and not worry that we're going to all be killed until, perhaps, people start falling ill?

These medical sounding scares based on absolutely no evidence are one of the many reasons why I don't bother to pay for news any more.

Meanwhile Tory MP Nadine Dorries sues someone over something. Nadine Dorries is a fairly obscure MP only well known to followers of the Westminster soap opera that is the House of Commons for her Sarah Palin-like ability to seize and repeat the stupid in any subject that gets her interest. She's normally pretty quiet between bouts of conservative Christian sponsored attempts to get the date by which a woman can have an abortion put back to eight months before her own birth. I'm not sure if she can successfully sue someone over suggesting to someone else that they spread a rumour she had an affair if they don't do it, even if the only reason they didn't might be because they were revealed to be thinking about it, but her primary reason for this bout of legal action is presumably to keep it in the news as long as possible in the lead up to the next general election. Of course, one doesn't need to tell lies in order to recognise them...

The Sindy has more positive news, namely that the BNP is as equally messed up a party as the proper political groups full of burned-out members who are just bitter and more likely to fight with one another than the vast majority of people who they think shouldn't be in the country. Less comforting is the comments, in which it seems that a cadre of BNP supporters have taken up residence, you might need the Independent Livejournal thread if you want to see them though, they have a tendency to keep vanishing from the 'proper' website.

Labels: abortion, BNP, Conservatives, Fundamentalists- Christian, media, media scares, newspapers, science

Those Muslims eh? They come over here, live perfectly quiet and respectable lives, get jobs, raise families, WHAT ARE THEY UP TO EH? The Daily Mail, in an exercise to allow people who have left this country to complain how bad things are (ie: "I saw a person with dark skin sit down on the bus! This is political correctness gone mad! I'm moving to Spain!!!") regularly prints fictional articles, and today it's about how libraries are supposedly going to be told to put the Koran on their top shelves to avoid offending Muslims. Only, if you note that this guidance is coming from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and do the literally seconds of work needed to find the report (PDF file) you'll find that Steve Doughty, the Daily Mail journalist, has lied. The MLA are not telling me, or any of my colleagues, to put the Koran above other things, they are reporting on Leicester City Libraries receiving a few complaints about the Koran not being on the top shelf. It wasn't even a campaign by a group of disgruntled Muslims, the Library Service went out and talked to such a group for their opinion. The report doesn't even mention whether Leicester followed the group's advice.

I suppose that what gets my goat is that when left-leaning journalists (or at least journalists that are defined as left-wing purely because they are not as right-wing as neo-cons and other Far-Right theocons) make a mistake they are rightly pilloried and often hounded out of their jobs, however, when those right-wing ideologues make similar mistakes (and let's face it, they assume their audience is so lazy that it won't take a minute to examine their logical fallacies or evidence) they have normally put their lies and misinformation within such a secure web of protective censorship that they can't be challenged. And they claim the largely non-existent 'left-wing media' doesn't allow for criticism!

Labels: Conservatives, Daily Mail, Islam, Islamophobia, journalists, Koran, libraries, Museums Libraries and Archives Council, Muslims, religion

Lord Sandy Bruce-Lockhart has died at the age of 66. We'll have to see whether any of the obits mention that under his leadership Kent County Council brought in their own version of Clause 28 when it was abolished nationally.

Labels: Conservatives, homophobia, Kent

The recent spate of knife murders obviously demands a response from the government that is wise and thoughtful, but while we wait for that let's go for the knee-jerk headline-grabber that will be championed by the press despite being unworkable. If people think their kids shouldn't be out after dark then it's their responsibility to make sure their kids aren't out after dark, not the police and governments.

It's not often I use the name 'Nick Cohen' and 'intelligent well thought out piece' in the same sentence but here's an intelligent well thought out piece from Nick Cohen about how as the Tory Party seem to be marking time until the next election and David Cameron's apotheosis a blind eye is being turned to their faults in much the same way as with New Labour before 1997.

Labels: Conservatives, crime, Government, Labour

It's pretty impressive to have an MP with which I agree totally on one particular subject act like such an enormous arse about it. David Davis, despite being a Tory who thinks we should bring back capital punishment, is normally surprisingly accurate in his criticisms of the Government's bizarre desire to take away our freedoms in order to keep them somewhere safe while assuring us that the restrictions they are replaced with are twice as slimming and comes in a variety of colours.

But why exactly did he feel the need to go off the reservation big time and go for the vanity shot? Resigning as an MP in order to force a by-election in his constituency, then standing for the seat, then claiming it's a referendum on the Government's security laws is ridiculous. His constituency, Haltemprice and Howden, has been a safe Tory seat for at least thirty years, possibly longer. If the seat couldn't be taken in 1997, when there were major fungal infections more popular than Conservative politicians, then what chance would Labour have when they are trailing the Tories in national polls? A by-election is not a referendum, in a referendum I get to express my opinion whereas in this by-election I don't, so claiming that it matters to anything outside of Davis' ego is just foolish.

However, the fact that Labour didn't announce within the first day that they weren't going to submit themselves to a completely unnecessary kicking which puffs up Davis AS WELL AS the predictable abuse they will get from the press makes me wonder whether they have become completely detached from reality. Are they really thinking "Hmmm, maybe we could win in a distorted by-election in a safe Tory seat to the incumbent"?

Labels: civil liberties, Conservatives, Government, Labour

The vast failure and capitulation to terrorists that is the UK ID Card scam rumbles on. The Government continues to be deaf to evidence that this whole enterprise is a waste of time and money and is this the excuse the Tories will use to continue the ID Card scheme after campaigning on it's abolition. It's only right to be sceptical, Boris Johnson started reversing on his few clear campaign pledges barely after finishing being sworn in. Tony Blair might have been a Tory masquerading as a Labour politician but David Cameron isn't even that, more a mirror to whatever strong opinions surround him at each moment.

Labels: Conservatives, David Cameron, ID cards, identity theft, Labour

Or, more specifically, some of the things he says in this column resonate exactly with me about the return of Conservatism.

You're a passenger in a car that someone else is driving, and your hands are tied, and up ahead is a container lorry full of hot liquid manure that you're definitely going to run into the back of, but your driver's deaf and blind and not slowing down, so there's nothing you can do except writhe in your seat and brace yourself for the impact. That's roughly how I feel following the Crewe and Nantwich byelection. Thanks to a 900% swing to the right (or thereabouts), a Cameron-fronted Tory government now looks like not just an alarming possibility, but an awful, grinding, inescapable certainty - yet another preordained slice of doomsday, like climate change or the War Against the Machines. The countdown has already begun...

I know in my bones that rightwing policies are wrong. Obviously wrong. They just are. It's Selfishism, pure and simple. Nasty stuff. Consequently I don't "get" Tories, never have and never will. We don't gel. There's something missing in their eyes and voices; they're the same yet different; bodysnatchers running on alien software. Yet that's precisely how I must seem to them: an inherently misguided and ultimately unknowable idiot.

Labels: Conservatives

Labour want to control you, The Tories would like to control women's bodies. A plague on both your houses.

Labels: abortion, Conservatives, ID cards, Labour

Is Team Blonde Buffoon dialling back expectations on the return of the Routemaster?

The Mayor's plans for a new generation Routemaster may not happen, his new transport boss admitted today. Kulveer Ranger, Boris Johnson's director of transport policy, said that a design competition would be launched - but if no bid was good enough they would look again at the pledge.

This will be good news, the last thing we need is the huge unnecessary expense of replacing a fleet of perfectly adequate buses with much less accessible designs in the name of conservative (rather than Conservative) nostalgia. However, seeing as he insisted on making such a big point of this policy during this campaign that we can have some justifiable giggles that New Conservatism has overtaken New Labour for breaking campaign promises once in power.

Though hopefully it's impossible to mistake me for a supporter of the Blair/Brown party I have been feeling lately how I assume Tories felt in those last few months before May the 1st 1997. Baring some massive disaster that gives him the chance to look commanding and reassuring Gordon Brown now looks like a dead Prime Minister walking, certainly all the friends of Blair lining up to put the boot in aren't helping.

I'm of the generation that grew up knowing no different than a Conservative government and the likelihood of that returning strikes more cold dread into my heart than the liberty-cancelling, ID Card supporting Labour party. At the moment David Cameron doesn't quite have that air of Blair in 1996 of just waiting to assume the Premiership that everyone knew would soon be his but it can't be much longer in coming. The tragedy for the country is that Boris becoming mayor proves that no-one who voted for him were concerned with his policies, I've yet to speak to or here from anyone that voted for what he said he would do, they either voted Ken out or because they thought the mayorship could be run by a part-time gameshow host. The lesson Cameron is free to draw for this is that he doesn't need to make pretences of creeping leftwards, he's likely to be voted in if the Conservative party manifesto was 'compulsory euthanasia of all Conservative party members and Daily Mail readers' and the prospect of Oliver Letwin getting gay with Michael Gove televised nightly. It'll also mean that they'll have a manifesto promise to scrap ID Cards then keep them when they get in, much as the Labour Party felt that a Freedom of Information act was a necessity right up until the point they had the power to bring it in.

Some of my friends hope that Prime Minister 'Dave' will inspire a fresh wave of activism, such as those against Clause 28. I'm less hopeful, though I take comfort in the fact it'll better to have my face ground into the dirt by the boot of a Conservative that calls themselves a Conservative rather than a Tory that calls themself Labour.

Labels: Boris 'Buffoon' Johnson, Conservatives, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Labour, London, London Mayor

[via Stop Boris]

Labels: Boris 'Buffoon' Johnson, Conservatives, London, London Mayor, Red Ken Livingstone, YouTube

John Major accuses Labour of 'sleaze'.

Sir John said Tony Blair should apologise for what he had said about the Conservatives in the 1990s, and that he had behaved in an "unscrupulous" way.

Hmmm, the 1990s you say? What, you mean when Tories were the sleaze merchants?

Labels: Conservatives, Labour, sleaze, United Kingdom

Satire is dead. Bill O'Reilly, broadcast on FOX, says:

Now for the top story tonight, for the first time ever, a political party may have a network news organization in its pocket!

But wait, he's not decided to come clean about the links between the channel he works for and the GOP, no! He's claiming NBC is a tool of the Democrats.

O'REILLY: You've got now a network who's thrown down the gauntlet, is going to support the Democrats in subtle ways sometimes, in overt ways in other times. Is that a big advantage?

GAVIN: Well, you know, if that's their strategy, I don't think it's a successful one. I mean, people...

O'REILLY: No, no, but is it an advantage for the Democratic party? I don't care about NBC. Is it an advantage for the Democratic party? Is it?

GAVIN: Yes and no. I mean, on the one hand, sure. If you know, if the notion about NBC is friendlier for Democrats, great. But are they just going to reach people who already agree with them? Are they not going to reach across the aisle to people maybe who won't tune in because they might...

O'REILLY: No, it's an interesting point. But remember, it's a big cannon. I mean, it's a big, big organization.

I don't think we've seen cheek that big since Brontosaurii bestrode the world.

Labels: Conservatives, Fox, media, United States

My Right-Wing Dad. At last , somewhere to send all those awful emails from deranged conservatives (waves at Patrick with a big grin) about how not wanting to kill all Arabs is un-patriotic.

Labels: blogs, Conservatives, stupidity, United States

Obviously I'm no friend of the Labour Party but some of the headlines over Gordon Brown's decision not to call an unnecessary General Election now seem rather harsh. We can ignore News International, who's policy of claiming that every full stop of government policy is dictated by a NotW poll rather than what Murdoch wants to do today went past ridiculous some time ago and is now over the cliff with the legs still moving, Wil. E. Coyote style. Even the Sindy is going for the jugular, with numerous cartoons of Gordo spilling or not drinking from the bottle marked Courage. But all the news organisations seem to be engaged in a pretense that it was the Government, not they, that were driving the story of whether there was going to be a snap election.

I expect that in a day or two, once the election non-story has died down, there will be a return to the 'Is Ming too old to be a political leader?' story, because Cameron has done enough to put down some of the stories about his leadership for a while (until anyone else in the party says anything else about Tory policy and exposes that they are secretely glad not to fight an election when they don't have a clue what to stand on). I don't know who can take the blame for this, but it does seem that in the last few years, there's been at least one main political story rumbling on and on at any one time, Charlie Kennedy and the whisky bottle, Why have the Lib Dems chosen Ming Campbell, Cameron takes over the Tories, the Cameron bounce, When will Tony Blair leave, why did he announce a date so far in advance, counting down Blair's last three months/two months/six weeks/one week/one day/one hour in office, wasn't Tony Blair a great PM? The Brown bounce, the Cameron stumble, the unnecesary election...

Labels: Conservatives, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Labour, politics

Conservative peer claims the BNP have 'some very legitimate views' on immigration. This is Sayeeda Warsi, who has cropped up here before, so is obviously keen that the new Conservative party should be comprised of homophobes AND racists, just like the old one.

Labels: BNP, British National Party, Conservatives, immigration

Its time to point out just how much evil, death and human destruction the left - including the British left - have been responsible for.

Bravo Man in a Shed!

Labels: Conservatives, humour, politics

So David Cameron was on Newsnight last night. He didn't do too badly, it was sad that on the immigration issue not one of the four interviewers questioned his claim that immigration had been 'too high', but then Newsnight regularly does episodes which claim more or less the same thing, so I suppose that's not surprising. I did like the fact that he allowed himself to be cornered by his use of New Labour and Old Tory rhetoric on families; non-traditional families were fine, but families consisting of one man and one woman were best for children, which is not to say they were any better than families which did not conform to that model, most liberal in his attempts not to cause offense... He didn't think the Tory proposal to give married hetero parents £20 more in their weekly benefits to help them bring up kids would encourage loads of partners to get married, and I think he dodged out of answering why, if the Tories thought two hetero parent families were better why they were proposing giving them money rather than single parent families.

But he desperately needs lessons in appearing less like Tony Blair. That's his biggest drawback at the moment. Well, that or the fact his policies are rubbish.

Man in a Shed is not happy though and is drawing circles on video captures to try and prove a dastardly plan by the BBC to turn David Cameron purple. Maybe they should have slipped him some of this stuff before the show?

Labels: BBC, Conservatives, David Cameron, Newsnight

David Cameron in big time freakout. We're a few months into the Gordon Brown premiership and not only has the country not ground to a halt but he's also managed to come out of crises looking pretty good. Which probably explains why Cameron has decided that the new Tory policy is to ditch all the Green, Youtube, Blairite stuff and headback to old school Tory values, you know, the things that helped them to those three General Election defeats. So John Redwood is let out of the cupboard under the stairs where they keep the crazy unpopular members of the party and now we have more of that stuff that always feels like it should be prefaced with the words "I'm not a racist but..."

The whistling sound you can hear is from Gordon Brown's advisors as they exhale in relief, realising that David Cameron has handed them the next election, whenever Brown decides to call it. The grinding noise is Tony Blair's teeth when he realises that his old enemy is going to win a general election, based on his own negligable popularity and not dragged down by the memory of Blair, whom he followed into every unpopular policy. At least David can stop riding that bicycle to work now, his 'green' credentials aren't going to whitewash the brown slurry coming from Tory Central Office (do you see what I did there?).

Related: How did David Cameron lose his nerve and his bearings in just one month? Martin Bright looks at the disarray that has engulfed the Conservatives since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister.

Labels: Conservatives, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Labour, politics, Tony Blair