Watch Paxman eviscerate Galloway over his gloating about the fact that people are dying in Iraq. Can’t wait to see what they have to say about Galloway on Harry’s blog.

Paxman: Do you never feel any unease about making political capital out of this (deaths of servicemen)

George Galloway: No…

My first contribution to Homespun Bloggers radio is up at their headquarters.

On Thursday of this week I am doing a chat over at the Carnival of Wicked Writers. Needless to say we will be chatting about my Cthulhu writings as well as the Gathering Dark & other tales. I will be appearing at 7pm est. Direct Link to chat.

The Symphony is up over at Gary’s place for the week. The Bonfire is up as well, while over at Ken Sain’s they have the Carnival. Storyblogging is up as well.

Friend and reader of this blog Jeff has a new blog. Some good content therein.

Norm has posted his latest music poll; this one about rock songs.

CMU reports that two Muslim rappars have been convicted in Holland for threating the life of an MP. Alas, their punishment is a bit lax.

...The rappers are members of an amateur Moroccan rap group called DHC, short for The Hague Connection. Their rap, which has been circulating on the internet, hit out at Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a critic of Islamic fundamentalism and collaborator of film director Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered last Nov for his criticism of Islamic groups.

The rap in question made “serious threats” against Hirsi Ali. The two rappers argued they were merely exercising their freedom of expression by writing the rap, adding that it had been a private recording that had found its way onto the internet without their permission.

But the courts disagreed with that defense, with the judge hearing the case telling the defendants: “The charges were aggravated by the fact that the suspects threatened [Hirsi Ali] over her political viewpoints, because this is a serious breach of the democratic rule of law.”

The two rappers received a suspended sentence and were ordered to undertake 150 hours of community service.

No jail and 150 hours of C.S.? How pathetic, doesn’t really send a strong message now does it?

Here’s what I did on the weekend:

Unplug, unplug, unplug, unplug, unplug, unplug, unplug, unplug.
Lift, strain, wrestle, wrestle.
Unplug.
Unscrew, unscrew, unscrew, unscrew, unscrew, unscrew, unscrew.
Unclip, unclip, unclip, unclip, wrestle, wrestle, swear, wrestle, Boing!
Unscrew, unscrew, unscrew, unscrew.
Tug, wrestle, skin knuckles, swear, get pliers, tug, tug, Pop!
Install, uninstall, install right way around.
Plug, plug, plug, plug, plug.
Clip, clip, clip, clip.
Screw, screw, screw, screw.
Wrestle, wrestle, push, swear, bang into place with fist.
Screw, screw, screw, screw, screw, screw, screw.
Lift, strain, wrestle, wrestle.
Plug, plug, plug, plug, plug, plug, plug, plug.
Boot.
KEYBOARD NOT FOUND
Swear.
Plug.
Boot.
DEVICE NOT FOUND
Swear.

Wait a minute. Did I forget to hook up the power supply again?

Repeat above, but with more swearing.

the blog québécois

I spent this weekend in West Wales with friend of G.o.D. and contributor to this site, Wolfie. As you would expect we spent the evenings in various hostelries in the local town. Here are some of the odd sights in the various places we ended up.

Oddities started with a hen party where they were all dressed up as indians, replete with bows & arrows.

The more warped of you might enjoy the cover. And no, there are no fish fetishists involved.

A few days ago I went to a restaurant, with Rob, Jon P, and another friend, called Wagamama. On the way out I noticed the t-shirts with their logo on it.

Or am I hanging out with too many black metallists?

Guess what; they have gone off without (much of) a hitch. Iraqis are enthusiastically voting, despite the fact that terrorists are trying to kill them. For more accurate info you can go to Friends of Democracy and for a laugh you can read this rubbish.

I keep a long list of links for emergency use, i.e., when I absolutely cannot think of anything to write.

Even those choices are looking especially lame tonight, but there you have it.

Now that I’ve fired up your hopes, here’s a fun game!

And here’s another!

the blog québécois

The band’s demo has been reviewed on Get Ready to Rock, and the words were rather kind. As I am off to wilds of Wales this weekend, Rob & John are going to do another muso “bonding” session. Other things are budding under in the run-up to our weekend in the studio in April.

It may be a sign of the times that some of the funniest movie moments over the past 12 months have not involved real actors but puppets and computer-generated characters. Think of The Incredibles and Shrek2, or further back, Finding Nemo. The makers of South Park have in my view topped the lot with their string-puppet tour de force Team America, World Police, which is a two-hour assault on decency, family values, sober patriotism, and the lefty Hollywood acting fraternity. In short, it is an utterly brilliant film. I cannot recall laughing so much over a film in recent years.

The premise is fairly basic. Team America is an assortment of super heroes and heroines who are as gung-ho as we are expected to imagine the real-life ones to be. They make all kinds of fantastic cockups in their chasing down of terrorists, such as blowing the Louvre art gallery in Paris to smithereens (fuck yeah!) But you sense that their intentions are honourable. They may be – horrors! – a bit lacking in nuance, but by God you are glad that such folk exist.

Then there are the various villains, such as President Kim, the evil North Korean dictator, the various assortment of Islamic terror groups, aided and abetted by a motly assortment of self-important acting boobs like Tim Robbins, the wretched Matt Damon, and Susan Sarandon, and of course wretched UN weapons inspector Hans “Brix”. They get their comeuppance in the end in satisfyingly brutal fashion.

I am not sure whether this piece of satire will have much effect on the views of the largely youthful audience I sat among the other night. Probably not. But I think the subliminal message of the film is quite effective. It tells us basically that America often makes errors with bad intelligence, but the threats of terror are real; that the nation has its heart in the right place and is willing to expend blood and treasure in defence of liberty around the world, while the bad guys are indeed as bad, and as mad, as portrayed.

Fuck yeah!

so we had a plan
in a big blue can
the government substitute for meat

save ferris

You’ve heard of slam poetry? How about spam poetry?

Und now, giff it hup for the spam-inspired stylinks of . . . Alllllbert SpAMMMMmus! Spamus!

better, it dissolves in you
mouth which will go

directly to you
blood stream
15 minutes or less

to feel
the hardness going on.

the blog québécois

Note: Anyone may use this essay by quoting and/ or reproducing in part or in whole.

JA Norland:

Remembering the Wannsee Conference and the Liberation of Auschwitz

[Extended Version, 2005_01_06]

Being the worst of the death camps, Auschwitz may be viewed as the symbol for the Holocaust, and the liberation of Auschwitz, which we are commemorating today (January 27, 2005), may be viewed as the symbol of defeating evil at its worst.

In remembering Auschwitz, we should try to learn the lessons it teaches us concerning current trends and events, and to do so we should focus on the basic questions: How could it have happened and can it happen again?

A thorough analysis of how could it have happened? is given in Goldhagens book, Hitlers Willing Executioners (see reference to this book, as well as to other works mentioned below, at articles end). The essential point underscored by the author is that as a result of consistent, unrelenting anti-Jewish propaganda, the elimination of the Jews from German society was accepted as axiomatic, leaving open only two questions: when and how:

The German discourse in some sense had as its foundation the extremely widespread, virtually axiomatic notion that a ‘Judenfrage,’ a “Jewish Problem,” existed. The term ‘Judenfrage’ presupposed and inhered within it a set of interrelated notions… Because of the Jews’ presence, a serious problem existed in Germany. Responsibility for the problem lay with the Jews, not the Germans. As a consequence of these “facts,” some fundamental change in the nature of Jews or in their position in Germany was necessary and urgent. Everyone who accepted the existence of a “Jewish Problem” – even those who were not passionately hostile to the Jews – subscribed to these notions

This axiomatic belief in the existence of the “Jewish Problem,” more or less promised an axiomatic belief in the need to “eliminate” Jewishness from Germany as the “problem’s” only “solution”

The toll of these decades of verbal, literary, institutionally organized, and political antisemitism was wearing down even those who, true to Enlightenment principles, had resisted the demonization of the Jews. The eliminationist mind-set was so prevalent that the inveterate antisemite and founder of the Pan-German League, Friedrich Lange, could with verity declaim the universal belief in the “Jewish Problem,” rightly pointing out that the means to the “solution,” and not the existence of the “problem” itself, was the only remaining subject of doubt and disagreement. [Goldhagen, pp.80-81; for a longer quotation, see http://www.israpundit.com/archives/2004/11/its_the_discour.php].

This analysis is reflected in Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf [see reference at articles end]. Talking about his childhood, Hitler says,

Not until my fourteenth or fifteenth year [i.e., 1903-1904 ed.] did I begin to come across the word ‘Jew,’ with any frequency, partly in connection with political discussions. This filled me with a mild distaste, and I could not rid myself of an unpleasant feeling that always came over me whenever religious quarrels occurred in my presence

Then I came to Vienna

I can see why VW is annoyed about this satirical advert, but damn, it’s funny.

And while we are on the subject of questionable taste…there is always this.

I am glad that in my 4 years at Manchester I didnt’t have the misfortune to trip over this piece of detritus. If you have a weak constitution, I don’t recommend reading the article. (Although by the end it is curiously fascinating to watch him spiral out of control, climaxing in a frenzy of vapid intellectual masturbation.)

It is almost bewildering where to begin. In his so-called post-modernist search for objective truth, he seems to have jettisoned any notion of reason and common sense.

The fairly basic problem is that for suicide bombers, their own death as a statement of helplessness, etc., is not the primary focus. If it was, then might I suggest such methods like hunger strike or dousing oneself in petrol – methods which do not harm anyone else. In fact, by wrapping explosives around themselves, along with other such delicacies as rusty nails and rat poison, the primary motive of the suicide bomber is the death of others as the statement. In fact, it is the very inverse of the power struggle over the sovereignty of the self that this Eagleton postulates. By being prepared to die in the process of murdering others, then you remove from your victims any notion of self-defence, as the possibility of death ceases to be a disincentive. Thus, to call themselves martyrs is wholly disingenuous. The term implies self-sacrifice, whereas suicide bombers, despite the title, are instead forcibly sacrificing the lives of their victims in the name of their cause. Only the Left can’t read between the lines – the statement is more like: ‘I am an evil murderous unhinged fundamentalist maniac who has dedicated his life to murdering anyone who does not share my way of life and will stop at nothing until you are all dead or converted.’

It is also rather interesting that Eagleton brings Dostoyevsky’s assessment that suicide ‘means the death of God, since you usurp his divine monopoly over life and death.’ Unless I am missing something, are not the suicide bombers meant to be glorifying Allah?

Of course, rather than blow themselves up, they could spend their energies trying to improve their lives and situation, without having to harm anyone else who may not be so self-indulgent (or plainly vacuously-minded and manipulated). But then who doesn’t enjoy a bit of ‘avant garde theatre’ these days?

The Symphony is up over at Cruse’s place. Be forewarned however, he does not take kindly to late submissions. The Bonfire is also up over at Sharp Marbles and it’s a most amusing one. The latest Watcher of Weasels is up and yet again my post only made honorable mention. The Raving Atheist plays host to this weeks CoV.

Meanwhile Colby comes clean about the whole polygamy and gay marriage non-debate going on in Canada, which he helped start. I personally see nothing wrong with polygamy between consenting adults.

Welt interviews Richard Perle and Medienkritik has the details.

Pagan Prattle has an extensive round-up of all the daft conspiracy theories, kicking around. and there are rather a lot of them.

everyone’s looking at you, oh
everyone’s wondering, will you come out tonight
everyone’s trying to get it right, get it right

loverboy

A temp worker in Virginia:

We’re stacking boxes that have been returned by a big discount department store that shall remain nameless. The boxes have to have their bar codes scanned and if they scan correctly, we hear Homer Simpson scream “WOO-HOO!” And if they aren’t scanned correctly we hear Homer Simpson scream “D’OH!” So all frickin’ day it was “WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! D’OH! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! D’OH!” I’m serious. There were several groups of people scanning these boxes, so I could hear Homer constantly in the background. It was funny at first, then it was hellish.

Speaking of bad management decisions, hiring this guy would be high up on the list. I’m assuming it was an audition.

No, I’m praying it was an audition. He’s absolutely awful.

the blog québécois

I was very happy to see my Manor’s local parish church featured in a piece about a Psalter (said to made by the same man as the Gorleston Psalter) saved by the British nation by mostly private funds. The church houses the first Lord of the Manor of Bacons, whose grave I have visited several times and paid my respects to.

The rightwing press is in the grip of a moral panic, constantly serving up new theories to shore up the now familiar thesis that the west and Islam are locked in a clash of civilisations. Admittedly events in the world don’t help. Palestinian suicide bombing, the school siege at Beslan and beheadings in Iraq all fuel the image of an Islamism that shows no mercy. .

‘don’t help’?

... But for both Jews and Catholics, it also took time and a defusing of the larger cause with which they were identified by their enemies, or at least some disavowal of the use of force to pursue that cause. Is that what British Muslims need to do now, to allay the fears of their neighbours and distance themselves as clearly as they can from violent Islamism?

How is this a question at all? If this supposed silent majority of moderate Muslims exists, a group who rejects the Clash of Civilisations theory, then they must be brave enough to speak out, or else society will have no choice but to harbour suspicions

It is the same mentality that will forgive Iqbal Sacranie and the Muslim Council of Britain for boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day. This is fast becoming not a commemoration of the liberation from Auschwitz, but a liberation of western Europe from its guilt of complicity and modern-day anti-Zionism/Semitism.

Indeed, according to Robert Wistrich of the Hebrew University, who spoke yesterday evening on the subject of inverting Holocaust imagery against Jewry, the Children’s BBC site on HMD did not until a few days ago mention the fact that Jews were the overwhelming victims.

Add to the mix the new race legislation which precludes religious debate and you know what is going to be served up soon…

As the UK warms up for another General Election slog, the parties are no doubt brainstorming about their theme song choices. Meanwhile, musicians everywhere are dreading the possibility of a choice of their song. I am asking you, our dear readers, to make you own choices. Here are mine:

Conservative Party – Highway to Hell – AC/DC

Labour Party – Operation Mindcrime – Queensryche

Lib-Dem Party – One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer – George Thurogood

Kilroy-Silk – Me, Myself & I – DeLaSoul

UKIP - Aces High – Iron Maiden

Respect – Tainted Love – Soft Cell

In order that our North American friends are not left out here my suggestions for the forth-coming mid-terms elections.

US:

John Kerry – Alone Again – Dokken

The Republicans – We are the Champions – Queen

The Democrats – All Outta Love – Air Supply

These are famous scenes both from history and fiction rendered in the 3D isometric view common to computer games. There are 16 others here. (They expand to full-screen by clicking on them.)

The Screenshots FAQ has a brief description of each if you can’t figure some of them out.

And here’s a small tutorial on how the artist planned out one of them (the bottom left, depicting the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald).

the blog québécois

Robert Jackson MP, who recently defected from Conservative to Labour, claimed many reasons for his defection. The party was inconsistent (unlike New Labour, I suppose) and anti-european (unlike when Mr Jackson was a minister in Mrs Thatcher’s government, I suppose.) This is all a bit flimsy.

So what’s new in the Tory Party that can’t equally be applied to the Labour Party?

Well, the Tories have, in Michael Howard, just elected a Jewish leader. They have done well in the past with Disraeli being a notable Jew in command of the party. Robert Jackson, it turns out, is a member of Joint Chairman of the Committee for the Advancement of Arab – British Understanding.

In a little-publicised debate at the Economist, as reported by Melanie Phillips, Robert Jackson expounded the view that those opposed to antisemitism were McCarthyite.

No wonder, given his expressed views, Robert Jackson MP felt uncomfortable in a party led by a Jew.

Well, at least if you are a Norwegian, he has. Of course, to the metal world, he is just doing the long live heavy metal sign. Can’t wait to see what the tin-foil hat brigade have to say about this…

F.o.D. and F.o.G.o.D. Murray has a new online shop up and running. Why don’t you pop on over and sign up, then you can get an email every time he adds new products to his range.

Mr Bush’s call to freedom has caused consternation from Tehran to Havana to Brussels.

Socialism, (like Islamic National Socialism), takes its power from state control over citizenry. American power rests on individual freedom, responsibility, and ambition. Thus Islam’s extraodinary poverty and America’s growing wealth.

The last thing these powers need is some arrogant Texan bypassing state controlled media, and telling them they can decide their own future. The BBC’s been working overtime trying to persuade Brits the EU’s a good thing, with as much success as Castro’s attempt to persuade starving Cubans he’s their man.

The speech’s themes, (freedom and the need to spread liberty by force of arms if necessary), seemed remarkably similar to many made by Churchill in his final years, before the dark cloud of state-controlled Socialism fell across Europe, stifling all in its path.

Fans of state control, from BBC newsrooms, to N Korean generals, have much to worry about in that little man from Texas.

Remember the ‘80s when games had rubbish graphics, but oh the gameplay!

Rob Manuel does.

Sir Your report on government proposals for a “citizenship day” (report, Jan 20) confirms it: Labour really is intent on putting the national back into socialism.

Bill Campbell, Northolt, Middx

Via the DT’s letter’s page.

with gilligan, the skipper too
the millionaire, and his wife
the movie star, the professor and mary ann
here on gilligan’s isle

wyle & schwartz

Mr. Sun has obviously put a lot of thought into the optimal strategy for boinking the beauteous Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island:

In this time of war and great tragedy, I have naturally been preoccupied with the big questions. Namely, how would I have bedded Mary Ann if I were Gilligan. The answer? Strategy. I would have used my mind to create a rock solid Mary Ann Nailing Strategy that guaranteed I’d be rockin’ the hut on a regular basis.

I mean, he’s even drawn up sort of a Power Point chart:

It’s all a bit complicated to me, but Mr. Sun will explain all here.

the blog québécois