Longrider

It’s interesting to see the reactions to the Pope’s comments yesterday. The comments in question being those about aggressive secularism and the UK’s stance against the Nazis during WWII. I listened to those comments and didn’t interpret them in the same way as the Guardian readers nor, for that matter, the Nameless Libertarian. I did not pick up a desire to link atheists with Nazis.

He was incorrect in his assertion that the Nazis wished to eradicate God, because their ideology was not specifically atheist. And arguments from the Guardianista about the minutiae of Hitler’s beliefs doesn’t alter this. The Nazis themselves were not on some crusade of godlessness, they were seeking control and domination. Some of them – possibly Hitler himself – may have not believed in god, but that does not mean that the evil they perpetrated had anything to do with religious belief or the lack thereof. So, Benedict was factually inaccurate, which I find mildly surprising. But, that inaccuracy does not equate to the simplistic Nazis=atheists or even Nazis=aggressive secularism. I found nothing in his remarks to lead to this conclusion.

While I am no Catholic, being an unbeliever, I do have some sympathy with the aggressive secularism argument. The state should be secular. It should make no laws regarding the observation of religion. Equally, I find the state imposing restrictions on the mutually agreed collective activities of religious groups (schools, adoption agencies et al) inherently unethical as they impinge on freedom of association. Religion should be a private matter and people should be free to practice without fear or favour.

I can’t help wondering just what twentieth century atheist extremism he is on about though. Some use the Soviet Union as an example – but that is to engage in logical fallacy. Sure the Soviets were atheist, but that does not mean that what they did was because of their atheism, it was because they were evil nasty bastards. It was because they unleashed the evil that lies dormant in humanity. Their lack of belief in a deity is neither here nor there. The Church believes in a diety – at least, I hope it does – and in its time has engaged in some pretty evil behaviour. The Islamists believe in a deity and they are happy enough to bomb people. All this tells us is that people will behave like people. Believing in a higher power or not is not itself a causation. To try to make such a link is to engage in hoc ergo propter hoc.

And, finally, trotting out his German past – membership of the Hitler youth – and the Vatican’s failure to stand up to the Nazis really doesn’t help and, frankly, are cheap shots. Listen to what the man has to say and engage with that. There’s plenty there to be getting on with…

The useful idiots who signed up to the totalitarian ID cards scheme, thereby colluding with the previous administration’s attempts to tag, spy on and collate us all will not be compensated for the loss of their thirty pieces of silver.

Labour have failed in an eleventh-hour attempt to get compensation for people who bought ID cards as MPs approved legislation to scrap them.

Good. Quite right, too. They were weak-minded enough to sign up for this nasty scheme, let them take the hit for doing so.

Shadow ministers wanted people who own cards to be refunded, saying they had bought them in “good faith”.

There was no good faith. These people wanted them and couldn’t give a stuff about the rest of us being forced to fall into line with their choice. That these dolts were sufficiently lacking in self-determination that they need a government to manage their identity for them does not mean that the rest of us who can manage our identities should be forced into such a scheme. This is not good faith, it is totalitarianism and people who willingly go along with totalitarian schemes deserve all they get. Losing thirty quid is getting off lightly as far as I am concerned. Hopefully they will think twice in future – in which case, it’s thirty quid well spent.

However, they were defeated in the Commons on the issue as MPs passed a bill which will scrap the cards and the National Identity Register.

Good. Excellent. Good riddance.

Before the election, the Conservatives warned people thinking of applying for a card that they would not be able to use it under a future Tory administration.

And anyone who heard that warning and still went ahead deserves to lose their money. Although, of course, despite no lack of warnings, people still respond to those Nigerian email scams… A fool and his money and all that.

But Labour says those holding cards should get compensation as a matter of “justice”.

“There is basic fairness here,” shadow home affairs minister Meg Hillier told MPs, arguing that cardholders should get a £30 refund when they next renewed their passport.

Bollocks! These people were quite happy to have the rest of us forced onto the NIR in order to satisfy their inadequacy – was that fair? I don’t think so. Getting their just rewards is more than fair. New Labour; whining and sulking like a spoiled child that cannot get its way and its useful idiots who think that all of us should be bent to their will. You lost. Get over it. Those of you who are so deeply lacking that you need a card to tell you who you are, the citizen card will provide one for free in exchange for the worthless piece of plastic you now have.

Labour’s Denis MacShane, a cardholder himself, said his money was effectively being “confiscated” and said if someone’s house had been taken by the state, that would get recompense.

Oh grow the fuck up and get a sense of proportion. You chose to buy into this. Your choice. No one else’s.

But SNP MP Pete Wishart said it was “tough luck” on card owners as they had made an informed choice to buy one.

“We have to be absolutely and abundantly clear with this – ID cards are exclusively and solely a New Labour creation,” he said. “All other parties in this House made it absolutely clear that we would have nothing whatsoever to do with them.”

Indeed.

So a cardinal made some intemperate remarks about the UK and is now not going to visit due to “health problems”.

One of the pope’s top advisers on his visit to England and Scotland has dropped out of his entourage following the publication of an interview in which he said that arriving in Britain “you sometimes think you’ve landed in a third world country”.

Benedict XVI’s spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, told the Guardian, however, that Cardinal Walter Kasper had withdrawn “for health reasons”.

He said the 77-year-old prelate’s absence from the papal party, which lands in Edinburgh tomorrow at the start of a four-day visit, “had absolutely nothing to do with anything else”.

Yeah, yeah, yeah and the sun rises in the west. Frankly catholicism has been irrelevant in the UK since the reformation. Okay, so there was a bit of seesawing during the Tudor period when rival believers burned each other at the stake over who had the best line to their imaginary friend, but since then, Protestantism has been the prevailing religion and the Pope pretty much a daft old bloke in Rome that no one takes any notice of. So what?

I have no problem with him coming to the UK to see his flock. It is of no consequence and neither is he. It’s a sideshow. I’d have more respect if they stuck to their guns instead of pussy-footing about. They don’t like atheism, so fine – we knew this already and if they think that parts of the UK are like the third world so what? They may well have a point. I suspect all major countries have similar places that could be described thus. So, say what you mean and have the cojones to stick to it. Weasely retractions, half apologies and pulling out due to “health problems” just make you look even more silly than you already do.

Kasper, the Vatican’s leading expert on relations with the Church of England, made his remark after noting that Britain was a “secular, pluralistic” country.

And this is a bad thing?

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of Shadwell. Well that’s what the egregious Bob Crow would have us believe.

I have watched with dismay and distaste as the fat-cat union leaders who pocket five-figure salaries cheerfully call for a general strike. Okay, so they call it civil disobedience, but this is code for a general strike – and at least Bob Crow, perhaps the nastiest of the lot of them is at least honest about what he is calling for. These people busily trouser taxpayers’ money while waging a war against their paymasters. If they get their way, it won’t be them having to manage on reduced incomes and it won’t be them dealing with the fall-out in the workplace afterwards.

I was once a member of the RMT (and no, I did not vote for this man to be the union’s leader as I was well aware of what a nasty piece of work he was even back then). As a signaller, it was sensible to belong to a union as they provide support and legal representation should it be needed – and I would still recommend membership. And, as a signaller back in 1994, I went on strike. I didn’t much like the idea but was aware that this was the least worst option. Not going on strike would mean being ostracised for the rest of my time in that workplace. I worked with people who still bore grudges from a previous action some twenty years earlier. People who defy strikes regardless of circumstances will be find rebuilding the relationships afterwards difficult. It is pragmatic, therefore, to go along with the strike even if one doesn’t believe in it for the sake of long term working relationships. What union leaders fail to address is that people have to work together when the dispute is settled. But, then, it isn’t their problem, is it? What we are seeing here is a power trip. An excuse to whip up ordinary members in the same way that Arthur Scargill did in 1984. These people are no friend of the ordinary worker on £20k per year, they are the very thing they rail against; powerful, wealthy men who will manipulate others for their own political ends.

As the Devil points out, their membership is somewhat less than it was. For the most part, those of us not in the public sector probably won’t notice over much if they do go on strike. And, let’s be clear here, those awful cuts are for the most part a reduction in increases, which is not the same thing at all.

Since the elections in May, my criticism of the new government has been largely muted. This is in part because nothing could have been worse than what went before and I am seeing how things go before wading in too deep. I deplore nonsense such as the “Big Society” and have been quick to say so. But, but, but, Bob Crow, Brenden Barber and the rest of the dinosaurs at the TUC are the real enemy here. The government is legitimate and elected – even if it wasn’t quite what we expected. It is not the place of the TUC to set policy – it is parliament. I expect this government to stand firm in the face of such blackmail. I would also like them to stop all taxpayer funding to the unions.

If the unions want a war against the British people, then perhaps we should let them and let them lose badly. What would be a satisfying outcome would be a refusal to vote in favour of strike action as has happened repeatedly to brother Crow in his previous attempts to bring the signallers out on strike over the past decade – only finally getting a “yes” mandate earlier this year.

Take a look at the photograph that accompanies this article. A picture of malevolence if ever there was one. Take a good long look at the face of the enemy. This is a man who takes £79,564 in salary, £26,115 in pension contributions and £13,013 in expenses while using ordinary rail worker’s livelihoods as a political pawn to fund his ego trip.

What a stinking fucking hypocrite.

So says Poorva Joshipura in a fact-free piece in CiF. She is responding to a Damascene conversion by George Monbiot a week or so ago when he realised that maybe eating meat isn’t destroying the planet and maybe we can eat it with a clear conscience. I admire Monbiot for openly admitting that maybe he got it wrong on this one. Joshipura harbours no such doubts and sticks to her guns. Veganism is good and eating meat is bad and bad for the planet at that.

Now, when people criticise the methods used in meat production, I’ll concur that they have a point. Industrial farming of meat and the subsequent slaughter causes me to have qualms – so eating the product does make me a hypocrite. I could not readily kill my own lunch. At least not until I had reached desperation. If I found myself in such a situation, I’d probably eat a great deal less meat than I do. I’d also have to dig out my bow – I’d sooner hunt lunch than kill something I’d raised. I’d still eat dairy products and eggs, though. But vegans don’t want us to eat even those.

Monbiot also fails to consider the disastrous effects that animal-centred diets have on human health. Animal products, high in saturated fat and cholesterol, are linked to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, strokes and many types of cancer. Plant-based foods, on the other hand, are cholesterol-free and high in fibre and can provide us with all essential nutrients.

This is the usual junk science pumped out by the health fascists when they get onto their collective bandwagon to complain about obesity. Cholesterol is not necessarily bad and eating meat products does not necessarily lead to high cholesterol. Eating meat does not lead to poor health or obesity – eating too much and not exercising enough is what does that.

Meat is a ready source of the necessary vitamins and proteins that our bodies need. Man is an omnivore – it’s why we have those canine teeth as well as the grinding molars. It is why our appendix is no longer able to digest chlorophyll. This stuff is basic biology taught at school. Or, it was when I was at school.

Sure, you can reduce your meat intake. Sure, it is possible to manage without meat entirely if you are prepared to source the relevant minerals, vitamins and proteins elsewhere. Most of us are not – me included.

If you want to eat a vegan diet and imbibe the disgusting soya milk rather than the full cream gold-top that I prefer,  be my guest. Just kindly refrain from lecturing me about doing likewise because you are wasting your time. You do what you want to do and I’ll do what I want to do and we will accept the risks inherent in our choices, okay?

There are countless reasons why we should all go vegan…

Er, apart from the issue of intensive farming, no, there are not.

…and not a single plausible one why we shouldn’t.

Vitamins D and B12, calcium, high-biological-value protein and essential amino acids do?

Liberty, liberalism, libertarian. These are words that, on the face of it are pretty straightforward, no? For the sake of ease, let’s see what Dictionary.com says, shall we?

Liberty:

freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.

Among others, of course. However, I’d say that’s pretty unequivocal. What about liberalism?

a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.

Again, among others. Again, pretty unequivocal. So, libertarian?

a person who advocates liberty, esp. with regard to thought or conduct.

So, pretty straightforward, one would have thought, eh? And, one would think that a political party with the word “liberal” in its title would be liberal wouldn’t you? Well if we need to be reminded, again, the Liberal Democrats demonstrate that they are not remotely liberal. On this occasion, the author feels that the highly illberal smoking ban is a good thing and in so doing reiterates the junk science spouted by the likes of ASH relating to second-hand smoke.

Bad though the article is, it is in the comments that we see the shrill screeching of the anti-smoker who wants to ban everything that he doesn’t like. Bad, yes, but this cretin, following several posts calling for ever more regulation of our private lives, calls himself a libertarian. Read it and weep.

So, the paradox continues – a party that claims to be liberal advocates state intrusion into the private lives of citizens and an ordinary member of that party wants to ban barbecues while claiming that he is a libertarian in –  and I quote – “the traditional sense”. I would refer this person to the definition above and ask him reconcile that with the desire to restrict, regulate and ban that which offends his sensibilities. Well, I would if I thought he had the necessary intellectual capacity.

Once again we have the corruption of language, the desire by the statists to steal words and twist them out of recognition – just as the TUC are currently misusing the word progressive in their attempt to whip up a general strike.

These people – and the poster commenting on the article in the LibDem Voice – refer to libertarians as “right wing” – and all too often, “extreme right wing”. Liberalism and libertarianism are neither right nor left. They are the antithesis of authoritarianism, which itself is neither right nor left. Libertarians are often right of centre, but the ideology itself is not. No, what we have here is the distortion of meaning, the misuse of words. The use of “right wing” or “extreme right wing” is code for “someone who disagrees with me” and is therefore not a nice person. Which is curious, because it is all too often the nastiest misanthropic, hypocritical liars who spout these epithets.

A liberal is lassez faire about others – whether they smoke, drink, snort cocaine, ride motorcycles, climb mountains or wear odd clothing in public. I don’t smoke and have never smoked. Not even a sly drag as a growing teenager just to try. I never wanted to. Yet, for all that, I couldn’t give a damn if others want to do it and have no problem catching the odd whiff of burning tobacco. It does me no harm. A liberal wants the state to mind its own business, not send the barbecue police around, not try to stop people smoking in their own homes or their own cars. A liberal will find no place in the liberal democrats it seems.

H/T Dick Puddlecote.

Dick Puddlecote and the Civil Libertarian have both commented on this story, so I wasn’t going to comment, but even having slept on it, I just have to add my voice to the chorus of dissent.

Having been a driving instructor in days of yore and in days of yorer, a motorcycle instructor, I tend to take an interest in road safety. Mostly that interest involves watching in horror at the plethora of road signage, speed cameras and traffic calming designed to slow traffic down without addressing the underlying issues. All of these things are counter productive as simply going slower does not a better driver make. Indeed, there are times when going slow can be downright dangerous, but this does not enter the thinking of the terminally stupid who seem to rise to the top of the road safety profession. And, to make the point about stupidity, the idea being boasted of in Vancouver really is the walnut on the top of the whip.

We’re doing something completely different compared to our campaign last year to raise awareness about more kids being on the roads this first week back at school. In fact, our latest campaign is a Canadian first.

And, one hopes, a last.

Preventable, BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation, and the District of West Vancouver have launched a 3D illusion geared to make drivers slow down at high-risk intersections.

And this is the image:

Dick Puddlecote asks tongue in cheek what could possibly go wrong? Okay, as the cretins in the Vancouver Traffic Safety Foundation don’t seem to be able to see it, let’s just try a few off the top of the head, shall we?

Drivers will see the image and panic brake possibly causing a rear-end shunt.

Drivers will see the image and then become de-sensitised and fail to respond to a real child in the road until it is too late.

Drivers will see the image, panic and swerve, hitting oncoming traffic, pedestrians, cyclists or motorcyclists.

Drivers will see the image and not pay sufficient attention to the pedestrian crossing that immediately precedes it. Yes, that’s right, these nincompoops put it immediately after a pedestrian crossing.

Of course, these people will argue that if drivers were paying attention and travelling at an appropriate speed, these things may not happen. That, however, does not justify creating a situation that precipitates events when they may not have otherwise happened, does it?

To say that this scheme is staggeringly, jawdroppingly irresponsible and stupid is to give the jawdroppingly stupid a bad name.

Dave Hartnett doesn’t think he needs to apologise for the HMRC fuck-up. It’s all the fault of the media apparently.

Dave Hartnett, Permanent Secretary at her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, claimed media stories of blunders and IT failures were wrong.

So that’s why they are not sending out all those demands for underpaid tax, then. Oh, they are? So, er, whose fault is that then?

It gets better. Not content with having massively screwed up and then arrogantly claiming that it was nothing to do with them because it was all the meeja, they pile on the arrogance and bullying just to rub it in.

And he warned those who owed £2,000 or more in back tax they would have just over three months to repay it in full.*

The assumption here is that people who owe more must be earning more and can therefore afford to pay it all off in one lump.

Speaking exclusively to Radio 4′s Money Box programme, Mr Hartnett said: “I’m not sure I see a need to apologise.”

No, you probably don’t and that tells us all we need to know about you and your incompetent, arrogant, kleptomaniac organisation.

Mind you, he does have a point:

Dave Hartnett, the country’s top tax official, has refused to apologise to 1.4 million people facing demands for extra money – adding that the situation was not “extraordinary”.

And that’s just it. It isn’t extraordinary.

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*If you are one of the unlucky ones, you can get back to them and tell them you cannot pay. They will then make arrangements for payment over a period of time. They will charge interest, but that’s the lesser evil. If it is for the tax year ending April 2009 and you are sure that it is their fault, then apply for them to write it off as they should have come for this money last year.

Thanks to Dick Puddlecote for that title, but his use of it is demonstrated again to be true. Apparently, we have a blind-spot for black female artists.

The chair of the Mercury Prize has claimed that black British female artists are being ignored by the British public.

Simon Frith told the BBC that “Britain has a blind-spot” when it comes to new female urban acts.

Where to start with such balderdash? I’ve a pretty eclectic taste in music. I’ll cheerfully listen to classical music as well as heavy metal and just about anything in between. My CD collection includes glam rock and country, Meatloaf to Mozart as it were. I only have one condition when listening to music – that it appeals to me. Preferably that it sends tingles down my spine. “Urban acts” seems to be code for rap. I never listen to rap. It is dreadful; a monotonous unintelligible chant that I refuse to listen to from the moment that I first had the misfortune to have my ears polluted by it. If I am listening to the radio and a rap track comes on, I’ll turn it down until the discordant noise has passed.

Nor am I enamoured with the manufactured pap that passes for music of late. So I don’t buy stuff from boy bands, girl bands or the latest X Factor winner. If it isn’t rap, it’s instantly forgettable mush or shallow covers of tracks by better artists.

On occasion, I’ve been aware of these new urban acts being profiled on the television and without exception they have been crap; instantly forgettable bland garbage. I don’t have a blind-spot, I have discerning ears. And, despite the scurrilous underlying accusation from Simon Frith, it is not racist to not buy their records. I don’t like their output. I don’t therefore buy the records. I do not base my music buying decisions on the colour or sex of the performer.

Still, I bet you didn’t realise that your music buying preferences makes you a racist now, eh?