Air con con

Let's start small, eh? Get back into he swing of things.

I was casually googleblasting about Ian Wishart's book, Air Con - which I have not read, but I am thinking about reading - when I stumbled upon this comment, from British naturalist, David Bellamy:

Ian Wishart's AIR CON is another masterpiece of scientific reason, letting the thinking world know that so-called man-made global warming is the greatest scam ever aimed at humanity. Please read this book. (1)

This is striking, because if there is one person who should STFU about climate change, it is david Bellamy, the man whose inability to type (allegedly) (2) launched a thousand blog bleats about almost all the world's glaciers advancing rather than retreating ... And who grumpily declared that he was intending 'draw back' from the climate change debate as a result of being exposed as a lumbering lummox (3). The quotation above does not sound like someone drawing back from anything, apart from his credibility. And isn't describing climate change, which he once characterised as "this most complex of scientific issues," (4) as the "the greatest scam ever aimed at humanity" just a touch hypocritical?

So why is Bellamy still blathering on about it? And why does Wishart think a quote from Bellamy is going to enhance his book's appeal?

If nothing else, it really makes me want to not read it.

1 - A quotation from Bellamy's review of Air Con, by Ian Wishart, reproduced in "Air Con author preparing to sue Herald, and Hot Topic," a press release published at The Breiefing Room, 13th of August, 2009. (http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/08/air-con-author-preparing-to-sue-herald-and-hot-topic.html)
2 - 'Junk Science,' by George Monbiot, published in The Guardian,
10th of May, 2005. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2005/may/10/environment.columnists)
3 - "In an adverse climate," a letter written by Bellamy and
published in The Times, 29th of May, 2005. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article527565.ece)
4 - ibid.

Wake up, you fat, lazy fool!

Right, okay, I'll get back into this blogging thingamibob right soon, promise. World needs to be set to rights, people told whats what.

Not my fault that I decide to have a sabbatical off just when lefthandpalm almost registers on the consciousness of humanity (1). And merited a mention in the Guardian (almost), fer feck's sake (2)!

So, with the stinging nettle of opportunity being thrust into my face by the fist of fortune, I naturally curl up into a ball and do nothing for a month. Strike while the iron is hot? Not me. Might get burned ...

Will think of something to say sooon. Because there's lots of stuff to be angry about.

1 - As described previously on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/11/brutal-thug-boris-johnson-harrasses.html
2- "Sir Boris Johnson: the goodly knight traduced," by Dave Hill, published
in Dave Hill's London Blog, 5th of November, 2009. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/davehillblog/2009/nov/05/boris-johnson-green-activist-rescue-lefthandpalm-blog)

Reality check ...

Today, at Pak'n'Save, I treated Apprentice Demon 1 & 2 to a go on the kiddies' dragon ride in the store. Obviously, much fun was had, for the minute or so that the dragon gyrated, flashed and growled. While they were squealing with glee at this, it occurred to me that the $2 I paid to activate it was worth about US$1 - or, in other words, the amount of money that more than 1 billion people have to survive on (or not survive on), per day (1).

1 - 'A world mired in despair of poverty will not be a world at peace,' press
release from The United Nations, 10th of October, 2003. (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sgsm8935.doc.htm)

Good day for the BNP

Nick Griffin has lost his court cas against Tauriq Khalid, a taxi driver Griffin accused of making racially abusive comments and threats towards Griffin (1).

This is precisely what Griffin would have wanted, and expected to happen. It's unlikely he'd have bothered to pursue sucha trivial prosecution if he actually thought he would win.

The BNP's main tactic is victimhood. They target people who feel marginalised and ignored. To appeal to these people, they BNP sets its self up as the party that the other paries try to ignore and marginalise. One of their standard refrains is that the authorities don't listen and don't care about what is happening to everyday white British people. Here's a fairly typical bleat, from a couple of days ago:

Of course, the authorities, both locally and nationally, are adhering to their accustomed policy of studied denial about the scale and prevalence of anti-white racist attacks. (2)

Winning his case would have shown that the BNP could be treated fairly by the system.

Griffin has lost his case, but I doubt he'll be at all upset about it - the BNP has gained another example of supposed politically correct racism against whites. He gets some publicity, and, much more importantly, gets to bang the "PC Authorities Ignore Racism Against Whites" drum a bit.

1 - "Man cleared of BNP racial abuse," unattributed BC article, published 4th of November, 2009. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/8342591.stm)
2 - "Is Savile Town Becoming Yet Another ‘No-Go Area’ for British People," by George Fanning. Publsihed on the BNP website, 1st of November, 2009. (http://bnp.org.uk/2009/11/is-savile-town-becoming-yet-another-no-go-area-for-british-people/)

Brutal Thug Boris Johnson Harrasses Teenage Girls

Boris Johnson, tsar of London, has once again demonstrated his total unfittness for office by attacking a group of young women with an iron bar (1).

That the victims of this vicious assault were female only adds to the air of disgusting menace, that hangs about the Stalin of the Thames, like a cloud of flies around the corpse of a dog on a hot day.

Apparently, Johnson spotted some young girls while out cycling - looking for trouble might be more accurate - and promptly set about them, raining insults on them when he discovered that his disgustingly flabby, lard encased frame was too swollen from guzzling the baubles of office to mount an effective pursuit.

What is more depressing of this modern day fable of oligarchical oppression is that the victims of this attack were merely trying to better themselves- aspiring to the possession of the sort of things that Johnson is so bloated with privilege that he would not even notice.

It is regrettable that the girls in question lacked genuine class consciousness and were motivated only by crude, materialistic concerns - setting themselves up as Little Johnsons, in effect, using threats and violence of their own against another. But given that the other was already far more privileged and wealthy than these girls could ever aspire to be, their crime must be veiewed in the light of the far greater crime of modern industrial capitalism.

Johnson demonstrated that the only real law is that might is right - a powerfully built man threatening a group of girls with an iron bar is, in minature, a perfect emblem of the social and sexual exploitation of the proletariat by the forces of capital and their political allies.

The Tsar's office was not willing to comment on this latest act of aggressive thuggery by the the despotic Johnson. This is not surprising. They must be working overtime to find some way to show this vicious, cowardly assault in a positive light.

1 - "Johnson saves woman from 'oiks'," unattributed BBC article. Published 3rd of November, 2009. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8340865.stm). Do I really need to say my article is a piss take? Probably. It's a piss take, you quilt!

Obviously, they were very convincing ...

Actors who appeared in the film The Firm have been identified as football hooligans, in the BBC's Crimewatch and in The Sun:

Movie actors' mugshots shown in BBC online appeal for football hooligansCast members of The Firm appear alongside wanted hooligans in image on BBC crimewatch website

The BBC has admitted it posted pictures of actors from the film The Firm on the Crimewatch website and wrongly claimed they were football hooligans earlier this week.

Yesterday the Sun also printed the pictures of The Firm actors on under the headline "Hooligan Hunt" on page 25 after the Metropolitan police supplied them to the paper. The Sun is expected to run another story tomorrow admitting its mistake and blaming the Met for the error.

The corporation today also blamed the Met for the mistake, saying police had provided its Crimewatch show with the images. (1)

Of course, there's no reason why you can't be an actor and a thug - they aren't exclusive categories.

Maybe we should round them up and interrogate them, perhaps even transport them to some undisclosed location and have them tortured by proxy - after all, if they don't admit to being hooligans, it just shows that standard interrogation techniques aren't effective, and need to be 'enhanced.' Surely no-one is niave enough to fall for that "We were just acting in a film" line?

And while we're about it, we should intern all other actors as well, just to be on the safe side. It seems harsh, but we're talking about protecting our way of life here, and anyway, these oddball artistic types have never really belonged, or made any effort to integrate. We should close down the theatres and cinemas - they are clearly breeding grounds for hooliganism, extremism and racism, with white men blacking up to (n.b. not to be confused with Tory M.P.s, who do it as a bit off a laugh) and dressing up as Nazis (n.b. not to be confused with Prince Harry, who does it as a bit of a laugh).

And anyone who has ever been to see a pantomine, been to the cinema or even rented a DVD should be put on a special list that a Home Office mandarin can leave lying on the tube ...

1 - "Movie actors' mugshots shown in BBC online appeal for football hooligans," by James RObinson. Published in The Guardian, 30th of October, 2009. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/30/actors-mugshots-bbc-appeal-football-hooligans)

On religion and capitalism

Victor Billot penned a column on religion, specifically in relation to Marxism, which was published in the ODT the other day (1):

Marx describes religion here as the very real projection of human hopes and desires, an impulse for a better world.

But to him, religion is nonetheless a human creation that is holding back people from improving their real lives in the here and now, as they wait for "pie in the sky when you die" (that quote is from Joe Hill).

As Marx said: "Man makes religion, religion does not make man".

The withering up of religion in capitalist societies is something I've been thinking about lately. Religion, according to Marx and Billot, is the missing ingredient that makes the capitalist model of the 19th century work. By believing in the sweet hereafter, people could cope with the material circumstances of thier existance - and the circumstances they imposed on others. So wage slavery and actual slavery were ameliorated through religion, both fromt heoe point of view of the salve and the slave owner, the worker and the capitalist.

So does the fading of formal religion an indication that material relations have changed to make it unnecessary? Of course not. The need is still there, but the opium has change. Instead of formal religion, we have the cult of individualism and achievement, and scientific rationalism. We are persuaded to work and behave not through our anticipation of reward in the next world, but of reward at a later date in this world - which, for all practical purposes, amounts tot he same thing. We work, so that others can be rich, in the hope and anticipation that we might be rich in the end. That this doesn't work is borne out by ample evidence all around us, but never-the-less we continue to believe it - and I choose the verb 'believe' deliberately, as it isn't a rational process.

In the meantime, of course, the rich continue to be rich, and usually end up richer. Everyone else continues to be poor and usually end up poorer.

And just as we use religion to ameleriorate babrabisms like slavery, we do the same sort of thing today, justifying the use of child labour, slave labour and indentured labour as being a necessary part of helping these countries 'develop' - meaning helping the rich in these countries become richer, just like our rich people.

And the terrible thing is that people really, really believe all the aspirational crap they are given, just like a couple of hundred years ago they really believed in a Heaven for the meek and the weak.

We haven't really learned very much, have we?

1 - "Man makes religion; it does not make man," by Victor Billot. Published in the Otago Daily Times, 30th of October, 2009. (http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/80040/man-makes-religion-it-does-not-make-man)

Spongebob in China

In one of my less glorious moments of parenting, I allowed lurgee jnr to watch this clip on You Tube, thinking it was just innocent Spongebob fun ...

He's only three and a bit, perhaps not ready for the truth ... Still, I found it slightly amusing. Though not as amusing as the fact that this clip has been viewed 13 million times. That's a lot of very perplexed kids, or a lot of very, very bored adults.