Boris Johnson ... Hides ... In a Fridge

I am not making this up.

First few lines of the Dail Mail write up:

Boris Johnson's exasperated media minder swore on live TV today as the PM refused to speak to Good Morning Britain before trotting into a fridge as he started an early milkround in Yorkshire.

Piers Morgan was visibly shocked and Susanna Reid had her head in her hands as Mr Johnson's press secretary Robert Oxley declared 'for f***s sake' and blocked the path of GMB's roving reporter Jonathan Swain.

The Tory leader, who was delivering milk in the marginal seat of Pudsey, West Yorkshire, this morning, has repeatedly refused to appear on the ITV1 show.

Mr Swain confronted Boris as he put milk crates in a van and said: 'Morning Prime Minister will you come on Good Morning Britain? Will you deliver on your promise to speak to Piers and Susanna?'.

A tired-looking Mr Oxley loudly muttered: 'For f***s sake' as his boss ignored the calls and wandered into a large walk-in chiller as Mr Morgan exclaimed: 'He's gone into the fridge'.

I mean, FFS. what is going on? This campaign is getting genuinely surreal. This is how dadaists do politics.

Johnson looks utterly dazed, like he has no idea what he is doing or what is going on. it's like he's being wheeled around the country, being forced to perform for the cameras, but barely holding it together. Certainly not together enough to speak to journalists.

I'm pretty sure a few weeks ago he'd have cheerfully engaged in a bit of buffoonery, fobbed them off with a bit of whiff-waff. But he can't, Just like he couldn't respond adequately when a journalist waved a mobile phone at him.

He's broken, a hollowed out shell.

And look at this clip of Johnson delivering the milk to some 'lucky' voter:

From the .."it's this one" ...to the hand picked lucky recipient of Johnson's early morning call exclamation of......"I didn't know there would be so many people". This sort of staging should not be allowed before a General Election. #GeneralElection19 #Johnson pic.twitter.com/bCubtTwQK4

— Jude #FBPE (@jude5456) 11 December 2019

This is a rip off of the Love Actually bit where PM Hugh Grant knocks on doors pretending he's just wishing people Merry Christmas.

Following on from their 'Brexit, Actually' toe-curler.

Their campaign is actually just ripped off from a feckin' rubbish twee rom-com?!

Predictably, the Sun somehow managed to cut the sweary words and the Napoleonic retreat into the freezer from their video version of the story, gushingly entitled "Boris Johnson stuns family as he delivers milk on last day of general election campaign":

What does it feel like to have less journalistic interity than the Mail, I wonder?

Anti-Semitism and Tommy Robinson = views

The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:

Depressing, isn't it?  Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices.  Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views.  Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another tonne.

What is wrong with the interwebs?

Can't wait to see how this baitishly titled post fares.

Chris Williamson's re-admission

So, some Labour MPs and peers have written Corbyn a letter complaining about the re-admission of loudmouth MP Chris Williamson, who had been suspended over allegations he made anti-Semitic comments.

Never mind the Guardian's typically biased headline that Corbyn is facing "Mounting pressure" over this (as opposed to the same old stuff from the same old sources).

This, from the letter to Corbyn, is truly bizarre:

It is clear to us that the Labour party’s disciplinary process remains mired by the appearance of political interference. This must stop. We need a truly independent process.

So, a "truly independent process" is one where an independent decision is made by the people who have scrutinised the case and are empowered to make that decision; and then it is overruled because some people don't like it?

 Williamson is a tool, but Watson et al are dearranged.

A bad couple of days for the Conservative Party

In - what, 48 hours? - a Tory MP assaults a female demonstrator, a Tory MP verbally abuses a female colleague via twitter, a Tory MP is recalled for corruption, and a Tory MP (and likely future PM) has the police turn up at their door at 2am because his girlfriend was screaming "Get off me!"

With regards the last instance, I'm trying to be fair and imagine circumstances where a woman screaming "Get off me!" at 2am in the morning is okay.

Nope, can't think of any.

The Conservative Party - home of corruption and toxic masculinity.

Sean Hannity (hopefully, the fist of many)

Then the other day:  Sean Hannity mourns the death of journalism, having personally viciously stabbed it repeatedly.



Who says Americans don't do irony?

Love the "Coming Up: Newt Gingrich" in the corner. Newts live in swamps, don't they?

And now this:

Hannity declared––and brought up Rush Limbaugh‘s words agreeing––that the media is obsessed with trying to “tear this President down” and they’re going after big supporters like himself because he “challenge[s] their rigid radical left-wing ideology” and “expose[s] the deep state.”

The Fox News host went on to say he’s at least “honest” about who he is and declare, “The media is guilty of every single solitary thing they’ve been accusing me of.”

Someone needs to explain to Sean Hannity what 'projection' means in psychology.

Oh, Sean, I guess this outpouring suggests you know you might be in a little bit of trouble. Still, I guess you've got lots of friends out there, because it isn't like you're a professional rightwing media thug or anything.

"Schadenfreude" is the word we are all groping for.

Nurse Ban

Canadian nurses working at Michigan hospitals were shocked last week when border security officers stopped them from entering the U.S. because of changes to their working visas under new immigration policies. 

Staff at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital heard reports of nurses unable to renew their working visas.  

Last week, a new Canadian hire at Henry Ford tried to go to work, but was turned away at the Windsor-Detroit border. She was told advanced practice nurses and nurse anesthetists no longer qualify for the working visas because of policy changes under U.S. President Donald Trump. 

"We really question the motives," said immigration lawyer Marc Topoleski, whose firm is retained by the hospital. "All of the immigration executive orders and all the things being rolled out have been focused on national security first, and this is clearly not an issue of national security whatsoever."

Here

Good.  Isn't Kenyda where that commie Muslim Saddam Hussein Obama came from?

I mean, nurses, terrorists, they're basically the same. Where ever you get nurses or terrorists, you get injured and dying Americans. Think on!

America, what are you doing?

Looks like three very tight races in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. 58 college votes up for grabs across those states, enough to win it for either candidate. Though Trump is ahead, marginally, in three.

Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, have we told you lately how much we love you?

Come on, Michigan the WORLD expects - nay, requires - you to do the right thing.

The ghost of Warren G Harding will be lookin on with interest, to see if here at last is the candidate who will nudge him off the bottom of the rankings of American presidents.

Kasich-Cruz?

So when are KAsich and Cruz going to come clean and announce a unity ticket, with Kasich as the candidate and an Cruz as potential VP?

the 'logic' being that Kasich's supports will not vote for Cruz as the nominee.  They'll probably sit out the election or defect to the Democrats rather than vote for Cruz or Trump.  Cruz's supports might vote for Kasich, especially with Cruz on board and making scary rightwing faces from behind Kasich's shoulder.  But I doubt Cruz's supporters will vote for Trump in great numbers.  If there were inclined to jump to the good ship Trumptanic, they would probably have done so by now.

Kasich is also the only nominee who is polling ahead of Clinton and Sanders.  While there might be a bit of "Who he?" factor at play, it looks like the Republicans have to stop bein silly and nominate somone capable of winning, and there is only one candidate who looks likely to do that, and probably only one combination with a realistic chance of stopping the Trump Self Immolation Juggernaught of Doom.

Oh dear

Is this really what we've got to choose from:

It looks like a photo from a particularly awful wedding, as the champagne hits and all the wrong inhibitions are lost.  Come on Yvette, let's dance!

The 2010 leadership pool seems deep, wide and limpid compared to this puddle of muddy stagnant water with a dead vole in it.

(Source)

EvilRihannaSexistVideoGate

I haven't seen it, of course, but I reserve my right to express my opinions categorically before seeing it.

But as there aren't enough things for us to worry about in the world, we might as well take a few minutes to get upset about a pop video.

Is it:

a) an artistic statement with a strong feminist pedigree challenging conventional notions of acceptable female behaviour and allowing a woman to defy patriarchal stereotypes and resists the sexualised objectification of her body according to those paradigms and thus act as a nexus for resistance to misogynistic repressive gender prejudices, effectively decolonising her body in an act of reclamation of both her sexual and racial integrity from a racist and sexist patriarchy?

b) a negative example of the issues around intersectional oppressions, where Rihanna's racial identitiy as a coloured person visiting violence on a white person breaches the notion of solidarity with another female, posing questions as to the viability of a feminist movement in a society where class and race are still significant barriers to advancement, possibly more so than sex is?

c) a cunning appropriation of and satire on the misogyny and violence typical of mainstream media, in which male-on-male violence is the stock in trade, raising questions about the viewer response by confronting the audience with the hypocrisy of a situation where male-on-male violence is celebrated, but female-on-female violence and criminality is deemed troubling and somehow wrong?

d) Mostly just a bit of attention seeking by a third rate celebrity who - like most other pop stars - will do pretty much anything to claw even more money into her already bloated coffers. Rihanna's videos are not advancing any message, merely Rihanna's bank account. Controversy sells, so she is controversial. She's Fox News and the Daily Mail.

The horror! The hot dog!

The man's evil. Pure evil. At least Ed Milliband has the manliness to seize a bacon sandwich and cram it into his gob like a true man of the people.

I suppose we should be glad Cameron didn't get his butler to cut it up for him and feed him morsels. Still using a knife and fork, of course.

How can we trust this man to negotiate with the likes of Vladimir Putin on our behalf?  Putin would probably happily eat raw bear, tearing gobbets of flesh from the still quivering carcass and cramming them into his maw.  How can some pansy who eats hot dogs with a knife and fork hope to go toe-to-toe with him?

Ban David Cameron!

(Photo: Fox News)

Judith! Judith! Judith! Go! Go! Go!

I've not bee posting on the Dirt Politics fiasco simpl because it has been moving too fast for me to keep up up with.

(Unlike John Key, I have read the book.)

But now we have reached a somewhat odd pass where when things should be happening, but they aren't.  I refer, of course, to the sacking or resignation of Judith Collins, who claimed she didn't leak Simon Pleasant's identity to Cameron Slater, and who also claims she didn't leak Browyn Pullar's identity either.

One of these claims we now know is massively untrue, as we've seen the emails where she tells Slater who Simon Pleasants is and what he does for a living.

The other?  Well, she SAYS she didn't tell Slater who Pullar was.  And we'd take her word for it, wouldn't we?  I men, it isn't like she has a history of lying about what she has said or done.  We trust you, Judith.  Totally.  It isn't like you've been exposed as a frequent liar about your influence peddling and abuses of power, or anything.

It is quite strange watching this car crash in slow motion.  And the hapless defences offered by the supposedly media savvy and unfazeable John Key provide no end of amusement.  But the uselessness of the journalists interrogating him is annoying.  They need to challenge him on specifics, shoot down every airy generality he tries to foist on us.  It isn't good enough to hear him getting away with waffle when we're talking about the rank corruption in New Zealand's democracy.  He's in charge of it, and he needs to be held to account by our representatives in the media.

Every time I hear Key bleat, “The left do this too,” I really wish the journalists would challenge him on it:

 “When, Mr Key, have ‘the left’ abused their ministerial position to leak the identity of a public servant to an attack blog, so they can be held up to public abuse and threats? When have ‘the left’ abused the OIA process by alerting people to when information is being released and expediting the process?”

Anyway, Collins has utterly, obviously lied, as she told Key she didn’t leak the name, just the job title (which is a bit like Slater’s attempts to get round name suppression). But it is right there in the email.  While she claims she didn't do it.

Yesterday, Mr Key said he’d asked Ms Collins about the release of the civil servant’s name, identified as Simon Pleasants, and she told him she’d only passed on the job title to the blogger.

Surely, she’s got to go after this? Key can’t let her carry on making him look really stupid.

Come on, Judith.  If Pleasants' name was already linked to the leaking of Bill English's expenses claim, it shouldn't be hard for you to prove that.  Your failure to face up to very credible charges of misconduct makes you look, well, just a bit guilty.  Follow the lead of Britain's Joanthan Aitken!  Take up the trusty sword of truth and the trusty shield of fair play!  Smite the liars and smearers!

Just don't ask what happened to Aitken ...

Giant Eagle Terrorises Yorkshire

Indeed, 'tis true!

Chris O’Donnell lost Nikita, a Steller’s sea eagle, after training in windy conditions near Brackenbottom, North Yorks, and believes the 10-year-old eagle may have been blown off course. Police today stated the bird was not dangerous to the public, but yesterday tweeted a warning to pet owners to keep small animals indoors. Nikita's trainer said yesterday: “She’s massive – like a small glider,” but reassured people the eagle was harmless. Mr O’Donnell believes the bird will be found a few miles away, adding: “It’ll be sitting in a field wishing it was back home.” Steller's sea eagles are native to eastern Russia, and migrate to Japan each winter where they are now revered.

If it is a threat to small animals, it is endangering most of the intelligent life in Yorkshire.

Quake

Never felt anything like that! We have a railway line running by our house, and I literally thought a train had derailed into the house.

It looks like the Big Eagle at the airport was as well secured as my wife's jewellery tree, which was also upended by the quake.

Where is "Health and safety gone mad" when you actually need it?

Wither now, Aussie Labour?

If the New Zealish Labour Party thought it had woes, then they need only look across the ditch and see what REAL problems look like.  And it is really sad as, viewed pragmatically, Abbott's victory offers a brilliant opportunity for the Labour Party to regroup and get ready for what should be a straightforward return to power in 2016, for it won't take long for Tony Abbott to become so hated that people would even vote Kevin Rudd back in.


However, I confidently expect the Australian Labour Party will not manage to put its house in order and will go into the 2016 election - and the one after that, and the one after that - as a disorganised, dishevelled, hate-inspiring rabble of self-serving divisionists, gleefully plotting against each other and not giving a damn about the party, far less the country, because their seats will be safe.  After all, if they've managed to cling on to their seats through the routing of Rudd, they'll probably never lose them.

Blessed with playing opposition to what will be the most hated government since ... er ... their last one, Labour will not be ready. Abbott is going to be loathed, his policies are going to be hated and his MPs are going to turn out to be drivelling morons who couldn't even find a place in One Nation. In fact, there is a possibility Labour and the Coalition will be so hated that, next time round, Australia will see it first ever Green government, with One Nation forming the opposition. Or the other way round ... because both the big parties are going to be despised and disowned for a very long time.

(Okay, that last bit is a bit fanciful.)

So, what now for the Labour Party.  In a sane world, Rudd would step down.  But this isn't a sane world.  This is the mad world where Tony Abbott gets to be PM, so all bets are off.  He should go.  But who would replace him?  There aren't enough Labour MPs left to have a leadership race and an election, are there?

You can imagine the conversations between the remaining members of caucus: "Right, I'm standing and so are you. I'll vote for you and you vote for you, and that way we can say the new leaders was elected after a fiercely fought contest, winning the overwhelming support of the Labour Party cauccus. All three of them ..."

At least the travails and misery of the (sort of) left in Australia should serve as some sort of warning to our lot.  But will they heed it?  I fear not.

Tough on lines, tough on the causes of lines

Eric Pickles has put in a useful effort for the typically hotly contested 'Dumbest Idea' category of British legislation.

He has suggested that allowing people to park in No Parking areas - indicated in the UK by double yellow lines - for up to fifteen minutes would be a boon to struggling high streets and revitalise dying town centres, lift the economy, eradicate world poverty and cure cancer.

Okay, some of that may be hyperbolic. But it's not much stupider than what Pickles is actually suggesting, which is to take a perfectly simple rule (YOU MAY NOT PARK YOUR CAR HERE) and make it stupidly complicated - YOU MAY NOT PARK YOUR CAR HERE BUT YOU MAY AS LONG AS IT NOT FOR MORE THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES.

Setting aside the dubious claim that allowing people to park free of charge on the street would really have a significant impact (how much money can you really spend in fifteen minutes?) this is so impractical it prompts me to wonder when the last time Pickles drove his own car.

Double yellow lines are there for a reason. TO MAKE IT SAFER. Allowing people to park there for a short spell will make things far more dangerous. Then there is the policing issue. It makes fining for illegal parking almost impossible: "I was only here 15 minutes, gov!"

Either get away with double yeller lines altogether, or keep the rule as it is. If there needs to be more parking, make it official, rather than creating more ambiguity, whinging-room and silliness.

Anyway, I'm not sure double yellow lines are killing the high street. I think inflated rents on properties and not being very good or competitive are what is killing the high street.

Maybe David Cameron will order the internet to be closed because it is killing the high street?

Dodgy Cliff and Randy Mann

Someone cited two alleged climate experts, messrs Cliff Harris and Randy Mann in an I had argument recently.

The graph below was referred to.  It was meant to  prove something or other - though they were coy about telling me exactly what it was I was supposed to be seeing.

It's something about temperature, right?  I know that, because it says Temperature in big red letters in the top left corner.

And volcanoes, yes, I can see that.  There are lots of volcanic eruptions given.  Volcanoes pop off every now and again, and the global temperature changes.

Presumably, from this, I am supposed to see how It Is Not All Not Our Fault, as if it hadn't been pointed out a million times at least, that past temperature misbehaviour doesn't really tell us much about current temperature misbehaviour, because Things Were Different Then.  You know, just like Things Are Different on Mars.

In fact, now that my mind has almost caught up with my consumption of Milcrest Estate 2010 Pinot Noir (Bloody Hell it is good - and my wife was using it for cooking!) I recall I even made something of a Lurgee's Paradigm of this sort of nonsense.

Ah!  The folly of youth!  When I actually had time to blog and subscribed to the foolish belief that - if I just repeated the bleedin' obvious one more time - I might succeed in changing someone's mind.

But, anyway, back to the graph and what it is supposed to be telling us. Something, I think, about temperature variation and a correlation with volcanoes?

Only, there isn't much of a correlation, really.

There are some points where there are cold spells with no or few notable eruptions; and 'sudden' cooling taking 400-500 years, and instances where multiple eruptions don't seem to have had any discernible impact on rising temperatures - 35 recorded immediately prior to BC/AD switch over, for example, just as a warming spell kicked off.

The impact of volcanoes on global temperatures is a Known Thing We Know About, not some Ghastly Secret Concealed In The Climategate Emails.  And even though the short term cooling impact of Old Vulcan's  particulate emissions - and the insignificance of volcanic CO2 compared to humanity's -  is generally Not Secret, why is it no medium scale act of Vulcanism can occur without a chain email sweeping the world claiming all humanity's efforts to stem climate change have just been undone?

What might be a bit more interesting is what causes the warm / cold spells recorded (the chart seems to be missing a Y axis scale, or is it just the booze blurring my vision?) and whether it might have any influence on the current trend.

On that, of course, the graph has nothing to say.

Being a thoroughly nasty piece of work and not at all ashamed of playing them man rather than the ball, I cyber-stalked the creators of the graph, Mr Cliff Harris - a climatologist, apparently - and Mr Randy Mann, who is described as a meteorologist.

(I concentrated on Mr Harris rather than Mr Mann, mostly because I'm not so foolish as to run 'Randy Mann' through a search engine.  Oh, no.  That can only lead to perdition.)

What I discovered was that Messrs Harris and Mann run a website (which puts them on a par with yours truly) and occasionally get mentioned in their local newspaper, a degree of fame to which I can only aspire.

Other than that, it all becomes very vague.

We are assured they have been providing media and public bodies with weather forecasts for decades, and that may well be true, but it is remarkably short on detailing any actual credentials the two may hold.

In a profile (again in what appears to be his local newspaper) of Mr Harris, we are told:

Harris estimates he has earned more than 300 college credits from seven different colleges and university.

That's nice, Cliff, but do you actually have a degree of any sort in anything?  Because at the moment you are looking even less credentialed than the 31000.  And that ain't good!

Frighteningly, on their website, Harris doesn't even seem to know what the initials IPCC stand for, naming it the International Panel on Climate Control. Maybe it was meant to be a joke, but you know, the thing about jokes is they are meant to be funny ... I get the feeling Harris and Mann really believe this stuff; and true believers don't often joke about their faith.

They also claim (I am not making this up) their weather forecasts are based on secret information that was divulged to them by an organisation called the Weather Science Foundation, which once employed "over 60 people to gather world wide data."  Sixty people, gathering world wide data?  They must have been pretty busy.

Only, those 60 people were rudely dumped on the dole queue and (oddly) don't seem to have thought their stupendously important information might have been of use to the people studying the impact of human activity on climate.  Instead - I kid you not - they decided to gift the information to Mr Harris but made him promise not to use the information for 30 years.

It gets worse, though.

Further probing lead me to a name I know well ... Marc Morano.  A-ha, I thought, here be bullshit, for the name of Morano is always found where crap about climate change has been posted.  And verily, it was so.

Seeking out the source article, I discovered Mr Harris holding forth in - inevitably - the columns of his local newspaper, to this effect:

Although the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted that sea levels will rise 100 cm by the year 2100, actual measurements do not bear out that conclusion.

This is simply and obviously incorrect. The IPCC made no such prediction. It is simply not true.

The actual projections in AR4 can be viewed right here - about half a metre, +/- 10cm.  He was writing in 2012, before you ask, and the projections in the TAR - while a bit wider - were not so spectacularly extreme as to justify the claim that the IPCC predicted sea levels will rise by a metre.

Bluntly, it is a lie.  Not an exaggeration or a bit of hyperbolic rounding, but a lie.  He must have known it was so, but he went ahead and published it anyway.

(But at least he got the name of the IPCC right, this time.)

Perhaps I am too good for this world but I still find it slightly shocking to actually discover someone calling themselves a climatologist simply telling lies.

Not the sort of vaguely-almost-might-be-kinda-sorta-true-if-you-look-at it-this-way-I'm-buying-the-drinks-ain't-I-so-don't-tell-me-it's-bullshit stuff that is denier stock in trade, but an outright Thing That Is Not True And Which Must Have Been Known To Be Untrue.

If if it was the IPCC putting out some similarly shonky claims, you know how it would be treated, right? Think Himalayan glaciers!

So I feel Messrs Harris and Mann can be ignored, henceforth.

The face of the British proletariat

 

“If you look at the demographics, at where we need to be at the next election, we need more people in the North voting for us, more of what they call here 'blue collar’ workers and I call the white working class. 

We need more people from urban areas voting for us, more people who are not white and more women. “I play that back and think: 'I’m a woman, I’m not white, I’m from an urban area, I’m from the North, I’m working class – I kind of fit the bill. All the groups that we’re aiming for are groups that I’m familiar with.”

As far as I can tell, said without the slightest trace of irony by BARONESS Warsi, who is the daughter of a genuine northern mill owning capitalist; a university graduate; and a former solicitor.

How very representative of the British blue collar.

Amateur hour at Sanctuary of Mercy

Oh dear ...

Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) by Elias Garcia Martinez has held pride of place in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza for more than 100 years. 

The woman took her brush to it after years of deterioration due to moisture. Cultural officials said she had the best intentions and hoped it could be properly restored. Donation 

The woman, in her 80s, was reportedly upset at the way the fresco had deteriorated and took it on herself to "restore" the image. BBC Europe correspondent Christian Fraser says the delicate brush strokes of Elias Garcia Martinez have been buried under a haphazard splattering of paint. 

The once-dignified portrait now resembles a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic, he says.

I, for one, quite like the new version.  Europe has plenty of old pictures, it can spare one.  Not only does it present a more cuddly vision of the Messiah, but it has given the imortal phrase, "a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic" to the language.

Also, at least the new Jesus isn't blatantly Aryan.  It's probably a better likeness.

Very unfair

The Telegraph - probably unintentionally - destroy's whatever is left of George Osborne's reputation with perhaps the most unfortunate comparison any British politician could suffer:

People must rediscover the joy of ownership if George Osborne is to repeat Neville Chamberlain’s feat

There it is - in sixteen words (I counted them), the complete destruction of George Osborne has been achieved.  He's not even capable of repeated the 'feats' of Neville Chamberlain.

Now, I'm more sympathetic to Chamberlain than most; he oversaw the rearmament and was responsible for us having - just - enough aircraft to see off Gerry.  But the popular image is of an ineffectual, blind-to-the-inevitable, incompetent posh boy who was utterly out of his depth.

All of which accurately describes Osborne very well.  Perhaps it is the shade of Chamberlain that should be cringing at the comparison.  For it is his reputation that is being besmirched, unfairly.