The world just went more mad

Is it offical mental day today or something? First we have the Turkish lawyer who is upset that his team lost so he's suing Inter-Milan. Now we have some mad aussie doctor writing to the Medical Journal of Australia saying,

Every family choosing to have more than a defined number of children (Sustainable Population Australia suggests a maximum of two) should be charged a carbon tax that would fund the planting of enough trees to offset the carbon cost generated by a new human being. The average annual CO2 emission by an Australian individual is about 17 metric tons,4 including energy usage. As the biomass of trees in a mature forest sequesters about 6 metric tons of CO2 per hectare (104 m2) per year,4,5 each child born should be offset by planting 4 hectares of trees, to allow for the time they take to reach maturity, and attrition through crop losses, bushfires, dieback and so on. This infers a levy per child of at least $5000 at birth (to purchase the land needed and plant trees) and an annual tax of $400–$800 thereafter for the life of the child (for maintenance of the afforestation project) (based on 1990 figures, and probably much more now).

So nutty I don't know where to begin really. I suggest reading this excellent response on Spiked though. It sums up brilliantly (a) the flaws in the figures, and more importantly (b) the anti-human nature driving such idiocy. The scary thing is that Australia just voted in the socialists, they'll probably try to implement it.

Harman declares donation to non-existant department?

According to Harriet Harman yesterday,

Information [about donations] was provided to the permanent secretary at the Department of Constitutional Affairs at the appropriate time and in line with the Ministerial Code.

The DCA ceased to exist on May 9th, so how can her donations registered as being received in late June and beyond have been declared to the permanent secretary at said department?

How impartial is the Electoral Commission?

The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 is a funny thing isn't it? It set up the Electoral Commission to monitor all the political parties and yet under its rules all staff accept the chief executive can be a member of a political party. What's more all the staff are allowed to donate to political parties below the level required for the donation to be recorded, and they're also allowed to contribute to the political fund of a trade union.

Irrespective of which side of the political fence one might sit on, is it not a bit silly to allow staff of a body designated to monitor and regulate the political parties also be funder and/or members of the very same political parties they will have to watch? I know it's a cliche, but who watches the watchers?

The world has gone mad

As an Evertonian can you imagine what the reaction would be if I tried to sue Liverpool for wearing red, the colour of vicious communists and thus offending me during a derby that they won? Imagine if I said that colour red represented the great terror and oppression of thw worst dictators in the world and that the FA should annul the result. I would, quite rightly, be laughed at for a very long time for being a bit mental and a sore loser to boot.

This though really is now happening at the UEFA level. Some Turkish lawyer is suing Inter-Miland for wearing a white kit with a big red cross on it (the symbol of Milan) during their home match against the Turkish side Fenerbahce that they won 3-0. Apparently it was offensive to Muslims because it reminds them of Templar Knights and the Crusades and symbolises 'Western racist superiority over Islam'. Seriously, this is not a joke. The Turkish paper Radikal asked 'How could UEFA allow this?'

OK, reality check time. Just because someone wears a red cross it does not mean that they are trying to remind people of the Crusades. What about the Red Cross? Are the Turks suing them? What about all the English clubs that have fans that go to matches in Turkey, and, whilst they're not being stabbed to death, drape the Cross of St George (who was a Turk) in the stadium? Are there complaints to UEFA about that? Of course there aren't.

As for the reference to Western racist superiority. The West as a concept didn't even bloody exist during the Crusades. Racist butchering in the name of Christ it may have been - a bit like the Armenian genocide was racist butchering but lets not go there - but it had bugger all to do with something called the West. The issue is far simpler than conjuring up some perceived sleight. Fenerbahce got the arses kicked away from home and a bad loser has decided to make a pathetic race card issue of it. He should get a grip.

Is Brown refusing to let Blair hang in Number 10?

When the Prime Minister's official spokesman addressed the lobby yesterday, a rather amusing question was asked about when a portrait of the former prime Minister Tony Blair would appear on the staircase of Number 10 as per the traditon. The PMS "did not have an answer to the question" as they were "not sure how long such things traditionally took".

Given that it's been over six months you'd think there would be one up soon, wouldn't you? Perhaps Brown is blocking it as he cannot stomach looking at the smug grin of someone that was clearly a greater electoral asset and more astute at the job than he is? He could always teach his kids to play darts with it!

My only advice to those commissioning such a thing is to make sure it comes with a special spit protection coating on it for easy wipe purposes.

Cause and Effect No. II

Decmeber 9th 2007: A law to cut red tape – hailed by Gordon Brown as a crucial means of reducing the burden on business – has failed to axe or even amend a single regulation in the first year of its existence. - Financial Times

December 11th 2007: Cuts to red tape are saving UK businesses and third sector organisations more than £800 million per year, according to a Government report released today. - Government News Network

What more can I say?

There's nothing funnier than evidence that proves cultural stereotypes is there?

• Scotland Office: Christmas Party spend for past three years: £0
  

• Wales Office: Christmas Party spend for past three years: £9,346.57
  

When will they admit they had a good time?

When it comes to the subject of drug taking in a politician's youth there are it seems standard responses. Either you'll get "I did once take a few puffs on a joint but I didn't like it", or "I did some stupid things when I was young which I now regret", or perhaps "I had a normal youth lets just leave at that". Whichever form of words is chosen by a given politician it will, at least it seems to be, that remorse, regret, and appeal for forgiveness of some sort will be the subtext of their statement and the question I have is why?

Why is it that if you're a politician you have to lie whilst bearing your soul about what you might have done with the intoxicating mind altering herb or chemical? After all, people take drugs for one reason and one reason only. They do it to get high. They do it to experience another state of consciousness disconnected from traditonal straight-laced existence, and the day after they don't regret doing it because they think it might have been a moral crime. They might regret it because the come down hurt in ways that make a hangover look tame, but they don't think 'oh I am such a deviant against society and need to show remorse or lest be punished'.

Yet fast-forward them a few years and put them on the political stage that is public life and they suddenly look back will much mournfulness to how they were naughty. Of course, they would argue that if they didn't act this way it could be intepretted as an endorsement to get out the bucket, cut a 2 litre lemonade bottle in half and find the tinfoil. They don't want to be seen to be 'sending the wrong message'. The problem is that the message they send out when they don't send the wrong message is "look at me, I have such a massive ego that I think that if I say I quite enjoyed taking ecstasy and gurning like a loony in Turnmills until 6am, all the kids will think it's ok for them to do it". At the same time the vast majority of people sit there and think "yeah.. right!"

The dishonesty that the politician displays when he or she describes their deep regret about having got wasted says a lot about their own sense of elevated importance and influence. It also informs us of how out of touch with society they have actually become that they think making such admissions without saying they feel awfully terrible about it will be a negetive thing. The truth is no one really cares if the Home Secretary toked 20 years ago. Most people wouldn't even care if a senior politician had been a crackhead decades before. What matters is whether they're doing their job now whilst off their trolly on something.

Perhaps one day a politician with a colourful narcotic abuse past will realise this and sit on a GMTV sofa and say "to be honest with you it would probably be quicker to tell you the drugs I haven't taken". Maybe one day one of them will actually publish photos of themselves in a field somewhere, whistle in mouth and bottle of Evian in hand, taking in the hardcore or jungle. Maybe one day it will happen, although with the rise of the political class and career machine politicians maybe it won't. If the day ever comes I will rejoice though, because if politicians want to represent ordinary people then they need to start being more ordinary themselves.

The "thick-slice bread" debate

Last week there were a few comments on blogs about the House of Lords debating the use of thick-slice bread and the possibility of doing something about it to tackle obesity.

In fact the "debate" consisted more of a silly Aussie Tory peer that suggested the Government should do something about it and the Government saying that it would be nanny statism gone mad. The phrase "through the looking glass" springs to mind.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I speak as a member of the All-Party Group on Obesity. Why is it that in central London you can hardly find a thinly-sliced or medium-sliced loaf of bread to buy, and any sandwich you buy in any supermarket is now made with thick bread? While the House of Lords continues to use medium-sliced—and very nice—bread in its sandwiches, even the House of Commons has moved to thick bread. Surely at a time when we want to reduce people's consumption, there should be more pressure from the Food Standards Agency, or one of the many departments the Minister speaks about, to take us back to normal-sized bread instead of these super-sized sandwiches.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, that is an interesting and important point, but it is not really a matter for the Government. We would be accused of being a nanny state if the Government started to pronounce on these issues.

I feel ashamed thatr a Tory would suggest such things, and equally sad that it was the Government in the Lords that had to point out how stupid it was.

Cause and Effect?

November 23rd: Gordon Brown attacked by former military chiefs
December 10th: Gordon Brown visits troops in Basra and promises handover by Christmas

Is this just a cynical post or was that a cynical visit?