“Mitt the Mormon”…

New Hitchens available here.

The Swedish libertarian writer and Cato Institute scholar Johan Norberg has today quoted from a recent article in the Daily Wail featuring two childless, middle-class, eco-fundamentalist couples.

Toni Vernelli, 35, who works for an environmental charity, and had herself sterilised at the age of 27, displays her profound understanding of the dismal science thus:

“Having children is selfish. It’s all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet.”

“Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.”

“We both passionately wanted to save the planet - not produce a new life which would only add to the problem.”

I can just imagine Terry Glavin chortling as he reads this.

Johan titles his post “Saving the planet - for whom?”, and makes no further comment. The answer is, of course, “For the rest of us!” If these angst-ridden nihilists choose not to procreate, this will strengthen the gene pool, and we should therefore welcome their heroic and selfless act. It is yet another wonderful example of group natural selection in action.

Barring a last-minute admission of mindless stupidity, or possibly a bloody riot on St Giles, the chinless wonders of the Oxford Union will today host two convicted criminals – British National Party leader Nick Griffin and holocaust denying jailbird “historian” David Irving – at a discussion on “The Limits of Free Speech”. How very, very amusing.

Even arch cold-warrior Tory MP Julian Lewis has denounced the move, and resigned his life membership of the Union in protest. Good for him.

A BNP spokesman is reported to have said:

“This event is a big breakthrough for our party to spread its message in democratic surroundings.”

You don’t say. It sounds to me like the fascists are a whole lot smarter than the supposed cream of the future British ruling class. But then Griffin is a Cambridge chap (third class degree in History with Law), so maybe that explains it. I despair for the future of these once great nations.

Here’s Fiona Phillips’ 10-point manifesto to make us great:

1 EXTRADITE Jose Mourinho from Portugal and force him to manage the England team, while boarding at my house (rent free).

2 BAN all titles, including Baroness and Duchess, and scrap the Honours system.

3 SHUT all private schools. What’s good enough for the rest of us is good enough for those who think they’re better than us. It’ll improve education for all.

4 BRING back lost childhood by raising school entry to age seven. Yes I know this’ll cause havoc for working mums and dads but, er… let me come back to you on that one.

5 BAN selection in schools - no creaming off the brightest pupils. Local schools for local people.

6 BRING back the right to be a mother by upgrading the status of stay-at-home mums. The majority of mums want to care for their pre-school children but can’t afford not to work. Maybe instead of tax allowances for childcare, cash incentives for staying at home? Er… I’ll come back to you on that one, too.

7 BAN all private medical work in NHS hospitals.

8 GET rid of contract cleaners and make Matron and nurses responsible for hospital hygiene.

9 RENATIONALISE Britain’s rail network. It’s never been the same since John Major privatised British Rail, splitting it into over 100 separate companies which resulted in profits over safety and efficiency.

10 PROPER local authority care in the home for the elderly. Reinstate full home-help and meals-on-wheels services.

P.S. And, I know it’s supposed to be a 10-point plan, but none of us can rest safely in our beds until we…Take George Bush to Iraq and shoot him.

John Winston Howard was Australian Prime Minister for a quarter of my life–eleven and a half minutes would have been too long, let alone eleven and a half years.

A misty-eyed enthusiast for the ‘golden age’ of the Menzies Government, he tried to return the country to the 1950s, when Australia was for whites only, when Indigenous Australians were neither allowed to vote nor counted in census figures, when the government attempted–twice–to ban the Communist Party, and the Prime Minister would ostentatiously sniff Betty Windsor’s knickers:

I did but see her passing by, And yet I love her till I die.*

Howard, like Menzies, fawned obsequiously over the British hereditary ruling classes, but introduced a new dimension, indulging in the most cringe-worthy worship of Australian ‘royalty’–notoriously leading the audience of the Midday Show–Trisha presented by a bloke in a wig–in singing Happy Birthday to an absent Don Bradman.

Howard’s racism can be documented over twenty years. During his first stint as Liberal leader (1985-1989) he complained that there were too many Asian migrants coming to Australia, and opposed proposals to acknowledge the crimes committed against Indigenous Australians and redress some of the wrongs of Australia’s murderous colonial past. Later as Liberal leader for a second time, and then Prime Minister, he remained true to type. Instead of admonishing disendorsed Liberal candidate and One Nation MP Pauline Hanson for her racist remarks about Asians, Aboriginals and others–I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians…They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate–he welcomed her words and the fact that people can now talk about certain things without living in fear.

His government used asylum seekers from the very countries for whose liberty and freedom Australian soldiers have purportedly been fighting, as fodder for election propaganda, herding them into concentration camps and whipping up anti-refugee hysteria with accusations that they were ‘fifth columnists’ and ’sleeper agents’, and the spectacularly lurid fabrication that boat people had thrown their children into the sea. At the time Commander Norman Banks of HMS Adelaide, the ship at the centre of the controversy told the ABC:

No, I have not told people that children were thrown overboard.

My statements are on the public record and they indicate that by 10 October it was clear that no children had been thrown overboard.

The Government and the right wing press ignored him.

During his final term in government, Howard’s government suspended the Racial Discrimination Act and police and military were sent into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, ostensibly to prevent ‘child abuse’, but in fact acting to close down ‘unsustainable’ communities and takeover community lands and resources, and cut welfare payments to people in areas where there is no work. Liberal party activists were caught during the last days of his Prime Ministership, distributing bogus leaflets intended to stir up race-hatred in the electorate of Lindsay in Western Sydney.

In the end it wasn’t his racism, or his introduction of regressive taxes which unfairly penalised low income earners, which ended his political career, it was his workplace ‘reforms’. In 1998 masked thugs with attack dogs and batons were sent, with the connivance of the Howard Government, to enforce the sacking and lock-out of unionised labour and its replacement with non-unionised scab labour on the Australian waterfront. Howard was offended by the very idea that two or more employees might organise cooperatively in the workplace in order to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment with their bosses. Howard’s 11 years in office were devoted to the gradual destruction of the wage and arbitration system, with the final goal–the complete elimination of trade unions and collective bargaining power, with employees being placed on downgraded individual workplace contracts, as enacted in the 2005 ‘Workchoices’ Act. This finally, proved too much.

Now he is gone.

Well I hope I don’t die too soon
I pray the Lord my soul to save
Oh I’ll be a good boy, I’m trying so hard to behave
Because there’s one thing I know, I’d like to live
long enough to savour
That’s when they finally put you in the ground
I’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down

—

* The poem continues: Had I her fast betwixt mine arms, Judge you that think such sports were harms, Were’t any harm? No, no, fie, fie! For I will love her till I die. Ooh er Prime Minister!

While some might take issue with some of Jemina Khan’s article, this appears spot on (and follows on from another debate):

And although Muslims increasingly feel like a demonised minority, even by liberals, it is also true that Islam is an ideology. As such it must expect to be challenged in an open society, no matter how uncomfortable or personal that debate becomes. Not only must Islam - with its social and political mandate - expect to be challenged by modern secular society but, more importantly, it must also expect to be challenged from within the Islamic tradition. Its evolution depends on such a challenge.

But it would help greatly if critics of Islam would give as much attention to the moderate Muslims engaged in that vital internal debate as they do to the hook-handed, effigy-burning few.

There is some ‘good’ news and some bad news from Iranian-occupied Kurdistan.

Abdolwahed (Hiwa) Boutimar’s death sentence has been quashed by the Supreme Court owing to irregularities in legal procedure. The case has now been referred back to the Revolutionary Court in Marivan that sentenced him, and that tribunal could reinstate the original sentence.

The bad news is that Adnan Hassanpours’s sentence has been upheld by the Supreme Court, and needs only to be approved by the head of the judiciary before it can be carried out.

Hassanpour is entitled to another appeal, but his lawyer has not received the necessary documents, and cannot proceed without them. My Kurdish contact in Southampton, Khalid Khedri, fears that the Iranian regime is deliberately stalling on handing over the documents, and plans to go ahead and hang Hassanpour.

APPEALS TO:

Head of the Judiciary

His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi

Ministry of Justice, Panzdah Khordad (Ark) Square, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info@dadgostary-tehran.ir (In the subject line: FAO Ayatollah Shahroudi)
Fax: +98 21 3390 4986 (please keep trying, if the called is answered, say “fax please”)

COPIES TO:

President of Iran

His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: +98 21 6 649 5880
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
via website: http://www.president.ir/email

Tip and no iceberg:

hat tipping Hakness.

Right-wingers of all nations (yes - I know what it means - what? You don’t?) –the world over — without exception — scumbags.

As if we needed reminding.

“About 150 right-wing activists, including academics and Israel Defense Forces reserves officers, have signed a manifesto to be published Friday [yesterday] calling on security forces to refuse evacuating West Bank settlers on the grounds that it is a “crime against humanity.”

The grave that is present society — we shall all dance upon, come the moment. Tile it — tile it well — for it will be overburdened with the soles of many boots. The rightist political standpoint — a neurotic attachment to metaphysics — kill it — make it ex-metaphysics — it shall be so.

I have a piece up at The Weekly Standard (neocon alert!) on why the crisis in the Caucasus may not be as dire as it appears:

A crucial aspect of this whole affair is that his pro-American orientation is not the will-o’-the-wisp that Musharraf’s is. Saakashvili wants badly for Georgia to join NATO and the European Union, and while he was busying cracking down on civil liberties last week, something progressive did occur in his country: Russia formally ended its military presence there. NATO had made this a prerequisite for further ratification of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and thus any consideration Georgia’s inclusion. On November 8, Andrei Popov, the commander of Russian military forces in the Caucasus, made good on the Kremlin’s 1999 promise and signed the papers that officially transferred control to Georgia of the last of its Soviet era bases in Batumi. So its NATO Membership Action Plan can now technically move forward.

Remarkably, even Georgia’s EU prospects have not been irreparably damaged by the state of emergency. The EU Special Representative to the south Caucasus, Peter Semneby, told EurasiaNet, “[I]f Georgia is successful now in turning the agenda towards the presidential elections, if the presidential elections are carried out successfully, then there should not be any lasting damage to these relations.” Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has even announced on Polskie Radio that he will travel to Georgia soon to help resolve the Imedi impasse. He was solicited for this role by the United States and by the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Here is a fine example of how the United States and Europe can still resort to an effective carrot-and-stick diplomacy with iniquitous partners who still place high premiums on their military and economic ties to the West. The rumors of the Bush Doctrine’s death have been greatly exaggerated. It helps to compare Georgia not to Pakistan but to another often refractory and complicated ally: Turkey.

A Rose by Any Other Name - The Weekly Standard

Addendum by Will:  No need for bashfulness. Someone gets a profile here also.

Little reported outside of the local media in Norfolk was yesterday’s return from Afghanistan of the First Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment (“The Vikings”). Nine of its members died, and 57 were wounded, in some of the fiercest fighting the British Army has seen in a very long time.

Welcome home, soldiers, and thanks for a job well done!

Over at Harry’s Place they are discussing Timothy Garton Ash’s struggle with terminology to describe Islamic imperialists. Rather than being drawn into that debate, I’m more interested in those who do not wish to make the distinction between various strands of Muslim opinion. These people can roughly be divided into two groups, the first being left wingers who refuse to accept such terms and label them as Islamophobic - who are probably motivated by an unwillingness to accept terminology used by their political opponents. The second group are right wingers who see Islam as the central problem. One example of this crops up at Harrys Place in the comments:

I don’t like ‘Islamist’, one bit - because Islam is a political ideology anyway.

Despite the professed anti-fundamentalist stance of this commentator, he concedes too much to the fanatics. They do not represent all Muslims. Many Muslims do not want a theocracy - see the struggle in Iraq as an example.

His objection to Islamist is also undermined by his later choice of the term Koranic literalist, since that would suggest that he thinks there are followers of Islam who are not literalists - otherwise why make the distinction? The correct term for the group people like this have a problem with is Muslims, shown by their inability to accept there are people who can follow Islam without desiring its role in the political. I meet these types of people everyday, they are not hard to find.

Koranic literalism is also useless term, because it depends on the interpretation of literalism being used - one could be peaceable, one not. In addition, it ignores the point that modern day jihadists owe as much to Nazi anti-semitic propaganda and Western European totalitarian movements as to the religion they purport to represent, as people like Berman and Küntzel have put forward. Left wingers avoid terms like Islamist or Islamofacist precisely because they see it as endorsement of such ideas. They prefer to see a monolith of peacable people under attack from arrogant imperialist Western ideology, undermining the progressive forces under attack by Islamist forces. By not opposing extremism, they weaken moderates lengthening the time it will take to undermine Islamists - who will eventually lose as their fanaticism will never carry the majority (see the fall in support for Al Qaeda over the years).

What the right wing variant does is give the impression of a monolith of organised violent people who are not amenable to reform, have no interest in democratic states, and who can only be fought militarily. There are no moderates in this universe. They may as well say they have a problem with all Muslims and be done with it, since just like Osama they believe all Muslims, to be real Muslims, should comply with the most extreme interpretations of Islam. It is form of wish fulfillment for these people to be involved in some sort of religious war, and their adoption of Al Qaeda’s binary division of the world is ironic given their professed defence of democratic values. The only logical conclusion to their analysis is war without end.

See also Norman Geras for another discussion about Garton Ash’s piece.

LaRose by any other name would still be the guy who told his Indiana flock that devil-worshippers gave him shock therapy to erase his memory and dumped him in Minneapolis, and who now says the devil-worshippers were really an underworld crime gang, which he eluded by bicycle, and then assumed the identity of a guy who died in a car accident in New York, and so got himself a new wife, and got himself elected mayor of the Arkansas town where he has his own radio talk show.

“He seemed to be a great man, with integrity, honesty, a good rapport, he loved people, good communicator.”

Moral of story: Wear your collar backwards, get away with any old crap.

MEANWHILE: Best post from Canada today, here.

The BBC carry a story about the controversy that Mearsheimer and Walt’s book on the supposed effectiveness of the Israeli lobby has provoked. The article makes it clear that the authors do not think there is a conspiracy, but that “pro-Israeli lobbying is not secretive, but conforms to the open rules of America’s democratic system.” However Mearsheimer and Walt’s discussion about the negative reaction to their book is interesting:

Virtually all reviews of the book in the mainstream US press have been negative.

“They have often misrepresented our arguments badly or tried to smear us by either saying or hinting that we are anti-Semitic,” Mr Walt told the BBC News website.
[…]
The authors regard their excoriation in the US press as a sign of the lobby’s effectiveness.

Are they suggesting that the pro-Israeli lobby have been lobbying the media openly using the American democratic system? All the negative book reviews were due to Zionist lobbying? Where is the evidence for this? How convenient that negative reactions to their books must be a sign of the lobby’s effectiveness.

So, let’s get this clear. The “Israeli lobby” controls US foreign policy and also the US media?

I’m surprised they got their book past the Israeli lobby’s censor, given the power they ascribe to it.

Two supporters of the Australian government have taken part in a historical re-enactment, with a contemporary twist, of the UK’s Zinoviev Letter.

Australia’s prime minister has condemned members of his own party for distributing leaflets implying the Labor opposition supports terrorism.

John Howard, who trails Labor’s Kevin Rudd in opinion polls ahead of a Saturday’s general election, said the Liberal Party had not authorised them.

The flyers purported to be from an Islamic group thanking Labor for its sympathy for the Bali bombers.

Two Liberal activists have been expelled from the party.

The leaflets were distributed in the Sydney constituency of Lyndsay - a marginal seat in what will be a keenly fought election.

The Zinoviev Letter was a supposed letter from sent in 1924 written by Grigory Zinoviev, chairman of the Comintern in the Soviet Union. Zinoviev promoted revolution through acts of sedition. It was intercepted by MI5, and then leaked to the Daily Mail with serious consequences for the Labour Party.

The letter was published in these newspapers four days before the 1924 General Election and contributed to the defeat of MacDonald and the Labour Party. After the election it was claimed that two of MI5’s agents, Sidney Reilly and Arthur Maundy Gregory, had forged the letter and that Major Joseph Ball, a MI5 leaked it to the press. In 1927 Ball went to work for the Conservative Central Office where he pioneered the idea of spin-doctoring.

It was my pleasure to have visited Americaland in recent days and I found it curious and heartwarming that as far back as last weekend everyone was already wishing everyone else a Happy Holidays, even though the day itself isn’t until Thursday, which is still to come from where I write this. It’s a really big deal down there. A fine custom, too, and loads of good eats (if it were me, I’d go for the Twinkie Teramisu with Espresso Syrup).

We had ours several weeks ago, as per usual in Canuckistan. Still, today, I happened to receive three correspondences via the electronic pneumatique from Americans, and each of them wished me a Happy Holidays. Whether they offered the salutation unaware of the differences in our respective feast days or just because that’s what Americans say to people around this time of year regardless, I don’t know. I appreciated it all the same.

Happy Thanksgiving to the lot of you.

Have read this earlier today.

Nothing is for certain in any war — as the savage ironies of Iraq have shown the last four years. Few envisioned the initial brilliant three-week war, and the utter and rapid defeat of Saddam. Fewer foresaw the ensuing bloody four-year occupation. And the fewest of all anticipated that out of that mess, the present chance at stability and a real reconciliation under a constitutional framework could come.

The lessons are only the eternal ones: that wars won’t be fought as believed and won’t end as planned, but that adaptability, self-critique, and persistence, in an effort believed to be both right and necessary, will eventually prevail.

And this — a bit more pessimistic — probably characterised as sceptical optimism…

Both worth your time.

Studiously unfunny - but a kernel of truth is contained within the kernel:

One impact of these strikes in France is that it’s confused some of the people who write about such events. Which is why you get articles that seem to go “In a modern globalised economy, old-fashioned militancy simply has no power. That’s what these train drivers must realise as they bring the entire country to a stand-still, their powerless union wrecking the economy, not just of France but of Europe and most of outer space. And now loads of other workforces are coming out on strike as well! Haven’t they read my book explaining how this can’t happen any more? So now, because of them, to get to my lecture entitled, ‘The utter futile pointlessness of ever imagining a strike these days could have the tiddliest impact’ I’ve got to bloody well walk!”

…..

“It was one thing having these pensions back in the 1960s when we were much poorer, but now society is much richer they’ll have to be scrapped. Because as everyone knows, the richer you get, the less you can afford things.”

The Germans only managed a derisory nil - nil draw against Wales today. How useless is that?

Germany and Wales played out a tame goalless draw in their final Euro 2008 qualifier on Wednesday.

Germany, long since assured of qualifying for the finals along with Group D winners Czech Republic, created a handful of good chances in the first half but the match petered out after the break.

Wales, with nothing riding on the game, competed well enough but rarely threatened Jens Lehmann’s goal.

The closest they came was in the 35th minute when Carl Fletcher flashed a shot wide from outside the area.

Germany had already wasted the game’s best opportunities by that stage.

Lukas Podolski cracked over a shot from a good position in the 10th minute, Tim Borowski hit a post soon afterwards and Mario Gomez planted a header wide from close range after Philipp Lahm had picked him out with a cross from the left.

‘Martin Amis is no racist’

Bonus:

Video of Hitchens on “Your World with Neil Cavuto” - whoever, or whatever the fuck that is when it’s at yem like.

Don’t know the date, and don’t particularly care either — it’s newly available so up it goes.

As If….

“Now the law is regarded purely as an instrument of regulating our personal affairs, completely separate from morality and religion.” Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, speaking in a Lords debate on a bill which will make it easier for gay and lesbian couples to have children by artificial means. Would it were indeed separate from religion. To infer that the law is separate from morality is a piece of typical religionist arrogance which equates religion, frequently a loopy farrago of mad-as-a-meat-axe treatment of anyone ‘other’ and equally batty, but marginally less lethal, diktats on what you can put in your alimentary canal, with ethics, suggesting that there can be no morality separate from religion and overlooking the existence of Socrates for one. This, remember, is the cult that predicates all morality on the ‘Judæo-Christian tradition’ as if the genocidal behaviour of the deity of the Hebrew scriptures, Blake’s Nobodaddy, a figure whose petulance makes the general outlook of two year olds look mature, was any role model for ethical behaviour. As Hitchens has eloquently pointed out it is not necessary to be religious to be moral. And where did Dr Sentamu deliver this wee jeremiad about the diminishing influence of religion on the process of law-making? In the House of Lords, a law-making chamber where he and several of his fellow prelates sit as representatives of a church whose origins lie clearly in the satyriasis of Henry VIII. A small irony failure here, Dr S: why should you and other men in frocks have this right to a voice in the law-making of the land? Who exactly do you represent and how many of them are there? And how can we vote you out?”

Guest post. This gadgie. Read him and put on list of ‘to read’.

Spiked Online editor Brendan O’Neill was interviewed recently by Richard Sanderson and Neil Denny for their Little Atoms show on London community radio station Resonance FM. You can listen to a recording of the half hour programme here.

Talk of the Revolutionary Communist Party/LM/Spiked/Institute of Ideas/Sense about Science/Science Media Centre/Blah is normally guaranteed to raise my hackles. Right now, however, I’m not in the mood, so I’ll be a tad more restrained than usual in my comments.

I go along with a little of O’Neill’s critique of environmentalism, but at the same time I cannot help thinking that what the Spiked editor is attacking is partly if not largely straw man. And a pretty insignificant straw man at that, as the über-Malthusians denounced by O’Neill barely register in the mainstream environmentalist movement. George Monbiot may be a bit of a sour puss, but that doesn’t make him an Earth First‘er.

The RCP/Spiked line on science and the environment comes across to me as anti-naturalist. It is certainly not “humanist”, as O’Neill would have us believe. Any workable humanist philosophy requires a rational understanding of human limits, but the RCP/Spiked appear to have an almost religious faith in the ability of humanity to overcome any problem it faces. The reality is that homo sapiens is an ingenious and resourceful species, but it is far from invincible.

Like the RCP/Spiked I am fairly optimistic (insert shameless plug for Terry Glavin’s new book) about the prospects for humanity, but I do so wish the RCP/Spiked would engage with the real world in all its chaos and messiness, and not go on endlessly about sociology in its most abstract and data-lite form. What we need is creative rather than wishful thinking, but I detect only the latter in the community formerly known as the Revolutionary Communist Party. They are pretty smart people, by and large, and could contribute something useful if they put their minds to it.

Via heedthebaaal

Something To Give Thanks For — Good news from Iraq

As I began by saying, I am not at all certain that any of this apparently good news is really genuine or will be really lasting. However, I am quite sure both that it could be true and that it would be wonderful if it were to be true. What worries me about the reaction of liberals and Democrats is not the skepticism, which is pardonable, but the dank and sinister impression they give that the worse the tidings, the better they would be pleased. The latter mentality isn’t pardonable and ought not to be pardoned, either.