I was in Des Moines and Ames in the early fall, and I must say that, as small and landlocked and white and rural as Iowa is, I would be happy to give an opening bid in our electoral process to its warm and generous and serious people. But this is not what the caucus racket actually does. What it does is give the whip hand to the moneyed political professionals, to the full-time party hacks and manipulators, to the shady pollsters and the cynical media boosters, and to the supporters of fringe and crackpot candidates. It is impossible that the Republican Party could be saddled with a clown like Huckabee if there were a serious primary in Iowa, let alone if the process were kicked off in Chicago or Los Angeles or Atlanta. (Remember that not Iowa but its “caucuses” put Pat Robertson ahead of George H.W. Bush in the race for the GOP nomination in 1988.) The process might be a good way for Iowa to pick its party convention delegates, though I frankly doubt even that. It is an absolutely terrible way in which to select candidates for the presidency, and it makes the United States look and feel like a banana republic both at home and overseas.

The undemocratic caucuses are a terrible way to choose a presidential candidate.

Pictures here

In an attempt to reverse the terminal decline in vocations to the priesthood, the Catholic Church in Yorkshire has published a calendar featuring twelve current clerics and their off-duty pastimes.

The calendar was the idea of Father November – aka Simon Lodge – who reveals:

“If I weren’t a priest I’d be up to no good. Or at least more than I am already!”

This portrayal of the human side of the priesthood shows the poor, celibate and obedient ones following hobbies such as watching baseball on the telly, reading celebrity gossip magazines, and DIY. One learns also of frustrated ambition, as in the case of Father Matthew Habron, whose childhood dream was to become an astronaut.

Priests to be featured in an Irish version of the calendar include…

Father Dougal Mcguire likes to watch scary fillums such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Father Jack Hackett is a Master of Wines and household cleaning fluids

Father Ted Crilly keeps the world’s biggest collection of wankmags

During coverage of Benazir Bhutto’s funeral on Radio 5 Live yesterday, a listener asserted–via text message–that the US government had paid Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to murder Bhutto. Which explains why the USA/UK cajoled her to return to Pakistan and participate in a dodgy political process in the first place–obvious innit? Such conspiracy theories are of a piece with those few individuals on the rim of rationality who declare that Bhutto and others like her, ‘deserved’ her fate*, and who like the Graiai, share but one eye and tooth between them: an ‘orientalist’ view that events and actors halfway around the world are cyphers–that domestic politics do not exist except as they mirror US/European foreign policy.

How could it be, asked the talking heads, that Bhutto could be murdered in Rawalpindi, a place which has more ISI agents per square metre than anywhere else in Pakistan? Given that the ISI has a long history of interference in domestic politics, and some elements are notoriously sympathetic to the religious right, while others seek to shore up the interests of the Pakistan military, that question is surely rhetorical.

In a sympathetic article in International Viewpoint, Tariq Ali states unequivocally that Bhutto’s murder is a disaster for Pakistan,

Even those of us sharply critical of Benazir Bhutto’s behaviour and policies–both while she was in office and more recently–are stunned and angered by her death. Indignation and fear stalk the country once again. An odd coexistence of military despotism and anarchy created the conditions leading to her assassination in Rawalpindi yesterday. In the past, military rule was designed to preserve order–and did so for a few years. No longer. Today it creates disorder and promotes lawlessness. How else can one explain the sacking of the chief justice and eight other judges of the country’s supreme court for attempting to hold the government’s intelligence agencies and the police accountable to courts of law?

and concludes that the best hope for breaking the cycle of ‘military leadership promising reforms degenerat[ing] into tyranny [and] politicians promising social support to the people degenerat[ing] into oligarch[y]‘, is a refoundation of the PPP as a party which speaks for the political and social needs of the people.

[A] modern and democratic organisation, open to honest debate and discussion, defending social and human rights, uniting the many disparate groups and individuals in Pakistan desperate for any halfway decent alternative, and coming forward with concrete proposals to stabilise occupied and war-torn Afghanistan. This can and should be done.

Opponents of the Musharraf government and Bhutto supporters have criticised the dictatorship’s recent crackdown on democracy protesters and human rights activists as having signalled a reluctance to confront religious extremism, and effectively greenlighting the attack on Benazir Bhutto. Members of The Struggle tendency of the PPP claim responsibility lies with the ‘mullahs’:

[T]he threads of the conspiracy undoubtedly reach high up. The so-called Islamic fundamentalists and jihadis are only the puppets and hired assassins of reactionary forces that are entrenched in the Pakistani ruling class and the state apparatus, lavishly funded by the Pakistan Intelligence Services (ISI), drug barons with connections with the Taliban, and the Saudi regime[.]

The dictatorship meanwhile, is blaming religious extremists, and wishes we look no further.

Afterword: Another site has used the Bhutto murder as ammunition for the most shabby, vile attempt at sectarian point-scoring in a sordid and insignificant toilet-fight. The debasement and corruption of political debate continues apace.

* The sort of degenerate for whom all violence is revolutionary, who celebrates the murder of a woman for being in the wrong party and for daring to outrage public ‘morals’ with her ‘immodesty’, or who would justify the massacre of 60 worshippers and the mutilation of another 200 in an attempt to assassinate a former Musharraf cabinent member during Eid-ul-Adha, as justifiable means towards ends–but what horrific ends.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, by Bernard-Henri Levy:

They have killed a woman. A beautiful woman. A visible, indeed a conspicuously, spectacularly visible woman.

A woman who made a point not only of holding rallies in one of the world’s most dangerous countries, but did so with her face uncovered, unveiled — the exact opposite of the shameful, hidden women, the condemned creatures of Satan, who are the only women tolerated by these apostles of a world without women.

They killed a Jew, Daniel Pearl. They killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, the great guerilla leader against the Taliban, a moderate Muslim, a cultivated man and free spirit. They tried for years to kill a man, Salman Rushdie, who dared say that to be a man is also sometimes to choose your own destiny….

And now they have killed Benazir Bhutto — killed her because she was a woman, because she had a woman’s face, unadorned yet filled with an unswerving strength, because she was living out her destiny and refusing the curse that, according to the new fascists (the jihadists) floats over the human face of women. They killed this woman incarnation of hope, of spirit, of the will to democracy, not only in Pakistan, but in all the lands of Islam.

The best, the most beautiful way of responding would have been for Angela Merkel, George Bush, Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy to have gone immediately to Pakistan for her funeral.

We should have seen, standing behind Benazir’s body, as they once did behind Anwar Al-Sadat’s and Itzhak Rabin’s, the largest possible number of government leaders and heads of state, to make the funeral a global demonstration on behalf of the values of democracy and peace.

We would have wanted the French president to interrupt his vacation to bid farewell to this great lady, now a martyr, on her last voyage. But no. The man who just rolled out the red carpet for Moammar Gadhafi contented himself with a short communiqué, not responding to those who had begged him to find a gesture or at least words which would honor this assassinated heroine. Beyond Mr. Sarkozy, the entire community of democratic heads of state has been astonishingly moderate, prudent, indeed pusillanimous.

Still.

From now on Benazir Bhutto will be much more than a chief of state. She has become a symbol. She has become, as did Ahmed Shah Massoud and Daniel Pearl, a standard bearer.

All those who have not yet given up on freedom in the land of Islam must gather behind that standard. Her name must become another password, bloody but beautiful, for those who still believe that the good genius of Enlightenment will win out over the evil genius of fanaticism and crime.

It is for us, citizens of Europe and the United States, to mourn, to display the grief that our leaders have, at least for the moment, shamefully avoided.

The column is behind the Journal’s firewall, but I was able to access it, once, through Google News.

Update: Free link here.

No wonder it’s called the dismal science. BBC economics editor Evan Davis has looked into his crystal ball, and on his blog forecast hard times ahead. Incisive analysis and persuasive argument? No, more poring over entrails and hunch, by the look of it, which means there is at least a 50% chance that Davis is right.

Part of me – the grumpy old bastard whose favourite English word is Schadenfreude – hopes for an almighty economic crash. This would certainly teach a lesson to Gordon Brown and his followers who built up our service-centred and credit-obsessed economy, and those talentless shits who have made a killing in the housing market, and now live off the profits of property speculation.

But then I remember that recessions hurt everyone, and the majority do not deserve such suffering.

I suppose it’s naïve of me to hope for a quick crash which empties the bulging bank accounts and pension funds of the new indolentsia, followed by a solid economic restructuring that creates real jobs and real wealth. A fantasy, maybe, but one can dream.

Now available…

New Hitchens — an article about English Eccentrics.

Breaking news: Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto is one of a number of people murdered by a suicide murderer in Rawalpindi.

UPDATE (Scoop): According to the New York Times:

An attack on a political rally killed the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto near the capital, Islamabad, Thursday. Witnesses said Ms. Bhutto was fired upon before the blast, and an official from her party said Ms. Bhutto was further injured by the explosion, which was apparently caused by a suicide attacker.

At least a dozen more people were killed. “At 6:16 p.m. she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Ms. Bhutto’s party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital where she was taken after the attack, according to The Associated Press.

UPDATE continued: See also Norm’s updated links.

UPDATE: Hitchens in Slate.

Dutch Safety Video.

For copyleft to have any revolutionary potential it must be Copyfarleft. It must insist upon workers ownership of the means of production.

In order to do this a license cannot have a single set of terms for all users, but rather must have different rules for different classes. Specifically one set of rules for those who are working within the context of workers ownership and commons based production, and another for those who employ private property and wage labour in production.

A copyfarleft license should make it possible for producers to share freely and to retain the value of their labour product, in otherwords it must be possible for workers to make money by applying their own labour to mutual property, but impossible for owners of private property to make money using wage labour.

Thus under a copyfarleft license a worker-owned printing cooperative could be free to reproduce, distribute, and modify the common stock as they like, but a privately owned publishing company would be prevented from having free access.

Dmytri Kleiner: Copyfarleft, Copyjustright and the Iron Law of Copyright Earnings.

He (was) the man!

So here it is

Ten years ago, 24th December, Toshiro Mifune died. One of the Greatest actors the world has ever known.

Here he is in Kurosawa’s epic The Seven Samurai:

Killing fuckers who deserved it — upside the heed — well done that man.

Alternatively — you can watch the queen giving it large.

Or Debord — giving it bigger.

The Torygraph proclaims Britain a ‘Catholic country’:

A survey of 37,000 churches, to be published in the new year, shows the number of people going to Sunday Mass in England last year averaged 861,000, compared with 852,000 Anglicans ­worshipping.

861,000 + 852,000 = 1,713,000

50,714,000* - 1,713,000 = 49,001,000

Presumably the rest of us are dark matter.

* Estimated population of England.

Even a 2007 calendar will be correct in 2035 and 2063:

You probably didn’t know about this: it hasn’t been a prominent issue in the Left press, and hasn’t gotten much coverage in the mainstream papers either. But for those of you who didn’t know, the Turkish airforce has been bombing Kurdistan for the past two days. Remarkable that nothing much has been said about it by the “left” (one can only imagine what would be said if the jets were flying from Israel rather than Turkey), but there we have it […] Why is it that people who will go charging into political battle behind so many groups in that region, will not do so for one of the most significant stateless nations in the world–even when it finds itself under attack from a regional superpower and NATO member?

What with the manoeuvres of the Western powers over the Treaty of Sèvres, and the more recent imperialism of the Kurds’ variously theocratic or fascist/militarist ‘host’ nations–and ‘anti-imperialist’ pin-ups du jour–selling-out the Kurdish people is an Olympic sport. Could it be that rights to self-determination are not absolute, but contingent on programmatic exactitudes–striking the correct anti-US poses and ritual denunciations of that wellspring of ineffable and malevolent power, the ‘Zionist entity’?

There won’t be any presents or carols tomorrow, but there will be food and a surfeit of fairylights …

Cranberry Sauce
300g cranberries
zest and juice of an orange
2 dessertspoons sugar

Put all ingredients in a pot, heat gently until the cranberries have burst and the sauce thickens.

Sausage Stuffing
6 large shallots
butter
1 teaspoon sugar
1-2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
450g pork sausages, skins removed
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons sage, chopped
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
30g soft white breadcrumbs
pepper

Caramelise the shallots with the butter, sugar and balsamic vinegar and leave to cool. Combine with the other ingredients and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes.

Turkey
Roastit Tatties
Roastit Parsnips
Red Cabbage

Pavlova

Invented in New Zealand, no Christmas lunch is complete without a Pav.

4 egg whites
1½ cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon cornflour
double cream, whipped
raspberries

Beat egg whites until stiff, then beat in the sugar a little at a time until you have a smooth and glossy meringue. Add the vanilla, vinegar and cornflour. Shape into a circle (about 20cm) on a cold, greaseproof paper-lined, baking tray and bake at 125°C for about an hour (the outside should be just crisp to the touch). Cool and cover with whipped cream and raspberries before serving.

Read this? — what a pile of offal.

Mike Hulme is a cunt who spends his time doing social science as director of the Tyndall Institute.

Hulme plays a media game, and is close to the RCP. Hulme is a regular speaker at RCP/IoI events.

Hulme brushes aside the fact that many of the grand claims made in respect of major climate change are actually plausible. Hundreds of millions could die as a result of global warming. He isn’t that arsed — it doesn’t fit into his ideological framework - so is ignored — he couldn’t give a fuck…

The interesting thinkers and writers are those who can address these issues seriously, assess the risks, look at alternative scenarios, and still come away with some sense of hope. Risk assessment does not equate to determinism. Thus Hulme can fuck off and then come back and fuck off again.

Hulme is following a media/ideological agenda, and his arguments rely on straw men (or Worzel Gummidge). He’s also utterly fucking dull. Dull, dull dull.

Hulme is repellent to the point of repugnance. I would ignore him and find something more interesting to read and comment on if it were there.*

* Obviously, it is if I looked hard enough, but I have not got the time nor patience to do so.

P.S. ‘Open Democracy’ sucks big time. Wank big time. Complete shit.

Extremist Islamist terrorists have bombed a mosque, and have been prevented from attacking pilgrims to Mecca. Al Qaeda have also made booby-trapped Korans in the past.

If they carry on like this, it is only a matter of time before they do something unforgivable to the Islamic faith. Like say, drawing an offensive cartoon, or inappropriately naming a plush toy. That’ll damage their already falling support in the long war.

As fanatics, the marginalized they become the more they will lash out at those who don’t live up to their ideals. And the more support they will lose in the process. It may take decades, but one day they will be in a bunker, decrying the “umma” for not being good enough, or strong enough, or pure enough for them. They will see this as evidence of their righteousness.

More importantly, they will have lost.

Accompanied by Bernard Kouchner, Sarkozy has been visiting Afghanistan:

“Here there is a war against terrorism, against fanaticism, that we cannot and must not lose,” Mr Sarkozy told reporters after his talks with Mr Karzai.

“That is why it is important that we help with the emergence of an Afghan state that is legitimate, democratic and modern.”

I’ve just been told that Channel 4 News ran a story yesterday about the latest initiative of an outfit called “Christian Research”. Apparently, some gormless idiot in a sensible jumper was interviewed by the formidable Sue Turton, and advocated bribing people into church with the offer of £30 in a plain brown envelope, and as much Fair Trade coffee as they can drink.

Did any of you see this?

Meanwhile, a man in a frock in Wales has awoken from his slumbers, and with the help of the BBC popped up to denounce “atheistic fundamentalism”.

Haven’t read it yet…

Any good?

I am coming late to this but thanks to Fleeing a Ghost have now caught up with… anyways…political-philosophical analysis to be found in a marvellous post here — Kpunk’s Marxist take on Supernanny (TV shit in general — like Charlie Brooker with a PHD), leading into some interesting thoughts on blogging, Spinoza, Zizek, the goals of a genuine left… i.e a goal that should not be to take over the State but to subordinate the State to the general will (and the problems with Facebook and Myspace!!).

All here.

* Marx, Karl (1973) Grundrisse

Fuck. I wish I could formulate and organise my thoughts just so. Alas I am in xmas mode. Always.

Take this test

	I received 56 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Guess the Sci-Fi Movie Sounds hereCanon powershot

Me shit at that sort of thing (except being good at logic and understanding semantic shit as opposed to being ‘overly interested in’  — haters fuck off as usual).

Time prevents passing comment, but I commend to you this article before I go:

It is time for the left that learns, that grows, that reflects, that has historical not rhetorical perspective, and that wants a future based on its own best values to say loudly to the left that never learns: You hijacked “left” in the last century, but you won’t get away with it again whatever guise you don.

Via the revolutions of the lepidoptera.

You Brits are being serious this time, aren’t you? I laughed like a loon when I read about the BBC attempted ban on “faggot” as it appears in “Fairytale of New York.” Has any word uttered by the dearly departed Kirsty MacColl ever offended with that angel voice of hers? Let’s see. From my post-PC perch in the states — where happy-headed no’s can’t stop a glib tongue or an ethnic provocation — there’s a documentary on telly now called “Kike Like Me.” It’s about a curly-headed bloke who may or may not be Jewish but wants to know why everyone from French Muslims to Pat Buchanan has got a problem with the possibility that he is. “Kike Like Me,” it’s called.

A few years ago, “faggot” made our national music headlines as well when Eminem used it in his rap lyrics. Nothing was illuminated in that sorry and overextended debate either save for the fact that arguing about the finer points of linguistics in rap music is like, to quote the movie Quiz Show, “plagiarizing a comic strip.” (Although I have a fondness for Jay-Z’s “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” remix: “What you eat don’t make me shit” belongs on a t-shirt.)
Shall we be pedantic for a moment? A song like “Fairytale” is tantamount to a fictional narrative. It’s about a brawling, fractious relationship between two Micks* in Gotham. MacColl and MacGowan were never romantically involved in real life — thank Christ — and so her playful mockery of him as part of a working-class domestic routine should not be seen as her, or the songwriters’, actual mode of tabletalk. And even if it were, the fact that such tabletalk exists means that art has a moral responsibility to represent it faithfully. Brett at Harry’s Place shows how everyone from Bob Dylan to Lennon and Ono have had recourse in their music to the word “nigger” without calling down (plausible) accusations of racism. Would Dylan’s “Hurricane” have succeeded, do you suppose, if the line were:

To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum And to the black folks he was just a crazy n-word. No one doubted that he pulled the trigger. And though they could not produce the gun, The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed And the all-white jury agreed.

Something else to consider. Kirsty’s great friend and unimpeachable fan was Billy Bragg, who most certainly heard “Fairytale” in his day and yet never had a problem with it. Bragger’s not one to stay silent when a mate crosses the line, as evidenced by his reaction to Morrissey’s “Rivers of Blood” moment:

“Do I think he’s a racist? No. Do I think he’s foolish to say these things? Yes I do. He’s someone who used to be able to articulate an Englishness that’s attractive and charming. No, he’s not a racist, he’s a bore. And to the old Morrissey, that would have been even worse, and I speak as a Smiths fan.”

So can we all lighten the fuck up already? Christmas has precious few redeeming qualities, but “Fairytale” and the Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping” are two of them.