bigotry

Linky Goodness: Science, Scones and Squid

Africa, bigotry, Blinded by Science, Capitalism, Corruption, Food, Life under Capitalism, Linky Linky, Natural World, Race, Slebs, Squid
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Discover Magazine: Off the California Coast, Giant Volcanoes Made of Asphalt

Tin-Tin In The Congo is likely to be banned in Belgium unless sold with a racism warning sticker. Quite right too.

Also sounding rather Tin-Tinesque, an insight into the odd social life of the world’s only living secular saint in The Mystery of Naomi Campbell and the Blood Diamond

But back to the benthic theme: a lovely deep sea fauna gallery, including video of the elusive oarfish (often mistaken historically for an actual sea serpent) , from the Serpent Project. NB: Piglet squid!

There’s nothing as delicious as scones with jam and cream (or better still, treacle and cream, AKA ‘thunder & lightning’) but it’s not a treat I get often; even though I was born and bred in Devon my scones are like bricks, despite my incredibly light hand with pastry and talent for cakes. But my mother’s scones were light as a feather, while her pastry was like concrete. Small wonder her pasties (the savoury kind, not the sequined nipple covers) were known in our family as ‘trainwreckers’. The scone gene got twisted somewhere. So when I saw this post – How to make the perfect scone– I was inspired to have another go. But first I have to get out of this hellhole of a hospital.

3,000 years of pre-Sumerian history left undiscovered because of husbandly misogyny

There Goes Labour’s ‘No Platform’ Policy

bigotry, Bloody Lawyers, New Labour, Wingnuts
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gordon-brown_swastika
New Labour’s just so bloody, bloody inept. Only Gordon Brown could manage to position himself against a wall of swastikas, complete with gurning grin, much to the glee of lobby correspondents and picture editors. You’d think he’d show a little more sensitivity, having literally just paid a visit to Auschwitz.

As if that dreadful image management weren’t enough, now Jacqui Smith’s giving fascists the oxygen of publicity too, having banned Fox-sanctioned eliminationist rabble rouser and ‘shock-jock’ Michael Savage from Britain:

Ms Smith said she decided to make public the names of 16 people banned since October so others could better understand what sort of behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate.

She told BBC Breakfast that Mr Savage was “someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country”.

But Mr Savage, real name Michael Weiner, insisted he has never advocated violence.

No, but he’s certainly adept at deliberately winding up those who do, in between churning out crappy books on nutrition. Sorry Savage, no 1st Amendment here.

He’s suing Jackie Smith for libel, for damaging his reputation. Good luck with that…

A libel in England is defined as “….any published statement(s) which are alleged to defame a named or identifiable individual or individuals in a manner which causes them loss in their trade or profession, or causes a reasonable person to think worse of him, her or them”

I’m a reasonable person and his banning couldn’t possibly make me think worse of Savage.

Savage’s all over the airwaves saying he’s got seven (or was it nine, or twenty-three) lawyers on the case. Seems to me the Home Secretary actually has a legal leg to stand on, for once: given Savage’s inflammatory statements and status as a public figure, a banning appears to be nothing but fair comment and besides, truth is always an absolute defence.

I hope he does sue, I can’t wait for the show. But then again maybe not: he’s desperate for ratings since times have changed, his audince is dwindling and he’s losing advertisers. Smith and New Labour, in their typically inept way have given Savage exactly what he needs. So much for ‘no platform.’

Proud of Britain

bigotry, UK politics
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What sort of country sends a dozen uniformed officers to haul innocent sleeping children out of their beds; gives them just a few minutes to pack what belongings they can grab; pushes them into stinking caged vans; drives them for hours while refusing them the chance to go to the lavatory so that they wet themselves and locks them up sometimes for weeks or months without the prospect of release and without adequate health services?

My country, apparently.

Mark Easton looks at children locked up at Yarl’s Wood for the crime of “being illegal”. The third comment on the story also makes you proud of Britain:

What has this Country and Government done to deserve the invasion of these foreigners. Perhaps their own parents should think about this before they set off illegally to come here and adding to the financial problems we already have. I suggest they are not allowed off the plane or boat, or whatever method they use, and sent straight back home. I would also suggest that Sir Al Aynsley – Green is sent with them along with the rest of his cronies.

Not that the UK is unique in either respect. We lock up children in the Netherlands as well for being illegal immigrants and I’m sure there are plenty of people willing to defend this too.

How Is A Prime Minister Like A River In Brazil?

bigotry, Blogs, creative direct action, Internet, IT is not magic pixie dust, Life under Capitalism, New Labour, Sexuality
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Gordon's Amazon wishlist
Gordon's Amazon wishlist

Both are up shit creek for a start.

Global online retail giant Amazon, now embroiled in its own internet related scandal – the #amazonfail list is now at 1,582 books and other products, and rising – has much in common with New Labour.

Both are omni-bloody-present, both collect huge amounts of info about us and our habits; both believe that a] they alone control the internets and b]computers are only a powerful when they use them. Both suffer from megalomania, control freakery and a refusal to accept they could ever have done anything wrong, or even just immoral – even when it’s quite clear that they have.

Zoe Margolis:

According to one author, Amazon stated a few days ago that it was now its “policy” to exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and bestseller lists, but his book had no “adult” material in it. It seems that books written by lesbian or gay authors, or with lesbian or gay themes, were being classed as “adult”, actively removed from searches, and de-ranked, alongside the books featuring erotic content.

Now both Amazon and Gordon Brown are deep in the proverbial, one for censoring a website, the other for planning one and then continuing to pretend he knew nothing, despite persuasive evidence that he must have:

“This is a den within Westminster. We’re talking about a house in Downing Street, with an office and in that office sits Gordon Brown, Damian McBride and Tom Watson.

“We are talking about three people in this marriage at the heart of this scandal.”

Corporations like Amazon tend to think a computer’s a powerful political tool, but only when they use it. Amazon’s wrong:

Barely an hour after the amazonfail tag first appeared, it was being mentioned four times a second on Twitter search – thousands of people were talking about it; but none of the tweets were positive. Calls for Amazon to be “googlebombed” were acted upon and people were commenting on the politics of “cyberactivism” – contributing to lists of the books that had been affected – and calling for a boycott of the site. Amazon, it appeared, had started to dig its own grave.

New Labour’s wrong too. Daniel Hannan:

A blog has just done something that I thought no one could do: elicited an apology (or as close as we’ll ever get to an apology) from Gordon Brown. Indeed, according to The Guardian, the McBride-Draper scandal might cost Labour the next election. If so, Guido Fawkes would have succeeded where his baleful namesake failed 404 years ago: he would have brought down a government. Even if you think the Guardian story is a bit de trop, the idea that one man with a laptop could do so much damage would, until very recently, have seemed risible.

Both are now desperately trying to spin paddle their way out of the river of cack that attitude’s got them into.

Good luck with that, Amazon and Brown: there’s millions of us, but only one each of you.

Does he take sugar?

bigotry, Health, Uh? WTF?
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As Dave Hingsburger found out, If you’re in a wheelchair, obviously you’re leaving your luggage unattended:

Suddenly, I lost existance.

I was waiting patiently in the airport, quietly watching people go by. My luggage was stacked up next to me and I felt that I looked like quite the world traveler. Suddenly this illusion was shattered when a security type guy came with a luggage cart and began loading my luggage. I sputtered a protest, ‘Hey, that’s my luggage.’

He looked at me, annoyed and said, “Luggage can’t be left unattended.”

“I AM attending it,” I said incredulous.

“You don’t understand, SOME BODY needs to be in possession of the luggage,” he said and I didn’t get his implication, not yet, I was still too startled.

“I am in possession of this luggage, it is MINE,” my voice is rising.

He looks at me with exaggerated patience, “SOME BODY (long pause) needs to be attending the luggage.”

I got it then, I wasn’t SOME BODY, “Are you suggesting that I can’t supervise my own luggage because I’m in a wheelchair?”

Meanwhile, in good old Blighty, the National Health Service let a man with Downs Syndrome starve to death. I’ve never been so glad to be as priviledged as being a healty, temporarily able white bloke as after hearing that news.