At Sadly No, commenting on the observation that many formerly sane lefty blogs have turned rabidly partisan:
atheist said,
March 13, 2008 at 20:07
Here’s how I look at it:
Obama = Dirt
Clinton = Shit
McCain = Toxic WasteI’d prefer to eat dirt rather than eat shit, but I want to avoid eating toxic waste if I possibly can. I don’t want to eat shit, or dirt really, but toxic waste could hurt or possibly kill me. So, if necessary, I’ll eat shit.
So what are Ralph Nader and Ron Paul, then?
From a Guardian open thread on whether leaders make better decisions stoned:
Mitsuyaciderdrinker
Comment No. 1178184
March 5 17:18
NLDA couple of years a go I was marking an exam paper, the topic being the Suez crisis of 1956 and Anthony Eden’s handling of it.
Eden’s use of meth-amphetamines whilst in office has recently come to light. Asked to comment on Eden’s handling of the crisis in the question, the candidate wrote, and I quote verbatim:
”Eden’s handling of the crisis wasn’t very good cos(sic) he was ripped to the tits on speed”.
Still my favourite answer to an exam question.
This from the Guardian sums up the bizarro world we are finding ourselves in:
Oh, this is an exciting new age we live in, don’t you think? All these formerly outlandish topics now up for “debate” – should we bug the offices of potentially dissenting politicians? Is it okay to detain people without charge for 45 days? Maybe 90? Is bombing and occupying a sovereign nation without the approval of the UN or practically every other nation on the planet (and their populations), illegal or immoral? Is torture okay? Can we discuss the option of pre-emptive nuclear strikes on non-nuclear nations?
For years I thought that these were the questions asked by mad bastards, whereas it appears it’s actually part of the mainstream political discourse.
Learn something new every day.
The first makes exactly the point I was about to -the blatant nepotism of it all – and it’s something the BBC in particular seems to think unworthy of notice:
magnolia
January 18, 2008 9:12 AM
In amongst all this diplomatic palarva, it just struck me that isn’t it nice that that nice Stephen Kinnock is the Head of the British Council in St Petersburg and his dad, that nice Neil Kinnock is actually the Head of the British Council and of course, isn’t it also nice that his dad used to also be the nice Head of the British Labour Party and isn’t particularly it very very nice that he also was once Head of something very very big in the EU and isn’t extremely nice that his nice wife also has a nice job as an MEP in Europe for the nice British Labour Party.
It’s always nice to see an honest to goodness working class family thriving together.
Quite.
What is the British Council all about now, after ten years of New Labour? Is it still the stuffy, elitist, worthy soft diplomatic institution many of us remember? What does it do, now, exactly?
musubi
January 18, 2008 7:57 AM
Surely the British Council got itself into this mess because (as explained already by John JT) it has been trying to have it both ways. I.e. it’s been trying to be an arm of the British diplomatic presence in the rest of the world, spreading British language and culture as PR for Britain, AND it’s been trying to get a commercial return for doing this. This paradox has arisen because of the mania (since Thatcherism) of making everything pay its own way in bits and pieces instead of being funded by those who are supposedly benefiting from it (i.e. the British people). Wouldn’t it be fun if core diplomats, military attaches etc. all had to pay their own way by generating income in the land to which they are sent! But being commercialised, the BC must also be expected to honour the income tax laws in the host country. Isn’t it just that that the Russian authorities have been saying? I’ve seen no precise rational counter-arguments to this since the matter came up some months ago, just pathetic neo-coldwarism and anti-Russianism.
If the BC can’t make enough money while honouring the relevant tax laws then it should file for bankruptcy, like any other business. Or it could/should go back to being a fully funded public institution like it was many years ago, and provide cultural services in the interests of the British stake in international understanding. Or it could be an NPO with grants from various sources including the British government and British businesses which have an interest in promoting British cultural activities in areas where they operate. Which is it to be?
Exactly.
Is the British Council in Russia an unaccountable, profit-making language school and marketing bureau that evades taxes while providing safe and well-remunerated berths for out of work, but well-connected children of superannuated New Labour hacks – or is it a legitimate diplomatic mission?
Seems to me the Russians may have a point – and as much as my first, jingoistic inclination is to point to their Stalinist tactics and demand that Johnny Foreigner be taught a lesson so let’s kick a few Rusiian billionaires out of Kenisngton, it’s a point Uk.gov needs to address.
But although it may well have a case against the British Council, it is as nothing to ours against Russia itself, which brought its internal business to our shores, conspiring and enabling the murder of one Russian agent by another with radioactive poison, thereby puttiing the innocent public at risk – and which then compoundied the offence by harbouring and protecting the murderer, by now an elected politician.
That makes a bit of ambiguity on taxes and a dose of nepotism look like very small potatoes.
In this morning’s Observer Armando Ianucci has written the most penetrating and biting analysis that I’ve read yet of Barack Obama’s policy-free political messaging :
[…]
So why does Obama, billed by everyone as a cross between Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln, but without the terrible looks of either, just leave me puzzled? Maybe it’s because his is a rhetoric that soars and takes flight, but alights nowhere. It declares that together we can do anything, but doesn’t mention any of the things we can do. It’s a perpetual tickle in the nose that never turns into a sneeze. Trying to make sense of what he’s saying is like trying to wrap mist.
But, rhythmically, it’s quite alluring. It can make anything, even, for example, a simple chair, seem magnificent. Why vote for someone who says: ‘See that chair. You can sit on it’ when you can have someone like Obama say: ‘This chair can take your weight. This chair can hold your buttocks, 15 inches in the air. This chair, this wooden chair, can support the ass of the white man or the crack of the black man, take the downward pressure of a Jewish girl’s behind or the butt of a Buddhist adolescent, it can provide comfort for Muslim buns or Mormon backsides, the withered rump of an unemployed man in Nevada struggling to get his kids through high school and needful of a place to sit and think, the plump can of a single mum in Florida desperately struggling to make ends meet but who can no longer face standing, this chair, made from wood felled from the tallest redwood in Chicago, this chair, if only we believed in it, could sustain America’s huddled arse.’
How do all the other presidential candidates stand on four-legged seating? Commenter wikipedia has taken Armando’s ball, or rather chair, and run with it:
wikipedia
January 13, 2008 1:43 AMSUMMARY
Biden: I have worked with chairs all over the world, and most members of Congress agree with my plan for how to make chairsBloomberg: I’ve put together a committee to survey voters on whether they want me to make their chairs
Clinton: I have the most experience in making chairs
Edwards: I will fight the chairmakers!
Giuliani: I can best protect you from the danger of chairs, just as I did in NYC
Huckabee: Chairs did not evolve, but were created
Kucinich: We should have a one-payer system for chairs
McCain: My friends, I believe we can sit together in our chairs and work out bipartisan solutions without torture
Obama: Together we can create chairs in a new way
Paul: Why is the government involved in making chairs?
Romney: Venture capitalism has made American chairs the greatest in the world
Tancredo: We must build a fence to keep out foreign illegal chairs
Thompson: I like a comfortable, yet presidential looking chair
Utterly brilliant.