Littlejohn Strikes Again

From Richard Littlejohn's column about children being adopted by a gay couple rather than their grandparents. After strongly implying they have been kidnapped and the distressing thing is that there hasn't been mass hysteria about this "kidnapping", he writes:

Why? Because they’ve been taken by social workers, not paedophiles. So that’s all right, then.

Well, frankly, yes. It is far better that they have been taken by social workers rather than paedophiles. What the fucking hell is Littlejohn saying here? That he would rather have them taken by paedophiles? Or that all social workers are paedophiles? What fresh insanity is this? Does this man even think before he spews this sort of crap from his stupid, stupid mouth?

Oh, sorry, I know the answer to that question...

Anti-Obama. Already.

Eight days into his new job, and – farcically – Obama already has those who are ready to write him off. One such person is Mary-Ellen Synon. In what is an audacious piece of spin, she manages to take what has been a strong first week in the Oval Office and turn it into a scenario where Obama is losing. Badly. Let’s take a look:

Yesterday, just eight days after the inauguration, President Obama had his £576bn so-called stimulus bill passed by the House of Representatives - but without a single vote from any Republican.

Imagine: Republicans not voting for a Democrat measure. This really is unprecedented, isn’t it? The next thing you know, we’ll be hearing that the Republicans and Democrats are different parties who don’t agree on everything. What crazy times we live in.

Congressman Eric Cantor, one of the leading House Republicans, says an analysis of the Bill shows it is mostly pork: just 12 cents of every dollar in the spending will go to any genuine economic stimulus, such as creating jobs.

Yep, and you could put the same question to a House Democrat who would give you a completely different answer. The truth is normally somewhere in the middle of the two views, but seriously, a House Republican who voted against the measure is not going to be, on any level, an unbiased analyst of the legislation. Plus, this Cantor fella is going to be an outspoken critic of Obama. After all, he could be one of the people who runs for the Republican nomination in the future.

Yet Obama was keen to have support from the Republicans. He didn't get it, because what he really wanted was submission from the Republicans.

I know what she was trying to say, but reading that paragraph just makes no sense. He wanted support, but actually he wanted submission. So he didn’t want support then? Contradicting yourself over the course of two, short sentences really does undermine what you have to say.

Clearly the Republicans on the Hill don't reckon they are going to get any backlash from the voters in their districts because they have given a No to The One. They understand that already their voters don't like what Obama is doing, or indeed the arrogance with which he is doing it.

Couple of points on this one. Firstly, the next election for representatives is just under two years away – even if there is a backlash, then the chances are that the voters will have forgotten about it before those legislators try for re-election. And it is also worth noting that most of these people will be from Republican leaning districts, meaning that their voters probably don’t support Obama anyway.

Just two days after the inauguration, when Republican legislators told the president they objected to the massive spending bill, Obama dismissed them with two words: 'I won.'

Well, I hate to break it to you, but he did win. And the Democrats won control of Congress, partly in response to Republican policies. The Republicans can object as much as they want, and with some justification, but last November the voters spoke and gave the Democrats the right to implement their policies – for better or for worse.

That was a particularly stupid mistake by the new president. Hard-left Democrats may cheer at such gloating, but most Americans don't like that kind of contempt being shown to Congress.

Really? The voters don’t like that kind of contempt? Are you sure? ‘Cos let’s look at two examples of Presidents who showed contempt to Congress. FDR was re-elected in 1936, 1940 and 1944 – despite shitting on Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution. And LBJ won one of the most spectacular landslides in US electoral history despite bullying and cajoling Congress until basically it was his bitch. Showing contempt to Congress may not be a great thing to do constitutionally, but it certainly doesn’t seem to worry the voters that much.

Indeed, as the American website Politico points out, with those two words 'Obama brought the curtain down on the 48-hour era of bipartisanship.' He liberated the Republicans from any mainstream media pressure to offer support to Democrat policies. He dismissed 'bi-partisanship,' so why shouldn't they?

Why shouldn’t they anyway? Why shouldn’t the Democrats bin bi-partisanship? Why isn’t a little debate and disagreement between the two parties a good thing? Why is there this reverence for consensus? If the two main parties are meant to agree on everything, then they should just form one big party. Fundamentelly, bi-partisanship has a limited life-span anyway, what with there being two parties with clear differences in ideology and policy.

The big spending and the big arrogance are why Obama's support is already falling. During the transition from the Bush administration to the new administration - that is, during the weeks in which Obama kept near-quiet and had to do nothing - his ratings in the Gallup opinion poll were 83 percent. After just three days in office, Gallup showed his support had already dropped by 15 points to 68 percent.

Four points.

1. 68% is still pretty spectacular.
2. It is easy to be so popular when you have to do nothing – it is still good to be at 68% when you start doing stuff.
3. 68% is still far more than the percentage of Americans who voted for Obama last November and still represents support from the vast majority of Americans.
4. 68% is far better than the utterly appalling polling figures that the last President was getting.

As any economist will tell you, what is important in a statistic is not the number, it's the trend. In this case, the trend is down, and fast. Americans are already having buyer's regret about their new president.

I’d also imagine that most economists will want more than two numbers before they start assessing trends.

Then of course there is his naiveté in foreign policy. A few days ago he gave an embarrassingly-wet interview on Arab-owned television and offered unconditional talks to Iran.

Because, of course, Bush’s policy of being simultaneously angry, silent and aggressive towards Iran worked so well. Actually offering them talks is a novel policy. Furthermore, offering talks is just that – talking. Obama hasn’t offered unconditional concessions, he has offered a conversation with a regime that we should, as a hemisphere, start trying to have more of a constructive relationship with.

Iranian president Ahmadinejad replied, as one knew he would, with a fierce demand that he wouldn't talk to Obama until the Americans had issued an apology - ie, grovelled - for unspecified 'crimes' and had withdrawn all their troops from all other countries.

Yeah, and who looks like the ignorant, unreasonable cunt now – Obama, or Ahmadinejad? Frankly, I think Obama has done a great job in stitching Ahmadinejad up nicely.

(Note: some countries in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait actually want the American forces there. I don't. But then, I alas am not the king of Saudi Arabia nor one of the ruling al-Sabahs of Kuwait. And judging by my brief time with one of the al-Sabahs, more the pity for Kuwait.)

(Note: I’m not arrogant enough to assume that anyone cares what I think about American forces in the Middle East. And that lack of arrogance is one of the reasons why I could never write for The Daily Mail.)

And there is Obama's naiveté about Islamic terrorists. He wants to close the prison at Guantanamo.

Yep, he wants to close the unconstitutional prison that is synonymous with torture and acts as a lightning rod for fundamentalists everywhere. Frankly, he deserves a round of applause for that.

Fine by me. But he has made that his policy without first figuring out where he is going to put the 245 remaining inmates, some of whom are undoubtedly keen to get back to the job of mass-murdering.

If they are guilty of something, they can be put through the courts and imprisoned. If they are innocent, then they should go free. After all, the fundamental foundation of almost any justice system is being innocent until being proven guilty. Basic, basic stuff.

Two men already released from Gitmo turned up six days ago on a video posted on a jihadist website. A US counter-terrorism official told AFP news service that one of them is a Saudi man called Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri who on his release was taken into the senior ranks of Al-Qaeda in Yemen.

A few questions:
1. When were these people released? Under Obama?
2. What were they doing on the website? What were they saying?
3. What were they in Gitmo for? Was there any evidence to keep them there?

If he or any of the other 245 turns up as part of another jihadist atrocity, the new president is going to have to have more to say than, 'Gosh, whoops.'

Yep, and the FBI and CIA are going to have to justify why they didn’t at least keep a watchful eye over people America has already imprisoned for being fundamentalists. But again, if there is no evidence, people should be released. You can’t imprison people because you think they might do something bad in the future. This is the real world, not Minority Report.

And he is going to have to find another job after 2012. By that time, Americans will be looking for change they can believe in.

So, Obama – currently with 68% approval rating, having got his stimulus package through the House of Representatives and having done the popular and decisive move of closing Gitmo, can be written off already? Sweet Jesus, what does a President have to do to get re-elected in the demented mind of this writer? Walk on fucking water whilst bringing peace to all mankind?

And what change they can believe in for 2012? Sarah fucking Palin? Do me a favour. As it stands, Obama will win in 2012. And win big. I’d also imagine he has better things to do over the course of the next four years than worry about the opinion of hacks writing for The Daily Mail…

They can't count

You'd think that an article entitled 'Should you let your teenage daughter's boyfriend sleep in her room? A married couple argue' would be about someone who is in their, well, teens, wouldn't you?

Well, have a look and you'll see how old the innocent young cherub whose unsullied bedchamber is in question actually is. Honestly, do they have to make this so easy?

Rating Comments

I think it is important to be balanced, even if you are dealing with people as idiotic as the writers and readers of The Daily Mail. So I will concede that whilst the content makes my eyes want to dissolve as I struggle with depths of hatred displayed on that site, the actual website itself works quite well. There are a number of good features, including - as the Moai points out - a search engine that happily throws up numerous examples of hate articles in moments.

Another feature I like is the facility on the comments section, where you can give the comments you like a green thumbs up, and the ones you don't a big fat red thumbs down.

Now, I'm not for one second arguing that the readers of this blog should go onto the website and mark down all the crass, vitriolic hate-filled comments. Partly because even the numb-nutted twunts commenting on The Daily Mail website have the right to have their opinions heard. But more importantly, there are just too many crass comments to even begin to vote them down.

What I would say, though, is this - if you are on that website and see a good comment, encourage both the author of that comment and others to read that comment by giving it a big thumbs-up. And you will normally be able to tell which are the most rational comments. They'll be the ones with very few votes...

Just so everyone is clear...

...Hanging bankers from lamp posts would do no one any good - but this bonus gravy train is just an insult to us all

It is worrying that The Daily Mail feels a need to clarify that hanging bankers wouldn't so any good for their readers...

The Joker Did It!

It must be difficult to report on tragedies; especially tragedies that involve kids. You have to report the facts, yet do so in a way that is sympathetic to those who have lost so much but at the same time avoid the sensationalism that it is so easy to drift towards. Unless, of course, you write for the Daily fucking Mail, in which case you should grab any floating rumour and print it as fact.

Take this factoid about the terrible nursery killings in Belgium:

The knifeman, said to have a history of mental illness, wore a bulletproof jacket and make-up similar to The Joker in the Batman films.

Really? Did he wear that sort of make-up? If he did, what bearing does that have on his crimes? If he didn’t, or if you aren’t sure, why report it?

And… guess what; the make-up may not have been that much like the Joker as the Mail first suspected. As they themselves are now reporting.

Ten other children, including a one-month-old baby, were knifed by the man who had smeared black and white warpaint on his face and sprayed his hair red.

Let’s just remind ourselves of what the Joker looks like in the films. This, this and this. White face paint, green hair. Not black and white make-up, except for a little bit around Heath Ledger’s Joker’s eyes. Not red hair. Small, yet essential, details that renders the reporting in the first article absolutely incorrect. But, and let’s be honest about this, The Daily Mail printing shite is nothing new.

But let’s stop for a moment, an posit a “what if.” What if this killer had been wearing Joker style make-up? What difference would that make? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the direction The Daily Mail would have taken this in. Ban the filthy Dark Knight - before our kids get killed too! Except there is nothing in The Dark Knight that might make even an unbalanced person attack children. Even though the Joker is utterly psychotic in the film, he doesn’t (according to my memory at least) threaten children directly. One of the characters – Two-Face – does, but the nursery killer doesn’t seem to have burnt off half his face to be like that fictional entity.

Put simply, The Daily Mail added a comparison to their article on the murder of children and babies that managed to both be wrong and irrelevant. Such are the standards of journalism in our favourite hate rag.

Calm, reasoned commentary on dirty paedos

The Daily Mail has an article about two unpleasant, evil individuals with a predilection for underage rape. Of course, this being The Daily Mail, the article also manages to be unpleasant, not least because it appears to be at pains to point out that the paedophile couple were also gay. Like that makes a blind bit of fucking difference; unless, of course, The Daily Mail is happier with heterosexual paedos. It is certainly difficult to imagine then starting the headline to this article with the phrase "Heterosexual paedophile Lovers..."

But as angry, incoherent and unpleasant as the article is, it takes the comments from readers to really drag us into an insane alternate universe, where anger and hate are the only emotions. Yet we’re going to start with a surprisingly restrained example:

Claire:
Why were their human (if you can even call this pair human) rights more important than the children's?

Well, let's hope these amoral perverts get a very long time in prison

Amoral? Come on, Claire, you can do better than that. I think you can go the whole hog and call them immoral.

Political point-scoring is also on the agenda:

R. F.
One more reason why we must pull out of Europe

I can think of many reasons to pull out of Europe, R.F.; this isn’t one of them. Unfortunately, pulling out of Europe is going to do nothing to stop paedophiles in Blackpool.

Lalla:
Well this in England! Thank God I don't live there anymore.

I’m thanking God for that as well, Lalla.

This excerpt from a comment also made me raise my eyebrows and shake my head in weary disbelief:

John:
And they 'wept as they were convicted following the trial'. Self pity? Another reason to lock them up for life

I love that. Assume they were weeping out of self-pity. Rather than shame, or guilt, or fear of having their dicks ripped off in prison by other convicts. And once you have made that assumption, condemn them more for it! Yeah! YEAH! Had they not have been crying in self-pity (possibly) then I dare say John would have let them off with a thirty year sentence. But as soon as he got a whiff of (possible) self-pity, that was them fucked. Lock ‘em up for life.

But the best comment, the most pungent turd on the pile of effluent crap attached to this sewer of an article, is this one:

Eileen:
This appalling, criminal behaviour is now openly tolerated, even enouraged in today's pc, Human Rights Act Britain. Will we ever get wholesome, decent government again? I am no coward, but I fear for the future and I definintely fear the State!

We’re going to have to assume that Eileen meant “encouraged” when she wrote “enouraged.” Big assumption, I know, but maybe Eileen was so consumed by self-righteous rage that she was thumping the keyboard rather than typing. But I’m intrigued that she thinks paedophilia is being tolerated and encouraged here in the UK – especially since this article is about paedophiles being convicted for their crimes. Maybe she knows something we don’t. Maybe she has seen Gordon Brown and David Cameron secretly teaming up to cheer paedos on as they go about their child rape. And I wonder when we will get wholesome, decent government again. If only that nice Mr Macmillan was still in power, he’d sort it all out. And as for Eileen fearing the state, well, I can see where she’s coming from but seriously, she needs to get her priorities straight. She should fear the gay paedos first, then the state. Those paedos; they should be the really scary ones. Even for shrill women venting on shitty websites.

The crimes described in the article are horrific; the article and the comments show nothing more than unfocussed, impotent rage. I don’t know what The Daily Mail wanted to achieve with this shrill, tasteless article – all they have done is give an outlet to those whose more important emotion is hate.

This is apparently news.

Well, I suppose it is a slow news week. Nothing else is going on in the world, after all...

Creating problems

The Mail has a wonderful tendency to shoot itself in the foot from time to time, and thanks to the wonders of their own, surprisingly efficient, search engine, one can usually spot this and find the right evidence. Thus:

'Parents are calling for more men to become teachers because they fear their children lack male role models, research showed yesterday.' link

Well, yes, why not? Male teachers are, apparently, a good thing. But, why are men put off teaching? What has created this atmosphere of mistrust, where a man who wants to work with youing people is regarded with immediate, deep, long-lasting, kneejerk suspicion? Well, let's do a search on the Mail website.



The Mail has a depressing large effect on the perceptions of a worryingly high percentage of this country. And this story is a very good illustration of this point.

Question of the Day

Is David Bowie to Blame for the Credit Crunch? asks The Daily Mail.

No*, replies The Daily Mail Tendency.

*The actual answer was "No, of course he fucking isn't, you dumb bunch of wankstains. Now piss off and stop printing this shit." However, we went for the more concise reply. Sort of.

Robin Page and Prince Harry.

I don't really have anything to say about the Prince Harry debate - racist comments happen all the time, and this isn't the first (nor will it be the last) time that a member of the armed forces or the Royal Family makes a random racist comment. Harry shouldn't have said what he said; but seriously, I find it difficult to get worked up about this sort of thing. That is until I read the words of Robin Page.

I've already commented on Robin Page; however, I think he is going to be the gift that keeps on giving here at The Daily Mail Tendency. His contribution to the debate seems to show his customary intellect and sagacity:

In a private video that has taken two years to surface, you and your Metropolitan friends believe that the use of the word "Paki" - short for "Pakistani" is offensive and unacceptable. Even though it was said in a completely inoffensive way and as part of normal conversation.

So, an offensive word said in an inoffensive way as part of a normal conversation is ok? In that case, I'm going to call you a total fucking moronic piss bastard shit of a moron, Robin. But that's ok. Because the way I said it was inoffensive.

My view is simple - as far as the ordinary people I met yesterday are concerned,far more were offended by the politically correct reaction to Prince Harry,than they were by Prince Harry and his use of the word"Paki".

Would that be your family, Robin? And your friends in your local boozer? Did you see anyone yesterday other than yourself? Who are these ordinary people? Because I can't help but feel that they are the kind of people who repeat "political correctness gone mad" over and over again, like a broken record. On speed.

"And does all this PC nonsense mean that we can no longer use the words Ozzie, Kiwi, Paddy, Jock, and Taffy;"

Uh-huh. Good work, Robin, you are starting to understand the basics of racism.

"...and should I become offended if I am called a "Brit."

As an aside, that sentence should have ended with a question mark. But I have to say I will be offended if I am called a Brit, if only because it might mean people are mistaking me for the utterly revolting Robin Page.

"Interestingly it is the politically correct themselves who are quick to label white South Africans as "Boers".

I have never, ever seen or read of any politically correct person referring to the South Africans as Boers. I'd love to know where Robin gets his facts from; I suspect it is all third-hand hearsay.

Perhaps too Dave, you don't have any friends with nick-names, in the sterile world you clearly inhabitat. Among my friends there are "Biggles" (he wears a crevat), "Gay Boy the Second" (he went to public school), "Wing Nut" (he has prominent ears), "Silage" (his feet hummed when he was at school), "Sooty" (he had jet black hair - now white), "Dingle" (nobody can remember how Dingle got his name - not even Dingle), and then there is "Badger" (who has got a fixation on badgers and behaves like one).

Presumably by "inhabitat" Page means "inhabit". Unless he is accusing Cameron if living in a posh furniture store.

And "Gay Boy the Second"? Homophobia doesn't seem to be a concept that Robin understands. Mind you, that isn't surprising since he hasn't quite grasped the concept of racism yet. As he goes on to prove:

"Oh, and I forgot, "Jock"; you'll never believe this - he's Scottish."

Nothing racist there at all. Except the friends I have from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would all be offended if I referred to them by terms of racial abuse; in fact, if I went on doing it, they would cease to be my friends. But maybe my friends have more self respect that Mr Page's.

Golly (oh sorry, I shouldn't have written that in these sensitive times)

No, you probably shouldn't.

- there's plenty in all this to keep the "hate crime", "thoughtcrime" and race relations industry going for some time - and make no mistake - race relations has become an industry, to gain publicity; to gain advantage and to gain financial reward for some perceived and obscure slight.

Or some actual and deliberately offensive insult.

Interestingly as a countrymen, simply defending the countryside and my culture, I am regularly abused - sometimes by the politically correct themselves. In multicultural Britain our own rural culture seems to be excluded from the outrage industry that is plugged in so effectively to the word "Paki".

Probably because you rural culture contains people like you, Robin; and you come across as a racist homophobe. I can't think why the politically correct aren't rushing to defend you and your ways, Robin. Maybe it's because whenever they approach you, you shove a shotgun in their face and shout "Gerroff my land."*

But there is a personal ancedote (that most reliable of sources) to back up this accusation of intolerant "politicall correct" people:

Once I received a letter saying "I hope you and your family drive over a cliff. You c....". The writing was not joined up and the author claimed to be a teacher from London. Almost certainly he would have been politically correct.

Why do you think he's politically correct? Because he's from London? Because he claims to have been a teacher? Because his writing wasn't joined up? What? Judging by how your personality comes across, Robin, he could just have been someone who met you. And really really hates you - and genuinely wants you to drive off a cliff. Nothing to do with political correctness...

But he ends his article with a stirring call to arms (if you are Compo from Last of the Summer Wine):

So come on Dave get real - one of the ways to show "real" is shed political correctness.

That leaves me quite unsure about what "real" means in the world of Robin Page. But, like most people who both read and write for The Daily Mail, "real" probably means "what I think and do and nothing else!" Which is why Cameron (as he full well knows) would be well advised to ignore the like of Robin Page - it is pandering to that sort of person that lead William Hague to electoral oblivion in the 2001 election.

*Yep, this is abusing someone coming from the country. But having been raised in the countryside myself, it is of lasting shame to me that walking, talking fuckwitted cliches like Page actually walk this earth.

Comment of the Day

Or, perhaps, Moron of the Day would be more appropriate.

A comment from someone called kay from an article about a tall woman granted asylum:

how comes she is receiving benefits and has a house, and our own children can not get on the waiting lists

Your children can't get on the waiting list for a house, eh? Maybe you should try applying, kay, because you (and I'm making a big assumption here) are an adult. For some crazy motherfucking reason people are reluctant to give houses to kids...

The pictures are as bad as the words

They don't just lie with words, and lie badly; they lie with pictures too, and if anything, with even more transparency. The most amusing Photoshop Disasters site has a selection of corkers from the Wail - take a look. Just what have they got against Anne Diamond's neck? Was it done with a crayon, by a child?

They make it far too easy

One of my new year resolutions is to blog at least once a week, and, seeing as I have the inestimable Nameless One now living around the corner from me, I might have to actually do it. But, of course, sometimes, the Mail gifts you a story that is so gloriously barmy, that blogging about it is a pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

Sex clinics 'to open' in EVERY school so pupils as young as 11 can be tested... without parental consent

link

It's sheer Daily Mail reader bait, with 125 comments so far. There are some truly barmy statements in its as well, such as:

'It found that single-sex, faith and independent schools were less likely to have clinics. ' - and this is a good thing? Does this mean that we can expect a middle-class, god-bothering baby boom shortly?

'Some colleges offer condoms only in emergencies but others provide them in vending machines. ' - isn't it a bit late by then? Putting a condom on post coitus does not strike me as massively effective, but, what do I know? Oh...

'A major study in the U.S. found the evidence was 'not strong' that clinics increase contraceptive use or bring down teen pregnancies. ' - but there IS evidence. F*cking morons.

'Confidential clinics in schools are part of a mix that is removing the restraints which previously limited underage sexual activity. - bloody hell, now it's all getting a bit kinky.

But, dear readers, the best bit is undoubtedly the pictures. My sweet Lord. Look at that first one, on the stairs. What sort of audience are they trying to attract?

So, we gather that the Mail is very much opposed to teenagers rutting. Which is fair enough. But, if that is the case, what is THIS recruitment advertisement all about? I quote:

'The Morris Ring is hoping a winter recruitment drive could attract some new younger members in time for the spring when most troupes perform the dances they have been practicing.
Paul Reece, chairman of the Advisory Council of the Morris Ring, said: 'There is still time for new blood to get ready for the Spring fertility offensive.'

Ye Gods!

They make this far, far too easy.

Idiot of the Day

And we're back! With the Idiot of the Day.

There is something about this guy that sums up everything that is wrong with everything. Ever. He is the cliched view of what a Tory is. All that is missing in his picture is a rifle and a dead burglar lying in his front room with a gunshot wound in his back.

Partly it is the picture, which makes him look like a cross between the Wurzels and a retard character from Last of the Summer Wine. But it also statements like this:

"I am one of the last English peasants and I want a new Peasants' Revolt - but who is out there to lead it?"

You want a new Peasants' Revolt? Well, I'm all for opposing the government, but given your appearance, general concerns and terrible, terrible writing, I hope you get your peasants' revolt. You should lead it. And I hope that the government crushes it - and you - without mercy. Thus allowing us with opposable thumbs to take up the fight against the consensus with a little more coherence, relevance and common sense.

Oh, and he would be writing for The Daily Fucking Mail, wouldn't he?

Cross-posted to The Appalling Strangeness.

Testing, testing

This blog will shortly return to life...

The Moai