Don’t annoy a dragon, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup
a) impossible,
b) impractical.
c) pointless,
d) censorship, or
e) all of the above.
The correct answer is of course option (e). Maybe someone should inform Andy Burnham.
Image: Beau Bo D’Or
So Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave Channel 4’s “alternative Queen’s speech”. Yes, he’s the President of Iran and has said some rather disgusting and offensive things; that cannot be denied.
But we live in a country where free speech is hard-wired into us as people and in to our political system, even if it does appear to be under threat at the moment. And as we have that alongside a free media, the filming and broadcasting of this message is not a problem - so long as it itself is not offensive. Which, since it has been described as “lovey-dovey“, one rather doubts that it was [I haven't seen the whole thing].
I cannot see how it is a problem or “sick” to have Ahmadinejad give the alternative Queen’s speech at Christmas - after all, Jesus is considered a Muslim Prophet. I find it no less intrinsically offensive to have Ahmadinejad giving the alternative speech than the Pope.
It comes down to what they say - and what Ahmadinejad has said in this broadcast is less offensive than what Pope Benedict XVI has recently.
If this isn’t dumbing down, I don’t know what is:
A major review of the curriculum for England’s primary schools suggests that six broad “areas of learning” could replace individual subjects…
It also calls for children to learn more about well-being, happiness and healthy living. (BBC)
And what are these so-called “areas of learning”?
As part of this, it suggests that our kids are taught in less depth about, well, anything. Including about our history and about the world in which we live. Instead they’d prefer to teach them IT stuff which they are almost certainly better at than their teachers.
What a load of rubbish this report contains.
The death of this girl enabled five others to live. Her heart, a lung, liver, and both kidneys were removed, with the consent of her parents, and transplanted. Five people are alive thanks to her.
This is why I support presumed consent of organ donation. When you die, you no longer have any use for your organs. And if you really don’t want them to be used after your death - for whatever reason - then you can opt out.
Presumed consent would save lives. It would mean that organs could be transplanted fast and that there would be more organs available for transplant. This would save lives.
No-one with any common sense could object to it, so long as the ability to opt-out is made cheap and simple.
Hazel Blears aka the chipmunk, is trying to blame bloggers for causing the culture of cynicism in British politics:
Perhaps because of the nature of the technology, there is a tendency for political blogs to have a ‘Samizdat’ style. The most popular blogs are rightwing, ranging from the considered Tory views of Iain Dale, to the vicious nihilism of Guido Fawkes. Perhaps this is simply anti-establishment. Blogs have only existed under a Labour government. Perhaps if there was a Tory government, all the leading blogs would be left-of-centre?
It’s quite possible that, yes, had the Conservatives been in power rather than Labour, the centre-left would have the leading/highest traffic-level blogs. But they do certainly have a better blogging community thing going.
But mostly, political blogs are written by people with disdain for the political system and politicians, who see their function as unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy.
Yes, and no. Bloggers tend to have little respect for politicians as a whole, who are our representatives and as such we expect them to be sleaze-free. Only those politicians who have scandals to unearth, who make conspiracies, and are hypocrites have anything to worry about from bloggers.
The political system, however, is respected - except where it makes no sense or we can improve. However, bloggers tend to be democrats, not as in Lib Dems but in actual democrats. We respect the principle of democracy and its practice.
Until political blogging ‘adds value’ to our political culture, by allowing new voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair.
Political blogging does allow new voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge into the political system. That is what it is best at. Blogging allows and encourages everyone to participate in the political process - anyone can start a blog for free using any number of platforms!
Blogging encourages particopation in the political process. Without blogging, I wouldn’t be anywhere near as politically active or engaged. I had in fact become bored with politics until I started blogging.
Hazel Blears is entirely wrong that political blogging doesn’t “add value”. It does, just not necessarily in the way she thinks it should.
It isn’t bloggers who are fueling !a culture of cynicism and despair”, but politicians - primaily career politicians, who Blears does indeed attack [unfortunately ignoring that she is one of them]. It is them who cause the lack of political engagement in Britain and prevent people from getting involved. If politicians weren’t mired in sleaze every time we turn around, maybe we wouldn’t have a culture of cynicism. And if we didn’t see the government constantly trying to take away our freedoms, maybe we wouldn’t live in despair.
Michael Portillo believes that now is the time to call a general election, because
the damage that the Conservatives have sustained over recent weeks goes well beyond the sharp reduction in their opinion poll lead. Gordon Brown’s rehabilitation as a supposedly competent man of action has blown apart the Tories’ election strategy and no plan B exists.
But, no, it’s not.
If Gordon Brown called an election now - in the midst of a recession, an just as his poll ratings had begun to rise due to fact that he had “done” something - even if it had yet to cause any form of benefit at all - and the Conservatives lack any real narrative to suggest instead, he would be seen as oportunistic.
Brown chickened out of an election this time last year and since he has until May 2010 when he can leave it until, to select now of all times would be a massive miscalculation.
The public do not respect opportunistic poltiicans, and rather tend to move against them. If Brown was to use the slight bounce he has had recently in the polls [which still gives Cameron a small majority ] as an opportunity to call an election, the electorate will call it as it is - opportunistic, and vote aginst him to punish him.
A snap election now would not help Brown hold on to power, but just turn the electorate even more aginst politicians altogether, seeing them as even more sleazy and grasping as ever. They won’t appreciate being asked to make a deicison for next four years in the middle of a financial crisis.
Thus, a snap election aint gonna happen.
This is yet another reason why Conservatives should support Obama rather than McCain:
I’ve always been ProBama because he is has a far greater chance to make a difference. He offers hope, change and a future in the world for America - and would help the entire world move on.
We don’t need another old man, especially with a frankly crazy woman as his running mate, as self-styled “leader of the free world”.
Video hat-tip: Guido Fawkes
If you live to 100 you need to have more than a £1 million pension pot.
Longer life expectancy teamed with rising food and fuel bills will see the average cost of retirement triple over the next two decades.
The report, by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, forecasts weekly care home fees will rise from £600 a week today to £1,075 by 2018.
It predicts that more than half of home owners will be forced to sell their properties to fund the cost…
For somebody who is aged 65 now, then goes on to live until the age of 100, retirement will cost £413,000. By 2018 that could rise to £700,000.
And if the rate of inflation remains at current levels, the cost of retirement could exceed £1.3 million for someone living to 100 by the middle of the 21st century. (The Telegraph)
By the middle of the 21st century, I will be at about current retirement age. I had not expected to be able to retire at least 70 as it is [nearly 50 years of working life], but it seems that I will almost certainly need to work for even longer than that. Great.
I already pay into a pension plan - I started doing so as soon as the opportunity presented itself - but to buld up the necessary sort of pension pot I’d need to, it seems that I better start paying one helluva lot more in than I am now.
Retirement simply shoudn’t be this expensive.
42. It may be the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, but it’s not the answer to this. And the Lords have voted it down by 309 to 118.
Now the government have been forced to remove the clause from the Counter-Terrorism Bill.
This shows why we need a House of Lords. The Commons -our elected representatives - passed it, and the Lords - appointed and hereditary - voted it down. Yet it was the Lords who have voted the way the people wanted.
The government doesn’t appear to want to accept that it is dead, so rather than just admitting that it is over, instead they have prepared a separate bill to resurrect 42 days detention without trial to bring to Parliament “if needed”.
It’s dead. Dead. The government just need to accept it.
He’s quit the Lib Dem front bench in order to fight to become Lib Dem President.
But Lembit Opik simply isn’t a serious politician.
He has had to deny that he is to go in to the Big Brother house, following George Galloway’s lead, claiming that it is
absolute nonsense. There is no truth in it whatsoever.
Yet considering the “celebrity” shows he has been on - The All Star Talent Show, All-Star Mr and Mrs and Celebrity Weakest Link - then one would hardly be surprised were he to take part in the most tedious and pointless “celebrity” show in existence.
So one must presume that he’s going into the jungle instead, then…
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