Bollocks on the News, Part II

1. Dog shows. I frankly don't care whether "traditional Crufts breeders" think that dancing dogs are bringing the show into disrepute. I think that dog shows bring the country into disrepute.


2. From today's Indefensible, as part of an otherwise reasonable article suggesting that possibly deporting gay people to Iran might offend the British sense of fair play and justice and breach the bit in the Human Rights Act which says that the death penalty isn't quite right nowadays:

   Unlike gay websites, their email network cannot be shut down because it does not have a home page.

   
   
   Regardless of the near ubiquity of web-mail interfaces nowadays, let me contribute to the world-wide fascist state by introducing the Iranians to the DNS 'MX' query. Err, which tells you what the FQDNs (Fully Qualified Domain Name) or IP addresses of the email servers are for an internet domain or subdomain.

   Like, for example, independent.co.uk^*:
   

   Domain	Type	Class	TTL	Answer
   independent.co.uk.	MX	IN	3600	cluster5a.eu. messagelabs.com. [Preference = 20]
   independent.co.uk.	MX	IN	3600	cluster5.eu. messagelabs.com. [Preference = 10]



3. Also from the Independent, referring to new public sculpture:
   

   Anthony Gormley says "There is an awful lot of crap out there"

   
   
   Now, as much as I like the iconic "Angel of the North", I must agree with Andrew. "Firmament", on show at the White Cube gallery and available to your local council for the waste of a mere £850k, shows just how right he is. Except, that's his.

   For pompous art snobs 'naive' and 'representational' ≠ 'crap'. Particularly for Marjorie Trusted, neither does 'old-fashioned' equal bad.

* Here are some of the relevant IP addresses:

Domain	Type	Class	TTL	Answer
cluster5a.eu. messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	193.109.255.19
cluster5a.eu.messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	193.109.254.3
cluster5a.eu.messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	193.109.254.115
cluster5a.eu.messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	195.245.230.51
cluster5a.eu.messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	85.158.136.83
cluster5a.eu.messagelabs.com.	A	IN	900	85.158.140.179

PS. Yes, I know that the tables display in a manner best described as "crap". If you can help as opposed to moan, please let me know. Update: I may have corrected bodged this.

Bollocks on the News, Part I

So, there I am harmlessly slowly waking up and the unattractive figure of Jacqui Smith appears on the television.  We know that she shines an inefficient and low-wattage light even amongst the dim bulbs that are the current Cabinet but she was appalling this morning.  On ID Cards, of course.

So we are starting with compulsory issue - first to evil furriners (except EU furriners who, according to the Brussels collective, cannot be evil), then to airport workers, students (who, as we all know are smelly wasters, spending all their time drinking at the Union while skipping lectures) in 2010 and finally, once we have been immunised against it, all of us when we go and get our passports from 2011.  She did try to say that the latter two would be voluntary but, as it is the register not the card that is important, I don't believe here.  And nobody, not even airport workers, will need to carry it.

Unless, and I was taking notes by this point, you want to:

• Travel
• Get a bank account
• Get a loan
• Prove who we are to the police (Wat is going to be in real trouble)
• or buy property

And it will protect us against fraud.  Will it?  Only if we have checks against the NIR, using the biometric data on our ID cards, at every opportunity to commit fraud¹. Which is a problem, because every time our identity is checked against the NIR, the circumstances of that check will ne recorded on the NIR. This is going to make the NIR much larger and much, much busier, therefore, almost axiomatically, much more likely to contain incorrect information and much more likely to fall over.

And the vaunted biometrics, in a different database to the NIR² you know, is now just a digitised photograph and your fingerprints.  Ho, hum.   That will prevent terrorism, I know, Jacqui said so.

Not so - let's take an example.  The completely hypothetical Abdul al Innocent comes to the UK to go to University³. After 4 years of exposure to pictures of Jade Goody, walking around piles of chav vomit / vomiting chavs, and encouraged by sermons from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Abdul decides that Britain is doomed unless we are brought under Sharia law. He goes home to get a job (having entered as a student, he has difficulty converting his visa to a work one and he is law-abiding and not going to go on the run.)

Once home, he meets up with some radical Islamists after Friday prayers and he is, over a period of a few months, convinced by them that the best way to convince us of the right(eous)ness of Sharia law is a series of terrorist atrocities⁴. So, he applies for a work visa which is granted⁵. And he comes to the UK. He has, of course, already got an ID card and an entry on the NIR. His controllers provide him with a forged or fraudulent passport, let's make it French, for Jean le Terroriste. All of his dodgy activity; training, meeting with fellow activists, purchasing parts for his explosive waistcoat, are done by Jean - and on Jean's ID Card and recorded on Jean's NIR record. Before the final terrorist activity, Jean's ID card is shredded and the earnestly innocent Abdul goes to meet his raisins.  Game set match - all sorts of things could have caught Abdul but not ID Cards.

1. And as the banks found out with Chip & Pin, all that will do is drive the commission of fraud abroad.

2. Yes, the biometrics shouldn't be on any database, they only need to be on the card. But that would be the sensible way of doing things.

3. Why, I am not entirely sure. Even if Abdul was from a country we or the Yanks had bombed back to the Stone Age, he is likely to get a much better education, even in the English language, anywhere but here.

4. Adbul is not too bright. Let's say he was a "David Beckham Studies" graduate.

5. I did imagine a lot in here about his arrest under Section 132 of SOCPA and subsequent brutalisation at the hands of a militant lesbian Met Police Officer "because he looked at me funny, m'lud." But it was irrelevant so I left it out.

Double Take

My insufficiently caffeinated brain was reading somebody else's Metro on the Tube this morning and I thought "What? Is he out of hospital already?"

Then I realised - it wasn't "Gazza fighting stops" but "Gaza".

Oh well.

More Honours Stupidity

This guy is not just "trying it on", he is also completely wrong.

When asked by Ms LaTorre how he would like to be introduced, Mr Irvine said he would like be known as "Sir Robert Irvine, Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order."

She told the St Petersburg Times: "He said there were five levels of knights, and KCVO is the highest level of knight you could be. The Queen handpicks you."

Actually, of course, there are 7 active orders of Knighthood^* in Britain: Knights Bachelor, the Order of the British Empire, the Royal Victorian Order, the Order of St Michael and St George, the Order of the Bath, the Order of the Thistle and the Order of the Garter. These all have either one (Garter, Thistle & Bachelor) or two divisions of knighthood - in the latter case you are either a Knight Commander or the more senior "Knight Grand Cross".

And, there are 6 grades within the Royal Victorian Order - from the Royal Victorian Medal to Knight Grand Cross.  (Ed notes: It does have to be admitted, however, that membership in the RVO is one of the honours actually in the direct gift of the Queen rather than her being advised on appointment by her Government.)

So far from being the highest level of Knight, KCVO (the Star is shown here) is actually 9th of 11^* with only KBE and Knight Batchelor as junior (the Garter is the most senior order).

'Tis a pity that although his time on the Royal Yacht appears to have done wonders for his cooking, it appears not to have done much for his appreciation of the (admittedly of limited importance) matters of precedence or, you have to say, mere counting.


* I don't believe that either the Order of Merit or the Order of Companions of Honour are actually knightly orders. If they are then there are 9 orders and KCVO is 11th of 13!

A Couple of Updates

With regard to the "George Medal" post below, I think it also deserves pointing out that St Andrew is hardly quintessentially Scottish.  As a Patron Saint, we share him with Russia, Romania and Greece, as well as Byzantium / Constantinople / Istanbul¹ - places where, unlike Scotland, he may have actually had an evangelical connection. Whether as a Jewish fisherman in Roman-occupied Galilee or as the First Apostle, his connection with our lovely country is, at best, post mortem² and, as it seems to be based on the dubious authenticity of medieval church relics, probably entirely hypothetical. 

Also, Mrs S-E wishes her loyal public to note that she has decreed that from times henceforth, minature bottles of alcohol, those being 5cl of spirits, 18.75cl of wine or 20cl of champagne^3,4, shall be known as "sheridans", in honour of Gail of that name.

1. And Prussia, keeping my prior habit of citing regions.

2. Although the myths of St Andrew indicate he is supposed to have preached in Scythia and the Declaration of Arbroath does claim the Scots came via "Greater Scythia", so he might just have run across us.

3. Although anybody approaching her presence with champagne in volume less than a normal bottle^* will be hung, drawn and quartered, just to make the point.

4. Or similar sizes. She's not a Eurocrat.

* And to be full (at least until you pour her glass), and to be left in an appropriate cooling bucket within easy reach. Thank you.

Christine, please, shut the fuck up!

The utter stupidity of British politicians never ceases to amaze me. Which just proves that we are not always capable of learning from our mistakes.

Of course, in Scotland, the lunatics beat the the spivs in the last election, so they have so much more scope for their cretinous beliefs and ridiculous notions to interfere with those of us just trying to get along in life. Recently, the anti-English^* party have been even more whacked out than normal - the Berwick stunt, Chris Harvie's moronic utterances regarding Lockerbie and, alerted to by the ever vigilant Snob, Christine Grahame, prime twit of l'affair Berwick, at it again.

According to Terry's favourite paper, she added:

Given we have had some recent high profile examples of such acts of heroism it is time we remedied the situation and properly recognised these outstanding individuals.

Whilst I accept that the current George Medal is available to people throughout the UK, it is clearly a very Anglo-centric award that takes no account of Scotland's long and well-established tradition of bravery, both in civilian life and in the role performed by Scots service personnel over the centuries.

The George Medal depicts St George of England slaying a mythical dragon, a representation that remains quintessentially English.

Now, let's just see. It is not the "St George" Medal (and Cross), it is the (King) George (VI) Medal, as can been seen in the official MOD photograph (and, yes, I know that it would the current monarch on the obverse of any new awards). And, and I appreciate that as a modern politician, Christine won't have been anywhere near the military, it is the obverse not the "St George & the Dragon" bearing side that shows.

And, of course, St George isn't English. If he existed, he was probably Turkish born, Greek speaking and thought of himself as a Roman citizen. And he isn't just the patron saint of England - he is the patron saint of (countries only); Canada, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Montenegro, Palestine, Portugal, Russia, and Serbia; as well as the Spanish regions of Aragon and Catalonia.

And, of course, it is not the politicians and Government, whether Scottish or United Kingdom that awards gallantry medals in the UK - it is the Queen (or the Royal Humane Society and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.) So stupidity reigns, as ever, in the bowels of Holyrood; Grahame herself and Messrs Hepburn, Ahmad, Wilson, Gibson, Kidd, McMillan and McKee. The Herald doesn't do much better:

The George Medal and George Cross were created to reward acts of bravery committed by members of the Commonwealth not serving in the armed forces, who can be awarded the Victoria Cross.

No, they were not. They were created to reward acts of bravery committed other than in the face of the enemy - whether by civilians or by military personnel. The George Cross replaced three existing awards, the Empire Gallantry Medal, the Albert Medal (1st Class or Gold awards only until 1971) and the Edward Medal. Many recipients have been military personnel - many bomb disposal officers and technicians such as Captain Peter Norton GC although other have won the awards for saving life in minefields or, in Lance Corporal Chris Finney GC's case, because the Septics are, technically, not the enemy.

I'll leave you with a comment from somebody who knows - retired police Chief Superintendent James Beaton GC CVO JP:

Bravery is bravery the world over, be it Scotland, Ireland, Wales or anywhere else. The Victoria and George Crosses are recognised the world over. If you were to have a Scottish George Cross, why not a Scottish Victoria Cross? Should I be given a Scottish award because I am a Scot living in England?

* Well, they are. Not all of them but a significant number of their politicians, many of their activists and, I suspect, a huge percentage of their voters.

Iraqi Employees: Fine words, shabby deeds!

Actually, I am not as politic as the estimable Mr Hardie. I don't think the words have been that fine. I think they have been grudging, late and weasely. I think that the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence have behaved appallingly and that Dan actually got it right here:

Only pressure will stop this Government from finding bureaucratic excuses to abandon its moral obligations and leave its former Employees to the death squads.

Still, the latest in the saga is up here and or on what I am pleased to learn is "the right-wing neo-con supporting Harry's Place website" here.

Do you like reading fine words? Here is the Prime Minister on the subject of Iraqi ex-employees of the British Government, speaking in the House of Commons on October 9th, 2007: ‘I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of our civilian and locally employed staff in Iraq, many of whom have worked in extremely difficult circumstances, exposing themselves and their families to danger. I am pleased therefore to announce today a new policy which more fully recognises the contribution made by our local Iraqi staff, who work for our armed forces and civilian missions in what we know are uniquely difficult circumstances.’

Fine words. What about deeds?

A small number of Iraqis - fewer than a dozen, according to people close to the operation who are in contact with me- were removed from Iraq in the early autumn of 2007. Since the Prime Minister’s admirable declaration of October, how many Iraqi ex-employees have been evacuated from Iraq? According to all the Iraqis that I am in contact with: none.

...

The Home Office is dawdling while people are threatened with death.This is either incompetence in the face of a crisis, or it is a deliberate policy of putting bureaucratic obstacles in the face of fugitives. Neither is acceptable.

Please read the whole thing and do what your conscience tells you.

Proud to be one of " Neil Clark's 'Quislings' ".

"Isn't it sad" Update

Well, "Hello Kitty Hell" continues. Just look at last week's stats:

Article	Hits
Hello Girly	67.3%
Archive (Dec 07) containing "Hello Girly"	19.7%
Combined	87.1%
Home Page	8.5%
Direct Hits to last week's posts	2.3%

So it's true. Once you're in, you're stuck. Condemned for life to endless 'cute'.

Divided By A Common Tongue

Why does the civilised world

Stand for election,

Yet the "Land of the Free"

Run for Office?

I know that, in both cases "Pimp^* for votes" would be more honest.

* Yes, 'pimp', rather than 'prostitute'. If it was their own money they were promising to spend rather than your taxes, they might raise themselves to the dignity of a harlot.

Oh Dear, Gail

Mrs Sheridan appears to have been suspended from her job for being in the possession of (allegedly) and potentially purloining some airline miniature booze^*, to add to her perjury charge woes.

Well, what would you expect? She is, without question, a good Socialist and "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", is a damn good Socialist principle. British Airways has plenty of miniatures and, if I were married to Tommy, current troubles especially, I'd sodding well need a stiff drink.

As all reasonable people will be automatically aware, this is, of course, a Thatcherite plot using the vicious Nu-Lab police to derail the paths both of the people's revolution and of true (according to good Marxist dogma) love.

* Just to declare an interest, I think I have a couple of BA Gordon's miniatures in my drinks cabinet - just for emergency gin famines, of course. And obtained as a passenger, rather than as an employee.

Divine Compass

Our good friend at law, the Reactionary Snob, has recently had a pop at the Political Compass. In his brief account, and with his astonishment at the clustering of the American Presidential candidates, he wonders about how religion might affect this.

So, having done the test for myself some time ago, I went back and answered the questions as I think the biblical Jesus might have done. Armed with my trusty King James, Mrs S-E's New International Version and the Rector's favourite, the Revised Standard Version and, for giggles, the wonderful "The Year of Living Biblically", I got this:

Christ's political compass

Economic Left/Right: -6.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.15

I had to skirt the Samaritan / Jewish issues; the money changers being thrown out of the Temple yet "Render unto Caesar"; the whole Biblical abhorrence of (male) homosexuality; the exposure as hypocrites those who followed the letter of the Jewish law but not its spirit - and many of the other issues that bedevil the Churches various in this modern era.

Feel free to quibble about my results - some of the questions were difficult to translate to biblical example but, as any honest Christian probably would have guessed, Christ is, by example at least, some sort of evil commie pinko and worse, if he ran for office^* while waiting for the Second Coming, a liberal!

* Note that buy using the phrase "ran for office", I am loosely implying "in the Land of the Free".

No Sympathy for Alice Miles

Sorry and all that, but ...

In the Comment section of today's London Times, M(r)s Miles berates the Government, Ofstead and the local council for the mind-numbing bureaucracy involved in 'running' a local nursery school.  Now, whereas I certainly have some sympathy for normal people caught up in all this, alongside the trials and tribulations incumbent in just being the parent of a small child (Mrs S-E was chairwoman of the local primary school board until school boards were abolished up here in favour of "parents' councils"), I cannot bring myself to find one iota for a journalist.

Whenever there is an accident involving a kid, especially where there is a tragedy, the tabloids of the Murdoch stable have been in the forefront of a broad press stampede, bellowing in high point capitals, "Something MUST be Done".  Short of "The Matrix"-type capsules, or DK's "Toynbee Podding Hutch ^(TM)", you cannot stop small children choking, eating mud or worms, falling over (even off of flat balconies), wandering into the road, etc.  It cannot be done.  They are small, agile, fast and possessed of both the intellect that has allowed Hom Sap to achieve so much and the low cunning that does the same for squirrels.

So, Alice, I am afraid, you have brought it upon yourself.  The CRB checks for parents, the fees, the "Going Out For a Walk Policy" you so correctly, now, deride.  As "Columnist of the Year 2007"^*, you are a poster child for the professional commentariat.  It is you, not the admittedly Stalinist tendencies of local government of all political persuasions, that has brought this upon this once-great country. 

Either just shut the eff up about it and bear it like we all have to or, better (but you won't), start doing something about it.  Campaign to unwind the red tape - not just when it affects you, and not on the inside pages, but on Page 1 when the next set of parents are grieving for their beautiful child who has drowned in a stream / broken their neck / been abducted.  Throw your skinny latté into the face of your colleagues who are calling for mandatory 6-foot 1.8288 metre fences, child tracking implants or other obscenities.  Campaign for more freedom, not less.  And keep your noses and your cameras out of the family's grief.

Then complain.

* Exactly whose "Columnist of the Year 2007"?  Your bio doesn't say and, if the award had any real prestige, you would expect it to?  Google is remarkably silent too.  Pollyanna won the "British Press Awards" version, as ably reported here.  Ahh - eventually, the BBC "What the Papers Say" awards.  Well the BBC thinks they "are now a fixture in the British press calendar" and are "traditionally handed out by major politicians."  Lucky you!

Regression Testing

I've just found out that I am cited in Wikipedia for citing Wikipedia in an academic (hah, that's what they claim) paper.  I will go and hang my head in shame.

The Price of Progress

There was some startling old harridan on Breakfast News this morning (you can tell I am working away from home) who, apart from appearing to be auditioning for Miss Prism, was suing BT for charging her extra for insisting in paying in cash.

Now, the direct debit system is far from perfect - see here and here - but her main argument seemed to be that since cash was good enough for the Roman Empire, it should remain the main engine of payments for the 21st Century. Now, the reason we are not still mostly slaves and peasants, living in rustic poverty propping up the lives of a few patricians is the massive improvements in productivity since Caratacus screwed up in 43AD.

Cash has many problems compared to electronic payments - you need office space to receive it, cashier time to count it, change to pay out, total it at the end of the day (in case the cashier has developed sticky fingers), take it to the bank (and your courier may well be violently robbed) - who will charge you for depositing it and count it, again. All of this takes time which, axiomatically, is money. No wonder utilities prefer electronic payment.

Startling Investigative Journalism

From the front page of today's Guardian, Polly Curtis not La Toynbee:

Tuition fees favour the rich - new study

Children from poor familes say fear of debt deterred them from university.

I mean, it is not as if it is basic economics, is it? You make something more expensive and it means that it is more difficult for poor people to afford it? What next?

Ferrari and Aston Martin accused of discrimination against unemployed petrol heads. "I just can't afford a new Fiorano on my dole", says Sid, 23, from Harlow, "even if I can persuade them to give me Incapacity Benefit!"

Top Chefs reject feeding the poor! One arrogantly told your reporter, "If they can only afford £3 for a meal, there's a MacDonald's round the corner." We interviewed one diner, A*** R********r, a modest and unassuming man just leaving, who said "Yes, £10 for a bottle of mineral water to start with, what an extravagance, never mind the couple of bottles of 1990 Premiers grands crus classés with the entrees. Luckily, I'm on expenses."

Quote of the (Yester) Day

From Sam Tarran:

about as convincing as Alistair Darling's claim that he isn't in fact a strategically-shaved badger.

Brilliant.

I'm Nearly That Fat ..

h/t to Theo, I'm a BUFF:

What military aircraft are you? B-52 Stratofortress You're a B-52. You are old and wise, and you absolutely love destruction. You believe in the principle of "peace through deterrence" and aren`t afraid to throw your weight around.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

'Though, I think it lies.

Advocates for Self Government

As recommended (but not linked) by Mark Wadsworth in the comments to DK's go at the Political Compass, we have the "Advocates for Self-Government" test.

My try:


Update: Wow, this post has actually got more hits than Hello Girly - the nightmare may nearly be over.

Political Compass - Reprise

I occasionally retake the Political Compass test, if for no better reason than I keep deluding myself that I may get a result I agree with. So today is not too bad. Moderately to strongly libertarian and my divergent social and economic opinions keeping me close to the centreline on the x axis. Pretty much as before.
This shouldn't have surprised me, but it did, a bit:

No wonder liberal, in its true meaning (as opposed to high-tax statist) is such a bad word in the US of A.

Two different tangos

(And, no, not much to do with Hain.)

Well, two quite distinct withdrawals of whips from Tory politicians (as well as the additional ones who merely had to hand it back to the poor lass when their time was up.)

Derek Conway. Fool, charlatan and fraudster. Thrown out of parliament for, frankly, taking the piss. Yes, MPs have employed family members for years¹. Jackart has a list. There is nothing wrong with this, provided that they do the work. Conways Junior did not. Dad broke the rules. Mind you, if we were going to throw out every MP who broke either Parliamentary rules or British law, we could move them to a much smaller office building. There are still some old-style telephone boxes near Westminster.

Dan Hannan. Eurosceptic and MEP. Thrown out of the 'European People's² Party' for asking the European Parliament to follow its own rules. Remember their smoking ban? Fat chance, mate, but you knew that. Rules are for the little people. Now, it's not as if MEPs actually have any work to do, either - remember that the rules are made by the Commission (TEBAF Margot, twice-sacked Mandy etc) and then rammed through the national parliaments - the Parliament is just a federalist hot air factory³. And, of course, with their pay deal, no MEP needs to employ their wife or mistress - that's a perk for the Commissioners.

There has been lots on blogs recently about pin factories and whether Adam Smith ever visited one (the consensus is that he did - or something very similar, anyway). Where is the discussion of the clearly-necessary piano wire workshops?

1. If I was stuck in London all week (or most of the week) and especially if I had a job that regularly made me attend (they don't actually 'work', do they?) until 10pm, I'd get Mrs S-E a job that meant she could accompany me. And if I could have an arrangement with her boss that meant that when my life was tough, she could get a bit more time off ...

2. This reminds me of the axiom that any organisation with "People's" in its title, almost certainly isn't.

3. See:

Urges the Commission to establish

- pointless, powerless, hideously expensive statist fools. Democratic window-dressing on the tyranny of the retro-Napoleonic federal Europe. With Bliar, the Sedgefield Cat himself, about to adopt Corsican citizenship. Well, we still have St Helena!