He said the election was a "political earthquake" for Iran's enemies - singling out Britain as "the most evil of them" - whom he accused of trying to foment unrest in the country.
Yay us! We shoot, we score! Top of the World, ma! We’re the worst - official! We out-evil America, Russia and North Korea, put together! We were up against stiff competition, but we won the Ayatollah Trophy: Most Evil Nation on Earth! We’re bad widdle boys! Better watch your back, Barack. Don’t start shootin’, Putin. You’re out on a limb, Kim. We’re evil. Yeah! You know what I'm sayin’?
Friday, 19 June 2009
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Day of the **** All
Well, it’s finally simmering down now. Pig Flu is only about as dangerous as ordinary flu, the one that kills thousands every year anyway, without raising a rumpus. So, that’s all right then. It was interesting to me, though, that you had so many prominent commentators asking why the media had gone so crazy on this story. Simon Jenkins, in his piece ‘There is no known antidote for panic’ made the point very well, and even repeated it on BBC radio, in no uncertain terms. Of course, they defended themselves, assuring us all that there had been no over-reaction after all. It was perfectly justified. Phew!
What might otherwise have appeared on the front pages, I wondered. What would it take? Perhaps a madman trying to kill the royal family by ramming them in a speeding car, killing by-standers during a patriotic pageant, live on TV. That would have knocked swine flu off the front pages, wouldn’t it?
Well, it didn’t. Unless you speak German or Dutch you may be forgiven for having missed this one last week. Yes... last week. It made massive headlines on the Continent, but was relegated to a tiny byline, on page twenty or something, in The Guardian, a sidebar tucked well inside the freesheet Metro and, well, and that was about it.
But what happened? The entire Dutch royal family were parading through the town of Apeldoorn when a car crashed through the barriers and ploughed through marchers, intent on ramming the Queen’s open-topped bus and taking out both her and her heir apparent.
The attempt failed, but only just. The motives of would-be assassin, Karst T. are still a mystery (Motief Karst T. voor zijn ouders ook een raadsel Friends and relatives are baffled. ’Dit was niet de Karst die wij kennen’ (’This wasn’t the Karst we know,’) said his father.
If this had taken place in America, we would never hear the end of it, but this was a suspected terror attack (the guy had guns and explosives at home) and certainly an assassination attempt in a country that is actually next-door to our own... and we hear virtually nothing. I can’t figure what their game is, but this has made me more troubled about the media agenda even than I was before. If this does not puncture their navel-gazing insularity, then what will? What else have they shovelled off the front pages lately?
I shall be following this story, though. It’s a mystery, it’s bizarre and it’s insane: just my cup of tea. And our news-outlets are keeping very, very quiet about it. Day of the Jackal? So what? Was Jordan involved? Don’t want to know, mate.
Footage of the attack (with German language commentary):
http://www.spiegel.de/video/video-1000528.html
What might otherwise have appeared on the front pages, I wondered. What would it take? Perhaps a madman trying to kill the royal family by ramming them in a speeding car, killing by-standers during a patriotic pageant, live on TV. That would have knocked swine flu off the front pages, wouldn’t it?
Well, it didn’t. Unless you speak German or Dutch you may be forgiven for having missed this one last week. Yes... last week. It made massive headlines on the Continent, but was relegated to a tiny byline, on page twenty or something, in The Guardian, a sidebar tucked well inside the freesheet Metro and, well, and that was about it.
But what happened? The entire Dutch royal family were parading through the town of Apeldoorn when a car crashed through the barriers and ploughed through marchers, intent on ramming the Queen’s open-topped bus and taking out both her and her heir apparent.
The attempt failed, but only just. The motives of would-be assassin, Karst T. are still a mystery (Motief Karst T. voor zijn ouders ook een raadsel Friends and relatives are baffled. ’Dit was niet de Karst die wij kennen’ (’This wasn’t the Karst we know,’) said his father.
If this had taken place in America, we would never hear the end of it, but this was a suspected terror attack (the guy had guns and explosives at home) and certainly an assassination attempt in a country that is actually next-door to our own... and we hear virtually nothing. I can’t figure what their game is, but this has made me more troubled about the media agenda even than I was before. If this does not puncture their navel-gazing insularity, then what will? What else have they shovelled off the front pages lately?
I shall be following this story, though. It’s a mystery, it’s bizarre and it’s insane: just my cup of tea. And our news-outlets are keeping very, very quiet about it. Day of the Jackal? So what? Was Jordan involved? Don’t want to know, mate.
Footage of the attack (with German language commentary):
http://www.spiegel.de/video/video-1000528.html
Monday, 27 April 2009
El Gordo
‘This is it - the pig one!’
In Mexico - where the outbreak began - there are now 26 confirmed cases. Some reports say as many as 149 people may have died from swine flu, but WHO officials put the figure much lower and said only about 20 of the deaths could be definitely attributed to swine flu.
The thing with diseases is not that people die of them, but how many die out of those who catch it. With SARS the death rate is about 10%: roughly ten or twelve people will die for every hundred who get infected. That’s very high. People are right to be worried about SARS, but it’s not in quite the same league as The Black Death, which slashed Europe’s population by a third in the late fourteenth century. If you caught that one, it was pretty much curtains for you, really. Once you started sneezing it was all over bar the buboes.
So what concerned me was the death rate. It’s really impossible to judge from such a small number of cases, but I guess that is rather worrying if twenty out of twenty-six have succumbed. That’s a seventy-seven percent death rate, which would mean you would have less than a one-in-four chance if you came down with it. Now that’s well into the Black Death kill ratio.
Mind you, if - as the report appears to suggest - one hundred and forty nine people have died out of only twenty-six infected... then we are dealing with a disease of terrifying potency, one that kills through the power of suggestion. In that case, the thing we should most fear is fear itself.
Actually, a bizarre hysterical illness known as Grisi Siknis has been reported just lately in Mexico’s near neighbour, Nicaragua;
"Grisi Siknis turns people into witches and they go crazy," [said traditional healer Doña Porcela]. Last year there were 65 cases of Grisi Siknis, which translates from the local Miskito language as ’crazy sickness’. It behaves like a virus, sending teenager after teenager into a frenzied state followed by long periods of coma-like unconsciousness...
Of course, some uncharitable souls may suggest that sounds like normal teenage behaviour anyway, but I can’t help wondering if this is more than just a coincidence. During both World Wars, army doctors noted many cases of hysterical syphilis, as shell-shocked soldiers believed they were dying, and exhibited very real symptoms, yet showed no trace of infection. In our fevered climate of crisis and anxiety, I would not be surprised to see more casualties from imagined illness than the real thing. I expect to see London anonymised behind face masks by the end of the week.
In Mexico - where the outbreak began - there are now 26 confirmed cases. Some reports say as many as 149 people may have died from swine flu, but WHO officials put the figure much lower and said only about 20 of the deaths could be definitely attributed to swine flu.
The thing with diseases is not that people die of them, but how many die out of those who catch it. With SARS the death rate is about 10%: roughly ten or twelve people will die for every hundred who get infected. That’s very high. People are right to be worried about SARS, but it’s not in quite the same league as The Black Death, which slashed Europe’s population by a third in the late fourteenth century. If you caught that one, it was pretty much curtains for you, really. Once you started sneezing it was all over bar the buboes.
So what concerned me was the death rate. It’s really impossible to judge from such a small number of cases, but I guess that is rather worrying if twenty out of twenty-six have succumbed. That’s a seventy-seven percent death rate, which would mean you would have less than a one-in-four chance if you came down with it. Now that’s well into the Black Death kill ratio.
Mind you, if - as the report appears to suggest - one hundred and forty nine people have died out of only twenty-six infected... then we are dealing with a disease of terrifying potency, one that kills through the power of suggestion. In that case, the thing we should most fear is fear itself.
Actually, a bizarre hysterical illness known as Grisi Siknis has been reported just lately in Mexico’s near neighbour, Nicaragua;
"Grisi Siknis turns people into witches and they go crazy," [said traditional healer Doña Porcela]. Last year there were 65 cases of Grisi Siknis, which translates from the local Miskito language as ’crazy sickness’. It behaves like a virus, sending teenager after teenager into a frenzied state followed by long periods of coma-like unconsciousness...
Of course, some uncharitable souls may suggest that sounds like normal teenage behaviour anyway, but I can’t help wondering if this is more than just a coincidence. During both World Wars, army doctors noted many cases of hysterical syphilis, as shell-shocked soldiers believed they were dying, and exhibited very real symptoms, yet showed no trace of infection. In our fevered climate of crisis and anxiety, I would not be surprised to see more casualties from imagined illness than the real thing. I expect to see London anonymised behind face masks by the end of the week.
Friday, 24 April 2009
Crash
I could not help wondering if fate had played a hand in making the headlines on today’s BBC news page an unintended tribute to J.G. Ballard:
Titan prisons plans 'abandoned'
Dissidents issue SF death threat
Body parts pair still questioned
Of course, I am disappointed to learn that Saturn’s largest moon will not now become the new Botany Bay after all, that the British Interplanetary Society will never witness a fresh generation of Tolpuddle Martyrs blasting off for cells with a view of the ethane sea. Mind you, that Science-Fiction death threat sounds fearful indeed. A laser from space? Flying saucers?
I suspect Ballard would have appreciated the Evening Standard headline from Budget Day too - “Drink and Fuel Up!” I take it to be read as an instruction to binge drinkers to derive their energy from booze. It reminded me of the locals’ reaction to explorer Brigadier Blashford-Snell and his party going off-road in the bush: ‘They poured some of the firewater into their engines, and then the rest into themselves, and then they left.’ That’s the spirit. Get charged up.
Titan prisons plans 'abandoned'
Dissidents issue SF death threat
Body parts pair still questioned
Of course, I am disappointed to learn that Saturn’s largest moon will not now become the new Botany Bay after all, that the British Interplanetary Society will never witness a fresh generation of Tolpuddle Martyrs blasting off for cells with a view of the ethane sea. Mind you, that Science-Fiction death threat sounds fearful indeed. A laser from space? Flying saucers?
I suspect Ballard would have appreciated the Evening Standard headline from Budget Day too - “Drink and Fuel Up!” I take it to be read as an instruction to binge drinkers to derive their energy from booze. It reminded me of the locals’ reaction to explorer Brigadier Blashford-Snell and his party going off-road in the bush: ‘They poured some of the firewater into their engines, and then the rest into themselves, and then they left.’ That’s the spirit. Get charged up.
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Happy Easter
I have been silent for a while, it’s true, and questions have been asked. The fact is, I have had nothing much to say and if I don't have much to say, then I don’t say anything. I have had a lot to think about, but very little worth repeating. There has also been illness on the radar and it’s taken time to break. I shall resurface, rest assured.
Of course, this blog has become infected itself, with hate-filled ‘Believers’, and I thought it best to give them time to get bored and drift away. They will not intimidate me, you may be pleased to hear. You see, one product of my new thinking is that the religions are not the problem. I used to think, as Dr Dawkins, that if only people could be cured of their extreme beliefs and superstitions then they could get on with their lives in peace with the rest of us. I now understand that the beliefs are not at fault. Oh, certainly, a lot of them are pernicious and vile, but some also have the noble and good tucked into the folds of the bad. They do not deserve our hate. They are no more than a fig-leaves: fig-leaves the believers hold to cover up that which truly shames them. They hope we will all focus on the leaf and not on the shrimpy member that lies beneath.
So, I am no longer going to laugh at their fig-leaves... I am going to start laughing at the things they hide. Those are much funnier!
In the meantime, in fresh (near) health, I intend to hate the sin, but love the sinner - and the first on that list is my own self.
Of course, this blog has become infected itself, with hate-filled ‘Believers’, and I thought it best to give them time to get bored and drift away. They will not intimidate me, you may be pleased to hear. You see, one product of my new thinking is that the religions are not the problem. I used to think, as Dr Dawkins, that if only people could be cured of their extreme beliefs and superstitions then they could get on with their lives in peace with the rest of us. I now understand that the beliefs are not at fault. Oh, certainly, a lot of them are pernicious and vile, but some also have the noble and good tucked into the folds of the bad. They do not deserve our hate. They are no more than a fig-leaves: fig-leaves the believers hold to cover up that which truly shames them. They hope we will all focus on the leaf and not on the shrimpy member that lies beneath.
So, I am no longer going to laugh at their fig-leaves... I am going to start laughing at the things they hide. Those are much funnier!
In the meantime, in fresh (near) health, I intend to hate the sin, but love the sinner - and the first on that list is my own self.
Saturday, 14 March 2009
The Trouble with Harry
On Friday morning, on Radio Bloke, Nicky Campbell chose to ask the White Van drivers of the nation for their thoughts on the whys and wherefores of torturing terror suspects. You can imagine what that was like, can’t you, and the replies, for the most part, were what you’d expect. However, this particular exchange between Campbell and ‘Harry in Birmingham’ (twenty minutes and thirty-four seconds into the podcast) on what did and/or should happen to Binyam Mohamed made me prick up my ears:
Campbell: If he was tortured, was it justified?
Harry: I would put the adeno... er, the electrodes onto his testes and put ’em on! This guy’s a pathological, homoeopathic murderer, a terrorist, and I’d do that just to get vengeance back off him! Okay?
A pathological, homoeopathic murderer? How would a pathological, homoeopathic murderer operate? Would he stab his victims with a microscopic knife? Would he strangle them with a human hair? Now we know what those bombers had in their water-bottles... infinitely diluted tinctures of Semtex.
Of course, if a murderer were to adhere to the homoeopathic principle - to cure like with like - then he or she would have to kill by using the life force against itself. The only way I could imagine this happening would be to shag the victims to death, to subject them to such an orgiastic, orgasmic marathon of debauchery that they would expire out of sheer sexual exhaustion. To coin a War-On-Terror phrase... bring it on!
I also quite liked Harry’s phrasing at the end there: ‘I’d do that just to get vengeance back off him!’ In other words, he’d commit the torture especially so that he could, later, be the victim of his own victim’s vengeance, enacted upon himself... which is, er, both sadism and masochism in perfect - almost homoeopathic - harmony.
Campbell: If he was tortured, was it justified?
Harry: I would put the adeno... er, the electrodes onto his testes and put ’em on! This guy’s a pathological, homoeopathic murderer, a terrorist, and I’d do that just to get vengeance back off him! Okay?
A pathological, homoeopathic murderer? How would a pathological, homoeopathic murderer operate? Would he stab his victims with a microscopic knife? Would he strangle them with a human hair? Now we know what those bombers had in their water-bottles... infinitely diluted tinctures of Semtex.
Of course, if a murderer were to adhere to the homoeopathic principle - to cure like with like - then he or she would have to kill by using the life force against itself. The only way I could imagine this happening would be to shag the victims to death, to subject them to such an orgiastic, orgasmic marathon of debauchery that they would expire out of sheer sexual exhaustion. To coin a War-On-Terror phrase... bring it on!
I also quite liked Harry’s phrasing at the end there: ‘I’d do that just to get vengeance back off him!’ In other words, he’d commit the torture especially so that he could, later, be the victim of his own victim’s vengeance, enacted upon himself... which is, er, both sadism and masochism in perfect - almost homoeopathic - harmony.
Thursday, 12 March 2009
There Will Be Blood
I have been silent lately because I have had very little to say. But I have been reading a lot - inspired and galvanized as I have been by the thinking of my friend Cat Vincent. Like me, he has been exercised by the men - and they are nearly always men - who scream their fanaticism for religious and political manias in fit and fury. He names them after ‘the unintelligent cartoon character’ of the old Viz comic. These souls take offence at the least perceived slight, and their fizzing hatred can do nought to sixty in under a second. The Stig!
Why are they so furious? I, too, have been wondering this. For a long time I have questioned whether ‘believers’ are, indeed, quite right in the head. Now I have read a lot of scientific papers over the past month or so... enough that I am beginning to see some evidence that, just maybe, they are not. The part of the brain that seems to be involved in their ill-behaviour is an area known as the temporoparietal junction. If you’re outraged to unblinking frenzy by anyone’s lack of faith in whatever personal obsession rules every minute of your day, then your t-junction may well have sustained a bit of damage along the way. Too many philosophical handbrake turns coming home from late-night mental ram-raids, I expect.
Of course, all the world’s muckers, hate-mongers, rude-kids and flame-boys are deft hands at DIY and will want to put it right themselves. I recommend a Black and Decker CD18CA Drill Driver with a 5mm bit in the keyless metal chuck. Angle it towards the nexus of the temporal and parietal lobes. Keep a steady hand and you'll surely get there, and after you do, admire your work in the mirror. As you gaze on that little round aperture, you will be able to see exactly how the rest of the world needs any of you.
Why are they so furious? I, too, have been wondering this. For a long time I have questioned whether ‘believers’ are, indeed, quite right in the head. Now I have read a lot of scientific papers over the past month or so... enough that I am beginning to see some evidence that, just maybe, they are not. The part of the brain that seems to be involved in their ill-behaviour is an area known as the temporoparietal junction. If you’re outraged to unblinking frenzy by anyone’s lack of faith in whatever personal obsession rules every minute of your day, then your t-junction may well have sustained a bit of damage along the way. Too many philosophical handbrake turns coming home from late-night mental ram-raids, I expect.
Of course, all the world’s muckers, hate-mongers, rude-kids and flame-boys are deft hands at DIY and will want to put it right themselves. I recommend a Black and Decker CD18CA Drill Driver with a 5mm bit in the keyless metal chuck. Angle it towards the nexus of the temporal and parietal lobes. Keep a steady hand and you'll surely get there, and after you do, admire your work in the mirror. As you gaze on that little round aperture, you will be able to see exactly how the rest of the world needs any of you.
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