I heard the news today, oh boy..

[mockney piers]

That's fair enough Brendan, but libertarianism for me is too tainted by the ideals of a pretty nasty bunch across the pond who have a philosophy of a very selfish (and often pretty self defeating) nature, more often than not backed up with an unhealthy obsession with firearms.

Was Koresh the ultimate libertarian? Possibly, he's certainly a cause c?l?bre for many. I prefer the term liberal, it's less tainted, if a bit wishy-washy ;)

[Brendan]

I get your point there MP. I was not taking into consideration the agendas the term is associated with. I was thinking more literally.

For me the term Liberal is also pretty annoying, even though it is the category that I generally fall into when people try to pigeonhole me. It brings to mind images of mollycoddled, first world idealists with their heads so far up their arses they can?t see their own glaring double standards or the damage their good is doing.

[SeanMacGabhann]

a different topic - but pertaining to across the pond still - (ie 9/11)

Doris Lessing Tells It Like Is Is

[mockney piers]

Touch? Brendan, and also a very fair point.

I don't really label myself as anything, but at a pinch I'm closest to liberal with decent dashes of socia-lism and very occasional bouts of misanthropy.

Sean, that reminded me of today's swiftian classic (well the closing arguments anyway).

oops, link omitted http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2007/10/glenn-beck-sees-good-side-of-fires-in.html

[downsouth]

I've not read her stuff yet but her most recent book The Cleft is on my Xmas wishlist. http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,1984239,00.html It's a world first populated by women. Men are a genetic anomaly that appear in increasing numbers and so they things with their 'dangly bits' are banished to the edges of 'civilisation'.

[Brendan]

I think that 9/11 was a lot more black and white in the sense of, these are the good guys and these are the bad guys than the hundreds of years of conflict culminating in ?the troubles? was. Therefore it was easier for 9/11 to be packaged as an iconic catastrophe.

She does make a fair point though.

I too have never read any of her stuff but you know, Nobel Prize winning old lady who swears on telly. Sounds interesting. I may get something out next time I'm in the library.

[mockney piers]

The troubles only really refers to the modern struggle from 68/9ish onwards.

Sorry, just being pedantic; what a surprise.

But your point stands that it's easy to portray 9/11 as a simple "what the bad guys have done to us" affair.

Robert Fisk dared to question this pretty much the following day and was universally savaged (sensitivity not being his strong point) but blowback (a US term not mine, I knew it as something entorely different) has become a pretty accepted concept now. Don't say that just anywhere in the US though, as Stewart Lee discovered when doing stand-up out there.

[downsouth]

Like we say in Texas, "Let's smoke us some bad guys".

[SeanMacGabhann]

blowback - why do I think you aren't referring to the Tricky album of the same name MP hmmmmm?

If Gore had been elected would the same event happen and if it did would the same outcome have transpired?

Maybe maybe not - but no doubt in my mind that the over-reaction of the US and the complete spunking (sorry, no better word frankly) of the goodwill generated has been and will continue to be THE major factor in the world's future economic and diplomatic decline...

[Brendan]

Yeah you're right there MP. What I really wrote was "culminating" in. You must be misreading things. ;-)

[mockney piers]

Reiki fails to halt forest fires. Now if it can just stop the earth from choking on plastic bags...

[mockney piers]

Thank goodness international policy is judged by an informed populace, otherwise who knows what would happen?!?!

[Marmora Man]

Brendan Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/18/

> ethicalliving.ethicalliving

>

> :'(

> :'(

> :'(

What a fatuous article.

Everything we do requires energy - energy use creates a carbon footprint / emissions. Someone else this weekend was recommending we eat up all our food as wasted food decomposes and creates methane gas - another contributor to climate change.

Worrying about the impact on the climate of a glass of whisky, wine or beer is just going too bloody far.

[Brendan]

Yeah! That article upset me a fair bit. I had to bung the washing in the tumble-dryer and go for a nice relaxing drive.

[mockney piers]

the daily mash tells it like it is

IT'S THE BEHEADINGS I MISS THE MOST, SAYS HOMESICK SAUDI KING

KING Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has revealed that he hates to travel because he misses the daily beheadings in the courtyard of his solid gold palace.

The King, who arrived in London yesterday to complete his purchase of the British Government, said: "Tyranny is marvellous thing, but it bugger to travel with.

"I have to leave behind Rolls Royce toilets and beatings of women. I come to cheap country where women no have to wear large canvas tent."

He added: "Next time I bring Hassan the Royal Swordsman and we do some beheadings in lobby of the Dorchester. Yes?"

The King, a moderniser who is slowly dragging his country into the 11th century, will be welcomed officially by the Queen.

He will then spend the rest of day sitting on a vast silk cushion in the corner of the Throne Room, breaking wind and working his way through a pair of marinated goats.

He will spend Wednesday buying Leeds, Bristol, Gateshead and Barbara Windsor.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the King was an honoured guest adding: "You are wise and just and you have the proud genitals of an ox. Please come my lovely friend. See our high-quality killing machines. Fresh today. I give you good price."

[barrymarshall]

Here's Pete Tatchell on the very same issue, though he is far more scathing

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/10/welcoming_the_tyrant.html

[mockney piers]

The only reasoning for this high profile visit that makes any sense to me, is that it was organised by ultra-blairites towards the end of their days as a stinking booby trap left for brown and his goons; he either has to go through with it and look bad or downgrade/cancel it thus snubbing an important though repugnant ally.

You almost have to respect the creativity if this is the case; whichever way you look at it though, the whole affair reeks.

[Brendan]

Hmmmm. This explains why half of Westminster was cordoned off and crawling with cops when I went out for lunch.

You have to feel sorry for Brown, well as far as it is possible to feel sorry for him. His predecessor did leave a lot of right royal cock ups behind for him to deal with.

[mockney piers]

Indeed there were, but I can't find any sympathy for the fella.

Plus Foot & Mouth was all of his own making when he slashed DEFRA's budgets as chancellor and two of the resultant ditched projects were ..err.. flood defence improvements and an urgently needed sewage system repair in a certain diseases research centre that was flagged as being very vulnerable to a leak should there be a flood.

2 + 2 = ?

(source private eye)

[barrymarshall]

can't say I feel any sympathy for hime either. He remains one of the central architects of Nu Labour. Almost everything this government has done he has had his hand in.

[Brendan]

Exactly why I said "as far as it is possible to feel sorry for him"

Of course schadenfreude may also be appropriate.

[mockney piers]

"Of course schadenfreude may also be appropriate"

Oh yeah, loved the whole brown bottle nonsense too.

[Jah Lush]

In Today's Daily Telegraph property section.

East Dulwich is like a less pretentious Crouch End

[mockney piers]

Thank goodness he finally spelled out his dramatic new vision for the sun country

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7079333.stm

For a while there I was labouring (geddit) under the misapprehension that he was just going to trot out the same old crap, populist anti-terror measures, ID cards, nuclear power, that he and his predecessor obsessed over.

My favourite was the modified right to silence which now really means, "I dunnit guv, you've got me good and proper"

Pheweee.

[barrymarshall]

Well, MP (geddit?!), at least we didn't have to go through the trouble, trauma and tedium of an election to realise that we've got the same shower of shite as we had before.