A Couple of Quick Points

Relating to my earlier, Trainspotting-titled post about the Lockerbie bomber, in which I basically called book-pimping professorial windbag Tom Gallacher a giant, pulsating clackersack of epic dimensions, here's a brief extract from his latest assault on your intelligence...

(On people offering support to the justice minister) ...Phone in programmes have been deluged by pro-MacAskill callers. Jean Brodie type Morningside matrons and have made common cause with the workshy druggies who feature in Irvine Walsh’s Trainspotting...

It's possible that this is entirely coincidental, I suppose, although I do have a Sitemeter that suggests otherwise. For what it's worth, I'll be up at five in the morning for work tomorrow, same as usual, and Trainspotting was a work of fiction rather than a documentary. And the bloke who wrote it wasn't called Walsh.

On an unrelated matter, well done to Arsenal for pumping my team 5-1 over two legs. I was particularly impressed by Vermaelen and Gallas in defence, who easily dealt with everything we could throw at them, and I appreciate their excellent football. I hope they do well this year.

On the other hand, does Eduardo's hilarious, penalty-winning dive now mean that we won't be subjected to the annual cry of Why, Oh Why, must English teams suffer this relentless cheating?

I mean, at least Michael Owen used to wait until somebody stuck a leg in before he threw himself to the floor.

Wi Some Cats, You Say "Reason," They Mew "Treason," Ken?

So, let's say you're the justice minister of Scotland's minority administration, and you're suddenly seized with a dreadful terror - an inescapable fear that, after years of hard work, you've finally bashed your head on the glass ceiling of devolved government.

What to do?

Well, why not pick a pointless fistfight with the President of the United States of America by releasing a convicted mass murderer from prison, for no damn reason whatsoever?

I imagine you might be able to think of many reasons to avoid such a hare-brained scheme, but rest assured that none of them have occurred to the furious pundits bitching like drag queens at the Scottish Government for granting compassionate release to Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Take numbnuts Spectator hack Fraser Nelson as a fairly representative example...

"It's about projecting that image, of an independent Scotland thumbing its nose at Westminster and even the mighty America. It's about yanking these levers of power because they are there, and because they make a noise".

So, it's all about garnering publicity and freaking out the squares. How's that worked out so far for our attention-seeking administration? Well, I imagine justice minister Kenny MacAskill enjoyed reading "Massacred Then Betrayed," "Scottish Sucker," "A Week To Shame Our Rulers" and "MacAskill Should Resign Over Lockerbie Fiasco" with his scrambled egg on toast yesterday.

Yet that's nothing compared to the histrionics of book-plugging academic cretin Tom Gallacher, for whom the prisoner release is...

"...a virility contest in which Scotland’s ‘only true champions’ stand up for the integrity of Scottish justice and make their will prevail however much it discomfits Washington..."

And how astoundingly accurate those words must've sounded to First Minister Alex Salmond yesterday, as he was repeatedly forced to assure interviewers countrywide that no, he doesn't enjoy licking the hot, salty tears of sorrow from the wizened cheeks of the bereaved.

I imagine he'll also thoroughly enjoy basking in glorious publicity on Monday, when he stands up with his dick in his hand in front of a mob of apopleptic MSPs at a hastily-reconvened parliament and tries to explain the concept of compassion in Scots law. Not that he'll be heard over the bellowing displays of raw machismo from his political colleagues, of course, who will be throwing kung fu shapes like a roomful of geriatric Van Dammes and vowing to retrospectively skullfuck Megrahi to death on national television.

Which prompts the question - what kind of gibbering idiot could believe for a second that the SNP would benefit from releasing Scotland's most notorious terrorist, even for the paltry few weeks it will take him to die a hideous, cancerous death? Not even the most crazed nationalist would buy it. The last time we had a terrorist attack in this country, one of the fuckers was instantly punched silly and kicked in the balls by passing punters while he was on fire, for God's sake.

Well, it makes sense to the kind of gibbering idiot who regards consequence-free, bellicose woofing as a signifier of Ultimate Seriousness, I guess.(1) There seems to be a lot of that around these days.

Myself, I noted the fact that the advice MacAskill received from his officials - civil service, prison service, medical practitioners - all recommended release, and that most of the UK families agreed. Unlike his fucknut critics, MacAskill knew full well he'd receive a merciless kicking from the industrial bullshit factory that is the UK's media, yet he still went on and did what he thought was right.

In my book, that's called "courage", but then, what the hell do I know? Perhaps the modern political titan bares his bulging moral ballsack by doing whatever he's told by the tabloids and the Democrats.

(1)Belligerent, consequence-free woofing - That might be why Tom Gallacher's contribution sympathises with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; a woman who spent her last election campaign veering wildly between pre-planned crocodile tears and insane promises to shower Iran with nuclear warheads. From the debate I watched, the only thing more blatantly obvious than her naked insincerity and political calculation was her collossal, throbbing boner for power.

The Gimp That Keeps On Giving

Lots of people fretting over the appropriate response to human fuck-toy Daniel Hannan's appearance on cretin-friendly American propaganda channel FOX News today.

Hannan's schtick - basically, trotting out the same sorry cavalcade of fork-tongued lies about the NHS that have recently been terrifying FOX's audience of cowardly, snake-handling pinheads - has bloggers of all stripes wringing their hands over the illiberal measures that should greet Hannan upon his return.

UK blogs being what they are, the measures proposed fail to meet the level of draconian viciousness that the sleekit streak of piss so richly merits. Naturally, Hannan deserves to be rammed by vans like Stephen King just for being a right-wing Tory, and that's before we even get to his gooey-eyed on-screen love affair with Glenn Beck.

Beck's a revelation for foreigners unacquainted with the fierce pride that the lesser North American wingnut takes in his own emboldened stupidity. Squatting on FOX's gilded primetime lilypad like some kind of malevolent toad, Glenn Beck makes a grand living by feeding America's heavily-armed survivalists overwrought Hitler analogies. By agreeing to take part in such a hilarious parade of public idiocy, his guests might as well don T-shirts printed with the slogan Will Suck a Cock For a Dollar.

And sure enough, where there's a dollar, there's a Dan. Witnessing the blossoming romance between the blushing political ingenue and the thick-jowled, bug-eyed mentalist is an excruciating experience, like watching Stan Laurel being groomed for crazed penetration by a sweating Oliver Hardy. You could honestly cut the sexual tension with a knife - I was seized with mortal dread, certain that at any second Beck would fling away his desk like the Incredible Hulk and throw himself roaring on top of the pencil-necked politician...

But I digress. Some lefties are, predictably, outraged by Hannan's open treachery and are calling for him to be censured upon his return. Obviously, he deserves to be spot-welded to a heavy radiator and hurled into the Thames, but left wingers have once again got the wrong end of the stick.

Liberals, socialists, progressives of every stripe should be clamouring for the perky little geek to be goaded onto every primetime television show going to defend his remarks. Glue a giant royal blue Tory rosette to his forehead and force him to explain his baleful hatred for the NHS - zoom that camera right in on his pallid, perspiring face as he gabbles feeble justifications like he's just been caught whacking off to twink porn on the office computer.

The Tories will lose a percentage point for every minute the man spends speaking.

See, the public may have finally seen through the tissue-thin veneer of fake humanity that New Labour draped over their mean-as-hell authoritarian obsessions, but they're not on the verge of pledging allegience to Satan.

Five minutes in a room with this buttoned-down gimp would have the electorate streaming to the polls to vote for Esther Rantzen, or the Monster Raving Loonies, or a piss-filled balloon with a face painted on it - hell, maybe even the Liberal Democrats. Anything to keep ideological fruitcakes like Hannan out of power.

Slap that sucker on The One Show and he'll crack like a quail egg. Word is bond, peeps.

Godwin's Law, Subsection (c) paragraph 1(b)

Okay, some groud rules on this whole Obama is a Nazi versus the Bush is a Nazi thing.

1) Yes, it's hilariously hypocritical for any lefty who even hinted at the F-word to complain about right-wingers calling Obama a Nazi after eight years of OMFG Bushitler! and they should all have their own crap pushed down their throats every time they open their whining mouths.

2) Boiling this down to brass tacks, one president is trying to set up a system of basic health care for the worst-off, while the other orchestrated a highly expert and sophisticated propaganda campaign to justify an insane, disastrous middle eastern bloodbath.

3) Neither treating cancer nor shooting foreigners is inherently fascist, but it should be obvious that Hitler is not notorious for being history's most evil mass-medicator.

That is all.

Nu Adventures In Decency - An Occasional Series

Shorter Sadie of the Tavern...

There's nothing racist about having a go at the Israelis but it's only fair to point out that, at unspecified times, dates and with ambiguous frequency, I have allegedly encountered an undetermined quantity of possibly allegorical trendy left-wingers who have exposed themselves as anonymous Jew-hating racists by failing to criticise North Korea with sufficient enthusiasm.

Former readers of the Encyclopedia will recognise the suspicious obsessions of dinner party attendees, divined by the use of Decent Telepathy while sitting in a Decent Taxi.

It's a sensational piece, putting Denis MacShane and Nick Cohen's countless unverifiable descriptions of anecdotal racism at unattributed London dinner parties to shame. I salute you, Madam.

On another note, as a result of this lengthy and tedious exchange, occasional Harry's Place blogger Brownie wondered why I don't argue against the many, many evil wingnut fuckheads infesting his comments threads. Comments are open to all, he said, and there are people there worth engaging with.

Given that Brownie is usually one of the few Decents who allows that people can disagree with him for reasons other than outright Nazism, my conscience was pricked, and I ventured over to make a contribution. Net result -

Comments permitted - 2
Comments caught by moderation and rejected - 3
Number of times accused of wanting to sacrifice Jews to satisfy my hardon for Islamists with guns - 1
Points rebutted - 0

Additionally, I've been told that the word gullible isn't in the dictionary.

"Sleepwalking into barbarism"

...is Melanie Phillips' take on the news that three-quarters of the populace favour allowing doctors to help terminally ill patients end their lives, and that six in ten want to be able to help the dying commit suicide without fear of prosecution.

Naturally, Melanie isn't keen on the idea. Can't say I blame the woman for her objections to euthanasia myself, since I imagine she has a far more real and personal phobia of being strapped down and injected with powerful sedatives than most people do.*

This being the Mail's website rather than the Spectator's, Melanie has to tone it down a little - more a hint and a nudge about how the populace are being manipulated into making bad decisions, rather than the usual accusatory explosions. Undiluted, primal Mel would be speaking in tongues and seeing black helicopters packed with socialist doctors descending with murderous intent upon sleepy English villages.

At the Mail, it seems, you can go a little Forrest Gump, but you never go full-retard. You go full-retard, you go home empty-handed and anyway, you'd be stepping on the commenters' toes.

What's odd is that it seems to be an issue that flips switches for entirely sane and reasonable people. Splintered Sunrise has misgivings because, as best I can tell, it finds favour with people like Polly Toynbee, while Jamie K.'s objections seem to be based on Health-Naziesque disturbances he feels in The Force.

If euthanasia inspires that reaction in them, I shudder to think what the hacks will make of it. I can almost taste yet another dumbass wedge issue here, ripe for exploitation by nutsacks and freaks. Within three seconds of any clarification on assisted suicide being issued, every reactionary headbanger in the land is going to be hallucinating hospital wards filled with British Mengeles. A Technorati search for "socialist euthanasia" should return a representative example.

Well, I guess one man's mercy is another man's murder, and there's no need to rehash the well-thumbed arguments for and against. All I'm going to say is that I can barely deal with a nasty hangover; that if I - John Frum forbid - wound up with some heinous terminal illness, I wouldn't be able to see how a shitload of apologetic coppers throwing the book at Mrs. Rodent for helping me onto a plane would be a sane or sensible use of anyone's time.

On this issue, I've got far more headspace for the opinions of people like Margo MacDonald, Debbie Purdy and Terry Pratchett. After all, what's an interesting theoretical question for us is a rather more pressing issue for them.

*Well, not that I actually favour this kind of treatment for Melanie. After all, drugs are expensive, while cricket bats are very cheap.