Mandelson's Ghostbusters Moment

Part of me (the part that wants Nu Liebour put in the stocks and pelted with rotten veg) was amused to hear about Mandelson getting slimed.

Unfortunately, I find such displays to be tantamount to assault - the acts of the raving lunatic lefties for whom decorum and debate are as alien as soap once was. Except that the environmental protestors these days are as likely to be called Sloaney as they are Swampy, and will have a bottle of Corton Charlemagne in their hamper next to the smoked salmon sandwiches. Just look at the students at Edinburgh University, who arranged their anti-Israeli love-in complete with MacBooks and Blackberries. If I were Edinburgh, I'd just have cut power to the building and shut off the WAP...

By lowering herself to this level, Leila Deen may have gained herself a few column inches and amused smiles, but it hardly gives the green lobby any credibility. Plane Stupid? Couldn't have thought of a more apt name for the lot of them.

Oh, and Mandy? Send her your dry cleaning bill; actions have consequences, after all. Maybe it's time she learned that.

Not quite so idyllic...

The maddening lunacy of students who get on a bandwagon for a ‘cause’ almost always ends in some poor sap having to deal with the fallout. In the wake of Israel’s targeted action against Hamas in Gaza, the student fury over the Eden Springs water contract has roused itself from the doldrums where it belonged.

Basically, Eden Springs UK are a subsidiary of Danone Springs of Eden, a leading water supplier in Europe. No problem so far. The complication comes here: Mayanot Eden Ltd. is an Israeli mineral water producer which operates in Europe under the Eden Springs brand. It extracts water from the Golan Heights in Israel, and this is where Palestinian Solidarity groups have taken offence. Mayanot, they claim, oppress the Palestinians and steal their water, as the Golan Heights were illegally annexed. It’s the old ‘Israel the Villain’ argument, and guess what, it’s EUSA and the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Society who are peddling it.

Some students are really good at causes. They do their research, look at all angles of an argument, reason out the good from the ill and make their stand accordingly. Others, and probably most, jump on the nearest bandwagon for the nearest underdog and shout as loud as they can, whether or not their case actually has any validity.

Which brings me to this case: Eden Springs UK does not supply you with water from the Golan Heights. Their parent company is majority owned by Group Danone with a 58% stake, not Mayanot. If you really want to dig into it, Eden Springs UK is held by Danone Springs of Eden BV (a Dutch company) which is ultimately owned by Danone SA – a French company. None of these companies have been charged or convicted of a criminal offence. Eden Springs UK are in fact a Scottish operated group – so all that EUSA/SPSS are doing is promoting the boycott of a Scottish company. Well done there!

So the sins of the father shall be visited upon the son. In this case, whether any sin has been committed at all is a matter of perspective, but let’s leave that out of it. The Golan Heights have been Israeli territory since 1981. Why penalise a UK holding of a French company for something that one of the partner organisations may or may not have done wrong?

While this has been bubbling along for a while, the Gaza conflict has once again brought it to the fore. The result of the renewed interest has been that a lot of University contract teams are under pressure from students to cancel the contract. Legally, they are under no obligation to do so, as you must have an actual, valid reason to cancel a contract. In this case, a bunch of students in a tizzy does not constitute a valid reason. Criminal conviction, breach of contract, failure to supply and so on – those would be good reasons to review the contract. If there are break clauses they may be able to exploit these, but they’d really have to ask why the heck they’d want to rather than tell the students to go forth and multiply.

Epic Government Fail

A friend of mine e-mailed me this picture this morning, raising a weary smile to my face...

So true.

So very, very true.

Unelected, unable to admit his mistakes, and let's face it, generally unappealing.

Iain Martin at the Telegraph has a good measure of the man's current state of mind. This is the man leading our country. We should all be very afraid...

Editorial row? I'll wiki it.

I’m sorry, but why in the name of fornication is this news? My BBC RSS feed has just informed me that Wikipedia is engulfed by an editorial row.

Engulfed. What an interesting word to use. Yes, I can see it now, swept asunder by editorial fury, drowned like Atlantis under the torrents of their rage...

The story goes that the unmoderated editing of Wikipedia entries is being reviewed after a number of wags changed certain pages – in this case those of Senators Robert Byrd and Edward Kennedy – to suggest the subjects in question were no longer amongst the living. This isn’t new, it has happened before. Lore has it that the Microsoft entry has on a number of occasions been edited humorously to be less than complimentary about dear old Bill.

The part of this I’m missing is why this matters. A group of people passionate about their product are reviewing one of the core principles on which their vision was founded. I would be much more surprised if there was laconic agreement to such a big shift. Of course there will be arguments and raised voices. Those who believe in a free interweb and information sharing tend to be evangelists for their principle, and if some amongst them are questioning that, the discussion is likely to be heated.

For what it’s worth, I would urge a little backbone amongst the doubters. Whilst Wikipedia has grown to be a respected and trustworthy source of information (due to what I like to think of as the Law of Anal Retentives), it has done so without official moderation. The truth generally outs. The principle of Wikipedia as being the encyclopaedic equivalent of open-source software should not be threatened simply because there are some irresponsible people out there who decided to have a bit of a chuckle.

My word to the editorial team: leave it as it is. It works, and don’t let the minority spoil something you have every right to be very proud of. Even if your founder does think it's okay to wear a kimono.

The boy who lied

I heartily apologise for the total lack of blogging for the last week or so. My bad, etc.

So, quick recap - Obama got sworn in, Gordy B immediately tried to pin himself to the reflected glory, RBS became even more nationalised than it was already (oh, how the mighty have fallen) and I got thoroughly 'refreshed' at a Burns Dinner one night early. Because having Burns night on a Sunday - and therefore a school night - is just silly.

Anyway, on the notice board at work a co-worker had posted a piece of poetry singing the praises of GB for nationalising RBS in the name of every Scot, thus saving the world. This irritated me on a number of levels, not the least because it involved nationalising, a distinct lack of economic understanding, and because it smacked of nationalism. I therefore spent fifteen minutes of my lunchtime coming up with a suitably withering response, got a bit bored, and came up with this.

The Boy Who Lied
by teh basementcat

Economy in meltdown,
A currency in decline,
A leader who is frightful,
And apparently quite blind.

While mortgaging our future,
Haemorrhaging our cash,
He seems to think we’ll let him,
Spend our money like a rash.

The solution isn’t working,
Simply spending will not save,
When grassroots change is needed,
This man is just not brave.

He will not trust the public,
He curtails our liberty,
He wants their private data,
But he’ll lose it as you’ll see.

A rigid style of leading,
He bullies all his peers,
Decries opponents as ‘do nothing’,
When they are what he fears.

He claimed an end to boom-and-bust,
That he brought a golden age,
While flush he failed to fix the roof,
He’s clearly no great sage.

His work is self protection,
Delusion is his game,
Our fault to perpetrate it,
But, oh, what is his name?

His touch is not like Midas,
This misguided lying clown,
He curses all he touches,
His name is Jonah Brown.

Okay, so it's hardly Whitbred Prize-winning stuff, but it was a suitable outlet for my irritation.

Independent has some independent thinking...

Two very good articles on the Indy website today - one pointing out the spinelessness of politicians in their response to 'pakigate', the other a witty submission to the credit crisis and delusion of Flash Gordon's economic policy. Worth a read.

PC Brigade Strikes Again

The sad thing about public life is that all it takes is for one little comment to be taken out of context, and before you know it, the PC Brigade are jumping all over you demanding an apology.

My comments somehow failed to make it on to the BBC website, but it looks like my opinion was mirrored by a good many others who made their voices heard.

On one hand, I can understand how an outsider might see Harry referring to a colleague as a 'paki' could be taken as racist, except that would mean by extention that calling him a 'brit' would also be offensive. I appreciate that the word has connotations, but who gave it that connotation? Isn't not using it perpetuating the negative connotation? I mean, the gay community reclaimed gay, why can't the pakistani community reclaim 'paki'?

In context, it was more than likely being used as a nickname - call a spade a spade, right? As for raghead... well our troops are being expected to go off and shoot Afghan terrorists and Iraqi insurgents. Shooting is fine, calling them names is not, clearly.

Now if Harry meant it offensively or was bullying the lad, then I could understand the issue, however, I don't believe that in this instance he was. It's another example of the PC brigade jumping on an opportunity to get wound up over nothing and for the media to whip up a little frenzy.

Get. Over. It... and leave the poor lad alone.

You what?!

Seriously, how dumb do some people have to be?

Benecio del Toro seems to think that it's okay to support mass-murdering fuck-heads (to use Eddie Izzard's phraseology).

Further evidence that intelligence is not a prerequisite for film stars. If he was talking about Stalin or Hitler he'd be creating a PR disaster, except that the general public are blithely unaware that the bearded cigar-smoking motorcyling one was a brutal killer and enemy of freedom and liberty.

Giving the issue a wide berth

I read this article with some interest and, I’ll admit, dismay. I might have even found myself getting a little angry, possibly because I recognised that to some degree, I don’t like to offend people and I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings – and that can be counterproductive. The BBC are suggesting that obesity might be turning into a taboo subject. I think that’s a disaster. People should call a spade, well, a spade.

In this case, they should call an obese person for the fat Buddha that they are.

Quite frankly, all this talk about protecting the children from being ‘stigmatised’ and ‘labelled for life’ is completely divergent from the message that we need to act to prevent child obesity. Referring to these children as ‘very overweight’ just uses two words to replace one that said it pretty damn well. It perpetuates the myth that it is acceptable to be overweight, and it sounds like the plea of parents who are trying to excuse themselves of responsibility for the wellbeing of their children.

A report due to be presented to ministers today will outline that childhood obesity is set before the age of five. This is an extremely important period in our development as it is, and I suspect the findings of these researchers will come as no surprise to most responsible parents. Until you pack the little buggers off to school, it falls to the parents to shape the future of their child. Stuffing it with crisps, sweets, and foods with high calorie-density is as damaging to their development as showing it video recordings of Hitler at Nuremburg. It also means that all the focus on PE and healthy eating at school is wasted if the parents take their eye off the ball and get lazy with the massive responsibility they have brought into the world.

While Jamie Oliver’s school-dinner frenzy is ultimately changing things for the better (even if it is interminably irritating), this report shows that the real focus ought to be on the parents before the child gets to school. The mandatory measurement of height and weight at school suggested by Professor Terry Wilkin of the University of Bristol is likely to be met by wails from parents determined to deny that they had any part in turning their child into a small blimp that is going to struggle with its size – possibly for the rest of its mortal life. I agree that it is of prime importance that we don’t alienate parents, because it is of vital importance that they are on-side and understand their role in this. I also believe that playing a sop to their ego is unacceptable. If they think they are being made to feel responsible for their child’s health, well, in almost all cases, they are. As a wise man once told me, man up and face it.

The Chief Medical Officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, has gone on the record saying that although we need to get in early “...and build the foundations of healthy living at an early age...” it is also “...never too late. Obesity is one of the few serious medical problems that can be reversed very, very quickly.”

David Haslam of the National Obesity Forum concurs with this view, telling the BBC that: “It is never too late or too early to intervene. The earlier the better in terms of long-term outlook.” In his view, childhood obesity is probably down to environment and learned behaviours.

So that’s three learned figures all telling us that it’s down to the parents. And yet these are the parents who we’re listening to trying to excuse themselves of the guilt for turning their child into ‘the fat kid’. Except there seem to be rather more of them these days.

Obesity should not be a taboo word. If their child gets the shit kicked out of it mentally or physically at school for being the size of a small moon, then that should send a pretty fucking clear message to the parents. You can’t blame the kids (although you can blame their parents for not teaching them tolerance). Stigmatised? Good. Then do something about it.

You want to become fat in later life? That’s your call and your responsibility. Don’t take that choice out of your child’s hands, they’re not responsible enough to make that decision for themselves because they don’t know any better. Give them a fighting chance in life. Show them pretty colours and clever toys. Read to them. Give them a copy of The Hobbit as soon as they’re capable of reading for themselves; tell them about the gay penguins if you like. Do all this, and for their sake, feed them healthy food and take them out to play.

Raising a child shouldn’t be easy. It’s not difficult and it’s not rocket science, but it does take effort. If you’re not prepared to put that effort in and invest in all that potential just waiting to be realised, you don’t deserve that child.

It's official: Gordon Brown is the saviour of the world (in his own mind)

Priceless.

The worst of it is that this little freudian slip is probably what he tells himself every night over prudent milk and cookies.

Even the BBC found it hard to put a pro-labour spin on this one.

1205: David Cameron starts by sending his condolences to the soldier's family. He asks how the government is going to get the banks to lend to businesses. He says Bank of England Governor Mervyn King has said recapitalisation should ensure the flow of lending returns to normal rates. Mr Cameron said on this basis the PM's plan has failed. In his reply Mr Brown says he has saved the banks, then raises laughter by accidentally saying he has "saved the world".

Flash! Ah-ah, saviour of the universe...

I've said this already...

...but in all seriousness, just because other people are doing it doesn't make it right.

The Tories have the temerity to suggest that we live within our means, or at least make an effort to. Darling and Brown respond by calling them a 'do nothing' party. I get it... no, really...

While I agree that doing nothing is not a viable solution, I can't see that is what the Tories are suggesting. Cameron and Osborne are suggesting that the £20bn is unsustainable and could cripple us in the long-term, and having looked at Gordon's sums, I can't say I disagree.

We're facing a massive tax-hike down the road to cover the cost of borrowing now, when our currency is dropping like a brick. That means printing more money to reduce the real-terms value of the debt, which will benefit borrowers, but penalise the savers who are the only ones who acted responsibly through all this.

Yes, fiscal stimulus is needed, but not in the amounts Labour are proposing. It's a lazy, clumsy response and is akin to using a sledgehammer when what is required is a well-honed sabre.

Public Safety Announcement

This is a public safety announcement.

If you are a pedestrian in the City of Edinburgh, this applies specifically to you. It goes for every other city too.

Please look before you cross the road. Just because you can't hear a car/bus hurtling towards you or you think that the traffic light is going to stay red long enough for you to run across the road does not mean that it is in fact safe to cross. Cyclists use the road too, and are much quieter than cars. They may also be going quite fast, and nipping past the queue of cars, because they a) can, and b) are perfectly entitled to do so. Running out between cars without thinking to check in both directions is patent stupidity at best, tantamount to suicide at worst.

If you have a death wish, please ensure that of you are going to step out gormlessly into the road, you do so in front of a bus or 4x4, and not in front of a fragile, high-speed cyclist. You will likely kill them, rather than yourself.

Pedestrian Crossings are there for a reason. Please use them, and if there is a red man, it is on for a reason.

That will be all.

Socialism. It's insidious.

Actually, insidious implies that we can't see it coming. In a time of economic crisis, Gordon Brown seems to have reverted to type and instead of doing what is best in the long run by accepting a short-term pain, he refuses to do anything that might lose him votes.

Instead, he announces a savings account scheme that will be funded out of the taxpayer's purse, and that he will underwrite mortgages up to £400k for up to two years. Now correct me if my economic head is not screwed on correctly, but far from fixing the problem, that is going to prolong the contraction in house prices by artificially supporting the market. The market needs to normalise - the boom was artificial and unsustainable, but that doesn't appear to have ocurred to GB. He seems to have it in his 'towering intellect' that he can fix all this by throwing taxpayer's money at the problem.

Now, if I had taken on a mortgage of £400k and needed to take advantage of this little mortgage holiday, the chances are that I wouldn't have been able to afford it to begin with. If I were one of those who had lost their jobs, well that's what mortgage insurance is for. So this repreieve means I can get two more years of living in a house I can't afford without having to worry about it, at the taxpayer's expense, no less.

Far from treating the root of the problem, GB is encouraging us to spend and exacerbating the situation further. Imagine, if you will, that our economy is a castle that GB has built over the last ten years. It looked magnificent, and Gordon picked a spot that had a great view, but he forgot to check the soil and skimped on the foundations. It turns out it's on sand, and the weight of this monstrous construction is too much. Urgent work is needed to shore up the foundations before the mighty towers crumble and fall. Instead though, Gordon has called around his favourite architect, they're trying to build an extension to the east wing and add another floor on top, ignoring the fact that the building is collapsing around them.

Reality check. Please step outside the building and look at what is actually happening. Stop playing politics and grow a spine, stand up to the electorate, admit that you made a mistake and stop trying to buy their votes with crowd pleasing policies that are going to cripple us in the long-term.

In the beginning...

And Lo! For Basement Cat looked upon his domain, and saw that it was good.

Finally, he thought, somewhere to flounce my wit and bemoan all those whose actions and words drive me to despair. A place where I can declare my fury, express my joy... and question the integrity of those who lead our nation to the precipice of oblivion.

I say this because, quite frankly, it seems like the current government seems hell-bent on eroding our civil liberties and saddling us with a national debt that makes US Defense spending look almost reasonable. The Taxpayer's Alliance were quick to point out that the Pre-Budget Report (PBR) showed that Darling's (aka Brown's) budget was going to cost the nation more than it did to defeat the Kaiser. If you were wondering about the number, the total debt planned for the period 2009-2014 stands at £512,000,000,000,000.

Of course, the Government has a responsibility to look after the economy, and since we've all been spending too much of the money we clearly didn't have, let's solve this by encouraging people to spend even *more* money! It's bombproof! And since we're short of cash as it is, let's lower VAT to get them out spending (2.5%, I'm touched, Gordon, really), ignoring the cost of change to the retailers, plus failing to mention that we plan on hiking it to 18.5% next year. For crying out loud... If you think you can spin that to show how it benefits businesses you're forgetting that fundamental flaw in your plan - Businesses claim VAT back anyway.

At this point I should add that I know this is all old news in blog terms. The PBR was last week and the VAT slash took place on Monday. Apologies, I'm playing catch-up.

Funnily enough, I had a sneaking suspicion that the VAT cut might be politically motivated (Never! I hear you cry), because NuLab are desperately in need of some popular politics right now. The announcement of a 2.5% reduction could have a number of effects - after all, if you knew that the £1000 shiny new Television that Gordon really wants you to buy would suddenly cost you only £948.75 if you held off your purchase til December, you might be tempted to hang on a week or two. Replicate that logical decision across the nation, and November will be a dire month for retailers (if it wasn't already). December, on the other hand, should see a surge of delayed purchases PLUS the general Christmas rush, allowing Comrade Brown to declare to the public 'Look, my plan worked!'. Once you factor in the demise of Woolworths and the fire sales to follow, sparking a brutal throat-slashing extravaganza between retailers on the High Street and beyond, I have little doubt that December will see a big boost in sales, if not so much in profits.

Yesterday's Scotsman (Hootsmon to those who know) led with a front page story on the success of the 2.5% rate cut bringing hapless shoppers out into the street. Really? Wasn't just because Christmas is coming soon? Wasn't anything to do with the massive reductions on the High Street that make the 2.5% cut utterly irrelevant?

Teh econumi. Ur doin' it wrong.