Gunston

Australian interviewer Norman Gunston was the prototype for Ali G and Alan Partridge. No, I hadn’t heard of him before either: an excellent Radio 4 documentary introduced me to him yesterday. You can listen to it here for about another week.

(Tim Ireland also caught the documentary, and provided the biography link above)

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Stop blaming Bush

The Kyoto Protocol came into force today. The aim is to avoid plunging the world into environmental disaster through man-made global warming.

Aside from a few cranks and paid shills, everyone in the scientific community believes this is a very real danger, and that Kyoto (followed by stricter measures) is a vital step. Unfortunately, the cranks and the paid shills have far more influence than they would in a better world.

One of the earliest of George W Bush’s many ‘God sent me to piss the world off’ moments was his decision to drop US support for Kyoto. This helped define the ‘ignorant cowboy’ image that his subsequent actions have done so much to confirm.

This is arguably unfair on the President. As Bush apologists frequently point out, he didn’t kill US support for Kyoto. Rather, the Senate voted 95-0 in 1998 to say it would not ratify any such treaty. Americans don’t like being told by experts that they probably ought to stop being greedy fucks or lots of people will die.

So why was Kyoto characterised as a Bush failing? Because the rest of the developed world spent four years trying hard not to be anti-American, despite the appallingness of more or less every aspect of American domestic and foreign policy. The only way to resolve this dilemma was by taking the position that Mr Bush was stupid, crooked and venal; that he certainly lost the popular vote and probably cheated in the election; and that therefore it was unreasonable to hate Americans for Mr Bush’s failings.

November 2004 made that position untenable. Rather than saying that we hate George Bush, smirking prick though he is, and blaming all America’s failings on him, we now need to say what we really mean.

We despise and fear a country willing to condemn millions to death for the sake of its SUVs, and willing to re-elect someone with such a record of incompetence, buffoonery and downright nastyness. We don’t hate all individual Americans; we don’t hate the efforts that the USA made during the first 150 years of its existence to advance human rights (and yes, to save our arses in WWII).

We do, however, hate what America has become.

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Assassination policy

SBBS may, from time to time, call for the assassination of public figures and/or people who displease us. We may or may not offer a bounty as part of this request.

We would like to make it clear that under no circumstances will such a bounty actually be paid out, and that we will be very, very cross with anyone who follows our example and carries out said assassination attempt.

This is not because we do not feel that the targets selected deserve assassination; quite the reverse. It’s because we feel that you (quae would-be assassin) are definitionally even worse than the selected target, and so such a move on your part would be inappropriate. Should you feel the unsurmountable desire to assassinate after reading an SBBS post, we therefore strongly recommend you target yourself.

SBBS cannot be held responsible, or even worthwhile.

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Illiberal undemocrat

Scouse cunt Mike Storey joins Melody Pfieffer on the SBBS £50 bounty list, for his puritan, philistine lunacy: "Places where people work should be non-smoking – that includes theatres. There are ways around this when we talk about actors smoking – they could use dummy cigarettes for example. But I would also say that soap operas and plays in which people smoke promote bad role models anyway."

People who seek to use the law to stop other people from smoking should be shot. It’s the only fair and proportionate response.

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Worth worrying about

A march of German neo-Nazis is not a good thing to happen, although at least a large procession of protestors disrupted the fascists.

In a surprising detail, the anti-fascist protesters waved US, UK and Israeli flags. Gene at Harry’s Place appears, somewhat spuriously, to equate this with Iraq and the War on Terror.

It seem rather more likely that the protesters were celebrating the US/UK defeat of Naziism and carrying the Star of David flag to symbolise the Jews who suffered at the fascists’ hands… although hell, maybe they *were* all hardcore Blairites and Zionists.

Memo to the confused: the fascist march is a nasty example of antisemitism. A mayor abusing an extremist newspaper is not.

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Telegraph descends to Mail level

There was a time when I viewed the Telegraph as one of the last British newspapers to practice real journalism. Obviously its columnists included wingnuts like Mark Steyn and Barbara Amiel, but the news seemed to be reasonably objective.

Over the last few months, however, the paper has utterly disgraced itself. Presumably because of its new proprietors’ views on the upcoming election, it now grossly distorts the facts of stories that it reports in order to stir up public outrage.

The most recent example is this piece on Linda Walker, who shot at some teenage yobs’ feet with an airgun. She was convicted of possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, which is fair enough, given that she was obviously guilty.

This charge (because it also encompasses crimes such as putting revolvers to people’s heads) carries a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment. This case does not carry that sentence: while I haven’t read the sentencing guidelines for this charge, I’d happily stake my balls [*] that the recommended tariff for an offence such as Ms Walker’s ranges between non-custodial-sentence and short-custodial-sentence.

The judge in Ms Walker’s case told her "All sentencing options remain open" while granting her bail ahead of sentencing. This is a warning that she may get a custodial sentence, and also an indication that she may not (and thereby a strong indication that any prison sentence will be short). It most definitely does not involve Ms Walker being "warned yesterday that she faced up to 10 years in prison", as the article claims.

Were it not for the Telegraph’s despicable behaviour on previous ‘self-defence’ cases, I might assume that the author, Nigel Bunyan, was an ignorant moron. Given the organ’s history, however, the only reasonable assumption is that it’s trying to deceive the easily led sections of its readership.

[*] Speaking as a Wales fan, this is no idle bluster.

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Colour me shocked

Melanie Phillips believes that the police should give up investigating murder and kidnap plots if she doesn’t approve of the victims.

To be fair, she appears only to be referring to criminals rather than liberals or Muslims in this context (although whether she sees a difference is perhaps open to question).

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A Valentine’s wish

My Valentine’s Day wish is for terrorist maniacs to rip out the hearts, lungs and livers of all people who use the term ‘moral equivalence’ in political debate. It’s content-free drivel, used only to smear an opponent while giving yourself spurious intellectual credentials.

Either that, or for ****** ***** to snog me. Either would be acceptable.

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Manifesto

I would rather that I and everyone I know, love or care about were killed in horrible ways by horrible people than have to live in a society that restricted the right to due process and free speech. If you disagree, you disgust me and you have no right to talk to me about morality.

This is a response to this kind of logic: "I believe also that the American left still does not understand the gravity of the situation we face with terrorism: they are more concerned about the "rights" of detained hostiles (as Lynne Stewart was) than about the safety of innocents". Yes, we are, at least as long as the ‘detained hostiles’ are guilty only of seeking to ensure that other ‘detained hostiles’ get a fair hearing. That’s because we’re civilised. You are not.

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