It be Talk Like A Pirate Day. Backword Dave do be havin’ a fine post a-remindin’ uz o’ the occasion, an’ a-mockin’ young scuvy dog Peter Cuthbertson.

Dave be not so impressed by yesterday’s Guardian, but. That be foolish: this week’s Magazine an’ Guide be excellent readin’. Special’ as the Magazine do reveal that Amy Winehouse be Kat Slater (sadly the pictures be not online).

I hope to make this a regular feature. Today’s: "if you think that the casual heartlessness displayed by many on the Labour left towards Bosniacs and Iraqis is a new development, see what their predecessors had to say about Germans in the 1950s"

Yup, it’s clear that the only possible reason for opposing the war was casual heartlessness. Imagine how terrible it would be if the Iraqis were still dying in their thousands at the hands of Saddam, instead of dying in their thousands at the hands of Western soldiers, local armed goons and terrorist murderers.

Update: SIAW correctly points out that it never claimed casual heartlessness was the only reason for being antiwar. I accept this is sloppy phrasing on my part, not that it actually changes the meaning of the post in any way. Change the first sentence of the second paragraph to "it’s clear that people who opposed the war were casually heartless", if it makes you feel better.

Crooked Timber’s Henry Farrell seems to be having a bit of a sense of humour failure.

CT commenter Bob McManus: "The right think they can destroy the system and create the Libertarian Paradise, but I am now hoping to seem them all on a gallows in my lifetime. I have never been so hopeful."

Henry: "Bob – I presume and hope for your sake that you’re trying to provoke an outraged reaction here from someone rather than make a serious claim – this is trolling in my book, and not compatible with the kinds of argument that I want to have in my comments section. You’re on your first warning. Feel free to express strong and vigorous opinions about me or whoever else – but saying that you want to string up everyone on the other half of the political spectrum is way beyond the kinds of argument I’m prepared to tolerate."

For one, it’s pretty obvious Bob was joking; for two, given how badly the current lot have cocked things up, a gallows would seem somewhat lenient.

The Republican Party’s recent success comes chiefly from its creation of a coalition encompassing hardline social conservatives and big business. The social conservatives gain little from Republican support for big business, but also lose little (they may even gain, if the support for big business involves freeing up markets instead of enormous corporate welfare payments).

However, things are different for big business. Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, for example, wants to ensure that its workforce consists of the most able people it can possible recruit – so it’s funded a campaign in its home town of Cincinnati to repeal a city charter amendment that allows discrimination against gay people. Unsurprisingly, certain foaming-at-the-mouth bigots don’t like this, and are trying to launch a ‘boycott P&G campaign’.

I’m going to step up my consumption of P&G products as a result, and I hope you will too. But this issue also has more general importance – even ultraconservative Singapore has stopped enforcing its anti-gay-sex laws partly so that it doesn’t lose out on the chance to attract talented gay foreign workers.

It would be excellent news if America’s major corporations were to come to understand that supporting bigotry is bad business practice, and force liberalisation of the Republican platform – or even desert the party altogether.

To Americans, or people of whatever nationality living in America – outside of lunatic right-wing blogs, do people in general give a monkey’s about the Dan Rather / dodgy letters story?

Given how incredibly unimportant and irrelevant the story is, it would be nice to hear that only ultra-partisan crazies care about it…

The government’s curfew policy, under which under-16s out in certain areas after 9pm without an adult can be sent home by police even if they’ve done nothing wrong, is vicious, cruel, and disdainful of human rights.

Bravely, a 14 year old boy from Richmond-on-Thames (a notoriously dangerous and mean area where such policies are particularly necessary) is challenging the rules under the Human Rights Act. Hopefully, the judiciary will yet again find against evil blind cunt David Blunkett and abolish these stupid rules.

Although ideally, the judiciary would find against evil blind cunt David Blunkett and commit him to the Tower of London for torture and execution.

As of now, I’m going to avoid reading the blogs of deranged Muslim-hating nutcases like Andrew Iain Dodge, and avoid posting on anything directly War on Terror-y for a while.

Even if this doesn’t change my opinions on the whole crusade’s pointlessness, at least it should keep me saner and less angry, and hopefully reduce the extent to which I offend and anger non-Muslim-hating non-nutcase WoT hawks.

Andrew Iain Dodge needs to ramp up his medication: "When Islamic bombings and kidnapping become the norm here, as in countries around the world, I wonder if the Left will feel that it spent its time wisely."

The fox-hunting sillyness isn’t a very good use of the Left or the Right’s time. But that’s no reason to make up nonsense about Muslim bogeymen who will destroy our society. There’s not one scrap of evidence to imply this will happen.

I don’t think all the War on Terror-ites are racist – most are just bad at risk assessment, which is an entirely forgivable human trait. However, the Dodge-y crowd is so clearly racist that it’s embarassing…

"With France heading to 20% Moslem population, and Britain officially at 5%, in reality at who knows what level, we are in deep trouble. Do we have among us a group of people whose beliefs, politics, and aspirations are in contradiction to those of a free, democratic Britain?"

I hope that reputable War on Terror supporters share my disdain for this, well, disgusting faction.

This may well be the best guide to London ever. Strongly recommended to all tourists and foreigners.

The doomed, McGovern-esque John Kerry campaign took another blow yesterday: a new WSJ/Harris poll (subscription required) shows Mr Kerry leading Mr Bush by 48% to 47% among likely voters.

With all this evidence accumulating to show that his campaign is practically dead, the only thing Mr Kerry can do now is honourably concede, pull out of the race, and retreat to a monastery.