"Whenever you hear right-wingers invoke ‘the free market’, remember that this is Conservatese for ‘my fairy godmother’" – The Editors

According to the libertoonians, Ken Livingstone made his antisemitic [*] remarks and kept the controversy in the public eye for weeks in order to help win the Olympics for London.

You see, the IOC is made up of people who mostly aren’t Israeli or American, and who therefore definitionally approve of antisemitism in all forms.

[*] No, of course they’re not fucking antisemitic remarks, as repeatedly discussed. However, they’re made by someone who isn’t Israeli or American, which makes them inherently antisemitic in the context of libertoonian discourse.

Stephen Green of ignorant bigots Christian Voice has more than earned his position on the SBBS assassination list. Not content with harassing cancer carers, he’s now turned his attention to local theatres…

After his performance on the Today programme (available in RealAudio here), in which he compared himself to John the Baptist, I’m willing to double the standard bounty for anyone who presents me with Mr Green’s severed head on a platter.

Relatedly, check out Media Watch Watch for updates on the lunacy of Mr Green and his ilk.

The Economist has rather a good point, as is frequently the case: "In 1990 there were 2,290 murders in [New York City]; last year there were 566. Thus even if a September 11th were to occur every other year, the city would by one measure be quite a lot safer than it would be with crime at its 1990 level and no terrorism."

(via Dan Drezner)

It’s time to lobby for a law against reporting non-polls as polls. A phone poll or an online poll has no statistical validity, and it’s completely dodgy of newspapers or politicians to treat them as if they were real opinion surveys.

Obviously, I plan to use the survey below as a basis for my law-changing campaign:

Side note: I read the headline to this article and wondered why anyone would want to read Pete Shelley’s private letters. “Today I fell in love with someone I shouldn’t have fallen in love with”, etc…

Johann Hari was always the best of the Harry’s Place lot. In contrast to the Sensible Left’s hysteria, Mr Hari has an extremely strong, well-reasoned article on his own blog about antisemitism.

Let’s be clear. There is no sensible paradigm under which you can accuse Trevor Beattie, the Labour party or Ken Livingstone of antisemitism, and the people who nonetheless make such accusations are cynically exploiting Jewish history to win political points. Similarly, when ignorant American bigots suggest that all Jews should get out of the UK right now because life here is too dangerous, they display a combined degree of arrogance and ignorance that’s unprecedented outside of the rightwing punditocracy.

However, it’s important not to lose sight of real examples among all the nonsensical wolf-crying bullshit. Across the world (including the US), there has been a small-but-actual rise in negative attitudes to Jews and physical attacks on Jews. This is a very, very bad thing, and should not be trivialised, played down, or swept under the carpet.

Read the Hari article. Question your own attitudes. And try not to let your understandably visceral reaction against bastards like Rod Liddle and the Conservative Party colour your approach to reports of resurgent antisemitism.

Sean Thomas is moderately amusing, but also a twat. Experiencing his blog is rather like reading a Martin Amis novel while being lovelessly buggered by your fat, elderly landlord because it’s the only way you can pay the rent.

I recommend you read the site until Mr Thomas’s overwhelming desire to please, impress and disturb (but not too much, because that might undermine the ‘please’ and ‘impress’) leaves you wishing you’d never encountered him in the first place.

Hmm. I’ve made more wholehearted recommendations in the past. And will do in the future. Go and read Chicken Yogurt. It’s excellent. Also go and read Greenlander. It’s better than having electrodes attached to your genitals, which is high praise indeed in my book [*].

And that is what the future will be like.

[*] Sadly, my book has been banned in Canada.

The Mirror’s Sue Campbell joins the SBBS assassination list (explanation here) for crimes against reality.

(and for the last fucking time, calling a Jewish reporter a Nazi is not equivalent to calling an Arab a Hamas terrorist. It would be like calling an Arab an IDF officer, if anything, which would be a rather strange thing to do).

Incidentally, I eagerly await condemnation of the Pope from everyone who’s laid into Ken Livingstone in recent weeks…

Q: What would the boys over at Stalinism.com consider the "non-sensible" Left? And what, I am almost afraid to ask, would those people write that the Stalinism kids won’t? (Dash Riprock)

A: Anyone we disagree with, and things that are coherent and inoffensive, respectively.

This most certainly doesn’t include the glorious Emerald Bile. Sample: "I have a lot more respect for a man who can insert a huge vibrator into his gary than one who can play hockey. Hockey is like fast croquet, except people have gay names like ‘centre forward’ and ‘inside right’. ‘Inside Right’ is a tailor’s term, and everyone knows that tailors do their jobs just so they can feel cock."

The Mayor sticks it to the Mail, by pointing out that rag’s own unapologetic Nazi taste lapses (think Prince Harry, but with important old men who should know better).

For reasons that I can’t fathom (other than general Ken-hatred), ‘Sensible Left’ists Mick Hartley and Eric aren’t impressed.

The fact that the Daily Mail held a, err, Nazi party would seem to highlight both the extent to which it’s a horrible fascist rag, and the extent to which any employees who get offended by Nazi references are working for the wrong company. Both of these would seem to fit rather well with Ken’s point.