The Editors have a helpful grading system to determine whether or not a given commentator is a depraved pro-torture maniac. Worthwhile.

If you’re an objectively pro-fascist smoking would-be-banner, you might be interested to read about your spiritual predecessor, Turkish Sultan Murad IV. His anti-smoking measures included a particularly effective technique to deter proprietors from allowing people to smoke on their premises. I’m sure the lovely Ms Flint is taking notes…

I know I shouldn’t read the comments on Biased BBC when drunk, and particularly shouldn’t reproduce them here when drunk, but: "I wouldn’t be surprised if there are those high up at the BBC who received similar kickbacks from Saddam as did Galloway, and they view him as ‘one of them’"; and "It’s rather ironic that ‘Beeb’ could also be a shortening for Beelzebub" (here). These people [*] should not be allowed out.

Incidentally, Mark Steyn says his favourite bloggers are Natalie Solent and Tim Blair. I guess they represent his articulate sort-of-libertarian side and his lying hack side, respectively…

[*] Commenters, not contributors. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m fairly sure I’d have been invited to join any Evil Left-Wing Conspiracy to make B-BBC look silly, I’d assume the comments were posted by Beeb fans trying to ensure any real points made by the blog authors were drowned in the general lunacy.

I’m sure you’ve encountered the Drink-soaked Trotskyite Popinjays for WAR elsewhere under different names – the group blog’s membership is made up of the usual suspects from the We’re Still On The Left, That’s Why We Support Bush And Blair And Right Wing Stuff brigade.

Their ideology may be suspect, but they can write well, and are worth bookmarking.

I’m a little concerned about the levels of personal vitrol they display against harmless hello-clouds hello-sky lefties, though. At SBBS, we only hate and threaten to kill the total bastards who would take away your freedom, but the Popinjays seem to direct their ire mostly at the ‘why can’t we all just get along’-ites. I guess it’s hard for ex-Students With Placards to escape their People’s Front of Judea tendencies.

Update: Will Rubbish would like to point out that he’s never been a SWPer, but proudly remains a communist. And so would I (err, about him, not me).

A quality spittle-flecked rant from the Everything Was Better In The Past brigade for your delectation. The bit where the writer calls City analysts ‘reliable’ is particularly amusing.

The article also contains several examples of perhaps the most offensive grammatical error possible – misspelling and mispunctuating ‘grammar schools’. Come on, if they’re the focus (focus is perhaps the wrong word here, but no matter) of the article, you really could try and make an effort to avoid constructions like ‘Gramar’s’…

Perhaps surprisingly, this article on perceived antisemitism at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies is good for a laugh, thanks to the author’s unique personal style.

My favourite bit is the one where:

a) the SOAS student union has a vote on whether to make Ken Livingstone their honorary president;

b) the author stands up and objects on the grounds because he dementedly believes Livingstone to be antisemitic;

c) people on the other side suggest that the author has been fooled by the Zionist conspiracy to damage the mayor;

d) the author laments the way that these terrible bigots have dragged Middle Eastern politics into a debate that was supposed to be about electing a local politician to the student union.

Self aware, this man isn’t.

Less humorously, he’s also been part of the group of lying bullshitters that led a Muslim student to be disciplined (and have a particularly halfwitted MP raise the possibility of an incitement to racial hatred charge) for writing an article on Palestinians’ right to violently resist Israeli occupation. (via)

Just got a message from the IT department about the phones being broken, which includes the line: "we are liaising with our service provider."

Oi! If it were an email from the marketing department or some random director, that would be painful but expected. But it’s the IT department. Surely "we’re giving the bastards hell" would be a more appropriate response…?

If you’re a medium-sized European company, don’t put someone in charge of one of your most important business units whose only qualification is being a pop star’s father. They’ll fuck it up; then you’ll be screwed.

SBBS heartily endorses the Smokers Liberation Front, which plans to use direct action to prevent halfwitted smokebannery. Go read their Active Smoking manifesto…

Discuss.