States’ rights? We don’t need no steenkin’ states’ rights.

Bunch of cunts.

Blessed are the poor in generosity: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that judge: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the aggressive: for they shall acquire the earth.

Blessed are they which do lust in self-righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the unmerciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the impure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the warmakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which persecute for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

(from here via here)

An email correspondent writes: "This morning in the tube, I witness a big fat american tourist woman not being able to hold her enormous bulk upright against the train’s motion. First she nearly fell and people held her. Then, the next time the train jerked, she really fell, like a bowling pin and fell right to the ground. There she lay rolling around on her fat ### unable to get up again. People tried to help her up but she was too heavy. Eventually she shuffled accross the floor in a pose like when a rock guitarist slides to the floor on his knees, only less dynamically, and managed to drag herself up on a hand hold. She then dusted herself off and made some feeble noises like "Phooo! golly! Whoosh! Hey, OK now. Fine now. Phew!" while everyone looked on with a mixture of bemusement and pity. It was dreadful. It should have been funny but somehow it wasn’t."

Mark Holland wants to carry out airstrikes on people who tow caravans. Fair play – as long as I get to fire rocket launchers at the stupid fuckjobs who block box junctions.

What, do you think the yellow gridlines are there to make the road look prettier? Or do you just think "well, if I move onto the box then I’ll block the road for traffic going the other way, cause total gridlock, and then I’ll have to escape by driving across a pelican crossing where the green man’s showing. But I’ll get there five seconds earlier than if I drove properly, and I’m so goddamn important that I deserve nothing less"? The egotistical doglickers deserve to be exploded.

Although less satisfyingly draconian than mine or Mark’s suggestions, the government’s plans to introduce nationwide congestion charging are thoroughly excellent. It’s a shame it’ll be 10-15 years before it’s introduced, and the government will probably end up offsetting the charge revenues against the other taxes that currently fail to cover the externalities associated with driving, but at least it’s a start.

Ideally, the money raised from such schemes would be used directly to cut the basic rate of income tax (or perhaps to fund a Citizen’s Basic Income), thereby benefiting everyone. Voluntary taxation beats compulsory taxation, any day of the week…

"Fully a third of the brothels’ clients were men known as ‘juicers’… men who liked to wait outside a whore’s room until the first punter had done his deed, then the ‘juicer’ would rush in and suck out the other man’s sperm" – Sean Thomas on the brothels of 19th century Paris. Worthy.

You may already have encountered Amber4Ever. If not, you should. Top quote: "When the homunculus tries to hug me he squeezes too tight and he smells like rotting meat". Skilled. Via.

If you’re at work, or if you aren’t, don’t look at this picture. (via Hungbunny, who has moved here to serve up pretentious and wanky podcasts. Twat.) And finally, Larry has a wrong, and probably untrue, Killer Fact.

I’ve got a new article on The Sharpener about immigration and attitudes to immigrants in the Netherlands. Go there, read it, tear it to shreds, etc.

Speaking of Sharpener-ites, Andrew and Blimpish are curating a new right-wing group blog called Once More Unto The Breach (hopefully, they’ll imitate the action of a tiger. Rrrrr!), while Jarndyce has a new centre-left blog called Fair Vote Watch.

There’s an excellent article in Wired, making a case that the best way to defend against threats is through democracy, liberty and common-sense, rather than through paranoid Big Brother-ish security bureaucracies.

It also points out that one of the things that kept casualties relatively low on September 11 was that people ignored official security advice, and instead did what they thought was sensible. Go figure.

Obviously not in those words, for they are a bunch of mendacious spinners. However, the government has now admitted that Gitmo guards pissed on one prisoner’s Koran and wrote obscenities in another. While that’s not *literally* flushing it down the bog, anyone who thinks there’s a significant difference between the two acts is a total fucking joker.

I leave you with some quality bitching from Anthony Cox: "If you get stabbed in a knife fight, you could try out the homeopathic hospital. Using the homeopathic principle of ‘like cures like’ they’ll probably stab you with with another smaller knife – or more likely a knife that isn’t really there at all."

As usual, Fafblog has it. Especially sweet is the passage sticking it to the silly nitpickers with silly lists of Why US Detention Without Trial Isn’t Actually Exactly The Same As A Gulag.

"Please: we find the term ‘gulag’ absurd and offensive. A ‘gulag’ is Russian. You are not being interrogated to death by Russians. You are being interrogated to death by the greatest country in the world."