Ladies and Gentlemen...

...spotted whilst allowing the tiny one to giggle at multiple primate pictures, I give you the Michael Jackson Monkey.

Jew-Hatin Loony Of The Year

Meet the man that dear not-at-all-incompetent President Obama thinks should be President of a medium-sized country.

TEGUCIGALPA -- It's been 89 days since Manuel Zelaya was booted from power. He's sleeping on chairs, and he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and "Israeli mercenaries'' are torturing him with high-frequency radiation.

"We are being threatened with death,'' he said in an interview with The Miami Herald, adding that mercenaries were likely to storm the embassy where he has been holed up since Monday and assassinate him.

I blogged about this would-be-dictator and his Leftie fellow travellers on ATW before, assuming then he was just another, well, would-be dictator that ticked enough of the 'right' boxes for, as explained in the ATW post, 90% of the Left including President Obama to back him against his country's Congress, Supreme Court and military.

Didn't realise back then he was also a deranged Joooooo conspiracy theorist as well and therefore really ticks those boxes off. The fact that Obama is still backing this nutball and at his insistence the IMF is redirecting funds from the legitimate government and into the pockets of Zelaya's cronies says it all.

Hot Air has a little more on this, and reminds us that the Pig Song principle would be applied here by any sane administration.

The Last Refuges Of A Real Scoundrel

When Europhiles don patriotic clothes, it's really evidence of desperation. And none, it seems, are more desperate than the snappily-named Irish Europhiles of 'Generation Yes', personified here by one Sharon Waters.

Ms Waters is outraged - outraged I tell you! - at foreign intervention in the Irish referendum campaign. Her patriotic spirit is deeply offended.

"Generation YES are outr­aged at this intervention by foreign interests into this crucial debate on Ireland’s vital national interests."

What she is talking about, of course, is Nigel Farage's presence in Ireland, a small counterbalance to the steady stream of European politicians who are parading through the country issuing a mixture of threats and plautitudes. Dignitaries such as Lech Walesa, who seems to have totally forgotten the concepts which propelled him to prominence in the first place, and now even the newly reconfirmed Jose-Manuel Barroso as well (reconfirmed with the cooperation of the 'Eurosceptic' Tories, might I might I add).

But that's not 'outrageous foreign intervention' to Ms Waters. 'EU Money' (for which read British Taxpayers' Money) is pouring into the Yes campaign like a raging flood, but that is perfectly above board and acceptable.

What isn't acceptable is UKIP. Existing. At all. So Ms Waters launches into a breathless tirade of smears and outrageous lies to try and paint UKIP as barely short of the heirs to the Nazis. The most egregious passage is reproduced here:

"They seek to dismantle the Belfast Agreement (*1), reintroduce the death penalty (*2) and abolish social security (*3), they prevent disabled people from standing for election on their ticket (*4), and they also deny climate change (*5) and the Holocaust (*6)."

Where to start? Well with number one, I suppose. Now Nigel Farage's fierce antipathy to the Belfast Agreement is well known, in fact when I interviewed him for A Tangled Web a couple of years ago he referred to the Peace Process in general as 'loathsome'. But he is one person, and indeed is stepping down as Party Leader of UKIP.

The document referred to by Ms Waters can be downloaded here (my father was actually part of the Constitutional Policy Group which drafted it, by coincidence). It doesn't mention the Belfast Agreement at all. Not once. So Item One can be quite simply referred to as a Lie, Big Fat.

So to number two. The Death Penalty. Firstly, I personally would be proud to be part of a Party actively stating that it will reintroduce the Death Penalty if elected. However, UKIP isn't doing so. It has merely pledged a national Referendum on the subject in response to . So even leaving aside the pros and cons of the issue itself, this is a best a misrepresentation of UKIP's position and at worst a Lie, Small.

So, to Number Three. Abolish Social Security? Well I dont have a copy of the 2004 Election Manifesto referred to, but here's what the General Election manifesto a year later has to say on Welfare reform:

"The objective will be to free as many people as possible from benefits by making the rules more transparent and cutting down on means-testing."

UKIP has never, ever called for the complete abolition of Social Security. Frankly I find statements like the above rather on the wishy-washy side, and they are certainly a million miles away from abolition!

Verdict on Number Three? Lie, Big Fat and faintly Ridiculous as well.

So, to number four. The issue of 'no disabled candidates', referring to the whipped up storm about Jack Biggs, a disabled man who was offered a paper candidacy due to his local UKIP Branch's inability to support a candidate unable to deliver leaflets but then turned out to have a rather different motive for his 'anger' when the emails between himself and the local UKIP Group were published...

"John,

I have been special Forces. I am a very good friend but a very bad enemy.

If you stay on track, ignoring me, but trying to unseat my Ukip minded daughter I will take the story for the Echo, ref you do not want disabled candidates for Ukip.

This is not a threat but a promise.

This anti disability bit by Ukip will also probably go National in the press."

Uh-huh. So the poor wittle disabled chap was never actually denied his chance to be a candidate, and was actually just trying to blackmail his local UKIP Branch into giving his Tory offspring a free run...but of course I'm sure Ms Waters was completely unaware of the real story. Or that UKIP has, for example, fielded blind candidates in the past. The female half of the couple who used to pretty much singlehandedly run the New Forest West branch next door was in a wheelchair in fact, and stood as a candidate herself a while ago.

But let's not let the facts of a single incident that was actually an attempt at blackmail anyway get in the way of pretending that there is some kind of 'No Raspberry-Ripples' Policy in force within an enemy organisation. Verdict on Number Four: Lie, Big Fat.

Now, let's have fun with Number Five. Denying Climate Change - the heresy! The horror!

Well, once again whilst there is a very significant body within UKIP, including many of its representatives such as David Campbell-Bannerman (who had the dubious pleasure of being present when terror-supporter Caroline Lucas of the Greens uttered her most infamous statement yet), who believe that 'Global Warming is a myth' as he put it during the above-linked debate, once again Waters is confusing the opinions of members of a Party with Party Policy. UKIP as a political body does not 'deny climate change', voting at Conference to stay 'neutral' on the subject. Though I dearly wish they did, they don't.

Verdict on Number Five: A misrepresentation rather than an outright lie, but a forgviable one.

And so we turn to the greatest evidence of Waters' utter derangement, the smear of smears. The accusation that UKIP denies the Holocaust.

I was a UKIP member for a few years, a Constituency Chairman for two of those, and I'm still involved on the fringes. It has its fair share of kooks and nutters, to be sure, just like every Party. For example, one person I knew turned out to be a Truther and probably still isn't speaking to me after I verbally tore her a new one at a Cheese and Wine thingummy. But one thing I've never encountered there is any suggestion of anti-semitism. On the contrary, the local branches here seem to contain more than their fair share of Jewish members, in fact - including a good friend of mine who fought in the Sinai in 1967.

So can there be any basis at all for such an outrageous statement? Who is the 'Alistair McConnachie' mentioned by Waters? Well, the waste of space in question was an officer in UKIP Scotland in 2000 before showing himself to be a disciple of the revolting Fred Leuchter, a man who was the subject of a banning order from the UK a very long time before Geert Wilders, Michael Savage or any bearded Islamic crazy. Needless to say McConnachie wasn't an officer in UKIP Scotland for very long afterwards, and now rather amusingly runs his own minor Party - and you guessed it, he's now a Greenie in charge of 'Independent Green Voice' (no Party website, sadly).

So nine years ago a single nutball reveals his moonbattery and gets booted out of UKIP - and from that Waters extrapolates that UKIP - the Party - denies the Holocaust. Such a smear is so utterly vile that words cannot suffice to describe how much I'd like to punch this woman in the face, then tar and feather her before marching her through the streets of Dublin wearing a placard saying 'The Holocaust Is Not A Subject To Use For Cheap Political Gain'. Granted people are unlikely to see the small writing required, but it'd be worth it anyway.

Verdict on Number Six: I hope the bitch catches a highly amusing skin disease. Minimum.

One of the English language's most ill-used quotes is the one about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel. In this case, faux patriotism and outrageous lies appear to be the only weapons the scoundrels of the Europhile movement have left.

This Woman Is Deranged In The Best Possible Way

"Me: (Starts moving my wrist so it appears the bear is humping his face.) "Rwwwrr. Mmmmm. Ahhh. Mmmmm."

J: "What the hell are you doing now?"

Me: "He's humping your head. Rwwwrr. Mmmm. Who's your daddy? Ahhhh. Ohh baby. Rrrwwwrr."

J: "And that's not normal bear behavior."

Me: "His name is Chester the Molester."

J: "Oh. Well, that explains it. And you can stop humping my head with that puppet anytime now."

Me: "He's not done yet. Rwwwrrr. RWWWWRRR! OHH! AHHHHHHH!! There. Now he wants to cuddle."

J: "Somehow I think I'll be reading this on your blog soon."

Sublime craziness.

A Very Neat Idea Indeed

Ranting Stan (not that he rants much nowadays, he certainly seems to have mellowed since I started reading him a few years ago) has a post up where he expounds a rather clever method of dealing with the problems of the Immigration running sore that is the French Coast. Go read. I rather like the idea, and as he says, it did work in Malaya after all...

Mummy's Wide Skirts

Once again, we have another one of those 'Riddle me this' questions. Let's say this time that (as I commented here) newly made BNP MEP Andrew Brons’ Brussels researcher was ‘exposed’ as having a history of going on NF marches calling Israel all sorts of names, such as an ‘apartheid state’. He might even have been kicked out of the Students Union for mimicking violence against ‘Zionists’. Anxious to preserve their thin veneer of respectability (don’t laugh) Brons fires him as the Internet clamour grows.

Would Harry's Place, so vigilant as they normally are in exposing and condemning racism in all forms including this one, agree to give that researcher a guest post spot to defend himself? Not a freakin chance! Yet now that 'Seph' Brown has been dismissed from his job with a Labour MP, he is being given a chance to blather on about how unfair it all is, and has even used it to single out all the people who 'persecuted' him during his time at University by racial group. It's all just one giant Jooooooooish Conspiracy you know!

I admire the editorial line of Harry's Place for the most part. Yet when faced with clear documentary evidence of racism and extremism, they just can't quite bring themselves to disown someone 'of the Left' for actions which would have brought universal editorial opprobrium had they been committed by anyone 'of the Right'.

Maybe that's why they have taken over so many of our institutions, and poisoned our culture so effectively. Because when it comes down to it, even basically decent Lefties are still willing to give the nutters the benefit of the doubt on grounds of their theoretical base ideology, and are united by that ideological bond. Whereas the Right is endlessly fractured along lines of moral and principle on individual issues and questions and absolutely refuses, often to its cost politically, to compromise and indulge in any but the tiniest amount of groupthink. When it does make serious attempts to (UKIP's endless infighting being an obvious example) the results are always similar to a ship being steered by five or six different people at the same time, with others constantly clamouring to be allowed to take the wheel because only they really know where the ship should be going.

I'm pretty sure I qualify as being 'of the Right', and I rather admire those who refuse to compromise their morals and principles for political expediency even when I disagree with those particular mores. But there are times when I do wistfully wonder what it would be like to be just a little bit more united against the bad guys...

And then I look at the "power for power's sake" Cameroonites and the 'proper' Left, and realise that actually, no, I'll go with the principled infighting, thanks.

The Heroic Death Of Arsehd Orcbuggerer

The Dwarf swung his axe in a frenzy, furiously trying to finish the two Bainite Clerics before the towering Hobgoblin chieftain could reach him. He whirled to see the Wizard dart forward and hurl his final Colour Spray spell at the knot of Hobgoblins surrounding Red, and grinned as he saw the Cleric slam his spiked chain into the one left standing with massive effect. The green-skinned creature staggered to his knees, shield falling limply from his shattered arm.

Red swung again, and the Wizard stepped daintily back from the sudden blood spray as the creature's jaw was torn off in a welter of gore.

Then the chieftain was on Arsehd, and his awareness narrowed down to fending off the flashing swords striking at him. His shield was notched already, and the new foe wasn't making the task of continued survival easier.

Arsehd didn't see the Bainite Priest who had sent so much weakening magic at him fall to Red's chain and the Halfling's arrows. He didn't see the sword which pierced his back, though he did have the satisfaction of watching the enemy Cleric who had stabbed him fall to his axe as he swung backwards to respond. He turned desperately to counter the chieftain's attempt to take advantage, and saw the Halfling running as fast he could to intervene.

Time slowed. Arsehd knew he was too late, knew he couldn't block in time. And an eternity later the Hobgoblin chieftain finally swept his shield aside and thrust into his ribs, bursting his armour asunder even as he slammed a final blow forwards to scythe into his enemy's meaty thigh. Blood spurted, some his own, and some his enemy's, and he felt the satisfaction of feeling his foe's warm life on his face.

And then that life and his own death became one.

Amber got to game with us Saturday afternoon and evening, seeing as one of players was on holdiay and not working the weekend as usual. It was the first time she ever lost a character, in this case a Non-Player Character I'd been running to flesh out the group and give them some muscle. We are going to write 'RIP' on Arsehd's character sheet and give it to her to put up on her wall.

She gets to choose the next NPC. It seems only fair.

Walking Like A Duck

Riddle me this. If the BNP (or, to internationalise things, the Republican Party) employed a senior official with an enormous fetish for Nazi memorabilia, who posted on multiple 'memorabilia' websites, authored his own highly expensive tract on the subject, posed for pictures wearing a T-Shirt with an Iron Cross and a WW2 Nazi slogan on it, drove a vehicle with the licence plate 'Flak88' and posted under the same name on numerous 'memorabilia' forums, would the MSM be somewhat...silent on the subject, especially if that senior official had authored a rather large number of extremely anti-Israel 'reports' for his organisation of choice?

I'm thinking maybe a big fat No. In fact, I'm thinking the headlines would be screaming 'BNP/Republican Nazi Fetishist Has Heil Hitler Licence Plate'. But, when the anti-Israelism is coming from an Official Leftie writing for an Official Leftie NGO which has since accused anyone pointing out the facts of merely attempting to maliciously cover up for the crimes of the dastardly Jews, those crickets are chirping like there's no tomorrow.

If it walks like a Duck, or goosesteps like a Nazi for that matter...

Marc Garlasco, absolutely not a Jew-hating Nazi scumbag, honest.

(Tip of the hat to the last bastion of the decent Left, Harry's Place)

Dear Truthers...

...I shall be avoiding any and all 9/11 related threads on any Blog or other website today. Because you make me want to slap you repeatedly about the head with a wet fish, Monty Python style, until you're so dazed you can't spout your insane babble any more. And then maybe, just maybe, the fact that you are a colossally stupid and desperate person will sink into your tiny brain and you will then wish to throw yourself into the nearest river in disgust at your own appalling pointlessness.

I don't like Truthers much, as you might have guessed. To me they have exactly the same mentality as Holocaust Deniers, whom the eldest and I had a lengthy discussion about a couple of days ago. That mentality is born of a twofold aberration - the first is an obsessive hatred of either a group or person (Bush/Evil Nazi Republicans, Jews), and the second is usually an admiration for and a desire to excuse or even abrogate in the public mind the crimes of another group or person (Nazis, Islamic Fundamentalists - well all right, bit of an oxymoron there but still). Each form of this has its own uniquely revolting aspects - and with Trutherism its the ever-increasing convergence with actual Holocaust Denial and denialists which makes me even madder still.

Over at Tangled Web an American contributor, as might reasonably be expected on today of all days, posted a link to video footage of the first plane striking the Towers this morning. And sure enough, the first couple of pages of comments on the Youtube video were filled with nutballs saying things as cogent and well argued as 'Bush did 9/11'.

Some people engage with Truthers, try to debate them, turn them back to some semblance of sanity using sweet reason. I personally prefer the wet fish option. It's far more likely to succeed, and dammit, it's just so much more satisfying.

Those of us with brains tuned to Sanity FM remember what happened on September 11th 2001, and we remember with perfect clarity. We know who was responsible. We don't need to hear about fifth planes, about Israeli tourists or how there were no Jews in the Twin Towers on the day, or how Alex Jones' radio show is really cool, man.

We remember. And we don't ever, ever forget.

The Antidote to Twilight Mania

After the amusing but occasionally disturbing experience of babysitting a Twilight-obsessed seven year old overnight last week, it seems that the mania surrounding this distinctly pedestrian part of the overall pantheon of Vampire mythologies has spread still further.

The eldest's first French homework assignment is to produce a picture of 'a celebrity' from the Net and to annotate the pic with the celeb's hair and eye colour. She confidently assured me that all the girls in her class were going to pick either the ridiculously coiffured Robert Pattinson (previously an uppercrust Harry Potter schoolboy) or the always entertaining Kristen Stewart (well alright, maybe not a hugely talented actress but I'm a sucker for that particular kind of facial structure).

Well, today she asked the rest of the class in advance of tomorrow's French lesson and sure enough, at least seven have picked Pattinson and at least three Stewart, which led us to come up with a way to stymie the Twilight mania and hopefully break the ice with the new teacher.

We imagined the scene...

"So X, who is your celebrity?"

"Robert Pattinson, Madame."

"Very good, X. Brown hair and grey eyes, oui. Now, how about you, Y?"

"Robert Pattinson, Madame."

"I see. And you, Z?"

"Robert Pattinson, Madame."

"You know, class, this isn't much of an exercise if everyone's answer is 'My celebrity has brown hair and grey eyes'. Can everyone who didn't pick Robert Pattinson raise their hands? Good. Now, B, who did you pick?"

"Kristen Stewart, Madame."

"Aha, black hair and brown eyes, excellent. How about you, C?"

"Kristen Stewart, Madame."

Sigh...

"Very well, could everyone who picked Kristen Stewart lower their hands...now, that leaves...ah, Amber. What colour is your celebrity's hair?"

"Ma célébrité a les cheveux bleus, Madame!"

This Week's Alan Duncan Award for Utter Arrogance

This will be a weekly award, I've decided. It shall go to the most completely arrogant swine who sticks their head over the battlements in order to show their contempt for the plebian hordes whose existence they are forced to reluctantly endure. This week's recipient is a no-brainer, as via the wonderful JuliaM we have the execrable Hugh Orde, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

"If you have a system whereby anyone can stand to be elected as the local police commissioner, you could have any Tom, Dick or Harriet standing."

There are no words. Well, that's not true. There's 'undemocratic'. There's 'elitist'. There's 'liberal politician', which is something of an oxymoron after the first two, it has to be said. And make no mistake folks, in Britain 2009 you don't get to be President of ACPO, the elite gold standard of PC Policing, without being a politician, and one of those undemocratic, elitist liberal ones at that.

Just so we're really sure that we're not misunderstanding him in his apparent contempt for the general public he is supposed to serve, Sir Hugh continues...

"Do they think that the public are so interested in policing that they would turn out and vote? And for whom? A politician? Or do they mind if they get a lunatic or a retired copper? All of these questions need to be answered."

See, I think when this weasel says 'lunatic', what he means is 'person who would expect me to encourage my officers to do their jobs and actually deal with criminals regardless of skin colour, ethnicity or social circumstances'. I also think the public are exactly interested enough in policing to elect such a 'lunatic' given half a chance. It's Sir Hugh and his serried ranks of pointless PC PCs who aren't interested in policing, and the idea that they might end up with bosses who are absolutely terrifies them.

So, this week's Alan Duncan Award goes to Sir Hugh Orde, for sheer undiluted contempt for the general public. I think it should look like this...

Lulu's Favourite Video

I'm quite the fan of the very short-lived Swing Revival, and this wonderfully jumping video gets wheeled out during the post-mealtime cleanup, as both the beat and the visuals seem to fascinate her no end. She is now often to be heard singing the notes preceeding the chorus in perfect time, which is a bit scary for sixteen months frankly. Tragically of course once she is able to interpret said visuals and the lyrics rather better it will probably have to be mothballed, but for now, enjoy the frenetic swing goodness that is the Cherry Poppin Daddies.

(And yes, I know it's only a matter of time before the eldest figures out what the band name means. That bridge will be crossed etc.)

I'm Back. Maybe. Er.

I'm back. Maybe. I'm not sure if I'm going to have the time to start this Blogging thing again properly or not.

I've been posting the odd bit of political comment here. But much as I admire David Vance, who runs the place, he is far too nice to the Jew-hating Leftie (with a handful of exceptions) trolls who infest the comments with their lunatic dribblings - for example 'are Jews the new master race?' is fine by them, but telling the person who posted it to Fuck Off And Die is deeply offensive, dont'cha know.

I don't think I'll miss it. When you go and visit a site you are part of the team for and leave there more annoyed than when you arrived, it's time to wave bye-bye and part company.

So will it be more of the same over here? Well, ironically what turned out to be the final DSD post seemed to gain me not a few new pals, judging by the emails and links I received from it. Reading it back now, seems even if I do say so myself that I was remarkably prescient in my prediction as to what was going to happen to the Republican nomination and the Party itself if it went as predicted and they chose a softly-softly moderate with all the fire of a disposable barbecue in his belly. As my favourite Blogger observed, you can take the MSM to bed as often as you like during the nomination process and it might feel good while it lasts, but it absolutely will not call you in the morning once the campaign has started.

So there'll be as much political commentary as I can manage, as that was after all this Blog's original stock-in-trade. But there will also be as much family and life in general stuff as I can fit in, as I did feel guilty about ceasing the "I'm a Dad again, oh joy" Blogging venture in-between then and now, the Lulu Blog. But we went through a spate of illness, the subject herself went through a spate of being somewhat...demanding - mostly between about 1 and 4am - and all gradually fell by the wayside as these things so often do.

I'll also post the odd bit of Youtubeyness, just because I can and I like sharing music. I promise a minimum of insanely heavy metal and that the song material (or title at the very least) will be as relevant as possible to whatever's topical at the time, fair enough?

There'll also be Gaming stuff. Yes, I am still into all that strange dicerolling and character-acting business, and am writing and running those even stranger LARP thingies now. In fact tomorrow night a new game begins, and I will be playing a geriatric old character of as yet indetermined type, the only certainty in my mind as yet that he will say things like "I remember when all this was battlefields" a lot.

So, there it is. I'm back. I think. Maybe. We'll have to wait and see.

(Oh and Comments will be moderated. Complainants about freedom of speech and stuff can apply to the Diversity Officer of IDon'tGiveACrap plc, understood? Though to be honest I generally allow Nazi muppets to post however, because its just so much fun to play with them. If you do it right you can get the ones with real delusions of grandeur to spend entire days at the keyboard working themselves up into a lather by only spending a minute or two of your own time. Try it sometime, it's most rewarding.)