Blogroll

Have added a few bits and pieces to the blogroll. Have a look around... there might be a few things that are interesting to you.

RS

Al Gore

My daughter, currently at the University of Oxford, was home for the weekend. This, of course, meant that her mother insisted we took her for a slap-up feed at a suitably plush restaurant (Oloroso, as it happens, lovely stuff). My wallet longs for the day that some investment bank offers her a jaw-dropping salary.

Anyway, she used a word at dinner that I had never heard before. I believe my reaction to this news story about Al Gore sums it up... Lolocaust.

RS

PS - another example of hothousing having a negative effect (see previous post)
PPS - have a look around this. Some sites I'd never heard of but will certainly use in future.

The Catholic Church, African Parliaments and other things

After the boom of the Darling campaign (reported globally by everyone from the Beeb to the USA today), a return to normal blogging... curious that a rather large blogging phenomenon is ignored in both roundups and completely ignored by many of the uber-bloggers.

First up, this story from The Scotsman. Whilst I'm not sure that the topic is appropriate for school pupils (i.e. it would be very difficult, I would imagine, for a youngster to speak about this in front of their teachers and parents) I had to chuckle that the one group that has seen fit to comment is everyone's favourite rent-a-gob, Peter Kearney of the Catholic Church.

Of all the people who are in a position to comment on the abuse of power-relationships when it comes to children in their care... you would think the Catholic Church might keep quiet? No?

As for Primark Jamieson, ''I am surprised the Debates Union thought this was a suitable topic. Breaches of trust by any professional working with young people is a serious matter and there should be no suggestion that sexual relationships between pupils and teachers is acceptable''. Good to see New Labour have got this notion of debate down to a tee.

Having looked at Peter Kearney speaking as an expert, we should move to the decision by British MPs to call for African governments to spend aid money on strengthening their parliaments. With the proposals of the Draft Governance of Britain - Constitutional Renewal Bill, more power handed to Brussels by The Reform Treaty and other attacks on the strength of our parliament, maybe the MPs in question could get their own house in order before having a pop at our friends in Africa.

Michael White is right - hothousing does terrible things to people. Just look at our Prime Minister... If we use him as a case study, those who are hothoused will become sulky, tyrannical micro-managers who can't take criticism.

Jackie Ashley is right (in parts) - Blogworld is the future, and it will not be resisted; but at this stage in its development, it seems dominated by rightwing male individualists and libertarians.

Many have blogged about this before but it is an issue. If the blogosphere is dominated by right-wing libertarians, it is not fulfilling it's potential. We need more socialists blogging, more liberals blogging, more soggy lefties blogging. It will make the scene more vibrant, the debate better and the blogosphere more relevant. If, in a year's time, the top 100 blogs in Dales' calculations are mostly right-wing libertarian men, the MSM can laugh off the blogosphere. If it is truly representative, the MSM will have a harder time of it.

Finally, over at youtube - GWB is booed as he launches the Baseball season.

RS

PS - The Mirror gives us a picture of Carla Bruni in the alltogether (not for work!). Let us hope that Le Monde et al do not return the favour when Gordon Brown and his missus head off to Paris.

Save Parliament

This story has been blogged elsewhere. Just in case you haven't seen it - pop over to Spyblog.

RS

Adam Smith

From El Greco:

Good show - Scots are all too reticent in celebrating this colossus of political thought. Still shouldn't it be in Kirkcaldy or Glasgow?

RS

Moving Along

Well the Get Darling Barred Campaign seems to be in full swing. I helped get the ball rolling (although the honour and credit really should go to the Evening News for running the story and to the landlord at Utopia).

Anyway, as I am not in a position to take this to the next level I would advise you to go to the following websites:

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk
http://more-to-life-than-shoes.blogspot.com/

Trixxy and the Morning Advertiser both seem keen to run the campaign. Good on them - best of luck and god speed.

Love, or what you will,

RS

Legalese

I tend not to post on the topic of law - largely because it is rather boring for all you readers. I can't imagine many of you flock to hear my opinions on anything at all, let alone my feelings on the efficacy of the 'Not Proven' verdict or my general thoughts on modern jurisprudence.

That said, from time to time, on a slow news day, I will blog about law. I turn Snob's Corner away from the good-honest swearbloggery that we all know and are mildly affectionate about towards the cretinous, turdigity of a blawg.

So here we go. Firstly, a wander over the Irish Sea to Norn Iron. This restorative justice scheme is, to me at least, very interesting. Not flawless, by any measure, but certainly interesting and perhaps very useful when set in the wider social context of Northern Ireland.

Secondly, we go to the 'Have your say section' of the Beeb's website. We all know why we send people to jail - to protect the public from further harm, to deter others from committing a crime, to help rehabilitate said offender (and trust that this will lead to lower recidivism rates) and to punish the offender for breaking society's laws. In my fairly extensive dealings with fairly hardened criminals, I'm not sure many take into account the possible severity of a future punishment.

When we consider that many young people who carry guns are gang-affiliated and presumably think that there life is in danger because of this carrying a weapon must seem a fairly sensible thing to do. Maybe if we examine the reasons why young people join gangs and/or feel the need to carry weapons we may be better off.

Finally, just as Scotland has it's eyes on Berwick it looks like we may be losing Shetland. Alas...

RS

Get Darling Barred - Part III

The Darling Campaign is now in full swing:

Utopia, Easter Road, Leith
The Plough Inn at Finstock, Oxfordshire
The Gardener's, Lewes
Two as yet unspecified pubs in Lewes other than The Gardener's.
The Queen Anne, Bolton

Any others?

Apparently, the Facebook site has 115 members already. More blogs are carrying the flag as well:

The Greek, Dodge, Toque, A Man In A Shed, J. Arthur, The Umpire, DK, Wonko, Curly and Massie.

It has also made the City Diary of the Times, one of the campaign has been in contact with Al Murray to try and get him on board, Westbourne UKIP are onside and Alex Johnstone MSP is in favour.

From little acorns, mighty oaks grow.

RS

Books and Cardinals

Nadine Dorries brings our attention to Keith Simpson's Easter Reading List. I'm just pleased, but admittedly slightly amazed, that she can read. Anyone has read her anti-abortion rants would imagine her as some crayon-eating loon rather than a Member of Parliament. She often makes Jackie Baillie look like a picture of lucidity. Which is, as you may know, some fucking feat.

Talking of book lists, Grandmother Goose has published his top 75 political books. And now, in an incredibly ropey link (smooth - ed.), we move from good books to the Good Book. Or more correctly, Cardinal Keith O'Brien's take on the Good Book. (I have form attacking this character).

Just a couple of things:

''The government has no mandate for these changes: they were not in any election manifesto, nor do they enjoy widespread public support ...''

Fuck off, sunshine. You've got no idea whether this has widespread public support - I haven't seen a poll backing your stance, it is not as if the public are forming huge marches or taking up arms. And as we learnt recently manifesto commitments (and therefore lack of) are not subject to legitimate expectation. Seriously though, does he think that this would have been the issue that swung the electorate away from Labour toe-raggery? Or does he think that Brown and Blair realising this was so important that they hid this measure away from the manifesto because they knew the nation would rise up against the measure?

In some other European countries one could be jailed for doing what we intend to make legal.

That's why there are these things called countries you see, Cardinal. You might have come across the concept. There are about 190 or so in the world. You are probably in one right now - Scotland is one as is Ireland (so is Italy). In these sovereign territories, the government makes laws which the people in have to obey. In one country, x may be against the law. In the next country, x may be legal. So abortion is effectively illegal in Ireland but it is legal in Scotland - see it is all quite easy really. The fact that something is legal or illegal in one country should really have next to no bearing on whether it is legal or not here. Just as a note, for future reference Cardinal, fucking choirboys is illegal in just about every country... these fucking legislators eh, whaddya going to do?

You could always move to another country if you preferred the laws of that country to the laws of the UK. You know, just saying...

Many excuses are being made for this present legislation, particularly that cures will soon be found for various diseases which afflict mankind through this legislation.

The Catholic faith promoting measures that actively hinder the curing of diseases or actively maintain the spread of a disease. Surely that is the first time that has happened... (cough) french letters in Africa (cough).

RS

Cause and effect

No shit, Sherlock!

Cause and effect.

RS

Law School For Dummies

A week old but brilliant nonetheless.

Brazil's lawyers have been shocked to find that a boy aged eight has managed to pass the entrance exam to law school.

Really? They have an awfully high opinion of themselves these Brazilian lawyers. I would imagine that a great number of eight year olds could scrape into law school...

Still, I'm not sure I like the thought of young Jaoa Victor Portellinho:

''My dream is to be a federal judge," the boy said, according to Globo TV's Web site.

Dear oh dear...

RS

PS - a great post from The Onion.

PPS - Please have a look at the Freakonomics Blog - thoughtprovoking throughout.

Get Darling Barred

According to the Alba section of The Scotsman Alistair Darling has been barred from a pub in Leith because of the taxes he's just stuck on the good stuff.

However, holed up in his Morningside Grotto, he is hardly ever going to be down in Leith on the sauce. I, therefore, implore all bloggers to petition their locals - let's get Darling banned from pubs up and down the land!

RS

Come on chaps -jump on the bandwagon! Devil's Kitchen, Mr. Eugenides, Iain Dale, Dizzy, Chicken Yoghurt, Guido, The Political Umpire, Burning Our Money, CityUnslicker, Pigdogfucker, J. Arthur, Chase Me Ladies, Tampon Teabag, Man in a Shed, Sinclair, Bookdrunk, Asparagus, Timmy, Twenty Major and Prodicus .

Civil Liberties

Great stuff from AC Grayling. Enjoy.

RS

Heather Mills

I'm not really that bothered whether she got half his wealth or a tenth of it or, indeed, roughly a 20th of it. (Or, if you believe her, a 40th!)

She wanted £125m. She got £24.3m. That, my dear, is what happens when you don't a) have an accountant b) have a half-decent barrister on your side. I'm amazed, coming up against Mostyn, that she got that!

''Beatrice only gets £35,000 a year - so obviously she's meant to travel B class while her father travels A class, but obviously I will pay for that."

Yes, you stupid cunt. You want public sympathy and your example of you being hard done by - on the day you got £24.3m you whinge that your daughter won't be able to travel first class. Priceless.

A 2006 survey by Grant Thornton survey showed that over 60% of divorces end with wealth evenly split between the spouses. Indeed, the White v White case (2000) ruled that equality should become the guiding principle in future settlements. Many argued, correctly in my view that, a) this would mean that husbands were much less likely to divorce b) that rich people are much less likely to marry (or, more correctly, are more likely to sign elaborate pre-nuptial agreements altough these are not always enforced and are not as protective as people imagine). I haven't read into this trial in true depth, and am not a family law specialist, but one would imagine that this is a poor result for Mills especially with no pre-nuptial agreement to (nominally) protect McArtney.

Either way, it looks to me that Mills shot herself in the foot (steady!) by not employing one of the leading silks or, indeed, qualified accountants. Her claim that ''You can be a litigant in person. It's not easy, but just make sure you do all your research, save yourself a fortune'' is very probably true. However, you probably lose yourself one as well. Whilst this is ok, I presume, for millionaires who will stand to gain millions more regardless of the outcome of the divorce settlement her advising poor people to represent themselves is probably going to make matters for many people going through the process of a divorce even worse.

RS

Spitzer

From el greco:

I feel rather more sympathy for Spitzer now - although, it is always nice to see one of the lying, hypocritical bastards fall on their swords (figuratively alas). That's three gone in a week - Samantha Power, Eliot Spitzer and Ferraro. Gerri Peev has attacked American journalists for being supine but at least their politicians seem to do the decent thing. If Spitzer had been a British politician he would no doubt have said 'I've broken the law but it is in everyone's best interest that I stay and put things right'.

In other news, I'm delighted to see that Paul Kitching of Juniper in Altrincham is moving to Scotland. Whilst the three Michelin stars in Edinburgh are all very nice (Whisharts, The Kitchin and Number 1 at the Balmoral - The Kitchin being the best of the bunch), it will be good for them to have some competition. I've eaten at Juniper once and was stunned by the quality.

My son, Tom, however, is delighted to see the imminent arrival of American chain Hooters to Scotland. Each to their own...

RS

John Hutton promoting mortal sin

Compare and contrast.

That'll be 12 Hail Marys and a £1,000 donation to the Boston Diocese Legal Contigency Fund (sorry, I mean the Church Roof)

RS

Two mothers, two lost girls... and the British class system

I was forced to watch The One Show tnight (my wife enjoys it) and there was an extended discussion on the media reaction to the disappearance of Shannon Matthews and contrasting that to the coverage of Madeleine McCann. Do we focus on one and not the other due to class politics?

A quick Google search and it seems this is a worldwide issue. I've thought about this before - if Madeleine McCann's parents had been chavs swigging beer in Benidorm rather than doctors sipping vino in Praia de Luz would the press coverage have been different? Do the papers give more sympathy to the white middle classes? Is it the papers or is it because the Great British public have more sympathy and more in common) with two nicely middle class parents from Rutland than they do for a single mother (seven kids from five men - why do I know that? I would doubt her sexual past has anything to do with it but it is in every paper. I have no idea how many men Kate McCann has slept with) from a rough estate? The papers, after all, only print what we want to read.

Hardeep Singh Kohli wondered why a white lawyer who was murdered got more media coverage than a Sikh gentleman who was murded in the same city on the same weekend? I don't know. I would imagine many Britons had more in common with the Sikh gentleman than they did with a City Lawyer. His suggestion that it was race-based is interesting though... as the public imagination in recent years has been caught by stories like the Damilola Taylor murder, the Stephen Lawrence murder and others.

Furthermore, I would imagine that the McCann's finances could pull in a media strategists and PR people to keep there campaign in the public eye. A very sad reality...

An extra step would be to say that after the McCann story, the Rhys Jones murder (again, I would imagine that the Jones family had more in common with the Matthews family than the McCanns but yet got a lot of press coverage and 'celebrity' backing), the story of a child going missing has lost some of it's immediacy, some of it's impact and no longer holds the front page in the way that it did last summer... perhaps because of the huge number of McCann stories.

Anyone with a heart or a brain wishes for these poor little girls to be returned to their families safe and sound as soon as possible. Whether one girl is focused upon more is probably more to do with the buying public and their bias than it is to do with any media bias.

RS

PS - one of my favourite bloggers has responded to this.

Salmond & Lisbon

Has Salmond missed a trick over the proposed referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? Whilst we all know that referenda are reserved matters, I'm surprised that Salmond has not suggested that the Scottish Government should hold a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon (whether he actually holds it is another matter).

Why would this be beneficial? It would further put pressure on the government at Westminster and would stoke up English feeling even more ('How come the Jocks have got a referendum but we don't?'). If London stepped in and said that he couldn't hold the referendum, that would look like London squashing the will of the Scottish Government and setting the precedent that the Scottish Government could not hold referenda (something that would be political dynamite). If Westminster let it go ahead, it would be a very, very tricky situation for Brown - whatever the result.

It's the sort of trick that I thought he would pull - to suggest, at least, that Scotland would hold a referendum to stoke up some ire down South whilst gently bringing to the surface the issue of the use of referenda as a tool by the Scottih Government (remembering that the SNP want to hold a referendum for something else in a wee while...).

Has he missed a trick then? He has, just about, played everything right over the past 10 months...

RS

The UN

A piece from The Observer notes that the UN's top drugs chap has attacked 'coke snorting fashionistas' like the noted singer, Amy Winehouse, are helping to ruin Africa.

Maybe the UN should get it's own house in order before it starts throwing stones at drug addicts? I mean the Liberian Sex-For-Aid Scandal, the scandal in the Congo (and indeed in Haiti and Sudan) or the fact that it lets anti-democratic and countries that do not value human rights particularly highly on to the UNCHR and the successor UNHRC.

Indeed, this slow moving organisation is probably responsible for more people dying in Africa than any other organisation... Miss Winehouse's desire for cocaine probably is insignificant in comparison (as, I would contend, is the effect she has on other people).

RS

Jodrell Bank and a few other things

I've seen in a number of sources that Jodrell Bank is being threatened with closure.

On occasional visits to a university friend in Cheshire I've always rather enjoyed a trip around Jodrell Bank and would recommend it to anyone.

This, from The Greek, shows a surprising lack of business sense from The Tun Bar. Whilst showing Holyrood Debates may attract various politicos into the pub it will surely turn off the far more lucrative source of revenue from the journalists at The Scotsman across the road... Surely, everyone else in the city will want to stay away rather than watch that dross.

From my understanding, the MSPs prefer Jenny Ha's on The Royal Mile anyway...

Finally, I was interested by this piece interesting. I am highly skeptical of these whaling activists and, as you know, skeptical of the Guardian's coverage of all things pinko (especially after the Boris's recent wheeze).

The leader of an anti-whaling environmental group today claimed he had been shot by Japanese coast guard officers while on his boat in the southern ocean and had only survived because he was wearing a protective vest.

Ah, I see. Convenient he was wearing a bullet-proof vest, no? Is this standard procedure for anti-whaling protestors?

Paul Watson, the marine conservation group's leader, claimed a bullet struck him above the heart and that he had video footage of the ship's doctor, David Page, removing it from his protective vest.

So no footage or evidence of the shooting... just the word of an extremely biased person. Only video footage of a bullet being removed from a protective vest. Anyone could have shot a bullet into that vest... and it would be quite a big publicity coup for a protestor to be shot by a Japanese whaler. I would imagine that the vest was shot at by one of the fellow protestors.... they would know that many unthinking idiots around the world will presume the Japanese are guilty (presumption of innocence normally is something people only believe in when they are accused of something I have come to learn).

Why are there armed coast guard people attacking Australian citizens and other citizens in the Australian Antarctic territory?"

There is no evidence they are attacking people although they do admit they are armed. Presumably, the reason they have guns is because nutcases keep trying to board their ship illegally?

I've often wondered - in the wonder of wonderful pinko-world, do cultural rights and heritage trump environmental concerns?

RS

Strawberry Meth, anyone?

A lovely story showing police ineptitude in Oxford - what would Endeavour Morse have said?

My apologies for lack of blogging. I will be back at full tilt on Monday!

RS

Sudan

Well, I laughed out loud at this piece from The Onion.

RS