A weasel in the rabbit-hutch of thought

If nothing else, Leila Deen's rationalisation of her consciousness-raising blow against the establishment childish temper tantrum does gift the English language the phrase "cuckoo in the nest of British democracy", albeit in all apparent sincerity. Other than that, there's not a lot to commend it. It's just yet another Plane Stupid acolyte explaining why their attention-seeking muppetry is a) a vital blow for democracy and b) the only option left to them now they're being ignored by the man:

I have done nothing BUT debate for the last three years. In that time everyone who counts came out in condemnation of the runway plans: 86% of people who responded to the Heathrow consultation replied that they did not want it. The London mayoral election was run on who could be most against it. Respected research institutions pointed out that it will make it impossible to meet our national commitments to helping prevent catastrophic climate change. The Labour party rebelled in parliament. Even many in the cabinet were opposed... The debate is over. We won.

"Everyone who counts" in this case not including the people who want the runway built, and "won" being a synonym for "lost". Other debates that have been "won", we learn, include the invasion of Iraq, and ID cards. By this standard ("we marched, we debated") the Countryside Alliance "won" the debate on foxhunting, the miners "won" the debate on closing pits and the BUF "won" the debate on Britain's glorious black-shirted future. If you only deign to consider people who already agree with you, winning debates is trivially easy.

Politics is, at root, the way we make decisions about living together. I am happy to stipulate that it is far from perfect as a process. But even if it were, we would all, from time to time, find ourselves not getting our way. It's a feature, not a bug. Responding by throwing gunk at people, while no doubt giving tremendous expression to one's feelings, does tend to suggest.that you don't understand some very basic ideas such as a) how to make your cause look good and b) democracy.

UPDATE: In other news, she looks good too.

Circular arguments prove their own premises because they're circular

I meant to comment on some of the substance of Harman's interview below. Specifically, I yelled at the TV when I heard the following, loosely paraphrased, argument:

Q. Why don't you allow fathers to take more time off with a shared parental leave allowance instead of maternity/paternity leave being split.

A. We could do that, but most men would still end up working because they earn more than their partners.

Me: YES, BECAUSE THEY DON'T GO ON LONG PATERNITY LEAVE!*

In other news, the government has announced it won't be repairing the lifts in the Palace of Westminster, saying "the only people we see on the top floors are fit enough to use the stairs."

*I know it's not the only reason men tend to earn more than their partners, but it's a big factor behind a) preferential hiring and b) having more time invested in a career.

If you want something doing, do it yourself

My allotted two weeks up, I still don't understand how someone that spends 18 hours a day sleeping can so effectively stop you doing anything other than look after him. But he does, so I've not kept quite as ruthlessly up-to-date with the news as I used to like.

It's been great. Major news items break through - terrorists attacks, quantitative easing, Jade Goody's wedding - but I lose the comment, analysis, rebuttal, insight, viewer's comments, punditry and other crud that usually clings to these nuggets. And somehow, I don't feel I'm missing out. Hopi, for example, is left to write not one but two posts bemoaning the vapidity and predictability of the media coverage of the Brown/Obama summit, but remains none the wiser regarding what might actually come out of it. I am equally ignorant, but haven't had to wade through regurgitated dribble either.

But I did, quite by chance, catch a brief segment of the Politics Show yesterday that happened to be both informative, interesting and relevant to my current circumstances. You can see it here, at least for the next 7 days. At 18:32, a panel of three women get to interview Harriet Harman. They grill her on the governments achievements in improving equality on the workplace, bring up specific policy proposals they would like to see enacted and hold her to account on her performance. Clearly, they know the subject matter inside out. In turn, Harman responds substantively, with a minimum of "yeah but the other lot suck".

At times, however, the professional journalist jumps in to perform the vital media role of holding the government to account:. "Shouldn't you be ashamed?", "Isn't this embarrassing?" "Couldn't you have phrased that better?". These are the sort of hard-hitting questions that make journalists look good. They don't, astonishingly enough, elucidate any useful information. . The end of the interviewis a masterclass in turning the viewer off politics and politicians: "We've got very little time and I must ask you about Fred Goodwin." Why, in the name of Christ? Why not shut up and let the interesting conversation continue? "Do you stand by what you said? Will you retract it? Will you admit you were wrong to suggest that? Will you give me a headline? Will you? I don't want your opinion, woman, I want to make you look bad. Give me a retraction, an apology, a regret, anything I can use to spin this non-event out further." (My transcription may not be entirely accurate.)

If you take the ten minutes to watch it, I'm prepared to bet that the bits you find interesting co-incide almost exactly with the periods that the professional interviewer is a mere spectator.

Getting the cliches to work for you

It's funny how quickly your perspective can change. I used to be firmly convinced that the endlessly repeated phrase "hard working families" was mere politician's cant - a cheap rhetorical device to reassure the tax-resenting voter that his hard won cash wasn't being frittered away on the undeserving (by implication singles, gays, pensioners, the unemployed, DINKYs or maybe the merely lazy).

Following the birth of my son on Friday, I realise that in fact families are the very core of British society and are hugely deserving of all the largesse the government cares to shower on them us. Moreover, it is right and proper that wastrels who lack the capability or commitment to form their own hard working family be prepared to make sacrifices so that right-thinking folks can be given the help they need to forge a stronger, better Britain.

I mean, two middle-class professionals with one child to look after? We need all the help we can get.

Hark to the call of the silent majority

I always liked Holmes' insight about the silent dog in the nighttime. The idea that you can deduce as much from a negative as a positive is a powerful one, and often consoling when you find all your best efforts falling apart. But you can take it too far. Tread warily around the man who claims that the very absence of evidence for his thesis is proof of its perceptive accuracy:

"But I noticed something else as well: something that wasn't there. Every other issue I mentioned was picked over and debated. One was not. It concerns the most glaring democratic deficit over which this government has presided, yet almost everyone is too polite to mention it."

You and I might think that if nobody wants to talk about an issue, it's because they don't think it's an issue. Not so but otherwise. That polite silence is the sound of furious agreement. Else, we would have some curious situation where right-thinking people did not agree with George Monbiot - theoretically possible, of course, but too outlandish to seriously consider.

The rest of the article is merely yet another rehash of the West Lothian Question ("Where's West Lothian?"), and is interesting only insofar as it throws up a hitherto unsuspected parochialism in Monbiot's understanding of carbon emissions:

"Had Heathrow's third runway been debated only by English MPs, the proposal would have been resoundingly defeated; it was approved by 19 votes, after 67 MPs from the other nations were induced to support the government. They can support such measures without any electoral risk, as their constituents are not directly affected."

I'd understood that emissions and the resulting damage to the climate were a problem for everyone; now it seems that the Scots, Northern Irish and Welsh are immune. Or at least not "directly affected" while (presumably) voters in Cumbria are right at ground zero.

It's in the nature of democracy that people not "directly affected" still get a vote. MPs for land-locked constituencies have a say in fisheries policy; you don't need a car factory in your back yard to vote for a bailout. And you can bet that Monbiot was none too troubled by the idea of urban MPs voting against fox-hunting. And that's fine. It's probably a good thing, in fact, that we strive for some collective say in the sort of nation we want to live in as opposed to leaving decisions to those directly affected, thus reducing our political process to a knife-fight between people whose interests are by definition directly opposed. If the goal is a just and equitable solution, that approach is somewhat lacking.

You can't fight the zeitgeist

First zombies, now extra-terrestrial ritual hunters. Some people really resented their English lessons, didn't they?

But they've got the mythos wrong. It's been well established (Schwarzenegger vs Man in Rubber Suit) that the Predator will only attack armed opponents (rebel guerrilas, Navy Seals, old black cops just trying to clean up their city etc.). Unarmed humans, particularly women, are permanently out of season. Given that a good 70% of the characters in Pride & Prejudice are a) female and b) not accustomed to packing heat, the most likely outcome is that the Predator will merely rip out Darcy's spinal column and sod off back home. Anything else would turn this proposed entertainment into a cynical and crass corruption of a much-loved classic.

What's in a name?

Blackwater, the world's best known mercenary group, have finally faced up to the fact that their conduct in Iraq has made them a byword for corporate thuggery and... changed their name.

It's a rare surrender for a company that cherished a brand name inspired by the dark-water swamps of northeastern North Carolina, one that survived another rebranding effort about a year ago, following a deadly shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square. The decision to give it up underscores how badly the Moyock-based company's brand was damaged by that incident and other security work in Iraq.

Even before the PR disaster of opening fire on civilians, Blackwater was never the most reassuring name for a global purveyor of violence. The new name, "Xe", by contrast plumps for the definitively meaningless, and as such in no way sounds like a shadowy league of assassins.

These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
Took wages: shot civilians dead.

The good news is their contract's ended;
Bad reputations still cost you pay;
But with time some wounds are mended:
Rebranded, they'll be back one day.

----Zombie Update ----

Two pieces of Zombie news this week:

In the "don't know whether to laugh or cry" category, we have this forthcoming publishing sensation:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.

I admit that there is potential in this:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that an revenant corpse in possession of good mobility must be in want of braaaaiiiiinss."

"Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so far from doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You would have been less amiable in my eyes had there not been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure you that I have your respected mother's braaaiiinnnsss. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house I singled you out as braaaiiinss. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it will be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying -- and moreover for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting braaaiiiinnnss, as I certainly did."

However, as the publishers claim that this "insanely" funny novel will introduce Austen's classic work to a new generation of fans, I'm going to come down on the side of weeping.

In other news, Oliver Kamm reveals that, whatever his many other attributes and accomplishment, he will be little more than dead weight when World War Z kicks off

UPDATE: A reader asks reasonably, in the comments below: "Is there any kind of evidence that you would accept as evidence for the supernatural?"
There is. In John's Gospel (11: 43-44) we read: "And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin."
If a man who has been dead for four days, such that "by this time he stinketh", is brought back to life then I will unhesitatingly accept this as evidence of supernatural intervention.

Bad instincts Kamm. When confronted with four-day-old walking corpses, your only unhesitating response should be to destroy the brain or remove the head. What good shall it profit a man if he gaineth his soul, but loseth his brains?

Collective Punishment Works

That might be the lesson taken from this pair of stories:

UN Halts Gaza Aid Over "Thefts";

UN To Resume Aid Supplies To Gaza.

The timeline seems pretty conclusive: Hamas steals UN food supplies; UN withholds all supplies; Hama returns food. A successful piece of hardball negotiation, you might think. But what were the ethics of withholding the food?

At one level, it seems like an action taken against Hamas. The intention, certainly, was to withhold the food from them. But, given that UNRWA is the only or main supplier of food to Gaza, the effect was to make the entire population of Gaza suffer for Hamas' actions. And, in fact, UNRWA almost certainly did intend to use that suffering, and the (further) unpopularity it would cause Hamas' in Gaza, as the incentive for Hamas to change its ways.

Israel's longer and more comprehensive blockade of Gaza was held, by no means unreasonably, to be collective punishment of civilian's for the actions of their government and as such, arguably a crime against human rights. What of UNRWA? In both cases, we have an entity denying basic and vital supplies to the people of Gaza. In both cases, the purpose is to effect a change in Hamas' policy. What are the differences?

One difference is the scope of the issues. Israel's blockade was aimed at weakening and isolating Hamas generally, as an enemy of Israel, as well as forcing a ceasefire. The UNRWA's withholding of aid was directly related to a specific Hamas action - the theft of that aid. So UNRWA could argue that their actions were not punishing Gazans for the fact that Hamas holds power there. UNRWA could also argue the lack of alternatives: either it sent in aid trucks, or it didn't. Lacking it's own enforcement capability, what choices did it have?

However, just because your only option is an unethical one doesn't mean you have to take it. The key question in fact is what was happening to the food Hamas confiscated. If it was being distributed by Hamas as a "public works" PR offensive - that is, if much the same amount of food were going to much the same people as would have recieved it direct from UNRWA - then withholding the food does punish Gazans for the actions of Hamas. If, on the other hand, Hamas distributed the food mainly or exclusively to its own fighters, or used its control of the food supply to maintain or increase its hold on power, or selectively withheld it to punish its internal enemies, then the situation is different. In that case, continuing with food aid would have put UNRWA in the position of supplying and supporting a terrorist group, and effectively of taking sides in an armed conflict. This is, obviously, both in the short and long term, an exceptionally bad idea.

Now, it's not immediately clear what Hamas planned to do with the food supplies. But, and call me prejudiced if you will, I do incline to think the worst of them. So I'd say UNRWA probably did the right thing (which will come as a relief to them, no doubt). But it's interesting how close even humanitarian goals can take us to unethical behaviour.

Waffle

Under the Conservatives, the people of Britain will both eat their cake and have it, said David Cameron. Speaking at Davos, he outlined the Conservative vision of baking:

"Yes, we're in favour of cake-eating. I've said many times, cake-eating is what drives our economy. But when cake-eating gets in the way of our society, our environment and our values, then we must not sit there and take it, going along with the old orthodoxy that cake-eating is all that matters. We must speak out. It's time to make sure people have cake - even if that means disrupting the global cake-eating agenda. It's time to decentralise baking, so that people can have cake at a local level. We must look after parents and families, and make sure that they have all the cake they need.

Because let me make this clear. Lots of people today are worried that they won't have cake, and angry with the cake-eaters for eating it all. And my party is basically the party of cake-eating. So I'm in a bit of a bind here. That's why I say to the people of Britain, you can have your cake. And to my party I say, of course we'll eat cake. That's what being leader of the Opposition is all about."