Ken Clarke on rape

For a full transcript of ken clarks comments on rape have a look at this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13444770.

I'm not interested in commenting on what he said to be honest, but i am interested in the shrill response to it.

I think all right thinking individuals can deal with this teacup sized storm in about 10 seconds. the complaint seems to be that "rape is rape"and any suggestion otherwise makes you a mysoginist calling for a rapist's charter.

Well sorry, thats just horse shit. There are degrees to EVERYTHING. Degrees to murder, degrees to rape, degrees to speeding, degrees to a degree for gods sake. The suggestion otherwise is yet another nail in the coffin of nuance.

This is a manufactured scandal, its obnoxious and insulting and pretends that detail isnt important. I celebrate Mr Carke for his willingness to talk in more than 15 second soundbites, for his willingess to tell an interviewer that she's just plain wrong.

Here are some selected quotes and links to illustrate the insanity of the response to this "scandal" in the press

a daily mail headline says Ken is "a danger to women"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1388096/Ken-Clarke-rape-gaffe-Sex-attack-victim-hits-hes-danger-women.html

The new statesman describes his as "repulsive and reactionary"

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/05/ken-clarke-comments-rape

And the sun with typical restraint says this of Mr Clarke.

DENOUNCED by the anguished sex attack victim;

BLASTED by women's groups and a vicar's daughter raped in a notorious sex crime;

ORDERED to apologise by furious Prime Minister David Cameron, and

URGED to quit by Labour leader Ed Miliband.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3588801/Sex-attack-victim-demands-Ken-Clarke-sacking-for-endangering-women.html#ixzz1MtUte2Vl

Remember, nuance is good, subtlety important and complicated problems generally require complicated solutions, or at least complicated discussions.

Deceit in politics and advertising (aka referendum 2011)

Deceit

I don’t like being lied to … let me clarify that, because no-one really LIKES being lied to, and like most other people in my day to day life I lie to people (the little white ones that make life easier or make myself look better, medium sized lies to save face or avoid hurting people, great big whoppers like the time that thing happened on the docks, you know, the usual) and I am lied to … this I can handle most of the time, it doesn’t make me angry, people are people and if there’s one thing The Wire and House have taught me its that everybody lies.

Fine. Its not great but it is what it is.

But god dammit if being lied to in the public sphere doesn’t make me angry. Reliably angry. Apocalyptically angry. Angry enough that even if I agree with your original point I wont buy what you’re selling on the principle of it. Angry enough that I’ll whine on and on and on and on about I to whoever is nearby until they tell me to start that blog up again and express myself.

Gits

So what dear reader (hello, is anyone there??) has wound me up so much today? Referenda on AV mostly, or more accurately the advertising in the build up to said referenda.

Now its worth saying that despite my vote in favor of it I'm not convinced by AV as a voting system, I think you could make a much more convincing argument for true PR in some way shape or form and I dont think you can deny that the impact from true PR would be dramatic. But today thats not what i want to write about; oh no. I want to write about this:

this:


and this:


One of these things is not like the others. Can you guess??

Yup in the mother of all shocks, the reactionary argument is put forth a lie to get us the general public to do what they want. Not just a lie but an offensive, grossly misrepresentative and knowing lie. The pragmatic points against AV were lead by the cost argument which was in any clear analysis, complete and total bollocks, much of the cost coming from staging the referendum in the first place (thus not really a reason not to vote for av) and for vote counting machines (IMHO neither necessary or desirable see http://bit.ly/kXRsMH or http://bit.ly/jXXUHV) leaving £26 million for education.

Even if it did cost the full £250 million, which we know it doesnt, without context the figure is meaningless. In terms of the Uk budget its NOTHING, less than we spend on the driving standards agency, less than we spend on legal advice for the government, half what we paid hewlett packard for consultancy last year, less than half spending of government funded "big science" research and comparable to the amount we spend each year on education ... in pakistan. I know spending is always limited, but if you're going to moan about crazy government spending, bitch about something that will conceivably make a difference to the UK budget defect

And this ranty anger comes before we discuss the need to spend £25 million pounds on education. I mean seriously, how little does the no to av campaign think of us if they're convinced we need to spend £25 million teaching people how to list things in order of preference? Most people manage it every time they eat!

Alas it seems the lesson is that F.U.D. works (http://bit.ly/Cn4P), and that countering it is expensive and requires and engaged audience, it is with this in mind that i want to explore a thought: A government department of fact checking. The ministry of lies if you will, a bunch of people paid to tell us when politicians are lying, i think it would be a wonderful idea, and one i want to go into.

MP expenses - the aftermath

So MPs have been ripping off the tax payer for decades, the appetite for sackcloth and ashes seems to know no bounds, today in the guardian both major parties are demanding repayment of expenses now deemed over the top - http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/13/party-leaders-threaten-mps-over-expenses.

This stinks

I strongly agree that the rules needed changing and that abuse was widespread. I had hoped that the crisis in confidence would lead to broader changes than it has alas not, just a load of hand-ringing and blaming the leaders of the party in charge.

Quite aside from the fact that MPs are being asked to pay back expenses that were previously approved, something i find quite troubling, i see a simple solution to this issue.

1 - pay MPs more
2 - dont let them run there own constituency offices

1 - mps salaries are pitiful given the jobs they do, £60k is less than my friends in sales were earning 3 years out of university, less than a deputy headmaster, maybe half the salary of a top level council executive. Yes the pension is great, yes the benefits rock and yes, people do not (and should not) get into politics for the money but c'mon pay peanuts get monkeys, and where they're intelligent monkeys they'll find a way to get extra peanuts too.

2 - why can't the constituency offices be run by the civil service, leaving the constituency party to deal with elections ONLY, with those runny the local offices owing their loyalty to someone other than the chaps who's expenses they file.

There we go, martin saves the world in two easy steps again. Next week, middle east peace. Seriously, i have a solution to this one too and its a doozey ;)

Three strike laws

Not an original idea, but hows about this, we the people accept a three strike internet access law on condition it applies to businesses too. That is to say if they file 3 false copyright claims in a year then they're banned from the internet too.

Seem fair?

hanlon's razor & mental retardation on TV

Forgive the dubious segway coming!

this is an old post that i never got around to finishing, given that glen beck is to leave fox news soon (the witch is dead the witch is dead) i think it might be appropriate to get it out there before its too late. SO some of the stuff might be two years out of date, and the videos may have moved (pls let me know if this is the case) but the sentiment is still valid.

I'm a firm believer in Hanlon's razor, a handy little maxim that says "never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity". I have a world view that says most people do the best they can in the circumstances they are dealt. Most people try to be good (by their own definition of good) and most douchebaggy things that they do can be blamed on brain-freeze, temporary insanity or just generally being a idiot. I'm sure you can think of some examples from your life.

Now i'll admit that this belief often vanishes quickly if i'm angry at a particular person or action, but with the benefit of sober reflection its what i believe.

The other day i read this article http://tinyurl.com/l3k9he suggesting (for comedy value) that some of kanye west's more interesting outbursts might be because he's mentally retarded. Its cracked.com so OFC its written for laughs, but maybe they have a point worth looking into, specifically re-extreme left and right wing journalism and opinion. Particularly Glenn Beck and his Poe's law comedy analogue Stephen Colbert.

You may not watch either, go look them up on you tube, here's a couple of links, watch them and come right back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szlLM5lCNJg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE_MXfXJW0A

If you can't be arsed to watch, glenn beck is the personification of fox news, he's so patriotic he cries whenever he thinks about the country he loves, he throws tantrums, believes in conspiracy theories and his views are generally contradictory. My personal favorite comes from CPAC the "conservative woodstock" just last week (last week two years ago) where he says that socialisising costs across society is morally equivalent to stalinist purges or the worst of red china. He then says he learnt all this in a library.

A state funded, socialised library. Doest this just scream out to you as a pretty extreme cognative dissonance if not utter retardation? It also tell me the that whoever beck got to proof his speech sucks at their job - fact checking pls!

So yeah, its a long post to say not a lot but . . . what if Glenn Beck is retarded? I don't know him personally, maybe he actually has an IQ of 150+, maybe his persona is all comic book exaggeration, maybe he just smells the dollars in preaching to the converted.

But what if he's retarded?

PS: i suspect retard might be a somewhat non-PC phrase, but mentally handicapped just doesnt scan as well and, well, it's there in the dictionary. I may have already made this point but actions define you as racist or elitist or sexist or whatever, not words.

PPS: Poes law - Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing.

PPPS: People who align to the points of view he give in his satire are more likely to believe Stephen Colbert is not using satire. http://hij.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/2/212

Freidman, Galbraith, Hicks. Who they hell are they??

Two economists and the best comedian ever. One Keynesian, one post Keynesian and one Chomsky with dick jokes.

What links these people, and what i like about them and their ideas (even the ones i disagree with) are that they were all people centred. Galbraith concerned himself with the power of corporate America, the provision of public services (or lack of it) and the education of Americans. Galbraith has things to tell us today that are relevant to Collective bargaining, government regulation, the power of large companies to dictate to small companies and consumers.

Milton Friedman was VERY different, but there's still much i admire in him, while he was strongly anti regulation (he even argued that government shouldn't license doctors)however he was influential in pushing the US away from conscription, he argued for the decriminalisation of drugs and prostitution, and he understood that government was better placed to provide some services than business was, even if we might disagree on which services these might be. He even suggested a negative income tax which is a thoroughly interesting idea.

Hicks on the other hand, wasn't an economist, hell for much of his life i'm sure he was too loaded to do simple maths but he was much MUCH more than a comedian. He believed the job of comedy was to point out the emperors missing clothes and he did this exceptionally well. He took no prisoners, stood no fools and spoke his mind. That he is still the funniest stand-up i've ever heard, that he was censored and obscure during his lifetime, that he was rated by George Carlin (of broadly similar style) and that he died young only amplify his mystique.

Many people have many heroes, Bill Hicks is mine.

Penn & Teller

Penn & Teller, the American "magicians" do a show called bullshit, 30 min episodes on a generally skeptic theme, really interesting stuff. In particular their programmes on PETA and gun control were really interesting.

Watching PETA members equate farming to the holocaust, arguing that seeing eye dogs are morally wrong and saying that diabetics should just live without insulin is tbh not all that surprising, i've always thought animal rights activists were a touch nutty.

It was the gun control episode that was most interesting to me, not a subject i've thought about for a long time. I've always been an advocate of the idea that governments should be afraid of their ppl not the other way around and the suggestion that an armed citizenry is the best way to achieve this is quite compelling, esp in light of G20 protests and so on. At the very least its a provocative idea, even if it is presented in the manner of entertainment rather than pure critique.

Bet they're friends of bill.

Seek it out on piratebay while its still around!

no more posts on michael jackson . . . after this one!

I like Gary Younge, he appears to be intelligent, articulate and pretty right on, but seriously, enough bashing Jackson cos he wasn't black anymore. All one has to do is look at some of the more candid photos of him from the early 80's onwards and you can see the vitiligo clear as day; the newspaper Mr Younge writes for even has a handy one at the top of the article here: http://tinyurl.com/q4h8yu, if you can't be bothered to look at all the pictures someones put up here: http://tinyurl.com/5gfmwy

Put natural vitiligo in the mix with a man who was at the very least a bit strange, and who hated the fact that he looked like his father (i recall him mentioning this in the bashir interview) then the leap to changing his facial structure to look like a white man doesn't seem that large. I have of course to bear in mind the lessons of southpark (as always) that as a white man i just can't "get" race, but i do get a bit cheesed off by this facet of the criticism that the man came in for.

Anyhow, that's it as far as MJ is concerned here, I'm off to find something more important to get indignant about.

the Gary Younge article to which I'm referring can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/rdp4xh

MJ, Steven Wells and Farrah Fawcett

I'm aware that as of this moment in time no-one reads this, but i dont care. Flawed icons are by far the most interesting and he was the epitome of this. More to the point this is MY blog, and he was important to ME.

I always saw him as a profoundly sad person, so perhaps its appropriate he died of a broken heart.

Anyway, i'm off to play Billie Jean, Dangerous (yes dangerous, AND Jam AND She Drives me wild) Thriller, Beat It, Off the Wall, Blame it on the Boogie and They Don't Care About Us . . . LOUD. I encourage you to do the same.

I guess i should listen to Gone too Soon as well!

that pesky war thing

All the hoopla regarding public enquiry into the Iraq war makes it a vaguely appropriate time to post something about my opinions regarding the case for the intervention that commenced on

intervention in the running of other sovereign states is always going to be a bad choice, lives will be ended, property destroyed etc etc. The moral questions posed are hard, and the standards for decision are impossible for us all to be happy with, we all make our own choice in this matter and i find it hard to say who is right and wrong . . . not that i don't say when i think someone is wrong, but I'm always at least a little conflicted when i do.

so what do I think??

I'm convinced there was a moral cause for war, I'm also convinced that the case made wasn't the case i would have made.

Its interesting to look at where individuals get their morality from, when i look at mine i see a worrying influence from the comic books i read in the early 90's, most profoundly seen in the Stan Lee maxim "with great power comes great responsibility."

Fact is Saddam Hussein was a total fucktard who had no problem killing his citizens, and those of other countries, often in particularly brutal ways. Shouldn't we in the wealthy (relatively) free, (relatively) democratic first world bear some responsibility for dragging men like this into the street and dealing with them.

I know this statement begs the question where do you stop, statements about people in glass houses and accusations of cultural imperialism, but lets just imagine we lived in 1984, the world of V for Vendetta, Zimbabwe or North Korea. Wouldnt we want our fellow man to help us throw of the yoke?

I'm painfully aware that solutions like these rarely solve anything (despite what Robert Heinlein told us) but dammit i'd feel much better if the SAS went in and literally gutted the ruling classes of most of the middle east, North Korea, Burma. Clearly it would all go wrong, but god dammit our intentions would be noble!

I always thought the BNP were total idiots. The leaflet i got through the post this morning proves it.

Either they don't understand or they don't care about the difference between asylum and immigration

either they don't understand or don't care that DNA evidence is fallible, and that capital punishment necessarily means killing innocents.

either they dont undertand or they dont care that criminalising drugs its what causes drug crime, not the drugs themselves.

either they dont understand or they dont care that tarrifs on trade are entirely counterproductive and ILLEGAL

either they dont understand or they dont care that people dont really want to see the homeless dying on the streets and being left there to rot. Literally. Either they dont understand or they dont care that it take 7 years to train a doctor.

Either they dont understand or they dont care that using the army as a police force is inherantly a bad idea.

Either they dont understand or they dont care that the foreign aid budget and the human rights act are THE crowning achievements of the late 20th century for british politics.

Either they don't understand or they don't care that leaving the EU will be at least as hard as getting in was and would almost certainly be a one way trip.

Either they dont understand or they dont care that the solution to the housing crisis is to BUILD MORE HOUSES, not to throw people out of the houses they have.

Idiots, lets all point, laugh and feel sorry for them.