Updates: Piglets, torture and stuff

Muttawa gives us the good news that Dudley Council has realised they got carried away when they banned Piglet et al, a follow up from my opinions here on the ban itself and here on the right to cause offense.

Meanwhile, in a related story to Paul's observations on torture, Craig Murray points out further evidence that the British Government is quite happy to torture people itself. There's plenty doing the rounds about why torture just doesn't work, so no need to repeat myself here.

In not-blog-related but possibly useful info for any readers we've thus far picked up, I'm typing this on a brand new PC, the old one was on its last legs and crashed on me once too often last week. There are some articles pending, apologies for the delays, I really want to address the future of the Tory party and a needed realignment, and the English question really does need to be addressed somewhere outside of the comments sections. However, as I'm also no longer single, life is getting in the way on a few fronts. I'll get them done, I've got a folder full of links on the Tory article.

Nielsen on Blogging

When I was first introduced to the web, and almost immediately afterwards to web design, a friend pointed me in the direction of Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox. As one of the founders of the web usability movement, it's a site I return to again and again, as although I'm an amateur at design, it's great to look a a supposed 'professional' site and spot basic, glaring errors.

Today, he gives us in the 'blogosphere' a gem, Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes. I've scanned it, I agree with what I've read. Completely off topic for this blog, but just generally worth linking to so go have a look...

Which thousand years, exactly?

I am reminded by my friend Mark, from Alderney, that today is the anniversary of his bit of the worlds invasion of our bit of the world, the Battle of Hastings. This brings to mind a little phrase that always seems to crop up when matter European are discussed, that wonderful old phrase about a thousand years of history. An example, from UKIP, here:

...the Prime Minister is signing away nothing less than Britain’s right to self-government. A thousand years of history goes down the drain...

The historian in me is always bothered by this terminology. What thousand years are you referring to, exactly? While you're at it, can you explain how this:

Duke William of Normandy left St.Valery
in Normandy with about 600 ships and 10 to 12,000 men Sept 27th in 1066.

is an invasion whereas this:

It took an immense foreign armada of possibly 600 vessels carrying perhaps 15,000 Dutch and German troops

(Schama, op cit, p.312)
was an entirely internal revolution? Why are reputable websites still perpetuating this "thousand years" myth?

I grew up just outside Brixham, I know how pivotal William III's invasion of this great nation was to the foundation of the Union. Why do we still stick our heads in the sand and proclaim it an entirely internal affair?

Backlinking as promised

NM doesn't like me, or something. Me, cheeky? Never. Oh, wait...

I've also had links from strangelyrouge and the dairy product.

Been a bit of a hectic week, but the weekend is fairly clear, and I've promised at least two proper responses to comments, so stay tuned for "Why an English Parliament is a bad idea" and "What to do with the Tories". Honest, they'll happen. No idea if Paul's got anything planned...

Backlinks: link here!

Blogger has it seems over the weekend given us an easier to use, slightly less effective although much harder to spam competitor to trackbacks. Last week, I spent a bit of tie researching if it was possible to run trackbacks on blogger without using haloscan, which I really dislike. After our favourite dairy product switched to Haloscan in order to run trackbacks over the weekend, I was almost tempted. Then I sw the option to enable them while tweaking something else, and after the WTF reaction, started looking into things.

So, an experiment to see how good they are; link to this post, and if you're on blogger set up backlinks of your own; it's already enabled in my template, (I turned it on and it was there, yay!) so it may already appear for you, unless you're Nosemonkey, who will probably have to recode the site from scratch again...

Tomorrow night, I'll look at the backlinks, add them to a new post, and we'll see how they go; deal? Go on. Not just whoring for links to the new blog,honest guv'nor!

[Edit: Nosemonkey just called me a cheeky bastard, but he did link to this post, so we'll see if it works- Mat-14/10/05]

News from Elsewhere: DK is away

Devil's Kitchen informs us he's off to foreign climes, but has asked Tiny Judas to stand in. Who? I hear you ask. Well, precisely, so I went and had a look. Apart from the occasional frequent missing capitalisation, very impressive. Especially this on Godwin's law

Here is the crux. By Fetishizing Hitler and Nazism. By setting it to one side, as evil like no other, we devoid ourselves of responsibility for it. It was just a period in which Hell reigned on earth and there's not a lot anyone could have done about that, apart from be thankful that its over. By imagining that it is something that happened once, we soothe ourselves to the potential for cruelty we carry. We deny the possibility of it happening again.

and this and this on NuLab's continuing attacks on our liberties.

Blair's rhetoric is fucking bollocks. justice is not dickensian (its much older than that). and if all the above is Tony's vision of contemporary justice, then he's been getting a hard on from one too many judge dredd comics.

Good to know a more favoured blog from the sensible Right is in good hands, enjoy the break DK.

Meanwhile, in response to this discussion on here about the ECHR, Ken at EU Realist gives us this breakdown of the important differences between the Council of Europe (which was set up in 1949 and virtually all countries in the continent of Europe including Turkey are members of) and the European Union (which has grown out of the European Coal and Steel community established by 6 members of the Council who wanted something more). While I disagree with some of his conclusions (we're sort of in favour of remaining within a reformed EU in these parts) it isa pretty good summary of why the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice should not be confused, being,a s they are, the judiciaries of two, entirely separate, organisations.

The Council of Europe is the continent's oldest political organisation, founded in London 1949. the first major convention was drawn up: the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Rome on 4 November 1950 and coming into force on 3 September 1953.
Shortly after the accession of the Federal Republic of Germany, Robert Schuman, French Foreign Minister approached all the Council of Europe countries with a proposal for a European Coal and Steel Community, to be provided with very different political and budgetary means.
The six countries most attached to the ideal of integration - Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany - joined, and on 9 May 1951 signed the very first Community treaty. Strengthened by the experience and commitment which had brought the "Greater Europe" into existence, the "Smaller Europe" was now making its own "leap into the unknown" of European construction

(my emphasis; regardless of what you think about the EU, we should be damned proud of our acheivements in WWII and the subsequent creation of the Council). Thanks Ken.

Elsewhere, Dead Men Left and everyone's favourite dairy product are slamming Blunkett for his latest misstatement of the facts and, well, him in general really. Can't say I blame them. Or disagree, for that matter.

In the meantime, I'm planning a long response to Gary's comments here in my post about the necessary break up of the Tory party. But, well, I'm a bit busy, and I want it to be a good one. In the meantime, definately appreciate the comments over the last few days, feedback makes it all seem worthwhile, and we wouldn't be doing this if we didn't like to argue with people.

Quick one in the Torygraph

Go here and read this. A Tory blogger quotes an article in the Telegraph and I agree with every single word? What is wrong with the world when Blunkett and Clarke want to lock the world up and Tories are making perfect sense? I despair of the supposed 'left' of this country, half of it still thinks Blair/Brown is a good thing.

Freedom breakthrough: the nannies drop a plan

Nosemonkey brings us the news that they've figured out telling us how to live is difficult. I hate smoking, filthy habit. But many of my friends do, and given my lack of sense of smell, it's never bothered me. My favourite Paignton cafe is a smoking cafe, they do such a great omelette I don't care. The only reason I could see for the ban was staff health and safety, but that can be worked around, and it's already banned at the bar itself. Simple solution to the govt: make pubs, etc. put up a sign and in their ads saying how much smoking is allowed, and let individuals make the choice? Market forces will decide, and then there can and will always be a few pubs for the unhealthy reprobates and their tolerent friends.

[Edit: a friend took a completely opposed view on his livejournal, and we had a debate, made me think through a few of the issues a little more than I had; non-smoking areas are essential for some, and unenforced n-sm policies are downright dangerous. Perhaps this is an area where the market does need a little more assistance?]

On piglets, freedoms and flying the flag.

Apparently, the English flag is racist. In fact, if you see one flying somewhere, you should report it as intimidating. So, because small minded racist thugs like a symbol, that means the symbol itself becomes a problem? Should I stop buying red roses because the nanny staters use them as a symbol? I don't often agree with the England Project (let's face it, they want to destroy the Union), but on this one I agree completely; the English and British flags are thigs we should be proud of. Reclaim it so we can be.

Mark Steyn wrote an article on the Piglet ban in The Telegraph, and, unsurprisingly, misses the point completely. Firstly, he blames the 'liberals' for bending over, when any true liberal knows this sort of ban to be completely illiberal (oh, Tory run council that did it by the way, the sort of people the Telegraph normally likes). Oh well. It's idiotic nanny staters that want to protect us from being offended Mark, not liberals. Still, he ends well..

But at some point Britons have to ask themselves - while they're still permitted to discuss the question more or less freely - how much of their country they're willing to lose. The Hundred-Acre Wood is not the terrain on which one would choose to make one's stand, but from here on in it is only going to become more difficult.

Other blogs out there have been covering this, but they're all blaming the Muslims. I'm not, I'm blaming the idiots who decided to go overboard and ban everything...

Oh, The Independent had some good coverage. on HMG's non-complaince with our international obligations as members of the Council of Europe, an organisation with a proud history we helped found. shame they still want you to pay for access to their archives.

The Tory leadership; time for a new Gang of Four?

Well, the Tory leadership contest is once again making the news, and we might get an idea about who is in charge at some point before Christmas. Musings from Middle England has aan amusing round up here. The scary thing for me is that I grew up under Thatcher, and I had no doubt whatsoever by the time I was old enough to vote that the Tories were the enemy and must be defeated. It wasn't, really, the economic policies that bothered me about them, it was the illiberal lock them up, hand 'em and flog 'em approach they took to all crime, criminals, people with long hair, young people who like to party, etc.

I knew we had to get them out of office, as did every other liberal, socialist and fed up middle grounder in the country. We all voted (in many cases tactically), for the candidate best placed to defeat the local Tory, and get them out of office we did. I was up for Portillo, and I did cheer when Twigg stood there with that little grin. Only now, when I see it repeated, I just see the grin of a smug New Labour git. They're not just the new Tories. They're worse.

I'm a soft LibDem supporter by inclination, they're the only viable party that pretty much across the board supports the ideals of individual freedoms that I most value. So why is it when I read the platforms of half the Tory leadership candidates I agree with them? Why is it I find it very hard to disagree with any of the recent entries on Boris's blog? Dead Men Left is running a series of articles on the 'danger' of a LibDem vote, but, to be 100% honest, this lefty would rather a Tory in office than Charles Clarke. As long as that Tory isn't Howard, Davis or Fox.

Then someone like Howard or Davis stands up, or Fox is quoted somewhere, or I look at the Cornerstones website. And I'm torn, they're everything I grew up despising in politics. Fox, it appears, has no chance. That's probably a good thing. Davis is supposedly the front runner, with Cameron having the support of Boris and Duncan. Duncan would've been my preferred choice overall, he is, essentially, an Orange Book LibDem who joined the wrong party. And so we come to the point.

Do we want a strong, rejuvenated Tory party led by someone like Clarke, that is able to challenge Labour and get the Nanny Staters out of office? Even if it means having authoritarian Island Staters in the Cabinet again, possibly in charge of the Home Office, and running the "anti-terror" state take over in pretty much the same way?

Or do we want someone like Davis or Fox to win, the 21st Century equivalents of Michael Foot for the "modern Conservatives"? Because, let us face it, they're not going to win. They're never going to win. But they're popular with the membership rump that's still there.

Let them win. Let the Tory party write its own Suicide Note. But let the sensible half of the party split off to form a new party, a party able to form an alliance with the economically slightly left but otherwise freedom loving LibDems. The present day Conservative and Unionist party was formed by a merger with many who left the old Liberal party when it fragmented in the first half of the 20th Century. That broad church alliance has had its day. Let the liberal wing of the Tories once again split off. They lack a name? In the run up to the celebrations of the Act of Union 1707, given that the Scottish wing is already semi-detached and stressing its Unionist credentials, why not call themselves the Unionist party?

Requiem for Harry

I'm not particularly a fan, and I've frequently disagreed with him, but at the very essence, he's right about blogging, and he's right about democracy; his quote from John Lloyd about reason replacing dogma is something I definately relate to, although in my case it was a drift towards support of markets and an acceptance of the monarchy; not sure he'd like that, but well. Harry steps down from running his place. The site remains, and I'll still go read it every so often.

The liberating element of blogging lays precisely in the fact that we are able to create our own platforms or spaces to challenge the views of that small group of people who are fortunate enough to be given column inches. Some of the opinion makers have responded well to this challenge, choosing to engage with people who are, after all, nothing more or less than their interested readers while others have been less enthusiastic, even hostile, about the fact that people are actually taking up their arguments – they should get used to it because, while individual bloggers like myself may come and go, this medium isn’t going to disappear nor are readers going to return to being passive consumers of other people's views.

Let's face it, how can you dislike a blog that has that quote as its strapline?
"Liberty, if it means anything at all, is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear"
-Good luck Harry

News from elsewhere -good deed needed

The Chicken Yoghurt asks for assitance for a Guantanamo detainee, he grew up in Britain and got his law degree here, why is he rotting in Cuba?

Tim Worstall has provided us with his weekly BritBlog round up, and there are a few gems worth highlighting directly. The Liberator describes Blackpool as "a Chav Beirut" and also quotes my MP's description of the place. OK, small bias, Torquay is a rival to Blackpool in the tourist industry, but from thet description, Torbay wins hands down. The Campaign for an English Parliament (as in those misguided reformers I'm directly opposed to) also give us an English blog round up.

However, the pick of the week is definately Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads giving us a summary of the Labour eviction and the worrying implications for freedom of speech:

The bottom line is that apologies have been made, so it's all over and it shouldn't worry your little heads that an anti-terror Act was used to stifle legitimate debate.

He then goes on to highlight many of my concerns over the end result of limiting freedom of speech:

This attempt to stifle and shut down debate under cover of zero-tolerance of terrorism enrages animal rights activists. Some who feel they have little choice take that Big Step Beyond Reason, and the next thing you know grandma's bones are kidnapped and hidden in a shed in Burton-Upon-Trent.

Repeat message: Continuing to deny reality actually makes the problem worse.

Freedom of speech must be an absolute.
Oh; read on till the end, I love the Santa Claus thing, wonder if we can get it into a t-shirt?

The right to cause offense

The Religious Policeman gives us this story in the Sun (of all places to link to, I like his description of it though) about a ban on pig related imagery in a council workplace, "in case it might offend". Why? A muslim council worker objected to being given a pig-shaped stress releiver in the run up to Ramadan.

There's a huge difference between objecting to being given a gift and objecting to the interests and preferences of others. I object to being given Nestlé products by those who know of my longstanding boycot, I object to being given meat by anyone if they don't first check my dieatary requirements. I don't object to others eating things I dislike, but I reserve the right to persuade them of my position.

I do not understand why people do this sort of thing and submit to or issue blanket bans. I do not have the right to not be offended. Britain is a country that prides itself on its longstanding tradition of tolerance, respect and understanding. We respect and tolerate the beliefs of others, and fight to uphold their rights to believe and explain them. But we do not allow ourselves to be dictated to, and we should not seek to avoid causing offense to those who take themselves too seriously. Winnie the Pooh and Piglet are British institutions (ignoring the Disney sell out thing) and to ban them because of a complaint about something else entirely?

It was insensitive and insulting to issue a stress reliever to personell that would offend some of them based on their religious beliefs. It is even more insulting to issue a blanket ban on innoffensive childrens characters being displayed at all.