Melanie Phillips - Sense At Last?

Interesting words from Melanie Phillips on her rage filled blog:

Unfortunately, the moral confusion of our age means that absolute moral values have widely given way to utilitarian and consequentialist thinking, which means in essence that bad means are justified by good ends. That is ultimately the way to tyranny and mass murder.

Quite an astonishing revelation coming from Ms Phillips. In her mind, the invasion of Iraq was an example of bad means justified by a 'good end'. Furthermore, an proposed assault on Iran by Israel would similarly be characterised in this way by Ms Phillips. Is she therefore suggesting that the assault on Iraq, and the proposed assault on Iran, is pointing the way to 'tyranny and mass murder'? Maybe she's not a bad old stick after all.

Stop the Black Man

Melanie Phillips is at it again. This one is truly vile. So vile, I almost vomited all over my computer. Here's the opening to her sickening rant against Barack Obama (someone who isn't exactly in tune with my political beliefs):

Barack Obama belongs to the Trinity United Church in Chicago whose pastor is Rev Dr Jeremiah A Wright Jnr. Here is the church’s website. From it you will see that the church is committed to what looks suspiciously like black supremacism. Dr Wright promotes ‘black power’ and ‘black liberation theology’, under which adherents must have.......

That's about as much as I can take at the moment. If you have a strong stomach, feel free to read the rest. And if you are so inclined, post a comment expressing your utter disgust with this vile woman (whilst also considering the reaction if a similar article was written about a Jew, rather than a black man).

Meanwhile, in La La Land.....

According to Melanie Phillips, the NIE report is part of some wide ranging conspiracy theory taking in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the United States. Here's a little taster:

On this blog on December 5, I floated the theory that the US had done a deal with both Iran and Saudi Arabia to produce calm in Iraq in return for a promise not to bomb Iran and to serve Israel to them on a plate. Now Debkafile -- whose bulletins, based on intelligence sources, are not reliable but often contain more than a germ of truth -- is reporting a grander version of the same theory. It claims that a Washington-Tehran understanding is in the making, brokered by Saudi Arabia.

[extract]

True? It sounds horribly as if it may be. And there is another dimension to all this. The picture above says it all. Saudi Arabia, which is aghast at Iranian power, appears to have reached the same conclusion about the US -- that it has now totally lost its bottle. Saudi can no longer rely on the US to do what Saudi wanted it to do -- to destroy the Iranian regime. So it has now given up on the US and is doing the next best thing: cosying up to Iran itself. If you can't beat them, make deals with them seems to be its motto.

Hilarious. Isn't it time a tin hat was added to Melanie's picture?

In all seriousness, John Pilger made an excellent point when I witnessed one of his recent talks. It is far easier, and takes less time, to expose the lies of the Daily Mail, The Sun etc than it is to go for the big guns like the BBC, The Guardian etc. The former are no real challenge in terms of identifying the weaknesses in their arguments and exposing them. The latter, on the other hand, buries its establishment bias much further beneath the surface. On this evidence, it really is too easy to expose Phillips' piece as utter fantasy. There's no challenge here. The kind of people who believe this believe there is some vast Jewish conspiracy controlling the world, or that 9/11 was a plot cooked up by the government and there is a secret hanger where all of those who were 'on the planes' are being hidden. Utter lunacy.

Chemical Weapons Used in West Bank

Here's a story you won't find on Melanie Phillips' hate-filled blog over at The Spectator (from The Guardian's letters page):

Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor (Response, November 30) denies Israel used chemical weapons in Gaza. Claims and counterclaims about the use of such weapons have a long history and are often hard to verify. Mr Prosor's denial must be judged against the reports by health workers in Gaza of injured Palestinians suffering from "severe convulsions, muscle spasms, vomiting, amnesia or partial memory loss" after exposure to Israeli gas attacks (multiple references available). Last year the IDF fired powerful gases at a peaceful joint Palestinian and Israeli demonstration against the wall being driven through B'lin, a village in the occupied West Bank. My colleagues and I were able to obtain a sample of the munition. It contained a powerful irritant derived from capsaicin (the analysis was published in the international peer-reviewed journal Medicine, Conflict and Survival in October last year).

Claims that the IDF used white phosphorus in the Lebanon war last year were initially denied. They were finally admitted by the Israeli minister Jacob Edery in October 2006. White phosphorus causes intense burns and generates choking fumes. I suspect the Israeli government is basing its denials on a technical quibble about whether the chemicals concerned are explicitly banned in international law - to which, anyhow, it is not a signatory.

Professor Steven Rose
London

All part of the policy of ethnic cleansing that appears to be supported by Ms Phillips and co.

Phillips - Australians Are A Bunch Of Cowardly Fuckwits. Now Take Me Roughly Howard You Dirty Boy

So, John Howard gets the kicking he deserves and how does the reactionary right respond?? In typical fashion of course:

Now he is gone, knocked out by a man who copied to the letter the trick pulled by Tony Blair in persuading blue-collar workers who had previously abandoned Labour for the Liberals (the equivalent of the British Conservative party) that it was safe to return to Labour because he was a Howard wannabe in contrast to his rabble of a party. But just as with Blair, no-one really knows what Kevin Rudd actually stands for — and whether he will now move back towards the left. Whatever now happens, the fact that he ran on a platform of pulling troops out of Iraq and endorsing the ludicrous scam of man-made global warming are enough in themselves to tell the jihadis that Australia has now lost its (one-man) nerve. Australia just made itself (and the rest of us) a whole lot less safe.

Mmm, as last seen after the Spanish election. Good work Melanie. Why is it that as soon as an election result goes against them, they suggest that the people have put themselves at greater risk?? It's like a less subtle version of the games played by Blair and Bush in their prime. Looks like Phillips is as big an enemy of democracy as the so-called Islamists.

Oh, I wrote a comment at the end of Phillips' despicable rant, wonder if it gets posted??

Melanie Has Moved....

No, sadly she hasn't left the country. She has now moved her blog to The Spectator. Of course, she claims that her 'independence' will not be compromised by this move (mmmm). But the truly wonderful thing is........she now has comments. So you can rip apart her straw man arguments in public.....SUPERB!!

Israeli Soldiers Beat Women and Children

A shocking story from today's Observer about conditions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. A study by a leading Israeli psychologist has found tales of immense brutality on the Palestinians. The study by Nufar Yishai-Karin was based around interviews with 21 Israeli soldiers in which they confessed to frequent, brutal assaults. According to one soldier:

'We were in a weapons carrier when this guy, around 25, passed by in the street and, just like that, for no reason - he didn't throw a stone, did nothing - bang, a bullet in the stomach, he shot him in the stomach and the guy is dying on the pavement and we keep going, apathetic. No one gave him a second look.'

Women weren't spared from this horrific treatment:

'With women I have no problem. With women, one threw a clog at me and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw clogs at me. When one of them [a woman] spat at me, I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't have what to spit with any more.'

Even children are subjected to horrendous abuses:

'After two months in Rafah, a [new] commanding officer arrived... So we do a first patrol with him. It's 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He [the officer] suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He was from the combat engineers.

'He grabbed the boy. I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left. We are all there, jaws dropping, looking at him in shock...

'The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing.'

The revelations have provoked a massive debate within Israeli society about the legitimacy of the actions of the IDF. Israeli society is seriously beginning to question some of the abuses that are conducted in their name. This recent shift in attitudes has been reflected in a massive rise in conscientious objection, as well as widespread draft-dodging. As the Telegraph reported earlier in the year, the figures for draft-dodging in 2006 were the highest in Israeli history. Twenty-five percent of Israelis avoided their military service as a result of growing disquiet about the activities of the Israeli Defence Force.

And yet, the blood thirsty drum beaters still play the same tune. Witness Melanie Phillips' recent defence of the state that can do no wrong:

‘Every time I visit, the situation seems to have worsened,’ he [John Dugard, the UN human rights envoy for the Palestinian Territories] said in a BBC interview. This time, I was very struck by the sense of hopelessness among the Palestinian people.’ Mr Dugard attributed this to ‘the crushing effect of human rights violations’, and in particular Israeli restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement.

Yes, the Palestinians’ situation has worsened. This is principally the result of two things. a) The regime of terror instituted by the Hamas administration for which the Palestinians so unwisely voted and which is progressively making their lives a misery; and b) the restrictions imposed by the Israelis to counter the rockets which the Palestinians are lobbing at Israeli towns from Gaza, and the human bomb attacks they are ceaselessly attempting to perpetrate against Israelis. Strangely, Dugard makes no mention of either.

He said that although Israel did have a threat to its security, ‘its response is very disproportionate’.

Let’s see now: checkpoints to stop its citizens from being murdered? Very disproportionate. Targeted assassinations, to kill terror godfathers while sparing innocent Palestinians as far as possible? Very disproportionate. Sitting on Israeli hands while rockets fired from Gaza slam into southern Israeli towns? Very disproportionate.

Her willful denial of the very facts provided above show just how out of touch with reality she really is. The IDF is guilty of considerable human rights violations. It's treatment of innocent civilians is an utter disgrace. Disproportionate?? I would argue that that would put it very mildly indeed. These offences are off the scale. Beating women and children and failing to differentiate between genuine threats and innocent civilians, is systematic of a brutal, abusive regime. That the Israeli people are realising this is a very welcome development indeed.

Melanie Phillips - She Really Hates Muslims. Oh Yeah, and She is Fucking INSANE!!!

Another classic from the paranoid mind of Melanie Phillips:

The Sunday Times reports:

Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs…It will intensify the debate sparked last week by the disclosure that Sainsbury’s is permitting Muslim checkout operators to refuse to handle customers’ alcohol purchases on religious grounds. It means other members of staff have to be called over to scan in wine and beer for them at the till. Critics, including many Islamic scholars, see the concessions as a step too far, and say Muslims are reneging on their professional responsibilities.

Of course that’s right. These are not religious beliefs but political acts of provocation and further attempts to Islamise Britain. Many British Muslims will agree that the medical students’ claim is preposterous. There is only one correct response to such behaviour — to dismiss such students from the courses and sack such check-out operators from their jobs. The message should be clear and unequivocal —British culture will not submit to the attempt to cow, suborn and fragment it. Anything less uncompromising is cultural suicide —the path down which we are currently heading.

And there we have the proof (if it were needed). Melanie Phillips is despicable racist scum. Why? Well, I know for a fact that other religious groups are allowed to refuse service on religious grounds. For example, Catholic pharmacists are within their rights to refuse to sell the morning after pill as it violates their beliefs. Instead, they are to refer them to an alternative source of said medication. So, according to Melanie 'clinically sane, but oh so slightly mental' Phillips, Muslims are to be condemned for observing their religious beliefs, but Catholics are not. And yet, isn't medication slightly more important than booze???? Not in the fucked-up mind of Britain's leading racist it isn't. I look forward to this imbecile writing a similar attack on Catholics for 'fragmenting' our society. At this rate I fully expect to be greeted with a Nazi salute when I next click on her page.

Andrew Roberts - A Despicable Stain On The Reputation of A Worthy Discipline

On the subject of mad as a box of frogs right-wingers, here's the latest delight from Andrew 'if only it was 1930s Germany' Roberts in today's special piece in The Observer on democracy:

Are dictators ever good?

Very, very rarely, but occasionally. They can be useful in civil wars or near-insurrection, such as in Spain in the Thirties and Chile in the Seventies, to prevent takeovers by Marxist-inspired movements that would deny democracy in the future, since both Generals Franco and Pinochet eventually handed over to a democratic system in a way that until the late 1980s Communists never did. Dictators almost always carry on in office well after the initial need for them has gone, however, and their record on human rights is generally terrible. Presently, President Musharraf of Pakistan is the personification of a 'good' dictator, protecting his country from Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, but he needs to spot the right moment to leave, and the right person to whom to hand over power.

Yes, good old Franco and Pinochet.....they were quite benevolent really, weren't they? As for Musharraf, nice to see Roberts adopting my preferred terminology for him (although the irony appears to be missing), I'm sure those that have been victim to the MQM might think differently though (not to mention his assault on Geo TV).

Not to be outdone, professional shit blogger (Guido Fawkes) adds his weight to the proceedings:

Are women more democratic?

Not in our house.

Andrew Roberts, Melanie Phillips and Guido Fawkes in one day?? Hand me the pills.

Melanie Phillips - Grasp On Reality Continues to Spiral Out of Control

Another classic moment from the Madness of Queen Mel:

Next, there was no ‘massive loss of civilian life’ — quite the contrary. As far as I know, some 1200 people in Lebanon died during the war. Although it is not known how many of them were Hezbollah soldiers since they disguised themselves as civilians, according to the Israelis 500-600 of these fatalities were actually Hezbollah fighters. Only relatively small areas of Beirut were bombed. Given the scale of the bombardment of Israel from Lebanon, with more rockets fired at it in some four weeks than during the Blitz on London during World War Two, the relative restraint and carefully limited nature of the Israeli response (which certainly had many faults) would never have been shown in similar circumstances by any other country. But the British media nevertheless viciously misrepresented the whole thing, inducing a national hysteria and madness — which was what drove Tony Blair from office earlier than he had intended. It was one of the most disgraceful episodes in contemporary British history. Patently false Hezbollah propaganda claims were uncritically regurgitated by the British media as fact, which I commented upon here.

She also quotes an Israeli army captain (entirely impartial of course):

This was perhaps both the most cynical and barbaric disregard for innocent civilian lives of all of Hezballah’s and Iran’s strategic choices. It was also the most successful. It was predicated not on its knowledge of its enemy (Israel) but its true genius lay in its knowledge of the press. The calculus was simple: launch a rocket from within a civilian population; if you kill Jews that’s a victory. If the Jews hit back and in so doing kill Lebanese civilians, that’s a victory. If they don’t hit back because they’re afraid to hit civilians, that’s a victory. Now repeat the process until you kill so many Jews they have to hit back and in so doing kill more Lebanese civilians. That’s the ultimate victory, because they know that in striking just those chords exactly what music the press will play. The awful truth, which the western press was manipulated to ignore or downplay, was that Iran, through its terrorist operational arm Hezballah, had invaded Lebanon from within. Hezballah did not protect Lebanon, they occupied it and they used those Hezballah occupied territories to launch Iran’s offensive in response to the West’s ultimatum to cease development of nuclear weapons.

Of course, this has proved to be an utter fallacy but that will not stop Mad Mel from perpetuating lies to further her own warped, hateful agenda. An independent report by Human Rights Watch has already exposed the truth behind the allegations of fighting from within civilian populations. As my earlier post reported:

Israel was accused yesterday of firing indiscriminately during last year's 34-day war in Lebanon in a report by Human Rights Watch which challenged Israel's claim that the high number of civilian casualties resulted from Hizbullah shielding itself among the Lebanese population.

In a 249-page investigation, the New York-based group said its research showed that even though the militants were also guilty of serious violations of the laws of war, there was no evidence that they systematically fought from among civilians.

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, dismissed Israel's claim to have killed 600 Hizbullah fighters. He said the best estimate was that there were 250 Hizbullah fighters among the 1,109 Lebanese deaths. About 160 Israeli civilians and soldiers were killed.
See? Bullshit.

Of course, loonies like Mad Mel would claim that Human Rights Watch is full of soft lefties who are hardly impartial. If that is indeed the case, perhaps Mad Mel could shed some light on why she is so keen to utilise HRW reports when they back-up her world-view, yet dismiss them when they challenge her. Look forward to hearing from you Mel (ps a post on Burma might be nice - wouldn't want people to think you support the military junta).

Melanie Phillips Says - Screw Gays, Environmentalists, Casual Drug Users and the Young

When David Cameron first started to reposition the Tories as the party of spliff-friendly hoodie huggers whose hearts bled green and gay.....

Wow, quite an opening to the first column since the beginning of August. I think all that was left out were spastics, immigrants and benefits scroungers. And so, that beloved voice of reason, Melanie Phillips, returns from her summer hiatus. May I be the first to welcome her back. Melanie, you have been much missed (well, as much as genital warts anyway).

Mark Malloch Brown - The Colombian Connection

With the arrival of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, there was much talk about the appointments he made and whether they indicated shift from the his neo-conservative predecessor. As usual, much nonsense was spun out that this government was going to be different, this government was going to be a government of 'all the talents' a more representative style of government. While there has been a slight shift in the choice of language (no more 'war on terror' thankfully), upon examining the detail, the truth is very much different.

Melanie Phillips, the representative of the far-right, has been quick to present the appointment of Mark Malloch Brown as causing 'dismay in Washington DC'. She also claims that he played a vital role in the oil-for-food scandal, the removal of Wolfowitz and portrays him as an opponent of the Iraq war. The combination of these factors allow Phillips to portray Malloch Brown as anti-American, corrupt and disreputable. This, of course, would lead to some on the right to suspect that Malloch Brown is therefore closely associated with the left. However, there is more to Malloch Brown than Phillips would have you believe, and it certainly seems unlikely that the US is really concerned about his appointment.

During the late 1980s, Malloch Brown was on the payroll of Washington's Sawyer Miller political consultancy group. The Sawyer Miller group were actively involved in the political situation in Colombia during the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s. Their role? They were instructed to present the Colombian government in a positive light. Central to this was addressing the concerns that the government was linked to paramilitaries. The director of Sawyer Miller declared that:

"the main mission is to educate the American media about Colombia, get good coverage, and nurture contacts with journalists, columnists, and think tanks. The message is that there are ‘bad’ and ‘good’ people in Colombia and that the government is the good guy."

Their appointment was made when the Colombian government was at its lowest standing with the American people. Opinion polls at the end of the 1980s found that 76% of all Americans thought Colombia was corrupt and further 80% wanted sanctions imposed. Sawyer Miller (and Malloch Brown) were given the task of presenting the Colombian government in a more positive light. They certainly seemed to profit from their task. The group earned nearly a million dollars in fees and expenses in the first half of 1991 alone.

The main role of the group, who had signed up former Reagan administration Ed Rollins and PR star John Scanlon on as partners, was to pressure journalists into spinning for the government. They distributed pamphlets, sent letters to editors signed by government officials and placed full-page advertisements in The New York Times and The Washington Post. All American journalists were required to go through Sawyer Miller before they could interview government officials. According to one reporter, Sawyer Miller declined a request for an interview with President Gaviria because the network also wanted to interview former U.S. drug czar Bob Martinez, who had criticized the Colombian government. The reporter claimed:

"Sawyer/Miller did not want to give the perception that the Colombian government and the U.S. had differences."

Producers even claimed that Sawyer Miller tried to change the content of the programme.

Sawyer Miller also attempted to pressurise editors who were unsympathetic to Colombia's ties with drug barons. Sawyer Miller reuqested a meeting with the editor of the Miami Herald when it described the Colombian government as a 'weakling'. According to the editor:

"They were sharp and even followed up the meeting with a couple of phone calls. Yes, we did tone down our criticisms, but it was mainly because the president explained that he was following public opinion in Colombia."

Sawyer Miller has also played a key role in skewing the 'war on terror' in Colombia. As a result of PR activities conducted by the group, FARC is considered the 'most dangerous international terrorist group based in the Western Hemisphere'. However, this is mainly due to the work of Sawyer Miller and the Colombian military who, according to the US ambassador to Colombia in 1996, 'considered it a way to obtain U.S. assistance in the counterinsurgency'. And this assistance has continued to this very day. Colombia continues to be on of the largest recipients of American military aid in the world.

Colombia's links to narcotics and right-wing paramilitaries are well documented (click on the Colombia label below), Sawyer Miller's role was to cover this up and present Colombia as a country free from corruption. Sawyer Miller helped to convince the American public that Colombia wasn't the corrupt country that they had been led to believe, and that there were no such links to narcotics. The recent revelations over Uribe's administration have given lie to that and yet, such was the effectiveness of this PR campaign, Uribe maintains a level of popularity far in excess of most corrupt administrations. The fact that Malloch Brown played such a key role in producing propaganda for the Colombian government, much to the delight of Washington, truly gives lie to the claim that Gordon Brown has shifted the government to a more humane position in global politics. There are still those at the heart of government that are eager to do the bidding of the United States around the world. Melanie Phillips can sleep easy.

Is the BBC Really The Propaganda Arm of Hamas?

It is if you believe what Melanie Phillips has to say in The Spectator:

Since [Alan] Johnston’s release, the BBC seems to have turned itself into a vehicle for Hamas propaganda. Alastair Crooke has been given airtime granted to no other lobbyist, in interviews and one-off programmes giving him unprecedented opportunity to push his views.

Now that same BBC, along with a shadowy intelligence establishment and panicky politicians, is promoting ‘engagement’ with Hamas. But this is a terrorist outfit committed to the destruction of Israel and the Islamisation of the West. The Johnston kidnap represents a turning point in the war to defend the free world. It is not a turn in the direction of victory.

What is most interesting is the timing of this article by Phillips. A recent article by John Pilger in the New Statesman (redeeming itself slightly after the debacle that was the Chavez article), seems to undermine this rather dubious argument put forward by the rights arch-conspiracist. Pilger writes:

One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video [see clip at end of post]shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the ground. An ambulance trying to reach him was also attacked. The Israelis described him as a "legitimate target". The International Federation of Journalists called the shooting "a vicious and brutal example of deliberate targeting of a journalist". At the age of 21, he has had both legs amputated.

Dr David Halpin, a British trauma surgeon who works with Palestinian children, emailed the BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen. "The BBC should report the alleged details about the shooting," he wrote. "It should honour Alan [Johnston] as a journalist by reporting the facts, uncomfortable as they might be to Israel."

He received no reply.

The atrocity was reported in two sentences on the BBC online. Along with 11 Palestinian civilians killed by the Israelis on the same day, Alan Johnston's now legless champion slipped into what George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four called the memory hole. (It was Winston Smith's job at the Ministry of Truth to make disappear all facts embarrassing to Big Brother.) While Alan Johnston was being held, I was asked by the BBC World Service if I would say a few words of support for him. I readily agreed, and suggested I also mention the thousands of Palestinians abducted and held hostage. The answer was a polite no; and all the other hostages remained in the memory hole. Or, as Harold Pinter wrote of such unmentionables: "It never happened. Nothing ever happened . . . It didn't matter. It was of no interest."

Doesn't seem like the BBC are that bothered about acting as the propaganda arm of Hamas, does it? If they were, why would Jeremy Bowen ignore calls to report this story? Why would BBC online devote only two sentences to a story about a journalist being shot by the Israeli military? Why would BBC World Service refuse to allow Pilger to speak out against the treatment of Palestinian prisoners?? If the BBC was working on PR for Hamas, I'm sure they will be fired soon enough. Meanwhile, perhaps Melanie Phillips might like to pay closer attention to facts rather than spurious, ill-founded allegations.

Melanie Phillips Attacks Will Self

Right, this time she has gone too far. This is gonna get personal. Melanie Phillips has dissed one of my favourite human beings on the face of the Earth. During her defence of Harry Potter from accusations of being the preserve of ‘kidults’, she takes her attack too far:

A few days ago the fashionable novelist Will Self took to the airwaves to denounce the ‘kidults’ who have their heads deep in the final volume. In his view, they should not be concerning themselves with ‘language that is so banal and basic’.

Mr Self, a former heroin user who has said of the nihilistic character of his own fiction that he ‘consciously styled myself in that way as a destructive intellectual force’, doubtless has a fan club composed entirely of the finest minds and most exquisite sensibilities. But whereas Harry Potter and JK Rowling have become household names, few would recognise Mr Self let alone know the titles of his books.

Now, just what is the point of making such a personal remark when discussing literature?? It is not exactly relevant is it?? I guess this is pretty systematic of the kind of debating style that Phillips likes to utilise. Screw the intellectual evidence based rationale, let's just go straight for the smears. Now, I know Mr Self can defend himself far better than some blogging moron can, but he has been a bit of a hero of mine for sometime (ranking up there with Stephen Fry) so I couldn't pass up the chance to comment on this. Up until now, I have been quite reserved in my attacks on Phillips - now this is war. Prepare for things to be cranked up a notch.

* Incidentally, this reminds me of the time I met Will Self a couple of years back. It was at a reading of his latest book at a well known book chain. At the end of the reading we got the chance to have our books signed and say a few words to Mr Self. During the whole time I was in the queue, I kept trying to think of something witty to say when my turn came. Eventually my moment arose and what did I say?? Something insightful and funny?? Some wry observation on modern life?? No, I just said "That was great". How pathetic. My one opportunity to strike up a conversation with one of my idols and I come across like a bashful teenager. What a loser.

Melanie Phillips - Ignorant Fuckwit, Or Just Mentally Unstable?

You decide. The world famous climatologist has been once again sharing her perceived wisdom with the world. Here are her latest pearls of wisdom:

Hang on, you murmur: in any event, aren’t we simultaneously being told that global warming will mean parched summers and winter deluges? Sure — but global warming is a truly miraculous theory. It means that, without a shadow of a doubt, we will have dry summers and wet winters, and wet summers and er, well, wet winters. As Dr Stott says:

‘In the UK wetter winters are expected which will lead to more extreme rainfall, whereas summers are expected to get drier. However, it is possible under climate change that there could be an increase of extreme rainfall even under general drying.’

As it gets dryer, it will get wetter. Truly, this global warming theory has some extraordinary properties.

Now, it struck me that good old Mel has rather missed the point here. What Dr Stott is saying is that as the country becomes generally drier, it will be subject to more extreme rainfall (ie heavy bursts of rainfall over short periods of time). It is quite a simple concept to get your head around, providing you are not clinically insane of course. The phenomenon of high temperatures and a drier climate combined with heavy bursts of rainfall is not unusual. NASA helpfully explains this in reference to Sub-Saharan Africa:

In the tropical wet-and-dry climate, there is a distinct dry season during the winter months. During the dry season, very little rainfall occurs and droughts are common. Rainfall occurs during the remainder of the year. Rainfall in the tropical wet-and-dry climate can be highly irregular, varying tremendously from one year to the next. In this climate regime, destructive floods can be followed by severe drought. Vegetation in the tropical wet-and-dry regions of Sub-Saharan Africa is mainly tall savanna grass and low, drought resistant deciduous trees.

So there we have it. It is possible, as the climate becomes drier, that there can be cases of extreme rainfall during general drying periods. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Mel fails to grasp such basic science, after all this is the woman who believed that water vapour makes up most of the atmosphere. However, the really bizarre thing about this article is that she openly ridicules Dr Philip Stott. This is odd because she usually relies on Dr Stott to attack those who believe in climate change here, here, here, and here. Undermining her own source? She really has lost it.

* Unlike Mel, I am happy to admit that my knowledge of science is pretty sketchy. If there is any obvious cock-up regarding rainfall in dry climates, please tell me.

A Few Brief Points......

Ten Percent has a post on the latest revelation regarding the Blair/Murdoch axis.

Is anyone else bored shitless of the whole self-righteous BBC bullshit being spouted by the media at the moment? Does anyone honestly believe that the Mail, Sun, ITV, Telegraph etc etc haven't done the same in the past???? Of course they have, in time they will be found out. For now, it's just another dull feeding frenzy stoked by dim-witted columnists and low grade bloggers.

Melanie Phillips - Professional Conspiracist?

Quelle surprise, the UK's number one conspiracy theorist (Muslims are responsible for all the evil in the world, global warming is a vast conspiracy [insert any other wild conspiracy here] etc etc) still thinks that the BBC was up to something with the trailer it put out. Time was we used to lock people like this up and throw away the key. Padded cell for one Ms M Phillips.....

Another Conspiracy Consigned to History

After the unbearable bullshit by the salivating loonies, comes the reality:

Production company RDF Media has accepted blame for the BBC fiasco in which the Queen was wrongly accused of storming out of a sitting with photographer Annie Leibovitz.

In an email to BBC director-general Mark Thompson, RDF's chief executive David Frank said the company was "guilty of a serious error of judgment".

He offered an unreserved apology to the Queen and to the BBC, which released a copy of the email exchange.

So RDF take full responsibility, which suggests that this wasn't some deliberate attempt to undermine the monarchy by the entirely pro-monarchy BBC. What a surprise.

Melanie Phillips - Half-Baked Fruitcake?

Melanie Phillips recently worked herself into a frenzy over the following article about solar activity:

In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002, Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star’s protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun’s energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these “high sun” periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.

The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth’s atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet’s climate on long, medium and even short time scales.

Her response to this article? Well, it was typically Mad Mel-esque:

....more and more of the most distinguished names in climate science around the world are saying that the theory is total junk — and who, moreover, have given devastating evidence of the way the global warmers have falsified the evidence to create an entirely spurious, anti-scientific and deeply dishonest panic.

'Falsified evidence'. And how does she conclude her quaint little piece:

If I were part of the man-made global warming ‘consensus’, right now I’d be fingering my professional collar.

Aside from the obvious fingering that Mel indulges in when she reads such utter tripe, perhaps it is she who should be fingering her collar:

It has been one of the central claims of those who challenge the idea that human activities are to blame for global warming. The planet's climate has long fluctuated, say the climate sceptics, and current warming is just part of that natural cycle - the result of variation in the sun's output and not carbon dioxide emissions.

But a new analysis of data on the sun's output in the last 25 years of the 20th century has firmly put the notion to rest. The data shows that even though the sun's activity has been decreasing since 1985, global temperatures have continued to rise at an accelerating rate.

Hilariously, the report also claims that:

James Hansen, a Nasa climate scientist who was once gagged by the Bush administration for speaking out on global warming, said the issue of whether the sun's activity is causing global warming had been dispensed with by most scientists long ago. "The reason [this paper] has value is that the proponents of the notion that the sun determines everything come up with various half-baked suggestions that the sun can somehow cause an indirect forcing that is not included in the measurements of radiation coming from the sun," he said. "These half-baked notions are usually supported by empirical correlations of climate with some solar index in the past. Thus, by showing that these correlations are not consistent with recent climate change, the half-baked notions can be dispensed with."

Half-baked? Just about sums Mad Mel up really doesn't it?

'War on Terror' - Bit Like World War II, Innit?

My head nearly couldn't take the latest rant from Melanie Phillips. There's nothing I can add to this incredibly stupid remark, so I will just let the words sit here and you can judge them for yourselves.

More frustratingly, he failed to give a proper answer to Humphrys’s repeated assertion that Britain never had any terrorist attacks until the war in Iraq and that it was much less safe now as a result. There are two very clear and obvious points to make in answer to this. The first is that a number of al Qaeda terrorists who have now been jailed for their plots against Britain — such as Dhiren Barot who planned synchronised atrocities including blowing up the Tube under the Thames —started plotting these attacks on Britain or were recruited into the jihad well before 9/11, let alone the war in Iraq. And the second point is that it is as stupid to say we are ‘less safe now’ as it would have been to say in the Blitz that Britain was less safe then than it was in 1939. We are in the middle of a war. The alternative to suffering the attacks of a war is pre-emptive surrender. Which is the line that Humphrys has been pushing since before Saddam fell. It’s a shame the Prime Minister did not say so.