At It Already

The French have rejected the EU "constitution" by a definitive 55% voting against and surprise, surprise the EU commission says that it will go on ratifying parts of the "constitution". The fact that one of the main reasons the French have rejected the wretched document is that they are fed up with arrogant Eurocrats in Brussels making policy and laws with little regard for democratic principles seems lost on the Euroshits.

Meanwhile back in Blighty Toni and Co. must be wondering if France's non and the pending Dutch nee will get him of the hook of the referendum he promised the UK. Of course Toni only offered the referendum to get it out of the way as an election issue. That forced Mr Chirac into giving France a referendum on the issue too and really pissed off Chirac for good measure(nice one there Toni). A cynic(moi non) might think that Toni had this planned right from the start. I was rather hoping the French would narrowly pass the "constitution" so that British Eurorealists could throw a proper spanner in the workings of the corrupt bureaucracy of Brussels. However the size of the defeat in France may mean that the French have done just that, yet for very different reasons than us Brits might. Reaction in the coming days and weeks will show us where Europe's future leads.

Up Yours Sue

Today the Association of University Teachers voted 3:1 to overturn a boycott of 2 Israeli universities. Sue Blackwell of the AUT had campaigned for the boycott of the universities because of "insert lefty, idiotorian, anti American and anti Israel rant." It seems the priciple of academic freedom only applies to people who think that Israel does not have the right to exist.

The Left has traditionally championed the cause of the oppressed and no doubt they see support for the Palestinian cause as in keeping with this tradition, but what about all the other causes they could be boycotting things for? Why no boycott of Chinese universities over Tibet and Human rights? Why no boycott of Russian academics over the Chechen situation or Russia's slide away from democracy? I could go on and on but you get the point. Euro-lefties are obsessed by "the plight of the Palestinian people" Yet again why? The answer as usual boils down to anti Americanism. America the powerful(lefties read bad) supports Israel therefore making Israel powerful(lefties read bad). On top of that the Israelis have kicked the Arabs asses from Sinai to Baghdad on three occasions since 1948, so it only stands to (lefty) reason that they must be the oppressing force in the region. Yes that's right, Israel the only thing resembling a democracy in the middle east for the last 58 years is in fact the problem and should be dissolved or something, though I don't know what Sue and co. have in mind. Perhaps a nice shinny new Muslem theocracy where Jews and Christians can live as Dhimmis as the Qua'ran proscribes?

Anyone with two braincells to rub together can see that section - majority section - of the lefty world view is bollocks. The AUT by overwhelmingly voting against Ms. Blackwell and her fellow travelers, have at least put Academic freedom ahead of silly student politics. Once again up yours Sue.

At Last

Nearly seven years after the Omagh bombing police have finally charged someone with the massacre. Sean Hoey from South Armagh has been charged with 29 counts of murder and 60 other charges. If convicted he deserves life without parole, just like every other terrorist in Ireland. Fat chance.

Quality Blog

I found a new blog that some people may find good, this post and this one are especially good.

Weapon

Last night Microsoft unveiled it's new Xbox 360 console, it's a total weapon. Gamespot reckons that the powerful multicore CPU won't be matched on PC's for a couple of years! AMD and Intel have just launched dual core chips which can run two threads, the IBM designed chip powering the 360 has three cores and can run six threads. The 360's GPU is impressive, but will be outclassed by PC technology rather sooner than it's CPU. Sony and Nintendo are also powering their new consoles with multi core chips, Sony is calling them cell processors. It looks like the next round in the console wars is going to be very interesting indeed.

Miss Portman Gets Shaved

Yuck!

Truly Twisted

Trust Rab to find a sick site like this.

Local Landslide

Sammy Wilson has turned the once safe UUP seat of Roy Beggs into a safe DUP one with 15766 votes to Beggs' 8462. The UUP appear to be in full electoral meltdown, nobody in N. Ireland will be shocked except for the scale of the UUP defeat. It looks like they will only keep Sylvia Hermons' North Down seat. Really they only have themselves(and bLiar) to blame. Sinn Fein is like a Black Widow. Those who associate with it as the SDLP and UUP did, are first used to give Sinn Fein a legitimacy it doesn't deserve and then their corpses are discarded to the political wilderness.

The DUP may be a bunch of bigots but at least they didn't go to bed with the unreformed terrorist organisation that is Sinn Fein/IRA.

Britain Needs Electoral Reform

Thank fuck for the punch in the face that Labour received from the British electorate last night, but will it be enough? At the moment Labour's majority of 63 shows some hope for an end to government arrogance. For most people that arrogance was manifested in the Iraq war but for me it was Labour's disregard for the British constitution and personal freedom.

Many on the Left have long called for electoral reform in the form of some sort of proportional representation. However once Labour was swept to power in 1997 with a landslide it saw little point in helping the Lib Dems or fringe parties like the Greens. While electoral reform in the form of PR is seen by the Left as a way to enshrine Euro-lefty politics it would also help smaller right wing and populist parties such as UKIP, Veritas an the BNP. Most Tories are against PR because it returns week, even paralyzed government. The prospect of a PR parliament ever launching a major military operation to save Kosovo or liberate Afghanistan would be remote never mind going to war in Iraq. That's the bad side of PR(for me) but the up side would be that civil liberties would be protected by libertarians on the left and right. At the moment the British electoral landscape is severely tilted against the Tories where they have to beat labor by about ten percentage points to get a majority in parliament.

A system of first past the post coupled with the current electoral boundaries leads to a situation in which Labour gets 36% of the popular vote and receives 354 seats while the Tories with 32% receive 197. Something has got to change.

The beginning Of The End?

At last the Tories are showing their first faltering steps towards their place as a party worthy of governing Britain. More latter.

Ken Clarke?

Possibly, or perhaps Malcolm Rifkind.

Why I Want Lib Dems To Do Well

I'm not a great fan of the Lib Dems but I do hope they do well in the election at the cost of Labour. This may seem strange for a supporter of the war like myself but the reasons are pretty simple. The Tories have run an American style negative campaign which hasn't gone down well with swing voters and they seem to be scared to make the moral argument for lower taxes. Despite Labour's protestations everyone knows that Labour will win its historic third term. The Tories seem to have no hope of a repeat of 1970 when Ted Heath "sneaked in the back door" to number 10. So to reduce the power of the authoritarians in Labour tactical voting by libertarians is crucial. If Labour loses say 70-80 seats, then combined Tory, Lib Dem and some Labour rebels could put an end to Labour's arrogance with civil liberties and reduce nanny statism in general. I hear howls of laughter from my deeply cynical inner self upon writing that last sentence, but here's hoping eh?

The leader in today's Telegraph takes a very different view about voting for the cuddly Lib Dems saying that the Lib Dems like all socialists are just as illiberal(they are in coalition government in Scotland) as Labour has proven to be in office. Since the Lib Dems have no hope of wining a Westminster election any time soon I'll take the opposing view that their stance on matters such as ID cards and due process is more important at the moment than their overall
socialism or anti war crap.