Wednesday, January 16, 2008 

"Amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards."

This is just how bat-shit crazy Mike Huckabee is:



He isn't going to win the Republican nomination, thankfully, although who is has been cast into further doubt by Mitt Romney's victory in the Michigan primary, but he did have the advantage of originating from the state and that his father was a former popular governor. It's also true that Huckabee is playing to his gallery. The most frightening thing though is that it's these same men who feel so threatened by the rise of extremist Islam and have been ridiculously belligerent over Iran, which as Juan Cole points out, has a constitution much like the one Huckabee appears to be endorsing.

According to Jay Cole, a Baptist minister associated with Huckabee for over twenty years, he's also not just an evangelical but a believer that we are fast approaching the end times:

Huckabee has connected with voters--specifically, evangelical voters--not simply because he is a charismatic speaker, but also because he shares their apocalyptic world view. As Cole told me, "To date there's well over 139 prophecies that have come to pass exactly as the Lord says. Mike believes those things. Anyone with any Bible knowledge would have to say that this looks like the time. We're so close to the Lord's return."

To draw another comparison with Iran, Mahmoud Amadinejhad is known to be a believer that the return/appearance of the "Hidden Imam" is close at hand, going so far as to make preparations for it. You'd like to think that the two of them could meet up, reconcile their religious differences, and then keep the fuck away from all the rest of us.

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1/16/2008 07:30:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, November 26, 2007 

Melanie Phillips: the story of her journey into madness.

My previous thesis that Melanie Phillips's trajectory from seeming sanity into abject, gibbering, foaming at the mouth and straining at the strait-jacket madness will become a case-study for psychology students is sadly for Mel herself looking increasingly accurate. It's a source of wonderment for the reason that when she finds herself sitting on the Question Time panel or on the Moral Maze she can somehow summon the strength to usually acquit herself without coming across as completely and utterly barking mad; is it a case of Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde, or is it all an act, able to turn her fire on and off with will?

Perhaps it's all down to what happens when she sits down in front of her computer screen. While her pieces for the Daily Mail are somewhat staid, it's the entries for her blog, and now, following her move to the Spectator, on their group blog that show her in a light that she only lets those most acquainted with the more "radical" side of her work examine and imbibe in full.

Take for instance her views on the dismissal of John Howard from office in Australia:

It was Howard who was the staunchest Prime Minister in the world against the jihad and who alone seemed to grasp its full dimensions.

...

Whatever now happens, the fact that he [Kevin Rudd] 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.

For Mel, the obsession with jihadist takfirists has now reached such a proportion that any election anywhere is somehow influenced by "the threat", and the very fact that Australia booted out Howard and installed Rudd means that the jihadists have just won another victory without having to lift a finger. It makes no difference to Mel that Howard was widely loathed for the very reason that she so supported him; Australia, a nation which due to its location and size has very little to nothing to fear from anyone, but due to Howard's belligerence was led into the Iraq adventure anyway, was also dragged into an era of mistrust, dislike and even paranoia thanks to the hardline stance on outsiders and refugees that he took. There's a rich irony and hypocrisy in nations of immigrants shutting the door to the next generation, but to Mel that was just another sign of his strength. Even that though isn't enough; Australia's stupidity in changing prime ministers somehow, in Mel's twisted and frankly bizarre logic, has made both them and us less safe. It's a statement jaw-dropping in its full frontal lunacy, one that she'd most likely not repeat in her Mail column even, but she feels secure in doing so on the comfort of the Spectator's blog.

Amazingly, as Matt points out, the above isn't even the most deranged post from Mel yesterday. She stretches historical analogies so far beyond breaking point to back up her perverse reasoning on the Annapolis "peace" conference that it's a miracle the static electricity generated from her furious pounding of the keyboard hasn't set fire to her hair:

Whatever actually happens at Annapolis, what is blindingly obvious right now is the extent of America’s betrayal of the Jewish people and, in the process, of its own supposed core doctrine post 9/11...Annapolis is America’s Munich — and Israel is the new Czechoslovakia.

This is despite almost unanimous agreement that the Annapolis meeting, which isn't even being played up as a summit for goodness sake, will achieve precisely nought, for the simple reason that Israel isn't prepared to deal and Mahmoud Abbas, thanks to the infighting between Hamas and Fatah, doesn't have the strength to agree to anything approaching what would be considered a just settlement. Somehow, Mel believes a simple peace meeting will amount to such an act of treachery that history will repeat itself. Never mind that the Palestinians could never, even in the most fevered, deluded imagination play the role of an all-powerful, rearmed and vengeful Germany led by a dictator playing on the weaknesses of his opponents, with Bush betraying the Czechs to their fate, but to compare what Israel will eventually have to give up if it seriously decides it wants peace, namely the settlements built illegally on occupied, impoverished, Palestinian territory, to the industrial heart of the Sudetenland is so ahistorical that it makes you wonder whether Mel, so preoccupied with the Holocaust as she is, doesn't really know her history leading up to the second world war. But she does, which is surely the point. No one with even an ounce of intellectual honesty would contemplate comparing the two, let alone setting it out as an established fact, but Mel, without the slightest trace of embarrassment, displays her handiwork for all to see.

Then again, why shouldn't she? She basks in adulation on the Spectator blog, so heavily moderated that only the odd critical comment is allowed through. (Korova from Mask of Anarchy managed to get through, somehow.) On the first piece, she's variously praised:

Absolutely! As an Australian, I am distraught. All of what you say is true, and more.

You have hit the nail on the head, Melanie.

Dhimmi kangaroo down, sport!

As always, Melanie Phillips talks a lot of sense..

And the second:

Absolutely!!! As a long standing supporter and admirer of George Bush and Condi Rice I'm having my breath taking away!

Thank, you, Melanie...for validating my intuition.


Perhaps madness really is infectious. Either way, Melanie Phillips now increasingly resembles a lift where the mechanism has well and truly snapped, with the only thing remaining an ever accelerating descent before the eventual crash.

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11/26/2007 07:23:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 

Call to arms - Mad Mel has moved.

Via D-Notice, I, err, notice that Melanie "Clinically Sane" Phillips has moved home from her previous, commentless own site over to the Spectator's execrable home of all right-wing thought, which does feature the opportunity to stick your two pence worth in.

While Mel has yet to sound off on her favourite topic of how Iran is plotting the second Holocaust, or "Londonistan", she has posted about the global warming "scam". A BBC journalist has already challenged her. Let's see how long it is before Mel begs to have comments on her posts turned off, or moderation kicks in.

Note to self - Phillips has two l's, you dipshit.

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10/23/2007 07:11:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, September 05, 2007 

She's back!

Via Korova, one of the leading lights of British journalism has returned from a month long sabbatical, and how we've missed her:

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

Melanie, please don't leave us for so long again.

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9/05/2007 08:15:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, November 27, 2006 

I got a bone to pick...

Walking through the glorious cornucopia which is the local shopping mall at this time of year, it's impossible to avoid the hawking calendar stalls, filled with the glossy machinations of whichever page 3 girl or hot-bodied celebrity the public most wishes to jump. What you don't generally expect to find is the err, "official" Che Guevara 2007 calendar:

This bizarre creation is produced by those nice people over at Pyramid Posters, who as well as printing calendars featuring a Marxist revolutionary, also make a pretty penny from selling posters, badges, stickers, keychains, postcards and prints all featuring the familiar cliched but iconic pose of the man.

Over on the licensing page, Pyramid explains it all:

We take our brands and license responsibilities very seriously. Pyramid Posters are one of the founder members of TRAP (Trademarks and Rights holders Against Piracy) and are also a member of LIMA (Licensing Industry Merchandisers' Association).

Whether Che would have approved is uncertain. In 2000, Alberto Korda, who took the photograph, went to court against Smirnoff to stop them using Che's image in an advertisement. Korda, who died the following year, most likely left the image rights to his sons. Korda said at the time:
"As a supporter of the ideals for which Che Guevara died, I am not averse to its reproduction by those who wish to propagate his memory and the cause of social justice throughout the world, but I am categorically against the exploitation of Che's image for the promotion of products such as alcohol, or for any purpose that denigrates the reputation of Che"

When your photograph is sitting next to a calendar of Jordan, I'd say that capitalism hasn't so much turned your image into a commodity, as metaphorically dug up your corpse, rooted it, gave a number of bones to a passing dog, then buried it unmarked.

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11/27/2006 06:25:00 PM | | | links to this post

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