Thursday, April 05, 2007

Lie Detecting

The news that our increasingly authoritarian government is turning to the use of lie detectors to winkle our fraudulent claims at the Department of Work and Pensions shouldn't be much of a surprise. This is after all a government that prefers to put it's money into the hands of consultancies selling dubious technological fixes to all manner of problems. Lie detectors are just another weapon in that grim armoury of CCTV, ID cards, huge centralised databases and so on.

Of course, the rest of us in the general population have our own lie detectors when it comes to the government. If their lips are moving chances are they're lying...

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Gordon Brown - Pensions and Britishness

More from Gordon Brown's secret campaign meetings:

Gordy: Let me repeat once more just how concerned I am at this ugly turn of events.

Anon1: Which one is that, sir?

Gordy: The budget.

Anon2: Which one, sir? The last one or your first one?

Gordy: This whole pensions thing is a bit of a surprise I must admit. Isn't there a statute of limitations on theft anyhow?

Anon1: We'll investigate, sir.

Gordy: Good. As I've said before, I take full responsibility. I kept quiet for about it for 10 years. I would say that's a true mark of statesmanship. But all this is beside the point. We need to win back some popular support. What do we have in the suggestions box today?

Anon1: Well...

Anon2: To be honest...

Gordy: Well?

Anon1: Nothing, sir.

Gordy: In that case we'll have to revert to Plan A.

Anon2: Britishness again, sir?

Gordy: Exactly. Never fails to win some support. So, let's have another round of Britishness. Where did we get to last time?

Anon2: All migrants should be tattooed and implanted with micro-chips and tracking devices.

Anon1: I thought we were saving that one until the end of the first hundred days as PM.

Gordy: So we are.

Anon2: In that case we're onto 'make migrants do service to the community'.

Gordy: An excellent suggestion, even if I do say so myself. One of my better ideas I think.

Anon1: Do you want us to develop it further, sir?

Gordy: Yes. I've had some thoughts myself. Firstly we need to make sure that these migrants take part in traditionally British past times...

Anon2: Getting drunk, fighting and puking in the gutters?

Gordy: While I appreciate that any uplift in receipts from duty on alcohol is to be applauded, I was thinking of more socially useful activities...

Anon1: Got it. How about migrants will provide visits to the elderly when they're in hospital?

Anon2: Good idea. Lack of English won't be a barrier. The old dears won't be able to hear and the migrants can mumble all they like in exchange for a cup of tea and a scone.

Gordy: Make sure it's only one tea and scone per visit, mind.

Anon2: Got it. How about trying to engage these migrants with the British political process?

Anon1: You mean you want them to set their dogs on us when we go canvassing as well?

Gordy: We don't want to encourage apathy...

Anon2: No, sir. I was thinking of leafleting, canvassing, attending meetings and so on.

Gordy: I see where this is going...

Anon1: You mean you want them to fully engage with the political process by canvassing for a political party?

Anon2: Not just any political party...

Gordy: Excellent. It's the Celtic fringe model applied to the migrants. Excellent indeed.

Monday, April 02, 2007

The UK Indymedia swamp

I must have a masochistic streak a mile-wide. That's the only way I can explain my compulsion to visit the UK indymedia site. It used to be that I'd like to find out what was going on in the non-Trotskyist, vaguely anarcho Left. Of course I'd find plenty to irritate, but there'd also be stuff that was interesting, challenging and worth following up. Increasingly these days I find nothing but conspiracy theorists, apologists for dictators (Mugabe, Castro etc), Islamist fellow travellers and those self-flagellating Leftists who vie to out-PC each other.

Anyone who dares to question the Leftist orthodoxy on race is instantly a white racist; anyone who dares to question man-made global warming is assumed to be in the pay of oil companies and so on and on and on ad nauseum.

It's a sorry state of affairs, it really is.