More fringery.

I'm currently in the Tories got talent fringe. This could be fun or it could be excruciating.

La Dale is officiating and judging with Nadine Dorries and Jonathan Isaby.

Update:

This turned out to be a speech making even with each contestant giving a three minute talk on the subject of their choice. The quality was mixed to say the least, but there were some very good contributions.

One contestant gave a very good impression of Harry Enfield's "Tory Boy" (I'm not sure if it was intentional or not) but at least it gave the opportunity for a heckle.

BBC

I've just been to another excellent fringe meeting in the freedom zone about the license fee.



John Whittingdale agreed with the notion that the license fee was living on borrowed time, and the other speaker proposed that due to the beeb being unacceptable for a range of reasons it should be privatised immediately.



It occurred to me that instead of the license fee, why not just make the whole thing pay per view. The van be as commie pinko as they like then, and I won't care because I won't be paying for it.

Conference niggle.

I don't know how many people there are at conference, and to be honest I'm not that bothered.
One persistent irritation however is the fact that there are so few computers available.
There must be thousands of people here, and contrary to popular myth they aren't all blue rinsed nonagenarians who think the twin tub washing machine is the height of technological sophistication. Surely it is not too much to ask that more than five computers be available for public use, as the queues to use them demonstrate that this is inadequate.

I know the ICC has Wi-Fi, but coverage isn't great, and it's a bit of a pain trying to bring a laptop through security.

A basic machine capable of running a web browser and email software costs very little, so why not stick twenty of them in a room somewhere for us to use.

South Africa

A provincial governor in South Africa has resigned in support of Thabo Mbeki, prompting speculation that this could lead to splits in the ANC.
While I have little time for Mbeki, this can only be a good thing. Any move which brings the end of the effective one party state closer is to be welcomed.

US bailout fails.

The bill to institute a massive bailout of Wall Street has failed to pass the house. What I find astonishing however is the way in which the brutish media are buying in to the democrats narrative that it is the Republicans who are to blame. All congressmen must answer to their electorates for how they voted, but to try and blame one party for the bill's failure is silly. When that party is the minority it becomes ridiculous.

People like Toby Harnden in the telegraph should think twice before printing the Barney Frank spin as unchallenged reason.

Libdem name calling.

I am pleased to see that I am not the only person who finds it preposterous for the LibDems to call their spokespeople "shadow ...s"

Tom Harris (one of the more sensible leftie bloggers) has the same issue.

A shadow minister is the person who at that time would become the actual minister in the event of a change of government, and for te forseeable future that does not include any libdems.

I was right.

I try to remain open minded and to give people the benefit of the doubt, and despit my prejudices, I was determined to listen to Richard Dawkins with an open mind.

Positioned as I am to the sceptical side of agnosticism, I should really be a reasonable target for people like Dawkins, but he manages to get up my nose. I think it is the almost sneering sense of superiority he seems to revel in. The way in which he sees people of religious belief as being intellectually beneath him and his misguided (for I shall give him the benefit of the doubt) belief that his position is that of science, when any one with a healthy respect for science would admit that the god (should that be God?) question is unproven.

What really pissed me off however is when he said that it was wrong for religious belief to be respected when the same was not true for political belief.

I have always been firmly of the opinion that both political and religious beliefs should be respected. (Pisstaking of Mike Flower for his heretical papism notwithstanding). Even if we do not agree with a person's beliefs, the world would be a much better place if we at least respected them, indeed one of the most unpleasant things in the modern world is the way in which people seem to feel the need not just to win the argument, but to belittle and destroy those who disagree.

Dawkins however decreed (to a disappointingly large level of agreement from his auience) that religious belief was not worthy of respect, and for that he is a tosser.

More Fringe Fun.

I had great fun at a fringe event in the freedom zone this evening.

 

Former Libdem spin doctor Mark Littlewood effectively proposed the libdems become little more than unelectable intellectual point guards for the Tories, promoting liberal ideals not yet acceptable to the public but nudging opinion towards them, and sir Michael White decried the way in which politicians are continually assumed to be the lowest and most dishonourable forms of life imaginable, uttering what must surely be the heretical statement that George Bush isn't actually stupid.

 

Next stop Richard Dawkins.

Conference time.

I've missed the last two conferences through injury and not being a tory respectively, so with this year's conference being on my doorstep I decided to rejoin and attend.

The events in the main hall are of course the usual dross, with a steady parade of PPCs and wannabe PPCs trotting up to deliver their bromides in the hope that they will get a few moments coverage to give them a boost.

My fringe calender is seemingly at risk of turning into a Donal and Dale tour, so I shall be adding a couple of other events for a bit of balace. Redwood tomorrow should be3 good, and if I think I will be able to resist the urge to call him a twat I might go and watch Richard Dawkins at the Conservative Humanists this evening.

Last night I went to a fringe about the future of Scotland under a Tory government, and overall, I came away thinking that There is a real possibility that played correctly, Scotland could provide the tories with the same opportunities that Quebec gives their Canadian counterparts, although of course Cameron is no Stephen Harper. One thoght which did occur however is that there seems to be limited consistency of principle. David Mundell said last night that the tories would oppose a referendum being held on Scottish independence because they disagree with the idea of scottish independence, yet to the best of my knowledge, tory policy remains that there should be a eferendum on the EU constitution despite the fact that they are opposed to the EU constitution.

This morning there was an Electoral Reform Society discussion about lowering the voting age to 16, and while I remain open to being convinced, they have yet to do so. The chairman, in a strictly impartial fashion honest guv, outlined the arguments at one point, but managed to contradict himself by both extending the "well you can do this that and the other at sixteen" argument while calling unified age of majority issues a red herring.

There was also ainteresting session on freedom and the internet, which basically consisted of a discussion of issues around blogging. Setting aside Guido's rather disturbing orange trousers, it was all good stuff, and I came away feeling rather less disturbed by my half dozen unique hits a week.

Wall Street bailout

Being of a somewhat right wing bent, I am not entirely happy with the idea of government bailouts, but it is not the rightness or wrongness of the bailout which is currently exercising me.

Watching Question Time and This Week last night, it was amazing how many people were criticising the bailout, not on the grounds that it was morally wrong, but because the $700,000,000,000 figure mooted was in their opinion considerably more than the assets in question were worth.

The purpose of the bailout however is surely to provide liquidity to the markets by replacing the toxic packages with cash which the financial institutions can then use (hopefully more sensibly than previously) to get the economy moving again.

It is quite understandable that the avewrage person on the street might not understand this, I am far from expert myself, but one would have hoped that the panellists on both shows would have more of a clue. Perhaps they should put Guido on this week instead of Portillo, it would certainly be more entertaining.

Women against Palin :P

Jo Christie-Smith has a post about Sarah Palin which is indicative of everything which is wrong with the left.

She claims to be uncomfortable with the sexism suffered by Palin, yet because Palin does not subscribe to the holy writ of the sisterhood, Christie-Smith dismisses her as a pseudo feminist and asserts that she is suffering from "false consciousness".

This line of attack gets it the wrong way round however. At risk of being eviscerated by the sisterhood for presuming to offer an opinion, it is women like Sarah Palin, who dare to differ, and who succeed through effort who are a positive, feminist, role model. Women like Christie-Smith who seem to believe that proper women would all toe the same line if they only knew what was good for them (after all, that is the underlying principle of the ridiculous "false consciousness" concept) who should be shunned.

The post also goes into the tired old inexperience shtick, conveniently as always forgetting that Obama has never run anything. For someone who claims to be against the sexism of others' attacks, the line

Or would the fact that she has been pulled in as a vapid symbol, lacking in
experience, knowledge and so lacking in any real comprehension of the
complexities of life that she looks for her answers in religious dogma?

seems inappropriate.

Not just the USA

It seems to have got lost in the excitement of the US presidential election and Gordy's difficulties here, but Canada is holding a federal election at the moment as well.

It is still early days, but the combination of Stephane Dion's charisma (somewhere between Gordon Brown and Michael Meacher) and an impressive election machine look set to return Stephen Harper to Sussex Drive, perhaps with a majority.

DNCer backs McCain

It seems that there is a DNC member about to endorse John McCain.

Obama supporters will no doubt dismiss her as a disgruntled Clintonista and the nutroots will probably try and paint her as some sort of fringe fascist in the same way that they did Zell Miller four years ago, but it is difficult to see how this can be anything other than more bad news for Obama.

Whatever their individual motivations, he now has a member of the DNC and a US senator from his own party openly supporting and campaigning for his opponent.

Every day I get more and more confident that things might work out well this November after all.

Play Fair boys.

There was a piece in the Sun yesterday (I was bored while waiting in chinese takeaway) talking about Brown sufffering death by a thousand cuts, and it stated that the danger for Labour was that they destroyed Brown without actually replacing him. It seems however that this has advanced into reality.

The anti Brown plotters seem incapable of persuading a credible challenger to throw their career down the toilet by actually declaring against him, but the credibility of both Prime Minister and government drop daily.

If it were a boxing match, the referee would have stopped the fight, but the lack of an alternative means that the plotters just keep kicking the corpse. I may loathe and despise the labour party, but this has gone beyond funny and is now just pitiful.

Bouncing along.

The conventions have been and gone, and both candidates have benefitted from whatever bounces they will generate.

The result is that McCain is up 50-46 according to Zogby, 54-44 according to USA Today/Gallup, 48-47 accoding to Rasmussen and tied according to CNN. The RCP acverage has McCain up 47.5 to 45.

Interestingly, the only one of those to poll likely voters as opposed to registered voters is USA Today/Gallup.

Also of note is that the intrade odds have narrowed to 53-47 in Obama's favour having not so long ago been about 3-1.

None of this amounts to a whole lot with a couple of months left to go, but what looked like being a sure thing for the Democrat now looks a whole lot less certain. Indeed, all things remaining equal (which of course they will not) I would go so far as to say it favours McCain.

There will no doubt be lots of predictions to come, so I will stick my neck out and make mine now. McCain wins by 295 electoral votes to 243.

We're doomed. (possibly)

The sun ran a story a few days back about how the experiment to be conducted a CERN next week could result in the creation of a black hole and the destruction of the earth.

It was a surprisingly (by Sun standards at least) non sensationalist article in that it did at least acknowledge that there were some scientists who feel that this is unlikely, but the overall tone was very much one of it being reckless and irresponsible. It also referred to attempts by some other scientists to get the experiment stopped.

I doubt I'm in the majority here, but I find myself firmly in the get on with it ad be damned camp. One of the things which makes human beings such a wonderful and successful species is the sense of curiosity. Be it the urge to see what is over the next hill or across the ocean, or the impulse to see what happens when I mix this with that, this curiosity has lead us to accomplishment and understanding, and it should be encouraged.

And if it all goes wrong, at least it will be over quickly.

Sarah Palin's daughter is pregnant.

There are stories apearing (I saw it in the Telegraph, but it is elsewhere as well.) that Sarah Palin's teenage (but legal) daughter Bristol is pregnant. A statement from the Palin family states that she will be marrying the father.

The fact that the story is being released by the Palins at this point shows that the lesson of 2000 (when the democrats released a story about George Bush having been in trouble for drink driving 72 hours before the election). There will be time for the story to die off before the election.

I think that the attitude of the Palin family is praiseworthy as well. Commenting on the pregnancy, Palin states that the parents will have the support of the family, but will learn the difficulties of yung parenthood. As a governor, Palin is clearly in a position to cushion her daughter from the realities of the situation and from any inconvenience. That she is making her daughter face up to her responsibilities while promising to support her suggest she will not.

No doubt a few religious nuts will wish to criticise Bristol Palin and her boyfriend, but I hope most reasonable people would join me in wishing them a happy future.

Abortion rights and wrongs.

On my morning flick through my favourite blogs I spotted a story on Iain Dale's blog (The Desperation of the Left to Kill Sarah Palin's Candidacy: No 94 ) about a post on Daily Kos purporting to show that Sarah Palin is not in fact the mother of her fifth child, but it's grandmother.

There are various discussions online about veracity of the claim, and I don't intend to go into it here, but while following the arguments I came across a couple of responses which I found quite disturbing. A couple of people said that because Palin did not, upon discovering her child would have downs syndrome, immediately have it aborted she was morally wrong.

I make no bones about being generally anti abortion, but it was not the posters' obviously pro abortion opinions which distressed me as much as the fact that far exceeding the usual mantra of a woman's right to choose, they were seeming to suggest it was both insane (one of the posters referred to needing a "brain implant") and imoral not to abort the child.

I have not children at all, and do not know anybody caring for someone with down's syndrome, but there are many parents out there who readily talk of the issue in positive terms. Any disability will make life more difficult for all concerned, but to suggest that it should lead to the child being automatically exterminated without even having the chance to lve is unforgiveable.

Regardless of whether one agrees with Palin's views on abortion, to criticise her for holding to those beliefs despite the difficulty for herself and her family is a step to far.