Get it Right

"Learn the lessons of Iraq," Blair warns Cameron

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has hit out at David Cameron's proposed extermination of the poor, calling welfare reforms "slow, costly, and and inefficient."

"You cannot destroy an entire civilization by slowly strangling it economically," said Mr. Blair. "If David Cameron is serious about the wholesale genocide of the working class, then he should look at historical examples. We imposed sanctions on Iraq from before the first Gulf War, and while we starved thousands of Iraqi citizens to a slow and painful death, ultimately, it did not work."

"In the end, we achieved more by bombing the shit out of Iraq than we ever did with sanctions. If it wasn't for international pressure and the attention of the world's media, I'm fairly confident we could have killed them all. You cannot conduct the successful extermination of Britain's populace if your mortality rate does not exceed population growth. It is simple economics. Bloody, violent economics of human suffering."

"I would be Prime Minister again," added Mr. Blair, "And where Mr. Cameron would fuck you slowly, I will give it to the people of Britain rough and unsheathed."

I'm prepared to kill again.

Downing Street hit back at the allegations of waste.

"What benefit do we reap from killing the poor?" laughed Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond. "If we starve and oppress them while crucially leaving enough alive, we should have ample fuel for our new meat-powered fighting robot."

The robot, a two hundred foot behemoth carved into the likeness of Margret Thatcher, will initially be used to defend the Olympic games against extraterrestrial threats, Japanese dinosaurs and humungous gorillas.

A Slow Genocide

"Kill them all," Cameron Urges

Daivd Cameron has urged his backbenchers to "remain steadfast" in their conviction to kill as many poor people as possible. The PM was addressing the House of Commons over proposals for the new Welfare Reforms. He admitted that "tough decisions" had to be made over who and exactly how many impoverished serfs should be exterminated in order to meet stringent spending cuts.

"Cameron is boldy marching us towards the Nazi dystopia I've always prayed for," said one backbencher dreamily. "I want a world populated by wretched, emaciated peasants, smog choked by the burning bodies of their own children."

"We will cremate them on pyres fueled by their offspring," confirmed Mr. Cameron.

The proposed criteria for welfare reform were outlined in a speech delivered by Home Secretary Theresa May and Defence Secretary Philip Hammond after the Prime Minister entered a trance-like state during the exchange and began to mumble about his "holy mission".

A breakdown is provided below.

1. Sterilization of  sickness and incapacity claimants.
2. Unemployed claimants of JSA to work voluntary for sixteen hours a day. Recipients will be executed if they have failed to find employment after a period of ten weeks, before being used to feed and warm the elderly.
3. Housing benefit will be reduced to match the weekly cost of a large cardboard box, a mug for rainwater and half a loaf of stale bread. It is expected that replacement mugs will incur a further reduction in benefits.
4. Any crime committed while in receipt of welfare will now carry the death penalty.
5. Single parents will be expected to find work or be relocated to breeding farms in the countryside.
6. Large families will have their benefits reduced, and may only keep two of their children. In cases where three or more children are present in the family, the surplus will be used for experimental weapons testing.

Mr. Cameron has defended his plans for the reforms, stating that Conservative policy "from the outset" was to "kill them all". He has allayed protests from religious leaders by claiming "God will know His own."

NATO leaders react to reports of a virus bomb in Middlesbrough

While not wishing to comment on individual cases, an insider confirmed there was a "strong possibility" that the Prime Minister was going to destroy Newcastle from orbit using high yield tactical nukes.

"There has been some discussion on turning the entire North East into a poisoned and irradiated Hell lasting a thousand years." our source claimed.

Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democracts, denounced the plans as 'insane'.

"You have to understand," said Mr. Clegg as he necked his third bottle of Colvonia, "There's nothing I can do. He has my family."

"Oh god, I'm in balls deep and I don't how to stop him."

The Law of Unintended Consequence

I realise that my last blog post was about 'the gays', and touched on gay marriage. Unfortunately, the wretched denizens of this dismal, blighted world have failed to recognise me as their living god and thus the last post did not immediately set the world to rights. So this one is for you, Craig.

When I got home from wasting my life at university one day*, I enjoyed the surreal experience of my housemate staring at a Mars bar with the intensity of a cobra.

"A less strict vegetarian may still enjoy our products," he mumbled, reading an online press release from Mars with absolutely no conviction. The confusion didn't leave his face.

"A less strict vegetarian. Isn't that someone who is not a vegetarian? I mean, it's either got animals in it or it hasn't."

And there you go. It was hardly the most profound thing to say, but I feel for him, since it's an unusual case. Not many people are called to bring down judgement on a Mars bar, but it was probably the most concise, accurate and damning critique I've ever heard that didn't involve spades of foul language. You wouldn't say, "A less strict egalitarian can still enjoy heaps of tasty discrimination," would you? Sometimes, things just are that black and white.

Equality.. You either have it, or you don't. I know for a fact we don't, but it's always comforting to at least pretend like everyone's interested in it.

Calderdale's Arch-Parasite and Lord Overfiend, Craig Whittaker MP, has published an interesting blog recently. In between defending his expenses spending and writing articles on missing children, he managed to get a quick dig in at this week's popular controversy - gay marriage.

"The unintended consequences of same-sex marriage and why I will not vote for it"

Craig's post starts out with a bit of a curveball, just to prepare you for the thigh-deep pools of pointless bile you'll have to wade through later. Anyone who assumed this could be a well rationalised argument immediately finds themselves on the back foot. Clever move, sir.


"It is wrong to say that Gay marriage is the next Civil Rights battle. To do so would make marriage adult centred instead of Child centred as it currently is.

It is important to say that I want to be as objective as I can with what I think is an incredibly important issue and I am basing my decision not on information or beliefs from faith groups, whether my own or others, but on what the unintended consequences of re-defining marriage may bring."

I mean, surplus capital letters aside, it is a readable if not strange way to open an argument.  I don't know how many weddings Craig has been to, but marriage is adult centered. Conducted by adults, for adults, in the presence of other adults and perhaps some children. Unless he means that it is for the purposes of procreation, which displays a terrifying ignorance of biology.

I'm sure he'll clarify, just like he clarified he was being objective. He's already said that he doesn't consider the struggle for gay marriage as a rights issue. Objectivity in motion. It's a deceptively important sentence where a man can claim to be objectively examining something based on a set of made up criteria and hypotetical scenarios that have filled his small mind with stark terror.


"My overriding concern is that if we do indeed as a Parliament change legislation to allow same sex marriage now, then what will our successors be discussing and have to legislate for in the future?; Polygamy?; Three-way relationships?; Who knows what else?"

WHO KNOWS!

Portals to Hell triggering daemonic incursion. One side-effect of same-sex marriage?

I mean, god forbid that you could love more than one person at once. I mean, my feelings on marriage as an institution force me to play Devil's Advocate here, but really?


What follows is a bizarre list of ways the law in other countries has been changed. At this point, Craig's blog could probably do with some sinister music to underline the seriousness of it all. It's all innocuous stuff designed to satisfy a legal framework that only a backward minded yokel would get upset about. But Craig is obviously upset, on the brink of collapsing to the ground and spasming like a panicking fish.


"Marriage has a unique place in our society. It is a bedrock institution and the most stable environment for raising children. Redefining marriage would make marriage adult-centred rather than child-centred."

Reasserting, but disappointingly not clarifying something he said earlier just about wraps up the rest of the blog, bar a few emotive platitudes and a rendition of Jerusalem playing in the background. So it's a bedrock institution, right? For a guy who is on his second marriage, that's quite a bold statement. Not as bold as defining it as 'child-centered'. I mean, he was arrested for assaulting his own son. There's nothing great about hypocrisy from normal people, but from someone in a position of power making moral judgements about the ability of a same-sex couple to raise children. He's either made the worlds worst joke using himself as the punchline, or it's just a staggering amount of arrogance.

People in glass houses, and all that.

At least you can see him coming. Face and all.

It's even stranger that the MP for Calder Valley, containing the unofficial 'Lesbian capital' of the UK, should want to deliberately piss off his constituents. Actually, it's not that strange. He probably doesn't recognise those hippies as legitimate human beings anyway. At least you can take solace in the fact that Representative Democracy allows your representative to turn their back on both the party line and their constituents. That liberating ability to fuck people off without consequence, and absolute freedom just to be a prick.


* Instead of wasting it someplace else.

If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next

This is quite a serious subject for me, and affects so many people I know it isn't funny. So I hope I've done it justice, and I hope to god where I've inevitably slipped up in my argument, people can see the intention beyond the wording.

Reading back through this blog, it is pretty easy to work out that I am not a tolerant guy.

I used to be quite easy going until I hit 21. Following budget cuts in my personality, I was eventually stripped down to a malicious ball of spite powered entirely by bourbon creams, neat vokda and hate. The wretched and contemptuous creature now hunched over a keyboard in a dark cave of  squalor is the result of seven years in retail and five years studying politics.

I have many bile-inducing opinions, and you can pretty much guarantee that anything I express a mild interest in will inevitably turn to blinding disgust over an indeterminate period of time. And because of this, I am a perfect boyfriend for Jan Moir. She's 30 years my senior, but finding someone with the same ignorant, vomit-inducing opinions as myself has been rather difficult. Plus she's loaded, and if anything goes well with arrogance, it's greed.

Then I read this article, back in 2009. You should all be familiar with it. It was originally entitled 'There was nothing 'natural' about Steven Gately's death." Following complaints, it was re-edited to become 'A strange, lonely and troubling death..." I kind of stopped masturbating to her columns after that. That was a bit too far, Jan. I'm struggling to wonder if it was as bad as Peter Hitchen's 2009 article, entitled, "We show tolerance to 'gays' and get TYRANNY in return." Jesus, Pete. Tyranny? Why is 'gays' in inverted commas? Why are you warbling on about child hostages?

The Gays sacrifice foster babies to appease Satan and prolong their lives. If you tolerate this, your children will be next.

I'll be honest, I read most of his post and some of the stuff below that and just thought it was a parody article. It must be a parody article. Blood is pouring from my eyes and, Oh Jesus, he meant every word.

And since we're now neatly on the topic of both 'the gays' and 'bigoted vats of bubbling prejudice', I guess I can finally get round to talking about what I was going to talk about anyway. I was going to do this awhile a go. I was also going to make it good. But with the furor over gay marriage raging across every possible information medium ever, it's time to go.

I'm not going to write about gay marriage. My thoughts on gay marriage should be abundantly clear, albeit a little muddied by my opinion on the institute of marriage as a whole. I'm going to write about tolerance, and why I don't, nay, can't, tolerate gay people.

WARNING: This image may be considered inappropriate for people with insane socially backward worldviews.

 

tol·er·ance

 [tol-er-uhns] 

noun

1.

a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.

Sounds pretty good, right? Even if sexuality must fall under the broader category of 'ect'. I mean, I used to be tolerant. I cringe when I remember saying 'I'm a tolerant guy'.

per·mis·sive

 [per-mis-iv] 

adjective

2.

granting or denoting permission

I stopped being tolerant because the idea of writing to every gay person in the United Kingdom, granting them permission to be gay and to continue their lives under my benevolent gaze was simply too time consuming, and also crazier than a sack full of cats. Let me break it down for you.

All views are not valid.

I cannot claim to be a proponent of social tolerance and be selective about it. If I have gay friends, and have no issue with people being gay, does that mean I should let fascists roam the streets spreading hate and fear? Ultimately, all things are not valid. It would be lovely to think they are, but they aren't. That's how politics works, you have your political self, with its beliefs and motivations, and ultimately you cannot reconcile who you are with something you find abhorrent. In that view, tolerance is just a word. It is barely an idea. Tolerance is selective.

Without equality: Tolerance is a myth.

Alright, I stole that from an article I was reading online, but it is true. If we take tolerance to be the bare minimum attitude a society should have, yet do not treat gay issues as being of equal value to other prevailing ideas, then we, as a species, are suffering from self-delusion. They are synonymous. You cannot have equality without subscribing to commonly accepted notions of tolerance. You cannot have tolerance if you do not have equality. Do we have equality for gay people? No we do not. Ergo, to call oneself tolerant is dubious to begin with. In my mind, you are subscribing to a lie.

Thanks, straight guy, for letting me live my life.

 

So what is this tolerance thing which we strive for but obviously don't have and probably don't want? Calling oneself tolerant is a construct. It is a lazy and unhelpful way of saying you're not a bigoted homophobe. It is a dismissing wave. Do whatever you want, leave me out of it. You can be as fabulous as you like, that's fine by me. Thanks for asking. I'm going out on a limb when I say that tolerance, on the surface, looks pretty good. But ultimately, it is not tolerance that society needs. 

ac·cept·ance

 [ak-sep-tuhns] 

noun

1.the act of taking or receiving something offered.

2.favourable reception; approval; favour.

3.the act of assenting or believing

4.the fact or state of being accepted or acceptable.

Even that sounds a little crude. Perhaps a political notion of 'post acceptance', might be a little bit more dignified. The Wikipedia article spells it out beautifully, for me, although I'm sure there are some bright political types who could do a better job than I. 

"Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognising a process or condition without attempting to change it, protest, or exit."

A person's assent to the reality of a situation. Doesn't that sound much better? People are gay. They will never need nor want your permission to be so. This is the reality of the situation. Ultimately, that is the problem with tolerance. Whenever I have spoken to a gay friend of mine, they have never expressed a craving for permission. They're human beings. They don't want people to put up with them. They do not want people to view their sexuality in academic terms. They do not want to settle for a legally enforced, socially informed view of tolerance that people subscribe to basically because intolerance is taboo.

As far as I've always understood it, people are all fairly similar to one another. They want you to respect them, to love them, and ultimately, to treat them as equally as you would treat others. And that is why I am not tolerant. Permission to be gay is not necessary. It is not something I can give or withhold. So there you go. Fuck tolerance, try treating people like people.

Post Apocalyptica

You can bet your bottom dollar that when everything - and I mean literally everything - has gone to shit, I will somehow be caught up in the process. Usually without my knowledge or consent.

Keeping this in mind, it isn't difficult understand why, when parts of the UK were swept away by torrential rain and the avatar of Poseiden destroyed Bognor Regis in a terrifying maelstrom of foamy brine, I was currently camping at a music festival. As is obviously the case, I was there because of my inherent love for thrash metal and burning desire to spend five days surrounded by smelly peasants.

After six hours of near constant rain on Wednesday, the entire site had turned into a muddy quagmire lifted straight from Dante's vision of Hell. Initially, the consistency of said mud was fairly smooth, a little slippery but generally just deep, squishy and wet, and bore a passing resemblance to the sandy bit that passes as a beach for Blackpool. As seventy thousand feet pounded it day and night, the ground decided it had had enough of being trodden on by people who simply didn't appreciate it enough, and changed tactics to become a quivering, sucking, unpredictable mass of cookie dough that threatened to tear off your feet. It clung to your boots in the way that an emotionally needy partner could only dream of.

There was the odd drowning

The weather did eventually clear up, and the festival organizers put bales of straw down to try and absorb all the mud, with the end result being something like what happens when you go at a giant pile of horseshit with a chainsaw. After the heavens had given up trying to drown us all, I did enjoy Download. There were some sterling performances by the artists and a generally good atmosphere, but I doubt I'll be going again, and here are a few reasons why.

The entire thing was a test-run for World War Three.

The thing that is almost unique about Download at Castle Donnington is not mud. It is not overpriced burgers, teenagers, or toilets that have been found guilty of violating human rights. It is none of those things. What is unique about it is that it is the only festival I know of that is situated right next to an airport.

Imagine the scene. You are camping in a field for five days, surrounded by miles of perimeter fence and dozens of watchtowers. The ground turns into a lake of mud dignified by unmentionable floating things. Overhead, you are assailed by the constant scream of incoming planes flying so low they make the tents shake as they pass over. Couple it with a performance by The Prodigy and what you have is thousands of people wearing helmets and gasmasks, struggling through knee high mud whilst yelling and growling as the first wave of bombers descend from the skies.

It was ridiculous. I spent the first night eating beans out of a mess tin, shivering under a poncho as the rain cascaded down, surrounded by grim-faced, unshaven men in combat fatigues. By the time the actual music rolled around, the frontmen for various groups were trying to motivate the crowd by shouting orders at them. 'Get your hands in the air!" they screamed. "I want to see everyone jumping to this next one!".  "Make that fucking mosh pit bigger!" growled Dez Fafara of Devildriver. "Red Platoon is to advance west and clear out AT teams on the ridgeline."

No, really. It could have happened.

Metal is a parody of itself.

I don't really like the genre as much as a did when I was say, an angsty fifteen year old. I'm getting a bit more mellow.  The thing is, it's not that I don't like metal, otherwise it would have been a stupid way to burn a couple of hundred quid. It's just that I don't like metalheads. They make me ashamed to be human. Like fat, lager swilling England supporters, they just bring us down. As a species.

Black beanie hats were everywhere. In fact, just about everything was black. People were wearing vests. I cannot stress how important it is for grown men with hairy, putrid smelling armpits to not wear vests. Vests do not look good on anyone. Vests with band logos on them are particularly off limits.

And they have a whole musical elitism going on that borders on fascism. If it is not metal, it's shit. And everything needs to be brutal. With vacant eyes staring through tangled, matted bundles of jet black hair, they stumbled past me, growling, more animal than person. Occasionally, someone would just shout out the name of their favourite band, in complete defiance of whoever was actually on stage at the time. And as if anyone genuinely cared.

While I was queuing for overpriced noodles that were probably been boiled in cat piss, two guys blundered past having a completely nonsensical conversation. "LAMB OF GOD!" yelled the first ingrate. His protoplasm of a companion retorted by bellowing "SLAYER!" with a voice that could crack glass. They continued this debacle for about five minutes. Finally, one of them demanded "BOOZE" and they sauntered off, probably to neck ethanol, wrestle bison and take turns to smell each others fetid body odour.


People are deliberately evil and malicious.

This is not a problem limited exclusively to Download. It's a problem with festivals everywhere. It is the difficult subject of portaloos.

Welcome to Hell, maggots.

Queuing for the toilets, you get a creeping sense of dread. It's a collective fear that everyone shares. What is waiting for you inside the damp, plastic tomb that is a festival toilet? I've never seen people open a door so gingerly, as if they genuinely expected there to be a live bear on the other side, waiting to tear off their face. I half expected someone to stumble away, their face a mask of horror and scream "Oh dear god, bring up the flamethrowers!"

This is because, despite everyone approaching the toilets with the same apprehension, and complaining about how horrible festival toilets are, some people just seem actually dedicated to spreading misery. Why, in the name of all that is holy, would you visit a toilet and deliberately shit on the walls? Why do people do that? Everyone knows these toilets are bad. It is just you, you have gone out of your way to make everything as horrible as possible for everyone. This goes out to whoever took a dump on the flushing handle. I hope daemons chase you through your nightmares.

News to Me

'The End Is Nigh', Scientists Confirm

Leading researchers from the Institute of Studies have confirmed that the end is well and truly nigh. Professor Smith, head of research, confirmed recent media rumours of impending Armageddon.

"Basically," said prof. Smith, "we've done some studies, and yeah. We're about six to eight months from what the academic community calls 'The End of Days'. All social, scientific and cultural endeavor has been for nothing. The entire history of human evolution has been leading to this point."

Ancient cave painting found in Worchester, dated 6,000 BC.

It is expected all life on earth will cease to exist before the next season of Game of Thrones goes to air in April 2013.

"All the signs are there," prof. Smith continues, "Eurovision. A dog winning Britain's Got Talent. A woman in a hat worth millions of pounds telling the adoring public to starve themselves. People eating each others faces in Miami. That sort of thing."

Professor Don MacFreud, a psychologist, commented.

"It turns out the world is actually a construct based on consensus reality. In the beginning, the human race built it with hopes, dreams and aspirations. Early man was motivated to hunt and build shelter, while later the species was driven by political and philosophical enlightenment. In short, their perceptions shaped the world was we know it. The present - as we understand it - is upheld entirely by people interested in vagjazzles, Stella Artois and the 99p Saver Menu. It's unsustainable. Reality is crumbling, yielding to strange events. Someone flew a flaming torch half way around the world on a golden plane. It's insane. And no one noticed."

The news has come as a relief to Boris Johnson, according to a close aide. 

"Boris had already resigned himself to having to live with his malformed face for another twenty to forty years. Since finding out that the world is about to end and we're all going to die, he's been on a constant meth bender. Right now he's engaging in a sadistic orgy with cannibalistic midgets. Last night he played a sex game with Terasa May where he attempted to waterboard her with a couple of bottles of Bollinger champagne."

 Terry Holdsworth, representing the general public, remarked.

"It's kind of sad that it's all over, but we should be able to squeeze another X-Factor in before then. My biggest problem is that all life will end before I get to watch the third season of Game of Thrones. I was hoping the blond kid would die. He is such a prick."

Britain 'Woefully Unprepared for Warm Weather'

Britain is woefully unprepared to deal with the recent influx of warm weather, ministers have admitted. 

It follows a week of mildly warm temperatures which have caused people to become nauseatingly optimistic and pathetically cheerful. As the first shafts of sunlight pierced the uncompromising cloud cover, thousands of happy-go-lucky office workers enjoyed rolling their sleeves up and daring to eat al-fresco.

As temperatures creep into the early twenties, some meteorologists warn that the sea itself may start to boil.

But there was growing concern in the House of Commons as to how Britain would deal with the hot snap. Herbert Derbingham, MP for West Countryshire, admitted,

"Now that temperatures in the United Kingdom have become comparable to those found in other countries the world over, we're seeing a disturbing rise in meat consumption and shirtless lager drinking peasants who have come out of the woodwork to display their pale, distended bodies and cringe-inducing tattoos in an effort to woo or indimidate other members of the putrid feral underclass."

Mr. Derbingham's comments come in the wake of a recent warning by medical experts mildly warm weather could lead to an increase of morbidly obese people sweating buckets and hideously bursting forth from clothes that are far too small for them.

"Not only do their pose a risk to themselves by overworking their giant badly maintained cardiac muscles, but they pose a more general danger of causing searing blindness amongst the wider population. Couple this with a rise in sales of Zinger Tower-Burgers and Tesco's Premium lager, and you have the perfect storm," commented one doctor. "Our only saving grace is the fact that it is a double bank holiday, so anyone who doesn't immediately head out and panic buy a month's shopping is probably going to starve to death in the next two days."

Extra staff have been placed on call for A+E departments up and down the country to deal with an increased number of sweaty, gelatinous meat-sacks who will find surprisingly imaginative ways of injuring themselves because of the warm weather. 

"All we are saying is that people need to take care," Mr Derbingham concluded. "We have not had a week this tepid since last October, and because of the mess that we inherited from the previous government, our resources in battling this new spell of warm weather are stretched to their limits."

Queens Jubilee Overshadowed by New Apprentice

The Queen's Jubilee has been largely relegated to just over-enthusastic flag waving unemployed people, according to viewing figures.

The final episode of The Apprentice, which saw smug slimeball Ricky Martin murder two of the other contestants with an electric carving knife, caught the public imagination far more than a bunch of rich people getting soaked by the rain. 

Sociologists have linked this to rising unemployment.

 

"I can't believe he got a job," said former IT worker John Tetley. "We thought all the the jobs were extinct. I've been on the dole for eight months. I have two degrees and twelve years of experience, but no one wants me."

Mr. Martin's mother, Bianca, spoke of her happiness.

"Martin's triumph over the other candidates was the happiest moment of my life. I think he deserved it, but I would say that, I'm his mum!" She exclaimed.

As Sir Alan tears out Ricky's soul and devours it, the the Queen waves at deluded peasants from a gold-plated million pound boat.

"Sure, it wasn't exactly a proud moment when he bit the head off that kitten in the last round, but we shouldn't forget Tom Gearing's glazed eyes as he masturbated onto the clammy face of that dead hobo two weeks ago."

As part of getting a job, it is expected that Mr. Martin will be knighted in the New Years Honours, to recognise his achievment in spite of bleak economic prosepcts. To combat the deline, slavery has been re-introduced to parts of Britain. Close Protection UK used a bus load of unpaid labour to bolster steward numbers along the riverbank for the Diamond Jubilee. The 'cattle', as the workers are affectionately known, were made to sleep under London Bridge so they could be nice and refreshed in the morning. This has drawn condemnation from half-arsed trade unions, minor MP's, irritating journalists and incensed internet non-entities.

"I wish everyone would just forget about it," said a spokeman for Close Protection, "We didn't pay them. So what? Do you pay a cow for milk? They're talking about it as if they were actually fucking people."