London by Night

I stumbled across these a while back. Lovely photos. Makes me think we might as well pack up and go home as far as energy conservation efforts are concerned, though.

The Horror of Helmand

This post has been along time coming, partly because every time I sit down to write something about the number of fatalities the number seems to have grown. The rather excellent http://www.icasualties.org/ informs me that the figure is now 191 for the UK (more than Iraq - though you already know that, unless you've been living in a cave). The US figure is 758. Nobody counts for Afghans.

This recent surge in fatalties has stimulated much discussion in the UK media about whether the price is worth paying in Afghanistan, or whether we should cut and run. I'm going to consider the arguments on both sides before arriving at the position I was in before - we should scarper.

First of all, it is worth acknowledging that there are real and persuasive reasons for our continued presence out there. The first of these, it seems to me, is that pre 9-11 Afghanistan was a terrorists' playground. If we don't do something about it, they'll be free to make it so once again. This is a real worry. Even if the Taliban weren't able to gain control of Kabul again (and maybe they would - I don't know), they already hold large swathes of the countryside. Should they be so inclined, they could welcome Al Qaeda back with open arms. This is a horrible scenario to consider. The question, though, is whether it is within our power to prevent such a thing. We've been there for almost eight years. We've spent millions, if not billions of pounds that we don't really have at the moment. We've lost 191 men and women (not to mention the hundreds of wounded). How long are we really prepared to keep this up? How long would it take to "secure" the whole country, so that AQ, or any other terrorist organisation, would find it impossible to set up camp there? As you'll see, these questions are reocurring ones.

The second best argument for staying the course in Afghanistan is the humanitarian argument that we shouldn't turn our backs on the many, many ordinary Afghans who have already lived under Taliban rule for a crushing 5 years. Make no mistake, these people (the Taliban) are truly awful. During their period of rule, they allowed no political dissent whatsoever and banned, among many things, clapping during sports events, kite flying and beard trimming. They were and are hideous towards women. This being said, we as a nation do not have anywhere approaching the resources necessary to deal with every regime and "government" around the globe that we find distasteful. It's an open question, I suppose, whether we should spend all that blood and treasure fighting for our ideals alone, but I'm not in favour.

The third case for continued action is that, without our help, the Afghan Government would probably fall. Furthermore, our absence would allow the opium growers whose wares end up in Westerners' veins in the form of heroin to flourish. The first point here, about the Afghan Government, is a rubbish one. They're corrupt as all hell. Their fall would only matter for the reasons discussed above, about the security of the country as a whole (or partial) entity. The second factor, the opium production, is, arguably, more compelling, but, even if we did have the power to stamp the trade out at source, is that really a good enough reason for a war? Not for me.

In opposition to these factors, there are many arguments for getting the hell out of there. The best of these, though, is that this operation fails the Powell Test. Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell listed the following questions (which he himself inherited for another former Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger), all of which must be answered, before a US military action can rightly be embarked upon:

1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?

2. Do we have a clear, attainable objective?

3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?

4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?

5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?

6. Have the consequences of our actions been fully considered?

7. Is the action supported by the American people?

8. Do we have genuine, broad, international support?

This war fails a number of these questions, particularly the second and fifth, but most interesting is the fourth - alternative, non-military options. Our objectives in Afghanistan, as discussed above, are worthy ones. They're just not worth the blood, treasure and risk of "endless entanglement" that securing them requires. This doesn't mean that we should just give up, though. Instead, we need to look seriously at what can be done with policing, diplomacy and governance. We also need to be realistic - Afghanistan is a long, long way behind the West in terms of development. We are tens and maybe hundreds of years away from seeing liberal democracy emerge amongst the tents, goats and mountains. What is within our grasp, though, is basic security. The right deals struck with the right warlords should see AQ kept out of Afghanistan, or at least operationally incapable.

The biggest reason of all, of course, that we won't cut and run in Afghanistan, is that His Majesty Barack O would be slighted. Whether he privately believes in this war or not, the Yanks aren't going to be happy if their main allies leave them carrying the can on their own. You can make the argument here that British lives should never, ever be expended just to keep non-Britons happy and you'd be (morally) right, but welcome to geopolitics.

We should never have got in in the first place, then. We should get the hell out now. We can't, though, so we should do our best to limit the damage and get serious about the "soft" options instead.

Bat for Ashes

I was there when Monty Panesar showed true English courage to held out against the barbarian hordes and snatch a glorious, er, draw from the jaws of Ashes defeat. It, my friends, was yesterday.

Despite my love of sport, I've tried up to this point to keep this blog free of all chat of a sporting nature, for fear of alienating my huge female readership (not that women necessarily don't like sport, I'm just lazily generalising. I do that sometimes). I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, though, so I'll allow myself a little one (which will include no disscussion of a tactical nature whatsoever, I assure you).

It was a glorious sunny day yesterday, despite the near-unanimous prediction of rain (a fact which, while admittedly rather nice, didn't help England's attempt to salvage a draw much). I got burned to a frazzle. I look ridiculous. I don't mind, though, as it was a lovely day out, as (test) cricket matches often are. It's a wonderful thing, a five day sporting event. You hardly even have to watch the actual sport. You can read the paper, eat a cucumber sandwich, nip off to the loo, or, indeed, get riotously drunk without there being too much danger of you having missed anything important. The last of these activities, in fact, seemed an immensely popular way of spending the day, with the crowd's singing getting more and more slurred and less and less coherent as the match wore on and the alcohol wore in.

It's a funny thing, crowd behaviour at cricket matches, as this most genteel of sports inches ever closer to the mainstream. Where once stuffy gents in striped blazers and straw hats stroked their chins and ho-hummed along, now cricket crowds are increasingly difficult to distinguish from football crowds, with many of the same songs making the crossover. It's self-evidently good for cricket to grow in popularity and to welcome those from outside its traditional social circles, but I do think the rise in multi-sport chants/songs is to be lamented. Actually, I don't mind all that much, except that it's the most tedious ones that seem to make the jump - the ones heard at every football ground up and down the country, with little or no local or idiosyncratic variations. That's a shame, if you ask me.

Still, my (partial) disappointment with the crowd aside, I do still think it's a grand way to spend a sunday. The Ashes are coming to London next, followed by Birmingham, Leeds and then London again. You should look into it, you really should.

Pokey for Cokies?

George Monbiot has an article in today's Guardian rather provocatively titled "Yes, addicts need help. But all you casual cocaine users want locking up". The thing, according to Monbiot, is that those people who casually and only occasionally use cocaine (i.e. that aren't addicts) are helping to promote the violence and criminality that surrounds cocaine production and sale in the third world, where the stuff grows. In fact, so heinous is the act of casual consumption of cocaine (a subject previously discussed on this blog) that all users should be criminalised, regardless of their behaviour, motivations and intentions.

This, it falls to me to say, is utter nonsense. No one disputes the horrors that seem to accompany the production, manufacture and sale of cocaine. Especially not in Colombia (which I courageously flew right over during my travels in Latin America a few years ago). What is ridiculous, though, is to blame the consumer for this mayhem, when there are such worthier targets for our righteous, Guardian reading-anger. It seems obvious to me that the only reason coke is such a bad business all round is because of its continued prohibition, both in the consuming first world and the producing third. There's no comparative trouble in the tobacco, or alcohol, producing industries, because it's done by grey men in suits with an interest in making money, rather than Colombian neckties.

At this point, were he to debate the issue with individual bloggers with approximately a fifth of his brain matter, Monbiot would no doubt point out that, whatever our personal political inclinations, prohibition is the status quo across the world and that we'd better get used to it. He's right, of course, in that cocaine isn't going to be legalised any time soon, here, in the US, or in Colombia. Especially not in Colombia, in fact, as the US has a death-grip on its drug policy, dangling as it does the possibility of the withdrawal of aid were Colombia to come to its senses and legalise the trade that's currently killing its country and therefore necessatating reliance on aid handouts .

He's quite wrong, in this imagined debate, however, in saying that we should accept that the system is as it is and that we should therefore modify our behaviour accordingly. Let me ask you/him this: during the prohibition of alcohol in the US early in the 20th Century, were people wrong to go to speakeasys? To want a drink at a funeral, at a wedding, or just after a hard day's work panning for gold in them thar hills? Or was the policy that prevented them from doing so wrong? Were these people responsible for the havoc wreaked by Al Capone and the other liquor traffickers of the time? If not, why the hell is that any different from the consumers of cocaine?

It's the policy that should be locked up, with the key thrown somewhere deep into the Colombian jungle.

Saturday Strollin' in Tehran

This video is well worth a watch. Stick with it for full effect. Awesome.

Speak (swiftly)

So, the grinning chappie to the left, John Bercow, has been elected speaker.

I feel alright about it, though I was really backing Widdecombe (not because of her politics - they're about as far away from mine as can be - but because I think she's got some integrity. Also, more importantly, she's utterly ridiculous and I think Parliament needs a touch of that). He would've been my second choice (along with Parmjit Dhanda). He's witty, articulate and, Lord knows, independent minded. He should do well.

Having said all that, the job probably isn't worthy of all the media attention it's got. Even I was swept along with it all, spending an indecent amount of time refreshing my browser for updates. When the final result came in at last, I was fascinated to note that, with the result announced in the Commons at 20.30, Twitter broke the news to the rest of us first at 20.31, followed, astoundingly, by Wikipedia, which was updated by 20.33 and lastly by the BBC, who "broke" the no longer news (again via Twitter - I can't speak for the main site) at 20.36. The most significant result of Bercow winning the Speakership, then, might just be the sounding of yet another death knell for the mainstream media.

If you had any doubts left in your mind, this provides incontrovertible (if anecdotal) proof that Twitter is fitter than the MSM. I need to look into how to get this blog linked up, poste haste.

Doin' the Dope Fiend Lean

The excellent Bad Science blog, written by Dr Ben Goldacre, says the unthinkable about recreational drug use. It's a cracking article from somebody at least somewhere near the mainstream (Goldacre has a Guardian column, where the article will also appear).

Amongst many truisms in the article are the following:

• Goldacre quotes a World Health Organisation study as saying that "Health problems from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use".
  
• Goldacre notes that the report goes "on to challenge several of the key principles driving prohibition, and was extremely critical of most US policies. It suggested that supply reduction and law enforcement strategies have failed, and that alternative strategies such as decriminalisation might be explored, flagging up such programmes in Australia, Bolivia, Canada and Colombia".

Both of these points, to my mind, are irrefutably true. The most, or perhaps the least, surprising fact in Goldacre's article, though, is that that report was suppressed by the US Government. I find it incredible that on neither side of the Atlantic are we able to have a sensible discussion about recreational drug use.

I would go so far as to say that no policy has been found so profoundly wanting, with so many disastrous consequences, as the prohibition of recreational drugs. The subject is screaming out for reform, but our politicans' craven attitude towards the tabloids all but ensures that we can't even talk it over publically without facing outrage and ridicule. It really is enough to drive one to drink, at the very least.

Knock the Vote

I didn’t vote on Thursday. I live in London, so it would only have been in the European elections, not the local, had I done so. Didn’t though.

My workmates are unanimously shocked and appalled that I’d wilfully refuse to do my democratic duty. I have done nothing whatsoever to keep the BNP out of London (though, I must admit, I am secretly pleased to see that they didn’t get in down here anyway). I couldn’t have complained if they had though. No vote = no say. More than that, my ancestors died for my right to vote, dammit, and I’ve betrayed them. And what about those living under the thumb of the Mugabes of this world, they’d give anything to be in my position!

There are a number of reasons for my failure/refusal to vote, many of them inconsistent and some of them even incompatible, I expect. But still. My reasoning was as follows:

1. Voting is basically irrational. No election was ever won or lost on 1 measly vote, but that’s all I’ve got. My contribution, were I to positively make one, makes precisely zero difference to the result. The result, it should be said, is all that matters here. I don’t buy that shit about participation for the sake of it. I’m not a lemming; give me a proper say or don’t, but let’s not pretend that 1 vote, diluted by thousands of others, counts as such.

2. Booooring. We live in a digital age. I can choose pretty much everything else I want at the click of a button, but I have to order, complete and post a voter registration form? By snail mail? Then, just in case that isn’t active or time-consuming enough, I have to walk to a polling station? (I could have done a postal vote, I admit, but that takes advanced registration, dammit, and I don’t do anything in advance.) This isn’t actually much of a reason for not voting. It probably was a factor, though, if I’m honest.

3. Not voting can be every bit as principled as voting. The big thing here is legitimacy. Turnout in Western elections is so low nowadays that legitimacy must be called seriously into question. Proportional voting systems, such as that used for Thursday’s European elections, are certainly a step up from first past the post, such as used in Westminster, but it’s impossible to avoid the turnout thing. How can it be legitimate, for example, for Nick Griffin (BNP) to represent the people of North West England, when only 8% of them voted for him? That’s a crashing 92% that didn’t. Nationally, only 34% of people cast their votes one way or another. That, for the eagle-eyed amongst you, is a minority. Despite this, though, those elected to the European Parliament will represent 100% of the inhabitants of this island. Frankly, that isn’t good enough for me. Every vote cast further legitimises a pretty bankrupt institution, I would argue.

While I’m at it, I want to knock down a few of the statements made about non-voting.

“If everybody thought like that, nobody would turn out”

Everybody doesn’t, though. As I said above, I only have one vote and my decision to not use it has no bearing whatsoever on anybody else’s. I’m not responsible for how other people think, so don’t flipping expect me to be so.

“Our forefathers died for the right to vote”

True, but our forefathers, busy fellows that they were, also died for the freedom to worship. Am I in any way compelled to believe in God? Why is it any different for voting?

“People living in non-democracies wouldn’t take a vote for granted”

Maybe not, but, just because a representative democracy is better than, say, a dictatorship, doesn’t mean it’s the acme of political and social evolution. Plus, there’s always someone, somewhere that’s worse off. This looks like an argument for stasis. Even Iran has some democracy. Haven’t they got the right to hold out for a better system?

“If you don’t vote, you can’t complain”

What? Why? Who says I have to play by the rules of the current system, whatever that may be? I may have missed a meeting, but I don’t recall being consulted as to whether one poxy vote was enough for me to be ruled for 5 years, in whatever way.

If I sound like an anarchist now, it’s because I sort of am. Not because I believe in freedom, anarchism, or self-government, but because I’m not really up for reinforcing the rules of the current system. It’s pretty rubbish and I won’t apologise for saying so. Trey Parker and Matt Stone agree with me too.

Keep on Rollin'

So, it looks like Gordy will be sticking around for now. These attempted coups are always fascinating to watch. They remind me of a playground scrap: everybody circling uncertainly, waiting for someone, anyone to kick things off.

The Cabinet heavyweights, (just about) James Purnell aside, don't seem too keen to get involved, whatever their true feelings about the Labour leadership. Straw, Milliband, Harman, Johnson and, interestingly, Mandelson seem to want to stand by their man, though all for their own reasons, of course. Maybe, as the above cartoon alleges, they were some of the ones organising the coup all along. Still, their public support makes for quite a security blanket for GB.

Make no mistake, though, it was by no means inevitable that knives would remain in their sheaths. I suspect that the main reason GB still has his job is that the alternatives aren't especially attractive at this time. Everybody thinks Labour will lose the next Election. It's pretty difficult to see that changing, even if the leadership did. Also, I understand that the pressure on any new PM to call an instant election would be overwhelming. Who in their right mind would want to risk their political skin just to govern the country for one measly month? That's not the way anybody wanted to go down in history.

Red Tide Rising

Proof, if ever any were needed, that the grey squirrel is a danger to our way of life.

In further amusing Guardian news, Paul Macinnes joins the campaign to eradicate the grey squirrel and liberate the shires of England for the poor, benighted, British red squirrel.

Having never even set eyes on a red squirrel, I can't imagine why this subject animates me, but it does, dammit. Do we want to live in a land where the natives of this island have no future? Where any old creature can get past our non-existent border controls and rape and pillage to his tiny heart's content? No? Then vote BNP. Or just join the European Squirrel Initiative. Either way. Freeeedom!

Update: A commenter has rightly pointed that the above post isn't entirely clear. I'm in no way suggesting that anyone should vote BNP (see my earlier post on the subject for proof!). Useful lesson about not blogging while sleepy.

Hydeolatry

The aforementioned Marina Hyde, attractive and talented with a single vice, as described in the comments a couple of posts below, that of knowing and consensual copulation with Piers Morgan, has a funny wee article in the Guardian today about the Jonas Brothers (they of chastity fame).

Worth your time, I'd say.

A Strange and Bitter Crop

I've been listenting to this Billie Holiday song (actually written by a whitey called Lewis Allen, interestingly) this afternoon. It's about the lynching of blacks in the American South. Haunting and beautiful. Pretty sure they don't write 'em like this no more.

The rather wonderful lyrics are as follows:

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.


Give it a listen.

Life's a Twitch

I watched a fascinating programme on Tourette's Syndrome on BBC1 on Friday evening. Give it a watch.

I have Tourette's, though I'm almost embarrassed to say that I have the same, well, syndrome as the two guys (one teenager and one 40ish) in the film. To be clear, I certainly don't say that because TS is anything to be ashamed of, but because mine has never been as severe or as debilitating as theirs. All the same, their expereinces chimed interestingly with mine and made me want to talk a little bit about the thing.

First of all, to clear up some myths, TS does not always involve swearing. In fact, only about 1 in 10 TS sufferers has to deal with that particularly difficult tic (or so I was told only this morning). Also, TS is a lot more common than people think - many people (myself included, these days) have such mild TS that you and possibly even they would never notice.

It's very difficult to draw the line between people who "have it" and those who don't. Many if not most people probably "suffer" from their own little compulsions and I've heard more than one person tell me how they are sometimes tempted to do the unthinkable, such as throw themselves in front of trains/off bridges. We're all a bit twichy, I guess.

The good thing about how widespread the symptoms of TS are is that most people can have some idea what its like to have tics. We've all had itches that scream to be scratched - that's pretty much what its like to need to twitch. It's not completely unconcious, so its not completely impossible to resist, although you try resisting the urge to scratch an itch. Unless you succeed in distracting your mind, you'll find it pretty flipping hard.

My TS has got a hell of a lot better as I've got older, from its inception when I was a kid (I can't really remember how old I was, but I certainly haven't always had it - at least not to my knowledge), when it was pretty galling at times, to now, where its hardly ever a bother, really. I think a huge part of what bother I have had from it, actually, was about other peoples' reactions to my tics, rather than the things themself. Now that I rarely show any physical symptoms (and am not a kid anymore), I don't have to put up with staring or teasing. The teasing was definitely the worst, as it usually is for kids on the receiving end of it for any reason at all.

My thoughts on how the condition actually works are pretty unformed and very ill-informed, so forgive me for any wrongheadedness, but I have a few notions or explanatory notes about the condition. First, I can't get past the thing about the urge to do the unthinkable. I actually think this explains a lot of tics, from swearing in the supermarket to fantasising about jumping in front of trains, or punching insanely nice people in the face - I've had (and successfully resisted) that one too. Once a rogue thought pops into you mind, it's like an itch. That's why I don't tic much anymore - because devilish ideas don't cross my mind, I'm usually thinking of other (normal, hopefully) things. Second, not all (or even most) of the manifestations of TS are physical. TS has links to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder, amongst other things, the latter of which used to cause me no end of problems at school. I was essentially an average, reasonably bright, sensible kid, but I never, ever finished my work. My teachers, poor souls, used to despair of me. I've never really been able to determine where the boundary is between my TS/ADD and my laziness, but I've never quite got free of that side of it, though, like all the rest, it has faded, or at least got easier to handle (I even have a couple of degrees to my name now, though by the skin of my teeth, I have to admit). The OCD side of it is an enduring mystery to me, largely because it manifests itself in common and inconsistent ways. I'm pretty freakishly clean when it comes to, say, washing up, but I can never really be bothered with cleaning the bathroom, to my long-suffering flatmate's horror.

Ultimately, like a lot of mental/cognitive conditions, TS is pretty mysterious, even to people that have have it all their lives. It's as enduringly fascinating as it is difficult, though, at least to this freak a bladdy nature.

Don't Just Take my Word for it...

Here's the lovely (and talented) Marina Hyde, making my point about the Wire somewhat, er, eloquentlier.

And here she is, accompanied by a Newsnight panel, extending her/my point.

Steady as she Goes

Personally, I still don't fancy it. Mebbe someday it'll be uncool not too, though...

Mein Bouff

It seems like everybody's getting their knickers in a twist about the far right at the moment. The possibility of Nick Griffin accompanying London Assembly Member Richard Barnbrook (BNP both) to one of the Queen's garden parties has been scandalising the nation over the last week or so, though Griffin, PR objectives achieved, has now said that he isn't going to attend anyway, for fear of "embarrassing" Her Majesty.

The first thing I think we should do in this situation is congratulate Mr Barnbrook on coming up with someone we'd be even less keen on taking tea with than the Royal Family, and the second is to calm the hell down and talk this over. It seems to me that we, as a society, don't do enough talking about the far right, just hoping that they'll be good lads and scuttle off back to whence they came (much as they wish the darkies would do).

Let's face up to it, though. They're really nothing to be afraid of, after all. Most of them can't even read, I rather suspect. Not to stereotype. I'm an advocate, then, of bringing the nats into the light, where what passes for their ideas can be examined properly and dismissed out of hand by sensible people everywhere, which is pretty much everyone. Their ethno-nationalist twaddle bears no scrutinty whatsoever and deserves to be exposed for the sham that it is. That can never happen unless we give them the platform/rope with which to hang themselves. Let them have a panelist on Question Time, let them have a Member of the European Party, let them have Coventry, if they want them. Let's not flatter them with suppressal. They don't deserve it.

The Passion of the Spice

Islamic militants demonstrating against Pakistani military operations against the Taliban. I have no comment here, except on the level of passion on display. Literally nothing moves me to such extremes of feeling (or action). The closest I come is probably when eating a particularly spicy lamb saag. There's nothing like a hot saag.

"Catalan vs. Matalan"

Mad props to The Sun for today's headline, about Barcelona's dismantlement of Manchester United last night. Harsh but fair.

Other puntastic football-related Sun headlines include this old favourite, about Caledonian Thistle's 3-1 victory over Celtic in the Scottish Cup in 2003:

"Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious"

Awesome stuff.

Not a Shock Part Deux

So, early results from a Peninsula medical school research exercise suggest that...marijuana could indeed have some medicinal benefit. Well stone me.

Snappy Snaps

Photos that shook the world.