It’s official: Thatcher’s off her head

It is shocking for all Daily Mail readers. God is about to die. Yeah, a few weeks after it was decided that Mrs T will get a state funeral, her daughter, Carol Thatcher, writes her memoirs and reassures us that mum will be gone soon.
This is sad. I will not make a joke about the mental illness of the former Prime Minister, who (and even I as a liberal admit that) did (a few) great things for Britain.
But the way the Daily Mail writes about MT’s dementia made me nearly cry this morning, as I was drinking a rubbish Americano in Costa.
Amanda Platell of the Mail complaints that Carol should not have written this book. “To me,” she wrote, “and to many who admired or loved her mother, it felt not only like a terrible invasion of an old woman’s privacy but a personal betrayal.”
What? There are people who love and admire her??
The Mail’s position here is clear: don’t mention the illness; pretend everything is fine. Thatcher has never been ill, she will never have dementia, she will never die - and if she does, she will come back, just like Jesus did.
“Particularly distasteful is the revelation in Carol’s book that her mother sometimes forgets that her beloved Denis is gone.” – If it is that “distasteful”, why did the Mail on Sunday print it then, exclusively?!
“My only hope is that Lady Thatcher’s dementia will mean that the full extent of her daughter’s crass misjudgement can soon be forgotten, …”, that’s what Amanda Platell wrote in today’s Mail… I am not quite sure why the Mail did not use the story to explain dementia to its reader. The story would have been especially interesting for the Mail’s readers, considering that most of them probably suffer of this not too entertaining illness already.
Schreiber

Dance, beloved populace!

G2 excelled itself last week, showing it is Britain where T2 is clearly Australia in medals table terms. Charlie Brooker’s column showed clarity and humour beyond the reaches even of these humble bloggers, well Schreiber at least!
Writing on the subject of the Olympic opening ceremony……Perhaps Mr Brooker read previous innit24 posts, urging people not to forget China’s many and deep faults. China is a developing nation, with many millions living in abject poverty in a medieval manner. The citizens have no rights that cannot immediately withdrawn at the whim of an official. The justice system is as transparent as Mr Brown’s calm façade, well that’s clearly nonsense but you see my point. I previously wrote, “Who wants to live in a country where civil servants are the most lethal people!” And I stand by this.
Mr Brooker clearly shows, big parades and shows of national unity are simply that, shows. These events do not occur in free and democratic states, the mark of such states is complete apathy.
Let’s free Tibet and continue to harass China by sending dim-witted officials (Mayors) to bumble as rudely as possible and perhaps take the rest of the Tories with him. Franklin

IS PUTIN THE NEW JFK?

Comparisons are fun. Everyone loves them. David Cameron, for example, compared himself (yesterday) to Margaret Thatcher and Benjamin Disraeli. John Prescott compared Gordon Brown to Al Gore, the other week. This summer has often been compared to shit, as has the European Union (for no real reason!). But there is another comparison, I would like to write about. Carl Bildt, Swedens foreign secretary, compared Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler (quite indirectly, but still...). Mr Bildt has been right about quite a few things during this awful war between Georgia and Russia in the last few weeks. However, this comparison is quite over the top. Hitler was a vegetarian and Putin eats meat. No, honestly, I read a comment by Gabor Steingart, the internationally relatively well known author and correspondent of Germany's "Der Spiegel" news magazine. Mr Steingart argues that Putin should not be compared to Hitler (or Stalin), but instead to John F. Kennedy. - Yeah, i admit that sounds shocking, but there is some logic behind it. Georgia is for Putin what Cuba was for Kennedy. JFK wanted to keep his backyard "American", in the same way as Putin wants to keep his backyard "Russian".
Also, Putin represents the new Russia, as Kennedy represented the new America. Putin is loved by his people, as was JFK.
(This might be bad news for Mr Obama, who tries so hard to be the new JFK... ) I am not too sure if I agree with Mr Steingart, but his remarks definitively made me think very differently about Mr Putin's brutality in the Caucasus. Schreiber

Second Amendment Madness

“This is a friendly warning, next time I’m going to bust a cap in your ass.”

If only the right to bear arms meant you were able to wear short sleeve shirts, the most dangerous outcome would be being mistaken for an angry trade unionist.

A most forward thinking school district, in where else but deepest whitest Texas has decided to let teachers carry concealed weapons, well guns anyway. Concealing a baseball bat might be a little conspicuous .

Superintendent (Skinner, if only) David Thweatt displaying faultless logic has rationalised this by saying, "When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started," It will be a cold day in hell when America realises that peace through superior firepower is not the road-map to harmony (perhaps Tom-Tom can help?).

It has been proven by contradiction that the amount of guns per person has no direct effect on the number of gun deaths. Think Switzerland where everyone has an AK beneath their bed and no gun crime and say Germany where waffenkontrollgesetz is among the most restrictive and gun crime is ‘relatively’ higher. The individual country’s social culture has a much greater affect on how guns are used.

Whatever your individual countries/ personal views on gun control there are surely a few sacrosanct ideas that we can all agree on, chiefly: -
• There are no place for guns in Schools, if you increase the amount of guns in schools more people will die
• Guns have no place in the hands of untrained ‘guardians’, without proper and regular training increasing the number of guns will mean more people will die

In short, if you increase the amount of guns, MORE PEOPLE WILL DIE! Franklin

ROBOTS WITH BRAINS...

The world's first Frankenstein-like creature has finally been created. This week's New Scientist (out today) reports that scientists at the University of Reading have created a so called "animat", a robot with the actual brains of rats. Before I explain how it works, I would like to refer to the actually article, as this will prevent me from making mistakes.
The story is great though. What the scientists have created is a robot that can learn! If the robot 'sees' a wall, the brain will tell the 'body' to stop or even go back, because the brain 'knows' that it cannot go through walls. A video on how this looks like is available here.
I think this is by far one of the most interesting scientific breakthroughs in quite a while. This is the first time that scientist can study in detail how a brain works. The information they might gather can lead to a cure of illnesses such as Alzheimer's.
Schreiber

WHY WAS THERE NO JOINT STATEMENT?

A very important statements came from America today: Peaches Geldorf married her boyfriend, Max Drummy. And, let’s be honest, it was about time for them to get married - they have known each other already for nearly four weeks!
Okay, that was not quite the statement I was actually thinking of. Instead, I was thinking of statements made by US President George W Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Both politicians demanded that Russia ends all military operations in Georgia, as they have promised to the EU Presidency (being represented by Nicolas Sarkozy at the moment). In an impressively direct and Russia-critical press conference that was broadcasted around the globe, Mrs. Rice warned Russia of consequences, but failed to name any.
Looking at Russia’s ongoing military intervention way beyond the actual zone of conflict (many journalists reported that Russia continues to bomb Gori, a city outside of South Ossetia), Mrs Rice said: "I have heard the Russian president say that his military operations are over. I am saying it is time for the Russian president to be true to his word." The Secretary also warned Russia, saying that “things have changed” since the end of the USSR.
Not knowing what the consequences for Russia could be, it is not quite clear yet, if they will lead to an end of the war.
Mr Bush gave an equally important press conference earlier today, saying: "The United States stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia and insists that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected." Whatever one may think about the US-reactions to the crisis, one cannot but notice that these statements should have been made by a EU-European politician.
And yes, you may say, European politicians made similar statements. This is in fact true, but only on national levels. What worries me, however, is that the EU was (once again) unable to come up with a common policy for the crisis. At the beginning of the conflict I was rather confident that the EU would find a common South Ossetia policy, however, I was wrong (at least that's how it looks like at the moment).
It might have been the wrong decision to sent Mr Sarkozy to deal with the crisis and enforce some sort of ceasefire. Maybe it would have been better to send a EU politician and not an (after all) ‘national’ politician. But, to be honest, could Javier Solana (the de facto and to a certain extend also de jure EU Foreign Minister) have made a big difference? Would Russia be truer to its words, if the ceasefire would have been promised to Mr Solana instead of Mr Sarkozy? I am not too sure about it… I only know that it is truly shameful for the EU to not be able to find a common policy on this problem.
However, it is not too late yet. There is still time for statement of all EU members demanding that Russia stops its unlawful military intervention in Georgia immediately. The EU would also have to promise South Ossetia and Abkhazia that their self-determination as a state can be guaranteed by the Union.
Schreiber

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM THE WAR

The war is over for now. This is great news for everyone. Firstly, it is great news for the people of the Caucasus (obviously!), but then, it is also good news for us people in “the west”, as the oil market will stabilise again, after going berserk in the past few days. Russia called a halt to military actions this afternoon, however, making clear that it would re-intervene, as soon as it is judge necessary. Dimitri Medvedev, who was relatively quiet during this war, declared that Georgia was sufficiently punished. This is an utterly dangerous statement, who does Mr Medvedev think he is? Is he a one person war crimes tribunal?! But instead of criticising a man, who is criticised by everyone anyway, let us have a look at what we have learned from this terrible and devastating war. 1. We noticed that despite all predictions of having reached the End of History, as many commentators predicted after the fall of the Berlin Wall, history did not quite yet come to an end. A great mind, Chrystin Freeland of the FT, actually says that instead of having reached the End of History, we have entered the New Age of Authoritarianism. I agree. For the first time since the fall of the USSR, Russia fights a war outside its own territory again. (This is true as long as you see Chechnya as Russian territory). No-one was able to do anything against this pointless bombing. Not even David Cameron’s comparison between Russia and Nazi-Germany helped much (apart from reminding Mail readers that we all have to fear a Russian Blitz). Even politicians who actually have some power (in contrast to Mr Cameron), could not do very much. Dick Cheney’s demand that Russian “aggression […] must not go unanswered,” does not really mean much. Nicolas Sarkozy, at the moment the head of the EU, might have had something to do with Russia finally agreeing to a ceasefire, but his role in all this is not quite clear yet. It is not only Russia though, that represents the New Age of Authoritarianism: we see “oil-powers” across the globe turning autocratic. This is the case in many African and Asian countries, but also in South America. We even enthusiastically watch the Olympics in a country that does not value freedom too much. 2. We learned that Mikhail Saakashvili is one of the least clever politicians around. I mean, let’s be honest, attacking a wannabe independent and Russian-backed South Ossetia and thinking that people won’t notice by the world because of the Olympics?! That’s just chuckleheaded, to say the least. Nevertheless, Mr Saakashvili was clever enough to represent himself well in the Western media. Today, people actually forget that it was he who started the war. Yes, Russia’s reaction was wrong and, no doubt, over the top, but it was Georgia that went to war with a semi-independent country that does not want to be part of an “unstable, immature, chaotic, corrupt, but hopeful” Georgia (to use the Guardian’s words). 3. We discovered that Vladimir Putin is most definitively still the macher in Russia. Dimitri Medvedev was not as prominent as his predecessor Putin during this war. There are a few more things we have learned from this terrible and unnecessary war, like how some UK papers preferred reporting about Maddy McCann, Sienna Miller, Stella McCartney and the like on their front-pages instead of the war. However, Mr Franklin and I are trying to keep the blog entries relatively short… Schreiber

Georgia v Russia on the beaches....

The fighting between Russia and Georgia is ceding as I write; tomorrow it is due to move from the familiar territory of Georgian blocks of flats to the less familiar territory of the beaches. Not in true D-Day style but on the manufactured pitches of the volleyball arena in Beijing. In scenes reminiscent of the 1956 Melbourne games when Russia invaded Hungary hours before their water-polo match, their men's volleyball teams will face each other.

The last match ended with Turkey victorious but with one player seriously injured in the bloodiest Olympic contest ever, (discounting the Ancient Greek games littered with lion mauled slaves, but you see the point), monikered the, 'Blood in the Water match.'

So tune in on the 13th August, my money's on Georgia, I never could resist an underdog. Unless of course the Russian withdrawal is on the condition of Georgia taking a fall, they wouldn't, would they? Imagine cheating at the Olympics, who'd have thought it! Franklin

Spooks:Code 9 BBC Drama or Vanguard for Police State Britain

Anyone tuning in to watch the new series of Spooks by the BBC was in for a shock, gone are the slick characters, racy tensions and faintly believable plots. In their place are a bunch of squabbling children, justifying an almost complete breakdown of civil liberties in a post(terrorist)-apocalyptic Britain.

To denigrate the BBC series Spooks with this bastard offspring is sheer sacrilege and an insult to the many previous fans. So, they are going for a younger audience with a new (perhaps to them) premise, but those of us that grew up in Cold War Britain were all to familiar with harrowing apocalyptic dramas that played on everyone’s fears and it’s not an era we wish to return to.

The BBC or Auntie as us media hacks call it, is a British institution and publicly funded, this comes with its own responsibilities. Its dramas are not purely entertainment they are meant to educate and inspire. The BBC’s latest offerings, see; Bonekickers, Spooks:Code 9 and Lab Rats are nothing more than cheap ratings grabbers. The plan in Spooks to blow up London so everyone has to more up t’ North was genius, think lower costs, think BBC, think rubbish.

If you did manage to suspend disbelief long enough and to actually see through cringe wincingly awful acting to finish the first episode, you were treated to a lead character being shot and a 19 yr old maths geek (think Numb3rs) taking her place as head of the Field Office (incidentally there was not a muddy boot in site despite every character doing field work). Quite how a 19 yr old is meant to have finished University and joined MI5 before most students can solve a quadratic is passed over. Of course Auntie hasn’t forgotten her leanings and there are the prerequisite obnoxious female characters that seem to have surpassed conversation, taking it to a higher form by simply shouting statement at each other and scowling a lot (think CSI mixed with Alan Sugar).

And quite how the BBC are going to get out of seemingly supporting Police State Britain and actually seeming quite fond of it throughout the series remains to be seen. I wonder if perhaps one of Tony Blair’s new positions is actually content editor of BBC One, it certainly seems possible.

What the BBC have managed to do is take a little of every successful TV show mixed it with a bit of Government propaganda, blend it together in the BBC Ideas masher and spew out meaningless pile of Channel 5 (think The Tribe) worthy drool. Franklin

P.S. Those of you watching the Olympics live of BBC’s iPlayer without a TV license expect a visit from the State Troopers, you’re breaking the law. On-demand service are not (yet) covered by the Jonathon Ross salary tax but live broadcasts are, be warned.

A TIN OF HAM FOR LONDON

Architecture gives cities souls. Or at least a reason to be remembered by the visitors. Now London might get a new and truly impressive building - the so-called “Can of Ham”, as it has been dubbed because of its shape.
Today's Evening Standard reports that the 90m tower might be built next to the Gherkin and Tower 42. (The plans still need to be confirmed by the City f London...)
Do we need a “Can of Ham”-building in the City? Yes we do. London lags behind with impressive and innovative modern buildings. London’s City or Canary Wharf cannot quite compete with Paris’s La Défense, with Manhattan and certainly not with Dubai…
London needs some great Zaha Hadid-like buildings! (By the way, there is a great feature on Zaha Hadid in the summer edition of The Economist’s Intelligent Life). The “Can of Ham”, developed by Targetfollow, will give the City a spectacular and stunning new feature.
Yeah, I admit, it might be dangerous to build a massive new building during an economically not too safe time, but let’s not forget, great buildings (such as the Rockefeller Center) were built during economic downturns.
I think the “Can of Ham” is a great addition to London! Next to the world-famous Gherkin, it will make London’s skyscame much more interesting.
Schreiber

The Chinese Communist Party isn't that bad.....

Stepping off the plane onto pristine tarmac and choking smog it must be easy to miss the signs of a country locked in a bitter fight with its ruling party. In this developing nation surrounded by the latest cellphones and consumer culture, you can see why people may ease their views of the CCP. And yes, China is still developing according to Pascal Lamy the EU Trade Commissioner. It is true that China is opening up its markets, most importantly it’s domestic ones and that it is trying to develop a transparent legal system. I’m sure for the majority of Chinese citizens life is generally agreeable. For those that live in the larger cities, have good jobs and the latest iPhone, life is comparable to a similarly placed Comrade in any developed nation, or even the US. So China is fine, that is unless you choose to believe in the next science Falun Gong, or believe that those pesky monks in Tibet should be able to have their country back (or at least be able to protest against its occupation) or if you don’t think their pseudo-communist ideals are quite the way for a super-power. This is still a country where the civil servant is perhaps the most dangerous person, one infraction of party policy can mean you simply disappear and thousands do. And then you get to news censorship, ever third person in London today has a blog, a concept any Chinese person would undoubtedly find very odd and it’s easy to see why. If you discount every blog that attacks the Government there would only be those inhabited by people who read a newspaper back to front (and I don’t mean Arabs). The BOCOG (Beijing Organising Committee for the Games) displayed its lack of any dignity today releasing a press report so warped by censorship and propaganda it was painful to read. It refers to the tragic incident involving the family of the US Men’s volleyball coach who were attacked and killed. It quickly points out it was a Chinese man who then committed suicide afterwards, crime is so much simpler in authoritarian states, it’s always portrayed as and I quote, as ‘rare and tragic’ and always handled in such a way that closure is immediately had. Further statements such as the ‘police were notified and arrived immediately’ had the sickly stench of propaganda as though this was something that deserves praise! Closing with a statement confirming the safety of the city it certainly seems likely the smog will get you long before a killer will. So would you really want to live in a country where there’s no point in buying a newspaper because it includes less truth than the Mail or where the very people charged with protecting you are actually the most dangerous. So to all the athletes saying it’s really not that bad while drinking protein shakes in their Olympic compound, just think of the peasants thrown off the land to starve or the people that died to give China its Olympic dream. Franklin

IS SOCIAL DEMOCRACY DEAD?

I think its fair to say that, from a political point of view, Gordon Brown is as dead as disco. His political insignificance is increasing from day to day, and the chances of him ever winning an election are as slim as Nicky Hilton.
But lets have a look at other countries: How do Labour or social democratic parties do on the European continent?
Many social democratic leaders seem to face (or have faced) similar political problems as Britain’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer. Germany’s Gerhard Schröder for example was once relatively popular, just like Brown. His No to the Iraq war made him be (together with former French president Jacques Chirac) respected by many, even though many other domestic decisions might have been of less greatness.
Today, Kurt Beck leads the German social democrats, after Schröder lost the election in 2005. Mr Beck is now, as junior partner in Angela Merkel’s so-called “Grand Coalition”, even more unpopular than Brown, and I doubt that he will ever be able to become German Chancellor.
The other country in which social democracy faces similar problems as in the UK is Spain. The election in March 2008 was big news across Europe, especially because the Spanish Kingdom was strongly divided. On one hand there was Mario Rajoy, a boring right-wing nebbish who seems like a poor actor trying to impersonate former Spanish PM José Marí Aznar. On the other hand, there was the (already relatively unpopular) PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who narrowly won the election.
Today, Zapatero is as unpopular as Aldi. This is to a large extend because of the economic situation (Spain’s unemployment rate is 10.7%). Very much like Brown, it is not only Zapatero’s fault that we ended up in this not too entertaining credit crisis, but both are incapable of dealing with the problem. The awful consequence is that this might now lead to Spain and Britain getting two politically incompetent PMs. The United Kingdom might soon have a Frisbee-throwing (how utterly ridicules are the pictures of David C. on holidays?!) PM David Cameron and Spain might return to Aznar-like politics (even though the Spanish conservatives are moving closer to the political centre).
It will be interesting to see if Europe’s social democratic and Labour parties will be able to recover from their leaders’ political inabilities in time for the next elections.
Schreiber

WHAT DO YOU CALL GORDON BRAUN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN? A START

When Peter Bolton of the National Association of Estate Agents develops a moral conscience and describes your actions as, “very, very dangerous” you know the end is in sight, or most people would. The only quote missing from the week news was one from the International Bar Association asking for an across the board rate-cut for all its members. To manage in a short space of time to make yourself more unpopular than lawyers and estate agents is perhaps the biggest coup in British political history (although perhaps more so if it had moved the ratings the other way!)

The ‘stamp duty fiasco’, (alas we haven’t managed to coin a better name yet, stamp duty-gate just doesn’t have quite the cut it) is sadly now typical of a beleaguered PM and his bizarrely eyebrowed friend vomiting out last minute policy without having the backbone to make last minute decisions. Perhaps they hoped that in leaking it to The Sun they would avoid the news spreading to people who actually have to pay stamp duty (house prices above £125k) to look active without moving the market and risking failure. Unfortunately they forgot that since the boom of the Frappucino years the only houses worth less than £125k are found in Mr Braun’s own constituency and that noveau-riche people read The Sun! And since it was good news (or would have been had anyone in Downing Street had even a vestige of a backbone left) it was clearly leaked from the colander barge that is the PM’s office, since no-one leaks anything that The Sun can’t put Maddy, Diana or BDSM in the title. The house of Braun is sinking faster than peace protesters rafts in the Medway.

If this had been bad news this delivery would have been fantastic, instantly talk turned to not, whether it was a good idea or not (it actually is, but only when coupled with a non-existent arsenal of other measures) vanished and turned to everyone from estate agents to his own Treasury colleagues attacking him for his on-going silence on the matter, rumour has it he was still trying to decided which pair of socks to wear. Of course in this time, nobody is going to buy a house when they can buy it in a month for 2% less and without stamp duty, of course as the government keeps telling us this is only one of the possibilities and might not happen, mean while the damage has been done. Two minutes after the announcement, sorry leak, when the house of Braun realised what was going on they could have been on the phone to every news editor and agency to affirm of deny, with such a wholly weak measure the difference would have been negligible and Braun and Eyebrows could lurch towards the next crisis.

Iinstead of tackling a greater public resentment than Major nurtured or desperately trying to buoy up a flaccid housing market and reign down fuel costs, Eyebrows made announcements of merit such as “It’s important we’re straight with people” Straight. Straight!? How does leaking a policy and following it up with in-fighting, claims and counter claims count as straight.

Meanwhile, the unerringly quiet and small House of Harman came forward with the reverence of the Christmas message to say how they were “taking politics to the people” by holding a Cabinet meeting in the Midlands. She even expressed delight at the prospect! The Midlands, who expresses delight at going to the Midlands, anything more jovial than mild-apathy stinks of extreme duress. Why take it to the people in the Midlands? No real people actually live in the Midlands, it populated by middle management arguing over wheelie bins and kids shooting up McDonalds because of the above inflation price rise in McFlurrys. There’s a very good reason why Londoners pay £2.50 for a coffee and endure the subterranean jungle that is the tube everyday, this is our tax for being ‘in the action’, listen to us, we’re saying the same thing as those up North (Midlands is Northern) just more eloquently and not ending every sentence with like, like. So come on Mr Braun, stand up, man up, sack the boy who played foreign secretary and give us the leader we need, or resign, we’re beyond caring but just do something! McBloodytastic. Franklin

EUROPE AND SOUTH OSSETIA

Only 75’000 people live in South Ossetia. Nevertheless it might very well become one of the most controversial hot spots of this decade.
How should Europe react to the problem? Mainly, Europe will need to start speaking with one voice. At the moment we see Britain, France and Germany saying nothing actually helpful. Chancellor Merkel’s spokesman demanded "an immediate stop to any use of force” - This statement certainly will not end the escalating crisis.
PA reports that UK Foreign secretary (and wannabe PM) David Miliband fears that the conflict might spread to other parts of the region (as it has happened by now, with Russia sending troops to Abkhazia). But he does not seem to have a plan to solve this problem (surprise, surprise!).
The best idea comes from one of the new EU members: Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called for an emergency EU summit to debate the war in Georgia. This is indeed the best idea so far. At some sort of special European Council the EU leaders could come up with a common resolution and bring peace to the troubled region.
Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt agrees with his Polish colleague and demands a "very strong response" from the EU. In order to present such a response a meeting of the EU leaders will be necessary.
This Council (the official name for meeting of EU leader) would have to be organised by the French, as they hold the EU presidency at the moment. But this meeting could be highly confrontational, as EU countries have very different approaches to the problem. On one hand you have the Sweden, several central-eastern republics and the Baltic countries, which strongly support Georgia. On the other hand you have France and Germany, two countries that keep relatively quiet about the entire problem. Nevertheless, the EU will be able to reach a common South Ossetian/Abkhazia policy.
Would Russia and Georgia stop bombing each other after the EU comes up with a statement? Probably not. But at least the EU would have a common negotiation basis. A Europe speaking with one voice has a far better chance to solve the problem that any other country, including the USA.
Schreiber