Mrs Balls was frustratingly typically like a politician. Having claimed the Tories weren't being straight with people, she then couldn't answer a question without calling the policy 'not straight'. Why is it once politicians get an idea into their head they can't say anything else?

Hammond claimed raised income from North Sea Oil would offset the loss of fuel duty. Cooper said there were other losses of income as prices rise and people 'feel the pinch'. She didn't seem to notice that the whole point of the scheme was that prices wouldn't rise. I would have thought that a stable price was good for people and businesses that could then plan ahead more securely.

Although I agree with some people within the Tory party, I am not a supporter (small c conservative I guess). This blog isn't meant to be party political, but Labour ministers make it so hard for me to be neutral by being so useless.

BBC NEWS | Health | The NHS - an easy birth?

Dr John Marks, who qualified as a doctor on the day the NHS started and went on to lead the profession's trade union, the British Medical Association, says: "Doctors were a pretty conservative bunch, certainly the older ones, and many hated the NHS.

"They saw it as the government interfering in the doctor and patient relationship, although some just opposed it outright on political grounds."

An easy birth is was not - the opposition to the NHS was vocal, to say the least.

What was obvious at the time of birth was that hospitals and many medical practices were, in effect, bankrupt due to the second world war. This couldn't continue and with a bold and somewhat inflicted compromise Bevan got his way.

Before the NHS local councils and charities did the hospital work and Dr's were paid directly by the patient or Hospital funds (Insurance).

At the time of inception the budget of the NHS was £280m in 1948. A mere pittance from today's £105bn ($210bn).

Some facts:

*The first person to be treated by the NHS was Sylvia Beckingham who was admitted to a hospital in Manchester with a liver condition
*The number of nurses, GPs and consultants employed by the NHS has risen five-fold in the last 60 years
*The NHS now employs around 1.3m people and is one of the largest employers in the world along with the Chinese Army, Indian railways and Wal-Mart supermarket chain
*The yearly NHS budget was £280m in 1948. It now stands at £105bn
*When the NHS was created it took control of 480,000 beds, but now has less that half that figure despite treating more people
*The oldest person in the world to have a hip replacement was a 101-year-old lady who was treated in the West Midlands

The party [Conservative - when they won back power], led by Winston Churchill in the twilight of his political career, set up a committee led by the Cambridge academic Claude Guillebaud to look at how effective the tax-based NHS was.

It concluded the NHS was very effective and needed more money if anything.

Professor Stewart said: "The Tories were furious, but it effectively killed off attempts to change it."

McCain campaign calls Obama's words into question - CNN.com

Someone wake him up - it's almost Monday

As John McCain rests; his campaign is carrying on the fight, surprisingly trying to keep the open debate on Iraq.

But they would do that - that is about the only policy that anyone can rely on. But at what cost to the American voter?

It would seem to keep on track the McCain camp must, above all, keep Obama engaged in this debate - they cannot allow themselves to get in the cross-hairs of something more worthy like the US economy and how American are going to live for the next 4 years - if McCain gets into power.

Any reasonable person knows now that McCain is McBush - and there is no swaying from that. If McCain should then you will see a tide of change away from him by the conservative right. This is still to be polled by the press - how many are going to vote for McCain or stay at home? You never know - it may happen.

But we must ask - if McCain is sticking to this defunct policy, which is wrong for the USA - what else will he be unmoveable on? We see that McCain is more intent on fighting the presidential election out of the country, does that mean he will rule from without? Will it mean that he will get his siesta every day?

The only way John McCain will be unmoveable is in thought and action to the betterment of the US - he doesn't care one jot about the average citizen, he is too comfortuble in his bed on an afternoon dreaming of a military victory in a foreign land - which, as everyone knows isn't going to happen, no matter how much justification McCain puts on a lesser amount of US soldiers that die. One is one too many!

The "pro-life" crowd is sickeningly hypocritical. I'm not talking about all "pro-life" supporters, but rather the bulk of the crowd. The Christian, right wing, middle or upper class group that feels they are morally superior for opposing abortion and that liberals who support the right to abortion are the ones I'm talking about. These are the same people, remember, who oppose universal healthcare, give the wealthy giant tax breaks while taxing the poor, practice the racism that keeps minorities in poor situations, and would rather spend billions of dollars killing innocent people in the Middle East than saving lives back here. These are the people who are partly responsible for pushing mothers into situations where they can't provide for a baby--and teaching children abstinence only classes, keeping vital information about birth control away from them. Pro-life crowd? Why don't you focus on the lives of the people already living before you start a crusade against women's freedom. Let's start with bringing the troops home and spending those several billion dollars on universal healthcare, better education, and better police funding. Seems to me that would be a hell of a lot more valuable.

Sorry for the short post today. Still celebrating. :)

Desalination? Yes. But it's not just that. A desalination plant that will produce about as much water as Thames Water loses in leaks. Seriously. Thames Water, and presumably the Borisphere (and surely none could be more spherical) claim it will be cheaper. Well, this may be true...for values of "true" including "assuming that our massive complicated prestige project won't go over budget" and "assuming the price of natural gas doesn't go up - after all, there's an infinite quantity of it in the North Sea, right?"

But it's worse. The justification for spending a ton of money converting natgas into drinking water and pouring the water into pipes WITH HOLES IN, rather than spending some more money (perhaps) fixing the bloody water pipes already, is that it's "pro-motorist".

Yes, the reason is that repairing the sodding water mains might be inconvenient to the bizarre sect who insist on bringing huge metal objects into central London and spending their day looking for somewhere to put the things so they can get out of them and start walking, when there was a perfectly good parking space back home in the suburbs they could have left it in. Yes, he is proposing to burn vast quantities of scarce fossil fuel imported from Russia so other people can more easily burn vast quantities of scarce fossil fuel imported from Saudi Arabia, when they have no reason to do so at all.

But it's not the specifics that are the worse bit. It's the general principle; policymaking based completely on pandering. I mean, why not go the whole hog and just GIVE people who claim to vote Tory actual cash? At least plain bribery wouldn't do as much damage to London's infrastructure. Unfortunately, this is precisely the spirit of Boris. On one hand, you've got the appalling pork barrel fan service. On the other, you've got the politics of spite and revenge; the deliberate effort to be unpleasant to anything described as feminist or anti-racist, the made-up stories about fabulous wine cellars, the fake audit team. And that, by the way, is a move copied precisely from the made-up "Clinton staffers trashed the White House" bollocks of 2001. You ask Dean Godson and Sooper Don Blaney.

This is, of course, completely inimical to anything that could be described as competent administration. Which is a pity, because there is famously no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage. The point of a mayor is precisely that; waste disposal, policing, space planning, infrastructure, social services.

Part of the good news is just how good the blogs on Boris are. Tory Troll and Boris Watch have forced their way into my RSS aggregator in the last few days. And it's all an effective preview of a future Tory government: pandering, content-free government, and ideological revenge campaigns in the civil service.

I had already written months ago  even here that Bell was capping the Sympatico downloads cause it was making way for the phone business and Bell will definitely abuse it's phone customers the same way it has abused many of it's ISP customers now too.

see also

http://postedat.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/dealing-effectively-with-complaints-problems-bad-service-isp-provider/

http://thenonconformer.wordpress.com/2008/07/05/too-many-major-isp-suppliers-are-unacceptably-guilty-of/

just more proof how the Bush administration is determined to commit mass murder of American citizens, by denying American people, basically selected on the basis of their race, economic level, religious prejudice, and homophobic prejudice, any kind of medical care whatsoever. Mr. Bush and the white fundamentalist Christians are getting all of the medical care they want. But when it comes to the people that Mr. Bush and the white fundamentalist Christians do not like, they are now being denied the medical care that they need to survive. And at the same time, Mr. Bush is literally stealing from the people of America, $162 billion of our tax money. He is stealing that money that money so that he can continue his campaign, along with a white supremacist fundamentalist Christian Republicans, and the white supremacist fundamentalist Christians and United States, in their massive campaign to continue mass murder of Jews and Muslims in the Middle East so that they can steal the resources and the oil on the people in the Middle East.

Once again, Mr. Bush does not have the authority to do this. Nobody in this country elected him so that he could steal federal funds and deny people medical care in this country and dust kill us, and consign us to death on he is getting all the medical care he wants, and wall the white fundamentalist Christians get all the medical care they want. No one elected him to do that.

Furthermore, the Christians want to make any claim about this they need to remember one thing. The Christians control the Congress. The Christians control the United States Supreme Court. The Christian control most of the courts in this country. The Christians control the White House. The Christians control most of the hospitals in this country and the movie theaters and the entertainment system. The United States is 73% Christian. Which means 73% of all the control of everything that happens in this country is under the control the Christians. So when things like this happen. It's not happening because Jews are in fact making these decisions. It's not happening because Muslims are making the decisions. These things are happening because white fundamentalist Christians who are actually white supremacist, and who are actually in a campaign to mass murder Jews and Muslims in the United States and throughout the world, are making these choices.

So the Christians want to sit there and say it's not our fault that's nothing but filthy lie. And for the Republicans in Congress to say that that's not their fault that is also a filthy lie. The Republicans in Congress are now, by their own actions, admitting they are white supremacist fundamentalist Christians who hate Jews and them hate Muslims in the United States and who are doing everything they possibly can to kill Jews and kill Muslims in these United States, while also killing Jews and killing Muslims throughout the world so they can steal all the resources in the entire world. And this is basically because the white fundamentalist Christians who are all white supremacist at this point, have been no compassion whatsoever for anyone who is not a white fundamentalist Christian. If you're not white and Christian in this country, you might as well go out and stand in the street because they want to combine kill you and that's all they care about your they will never give us equal rights they will never give us medical care don't never do anything kind first ever again. And if they don't like what I'm saying and one of the give the Jews more control in this country instead of making sure that the only ones who have any control in this country are in fact white fundamentalist Christians? Furthermore, if this isn't true, then why is it that on Sunday mornings the only programming that's allowed on television are programs about Christians and Christian faith? If the Christians really do support the Constitution of these United States, which is freedom of religion, then why are they only articles in any of the newspapers around the entire United States talking about religious freedom, but only for Christians? By the questions saying that no one else has religious freedom United States except for Christians? And if they are saying that, does and that's saying buy their own actions that they do not support the Constitution of this country, which is in fact the law of this country which in fact supports religious freedom for all religions?

You deserve better. It doesn't matter to me if they take away all the medical care for me because I'm dying anyhow and the sooner that I leave this planet with all these Nazi oriented Christians the better I'll feel. Besides of the Christians come and drag me from my home and set fire to me or shoot me to death. That's not in a matter to me at all I am prepared to me got every single day that I wake up.

But one has to wonder exactly why Mr. Bush is trying to steal the medical care for the people in this country while he uses our money illegally to go over and wage war against Muslims and Jews in the Middle East so that he can kill everyone over there and steal all of their resources. That's not Christian, and that is not pro-life, and that's not loving and that is not an American. That is nothing more than an agent of Nazi Germany and a friend of Adolf Hitler.

I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of these United States. I never took an oath to protect and defend Mr. Bush and his campaign to murder Jews, kill gays in the United States and kill Muslims throughout the world and to basically destroy every religious group in the United States and every social group in the United States other than white fundamentalist Christians. I never took that kind of the notes. I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. And that means protecting the rights of all Americans, not just Christians.

And if the Christians are saying they're better than other people than how can they dare to say the pledge allegiance of the flag. For the pledge allegiance of the flag specifically says, we are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. It does not say liberty and justice for Christians. It doesn't say liberty and justice only for Christians and everyone else should be killed it doesn't say any of those words. So either the Christians need to put up and shut up and start supporting the Constitution or they need to be known for the anti-Americans garbage that they are.

And as I said before, it's only a matter of time before Mr. Bush will be thrown before the court of these United States and found guilty of high crimes against the people of this country and possible treason and sedition as well. It's only a matter of time. The country is never going to allow the Christians to commit another Civil War like they did in 1860 it won't happen because before that happened, the free people of this country will rise up and demand that the laws of this nation be upheld and if the Christians don't want local the law this nation want to destroy the Constitution and replace it with the Christian Bible they will then be known for the neo-Nazis that they really are.

End of line...

Before I get charged with opportunism, I've always been an advocate of voting reform- some kind of AV system would probably do the job best- but the problem with voting reform is that the minute a party gets a majority, the minute voting reform is ditched.

So, given that experience of the last 30 years probably demonstrates that thumping majorities don't do the parties that have them any good, perhaps it's time to bring voting reform back onto the agenda?

https://cid-1aa26630dccde52d.skydrive.live.com/

President Bush on Sunday defended his decision to attend next month's Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, saying that to boycott "would be an affront to the Chinese people."

Maybe we should ask the 742 political prisoners the Chinese government imprisoned last year if they think this is an 'affront' to them.  Personally, I think the Chinese government's human rights abuses are a much bigger affront to the Chinese people than George Bush skipping their Olympics.

While doing my Sunday morning reading I came across this article that seems to take a balanced approach on the issue of Affirmative Action and both political parties.  Read more here.

(Posted by thinkprogress.org)

The Buffalo News reports that former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards will debate Karl Rove on Sept. 26 on the campus of the University of Buffalo as part of the school’s Distinguished Speakers Series. In the midst of the U.S. attorney scandal, Edwards called on President Bush to “fire Karl Rove.” When Rove announced he was resigning from the White House, Edwards released a statement that simply read “Goodbye, good riddance.”

Government accused over bonuses

Now I'm sure that the sentiment is entirely right and that if there is inefficiency in the civil service then we should be looking at that to make savings. But, hang on, are these the same politicians who this week almost voted through a pay increase that was completely disproportionate to what other public sector workers were getting? And who when this fell, instead voted against reforming an expenses system that allows for MPs to claim up to £24,000 a year - more than the salary of many, many voters in Britain? 

To be fair to the Conservatives, they were in the minority in terms of the number voting to keep the current system, but they also have less MPs so there you are.

If you would like to know who can claim more for equipping their second homes than you might earn in a year, check out:

Expenses Voting List

If your MP is on there and if you're still annoyed check out:

They Work For You

Pop in your postcode and you can then send your MP a message explaining how unhappy you are they didn't vote to change this and ask them for a written response. I'm going to write to Hilary Benn (my Leeds MP) as it appears he didn't turn up for the vote. So he better have a good reason.

health care's looming crisis: | Kansas.com.

Again, people need to understand that the United States is 73% Christian.  And that means that 73% up everything that happens in the United States is as a result of Christian control in this country.  It also means that 73% of all the control over the entire United States is in the hands of the Christians.  So when the Christians want talk about how they are better managers, my point issues still comes to the surface.  If the Christians are such good managers than why is our health system failing?  If the Christians are such good managers than why are 100,000 people dying every year as a result of how filthy are hospitals have become?  If the Christians are such good managers than why are only white Christians getting good medical care and most of the rest of the entire nation getting nothing?  I why are most of the politicians in the United States now white supremacists who practiced openly anti-Semitism and openly hate Muslims and openly hate Native Americans and mostly blacks?  It Christians are such good managers than why are most of the politicians in the United States Congress such filthy liars that they're actually stealing money from the American people in order to continue a campaign of mass murder and war in the Middle East, where they are desperate to steal the natural resources of the Middle East while the entire planet is suffering from terrible climactic change?

If the Christians are such good managers than why do they have such a long list of the different things in this world, and people in this world that they have so much hatred for that they are going out of their way to spend most of their time demonstrating their hatred and spend most of their money demonstrating their hatred?  If the Christians are such good lovers and people who actually love their fellow man than why are they constantly demonstrating so much hatred?  If the Christians are such good and loving people, then why are they demonstrating hatred for gays, hatred for Jews, hatred for Muslims, hatred for liberals, hatred for Democrats, hatred for Muslims, hatred for black Americans, hatred for immigrants, hatred for Native Americans?  I mean, the list of how many things the Christians hate never seems to stop it just seems to get larger and larger and larger, with each passing year.

And if the Christians are really loving people than why do they have such a long list of everyone and everything that they hate and that they hate so badly that they're willing to take legal action to make sure these people don't have any rights and they're willing to go to war to destroy their company and kill their children and destroy everything that they have?  Where is the love in that?  If the Christians are such honest people in good managers than why is the government failing so badly that President Bush is now the most hated president in the history of the entire United States?  If the Christians are really such a loving people than why is their religion filled with nothing but a legacy of mass murder for the last 2000 years?  If the Christians are such a loving people than why did their religion sponsor the Spanish Inquisition were almost 5 million Jews and Muslims were killed?  If the Christians are such a loving people than why did the Christians sponsor the burning times for almost 5 million women who are midwives were burned alive?  If the Christians are such loving people than why did they go to the Middle East during the Crusades and murder another almost 3 million Muslims and Jews?  If the Christians are such loving people than why did they bring the black Americans here not to make them citizens, but to make them slaves which they hung on meat hooks and sold for $10 apiece?  If the Christians are such loving people, why did they never pay any reparation, or make any compensation to the black Americans for the horrible treatment that they gave them?  If the Christians are such good people and loving people, then why did Senator John Calhoun of North Carolina demand that either the north submit and allow the southern Christians to own black people as slaves and to be able to kill them whatever they wanted to, or he would in fact secede from the Union and start the Civil War?

If the Christians are such loving people than why do they hate every other religion that isn't their own?  If the Christians are really concerned with following United States Constitution than why whenever they talk about religious freedom are they only talking about their religious freedom and nobody else's?  If the Christians are really in favor and support the Constitution than why do they never have any tolerance whatsoever for anyone else's religion?  If the Christians are really concerned with being fair and equal people giving everyone the same rights as they want for themselves, then why is it that the Christians do everything they possibly can.  Not to consider anyone else's religious freedom, or anyone else's right to practice their own religion?  If the Christians are really concerned with granting religious freedom or having religious freedom in the United States than why is it that the tolerance of Christians have for anyone else's religious freedom is virtually nonexistent?  If the Christians really believe in the Constitution where it says that everybody has the same rights under the law that the Christians do, then why do the Christians constantly talk about religious freedom pursuant to only Christians having equal rights in this country?  If the Christians are really concerned with getting religious freedom to other people, then why is it that no programs for the Jewish religion, or the Muslim religion, are ever allowed to be shown on television on the weekends when we have millions of shut-ins who are Jewish and Muslim in this country and who need the same ministering from their religion the Christians do?  Is this because Christians are so loving that they love Christians so much that they will never allow a Jewish programs be put on the air so that Jews could have the same equal rights to Christians do?  Or is it because Christians are so loving that they are telling the Jews to put up and shut up and accept the Christian programming on TV and are telling the Jews the Christians will in fact destroy the Jews and never allow the Jews to ever have any programming on television again?

If the Christians are really so loving than why is nobody wanting to do anything with the Christians anymore and wiser medical system in such a terrible horrible state when most of the country is Christian and most of the jobs are Christian and most of the medical system is Christian and most of the government is Christian?

The Christians never really wanted take real responsibility for anything in this country other than demanding that they have equal rights for their religion.  But when it comes to equal rights for anyone else's religion the Christians say that nobody has equal rights except for themselves.  In the newspapers the newspapers I see all through the southern states of the United States, continually talking about religious freedom, but only for Christians.  They never talk about religious freedom for anyone else except for themselves.  So in the Christian mind nobody in the United States is religious freedom other than Christians.  And that means that the Christians, by that very statement, and/or posture, is in fact stating that they do not believe anyone in the United States should have religious freedom except Christians.  And that statement is in fact in violation of the Constitution.  Because the Constitution, which is the law of the United States, specifically says that everybody regardless of religion has the same equal rights.  But that's not what the Christians are demanding.

So low these things going on, one wonders why the medical system is in such a terrible state.  However, when one realizes that most of the United States is Christian, that most of the medical system is in fact Christian also, then one wonders why the Christians are allowing the medical system of the United States become so terrible and so horrible that hundreds of thousands of people are dying every single year from neglect and abuse.  Why are the Christians claiming to be such good managers in such good people with business, that the only result of how good they are would business is that hundreds of thousands of people are dying from neglect, from racism, bigotry, from prejudice, from anti-Semitism, from the hatred of Muslims, and from the desperation the Christians had to go through the United States and the world and kill all the Jews and Muslims?

Just like a black lady was left to die on a hospital room floor.  The Christians are pretty much practicing hate and neglect toward anyone that is not a white fundamentalist Christian.  So in other words, if you're not a white fundamentalist Christian in these United States.  You will not get any medical care and you will not get equal rights you will not give equal time on television.  You won't the equal anything.  Because according to the white fundamentalist Christian laws and rules that they live by, and all the newspaper articles I see the Christians are demanding that no other religion be allowed to practice in this country except Christianity.

The we know for a fact, that my grandfather, Maurice Maschke, was United States customs inspector under president Harding for the entire nation.  Which means my grandfather was an extremely powerful and prominent politician in this country.  We also know that my family, the Maschke family, dates back to the 1700s won the Revolutionary war was actually being fought.  Which means my family, a Jewish family, actually helped in the building of this nation.  And with that being the case, one wonders why the Christians have done everything they can to lie about my family, to cheat my family, and to spit on my family and to attack my family all through the years I've lived?  If the Christians are in fact.  So loving than why are they doing everything they possibly can to destroy the Jewish faith in the United States and to destroy the Muslim faith in the United States?

If the Christians are so loving than why did they never under any single tree.  If they ever made with the Native Americans in the history of the United States?  Is that loving but lying to these people all those years?  Are Christians loving when they actually destroyed the Native Americans of this nation and reduced all the hundreds and hundreds of tribes that used to exist in this nation down to just a few?  Is that loving us to Mark by the Christians loving when they go to a Jewish temple and a spray paint Nazi symbols on the Temple?  Is that loving?

Our medical system is broken, and it broken because mostly the Christians in this country wanted broken.  And they don't want to admit that but that's actually the fact.  The Christians are the ones who are running the entire country.  They are running the government.  They're running the White House, they are running the Supreme Court, they are running the courts system, they are running all of the political system in the United States.  They're running the medical system, they are running the television media, they are running the movies.  So the movies aren't any good it's not the Jewish people's fault because the Jewish people are running the movies the Christians are.  So if the movies are doing in the goods because the Christians are making the movies that way.  It's not the Jews fault. It is the Christians fault, since the Christians are running everything.

And climate change is just exactly the same way.  The climate of the earth is in fact failing and falling into a definite catastrophe.  It's not the Jews who are doing it.  The Christians are the ones who own most of us of the things here in the United States.  And the Christians are the ones who will continually taken a stand that they don't care about climate change and they don't care if the world is destroyed.  As long as they can continue to mass murder Jews and Muslims wherever they find us and kill us at every turn.  Is that loving?  Is that supportive of equal rights under the Constitution?

Christians have a lot to answer for, but they never will answer because they don't do that.  Christians demand answers from others but they don't answer the questions themselves.  And every time you look in the newspapers in the South like in Texas and other states, these newspapers are always talking about religious freedom.  But when they talk about religious freedom they're always citing religious freedom for Christians.  They never talk about religious freedom for Jews, religious freedom for Muslims or anyone else.

And so now we have the story of the medical system being broken because of a shortage of nurses.  My question is, who wants to work with these Christians with the Christians are doing nothing but preaching hatred?  Furthermore, the Christians will never admit that they have destroyed the medical system in this country, but that's exactly what they have done.  Christians are getting all the medical care they want and nobody else is getting any medical care.  And fact speak louder than words these stories keep coming up, and the Christians are the ones running everything so of these things are in fact showing that the medical system is broken.  It's not the Jews were to join the medical system anymore if the Christians.

That is unless the Christians don't want to admit that they actually control most of this country, which is not really true, if they say that.  Because the reality is that Christians do control most of this country.  And that Christianity is so pervasive in the United States and 73% of the entire nation is Christian.  And with 72% of the nation being Christian, that means and 73 3% of everything that's wrong with this country is as a result of what the Christians are doing because they're the ones who are in control.

And then to say otherwise is nothing more than of filthy lie and a word game of semantics where they're trying to go ahead and put the blame on someone else when they're the ones who are running everything.

So the medical system is broken.  And this nursing system is in such a situation right now in the United States of nobody's getting adequate medical care.  It's not the Jews fault.  It's not the Muslims will.  We don't own hardly anything in this country anymore and we have virtually no rights in this country thanks to Mr. Bush and the Republican Congress who are basically white supremacist fundamentalist Christians who are determined to destroy the rights of all Jews and all Muslims and all Native Americans in all black Americans in the United States.  And the white supremacist fundamentalist Christian Republicans in the United States Congress are desperate to take $162 billion and use that money instead of trying to help save people's lives in this country, to use that money to go to the Middle East and mass murder Muslims and Jews and kill Muslims and Jews wherever they find them so that they can steal the natural resources from the Middle East.  How is that loving?  How was that helping healthcare?

I don't expect Christians to come up with any answers to any of these questions because they never like to answer questions all they like to do is interrogate other people..

So I will probably end up being killed eventually because the Christians would rather kill someone than ever admit that they don't want to support the Bill of Rights or the Constitution.  The Christians are constantly talking how their Christian Bible not be Christian Bible for all the world to their particular Christian Bible only should be the law this country.  They're all demanding that the Constitution be destroyed and that the Christian Bible be the only law of this country.  And they want that because they want to have the right to go into people's homes of their Jewish and shoot them in their beds and kill us and burn our homes down they want to take our children out to the street and set them on fire.  They want to go ahead and destroy every Jew in the United States and every Muslim in the United States they want to kill all of us.  And they're desperate to go through the United States and take every gay person and shoot him to death and kill their children and set their bodies on fire the Christians definitely want to do this.  They hate literature that doesn't agree with their religion because they constantly have book burnings just like Adolf Hitler did.  What a Christian doesn't like a book like Terry Potter they gather in a parking lot may burn the books just like Adolf Hitler did.  And the Christians celebrated her because they are desperate to bring back the death camps where they can heard Jews and Muslims in these camps and sentenced the gas chambers where they can just gas us to death and burn is alive.  This is exactly what Christians want they are praying for it.

So the medical system is broken.  It's not the Jews fault.  The Christians of the want to running everything in this country.  So if the nursing system in the employment system in the market system of the United States is falling apart and becoming destroyed, while the nation is 73% Christians.  So it's got to be the Christians while because nobody else is running anything except the Christians.

I really want to see how they're going to lie their way out of this one...

End of line...

The messages are unmistakable ... corporations are bad, even when they try to look good ... man is destroying the planet ... technology makes us lazy ... and that which is green is to be worshipped. Little kids think they're just seeing a clever animated story about goodness and loyalty.

It occurred to me that if Hitler had access to Pixar's creativity, the Third Reich might well be enjoying its 60th year.
— Mike Fitzsimmons of KXLY (HT: Brian Schlect)

As I wrote last week, I thoroughly enjoyed Pixar's latest movie, Wall-E. Though I didn't bother to write a review, I did make a couple of comments on things that interested me (particularly the question, "Does a story need to fix everything that is wrong within its world?").

Since then, I've come across comments (like the quote above) where conservatives have criticized Wall-E and labeled it "heavy-handed" propaganda about the dangers of global warming and other facets of environmentalism. To be honest, when I read these kinds of comments, I can't help but wonder what movie these people were watching. It seems that conservatives are so paranoid about their disagreements with liberals that they can't stand any hint of "liberalism."

For now, let's leave aside the issue of global warming: it's not my place to weigh in and offer my opinion about the legitimacy of its science. Instead, let's just focus on the story. Yes, the movie begins with an earth that is brown and filled-to-overflowing with garbage. Yes, the humans in the movie are portrayed as fat and lazy. Yes, Buy n Large (a chain store with unmistakable similarities to Wal-Mart) is depicted as a self-serving, careless corporation that has effectively become mankind's government and nursemaid.

But does that make for propaganda? Actually, no.

Let's take a look at our hero: Wall-E. He's not just a cute little robot who makes environmentalist preaching tolerable. In fact, he's not that at all; if anything, he's the opposite. Here you have a robot (a symptom of mankind's laziness and disregard for stewardship) who, over the course of 700 years, develops a personality and learns about love. Not only that, but over the course of the movie he becomes mankind's savior. Did you read that? Let me repeat myself. Wall-E, the robot who is the very symptom of mankind's sin, becomes the one to wake them up and spur them onward to start undoing what they had done. How does this sort of action say, "Technology is evil?" And how is it that a robot is the one to inspire humanity to reclaim and rebeautify the earth? Doesn't that go against the notion of technology making men lazy?

It's also important to note that our robotic friends play a significant part in the restoration of earth throughout the closing credit sequence: as mankind takes dominion over the earth to make her green once more, robots (technology/definitely not environmentalist) are at his side. Does that not speak for itself?

Another blogger quotes John Frame in his critique of Wall-E:

“It is simply false to claim that art has nothing to do with ‘messages.’ Indeed, we are living in a time in which the messages of art are becoming more and more explicit.”

I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. But tell me, just how do you find the messages? Do you look at the plot-situation and then idealize it? "Oh look! Wall-E's world has been destroyed by humans. That must mean that these moviemakers are trying to brainwash our kids into thinking that this is what humans always do!" Or wouldn't it be better to wait until the story is done and then ponder what the actions within the story suggest? That sort of response would look more like this: "Huh. Look at that! These moviemakers understand that man is sinful and prone to ruin what is put in his hands. And ooh! Here, a robot inspires the human race to stop being sinful, to repent and turn from their laziness, and to walk again so that they can make their God-given earth beautiful." (At least, that's the movie that I saw.)

I don't know whether it's because we've overdosed on Francis Schaeffer (whom I dearly love and respect), but we Christians often find it difficult to look at a story as a story. Instead, we tend to see it as an equation or a riddle that needs to be deciphered so that we can get at "the message." As a result, Christian films tend to be the worst kind of propaganda—worst, because it's weak and ineffectual.

I say this not as a critic, but as a story-lover. I am not trying to point fingers. Instead, I offer a plea: forget your key issues or pet disagreements. Look at what the story's actions actually say. You'll find much more enjoyment and value than if you're only worried about "the message."

You can listen to the panel discussion below, or go to Devin's site (who is kindly hosting the audio), and download a copy there.

As well, I'm sure Devin is looking for more bloggers to participate in the next Audiocast, so contact him if you are interested.

Introductions (2:12)
[audio http://devinjohnston.ca/mediaplayer/audio/20080705_1.mp3]

Carbon Tax (15:09)
[audio http://devinjohnston.ca/mediaplayer/audio/20080705_2.mp3]

State of the NDP in Canada (14:19)
[audio http://devinjohnston.ca/mediaplayer/audio/20080705_3.mp3]

The Parliamentary Session in Review (10:07)
[audio http://devinjohnston.ca/mediaplayer/audio/20080705_4.mp3]

If you take the time to read any of the comments on right wing websites, and on the websites of Southern mainstream newspapers, you will see a sea of hatred and anger. People are "concerned" about Senator Obama's background. They don't believe him when he says he is a Christian. To them, he is obviously lying.

From this I have learned that no matter what the truth is, and no matter what you say to correct a misconception about the truth, these angry Americans will simply choose to not believe the truth. And instead they will believe what they want. And what they want to believe is the worst.

The people who still believe that Senator Obama is a Muslim (which is not a crime by the way), would have never voted for him anyway. They would have found something else instead. Look at John Kerry, a war hero. The angry Americans said he wasn't a war hero, despite the evidence to the contrary.

So I am not going to worry about people who say that Senator Obama is a Muslim. Because, they are angry Americans who hate blacks, gays, compassion, acceptance, truth, hope, fairness, and justice. They embrace bigotry and hate, and they will be bitter until they die.

They will miss out on a lifetime of being proud of our country for correcting the wrongs of our past, and for accepting responsibility for what is wrong with America and then fixing it. They want to return to the "good ole days" of Jim Crow, gays in the closet, and a world where a mixed race child with a funny name and diverse background could never become President.

I don't think his campaign realizes the enormity of his promise to change politics, and the powerful emotions it has evoked in his supporters.  If they do, then I resent them for banking on it as they set their sights on the failed course of running to the middle:

the Obama campaign is making a very serious mistake. Tacking to the center is a losing strategy. And don't let the latest head-to-head poll numbers lull you the way they lulled Hillary Clinton in December.

Running to the middle in an attempt to attract undecided swing voters didn't work for Al Gore in 2000. It didn't work for John Kerry in 2004. And it didn't work when Mark Penn (obsessed with his "microtrends" and missing the megatrend) convinced Hillary Clinton to do it in 2008.

Fixating on -- and pandering to -- this fickle crowd is all about messaging tailored to avoid offending rather than to inspire and galvanize.

But Barack isn't pandering to the center.  He's pandering past the center.  As evidenced by his nuanced position on abortion to the list of broken promises detailed in a must read editorial by the New York Times:

The Barack Obama of the primary season used to brag that he would stand before interest groups and tell them tough truths. The new Mr. Obama tells evangelical Christians that he wants to expand President Bush’s policy of funneling public money for social spending to religious-based organizations — a policy that violates the separation of church and state and turns a government function into a charitable donation.

He's aiming past the center at the religious right. He's aiming into a paranoid fantasy land with his other position changes:

The new Barack Obama has abandoned his vow to filibuster an electronic wiretapping bill if it includes an immunity clause for telecommunications companies that amounts to a sanctioned cover-up of Mr. Bush’s unlawful eavesdropping after 9/11.

In January, when he was battling for Super Tuesday votes, Mr. Obama said that the 1978 law requiring warrants for wiretapping, and the special court it created, worked. “We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend,” he declared.

Now, he supports the immunity clause as part of what he calls a compromise but actually is a classic, cynical Washington deal that erodes the power of the special court, virtually eliminates “vigorous oversight” and allows more warrantless eavesdropping than ever.

Standing up for our rights was a centerpiece of his campaign.  It still is if you don't count privacy.

From the nytimes editorial (emphasis mine):

We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.

There are still vital differences between Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain on issues like the war in Iraq, taxes, health care and Supreme Court nominations. We don’t want any “redefining” on these big questions. This country needs change it can believe in.

And so we are caught in a crude but effective trap.  Whereas Obama let's us down, McCain would go so far as to engender and further the same boiling rage Bush provoked.

If anyone from the Obama campaign is listening, damn him for doing so much to lose my trust, knowing full well he will not lose my vote.

Me? A racist? But I'm friends with a black person!

For Boris Johnson Ray Lewis must have been something of a golden nugget. As the platinum haired pasty Etonian slapped his arm around Lewis' chocolate skinned back at every photo opportunity, the racial diversity between the two could not have been starker.

A former vicar, Lewis has been described as a radical, forward thinker and a jewel in the newly elected Mayor's crown. But oh how quickly the best laid plans of mice and PR-executives can be unraveled by a mayoral candidate eager to dust off uncomfortable allegations of racism.

For so blinded by the colour of Lewis' skin was Boris that he did not bother to find out that this vicar had actually been struck off the 'okay' list by the Church of England. In fact, he had been banned from public ministry and preaching for, wait for it, financial misconduct. Oh, Boris, Boris, Boris.

From one disaster to another, earlier this year the Mayor of London had been prompted to publicly profess that it is "not in [his] heart" to be racist, after critics noted that some of his articles referring to black people as "piccaninnies" with "watermelon" smiles seemed to suggest otherwise.

What is more, under his editorial jurisdiction a Spectator columnist wrote in the publication: "Orientals ... have larger brains and higher IQ scores. Blacks are at the other pole."

But assuming Boris really isn't on the side of evil, maybe it was Lewis’ ad-hoc, maverick approach to achieving results that appealed to Boris. After all the former deputy mayor said this week: "I'm not a saint. I speak my mind and sometimes I rub people up the wrong way."

Not unlike someone else we know, perhaps.

In the past 24 hours, I've come across two stories involving brutal child rape. One in local news. And another that I had already read about recently, it happened two years ago but has been in the news again because of the trial.  I also read two highly disturbing blog posts regarding this case (via The Curvature)  - one here (What About Our Daughters) shedding light on some truly shocking rape apologist comments.  And then further discussion on the prevalence of gang rape here.  (DJ Black Adam's blog).

Note: I just made edits to give proper credit for these posts.  I want to make clear that I found them through The Curvature (an amazing blog that I read daily) but the credit for both of these important posts (and in some ways inspiring me to rant) lies with the other bloggers, now linked-up above.) I apologize for not noticing my oversight the first time around.

These are the kind of stories that are necessary to hear about and read about, to truly understand we live in a rape culture and we need to be constantly working against it.

I want to have something more to say about that, but I'm at a loss as well.

This is the thing about me - I'm easily overwhelmed and very emotional.  I honestly have a hard time not wanting to just run away screaming in disbelief and bury it, hoping these things aren't true.  Or to believe, as some do, that stories like this represent a few evil crazy people instead of further evidence of a HUGE, overwhelming cultural and systemic network of problems involving oppression and violence.

I can't choose the ignorance here or ever.  And I can't ever condone other people making excuses for it or themselves making those choices.

So right now, my brain goes to the dark place and makes an effort to find some humanity here.  It is very difficult sometimes.  It's hard to get my brain to stop spinning with the injustice of it all.  The injustice and cruelty of a system and people who blame victims, even CHILD victims for their abuse and their condition and the same system that hates us and punishes us and sets us up to fail in a thousand little ways for being women, for being queer, for standing up for others who are being punished unfairly and for not being silent.  For calling out injustice.

And then, on top of that, the end of June (when Pride is celebrated in most US cities) brings around a deluge of homophobia in the media.   I have to call bullshit when other people's own deeply personal moral and religious choices are getting legislated to prevent me from having the same rights and privileges as them.

And I'm thinking about specifically the fight for marriage and securing full legal rights of that level of partnership, including adopting children and providing for them with the same protections and benefits under the law afforded to straight people (any straight people, anywhere, at any time that decide to make babies... they don't even need to be married to have more legal rights then I do).

I want to weep when I read about how difficult it is for gay people to adopt children, when an asshole that doesn't know how to be a parent thinks it's ok to lock his children in cages.

I just have a REALLY hard time believing - and we could go from micro to macro levels of awareness and news coverage here and as you keep expanding, the truly shocking levels of injustice, cruelty, oppression, poverty, disease, pain and greed just multiply exponentially  -  With everything wrong with our country and everything going on in the world, I just can't believe that here in the US of Obliviousness, there are groups of people who honestly want to take a moral argument and make a LEGAL issue out of me falling in love with another woman and believing (silly me) that it doesn't make me a lesser human being, deserving of civil liberties.

Seriously?  SERIOUSLY?  That is what you choose to rally around and fight against?  MY fucking relationship and personal life and right to happiness and equal protection under the law?

So you believe homosexuality is wrong and against your bible, I get it... but at least FUCKING prioritize. I mean... somehow we need to all recognize that there are major worldwide problems of poverty, hunger, AIDS, war and torture and natural disasters and an unbalanced consuming frenzy of all the earth's resources.  There are people getting threatened, murdered and intimidated because of a farce of a democratic election.  People losing their entire lives in floods, bombings, earthquakes.  Slavery, sweatshops, human-trafficking and several other atrocities in the business of rape and dehumanization.

In order to work on these problems, some of us are very concerned with dismantling the systemic structures of oppression  - racism, sexism, gender oppression, classism, able-ism, age-ism - the structural discrimination, brutality and violence against people of color, women, transpeople, the elderly, people with disabilities...  I could go on and on... are you getting this?

Even just here in America-

Even probably in your own immediate communities, there is just TO MUCH TO DO.

Fuck off and prioritize already.

This is my new official answer to bigots of all kinds: I'm too fucking busy.  Your morals or opinions are of no consequence to the life that I lead, the work that I do and should not be tangled up in the laws that apply to me as a citizen.  Fuck Off with that.

It's not JUST that I disagree with you.  It's not only that I think you are wrong and have no business here.  We may never agree and you will most likely believe I am going to hell.  I really can't stop you from believing that and don't care to, but know this...

I'm deeply OFFENDED by your inability to care about REAL issues and prioritize.

This epic failure to prioritize your time, effort and work to make a positive difference in the lives of others IS a moral failure.

Those of us who have actual respect for human life and dignity are too busy recognizing that there are too many other problems to be dealt with at the moment.  So stay out of the way if you aren't going to help.  Or at the very least, have the decency to work on some ACTUAL issues before claiming any kind of moral authority to interfere with who I'm having consensual sex with.

I'm shutting off my brain now.  Because being a big bundle of anger and frustration is inhibiting my ability to get anything but ranting and fuming done and that is helpful to no one.

In the meantime, I also wanted to thank Rich at FourFour for this.  I saw it today and it was somehow a relief to see someone else (on a mostly pop-culture related blog)  who just gets so mad, they are shaking and feeling the need to react somehow.

McCain Battles a Nemesis, the Teleprompter

LAS VEGAS —Senator John McCain was performing relatively smoothly as he unveiled his energy plan.

But when Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came to the intended sound bite of his speech — the part about reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil — he hit a slick.

“I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lex-eegton Project,” Mr. McCain said, drawing a quick breath and correcting himself. “The Lex-ing-ton Proj-ect,” he said slowly. “The Lexington Project,” he repeated. “Remember that name.”

In a town meeting in Cincinnati the next day, Mr. McCain would again slip up on the name of the Massachusetts town, where, he noted, “Americans asserted their independence once before.” He called it “the Lexiggdon Project” and twice tried to fix his error before flipping the name (“Project Lexington”) in subsequent references.

Mr. McCain’s battle of Lexington is part of a struggle he is engaged in every day. A politician who has thrived in the give-and-take settings of campaign buses, late-night TV couches and town meetings, he now is trying to meet the more formal speaking demands of a general election campaign.

By his own admission, Mr. McCain is not a great orator. He is ill-suited to lecterns, which often dwarf his small stature, and he tends to sound as if he is reading his lines, not speaking them. His shortcomings have been accentuated in a two-man race, particularly because the other man — Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee — can often dazzle on stage.

Mr. McCain and his advisers know that Mr. Obama’s ability to excite huge crowds will make for an inevitable podium mismatch for the older, softer-spoken Republican. “We’re going up against a guy who is off the charts,” said Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s longtime Senate chief of staff and campaign adviser.

To better compete, Mr. McCain is undergoing a subtle but marked transition as a political performer, said aides and people who have watched him. As part of a staff shakeup that was announced Tuesday, he brought in a new adviser — Greg Jenkins, a former White House official and Fox News producer — who will oversee the producing and staging of Mr. McCain’s events. Mr. Jenkins is considered an expert at political stagecraft, oversaw many of President Bush’s appearances and served as executive director of the 2004 inaugural committee.

Mr. McCain is working closely with aides like Brett O’Donnell, a former debate consultant for Mr. Bush, to improve his speech and performance. He is working to limit his verbal tangents and nonverbal tics. He is speaking less out of the sides of his mouth, which can produce a wiseguy twang reminiscent of the Penguin from the Batman stories, and he is relying less on his favorite semantic crutch — the phrase “my friends” — which he used repeatedly in his campaign appearances. He also appears to be trying to exercise restraint, advisers and campaign observers say, when speaking off the cuff, wisecracking in town meetings and criticizing his opponent. In recent weeks, for example, Mr. McCain seems to have reined in the sarcasm he has directed at Mr. Obama. (In May, for example, he said of his opponent, “With his very, very great lack of experience and knowledge of the issues, he’s been very successful.”)

Alan Schroeder, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, said, “There’s a danger of sarcasm becoming nastiness, and McCain seems to be conscious of that line.”

Some McCain loyalists say he needs to be left alone and not burdened by his staff’s calculations about how he should be acting or what he should saying.

“I think the depressingly self-absorbed McCain campaign machine needs to get out of the way,” said Mike Murphy, a longtime friend and media adviser who has no role in the current operation but who still talks to Mr. McCain every few days. “They need to just let McCain be McCain.”

The more careful McCain, said by some to be overly scripted, has received some withering critiques. “His rhetorical style can best be described as ‘tired mayonnaise,’ ” the comedian Stephen Colbert declared on “The Colbert Report” before inviting viewers to enter the “Make McCain Exciting Challenge.”

Peter Spaulding, the chairman of Mr. McCain’s campaign in New Hampshire, said he recently saw a McCain speech on television that was “just atrocious.”

Dan Schnur, Mr. McCain’s communications chief during his 2000 presidential campaign, said, “Besides his convention speech, the only time I would even put him behind a podium at all between now and the end of the campaign is when he’s announcing a policy position.”

“Voters are looking for credibility and are wary of polish,” said Mark McKinnon, a former consultant to Mr. McCain’s campaign. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter which candidate can more deftly read a teleprompter.”

Indeed, Mr. McCain and his advisers seem to be trying to present him as a kind of anti-Obama whose weaknesses as a political performer underscore his accessibility to regular voters.

“John doesn’t ever want to be something that he is not,” Mr. Salter said, including trying to pass himself off as a larger-than-life figure on stage. “There’s nothing in there about him that wants to be rarefied.”

Mr. McCain and his surrogates appear to be taking a page from the primary campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, which made a point of praising Mr. Obama’s speaking skills both to erase any expectation that she could match them and to imply that Mr. Obama was more of a performer than a leader. Nicolle Wallace, Mr. McCain’s new senior adviser, said the campaign would focus on having the candidate interact face to face with voters, “not from a center stage in the middle of a stadium.”

In an interview on his campaign plane, Mr. McCain said “my strongest environment is clearly the impromptu.” He added, “I don’t mean that in a way that denigrates Senator’s Obama’s speechmaking skills.”

He shrugged when asked whether he is improving as a speaker. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said. “It’s coming along.”

“I will continue to make mistakes,” he added.

He said he was trying to be “extra vigilant” about not giving unnecessary offense, knowing that the wisecracking humor that might charm cynical reporters might not do the same for earnest voters.

He sheepishly volunteered that he received complaints after a recent Newsweek profile of his wife, Cindy, said that he sometimes referred to her alma mater, the University of Southern California, as the University of Spoiled Children.

Mr. Salter bemoans the current environment, in which, he said, “the press creates the expectation that you better not stumble on a word, or tell a joke that Mr. Rogers wouldn’t tell, or you’re going to be in trouble.”

There are any number of Web videos of Mr. McCain to prove the point. They include the moment he playfully called a young man a “jerk” at a town-hall-style meeting in New Hampshire last year after he asked Mr. McCain if his age made him a candidate for Alzheimer’s disease in the White House (Mr. McCain typically uses jerk as a term of affection), or when he suggested to Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” that he brought him a special gift from Iraq — an improvised explosive device.

Small misstatements become instant YouTube fodder — as when Mr. McCain vowed to “veto every single beer” that included lawmakers’ pet spending projects (he meant “bill”) or when he said the government should have been able to deliver “bottled hot water” to dehydrated babies in New Orleans. (It is fortunate for Mr. McCain that there was no YouTube in the 1980s when he jokingly referred to the retirement community Leisure World as “Seizure World.”)

Mr. McCain speaks often about his love of the “give and take,” the “more informal settings where I think I’m at my best.”

“It’s not an ego thing,” he said, “just where I think I’m most effective.”

When asked if it would be possible to run “the town meeting campaign” that he credited with providing him a decisive victory in New Hampshire, where he held 102 such events, Mr. McCain said, “Absolutely.”

The ease with which he presided over such a gathering in Cincinnati on June 26 was strikingly different from the difficulties he had with his speech in Las Vegas the day before. “I believe that town-hall meetings are the essence of the process,” Mr. McCain said to an audience at Xavier University, gripping his microphone with two hands. He talked about why it is important to engage with people across the political spectrum: “conservatives and liberals and libertarians and vegetarians,” he said.

A downside to such meetings is that they can become forums for people to ask about anything, including parochial concerns. One student, for example, asked Mr. McCain what he would do to ensure that commercial airlines continued to operate out of the Cincinnati airport.

Mr. McCain managed to steer his answer to energy, the theme of the week. “This is the reason for Project Lexington,” he responded.

Roger Kimball, a conservative art critic and social commentator, referred to Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama" and, though I respect his art criticism and his engaging style (Tenured Radicals remains a much-loved book to me), it's just a cheap shot. I've had this continual battle as to where we, as libertarians, stand. From my personal perspective in the past, I've taken the strains of thought from people like Leo Strauss or Allan Bloom to place me as more conservative-leaning.

The more I think about it, the more I feel I can draw a distinction between my reasons and the neo-conservatives' for coming to the same conclusions. We both have a strong rejection of moral relativism, but the fact is that moral relativism is rejected by the majority of the world's populace and most of them are not neo-cons and represent a variety of reason for doing so. My rejection of moral relativism pre-dates my reading Strauss or Bloom and lies on the simple fact that moral relativism is an epistemologically shaky doctrine that has, in the history of ideas, become more and more watered down as the attacks mount up.

I have a great deal of respect for educational theories and programmes associated with neo-cons (though have support for home schooling rights), but this is also for other reasons. It rests largely on the fact that liberals in the academy indoctrinate students to the extent that you get students who cannot get marks unless they write from a liberal perspective and liberals in academia exceed the conservatives in close-minded bile. I argue against conceptual art and popular culture, but this is not to advocate banning or restricting them as the neo-cons might. My conservative alignment with the Enlightenment is simply that I hold they form the basis for the very best Western Civilisation and humanity (rights theory being the height of this) have to offer and are the groundwork for an objective set of values, not merely a configuration of power. There is no real need to talk of the neo-con influence, because my ability to draw intellectually from them is no different from my ability to draw from any intellectual tradition.