It's just that, there's someone else. You're still important to me, 'cos we've been through so much together, but all the action's going on at the other place these days. The other place is prettier, and lets me have a blog roll, and embed videos and stuff more easily. Though linking can be a bugger.

Look I've got my things, if you need me I'll be over there. OK?

First comment below Billy Bragg's Graun piece today, right below this:

Without powerful unions to protect them, the wages of ordinary workers were held in check while the cost of housing began to spiral upwards. As it became increasingly difficult for first-time buyers to get on the property ladder, a newly deregulated banking sector began offering ever more "attractive" loans. And we all know where that led.

Would any of this have been different if Thatcher had lost that titanic struggle in 1984?

We have prize-winning thicko 'harryboy' with this:

If the Miner's strike was the cause of this economic crisis, doesn't it mean Arthur Scargill is the real culprit ?

Yeah, harryboy, and you know who I blame for Pinochet? That bastard Allende.

Prisme workers of Dundee have occupied their factory after they were made redundant with 1 day's notice. Send messages of support to 07882804212 or email christinaf1956@hotmail.com

PASS THIS INFO ON!

Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, whistleblower on torture and all-round hero, MAY have the chance to present evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on human rights on the 10th March, IF they decide his evidence is worth hearing.

Convince them it is. Craig says:

The government is lobbying hard for my exclusion. I need everybody to send an email to jchr@parliament.uk to urge that I should be allowed to give evidence. Just a one-liner would be fine. If you are able to add some comment on the import of my evidence, or indicate that you have heard me speak or read my work, that may help. Please copy your email to craigjmurray@tiscali.co.uk.

Please also pass on this plea to anyone you can and urge them to act. Help from other bloggers in posting this appeal would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

'Drinking Problems Rife in Orchestras'

Rarely has a headline seemed so mysterious, so seedy, and yet at once so ripe with promise...

Thanks to this, I'm going to be watching this over the next few days. Might be fun. Miiiiiiight be one of them interweb phenomenononons you hear so much about.

Wouldn't want to miss that...

Or at least, ask the Merseyside Chief Constable to ban their mass rally in Liverpool.

Petition here:
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/page/s/stophate

I'm sure I don't need to point out the potential harm these racist scumbags can do. Go on, sign the petition!

Via the Daily Quail, I read this piece of Fail journalism hackery depressingly deplorable column-inch filling:

Teachers should tell boys the joys of teen fatherhood, government advice reveals

So far, so yawnsome made-up anti-Labour bullshit. The weird bit is the 'researcher on teenage parenthood' they wheel out later in the piece for the following rent-a-quote:

'Fatherhood before the age of 16 should be a matter for the police.

'The parents of teenagers involved should be charged with neglect for allowing them to sleep together under their roof.
 

'This is child abuse. After 16, fathers who want to help bring their children up should be given one piece of advice: Get a job.'*

I have to ask, who would accept someone's description of themselves as a 'researcher' if this is the level of commentary that they're offering? It's the equivalent of calling the inventor of the Q-Link pendant a 'research scientist'.

Oh, wait, I've found her. There's a press release of her 'paper' Family Policy, Family Changes fon way-uber-there-on-the-right-wing whinge think tank Civitas, with the fantastically sensible title 'Family does best when governments don't try to nationalise child-rearing'.

Does anyone else think this sounds a mite tautological? Surely it could be rewritten as 'Families are the only providers of child-rearing if there are no social services to intervene in problem cases'?

But anyway the release is quite hilarious, finding as she does sensational and completely unexpected facts like 'where marriage rates are the percentage of children born into married families is lower'. Thank the gods she brought that one to my attention.

Plus this inspired quote:

Sweden is famous for its comprehensive, top-down, social engineering, which makes it difficult for people to live in any other way than that prescribed by the state.

Geenius, as Barry Shitpeas would say.

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*I've decided to help the Mail out by including the speechmark at the beginning of the second paragraph that they missed out. I figure that they've already got it hard enough hitting ctrl-c and ctrl-v with whatever website/press release they got that from, what with the article already including the interesting sentence:

'The advice, produced six years agopregnancy unit'.

There's a petition to ask the EU to break off it's trading relations with Israel until they agree to abide by human rights law.

It's being backed by such worthies as Alexei Sayle, Mordechai Vanunu and Clare Short. Yes, really. Anyway, link here:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Suspend-EU-Israel-Trade-Agreement

The petition will be physically delivered to the parliament in Brussels by some enthusiastic cyclists. No, really.

Sign it for the oddity alone, why dontcha?