Keeping the sheep quiet, Saudi-style

I think someone's had a look at which way the wind's blowing, and decided he doesn't like it much.

So, he's keeping his people quiet and attached to the yoke of the State with "free" money. In case there is any doubt, he's buying off the people with $37bn of their own money, and it's going to work. Again.

"There will be extra funds for housing, studying abroad and social security, according to state television."

Generous. Goodness only knows where they'll find that.

Bet all the lady Saudis are delighted, as long as their male guardians allow them to have the money of course.

Coalition control freakery

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again:

Fuck off

So tired of the State telling everyone what to do.

Yasmin ain't got no Alibhai for this piece of nonsense

Sorry for the shit title, but I do like a good pun.

YAB's latest piece of desperate racial shit-stirring is on Beyoncé's mysterious skin-lightening. First of all, I would be very suspicious of these photos - photographers use light in cunning ways, they could be shopped, so frankly YAB may have been rather quick to rush to judgement. But, in the interests of further delving into YAB's article, let's assume Beyoncé has deliberately lightened her skin, Jacko style.

YAB's contention is the following:

"...I believe Beyonce is betraying all black and Asian women"

Always looking for an issue is YAB, she is Darcus Howe in female form. There's a lot of bollocks in this article, and to prove it, I'm going to quote YAB a few times, substituting "woman of colour" or "black" for "white woman" or "white". Let's see how it looks (bold and italic denote a change).

"...When white celebrities appear to deny their heritage by trying to make themselves look black, I despair for the youngsters who see those images. 

Funnily enough I wouldn't entirely disagree with this, a lot of white celebs do seem to do this (not via skin tone, but via clothing certainly), and a lot of kids as well. Still, pretty much irrelevant.

"White women across the world spend a lot of money, time and emotional energy on treatments to achieve an appearance which the Western world defines as perfection: usually blonde, thin, light skinned and with European features. "

Yes, yes they do. Loads of white women do that, although the light-skinned thing is shite, most go for orange nowadays. The narrow definition of perfection is BS but it's NOT a black thing.

"The answer is that every white woman has an important social and cultural history that cannot simply be bleached away or denied by the use of hair straighteners. That’s why I passionately believe that insert white female celeb here's ignorance of how this betrays her heritage is so insidiously damaging to all white people.

No-one would ever say that, would they. It would be "racist".

OK, enough substitution, it just gets too wacky now

"So why do all these women want to be whiter? The warped values they subscribe to evolved out of colonialism: white people were not only powerful but like mythical gods, physically superior and invincible."

What the fuck? Mythical gods? Chris must we apologise for colonialism AGAIN?

And finally, this.

"Beyonce’s unique, sensual beauty owed much to her racial and ethnic background."

Like every single woman in the world really. But obviously this is more important because she's black.

A tiresome, tedious article from a tiresome, tedious, tub-thumping racist who I can only assume the DM employ to balance out some of their other ravings. Just because she's black doesn't make it any better though.

Aid to India...

...why indeed?

Hamsters

A great wheeze from East Carolina University, supported by what looks like a fake charity (could be out of date, but if it isn't now it certainly used to be).

Portable pedal machines could be used in every office to improve the health of workers, according to scientists in the US.

Now I can immediately think of a number of problems with this.

1. I'm not the fittest, but I play football and walk to work so not too bad. But I sweat when I exercise, and judging by my football companions I'm not the only one. So this isn't hugely compatible with wearing a suit. And I've worked in an American office, ten years ago, and there were some BIG units there. The idea of that office also being a gym makes me shudder to my core.

2. This will generate a lot of excess heat. Not just from raising people's body temperatures, but the bikes themselves. Where does this heat go? Are firms expected to pump up the air con to the max every day? Not great for the famous carbon footprint really, or indeed the bottom line that will apparently be improved by this activity.

3. People won't use it.

"In a questionnaire, the workers said they would use the machine regularly at work if they were offered one by their employer."

Of course they said this, it doesn't mean they will. Even the charidee man realised this.

"However, it's not for everyone and I was concerned that, not surprisingly, use of the pedal machine decreased gradually over the one month trial period as enthusiasm waned."

Duh.

On a less flippant note, and maybe I'm being dramatic, I can see where these sorts of ideas end up. If this were to be adopted, some bright spark would realise he could power his office using these hamster workers. Good for the AGW scammers, and a nice opportunity for Government to push a whole bunch of agenda in one go.

Ashton takes a pasting

Some happy news at last, although it will of course come to nothing for obvious reasons. Baroness "Capability" Ashton has come bottom of a rating of all the European Commissioners, to which I say firstly bwahahahahahahaha.

 "Sixty nine per cent of 324 Brussels "policy-makers", with EU and national officials constituting the largest group, ranked Europe's first foreign minister as "disappointing" or "below average"

Now, two caveats to the hilarity here. The first is, as a Brit she was always going to do badly. However, in this case I suspect it's on merit rather than nationality (or indeed looks), The second, sadder caveat is of course that, as she has never been elected to anything in her life, not a single fuck will be given by her this day. I found this quote amusing:

The Daily Telegraph understands that one senior EU official has given the Labour peer until the summer to improve her performance or face an ultimatum for her to resign.

I'm sure she will be very keen to impose a deadline on herself, be less embarrassing than waiting for re-election, oh hang on, I forgot, no elections, silly of me.

Meanwhile, Hannan has stuck the boot in over at his blog. Ridiculously (in my view anyway), he claims that Egypt's attempts to prevent her from visiting mean that:

The days of the autocrats are numbered.

To which I said in his comments section:

Balls. Once the new leaders get stuck in they'll hook up with whoever can funnel them the most money, and that'll be the EU. Meet the new boss.

Once again, not a single fuck shall ever be given by Ashton, Von Pumpoy or their ilk, they are untouchable and the farcical attempts by Parliament to deny UK prisoners the vote will prove this definitively. The EU will win and show beyond all doubt that sovereignty is dead.

The only good way this ends is Captain Ranty's golden scenario of the EU kicking the UK out for non-compliance. It won't happen though. Everyone likes the money too much.

Sally "Shrinking Violet" Bercow

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

That is all.