James is heading off to Reading today in an effort to obtain a festival ticket at the gate. Douglas is also going there tomorrow, having somehow manged to land himself a job in a socialist beer tent. This means that Ali is, once again, holding the fort.

Normal posting shall resume some time next week but (given how wasted two of our contributers are likely to get over the weekend) no promises as to when.

I struggle to express exactly how enraged I am with this post. I’d had my doubts about feminism previously but Penny Red’s blog previously gave me a pleasing impression of this “Fourth Wave” stuff. But now, well, fuck it.

I don’t even know where to start. The suggestion that children are property, perhaps? Or else the total abandonment of any pursuit of equality in favour for the typical “maternal” idiocy that dictates pain, inconvenience and mild risk as being of such great significance that the 50% of genetic code she references counts for nothing. All informed, of course, by the absurd cultural view the Patriarchy places upon motherhood. How else could this lop-sided approach be given emotional heft?

What we’re left with is a problem being identified (lack of respect given to housekeepers and child-raisers) but then not followed through, instead with her taking a grand detour to outline why offspring should be deemed female possessions. Meanwhile not a word is said in empathy towards males except for a less than earnest “Sorry” followed by a reference to testicles and the immortal phrase “Too bad”. So, in other words, an appeal for greater power to women rather than for equality. No doubt she will spring some biological determinist clap-trap in defence of this when challenged, like any good reactionary.

(Which would be far less infuriating if I didn’t find her work largely superb.)

So apparently things have to be “Negotiated” (with this usage of the word reminiscent of Mugabe’s talks with Tsvangirai) rather than it simply being assumed that someone who has contributed half of the child’s material gets half a say in how they shall be raised. For, since the state can support mothers, the man shall be obliged to prove himself worthy of contact with a being he brought into existence (for which he will need to be a “fantastic person”, rather than the slightly more modest requirements for a woman, which apparently consist of a will and a womb) and if he is deemed unworthy to the woman he’ll not have to support the child. Well great, I’m certain that that would suit at least the cash fetishists. Until they worked out, of course, that “the state” only has money due to being fed taxes. In other words, men still pay.

Or, to put it in terms more destructive to this utopian slab of irksome anti-equality irritant, women still get supported by men. Since if you are going to base any idea around state cash (which, I should add, any sane person not intoxicated by anarchism would; at least a couple of times) you can not disregard the taxpayer. In this instance half of these would now be expected to fund the children of any woman who required help, while having no rights to access and raise even those that would never have existed but for their contribution.

All because of some worn out paradigms of child ownership and maternal supremacy, which a socialist feminist truly has no excuse for not seeing through. Through suffering, we earn. Through earning we own. Through owning we hold power.

And disregard any unbalance that this causes, of course, for this is feminism and here the ascendancy of female power must come above the obtainment of equality. Where women’s “rights” can be claimed they must be, with a disregard to the repercussions upon the other half of humanity. Forlorn fathers must be disregarded, for we are “Sorry about your balls” and that will suffice as recompense.

You bloody traitor to egalitarianism, Penny Red.

…but this gem from the delightful Donal Blaney deserves a wider audience. By the way, if you don’t regularly read Donal, can I suggest you start? His views genuinely frighten me.

The police ban Babyshambles from Moonfest:

The decision came after police asked an intelligence officer to research Doherty’s band, Babyshambles, who were booked to headline Moonfest festival in Westbury, Wiltshire, next week. They concluded that the band’s tendency to “speed up and then slow down the music” could create a “whirlpool effect” and spark disorder.

A horrific phenomenon also known as “Putting on a good show”. Apparently Superintendent Paul Williams would prefer “Cliff Richard or Bucks Fizz” to play.

Doherty is reportedly “absolutely devastated and furious”, which suggests that this was one of the shows which he actually intended to turn up to. A day was shortened, a festival pretty much ruined (the amount of Babyshambles fans who came there just for Pete was doubtless substantial) and the puritans win in their efforts to stamp out some fun once more.

It seems that the Vatican is more responsive and timely than I had anticipated. In response to my question in this article asking when the Church would involve itself the answer can only now be “Pretty damn quickly.”

Now I doubt the editor of their affiliate accelerated the Pope, or perhaps worked at his instruction, but it is pleasing that the Italian government has found an enemy in the Church. The Vatican wields considerably more clout when dealing with the Italian right than our own Anglican bishops could ever hope to hold over the Labour party.

The news that Famiglia Cristiana’s editor is to be sued by a leader of the far-right coalition who hold power over Italy suggests that they feel especially vulnerable. We must hope that this measure is doomed to the failure which is richly deserves, but regardless it demonstrates that the instinctive authoritarian instinct to close down debate is in evidence here.

The article contains a worrying aside, however:

So far, church leaders have been far more outspoken in their criticism of the government’s policies than Italy’s main, centre-left opposition party.

Which simply pleads for the question: if the Italian left can’t even muster the guts to call finger-printing innocent children for being gypsies “Indecent” then what the hell are they for?

Don’t push it.

I usually refrain from a running commentary on Boris Johnson’s acts as mayor.  Some people have taken to follow his every move, and while it is a very valid exploit, I cannot hope to carry it out effectively*.

Today, though, I feel I must comment on the resignation of Johnson’s First Deputy Mayor.  Let’s not forget, this was a position that he created despite reasonable warnings at the time that such a position was against GLA rules (with good reason).  Tim Parker now, apparently, sees that the position was not a sensible one to inhabit, or indeed to exist to begin with.  This effectively sees the end of Johnson’s Deputy Mayor scheme.

Such an error in judgement in creating posts only to realise that there was a perfectly good reason why they did not exist to begin with is forgiveable.  To lose so many high-ranking members of your administration in a matter of months is shocking.

I hope for London’s sake that this is a repeat of the Winter, as Johnson’s campaign got a complete overhaul and turned from a joke to a highly successful operation.  If not, London will be mismanaged for the next 42 months.  With the Olympics approaching, the last thing we need is a lack of decent thinking at the top of London government.

As always, though, the Tory Troll has the most insightful comment on the subject:

But with ‘King Stooge’ out of the building, and with planning powers now passed back into the Mayor’s hands, we are now faced with the very real prospect of Boris Johnson actually doing his own job. These are scary times people.

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*To see it done properly, see Tory Troll and Boris Watch.

At Tony Blair’s last party conference in 2006, he delivered a dead-straight attack on the Tories. It was a very fair comment then, and it remains very fair today. I just wonder whether Gordon will take note…

Sharp words from the Anonymous Liberal:

The McCain campaign insists that he did not cheat and it outraged at the very suggestion of any impropriety. In a classic non-sequitur (and one that represents a microcosm of the entire campaign to this point), the McCain campaign issued a statement saying: “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.” Apparently POWs are, by definition, incapable of cheating on anything (something that would likely come as news to McCain’s first wife).

I have already made comment on the new Number 10 website.  It seems as if  the design was stolen from the Themes Database, and badly botched before being put online.  Full comment with outgoing links from the theme’s author.

This just goes to show how monumentally divorced the government is from the real world.  There is no excuse in hiring a company to make a website on an open source platform and then not declaring copyright disclaimers.  If the press released shouted “open source”, even the most technically unaware individual in the Number 10 office should stop and think “wait, that means we didn’t make it ourselves.  Maybe the copyright notice should reflect that”.  It is a disgrace.

It really gets to something when government cannot even deliver a simple Wordpress website without messing up.  I have used loads of Wordpress themes in the past, all with appropriate copyright notices.  It was with a slight smile on my face that the latest theme for this website went live with my name at the bottom, not anyone else’s - I built it from scratch, line by line.  Apparently the Number 10 website cost £100,000, but it is no more technically advanced than this site, and whoever put it together could not be bothered to design it, or even steal a design properly.  I am obviously wasting my time, when I could be making government websites for ludicrous sums.