My mate Peter

Got into an online 'discussion' about the merits of drug legalisation with Mr Hitchens on his blog.

Watch the fun here...

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/10/this-is-no-supercam-just-ted-heath-mk-2-complete-with-his-own-thought-police.html

and

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/10/black-labradors-bite-master-shock-.html

My view is that the criminalisation of drugs leads to more misery, through the violent supply chain, than would be caused by the subsequent public health issues legalisation brought.

Peter's argument is that if we legalised drugs civilisation would end and we'd be ruled by cruel Chinese masters. No really that's what he thinks.

And they say smoking weed makes you paranoid!

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Leave it, he's not worth it

Nick Clegg is probably one of the least liked politicians in the country - that's some achievement from a man who was so fantastically popular during the leader's debates, prior to the election, that queues of well-wishers used to form at his house with gifts and offers of domestic service. Now it's said he gets dog eggs delivered through his letterbox with aplomb envied by many a postman.

To be fair he has brought it on himself. If he hadn't been such a twat over admission fees perhaps his hallway wouldn't smell like a dirty protest and people wouldn't give the finger to the phone when they take his calls. So imagine if you had to spend five hours sat next to the man on a flight to Cairo. How much Business Class free booze would it take before you were telling him he's a grade A shit who sold out his principles for a sniff of power?

Did you drink my Buckfast?

Well according to the Mail it doesn't take any time at all. A fellow passenger was on him like a seagull on a saveloy, banging on about his party's reluctance to scrap the Human rights act. She was so wound up apparently that she had to be "physically restrained". Much as I don't like the man you've got to feel for someone who gets "verbally abused" for 5 hours by a, presumably, drunk mentalist.

Daniel Martin is acknowledged as the journalist who brought us this nearly story - in fact it's so lame as a story he ended up padding out the last third of the text with a totally bizarre un-related dig at Tony Blair's work and earnings since he left office. I imagine Daniel had been tasked to deliver 500 words about Clegg's traumatic flight got 300 words in and realised there was nothing else to say so he pasted in a few paragraphs from another story hoping no one would notice. Lazy get.

Eh?

He'd probably have been better off trying to find someone who was on the flight and getting a quote off of them to pad it out. That would appear to be easier than Daniel could have imagined too as the mountain came to Mohammed and a quote made its way onto the website unbidden.

There's a message in the comments section from Simon Windsor-Green, nestled among the usual retarded Hitler loving renta-quotes, who was on the plane and explains what actually went off. It seems it was actually very little.

I wonder if Daniel had known this before he submitted his half-arsed copy he'd have had to pad out the text even more. I like to think he'd have filled the space with a short tale of a man and his pet parrot who spoke of secrets and lies but then choked on a peanut, we'll never know and perhaps literature is poorer because of it.

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Hiding their light under a bushel

The fight for the Republican nomination for next year's US Presidential election is hotting up. Current darling of the GOP faithful is the batty pizza chef Herman Cain. His brand of quick fix, easy answer, low tax, ignore the rest of the world mentalness reminds them fondly of their previous slow-witted hero Dubya.

Cain's lack of interest in countries to the east or west of his country is best articulated with his pre-emptive tirade against journalists earlier this year;

"When they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I'm going to say, you know, I don't know. Do you know?"


I don't know Herman.


However the rantings of Herman aren't my main concern at the minute. I was wondering if there was some way of finding out how the wing-nuts at the Mail feel about a second term for Obama. Unfortunately they're keeping their position on the matter quiet. I'll keep digging and if I find a chink in their armour and a glint of what their opinion might be come the election I'll let you know.

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My cousin's dog's aunt says

Richard Dawkins has been making some seemingly controversial remarks about blinkered religious Muslim beliefs in the Times Educational Supplement.

In his opinion of all the faith schools he's come across the Muslim ones are the worst for passing off their creation myths as hard fact. This is then carried onto university where the poor under-graduates are so shaken by evolutionary theory that they have to walk out of lectures.

Strong stuff, and worthy of a story. What would make a worthwhile article would be perhaps contacting the professor and asking him if he'd like to expand on his thoughts for the wider, and less niche, audience provided by the Mail.

Unless you're lazy arsed reporter Hugo Gye. In this case you'll copy and paste the raciest phrases from the TES and then quote the Daily Telegraph as either their take on the issue is key, or it happened to be nailed to the back of the door while he was ruminating in trap number three.

World class reporting that allows him to get his required copy in in-full whilst leaving plenty of time for buttock scratching and bacon sarnies. Keep up the good work Hugo.

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