Today the Telegraph ran a mad Marxist horror story on an ambitious attempt by the equality tzars to control our tongues:-

Publishers and universities are outlawing dozens of seemingly innocuous words in case they cause offence.

Banned phrases on the list, which was originally drawn up by sociologists, include Old Masters, which has been used for centuries to refer to great painters - almost all of whom were in fact male.

It is claimed that the term discriminates against women and should be replaced by “classic artists”.

The list of banned words was written by the British Sociological Association, whose members include dozens of professors, lecturers and researchers.

The list of allegedly racist words includes immigrants, developing nations and black, while so-called “disablist” terms include patient, the elderly and special needs.

It comes after one council outlawed the allegedly sexist phrase “man on the street”, and another banned staff from saying “brainstorm” in case it offended people with epilepsy.

However the list of “sensitive” language is said by critics to amount to unwarranted censorship and wrongly assume that people are offended by words that have been in use for years.

Well, I’ve had a look at the website of the theologically marxoid British Sociological Association, and found three lists of “Words That Must Never Again Pass Our Sinful Lips”.  Anyone who wants a good laugh can sample these links (at least one of which dates back to 2004, not that you would know it from the Telegraph report): Sex and Gender; Ethnicity and Race, Non-Disablist.

However, this encounter with a malignant academic tumour was but the first of my day.  A little later I came across something called The Anti-Racist Toolkit, a basis, apparently, for “building the Anti-Racist HEI” (High Educational Institution).  It’s dated 2002, and formed the centre-piece of a post-Lawrence Enquiry investigation of Institutional Racism.  It was conceived by three Leeds University sociologists: Laura Turney, Ian Law & Debbie Phillips.  It ventures onto some familiar ground for MR readers:-

Unpicking ‘Whiteness’
For many HEIs, the ‘whiteness’ of the institution goes unnoticed and is simply rationalised into a day-to-day perception of ‘normality’. The research we undertook at the University of Leeds indicated, however, that when forced to identify the ‘face’ of the institution, many people working there described it (with reference to staff) as not only predominantly white, but also predominantly white and male. For the most part, however, people don’t really notice the ‘whiteness’ of an institution and the implications that this normative whiteness has for those staff and students working and studying there. What is more, people tend to over-estimate the numbers of Black and minority ethnic people working and studying in a place and assume that equality policies of any kind work primarily in favour of Black and minority ethnic people, women and disabled candidates (both staff and students). In this way the whiteness of an institution is ignored and downplayed.

... It is only recently that the study of ‘race’, ethnicity and culture has also begun to specifically address questions of whiteness. The study of whiteness has been important for this project for a number of reasons, primarily because the acknowledgement or identification of ‘whiteness’ becomes a way of making unstable its position as the normalised, central space from which ‘others’ (racialised, ethnicised, etc, groups) are differentiated.

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A decade or so ago, one of the frequent frustrations of my life as a school-run parent was catching Steve Jones, a geneticist who has specialised in Bosnian snails, on Radio 4’s Today programme. The BBC of the 90s had a particularly strong penchant for race denial, and here was an “expert” geneticist who talked the mitochondrial talk, and gave them what they wanted to hear.

It wasn’t what I, sitting in my car, wanted to hear.  But it was to bury the “racism” and “oppression” of people like me - white people, in other words - that the whole charade was played out.  And pretty much played out it is, now, in the era of micro-array analysis.  But that doesn’t stop Steve Jones from splurging his same old nonsense at us, when he’s given the chance.  Today the Telegraph has done just that.

Jones’s headline argument is that there are not enough older fathers to drive the evolutionary process in European Man - older fathers being the key producers of genetic mutation in their spermatazoa.  Somewhere along the line the confused Telegraph sub-eds have widened the claim to a complete halting of the process in Mankind, which is obviously silly because Jones says:-

Today’s men start late, but stop early. In Cameroon, almost half the fathers are over 50, in Pakistan about a fifth, and in France only about one in twenty.

So evolution marches on everywhere else but among us, it seems.  But towards the end of the article it becomes plain that when Jones says “evolution” in respect to Cameroonians and Pakistanis he actually means “European race-replacement”:-

As Darwin himself realised, evolution’s third ingredient is isolation. Humans are 10,000 times more common than any other mammal of their size, and without modern technology the world’s population would be half a million - about that of Glasgow.

People are dense, and on the move. No man (or woman) is an island nowadays, for the world is becoming a single genetic continent. History has always been made in bed, but the beds are getting closer together.

Once, we stayed close to where we were born and populations could build their own identity. Now, we no longer have to marry the girl or boy next door but can hop onto a plane and find a mate from miles away.

How far was your birthplace from that of your partner and how far apart were your mother and father, and your grandmother and grandfather on each side, born? In almost every case the distance has increased and continues to do so (my wife and I first saw the light 3,000 miles apart, my mother and father ten; and, as my students say, it shows).

Everywhere, the biological frontiers are getting leakier. A grand averaging is slowing evolution’s power. One British marriage in fifty is between partners from different ethnic groups and many more cohabit.

Afro-Caribbean males are half as likely again to marry a white female than are black women to find a white husband, while among Chinese those preferences are reversed. Britain is among the most sexually open nations in the world.

People choose mates almost as much by level of education as by skin colour. Other countries are going the same way and Homo sapiens will soon be a lot more uniform than it was.

Health, birth control and the healing power of lust all conspire to tell us that, at least in the developed world, and at least for the time being, evolution is over. So, if you are worried about what Utopia is going to be like, cheer up - you are living in it now.

All this describes the European genocide quite well.  It is only when, at the very end, Jones comes to the values to be ascribed to it that we realise what being a devoted Labour Party supporter does to the scientific mind.

This 2002 BBC video predates The Discovery Channel’s “Ice Age Columbus” by 3 years and is, in my opinion, superior.

From the Daily Mail:-

Migrants arriving from overseas will be brought ‘under control’ hints new Immigration Minister

Within hours of his appointment, the new Immigration Minister indicated that the influx of arrivals from overseas will finally be brought ‘under control’.

Phil Woolas dropped broad hints that he supports a policy of ‘balanced migration’, and an upper limit on migrant numbers.

The outspoken MP added: ’ Community cohesion is crucial. After the economy, this is probably the biggest concern facing the population.’

Campaigners gave Mr Woolas’s remarks a cautious welcome as a sign that Labour is at last preparing to abandon its controversial ‘open door’ policy.

They have also been heartened by his strong track record as a politician willing to confront uncomfortable subjects.

In the past, he has warned that first-cousin marriages in the Pakistani community are increasing the risk of birth defects, and that Muslim women wearing the veil could spark ‘fear and resentment’ among non-Muslims.

The Oldham East and Saddleworth MP, who has faced down BNP activists in his own constituency, told the Sunday Times on Sunday that it was vital to ‘provide confidence to the indigenous population that migration is under control’.

The clue is in the last line.  The election could be up to 600 days away but the electoral strategies are already deployed.  Woolas’ appointment is intended to forestall both the Tories and the BNP from making capital out of the former “open-door” policy.  It might well prove a clever play in a time of recession when migrants are not much needed industrially anyway, and the level of bad feeling among the populace inevitably rises.

The game has changed a little.  The BNP will need to adjust its rhetoric accordingly.

By David Hamilton

The rulers try to build a multi-racial society from mixed motives: some have high-minded ideals, others are out to exploit cheap imported labour. They invite immigrants and legislate us into sharing everything we have with them, while the global elites living here and multi-national corporations who are present too pay derisory taxes. Our shameless politicians are no better, claiming vast and deceitful expenses. If they want immigrants they should put them up at their houses - they can certainly afford to. But it is not as if the imports are all needy or in danger, though we pretend they are because, in our folly, it makes us feel wanted and righteous for offering aid.

The message conveyed to them is that we are weak and scared and this makes them despise us for not standing up for ourselves. When immigrants arrive they are welcomed by hordes of do-gooders - they can tell any lie and it is accepted. The elites hope there is no threat from them, and pretend they are essentially good.  They appeal to their good-will by being fawningly nice to them, hoping they will reciprocate by being nice back. This mentality was expressed neatly by Jens Orback, Sweden’s one-time Minister of Democracy, “We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.”

The Government is cunning and manipulative, and allows things to happen through a negligence that is quite intentional.  It does not want to be in control in certain key management areas. The inadequacy of its positions is the best and, importantly, least blameworthy way to bring about its objectives.

In a normal time in a normal country these objectives would automatically focus upon strengthening our peoples, and that would include strengthening our national character.  But our rulers strive to achieve the opposite, constantly blaming us and using us as scapegoats (racists) if anything goes wrong in the utopian plan. It affects our everyday lives because social relations now have to be regulated and, post 7/7, restrictive anti-terrorist laws are imposed on everyone, not just the likely suspects.

We used to be homogenous and trusted one another. In general it was peaceful. We queued. We relaxed with each other, and sought to get along by using good manners and showing consideration. Is the breaking up of that life through uncontrolled mass immigration an accident? No, the importation of cheap labour and new voting constituencies is wholly intentional.

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This morning the Telegraph ran a short news feature titled, “People who believe in God are more helpful.

Scientists say that those who frequently pray and attend religious services report more charitable donations and volunteer work

However the review, published in the journal Science, does suggest that believers acting for the greater good may be doing so to enhance their own reputation among friends and acquaintances.

In one experiment, volunteers who had been told that a dead student’s ghost had been seen in the experiment room cheated less on a test than those who had not.

In another, children who were told that a fictional character called Princess Alice was watching them were less likely to disobey their instructions.

In Science, the authors wrote: “These findings are consistent with the idea that outward evidence of religious devotion may engender more trust.”

The evidence also suggests that trust in other members of a religious group is higher when those groups involve a greater degree of commitment, for example in stricter forms of religious belief, such as Mormonism.

The authors say that the research supports the idea that in early societies religion helped to foster social cohesion by encouraging cooperation.

The original paper is titled The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality and is by Norenzayan and Shariff, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia.  The abstract reads:-

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Given the Republican Party’s desperate situation in the upcoming election midst a financial crisis founded on bad consumer credit, there is an enormous opportunity to seize control of the US government and utterly destroy the Democratic Party:

Call up Charles Murray over at the highly influential American Enterpise Institute and draft a policy for the implementation of “The Plan” outlined in his book “In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State” whereby every citizen age 21 or above who isn’t incarcerated receives $10K/year in monthly payments—thereby replacing all transfer/“entitlement” programs.

If the Republicans could uniformly get behind this conservative think-tank plan, they’d sweep the election and dismantle the core of public sector rent-seeking that provides Democrats with their political base.

Peter Mandelson, already a resignation veteran, the architect of New Labour and of spin in British politics, and possibly the most despised politician of recent times, is returning to the cabinet.

Normally, I would attempt to formulate some sort of response of my own, beyond the obvious single word offering of “Gobsmacked”.  But the Guardian’s on-line Labour-lovers are coming up with much more jaw-dropped, wide-eyed bemusement that I ever could, all in answer to a Mandelson eulogy by another despised spin-person, Derek Draper (yes, the guy who once boasted “There are 17 people who count in this government, and to say I am intimate with every one of them is the understatement of the century”).

Enjoy the thread here.

One slightly wierd side-note ... a commenter named Pinktaco sensibly asked how Mandelson, who is not a member of either house, could serve in a cabinet post.  The comment was removed by the moderator.