Hat-tip to Laban Tall for this sublime example of elite discomfiture, occasioned by the ruthless, knowledgeable Piers Morgan in an interview of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.  It was retailed in The Independent today.

PM: Do you assume that editing is a job for life?

AR: No, I assume that all careers must come to an end at some point.

PM: But Guardian editors, tend to have the professional lives of several elephants. What would it take to be fired?

AR: When you’re appointed, the only thing you are told is to edit the paper “as heretofore”.

PM: That seems suitably incomprehensible for The Guardian.

AR: I think it means that The Guardian is a liberal, progressive, intelligent, internationalist paper which operates to certain ethical standards. And that’s what I have to do. So if you betray that edict by backing UKIP in an election, for example, you would have to leave.

PM: I’m talking more about personal conduct. I read an interview in which you said that what mattered most between a paper and its staff and the readers was trust. Do you think you have to be as trustworthy privately as you are professionally?

AR: I think you have to be trustworthy in your professional life.

PM: Not personal life?

AR: [Silence for 10 seconds] I like to make a distinction between professional and private in everything we write about.

PM: But when David Blunkett admitted in his diaries that he couldn’t concentrate on the Iraq war dossier debate in Cabinet because he was in emotional turmoil over his affair, isn’t that where private and professional gets a little blurred?

AR: If that impacted on his life…

PM: A private or public matter?

AR: I wouldn’t, er… [pauses] go looking for this kind of thing.

PM: Really? Isn’t it a matter of public interest if the Home Secretary admits he couldn’t focus on a dossier that sanctions war because of the turmoil surrounding his affair?

AR: Well, I wouldn’t go looking into it, if that answers you.

PM: No, that wasn’t my question. I asked if it was a public matter or not. It strikes me that by his own admission, therefore, his private life is directly impacting on his public work.

AR: If that’s his own judgement…

PM: But The Guardian serialised his own book with that very admission. It doesn’t mean you read it, granted…

AR: It was 900 pages. I didn’t read it all.

PM: It amuses me when you “serious” editors claim you don’t do private-life stuff, because you do. You wait for the tabloids to do the work and then pile in, repeating the juicy bits while condemning the tabloid intrusion. If you feel that strongly about it, why repeat the original invasive material? Did you cover the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott’s dalliance with [his secretary] Tracey Temple?

We did in the end, yes.

PM: Why “in the end”?

AR: There isn’t a pat answer to that. There are very few of my broadsheet editor colleagues who, if someone came to them and said, “I’ve been shagging the Secretary of State for, er - I’m trying to think of a department that doesn’t exist - er, pensions and culture, are you interested?”, would say “yes”. None of us do that kind of stuff as original journalism. But, once stories are out, then if your job is to report what is going on in society at large then there comes a point when you can’t ignore them.

PM: I find that a totally fatuous argument. Either you believe that Prezza’s affair is in the public interest, or you don’t. If you think that the affair itself is not a public matter, the braver thing to do is not to report it all. The Independent used to have a policy of never reporting on the Royal Family, and I thought that was admirable and that it lacked the total hypocrisy of your position.

AR: It was brave, but in the end they looked stupid and stopped.

PM: If I gave you concrete evidence Charles and Camilla were splitting up, would you publish it?

AR: Yes, because that is about the relationship between future monarch and wife, the future King and Queen.

PM: And if I told you that Charles was leaving Camilla because he was having an affair with Victoria Beckham, would you publish that part of the story?

AR: Well, again, because marriage in monarchy is more part of the job, then it is more relevant; rather than the fictional minister I discussed earlier.

PM: Isn’t being Deputy Prime Minister a fairly important job?

AR: Yes, but the broad distinction that editors in my end of the market make is that what politicians do in private, consensually, is up to them.

PM: Literally, anything?

If it’s legal, yes.

PM: So if I showed you evidence of David Cameron snorting cocaine, you would publish that because it’s illegal, right?

AR: Yes, but I wouldn’t spend a lot of time going looking for it. I think illegal behaviour by a possible future prime minister is in the public interest.

PM: Don’t you think that Cameron should have been honest on whether he’d broken the law?

AR: I’d have been happier if he’d come out one way or another. But we all knew what he was saying by refusing to answer it.

PM: Did we?

AR: Didn’t we?

PM: Would you answer that question? Are you a public figure?

AR: Not really, no. I am accountable to the Scott Trust [owner of the Guardian Media Group], and I make The Guardian’s journalism more publicly accountable than any other editor in this country.

PM: I only ask, because I remember The Guardian treating me as a public figure when I encountered various scrapes as an editor. Do you think that your own life would stand up to much ethical scrutiny?

AR: In terms of the journalism?

PM: No, I mean privately. Do you consider that infidelity is always a private matter for public figures, for instance?

AR: I think what people do legally and consensually is private.

PM: If I asked you if you had ever taken illegal drugs, would you feel compelled to answer?

AR: No, I’d say to you to mind your own business.

PM: What’s your current salary?

AR: It’s, er, about £350,000.

PM: What bonus did you receive last year?

AR: About £170,000, which was a way of addressing my pension.

PM: That means that you earned £520,000 last year alone. That’s more than the editor of The Sun by a long way.

AR: I’ll talk to you off the record about this, but not on the record.

PM: Why? In The Guardian, you never stop banging on about fat cats. Do you think that your readers would be pleased to hear that you earned £520,000 last year? Are you worth it?

AR: That’s for others to say.

PM: Wouldn’t it be more Guardian-like, more socialist, to take a bit less and spread the pot around a bit? We have this quaint idea that you guys are into that “all men are equal” nonsense, but you’re not really, are you? You seem a lot more “equal” than others on your paper.

AR: Er… [silence].

PM: Do you ever get awkward moments when your bonus gets published? Do you wince and think, “Oh dear, Polly Toynbee’s not going to like this one.”

AR: Er… [silence].

PM: Or is Polly raking in so much herself that she wouldn’t mind?

AR: Er… [silence].

PM: Are you embarrassed by it?

AR: No. I didn’t ask for the money. And I do declare it, too.

PM: But if you earned £520,000 last year, then that must make you a multimillionaire.

AR: You say I’m a millionaire?

PM: You must be - unless you’re giving it all away to charity…

AR: Er…

PM: What’s your house worth?

AR: I don’t want to talk about these aspects of my life.

PM: You think it’s all private?

AR: I do really, yes.

PM: Did you think that about Peter Mandelson’s house? I mean, you broke that story.

AR: I, er… it was a story about an elected politician.

PM: And you’re not as accountable. You just reserve the right to expose his private life.

AR: We all make distinctions about this kind of thing. The line between private and public is a fine one, and you’ve taken up most of the interview with it.

PM: Well, only because you seem so embarrassed and confused about it.

AR: I’m not embarrassed about it. But nor do I feel I have to talk about it.

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Here is one of those cases where reality appears to be satire:

Laws that make denying or trivialising the Holocaust a criminal offence punishable by jail sentences will be introduced across the European Union, according to a proposal expecting to win backing from ministers Thursday… Offenders will face up to three years in jail

I think its time to have a contest to identify the most offensive mockery of the crucifixion of Christ ever put on public display in Europe.  This is only appropriate as a demonstration of the fact that the theocracy of Christianity has been replaced by the theocracy of Holocaustianity.  The days of incarceration for heresies and blasphemies questioning Christian canons or mocking Christian deities/saints are long gone now replaced by incarceration for questioning Holocaustian canons or mocking Holocaustian symbols.

In the US, we have a history of many Jewish art critics praising works like Piss Christ if not producing mockeries of Christianity for major motion picture release.  I’m sure there must be many counterparts in the EU.

My thanks to a seriously untangled guy named Smith for this hard-to-find story from The (Glasgow) Herald:-

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission of Equality and Human Rights, said there was a clear choice facing communities who are witnessing an influx of migrants.

Speaking at the STUC annual congress in Glasgow he said the choice was between welcoming people or fearing newcomers.

He urged people to turn their backs on racists in communities and at the ballot box and showed his contempt for the British National Party by saying they should be treated as “less than human”.

He said: “We will see communities standing up for asylum seekers who want to live as part of that community. We will see the Scottish government welcoming them as part of the fresh talent initiative.

“But we will also see the ugly face. We will see those who will assault a woman and baby simply because they are foreigners.

“We as a society have a choice. In England we have the BNP. The path is to keep them out.  We need to change in an inclusive way.”

I haven’t heard about any dramatic breakthrough yet in the search for those who will assault a woman and baby simply because they are foreigners.  But let that pass, because the big news is that Mr E has pulled off another of those smooth political hip wriggles for which he is so famous.  “Less than human” he says, is how BNP members should be treated.  A real headline grabber, one would think.  And surely that was what Trevor was hoping.

But, was he legal?  Can you imagine Nick Griffin and Mark Collett getting away with such a statement about Pakistanis?  If they were worth twice prosecuting for calling Islam “a wicked, vicious faith”, surely they would have been lynched for saying what Phillips just did.

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On a recent thread Karlmagnus invited us to post on Wolfie’s romantic difficulties, for which purpose I have been waiting for the unsavoury denouement.  However, I no longer need worry since the Bear has covered the matter in his latest offering at prudentbear.com.  The President of the World Bank may be pleased to learn that the column does not dwell too long on his love life.  He may be less pleased to learn that it details instead some of the unlovely aspects of the world he is striving so manfully to create.

GW

The decline of established institutions is supposed to be a liberating process, allowing individuals to express themselves fully and society to reach its potential through temporary structures that express its needs and values at a given time. Yet for those of us who are not 28 year old hedge fund traders, the new unstructured world seems likely to be a pretty grim place. “If you want a friend, get a dog” is in the long run an unpleasant way to live life.

The public sector in this respect is less of a problem than the private. The IMF and the World Bank have lost their useful economic role (to the extent they ever had one) but it appears unlikely that they will ever be abolished. The World Bank in particular is currently going through a bout of questioning because of its president Paul Wolfowitz’s crusade against Third World corruption. This is an entirely worthy if unpopular cause that is marred by the World Bank’s arrogance in tying it to handouts of money and by Wolfowitz’s own activity in arranging an overpaid tax-free job for his mistress. (One does not wish to be ungallant, but those wishing to make a salacious meal out of this case cannot have Googled the lady’s photo.)

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The Nanjing Anti-African riots leading to Tiananmen Square may, themselves, have been a precursor to today’s massacre at Virginia Tech University reportedly committed by an Asian student (although verification is not yet in).  If so, it is important to discuss the raciosexual (yes I made up that word and it deserves reification) dynamics of campus life, particularly how it impacts the education of young men not equipped to deal with a sexual ecology that would never appear in nature.  If this is taken to mean I harbor sympathies for young men who might go on murderous rampages against those of another race that are fucking their women on campus—the answer is, “Yes”.  If this is further taken to mean that I hold innocent young men, living among foreigners in another country, who go on such rampages—the answer is, “No”.

It is on this basis that I would like to interview a Chinese nationalist with first-hand knowledge of the situation facing young men in Nanjing so we can discuss how to prevent such torture of young men trying to receive an education—and potentially prevent catastrophic wars between our great nations resulting from vicious policies of multiculturalism.

UPDATE 4:46PM PDT:

A Times Now report quotes a witness to the shootings:

“...The gunman appeared to be Asian and was looking for his girlfriend,” the student said.

I know it is unfair of me to say, “I told you so.” since I used racial reality to impute motive accurately and it is just unfair to perceive race reality—at least its unfair for white heterosexual males to use such forbidden knowledge.

FURTHER UPDATE 6:55PM PDT:

Daily Mail UK reports that:

He was said to have quarrelled in a dormitory with his girlfriend, whom he believed had been seeing another man. A student adviser was called to sort out the row. But the killer produced a gun and shot dead both his girlfriend and the adviser.

Two hours later he rampaged through an engineering building on the other side of the campus in the town of Blacksburg, killing indiscriminately.

So the sexual hypothesis is supported by further reports.  The question remaining before we may reasonably conclude this was a raciosexual-motivated massacre is whether there were the expected number of Asian male victims given the reported “indiscriminate” killing.  If we are going to strongly falsify the raciosexual motive hypothesis, the number of Asian males should approximate their percentage at such an engineering school.

UPDATE April 20, 1:30PM PDT:

The list of victims with photographs are now available and do not support the naive “Asian-chauvinist” raciosexual motive, although a raciosexual cause may still be valid hypothesizing a higher vulnerability of east Asian men to sexually vicious multicultural environments—hence a higher level of stress.

Moreover, an interesting fact is that it appears there are actually more “Asian” victims than one would expect by more than a factor of 2. However, these are divided between East Asian victims (Henry Lee and Mary Read) and other “Asians”: South Asian victims (G.V. Loganathan, Partahi Lombantoruan, Minal Panchal, Reema Samaha) and West Asian victims (Ross Abdallah Alameddine and Reema Samaha both Lebonese—and we might include the Egyptian Waleed Mohammed Shaalan). There are a lot more dark skinned Asians among the victims than one would expect. Moreover, the sole female East Asian victim was Korean, “born on an Air Force base”—meaning she was probably sired by a white military man with a Korean mother. Given these nuances it is rather difficult to dismiss the raciosexual hypothesis altogether and indeed, it seems desirable to invoke a variant of the raciosexual hypothesis to explain the over-abundance of dark-skinned Asians among the victim list and the “coincidence” that the sole east Asian female victim was not only a conational of the killer but the product of an interracial marriage involving a Korean mother.

Here is a picture of Mary Read with her father Peter Read:

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Soren has conducted a second interview with Dr Tomislav Sunic.  File size 57.5 Mb, run-time 1hr 2min 45sec.

The UK Independent reports that:

US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan - an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed - that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.

One has visions of US soldiers running around the world firing machine guns randomly into the hills hoping to kill everything that might possibly endanger them.  Such Keystone Cops posturing must be an endless source of inspiration for the US’s enemies. 

Why, its a veritable comedy cavalcade!

One can’t begin to imagine the gut-wrenching laughter at the US resorting to Israel for manufacturing.

What would Henry Ford do?

... these words:-

The disgraced district attorney in the Duke lacrosse rape case apologized to the three athletes in a carefully worded statement Thursday as their lawyers weighed whether to sue him - and some legal experts say they have a case.

While prosecutors generally have immunity for what they do inside the courtroom, experts said that protection probably doesn’t cover some of Mike Nifong’s more questionable actions in his handling of the case - such as calling the lacrosse players “a bunch of hooligans” in one of several interviews deemed unethical by the state bar.

“I think their chances of success suing Mr. Nifong are reasonably good, despite what we call prosecutorial immunity,” said John Banzhaf, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law.

On Wednesday, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper threw out the case against the three young men, pronounced them innocent and delivered a withering attack on Nifong, portraying him as a “rogue” prosecutor guilty of “overreaching.” Cooper said Nifong rushed the case, failed to verify the accuser’s allegations and pressed on despite the warning signs.

In his first comment on that decision, Nifong said in a statement Thursday: “To the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved to be incorrect, I apologize to the three students that were wrongly accused.”

He issued what appeared to be a plea to the students not to take any further action, saying, “It is my sincere desire that the actions of Attorney General Cooper will serve to remedy any remaining injury that has resulted from these cases.”

So far, attorneys for David Evans, Reade Seligmann, and Collin Finnerty have not said whether they plan a civil action against Nifong. But they have not ruled it out.