The Kid has been getting all hectoring and didactic again, as befits one of his age. I remember that period of my own life well, but as the master songsmith who can't sing a note puts it, ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

Anyway, and rather fittingly, the Kid has been wittering on about something called political infancy, which is, as far as I can make out, an inabilty to see the other side of an argument sufficiently well to engage with it, leaving political debate as little more than slanging matches and mutual recrimination. Needless to say, it is the left wing, liberal elite who are the worst offenders, never having had exposure to the reasoned and popular contrary positions espoused by all right thinking folk such as the Kid.

Almost every left-wing argument I have seen in favour of single-sex marriage or against free trade has shown this political infancy. Usually they are made as if the counter-arguments have never been made, because as far as the arguers are concerned, they never have been.

Well, since the Kid's preferred argument against gay marriage is that a man cannot be father to a pebble, it's not a charge many of the OVERWHELMINGLY LEFT WING MEDIA will lose much sleep over. Indeed, someone mentioned the pebble argument in the comments, to which the Kid responded by referring to another of his hectoring pieces about logical fallacies, saying that not all analogies are false. Well, no, but this one is, mate, and demonstrably so, by a mad Roman Emperor to boot.

Revisiting this subject, it came as quite a surprise to me that the famed pebble argument is not actually one of the Kid's, but was made by one Sam Schulman in the NRO:

However much I might wish to, I cannot be a father to a pebble — I cannot be a brother to a puppy — I cannot make my horse my consul. Just so, I cannot, and should not be able to, marry a man. If I want to be a brother to a puppy, are you abridging my rights by not permitting it? I may say what I please; saying it does not mean that it can be.

This is an argument that defeats itself and when it was put to the Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, AKA Caligula, by a trembling adviser in AD 40, it was dealt with in typically robust fashion. "So," the mad Emperor, looking for all the world like a young John Hurt, proclaimed, "you are telling me that I cannnot make Incitatus a consul? On the strength of the fact that a man cannot father a pebble? It is patently true a man cannot father a pebble. I have tried it myself, on several occasions. Sexual relations with a cliff face are not entirely unpleasant, but no matter how much seed is spilled and how often, neither rock nor pebble has ever been born of such a relationship. But what does this immutable fact have in common with the institution of consulship? I am Emperor of Rome. If I wish to re-define what it means to be a consul to include standing around looking horsy, shitting on the senate floor and eating oats, then it is in my gift to do so. It only needs what in centuries to come will be called the political will, and it can be done. You will have to come up with a better argument than that if you wish to stop me from going ahead with my plans."

Funnily enough, a better argument may have been forthcoming, because Caligula never did make his horse a consul, but at least the adviser shut up about, if you'll forgive the pun, fucking pebbles.

Walkers Cons the Nation

Laid back, not to say lazy, parent that I am, I've never worried unduly about what the kids stuffed down their throats, provided they got their fair share of decent food as well. The first two, boys, have always been able to eat what they like and remain thin as rakes. Indeed, the younger earned himself the name of Two Dinners Durkin for his outrage when he went to a friends to eat and then came home to find we hadn't cooked for him. "But you know I can always eat two dinners!" he protested. And it's true. Two dinners, two puddings and a heap of junk aswell and he still has the physique of David Beckham. (I'm biased, of course.)

Unfortunately my daughter is not quite so lucky. And, being an unobservant sort, it came as quite a surprise to me to find that at eight years of age, she was veering on the chunky side. Well, what do you do? Obesity is a worry, but so are eating disorders and I've read enough women's magazines to know that disasterous attitudes to food can start early and be kicked off by a single incautious phrase. So, over the past two years Mrs D and I have tried to keep the brakes on our daughter's junk intake without mentioning the f word, stressing the health benefits and wittering on about bad teeth to the extent that the poor kid'll probably develop a phobia of smiling.

And then there's the thorny issue of exercise. The boys, of course, were able to eat like gannets because they were never still. Football at every break time, charging up and down the street on their bikes, fighting, thundering up and down the stairs so much it used to drive us insane. But our dear daughter is cut from a different cloth. She is a quiet, diffident soul, with a stillness about her that is calming and tranquil, but not much good at raising the metabolic rate. She's a member of the groups of girls you see at the edge of the playground yattering on about who knows what and disdainful of those uncool, unsophisticated kids who actually have functioning legs.

We've tried everything. We've had her walking to school, cycling till her bum cries for mercy, walking the dog, playing badminton, swimming, hammering the PS2 dance mat for all it's worth, and while she has not complained about any of it, she is still not one of life's natural movers and she's still not exactly lissom.

So, it was with great interest that Mrs D and I found out that that nice Mr Linecker was going on the telly to get the nations fatties walking (Walkers, walking, geddit?) and to that end the junk purveyor whose shilling he takes is giving away little devices to measure the steps we take every day. Ten thousand is the target, apparently. Fair enough, think we, swallowing the natural cynicism which arises at such moments, it can't do any harm.

Can't it? It's a corporate scandal is what it is.

The little device arrives chez Durkin and is clipped on the belt of our daughter. After ten minutes of strolling nonchalently around the place as is her wont, we examined the total. Five hundred steps. Well done, girl you'll hit the 10K in no time, says I. Mrs D is less enthusiastic. Just reset it and walk around the kitchen, she orders. You know what's coming, I expect. Fifteen steps counted by three people, sixty two counted by the little device. A staggering four hundred and fourteen percent mark up.

A clear case of snack food giant conning the sedentary into eating ever more packets of fat laden potato based snacks, I think you'll agree.

Or it could have just broke in the post, I suppose.

It gets boring trying to make you read Matthew Parris of a saturday, so I'll try and make you read Giles Coren instead.

The best political website in the world, ever.

We in the UK should have one.

Hat tip Dick Cheney, via Tom Watson.

Read this now.

Bonkers Watch

Well, I can beat most of these into a cocked hat. High for schizoid and narcissistic and moderate for most of the rest. Can't touch the Solomania guy, though. Must read more of him.

Fox Hunting and Related Trivia - Part the First

They voted, then, and the hounds are to be consigned to the dustbin of history. And the foxes, well, consigned to poison, snare and marksmen who can't tell the difference between them and thirteen year old boys.

So, let's look at the various arguments pushed by the different sides, look at the hypocrisy involved, the half truths, the inconsistencies, the, in short, general bollocks that passed for argument over the past, what, seven years.

The first absurdity was peddled by both sides, and that is the idea that foxes should be considered vermin and need to be controlled. Precious few on the anti side bothered to look into this, indeed, swallowed - to take a phrase from another bloodthirsty sport - hook, line and sinker the idea that but for controlling measures the countryside would be swarming with vulpines threatening the very existence of agriculture, taking lambs at will and fiendishly slaughtering chickens at every available opportunity for no other reason than the sheer joy of killing.

Had the antis bothered to look into this myth, they would have discovered that foxes account for somewhere between 0% and 5% of all lamb deaths, and since that 5% also includes deaths from dogs, crows, magpies and other misadventure, it would appear to be a minor concern, especially when you consider that 30% of lamb deaths occur through exposure and starvation.(Hansard) Just think on that for a second. 30% of lambs die through exposure and starvation and the farmers are trying to tell us that foxes have an economic impact on their activities with their less than 5% kills.

And then there's that old chestnut, the marauding cold hearted chicken killer. "Have you ever seen," a tearful country dweller will demand, "the terrible carnage a fox will leave behind in a chicken coop? They will kill twenty chickens for the sheer fun of it. They are sadistic killers."

This was probably the most dishonest, shameless argument of the lot. A case of having it both ways. On the one hand, the pro hunt lobby were busy telling us that squeamish townies anthropomorphosizing like mad about poor foxies were allowing false sentiment to get in the way of sensible arguments about pest control. On the other hand, they give us the murderous fox who deserves to be torn limb from limb because it revels in killing chickens. Well, guys, the logical extension of that particular argument lies in medieval France, where, if I recall my history correctly, a pig could be tried for murder. And anyway, these days, the punishment for wanton cruelty to poultry is not particularly onerous - just ask Bernard Matthews.

Hunter guys - foxes are not cruel. They kill to eat. They have evolved over a period of time where food is scarce. Let them get amongst a load of chickens and they will kill them and take the corpses home if they can. Or they might get into a feeding frenzy like a shark does, I don't really know - or care - it's no reason to kill them with extreme cruelty. There may well be good reasons,in fact I happen to think there are, but that is not one of them. What it is a good reason to do is build decent fucking hen coops. It's not hard.

Part the Second to follow, if, as ever, I can be arsed.

I'm a Proper Blogger Now

Because I have finally got the mandatory Google query post nailed. I got a hit for Harry's Place troll. How good is that?

I see MPs will be voting on fox hunting today, and chances are they will overwhelmingly vote to ban it. For what it's worth, my view is that the law of untintended consequences will come into play and the countryside fox will be wiped out as country folk take up their guns and snares and poison with renewed vigour once the hounds are off the scene.

My interest, though, is in the arguments on all sides and how they have been presented and to what ends. It's a fascinating microcosm of the dismal level of political debate in this country and, if I can be arsed, I will turn my razor sharp mind to consider it in detail soon.

There have been many words written and spoken about the hideous mass murder in Beslan, and, as is the way of these things, most of them have generated considerably more heat than light. From the "yes, but what about..." morons to the tub thumping armchair warriors who seem to think they have a monopoly on outrage, and then on to the politicians like Jack Straw who mouth their platitudes while desperately thinking of ways to avoid explaining their hypocritical positions, few have come out with any credit.

I said below I couldn't begin to blog about it, and I have thought about leaving it at that. I would have done, too, if the various reactions had been less strange. And some of them have been bloody strange, to say the least. Why is it, for example, that whenever a terrorist outrage occurs, the response from some quarters is so dully predictable? A mealy mouthed reference to the horror, followed by, "But what about the atrocities perpetuated by..." I don't subscribe for a moment to the armchair warmongers' view that such people are demented apologists for terror, little better than the terrorists themselves, but there is a definite shortage of common decency in those reactions which invite such descriptions. And nothing whatsoever is gained by expressing those views at those times. Do they believe that, for instance, the thousands upon thousands of Chechens affected by Putin's vile policies who do not murder little children, indeed, who feel as sickened by Beslan as everybody else, welcome these comments? Do they want their own suffering portrayed as mere contextualisation for different horrors, or worse still, as cheap debating points? I think not.

If this over contextualisation baffles, then Harry's invocation of a former time stands as equally wierd. Just what is he suggesting here? That we make common cause with Putin, a man whose record suggests almost as callous a disregard for innocent life as the terrorists themselves? What are we to make of this:

There are some who suggest we can turn away from the world and simply hope that nothing will ever happen to us. Perhaps it could be possible. Perhaps, despite all the lessons of history to the contrary, we could hope that our enemy will leave us alone if we leave them free to act. But even if we ignored that history and took that step it would involve turning our backs on millions and leaving them to face the very real threat of being forced to live with oppression, terror and death.

In the context of Beslan, does this mean we should support Putin's policies in Chechnya? Does the slaughter of innocents in Beslan mean we should support the slaughterer of innocents elsewhere? In certain circles, I believe this is exactly what is required of us. The Times editorial, I think it was, said as much on the day after the event. "We must support President Putin." Why? Why is it seemingly impossible to condemn both sets of murderous bastards? Are not the Chechens who live with oppression, terror and death, not worthy of our concern, too? Or are they exempt on the grounds that evil people do atrocious things ostensibly in their name?

It all comes down, in the end, to our old friend, Realpolitik. When Jack Straw says it would be almost tasteless and it is disrespectful to the dead and the dying and their relatives to discuss the future of Chechnya at this time, what he is really saying is don't look too closely at our record on this because it doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, morally speaking.

In that former time invoked by Harry, we had to cosy up to Stalin in order to defeat Hitler, now, it seems, we must choke back our bile and cosy up to Putin, because his enemy is ours. And Bush's, and the whole free world's as well.

It's a view, and one not totally without merit. But there's no moral high ground that comes with it, no matter how much the armchair warriors would like to convince us, and themselves, that there is.