Liberal Vision

Hardcore porn director stands as Lib Dem PPC

I couldn’t see this story elsewhere on LD blogs*, so thought it was worth a posting.

Reports local meeeja Kent Online:

“Britain’s first female director of hardcore porn films is aiming to become Gravesham’s MP. Anna Arrowsmith, 38, has been selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate … at the looming general election.”

Quoted by The Sun, Anna says:

“In this day and age people who live in a democratic society should be able to choose what they want to watch.”

“Personally the reason I have gone into politics is I was rather disgusted at the expense issues.

“I am not a professional politician. I have worked all my life to set up a successful business and I want to fight for the rights of people in Gravesend.”

Crikey - it gets better with every line.  The new PPC says she went into porn to make it more female friendly, and has always vehemently supported equal opportunities for women.

Gravesend Lib Dems, I approve of your selection.

* Sorry, update:  just seen that Jennie covered it first - CLICK for Jennie’s post.

He’s not the Messiah, he’s the Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary

(Update - for those emailers who did not get it - look at the name on screen…CHRIST Huhne…really?)

How would you change UK democracy? LAST CHANCE TO VOTE

There are but ten hours to go in the Power 2010 vote on changing British democracy.

You can vote, very easily. Takes barely a minute. If you’re going to do it, do it now.

BY CLICKING HERE

In lieu of a grand “which ones should liberals vote for” post, here are some that I’d personally recommend voting for:

• Introduce a proportional voting system
• Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state
• A fully elected second chamber
• Expand the Freedom of Information Act
• Votes at 16

Post your disagreements below.

Happy birthday, Schumpy

Today is the birthday of Joseph A. Schumpeter, the Moravian philosopher largely responsible for the term “creative destruction”.

Here’s one quotation of his on the subject:

“The process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism … it is not [price] competition which counts but the competition from . . . new technology . . . competition which strikes not at the margins of profits . . . of existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives.”

Liberal Vision’s Barry Stocker has previously summarised Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy text: click here to read it.

Lib Dem AM Mick Bates “cannot remember” punching paramedic

Oh dear - the Beeb is reporting that Mick Bates, Lib Dem AM for Montgomeryshire, is being accused of assaulting a paramedic who had been called to help him during a night out last month.

Bates was apparently kicked out of a restaurant, before allegedly verbally and physically assaulting the paramedic. He was then “kept under observation by security” at A&E.

LD head Kirsty Williams has seemingly claimed that he was knocked unconscious, a claim refuted by the paramedic. The relevance of this is that Mick Bates says he “cannot remember” what happened during the incident. It has previously been understood that he will stand down from the assembly next year (irrespective of these allegations).

The case continues.

Update: Steph Ashley got in there first, with her take on the incident (and timing of the report) over at Dib Lemming.

“That credit crunch ain’t a liquidity trap, just a broke banking system, I’m done - that’s a rap.”

Back on my now-virtually-dormant blog, I posted a rap video from across the pond to mark the start of the US stimulus package, kicked off by the legendary George W. Bush.

Now that we’re further in these stimulus attempts, I’m delighted to bring you a follow-up, to aid your understanding of the ideological Keynes v Hayek battle.

Enjoy…

Chavez: all that fun stuff is “hell”

Fresh from his latest efforts to ruin everything, Hugo Rafael Chavez has launched a scathing tirade on lots of fun stuff.

The Venezuelan despotic nut-job said in his Weekly Address to the Proletariat:

“[Capitalist countries] promote the need for cigarettes, drugs and alcohol so they can sell them.”

Having displayed this unparalleled ability to unravel the evils of ‘the West’, the Dear Leader concluded:

“That’s capitalism, the road to hell.”

Which is funny, because usually when I peer lovingly at a seemingly-perspiring chilled glass of gin & tonic I think: “Bejesus, this is the road from hell. Deliver me to happiness, my sparkling transparent friend!”

It turns out, strangely enough, that the real source of Mr Chavez’s ire is a piss-take of himself–in the form of a video game. So he explained, to gasps (or giggles) of his people:

“Those games they call ‘PlayStation’ are poison. Some games teach you to kill. They once put my face on a game; ‘you’ve got to find Chávez to kill him.’”

Find Chavez? Kill him?

It’s poison, readers, poison.  Vive la revolution.

Big Government Republicans

Those who attended Liberal Vision’s fringe debate (/free boozing sesh) in September will have enjoyed the soothing old school inflection of Tom Clougherty, a dapper young cove from the Adam Smith Institute.

On their blog today he re-hashes a justified moan from Dan Mitchell, who tears into the Bush-Repuiblican criticism of Obama’s fiscal expansion.

While not defending Obama’s policies he points out that the Republicans are just as bad–and deploys some nice colourful graphs and that, too.

GO HAVE A READ.

AND SEE MITCHELL’S BLOG POST HERE.

Liberal Philosophy button added

As a worryingly obsessive follower of Liberal Vision, you will no doubt have experienced eye-widening shock on 28th December when a new button was added to the menu (above).

“Liberal Philosophy?” you mused, “What treasures await for us now? How much better, by Jove, can this site possibly get?”

Ignoring pleas from your family / spouses / by-the-hour sex workers to return to whatever they wanted you to spend the bank holiday doing,  you clicked on the button to discover a chronologically-ordered list of Barry Stocker’s synopses of philosophical texts.

Most splendid, yes?

The list, I should say, is ever expanding, and I’m working on discovering some dark secrets about Barry’s past with which to blackmail him into reading more and more texts and summarising them so that I don’t have to do any of the hard work myself.

So click on the link, have a butcher’s around. His synopses will continue, as usual, to appear here as regular blog posts too.

Cheers  Baz.

Civil servants imprison Permanent Sec. over unpaid Christmas bonuses

In Nigeria, that is.

AllAfrica.com has the whole story.

My favourite parts:

“The demonstrating staff locked all entrances leading into the Ministry … and switched off all the lights, thereby preventing the use of the lift”

“The Permanent Secretary was sighted moving about in his office, fanning himself with old copies of newspapers and making frantic phone calls.”

“Some of the demonstrating workers … said they were demanding Sallah, Christmas and New Year gifts from the management.”