From The Telegraph:

The director of a German zoo has defended her campaign to mate a group of homosexual male penguins with females, arguing that it is the only way to preserve a dying breed from extinction.

Heike Kück said that she had been inundated with criticism by the gay lobby after making public her plan.

Surely people have bigger things to worry about in life than a couple of gay penguins?

The Guardian reports that:

Last week Mr Blair said that ministers were designing a stronger option for post-16 education to make sure that all pupils who did not want to pursue an academic education could access vocational training.

If this government hadn’t messed about with the exam system (and every other system come to think of it) so much, then it wouldn’t be in such a mess right now. Though a cynic might say that they intentionally messed up their last reform, so that they had an excuse to make more radical changes this time around.

It’s very strange that Mr Blair should suddenly realise that he has many flaws in the weeks coming up to a general election. And, of course, this leopard’s going to change his spots.

I don’t think anyone in the country would begin to believe Mr Blair’s new found humbleness, especially since

he offered no apology on Iraq, saying it may be best to disagree, though he believed that the eight million people voting in the Iraq elections might change minds

He won’t apologise because he still thinks he was right to take the country to war based on a false prospectus, and thinks that the moderate successes in that country will outweigh the heavy losses in the minds of voters. Whether or not he knew that prospectus was flawed (and don’t think he did) is irrelevant – If he makes such huge errors of judgement, logic says he has to go. So it’s something of a shame that he probably won’t (not that I’m going to stop trying…)

I find the opposition to this very surprising.

The whole point of the show will surely be to show how terrible torture is, and how evidence gained through torture is of questionable value. And since we in the UK still accept evidence obtained through torture, surely it’s a very valid thing to investigate.

This is very sick just when you thought the propagandists couldn’t get more sleazy now they are going to have a show on TV in the UK about torture and the effects of it.

I don’t understand how this show can be seen as ‘sleazy’. I certainly don’t expect that it will be pleasant to watch, and I highly doubt it will be a glossy, polished show.

Now they are gonna do it for real on tv for all to watch this is so grotesque i don’t think that show will last long.

It should be extremely grotesque, and that’s the point. The show shouldn’t last long. There is no reason to make a second series. Once the point has been made, and the terrible images of torture burned on the mind of the nation, then there is no need to continue.

I think this will be a horrifically distressing show to watch, and it should make a very powerful point. To that end, I hope that it will be extremely controversial – the more controversial the show is, surely the more controversial the use of torture will become.

This is a fascinating look at the questionable success of Alistair Campbell as an electioneer.

I don’t agree with every detail of what it says, but the overarching conclusion is something I’d like to believe:

Alastair Campbell … is a worthless turd.

Unfortunately, despite Chris’s detailed analysis of the figures showing that he has been of questionable success, I still think that he’s a big part of New Labour, and so certainly not ‘worthless’ to the party. Unsucessful, possibly, but not worthless. Why else would they risk asking such a publically hated figure to join the campaign? Unless, I guess, they’ve deceived themselves into believeing that he’s more successful that he actually is.

Someone has stolen my name and started writing for the Times! My name is depressingly common (well, no, it’s Simon Howard, which is a depressingly common name. Don’t start calling me ‘Depressing’, or ‘Mister Common’, or I might get annoyed very quickly).

This blogger points to an Independent article claiming that the Lib Dems could win the next General Election. Well, of course they could win. But they won’t.

The key here:

If people voted along these lines in winnable constituencies

If only it was that easy…

I still don’t get why people are so annoyed about what is, effectively, a crackdown on crime. Surely we should be hailing the capture of more criminals as a success – even if they are motorists.

Speed cameras may not be the best way of catching people, but if they work then what’s wrong with that? They’re not invading privacy, they’re not affecting the lives of innocent people, they’re just catching those people who will insist on breaking the law.

Just because people disagree with a law does not give them the right to ignore it. Perhaps I happen to think that murder and rape are unjustly made illegal – does this give me a right to do either of these as much as I like? I certainly hope not.

As I’ve said over and over, if people don’t like speed cameras, then stop speeding so that there are no fines to fund them. They’ll soon disappear.

A strain of HIV that is highly resistant to almost all anti-retroviral drugs and which leads to the rapid onset of Aids has been detected in New York.

This, from a front-page Observer article, is more than a little worrying. New York was the place where HIV was first discovered, too.

If this is a genuine new strain of the HIV, then this could be absolutely devastating – just as we’re beginning to get used to an HIV that people can live with for many years before developing AIDS, we could be taken back decades to HIV being an immediately destructive virus.

It is incredibly disappointing to see the Observer, of all papers, pandering to the notion of HIV as a ‘gay disease’, despite it being more prevalent in heterosexual populations:

Health officials have warned that gay men are becoming increasing lax in their attitude to sexual health.

This isn’t the kind of thing the Observer would normally do, so I’m intrigued as to why they have done. This is much more like Times territory, and – guess what – this is what their (buried) article has to say:

It’s a wake-up call to men who have sex with men

To really tackle the problem of HIV, this is exactly the kind of stigma that needs to be avoided.

You will probably have noticed the appearance of the MakePovertyHistory white band on the site. I plan to keep it there for the rest of the year, to show my support for this particular campaign, which I have been following closely since Christmas.

Regular readers will know that I’m normally quite cynical about large charity events, but it’s worth noting that the MakePovertyHistory campaign does not want money, it simply wants to raise awareness of an issue, and garner public support for a very worthwhile cause. I urge you to visit the website, read about the campaign, and, if you think it is worthwhile, then show your support.