m.guardian.co.uk

You know that you have real gay rights the day when people don't need to go out of the way to address them as a distinct community

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/sEyLw94uYA_Drrz3VgWirMw/view.m?id=15&gid=music/musicblog/2011/apr/20/lady-gaga-backlash-begins&cat=most-read

Being a politician

Recently our youngest parliamentary candidate came out and said that she feels suited to be a politician. Which is not a very common thing to say and thus made me wonder - who is a politician?

You see, in the old days politicians all other jobs. Woodrow Wilson and Harold Wilson were academics, lky was a lawyer. Contrary to what some people who assume that i will go into politics the moment they hear that i did political science in school, politics was never a profession per se. Its only very recently that you have a fresh faced graduate who spends his entire professional life in political think tanks and consultancy before becoming prime minister at 41 with minimal outside experience.

Since its not a profession, its more a mode of thinking or operating centred around power, especially the acquisition and concentration of it. As ed balls said in his new statesmaam interview in march, he hates his shadow chancellor job because he would very much rather be in government. You are not a politician if you don't want the power. And you won't be a very good one if you don't do everything within your capacity in bismarckian fashion to get there. Doing deals behind the electorate's back, suppressing freedom of information, lying in public...it all makes you sound like an immoral scumbag. But you just cannot help it, because its all part of the job

Burning the Quran

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/dan-hodges/2011/04/quran-burning-free-speech

See? Leftie liberals are not all lovey dovey tree huggers

First world parliament

Politics is finally getting interesting in Singapore. First world parliament - what a gem of a line from the Workers' Party, making use of PAP's developmentalist legacy that it is very rightly proud of. How do you rebut it if you are in the business of doing everything first world?