Saturday news in brief

Think positive

The Chancellor Alistair Darling has been extolling the power of positive thinking. He claimed that even though the UK is facing "the toughest cuts for twenty years", investment banks are preparing to pay out 40 BN in bonuses this year. "The last time we saw bonuses like that," he went on, "the economy was fine and dandy." He left the news conference singing, "Happy days are here again..."

Power of positive bullshit

BBC director general Mark Thompson has been urging people to think positive about the absurdly high salaries paid to senior BBC staff and geniuses such as Jonathan Ross. He said in an interview with Ariel magazine, "We are not a county council. We need the best. If Jonathan Ross or I were in charge of your council, road gritting is the last thing you'd be worrying about right now."

Climate Change: Towards a new interpretation

"We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instance of death we cannot permit any deviation . . . we make the brain perfect before we blow it out."

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Freezing is warming.