Tag Archives: Across the Pond

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“In the name of the beneficent, the all merciful…”

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Saudi Arabia Marks 136th Beheading of 2007

Saudi authorities on Sunday beheaded a citizen convicted of shooting a man in the head with an assault rifle, the Interior Ministry said. In a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, the ministry said that Ali bin Suweid Al-Domnan killed Diyab bin Ali al-Mansour following an argument in the southern city of Najran.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which those convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery are executed in public with a sword.

Sunday’s execution brought to 136 the number of people beheaded in the kingdom this year, according to an Associated Press count. Saudi Arabia beheaded 38 people last year and 83 people in 2005.

Hmmmmm. Immediate execution for murder, drug trafficking, rape, and armed robbery….

Maybe they DO have something right over there!

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British Buffoonery

Guards to go soft on prisoners

This piece is not very lengthy, but it’s proof-positive that moonbattery is alive and well in EngSoc’s Airstrip One just as it is over here.

PRISON guards have to call lags by their first name and ask permission to search their cells under new rules. A Government report into boosting prisoners’ “quality of life” at HMP Winson Green, Birmingham, made the recommendations after finding inmates did not live in a “good environment”.

HUH? Prison is not a “good environment”? Isn’t that the general idea? That’s why they call it…PRISON! It’s NOT a Sandal’s Resort Hotel.

As Isaac Asimov wrote once: “Such folly smacks of genius. A lesser mind would be incapable of it.”

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French Cooking

Thirty French police need treatment as Paris explodes into riots after teens die in police crash

Looks like the immigrant population has resumed its efforts to reform French cuisine, with their celebratory re-introduction of the auto-des-fetes, otherwise known as gasoline-roasted car. Hey, they aren’t discriminating either…it didn’t matter to them whether it was Chirac at the helm, or (now) Sarkozy.

Dozens of French police were seriously injured by rioters last night as President Nicolas Sarkozy appealed for calm. At least 30 officers had received treatment in the northern Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, as they were attacked by hooded youths clutching metal bars and baseball bats.

In the earlier round of festivities two years ago, Sarkozy attracted the enmity of the Paris Muslim mob by properly identifying them as “scum”, while he was Interior Minister.

The trigger for the current round of Muslim-barbecued cars was the death of two (Muslim) youths riding a stolen motorcycle to evade police, who exceeded their ability to control their vehicle, and thereby exited their earthly existence. This was (of course!) held to be the fault of police who for some reason cling to the outmoded belief that they are there to enforce the law and foolishly acted on that assumption, resulting in the flight & crash of the no doubt innocent practitioners of the “religion of piss”.

For some reason, when the natives became restless and began to flic their Bics, the police decided to exit the scene. AH HA! “Omar Sehhouli, brother of one of the victims, said: ‘It is 100-per cent a police blunder. They know it, and that’s why the police did not stay at the scene.”

Right, Omar. The police MADE your brother steal a motorcycle and attempt to evade. Then they left the scene instead of staying around to be victims #31 and #32 to the expressions of concern of your piece-loving compatriots…so their act of self-preservation makes them guilty.

(If they had stayed around to get attacked, would they have then been innocent?)

France, whether or not she wants to admit it, is at war, as is all of Western Civilization.

Deus vult!

China Watch, Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

ChiComs to USN: Go away!

Admiral ‘Perplexed’ by Snub at Hong Kong

It was just last week that the Chief commented that in his humble opinion that the US Navy’s top brass was being taken for a ride by their ChiCom counterparts, who effectively were playing them for a bunch of chumps. After this incident, there are signs that this is starting to penetrate their awareness.

The top U.S. military commander in the Pacific said he’s “perplexed and concerned” by China’s last-minute decision to deny a U.S. aircraft carrier entry to Hong Kong for a previously scheduled port visit. The USS Kitty Hawk and its escort ships were due to dock there for a four-day visit Wednesday until they were refused access. Hundreds of family members had flown to Hong Kong to spend Thanksgiving with their sailors.

Nice slap in the chops from our ChiCom “friends”. Commenting further, CinCPAC noted:

“It’s hard to put any kind of positive spin on this,” Adm. Timothy Keating told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday…

Gosh Admiral, d’ya think so? Can you remember something about the ChiComs – Chinese COMMUNISTS – maybe not REALLY having the interest of the world’s leading capitalist power at heart? (Hmmmmmm. Think. Think. THe clue’s right there on the edge of awareness….)

It’s even better that it’s part of a pattern:

It was the second time in a week that China refused to let U.S. Navy ships into the port. Two U.S. minesweepers seeking to refuel and shelter from bad weather in the South China Sea had asked for permission to enter Hong Kong three or four days before the Kitty Hawk. Those ships were denied, Keating said.

And all this unfriendliness came after we extracted our own spinal columns in our effort to be pals and play nice with the ChiComs:

The developments come as the U.S. military has been trying to bolster ties with the Chinese military to prevent misunderstandings and the potential for miscalculation.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Beijing earlier this month and high-level commanders have traveled back and forth between the two Pacific powers. Chinese warships visited U.S. naval bases in Pearl Harbor and San Diego last year, and the two navies have since held basic search-and- rescue exercises together.

Asked if the refusal to let the Kitty Hawk into Hong Kong would hurt the U.S.-China military relationship, Keating said: “We’ll keep working it of course, but it is difficult for me to characterize this in a positive light.”

DUH!

It’s an ill wind indeed that blows no good…and at least now there MAY be an inkling of what we are really up against with what is shaping up to be a significant Communist superpower.

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

Brit Commander: Time for Reality Check!

Our forces can’t carry on like this, says General

With the Clintonista administration, indeed, under BOTH Bush administrations there has been a marked tendency to try tu run our military “on the cheap”. This, to any rational mind, must inevitably result in ony one outcome: deterioration of the ability of military forces to successfully perform its mission. This reality is coming home with a vengeance to the Brits after the Blair-Brown EngSoc regime has had its way for years of skimping and shortchanging what remains of the once proud Royal Army.

The head of the Army has warned that years of Government under-funding and overstretch have left troops feeling “devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue”, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, reveals in a top-level report that the present level of operations is “unsustainable”, the Army is “under-manned” and increasing numbers of troops are “disillusioned” with service life.

Gen Dannatt states that the “military covenant is clearly out of kilter”, and the chain of command needs to improve standards of pay, accommodation and medical care. “We must strive to give individuals and units ample recuperation time between operations, but I do not underestimate how difficult this will be to achieve whilst under-manned and with less robust establishments than I would like.”

This is NOT the way that a nation’s military forces deserve to be treated…whether they are the Brits, or us.

The report, a copy of which has been seen by this newspaper, reveals for the first time the general’s concerns on virtually every aspect of the Army, from levels of pay to the quality of food in canteens.

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Is THIS what they mean by “Happy as a clam?”

Clam, 405, is oldest animal ever

A British scientific team discovered the 405-year-old clam, named after the Chinese dynasty and not the former Liberal Democrat leader, at the bottom of the ocean, and hope its longevity will reveal the secrets of ageing. So significant is the find that Help The Aged have awarded a £40,000 grant to the team to investigate how the molusc, born when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and William Shakespeare was writing The Merry Wives of Windsor, has survived over the centuries.

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Single Payer D.I.Y. Care in UK: Something to look forward to?

Patients pull own teeth as dental contract falters

This sounds like fun!

Large numbers of people are going without dental treatment and some even report extracting their own teeth because they cannot find an NHS dentist in their area, a survey reveals today.

The Dentistry Watch survey of more than 5,000 people, from the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, found widespread unhappiness among both patients and dentists despite government reforms to increase the availability of NHS dentistry.

So what does one do with such a WONDERFUL system provided by the EngSoc regime?

Just over 10% were not registered with a dentist at all. A third of those (35%) said there were no NHS dentists nearby, 22% said they did not know how to find one, 13% said they were on a waiting list and 30% said there were other reasons.

But 6% of the respondents said they were self-treating, which often included pulling out their own troublesome teeth. “Fourteen teeth have had to be removed by myself using pliers,” said one Lancashire respondent. “Have pulled teeth out before, easier than finding a dentist,” said one in Hull. “Because I could not afford the treatment cost, I had to extract my own tooth on one occasion,” said one in Harrow. “I took most of my teeth out in the shed with pliers. I have one to go,” said another in Wiltshire.

Some of the respondents show considerable ingenuity. “Filled own teeth – clove oil and Polyfilla,” said one in Essex. Another fixed a crown with Superglue and a third used a screwdriver to scrape off plaque.

Sort of gives a new twist to the British traditional “stiff upper lip”, eh, what?

Just wait and see how well WE have it if “Hillarycare” becomes our system.  Maybe Lowe’s will have a new section for do-it-yourself dental tools – no doubt imported from the ChiComs.

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UK Ruling on Film Not Favoring “Greens”

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Inaccuracies in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth

From the UK site of a new political party calling itself…”The New Party”. (Call it what it is, eh?)

The decision by the government to distribute Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth has been the subject of a legal action by New Party member Stewart Dimmock. Although a full ruling has yet to be given, the Court found that the film was misleading in 11 respects and that the Guidance Notes drafted by the Education Secretary’s advisors served only to exacerbate the political propaganda in the film.

In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The inaccuracies are:

* The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
* The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
* The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.
* The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.
* The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
* The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
* The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
* The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
* The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
* The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
* The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

Now THAT’s inconvenient, right Al?

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MidEast Offer of Movement

Several related items, reported in the Jerusalem Post and elsewhere:

‘We need to give up deeply held desires’

Like what? The desire to survive?

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset at the opening of its Winter Session on Monday that the current Palestinian leadership wants to move forward toward peace with Israel and that he would not use excuses to stall peace talks.

Whay expect any evidences of negotiations truly in good faith ? Those would just be an obstructive excuses.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addresses the Knesset during the opening of its Winter Session, Monday. Laying out his agenda for the coming year, Olmert said he planned to make every effort to pursue peace with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

A worthy sentiment. Worthy of Neville Chamberlain in 1938.

“The current Palestinian leadership is not a terrorist leadership. President Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayad are committed to all the agreements signed with Israel, and I believe that they want to move ahead together with us on a route that will bring about a change in the reality of relations between us and them,” he said.

If you believe that, PLEASE e-mail me immediately. I have a GREAT deal for you on some tropical beach-front property here in Moody County, South Dakota!

Further comments indicate that Olmert is willing to give up more than “desires”:

Israel Signals Shift on Jerusalem Split

Two senior Israeli politicians, including the prime minister’s closest ally, talked openly Monday about dividing Jerusalem, signaling a possible shift in Israeli opinion about one of the Mideast’s most contentious issues. The dispute over Jerusalem has derailed negotiations in the past, and the latest comments come at a time when Israeli and Palestinian teams are trying to agree on principles guiding future peace talks…. Earlier Monday, Olmert’s closest ally, Ramon, raised the idea of a possible division of Jerusalem in interviews on the two main radio stations…. The proposals of Ramon and Lieberman would fall far short of a Palestinian demand to set up their future capital in all of the Israeli-annexed eastern sector of the city. The eastern part contains the Old City, home to major Jewish, Muslim and Christian shrines….Ramon said that under his plan, Israel would not hand over the Old City and neighboring areas—known as the “holy basin”—but he spoke of a special arrangement in the Old City. He did not elaborate, but the term would suggest less than full Israeli sovereignty there.

This would go far towards cementing Olmert’s legacy as the true heir to Chamberlain in the 21st Century (to date).

These pans seem, however, to please neither side in the dispute:

From the Paleswinians (predictably enough):

‘A Palestine without all of east J’lem as capital won’t work’

A solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict necessarily requires the establishment of a Palestinian State with its capital in all of east Jerusalem and any accord short of that will not work, the Palestinian Minister for Jerusalem Affairs said Monday. The comments by Adnan Husseini, who previously served as director of the Islamic Wakf which administers the Temple Mount, only served to highlight the immense gaps that exist between the two parties regarding Jerusalem, and cast doubt on whether Prime Minster Ehud Olmert’s longstanding proposal to cede Arab neighborhoods on the periphery of the city as part of a final peace agreement could serve as basis for such an accord.

Realize, this transfer of east Jerusalem to the Paleswinians would include the West (Wailing) Wall of the Temple back out of Israeli hands. Also, the security situation would not be improved either.

‘Olmert will place Hamas on Jerusalemem walls’

Just what we need.

At the opening of the Knesset Winter Session, Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu lashed out at the government’s policy, claiming that its strategy would eventually lead to an Iranian terrorist presence in Jerusalem and the rest of Israel.

The unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon created an Iranian outpost – from which Israel is being attacked – in the North, and the unilateral pullout from Gaza created a second Iranian base in Gaza, ‘Hamastan,'” Netanyahu said. “And now the government is planning a third withdrawal – from Judea and Samaria – that will lead to a third Iranian outpost.”

Netanyahu quoted statements made by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before the withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, respectively, saying the two had promised security, while Israel was in actuality served with aggression and terror.

As Olmert seeks to become the latter-day Chamberlain, Netanyahu has taken the role of Churchill, crying in the political wilderness against the Dr. Feel-good emotions and policies of appeasement.

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Brit Lefties Have Outbreak of Thought!

Immigation drains Britain, says Left think tank

Will wonders never cease?

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants are a drain on Britain and its economy, not a benefit, says a Left-leaning think tank.

Wonder what their first clue was?

Migrants from many developing nations fail to pay their way, while those from wealthy countries, such as the United States and Australia, provide a boost for the economy.

Duh!

It found that fewer than half of Britain’s 650,000 Somalis, Bangladeshis, Turks and Pakistanis, have jobs and the four communities have the highest levels of benefit dependency.

So much for political correctness!

Channel 4 commissioned the report for a Dispatches documentary, Immigrants: the Inconvenient Truth, to be shown tomorrow night.

What WOULD we do without AlGor’s cinematically spawned mantra of “inconvenient truth”. It fits SO many places!

New government statistics predict a two million rise in population over the next decade due to immigration, more than previous projections. Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said last week that the forecast “underlines the need for swift and sweeping changes to the immigration system”.

This from the EngSoc (Labor) government too! Who woulda thunk it?

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A Modest Proposal

Lebanese Presidential Candidate Plans to Establish Federal State in Lebanon

“The federal regime… First, people must get it out of their heads that it means partition. The purpose of a federal regime is to prevent partition. If we do not establish a federal state, we will reach partition. A federal state is meant to prevent partition. Is the United States partitioned in any way? It is a federal state. Is Switzerland partitioned in any way? It is a federal state. Is Germany partitioned? It is a federation. The UAE is a federal state. Why is the UAE a federal state, even though they are all Sunnis and they all speak Arabic? There are no Christians, Druze, Shiites, Kurds, Armenians, or Greek Orthodox over there. They are all Sunnis, yet they established a federal state. Why? The most stable country in the Arab world today is the UAE. Not only the UAE – all the countries with a federal regime are the most stable and prosperous countries in the world. That is because they have a federal regime. If we do not establish a federal regime, where are we headed? Either we will continue with the current regime, continue to fight and slaughter one another, or else one of the sides will try to establish a religious state. It will use its majority to take control, and will try to establish a religious state. This will be very difficult, and will also lead to massacres and fighting. Otherwise, we have no choice but to move over to a federal state.”

There are more details listed…essentially each of the proposed provinces will have the right to determine its own internal policies: i.e. a Sunni province could ban alcohol, while a neighboring Christion province could allow it, etc.

This idea makes a LOT of sense…unfortunately, it may make so much sense that it could not be adopted in today’s middle-east. So sad!

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More Mideast Nuke Problems?

As if the fulminating situation with Iran isn’t enough, now here comes Syria, with surplused out NorK stuff.

Apparently with the NorKs moving out of the nuke business, they’re holding a going-out-of-business sale!

Report: Israel spots nuclear installations in Syria

Israel believes that North Korea has been supplying Syria and Iran with nuclear materials, a Washington defense official told the New York Times. “The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left,” he said. The official added that recent Israeli reconnaissance flights over Syria revealed possible nuclear installations that Israeli officials estimate might have been supplied with material from North Korea.

Meanwhile, Israel seems less willing to take for granted threatening arms buildups by Syria:

U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week

After days of silence from the Israeli government, American officials confirmed Tuesday that Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes inside Syria last week, the first such attack since 2003. A Defense Department official said Israeli jets had struck at least one target in northeastern Syria last Thursday, but the official said it was still unclear exactly what the jets hit and the extent of the bombing damage.

Apparently even Olmert feels that at times, enough is indeed enough.

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Russian Bomb Squads at Work

firstly, there is the report that the USSR Russia is pushing the envelope of fuel-air explosives.

Russia tests superstrength bomb: military

Russia has tested the world’s most powerful vacuum bomb, which unleashes a destructive shockwave with the power of a nuclear blast, the military said on Tuesday, dubbing it the “father of all bombs”. The bomb is the latest in a series of new Russian weapons and policy moves as President Vladimir Putin tries to reassert Moscow’s role on the international stage.

The Russsians note that this is a non-nuclear weapon, & they may be planning to use it on Islamoterr formations, etc. in the Chechen war. Sounds like a plan to the Chief. Good hunting!

The other bombing was self-administered, with Putin politically blowing apart his own government, in a pre-election maneuver to aid his Putinative (putative) successor.

Putin Dissolves Russian Government

President Vladimir Putin dissolved Russia’s government Wednesday in a major political shakeup ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections, the Kremlin said. The dissolution is expected to result in a new prime minister, who will be seen as Putin’s choice to succeed him after he steps down next spring.

Russian “democracy” at work.

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Belgium Moving to Disintegrate?

Crisis in Belgium: If Flanders Secedes Wallonia Disintegrates

This posting from Brussels Journal kind of caught the Chief by surprise. Although I have looked at this site occasionally, not a lot during the late summer. Apparently there is a real centrifugal force operating in Belgium which is tending to realign the map into some more traditional directions, such as an independent Flanders.

There’s a pretty interesting historical look at Belgium, which was cobbled together around 1830 as a compromise between Britain, France, Netherlands, and the “Belgian” factions: the Flemish and the Walloons. The piece ends with a 1942 suggestion of FDR to Britain that this split should take place.

Will this happen? Who knows. Stranger things have occurred in recent events in Europe (and elsewhere).

What’s it to us? Who knows. Probably some effects on the development, or devolution of the EU system…THAT would be of some real significance.

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Brits Starting to get a Clue About Guns

Wouldn’t you feel safer with a gun?
British attitudes are supercilious and misguided

This op-ed from the Times of London, often regarded as the newspaper of record for the UK, takes a good comparative look at the situation with gun crime in the US compared to the UK, and unfavorably comments on the non-effectiveness of the UK’s gun laws, especially their prohibitory handgun laws.

The kernel of the piece clearly comes out against the current policies, and in favor of the average Brit being restored the right to self-defense:

The short answer is that “gun controls” do not work: they are indeed generally perverse in their effects….Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

Continuing the reality check:

In Britain, however, the image of violent America remains unassailably entrenched. Never mind the findings of the International Crime Victims Survey (published by the Home Office in 2003), indicating that we now suffer three times the level of violent crime committed in the United States; never mind the doubling of handgun crime in Britain over the past decade, since we banned pistols outright and confiscated all the legal ones.

Another interesting bit is the historical record of guns in Britain…

We are so self-congratulatory about our officially disarmed society, and so dismissive of colonial rednecks, that we have forgotten that within living memory British citizens could buy any gun – rifle, pistol, or machinegun – without any licence. When Dr Watson walked the streets of London with a revolver in his pocket, he was a perfectly ordinary Victorian or Edwardian. Charlotte Brontë recalled that her curate father fastened his watch and pocketed his pistol every morning when he got dressed; Beatrix Potter remarked on a Yorkshire country hotel where only one of the eight or nine guests was not carrying a revolver; in 1909, policemen in Tottenham borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by (and were joined by other armed citizens) when they set off in pursuit of two anarchists unwise enough to attempt an armed robbery. We now are shocked that so many ordinary people should have been carrying guns in the street; the Edwardians were shocked rather by the idea of an armed robbery.

If armed crime in London in the years before the First World War amounted to less than 2 per cent of that we suffer today, it was not simply because society then was more stable. Edwardian Britain was rocked by a series of massive strikes in which lives were lost and troops deployed, and suffragette incendiaries, anarchist bombers, Fenians, and the spectre of a revolutionary general strike made Britain then arguably a much more turbulent place than it is today. In that unstable society the impact of the widespread carrying of arms was not inflammatory, it was deterrent of violence.

As a real fan of Britain (with most of his DNA originating from the British isles) the Chief is heartened by this, and hopes that this may be a harbinger of HM subjects recovering the experience of living with a backbone again.

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UK Has the Right Concept!

Migrants will be forced to learn English

The Chief was surprised to see this note from the UK in the Sunday Telegraph:

Tens of thousands more immigrant workers will be forced to learn English before they are allowed into the country, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. The controversial crackdown, which is expected to reduce the number of people entering Britain by at least 35,000-a-year, will be unveiled by Gordon Brown in a speech to the Trades Union Congress in Brighton.

What a concept! A national language!

Now, if the indubitably politically correct post-Blair Engsoc UK can do this, why not the US?

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UK Dairy Predicament Update

The Chief earlier posted on an article From the London Sunday Telegraph examining the apparently perilous state of the British dairy industry, and noting that the UK’s losses have resulted in some gains right here in Moody County, SD.

Now comes a piece from the Times of London, commenting at some length on the same situation.

How dairy herds yield the milk of human blindness

Should anyone ever want a perfect example of what short-termism has done to the world, they just need to go and look at a dairy cow. If they can find one. The domestic British milk industry is in tatters, systematically dismantled over recent years by a retail food industry that has pushed farmers to the edge by paying them less and less for their product.

The mantra is familiar to us all. Give the customers what they want. Give the shareholders what they want. And hell mend the future � if anyone even considers it, given they don’t teach anything over the immediate horizon at most business schools. So vicious has been the squeeze that as many as a third of family dairy farmers have now quit, dispersed their herds and sold their farms. Spirits have been broken, generations of family history binned. Those who struggle on with their 14-hour days and their 4am starts do so on incomes from milk of as little as £5,000 � well below the poverty threshold and just a fraction of the average wage.

And, while this process has been going on, did anyone care? Did its longer-term economic significance register? No, of course not, because we, the public, take a limitless supply of milk totally and utterly for granted; and indeed there is probably a significant proportion of the modern population that believes it is sourced from a tap somewhere.

Sadly, there’s more. Looks like they really are getting to have a serious problem.

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Why British Dairymen come to Moody County

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Milked dry: British dairy farmers uncovered

The ag economy is so out of kilter in the UK that dairymen are forced to work at a loss…is it any wonder they are literally seeking greener pastures, like Moody County’s recently acquired British originated dairies.

Every time that Bob and his team at Henden Manor Farm in Kent milk the cows, they lose money. This is because the price the farm gets paid for its milk is around 1.5p per litre below the cost of producing that milk. This morning’s session alone has cost the farm around £50.

This account from the London Sunday Telegraph gives a thorough account of one Brit dairyman’s situation, as an example of a serious problem over there… with their loss becoming Moody County’s gains.

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A New Pyramid Scheme?

German town wants its own Great Pyramid

What to do when you have an economically depressed east German backwater? Here’s an idea:

The pharaohs may have set the standard, but German entrepreneurs are hoping to challenge Egypt’s pre-eminence in monumental self-indulgence by building the world’s largest pyramid.

wdessau102.jpg
The pyramid of tombstones planned at Dessau

They have secured €90,000 (£61,000) in state funding to assess the feasibility of building a 1,600ft tall “Great Pyramid” near the town of Dessau, in the impoverished east German state of Saxony-Anhalt.

OK. Whatever….It WILL be interesting to see if it gets off the ground at all.

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Brit “Educational Reform”?

Cameron: Hold failing primary pupils back

The Chief was bemused to see that the Conservative leader in the UK was proposing a radical new suggestion to improve educational quality:

Poorly performing children would be forced to stay on to resit their final year at primary school under plans to drive up classroom standards unveiled by David Cameron today.

WOW! What a concept! Repeat the content to learn it better! Why haven’t WE thought of that? (Oh, right. We DO do that, at least in some places.)

But wait! They’re on a roll:

The Conservative leader calls for a “genuine schools revolution”, including improved discipline, a concentration on the basics and a better chance for pupils from deprived backgrounds. In an article for The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Cameron backs plans for an “advantage premium” which would see schools given an extra payment per child, on top of existing state funding, for taking pupils from disadvantaged families. This could mean schools being granted up to £6,000 for each disadvantaged pupil they took – making them more attractive “customers” for a range of schools.

This is what now passes for “Conservatism” in the UK. £6000 is a pretty healthy chunk of change…somewhere near the $10K-12K range these days. This is an EXTRA payment also. By comparison, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs formula for per student expenses at its boarding schools TOTAL is less than half that, speaking of “disadvantaged”.

How did the once proud UK reach this sad state? Maybe this has something to do with it:

Its most eye-catching initiative is a call for the worst performers at the end of year six – the final year at primary school, when children reach the age of 11 – to catch up either by attending summer schools or in some cases resitting the entire year. This would lead to children of much more widely differing ages becoming classmates than is usual in the present system, which is strictly delineated by age. (emphasis added)

THIS, sports fans and fun-seekers is what happens when the schools are “dumbed down”, but surely this can’t happen HERE, could it?

At least there IS some positive sounding direction behind the proposals:

In his article, Mr Cameron vows to use school reforms to help tackle Britain’s “broken society”. He adds: “Educational failure lies at its root. Labour’s obsessive micro-management and rigid attachment to old-fashioned ideas has entrenched deprivation, shut doors and closed minds….We need a new approach: one that offers real hope and opportunity; harnesses aspiration and opens minds; and gives children from poor backgrounds the chance to get on in life….I know what parents want for their children because it’s the same thing I want for mine: schools with a disciplined learning environment; focus on getting the basics right; tailored teaching according to each child’s ability; and emphasis on rigorous teaching standards. I wouldn’t – and we shouldn’t – expect anything less.”

SOUNDS good…the devil, as usual, will be in the details, along with the fact that this is dealing with government schools. Meanwhile the current Labor goverment toots it’s own educational horn, with a tune that sounds strangely familiar to the Chief:

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said: “Our investment and reform is driving up standards after the neglect of the Tory years. We will do even more to help kids who are falling behind with our Every Child a Reader and Every Child Counts programmes.

Hmmm. Any similarity there to “No Child Left Behind”? (Another reason why Dubya got along so good with Blair?)

One hardly knows whether there is any hope at all for Britain any more. For that matter, is there any hope for US?

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Irish Rough Justice

Tarred, feathered and tied to a lamppost

Tied to a lamppost, he stands with his head and upper body covered in tar and feathers. A makeshift placard hung around his neck with a piece of string announces the reason for his treatment. It is a very public humiliation, and a medieval one. Almost ten years since Northern Ireland’s Troubles officially ended, this remains the crude face of justice on the streets of south Belfast.

This man was subjected to the painful tarring and feathering on the Taughmonagh estate, a loyalist stronghold in the city. Locals had accused the victim, who is in his thirties, of being a drug dealer. And when police allegedly did not act, they took the law into their own hands. Two masked men tied up the accused victim, poured tar over his head and then covered him in white feathers, apparently from a pillow case.

Hmmmm. This could be a solution to the urban phenomenon of the “known crack house”, which everyone knows about, but which the authorities have somehow overlooked.

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UK Not Ready for National Suicide?

Brown faces Labour revolt over EU referendum

Gordon Brown faces a growing Labour insurrection over his refusal to allow a referendum on the controversial EU treaty, it has emerged. A “hard core” of at least 40 Labour MPs is poised to issue the Prime Minister with an ultimatum to re-open talks on the treaty or concede a referendum.

Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown held talks on the EU treaty before watching England take on Germany at Wembley Stadium They are preparing a 15-point plan to put to Mr Brown calling for the Brussels blueprint to be radically amended to end the need for a British referendum.

The Chief REALLY likes Britain, and has a high respect for their history, which in many ways (to the consternation of the diversity crowd) is really a significant part of our own national DNA. I hope they can muster enough of the spirit that beat down Napoleon and stood off Hitler’s Luftwaffe to maintain their unique and valuable nationality.

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Cold Case File: Missing Lakota Warrior

Could building site be burial ground of the lost warrior from Buffalo Bill’s show?

This is a rather curious situation in the UK with a clear South Dakota connection,

At 6ft 7 inches tall, the imposing sight of the Sioux warrior on the battlefield would have been enough to instil the enemy with fear. In 19th Century Salford, the towering warrior with his solemn name Surrounded By The Enemy was a source of fascination and mystery.

Surrounded, as he was better known, succumbed to a chest infection in his teepee on the chilly Salford Quays in 1887 and died. His body was taken to Hope Hospital, where it promptly vanished. There was no official burial, there is no record of it being moved, and nobody admitted to taking it.

Now, 120 years later the mystery may yet be solved, with the start of excavations on the site that experts hope might just uncover the once impressive warrior’s final resting place.

The Chief has to hope that if Surrounded is found, that he might be returned to the plains where he lived most of his days. It would be fitting,

China Watch, Culture Wars

Christianity…Still on the Ascent

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Christianity finds a fulcrum in Asia

One of teh Chief’s favorites: Spengler writing over at Asia Times, with another offering of great interest and at least potential importance.

Ten thousand Chinese become Christians each day, according to a stunning report by the National Catholic Reporter’s veteran correspondent John Allen, and 200 million Chinese may comprise the world’s largest concentration of Christians by mid-century, and the largest missionary force in history.

There’s a lot more in this piece…among the more interesting morsels is this one:

While the Catholic Church has worked patiently for independence from the Chinese government, which sponsors a “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association” with government-appointed bishops, the evangelicals have no infrastructure to suppress and no hierarchy to protect. In contrast to Catholic caution, John Allen observes, “Most Pentecostals would obviously welcome being arrested less frequently, but in general they are not waiting for legal or political reform before carrying out aggressive evangelization programs.”

Allen adds: “The most audacious even dream of carrying the gospel beyond the borders of China, along the old Silk Road into the Muslim world, in a campaign known as “Back to Jerusalem”. As [Time correspondent David] Aikman explains in Jesus in Beijing, some Chinese evangelicals and Pentecostals believe that the basic movement of the gospel for the last 2,000 years has been westward: from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Europe, from Europe to America, and from America to China. Now, they believe, it’s their turn to complete the loop by carrying the gospel to Muslim lands, eventually arriving in Jerusalem. Once that happens, they believe, the gospel will have been preached to the entire world.”

Aikman reports that two Protestant seminaries secretly are training missionaries for deployment in Muslim countries.

The plot thickens!

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Sic Transit Gloria Britannia?

A modern Macchiavel

The Chief recently completed re-reading The Birth of Britain, the first volume of Churchill’s classic History of the English-Speaking Peoples, which among other things of some note, documents the centuries-long struggle towards a system of limited government founded in some concept of inherent rights of Englishmen.

SO, when I noted this posting from Samizdata, notes a matter of governmental philosophy (dare one say ideology?) a fully conscious effort to transform Britain into Orwell’s “Airstrip One”, with an deliberately engineered death of the concept of individual rights, the contrast with Churchill’s accounts couldn’t have been stronger.

This week (BBC’s) File on 4 did the first really serious, probing investigation into HM Government’s National Identity Scheme that there has been in any media yet. You can listen to it here, and it is full of fascinating things for the attentive listener.

The most extraordinary is this testimony from IT consultant Peter Tomlinson:

The meetings were called by people in the Cabinet Office. There were topics on the agenda that were set by people in the Cabinet Office and we kept on thinking: why are we not seeing people from the Home Office.

Why are we not seeing technical people from the Home Office, or people involved in technical management? Eventually they began to come along but they never produced anyone who had any technical understanding of large-scale systems. We were just completely puzzled.

This is the first really solid public evidence I have seen that the scheme really is [or was?] intended by strategists at the highest level as a complete population management system and revolution in the nature of government, rather than being one by accident. That it is the emanation of a philosophy of government. It is it is not always good to have one’s analysis confirmed. In this case I would prefer not to have been vindicated.

Remember Philip Gould? He’s one of those high-level strategists.

This is not some silly idea of the phoney left. It is a mainstream idea of modern times. It is a new kind of identity and a new kind of freedom. I respect the noble Lords’ views, but it would help if they respected the fact that the Bill and the identity cards represent the future: a new kind of freedom and a new kind of identity.

The philosophy is probably best summed up by a word from Foucault: governmentalism. Christopher Booker to the contrary, it is not a ‘mental’ creed of “The Mad Officals” but a pervasive pragmatism – using the natural history of humanity the better to shepherd it. The better shepherd is a member of the new innominate politico-bureaucratic class: maybe a civil ‘servant’, maybe a politician, maybe officially neither.

And just today a new example of the sage. A strategy memo has leaked to the Daily Mirror’s sharp political editor Kevin Maguire. Lord Gould allegedly writes:

No-one in Britain should have any doubt about what you stand for, what you want to achieve. You should position yourself as a powerful, muscular modernisation politician with the power and the determination to change Britain. You should aim to be a great reforming PM.

You have to meet this mood for change. You have to exemplify renewal and a fresh start. Your Premiership has to have a dynamism and an energy that pulls people along in its slipstream. You must become the change that Britain needs.

There is a name for this, too. It is one of the most widely used populist techniques in world politics: Strong Man government, tribal leadership, caudillismo. A national security state, presided over by a Big Man – has “a nation of freemen, a polite and commercial people” (Blackstone), really come to that? When exactly did liberty become such a minority taste in Britain that it were possible?

Having a lot of personal British roots, makes it even sadder to consider the efforts over their to try to persuade the once (and hopefully once again) stalwart Brits to sell their hard-won political birthright for a mess of EngSoc pottage.

It’s even worse to realize that there are others of the same ilk seeking to lead US down the same sorry path.

Keep your powder dry!

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…life in Airfield One: EngSoc Strikes Again!

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Better off apart

This comes from the UK, referred to in Orwellian terms as Airfield One, and was posted on a site called The Devil’s Kitchen, detailing some sad details of the operation of the Blair/Brown iteration of EngSoc.

If we thought that OUR welfare system has problems, it’s nothing compared to what seems to be happening over there. In addition, their media coverage of the situation is apparently also seriously screwed up.

The situation is so FUBAR, the Chief suggests checking it out directly, if you’re curious. Be warned, the language is sometimes diabolically hot, but generally the situation deserves it.

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Once a KGB…Always a KGB?

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New death plot chills relations with Putin

Reported from the Times of London:

The murder of a second Russian dissident on British soil was averted last month when police and intelligence agencies intercepted a suspected killer in London, it was confirmed last night.

In a move likely to damage already strained relations between Britain and Russia, Scotland Yard said that officers arrested a man on suspicion of conspiracy to murder on June 21 and held him for two days. He was later handed over to the immigration service and deported back to Russia.

Stuff like this always makes the Chief recall that Putin was the last head of the old Soviet KGB. Just as a refresher – the KGB was the Soviet analog of the Nazi Gestapo. Imagine a Martin Bormann or a Heinrich Himmler as head of government of a major power.

Let yourself just imagine the type of “apprenticeship” experiences and the types of “ticket punching” required for someone to (virtually) claw their way through the apparatchik nomenklatura of the USSR to become head of the KGB.

Trust me on this…it doesn’t make a pretty picture. If you DON’T trust me on this, fine – go read Solzhenitsyn’s GULAG Archipelago. for some of the (literally) gory details.

Keeping this in mind, who then could be surprised by by this case, or the earlier case of Litvenenko (killed by radioactive poisoning), or the reporters regularly assassinated in Russia.

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Forward into the Past

Back in the groove: young music fans ditch downloads and spark vinyl revival

The format was supposed to have been badly wounded by the introduction of CDs and killed off completely by the ipod-generation that bought music online.

But in a rare case of cheerful news for the record labels, the latest phenomenon in a notoriously fickle industry is one nobody dared predict: a vinyl revival. Latest figures show a big jump in vinyl sales in the first half of this year, confirming the anecdotal evidence from specialist shops throughout the UK.

Who’d of thunk it! Reality is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we CAN imagine.

National Insecurity

Russian Realpolitik

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What they didn’t say at Kennebunkport

Spengler, one of the Chief’s favorite writers has this over at Asia Times.

Nothing like the imagined dialogue below will have occurred at the Bush family compound on the Maine sea coast during President Vladimir Putin’s July 1 retreat with US President George W Bush.

Putin, I expect, will have done his best to humor his American counterpart and keep him off his guard. Bush is prepared neither intellectually nor psychologically to understand what a Russian leader must do, and a practical man like Putin would not waste
words explaining the unexplainable to the uncomprehending. Putin’s unenviable task is to persuade Bush of his good intentions, while gaining maneuvering room to take measures that the US will regard as hostile. I have no idea how he tried to bring this off in Kennebunkport.

But it is sobering to imagine how the conversation might have gone if Putin had told Bush the unvarnished truth.

The dialog follows. It’s well worth reading, and adds a very interesting perspective to the US-Russia situation. It’s semi-lengthy, and doesn’t lend itself well to fragmentary quotation, so go check it out – it makes far too much sense to ignore!

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Enough is Apparently Enough in UK Ed “Reform”

Two-finger salute

It looks like educational “reformers” in the UK have bitten off more than they can chew, or that most of Her Majesties Subjects are willing to accept as reasonable.

Fury erupted last night after Sir Winston Churchill was axed from school history lessons.

Sort of brings to mind some old Kinks’ lyrics from Living on a Thin Line:
All the stories have been told
Of kings and days of old,
But there’s no England now.
All the wars that were won and lost
Somehow don’t seem to matter very much anymore.

Britain’s cigar-chomping World War Two PM — famed for his two-finger victory salute — was removed from a list of figures secondary school children must learn about. Instead they will be taught about “relevant” issues such as global warming and drug dangers. Churchill’s grandson, Tory MP Nicholas Soames, branded the move “total madness.”

The decision to axe Churchill is part of a major shake-up aimed at dragging the national curriculum into the 21st century, it was claimed last night. But the plan — hatched by advisers — angered schools secretary Ed Balls, who vowed to probe ALL the changes to the curriculum.

The proposals will see traditional timetables torn up, with pupils focusing on modern “relevant” topics such as drug and booze abuse, climate change and GM foods.

Churchill — voted the greatest ever Briton — goes off the required lessons list, along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King. There will also be no need to mention the Wars of the Roses, Elizabeth I or Henry VIII.

What’s the connection to us? DUH! When polls and surveys regularly show that many Americans have only (to be generous) a rudimentary knowledge of history and the principles of our constitutional republic, it’s plainly evident that we have similar processes underway here.

At least in the UK, the Schools Secretary has gotten fired up. One continues to hope for similar signs of life in the Bush cabinet…thus far in vain.