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The sun is out, the sky is blue and everytime I post here my eye goes across to the Tweets from the All Seeing Eye. The last one was 17 days ago now and it is a poignant reminder to me of his continued absence. I hope he is doing OK.
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So, this is the 100th post on The All Seeing Eye, this month of June. I hope those who read this are finding me OK! I am profoundly conscious that my style and topics vary from those that The Eye has covered and I trust readers have adapted to me. Above all, my wish is for The Eye to return here to his blog home and I am determined that his blog will be safe and topical for him when he is able to do so. Thanks to those who stick with me and I look forward to the team being re-united soon.
Pleased to report that Baroness Thatcher has returned home from hospital today more than two weeks after breaking her arm in a fall.
The former prime minister, dressed in a pink cardigan, pink top and cream-coloured skirt, with her left arm apparently in a sling, waved at reporters and smiled on the doorstep of her home in Belgravia, central London. Lady Thatcher, who said nothing to reporters, made the 60-second appearance before returning into her home aided by a female helper.
I know that The All Seeing Eye had covered this story, ironically just before his own accident, and I hope he will soon follow Lady Thatcher on the road to recovery. I am hoping for an update on his situation.
Most of us like to drive along with the radio on - it passes the journey! I've been driving long enought to have witnessed vast technical and aesthetic improvement in the state of car radios and the new ones are great. But, of course, that just can't last under this great government we have and so it is worth pointing out that drivers who have splashed out on a new motor recently thanks to the Government’s ‘scrappage’ scheme are already facing a costly technical upgrade – because their radios will soon be obsolete.
Most new cars are still fitted with traditional FM radios which will be useless when the Government turns off the analogue signal and switches over to digital in just five years’ time.
So come 2015, these radios will end up dumped - for which I am sure we will asked to cough up an extra environmental tax! It's the DAB revolution - we are informed by the experts and the parroting politicos - with crystal clear sound as the prize. But is that really the case and why does FM have to be sacrificed?
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I am certain the The All Seeing Eye would be delighted to read that annual Chap Olympiad will soon be upon us!
" Saturday 11th July in Bedford Square Gardens, London, the day allows well-dressed competitors to descend upon this verdant garden in Bloomsbury to pit their wits, their trouser creases, their cocktail mixing abilities - but not their athleticism - against their peers in challenging events such as the Three-Trousered Limbo, Moustache Wrestling, Quill Throwing and Bounders.The Olympiad seeks to celebrate specifically British qualities, such as the excessive drinking of dry martinis before luncheon, the wearing of monocles, the smoking of pipes and the maintenance of an immaculate crease in one’s trousers despite having tripped over a basset hound on the way to the pavilion."
I reckon that this will be at least one Olympiad held in London that will prove a financial success!
Hat-tip to Free Market Fairy Tales via Maggie's Farm.
I note that a Florida Mayor has been arrested after having been found naked at a camp site! Perhaps he was just trying to bare his soul?Authorities arrested Mark Musselwhite and charged him with public indecency last weekend after state Department of Natural Resources officers found him sitting nude at his Rabun County campsite. Officers had received a complaint about a naked man walking along a nearby road earlier in the day, but the 43-year-old Musselwhite said he was not the same man. Musselwhite, a Republican, was elected to the Gainesville City Council in 2000, where he served for six years, including a stint as mayor. He lost a bid for a state Senate seat in 2006.
Here's a marvellous idea for those seeking a holiday with a difference...
Luxury ocean liners in Russia are offering pirate hunting cruises aboard armed to the teeth private yachts off the Somali coast. Wealthy punters pay 3,500 GBP per day each to patrol the most dangerous waters in the world hoping to be attacked by raiders so they can let fly with grenade launchers, machine guns and rocket launchers, reports Austrian business paper Wirtschaftsblatt. Extras include an AK-47 machine gun for 5 GBP a day and 100 rounds of ammo for just 7 GBP while passengers are protected by a squad of ex special forces troops.
I wonder if you share my bemusement at the fact that on a day when employees of the British Embassy in Tehran are seized by the Mad Mullahs, the BBC world news service leads with the shock horror that Michael Jackson is still dead? Sha-mon.
Read more...Wouldn't you just love to have thought of this one?
Britain is no longer a Christian nation and the Church of England could die out within a generation, an Anglican bishop has warned. Rt Rev Paul Richardson said declining church attendance and the rise in multiculturalism meant that "Christian Britain is dead". He criticised his fellow bishops for failing to appreciate the scale of the crisis and warned that their inaction could seal the Church's fate.
It strikes me that the G8 is little better than the UN or the EU when it comes to taking decisive and unconditional action. I read that it is to "consider" making some statement "critical" of the Mad Mullahs in Iran. Big deal. And as for the mighty EU's commissioner for external relations condemnation of the use of excessive force, and call for dialogue among battling parties within Iran - I bet that has Ahamadinejad and his goon squad shaking in their boots! The problem with all these internationalist bodies is that they contain such a diverse mix of members some of whom have but a passing acquaintance with liberty and democracy that when it comes to crisis situations, as in Iran and North Korea, their hollow words mean less than zero.
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It seems to me that after 11 years of Labour, British education is in even worse repair than one could ever have imagined. It all comes down to the fact that Labour cannot stop itself interfering in pursuance of it's own radical egalitarian agenda, and the victims are always the children. Today it is announced that the government’s decision to drop primary school literacy and numeracy strategies has been welcomed by teachers' leaders as long over due. The national strategies were introduced as a key education reform when New Labour came to power and included centralised directives on how reading and writing should be taught. "The strategies haven't been raising standards,” Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) said. “They have deprived teachers of the proper decisions they should be making about how they should teach and what they should teach,” she added
Not so fast. The teacher unions are also the enemies of good education. Government has now abandoned even the pretence of qualitative standards in our primary schools and leaves children at the tender mercies of radicalised teachers. It's all very well for government to remove these ludicrous centralised stalinist practises but there is still a requirement for schools to focus on providing the essentials of a decent primary education and that their success in this be measured. It's the latter aspect the teacher unions object to - they want all the praise and little of the responsibility. More and more, the essentials of academic based education are being removed from what is on offer in our schools. We are on our way to being de-educated.
Crowds are flocking to events the length and breadth of the UK toLet me take a moment out from my day to put on record my admiration for our warrior class - the men and women who still value patriotism and who defend our liberty here and abroad. You know when I think back over the years here in Northern Ireland and think of the sacrifices made by the British Army fighting terrorism here, I stand humbled and indebted. One contrasts the bravery and nobility of the men and women in uniform with the craven duplicity of the current political class who let them down by refusing to pay them a decent salary and by refusing to give them the very best in equipment when they enter battle zones. The best of British are found in the Armed Forces and I hope they all have a great day! On behalf of my colleagues here at the All Seeing Eye - we salute you. Read more...
pay homage to veterans and British troops serving on operations around the world. In Afghanistan, where around 9,000 British troops are
serving, flags were raised in a series of events in celebration of the event.
The All Seeing Eye introduced me to the essential read that is the Austrian Times! In his absence, I will keep you briefed on some of the essential stories it brings us from around the world! Take this gem showing us just how useful the European Court really is.....
"Judges at the European Court of Human Rights have ruled it is not an insult toRead more...
men to compare them with blondes.The bizarre hearing came after Serbian
journalists were sued by a lawyer for his eccentric 'blonde moment' decisions
accompanied by a picture of a model in lingerie.Local courts ruled that the
lawyer had been libeled by the slur.But now seven judges in Strasbourg have
overturned the decision, saying that it isn't an insult for a man to be called a
"blonde".Although it was "somewhat mocking" they ruled: "It could not have been
understood as a gratuitous personal insult comparing an adult man to a blonde
woman."
One of the great cons that Labour has perpetrated on the UK has been the drive to get huge numbers of unsuitable young people INTO university to get a worthless and dumbed down degree. The theory was that this adds value to them from a workplace point of view and means they can command a higher salary than those who choose not to go to Uni. Problem is - that such radical egalitarianism has no basis in the real world!
Read more...Tens of thousands of students graduating this year will have to join the
dole queue, according to research that paints a grim picture for the class of
2009. This year’s graduates — the first to pay full tuition fees — face a
bleak job market with a 20 per cent reduction in graduate vacancies, said High
Fliers Research, a market research company. It conducts a survey every year
involving 16,000 final-year students — one in five of the total — at the top 30
universities.Of the 160,000 graduates seeking work this summer up to half
will not succeed, the company says. Its predictions come as other figures showed
that graduate debt has almost reached £26 billion, compared with £18 billion in
2007.
So, here I am on the All Seeing Eye and I wanted to cover off a number of issues with you.
For starters, today has been all about expenses. The BBC has published how it wastes our taxes and the Conservative troughers have agreed to pay back a cool 25o0k of the money they stole from us. I am not impressed when thieves return that which they should never have taken in the first instance, are you?
Then, Russian shows just how democratic it has become since the fall of the USSR by welcoming the Iranian election results as "an exercise in democracy". How Putin must miss Stalin!
I caught an item on the BBC earlier today concerning the rights for Eastern European kids to come to the UK - for free - because they are victims of the Chernobyl fall-out. This is a vast scam and we should stop these sort of taxpayer funded tourism. Those in the Ukraine and Belarus who claim to have kids blighted with illness as a direct consequence of the radiation fall-out are SCAMMING -pure and simple. There is more radiation in the rocks in Aspen than in the hinterland of Chernobyl and it's high time someone challenged this eco-alarmism.
Finally, on the celeb front, I see that Michael Jackson has died. He suffered a heart attack. The end of a sad life.
Around this time each Thursday evening, I am usually talking to the All Seeing Eye as we plan the liveblog for Question Time over on Biased BBC. It's become a tradition and a welcome light relief as we mock the politicians and the BBC's profound bias. However things are not as normal and the All Seeing Eye is not going to be around for a while. In his absence, I will tend to this blog and keep it going. So tonight, I will post during the time I would usually be wittering away on the QT liveblog. Until then, I offer up this...
O God of heavenly powers, by the might of your command you drive away from our bodies all sickness and all infirmity: Be present in your goodness with your servant Geoff that his weakness may be banished and his strength restored; and that, his health being renewed, he may bless your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.Read more...
Did you read that thousands of US troops have been sent to Helmand province because British forces "lacked capacity", the UK's top commander in Afghanistan has said.
General Jim Dutton told the BBC there had been huge areas of southern Afghanistan with no military presence. But Gen Dutton said that was set to change, with thousands of American forces being sent to the south.What bothers me about this that our government has failed in it's duty towards our armed forces by putting them in the vice of Taliban ridden Helman without the right numbers, the right equipment and the right overall support. I never doubt the courage and tenacity of the British Army but I have nothing for contempt for the cowardly way in which this Labour government has systematically helped run down the services ever since it weaseled it's way into power. The only way to deal with the Taliban in Helman is overwhelming power and a ruthless push for total victory. No prisoners should be taken, in every sense of the word. But it is a sad day when Britain has to beg the US to send in sufficient military resources because we lack them.
The decline of the work ethic in Britain has been a natural consequence of the rise and rise of the welfare state. Here is the brutal reality.....
Almost a quarter of children in some parts of Britain are being born into households where no one has a job, new figures reveal. Some 23 per cent of babies in London come from jobless homes, with the average across the country 15 per cent. In the North East, North West, West Midlands and Wales, the figure stands at 18 per cent, the Office for National Statistics data shows. The report reveals London also has the highest number of single-parent families at 31 per cent.
London, we should note, was the only part of England where the Labour vote held up fairly well during the European and local Council elections. Join the dots.
Fancy a meat feast Pizza? If you, you might want to avoid Domino's Pizza.
Residents have threatened to boycott a Domino's Pizza - after it took pork off its menu and now only offers halal food. Customers in Blackburn are angry that the managers of the store - which is located in a heavily populated Asian area - made the move in a bid to attract more Muslim clients.
Fascinating article here on the rise of the burqa in the English city of Leeds.
Leeds has a fast-growing Muslim population of at least 40,000 – double
the number of 10 years ago. Locals say that since the 7/7 attacks in July
2005 – three of the gang hailed from Leeds – there has also been a increase
in the number of Islamic women choosing to wear the burkha, much to the
anger of many of the city’s inhabitants.
That, in itself, is a remarkable statistic. 7/7 was an attack on BRITAIN by militant Islam, not the other way around. And yet it appears to have been a rallying cry for some who follow the Religion of Peace and Love by the donning of the Burqa.
German-born au-pair Chantal Manzal, 23, has been living in Leeds for a year
but returns home next month. She said yesterday: “I cannot believe what I have
seen in Britain. In Germany the burkha is hardly ever seen but here I see women
wearing them whenever I go out. “I find them really scary. If you can only
see people’s eyes you have no idea what is going on with them. They are
definitely wrong and should be banned in all public spaces.“To me it is
slavery of the women and I don’t know what to say when the eight-year-old girl I
look after asks me about what the women are wearing. She finds them frightening
and intimidating. How do I tell a little girl these women are unable to
show their faces in public?”
They say that one can judge how civilised a nation is by how it looks after it's elderly people. Under Labour, we have become barbaric...The UK pension provision is the most miserly in the
developed world, official statistics confirmed yesterday. Pensioners living solely on state benefits receive less than a third of the income of average workers, the figures reveal, putting the UK at the bottom of a league table of 17 leading industrialised countries. The shortfall means British workers will have to save far more to guarantee a decent standard of living in retirement. And last night a separate Westminster report warned that the savings culture will be further wrecked by punitive new tax rates on pensions announced in Chancellor Alistair Darling’s last Budget.
So the socialists in power have ended up making those with least even less well-off! Once again we see the chasm between their pious words and the hard reality.
This is to say that I will be endeavouring to blog here every day until my good friend Geoff - he who is the All Seeing Eye, can return to the fray. I hope you will find the time to come here and visit so that this site is kept busy . It distresses me knowing that as I write this, Geoff is not in a position to read these words but I want to publicly state my deep appreciation for him and my sincere wish that he recovers. These are dark days on The Eye but I know all of us who come here will be wishing for a speedy recovery for our good friend.
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Good of the BBC to let us know that as if we didn't carry enough guilt for our stewardship of planet Earth it also turns out that a new fossil study of the extinct giant kangaroo has added weight to the theory that humans were responsible for the demise of "megafauna" 46,000 years ago.
The decline of plants through widespread fire or changes toward an arid climate have also played into the debate about the animals' demise.But an analysis of kangaroo fossils suggested they ate saltbush, which would have thrived in those conditionsSo, we killed megaskippy! Hope you're proud of yourselves! What's that you say Skippy - BBC are talking nonsense? Read more...
Today sees CON-servative John Bercow start his first full day as the new Speaker of the Commons - to the delight of the Labour Party pack who put him there. This posturing poltroon is perfect for the job in my view. He is a serial trougher, thinks the Commons is full of decent people like himself, and thus offers us no chance of restoring integrity to the body politic. Yet he is the choice of the politicians at Westminster - proving once and for all that this current Parliament is the most corrupt and most wicked there has been. Cromwell had the right idea -if only HE were alive and a candidate for Speaker! There is no honour amongst the dishonourable and thus Bercow is elevated and our democracy degenerates further.
As the whores that infest the Commons play tactical voting to install a new Speaker to replace the discredited Gorbal Martin, I was pleased to see that John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, spoilt his vote declaring ALL the candidates to be "dismal." It appears that either Tory traitor John Bercow or Tory grandee Sir George Young will win the race to gain the baubles of power and prestige that come with this position. Bercow is unspeakable and so Ihope Young wins. I doubt it though.
Did you read that Horse owners will have to sign a pledge not to eat their animals under new EU legislation?
The rule, aimed at continental Europe, where two million horses are reportedly eaten every year, will still have to be signed in Britain. The Horse Identification Regulations, which will come into force at the beginning of next month, is partly to stop vets' drugs from entering human diets.The new law has left British horse and stable owners perplexed.I bet it has. Britain has always been a nation of horse-lovers and I would imagine HM The Queen might have some thoughts to share on this new requirement she has to sign a pledge not to gorge on her equine friends!
So, Obama assures Americans that the US is "fully prepared" should North Korea sent a missile the way of the Hawaii.
I visited the Hawaiian Islands two years ago and fell in love with the peace and tranquility of Kauai and would go back tomorrow but for the distance. However were I an islander, I would feel less than content at Obama's words of re-assurance. Surely what is needed is a comprehensive pre-emptive strike against the lunatics that run North Korea, reducing their nuclear resources to glowing atomic dust.. Wait and see seems to be Obama's default mode - we see it in Iran and North Korea. It seems poor example of real leadership and an inadequate substitute for decisive action.
Wimbledon commences tomorrow as British summer officially arrives. Must admit to enjoying the game and the next fortnight should prove very interesting. Of course the main focus for the British media will be whether Andy Murray can become the first Brit to win the men's singles for the first time since Fred Perry. I wish him well although to be honest I find him a charmless creature and I will not be remotely bothered if he is knocked out before he gets to week two. As a connoisseur of tennis, however, I will be keeping an eye on the more graceful aspects of the game, exemplified by Romanian player Simona Halep. She is the sort of Romanian we need to see more of, in my view, and I therefore hope she can make an impact on court next week.
I was looking at the most recent poll which shows that Obama's approval rating has now slipped to less than 60% for the first time since he ascended onto greatness. Not really a surprise though I imagine the MSM will be gutted. However when we look at rating approval by political party, I was amazed to see that 20 % of Republican voters consider The One to be doing a good job. Why? What on Earth are they thinking? President Nuance is now having to deal with the world as it is, not as he would wish it. And we're only at the beginning of days......
I read that the Ministry of Defence intends to cut army manpower to its lowest level since the Crimean war.
Plans to axe three infantry battalions – a total of 1,800 men – are being discussed despite the overstretch caused by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This would see the size of the army drop below 100,000 for the first time since the 1850s.I suggest to you that this is exactly as the Labour government wants it. They despise our military since it is an expression of the patriotism and loyalty that so offends their perverse left-wing extremism. Before the electorate kicks Labour out of power next June, the scorched earth policy continues and our military is the cross-wires. Read more...
There's been blanket coverage here of the unrest which has followed Iran ’s disputed election. But imagine how our own political crisis looks from the Middle East . Do we really have any right to sit in judgment on other countries? Here’s how Tehran Television is reporting recent events in Britain .
"Allahu Akbar! Welcome to a special edition of Eye on the Infidel, live from London , capital of the hated New Labour tyranny.
The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Brown, is clinging to power despite receiving only 15 per cent of the vote in last week’s elections.
In some conservative tribal regions, the ruling junta’s share fell to just 8 per cent, with government candidates beaten into fourth place by fascists and separatists.
Even in lowland Scotland , formerly a Brownite stronghold, Labour was humiliated by nationalist forces. It represented a new nadir in the fortunes of Labour under the dictator Brown, an ultra-orthodox Presbyterian theocrat, who replaced the despised Bushite running dog Tony Blair in a coup two years ago.
But Brown is refusing to accept the result of the election and has declared himself the winner. He told the official state broadcaster that he was getting on with the job, which is what people wanted him to do.
A clumsy attempt to remove the Supreme Leader by dissidents rallying under the banner of the breakaway Guardianista faction was ruthlessly crushed.
Brown then embarked on a shambolic reshuffle of his Cabinet, in an attempt to purge reformists from key posts. But at least two of the leading dissidents remain in office, a stark illustration of the Supreme Leader’s underlying political weakness.
Such is the parlous level of his support at home, he has been forced to draft in from Europe exiled party elders like the twice-disgraced mortgage fraudster Ayatollah Mandelson and expenses baroness Harridan Kinnock to shore up his crumbling regime.
Civil unrest has been mounting since the collapse of the infidel capitalist banking system.
In London , a newspaper vendor was clubbed to death by masked police during violent clashes between security forces and anti-globalisation protesters.
Similar hardline tactics, involving riot shields and baton charges, have also been used to suppress peaceful protests by demonstrators opposed to Labour’s totalitarian efforts to eradicate traditional English countryside pursuits.
In the Islamic province of Luton , troops clashed with brave members of local jihadist groups campaigning peacefully for the introduction of Sharia law in Britain and an end to the religious wars of aggression against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan .
Hundreds of thousands of women have taken to wearing hijabs to express their support for Sharia. The burqa is now a common sight in British towns and cities.
Meanwhile, in London , millions of commuters took to the streets after the Underground system was brought to a standstill because of a strike by revolutionary transport workers loyal to the deposed spiritual leader, Ayatollah Redken.
At the heart of this crisis is the fact that under the Supreme Leader’s profligate stewardship, the country is effectively bankrupt. Britain ’s vast oil and gas reserves have been squandered and taxes are soaring.
As well as a run on the banks, there has been widespread looting of department stores, particularly the John Lewis chain, led by members of the ruling elite making off with sofas, plasma televisions and kitchen sinks.
Politicians from all parties have stolen millions of pounds submitting false expenses claims and using public money to build private property empires and watch pornographic films.
This corruption goes right to the heart of the political establishment, with even the Treasury Minister implicated in wholesale tax evasion. Scandalously, he remains in office, even though The Speaker, Ayatollah Gorbals, has been forced to resign.
Once the home of parliamentary democracy, Westminster is little more than a talking shop, poorly attended and utterly discredited.
Most of Britain ’s laws are now imposed by foreign bureaucrats and
judges without any debate.
Freedom of speech has been brutally repressed. Police arrested an Opposition spokesman simply for doing his job.
There is also the question of the democratic legitimacy of the Brown junta. He seized power without an election and has repeatedly demonstrated his contempt for accountability and the will of the people.
Yet rather than acknowledge their anger, he persists in changing the subject and is now considering tinkering with the voting system in a cynical last-ditch attempt to remain in power.
The Supreme Leader has withdrawn into his bunker and is reduced to issuing deranged statements on YouTube.
It is frightening to think that this madman has access to nuclear weapons and has never accepted Middle England’s right to exist. He appears to be hell-bent on wiping the United Kingdom off the map and submerging it into an imperialist European superstate.
And yet the British still have the nerve to lecture us on democracy.
My fellow Iranians, we should give thanks that we are in the safe hands"
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Interesting to read that North Korea may launch a long-range ballistic missile towards Hawaii on American Independence Day, according to Japanese intelligence officials. The missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles, would be launched in early July from the Dongchang-ni site on the north-western coast of the secretive country. Seems to me that Obama's "hard-nosed diplomacy" - so beloved of the hand wringing liberal BBC for example - goes nowhere towards dealing with little Kim Jong. Isn't it time that the US just bombed the ballistic capabilities of this lunatic regime into pieces? Or is that not "hard-nosed" enough?
Read more...The Eye seems to have taken a decidedly fishy turn today and I seek to compound it even further by revealing that a new method for analysing the interior of fossils has shown that millimetre-long mussel-like crustaceans called ostracods used giant sperm to mate. Sperm of modern ostracods can reach 10 times their body length. Thank god for evolution is all I can say.....!
Have you considered that you might get mad cow disease from fish? A new report suggests...
"... farmed fish could transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease--commonly known as mad cow disease--if they are fed by products rendered from cows. The scientists urge government regulators to ban feeding cow meat or bone meal to fish until the safety of this common practice can be confirmed. We have not proven that it’s possible for fish to transmit the disease to humans. Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution for public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish should be prohibited,” Friedland said. “Fish do very well in the seas without eating cows,” he added.And just when you thought it was safe to get in the water......? Read more...
G.O.T. is a born worrier.
This is one of his better rants.
If you want to hear more, get over to http://www.channelflip.com/mitchell.
I make no apologies that it's not November, or that this is for Canadians. I've stood shoulder to shoulder with the canucks twice in my career, and I would do it again if I could.
A nice touch is the propellers on the C-130.
In the early days of the All Seeing Eye, wise words were emailed in from The Croydonian. Always have a daily browse through Hansard to spot a few unnoticed gems to post. Well TheEye has gone two better than that and let CHome do the research and pinched a splendid graphic from the GOT.
Simples!
"It was a report from Bloomberg which first warned of the threat to the future integrity of mobile phones in the vicinity of the Prime Minister on hearing bad news:
"But if Gordon Brown has been throwing mobile phones around, they would appear not to have been ones issued to him, based on replies given to parliamentary questions asked by Shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude. But we do learn that any government-issue handsets which have been damaged were replaced free of charge by Vodafone...
"Here's the answer Francis Maude got on February 23rd 2009:
"And this is his most recent exchange on the matter:
Mr. Maude: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster pursuant to the answer of 23 February 2009, Official Report, columns 392-93W, on departmental mobile telephones, (1) whether any of the 14 damaged mobile telephones had been allocated to individuals who work in 10 Downing Street; (2) what the cost to the public purse was of replacing the 14 damaged mobile telephones; (3) what the (a) make and (b) model of each of the 14 damaged mobile telephones was.
Okay, so TheEye is thinking of setting up a country. Nothing to do for the next few days so looking for a goal. All ideas for a national anthem and a flag are welcome.
Do NOT follow the example of whichever twat designed the flag of Poland because Dante had a specific circle of the Inferno for graphics people like that. Okay, so the UK government would have given a design agency £250k for it but personally I'd have got the idea from looking at my wine glass. Shortly before locating the bottle for a top-up and typing the invoice with one finger.
Anyway, one digresses from the completely strange Austrian Times, which is a mine of excellence today. Reproduced in full:
"Polish education officials are in hot water again - this time for a nursery rhyme book that helps children to count with rhymes that say Germans smell and gypsies sell children.
And they have refused to apologise for the book or withdraw it - saying those that have complained should not be so sensitive.
The book follows the release earlier this year of a maths book that asks kids to work out an equation for saving as many Christians from a sinking ship as possible - while drowning as many Turks as they can - and before that a Sunday school brochure with a pic of a black child and the words: "It's a shame prayer doesn't whiten skin as well."
In the latest scandal the book of children's counting rhymes called "Entliczek, pentliczek - the best Polish rhymes" by author Joanna Furgalinska includes phrases like "One, two, three...all Germans smell of wee" or "Where are going gypsy, one, two, three, I'm going to the market to sell some kids".
In another story in the officially backed book authorised for use in schools, a naked Jew with no money is thrown out on the street.
The author Joanna Furgalinska defended the work saying: "The content comes fr
om old historical Polish rhymes, let's not get carried away by the over-zealous politically correct brigade.
There is not the tiniest jot of anything offensive in this book. As soon as the PC brigade see the word Jew they instantly start shouting about anti-semitism but there is not a shred of evidence to back it up."
Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said: "When I read it, I was just sad. I do not know whether it is anti-Semitism, but it's certainly a lack of sensitivity."
Polish mum Anna Kurczowska-Ossolinski who bought the book for her children said: "I want to teach my sons how to be tolerant towards others. If I had given them this book they would have learnt many bad things. I am sure that this book should not be given to small children."
Meanwhile child psychologists have slammed the book.
Child psychologist Malgorzaty Ohme added: "This sort of book destroys all the work of child educators. Words help create a child's view of the world, so kids will accept it all literally."
The picture of the Barbican Castle in Warsaw is reproduced merely to show that Poland can do more than just produce plumbers and stunningly attractive dyed-blonde barmaids with large breasts. They do castles too.
From the ever odd Austrian Times, we have the Survey Of The Day.
One in five Austrians want a "strong leader". The demographic group contributing to this poll may or many not have consisted mostly of itinerant Austrian painters with small mustaches and body odour.
However we learn:
"A study reveals that six per cent of Austrians would welcome a military dictatorship.
The analysis, conducted by political analyst Thomas Hofer, also found that half of Austrians are unhappy with democracy.
One in five people interviewed expressed a desire for a "strong leader," while 50 per cent said they would like foreigners kicked out of the country if the situation in the labour market worsened.
Another result of the research is that general interest in politics has decreased over the past ten years.". Eh, which channel is the football on mate?
A random observation - the article was written by Thomas Hochwarter which presumably for journalistic balance should mean that he has a co-editor called Cauldwarter.
It may have taken about 120,000 years trapped beneath a block of ice in Greenland, but McBroon's personality has finally been located. A tiny microbe has awoken. The long-lasting bacteria may hold clues to what life forms might exist on other planets - including the one on which Gordoom still thinks he can win the next election. The new bacteria species was found nearly 2 miles beneath a Greenland glacier, where temperatures can dip well below freezing, pressure soars, and food and oxygen are scarce. Basically your standard Cabinet meeting. "We don't know what state they were in," said study team member Jean Brenchley of Pennsylvania State University and Gordoom's new member of the House of Lords for Paperclip Shuffling. "They could've been dormant, or they could've been slowly metabolizing, but we don't know for sure." Or, as we say in English taxi speak "not a sodding idea, guv'ner. And yer want south of the river this time o' night mate? Eh? Yer kidding, right?" Dormant would mean the bacteria were in a spore-like state in which there's not a lot of metabolism going on, so the bacteria wouldn't be reproducing much but maybe slowly metabolizing and replicating. "Microbes have found ways to survive in harsh conditions for long times that we don't yet fully understand," Brenchley told LiveScience and the House of Commons Committee for Mobile Phone Throwing. To coax the bacteria back to life, Brenchley, Jennifer Loveland-Curtze and their Penn State colleagues incubated the samples at 36 degrees Fahrenheit for seven months, followed by more than four months at 41 degrees. TheEye can't be bothered to convert them to EU measurements, so, as in the old textbooks, it is left as an exercise for the reader. The resulting colonies of the originally purple-brown bacteria, now named Herminiimonas glaciei, are alive and well. Rather like their father McDoom they are now in a bunker ordering dead battalions to destroy Russia overnight. "We were able to recover it and get it to grow in our laboratory," Brenchley said. "It was viable." Such vigour is partially due to the microbe's small size, the scientists speculate. Sarah Brown had no comment on the subject but Dr Mengele (97) expressed interest from his villa in Brazil. Boasting dimensions that are 10 to 50 times smaller than Escherichia coli, the new bacteria likely could more efficiently absorb nutrients due to a larger surface-to-volume ratio. Tiny microbes like this one can also hide more easily from predators and take up residence among ice crystals and in the thin liquid film on those surfaces. H. glaciei is not the first bacteria species resurrected after a possibly lengthy snooze beneath the ice. Loveland-Curtze and her team reported another hardy bacterium in the same area that had survived for about 120,000 years as well. Chryseobacterium greenlandensis had tiny bud-like structures on its surface that may have played a role in the organism's survival. Another bacterium survived more than 32,000 years in an Arctic tunnel, and was brought back to life a few years ago. The harsh conditions endured by these microbes serve as models of other planets. "These extremely cold environments are the best analogues of possible extraterrestrial habitats," Loveland-Curtze said, referring to the Greenland glacier. "The exceptionally low temperatures can preserve cells and nucleic acids for even millions of years." And studying such microorganisms may provide insight into what sorts of life forms could survive elsewhere in the solar system. The new bacterium is described in the current issue of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
Image via the superb GOT but fury and indignation courtesy of TheEye.
Calm start and deep breaths as this is a non-sweary blog...although it might not be by the end of this f**king post.
Right. So you have a war or two. Just about everybody in the House of Commons votes for them and just about the same number regret it when the body bags start to stack up. Voters don't tend to like things like that.
So what do you do....you have an enquiry. Except you claim that it will be independent but held behind closed doors (oh, Sir Humphrey Appleby we miss you so, old friend) because the Prime Mentalist told the Commons it must hear evidence in private so witnesses can be "as candid as possible".
It will look at events between the summer of 2001 and July of this year, but will not report back until after the next general election. Which means that the events leading up to the war in Iraq before summer 2001 aren't of any sodding interest.
This so-called "independent" inquiry will be conducted by members of the Privy Council headed by Sir John Chilcot, who was a member of the Butler review of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. Yep, that one went well too.
Other members include Baroness Usha Prashar, who is a human rights lawyer, Sir Roderick Lyne (no idea but someone of the same name was once an Ambassador to Montenegro so maybe he is a serious heavyweight in the corridors of power), Sir Lawrence
Freedman (very keen on the Falklands War and his books are great slumber material - TheEye gave a gift of one of them to a charity shop) and Sir Martin Gilbert (his one claim to fame is that after Freedman, Gilbert is only the second closest writer to make you contemplate gouging your eyeballs out with chopsticks.)
Right. We have a human rights lawyer, two scribblers who aren't worthy to polish AJP Taylor's deck shoes and an ex f**king ambassador to f**king Monetf**kingnegro. And they are in charge of this investigation. You'd laugh if it wasn't true.
Marvellously the report being only released after ZaNuLabour become toast in the next few months means that Gordoom can leave his useful idiots to scribble whatever they like. Their report won't stop roadside bombs killing soldiers in unarmoured transports. But it might get them a decent book contract or two.
After, of course, the General Election.
Managed to keep this as a non-sweary blog too. Just.
In oddness we find that religiously devout Jews barred by rabbis from surfing the Internet may now "Koogle" it on a new "kosher" search engine.
Yossi Altman said Koogle, a play on the names of a Jewish noodle pudding and Google, appears to meet the standards of Orthodox rabbis, who restrict use of the Web to ensure followers avoid viewing sexually explicit material.
The site, at www.koogle.co.il, omits religiously objectionable material, such as most photographs of women which Orthodox rabbis view as immodest.
Its links to Israeli news and shopping sites also filter out items most ultra-Orthodox Israelis are forbidden by rabbis to have in their homes, such television sets.
The site was developed in part at the encouragement of rabbis who wanted a solution to the needs of ultra-Orthodox Jews to browse the Web particularly for vital services.
Nothing can be posted on the Jewish Sabbath, when religious law bans all types of work and business. Altman: "If you try to buy something on the Sabbath, it gets stuck and won't let you." Well that's nice then.
With apologies to Barry Manilow...here's the Obama re-mix...
Bermuda Triangle
It makes Jihad disappear
Bermuda Triangle
Don't go too near
But look
At it from my angle
And you'll see why I'm so glad
Now Bermuda Triangle
Not so bad!
Everybody
Bermuda Triangle
It makes Jihad disappear
Bermuda Triangle
Don't go too near
But look
At it from my angle
And you'll see why I'm so glad
Now Bermuda Triangle
Not so bad!....
Interesting to see the BBC report that Israel's support for the creation of a Palestinian state leaves the chances of any peace "in ruins." Quite right too! I mean how dare those pesky Jews demand that the Palestinians recognise their right to exist. It's not a two-state solution the Palis want - it is a final solution.
Now TheEye would be interested to know about David Vance's views as somebody who lives across the water, but Ken Clarke seems to think that the Republic will be successfully bullied in to voting YES on the EU Constitution second time around and that means that the Conservatives will back off on what seemed a pretty clear pledge (from both main parties and also the yellow ones) to let Great Britain and Northern Ireland make its own democratic decision.
"Interviewed by Jon Sopel on BBC1's Politics Show, Ken Clarke MP has admitted that the Tories will not seek to reopen Lisbon if, as polls predict, the Treaty is ratified by Ireland. Up until now Conservative spokesmen, including William Hague and David Cameron, have replied with "we will not let matters rest there". Mr Clarke suggests that those seven words mean "discussing the division of competences between member states and the European Union."
Earlier in the interview Mr Clarke declined to say if Conservatives would enact the 10% cuts implicit in Labour's budget for forthcoming years and also, inexplicably, refused to say if he believed in a smaller state. He defended the Conservative policy of protecting the NHS from cuts, saying demographic and other pressures explained the special status that Conservatives were giving to this area of public spending."
Well Ken Clarke, whose head is so far up his own backside he can look through his front teeth, shouldn't be on the Front Bench in the first place. He is a disloyal backstabbing scumbag whose only redeeming feature in the eyes on the public seems to be that he is a fat, beer-swilling wearer of cheap shoes.
Actually that technically makes three . Sorry.
He shouldn't be in the Shadow Cabinet in the first place, he shouldn't be making such off-base comments when ZaNuLabour are on the back foot and also if he is accurate then Cameron has serious questions to answer too.
Hat/Tip to the invaluable Tim Montgomerie over at ConservativeHome for the graphics and some of the text.
On Wednesday the SNP and Plaid Cymru used their Opposition Day to put down a motion in the House of Commons to dissolve Parliament and hold a General Election.
TheEye will research the wording of the motion as it probably would have to be a petition to Her Majesty asking her to do the deed (which she could of course refuse to do as is her right) but being a pedant am interested.
However on the Turkeys Not Voting For Christmas principle the Labour backbenchers rallied round and it was defeated 340 votes to 268.
The reason for the delay in this post was waiting for a good YouTube or similar of the events and sure enough one has surfaced. William Hague is a brilliant debater and is here on top form. Watch and laugh (asking yourself at all times if you have ever seen Elmer Fudd and Willliam Hague in the same room at the same time).
This is Parochial News...move along if you don't fancy a peek into the overseas life.
As per an earlier post, the Pipes and Drums of RAF Leuchars performed for the Queen's Birthday at The Tower (the Semaphore Tower in the heart of the dockyard in Gibraltar) It is a magnificent venue - a three storey limestone building with a square in the middle with the tower above and still fully in military use. St Crispin will have graced those stones on many occasions.
St C will have chuckled at the fact that all of the RAF blokes turned up in skirts knowing his dislike of the junior service but for 10GBP entry if you didn't have any contacts and a nod on the gate if you did then *completely free* food and booze all night was a good compromise.
It helped cushion the sound of dead cats being squeased through pipes although there was one very nice girl who caught the attention of TheEye playing the drums. Fortunately good eyesight when I tried to track her down after the concert meant that I avoided her boyfriend who was the size and shape of Canada. TheEye remains not dead.
There is a point to this post. Government cuts to the MoD say that this band is toast next year. It's not official so not on their site but they always raised as much cash for military charities as they could and only ever asked for help grabbing a lift on a RAF transport which was heading somewhere anywhere. They even bought their own kilts (but in official RAF tartan!) Now they can't even get an empty spare seat on a Hercules to help Forces charities.
Brown. Go. Go Now.
A Defence debate was held last Thursday in the House of Commons. Take a look at the picture of the event itself and look at how many MP's could be bothered to turn up. A smattering of Tories but one...count them all...one...Labour backbencher present.
Scandalous. As a famous Oliver once said: "In the name of God, go!"
TheEye accepts that holding any debate on the same day as local and MEP elections is bound to get a poor turnout - indeed Nick Harvey mentioned this in his speech, calling it a "graveyard slot" - but the attendance was not that much lower than is par for the course. James Arbuthnot called it an "absolute disgrace"...."we are talking to an empty Parliament"...."We might as well not be here."
Ann Winterton called it an "insult to our armed forces" but probably only between scribbling fake receipts on the back of beermats for her next expenses claim.
"To hold a debate on this day does suggest a calculated insult ..." said Dr Julian Lewis who is particularly admired by TheEye. A pavement or three were pounded on his behalf to get him elected first time around. Neither Dr. Lewis or TheEye tried to claim back the shoe leather either.
Hat/Tips: Various but EUReferendum probably the original source of them all.
From Charles Krauthhammer in yesterday's Washington Post...a worrying analysis of B Hussein Obama's ideas on "Moral Equivalency".
"Even on freedom of religion, Obama could not resist the compulsion to find fault with his own country: “For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation” — disgracefully giving the impression to a foreign audience not versed in our laws that there is active discrimination against Muslims, when the only restriction, applied to all donors regardless of religion, is on funding charities that serve as fronts for terror.
For all of his philosophy, the philosopher-king protests too much. Obama undoubtedly thinks he is demonstrating historical magnanimity with all these moral equivalencies and self-flagellating apologetics. On the contrary. He’s showing cheap condescension, an unseemly hunger for applause and a willingness to distort history for political effect.
Distorting history is not truth-telling but the telling of soft lies. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one’s own country."
From the man who talked about "my Muslim faith" yet professes to be a Christian and said on television that the U.S.A. had 57 states (no, jug-ears, that's a made-up number of Heinz varieties) you have to worry about the competence of the so-called leader of the free world.
Read the whole article. It's well worth your time.
At least we can get shot of our Glorious Leader in a few months. Three and a half years still left of BHO.
Not being a reader of the Grauniad I'm grateful for a nod in the direction of this article by Peter Wilby:
"The Telegraph group, by my calculations, probably sold an average 60,000 full-price papers a day (including Sundays) that it would not otherwise have sold, taking into account that, on previous market trends, circulation might have dropped.
The group may already have netted, on a conservative estimate, an extra £600,000 in sales revenue. Even if it paid £300,000 for the MPs' files - some accounts put the figure much lower - it is handsomely in profit, without allowing for enhanced advertising."
TheEye (or to be more accurate now HMTGMDAEASEMOA) will continue with the Telegraph and Times each day but Telegraph Editor Will Lewis will be hoping that many of these new readers will stick around after the scandal dies down.
Even if the details did cost the full £300,000 then it may yet turn out to be a very sound long term investment for ongoing circulation figures.
News from North Korea: South Korea’s mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper tells us yesterday:
"The youngest son of North Korea’s authoritarian leader has been given the title of “Brilliant Comrade,” ..... a sign the communist regime is preparing to name him as successor to the ailing Kim Jong Il.
And you thought that Obama had the title sewn up already. No, he's just TheOne.
"The report came shortly before the U.N. Security Council approved tough new sanctions Friday against North Korea for its recent nuclear test.
"U.S. and South Korean intelligence authorities disclosed during a meeting this week that 26-year-old Kim Jong Un is now being referred to in the secretive regime as “Yongmyong-han Dongji,” which translates roughly as “Brilliant Comrade”
Because “Special Master” was already taken. And yes, this will make you chuckle:
"Grandiose titles are part of a tradition to stimulate public support in a nation where the media is tightly controlled and little information about the inner workings of the government is available. The leader is given credit for most national projects. The state media carry endless flattering reports about Kim, repeatedly referring to him with his various titles of which “Dear Leader” is the most prominent."
To paraphrase Charles Emmerson Winchester from the old MASH series, “being named Brilliant Comrade in North Korea is like being named the finest ballerina in Galveston.”
Henceforth you will refer to your host as His Magnificence The Grand, Most Distinguished And Enlightened All Seeing And Knowing Eye, Master Of All.
You can go with HMTGMDAEASEMOA for short but damned if I'm being sneered at by a petty despot's youngest kid with a shiny new business card - even if he does have a nuclear bomb in his bedroom.
Hat/Tip Michelle Malkin and elsewhere.
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