Why Celebrate 60 Years Of Genocide?

On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong led the Communist Party of China into power. Since then, anywhere between 35 to 65 million people have been killed in China by the communists.

The Great Leap Forward was the second five year plan implemented by Mao in 1959. It was intended to rapidly develop China’s industrial sector through collectivism. It resulted in the Great Chinese Famine. The official death toll is 14 million, but the general consensus among scholars puts the death toll anywhere from 20 to 43 million. In 1950, the Chinese Communist central committee ordered a “severe suppression” of “counter-revolutionary activities.” The shortened term for this order is “Zhen Fan.” Time magazine wrote:

In no previous war, revolution or human holocaust, either in the days of Tamerlane or in the time of Hitler, have so many people been destroyed in so short a period.... The Chinese Communists were so certain of their moral right to kill for the revolution that they attempted at every opportunity to make the people also a party to their act, e.g., enforced spectator participation in the mass trials.  By the end of 1951 and the beginning of 1952 the slaughter had reached such a pitch that the whole of China (as the Communists intended) was shaken to its roots with terror.

In 1955, the purge of counter-revolutionaries was on again, this time known as the Shu Fan movement. There were several targets to purge: Ex-Kuomintang personnel regardless of war captive or surrender, anyone with landlord or wealthy families, and students and literati.

The initial directive was “the absolute purge and cleansing of hidden counter-revolutionaries.” Mao issued an additional directive: “To be firm and absolute on the purge of counterrevolutionary, to solidify and fortify the proletariat dictatorship.” This purge ended in 1956, with over to 200,000 people arrested, more than 20,000 executed and another 25,000 plus dead of unnatural causes.

In 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, aimed at removing the “liberal bourgeois” who wanted to restore capitalism. He enlisted the youth of China, who in turn organized into groups called Red Guards. During this time, millions of Chinese lived with the luxury of their basic human rights. The young were forced from the city to the countryside for reeducation. Incidents of cannibalism were reported in Guangxi, where “'counterrevolutionaries' were beaten to death and in the most beastly fashion had their flesh and liver consumed [by their killers]."

One recent scholarly account asserts that in rural China alone some 36 million people were persecuted, of whom between 750,000 and 1.5 million were killed, with roughly the same number permanently injured. In Mao: The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday claim that as many as 3 million people died in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.

We have witnessed the oppression of the communist government on our nightly newscasts. Hundreds of civilian protestors were killed in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Religion continues to be oppressed in China. People are not free to worship as they choose.

As recently as the last Olympics, there were reports of people being rounded up and suffering “30 days of persecution and oppression.”

For 60 years, this country has aided our enemies, spied against the West and held over a billion people under the brutal thumb of Communism.

So at least Obama's America is taking a moral stance on this awful anniversary isn't it? Oh.

New York's iconic Empire State Building will light up red and yellow Wednesday in honor of the 60th anniversary of communist China.

The Chinese consul, Peng Keyu, and other officials will take part in the lighting ceremony which will bathe the skyscraper in the colors of the People's Republic until Thursday, Empire State Building representatives said in a statement.

I'd hate to think what we might be doing in the UK on this most frabjous of days. Just think, there was a time when communism was seen as a violent and sadistic evil. Now it's all cuddly and nice.

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I Am Q

In another entry from the We're All Doomed Department, a Swedish couple have finally succeeded in their legal campaign for their son to have the crap royally kicked out of him at school to be called Q, overturning two previous rulings by lower courts.

Parents of a Jämtland boy learned on Wednesday that they may now legally name their son Q, following a ruling by the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court (Regeringsrätten). The couple had already been twice overruled in their battle to retain the damn stupid first name, first by the county administrative court (Länsrätten) and later, by the administrative court of appeal (Kammarrätten).

The higher court grounded its decision in the fact that “it has not been proven that the name Q may cause offence, or that it may lead to discomfort for the bearer of the name [...] there is also no reason why Q is obviously inappropriate as a first name.”. He'll find out differently in the playground.

Q's father, Rickard Rehnberg, expressed his relief at the Supreme Administrative Court's decision. “This has been going on for a while now,” he told Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

When asked why the name meant so much to them, Rehnberg replied,“He's been called Q almost since day one. He listens to the name and can actually say his own name. And if you read the law, you are allowed to be named after a letter,” he said.

“The law states that you shouldn't have the same name as a letter, but not that you can't. He is a unique child and we thought he should have a unique name – then Q popped up.”

The boy's full name is now officially Q Anbjörn Jackrapat Rehnberg, though it may be a while before the youngster is able to pronounce it - if ever.

In a similar decision, the Supreme Administrative Court also overruled objections by the Swedish tax authorities in awarding a woman from Varberg in western Sweden named Ann-Christine the right to change her legal name to A-C. According to the court, there is nothing to suggest that the name A-C is offensive to anyone.

"The choice of a first name is of such a personal nature that the individual must be given complete freedom," said the court.

The possibility that A-C could be interpreted as an abbreviation of another name doesn't mean in and of itself that it's obviously inappropriate. Nor is A-C obviously inappropriate as a first name for any other reason."

It's not just me, is it? *sobs quietly in foetal position* 

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Vaclav Klaus To Be Impeached Over EU Constitution?

One in a series of Questions To Which The Answer Is No, but a diverting story for the Brussels chattering classes nevertheless.

The President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, may apparently face impeachment if he does not sign the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty according to The Economist's Charlemagne. (Hat Tip: ConservativeHome)

"Well-informed types in Prague suggest the most effective pressure on him is the threat of being impeached for failing to perform his duties as president. Meanwhile, as first announced last week, a fresh legal challenge to Lisbon has been lodged by a group of senators close to Mr Klaus with the Czech Constitutional Court. The challenge seems doomed, but it could drag things out for a few more months. For some reason, the film Groundhog Day comes to mind."

If, as seems likely, Ireland accepts the Constitution on Friday, Klaus will be the last, best hope of stopping it being ratified before the Conservatives come to power. Over the next few months he may become the most hated leader in Europe by fellow EU politicians but a hero of all Eurosceptics.

Speaking to LBC earlier today David Cameron pledged that the Tories want to remain in the EU, want a referendum on Lisbon but that "new circumstances will apply" if Lisbon is ratified (quoted by The Telegraph):

"If this treaty is still alive, if it is still being discussed and debated anywhere in Europe, then we will give you that referendum, we will name the date during the election campaign, we'll hold that referendum straight away and I will lead the campaign for a No.  Now, if those circumstances change, if the Germans ratify, if the Poles ratify, if the Czechs ratify, if the Irish vote Yes to the treaty, then a new set of circumstances [apply], and I will address those at the time... I want us to be in the European Union. We are a trading nation, we should be co-operating with our allies and friends in Europe over things like the environment and crime, of course we should."

Allies? Friends? In Europe? (he means the EU) Name four.

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RAF Helicopter Fiasco

In yet another masterly procurement move, the UK Ministry of Defence has decided to spend hundreds of millions of pounds upgrading and restoring its aged Puma helicopters - which were due to retire next year - for service in Afghanistan. This will cost more than buying a fleet of brand new choppers. Hat-Tip: The Register for the whole gory story.

Flight International reports today that the MoD has finally got round to signing its planned £300m ($479m) deal which will see "at least 28" of the RAF's 33 operational Pumas fitted with new, more powerful engines and upgraded cockpit avionics. The aged whirlybirds, which came into service in 1971, were to have been finally retired next year. The new upgrade package is expected to postpone their demise by ten years, and to give the rickety old birds enough power to operate in the tough "hot and high" conditions found in Afghanistan, where helicopters struggle to lift useful loads.
This is an unbelievably bad bargain for the UK's troops and taxpayers. Each refurbished Puma will cost $17m or thereabouts, and will last approximately ten years. Pumas can carry up to 16 troops or "two tonnes" of stuff according to the RAF.

Consider by contrast the Blackhawk from US maker Sikorsky. You can buy these with spares, support and training for $15m at the moment. They can carry 14 troops, about the same as a Puma, and have much superior lifting performance - 2.6 tonnes of stuff as opposed to 2 for the Puma. Various models of Blackhawk, unsurprisingly, can and do already operate in Afghanistan - providing vital medevac services to British troops, among other things.

The Blackhawk isn't just cheaper to buy and significantly more powerful. It's also part of a huge worldwide fleet, meaning it would offer lower running costs too. And it isn't a flying antique that might last another ten years if you're lucky - Blackhawks bought now would keep flying at least another 30 years, probably much longer if the history of the Puma is anything to go by.

And the Pumas won't be flying in Afghanistan for at least another two years - whereas new Blackhawks could have been there for at least a year by now. Sikorsky have offered repeatedly to supply choppers to deal with the British armed forces' embarrassing lack of them. If we'd bought in 2007 when the pound was strong, Sikorsky were offering 60 brand-new birds plus training for £480m. As it is we'll get 30 antiques for £300m, paying at least four times as much for every flying hour we obtain. And waiting half a decade to get them, too.

Yet again, pumping cash into lame-duck British industry which can't survive without constant taxpayer support has been deemed more important than saving the lives of British troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan - and more important than any chance of a decent military outcome for the UK there. The fix has been in on the Puma upgrade deal for some time, but until today it was possible to hope it wouldn't happen.

Eurocopter UK, Thales UK, Qinetiq and all the rest - all the British (and some non-British) firms where the champagne corks will be popping tonight following the signing of this deal - you should be ashamed.

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It's Labour Wot Lost It

Breaking news from the Land of the Dead Tree Press tonight - the graveyard shift of the newspaper reviews on 24 hour news channels bring us this devastating news for McDoom. Iain Dale MP will be cursing that he has the night off.

With the headline "Labour's Lost It" The Sun says that the paper "wot won it" for Labour at the last three elections is deserting the party and endorsing the Conservatives. George Pascoe-Watson, the paper's Political Editor is on Sky News at the moment citing Brown's failure to address their readers' concerns about Europe, the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty and the treatment of our Armed Forces as being among the reasons for it switching its support to the Conservatives.

Remember the headline asking that in the event of a Labour victory the would the last person in Britain please turn the lights out? Like it or not, newspapers wield a huge amount of influence and this switch is a major blow to the last stragglers holding out in the No10 Fuhrerbunker. Buy shares in Nokia!

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Es Ist Deutschland Hier

The BBC is on entertainingly xenophobic form in Germany, it seems. In his first press conference after the election Guido Westerwelle, Germany’s newly designated foreign minister, refused to answer a question in English for a BBC reporter who had been sent to report on the German election...despite the fact that he couldn't speak any German.

Presumably the reporter was getting by with the traditional Brits-abroad approach of waving his arms in the air, talking slowly and loudly, and complaining that there were no proper fish'n'chip shops around. I mean, who won the War, eh?

Westerwelle, who heads the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), the preferred coalition partner of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), was asked by the reporter how he would change Germany’s foreign policy. The reporter asked the question in English and said he would prefer an English response.
But Westerwelle apparently balked, and a second attempt by the journalist, this time with the help of a translator, garnered his answer in German.

“We could meet for a fabulous tea outside of a press conference and then speak only English...but this is Germany here” he said. Fair play, that man!



Just a hint to the BBC. If you are sending correspondents to a foreign country, choose ones who know more than "Yes", "No" and "Beer with a receipt for expenses" in the local lingo.

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A Victim Of Global Warming

Channel 4 'Dispatches' this evening will be bringing us a heartwarming tale of Care In The Community. This old gentleman used to spend hours on end sleeping through his day in a purpose-built nursing home in the heart of W1 with only the company of other geriatrics peacefully snoring on nearby benches.

However the nursing staff at the House of Lords have kindly found some cash which was unwanted by the taxpayer and have sent ex-trade-unionist and all round senile old duffer Lord Lea on an extended vacation to important political hubs of the world including Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Fiji....all in the name of climate change research. The fresh air will do him the world of good too, they thought.

As you can see from this conference photograph, global warming is having all sorts of unexpected side-effects. This young native, for example, is too hot and needs to take her clothes off. Luckily, the decandent Westerner is on hand to pay reparations for the untold damage caused by industrial pollution by way of a financial contribution. Either that or he's about to snort coke off of her shoulderblades. You just don't know, do you, gentle reader?

Doesn't it give you a warm contented fuzzy feeling to see your taxpayers loot so hard at work?

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QT: Griffin v Straw v ?

It's no exaggeration to say that the most anticipated Question Time of the year will be the one featuring Nick Griffin MEP on 22nd October. Fraser Nelson, who acquitted himself quite reasonably in last Thursday's QT tourney, runs with news on the Spectator site that Labour are abandoning their previous stance of empty-chairing the BNP and will be putting up Jack Straw.

Straw will be a nervous constituency MP, considering his narrow majority, and so will be very happy to have a place at the table for what will be the most watched programme of the scheduled QT run. As Fraser Nelson says:

Great news for the BNP. Labour should have sent a street fighter, not a desk general. Jon Cruddas is far and away the best BNP baiter in the Labour party, touring Dagenham council houses and talking voters out of supporting Griffin's party. Straw has in the past been accused of bending brutish foreign policy to assuage Muslims in his Blackburn constituency, and the closest he gets to BNP fighting is writing pieces for his local newspaper telling Muslims not to wear the veil when visiting him in his constituency office.

The speculation will now centre on who is put up by the two main parties and the other one, and Nelson ponders:

Odds are that Michael Gove will be the Tory choice - the logic being that his formidable debating skills compensate for his abject lack of experience - but he hardly carries war wounds from the ghettoes of Surrey Heath. The Lib Dems will probably put up Sarah Teather. The QT editors do not choose the party people, but will probably select two others. Shami and Sir Andrew Green? We will soon see. 

TheEye thinks that this would smack of the BBC playing the man, not the ball. Although we are used to seeing a lone Tory thrown to the wolves of a lefty panel (and we are sometimes reduced to playing Spot-The-Righty at all) these other suggestions would be complete panel-rigging to artifically generate a single-issue debate. Would it be too much to ask for a rational reasonable QT where a range of interesting panelists were asked a range of interesting questions to elicit, shock horror, a range of interesting opinions?

Actually, it would be too much to ask as it never happens anyway. To remind you, All Seeing Eye co-contributor David Vance will be presiding over the regular QT livechat on Biased-BBC which runs in real time alongside Question Time, and your humble Eye will be assisting David with the livechat moderation. There are rumours that co-contributor G.O.T. (he of the great logo above) may even join us so come along and join the fun!

And one final appeal: there is bound to be a stage invasion and protest by some student types. When there is, the Biased-BBC livebloggers insist on decent-looking naked totty, please. No men, or women with beards. Thanks in advance...

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Kudos To Denzel Washington

The showbusiness industry, it's got to be said, is not renowned for it's right wing thinking. Senator McCarthy probably had a whole wing of his mansion dedicated to files on Hollywood stars, and the files on Jane Fonda would have been large enough to sustain their own gravitational field. Over here, Bliar packed No10 with his glitzy 'friends' whilst the Conservative Party could only boast celebrity endorsements from the level of the bloke who had his arm up the backside of Zippy from Rainbow.

This does have its advantages, though. Most of the supermodels tend to support animal rights loons PETA and TheEye always looks forward to when they do those advertising campaigns in the nude to say that...they'd rather....not wear anything....than....wear....uh, where was I?

Oh yes. An admiration for Denzel Washington, a star who clearly doesn't feel the need to kiss Obama's ring.

From the Austrian Times:

Hollywood superstar Denzel Washington has told how he snubbed an invitation to attend a fundraising dinner for Barack Obama and went to watch a game played by his favourite basketball team instead.

The two-time Academy Award winner told Austrian magazine Live: "I’m very happy that the colour of one’s skin is becoming less and less important. The first black president – it was a good headline, but, if we don’t finally become colour-blind in that regard, we won’t make any progress.

"And, to be honest, Obama cannot be as important to me considering how I acted when Dreamworks boss Jeffrey Katzenberg called. He only phones me if he wants a donation. At that time, he was organising a fundraiser for Obama and asked me to come along. But I went to see the (Los Angeles) Lakers play in the NBA Finals," the "Training Day" actor said.

A man with priorities after TheEye's own. Sport and beer.

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That's The Knighthood Gone

It looks as though Andrew Marr is well and truly off of the No.10 Christmas card list for daring to ask the question that everyone has wanted to put to McDoom for a while - and Guido has been egging the Lobby to do - ask about the happy pills.

Entertainingly the conspiracy theories have already kicked off that the question was deliberately poorly worded to give the one-eyed son of the Manse an excuse to turn it round into a blindness question but that is a step too far. The furrowed brow and the sweaty forehead show that it wasn't a plant.



It says a lot for the Brown Broadcasting Corporation that having aired the show that asked the question, it is the only major news organisation NOT running with the story. Blatant bunker mentality from the State broadcaster. Any questions on what the food is like in the Fuhrerbunker and whether the supply of pills is running low can be addressed to BBC employee and all-round tinfoil-hatjob Opinionated More than Educated here.

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Official: Obama Is A Robot

Take a look at this time-delay video and dare to disagree. It's actually quite spooky in a chilling sort of way.


Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Hat-tip to CHome.

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Feel That Lurve

You know you’re on the side of political wisdom and integrity when you’ve got Fidel Castro’s approval. This week’s latest words-of-Obama-adulation-by-infamous-America-haters came after the president’s speech on climate change during Tuesday’s United Nations summit:

The president of the United States admitted that the developed nations have caused much of the damage and must assume responsibility for that. It was doubtless a brave gesture.

It would also be just to recognize that no other president of the United States would have had the courage to say what he said.

I suppose we should all be comforted.

And it’s not just Castro with whom the Great Leader has managed to find favour. He also seems to have won the heart of the likes of Fidel’s brother, Raul Castro, and the beloved Hugo Chavez. Take a look at this great article entitled, “Dictators: In Love with Obama.” Here’s a excerpt:

Does anyone find it odd that so many evil dictators are head-over-heels in love with President Obama? Take Cuba's Fidel Castro, for instance. From the AP, back in April...

Rep. Laura Richardson, California Democrat, who also met Fidel Castro with Rep. Bobby L. Rush, Illinois Democrat, said he "looked directly into our eyes" and asked how Cuba could help Mr. Obama in his efforts to change the course of U.S. foreign policy. She said she had the impression that Fidel Castro, 82, wants to see changes in U.S.-Cuba relations in his lifetime.

And how can we forget about Barry's BFF, Hugo Chavez?! From the New York Post, also in April...

Left-wing wacko Chavez gave Obama his personal stamp of approval Saturday, along with one of his favorite reads -- a detailed look at Latin American politics through 500 years of what it says was US exploitation. Chavez, a strident critic of George W. Bush's administration, said his meeting with Obama at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago was "extraordinary."

"I feel great optimism and the best of good will to advance. We have started off on the right foot," Chavez said in a statement. He said it was time for "a true start of a new history, for there to be balance, that there's an end to the mechanisms of domination." Venezuela's strongman was so smitten with Obama, he took to the TV airwaves to tell his countrymen he didn't "have the slightest doubt" relations would improve with Washington under Bush's successor. Obama played coy. He politely thanked Chavez for his gift -- a Spanish-language edition of Eduardo Galeano's "Open Veins of Latin America" -- and later joked: "I thought it was one of Chavez's books. I was going to give him one of mine."

Chavez showed the love on his government website, rushing to post a photo of Obama with his hand on Chavez's shoulder.

Really, it’s precious. And it gives us hope that perhaps some day, we’ll see Obama frolicking through the meadows with Kim Jong Il. After all, he can’t possibly let President Clinton show him up.

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Serving Our Country (cont'd)

The Royal Gibraltar Regiment was on parade yesterday in the Ceremony of the Keys. Centre of the picture is Governor Sir Robert Fulton who inspected the parade; his last ‘Keys’ ceremony before departing in October.

TheEye reported at the beginning of the week that, although willing and able to serve their country in Afghanistan and other hostile zones the Royal Gibraltar Regiment was being prevented from doing so by MoD red tape. The story had been aluded to in the Sunday Express as a ban which had existed for around six months - but had gone unnoticed since no RGR troops were scheduled for deployment in that time. Details of the ban were sketchy but now more has come to light.

At the root of the problem is the fact that soldiers in the Royal Gibraltar Regiment serve under different terms and conditions to their UK counterparts, even though they are classed as one of Her Majesty’s regiments. When they are at home or operating together as a unit, Gibraltar soldiers receive different – generally lower - pay than UK soldiers, and are covered by an older compensation scheme in the event of injury.

But when they volunteer to serve in war zones as part of a UK regiment, Gibraltar soldiers are put on equal terms for the length of their deployment. Until six months ago, everyone had assumed that included access to the new, updated Armed Forces Compensation Scheme which now covers the British military, and not the old version that still applies to Gibraltar. But late last year, for reasons that remain unclear, the MoD questioned whether the assumption was correct and, if so, what impact it might have on the regiment’s general terms and conditions of service.

The soldiers, apparently, had always been insured, but suddenly it was not clear by which scheme. Rather than risk having to deal with a wounded local soldier while the issue remained unresolved, the MoD decided to stop all Gibraltar deployments to Afghanistan, where the risks of injury are clearly higher.

“The Royal Gibraltar Regiment is covered by a compensation scheme the whole time, of that I’m absolutely clear,” said Commodore Adrian Bell, Commander British Forces in Gibraltar, in an interview yesterday to mark the Ceremony of the Keys. But “what you don’t want to find is that you have two soldiers in one trench with two different compensation schemes.” “That’s invidious.” The key difference between the two schemes is “immediacy”, he said.

Under the old scheme that applies to Gibraltar’s regiment, a soldier has to be medically discharged before he can access compensation in the form of an enhanced pension. Under the new UK scheme in place since 2005, injured soldiers are given a cash payment and do not necessarily have to be discharged in order to obtain that benefit.

Gibraltar’s soldiers are highly respected by their UK counterparts and have served with distinction both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the regiment is small, its men have served at all operational levels in Britain’s conflicts, including senior posts. Local soldiers volunteer on an individual basis to fight abroad, but active service is seen as a vital step toward promotion and career progression.

So far the ban on deployments to Afghanistan has not affected the regiment, which has had a busy calendar this year. The RGR has been engaged in numerous ceremonial duties to mark its 70th anniversary and in regular training deployments, including the forthcoming Jebel Sahara exercise in Morocco.

With the review of the ban now being looked at in a wider context of the regiment’s terms and conditions of service there's no chance of it being overturned any time soon...if ever. At a time when boots on the ground count, some very willing and able boots are being kept back in barracks.

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Denmark Least Corrupt

Of 180 countries worldwide, Denmark has been found to be the least corrupt for the second year in a row, despite the oil-for-food scandal. The United Kingdom slips in at a nifty 16th. (page382)

Taking statistics from the Corruption Perception Index and a number of surveys, Transparency International ranks Denmark in the top spot, closely followed by New Zealand and Sweden.

Somalia is at the bottom of the global corruption list with a 10-point scale confidence rating of just 1.4 compared to Denmark’s 9.4. Countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq and Burma are also seen to be extremely corrupt. Hardly any surprises there, really.

The report notes that, in securing its first place, Denmark experienced 17 foreign bribery cases in 2008, compared to 21 investigations the previous year. Some of these were part of the controversial oil-for-food program in Iraq and did not involve bribery. Earlier this year, Danish authorities confiscated about 45 million kroner from seven Danish companies that were involved in the Iraqi controversy. The United Kingdom entry devotes considerable column inches to the recent BaE and Vetco bribery scandals but concludes, although in not exactly those words, that we aren't living Zimbabwe-style just yet.

So if the huge amounts of waste and profligacy in Government spending aren't down to as much corruption as we suspected then it leads us to the inevitable alternative...that instead we must be led by the most incompetent and inefficient administration in history.

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Panic Buying Of Ammo In US

The USA is suffering the most severe ammunition famine in living memory. Gun fanciers, fearing a Democrat crackdown on every American's right to pack heat, are clearing shelves at ammo shops and hoarding cartridges.


AP reports that the Remington Arms Company's factory in North Carolina is now working around the clock trying to supply insatiable demand for rifle, pistol and shotgun cartridges.

"We've had to add a fourth shift and go 24-7," Remington spokesman Al Russo told the news wire. "It's a phenomenon that I have not seen before in my 30 years in the business."

The shortages are so bad that retail globocorp Wal-Mart has been forced to introduce rationing at the ammo counter in many of its stores. Depending on calibre, customers may be limited to purchases of just 50 rounds at a time. Apparently, classic .45 ACP pistol ammunition is especially scarce - a fairly good indication that it is in fact conservative Middle America rather than, say, inner-city criminals buying up all the ammo.

According to the National Rifle Association, America's pro-guns lobby, the people of the USA normally buy about 7 billion cartridges a year (an average of 23 rounds per head). The past year has seen that figure jump to 9 billion. The FBI reports a 25 per cent climb in background checks made prior to gun sales.

The ammo rush has been dubbed the "Obama effect" by gun-industry people, but in fact there is no sign at present of any particularly aggressive move towards stricter federal gun laws.

Meanwhile the ongoing shortages have seen ammo prices soar. "Used to be gold, but now lead is the most expensive metal," one gun enthusiast told AP. "And worth every penny."

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Political Reform - A Plan?

Whilst in the United Kingdom constitutional vandalism seems to take the part of whatever destruction-du-jour a random and obscure Labour politician decides to inflict on us for short-term political gain, it seems that the Romanians have a slightly clearer view.

President Traian Basescu called today (Thursday) for a referendum on introduction of a single-chamber Parliament and a 36 per cent cut in the number of lawmakers, down to 300 from 471. This would replace the current Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

The referendum will be held on 22nd November, alongside the presidential election.

Basescu said he had sent Parliament a notice about organization of a national referendum on introduction of a single-chamber Parliament, according to Mediafax.

The president said a single-chamber Parliament with fewer lawmakers would better suit the country's needs, as decisions would be made faster, public spending would be reduced and the measure would even help reduce corruption, as fewer high-ranking officials would mean fewer politicians to corrupt.

Of the two main parties, the Tories are skirting around the edges by promising to trim the number of MPs and Labour are creating a quango state of appointees who will spread their policies long after they are votes out, so there are tines (well, most of it really) when you really wish we could vote on a referendum like this.

It'd cause mass unemployment in the lamppost industry and the hemp-based product sector though.

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Question Time Is Back

It's back! Question Time is on tomorrow night at 10:35pm UK time on BBC1 for what will be its 30th anniversary. As usual there will be a live chat during the programme hosted on Biased-BBC which will be presided over by David Vance, and yours truly will be be providing humble assistance with the moderation. Please come and join us!

Graphic by the irrepressible G.O.T. Enjoy more of his work here.

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AGW - And The Beat Goes On

The New York Post says EVERYBODY PANIC!

It’s official. It’s getting hot down here. And if we don’t stop burning oil and coal, the Big Apple will be cooked.


According to a high tech study commissioned by a concerned Mayor Bloomberg and generously funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, climate change caused by human-created greenhouse gases is threatening the health, livelihood and security of New Yorkers especially those who take the subway to work.


The New York City Panel on Climate Change, led by an elite team of NASA scientists and climate experts from Columbia, CUNY and Rutgers, has concluded that unless carbon emissions are drastically reduced all over the world, New York faces dangerous increases in temperature (up to 7.5 degrees), extreme weather (hurricanes and intense storms) and sea level rise (as much as 4.5 feet).

And it continues on in that vein for quite some time. I'd ask the writer to pony up some real evidence, but, I do not think they have anyone actually named "Staff Writer" working for them. I guess no one wanted to actually take credit for the story, realizing just how unbelievably absurd it actually it. All you need to see is the picture at the story to realize how far beyond even Al Gore's alarmism this story goes.

Meanwhile, Steven Chu says no biscuit for you:

Speaking on the sidelines of a smart grid conference in Washington, Dr. Chu said he didn’t think average folks had the know-how or will to to change their behavior enough to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.


“The American public - just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said. “The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.” (In that case, the Energy Department has a few renegade teens of its own.)

You realize that he basically just called most of the American public idiots, right? Apparently, you aren't allowed to think for yourselves, you just need to follow the Official Party Line, Comrades, and do as Dear Leader says.

Anyhow, good news! Supermodel Gisele Bundchen has become the U.N. Environmental Ambassador. And, the U.N. has no problem using kids to push their scientific fraud (via Tom Nelson)

Well, it's a good think she practices what she preaches. Wait, what? She is a helicopter pilot, burning lots of fossil fuels? Huh? She owns a private plane, too, so she can "bop from the US to Sao Paulo to Paris without worrying about connections or waiting in lines?" It's no wonder AGW ranks dead last among issues facing the country in the latest Bloomberg poll when those who are Climate Alarmists do not walk the walk.

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Imminent Coup In Honduras?

It looks as though things may be coming to a head in Honduras. A coup could be imminent backed by Obama. The government has imposed a curfew from 4pm EDT today till 6am tomorrow.

Multiple sources (Reuters) (AP) report that ousted and exiled former president Manuel Zelaya is back in Honduras, hidden for the moment in somebody’s embassy and therefore out of the reach of authorities, who have promised to arrest him and try him for treason if he re-appears on sovereign Honduran soil.


By the way, when you hear the name Manuel Zelaya, you should think friend and disciple of Venezuelan thug dictator Hugo Chavez.

Zelaya was ousted in what has widely been reported on the BBC and in the American press as a “coup” on June 28. The United Nations, the Obama administration, the OAS and other dubious characters like Hugo Chavez have roundly condemned the constitutional government in Honduras and have worked diligently to bring pressure to bear to reverse events in Honduras. The Reuters link above includes the assertion that “Soldiers toppled Zelaya”.

The truth is quite the opposite. Honduran officials acted perfectly according to their own constitution and within their authority in removing from office a president who was attempting to install himself as the permanent ruler similarly to how Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela. The facts of the matter are widely available, yet the Obama administration has led the way in applying pressure to Honduras, invoking economic sanctions and going so far as to revoke the visas of most high Honduran officials in order to block their attendance at this month’s United Nations General Assembly. You don’t want to know who all *did* make the cut and will attend. OK, yes you do: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Muammar Gaddafi.

So far today:

Details are conflicting as to Zelaya’s actual location — he’s been reported as at the UN compound, at the Brazilian Embassy, NOT at the US Embassy (although his wife is apparently there). The more authoritative reports place him in the Brazilian Embassy. He apparently gave an address on Honduran television that was audio-only, in which he called his supporters to show up at the UN compound, where several thousand people have now gathered.

There are various reports as to how he arrived, and nobody seems to know much more than is being reported. Will there be an armed uprising? Rioting? Will foreign governments intervene? One thing is clear. The Obama administration has steadfastly applied pressure to force the constitutional government of Honduras to accept a return of the deposed president. They may be about to get their wish.

And it’s about as evil, cruel, and criminal a turn of events as can be imagined for a nation whose people only want to be free to be governed at their own consent, by their own constitution.

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Climate Change: Scientists Finally Called In

From the You're Pulling My Chain Department, news reaches us that a group of scientists far more qualified than the pseudo-experts, fakers and profiteers currently assembling in Copenhagen have been called in to save the Great Climate Change Hoax from itself.



"Long vilified as sorcerers, Kenya's Nganyi rainmakers -- with meteorological equipment consisting of trees, pots and herbs -- are being enlisted to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The croak of the frog, the movement of the termites, the leafing of certain trees all carry information, the interpretation of which the Nganyi have transformed into a ritual art hovering between legend and science. Modernisation slowly eroded the community's aura but the Nganyi have recently been offered a way of reviving their traditions through a project aimed at using indigenous knowledge in disaster prevention.

Funded by Britain and Canada, the programme brings the Kenya Meteorology Department (KMD) and traditional rainmakers together to produce more accurate forecasts and disseminate them to a wider number. Ouma explains that traditional prediction methods have their limitations and that the project's main goal is to produce a consensus forecast that can be disseminated through indigenous channels.

"This project is part of an early warning system... We are helping people to adapt to climate change," Ouma says. But Ouma, a PhD meteorologist, doesn't dismiss the Nganyi's art altogether and argues that what may seem to some like primitive hocus-pocus contains a wealth of untapped scientific information."

You're kidding, right? TheEye offers the fact that his Red Discus fish always seem more energetic just before a hailstorm and wants to know where to apply for the stinkingly huge piles of taxpayers folding stuff  research grant.


Doff of the tinfoil headgear to The Reference Frame via Englishman's Castle.

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Only One Cheer, Boris

Boris Johnson pens on occasion for the Daily Telegraph; a £250,000pa part-time job the Mayor of London famously described as "chicken feed". Today he produces a column slating the infamous public sector "non job" industry and and calling for them to be slashed. So far, so sensible.


However he's come under fire recently from the Tory grassroots at ConservativeHome for not always practicing what he preaches in this respect. Many of the newt-lovers' cronies are still polishing chairs at City Hall and they certainly don't have a Tory agenda in mind when spending (and taking) taxpayers money. Assembly members, even close Boris allies, are grumbling audibly in Mayor's Questions. And so it was without much surprise that Pete Moore on A Tangled Web spotted this job being advertised.

Physician, heal thyself.

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Royal Gib Regiment Stays At Home

Fresh from TheEye twittering congratulations to Lance Corporal Jason Capena being commended for his service when seconded to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in Iraq last year, the Daily Express today reports that bureaucrats have banned the Royal Gibraltar Regiment from fighting in ­Afghanistan amid fears its soldiers would not be ­insured against injury.

The move was last night branded “inexplicable” by Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British forces in Afghanistan in 2003 and praised the Gibraltarians’ previous work there.
The highly decorated regiment is made up of men and women born in Gibraltar and its soldiers have served in Iraq as well as Afghanistan - but six months ago the MoD barred it from ­further deployments to Afghanistan.

"It is understood the move was prompted by concerns that soldiers wounded during operations would not be covered by the Armed Forces ­Compensation Scheme because they are not British-born" said the Express. The loyal and brave servicemen from the Rock are not impressed by this rubbish, as you can imagine. Serving overseas in a combat zone is purely on a voluntary basis for the RGR but there are no shortage of volunteers.

Colonel Kemp said: "Frankly I find this ruling inexplicable since they provided such valuable service in the past and not only in Afghanistan. When I served in Bosnia my second in command was a captain from the Royal Gibraltar ­Regiment. Excellent chap."

The Tories, said the Express, are now calling for a re-think to allow the men and women of the Rock to do their bit in Afghanistan. Shadow defence minister Gerald Howarth said: “General Dannatt [the former Army head] made it absolutely clear that more boots are needed on the ground and he was not prescriptive about whose boots they should be.

“Here we have a loyal ­regiment of the Crown who want to do their bit, and bureaucracy shouldn’t stand in the way of bravery.”

Couldn't have put it better.

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Lib-Dem Conference In Pictures

Or in one picture, to be precise. TheEye spotted this in the Daily Telegraph today whilst propped up against a bar and laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And then made a mental note to blog with a copy.

Really, if you are a spin-doctor this isn't just a resignation photograph. No. Not even one to locate the family-heirloom noose and walk to the nearest lamppost. Long before that you'd have gouged your eyeballs out with a teaspoon and filled the still-bleeding sockets with fire-ants and shards of broken glass.

Every LibDem stereotype known to man is visible. The fuzzy blurry leader is a given. In the second row is the inebriated old soak who's had a very reasonable lunch and can't stand the excitement. That means that he doesn't realise that the man sitting next to him is eyeing up his privates. Third in, St Vince of Cable's grandson is excavating his nose in search of policies. The far-too-eager schoolboy in the front row will be grateful to his mother for buffing those shoes so well, and the Creature From The Black Lagoon in the red just defies caricature. The sociology lecturer in the corduroy jacket, though, has spotted the free finger buffet. Lucky he brought that carrier bag, eh?

ELSEWHERE: Daniel1979 couldn't resist the photo either.

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Would You Like To Buy A Bridge?

Everyone knows the urban myth about the sale of London Bridge to some gullible Septics who thought they were getting Tower Bridge, only to be slightly surprised when they stripped the bubble-wrap off their new purchase in the desert of Arizona. It's not true, of course - Robert J McCulloch knew exactly what he was getting, but it makes for a fun story of stupidity and blind foolishness.

However it's easy to wonder if a small proportion of our population would have fallen for a scam like that. The same people who think that Gordoom is the saviour of the economic universe, a financial colossus, a titan bestriding the banking world. For there remain some.

Yes, poor darlings that they are. An obvious failure of Care in the Community, a staggering 14% of the British public still think that Liebour is telling the truth about the state of our economy. Having just read this highlight of an ICM/Guardian poll published in tomorrow's edition, TheEye needs to have a lie down.

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ObamaCare's Tampon Tax

It sounded suspiciously like the a fringe meeting commitment at a LibDem Conference, but during the US Presidential election Candidate Obama promised over and over again that 95% of Americans would pay less in taxes if he took power.  Yet a bill currently before Congress taxes items used by far more than that other 5%, including tampons, contact lens solution, and condoms.

Rick Tyler of Renewing American Leadership comments:

[W]hat I think people are beginning to understand is when President Obama said in the speech, "I will not pass this if it adds a single dollar to the deficit," and what he means by that, and what he didn't say, and what hasn't been covered, is that when you don't add a single dollar to the deficit to pay for this massive increase in spending, you have to increase taxes. …

So, since King George put a tax on tea 236 years ago, we've gone from a revolt from a tax on tea to a revolt on Obama's tax on tampons. And it is not because people are racist or have a propensity to violence, they're just against it, and people understand that every tax is an encroachment on freedom.

Something else people are beginning to understand is that no tampon tax is going to pay for socialized medicine. The biggest tax will come as more and more money is printed to pay for outrageous extravagances on the socialist wish list. The ensuing inflation will be a massive tax on every single person who uses American currency, whether they buy tampons or not.  Maybe it's time for our American cousins to start dumping tampons in Boston Harbour? 

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Swedes Ignore Election: Nobody Hurt

Swedes went to the polls earlier today (Sunday) for an election quite unlike anything we've ever seen in the United Kingdom - the election of officials for their church.

Most Swedes are technically members of the Church of Sweden, in fact 5.6 million people (of a population of just over 9) were eligible to vote in today's election, but few bothered to turn out to register their preferences. The election was also completely ignored by Mike Smithson on politicalbetting.com, unsurprisingly, and there is no live television coverage available to give the Swedes their "I was up for Bishop Portillo" moment.

"Participation has declined in recent elections and it is likely to continue to decline. There are no issues that generate interest," Jan Strid a researcher at the SOM institute told the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper. In fact the only event of any interest was the criticism directed at Social Democrat party leader Mona Sahlin choosing to attend a party on Mallorca instead of campaigning in an election that she had previously equated to a general election in importance.

The election appoints representatives to parish assemblies (or parish councils), to association vestries in an association of parishes, to the Diocesan Council and to the national General Synod. Tonight, the careers of thousands hang in the balance. Who will remain standing tomorrow? You could cut the tension with a spoon.

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Dinner With Palin ( Pt.2 - Sold! )

A month or so ago TheEye mentioned the upcoming sale of a dinner with Sarah Palin, suggesting that co-conspirator David Vance would really appreciate it as a gift for Christmas. Well, no-one obliged because the auction closed  Friday night with a winning bid of $63,500. Cathy Maples of Huntsville, Ala., offered the small fortune to have dinner with the former Alaska governor, beating another bidder by $100.

The money will benefit a charity for wounded military veterans.

Maples says she hopes to see Palin become President someday and it doesn't sound like there will be much awkward small-talk over dinner; Maples says that she wants to talk politics with Palin. "I'd like to talk to her about what's going on in the United States and the economy and some of these czars that are in Washington that have such a bad reputation."

Event organizers point out the $63,500 only covers the dinner. Maples, who owns a defence contracting company, will have pay her family's travel expenses to have dinner with Palin, most likely in Alaska.
But she considers the money, which will benefit the Ride to Recovery charity for wounded veterans, to be money well spent. And on that we can all agree.

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Are There No Depths?

If there are limits to how far the politically correct brigade will push their depraved agenda, we haven't reached them yet - although we must be getting close with this:

A school in England called an emergency assembly to tell children that a 12-year-old male pupil was having a sex change.

The youngster arrived for his first term at secondary school wearing a dress and with long hair in ribboned pigtails after his parents changed his name to a female one by deed poll over the summer holidays.

However, the boy, who is preparing to undergo hormone treatment and sex change surgery, was immediately taunted by classmates who recognised him from primary school.

As a result, the 1,000-pupil school in south east England decided to call an emergency assembly ordering children to treat him as a girl and use his new name.

Parents were not informed in advance, so they had no way of preparing their kids for the grotesque revelation that the poor boy was being mutated into a crude simulacrum of a girl, which reportedly left some horrified children in tears. Are there no depths to which our society will not descend in the search for such obscenity?

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It's Only A Matter Of Time

Found on Sean Linnane's blog via LSP. A tale of our age:

Overheard while waiting in line at the US Post Office, Podunkville . . . deep in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey:

Sweet Little Old Lady: "I'd like to buy some stamps, and I don't want those ones with the Simpsons on them. I don't like the Simpsons."
Post Office Lady: "Here's this one, it's nice.
Sweet Little Old Lady: "What is it?"
Post Office Lady: "A Jewish Holiday."
Sweet Little Old Lady: "Oh that's nice! My Jewish friends will like that!"

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Quote O' The Day

“There are dodgy employers out there who are trying to undercut their competitors and drive down British wages by employing people illegally, so we’ve come up with this new way of taking much faster on-the-spot action.  It’s quite clear that this new regime, which is part of a big shake-up of Britain’s border security, is already beginning to work.”

Liam Byrne
Immigration Minister
to the BBC 5th May 2008

You have to laugh. 

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Where Do You Draw The Line?

The hypocrisy of the Democrat Party is breathtaking. Whilst being happy to boo, hiss and cat-call President Bush's speech to Congress about social security reform they were apparently shocked when, taking Obama's advice to "call out the lies" about ObamaCare, Rep Joe Wilson turned into an overnight hero (or baby-eating waaaacist depending on your point of view) by doing just that.

Bush as a chimp in this 2004 billboard? Fine. Those T-shirts calling for Bush to be assassinated? Fine. When a black man turned up to an anti-ObamaCare demonstration exercising his 2nd Amendment right to carry a gun, the mainstream media cropped his head to hide his skin colour and called him a racist redneck. All of that, of course, fine.

But whilst the liberal media in America give their Left free rein (completely ignoring the Van Jones story and now frantically trying to downplay the ACORN underage prostitution scandal simply because of Obama's previous of having been employed by them) the conservative tendency are held to a whole different level of accountability. Hence the Tea Party leaders are trying to distance themselves from some of their activists who have made posters of Obama as a witchdoctor.

So, posters of Bush as Hitler are fine, but portraying someone who is using voodoo economics to destroy his country's heathcare system can't be shown as a witchdoctor simply because he is half black? It has always been the case that those on the right have been more restrained in their protests. We write letters but we queue. We don't throw barricades at police-horses as in the Community Charge disturbances. We don't drop concrete slabs on passing cars as in the Miners Strike. Rather like in the USSR, socialist rulers ruin the country whilst the majority shrug their shoulders and queue for bread.

So this poster might go too close to the knuckle for many, but when you are standing up against an enemy as large and powerful as the US establishment is it acceptable to scrabble around in the dirt for that extra stone to throw? Views? Sink to their level or try to stay aloof? Your opinions?

It's unfortunate that the debate on such an important issue is reduced to name-calling and childish pranks, but when socialists won't listen then sometimes that is the only way to get your message of resistance across. And of course, you also get to laugh at senile old duffer Jimmy Carter doing his best "is it cos I is black?" Ali G impression. Bonus!

So, what do you think?

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Still Testing The Waters

And still it goes on. Readers will recall Spain's recent successful attempt to claim authority over Gibraltar's territorial waters under EU environmental protection laws, and their ongoing attempts to assert that authority using armed fast patrol boats. The excuse from Whitehall for accepting the EU directive was that they hadn't noticed that bit of it. This is all going on against a backdrop of a general Spanish claim for all of Gib's waters up to the shoreline - despite the defeat last week in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Spanish Parliament of a motion by the Partido Popular which claimed that all Gibraltar waters are Spanish.

The defeat of the PP motion by five votes was on the basis that the governing party in Spain considered that the PP was using Gibraltar as an excuse for undermining the Government and not because it was actually a steaming pile of crap. It was preceded by another verbal assault against Gibraltar by Cadiz MP Jose Ignacio Landaluce who based his arguments on the point that the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht did not cede the waters around Gibraltar but only those inside the Port.

He accused Gibraltar of carrying out urban-based expansionism through land reclamation projects and has taken umbrage at the proposal put forward by the Opposition in the Gib Parliament that Gibraltar should claim the 12 miles of territorial sea to which we are entitled. The fact that the Partido Popular is so concerned at the possible extension of Gibraltar’s territorial sea is because they know that under international law they can do nothing to stop it.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Gibraltar presently claims three miles of sea where this is geographically possible, and the median line in the Bay. This has meant that there is a belt of sea on the east side which should be international waters until Gibraltar claims the twelve miles. It's a key point in the dispute over the wreck of the ship believed to be the treasure-laden HMS Sussex which lies between the three mile limit that we claim at present and the 12 miles of sea that we are entitled to claim.

In the meantime, there continue to be incidents with Spanish helicopters and civil guard launches refusing to communicate with or take instructions from authorities in Gibraltar. Recently, local air traffic control was trying to warn a Spanish helicopter in the area about an incoming civilian flight and that the Spanish helicopter would not answer the call. It was not until Gibraltar contacted Seville air traffic control that the helicopter responded to Seville’s instructions to get in touch with Gibraltar. A similar incident took place at sea when a civil guard launch again refused to answer a call from the Royal Navy.

This afternoon TheEye watched as the Spanish tried it on again with a fast patrol boat. It'll carry on until someone dies. Or shots are fired. Or both.

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University Freshers Week

As another crop of 18-year-old victims head to college for the first time, University towns across the land are bracing themselves for the bacchanalian orgy known as Freshers' Week.

Thankfully, any parents worried that their nearest and dearest are going to fall prey to the Rugby Club's front row or end up flogging copies of Socialist Worker on Saturday mornings might do worse than to point their offspring towards society and etiquette experts Debretts' list of pointers on Freshers Etiquette.

Debretts top tips include: "Introduce yourself to strangers at parties. Everyone is in the same boat, so don't worry about making the first move." Once the ice is broken, Freshers should "Listen to what other people tell you, and ask questions. Conversation is likely to be about A-level results, school, courses and gap years." Well, that's five minutes sorted, before a rapid degeneration into moaning about student loan delays, debating classic TV programmes, and bitching about newly acquired flatmates/classmates.

Things do get a bit confusing at this point. One the one hand, students are advised to "Be social. Operate an open door policy when you move into your halls." Sounds good so far, but before you know, Debretts is being all prim and proper, suggesting that "While it's good to be open to new experiences, exercise a little caution. You may end up doing something in freshers' week that will haunt you for the next three years. Which is a politer way of expressing number seven: "Away from parental and school supervision, hormones will run high. Make sure you're not the talk of the campus."

All good stuff, if slightly generalist - we can't help thinking that there's some etiquette points that geeks in training may want to consider. Perhaps advice to flush your cache and history list before letting potential romantic interests use your PC would be pertinent. Also, it might be good to point out that going to the Freshers Ball as your SecondLife avatar is unlikely to make it a night to remember - not for you anyway.

The full list is here. If you've got any other advice for the younger generation, you know where to stick it.

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BFPO To Close

All four co-conspirators on All Seeing Eye have a close association with the Forces; that's what initially brought St Crispin and TheEye together on this blog. Our family members are in harms way and when given the chance, St Crispin is out there doing his bit for Queen and Country in person. And so this bit of news from Aquila Victrix via 13th Spitfire has gone down like the proverbial lead balloon.

"By this time next year the government intends to bring an end to BFPO operations in Europe.


The British Forces Post Office provides mail and Post Office counter services to Forces personnel and their families whilst serving outside Great Britain.

Using the BFPO means that, when members of Britain's Armed Forces are serving abroad, they have a postal address which is recognised as being part of their own country - even when they are serving on the frontline. This may sound a small thing but in its way it is a link with the people, something that helps bind together those serving abroad with everybody else back home. It is also a long-established tradition going back over two hundred years to the time of the Peninsular War.

The cutting of this service will be a significant blow to families with loved ones based in Germany, Belgium, Gibraltar and elsewhere on mainland Europe as they will no longer have the same postal rates that apply within the UK and they will no longer have the confidence that their mail will be handled in a safe and secure manner.

A petition has been set up on the No.10 website to get the government to reconsider its decision to remove British Forces Post Offices from mainland Europe. Add your name to the petition here."

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History vs Democracy

TheEye recalls reading a work of fiction many moons ago in which Hitler had a son. In time this US citizen, as he had become, stood for Mayor of New York. Predictable hand-wringing ensued, with the book switching between the merits (and otherwise) of the individual for office and the stigma attached to his family. To what extent are we our father's son, the story argued. Are we individuals, or is no man an island?

And so we find our real life version; much more remote ancestry and without any U-boats but the same theory. A Habsburg family member and his daughter-in-law have gone to the Constitutional Court in Austria after they were excluded from presidential elections next year, and Ulrich Habsburg-Lothringen, a Green councillor in Wolfsberg, Carinthia, and his daughter-in-law Gabriele Habsburg-Lothringen, want the court to review whether the ban is constitutional.

Austrian election laws prohibit any member of the house of Habsburg or any member of a "ruling house" to become a candidate for the presidency. The ban dates back to the days of the First Republic, when lawmakers wanted to ensure there would be no restoration of the Habsburg monarchy.

Habsburg-Lothringen has also asked Social Democratic (SPÖ) Chancellor Werner Faymann to take a stand on the issue. Habsburg said today (Weds): "We will wait for four weeks for the government to take a stand." Habsburg’s lawyer Rudolf Vouk said the ban was discriminatory and violated Austrians’ right to a free and democratic election.

Vouk said Habsburg was far down the line of succession to Austria’s last Emperor Karl I and that his daughter-in-law had been named Wetschnig before marrying Habsburg’s son. She, too, is excluded from the presidential election because of her marriage. "The Republic can afford to take a milder approach to its history," he said, adding Habsburg had decided to act now in order to have the issue settled well before the presidential election next year.

The predictable irony, of course, is that he hasn't declared as a presidential candidate and says he hasn't actually thought about whether he wants to. It's the principle.

Surely the time has come to repeal such laws? King Simeon was elected as Prime Minister of Bulgaria and served a term without restoring the Monarchy or randomly invading Chad so it proves that it can work. Perhaps we are still dealing with the politics of class and envy in preventing a certain stratum of society from contributing their talents?

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Let's Lighten The Mood Even More

In deference to regular reader The Big Dollop who insists on the frequent appearance of top totty on these shores, the All Seeing Eye is delighted to contribute to BigD's current meme of Lighten The Mood by presenting "Drunken Erotic Online Chat From Bathtub Sparks Call To Police" - complete, as it happens, with a photograph which The Local in Germany is generous enough to note is completely unconnected with the females involved.

We learn: A woman in Aachen was compelled to call the police after her drunken female friend slumped into a bathtub while the two were having an erotic chat online, the authorities reported on Wednesday.

The women were speaking using webcams after having met each other on an internet forum. But during the course of what Aachen police spokesman Paul Kemen described as a "bibulous exchange of sweet nothings," the woman's chat partner in Memmingen, Bavaria seemed to submerge herself in her bathtub. After that she disappeared out of sight and gave no more signs of life.

Fearing for her safety, the young woman in Aachen then sought help from the local police, who contacted their colleagues in Bavaria. Fortunately she was no worse for wear in the dry tub.

"The drunken pearl of love* had fallen asleep in the empty bathtub and was fine considering the circumstances," the police said.
The comment below the article by 'keydeck' may get to the heart of the matter...a scurrilous yet hopefully accurate accusation that The Local's journalists tend to be three sheets to the wind by mid-afternoon when they churn out this drivel dressed up as news. Hurrah for lunchtime drinking!

*Yes, literally "Liebesperle" in the original police report in German. Never say this blog isn't educational.

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Whatever Happened To....

....the D.C. Sniper?

Another in an occasional Where Are They Now series. Last featuring the shoe-thrower, this time we find out that the D.C. (or Beltway) Sniper is imminently due to head downstairs for an eternity of heat and pitchforks.

A judge in Richmond, Virginia, has set a Nov. 10 execution date for John Allen Muhammad (ooh look, there's that religion-of-peace name again randomly) , mastermind of the 2002 sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., area.

The attorney general's office had requested a Nov. 9 execution. But Muhammad's attorney Jonathan Sheldon says Prince William County Circuit Judge Mary Grace O'Brien delayed it one day. That's because Nov. 9 is a Monday and they want government offices to be open the day before in case of any last-minute court action.

Muhammad was sentenced to death for the slaying of Dean Meyers, one of 10 people shot to death during a 2002 rampage that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area. He was sent to different states, both with and without the death penalty, and rather like some bizarre card game began racking up the points wherever he went...six life sentences in Maryland alone would have kept him in prison overalls for a while after his one-time protege Lee Boyd Malvo took the stand against him.

Sheldon says Muhammad will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and ask the governor for clemency.

Don't bother with all that, Muhammad. Make your peace with your god, because vengeance is nigh.

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"Never Felt More Like Singin' The Blues"

Never mind the financial crisis, if temperatures don't stop rising dropping, we're all going to burn up freeze to death. Clearly we must destroy what's left of our economy immediately.

That's the message of a bunch of geriatric has-beens from the music world, organized by another has-been best known for his role in the UN's oil-for-food scam:

British rock group Duran Duran and heavy metal band Scorpions are among 55 world celebrities who have joined in recording a song to draw attention to the global warming crisis, organisers said on Monday.


The song is part of a mass media campaign on the threats of climate change organised by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, headed by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

Other artists include French 'Piaf' actress Marion Cotillard, Senegalese star Youssou N'dour, Chinese singer Khalil Fong, Bob Geldof, whom you may vaguely remember as the guy from an also-ran band who played Pink in The Wall more than a quarter century ago, and - I'm serious - Desmond Tutu. Maybe he does a rap or something.

These folks have at least one thing in common with The Great Climate Change Hoax: they are well past their expiration date.

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