Great Athletes Are Made?
6 hours ago
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Cameron On Householders' Rights
David Cameron said this during an interview today for BBC1's Politics Show - hopefully a video clip to follow. If its true then it will be a real bonus to families, as well as a well-deserved slap to Dominic Grieve. Grieve has a record of undermining his boss by objecting to potentially sound policies - including opposing repeal of the egregious Human Rights Act. If Cameron follows through with this then it is a great step in the right direction.
Let's see how this pans out....
UPDATE: And the video clip...
Hat-tip: Conservativehome, who describe the quote as "dynamite". Read more...
IPCC's Reputation Takes Another Hit
However, rather like repeats of Only Fools And Horses, the embarassment for the IPCC just doesn't stop flowing. In a recent report, they claimed that reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa were caused by global warming. You would think that that kind of an amazing report would be backed by years of serious study and scientific data but you would be wrong.
"The report referred to two papers as the source of the information, but the Sunday Telegraph says one of the sources quoted was actually an article published in a magazine for mountaineers. The article was based on anecdotal evidence about the changes the authors were witnessing during climbs."
The newspaper says the other source was a dissertation written by a geography student who was studying for a master's degree at the University of Bern in Switzerland.
The dissertation reportedly quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.
It's strangely reminiscent of Alistair Campbell and the WMD dodgy dossier cribbed from a student off of teh interweb, isn't it? So, what's next? Gordoom's General Election Manifesto to be based on a homework assignment from the Kirkcaldy Boys Junior School? Well, now we think about it....
This is looking, however, more and more ridiculous. It's time to start from scratch in studying climate change. It's time for politics to get out of science. It's time to stop listening to hypocrites like Al Gore trying to make money off of global warming, and Hollywood actors hyping false propaganda. It's time for scientists who care more about science than politics to have integrity and begin again.
UPDATE: Thanks to MrXyz for this.
Read more...
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Let Them Eat Debt
Senate Democrats needed all the 60 votes at their disposal Thursday to muscle through legislation allowing the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper in debt.
Democratic leaders were able to prevail on the politically volatile 60-39 vote only because Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts has yet to be seated. Republicans had insisted on a 60-vote, super-majority threshhold to pass the measure. …
The measure would put the government on track for a national debt of $14.3 trillion — about $45,000 for every American…
The massive increase in the debt limit would allow majority Democrats to avoid another vote until after the midterm elections this fall. New estimates released by the Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday show that the U.S. this year could run a deficit matching last year's record $1.4 trillion shortfall. …
The current $12.4 trillion debt ceiling is expected to be reached in mid-February.
Just as with Gordoom's wild spending policies in the UK and his current scorched earth policy, these numbers are too huge to be comprehended, much less sustained. On both sides of the Pond we are creating an economic environment which will poison the lives of generations to come. The scary things is that nobody seems to have the policies or political strength to do anything about it.
Oh, for the old days and the titans which used to bestride the political landscape. Consider these writings from Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan that Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America:
Graphic from Heritage Foundation, idea from Moonbattery.
I'd been asked to write a letter for a "time capsule" which would be opened 100 years from now.Read more...
Oh I wrote of the problems we face here in 1976 - The choice we face between continuing the policies of the last 40 years that have led to bigger and bigger government, less and less liberty, redistribution of earnings through confiscatory taxation or trying to get back on the original course set for us by the Founding Fathers. Will we choose fiscal responsibility, limited government, and freedom of choice for all our people? Or will we let an irresponsible Congress set us on the road our English cousins have already taken? The road to economic ruin and state control of our very lives?
If we here today meet the challenge confronting us, those who open the time capsule 100 years from now will do so in [a nation of] beauty, peace, prosperity and the ultimate in personal freedom.
If we don't keep our rendezvous with destiny, the letter probably will never be read - because they will live in the world we left them, a world in which no one is allowed to read of individual liberty or freedom of choice.
September 1, 1976
Friday, January 29, 2010
Canadians Understand Free Trade And Capitalism
Drag queen "Ray" was enraged when a late-night customer on Toronto's downtown track offered him $5 for oral sex recently.
"I didn't spend two hours getting my makeup on and all dressed up for that," says the 36-year-old former hairdresser from Venezuela, who usually charges $60 for the service.
These days, Ray is getting little more than callouses from standing all night near Jarvis and Wellesley, as the economic slump delivers an unexpected hit to the sex trade.
Of all the people that the reporter, Trish Crawford, could find to write about, she chooses a drag queen?
But it's no surprise prostitutes and their customers end up haggling, says Sadorsky. Unlike alcohol and cigarettes, which are regulated and sold in stores, the price of sex is flexible and negotiated for each transaction by the buyer and the seller. People willing to work for less affect the going price, he says.
Hurrah! The inevitable triumph of the free market! Now if only we could apply the same principles to just about every other economic sphere and marketplace we'd have free trade, less poverty, more choice and more personal and financial freedom. Simples! Read more...
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Question Time 28 January 2010
Those wanting to get an idea of the political feel of the area - these are the General Election results in the 1997 Basildon constituency (Angela Smith, Lab).
For those who wish to take part in the Biased-BBC Buzzword Bingo, we will be playing by the "Chilcot Enquiry Rules" meaning that "Brown" won't be appearing on your card for as long as possible, and getting "Blair", "Liar" and "45 Minutes" on a diagonal line is an instant win. The usual prizes will be awarded.
As usual, the live chat will begin over on Biased-BBC at 22:35 UK time. Please come and join us! Read more...
Palestinian Wife Beating Is Caused By Israel
The Lancet is supposed to be a peer reviewed impartial and serious scientific journal producing valuable research (just like all those
Despite their stated "feminist" perspective, the authors express no interest in how the terror war against Israel might affect violence against Israeli women, nor do they indicate awareness that barbaric treatment of women is the signature of Muslim culture throughout the world, even where there are no Jews around to blame.
Hat-tip: Van Helsing at Moonbattery Read more...
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
More "Bugs" In Google?
Following on from the "Islam Is..." Google bug censorship it seems that there are other examples of this mysterious programming glitch.
Take it away, Bob Murphy:
So for my junior high project I'm explaining how fascism and communism were actually both forms of socialism, in the sense that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia subordinated individual property rights to the demands of the supreme leader.Right, so now it's all getting strange. If there are more than one or two examples and they are all coming from a certain part of the spectrum then this is going to become a conspiracy nut's wet dream. Imagine (very small and sad) armies of investigative bloggers typing the names of anyone or anything they can think of looking for a null result. Could it be a coincidence? But the lad is correct in this case....it doesn't produce any hits.
I just wanted to double check that people referred to Hitler as a fascist (as opposed to a Nazi), and so I went to google "Adolf Hitler fascist."
But I noticed something interesting. As I typed in A-d-o-l... Google started bringing up suggestions. By the time I typed in just "adolf," the first ten suggestions popped up, with the #1 being "adolf eichmann." Then when I pressed the spacebar and typed in "h" all the suggestions disappeared.
So apparently Google has no idea what I might be looking for when I type in "adolf hitle"...
Does anyone know what the deal is? Does he get so many google hits that he would be at the top of the list anytime somebody started by typing in "ad..." to look up "address for the elie wiesel fund" and Google doesn't want people getting mad?
I'm not kidding, I'm being serious. Google obviously disabled Hitler's name from popping up as a suggestion, and I'm just wondering if they explain these things somewhere officially.
Maybe Google has a lot more bugfixing to do than it realised.
Read more...
Don't Have Nightmares, Do Sleep Well
Kids TV hosts Anna Williamson and Jamie Rickers have said they were questioned by police under anti-terrorism powers - for carrying glittery hairdryers.TheEye must confess to never having heard of this programme, and a sneaking suspicion that this story either has appeared or will shortly appear in the Daily Make-It-Up, thus destroying my confidence that it might be even slightly accurate. But until that happens, it could well be true. Read more...
The pair, who front ITV1's hit show Toonattik, were filming a skit for the programme on London's South Bank wearing combat gear and armed with children's walkie-talkies and hairdryers.
Their fake fatigues aroused the suspicions of patrolling police, who stopped them and took down their particulars.
Williamson, 28, said: "We were filming a strand called Dork Hunters, which is to do with one of the animations we have on the show.
"We were out and about doing 'dork hunting' ourselves on the streets of London.
"Jamie and I were kitted out in fake utility belts, we had the whole bulletproof flakjacket thing, we've got hairdryers in our belt, a kids' £1.99 walkie-talkie, hairbrushes and all that kind of stuff, and we were being followed by a camera crew and a boom mike and we get literally pulled over by four policemen and we were issued with a warning 'under the act of terrorism'."
Rickers, 32, added: "We were stopped, not arrested, but they had to say 'we are holding you under the Anti-Terrorism Act because you're running around in flak jackets and a utility belt', and I said 'and please put spangly blue hairdryer' and he was, like, 'all right'."
The presenting duo named the escapade as one of the most memorable moments from their time on the show, which celebrates its fifth anniversary on February 6 and 7.
Oppression 101
There are just a few hundred companies today that hold all the cards for the global economy.
The goal for the left is for just a few hundred authoritarian bureaucrats and their cronies to hold all the cards for the global economy.
Shrieked Hildebrando Velez Galeano of the Colombian chapter of the environmental group Friends of the Earth:
We have to decolonize our territory and declare it free of Coca-Cola and Monsanto.
Monsanto is an agricultural company that oppresses people by feeding them. As we all know, Coke oppresses them by offering them a popular soft drink.
According to the AP report, Galeano's denunciation of "capitalist speculators" occurred in a "conference hall filled with activists wearing shirts emblazoned with the image of legendary revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara." In contrast to Coca-Cola and Monsanto, Che oppressed people by murdering them — with a great deal of enthusiasm.
But others are content to oppress by seeing to it that the lack of economic freedom dooms Latin America to poverty in perpetuity. The point? You'd have to ask a 'progressive'.
Hat-tip: The excellent Van Helsing at Moonbattery Read more...
The Camp Of The Saints
You might think this is not a problem, because global warming isn't real. But what's real makes no difference to moonbats. Never mind the falling temperatures. In the alternate reality inhabited by our liberal elite ruling class, the rising seas caused by imaginary melting icebergs are already swamping the shoeless urchins.
Up to 20 million Bangladeshis may be forced to leave the country in the next 40 years because of climate change, one of the country's most senior politicians has said. Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, Bangladesh's finance minister, called on Britain and other wealthy countries to accept millions of displaced people. …
"Twenty million people could be displaced [in Bangladesh] by the middle of the century," Abdul Muhith told the Guardian. "We are asking all our development partners to honour the natural right of persons to migrate. We can't accommodate all these people — this is already the densest [populated] country in the world," he said.
He called on the UN to redefine international law to give climate refugees the same protection as people fleeing political repression. "The convention on refugees could be revised to protect people. It's been through other revisions, so this should be possible," he said.
Tens of thousands of people in Bangladesh and other low-lying areas of Asia are leaving their communities as their homes and land become inundated. … Bangladesh, India, and many small island states such as the Maldives face having to relocate large populations over the next 50 years as sea levels rise up to one metre. This would have profound effects on the 1.5 billion people who presently live in coastal areas. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the scientific [sic] body that assesses the impact of climate change, has said there could be 200 million climate change migrants by 2050.
The grotesquely corrupt global warming profiteer Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's pseudoscientific IPCC, loves the idea of using the nonexistent crisis as a pretext for Third World demographic conquest:
This is clearly a warning signal from Bangladesh and similar countries to the developed countries. And I think it has to be taken very seriously. If you accept that those countries that have really not been responsible for causing the problem, and have a legitimate basis for help from the developed countries, then one form of help would certainly be facilitation of immigration from these countries to the developed world.Would we actually allow millions upon millions of refugees to overwhelm us economically, socially, and demographically, potentially blotting us out of existence? Of course we would. Who would open fire on fleets of shoeless urchins?
If you had 30 or 40 million migrating to other parts of the world, that's a sizable problem for which we have to prepare. And if it requires changes to immigration laws and facilitating people settling down and working in the developed countries, then I suppose this will require legislative action in the developed world.
To find how it ends, read the book or the free pdf. An expansive fedora-tipping to the excellent Moonbattery. Read more...
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Game Review: Peacekeepers 2 - Tactical Observation
Rather like Carlsberg, TheEye doesn't do game reviews, but if we did they'd read like ones from The Banterist. If only. Grateful thanks to reader Daniel for the link.PROS:
Realistic, indecisive AI • Responsive binoculars • Blue hats • Sound design
CONS:
Can't understand what Ban Ki- moon is saying half the time
At the end of Peacekeepers: Prompt Deployment, players left an eight-hour committee meeting wondering "What next?" Well, I'm happy to report that Peacekeepers 2:Tactical Observation picks up from that exact point and answers the question in no uncertain terms: "I don't know. Let's watch and see."
At the game open the player finds himself (girls don't play video games) in an immersive world of realistic bureaucracy coupled with a can-do spirit that's kept in check by the special interests of the Security Council.
While locked in intense negotiations with the Russians and Chinese, the player must make concessions that allow the Russians to freely annex the Republic of Georgia while the Chinese censor Google and execute dissidents. This is done by pressing the X button repeatedly for 27 minutes. After those and other concessions have been made and Sino-Russian obstacles removed, an agreement is reached that UN peacekeeping forces will be sent to the troubled region of Sudanistan. This fictional nation, which is based on current events, has been struggling under a civil war and the cruel oppression of a theocratic government that is not Islamic.
After issuing a resolution condemning Israel for something, troops are dispatched to the region - and that's when the fun really starts.
From high up in your tower you can scan the horizon with some of the most realistic binoculars in any video game to-date. The binoculars can zoom in and out, focus and be stored in a dust-proof box, just like real binoculars. Want to see what's going on over to the left? Just push your controller's left stick to the left. What about to the right? Just push your controller's stick to the right. If you're so inclined, you can keep turning to the right until you've gone a full 360 degrees - allowing you to see everything around you!
The developers have gone to great lengths to recreate what you might see in your binoculars. It might be a rusty car. A sheep. An old boot. Perhaps a shrub. Ooh! Did you just see gun-toting militiamen? Nope, it's a group of happy school children carrying an easel.
On the odd occasion when you do see something truly out of the ordinary you have the ability to either watch it or look somewhere else. If you watch it, you'll be asked to file a detailed report which will then be placed in a manila folder. In one instance, I thought for sure that I was watching several people being executed by government paramilitary forces. I used the right trigger to phone my superiors who repeatedly asked me if I was sure that's what I saw. When I hung up, there was no trace of the gunmen or victims - if there even were any - so I focused my amazing binoculars on a feral dog I saw rummaging through highly detailed trash. Again, the designers spared no expense.
One of the things I like most about Peacekeepers 2 is that you don't have guns. I mean - sure, you have guns (if you select the third-person viewing option you will see one slung over your shoulder) but you don't actually use them. They just exist to try and deter bad behaviour. The game design is so detailed that if you turn the right way sunlight reflects off of your constantly-shouldered rifle.
In the end, Peacekeepers 2: Tactical Observation is the most realistic first-person non-shooter on the market. With two games under their belt already, the developers have such a head start on the competition that it'll be a miracle if anyone else manages to break into this genre. We'll see how Activision fares in 2011 with the release of Recalled from Duty: Modern Troop Withdrawal. Read more...
More Temperature Manipulation In Canada
A similar principle can be applied to global warming. It doesn't matter whether the planet is actually warming to people like Al Gore. What is actually important is who gets to manipulate the climate data, and how.
You see, it's very easy to "prove" the earth is warming when you play these sort of games with the data:
Two months after “climategate” cast doubt on some of the science behind global warming, new questions are being raised about the reliability of a key temperature database, used by the United Nations and climate change scientists as proof of recent planetary warming.We've set up a system where scientists who say that global warming is occurring are showered with praise and grant money, while those deny it are vilified and treated like pariahs. In that sort of environment, it's no surprise that this sort of massive corruption has soaked down into the bones of the scientific establishment.
Two American researchers allege that U.S. government scientists have skewed global temperature trends by ignoring readings from thousands of local weather stations around the world, particularly those in colder altitudes and more northerly latitudes, such as Canada.
In the 1970s, nearly 600 Canadian weather stations fed surface temperature readings into a global database assembled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, NOAA only collects data from 35 stations across Canada.
Worse, only one station -- at Eureka on Ellesmere Island -- is now used by NOAA as a temperature gauge for all Canadian territory above the Arctic Circle.
...Mr. D’Aleo and Mr. Smith say NOAA and another U.S. agency, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have not only reduced the total number of Canadian weather stations in the database, but have “cherry picked” the ones that remain by choosing sites in relatively warmer places, including more southerly locations, or sites closer to airports, cities or the sea -- which has a warming effect on winter weather.
Careers should end over this sort of data manipulation, but instead it'll probably be deliberately minimized and ignored.
Read more...
Islam Is ... Finally Being Fixed on Google
When FoxNews.com had asked Google for an explanation on Jan. 8, a company spokesman explained that the weird absence of results was just a software problem: "This is in fact a bug and we're working to fix it as quickly as we can." But the company would not respond to requests for clarification, nor would it offer a timeline for repairing the problem.You can smell the corporate BS all the way across the Atlantic, but because we know, and they know we know, and we know they know we know, we might as well just accept their change of heart with good grace, and carry on using whichever other search engine we changed to when we first became annoyed by this.
And until this morning, nearly three weeks had elapsed without a patch for the glitch, which clearly turned out to be more complex than initially assumed. When asked this morning for an estimated repair date for the bug, a Google spokesman would say only that the company was working on a fix, adding that "this is not an editorial thing."Absolute rubbish of course, but a sign that the leftist view of Google's policymakers is flexible enough to respond to howls of internet derision. Which is nice.
So all that remains is to do a quick search for "Google is..." and smile wryly at the sixth suggestion.
Chemical Ali Where He Belongs
Ali Hassan al-Majid a former Iraqi official known as Chemical Ali, has been executed by hanging, a government spokesman has announced.
Majid, an enforcer in Saddam Hussein's regime and his cousin, had earlier been sentenced to death four times for genocide and crimes against humanity.
In January, he was sentenced to death for ordering the gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988.
Iraq knows how to deal with the very worst criminals - it is a right that every sovereign country has to make and prosecute its own laws, and therefore one, predicatably, that we ourselves gave away years ago.
Meanwhile, the guy Obama promised to catch or kill (then changed his mind, and said Osama was no big deal), has taken credit for the attempted Christmas Day bombing (readers will recall that TheEye is signed up to the 'he's dead' school of thought) in a new message, "from Osama to Obama." He promises new attacks, and
Until there is "security in Palestine" and an end to U.S. support of Israel, bin Laden says, "America shall not dream about security."
Considering how much Comrade Obama is indulging on pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli rhetoric, this should mean that Western civilization is looking pretty safe at the moment. Ironic timing then, that Brown should choose now to play politics with the UK terror threat level and raise it to Severe just in time to scare voters before a, um, General Election. If people are worried then they are less likely to change governments, you think McDoom? Wrong. Read more...
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Killer Can't Be Deported Because He Might Kill Again
There are times to energetically fisk a story, but once in a while there are times just to leave it alone to stand and fall on its own. This is one of those moments.
"Killer Can't Be Deported Because He Might Kill Again"Okay, so the refusal to fisk might have slipped with a bit of highlighting there, but it's fair. Now on to what he did.
An Iraqi immigrant who stabbed two doctors to death has won the right to stay in Britain after a judge ruled that he would pose a danger to the public in his homeland. An immigration tribunal decided that Laith Alani, a paranoid schizophrenic, should not be deported to Iraq because it would breach his human rights and put people there at risk.
Alani has spent the past 19 years in a secure hospital after he killed two NHS consultants in a frenzied attack because he believed he had received a "command from Allah".
Mr Masser, 42, was stabbed six times in the throat and chest with a sheath knife. His widow gave birth to son Harry six weeks before Alani's trial; the couple already had a seven-year-old daughter. Mr Paton, who was 56, and married with three grown-up children, suffered 24 stab wounds in the chest and abdomen.
The surgeons' bodies were discovered by Mr Paton's secretary, Pamela Mackay, when blood was seen coming from underneath the door of a consulting room.
After his arrest, Alani told detectives: "It was a command from Allah. I have had visions from Allah and you can't be more right than Allah." He told police he believed one of the doctors was Satan and one was Lucifer...
So we've established that he isn't the sort of person you want living in your street. It's a bit of luck he's safely locked up where he can't make blood flow under more doors, isn't it?
He could be set free next year.
Oh.
Never mind; at least if he shows up in the garden, you'll be able to wave a knife at him to scare him away.
Oh. Read more...
Dan Hannan On The Money (Yet Again)
From the floor of the Parliament of our EU masters, this is classic Hannan - and the side reference to a certain recent Senate election is neatly done too.
Happy 75th To The Beer Can
This came, of course, shortly after the grim dark horror of the 18th Amendment was ended in 1933. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans nowadays choose cans over bottles for the majority of the 22 gallons of beer they each drink per year - which goes to show you how much money is pointlessly wasted on daft Census questions.
Anyway...any excuse...cheers!
Read more...
Friday, January 22, 2010
In Search Of A Sound Economic Policy
President Obama called on Congress Thursday to expand the government's ability to limit the size and complexity of major financial institutions… He cast his proposals as a way to prevent banks from becoming too bloated and taking on risks that ultimately threaten the economy.Obama probably means risks like his own policy of forcing US banks to make loans based on ethnicity to people almost certain not to pay them back. Obama and Brown are both putting guns to bankers heads', forcing them to make bad loans to their core supporters, and then shooting the banks for making those bad loans.
The esteemed financial expert Barack Obama, who learned all he knows about economics by hanging out with Marxist professors, has decided
to restrict proprietary trading by commercial banks. Such a limit would separate commercial banks from investment banks, a line that was blurred a decade ago by the repeal of the Depression era Glass-Steagall Act.Horrifyingly but in a despressing sign of the political times, Republicans may cooperate with this socialist's war on the "fat cats" who make an economy function.
[Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner met with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on Tuesday. Administration officials now believe that while Republicans may seek to block other aspects of the president's agenda, McConnell is considering making financial regulation an exception.And exactly the same is happening this side of the Atlantic too. The socialists are being allowed to make the running and dictate the political narrative. Lord Forsyth has just hit the headlines calling for spending cuts of £75 billion a year and being roundly castigated in the media for his troubles by Labour...who conveniently gloss over Lord Fondlebum's call for £80 billion cuts and the fact that neither do much more than scratch the surface of the budget deficit of £178 billion.
Why are supposed right-wing parties on both sides of the Pond abrogating their responsibilities for fiscal responsibility? Can anyone please find us a Party offering a sound economic policy?
Read more...
'Ello 'Ello 'Ello You Can't Swim There, Lad
Labour has created 4,300 new crimes since taking power - including a ban on swimming in the wreck of the Titanic and on the sale of game birds shot on a Sunday.And then in splendid Daily Mail deadpan delivery:
Gordon Brown has been the worst offender in this unprecedented 'legislative splurge', with his Government creating new offences at the rate of 33 a month. Under Tony Blair, Labour invented 27 new ways of criminalising the public every month.
The 'crimes' range from swimming in the hull of the Titanic without the permission of a Cabinet Minister to 'disturbing a pack of eggs' when instructed not to by an authorised officer.
In total, between 1997 and 2009, 4,289 new criminal offences were created - approximately one for every day ministers have been in office. It is twice the rate at which new crimes were created under the last Tory administration.
They include offences - such as carrying out a nuclear explosion - which could easily be covered by existing laws....which is straight from the Department of Statin' The Bleedin' Obvious.
Others are simply bewildering, such as the ban on the sale of game birds shot on a Sunday - or Christmas Day. This stems from the fact it is illegal, for ancient religious reasons, to shoot the birds on a Sunday - so the Government felt the need to also make it illegal to sell birds shot on a Sunday, to reinforce the point.How would you know?
There's bound to be some Gordon Doomed...Titanic...iceberg phrase to be had out of this whole thing, so < insert your own pun here > and everybody will be happy. That doesn't lessen the fact that this is a complete disgrace. Putting some of these ludicrous examples aside, it is the trivial ones which are the more insidious, for they make unintentional criminals out of law abiding folks. Nobody can possibly keep up with these laws, but it's less effort for Plod to keep his arrest rate up by arresting you for hanging your pheasant for too long in your garden shed than it is to track down the gang who stole your tools from it the weekend before. To be fair, they aren't asking for these extra reasons to arrest you and doubtless think that they are as ridiculous as the rest of us do.
Once more the refrain goes up....will anything change under the incoming administration? If Grieve gets the Attorney General position then almost certainly they will not.
A Lesson In Public Sector Pay
...from across the Pond. Just as in the United Kingdom, public sector workers are getting pay raises when the private sector is freezing pay and losing jobs - 7 million in the case of the US. Michael Williams, the Texas Railroad Commissioner has refused to take a $45,000/year raise and refused wage increases for his state employees. He says, "we should all be in this together."
This is what happens when you get direct elections for what in the UK would be a Government appointed quango. It would bring a whole new dimension to our public service if we tried it on for size.
Scott Brown Has Big Shoes To Fill
As the new senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, said: "It's not the Ted Kennedy seat. It's not the Democrat seat. It's the people's seat."Instead of Ted, let's remember an honorable and courageous Republican senator who once filled the seat to which Scott Brown was elected.Ironic, then, that the mainstream media narrative for every Obama setback - including the Mass Senate election - is always couched in cries of "racism".
Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) was one of the founders of the Republican Party. Angered by Sumner's denunciations of slavery, a Democrat congressman beat him nearly to death on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Sumner responded with a classic denunciation of the Democratic Party for promoting The Barbarism of Slavery.
During the GOP's 1860 election campaign, Senator Sumner gave a speech that speaks to us today:
"If ever there was a moment when every faculty should be bent to the service, and all invigorated by an inspiring zeal, it is now, while the battle between Civilization and Barbarism is still undecided.
Happily, a political party is at hand whose purpose is to combine and direct all generous energies for the salvation of the country. The work must be done, and there is no other organization by which it can be done. A party with such an origin and such a necessity cannot be for a day, or for this election only.
If bad men conspire for slavery, good men must combine for freedom. And when this triumph is won, securing the immediate object of our organization, the Republican Party will not die, but, purified by long contest with slavery, and filled with higher life, it will be lifted to yet other efforts for the good of man.
Others may dwell on the past as secure; but to my mind, under the laws of a beneficent God, the future also is secure, on the single condition that we press forward in the work with heart and soul, forgetting self, turning from all temptations of the hour, and, intent only on the cause."
The day he died, Charles Sumner urged Republicans to stay true to the principles of our Grand Old Party: "My bill, the civil rights bill - don't let it fail." The Republican-controlled 43rd Congress honored his memory by passing the 1875 Civil Rights Act.
An expansive doff of the fedora to GrandOldPartisan.org Read more...
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Scott Brown For President?
From TheHill:
Several Scott Brown-for-president domain names have been snapped up as interest in the charismatic candidate spreads beyond his home state of Massachusetts.
The rights to scottbrown2012.com and scottbrown2016.com were acquired on Tuesday, the day the Republican scored his stunning victory in the race for Sen. Edward Kennedy's (D-Mass) Senate seat. The domain name scottbrownforpresident.com was already taken, having been bought last Friday.
Some conservatives are already talking about Brown challenging President Barack Obama in 2012. Brown would be up for reelection for his new Senate seat that year.
A Tuesday night posting on craigslist.org stated, "Need a great web designer to volunteer their services to create a website to help elect Scott Brown for president in 2012. Only conservatives need apply ... I own 2 superstar domain names ... please email me if you would like to change the direction of America."
Applications on a postcard to the usual address, but only after you've put down the crack pipe and diffused the fumes a bit.
Read more...
Question Time 20th January 2010
Those wanting to get an idea of the political feel of the area - these are the General Election results in the old (now redrawn and renamed) constituencies of Milton Keynes NE (Con) and SW (Lab).
For those who wish to take part in the B-BBC Buzzword Bingo, we will be playing by the "Scott Brown Rules" meaning that 'Palin's are wildcards and a 'Obama' and a 'healthcare' on the same card mean a missed turn. The usual prizes will be awarded.
As usual, the live chat will begin over on Biased-BBC at 22:35 UK time. Please come and join us! Read more...
Scott Brown: The Predictable Downfall Video
It was only a matter of time, however, before those with too much time on their hands on teh interweb got into their stride. This is reasonable as Downfall skits go. Hat-tip ConservativeHome for the graphic.
Read more...
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Scott Brown Wins In Mass.!
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy."
It's 03:20 CET and the Boston Globe has just put this update on their website...Scott Brown is the new Senator for Massachusetts. Fantastic news!
More reaction when TheEye wakes up tomorrow.
UPDATE 03:40 Excellent Tweet from lefty film critic, Roger Ebert: "Massachusetts to Teddy: F--k you." Ha, ha, ha! And on that note...
Read more...
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Scott Brown For Mass.?
…no matter how you slice the data, the only reasonable conclusion is that Scott Brown has moved from well behind to a lead somewhere between 4 and 11 points.However, things may not be going as smoothly as all that. The election is still within the margin of ACORN - take, for example, this YouTube video showing a woman handing out blank absentee forms.
…Perhaps you only trust non-partisan polls. Then the Brown lead is 6.8 points.
Maybe you are a Dem, who doesn’t trust the Republican pollsters. Then Brown leads by 6.5 points.
Or you are a Dem who doesn’t trust the non-partisan pollsters either and who does believe in the leaks from the Coakley campaign. Then Brown’s lead is 3.8 points.
Or you are a Rep who trusts GOP and nonpartisan polls only. Then Brown leads by 11.3.
Concerns about infringements of electoral law are already coming in. Election Journal reports, for instance, that “reports are pouring in from across the city of Boston that Martha Coakley signs have been placed inside the 150 foot buffer zone mandated by Commonwealth Law.
And it appears that the Boston Globe published the results of today’s elections, while people were still voting. The Globe says they “tested” their map which sounds like a plausible explanation, but as a commenter at Free Republic points out, you’ve got to wonder what it says about The Globe that it tested the map with Coakley winning the race, while Brown is leading in every single poll.However if the race is so close, why aren’t Coakley supporters worried?
Whatever the result, TheHill asks here (and gives the answers of a variety of pundits from the sensible to the clinically insane) the question: How will Democrats/Republicans spin a loss if their party's candidate loses in the Massachusetts Senate race?
If Scott Brown wins, though, we should really looking forward to the brouhaha over swearing him in and seating him. That will be fun.
Asked for her response to the election to replace the late and unlamented Ted Kennedy, it seems that Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.
GOP/Dem graphic hat-tip ConHome, links from a variety of blogs Read more...
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The Left Are Running Scared
n any ordinary US Presidential cycle, the Vice Presidential pick on a losing ticket would have long since sunk into obscurity a year since an election. However the last election was not ordinary, and neither was the Republican choice for VP.
Sarah Palin energised the battered Republican Party, established some solid conservative credentials and put down a firm marker for a future bid for the top job. Indeed, even three years out from the ejection from office of One-Term Barry and in a crowded Republican field of contenders, she is already in comfortably positive polling territory (59% to 21%) of GOP voters knowing that she shares their values. As yesterday's men Huckabee and Romney fade, and if she choses to, she'll be an early frontrunner for the GOP slot in 2012. She's smart, articulate and dynamic.
All of which is why the Left...on both sides of the Pond...fear her above all other candidates. Witness the front cover of tomorrows edition of the vanity-publishing rag that is the New Statesman. If the Left is at daggers drawn so early and so nastily then she's got to be doing something right.
Imagine the outcry if a magazine which is circulated (although largely unread in the case of The Staggers) nationwide did a similar hatchet-job on Michelle Obama or Nancy Pelosi? There would be outrage, wailing and gnashing of socialist teeth. Remember, children: pictures of Barack Hussein Obama as a monkey or death threats BAD, pictures of George Walker Bush as a monkey or death threats FINE. In fact, the media even tried to spin threats against Obama as somehow being Palin's fault.
If she thinks it's bad right now, there'll be getting a lot more misogynistic hostility to come before 2012. Read more...
Have You Seen This Man?
Have You Seen This Man? used to proclaim the old Wild West Wanted posters. This isn't quite in the same league, but:
Using sophisticated digital enhancement techniques, the FBI today published "aged progressed" mug shots of Osama bin Laden and 17 other top terrorists wanted by the U.S. FBI forensic artists produce an enhanced image of the top terrorist.
One version of bin Laden shows him with a full head of wavy gray and black hair, and a trim beard. No previous photo had shown him without a headdress covering his hair.
The second "aged processed" mug shot of bin Laden shows him with the long flowing beard that has been his trademark, although much grayer than previously seen.
Most of these pictures are from State Department's Rewards for Justice website. See if you can spot the odd one out.
So is he dead or isn't he? It would be a massive blow to America’s prestige for bin Laden to actually show up and be filmed somewhere - with witnesses and in some confirmable way. Odd, then, that the only way he contacts the world is through unverifiable audio recordings.
As we've all heard now, the US government has withdrawn the age-enhanced image of Osama Bin Laden after admitting it was partly based on a photo of a Spanish nobody called Gaspar Llamazares, a Communist deputy in the Spanish Congress.
Llamazares is an ex-leader of Spain’s United Left coalition, and they are now crying "conspiracy" simply because he is a fellow traveller on the trendy anti-US anti-war bandwagon. They can't seem to grasp that nobody had ever heard of him before yesterday, no-one cares who he is now, and that he was just a decent Googled match for a likely fringe and forehead.
TheEye feels sorry for him in a way. Decades of nobly working away on a succession of holier-than-thou lefty causes, a few quid in his not-very-socialist offshore bank account from the Comintern....and now he realises that his gravestone and epitaph will simply read: "Gaspar Llamazares: A useful forehead"
Either that, or he really is bin Laden in hiding and is terrified that he's been rumbled. Stranger things have happened.
Read more...
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Gordoom Wants To Help The Middle Classes
Stop laughing at the back there. Yes, McDoom (for it is he) has just made a series of ridiculous promises in a speech leaked trailed spun announced to the BBC here. As it was billed in the BBC headline as "targetting" the middle classes, you'd have thought that it was typical Labour class-war-as-usual, but no, you're going to be allowed a larger house for them to tax and inspect at will (remember that Labour tax on having a nice view from your window? Well now they're going to let you have more windows to pay through). When Johnny Taxpayer needs to get out of the country to escape the chaos and the deepest, longest recession in the G20, you're now going to be encouraged to go and spend money in countries whose economies have two things in common....they are recovering and they don't have Brown running them. Actually, that's one thing.
Of course it's not being spun like that, and the BBC will have a different take on it, doubtless. If you can bear the sound of his voice, behold Saul on the road to Damascus.
However those with sharp eyes (or a better-financed upbringing) may recognise his tie. Class war, eh? Or perhaps it's a satirical gesture to don the OE neckwear.
The funniest part of the speech, doubtless unintended, was McDoom referring to Bliar as "my friend". Hah! Wait until he drops you in it at the Cullen Inquiry....
UPDATE: The excellent ToryTotty carries this quote from our Prime Mentalist: "Wherever there is unfairness, wherever there is poverty, or illiteracy or disease or discrimination, the British people and their Labour government are always prepared to stand on the side of justice" before she, well, basically dissolves into an elegant version of fits of uncontrollable giggling. Somehow TheEye thinks that the link to ToryTotty by Iain Dale today will generate more traffic than from here (and they'll like what they see).
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Three Cheers For The Freedom Of Information Act
It's hard to think of many things which the Labour Party have done to brighten our lives, but the Freedom of Information Act was one of the few. The law of unintended consequences inevitably kicked in when the Act was passed and it was used to expose socialist wrongdoing at all levels, but it also produced some gems. This blog is following up on a few at the moment, and very interesting the results have been too.
This letter was emailed to TheEye by our co-conspirator here St Crispin (thanks, St C) and was a FoI success story. It begs the inquiry though...if this letter was the answer, what on earth was the question?
Pots And Kettles
In fact, there are so many inappropriate comments that Ihatethemadia is thinking of opening The Liberal Bigot Hall of Fame to honour the best of the best.
Of course, Robert Byrd (Democrat - West Virginia) would be everyones unanimous first round selection into the Hall.
So here, just to prove a point that if you have an (D) next to your name you can get away with saying something which would have an (R) politician hung out to dry, are 20 remarkably bigoted comments made by well known people on the Left in the US.
“You’d find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they’d just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva.”
- Senator Fritz Hollings
Blacks and Hispanics are “too busy eating watermelons and tacos” to learn how to read and write.”
- Mike Wallace - CBS News
“In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and [there] were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master … exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him. Colin Powell’s committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.”
- Harry Belafonte
“A handkerchief-head, chicken-and-biscuit-eating Uncle Tom.”
- Spike Lee referring to Clarence Thomas
“Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”
- Robert Byrd
“I am a former kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County and the adjoining counties of the state …. The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia …. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state of the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan in the Realm of W. Va …. I hope that you will find it convenient to answer my letter in regards to future possibilities.”
- Robert Byrd
“I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”
- Lyndon B. Johnson
“You f*cking Jew b@stard.”
- Hillary Clinton
‘Hymietown.’
- Jesse Jackson describing New York City
“Jews — that’s J-E-W-S.”
- State Senator Bill McKinney explaining why his daughter Cynthia lost in 2002
“Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them.”
- Mary Frances Berry, Chairwoman, US Commission on Civil Rights
The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years.”
- Louis Farrakhan
“White folks was in caves while we was building empires… We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”
- Rev. Al Sharpton
“The white race is the cancer of human history.”
- Susan Sontag
These negros, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they’ve never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness.
- LBJ
“I am not going to use the federal government’s authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnic homogeneous neighborhoods.”
- Jimmy Carter
I mean, you’ve got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
- Joe Biden (referring to Barack Obama)
List is a compilation from more at Black-and-Right and Ihatethemedia
Michael Mann Still Raking In The Cash
In the end it turns out that one of the main beneficiaries is the crook at the top, "Doctor" Michael Mann - one of the central players behind the fraud perpetrated on the global community by the Warmist movement. Despite being largely swept under the carpet by the dead-tree press on both sides of the Atlantic (who remembers or has even heard about the parallel fraud uncovered in Australia and New Zealand) the e-mail scandal is still rattling on with Mann remaining under investigation at Pennsylvania State University. Quite how objective will that investigation now be? Not very, one would imagine, as he's bringing them a massive half a million dollars of Stimulus cash.
The National Center for Public Research tells us:
In the face of rising unemployment and record-breaking deficits, policy experts at the National Center for Public Policy Research are criticizing the Obama Administration for awarding a half million dollar grant from the economic stimulus package to Penn State Professor Michael Mann, a key figure in the Climategate controversy.The Situmulus money was all about saving jobs. Specifically the jobs of one Barack Hussein Obama and a few hundred Democrat lawmakers. It looks as though Doctor Fraud has added his name to that list.
“It’s outrageous that economic stimulus money is being used to support research conducted by Michael Mann at the very time he’s under investigation by Penn State and is one of the key figures in the international Climategate scandal. Penn State should immediately return these funds to the U.S. Treasury,” said Tom Borelli, Ph.D., director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project.
Professor Mann is currently under investigation by Penn State University because of activities related to a closed circle of climate scientists who appear to have been engaged in agenda-driven science. Emails and documents mysteriously released from the previously-prestigious Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom revealed discussions of manipulation and destruction of research data, as well as efforts to interfere with the peer review process to stifle opposing views. The motivation underlying these efforts appears to be a coordinated strategy to support the belief that mankind’s activities are causing global warming.
“It’s no wonder that Obama’s stimulus plan is failing to produce jobs. Taxpayer dollars aren’t being used in the ways most likely to spur job creation. The stimulus was not sold to the public as a way to reward a loyalist in the climate change debate. Nor was the stimulus sold as a way to promote the Obama Administration’s position on the global warming theory. This misuse of stimulus money illustrates why tax cuts are a better way to stimulate the economy than letting the government decide where to spend taxpayer dollars. As is often the case, political considerations corrupt the distribution of government funds,” said Deneen Borelli, a fellow with the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network.
“Mann’s credentials as a climate change alarmist seems to fit the political criteria for stimulus funds sometimes known as ‘Obama money’,” added Deneen Borelli.
Thanks to Daniel for pointing TheEye towards the picture.
Read more...
Friday, January 15, 2010
< Insert A Tenuous Beaver Joke Here >
"CANADA'S second-oldest magazine, The Beaver, is changing its name after 90 years because the title is too often censored by online porn filters, preventing it from reaching new online readers.If it had been published in Scunthorpe the title would have been changed years ago.
The Winnipeg-based magazine was launched in 1920 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Hudson's Bay Company and the fur trade that led to the early exploration of Canada. But in modern times, the term "beaver'' has become slang for women's genitals.
"The Beaver was an impediment online,'' publisher Deborah Morrison said. "Several readers asked us to change the title because their spam filters at home or at work were blocking it,'' she said. "I've even had emails bounce back because I had inadvertently typed the term in the heading.''
"Nearly a century ago, it probably seemed the perfect name for a magazine about the fur trade and Canada's northwest frontier. There was only one interpretation for the word then. "But you're likely to find a lot of (porn) sites now if you search for the title of our history magazine online,'' she said.
Print subscriptions to the Winnipeg-based magazine, which publishes six issues a year, range between 45,000 and 50,000. It is published by Canada's National History Society.
The magazine that chronicles Canada's past will publish its last issue under the old banner in February/March. Thereafter, it will be known under the less evocative name of Canada's History.
Apologies: a return to serious blogging as soon asTheEye's post New Year current bout of frivolity succumbs to the depressing weather. Read more...
Floor Collapses At Swedish Weight Watchers Clinic
The floor of a Weight Watchers clinic in Växjö in south central Sweden collapsed on Wednesday night beneath a group of about 20 participants in the weight-loss programme.
The Weight Watchers participants had gathered in the group’s facilities to see how much weight they had lost. As it turned out, however, people’s weight was not the only thing to fall.
“We suddenly heard a huge thud; we almost thought it was an earthquake and everything flew up in the air. The floor collapsed in one corner of the room and along the walls,” one of the participants told the Smålandsposten newspaper.
Then floor then started to give way in other parts of the room. Shortly thereafter, the smell of sewage began to waft up into the room.
Pure genius. Read more...
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