Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Non-Jobs (An Occasional Series) Pt.543


The Lawn Tennis Association will get £26m of our money between 2009-13. It's a wonderful investment...just when we thought we'd got rid of one miserable republican Scot in politics it seems we've got no choice but to suffer another one at Wimbledon. 

And what results do we get for this money? We lost in the Davis Cup to Lithuania in March. Bloody Lithuania. The country with the highest murder rate in the EU and the second highest suicide rate in the world. Understandable, though, that the men have strong forearms and flexible wrists ideal for tennis...with the sixth fastest download speeds in the world.

But never fear, the LTA has got its priorities right. Our bunch of losers are going to be drawn from an ethnically diverse bunch of losers.



And in the Guardian, too. What a surprise. You're paying for that.

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Mystery Of The Windmill That Didn't Bark

...with apologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for the post title. But surely this is a mystery which can only be solved by Sherlock Holmes? An endangered red kite is found dead beneath an environmentally friendly windmill and yet its death is a mystery.
The carcass of the rare red kite was discovered at the Fairburn wind farm in Ross-shire. It was examined by a Scottish Agricultural College vet and was found to have suffered bruising and fractures consistent with an impact.
Not to worry, the authorities are on top of the case:
A SSE [Scottish and Southern Energy] spokeswoman said last night: "As soon as we were aware of this incident we notified the authorities, including the RSPB [Royal Society for the Protection of Birds]. Since then we have been carrying out extensive investigations into what caused the death of this red kite and how it ended up at the bottom of one of the turbines. These investigations are still ongoing."
Despite the windmill being guaranteed as "harmless to wildlife" by the same bureaucrats who tell us these hideous monstrosities can generate electricity efficiently, Aedán Smith of the RSPB believes he's found the culprit - and the solution:
"Evidence suggests that the kite is most likely to have been killed by collision with a turbine. … We will continue to work closely with SSE and others to find ways of reducing the risk to red kites and other birds from wind farms still further. I hope that we will also be able to secure additional funding to help this threatened species."
So the way to "do something", which is inevitably the cry these days, is "additional funding", which - like Romeo and Juliet, Fred and Ginger, Sooty and Sweep - is the traditional accompanying phrase.

The fact is that if you build windmills, this happens. As this vulture finds out. Ouch...



Hat-tip to Moonbattery

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iPhones

If one more person within brick-throwing range of TheEye gets an iPhone there may be trouble. And if you really must have one, disable the email footer which says "sent from my iPhone". It makes you look like a poser tool.

To the regular commenter who sends in such emails....you know this means you. Stop it.

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Monday, June 28, 2010

Robert Byrd Is Dead

So, Democrat ex-KKK "Kleagle" US Senator Robert Byrd, the longest-serving member of Congress in history and walking advert for term-limits, has died aged 92.

Because he was a Democrat, Obama groupie and all round lefty, he was by default a cheerful cheeky chappie of the type so beloved of the BBC and oh-so-tolerant Guardian readers:
I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side… 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.
Considering he's just died of course we'd expect people to be respectful and light a candle cross but that doesn't merit reducing a whole dimension of his bigoty and intolerance to just one single sentence on the BBC....

The BBC says:
As a young man, Mr Byrd was for a brief period a member of the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan and also joined Southern Democrats in an unsuccessful filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Just a second, haven't I read that somewhere else?

The Associated Press says:
As a young man, we was a member of the Ku Klux Klan for a brief period, and he joined Southern Democrats in an unsuccessful filibuster against the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Which goes to show that you can get to be 92 and infirm but the full BBC research team won't write your obituary; they'll just use copy from elsewhere.

Hopefully they'll bury him face down so he can see where he’s going.

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Sunday, June 27, 2010

We Are Not Amused...

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Saturday, June 26, 2010

Paying For Your Korean Feud

The year is Juch 99, which means that we must be in North Korea. And there's a bar tab to settle.

The snappily titled "Committee for Investigation into Damage Done by the U.S. to the Northern Half of Korea" has taken out its pencil and beermat, thought for a while and "summed up all human and material damage brought by the U.S. imperialists to the northern half of Korea for the past six decades since they landed in south Korea on Sept. 8, 1945."

They are claiming that the cost of US involvement since the peninsula was divided in 1945 is about  $US64,959,854 million and change - a demand coming purely by chance on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the start of the 1950-1953 Korean War.

KCNA said the $US65 trillion figure includes $US26.1 trillion arising from "atrocities" by the "U.S. imperialist ogres" which left more than 5 million North Koreans dead, wounded, kidnapped or missing - and caused the death of precisely "369,101 cattle and 764,604 pigs" and loss of "40,755,640 volumes of ancient and old books".

It doesn't look as though the North Koreans are hanging around in the hope of a cheque...they are still trying to "build a great prosperous and powerful socialist nation on this land without fail". Which is, by all accounts, coming along as successfully as the shithole that is Cuba. Maybe they should wait for their money though. The way Barack Hussein Obama is spending money and cuddling up to the enemies of the USA he might just be tempted to write them a massive cheque.

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Poetic Crime

An all too familiar story followed by some unintentional black humour from today's Daily Telegraph:
Imran Khan, 19, an amateur cricketer boxer, and Somalian Abdul Said, 21, took 20 seconds to smash open a shop window in Ilford, Essex with a pickaxe and a sledgehammer. Sayid Mohammed, 20, and Adama Belle, 19, put jewellery worth £9,000 into pillow cases. 
Great British names, as Al Murray would say.
But the getaway driver, Mohammed Alasow, 19, had managed to forget to fill up his Rover and the car came to a halt in the middle of the road in Beckton, east London.  
Fail. But look at those ages again before you read that:
... jailed Said and fellow Somalian Alasow - who between them have committed 69 previous offences - for eight years and seven and a half years respectively.
 But the crowning glory, the bits that made oi larf...
An unwitting police officer on routine patrol stopped to assist the gang...

Alasow, speaking in rhyme, told the jury he was in the area trying to buy the stationary getaway car from Belle.
A Somali defendant convicted 69 times aged only 19, who is allowed to deliver his testimony in gangsta rap. It's probably part of his efnik culcha, innit? And rather than being deported (which is bound to be against his 'uman rights') we are now paying for him to play bite-the-prison-pillow for seven  and a half years? You're not telling us that is cheaper than a one way ticket to Mogadishu, surely?

Despair.

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Armed Forces Day 2010

Today on the second annual Armed Forces Day, Britain is demonstrating its support for the nation's servicemen.

More than 350 events have been organised across the country to honour troops past, present and future, and 50,000 people are expected to join a national event in Cardiff to be attended by the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the outgoing head of the Armed Forces Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, and Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox.

BZ to those past and present.

Remember, too, those for whom the leaving routine will never be completed.



(Video soldiers only, so apologies to the Senior Service and to the 100 Year Experiment)

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Obscure Battles Of Our Time: Obama vs Lady Gaga

It's the ultimate in "news that you don't give a toss about but need to know in case it comes up at next weeks pub quiz". If it does, you'll thank me.

Lady Gaga is now positioned to be the next big challenger to President Obama. It’s not exactly a race either necessarily chose to enter, but the Facebook pages of the president and the sequined pop phenomenon are deadlocked in a competition to become the first living person to hit the record-busting 10-million fan mark on Facebook.


Obama’s page was beating Lady Gaga’s in the unofficial contest Friday morning, but by noon, Lady Gaga’s 9,126,024 fans had surpassed the president’s 9,104,015. Meredith Chin, a corporate communications manager for the social networking site, tells Fox News that either of them could reach 10-million fans by later today, or this weekend.


Facebook says the next runner up in the race to become the first living person to have over 10 million fans is actor Vin Diesel (at 9,047,448), with actress Megan Fox (at 7,666,005) at a distant fourth. Late singer Michael Jackson holds the all time record for the most fans at over 13 million.

TheEye has dipped a toe into this Facebook thingy but is (as usual) getting rapidly bored with the whole thing. Gave up on the blog Twitter about two years ago as well, but steadily and even in the last few days random people keep starting to follow it for no understandable reason. People are odd.

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Friday, June 25, 2010

"Spending Challenge" Ideas Muster Here

The Treasury has just launched a website yesterday (how's that Government website culling going? Not so well, apparently) where civil servants can submit ideas about how to save cash. The plan is that the site will be opened up to the general public on 8th July.

The Spending Challenge is your chance to shape the way government works, and help us get more for less as we try to bring down the deficit. It’s open initially to people who work in our public sector.
This week’s Budget set out a 25 per cent cut in spending for most departments over four years. Now, we want you to help us find those savings so we can cut public spending in a way that is fair and responsible. You work on the frontline of public services. You know where things are working well, where the waste is, and where we can re-think things so that we get better services for less money.
The action list is robust and impressive:
  1. All ideas considered by cross-government team
  2. Serious ideas go to 'champions' team in Cabinet Office/Treasury
  3. Most promising ideas sent to departments and Treasury spending teams to be worked up
  4. Selected ideas reviewed by Ministers
  5. Spending Review announced October 20th
This means that your perfectly sensible idea to stop giving money to African dictators or countries with their own space program will get ditched at (1) but suggestions to power the UK using carbon-free unicorn farts are guaranteed at least stage (4).

To get an idea of the drivel on there, consider today's "update":

Day two in the Big Brother house of Spending Challenge and your ideas are still coming in thick and fast, which is fantastic. One of the themes that’s been developing from the many comments we’ve received so far is how we can best use recycling techniques to save money and help to save the environment as well.
Oh, good grief. TheEye only skimmed the rest of it...an idea to make notes on waste paper rather than notepads was typical...before giving up and sobbing quietly. Turning off monitors is all very well, but TheEye wants two new aircraft carriers and that just won't cut the financial mustard.

So TheEye has just claimed to be working at a senior level for Business Secretary St Vince and suggested that the department is a pointless self serving ego-trip, and forget the cuts already announced - close us down.

If it happens, the conspiracy began here.

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A Classic "This Week"

As usual, we liveblogged Question Time last night, followed by the always dreadful This Week. For those who don't follow it, Michael Portillo confuses the eyes with his salmon tinted shirts, Diane Abbott stares longingly at the ceiling lusting after a massive pie only just out of reach John Ward), and Andrew Neil often appears half cut on his favourite 'Blue Nun'.

However there was apparently a major falling out behind the scenes a few weeks ago when Abbott objected to being questioned by Neil on the hypocrisy of private school arrangements for her spawn. This week saw the continuation....eye-rolling taken to new levels and Brillo really putting the boot in to the crabby communist.

Watch for Portillo's reaction. Priceless.



The Youtube found at Guido's but if you missed it live you missed the moment. Hopefully see you here at the LiveBlog next week...

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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Question Time LiveBlog 24th June 2010


Question Time tonight comes from Glasgow, where in 2006 the Centre for Social Justice reported that 29.4% of the city's working-age residents were "economically inactive" and where the city council has been controlled by Labour for over 30 years. Coincidence?

On the panel we have the halo-tarnished Business Secretary St Vince of Cable (let's see if the BBC love him these days) the shadow education secretary Ed "Blinky" Balls, the leader of the Green Party Caroline Lucas MP, Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens, and the founder of lastminute.com Brent Hoberman.

For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, we will be using the Coalition Bashing (Budget) Rules (2010 Volume3) which means that 'Bank Levy', 'VAT' and 'hit the poor' will only score if played with your Evil Tories joker. 'Capital Gains Tax' is wild and references to 'Thatcher' are worth triple points if in the same sentence as 'cuts'. Getting 'Dead Rotting In The Streets' on your card is an instant win.

As usual the LiveBlog will also cover the entertainingly awful This Week, which sees the deadly duo of Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott reunited in glorious widescreen.

TheEye and David Mosque will be standing on the shoulders of giants here from 10:30pm.

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RIP: Edith Shain



Edith Shain was the anonymous nurse photographed being kissed in Times Square, New York, celebrating the end of the Second World War in 1945. On Sunday last, she died, aged 91.

The iconic VJ Day picture by Alfred Eisenstaedt was published in Life magazine, but the identity of the nurse in the photograph was not known until the late 1970s when Shain wrote to Eisenstaedt to say that she was the woman in the picture. It was taken on 14 August 1945 when she had been working at Doctor's Hospital in New York.

The identity of the sailor who kissed her is still unknown.

The photograph made its mark on Shain's life, as her subsequent celebrity led to invitations to war-related events including wreath layings, parades and other memorial ceremonies. Her son Justin Decker said in a statement: "My mom was always willing take on new challenges, and caring for the World War 2 veterans energised her to take another chance to make a difference."

Shain, who died at her home in Los Angeles on Sunday, leaves three sons, six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Rest In Peace

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

With Friends Like These (Oil Edition)

The indispensable Fars News reports that Iranian Revolutionary Guard members have offered to help Barack Obama with the Gulf oil slick.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast underlined Tehran’s technical capability to help the US control the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and said Tehran is ready to study Washington’s request for help in this regard.
“The issue will be studied if the US administration asks for it,” Mehman-Parast said in his weekly press conference here in Tehran today, stressing that Iran has the required expertise and skillful human resources in this ground.
The spokesman said that resolving the problem of the oil spill and the resulting slick in the Gulf of Mexico is a humanitarian issue that encourages all countries to provide the necessary aids to reduce the vast and drastic effects of the incident on the environment.
The remarks by Mehman-Parast came a day after The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced that its experts are prepared to control the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“The experience of Iranians’ presence in curbing oil spills in a number of neighboring states in the Persian Gulf, such as Kuwait, demonstrates Iranian capabilities and skills and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps is ready to help curb the oil spill (in the Gulf of Mexico),” Commander of the IRGC’s Khatam ol-Anbia Headquarters General Rostam Qassemi stated.
Qassemi reminded the environmental threat posed by the oil spill to the Caribbean states and nations, and stated, “Despite new sanctions, the IRGC is prepared to fulfill its humanitarian duty in this regard and use its exclusive and indigenous capability in the Gulf of Mexico.”

All we need now is for the North Koreans to volunteer their help and the place really will fall apart.

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Football's Coming Home

Remember this Super Soaraway Sun headline from last December?


Well, in the words of the Prophet Jagger: "You Can't Always Get What You Want", so it's down to England against Slovenia in the crunch match today.

TheEye is, though, looking forward to his regular Wednesday early evening poker game and the result can wait until afterwards. Don't phone, don't text.

Hat-tip to Morus on Twitter for the pic

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Ask yourself this question Mr. Obama


Are you more popular than General Stanley McChrystal?

Hhmmm, close one isn't it? Maybe when you were on the crest of your liberal "yes we can" wave you were, but this man has been slogging it out in the heat & dirt (and that's just Washington & the Pentagon). Plus he is seen as very competent not just by his own soldiers but by those of the other coalition members. That makes him fairly bomb proof.

Role the dice Mr. Obama. We would love to see the outcome!

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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

High-Yield Agriculture Slows Pace Of Global Warming

Isn't it nice to know that the eco-loons and diehard fanatics of organic farming are actually damaging the environment? This will put the sandal-wearers in a bit of a spot.

Advances in high-yield agriculture over the latter part of the 20th century have prevented massive amounts of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere – the equivalent of 590 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide – according to a new study led by two Stanford Earth scientists.

The yield improvements reduced the need to convert forests to farmland, a process that typically involves burning of trees and other plants, which generates carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

The researchers estimate that if not for increased yields, additional greenhouse gas emissions from clearing land for farming would have been equal to as much as a third of the world's total output of greenhouse gases since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 1850.

But to the bearded weirdies improving farming techniques and boosting food production is bad, of course, because it is done by wicked capitalists. *sigh*

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The Reality Of Spain

Sent to TheEye by a Spanish reader...and not very politically correct at all, so presumably emailed on the tenuous basis that they are allowed to say it about themselves but no-one else is.

Click to enlarge:

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Monday, June 21, 2010

Anti-Israel Protestors Picket Chinese Ship

In news of amusing incompetence, a group of lefties, fellow-travellers and Islamists tried to blockade a ship owned by Zim Lines, a shipping company is based in Israel, that arrived in Oakland harbour yesterday. Unfortunately for them they picked the wrong ship. The one they protested in front of was actually Chinese, and the Israeli ship didn’t arrive until 6pm, well after most of the protesters went home.

Marvellously, they didn't realise. Epic fail.
Some 500 anti-Israel protestors arrived at the Oakland, California port early Sunday morning, hoping to block an Israeli ship from unloading its cargo. However, the ship did not arrive, and the crowd prevented workers from unloading a Chinese ship instead.

The protestors say they were protesting the recent Israel-Turkey flotilla incident, though they displayed great ignorance about what actually happened; one of them even compared barely armed Israeli Defense Forces troops with Somali pirates.

“Free, free Palestine! Don’t cross the picket line!” the picketers shouted – and in fact, the longshoremen chose not to clash with them, for fear of “getting into fistfights,” a union leader said. No one was arrested.

The Israeli ship arrived only at 6 PM, more than 12 hours after the protestors, but by that time most of the latter had left.
The video made by the protestors, of course, makes no mention of any of this (love the lengthy references to demonstrators missing the demo to watch the World Cup in 'liberated' SAfrica). Don't bother watching it unless you're bored; it's only here for evidence value of their knuckle-dragging boneheadedness and not for any enlightmentment value.




Hat-tip to GatewayPundit

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Vive La France! (Except on Fridays)

Last Friday was the 70th anniversary of General Charles de Gaulle’s famous 1940 “Appeal of June 18” from London calling on the French to resist the German occupation of their country. An excellent occasion for a party to celebrate that France is (currently) unoccupied and free, ce n'est pas?  Except that it isn't.

The currently occupying forces decreed that a party in Paris scheduled for last week couldn't be allowed:
A giant “sausage and wine” party planned later this week in a Paris neighbourhood with many Muslim residents risks sparking disturbances and will therefore be banned, police in the French capital announced on Tuesday.
The French have weighed up their competing traditions of food'n'wine versus surrender, and gone with the second one.
The event, announced on the social networking site Facebook late last month, had drawn growing criticism from politicians and civic groups in recent days as its page containing barely disguised anti-Muslim slogans attracted over 7,000 members.
Let's put aside Reuters' definition of 'slogans' for a second and ask - why the idea for a street party?
The main organiser, Sylvie Francois, wrote that she wanted the event to be “a joyous protest” against the closing down of roads in the Goutte d’Or neighbourhood every Friday by Muslims praying in the street outside the overcrowded mosque there.

So how is this mini-reclaiming of the streets going to be sustained? In some outrageous way? No, with traditional local food.
The Facebook page also appeared to signal the party’s thrust with appeals to “native Parisians” and complaints about “the resolute foes of our local wines and pork products.”
Ah, those will be what Reuters call "barely disguised anti-Muslim slogans". They were too well disguised for a casual reader, to be sure. So a glass of Sancerre is unacceptable in France nowadays, it appears.
The event, called an “apero geant” (giant cocktail party), was due on Friday, a date seen as highly provocative because that will be the day of the weekly Muslim prayer and the World Cup soccer match between England and majority Muslim Algeria.
So now no parties are allowed in France on prayer days or days when Algeria plays a game of football, it seems. Let's hope that if you live there that your birthday doesn't fall on a Friday this year

C'est des conneries! And for the insulte finale...
In a statement before the ban was announced, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said the party was “clearly inspired by extreme right-wing movements” and seemed to be “designed to degenerate, possibly into violence.”
Violence with sausages. On the plus side, there's always the possible spectacle of Franceistan resuming its tradition of public beheadings.

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Sunday, June 20, 2010

Downfall Of The Vuvuzela

A good find by the always entertaining Norton Folgate and spotted via Cato's place - even Hitler wasn't impressed by the background noise at the World Cup...





As Norton Folgate points out, the locals haven't absorbed the real teaching moments from Rourke's Drift.

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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Saturday Night Jukebox: The Three Terrors

All Seeing Eye is delighted to present The Three Terrors In Concert, with their catchy little number Jihad is Sweet, Jihad is Fun.

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Chris Huhne Not Gay Shocker



The breaking story currently buzzing on the newswire is that Chris Huhne has been exposed as being a straight LibDem. Colleagues are reacting with shock. Mark Oaten has probably put down his rent boys for half an hour to digest his disgust at this quite unforeseen development.

By straying into heterosexual scandals, the LibDems are showing again that anything the Conservatives can do, they can do better. It's an audacious move; putting their tanks on a lawn so often considered a field of endeavour where the Conservative Party is justly famous and internationally appreciated.

The Telegraph will doubtless be taking their ExpenseGate hard disk out of its fireproof safe at this very moment and looking for any hint that Huhne has bought Carina Trimingham as much as a bunch of flowers, but for now the political world remains stunned that it's not just Nick Cleggover who can get some.

In further Wesminster rumours; it is whispered that Eric Pickles and Sarah Teather are an item. Watch this space...

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Renew Your Gun Licence - by iPhone

In a surprising burst of making-stuff-easier-ness, Sussex police are creating a number of iPhone apps for the public, including one to renew your gun licence. Unsurprisingly, the plan has got the anti-gun groups upset. They obviously want the process to be as annoying, bureaucratic and expensive as possible; presumably in the hope that a bit of paperwork every year or so is going to make you throw away your pair of James Purdey handcrafted 1871 12 bore hammer guns with island back rebounding lock action and Jones' rotary under lever.

Predictable hand-wringing is being led by a group of self-righteous do-gooders called Mothers Against Murder and Aggression (MAMAA). You always get a hit on the BullshitOMeter whenever a campaigning group combines the words "Mothers" and "Against" in their name.

Spokesweasel Lyn Costello said "This isn't suitable, especially in light of what happened in Cumbria. We've got to be extra careful giving gun licenses. We have this attitude that gun murders don't happen very often so it's OK to be lax, but it is not OK and we've got to do everything in our power to stop it happening again. We can't put money before life and if you start to do that we are losing our humanity. It is a really stupid idea."

This is of course a perfectly sensible attitude to take. After all, everyone knows that guns actually contain demons which possess any person unfortunate enough to come into contact with them. Radioactive demons, with large carbon footprints. They also eat sea kittens.

Lyn (may I call you Lyn? Thanks), feel free to stick your hand-wringing nonsense where a shotgun would only fit with a lot of effort. Any attempt to make the dead hand of the State easier to deal with, even in the slightest way, is an unexpected bonus. Two cheers, then, to Sussex plod.

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The Raft Journal

Regular readers of the blogs featured on All Seeing Eye's blogroll will be familiar with the witty and sharp musings of WomanOnARaft.

A regular in Post Comments just about everywhere, and a frequent denizen of the Question Time LiveBlog it was only a matter of time before she started a blog of her own. So please visit and enjoy...

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The Real Reason We're In Afghanistan: AGW

On Wednesday, General David Petraeus appeared before Congress to brief them on the situation Afghanistan, which has just passed Vietnam to become the longest war in US history. Two more American soldiers lost their lives in Afghanistan today, which makes 33 killed in June so far.

So, what was Congresswoman Giffords (D-AZ) interested in when she got her turn to question the General? Well, first she rattled on that the US Air Force is the largest user of energy on the planet, and that Department of Defense(sic) uses the most energy in the United States. Her question was in light of the oil spill, whether he would be installing trendy renewable energy thingies at military bases in Afghanistan.

In the video, General Petraeus copes with it very professionally. He's visibly stunned by the stupid question but rallies manfully - pointing out very diplomatically that hydro-power is limited in a desert (the clue being in the name) before swerving his answer around to the unrelated but militarily interesting topic of supply lines.

So this is why we really are in Afghanistan. Not for oil lithium defeating terrorism, but to put up windmills.



This all chimes in nicely with the views of her fellow Democrat, Senator Barbara Boxer, who said last week that not terrorism, not wars, not potential economic collapse, but climate change will be the leading cause of conflict for the next two decades.

“I’m going to put in the record … a host of quotes from our national security experts who tell us that carbon pollution leading to climate change will be over the next 20 years the leading cause of conflict, putting our troops in harm’s way,” Boxer said.

So every time you see another act of terrorism or conflict on the news...just remember...it's because they haven't installed double glazing there yet.

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Friday, June 18, 2010

Paying The EU Dues, TPA-Style

The TaxPayers' Alliance have released a new video today...okay a bit contrived but making a very valid point...in which they try (and fail) to pay the European Commission a cheque covering Britain's daily EU membership fee.

Somebody needs to tell "George Osborne" and "Danny Alexander" that the botox treatment didn't work, though.

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What Took You So Long? (Part 2)

In the comments on the previous post, that excellent chap 'banned' observed:


I share the view that Obama looked at this as a gift following the likely defeat of his  cap & trade nonsense; he has deliberately allowed the crisis to worsen to boost his Green Economy agenda. Thus far he has been successful.

Tuesday's over-hyped Oval Office address on the oil spill was a masterclass of style over substance, of posturing over leadership - and as 'banned' rightly says, did indeed push his Green Economy agenda to the exclusion of anything to do with the actual cleanup. This was not a speech about the oil spill, the aftermath, or recovery in the Gulf. It was a blatant sales pitch for Obama’s “green energy” agenda.

A breakdown of the 2,700ish words Obama used in his first Oval Office address shines a very interesting light on to his priorities. RedState separates the speech into four broad themes: an update the oil spill and clean up efforts; the impact on the Gulf region; a history of regulatory ineffectiveness (Bush bashing); and the case for his “green energy” agenda.

Here is how the sections break down in terms of words spoken on each:

• 345 words blaming Bush
• 418 words on the impact to Gulf region
• 778 words on the oilspill and cleanup efforts
• 863 words on Obama’s “green energy” agenda

Clearly, the president’s number one priority in making this speech was to make the case for his high tax, command and control, lifestyle changing, carbon regulating energy plan.
Moreover, Obama placed his 863 words on “green energy” at the end of his address. In so doing, the president orgnized the speech on the principles of inductive logic - in which the bad news comes first in order to soften the impact of the proposed solution. Everything which comes before his pitch for “green energy” is properly seen, then, as support for Obama’s proposal. The crisis, the impact, the lives of those affected, all props in Obama’s drive to remake the nation’s energy policy.
The speech, if you were abbreviating it for Twitter could go something like: “Let me be clear. Some oil spilled. But Katrina. And make no mistake. I’m having meetings. In conclusion, something about China. Windmills!”

The American public did not want ObamaCare (but they got it anyway) and now does not want Cap and Tax with added windmills; but they are going to have it all forced down their throats using the stick of this oil spill regardless....and be told to be grateful.

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What Took You So Long?

After 59 days, two vacations, a half dozen parties, concerts, a fundraiser he went to instead of the memorial service for the 11 dead rig workers, and several rounds of golf, Obama has finally ordered the military in to help deal with the oil spill.

It had even taken him 55 days even to accept help from the Netherlands, who had been straight on the phone when everything first went the Shape Of The Pear.

There were more important things in his diary....and the Republican National Committee (RNC) are finally getting their act together to point this out.



“Over the past 58 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded tragically killing 11 workers, President Obama and his administration have dithered while the worst ecological disaster in American history has unfolded, wreaking environmental and economic havoc up and down the Gulf Coast. 


Leadership from this White House has been severely lacking. Since April 20th when this catastrophe began, President Obama has made the time to play six rounds of golf, take two vacations, attend two concerts, and go on cross-country fundraising junkets but not to pick up the phone and speak directly with the executives of BP. The Administration’s number one priority needs to be stopping this leak, cleaning up the damage, finding out what went wrong, and making sure nothing like this ever happens again. 


The American people are looking for Presidential leadership during this time of crisis, not executive finger pointing or backroom political power-plays seeking to force through yet another unpopular Democratic proposal that would only devastate the economy even further.” – RNC Chairman Michael Steele

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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Tea Party Goes International

Proof if proof were needed that laissez-faire capitalism, low taxes and fewer regulations do indeed cross boundaries. The Tea Party phenomenon has started to go global.
As Tea Party protests pop up in places like Moscow, Tel Aviv and the Hague, Americans may question whether the Tea Party platform can cross international and cultural borders. For activists outside the U.S., the answer is a resounding "yes."
"I think the message of the American Revolution is global. The message of natural, unalienable rights, the message of opposition to tyrannical government -- that's not just well-known, that's universal," Boris Karpa, organizer of the Israeli Tea Party, told The Daily Caller in an e-mail. "As you know well, many countries have based their founding documents on the U.S. Declaration of Independence or other American documents."

The first person to spot an article along these lines and as positive as the Daily Caller on the BBC wins an egg.
As the movements grow, organizers hope they will coalesce into a transnational organization, especially in Europe, where much the political and decision-making power rests with the EU.

“More and more European parliamentarians want to introduce a European-wide tax system. We already gave up our immigration — the EU decides who gets into our country and who doesn’t,” Hofkamp said. “The Italian Tea Party and our party have good contact and we hope that more countries will follow. We are working on ideas to unite soon in Brussels, in front of the EU-parliament.”
It may be a slow and painful process, but people are re-learning that popular movements are not the exclusive domain of the Left.

Links to the Tea Party sites: Israel, Russia, Holland, Italy (news article).

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Question Time LiveBlog 17th June 2010


Question Time tonight comes from Witney, the Westminster seat of David Cameron, and famous only for having had a woollen blanket making industry...now closed.

On the first coalition Tory-free panel (no, Theresa May technically did count as one) we have Chris Huhne, Peter Hain, Jeffrey Donaldson, "Baroness" Helena Kennedy and Amanda Platell

For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, we'll be playing the Lord Servile Rules which means players may bring a sub-machine gun along but have to deny it afterwards. Nail-bombs will be confiscated at the door. Bonus points will be awarded for combinations of Palin and Thatcher on the same card, BP and Obama, Ed Balls and Loser, and also for any reference to Belgium.

As usual the LiveBlog will also cover the entertainingly awful This Week, presented by Brillo in cahoots with his "resident helper" Michael Portillo. No sign as yet if it'll be Flinty there for "balance".

David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be engaged in legitimate crowd control here from 10:30pm.

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Budget Cut Suggestion: Overseas Aid

One of the most stupid, short-sighted and unpopular pledges by the incoming Conservatives was the pledge to ring-fence the Overseas Aid budget. It was an idea so mind-bogglingly retarded that even the handwringing bearded weirdie LibDems didn't suggest it; which is saying something.

On the list of the poor and deserving of our largesse - China and India... both with their own space programmes.

Over the past 10 years we have given India alone a staggering £2 billion. Think Defence have crunched the numbers to tell us what we could have had instead.




Instead, for that money the Indians got one of these:



...paid for not once, not twice, but almost THREE TIMES over by our charity payments to this allegedly impoverished country. Its a disgrace and David Cameron must do something about it.

A jaunty tip of the panama to 13th Spitfire

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Saved By Whales

Let's start with a ridiculous theory and then play Spot The Motive to see why the Great Unwashed have suddenly picked up on it.

Firstly, a daft idea to cure the earth of the imaginary global warming crisis: whale droppings
Southern Ocean sperm whales are an unexpected ally in the fight against global warming, removing the equivalent carbon emissions from 40,000 cars each year thanks to their faeces, a study found on Wednesday.


The cetaceans have been previously fingered as climate culprits because they breathe out carbon dioxide (CO2), the commonest greenhouse gas.

Of course you also breathe out carbon dioxide and there are more humans than whales so You Are More Evil Than A Whale! Take that thought with you for the day....

But the whales can do something really cool. Something you can't do - unless maybe if you are Bono:


Australian biologists estimated that the estimated 12,000 sperm whales in the Southern Ocean each defecate around 50 tonnes of iron into the sea every year after digesting the fish and squid they hunt.

The iron is a terrific food for phytoplankton — marine plants that live near the ocean surface and which suck up CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

As a result of faecal fertilisation, the whales remove 400,000 tonnes of carbon each year, twice as much as the 200,000 tonnes of CO2 that they contribute through respiration.


Now we get to the spooky bit. Why has this come up all-of-a-sudden-by-accident? Yes, indeedy, it's the imminent resumption of limited whaling this week:

Industrialised whaling not only gravely threatened Southern Ocean sperm whales, it also damaged a major carbon "sink," the scientific term for something that removes more greenhouse gases than it produces… The future of sperm whales and other species comes under scrutiny next week in Agadir, Morocco, where the International Whaling Commission (IWC) discusses a plan to relax a 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling.
Its amazing that if you've got a liberal cause to fight that there is a good chance a spookily convenient scientific breakthrough will turn up at just the right moment, eh?

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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Jon Stewart On The Oil Spill

Jon Stewart is usually pretty good as far as American comedians go, and his take on the oil spill, BP and Obama is worth a few minutes to watch.

BP's "it depends on your definition of 'plume'" gives him a straight path into Lewinsky territory, but enjoy all of "The Spilling Fields".










UPDATE: Apologies; apparently this doesn't work everywhere and a quick scan of YouTube doesn't turn up a replacement. Corrected as an when possible.

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There Was Never An AGW Consensus

A top official with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has finally admitted what we all knew from the beginning - that there never was agreement on global warming and that only a few dozen scientists actually believed it.

From The National Post yesterday:
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony.
“Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous,” the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered “the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism.”
Hulme, Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia – the university of Climategate fame — is the founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and one of the UK’s most prominent climate scientists. Among his many roles in the climate change establishment, Hulme was the IPCC’s co-ordinating Lead Author for its chapter on ‘Climate scenario development’ for its Third Assessment Report and a contributing author of several other chapters.
Hulme’s depiction of IPCC’s exaggeration of the number of scientists who backed its claim about man-made climate change can be found on pages 10 and 11 of his paper, found here.
And to think, it was just two years ago junk scientist Al Gore was promising that the Pacific islands would all sink and the arctic ice cap would be melted entirely in 5 years.

They gave him a Peace Prize for that.

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Saturday, June 12, 2010

Nice EU Funded Work If You Can Get It...

From the BBC we are stunned to learn that "'Shady' porn site practices put visitors at risk".
Visitors to porn sites are at serious risk of being exploited by cyber criminals, a study has suggested.
...yadda yadda yadda....
Statistics suggest that approximately 12% of all websites offer pornography of one sort or another and that 70% of men under 24 browse these sites.
So what did these researchers student seekers after truth do?
As a first step the researchers trawled pornographic sites to classify what they found and how the industry was structured.
And they were being paid for this, presumably.
More than 90% of the 35,000 pornographic domains analysed in the study were free sites. The researchers analysed the 269,000 websites hosted on the 35,000 domains...
Yes, until dehydration, cramp and blindness took their toll.

Pity poor old Dr Gilbert Wondracek from a company called International Secure Systems Lab - a bunch of students and their lecturers at the University of Vienna who get to do all this on money from, amongst others, the EU (i.e. us taxpayers).

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Friday, June 11, 2010

Payday, Bloody Payday

It seems that Lord Saville has finally had enough, and the so-called "Bloody Sunday" Inquiry will be published on 15th June - clearing the way for lots of people to sue for 'compensation'. This will coincide with the release of other Inquiry reports on Omagh, Bloody Friday and the Kingsmill massacre.

"Payday, Bloody Payday" had already cost £183m by 2008 and will top £200m when finished - unfortunately dwarfing the estimated £20m earnings since then of the moron who pointlessly started the whole thing off. So we can't even send Blair the bill. Well that was money well spent wasn't it? No matter what the report says it will make no difference and nobody (on either side) will change their mind or opinion of what happened that day; but hey, it's been at least a few weeks since we've had a decent bit of provo appeasement so it's probably their turn again.

It if is anything like the Scott Report released when John Major was Prime Minister, whose government did everything in its power to prevent it being exploited by the Labour Opposition, it will run into several million pages, contained in about twenty volumes with no executive summary, and priced beyond what the general public can afford (or will be willing) to pay for it.

Buried deeply in the report...in the proverbial dark basement, behind the "Beware of the Leopard" sign, will be the Inquiry's record that "Martin McGuinness had admitted to Infliction that he had personally fired the shot (from a Thompson machine gun on single shot) from the Rossville flats in Bogside that had precipitated the Bloody Sunday episode. Don't listen for that on the BBC (who in the same 2000 article report that "it is expected to run for at least two more years." - next they'll be predicting global temperatures as fact a decade in advance too...). That'll be the completely innocent-of-anything-interesting McGuinness pictured above with the Luger.

Quite how independent or interesting this rehash of 38-year old bad memories and propaganda will be is open to dispute. Lord Saville has already submitted his findings to the Labour Government five months ago. The report will have been edited in accordance with the Inquiries Act 2005 which may involve sections being removed or redrafted and the findings altered, if the government believe that it is necessary and expedient to do so under under the wide discretionary powers under section 25 of the Act. The Coalition will also have their chance to tinker as they see fit.

For those thinking that the previous paragraph was typed whilst wearing tinfoil headgear, there is a similar exercise already taking place into what will and will not be disclosed as a result of the Chilcott inquiry. This is particularly ironic considering that the reason for Chilcott was that the public had no faith whatsoever in the findings of previous inquiries relating to the same subject matter.

So what is going to happen? Well, the Saville Inquiry can be done now because the commanders are mostly dead. There is going to be a barbecue of scape-goat and pawns. And loads of lawyers are going to retire early. People will sue. More lawyers will retire early.

But it could all have been avoided; in the spirit of the new austerity regime and cost cutting, how about:

Report: The IRA opened fire and the soldiers on the ground reacted to that, killing 14 people who weren't there for the scenery (especially the one with the nail bomb).

There we go, that'll be £199m please. Saving of £1m + postage and packing.

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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Question Time LiveBlog 10th June 2010


Question Time tonight comes from Plymouth, a city with the 11th largest University in the United Kingdom by number of students, and the largest operational naval base in Western Europe – HMNB Devonport.

Plymouth is represented by the three constituencies of Plymouth Moor View (Oliver Colvile Con), Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Alison Seabeck Lab) and South West Devon (Gary Streeter Con).

On the panel we have SecState for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt, his Shadow Little Ben Bradshaw, Respect leader and Spokesman for Birmingham Central Mosque Salma Yaqoob, food writer Toby Young and Katie Hopkins (apparently a 2007 contestant on The Apprentice, once a stand-by contestant for Big Brother and with a sex life frequently splashed in gruesome detail across the tabloids).

For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, we'll be invoking the Nothing New Under The Sun Rules which means that all of last week's topics Gun Control, Israeli Piracy, and BP Oil Slick score a rollover bonus. Those with the phrase "Afghanistan" or "Labour Leadership" on their cards advance four squares, and any positive references to "Geert Wilders" result in an instant win.

As usual the LiveBlog will also cover the entertainingly awful This Week, presented by Brillo in cahoots with Michael Portillo and Caroline Flint.

David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be holding back the hordes of barbarians here from 10:30pm.


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Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Public Sector Cuts: A How-To Guide

There is a new widget on the FT website (free registration) which invites us to choose where we think that the deficit-cutting axe should fall, and reflects the impact that those choices will (according to them) have.

There is a choice of Party, which auto-ringfences certain budgets, or the sensible option of getting on with the job unfettered by the clarion call of your wealth-creator/union/bearded-weirdy (select party of choice there) financial backers.

So, eyes down and get cutting....




£81.3 billion, and still with two decent sized aircraft carriers in the pot. Excellent result. Annoyingly once you've hit what they consider 'good enough' there's an irritating pop-up box which tries to stop you. Ha! We laugh in the face of such things, and click onwards...

The final page tells us what effect these savings would have (in the opinion of the FT). Most are end of the world as we know it, strikes, riots, wailing and gnashing of teeth type stuff....'will hit the very poorest'....'100,000 jobs will be lost'....'will increase teachers' workload' (that'll give'm something to do on those massive holidays)....'annual household loss of £500' (or our EU membership fees for 7236 femtoseconds) but there isn't a Smartarse button to tick showing that you guessed that was coming which was why you didn't cut the Forces.

Give it a go. You won't get re-elected by taking the required decisions, which is why the Coalition won't take them and we are all suppose to gasp at the audacity of George Osborne's paltry £6bn surface skimming. Tough times call for tough measures. Let's hope for the sake of the country that today's announcements by Osborne to the HoC are only the start.

If it isn't hurting, it isn't working, as someone once said.

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Monday, June 7, 2010

Even Elvis Costello...

Nobody tell AllSeeingEye contributor and all-round sound bloke on matters of terrorism David Vance, but his musical hero Elvis Costello is busy expressing his moral outrage on behalf of oppressed terrorists by canceling shows in Tel Aviv.
In a message posted on his website, Costello apologizes for the move, but notes that "there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent." He adds, it is "quite impossible to simply look the other way."
This has not been cross-posted on ATangledWeb for fear of TheEye having posting rights withdrawn. However another half-bottle of scotch and it may yet happen....

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Classics From The BBC Archives (Pt.94)

There are times when old items on the BBC website can be a source of unexpected amusement and cheer. It's not often, granted, but this is one of those moments. From the archives...



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Sunday, June 6, 2010

June 6th, 1944



That is all.

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Friday, June 4, 2010

Headline O' The Day

"Police Reportedly Ask Transgender Topless Sunbathers To Put Tops Back On"

REHOBOTH BEACH, Delaware - Rehoboth Beach lifeguards requested police assistance late Saturday afternoon for a situation involving a group of transgender men who had their breasts exposed according to a report by the Rehoboth Weekend Update.

The report says that a lifeguard reported having an ‘odd problem’ involving 'girls' on the beach with their tops off. Over the radio the lifeguard reported that the male individuals claimed to be transgender and claimed they did not have to wear tops. According to the Update, a police source told them at least two of the men appeared to have breast implants.

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Thursday, June 3, 2010

Love Boat: The Remake

Who remembers that marvellous 1977-1986 American television series, The Love Boat?

Well,sit back and enjoy, lovers of dodgy nautical fiction and tales of lies and deception afloat...for it has returned...in a Gaza-visiting Special!




Arutz Sheva reported:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the Israeli public on live television at 8:00 p.m. Israel time, regarding the attempt by a terror-sympathizers’ flotilla to break the blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza.

“This was no Love Boat,” he said. “This was a boat of hatred. It was a terror-supporting flotilla”

“The state of Israel faces an international campaign of hypocrisy,” Netanyahu said. “This is not the first time. Two years ago, we operated against the missiles that Hamas fired against Israel. Hamas fired at civilians and hid behind civilians. The IDF operated against Hamas in an effort to avoid hitting innocent civilians. Despite this, the UN accused Israel of war crimes and regretfully, I must say that this is what is happening now too.”

“Hamas continues to arm, Iran continues to smuggle weapons into Gaza. The previous [Israeli] government placed a military blockade on Gaza to prevent weapon smuggling to Hamas. The purpose of the flotilla was to break the naval blockade of Gaza. If the blockade had been broken, this flotilla would have been followed by hundreds of ships. The amount of weapons that can be brought in by boat is far greater than what is brought in through the smuggling tunnels. An endless amount of weaponry can be brought in. It is our right and duty to inspect every ship that tries to reach Gaza, to remove the weapons and let the rest of the cargo enter.”

If Gaza turns into an Iranian port, Netanyahu said, other countries beside Israel will be threatened.

The naval commandos were attacked with knives and clubs and thrown off the deck, he said. “Their weapons were snatched and they were shot. There was an attempt to lynch IDF soldiers here. These are not peace activists. They are violent terror activists.”

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Question Time 3rd June 2010


Question Time tonight comes from Brecon, the third largest town in Powys; home to the Gurkha Regiments and birthplace of Roger Glover from Deep Purple.

The Parliamentary seat of Brecon and Radnorshire is represented by LibDem Roger Williams. Williams is a man so successful that he went from LibDem Welsh Spokeweasel before the election to apparently no job afterwards, and his profile page on the main LibDem website gives a PageNotFound error.

On the panel we have David Willetts, Andrew Neil's favourite chocolate hob-nob Diane Abbott, Plaid's Leanne Wood, Matthew Parris and Kelvin MacKenzie (again). Wood is only known for her morbid fascination with "wimmins issues" and being the first AM to be thrown out of the Welsh Assembly (for insulting The Queen).

For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, we'll be invoking the KneeJerk Responses Protocols which means that Gun Control, Israeli Piracy, and BP Oil Slick all merit an extra free roll of the dice. Those with the phrase "Something Must Be Done" on their cards will be handicapped by a pre-game deduction of 50 points, and news that over 1,000 schools have asked to become Academies will only be worth a point if referred to in a negative way.

As usual the LiveBlog will also cover the entertainingly awful This Week, presented as usual by a bewigged and insane bingo caller from Paisley at the twilight of his career.

Once again David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be holding back the hordes of barbarians here from 10:30pm.

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Wednesday, June 2, 2010

All Aboard The MV "Rachel Corrie"

You'd haver a heart of stone not to laugh at the name given to one of the ships the Palestinian sympathisers been using in an attempt to supply Palestinian terrorists:

The delayed Free Gaza Movement's cargo ship Rachel Corrie yesterday assumed a holding position in the eastern Mediterranean, poised to make a fresh attempt to reach Israeli-blockaded Gaza. …
The Rachel Corrie, which began its voyage in Ireland, was named after a young US woman killed by an Israeli bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes* in Gaza.
* And no, they weren't replaced by a development called Corrie Flats :-)

The original Rachel wasn't exactly overburdened with brains, as she demonstrated during a pro-terrorist propaganda stunt by standing in front of a Israeli bulldozer whose driver couldn't see her. As a game of "chicken" it didn't work out so well, although her family made an amusing attempt to sue the manufacturers of the bulldozer. The Rachel Corrie Memorial Committee of Victoria, showing no sense of irony at all, promptly 'celebrated' her life by holding a fundraising pancake breakfast at a Denny's Restaurant.

But at least Saint Pancake's pointlessly wasted life has been an enduring inspiration to her fellow travellers. Unfortunately for them, they are up against an IDF that knows just how to deal with their ship:


Image credit to AaronS and idea from Moonbattery.

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Ronald Reagan

"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect."

Lady Thatcher

"If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you."

Voltaire

"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare."

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