For an excellent account of the recent history of terrorism in Northern Ireland, TheEye recommends this book by David Vance. E-mail him (link via the picture) to buy a copy.
TheEye's Urdu is rusty, but their general message to Cameron is "Teri nashayi bhain too lun par cocain sot kar anokhey kisam da choopa lawa" which as every Urdu speaker knows is a lot of fun - especially for the sister.
That's me convinced. Way to go, guys. You can always tell when you're right when they get they set your effigy on fire. Time for some sharp entrepreneur to start shipping Cameron pictures out there at a hefty markup.
And now the Pakistani Intelligence Service are too embarrassed to come to UK and talk about terrorism just because someone has had the cojones to point out the large elephant in the room. The whole affair should give us a warm glow inside - it's nice to see that we can upset people in far corners of the world again.
Uganda's film industry doesn't do action movies, but if it did....well actually it did, it seems. Apparently this was their first attempt (Nov 2009).
Who Killed Captain Alex? Looking at this trailer, who cares?
The hyperactive young narrator repeatedly reminds you that the movie is both an action movie and for sale, but you forget that at the 26 second mark when a helicopter destroys an entire city, apparently just by sitting on it. It's actually an extremely violent and disturbing movie about a war between police and drug dealers, and features the brutal deaths of women, children, and roofs, but you just can’t take it seriously
Whenever a gun is fired, it emits glowing yellow muzzle fire; whenever someone is shot or wounded, they emit glowing red blood; sometimes, when someone is shot their skin produces glowing yellow muzzle fire for some reason.
According to Ugandan newspaper The Observer, Who Killed Captain Alex? is about the aftermath of a police raid in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, in which a police captain (Alex) and a drug racketeer’s brother are killed, and both sides seek revenge, “escalating into ‘war.’” The article sheds further light on the film’s production, which apparently required some creativity when Uganda’s Central Police Station wouldn’t give the filmmakers anything to work with except uniforms:
It is a well scripted movie, but the visuals are too graphic. Nabwama says, he just wanted to produce an action movie, acted, produced and directed by Ugandans. But he can’t be forgiven for using toy guns and pistols in the production.
“When we approached CPS about the project, we were told that we [film industry] are not yet at that level. They could only provide us with police uniforms,” he says. “But we had asked them to provide us with helicopters, guns, tankers and access to army barracks. So we had to settle for the computer.”
The article quotes a cost of 8 million Uganda shillings, which converts to about $3500; it’s unclear if this is cost per major scene or cost for the whole film. Either way, the American movie industry could learn a lot from this movie’s pluck and economy. And good news! There’s apparently a sequel on the way.
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The owner of a local Budgens supermarket has defended selling squirrel meat as a sustainable way of feeding people and says it has a "lovely" taste....claimed that squirrel meat is more sustainable than beef. "It takes about 15 tonnes of grain to produce one tonne of beef, which is not sustainable.
"Squirrels will be culled anyway. You have two choices. Either you dispose of them or you eat them."
The animal welfare group Viva accused Budgens of profiting from....yadda yadda something or other
More to the point: Honey and Cider Squirrel
2 young squirrel, dressed & halved, 1/2 cup honey, 2 cups apple cider, 2 bay leaves, crushed, 1 TBL cornstarch, 2 TBL water
Pat squirrel halves dry. Place on rack in broiler pan. Coat with half the honey. Broil 6 inches from heat source for 8 minutes. Turn. Coat with remianing honey. Broil for 8 minutes longer. Place in roasting pan. Pour cider over squirrel. Add bay leaves. Roast @ 350 degrees for 1 hour or until tender. Remove to serving platter; keep warm. Strain pan drippings into saucepan. Dissolve cornstarch in water; stir into pan drippings. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly. Serve with squirrel. Consider eating with crisp shoestring potatoes and green salad. 4 Servings.
After two decades online, I'm perplexed. It's not that I haven't had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I've met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I'm uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.
Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.
Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet—which there isn't—the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeoplemen.
Did this guy get a job with McDoom afterwards? It would explain a lot...
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Anyone wanting to buy a Christmas present for AllSeeingEye contributing writer David Vance (TheEye's copy is organised) could do worse than AMERICA BY HEART which has its cover unveiled yesterday...the new Sarah Palin book gracing every bookstore come November.
Harper Collins Thursday unveiled the cover art for Sarah Palin’s forthcoming work set to be released in late fall, “America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag.
The cover features a smiling Palin looking straight into the camera while donning a flag pin and flag-studded bracelet.
Harper Collins, the publishing behemoth behind Palin’s wildly successful 2009 memoir Going Rogue, says the new book “ranges widely over American history, culture, and current affairs, and reflects on the key values-both national and spiritual-that have been such a profound part of Governor Palin’s life and continue to inform her vision of America’s future.”
We are fast approaching the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) the 40thPresident of the United States (1981–1989) but importantly in this context also the 33rdGovernor of California (1967–1975)
So it was good to hear that former first lady Nancy Reagan joined California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday in Simi Valley for a ceremonial signing of a bill making it Ronald Reagan Day every Feb. 6 in California.
A few great Reagan quotes to treasure:
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”
“True wealth comes from the heart, from the treasure of ideas and spirit, from the investments of millions of brave people with hope for the future, trust in their fellow men, and faith in God.”
“How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
He was a great man and a great President who deserves to be honoured. If anyone merits a spot on Mt Rushmore it's surely The Gipper.
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They've always been playing both sides - especially their Intelligence agency. Truth hurts, eh? It wasn't as dramatic in the flesh, but these diplomatic things never are.
He also said: ""We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world."
(that link goes to the BBC which as usual can't spell 'Bombay' correctly and seems not to have the word 'terrorist' in its dictionary unless quoting David Cameron directly)
"Three paintings depicting pigs have been pre-emptively removed from a hospital in Leerdam because they might offend Muslims.
One patient, not actually himself a Muslim, made a complaint about the paintings because he wanted to avoid Muslims having confrontations with the pigs. The leadership of the healthcare institution, the Linge Polyclinic, thereupon decided to remove the paintings immediately, Algemeen Dagblad newspaper reports.
The artist, Sylvia Bosch, is astounded. "One week earlier, I had an e-mail from the clinic saying that they were getting nice reactions. After a single complaint, they had to be taken away immediately."
The Linge Polyclinic has stated that the pictures were removed because "all visitors must feel comfortable in the institution".
From NIS, an English language Dutch news service.
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Question Time tonight comes from Hartlepool; famous for hanging a monkey for being French, providing a guitarist for Iron Maiden and having an unwanted terrace house once owned by Peter Mandelson.
For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, we will be using the Either Banned Or Compulsory Rules - so 'burqua', 'death tax' and 'national citizen service' are worth double BiasPoints. Any references to the Big Society win a BBC poster of David Cameron eating a kitten. Because of weekday maintenance on the Circle Line, this week Thatcher's are only valid with a Recession undercard, and Obama's are wild unless your BP joker has lapsed.
As usual the LiveBlog will also cover the entertainingly awful This Week, which continues its trawl through the Labour leadership candidates on the Sofa Of Despair. Tonight it's Ed Miliband (no, not the banana one, the other one - think polyester suits).
David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will have fingers on the moderators' kill-switch here from 10:30pm.
After Tuesdays little bit of local excitement, it looks as though Alejandro Parres is going to be providing some good court-based entertainment in the near future.
Shaping up nicely for the well tested Raving Nailed-On Nutter Defence, it turns out that our (alleged) armed robber has "a microchip inside his head" implanted by "spies".
Speaking through an interpreter, Alejandro Rodrigo Parres Navarro told the judge that he was in the seventh year of a program run by an unnamed "intelligence service" and that staging the robbery was his only way out.
"My only solution was to provoke an incident, or suicide," he told the court, having first requested permission to speak. "I'm going through a very bad time."
Perhaps he might like this excellent linky to help him chill out a bit? (via Twitter today)
For those of our blog visitors who live on Mars and haven't heard of Saint Nelson, his life can basically be summarised as:
Blew some stuff up then took a holiday till it all died down.
Returned from that holiday as an advocate for not blowing stuff up.
Negotiated a deal with a Hawaiian shirt manufacturer after his release.
Took the credit for the end of apartheid, even though that was really done by people (many white) who never advocated murder and torture as political tools.
Took his eye of the political ball and as a result left the South African political scene focused around "AIDS is made up" "Raping children under three will cure AIDS" and "I sing about machine guns and I'm in charge".
If you think it's bad now, wait until he finally dies. It'll make Diana's death look like The Man Who Never Was*. At least a month of national mourning, including the public stoning of anybody wearing a tie that isn't black. A levy on the Council Tax to pay for the erection of gilded statues of the great man in every London Borough. The renaming of a prominent building like Buckingham Palace to Mandela Palace and some sort of refrigerated tomb in South Africa where Nelson's remains can be displayed, Lenin style, for the tourists.
Every employee of the BBC will find a reason to fly out there to attend the funeral and go into such an emotional meltdown in the resulting outpouring of grief that the Beeb could well disappear up its own arse.
No, not the 1967 film of the same name. We read in the Daily Wail?
A Gurkha soldier has been flown back to the UK after hacking the head off a dead Taliban commander with his ceremonial knife to prove the dead man’s identity. The private, from 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles, was involved in a fierce firefight with insurgents in the Babaji area of central Helmand Province when the incident took place earlier this month.
The Gurkhas had intended to remove the Taliban leader’s body from the battlefield for identification purposes. But they came under heavy fire as their tried to do so. Military sources said that in the heat of battle, the Gurkha took out his curved kukri knife and beheaded the dead insurgent. He is understood to have removed the man’s head from the area, leaving the rest of his body on the battlefield.
Right, all aboard the Dail Wail Outrage Bus. Luckily the comments below it show some more sense. The article itself is full of rubbish; for example:
The kukri’s heavy blade enables the user to inflict deep wounds and to cut muscle and bone with one stroke. It can also be used in stealth operations to slash an enemy’s throat, killing him instantly and silently.
No it isn't. No it doesn't. Not even close.
This is considered a gross insult to the Muslims of Afghanistan, who bury the entire body of their dead even if parts have to be retrieved.
Suicide bombers? How does that work, then? Re-read Kipling's poem "The Grave of the Hundred Head" if you've forgotten how it really works.
They were told to "confirm the kill". The best method of positive identification is to use a Mk.1 Eyeball on the corpse itself. Even photos don't really do the job. Johhny Gurkha showed initiative; when ordered to bring back a known terrorist for identification he did the next best thing. What's the betting that the Gurkhas now lose their kukris - so as not to appear too warlike - or offend the enemy?
The tribesmen in that area - where using human heads as the ball in games of 'polo' is a part of the 'culture' - will not be offended - a little frightened maybe but they'll certainly accept it as an occupational hazard of waging war.
There was no torture and nothing was filmed for YouTube, unlike the Taliban's SOP for prisoners. He should get nothing more than an interview without coffee and then sent straight back to carry on the fight. Unfortunately though when smacking someone with a welly boot gets you Court Martialled and discharged his prospects look grim. And as we all know from the example of Pte Clegg, once certain sections of the media and establishment get hold of this he is going to be sacrificed.
BZ to Captain Haddock for a tip that the Imperial War Museum North (Manchester) is putting on, from today until the 5th August 2011, an exhibition called "All Aboard: Stories of War at Sea".
"Jump aboard and test your sea legs at this major new exhibition for all the family. Be inspired by incredible stories of bravery, survival and adventure. Get hands on and explore how people live and serve at sea in wartime. Discover how your life is shaped by living on an island and our dependence on the sea.
This major new interactive exhibition for all the family is Imperial War Museum's first large-scale exhibition to reveal the unique experiences of life at sea in wartime. Through eye witness accounts and stories of adventure, bravery, loyalty and teamwork - vividly brought to life through artefacts and audio-visual material - visitors of all ages will discover the qualities required to survive the hardships and danger of life at sea. The exhibition will look at what was it like to be in the Navy during wartime and how has this experience changed - or remained the same - over the last 100 years. A great free day out for families, the exhibition also examines the diversity of roles at sea and reveals how conflict both on the surface and underwater has shaped the story of the British Isles from the First World War to the present day."
There's also a collection of medals of an amazing man on diplay.... Group Captain Geoffrey Leonard Cheshire, Baron Cheshire, VC, OM, DSO and Two Bars, DFC who was a highly decorated British RAF pilot during the Second World War. Leonard Cheshire also founded the Cheshire Homes (now the Leonard Cheshire Disability) charity while his wife, Margaret Susan Cheshire, Baroness Ryder of Warsaw and Baroness Cheshire, CMG, OBE, who worked with the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, founded the Sue Ryder Foundation (later the Sue Ryder Care charity). Definitely two of life's great achievers.
The ship used as an illustration for this post is HMS Glasgow; and those who know TheEye personally will know exactly why...
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Images from the Imperial War Museum and commentary by Amanda Mason. Go and see the real thing! (the pictures, not necessarily Amanda Mason)
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Queen Rania of Jordan has just written a children's book about the themes of "getting to know others, openness and multiculturalism."
The book was launched in April with a reading given by Rania at the United Nations, is on the New York Times' bestseller list, and its promotion in the United States has included appearances by the Jordanian queen in television interviews with Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters. Since 2007, Queen Rania has been working with UNICEF on child welfare issues and as honorary chairman of the UN's effort to promote the education of girls.
In a marvellous bit of pre-Question Time LiveBlogging nonsense, let's rejoice in the fact that fuckwittery is alive and kicking (unlike the badger) in Hampshire:
Workmen painting white lines on a road left a gap for a dead badger because they said it was not their responsibility to move it.
The animal had been killed about a week before on the A338 near Downton, on the Hampshire-Wiltshire border.
Hampshire County Council said the workers did what they thought "was best" because it is the district council's job to remove carcasses.
The badger has now been removed and the painting will be completed on Friday.
Question Time tonight comes from Bexhill-on-Sea; famous for staging the UK's first ever motor race and the discovery of the world's oldest spider web encased in amber. The constituency of Bexhill and Battle is represented by Greg Barker (C)
For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, we will be using the Educashun Educashun Educashun Rulez which means that 'graduate tax', 'school building plans' and 'two year degree' are worth double BiasPoints. Any references to Ken Clarke win a BBC Hidden Agenda bonus turn, and a successful paring of Raoul Moat with Thatcher is an instant champagne win. Nothing said by Sally Bercow will be valid for point scoring purposes if she is visibly under the influence.
As usual the LiveBlog will also cover the entertainingly awful This Week, which sees the scary duo of Michael Portillo and Ed "Blinky" Balls partnered on the Sofa Of Despair.
David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be taking an axe to red-tape here from 10:30pm.
A note from the Dorset Submariners Assoc. which will appeal to matelot readers everywhere. Since the tot was stopped on 31st July 1970 the Corner House Inn on Portland has still had Up Spirits on the Saturday nearest 31st July. This year it falls on the 31st itself and is the 40th anniversary. Last year they were sponsored by Pussers and Lambs and are hoping for the same this year:
Let it be known by this proclamation that all Seafarers, members and ex-members of Her Britannic Majesty’s Royal Navy including members of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, Royal Naval Reserve, Women’s Royal Naval Service, and other diverse organisations, together with members and ex-members of the other Armed Forces, the Royal British Legion, and the Royal Naval Association, and also any other interested civilians who may wish to attend, take part in, and imbibe of the ancient and revered occasion of Splice the Mainbrace which will be ceremoniously conducted together with various historical lectures and competitions in aid of the local Royal National Lifeboat Institute on Saturday 31st July 2010 at 14.30 or 5 bells of the afternoon watch at The Corner House Inn, in The Straits on Portland, to mark the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the stopping of the daily issue of 1/8 of an Imperial pint of Rum to the Royal Navy.
Precedence will be given to the more senior attendees who drew a daily tot during their Naval career. Most especially welcome are holders of crossing the line and/or blue nose certificates, three-badgemen, ratings whose Service Certificates have no corner, anyone who has, or has had, a blue station card, members of the Fleet Air Arm whether or not their front line time has included a Warship, members of the Submarine Service as long as they are in date for a proper (ie non-birdbath) dhobi, Royal Marines, no matter which instrument they play, Blazer owning Field Gunners, with or without all appendages, Regulars and Irregulars of the Corner House Inn, Gentlemen (or Ladies) with more than 12 tattoos which are spelt correctly, Uckers Grand Masters, Scurry faced Bastards, and in fact pretty much anybody.
Blogging in a hurry this morning so apologies, but this article in last month's Boston Globe makes for interesting reading on the mindset of their anonymous commenters (and they don't like'em very much). It makes a nice follow-up to the previous post about the drive to enforce compulsory blandness and group-think conformity.
News websites from across the country struggle to maintain civility in their online comments forums. But given their anonymous nature and anything-goes ethos, these forums can sometimes feel as ungovernable as the tribal lands of Pakistan.
It goes on a bit but is worth a look if you've got five minutes and don't mind being lectured that the mainstream media are determined to bring the anonymous party to an end however they can.
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Would you pay to leave a comment on a blog? Even a nominal fee? What about a nominal fee specifically designed to reveal your identity?
The identity part would appeal to insane Scottish blogger Cllr Terry Kelly (unlinked, Google for 'arse' to find his site), and the fee part would appeal to Corrugated Soundbite, GrumpyOldTwat, BarkingSpider and others who could make a small fortune charging everyone who linked "Terry Kelly" and "weapons grade cock" in the same sentence.
But, daft though it may sound, the Massachusetts-based Sun Chronicle is going to do just that:
.....the fee is minimal – a one-off charge of 99 cents. But this fee must be paid by credit card and that means providing a real name and address. And the name on the credit card is the name that will appear on comments. At the same time, the comment poster must acknowledge that they will abide by US state and federal law and that they are legally responsible for any content they post.
The Sun Chronicle had previously suspended commenting across its sites back in April and the publisher, the rather brilliantly named Oreste P D’Arconte, has said he hopes the move to stop anonymity would “eliminate past excesses that included blatant disregard for our appropriateness guidelines, blind accusations and unsubstantiated allegations”.
In the US, the argument goes that making people use their real name is an infringement of the right to free speech. People are fearful that it will make people afraid to express minority opinions. Which is true, but there is nothing to stop people from commenting anonymously at any number of other public forums – Mumsnet, for example, is a often hotbed of criticism of journalism about parenting.
Comments – even anonymous ones – equal engagement and for publishers (and even writers who are taking a pasting), a high number of responses is the sign that an article is a success.
Widespread adoption of such a policy would no doubt be welcomed by journalists who’ve experienced the stinging feeling that one harsh comment leaves – even if its couched between a dozen positive ones.
And there generally seems to be a feeling that losing anonymous web identities is the path to meaningful dialogue. I imagine more publishers will be testing out similar systems in the near future.
Don't think so, sunshine. This idea will go down like a bucket of cold vomit.
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An excellent FrontPage Symposium discussing the attitudes of people who hate Wilders mainly because if he is correct their whole cosy world would disintegrate.
It't not often an article comes with a recommended reading all the way through tag but this one certainly scores. A flavour:
"Today we witness the blatant desperation in our culture and media for a “moderate Islam” — an Islam that many non-Muslims vehemently insist exists, but that mysteriously eludes them. This moderate Islam will make everything better, we are told, once the “extremists,” who are the “minority” in Islam, will be sedated. This sedation will be most easily achieved, the argument continues, when the Islamophobes stop blaming Islam after Islamic terrorists point to Islamic scriptures in explaining what inspired them to perpetrate their terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, in terms of the planet that we happen to be occupying, a “moderate Islam” is nowhere to be found; no school of Islamic jurisprudence exists that counsels Muslims to renounce the Qur’an’s teachings on Islamic supremacism and the obligation of violent jihad. And yet, to suggest the truth of this reality in our culture gets one only the accusation of being a racist and an “Islamophobe.”
It's a sort of Where Are They Now? post, except the answer is she's not dead just yet.
Molly Norris, the US cartoonist who inspired the “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” online protest has been publically placed on a hit list by Al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki.
A CHARISMATIC terror leader linked to the botched Times Square car bomb has placed the Seattle cartoonist who launched “Everybody Draw Muhammed Day” on an execution hit list.
Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki – the radical who has also been cited as inspiring the Fort Hood, Tex., massacre and the plot by two New Jersey men to kill U.S. soldiers – singled out artist Molly Norris as a “prime target,” saying her “proper abode is hellfire.
FBI officials have notified Norris and warned her they consider it a “very serious threat.”
In an English-language Al Qaeda magazine that calls itself “Inspire,” Awlaki damns Norris and eight others for “blasphemous caricatures” of the Prophet Muhammed. The other cartoonists, authors and journalists in Awlaki’s cross hairs are Swedish, Dutch and British citizens.
Norris later took the cartoon down from her website and went all squiffy about the idea.…but they want her dead regardless. It must be really annoying for all those thousands of people who took part that there is only room for 8 targets on the list. You'd feel miffed if your cartoon wasn't insulting enough, wouldn't you?
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To be filed under Whatever Next? or, more realistically, WTF?
"We’ve waxed lyrical about botanical walls, green roofs and living treehouses on Inhabitat for years – is the next logical step a home made from animal tissue? Mitchell Joachim from Terreform thinks so.
From the boundary-pushing team of archi-visionaries who brought us the fabulous Fab Tree Hab comes a new (and somewhat disgusting) way to grow a structure — using animal flesh! The In Vitro Meat Habitat is a futuristic concept home composed of meat cells grown in a lab. We can’t imagine that these residences are going be replacing suburban tract homes anytime soon, but it sure is a provocative idea! The creator of the concept, Mitchell Joachim, is a futurist with a twist– he says he is actually developing the concept in a lab.
Before you start crafting your protest signs, Dr. Joachim explains “It is intended to be a ‘victimless shelter’, because no sentient being was harmed in the laboratory growth of the skin.” He envisions a wall in which tissues, skin and bones replace insulation, siding, and studs respectively. For fenestration, or openings of windows and doors, he envisions sphincter muscles that can open and close. Current prototypes are pig skin cells grown around a recycled PET plastic scaffold.
Dr. Joachin admits that the home is not all that pretty, but his work in exploring radical new ways to create futuristic buildings is a provocative reminder that sustainability requires a radical new vision of our cities and homes."
TheEye would say that it sounds like a load of bollocks, except they are probably a kitchen feature or something. And making the doorway out of the biological equal of someone's arse muscle is a whole surreal step too far.
Who is paying for this? And can they please stop.
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Seen over at the Lakelander and thoroughly enjoyed....
He goes into entertaining detail about how the coat of arms was put together...and then redesigned as commenters weighed in with other ideas. Have a read....
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It's a plant grower which holds something called Chia. Appropriately enough for Obama it's got a drip tray, but they seem to cut off his biggest fan-base by not selling to Mexico. No problem really...ship it to Arizona and the illegals can take them back when they get shipped home.
Question Time tonight comes from Edinburgh, often known as the "Athens of the North" - because it is full of striking socialists and unemployed alcoholics.
For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, we will be using the Slash And Burn Rules (2010 revision) which means that 'cutting red tape', 'liberty' and 'dead hand of socialism' will not appear on the BBC, but 'the dead unburied', 'hitting the poor hardest' and 'schools'n'hospitals' are worth double BiasPoints. Snide comments about Michael Gove apologising for a civil servant's typing error win a free dice roll, and 'Worse than Thatcher' is an instant win if played together with a 'Nasty Party' joker.
As usual the LiveBlog will also cover the entertainingly awful This Week, which sees the scary duo of Michael Portillo and Miliband (D) draped over the sofa in glorious widescreen.
David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be standing on the shoulders of giants here from 10:30pm.
A spy swap agreement was finalized with Russia to day to deport 10 alleged Russian spies in trade for the recently exhumed body of Chess legend Bobby Fischer.
“The Russians have been very cooperative,” said Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, “They wanted to get their boys out of trouble, and they particularly wanted to secure the return of Anna Chapman because she’s hot.”
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed his country’s interest in the return of Chapman.
“Most of our women are a little, how-you-say, butch,” said Medvedev, “We risked a lot when we sent one of our few attractive women to America as a spy. We’ll do anything to get her back safely – even dig up the rotting corpse of a Chess Grand Master.”
Burns described the deal as a “win-win” thanks to intense interest in repatriating Fischer’s remains. “The United States Government has been damn near paralyzed by the number of paternity suits brought by people who think they are Fischer’s kids,” said Burns, “Any yutz who can play more than one Chess game at a time thinks he or she is related to Bobby Fisher. Now, we’ll finally have his DNA.”
President Obama also expressed excitement at the opportunity to retrieve Bobby Fischer.
“I’m excited at the opportunity to retrieve Bobby Fischer,” said Obama, “Here’s a man who hated America, hated Jews, loved socialists and made a lot of people feel inferior. I just want the chance to shake his worm-infested hand. He made me the man I am today.”
Refrigerated cooling has been a major boon to the Republican Party. The advent of A.C. helped launch the massive Southern and Western population growth that's transformed our electoral map in the last half century. Cox navigates all of these scientific and social angles with relative ease, providing a clear explanation of how A.C. made the leap from luxury to necessity in the United States and examining how we can learn to manage the addiction before we refrigerate ourselves into the apocalypse.
This is obviously why the Left are so keen on energy solutions that don't work. If we roll out the failed eco-energy solution on Eigg mentioned by microdave on another post here there won't be enough energy to run air conditioning any more and the battle against socialism will therefore be lost.
And just because it seems the right thing to do here...All Mod Cons, by The Jam....
The chart, put together by Calculated Risk, and dubbed by BusinessInsider as "The Scariest Job Chart Ever" continues to be, well, scary. It shows that in the United States there is no v-shaped ascent as with other jobs recoveries. The dotted line excludes hirings for the US Census and is the accurate one because the headine rate will dip down to join it in a few months when the Census ends.
The US economy is pretty much screwed, and there's no sign of any UK-style attempts to do anything about it. Roll on their November mid-term elections for a dose of sanity from the voters.
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It appears that NONE of the top three missions that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been tasked with have anything to do with space. Witness see this interview with head of NASA, Charles Bolden on Al Jazeera (via Weasel Zippers and with their bold)
“Bolden: I am here in the region its sort of the first anniversary of President Barack Obama’s visit to Cairo and his speech there when he gave what has now become known as Obama’s “Cairo Initiative” where he announced that he wanted this to become a new beginning of the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world.
When I became the NASA Administrator before I became the NASA Administrator - he charged me with three things: One was that he wanted me to re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, that he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.”
In TheEye's day science was all about exploration, discovery and advancement. These noble goals were shared by Muslim scientists and engineers...until about the 17th Century, when it all went a bit quiet.
Now it appears that our scientists are best employed telling other people that that they used to be good. Marvellous.
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Well that's an unexpected turn-up for the books: it's now legally okay to destroy the property of those who do business with Jews. Last time that was really popular was Kristallnacht in 1938 but hey, ho, that probably makes it retro fashion, eh?
This extraordinary moment in modern British legal history took place this week in the southern English coastal city of Brighton - a city known for its strong affiliations with the Green Party and other leftist causes. It transpired in a case involving five defendants who had broken into the EDO MBM owned arms factory in January 2009 at the time of Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
The five admitted breaking into the factory - which was exporting military equipment at the time to Israel - and causing £180,000 ($275,000) worth of damage. Despite actually admitting to an offence that would usually carry a substantial jail sentence, the jury acquitted them, accepting their defence that although they had committed a crime they were doing so in order to prevent the greater offence of Israeli "war crimes".
This is not exactly unprecedented - British juries have previously decided that power plants can be attacked in the name of the new religion of global warming. We used to be all equal before the law, but it seems that some causes are more equal than others.
Really? Most of us would have thought that the fact that he was 92, semi-wheelchair bound and in very poor health were signs that starting a new pension plan was pretty pointless. Anyway, some entertaining stupidity here (bold is mine):
Coal pollution may have felled Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), the longest-serving member of the U.S. Senate, at the age of 92. The aged giant of the Senate had been in declining health for years, but died last week after suffering from “symptoms of heat exhaustion” during Washington’s record heat wave ...(a quote from his link)...
The record mid-Atlantic heat wave is part of the global boiling enveloping the planet, caused by greenhouse gases from coal and oil pollution. The increasingly deadly heat waves fueled by man-made global warming are a real threat to the health of Americans, especially the vulnerable elderly. The record heat in June — continuing to make 2010 the hottest year on record across the globe (it was 1934: TheEye) — has been identified as the killer at least 18 Americans across the nation:
June 2: PENNSYLVANIA A 50-year-old man wearing a heavy three-piece wool suit was found dead on a South Philadelphia street. At 88 degrees, the high temperature was 15 degrees above normal.
A heavy three-piece wool suit. Global warming or dropped on his head when he was 4? Let the audience vote on that one. There are a further seventeen more examples he uses of people falling off ladders in Dipshit, Kansas being used as examples of why Saint Gore is right, but can't be bothered fisking them.
Suffice it to say, we're all doomed yadda yadda yadda....and Global Warming killed the Exalted Cyclops Byrd.
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TheEye was out last night with fellow blogger St Crispin (who was in Gibraltar for the week throwing himself out of a Hercules) and afterwards struggled to make it home in time to live-blog Question Time and This Week. Lost house-keys didn't help. Still, disaster was averted and the live-blog went ahead smoothly (until Billy Blofeld suggested deporting the UKs criminals to Gib - it went downhill after that).
Making it all worthwhile was the evenhandedness of Andrew Neil afterwards on "This Week". After spectacularly ripping Diane Abbott a new one last week, all eyes were on the Bewigged One and how he would approach interviewing the second Labour leadership contender, Andy 'Who?' Burnham. An easy ride in comparison or a grilling?
...."so, Andy Burnham, why does your campaign have all the hallmarks of a slow-motion car crash?"....
Mammoths used to roam modern-day Russia and North America, but are now extinct — and there's evidence that around 15,000 years ago, early hunters had a hand in wiping them out. A new study, accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), argues that this die-off had the side effect of heating up the planet.
So go on, how does this work?
First, mammoth populations began to drop - both because of natural climate change as the planet emerged from the last ice age, and because of human hunting. Normally, mammoths would have grazed down any birch that grew, so the area stayed a grassland. But if the mammoths vanished, the birch could spread. …
The trees would change the color of the landscape, making it much darker so it would absorb more of the Sun's heat, in turn heating up the air. This process would have added to natural climate change, making it harder for mammoths to cope, and helping the birch spread further.
Notice that subtle aside about natural climate change? That flew under the radar, didn't it?
Extinction of mammoths, camels, giant sloths and other large mammals in the New World may have cooled the global climate about 11,500 years ago, suggest paleobiologists.
The culprit? Less of the greenhouse gas, methane, emitted by the massive herbivores.
So what it basically boils down to is.....we did it.....whatever 'it' is:
"About 13,400 years ago, the Americas were heavily populated with large-bodied herbivores," says the study in the current Nature Geosciences study led by biologist Felisa Smith of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. "However, by 11,500 years ago and within 1,000 years of the arrival of humans in the New World, 80% of these large-bodied mammals were extinct." …
"We are not the first to suggest that human-mediated activities influenced the planet prior to the industrial age… Although still controversial, the megafaunal extinction is the earliest catastrophic event attributed to human activities," conclude the Nature Geosciences study authors.
So there we go. Cut a long story short; it's windmills and power cuts for us all, and blame cavemen.
Following yesterday's election by the Germany's Federal Assembly of Christian Wulff as their new President, as is usual in these cases everyone shuffles up one position. What's interesting is who replaces him as Premier of the northern German state of Lower Saxony..
It's a not-very-German sounding chap by the name of David McAllister, the son of a Scottish father serving with the British Army in West Berlin and a German music teacher mother.
Not only will the conservative Christian Democrat become the first British citizen to hold such high office in Germany, the 39-year-old will also become Germany's youngest ever state premier. In an interview with TheLocal he claims to have only worn his kilt twice and then gets horribly tied up in knots saying that dual citizenship is fine for him, but not for Turks. He's also a supporter of the Conservative Party in the UK, and went door-to-door canvassing at the General Election for several candidates including the unsuccessful Shaun Bailey in Hammersmith.
Strange chap, but he's tipped for the top so we may well hear more of him in years to come.
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...I, that on my familiar hill Saw with uncomprehending eyes A hundred of Thy sunsets spill Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice, Ere the sun swings his noonday sword Must say good-bye to all of this;- By all delights that I shall miss, Help me to die, O Lord.
(The last poem of William Noel Hodgson, written just before the Battle of the Somme.)
At 07:30 the Battle of the Somme began, and on the first day British suffered 57,420 casualties, including 19,240 dead - the second bloodiest day in the history of the British Army to this day (after Towton).
All four co-conspirators here stand with our troops. If you don't then read elsewhere.
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."
