Le Royal Navy

Many trees have died today carrying us the story that the Royal Navy may share our new carriers with France. What's worse is that it's been officially denied by the MoD, which means it's true (and the French have called a press conference for Friday).

It's hardly new news though. From The Times of 18 May 2008:

Royal Navy may share new carriers with France

Two hundred years after the battle of Trafalgar, the navy could end up sharing the pride of its fleet with the French. Driven by spiralling budgets, the two navies began talks last week aimed at sharing their aircraft carriers...

So all new arrivals on the Outrage Bus can take their seats at the back with their copies of the Daily Mail and Super Soaraway and catch up.

On the plus side, joint British/French operations last century (Mers-el-Kébir) resulted in a pretty effective level of destruction but on the down side, will every fresh-faced matelot have to dust off their GCSE French (Unclassified)? Probably not. Even the most tone-deaf politician isn't going to propose dual-flagged ships. 

Any sort of agreement may effectively mean not much more than a long-discussed (and quite sensible anyway) switch to cats and traps on the new carriers and F35C rather than B, which gives a similar platform to the French carrier and the US fleet. The politicians argument about maintaining time at sea is daft, because we currently go for significant periods of time without either Ark Royal or Illustrious at sea at the moment so we've already retreated from the doctrine of continuous carrier deployment. Talking about always needing a carrier at sea harks back to a situation not known for a decade, so ignore that political posturing. And more? Well there can't be. French designers reportedly cheered when their missiles worked in the Falklands, so the French are hardly going to set sail due South if the Argies need another hiding.

One of the most dangerous potential developments is the possible downgrading of one of the carriers to a helicopter assault asset. This has the twin disadvantage of not providing the same capabilities whilst still keeping Labour-bribed Scot voter-welders in subsidised employment. Selling the second carrier to India is just pre-SDR sabre-rattling.

The big and horribly real development is that enhanced collaboration (a word the French are very familiar with) is another slow ratchet movement towards EU Armed Forces. And that's the scary one.

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The Guardian's "Tory" Test

Let this article from the Guardian's Komment Macht Frei called Liberal guilt? Good for you speak for itself.

To "suffer" from liberal guilt means that you are somewhat uneasy about all sorts of awkward things that it is tempting to harden your heart against, like global injustice, global warming, racism. It means that you are troubled by the stubborn persistence of our class system, though you personally have done fine by it. It means you sometimes worry that you might be prejudiced against all sorts of people. It means that your vague patriotism is laced with uncertainty about whether our ancient constitution is able to be truly inclusive. It means, for goodness sake, that you fail to be completely fatly smugly relaxed about this problematic world we inhabit. Is that really so shameful and wet, so laughably mentally effeminate?

If this little parade of privileged anxiety fills you with derision, then you are a Tory.

de·ri·sion

   [dih-rizh-uhn] 

–noun
1. ridicule; mockery: The bollocks printed in the Guardian elicited derision from the world.


Alternative test to check if you are Gordon Brown:

1) Have you ever saved the world?

2) If you add 0% to something it has:
a) increased
b) stayed the same
c) decreased

3) Do you own a rocking horse?

4) Have you ever:
a) stapled yourself to some paper
b) kicked a table over
c) issued a foul-mouthed tirade to a minion whilst naked
d) thrown a Nokia across the room
e) chased the US President around the UN building, finally cornering him in the kitchens

Much more accurate, in TheEye's opinion.

Hat-tip for the Guardian quote: Englishman's Castle

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Pakistan Cricket Is Corrupt To The Core

The headline "Pakistan Cricketers Are Cheats" doesn't seem appropriate as a one-off, because it could really apply to a dozen incidents in the last 10 years.

Right back in the summer of 2000 the Qayyum Inquiry into match-fixing was damning. Justice Qayyum’s investigation seemed thorough, and the Indians threw in a few sacrificial players identified by their Central Bureau of Investigation, but it all came neatly gift-wrapped and debate was stamped on. This allowed the rotten core of bent players to continue but having learned their lesson not to be so blatant about it. International Cricket Council set up their Anti Corruption and Security Unit to give ex-copper Paul Condon a job with a decent expense account, and 'regional officers' were appointed to lecture unsponsored and skint young players that making some money on the side was bad.

And so it continued. Four years ago, after being caught on camera blatantly ball tampering during a tour to England Australian umpire Darrell Hair ruled that Pakistan had forfeited the Test at the Oval by refusing to take the field in a protest over his ruling. The Asian-dominated ICC later quietly overturned that 'forfeit' in favour of a less controversial 'result'; Hair was smeared as a racist child molesting baby eating hate-mongering bigot and forced into retirement. Again, all went quiet and officials sauntered away whistling that everything was fine.

Of course it wasn't Last year a committee of Pakistan's parliament summoned senior figures from the team to discuss allegations that they deliberately lost a Champions Trophy match to prevent India from reaching the semi-finals, and in May this year the International Cricket Council's anti-corruption unit looked at Pakistan's poor performance after having their arses handed to them by Australia during a tour of the country.

Now we have video evidence featuring a man with a large amount of cash explaining exactly what would (and then did) happen in the match. How big does the rug need to be for the Pakistan Cricket Board to get away with sweeping this one under?

Pakistan's team management believe that their one-day series against England will go ahead as planned next week, but the series of five ODIs and two Twenty20s that get underway in Cardiff on September 5 have got to be in doubt, surely?


"These are just allegations, anyone can say anything about anyone, that doesn't make them true," Salman Butt said, talking out of his arse. They've all been caught on tape like kippers and deserve to be thrown out of Test cricket and in jail.

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More Rockets For Gaza

Looks like the Religion of Peace is tooling up for some more harmless unthreatening rocket-firing action, with Egyptian authorities intercepting a shipment of at least 190 rockets headed to Gaza.

Egyptian authorities intercepted a shipment of at least 190 anti-aircraft missiles in Sinai probably destined for Gaza on Saturday, Palestinian news Agency Maan reported.

According to the report, the Egyptian police raided several storage areas in the area and discovered the secret cache hidden in a remote region in the center of the peninsula.

In addition to the anti-aircraft missiles, rockets and other ammunition were seized, as well as a large supply of illegal drugs. Reports also stated that authorities raided several locations in Rafah, where they found more stores of explosives and weapons.

Earlier on Saturday Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai reported that Syria’s military is on high alert for an Israeli attack on Hizbullah weapons depots located in the country.

They were probably just rocket-shaped grain containers or something. And isn't it time for another Peace Flotilla carrying doves, unicorns, luxury handbag supplies and waterslide spares to Gaza?

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Playing By The Rules

From AP, really shocking news that not everyone is fighting fair in Afghanistan:

KABUL, Afghanistan U.S. and Afghan troops repelled attackers wearing American uniforms and suicide vests in a pair of simultaneous assaults before dawn Saturday on NATO bases near the Pakistani border, including one where seven CIA employees died in a suicide attack last year.

Well, colour us all shocked that wearing the enemy's uniform to gain an advantage in battle is against the Geneva Conventions. Surely the Taliban wouldn't do a thing like that? Aren't we always being told that it's important that we all play nicely in this war? That we mustn't do do anything that might actually help us win? Add that to...

The raids appear part of an insurgent strategy to step up attacks in widely scattered parts of the country as the U.S. focuses its resources on the battle around the Taliban's southern birthplace of Kandahar.


Also Saturday, nearly 50 female pupils and teachers were rushed to the hospital after an apparent toxic gas attack at a Kabul high school, the government said. It was the second case of poisoning at a girls' school in the capital this week. Officials suspect the Taliban, who oppose female education.

...attacking noncombatants and using toxic gas as a weapon of mass destruction. Hmmm. If we really must be there, can't we take this slightly more seriously and start sticking electrodes on a few pairs of gonads to push things along a bit please?

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Smile, Ladies!

It was fun, fun, fun this week at Ladies Night with guest of honour President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Rockin' the casbah since 632 A.D. eh?

The one at the back in the black looks like a stunner.

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Bush Or Obama In A Crisis?

If it came down to is, who would you prefer in charge during a crisis? Louisiana voters decisively picked Bush over Obama.

Louisiana has face two major crisis in recent years. The first was hurricane Katrina handled by former President Bush. The second was the Gulf oil spill handled by current President Obama. A PPP poll asked likely voters who they think is better at handling crisis, Obama or Bush. 54% chose President Bush. Only 33% picked President Obama.

It wasn’t even close. President Bush's handling of Katrina could have been better, but Obama's drilling ban directly harms the area with 81% of Louisiana voters supporting offshore drilling.

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7th Annual Testicle Cooking World Championship Starts Today

As if you didn't already know, today sees the start of the seventh annual Testicle Cooking World Championship - although organisers admit they rarely get anybody from abroad. The final, for those in the area, is on the 29th August.

As tourism slogans go "Serbia has balls" is certainly designed to catch attention.

Tourism chiefs at Ozrem in the north of the country are hoping that their annual testicle cooking competition will do for the region what whisky did for Scotland or cheese and chocolate did for Switzerland.

Festival organiser Ivo Mokovich said: "The importance of a recognisable brand to sell a region cannot be underestimated - look at how many people go to Scotland because of the whiskey or how many people know Switzerland because of their cheese and chocolate.

"We are now hoping that the many famous and varied testicle dishes that we have created in the region will become world-famous and attract people who appreciate good food from all over the world."

It's a fairly local event, you'll be amazed to know

Mokovich said: "That is not such a surprise - after all it shows we are the best because nobody else is prepared to take up the challenge and to try and take the title of top testicle chef away from the Serbs."

Mokovich added: "This year the theme is let your imagination run free - we have allowed the entrants to submit dishes using any kind of testicles that they want - large or small -- and we're looking forward to seeing what the expert Serbian testicle cooks come up with."

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Lay Bys

The Swiss have an odd way of doing things. For those who think British democracy should be more like theirs - local referenda, Cantons with wildly varying tax rates, no minarets and so on, consider this:

Straight-laced Swiss officials are to build a series of drive-in sex boxes where hookers can entertain their randy punters without disturbing the peace.

The raunchy lay-bys are coming after thousands of complaints by householders whose homes overlook the thriving red light district in Zurich.

"They get up to all sorts in broad daylight - and we're sick to death of looking at it," said one.

Police spokesman Reto Casanova said: "We can't get rid of prostitution so have to learn how to control it."

Reto Casanova? Right. Fine.

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Lazy Bums

Splendid fundraising nonsense from China which might be music to the ears of council officials who are set to charge you £250 a year to park:

Cash strapped park officials in China are putting the wind up lazy bums who loaf on their benches for too long - by fitting steel spikes on a coin-operated timer. If visitors at the Yantai Park in Shangdong province, eastern China, linger too long without feeding the meter, dozens of sharp spikes shoot through the seat.

Park bosses got the idea from an art installation in Germany where sculptor Fabian Brunsing created a similar bench as a protest against the commercialisation of modern life.

"He thought he was exaggerating. He didn't foresee that a very practical country like China might actually use them for real," said one critic.

Parks in China suffer from chronic overcrowding at weekends when millions of people try to escape the country's teeming cities.

"We have to make sure the facilities are shared out evenly and this seems like a fair way to stop people grabbing a bench at dawn and staying there all day," said one park official.

Ouch. Mark Oaten, though, now has another reason to hang around parks at night.

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Robot Bartender

Guy goes into a bar, there’s a robot bartender.The robot says, “What will you have?”

The guy says, “Martini.”The robot brings back the best martini ever and says to the man, “What’s your IQ?”The guy says, “168.”The robot then proceeds to talk about physics, space exploration and medical technology.

The guy leaves, but he is curious…

So he goes back into the bar.The robot bartender says, “What will you have?”The guy says, “Martini.”Again, the robot makes a great martini gives it to the man and says, “What’s your IQ?”The guy says, “100.”The robot then starts to talk about Nascar, Budweiser and John Deere tractors.

The guy leaves, but finds it very interesting, so he thinks he will try it one more time.

He goes back into the bar.The robot says, “What will you have?”The guy says, “Martini,” and the robot brings him another great martini.

The robot then says, “What’s your IQ?”The guy says, “Uh, about 50.”The robot leans in real close and says,

“So, you people still happy you voted for Obama?”

Hat-tip: Weirdscary

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If Dinosaurs Had Twitter

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The Science Of Hitch Hiking

Nicolas Guéguen seems to be a scientist who only takes on the trickiest of investigations, as his website shows. Witness his talent for conducting naturalistic experiments about issues that many people have wondered about and yet few (if any) have really tested - the likelihood of a woman being approached at a bar as a function of whether she is wearing cosmetics, for example, is one of his. And the positive correlation between waitresses' tips and their breast size.

And he's on a winner this time with a scientific study on the likelihood of a female hitchhiker being picked up, by either a male or female driver, as a function of her breast size.

For his current paper, Guéguen created one of three naturalistic experimental conditions (corresponding to three breast sizes) using an average looking female confederate, with:

• her actual breast size, which was an A cup (i.e., smaller than the French average); 
• a B cup using a a latex implant (the average size in France); 
• a C cup (greater than the French average). 

The female "hitch hiker" then stood at the side of a road and stuck her thumb out. Two observers coded the number of male and female drivers that drove by along with the number of times that a given driver stopped to pick her up.

The results (from Table 1, p. 1297 if you're interested) show that statistically speaking, only male behaviour was affected by the hitchhiker's breast size, and the different male responses to breast sizes were also statistically significant.

So men prefer to stop for women with bigger breasts.

Pretty damn obvious, you'd think, but wonderful to see it proved scientifically.

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The Ant And The Grasshopper

The old parable of The Ant and the Grasshopper has been updated for the Age of Obama:

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green…"

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house, where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome."

Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Ant Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which as you recall just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug-related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the formerly prosperous and peaceful neighbourhood.

The entire nation collapses, bringing the rest of the free world with it.

The moral of the story: vote as if the future of civilization depends on it - because sometimes it does.

Hat-tip: Moonbattery

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Compare And Contrast

Now that the Ground Zero Victory Mosque has suddenly inspired a reverence for freedom of religion and property rights on the Left, they will doubtless be getting ready to support the Downings of Vermont:

To Richard and Joan Downing, the 24-foot-tall cross on a hilltop on their property is an expression of their faith. To a state commission that regulates land use, it is out of character with the natural beauty of the rural neighborhood and should come down.

It's a conflict that has cropped up around the country, pitting religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution's First Amendment against the local zoning authority and state land-use control laws.

The Downings, lifelong Roman Catholics in their late 70s, own about 800 acres outside the village of Lyndonville. In 2005, they opened a chapel on their property to serve their family: seven children, three of them adopted, and the 35 foster children they raised, mainly at their other home in Sherborn, Mass.

Their website makes clear the chapel is open to the public, however, offering "those seeking peace and spiritual growth a sanctuary of grace and beauty."

And so it's all about to go The Shape Of The Pear. Arguments are ongoing as to whether the cross will be permitted.

Eric Rassbach of the Washington, D.C.-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty said the religious person's burden is usually weighed against a claim by the government that it has a "compelling interest," such as public safety, in restricting a specific behavior.

Surely this settles the Victory Mosque case? If there is no "compelling interest" for the US Government to prevent a nutter like Imam Faisal Rauf from raising a 13-story shrine to terrorism at the edge of Ground Zero because it's apparently not outlandish provocation which could lead to violence, how does a cross out in the country threaten public order?

One of these is apparently a threat to public order

Hat-tip to Van Helsing

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Minneapolis Pay $165,000 To Zombies

A cracking article from the Minneapolis Star has been sent in by Amusing Bunni. Her site is an unmissable mix of US politics and kittehs if you haven't been there before!

The Minneapolis city attorney's office has decided to pay seven zombies and their attorney $165,000.

The payout, approved by the City Council on Friday, settles a federal lawsuit the seven filed after they were arrested and jailed for two days for dressing up like zombies in downtown Minneapolis on July 22, 2006, to protest "mindless" consumerism.

When arrested at the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and 6th Street N., most of them had thick white powder and fake blood on their faces and dark makeup around their eyes. They were walking in a stiff, lurching fashion and carrying four bags of sound equipment to amplify music from an iPod when they were arrested by police who said they were carrying equipment that simulated "weapons of mass destruction."

The police in the UK would have done the same thing of course. After all, if you can be arrested as a suspected terrorist for taking a photograph of a chip shop or for dropping cigarette ash then who knows what eeeeevil you could do in Bognor Regis High Street with an iPod and some speakers.

Maybe Tony Blair was looking in the wrong place for weapons of mass destruction. He should have tried the set of Dawn of the Dead (the musical version)...

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Silent Star Wars!

Star Wars done as a silent black'n'white movie. Really good...

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Realism

Saw this and liked it. Why can't you get smilies that are this accurate? Especially an animated one...

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The Downfall Of Alex Salmond

A pity that Uber-dick Tom Harris is responsible for this, but despite that it's funny.

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Johnny Rotten On Jews And Arabs

That renowned philosopher and bon vivant Johnny Rotten just says it as he sees it:

"I really resent the presumption that I'm going [to Israel] to play to right-wing Nazi jews," he tells me. "If Elvis-fucking-Costello wants to pull out of a gig in Israel because he's suddenly got this compassion for Palestinians, then good on him. But I have absolutely one rule, right? Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won't understand how anyone can have a problem with how they're treated."

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YouTube Censorship: The Fightback!

After all this talk of censorship on YouTube and GrumpyOldTwat losing some of the videos he's uploaded, TheEye decided to don his Level12 Necromancer's Pointy Hat of Coding and do something about it.

The result is a collection of php scripts and random code which might or might not work as a video upload site. With the aid of GOT's artwork it certainly looks like one in dim light.

The plan is that with TheEye and Gotty looking menacing at the door it'll be a safe haven for more controversial stuff than YouTube are happy with. And anything else that anyone fancies, of course.

Before it is unleashed on the outside world a small group of beta testers are needed to give it a jog across the IT superhighway to see if it gets run over. Fancy helping out? Please drop us a note here. Thanks!

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CiggyBusters

In what can only be described as an outbreak of criminal mob violence, pupils from the Hundred of Hoo Comprehensive School in Medway have been running up to smokers in the street, shouting "ciggy busters" and snatching their cigarettes from them.

First spotted at Corrugated Soundbite's, then Dick Puddlecote's; from Big Brother Watch we read:

Here's a quote from the responsible "adult" from the school in the write-up in the Medway Messenger: 

I was scared about doing something so crazy on the street - I mean you can get arrested.

And should be.
And here's a quote from the write-up at This is Kent:
Kent police in Medway were made aware of the planned filming, prior to the event taking place.
And didn't stop it!?

Medway police seem to be happy for youths to snatch your property from your hands in broad daylight, so purse theft is obviously fair game in their High Street....but ironically taking a photograph of a chip shop there will get you arrested. Strange times, indeed.

Apparently the law-abiding people of Kent can be robbed on the street with the tacit approval of the local constabulary as part of an ongoing scheme from the school which will continue through September. So beware if you are in the area - there are criminals on the loose. Keep your elbows sharp and be prepared to punch any thieves in self-defence if a mugging and assault on your person occurs.

The 'cameraman', Ollie Gapper (who until just now listed his interests on Facebook as "porn, calling chavs and smokers idiots" and "being smarter than you" posted the video on YouTube and quickly pulled it. It's back up now, but just in case he pulls it again it's been hosted somewhere nice'n'safe where it can be watched in horror by libertarians at their leisure.

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The al-Megrahi Miracle Misses The Point

It’s exactly a year ago today that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was freed on compassionate grounds by the SNP-led Scottish government after receiving a doctor’s report saying that he had only got three months to live. Today there is a report that he might live for another seven years.

The continuing ability of this release to infuriate people surfaced again last month during David Cameron’s visit to Washington and it hasn't really died down since. Alex Salmond is on Sky News right now trying to pass the buck to the doctors and Kenny MacAskill.

The whole argument about the medical advice is missing the point - the fact is that releasing him was the  wrong decision. It makes no odds whether he was dying or in fine health...he was found guilty of murdering hundreds of people. Even if you take a harsh view of the quality of the evidence or the trial procedure in Scotland, the fact remains that in law he was found guilty and should die in prison.

Would we release Peter Sutcliffe? Or Harold Shipman? Or any mass murderer? Should we, even if they are demonstrably in their final days? No! For mass murderers the whole point of a true life sentence is that you will never get out. Ever.

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Unbelievable A-Level Results As Per Usual

At last the Dodo said, ‘everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’

Once again, rather like tractor stats in the Soviet Union, the glorious march towards genetic perfection and the source of all knowledge continues apace. At least according to the numbers.

A hearty well done to everyone who took them and especially well done to those who are heading to the University of their choice. Unfortunately you're always going to be tarred, on the evidence of the graph above, that "ours" were harder than "yours".

This year saw the introduction of the hideous and pointless A*s which was awarded to 29.9% of Further Maths candidates. The lowest was in media, film and TV studies at 1.8% but that's not a real subject anyway, so who cares.

Across the subjects, science has seen an odd resurgence this year with biology entries up 4.3%, chemistry up 3.7% and physics up by 5.2% despite the fact that the 'Elf'n'Safety Nazis won't let you do anything interesting any more. In TheEye's day there were all sorts of exciting experiments with the potential do you a splendid injury. It has been the forced eradication of the interesting bits which has caused the recent catastrophic collapse in entries.

TheEye likes this time of year. The media always seem to pick the attractive students to interview and feature on their front pages - you'd think that nobody resembling the European Acne Mountain had ever sat an exam. The BBC do exactly that here but immediately change to a disappointed bloke who missed his required grades. That will be the BBC's bias showing this year....students not making it to the place of their choice. Rather hard on them when they've spent the last few years being told that the most retarded mong-child is "entitled" to a Uni place on the taxpayers' dime.

Despite this, it seems that one particular Beeboid doesn't know the difference between "fare" and "fair".

Hat-tip to Laban for the BBC screencap

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The YouTube Conspiracy

The GOT, Corrugated Soundbite and many others have recently been making grumbling noises about videos being removed from YouTube after they had linked to them.

It's not some random spotty geek in the YouTube basement deciding what to do based on whether he managed that 17th level Archmage upgrade last night. There are a pile of activist groups to 'help' him:  take a look at  (both featuring lots of Arabic):

youtube.com/ForIslamFlagers

..and youtube.com/Flag4Islam




In response the YouTube Smackdown Corps seems to be the only real competition.

Hat-tip to Jawa for the links

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Location Location Location

Those are the three most important things to consider when building mosques to commemorate Muslim triumphs over the infidel. This is why Ground Zero Victory Mosque imam Faisal Abdul Rauf has refused to even discuss accepting free land to build his mosque in a less emotive place:

The developers of an Islamic cultural center that would include a mosque near Ground Zero have rejected Gov. David Paterson's offer to help them find a different site.
Paterson said today the group is apparently committed to building in the proposed site. "I think they would like to stay where they are, and I certainly respect that and I certainly respect them," Paterson said.

And also joining the 20% of Americans who support the mosque in the previous article we have:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg … last week made an impassioned defense of the project, saying it would be a "sad day" if the project gets shut down.

By dismissing out of hand the idea of constructing the mosque elsewhere, Rauf has made it very clear that the point is to gloat and to provoke.

The family members of the 9-11 attack victims and first responders released this ad yesterday called “We Remember”.



Amazingly, Ground Zero Mosque supporters are hoping that George Bush comes out in their support.

That picture is for those dhimis who claim that the mosque is absolutely miles away from Ground Zero. And for those who still think that the new building is too far away to matter, this is a photo of a piece of one of the planes which crashed into the World Trade Centre towers. This section of landing gear fell through the roof of the building on the current site of the proposed mosque - the Burlington Coat Factory - and fell through into to the basement.

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A Virtual EU

Apologies for lack of substantial postings in the last few days. TheEye is working on an interesting project which may see the light of day depending on testing results and general motivation. In the meantime, here's something to enjoy...

A few days ago, news broke that the European Parliament was spending a couple of hundred thousand pounds on a computer simulation of life in EU politics. It's called Citzalia, which sounds more like a disease you'd pick up from a Pompey slapper than a virtual parliament but ho hum.

The site is now registering for testing. According to the blurb it lets you understand how "the EU's democratically elected parliament works" by, amongst other things, letting you "create your own office, furnish the 3d virtual room, [and] decorate it with your pictures.". Unfortunately it is only pre-testing registration and it doesn't start until next month but as they say in Labour marginals....get your name down and vote early vote often.

TheEye is off to whistle up a placard-wielding egg-throwing crowd of French farmers and then wait for a pixellated visit from Europol.

Hat-tip to Lee Rotherham

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For No Reason At All

It's 100 days into the Coalition government, but that's no real reason to re-post this video of Gordoom resigning.

Just.....because.

There are some things you can enjoy a thousand times over.

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The Message Remains The Same

A year ago today I produced and posted a video, to express how I felt about the pointless war in Afghanistan following the 200th death of one of our armed forces. A year on and nothing has changed .... apart from the ever increasing loss of life which, as of today now stands at 331.

Three hundred and thirty one.

Not to mention 100's more whose lives have been irrepairably changed due to physical and/or mental injuries, causing them and their loved ones endless years of suffering.

And for what.

As I said .... the message remains the same. When is it going to stop.

Gotty :-(

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Perks Of The Job

One of these women has just made Maxim's 100 Hottest Women list. Which one do you think it is?

CLUE: her husband's Nobel Peace Prize was equally undeserved....

Okay, MO is Photoshopped in, but her image hasn't been altered. The other women are (red dress) Letizia Ortiz, Princess of Asturias (Spain) and (blue dress) Carla Bruni, singer/model and married to French dwarf Nicolas Sarkozy.

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Time Magazine: Islam, The Militant Revival

We're always being told that the rise of Islamic extremism is down to the eeeevil George W Bush, so take a look at this front cover of Time and guess which year it's from...

.... April 16, 1979

So don't think this terrorism stuff is all some sort of recent and surprising thing.

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Israeli Nuclear Strike On Iran: The Betting Pool!

Seen a while ago over at Jawa, but a reminder has just gone around that in June, DMartyr @ Snapped Shot opened up a Israeli Nuke Strike Betting Pool .

Israel is preparing to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. What will Iran claim was hit? Will the Evil Zionists™ destroy another Baby Milk Factory? An Orphanage? Or much worse, an Iranian Center for Religious Tolerance?
Join the betting pool!
Place your bets! Pick a grid.
Winner will receive an AUTHENTIC copy of Brian C. Ledbetter’s ***Cease and Desist from the Associated Press! Brian will also throw in the ORIGINAL FedEx envelope!

Well Aug 21 is now the target date, via Gerald

Bushehr reactor...once the rods are in, Israel can no longer attack reactor because of spreading radiation. Aug. 21 activation date: Ruskies.
6 days to Israel hit on Bushehr, is Russia blowing smoke?

The Bartender noted:

this would be 3 days after Prez O arrives at Martha's Vineyard on the 19th.

HOW TO JOIN:
You can use comments to pick a grid or you can email me. Be sure to include your blogging nick, your blog name and the blog's URL.
Betting Pool will remain open until Israel strikes at Iran's nuclear facilities.
NOTE: Casualty numbers have been RANDOMLY added but will be kept hidden until the Betting Pool ends.
Winner will be the blog that selects the most accurate target claimed by IRAN - not the actual target Israel hits! If more than one blog correctly selects the claimed target, the overall winner will be whoever has the correct target AND the closest casualty count, as reported by IRAN.
I'll be updating the pool daily, replacing the numbers in the grids with blog names.

(Click to enlarge.)

**In the event Iran claims a target that is not on this list and not even close to any listed, SnappedShot.com will select the closest match.**
**One entry per blog! Bloggers may enter multiple blogs, however, SnappedShot.com reserves the right to limit the number of entries by one blogger.**
**In the event of multiple winners (should Iran claim multiple targets), a random draw will determine overall winner.**

Let the games/bets begin! Head on over to SnappedShot to place your bet, or email DMarty with your bet.

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Confidence In The Media

There was a thought-provoking comment on a previous thread by 'thespecialone' about the trustworthiness and reliability of the MSM which began "I dont rely on the media for any 'news' on any subject. MSM just follow and publish what others have already done so...."

He speaks of "a bunch of so-called young journalists who just want to try to make a name for themselves."



So let's see if that's a feeling which is more widely felt.

In the US, Gallup (published on 13th August) says:

Americans continue to express near-record-low confidence in newspapers and television news — with no more than 25% of Americans saying they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in either. These views have hardly budged since falling more than 10 percentage points from 2003-2007.

The findings are from Gallup’s annual Confidence in Institutions survey, which found the military faring best and Congress faring worst of 16 institutions tested. Americans’ confidence in newspapers and television news is on par with Americans’ lackluster confidence in banks and slightly better than their dismal rating of Health Management Organizations and big business.

The decline in trust since 2003 is also evident in a 2009 Gallup poll that asked about confidence and trust in the “mass media” more broadly. While perceptions of media bias present a viable hypothesis, Americans have not over the same period grown any more likely to say the news media are too conservative or too liberal.

No matter the cause, it is clear the media as a whole are not gaining new fans as they struggle to serve and compete with growing demand for online news, social media, and mobile platforms.

So yes, it's not just bloggers and blog readers who are suspicious of the MSM. As usual, we find ourselves in the silent majority.

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Jews In Space

Seemingly trying to counter the negative reaction to B Hussein Obama ordering NASA to play nice and make Muslims feel good about themselves it is reported that they have signed an agreement with Israel to help them with space exploration.

Areas for co-operation are listed as "space geodesy, the measurement from space of Earth's gravitational field, tides, and the movement of its poles and crust, building big missiles and calculating flight trajectories towards Tehran"


A fantastic opportunity to post this spoof by Melvin "Mel" Kaminsky (aka Mel Brooks).



Original coolness from Jawa

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More From The "Prison Camp"

Guido has another video of the pure Hell on Earth that the BBC (and David Cameron) would have you believe is crushing the inhabitants of Gaza. 



“The landscaped water park features three swimming pools, three water slides, ponds with pedal boats, a restaurant, a cafe, and a quiet area shaded by a tent where adults can sit on carpets and listen to music.”

Looks like a great place to take a holiday and now's the time to visit...Ramadan...no queues.. Except you'd be kept awake by the sounds of missiles being fired at Israel.

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Ghost School

Nice to see the Taffs getting into the spirit of belt-tightening and prudence.

A Carmarthenshire primary school is being told it must stay open at the cost of up to £110,000 - despite not having a single pupil.

Capel Iwan school near Newcastle Emlyn said goodbye to its last 12 children in July. But education officials say the school must be ready to open in the autumn - with a fully paid head teacher.

The assembly government says the local authority must go through the correct procedures before it can be shut. Those processes includes a lengthy statutory consultation period with people in the area, before the issue can be fully discussed by Carmarthenshire council. If there are any objections, then the whole matter must be passed to the assembly government's education minister to consider.

The whole process could take more than a year to complete.

In the meantime, it would be illegal for the school to shut - even though not a single pupil will be taught in the classrooms at Capel Iwan.

Councillor Gwynne Woolridge, who is responsible for education on the executive of Carmarthenshire council, described the situation as "unfortunate".

Unfortunate? Not for the Headmaster being paid to do stuff-all for a year, it isn't.

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The Secret To Immortality

Sigh, must we have this debate every year? And why has this suddenly become "news"? If you read some of the opinion columns about David Cameron speculating on the merits of double-summertime hours you'd think that we're all suddenly going to live forever if we do it. Four disabled schoolchildren per year won't get run over by evil bankers' footprint-guzzling carbon-windmills and everyone will have a beach hut. Unless you live in Scotland, in which case you're going to start living in perpetual gloom and needing to eat lunch by candlelight.

Time zones are dictated by geography and astronomy, not by politicians. There is simply no case for moving away from GMT unless we can automagically move land mass currently sitting on the Prime Meridian hundreds of miles eastward. Much as it's entertaining to watch a whole nation throw its collective haggis out of the pram, annoying the Scots isn't enough of a reason to do this.

The artificial construct of Summer Time only began because of the supposed needs of agriculture and industry in World War I. As we're not at war (until the Germans kick off again; it's getting about time) if anything the whole continent should change to GMT. Or go back to the good old pre-railway days when the time in your local town depended on where the Sun was in the sky. It's only a number. You can go to school or work when it opens and closes and that could vary instead of being fixed - it certainly does in the Med area.

Frankly if you choose to live somewhere inconveniently away from the Greenwich Meridian then it's your own look out.

The whole thing is a solution that is desperately looking for a "problem".

UPDATE: The timezone doesn't appear to be a Schedule 5 Reserved Matter for Scotland. Why not? It would make sense, surely?

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Let Them Eat Gulf Shrimp

Michelle Obama gets the Taiwan anime treatment. You don't have to speak the lingo to understand exactly what's going on here, although they're really missing a trick not putting it into English.

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Mosque At Ground Zero: (Gay Bar Update)

It seems that the design for the new mosque to be built at Ground Zero has been approved (pic by Doug Ross):

But there's an important development in the Ground Zero Mosque controversy, and apparently quite genuine in its intent. From Greg Gutfeld:

So, the Muslim investors championing the construction of the new mosque near Ground Zero claim it's all about strengthening the relationship between the Muslim and non-Muslim world. As an American, I believe they have every right to build the mosque - after all, if they buy the land and they follow the law - who can stop them?

Which is, why, in the spirit of outreach, I've decided to do the same thing.

I'm announcing tonight, that I am planning to build and open the first gay bar that caters not only to the west, but also Islamic gay men. To best express my sincere desire for dialogue, the bar will be situated next to the mosque Park51, in an available commercial space.

This is not a joke. I've already spoken to a number of investors, who have pledged their support in this bipartisan bid for understanding and tolerance.

As you know, the Muslim faith doesn't look kindly upon homosexuality, which is why I'm building this bar. It is an effort to break down barriers and reduce deadly homophobia in the Islamic world.

The goal, however, is not simply to open a typical gay bar, but one friendly to men of Islamic faith. An entire floor, for example, will feature non-alcoholic drinks, since booze is forbidden by the faith. The bar will be open all day and night, to accommodate men who would rather keep their sexuality under wraps - but still want to dance.

Bottom line: I hope that the mosque owners will be as open to the bar, as I am to the new mosque. After all, the belief driving them to open up their center near Ground Zero, is no different than mine.

My place, however, will have better music.

Exactly as we're being told the the mosque is - it'll be a shining example of moderation and tolerance. Just think of it....Wet Burkha Friday at The Al-gay-da Bar.

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The Love Pyramid

Today is obviously the day for kooks and nutters to come out of the woodwork. Or TheEye is in the mood for such stories....one or the other. From my list of daily reads (true) comes this from Ice News - News From The Nordics.

Icelandic artist Snorri Asmundsson is set to visit Palestine and Israel this September with his meditation pyramid. The stated goal of the project is to spread love and affection using meditation from the so-called Love Pyramid. 

It is hoped the pyramid will become a sort of ‘love battery’ which will send its charge out to all receptive souls. The artist will meditate in his glass pyramid in several different squares and plazas in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Although Asmundsson will use his performance art to meditate and pray for peace; his pyramid will nonetheless be made from bulletproof glass.

'nuff said. Moron.

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Benefits Bounty Hunters

News hits us today that benefit fraud will be tackled partly by using credit rating agencies making use of commercially-available data.

All of the information in the world is useless unless you know how to query it intelligently, so to use welfare data and data that is publicly available or on sale about spending patterns, loans etc is a big job. The savings could be enormous. £1billion out of £5.2 billion fraud is suggested by the Telegraph and £1.5B by the BBC who must have had a different press release. The Left, sacred of seeing their voting client base deprived of taxpayer-funded SkyTV, exotic parrots and holidays to Las Vegas aren't impressed and BBC R4 are furious, but you know you're doing something right when the BBC are against it (read the Analysis of their Chief Political Correspondent who puts the majority of it down to clerical errors and bad typing).

There's no 'civil liberties' argument to be had here, or if there is it's a false one, because nothing new is being recorded or held. It's only existing stuff being looked at properly.

Still, there's an attractive mental image to be had of a masked David Cameron walking up and down a line at Conservative HQ consisting of Boba Fett, Dog the Bounty Hunter and Chuck Norris wheezing "You are free to use any methods necessary, but I want them alive...No disintegrations." (audio!)

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Some Things You Never Live Down

The Internet is a marvellous thing. In a hundred years the relatives (not his grandchildren, no chance of those) of a certain Alexander C Grunke will look up his name in whatever replaces Google and find......this.

The Grunke boys and a third guy, Dustin Radke, paid a visit to a Cassville cemetery in 2006 so they could dig up the body of Laura Tennessen, who had been buried just the week before after dying in a motorcycle crash -- they'd seen her picture in the local newspaper.

The idea was to dig her up, then haul her corpse back to a spot behind Nicholas's home, where he could.....right, that's enough of that.

The brilliant line though, is that they "....stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up some condoms". What? Worried they'd get her pregnant? No lads, that's not how you get someone pregnant. And neither is what's going to happen to you in the prison showers when they find out what you're in for.

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Quotas For MPs

Yesterday Sean O'Grady wrote in the Independent (yes, TheEye thought it had shut down too) an article in which he "uncovers" an "absence of diversity in the 119 people now running the country". Shockingly:

Analysis by The Independent of the social origins of members of the coalition government – the most extensive exercise of its kind – reveals that...ethnic minorities....glaringly white....heavy public school bias....

Yadda yadda yadda. You realise TheEye reads this stuff so that you don't have to? No charge.

Jonathan Isaby writes altogether more sensibly on ConHome in reply:

"I have never believed that Parliament or the Government should be a microcosm of society. If it were, half would be comprised - by definition - of those of below average intelligence and educational attainment, for a start.

...which is true. Think of the average person you know, and consider how stupid they are. Then realise that half of the world is statistically more stupid than that.

However TheEye finds himself more in sympathy with Sean O'Grady than Jonathan Isaby, because Jonathan says: "To to do otherwise would smack of tokenism and the politics of quotas, to which I do not subscribe."


Well TheEye believes in quotas for MPs. Not for gays obviously - they are wildly over-represented in Parliament already - but a quota for MPs who believe in the same values as the majority of the country:

• The UK has a majority in opposition to EU membership
• The UK supports the death penalty for the most extreme offences
• There is overwhelming enthusiasm for tougher sentencing and action on crime
• A strong majority support the legalisation of cannabis
• A majority believe that Islam is a threat to the West
• Four out of five want a cap on immigration, costing the Conservatives the election.

So yes, Sean and Jonathan, let's have quotas. Let's set a compulsory minimum of (say) 60% of Parliament signed up to this slate. Then we might see a Parliament truly representative of the people.

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Milk

Right, what's going on here then? Lots of embarassment.

Firstly, Health Minister Anne Milton does her job of looking for savings by writing to Shona Robinson in Scotland that it was an "ineffective universal measure". Noting that the media, parents, nurseries, childminders and the dairy sector would all wave their arms in the air shouldn't stop a discussion on cutting it - she wanted a consultation and she made clear her preference for taking action  on the £59m bill.

So far, so predictably leak material. And so it proved.

David Cameron then intervened and hung David Willetts out to dry like a good'un live on television by saying that it wasn't an option.




So, whats all the fuss about something introduced in 1940 to help protect pregnant women and the young against wartime shortages? It's simply media hype in the silly season when Parliament is closed and there aren't any stories.

School milk has been withdrawn from schools in three phases:

• Removal from secondary schools: Late sixties, under a Labour Government. First and largest scale withdrawal. PM: Wilson, Ed. Sec. Walker.
• Removal from 7-11 year olds. Early seventies, under a Conservative Government. Heath wanted complete withdrawal but was stopped by Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher. PM: Heath, Ed. Sec: Thatcher.
• Final removal from schools. Late seventies, under a Labour Government. PM: Callaghan, Ed. Sec: Williams.

So the BBC narrative (and Sky too - they are just as guilty of reproducing the same Labour press release) about it being the eeeeeeevil Tories is just wrong.

Basically introduced as a subsidy for the dairy industry and a way to torture young children with a foul liquid they would be put off of for life, the reasons for free milk in schools or nurseries no longer exist. It’s an expensive anachronism that well deserves its place in history.

Cameron flinched and blew it.

UPDATE: Great stuff from the GrumpyOldTwat:

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