July 13, 2010
Switzerland Welcomes Anal Raping Paedophiles (as long as the are lefty luvvies)
Roman Polanski released: US says case is not closed - Telegraph
Roman Polanski is "special"... would they welcome Gary Glitter if he was on the run? (And I will admit Mr Gadd's music has provided me with far more entertainment than Pervvy Polanski ever has).
Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
June 24, 2010
Cheese Eating Surrender President
McChrystal's fate sealed by mockery of French - Telegraph
Gen Stanley McChrystal's mockery of the French appeared to seal his fate in the eyes of Barack Obama, according to White House officials.
The French or a highly decorated American fighting man - who would you choose?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:53 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
June 12, 2010
Jaffa Miliband BOGOF Deal?
David Miliband shows human side as he talks about fatherhood - Times Online
The front-runner for the Labour leadership, often criticised for appearing other-worldly, reveals his human side in an interview with The Times.
He talks of the “bond of unbelievable strength” that he has with his sons. Mr Miliband and his wife, Louise, travelled to the US to be present at their births. The boys, Isaac, 5, and Jacob, 3, are not biologically related. The Milibands write every six months to the birth parents.
Lots of guff about why they wanted new borns, not a sign of an apology that his wants are unavailable to British adopters in the UK because of the laws he supported, but yet again no hint of the real reason. He simply wanted nice little Jewish kids, and the US is the only place you can order them.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:20 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
December 19, 2009
Obama - Quitter not a fighter.
Copenhagen: 'Toothless' climate deal struck by superpowers - Scotsman.com News
Mr Obama suggested that the five-nation agreement would be adopted by the larger summit in its closing hours. "I am leaving before the final vote," he said.
What a quitter he is, only deigning to turn up because he thought there was something to sign, running away as soon as it all gets a bit sticky. You would think all his years in the Chicago Political Machine would make him feel at home in the squalid deal making corruption of Copenhagen. Maybe he doesn't like to be reminded of how he rose to power.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
November 7, 2009
Noli Me Calcare!
Texan police officer Kim Munley who shot Fort Hood gunman hailed as a heroine - Times Online
She seems to to be the one person who is coming out of this appalling act with credit, representing the type of American and Texan we hope for. Many others, starting at the top aren't. And nor is the media with its circumlocutory commentary. I don't expect the jury will be so indirect.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:12 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
October 10, 2009
Blair shaken.
Blair denounced by father of soldier killed in Kuwait
Peter Brierley, whose son Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley was killed in an accident in Kuwait in March 2003, told Mr Blair at the Guildhall: “I am not shaking your hand. You have got blood on it.” Onlookers said that Mr Blair was led away looking visibly shaken.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:11 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
October 9, 2009
Peace Prize
On my way to an appointment I drove through Wootton Basset today. The crowds were beginning to line the street behind the Honour Guard of the RAF Regiment. There were the flags and blazers of the British Legion, leatherclad bikers in a group, and families with arms round each other.
Mum's tears as heroes bodies are flow home to Wiltshire (From This Is Wiltshire)
The mother of a British squaddie broke down in tears and cried: ''I just want my baby back'' as his body was repatriated to Wiltshire from Afghanistan today.
Guardsman Jamie Janes, 20, died in an explosion as he tried to clear a way for his comrades in the troubled Helmand Province on October 5.
His body was arrived home alongside that of Acting Corporal Marcin Wojtak, of 34 Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment.
Ironically, they were repatriated on the day Barack Obama - commander in chief of the American-led war - was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
I turned the news off on the car radio in disgust.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:13 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
September 16, 2009
Olympic Logo For Schools Revealed - "Get Head"
The new London 2012 education logo was unveiled yesterday. The winning design was created by Reiss Evans, an 18-year-old graphic design student from Dover, who will now see the design for Get Set, the London 2012 official education programme, being used by schools and colleges around the country as part of the effort to get children excited and inspired by the Olympic Games.
To earn the right to use the new logo, and become a member of the new Get Set network, schools and colleges need to register with Get Set, showcase their student-led work around the values via the dedicated “Get Set” blog, and complete a short application form. They will receive the right to use the London 2012 education logo on their headed paper, website and school sign, as well as being given a plaque and certificate marking their achievements.
Apologies to Reiss, I couldn't show his new logo as I haven't sucked up to Lord Coe enough so I had to use one from Theo Spark
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
September 14, 2009
Stone Age Tom Toms
Blognor Regis sceptically brings us news of Stone age navigation :
1,500 sites stretching from Norfolk to north Wales. These included standing stones, hilltop forts, stone circles and hill camps. Each was built within eyeshot of the next.
Using GPS co-ordinates, he plotted a course between the monuments and noted their positions to each other.
He found that they all lie on a vast geometric grid made up of isosceles 'triangles'. Each triangle has two sides of the same length and 'point' to the next settlement.
The centre of the whole network is Silbury Hill and one of the nearest points is Rybury Camp which is south of it. You would think he must have examined it really well as his whole network depends on the first points.
The top of Silbury Hill is 187 metres; your task today is to work out how you can stand there and see the top of Rybury Camp (240 m) through the Tan Hill ridge which at its lowest is 255 m. Maybe Stone Age man had really tall periscopes as well...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:53 PM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBack
September 13, 2009
Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug (1914-2009)
Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug dies at 95
Credited with saving more lives than any other person in world history.
He devoted his life to ending the human misery of famine in destitute third world countries, often living and working in harsh, squalid conditions in remote regions of Mexico to Africa. He also understood that large numbers of miserable, hungry people contributes to world instability. He didn’t seek fame and fortune for himself, and few people outside of the scientific field have even heard of him.
He embodied kindness, compassion, and a conviction to save the lives of fellow human beings, regardless of their race, creed and religion. No other man in human history can compare to his legacy of service to mankind.
“He made the world a better place,” said close friend Dr. Ed Runge, retired head of Texas A&M University's Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. "A much better place."
A truly great man, an inspiration. I started to compare his legacy to the work of our present day "Oh so concerned" activists and got too angry, so I have deleted that because today is for appreciating his work for what it is and him for the man he was.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:42 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
September 11, 2009
Stand and never yield
911 Remembered: Rick Rescorla was a soldier
Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming;
Can't you see their spearpoints gleaming?
See their warriors' pennants streaming
To this battlefield.
Men of Cornwall stand ye steady;
It cannot be ever said ye
for the battle were not ready;
Stand and never yield!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:56 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
September 7, 2009
UN Dollar
UN wants new global currency to replace dollar - Telegraph
"Replacing the dollar with an artificial currency would solve some of the problems related to the potential of countries running large deficits and would help stability," said Detlef Kotte, one of the report's authors. "But you will also need a system of managed exchange rates. Countries should keep real exchange rates [adjusted for inflation] stable. Central banks would have to intervene and if not they would have to be told to do so by a multilateral institution such as the International Monetary Fund."
All about control and stasis, that is what you get if you try and control all the exchange rates in the world, global stagnation and planners trying to outguess the market using an artificial currency.
Of course if they really wanted to replace the Dollar as the global reserve currency there is one alternative that is tried and tested and waiting in the wings - gold. But it isn't artificial and it isn't controllable by a bunch of second raters from the UN.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:15 PM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
August 30, 2009
And Brutus is an honourable man
Ted Kennedy earned C grades at the private Milton Academy, but was admitted to Harvard as a "legacy" -- his father and older brothers had attended there, so the younger and dimmer Kennedy's admission was virtually assured. While attending, he was expelled twice, once for cheating on a test, and once for paying a classmate to cheat for him. While expelled, Kennedy enlisted in the Army, but mistakenly signed up for four years instead of two. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to England, pulled the necessary strings to have his enlistment shortened to two years, and to ensure that he served in Europe, not Korea, where a war was raging. Kennedy was assigned to Paris, never advanced beyond the rank of Private, and returned to Harvard upon being discharged.
Senator Edward Kennedy was buried with full military honours - Telegraph
Pass the bucket....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
Olympic Drugfest Will Cost NHS Dear
Olympic medical call-up will blow holes in NHS - Times Online
HOSPITALS and GP surgeries will have to draft in thousands of costly agency staff during the 2012 Olympics as National Health Service staff are diverted to jobs at the Games, according to an official report.
Huge extra demand on ambulances and emergency units are predicted and there are concerns that sexual health clinics will not be able to cope because of an increase in promiscuity.
A leaked NHS circular warns of the huge impact of the Games on health services, estimating that an extra 4,600 medical professionals will be needed in London during the month-long event.
I thought the athletes all brought their own drugs to enhance their performances, I didn't realise we were also going to pay for their little blue pills.
I must start planning where to go for that month, hiking across the Rockies or something, any suggestions of how to avoid the whole tawdry spectacle?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:30 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
August 29, 2009
Freeing Terrorists - Just STFU
I hope the oil deal is worth it because there has been enough screeching to disturb my post Adnamite lunchtime snoozes on the beach.
May I just mention Menachem Begin (Irgun Zvei Leumi) , Gerry Adams who attended Obama's inauguration, Jomo Kenyatta a leader of the Mau Mau, (Obama's grandfather was imprisoned for supporting that terrorist movement) and of course Mandela as a few exemplars
Terrorists have always been released, and with a touch of historical revisionism welcomed into the world of realpolitik.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:54 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
August 4, 2009
Immigration Swings and Roundabouts
Latest immigration plan: Go home and we'll give you a British passport - Scotsman.com News
The proposals are intended to encourage "cyclical migration" from the UK to other countries, to help tackle the brain drain of talented workers from developing countries.
The citizenship process would be quicker for those who contribute to civic life, through voluntary work, being a school governor, canvassing for a political party, or trade union activities.
Do I need an exit visa yet?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:41 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
July 28, 2009
Olympics More Fascist Than Fascism
High-speed Olympic 'Javelin' train service launched
Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, was triumphant. “We can run trains ahead of schedule,” she said.
Pathetic old Benito could only make them run on time, we can do much better under Dear Leader.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:15 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
July 11, 2009
Obama Caption Contest Round Two
OK, so you have all seen Round one on Friday Caption Contest (O-bum-er Edition) - Guy Fawkes' blog
And you may have caught Obama's apologists claiming he was only checking the step.
Now have a go at this one.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:12 AM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBack
July 7, 2009
Like a Puppet on a String
You can barely see the wires, on either of them...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
June 24, 2009
Olympics - "reckless use of taxpayers’ money" - Fraud Inquiry
Fraud inquiry into £100m hole in London Development Agency’s Olympic accounts
KPMG will determine whether this was a genuine oversight or a cover-up that could amount to reckless use of taxpayers’ money.
Good luck to them, how you could spot a "reckless use of taxpayers’ money" in the Olympic accounts is beyond me, it would be as hard as finding a Catholic in a pointy hat in Rome.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
June 19, 2009
Obama - Finds a New Loony Enemy to Bomb
Nasa prepares to bomb the moon - Telegraph
But what about the pristine wilderness? Where's the UN when you need it? Bush got enough stick for bombing towelheads who had annoyed him, what's the moon ever done to annoy the Lizard King?
And who will win the First Great Lunar War?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
June 16, 2009
What Cars have to do with Libertarianism
Why cars and personal freedom are linked, and hated by so many.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
June 7, 2009
2012 - The Big Brother Games
BRITISH police are studying Chinese-style surveillance tactics as they prepare security for the 2012 London Olympics, a leaked Scotland Yard report has revealed.
The report, marked “restricted”, reveals that among the “Big Brother” tactics deployed at last summer’s Beijing Games was the installation of miniature microphones in thousands of taxis.
The bugs transmitted passengers’ conversations to a police control room. There, officers could activate disabling devices to stop the cabs if they suspected criminal activity.
The 44-page police report says there are “lessons to be learnt” from China’s use of digital surveillance. But it warns: “The fine balance between the use of technology to support security requirements and individual rights to privacy will be an open debate in the UK for 2012.”
Can anyone think of a single good thing coming out of these Games?
Posted by The Englishman at 8:00 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
June 6, 2009
Bagpipes - The Sound of Freedom
Hunting shops given knife deadline - Scotsman.com News
HUNTING shops and other outlets selling non-domestic knives have been given 12 months to get a licence under a government crackdown on knife crime.
Window displays of knives will be banned, and retailers will have to keep a record of knives sold and of how they checked the age of the purchaser...
Fiona Moriarty, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said: "We were originally concerned about the definition of non-domestic knives but we now know the regulations won't apply to the vast majority of items sold by mainstream retailers.
"But there are other retailers where items are being sold for one purpose – to maim, harm or injure."
Piper Bill Millin is in France today remembering
Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
May 19, 2009
Keeping the Jews out of Film
Film festival hands back Israeli cash after director Loach calls for boycott - Scotsman.com News
ORGANISERS of the Edinburgh International Film Festival have been forced to return a donation from the Israeli embassy after director Ken Loach waded into the funding row and called for people to boycott the event on political grounds.
A donation – believed to be in the region of £300 – was to have been used to pay travel costs to the capital for Tali Shalom Ezer, a graduate of the film and television department at Tel Aviv University, who directed a short feature film, Surrogate.
The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) threatened to picket screenings after the EIFF listed the Israeli embassy to the UK as one of its backers.
Mr Loach released a statement through the SPSC which read: "I'm sure many film-makers will be as horrified as I am to learn the Edinburgh International Film Festival is accepting money from Israel. The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make this money unacceptable. With regret, I must urge all who might consider visiting the festival to show their support for the Palestinian nation and stay away."
The following day the EIFF – which has since been in talks with Mr Loach – did a U-turn. It said: "The EIFF are firm believers in free cultural exchange and do not wish to restrict film-makers' abilities to communicate artistically with international audiences on the basis that they come from a troubled regime.
"Although the festival is considered wholly cultural and apolitical, we consider the opinions of the film industry as a whole and, as such, accept that one film-maker's recent statement speaks on behalf of the film community, therefore we will be returning the funding issued by the Israeli embassy."
Might be news for Hollywood that the mouthpiece for the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign speaks for the film industry as a whole....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
May 5, 2009
Obama to tax our US firms
President Obama moves to capture lost tax from US multinationals - Times Online
Mr Obama said yesterday that he would close provisions in US tax law that allowed companies to defer the payment of tax on profits made at their overseas operations as long as the profits were ploughed back into the foreign business. He said that this encouraged companies to expand their operations outside America at the expense of US jobs.
Bad news for London, worse news for Dublin but worst for the the US as the money grabbing system tries to squeeze every pip out of enterprise. So much for him being an international superstar as he retreats into isolationist socialism.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:26 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
May 1, 2009
Happy May Day Picture Post
A dead Che - what more do you want to lift your spirits?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:29 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
April 8, 2009
Battling Barak the Barbarian
Barack the Barbarian: Quest for the Treasure of Stimuli #1
Written by LARRY HAMA Variant cover featuring Red Sarah!
From a far away land rises a mighty hero. The son of peasants from two different realms, the one known only as Barack protects the people of Hope Kingdom at all costs. Watch as he takes on the likes of Boosh the Dim, Red Sarah and Cha-nee the Grim in this hilarious first issue!
Format: Standard Comic, 32 pgs, FC, Saddle Stitched.
Retail Price: $3.50
UPC Code: Cover A – 882142-00197-00101 Cover B – 882142-00197-00102
Now that is how I like to take my politics..
.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:36 AM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
April 7, 2009
Great Speechs
Alan Yentob denies Ronald Reagan a hearing - Telegraph
Hailed as the great communicator in his day, Ronald Reagan was conspicuous by his absence in Alan Yentob's BBC2 programme Yes We Can! The Lost Art of Oratory.
Along with Barack Obama, an inordinate amount of time was given over to such great orators as Neil Kinnock and, I kid you not, Diane Abbott.
Yentob admits the Gipper should have been permitted to have got a word in edgeways. "The problem is we needed someone to talk about him...
No, you didn't - he is quite capable still of speaking for himself...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:03 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
April 5, 2009
How to win
Sebastian Coe interview - Telegraph
He has even managed to write a book.
The Winning Mind is Coe's prescription for success at work, based on his experiences in sport, business and politics.
..In Moscow in 1980 Coe suffered a humiliating reverse, losing the 800 metres gold medal to his arch rival, Steve Ovett,...
His political career can best be described as ill-timed. Elected in 1992 as Conservative MP for Falmouth and Camborne, he was just in time for the long Tory twilight that was the government of John Major. He was appointed a whip but failed in his aim of becoming sports minister. After losing his seat in the Blair landslide of 1997 he returned to politics as chief of staff, and judo partner, to William Hague....
Coe is divorced from the mother of his four children, the former show jumper Nicola McIrvine. In 2004 he was forced to endure a stream of tabloid disclosures about his private life, and unsuccessfully attempted to injunct accounts of an alleged affair.
I don't think I'll bother to buy his recipe for success, and I haven't even mentioned the Olympics...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:53 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 2, 2009
Economist Defending The Right To Defame Religion
Free speech and religious sensitivity | The meaning of freedom | The Economist
AT FIRST glance, the resolution on “religious defamation” adopted by the UN’s Human Rights Council on March 26th, mainly at the behest of Islamic countries, reads like another piece of harmless verbiage churned out by a toothless international bureaucracy...The resolution says “defamation of religions” is a “serious affront to human dignity” which can “restrict the freedom” of those who are defamed, and may also lead to the incitement of violence....What exactly is it the drafters of the council resolution are trying to outlaw? To judge from what happens in the countries that lobbied for the vote—like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan—they use the word “defamation” to mean something close to the crime of blasphemy, which is in turn defined as voicing dissent from the official reading of Islam....But no state, and certainly no body that calls itself a Human Rights Council, should trample on the right to free speech enshrined in the Universal Declaration.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:42 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
March 5, 2009
Telegraph Appeasers
Princess Anne visit to Gibraltar stirs up tensions - Telegraph
HRH Princess Anne arrived in Gibraltar Wednesday on an official visit to the disputed territory that has stirred up old tensions between Britain and Spain.
The Spanish government made an official complaint to British authorities ahead of the royal visit describing it as "inopportune" and an affront to Spain, which contests London's rule over the strategic territory.
"Disputed"? Disputed, as in the way the ownership of my wallet is disputed between me and a hoody late at night. Just because a bunch of grease balls want it doesn't make it disputed. The Telegraph is a bloody disgrace to dignify the attempted theft with the word.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM
| Comments (8)
| TrackBack
March 4, 2009
Gordon's Arselicking Gestures
Arise, Sir Ted Kennedy :: Toby Harnden
Senator Ted Kennedy is to be conferred the honorary title of "Sir Ted" by Her Majesty the Queen.
I'm told that Gordon Brown will use his speech to the joint session of Congress on Wednesday to make the announcement of the Senator's elevation to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) to mark his "services to the US-UK relationship and Northern Ireland". For decades the now ailing Senator from Massachusetts, 77, was a vehement critic of the British presence in Northern Ireland and worked hard to sever it from the rest of the United Kingdom. Some British diplomats viewed him as an enabler of the IRA...
The gesture by Mr Brown is, of course, part of the Prime Minister's courtship of President Barack Obama. The "lion of the Senate", first elected in 1962, broke ranks with the rest of the Democratic establishment in February last year to endorse Mr Obama over Hillary Clinton.
I thought Gordon's team running round the White House begging for Gordon to be acknowledge that he is "Besty Friends" with The Messiah was embarrassing enough but for our Glorious Empire's name to be dragged so low; and it has been dragged fairly low before but this is a new low; by being used to bribe the Obamaweenies by rewarding the murderous old fraud for his years of bile and hate is stomach churning.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:05 AM
| Comments (7)
| TrackBack
March 1, 2009
Guy can count his blessings
Faux Old Baggage advert, crinkly old leather hide, I suppose at least it isn't crocodile...
Posted by The Englishman at 3:54 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
The US to copy our Glorious Leaders And Emulate Our Tractor Production
Obama buries Reaganomics under $3.6 trillion mountain - Times Online
The scale of Obama’s ambition has only just begun to sink in. If his budget for 2010 passes through Congress largely unscathed, it will represent the “the biggest redistribution of income from the wealthy to the middle class and poor this nation has seen in more than 40 years”, said Robert Reich, a former secretary of labour under Bill Clinton who has been advising Obama.
Reich told The Sunday Times: “It is the boldest budget we have seen since the Reagan administration, and drives a nail in the coffin of Reaganomics. We can basically say goodbye to the philosophy espoused by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.”
Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal includes $770 billion in tax cuts over 10 years for the “middle class”, America’s term for everyone from the moderately well-off to the working poor; $150 billion for funding “green” energy sources, and $634 billion towards the introduction of universal healthcare.
The numbers are almost beyond the power of imagination, but it is clear somebody will have to pick up the bill. A hefty $1 trillion or so will come from new taxes on the rich, paid for by families earning over $250,000 a year, increases in capital gains tax and limits on America’s generous tax deductions, including those for charitable contributions.
An extra $80 billion a year is predicted to come from auctioning off carbon permits under yet-to-be determined cap-and-trade legislation — if and when it actually happens.
None of this will be nearly enough to cover the gaping hole in America’s public finances. Even if the economy recovers at a clip over the next 10 years, America will still be running a deficit of 3% of GDP by 2019. The president’s daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, along with other members of their generation, are likely to emerge into adulthood saddled with debt.
The politics of “tax and spend” — or rather taxing the rich to spend on everyone else — is not only back in vogue, but has become an essential component of America’s economic recovery plan. Obama has seized on the “once in a generation” crisis to fulfil his campaign pledges
And it has all worked so well over here...Good Luck!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
February 25, 2009
Big Job Opportunity for The Remittance Man
Microtrends: gold from sewage - Times Online
• A sewage treatment facility in Nagano, Japan, recently recorded 1,890g of gold per tonne of ash from the sludge it burns up. Not bad, compared to the 20-40g of gold per tonne of ore found in Japan’s largest mine.
Leave behind the dusty veld and long sun downers on the verandah and don the rubber waders and Marigolds if you want to strike pay dirt...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
February 19, 2009
Stanford Trails
Allen Stanford 'fraud' uncovered by favour - Times Online
In his one-room office delicately positioned above a North London hair salon and next to the local chip shop, Charlesworth Hewlett diligently pored over his work.
Each year for a decade the ageing accountant and former RAF serviceman put his signature on the audit of the $50 billion business affairs of the international financier and cricket sponsor Allen Stanford.
Post for CAS Hewlett & Co is still delivered to the 20ft by 20ft room at the back of a 1930s block shared by five other companies.
Jeff Wynne, who runs a property services company in the office opposite, recalled that Mr Hewlett mostly worked on his own, although a colleague sometimes joined him.
“He was a nice old boy,” he said, “He had a few clients, but it was not much. He would spend a couple of weeks here and then a few months working in Antigua.” As he grew increasingly frail Mr Hewlett moved his business to his nearby home where he lived with his wife, Delvine, 69.
Since Mr Hewlett’s death at the age of 73 last month the business has passed to his daughter, Celia, who lives in Enfield, North London.
Last night Ms Hewlett refused to comment about the allegations.
Didn't anyone ask why the accounts weren't being signed off by one of the big companies with flashy premises. Didn't one of the big swinging dick investment managers who earn gazillions for their insight and cleverness think as they read the accounts prior to shovelling more money that way, ummm?
Not that I'm blaming the old boy who did the books, I'm sure it made a nice retirement project with paid for trips to the sun, but mighten the size of the business been just a tad too much for him?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
February 15, 2009
Olympic Thought Police
Rachel Cooke interviews Iain Sinclair | Books | The Observer
Hackney council does not want its author speaking in any of its libraries because he is "anti-Olympics". At this, Sinclair laughs gleefully. "So wonderful for me. So absurd and crazy, a metaphor for insanity, in fact, but the best piece of publicity. I was asked to go along to Stoke Newington library to speak to 20 people: old hippies and local history buffs, probably. But I'd written an anti-Olympics piece in the London Review of Books, and so the Hackney thought police decided: no, we can't have this person in our library. They lied about this all the way down the line, insisting it was nothing to do with the Olympics but that they can't have 'controversial' topics discussed in libraries. Eventually someone from the Hackney Citizen used the Freedom of Information Act to get the transcript [of what was said in a meeting] and, sure enough, it came directly from the Mayor, Jules Pipe, saying that this person is anti-Olympics, and he doesn't go into our libraries. So Hackney Council is my co-sponsor, really - and, of course, this manipulation [on the part of the council] is also a big theme of the book."
Sinclair goes further than most when it comes to condemning what he regards as the folly of the Olympics. "It's catastrophic. Apocalyptically catastrophic. It's brutalising: the time scale of it, the fact that it was imposed from above, the consultation a farce, and the promise of this legacy - which is what? It's Westfield shopping mall, basically [a similar mall to west London's Westfield, will be built out east]. Have you been there? Horrendous. Drains the life blood out of you in seconds. Then they have the nerve to call it the People's Park. What do they think was there before? It was the people's park: anglers, birdwatchers, footballers. Now they're all gone, so it's the opposite. I'm deeply disturbed and angry....it's like an invaded city. Like Basra. A sea of mud. Convoys rolling in day and night, day and night."
Posted by The Englishman at 9:59 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
February 3, 2009
Adam Smith's Biggest Fan
Chinese PM reveals policy enlightened by works of Adam Smith - The Scotsman
At a press conference yesterday, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, described Mr Wen as an "expert on the Scottish Enlightenment" ...
Renowned for being an "eclectic reader", Mr Wen is said to travel the world with a copy of Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which lays out the moral underpinnings for governing societies and market economies.
So taken is he with Scottish Enlightenment thinking that he recently referred to two of Smith's main works in an interview with the CNN news network. Critics say Mr Wen sees no contradiction between running a 21st-century dictatorship and espousing the work of a Scottish liberal philosopher.
(more)
Sometimes you wonder if Adam Smith is getting to be a bit like the Old Testament where whatever you want to believe a suitable quote can be found. I wonder if he will bung the ASI a few Yuan to help them spread the word....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:05 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
January 21, 2009
Diana Krall Sings Obama's Speech
Barack Obama: The hand of history - Scotsman.com News
ONLY a man who shines with hope could deliver such a difficult message and have it received with the awed rapture that fell upon the masses in Washington DC....
A gifted and inspirational speaker, he raised the hopes of millions as he promised even before taking office to emphasise diplomacy, seek global solutions to climate change, reject torture and shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison....
"Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America," he said.
Is that it? Is that it all? The whole "difficult" message....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:53 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
January 19, 2009
Are you euphoric yet?
Euphoria spreads across Atlantic as Barack Obama takes the helm - Times Online
I don't think I can take any more excitement, the BBC sounds more like Debbie Does Dallas with its deep sighing and moans than a serious news organisation.
But I will give thanks to The Chosen One for one improvement in my life already, I noted he is partial to salted chocolate; so I dipped some Ecuadorian 70% into the salt pig and it is fantastic.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:57 AM
| Comments (11)
| TrackBack
January 17, 2009
Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee...
BBC NEWS Obama begins historic rail trip
Mr Obama and his family will board a train for the 137-mile (220 km) journey to the US capital.
Train? I thought he was riding in on an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
Posted by The Englishman at 3:50 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
Middle East War Quiz
...And we were casting them by thousands into the fire to the worst of deaths, not to win the war but that the corn and rice and oil of Mesopotamia might be ours. ...
For my work on the Arab front I had determined to accept nothing. The Cabinet raised the Arabs to fight for us by definite promises of self government afterwards. Arabs believe in persons, not in institutions. They saw in me a free agent of the British Government, and demanded from me an endorsement of its written promises. So I had to join the conspiracy, and, for what my word was worth, assured the men of their reward. In our two years' partnership under fire they grew accustomed to believing me and to think my Government, like myself, sincere. In this hope they performed some fine things, but, of course, instead of being proud of what we did together, I was continually and bitterly ashamed.
It was evident from the beginning that if we won the war these promises would be dead paper, and had I been an honest adviser of the Arabs I would have advised then to go home and not risk their lives fighting for such stuff: but I salved myself with the hope that, by leading these Arabs madly in the final victory I would establish them, with arms in their hands, in a position so assured (if not dominant) that expediency would counsel to the Great Powers a fair settlement of their claims.
I risked the fraud, on my conviction that Arab help was necessary to our cheap and speedy victory in the East, and that better we win and break our word than lose.
Without Google, who wrote that? Which book was it removed from before it would be published? And who would say it now?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:05 AM
| Comments (9)
| TrackBack
Inauguration Quiz
"We count it a privilege to live in an age when our country demands that great things shall be done, a privilege to be of the generation which learns to say what can we give instead of what can we take. For thus our generation learns there are greater things than slothful ease; greater things than safety; more terrible things than death."
Who said that? And who would say it now?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
January 8, 2009
Obama - Whiter than White
BBC NEWS | NEWSNIGHT | Peter Marshall's blog
Somehow Obama has emerged from Illinois without blemish. There's no suggestion he knew anything of Blago's alledged attempts to sell his Senate seat...And Obama's closest political aides, Valerie Jarrett, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod - all veterans of the Chicago school of politics - will, if he is found guilty, have missed Blago's apparently brazen hustling. In those circumstances the question will surely be asked how did these, the sharpest political brains in the country, fail to see what was happening in their home town? It's a big question and a potentially embarrassing one for all concerned.
So either stupid or corrupt, or both?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
Danny on the Button
Iain Dale's Diary: Finkelstein on Israel
Danny Finkelstein has written a truly wonderful article on the Israel issue. Do read it...
OK Iain I suppose I must, though I think my search at The Times shows up the wrong article:
Times Online - Daniel Finkelstein
...helpful advice on etiquette should you ever be with Ronson and Lohan or other lesbians:
The correct thing to do is to go pop on both of them. You shouldn't show partiality in a threesome.
This was needlessly offensive, crude and misogynistic. I don't think the BBC should have aired it.
Though with there being two Palestinian territories maybe Danny is making a political point as well...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:41 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
December 18, 2008
Quantitative Easing - Corrupting the Nation
KEEP up at the back. The new big thing to save the world economy is "quantitative easing". Not an upmarket euphemism for a massage, but the latest and most desperate measure yet by central banks to stop a severe recession turning into depression. And it may soon be adopted in the UK.
Printing more money.
Magic new money: have we really walked into this Last Chance Saloon? Yes, we have.
But why has "quantitative easing" not been wheeled out until now? It carries huge risks. One is that it lets the inflation genie out of the bottle and could spark hyperinflation. It also casts central bank independence to the winds and puts enormous financial power into the hands of government with the attendant risks of "crony capitalism" and corruption.
Ah, now I see why it is so attractive to some governments and governments in waiting....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
December 5, 2008
Stupidity is preventable
Op-Ed Columnist - Raising the World’s I.Q. - NYTimes.com
Occasionally in my travels I’ve been unnerved by coming across entire villages staggering about, unable to speak coherently...
Oh you've been to Dorset then..
Joking apart go and read the rest of the article about the single most cost effective way to raise the standard of living for millions of people.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:41 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
November 30, 2008
BBC - Don't Mention the Muslims
BBC - Search results for mumbai islamic
Sorry
There are no recent News or Sport stories that match your query closely enough to appear in the date-sorted view.
Ditto BBC - Search results for mumbai muslim
H/t Rod Liddle of the Times (Print version only)
Posted by The Englishman at 8:44 AM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
November 9, 2008
Twice as much bang for your buck
Foreplay is overrated, researchers claim - Telegraph
Results show that for the women in the study, the average duration of foreplay was 15.4 minutes, and intercourse, 16.2 minutes.
The researchers point out that 16.2 minutes is considerably longer than reported in American studies, where intercourse was found to last on average seven minutes.
They added: "It could be that this reflects, a greater appreciation of intercourse and sensuality by Europeans than by Americans."
I couldn't possibly comment except to note that the researchers clam to show that all that faffing about before the main event has " little or no significance when it comes to the likelihood of having an orgasm". So it looks like American efficiency proves yet again to be just as effective but only takes half the time at much less effort.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:27 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
November 7, 2008
Feeling Uplifted?
Only Americans could produce a result like this | Gerard Baker - Times Online
Even right-wing curmudgeons have to admit that the remarkable election of Barack Obama uplifted the spirit
Either I'm not right-wing, not a curmudgeon or I'm in denial because I had to turn to YouTube to find something that uplifted my spirit and hopes for America.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:36 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
November 5, 2008
Always Look on the Bright Side
CentreRight: why an Obama victory is good news for the Tories...tonight's result proves to me, at least, what I argued in an earlier post - that fundamentals always apply.
After eight years of one-party rule in the White House, people want change. Al Gore could not get elected even with a popular President and a booming economy. McCain faced eight years, a tanking economy and an unpopular leader.
Extrapolating, that tells me that no matter if ComRes says our lead is eight points or YouGov says it's ten, Labour will founder badly at the next election and David Cameron will be Prime Minister. I'm sure he will work very well with President Obama. But I'm really looking forward to Sarah Palin's run in 2012!
And whilst I lost on my McCain bets I ended up ahead over the night as I had backed Obama at 3/1 - You can get 11/2 on Pailn in 2012 this morning, not quite good enough to tempt me.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:05 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
November 4, 2008
Is it the Day of the Messiah?
Barack Obama: 'He's been sent by God' - Telegraph
Well God help us then, looking at the state of Great Britain you can't say you haven't been warned.
Posted by The Englishman at 4:59 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
November 2, 2008
Pirate Rights
Pirates protected from EU task force by human rights - Telegraph
A new EU naval task force will be unable to take tough action against Somali pirates because it must respect their human rights, its commander has admitted.
Modern European navies are now so mindful of the legal loopholes they face in tackling pirates that they often instruct commanders to simply let them go...the West fears that if the pirates were handed over to the Somali authorities they would be tortured or executed.
After deciding pirates would not be successfully prosecuted if brought back to Europe, the Danish navy set free a crew of ten in September, dropping them off on a Somali beach after holding them for six days. The Royal Navy admits, unofficially, that it is under similar instructions.
So far only the French have taken firm action, sending special forces troops to free their nationals and escape adding to the ransom payments worth $100 million (£62 million) a year to the heavily armed gangs.
Sometimes you have to admire the French...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:08 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
October 23, 2008
Overseas Aid
Destination Moon: historic day as India launches first space mission - Times Online
“Chandrayaan is a scientific mission, but it also has implications for global geopolitics. It’s like a coming-out party for India.”
Burning our money: According to the Department for International Development (DfID), India is the top recipient of UK aid: over the last five years we've given them £1045m, and there'll be a further £825m by 2011.
To which the only response is why?
In related news...
Britain plans to stop giving China £39m a year in aid under Tory plans after the country spent £20billion on Beijing Olympics | The Sun |News
...the UK gave China £38.6million in aid last year.
Shadow international development secretary Andrew Mitchell: “Many British taxpayers would be astonished to learn that we are still giving aid to China. Our aid budget is the fruit of the hard work of British people. It must be spent wisely."
Posted by The Englishman at 6:41 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
Chocolate Covered Hamsters
Eight firemen use chocolate coated mini camera to find missing hamster - Telegraph
I understand scriptwriters are already at work to turn this into a major Hollywood film, but who to cast as the major star?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:15 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
October 16, 2008
Obama - Are the polled lying?
The white lie that keeps Barack Obama awake at night | Ben Macintyre - Times Online
In 1982 Tom Bradley ran for the governorship of California, and was expected to win by a wide margin. In the run-up to the election, polls gave the African-American candidate a lead of between 9 and 22 percentage points over his white opponent. On election day the first exit polls also predicted that he would win, and one newspaper even declared him the victor on its front page.
Bradley lost by more than 100,000 votes.
The impetus for the deception was not simple racism, but social pressure - white voters, it seems, did not want to appear racist by admitting that they would be voting for the white candidate rather than the black one.
This, then, is the spectre that haunts the Democrats. Mr Obama is at present up to 14 points ahead in the national polls, a lead that would seem unassailable were it not for the unpredictable Bradley Effect, a nagging fear that defeat could be snatched from the jaws of victory because opinion polls behave differently when a black candidate is running.
A similar phenomenon occurred in the 1992 election in Britain, which pollsters put down to the “shy Tory factor”. Opinion polls put the Tories one percentage point behind Labour; but in the final result, the Conservatives won by nearly eight percentage points.
In certain, rare circumstances voters do not tell pollsters the truth, more out of embarrassment than mendacity.
So if Obama loses America is tarred with the racist brush whereas it, as with the "Shy Tories" it is more a case of wanting to appear hip and modern that causes people to lie to pollsters rather than a more discreditable motive in most cases. And of course there are some of us who lie to pollsters on principle....
(I note that overnight the odds on McCain being next president have decreased - 13/2 was available just now, and 1000/1 on Dick Cheney might also be worth a small flutter, only a heartbeat away and all that....)
Posted by The Englishman at 7:03 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
October 15, 2008
Presidential Betting
Betfair is offering 5/1 on a McCain victory. That seems a bit steep for a two horse race. Sure he is behind, sure Palin is appalling the East Coast liberal media and the BBC, but 5/1?
Tempting odds for a value bet....
I don't think McCain is good enough but the odds were 5.8/1 this morning so a small tickle seemed in order, and a fiver on Sarah Palin at 480/1, why not, it might happen.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
October 3, 2008
Score Draw
The debate's winners: Palin and Biden. Its loser: McCain. - By John Dickerson - Slate Magazine
Well she didn't blow it, which is the victory the Republicans were hoping for, - the game is still afoot.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:20 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
September 30, 2008
Whistle along
"Things are going to get so bad something will have to be done in the next few weeks. Banks will sink, credit markets will seize, the economy will go into something much worse than a recession."
Financial crisis: FTSE expected to fall 200 points, wiping £48 billion off the market - Telegraph
Posted by The Englishman at 6:53 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
September 24, 2008
Airports to play Spot Mr Angry
New airport screening 'could read minds' - Telegraph
The Department of Homeland Security is testing a type of body scanner that seeks out invisible clues that a person might be harbouring criminal intent, such as raised body temperature, pulse and breathing rate.
That's me for the Marigolds then, even just the thought of the cattle crush that a US airport is starts to bring on the red mist. How anyone can endure being pushed and prodded for hours through them without either being fortified with strong liquor, or knowing that at the top of the stairs you will be turning left, or both is beyond me.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
September 16, 2008
Lehman Brothers Principles For Sale
LEHMAN BROTHERS OPERATING PRINCIPALS CUBE RARE SEALED on eBay
Item number: 290260997617
Operating Principles cube that opens up in different ways and you can read all the different principles like...
"Demonstrating smart risk management"
"Demonstrating commitment to excellence"
"Doing the right thing"
"Maximizing shareholder value"
Current bid: US $5.50
Seems over-priced to me....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:15 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
September 12, 2008
Spinning our moral obligations
Britain's small-minded treatment of the Iraqi interpreters remains a disgrace
Few issues have more shamefully exposed petty, penny-pinching ingratitude by Whitehall bureaucrats than the fate of Britain's Iraqi interpreters. Alone among countries with forces in Iraq, Britain held out against any offer of relocation or asylum for the interpreters, drivers and other locally employed staff who risked abduction, torture and murderous reprisals by extremists bent on punishing “collaborators”.
Outrage at 'cynical' manipulation of scheme to resettle Iraqi aides - Times Online
A scheme to help Iraqi interpreters was devised to maintain the Government's reputation and “respond to perceptions” that it had a moral obligation to its local staff, The Times has learnt....the plan should “be generous enough to maintain HMG's reputation as a caring and committed employer of local staff in our overseas networks/deployments, and to respond to perceptions that we have a moral obligation to many of our Iraqi staff, over and above our legal duty of care”.
The documents show that officials wanted to limit the scheme because they feared hostile media coverage if large numbers of Iraqis were to come to Britain; they expected negative coverage about cost, housing pressures and “social cohesion difficulties”.
Where are your tributes to justice and courage now, Gordon Brown? - Times Online
It takes a special kind of hypocrisy to invoke the names of some of the most courageous heroes of the 20th century as moral mentors and then spit on their principles. But perhaps only a prime minister could do it eight times.
In his book Courage: Eight Portraits, Gordon Brown pays homage to eight men and women he admires who took a stand against tyranny. Several paid with their lives....
These are names not lightly invoked. But the principles by which these men and women lived - and died - are the very opposite of the Brown Government's craven refusal to relax the stringent conditions for Iraqi interpreters that must be met before they can settle in Britain.
Nobody asks Mr Brown to make the ultimate sacrifice, risk his personal safety or even a further weakening of his crumbling political base. It is more likely that the British sense of fair play, the belief that those who risk their lives to aid our Armed Forces should be properly treated, would bring Mr Brown electoral benefit. ...
As far as the Iraqi interpreters are concerned, justice's mighty stream is dammed at 10 Downing Street. Mr Brown can clear it with the stroke of a pen. He need not look far for guidance. As he told the Knesset: “My father taught me that loyalty is the test of a real friendship. Easy to maintain when things are going well, but only really tested in hard times.”
As Tim says about the officials; Hang them but the buck stops with Gordon Brown himself - it is his responsibility.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:24 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
September 11, 2008
Remembering
Posted by The Englishman at 7:14 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
September 9, 2008
And now the end is nigh...
Large Hadron Collider - will it cause the end of the world? - Telegraph
Posted by The Englishman at 10:33 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
September 8, 2008
Obama's sudden military memory recall
Barack Obama wanted to join the US military - Telegraph
Barack Obama has said he considered joining the United States military when he left school but decided not to because the Vietnam war was over and ".. but keep in mind that I graduated in 1979 we weren't engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it's not an option that I ever decided to pursue."
The aspiration was not mentioned in either of his two volumes of memoirs.
Sure you did, I mean 1979, was the cold war over? The US Embassy hostages in Iran, was that a different 1979? Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, but that was 1978. Yep, I remember 1979 well, peace and harmony around the world, no need for anyone to join the military...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
September 4, 2008
Palin Pulls It Off
Republican Convention: Sarah Palin makes speech of a lifetime - Telegraph
"I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.
But here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country."
More from CentreRight and more about Rudy's excellent warm-up here
Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
September 3, 2008
Palin - the feminist meltdown
Sarah Palin: a loveable woman, but an appalling candidate | Alice Miles - Times Online
Call that a woman? A gun-toting, vehement anti-abortionist with the hide of a grizzly bear draped over her sofa, who was so aggressive on the basketball court that she was nicknamed Sarah Barracuda? She makes Barack Obama look like a girl....
...So sick are we in Britain, with our centre left-centre right politicians of the centre, not one daring to have a view out of line with the very thin consensus that passes for acceptable opinion here, that we stand stunned by a woman who opposes abortion and shoots moose; who believes in creationism and drilling for oil in the Arctic wildlife refuge; who supports the aerial shooting of wolves and opposes same-sex marriage; who says to hell with the kids and just get back to work; who even campaigned against saving polar bears!
Could you be less politically correct than suing the Federal Government to prevent it making polar bears an endangered species because the move would restrict oil drilling?
Nothing like Mrs Palin has, could ever, be seen in the British political system. She turns liberals into conservatives and conservatives into feminists. Stand back, Mr Obama, a new character is storming the ratings.
How Hillary Clinton, all safe lines and patronising empathy, must be hating it. How fast Michelle Obama must be recalibrating her soft little tales about baking cookies and enjoying The Brady Bunch. Mrs Palin would eat Carol Brady for breakfast, and still have space for some moose stew. Hell, yes.
But the Sarah Palin Story is not just a show and in America, they are equally agog but not aghast - they are adoring. The American Right loves this woman. They would have her in charge of the country.
Seriously. And that is where the trouble starts.
Trouble? Opportunity more like. As she says we are so sick in Britain we can't have a candidate like her here, well some of us are fed up of being sick and we want to be cured and not continue to wallow in the hospital bed of mediocrity and self-pity. We want our own Sarah Palin.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:31 AM
| Comments (11)
| TrackBack
August 31, 2008
If you don't vote Obama you're a racist
What's that about? I think he is just echoing the clarion call of the left and press (some redundancy alert) that only nigger hating klansmen are against Obama and that if he loses it will prove that the USA is incurably racist. Such is the ignorance and prejuduce against Americans over here that it is a widespread belief, and that McCain is neck and neck with him is greeted with incredibility and despair.
Having watched the convention across a room of squabbling children I didn't hear the speeches but on a purely visual impression Obama looks like an inoffensive café-au-lait game show host, his colour won't scare anyone off. But his wife! She's black, she looks like a hard bitch, she looks like the word "entitlement" is constantly on her lips; now she is scary, the more so as she simpers down to try and play the supporting mummy. But she is no more so than many a popular TV host.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:29 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
August 23, 2008
Olympics Offical Closing Ceremony Video
Led Zeppelin classic 'too racy' for Olympics - Telegraph
It has been delighting fans for almost 40 years but Led Zeppelin's rock classic "Whole Lotta Love" has been deemed too racy by Olympics organisers.
After choosing the song for the closing ceremony on Sunday they decided that some of the lyrics would have to be omitted or re-written amid concerns that they could cause offence. ..
But, according to London 2012 officials, Lewis - who grew up in east London close to the Olympic site - requested a change to the song's second verse because she was worried they would not make sense for a female singer.
In the original, recorded in 1969, frontman Robert Plant sings, "I'm gonna give you every inch of my love".
But in the version that will be sung tomorrow, however, Lewis changes the words to "every bit" of my love.
The band also agreed to a request from organisers to drop the third verse, which includes similar sexual innuendoes, to fit in to the eight-minute performance.
Your humble researcher has been looking into these banned lyrics on your behalf :
Metorlyrics suggest they may be:
Way down inside... woman... You need... love.
Shake for me, girl. I wanna be your backdoor man.
Keep it coolin', baby.
Sing365 come up with the frankly disturbing:
You've got to bleed on me, yeah
Ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ha, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
ah, ah, ah, ah, ha, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
No, no, no, no, ah
Love, love, low-ow-ow-ow-ove
Oh, babe, oh
Whereas Lyicfreak has the safer:
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
(various mumblings and screechings with cool effects)
But whatever this song is the epitome of British coolness, even though it is forty years old..
Posted by The Englishman at 12:59 AM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
August 21, 2008
That Olympic Budget
Nobody knows the importance of everything | Jamie Whyte - Times Online
We need to rate everything for importance and allocate the Olympic budget accordingly.
Help is to hand - Estimating the Cost and Benefit of Hosting Olympic Games: - The Industrial Geographer.
Conclusion...To date there has not been a study of an Olympics or other large-scale sporting event that has found empirical evidence of significant economic impacts such as increases in household income. For the reasons stated above, it is unlikely that anyone ever will.
So that is the Olympic spending dealt with - waste of money, full stop.
Jamie Whyte continues:
You can see where this is going. We will need to rate everything for importance and allocate the Olympic budget accordingly. And not only that budget. . All spending on everything will have to be allocated in proportion to its importance.
Alas, that is impossible. No one has the knowledge required to assess everything's importance. To suppose that you do, and that the world would be improved if money were spent only according to your rating, shows hubris of biblical proportions.
Our political leaders decide how 42 per cent of our money should be spent, dividing it between battleships, schools, roads. But they cannot explain how they know which deserves more and which less.
Politicians don't spend our money wrongly because they fail to identify the correct “importance ranking”. There is no such thing, only how important things are to individuals. Any centralised spending plan is sure to be wrong for everyone on the receiving end.
When it comes to spending on behalf of other people, no one can get it right. So no one should try.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:49 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
August 19, 2008
Gold Medals for Grasping
Race to find £100m for London Olympic stars - Times Online
Just because we, as everyone now calls the athletes, have won some full fat milk bottle tops for sports that can be done sitting down the bastards are clammering for another suckle on the public teat. Aren't twenty billion pounds enough to waste already? Just fuck off, go and indulge your drug addled lycra bondage fascist body worship somewhere else preferably in private and without wanting, nay demanding, me to bloody pay anymore for it.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:41 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
August 13, 2008
Russian Federation v Georgia - The Result
BBC NEWS | Have Your Say | How can Georgia-Russia conflict be resolved?
Beach Volleyball | Schedule | Olympics | Sky Sports
Wednesday 13th August (all times local, BST is -7 hours)Russian Federation v Georgia
* 11:00 - Women's Preliminary - Pool E - Match 25
* 12:00 - Women's Preliminary - Pool F - Match 26
Now that is the way to settle international disputes, I might even watch because of my interest in politics....
(I think Georgia won 2-1, but I never noticed that they scored in women's beach volleyball before)
Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
August 12, 2008
Georgia on my mind
EU Referendum: It's the same old story One of our allies has Russian tanks fighting their way to its capital, all I'm hearing is silence, as Chamberlain said it is a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing. But we should know and we should act.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:11 AM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBack
August 10, 2008
Shaft
BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Soul icon Isaac Hayes dies at 65
A real period piece - and also my favourite title to mime when playing charades...
Posted by The Englishman at 10:43 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
August 8, 2008
John Edwards - still a cunt.
Four years ago I posted a blog post that was the hardest one I have posted - it was also the one that broke then dam on the non-swearing on this blog: An Englishman's Castle: Personal not political
I stand by every word and am dancing a happy dance as the slippery little bastard's career goes down the shitter.
And the even better news is that the oldest Englishette is eight tomorrow and exceeds every expectation; she is cranky, foul mouthed and obsessed with reading, which doesn't go down too well at school, and I can't think where she gets it from.....
Posted by The Englishman at 11:40 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
Who gives a Huq about the Olympics?
Posted by The Englishman at 12:44 PM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
August 7, 2008
Olympic Games - The Official Opening Ceremony Video
Posted by The Englishman at 9:02 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
With these wasters out of the country, anyone thinking what I'm thinking?
How the public is spending £7million on Beijing Olympic staff - Telegraph
BBC: 437 staff. Cost £3million.
Department for Culture, Media and Sport: Tessa Jowell, Andy Burnham, Gerry Sutcliffe and 10 staff. Cost: £75,000
Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform: Lord (Digby) Jones and four staff. Cost: £28,200
Downing Street: Prime Minister and 20 staff. Cost: £114,500 (estimated)
Foreign Office: Sir Alan Collins, consul general to New York. Cost: £3,000 (estimated)
Home Office: 5 officials. Cost: £12,000 (estimated)
Mayor of London's office: Boris Johnson and 13 staff. Cost: £167,000
Olympic Delivery Authority: 22 staff. Cost: £25,000
Olympic Security Directorate: 30 people. Cost: £30,000
Transport for London: 11 staff. Cost £35,000
Hackney Council: 5 staff. Cost: £30,000
Greenwich Council: 6 staff. Cost: £14,000
Newham Council: 4 staff. Cost: £9,000
London Development Agency: 13 staff. Cost: £3million
Visit Britain: 7 people. Cost: £50,000
Visit London: 2 people. Cost £5,000 (estimated)
Metropolitan Police Service: 39 policemen and support staff. Cost: £240,000
Dorset Police: 4 people. Cost: £9,000 (estimated)
Total: 639 people, cost £6,846,700
Dorset Police? Boris should have just sent a Fed-ex courier to pick up the flag and everyone else could have watched it on Sky, if they could be bothered.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
August 5, 2008
Free Scotland Campaign Banned in China
China Saltire ban is going to make Scots Olympic stars really cross - Scotsman.com News
THE row over flags has been provoked by China's attempts to stop the Free Tibet campaign using the Olympic Games to further its cause.
A code of conduct for spectators laid down by the organising committee outlaws flags other than those of Olympic members. And although the UK is a member country, Scotland is not one in its own right...The last thing the Chinese government wants is a stadium full of Tibetan flags.
Oh the happy harmony of it all....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:10 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
August 1, 2008
Two thirds of Britons aren't interested in the Olympics
Public lose their appetite for Beijing Games - Times Online
The survey by Sport+Markt, published exclusively in The Times, showed that the proportion of people who were either “interested” or “very interested” in the Olympics had fallen from 52 per cent to 36 per cent over the past four years. Britain displayed the lowest level of enthusiasm out of the five major European countries - Germany, Italy, France, and Spain - where interest had fallen. Germany registered the highest level.
Restores your faith in the innate sense of the British. Could someone tell the BBC that two thirds of licence payers couldn't give a stuff about the Olympics and they should relegate the coverage to one of their minority channels.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
July 31, 2008
A big hello to my 565 readers in China, it has been nice knowing you.
Daily Times - China’s censors block Olympic media
In an exclusive interview with AFP two weeks ago, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge insisted reporters would have full Internet access. “For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China,” he said. “There will be no censorship on the Internet.”
Olympic organisers agree to China blocking 'sensitive' internet sites - Times Online
Kevan Gosper, the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) press commission, confirmed that some of its officials had agreed to Chinese demands that some sensitive sites be blocked on the ground that they were not related to the Olympics.
IOC - backbone of an amoeba - but then what do you expect from that corrupt bunch of fascists?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
July 30, 2008
Beijing Olympics opening ceremony - the leaked video
Beijing Olympics opening ceremony revealed - Telegraph
The biggest secret in world sport has been accidentally revealed after glimpses of next week's Beijing Olympics opening ceremony were leaked.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:10 PM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
July 27, 2008
Slimeball Splatted
Sleaze scuppers Democrat golden boy - Times Online
Gotcha: Senator John Edwards, whose wife has cancer, has been caught in a sex scandal that ends his vice-presidential hopes
There are sensational new details on the National Enquirer website, although most of the media have done their best to ignore them.
The story has been bubbling away for months, but so far there has been not a word about it in the mainstream newspapers
Why the press is ignoring the Edwards "love child" story. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine
A double standard is at work.
Whatever the MSM trys to cover up it is getting hareder for the slimy little pricks to get away with it.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:37 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
July 23, 2008
Bearded Old Fraud
Serbian war crimes suspect disguised as as an expert in "human quantum energy" Dragan Dabic
Isn't it time someone took a razor to Rowan Williams as well, not that I'm implying anything....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:27 AM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBack
July 18, 2008
Jesse Jackson and the N bomb
Jesse Jackson forced to apologise again for racist slur - Telegraph
Jesse Jackson, the veteran civil rights activist, has been forced to issue a grovelling apology to Senator Barack Obama after it emerged he had used the word "niggers" while disparaging the Democratic presidential candidate.
Obama campaign advisers have said privately that there has been an uneasiness between the two men, partly because Mr Obama, brought up in Hawaii and with a white mother, is not viewed by Mr Jackson as a mainstream African-American.
The episode has prompted calls for Mr Jackson to withdraw from politics.
"It's difficult to have credibility after this kind of senior moment," Jeff Johnson of Black Entertainment Television told MSNBC.
"A Senior Moment" - do you think a whitey politician would have his use of the word so lightly dismissed?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:51 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
July 15, 2008
Are you sophisticated enough to appreciate this properly?
Richard Prince: the coolest artist alive - Telegraph
Take, for example, one of Prince's best-known works, the 1989 Ektacolor photo of a cowboy galloping under blue skies across a wide open plain with a lariat in one hand, horse and rider caught in the split second before they thunder out of the camera's range.
If you didn't know what you were looking at, you'd take the picture to be a defining image of the spirit of the American West, with all that implies about tough-guy machismo, personal freedom, and God's own country.
In fact, what Prince did was to "re-photograph" an advertisement for Marlboro Lights, but removed the picture of the cigarette pack, the advertising copy ("The spirit of Marlboro in a low tar cigarette"), and the Surgeon General's health warning.
With a click of a button, then, Prince magically created an original artwork out of an existing photo taken by somebody else....It dispels the illusion that the original was intended to create, because anyone sophisticated enough to go to an art gallery to see it wouldn't believe a single thing about it - that it shows a real scene, that it features a real cowboy, that the West is now, or ever was, really like that. In fact, nowadays the image would probably make us think of the original Marlboro men who died of lung cancer, or even of the film Brokeback Mountain.
Well that is me told then, I didn't think of Brokeback Mountain, in fact I try never to, nor about some old actor coughing his guts up - no I'm so unsophisticated that I thought "of the spirit of the American West, with all that implies about tough-guy machismo, personal freedom, and God's own country." And I'm proud of that.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:26 PM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBack
July 14, 2008
The right calibre candidate wins
Pictures of the day: 14 July 2008 - Telegraph
Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela reacts after being announced the winner of Miss Universe 2008
There is something about that photo that makes me think she is prepared to give thanks in the traditional way....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
....Dream on.....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:22 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
June 23, 2008
BushChimpObama
Barack Obama 'monkey' phone advert row - Telegraph
A mobile phone advert apparently portraying Barack Obama as a monkey has provoked a new row about racial depictions of the Democratic candidate.
I presume these are the same people who complained about George Bush being portrayed as a chimp....
Posted by The Englishman at 1:17 PM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBack
June 18, 2008
Cyd Charisse - RIP
Dancer Cyd Charisse dead at 87 - Telegraph
Sheer Sexy Class.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
It's not accuracy, looks, or weight that matter most in a gun - it's that it goes bang when you want it to.
Speechless with fear: on reconnaissance in Taleban-controlled Helmand - Times Online
“Watch out for the mortars and RPGs,” screamed Captain Simon Chalmers, above the shooting and the revving of trucks. “My gun's f****d,” he added, helpfully.His weapon was not the only one that malfunctioned. As I huddled beneath the muzzle of one 50-cal machinegun, a soldier struggled to fire more than one round at a time. I could hear other gunners screaming “weapon jam” as they dodged incoming Taleban rounds. I watched two mortars slam into the dust to our left and right while the nearest 50-cal guns were unable to return fire.
“It's f***ing crap ammo,” one soldier screamed at his patrol commander.
...
As we moved off, three things happened that will stay with me for ever: the tow rope broke, the guns on the second vehicle stopped working and we were now taking incoming rounds from our left and right. I was speechless with fear.Jim jumped out and helped to replace the tow rope while one of the Pathfinders pushed me to the floor of the vehicle and removed the gun. All the time AK rounds pinged off the rocks and sand around us.
And we are trying to get our Afghans to stop using AKs and use our weaponry! Out in the rocks and sand they know better.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
June 17, 2008
Let's Bomb Tehran Plan
Brown steps up sanctions as Iran is told: Drop nuclear bomb plans - Scotsman.com News
Gulp - is that us going to drop a nuclear bomb on them or the Iranians plans on how to drop one on us?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
June 13, 2008
Typically French?
Officials fell trees inscribed by US soldiers who fought for France - Times Online
The beech trees of Saint Pierre de Varengeville-Duclair forest bore a poignant testimony to the D-Day landings for more than six decades. Thousands of American soldiers stationed there after the liberation of Normandy spent their spare hours with a knife or bayonet creating a lasting reminder of their presence.
Local people are calling for the few “name trees” that still stand to be classified as historic monuments and saved from the same fate.
Claude Quétel, a French historian and Second World War specialist, was horrified when he discovered what he called a catastrophe and a shameless act. “It is a typically French failing to wipe out the traces of the past,” he told The Times. “I am indignant.”
He said it, I couldn't.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
June 11, 2008
TLA SME
Inside Iraq Blog - Times Online - WBLG: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot does that mean?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot does that mean?
BLUF: Complex attack IVO PB ECP: SVBIED, SAF, and IDF. BDA: 1x CF(US) WIA, 2x IA KIA, 2x LN INJ, 2x AQI/ISI Killed, 1x CHU FUBAR. POO: Sadr City.
A useful decoder is provided, and includes a few I didn't know such as:
DBIED - Donkey-Borne Improvised Explosive Device.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
June 6, 2008
6th June
Graves of American soldiers in a cemetery on Omaha Beach.
Posted by The Englishman at 4:54 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
June 4, 2008
O'bama - The Apprentice Boy
Obama's Irish roots found to be Protestant - Telegraph
As the descendant of an Irish Protestant family, Mr Obama should not rely on the sort of support automatically enjoyed by Mr Kennedy, whose presidency marked the political arrival of Irish American Catholics.
So not like the bogtrotting Kennedys then, I hope he sings The Sash as he celebrates, it's his heritage after all.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:04 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
June 3, 2008
Let's go walking
Not for me, I get dizzy on the edge of a pavement..
Posted by The Englishman at 12:31 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
May 29, 2008
If Europe had a vote in the US elections
Barack Obama beats John McCain in European vote: US election 2008 - Telegraph
So based on the data, people who HATE America prefer Barak Obama. That says it all.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:06 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
Afghan training
Culture shocks in killing fields as Scots train an army of Allah - Scotsman.com News
SERGEANT Major David Gibb ..is leading a handful of British soldiers training Afghanistan's army...The Afghans have known fighting for most of their lives, but they are reluctant to change their haphazard ways. "It can be frustrating," Sgt Major Gibb admitted. "They've just got a different way of doing things."
Captain Mohammed Khalid, a 30-year veteran, carries his Kalashnikov casually balanced over one shoulder, like a farmer might carry a spade.
He has refused to break his patrols into three columns, something the British do for increased protection, and his troops rarely wear body armour.
"You ask them why they're not wearing it, and it's like, 'God will protect me',"
At patrol base Barakzai, the Afghan soldiers grow cannabis in makeshift flower pots made out of the giant wire and canvas sandbags, designed to protect them from rocket attacks. A lieutenant had to be removed last month because he was constantly high.
When they do come under fire, they invariably reply with a barrage of loosely aimed automatic fire, a tactic known as "spray and pray".
....AT THE Afghan headquarters, close to Britain's Camp Bastion, soldiers from the Royal Irish battle group are trying to wean the Afghans off their beloved AK47s and train them to use US M16s.
The M16s are more accurate over longer distances, but they need far more maintenance, they carry none of the Kalashnikov's kudos, and, crucially for an Afghan soldier, you can't empty a magazine in one burst.
"The M16 is not as good," said one Afghan private. "It only fires three bullets at a time."
The reason they carry their Kalashnikovs "like a farmer might carry a spade" is because they are an everyday tool for them, I wonder why we are trying to wean them off them as they are more suitable and also of the wisdom of teaching the Afghan how to shoot straight....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:18 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
May 21, 2008
Levantine Lament and Lessons
EU Referendum: reports on a clinical analysis of an important series of events, where the blogosphere took on the MSM and challenged its partisan and mendacious reporting of the Lebanese War in the summer of 2006.
It is interesting that, of the blogs mentioned, most were American. This was the only significant British blog that took up the issue, which was largely (with some honourable exceptions) ignored by other UK-based political blogs. If that is a reflection of something, I am not sure quite what. Perhaps, others can explain the narrowness of vision that seems to pervade our blogosphere.
I think there are two points, firstly with Richard's excellent work there was little for us other Brits to add. Though when I did point out a couple of staged photos it was roundly ignored - was that because they were posed to raise sympathy for Israeli victims?
And secondly unlike the United States, and maybe it is wrong of us, most of us don't really give a damn about Israel and the squabbling children of Abraham. A pox on all their houses would be the general view. Sorry, I know we should care, but our plate's full as it is.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:19 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
May 20, 2008
He never married.
Count Gottfried von Bismarck - Telegraph
Count Gottfried von Bismarck, who was found dead on Monday aged 44, was a louche German aristocrat with a multi-faceted history as a pleasure-seeking heroin addict, hell-raising alcoholic, flamboyant waster and a reckless and extravagant host of homosexual orgies.
The great-great-grandson of Prince Otto, Germany's Iron Chancellor and architect of the modern German state, the young von Bismarck showed early promise as a brilliant scholar, but led an exotic life of gilded aimlessness that attracted the attention of the gossip columns from the moment he arrived in Oxford in 1983 and hosted a dinner at which the severed heads of two pigs were placed at either end of the table...became an enthusiastic, rubber-clad member of the Piers Gaveston Society and the drink-fuelled Bullingdon and Loders clubs.
Perhaps unsurprisingly he managed only a Third in Politics, Philosophy and Economics....von Bismarck was ordered home to the family castle near Hamburg by his father.
His removal from Oxford was so abrupt that he was not given time to settle his bills; Prince Ferdinand sent a servant who did the rounds of von Bismarck's favoured watering-holes, restaurants and his tailor bearing a chequebook.
Although described personally as quiet and impeccably mannered, von Bismarck continued to live high on the hog, hosting riotous all-night parties for his (chiefly gay) friends at his £5 million flat off Sloane Square....
He never married.
A year or two after my time at Oxford, and a year or two before Cameron, how different it all was in those halcyon days.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:27 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
May 18, 2008
Boston News
Posted by The Englishman at 7:41 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
May 14, 2008
Telegraph Watch
Telegraph online - Naughty sub editors...
Juxtapose - tr.v. -To place side by side, especially for comparison or contrast.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:03 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
May 9, 2008
No more Frtizl
Josef Fritzl blames Nazis for crimes - Telegraph
Ting! Godwin's Law - that's it finished, end of discussion.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:07 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
May 8, 2008
No more beef in cattle class
British Airways ditches beef in meals - Times Online
British Airways has ditched beef for economy class passengers this summer in an attempt to appeal to a more international passenger base.
A spokesman for the airline told The Times: “We were looking for something with broad appeal. Research trends have shown us that fish pie is very popular in supermarkets so we decided to go with that and chicken and tarragon for the summer.
“We can only serve two options and beef and pork obviously have religious restrictions,” the spokesman added. BA's second-biggest long-haul market, after transatlantic routes, is to India.
But note that business and first class passengers will still be offered beef, why that is almost discriminatory....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
May 1, 2008
More Soixante-huitards please
They say that if you can remember the 1960s you weren't there, but everyone seems to remember 1968. At any rate, you will find plenty of decrepit old soixante-huitards gathering round this May Day, wheezing and arthritic, to recall the days of our hot youth. For some of my contemporaries, that year remains what the Spanish civil war was said to have been for an earlier generation, the emotional experience of their lifetime. Even for those of us who sat on the touchline watching the political turmoils of that summer with ironic detachment, 1968 is still a sharp memory, and there's no doubt that it had profound and lasting legacies....Just as 1968 foreshadowed the political and economic victory of the right in the form of Margaret Thatcher (not to mention Tony Blair), Ronald Reagan and the implosion of Communism, it also foreshadowed the cultural - or emotional or sexual - victory of the left. The only serious legacy of the Wilson government may have been the libertarian reforms of the laws on homosexuality, divorce and abortion; and the dramatic changes in society since, for good or bad, really did stem from those times.
Sounds like success all round then, moving towards libertarian ideals both in politics and social mores - of course poor old Geoffrey who can only see in old left/right stereotypes is grumpy about it all.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 2, 2008
Mr FM's in Texas - watch the metal detector
The Other Side of Kim du Toit - TheOtherSideofKim Front Page
I note with envy that Mr FM is visiting Texas, I'm not saying this recent ruling at Dallas airport is the reason why he has at long last finally decided it is safe to do so, but I'm not saying it isn't.....
US allows visual inspections of nipple rings | The Register
The US's Transportation Security Administration has announced some good
news for aficionados of nipple piercings - they will no longer have to
remove them with pliers before boarding internal flights.
The policy review came shortly after 37-year-old Mandi Hamlin fell foul
of a handheld metal detector in Lubbock, Texas, while trying to catch a plane to Dallas on 24 February.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:40 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
Your World Democratic News in Brief
Endgame in Zimbabwe as Hillary Clinton nears exit - Times Online
The ruinous reign of Hillary Clinton was drawing to a close last night as aides worked to secure her a facesaving exit after defeat at the polls.Talks began after Mrs Clinton’s closest cohorts gathered at State House to inform her that she had not only failed to win an outright victory in the weekend’s presidential election, but was beaten into second place by her challenger.
Late last night Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, refused to declare victory but told reporters that he had achieved “above the constitutional requirement” to avoid a run-off.
He vowed to wait for the Election Commission to announce official results before declaring victory, raising suspicions that a deal with Hillary Clinton was already in place.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
March 21, 2008
Young Man, there's no need to feel down, young man, get yourself off the ground
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
March 14, 2008
You must never go down to the end of the town, if you don't go down with me.
Eliot Spitzer prostitute was 22-year-old singer - Telegraph
Ashley Alexandra Dupré
It has been bugging me all night where I had heard that name before, and no it wasn't on my speed dial. It is of course resonant with a character from the AA Milne poem Disobedience:
James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother", he said, said he;
"You must never go down to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me."
Now if that isn't worthy of a parody I don't know what is.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:27 AM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
March 13, 2008
Mehdi Kazemi, can't we send Jacqui Smith in his place?
CentreRight wrote yesterday about the distressing case of the young gay Iranian student, Mehdi Kazemi, who was denied asylum despite the very real threat to his life from the vile Iranian regime should he sent back. Mehdi's 'crime' is that he is gay. ...after the extensive media coverage and pressure from various quarters the BBC are reporting that the Home Secretary is to personally review his case.
I may not share the young man's vices but I don't believe anyone has the right to proscribe what I put into my own bodily orifices, whether it be beer, dope or other men's willies. If I don't own the right to decide that, I don't own my own body and I am nothing but a slave. And sending a young man back to a slave state to die is a crime.
As my old friend Geoff Baker says: (Swearblogger alert)
Once again I am ashamed to be British today.
Correction, I am ashamed to have been among those who voted into power the current Government and its bunch of cunts at the Home Office.
The British Government probably doesn’t want you to know this abroad - so tell all of your friends - but in their cretinous wisdom their Home Office (currently run by a halfwit called Jacqui Smith) has decided to turn down the pleas for asylum by a young Iranian lad, Mehdi Kazemi.
Mr. Kazemi is just 19 and he is gay. If he is deported back to Iran he will be hanged to death.
Let me reiterate - Mr. Kazemi will have a noose put around his neck and a fucking crane will hoist him into the air until his poor legs stop kicking.
Which is precisely what happened to Mr. Kazemi’s boyfriend, when he was busted in Iran for the capital crime (there) of being homosexual.
As we know from the very lips of that twat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (he of "there’s no gays in Iran" fame), homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran ...
Jacqui Smith’s telephone number at the Home Office is 44 207 035 4848. Give her a bell and tell her to stop being such a stupid bitch and let the poor lad stay here.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:30 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
March 11, 2008
Getting to the bottom of the Eliot allegations
Tim Worstall brings us up to date about Gov. Eliot but being of refined and delicate sensibilities leaves out the mucky innuendo of the Times Online
Lewis continued that from what she had been told, ‘he would ask you to do things that you, like, might not think were safe – I mean . . . very basic things’.”
Posted by The Englishman at 9:12 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
February 28, 2008
Yes we can too, eventually...
CentreRight: Bob the Obama: Yes We Can!
Ahem.... An Englishman's Castle: Scoot, Muck and Dizzy and Roly too, Hillary and Obama join the crew
February 8, 2008
Posted by The Englishman at 6:21 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
February 27, 2008
Boris facing state trial as an enemy of the people
Boris Johnson is a criminal mastermind - Telegraph
In the past 12 months, London has seen approximately 150 murders, 2,000 rapes and 94,000 burglaries. But now the police have found a real villain.
Boris Johnson, Conservative candidate for Mayor of London, is accused of purloining invaluable "Iraqi cultural property" in 2003 - to whit, a cigar case owned by Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister.
Mr Johnson would have got away scot-free but, like all criminal masterminds, he made one vital mistake: he confessed his sin within days to hundreds of thousands of readers of this newspaper, admitting to taking the case for safe-keeping and pledging to return it on demand.
Bang'im up and throw away the key, it's the only way to treat such people who threaten the safety and security of our great city..
As a Met Police spokesman petulantly said: "The Met works very closely with a number of countries, including Iraq, to recover items that are considered culturally significant. In order to establish the origin and potential significance of the item, such items must be submitted to police custody for further examination.
"The MPS treats the theft of, and cultural dealing of, property from abroad very seriously. The steps we are taking are proportionate with a view to repatriating an item which could be of cultural or historical significance to the Iraqis."
Posted by The Englishman at 6:23 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
February 24, 2008
Wikileaks
The Court, having considered the stipulation between Plaintiffs JULIUS BAER & CO.
LTD and JULIUS BAER BANK AND TRUST CO. LTD. (collectively “Julius Baer” and/or
“Plaintiff’s”) and Defendant DYNADOT LLC (“Dynadot”), the complaint, and other papers,
evidence, and arguments presented by the parties, and finding that immediate harm will result to
Plaintiffs in the absence of injunctive relief,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
1. Dynadot shall immediately lock the wikileaks.org domain name....
Guido is showing the love with some Google-Juice http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks, for non-Geeks this is the internet postcode for Wikileaks.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:33 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
February 23, 2008
Aussie Rules for dating
Don't bed your mate's girl, says AFL | The Australian
SHOULD you pretend to be your best mate so you can have sex with his girlfriend?
The answer might be self-evident but the AFL believes its players need to be instructed on how to handle this and other scenarios, and is producing an interactive DVD designed to improve player attitudes to women.
In one scenario, a player is called by his mate's girlfriend into her bedroom, as she thinks the player is her boyfriend. The player is asked: "Do you: (a) go and hop into bed and pretend to be him or (b) do you walk away?"
In another example, a player is with a girl who has had too much to drink. "Do you: (a) get her some water, (b) call her a taxi or (c) take her back to your place for sex?"
In a third scenario, the player's mate and his girlfriend are having sex. "You can see them. Do you: (a) watch or (b) not watch?"
Jeez, Bruce, those are easy, go for touchdown every time.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:53 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
South African Crime News
Cape Times: Life's a bit of a fag for would-be thief impaled on fence
An unlucky thief had his world literally turned upside down on Friday night when he became impaled on palisade fencing.
The man was apparently trying to steal goods from informal traders in Cathedral Street here when his plan went awry.
ER24 paramedic Katya Evans said that emergency services personnel arrived at the scene on Saturday morning to find the unfortunate man hanging upside down with one foot still impaled on the large metal rods, and an unlit cigarette hanging from his pursed lips.
"He had been trying to climb over the fence and both his feet had been impaled," said Evans.
"During the course of the evening he had managed to free one foot.
According to by-standers at the scene, the man had been "hanging from the fence for nearly 12 hours".
She added that firefighters had assisted paramedics in getting the foiled thief down.
"Sometime during the night someone had obviously felt sorry for him and given him a cigarette.
"It appears that no one was kind enough to offer him a light."
No that is heartless....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
February 19, 2008
Castro - the missing final reel
Bush's democracy call as Fidel Castro resigns - Telegraph
Now that is how the story should end....
Posted by The Englishman at 9:23 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
February 13, 2008
Dougie Alexander the old romantic gets it right
Buy Kenyan roses for Valentines, says minister - Telegraph
Romantics should buy their Valentine's Day roses from Kenya to support the troubled country, a minister has claimed.
Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, said buying Kenyan stems would help an economy under huge strain as a result of political turmoil.
But he was immediately challenged by critics who said people would do better to buy local or organic, and preferably not buy roses at all
For once an Int Dev Sec gets it right - trade is the best help we can give, so yah boo sucks to the carbon footprint carpers, though I will still get mine from the Petrol Station as usual...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:16 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
February 9, 2008
Bringing civilisation to the natives
Tea finally making a stir in America - Times Online
While expats have been able to buy PG Tips for years in New York from a handful of twee specialist English food stores, ordinary supermarkets will now stock Britain's biggest selling tea brand across America
The problem remains is that my dear American friends are only trusted with wussy 110 v electricity. A hamster in a wheel could boil a kettle faster. Even here the coffee supping Europeans have weakened our jolt juice from a proper 240 v to an armflapping metrosexual 220 v. Without a proper amount of umph in your socket the water only simmers, you need a full James Wattian rolling boil, the water spitting and hissing as it is poured over the precious tea leaves. So I am afraid the Septics are going to be disappointed again as they wave a bag about in water that isn't hot enough to bathe in. Just don't go chucking it all in the harbour again, please.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:36 AM
| Comments (7)
| TrackBack
January 23, 2008
On this day in 1879
From The Barrel of a Gun reminds us:
On this day in 1879, roughly one hundred able-bodied men of the 24th Regiment of Foot, accompanied by some 40 wounded men, despite being grossly outnumbered and outgunned, engaged and defeated a force of some four to five thousand Zulu warriors at the mission station of Rorke's Drift, South Africa.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:24 PM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
January 22, 2008
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Shares tumble as market rout deepens - Telegraph
Posted by The Englishman at 7:17 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
January 9, 2008
That Democrat Result in Full
The Page - by Mark Halperin - TIME
Posted by The Englishman at 6:07 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
January 6, 2008
Living standards, us versus them
UK living standards outstrip US - Times Online
LIVING standards in Britain are set to rise above those in America for the first time since the 19th century, according to a report by the respected Oxford Economics consultancy....It says that GDP per head in Britain will be £23,500 this year, compared with £23,250 in America...the comparisons are affected by sterling’s high value against the dollar....The Oxford analysts also point out that Americans benefit from lower prices than those in Britain. With an adjustment made for this “purchasing power parity”, the average American has more spending power than his UK counterpart and pays lower taxes
So we don't enjoy higher living standards at all; the Americans can still enjoy more good stuff at home than we can - what a dickhead report, but one that will be seized upon by our lying leaders to persuade us we have never had it so good.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 AM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
January 4, 2008
Trying to make money from a Democrat Victory
politicalbetting.com ｻ Blog Archive ｻ Why my money is staying on our 50/1 long-shot
It was on May 27th 2005 that I first suggested on the site that the then relatively unknown junior senator from Illinois was a good bet for the 2008 White House Race. At the time you could have got 50/1 on him going all the way
I have just got 11/5 at Betfair.
The result on the Republican side is less meaningful. I find it difficult to believe that Huckabee's appeal will stretch far beyond the so-called Bible Belt. Mitt Romney's poor showing tonight will not only hit his campaign's self confidence, but also his ability to raise money. Giuliani is also finding fundraising tricky. Does this mean the real money as well as the smart money will also now switch back to John McCain?...
Romney and Clinton can take comfort from the fact that in 1992 Bill Clinton only got 3% in Iowa but went on to win the nomination. In 1988 the nominee Michael Dukakis got 22% and was 3rd. For the Republicans in 1988 Bob Dole beat VP (and nominee) George HW Bush by 37% to 19%. Pat Robertson got 25%. Info from Kiwiblog.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:20 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
Iowa Results
Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee win Iowa caucuses
Well with Chuck Norris approval what did you expect?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
December 28, 2007
Too dangerous to live
Why the fanatics wanted Bhutto dead - Telegraph
For as long as Miss Bhutto lived, she was a symbol of the alternative route open to Pakistan - the route towards a liberal, secular, open democracy, offered in stark contrast to the closed and militant path of the radicals.
Moreover, Miss Bhutto was genuinely popular....In the end, the popular backing she was able to command was her trump card, rendering her an exceptionally dangerous opponent for the Islamist radicals, perhaps more so than Mr Musharraf.
Miss Bhutto knew the risks only too well. Yet she addressed rally after rally, choosing the militant stronghold of Peshawar for her penultimate gathering on Wednesday.
It was her popularity that was dangerous to the Islamofascists - they don't like it when the "ordinary" people show they don't want a medieval theocracy.
Her death is a huge blow, we need more, many more like her.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:54 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
December 19, 2007
Buy a Swastika for Christmas
Nazi or Nice? Finns Snap Up Swastika Rings for Christmas - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News
A Finnish charity is selling silver rings emblazoned with a swastika to raise money for World War II veterans. The €60 ($86) silver bands feature a swastika flanked by stylized wings. A small rosette sits in the center. The rings are on sale until Dec. 31 at R-Kioski supermarkets in Finland and online.
In most countries, the swastika is forever linked to the horrors of Hitler's regime, but for centuries in Finland it has been a symbol of good luck - during the Second World War, Finnish military aircraft even sported blue swastikas as they fought the Nazis.
"We thought they would make great Christmas presents for men, or for young people if their grandparents fought in the war," said Pia Mikkonen, the head of the Finnish Veterans' Association.
She added that sales had not been as strong as she would have liked.
Strange that, and as far as I can see the online ordering is only in Finnish which is beyond my monoglottal skills.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:11 AM
| Comments (7)
| TrackBack
December 7, 2007
Friday Night is Music Night
How long before you can work out who it is....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:57 PM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
November 30, 2007
The only Teddy Bear to give this Xmas
Teddy Bear
$19.49
Our plush bear is a cutie in his own message-bearing t-shirt and festive red ribbon. He’s a great gift. Put a smile on someone’s face. Just grin and bear it!
Soft plush fur
11 inches tall
Red bow and t-shirt included
Posted by The Englishman at 4:49 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
November 27, 2007
Munching Down in South Carolina
Snarls, smears and innuendo for Hillary Clinton as attack dogs get ready for the fray - Times Online
Welcome to South Carolina, the foulest swamp of electoral dirty tricks in America. This state’s primary race has already become the sleaziest leg of the 2008 presidential campaign.
“South Carolina is a do-or-die state again,” said Rod Shealy, a veteran Republican consultant, over a meal of fried pork and beans in his favourite diner, the Lizard’s Thicket. “The attacks are already coming on a daily basis. And with the anonymity of the internet, we’re going to see new lows in dirty politics that would have been unimaginable recently.”
...Nobody is sure who is behind the attacks on Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama, but the claims of lesbianism and Islamic extremism have found fertile ground on right-wing websites. Mr Obama, a Christian, was forced to deny the rumours at a campaign event..
What no denial from Mrs Clinton? But then The Times is carefully claiming it didn't kick off the rumours about Mrs Clinton and is merely reporting them....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
November 25, 2007
This year will be remembered for two things.
Christopher Booker's Notebook - Telegraph
First, it was the year when the scientific data showed that the cosmic scare over global warming may well turn out to be just that - yet another vastly inflated scare.
Second, it was the year when the hysteria generated by all the bogus science behind this scare finally drove those who rule over us, including Gordon "Plastic Bags" Brown, wholly out of their wits.
Can't argue about that, as the Americans might say it is the year that the Global Warming scare "jumped the shark". It is a bit early to be doing a review of the year but what two things do you think 2007 will be remembered for?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:03 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
November 22, 2007
Give Thanks
This summer I waved the Englishettes off at the Mayflower steps in Plymouth, England to a better life in the USA. Go to the land of freedom, the guarantor of of our liberty, the last great hope in the world. A land where young people can create their own future. Imagine the fecund coasts, the awesome mountains, the endless prairies and mighty forests. The energy and creativity of the cities, the honesty and homeliness of the small towns and idyllic ranches. Go and grasp this chance, and when you join those happy denizens of a better land give thanks.
"As long as we can get home in time for chips at dinner", was the response, but maybe when they are older...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
November 18, 2007
On This Day 700 years Ago
William Tell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tell had been promised freedom if he shot the apple. On November 18, 1307, Tell split the fruit with a single bolt from his crossbow, without mishap. When Gessler queried him about the purpose of the second bolt in his quiver, Tell answered that if he had ended up killing his son in that trial, he would have turned the crossbow on Gessler himself.
Freedom from tyranny comes from the barrel of a gun crossbow.
Now prove you are cultured - try not thinking of ....
A fiery horse with the speed of light! A cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi-Yo, Silver!’ ....
Posted by The Englishman at 10:00 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
November 3, 2007
MSM reporting good news from Iraq!
Rising trade and safer streets – now Baghdad needs a decent electricity supply - Times Online
"things are getting back to normal.”
Bloodshed in Iraq, still high by most standards, has dropped significantly since August thanks to the impact of a joint US-Iraqi security plan that has resulted in a huge rise in the number of American and Iraqi forces on the streets
Posted by The Englishman at 7:39 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
October 28, 2007
Flaming Comets
Things that go boom in the sky
Here’s something you don’t see every day; an exploding comet. In fact the last time this comet did this was in 1892.
Comet 17P/Holmes is now larger than Jupiter... More at www.spaceweather.com
The comet is visible to the naked eye, and looks even better through a telescope. If you want to spot it yourself, here is a sky map.
I have just been outside and I think I spotted it, can you?
Posted by The Englishman at 8:53 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
October 9, 2007
Alarums and excursions
Watts Up With That?
According to Investors Business Daily, Al Gore will be awarded the Nobel Peace prize and share it with Canadian climate researcher Sheila Watt-Cloutier.
IBD writes: “…a couple of global warming alarmists. With dozens of wars raging, the committee couldn’t find a single person laboring honorably for peace?”
A quick look through past winners shows they will be sharing it with at least three terrorists (reformed branch), Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter. Not exactly the dinner party guest list of choice.
There is one woman who deserves it more than any other person, her steadfast defence of Western Democracy and its peoples against naked aggression surprised our enemies and caused them to question their whole aggressive doctrine. Her principles inspired other leaders such as Ronald Reagan and were the cornerstone of the strategy that destroyed the greatest threat to peace in my lifetime, the original evil empire. Ladies and Gentlemen, Lady Thatcher, the real peacemaker.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:52 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
September 23, 2007
The rest is silence. "Hamlet", Act 5 scene 2
Marcel Marceau, French mime artist, dies - Telegraph
Marcel Marceau, the French mime artist who portrayed white faced Bip the Clown, has died at the age of 84.
Marceau, who helped return silent acting to popularity after World War II, died yesterday evening surrounded by his family.
Well tell us then, what were his last words?
Posted by The Englishman at 2:55 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
September 18, 2007
Not missing you yet!
A nation divided - Belgium's identity crisis - Telegraph
Beer, the national dish of "moules et frites" or "mosselen met frieten" and a pervasive cynicism with politicians are all that holds Belgium together after 100 days without government.
I think the real crisis the politicians have identified is that the country gets along quite fine without them. Just as we do when the politicos take their three month summer break. Lets have more of these breaks.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:20 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
September 10, 2007
Pure Blood Politics
Scotsman.com News - International - Soviet Israelis held in neo-Nazi attack claims
EIGHT Israeli citizens have been accused of setting up the country's first neo-Nazi group and allegedly carrying out violent attacks on foreigners, religious Jews and homosexuals.
"It is difficult to believe Nazi ideology sympathisers can exist in Israel, but it is a fact," said Revital Almog, the police official who directed the investigation.
A little learning of history would have prevented his surprise, and maybe the tag "first neo-Nazi group" is also wrong... Avraham Stern, January 1941, submitted a formal proposal to German diplomats in Beirut for a military-political alliance with wartime Germany....When Menachem Begin became chief of Betar, he preferred the brown shirts of the Hitler gangs, a uniform Begin and Betar members wore to all meetings and rallies - at which they greeted each other, opened and closed meetings with the fascist salute....
The list of acts of Zionist collaboration with the Nazis goes on and on.
And let us not forgetLord Moyne who was appointed Deputy Resident Minister of state in Cairo from August 1942 to January 1944, and Resident Minister from then until his death. Within the British system at that time, this meant control over Persia, the Middle East and Africa. The main task was to ensure the defeat of the Axis forces in North Africa, principally the Afrika Korps, who were led by General Rommel.
In the early afternoon of November 6, 1944, Eliyahu Bet-Zuri and Eliyahu Hakim of the Jewish underground group Lehi waited for Moyne near his home in Cairo. Moyne arrived in his car with his driver and his secretary. When the driver got out to open the door for Moyne, Hakim shot Moyne three times and Bet-Zuri killed the driver.
In 1975, the bodies of Ben Zuri and Hakim were returned to Israel in exchange for twenty prisoners from Gaza and Sinai. They were lain in state in the Jerusalem Hall of Heroism, where they were attended by many dignitaries including Prime Minister Rabin and President Katzir. Then they were buried in the military section of Mount Herzl cemetery in a state funeral. Great Britain lodged a formal protest. In 1982, postage stamps were issued in their honour.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
August 21, 2007
Sarcasm - derived from the Greek sarkasmos, meaning "to bite the lips in rage"
Scotsman.com News - UK - 'Lowest form of wit' tops poll, proving that Britons love sarcasm
Well, there's a surprise - sarcasm is our favourite kind of comedy
FROM the savage tirades of hotel owner Basil Fawlty to the suave and waspish Blackadder, it has long been a mainstay of the comedy scene.
And while sarcasm may be denigrated as the lowest form of wit, a new survey claims it is also the nation's favourite.
...Rob Deering, who is performing at the Underbelly's Smirnoff Baby Belly venue, said: "We reserve the right to be miserable, focus on the bad things in life, and deflate all that is good at all times. Sarcasm keeps misery alive while you're having a laugh in the pub."
The Australian comic Brendon Burns, appearing at the Pleasance Dome, said the UK's taste for sarcasm was driven by "self-loathing and taking the p*** out of someone else to make them look stupid".
He said: "There is a presumed intellectual superiority in Britain, so anything that makes someone look dumber than you goes down rather well here."
Ah poor diddums, just because the audience doesn't like his "shouty 1980s stylee throwback" "utter rubbish" and he knows it :Brendon Burns is not happy with the Monday-night reception he receives. "It's a fuckin' show, act like it!" he roars, stomping back off the stage. "It's been sold out every night - you're lucky to get a ticket you cunts!"
What wit, what sophistication, but then "he is also serious about what he does, describing himself repeatedly, and not always plausibly, as a "wordsmith" with a wonderful "turn of phrase". Maybe sarcasm is bit too sophisticated for "Australian Shouter" and it is unfair of us Brits to expect him to be able to appreciate it.....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:28 AM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
August 12, 2007
Even German Farmers have Property Rights
German farmer demands cash for lost bodies - Telegraph
A German farmer is refusing to allow British families to recover the remains of crew members of a Lancaster bomber shot down during the Second World War - unless they pay him €7,500 (£5,080)....Mr Bender said he needed the money to cover the cost of returning the field to its original state after the remains had been dug up.
"Everyone wants to come on my land and dig, but no one has offered any money to cover the damages," he said. "I have nothing against giving my permission, but the costs have got to be covered. I can't say how much it would cost without making a thorough estimate, but it will not be less than €7,500."
Initial shock outrage is somewhat tempered by seeing he has a point. I'm not sure how he prices refilling a hole quite so high but whatever. I guess the normal practice of hole diggers, certainly when archaeologists have dug my farm, is that they simply guarantee to reinstate the land themselves. No payment, problem solved.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:15 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
July 19, 2007
The Protocols of The Elders
Nelson Mandela launches Elders to save world | International News | News | Telegraph
There will eventually be 12 Global Elders - but the exact make-up of the group was in flux right up until yesterday's announcement.
As well as Mr Mandela and his wife, Graca Machel, the group comprises Desmond Tutu, the Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town; Jimmy Carter, the former American president; Mary Robinson, the former Irish president; Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations; and Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate economist and founder of the Green Bank in Bangladesh....The initiative was the brainchild of Sir Richard Branson and the musician Peter Gabriel.
Rejoice! Kofi and Jimmy, together at last to save us. Was the Blessed Margaret invited to join? Or doesn't she qualify as a Global Elder?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:19 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
July 4, 2007
Happy Birthday USA
I was pleased to see my daughter's school had the Stars and Stripes flying this morning as I went down to help a uniformed Army Officer from Porton Down introduce the little ones to the wonders of science.... Porton Down? Isn't that where.......
Posted by The Englishman at 9:58 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
July 2, 2007
VC
The Monarchist: New Zealander wins VC
The Queen has been pleased to approve the following New Zealand Gallantry Awards:
VICTORIA CROSS FOR NEW ZEALAND (V.C.)
Corporal Bill Henry APIATA (M181550) - Citation
"Lance Corporal (now Corporal) Apiata was, in 2004, part of a New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS) Troop on patrol in Afghanistan, which laid up in defensive formation for the night.
At approximately 0315 hours, the Troop was attacked by a group of about twenty enemy fighters, who had approached by stealth using the cover of undulating ground in pitch darkness. Rocket-propelled grenades struck two of the Troop's vehicles, destroying one and immobilising the other.
The opening strike was followed by dense and persistent machine gun and automatic rifle fire from close range.
The attack then continued using further rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun and rifle fire. The initial attack was directed at the vehicle where Lance Corporal Apiata was stationed.
He was blown off the bonnet by the impact of rocket propelled grenades striking the vehicle. He was dazed, but was not physically injured.
The two other vehicle crew members had been wounded by shrapnel; one of them, Corporal D, was in a serious condition.
Illuminated by the burning vehicle, and under sustained and accurate enemy fire directed at and around their position, the three soldiers immediately took what little cover was available. Corporal D was discovered to have sustained lifethreatening wounds. The other two soldiers immediately began applying basic first aid.
Lance Corporal Apiata assumed command of the situation, as he could see that his superior's condition was deteriorating rapidly.
By this time, however, Lance Corporal Apiata's exposed position, some seventy metres in front of the rest of the Troop, was coming under increasingly intense enemy fire. Corporal D was now suffering serious arterial bleeding and was lapsing in and out of consciousness.
Lance Corporal Apiata concluded that his comrade urgently required medical attention,or he would likely die. Pinned down by the enemy, in the direct line of fire between friend and foe, he also judged that there was almost no chance of such help reaching their position.
As the enemy pressed its attack towards Lance Corporal Apiata's position, and without thought of abandoning his colleague to save himself, he took a decision in the highest order of personal courage under fire. Knowing the risks involved in moving to open ground, Lance Corporal Apiata decided to carry Corporal D singlehandedly to the relative safety of the main Troop position, which afforded better cover and where medical treatment could be given.
He ordered his other colleague, Trooper E, to make his own way back to the rear.
In total disregard of his own safety, Lance Corporal Apiata stood up and lifted his comrade bodily. He then carried him across the seventy metres of broken, rocky and fire swept ground, fully exposed in the glare of battle to heavy enemy fire and into the face of returning fire from the main Troop position. That neither he nor his colleague were hit is scarcely possible. Having delivered his wounded companion to relative shelter with the remainder of the patrol, Lance Corporal Apiata re-armed himself and rejoined the fight in counter-attack.
By his actions, he removed the tactical complications of Corporal D's predicament from considerations of rescue.
The Troop could now concentrate entirely on prevailing in the battle itself. After an engagement lasting approximately twenty minutes, the assault was broken up and the numerically superior attackers were routed with significant casualties, with the Troop in pursuit.
Lance Corporal Apiata had thereby contributed materially to the operational success of the engagement. A subsequent medical assessment confirmed that Corporal D would probably have died of blood loss and shock, had it not been for Lance Corporal Apiata's selflessly courageous act in carrying him back to the main Troop lines, to receive the immediate treatment that he needed."
This is the first New Zealander to win the VC since World War II, and the first to win the new Victoria Cross for New Zealand which was instituted in 1999
The cross has been awarded to New Zealand servicemen in both world wars. It was also awarded to a New Zealand militiaman and to 14 Royal Navy and Imperial Army troops during the New Zealand Wars.
Recognition must also be paid to three other NZSAS members who have been decorated but can not be named:
Captain C, the New Zealand Gallantry Decoration for an exceptional act of gallantry and leadership under heavy fire and his leadership in general throughout the tour of operations.
Corporal B, the New Zealand Gallantry Decoration, for displaying outstanding courage and leadership and accepting extraordinary risks during his tour of operations.
Corporal R, the New Zealand Gallantry Medal, for gallantry and the application of firm and timely leadership under extreme combat conditions.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:24 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
June 28, 2007
Lockerbie - will the truth emerge?
Judgment day for Lockerbie bomber | Uk News | News | Telegraph
As they say in Scotland, where lawyers still speak Latin, fiat justitia, ruat caelum: let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
Scotsman.com News - Lockerbie - Lockerbie evidence 'was tampered with, destroyed and overlooked'
* Commission expected to conclude that conviction of Megrahi is unsafe
* Key witness account brought into question and statements 'missing'
* Defence believe motive was to avoid antagonising Iran during Gulf War
Key quote
"The Crown Office has a moral obligation to hold a public inquiry. If it embarrasses the Scottish judiciary, so be it. We're in danger of becoming the laughing stock of Europe." - TAM DALYELL
Story in full EVIDENCE used against Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, was subject to deliberate destruction and manipulation for political reasons, according to leaked documents from his defence team.
The allegations suggest authorities on both sides of the Atlantic attempted to mislead the original inquiry into the 1988 disaster to divert attention away from the original Iranian-backed suspects to Libya, with evidence apparently tampered with, destroyed and overlooked.
In a decision that could send shockwaves through the Scottish legal system, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) is expected to conclude this week that the conviction of Megrahi - jailed in 2001 for his part in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which killed 270 people - is unsafe.
Amid claims from his defence team of a "co-ordinated effort to mislead the court", tantamount to a perversion of the course of justice, the SCCRC is studying hundreds of documents and photographs that suggest evidence was deliberately fabricated, manipulated or ignored by police and CIA operatives.
Should Megrahi's case be referred back to the appeal court, his legal team intends to lodge an application for him to be freed while the court decides whether to quash his conviction or order a retrial.
Megrahi's team believes the evidence was manipulated to avoid antagonising Iran at the time of the first Gulf War.
In all the excitement of the Brown coronation I have rather missed the import of this shocking case. One to watch.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
June 25, 2007
To be sure, Sir, I never laid a hand on it.
Mystery of the Chilean lake that disappeared - Independent Online
Scientists in Chile have been faced with a riddle after a lake in Patagonia disappeared. The five-mile long glacial lake in the Magallanes region of southern Patagonia was last seen four months ago.
The disappearance of the five-acre body of water in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park was discovered in late May by park rangers
The slur that this isn't the first time the words "mystery disappearance" coupled with the name of an Irish Traveller is ridiculous - as every schoolboy knows O'Higgins was born in Chillán, Chile. As noted in his certificate of baptism, he was the illegitimate son of Ambrosio O'Higgins, Marquis of Osorno, a Spanish officer from County Sligo in Ireland, who became governor of Chile and later viceroy of Peru. His mother was Isabel Riquelme, a prominent Chillán lady. O'Higgins spent his early years with his mother's family in Central-south Chile. He had a distant relationship with his father, who supported him financially and was concerned with his education, but the two never met in person ( Wikipedia)
Posted by The Englishman at 10:29 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
June 21, 2007
Ah ha my lads
Fearsome red Jolly Roger flies again | Uk News | News | Telegraph
A rare red Jolly Roger, the most feared of pirate flags, has been restored to its former, bloodthirsty glory.
The crudely stitched flag was captured during a naval battle off the Barbary Coast, North Africa, in 1780 by Lieutenant Richard Curry, who later became an admiral.
It might have been interesting if the MSM reporting this had revealed what the Barbary Pirates were interested in seizing from ships (Christian Slaves to sell in Muslim Africa) or even a short précis of the west's reaction, pay tribute, give in to demands, negotiate and when those tactics kept failing finally beat the living daylights out of them "to the shores of Tripoli".
Posted by The Englishman at 6:23 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
June 19, 2007
Count me in as a redneck nutter
Biased Broadcasting Corporation | Visions of Bradford
If you think anyone but a few fringe nutters hold pro-american positions then you are seriously touched or living in redneck county, redneck state, US of A.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:25 PM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBack
June 16, 2007
A Great Day in History for the Anglospheric Constitutions
Magna Carta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
By 1215, some of the barons of England banded together and took London by force on June 10, 1215. They, and many of the fence-sitting moderates not in overt rebellion, forced King John to agree to the "Articles of the Barons", to which his Great Seal was attached in the meadow at Runnymede on June 15, 1215. In return, the barons renewed their oaths of fealty to King John on June 19, 1215. A formal document to record the agreement was created by the royal chancery on July 15: this was the original Magna Carta.
|
| Johannes del gracia rex Anglie, dominus Hibernie, dux Normannie, Aquitannie et comes Andegavie, archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, baronibus, justiciariis, forestariis, vicecomitibus, prepositis, ministris et omnibus ballivis et fidelibus suis salutem. Sciatis nos intuitu Dei et pro salute anime nostre et omnium antecessorum et heredum nostrorum ad honorem Dei et exaltacionem sancte Ecclesie, et emendacionem regni nostri, per consilium venerabilium patrum nostrorum, Stephani Cantuariensis archiepiscopi tocius Anglie primatis et sancte Romane ecclesie cardinalis, Henrici Dublinensis archiepiscopi, Willelmi Londoniensis, Petri Wintoniensis, Joscelini Bathoniensis et Glastoniensis, Hugonis Lincolniensis, Walteri Wygorniensis, Willelmi Coventrensis, et Benedicti Roffensis, episcoporum; magistri Pandulfi domini pape subdiaconi et familiaris, fratris Aymerici magistri milicie Templi in Anglia; et nobilium virorum Willelmi Mariscalli comitis Penbrocie, Willelmi comitis Sarrisberie, Willelmi comitis Warennie, Willelmi comitis Arundellie, Alani de Galeweya constabularii Scocie, Warini filii Geroldi, Petri filii Hereberti, Huberti de Burgo senescalli Pictavie, Hugonis de Nevilla, Mathei filli Hereberti, Thome Basset, Alani Basset, Philippi de Albiniaco, Roberti de Roppel', Johannis Mariscalli, Johannis filii Hugonis et aliorum fidelium nostrorum: |
[1] In the first place have granted to God, and by this our present charter confirmed for us and our heirs for ever that the English church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired; and it is our will that it be thus observed; which is evident from the fact that, before the quarrel between us and our barons began, we willingly and spontaneously granted and by our charter confirmed the freedom of elections which is reckoned most important and very essential to the English church, and obtained confirmation of it from the lord pope Innocent III; the which we will observe and we wish our heirs to observe it in good faith for ever. We have also granted to all free men of our kingdom, for ourselves and our heirs for ever, all the liberties written below, to be had and held by them and their heirs of us and our heirs. | 1. In primis concessisse Deo et hac presenti carta nostra confirmasse, pro nobis et heredibus nostris in perpetuum, quod Anglicana ecclesie libera sit, et habeat jura sua integra, et libertates suas illesas; et ita volumus observari; quod apparet ex eo quod libertatem electionum, que maxima et magis necessaria reputatur ecclesie Anglicane, mera et spontanea voluntate, ante discordiam inter nos et barones nostros motam, concessimus et carta nostra confirmavimus, et eam obtinuimus a domino papa Innocentio tercio confirmari; quam et nos observabimus et ab heredibus nostris in perpetuum bona fide volumus observari. Concessimus eciam omnibus liberis hominibus regni nostri, pro nobis et heredibus nostris in perpetuum, omnes libertates subscriptas, habendas et tenendas eis et heredibus suis, de nobis et heredibus nostris. |
[2] If any of our earls or barons or others holding of us in chief by knight service dies, and at his death his heir be of full age and owe relief he shall have his inheritance on payment of the old relief, namely the heir or heirs of an earl £100 for a whole earl’s barony, the heir or heirs of a baron £100 for a whole barony, the heir or heirs of a knight 100s, at most, for a whole knight’s fee; and he who owes less shall give less according to the ancient usage of fiefs. | 2. Si quis comitum vel baronum nostrorum, sive aliorum tenencium de nobis in capite per servicium militare, mortuus fuerit, et cum decesserit heres suus plene etatis fuerit et relevium debeat, habeat hereditatem suam per antiquum relevium; scilicet heres vel heredes comitis de baronia comitis integra per centum libras; heres veI heredes baronis de baronia integra per centum libras; heres vel heredes militis de feodo militis integro per centum solidos ad plus; et qui minus debuerit minus det secundum antiquam consuetudinem feodorum. [Articles, c. 1; 1225, c. 2.] |
[3] If, however, the heir of any such be under age and a ward, he shall have his inheritance when he comes of age without paying relief and without making fine. | 3. Si autem heres alicujus talium fuerit infra etatem et fuerit in custodia, cum ad etatem pervenerit, habeat hereditatem suam sine relevio et sine fine. [Articles, c. 2; 1225, c. 3.] |
[4] The guardian of the land of such an heir who is under age shall take from the land of the heir no more than reasonable revenues, reasonable customary dues and reasonable services and that without destruction and waste of men or goods; and if we commit the wardship of the land of any such to a sheriff, or to any other who is answerable to us for its revenues, and he destroys or wastes what he has wardship of, we will take compensation from him and the land shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fief, who shall be answerable for the revenues to us or to him to whom we have assigned them; and if we give or sell to anyone the wardship of any such land and he causes destruction or waste therein, he shall lose that wardship, and it shall be transferred to two lawful and discreet men of that fief, who shall similarly be answerable to us as is aforesaid. | 4. Custos terre hujusmodi heredis qui infra etatem fuerit, non capiat de terra heredis nisi racionabiles exitus, et racionabiles consuetudines, et racionabilia servicia, et hoc sine destructione et vasto hominum vel rerum; et si nos commiserimus custodiam alicujus talis terre vicecomiti vel alicui alii qui de exitibus illius nobis respondere debeat, et ille destructionem de custodia fecerit veI vastum, nos ab illo capiemus emendam, et terra committatur duobus legalibus et discretis hominibus de feodo illo, qui de exitibus respondeant nobis vel ei cui eos assignaverimus; et si dederimus vel vendiderimus alicui custodiam alicujus talis terre, et ille destructionem inde fecerit vel vastum, amittat ipsam custodiam, et tradatur duobus legalibus et discretis hominibus de feodo illo qui similiter nobis respondeant sicut predictum est. [Articles, c. 3; 1225, c. 4.] |
[5] Moreover, so long as he has the wardship of the land, the guardian shall keep in repair the houses, parks, preserves, ponds, mills and other things pertaining to the land out of the revenues from it; and he shall restore to the heir when he comes of age his land fully stocked with plows and the means of husbandry according to what the season of husbandry requires and the revenues of the land can reasonably bear. | 5. Custos autem, quamdiu custodiam terre habuerit, sustentet domos, parcos, vivaria, stagna, molendina, et cetera ad terram illam pertinencia, de exitibus terre ejusdem; et reddat heredi cum ad plenam etatem pervenerit, terram suam totam instauratam de carucis et waynagiis, secundum quod tempus waynagii exiget et exitus terre racionabiliter poterunt sustinere. [Articles, cc. 3, 35; 1225, c. 5.] |
[6] Heirs shall be married without disparagement, yet so that before the marriage is contracted those nearest in blood to the heir shall have notice. | 6. Heredes maritentur absque disparagacione, ita tamen quod, antequam contrahatur matrimonium, ostendatur propinquis de consanguinitate ipsius heredis. [Articles, c. 3; 1225, c. 6.] |
[7] A widow shall have her marriage portion and inheritance forthwith and without difficulty after the death of her husband; nor shall she pay anything to have her dower or her marriage portion or the inheritance which she and her husband held on the day of her husband’s death; and she may remain in her husband’s house for forty days after his death, within which time her dower shall be assigned to her. | 7. Vidua post mortem mariti sui statim et sine difficultate habeat maritagium et hereditatem suam, nec aliquid det pro dote sua, vel pro maritagio suo, vel hereditate sua, quam hereditatem maritus suus et ipsa tenuerint die obitus ipsius mariti, et maneat in domo mariti sul per quadraginta dies post mortem ipsius, infra quos assignetur ei dos sua. [Articles, c. 4; 1225, c. 7.] |
[8] No widow shall be forced to marry so long as she wishes to live without a husband, provided that she gives security not to marry without our consent if she holds of us, or without the consent of her lord of whom she holds, if she holds of another. | 8. Nulla vidua distringatur ad se maritandum, dum voluerit vivere sine marito, ita tamen quod securitatem faciat quod se non maritabit sine assensu nostro, si de nobis tenuerit, vel sine assensu domini sui de quo tenuerit, si de alio tenuerit. [Articles, c. 17; 1225, c. 7.] |
[9] Neither we nor our bailiffs will seize for any debt any land or rent, so long as the chattels of the debtor are sufficient to repay the debt; nor will those who have gone surety for the debtor be distrained so long as the principal debtor is himself able to pay the debt; and if the principal debtor fails to pay the debt, having nothing wherewith to pay it, then shall the sureties answer for the debt; and they shall, if they wish, have the lands and rents of the debtor until they are reimbursed for the debt which they have paid for him, unless the principal debtor can show that he has discharged his obligation in the matter to the said sureties. | 9. Nec nos nec ballivi nostri seisiemus terram aliquam nec redditum pro debito aliquo, quamdiu catalla debitoris sufficiunt ad debitum reddendum; nec plegii ipsius debitoris distringantur quamdiu ipse capitalis debitor sufficit ad solucionem debiti; et si capitalis debitor defecerit in solucione debiti, non habens unde solvat, plegii respondeant de debito; et si voluerint, habeant terras et redditus debitoris, donec sit eis satisfactum de debito quod ante pro eo solverint, nisi capitalis debitor monstraverit se esse quietum inde versus eosdem plegios. [Articles, c. 5; 1225, c. 8.] |
[10] If anyone who has borrowed from the Jews any sum, great or small, dies before it is repaid, the debt shall not bear interest as long as the heir is under age, of whomsoever he holds; and if the debt falls into our hands, we will not take anything except the principal mentioned in the bond. | 10.Si quis mutuo ceperit aliquid a Judeis, plus vel minus, et moriatur antequam debitum illud solvatur, debitum non usuret quamdiu heres fuerit infra etatem, de quocumque teneat; et si debitum illud inciderit in manus nostras, nos non capiemus nisi catallum contentum in carta. [Articles, C. 34.] |
[11] And if anyone dies indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if the dead man leaves children who are under age, they shall be provided with necessaries befitting the holding of the deceased; and the debt shall be paid out of the residue, reserving, however, service due to lords of the land; debts owing to others than Jews shall be dealt with in like manner. | 11. Et si quis moriatur, et debitum debeat Judeis, uxor ejus habeat dotem suam, et nichil reddat de debito illo, et si liberi ipsius defuncti qui fuerint infra etatem remanserint, provideantur eis necessaria secundum tenementum quod fuerit defuncti et de residuo solvatur debitum, salvo servicio dominorum; simili modo fiat de debitis que debentur aliis quaim Judeis. [Articles, c. 35.] |
[12] No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our kingdom unless by common counsel of our kingdom, except for ransoming our person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our eldest daughter, and for these only a reasonable aid shall be levied. Be it done in like manner concerning aids from the city of London. | 12. Nullum scutagium vel auxilium ponatur in regno nostro, nisi per commune consilium regni nostri, nisi ad corpus nostrum redimendum, et primogenitum filium nostrum militem faciendum, et ad filiam nostram primogenitam semel maritandam, et ad hec non fiat nisi racionabile auxilium; simili modo fiat de auxiliis de civitate Londoniarum. [Articles, c. 32.] |
[13] And the city of London shall have all its ancient liberties and free customs as well by land as by water. Furthermore, we will and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall have all their liberties and free customs. | 13. Et civitas Londoniarum habeat omnes antiquas libertates et liberas consuetudines suas, tam per terras quam per aquas. Preterea volumus et concedimus quod omnes alie civitates, et burgi, et ville, et portus, habeant omnes libertates et liberas consuetudines suas. [Articles, c. 32; 1225, c. 9.] |
[14] And to obtain the common counsel of the kingdom about the assessing of an aid (except in the three cases aforesaid) or of a scutage, we will cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and greater barons, individually by our letters -- and, in addition, we will cause to be summoned generally through our sheriffs and bailiffs all those holding of us in chief -- for a fixed date, namely, after the expiry of at least forty days, and to a fixed place; and in all letters of such summons we will specify the reason for the summons. And when the summons has thus been made, the business shall proceed on the day appointed, according to the counsel of those present, though not all have come who were summoned. | 14. Et ad habendum commune consilium regni de auxilio assidendo aliter quam in tribus casibus predictis, vel de scutagio assidendo, summoneri faciemus archiepiscopos, episcopos, abbates, comites, et majores barones sigillatim per litteras nostras; et preterea faciemus summoneri in generali per vicecomites et ballivos nostros omnes illos qui de nobis tenent in capite ad certum diem, scilicet ad terminum quadraginta dierum ad minus, et ad certum locum; et in omnibus litteris illius summonicionis causam summonicionis exprimemus; et sic facta summonicione negocium ad diem assignatum procedat secundum consilium illorum qui presentes fuerint, quamvis non omnes summoniti venerint. |
[15] We will not in future grant any one the right to take an aid from his free men, except for ransoming his person, for making his eldest son a knight and for once marrying his eldest daughter, and for these only a reasonable aid shall be levied. | 15. Nos non concedemus de cetero alicui quod capiat auxilium de liberis hominibus suis, nisi ad corpus suum redimendum, et ad faciendum primogenitum filium suum militem, et ad primogenitam filiam suam semel maritandam, et ad hec non fiat nisi racionabile auxilium. [Articles, c. 6.] |
[16] No one shall be compelled to do greater service for a knight’s fee or for any other free holding than is due from it. | 16. Nullus distringatur ad faciendum majus servicium de feodo militis, nec de alio libero tenemento, quam inde debetur. [Articles, c. 7; 1225, c. 10.] |
[17] Common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be held in some fixed place. | 17. Communia placita non sequantur curiam nostram, set teneantur in aliquo loco certo. [Articles, c. 8; 1225, c. 11.] |
[18] Recognitions of novel disseisin, of mort d'ancester, and of darrein presentment, shall not be held elsewhere than in the counties to which they relate, and in this manner -- we, or, if we should be out of the realm, our chief justiciar, will send two justices through each county four times a year, who, with four knights of each county chosen by the county, shall hold the said assizes in the county and on the day and in the place of meeting of the county court. | 18. Recogniciones de nova disseisina, de morte antecessoris, et de ultima presentacione, non capiantur nisi in suis comitatibus et hoc modo; nos, vel si extra regnum fuerimus capitalis justiciarius noster, mittemus duos justiciarios per unumquemque comitatum per quatuor vices in anno, qui, cum quatuor militibus cujuslibet comitatus electis per comitatum, capiant in comitatu et in die et loco comitatus assisas predictas. [Articles, c. 8; 1225, c. 12.] |
[19] And if the said assizes cannot all be held on the day of the county court, there shall stay behind as many of the knights and freeholders who were present at the county court on that day as are necessary for the sufficient making of judgments, according to the amount of business to be done. | 19. Et si in die comitatus assise predicte capi non possint, tot milites et libere tenentes remaneant de illis qui interfuerint comitatui die illo, per quos possint judicia sufficienter fieri, secundum quod negocium fuerit majus vel minus. [Articles, c. 13.] |
[20] A free man shall not be amerced for a trivial offense except in accordance with the degree of the offense, and for a grave offense he shall be amerced in accordance with its gravity, yet saving his way of living; and a merchant in the same way, saving his stock-in-trade; and a villein shall be amerced in the same way, saving his means of livelihood -- if they have fallen into our mercy: and none of the aforesaid amercements shall be imposed except by the oath of good men of the neighborhood. | 20. Liber homo non amercietur pro parvo delicto, nisi secundum modum delicti; et pro magno delicto amercietur secundum magnitudinem delicti, salvo contenemento suo; et mercator eodem modo, salva mercandisa sua; et villanus eodem modo amercietur salvo waynagio suo; si inciderint in misericordiam nostram; et nulla predictarum misericordiarum ponatur, nisi per sacramentum proborum hominum de visneto. [Articles, c. 9; 1225, c. 14.] |
[21] Earls and barons shall not be amerced except by their peers, and only in accordance with the degree of the offense. | 21. Comites et barones non amercientur nisi per pares suos, et non nisi secundum modum delicti. [1225, c. 14.] |
[22] No clerk shall be amerced in respect of his lay holding except after the manner of the others aforesaid and not according to the amount of his ecclesiastical benefice. | 22. Nullus clericus amercietur de laico tenemento suo, nisi secundum modum aliorum predictorum, et non secundum quantitatem beneficii sul ecclesiastici. [Articles, c. 10; 1225, c. 14.] |
[23] No vill or individual shall be compelled to make bridges at river banks, except those who from of old are legally bound to do so. |
23. Nec villa nec homo distringatur facere pontes ad riparias, nisi qui ab antiquo et de jure facere debent. [Articles, c. 11; 1225, c. 15.] |
|
[24] No sheriff, constable, coroners, or others of our bailiffs, shall hold pleas of our crown. | 24. Nullus vicecomes, constabularius, coronatores, vel alii ballivi nostri, teneant placita corone nostre. [Articles, c. 14; 12259 c. 17.] |
[25] All counties, hundreds, wapentakes and trithings shall be at the old rents without any additional payment, exept our demesne manors. | 25. Omnes comitatus, hundredi, wapentakii, et trethingi sint ad antiquas firmas absque ullo incremento, exceptis dominicis maneriis nostris. [Articles, c. 14.] |
[26] If anyone holding a lay fief of us dies and our sheriff or bailiff shows our letters patent of summons for a debt that the deceased owed us, it shall be lawful for our sheriff or bailiff to attach and make a list of chattels of the deceased found upon the lay fief to the value of that debt under the supervision of law-worthy men, provided that none of the chattels shall be removed until the debt which is manifest has been paid to us in full; and the residue shall be left to the executors for carrying out the will of the deceased. And if nothing is owing to us from him, all the chattels shall accrue to the deceased, saving to his wife and children their reasonable shares. | 26. Si aliquis tenens de nobis laicum feodum moriatur, et vicecomes vel ballivus noster ostendat litteras nostras patentes de summonicione nostra de debito quod defunctus nobis debuit, liceat vicecomiti vel ballivo nostro attachiare et inbreviare catalla defuncti inventa in laico feodo, ad valenciam illius debiti, per visum legallum hominum, ita tamen quod nichil inde amoveatur, donec persolvatur nobis debitum quod clarum fuerit, et residuum relinquatur executoribus ad faciendum testamentum defuncti; et si nichil nobis debeatur ab ipso, omnia catalla cedant defuncto, salvis uxori ipsius et pueris racionabilibus partibus suis. [Articles, c. 15; 1225, c. 18.] |
[27] If any free man dies without leaving a will, his chattels shall be distributed by his nearest kinsfolk and friends under the supervision of the church, saving to every one the debts which the deceased owed him. | 27. Sl aliquis liber homo intestatus decesserit, catalla sua per manus propinquorum parentum et amicorum suorum, per visum ecclesie, distribuantur, salvis unicuique debitis que defunctus el debebat. [Articles, c. 16.] |
[28] No constable or other bailiff of ours shall take anyone’s corn or other chattels unless he pays on the spot in cash for them or can delay payment by arrangement with the seller. | 28. Nullus constabularius, vel alius ballivus noster, capiat blada vel alia catalla allcujus, nisi statim inde reddat denarios, aut respectum inde habere possit de voluntate venditoris. [Articles, c. 18; 1225, c. 19.] |
[29] No constable shall compel any knight to give money instead of castle-guard if he is willing to do the guard himself or through another good man, if for some good reason he cannot do it himself; and if we lead or send him on military service, he shall be excused guard in proportion to the time that because of us he has been on service. | 29. Nullus constabularius distringat aliquem militem ad dandum denarios pro custodia castri, si facere voluerit custodiam illam in propria persona sua, vel per alium probum hominem, si ipse eam facere non possit propter racionabilem causam; et si nos duxerimus vel miserimus eum in exercitum, erit quietus de custodia, secundum quantitatem temporis quo per nos fuerit in exercitu. [Articles, c. 19; 1225, c. 20.] |
[30] No sheriff, or bailiff of ours, or anyone else shall take the horses or carts of any free man for transport work save with the agreement of that freeman. | 30. Nullus vicecomes, vel ballivus noster, vel aliquis alius, capiat equos vel carettas allcujus liberi hominis pro cariagio faciendo, nisi de voluntate ipsius liberi hominis. [Articles, c. 20; 1225, C. 21.] |
[31] Neither we nor our bailiffs will take, for castles or other works of ours, timber which is not ours, except with the greement of him whose timber it is. | 31. Nec nos nec ballivi nostri capiemus alienum boscum ad castra vel alia agenda nostra, nisi per voluntatem ipsius cujus boscus ille fuerit. [Articles, c. 21; 1225, c. 21.] |
[32] We will not hold for more than a year and a day the lands of those convicted of felony, and then the lands shall be handed over to the lords of the fiefs. | 32. Nos non tenebimus terras illorum qui convicti fuerint de felonia, nisi per unum annum et unum diem, et tunc reddantur terre dominis feodorum. [Articles, c. 22; 1225, c. 22.] |
[33] Henceforth all fish-weirs shall be cleared completely from the Thames and the Medway and throughout all England, except along the sea coast. | 33. Omnes kidelli de cetero deponantur penitus de Tamisia, et de Medewaye, et per totam Angliam, nisi per costeram maris. [Articles, c. 23; 1225, c. 23.] |
[34] The writ called Praecipe shall not in future be issued to anyone in respect of any holding whereby a free man may lose his court. | 34. Breve quod vocatur 'Precipe' de cetero non fiat alicui de aliquo tenemento unde liber homo amittere possit curiam suam. [Articles, c. 24; 1225, c. 24.] |
[35] Let there be one measure for wine throughout our kingdom, and one measure for ale, and one measure for corn, namely "the London quarter"; and one width for cloths whether dyed, russet or halberget, namely two ells within the selvedges. Let it be the same with weights as with measures. | 35. Una mensura vini sit per totum regnum nostrum, et una mensura cervisie, et una mensura bladi, scilicet quarterium Londoniense, et una latitudo pannorum tinctorum et russetorum et halbergettorum, scilicet due ulne infra listas; de ponderibus autem sit ut de mensuris. [Articles, c. 12; 1225, c. 25.] |
[36] Nothing shall be given or taken in future for the writ of inquisition of life or limbs: instead it shall be granted free of charge and not refused. | 36. Nichil detur vel capiatur de cetero pro brevi inquisicionis de vita vel membris, set gratis concedatur et non negetur. [Articles, c. 26; 1225, c. 26.] |
[37] If anyone holds of us by fee-farm, by socage, or by burgage, and holds land of another by knight service, we will not, by reason of that fee-farm, socage, or burgage, have the wardship of his heir or of land of his that is of the fief of the other; nor will we have custody of the fee-farm, socage, or burgage, unless such fee-farm owes knight service. We will not have custody of anyone’s heir or land which he holds of another by knight service by reason of any petty serjeanty which he holds of us by the service of rendering to us knives or arrows or the like. | 37. Si aliquis teneat de nobis per feodifirmam, vel per sokagium, vel per burgagium, et de alio terram, teneat per servicium militare, nos non habebimus custodiam heredis nec terre sue que est de feodo alterius occasione illius feodifirme, vel sokagii, vel burgagii; nec habebimus custodiam illius feodifirme, vel sokagii, vel burgagii, nisi ipsa feodifirma debeat servicium militare. Nos non habebimus custodiam heredis vel terre alicujus, quam tenet de alio per servicium militare, occasione alicujus parve serjanterie quam tenet de nobis per servicium reddendi nobis cultellos, vel sagittas, vel hujusmodi. [Articles, c. 27; 1225, c. 27.] |
[38] No bailiff shall in future put anyone to trial upon his own bare word, without reliable witnesses produced for this purpose. | 38. Nullus ballivus ponat decetero aliquem ad legem simplici loquela sua, sine testibus fidelibus ad hoc inductis. [Articles, c. 28; 1225, c. 28.] |
[39] No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimized, neither will we attack him or send anyone to attack him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. | 39. Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, aut disseisiatur, aut utlagetur, aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur, nec super cum ibimus, nec super cum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terre. [Articles, c. 29; 1225, c. 29.] |
[40] To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice. | 40. Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus aut differemus rectum aut justiciam. [Articles, c. 30; 1225 c. 29.] |
[41] All merchants shall be able to go out of and come into England safely and securely and stay and travel throughout England, as well by land as by water, for buying and selling by the ancient and right customs free from all evil tolls, except in time of war and if they are of the land that is at war with us. And if such are found in our land at the beginning of a war, they shall be attached, without injury to their persons or goods, until we, or our chief justiciar, know how merchants of our land are treated who were found in the land at war with us when war broke out, and if ours are safe there, the others shall be safe in our land. | 41. Omnes mercatores habeant salvum et securum exire de Anglia, et venire in Angliam, et morari, et ire per Angliam, tam per terram quam per aquam, ad emendum et vendendum, sine omnibus malis toltis, per antiquas et rectas consuetudines, preterquam in tempore gwerre, et si sint de terra contra nos gwerrina; et si tales inveniantur in terra nostra in principio gwerre, attachientur sine dampno corporum et rerum, donec sciatur a nobis vel capitali justiciario nostro quomodo mercatores terre nostre tractentur, qui tunc invenientur in terra contra nos gwerrina; et si nostri salvi sint ibi, alii salvi sint in terra nostra. [Articles, c. 3 1; 1225, c. 30.] |
[42] It shall be lawful in future for anyone, without prejudicing the allegiance due to us, to leave our kingdom and return safely and securely by land and water, save, in the public interest, for a short period in time of war -- except for those imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the kingdom and natives of a land that is at war with us and merchants (who shall be treated as aforesaid). | 42. Liceat unicuique decetero exire de regno nostro, et redire, salvo et secure, per terram et per aquam, salva fide nostra, nisi tempore gwerre per aliquod breve tempus, propter communem utilitatem regni, exceptis imprisonatis et utlagatis secundum legem regni, et gente de terra contra nos gwerrina, et mercatoribus, de quibus fiat sicut predictum est. [Articles, c. 33.] |
[43] If anyone who holds of some escheat such as the honor of Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, Lancaster, or of other escheats which are in our hands and are baronies dies, his heir shall give no other relief and do no other service to us than he would have done to the baron if that barony had been in the baron’s hands; and we will hold it in the same manner in which the baron held it. | 43. Si quis tenuerit de aliqua eskaeta, sicut de honore Wallingefordie, Notingeham, Bolonie, Lancastrie, vel de aliis eskaetis que sunt in manu nostra et sunt baronie, et obierit, heres ejus non det aliud relevium, nec faciat nobis aliud servicium quam faceret baroni si baronia illa esset in manu baronis; et nos eodem modo eam tenebimus quo baro eam tenuit. [Articles, c. 36; 1225, c. 31.] |
[44] Men who live outside the forest need not henceforth come before our justices of the forest upon a general summons, unless they are impleaded or are sureties for any person or persons who are attached for forest offenses. | 44. Homines qui manent extra forestam non veniant decetero coram justiciariis nostris de foresta per communes summoniciones, nisi sint in placito, vel plegii alicujus vel aliquorum, qui attachiati sint pro foresta. [Articles, c. 39; Cart. For., c. 2.] |
[45] We will not make justices, constables, sheriffs or bailiffs save of such as know the law of the kingdom and mean to observe it well. | 45. Nos non faciemus justiciarios, constabularios, vicecomites, vel ballivos, nisi de talibus qui sciant legem regni et eam bene velint observare. [Articles, c. 42.] |
[46] All barons who have founded abbeys for which they have charters of the kings of England or ancient tenure shall have the custody of them during vacancies, as they ought to have. | 46. Omnes barones qui fundaverunt abbacias, unde habent cartas regum Anglie, vel antiquam tenuram, habeant earum custodiam cum vacaverint, sicut habere debent. [Articles, c. 43; 1225, c. 33.] |
[47] All forests that have been made forest in our time shall be immediately disafforested; and so be it done with riverbanks that have been made preserves by us in our time. | 47. Omnes foreste que afforestate sunt tempore nostro, statim deafforestentur; et ita fiat de ripariis que per nos tempore nostro posite sunt in defenso. [Articles, c. 47; 1225 c. 16; Cart. For., c. 3.] |
[48] All evil customs connected with forests and warrens, foresters and warreners, sheriffs and their officials, riverbanks and their wardens shall immediately be inquired into in each county by twelve sworn knights of the same county who are to be chosen by good men of the same county, and within forty days of the completion of the inquiry shall be utterly abolished by them so as never to be restored, provided that we, or our justiciar if we are not in England, know of it first. | 48. Omnes male consuetudines, de forestis et warennis, et de forestariis et warennariis, vicecomitibus et eorum ministris, ripariis et earum custodibus, statim inquirantur in quolibet comitatu per duodecim milites, juratos de eodem comitatu, qui debent eligi per probos homines ejusdem comitatus, et infra quadraginta dies post inquisicionem factam, penitus, ita quod numquam revocentur, deleantur (per eosdem, ita quod nos hoc sciamus prius, vel justiciarius noster, si in Anglia non fuerimus).[1] [Articles, c. 39.] |
[49] We will immediately return all hostages and charters given to us by Englishmen, as security for peace or faithful service. | 49. Omnes obsides, et cartas statim reddemus, que liberate fuerunt nobis ab Anglicis in securitatem pacis vel fidelis servicii. [Articles, c. 38.] |
[50] We will remove completely from office the relations of Gerard de Athee so that in future they shall have no office in England, namely Engelard de Cigogne, Peter and Guy and Andrew de Chanceaux, Guy de Cigogne, Geoffrey de Martigny and his brothers, Philip Marc and his brothers and his nephew Geoffrey, and all their following. | 50. Nos amovebimus penitus de balliis, parentes Gerardi de Athyes, quod decetero nullam habeant balliam in Anglia, Engelardum de Cygony, Petrum et Gionem et Andream de Cancellis, Gionem de Cygony, Galfridum de Martinny et fratres ejus, Philippum Marc et fratres ejus, et Galfridum nepotem ejus, et totam sequelam eorundem. [Articles, c. 40.] |
[51] As soon as peace is restored, we will remove from the kingdom all foreign knights, cross-bowmen, serjeants, and mercenaries, who have come with horses and arms to the detriment of the kingdom. | 51. Et statim post pacis reformacionem amovebimus de regno omnes alienigenas milites, balistarios, servientes, stipendiarios, qui venerint cum equis et armis ad nocumentum regni. [Articles, c. 41.] |
[52] If anyone has been disseised of or kept out of his lands, castles, franchises or his right by us without the legal judgment of his peers, we will immediately restore them to him: and if a dispute arises over this, then let it be decided by the judgment of the twenty-five barons who are mentioned below in the clause for securing the peace: for all the things, however, which anyone has been disseised or kept out of without the lawful judgment of his peers by king Henry, our father, or by king Richard, our brother, which we have in our hand or are held by others, to whom we are bound to warrant them, we will have the usual period of respite of crusaders, excepting those things about which a plea was started or an inquest made by our command before we took the cross; when however we return from our pilgrimage, or if by any chance we do not go on it, we will at once do full justice therein. | 52. Si quis fuerit disseisitus vel elongatus per nos sine legali judicio parium suorum de terris, castellis, libertatibus, vel jure suo, statim ea ei restituemus; et si contencio super hoc orta fuerit, tunc inde fiat per judicium viginti quinque baronum, de quibus fit mencio inferius in securitate pacis. De omnibus autem illis de quibus aliquis disseisitus fuerit vel elongatus sine legali judicio parium suorum, per Henricum regem patrem nostrum vel per Ricardum regem fratrem nostrum, que in manu nostra habemus, vel que alii tenent, que nos oporteat warantizare, respectum habebimus usque ad communem terminum crucesignatorum, exceptis illis de quibus placitum motum fuit vel inquisicio facta per preceptum nostrum ante suscepcionem crucis nostre; cum autem redierimus de peregrinacione nostra, vel si forte remanserimus a peregrinacione nostra, statim inde plenam justiciam exhibebimus. [Articles, c. 25.] |
[53] We will have the same respite, and in the same manner, in the doing of justice in the matter of the disafforesting or retaining of the forests which Henry our father or Richard our brother afforested, and in the matter of the wardship of lands which are of the fief of another, wardships of which sort we have hitherto had by reason of a fief which anyone held of us by knight service, and in the matter of abbeys founded on the fief of another, not on a fief of our own, in which the lord of the fief claims he has a right; and when we have returned, or if we do not set out on our pilgrimage, we will at once do full justice to those who complain of these things. | 53. Eundem autem respectum habebimus (et eodem modo de justicia exhibenda),[2] de forestis deafforestandis (vel remansuris forestis)[3] quas Henricus pater noster vel Ricardus frater noster afforestaverunt, et de custodiis terrarum que sunt de alieno feodo, cujusmodi custodias hucusque habuimus occasione feodi quod aliquis de nobis tenuit per servicium militare, et de abbaciis que fundate fuerint in feodo alterius quam nostro, in quibus dominus feodi dixerit se jus habere; et cum redierimus, vel si remanserimus a peregrinacione nostra, super hiis conquerentibus plenam justiciam statim exhibebimus. |
[54] No one shall be arrested or imprisoned upon the appeal of a woman for the death of anyone except her husband. | 54. Nullus capiatur nec imprisonetur propter appellum femine de morte alterius quam viri sui. [1225, c. 34.] |
[55] All fines made with us unjustly and against the law of the land, and all amercements imposed unjustly and against the law of the land, shall be entirely remitted, or else let them be settled by the judgment of the twenty-five barons who are mentioned below in the clause for securing the peace, or by the judgment of the majority of the same, along with the aforesaid Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, if he can be present, and such others as he may wish to associate with himself for this purpose, and if he cannot be present the business shall nevertheless proceed without him, provided that if any one or more of the aforesaid twenty-five barons are in a like suit, they shall be removed from the judgment of the case in question, and others chosen, sworn and put in their place by the rest of the same twenty-five for this case only. | 55. 0mnes fines qui injuste et contra legem terre facti sunt nobiscum, et omnia amerciamenta facta injuste et contra legem terre, omnino condonentur, vel fiat inde perjudicium viginti quinque baronum de quibus fit mencio inferius in securitate pacis, vel per judicium majoris partis eorundem, una cum predicto Stephano Cantuariensi archiepiscopo si interesse poterit et aliis quos secum ad hoc vocare voluerit. Et si interesse non poterit, nichilominus procedat negocium sine eo, ita quod, si aliquis vel aliqui de predictis viginti quinque baronibus fuerint in simili querela, amoveantur quantum ad hoc judicium et alii loco eorum per residuos de eisdem viginti quinque tantum ad hoc faciendum electi et jurati substituantur. [Articles, c. 37.] |
[56] If we have disseised or kept out Welshmen from lands or liberties or other things without the legal judgment of their peers in England or in Wales, they shall be immediately restored to them; and if a dispute arises over this, then let it be decided in the March by the judgment of their peers -- for holdings in England according to the law of England, for holdings in Wales according to the law of Wales, and for holdings in the March according to the law of the March. Welshmen shall do the same to us and ours. | 56. Si nos disseisivimus vel elongavimus Walenses de terris vel libertatibus vel rebus aliis, sine legali judicio parium suorum (in Anglia vel in Wallia),[4] eis statim reddantur; et si contencio super hoc orta fuerit, tunc inde fiat in Marchia per judicium parium suorum de tenementis Anglie secundum legem Anglie; de tenementis Wallie secundum legem Wallie; de tenementis Marchic secundum legem Marchie. Idem facient Walenses nobis et nostris. [Articles, c. 44.] |
[57] For all the things, however, which any Welshman was disseised of or kept out of without the lawful judgment of his peers by king Henry, our father, or king Richard, our brother, which we have in our hand or which are held by others, to whom we are bound to warrant them, we will have the usual period of respite of crusaders, excepting those things about which a plea was started or an inquest made by our command before we took the cross; when however we return, or if by any chance we do not set out on our pilgrimage, we will at once do full justice to them in accordance with the laws of the Welsh and the foresaid regions. | 57. De omnibus autem illis de quibus aliquis Walensium disseisitus fuerit vel elongatus, sine legali judicio parium suorum, per Henricum regem patrem nostrum vel Ricardum regem fratrem nostrum, que nos in manu nostra habemus, vel que alii tenent que nos oporteat warantizare, respectum habebimus usque ad communem terminum crucesignatorum, illis exceptis de quibus placitum motum fuit vel inquisicio facta per preceptum nostrum ante suscepcionem crucis nostre; cum autem redierimus, vel si forte remanscrimus a peregrinatione nostra, statim eis inde plenam justitiam exhibebimus, secundum leges Walensium et partes predictas. [Articles, c. 44.] |
[58] We will give back at once the son of Llywelyn and all the hostages from Wales and the charters that were handed over to us as security for peace. | 58. Nos reddemus filium Lewelini statim, et omnes obsides de Wallia, et cartas que nobis liberate fuerunt in securitatem pacis. [Articles, c. 45.] |
|
Posted by The Englishman at 7:47 AM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
June 14, 2007Rejoice!Falklands conflict was noble, Baroness Thatcher tells troops-News-Politics-TimesOnline “The whole nation rejoiced at the success; and we should still rejoice,” she said. “Aggression was defeated and reversed. The wishes of local people were upheld as paramount. Britain’s honour and interests prevailed.” Listen and download Margaret Thatcher's speech on the Falklands and remember what we are now missing. Now we have the flagship in position is there any chance of regime change?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
May 28, 2007Worstall WatchWorstall's post on "rednecks from Alabama having a laugh at us urbanites who will swallow this tale". fails to be quoted in the Telegraph: Is 87-stone hog hunter telling porkies? | International News | News | Telegraph ....a hoax by Alabama rednecks, cleverly using perspective, knowledge of hunting and the power of the internet to have a joke at the expense of urban dwellers everywhere? but at least he gets to recycle his rubbish posts in the Times
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
May 26, 2007Happy Birthday DukeThe Duke rides back into Tinsel Town | International News | News | Telegraph He embodies almost everything modern Hollywood considers politically incorrect - the tough-talking, red-blooded man's man, pro-war patriot, All-American hero and, in his own words, "Right-wing conservative extremist". But John Wayne, whether on horseback or the battlefield, remains one of the towering icons of 20th century cinema and one the entertainment industry is again fervently embracing as it celebrates the 100th anniversary of his birth today.... ..However, some observers were aware of how much Hollywood has changed since Wayne's heyday. "It's hard to guess how the Duke would be received today, or even if he could find work in contemporary Hollywood,".. Which is probably why I watch so few new films. There is nothing better on a wet Sunday afternoon than sitting on the sofa of sloth with The Searchers or The Shootist on the box. And as a bonus for you here is the famous credo from the latter: Download Credo.wav
Posted by The Englishman at 7:39 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
May 23, 2007I'm a MinorityPharyngula: We're outnumbered! Well, "we" meaning my fellow residents of rural communities. I suspect most of the people reading this are members of the urban elite, so you won't really care that today is the day when urban populations were predicted to exceed rural populations. That is, for the first time in the history of the world, a majority of human beings live in cities rather than in the countryside. Now I don't want to hear any sneering from you glossy depilated metrosexuals about us barefoot hayseeds reeking of eau de porc. We're the ones with the low-traffic, low-stress, low-cost lifestyle and the fresh local foods who can still see the stars at night. And since there are now more of you than there are of us, I guess that means today is the day we have been promoted to the rarefied elite, and you're the common majority.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:41 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
May 22, 2007Bringing it into your living roomRoyal Marine helmet-cam auteur hit during Afghan gunfight | The Register A Royal Marine recently returned from combat in Afghanistan has uploaded some astonishing Doom-style helmet-cam footage, taken during a massive gun battle with the Taliban. Viewers be warned: unlike the Iraq headquarters PR channel videos, it contains extensive profanity. Also, the cameraman gets hit in a mildly embarrassing location, to the hilarity of his comrades. There isn't any blood and guts to speak of. Here it is (could be NSFW, depending on how much swearing and gunfire is allowed in your office):
Posted by The Englishman at 4:52 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 5, 2007Very Modern PoWsSky News In Pictures: British Sailors Released Good news of course, but the old fashioned snob in me has been revolted by the pictures of them lounging around in tracksuits and then waving while wearing cheap grey suits - the look like a football team. And I'm sure we will be treated to a deluge of interviews with them when they return.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:30 AM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBack
March 22, 2007SlaveryBBC - Religion & Ethics - Modern slavery: Compared to historical slavery Slavery is illegal in every country in the modern world. Mauritania was the last country to make slavery illegal, which it did in 1980. Although slavery has been outlawed, it still exists; even on the narrowest definition of slavery it's likely that there are far more slaves now than there were victims of the Atlantic slave trade. Richard Re, writing in 2002, stated: Conservative estimates indicate that at least 27 million people, in places as diverse as Nigeria, Indonesia, and Brazil, live in conditions of forced bondage. Some sources believe the actual figures are 10 times as large.
* There are more slaves than ever before, but they are a smaller proportion of the human race In the United States before the Civil War, the average slave cost the equivalent of about fifty thousand dollars. I'm not sure what the average price of a slave is today, but it can't be more than fifty or sixty dollars. I think that the cost of a slave is a telling figure, if it they were rare and slave owners properly persecuted then the price would reflect that. Still on a related BBC page it is gratifying to see whose fault it isn't: BBC - Religion & Ethics - Islam and slavery: Introduction While Islamic law does allow slavery under certain conditions, it's almost inconceivable that those conditions could ever occur in today's world, and so slavery is effectively illegal in modern Islam. Muslim countries also use secular law to prohibit slavery. News stories do continue to report occasional instances of slavery in a few Muslim countries, but these are usually denied by the authorities concerned.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:29 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
February 13, 2007Starving in ParadiseCubans feel betrayed by tourist playground | International News | News | Telegraph Cubans struggle to survive on an average wage of less than ｣10 a month to supplement the state rations which provide them with basics such as rice and beans and either one small bar of soap or tube of toothpaste a month. Visiting foreigners can spend almost double that on a taxi ride to the airport or a meal in one of Old Havana's state-run restaurants. "It sticks in the throat," says Oscar Espinosa, an independent economist and dissident who was jailed in 2003 for criticising the regime's economic strategy and is now confined to his home on conditional release. "Such obvious inequality in a country where for decades the people have laboured in the mistaken belief that they are creating a classless society. The truth is we have created a paradise for tourists and those that live off them, but for the rest of us, daily life gets worse," he said..... Independent Livingstone lavishes praise on Cuba during visit Published: 06 November 2006 .... Mr Livingstone was speaking at the weekend during a visit to Cuba on the first leg of a Latin American tour. He called Mr Castro's Communist revolution "one of the high points of the 20th century" and praised Mr Castro while on a trip to see a cricket match on the island.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
February 2, 2007Do You Fancy An Italian Man?Following a link from Friends of the Amarone: Italy's 10 Sexiest Women (link now dead)I discovered this amusing little quiz: Italy's 50 Sexier Women It can't be:
Can it?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:16 AM
| Comments (11)
| TrackBack
January 23, 2007Senator, you are no Maggie ThatcherStephen Bainbridge reports on Hillary's positioning as a Thatcher HILLARY CLINTON is to be presented as America’s Margaret Thatcher as she tries to become the first woman to win the White House. As she entered the 2008 presidential race yesterday, a senior adviser said that her campaign would emphasise security, defence and personal strengths reminiscent of the Iron Lady. “Their policies are totally different but they are both perceived as very tough,” said Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s campaign chairman. You bet their policies are different. Hillary Clinton favors paternalistic big government. As laid out by OnTheIssues.org, her education policy might as well have been drafted by the teachers unions: Testing only for new teachers. No vouchers. Limited parental choice. Opposes tort reform. Federalize health care. Rated 82% positive by the NEA and 85% by the AFL-CIO. Rated a "big spender" by NTU. Anyway, let's go to the record. When you compare key quotations side-by-side, it becomes clear that Lady Thatcher was all about liberty and prosperity, while Hillary is all about unions, big government, and high taxes and spending.
Given a choice, I'd go with Lady Thatcher all the way down the line. When Thatcher said of Ronald Reagan that "Others saw only limits to growth; he transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity," the others of whom she spoke surely included Clinton. While Thatcher said of Reagan that he "loved America and what it stands for - freedom and opportunity for ordinary people," it will be said of Clinton that she loved government and believed in a zero-sum world in which paternaliztic handouts are more important than providing opportunity for individual success.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:13 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
January 21, 2007Headline "Hope Fades for Castro" - he might live a bit longer...Cuban leader Fidel Castro is making a "slow but progressive" recovery, although his condition is serious due to his advanced age, a Spanish doctor ...
Posted by The Englishman at 1:11 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
January 10, 2007From a SoldierDefence Internet | Defence News | Dispatches from Baghdad - a soldier's view on Iraq
David
Posted by The Englishman at 10:09 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
Haka responseTelegraph | News | Women's topless haka stunt offends Maori a topless haka performed by a British women's rugby team has been criticised as offensive by Maori in New Zealand. The team, from Canterbury, Kent, were smeared with mud and wearing only shorts when they were photographed leaping into the air Ah diddums the girlies have upset some lecturer at the "School of Maori Studies" . Bet he wouldn't be brave enough to tell it to their faces... Of course the proper British response to the Haka is " Front row "kneel and load", second row "fire", third row "cock"...." UPDATE: Here's the picture... And for more Haka nonsense - Fran Cotton - "look at those big poofs dancing" and the correct British Army Drill see - http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/002117.html
Posted by The Englishman at 7:19 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
January 7, 2007Chad Sands againAn update on my story of the African dust which feeds the Amazonian Forests - guess who got there first... Charles Darwin encountered African dust off the Cape Verde Islands early in the Beagle Voyage. He collected samples and later had them and similar samples obtained from another ship analysed. He wrote about the dust in his account of the Beagle voyage and, in 1846, he produced a short paper for the Journal of the Geological Society of London entitled An account of the Fine Dust which often falls on Vessels in the Atlantic Ocean,
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
December 30, 2006Form an orderly queue pleaseTelegraph | News | Saddam: the end Now they have got the trap door oiled and working, and a ready supply of rope, surely it is a golden opportunity for a few other political leaders; a lot of them keep flying out to Iraq but then come back, what a waste!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:38 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
December 18, 2006More on Goats for AfricaI have covered it before, but it still gets my goat! I'm being deluged with brochures asking me to buy a goat for a smiling African farmer, but supplying goats is a stupid idea for many areas as they ruin the land... Christian Aid said there had been a misunderstanding. The purchase of a goat did not really mean that a goat was bought. The money would go into a farming and livestock fund that would be distributed by local project managers. But if Christian Aid thought that would see off its critics, it was mistaken. Intelligent Giving, the charities analyst, said it was appalled by its own research, which showed that few charities delivered the animals that they said they would. Adam Rothwell, a researcher at IG, said: “We have looked at what your money actually buys you, because what you see isn’t always what your African farmer gets.” Of all the charities IG investigated, only three — The Good Gifts Catalogue, Save the Children and Help the Aged’s Cows ‘n’ Things, guaranteed to buy what present-givers had donated for. Rothwell was unimpressed with promises from charities that the money would go to useful projects elsewhere. “The usual explanation was that the money would go to something like a goat, or that the charity would spend the money on something else entirely, where it judged there was the greatest need. But that’s like paying for an iPod and getting a radio,” he said. “We don’t think most people would be happy with that.” I wouldn't trust "Christian Aid" with anything after their disgraceful adverts this year so the fact they don't deliver what you have bought doesn't surprise me.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:30 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
December 12, 2006Over to you KimAUSTIN The blind will be able to go hunting if a Texas Bill becomes law. They would have to be accompanied by a sighted hunter, who would help to guide their shots, and carry proof that they were legally blind. The law will also allow them to use a laser sight — a device forbidden to sighted hunters. Edmund Kuempel, a State Representative, who introduced the Bill, said: “This opens up the fun of hunting to additional people, and I think that’s great.” I feel discriminated against - why can't those of us who have difficulty hitting the barn door with buckshot at twenty paces also get help? I am predicting a rush on paramedics this morning as the denizens of Islington read this over their muesli and their brains boil as they reconcile their pro-disability and anti-shooting prejudices...
Posted by The Englishman at 5:46 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
November 30, 2006Helping Africans to feed themselvesWould environmentalists rather let the hungry in Africa starve than give up their goal of eradicating genetically modified foods? Wish we didn't have to ask such a question. But how could we not after hearing the latest demands from the Friends of the Earth?.... The organization also is urging African governments to immediately stop accepting untested rice food aid and commercial imports from the U.S..... "We are a nation just recovering from years of civil war," he said, "and now to attack us in this manner is now making our people once more vulnerable."... "The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service today announced that after a thorough review of scientific evidence it will deregulate genetically engineered LLRICE601 based on the fact that it is as safe as its traditionally bred counterparts," the USDA said in a statement. The statement also said that the Food and Drug Administration "has concluded that the presence of LLRICE601 in the food and feed supply poses no safety concerns." No environmentalist can point to a single person who's been killed or even injured by a genetically modified food. Yet the entire world knows Africans die in large numbers due to starvation from famine, despotic governments and other preventable complications. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, 34% of the population — 194 million people — reportedly goes hungry every day. Friends of the Earth? Maybe. Friends of Africans? Not a chance. If they were, they wouldn't do something so morally reprehensible.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:29 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
Charity gets on my goatCritics urge charities to give up the goat Oxfam, Christian Aid, Help the Aged and others are wooing the ethical shopper with pictures of cute goats wearing Christmas hats and promises of helping the poor in developing countries. But the World Land Trust and Animal Aid say that it is “madness” to send goats, cows and chickens to areas where they will add to the problems of drought and desertification. Horrible animals goats - ruin the land, awful milk, rancid meat and they stink. But don't worry those ethical souls at Christian Aid explain why even if you worry about goats it is all right to give them the dosh: So where it advertises a cuddly goat being presented to a smiling family in your name in fact it means the local white Bwana gets it to spend.....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:01 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
November 29, 2006Fading awayThere is no major Western European country that is producing enough children to replace the current population. Instead, they are replacing their population with Muslim immigrants. Here are the birthrates per couple in various European countries:
Ireland - 1.87 At a replacement rate of 1.1, Spain is at half the stable population replacement rate. This means Spain's population is halving every generation. The magnitude of the numbers is difficult to comprehend. In 2000, the total population of Europe was 728 million. By 2050 at the present rate of births, it will be less than 600 million, a loss of a staggering 125 million Europeans.
Posted by The Englishman at 4:27 PM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
November 24, 2006Democracy - it was a good idea whilst it lasted...The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index of democracy The reports singled out the USA (17th) and Britain's (23rd) poor results, partly to blame on measures adopted to fight terrorism. "The United States and Britain are near the bottom of the full democracy category, but for somewhat different reasons. America falls down on some aspects of governance and civil liberties. Despite low election turnouts, political participation in the United States is comparatively high," the report said. "In Britain low political participation (the lowest in the developed world) is a major problem, and to a lesser extent, for now, so are eroding civil liberties," the report said.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:14 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
November 9, 2006Global Warming - the two sides of the argumentThis global warming business is very confusing - so I thought I would try and line up the two sides to argue it out. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/broadly-misleading/ http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ Rather obviously, once a window is saturated adding more gases with the same properties will do nothing. This point seems to cause confusion for some people so perhaps consider multiple shades on a window with each shade blocking half the light coming through - pull one shade and you reduce the light source by half, pull another so you block half the light coming through the first shade, etc.. The effect of each shade diminishes as you keep adding more and eventually you get no additional effect - you have saturated or blocked the radiation window and it makes no difference if you double or quadruple the number of shades again.
In global warming and climate studies, figures are often given in Watts per meter squared (Wm-2) -- what does that mean? Surface warming ratios are variously cited as 0.1 °C per Wm-2 forcing through 1.0 °C per Wm-2 -- and most everything in between -- which ones make sense? .. The IPCC's estimate of additional forcing from all added CO2 since the Industrial Revolution is ≈ 1.5 Wm-2, the equivalent of change in radiative forcing (ΔF) for a value of 370 ppmv. Over the same period they estimate net warming of 0.6 ± 0.2 °C. Professor Roger Pielke, Sr., suggests a figure of 26.5-28% of contemporary warming is attributable to atmospheric carbon dioxide by estimating from IPCC-supplied forcing tables. Of the IPCC's estimated 0.6 ± 0.2 °C that would be 6/10 x 28/100 ≈ 0.17 ± ≈ 0.06 °C. That would give us a value of 1 Wm-2 ≈ 0.11 °C ...What does this 3.7 Wm-2 mean? How much warming does that equate to for the planet's surface? ... The bottom line is that climate models are programmed to overstate potential warming response to enhanced greenhouse forcing by a huge margin. The median estimate 3.0 °C warming cited by the IPCC for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide is physically implausible. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/cuckoo-science/#more-367 We have often made the case here that equilibrium climate sensitivity is most likely to be around 0.75 +/- 0.25 C/(W/m2) (corresponding to about a 3°C rise for a doubling of CO2). .. ...we know that for a particular model, once you know its climate sensitivity you can easily predict how much it will warm or cool if you change one of the forcings (like CO2 or solar). We also know that the best definition of the forcing is the change in flux at the tropopause, and that the most predictable diagnostic is the global mean surface temperature anomaly. Thus it is natural to look at the real world and see whether there is evidence that it behaves in the same way (and it appears to, since model hindcasts of past changes match observations very well). So for our next trick, try dividing energy fluxes at the surface by temperature changes at the surface. As is obvious, this isn't the same as the definition of climate sensitivity - it is in fact the same as the black body (no feedback case) discussed above - and so, again it's no surprise when the numbers come up as similar to the black body case. In a transient situation (such as we have at present), there is a lag related to the slow warm up of the oceans, which implies that the temperature takes a number of decades to catch up with the forcings. This lag is associated with the planetary energy imbalance and the rise in ocean heat content. If you don't take that into account it will always make the observed 'sensitivity' smaller than it should be. Therefore if you take the observed warming (0.6°C) and divide by the estimated total forcings (~1.6 +/- 1W/m2) you get a number that is roughly half the one expected. http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.htm Lyman et al (2006), using updated data from the same source, show that the period 2003-2005 involves a sudden ocean cooling at a rate of -1.0 ± 0.3 Wm-2 over the period, which means Hansen's model is calculating wrongly in both magnitude and sign. No one expected this loss of one-fifth of the heat stored in the ocean since 1955 and no model predicted it. Its cause is unclear but we appear to be witnessing Earth dumping heat to space via the atmosphere.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:43 PM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
November 3, 2006PollocksTelegraph | News | All seafood will run out in 2050, say scientists Bad news I know - and a damn good reason to start fish farming and putting a few property rights into place - tragedy of the commons and all that - but surely this is an overreaction... Telegraph | News | Pollock sold for $140 million (£75 million). Single frozen Alaska Pollock is considered to be the premier raw material for Surimi Seafood; the most common use of surimi in the United States is "imitation crabmeat" (aka crab stick), known in Japan as "kamaboko". Alaska pollock is commonly used in the fast food industry, for example the fish filet at both McDonald's and Burger King are also made from Alaska pollock.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:14 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
October 22, 2006Have I got news for youIt was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism. I can't really comment as I haven't watched BBC news for years, it got too expensive to replace the set after yet another object was thrown at the screen....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:18 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
October 16, 2006Keep the poor man at the gateMother's Union: HONOUR thy father and thy Mothers’ Union, and the meek may yet inherit some kind of Earth. Thou shalt abhor Kenyan green beans, nor shall ye drive to the shops when you can get the bus. Thou shalt turn thy central heating down and thy television off at night, and shouldst thou fly thou shalt plant a tree of penitence to offset thy carbon emissions. Thereby might the planet be saved. ... “We seem to have this expectation that we have a right to all food products at all times of the year. We grow perfectly good green beans in the right season over here. We do not need them out of season. People say we should help Kenya’s balance of payments, but I am not sure the money reaches the most marginalised.” The Mother's Union campaigns across the world for parental rights, international debt relief and an end to child poverty And how does boycotting the goods they produce help the poor? Or do you prefer the charming picaninnies to come to the Mission for the hand out of gruel and religious tracts every morning to them having the dignity of working for a living?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:38 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
September 13, 2006Send him downIain Dale's Diary: 09/01/2006 - 09/30/2006 brings us the Judge's address to Richard Reid the Shoe Bomber as he was sent down - a fine speech. Oh for more Judges like this.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:57 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
September 11, 2006The Stranger within my gate..Driving into Marlborough I heard on the Radio that a plane had crashed - a small mention on the news so I assumed it was a minor incident. I turned over to the BBC's News station where they were discussing manures for the garden. A little later I was in the barber's shop with mindless MTV playing on the screen above my head when an Army Captain came in to wait for a cut - he asked if they could switch to the news channel. So for the next hour I sat in the chair with the barber taking random snips as we watched the drama unfold. So that's how I got the worst haircut in my life, and the world was turned upside down. Others have different memories, may they find a peace within themselves. Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming;
Posted by The Englishman at 7:27 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
August 10, 2006Make Poverty HistoryThe coolest wristwear in town simply declares "I BUY GOODS FROM POORER COUNTRIES." The bands are available from the Adam Smith Institute, and they are free. E-mail us (wristband@adamsmith.org) with a mailing address and we'll send you one. I presume they are made by child labour in some unregulated sweatshop in the far east which is why they can afford to give them away... I have asked for mine, why not do the same.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:31 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
August 7, 2006Another "faked" picture?
A boot lies on the ground near the cars destroyed when a Katyusha missle landed in the northern Israeli village of Kfar Giladi. The violence intensified yesterday on both sides of the border YOAV LEMMER / AFP / GETTY IMAGES It seems the papers aren't learning the lesson - this picture is from today's Times - in the paper it is blown up to take up half a page. UPDATE - same shoe - different picture this time from Reuters is used on the front page of the Telegraph Online News.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:42 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
August 5, 2006Suffer the little childrenEU Referendum has been feeling for the truth about the Qana photos all week. It is all coming together now, and it damns the complacent media.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:49 AM
| Comments (9)
| TrackBack
July 4, 2006Happy Independence Day to my Colonial ReadersA bit of Johnny Cash via Iain Dale's Diary: Happy Independence Day to My USA Readers ...we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless. The USA - the last best hope - Amen.
Have a good day!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:42 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
June 15, 2006Does anyone do fact checking when it comes to bashing the Marines?Marine sings about shooting child dead - Newspaper Edition - Times Online A US corporal was forced to apologise for writing and singing a song to fellow Marines about him shooting dead an Iraqi child. Has anyone on the MSM who has rushed into commenting on this video actually read or listened to the lyrics first? They aren't difficult. Guy falls in love with a girl, follows her home to an ambush, he grabs her as a shield, she gets shot so he returns fire at her brother and father. I note the BBC now has a much fairer account up - obviously someone there has bothered to study the lyrics. Thanks to Michelle Malkin here are the lyrics of "Hadji Girl" Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad Then she said that she wanted me to see. Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Posted by The Englishman at 7:14 AM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBack
June 14, 2006"like crap through a goose"BBC NEWS | World | Americas | 'Kill Iraqis marine song' probe The US marines have launched a probe into a video posted on the internet that apparently shows a serving marine singing about killing Iraqi civilians. In further news an investigation is going to be launched into the "clearly inappropriate" views on Germans reported to have been said by an other American soldier.. "My God, I actually pity those poor bastards we're going up against. My God, I do. We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel. Now some of you boys, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you'll all do your duty. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood, shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friends face, you'll know what to do. Now there's another thing I want you to remember. I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're not holding anything, we'll let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly, and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose, and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time, and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose. "
Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
June 13, 2006New Google EarthGoogle Earth (Release 4 - BETA) The latest version of Google Earth is being released in beta form and you know you can't resist trying out beta stuff on your computer - in fact it looks very good and hasn't crashed my machine, yet.... Download file which takes you to my local high point!
Posted by The Englishman at 8:08 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
June 7, 2006A view from south of the borderBalrog Twin Towers and Haditha? What's the difference? No comment needed.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:21 PM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
June 6, 2006On this day 62 years ago"The smoky foreground was not inviting. The rising tide slopped round bodies with tin hats that bobbed grotesquely in the waves. Wounded men, kept afloat by life-jackets, clung to stranded impedimenta. Barely clear of the creeping tide, soldiers lay with heads down, pinned to the sand. Half-way up the beach, others dug themselves into what amounted to certain death-trap... "I am going in," said Curtis. He gunned his engines and bumped over the shallows. "Stand by with the ramps!" Four able seamen sprang to the gangways. "Lower away there," and the brows ran sweetly down at a steep angle. The command craft had a comfortable landing. On these occasions the senior officer, stepping cautiously (rather than attempting a headlong dive), is first off the boat. Surprisingly, it is as safe a place as any. The water was knee-deep when Piper Millin struck up "Blue Bonnets", keeping the pipes going as he played the commandos up the beach. It was not a place to hang about in, and we stood not on the order of our going. That eruption of twelve hundred men covered the sand in record time... As we ran up the slope, tearing the waterproof bandages off weapons, the odd man fell, but swift reactions saved casualties... The Lord Lovat, known to his friends as "Shimi" Lovat, was born Simon Fraser in 1911. He was educated at Ampleworth College and attended Oxford University. He joined the University's Cavalry Squadron and, after graduation in 1932, was commissioned into the Scots Guards. His father, who had founded the Lovat Scouts during the Boer War, died in 1933, and so Simon Fraser succeeded him to become the Seventeenth Baron Lovat, and the twenty-fifth chief of the Fraser Clan. His service with the Scots Guards continued, however when the Second World War began it was obvious that Lovat was destined to join a much more unorthodox fighting formation. In 1940, the Army requested volunteers for the newly formed Commando units and Lovat was amongst the first to apply. The tendency towards the special forces would seem to have been in Lovat's blood because his first cousin was no less a man than David Stirling, who later famously founded the Special Air Service in North Africa. For their exploits during the War, both Stirling and Lovat were personally singled out by Adolf Hitler as "dangerous terrorists", and orders had been issued for them to be executed in the event of their capture. When the Normandy invasion drew near it was recognised that a large number of Commando forces would be needed to operate under a single command, and so Lovat was promoted to Brigadier and given charge of the 1st Special Service Brigade.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:30 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
May 18, 2006The religion of Peace and Tolerance (tm)Judge shot dead after blocking promotion of teacher who wore Muslim headscarf - World - Times Online A SENIOR judge died yesterday after a lawyer opened fire in Turkey's highest administrative court. He was apparently protesting against a ruling on the Muslim headscarf, which is barred from many places in the secular country. Maybe it wasn't just headscarf ban, the attacker probably did it because he was forced to by the racist Zionist occupation of Palestine, the illegal war in Iraq and Evil Bush. In fact it is probably all our fault.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
May 3, 2006Biased BBCBBC news 'favours Israel' at expense of Palestinian view - Newspaper Edition - Times Online THE BBC'S coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict implicitly favours the Israeli side, a study for the BBC Governors has concluded. What do you mean, you hadn't noticed that the BBC was part of the great Right Wing Zionist conspiracy? Weep for BBC news - Comment - Times Online A few days ago Barbara Plett, a BBC Middle East correspondent, broadcast a report about the airlifting of Yassir Arafat to Paris. She informed her listeners: When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry . . . without warning.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
March 3, 2006Which one spouts crude Anti-American "oil-for blood" clichs and inflames the Middle East?
Posted by The Englishman at 8:44 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
February 16, 2006Wiltshires answer to the film Cool Runnings?OK, I'm sorry I have been rude about a local village called Pewsey - but let me congratulate the village for raising the money to send Shelley Rudman, born and bred in the Wiltshire village, to the Olympics to pick up a medal for sliding down a hill very very fast on a tea tray. I certainly wouldn't have the guts or determination to do it so huge congratulations to her as well. Though I do wonder if the extra fingers help her hold on....
Posted by The Englishman at 11:12 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
February 13, 2006Your reaction may vary
Posted by The Englishman at 1:45 PM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
February 12, 200612th February1809 - Charles Darwin, English naturalist (d. 1882) Quite a day - celebrated as Darwin Day and Lincoln's Birthday in the States. Here we celebrate it as No 2 son's birthday - 16 today. Happy Birthday.
Posted by The Englishman at 1:33 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
February 9, 2006Sending out an SOSTelegraph | News | Mugabe to ask whites back in land grab U-turn President Robert Mugabe has begun to reverse his "insane" land grab and offer some white farmers the chance to lease back their holdings in Zimbabwe. Would you go back? Until the Zims clear out the Marxists madmen the place will continue to rot - but i suppos it is all whiteys fault somehow...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
February 3, 2006Those Cartoons and The TimesThe Times presents a reasoned argument for not publishing them, or is it just cowadice from the Murdoch Empire? Drawing the line - Comment - Times Online This newspaper has had anguish of its own over whether to reproduce the pictures at the centre of this saga. At one level, their appearance might be seen as an appropriate response to the fanatics who have demanded their prohibition and could help the reader to understand both their character and the impact that they might have on believers. But to duplicate these cartoons several months after they were originally printed also has an element of exhibitionism to it. To present them in front of the public for debate is not a value-neutral exercise. On balance, we have chosen not to publish the cartoons but to provide weblinks to those who wish to see them. The crucial theme here is choice. The truth is that drawing the line in instances such as these is not a black-and-white question. It cannot be valid for followers of a religion to state that because they consider images of the Prophet idolatry, the same applies to anyone else in all circumstances. Then again, linking the Prophet to suicide bombings supposedly undertaken in his honour was incendiary. The Times would, for example, have reservations about printing a cartoon of Christ in a Nazi uniform sketched because sympathisers of Hitler had conducted awful crimes in the name of Christianity. Muslims thus have a right to protest about the cartoons and, if they want, to boycott the publications concerned. To move from there to holding ministers responsible for the editorial decisions of a free press in their nations, to urge that all products from a country be ostracised or, worst still, to engage in violence against people or property is to leave the field of legitimate complaint and enter one of censorship enforced under threat of intimidation. That free speech is misunderstood in much of the Islamic realm shows how much progress has yet to be made. Consistency would also be a virtue. The anger directed at these cartoons by certain Muslims would carry more weight if pictures that crudely insult Jews and Christians were not found regularly in the Middle East. To contend that faiths of many forms merit a degree of deference, but not absolute protection, is one notion. To insist that this principle be applied selectively is another, quite indefensible, assertion.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:28 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
February 2, 2006A Reader's Record RequestHere's a musical tribute to the courageous men and women of the American Military: Heroes In Our Midst
Posted by The Englishman at 7:21 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Surrender MonkeysBBC NEWS | World | Europe | Muhammad cartoon row intensifies Newspapers across Europe have reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to show support for a Danish paper whose cartoons have sparked Muslim outrage. Great to see newspaper editors standing up for freedom at personal and professional risk, I'm embarrassed to see no UK paper has done the same. And isn't it typical of France that for every brave man there is a weasel who bows to the oppressors and does their bidding, before they even have to ask! Talking of the Danes I listened to talk about this book on the radio - now on my list to buy: Hitler's Canary - Sandi Toksvig The story of how the Danish, uniquely, stood up to the Nazi invasion of their country by smuggling out virtually their entire population of Jews, thus saving them from the gas chambers, is one that should be better-known. The broadcaster and comedienne, Sandi Toksvig, is herself half Danish, and she has woven the tales her father told her about the occupation of Copenhagen with Edmund Burkes famous dictum that the one condition necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. ...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:05 AM
| Comments (5)
| TrackBack
January 31, 2006Still planning your holiday?Shooting to thrill in Cambodia - Destinations - Times Online Thunder Ranch, the wood, brick and bamboo shooting range is run by Cambodia's 911 Paratrooper Commandos and allows Rambo fantasies to be played out daily by young backpackers and middle-aged upmarket tourists - at fixed, per-bullet price. My lasting memory of Phnom Penh is that its the only place on the planet where you can get a beer and a machinegun at the same time.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
January 18, 2006Send in the clownsTelegraph | News | 'This is how God punished us for invading Iraq' The mayor of New Orleans has provoked new outrage by calling Hurricane Katrina God's punishment for invading Iraq and insisting the city become "chocolate" again. You have to pity the poor people out there having such leaders - but i suppose that is their choice. Of course he isn't the first to suggest God was angry - others have been condemned for suggesting God might have smote a city of sin and sodomy, or as other alternative theories regarding Hurricane Katrina have it, for reasons from the legalization of abortion and homosexuality to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to the creation of reality television....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
December 22, 2005OPERATION ORDER 12-05 FOR: OFFICIAL VISIT OF LTG SANTA CLAUS1. An official staff visit by LTG Claus is expected at this post on 25 a. Not a creature will stir without permission. This includes warrant b. All personnel will settle their brains for a long winter nap NLT c. Personnel will utilize standard "T" ration sugar plums for visions d. Stockings, Wool, Cushion Sole, will be hung by the chimneys with e. At first [sign] of clatter, all personnel will spring from their f. Prior to 0001, date of visit, all personnel possessing Standard g. The Battalion S-4, in coordination with the National Security 2. LTG Claus will initially enter Bldg 9828 through the dayroom. All 3. Personnel will be rehearsed in the shouting of "Merry Christmas and FOR THE COMMANDER
Posted by The Englishman at 6:33 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
December 21, 2005The Good NewsTelegraph | News | 2005 was a good year for freedom The number of democracies around the world has reached a record level, while there have been important improvements in civil liberties in the Middle East since last year, an international monitoring group said yesterday. Despite some of us losing some liberties many more are gaining more. Can't find the story yet on the BBC, I looked because I was wondering who is behind this great push for liberty, probably the EU I suppose.....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:33 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
November 28, 2005Give a man a fish...Telegraph | News | Charities accused over 'cheap' cows given to Africa Buying a calf for a needy-villager in Africa this Christmas would seem the ideal present but one charity says the warm glow one gets from sending some "ethical gifts" is not always matched by the reality. Pat Simmons, communications manager for Send a Cow, says the cheaper cows are local breeds that give a fraction of the milk yield (maybe only 1.5 litres a day) of their 750 cows, who can give up to 25 litres of milk a day. ..neither Christian Aid nor Oxfam guarantee that your donation will actually be spent on the goat, cow, flock of chickens or well that you have purchased. 30 per cent of Britons are considering splashing out on livestock and wells for the developing world as part of Christmas shopping this year. In the 25-34 age group, that figure rises to 40 per cent. Interesting that people are cottoning on to this very practical way to help the poor - also interesting that the big charities are muscling in on this spirit of generosity and seemingly just using the money in the same old way!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:03 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
November 12, 2005Take up our quarrel with the foe:Michelle Malkin brings us Bush's well considered words: "The stakes in the global War on Terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who send them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our Nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory."
Posted by The Englishman at 1:29 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
November 7, 2005Emancipation from magicJawing in the pub the other day we were discussing the Guns, Germs, and Steel and how it attempts to explain why Western civilization, as a whole, has survived and conquered others, while refuting the belief that European hegemony is due to any form of European intellectual superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies do not reflect cultural or racial differences, but rather originate in environmental differences powerfully amplified by various positive feedback loops. All well and good I suggested up to about 500 years ago, but it doesn't explain why some parts of the world, and why some groups in society have failed to keep up. Why is South America a basket case compared to North America? Why is Southern Europe a drain on Northern Europe? Why has the Indian community in Britain prospered compared to the Pakistani one, when they both arrived here at similar times with similar disadvantages and presumably faced similar "suppression by the racist white community"? I think there one phrase that encapsulates the reason, and I found it here: Emancipation from magic If your community is in thrall to centralist religious leaders who preach a strict subscriptive lifestyle you are going nowhere fast. And of course even in the secular protestant Anglosphere we are at risk from the new religions of Environmentalists and EU federists who seek to bind us to their worlds. Bollocks to them all - give me freedom, liberty and prosperity!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM
| Comments (9)
November 2, 2005The end of the beginning?Telegraph | News | Mugabe's man admits error of farm seizures Zimbabwe's bankrupt government finally admitted yesterday that it had run out of food because land seized from whites was given to amateurs with no "passion for farming". That admission shows how bad it really has got, is a change coming now? Lets hope so.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:33 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
October 14, 2005Today's newsA TANGLED WEB is on top form - I was going to pick a story but you really ought to read a good selection of them.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
September 21, 2005Making the newsThanks to the Nice Doggie I have been watching the fascinating raw footage showing how the Palestinians and their media helpers are staging battles and atrocities... Download here or if you have broadband get a coffee and watch it streamed.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:52 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
August 23, 2005Gunboat Diplomacy or Handbags at Dawn.BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Canada sends navy to Arctic north The move follows a spat between Canada and Denmark, over an uninhabited rock called Hans Island in the eastern Arctic region. A visit there by Canada's defence minister last month angered the Danes. Now two Canadian warships, the Shawinigan and the Glace Bay, are on a mission to display what Canada calls its territorial sovereignty over parts of the Arctic it believes are within its borders. Now I'm one who always wants global peace and harmony but the prospect of a small colonial war between two, frankly pussy, countries fills me with delight. Both countries have a glorious military history, and some bellicose bloggers, so maybe this will be the wake up call they need.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:14 AM
| Comments (12)
| TrackBack
August 5, 2005I love the smell of literature in the morningBulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest - the rest are nearly as good!
Posted by The Englishman at 9:04 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
July 22, 2005Oih!It looks like Tim at the Englishmans will have to look to his laurels as the internetwebbiethings home for German jokes. Apparently we have a German stand-up working in the UK. A sample: "Why did my grandfather cross the road? To occupy France." Coming over here stealing my job, I tell you it will all end in trouble....
Posted by The Englishman at 9:09 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
July 20, 2005What is it really made of?Google Moon July 20, 1969, man first landed on the Moon and Google are celebrating, zoom in for details.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:14 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
July 18, 2005The GrapevineA new and interesting one to me: What's the purpose of Conservative Grapevine? To highlight the best posts from around the right side of the blogosphere..
Posted by The Englishman at 9:22 AM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
July 16, 2005Staight talking John HowardAustralian Broadcasting Corporation: Afghanistan crucial to terrorism fight, Howard says JOHN HOWARD: Maxine, these people are opposed to what we believe in and what we stand for, far more than what we do. If you imagine that you can buy immunity from fanatics by curling yourself in a ball, apologising for the world - to the world - for who you are and what you stand for and what you believe in, not only is that morally bankrupt, but it's also ineffective. Because fanatics despise a lot of things and the things they despise most is weakness and timidity. There has been plenty of evidence through history that fanatics attack weakness and retreating people even more savagely than they do defiant people. Read the whole interview - that sounds like a man talking sense.
Posted by The Englishman at 1:06 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
|
