BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin knows how old the Chinese gymnasts are.

calendar   Thursday - March 26, 2009

Doing it wrong, still

Obama’s Idea To Improve Border Security:

Give the corrupt Mexican government $700 million




President Obama on Tuesday vowed to invest the resources needed to address the threat posed by drug traffickers in Mexico.
“We are going to continue to monitor the situation, and if the steps we have taken do not get the job done, then we will do more,” he told reporters Tuesday night.

Off to a fast Do Nothing start, huh? We have a terrible problem there, and everyone knows it. A real threat to national security. So the Halfrican Halfwit’s first step will be to just sit around and watch. Idjit!!

He praised the efforts of Mexican President Felipe Calderon to counter drug cartels, which “have gotten completely out of hand,” but said the United States must take further steps, such as ensuring that illegal guns and cash do not flow from north of the Rio Grande to the cartels in Mexico.

“That’s what makes them so dangerous,” he said.

No, what makes them [the cartel banditos] so dangerous is that they are violent criminals in a country where you can buy anybody off for a couple of pesos.

Obama’s remarks came hours after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that the United States is sending hundreds of federal agents and crime-fighting equipment to the border.

Gee whiz, Crappy Nappy, Queen of the Open Borders movement, do you think hundreds of agents are going to fix a broken border that’s thousands of miles long and is penetrated at will by millions of people every year??

In an interview with CNN later Tuesday, she said, “It’s all about border safety and security and making sure that spillover violence does not erupt in our own country.”

The new federal plan, developed by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, calls for doubling the number of border security task force teams and moving a significant number of other federal agents, equipment and resources to the border. It also involves greater intelligence sharing aimed at cracking down on the flow of money and weapons into Mexico that helps fuel the drug trade, senior administration officials said.

The plan commits $700 million to bolster Mexican law enforcement and crime prevention efforts. The funds will provide, among other things, five new helicopters to increase mobility for the Mexican army and air force as well as new surveillance aircraft for the Mexican navy.

The funds also will support enhanced communications technology for Mexican prosecutors, law enforcement and immigration officials.

The $700 million allocation, meant to assist what administration officials described as an “anti-smuggling effort,” will complement ongoing U.S. aid to Mexico under the Merida initiative: a three-year, $1.4 billion package aimed at helping Mexico fight the drug cartels with law enforcement training, military equipment and improved intelligence cooperation.

The money was allocated last year, but Tuesday’s announcement brought the first details of how some of that money will be spent.

Ah, now I begin to see the light. This is one of George Bush’s failed policies that is finally getting moving. And since old Jorge was only slightly less enthusiastic about the USA being overrun by beaners than this group (and their spineless GOP talking puppet Juan McAmnesty) ... this is another famous DC “little too little, little too late” plans that will get nothing done.

And we’re sending the money to the Mexican Police and the Mexican Army, both of which are utterly corrupt and, if not completely controlled by the cartels, at least heavily bribed and infiltrated by them. Not what I’d call a really smart idea.

To help strengthen the U.S. side of the border further, the administration also plans to triple the number of Department of Homeland Security intelligence analysts dedicated to stopping Mexican-related violence.

Because it’s all hate crimes you know. So let’s spend cash to make sure no white folks are mistreating the poor little taco benders.

It goes on more, but I can’t stomach any more of it. We’ve got millions of people unemployed in our country. We have an enormous and very porous border. We have lots of factories that can make guns, bullets, uniforms, tents, canteens, boots, binoculars, walkie-talkies, handcuffs, trucks, prison fencing, shovels, and cheap wooden coffins. I think I could find a better way to spend that $1.4 billion.
Hell, at this point, I’m just about ready to say we ought to drop a few dozen nukes on Afghanistan and Pakistan and go home. Spend that money protecting our own country for once.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/26/2009 at 01:06 PM   
Filed Under: • Border Security •  
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Today’s C&B

I think this could become a regular feature.

imageToday’s Cock & Bullimage



Obama scraps idea to screw over wounded veterans. Because he has such respect for them you know.

Pelosi: Obama Scraps Idea of Billing Veterans’ Private Insurance for Treating Service-Related Injuries
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced on Wednesday afternoon that President Barack Obama is shelving a controversial proposal that would have forced the private health insurance of veterans to pay for their war- and service-related injuries.

“President Obama listened to the genuine concerns expressed by the veteran service organizations regarding the option of billing service-connected injuries to veterans’ insurance companies,” said Pelosi. “Based on the respect President Obama has for veterans and the principle concerns of our veteran leaders, the president made the decision that combat wounds should not be billed through their insurance policies.”

Last week, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed to the House and Senate committees on veterans’ affairs that the idea to bill veterans’ private individual insurance was being considered by the administration but was not yet a formal proposal.

“It is a consideration. It is not in the budget, but it is a consideration, and I’ll be sure that your concerns are delivered,” Shinseki told the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “And again, we’re talking--in health care--the two aspects of this are delivery of health care and the financing of it. This is about the financing. I want to assure you that there should be no concern about the delivery.”

But the idea had already generated strong opposition from veterans’ groups and members of Congress, and the veterans’ service organizations were making their concerns known to the White House.

Also last week, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said [perhaps while taking a break from praising Osama bin Laden], “I believe that veterans with service-connected injuries have already paid by putting their lives on the line for our safety. When our troops are injured while serving this country, we should take care of those injuries completely. We shouldn’t nickel and dime them with their care.”



Let’s cut through the pony poop here. All three of these leftist Bolsheviks were 100% behind the idea of giving our wounded veterans the shaft. The only reason they backed off is because the whole damn country sounded off about it and probably drowned their offices in letters, phone calls, and emails. Now they’re trying to make it sound like the idea was just an innocent bit of brain storming, and they really do support those troops after all. Cock. And. Bull.

PS - WTF is that traitor Murray doing on the Veteran Affairs Committee in the first place? Horry Clap. DC is so effed up.

PPS - It looks to me like the VA tried to stop paying the bills the very instant they heard about this idea. Proof? Or just an amazing timing coincidence?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/26/2009 at 12:49 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsNews-Briefs •  
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Motorist charged with careless driving after following Sat Nav to cliff edge.

Just how does a sober person do this? Doh.  Doesn’t say he was tipsy so we have to assume .... stupid?
Like the road becomes a narrow track and no lights come on or bells ring?

Just HAD to share this.

bat


A motorist is facing a careless driving charge after blindly following his Sat Nav system to the edge of a 100 foot precipice.

By Nigel Bunyan
Last Updated: 5:22PM GMT 24 Mar 2009

Robert Jones, 43, can also expect to receive a hefty recovery bill after having to be rescued from his spectacular detour high above the West Yorkshire town of Todmorden.

The motorist was en route to visiting friends in broad daylight when the road ahead of him petered out into a footpath on the edge of a cliff.

His BMW 5 Series eventually came to rest against a fence with stunning views across the Pennines.

Mr Jones, from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, tried in vain to reverse the car back to safety. He then rang first the AA, whose staff refused to turn out to help him, and then the police.

It took nine hours to recover the vehicle, by which time its owner had been charged with driving without due care and attention.

A bemused Mr Jones is still blaming his Sat Nav for his Sunday morning disaster.

“It kept insisting the path was a road, even as it was getting narrower and steeper.

“I just trusted it. You don’t expect to be taken nearly off a cliff.”

Mr Jones went on: “I rely on my Sat Nav. I couldn’t do without it for my job, and this is the first time anything like this has ever happened.

“I guess I’m just lucky the car didn’t slip all the way over the edge but it’s been a bit of a nightmare.”

Crowds of onlookers gathered on Bacup Road, Gauxholme, to watch as heavy machinery was brought in to recover the car.

One said: “It’s like something from The Italian Job, but what a waste of police time.

“It’s all very well and good trusting your Sat Nav, but how about trusting your eyes?”

West Yorkshire Police confirmed that officers had found the BMW “hanging off the edge of a cliff.”

A spokesman added: “Nobody was hurt, but when someone nearly drives off a cliff it shows a lack of care which needs to be investigated.”

Meanwhile, Mr Jones is awaiting the letter confirming a likely court appearance next month.

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A CLIFFHANGER


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/26/2009 at 12:06 PM   
Filed Under: • MiscellaneousStoopid-PeopleUK •  
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Honestly, he ain’t Abe

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This doesn’t sound like the Barry I see on TV every day at all!






Thanks Carol!


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/26/2009 at 11:33 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsGovernment •  
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Time to stand up to the extremists.

image

I realize this post might have far more interest to those living here but, I also thought America wouldn’t mind if I shared this as it shows there are Brits who have had enough and are saying so.
Now just where this will lead I’ve no idea.  Is anyone really gonna listen? I hope so but I’m simply an observer with no vote here.

I do have a tiny problem however in that the spokesperson here is a lefty and she really does believe in all this diversity/multi-culture crap.
And being Home Secretary means she carries a bit of clout. 

I do know from conversations and letters to the papers that many have called (in the past) for the withdrawal of public funding for a number of groups.  Begs the question naturally, how the hell were they able to get funding to begin with?  Who approved it ? Why?

And speaking of PUBLIC FUNDING.
Nothing to do with this story but shows ya how things can get really, ?? screwed up doesn’t cover it.

There’s a guy here who is facing deportation as he was convicted of rape. 

The Brit justice legal system is a very generous one and as everybody already knows, all Brits are enormously wealthy and so the taxpayer, through legal aid, is funding at some cost his fight to stay in this country.  But wait, there’s more.

He has been given visitation rights for his young son. 

If that don’t beat all.


Communities in West Yorkshire have been told to stand up and challenge the views of extremists who reject British values.

25 March 2009
By Mark Hookham
Political Editor

A fresh government crack-down on terrorism makes clear that community groups which reject “our shared values” will have public funding withdrawn.

The counter-terrorism strategy, entitled Contest 2, signals a tougher attitude from the government towards community groups who are “within the law” but reject British values and rights. It calls on members of the public to also challenge such groups.

It follows a demonstration by Islamist demonstrators in Luton who barracked (booed) soldiers returning from Iraq.

The document states extremist views should not be heard in “silence”.

It adds: “The duty on all of us – Government, citizens and communities – is to challenge those who reject the rights to which we are committed, scorn the institutions and values of our parliamentary democracy, dismiss the rule of law and promote intolerance and discrimination on the basis of race, faith, ethnicity, gender or sexuality.”

Announcing the strategy, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith also revealed that shopping centre and store managers will be among 60,000 workers trained to help deal with terrorist threats.

Ms Smith said police, security and intelligence agencies could not tackle the threat on their own.

The strategy states that counter terrorism and security advisers have already given advice to 500 sports venues, 600 shopping centres and more than 10,000 bars and clubs

Speaking to the YEP, Ms Smith said that lessons learnt from the radicalisation of the West Yorkshire 7/7 bombers had informed the strategy.

She said: “First of all we need a ‘prevent’ strategy, though we can’t solely focus on foiling attacks . Secondly, we need a wide ranging approach on how we deliver that and thirdly we are right to be investing the time and energy in ensuring that that happens.”

YORKSHIRE EVENING POST


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/26/2009 at 10:28 AM   
Filed Under: • News-BriefsRoPMAUK •  
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calendar   Wednesday - March 25, 2009

Hillary RCOB Clinton

Hildabeast:

Mexican Drug Wars Are OUR Fault
AND
US to blame for all the guns in Mexico



Gosh, anotherdefeatist, America-hating leftist at the top of government in DC. Who’da thunk it?

Hillary Clinton admits US blame for Mexico drug violence
America’s “insatiable demand” for illegal drugs is to blame for much of the violence engulfing Mexico, Hillary Clinton has said.

The US secretary of state also acknowledged America’s “inability” to stop weapons being smuggled across the border from the US and being used by the drug cartels in a bloody turf war.

Mrs Clinton made her candid remarks as she flew to Mexico City for a two-day visit where she will discuss US plans to ramp up border security with President Felipe Calderon.

“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the death of police officers, soldiers and civilians,” she said during her flight to Mexico City.

“I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility.”

She said US efforts to ban drugs such as cocaine and heroine had clearly not worked and it was unfair to blame Mexico for its drug cartel problem.

Although Barack Obama has pledged to devote an additional 360 federal agents to border security, the US Congress this month trimmed the amount of drug aid money it will set aside this fiscal year to $300 million from $400 million last year. Mrs Clinton later pledged $80m for helicopters to help the fight against drugs.

By contrast, President Felipe Calderon has spent more than $6.4 billion, assigning 45,000 troops and federal police, on fighting the cartels he tookd office in December 2006.

Mexico has repeatedly said it cannot contain the increasingly brutal cartels, now armed with grenades and rocket launchers, if America does not do more to stop the drugs gangs buying guns in the US, where they are much easier to obtain.

“It’s not only guns. It’s night vision goggles. It’s body armour,” said Mrs Clinton. “These criminals are outgunning the law enforcement officials.” More than 8,000 people have been killed in drug-related fighting since January 2008.

Meanwhile, it has come to light that the really serious weapons that the banditos have are coming from south of their border ... but don’t let the truth get in the way.

“Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea...”

“These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala....”

“The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years...”

“The enhanced weaponry represents a wide sampling from the international arms bazaar, with grenades and launchers produced by U.S., South Korean, Israeli, Spanish or former Soviet bloc manufacturers. Many had been sold legally to governments, including Mexico’s, and then were diverted onto the black market. Some may be sold directly to the traffickers by corrupt elements of national armies, authorities and experts say.”

In Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican border city of 1.5 million people, five deaths a day in January and February were attributed to drug violence.

But the recent arrival of more than 10,000 troops and federal agents has succeeded in quelling much of the violence. Soldiers have disarmed and replaced a local police force, many of whose members were believed to have been working for the cartels.

But despite the success in Ciudad Juarez, officials estimate that the Mexican cartels are already established in 230 American cities. The gangs have been blamed for killings as far afield as Anchorate, Alaska, and Atlanta, Georgia, as well as 366 kidnappings in Phoenix, Arizona, last year alone.

Mr Bethea said many Western businesses, including British companies, had invested heavily in the Mexican factories and were unable to give up doing business in the country easily.

The cartels’ ability to smuggle both guns and kidnap victims into Mexico has been facilitated by lax US border controls, although the Americans are starting to tighten up.

Janet Napolitano, the US homeland security secretary, has admitted that “carloads of cash and mega-weapons” were being transported out of America and into Mexico to fuel the fighting.

Mexican drug cartels are now as heavily armed as America’s enemies during the Iraq war and are extending their bloody conflict into the United States, say security experts.

Hey, Oassbite ... we’ve got “mega-weapons” being smuggled! Why not actually guard the damn border? It’s not like there’s a war going on on the other side. Oh, wait. There IS!!!11! All the more reason. Idiot. And if secured the border, you’d probably cut the flow of drugs 60%. Which would really annoy a good half of your supporters. Tough.

Don’t you just fookin love it? First they do a slow motion invasion, tens of millions of them over the decades. Meanwhile they’re forming some of the biggest and most violent criminal gangs that have ever been. Then when the shit starts hitting the fan back in Mexico, and quite a lot of it spills over into the US, it’s our fault.

Hey, how about we take a couple dozen billion away from the corporate raiders on Wall Street and spend on rounding up every fucking illegal beaner and their spawn in this country and shipping them the fuck home in handcuffs? And start actually fighting a war against the druggies? Don’t waste your time with the gang rats. Just shoot them.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/25/2009 at 11:26 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
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More Lenz for the Eye

I guess Vilmar wants to do Round 2. Works for me. Steamy?



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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/25/2009 at 04:02 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
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Council ‘calls pensioners racists’ for objecting to cost of tidying up after travellers.

Well apparently all one has to do is suggest, question or be critical in any way of this newest racial group, and it’s automatic one is a bad person or anyway, a racist.  As labeled by the very left oh so freekin politically correct councils who live and breathe when actually they more deserve to be shot.  Or hung, which ever is cheaper. 

There’s a damn good reason so many people are against this group and if that means the big ‘R’ then screw it.  That’s fine.
Really tired of hearing how bad it is to be racist.  IT ISN’T!  There are often damn good reasons for it.

Especially in this case.

Oh and btw .... re. that tyrannical loon (John Prescott) who is mentioned late in this article. Just so ppl outside UK who are reading this know.
He was Deputy PM under Blair, who brought him ,Prescott, into govt to appease the far left wing of his party.
Prescott wanted to do all he could to “stick it to the well off and the comfortable.”

So called Travelers and others of their kind are a blight on the landscape!
I do not dislike them because of who they are, but what they do. 


Council ‘calls pensioners racists’ for objecting to cost of tidying up after travellers

By Dan Newling
Last updated at 4:50 PM on 25th March 2009

An elderly couple who suggested that Gipsies and travellers should contribute towards the cost of cleaning up any mess they make have been branded ‘racist’.

Pensioners Rita and Norman Brookhouse were told that their views - expressed in response to a public consultation - breached race laws and would be ignored.

However, rather than objecting to proposed new Gipsy and traveller camps, all the couple did was to point out that the planned sites might be messy.

They went on to suggest that any families living on the new sites should be asked to make a financial contribution towards their cleaning costs.


Angry: Pensioners Rita and Norman Brookhouse say they were effectively branded racists by their regional assembly.

The couple, from Havant in Hampshire, were shocked to receive an official reply which told them their views were based on ‘negative assumptions’.

The letter cited the Race Relations Act and concluded that their opinion ‘could be construed as offensive’ and would therefore be ignored.

The Brookhouses’ experience is just the latest example of how local authorities - under pressure from central Government to establish more permanent Gipsy and traveller sites - are using every possible legal tactic to do get their way.

Earlier this year Bedfordshire Police was branded ‘racist’ when it too was told that its official objection to a planned Gipsy camp ‘breached the Race Relations Act’.

The Brookhouses wrote their letter in response to a public consultation carried out late last year by the South East England Regional Assembly .

The unelected organisation - which coordinates the work of 76 local councils - wanted to gauge public opinion on plans to build 1,076 new Gipsy and traveller pitches across its area.

The authority placed advertisements in local libraries asking for views on the camps such as how they should distributed around South-East England.

In their response Norman Brookhouse, 73, and his wife Rita, 76, wrote: ‘Travellers use their current areas because they can find work and facilities available there.  Keeping most in the same area should be less expensive than starting mainly new areas.

‘Reasonable charges must be made for use of sites so that local people know the travellers are contributing to the community finances.

‘At present travellers give nothing to the community where they stay, indeed they create expense (rubbish clearance, etc. after they have departed).’

Catriona Riddell, Seera’s director of planning, wrote back to the couple.

She told them their letter ‘contains statements that are based on negative assumptions about the gypsy, travellers and travelling showpeople communities and / or could reasonably be construed as offensive to such groups’.

The letter went on: ‘While we appreciate that you may not have intended for your comments to be perceived as such, we and our legal advisers consider such comments to be of a discriminatory nature.’

Mrs Brookhouse, a retired scientist, today insisted that she is not racist.  She said she supports the idea of Gipsy and traveller sites that are properly managed.

She said: ‘We are not racist. We have friends from all different walks of life.  It doesn’t matter to me as long as people respect the area they live in and pull their weight.’

She added: ‘This country is supposed to be a democracy - we are all supposed to have a say in what happens.  To be told that they don’t like what you’re saying and therefore going to discount it is utterly ridiculous.

‘This assembly does not represent the country.  I’m a taxpayer in a town where the council has to spend thousands of pounds a year clearing up after travellers and we don’t get anything back.’

The Brookhouses’ Conservative MP David Willetts described Seera’s actions as ‘political correctness gone mad’.

He said: ‘It was a consultation on sites for travellers and the Brookhouses have drawn attention to widespread concern about the expense that’s created by having to clear up their rubbish after they depart.

‘This is basically a statement of fact.  There were no abusive or offensive remarks about gypsies or travellers as an ethnic group.  It is completely absurd to suggest it is and undermines the consultation.’

A spokesman for Seera revealed that it had rejected 147 of the 1,129 consultation responses it received for being racist.

Moira Gibson, chair of Seera’s Regional Planning Committee, said: ‘Under the Race Relations Act it is against the law for local councils or the Assembly to discriminate against anyone on the grounds of their race, colour, or ethnic or national group.

‘Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers are legally recognised ethnic groups.  As such we have had to discount and return any responses that we and independent legal advisors reasonably considered to be of a discriminatory nature.

‘A vast majority of the responses we received were not discriminatory and have been taken into account.’

In 2006, John Prescott, then deputy Prime Minister, told local authorities that council provision for gipsies and travellers should be ‘significantly increased’.  Since then the number of new sites has doubled.

THE MAIL


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/25/2009 at 12:20 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily LifeJack Booted ThugsNanny StateUK •  
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calendar   Tuesday - March 24, 2009

Long Day

I taught my father in law how to reload ammunition today. It took us most of the afternoon to make just 6 boxes worth - 300 rounds - of .38, using a progressive press that can churn out 500 rounds an hour. But speed comes with time, and today was for learning. At this point he understands how all the bits work, and what the proper feel of everything is.

I had a 10lb box of new brass, so I gave him new cases. He bought the powder, primers, and cast lead 158gr SWC bullets. His cost worked out to 10¢ a round - $5 per box. A savings of $60 just for this afternoon.

I think he might be hooked. I located a second hand press for him on Ebay for $275, all set up with dies and everything. Let’s see what happens.

PS - Alliant Power Pistol powder meters beautifully through my Dillon press. We kept checking the charges, and they never varied by as much as 1/3 of a tenth of a grain. That’s awesome.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/24/2009 at 10:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
Comments (2) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Overweight and claim thousands in benefits - can’t work. Who do they blame? Anyone but themselves

THERE ARE 14 POUNDS TO ONE STONE.  SO YOU GUYS CAN WORK IT OUT IN POUNDS FOR THESE HIPPOS.

Naturally their weight is the taxpayer problem. What else would we expect?
I wish em luck and hope somehow they’ll get themselves out of this MESS.  I hope for their sake they can finally get help.  But it doesn’t look good, does it?

This has to be my final post for today .... will try my best to catch up on emails tomorrow if I can.
Thanks.

They weigh 80 stone, claim thousands in benefits - and can’t work. Who do they blame? Anyone but themselves
By JENNY JOHNSTON
Last updated at 10:21 AM on 24th March 2009

DAILY MAIL

This family say they are unable to work because they are too fat. They blame their GP, the Government, even Simon Cowell - but not themselves

There’s something a little surreal about listening to a family with a combined weight of nearly 80 stone falling over themselves to explain how little they eat. ‘Some days I barely eat at all,’ declares Emma Chawner, daughter of the house and, at 17 stone, its lightest occupant.

‘I don’t have breakfast most days. Sometimes I don’t have lunch either, and might only have a salad roll for tea. I’m always eating lettuce and apples and stuff.’

Her dad Philip (’22 stone, but I used to be 26’) nods in agreement. ‘I’m the same. Cornflakes for breakfast, a roll for lunch and one of those microwave meals for my dinner.’

image

A Weightwatchers one, Dad!’ interjects elder daughter Samantha (circa 18 stone). For her part, Samantha says she ‘is always eating salads’.

Only Mum Audrey (20ish stone, but understandably reluctant to be specific) seems off message. She has been asleep on the sofa for most of our interview, but wakes up in time to raise the issue of Easter eggs.

She points out that her girls get one each every year. Both leap in with clarifications. ‘Only a little one, Mum,’ says Emma. ‘Tiny. Like those little mini eggs,’ says Samantha, holding her thumb and finger about two millimetres apart.’

She admits there might be crisps and chocolate in the kitchen cupboards, ‘but they aren’t for us. They are for our niece. You have to have those things in the house for children, don’t you?’

Now a cynic might say that there is some overegging of the pudding going on here, so to speak. And the little trio of bottles standing by the armchair of the Chawner family living room, is certainly suspect. There is Lucozade, tomato ketchup and, for good measure, the heartburn remedy Gaviscon, a veritable holy trinity of overconsumption, surely?

Normally, it would be of no consequence what the Chawners eat, or whether their ample girths reflect their diet. But the family’s eating habits - indeed entire living habits - became a matter of national debate recently when they granted an interview in a weekly gossip magazine about how their weight has been a barrier to any of them finding work.

‘Too fat to work’, screamed the headline, while the article called them real-life Tellytubbies and accused them pretty much of sponging off the State while slobbing round on the sofa all day, eating pies.

Now, of course, they are declaring misrepresentation in extremis. They don’t eat pies, apparently. In fact, the way they tell it, the family budgie would struggle to survive on what they do actually eat. And the raking in of public funds? Nonsense!

‘They said we got £22,000 a year in benefits, but Mum totted it up and it isn’t quite that much,’ says Emma.

How much do you get, then? ‘I can’t remember, but it isn’t that much. All the figures were wrong, anyway. They said Dad was 24 stone, but that was rubbish. You are 22 stone, aren’t you Dad?’

The facts that aren’t in contention are these. There are four adults living in this Blackburn terrace home. None of them work, so their rent and living expenses are covered by the State. They are all medically obese.

s their size relevant to their reliance on benefits? They say yes. Both adults claim they have weight-related health issues which have rendered them disabled.

Philip, 53, suffers from diabetes and heart problems. Audrey, 57, has asthma and epilepsy (which no doctor would link to obesity, but she seems convinced that there is a connection).

Their daughters have health issues of their own, despite being only 21 and 19. Emma is already on medication for problems with acid reflux. Samantha claims she is losing the sight in one eye. ‘I’ve got a mole behind my eye which is growing. It might lead to cancer.’

She points out, however, that she is not on any medication. ‘Yet!’ insists her father, with an astonishing glee in his voice.

The girls claim they are both fit and well, despite their size. Samantha insists that she goes to the gym. Both trained as hairdressers, but have never had a paid job. Why? Again, it’s a matter of size.

‘People don’t want to employ large hairdressers, simple as that,’ says Samantha. ‘They won’t say it to your face, but that’s how it is. I’ve been in salons and done good interviews, but look around and it’s all skinny minnies. We’re discriminated against.

‘We’re the victims in all of this. It’s not our fault we can’t work. We’ve been accused of sitting around watching telly all day, well, it’s just not true.

‘We’ve both applied for hundreds of jobs. It’s not our fault no one wants to employ fat people. Someone should be helping us, not accusing us.’

The issues thrown up here are about as controversial as they come, so it’s not surprising that people have been getting het up about the Chawners, and all they represent.

What is surprising, though, is the level of vitriol they have inspired.

When I arrive, I walk straight into evidence of it. The family laptop is open on the dining table and there is an air of hysteria in the room. Emma has fled upstairs, in tears, after discovering a message on her Facebook site saying, ‘I hope you die’.

Her sister Samantha is stomping about, arms flailing, shouting: ‘I’m not having this. It’s disgusting.’

It’s all too much for Mum. ‘If Emma has one of her panic attacks, we are done for,’ says Audrey, raising her arm but letting it flop back down. Philip’s attempts to intervene seem equally ineffective. ‘How do you send a message back?’ he asks, peering at the keyboard. ‘I’m not sure how this works.’

What’s immediately striking is how stationary Audrey and Philip are amid all the commotion. In fact, during the 90 minute interview that follows neither of them moves once from their respective chairs. Just before Audrey actually falls asleep there is a curious moment when she tries to pass one of her daughters a magazine, but cannot reach, so gives up.

‘We love TV,’ Philip had told the magazine. ‘It’s on from the moment we get up. Often I’m so tired from watching TV I have to have a nap.’

Still the girls provide enough animation for both of them. Both keep leaving the room, for fag breaks, and to have whispered discussions about future media deals. There is a documentary maker present during the interview.

See More Below The Fold

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/24/2009 at 12:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Health-MedicineOdd-StrangeUK •  
Comments (2) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Victim to Cops, I have a burglar here. Help!  Cops, Hang on there,, see you in Two Days.

Ok it wasn’t 100% exactly as I wrote the headline but close enough. Cops did say two days to respond.

I don’t understand the judge saying what he did was wrong though.  Don’t they have citizens arrests here in UK?
Anyway, vigilante justice works.

Interesting too that it is said here that this was the burglars first time.  That we know of anyway. Sure. Now.  Anyone for seconds once they learns the ropes?

Well at least the shop owner wasn’t sent to jail. That’s something anyway.

Shop owner needs to get a junk yard dog.


Judge spares businessman who kidnapped burglar after police told him: ‘We can’t come for two days’

By DAVID WILKES
Last updated at 3:38 PM on 24th March 2009

A businessman who kidnapped a burglar has been spared jail after a judge accepted he was ‘driven to distraction’ by repeated break-ins.

Building firm boss Sean Preson, 41, dialled 999 after spotting four intruders attacking a bungalow he was modernising, but after being told an officer would not be sent to see him for two days, then set about catching them himself.

He and an employee captured one of the culprits, an 18 year old, that night and forced him to direct them to the home of another, aged 29, where a skirmish took place, a court heard.

The police later arrested the ‘vigilantes’.

Married father-of-three Preson was charged with kidnap, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of life in jail.

He admitted the charge, but walked free from Leicester Crown Court after being given a 12-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work.

Judge Michael Pert QC said: ‘I’m prepared to treat your case as an exception.

‘I accept you were driven to distraction by people constantly burgling your premises.

‘The fact you called the police and were told they’d send someone to see you in two days, in my judgement, it would give anybody pause for thought. Anyone would be sympathetic to the position you found yourself in.

‘I cannot accept what you did was right, but whether your conduct warrants you being sent to prison, in my view, it doesn’t.’

The 18 year old and the 29 year old were each cautioned for theft. A 28-year-old woman was also cautioned, and a 24-year-old man who was charged with attempted theft was given a 12 month conditional discharge at an earlier hearing.

Preson, of Huncote, Leicestershire, was driving his family home from a restaurant last August and spotted trespassers trying to steal floodlights and CCTV equipment from the site. The building had been repeatedly raided to the cost of £4,500, during the previous six months.

Preson stopped to confront one of the intruders, who was wielding a screwdriver, and disarmed him. The man escaped in a car, two others hid and another ran off.

He then went to his home nearby and rang the police, who, he claims. told him it would probably be two days before an officer was sent to investigate.

Preson informed the operator he would handle the matter himself and met up with one of his employees, Ashley Shepherd, 25.

The pair then tracked down the 18 year old, who had fled on foot to the nearby village of Croft, said James House, prosecuting. Shepherd knocked him to the ground while Preson stood nearby holding a crowbar.

They then drove him back to the bungalow, where they questioned him and Shepherd sprayed him with window-cleaning fluid.

The teenager gave the men the address of the 29 year old in Earl Shilton, near Hinckley, who was duly dragged out his home in a headlock by Shepherd.

The teenage trespasser, who suffered minor injuries during the drama, was then bundled back into the men’s van and driven home while pleading with Preson not to tell his parents what he had done.

Preson, who did not call the police again while he had the youth in the van, was arrested the next day.

Adrienne Lucking, defending, handed the judge 40 references and testimonials in support of Preson at sentencing on Friday.

She said: ‘He accepts it was wrong to take the law into his own hands.’

After the hearing, 5ft 5in Preson said: ‘I’m a law-abiding person. We were the victims who now come away as criminals while the culprits get off scot-free.

‘We were effecting a citizen’s arrest and it’s ended up putting us through seven months of hell.

‘All I was trying to do was to protect my property. I wasn’t happy with the police disinterest and I said “If you’re not coming, I’m going to look for them myself.”

‘We only detained the youth for about an hour, whereas I was put in a cell for 36 hours.

‘I understand the lad was in fear, but I believe if someone goes on your property without you permission they should be prepared for what may happen to them.

‘I’ve always supported what Tony Martin did. An Englishman’s house is his castle.

‘I acted out of frustration. On reflection, I don’t think I’d handle it quite same way again.’

Shepherd, also of Huncote, admitted assault and was also given a 12 month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with 150 hours’ unpaid work.

Neither he nor Preson has previous convictions.

Yesterday a Leicestershire Police spokesman said Preson misinterpreted their response to his call.

‘We have reviewed the recording of this call and while the defendant was asked what his availability was over the next two days he was clearly told that the incident was prioritised for officers to attend that night,’ the spokesman said.

‘It was established during the call that these intruders had left the scene 20 minutes prior to the call being made and there was no immediate risk of harm.

‘Officers were assigned to deal with the incident 50 minutes after the call was received but were diverted to deal with reports of an assault, which we later established related to offences that the two defendants (Sean Preson and Ashley Shepherd) admitted to in court.

‘We do not condone taking the law into your own hands as it can have serious consequences. Four people were subsequently dealt with for the initial theft of the lighting equipment.’

Police sources confirmed none of those four has previous convictions for theft.

NEWS SOURCE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/24/2009 at 11:21 AM   
Filed Under: • CrimeUK •  
Comments (1) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Israel ‘used child as human shield’ during Gaza conflict.  Yeah, sure they did. Says Who?

OH RIGHT.  A WOMAN WITH A LARGE RED DOT ON HER HEAD AND A FACE LIKE A YOUNGER GADAFI.

A human rights mouthpiece with a name nobody can pronounce.  I gonna listen to her? 

Sorry Charlie ..... I really find it impossible to believe some people. Especially when they look like this and MOST ESPECIALLY when they’re a part of the useless hand wringing anti-Israel left wing libtard bunch of bastards called, The UN.  Gak!

I am not posting her photo because she is too gruesome and anyway I don’t want to frighten anyone.
But if you wanna scare youself okay.  Here’s a link

The beastie apparently isn’t familiar with collateral damage.  Kinda happens in military actions.  Often regrettable but can’t always be avoided.
Anyway, where do these pompous jerks get off sticking their hairy noses into a sovereign states business.

I guess I’m so damn anti un I’d find it pretty hard to find anything to like about em. I just wish they’d go away!

Maybe after the next world conflagration, if there is another , the world will be rid of that body.  Hmmmm. Body? UN body?  Yeah. Has a ring to it.

Israel ‘used child as human shield’ during Gaza conflict
Israel violated a range of human rights during its invasion of Gaza, including using a child as a human shield, the United Nations said yesterday.

By Our Foreign Staff
Last Updated: 7:36AM GMT 24 Mar 2009

The claims were included in reports to the UN Human Rights Council which also called for an urgent end to Israeli restrictions on humanitarian supplies to Gaza and a full international investigation into the conflict.

They came just days after Israeli soldiers admitted shooting and killing unarmed Palestinian civilians during the invasion between Dec 27 and Jan 17.

“Civilian targets, particularly homes and their occupants, appear to have taken the brunt of the attacks, but schools and medical facilities have also been hit,” said one report by Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U N Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

The Sri Lankan human rights lawyer visited the region in early February. She cited a long series of incidents to back her charges.

In one, she said, Israeli soldiers shot a father after ordering him out of his house and then opened fire into the room where the rest of the family was sheltering, wounding the mother and three brothers and killing a fourth.

In another, on January 15, at Tal al Hawa south-west of Gaza City, Israeli soldiers forced an 11-year-old boy to walk in front of them for several hours as they moved through the town, even after they had been shot at.

Israel criticised the report. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Aharon Leshno Yar, said it “wilfully ignores and downplays the terrorist and other threats we face.”

Last week an Israeli infantry squad leader told local media of an incident in which a sniper mistakenly shot a Palestinian woman and her two children.

image

Offensive T-shirts by Israeli soldiers that depict scenes of violence against Palestinians

Late addition to this post.  The T-shirts are being worn not by soldiers but expressly for the newspaper that printed the photos.
It is true that they have been worn by Israeli soldiers, but so what?  First, one pix shows a kid with looks like a rifle. I think.  The woman may be pregnant but so what?  What’s that in her hand?  Hey, I have no problem with the shirts or their message.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/24/2009 at 07:27 AM   
Filed Under: • CommiesUnited-Nations •  
Comments (6) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DOES OBAMA KNOW WHO THE PRESIDENT OF FRANCE IS?

This is from the “Too Amusing To Ignore” dept.

Nothing earth shattering but worth posting none the less.

PC working today.  Hope it lasts.

By Toby Harden
The Telegraph
US Editor

It’s long been the case that the easiest way for an American and a Brit - whatever their respective political persusasions - to bond is to chuckle over something rude about the French.

Jokes about garlic, frogs’ legs, surrender, duplicity, take your pick - it’s safe ground. If Barack Obama had gone on Leno and made a barbed quip about our Gallic friends instead of the Special Olympics he’d have been home free.

So perhaps the new president is being devilishly clever by, as Le Figaro reports, writing to Jacques Chirac, former French president, that: “I am certain that we will be able to work together, in the coming four years, in a spirit of peace and friendship to build a safer world.”

These kind of seem like the kind of words most suitable for a sitting head of state, not a former one. The use of the word “peace” is apparently being interpreted by the French newspaper as a tacit recognition of Chirac’s strong stance against the Iraq invasion.

Some have interpreted the move as a one-fingered gesture to Nicolas Sarkozy, the current president of France. “So, if I understand well, Mister O., who has already despised Gordon Brown, behaving with him as if he did not know he is Prime Minister of Britain, does not even know the name of the French president,” blogs Europumas.

“I wonder if someone had told him, when he came to France last summer, that the man he met was NOT Jacques Chirac!”

What better way to make up with Gordon Brown after the DVDs fiasco than to insult France’s president?

Or perhaps it could have been payback for Sarkozy’s supposed opinion that Obama’s stance on Iran was “utterly immature”.

But wait. The now online-only Christian Science Monitor reports that Obama was simply replying to a letter from Chirac “who was writing him as the head of his foundation - the Jacques Chirac Foundation for sustainable development and cultural dialogue”.

Perhaps the hair-trigger settings of the Obama gaffe detectors are leading to a few shots going wide of the mark.

HARDEN

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/24/2009 at 06:41 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-CandyObama, The One •  
Comments (2) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

calendar   Monday - March 23, 2009

The unspoken truth about our language.

Over the last few days I’ve been keeping up to date on the controversy surrounding the postmaster who refuses to serve people who either do not speak English or choose not to or come to his window without an interpretor.  He has taken to a country that’s given him opportunities not dreamed of where he came from.  Like many immigrants before him and in another age as well, he has become something of a patriot and says he and his wife will not speak any language but English at home and especially in front of their two children, who they want well grounded in the language of this country first. Which btw reminds me of my own grandparents who were bi-lingual.  It was English first and everything else after that. America first and there wasn’t anything else worth knowing about. But that’s another story and I only mention it here because I understand why they felt that way and became so dedicated to their adopted country.

So .... that brings me to the article that appear a day or two go ago by a lady named Jemima Lewis, who writes for the Telegraph.
She says a few things I had not seen in print before in just this way.
I thought you’d find her comments of some interest.

I might mention here that this may be my last post today as am having severe pc problems at the moment. Hope I can post this. we’ll see. We are also experiencing gale force winds at this time. If not, then it sure looks that way.

The unspoken truth about our language
The Sri Lankan postmaster who banned customers who could not speak English has taken an important stand, says Jemima Lewis

By Jemima Lewis
Last Updated: 3:13PM GMT 21 Mar 2009

Deva Kumarasiri has paid a heavy price for his patriotism. The Sri-Lankan-born postmaster has been forced to leave his job for refusing to serve customers who couldn’t speak decent English. His stance, he said, was partly a matter of principle. Mr Kumarasiri is passionate about his adopted country: he moved to Britain 18 years ago, has taken citizenship, taught his children the words of the National Anthem, and flies the Union flag in his front garden in Nottingham. “It’s about making the effort to be part of the community where you have decided to live,” he said.

It was also a practical issue – he didn’t want the queue grinding to a halt while each customer tried to make themselves understood.

Mr Kumarasiri, who is a Liberal Democrat councillor, feels it is his duty to say these things because the white, native-born Brits no longer dare. This, alas, is perfectly true. Living in east London, I often come across council officials or health workers whose English is so shaky, or so thickly accented, that it is impossible to have a meaningful conversation. But I am far too anxious not to seem rude, let alone racist, ever to complain.

When my son was born, we were visited a few times by a health visitor who spoke at length, in a kind of Bantu-cockney dialect impenetrable to all but the professional linguist, about how to avoid cot death. I nodded in what I hoped were the right places, then looked it up in a book. I have given up trying to get an appointment at the local GPs’ clinic because it is too embarrassing trying to make myself understood – repeatedly mouthing my request into the telephone as if it were an elderly dowager’s ear trumpet.

It’s not just a question of inconvenience; in some jobs, the inability to communicate effectively can be fatal. When my sister gave birth recently, she was attended by a midwife who could not speak English. My sister tried in vain to explain that she had been in labour for four days; that her waters had long since broken; that she knew something was wrong.

The midwife wrote some incomprehensible notes, and failed to pass on any of the relevant information. Both my sister and her baby almost died. Even then, no one was rude enough to complain.

TELEGRAPH

who is a Liberal Democrat counselor:  Not anymore as reported yesterday.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/23/2009 at 11:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily LifeOutrageousRacism and race relationsUK •  
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