Friday - March 31, 2006

French Whine

France Hit By Mass Job Protests

PARIS (BBC)—More than one million people are estimated to have protested across France on Tuesday against the government’s youth employment laws. Fighting broke out as protesters gathered in Paris, and missiles were hurled at police as they moved into the crowds to try to remove troublemakers. Tear gas and water cannon were used to disperse the protesters, and by late evening just a small group remained.

A nationwide strike has also caused travel chaos throughout the country. The BBC’s Jon Sopel in Paris said the protest had been initially mainly peaceful, but the mood had then deteriorated. As the trouble erupted in the Place de la Republique in north-east Paris, our correspondent said his BBC crew had also come under attack, although he added the violence had remained “low-level”.

The BBC’s Emma Jane Kirby, also in the French capital, said that despite the trouble, the majority of protesters had been marching peacefully. Extra riot police were deployed before the march, after a rally in Paris last week led to running battles. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told them to only get tough with those he called delinquents.

- Have some more French whine here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/31/2006 at 04:11 AM   
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   Sunday - March 26, 2006

Discount Dukes

Brian Adcock—The Scotland on Sunday

Blair Gave Honours For Loans

LONDON (TIMES)—A millionaire businessman has lifted the lid on how Labour is concealing money given by wealthy backers who are then nominated for peerages. Labour has raised up to £10m from donors but has hidden the payments because they were made as loans, which do not have to be declared. Three of the donors were put forward for peerages by Tony Blair last autumn.

The confidential loan arrangements have been revealed by Chai Patel, chief executive of the Priory healthcare group and a party supporter who has donated £100,000 to Labour. He discloses today that he was asked by a senior Labour fundraiser to provide an unsecured loan even though he was prepared to give a donation.

Within weeks of agreeing to the £1.5m loan, he was told he had been nominated by Blair for a peerage. He was advised by Labour officials that he did not have to disclose the loan. If he had given the money as a donation, it would have had to be declared to the Electoral Commission and published, so exposing Labour to a potential cash-for-honours controversy.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Patel said “there is clearly a history here and a reality of peerages for fundraising. The public has a right to be sceptical.” Patel, 51, said he might have been prepared to convert the loan into a donation at a later date, which means it would not be publicised until long after he had been awarded an honour. Labour introduced the loans scheme last year amid mounting criticism of party supporters being handed honours, including knighthoods and peerages, after giving donations.

- Read more about purchasing pereages at The Times ...

Here’s the full list of most of those who have stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom since President Bill Clinton took office, courtesy of The Associated Press. Some of the interesting names on the list are singer Barbra Streisand, catalogue retailer Lillian Vernon, playwright Neil Simon, film director and producer Steven Spielberg, former Chrysler chairman Lee Iaccoca, the Rev. Billy Graham, Apple Computer co-founder Steven Jobs, nutrition guru Dean Ornish, and, not least, actress Jane Fonda and her husband, CNN honcho Ted Turner.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/26/2006 at 12:28 PM   
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   Wednesday - March 22, 2006

The Gathering Storm

This is how it begins. The backlash against Muslims in Europe is slowly gathering steam. Even in Britain, hooliganism is on the rise. The fascist and neo-nazi movements are starting to grow as anger and frustration build on the continent. If you haven’t gotten a copy of Claire Berlinski’s book ”Menace In Europe” (see ad in right sidebar), then you probably don’t understand what a tinderbox Europe is becoming.

All it will take is some silly incident like a Muslim radical assasinating a European leader or maybe something as simple as a German newspaper being firebombed by Muslim gangs. Then the powder keg will blow. Thank God there is no Hitler for the Neo-Nazis to coalesce around. Or is there? The next Adolph could be sitting in a beer hall right now, studying the situation and waiting ...

If Europe goes up in flames, where will the US stand? What about the Muslims in our midst? Where will they stand? I’m afraid I won’t like the answer to any of those questions. The storm clouds are gathering over Europe again. How many will die this time ... ?

Neo-Nazis Threaten To Massacre Muslims At World Cup
_{Tue Mar 21, 10:46 AM ET}

ROME (AFP)

The World Cup in Germany is set to become a battleground between facists and Muslims, an Italian member of a new European neo-Nazi movement warned. In a statement published by Italian daily Repubblica, the memeber of AS Roma’s notorious ultras hooligan group claims neo-Nazis across Europe met in Braunau in Austria to plan attacks against supporters from Islamic countries during the World Cup in Germany from June 9 to July 9.

“We are united. For the first time we are talking and planning together, with the English, the Germans, the Dutch, the Spanish, everyone with the same objective. At the World Cup there will be a massacre,” said the Italian ultra.

“We will all be in Germany and there will be Turks, Algerians and Tunisians. The Turks, we can’t stand them. In our country (Italy) there are not many, but in Germany, there are many of those guys there. They are Islamic terrorists.

“We will attack them. They are all enemies that need to be eliminated, just like the police. If we make the Roman greeting (the fascist salute) they put us in prison. We will be tens of thousands. Nothing but the English are feared.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/22/2006 at 01:58 AM   
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   Sunday - March 19, 2006

The Taxman

In 1966, George Harrison of the Beatles (R.I.P.) got completely fed up with the high tax rates in Britain and penned a great song, slamming the British tax system. It’s a good thing George has passed away or else the recent tax rates in Jolly Ol’ England would require an entire album from the Fab Four ....

Let me tell you how it will be;
There’s one for you, nineteen for me.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

(if you drive a car, car;) - I’ll tax the street;
(if you try to sit, sit;) - I’ll tax your seat;
(if you get too cold, cold;) - I’ll tax the heat;
(if you take a walk, walk;) - I’ll tax your feet.

Taxman!

‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

And you’re working for no one but me. 

Taxes Hit All-Time High
_{March 19, 2006}

(LONDON TIMES)

Gordon Brown is about to raise Britain’s tax burden to its highest-ever level, raking in nearly £1m a minute. An analysis by the accountants Ernst & Young, based on the Treasury’s own figures, shows the chancellor will match the record high for the tax burden this year and rise above it next year. That means it will be higher than in the 1970s under Denis Healey, when the top rate of income tax was 83%, and the early 1980s, when it was 60%.

Brown will unveil his 10th budget on Wednesday, which Treasury sources say will be an exercise in “consolidation”. The Ernst & Young analysis shows that the tax burden excluding North Sea oil revenues, the best measure of the load faced by families and businesses, will be 37.6% of gross domestic product this year, close to the 37.7% peak reached in the early 1980s. Next year it will reach 37.8%, before rising to 38.1%.

“It’s an all-time high and we’re entering uncharted waters,” said Peter Spencer, economic adviser to the Ernst & Young Item Club, a forecasting group. “We know higher taxes help explain what is happening on Britain’s high streets.” Treasury figures show tax revenues will total £490 billion this year, up from £271 billion when Brown took office. The £219 billion rise is equivalent to £9,000 for every household in Britain.

Under Brown the number of people paying higher rate tax has risen from just over 2m to 3.5m, according to Office for National Statistics data. By the end of this parliament it will have risen to 4m, experts say. “If he stays at the Treasury, he’ll have doubled the number of higher rate taxpayers,” said Mike Warburton of Grant Thornton, the accountants. The total number of income tax payers has risen by 3.5m to 29.2m since 1997, outstripping the rise in the number of people in jobs. The number of estates subject to inheritance tax has also risen from 15,000 to 35,000 a year.

“After nine years of Gordon Brown and 10 budgets this will be his legacy, the highest tax burden ever,” said George Osborne, shadow chancellor. Calculations by Patrick Minford, of Cardiff Business School, show that — including Vat, excise duties, National Insurance and income tax — a basic rate taxpayer pays £48.50 in tax on every £100 earned. Among higher rate taxpayers the figure is £57.10. “People are starting to wake up to the fact Britain is a high tax country,” said Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance.

Businesses are also facing higher taxes. Newly released official figures show the corporation tax bill of Britain’s small companies has more than doubled in five years, rising from £4.4 billion to an estimated £9.5 billion. “The thing I hear from all quarters is that it is not just that they’re taking it off you, it’s that when they do they haven’t spent it wisely,” said Sir Digby Jones, CBI director-general.

The poor performance of the National Health Service, despite tens of billions of extra funding, is in the spotlight, with hospitals cutting staff and cancelling operations because of financial deficits. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in its latest survey of Britain’s economy, said improvements in public services were proving “slow to come” despite the big injection of extra spending.

A Tory party analysis suggests government debt, including public sector pension liabilities, is more than £1,500 billion, or 127% of GDP, compared with the £442 billion, or less than 40% of GDP, claimed by ministers.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/19/2006 at 03:46 PM   
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   Saturday - March 18, 2006

Jerry’s Fans In Fwance

File this one under “No One Has A Clue”. I for one, have never been able to figure out the Fwench fascination with Jerry Lewis. It just simply ... is. The peasants in France have had a long-running love affair with Jerry and he loves them back. I guess we can forgive Jerry for that one small foible. Especially since they seem to have given him Fwance’s highest honor. No, I’m not talking about an official gold-embroidered “Surrender Flag”. They have inducted him into the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur*. In the past, this was awarded to brave, courageous Fwench war heros. Both of them ...

_{* - Founded by Napoleon Bonaparte, recognizes eminent service to the Republic of France. The Order has five ranks: Chevalier, Officier, Commandeur, Grand Officier, and Grand Croix. Recipients of this honor are named by decree signed by the President of the Republic. The Legion of Honor’s illustrious past is commemorated at the Musée de la Légion d’Honneur et des Ordres de Chevalerie (National Museum of the Legion of Honor and the Orders of Chivalry), founded in the Palace of the Grand Chancellery (Paris) in 1925.}

Jerry Lewis Enters France’s Legion of Honor
_{Thursday, March 16, 2006 10:59 a.m. EST}

(NEWSMAX)

France formalized its fascination with Jerry Lewis Thursday with a uniquely Gallic gift for his 80th birthday: a medal and induction into the Legion of Honor. Lewis, who has long been venerated in France, received the honorary title of “Legion Commander” in a raucous ceremony in Paris - hamming it up for the cameras, winking, sticking out his tongue and making his trademark funny faces.

True to form, the American comedian turned what is generally a sober event - set in a gilded hall of the Ministry of Culture - into a virtual slapstick routine. Lewis, who bucked formality by wearing slippers to the ceremony, clowned around with Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres - yawning, checking his watch, and even pretending to fall asleep during Donnedieu’s 20-minute-long speech in French. The crowd roared at Lewis’ antics, their laughter often drowning out Donnedieu’s lofty words.

At one point, Lewis tried to snatch the prepared speech off the podium, but an affable Donnedieu persevered. “The longer my remarks last the better,” he told the audience, “so you can keep on enjoying Jerry Lewis’ comic talents.” When he finally took the microphone, Lewis apologized for not speaking French, but said that “even if the French people cannot hear my language, they have always heard my heart.”

Lewis applauded the country’s sense of humor, saying he believed it “took France through all those difficult years, and will take it through difficult times now because the French are not afraid to laugh.” Ministry officials wheeled in a massive cake, and the audience sang “Happy Birthday,” delivered with a heavy French accent.

Lewis said he was flattered by his induction into the Legion of Honor, and said he had been “gloriously elevated” by the award. He was one of 37 foreigners to have received the title over the past three years. “The French people are the best in the world,” Lewis said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/18/2006 at 04:20 PM   
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   Friday - March 17, 2006

Paris Is Burning, Part Deux

Guess what’s going on in France now? If you guessed riots and mayhem you would be correct. This time it’s all about a new law that was recently passed that allows employers to actually fire employees. Yep, you read that right. In The Socialist People’s Republic Of Fwance, they had to pass a law in order to give companies the right to fire workers even if the worker is a lazy bum doing a bad job.

As you might expect, the young people are enraged. How dare an employer have the right to fire one of them! Sacre Bleu! One of my favorite quotes in this story came from a young man who said, “it’s like living with a guillotine over my head.” Well, welcome to the real world, kiddo. You do a good job and you have a job. You do a bad job and you have no job. WIth 23% national unemployment in Fwance, you’d think the Fwench youth would be glad to have a job and would try their best to keep it by doing good work ... not by blackmailing the country with riots ...

FRANCE: SARKOZY BLAMES JOB REFORMS PROTESTS ON MILITANTS
_{March 17, 2006}

Paris, 17 March (AKI) - France’s interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out against left and right wing militants he alleges are responsible for demonstrations that have turned violent this week in France over a controversial new labour law making it easier to hire and fire young people. The country’s youth unemployment stands at 23 percent - one of the highest joblessness rates in Europe - a figure that tops 50 percent in some of the high-immigration suburbs of Paris and other cities.

Sarkozy on Friday said “hooligans” and “louts” from the suburbs of the French capital, Paris, had stoked the protests over new two-year First Employment job contracts for the under-26s which employers may terminate without explanation. Unions, France’s political left and student groups oppose the contracts. “There were a few hundred delinquents who came to fight. Among them there were extreme left, extreme right, hooligans, and louts from a number of neighbourhoods,” Sarkozy told journalists. “Anarchists who really came to fight the police and gendarmes,” were among the protestors, he added.

Police restored calm in the capital on Friday morning after young demonstrators clashed with them on Paris’ Place de la Sorbonne Square in the Latin quarter, following a protest march. Demonstrators reportedly overturned cars and threw petrol bombs at police, who repelled them with tear gas and water cannons as the protests by hundreds of thousands of French students - from wealthy areas as well from poorer suburbs - grew increasingly violent.

A group of about 300 masked protesters threw missiles at police, who responded with rubber bullets as well as tear gas. Protestors also vandalised cafes and a bookshop located near the Sorbonne university was set alight. Students said 120,000 people joined the march through Paris’ Left Bank university quarter, although police stated there were 30,000.

Police said 46 officers were injured and 11 admitted to hospital in clashes in the capital and incidents in other 80 cities holding rallies. Sarkozoy said a total of 300 young people were arrested across the country including 180 in Paris, the city that saw the worst violence. As many as 257,000 people took to the streets in demonstrations that reached a peak of violence on Thursday, according to the interior ministry. Organisers of the protests put the figure as high as 500,000.

Large rallies were also held in the southern French port city of Marseilles and in Grenoble, as well as in Lyon and Strasbourg, in eastern France, Bordeaux in the southwest, in Rennes - where police also fired tear gas on protesters - and Lille in the northwest, as well as in Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges and Angers in the centre. Banners on Thursday read “Slave labour by the back door” and “If you take away our security, you’ll pay.” Police were under orders to treat troublemakers firmly but to show general restraint, the interior ministry said.

Student leaders have described the protests, which are backed by 68 percent of the population according to recent opinon polls, as a “tidal wave”. “Student’s Unions have called for a further day of protests on Saturday, when the head of the powerful CGT union, Bernard Thibault, has vowed to “step up a gear” in the campaign. “This contract is like living under a guillotine,” one 23-year-old Sorbonne political science student was quoted as saying.

Chirac Calls For Talks Over Protests
_{March 17, 2006}

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac called for swift talks on Friday between the government and unions over a youth employment law after Paris protests against the measure ended in violence and arrests.

Ministers tried to stem growing opposition to the new contract with a conciliatory tone, one saying no worker could be laid off without justification under the law, despite critics who say it will create a generation of “disposable workers”.

“You know the government is ready for dialogue and I hope this will start as quickly as possible,” Chirac said at an awards ceremony at his official Elysee Palace residence.

Unions and student groups are planning further action on Saturday and hope to step up pressure on Villepin by bringing more than a million people onto the streets, topping the size of March 7 rallies.

“This demonstration must take place calmly and respect everyone,” Chirac said of the protest due in central Paris.

Unions and student groups have tied any talks to withdrawal of the law, which is opposed by 68 percent of French people according to an opinion poll published in Friday’s Le Parisien newspaper. That is a rise of 13 percentage points in a week.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/17/2006 at 12:37 PM   
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   Thursday - March 16, 2006

European Vacation

British workers have just been slapped by Brussels, it seems. The EU rules mandating four weeks vacation for all workers have stepped on the toes of Brits who had been able to cash in unused vacation time like most US companies do. No longer, according to the Socialist Overlords in Brussels. Somebody must have figured out that Britain might become like France where the total sum of vacation, personal leave, sick leave, holidays and a mandated 30-hour work week means the average Frenchman only works about 12 hours per year ... and can retire with a pension at age 40. A true “worker’s paradise”, isn’t it, comrades?

Workers Can’t Trade Holidays For Pay, EU Rules
_{Thursday March 16, 2006}

LONDON (GUARDIAN)

British workers will no longer be able to be paid for unused holiday entitlement, the EU ruled today. European judges said the so-called “rolled-up holiday pay” system breached the EU’s working time directive, which guarantees employees a minimum four weeks’ holiday a year.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg was ruling in a case brought by a group of British shift workers demanding the right to payment during their holidays instead of notional extra hourly pay instead.

Under EU rules the minimum period of paid annual leave cannot be replaced by an allowance, except where employment is terminated. The judges said that payment for annual holidays included in hourly or daily pay rates - “rolled-up holiday pay” - was contrary to the working time directive.

This was because the system could lead to situations where minimum holiday was replaced just by an allowance - and annual paid leave was a key entitlement under the rules. “The entitlement of every worker to paid annual leave is an important principle of community social law from which there can be no derogation (exception),” said the judgment.

- Read more about the EU Socialist Paradise here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/16/2006 at 08:30 AM   
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   Monday - March 13, 2006

Brain Food

I‘ve just spent the last few days digging into some new reading material. It’s a new book out by Claire Berlinski entitled, ”Menace in Europe : Why the Continent’s Crisis Is America’s, Too” (Crown Forum Books, Pub. February, 2006, 288 pp.). Besides the fact that Ms. Berlinski is an outstandingly gorgeous lady (as evidenced by the jacket cover photo), this is one of the most informative books I’ve read in a long time. Ms. Berlinski is an American, living in Europe. She holds a degree in modern history and a doctorate in international relations from Oxford. Pretty good credentials if you ask me.

The book gives an insight into modern Europe that you and I have only had glimpses of from across the pond. You and I make fun of the French and a lot of us here look on “Old Europe” with scorn. After reading the first few chapters, I think we all may be making a huge mistake. Europeans have walked away from their Christian roots and are now a dying breed as birth rates fall. The Muslim immigrants are needed to keep a failing economy going - but at what price.

One concept she introduces is the current environment of appeasement in Europe to the Islamic radicals who are spreading across the continent. Memories of World War II are still vividly alive in Europeans and they shy away from any act that might remotely be compared to the horrors of the Nazi regime. The really frightening aspect of all this is that Europe’s problems are our problems too - but on a smaller scale, for the present. The politcally correct movement, the mosques in Detroit - they’re all tiny models of what is happening in Europe on a larger scale. Where Europe goes, we will surely follow - unless we address the problem and urge our European counterparts to do the same.

I’m only about halfway through the book but my perspective on Europe has already changed immeasurably. It is enlightening to see things over there from intelligent eyes that are over there in the middle of the mess that is brewing. It is also dangerously unsettling, to say the least. I urge you to grab a copy of this book and give it a read. Ms. Berlinski wrote the book after travelling from London to Istanbul and making observations along the way. It’s not a travelogue - but it could well be an obituary for the continent unless things change.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/13/2006 at 11:49 AM   
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   Thursday - March 09, 2006

Mum’s The Word

Oh well. So much for freedom of speech. Wait! I forgot, this is Britain after all. They don’t have free speech - just a free lunch for Muslim immigrants. You’d never be able to pull this off in the US, land of the free and home of the million-dollar book deal. The ACLU would be in court before the ink was even dry on the new rules.

New Rule Muzzles British Diplomats
After embarrassing revelations, writing tell-all books is banned
Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - 11:11 p.m. EST (04:11 GMT)

LONDON (AP)—Britain issued new rules for diplomats Wednesday to stop the publication of tell-all memoirs such as a recent portrayal of Prime Minister Tony Blair as star-struck and senior ministers as “political pygmies.”

Ministers were chagrined in November when former Ambassador to the United States Sir Christopher Meyer published his explosive “D.C. Confidential.” Meyer depicted Blair as star-struck and failing to stand up for Britain in the run-up to the Iraq war, and he described senior Cabinet members as “political pygmies.”

In the memoir, Meyer also told how, as a Downing Street press secretary, he would brief former Conservative Prime Minister John Major as the prime minister washed and dressed in the morning, sometimes while Major’s wife, Norma, lay in bed.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who has accused Meyer of breaking a trust, published the new guidelines Wednesday, which specifically prevent Foreign Office staff from “writing anything that would damage the confidential relationship between ministers, or between ministers and officials.”

- There’s even more on page two at CNN ...

Oddly enough Cherie Blair, wife of Tony, has just published a 944-page, £145 ($252 US) law textbook titled ”The Negligence Liability of Public Authorities”. The book is a how-to manual for those wishing to sue for compensation for their own stupid acts. People like Carl Murphy ....

When Carl Murphy was 9 years old, he was trespassing at a warehouse near Liverpool and broke through the roof of the building. He fell 40 feet and suffered a skull fracture. When he turned 18 last year he sued the building’s owner, claiming that had the site had a better security fence to keep him out, he wouldn’t have been injured.

“The papers just call me a yob and a thug because I’ve been done for robbery and assault but those were just silly stupid little things, like.” Murphy was awarded 567,000 pounds. He said he’d spend his windfall on a “flash car” and “a big house so I have a place to live with me mum when she gets out of jail.”

- The Telegraph (UK), March 3, 2005 ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/09/2006 at 05:24 AM   
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   Tuesday - February 28, 2006

Entrepreneurs Of The Day

Those crafty Belgians! You gotta hand it to them. After their recent failure to smuggle bars of soap into France fell flat on its face and attempts to smuggle beer into Germany just plain fell flat, they have finally hit upon an idea that will make them rich. Smuggling Coke bottles into the Netherlands. All together now .... I’d like to teach the world to sing .. in perfect harmony ....

Belgians Take Coke Bottles to Netherlands
February 28, 2006, 11:22 AM EST

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP)

Thrifty Belgians are causing a headache for Dutch supermarkets by gathering large numbers of plastic Coca Cola bottles and bringing them across the border to the Netherlands to collect the deposit, Dutch media reported Tuesday.

The scheme takes advantage of a recent move by Coke’s Dutch arm to introduce new bottles that are identical to the ones used in Belgium—but the Dutch bottles carry a euro0.25 (US$0.30) deposit.

While the Netherlands’ NOS television reported that Belgians were bringing bottles across the border in “massive” numbers, a Coke spokeswoman downplayed the story. “There are incidents, but I probably wouldn’t use the word ‘massive’,” Marte van Esser said.

Coke raised its Dutch prices by 30 to 40 percent on average Jan. 30, when the bottles were introduced. The company is attempting to recover from a two-year price war in Dutch supermarkets that left its products selling near the same price as in-house brands.

Sija de Jong, a spokeswoman for the supermarket industry group CBL, said she doubted any bottle-returners were becoming millionaires. “It’s a sporadic phenomenon, but it’s obviously an annoyance for the supermarkets,” she said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/28/2006 at 01:38 PM   
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   Friday - February 24, 2006

The Jerk

Mark this date down in history. For the first time ever, The Skipper sides with the media and even worse it’s the (gasp!) British media. Ken Livingstone is the Lord High Mayor Of London. Fancy title. It’s too bad he’s a narrow minded, useless, Leftist, fruitcake. I can’t even tell you all the bad things I’ve heard from our British readers about this asshat. He almost makes George Galloway look and sound sane and rational.

Here’s the scoop. A year ago, His Lord High Assness was attending a “gay function” ... and I ain’t using the word “gay” to mean “happy” (nudge-nudge-wink-wink). While there a reporter for the London Evening Standard tried to ask a few questions of His Jerkness. Mr. Livingstone responded with a diatribe comparing the reporter to a Nazi prison guard. The reporter is Jewish. Ouch ... !

Mayor Rapped For Nazi Guard Jibe
The mayor claims he was being harassed by the reporter
February 11, 2005

LONDON (BBC)

A Jewish leader has demanded Ken Livingstone be brought to account after accusing a reporter of behaving like a “concentration camp guard”. The exchange with an Evening Standard journalist happened as the mayor left an event marking 20 years since Chris Smith came out as the first gay MP.

The Mayor of London’s office defended him saying he had been harassed at a “predominantly gay event”. The Board of Deputies of British Jews said the comment was “insensitive”.

On tape the mayor is heard asking Oliver Finegold (pictured at right) if he is a “German war criminal”. Mr Finegold replies: “No, I’m Jewish, I wasn’t a German war criminal. I’m quite offended by that.” The mayor then says: “Ah right, well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren’t you?”

Mayor Is Suspended Over Nazi Jibe
Mr Livingstone said he was expressing his honestly-held view
February 24, 2006

LONDON (BBC)

London’s mayor has been suspended from office for four weeks for comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard. The Adjudication Panel for England ruled Ken Livingstone had brought his office into disrepute when he acted in an “unnecessarily insensitive” manner.

The ban is due to begin on 1 March and the mayor’s deputy Nicky Gavron will stand in for Mr Livingstone. The mayor said: “This decision strikes at the heart of democracy.”

He added: “Elected politicians should only be able to be removed by the voters or for breaking the law. “Three members of a body that no one has ever elected should not be allowed to overturn the votes of millions of Londoners.”

Mr Livingstone said he would announce what action he would be taking next week. The Greater London Authority, meanwhile, must decide whether the mayor will be paid his £133,997 salary during the suspension. The hearing followed a complaint from the Jewish Board of Deputies, which had not called for the mayor to be suspended over the comment he made to the Evening Standard’s Oliver Finegold outside a public-funded party.

The chairman of the panel, David Laverick, said it had decided on a ban because Mr Livingstone had failed to realise the seriousness of his outburst. He said: “The case tribunal accepts that this is not a situation when it would be appropriate to disqualify the mayor. “The case tribunal is, however, concerned that the mayor does seem to have failed, from the outset of this case, to have appreciated that his conduct was unacceptable, was a breach of the code (the GLA code of conduct) and did damage to the reputation of his office.”

Mr Laverick went on to say that the complaint should never have reached the board but did so because of Mr Livingstone’s failure to apologise. In a statement, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said it regretted the guilty result, but said Mr Livingstone had been “the architect of his own misfortune” by failing to recognise the upset caused. It added it had never sought anything more than an apology and an acknowledgement that his words were inappropriate for the “elected representative of Londoners of all faiths and beliefs”.

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/24/2006 at 01:14 PM   
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   Sunday - February 19, 2006

Soup To Nuts

Let’s say you’re moving to my town and you call me and ask if you can stay with me while you look for work. Feeling in a charitable mood, I fix up my spare bedroom and set you up in a nice warm place with all the modern conveniences.

After several weeks, you haven’t found a job after a few half-hearted attempts, mainly because you feel the jobs you are offered are beneath you. Then you start throwing temper tantrums at me and damaging the spare bedroom because you can’t find a job. Finally, you start calling me a racist because my refrigerator and pantry are full of food you refuse to eat.

Guess what? You’re about to have your ass thrown out onto the street AFTER getting the living crap beaten out of you. That’s the way we do things here in my house.

In the house of France, however, things are handled differently. That’s because frogs have no balls ....

France’s ‘Racist’ Soup Kitchens Shut Down
February 19, 2006
PARIS (UK TELEGRAPH)

The temperature on the street had dropped to minus three and the homeless stood in knots of two or three, blowing on their hands to relieve the bitter cold, as plastic bowls of steaming soupe au cochon were prepared.

“Hot wine?” asked the elegant blonde woman behind the table. But before anything could be served, the police arrived flourishing an order from the local authorities in Strasbourg to shut down the mobile soup kitchen.

The scene has been repeated all over France in recent weeks after complaints that extreme Right-wing groups have been serving “racist” food. As a result of the closures, hundreds of homeless people will go hungry. The groups giving out the soup say it is nothing more than traditional French cuisine.

Angry protesters retort, however, that they are deliberately offering ham sandwiches and soup made of pork to discriminate against Muslims and Jews who cannot eat the meat for religious reasons. The groups behind the soup kitchens are not formally linked, but they are associated with an ultra Right-wing organisation called Bloc Identitaire.

Officials say the groups are not breaking the law. In Strasbourg and Nice, however, food handouts have been banned on the grounds that they could lead to “public disorder”. In Paris, police have stopped the serving of pork soup at major stations on “administrative grounds” - because the soup kitchens have not got the correct papers - to avoid racial tensions. Fabienne Keller, the Mayor of Strasbourg, said: “Schemes with racial subtexts must be denounced.”

Chantal Spieler, the blonde serving soup in Strasbourg as president of the charity Solidarité Alsacienne, was defiant. “For as long as there are people who are hungry and cold I will disobey this unfair decision,” she said. Even Lhaj Thanmi Breze, president of the Union of Islamic Organisations in France, disagreed with closing the soup kitchens, although he regretted that they were serving pork.

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/19/2006 at 05:17 AM   
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   Friday - February 17, 2006

Brits Crack Down

You know things have gone too far when the ever stoic Brits decide enough is bloody damned enough. Especially with a Liberal Democrat government in power. Let’s just hope they can make it stick this time. The only problem they may have is the bleeding hearts like Cherie Blair, wife of Tony Blair will scream bloody murder over this. Not to mention the barking moonbats like George Galloway.

What will probably happen is the asshat, radical Muslims will be expelled across the channel where the Fwench will coddle them for a few months before secretly sending them back to Britain on a EU passport which allows them to go anywhere in Europe. Now, if I were King Of Europe, I’d load them all on a plane and drop them out over the middle of the Sahara Desert. Some with parachutes, some without ....

Extremist Muslim Groups To Be Banned
February 16, 2006
LONDON (GUARDIAN-UK)

Extremist Muslim groups who “glorify” terrorism are likely to be banned in Britain as early as this summer after Tony Blair yesterday overcame his second backbench rebellion this week to impose new laws designed to clamp down on the celebration of terrorism in speech, placards or on the internet.

MPs voted by 327 to 279, a majority of 38, to reinstate the laws banning the glorification of terrorism, a phrase untried in the legal battle against terrorism in Europe or the US. Only 17 Labour backbenchers rebelled yesterday, 10 fewer than the last time MPs debated the issue in November.

Two of the prominent groups likely to be banned are Hizb ut-Tahrir and Omar Bakri’s al-Muhajiroun, groups already named by Tony Blair. Ministers by convention usually wait two months to implement new legislation but the home secretary, Charles Clarke, is to accelerate this timetable to ensure police and security services can use the new powers as soon as possible.

Mr Blair, relieved at navigating three perilous votes on identity cards, smoking and terror, described yesterday’s victory as “comprehensive” and “a signal of strength”. He said the passage of the law yesterday means that any repeat showing of the kind of offensive placards celebrating the July 7 bombings exhibited at the demonstration a fortnight ago in London will lead to prosecutions. Critics claim existing incitement laws already make such prosecutions possible.

Officials are expected to start work on drawing up proscription orders, to be approved by parliament, banning extremist groups who “glorify” terrorism. The legislation also allows successor groups to be banned to overcome the problem of organisations that simply go underground by changing their names. This will extend proscription for the first time in Britain beyond those organisations which are directly involved in terrorist activity.

A triumphant Mr Blair claimed the government had won the argument. He said: “The new law will mean that if people are going to start celebrating acts of terrorism or condoning people who engage in terrorism, they will be prosecuted, and if they do not come from this country, they should not be in this country. We have free speech in this country, but you cannot abuse it.”

He said yesterday’s vote represented a vital signal of strength “in circumstances where the threat is not just from the individual acts of terrorism, but the people who try to entice other people or recruit other people into doing it”.

- More on Britain’s stand here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/17/2006 at 09:11 AM   
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   Wednesday - February 15, 2006

Brits Ban Smoke

The Brits had their firearms taken away. Then their liberal government tried to ban fox hunting and encouraged every mad Muslim in the world to come to their country and live off the dole. Now the liberal democrats in charge of Jolly Old England have decided to further screw with their population by banning smoking everywhere except in the home.

It’s a good thing that same liberal government recently decided to allow pubs to stay open all night so the general populace can just stay drunk while they’re all getting royally screwed by their government. What was once the greatest empire in the world has degenerated into a docile flock of sheep. Baaaah ....

Smoking Ban In All Pubs And Clubs
Tuesday, 14 February 2006, 22:51 GMT
LONDON (BBC)

MPs have voted by a huge margin to ban smoking from all pubs and private members’ clubs in England. Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said the change, expected to take effect in summer 2007, would “save thousands of people’s lives”. Ministers gave a free vote amid fears Labour MPs could rebel against plans to exempt clubs and pubs not serving food.

The Commons decided by a margin of 200 to impose a ban on smoking in all enclosed public spaces. The Cabinet was split on how far restrictions - set out in the Health Bill - should go, with Conservatives calling government policy a “shambles”. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chancellor Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Charles Clarke all voted for a blanket ban.

But Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, Defence Secretary John Reid and Education Secretary Ruth Kelly opposed it. A total smoking ban is due to come into force in Scotland next month, and Northern Ireland is set to follow suit in April, next year. The Health Bill gives the Welsh Assembly the right to decide for itself whether to implement a ban it has already twice approved in principle.

Ms Hewitt, who voted for a total ban for England, told the BBC: “I’m absolutely delighted. This is really a historic day for public health.” She added: “This is going to save thousands of people’s lives.” Elspeth Lee, of Cancer Research UK, said: “This is really going to affect generations to come and make the nation a lot healthier.”

However, Simon Clark, director of smoking support group Forest, said: “This is a double whammy and an unnecessary and illiberal piece of legislation that denies freedom of choice to millions of people. “The Government should educate people about the health risks of smoking but politicians have no right to force people to quit by making it more difficult for people to consume a legal product.”

- More tobacco madness to this story here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/15/2006 at 08:32 AM   
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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