Wednesday - October 29, 2008
Barack Obama is the Busby Berkeley of modern America. (All show and mirrors)
I felt BMEWS would want to see this and no comments from me. Well, maybe not.
Barack Obama is the Busby Berkeley of modern America
By Simon Heffer in New York
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 28/10/2008One can find two kinds of voters in this great city in the week before the presidential election; those Democrats who can see no possibility of defeat for Barack Obama next Tuesday, and those who wake with a jolt at 4am imagining he has lost, and feeling in their bowels the fear that something might happen in the next few days to stop the saviour of the United States from fulfilling his mission. I have yet to find a Republican, despite this being the city that returned Rudy Giuliani twice as mayor. But then it is hard to find anyone in the city that gave Hillary Clinton a big victory in February in the New York state primary who will now not admit to being a dyed-in-the-wool Obamamaniac. The fat lady has yet to sing, but, as far as New Yorkers are concerned, the show is over already.
They may well be right. The McCain camp says that its private polls show the race is far closer than those published by media organisations: but then it would, wouldn’t it? There is much anecdotal evidence that, at the grass roots in states where John McCain is not now campaigning (and even in one or two where he is), the fight has more or less stopped. After a good convention eight weeks ago in St Paul, the Republicans have lost the initiative at every turn. They had a bad financial crisis. Neither Mr McCain nor his running-mate, Sarah Palin, was able to land a killer blow in the televised debates. Things have reached the pass where Mrs Palin is having to protest that the haute couture on which $150,000 was spent to enhance her glamour belongs not to her, but to the Republican National Committee: and that she will now revert to shopping in the factory outlets of Alaska. After one has paused to consider just who on the RNC will be wearing Mrs Palin’s clothes next, one realises just how much this pathetic squabble signals that the game is almost certainly up.
Visiting from Britain, one senses just how like the spring of 1997 it is. Obama supporters often bridle at comparisons with Tony Blair, though why they should mind being lumped with a man who won three elections handsomely, inflicted serious change (for better or worse) on the country he governed, and put his opponents off the map for at least a dozen years is beyond me. Perhaps they are sensitive to the triumph of Mr Obama’s image over his content, to the accusations that his media management, with its brutal threats to journalists who cut up rough, belies the image of integrity that they seek to disseminate, and to the unspoken difficulty that, when and if Mr Obama gets into the White House, the magnificence of his rhetoric and the vast extent of his oratorical skills will do little to help him tackle an economy in the tank and a precarious international situation.
However, the Obama camp need not worry about any of this, because it appears most of the electorate don’t. The voters’ decision appears to have been simple: that George W. Bush, when he becomes history in January, should for the time being take the Republican party with him. Mr McCain has been at pains to distance himself from Mr Bush since before he won the nomination, and has had the facts mostly on his side in doing so.
However, that has failed to penetrate the souls of many voters. Polls in states that returned Mr Bush in 2004 now show Mr Obama far in front. Mr McCain is even at risk of losing Virginia, which is a little like the Tory party being wiped out in Surrey. The evidence that American voters have had enough is becoming more abundant. Mr Obama can capitalise on a lethal cocktail of economic hardship and, among the more outward-looking of his fellow citizens, a deep and pervasive embarrassment at how America is now seen around the world.
(okay wait a minute. how many Americans do know and if they do, give a flip what foreigners who aren’t paying our bills think?)There is, though, no euphoria about what most of America feels to be his imminent election. It is, rather, a sense of relief at their being about to be shot of a discredited administration and a dismal president. Again, it should remind us of 1997, when Mr Blair surged to power not so much on a national wave of faith in him, but because so many Conservatives stayed at home and declined to shore up his inadequate opponent, the incumbent.
Here, the incumbent party is run ragged, too. It is fashionable to blame Mrs Palin for this, but the truth is that she is by far the more impressive of the two candidates on her ticket. She speaks directly to her audience, has conviction and charisma and is not trying to be something she isn’t. Ever since the convention John McCain has pretended not to be John McCain, and it just hasn’t worked.
In the circumstances of such a poor campaign by the Republicans, Mr Obama has not been pressed to outline how he would govern. All that has mattered is that he is not what has come before, or like what has come before. In these past days there have been attempts by his opponents, and especially by conservatives, to paint him as a socialist because of his talk of “spreading the wealth”. His opponents are correct: he is, by the lights of all his rhetoric, an orthodox Leftist with an ill-formed notion of redistribution of income.
But it no longer matters. The mood here is to get the people who have run America for the past eight years out, and get in someone completely different. The time to discuss what, in their turn, they would do would come once they are there. This is far from ideal, for that is what election campaigns are supposed to be for. But in the unusual predicament of an America that feels weakened, embarrassed and angry, it has become nearly inevitable.
The last time the American economy was on the ropes to the extent it is now a whole industry of escapism grew up, and produced such gems as Gold Diggers of 1933. You might remember that the plot of that charming film was a millionaire putting on a musical that saved countless Broadway hoofers from the soup-kitchen during the Great Depression.
Barack Obama is the Busby Berkeley of modern America. He is ordained as the great choreographer who will spirit America out of its misery, using not his own millions but the billions of the taxpayer to put the country back on course. Having listened all year to his message of “change”, and being entirely unclear what it means, perhaps at last we have the answer. It is The Great Cause Of Cheering Us All Up.
The reverence with which Mr Obama is regarded by most of the American media, and by much of the American elite, is such that, when I see him on television, I look — so far in vain — for the stigmata on his hands. This feeling is entirely appropriate, for what America seems to be preparing to embark upon is the most massive act of faith. Not since 1960, and the election of Jack Kennedy, has so much disbelief been suspended by so many in such a massive cause. If it does indeed translate into an Obama victory on Tuesday, further prayer may well be in order. Not long after Gold Diggers of 1933, I seem to remember, came The Grapes of Wrath.
on 10/29/2008 at 11:29 AM
Editorials • Politics • Republicans • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
First October snow in London in 74 YEARS as Arctic blast sweeps across UK.
There’s a number of photos and the rest of the story at the link below.
I had posted earlier that the snow was first in five years. I now stand corrected.
Whatever .... until Al Bore confirms that the snow fell and it’s really this cold, I’ll reserve judgment.
(I keep hearing that old song, But Baby It’s Cold Outside)
Actually, I just thought the photos would be nice to look at.
One dead, thousands without power and the first October snow in London in 74 YEARS as Arctic blast sweeps across UK
By Daily Mail Reporter
One man was killed and thousands were left without power today after inches of snow fell across the country overnight.
Just two days after the end of British Summertime, the first snowfall of the year saw a lorry driver killed when his vehicle collided with another lorry on the M40 in Buckinghamshire.
Tonnes of lard being carried in one of the lorries was left strewn over all six lanes of the motorway causing long delays.
Thousands of homeowners were today without power after high voltage cables were brought down by the night’s snowfall.
Last updated at 2:46 PM on 29th October 2008
AN ENGLISH ROBIN. CUTE. HAVE EM IN BACK GARDEN AND FUN TO WATCH. ENGLISH ROBINS MUCH SMALLER THEN ONES FOUND IN NO.AMERICA.
NEVER JUDGE A BATTLING BRIT BY THE COVER. THEY COME IN MANY FORMS, AND THEY WILL GET YA.
THIS BATTLING BRIT DIDN’T DO IT IN A SPITFIRE OR ON THE BATTLEFRONT WITH A RIFLE.
TOO OFTEN WE FORGET THAT THERE ARE MANY WAYS OF SERVING YOUR COUNTRY THAT CAN BE JUST AS LIFE THREATENING.
This woman’s life was spent doing a James Bond for real. Can you imagine the stress? I can’t see how there wouldn’t be. I guess she had nerves of steel. If not that, then something else and whatever it was, she was extraordinary.
RIP and Thanks, Miss Julia Pirie.
Julia Pirie
Last Updated: 8:48PM GMT 28 Oct 2008
Julia Pirie, who has died aged 90, spent two decades as an MI5 agent at the heart of the Communist Party of Great Britain, most of it as personal assistant to the party’s general secretary.
A small, dumpy woman with the appearance of a confirmed and rather matronly spinster, Julia Pirie was the most unlikely of spies. But her unassuming demeanour masked a sharp intellect and the powers of observation essential for the task of a secret agent.
She was recruited to infiltrate the party at the beginning of the 1950s, at a time when many Britons still remembered the Soviet Union as a valued wartime ally and Communists retained considerable influence within the trades union movement.
Julia Pirie would pass over her regular reports and photocopied documents to her MI5 handlers during cricket matches at the Oval cricket ground, a procedure that left her with a lifelong love of the game.
She was told to resign from her party post in the 1970s, by which time, she said, the Communist Party had become a rather pathetic and increasingly irrelevant organisation. She went on to collect intelligence on the Provisional IRA during several missions in Europe.
Effortlessly adopting the cover of a harmless, elderly English spinster intent on sightseeing, Julia Pirie once travelled to Barcelona, renting a flat immediately below one occupied by IRA officials. The flat, rented by members of the Catalan terrorist group Terra Lliure, was being used by the IRA as a safe house and a temporary store for shipments of gold bullion supplied by the Libyan President Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Julia Pirie’s inability to control the reverberation and echo coming from her own equipment led to some precarious and alarming moments. At one point her apartment was raided by the Barcelona police, putting the entire operation at risk. Julia Pirie was aware from monitoring their communications that the IRA terrorists were nervous of discovery, and the arrival of a number of armed police officers was unlikely to reassure them.
But she managed to persuade the police that she was simply an innocent English spinster, and calmly continued her monitoring operation until her MI5 handlers, alarmed at the latest turn of events, pulled her out for her own safety.
Elizabeth Mary Julia Pirie (known to her family as Elizabeth, but, later, as Julia to her colleagues in MI5) was born at Harbury, Warwickshire, on July 8 1918, the only daughter of Allen Grant Pirie and Elizabeth Mary Pirie. Her father, an advocate from Aberdeen, died in 1923 as a result of wounds received in France while serving in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Soon afterwards Elizabeth’s mother decided to return to Calcutta, where she had been born and brought up, taking her daughter with her.
Elizabeth was educated at the Loreto convent at Shillong, in a rural area of Assam, where she recalled tigers roaming around the school. On the outbreak of war in 1939 she returned to Britain, determined to join the war effort. She joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women’s section of the British Army, and saw service as a driver of staff cars and ambulances in Shrewsbury before volunteering after D-Day for work in France and Germany.
She was among the first Allied soldiers to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and would later speak movingly about the effect this experience had on her.
After serving with the British Army on the Rhine, she left the Army and went to work as secretary and personal assistant to Kitty, Duchess of Atholl, who, as chairman of the British League for European Freedom, was an ardent campaigner against Soviet control of eastern Europe. It was during this time that Elizabeth Pirie joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, which had provided female agents for the Special Operations Executive working with the French Resistance.
She then worked for the International Maritime Organisation before being approached by MI5, possibly as a result of her links with FANY, and asked to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain working as a typist. She worked for F4, the section within MI5 which monitored the Communist Party’s activities and its links with the trades union movement.
Given her position as personal assistant to the general secretary, John Gollan, it seems highly likely that one of Julia Pirie’s earliest coups was to provide information that allowed MI5 to obtain the entire secret membership of the party. Selected members of the party were told to keep their membership secret so that they could be used by the KGB or Soviet military intelligence (the GRU) in operations in Britain.
Peter Wright, a former senior MI5 officer, revealed in his book Spycatcher that in the late 1950s one of the F4 agent handlers obtained details of the location of the secret membership files from an agent inside the party. The files were stored in the Mayfair flat of a wealthy party member, and the property was put under blanket surveillance. When the owner’s wife rang him to say that she was going out for an hour, but would leave the key under the doormat, an MI5 officer swiftly went round to take an impression.
Armed with the key, MI5 simply waited until the occupants went away to the Lake District for the weekend, then let themselves in and copied the secret files, rendering the potential Soviet agents useless. This was Operation Party Piece, one of a number of operations against the Communist Party that led Wright to claim: “For five years we bugged and burgled our way across London at the state’s behest while pompous bowler-hatted civil servants pretended to look the other way.”
Wright also described how bugging the party’s King Street headquarters was made more difficult by the way in which the leadership constantly changed the location of key meetings, eventually moving them to a windowless basement room.
An agent inside the building tipped off F4 to the location of the room and said that an old coal chute led down to it from the pavement. The response was another MI5 coup, known as Operation Tie Pin. This took place on a Saturday night when no one was likely to be in the party headquarters. The entire staff of MI5’s “A” branch surveillance team, known as “the Watchers”, was carefully choreographed to play the part of drunken revellers walking past the building in different directions, disguising the noise as an MI5 technician surreptitiously placed a false door containing a bugging device over the chute to allow continued monitoring of the meetings.
As personal assistant to the general secretary, Julia Pirie would certainly have been aware of the change of location for the secret meetings and remains the most likely source of the MI5 tip-off.
But within the Communist Party she was completely trusted, accompanying the general secretary to regular meetings and conferences behind the Iron Curtain. The fact that she usually attempted to avoid these “dreary” visits to the Eastern Bloc only reinforced her cover.
Despite the “threat within” that the party was believed to be, Julia Pirie revealed to her handlers that Gollan had very little power and was entirely beholden to Moscow and the Communists within the trades unions.
The Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956 was the catalyst for a loss of party members that was to increase with the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968. Gollan responded to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia by saying: “We completely understand the concern of the Soviet Union about the security of the socialist campe_SLps we speak as true friends of the Soviet Union.” With membership plummeting, from 56,000 during the Second World War to 20,000 by 1978, Julia Pirie was pulled out.
After retiring from active operations in the 1990s, she lectured to groups of MI5 trainees and the police before indulging her love of travel, visiting Russia, Europe, Africa, Australia, the Caribbean and the United States.
She remained extremely generous with her time and her commitment to those she regarded as her close family, regularly keeping in touch with relatives of all ages.
Despite the intense pressure of working under cover for much of her life, she always retained her quiet sense of humour and warm laugh. She never lost her keen interest in sport, particularly cricket, and was an avid and skilled bridge player.
Until her death on September 2 Julia Pirie continued to receive her pension from the Communist Party, paid monthly into her account from a bank in Italy. She was unmarried.
MI5 agent who for two decades worked at the heart of the British Communist Party
on 10/29/2008 at 09:11 AM
Patriotism • UK • War-Stories • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
Vietnam to ban small-chested drivers. (NO, It isn’t April first and this isn’t a joke. I think?)
I was trying to decide if I should do the serious post I had planned, after Drew’s spectacular post and really so upbeat.
How could I avoid being a killjoy with what I had. I couldn’t. But then without really looking for this item, there it was in front of me.
My first thought was that it was a joke, and I didn’t get it. But apparently this isn’t a gag.
Gee, and I wanted to think these folks were smarter then this.
Bet ya the average person is smarter but you can always trust bureaucrats to come up with bizarre stuff like this.
On the bright side, it would sure cut down their traffic congestion, and with everybody walking they might become the new best friends of the greens.
In Vietnam, the skinny and the petite can look forward to getting more exercise after proposed new regulations set a minimum chest size for licensed drivers.
By Thomas Bell, South East Asia Correspondent
Last Updated: 9:47AM GMT 29 Oct 2008
Anyone with a chest under 28 inches will be banned from driving a motorbike - which make up 90 per cent of the traffic on the country’s chaotic roads.
Anyone who is too short, too thin or too sickly will also have to seek alternative transport. Ailments such as enlarged livers or sinusitis will rule out aspirant motorists.
“The new proposals are very funny, but many Vietnamese people could become the victim of this joke,” said Le Quang Minh, 31, a Hanoi stockbroker. “Many Vietnamese women have small chests. I have many friends who won’t meet these criteria.”
The average Vietnamese man is 5 feet, 4 inches (164 centimeters) tall and weighs 121 pounds (55 kilograms). The average Vietnamese woman is 5 feet, 1 inch (155 centimeters) tall and weighs 103 pounds (47 kilograms).
Vietnamese bloggers have been poking fun at the plan, envisioning traffic police with tape measures eagerly pulling over female drivers to measure their chests.
“From now on, padded bras will be best-sellers,” said Bo Cu Hung, a popular Ho Chi Minh City blogger.
“I’m not heavy enough, what am I going to do?” Le Thu Huong asked in a letter to Tuoi Tre newspaper. “And what about people whose chests are small? Most of them are too poor to afford breast implants!”
Vietnamese roads are among the most dangerous in the world but it is not clear why the ruling Communist Party believes banning small drivers will make them safer.
Tuesday - October 28, 2008
let there be light!
Hindus the world over are celebrating Diwali again right now. It’s a festival that celebrates the victory of the good over the evil. Good is symbolized by light and color, standing out against the evil darkness. It’s also a New Year’s Eve celebration, as their lunar calendar begins anew.
I think it’s a very nice annual event, that reminds nearly a quarter of the world that things can be better.
Ok, diwali is actually a lot more complicated than my simple description*, and it has roots that reach waaay back in time and deep into their religion:
The story goes like this: Prince Rama, the rightful heir to his father’s throne, was banished to the forest for 14 years by his wicked stepmother. While there, Rama’s wife was kidnapped by the evil King Ravan of a neighboring land. A battle ensued and Rama rescued his wife, defeated Ravan and returned to his kingdom to reclaim his throne.
In celebration of Rama’s victory, people feasted and lit oil lamps in their homes. And that was the first Diwali, which is short for Deepawali or “row of lights” in Sanskrit. Today, the festival, which falls in late October or early November, is celebrated according to regional customs.
Most mark the day by worshipping Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity and Ganesh, the god of wisdom and good fortune; visiting loved ones and exchanging homemade traditional sweets. Also, following a half-hour prayer service, or puja after sunset, children light the diyas (the oil lamps) that have been placed around the house on each windowsill and on flat rooftops. Others may worship the goddess Kali instead of Lakshmi, set off fireworks and pass out small amounts of cash to everyone present at the celebration.
Diwali is observed nationally, the most widely celebrated festival on the Hindu calendar and an affair that reaffirms the bonds of family and close friends.
It’s a happy time for them, and makes for pretty pictures for the rest of us. And a little happy news is nice.
irresistible news article titles, round 1
Well, yeah, that seem like a pretty smart idea, right?
THE Chief of Navy has written to sailors warning them that unauthorized leaks to the media are a betrayal of the “value set” of the Royal Australian Navy.
The extraordinary warning, issued by Vice Admiral Rus Crane, comes at a time of flagging morale in the navy, which is facing its greatest manpower crisis in a generation.
Admiral Crane’s letter was prompted by the leaking to The Australian last month of a navy minute written by a senior commander in which he told sailors to stop complaining about their conditions and display more leadership. The minute warned of “perilous” shortfalls in the number of naval engineers and was critical of the negative attitude of some sailors. In response, Admiral Crane issued a letter to sailors warning them not to leak information to the media. “Disaffected people who leak information to the media with the intent of damaging navy’s reputation fail our value set and work against our collective endeavour,” Admiral Crane said in the letter, which was also leaked to The Australian. He said strong leadership and a positive attitude were critical attributes for sailors in these difficult times.
The Aussie Navy is having recruitment and retention problems, but with the economy a mess and jobs drying up, expects the numbers to improve soon.
In the past four years the navy has only achieved between 67 and 79 per cent of its recruitment targets due to tepid interest from generation Y recruits and also high separation levels.
New figures provided to The Australian show the situation remains dire, with the navy achieving only 53 per cent of its year-to-date enlistment targets for 2008-09 by September 30.
Now that’s good government foresight!
A MAJOR earthquake in Tokyo would set off a crisis of “toilet refugees”, with a restroom shortage for nearly 820,000 people, a government study says.
An expert panel of the Government’s Central Disaster Prevention Council came to the conclusion this week while studying the potential impact of a 7.3-magnitude earthquake in the tremor-prone metropolis.
According to the study, some 817,000 people would find themselves without toilets two hours after such a big tremor, which would cut off 46 per cent of Tokyo’s water supply.
The wait to use a toilet would be 4½ hours in central Chiyoda ward, home to the headquarters of major companies, government buildings and the imperial palace.
“Besides food and water, shortage of toilets is one of the major issues in post-disaster situations,’’ said Itsuki Nakabayashi, head of the study panel.
The group is advising Tokyo residents always to carry pocket-sized tissues or plastic bags for emergency toilet use and urged companies to have portable toilets on standby.
The Japanese Government has warned that an earthquake with a magnitude of around seven could hit the capital in the coming decades, killing 11,000 people.
Horry Clap!
Pre-Halloween Fun
So yeah, I got your postcard. The Royal Mail got it through without any extra help from you this time. Maybe they’re learning?
In the graveyard of Winchester Cathedral sits this headstone, famous the world over.
Heed well it’s message and beware: Miller Lite Kills!
Lucky Peiper; this is not very far from his house. Oh, and “Hants” doesn’t mean ghosts. It’s slang for Hampshire, that part of the country.
McCain Wins by 3 to 1 Margin!
Well, that’s how our military sees it anyway. You know, the ones actually out there at the cutting edge fighting the Global War On Terror. You remember that thing? It hasn’t been on the news much at all lately.
Anway, the Military Times released a poll. It shows how each service branch is feeling, and also gives us age, rank, reason, sex, service status, and race breakdowns. Across all categories except race McCain has a 3:1 to nearly 4:1 advantage. Except for the black folks. They’re voting almost 7:1 for Obama, because of their concerns for the economy. Yeah, the economy. That’s why. No other reason.
PS, I’ll try and get some sharper images up. These are scaled to fit the screen, and that doesn’t always come out sharp.
Damn that Global Warming!
It’s snowing here. Hard. Not much is sticking yet, but I saw a car on the road that had a good 4” of snow on it. And tomorrow the weather wieners say it’s going to be 60 and sunny. In the meantime we’re also going to have strong winds, gusting to 50mph or more. Go figure.
Personally, I think this is somehow all Bush’s fault.
Islamists stone to death Somali woman for adultery.
Gee, maybe if the west gives them some money for health and safety and education and medicine and ... oh yeah. West already has. Many times over the many years.
OK.. maybe if the west gives even more. And keeps on giving. Right. I didn’t think so either.
It will NEVER, EVER make a bit of difference.
Islamists stone to death Somali woman for adultery
By Daily Mail Reporter
Somali Islamists have stoned to death a woman accused of adultery in the first such public killing by the militants for about two years, witnesses said.
The 23-year-old woman was placed in a hole up to her neck for the execution late on Monday in front of hundreds of people in a square of the southern port of Kismayu, which the Islamist insurgents captured in August.
Stones were hurled at her head, and she was brought out of the hole three times to see if she had died.
When a relative and others surged forward, guards opened fire, killing a child, the witnesses said.
‘A woman in green veil and black mask was brought in a car as we waited to watch the merciless act of stoning,’ one local resident, Abdullahi Aden, told Reuters.
‘We were told she submitted herself to be punished, yet we could see her screaming as she was forcefully bound, legs and hands. A relative of hers ran towards her, but the Islamists opened fire and killed a child.’
The Islamists last carried out public executions when they ruled Mogadishu and most of south Somalia for half of 2006.
Allied Ethiopian and Somali government forces toppled them at the end of that year, but they have waged an Iraq-style guerrilla campaign since then, gradually taking territory back.
As when they ruled Mogadishu in 2006, the Islamists now controlling the Kismayu area are again providing much-needed security, but also imposing fundamentalist practices such as banning entertainment seen as anti-Islamic.
Relatives of the woman executed in Kismayu, whom they named as Asha Ibrahim Dhuhulow, were furious.
‘The stoning was totally irreligious and illogical,’ said her sister, who asked not to be named. ‘Islam does not execute a woman for adultery unless four witnesses and the man with whom she committed sex are brought forward publicly.’
Islamist leaders at the execution said the woman had breached Islamic law. They promised to punish the guard who had shot the child in the melee around the execution.
‘We apologise for killing the child. And we promise we shall bring the one who opened fire before the courts and deal with him accordingly,’ one unnamed Islamist leader told the crowd.’
Last updated at 2:15 PM on 28th October 2008
on 10/28/2008 at 11:25 AM
Religion • RoPMA • Terrorists • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
Elf ‘n’ safety stormtroopers raid Teddy Bears’ picnic. (you’ll enjoy the nonsense)
I hope you people do read this. Funny? Sure. But in a sick kind of way. Or maybe more sad then sick.
Health and Safety comrades are making a mockery of the words and strangling this country. I came across the first story here a couple of days ago and hesitated posting it. Although I should have. But the Teddy Bear thing is new to me. Well anyway, I think if nothing else you will be amused to see what he’s done with, “A TEDDY BEAR’S PICNIC.”
A note to Lyndon. I know you aren’t a fan of the Mail, but surely Littlejohn is worth reading. No?
Elf ‘n’ safety stormtroopers raid Teddy Bears’ picnicLast updated at 12:37 AM on 28th October 2008
If you go down to the woods today, forget about disguise - you’d better wear a hard hat and a hi-viz jacket.
Dingly Dell has fallen to the elf ‘n’ safety nazis. For the past 12 years, retired builder Mike Kamp has been collecting firewood from the forest near his home at Betws-y-Coed, North Wales.
It’s a right enshrined in the Magna Carta of 1215, the template for democracies around the world. Free men down the centuries have been granted the liberty to gather dead wood from common land to fuel their stoves, repair their homes and make charcoal.
Now it has imposed an outright ban, stating: ‘This is an area where we are subject to increasing constraints in terms of health and safety. We have a duty of care to people in our wood.’
Note the use of the possessive our wood. It isn’t their wood. It’s common land and it belongs to everyone.
As Mr Kamp said: ‘They are claiming there are health and safety issues. But people have walked through the woods collecting firewood for hundreds of years without too many safety problems.’
Precisely. I doubt there is one recorded incident of a firewood-related fatality in North Wales.
This, as usual, is about bureaucrats justifying their own sad existence and protecting their backs in the event of someone turning their ankle in a rabbit hole, ringing Blame Direct, and suing for com-pensayshun.
It’s the same warped thinking which led to plans for an open-air ice rink in Bath this Christmas being abandoned because council officials feared it could be a magnet for paedophiles.
How sick do you have to be to reach that conclusion?
And a school in Colchester has banned children from bringing in broomsticks for Halloween in case they get hurt. In fairness, they were only following official advice on the NHS website:
‘Be careful with witches’ brooms made from sticks. If the sticks get dislodged, they are a choking hazard. These brooms should be labelled For Adult Use Only.’
You couldn’t make it up. Where is it all going to end? We take you over now to a briefing at the multi-million pound headquarters of the government’s Firewood Prevention, Elf ‘n’ Safety and Child Protection Joint Task Force.
‘Listen up, team. We’ve had a tip-off that a number of teddy bears are going down to the woods today and we want to maintain the element of surprise. So you’d better go in disguise.’
‘Why’s that, guv?’ ‘For every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain because today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic.
‘Every teddy bear who’s been good is sure of a treat today. There’s lots of marvellous things to eat and wonderful games to play.
‘But they don’t have a catering licence or a safety certificate. If anything goes wrong we could have carnage on our hands. Food poisoning, sprained ankles, it doesn’t bear thinking about, if you’ll pardon the pun.’
‘Oh, very good, sir.’ ‘I want the tactical support unit beneath the trees where nobody sees. They’ll hide and seek as long as they please, ‘cause that’s the way the teddy bears have their picnic.
‘And I don’t want any heroics, either. If you go down to the woods today, you better not go alone. It’s lovely down in the woods today, but safer to stay at home.’
‘What do you want us to do, guv?’ ‘Watch them, catch them unawares. See them gaily gad about, they love to play and shout, they never have any care.
‘At six o’clock their mummies and daddies will take them home to bed, because they’re tired little teddy bears. That’s when we move in.’
‘Why wait until six o’clock, guv?’ ‘We suspect a major paedophile ring is operating in the area. After all, we’ve only got their word for it that they are mummies and daddies. Remember little Maddie?
‘I want names and addresses and don’t forget to read them their rights. I’m not having any of them getting off on a technicality.
‘Social services are providing armed back-up, the helicopter is on standby and I’m bringing in the firewood squad. We believe that some of the contraband wood is being used to make offensive weapons - ie: witches’ brooms.
‘So let’s do it to them, before they do it to themselves. And, hey, hey, hey. Let’s be careful out there.’
on 10/28/2008 at 10:33 AM
Nanny State • Stoopid-People • UK • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
Monday - October 27, 2008
Thanks a lot, assholes
My first reaction was that this story was BS. Could white people ACTUALLY BE THIS STUPID? But then I realized these aren’t white people. These are skinheads. “Crackers” doesn’t come close. This people are the scum around the fringes, and they need scraping away. And yes, they are even stupider than this. It’s past time to purify our own race. Stones and fire will suffice.
So here’s my second reaction.
God Damn. Just what we fookin needed. Fother Mucking Jerks! You brain dead benighted pig dicks. You utter morons. You rancid little fish twats. Now you’ve really fucked it up, because this is all we’re going to hear for the next week. Thanks for throwing the election away you retarded ass biscuits. Thanks for laying a huge White Guilt trip on the whole fucking nation. Just die now please. Rip your own eyes out and then choke on them. Slowly. Then fall feet first into a big bucket of acid, bounce out of that and into a Whisper Chipper three seconds before the power fails. You can’t suffer enough.
A neo-Nazi plot to assassinate Barack Obama has been uncovered days before the American presidential election.
US government agents say they have thwarted a plan by two conspirators to kill the White House front-runner and shoot or decapitate 102 black people.
Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesselman, 18, were arrested in Tennessee on Wednesday and charged with possession of firearms, threats against a presidential candidate running and conspiring to rob a gun store, the Department of Justice said.
The plot is understood to centre on Tennessee where Martin Luther King was assassinated exactly 40 years ago.
Details of the conspiracy were contained in court records unsealed on Monday by members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – America’s specialist law enforcement agency.
ATF agents said they disrupted plans by white supremacists to rob a firearms store and attack a predominantly black school.
According to the ATF, the men planned to go on a killing spree across the United States with Mr Obama, the Democratic nominee who is poised to become the country’s first black president, as their final target.
Brian Weaks, an ATF agent, told a Memphis court on Monday that the pair had men discussed a “killing spree to include targeting a predominantly African-American school”. The ATF said that the two men did not identify the school by name.
He continued: “They further stated that their final act of violence would be to attempt to kill/assassinate presidential candidate Barack Obama,” he added, as the two men appeared before the federal court.
Cowart, from Bells, Tennessee, and Schlesselman, from Arkansas, met on the Internet a month ago and have “very strong beliefs and views regarding ‘White Power’ and ‘Skinhead’ views,” Mr Weaks told the court.
He said that Cowart had bought one rifle and stockpiled two handguns, both stolen from his grandfather. They planned to steal another high-powered rifle from a gun store in Jackson, Tennessee, as well as a series of robberies to finance their bloody actions.
“Schlesselman stated that they planned to drive their vehicles as fast as they could toward Obama shooting at him from the windows.”
“Both individuals stated they would dress in all white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt. Both individuals further stated they knew they would and were willing to die during this attempt.”
Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office of the ATF said the two skinheads planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are held to be symbolic by white supremacists and relate to nationalist leader David Lane as well as Adolf Hitler.
Details of the alleged plot emerged just before Mr Obama arrived in Pittsburgh for a campaign rally after an earlier visit to Canton, Ohio.
on 10/27/2008 at 09:47 PM
Typical White People: Stupid, Evil, Willfully Blind • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
I stole it from Peiper
More captions with images you may not want to imagine!
Firefighters today rescued a suspected burglar who became stuck in a chimney.
Police and the fire service were called to the scene at the Tesco Express store in Pemberton, Wigan, at around 5.30am.
The man, who was naked, was eventually freed and taken to hospital as a precaution. He was later discharged.
It is believed his clothes came off as he struggled to get out of the chimney.
A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: “Officers went to the scene where a man was trapped in the chimney of the store.
“The fire service attended and rescued the man from the chimney-breast.”
A 22-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of burglary at the Ormskirk Road store and is currently in police custody.
No word yet on the rumor that the police used their best crack squad on this cheeky caper.
Picture This
I just couldn’t resist.
You’ve seen all those Caption This pictures around the net. Here’s one that got the caption - the story - but begs for you to imagine a picture. And it’s not a pretty one.
the man had to be cut free after taking a dumper dive to rescue his cell phone. Eww!
A Frenchman caused a two-hour train delay when his arm was sucked into a toilet as he tried to retrieve his dropped mobile phone.
The 26-year-old passenger’s arm became trapped up to the shoulder by the powerful suction flushing system on board the packed high-speed TGV train from Paris to La Rochelle.
Firefighters took more than an hour to free the man, before lifting him from the train on a stretcher with the entire toilet still stuck to his arm.
A fire spokesman said: “He was cut free from the toilet on the platform and apart from suffering bruising and smelling a bit, he suffered no other injuries.”
A spokesman for French rail operator SNCF added: “The train was two hours late at its destination on Sunday afternoon due to an unlikely accident, and we apologise to passengers for the unavoidable delay.”
Unlikely is right. I wonder if his mistress was on hold the whole time?
A VILE AND DISGUSTING PRANK AIRED ON BBC AND APPROVED BY A TOTAL ASS. READ!
THIS TOTAL CRAP IS WHAT NOW PASSES FOR ‘ENTERTAINMENT’ IN OUR WORLD.
I feel a bit off the rails posting this story when all our attention and interest is so focused on the election.
But I really want people to read and and take a good look at what jerks who are making money in the millions do and call talent. And entertainment.
And people put up with it. WHY? They are so bereft of any real talent or humor, they can only produce tasteless,,,, ?? I’m lost for more words.
OK, there’s talk here that these idiots will lose the contract. Oh whoo-hoo. The bastards belong in jail and should be sued for every single damn dime they have, to send a message. Oh right. That’ll happen in my lifetime huh?
It doesn’t matter at all that you who read this in the USA don’t know who these scum are. One of em btw recently in the states doing his decadent
thing. He calls it comedy. And some think he’s funny. Stupid,stupid,stupid!
5Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand prank sparks calls for BBC inquiry
The future of Jonathan Ross’s £18 million BBC contract has been called into question after the prank he and Russell Brand played on the actor Andrew Sachs.
By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor
Last Updated: 6:55PM GMT 27 Oct 2008Ross and fellow presenter Russell Brand left a string of sexually offensive answerphone messages for the 78-year-old Fawlty Towers star, broadcast to two million listeners on Brand’s Radio 2 Saturday night show.
They claimed that Brand had slept with Mr Sachs’ 23-year-old granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, an aspiring model, and joked that the actor might kill himself upon hearing the news.
Mr Sachs was left “upset” by the calls and the BBC received 546 complaints from appalled listeners after the October 18 show.
Speaking about the row for the first time, Mr Sachs said: “People ask me if I’m angry - well, yes, but not half as angry as Georgina. That’s where the apology should be directed. People are writing about it and talking about it, quite rightly. I am sorry that I am involved in it… I love the BBC, I have worked for them for over 50 years and I continue to work for them. Sometimes things can go wrong.”
Mr Sachs said he had received a “very nice” letter of apology from Jonathan Ross. “I have just read it. It basically says ‘sorry’.” However, asked if he had forgiven the chat show host, Mr Sachs replied: “It is God who forgives.”
Georgina’s mother, Kate, said of the presenters: “Maybe those two should just learn to grow up. My father is the world’s most decent man and to put him up in front of an audience for humiliation is ridiculous.”
The BBC initially defended the prank, which was pre-recorded and cleared for broadcast by producers. However, the corporation later backtracked and issued a statement. It read: “We have received a letter of complaint from Mr Sachs’ agent and would like to sincerely apologise to Mr Sachs for the offence caused.
“We recognise that some of the content broadcast was unacceptable and offensive. We are reviewing how this came about and are responding to Mr Sachs personally. We also apologise to listeners for any offence caused.”
Ross is no stranger to controversy, not least for the £18 million, three-year contract said to make him the highest paid presenter at the BBC.
John Whittingdale, chairman of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport select committee, said: “The trouble is, this is not the first occasion on which Jonathan Ross has crossed the line and has been pulled up by the BBC and told not to carry this kind of material, and it appears that has had little effect.”
The BBC pays “a very substantial amount of public money for Jonathan Ross and a pretty large amount for Russell Brand too. I think they are both talented broadcasters but they have got to remember that when they are broadcasting on the BBC in particular, they are not able to use material they might use in a live show.
“The message needs to be rammed home. It does raise questions about their future with the corporation.”
He added. “I think anybody who listens to Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand has a rough idea of what to expect but, in my view, this did go too far. To make that kind of comment to a much-loved, elderly character actor like Andrew Sachs was pretty offensive in the first place. To then broadcast it to two million people seems to me unacceptable.”
Mr Whittingdale said “some very serious questions need to be asked right at the top of the BBC” as to why the offending clip was broadcast. He called for Ofcom to investigate the matter and said the BBC’s reluctance to apologise immediately was “pretty extraordinary”.
Ross caused offence on his BBC1 chat show in 2006, when he asked Tory leader David Cameron if he had enjoyed sexual fantasies about Lady Thatcher. Brand is similarly controversial, recently outraging US viewers during the MTV Video Music Awards by calling George W Bush “that retard cowboy fella” and making a string of off-colour sexual jokes.
Both men were uncharacteristically sheepish yesterday. Asked if he had anything to say to Mr Sachs, Brand replied: “Obviously I would talk to him directly. I am not sure you are the right conduit.”
Ross has written a personal letter of apology to Mr Sachs. His agent, Meg Poole, said she had received a “nicely worded and apologetic email”. She welcomed the BBC’s apology but added: “I think Andrew feels that if anyone is due an apology, it is Georgina.”
Brand and Ross left the messages when Mr Sachs, who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers, failed to answer the telephone for what was said to be a pre-arranged interview. Brand told listeners: “The elephant in the room is, what Andrew doesn’t know is, I’ve slept with his granddaughter.” During the first of several calls, Ross blurted out: “He ****ed your granddaughter!” They phoned back and left another message, this time with Brand singing: “I said some things I didn’t of oughta, like I had sex with your granddaughter.”
on 10/27/2008 at 04:28 PM
Outrageous • Stoopid-People • UK • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
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