The Gray Monk

April 02, 2009

Protestor or Terrorist?

The G20 Protests in London have gone down the route I expected. There is no such thing as a "peaceful" protest, any and every protest I have ever witnessed has turned into an excuse for the violent fringe to make trouble. But there is now a much more sinister element at work here, look at the pictures in any orf the papers or on the TV News and you see the protestors dressed in dark "hoodie" fleeces and with their faces hidden by masks. If they intend a "peaceful" demonstration, why do they feel a need to behave like the Mujahedin, Al Qaeda or the IRA's "soldiers" who routinely hid behind masks.

I do not believe in "gestures" which is what these mob marches and "protests" are and find myself very much in agreement with Bounaparte who famously surveyed a rioting mob in Paris and ordered that they be treated to a "whiff of grape shot". It certainly stopped the riot and it rapidly restored order. This is the problem with "protests" and "protestors" - they seek to force governments and elected bodies to change policy or ideology by riot rather than through persuasion or the ballot. Any government that kowtows to it is surrendering to the rule of the mob and that is one step away from tyranny and oppression of everyone the mob's incitors decide is "an enemy of the people". We live in a democracy, not perfect, but still a democracy. It has institutions and powers to address the needs and desires of the electors - and mobs have no place in such a society. Yet, since the 1960's (and most of our present government are of that mindset) the idea has grown up that governments can be forced to change any policy or to adopt the agenda of a small and usually very unrepresentative, but vociferous and frequently violent mob.

Mobs have never yet brought peace, fairness or justice, they bring anarchy and do immense damage to our society and the fabric of our instruments of wealth. What is more the most violent of these "protestors" are frequently unemployed and have no intention of being gainfully employed. They are parasites feeding off the generosity of the very society they attack. Gestures are one thing, letting my MP and his or her Party know what I think of any policy or proposal is another, but mob rule through riots and "protests", "peace camps" or any of the other plethora of Hippy generation claptrap is unacceptable.

Isn't it ironic that the organisers of these riots are dyed in the wool "socialists" on the extreme left who want to create a unitary party state ruled by socialism - their brand of course - the very antithesis of democracy and the least likely type of state to ever permit their antics.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 03:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 23, 2009

A long day

It's been a long day in what promises to be a very long week. As ever, it's not the work I'm being paid for that is making the biggest demands and though I normally give my time happliy, I have an incipient cold which won't go away and I'm tired. Sorry folks, tonight there won't be a post of any great interest.

Mind you, it could be worse, I could have the Press trying to make a storm in a teacup out of nothing as the Conservative Party now has. Its fascinating how much noise the Press are able to make over a simple musing. The Conservatives are not the government and may not be elected, so what the blazes is wrong with the Shadow Business Secretary using the words "an aspiration" in relation to a tax they want to change? It will be an aspiration until they are in a position to change it - but the left dominated press have had a field day trying to make political capital for their paymasters in Labour.

Its tiresome and its a sham. Crocodiles do not weep and the Press itself has nothing whatever to be self-righteous about. Now, I'm knackered, so its off to bed.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 19, 2009

Spam attacks

Twice yesterday MuNu seems to have been hit by Spam Attacks. For a while PixyMisa actually shut down comment acceptance on the whole of MuNu, yet the spammers still managed to get a few under the radar. I have to say though, that since PM fitted Fluffy the Spamhound, the spam has been much reduced. Its still a nuisance though.

Spamming should be uprated to major criminal offence - it is, in fact, a form of terrorism since my Doctor's system last night was running very slow due to attempts apparently, to hack into it. Fortunately it is almost hack-proof, and the source is a Far Eastern spammer. Why do they feel the need to do this?

Terrorism does seem to be about the only explanation.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 14, 2009

Why I hate Civil Servants

In these financially disasterous times everyone is vulnerable, none more so than those who have been made redundant. Such is the fate of one of my fellow MuNuvians - Practical Penumbra aka Suzie. She used to run a multiscreen cinema complex in her home state in the US. A little over a month ago her employer decided to close. Just like that, no warning and no consultation. Suzie has paid her taxes and contributed to social security as long as she worked, so now, she thought, it was time to sign on and get the benefits she is entitled too. Pity her employer fouled up the social security number for her contributions - not something she could or necessarily would spot. But enough for the bureaucrats who are supposed to "serve" her, to withold any payment.

This is why I hate Civil Servants. They are, without exception, parasites on any society, but thrive especially in any society which falls for the line that "management" is a matter of following a set of "rules" determined by - you've guessed - Civil Servants. The experience of Suzie at Practical Penumbra who was made redundant five weeks ago. Her claim for unemployment benefits is now being shuffled from in tray to in tray. "Enquiries are being made is all the answer she gets, yet, nothing is being looked at, the file is still lying on a desk somewhere (One of the parasites actually admitted that!) and it seems unlikely that there will be any movement in under six months if she is lucky. This is typical of the way the Civil Service handles their cock-ups. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, there is always some damned Civil Servant who will slavishly follow the "rules" and deny you what you have paid for through your tax while happily pocketing a huge amount of that same tax for doing absolutely nothing useful at all. As for actually doing what they are paid to do - forget it! As for admitting they may have got something wrong - forget it, Hell will be 10,000 years into an Ice- age before that is even likely.

I recommend that you read her story and weep. This is absolutely typical of every civil service I have ever had to deal with and I have dealt with several over the years.

In my career I have had to attend numerous meetings presided over by civil servants. The minutes never record the discussion, just that there was one, they never record a decision, because there never is one. By keeping it "corporate" they avoid blame of it goes wrong. The "Minister" is always the fall guy and always the excuse. I have lost count of the number of times I have been told it was "the Minister's decision", yet, when you confront the Minister (as I have done twice!) with the facts he turns to the civil servant and demands "why wasn't I told about this?" Of course they have had their revenge, I have been sidelined in my career and eventually retired without recognition, but I know where they are hiding the skeletons and one day I will have my moment, always assuming someone else doesn't get there first.

There is only one thing wrong with every civil service. It exists. There is only one way to cure it - make every civil servant responsible for everything they do wrong and that means all the way to the Permanent Secretaries right at the top. Make them responsible - if the Minister takes a fall they should go too! The list of things the civil service in the UK have destroyed, degraded to the point of uselessness or simply "managed" out of existence is long enough to fill a book. Those who have encountered the "Prince 2" system of Project Management will have rapidly (Unless they are a Civil Servant and therefore completely unable to identify reality when they see it) discovered that it is completely and utterly useless. A paper exercise which is so bureaucratic it does nothing except drive the project costs sky high and all technical staff involved to despair. Prince 2 has never delivered a project of any descriuption on time or on budget, yet it is the Treasury's ONLY permissable "Project Management System".

If the "Rules" do not allow you to do a job efficiently, don't think they can be amended. The "Rules", accroding to the Civil Servant applying them, were invariably "made" by the Minister, Parliament or - worst of all - the Treasury. B******t! They were usually written by the idiot you are talking too, or, if they were by some miracle "made" by any of the usual scape goats, they were merely signed by some twit who didn't understand them when they were shoved in front of them. Take my word for it, I have worked alongside some of these morons, their only problem is that their egos are so huge they can't see anything else and they are completely and utterly incompetent. Sadly it goes all the way downward as well. Human cloning? Just look at the Civil Service in any given country. Toe the party line, suppress all desire to actually do anything that serves the people you are supposed to be serving and you'll do very well indeed. Might even get a Knighthood out of it.

Suzie's experience of the American Civil Service is a case in point. The fact that she is trying to sort out a problem which has serious consequences for her (loss of home, etc.) just doesn't register with them at all. So what if their "investigation" of her case takes all year? It's only another benefit claimant. Another tax payer trying to take money back from the taxes they have paid toward the civil servant's pension scheme (Bomb proof) or the civil servants salary (also bomb proof) and which the civil servants of every society see as their right to spend, waste and withold as they see fit. The very term "Civil Servant" is an oxymoron - I have yet to meet any who are either civil or servants. In fact I know one very senior Civil Servant who is unqualified to do what he does, yet happily takes home an annual salary of £160k, looks forward to a pension almost two thirds of that (with a substantial lump sum commutation!) and whose contribution to the good governance of this country includes the delisting of Blue Tongue as a notifiable disease (You can't cure it so don't report it!), a hugely expensive computer scheme which is now running over budget and undelivered (from his previous post) and who will sit through every meeting with experts and then demand a single paragraph summary of the discussion with "a decision I can take to the Minister".

It is my belief that the Civil Service is a genetic defect. We should sponsor genetic research in order to identify the gene and eradicate it.

Pray for Suzie. Unfortunately prayers targeted at the death of the appropriate civil servant are unlikely to meet with Divine approval. Frankly, the Devil must be laughing his head off - Civil Servants are far more effective at driving people to despair than millennia of demonic activity. Pratchett is right - the Devil and demons don't have the imagination.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 03:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 12, 2009

Dishonoured Honours

Only the Labour Party could possibly think that the award of a knighthood to a man who supported the IRA terrorists murder campaign in Northern (And Southern) Ireland, supported Noraid which funded the IRA and did more to promote their "mythology" than anyone else for his efforts to promote "peace", was a good idea. It simply proves that the entire "Honours" system has now become nothing more than a way of rewarding the undeserving pop-stars and sycophants who fund Labour and their social engineering schemes and of insulting all the truly hardworking and self-sacrificing individuals who really do deserve the recognition.

Ted Kennedy's "knighthood" is intended to insult the Loyalist side of the Irish Divide and promote the Sinn Fein/IRA who are Labour's partners in the process. Labour hate the Loyalists with a passion born out of the rejection by the Unionist Parties of Labour's communist ambitions. The New Year "Honours" were stuffed with the undeserving, mainly Civil Servants who should be sacked for their incompetence and the damage they have done to our society, the public services they are supposed to deliver and our economy. Ted Kennedy is simply the most visible example of just how dishonourable our "Honours" system has become under this government of apparatchiks and closet communists. I am glad to see that I am not alone in thinking this either, several of our more serious journalists concur, though as expected, The Grauniad thinks its good. But then, you'd expect the British version of Pravda to think that.

Coming, as it does on top of the most recent murders of Servicemen and Police Officers by those Mr Kennedy and his family have done so much to arm and encourage, it really is insulting to everyone in Ireland and particularly to those who have genuinely sought peace. At least all sides in Northern Ireland know how to show Braown and the IRA their feelings, the silent vigils yesterday said everything.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 07, 2009

Green Lord?

I will confess to being very amused by the sight, on TV, of Lord Mandelson, Mr Blair's favourite EU Commissioner, disgraced MP and now Life Peer and chum of Gordo the Brown, getting a faceful of green custard. A pity it was thrown by a misguided "Green" protester, but I cannot fault her aim. Of course, she could now face charges under the Terrorism Act, but I rather think Lord Mandelson hasn't complained to the police - who have egg on their faces for the total failure of any protection squad member, or any of the many police present, to apprehend the llady and prevent the assault.

I suspect she will be "cautioned" for common assault and that will be that.

It couldn't have happened to a more deserving person. I wonder when someone will land one on the rest of this Party of thieves and thugs? Mind you, I have to admit a grudging respect for the man, his calm behaviour in the face of this assault and his subsequent good humour about it deserve acknowledgement.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 04:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 05, 2009

Incompetence in the Civil Service? It seems its official!

A major "Think Tank" report out today identifies a number of issues I have been banging on about for years as major problems with the Civil Service and recommends root and branch reform. Personally I think its far too late for reform - nothing but its total annihilation and replacement will serve to fix it. What can be done with an organisation that buys 8 Chinooks, then tries to save money by demanding "modifications" which mean the software necessary to fly the damned things has to be rewritten and can't be - so the helicopters still can't fly eleven years after we bought them! The Civil SErvants say that its the military changed the specification after purchase, in fact if the military spec had been followed by the Civil Servants to begin with the whole sorry mess wouldn't have arisen!

Then there's the debacle of the Passport Office computers which still don't work properly and the NHS has just written off £125 million spent on a computer system that could not be made to work, the MOD (again!) who ordered Eurofighters (Called Typhoons by the RAF) without the "chain gun" supposed to mounted in the wing (To save money) only to find that the plane won't fly without it - so we now have strike aircraft with chain guns fitted that can't be fired. The Civil Service was the invention of the 19th Century. The remarkable thing about it then was that it worked, mainly because it stuck to setting strategy and left the management to "then man on the Ground". It also had a preponderance of Oxbridge academic types running it who recognised that "big government" was not a "good thing". Then some damned fool gave them "management" responsibility for the day to day running of the government. And its gone down the pan from there.

The Report calls for the Senior Civil Servants to be appointed my Ministers and for their appointment to be restricted to three years. Good idea except for the "appointed by ministers" bit. It goes further however and calls for incompetence to be punishable. At present it is all but impossible to get rid of an incompetent or obstructive Civil Servant, and what is needed is a change in the law which allows them to be held responsible for their botches. Not before time, in fact, well overdue! Attend any meeting chaired by the Civil Service on any matter and you will be struck by the fact that no decisions are ever taken and no discussion is ever minuted. Just a heading and a set of initials and a note which usually says, "further investigation" or "deferred".

And the remaining thing that has to be smashed from the psyche is this - and I feel it merits capitals!

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MANAGEMENT PROFESSION! MANAGEMENMT IS A FUNCTION OF EVERY ROLE AND EVERY PROFESSION - NOT A PROFESSION IN ITS OWN RIGHT!

That has to be struck from the Civil Service appointments and promotions Rule Book before there can be any hope of a return to the sensible practice of allowing the professionals to manage their profession and not to have glorified filing clerks and HR specialists dictating how rocket scientists, military professionals, fire fighters, police officers and health care professionals do their work!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 04, 2009

Disaster in Cologne

Work in Cologne has been going on for some time to build or extend the Underground Railway for the city. Today it appears that someone got something horribly wrong. The entire Historic City Archive building collpased into a huge hole in the ground which is directly related to the tunnels being constructed along the street in front of it. Two people are still missing, probably dead by now and the archives priceless collection of documents dating back to the reign of Kark der Grosse (Charlemagne to the French and Charles the Great to everyone else) now lie buried in the rubble.

Some pictures of the disaster can be found here.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 02, 2009

And I thought I was the only one ....

This post is worthy of a much wider audience. Sleeping Albion, an image of a sleeping giant from the poetry of William Blake, is the feature at the heart of the post on "Little man -what now".

He makes several excellent points and his words on the loss of our "freedoms' and the supine manner in which our majority have accepted the canards and slanders of the "liberal left" ex-hippies now running this once great country are more than just memorable. There can be no greater truth than the statement - "Opinions are dangerous," and the rest of the statement which reminds us that our present set of rulers do not, under any circumstances allow anyone to express any opinion which conflicts with the new "Truth" as they promote it.

Do pay this blog a visit and spread the word. There may yet be time for Sleeping Albion to awake and throw out these thieves of our identity and our freedom.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 04:46 PM | TrackBack

February 28, 2009

Blame games

It's interesting watching Whitehall (That centre of ultimate incompetence) and Westminster's denizens (The Centre of ultimate freeloading) accusing the banks and bankers of greed and incompetence. Firstly, the rogues among the banking community got away with it because the Regulatory body was being run on minimum intervention on the orders of Westminster/Downing Street and Civil Servants staff it. Not a Banking qualification or experience between either body as far as I can see.

Then when you look at the Boardrooms themselves you rapidly discover that these are also filled with parachutists - no Banking Qualifications there either, much less actual experience at Branch level.

Many more years ago than the Monk likes to remember he joined the staff of one of the then largest banks in the world. It didn't last, the Monk was not meant to be in banking and he moved on after a few years, but the interesting thing is this, at that time the Chairman of the Bank (Logo: Black Spread Eagle with coronets on each wing and its chest and the initials DCO under it) had worked in a Branch and actually knew what we, the numerous clerks actually did in the "Waste Department", in "Clearances" , "Remittances", "Bills" or "Securities". The likes of the gent now under scrutiny for his part in the failure of the Royal Bank of Scotland and his £650k pension, have probably never heard these terms and wouldn't know how anyone actually did the work it involved anyway. In fact I doubt if any of them have any acquaintance at all with the operational side of any branch of any bank, let alone the ones they supposedly managed.

What Whitehall is eager to hide in all of this, and to an extent Westminster as well, is that the Cult of Management is at the root cause of this collapse. Gone are the days when, in order to be a "Manager" you had first to work your way up the particular branch of the particular profession to become one. Now any over qualified filing clerk waving an MBA can parachute into any profession and "Manage" the professionals. What rapidly happens of course is that the professionals very quickly find that their time is increasingly spent writing "Business Cases" or filling in forms for an ever increasing army of paper shufflers to discuss in meetings from which the professionals are excluded and never actually action. Westminster used to be filled with people who were bankers, industrialists, ex-military, police or fire fighters, doctors etc. Now it is stuffed with professional politicians who have never done a day's work in their lives and haven't got even the vaguest idea how the people they claim to be "serving" with their ill-judged and ill-written legislation are affected. Why? Because they are advised by Civil Servants and Trade Unionists, neither of whom would qualify as knowing anything about the reality of the work either......

So, as I said, its interesting watching Parliament, the Civil Service and their "advisers" and cronies blaming the banks. It distracts attention from the fact that they haven't got a clue on what they are talking about, can't do anything to fix it anyway because they broke it in the first place, and don't give a damn about the rest of us - because, boy, have they got the pension stitched up a treat! They daren't touch the big pensions the Boards are getting lined up for because that exposes their own scam. A full pension after only two terms in Parliament? A gold plated pension, medals and knighthoods after 40 years screwing the public as a Civil Servants? That's where we should be looking for a bit of "claw back" after all, its our money that pays for it and that is where the blame really rests.

Management is NOT an independent "profession" it is a function of professional activity. We would do well to re-establish that principle in all corporate activity, commercial, industrial and perhaps most importantly, in government at all levels.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:18 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 27, 2009

A winner for a long week

Sorry this post is so late folks, but its been a long a very stressful week. So it was a great piece of news to get a call from the Law firm I have been acting as "expert" for to tell me that the case has been settled out of court and that my report was one of the reasons for doing so. Everyone is happy - especially my clients as they walk away no worse off and without having to pay a very large contribution to the owners of the building that was lost.

Nice to know you're getting something right. Even nicer when you get the personal thanks of a high powered Barrister for your assistance "in this matter".

And so to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a long day too!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 26, 2009

Selling off the silver ....

So our esteemed ex- EU Commissar, Lord Mandelson, is trying to sell off the Royal Mail and offering all sorts of sweetners and "guarantees" to get it through that House of Perfidy in Westminster. The Royal Mail is in a mess precisely because this same bunch of dangerous buffoons allowed its profitable bits to be "cherry picked" in an earlier botched attempt by the Civil Service to "free up RM to focus on its core business." Well, guess who's behind this latest attempt?

You guessed, the Civil Service again. Show me one project the Civil Service have managed to deliver on budget, on time or indeed according to plan.

Royal Ordinance was "privatised" with guarantees that our armed forces would still have access to UK based production of their weapons and munitions. Well that lasted about five years and then, guess what, the bits were sold off and now all our arms and all our munitions come from outside the UK. The MOD was ordered by this government to close its hospitals and care facilities for wounded service personnel and give it all to the NHS - on the grounds that it would save money and the NHS would provide the specialised services and support. Guess what, the money has vanished into that well known Black Hole and the services for the military have failed to materialise - so now we have desperately ill and wounded men returning to be treated badly by ill equipped and ill prepared medical staff alongside Tom, Dick, Harry and Harriet and be abused by the Civil Servants this same shower of incompetents have put in charge. Ask the lad with his leg blown off and serious injuries who was asked by a "manager" to remove his uniform because it "upset" some of the layabouts in A&E where the "caring" NHS had dumped him.

Let's ask about the £165 million written off in an IT project the Civil Service has decided to abandon because it can';t be made to work and do what they were wanting. Or the £400 million overspend on building the Scottish Parliament.

The Royal Mail may not be the most efficient organisation in the Public Services, but it is a hundred times more efficient than anything else in Whitehall! The only reason this government can have for further selling off of the family silver is that they stand to gain from it. I wonder who is lined up for a Directorship on which Board in the buyers?

And here's a funny thought for the day. Napoleon fought and lost a war to take us over and conquer Europe. Lord Mandelson and his cronies seem to have done very well handing the country, its industry and its services over to Napoleon's successors. The bits they haven't given to the Brussels Bureaucracy they have sold to French Companies, Spanish Banks or anyone else with the right price and the right incentives. Perhaps that's why they are terrified to hold a referendum on our continued subsumation into the USE to be.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 04:15 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 20, 2009

Socialist Economics explained....

Labour Economic Policy Explained

Shortly after class, an economics student approaches his economics professor and says, "I don't understand the Chancellor's latest plan to stimulate the economy. Can you explain it to me?"

The professor replied, "I don't have any time to explain it at my office, but if you come over to my house on Saturday and help me with my weekend project, I'll be glad to explain it to you." The student agreed.

At the agreed-upon time, the student showed up at the professor's house. The professor stated that the weekend project involved his backyard pool.

They both went out back to the pool, and the professor handed the student a bucket. Demonstrating with his own bucket, the professor said,

"First, go over to the deep end, and fill your bucket with as much water as you can." The student did as he was instructed.

The professor then continued, "Follow me over to the shallow end, and then dump all the water from your bucket into it." The student was naturally confused, but did as he was told.

The professor then explained they were going to do this many more times, and began walking back to the deep end of the pool.

The confused student asked, "Excuse me, but why are we doing this?"

The professor matter-of-factly stated that he was trying to make the shallow end much deeper.

The student didn't think the economics professor was serious, but figured that he would find out the real story soon enough.

However, after the 6th trip between the shallow end and the deep end, the student began to become worried that his economics professor had gone mad.

The student finally replied, "All we're doing is wasting valuable time and effort on unproductive pursuits. Even worse, when this process is all over, everything will be at the same level it was before, so all you'll really have accomplished is the destruction of what could have been truly productive action!"

The professor put down his bucket and replied with a smile, "Congratulations. You now understand the Chancellor's economic plan."

With apologies to the friends who have sent me several versions of this - most from the US explaining the Stimulus Bill. Trouble is it fits what is happening here to a "T".

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 19, 2009

Future perfect?

A friend has sent me this and its so close to the truth I have to share it with a wider audience!

A Prayer For The Future:

BROWN IS MY SHEPHERD, I SHALL NOT WORK.
HE LEADETH ME BESIDE STILL FACTORIES.
HE RESTORETH MY FAITH IN THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY.
HE GUIDETH ME TO THE PATH OF UNEMPLOYMENT.
YEA, THOUGH I WAIT FOR MY DOLE,
I OWN THE BANK THAT REFUSES ME.
BROWN HAS ANOINTED MY INCOME WITH TAXES,
MY EXPENSES RUNNETH OVER MY INCOME,
SURELY, POVERTY AND HARD LIVING WILL FOLLOW ME ALL THE
DAYS OF HIS TERM.
FROM HENCE FORTH WE WILL LIVE ALL THE DAYS
OF OUR LIVES IN A RENTED HOME WITH AN OVERSEAS LANDLORD.
I AM GLAD I AM BRITISH,
I AM GLAD THAT I AM FREE.
BUT I WISH I WERE A DOG
AND BROWN WERE A TREE.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 18, 2009

Things that go bump .....

The collision between HMS Vanguard and FS Triomphe in mid-Atlantic is a testament to the effectiveness of stealth technology as fitted to these ships. It also highlights the dangers of using it. As usual the "safety" police are screaming blue murder about the dangers of allowing nuclear powered boats to charge about in the dark - but they miss the point entirely. No one is supposed to know where they are, except those that sent them out.

It speaks volumes that neither ship was able to detect the other and that, as a result, they ran into each other. The French ship seems to have suffered worse than the Vanguard, though both will need dockyard attention. Conventionally the UK and our other NATO partners tell each other where our ships are patrolling - not in detail, but certainly in general. How much detail is imparted is an open question since the whole point of these ships is to assure annihilation of any attacker. And telling the French with their record of passing on information to the enemy ....

A tricky question this, and one which will run and run, especially as this Labour shower of peaceniks and traitors are already trying to find excuses to close down the navy anyway. The enquiry will be an interesting one!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 15, 2009

Freedom of speech? Not under Labour and the PC Police

The Daily Telegraph letters page made interesting reading yesterday, with many focused on the banning of Geert Wilders, the Dutch MP banned from entering Britain. The one that really stood out for me was that written by a Muslim Scholar which takes the same line as many of us in saying that banning Mr Wilders is a serious blow to the right of freedom of expression. The author makes the very telling point that criticism cannot be silenced by bans, it can only be silenced by intelligent and rational engagement. And therein lies the rub - Labour do not do "intelligent" or "rational" and certainly these are both alien concepts to anyone in the Polictically Correct lobby. Both operate purely on prejudice and try to pass their prejudice off as "morality".

The last ten years of Politically Correct dictat from Labour and their cronies in the Civil Service have seen our rights to freedom of expression and freedom of thought eroded on an unprecedented scale - in fact the last time anyone assaulted these freedoms to such a degree was under the heel of Cromwell and his Roundheads.

I confess that I would be much more inclined to give conseideration to the protests and strictures of the PC brigade if the loudest protesters were in fact operating on any sort of intelligent debate. As it is they twist information, make up new interpretations of ordinary speech and invent grievances. Many of the worst offenders I have encountered in this regard are not members of the ethnic minority they claim to be "defending", are not themselves disabled or connected to anyone who is, and cannot even check their facts before launching into misguided and ill-informed campaigns against things they have no understanding of at all.

I suggest that Political Correctness should be recognised by the medical profession as an incurable mental illness and anyone suffering from any form of it should be immediately "Sectioned" under the Mental Health Act, to be placed in a secure Institution for the most serious sufferers who pose a threat to society as a whole. Dr Al Qutob is right - this latest piece of Whitehall stupidity is a serious threat to everyone's right to express their opinion. It is not, and never will be, Whitehall's function to determine an individual's thoughts. The continued drive in this direction will guarantee that the BNP eventually enjoys the support of sufficient numbers to become a serious element in our political scene.

And they couldn't have a better recruiter than our present Home Secretary and her counterpart in the Foreign Office!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 03:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 13, 2009

So much for freedom of speech then ....

First it was the General Synod, the ruling body of the Church of England, voting to have an outright ban on any member, but particularly clergy, belonging to the BNP, and now its the Home Office refusing entry to a Dutch MP for his anti-Islamic views. As a spokesman for an Islamic Society that is trying to promote integration said on the Beeb this morning - now the Home Office have created a martyr for those who agree with him - and they have also made it more contentious by drawing attention to his views.

So is the problem with so much of the - probably well intentioned - political correctness that causes people to object and make a fuss about off the cuff remarks, views they don't like or jokes. Prince Harry is being sent on a "Race awareness training course" and has his record permanently marked as a "racist" because of a schoolboy jape, the Dutch MP is now a martyr to the PC view that seeks to suppress all contrary views to their own instead of engaging them and opening a debate and Carol Thatcher is now barred from the BBC because she remarked that someone looked like the Golliwog on the Robertsons Jam label.

I would be interested to know if the Dutch MP would have been refused entry to the UK if his film had been anti-Christian or "exposed" the Bible as warmongering. Probably not, its alright to denigrate and belittle everything Christian and Western, or, better still, Jewish, but heaven help you if you "offend" anyone of colour, of non-standard gender, or from an Islamic background.

I will be very interested to see if the Dutchman - and I can't recall his name - takes his case to the EU Commission and the Court of Human Rights. I think, under the "Its not a Constitution" Lisbon Treaty, he has a case. After all, it lowers all the EU Nations border controls in respect of any citizen of any of the nations within the EU. I firmly believe the Home Office was wrong to bar this man's entry. I think they have actually helped to publicise his views and given those who support them a martyr. But then, Labour have never been even remotely tolerant of anyone who does not agree slavishly with everything they chant. Engage in a debate? Try to persuade? Never, not their style - ban it, label it "Fascist" and use every tool in the box to make sure that any opposing view is strangled. I hope the Dutch gentleman does take us to court. I have a feeling that Whitehall will lose.

As for the Synod, well, its at times like this that I find myself thinking we should disband it and send all the funny-bunnies who use it as their own little "power base" back to their narrow little boxes - preferably under six feet of good English earth. I do not support the BNP, in fact I support no political party at all, but I regard it as everyone's RIGHT to express their views, to engage in political activity and engage in debate on those views and activities when challenged by an opposing view. But, like the present government, that is not the Synod's style either - "Ban it" they scream in four part harmony and go home feeling they have advanced the cause of the Gospel in so doing. No they haven't, they have simply given even more power to the view that the church has become an irrelevance in our secular society, alienating many who currently feel threatened and driving even more into the arms of the BNP.

As I said, Synod has once more shown itself to be an intolerant petty gathering of airheads. In short, an irrelevance to the Gospel. Like this government, in making such a stupid resolution they have shown themselves at one with the government - don't debate, don't engage, don't persuade - Ban It!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 12, 2009

Revelations of the other half?

The public vilification of the banks, banking system and bankers by our political lords and masters in Westminster and Whitehall has been revealing. Not least because the politicians and their worthless henchmen the Civil Servants, are obviously trying to cover their own tracks and push all the blame onto the bankers. Mind you, the bankers aren't doing themselves any favours whinging about not getting bonuses that are measured in multiples of salaries that most of us could not dream of earning in a lifetime of hard and dedicated work - often with responsibilities that are measured in the potential to lose lives. I'm afraid that the revelation that one of these "poor, hard done by" individuals earns £60k per MONTH was enough to have me spitting with rage. I never managed to achieve that figure per year, and sometimes was charged with protecting the assets this and other buffoons like him have squandered, risked or thrown away and given away to foreign investors.

Coupled with that was the revelation that not one of the bankers interviewed has a single Institute of Banking or any other body's qualifications in banking! All are MBA "generalist" managers who skip from one disasterous senior management position to another without any knowledge of what the company they "manage" does or how the staff who do it, actually achieve whatever it is. In other words, they can read a Balance Sheet and little more.

Just shows, I should have made a play for a different career - I too can read a Balance Sheet and the "Bottom Line". I suppose the only satisfaction is that the man who set up one of our biggest banks for a fall and was rewarded by Gordon Brown with the Chairmanship of the Financial Services Authority - fancy Civil Service speak for "bugger us - we don't know either" - has been forced to resign now that his role in the collapse has been exposed. Mind you, he'll probably be laughing all the way to the bank - his salary was large enough to make our eyes water and now he'll have some gold plated pension benefits due as well.

Ce la vie, as the French say.....

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 10, 2009

So who needs sleep?

The last few days have certainly kept me busy, with a course to run with most of the students having a limited grasp of English plus the weather - well, life has been interesting. We haven't been able to do any of the outside exercises and as a result I have had to add extra lectures. OK, so the lectures take longer than normal to deliver because of translation and explanation problems, but its tiring. I'll be glad to reach the end of the week.

Now on that subject I've been looking forward to wlcoming some visitors to the Abbey from our link parish in Sweden, but have just found an e-mail informing me that I am about to receive a bundle (another one!) of "expert" reports from the legal firm I am advising in a multi-million pound lawsuit - and they want me to read them and prepare "headline" comments by the end of next week. There is only one problem - I have a job in Devon next week which will take up all of Tuesday and Wenesday and means going down there on Monday afternoon. It sounds as if I'll be sitting up with some rivetting reading ....

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 09, 2009

Australia burning ....

My sympathies go out to the men and women currently fighting the out of control wildfires in South Australia, Victoria and Southern New South Wales. With the toll now at well over 100 dead and rising - with may more remote towns still not fully accessed or searched, this will be far worse than the Ash Wednesday fires in the 1980's which, until now, have been the benchmark for this sort of disaster. The Victoria Country Fire Authority is well equipped and well motivated, but even with all its resources committed, the combination of heat, aridity and fire has overwhelmed them. It is soul destroying to spend day after day chasing fires that are no sooner brought under control than they break out and make a new run for it. It is even more so when your home, your community or your livelihood is destroyed or in the path of destruction.

I have no doubt at all that we will now see the well rehearsed arguments breaking out again over whether it is better to have small controlled burns regularly to clear the underbrush and maintain fire breaks - or - as the "green" lobby always argue - to stop all clearing and allow "natural growth". The truth is that Australia's bush has been subjected to bruning for more than 10,000 years of human activity. It was the manner in which the Aboriginal population cleared the bush and hunted down certain game animals and the vegetation has adapted to this. Many of the Euchalypts which make up the bulk of the natural vegetation now need fire to germinate their seeds!

No doubt we will be told endlessly by the same "green" lobby, that the fires are not the fault of a lack of contol of the vegetation, but of "global warming" and "man-made emmissions". Yeah, and the moon is made of green cheese don't you know.

Prayers for the fire fighters and for those who have lost everything, relatives, friends and children need to be offered by us all. I hope that the fires can be brought under control soon and that the debate on how to prevent it happening again can now occur without the usual "green" emotive chicancery.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 07, 2009

Difficulties in the snow

Yesterday's snow was something else in the North Cotswolds - around a foot of the stuff fell on us in a few hours. Getting my car out of the car park took the efforts of several Dutch Fire Officers, a colleague and myself. Once on the roadit got mariginally easier and I had to take the long way home via Bourton on the Water and Cheltenham. Snow drifts and icy patches made driving tricky, but once off the Cotswold escarpment - the snow all but vanished!

Snow lying "deep and crisp and even?" in the carpark. The rear of my chariot can be seen in the bottom right.

Today is cold, slightly damp and the snow is vanishing fast.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 12:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 05, 2009

Weather 1 - England 0

So far it seems to be a case of "Weather 1 - England 0" or certainly that was the overriding impression this morning as I tried (unsuccessfully) to reach Moreton in Marsh to earn a days pay. I got as far as Teddington Hands and gave up on being told that all the hill roads between me and the top of the Cotswold escarpment were all but impassable to anything without 4x4 capability. As I don't have a 4x4, giving up was the best option.

Listening all day to the traffic news it seems I made a wise decision, the early part of the day seemed to be filled with lorries skidding, sliding or jack-knifing everywhere and then the gritting trucks got busy again and the roads started to clear, but remained treacherous in all the key places I would need to pass through. So I have had the day at home, trying to catch up and field a range of things. It's been useful, even at the cost of a days pay, now all I have to pray for is that tomorrow isn't as bad, there is rain and some more snow predicted and the Highways Agency and the County Council - responsible for gritting - are running out of salt and grit. Apparently the accountants decided that holding stock sufficient for more than a few days was "uneconomical". What they forgot is that it takes several weeks to get more .....

Ce la vie. The paper shufflers will get away with it again and we pick up the price tab. At least the local kids have had a great day tobogganing in the Vineyards and on just about every slope they could find. There are several huge snowmen around as well and I can't remember when I last saw so many happy faces and so much fun being had by the kids in my area. Madam Paddy Cat ventured as far as the front door, spent several minutes staring at the white powder lying everywhere, ventured a paw into the drift at the door and declared her disgust, turned swiftly and found a warm spot next to the radiator.

Her message? "Wake me when its summer/dinner time!" I confess though, I've actually enjoyed the walk I took in it earlier. Tomorrow will be another day - sufficient unto itself.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 04:32 PM | TrackBack

February 03, 2009

Planetary displacement?

On my way to a job yesterday I listened to BBC Radio 4 and the discussion over the series of "wildcat" strikes which seem to have rippled out of the Total Refinery in Lincolnshire over the awarding of a contract by Total (A French based and owned company) to do some work on upgrading certain parts of the refinery to an Italian Contractor who employs only Italian workers. Given that this is more and more commonly happening, in fact is getting worse across the board as almost all our energy companies and certainly almost all our fuel suppliers are now owned by EU based companies, it is hardly surprising to find that men, laid off from these same company sites because the contracts their employers were working under have been cancelled, should feel aggrieved.

Total claims that the company they had contracted had failed to do what was required, the company concerned counter claims that they were not given a fair crack at the work because the requirement kept changing. This is a well-known and fairly common tactic when trying to break a contract to your advantage. The UK now has most of its industry foreign owned and offshore "managed" and UK workers are usually the first to be axed by these companies as they are not "domestic" as far as the new owners HQ and Board are concerned and therefore easier to dismiss. Total also claims to be paying the Italian workers the same rate as they would pay a UK contractor - but the truth is that labour "on costs" for workers domiciled elsewhere in the EU are lower than the cost of employing someone domiciled here - thanks to Gordon Brown's stealth taxes.

The UK now has almost 3 million workers out of work but our government claims that these men are "free" to do what the French, Italians and others are doing - bid for contracts in those countries and go there to work. What they will not say is how many UK based companies have succeeded in securing any such contracts. Its not that they don't try, many do and I have had some peripheral involvement in one or two myself - but the French will never ever give a contract to a British company if there is a French one that can do the job. Nor will the Italians. It isn't "protectionism" as Gordon Brown accuses us of trying to practice, it is simply looking after your people and making sure that if the skills exist in the area where the work is to be done, that that skills pool is used. You don't allow a company to "import" a complete workforce to do jobs where there are local people available to do it - you may award the contract to some EU company, but the proviso has to be that they use local labour. That is what the stikers are arguing for and though I do not generally support strike action and have never myself gone on strike (Often to my own disadvantage!) this is one time when I do think there is a legitimate complaint.

The EU "free" labour market is being ruthlessly exploited to the advantage of everyone except the native British. This is not the first time this has happened and as long as Westminster continues to ignore the inequalities - presumably because they have their pockets being generously lined by their EU chums and have vested interests in shafting every British worker as far as they can - our "competitors" will continue to exploit this loophole in the UK's interpretation of the EU Directive.

Listening to that prat "Lord" Mandelson and the Europhile Kenneth Clark refusing to recognise that there is a problem and defending an argument which is as far removed from what the strikers are complaining about as it is possible to be without actually speaking different languages - I got the impression that Westminster and Whitehall have been transferred to another planet. It certainly hasn't the same number of moons that circle the one I and the strikers currently inhabit.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 12:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 01, 2009

Climate change and the Obama roadshow ...

An item on The Gorse Fox alerted me to this most interesting item in "The Register", an American publication. IT reproduces a letter written by the man who headed the NASA team that has given us the hysterical "manmade global warming" and points out that the scientists behind that scam have manipulated the models and the data until it shows what they want it to show.

Frankly, it ain't science and it ain't as transparent as the eco-terrorists of Greenpeace, Fiends of the Earth and their cohorts like to claim. What's more it calls into question the real science which shows that we don't understand the mechanisms at work here and panders to the hysterical anti-science that is the mainstream media functioning on fear, gloom and bad news to sell their badly researched and badl written drivel.

Thansk GF for the heads up. I heartily recommend the read.

If Mr Obama and his "advisers" plan to use any of this garbage in formulating their policies I suggest they talk to the man who wrote this piece first. Otherwise they will simply enrich the fraudulent and give power to the eco-terror mob.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:39 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 30, 2009

Dangerous move

Today I am attending a Business Lunch with my MP, "The Right Honourable" Lawrence Robertson. OK, so I am a small "Sole Trader" in my field, but that does also mean that I am affected by the credit crunch among other thinbgs and some of my clients certainly know how to defer paying.....

I thought I'd go to this in case I get asked for a view on how the government and the economy is affecting me. I'll probably have to tone down my opinion somewhat, but I'm going anyway. I suppose, putting myself in the company of a politician is bound to be a risky affair, I have a penchant for saying what I see which isn't always the way they want to hear it. In fact usually it's not what they wanted to hear. Especially when it comes to taking everything they can out of my pocket to give to someone who isn't prepared to work all the hours I need to in order to pay my way in the first place.

So its probably a dangerous move going to this lunch. And it isn't "free" - it's being funded by the local Housing Association who get their money from .....?

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 29, 2009

Government take notice!

Caught this on One happy dog speaks and I agree with her.

This should be a banner in the House of Commons and a compulsory notice on every MPs desk.

The government cannot give anyone anything without first taking it from someone else.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 27, 2009

Why the fuss?

The BBC and now Sky News are in the political firing line from every bleeding heart and it seems most of Labour's anti-Israel squad over their refusal to broadcast an appeal for donations for Aid to Gaza. Frankly, I think the Beeb got it right this time and the more I listen to the "angry young things" and the "representatives of the .... charity" the more convinced I am that they should stand by their decision.

Why am I so convinced of this? I suppose I should say thatI know how "Aid" can be abused once it becomes a political tool and in Gaza that is precisely what Hamas are doing. THe "Aid" and its distribution is controlled by their bully boys with the willing co-operation of the Red Cross, the Red Crescent and all the other Aid Agencies - and they are dishonest if they deny it. "Aid" in Gaza is Hamas' way of controlling the population and ensuring that they, and they alone, get the credit for this "generosity." I have seen this happen in Southern Africa where "Resistance" movements to White Rule became the recipients of well meaning "Aid" programmes and drained it away from those it was intended to help in order to exchange it for guns, bombs and loyalty. There is a mountain of evidence that this is what Hamas is doing with it in Gaza, the bulk goes to them and their supporters directly, most is then "sold" on in exchange for weapons and what little remains is distributed to their foot soldiers in a form of "loyalty" bonus. I, for one, do not intend to make any donation to any "Aid" organisation that is working with Hamas.

As for the "Cease Fire" - well, perhaps the "humanitarian disasster" mongers in the Aid Organisations should listen closely to their Hamas chums public statements. First, to declare that they have "won a great victory" would be laughable if it weren't for the devastation their actions have brought upon their own people. Hamas, and Hamas alone must accept responsibility for the destruction - Israel would not have attacked Gaza and destroyed so much if they had not been attacked and provooked beyond reasonable endurance. Secondly all I hear from the Hamas spokesman is that they intend to attack Israel again with rockets as soon as they know Israeli soldiers are no longer where they can strike back.

Yes, there is a humanitarian tragedy in Gaza, yes, there is a need for Aid - but it should not flow into that area at all until Hamas has been disbanded, laid down its weapons and been charged with the humaitarian crimes they have perpetrated against their own people in their pointless and stupid "war" against their neighbours. Those screaming at the BBC should think carefully about their support for Hamas, it is, after all, a Terrorist organisatioin and receives its funding from some very dubious sources, sources the west is trying to defeat. To rush in with "Aid" and allow them to claim, however ludicrous the claim, that they have "won" and that the "Aid" is a result of their "victory" as they are doing is folly of the highest order - but then, the Left Liberal arm of the political spectrum is hardly renowned for being able to seperate fact from fiction in anything once their ideology has been determined.

I say again, the BBC and Sky News are right in their decision, though probably not for the reasons I would have used.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 26, 2009

Meetings, bl**dy meetings - and public transport!

OK, so I suggested yesterday that there might be some pictures from Mausi today, but I'm sorry to say I haven't had the time to put them up. In fact, I'm currently on a Great Western Train trying to get to a meeting in London by 10.00 and at current rate of progress I might be lucky to get there by 11.00

If I'm that late for the first meeting in Hammersmith, I've no chance of getting to the second meeting in the City iteself by 12.00! There's at least a half hour tube ride between the two - assuming of course, that the connections all run on time. And now, before my Dongle runs out of signal on this section. Adieu!

Tomorrow I have to be in Tenby in Wales early as well, but that will be dependent on the state of the M50 ......

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:09 AM | TrackBack

January 24, 2009

Democratic process?

I note with interest Ms Harman's latest tirade against the possibility of the BNP actually winning a seat in the European Parliament in June. According to her they need to win only 8% of the vote, very helpful of her, I would have thought, to put this into numbers. Now they actually have a target and know it can be achieved. Reading on the report of her address to a typical Left-wing Think Tank she does her usual tirade against the Right-wing "racism" she sees in everyone who doesn't subscribe to Labour's vision of a Britain divided into small "cultural groups" all living, so they claim, in harmony. What she refuses to recognise is that it is this very policy - which calls for the destruction of anything which might suggest that there is a "British" cultural heritage to celebrate and preserve - which is fuelling the rise of the extreme views espoused by the BNP.

The democratic system is "the worst form of government - except for all the others", according to Sir Winston Churchill, and one of its vagaries is that it will sometimes allow the election of people or parties who's ideology the majority would reject out of hand. If a party or ideology in government pursue a policy or ideology that is seen as a threat to their own security, happiness or ideology by a significant group of people, the reaction is to espouse or support any group which takes an opposite view, no matter how extreme. Labour used this process through the media in the dying days of the last Conservative Government to portray the Conservative Party as next cousins to the Nazi's and now they are trying to use the same tactic on the BNP. The tragedy is that with a recent survey of 14 - 19 year olds (of all racial groups) telling us that they do not feel that their group is a part of our society, the espousal of ever more extreme ideologies is almost inevitable.

Certainly the BNP is drawing its support from white British groups who feel that they are having their rights eroded or subsumed by a minority group deemed by the denizens of the Whitehall "Village" of Ideologues whose contact with the reality of the communities they claim to represent is, at best, minimal, to be "more deserving".

History, which Blair, Brown and the "Babe" Squad they have parachuted into high office claim to reject as "old news" teaches that democracy has a nasty habit of throwing up abberations when a government loses the trust of sufficient numbers of the electorate. Hitler, after all, only got a third of the electoral votes in 1933, yet managed to strong arm his way into the Chancellorship and within months had all but eliminated all the opposition parties. Labour did this in 1997, but now the glitz, as it did with Hitler, is wearing off and people can see the threat to their ambitions and position that the "multi-culture" vision brings. Hence the continuing rise of the BNP.

Something all our political leaders need to consider carefully is the fact that the further the "Centre" of the political spectrum moves to the Left, the more likely becomes a rise and swing to the right. That is politics, that is what brought Hitler to power. It brought Mussolini to power and it has brought many other dictators to power as well. Ms Harman can bleat all she likes about how unacceptable it is - but her party and her champagne socialism (She is, after all, the daughter of wealthy upper Middle class parents and has perpetuated her moneyed educational advantages by stealing places for her children at Grammar Schools her own Borough and Constituency had closed in favour of the Comprehensive Failure System).

The BNP will continue to gain strength, right alongside the Islamist Groups and other extremist minority movements, as long as our present political elite continue to pursue policies which see our industries, commercial enterprises and political structures sold off or handed over to minorities who seek to recreate the cultures they left behind, here in Britain. This is why so many young people feel "disconnected" from society, it is also why so many older people (though no one ever asks us) feel isolated and neglected, our contribution to society pushed aside and rejected and our pensions stolen to pay for Labour's folly and to support those they consider more worthy.

No Ms Harman, I'm not surprised to learn the BNP could win a seat in Strasbourg, what surprises me is that you are surprised. It's called democracy - but then Labour are strangers to that concept after all. Just ask Mr Brown about the promised Referendum on the EU Constitution.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:03 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

January 20, 2009

Battle of the Sound System

I am presently freezing quietly in Tewkesbury Abbey. There is a service going on in the South Transept so we have temporarily suspended work on the sound system which I put in hand in order to sort out some of the problems which arise basically from having tried to build a system in a piecemeal fashion. The original intention was fine, but it meant that we ended up with a system that had elements built in that were designed to compete with each other. Now we have in hand the process of identifying these and sorting them out.

And the first problem we have found already is that there is another part of the system which is not functioning and now we have to find out why. The remote sub-woofers are dead and they are an essential part of the "fill" sound. Located in the clerestory they aren't exactly the easiest to access, and should be least suceptible to damage, interference or failure - but, like the Ringing Chamber Relay - they've been and gone and died on us.

OK, so we have a lot of work ahead of us this week - but one way or another - this system will be sorted and it will be the best we can get when it is finished.

As Captain Picard so famously says on occassion. "Engage!"

Posted by The Gray Monk at 03:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 18, 2009

A tribute to those who serve

Sometimes someone sends you something which you simply have to share, usually I forward these to my friends. Recently however, I got the poem in the extended post from a friend in Australia and, though it is mainly about Australian troops serving in Afghanistan, the sentiments in it sum up exactly what every Western Society owes to those Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and Women who serve on our behalf in all the world's trouble spots.

Do read on. I wish I knew who the author was .....

The Soldier stood and faced his God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.

'Step forward now, you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Gospel have you been true?'

The Soldier squared his shoulders and said,
'No, my Lord, I ain't.
Because those of us who carry guns,
Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a dollar,
That wasn't mine to keep...
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.

If you've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much
But if you don't, I'll understand.

There was a silence all around the throne,
Where the Saints had often trod.
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.

'Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell.'

~Author Unknown~

It's the Soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.
It's the Soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech.
It's the Soldier, not the politicians, that ensures our right to Life, Freedom and the Pursuit of Happiness.
It's the Soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag.

If you care to offer the smallest token of recognition and appreciation for our Armed Services Men & Women, please pass this on and pray for our men and women who have served and are currently serving our country and pray for those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 02:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 17, 2009

Miracle on the Hudson?

The crash landing of the Airbus 320 in the Hudson River is a remarkable tribute to the Pilot and his crew. It is a remarkable tribute to the designers and builders of the Airbus as well. This is the first time anyone has succeeded in landing an airliner of any sort on water in one piece. To do it on the fast flowing Hudson, dodging buildings and bridges is little short of incredible. THat the aircraft remained afloat for the better part of a half hour is in itself a tribute to the buildiers, after all these things are meant to fly, not float and after being bounced onto the unforgiving surface of the rivver at something like 200mph it is surprising that it didn't shed panels, hatches and all the rest of its trailing underbody in the process.

As for the Pilot, there is only one thing to say. He was ex-military, a fighter pilot with combat experience. He knew how to deal with an emergency that can only come from combat training and experience. It speaks volumes that he maintained not just his cool, but also his sense of command. What a display of leadership, to calmly ensure that his passengers and then his crew were all out of the aircraft, to make a final check of the now sinking aircraft and then see to his own escape. Hero? The man is more than that, he's a role model that should be held up for every boy and girl to follow!

This is leadership and this is where those who call themselves "Managers" and promote the idea that they provide "leadership" will never be able to hold a candle to a real leader. THey simply don't know the true meaning of the word - or the price it sometimes demands.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 02:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 16, 2009

The creep towards the Communist State

The recent nationalisation of various banks should concern us for several reasons not least because the creep of socialism into every aspect of our daily lives has become almost unstoppable and because the inceasing burden of bureaucracy and the utter incompetence of those who are drawn to the parasitic jobs it creates will destroy all enterprise and strangle all wealth creating and wealth distribution as surely as the Soviet system did in the 90 odd years it was in force in the USSR.

The second is the passage below -

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more
and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing
them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt
becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of
banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will
have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism"

Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:26 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

January 13, 2009

Stalking and the Royals .....

The latest brouhaha involving Prince Harry exposes an ugly element in the British Press. The act of acquiring and then publishing something like a private video, letters or even a note is a betrayal when done to anyone, when it is done, as the News of the World regularly do, to cause deliberate damage to an individual who, like the rest of us, is human and entitled to the occasional lapse of sense, it becomes questionable. The paper claims to be taking a "moral" stance, but lets be honest here, how "morally" was this video obtained. You can bet that it wasn't handed over to the reporter without a sizeable chunk of "Coin of the Realm" being handed out.

You can also bet that if it had been a Minister or a member of the government it wouldn't have even been of any interest to the reporter. So where is the "moral" element in this? Frankly, this newspaper employs tactics to "get the dirt" on the Royals that, if an individual embarked on, would be declared to fall within the scope of the Act that forbids "stalking" with intent to cause distress or harm. If it attempted the same tactics against any member of the government the entire Security Service would be onto them like a ton of bricks - so why is it "moral" to attack a young man who is serving his country in ways and theatres that the reporter, the editor and frankly the owners of the News of the World haven't the balls to do themselves?

As for the politicians rushing to denounce him for his frankly silly choice of words, well, they're politicians and desperately trying to seize some sort of "moral high ground" out of it all to show their "anti-racist" credentials. All it does is prove that, when you live in a swamp, climbing on the back of a crocodile is hardly moral high ground. Many of these same self-serving and over ambitious twits have caused me and many others far greater offence with their insulting and often derogatory assumptions about my supposedly "institutional racism/sexism/masochism" than merely calling me names can ever do. Yet, although this happens now on an almost daily basis as some politician or another proposes some new "offence" in the use of language, behaviour or attitude toward anthing not conforming to the Nu Labour Vision of a society of incomptents running everything from the lofty headquarters stolen from the taxpayer in Millbank House, I am expected to simply put up with it. Their propagandists, however, have free reign to pry and sneak and use inuendo to degrade anything which dares to stand above the herd.

Frankly, the tactics the News of the World uses in getting these stories and the "moral outrage" the politcians exhibit is a case of the pot calling the saucepan names. They have no morals at all and all they hope to achieve is to divert attention from their own utter lack of moral code. The British Press and the Political Classes have obviously all decided that the Royals make great scapegoats for their own shortcomings. Convenient and morally immoral.

The biggest problem we all face today is that our entire society is being driven down a path in which morality has been redefined as the prejudices of the current chattering classes. Whatever they find "unacceptable" is now "immoral". Prejudice is not moral and never will be, yet it is prejudice against everyone better than themselves, more able, more fortunate or simply of higher social standing than themselves is now defined as a "moral crusade" to ensure that "moral behaviour conforms to the current prejudices."

As I said, I look at the press reactions and the politicians and all I can see is a bunch of moral deficients calling someone with far more talent and courage, names. Its sickening.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 03:03 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 10, 2009

Ceasefire?

Watching the news you could be excused for thinking that the Israelis are to blame for the lack of a ceasefire in Gaza, but, what did anyone expect when the UN passes a resolution demanding a ceasefire and the one side, Hamas, refuses to even recognise the rights of the other, much less the authority (Unless it suits them) of the UN? One sided ceasfires never work, cannot be imposed and do not bring peace.

The Demonstration today in London certainly demonstrated to me the naiviety of a large section of the British public and their patently anti-Israel sentiments. When you see placards being waved reading "Free Palestine" and the sub-title screams from Israeli Oppression, you do have to wonder what they believe would happen if the Israelis did withdraw immediately from Gaza and everywhere else, tore down their defences and disarmed. Do they seriously believe that this is all onesided and can be resolved by an Israeli surrender to terrorists? Certainly a hardcore of the protesters who smashed the Starbucks Coffee Shop window and used the furniture and cups, saucers, condments and other fittings as missiles against the police seem to think that their violence is justified.

It never fails to amuse me when I see these protests carrying the same anti-US banners that appear whenever there is an left-wing inspired protest about anything at all. GWB may not go donw in history as the brightest crayon in the mixed bag that the US has had for Presidents, but, unlike Nixon, his enemies have never managed to impeach him - and they've certainly tried everything including a Hollywood movie sold as a "documentary" on 9/11 but so distorted a presentation of the facts that only the completely ignorant, gullible or terminally left/liberal could possibly believe any of it.

If the majority of Palestinians genuinely want peace, if they genuinely want to negotiate, if the Arab world genuienly wants to put a stop to this violence and hostility the solution is in their hands, not the UN's, not the Rent-a-Mob that turns up everytime there's a protest against anything they regard as "oppression" or "elitist". All the Palestinians have to do is disarm and reject the men of violence who are Hamas. Disarm them, reject terrorism and deal with the terrorists. That will make the walls redundant, the blockades unecessary and the incursions in pursuit of terrorists redundant. If, as is so frequently said by the usual talking heads that is what the majority in Gaza really want - its in their hands.

Only when the terrorists are stopped by their own people will any ceasefire ever have any chance of coming into force.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:25 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 09, 2009

Quick the Aliens are attacking ....

An interesting event has sparked a UFO interest surge, almost enough to push the usual political propaganda out of the news. First came the sighting of a lot of unexplained lights over the midlands and then it was unexplained damage to a wind turbine in one of the wind farms that eco-nuts think can replace all other forms of power generation. It has made quite a stir and is certainly a strange one. The BBC has a good report on it titled UFO claim over wind farm damage.

The lopped off blades certainly look as if something hit them, or at least hit one of them and possibly it then hit the second. I guess we will have to wait to hear what really happened if we are ever told of course. No, I don't think it is little green men opr any other colour, shape or size alien, but I would like to know what has happened here.

In the meantime I suggest its probably down to an eco-warrior protesting about the damage to sea bird life using a Plasma Cannon .......

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 08, 2009

Godless society .....

So now we have the Atheist message, which, I note, is not definite. So perhaps they aren't sure either .....

I do agree with one aspect of their objection to the Christian adverts which warned that failure to "sign up to God" meant eternity in hell. For one thing that sort of Calvinist Protestant fundamentalism presumes, as Jonah did, that God is not loving or forgiving to those who, like Thomas Didimus, have their little doubts and reservations and maybe aren't quite so "black and white" in faith. Personally, I believe in a God who welcomes all comers, even those who may realise at the last moment that He is there and has been all along - attendance at Church Services is not some sort of guarantee of heaven, though it may help you to find the road!

On an amusing aside though, I note that the quote from Albert Einstein is supposed to imply that he didn't believe in God at all. His words were "I don't believe in a PERSONAL God..." But he also never specifically denied that there is one and lived and died as a practicing Jew. The truth is that it probably takes greater faith to be an Atheist than to bumbling along believing there may be a God. All that is truly demanded of believers is that they live their lives in accoprdance with the tenets of their faith - and that can be boiled down to two simple things -

- You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your mind and all your soul, and
- You shall love your fellow men and women as you love yourself.

Not too hard, even for an Atheist, surely?

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:17 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

January 06, 2009

Biased media

I have, over the last several years, come to the conclusion that the British political establishment and the left/liberal controlled media are anti-Israel. That is certainly the immediate impression you get from every news report which always seems to emphasise the Israeli response to attacks on its citizens as "excessive" or "disproportionate" while dismissing the Hamas bombardment of Israeli homes, towns, farms and border posts as "minor incursions, justified by Israel's draconian actions." The latest Sky report on the bombardment gives this impression clearly, stressing the "suffering" of the Palastinians and dismissing the Hamas attacks - which actually number several dozen every day - as 'nuisance' value. Tell that to the Israeli dead and injured daily.

I recently had a conversation with a longterm friend, an erudite and very well educated man who quite shocked me in his vehement anti-Jewish views. So much of what he had to say is based on the spread of anti-semitic propaganda including the now freely circulating "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" that I found myself appalled, especially as my friend is a man whose career is based entirely on the assessment of evidence and facts and not on the acceptance of assertions, rumours and hearsay. Yet, here, obviously, he has a blindspot and a very real dislike of a particular group and faith. I find it all the more shocking as he is a practicing Roman Catholic and perhaps that is the clue to his vision since it is only recently that the Curia have announced that the doctrine that the Jews "murdered" Christ was no longer to be taught. It was very much this doctrine that allowed the abuses practiced against Jews in the 1930's and 40's to be acceptable to otherwise intelligent and decent peoples in France and elsewhere. Very disturbingly, and the demonstrations last Saturday in London lend support to this, is the fact that these views are widely held among the upper classes in London in particular and across the board among working folk. I spent a lengthy drive in a taxi having the taxi-driver expounding on how the Jews have "infiltrated" the West and "control" the banks, the legal profession and so on. I silenced him eventually by pointing out that his quotes from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were the work of pure fantasy and concocted by the Tsarist Secret Police to justify the Pogroms of the 1890's - and finally by suggesting to him that the spread of such views was, in fact, now a criminal offence under the Racial Hatred legislation.

Particularly distressing is the fact that our news media focus entirely on the Israeli response and there is almost no mention of the fact that the Hamas organisation has been smuggling arms into Gaza from Egypt for use in their daily strikes against Israeli civilians. Of course it is a tragedy when children of any race or faith are killed in these strikes, but you seldom see any reports of the Israeli children daily injured or maimed by the Hamas missiles and mortars - unless, of course, to the accompanyment of some "Save the Children" or other "Aid" agency worker justifying it as the "just" reward for Israel's "oppression" of the Palastinians.

Perhaps I have a particular bias myself, after all, I have been the target of terrorist activity, and for far too long I have had to listen to the apologisers who seem to be able to justify just about any attrocity as long as it the activity of their "freedom" fighters and not those of the "oppressor" - and the US should remember that they are seen as "oppressors" by everyone of the Liberal Left who sees the conflict in the Middle East in simplistic terms. Frankly I rejoice everytime a terrorist blows himself or herself to pieces, I just wish they would take their evil paymasters and encouragers with them instead of the innocent victims they usually target.

What sparked this tirade? Several things, but not least was a conversation with a friend whose job takes him to investigate terrorist activities in many different places. He confided that a recent scene blamed on the Israeli's was actually the result of an incompetent attempt to manufacture a Peroxide Based explosive. It demolished a block of flats, but the local police and Hamas operatives managed to "find" evidence of and "Israeli missile", pieces of a missile to be sure, but actually from several different missiles of different age and not of Israeli manufacture - yet the Western Media faithfully broadcast the "evidence" in the face of Israeli denial. Therein lies the real problem, the media simply do not want to know the "truth" of anything and simply don't believe any "oppressors" statements whether the evidence suggest its true or not.

Put simply, I am now of the opinion that this government is anti-Israel, that this is confirmed by the ease with which anti-Jewish propaganda is circulated and spread among the chattering classes who rule us and by the open bias of the media and the so-called "Aid" agencies that operate from here. The government have a vested interest in being anti-Israel, after all, it was a Labour Government that attempted to hand over Palastine to an Arab regime that had publically declared that it would drive every Jew into the sea. They have never forgiven the Jews for defying them and eventually winning a war the British Government of the time was confident they would lose. Every Labour Government since then has quietly encouraged the Palastinian cause and tried to undermine the Jewish one and the latest view is a prime example of this.

I find it incredible that the establishment as represented by our legal profession, our politicians and the financial sector can accuse the "Jews of Wall Street" for the collapse of the world's financial system. Can one of them please show me which wealthy Jew got Northern Rock into trouble? Or which wealthy Jew invented "Junk Bonds" or "Sub Prime Lending"? The vast majority of Jews I have had the privilege of knowing would not have gone anywhere near such shaky practices or investments since anything bad for business is bad for everyone.

OK, so I've set out my stall. Now I await the Thought Police and the Fatwas.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 17, 2008

The Arrogance of Incompetence

The publication today of a report by the Public Audit Office, since 2004 also responsible for Inspecting the Fire and Rescue Services for "efficiency", which claims that the public Fire and Rescue Services in the UK can save £200 million by using smaller fire engines and changing (again) the shift patterns demonstrates to me that the authors have no understanding of the purpose and function of a fire and rescue service and are therefore utterly and completely incompetent to even comment, never mind prepare reports for parliament, on the fire and rescue services.

As usual they claim that they have "consulted widely" and "sought expert advice" in preparing their report. Yes, as usual, they have consulted only those who agree with the outcomes that were written before the report was even commissioned. As with all such Whitehall reports, the outcomes are determined before the so-called authors are briefed and then they are directed to find the evidence that supports the outcome required. Anything which suggests a different outcome is suppressed or ignored and only that which supports the conclusion, however nebulous or untested, goes in as "proof". Let's face facts, in another few years the fire and rescue services will be so under manned and under equipped that we will be lucky if they turn up, and if the fire has spread beyond the first room at that point, contact your insurers and write off the entire building because the service will not have the manpower, the equipment or the resources to deal with anything larger than a small one room dwelling.

For the PAO to publish this garbage displays an arrogance that would almost beggar belief were it not matched by their ignorance of everything to do with the operation of a fire and rescue service. But then, what do you expect when qualified fire officers are being replaced up and down the country by ex-supermarket managers who are placed in charge of operations with no experience and no knowledge of fire fighting?

Mark my words, there will be a steep rise in fire losses and in deaths among fire fighters from here on - and the Civil Service and those parasites in Westminster will be to blame. I am not normally a "shroud waver" - but this simply cannot go unchallenged.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 02:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 13, 2008

Mugabe's fantasy .....

If anyone needed proof that Robert Mugabe is off his trolley, his latest fantasy has to be definitive. According to his Foreign Affairs Minister, the British Government is "waging a war of genocide in an effrt to re-colonise Zimbabwe" and has launched a "biological warfare attack" on the country. The Cholera epidemic currently killing off the population there is apparently the work of "British Agents".

The placard waving foot soldiers of ZanuPF obviously believe this garbage as they brandish their posers proclaiming "Brown's Germ War". Sadly, I have no doubt that many in organisations like Amnesty and the Civil Liberties/Human Rights mob will now spend inordinate amounts of time and our money trying to establish what the British Government and specifically our armed forces or MI5 might have done to "introduce" this agent. The simple truth is that with all normal health, hygiene and welfare services destroyed by that monster Mugabe and his cronies, Cholera and several more highly contagious diseases, always present in populations where housing is basic and sewage and water supplies can contaminate one another, are always present. With reasonable medical services any outbreaks are usually caught early and contained - but not where the infrastructure has been so badly degraded.

I confidently predict that before much longer an explosion in the vermin population will see bubonic plague make a re-appearance. Impossible you say? Its been eradicated? No, it is still out there, but control of vermin in towns has kept it at bay, Zimbabwe could well see the first major outbreak with rubbish uncollected and a burgeoning rat population. Ironically, our wonderful Labour Government and their cronies in local government have almost succeeded in creating the medieval conditions which gave rise to the rapid spread of that disease in this country with their attempt to force us into greater recycling - by reducing the rubbish collections from weekly to fortnightly. In Mugabe's Zimbabwe, he's gone one better, don't collect it and let the rats and the starving eat it. Certainly solves the landfill problem.

Mugabe and his cronies learned their lessons well from the Labour Propagandists who funded them in exile and supported them "morally and ideologically" here in the UK during the Smith UDI years and the Bush War. Propaganda need conatin no more than a kernel of truth for the vast bulk of those receiving it, to believe it. This has been the great success of the Communist and Socialist propagandists through the 20th Century - and Mugabe is an apt pupil. He has repeated the story of the "British want to re-colonise" Zimbabwe so often that there are people who now believe him. Now he has an outbreak of a vicious disease and he immediately screams - "See! I told you so! Now the British are trying to kill you all!" Smoke and mirrors works every time if you control the media and can spin the story any way you like. Sadly, a lot of his own people will believe this cr*p and some of them are right here in the UK.

The truly terrible part of all this is that British taxpayers put this arrogant lunatic into power. The very government he now labels an 'enemy' has done their utmost to defend him and excuse him right up to the moment they could no longer ignore his rapacious destrcution of the legacy he was given on a platter. And now we can do no more than watch him destroy his people and his country.

And Mugabe's fantasy will kill still more of his people before someone, somewhere, removes him and his vile henchmen from the scene. Wouldn't it be ironic if it was a simple bacterium that his incompetence has let looseamong his own people. Now that would be justice!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:23 AM | TrackBack

December 11, 2008

Something stinks in the State of ....

I suppose it is a very sad reflection on the society nearly forty years of socialist meddling and social engineering have created - and not just in the UK. The Civil Libertarians and Child Protection/Rights lobbies have created a "Youth Culture" and a disrespect for others and the law that is now straining the very fabric of our civilisation. Why am I saying this? Very simple, the son of my publisher was attacked at a friend's birthday party last Saturday night by three boys from his school and beaten into unconsciousness in the presence of witnesses. The attack was unprovoked and apparently fueled purely by "let's rough him up a bit." Apparently this is known as "Happy Slapping" and is often filmed on a camera phone so it can be shared with all their cronies. It put their victim in A&E for several hours in an unconscious state and even now there may be injuries that have not fully revealed themselves.

The Police have shown themselves remarkably reluctant to actually interview the victim or to get on with pressing charges of assault. Probably they are motivated by a sense that, as this will go to a "youth" court, there is little point - because "youth courts" notoriously try to protect the perpetrators and further victimise the victim - I have another example of that closer to home. To make matters worse, I am told that the parents of the attackers phoned the Headmaster of the school involved to ask if the father of the victim intended to press charges - not to find out what damage had been done or what injuries he had suffered. The only thing they are concerned about is protecting their violent offspring from the consequences of their actions.

All I can say is that if this was my son, the Chief Constable and the Chairman of the Police Authority would by now be facing angry demands for action, the Headmaster would have a letter from a lawyer demanding disciplinary action against the boys concerned and the parents would be receiving writs for "pain, distress and damage" arising from the assault. Yes, it would cost me, yes it would probably make me a lot of enemies and I have no doubt that there would be enormous pressure from the school and the police to "let it drop", but I am far to much like my Grandfather - cut one of mine and I bleed.

The news is full of these cases and we constantly have the politicians wittering on about more legislation and more "responsibility", but they are the very ones that have created this society of "do as you please - its your 'right'" amoing our young people. The sad thing is that these yobs will one day graduate from university, paid for by the taxpayers they abuse and scorn, and go on to become the next generation of parents raising yobs. All protected from the consequences of their actions by the police, the twisted legal system and the hand-wrining politcians.

Something stinks in the State of Cool Britannia - and it is easily identified. It is the complete loss of morality and values right at the heart of the political class and in Whitehall. Yes, it stinks.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 10, 2008

Vanishing armed forces ....

I recently bought a copy of the International Fleet Review, a journal that looks at naval forces around the world and almost boiled with rage as I read the editorial. The writer has done an excellent job of assembling his facts and they reveal the true cost of the last ten years of socialist liberal incompetence to this nation. Our once proud Royal Navy has been reduced from a fleet of one hundred and eighty four ships when Blair and his thieves took power to a force which will dip below 80 ships before any of the new ones on order come on line. Worse, in order to "save money" the Fleet Air Arm has been reduced to a helicopter force only and must embark RAF aircraft and pilots if it needs fixed wing fighters and bombers. They tried that in the 1930's and it is the reason the Navy had to start the war with the obsolete Fairey Swordfish "Stringbags" as its only operational aircraft. But Nu Labour and this coterie of Scottish and Welsh anarchists have no love of any "British" institutions and certainly no love of the Armed Forces - especially the Navy.

These cuts in manning and in materiele mean that as of this month, there will be no Naval patrol based at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. Watch this space for a deal that hands the islands over the Argentina in the next few years the way these same treasonous morons have tried to hand over Gibralter to Spain against the wishes of the people of Gibralter.

The Navy is not alone in suffering these cuts. The Army has all but lost its Main Battle Tank capability, the RAF is reduced to mainly a transport role and even with the new Typhoon Eurofighters coming on stream is still woefully under strength and under equipped. The list is almost endless - and Labour refuses to increase the Defence spend which is around half the EU average. Face it, Labour HATES the military, it represents everything most Labour voters and most Labour MPs are not, disciplined, competent and proud. To the Labour Aparatchik that spells "elitist" and note how they have done everything in their power to make it impossible for the military to actually do their job. First comes orders not to return fire if attacked in the Shatt al Arab, then they are forbidden to intervene when a ship is seized by pirates. Our troops face charges of "murder" for defending themselves when attacked and killing any enemy or anyone supporting the enemy thanks to Cheri Blair's cronies in the "Human Rights/Civil Liberties" lobby who rush to bring charges of murder against the troops as soon as they are in a battle anywhere.

Maintenance of ships, vehicles and aircraft is all "contracted out" to private companies and even our armaments manufacturing has been sold off to foreign owners so that now our people have to rely on euqipment bought in from potential enemies.

It is a disgrace - and one that every Labour voter ought to take personal responsibility for. This country has been reduced to impotence by the self serving incompetents of the Labour Party - but they are not alone in this betrayal - the Conservatives must take at least a part of the blame for their cuts in the 1980's and 1990's to deliver the "Peace Dividend" that was supposed to flow from the ending of the Cold War. Have we seen "peace"? of course not - the end of the Cold War left the world in a more unstable and volatile state than ever - and the W*nk*rs of Whitehall and the Wastralls of Westminster continue to cut the Defence Budgets - in fact, our wonderful Prime Minister is vehement in his opposition to any funding for defence.

I wonder why?

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 09, 2008

Human Rights - Was Mister Straw admitting he's got it wrong?

It seems that The Right Dishonourable Minister of Justice, none other than that great upholder of Britishness, Jack Straw, is "frustrated" with the way the Human Rights Act is providing a "Villian's Charter". Oh dear, oh dear. I wonder if there is irony in this? After all, Mister Straw was the one who, as Home Secretary, introduced this legislation in the face of warnings that it would create enormous problems within the British Legal system. Ironic too, that he is a member of a government that has eroded our ancient rights to freedom of speech, freedom of thought and privacy like no other democratic government in history - and, in fact, like very few of the world's most draconian dictatorships.

Under this government our ancient right to privacy has been removed, eroded by the Security legislation they have introduced, Child Protection legislation and so-called prevention of religious hatred legislation. We are monitored by forests of CCTV cameras, our use of everyday idiomatic expressions is criticised as betraying our racist thoughts by the PC Police, and even photographing your grandchildren can lead to your being subjected to a grilling from the Gauliters of the Child Protection movement - or worse - to your detention for questioning by the police. It says it all really when a photograph of a Pop bands CD cover on Wikipedia is decalred "Child Pornography" by some Whitehall Nanny and they attempt to block anyone in the UK from accessing it. Take your camera or your PC in for repair and the Thought Police will be going through its stored files (and the deleted ones) in search of evidence that you are a paedophile or a sexual predator and prosecution will follow - as a Chief Fire Officer has recently discovered when his laptop was stolen. On being recovered it wasn't given back to him - oh, no - the police searched through the files on it for any "unlawful" activity. He's now being investigated for offences involving the making of pornographic images .....

But Mister Straw is now proposing that we have another piece of legislation, one which will "balance" Human Rights with responsibilities. Oh? Really? And does Mrs Blair approve? After all, she is the one that insisted on us adopting this worthless Villian's Charter in the first place and she and her Chambers have done very nicely out of it thank you. So have various "Civil Liberties" lobbies and not a few terrorists. I think the question is not "Do we need new legislation to address the balance between rights and responsibilities?" but, "Do we need the Human Rights Act at all?" I think the answer is no we do not. Neither do we need all the nannying and "Big Brother" survellance - if our police were allowed to deal with yobs as they used to in the 1950's before the "liberal" "rights" mob perverted every aspect of the law, we wouldn't need the CCTV. Likewise, if crime were punished instead of rewarded.

The law in this country has been perverted to the point where the law abiding are no longer protected and the criminal has more rights than the victims. Its time to change that. Come to think of it its time to rid ourselves of this current crop of Pot smoking 1960's boycotters, hippies and "activists" who have spent a lifetime undermining demorcacy and now have imposed a "Big Brother" society that would horrify George Orwell and cause our forefathers who fought two world wars for this nations freedom to take up arms against them.

Perhaps that's why Gordon Brown has cut the Defence budgets and our Armed Forces to a parlace state of under strength and over committed exhaustion. He's afraid they might.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 16, 2008

Publishing update ....

Just as I was about to post today an email pinged in from my publisher. The pressure on the printers at this time of the year is impacting on the publishers. My book may now appear in print late in this week or early next. It will take another two to three weeks to appear on the Amazon site from experience and probably a week or more to appear on any other "online" book seller.

Oh well, at least the marketting will have gathered momentum by then - I hope. I guess I'm just a bit paranoid about this now, I've waited so long for this moment that I'm being very impatient, but I'm also very conscious of the cometition and when you have ventured as much as I have on getting this to the publisher in terms of time and effort, I'm naturally just a teeny bit anxious to see it actually selling and reaching an audience. Out of Time has done well without the big publicity machine behind it, with publicity I'm hoping that The enemy is within will do even better - and pull in some more sales for Out of Time in the process.

Well, back to reality I guess, I'd better get some more paying work done. Time to bank with the bank again, they seem to get ever so twitchy when they bank with me.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 05:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 14, 2008

A little excursion in search of a visa ....

Last week I took my passport to the Embassy of Kazakhstan to apply for a visa - their consular section which deals with this is open between 0900 and 1200 on four days of the week only. Second, the don't offer a "same day service" even for those of us who have to travel considerable distances just to get it.

Perhaps I should explain that to get to London from my neck of the woods takes a minimum of 2 hours by train - no one in his right mind takes a car into central London if you don't need to! - and to get there between 0900 and 1200 means setting out very early. My train leaves Evesham at 0754 and arrives in London at 0935 and then you have the Underground to contend with. OK, so you would think that, even given the restricted times of opening, it should be a doddle to get the visa, even if it means posting the visa and passport. Er, well, normally - yes.

But apparently not at this particular embassy. An envelop was provided, the requisite fee paid to ensure it was posted "recorded delivery" and, as it would arrive while I was away in Chester, I had even arranged for the postman to deliver it to a neighbour. All to no avail - the passport failed to show up. The Post Office denied all knowledge, the Embassy failed to answer emails or the telephone (Perpetually engaged!) and so, it was off to London this morning to confront the consulate and find the passport even if it meant refusal of a visa and a "diplomatic incident".

Surprise, surprise, a brief search by their staff turned up the passport in the original envelop, with the story that it had been posted, but returned by the Royal Mail as "undeliverable" the following morning. Hmmmm, my Postie is a man who knows the score and he denies ever seeing it. Notably I wasn't given the chance to see the front of the envelop. My money is on its not having been posted at all.

Never mind, I now have the passport and the visa. So its off to Kazakhstan for me next Saturday. Hi Ho, I do get to the strangest and most interesting places sometimes and this will be no exception - as long as Messers Putin, Obama and Bush don't decide to start WW3.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:44 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 09, 2008

A world gone by - thrown away by spineless politcians and bureaucrats ....

A friend in Australia sent me this some time ago. Having read it I decided it should be posted here on the date in the poem but other things prevented it. So here it is.....

The Anzac on the Wall

I wandered thru a country town 'cos I had time to spare,
And went into an antique shop to see what was in there.
Old Bikes and pumps and kero lamps, but hidden by it all,
A photo of a soldier boy - an Anzac on the Wall.

"The Anzac have a name?" I asked. The old man answered "No,.
The ones who could have told me mate, have passed on long ago.
The old man kept on talking and, according to his tale,
The photo was unwanted junk bought from a clearance sale.

"I asked around," the old man said, "but no one knows his face,
He's been on that wall twenty years, deserves a better place.
For some one must have loved him so, it seems a shame somehow."
I nodded in agreement and then said, "I'll take him now."

My nameless digger's photo, well it was a sorry sight
A cracked glass pane and a broken frame - I had to make it right
To prise the photo from its frame I took care just in case,
"Cause only sticky paper held the cardboard back in place.

I peeled away the faded screed and much to my surprise,
Two letters and a telegram appeared before my eyes
The first reveals my Anzac's name, and regiment of course
John Mathew Francis Stuart - of Australia's own Light Horse.

This letter written from the front, my interest now was keen
This note was dated August seventh 1917
"Dear Mum, I'm at Khalasa Springs not far from the Red Sea
They say it's in the Bible - looks like Billabong to me.

"My Kathy wrote I'm in her prayers she's still my bride to be
I just cant wait to see you both you're all the world to me
And Mum you'll soon meet Bluey, last month they shipped him out
I told him to call on you when he's up and about."

"That bluey is a larrikin, and we all thought it funny
He lobbed a Turkish hand grenade into the Co's dunny.
I told you how he dragged me wounded in from no man's land
He stopped the bleeding closed the wound with only his bare hand."

"Then he copped it at the front from some stray shrapnel blast
It was my turn to drag him in and I thought he wouldn't last
He woke up in hospital, and nearly lost his mind
Cause out there on the battlefield he'd left one leg behind."

"He's been in a bad way mum, he knows he'll ride no more
Like me he loves a horse's back he was a champ before.
So Please Mum can you take him in, he's been like my brother
Raised in a Queensland orphanage he' S never known a mother."

But Struth, I miss Australia mum, and in my mind each day
I am a mountain cattleman on high plains far away
I'm mustering white-faced cattle, with no camel's hump in sight
And I waltz my Matilda by a campfire every night

I wonder who rides Billy, I heard the pub burnt down
I'll always love you and please say hooroo to all in town".
The second letter I could see was in a lady's hand
An answer to her soldier son there in a foreign land

Her copperplate was perfect, the pages neat and clean
It bore the date November 3rd 1917.
"T'was hard enough to lose your Dad, without you at the war
I'd hoped you would be home by now - each day I miss you more"

"Your Kathy calls around a lot since you have been away
To share with me her hopes and dreams about your wedding day
And Bluey has arrived - and what a godsend he has been
We talked and laughed for days about the things you've done and seen"

"He really is a comfort, and works hard around the farm,
I read the same hope in his eyes that you wont come to harm.
Mc Connell's kids rode Billy, but suddenly that changed
We had a violent lightning storm, and it was really strange."

"Last Wednesday just on midnight, not a single cloud in sight
It raged for several minutes, it gave us all a fright
It really spooked your Billy - and he screamed and bucked and reared
And then he rushed the sliprail fence, which by a foot he cleared"

"They brought him back next afternoon, but something's changed I fear
It's like the day you brought him home, for no one can get near
Remember when you caught him with his black and flowing mane?
Now Horse breakers fear the beast that only you can tame,"

"That's why we need you home son" - then the flow of ink went dry-
This letter was unfinished, and I couldn't work out why.
Until I started reading the letter number three
A yellow telegram delivered news of tragedy

Her son killed in action - oh - what pain that must have been
The Same date as her letter - 3rd November 17
This letter which was never sent, became then one of three
She sealed behind the photo's face - the face she longed to see.

And John's home town's old timers -children when he went to war
Would say no greater cattleman had left the town before.
They knew his widowed mother well - and with respect did tell
How when she lost her only boy she lost her mind as well.

She could not face the awful truth, to strangers she would speak
"My Johnny's at the war you know , he's coming home next week."
They all remembered Bluey he stayed on to the end
A younger man with wooden leg became her closest friend

And he would go and find her when she wandered old and weak
And always softly say "yes dear - John will be home next week."
Then when she died Bluey moved on, to Queensland some did say
I tried to find out where he went, but dont know to this day

And Kathy never wed - a lonely spinster some found odd
She wouldn't set foot in a church - she'd turned her back on God
John's mother left no will I learned on my detective trail
This explains my photo's journey, that clearance sale

So I continued digging cause I wanted to know more
I found John's name with thousands in the records of the war
His last ride proved his courage - a ride you will acclaim
The Light Horse Charge at Beersheba of everlasting fame

That last day in October back in 1917
At 4pm our brave boys fell - that sad fact I did glean
That's when John's life was sacrificed, the record's crystal clear
But 4pm in Beersheba is midnight over here.......

So as John's gallant spirit rose to cross the great divide
Were lightning bolts back home a signal from the other side?
Is that why Billy bolted and went racing as in pain?
Because he'd never feel his master on his back again?

Was it coincidental? same time - same day - same date?
Some proof of numerology, or just a quirk of fate?
I think it's more than that, you know, as I've heard wiser men,
Acknowledge there are many things that go beyond our ken

Where craggy peaks guard secrets neath dark skies torn asunder
Where hoofbeats are companions to the rolling waves of thunder
Where lightning cracks like 303's and ricochets again
Where howling moaning gusts of wind sound just like dying men

Some Mountain cattlemen have sworn on lonely alpine track
They've glimpsed a huge black stallion - Light Horseman on his back.
Yes Sceptics say, it's swirling clouds just forming apparitions
Oh no, my friend you cant dismiss all this as superstition

The desert of Beersheba - or windswept Aussie range
John Stuart rides forever there - Now I dont find that strange.
Now some gaze at this photo, and they often question me
And I tell them a small white lie, and say he's family.

"You must be proud of him." they say - I tell them, one and all,
That's why he takes the pride of place - my Anzac on the Wall.

A memorial I hope to all those who gave their lives to keep our freedom and to build a better future - a future squandered and thrown away by the wastralls and spineless policticians of every Western nation who could only think of their own comfort, avarice and the power they have stolen from the men and women who gave their all for our freedom ...

Posted by The Gray Monk at 01:27 PM

November 07, 2008

Sharia through the back door

In another blunder by a government that specialises in blunders, they have legalised Sharia Courts - by passing an Act with holes big enough to drive a double decker bus through it. Read the Timesonline article and mourn for the demise of Christian Western Britain.

Interestingly the same media circus that attacked the Archbishop of Canterbury for suggesting that elements of the Sharia could be used within our system, have remained extremely silent on this little issue. Equally interesting is that only one politician has so far denounced the development - but he isn't a member of the government.

So much for "One nation; one justice system." Watch this space, it could be the beginning of the end for the now fatally eroded "British Nation".

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Kazakhstan? Where's that?

Well, OK, I do have a vague idea. Somewhere behind the Himalayas and beyond the Caspian Sea. Sort of outpost on the Silk Road kind of place. Well, I'm due to speak at a conference there in a couple of weeks, so today I'm off to London to get the visa. I hope.

Blogging may be a little short today.

FOOTNOTE: Thought I'd posted this yesterday - but obviously was in too much of a hurry!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 03, 2008

The Dawkins Delusion

A commenter left a link to a very funny reworking of Gilbert and Sullivan's famous "patter" song, "I am the very model of a modern Major-General" and it is worth dropping by to have a read of it. The Emerson Avenger has obviously taken about as much of this pompous git's insulting our intellect and our faith as I have.

I do like his riposte though!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:04 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 02, 2008

There is no God but Dawkins ...

I'm getting a little tired of the media acclaim for the man who has to be the arch-bigot of our time, Richard Dawkins. The arrogance of this man is the only thing that surpasses his own ego. Now it appears we are also to be subjected to adverts emblazoning busses proclaiming that "There is probably no God". Well, is there or isn't there? Is it that Professor Dawkins is uncertain?

No he is certain there is no God, at least according to his "proofs" there isn't, but to stay clear of the laws against offending Islam and one or two other religious bodies (But NOT Christianity which seems to be fair game for every crackpot and ignoramus going!) the ads have to allow for "interpretation" and allow the possibility that "proof" may yet surface which changes Dawkins mind. Personally I'd say its unlikely, like most of his ilk they don't want a debate unless it agrees with their argument. Anyone who has watched Dawkins or any of his fellow travellers response to any attempt to present a counter case to their blinkered and gigotted view will know that they fall back immediately to sarcastic and ill-informed quotations taken completely out of context and without any consideration of alternative interpretations. Frequently they are misquoting and even mismatching and mangling two and even three different sources into one.

OK, so if you';ve read "The God Delusion" you might find it persuasive. Frankly I do not, simply because in every "proof" Dawkins advances there is a large element of the inexplicable. In addition, he fails to realise that he is himself falling into the oldest trap in the Book, be it the Bible, the Quran or the Kama Sutra. The absence of belief in God does not mean the absence of belief - belief and faith stemming from that belief is simply transfered to something else - in Dawkins case he "believes" in the "scientific proofs" he advances as "proof" that God doesn't exist, that this life is it, finished, comlete and total. Ergo, for Richard Dawkins, there is no God but Richard Dawkins.

There are now several ripostes to Dawkins available, perhaps the best is McGrath's "The Dawkins Delusion". Unsurprisingly in the light of an official campaign to denigrate all forms of Christianity by the Westminster government and their Whitehall W*nk*rs, none of these are getting the attention the obnoxious Dawkins gets from the BBC and their fellow left wing propagandists. Secularist Humanism is the government's unoffical line and the spate of attacks in the press, on television and in every Christian forum on the internet by socalled pagans and atheists (Who noticeably avoid going onto any Muslim, Budhist or Hindu Forum to insult their beliefs) one must conclude that there is now in operation an official policy of persecution of Christianity. Don't believe me? Just visit the BBC website and look for the Radio 4 Christian Forum.

It is subtle and so far doesn't go as far as the campaign against Judaism has been allowed to go with Synagogues regul;arly defaced or attacked and Jewish graves defaced and desecrated - but it is not a large step to that from this current position. And the real problem underlying it is that the incompetents in Whitehall genuinely do not understand the differences between faiths when they yammer on about "multi-faith" and tolerance. Worse, they believe the lies that Dawkins and his supporters peddle at every opportunity about Christianity having been responsible for all the wars in history, for slavery and for every form of bigotry they themselves display.

Frankly I find Dawkins offensive, I find his ideas and his abuse of science to support them offensive, but above all, I find his assault on my freedom to believe in a universal and omnipotent God deeply offensive. He may choose to believe in himself if he wishes, but let him and his supporters keep it to themselves.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 02:03 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 30, 2008

What's Gordon Brown got to laugh about?

Well, I don't know who put this on You Tube - but do pay it a visit, it explains just what is making Gordo laugh - and who he's laughing at. And this one is by a reputable economist who has provided proof that Brown was warned that his policies were heading us toward an inevitable bust!

Interesting that the changes Labour (Gordon Brown) made to our financial regulations are the single major contributing factor to this present BUST. Yup, Gordo's got a lot to laugh at.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 03:07 PM | TrackBack

October 29, 2008

Collapsing £ound

In all seriousness, the value of the pound sterling is falling dramatically - something our closet communists in Whitehall and Westminster must be relishing as they watch their goal of ditching the Pound and surrendering the last vestiges of our sovereignty. With Gordon Brown destroying the last vestiges of capitalism in our economy with his mismanagement of the remaining commercial and industrial activities still in British ownership it is a mere matter of time before we are returned to being the basket case of Europe. This is how Labour did it in the 1960's and they are busy doing it again.

Take a look at the realities of "British" business. Almost all of our merchant shipping is now owned and operated by foreign based companies. All our manufacturing industry is owned and operated by foreign based companies. We import most of our food and even our so-called "capital" is managed and "owned" by foreign owned banks.

I will make some predictions here.

1. The pound will vanish after the next election - which Labour will win by virtue of their gerrymandering and propaganda manipulations, and
2. The government will then start attempting to nationalise and centralise the economy in a communist style return to "Command Economics" . Jobs will vanish as the real owners pull their investments out of the country, something that is already happening as the government attempts to nationalise and take control of the banks - foreign money is running before the Whitehall W*nk*rs can get their hands on it.

And the last prediction, two thousand years of the English Monarchy will vanish as Brown and his greedy incompetents finally wreak their "vengeance" on England and dismember it.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Stock market operations

Once upon a time in a village named Caveat Emptor, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching some of the few remaining monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each."

The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys. Then they never saw the man, nor his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere!

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 28, 2008

Overcrowded trains on the Tube?

Not any more. In a creative solution that leaves one almost breathless for the sheer "chutzpah" (A Yiddish word which is a lot more polite than the Anglo-Saxon 'B***ls') Transport for London have solved their overcrowding problem at the stroke of a pen. It proves that the pen is indeed far more dangerous than the sword, especially in the hands of career politicians and bureaucrats.

Its official, the tubes are no longer overcrowded in London. No, there are no extra trains and no extra carriages, nor are there extra busses or bigger busses. So how have they done it? Selective passenger arrangements? Nope. Restrictions on travel at rush hour perhaps? Nope.

Its so simple its breathtaking.

They changed the definition of "Overcrowding". It used to be 30 people standing in a carriage. Now, to be overcrowded, there have to be 60 standing .....

Spotted in a London Underground carriage - the next step in beating "overcrowding" perhaps?

As I said, breathtaking in its simplicity!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 12:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 24, 2008

Socialist asset grab?

One of the BBC Chatrooms is currently running a discussion forum which seems to be being led by smeone who is a form believer in communist central planned economics. Having read this idiots ranting, I'm afraid I failed to join the discussion - one which seems to be a revival meeting of the Socialist Workers/British Communist Party. All the usual arguments are being trotted out for tighter regulation, state control of wealth, industry, commerce and the distribution of jobs, benefits, wealth, education and everything else. It seems that there is always someone who believes that the unworkable socialist/communist system of "command economics" can be made to work and will, somehow, ensure a fairer political and economic system.

I can recall discussions when I was a lot younger, which centred on the idea of everyone being paid the same rate no matter what the role. I always seemed to be the one who pricked the bubble - by simply pointing out that there was no way I would accept responsibility for managing a factory if I was paid the same wage as the man who swept the floors. Inevitably I was always branded as "reactionary" and "weddedto an outdated and unfair system." Maybe, or maybe I was just being pragmatic.

Yes, the greedy MBA toting wide boys who have infested the Financial Trading Halls and the Boardrooms of once great and responsible companies have played fast a loose with the assets of their shareholders and investors. Yes, they deserve to be taken to task and, if appropriate, relieved of their lucrative positions, but not to be replaced by even more incompetent Civil Servants and politicians whose MBA's are from the same universities and the only difference between them is that the Civil Servants, in the former Soviet Union labelled the "Nomenclatura", are not sufficiently entrepenuerial to run a company. Take a look at their track record and how they have ruined almost every public service and preside over the wastage of vast amounts of public money annually. What makes anyone think this shower could possibly manage the instruments of wealth creation any better than the wide boys currently ruining it? As for their ability to distribute it more fairly? You have to be joking - they are no different from the idiots who have ruined the banks and will look after their own interests at every turn. The only beneficiaries under any socialist/communist economy is the Party Apparatchiks and the Nomenclatura themselves. And look what they managed to do to every economy they have ever managed.

We need to ensure that our socialist politicians do not make this recession the excuse to seize our assets and appropriate to themselves and those who have done nothing to earn it, what does not belong to them or to their sycophants. Already the Chancellor has nationalised three of the biggest banks, we should be alarmed by this - and those who continue to try to capitalise on the current difficulty should be cautious - lest they play directly into the hands of the asset grabbers.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 22, 2008

Selective sciences

I have always had some respect for the World Wildlife Fund or WWF, they did quite a good job on a number of fronts in my view, helping to save a lot of our rarer animals from extinction, the Panda, the Siberian Tiger and one or two other notables among them. But now I'm not sure what they are up too. Firstly, like Greenpeace and Fiends of the Earth, they have strayed into the realms of pseudo-science, and that I will not give money to support.

What has sparked this tirade? Well, I came across a little gem in the Daily Telegraph, a stunning photo that shows that the Arctic ice sheet has almost vanished. Or has it? Digging around I discovered that the Telegraph has fallen for a "new" report published by the WWF that says we are heating up the planet faster than even the most hysterical of the "Global Warming" pundits has previously foamed at the mouth over. Tim at An Englishman's Castle certainly has picked up on this as well, but the most telling information I found comes from Watts Up With That? and a fascinating piece he has on this issue.

Or you can go directly to the best photos of the Ice Caps available - at The Cryosphere Today. These are updated daily and show the extent of the sea ice and its thickness - and interestingly they show more ice than the Telegraph/WWF pictures show.

Now I'm not a suspicious man, but the fact that the WWF pictures show not a vestige of cloud suggests that someone has "cleaned up" the images - I wonder if, in the process, and all accidental like - a bit of ice got cleaned off the pictures as well?

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 20, 2008

Credit crunch

The forcasts don't look good, in fact the latest suggestion is that, contrary to Whitehall's rose tinted visions from the Treasury, the UK economy is already in recession. This will be the second one I have had to survive in the last twenty years and it is probably all the more annoying because, if anything, the Whitehall w*nkers and their political chums in the Cabinet have ably helped to plunge us into it. Interestingly they now are crying that MORE regulations are required, when I am convinced that at least one of the reasons so much of our manufacturing capacity, not to mention almost all of our mainstay commercial activity, is now based "offshore" is precisely because the "regulation" in the EU has reached stupid proportions.

Yes, the financial sector probably does need a bit more commonsense applied in their dealings, after all most of the "trading" in the finance markets (as on the Stock Market) is little better than what one can find in any betting shop on the High Street. The stakes are higher and the odds longer, but its still no more than gambling on a monumental scale - and best of all, the traders win regardless of whether they lose the lot or not. Never bock the "House Percentage" is the maxim they need reminding of, but now that Mister Darling has Nationalised two of our biggest banks on the excuse that they have "borrowed" Public Money, I do not hold out a great deal of hope for anything more than financial stagnation of the worst kind. I know they haven't put Civil Servants on the Boards (Yet!) but the directors they have installed will be having their strings pulled by politicians. In short, the banks will not be allowed to respond to market demand, and everything will grind to a halt. And watch the Red Tape that will now erupt out of Brussels and the Whitehall back rooms.

I do not believe that "Public Ownership" is a solution to the spread of wealth, if anything the Century of Socialist/Communist Command econmics demonstrated by the former USSR and even our own dear Labour Party machinations in the 1950's and 60's should have proved that. But it seems that Whitehall is still in loive with the idea and the very last people who should have any say in the management of anything at all, especially something as important as the national economy, are the Civil Servants who are now being given control of it. If you want something to die on its feet, put some Civil Servants in charge of it. It may take a while, but they will kill it as surely as poison will kill a fit human being. Take a look at the record of Civil Service management of any nationalised industry anywhere, or any major project managed by civil servants in the last half century. I rest my case!

What is worse, the gullible among the voting public are falling for the line that the present PM is "the best man for the job os steering us through this crisis" - a ridiculous assumption precisely because HE has created the mess we are in. He inherited a recovering and sound economy from the Tories in 1997 and has squandered it. Under his Chancellorship our taxes have risen by the Treasury's own admission by 51% and our National Debt is now the highest it has ever been in all of our history. He has embarked on a policy of raising taxes to spend, spend, spend and when he couldn't get it from the tax pool he borrowed and borrowed. This is as bad as the Pre-Thatcher Labour Government whose solution to needing more money was to simply let the printing presses print as much as they wanted. That got this country into a financial crisis that put us under IMF management!

Yes, the Credit Crunch is the result of stupidty and greed in the Finacial Markets and among our top bankers, but they are not solely to blame, some of it must rest with the politicans who have created the climate in which that could happen. And you can be very sure that they won't be reducing their salaries or pension benefits anytime soon.

Snouts in the trough! We're alright Jack, we're inboard!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 01:30 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 18, 2008

A legal step too far?

If anything was proof that the legal profession will do anything if someone is paying is the case brought by a State Senator in the US against God, for "Threatening to bring widespread death, destruction amd terrorism to him and the people of Nebraska." Seems to me that he missed the target, it might have been better to sue the hellfire and damnation fundamentalists there who persist in preaching the anger of God instead of the love He so clearly displays. Perhaps the Judge who dismissed the case deserbes a pat on the back - but when you look at the reason for dismissing it, you wonder.

Why was it dismissed? Because God doesn't have an address to which the summons can be delivered.

In Britain this would be called a "vexatious suit" and the perpetrator sent down with a hefty fine for wasting the court's time. In the US apparently, or in Nebraska anyway, the Senator is considering an appeal.

I am reminded that a group of Rabbis, incarcerated in Auschwitz, tried God in a court they convened in the Camp, charging Him with failure to prevent the wholesale murder of the Jewish people in Germany and the occupied countries. After considering all the angles carefully they decided that the only verdict they could bring was "Not guilty" as "The ways of God are not to be understood by the minds of men, nor is His will to be questioned." A point made in the final Chapter of the Book of Jonah.

State Senator Chambers seems to me to be wasting both the court's time and the people of Nebraskas money in a stupid gesture to make political capital. He would not be my choice on any ballot were I a voter in his constituency. The legal system has better and more important things to do than waste time on self serving and self important stunts perpetrated by bigoted idiots.

Legal case against God dismissed

The plaintiff argued an omniscient God would know of the lawsuit
A US judge has thrown out a case against God, ruling that because the defendant has no address, legal papers cannot be served.

The suit was launched by Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers, who said he might appeal against the ruling.

He sought a permanent injunction to prevent the "death, destruction and terrorisation" caused by God.

Judge Marlon Polk said in his ruling that a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a case to proceed.

"Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice," Judge Polk wrote in his ruling.

Mr Chambers cannot refile the suit but may appeal.

'God knows everything'

Mr Chambers sued God last year. He said God had threatened him and the people of Nebraska and had inflicted "widespread death, destruction and terrorisation of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants".

He said he would carefully consider Judge Polk's ruling before deciding whether to appeal.

The court, Mr Chambers said, had acknowledged the existence of God and "a consequence of that acknowledgement is a recognition of God's omniscience".

"Since God knows everything," he reasoned, "God has notice of this lawsuit."

Mr Chambers, a state senator for 38 years, said he filed the suit to make the point that "anyone can sue anyone else, even God".

Posted by The Gray Monk at 04:28 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 15, 2008

Saving the world or a cunning take-over?

It is difficult to see what else the government of this and several other countries could have done in the face of a collapsing financial sector, but it must also set alarm bells sounding in every free citizens ears. Two of the UK's (and Europe's) largest Banks have now effectively been nationalised by our Chancellor. Hoorah! Scream all the Socialist Closet Communistas - at last! They now have control of the money supply and therefore the distribution of wealth. Frankly, that in itself, is enough to make all right thinking people want to emigrate immediately! What is their next move? Nationalisation of industry is out - they've destroyed what we had, so probably all commercial activity will now be targeted. After all, the Left wing of the Labour Party is still wedded to the idea that the State should control all industrial and commercial activity - only a very short step away from their having control over who gets employment and who doesn't.

The financial crisis needed to be dealt with, but is giving control of the banks to political placemen (I notice that even our ex-Communist Party associate Chancellor has not placed Civil Servant Incompetents on the Boards of the Nationalised Banks, probably the only sensible thing in this debacle) the right way to do this. I agree entirely that the "rewards" for irresponsibility needed to be curtailed and the reckless gambling with what is, after all, their customers money (And most Tax Payers - Mr Darling's favourite sound bite - are also customers of these institutions) so to give the Treasury any sort of say in commercial activity is far from ideal for either customer or taxpayer. How can I say that?

Easily, these are the same incompetents who have visited upon us the Bureaucratic waste of time "Prince 2" contract management which has never delivered anything on time or on budget. And worse, the entire Civil Service is unable to deliver anything on budget, much less specify anything so that it can be. Why? Because they are none of them practitioners of the things they purport to "manage" on behalf of the tax payer. They are "generalist" managers who specialise in nothing and leap from one "empire" of their own creation to another just ahead of whatever they have ruined in the last post being uncovered.

I am automatically nervous of any politcian or Civil Servant being given control over any instrument of the wealth of the nation. Both are anathema to me, because both are biased and both will misuse the power it gives them for their own narrow and self-serving ends.

And now I will make a prediction: Watch the Financial Centre that has been at the heart of this nations wealth and economic growth for the last thirty years vanish abroad. Where will it go? Why, to the "Free Trade" zones being set up all round the Gulf, unregulated and untaxed, they will move there and escape the strictures and restrictions of Socialist Europe and the politcians vain belief that they can generate wealth and distribute it more fairly than any other system. Mark my words, in the not to distant future our wealth will have vanished and we will be in thrall to the new world economic muscle that is being built up carefully in the Middle East. They know exactly how to attract the money men just as our lot of scheming politicians can't see the danger of telling shareholders (the Owners of the banks) that they won't get a dividend "because we won't allow this use of public money" or the even greater danger of allowing all the ownership of our commercial and industrial assets to be in foreign hands.

Prime example? British Airports Authority. It should be called Spanish, just as P&O Ferries is now owned by a Dubai based company and the QE2 has been sold to someone else in the Gulf ..... Don't even ask who owns the major shares in the banks - and it isn't the UK government!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 01:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 05, 2008

Prophetic writing?

I have recently reread a book called "Erewhon" by a gentleman named Samuel Butler. And before you all start reaching for your best seller lists, I had better explain that the book was published in 1872 and is a very clever political satire in the same spirit as those written in the 18th Century by Jonathon Swift, The title is in fact an anagram of "No where" and it is a sort of anti-Utopia tract, written, I think, as a riposte to much of the Utopian social writing of the period in which so much of our current socialist thinking is rooted.

Erewhon is set in a remote part of the British Empire, a land hidden behind a virtually impenetrable range of mountains. In contrast to our own society (or the Victorians for that matter!) it is a place where beauty represents health and prosperity, illness is a criminal offence and disability leads to banishment (if you're lucky!) or death (if you're not!). Children choose their parents and "bad" parents are punished - the definition of "bad" parents being decided by the accusations of their offspring. In short, it is a society which turns on its head all the norms by which any normal society would operate. Or does it?

Butler attacks the Ecclesiatical institutions and theology of his day robustly, but as I read through this again, I suddenly found myself wondering what he would make of the society we live in. The emphasis on "Children's Rights" comes very close to what he has written in fiction more than a century ago. So does the NHS farce which allows the wealthy to bypass the blockages and bureaucratic clap-trap the rest of us have to suffer not to mention the selectivity when it comes to the availablility of some treatments and drug regimes.

For all its age and the dating of some of the technology in which it is set, it is very readable and entertaining - but do look deeper. That is the scary bit.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:54 AM | TrackBack

September 27, 2008

Stupidity on the increase?

There are definitely times when stupidity should be a capital offence. The extended post gives an example of one such - a British (I'm ashamed to say!) woman who bought a live artillery shell in France, placed it in her hand luggage and then, when stopped by French Security staff at the airport, claims not to have any idea why it caused such a fuss!

I think the only thing that tops that story is the Russian ship, carrying thirty - you got it, count them yourself - tanks which has been captured by pirates off Somalia......

One can only hope that they are not fully equipped and haven't the ammunition with them, but don't count on it.

ITN - Friday, September 26 01:07 pm An entire French airport had to be evacuated when a British woman tried to board an aircraft with a bomb in her hand luggage.

Security guards spotted the 55-year-old had a World War Two shell, used in army field guns, in her case ahead of her Ryanair flight from Bergerac, in the Dordogne, to East Midlands airport.

The woman, from Nottingham, said she had bought the 37mm military explosive in a second hand shop as a present for her husband.

As more than 1,000 passengers and staff were forced to leave the terminal building, bomb squad officers took the shell to nearby wasteland and carried out a controlled explosion.

A French police spokesman said the woman, who has not been named, was questionned at the scene.

He said: "She told us she had no idea that taking a military shell through airport security would cause such a fuss. She said she bought the device in a second hand shop because her husband collected military memorabilia."

He added: "Checks were made with the tradesman she bought it from and her story proved to be genuine, so charges will not be brought and she was allowed to leave."

The flight finally took off 90 minutes late with the woman on board, airport officials said

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:22 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

September 19, 2008

Confused signals

I find the current Archbishop of Sydney a contradictory man. First, he rails against the Lambeth Conference, saying it refuses to make decisions, precisely what it was set up NOT to do. It is essentially a "talking shop" one which allows the views of all sections of the Anglican Church to be heard and not just those with an agenda to run. He defends his non-attendance by asserting that it was "To English Centric" and does not reflect the Church in Africa or elsewhere, a charge that falls flat on the fact that the African Bishops and leaders were not only there, but took a lead in the many workshops.

But the most contradictory aspect of his charge that Lambeth is "too England centred" is his own Archdiocese's insistence on adhering to the Canons, long since repealed or modified in England and everywhere else, governing clergy dress and vestments written for an English political setting in the 16th Century. Let's face it, the Diocese of Sydney makes many of the Methodist communities look like Anglo-catholics, and the reason is simple. They stick like glue to the Rubrics and Canons of the 1662 Prayer Book which was a major compromise in itself and led to a number of divisions within the Anglican Church at its inception.

The Anglican Communion has followed the model of the Early Church in which, contrary to Rome's claims, the Diocesan Bishops held all the authority in their own Diocese. We are a synodical church and though I do not agree with a great deal its Synods decide, I am, as a member bound by the enactments of the General Synod and the Diocesan and Deanery Synods. That is the ancient model and it has worked well throughout the history of our church. Lambeth is not the Roman Curia, nor should it be. GAFCON is attempting to replace Lambeth and become a Curia - a strange situation again for Dr Jenkins because, as a member of the Ultra-Evangelical wing of the church he is linking up with Ultra-catholics who can't bring themselves to accept the Papal Authority, in order to create an sort of Anglican Curia ....

As I said, this is a very confused signal. I hope our Lord can make sense of it!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:25 AM | TrackBack

September 17, 2008

Darwin was not wrong - the Churches agree

One for the record I guess, the Anglican Church has broken over a century of silence and said publically that they owe Charles Darwin an apology. The official statement says that the Church "misunderstood" and "misrepresented" his theory. While this isn't an "official" apology, it does, in fact, reflect the Churches "official" position on the Origin of the Species.

It is interesting to note that the Roman Catholic Church has long held the same view as has the Orthodox Church. All agree that there is nothing in the theory that conflicts with the Bible and Christian Doctrine or Dogma - a position not shared by some "Protestant" fundamentalist groups. Still, the bulk of Christianity is "enlightened" enough to accept the facts as science presents them.

spokesman for the Anglican Church says it should admit it wronged Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution is still considered anti-Christian in some circles, even as it's become a cornerstone of science.

"The Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still," Rev. Malcolm Brown writes on a church Web site marking next year's 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

"There is nothing here that contradicts Christian teaching," he says, adding that the church's "reaction now seems misjudged."

While the church didn't take an official stance against Darwin, its officials — in a widely publicized 1860 debate — made nasty arguments against his theory that species evolve through natural selection, the church says on its Web site. Today, some fundamentalist Christians argue that evolution can't co-exist with the biblical story of creation — a concept gaining new traction thanks to Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who believes creationism should be taught along with evolution in schools.

Brown's statement, posted yesterday, reflects the church's position on Darwin but isn’t an official apology, the Church of England told the Associated Press. Pope John Paul II said in 1992 that the Catholic Church should say it was sorry for putting Galileo on trial over his assertion that Earth revolves around the sun.

Darwin's great-great grandson, Andrew Darwin, told Britain's Daily Mail on Saturday that he was "bemused" by the apology, which he described as "pointless."

"Why bother?" he told the newspaper. "When an apology is made after 200 years, it’s not so much to right a wrong, but to make the person or organization making the apology feel better."

Updated 5:05 p.m. Sept. 16: The Vatican says Darwin's theories are compatible with the Bible, and doesn't plan any apology like the one a Church of England spokesman suggests the Anglican Church should offer, Reuters and DPA are reporting. "Maybe we should abandon the idea of issuing apologies as if history was a court eternally in session," said Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican's culture minister. Darwin's theories, he said, were "never condemned by the Catholic Church nor was his book ever banned," according to Reuters.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:54 PM | TrackBack

September 13, 2008

Political meltdown?

Hardly, but it does seem that the present government has run into a few problems. As usual the extreme left of the Party is the first to break cover with their demands for "Windfall taxes" on everyone still managing to make a profit, but especially on the energy companies. Now, while I have some sympathy with the argument, I have to say its not as simple as a case of "mega-profit" flowing from high fuel bills. These energy giants now have very diverse activities and the supply of fuel for domestic and industrial users is actually quite a small percentage of where their income comes from. Besides which, all corporations exist only to make a profit for their shareholders and NOT for the benefit of the customer. In fact, in law (Made by the same morons who now scream for "windfall" taxes!) corporations are required to maximise the profits for their investors. The fact that they succeed in doinbg so is hardly a reason to criticise them, in fact, when they fail to do this the first to suffer are the workers most of the Windfall Tax advocates supposedly represent!

Labour has, as usual, enjoyed the fruits of the fiscal stability built by the last Conservative Government and, as usual, have shown their predilection for "Tax and Spend" - so much so that over 33% of my paltry pension is deducted in tax as is almost everything else I manage to earn now working for myself. I'm not allowed to be independent or to make a profit according to the communistas running Whitehall - that's not fair. I'm supposed to pay for the feckless and the terminally incompetent Whitehall apparatchiks and their parasite followers who have never done a complete days work. But even more interesting is how the Left of the Labour Party is suddenly emboldened by the propsect of being botted out of power. All the Old Labour mantras are being aired again, nationalisation, worker power, collectives and many other discredited ideas of the 70's are being bandied about as "back to our roots" becomes the warcry. And Gordon Brown is vulnerable, because he has never been elected as PM, he has never fought an election as PM and he is a Scottish MP ruling the English as head of HM Government. Nothing he does in Whitehall applies to his constituency in Fife. If nothing else gets him and his band of Closet Communists kicked out of power in England, it will be that.

The Civil Service is now so riddled with the Labour Apparatchiks that it will take decades to get this country back into the Black and deconstruct some of the bureaucratic crap that Labour has signed up to. Westminster has, under Labour, become increasingly irrelevant since almost everything they now debate is generated in Brussells by the totally unelected Commission and their Socialist Apparatchiks. The flow of tax money out of this country is phenomenal, particularly out of England which not only subsidises Wales and Scotland heavily - and we didn't mind as long as we had the illusion of being a "United" Kingdom - but now we subsidise Brussels and its parasites as well.

In its usual deceitful way the Labour Party has further complicated the situation by bringing in the Regional Assembly and Regionalisation through the back door. They lost the argument when it was put to voters who resoundingly rejected the concept of breaking England up into 8 independent Assemblies, but they had already put in place the expensive and unelected apparatus to run the Regions. Now they have to try and justify it in the face of opposition at every level. Do they pay any attention to the voters anger? No, but again, enter Old Labour and we hear them arguing that this brings "power to the workers" and enables local control over services. Really? Sounds more like the Soviet system to me - you'll take what we give you and like it!

Labour has a problem, a big one. They can only rule the UK if they retain all the Scoittish and Welsh MP's in Whitehall, but increasingly people are asking why they should. After all, the Scottish Parliament is now ruled by a Scottish Nationalist who wants total independence and to redraw the boundaries and seize some of the assets we have long held as common property. Nothing Westminster decodes affects Scotland, so why have any Scottish MP's in Westminster? The Welsh Assembly is acting more and more like an independent parliament, even challenging some of the Westminster/Whitehall legislation. If that continues, why have Weslh MP's in Westminster?

Blair opened Pandora's Box on this, now Brown must face the music - especially after signing away our sovereignty in the Lisbon Constitution which strips the UK Parliament of any pretence of Independence. He knew he couldn't get the voters to accept it so he lied - and now must face the music for that one as well. Personally I hope there is a challenge to his leadership - it may force a General Election and we can be shot of this bunch of 1960's pot smoking, guitar twanging, squatters, university sit-in architects, con-artists and Che Guevarra worshippers.

The downside of that is that we will only swap one lot of idiots for the other lot - and we won't be shot of the Civil Service which is the real problem in Whitehall.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 10, 2008

Collapsing justice?

The lengthy trial of the eight men accused of plotting to blow up airliners has been much in the news these last days. It seems that the jury could not, despite the evidence of videos declaring their intent, make up their minds that they actually meant what they said. To me this simply means what I have long suspected. Its time to scrap the jury system. It would seem that a section of the jury (and I suppose we have to remember that the trial lasted three months) lost track of the evidence and only allowed themselves to remember the defence teamns repeated question "Was there an intent to ....?"

The final piece that members of the jury decided supported this (the ONLY piece in fact) was the "proof" that none of the accused had actually bought a ticket to fly. Big deal, so because they were caught before they could do that, they are, according to at least six members of the jury, Not Guilty. As I said, time to scrap the jury system - you simply can't get anyone intelligent enough to serve on them anymore. Certainly not in cases like this one.

Of course, the Liberal press has gone to town declaring that the Prosecution "failed" because the evidence was "flawed". I'm pretty sure it wasn't, but some morons who serve on juries now insist on levels of "proof" that are almost impossible to achieve. Particularly when it is a case against anyone from a "disadvantaged" or "minority" background. The same idiots would convict and single white male of rape or pedophilia in the blink of an eye on far less evidence if the "victim" was from a minority group, so you see my case.

Time to scrap the juries and adopt the continental system.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:18 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

September 09, 2008

High tides ....

We are surrounded by water again. Though not as high a tide as in July last year, it is still unseasonably high. The Vineyards behind the Abbey are submerged, something we usually only see in the winter months, but at present we seem to be getting the remnants of the Caribbean's hurricanes. I know that is not the "fashion" among climatologists who claim that those storms have no connection with our, but they do follow a similar track and these are the ones that "blow themselves out" somewhere around the Carolina coast and then head off across the Atlantic following the Gulf Stream.

Today was spent in rain and wind out on the fire ground for a course in Fire Investigation (One has to earn the odd crust after all!) and the air temperatures and the humidity certainly put me in mind of the sort of conditions that go with hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons. But then, I'm not a climatologist.

Ah well, I guess its time to find the waders again.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 30, 2008

Christianophobia?

The Vatican has now issued a statement in which it alleges that the world is in the grip of growing "Christianophobia". In the extended post is the BBC's version of this statement, which, considering their own contribution to this in the UK, is pretty mild. Personally I have felt for some considerable time that there is a concerted and active policy in the UK government and among the left/liberal intelligentsia that infest the corridors of power these days, to stamp out the Christian legacy and, if possible, the faith. Of course it is not overt, they cannot afford to be open about it, but Whitehall now has "targets" for "representation by other faith groups" alongside their targets for ethnic and female representation.

The BBC and other mass media seize every opportunity to denigrate any Christian initiative and the literary field is laden with "best selling" authors like Dan Browne whose "historical" "facts" are widly misleading to say the least. Downright wrong is perhaps a better way of saying it. Anything which makes any faith, but particularly the Islamic faith, look better than Christianity is seized on and blown up to "prove" that Christianity is the root of all evil.

Well, maybe the Vatican's having come out and said it loud and clear will make the anti-Christian movement in the UK a little more cautious. You may be sure of one thing -0 there will be loud protests of innocence from Whitehall and Westminster on this - but they are as guilty as sin.

ROME (Reuters) - "Christianophobia" is a growing problem around the world and it must be fought with the same determination as anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, the Vatican said on Friday.

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Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's foreign minister, spoke in the wake of attacks against Christians in India that have left at least 13 people dead this week.

Mamberti, addressing a conference in northern Italy, said religious freedom was a vital part of international relations and human dignity.

"In order to promote this dignity in an integral way, so-called 'Christianophobia' should be combated as decisively as 'Islamophobia' and anti-Semitism," he said.

This week in eastern India, thousands of people, most of them Christians, have sought shelter in makeshift government camps, driven from their homes by religious violence.

Hindu mobs burnt more than a dozen churches and attacked Christians after a Hindu leader was killed.

Mamberti said the events in India made the issue of religious liberty today all the more pressing.

While Hindu groups accuse Christian priests of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to change their faith, the Christians say lower-caste Hindus convert willingly to escape a complex caste system.

Pope Benedict has condemned the violence against Christians in Orissa but also deplored the killing of the Hindu leader.

Italy's foreign ministry said it would summon India's ambassador to demand "incisive action" to prevent further attacks against Christians.

Mamberti said 21 Catholic missionaries were killed in the world in 2007 and lamented that the Christian population of Iraq was now down to about 500,000 from about one million before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Last month, Pope Benedict told Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that minority Christians in Iraq needed more protection.

The Archbishop of Mosul of Iraq's largest Christian denomination, the Chaldean Catholics, was kidnapped in February and found dead two weeks later.

The Vatican has often expressed concern that conflicts in the Middle East are greatly diminishing the Christian population in the areas of the religion's birth.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:12 AM | Comments (1)

August 27, 2008

Harry Potter according to Bollywood?

I find it hilarious that an Indian Film maker can launch a movie entitled "Hari Puttar" about a ten year old from the Indian sub-continent who moves to Britain (allegedly!) and claim not to be trading on the "Harry Potter" name and franchise. Well, it's for Warner Bros to sort out through the courst - expensive though that may be. It will, no doubt be fun to watch - especially as Warner Bros are having to fight the case in Bombay.

In the meantime Warner's are about to launch the latest Harry Potter film - and I for one am looking forward to seeing what they have done with the Half Blood Prince.

Could the legal challenge be part of the pre-launch publicity? Perish the thought!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 01:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 26, 2008

President Brown .....

This was sent to me by a friend (Scottish - just to prove they have a sense of humour too!) this morning. Trouble is its so close to the reality of our political situation - and our American friends understanding of it from their media that it is almost documentary.

From our own correspondent

Gordon Brown flies into Washington, still an unknown quantity to most people in the U.S. despite his bizarre appearance on American Idol recently. In advance of the trip, profiles of the Prime Minister have been appearing in the U.S. This column tuned in by satellite to Eye-Witness News, Palm Beach , for a preview of the visit:

'Good morning America , how are you? This is your favourite son, Chad Hanging, reporting. The President of Englandland, Norman Brown, is arriving in our nation's capital this afternoon to meet with President Bush. But just who is this guy? Let's cross to our special correspondent Brit Limey.'

Hey, Chad . As you can see, I'm standing in the world-famous Trafalgar Circus, with the House of Fayed directly behind me.

So what can you tell us about Norman Brown?

Well, Chad , he has been President for some nine months now. He used to be Chancellor.

What, you mean he's, like, German?

No, that's what they call their Treasury Secretary over here.

And is he a Conservative, like President Tony Blair?

No, Chad . He's Labour. President Blair wasn't a Conservative, either. He only pretended to be.

So how did Brown get the job?

He just kept shouting at President Blair until he stood down.

But he won an election, right?

No, Chad , there wasn't an election. He did think about calling one, but decided against it because he was frightened he might lose.

How can you change Presidents without having an election? I mean, it's not like President Blair was assassinated.

That's just the way it works in Englandland. The leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Lords gets to be President.

So Norman Brown was elected leader of the Labour Party?

Negative again Chad , he did raise money and have a leadership campaign, but no one stood against him.

What, nobody? No primaries, no general election, nothing?

That's affirmative, Chad .

Let me get this straight. His party hasn't elected him, the country hasn't elected him, yet he still gets to be President. Sounds like a tinpot Commie dictatorship to me.

You could say that Chad . Norman Brown doesn't really like anyone being given the chance to vote on anything.

Someone must have voted for him, some time.

Oh, yes. He was elected to the House of Lords by his constituents in Scotlandland.

He's Scoddish, then?

That's a big Ten-Four, Chad.

So is he President of Scotlandland, too?

No, that's a guy called Alan Salmon.

Hang on, if Brown's from Scotlandland, how can he be President of Englandland?

That's just the way it goes in this crazy country, Chad . Brown can make laws for Englandland, but not for his own people in Scotlandland. Not that it matters much because Brown has signed away most of Englandland's lawmaking powers to unelected European bureaucrats in Brussels , Belgiumland.

That would be like stripping Congress of the power to make laws in America and handing it over to Mexico !!

I guess so.

How in the Hell did the people of Englandland vote for that.

They didn't. Brown wouldn't let them, even though it was a solemn promise in his party's manifesto the last time people were allowed to vote.

Couldn't the Supreme Court have stopped him?

Not really. The Supreme Court of Englandland is now in Strasbourg , you know, where the geese come from.

Isn't there any opposition?

There's a guy called Boris.

Sounds Russian.

I wouldn't be surprised, Chad . There are millions of Eastern Europeans living here now, mainly in Peterburl. Englandland has seen mass immigration over the past ten years, but no one voted for that, either.

What in the name of Ulysses S. Grant is going on over there, Brit? We're talking about the country which gave us Magna Carta, saw off the Armada, stood alone against Hitler and invented parliamentary democracy. How does Norman Brown get away with it? He must be one popular guy.

Far from it Chad . According to the latest opinion polls, he's the most unpopular President ever. His approval ratings are even worse than George Dubya Bush. There's talk about him having to stand down soon. He's already promised the job to some guy who works for him - name of Balls.

Say again, Brit, you're breaking up.

Balls.

You're damn right there, buddy.

As I said, a little too close to the truth of how Labour sees their Prime Minister and how little say we actually have over what our politicians do!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 24, 2008

Science and religion

Reading the New Scientist letters pages for this week has provided an interesting insight into the minds of those who refuse to see any value in faith and write God off as a "fantasy figure not worthy of scientific consideration". Having watched Richard Dawkins make a real meal of trying to "prove" that all life is an accident and not influenced at all by any form of God - his catch phrase was throughout "Who needs a god to do this?" - I have to wonder what those like him are afraid of. They make such desperate attempts to discredit any form of belief system, but particularly any form of Christian faith, that one has to ask, why are they so anti-God? Are they afraid that their "Reason" might not be enough and that "faith" based moral codes may, after all, prove necessary?

The letters page has a section in which the atheist lobby are attacking New Scientist for giving column space to a report on the Templeton Foundations plan to use funding to try and scientifically "prove" that God is real. Personally I can't see them succeeding since every "test" they can apply scientifically is probably not going to give the results it would get if applied to something physical. Secondly, what difference will it make to those who deny God's existence? Not a lot I would suggest since that lobby will simply fund a raft of new research to "prove" that the results of the first set of research was flawed. Those who will not believe in anything other than their own reason are as blinkered as those who will not accept that much of the Bible is allegorical and must be read in context with the society that created it if we are to understand it at all.

As for the argument advanced by many of the correspondents who rain abuse on any form of faith adherence at every opportunity, that mankind does not need faith to exercise moral and ethical restraint, I would say that there are any number of examples of utterly depraved science based attrocities that defy any form of ethics or morality to refute their argument. Two examples spring immediately to mind - the work of a Russian biologist who attempted to breed a human/ape hybrid in the 1920's as part of the Great Socialist attempt to brred competitiveness out of the Russian people and develop a "model" "worker". It failed, thankfully. The second is the experiments of Doctor Mengele and others on twins and on human beings to determine how much trauma a body could absorb before death occured. All in the name of science of course, and no doubt supported by a barrage of "reasonable" arguments. Like the famous Socialist mantra that runs "Some must lose out in any effort to improve the lot of the majority." Well we all know who the losers are usually - everybody but the "leader" making that "rationalist" statement.

Christianity as we practice it and as it has been abused over the centuries, certainly has its faults, but it has given us a moral code and a set of ethics which have shaped the modern wortld and will continue to do so. In one sense I hope that the Templeton Foundation's experiments do find the "proof" they want - if only to be able to say "Told you so!" the next time I'm confronted with an arrogant "Scientific Rationalist". Given the speed with which our scientific knowledge is changing the great "truths" of science and the lack of progress in actually understanding some of the most basic matters that run our universe - I ain't holding my breath!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 18, 2008

Even in the Grauanid now?

Every now and then someone manages to get noticed by the left wing mouthpiece that used to laud the Soviet system as "free" and "fair" - until even they could no longer ignore the bankruptcy of the Socialist Communist Model. They still refuse to recognise that Socialism is a bankrupt and bankrupting system, one which drags everyone down - except , of course, those who impose it, control through it, and have the levers of distribution in it. For those who don't know, the Grauanid is that well known Socialist newspaper which has the exclusive rights to all government job adverts. The Guardian got its nickname after a typesetter reset the banner in protest at proposals to modernise their presses.....

Under "Treasury Rules" ads for any Civil Service position or any position connected with an government department or agency may only be advertised in the pages of this socialist mouthpiece.

So it is with a little skepticism and some surprise that I learned that the tirade in the extended post was actually published in that newspaper. Their censorship of anything "Un-socialist" or "Non-PC" must have slipped badly that day - or perhaps it was far too intellectual for them.

IMMIGRANTS, NOT BRITS MUST ADAPT.

I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on the 7th of the 7th we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Brits. However, the disgust about the attacks had barely settled when the 'politically correct! ' crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others.

I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Britain, Our population is almost entirely made up of descendants of immigrants. (The Danes, Romans etc.) However, there
Are a few things that those who have recently come to OUR country, and apparently some born here, need to understand. This idea of the Brits being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Britain's we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.

We speak ENGLISH, not Indian, Urdu, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language! 'Land of Hope & Glory' is our motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan We adopted this motto because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.

If the 'Union Jack' flag offends you, or you don't like our QUEEN, then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet. We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don't care how you did things where you came from. This is OUR COUNTRY,Our land, and our lifestyle. Our Laws give every citizen the Right to express his opinion and we will allow you every opportunity to do so! But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about our flag, our lifestyle our government, or our way of life, I highly encourage you. Take advantage of one other great BRITISH freedom, THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.

It is time for Gt. Britain to speak up.

The person who sent me this added -

Will we still be the Country of choice and still be Gt Britain if we continue to make the changes forced on us by the people from other countries that came to live in Britain because it is the Country of Choice??????
Think about it . .

All I have to say is, when will they do something about MY RIGHTS? I celebrate Christmas, but because it isn't celebrated by everyone, we can no longer say Merry Christmas. Now it has to be Season's Greetings. It's not Christmas holiday, it's Winter Break. Isn't it amazing how this winter break ALWAYS occurs over the Christmas holiday? We've gone so far the other way, bent over backwards to not offend anyone, that I am now being offended. But it seems that no one has a problem with that.

This says it all!
This is an editorial written by a British citizen, published in a National newspaper He did quite a job; didn't he? Read on, please!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 14, 2008

The cause of family breakdown?

Now here's something that will get the PC Brigade up in arms I'm thinking. THE big revolution of the 1960's wasn't actually the Hippie movement or even the feminist movement, it was the introduction of The Pill. At last women had control over their reproductive cycles and could - ahem - 'enjoy' the same 'freedom' as men. But it seems that once again, modern medicine has messed up something without intending too. You see, according to the latest research into the field of human biological process, The Pill may be the reason so many men and women make bad choices when it comes to picking out their future husband or wife.

An paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of British Biological Sciences has revealed that our choice of 'mate' is governed by our noses which tell us who is and who is not genetically compatible with us. This is, apparently, especially the case with women, whose noses guide them to find a partner they can be compatible with. It seems that taking The Pill knocks out this built in Mate Sensor system and leads them astray! So, it seems that the contraceptive pill has freed us up in one sense, but has caused a possibly larger problem in another.

Could this be why so many marriages made since the 1960's have ended in divorce? One is forced to wonder, after all, modern medicine has caused an explosion of the human population around the world, directly exacerbating the strain on all manner of resources and increasing the chances of a major conflict in the not too distant future. It has also been suggested that this single development has done more to free women in our society from the biological constraints that have restricted their activities in a raft of occupations in the past, than any other. But now the question seems to be should we continue to mess around with our genetic programming in this way?

The trouble is that, like many other "wonder" inventions we have pulled from Pandora's Box - it cannot now be put back. The Pill is with us for the future - whatever the research says it is doing to birth rates, sexual orientation and a whole raft of social issues. Like the bomb, now we have it, no one wants to give it up.

PARIS (AFP) - Contraceptive pills taken by tens of millions of women around the world can disrupt the innate ability to sniff out a genetically compatible partner, a study released Wednesday has found.

Normally women are instinctively attracted, via their sense of smell, to men who have a dissimilar genetic makeup.

Overly similar gene profiles can result in difficulty trying to conceive a child, an increased risk of miscarriage and a weaker immune system, earlier research has shown.

A group of about 140 genes in an area called the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) -- which helps build proteins involved in the body's immune response -- also plays a key role in odour through interaction with skin bacteria.

How these genes are expressed can help determine which individuals, unknowingly following their nose, find us attractive.

A team led by Craig Roberts at the University of Newcastle, England, conducted an experiment to find out if taking the pill influences odour preferences.

One hundred women were asked to indicate which of six male body odour samples they found most attractive, both before and after starting to take the contraceptive.

The male scents were drawn from 97 volunteers.

"The results showed that the preferences of women who began using the contraceptive pill shifted toward men with genetically similar odours," said Roberts.

The research not only suggested that taking the pill could induce women to pick Mr. Wrong, but pointed to the potential to wreak havoc in couples.

"It could ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the contraceptive pill, as odour perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners."

Oral contraceptives combine two hormones, oestrogen and progestogen, to inhibit normal female fertility.

The study was published in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Science.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:02 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 13, 2008

Greenhouse to Concrete?

A new technology has been developed and a California based company says it can turn CO2 into cement by simply bubbling the waste gas from a gas fired power station through sea water. You can read about it in Scientific American in the online version. It seems to me to be an emminently sensible way to go with this gas, after all, we need to meet the growing demand for electricity, yet the options for producing it are almost all polluting in some way. And according to Greenpeace we only have enough nuclear fuel for another 75 years.

Mind you we ran out of petroleum around 1940 if you believe the sort of "estimates" they usually run with.

It seems to me sensible to explore recapturing CO2 and converting it to cement. We need cement for the housing and structures our out of control populace demand and currently cement production requires the burning of limestone in order to produce the quick lime and slaked lime that goes into the raw cement mix. And that produces CO2! Now turning the CO2 into cement means no only less "Carbon Footprint" but it also means that we tie up the nasty stuff in a permanent bond that will keep it out of circulation.

Let's hope it works and, more importantly, that the bureaucrats and political a*s*h*l*s that usually delay or scupper any sensible solution don't get in the way this time.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 01, 2008

European coercion?

It seems that the Irish are being blackmailed by other EU leaders into holding a new referendum - one which asks "do you want to stay in the EU? If so, sign Lisbon! If not, get out!"

The argument coming from Brussels is that they must sign or leave because it is "undemocratic" of them to hold up the adoption of the Treaty. Undemocratic? Which other EU country has had a choice on this? It is reported that Her Majesty is herself furious over the fact that she has been obliged to sign an acceptance of the removal of British Sovereignty and its holus bolus handing over to the utterly unelectable EU Commission and their poodles in the Strasbourg "Parliament". Worse, our Foreign Policy and our Defence will now be run from Brussels - with no reference to our national interests at all.

If the Irish are blackmailed into a second referendum on the lines Brussels wants, it will be the final proof, if any were needed, that the EU is not democratic and is totally divorced from the wishes and desires of the people it claims to represent.

Open Europe

Europe

Jean Quatremer: Open Europe poll won't change minds of EU governments - they want the Irish to vote again

Under the headline "24 to 1" Liberation Brussels correspondent Jean Quatremer argues on his blog that "the recent poll showing that 71% of Irish people are opposed to a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty has not had much impact in European capitals, since the wording of the question indicated that the vote would be on the same text. There is no question of that: either the Irish will be asked to adopt the Lisbon Treaty with ad hoc declarations responding to their concerns (like in 2002 for Nice), or they will be asked if they want to continue to be part of a Union that is governed by the Lisbon Treaty... This second possibility would clarify things: either you stay or you go, but you do not block Europe as a whole."

Italy has now ratified the Treaty, welcomed with a standing ovation in the Chamber of Deputies in Rome. Meanwhile, three countries have yet to decide on the treaty: the Czech Republic, which is waiting on a judgement by its constitutional court; Sweden, whose parliament will vote in November; and Poland, whose president has said he intends to wait until the Treaty's fate is certain before giving his assent.

David Quinn argues in the Irish Independent: "Here is why the Lisbon Treaty referendum was lost -- and if the Government does not address this, the next one will likely be lost as well: people are worried about the loss of sovereignty and national identity... the European Court of Justice, an institution of the EU, will gain immeasurably more power over Irish law if the Lisbon treaty and the accompanying Charter of Fundamental Rights is ever passed... We have to wake up to the fact that the more power we cede to judges, lawyers and other experts, whether they are based in Ireland or overseas, the less democratic we become. The heart of democracy in any country has to be the national legislature with its elected representatives, not the courts and the law library."

Coulisses de Bruxelles AFP European Voice BBC NZZ Irish Independent Quinn Irish Times Open Europe blog

UK faces looming electricity supply gap - families face £4,000 bill for renewables

A new report commissioned by the WWF and Greenpeace attacks plans to build new coal plants in response to Britain's looming electricity supply gap, predicted to reach 20GW by 2020. The report argues that if the UK meets its EU targets of sourcing 15% of energy from renewables (translating to 35-40% of electricity), together with a 20% improvement in energy efficiency, new coal plants will not be needed.

However, the FT notes that keeping the lights on without increased use of fossil fuels may not be possible if the UK fails to meet the EU targets - which all sides agree will be a struggle. Paul Golby noted in the Guardian yesterday that the necessary investment in renewables would cost the equivalent of £4,000 for every household in the country.

In the Guardian Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at the Earth & Biosphere Institute, University of Leeds, argues that E.on's use of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme "won't deliver real cuts, as its own business case shows".

FT BBC Guardian Golby Guardian Lewis

Commentators analyze the failure of the Doha round

Following the failure of the Doha round of world trade talks, fingers have been pointed as to who is to blame for the breakdown. Open Europe's Mats Persson had an op-ed in Swedish daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet, arguing that the global food crisis illustrates the need for freeing up trade in agricultural products and that the EU must bear part of the blame for the break down of the Doha talks.

Philip Stephens argues in the FT that "the French president's language betrays temerity. In spite of all its manifest strengths - economic, technological, cultural, political - France, it seems, cannot stand on its own feet. Europe's leaders must protect the continent from the ravages of globalisation...The collapse of Doha, however, speaks to the failure of both sides to own up to the world as it is. On the side of the rich countries, particularly the US but no less many European nations, there is a refusal to acknowledge that globalisation no longer belongs to the west."

Economist FT Stephens Independent Hari Sydsvenskan

City fears "reactionary legislation" from the EU will exacerbate the downturn

The FT reports on the hostile reaction from the City of London, and the banking sector in general, to the European Commission's proposed increase in regulation. "Proposed changes could greatly increase the cost of capital across Europe with detrimental effects far beyond the financial services industry", said Stuart Fraser, chairman of policy and resources at the City of London, which will today publish its forecasts. These forecasts are expected to predict the sector's contribution to the EU economy by 2009 will have fallen by 8.3 per cent from the 225bn euros ($350bn, £177bn) of last year. Fraser goes on to say: "The message we're trying to get across is that it's a very difficult environment for financial services. What we don't need is regulation that will exacerbate the downturn".

Fraser also has a comment piece in the FT where he compares Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy's approach to the current problems in financial markets as using the "proverbial sledgehammer to crack a walnut".

FT FT Fraser

Russia plans to form a Gazprom-style state trading company for grain exports, raising fears that Moscow will use food as a diplomatic weapon, according to the front page of the FT.

FT

Scottish sheep farmers fear that Commission plans to review existing transport legislation could pose a threat to their livelihood. The changes would cut driving times, restricting access to the Isle of Skye and adversely affect their sheep trade.

The Scotsman

Independent assesses the Conservatives in Europe

As part of the Independent's series, 'Preparing for Power', the paper has assesses the role Europe will play in a future Conservative government. The article notes that Europe is no longer the divisive issue it once was for the party. However, it argues that in opposition the party has not had to make the tough policy choices over Europe that it will have to face in government and implies that it will be difficult to live up to the expectations of the party's eurosceptics while in power.

The article argues that major problems for David Cameron over Europe include the opposition he will face from other EU member states in attempting to renegotiate the Lisbon Treaty and the UK's membership of the EU's Social Chapter.

Independent

EUobserver reports that almost 900 immigrants have arrived in Italy just days after the government declared a state of emergency over what it called an "exceptional and persistent influx" of clandestine immigrants.

EUobserver

John Torode: Turkey plans to annex North Cyprus

John Torode writes in The Spectator that new Greco-Turkish tensions in Cyprus are a real possibility. In light of the upcoming peace talks between the Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders, many now believe that Turkey has lost interest in a bi-zonal settlement, and is "bent on annexing the North". Former President Papadopoulos is said to have added fuel to the fire, by saying that the Turkish Cypriot leader Talet, is "Ankara's man." Furthermore, Torode argues that this outcome is likely to be accepted by the west, which wants to elevate Turkey as much as possible before its accession into the EU.

Spectator

The Irish Independent reports that the EU mission in Chad may be extended for up to three months.

No link

Ultra nationalist Bulgarian MEP Dimitar Stoyanov was one of the five Ataka sympathisers arrested on Wednesday. The arrests caused clashes between police and other Ataka supporters in Sofia.

Sofia Echo

Rosemary Righter has a comment piece in the Times where she suggests French President Nicolas Sarkozy's return to his reformist election promises is not only supported by the French public but may change the face of France forever.

Times Righter

Tisdall: EU needs common defence

In the Guardian, Simon Tisdall looks at the recent report on EU defence from the European Council on Foreign Relations. He argues, "with a less well-disposed Russia once again prowling around the neighbourhood, the need for a coherent, organised, collective European defence that is neither reliant on nor subordinate to Washington could become painfully obvious."

Guardian

UK

A new poll by YouGov in the Telegraph shows a 22-point lead for the Conservatives. The poll also shows that Labour would not perform much better under any other leader including potential leadership challenger David Miliband. A Labour Party led by Tony Blair however would only be 9 points behind.

Daily Telegraph

Posted by The Gray Monk at 05:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 20, 2008

Far Right and Lambeth Conferences ...

I am increasingly aware that, in the eyes of the liberal/left dominated press to be either a Christian or to object to some part of the liberal left agenda is to be labelled "Far Right" and even "Fascist". The latest group to attract this label are a Flemish Group of teachers who have lodged an objection to what they see as the Islamification of their cities. They point out, reasonably in my view, that the over six thousand mosques built in the last twenty years in Europe have provided a focus for the Islamification of neighbourhoods with the European populations gradually being forced out or forced to live under Islamic rules. As this is evident to anyone who cares to take an objective look at several British cities - why is it "Far Right" to object to this? I wonder what they will make of the Italian Court that has ruled that it is OK to describe Romanies as "thieves and layabouts" - apparently on the grounds that they are.

Equally notable is the fact that the Lambeth Conference, which attracted a lot of negative press in the run up to it, has had almost no coverage that I can find since it began last week. Perhaps its because, after all the hype about the Anglican Communion being so divided it was about to fall apart, the presence of 650 out of 880 Bishops of the Communion rather spoils the image of a dying or fragmenting church? And even of the possible 230 not attending, some 60 of those are not there because they have retired or died or their Diocese currently have no Bishop. Given that Lambeth (Which is actually being held in Canterbury) is discussing some far reaching issues affecting many aspects of everyday life as well as some pretty thorny theological issues you might have expected some press coverage - but perhaps its too "far Right" for the luvvies in press and television.

That said, I wouldn't have the job of Archbishop of Canterbury for all the tea in China. He simply can't win. Unlike the Pope he has no authority outside his own See, he is simply the Senior Archbishop among equals. That is in fact, the model of the early church, the church before the Bishops of Rome declared themselves to hold the Imperial Authority over the Church. And not all Bishops agreed to accept that for at least six hundred years after Leo VI declared himself head. Poor Rowan frequently makes a lot of sense if you bother to read what he has actually said or written instead of the usual biased claptrap the press paraphrase it too.

At lest the Lambeth Conference is getting some important issues discussed. Whether the Church outside the UK, Europe and the America's will agree on all of them is a matter for God. I do note with interest that the extreme Evangelical Archbishop of Sydney who has absented himself seems to be alone in that stance as all his brother Archbishops and Bishops from the rest of Australia are here. Likewise, many of the African Bishops have turned up leaving only a few who have found other things to do.

So, being a Christian of the Anglican persuasion, I pray that our Bishops will find ways to keep the dialogue going, to keep the Communion in communion and to further the work of the Gospel. And if that makes me a member of the Far Right in the eyes of the media - so what. It is time Christians of all persuasions stood up and objected to the liberal left agenda of destroying Christianity by importing Islam.

There, now I have put myself out to the Far Right.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 05:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 19, 2008

An interesting admission ....

Has been made this week by our Chancellor of the Exchequer. He's admitted that taxpayers are "at the limit" of what we can bear. Oh dear, especially as the best estimates of what the government needs to take out of our pockets in order to pay for their continuing expansion of the Whitehall Wastrels and bureaucratic garbage suggests that our taxes should rise on average another 2% each. So will they reign in their spending? Of course not, our MP's have retained their slush fund that allows them to furnish second homes and pay the mortgages on prime property, they have given themselves a nice pay rise and the Whitehall Wankers have benefited because their pay is linked to MP's. Meanwhile Local Government workers (Bin men, teachers, etc.,) are on strike because councils are offering a below inflation pay rise and accuse their workers of "fuelling inflation". That's a bit rich coming from a bunch of parasites who rake in almost limitless amounts of "expenses" from the tax payer to supplement their incomes.

How can I say that? Quite easily, one Labour MP claimed expenses last year in numbers that took the breath away - and justified it by claiming that this was "correspondence" and "information to constituents" in the form of telephones, travel to constituency etc. From memory a six figure number was involved - on top of a "salary" of over £60k and a further £40k for "running an office". Now I don't know about anyone else, but running my own small business these days, I certainly can't claim back these sorts of numbers for staying in touch with my clients - and there's only a small proportion of it that can be offset against my tax. But even this only masks the bigger problem, the fact that this government has expended the Civil Service to make it the single largest employer in the UK - roughly 21% of all workers are directly employed by the Civil Service. And I am well aware of the charade that they employ to disguise this, by claiming that people who work for Government Agencies, certain "Public Services" and other "agencies" aren't Civil Servants. Yeah, right, and the taxpayer isn't paying vast amounts of money to employ "consultants" to do what used to be done by specialists in Whitehall. If Mister Darling really wants to save money let's see some real savings across the civil service where there is a now a culture which is protecting incompetence on a breathtaking scale among the senior managers of all departments.

Despite government claims, inflation at the moment is being driven by the price of fuel, just as it was in the 1970's. Again, despite the government's protestations, the fuel price is further inflated by their tax system which sees tax on tax to escalate the cost to us the users. The "enemy" on this is not the oil companies and suppliers, but the producer countries and our very own government.

I confidently predict that over the next few months we will see the following "campaigns" by this bunch of charlatans:

- we will be told that the Royals cost far to much and are extravagant,
- we will be told that the government cannot reduce fuel duty "because this would be contrary to an EU Directive";
- we will be told that Whitehall has to be further expanded in order to deal with the "world energy crisis"; and
- we will be told that we have to pay more in order to pay for the "green" energy developments this government is wasting money on.

In short, we can expect tax to continue to rise, costs to continue to rise and inflation to continue to rise - because Westminster and Whitehall cannot - perhaps dare not - admit that their own policies lie at the heart of this problem. In short, high taxes fuel the inflationary spiral by pushing everyone's costs higher. The so-called "green" taxes are nothing other than another deception since they hit the lowest paid and the non-political classes hardest.

It's time to call Whitehall to account - and their stooges in Parliament with them

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 08, 2008

Crisis? What crisis?

The recent spate of knife murders in London and elsewhere in the country are a tragedy, but one, which, with a little forsight should have been seen coming. In my own teenage years I always carried a knife, not for self defence or even because I wanted to look macho, but because it had many uses. With my sheath knife I could cut wood to make a fire over which to cook the meat and vegetables I had cut up using, you guessed, the same sheath knife. Every Boy Scout carried one, and to the best of my knowledge never dreamed of sticking it between someone elses ribs or into someone's arm, leg, neck or stomach. One didn't, the knife was a tool, not a toy; we were taught to use it properly and safely and even if we weren't carrying a sheath knife, we had a pocket knife with us for the same essential reason.

There was one other thing we were taught, sometimes with a well deserved clip on the rear end, which modern youngsters are not. We were taught to respect our elders, our fellow teenagers and to exercise self control or self discipline.

Today if I were to appear at a Scout Camp with the knife I still have packed away in the loft on my belt I would probably be arrested and charged with threatening the public safety or some equally nebulous formula. The proponents of "lets disarm everyone" fail to realise that it is not the weapon which is at fault. True, if no one had a weapon you could argue that no one would get hurt, but that simply isn't borne out by history or facts either. Usually it is the boy who isn't armed who is attacked. Reason? He's a soft target, unlikely to have the means or the skills to defend himself - so let's go for him. We banned guns after Dunblane, but what no one seems to be willing to admit is that there were several million guns in private ownership - yet one rogue owner is taken by press and politicians (And I am always suspicious of any politician who wants to disarm the public!) as proof that ALL gun owners are a threat to the public. One of the most ridiculous things I have seen recently is a statement by a police spokesman that a twelve year old displayed an "inordinate interest in guns". Of course the kid does, most boys are fascinated by things that make loud noises and look cool - and any news bulletin contains at least some shots of weapons in action in Afghanistan or Iraq at present. Video Games contain violent (and totally impractical weaponry) in abundance - but perhaps it is convenient to overlook that. Even more ridiculous is the woman who called out the Anti-terror SWAT team because she saw a kid in the street playing with a toy pistol. And I'm sorry, but any 'trained' police officer who can't tell the difference between a real weapon and toy needs to be retrained.

Yet, to return to my opening on knives and the so-called "knife crime" currently in the headlines we really do have to ask ourselves an important question. If the problem is the misuse of knives, why is it now becoming so accute when a generation ago it wasn't a problem? There are two possible answers, one is that the media now hype it a great deal more than they did, and the other is that our youth have no respect for each other or for law and order. I think that it is probably a mixture of both, with a great deal of emphasis on the latter though because we are now seeing the children of the 60's "Free Love" "Anti-discipline" generation - the children brought up on Doctor Spock's discredited theories which they now loudly and incessantly proclaim to be the only way to achieve peace and harmony.

Well, I know what my recipe for peace and harmony is, and I know what I al;so know that it cannot be achieved by derogating all responsibility to the Whitehall nannies, by banning normal usage of everyday items or by passing yet more laws restricting our rights. There has to be a sea change toward bringing up children to respect discipline, to know how to control their own emotions and to respect others they may encounter. We don't need more Whitehall and Westminster solutions, we need less restrictions on decent parents to do the job properly and less support for the criminally incompetent or criminally irresponsible which simply feeds their bad behaviour and perpetuates it into the next generation.

Crisis? Well we may have one, but, given that the media now hype bad news to the skies, how big a crisis? Given too that Whitehall has a magic way with bad statistics - keep changing the way they are presented or simply change what is measured or collected - and you simply cannot verify whether the situation is any better or any worse than it was. Personally I think there mnay well be a problem, not as big as the press appears to make it, but certainly a problem. But the problem is not the knives or the guns, but the people who carry them without a vestige of responsibility or any form of self discipline or, indeed, understanding of the consequences of not exercising it.

We have to re-introduce discipline into our world, or it will descend into a free for all in which only the lawless and armed will prevail. Tacitus wrote; Si vis Pacem; para Bellum.

If you seek peace; be prepared for war.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 01:53 PM | TrackBack

July 06, 2008

Erratic posting

MuNu seems to be having problems, I can usually get into the MovableType menu and write a post - but the "Save" button then is either missing or doesn't work.

Please bear with us, I hope to be able to resume normal service as soon as Pixy Misa and MuNu resolve the problem whatever it is! An example of what happens when you do manage to post anything is: -

Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@mt3.mu.nu and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apache/1.3.39 Server at mt3.mu.nu Port 80

I'd be delighted if I knew what it was ....

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:24 PM | TrackBack

June 29, 2008

Believable rumours

Recently e-mails have been circulating in Britain, and no doubt the rest of the world about various things the government here is up to. Or not up to as the case may be. The problem the government faces, and this applies whether it is a polictician or a civil servant speaking, is that we no longer believe anything they say. We know they lie on all the big issues, so why wouldn't they lie on all issues? Facts, when they are incovenient to the party or the civil service, tend to get buried in irrelevant data in the hope that no one will challenge them.

This is why it is so easy for rumours to become believable.

A few days ago I posted an item entitled The Islamification of Britain. I was provoked into writing that partly by a rumour e-mail claiming the holocaust was not to be taught in British schools, and partly by my very real understanding of the fact that there is a definite bias in Whitehall and Westminster against the Christian Church (I have to say not helped by the extreme Evangelical and "Catholic" factions constant contrariness and threats of splits). Muslim organisations are favoured on a wide range of matters when it comes to Community development, social aid and even promotion of their religious views, some of which, I have to say, are decidedly offensive to Christians and others. I know that the stated object is to create an "inclusive" society and to "redress the historical imbalances" but the consequences are something Labour needs to consider very carefully. In this bias they have created an isolation culture for the Church of England and other Christian communities and fostered an "Islam is superior" mindset among many uncommitted to either. And not just on this issue - Ms Harman's latest Bill is a classic case in point. No one in their right mind supports inequality whether it is based on gender, race or religion, but now she is promoting a Bill which will enshrine in law "positive discrimination" forcing employers to discriminate against white males.

Yes, I know that is not the intention - but it is the way it will be applied!

Likewise the legislation Jack Straw wants to ram through Parliament allowing the use of anonymous evidence. We already have that in Children's and Family Courts and it makes it ever so easy for a lie to go unchallenged and for justice to miscarry. Yes, I do know what Jack Straw is concerned about, some very serious crimes are going unpunished because witnesses are being "got at" and intimidated, but there must be other sanctions that can be used here to deal with the problem - like better protection and less 'fishing' by defence attorneys who make very good use of the law which requires full disclosure. That too was intended to ensure that justice was done, but the complexity of the bureaucracy that went with it in Whitehall has made it almost impossible for the police to do their job and stay within the requirements of the paperwork. Any slip, any ommission, and the defence can scream "mistrial". The more the government meddles, the worse it all gets.

So, back to my original premise, why are the rumours so instantly believable? Put very simply, the governing class has lost the trust of the voters on everything from Europe to crime. Government reports are invariably biased to support the ideology of the day and the outcome the particular minister or department wants. Statistics are invariably abused and used to blind people to the fact that they are, at best, biased by the method of collection and meaningless to anyone unless seen against a background of analysis of a wide range of influences. So no one believes anything in a Report, since the outcome is frequently contradicted by the reality experienced by ordinary people on the street. The view from Whitehall is invariably rose tinted by the rarified atmosphere and the special glass in the windows. The media have also lost our trust, we no longer believe what we read in the newspapers or hear on the radio or see on television. We know it has been edited and biased to reflect the view of the writer and editorial policy and in the absence of that trust bond, we are prepared to believe rumours, especially those founded on a kernel of provable fact - as was the holocaust story. That story has its origins in a report that stated one school was shying away from setting the holocaust as a project at GCSE level.

The masters of the Nu Labour propaganda machine have only themselves to blame. They have corrupted Whitehall (It didn't take much!) and they have turned so many rumours into "fact" (Remember the BIG scandal of the kid with "Glue Ear" who couldn't get instant treatment? never mind the thousands who still can't get treatments for life threatening conditions under the same Party that gave us that one!) over the last forty years that we should not be surprised when people believe the lie and ignore the fact.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 03:28 PM | TrackBack

June 28, 2008

A real Star dies .....

This morning I recieved the following from a friend and colleague. Clive and Star were well known, Star being the nicest natured dog I have met in a very long time. Star was the UK's first dog trained to detect the presence of a range of accelerants (Flammable Liquids) in fire debris and his phenomenal performance has contributed in no small way to the resolution of numerous fires. Star will be missed by all his friends and fans, but I'm sure he will be waiting for his handler and friend somewhere - squeaky toy at the ready, to go and find some accelerants ....

Star at work. He indicated a 'find' by sitting down and placing a paw on the spot.

Star 1995-2008 It is with great sorrow that I report that “Star” is no longer at my side. He had been my constant companion for almost 13 years and had enjoyed a wonderful life before his health finally failed. Star was much loved by so many and had made an indelible contribution to the world of working dogs. He will never be forgotten. Clive G.

Star lived for his handler - and together they have left an indelible mark on Fire Investigation as a whole.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:54 AM | TrackBack

June 26, 2008

We want a referendum Mr Brown

If you follow the progress of the Lisbon Treaty since the Irish rejection, you could be forgiven for thinking that the rest of Europe has been consulted and given a resounding "yes". At least you could if you didn't know that the rest of us haven't been allowed by our illustrious leaders to have any say at all.

I received the e-mail in the extended post from the Campaign Group lobbying for a a Referendum in Britain. It sums up rather nicely just how much our Leaders think of the electorates that put them in power. What they have forgotten is that we have never agreed to surrender our national identities or sovereignty.

We want a referendum Mr Brown, you gave us that assurance in the last election manifesto and you promised it right up to the moment you realised you had no chance of getting a Yes. What are you afraid of? Better still, what are you trying to hide?

Campaign News: 23 June 2008

1. EU leaders carry on with Lisbon Treaty regardless of Irish no vote

On 12 June, voters in Ireland rejected the EU Lisbon Treaty by 46.6% to 53.4% in a national referendum. Turnout was relatively high, at 53%.

However, despite the resounding no vote, EU leaders meeting in Brussels last week decided to press ahead regardless, agreeing that ratification of the Treaty should continue in other countries. They also agreed that Irish voters should eventually be asked to vote again, until they say 'yes'.

Despite claiming that they want to "respect" the Irish no vote, EU leaders across the whole of Europe have no intention of doing so. They are determined to press ahead with the Lisbon Treaty.

Here are just some of the extraordinary reactions to the Irish vote from Europe's leaders:

"They [the Irish] are bloody fools. They have been stuffing their faces at Europe's expense for years and now they dump us in the s***."

- Nicolas Sarkozy, French President (Times, 20 June)

"The Lisbon Treaty is not dead... It is imperative that they vote again."

- Valery Giscard d'Estaing, former French President and author of the EU Constitution (RTL, 19 June)

"I don't think you can say the treaty of Lisbon is dead even if the ratification process will be delayed."

- Jean-Pierre Jouyet, French Europe Minister (Reuters, 16 June)

"I am convinced that we need this Treaty. Therefore we are sticking with our goal for it to come into force. The ratification process must continue."

- Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German Foreign Minister (Reuters, 14 June)

"Of course we have to take the Irish referendum seriously. But a few million Irish cannot decide on behalf of 495 million Europeans."

- Wolfgang Schaeuble, German Interior Minister (Deutsche Welle, 15 June)

"We think it is a real cheek that the country that has benefited most from the EU should do this. There is no other Europe than this treaty. With all respect for the Irish vote, we cannot allow the huge majority of Europe to be duped by a minority of a minority of a minority."

- Axel Schäfer, SPD leader in the German Bundestag (Irish Times, 14 June)

The Treaty "will be applied, albeit a few months late."

- Lopez Garrido, Spanish Europe Minister (Forbes, 15 June)

"The Treaty is not dead. The Treaty is alive, and we will try to work to find a solution."

- Jose Barroso, European Commission President (Press Conference, 14 June)

To see more, click here: http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/irelandbriefing.pdf

This is an extraordinary refusal to accept the democratic will of the people. Ireland has been the only country allowed to have a referendum on the Treaty, and has said no. By the EU's own rules, the Treaty can only enter into force if all 27 member states have ratified it. Therefore, the Treaty should now be dead. It is completely unacceptable that other countries are continuing to ratify the Treaty in the hope of forcing Ireland to vote again, under pressure from the prospect of 26 other countries having ratified it. EU leaders are proving once again that they are simply unable to take 'no' for an answer.

In protest, last week we went to the EU summit in Brussels and held up giant letters spelling out ''NO MEANS NO" in the colours of the Irish flag. The stunt was televised on all the main evening news bulletins, including the Channel 4 News, the BBC 10 O'clock News and Newsnight. To see a picture of the event, click here: http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/brussels-hearts-gordon.html

2. Petition against UK ratification gains 26,000 signatures in under a week

Following the no vote, we set up a petition on the Downing Street website, urging Gordon Brown to respect the Irish decision and stop ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in the UK. In only 6 days, the petition received over 26,000 signatures, making it the fastest growing online petition. Click here to see it: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Abandon-Lisbon/

Many thanks to all those of you who signed our petition and sent it on to your friends.

Despite this, ratification continued, with the House of Lords last week voting in favour of the Treaty. The final stage of ratification in the UK will now take place once the Government has heard the verdict of Stuart Wheeler's court case, who is fighting against the Government's refusal to hold a referendum. The outcome of the case is expected this week.

3. What you can do now

Of all 27 EU member states, the Czech Republic is the only country which appears ready to accept the Irish no vote. Czech President Vaclav Klaus called the vote a "victory of freedom and reason" and said "ratification cannot continue", and Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has said, "The Irish 'No' is not of a lesser impact for us than the French and Dutch 'No'."

Despite pressure from all the other EU leaders at the summit in Brussels last week, Mr. Topolanek objected to a declaration calling for rapid ratifications in the seven other countries - including his own - that are yet to agree the Treaty.

The Czech Senate has stalled ratification to await a constitutional court ruling on the Lisbon Treaty and Mr. Topolanek said: "If the vote was today, I would not bet 100 crowns [about £3] on a yes vote."

Please write to Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, offering him your support and letting him know he is not alone, despite the immense pressure he is under from other EU leaders to continue to ratify the Treaty regardless of the Irish no vote.

You can contact him here: topolanek.mirek@vlada.cz

4. What happens next?

The Irish no vote has bought us time, but the struggle is far from over. The I Want a Referendum campaign team continues to fight the battle for democracy on all fronts. You can find much of the work we do at the Open Europe website - www.openeurope.org.uk.

From now on, we will also send you Open Europe bulletins, every fortnight or so. Open Europe is an independent think-tank which produces research on everything to do with the EU, as well as a daily summary of EU news, which you can sign up to through the website. You will be able to unsubscribe from the fortnightly bulletin should you wish to.

Many thanks for your support.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:09 PM | TrackBack

Tewkesbury revived ...

The BBC Gloucestershire is hosting a website entitled "Why I like Tewkesbury". Do pay it a visit and leave your thoughts on the site.

We still have some scars but we are back up and running and have a lot to offer.

Next month we plan to celebrate and give thanks for all that has happened to restore the town and those affected by the floods last year. It will be a good end to a difficult period.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 05:56 PM | TrackBack

June 24, 2008

Greenpeace's "Green energy" Plan exposed as a sham

This article by a Professor of Physics is a must read for all those who might still believe that Greenpeace is a sane and sensible organisation with the planets interests at heart. Entitled "Without the hot air" it makes very interesting reading. My thanks go to the Gorse Fox for bringing it to my attention.

In summary, the professor has calculated what would be needed in terms of wind turbines, sea barrages and other "renewable" energy sources such as solar panels and found that even if we covered our island home in windfarms, ringed it with barrages to trap the tides and covered everything else in solar panels - we'd still have to buy energy (probably generated by nuclear) from someone else. Assuming of course that there was anyone still able to live here with all the turbines.

Just proves to me that Greenpeace is nothing but a bunch of charlatans, eco-terrorists and pseudo-scientists who like to trot out the scare stories regularly to keep the gullible entertained.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 05:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 23, 2008

Mugabe wins ....

Mugabe has won the battle of nerves and violence - his storm troopers have succeeded in calling a halt to the elections and now the hand-wringing in the West begins. But should we be accepting the blame for this very African problem? I'm inclined to the view that the answer should be no - except that our dearly beloved Nu Labour government feted and lauded this monster before he (and they) came to power.

Frankly, what is happening in Zimbabwe is a bare hairs-bredth away from happening in South Africa and several neighbouring states. Perhaps that is why the African heads of State are being so quiet - if Mugabe gets away with this, why can't they pull the same stunt when it suits them?

Why not indeed.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:42 AM | TrackBack

June 22, 2008

Islamification of Britain

In a stunning example of insensitive and crass stupidity, or perhaps deliberate signalling of their intent to marginalise everything Christian and to promote their Islamic credentials, Labour's placemen in the Department of Education and Employment (Another Oxymoron - education is so poor in this country now that employment isn't necessarily a consequence!), are turning a blind eye to the fact that some schools are not teaching pupils about the Holocaust. Reason, it upsets our Muslim adherents who deny that it happened. So now we are not to discuss the Holocaust because Labour's gurus agree with Iran's President and other Muslim "Scholars" that the Holocaust is a "Zionist Fiction".

Apparently it is sanctioned because teachers might face a "reaction" from Muslims. Tell that to the 6 million Jews who died and the hundreds of thousands of non-Jews who were also exterminated for their ethnic origins. Tell it to the 10 million Stalin and his successors killed in Russia - of course that didn't happen either, Labour deny that Stalin was a Bad Man and don't forget that card carrying members of the Labour Party were involved in handing over the nuclear bomb secrets to Stalin's people in 1949 - 1952. How can one challenge the fact that, once more, the Jews are being set up as scapegoats and Labour is up to their collective necks in this. The "Protocols of Zion" is once more being circulated in England, it is available through any Muslim sponsored bookstall and others sponsored by the most unlikely ally - the British National Party - I have even found copies in bookshops in London. Tell me that isn't offensive to Jews. Or doesn't that matter? For those that don't know, the "Protocols of Zion" made an appearance in the late 19th Century - initially in Russia where it is now known that they were written for the Tzarist Secret Police to enable them to carry out the pogroms against Jewish communities. Hitler used them as the foundation of his philosophy to rid the world of Jews and it is now being actively promoted and sold to the gullible (who Labour feel shouldn't be told of the consequences!) as the reason that Jewry should be suppressed by Islam.

What this reveals more than anything else is that Labour's agenda is to marginalise all those who don't agree with their anti-Christian and anti-Jewish doctrine of creating a state in which the Christian voice is marginalised and the way can be prepared for the Islamification of all our institutions. The announcement recently that the government is setting up a "Religious Focus Group" leaves me absolutely cold. It is nothing but yet another smoke and mirrors trick to give the Islamic community even more power over the rest of us since their voice will always be the one Labour bows to. The Christian stand-point for this Forum should be based on the findings of the study recently released (and notably NOT reported on by the Labour controlled media) that Christian Organisations and Church based social programmes are consistently excluded from government funding programmes and ignored by government Departments and Local Councils. There should be an immediate demand that that situation is made illegal - and the perpetrators brought before courts. In promoting this "apologiser" approach to the Holocaust, Labour is in the same camp as Stalin, Hitler and Hamas, to mention but a few genocide promoters and those who have denied, or still deny, that the holocaust happened.

Perhaps even more importantly, the teaching of the holocaust must be restored and made compulsory - with, preferably, visits to Aushwitz and Bergen-Belsen as compulsory parts of the curriculum. More Synagogues are desecrated, and more Jews assaulted in Britain every week than at any time in the past - and the perpetrators? Almost without exception from a small minority group from the very religion Labour is trying to appease. Is there any prosecution? We don't know. Why? Because our left wing, Labour controlled media don't report it - its "only a Jew" or its "a Zionist Institution" - so its a legitimate target to them. But let there be any affront to Muslims or to a Mosque and the whole press pack is howling for action and blood.

Labour constantly protests that it merely wants to promote "fairness" and "balance" and to allow Muslims the same freedom that Christians enjoy. What freedoms don't they already have? And what of Labour's next campaign? They now want to silence church bells - a coalition of "green" MP's and Labour anti-Christians want to ram through an Act that will make ringing church bells illegal as "noise pollution".

Its time to stand up to these dangerous commissars and send Labour into the wilderness for good. Roll on the election.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:48 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

June 21, 2008

Mugabe shows his hand

No surprises really in developments in Zimbabwe. The beloved leader, Robert Mugabe, the hero of the bush war against the evil white regime of Ian Smith, has no intention of allowing anyone to take the trappings of power away from him. Morgan Tsvangiri is lucky he is still alive - and as for his supporters, well, they haven' a prayer now that Mugabe has let slip his "war veterans" most of whom are far too young to have been involved at all in the bush war, and his police and military hardmen are now on the rampage.

Pity its taken this long for his neighbours to announce their disapproval. And even that is a pathetic little whimper which Mugabe will ignore completely. As for the likes of Hain, Harman and the rest of our own shower who hailed Mugabe as the "Liberator" and "Saviour" some thirty years ago - well, their silence speaks volumes.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 20, 2008

New Speak on the Euro-farce

Listening to the radio the last couple of days you could be excused for thinking that the voters across Europe have been given the opportunity to read, consider and have their say on the EU Constitution, aka The Lisbon Treaty. Our own dear Mr Brown was on yesterday proclaiming that the electorate must "trust" the House of Commons and "respect" their decision to ratify a treaty he first promised to hold a referendum on and now lies about, claiming it is a "new" treaty when everyone else says it isn't. Trust the denizens of the House of Commons? I'd feel safer handling the world's most poisonous snake or sitting down to dinner surrounded by lions.

Listening yesterday as I drove across country in horrendous traffic, I listened to that smooth talking Del Boy, Milliband, as he pronounced in New Speak, the EU mantra which translates basically as "The Irish will have to vote again and again until the get the answer right". In short, the voters of Britain and every other EU country don't matter a damn. Our Socialist Masters across Europe have spoken - we will be subsumed into the United States of Europe and like it.

That much was confirmed by the current Commission President, who basically said that the Irish will have to think again - or the rules will have to be changed.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 17, 2008

Ignoring the electorate

It seems that, as is now standard practice in the EU Ivory Tower, the vote in Ireland will simply be ignored, in contradiction to their own "Rules". The Irish have comprehensively rejected the Lisbon Constitution, but Brussels says it will go ahead anyway, that the Irish "got it wrong" and will have to do it again until they get it right.

It seems that, as usual, the Oligarchs in Brussels simply will not accept the fact that their Utopian vision for Europe is not shared by us all. In fact most Europeans do not want a political union even though we all like the idea of a Europe we can travel in freely and work anywhere. That is an economic union - not a political one. Even the "dream" of a single currency has its problems, because different countries within it interpret the "rules" for their economies differently and having a centrally fixed interest rate is not universally good as it means that individual states cannot slow or stimulate their own economies. Talk to the Irish and the inflation they are dealing with on that one. The fact that the so-called Treaty is in fact an "amendment" list and not a new or consolidated text which makes it impossible to read the document they are asking us to just accept, was supposed to ensure that most of us would not have access to it. In fact only 3% of the original has been changed, the rest is eye-blind meant to confuse and hide the fact that sovereignty is being stolen and subsumed to the unelected and unelectable.

Much is made of the "strengthening" of the EU Parliament. Really? Just what powers has Brussels transfered to the Parliament? Well, less a power, and more a bigger rubber stamp really. So thanks, but no thanks on that one. The Commission will still "propose" legislation and the Parliament will "adopt" the proposals - but there is still no direct election of the Commission or of the "President of the Commission" - usually another reject from one of the member states. More jobs for the "boys" all round. A bigger, sleeker and more generous (with our money!) gravy train.

Brussels can afford to ignore the electorate since they are not answerable to any electorate. The Commissioners are appointed by the "Council of Ministers" another unelected body, although the Mnisters are, of course, for the most part, elected by the voters in their own countries. The problem there is that they are able to distance themselves from the fallout created by the Commssioners - "honest people! It wasn't us, its the Commission!" when it comes to elections, failing of course to remind us that they appointed the Commissioner concerned. And who are the Commissioners? Usually failed or disgraced politicians from the member nations, each one having a certain number they can appoint, usually apportioned on a contributions basis. Now comes the problem, Brussels based Commissioners are res[onsible for over 80% of all the legislation currently approved or considered in our Parliament. In short, Westminster is irrelevant, we might as well scrap our legal system and Parliament and just accept that Brussels has direct Rule over our affairs.

Recently a British business was destroyed by our own Department responsible for food, agriculture and fisheries on direct orders from Brussels. The Brussels team were deliberately misrepresenting and interpreting their own rules and data and despite losing two court cases ordered Defra to issue a Statutory Instrument proscribing the use of any material from a NAMED company. Not only was that an abuse of power, it was a direct and flagrant breach of our constitution! Unwritten it may be, but it is still a constitution and we have spent centuries defending the principles it embraces. So the Labour Party's spineless surrender to an unelected Commissioner and his cronies who directly beneftted from this act of treason is nothing short of betrayal of the electorate here in the UK.

So, according to Brussels, the "Ratification" of the Lisbon Constitution must continue. In short, the electorate no longer matter. Democracy is well and truly dead in Europe.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:32 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 15, 2008

Rights

Human Rights are something we often take for granted without really considering what these really are. Since the adoption of Labour's much vaunted Human Rights Act, our rights have actually, in this country, been considerably diminished. There are several reasons I say this and one is that our freedom of speech has been, and continues to be, curtailed. One of our senior Bishops and a team of lay and clergy in his Diocese recently published a study which found that Christianity is now seriously threatened in the UK by a combination of proscription on what one may say in regard to any other religion, but especially in regard to Islam, and by the fact that government ministers and departments focus all their social aid efforts through Muslim organisations and actively discriminate against Christianity.

Under current "Race Hate" legislation I could probably be prosecuted merely for pointing this out. It is refreshing therefore to find that our cousins on the other side of the pond have idiots who think free speech should be restricted. Reading a post in The Anchoress on the subject of freedom of speech I found this post entitled "Cling to the Bill of Rights". It is worth visiting and reading her thoughts on this important matter - certainly one that we seem to have forgotten in England under Blair and his closet of "single issue" merchants.

There is a very fine balance between suppressing free speech and preventing anyone from causing offence by expressing hurtful or damaging views. I agree with The Anchoress when she says that it may be almost as important for those views to be heard and held up to scrutiny so that they can be dismissed in open debate, as it is to ensure that the right to criticise is not restricted in any way. Free speech means hearing many things that I find offensive, but there is nothing more offensive to me than to be told I may not express a view or challenge a view held by someone because it "may cause offence" and is therefore proscribed. I find it particularly offensive when those telling me this and restricting my liberty are the same group who, in my youth, staged protests over their right to choose who could and could not teach them, play cricket here or trade with us. And when they weren't doing that they were smoking pot, strumming guitars and dancing round the stones at Stonehenge. Come to think of it, some of them still do! This is the "single issue" generation who hate to be confused by facts and who often get their prejudices confused with their morality.

The freedoms they seek to restrict are ones hard won by our fathers and grandfathers. They were won by the blood, sweat and tears of our forebears and they must not be given up lightly. Democracy is not a robust institution, the natural state of humanity is living under tyrrany whether we like it or not and in its present form it is barely two hundred years old. If we are not careful it will not last another two hundred years for it will have been strangled in red tape by bureaucrats and single issue campaigners who never look beyond their own narrow confines.

The Anchoress is right, the Freedom of Speech, no matter how distasteful the view of the speaker, is one of the most important pillars of our democracy. It must be defended at all cost.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 04:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 14, 2008

The Treaty is dead?

It certainly looks as if the Irish have killed it. But then, the last time this happened there, they held another Referendum with a slightly different question and got the answer the politicians wanted. Let's hope it doesn't follow the same path this time.

The Treaty of Lisbon is the EU Constitution in disguise no matter what Gordon Brown and his henchmen say. There has, according to my MEP been just over 3% change to the original document and that in only peripherals. Furthermore, the "new" treaty is simply a list of the amendments to the original - it is not a corrected document or even a comprehensive document. No one has published an "Amended Text", in fact the Commission has expressly forbidden the publication of such a text. Even that apology to democracy, our European Parliament, have not seen an amended text, only the original and the lists of amendments. In other words it is a scam. It is a pile of ordure and it stinketh to the heavens - but that hasn't stopped the unelected Commission and their bureaucrats from trying to sell it as fertiliser - "It hath much power and maketh the grass to grow" is how they have tried to hoodwink everyone.

Visiting the BBC Website I found hundreds of comments on the story of the Irish Referendum, perhaps the richest coming from Italians suggesting that the British should leave the EU now. Believe me we'd probably like too, after all we pay three times what we get back from it, most of that going to Italy and other basket case economies threatening to destroy the Eurozone. What was interesting was the number of comments from all over Europe saying "Good for the Irish, why are we all not being allowed to vote on this". Some apologisers for the Treaty insisted that it was such a complex matter that we should simply trust our "elected" representatives to sort it out. Oh yes? Which "elected" representatives would they be? Labour's stool pigeons elected with a total vote of 28%? The Unelected Commissioners? The Council of Ministers made up of self-important and self-interested con artists? They have a better understanding of the "technicalities" than we do?

We in Britain were promised a Referendum on this issue at the last election, the government have reneged on that for one reason only - every poll they have taken has shown a nation-wide refusal to give up any more of our sovereignty to Brussels. Brown will discover just how deeply we feel on this issue at the next election.

In the meantime we need to thank the Irish people for exercising their constitutional right - and killing the Treaty.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 05:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 13, 2008

Irish Referendum

How ironic that we in Britain are all holding our breath for the outcome of the Irish vote on the EU Constitution. It says a great deal about the state of democracy everywhere else in Europe that not one other government has the guts to own up to the subterfuge they are pulling here to secure themselves in power as "super-power" mongers and give their nations an option to determine whether or not we want to be a part of this Oligarchic Super-State.

Why Oligarchic? Simply because what this consitution does is "crown" one of the unelected nominees put forward by the equally unrepresentative Council of Ministers and the Commission as "President". It has echoes of medieval Europe and the Holy Roman Empire where twelve "Electors" (Kurfursts) - in effect, vassal Kings - "elected, the Emperor. Here we have the same process being proposed. The Commission and the Council of Ministers will propose an "annointed" one who becomes President. Why can the people of Europe not have a say in this? I for one don't want to have to accept as head of state someone like Tony Blair. We have a perfectly good head of state - Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second. And, frankly, none of the other "candidates" fill me with any enthusiasm.

As for the rest of it, can you imagine how our Foreign affairs will be conducted if they move to Brussels? It goes without saying that Israel will have a hard time from there on because the French have long been in bed with the Arabs and European sympathies lie in that direction more than any other. One good thing I suppose is that the "Single Issue" lobbies that so bedevil our national politics will be drowned in the realpolitik of Europe. That aside, and its the only good thing I can think of in this, we lose control of our military (A Frenchman is head of the EU Fleet in the proposals - yes the rattling is Nelson, Anson, Howe and St Vincent, not to mention Hood and every other famous Admiral!) and no doubt the Falklanders will find themselves sold off to Argentina pretty quickly too. Any Falklander reading this should maybe start to learn Spanish.

Unless of course, the Irish have rejected it. A slim hope perhaps, but our only one.

I do want to see Europe united and strong. I do want to see it play a leading role in the future of humanity, but I don't believe the political vision of the 1930's is the way to go. It is too bureaucratic, too centerist and far to socialist. I want a voice in Brussels and a strong voice in Strasbourg, not a puppet parliament in Strasbourg and a bunch of unelected dictators in Brussels who call all the shots. Above all, I want to have a say in who represents this new state as its head - and that would not be that complete moron Blair!

Come on the Irish - save our democracy!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 11, 2008

The nations children are demonised, stressed and criminalised?

So say our Children's Commissioners. I wonder which planet they live on? Presumably one with nice fluffy pink clouds? These morons should try living in my street. Its been peaceful around here for the last few weeks - because the gang that used to terrorise us all (Eldest was aged 13!) with their threatening behaviour, foul language (I use expletives occassionally - but these kids seem to have no other adjectives) and the violence they exhibited against other kids who dared to get in their way. They put one boy in Intensive Care and then pleaded "Self defence" when charged with assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Well the good news on that was the Judge in the Crown Court didn't believe it either - and took note of the fact that between them they had a record number of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. He sent them down and we now have some peace in the street. Sadly though, they'll be out again soon.

I firmly believe that these "Children's Rights" champions have got it badly wrong - indeed the entire Children's Rights lobby have it wrong. The system they advocate of "reward/Penalty" simply does not work unless you are able to devote an enormous amount of time to it and follow it through rigorously. One slip where something is either not rewarded or punished undoes everything you have achieved. Penalties must be applied, and by that I do NOT mean the sort of belting with some instrument that leaves bruises or scars - but a sensible application of a penalty that is appropriate and meaningful to the child.

Chidren need to know where the boundaries are and those need to be firm, not flexible. Children should be listened too, but they do not have either the experience or the knowledge to be rulers. Parents need to be responsible and need to have the backing of the law in dealing with children who refuse to recognise others rights and the boundaries set by parents or teachers. I regularly have to watch one particular boy in one of the Abbey choirs who knows he can do as he pleases and face no penalty - his parents simply refuse to accept that the little darling is disruptive, rude and downright obnoxious. Frankly, I'd have slung him and his parents out of the choir a long time ago regardless of how good a voice he has - but they are big donors to the school the choir is attached too....... And therein lies another huge problem. Many parents today try to buy their kids good behaviour, a system guaranteed to bring disrespect and bad behaviour.

Children do have rights, but, as I was taught, the exercise of MY rights should never include depriving you of yours or of in any way infringing your exercise of the same rights. The balance has swung far to far towards the children of today having all the rights and the adult population being deprived of theirs. You cannot reprimand a child for fear of being dragged into court on some trumped up charge - because the little darlings all know exactly how to make accussations which will stir up a hornets nest. And because of the "protection" they then enjoy in court, and the fact that there is an automatic presumption of guilt if a child accuses an adult of anything at all, there is little or no chance of your receiving justice.

It seems to me that the "children" are stressed precisely because they are given no boundaries, there is no firm guidance for them on any aspect of preparing for adulthood from their parents and their role models are drawn from the alcoholic football "stars" who spit, swear and throw tantrums, or from the world of popstars and super models who snort coke, take other drugs and behave like the pampered brats they are. Of course they get stressed out at exams - we all do - but somehow there has to be a measurement of how little they have managed to absorb in the disrupted classes our "gurus" in the Department of Education insist must have "all ability" mixes.

If these things are to be addressed properly it is not for the state to address them. The solution is simple, the police, the teachers and the parents must be empowered to impose discipline. Yes the child can enjoy their rights - but they have to learn discipline in order to exercise self-discipline, they must have boundaries and understand those boudaries. You don't get either if you are counselled everytime something doesn't go your way, or from "anger management" classes if all they teach is how not to beat up the person who says "no". It is not acceptable to have a small group of out of control hooligans making life miserable for anyone else - their liberties and their "rights" must be forfeit if necessary to guarantee the rights of everyone else. Thirdly, our education system needs serious rethinking - preferably without the moronic bunch of "educationists" and left-wing ideologues trying to impose their unworkable theories. The kids are stressed because they are not being taught things properly and that is not the fault of the teachers but of the theorists who argue against the tried and tested methods which have worked for centuries.

Children in this country are demonised, criminalised and stressed - and no wonder. They are given rights their parents can't exercise and which they are themselves unsure of how to use and at every turn warned that all adults are sexual predators. They are bored out of their heads because all they can do "safely" according to the "gurus" is watch television, play video games or "hang out" in gangs. However, what I would like the Commissioners to answer is this - if the children are such saintly and well behaved model citizens as you seem to suggest, then why do they indulge in violent assaults on innocent passers-by, even filming their assault on videophone to share with those who missed their latest "Happy Slapping" of some poor person who happened across their path? Why do they vandalise peoples property and never suffer any penalty in courts which are a sick joke, dominated as they are by hippy social workers whose only stock in trade is to try to make out that it is the property owners fault for having something that the youff could destroy?

Somehow I don't expect an answer - after all, the Commissioners only purpose is to tell the rest of us how bad we are, not to find solutions of any merit to any of the problems they, and those they represent, create.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 10, 2008

A typical example of what is wrong with our nation .....

Are the comments by Mister Rupert Everett to the Sunday Telegraph - which he is now desperately trying to amend. Too late Sonny Jim, you're on record as having nothing but contempt for the young men and women who put their lives on the line - at lower pay than you and your arty-farty chums and cronies pay Traffic Wardens - so you can exercise the freedom to speak out like that. Try saying that sort of thing in Iran, Russia, China or any number of countries who do threaten our freedom. The least you would get is a long spell in an unpleasant jail.

This creep is typical of the class that now control our media, our government and most of our town halls. That is why our soldiers and other service personell cannot wear their uniforms in public anymore - because scum like Mr Everett constantly drip their poison of anti-military garbage to the gullible. The Labour Party have long been the leaders of anti-armed services propaganda and there is a good reason for it. They HATE the military because they are afraid of the discipline and the loyalty the troops display to the nation and the country - not to the tuppenny-ha'penny politicians who might be in power at any given moment. In a world in the grip of some of the most unstable and dangerous regimes it has ever seen, we still have the vocal lobby in control in this country trying to reduce military spending below the pathetic 2% of Gross National Product that it currently is. Every time the military ask for better equipment or a new ship, aircraft or tank to replace the aging equipment they have - this same bunch of wimps and scum scream blue-murder that the money should be spent on more waste in Whitehall or even more waste in the sinkhole that is the NHS. Or even better - on more money being thrown at some of the Labour voting wastrals on permanent benefit. You know the ones - they have fifteen kids, have never worked a day in their lives and constantly demand upgraded housing to replace the most recently trashed property they have infested.

Personally I will not be wasting my time or energy attempting to see any production in which Mister Everett features. I heartily commend that course of action to everyone else as well.

By Sky News SkyNews - 1 hour 47 minutes agoRupert Everett has apologised for calling soldiers "wimps" and suggesting they went into the Army to torture prisoners.

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He says his comments were "flippant and irresponsible" and never intended to question those who had lost their lives or limbs.

The 49-year-old star of My Best Friend's Wedding - and the son of a retired Army major - had been quoted in a newspaper criticising soldiers for whining.

He made his comments in an interview to publicise a documentary, The Victorian Sex Explorer, in which he plays the Army officer and explorer Sir Richard Burton.

Everett said: "In Burton's day they were itching to get into the fray. Now it is the opposite. They are always whining about the dangers of being killed.

"Oh my God, they are such wimps now!"

He told The Sunday Telegraph: "The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed, wanting to test yourself to the limits.

He also said: "The whole point of being in the Army is going to war and getting yourself blown up. That and (urinating) on prisoners. Yet we all get shocked by Abu Ghraib."

Now he has issued a statement apologising "without reserve" to the "many in this country, and hundreds and thousands of others across the world who have lost their brothers and sisters, their fathers and mothers to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the countless others".

Everett, 49, said: "I never meant at any point to question the bravery of those who lose their lives, or survive, but without arms or legs.

"Just seeing these people in my mind's eye right now makes me feel a terrible anguish."

He said he was trying to make the point that "we still go to war, but actually we haven't the stomach for it".

He added: "My flippant and irresponsible behaviour arises from a deep frustration at the fact that we seem to be continually making war, dreaming up new ones, instead of doing everything we can to avoid them."

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:18 AM | TrackBack

June 06, 2008

Mugabe's "veterans".

Listening to the Zimbabwean government I am strongly reminded of Saddam's last days in power. His Foreign Minister seemed to have a problem with reality too. Mind you, a while back I commented here that you should not expect Mugabe's thugs to allow him to be voted out of power and I was absolutely right. They are so afraid of losing the "run-off" their puppets in the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission have engineered by manipulating the votes that they now don't bother to hide their campaign of terror from the rest of the world.

Sadly, unless the South African Military and some of the other neighbours are sent in to disarm Mugabe's thugs and confine them to barracks, the violence will continue until Mugabe "wins" the election. President Mbeki has shown himself unwilling to act against his thuggish friend and Zuma will not be able to do anything if and when he comes to power.

Mugabe's "War Veterans" are most of them far too young to have ever fought in the Bush War and are rather like Winnie Mandela's "Football Club" - thugs recruited simply to put the fear of Mugabe into anyone who dares challenge Mugabe. The biggest problem here is that Mugabe's people control the Police, the Judiciary, the Army and their Central Intelligence Agency. And he is fully prepared to use them against anyone and everyone - including Diplomats engaged in lawful diplomatic activity. Yesterday they tried to abduct, arrest and intimidate diplomatic personnel from the UK and the US. Today they have arrested Morgan Tsvangiri - how unfortunate that he could easily suffer a fatal fall while in custody - and the UN, the UK and the US bleat about it but do nothing. The only thing this thug and his cronies understands is the threat of annihilation. Learn to talk his language - or shut up and get the hell out of there altogether - and that includes the "AID" workers.

The only thing left to say is addressed to Whitehall and Westminster. You put him in power. You lauded and promoted him even though everyone of you knew he was a psychopathic murderer who ran "re-education" camps, organised abductions, ordered the murder of white farmers and their labourers and any and all opposition groups. You knew he had Maoist sympathies and operated one of the most indescriminate terror organisations in the world at that time - the Fifth Brigade.

Congratulations, you created a monster. Now tell us how YOU propose to deal with him.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 01:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 02, 2008

Broadcast Evensong

Yesterday afternoon BBC Radio 3 broadcast Evensong "live" from Tewkesbury Abbey. A very good congregation were treated to some stunningly beautiful music sung by Schola Cantorum Choir directed by Benjamin Nicholas and a virtuoso performance by Carleton Etherington in the Recessional voluntary. For the next few days, those who would like to hear it can go to the BBC 3 website and hear it on their iPlayer webcast.

Despite the braodcast, this was no concert. It was an act of worship, worship worthy of the angels themselves. I recommend that you listen to it yourself - you'll see what I mean.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:53 AM | TrackBack

May 31, 2008

A tribute to one of ours ...

In stark contrast to our own national response to our men and women currently deployed in Iraq (Hamstrung by Labour's "Human Rights" lobbists "Rules of Engagement" which prevent their actually shotting anyone shooting at them!) and in Afghanistan (which doesn't seem to attract the same level of support as Iraq in the "Human Rights" forum), I find the support for the armed forces in the US enlightening. Yes, there are dissenting voices, but they have not been fed the anti-military lies of the left wing pacifists for the last 60 years of socialism as we have.

Recently I was moved to discover this tribute to one of ours - barely mentioned in the UK Press, let alone on any UK based Blog I have found - on CrosSwords. I hope that Lance Corporal Croucher has now been awarded his well deserved VC. If he has not, I can only say that it is yet another example of the sickness at the heart of Whitehall and Westminster - infested by worthless, faceless and incompetent cowards who hate anyone with more initiative, courage and ability than themselves. I could add the poisonous left-wing "educationists" to that list - men and women who teach a poisoned and biased vision of the deeds of men and women who made this country great so that they could have the freedom to destroy it from within.

No prizes for guessing where the title of my next book comes from!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 24, 2008

Memorial Day

Memorial Day in the US. Quite and experience - one which makes me all to aware of just how much the Blair/Brown/Hain generation of squatters, boycotters and terrorists have undermined my own nation and its defenders. Recently I saw an e-mail on the BBC's "Comment on the news" blog which questioned why we should mark Armistice Day or show any respect to men (and women) in uniform. The writer stated "These people don't need our respect, they're nothing but natural born killers, licensed to murder innocent civilians by our government." The writer of that didn't leave a name, but their location showed up - a university campus.

Therein lies the problem for our nation. Our centres of education have become the home of left wing socialist doctrinaires who rabbit their poisonous claptrap about "better Red than dead" to youngsters who have no concept of the realities of history other than the slewed and twisted garbage that our schools and universities peddle as history (Che Guevarra was a misunderstood philanthropist struggling to free the oppressed from the evil western capitalists) and completely ignoring the fact that they enjoy the freedom to spread this poison because others have given their lives or a significant part of their health to the cause of freedom. And they weren't named Che or any other psychopathic left wing "hero".

I envy the Americans their pride in their nation and in their armed forces. I envy them the pride which sees the stars and stripes flying on almost every house, on every building and anywhere else they can put it. I resent the bureaucrats and the Labour communistas who deny me the right to hoist the Union flag at my own home, or even to have a pole to fly it from when they think I should. Why are they so afraid of our being proud to display our national symbols? Probably because it would expose the bankruptcy of their entire political and humanist ideology and see them thrown forever into the political wilderness.

Sadly, I would have to say that many in the US are very deeply ignorant of many things outside of their own nation, but then they have good company in Europe and elsewhere on similar issues. Equally sadly I have to say that I do not see the European "nation" surviving as long as the socialist poison drip against anything that speaks of discipline, self responsibility or service to anything greater than one's own wants holds sway.

We need to kick these poisonous vipers into touch and rediscover our pride in ourselves and our history and bury the socialist poison version forever.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 11:58 AM | TrackBack

May 21, 2008

Fire in the Berlin Philharmonic roof

Mausi drew my attention to a news item reporting a fire in the roof of the Berlin Philharmonic's home base. It appears that there was a smouldering fire in the roof - a very modernist building with a huge and very high structure - which engaged the attention of over a hundred fire fighters.

The Monk hated roof fires - you can't get at them for a start. And this type is the worst because the only way to get at it is to get on the roof and then make a hole in it. That weakens the structure and ventilates the fire allowing it to develop and spread while putting the troops in danger as they work. Hopefully the fire is now out - I make that assumption on the fact that I have seen no news report of the Philharmonic Hall having burned down.

The design of these very innovative structures often takes no account of access for maintenance or any other "service". I wonder what it will take to get designers to consider the unexpected event such as this?

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:08 PM | TrackBack

May 11, 2008

Returning to/from Bucharest

Today I am travelling back from Bucharest, believe it or not, via Zurich! The long way round I'm thinking, but there, that is the way of airlines these days.

Every visit to Bucharest, since my first in 1995, is fascinating. Every time there are changes to be seen, many of them for the better, but one is also reminded that in any change of economic situation there are always winners and losers - one can really only hope that there are not too many of the latter and attempt to provide some sort of cushion for it. The city has changed enormously in the last thirteen years and even more changes are on the way. Buildings are being renovated, but it is a slow and expensive process. Many of the owners do not have the funds or the resources to do the work necessary and the city is built on a huge earthquake fault. Worse, many of the buildings were damaged badly in the 1977 and 1984 quakes here and the regime simply didn't bother carrying out the structural repairs necessary - so they papered over the cracks and now the restored owners face the bills.

New building is booming though and one thing is the extensive use of glass - about which I have a few questions in an earthquake zone! Tall buildings are on the drawing boards as well - currently not much more than 40 storeys, but it won't be long before someone decides to reach for the sky. The biggest problem for builders and designers here is the soil - it is millenia of silt from the Danube and another big river with bedrock several hundred feet down - and the high water table (About 4 metres below ground on average.) Then there is a problem with electrolytic action between power cables and steel re-inforcing in some areas where concrete with a certain type has been and is being used.

I am always a little sad to be leaving here, the people are amazingly friendly and generally very hard working. They are also determined to put their country onto the European map and to change their image from "sick" nation to "equal member" - one they are very proud to be part of and they are nothing if not proud as it is.

One final thought which sums them up rather well. Near my hotel is the memorial to those who died on the day the Revolution against the Communists and Ceacescu started. I was looking at it and trying to decipher the Romanian Inscription yesterday when an older Romanian joined me and commented, "There are many arguments about whether they are martyrs and whether the Revolution was a revolution. The improvement may be small - but at least we did something."

I wonder if anyone will say the same of us someday?

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:12 AM | TrackBack

May 10, 2008

Good riddance to Red Ken ...

I suspect that there will be many raising a quiet glass in toast to the ousting of Red Ken Livingstone - another of the Labourites who think that Che Guevara was a man of vision and compassion - from the Mayorality of Greater London. I don't think I envy his successor. The GLA and its Admninistrative bureaucracy will be riddled with Labour placemen and spies whose mission now will be to sabotage everything Boris Johnson attempts to do.

In Boris' shoes I would sack the entire Administrative staff and recruit fresh, with filters in place to ensure that nothing and no one with sympathies with Labour or the Left gets a job.

Boris will have to watch his back at every step of the way until he can rid himself of Ken's poisonous cronies, many of whom will not be obvious. He's going to need a stab proof jacket for quite a while because a major part of Ken's tenure has been spent on building a bureaucracy as poisoned and as inefficient as the late and unlamented Greater London Council over which he presided for far to long. Since Ken has created the GLA and London Administration from scratch, it will have been designed to be entirely selfserving and utterly incompetent.

Many commentators have remarked on the fact that one newspaper in particular set out to "get Ken", led by a senior journalist. When confronted by the BBC, the journalist admitted that it had been his intention to do this - pointing out that he, unlike Ken Livingstone, had been perfectly open about his intentions. He also reminded the BBC that Ken Livingstone's tenure as head of the GLC had been brought about by a coup against his own party leader at the time.

Those who know Mister Livingstone evidently will not be shedding any tears. I did not know him, and I'm still delighted to see him ejected from office.

Thoroughly un-Christian of me I know - but then this little twerp has spent a vast amount of taxpayers money promoting a lot of anti-Christian propaganda and supporting the promotion of everything that is against the Christian ethos. Only one thing can make me any happier than his election defeat - to see him fall completely from grace, preferably through the criminal courts.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:03 PM | TrackBack

May 03, 2008

A publisher in sight?

I have received an offer from a publisher based in the US to explore the publication of "The enemy is within!". It is a tentative one and they certainly aren't predicting instant "best seller" or even "prize winner" status. They suggest modest sales and what looks, on the surface, like a sensible Royalty agreement. Even better it looks as if there could be some interest in re-publishing and marketing "Out of Time" once we get under way on "The enemy is within!" However, having taken a good hard look at the contract they offered, I am being very cautious. On closer scrutiny it appears that this may just be an upmarket version of the self-publishing route. It looks as if I would be putting up the manuscript, doing the edit and the proof-reading and they would simply publish it and put it onto Amazon and Barnes and Noble etc.

I could do that on my own. However, all is not entirely lost because there is a UK based publisher currently considering the work and they offer a much better set of options - including a really good marketing system. After all, they have to make some money out of this as well. I am not saying "no" to the US offer just yet, but I am considering every clause in the contract very carefully - and have a number of questions on each point already.

I have to say a huge thanks to all those of you - my long suffering friends - who have read my work, bought the first book and encouraged me to keep going. I had hoped to have "The enemy is within!" published almost a year ago. I have to say that I'm glad it didn't get done and that I have had this time to work on it and make it into a really great story - a worthy successor to Out of Time. That too, is thanks in very large part to Mausi's critiques and to the use of a professional editing service called Writer's Services. I can really recommend their services to any budding authors, professional, helpful and encouraging in their criticisms.

Thanks to all of you too for your patience and forbearance as I have wrestled with the system to get this far. Perhaps, as Sir Winston Churchill once said, this could just be the end of the beginning.

Well, watch this space and Amazon.com more news will follow soon.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 05:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 01, 2008

Thanks for nothing Mister Brown

Personally I hope to see a Labour wipeout in todays local government elections. It might, just might, alert our Lords and Masters in Westminster and Whitehall to the fact that we have had enough of meddling, nannying legislation and the theft from our wallets each month for their bloated pay packets and benefits.

The debacle over the scrapping of the 10% tax band which benefitted many of us between the ages of 60 and 65 who get no tax relief, no "benefit" and try to make a small pension stretch has, I hope, provided those who wavered towards giving this shower of charlatans and thieves the benefit of any further doubt with the excuse they need to vote differently. The tax on my pension just doubled, but does Gordon Brown and his coterie of non-working class champange socialists give a damn? Of course not, they're all right Jack ... And Brown's admission that "ministers failed to spot the impact on certain groups ..." just doesn't excuse it. That shower of parasites called the Civil Service, especially the bunch of trolls, thieves and thugs of the Treasury, didn't bother considering us either.

Since Blair and his luvvies brought Labour to power in 1997, we have seen our taxes rising steadily and inexorably. We have seen wave after wave of badly thought out legislation imposed on our lives by little tyrants who want to control every aspect of our lives and have brought upon us a society that is almost as bad as that created by the communists in East Germany. Neighbours now spy on each other and woe betide the mother who dares to smack a badly behaved or recalcitrant brat! And our taxes pay for what? An ever rising number of incompetents who cannot supply our troops with working weapons, usable ammunition or the most basic personal equipment. A growing army of "managers" who couldn't manage if their lives depended on it, a failing NHS subjected to more political interference and meddling than at any time in its history. An education system that changes every five minutes so that its failures can be concealed. Prisons bursting at the seams with parents who dared to smack a child, fuel prices rocketing through the roof (They try to blame that on the Oil Companies) with the Treasury stealing even more of our money through a Tax Escalator which sees tax imposed on tax. As the price rises the Treasury's tax take actually inflates it further because they use a percentage calculator - the higher the price, the higher the tax. No one else in Europe does that!

As I said at the start, I hope Labour sees a meltdown in the Local Government elections - its the only hope we have of shaking these arrogant, ignorant and idle thieves out of their complacency.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 12:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 28, 2008

Power blackout hits Power Outage protest meeting ....

Only in Africa could this happen. Or could it? It's not that many years ago that Britain underwent a period of power outages daily due to an ongoing power struggle between the Unions and the Government. This though is different, this is about resources not meeting demand.

The South African power supplier ESKOM is saddled with an infrastructure and generating plant designed to supply a population around half of what the current population level of the Republic is. There has been no development of these resources or investment in them since the ANC came to power and scrapped immigration laws for African migrants. Result? Cities bursting at the seams, power demand soaring and an infrastructure that will require probably ten years to extend, replace and increase to meet demand. Even then I doubt it can be done.

After all, even if they built a million houses a year for the next ten years it would still not meet demand ......

So, could this happen in BRitain? Guess what, it most certainly could. Green policies have severely restricted the development of our own power generating infrastructure. The ONLY sensible solution is to go for nuclear - but don't mention that in the presence of any of the green lobby or the Grenham Common fraternity. They'd rather see the Severn estuary destroyed by a barrage which will silt up the Bristol channel and damage the ecology of this extremely sensitive area and the country covered in windmills. I give it about ten years at present rate of growth and we'll be sitting in the dark for at least part of every day.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African union was holding a public conference protesting against the country's power crisis on Thursday when the lights went out.

(Advertisement)
"It was symbolic," Solidarity union spokesman Jaco Kleynhans said.

The Solidarity trade union was hosting a briefing on its possible class action suit against troubled state utility Eskom over job cuts when it was reminded of South Africa's power woes.

Delegates were left in the dark when Eskom implemented its daily blackouts that have caused traffic chaos and darkened homes.

South Africans are seething over a power crisis the government has warned could take years to resolve.

Eskom produces about 95 percent of South Africa's electricity and is spending billions of dollars to expand its generating capacity as it struggles to cope with rising demand from the country's growing economy.

(Reporting by Michael Georgy; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:10 AM | TrackBack

April 26, 2008

Sorting out some pics ....

Having taken quite a few pictures in Tehran I now have to downsize them so that I can post some. I also have to download them from my laptop and upload on the desktop ......

Sigh, this could take a while.

Patience please dear readers, it will get done, once I have sorted the junkmail from the important stuff, sorted out my presentation for Bucharest on the seventh of May and a few more pressing tasks. Three weeks away from home plays havoc with normal business ....

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:58 AM | TrackBack

April 20, 2008

Smoke free?

German restaurants and pubs went smoke free recently. Smoke free in theory, that is. Mausi cannot understand why it is apparently such a problem in Germany when Ireland, England, Scotland and even Italy went smoke free without a problem. The Irish even invented a new form of social intercourse - smirting, a combination of smoking and flirting or what else would you do if you have to go outside for a smoke?

In Germany there have been endless discussions in all the different Federal States. Each state wanted have some sort of exemptions or at least modifications to the law. Rhineland-Palatinate started the ban on smoking later than the others because they were afraid inn keepers were going to loose too much money during the carnival season because people would stay away from pubs if they weren't allowed to smoke there. Bavaria wanted the strictest of all laws in the first place and were even going to ban smoking in the big tents at the famous Munich Oktoberfest. But after the last elections in Bavaria a few months ago where the dominating party lost a lot of votes they are going to lift the ban on smoking a bit and allow smoking in tents again.

Bavarian inn keepers are also very inventive on circumnavigating the law. Some of them founded smoking societies whose members meet in the former pubs. They are all issued a member card which they show when they are inspected by law enforcing agencies. The only draw back is that societies are not meant to make a profit. Mausi has no idea how they are going to get around that. Another proposal is to define smoke free and non smoke free restaurants and pubs. That seems a bit unfair, as the non smoke free ones would retain their old customers and the smoke free would have to look for new ones.

The inn keepers keep complaining that they will loose all their customers if smoking is forbidden. Nobody seems to give all the non smokers a thought who have stayed out of pubs for years because they couldn't bear all the smoke and stink which settled in their clothes. Mausi hadn't been to a pub for the last 25 years if she could avoid it. And she was really looking forward to being able to have a beer inside a pub again. Now it seems that the law that bans smoking will be so full of holes that it is not worth the paper it is written on.

Germans seem particularly good at making things as difficult as possible....

Posted by Mausi at 07:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 16, 2008

A thought on Africa

Listening to the news on the difficulties of electing or changing a government in Africa today one could be excused for wondering why we bother. After all, democracy is an alien concept in sub Saharan Africa and Robert Mugabe is behaving exactly as a Tribal Paramount Chief would behave if someone challenged his authority. The veneer of civilisation (Western that is) is just that, a veneer.

Watch Kenya and you see the problem. For years it has been held up as the model of "Western" government in Africa, but beneath the veneer the ruling elite have carried on exactly as they would have done as tribal chieftains. Nepotism, bribery, and all the things westerners think don't happen at home are the norm. Naturally, the opposition to any government is really only seeking a place in the hierarchy. OK, I know, that sounds cynical, but it is the reality that our media and our bleeding heart Aid Agencies (Who, if you really look at them, are primarily concerned about the perpetuation of the nice little "feel good" industry) do not want to acknowledge. Perhaps because they cannot understand that Africa is not and probably never will be, a "Western" country. And there lies another problem - many people even now think of "Africa" as some sort of unified land, populated by poor downtrodden and oppressed black people. Just how insulting can we get?

Africa has more human genetic diversity than any other continent on the planet. Yet, south of the Sahara no major civilisations have emerged. Several have stuttered into the first faltering steps, but have then vanished without ever having got going, perhaps through being wiped out by a more powerful and envious neighbour. The ruins of Great Zimbabwe suggest one such failed attempt - no one even knows who built it.

What has all this to do with anything? Well, a friend forwarded the editorial in the extended post and frankly, as I posted before my excursio to Tehran, Robert Mugabe has reacted to his election defeat exactly as I said he would. Morgan Tsangari will probably have to remain in exile in Botswana unless he wishes to languish in Harare gaol on trumped up treason charges. And it will all, undoubtedly, stiull be the fault of those horrid white settlers .....

David Bullard's editorial says it all.

Article in the Sunday Times by David Bullard

Published:Apr 07, 2008

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Imagine for a moment what life would be like in South Africa if the evil white man hadn’t come to disturb the rustic idyll of the early black settlers.

Ignored by the Portuguese and Dutch, except as a convenient resting point en route to India . Shunned by the British, who had decided that their empire was already large enough and didn’t need to include bits of Africa .

The vast mineral wealth lying undisturbed below the Highveld soil as simple tribesmen graze their cattle blissfully unaware that beneath them lies one of the richest gold seams in the world. But what would they want with gold?

There are no roads because no roads are needed because there are no cars. It’s 2008 and no one has taken the slightest interest in South Africa , apart from a handful of botanists and zoologists who reckon that the country’s flora and fauna rank as one of the largest unspoilt areas in a polluted world.

Because they have never been exposed to the sinful ways of the West, the various tribes of South Africa live healthy and peaceful lives, only occasionally indulging in a bit of ethnic cleansing.

Their children don’t watch television because there is no television to watch. Instead they listen to their grandparents telling stories around a fire. They live in single-storey huts arranged to catch most of the day’s sunshine and their animals are kept nearby.

Nobody has any more animals than his family needs and nobody grows more crops than he requires to feed his family and swap for other crops. Ostentation is unknown because what is the point of trying to impress your fellow citizens when they are not impressible?

The dreaded Internet doesn’t exist in South Africa and cellphone companies have laughed off any hope of interesting the inhabitants in talking expensively into a piece of black plastic. There are no unsightly shopping malls selling expensive goods made by Asian slave workers and consequently there are no newspapers or magazines carrying articles comparing the relative merits of ladies’ handbags.

Whisky, the curse of the white man, isn’t known in this undeveloped land and neither are cigars. The locals brew a sort of beer out of vegetables and drink it out of shallow wooden bowls. Five-litre paint cans have yet to arrive in South Africa .

Every so often a child goes missing from the village, eaten either by a hungry lion or a crocodile. The family mourn for a week or so and then have another child. Life is, on the whole, pretty good but there is something vital missing. Being unaware of the temptations of the outside world, nobody knows what it is. Fire has been discovered and the development of the wheel is coming on nicely but the tribal elders are still aware of some essential happiness ingredient they still need to discover. Praying to the ancestors is no help because they are just as clueless.

Then something happens that will change this undisturbed South Africa forever. Huge metal ships land on the coast and big metal flying birds are sent to explore the sparsely populated hinterland. They are full of men from a place called China and they are looking for coal, metal, oil, platinum, farmland, fresh water and cheap labour and lots of it. Suddenly the indigenous population realise what they have been missing all along: someone to blame. At last their prayers have been answered.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:02 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 05, 2008

Dear Mister Brown ....

Is the title of a song on the Tewkesbury Flood Relief Fund's CD and it pretty much sums up our town's response to his visit and crocodile tears over the floods last year. Listening to his response to the report from a very eminent committee of Cross-Party Peers, it struck me that, with a few minor modifications it could easily become the expression of the English Nation's feelings regarding him and his worthless collection of social engineers and ideologues.

It just goes to show how far removed from reality these idiots are. The Peers' report agrees that the unprecedented level of immigration into Britain brings in "around £6 billion" in revenue to our economy. It also agrees that there are roughly 600,000 jobs going begging at any one time in the UK. Where they part company on this is the government's view that we can continue to absorb indefinitely these levels of immigration and that this mythical £6 billion is of direct benefit to everyone. The Peers say that it is not, that the DIRECT benefit is measurable in pence per head of population. It also challenges the concept that the immigrants are closing a "skills gap" and asks why it is that the small number of employers who benefit from immigrant labour cannot train the million or more Britons who are currently drawing work seekers benefits or unemployment benefits.

Please do not misunderstand me, I happen to know a number of immigrants - in fact I am one myself - and almost all those I know have brought some new skills to this country, but that cannot be said for all those now pouring in. Whole cities and entire counties have changed irrevocably in the last ten years with long established British communities moved out, moved aside or simply subsumed. Parts of Birmingham more closely resemble parts of the Middle East or the Indian Sub-continent than they do an English city and there are parts of London where you could be forgiven for thinking you are in a different country. Yes, the Press do play up the numbers but they are high. Yes, this country has long had a tradition of absorbing immigrants, and rightly so, but never before have we had more than five percent of the total population as "immigrant" communities and never before have they so stubbornly refused to integrate.

Now 5% may not sound like a large number, but it is projected to grow dramatically, and it is further compounded by distribution. Most immigrants congregate in our cities and towns, driving up property values and driving lower paid working class folk out of them. That too is compounded by the various "Housing Authorities" operating sets of "rules" for dealing with applicants for scarce "social housing" which are biased against married couples where one or both are employed, in favour of single parents, people from "ethnically under-represented" groups and others perceived by Brown's closet communists as "disadvantaged". It gets worse when you realise that, under this government's open door policy on this issue (And you also have to take into account that almost everyone employed in the Department of Immigration in Croydon seems to be from an "immigrant" background and mostly from the Sub-continent and a particular faith.) it is expected that this number will continue to rise rather rapidly.

Rightly or wrongly, and a recent radio programme devoted to the subject of "Is Britain's White Working Class becoming invisible?" seems to suggest that it might be right, there is a perception that certain immigrant groups are simply exploiting the opportunity at the expense of native Britons. It is particularly noticeable that our taxes are rising at a rate that is almost enough to trigger a mass migration of those who can afford it to elsewhere in the world where their political leaders do not expect them to fork out almost half their earnings to fund their gerrymandering and social engineering. In one sense it is a form of "Gerrymandering", of manipulating the voting population to ensure this present government always have a majority in any given seat. It is equally noticeable that our unemployment figure remains high - and 600,000 vacancies or not, refuses to come down. Our shortage of housing remains high and more and more young people cannot get onto the property ladder at all, not even to rent because they cannot afford the huge deposit demanded on private letting plus the first months rent up front.

The expansion of the EU has brought with it a flood of young people from the former communist territories of Eastern Europe, and I, for one, welcome them. These youngsters have taken the trouble to learn to speak English and throw themselves into our culture and our way of life. Generally they also work harder than anyone else and have a far higher code of conduct than many of our own spoiled youth. But the key here is that they come here to learn, to gain experience and to send money home. One young Polish man who regularly serves me in my favourite watering hole earns just over £200 a week and sends half that home to his mother to support a brother and sister who are in university. When I asked about his own ambitions, he just grinned and said, "I like it here," then he shrugged and added, "I like to stay here, to get to be English maybe?" And he will probably succeed, because he is making every effort to "fit in".

In contrast, when my family and I migrated to these shores a little over twenty years ago our children were in a minority in the first school we could find and none of the notes they brought home were ever written in English. We always had to phone the school and ask to be told what they said. Twenty years on and nothing in that community has changed - in fact it has gone even further towards becoming completely detached from anything recogniseably "British". That is the problem created by Labour's "Open Door" and focus on "Multi-culturalism". It has dispossed the British and created ghettos by insisting that it is "OK" to refuse to integrate into our society.

Well, the Lords Committee has blown the whistle. Mr Brown and his coterie of socialist ideologues can object all they like. Facts remain facts and they cannot refute them. Their own statistics are now starting to give them the lie and no matter how much they massage the figures and move the goal posts the truth is starting to emerge. One important thing I notice that no one has addressed in this row is the cost to the taxpayer of the continuing employment of so many native Britons or the failure to invest in providing them with the skills our politicians say they lack. 680,000 vacancies the ministers trumpet, but they don't answer the important question. Why are we unable to fill these from our domestic labour pool?

I welcome the vast majority of those who have come here to make a better life - after all, I did and I would hope I have contributed more than I am getting back. I do not welcome the professional agitators, the parasites, the criminals and those who want to change this country into the third world, seventh century Theocracy they have come from. Nor do I welcome those who, for whatever reason, want to remain living in the manner of a distant country and force everyone else to live that way too.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 04, 2008

Good bye to a tyrant?

The prospect of Mugabe going quietly is one we can all hope for, but I have my doubts. As the Madam and Eve cartoon for April 2nd put it "The elections were definitely free - and one out of two isn't bad." Personally I will not be surprised if the delay in announcing the outcome of the Presidential election isn't caused by Mugabe's need to get his troops and police in place to arrest everyone who might even think he is about to give up his palace and his power just because the electorate say he must. Democracy doesn't work that way in Africa - or perhaps the West failed to take note of the Kenyan election debacle.

I will not be at all surprised if, no sooner is Morgan Tsvangira declared the winner, than Mugabe's General's will declare the election void and re-instate their "Glorious Leader" as President for Life.

I think its a case of "watch this space". But don't hold your breath - everything in that benighted country now depends on how loyal the army is to Mugabe.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:51 PM | TrackBack

April 02, 2008

When enforcers differ ....

Mausi finds herself in a strange position today. She is appearing in court as an "expert" witness, a job she normally does for the prosecution. Today is different because this is an appeal and Mausi finds herself testifying in favour of the Defence case and in direct conflict with the local police. Already someone has "leaked" this to the Press and the local and national dailies in her part of the world are full of stories about her organisation "gunning" for the police side.

Nothing could be further from the truth. She has, as usual, done a meticulous job of sifting through all the evidence and found that the original prosecution was badly flawed. The original investigators were offered this information and have tried to defend the indefensible.

The court will, I think, be an interesting place to be today, but of one thing I am certain, there can only be one outcome and if it improves the quality of future investigations by the force involved, that will be an even better outcome. As it is, someone has spent two years in prison for something they did not do. It isn't just embarassing when that happens - its a travesty. At least Mausi's Institute is interested only in the truth and the facts, not the target for "success" in prosecutions.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 05:56 AM | TrackBack

March 24, 2008

Gone beyond the rim ....

Arthur C Clarke has long been one of my favourite reads in Sci-fi. Alongside Isaac Asmiov, Robert Heinlein and one or two others who wrote scientifically plausible and realistic fiction. You don't get lost in the science with them, and you can enjoy the story without falling over scientifically impossible technology or concepts. Even their monsters were phgysiologically plausible and followed the "rules" as far as inter-species reactions were concerned. The most remarkable part of them was the fact that Clarke and Asimov were scientists by day and wrote for fun. Even Heinlein had a degree in Science.

Now Arthur C Clarke is dead, called to join his fellow travellers at last in the next dimension. To put it in the language of Babylon 5 - inspired in many ways by their writing - they have gone beyond the rim.

Personally I have found a couple of things Clarke wrote philosophically interesting in an intellectually provocative way. These have all appeared in different guises in his books, but he has also stated them in various interviews over the years. They include: -

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

This one always reminds me of the fact that many of the theories on which much of science is founded, are just that, our best guess at the "rules" as we understand them at present. The wise scientist almost always adds - "with the information/data currently available ..." to any "definitive" statement somewhere in his/her paper. Think of the Phlogiston theory popular in the early 19th Century - or the theory that cholera was spread by the stink of sewage - a view the medical profession refused to give up until forced to do so by incontrovertible evidence of the bacterial source.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Again, a hundred years ago many thought it would be impossible to launch men into space. But then only a few years before that it was considered that flight was an eccentric idea unlikely to ever be practical. Yet in living memory flying has gone from canvas and string gliders to hi-tech carbon fibre/titanium alloy powered by engines of unimaginable power at two and three times the speed of sound. We have even achieved one of the sci-fi writers stock-in-trade vehicles - the reusable passenger and goods shuttle.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Think of the impact electricity has had, of the ability to transfer our voices and our images around the globe in the blink of an eye. To any society that had never seen this - magic!

One of the truly interesting things about Clarke's writing is just how much has already become science fact. Space stations with men permanently in space, shuttles, moon walkers and even computers now edging into Artificial Intelligence.....

HAL 2000 may be just around the corner.

I hope that Arthur C Clarke will join his fellow scientists at rest beyond the rim and continue their exploration of the universe in both fact and fantasy. What an interesting company they must make.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:31 AM | TrackBack

March 15, 2008

Bureaucratic games ....

Yesterday's trip to London was an interesting experience. Firstly, having followed the web site times for applying for and collecting a Visa to visit a middle eastern state, I turned up at the Consulate at 10.45 only to be turned away again because "visas can only be applied for between 12.30 and 15.30". And no, you can't wait in the waiting room .....

So I found a quiet cafe and had breakfast (to get there as early as I had meant leaving home at 07.00 in order to get an early train which meant not being able to get a cheaper fare ...) and reviewed and got the missing details for my application sorted out. Eventually I returned to the Consulate fortified and armed with the form, correctly filled in, photos and all the other items demanded of visitors to the country concerned. Now there was a queue. I joined this queue in order to get a queueing number to join the visa queue. Ahead of me was a young lady, training she told me at Oxford to become a doctor. She was bareheaded, her blonde hair on view. An elderly man, obviously official, approached and informed her that she could not enter the Consulate without a headscarf. As the queue wasn't moving I suggested she nip round the corner to a shop that sold suitable items and get herself one and that I would keep her place. She hadn't realised that once across the threshold of an embassy or consulate you are technically in the country of that embassy .... So, off she dashed to return about fifteen minutes later (the queue hadn't moved so I let her back into the row ahead of me), her head now suitably covered in a rather heavy cashmere type scarf. I wish her well of her trip, no doubt she will discover a great deal about religious bigotry once she gets there.

Having got the ticket I now went downstairs as directed to make the application, joined a queue there only to be told, on arrival at the window, that I should have been upstairs - so back up the stairs, find the right queue (fortunately my number had not yet come up!) and waited. Eventually I managed to get my application in and was told - OK, come back Tuesday at 16.00. Aaaargh! Aother trip to the cesspit! Could they not do a "same day" service I asked as I live some distance from the said cesspit. Ah, well, OK, but it costs more. Fine - just give me the bl**dy visa.

So, at 15.35 I returned expecting to have to wait and queue again, only to have the passport and the shiny new visia returned to me immediately. Obviously as a representative of the Great Satan's ally I am fair game for these little bureaucratic games. I wonder if the rules will have changed when my colleague goes to sort his out next week? Probably, they seemed to make it all up as they went along anyway.

Still, I get paid for it ....

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 12, 2008

The right to choose?

The row currently in the news over the challenge to the government's new legislation governing embryology and genetic research comes from the unlikely source of a deaf couple who are challenging the legislation on the grounds that they should be allowed to choose that any child born to them by IVF treatment should be deaf. Now, leaving aside for the moment the concept of screen embryos to check for the genetic defects that cause congenital deafness, surely the debate should be addressing the question of giving any future child the opportunity to be born fully equipped for this life with eyes, ears that function and all the other organs functional as well - and not about whether or not the parents should have the right to decide whether or not a future child should be deaf, blind or limbless?

I found myself listening in disbelief to the arguments advanced by this couple and their supporters who are arguing on an emotional level that satisfies their needs - and completely ignores the childs. THEY want the child to be like them - deaf - and not to have the chance to be able to hear and appreciate all the things they cannot. THEY do not consider themselves disabled - and want their children to "fit into their 'culture'". Excuse me? So being deaf is now a "cultural" issue? So now perhaps we can look forward to demands from the wheelchair warriors for "cultural recognition" of their right to cripple the rest of us as they barge their powered wheelchairs through crowded shops and supermarkets?

This is definitely the thinking of the lunatic asylum. Offered the choice between bringing into this world someone with the full use of all their faculties and all their limbs and bringing in someone whose entire life will require a huge amount of support and assistance, will be handicapped in so many ways, these people would seem to be saying that they would deliberately choose to bring someone into it deliberately disabled.

I sincerely hope that the Judge in this vexatious case rules that the parents have no right to deliberately choose to disable their offspring when they have the choice. I know what my response would be if I learned that my parents had made this choice and that I now had to live with their bigotry. Bitter doesn't describe it.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 05:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 11, 2008

Its beginning to get to us ....

This is doing the rounds, and rather than send it on by e-mail, I thought I'd share it with the blogosphere. This is the sort of form filling, paper shuffling bureaucracy that I always get mad at ....

Subject: Passport Application

Dear Minister,
I'm in the process of renewing my passport but I am a total loss to understand or believe the hoops I am being asked to jump through.

How is it that Bert Smith of T.V. Rentals Basingstoke has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in 1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

How come that nice West African immigrant chappy who comes round every Thursday night with his DVD rentals van can tell me every film or video I have had out since he started his business up eleven years ago, yet you still want me to remind you of my last three jobs, two of which were with contractors working for the government?

How come the T.V. detector van can tell if my T.V. is on, what channel I am watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the government run lottery they have no idea I have won or where I am and will keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time.
Do you people do this by hand?

You have my birth date on numerous files you hold on me, including the one with all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30-odd years. It's on my health insurance card, my driver's licence, on the last four passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the planes and boats over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done every ten years and the electoral registration forms I have to complete, by law, every time our lords and masters are up for re-election.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, I was born in Maidenhead on the 4th of March 1957, my mother's name is Mary, her maiden name was Reynolds, my father's name is Robert, and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and the day I die!

I apologise Minister. I'm obviously not myself this morning. But between you and me, I have simply had enough! You mail the application to my house, then you ask me for my address. What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to activate the Fifth Reich for God's sake! I just want to go and park my weary backside on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of week's well-earned rest away from all this crap.

Well, I have to go now, because I have to go to back to Salisbury and get another copy of my birth certificate because you lost the last one. AND to the tune of 60 quid! What a racket THAT is!! Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? But nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some tosser to confirm that it's really me on the goddamn picture - you know... the one where we're not allowed to smile in in case we look as if we are enjoying the process!
Hey, you know why we can't smile? 'Cause we're totally jacked off!

I served in the armed forces for more than 25 years including over ten years at the Ministry of Defence in London . I have had security clearances which allowed me to sit in the Cabinet Office, five seats away from the Prime Minister while he was being briefed on the first Gulf War and I have been doing volunteer work for the British Red Cross ever since I left the Services. However, I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am -- you know, someone like my doctor...
who, before he got his medical degree 6 months ago WAS LIVING IN PAKISTAN ...

Yours sincerely,
An Irate British Citizen.
I think the letter encapsulates exactly what drives me up the walls with rage at the way we are treated by the faceless wonders of Whitehall. They can make the most mounmental botch of anything without even trying, but they are NEVER held to account for it. In a case exposed recently a Taxi driver was made bankrupt by the incompetent nincompoops at HM Revenue and Customs. How? Easy, they LOST his files and declared he owed them £12,000 in unpaid tax. Where that figure came from they are unable to explain - and, when he rightly refused to pay, they dragged him into court, declared him bankrupt and seized his property (including his cab - his means of earning a living) and left him destitute.

It has taken a year to sort it out. His outstanding tax was just £0.88pence. But he still has the label "Bankrupt" attached and even though he has been declared "rehabilitated" still cannot get a mortgage or any other finance deal - all due to the incompetence of some little toe-rag in the tax office. A faceless wonder who has now, no doubt, been promoted as a reward for his or her utter contempt for truth, justice or actually doing a useful job.

Coupled with that comes the admission from a senior civil servant that HMRC never pursue the rich - they have accountants who make life for the incomptents in HMRC difficult and look like the fools they are - so they target self employed middle class earners and working men, hounding them and accusing them of non-payment or underpayment of tax.

It really is time to hold the Whitehall W*nkers to account for every mistake, every unnecessary form and every wasted penny of our money.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:32 PM | TrackBack

March 10, 2008

Stormy weather ....

As the old sea shanty says: - "For the stormy winds do blow, and the raging seas how they flow!"

Got up this morning to prepare to go to work today to wind howling round the windows, rain slashing across the landscape and threats of flooding, fortunately not here. The road reports are of trees down and slow journeys, so this is a very short post. I have to drive some thirty miles to the job - and I better get going.

Seems the forecasters got it right for once.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:46 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 07, 2008

Left/Liberalism a mental disease?

Da Goddess (See my Blogroll) has posted an excellent piece outlining the dilemma many people face now that the "Liberal" trend is gaining dominance. In her piece labelled Liberalism Leftism As A Disease, she quotes a study made by Dr Rossiter - a doctor of psychiatrics - and analyses the problem of the "Liberal" who is anything but.

This is something that has worried me for years, the term "liberal" used to mean someone that followed a "live and let live" approach, Someone who was tolerant, recognised the individuality of people and stood for the right to be individual, free to speak as we saw even if we disagreed. Not so anymore. Today, certainly in Britain it has come to mean someone who subscribes to what Da Goddess calls "victimology" and wants to tie everyone up in "rules" which are supposed to be "for the greater good." Nothing, in recent years, has made me more angry than being told that "in order to redress the imbalances in our society, some people will have to sacrifice their rights and choices in order for others to be advanced." This is the mantra our Civil Service has adopted as an article of faith and what it means is a disproportionate number of immigrant minorities being recruited, often regardless of ability, to fill posts in the Whitehall Departments. Considering that across the nation the immigrant population numbers around 8% of the total - and roughly a third of that is from Europe and Eastern Europe in particular, we have to ask the question - why is it that some Departments now have amost a third of their staff from Asian or other non-european backgrounds? This is not liberal, it is a deliberate policy of exclusion aimed at the majority of Britons. The "sacrifices" that have to be made are notably NOT being made by those who espouse these policies or their families. The BBC recently rather bravely highlighted the plight of white working class Britain, excluded, unemployed and now invisible behind the rampant promotion of "Immigration is Good for Britain."

One problem with that is the news headline today that RAF personnel in Peterborough have been ordered NOT to wear their uniforms in public. Why? Because that centre of Christianity has become an Islamic ghetto under Labour and the servicemen and women are now being subjected to verbal abuse and physical threats whenever they leave the Base just outside the town. But the RAF personnel, argues the Left, are seen as the "oppressor" by these Muslim "victims" of the West's aggression.

Some years ago I was accosted in London by a protester waving a petition he demanded I sign. I refused as I did not, and still do not, believe that what was being demanded then was right. He immediately called me a "racist" and began to harangue me for my "Right wing" fascism. He never even paused to ask why I was not willing to sign, or to support his view, he was only interested in his own narrow vision. Angry, I told him that it took a racist to know a racist and walked away, followed by a torrent of abuse from him and his fellow protesters. Ironically, I recognise that twerp - now balding slightly, still arrogant and loud, and dressed in bespoke Saville Row suits, chauffeured by men worth a hundred of his sort. You guessed it, he's now in the Cabinet. And his petition was in support of Robert Mugabe .....

Dr Rossiter highlights several things about the "Left wing" mindset, including:

.....the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:

- creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization; satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;

- augmenting primitive feelings of envy;

- rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.

One thing I learned when studying Political Science some years ago is that the political spectrum is rather like a rainbow - it is a circle or a curve, it is not linear. At both ends of the rainbow you find yourself standing in the same place. If true Liberalism and Democracy are on one side of it, the other is where the dictators sit. The Left of today - I can't call them "Liberal" - sit on that end. Why? Because their clutching at regulating every aspect of our lives and their constant desire to "redistribute" wealth from the pockets of those who actually work, to their own and their "victims" pockets spells out very clearly where they are coming from and going to. Take a look at the denizens of Westminster - desperate to hang on to power at all costs, desperate to "prove" their credentials by constantly introducing more and more regulations to impose control on our lives - and desperate to defend their view of the rest of us needing their guidance and defence in order to manage our lives.

I think the good Doctor is right. It is a mental disorder, but I have no doubt that he is already under attack from the Left for even thinking it. Watch this space .....

Posted by The Gray Monk at 07:50 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 06, 2008

Misleading Parliament is a crime ......

Misleading the public seems to be a stock in trade. One does wonder, having watched the performance of the treasonous bunch who voted to deprive us of our democratic right to determine whether or not our nation is subsumed into the United States of Europe, what the penalty should be when the entire House "misleads Parliament" on a scale that must defy comparison. Gordon Brown dares to stand at the Despatch Box and declare that this is not the same as the treaty the French and Dutch electorates threw out. That it does NOT create a US of E, yet, every other government in Europe is saying that it DOES! The French President, the German Chancellor, all say that it is a constitution and that it does create a European State - so why is Brown lying?

It is easy to understand why this Parliament refuses to allow the democratic process to be followed, every opinion poll taken in the last six months has indicated that the electorate will reject the Treaty - and Brown and Labour cannot afford that. So they hide behind the lies.

Several newspapers and one of the political parties have said that this is the day our democracy died. They are wrong, it died, for England, on the day Blair's Party ramraided the legislation through Parliament creating the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament without providing a separate Parliament for England. Again, they didn't dare since Labour could not expect to ever be elected to power in it. So we now have the spectacle of a Scottish MP as Prime Minister, elected to a seat in Scotland which is ruled by the Scottish Parliament and not bound by any Act passed in Westminster, passing legislation and formulating legislation which affects people who did not elect him and would not elect him. Nor does it end there, since the majority of his cabinet and tranche of "Junior" Ministers are in a similar position. Even the occuppant of the Speaker's Chair is a Scottish MP, representing a Scottish constituency. They do not represent English constituents, they do not control what is happening in their own "countries" (Again, if they are elected by Welsh or Scottish voters, why are they sitting in a Parliament that does not 'govern' their constituents?) It goes further, for, as the government itself admits, more than 75% of the legislation they now rubber stamp is drawn up in Brussels by the unelected and unaccountable Commission. In other words, we, the voters have no say in the process of government. And in England we are now the subject of the rule of the Scottish, Welsh and Immigrant minorities in our own country.

The only conclusion one can draw is that democracy is dead, Westminster is now an irrelevance and we are ruled by an unelected elite of bureaucrats based in Brussels. Parliament is not only being mislead, it is being deliberately mislead, mismanaged and used to mislead the electorate - by the very people who so jealously guard their own interests and freedoms. Misleading parliament is a heinous crime, but misleading the elctorate is now the stock in trade of all politicians and their bureaucrat parasites.

I may be wrong, but was not the American Revolution fueled by the sentiment that there should be "No taxation without representation"? Perhaps it is time to ask what representation I have in Brussels - since my taxes pay for it.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 02:40 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 03, 2008

Prince Harry

It is a great pity that some journalists simply can't help themselves. Common sense dictates that some stories are better not told - especially when it will put lives in danger. Yet the newshound named Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report simply could not resist publishing the news that Prince Harry, or to give him his correct title, Lieutenant Windsor, was on active service with his troop in Afghanistan.

He knew when he decided to publish it that this would have an immediate impact on both the Prince and everyone around him. One has to ask therefore, what his motive was in doing it. Public interest? That beloved catchall of the journalist hack? Try the other one, certainly the US audience is hardly interested in what the Prince does for a living, so perhaps he hoped that shooting his pen off with this would get Harry killed - big headline in that and masses of press coverage in the funeral. You can just see the banner headlines - "Tragic Princess' Tragic Son dies at the hands of the Taliban" and in the byline - "XXX British Soldiers die in massive bomb aimed at the Prince" followed by acres of handwringing prose agonising over "why was he sent there?"

Prince Harry is a soldier. It is what he was bred to be. A leader of men under pressure and by all accounts he's a damned good one. What he doesn't need now or at any time in the future is a bunch of idiot journalists hounding him everywhere he goes and endangering him, everyone around him and everything he and his troops represent. My sympathy lies entirely with Harry on this one. I wouldn't want to be kicking my heels in the Regimental Barracks either while my troops were out in a war zone. Like Harry, I'd want to be with them, but patently, as long as people like Matt Drudge can't behave responsibly, this desire to serve his country well will be frustrated.

What the Drudge Report has exposed more than anything else is the media obsession with "Celebrity" and their desire to destroy anyone who stands above the common herd - a herd they claim tomrepresent, yet do everything they can to stand aloof from while trying to influence and steer it. Prince Harry and his brother Prince William have been bron into one of the toughest roles anyone could have to assume. They did not choose to be what they are and now they have to learn to be something the media and politicians loathe while under the constant surveillance of the media circus. Neither of them can even pop out to their local club or pub without some damned idiot trying to embarass them, provoke them or get a "story" on them. In my book, both of them are a thousand times the men that the media hacks will ever be, and ten thousand times the people any politician will ever be.

Prince Harry is, in my view, a damned fine young man, one I would be proud to serve under or with. I hope he does get his wish to return to his unit and his role, he has a lot to offer and the media should butt out and let him get on with it. As for Mr Drudge, he should be asked to answer charges of endangering the lives of our troops in Helmand Province and attempting to undermine the effort to suppress the terrorism the Taliban represent. I, for one, think that was his intention - to get some British troops killed and to sabotage their efforts to overcome the Taliban. Perhaps the FBI should look into that for us.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:12 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 29, 2008

Circular thinking .....

Various regulators for the government in this country have been handing out huge fines to service providers lately. This is supposed to "encourage" them to provide better services in future. Now maybe I'm missing something here, but how will fining a government agency - one that was privatised and then renationalised by this same bunch of closet communistas - £14 million improve their abysmal service? How is this "value for money?" Especially I ask, how can it be value for money when it must come from my taxes in the first place - and will have to come out of the budget for maintaining the railway system in the second - unless, of course, some other Whitehall W*nker will simply take the money from the Treasury and pass it to the Network Rail Chairman in order for him to pay the Treasury .....

Circular thinking if ever I saw it.

But then, what do you expect from Whitehall? Common sense? Actual solutions? See your psychiatrist quick - it will be fairies in the garden next! The rail regulator evaded, no less than four times, a direct question concerning where the money to pay this fine would come from. Instead he burbled on about how the fine would "improve" performance. How?

Corrupt? Incompetent? Out of touch? Unable to face reality? One really does despair of the shower earning vast salaries to screw the country up completely. And they are completely unanswerable to anyone. Bomb-proof no matter how big the c*ck-up they create. In fact its a well known dictum in Whitehall - the bigger the c*ck-up, the bigger the promotion.

And the tax payer just keeps getting soaked for more of their earnings to pay for it ......

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:55 PM | TrackBack

February 28, 2008

What price democracy Mister Brown?

The refusal by our government to allow a debate on a Libdem Amendment to the EU Treaty ratification Act currently being rushed through Parliament with indecent haste by Brown and his Labour pitbulls exposes just how far we have drifted from being a democratic state. In a debate on Radio 4 a day or so ago, Charles Kennedy of the Lib Dems found himself having to agree with the UKIP MEP on almost every point the man raised against our remaining a part of the EU. The fact is that we, the British People, have never been allowed to say whether we wish to be a part of the United States of Europe or not. We signed up in 1974 to being a part of a Trading Partnership, NOT a political Union.

Again, it is a fact that Westminster and our Parliament has become an expensive irrelevance. It was already getting that way when Labour decided to devolve powers to Scotland and Wales and that has simply exposed it to the true state of affairs - it now is not Sovereign, nor is it acting on behalf of the People of Britain. The Scottish Parliament speaks for Scotland, not Westminster, the Welsh Assembly speaks for Wales, not Westminster. England is now ruled by Scottish and Welsh MP's who have no constituency in England. How's that for democracy? Brussels formulates and imposes almost 80% of all legislation that Westminster Rubber Stamps. Legislation, moreover, that conflicts with our legal system and practice and imposes ever more restrictive and postively damaging restrictions on our industry, commerce and trade without ever being responsible to the British People or subject to election as they would be in a democratic society. So who does Westminster speak for? It would seem now to speak only for the English, yet even here it is not democratic since Brown's Party majority rests upon Scottish and Welsh MP's who are not affected in the slightest by the taxes and legislation they impose on the English.

Yesterday a mass lobby of Parliament demanding our rite to a Referendum on this issue was highjacked by the loony Greens of Greenpeace who don't give a damn and pulled off a silly stunt to make sure they got the press coverage while the real issue was ignored. On top of this we have to listen to Brown and his Gaulieters spinning that the Treaty isn't a Constituition. Well, pardon me, but almost everyone else in Europe thinks it is - so what is Brown afraid of admitting here?

Certainly one of the things he and his party of traitors isn't admitting is that our Armed Forces have been handed over to Europe. That's right, the "Treaty" creates a European Defence Force and the Royal Navy is now no more than a squadron within that Fleet - led and Commanded by the French. Nelson must be deafening anyone in St Paul's crypt right now. Our Army too has been cut back and cut back so that it can be slotted into the European Army as "the British Division" which is all it now is. Even the Royal Air Force is being cut back to just a Transport and a Strike Wing. Lord alone knows who will be in command of the European Airforce - but he or she probably won't be British either! And Whitehall has just announced another Defenece Review - with the "proposed" aircraft carriers now being projected as "deferred" until 2020. By which time the UK will be mere provinces of Brussels.

We no longer live in a democracy. Labour have seen to that. This is now a Socialist Oligarchy, our democracy died the day Blair won the election in 1997 and it will not be revived in my lifetime. The Civil Service is now the single biggest political power block in the country, employing over 20% of the workforce. Blair himself commented recently that he had found it almost impossible to actually get his intentions implemented because of the blocking and delaying that the civil service employs to prevent anyone actually doing anything they do not appove of or which would reduce their grip on the real power. Yet his party are the very people who have created and fed this monster.

One further affect of the Brussels usurpation of our sovereignty is the manifestation of vexatious legislation meddling in the minutieae of peoples lives. There is a historical precedent for this - the Roman Senate in the dying days of that empire enacted similar rafts of legislation in a desperate effort to assert power of an increasingly disenchanted populace as the real power shifted inexorably into the hands of the Emeroros and their immediate court. Who weilds the real power here now Mister Brown? You? I think not, personally I think it is the Commission in Brussels. Unelected, unaccountable and all powerful - thanks to your and your party's treason.

Westminster is now an expensive irrelevance, corrupt, incestuous and totally unnecessary. It is time to use the words uttered by this shower's equally corrupt and bigotted hero - Oliver Cromwell, dictator, traitor and regicide -

"For too long you have disgraced this house. In the name of God - go!"

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:06 PM | TrackBack

February 25, 2008

Time for root and branch reform of Westminster ...

The news that the Speaker of the House of Commons is having his expenses investigated by the Parliamentary Wtachdog shows up the fact that our government is now so mired in sleaze that it is incapable of managing its own affairs - never mind ours! Mister Speaker is supposed to be absolutely squeaky clean - but then Gorbals Mick as his detractors nicknamed Labour's Scottish MP incumbent of the most important post in Parliament was always on a knife edge when it came to probity. The Scottish Labour Party has always played fast a loose with our money, particularly when given control of English Tax money. And they have a record of corruption and mafia style bullying and nepotism that makes some Third World States look like Cub Scouts.

When Mister Speaker can be accused of fiddling his expenses, the time has come for the appointment of some body to oversee Parliament and make sure they are playing straight. After all Mister Speaker is the man who agrees MP's allowances and approves their claims. If his aren't quite what they should be, what the h*ll are the rest up to?

Parliament is only a part of the problem. The way money is thrown around Whitehall it should come as no surprise that much of it finds its way into the pockets of corrupt civil servants and their political paymasters. It must surely be time to call a halt to the way Whitehall is run (or not run as the case may be) and put in place public oversight of the activities of the Treasury, demand proper Budgets, not the cobbled together "we don't really know how much we need so we make a guess at it and double it," style of budgeting. This government has done more "spending reviews" than any other in our history - yet the cost of government keeps rising. Why?

Probably because no budget is ever really cut - they just find more creative ways to spend our money to their advantage. Definitely time to clean out the house and bar the CIvil Servants from "managing" anything.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 23, 2008

Another assault on our freedom?

The news today that a new camera is to be installed on our roads to police the new government backed installation of special lanes for use by motorists who have more than one person in the car confirms to me that this government wants to deny most of us the use of private transport. Let's face it, most of us use our cars to get to and from work because there isn't suitable public transport or because we need to be flexible and work either longer hours or at different locations from time to time. So the Transport Minister babbling about "choice" and the need to compell us to use inadequate, inconvenient and packed with inconsiderate, ill disciplined and badly behaved yobs is a bit outside of reality. OK for those who have the use of chaffeur driven Jaguars with Police escorts - for the rest of us it will mean being forced to sit in traffic jams in the lanes single motorists, HGVs and everyone else are confined to while the "multi-person" lane is empty.

It seems that the proponents of this latest batch of stupidity traffic management argue that, if you convert one lane of a two lane highway into a "High Density Vehicle" lane and force all other road users into the other lane, you will ease the congestion. Anyone see the flaw in this? Anyone see the problem of forcing all the traffic into one lane so the fortunate few, such as the Minister of Transport and her chums with the kiddie seats and communal transport habits can have the freedom to drive unmolested and unobstructed - no HGVs means no crawling traffic to hold you back - at the expense of the rest of us who will now not only have to pay an exorbitant road tax for bugger all, but will burn more fuel, creating more pollution - and paying more fuel tax - for the privilege of using our own cars.

Some time ago I did share a car with several others. It was never an easy mix since well had to arrive at work or leave work together, it meant that whoever was late at the pickup point or delayed in the office held the rest of us up. It also meant that, if for any reason one of us had to work late or get in early, and sometimes we did, you had to make other arrangements to get there or get home.

As usual, the problems of the city are to be imposed on those of us who choose not to live in the cheek by jowl situation imposed by city life. And, as usual, the politicians and the bureaucrats are the only beneficiaries of yet more legislation and yet more criminalising of the general public as soon as we exercise our freedom of choice. Have any of these morons had to try living without their cars? Easy if you can afford the rents (or have the taxpayer pick them up for you) of central London. Easy if you have the chaffeur service at your beck and call - not so bloody easy if you have to catch trains, tubes and buses while carrying the family shopping!

Even worse, if you live alone and frequently have to travel alone, it is usually not a matter of choice. Where I live (Can afford to live!) is not on a mainline. Even if it was, I still could not travel to my most frequent destinations directly from here. It would involve several changes and is vastly more expensive than using my car. Even if I mix my transport, driving part way, then switching to public transport, I find myself heavily out of pocket vastly inconvenienced by the constraints of the train or bus timetables.

Let's face it, the real reason this government of control freaks, puritans and c;oset communists want to deny us the free use of our cars is that they hate our having any choice at all about how we live, where we live or where we work. They want to confine us in neat little units where we can be more easily monitored and fed the b*llsh*t they would have us believe.

Face it, the real problem on our roads is not the private motorist. It is the huge load of freight that is carried in juggernauts on roads not designed for them, through villages not intended for such traffic and into towns where they damage roads, buildings and lives. If you seek the real cause of pollution look no further than the huge fleets of trucks carrying goods that could be more efficiently carried by rail or sea around our coasts. Look no further than the lunatic "traffic calming" measures forcing motorists to drive at uneconomically low speeds in uneconomical gears around towns and cities and at the lunacy of empty lanes on raods that motorists are banned from using because they are reserved for "mass transit" vehicles. And all the while our Ministers andtheir Civil Service chums ride around at our expense in chaffeur driven limosines. Nice for some.

The last time I had to use the bus to go from my home to the neighbouring town - 8 miles in my car and only a matter of twenty minutes - the bus took a little over an hour and was filled with unruly teenagers who shouted, spat screamed and generally made themselves unpleasant. The bus driver could do nothing about it and the rest of us had to endure it. I have not travelled by bus since, and I don't intend to do so again until I can be assured that that sort of behaviour will not be tolerated and that such passengers will be ejected from the bus immediately.

On those occassions when I can take the train to my destination I find that more often than not I have to pay a premium fare in order to be able to travel when I need to in order to arrive on time at my business - and then, as often as not, I can't find a seat and end up paying over the odds for the privilege of standing for two hours.

Mark my words, this scheme is the thin end of a very large wedge. If this doesn't force you out of your car - and the schemes will be introduced in rural as well as urban areas - there will shortly be another assault on your right to drive your own vehicle. Ironic isn't it, that the present government are the very same people who boycotted lectures, staged "sit-ins" in colleges, schools and universities to force the governing bodies into accepting "freedom of choice" for students - and now they want to remove all freedom of choice from the rest of us.

If it wasn't so blatant, it might even be funny.....

Posted by The Gray Monk at 12:16 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 21, 2008

Investment theft ...

So Labour is again stealing investment capital. Northern Rocks long suffering shareholders are to have their shares in the business taken off them at a token value by this government of incompetents and thieves in their latest grab of peoples investments. The excuse that it is "to protect the taxpayers investment" is wearing a bit thin. After all, they created the crisis with their ill considered insistence on making the Bank of England reveal who it was lending money too. The real problem here is that having created the problem they compounded it by letting the panic run on and on until the Bank needed to borrow far more than it would have done. Then, of course, the Chancellor stepped in with that great Socialist/Communist panacea for all ills - put an incompetent bureaucrat in charge.

Or if you don't think you'll get away with that - put one of your tax dodging chums in the driving seat. That has to be the biggest con job of all. After making a huge song and dance about "Non-doms" dodging tax in the UK on money earned in the UK by actually living in a country with a lower tax rate, who does the Chancellor appoint to take over the Bank - a "Non-dom" chum ....

The truth is that the Northern Rock has been nationalised "temporarily" to protect the tax payers investment in keeping the bank afloat. As I said earlier, the crisis was engineered by the government, so I think the money should come from their pockets, not ours. Secondly, the shareholders can expect little or no moeny for their investment - the Treasury's creative accountants will value the shares at way below their market value simply to avoid paying out their real value - and there is no way the investors will be able to recover this. Again, all the Labour Communistas are rubbing their grubby hands gleefully and triumphantly declaring that the investors "can't be bailed out by the taxpayers". I think I'd rather know my tax money was doing that than paying the salaries of worthless bureaucrats and politicians who are totally unaccountable. This is exactly what they did to the shareholders of Rail Track when the same moron re-nationalised that!

The other problem is the word "temporarily". In Civil Service terms that embraces everything from "until the wind blows from the East" to "Forever". I suspect that Northern Rock is going to prove a permanent passenger on the Civil Service list, just getting gradually less and less efficient until it becomes obvious that it has, like the rest of Whitehall, just become a financial Black Hole, sucking in money and producing nothing of any worth or value.

Time, I suppose, will tell.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 20, 2008

Eclipse of the moon

Tonight sees the eclipse of the moon, a fascinating sight if it is visible. The moon darkens and takes on a red appearance as the shadow of our planet passes across its surface.

Traditionally, eclipses are portents of disaster, so I wonder who is predicting what for whom on this one. Darius III lost the battle at Gaugamela to Alexander the Great after soothsayers foretold disaster when a total eclipse of the moon occured a few days before the two armies clashed in 331BC. I must confess that I have seen a reference to Alexander being told the same thing - but having the courage to say "b*llsh*t!" and went into battle having given his troops a right old talking too. Darius III probably wished he had.

I wonder how often in history the torch of history has been passed on from one hand who believed the soothsaying to a victor who didn't. I would suspect that we will never know for the simple reason that the winner is unlikely to repeat the soothsayers doomsaying while laughing at the fact that his enemy fell for it.

Wonder if some clown will now try telling us that this ecplipse portends the ending of our civilisation. Won't surprise me at all if someone does!

Whatever, as it is happening at 03.21 - I won't be sitting up to watch it!

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:25 PM | TrackBack

February 19, 2008

The Diana farce .....

Rumbles on. Listening to Mr Al Fayed on the radio after he gave his "evidence" today, I found myself wondering if this man is quite all there. I am convinced that he inhabits a world with several more moons around it than the one I am on. In fact if he continues to rant in the manner he was doing this evening when asked to comment on the Enquiry by Radio 4 I fully expect him to be either called to apologise publically by the Judge - a very senior Judge in the Lords - or charged with Contempt of Court, a very serious offence in the eyes of the law.

From what was broadcast the "evidence" now descends to the level of accusations which cannot be substantiated, downright defamation and, when challenged to provide hard evidence, invective and abuse. He clings to the view that the Princess was pregnant in the face of medical testimony that she was not. He declares that she and Dodi "were engaged" when all her friends say this was rubbish and, of course, no one can now prove or disprove it. To cap it all, he accuses the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip of racism and of complicity in "murder" - despite the fact that the Duke's letters released to this court show that he did more to try to help Diana than anyone else. And, much as I loathe Tony Blair, I find the accusation that the little creep colluded with MI5, MI6, Prince Charles and the Duke to have Diana and Dodi killed, just plain ludicrous. Especially as the conspirators are now supposed to have included the French Secret Service and the Sapeurs Pompiers and Ambulance service in Paris! If it wasn't such a monumental waste of money and tragedy for Princes William and Harry it would be laughable.

It really is time to draw a line under this - and send Mr Al Fayed the bill.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 10:09 PM | TrackBack

February 18, 2008

As civilisation fades ...

In South Africa, it seems that they are finding ever more amusing ways to have a dig at their leaders. The cartoon Madam and Eve has just run a series on "modernised" nursery rhymes most of which hit the mark - pardon the pun - right on the nose.

In a society where crime is so high no one is immune, corruption scandals are the order of the day and the most corrupt of all are sitting in Parliament or about to be crowned as President, there is nothing left buyt to resport to satire. And all nursery rhymes are, or were originally, just that. A poke on the nose for the government of the day. The Madam and Eve versions are amusing and fun for most of us, but do carry a serious message for those who have to live through their current difficulties.

So, is Western civilisation about to collapse completely? Perhaps not entirely in Europe and the North Americas, but it does seem doomed to fade and fail in AFrica and many other places it has been "planted". It is, however, comforting to hope that the "Dark Age" as we might view it, may be shortened by technoloy and the internet. Possibly even by the effect of "Globalisation". But, if Africa does go into a Dark Age, it will impact on the rest of us, and that should worry us all.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:49 AM | TrackBack

February 17, 2008

The cost of an ego?

The Public Enquiry into the death of the late Princess of Wales rumbles on. Or at least, apparently, its gravy train does. It sometimes seems that every nutcase idea that Al Fayed can dream up has to be explored by dragging in every recalcitrant ex-MI6 agent they can find and trotting him through his "conspiracy" piece. But the cost mounts daily and what is the likely outcome? Forgive me for asking I'm sure, but, if this little exercise is assuaging Mr Al Fayed's over expanded ego is already £6 million (Of Taxpayers money!) what benefit are we, the tax payers getting from airing all of this half baked trash in public anyway?

There has been nothing new exposed - except some rather dodgy individuals spouting garbage - that was not revealed in any of the earlier inquests. OK, so maybe our "Loyal" Government have indulged in this orgy of public hysteria by the small "Diana was a Godess" mob in the hopes of speeding the introduction of their Republic of Britain, but I doubt even they would be stupid enough - unless Al Fayed threatened to dish the dirt on them they way he did to John Major's mob. Mr Al Fayed seems to me to be pursuing a personal vendetta against the Royal Family and it also appears that some in our government are hell bent on helping him. Perhaps the time has come to ask whether or not he will accept the verdict, when it is delivered, and how much of the bill he will be personally picking up.

I like the approach that Lord Stevens, the former head of the Metropolitan Police, has taken over the allegations that Mr Al Fayed's lawyers have made regarding the integrity of his investigation into the circumstances of the death of Diana and Dodi Fayed, Mr Al Fayed's son. He is asking for an apology on behalf of his staff whose integrity has been questioned by the Al Fayed team and has been rather robust in defending his report and his own reputation in the Inquiry. (See the extended post!) Interestingly Mr Al Fayed's head of Security, a former Chief Inspector in the Met, has been forced to admit that he lied in public on an ABC TV show.

And, as I have said before, if the outcome isn't what Al Fayed wants, we will be subjected to more accusations of cover-ups and conspiracy. And he will have that loyal bunch of idiots who seriously need to get a life to support him.

Then there is the group that are now bringing a private prosecution against the Serious Fraud Office, a special unit which investigates fraudulent trading or corruption, on the grounds that they acted unlawfully when they stopped an investigation into allegations that British Aerospace had handed out "sweetners" to some important Saudi's. Their case seems to me to be deliberately disingenuous. The case was stopped because it was seriously damaging relations between the EU and the Saudi Kingdom at a time when we really needed their co-operation in the War on Terror. The spokesman for the group sounds like a typical failed student agitator when he protests that "the ethical principle overrides any other questions".

Like Mr Al Fayed, it seems that these groups recognise no truth but their own. I trust that the courts will eject them and their suite with full costs. And I look forward to hearing that Mr Al Fayed has offered to meet the full costs of this massaging of his ego - and perhaps Liberty and one or two other groups should be invited to pay as well.

Mohamed al Fayed's controversial theories about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, have come under fire.

(Advertisement)
The Harrods tycoon listened quietly as layers of his theory that Diana was murdered in a 1997 car crash by MI6 on the order of the Duke of Edinburgh because she was pregnant and set to get engaged to his son Dodi were stripped down.

The jury heard Lord Stevens, who carried out Operation Paget, the official investigation into the conspiracy theories, publicly denounce for the first time "scurrilous allegations" about his professionalism.

He condemned suggestions that he or his team had been negligent, not done their job properly and that he had been "got at" regarding the evidence in the report.

Calling the allegations "quite outrageous," he said: "I will take that on my behalf, but I will not have it said about people who worked for me for four years, who sometimes cannot defend themselves on these issues."

Lord Steven's report, published in December 2006, found the deaths were a tragic accident and also that driver Henri Paul was three times the French drink-drive limit.

In contrast to an eye-catching headline back in 1997 which claimed Mr Paul was "drunk as a pig", Lord Stevens described him on the night as "under the influence of alcohol". He told the jury: "Looking at the CCTV, looking at the witness statements, we knew that Henri Paul by account had a high tolerance for drink and in all honesty we could not say he was drunk, in our definition."

Lord Stevens also hit back at the suggestion he had used a November 2006 meeting with Mr Paul's parents, Jean and Gisele, to deliberately mislead them over what he would say about how much their son had drunk. He said: "That's outrageous, and I'm looking for an apology in relation to that."

Meanwhile, John Macnamara, a retired Metropolitan Police detective chief superintendent and Mr al Fayed's director of security in August 1997, accepted he had lied in public when he claimed in a television interview that Mr Paul had only drunk pineapple juice.

The jury heard that Mr Macnamara knew Mr Paul had two drinks from bar records he was handed on a visit to Paris immediately after the crash. But he failed to mention it when he took part in an ABC programme on US television on September 10 1997.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 08:35 PM | TrackBack

February 16, 2008

Soft touch/Out of touch ...

The report by the Royal United Services Institute which states that the UK is now a "soft target" for terrorists should worry the government. Instead, as is usual for the Labour Ideologues who cannot distinguish fact from the fiction they are fed by the Civil Service, The MP Keith Vaz denies that the report has identified what the rest of the population is all too aware of. Labour's Mass Immigration policy, particularly from their Islamic favourites, has seriously weakened the very fabric of British Society. Worse, it has created tensions by fostering isolationist groups setting up ghettos.

Mister Vaz and the Cabinet Office deny that this is so - but the reality is that every Muslim man who walks the streets of London, Birmingham, Leeds or Bradford (to name just a few) dressed in his Palestinian Refugee camp garb and sporting the fundamentalist whiskers, is demonstrating his rejection of everything British. Mister Vaz can protest all he likes that this projects a "tolerant and multi-cultural society" but the reality is that it does not. It projects a desire to supplant everything about our society with their own values, rules and laws. That is, perhaps, why the Archbishop's rather esoteric suggestion that "elements" of the Sharia Civil Code could be adopted, provoked such a hysterical backlash among the rest of us. Whether Mister Vaz and the rest of his Labour Storm Troopers and Gauleiters of the Multi-Faith, Multi-cultural ghetto building PC Brigade want to acknowledge it or not, the way forward for this country is most emphatically not to allow immigrants to come in on their terms and bring with them all the baggage of the country they have left behind.

Personally I have no objection to someone practicing a faith different to mine. But I do insist that this is my country and I expect them to adopt our rules and our way of life. If that is not the way they want to live - then they know where the airport is. Whenever I visit the Middle East or other Islamic countries I am proscribed in every regard as concerns my faith. I may not carry a Bible with me into many countries and even a prayer book or any other Christian book is definitely enough to get me the next plane home. I do not wish to impose that on them - but I repeat, this is my country and its traditions, however badly undermined by the likes of Keith Vaz and the rest of Labour's ghastly crew, are firmly based in Christianity. If you want to wear a dishdash, burnous and a head covering designed to keep the sun off you - then go and live where it is the norm. Nothing looks more idiotic than to see someone wearing the full Palestinian (and it is Palestinian - it is not some sort of "Muslim" uniform, it was invented in Lebanon by a leader of the PLO) with a couple of thick padded bomber style jackets over it. In fact most of the guys I worked with in North Africa recently don't even own this outfit and they are as Muslim as any of the Middle Eastern types.

It was to be expected that Labour's motor mouths would scream that the RUSI report was "out of touch" but the truth is that it is they that are out of touch and out of step. Tellingly an Afro-Caribbean gentleman phoned the Radio 4 phone in this morning and had a mouthful to say about "newcomers" trying to turn Britain into a Muslim Middle Eastern state. And the show's host did his best to denigrate the old boy - who freely admitted that he had come here as a young man in the 1950's - but singularly failed to do anything other than show up his own prejudice and bias. It was enlightening to say the very least.

Labour has much to answer for and the fact that it is their policies which have created this situation and, what is worse, lit the fuse on the powder keg, is likely to come home to roost for them soon. No one but a fool still believes that they are any way, shape or form, capable of resolving this. How can they - they refuse to even admit that there is a problem. So they continue to parrot their fairy tale version of how good it all is and to live in their cushioned and pamperd ivory towers in Whitehall.

After listening to Mister Vaz I concluded that he has fairies living at the bottom of his garden - along with the rest of the Cabinet.

By Sky News SkyNews - Friday, February 15 09:09 amBritain is becoming a "soft touch" in the face of increased threats from home and abroad because of its failure to "lay down the line" to ethnic minorities.

That's the claim from a defence think tank which says a lack of confidence in British identity and institutions is increasingly making the UK a "target" for attack.

The influential Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) also believes successive governments have presided over a decline in the nation's armed forces.

A contrast is made between the sense of national "fragmentation" and the "implacability" of Islamists who challenge the UK's interests domestically and overseas.

The report says: "That fragmentation is worsened by the firm self-image of those elements within it who refuse to integrate.

This is a problem worsened by the lack of leadership from the majority which in mis-placed deference to 'multiculturalism' failed to lay down the line to immigrant communities, thus undercutting those within them trying to fight extremism.

"The country's lack of self-confidence is in stark contrast to the implacability of its Islamist terrorist enemy.

"We look like a soft touch. We are indeed a soft touch, from within and without."

The think tank believe terrorism is not the only threat the UK faces; Russian nationalism, and increased competition for energy resources means that in future the Armed Forces may be called upon - and found wanting.

It said: "There is now such disjuncture between Britain's enduring security interests and the manner in which the state's moral and material defence of those interests has been pursued since the collapse of the Soviet Union (and especially during the last decade).

"This disjuncture is like a breach made by the defenders themselves in the walls of their own city," it said.

But the Government said that RUSI's claims "do not stand up to scrutiny".

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: "The safety and security of our citizens is the Government's main priority and the Government rejects any suggestion that Britain is a soft touch for terrorists."

The Government say that counter-terrorism funding has increased, that policy is indeed co-ordinated, and that the report's conclusions on community cohesion are "out-of-date".

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 15, 2008

Apologies/apologisers

I listened with interest to the debate around the apology by the current Federal PM of Austalia to the Aboriginal people. He apologised for several things done to Australia's aboriginal people over the last hundred years, including the "forced" removal and "conditioning" of aboriginal children. By this is meant that they were placed in regular education, instead of being allowed to follow the practice (which I understand has been re-introduced) of children in this group attending when they happen to take the fancy or to simply go "walk about" when the mood strikes them and their families. Listening to the various sides of the debate I repeatedly heard the words "racist views" or "apartheid" and then that crowning insult thrown by the left - "conservative" - which in their view equates to "Neo-Nazi". The one thing I didn't hear was any suggestion that the attempt to assimilate (another of the words used in the debate) the aboriginal peoples into the mainstream, might have benefited at least some among them.

What was clear from the debate was that the government, having issued the apology, now regards the matter as closed. Those who opposed the issue of the apology made an interesting point, one I find myself agreeing with. What good is an apology if there is to be no attempt to address the still very obvious issue of what to do with a large section of the population (about 300,000 people) who stubbornly refuse to lift themselves out of the stone age culture they would like everyone else in Australia to adopt? Clearly even the Left on this argument haven't a clue either, since there were the usual mutterings about returning the land to its rightful inhabitants, compensation and then - nothing constructive or practical. Except of course the usual propaganda, twisted history and ideology.

It is a very interesting and difficult conundrum. First it is filled with emotions, which never help to settle any problem. I have no doubt that the Australians of the 1890's saw the aboriginal peoples (as indeed did many Europeans) as an unfortunate sub-species to be protected, educated and, if possible, helped toward "enlightenment". In frustration, no doubt, they adopted the policy of enforced separation of children from parents deemed to be beyond reform and genuinely thought they were doing the "right thing". I have equally no doubt that those who now jump up and down about this and other "abuses" of the past will reject any thought that their fathers and grandfathers might have had the highest of ideals - ideals they held as dearly as the current crop of apologists cling to their desire to wear sackclothe and ashes and go about flagellating the rest of us for the "sins" of the past. The fact is that we look back with the perfect vision of hindsight and, as a philosopher once remarked, "The past is a foreign country from which we are now barred."

We cannot put right the mistakes of the past with meaningless apologies. And the apology is meaningless if it does not include a determination to provide a clear and acceptable means to provide a way out of the hardship that so many aborigines claim is a result of the history for which the apology has been made. That was very much the point made by those who opposed the statement. Yet this is the latest fetish of the left of any and every political spectrum. It is, in fact, part of the "victim" culture so beloved of Labour in this country and in Europe - and certain sections of the US and Canadian political spectrum.

Wherever you go these days there is some lobby campaigning for an apology for something done to someone with whom they seldom have much more than a tenuous connection. A classic example has to be Stephen Spielberg's dumping the Chinese Olympic Directorship. Instead of using his role to campaign quietly, he's decided to "grandstand" it and publically attempt to humiliate the Chinese. Now I would not rate the Chinese government as the world's most benevolent regime, but the fact is that they have to work out their own solutions within their own culture. And the culture of "Protest" is not one they have any truck with. So to promote protest in that country is not only to ask for trouble, but to visit it upon the heads of those gullible enough to listen to Westerners who have more sensibilities than sense. Yes China has an appalling Human Rights record, but so do a number of the "Protest" lobby's favourite regimes. I'm sorry, but Spielberg's resigning on the grounds that China should have stopped the slaughter in Dharfur is plain stupid. China is not concerned with what happens anywhere outside China at the moment, though I fully expect that that will change drastically if they are put under enough pressure - and it won't be the countries we disapprove of that they then target.

This culture of apology seems to me to have sprung from the protest movements of the 1960's and the Hippy culture that gave rise to these neo-puritans (on any matter THEY disapprove of) is now propelling the West into a very dangerous possible confrontation with the vigourous and rising powers off the East that do not share our obsession with "Human Rights" or our concept of "democracy".

Perhaps it is time to sit back and think carefully about the whole ethos that drives this urge to apologise for everything while at the same time trying to dictate behaviour to everyone else........

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 14, 2008

Valentines Day

Is not big on my calendar. Frankly it has become just another of those days/events in the year on which we are encouraged to part with huge amounts of our cash by the merchants and their marketing people.

That is not to say I don't think I should tell those I love that I love them - I do, and I have learned that that should be daily, if not all the time I am with them and even when I'm not. And I don't have to give fancy cards, chocolates or flowers to do it. In fact sometimes just doing something a little out of the ordinary or making some small gesture to make the other person feel really special is a far better way of saying and doing it. Even better is to get to know the other person so well that you can anticipate their needs and place these ahead of your own wants and desires without making yourself a martyr to it since that simply turns them off big time. Modern Valentine's Day frenzy is simply pandering to the Hollywood image of "Happily ever aftering" - the problem is that the glitz soon wears off.

And remember that Hollywood marriages are often measured in hours.

Posted by The Gray Monk at 06:39 AM | TrackBack

February 10, 2008

Coping with a collapsing civilization .....

The South African power crisis rumbles on and their hold on civilisation becomes, like Zimbabwe's, more and more tenuous. As Africa enters a dark age, with shortages of housing, food, electricity and water. As dictators rise from the ranks of the criminally insane, rapists and murderers, the general population have little choice but to defend what little they have and try to live as normally as they can.

My brother sent me this latest prayer from a frustrated South African - and I share it with you ....

Our father who art in Eskom,
Powerless be thy name.
Thy kingdom badly run, thy power undone,
In Joburg as it is in KZN and CPT.
Give us this day our half-baked bread,
And forgive the trespassers who shoot us dead.
Lead me not into a dark nation,
But deliver me from load shedding.
For you have no kingdom,
No power and no electricity,
Forever and ever
Amen

Posted by The Gray Monk at 09:58 AM | TrackBack

February 09, 2008

Opening one's mouth to change feet ....

Seems to be speciality of Archbishop Rowan Cantaur. Out of loyalty to our Archbishop I have to say that I think I understand what he was trying to say - that the conflict for Muslims between our secular legal system, based as it is (Despite numerous denials by our atheist leaders, judges and civil servants) on Judeo-Christian moral principles, does cause some conflicts for Muslims. The problem is that you cannot allow two legal systems to operate in the same country. One or the other must be given precedence and override the other. But, if you actually read what Archbishop Rowan was saying, he wasn't proposing the adoption of Sharia Law in the UK. Though I have to admit that the journalists who made these assumptions probably couldn't understand half his paper anyway.

Some of you may recall that one of our Blair Babe ministers of state made similar remarks not that long ago, so the Archbishop is not alone in this thinking. He is, in fact, in line with a number of Labour Ministers who see no problem with the idea that we can operate three different sets of laws in this country without a problem. That is what lies at the heart of unease in many minds about the EU Constituion - it is founded on a legal system which is completely in conflict with the way in which the English Law system works, So is the Sharia. Blair's Babes don't want to understand either argument - and most of Labour's foot soldiers wouldn't either. Don't confuse them or the press with facts - their minds are made up. And the same can be said of the General Synod members whose knickers seem to be too tight suddenly. They should shut up and try reading what he really said, and not what it is reported he said out of context and out of malice.

There is also some confusion about the Sharia Law, many, including some Muslims, believe that it is "in the Koran". It isn't. In fact it is the work of 17th and 18th Century law scholars of the Ottoman Turkish Empire who developed this system based upon the Islamic understanding of justice. I am not at all sure that many in this country would wish to subscribe to the rules of evidence it contains, or the fact that the accused is represented by a legal adviser appointed by the court whose job is