The Coffee House Wall – 29th/5th July

Posted on June 29, 2015

This is the Coffee House Wall for this week. I won’t say that it is your chance to communicate with us, as we are all in this together. It is, nevertheless, the Conservative Blog post that has no particular theme, and where everything is on topic. Let’s just remember that we want to avoid ad hominem attacks on others. We don’t want to engage with trolls. We want to moderate our language ourselves as responsible and mature adults, choosing to use fruity language only where it is necessary. This is our opportunity to show what the Spectator Coffee House Wall could have been like.

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242 thoughts on “The Coffee House Wall – 29th/5th July”

  1. Frank P, June 29th, 2015 – 02:47

    That link is so good it must not get lost on last week’s wall.
    There are so many true, truly profound things that he said in that short article that it is impossible to select one. Please, everybody read the whole thing:

    http://www.returnofkings.com/59654/coming-home-from-the-war-on-terror#prettyPhoto

    Not only did all of that chime with what some of us have been saying, for some time, from a UK perspective – but see also the follow-on article:

    http://www.returnofkings.com/20283/5-things-i-noticed-after-coming-back-to-the-states

    Every word of it also applicable to the UK.

    NB. Pay close attention to the girl in the “Love & Understanding” video.
    Mind you, it might not be him, it could be that she might just have finally seen thru BO’s “Hope n Change” schtick.

  2. Colonel Mustard, June 28th, 2015 – 17:31

    The laws of libel and slander still apply. You know who he his and where he lives, but better still the you know where the offices of that rag are and where its holding company resides.

    You should read some of the arseholes that Colonel Kemp and Melanie Phillips have to put up with on Twitter.

    Even Andrew “Brillo” Neil himself is getting tired of trolls, as yesterday he complained:

    Andrew Neil [‏@afneil 18 hours ago]

    “Now being trolled by cybernat apologists. Can feel a blocking session coming up.”

    So perhaps a real letter to himself, c/o OQS, is in order – before the writ, that is.

  4. Frank P,

    A few weeks back I remember that there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the “Ogla Nut Tree” hereabouts as feathers got ruffled by what the true meaning of the word “meek” was.

    Yesterday, quite by accident, I stumbled upon an associated definition, a form of words that might hopefully satisfy both schools of thought, ecclesiastical & secular, on the matter?

    MEEKNESS, n. Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.
    Ambrose Bierce

    May peace reign over Oglaroon, Amen!

    I’ll get me coat…

  6. EC @ 11:01

    I wonder whether whatever the the severe form of dementia was which the CPS gave as the reason for initially deciding not to prosecute Lord Janner may take the form, under cross examination, of naming names. If any chance, I would advise the noble lord not to approach too close to open windows on the higher storeys of tall buildings between now and his taking the stand.

  9. Incidentally: this was my response to my American buddy who forwarded the NYT piece, was this:

    “The removal of the discretion of the individual police officer at the sharp end, to act as circumstances demand, pro bono publico, is the first move a government makes when intending to impose a police state. Watch your back – or perhaps I should say, ‘Watch you Barack!’ “

  11. Lord Janner : those who want to avoid him being on trial, are scared of him naming names. Actually they are all bloody demented and I wish them all a painful death!

  13. Latest on the Tunisian massacre:

    Another search of the terrorist has discovered a note of encouragement from an unknown person, thought to be an accomplice. The CIA is examining it. Said the White House spokesgirl: ‘We cannot be absolutely certain of the note’s origin, the signature is almost totally obliterated, but it seems to consist of five strange letters, the first one looks very much like the letter U turned upside down’ …..

  14. I must have been working abroad when the law was passed that all very fat women must have baby’s and tattoos.

  15. EC @ 10:43

    The one thought that was new to Baron, EC, was his take on the immigration as the ‘low maintenance future for the country’, and that the Government should ‘ask them to go fight for it’. In a sense, he took further the idea expressed in the poster ‘welcome to Britain where you’ll feel more at home than we do’, and it would indeed be interesting to know how many of the newcomers would be ready to take up arms, risk their lives fighting for Britain.

  17. Juncker: ‘When it becomes serious, you have to lie’

    DT: Greece crisis: Juncker accused of ‘preposterous lie’ over pension cuts as global markets left in turmoil

    Therefore, it must have become serious.

  18. Who would call their children:

    a) Peaches,Pixie,Fifi Trixabelle
    b) Apollo,Lara Lettice,Cassia Peaches

    AND:which is a rock star;and which is Mayor of London.

  19. anne wotana kaye – 13:01

    Janner-gate!
    It’s not just about his victims, partners in crime and enablers, like Watergate the COVER UP matters too. Everyone involved should be publicly interrogated, prosecuted and sacked!

    I think it is somewhat ironic that Alison Saunders has same surname as the only bloke ever to make a complete recovery from alzheimers!

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/elder/11554636/Forgive-my-cynicism-at-the-timely-onset-of-Lord-Janners-dementia.html

    Call me a cynic, too, if I speculate that these “get out of” or “keep out of” jail dementia victims may have been schooled as to correct behaviour to display and answers to give prior to their medical examinations.

  21. On a neighbouring Guido’s blog, someone called Charlatans says:

    ‘BBCs dead tree press ally reporting Jeremy Corbyn, (with Di Abbott & 17 other Labour MPs & Len of course), calling for Cameron to agree debt cancellation for Greece:

    http://www.theguardian.com/wor…

    Please could I also be included for some debt relief as well, since instead of paying my taxes I spent far too much on me and the kids skiing holiday this last winter.

    I had to get a Wonga loan out and am now unable to change my 42″ wide screen Samsung for one of the bendy models, plus I cannot afford 4G for my kids new mobiles.

    I have to use the food bank since not enough to continue a little tipple, fags and weekly flutter at Ladbrokes. I am also worried to death now about my Tax Credits after hearing the news this weekend.

    A little free debt counselling for me would also not go amiss.

    Ta’.

  22. Still on the Guido’s blog, there is, amongst the postings, a cartoon. A cow standing in front of a slaughterhouse, the gate is in two parts ‘the Left’ and ‘the Right’. The caption says: The illusion of free choice’.

  24. EC
    June 29th, 2015 – 19:20
    EC you are certainly no cynic, just a realist. The degree of vile paedophiles in the so-called top of society here is sickening. Judges, magistrates, lawyers, politicians, all covering up for each other in a revolting Band of Buggers.

  25. The authorities will not say that two bombs were found in Devon, but as shown here, the DM states He said: ‘We are working with the police to carry out whatever work is necessary. But I cannot confirm at the moment what the suspicious packages contained.’
    Police announced the second package was ‘safely dealt with’ at 1.20pm and confirmed both packages had been ‘made safe’ at 3.30pm.
    A force spokesman said: ‘Following assessment by bomb disposal experts, the devices found on York Road and King William Street in Exeter have been made safe.
    If something is ‘made safe’ surely that means it was once.dangerous

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3143233/Children-evacuated-bomb-disposal-experts-called-two-suspicious-packages-near-school-mosque.html#ixzz3eU8s9YYc
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

  26. Sorry the above has been so badly presented, I should be an official government spokesperson! :=)

  27. “A full spectrum response.”
    He really should get some new scriptwriters. Is that one of Dan Korski’s?

    A full rectum evacuation is what it sounds like.

  29. awk 21.35

    Anne, forget the spokesman bit, I wish you were the government full stop!

  30. EC @19:20

    “Call me a cynic, too, if I speculate…” The USA has been introducing all kinds of surprises into the law and the legal process. Perhaps our government has learned a trick or two and, like the younger Tsarnaev brother, Lord Janner will plead not guilty but his defence lawyer will then tell the court that he is guilty.

    “Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.”
    ―Alexander Pope

    Anne Wotana Kaye @ 21:34

    Has the Home Secretary yet announced that there is no evidence that the persons who made the bombs found in Devon were targeting Britons?

  31. Call the first witness for an Englishman’s right to bear arms!

    And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. 36Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

  32. “Cameron raises possibility of air strikes on Syria as he calls for Isis to be ‘crushed'” (Independent)

    Yes, destroy state # 7 in the Middle East to complete this cycle of devastation, and note that this State is the one that the House of Commons voted recently NOT to get involved with militarily despite the hand signal from the White House sock puppet.

    Here’s General Wesley Clark disclosing the plan in 2011.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw

    Cameron the Bilderberger is on message. But “Isis to be ‘crushed'”??! – why didn’t Cameron (or any other member of the Coalition) order those airstrikes when “a massive convoy of ISIS fighters paraded out in the open desert in Western Anbar on Monday [May 18th, 2015], providing a target rich environment for the U.S.-led coalition” (PJ Media)?

    More and more people can now answer that question.

    And Cameron wants to attack Syria AND Isis? Which side is Isis on at the moment? Did they join with Syria? Better ask John McCain, he can call them up and put the question…

    Who created, funded, equipped and let loose Al Qaeda/ISIS? This is now a rhetorical question.

  34. I’m waiting with bated breath (not really) to discover whether telemachus has had to use a fire extinguisher on his pants yet.

  36. A panic is on about Skorpions being smuggled into Britain for criminal gangs and falling into the hands of terrorists.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11705338/UK-terror-attack-feared-amid-warnings-gangs-are-smuggling-in-submachine-guns.html

    This is rich. The very definition of arrant stupidity must be the UK Parliament. Having made legally held handguns illegal, disarming only the law abiding population and preventing them from defending hearth and home by their centuries old tradition and right, they centralise and diminish the constabulary presence whilst at the same time opening the borders to predatory criminal gangs and terrorists who arm themselves with micro submachine guns.

    They exchange the dangers of a gun-licenced nutter going on a rampage (3 in 30 years) for imposing an imported third world gang culture, terrorism and the prospect of violent sectarianism on a defenceless law-abiding population. Then they call that enrichment. We must celebrate the diversity of crime and terror they bring to us.

    You might think the lesson of Northern Ireland would have made them think about the dangers of their precious multi-culturalism morphing into sectarianism. That the greater the rate and size of the mass influx of closed foreign cultures the more challenges to assimilation and the sustainability of an ordered, peaceful society. But not a bit of it. They import this huge risk and uncertainty in absolute glee then virtue signal it at every opportunity.

    Nincompoops. They belong in the dock, all of them, for crimes against British humanity.

  37. Malfleur
    June 30th, 2015 – 00:31
    Anne Wotana Kaye @ 21:34
    Has the Home Secretary yet announced that there is no evidence that the persons who made the bombs found in Devon were targeting Britons?
    Seems like some sick person or people just wanted to cause distress by dumping suspicious looking objects near a school. Truly nasty.

  38. If an immigrant has managed to smuggle himself into the UK, and we know that hundreds are managing to do this every week, then it should be assumed that some of them are violently hostile to our society and culture and some of them may well be bearing arms ready to perpetrate an atrocity in a major city. We do not know who is arriving and so we certainly do not know what is in their luggage. It would not take much for a Muslim terrorist or two to stand in central London with a weapon such as is being described and cause devastation.

  39. Colonel Mustard – 09:40

    Bravo, superb!

    PS. Thanks for resurrecting the usage of “nincompoops.” Much classier than the language I lapsed into too many years ago now. 😯

  40. Malfleur – 03:46

    The history of gun grabbing? I will watch that later.

    “he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one…”

    Not only justifying “open carry” and but also rendering “concealed carry” redundant in one fell swoop.
    🙂

  41. Colonel Mustard – 09:18

    Sounds delightful but…
    to spare us having to wade through all the Barclay Bros blogs….
    please can you give us a clue, supply the link, throw us a bone?

  42. EC June 30th, 2015 – 10:38

    ‘Nincompoops’ seems apt for those who rule over us, all of them, including the unelected ones, especially since it pre-dates 1688.

    They are indeed devoid of common sense, silly and foolish people, supremely unqualified and incapable of exercising good governance, advised by more of the same and lobbied likewise. The common purpose to which they all seem to subscribe so eagerly appears to be to create an Idiocracy of unparalleled success.

    Hence the situation the country is in.

  43. EC June 30th, 2015 – 10:54

    With his usual supreme self unawareness he described me, un-named (because he thinks that will evade responsibility) as:-

    “the greatest disruptive ménace to haunt this blog in recent times, happily absent for a few days”

    I’m not sure of the difference between a ‘ménace’ and a ‘menace’ but he went on to contradict his own slanderous denouncement by adding:-

    “Each and every poster has a point
    Even if the herd do not agree”

    Which is the kind of double talk to be expected of communists.

    Coming from an entity who professes to promote ‘free speech’ whilst racing up and down nearly every thread tagging any comment which deviates from a Stalinist orthodoxy (euphemism ‘reasonable’) immediately prompted that old rhyme and its parodic origin:-

    “Deceiver, dissembler; Your trousers are alight. From what pole or gallows; Shall they dangle in the night?”

    If ever a person merited his pantaloons being positively ablaze it would be that deceiver and dissembler.

    Nary a comment standing alone and on its own merits but instead the relentless tagging of any others who threaten dissent from a pea-sized outlook draped in a big, bogus cloak of red romanticism. And backwards and forwards from this place to that place with misquotes and mischief.

    http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/06/british-people-need-rescuing-from-north-africa-wheres-the-royal-navy-now/

  44. A letter in today’s telegraph.
    Sir, The father of seifeddine rezgui the Tunisian gunman says that extremists ruined his sons brain with horrid ideas.
    What did he have in mind when he gave his son an Arabic name which translates as Sword of Religion. ?

  48. “If we’re crazy, they made us this way”

    Kathy Shaidle – Five Feet Of Fury

    http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/2015/06/27/if-were-crazy-they-made-us-this-way/

    A nice taster for: Mark Steyn’s latest”

    “It’s always a mistake to expect first principles from the left. In Turkey President Erdogan famously explained that democracy is a train you ride until the stop you want to get to – and then you get off. That’s how the left feels about “rights”. There are no principles, only accretions of power.”

    http://www.steynonline.com/7030/big-fat-greeks-and-weddings

    MS:
    “In the gloomier moments of my own case, my lawyers and I occasionally discuss how, if it all goes pear-shaped in DC, we’ll be off to SCOTUS. But we’re not Larry Flynt in the Eighties anymore. It would seem to me rather complacent to assume these days that there are five votes for free speech at the US Supreme Court.”

    I get depressed to think about it, but it appears that Mark, like myself, can see the writing on the wall about Michael E Mann (spit!) vs Steyn. Al-Barma & Al-Gore et al have too much invested in Mann’s Hokey Schtick.

  49. I’ll be moving house and will be without use of the internet for a while since the wiring is very old and not fit for purpose, and BT will be replacing it. Will be thinking of you all, and hope to rejoin you .when the internet is up and running. So fight the good fight and never let the swine get you down!

  50. The rancid stench of Limburger cheese over at the other place. SNP Anglophobia wrapped up in Danish puff pastry.

    How he gets away with that racist bigotry towards the English is anyone’s guess.

  51. anne wotana kaye at 21.22

    You can get a Dongle which plugs into a USB port and gives mobile access to the internet where there is coverage,which would be most places.They cost from £10 upwards to start `pay as you go`. 1GB lasts about two days with a fair amount of use.It can be topped up at a supermarket. (3 Mobile is a good system.)
    They can be had at Argos.Look up `Argos>Technology>Laptops & PCs>Mobile broadband.Hope this helps.

  55. anne wotana kaye, June 30th, 2015 – 21:22

    Good luck with the move, Anne. Good luck, health & happiness in your new abode.
    Having moved twice in the last 12 months I can attest that it is an exhausting as well as an expensive business! Take it easy. EC.

  56. Frank P,

    Just before you decamp into the DV for the day…

    What do you make of this DAC Maxine De Brunner and the terrorist “exercises” in London yesterday? Were they intended to steady or frighten the horses?

    Did any one notice that the supposed anti-terror guys were wearing British Transport Police vests? Do BTP have their own squad? Are they any good? I know one of the Met’s REAL SWAT squad, and neither he or his squad ever wear BTP vests.

    I think that this unfortunately timed ostentatious “training” exercise, “Strong Tower”, smacks of “leading beyond authority”, but possibly ordered up as a knee-jerk reaction by PR PM who needs to “be seen to be doing something”

    It will be studied very closely, and not just by the Met!

  57. Eurogeddon – it ain’t never gonna happen, however…
    I do wish the Germans would stick to making cars instead of trying to dominate Europe. History records that the latter course of action never works out well.

    The German economy is booming, unemployment is at an all time low. It would be cheaper for Germany to keep paying Greece’s bills!

  58. So please to see the BBC excelling themselves:

    DM: ‘Bring back John Inverdale!’ Tennis fans slam BBC’s new ‘dumbed down’ Wimbledon coverage featuring Claire Balding and liken it to mockumentary W1A

  59. EC
    July 1st, 2015 – 09:01
    Agree! Thanks for your very kind wishes, and I wish you well too.
    D-Day is tomorrow and in this Sharav (heatwave) it’s a nightmare. Knowing my luck it will probably pour with rain tomorrow and all my junk will get soaked.
    This is the last posting for a while.

  60. John Inverdale is being punished for historic offences against Wimmin

    a) because he’s a man – one of the few left in/at BBC sport.
    Therefore on the femi-nazi hit-list, in the same way Jeremey Clarkson was a target for the lefties

    b) because in 2013 he had a brain-fart and, not unreasonably, said this:
    Inverdale’s comments came about an hour before French player Bartoli’s match against Germany’s Sabine Lisicki as he chatted on air about Bartoli’s technique as a player. “I just wonder if her dad, because he has obviously been the most influential person in her life, did say to her when she was 12, 13, 14 maybe, ‘listen, you are never going to be, you know, a looker.
    “‘You are never going to be somebody like a Sharapova, you’re never going to be 5ft 11, you’re never going to be somebody with long legs, so you have to compensate for that.
    “‘You are going to have to be the most dogged, determined fighter that anyone has ever seen on the tennis court if you are going to make it’, and she kind of is.”

    c) more recently because of this:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/racing/article-2988529/BBC-apologise-John-Inverdale-s-air-rose-c-ed-glasses-comments-Cheltenham-Festival-coverage.html

  61. John Inverdale, Jeremy Clarkson, Jeremy Paxman.
    The soft centre liberofascist BBC are destroying all my dreams.

  62. EC (09:26)

    Your observations and mine are much of a muchness in this regard, as so often is the case. Have to confess that as general rule I avert my eyes these days when the antics of my old calling are exposed via the meeja. My toes tend to curl if I don’t. Of the possibilities you posit, I would opt for ” … but possibly ordered up as a knee-jerk reaction by PR PM who needs to “be seen to be doing something””. Exactly!

  63. Colonel Mustard @ 09:40

    One of your best, Colonel, you should save it, go for even greater reach on the Spectator, if that doesn’t get you to the top, Baron’ll eat his hat.

  64. EC @ 20:26

    The fury link’s top class in showing how cunning those who what to subvert our traditional culture are.

  65. Radford NG@June 30th, 2015 – 23:03

    smartphones let you tether to them using your existing mobile contract.
    your phone becomes a wifi hotspot.

  66. telemachus @ 07:41

    What’s the bet, telemachus, there will be a near miraculous agreement just in time to keep the Zorbas in the EU Gulag, allow them to repay at leisure, pour more money into the hapless country?

  67. Baron-if it protects my forthcoming holiday in Hydra, I am very happy
    *
    EC:I am told we should forget Inverdale
    We now have truly joined up broadcasting– Balding can call on wife Alice who is official Wimbledon announcer (@David Brown/Gabriella Swerling)

  68. Baron 11.59: There is a war going on at the Spectator – an attempt to shut up some posters by more than just aggressive trolling. I’m very glad ColM has returned to the fray. But where is the 09.40 post that you mention?

  69. Uh oh! Things have taken a louche turn in the Pepys household:

    “Up betimes, and to my office, where I found Griffen’s girl making it clean, but, God forgive me! what a mind I had to her, but did not meddle with her. She being gone, I fell upon boring holes for me to see from my closet into the great office, without going forth, wherein I please myself much….”

    http://www.pepysdiary.com/

  72. Damaris Tighe
    July 1st, 2015 – 12:33
    *
    Colonel Mustard
    June 30th, 2015 – 09:40

  73. Malfleur July 1st, 2015 – 12:45

    Actually breaking their own laws. Any security operatives engaged in such tactics are criminals.

    But of course the concept of the rule of law is now tarnished and government officials are increasingly coming to believe that they are above it. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? has probably never been more pertinent as standards of integrity and honour fall away from officialdom in favour of personal/professional advantage and cynical manipulation. Any ‘man’ who surreptitiously moves a charity wristband into camera view is a bounder (I use the term ‘man’ loosely).

    Sadly we live in an age of bounders and the Rise of Wonks. The Age of Gentlemen and Real Men is over.

  74. The Alex Jones Show Tuesday June 20 2015

    This includes an interview of almost an hour with a former Goldman Sachs Managing Director who worked under the top man until she realized what their plan was and resigned to write books exposing it: Nomi Prins.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpfWsKW_wfQ

  76. ‘Eurojesus’ (zzzzzzz) and a new one called ‘smoke me a kipper’ (zzzzzzz) seem to be “on duty” as Blockwarten at the other place today.

  77. EC 0937

    Oh yes it is

    Eurogeddon

    The current situation confirms that the eurozone is the antithesis of democracy.
    All other European leaders want to see the end of the Tsipras democratic government

    It is difficult to have a Greek government that is so opposed to the types of policies that have done so much to increase inequality in centrist countries, and that is so committed to curbing the unbridled power of wealth

    They do believe that they can bring down the Greek government by bullying it into accepting an agreement that contravenes its mandate

    A YES vote would mean depression almost without end. Perhaps a bedraggled apology of a country – one that has sold off all of its assets, and whose brightest young people have emigrated – might finally get debt relief and assistance from the World Bank

    A NO vote would open the possibility that Greece, with its strong democratic tradition, might grasp its destiny in its own hands. Greeks might gain the opportunity to move to a future that is more hopeful than the unconscionable torture of the present

    Vote No No No

    Let the hegemony of the krauts crumble
    Let us truly finish what started on the Volga in early 1943

    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/Stalingrad.html

  78. Somebody recently asked – “What is there to prevent Greece just printing more Euros?”

    Then I discovered this –

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-16/how-find-what-country-euro-note

    It makes me suspect that when dishonest politicians and so-called expert “economists” abandoned the use of gold as the measure of value and substituted paper money, they inflicted on the world the biggest scam that has ever been perpetrated.

  79. Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem leadership hopeful, wants to introduce homosexual practice to 2 and 3 year olds, because they can be attracted to members of their own sex. I note that he was a researcher for Lord Jenner in the 80s.

    Disgusting and perverse! How do we protect our children from such people.

  80. Peter from Maidstone @ 20:08

    It’s not often the barbarian’s heartbeat goes into the stratosphere these days, he’s used to the engineering stuff of the anointed, but the Lamb’s suggestion to have cartoon, fairy tale characters openly promoting homosexuality to toddlers goes beyond the scale. The man should be prosecuted for outraging public decency. It used to be a common law offence, was it not? It’s being reviewed now, see the link.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/438194/50076_Law_Commission_HC_213_bookmark.pdf

  81. Herbert Thornton @ 17:11

    Notes account for less than 10% in money transaction terms, most of the flow of money has nothing to do with the pieces of colourful paper we carry in our wallets, it’s all digits on a sever, and if Baron’s antenna’s right deciphering the signals coming from those who run things globally, soon notes will be withdrawn from circulation altogether. By 2020 banknotes will be for collectors only, Baron reckons.

  82. Damaris Tighe @ 12:33

    Colonel’s post at 9.40 still sits where it was when Baron was typing, Damages, just scroll up a lot, up to June 30, you’ll find it there, and a powerful posting it is, too.

  84. Is anybody ‘catching’ the BBC4 programme on Grammar schools? What’s the Beeb up to?

  85. Nicky Morgan is saying that young children who express traditional, and normal, views about homosexual behaviour will be liable to identification as extremists. So we can see it all coming together. 2 and 3 year olds being encouraged to act in a homosexual manner, and any who dissent get shuffled into a special retraining programme. It’s straight out of the Stalinist guide to social engineering.

  86. Damaris Tighe @ 12:33

    Apologies, Damaris, the bleeding MacBook Air has a mind of its own, it has changed your name to Damages. It does it all the time, Baron’s been more careful of late, retypes the suggestions, but hasn’t figured yet where and how to disable the feature of the package the software designers put in thinking it’s helpful, it bloody isn’t.

    In the above two sentences, the software altered ‘hasn’t figured’ to ‘hasn’t figures’ and ‘designers’ to ‘diners’. Madness this. Often because we can do something doesn’t mean we should do it, it better be left at the ‘can do stage’.

    Apologies again, my blogging friend.

  87. Baron (July 1st, 2015 – 20:38) –

    The concept of “money” and it’s actual usage has always been a matter of faith in its worth. Your prediction both highlights the ephemeral nature that it now has – and makes me shudder.

    In 1954 I met a man who had experienced the Weimar inflation. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver threepenny bit and said that he remembered how that tiny silver coin would buy more than would an entire barrowload of banknotes.

  91. Obama has removed the anti-slavery provisions from the Trans Pacific Partnership draft.

  92. More on mandatory vaccination, Obama’s endorsement of slavery (think Dubai, etc.), secret government directives from the White House, the TPP, Greece, and health matters when the economy implodes.

    The Alex Jones Show on July 1st:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMvHxQCiTeo

    and what is the trend in Great Britain? Remember the recent word of our dear leader: Britain is too “passively tolerant” and should not leave people to live their lives as they please just because they obey the law.

  93. Rod liddle
    At last, British politicians have been galvanised into action by the appalling events last weekend in the Tunisian resort of Sousse, in which 38 people were murdered by an Islamist terrorist. Yes, yes, about time, you might be muttering to yourself — but credit where it’s due, please. They may be a little late to the party but at least they have arrived.
    A convocation of 120 of our MPs, including Boris Johnson, have demanded strong and forthright action. They have written to the BBC demanding that it stop using the term ‘Islamic State’ to describe the organisation responsible for the attack, because it might upset that seemingly diminishing, if still large, proportion of Muslims who don’t wander around shooting people, or chopping their heads off, or blowing themselves up.
    This is an excellent step forward and one would imagine that the BBC will be only too happy to comply. The MPs have suggested that an acceptable substitute for ‘Islamic State’ would be ‘Daesh’, which is an acronym for the Arabic translation of ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’. But crucially, if you just say ‘Daesh’ — go on, try it out for yourself — you can’t hear the word ‘Islam’ in it at all. We could be talking about terrorists who were denominationally Methodists, or Rosicrucians. Also, the term Daesh apparently annoys the Islamic State and they wish we wouldn’t use it, because it doesn’t sound as grand as Islamic State.
    Frankly, if we’re going down this route, I don’t know why we should use the term Daesh, either. How about ‘Really Bloody Horrible People Who Have Nothing To Do With Islam’? It’s a bit of a mouthful, I admit, but it gets the message across and it will please the imams over here. Or some of them, at least. So the next time something horrible happens, Huw Edwards could say: ‘And the BBC has just learned that this latest atrocity, in which 70 people were decapitated, has been carried out by Really Bloody Horrible People Who Have Nothing To Do With Islam. And now here’s Lizzie with all the sports news.’
    Why settle for ‘Daesh’? How about ‘Really Horrible People Who Have Nothing To Do With Islam’?
    I’ve tried to think of something which better encapsulates establishment delusion over aggressive Islamism, but nope — this takes the biscuit. I suppose you might hazard that the Royal Navy cheerfully ferrying thousands of people, including people who want us all dead, over to Europe is fairly deluded. Well, sure. It is — and also a waste of resources which will end up costing more lives than it saves. But this stuff, the Daesh stuff, is of a different order.
    It has been backed by the Prime Minister, who said of the term Islamic State: ‘I think this is seen as particularly offensive to many Muslims who see, as I see, not a state but a barbaric regime of terrorism and oppression that takes delight in murder and oppressing women and murdering people because they’re gay. So I raised this with the BBC this morning. I personally think that using the term Isil or “so-called” would be better than what they currently do. I don’t think we’ll move them all the way to Daesh, so I think saying Isil is probably better than Islamic State because it is neither, in my view, Islamic or a state.’
    In your view, David? You’re a Koranic expert, then, are you? You are fit and qualified to adjudicate on what constitutes Islam and what does not? The point is that they call themselves Islamic State: that is their name. You can cavil all you like, but that is generally the approach we have taken over the years in journalism: give something its proper name, not something we would prefer it to be called because the proper name offends our sensibilities. Perhaps we should also stop saying the word Islam when we refer to other manifestations of the religion which we do not like. Such as al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. Pretend they are not Muslim at all. Extend it to those Islamic countries which oppress women and put homosexuals to death. Because it’s not just Isis, is it? Stop referring to Saudi Arabia and Iran and Egypt and Pakistan and countless (well, actually, about 48) other countries as being Islamic — and pretty soon, problem solved! No more Islam anywhere, except here at home, of course.
    The Islamic State is, in its attitudes, rather more representative of Muslim world opinion than we would like to believe. Pretending that they are not Muslim at all will be counterproductive. The Prime Minister cannot simultaneously implore Muslim communities to root out the extremists in their midst — the incendiary imams, the thick-as-mince teenage jihadi wannabes, the first-generation and culturally medieval emigrés from Bangladesh and Pakistan — and also insist, in politically correct fashion, that these terrorist atrocities have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam. That makes no sense. If they have nothing to do with Islam, why harangue Muslims about it?
    The truth is that, no matter how unpalatable it might be to say so, the Islamic State has an awful lot to do with Islam — yes, the clue is in the name. They believe that what they are doing is theologically right and there is a fairly sizeable proportion of the Islamic world which would concur. And we are not qualified to dissent.
    Meanwhile, within our Muslim communities, a similar delusion has taken hold — encouraged by the likes of Johnson and the co-signatories of that letter to the BBC. Why are you picking on us? What have we done to deserve this? It’s not fair. They insist that because crimes often occur which are not perpetrated by Muslims, it is unkind to focus attention on them. But it is from within those communities and that particular creed that this savagery has been unleashed. It does us no good to pretend otherwise.

  94. An amusing small extract from an article about picnics in this weeks spectator.

    This year’s Ascot was, for me, a case in point. Every day of the meet was blessed with excellent weather — except, of course, the one day I went. A person more sensible than I might have looked at the forecast and planned accordingly. I checked, saw that it was going to rain — and just got on with my picnic preparations as usual. So come 11 a.m., eight of us were perched around a foldable table with a rose-embroidered cloth on it, drinking English sparkling wine in the drizzle and gazing up at the depressing sky. Grey, just grey, as far as the eye could see.
    But as we all know, fortune favours the brave. I had chosen to brave the weather, and fortune was on our side. ‘Would you like to borrow our spare gazebo?’ piped up our car-park neighbours. ‘Our boys can put it up for you, as well.’ A spare gazebo? I’m usually lucky if I have a spare pen in my bag. But they were our saviours.

  95. Few seem to have taken up on the comments on Lamb exposing our infants to the LGBT agenda.
    My children are now older and discuss these things with their friends but if I had heard that they were subject to such perversion as toddlers I would have withdrawn them from the Nursery responsible.
    His association with the Labour Paedophile should be headlines on News at Ten.

  96. Jennifer Oldham (11:35)

    It has historically always been the case that those those with perverted sexual appetites have insinuated themselves into positions of political or official power in order propagate their debauchery. Mohammed, the to so-called prophet, is a prime example. But they come in all political and religious stripes. Humanity is a fucking disaster and will ere long screw itself into distinction. All part of the accidental process. So enjoy the show while there is still time and try not to worry. Lamb is a Liberal – what more do you need to know? Perversion runs through their pedigree, like ‘Brighton’ through a stick of tacky rock. But none of the political parties would withstand much scrutiny, when it comes to noncing, evidenced by the last half century of legislation leading to its ‘legitimacy’ in one form or another.

  98. Baron 23.03: It must say something about a) the heat b) that I read your comment late at night or c) an internal ‘Freudian’ something or other, that I didn’t even notice you had called me Damages! Pax …

  99. John Birch @ 5:54

    Rod Liddle writes “A convocation of 120 of our MPs, including Boris Johnson, have demanded strong and forthright action”?

    “strong and forthright action”? Dickering over nomenclature as if finally falling on the right name would be “strong and forthright action”. This is a convocation of politic worms feeding on the dead body of the English constitution.

    I will tell you what would count as STRONG AND FORTHRIGHT ACTION. Pass emergency legislation recognizing our right to bear arms. If before you do that, you politic worms, a score of our countrymen are gunned down on the beach in Bournemouth or while standing on the steps of the National Gallery, YOU will be held responsible.

  100. Malfleur 1400
    Rod Liddle is beginning to move off message

    http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/07/if-only-more-people-joined-islamic-state/

    (On the Luton 12)

    “I have no sympathy for, or empathy with, these people. Except a slight suspicion that by joining Islamic State, they are probably doing the right thing…These people have looked at Britain and thought – nah, don’t want that. So off they go to ally themselves with people more of their own frame of mind. Why is this not a good thing? Why should we try to stop it?”
    *
    Why?
    It is obvious Mr Rod Liddle
    If families go their extended families and friends begin to have sympathy and soon these barbarians have a true fifth column in our midst
    *
    Careless talk costs lives Mr Liddle
    Stick to exhortations to bomb them to glory

  102. Frank P

    I know.

    The MPs and Boris Johnson are probably not concentrated on action to forestall terror at home but rather in action against ISIS in Syria. They are perhaps a group in parliament who are trying to reverse the vote of the Commons in the previous parliament which voted AGAINST military involvement in Syria – making the current 120 even more worm-like a convocation.

  103. “If families go their extended families and friends begin to have sympathy and soon these barbarians have a true fifth column in our midst”

    ‘begin to’? Do leave it out.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11433776/Quarter-of-British-Muslims-sympathise-with-Charlie-Hebdo-terrorists.html

    You can peddle your lies and resort to your smearing and manipulative mischief at the other place, telemachus, but it is wasted here.

    We’ve had a fifth column in our midst ever since you and people just like you began agitating for your wretched ‘revolution’ in the 1960s. And even before that there were plenty of other Soviet sympathisers bent on subverting and undermining the peaceful stability of this country from within the corridors of power. Any responsibility for the Islamic extremists now in our midst lies wholly with you and your marxist friends in whatever shape-shifting form they have taken, so you can belay those crocodile tears.

    It is offensive to truth and honesty that political charlatans like you, the main cause and facilitators of the sectarian disorder and violence threatening the UK, now have the brazen temerity to attempt to climb up on your much trampled moral dung heap to lecture us about it.

    When push comes to shove you have always taken the part of the enemy against the people, whether empowering those who seek to destroy from within or depriving the people of their right to dissent and defend. You are just one of many in a long line of marxist malcontents who have brought nothing but misery, division and strife to Britain and then have the audacity to boast about the chaos and madness you have caused as though it is some kind of blessing.

    You can get away with it with the young whom your deceivers and dissemblers have brainwashed but not with those who can remember it how it was. Those who are now sneered and scorned at for invoking a past that supposedly never existed. But we do remember and for all your lies and deceit you cannot change that. We might be on “the wrong side of history” but we are still going to speak the truth from that place whether you like it or not.

  104. Bilderberg has given its instructions to Cameron: reverse that vote on military action in Syria!

  107. Eton turned out so many twats during the 80s they should’ve formed their own regiment. Oh, er…

  109. Frank P – 12:13

    “Join the Liberal Party and feel a new man” used to be their slogan, didn’t it?

    Cue ACP!

  110. Excellent post, Colonel.

    It sums up succinctly why socialists should never be trusted and the further they veer to the left, away from truth and towards fascism, the more the should be detested and challenged. That divergence explains why Labour lost the last election and why they will never hold power in the UK again and it’s why socialists and their sympathisers in Common Purpose need to be rooted out from all positions of influence in public life, the judiciary and the media.

  111. EC @ 17:50

    How come, EC, nobody challenges the BBC, it’s a blatant lie, a deliberate distortion of hard evidence and, more to the point, when the temperatures were far below average only few weeks ago, the BBC fruitcakes said nothing about how unusually cold it is.

    The sooner we get rid of the TV licence the better.

  113. telemachus @ 14:18

    So what do you reckon, telemachus, their reason for decamping to Syria was, other than, as Liddle says, ‘to ally themselves with people more of their own frame of mind’?

    Leaving aside anything of a personal nature, what else would have persuaded them to go join a bunch of deadly orthodox followers of their religion, a bunch of sickening killers, people whose savagery exceeds even that the founder of the creed was capable of?

  114. “US blocks attempts by Arab allies to fly heavy weapons directly to Kurds to fight Islamic State”
    Telegraph.co.uk‎ – 15 hours ago (h/t Google news)

    Now why would the US do that…?

  115. “Britain could launch Isil air strikes in Syria within months as Labour signals backing for Conservatives
    David Cameron has said that Isil must be “crushed” in its Syrian heartland, adding that a “full spectrum” response is needed”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11715035/Britain-could-launch-Isil-air-strikes-in-Syria-within-months-as-Labour-signals-backing-for-Conservatives.html

    This is as phony as hell. “its Syrian heartland”?! The target is obviously Assad in Damascus, last man standing in the countries (other perhaps than Egypt which is swaying in the wind) to be deliberately destabilized as General Wesley Clark records in the link I provided in an earlier post.

    And if Assad is the target of these proposed attacks, so is Russia.

    Cameron, who has his orders, clearly thinks the previous House of Commons voted the wrong way. This time things are different and the leaderless Labour Party has joined the War Party and is signalling that it “will work with the government on Syria”. More bizarrely still we read that there is a Conservative “backlash from some Tory back-benchers, who have warned that military action could bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Syria dictator”. Well, any pretext is acceptable if it will stop the War Party.

    30 August 2013:
    “MPs have rejected possible UK military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government to deter the use of chemical weapons.
    David Cameron said he would respect the defeat of a government motion by 285-272, ruling out joining US-led strikes.”

    But now of course it is not a strike against Syria that is proposed but against “terrorists” albeit terrorists set in motion by Mr. Cameron’s friends. And, oh, they just happen to be on Syrian soil. How convenient. Of course back in 2013 I seem to remember that ISIS/ISIL’s alias, Al Qaeda, or had they already changed their name to ISIS by then (SO confusing), were actually part of the happy few of moderate rebels who were fighting against Assad and granting photo-ops to John McCain.(That’s history and therefore irrelevant- sorry)

    And is a strike against “Isil” in Syria (Damascus will no doubt be where they will be perceived to be rallying – possibly right up against the walls of the presidential palace), somehow expected to relieve the threats from that Frankenstein monster of the West which are being unleashed against European and American citizens?

    My own view is that for too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our politicians: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. …

  117. Baron 2357

    We
    That is most of us are blessed with intelligence and a World view that allows us to understand the consequences of our actions
    The Boston Irish caught by the same romanticism for a United Irish State in the 1970’s put a few dollars in a basket but none joined Gerry Adams in his murderous exploits
    These folks see an oppressive Assad and an apparently just cause AND are alienated by a media that lumps all Muslims together as evil and off they go
    *
    My main point to Mr Rod Liddle was that to condone them in their flight was to tacitly legitimise the cause of these ISIL barbarians whose leaders should quite properly be taken to the highest buildings and jettisoned

  120. “We
    That is most of us are blessed with intelligence and a World view that allows us to understand the consequences of our actions”

    The last thing the vast majority of socialists like you are blessed with is any understanding of the consequences of their actions. It is why we are here.

    Whereas in the fields of overweening arrogance, egotism and hubris they – and especially you – are absolutely supreme.

  121. John birch @ 06:16

    Good link, John, thanks, the guy’s always good, often exceptionally so.

    In one of the earlier pieces on Obama as a newborn Jew (?) he said: “Obama’s hatred of Israel is in the finest tradition of neurotic Manhattan liberals who can’t decide whether to bemoan Israel’s descent into nationalistic warmongering or take nude photos of their adopted Asian stepdaughters.

    Or, as Woody Allen preferred it in the late nineties, both”.

  122. telemachus @ 05:27

    If the point was what you say it was, telemachus, Baron has missed it completely, puzzles still about the logic of it though. Why should condoning what they did legitimise ISIS? Could just talking about ISIS do the same?

    One can, the barbarian can, understand they left this country because it cannot be nice for them to live in a country in which one opens a newspaper, finds articles of the sort we are discussing, or because they feel strongly, deeply about one or the other schism of Islam, or because they hate Assad and his regime passionately, want to lend a hand destroying both. Any such motive, or similar, seem quite legitimate, understandable, and, from the point of view of their slicing of the world, almost honourable.

    But joining the most barbarous tribe of killers the world has seen for a while to accomplish it is hard to understand, could in no way be excused, should not go unpunished.

  123. We keep being reminded in the News that Islam provides guidance for every individual.

    Apart from providing a Religion, it has its own military system. The Judicial system is outsourced to the Clerics. Civil order is outsourced to the Military, while Archaeology and History in general are outsourced to the demolition wing of the Military.

    Wealth creation is outsourced to the Infidels.

  124. Baron – 09:01

    If you are looking for logic, rhyme or reason there, then you are, as the Germans say “am den holzweg”, or as we might say “you’ve gone Dagenham, mate.”

    Colonel Mustard – 07:17

    Surgical!

  125. Baron
    July 3rd, 2015 – 09:01

    It is insidious Baron
    Within the Muslim community there are cousins, friends, friends of friends and neighbours of neighbours
    We should hound these folks on intelligence and kill them with kindness (first) and then if threat remains the full force of the law

  127. telemachus July 3rd, 2015 – 09:49

    What nonsense. And I have just had to counter your shameful misrepresentations of ISIS at the other place.

    ‘Pan-Arab Nationalism’ my a**e. ISIS is an Islamic State in the true and original meaning of that term.

    An Islamic state (الدولة الإسلامية‎) is a type of government in which the primary basis for government is the enforcement of shari’a in the dispensation of justice and maintenance of law and order. Shari’a or sharia law ( شريعة‎ ), is the Islamic legal system derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. The term shari’a comes from the term sharīʿah, which means a body of moral and religious law derived from religious prophecy, as opposed to human legislation. Adherence to shari’a has served as one of the distinguishing historic characteristics of the Muslim faith. In its strictest and most coherent definition, shari’a is considered in Islam as the infallible law of God.

    To try to separate ISIS from Islam as that spoon-faced nincompoop in No.10 is attempting to do is beyond risible. It is positively dishonest and falls within the category of those who rule over us cynically trying to keep the lid on a boiling cauldron into which they put the ingredients and under which they started the fire.

  128. I think there are different issues here

    First the misplaced romanticism of British Citizens which the Good Mr Rod Liddle seeks to feed
    We must not be blind to the dangers

    Second the reasons for the renaissance of the concept of a state in the ancient lands of Mesopotania and the Levant fuelled by bogus exhortation to a deity which according to its holy book would not approve of the methods of the leadership of that so called state
    This movement coincides with the re-awakening of Arab Nationalism suppressed so effectively by the French and the English
    I have no answers to all this but we need to support the repressive Arab Forces in Egypt and the Arabian peninsula who will crush them
    Our problem is that we pay too much lip service to Democracy
    Democracy has no place in the Middle East
    *
    And neither do the French political concepts attributed to the Banks of the Seine

  129. telemachus July 3rd, 2015 – 12:06

    If you have no answers then I suggest you stop pontificating about the subject as though you have them all, especially when the pontification is simply a vehicle for your usual leftist inspired twaddle.

  130. In Grmany
    so everything german works does it?

    so why did Berlins U7 go phut yesterday. They just chucked all the passengers out to get the bus. Imagine a whole U bahn train trying to get n 1 bus, next one in 15 mons…

    and the u-bahn ticket machines dont take non german plastic or 50 euro notes, and the card machines are all in german even tho the ticket machine does english.

  131. Baron

    Here is an article on Greece by Martin Armstrong. Perhaps, and othrs, you will develop a taste for him.

    He begins:

    “In a TV interview, Mr. Varoufakis said very clearly, “This is a very dark moment for Europe. They have closed our banks for the sole purpose of blackmailing what? Getting a ‘Yes’ vote on a non-sustainable solution that would be bad for Europe.”

    I must admit, most politicians do not come even close to the truth, but Varoufakis seems to be the ONLY finance minister who understands the demands of the Troika are not plausible for any nation. Merkel has tried to skirt any responsibility by saying this is a Troika decision. One must seriously ask, are those in the Troika just totally brain-dead? Their blackmail and economic war against Greece will be evidence to ensure that Britain leaves the EU. The ONLY thing that saved Britain was Maggie Thatcher’s effort to keep Britain out of the euro for she knew far too well where it would lead. The view in Poland is also now anti-euro. Any Brit who now does not vote to get out of the EU and the grips of the Troika is ignorant of world events and the political power play going on….”.

    And some interesting comments.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-02/martin-armstrong-troika-maneuvering-rig-greek-referendum

    I am sure similar strong-arming will be used when it comes time for our IN/OUT referendum.

  132. Alexsandr – 12:46

    “so why did Berlins U7 go phut yesterday”

    They must’ve known that you were coming 🙂
    You don’t need money if you purchase a travel card.

    Apart from that, did you enjoy you visit?

  133. ec
    how do you purchase a travelcard at an unmanned station then (rudow)

    still here till tues. 38 tomorrow…

    lots of fraulein in shorts 🙂

  134. Colonel Mustard @ 10:49

    The best definition of sharia, its application in a societal construct by a mile, Colonel, the barbarian will re-use it (with acknowledgement) when an opportunity arises, if it’sOK with y ou.

  135. Malfleur @ 14:54

    The barbarian will talk to you later, he’s pushed on time right now.

    PS the errors in the single sentence above are inexcusable.

  137. Alexsandr @ 15:36

    Put on a lot of sunscreen lotion, Alexander, and drink copiously and often. Btw, if Baron remembers the temperatures may be over 30deg C, but its dry hotness, quite manageable if one consumes pints of water, dresses in loose gear.

  138. Malfleur @ 14:54

    Everyone who advises the Greeks to call it a day, rid themselves of the Euro, quit the EU, and very likely the NATO, too, (btw, amongst the NATO members, and excluding the American Republic, Greece is the only country spending more than 2% of her GDP on defence, why?) misses the decisive element of the tragic spectacle.

    The Greek exit would mean the beginning of the end of the pan-European dream, it would dent the project seriously, a project, in which too much has already been invested, on which too many political careers ride, and very profitably, too. Greece’s exit would also undeniably boost the appetite of others to leave (the UK?). The gradual dismantling of it would start recriminations, these may bring to public knowledge the financial mismanagement of the EU, whose budget has never been independently audited ….

    A nightmare for the Brussels apparatchiks, the cost of which, not just purely financial, but also in terms of the social unrest that may accompany the collapse, must outweigh the cost of keeping the Zorbas in, at least in the eyes of those running it.

    For the pan-European dream promoters, the plight of the unwashed, the democratic deficit of the monstrosity, the underpinning economics matter not one bit. It’s political through and through. To keep Greece in is till doable, the EUSSR stands roughly today where the USSR stood when the Warsaw Pact forces invaded the tiny land of the rebelling Czechs (1968), who were attempting to shrug off the yoke of the Kremlin thugs, it will take another decade or two before the Brussels artificial, undemocratic, dictatorial construct also collapses, Baron reckons.

  139. “In a TV interview, Mr. Varoufakis said very clearly, “This is a very dark moment for Europe. They have closed our banks for the sole purpose of blackmailing what? Getting a ‘Yes’ vote on a non-sustainable solution that would be bad for Europe.”
    Malfleur
    Correct me if I am wrong, but did the IMF not say the very same thing last night.
    Christine may save the day.

  142. “BERLIN (AP) — Authorities seized a 45-ton Panther tank, a flak cannon and multiple other World War II-era military weapons in a raid on a 78-year-old collector’s home in northern Germany, prosecutors said Friday.

    Kiel prosecutor Birgit Hess said the collector, whose name she would not release for privacy reasons, is being investigated for possibly violating German weapons laws but remains free while the probe is ongoing.

    The tank owner has made no secret of his collection, openly talking about the Panther and other items in media reports following the May revelation of the art investigation. Neighbor Kristin Schroeder told the local Kieler Nachrichten newspaper that the man had even fired up the tank during the particularly bad winter of 1978-79 and helped plow others’ snow.

    “It was well known, at least to all the older Kitzebergers, that he had a tank,” Schroeder said.”

    Seems we are not the only country where the raids now precede investigations. Under our old English law, without the prima facie evidence from a preliminary investigation and judicial warrant such a raid would probably constitute criminal trespass, assault and possibly criminal damage. Euro-puppet prosecuting authorities now appear to be above the rule of law themselves but empowered to tailor and deliver it as they see fit. Alison Saunders should probably be prosecuted herself for attempting to undermine it.

  145. Colonel Mustard @ 20:26

    And Baron rather foolishly thought, Colonel, the Huns had given up riding tanks up and down the lands of Europe, firing them, have switched to making money, being prudent, giving full backing to new enlightened leaders like the Frau, hoping, quite rightly, that at some point they simply buy the whole of the Old Continent (and few bits farther afield). Arghhh

  146. Radford NG @ 21:33

    Are you aware, Radford, that before Baron got to the EDL site there appeared a message on his gadget’s screen saying the accessing is being checked. Does it mean that if Baron’s name hasn’t yet been on the Security Services’ list of undesirables, people they watch, it will now be?

  148. Jennifer Oldham @ 18:47

    All considered, if Baron were to vote in the Greek referendum he would vote ‘yes’.

    This may seem strange, but the options the Zorbas are facing on Sunday is rather unpalatable, akin to a man who’s told ‘listen, chap, here’s your two choices, we either cut your left leg above the knee first, then the right one, or we cut the right leg first, then the left’.

    Whilst the EU is still drifting along, it will be smarter for the Greeks to stay in the monstrosity rather then going it alone. Greece is a small country, around 10mn burghers, has not much going for herself apart from tourism, some olive oil, and the reputation to stage military coups at the drop of a hat.

    (Britain is another case altogether, there are many more of us, we still have pockets of excellence in fields that matter today, including financial services, a solid democratic heritage (good for inward investment for it ensures stability), and both links to the colonial friends of the past, and the ability to reach markets others may find hard to penetrate.

    If the Greeks quit, default, it will be hard and/or expensive for them to raise money on the international markets (would you be happy to lend someone 1,000 quid if you’d already lent him 10,000, he said he wouldn’t repay it?), whoever governs would have to start printing money, a sure path to inflation, and the subsequent price controls. The supply side will dwindle further, there would be no incentive for foreign money to come in. The country will become not a basket case, but one of a case without the basket.

    Staying in he EU, whilst it lasts, will at least assure the furnishing of money from the Brussels budget, to which the other 27 members have to contribute.

  149. EC July 3rd, 2015 – 22:01

    I should no longer consider my oaths binding to a British version of Prince Sihanouk.

  150. Colonel Mustard – 20:26

    Not surprised.
    Look how the German Bundesländer governments have been taken over by the Greens (aka Reds) and The Left or where undue influence is exerted by them. The only state to be governed by a single party is Bavaria, which is still conservatively minded. Then Berlin, Saarland, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt are governed by an unholy alliance between the CSU and SPD in an undemocratic Grand Coalition. Similarly the other 11 states are complete basket cases. Give me FPTP any day!

  151. EC @ 22:01

    One truly despairs for the Kingdom when he takes over.

    What is it that fuels the desires of the celebrities, from the Royals to the Z-ranked ones, to tell us what to do? The multiplicity of our institutions that have evolved over the centuries may not be ticking as originally planned, but they still offer the best way of ensuring there’s some input from the people with common sense. The man should stick to talking to trees, playing polo, and opening village fetes.

    Btw, the barbarian did post on the blog you alerted us to, EC, suggested castration.

  153. Baron – 22:30

    🙂
    Too late for that, but fortunately both his legal offspring seen to be relatively sane.

  154. If only…

    Heartwarming headline in one of tomorrow’s papers:

    THE DAILY STAR FRONT PAGE: ‘Russell Brand: I’m off to Syria’

  156. A couple of days ago, I reminded hydrophobic warrior, John Richardson, how The Genius, Wilhelm described him on the oubliette, back when dinosaurs walked the Earth.

    A cross between L Ron Hubbard and Professor Stanley Unwin.

    John did not like it up him and accused me of making it up and being a nutter.

    As if anyone could make up a slice of genius like that.

    Remember the good old days, eh? Remember the good old days ….

  157. Baron at 21.47

    I take it the access check to the EDL site is part of their defence wall to stop trolls and saboteurs.

  159. RobertC @ 23:05

    One shouldn’t bet on it being a joke, Robert, who knows, next year, the EU apparatchiks may cock their guns, get their teeth into it.

  163. Malfleur @ 00:09

    Images of the kind shown in the Independent don’t convince the barbarian, Malfleur, the man may be genuinely near a breakdown point, or he may not be. One has to know more to make a judgement.

    On one of the foreign news channels yesterday, the reporter was saying ‘many in Greece are dying because they have no access to medicine, many are starving …’ Well, the reporter had a cameraman, he could have found one of the many starving individuals, find out why he is starving, ask about his job, income, circumstances and stuff, why didn’t he? This would have carried weight, and is what true journalism should be about.

    One of Baron’s friends lived in Germany (not a German though), had business in Greece, didn’t think much of their appetite for work. Well before the crisis started (end of last century), he kept telling Baron one has to have a meeting in Greece before lunch. If it’s arranged after midday, they either don’t turn up, or turn up very late. The barbarian doesn’t remember much else, (it was a long time ago he met with him), except that he was pulling out of Greece when they last met.

    This, of course, proves nothing, it was the experience of just one individual, a self-employed man who drove himself hard, expected others to do the same.

    The OECD estimated in August 2009 that the size of the Greek grey market to be around €65bn (equal to 25% of GDP), resulting each year in €20bn of unpaid taxes.[12] This was in comparison almost twice as big as the German black market (estimated to 15% of GDP).[13] Data for 2012[14] place the Greek “black market” at 24.3% of GDP, compared with 28.6% for Estonia, 26.5% for Latvia, 21.6% for Italy, 17.1% for Belgium and 13.5% for Germany. There is however a correlation with the percentage of Greek population that is self-employed[15] (31.9% in Greece vs. 15% EU average[16]), as several studies[17][18][19] have shown the clear correlation between tax evasion and self-employment.

    If you want more on the subject here is a Wiki link, but there are other sources, too. Baron sees no good reason to back a nation with that high a proportion of tax cheats, a nation that has a black market equalled to a quarter of its official GDP.

    If the figure of $30bn tax evasion is right, that equals roughly to 10% of what the country owes to her creditors.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_and_corruption_in_Greece

  165. re the edl site page ‘checking your browser’

    that is a way of stopping denial of service attacks. this is when someone sets up a computer to continually access the site. this intense activity then stops others using the site. usually referred to as a DOS attack.

  166. Radford NG
    July 3rd, 2015 – 23:39

    No
    I firmly suspect MI5
    You get similar from time to time if you follow KKK or even UAF links (not the main sites)

  170. Andy Car Park, July 3rd, 2015 – 23:30

    “Remember the good old days, eh? Remember the good old days ….”

    John Richardson aka Reg’s ?

    He was in here, mind you they all were, even Lafayette R. gets a mention!

    http://www.coffeehousewall.co.uk/the-coffee-house-wall-12th18th-march/

    and, also in here, telemachus’ receives a fulsome tribute from yourself:

    Andy Car Park, March 15th, 2012 – 11:41
    Oh dear.
    Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear.
    Oh dear.
    Professional onanist, telemachus’ has finally fallen victim to his own all consuming vanity and outed himself back in the oubliette.
    It turns out that far from being a ‘trained scientist’ who took a congratulatory first at Oxford during the 1960s followed by a doctorate under the supervision of Sir Hans Krebs, all while taking time out from manning the barricades with his big mate, Tariq Ali, telemachus’ is in reality nothing more than a PR spiv who read Greek and French at Kings College London between 1982 and 1986 (a qualification with which there is of course nothing wrong).
    So, our functionally illiterate Greek tosser would seem to be upsides in no particular order with THX1138, David Cameron and Roland Rudd. We should have seen it coming. Dammit, Watson. What clots we’ve been.

  171. Baron

    If I understand you correctly, a media outlet that says people are starving in country X but does not send someone to get a photo of someone starving is unconvincing. On the other hand, if a media outlet says people in country X are are suffering to the point of tears in trying to withdraw money from their ATM and it shows a photo of a man of a certain age slumped in tears against the wall of a bank, that photo is unconvincing.

    Could Baron be a Greek ATM?

    http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2015/07/20150703_ATM.jpg

  172. Andy Car Park,

    PS. Not a fan of Kate Maltby then?
    [Funny little thing. Mostly harmless. HTF she got on to BBC QT I’ll never know. Fraser?]

    PPS. Some months back I was thinking of founding a new club for anti-meliorist shiftless deadbeats, but I really couldn’t be arsed.

  173. “Were we back in the 1940’s we would, no doubt, have heard from our current leaders that Hitler and the Nazis were a perversion of fascism and nothing to do with Germany.”

    Austin Barry

  175. “The Falklands Play” is on BBC4 Extra today (4pm) and Sunday (4am):& BBC i-player.
    First commissioned then banned for 16 years by the BBC who wouldn’t give the Copyright back to the author. The Director General is reported to have declared:”She (Mrs. Thatcher) has had one victory;we aren’t going to give her another”.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007674j

  176. The mob is storming the barricades in Calais, desperate to get into this country. Why is this so? are they fervent admires of our culture and traditions? No they are determined to come here because of government largess, available to all who do not belong on these shores. The authorities resolutely refuse to address this problem and it will not go away until they do.

    The Aussies have shown the way to cauterise this situation, but then the Aussies are a different kettle of fish, they are what the Brits were before they had the guts kicked out of them by the acolytes of Common Purpose.

  177. When I was a lad; would be emigrants wanting a ‘New Life abroad’ could emigrate to Australia by ship for the princely sum of £10 per adult, (I assume that the children went for free) it proved to be very popular and many went.

    We now have entire Muslim families going to join ISIS, saying that the feel much safer living in the Caliphate under Sharia Law.

    How would it be if we were to offer £10,000 per head, children included plus free flights to help persuade these nice loving Muslims to leave our country and to go join the murdering bastards that are this Caliphate?

    If this turned out to be popular then we might decide that it should be compulsory.

  178. David Ossitt,
    David, I was a ten pound Pom, and had the best time of my life, as for the muzziies, why pay them to go? just ship the bastards out.

  179. EC – Thanks for reminding me about 12th-18th March 2012, which contained a lot of inspired stuff from several quarters.

    I ought to drift back here really. The standard of wit on BB isn’t particularly impressive, even if some of the chicks sporadically respond to my ‘man of the world routine’ (= tightening cravat + declaiming ‘ding-dong’).

  181. stephen maybery @ 18:45

    “The mob is storming the barricades in Calais, desperate to get into this country. Why is this so?”

    If you turn the volume up, you will be able to hear their cry:

    IT is not to be thought of that the flood
    Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
    Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquity
    Hath flow’d, ‘with pomp of waters, unwithstood,’
    Roused though it be full often to a mood 5
    Which spurns the check of salutary bands,—
    That this most famous stream in bogs and sands
    Should perish; and to evil and to good
    Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
    Armoury of the invincible Knights of old: 10
    We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
    That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
    Which Milton held.—In everything we are sprung
    Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.

    They yearn to speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake, ‘sall.

    I think, if I may say so Stephen, that you have been roused to a mood 5
    which spurns the check of salutary bands.

  182. Sorry about the 5 and 10. I think it was the Drugstore from which I bought the sentiment.

  183. Btw, lines 5 and 6 of the sonnet are replaced in the 1807 and 1815 version by:

    Road by which all might come and go that would,
    And bears out freights of worth to foreign lands;

    Stick with 1802, no?

  184. … and speaking of old copy [ACP 23:18] what happened to the archival links Peter? Are we expecting a bust by the thought police? Or is my Nexus tablet screwing up the software?

  185. Malfleur,
    Quite right, definitely roused is S.J.M. I have spent half my working life in the Middle East and now live in Whitechapel, if anyone knows the buggers then I do. Feeling a bit dozy now, but tomorrow I will post on the shenanigans which went on at the East London Mosque on Friday.

  186. Baron

    Zero Hedge carries an article on the closing of the banks in Greece except for a narrow slit not wider than DC’s mouth as described by Verity – the tight limits on ATM withdrawal. It also shows the photo of the man sat crying. I do not know if the photo is faked or not. If it were faked, it would be hard to determine if that had been done in the interest of the ‘No’ vote or the ‘Yes’ vote, either could profit which suggests there would have been no advantage in faking it.The picture has a poetic truth though and the article backs it up.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-04/cash-greek-bank-account-poof-it%E2%80%99s-gone

    .

    stephen maybery

    Looking forward to your account of the shenanigans once you are rested and re-roused.

  190. telemachus July 5th, 2015 – 07:58

    Chamberlain is dead so for credibility your basis for asserting his approval should be revealed. Oh, I see, it was just a rhetorical device to impart a sly condemnation (and misrepresentation) of Hitchens’ position.

    Then why not, oh “reasonable” one, simply fisk the article in an objective way instead, or even present a considered counter argument, preferably without resorting to denouncement, pejorative labels, unsubstantiated assertions of prejudice or the abuse of historical fact?

    Or. having been given a green light to ‘comment’ here are you going to continue to just heckle, to sloganeer, to deal soundbites and peddle propaganda? Is your fear of controversy, dissent and challenge so pronounced, your confidence in your own ideology so baseless and unsubstantiated, that you can only chuck stones at the window and run, whining how unfair it is that the “unreasonable” are free to disagree with you and challenge your assertions whilst projecting your own disruptive tendencies onto them?

    You are free to ‘comment’ telemachus. Isn’t it about time that you did?

  191. Forget about Greece, Syria. More seriously, it has been brought to my attention that a Croatian player has been caught out double hitting the ball thereby depriving another foreign player Jo Wilfried Tsonga (he’s from Paris not Tonga) of a well deserved victory and several thousand’s of $ prize money. The organising committee should make it clear to foreign players that this sort of behaviour might be commonplace on the continent but will not be tolerated here! Lucky for the bounder that he didn’t try that on with Andy Murray(*) or Judy and Nicola Sturgeon would have lept from their seats and torn the blighter limb from limb after ripping his throat out.

    Also unfair is that there are too many laddies in the ladies competition! There should be separate competitions for the LGBT community, and medical checks on any suspicious entrants trying it on in the ladies. Also any of the remaining ladies who indulge in the unsavoury practice of shrieking during play, in order to put their opponent off, should be either gagged or disqualified or both.

    (*) I know Andy Murray is not popular with some, but let us not forget he is still “British” until he loses, whereupon he reverts to being “the plucky Scot.”

  192. Andy Car Park
    July 4th, 2015 – 23:18

    Do enlighten the poorly educate d Slav, Andy, what is BB?

  194. Malfleur @ 01:27

    Stop banging about the man near an ATM point, Malfleur, will you, please, neither you nor Baron knows what his circumstances are, he may as well be a black market operator who forgot to withdraw his ill gotten millions, broke down, went mad.

  196. Baron,

    “BB” = Big Brother – a CH4/CH5 unreality program “starring” the cream of our nation’s youth.

    ATM’s

    Somewhere in here you’ll find Spike Milligan’s ATM joke. (2nd Sketch)
    [Unfortunately/fortunately the sketch has been cut, so you don’t get to see what Spike does next!]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhC2umhGDmw Enjoy the rest! 🙂

    Also, Back in 1982 Spike had David Attenborough, Brian Cox and the rest of the BBC sussed!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2bukgOJ6L0

  198. Andy Car Park, my old mucker, you are still alive!!
    You know Havana is now opened up and we can get cool dude cigars again at cost.
    You need to come over boy. We can teach you a few things about politics over here. Our dangerous communist Obama is about to bite the dust. Clinton is a has been and the only contest is Rand or Jeb.

  199. Malfleur,
    I am now rested, re-roused, tipped enough caffeine down my throat to kill a mule and ready to bitch and moan for Britain. So, here goes. I was approaching the East London Mosque on Friday, there were three ambulances parked outside, My heart leaped with joy, thinking some civic minded cove had lobbed a bomb into the joint. No such luck. There was a string of people with buckets soliciting donations, and the said vehicles were destined for Syria, although I doubt they were intended for the Red Cross when they got there. The buckets were filling up at a cracking pace Collectors for Islamic charities are commonplace around here, especially at Sainsbury’s, but the collectors do not approach me, perhaps I have a certain aura, or more likely I am a dead ringer for Worzell Gummmidge on bad day.

    Just behind the Mosque is a small Tesco, I was asking one of the staff why they never had any beef sandwiches, he suggested that perhaps beef sandwiches might offend the Mosque, which was preposterous, but it shows the thinking at Tesco. This intimidation is repeated all over the borough in all walks of life.

    One thing above all else really gets my goat is those liberal arseholes who insist that the majority of Muslims do not support terrorism. Balls. I have contacts all over the borough, and believe me when I say that the majority do support ISIS and their ilk. These people have neither empathy nor loyalty to this country, and when the balloon goes up, as ultimately it will, they will not be on our side. If I know what is going on here, then so do the security services, so why the hell are they not doing something about it?

  200. OK
    OK

    “But they have to pretend to know. And so they talk drivel.”

    Hitchens is talking about sound politicians that we voted in

    He goes on

    “But our glorious rulers were not done yet. To crown a week of wild floundering, the Government announced that our few remaining bombers will soon be fighting alongside President Assad of Syria.

    Two years ago they wanted to use the same aircraft to bomb Mr Assad.

    Four years ago they did use them to overthrow the Libyan government. As a result Libya is now a failed state…”

    So the corollary is we should shut up and do nothing

    Well that led in the 1930’s to the Holocaust

    Is we leave ISIL to it very soon they will have all the oil resources of Iraq and be unassailable in that country and next door. They will use that to take the Arabian peninsula where the Wahabis are an excellent fifth column. Then the Eastern ISIL front will pincer Egypt with support from Libya

    *

    No Mr Hitchens we cannot stay quiet and do nothing. We must stoke up the White House and together bomb them to glory and follow this with the most overwhelming ground force seen since Overlord
    *
    Mr Hitchens we need to read Dresden for Raqqa

    And as I have said before we must stop families from here going over to legitimise them

  201. stephen maybery at 11.48

    I do hope none of them do get your goat.All over the Middle East there are satires about the Islamic S.S. and goats.One has the comment “goats hear Daesh are on their way” with this photo:

    https://i.imgur.com/p3nWxJe.jpg

  202. EC @ 10:58

    Thanks, EC, and yes, the Spike’s bits were enjoyable, some more others less, the ‘cheapo’ Benny’s film that followed had few good gags in it, too. The Attenborough clip on Stonehenge is priceless, fits also today’s BBC well.

  203. stephen maybery 11:48

    If they knew them, what do you reckon, stephen, the politicians, the MSM, telemachus would have said about the family that’s now in Syria with the ISIL’s thugs when they were still living amongst us? Law abiding, helpful, polite, never suspected of any terrorist intentions, neighbours one would wish to live next door to …. That is exactly what their relatives still here, their neighbours, those who knew them have said since their decamping to Syria. Baron believes them, no reason not to.

    The family, the lot of them showed no animosity towards us, the younger ones had jobs, were polite, behaved as we all do except that they must have harboured feelings that were totally diverse from their public image, their flight wasn’t, it couldn’t have been the result of an impulse decision, it must have thought through, planned, executed with great PR skill.

    How can one tell if others like them, found most likely but not exclusively amongst those who in polls endorse the Charlie slaughter in Paris, the Tunisian atrocity, are still living amongst us?

  204. In yesterday’s DT, Charles Moore says appeasement of the Islamists hasn’t worked, a new strategy is needed, the boy ‘unexpectedly free, and fire up’ to cure the boil has it, it’s called ‘entryism’, it’s supposed to replace ‘subversion’, something the spooks were very much into during the Cold War, gave up on it after the Security Service Act of 1989 came into force, we should hear more about it soon.

    The ghastly Blair seems to be marginally ahead of the the bulk of the political elites everywhere saying that Islamism ‘isn’t a fringe, but a part of the spectrum’. It still denies what everyone except the politicians sees as the core of the boil, the Islamic doctrine itself. It isn’t Islamism alone that’s unappeasable, but Islam itself. The former aims for an end where the latter also wants to get, they differ merely on how to get there.

  205. telemachus July 5th, 2015 – 12:34

    Leaving aside the credibility of how Balaclava somehow excuses the centuries of atrocities perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire please could you explain why your obsession with where I might or might not happen to hail from has any bearing on a debate about the merits or otherwise of that Empire?

    “Spare us the crocodile ideas
    We soundly supported to Ottomans for good reason and many a good man died for them at Balaclava and beyond
    But of course that was far from the East Anglian idyll and forbears there spent their time criticising our brave troops in that war”

    Do you think such a sly reference to “East Anglian idyll” imparts power or credibility to your response? Is it intended to be intimidatory? Or is it just the latest replacement for “Home Counties idyll”? Do your prejudices really extend to where people happen to live? And where do you get that information from? Are you stalking them? Is someone breaching Data Protection?

    I’d really like to know, and since you like to play “reasonable” here perhaps you could explain exactly why you persist in doing it and what the aim is. Thank you.

    PS My forbears never criticised the troops who fought in the Crimean War. They fought in the Crimean War themselves and they didn’t hail from East Anglia either.

  206. stephen maybery

    The security services? Why? Because they WANT the balloon to go up

    *

    Baron @ 10:26

    ‘banging on’? 2 posts?

    But anyhow what you say is in part exactly my point – we don’t know if the photo is genuine – but it doesn’t matter – given a bail-in in England in the future, it could be you. As with the New Testament, it is mainly the spiritual truth which counts. You think no-one is crying in Greece? (Ok, three bangs and I’m out.)
    🙁

  207. Pepys’ Diary
    Friday 4 July 1662

    “…By and by comes Mr. Cooper, mate of the Royall Charles, of whom I intend to learn mathematiques, and do begin with him to-day, he being a very able man, and no great matter, I suppose, will content him. After an hour’s being with him at arithmetique (my first attempt being to learn the multiplication-table); then we parted till to-morrow….”

  208. Baron 14.16
    The mail on line refuse to accept a post saying Islam is the brainwashing that causes these incidents.
    You can say anything you like that’s quite hateful, but they won’t accept a comment that Islam is the problem.

  209. It seems that “reasonable” telemachus refuses to respond to reasonable questions here and only by unreasonable allusion at the other place:-

    “Those of us steeped in Noble traditions of Northern Battle from Stamford Bridge to Marston Moor to Peterloo are proud of the stand we took in support of our brave friends the Ottomans, particularly against a feudal monarchy that sadly was not put to rest until October 1917

    *

    Sadly the thanks given to the Northern Cohorts for the disproportionate deaths at Balaklava and also in the 2 German wars are not recognised by the Home Counties/East Anglian elite who now arrogate for themselves disproportionate resources of our great land

    *

    Some ask

    “Do your prejudices really extend to where people happen to live?”
    How dare anyone ask such a question when it is self evident that the levers of our land are utilised for the privileged HCEA elite.
    I believe Angus Robertson was making a similar point last Wednesday
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?…”

    Er, I don’t have any levers to utilise and I’m not a member of any elite, ‘HCEA’ or otherwise. But exceedingly peculiar that discussion of the Ottoman Empire should be focussed on the merits of the home counties of those participating in the Charge at Balaclava. But of course it is all just mischief making and nothing more.

    And so much hatred and prejudice over where one might happen to live in England from a supposedly Christian socialist.

  210. A momentous day
    *
    The polls have closed with OXI (no) in the lead (latest opinion polls)
    *
    Varoufakis predicts a deal within 24 hours
    *
    Merkel on her way to Paris to try to thwart him
    *
    We live in interesting times

  212. July 4th? Thank god that’s over…

    Barack Obama’s Chicago sets the benchmark in gun control…

    So far this holiday weekend in Chicago, seven people have been killed and 40 people wounded by gun violence. Last year, the toll was 82 people shot in 84 hours. Sixteen of them died.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-violence-20150704-story.html

    Irony records that it was the Democratic party in the southern states that first introduced gun control measures in order to prevent black folks from owning guns.

  216. telemachus @ 12:34

    Fighting them the way we’ve done since out first excursion into Afghanistan, telemachus, what with the ‘uman rites’ baggage effectively disabling the military, does BA to either destroying the religiously motivated thugs for good, or changing their way of thinking. Air bombardment very often causes a collateral damage that exceeds that of the throat cutters’ losses. If anything, it only boosts their success in recruitment, everybody must see it.

    Just look at the countries we’ve bombed, think. Any noticeable betterment in either the quality of living for the unwashed, or the governance of these lands? Furthermore, even in the countries we did have boots stamping everywhere, neither the lives of the people, nor the way they are governed improved much. What on earth makes you think we can do better in Syria? If we go in, smash the infrastructure further, displace the plebeians, it will be another Libya, but probably worse because Syria’s more populated.

    Hitchens is right, we should keep out of it, tell those of the followers of Allah living amongst us to behave or else.

    PS apologies for the missing words, other errors in the postings before this one. You don’t have to take the barbarian’s word for it, but it is the software that’s mostly to blame, well, that and Baron’s hastily cobbled up rent s.

  217. You see, Baron was right putting the blame on the bleeding software. The posting at 19.08 should end ‘rants’ and not ‘rent s’. How can the barbarian stop progress?

  218. EC @ 18:24

    From the start, EC, the gun control lobby has been to prevent non-whites owning guns. Any ethnic breakdown on the figures? Baron has resigned, still cannot read the article.

  219. telemachus @ 17:56

    If the Zorbas get kicked out of the EU, default, many of us may be hit financially, too telemachus. The guaranteed max for banks’ deposits has gone down, it’s now ‘up to £75,000’, but the operative words are ‘up to’. If the fund cannot handled the losses a depositor could get as little as £25,000 or £10,000 or £1.

    Interesting times indeed.

  220. Baron,
    Our nomenklatura our petrified by the situation they have orchestrated. Remote and insulated as they are, they are perfectly aware of the anger bubbling away beneath the surface, and when things do finally go tits up then they will be the first to get it in the neck, in the meantime, pretend all is well. If you want an analogy then try this, the Canute syndrome.

  223. Baron 1920
    I do think that Osborne has immunised our economy against Greek pullout and the markets have discounted exit already
    This is all music to our ears because the destabilisation of the Central powers will allow the partial disengagement the UK needs (if only to neutralise the Tory right wing and Farage)

  224. As things stand at 19.45, the ‘no’ vote leads by 60 to 40 (rounded figures).

    It will be interesting whether the EU apparatchiks (or rather the Frau, she is the one with the money) will let them go thus denting the pan-European dream, perhaps irrevocably, or whether they give up, shave off a chunk of Greece’s indebtedness, lengthen the repayment of the rest, lower the interest, keep the dream intact.

    Any bets from anyone? Baron reckons the ‘dreamers’ will have it.

  225. telemachus @ 19:49

    The size of the Greek indebtedness runs roughly at double the NHS budget, i.e. we could run the NHS for two years on it, telemachus. That’s a lot of dosh, it would be surprising if British banks were sufficiently cushioned off, they must have an exposure to it, no single bank has ever taken on a full size sovereign debt of any nation.

    As the one eyed man said to the one with totally impaired vision ‘we shall see’.

  226. Baron 1908
    We cannot keep out
    We have started half heartedly bombing half of IS
    Remember Basra- we started half heartedly there and needed the Yanks to come in to retrieve the situation temporarily and then pulled out far too soon letting the current barbarians take hold
    We need massive force
    We can retrieve this situation and stop ISIL infecting Sparkbrook and Tower Hamlets

  227. Baron 1958
    There was an interesting analysis of this in the FT Friday
    Part of it was:
    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d2a9fe9c-20d1-11e5-ab0f-6bb9974f25d0.html#ixzz3f2sPQF4F

    “Darius McDermott, managing director at Chelsea Financial Services, said most fund managers made changes to portfolios about two weeks ago as negotiations between Greece and its international creditors faltered. “We knew this was going to be a close thing,” he said.
    Justin Oliver, deputy chief investment officer at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management, said his team trimmed positions in European equities, technology and energy to reach a 5 per cent cash position in balanced portfolios two weeks ago.”
    *
    Further the Chancellor has made a major disconnect of Sterling from Euro fortunes

  228. Baron – 19:16

    Gun control is still being driven by the Democrats, but their agenda and particularly their methods have changed. Goes far beyond ‘background checks’ and registration.

  229. Baron @ 19:16

    Present efforts to subvert the second amendment to the constitution of the USA is not aimed at the blacks, it is aimed at anyone not part of the government and its agencies. The corrupt leadership of the Republican party has also been co-opte.

  231. telemachus @ 20:08

    Let’s hope you, Jeffrey in the Treasury, the fund managers are right, telemachus.

    The thing is markets are driven by either fear or greed, and hate uncertainty. The early openings of bourses in the Far east suggest the money people think there will be an accommodation of the ‘no’ vote, the Euro lost a fraction against the greenback. it remains to be seen what will happen in Europe when the exchanges open in the morning as the real brawling is to start, and it isn’t primarily the Germans who are unwilling to make further concessions to Tsipras & co, but other countries that have done what was asked of them.

    The best outcome would be a controlled, managed and gradual dismantling of the Euro, accompanied by the de-scaling of the EU federalisation drive, return to the old model of economic trading zone. It pains the barbarian to say it, we may get just the reverse, a tightening of the Brussels grip.

  233. Malfleur @ 23:48

    The Zorbas may do whatever they like, but if they default, Malfelur, who’s going to lend them again? The Greek banks have lived on emergency credit lines to the ECB, if that’s cut off, what then? Printing money of whatever denomination will not solve anything, merely push prices up as supply of goods dries up.

    On the one hand, the barbarian’s proud of what the unwashed did, on the other, he feels sorry for them for they’ll pay for their courage dearly.

  234. Baron – How about Putin, the Arabs and those ever-present mischief makers, the Chinese?

    And I wouldn’t put anything past the Obamessiah to cause a little more mayhem to assist his rag-headed brothers.

    But then, anything that accelerates the demise of the EUSSR must be a good thing – the friend of my enemy must be my friend?

  235. Baron @ 00:33

    How much have you personally borrowed from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank?

  237. Clear Memories @ 00:37

    The Arabs, the Chinese, Putin will not only have to remember the Greeks have defaulted big, i.e. borrowed money, refused to pay it back, but also what will happen to the new loans from them.

    And individual or a country can only do two things with money: consume i.e. spend on food, T-shrts and stuff, or invest it, i.e. begin a process of wealth creation that leads to jobs, profits, economic growth. The new loans would go almost exclusively to the former, no good for them unless they can live without it back.

    Baron’s own idea was for the Zorbas to approach the Americans, who have massive military basis on the Greek islands, can print as much of the greenback as they like, tell them ‘we’ll kick you out, get Putin in if you don’t cough up … ‘

    You get the drift, Clear Memories?

  239. Baron, I suspect we are on the same track. It is my belief that any or all of the other world power blocks will be happy to throw money at Greece if it hastens the end of the EU.

    Whilst your economic points are correct, might I suggest there is a third option and that is lending on the basis of self-interest.

  240. Malfleur @ 01:51

    Good point, Clear Memories, agreed, perhaps the Greeks will spring up another surprise than the biker’s resignation, which signals to the barbarian they are getting serious, will get a deal.

    PS and sorry for the military basis (sic), it really is the fugging PC (it twice changed fugging to hugging), and Baron’s getting fed up with it.

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