Archive for the 'Europe' Category

We suppose that the law of averages dictates that even governments as full of gobshites as Gordon Brown’s is must eventually get something right … at sometime or other … and do the decent thing.

UK cuts Israel weapons contracts

The UK has revoked five export licences for equipment to the Israeli navy because of actions during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza this year.

The British Foreign office said the exports would now contravene its criteria for arms sales, but denied that it had imposed a partial embargo.

The UK says it does not sell weapons which might be used for internal repression or external aggression.

Israel says …

Read the rest of this report right here.

(Cross posted from across at How This Old Brit Sees It)

A further 15 British soldiers have lost their lives in just the last ten days in southern Afghanistan, whilst continuing Operation Panther’s Claw, a major assault against the Taliban. At least, 15 is still the number as we sit safely here at home on this sunny Sunday afternoon, and type.

As if this isn’t absolutely awful enough in itself, today we are told the astonishing truth by the ‘Mail on Sunday’ regarding Gordon’s Brown’s government’s continuing fatal, effing fowl-ups.

We wonder what the hell Gordon Brown and his fat-cat & fraudster “honourable friends” want? To beat (once, Great), Britain’s ‘Bloody Hands’ record still held by the traitorous turd Tony Blair?!

Read the revolting rest about our British Army’s downright betrayal by it’s own boss of bosses.

Read it and weep : and rage.

Then write.

Write to the Queen. Write to Prince Charles. Write to the Prime Minister. Write to your member of parliament. Write to the national newspapers. Write to your local papers. Write on blogs. And write on web sites and forums.

In fact, write where ever you damned well can write.

And when you write, write the same simple things.

Enough is enough. Bring our brave boys (and girls), back home. And, bring them home now. Before many more of them end up being bourne back in bloody, flag draped boxes.

After all, surely we Brits are, at the very least, just as sodding sensible as the Russians?

(Cross posted from across at How This Old Brit Sees It)

Thank goodness the French are finally doing something about oppressive women’s clothing

French legislators are now considering legislation to ban burqas and nuns’ habits:

France could impose curbs on wearing the full Islamic veil if a parliamentary commission finds the burka or niqab degrading for women, a government spokesman said Friday. A group of lawmakers is calling for a special inquiry into whether Muslim women who cover themselves fully in public undermine French secularism and women’s rights.

“If it were determined that wearing the burka is a submissive act, and that it is contrary to republican principles, well naturally parliament would have to drawn the necessary conclusions,” said spokesman Luc Chatel. Asked whether that would mean introducing legislation, he said: “why not.”

Communist lawmaker Andre Gerin is spearheading the drive for a parliamentary panel that would look at ways to restrict the burka which he describes as a “prison” and “degrading” for women. The deputy is also mayor of the southern city of Venissieux, home to a large north African immigrant population, where he says the sight of covered women is not a rare occurrence.

The proposal has won support from many politicians from both the left and right, but France’s Muslim council accused lawmakers of wasting time focusing on a fringe phenomenon.

Oops. My mistake. I guess they’re saying that when Muslim women cover themselves, it’s degrading to women and harmful to secularism. But when Catholic women do it, that’s just fine.

Is there any way that these assholes could be any more transparent in their bigotry and hypocrisy? It’s sickening to see them invoking liberty, equality, and fraternity as a way of attacking their fellow Frenchmen.

And as Jill Filipovic helpfully points out, measures like this don’t liberate women. In fact, they have the opposite effect:

When it comes to religious requirements especially, we know that outlawing certain garments in public doesn’t make women shed the offending item of clothing; it just makes women refrain from public interactions.

And that’s precisely what will happen here. Outlawing the burqa won’t make women who cover themselves decide to walk outside in a sundress; it’ll just mean that women and girls won’t leave the home as much. The women who are supposedly victimized and imprisoned by some pieces of cloth will instead be prisoners in their own homes and communities.

Empowering women doesn’t come from limiting what women can and cannot wear in public. It comes in part from giving women — all women — wide access to the public sphere. You don’t have to like the burqa to realize that outlawing it will have a hugely negative impact on women.

Huh.

If you think that’s a large load of the stinky stuff - boy, have we got news for you.

Iraq war inquiry to be in private

An independent inquiry into the Iraq war will be held in private, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told MPs.

Opposition parties - and many Labour MPs - have been calling for the probe since shortly after the 2003 invasion.

It will start next month and take at least a year, Mr Brown said. It will not aim to “apportion blame”, he added.

So, if you can stomach it, read some more re : this disgusting smelly Brown stuff.

(Cross posted from across at How This Old Brit Sees It)

Dear Dirty Dwarf Frog,

This Old Brit.

God save our gracious Queen,

Long live our noble Queen,

God save the Queen!

Send her victorious,

Happy and glorious,

Long to reign over us;

God save the Queen!

[Correction: For frog, read ungracious, ungrateful, ugly, tiny, twirpy, two faced toad.]

*(Cross posted from across at How This Old Brit Sees It)

Pictured ~ P&O’s “Pride of Kent.”

A week ago tonight we arrived back home from what was meant to have been a bit of breather from blogging and the like. You know, a week away from it all. A well earned break.

And, all at our own expense ~ not that of the long suffering, serially screwed, undervalued and underpaid, poor British taxpayers.

So, at the start of the week we’d smilingly set off in the sunshine for several days sightseeing in the south and, as a special treat, a sail across to France.

Sounds nice, eh?

Don’t you bloody believe it.

Here’s

what

happened

to

us!

Haven’t we told you time & time again that we’re both natural born survivors?

(Cross posted from across at How This Old Brit Sees It)

Today we intended telling the terrible tale of the ‘take what you want when you want’ culture of (apparently), tons of turdy Brit members of parliament.

But then, somebody anonymously sent us this particularly odious porker-picture…

…which, suddenly made us stop and wonder why we should bloomin‘ be bothered to.

Since ‘The Telegraph‘ is already doing such a sterling job of explaining and exposing exactly what sort of absolutely stinking stuff has (seemingly, serially) been happening in our old Brit House of Commons.

So, click here to see lots & lots about some of said shocking smelly shenanigans for yourself.

Shame?

This shower of SOBs simply possesses none.

(Cross posted from across at How This Old brit Sees It)

After nearly two decades of being married to the second worst leader in Italian history, Veronica Lario, wife of Silvio Berlusconi, has had enough:

La Repubblica, a leading Italian newspaper, said Ms Lario’s decision came after reading about the 18th birthday party in Naples.

“That’s enough, I cannot remain with a man who consorts with minors”, she was quoted as saying.

Another newspaper, La Stampa, quoted Ms Lario as saying she had been “forced to take this step”.

“This really surprised me, because he never came to any 18th birthday party for his children, despite being invited,” the paper quoted her as saying earlier.

Mr Berlusconi was reported to have brought the woman a golden necklace studded with diamonds as a present.

Following his wife’s reaction, Mr Berlusconi was quoted as saying he was sorry his wife “had let herself be fooled by left-wing newspapers”.

Relations with her husband were already said to be frayed after Ms Lario had criticised her husband’s choice of young and attractive female candidates with little political experience to represent his Freedom Party in the forthcoming European elections.

Mr Berlusconi courted Ms Lario in 1980 after watching her perform topless in a play. They married ten years later.

Two years ago he issued a public apology to his wife for flirting with young starlets, among them Mara Carfagna, who he later appointed as equal opportunities minister.

In other Berlusconi news, the Italian leader claimed that his popularity rating, at 75%, is the highest of any world leader. A recent poll indicated that Berlusconi’s actual popularity rating is at 56% and dropping, but he attributed the discrepancy to a hostile media. Berlusconi’s various media holdings control 90% of Italy’s television market, so it would appear that he is remarkably tolerant of criticism and even outright hostility from his employees.

For the record, Obama’s popularity rating now stands at 68%, which was better than 56% last time I checked. But to be fair, Byron York points out that Obama’s not nearly as popular if you remember not to count black people (what was Bush’s popularity like if you didn’t count white people?), an argument York makes in a totally non-racist fashion:

His sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.

We see that a second British bobby (this time a giant of a sergeant) is suspended from duties as a result of another video coming to light shows how he summarily dealt out his own “justice” with a young female who allegedly swore at him during the G20 protests.

Since we can’t think of anything else to say that we didn’t say a few days ago regarding our once highly regarded and respected police, we’ll let The Guardian’s cartoonist, Steve Bell’s picture do the talking this time.

Here’s a quick cut & pasted taster about this most recent example of an obviously “broken” British police service.

A police sergeant seen in video footage apparently hitting a woman during the G20 protest in London has been suspended, Scotland Yard has said.

The officer appears to hit the woman in the face with his hand and then the leg with his baton after she swears at him.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission - already investigating the death of Ian Tomlinson during the 1 April protests - is examining the case.

The Lib Dems say it shows there is a systemic problem and want an inquiry.

Officers ‘accountable’

The latest video footage featuring the female protester has been passed to the IPCC, a Scotland Yard spokesman said.

“The officer has been identified and suspended pending further investigation. The officer works as a sergeant in the territorial support group,” he added.

Earlier, police said the apparent actions of the officer featured in the footage raised “immediate concerns”.

Read the rest of this report and see this sickening incident for yourself.

(Cross posted from How This Old Brit Sees It)

Every so often we become convinced we simply must sod off somewhere else ~ and kick our keyboard completely into touch for a time.

Hence, the recent scarcity of sightings of ourselves.

So for better or for worse, depending upon how you feel about blogging old Brit buggers such as ourselves, we sometimes just sling our cameras over our shoulders and set off to see some more of real life ~ as opposed to the virtual type ~ whilst it’s still possible.

It’s sometimes so easy to forget that when the crooked, thieving, lying, politicians and powerbrokers can’t be seen to be constantly conning, killing, etc, that there are still so many super-special places ~ almost within spitting distance of our own front door step.

See what we’re saying?

Leastwise, attempting to.

But nothing lasts for ever.

Neither well earned breathers nor absolutely necessary breaks.

Eventually, it’s inevitably time to head for home and get back into the blogging business.

Incidentally, isn’t our friend ‘flickr’ fantastic? We don’t know what we would do without out.

(Cross posted from across at How This Old Brit Sees It)

** Note ** All the above pictures are copyright. Reproduction without our personal permission is illegal.