A chant for the enemy class

What do we want?

Hey, that's not fair, the Beeb changed the title to Call for more AMs and powers. Ho hum.

Accidental criminals

Here’s a prediction.

Sooner or later we will see accidental criminals in court over this:

From May, gas-propelled air weapons will be outlawed under anti-social behaviour legislation.

Illegal possession of such weapons could result in a minimum five-year jail term.

Obviously, a passing interest in owning and using an air gun must be punished but five years in prison is a little harsh.

Here’s another prediction, no criminal who wants to carry a gun will have to go without.

Patriotic landlord battling for St George

"If you were to tell the Americans that they couldn't have Independence Day or the French they couldn't celebrate Bastille Day, you'd have a fight on your hands," he said.

"It's time we stood up and fought for St George."

Speaking as a non Muslim

Yes, I know that the vast majority of British Muslims are peace loving and patriotic.

Yes, I respect your choice of religion and I know that you respect mine.

Yes, I know that British Muslims are sometimes arrested and released without charge and I know that this also happens to non Muslims.

Yes, I know that when a local Muslim is arrested as a suspected terrorist your first thought is, "holy shit there was a fucking terrorist living near me" instead of "oh look, they are picking on us Muslims again".

Falklands breach

This is the Argentine definition of testing the waters:

Britain has made a formal complaint to Argentina over the activity of one of its naval vessels in waters off the Falkland Islands.

The Argentine ice breaker, the Admiral Irizar, entered Falklands waters in contravention of local shipping rules.

Two weeks ago it challenged trawlers to identify themselves and provide proof of their fishing permits.

Last chance for Cyprus

According to this times article current crucial talks with a possible referendum in both halves of the divided Cyprus could be the Islands last chance before, well, before the World ignores it again.

Without a deal soon, Cyprus will again let the best chance for a fresh start slip through its fingers. The world will then turn its back on such blinkered foolishness.

I would turn up there and, while ignoring the wails of the invaders, I'd demolish the hotels and other buildings that they would have put up on our orchards; the orchards that my father worked so hard to acquire and maintain.

Needless to say this was an impossible dream. There are no hotels. The invaders have done nothing with the land since the got off their boats and started shooting the place up.

Maybe one day I will be able to return there. I hardly remember it because I was so young when it was taken but I did visit it often in my early carefree years.

The only mementoes we have are a few faded photographs, some old land titles and a fist full of ignored UN resolutions.

Tories are holding a conference on gay issues

What on Earth are the Conservatives up to. I suspect that events like this contribute negatively to the heterosexual majority view on gay rights. I mean surely there are other more important issues that need to be dealt with by the Conservatives right now.

What about a conference on civil liberties or perhaps one on the European constitution and European integration in general. Even better one on family issues, as Ms. Widdecombe said:

Here we are, supposedly the party of the family. We are not offering a family summit, we are not offering a fathers separated from children summit, what we are actually offering is a homosexual summit.

Missing connection

Here’s a question. How many of us UK bloggers do you think follow up a post on bad government with a letter to their MP, the Home Office or some such?

How many encourage their readers to do so?

Just asking.

Come to Russia

Tim, from We the undersigned has published a travel log about his recent trip to Russia. It's a good read:

Then the biggest, meanest, ugliest looking Russian bloke you've ever seen came and sat at the table across from us. He had a jaw which a hammer couldn't break, a nose which a hammer had broken, and scars all over his face. He was sitting down, talking to his companion, and staring at myself and Katerina. I am not as stupid as I look, which is fortunate. I asked Katerina who he was, and she mumbled something. I asked her to stop mumbling. And then she told me.

Before Katerina went out with Michael Corleone, she was seeing the biggest mafia boss in town, hereafter known as Vito Corleone. Now when they split up, Vito had told her that he would make sure she never had another boyfriend. And this gorilla who was sitting across the table from me was Vito's best friend, or as I interpreted it, his strong man. According to Katerina, she fell out with this ape about something a while back, and they don't speak now. And Vito was not happy that Katerina had started going out with Michael after she had left him, but let it slide because he was in the mafia. I will remind my readers that last time I checked, I was not. I walked out of the bar, and couldn't do it quickly enough.

Large blue, how are you?

The outrageous demand for cereal crops and carrots by vegetarians in the 1970’s contributed to the extinction of the large blue butterfly in the UK by 1979. Now, thanks significantly to the activities of meat eating scientists and conservationists, the large blue is making a comeback.

Japan's PM and the tied hands of the SDF

An interesting feature by Richard Lloyd Parry and Robert Thomson in The Times on Japan's Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, and the tied hands of Japan's Self-Defence Forces:

By the 1950s, with a war against communism in Korea, and a global Cold War, an unarmed Japan no longer suited the US. A colossal fudge was born — the so-called Self-Defence Forces, or SDF, one of the world’s best funded, largest and most bizarrely restricted armies.

Let's stir things up a bit

Oh oh.

What's your magistrate street name?

I quite fancy being a magistrate. My local area has a shortage and the local press have run a few articles recently calling for volunteers.

Can you imagine how quickly those prisons would fill up under my guiding hand? A characteristic that would no doubt be reflected in my street name, The Imprisonator.

Unlike this magistrate whose street name is The Kindly School Teacher:

Mark Jones, 19, faced fines totalling £417 after admitting a string of driving offences and possessing cannabis.

But instead of making him pay up, Port Talbot magistrates offered to waive the fines - if he sat at the back of the court for 30 minutes until lunchtime.

American robots of destruction

No matter how many sophisticated methods you use to hide your cultural corruption you will eventually be revealed by your robot slave warriors:

The competitions seemed to break down along cultural lines. The Japanese robots dominated the sumo-wrestling, while the European teams performed well in the robot soccer tournament.

As for the American machines, they specialised in demolishing the living hell out of each other in one-on-one robot combat.

And the dog ate my homework

Every now and again a judge makes a decision that is so out of touch with reality, so ridiculous and so transparently wrong that you are left with no other choice but to doubt his very motives. Was he listening to the evidence? Did he turn up to court at all? Does he fancy the defendant? This judge here, for instance:

A Birmingham MP has criticised a judge after he decided not to jail a man who took a loaded gun into a nightclub.

Did you know that the Criminal Justice Act 2003 introduced a minimum sentence of five years for possession of a prohibited firearm? Did you know that young sporting shots below the age of 17 were banned recently from carrying their sporting airguns from their homes to their clubs even if they are unloaded and in secure cases? Did you know that the recent Anti-Social behaviour bill made it illegal to carry a toy gun in public without good reason or lawful authority (an authority, I might add, that can never be given)?

All this in the name of tightening up the laws to reduce the tidal wave of gun crime on the streets of Britain.

We have some of the most restrictive and harsh firearms laws in the world and each new one that is passed further restricts the ability of sportsmen and women to pursue their chosen pastime. But that’s just the thing isn’t it? The guaranteed effect of these laws is that the law abiding will obey them, whereas the criminals will continue to ignore them. Yet we see more and more of them and the legislators just never seem to get it.

Another law here, another restriction there, another tweak to this piece of legislation and all in the name of reducing gun crime and kerbing gun culture when year after year, decade after decade all we see are further restrictions on the legitimate and law abiding while the criminals not only continue to ignore the law but actually, when caught, use their old schoolboy excuses to get off.

It's not mine, I found it outside in the playground.

Whatever you might think of the desire of a minority of people to pursue shooting as a hobby you must at least be beginning to think that legislation is no longer the answer. The politicians, anti-liberty campaign groups and the media have been banging on at you for years, decades that gun laws must be tightened and you have nodded and agreed and let the legislators get on with it.

And what have they delivered to you in return?

A Britain where gun crime is rising out of control, where young girls are gunned down at parties, where policemen are shot at by passing cars and where criminals carry the right gun to the right place just to prove they know how to accessorise properly.

Don’t be fooled any longer. When they say to you that we need more gun laws tell them you are no longer interested in their lame excuses and their poor performances.

It’s time they started putting their efforts and money into catching and punishing the criminals.

They have run out of excuses.

I have updated the bit about what act introduced the minimum 5 year sentence for the possession of a prohibited firearm. I said that it was the Anti-Social behaviour bill when in fact it was the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

Soho attacked by giant fat slug

In a tale full of expert warnings of global warming, flash floods and the need for modernisation we are treated to the following astonishing revelation:

The firm [Thames Water] also spends £7m every year removing solidified cooking fat from sewers which is a particular problem in Soho, central London, where a 150ft slug of fat took eight weeks to remove recently.

Dog's tongues, Otter’s noses, Occelot spleens

This, I think, is fantastic news:

Monty Python's film The Life of Brian is to return to US cinemas next month following the success of The Passion of the Christ.

The Biblical satire will be re-released in Los Angeles, New York and other US cities to mark its 25th anniversary.

Adverts will challenge Mel Gibson's blockbuster with the lines "Mel or Monty?", "The Passion or the Python?"

Fuck off! The only people we hate more than the Romans are the Judean People's Front.

Police cars to be fitted with CCTV cameras

Yay! They should fit them with zoom lenses too. That way there will be even fewer reasons to get out of the car.

Only Jedi mind tricks can be used for self defence

Via Kevin at The Smallest Minority we have this:

A man who stabbed to death an armed intruder at his home was jailed for eight years today.

Carl Lindsay, 25, answered a knock at his door in Salford, Greater Manchester, to find four men armed with a gun.

When the gang tried to rob him he grabbed a samurai sword and stabbed one of them, 37-year-old Stephen Swindells, four times.

Mr Swindells, of Salford, was later found collapsed in an alley and died in hospital.

Lindsay, of Walkden, was found guilty of manslaughter following a three-week trial at Manchester Crown Court.

He was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.

After the case, Detective Chief Inspector Sam Haworth said: “Four men, including the victim, had set out purposefully to rob Carl Lindsay and this intent ultimately led to Stephen Swindells’ death.

“I believe the sentences passed today reflect the severity of the circumstances.”

Three other men were charged with robbery and firearms offences in connection with the incident, which took place in February last year.

Oh no, wait a minute, I see it. The crook was stabbed four times. Yes, I suspect that is the reason why Mr. Lindsay is now under lock and key; because while minding his own business in his own home doing his own thing he had the temerity to stab a home invading criminal not once but four times.

Via Glenn Reynolds we are pointed to this news item which indicates that there was indeed more to this story. Mr. Lindsay may not have been the innocent homeowner I thought him to be and my comments on the matter seem somewhat over-egged.

I wonder why I and so many other bloggers jumped to similar conclusions?

Operation Cuetzalan Tiger

Something very strange and unusual is going on in Mexico. Something even stranger than super-fast mice and even more unusual than trying to tell the time simply by shifting the position of donkey testes.

British rescuers are on their way to a remote cave system in central Mexico in an attempt to help six British cavers trapped by flood water.

The strangeness I allude to is the length of time these six are willing to wait for rescue. They have already turned down an offer of help from a 20 strong Mexican rescue team preferring to wait for two British rescuers to be sent to them all the way from Britain. The local authorities say that they were completely unaware of the presence of these British military cavers and the local media has been using interesting words like uranium and searching.

My spidy senses are tingling.

Gunmen are criminal - not guns

I can't find this article online so will include it in full. It's by Philip Johnstone from the Telegraph and comes to me via cybershooters:

Home Front
(Filed: 15/03/2004)

Consider this. A madman with a grudge against society deliberately drives his high-powered car into a bus queue, killing a dozen people and himself in the process. Would you ban all cars? Would you, perhaps, prohibit the make of car with which he carried out the atrocity? Would you shut down sports associated with the car and put the shops that sell it out of business, compensating the owners with a sum less than the value of the stock?

The answer to each of these propositions, one would guess, is no. But that is precisely what happened to thousands of gun owners and shooting businesses after the appalling murders perpetrated by Thomas Hamilton in Dunblane eight years ago.

In the aftermath of that ghastly event, the political climate made restrictions on handguns impossible to resist. Oddly, answering questions in the Commons last week, Tony Blair imagined that it was all his doing, telling MPs: “Introducing that ban was one of the first things this Government did. We did it with a great deal of opposition from the [Conservatives].”

In fact, a ban on high-calibre hand guns was implemented by Michael Howard when he was home secretary before Mr Blair took office, though Labour extended its scope to cover low-calibre weapons, making prohibition total.

The consequences of the ban were that hundreds of thousands of legally held weapons were outlawed and had to be handed over to the police. Target shooters lost their sport and those competing in this summer’s Olympics must practise abroad. Small businesses went to the wall and a lengthy wrangle took place over compensation, with owners complaining to this day that they did not receive the amount due for the executive seizure of their possessions.

The gun lobby in Britain, unlike that in America, has few friends. Only a minority owns guns for sport. To most people, weapons are anathema and there was, undoubtedly, popular support for a ban. Yet, in a democracy, the liberties of minorities are not to be lightly discarded nor their opinions to be gratuitously traduced.

Last week, Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP, discovered just how intolerant anti-gun campaigners can be when he ventured to suggest that if the intention of banning handguns was to reduce the number of weapons in criminal hands then it had patently failed. Since Dunblane, the number of offences involving illegally held handguns has doubled in England and Wales. The most recent Home Office figures show that in 1996, there were 3,347 crimes in which a handgun was used. The numbers fell in 1997 to 2,636 but rose to 5,871 by March 2002. In England and Wales, handgun crime is now higher than at any time for 10 years, though there has been a fall in Scotland.

On the basis of this evidence, Mr Mercer observed, not unreasonably, that the ban had “no effect on gun crime.” He also suggested that children in rural communities should be taught, as he had been as a youngster, how to use “non-lethal” weapons such as air rifles as a prelude to the safe use of shotguns - which remain legal, after all - in later life.

The response to these fairly innocuous musings was truly breathtaking. Mr Mercer’s comments were denounced as “offensive, crass and appalling” by a group called Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, as though the MP were advocating either. Others demanded that he be sacked from the Tory front bench and have the party whip withdrawn. For good measure, he was pilloried for the insensitive timing of his remarks, just ahead of last Saturday’s anniversary of the Dunblane massacre.

What became clear from this reaction was that some people are not going to rest until all remaining guns are removed from private hands, and gun owners fear there are some in the Government who feel the same way.

Almost without fanfare, a new law came into force in January banning unlicensed ownership of a gas-powered airgun known as a Brocock, owned perfectly legally for many years by around 75,000 people. If they remain in possession of this gun by May 1 without having obtained a firearms licence, they will face a mandatory five years in jail.

Shooting groups say the Home Office has done little to publicise the existence of this law; the British Association for Shooting and Conservation received two posters with which to remind its 120,000 members. Owners who remain ignorant of this new law could find themselves locked away.

The reason for the restriction is that the Brocock can be converted to fire live ammunition, something criminals will no doubt continue to do even when those who would never dream of using the weapon for any nefarious purpose have been incarcerated.

Furthermore, the Home Office is about to embark on another review of firearms legislation, presumably with the intention of tightening the law still further on possession of air rifles and shotguns. We have yet to see any proposals but a consultation paper is due to be published shortly.

The shooting community fears that the Home Office intends to force 600,000 shotgun owners to obtain a firearms licence whose provisions are far more restrictive and require a positive case to be made out for ownership.

The recent, and largely unsung, abolition of the Firearms Consultative Committee, which advised the Home Office on legislation, has left shooters without any forum in which to argue their case and they fear another assault on their sport and way of life in order that the Government can be seen to be “doing something” about guns to cover up its failure to curb violent crime.

When all is said and done, it is not the gun, any more than the car, that is capable of an evil act; it is the user.

Those who criticised Mr Mercer for failing to understand the difference between a gun and a car, should ask themselves this question: do they know the difference between a criminal and a law-abiding citizen?

It's a question of trust

Well, we are informed that the government is minded to log all ID card usage:

The Home Office has tried to assure us that David "Big" Blunkett's plan to impose compulsory National Identity Cards on innocent British citizens is not a threat to privacy. Yesterday that argument was finally blown out of the water.

The Guardian reports that ID Card usage will be tracked centrally. Stephen Harrison, the head of the Home Office's identity card policy unit, admitted yesterday that the Government is "minded" to log every single ID Card usage and store the data centrally.

Can you see any benefit in ID cards?
Do you trust the current government?
Can you be sure that future governments will be trustworthy?

I answered yes to the first and no to the second and third.

I answered yes to the first because I could imagine operational circumstances where a policeman for instance may be able to (given the time and inclination) extract a valid identification card from an individual who is in fact a criminal.

Further to this, in circumstances where carrying an ID card became compulsory I could imagine certain aspects of a policeman's job becoming easier than they are at present.

For me, however, the answer to the other two questions were critical. So critical in fact as to effectively make it impossible for me to consider the risk of introducing ID cards as one currently worth taking.

For me it's all about trust in the state and I don't just mean in the current version of the state as a Blair led, Blunkett employing incarnation of Labour. I mean the state as it will manifest itself in the future because we all know that once introduced, ID cards are likely never to be withdrawn.

We are rapidly approaching "make your mind up time". It is trust that is the real dividing line between the pro and anti ID card camps and I don't think that anywhere near enough people on the streets of Britain have asked themselves the questions that need to be asked.

Now is your chance!

We have the Estate Agents on the run. Come help finish them off!

Some positive remarks have been left at the BBC web site since I wrote the above. What's the matter with you lot?

Quote of the day

From the moment anyone becomes involved with a terror group and devoted to the murder of a country's citizens to the moment they sever all such links, they have a right to life only in so far as their opponents see advantage in granting it. The killing of terrorists, like the hiring and firing of bureaucrats, is a proper function of the state. We all need to start saying so. - Peter Cuthbertson

A message from Israel

So, what message is Israel sending out with the recent assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin?

I think you need to be contemplating a career path in the upper echelons of Hamas to really get it.

A posh weekend

This weekend, and for a special occasion, my wife and I and a few friends went to the Auberge du Lac restaurant which is situated on the grounds of Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire.

I made a number of observations during the few hours that we were there:

1. It is posh.
2. The Michelin star chef, Jean-Christophe Novelli is a good looking chap. He has an Italian mother you know.
3. Even though the wine list was handed round the 4 couples at the table so that each could choose a wine to be shared by all, not a single French bottle was chosen.
4. Expensive port is expensive.
5. They keep their cigars locked up and will spend five minutes lighting them for you, delivering the results of their labours to you in an individual ashtray.
6. Four and a half hours of fine wines, good food, old port and fine cigars is bloody expensive but good for what ails you.

I will do it again, but not this year.

Tackling problems

Monday, 22 March, 2004 - Saudis criticise US reform plan

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister has criticised US-led calls for reform in the Middle East.

Prince Saud al-Faisal said Arab nations could tackle their problems themselves.

Tuesday, 16 March, 2004 - Saudis 'arrest five reformists'

Saudi authorities have arrested five of the country's best-known reformist intellectuals, sources told the BBC.

Those arrested are both liberal and Islamist figures who have put their names to petitions calling for wide-ranging political and economic reform.

Hey, erm, welcome to my planet man

Guess who has been voted the nation's favourite ambassador should aliens ever visit planet Earth.

Answer here.

Were you right?

Quote of the day

This one comes from my good Lady after she noticed that "European Summer Time" had been printed in her diary:

Oi, Europe. No!

RAF Museum visit - part 6

Pictures taken during a recent visit to the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon. Click here to expand to the RAF Museum category.

This is the last entry from the visit.

de Havilland Gipsy Moth

Click here for more information on the de Havilland Gipsy Moth.

Sopwith Camel

Click here for more information on the Sopwith Camel.

Men with many shadows

In response to revelations by US officials that four of the five Britons released from Guantanamo Bay were far from innocent wedding party-goers Melanie Phillips asks:

Why are the British authorities passive in the face of all this?

I’m guessing that there simply isn’t the evidence to convict in a court of law. The Telegraph article that Melanie links to says:

Officials at the American Embassy in London sent a letter containing detailed allegations about the four men

Now, that is not to say that the UK and US governments are not convinced of the culpability of the released men, it’s just that they feel there is nothing they can lawfully do to keep these men locked up.

However, this does not mean that the British authorities are, as Melanie puts it, passive. These four men can be considered useful sources of intelligence even if they are not in custody and I suspect that the authorities and, more specifically, the intelligence services will be very busy.

The spooks are, after all, on to them.

No fat tax

I am surprised, honestly. I'm such a cynic.

Tony Blair has said his aides' idea for a tax on fatty foods such as cakes and biscuits would make Britain too much like a "nanny state".

Blunkett looses

So Home Secretary David Blunkett has lost his appeal to keep a Libyan national in prison without trial for as long as Blunkett sees fit. The reason?

The special tribunal's ruling has said the man - known as M - was held on "wholly unreliable evidence".

I bet the Home Secretary is fuming. How dare the justice system do this? It needs reforming! Modernising! Crushing!

Good time girls aplenty

The homes where love and peace should dwell
Fierce politics shall vex,
And unsexed woman strive to prove
Herself the coarser sex.

Actually, I don't have a problem with these girls smoking and drinking so much, good luck to them. This just gave me another opportunity to quote from my favorite poem.

An Englishman's appeal

Tim, over at An Englishman's Castle is appealing for sponsors for a charity run/walk he is thinking of doing in aid of the Opportunity Centre based in Devizes, Tim's local town. It looks like a good cause and I have already hit his paypal donation button (on his sidebar, titled Make a Donation). If you want to help simply click the button and you will be taken to Tim's An Englishman's Walk paypal page.

So, the blogosphere - what is it good for? Go ahead, you know you want to.

The Martians are coming!

Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

Oddly enough we've had a whole War with the Maritians category here on the England Project for a while. Now, perhaps, there'll be something to put in it.

RAF Museum visit - part 5

Pictures taken during a recent visit to the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon. Click here to expand to the RAF Museum category.

Hawker Hurricane

Unfortunately I didn't pay much attention to the information available on this aircraft because I was in a bit of a rush. However, a quick google turned up the following on this particular aircraft, HURRICANE P3175:

The RAF's No. 257 Squadron was based in the south east of England throughout the Battle of Britain. By mid August 1940, at the height of the battle, the squadron was based at RAF Debden in north west Essex and operating from there and the forward base of RAF Martlesham Heath near Ipswich in Suffolk.

During the late afternoon of Sunday 18th August 1940, designated as 'the hardest day' of the Battle of Britain by one leading aviation historian, the Hurricanes of 257 Squadron intercepted a raid inbound over the Thames Estuary. In the combat which followed, Pilot Officer Gerard Maffett, flying Hurricane P3175, claimed his first damage to an enemy aircraft. Describing the encounter in a letter home a few days later, the young pilot concluded with a tribute to his own aircraft, "...the Hurricane certainly is a grand aircraft."

As the conflict intensified, Hurricane P3175 eventually succumbed to enemy action. The aircraft fell on the Essex coastal marshes at Walton-on-the-Naze near Harwich. Decades later the substantial remains were recovered by a team of local people; the full story of which is told in the book "One Hurricane One Raid" (Airlife 1990).

Hurricane P3175, DT-S, now lies in the Battle of Britain Hall of the RAF Museum in London, which occupied part of the former site of RAF Hendon where 257 Squadron was formed in 1940.

Click here for more information on the Hawker Hurricane.

The Spanish vote - revisited

The left and the right are barking at each other over this Spanish vote thing.

Woof woof.

Grr, woof.

Me, I’m on the side that thinks it’s a bad idea to remove troops from Iraq right now. One of my reasons is that it’s what the terrorists want. Consequently, I think that those that voted for the new government in Spain knowing this was on the agenda have given the terrorists something they desire.

Those that voted for the new government on the basis of the troop withdrawal alone at the very least deserve the title of deserters in my opinion.

Those that voted for the new government thinking that it would save them from further attacks are appeasers.

Those that voted for the new government because of their socialist policies, economic intentions etc. and who were not particularly interested in the Iraqi thing could, at a push, be described as deserters. You know, more interested in something other than this war on terror thing but it’s not so clear cut in my mind. They may well think that this whole war on terror is a bit of a paper tiger but I find that hard to swallow given the recent events in Madrid.

Anyway, it’s a bit of a mixed bag but none of it brings anything positive into the war.

Lileks

Honestly, do you think that he's an evil genius? He takes us from speaker plugs to double action clicking pens and the whole thing is totally fascinating.

CCRKBA opens London office

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) have opened an office in London. They say that they are here to join:

...with embattled British citizens in their fight to restore their firearms rights.

"British citizens and gun owners from other European countries will be funding this effort," Gottlieb [the CCRKBA Chairman] said. "Just as with America's war against international terrorism, we are taking the fight against international gun control to our enemies. With the attack on gun rights becoming global, it is important to fight these battles on every continent before we find ourselves isolated from an important human civil right.

"Extremist gun control measures have disarmed the British people," Gottlieb continued, "leaving them vulnerable to criminal assault. Incredibly, if they do defend themselves, they can be prosecuted and imprisoned. Since the United Kingdom banned privately owned handguns in 1997, gun crime has nearly doubled. What more appropriate place for the Citizens Committee to be than in the middle of this battleground, offering whatever help we can to British citizens in their efforts to take back their neighborhoods and make their communities safe once again?"

"The British example," Smith said, "is conclusive proof to anyone who proposes gun control that it simply does not work. You can take guns away from law-abiding citizens, whose only desire is to protect their homes and families. However, our experience has proved that you cannot stop criminals, who are reportedly bringing guns into the country illegally, while honest citizens find it nearly impossible to even own a sporting shotgun."

Avoidance and the budget

Now, I wonder why Gordon Brown's budget includes this little gem.

Accountancy firms will have to register tax avoidance schemes with the Inland Revenue.

RAF Museum visit - part 4

Pictures taken during a recent visit to the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon. Click here to expand to the RAF Museum category.

This extra posting today shows the underside of a German Junkers Ju88 fighter/bomber. The bit I found interesting is the iconic BMW symbol sported by the engine housing. It seemed such an odd place to see one, though I guess retrospectively I shouldn't have been so surprised.

The BMW symbol is so ubiquitous round these parts that it just kind of jumped out at me. It seemed so out of place, like getting a glimpse of a digital wrist watch on a Roman centurion when watching a film.

Junkers Ju88 engine housing

Click here for more information on the Junkers Ju88.

Dairylee triangle of death

Let’s just eat nuts and berries like friendly forest creatures.

Dairy food as deadly as tobacco

People should avoid milk and cheese as much as tobacco, a scientist has said.

Professor Jane Plant says there is strong evidence that dairy products promote breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.

RAF Museum visit - part 3

Pictures taken during a recent visit to the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon. Click here to expand to the RAF Museum category.

Messerschmitt Bf 109G

Click here for more information on the Messerschmitt Bf 109G.

What?

Attacks on the US by al Qaida or other groups were viewed as justified by 13% of the 500 British Muslims questioned.

Another 15% said they did not know whether the such attacks are wrong or right.

More Texas, less Knightsbridge

Actually, even though I believe the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Major of London when they say that it is inevitable that terrorists will succeed in attacking London they are, frankly, beginning to annoy me.

I’m not sure it’s the kind of message that these men, the ones that have some responsibility for our safety, should be giving out to us, to the rest of the World and to the terrorists themselves. Its message is hardly a warning to anyone planning a terrorist act.

Stronger talk please. There are cowards with bombs watching.

Unlikely sentence award

The winner of today's "Most unlikely sentence" award goes to the BBC team that put together this story on the marking of 60th anniversary of "The Great Escape":

The prisoners then focused their efforts on Harry, depositing the sand in the partially excavated Dick.

Quote of the day

In tiny dribs and drabs, through lots of small errors, slants, distortions and descents into narcissism, the Old Media, at least, have squandered their credibility and their audience appeal until it's gotten to the point where the audience has noticed, and isn't accepting excuses any more. - Glenn Reynolds

RAF Museum visit - part 2

Pictures taken during a recent visit to the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon. Click here to expand to the RAF Museum category.

North American P-51 Mustang

Click here for more information on the P-51 Mustang.

This aircraft was visually very impressive. If anyone would like to be mailed the larger versions (about 200k each) of the above pictures please let me know.

The Blunkett Zone

Stephen Pollard is writing David Blunkett’s biography and it seems to me that he’s a bit of a fan:

Take Mr Blunkett. The caricature view is that he’s the most ‘right wing’ Home Secretary since…well, since whom? Jack Straw? Or Michael Howard? The facts say something rather different. Rather than the ‘lock ’em up and throw away the key’ caricature, Mr Blunkett is engaged in a fascinating experiment to see whether it is indeed possible to be both tough and tender, and to be severe where necessary and lenient where permissible.

WHAT do you give someone who’s been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit?

An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary, the choice is simple: you give them a big, fat bill for the cost of board and lodgings for the time they spent freeloading at Her Majesty's Pleasure in British prisons.

I have a great respect for most of Stephen’s writing and am an avid fan of his blog but I think that Blunkett has managed to cast a spell on him. This would be in keeping with the rising opinion that Blunkett is indeed evil. Not so much as having something of the night about him but rather more like being the Prince of Darkness himself, manifest in almost human form.

Now being a blogger, and therefore entrenched as a member of the chattering class I was surprised to read Stephen’s opinion of us:

The typical chattering class response when I tell people that I am writing Mr Blunkett’s biography is an asinine variation on that ‘right wing’ theme, followed by self-congratulatory guffaw at their having had so astonishingly original a thought. That there might be more to the policies emerging from the Home Office – that it might be possible to want retribution and rehabilitation, for example – doesn’t cross their mind. In part, that’s because of the Home Secretary’s remarkable ability to say what people outside Islington think.

I wonder what this biography will be called? Here are some ideas.

1. The Evil Deed
2. The Sceptical Human
3. I’m an Idiot and so is my Boss
4. When Experiments go Wrong
5. Franken-Blunkett

Why not have a go yourself? And remember, try not to indulge in any self-congratulatory guffawing.

Barking?

Trafalgar plinth

I think that today is the day that the piece of contemporary art that will 'grace' the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square is to be chosen. As I have said before I suspect we are in for a series of national embarrassments.

The contenders are here.

I would have preferred a statue of a contemporary artists covered in bird droppings but hey, what do I know?

An old vision of Europe

I love this little snippet posted by Dumb Jon over at the House of Dumb:

Europe Minister Denis Macshane has launched a fierce attack on former French president Valery Giscard D'Estaing, calling his vision for Europe "Napoleonic".

He pointed to an article by the man who drew up the draft European constitution saying Europe could not really respond to the Madrid bombings because it had no single president.

Mr Macshane said the comments were "old ideas from an old man about an old vision of Europe".

Cr@ppy TV

I think that the channel 4 commercial that Melanie Phillips refers to here is available on the Internet and that is where it should stay in my opinion. Its audio is work unsafe so don't say that you haven't been warned.

RAF Museum visit

On Sunday, a group of England Project acolytes went to the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon.

If you’ve not been there and you ever get the chance to go you should jump at it because it really is one of those museums that is worth the trouble. Entrance is free though the experience is worth much more. Indeed, this is the first museum I have been to where we actually shoved paper money into the donation box at the exit.

For your viewing pleasure, The England Project will be trying to put up a picture or two a day of what we saw all grouped under the category RAF Museum. The images were taken with a Canon s20 digital camera often under very poor lighting conditions.

Spitfire MkIX

Spitfire MkIX. Just a model this one I think, but full size and a very welcoming sight as you drive into the museum car park.

Spitfire MkVb

Can it be true?

Is it really true that the Spanish have allowed their election results to be influenced by a single act of terrorism?

Frankly, I don’t think the answer to that actually matters. What does matter is that the terrorists will believe that the tool they have chosen (that is large scale murder) actually works on Western democracies.

It now falls to another Western democracy to prove that it does not.

The BBC are doing one of their have your say thingies.

The Righteous One by Alexander Baron

The Righteous One is one of those poems that just about nails down my own emotions and feelings towards terrorists and their 'ideals'. I've been meaning to post it for some time but have only recently contacted the author for permission to do so which he has kindly given.

The Righteous One

And when they face you with the evidence
So overwhelming it can't be denied,
Hold your tongue, do not say in self-defence
It is for your beliefs you will be tried.

Don't say you did it for your countrymen,
Like all decent folk they spit on your name,
Don't say you did it for your children when
You've seen them cry and hang their heads in shame.

And when they pull the bodies from the wreck
Of what was once a church, a ship or plane,
When of compassion you have not a speck,
Be silent, no one wants you to explain.

Don't take your son aside and say to him:
Blood of my blood, I did this deed for you.
The photographs of severed heads and limbs
That haunt his dreams remind him that's untrue.

And when they lock you up until you rot,
Don't think yourself a martyr to the cause;
The myriad innocents you've bombed and shot
Were victims of murder, not of just wars.

Yet still you justify your bloody spree
Claiming that out of evil will come good,
Just when and how it will we've yet to see,
(Who but a madman would believe it could?)

The perverse, twisted logic of your kind
Is so sick the imagination reels,
That any fanatic could be so blind:
None stoop so low as those with high ideals.

Alexander Baron

The Diameter of the Bomb

I can't remember where I found this poem. It's been in my little quotes file for some time:

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making a circle with no end and no God.

Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) - The Diame