Pat Goes For VAT...

and sings a song of Reaganite rage:

"If Americans are the most efficient workers on earth and work longer hours than almost any other advanced nation, why are we getting our clocks cleaned? Answer: While American workers are world-class, our elites are mentally challenged. So rhapsodic are they about the Global Economy they have forgotten their own country. "

Brilliant.

Le Freedom Of Speech

Allah's Enfants De La Patrie have forced a philosophy teacher called Robert Redeker into hiding for describing Mohammed as a 'merciless war leader', the Koran as a 'book of extraordinary violence' and Islam as a belief system that "exalts violence and hate".

Can't see much wrong with those assessments, really...

Non!

Nicolas Sarkozy wants a common European asylum and immigration policy.

As if, mon ami. As if...

For The Tories, Modernisation Is More Important Than Winning

Today's 'Times' reports that at next week's Conservative conference the Shadow Chancellor, the fanatical neoconservative and well-heeled bootboy George Osborne, will refuse 'to offer tax cuts at the next general election'.

The Tory leadership are oafs who know nothing and refuse to learn. In a country creaking under its tax burden they refuse to contemplate a flat tax - a tool which has caused the host economy to grow wherever it has been applied.

No, no, no, George Osborne knows better. Not for us, thanks, we've got to keep the spending plans intact. George Osborne knows more about economics than Milton Friedman or Arthur Laffer.

Move along folks, nothing more to see...

Osborne is quoted as saying that,

“Given the current state of the public finances it’s unlikely we are going to be making promises of upfront tax cuts at the general election, because the public finances cannot sustain that.”

Since when did the Tories actually care about the state of the public finances? Whether the Violent-Crackhead-On-The-Run NHS Trust is able to reduce its waiting list for bunion surgery or the Offalshire Police Service able to meet its recruitment quota for Twi speakers are of absolutely no interest to this particular elector.

Provided we have nukes and cops and the Army have guns that fire, most of the rest is superstructure.

The Tories should be in favour of trimming the fat from the public sector, for goodness' sake! What else are they there for?

What do we want? CUTS!

When do we want them? NOW!

Flogger Osborne's well hard, though. Crikey, I bet the Tory tax commission were sh-shaking in their boots when he said,

“Let’s get some things absolutely clear: economic stability will come before tax cuts. If it comes to a choice between the stability of the economy, people’s interest rates and mortgage rates, and cutting taxes, then we will choose economic stability. That’s the first thing people need to know about us.”

And the thought that economic stability might come as a result of tax cuts (returning the electorate's money to them) allied to restricting immigration (giving wages at the shallow end of the pool the opportunity to rise) does not seem to have occurred to him. Can't have the scum of the earth having money in their pockets, can we?

The Times' article encapsulates Tory stupidity perfectly -

"Mr Osborne’s words are likely to upset the Right. But many will back Michael Howard, the former leader, who told The Times yesterday that the new leadership must be allowed to get on with modernising the party."

Yeah, dude, whatever. 'Modernisation' might be a good euphemism for 'alienating your tribal supporters'.

It's also a recipe for losing - the perpetual Tory habit.

The Sunshine Boys

Sure now, 'twas a fine hooley John and Francis were havin' in Delray Beach, like...

Bartlett's Theorem

Wages are unaffected by either immigration or offshoring.

Discuss.

The Conviction Of Mark Logan

Whilst his reaction was obviously overblown, it's difficult not to have some sympathy for Mark Logan.

An autistic named Kevin Crowden kicked the foot of Logan's girlfriend 'very hard' and 'for no reason'.

Now I have to say that if I saw anyone kick my fiancee without provocation I don't know how I would react, regardless of the depth of her assailant's behavioural difficulties; I might kick their privates a new shade of tartan.

If Crowden is behaving in that manner at all, then he's not fit to be in the community. He should be in closed and constant care.

If he's behaving in that way regularly then he should be subjected to a thorough clinical reassessment, with all options on the table.

Crowden's right to be on the streets must be balanced against the public's right to be protected from him. In this case, the public lost - although Logan throwing him down an escalator was certainly gilding the lily.

Adam Smith

He looks like a nasty old hardcase, doesn't he?

Hat tip - The Adam Smith Institute.

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part I - Going Back To Our Roots

'Foreign Criminals Of The Day' started as an expression of disgust at the convictions of Balkan people-traffickers like Tasim Axhami, Gavril and Tamara Dulghieru and The Demarku Brothers.

Sadly it's to that seedy turf one must return this evening.

The outstanding courage exhibited by a Lithuanian woman, falsely imprisoned and prostituted in London after a false job offer, in escaping her captors has led to an illegal immigrant and all round piece of Albanian scum named Ylber Dauti being jailed for nine years for conspiring to traffic persons to the UK for sexual exploitation. Earlier this year he had been convicted of conspiring to cause prostiution for gain.

His compatriot and fellow illegal Riza Hoxha was sent down for eight years for people trafficking.

Their two allies, both whores, a Slovak named Ruta Strazdaite and a Russian named Monika Szabova, received sentences of four years and 30 months respectively.

The British Broadcasting Corporation is often accused of being 'London-centric'; and this case is perfectly in point.

Perhaps someone might care to remind the editors of BBC News Interactive that Albania is absolutely nowhere near the London suburb of Golders Green.

And to that brave, anonymous Lithuanian lady - if any of my countrymen caused you hurt or harm, please accept my apology.

Sadly, that is more than you will ever get from my government.

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part II - What Can One Say?

The United Kingdom's pressing need for the services of 68 year old Yemenis has been highlighted by Ali Abdo's conviction for dangerous driving.

According to the BBC,

"A man who drove the wrong way down the M4 for nearly eight miles has been given a two year suspended jail term.
Ali Abdo, 68, originally from Yemen, was also banned from driving for five years at Swindon Crown Court.
The court was told he caused several accidents driving at 80mph near Swindon last February...

In court Abdo, who admitted the offences, was described as a nervous driver who had never driven on a motorway before.

The prosecution said he was actually given the correct directions by a cab driver but as he travelled the right way on the M4 towards his home in Cardiff, he became convinced for some reason that he was driving in the wrong direction.
He then pulled over onto the hard shoulder, completed a "dramatic" U-turn and drove seven-and-a-half miles back towards junction 15.
Abdo said he had a "panic attack" and believed after the U-turn that he was genuinely driving in the right direction."

Abdo is not alone. I suffer a panic attack every time I attempt a critical analysis of British immigration policy.

68 year old Yemenis? For God's sake!

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part III - Another Iraqi Predator

An Iraqi named Khatan Ali Omar has been convicted of rape at Leicester Crown Court.

According to 'The Sun',

"He was jailed for three months in 2003 for lying to immigration chiefs then stayed on in Britain using different identities.

His victim said the ordeal had tainted her view of immigrants. She said: “He’s betrayed the hospitality of my country".

Indeed he has, although such betrayal seems to be not uncommon amongst those of his countrymen who reside here - as the cases of the rapist Aram Ali and the murderer Saman Sali Karim attest.

And why the scum was not deported to back to Iraq in 2003 is anyone's guess.

Hat tip - Adam Lawson.

A Thought For All Those Who Direct Policy Concerning Foreign Criminals

James Harding writes in today's Times' that,

"Foreigners who do business in America know full well that the Land of the Free is not nice to criminals, nor even criminal suspects. "

Dennis might disagree with the absolute nature of that statement - but wouldn't it be nice if we had a similar ethic?

Very Kind Words Indeed...

from The Devil's Kitchen.

Thanks, Chris.

'Judges are just human beings who make mistakes'

Yeah, Mo, we'll take your word for it.

The Muslimopolitan Police

The Daily Telegraph reports that no charges will be levied against any of the Muslims who barracked Catholics outside Westminster Cathedral after Mass on September 17.

Patrick Henry said 'Give me liberty or give me death'.

Note how the words 'the Koran' do not appear in that sentence.

Someone please remind the lumpen rainbow oafs we pay to police us.

Cocklingski

Sky News has deemed its discovery that Poles and Latvians go cockling on Morecambe Bay in foul weather to be worthy of report.

Polish cocklers are in a different class from the Chinese Martyrs of Morecambe Bay. The Poles were able to move to the UK freely - the Chinese were not, prey to the snakeheads and vicious swine like Lin Liang Ren.

If someone who can come and go as they please advances into treacherous conditions unable to speak the language used by those whose assistance they might require, then while their death would be tragic it would also be utterly avoidable.

They would have nobody to blame but themselves - a sometimes unfortunate consequence of being free.

How The Television Licence Fee Is Spent

Can't read it, but it sure looks pretty...

Maybe one of these guys can translate...

A Blogging First

The Scottish Catholic Observer gets, well, fisked.

One of these days Dad will crack the whole hyperlink malarkey.

After all, I've only shown him to do it about a dozen times.

The Internet's Absence Of Filters Revisted

Seventeen months ago I wrote an article about blogging and its relationship to and with power entitled 'The Internet's Absence of Filters'. A couple of things I've read today have brought it back to mind.

Although I extend my congratulations to all those who were so recognised, I must confess to not being overly fussed about my absence from Iain Dale's list of 100 best British blogs - BWAAAA!

I can console myself with the knowledge that, as a self-confessed Buchananite, he had no category in which to put me.

However a bloke called Richard North, who I must confess I'd never heard of let alone read, seems to have got his knickers in a bit of a twist over the whole thing and is taking some flak as a result. As I wrote in Longrider's comments section,

"What this guy doesn’t seem to understand is that the fiskings he’s getting now shows that he’s actually being read; that he’s written something readers think worthy of critique; and that his petulant outburst has probably done more to boost his traffic and build more inbound links than anything else he’s ever written.

He just doesn’t get blogging at all…"

Blogging is the most individual form of mass communication ever devised. As I wrote last year,

"Although the Internet will have a saturation point, it’s probably nowhere near it yet, a thought which should make the Establishment quake at the prospect of the awesome power of the unleashed cyber-citizen.

This advent of this inter-connected reality has the power not just to change the way news and opinion is delivered; not just to provide other forums for activists; but also to change the very face of the political landscape".

Earlier today Tim Worstall wrote that,

"I'm not sure that bloggery is ever going to change the world in one great big way. Rather, a series of small and tiny victories, minor changes in the way that little things work. Over time the myriad of these teensie changes that come from us watching them will indeed change the world in a cumulatively large manner, but little by little.

Think of it not as creationism, a big bang, but as evolution. It took time but we did get from chemical soup to us the second way."

Although I disagree with him on blogging's potential for sudden impact (one of these days the media equivalent of the asteroid might hit the MSM and only the blogosphere's small furry animals will be left in its wake), in one respect Tim's very right. Blogging is the flattest of flat markets that has ever existed. Sitting in Glasgow I link and am linked to blogs based in Santa Rosa, Los Angeles, Connecticut, two in Toronto, as well as assorted others in Edinburgh (in duplicate), Cheshire, Dorset and the West Country; and one written a half-hour bus journey away from my front door.

This level of personal interconnectivity is ahistoric. This is the revolution.

These blogs are almost all written by private individuals expressing their own views, just as I am.

And each survives for two simple reasons.

Firstly, the quality of their content. Secondly, their willingness to keep blogging.

Blogging is evolutionary in that it is only the fittest who survive; but even the fittest have predators.

No libel case will ever bring down News Corporation. Last year I was threatened with libel. That didn't scare me, and I dealt with it accordingly.

I am better equipped than about 99% of the British blogosphere to deal with that kind of threat - but thousands aren't.

Although it is pretty much an unstoppable force, blogging has risks - the principal one of which is the personality of bloggers.

Bloggers are not pack animals. We are private individuals with financial commitments who dare to tell the world what we think - a daily act of suicidal recklessness. We have no shareholders to bail us out when we make mistakes. Repelling my potential opponent in litigation was as easy as swatting a fly - but I would be much more windy about telling the authorities that it's actually me who writes this blog.

The Devil's Kitchen has linked to a piece on blogging by someone called Mike Ion, published in The Guardian's 'Comment is Free' blog. DK has given it the (rumbustious) DK treatment - deservedly so, if only because Ion's understanding of blogging's power Ion is years behind the curve. For example, he writes, "In the US there are liberal, conservative, libertarian and near-anarchist bloggers. The one thing they all agree on: blogging. In the US bloggers discuss the new medium with proselytizing enthusiasm. They know each other's blog names, they use links, which enable internet users to jump from one web page to another, to publicise each other's work. In the US bloggers feel so strongly about blogging, they even promote bloggers they don't agree with."

Last year, I wrote that,

"A hyperlink serves no function other than to provide a reader with a choice; click on it or not. Obviously, this enables readers to experiment with information that would not otherwise form part of their regular intellectual diet. The attractions of writers who may have seemed thrilling only a short while ago may soon pall, to be replaced by new gurus. "

He writes,

"Yes blogs matter and yes blogs are having an influence. Blogs are less important because of their direct effects on politics than their indirect ones - they influence important actors within mainstream media who in turn frame issues for a wider public. Blogs are therefore becoming ever more important in politics and to politicians, and are likely to remain so. "

I wrote that,

"The harsh reality of the Internet era is that it is not only the mainstream media but also those in government who are petrified of it; the central regulation and flow of information, the very means by which all states keep control, has been truly abolished at precisely the same time that Western governments have reached depths of authoritarianism never before reached in peacetime...

If one starts to selects one’s news from different sources, one may also soon collect opinions from different sources, and if enough people collect enough of a range of opinions from different sources, then the end of bipartisan politics will be well and truly spelled."

When we blog we assume the duties of journalists with few of the perks. One of them is our almost complete lack of accountability. When the revolution spreads government will not encourage blogging but will fear it - and what happens that day is what's to be opposed, because,

"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts; and beware of politicians who say they want to protect the public in the aftermath of the very first big story that a blogger gets wrong and which has tragic consequences.

The day of the licensed blogger may not be far behind."

Just a thought...

Citizen Serfs

From the Office Of National Statistics, reporting last quarter's increase in productivity growth -

"Whole economy unit wage costs in the second quarter of 2006 were 2.0 per cent higher than the same quarter a year earlier, down from a growth of 2.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2006. The slower rate of unit wage cost growth was due to a decrease in the growth rate in average wages and salaries together with an increase in the growth rate of output per worker."

It's official - we work harder to make less money.

Called me old-fashioned, but the nouns most commonly used to describe our newfound status are 'serfdom' and 'slavery'.

More On Educating Lawyers

Steve Sailer has written a very interesting post on candidates for the bar exams.

The attrition rate seems to be phenomenal.

I was never required to sit such an exam in order to practice in Scotland. The Law Society of Scotland granted the university classes the same status as their own examinations, and provided you got through those and the mandatory Diploma in Legal Practice then the Drumsheugh Gardens Politburo deemed that no further academics were required.

Two years of gruntwork as a trainee, with restricted admission after 12 months and your training master certifying you as a 'fit and proper person' on some undemanding paperwork at the end of it, and that was that.

It was all horrifyingly simple, come to think of it.

It's up to each state bar to determine how it regulates admissions, of course; and with the USA having about half of the world's lawyers as it is regulating admissions is not a form of protectionism, it's necessary for survival - but how the state bar of Massachusetts would howl if Harvard Law School types were only permitted to practice there!

Wage arbitrage here we come!

The Dawn Raids Are Back!

Let the worthless and illegal protocols be burned, and the sickly nippers handed their one way tickets to Algiers; for if Judas was paid, Herod was arbitrary.

These expulsions are the culmination of the kind of due process of which even the boys in Huntsville might tire.

Yes, there must be fairness - but there must also be justice. Justice for me. Justice for us.

Justice dictates that those who have failed to make their case for asylum must be removed - anything else is a breach of laws passed in my name by people who take my money and which are intended to protect my interests.

And if the failed asylum-seekers wish someone to blame, they might pick on those who have notoriously abused the asylum system.

The exit is just outside Paisley, folks.

Uncle Tone's Cave-In

The censorious wretch Musharraf has been playing colonial policeman with Tony Blair, resulting in Uncle Tone contradicting MI6's assessment of the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI. The men in Whitehall had deemed it to be little more than a cell of state-sanctioned jihadists.

And if you believe the quoted cover story, that the assessment was 'written by a junior official, that it was unfinished and had not been seen by anyone who actually makes government policy', you'll believe that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Pakistan is an oddity amongst nations; one whose founders gagged for its establishment, yet whose people almost immediately found the reality not to their liking.

Given that the country of Pakistan only exists as a consequence of British generosity, and that Pakistani society is so defective that its citizens can't wait to get from there to here, quite why the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom needs to apologise to the President of Pakistan for anything escapes me.

The Life And Times Of A Blackmailing Brazilian Slut

What an interesting life Roselane Driza has had.

What interesting people she's met.

What things she's been able to do here, like work and get married.

And all the while she should have been out the door years ago .

It really makes you proud of your country, that such wonderful people are able to live here.

That's The Scots For You...

selling their bairns for a groat...

The Costs Of Providing Interpreters

Danny Sriskandarajah of the left leaning think tank The Institute for Public Policy Research, and the co-author of the deeply flawed immigrationist report 'Paying Their Way', is quoted today's 'Times' as saying in relation to the increased costs of providing interpreters for foreign criminal and foreign victims that,-

"Interpreter services are not cheap. Police need people who are professionally trained,” he said. “But there are long-term implications here. Twenty years ago you could expect that someone coming to this country would learn English, but that assumption does not hold any more.

Many people come here for the short term and have no interest in learning English, which means that police will probably need more interpreter services in the future.”

Perhaps the executives of Goldman Sachs and KPMG might have reflected on foreign crime's costs to business, which must surely include the increased costs of interpretation, before they started lobbying for open-ended immigration from two criminal societies.

And anyone who comes to this country to make money but who is unwilling to learn English should really not be welcome.

Bob Geldof On Culture And Biodiversity

'Geldof backs Bush's no-sex campaign in the battle against Aids' -

"In general in rural Africa women have no power. They also cannot refuse sexual favours. I've seen marked in chalk on these rural huts - 'safe sex, fidelity'...

What the f*** is going on?"

Not 'what' but 'not' might be his answer.

"That is no problem, we have plenty of posts open."...

is what Adam Lipinski, an official of Poland's Law and Justice Party, is reported to have said to Self-Defence MP Renata Berger before attempting to bribe her to change parties.

Given that we are being buried under a wave of Polish migrants on account of that country's 20% unemployment rate and our own rulers' hatred for us, the unintended irony in Lipinski's comment is startling. Where is Neal Ascherson now, to shout 'By God, what Scotland wants is Poles?'

Poland has been without a government for a week; it's Somalia with blinis.

However, one ray of light shines amidst the gloom.

A radical solution to Poland's problem might be to send them the Scottish National Party, if for no other reason than they seem more interested in governing Poles than Scots.

A well-known aphorism concerning two birds and one stone springs to mind...

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part I - Traitor's Gold

The irony of the Dutch-born Dutch-Egyptian Soviet spy and traitor George Blake being compensated for a breach of his human rights, the result of delay in a court case over the payment of royalties, is almost too great for words.

Foreign Criminal Of The Day, Part II - Judge Not Or Ye Shall Be Judged....

Naw. This one's too good to pass up.

Judge Mohammed Ilyas Khan's future looks full of wet Monday mornings at Bridlington Magistrates Court after his exposure as the blackmail victim of his former 'housekeeper', Brazilian illegal Roselane Driza.

Caramba!

The Balance Of Discomfort

'The Balance Of Discomfort' is the equilibrium which exists between separate cultures living in close proximity.

Muslims living in the West don't live under Sharia. Some of them don't like that. They find it uncomfortable, so the balance of discomfort is against them. Some of them feel so uncomfortable about it that they blow up underground trains. The balance of discomfort then shifts away from them towards the Westerners.

What is astonishing about The Balance Of Discomfort is that it's always the result of agreements which all parties entered into willingly.

Dumb, huh?

The UK's Current Account Deficit Is Down...

partly the consequence of 'higher UK earnings on direct and portfolio investment abroad'.

Whilst the other factors in the reduction are welcome ('falls in the deficits on trade in goods and current transfers'), one feels slightly windy at the thought of money invested abroad bearing a higher return than money invested in the UK; a not unreasonable conclusion to draw from the Office of National Statistics' report.

And a particularly sobering one when we're all in hock up to our eyeballs.

Bastiat On Immigration

Sir John Bull writes on immigration thus -

"Is crime good? What a ridiculous question, you may say, and of course you would be right; crime debases our society and our quality of life. And yet crime INCREASES the country's economic output. Therefore, all those politicians who argue that immigration is a 'good thing' because it increases our GDP would have to argue that crime is a 'good thing' too, because it also increases our GDP. If some scullion smashes your car window and steals your radio you will need to employ someone to repair your car and you will have to buy a new radio to replace the one stolen. All that creates work and increases sales, thereby boosting the nation's GDP."

A hat-tip to MichaelCD for pointing out the post. Hopefully the marginal increase in our GDP has not resulted from a surge in demand for black market Blaupunkts.

The kind of immigrationist yelping that Sir John describes is, of course, exactly the type of behaviour which Frederic Bastiat critiqued in 'What is Seen and What is Not Seen', and quoted by Walter Williams when condemning those who praised Hurricane Katrina for the stimulus it gave growth -

"There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen."

It is interesting to speculate whether Bastiat would have signed the 'Open Letter on Immigration' if he were alive today - a speculation that might give those who did some pause for thought.

One might think it improbable - indeed, given the nature of some translations it is more likely that he would be writing for VDare.

Walter Williams certainly did not sign.

Yo Tyler!

Upset At The Polls

Civic life in The Occupied Islands Of West Europia is very civic - so civic that Poles can vote here.

Having lost the ear of the Scots, the Scottish National Party is now actively courting the Polish vote - in Scottish political terms, a sight as sad as seeing a laird begging from his butler in the street.

Given that the country of Poland seems to view the United Kingdom as little more than a cash cow, one does hope that its private citizens possess sufficient respect for their hosts' culture and history not to exercise their franchise.

The Scots' franchise, that is.

A Classic Non Sequitur

Does USS Neverdock really think repeating the gruesome statistic that more people die in Brazil as a result of homicide every year than have died in Iraq as a result of military or terrorist operations validates the Iraq campaign in any way, shape or form?

One might have thought the correct response to such data is - 'And'?

A Speedy Recovery...

is wished to Brian Barder, who seems to have taken quite a nasty tumble off his bike.

Sajad Ahmed Rana's Christophobic Jihad Against The Law Of Scotland Has Resumed...

this time on his home turf.

The pious and humble fat jihadist scofflaw has been ordered to surrender her passport, presumably to frustrate any attempt at a quick getaway to Dubai should things not go his way; hopefully he will display more respect for his own land's laws and culture than he has shown for those of the land in which he was permitted to settle and make his fortune.

And it's only the sickest of the sick, the most hateful of all the hateful, who put their 12 year old daughters in front of the world's press to do their talking for them.

So Much For Women's Lib

Navjeet Sidhu, a British-raised Sikh, seems to have suffered death by culture.

"Her husband, Manjit, ret-u-r-ned to India and the couple were reconciled only when Mrs Sidhu agreed he would not have to do housework."

Where did the little prince think he was?

And who thought him a suitable candidate for admission to the United Kingdom?

Heck, he needs The Kokkarinen Treatment.

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part I - It's Tedious, I Know...

but George Antaluca has been convicted of ripping off hole-in-the-wall cash machines.

Antaluca is, predictably, Romanian.

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part II - Innocent Brazilians? Not Likely!

It seems that the record previously held by Noureddine Hadadj and Rezki Bensayah has been broken.

Today, two Brazilian illegals named Lucas Fernandez Jesus and Werlefon Rodrigo De-Oliveira were sentenced to five years for running the UK's biggest ever fake passport factory, with both of them doing the airborne samba back to Rio upon release.

After the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian named Rafael Lanz took to the streets and said "I don't want to live in a country where the government is simply unaccountable".

Rafa, I don't want citizens of your country to commit serious crimes in mine! Can't you stop them?

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part III - The Red Light Bandit

The explanation that Deeg Mohammed gave to police for running his boutique service of sitting the driving test's theory paper on his fellow Somalis' behalf because 'it was not available in their language', and his mitigation that he did it out of 'loyalty to Somalians', would both have been slighty more convincing had he not charged them up to £500 each.

Red Light Bandit? Caryl Chessman, eat your heart out!

"You're the future now, make the most of it"...

was Tony Blair's protracted Stalinist vale to the Labour Party.

Begone, wretched conjurer. You have done your worst, and worse will surely follow.

A century from now, historians of the future might record that Blair's greatest achievement was to turn a party rooted in the solid and practical into a spin machine in perpetual motion. Even today, it was a good day to bury bad news.

Today the European Union, an entity other than the British government, gave Romanians and Bulgarians the right to reside in the UK with effect from January 1 2007.

Sergei Stanishev, the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, has been quoted as describing the grant of accession as "the genuine and final fall of the Berlin Wall for Bulgaria"; an absurd comment, showing how quickly the memory of Todor Zhivkov has been forgotten amongst those on whose necks he stood.

The BBC was, of course, unable to contain its enthusiasm for this further dilution of the nation, hunting down every photogenic Bulgar it could find; and in one respect that is only right, given that it was to them that Blair's injunction "You're the future now, make the most of it" was addressed.

They are the future, a Britain without the British; a fitting legacy for the premier who loathed his people.

Frank Pantridge

When Tyler Cowen asked readers to provide details of 'unknown but incredibly important inventors' I nominated the late Professor James Francis Pantridge CBE, whose wee machine saved my mother's life.

Pantridge was a prophet without honour in his own land; and that he was never knighted was a disgrace.

R.I.P.

My Dismembered Letter

I wrote a letter to 'The American Spectator' yesterday, after reading Jed Babbin's 'Islamic Brownshirts'.

As far as I can see it has been published in full, but in two parts - the first as 'unsigned', the second under my own name, the portions separated by the letter of Dick Lambert of Eagle Rock, Virginia.

As an inveterate writer of letters to the editor, I cannot recall this ever happening before - perhaps it is adding value.

Bob and Wlady should not be concerned for my feelings if they think I do not wish to call Jose Maria Aznar a liar under my own name - I have done so many times already.

Whatever Happened To Commercial Risk?

The gas regulator is permitting the distributors to increase prices - because they've overspent their maintenance budgets and on account of increased pension costs.

One had always thought that those operating businesses for profit did so willingly, in the full knowledge that the endeavour involved an element of financial risk. Gas distribution must be the exception that proves the rule.

A Trickle of 600,000

Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe writes in today's 'Guardian' that after working in Romania for 18 months, he has left 'with little doubt that the supposed flood of immigration was more likely to be a trickle.'

The short bio attached to the article states that he was 'a pre-accession adviser to the Romanian Economic and Social Council between December 2004 and August 2006'. For the sake of completeness one might have thought it could also have mentioned that he's a full-time trade unionist, or that he was in Romania for the purposes of 'promoting autonomous social dialog (sic)(.pdf)'; the type of conversation of which I'm sure Eugen Breahna would have been grateful.

With all respect to Thorpe, that doesn't wash. We were told that only 13,000 Poles would arrive, and 600,000 have come.

Yesterday, the BBC reported that the Welsh Assembly is 'preparing welcome packs for all Poles arriving in Wales'.

It also reported that at the other end of the country, "150 delegates, including academics and members of the private, public and voluntary sectors" will attend "for talks" to determine "a new strategy to cope with the impact of Scotland's fast-growing migrant worker population".

My invitation must still be in the post.

All such initiatives are either paid for or underwritten by taxpayer funds. All citizens have a stake in every aspect of migration policy.

Three years ago we were told not to worry, not many will come. The precise opposite happened, leaving us with liabilities for bar bills and welcome packs.

Sometimes the United Kingdom's political culture seems so alien-friendly that I feel I'd like a welcome pack of my own.

Particularly when the state broadcaster displays more interest in the employment prospects of Poles than those of Brits.

'Frum's Tic'...

appears also to affect the prostate...

Why Do Socialists Hate Children?

Jack McConnell, Scotland's famously metrosexual First Minister, actually said this yesterday -

"Scotland's primary schools have been transformed since devolution and now our secondary schools are producing 15-year-olds whose attainment is amongst the best in the world.

"The education of most young Scots is very often top-class, but for some teenagers school can be de-motivating, disengaging and it doesn't bring the best out of them out of their school days."

Top-class? What class? Remedial?

"...amongst the best in the world"?

Which world? Not the world in which I see the products of the Scottish comprehensive school system walking about.

Only a moron or a clown seriously thinks that the educational attainments of Scottish 15 year olds are amongst the best in the world. If they were there would be no need for the anti-Scottish 'Fresh Talent' initiative.

The horse of comprehensive education (breed: Trojan) is well and truly dead, and no further political, social or economic interest can be served by flogging it. The worst thing that ever happened to British education was its structure's savaging at the hands of socialist ideologues; soulless drones, their own capacities for critical thought outsourced, creatures without merit or achievement determined to crush the spirit of those who crossed their path and who calculated that the age of 11 was the best time at which their victims should get the treatment.

Socialists must really hate children. And I really can't think why.

Crisis? What Crisis?

The only 'crisis' in 'relations between the Catholic Church and Islam' is the immigration induced presence of Islam in the West.

That's the long and the short of the crisis that has, as I predicted, created the Islamic Republics of Newham and Tower Hamlets.

My Favourite Immigrationist

That would be Tim Worstall, one of the most gracious and gentlemanly bloggers around and an immigrationist who never, ever, ever gives up.

He was at it again yesterday.

My apologies to Tim for describing my Romanian encounter in all its glory, and for my comments' crapulous tone. He deserves better, but Auld Gilles was flexing his muscles.

Scots Who Love Foreigners And Hate Scots

David Caldwell, the director of Universities Scotland, quoted on UK Immigration News -

"Scotland needs to attract talent if we are going to have a thriving, growing, knowledge-based economy".

Does he think that we possess no talent of our own?

The Hypocrisy Of Pervez Musharraf

I do not believe that Richard Armitage ever uttered a threat to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age. Armitage is an intelligent man, capable of understanding that threatening to bomb an already Stone Age nation back to the Stone Age is illogical.

However I do believe that Pervez Musharraf is a twister, dissembler and sneak; an arrogant little ass pandering to his key demographics. Waziristani tribal elders must be a tougher caucus than La Raza.

He is also a hypocrite. The BBC have quoted him as saying that "If somebody's expressing views, we cannot curb the expression of views"; a point of view I find difficult to reconcile with his government's blocking of this blog.

The Nation State Is Still Alive...

thanks to the Russians.

Iain Macwhirter gushes in today's 'Sunday Herald' that Gordon Brown is 'an internationalist, a moralist and a ‘do’-er'. To my mind, harbouring 'internationalist' sentiments is something of which one should be slightly ashamed; a fetish best kept private. Internationalism should not be considered admirable when displayed by the prospective leader of an independent nation state.

And it is not a quality that Vladimir Putin appears to possess in abundance.

Brown threw down the gauntlet to those he burns to rule in an editorial published in 'The Times' on June 10 this year. Exposing himself as a globalist fanatic, he wrote that 'the very foundations of globalisation' were 'under assault' from a 'three-pronged attack from protectionism, economic patriotism and anti-immigrant sentiment'.

The scorn Brown feels for 'populism', describing it as a 'direct assault on the very idea of globalisation itself', of course lays bare his own elitism. That such a committed socialist as Brown should be an elitist is no surprise - he has been a member of Scotland's elite since the day he came into the world as the son of a Church of Scotland minister. His lecturing and hectoring on the virtues of a massively destructive policy, not a process, which has never been put to the electorate is typical both of him and of his caste; Brahmins with the souls of bare-knuckle boxers.

Give us a Putin who cares for his nation over a Brown who thinks his people trash. Any day.

Anyone For Bounty Hunters?

According to the Sunday Herald, failed asylum-seekers are going underground to frustrate their removal.

This would seem to be a perfect example of where the private sector would be able to operate with greater efficiency than the public. If an asylum-seeker whose application has been unsuccessful fails to present themself for removal then a bounty of £1,000 should be offered for their capture.

Privatisation works for everything else, apparently - why not for this?

Come to think of it, there's no reason why bounties couldn't also be offered for those foreign criminals that the Home Office doesn't want to catch.

Let the spirit of free enterprise work its magic and the culture of carnage that plagues our criminal justice and asylum systems would vanish overnight.

Where is the Adam Smith Institute when you need it?

Catherine Taylor

Presumably Catherine Taylor's conviction for assaulting pupils in her charge will result in Aberdeen City Council ordering her transfer to Muckle Spankie Primary School.

Simon Jenkins, Buchananite

is now up on The Devil's Kitchen.

Gerard Baker Is Wrong (Again)

Poor Gerry.

The head of 'The Times' Washington Bureau has been astonished by European governments' jumpy reactions to the Pope's citation of Manuel II Paleologous.

What else did he expect? They're the ones who let the Muslims in. Nobody asked us. Those European governments who have permitted Islam to spread through immigration have faces to save and backsides to cover - did he really expect them all to troop to Mass last Sunday wearing badges bearing the legend 'We Are All Catholics Now'?

Baker is a screaming neo, with a dose so bad he joined 'The Henry Jackson Society'. But what he and his ideological fellow travellers still don't understand is that there is no such thing as 'Europe' - there are Brits, there are French, there are Spaniards and as soon as we tire of the venture we will go our separate ways, back to our own cultures.

Right now the nations of Europe are being governed by internationalists, entryists who have promised one thing and delivered another. Baker's own attachment to big ideas - I cannot recall a single occasion when my mind has been set on fire by the thought of Bhutan becoming a democracy - and his own ignorance of what the little people on the ground feel and think about what's going on them around means that he is commenting on a culture that he has forgotten, his words now motivated by ideology's vain foolishness.

Come to Glasgow, my good man. We will teach you any number of things.

A Possible Apology

The 'Daily Telegraph' reports this morning that 'Britain may apologise over slavery'.

Good. I look forward to receiving my apology for being kept under the yolk of wage slavery, in a job in which I'm not permitted to speak the common phrases of my native language in my native land lest I offend the sensibilities of other cultures, in order to keep the Somalis of Bristol in smack.

So much for the restorative powers of qat.

Hat tip - Adam Lawson.

Jackie Mason And Raoul Felder On Islamic Sensitivity

"How many countless times have Muslims insulted people of every faith? The fact is, in there mosques and public speeches and in every kind of media, their insults and abuse of other faiths is limitless. If in any Arab city, on the pages of every newspaper and the walls of virtually every building you'll see articles, pictures and paintings insulting, degrading and dehumanizing people of every other faith. While they are practicing acts of humiliation against every other faith, isn't it strange that no leader of any other religion has ever considered any act of retribution or even discrimination against the Muslims? Nobody has ever refused to marry a girl because she has a Muslim brother. Nobody has ever refused to kiss a girl because she has a Muslim father. Nobody has ever left a table in a restaurant because he had an Arab waiter. Nobody has ever refused a toasted bagel because it was made by a Muslim baker. Nobody has ever refused to buy a Slurpee in a 7-Eleven because of an Arab storekeeper. "

Silenced

Finnish-Canadian blogger Ilkka Kokkarinen has quit, publicly denouncing himself and trashing his archives in the process. A professor of computer science, the authorities at Ryerson University had proposed him as a candidate for re-education on account of alleged 'sexist and homophobic' comments on his own space. One wouldn't be surprised if Ryerson had suggested a period of diversity training on its Lubyanka campus, situated in Six Elks, Yukon Territory.

In his farewell post, Kokkarinen writes,

"I would like to keep doing the teaching job that I love, since I'd like to think that I have always been a good and a fair teacher. My teacher persona really is quite different from my online persona, who will exist no longer. I know that in my teaching and grading I have always treated everybody the same way, but of course I can't really now prove it to you."

Computer science is an empirical discipline, free from ambiguous interpretation - 1 + 1 always equals 2; the machine will only work when it's switched on, etc. If a female or gay thought that Kokkarinen had been unfair in his marking because of the sentiments he expressed on his own time, I wonder how they think they'd have fared in Sami al-Arian's class.

Or perhaps they were just poor computer scientists. Long may their buffers be stuffed.

Hat tip -Steve Sailer.

Foreign Criminal Of The Day - Don't Cry For Me, Jan Falkowski

Although 'The Times' did not record the nationality of Dr. Jan Falkowski's stalker Maria Marchese in its report on her conviction, an earlier report of the course duly noted that she is Argentinian.

And one mean 'Malvina' with it.

The Conviction Of Robert McGlynn

As a vehement critic of racial nationalism I find the conviction of BNP member Robert McGlynn for racially aggravated disorderly conduct quite disturbing.

There seems to have been absolutely no corroboration.

Stop Aid To Egypt

The Mubarak dynasty can build their 'new political vision for the Middle East' 'based on Arab values' when my good friend Dennis stops propping them up through his taxes.

Perhaps the folks at State might remind Gamal Mubarak, who to my eyes bears a strong resemblance to the actor David Marciano, that leading a society based on Arab values would entail dining with Osama.

Denying The Skirmish Of Civilisations (And Other Odds And Ends)

Whilst I've said before that I don't believe in the 'clash of civilisations' I do believe in the 'skirmish of civilisations'.

The incident of yesterday which formed the basis of the BBC's worst reporting malfunction ooncerning Islam (thus far) has been expanded upon in today's papers.

The Daily Telegraph reports the incident thus -

"In his first speech to a Muslim audience since he became Home Secretary, Mr Reid sought to join Cabinet colleagues in "a hearts and minds" assault aimed at separating the mainstream Muslims from the extremists.

He dismissed the idea of "a clash of civilisations" between the West and Islam, a debate that has been renewed since Pope Benedict's comments last week.

Mr Reid said the perception of Islam had been hijacked by activists who used religion to cloak their militancy. He said they were not Muslims "in the true sense of the word" but were waging a violent and indiscriminate war."

The qualifications of John Reid, a former Communist from Coatbridge, to pronounce upon who is and who is not a Muslim might be open to challenge by the jihad-ignorer Osama Saeed.

And if he's gone into the business of defining Muslim identity, Reid should have gone all the way and extended the limit of his fatwa to whether or not he considers Muslims who perpetrate honour killings and kidnap their children also not to be Muslims; in the true sense of the word, you understand.

The 'Times', rather surprisingly, notes that the Home Secretary was 'drowned out' - an odd conclusion, given that I was able to post thoughts on the affair less than 12 hours after it had happened.

However, the headline over the report of the incident in 'The Guardian' (peace and blessings be upon it) is almost sublimely dhimmi -

"Defiant Reid clashes with Islamist radicals".

The Home Secretary 'defiant' of 'Islamic radicals'?

I rather think that the Guardian's understanding of the concept of 'the monopoly on power' is more than a little skewed.

The Need For A New Dutch Reagan...

forms the basis of my letter to VDare.

The BBC's Worst Reporting Malfunction Concerning Islam (Thus Far)

Today, the Home Secretary was shouted down at a meeting with 'Muslims'.

The date of the Blair government's last meeting with the Seventh Day Adventists is not within my ken.

The BBC reports the incident as follows -

"He was interrupted by activist Abu Izzadeen, who said he was "furious" about "state terrorism by British police".
In his speech, Mr Reid asked Muslim parents to keep a close eye on their children and act if they suspected they were being radicalised by extremists.
It was his first speech to a Muslim audience since becoming home secretary.

The protester, also known as Omar Brooks, denies being a member of the banned al-Ghurabaa group.
He accused the minister of being an "enemy" of Islam before he was led from the building by police and stewards. "

His birthname is Trevor.

The state broadcaster's staff must have been testing their sound equipment during Brooks' outburst, because ICSolihull reports the incident thus -

"Mr Reid was 10 minutes through his speech when well-known extremist Abu Izzadeen, clutching the hand of a small boy, interrupted him. The Home Secretary had just listed a number of terror attacks around the world when Izzadeen began his tirade and forced him to stop.
"How dare you come to a Muslim area when over 1,000 Muslims have been arrested?" he said. "You are an enemy of Islam and Muslims, you are a tyrant. Shame on all of us for sitting down and listening to him."
The Home Secretary stood and watched as police officers ushered him out of the room, followed by hoards of cameras, photographers and reporters. Continuing his diatribe, Izzadeen accused the Government of state terrorism and said Mr Reid, Tony Blair and George Bush with their crusade could "all go to hell".

After the furore died down, Mr Reid said: "This is not a new experience for me or for those involved in politics. There will always be people who will not be prepared to take part in a dialogue, but who will try to intimidate and shout down. They are not confined to the Muslim community."

One is grateful to Laban Tall for that snippet.

But the activists weren't done. According to the BBC,

"A second heckler, who also interrupted Mr Reid's speech, was ejected a few minutes after Mr Izzadeen. "

However, ICSolihull reports that the second heckler was a 'radical' named 'Anjem Choudary'.

That would be the same Anjem Choudary who addressed last Sunday's anti-Papal demonstration outside Westminster Cathedral, stating that "Whoever insults the message of Mohammed is going to be subject to capital punishment", and that "I am here have a peaceful demonstration. But there may be people in Italy or other parts of the world who would carry that out. I think that warning needs to be understood by all people who want to insult Islam and want to insult the prophet of Islam."

A little gentle 'heckling' of a Home Secretary on a Wednesday afternoon must be a pleasant break from his madcap career of demanding that Popes be slain. No matter - the BBC would probably describe his comments of Sunday as 'heckling'.

According to the BBC George Galloway MP, the father of the British Islamic left, was very concerned for the Home Secretary's welfare, wanting to know how,

"... a "well-known extremist... was allowed within punching distance of the British home secretary".

That's very charitable of old 'No Dogs or Irish' Georgie, for sure - until you read the rest of what he wrote (hat tip Osama Saeed, now giving space to Kufrophobes) -

"Dear Home Secretary,

I have been watching open-mouthed the altercation you have provoked in East London with your ill-judged, patronising and provocative foray into territory you clearly barely understand. There is much that will be said about the child-like - Patricia Hewittesque! - performance you gave your audience. I want to concentrate on the altercation.

The man who harangued you - Abu Izzadine - is a well-known and violent extremist from an organisation your own government has proscribed. Yet he was allowed within punching distance of the British Home Secretary. How ? Why ?

This is the same man who led a group of fanatic thugs in the brief "hostage-taking" of myself and my daughter and several innocent members of the public during a general election meeting last year. This is well known to the Special Branch and senior police officers in East London - the very people in charge of your security today.

This man has appeared on many occasions on television and in the press as a dangerous extremist who has praised the terrorist attacks on July 7th and 9/11. His comments were amongst those adduced in your own government's case for the proscription of the Al Ghuraba organisation.

There are only two conceivable explanations as to how this man, at this sensitive time, was allowed to hijack your Potemkin Village performance today.

Either our police and security services are so fantastically incompetent that Bin Laden himself might have slipped in to beard you at your podium. Or someone somewhere wanted to engineer precisely this confrontation to show you in a certain light and to portray the Muslims of Britain in the most aggressive violent and extreme way possible, as a justification for the utterly counter-productive policies you are following.

Which is it ?

Because, as you know, I am not a believer in conspiracy theories I am leaning towards the first explanation. If I am right then yet again the Metropolitan Police have proved almost comically incompetent. The sight of a small, slight, helmeted police officer being dwarfed by a giant ranting fanatical thug - talk about a thin blue line! - as all that stood between you and a violent attack will certainly have provided food for thought and encouragement to the country's enemies. Yet again the justification for continuing in office of Sir Ian Blair must be called into question.

But if I am wrong, and this all turns out to have been some Nixonian "dirty tricks" operation..then of course the questions raised are much more profound and dangerousI await your response with interest.

Yours sincerely

George Galloway MP"

This is a man who, earlier this year, imitated a cat sipping milk on national television.

The BBC did not properly report what was said during this incident, words that were a declaration of war. It did not report the identity of the second heckler when his recent actions have been notorious. It did not report the true nature of Galloway's comments, making him seem like St. Francis of Assisi when he's closer to Lyndon LaRouche.

What the BBC produced this afternoon was not journalism. It was cultural treason.

And it will not be forgotten.

A Shower Of Bulgars

"Eventually, EU law will compel us to admit the Bulgarians and Romanians, just as if they were French or Dutch. But until that happens, or their governments get a grip, we would be fools not to keep our defences up" -

Richard Ehrman.

America's Hadrian Wall Revisited

Iain Murray seems to have had the same idea.

Peter Hitchens On Nation Building

During a discussion of Gibraltarian identity, the United Kingdom's most prominent paleocon writes,

"...the most glorious thing about it is that it is multi-racial, without being multicultural. There is a strong Gibraltar nationality, more British than almost anyone now living in Britain. But these Gibraltarians are, by origin, from Genoa, from Malta and also from the great scattering of the Jews of Europe.

They are emphatically not Spanish. Their sense of nationality dates mainly from World War Two, when the whole Rock was turned into a fortress and almost all the native Gibraltarians were evacuated to England, where they lived, in bleak but comradely conditions for long years of exile in a country that must have seemed astonishingly cold, damp and bleak, but which they seem to have liked even so.

It might have faded, but the Spanish dictator Franco's dogged campaign to isolate and threaten this tiny country probably forged Gibraltarians into a unit that will last for centuries yet to come. I rather hope so, and I hope that Britain is strong and rich enough to defend the uniquely successful society it has played so much of a part in founding.

It is an example of how people grow attached to the small and the particular, the friendly and the neighbourly - and of how the wretched Marxoid idea of a world without borders, with one language, one currency, one diet, one law and one way of doing everything is deeply unattractive to most of us."

People attached to the small and particular, the friendly and the neighbourly with everyone sharing a sense of common nationhood - altogether, the best sort of nation building that money can't buy.

And also precisely why occupied peoples' resist.

Foreign Criminal Of The Day, Part I - A Crime That Would Not Have Happened Without Immigration

An Iranian named Saeied Negad has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape of a woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It was his second UK conviction for a sex offence. The manner of both was the same, the victims having answered adverts he had placed requesting domestic help.

His first victim was Czech.

Whilst one has the utmost sympathy for the poor women unfortunate to have crossed this Persian beast's path, if neither he nor his victims had been permitted entry into the UK then these offences would never have happened.

Some civil servant has seen fit to grant Nejad British citizenship, an unfortunate bureaucratic bumble which prevents his deportation back to those who deal with such crimes more robustly. His offences could almost be used as an exemplar of the costs that native citizens incur as a consequence of foreign crime.

Just like the £120,000 that has been spent trying to identify Exmoor's Mohammed Doe.

Hat tip - Adam Lawson.

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part II - Asylum? You've Got That Right!

The BBC has dutifully reported the death of failed asylum-seeker Manuel Bravo, who hanged himself rather than return to Angola.

They did not, however, seem so interested in the crimes of Peshrau Mohammed.

Hat tip - Adam Lawson.

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part III - The Crimes Of Kenneth Dundon

Apart from his manslaughter of Gary Jacobs, Kenneth's Dundon's list of previous convictions both in the UK and in his native Republic of Ireland has to be read to be believed.

Good News On Immigration!

The number of Romanians and Bulgarians permitted to work in the UK will be restricted!

If they get into the EU!

In all likelihood this will mean that five will be admitted where before there would have been six - but it's something.

Let us hope John Reid's announcement is not Moonshine...

The Trial Of Donald Payne

It seems to me that Donald Payne should not be in the only one in the dock for war crimes in Iraq.

After all, he would not have been there had Tony Blair not lied about the threat posed by Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction.

In April I wrote that 'Iraq has let us see what happens when multiculturalism goes to war'. The prosecution of Donald Payne proves it.

The Remittance Men

Dennis has pointed out this rather drippy article by Sebastian Mallaby which points out the link between remittances (otherwise known as 'theft') and development (otherwise known as 'throwing good money after bad').

Owen Barder and Arnold Kling are both in favour; my views can be found on both their posts.

As with everything to do with immigration's alleged 'benefits', it's always those not in the competitive job market who can see the gold where in fact there is sh-none. Remittances are nothing more than a form of redistribution, one of the globalisation policy's four planks.

The International Organisation for Migration, the biggest remittance-mongers of them all, have taken to producing this sort of babble when discussing the philosophy behind their work of people moving -

"Advancements in transportation and communication technologies that link places and people globally are leading to the emergence of a "transnational migration space". This spreads over more than one geographical space in which migrants can shuttle between more than one home. Apart from physical movements, the flow of information, skills, and remittances are the other components of the "transnational migration space". Gaps between "geographic space" and "migration space" have shrunk with far-reaching consequences on international migration."

Call me a geographic space cadet, but having one country's more than enough for anyone. Particularly when your preferred migration option is mine.

A return to classical free trade (you sell us bananas, we sell you Martini-Henry rifles) might do more to develop the Third World than having the Third World develop itself in our countries at our expense. Growing pains are best observed at a distance.

An Open Letter To Readers In Pakistan

Dear Friends,

Several days ago, it came to my attention that this blog has a profile with the PK Blogs portal.

Although PK Blogs indicates that it also helps circumvent Internet censorship in Iran, India and China, my Clustermap tells me that the site can be accessed in those nations - which makes your country the most likely to be blocking it.

Whether or not this is a particular privilege reserved for Dennis and myself, or a consequence of the blanket ban on 'Blogger' sites that your leaders imposed earlier this year, I don't know. Either way, it's outrageous.

In the recent past I have been extremely critical of the behaviour of some Pakistanis. Living in the United Kingdom, I am free to say such things without let or hindrance in a culture of free speech, free enquiry and public audit. Although you might profoundly disagree with what I have written, in order to read it you have had to break a law. That takes more courage than I have - and I am grateful for your effort.

Your desire to break a law in order to read this blog makes you free people. You are like those Poles and Russians who listened to rock n' roll when the Communists banned it as decadent and ideologically impure. You are not willing to let state officials tell you as individuals what you can and can't read, or what you can and can't think.

You have felt the wind of freedom. You are the real revolution, each one of you conducting the small, private revolution of the individual. You're mad as hell, and you're not going to take it any more.

If any amongst you hates me for what I have written, remember that just as I expect you to defend to the death my freedom to write it, I will also defend to the death your freedom to read it.

Take care of yourselves.

Roach On Commodities

" From tulips to dot-com and now probably US residential property as well, the boom all too often begets the bust."

Skylarking (Or 'It's All Greek To Me')

The detention of Graham McDonnell and Pieter Mienen casts an illuminating insight into how many Scots, and Brits, think.

The two pranking japesters got bevvied and rowdy on a flight from Glasgow to Zakynthos, resulting in their detention by the Greek gendarmerie upon their arrival.

McDonnell's brother is quoted as saying,

"They were out of order on the plane but the way they have been treated is a joke.

"There's seven people in a cell made for four so Graham's sleeping on a concrete floor.

"He just wants to get home but nothing seems to be happening."

Presumably nobody forced him to board a flight to a foreign country under duress. Presumably nobody forced alcohol down his throat.

So presumably nobody but himself is responsible for his plight.

If one believes in the primacy of Scots law in Scotland, one must also believe in the primacy of Greek law in Greece. There would appear to be two surefire ways of avoiding the uncomfortable conditions of Greek prison life.

Don't break Greek law.

Or don't go to Greece.

Save 'Darfur'!

Why?

Do any of us bang down the doors of houses five streets away and demand for ourselves the right to redecorate them at our own expense?

And that we'll pay the residents to live beside us in our own homes while we do it?

And that when we're finished they won't have to go home?

What's the difference between that course of action and getting involved in Darfur?

If Sudanese culture and Sudanese national identity are too weak to save the lives of Sudanese, then, as much one might feel great sympathy for those Muslims who are going to lose their lives in yet another of Islam's self-inflicted humanitarian catastrophes, it is not my problem.

Nation building in Sudan is one of history's great tortures of Tartarus. The ancient Greeks well knew that Hell is the eternal repetition of unachievable tasks. Better men than me have tried and died to build a place called Sudan.

It didn't work then, and it won't work now. Miracles can always happen, of course - the Sudanese could all find Jesus, ditch the polygamy and urbanise. But the balance of probabilities is against it.

Only two positives can emerge from discussion of the so-called 'Darfur crisis'. The first is that leftists like David Aaronovitch are forced to admit that some cultures work better than others. Such admissions are based in truth, and unequivocal moral good.

The second is finding out stuff like Lord Triesman serving as 'Minister for Africa'. All that's missing from the picture are the pith helmet and the whisk.

Given that the United Kingdom is a country that's falling apart at the seams, it would not be inappropriate for Sudan to appoint a 'Minister for Britain'.

We've heard the tuneless song 'Save the Kosovars/Iraqis/Darfurians' once too often in the last decade, and it's starting to distract me from the time consuming task of building my bomb shelter.

For when the Iranians attack.

In 45 minutes.