Vive la différence

Definitely a game of two halves, though sorry for parroting a football cliché.
England 23 : 13 France though anyone who'd simply watched the first half would have thought it a travesty as France dominated the early stages with a strong pack and some breathtaking running skills. England did hold their own in the kicking department though as Owen Farrell kept England in contention despite a brilliant French try. The sheer power of the French pack had England knocked back on their heels and it was a very different France who had failed in their previous two Six nations attempts against Italy and Wales.Indeed England were extremely fortuitous to hold the score to a one point deficit at half time to England 9 : 10 France.
And then, and then...
It was the difference in the strength of the two sides coupled by some bizarre substitutions by France taking off some of their better players and bringing on others who took them back to the previous two match indiscipline and lack of coordination. This along with some 'lucky' refereeing decisions in England's favour meant that it was England who totally dominated the second half and drove the French back on their heels with a try and three conversions two of whom came from Toby Flood who replaced the injured Owen Farrell. It was this strength in depth where England could replace like for like that put France to the sword, despite the French having a more talented initial starting line drawn from their domestic sides who are currently dominating the Heineken cup and with good reason.
In the end the score did not do France justice on their first half performance, but, overall it did underline the strength that England can bring to bear as the minutes tick by and tired bodies and minor injuries necessitate the interchanging of players. France were undone by a lack of strength in depth and at the end it showed as their discipline slipped and a series of unforced errors kept them well away from England's 22.
I doubt Italy will stand in much better stead in two weeks time at Twickenham, though stranger things have happened. Wales though at the Millennium Stadium in three weeks, that I think will decide just whether this England side will have a decent chance in the up and coming world cup...

When in a hole...

Stop digging.
So, the UK has lost its treasured AAA credit rating mostly because the morons who purport to rule us don't have the balls to stop spending and trim the budget to suit our means. Of course you have the likes of the moronic BBC and various others of the hard of thinking (AKA the liberal left) who are blaming the governments 'austerity' measures though how they equate austerity to increased levels of borrowing is beyond me, but as I said, they are the hard of thinking and I have to presume that they believe that robbing future generations to maintain their lifestyles is a price worth paying and the future generations problem.
BBC.

Labour has attacked the government's economic policy after the UK lost its AAA credit rating, but the coalition says it is "making progress".
Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said the downgrade was a "humiliating blow" for the chancellor, urging him to act fast to "kick-start our flatlining economy".
But chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said the government was getting Britain "back on track".
Ratings agency Moody's cut the UK's top rate to Aa1.
The agency, which is the first to downgrade the country's rating since 1978, said it had done so due to expectations that growth will "remain sluggish over the next few years".

This would be the same Ed Balls who presided over the ruinous tax and spend policies of Labour carried on by the coagulation who caused the damned problem in the first place. It's the equivalent of an arsonist advising that the best way to put out a fire is by pouring more petrol on it.
The government need to stop spending and cut back on the services it offers. It needs to reduce its total manpower size and STOP BLOODY SPENDING!
I mean if the average family behaved in a manner that this government (and the previous one) acted we'd be arrested or have the bailiffs around to try and recoup their losses. The morons are actually borrowing to repay debt and making sure that the next few generations are going to curse us to high heaven for landing them with our problem. They're going to get the keys to the house as part of their inheritance and find that the house is mortgaged to the hilt and that someone very unsympathetic actually owns it anyway!
The government of this country it seems is far to precious to be left in the hands of politicians, we need to hang them all now, followed by the lawyers and the heads of the civil services coupled with a side swipe at the BBC.
It can't come soon enough...

We only need to get it wrong once...

I'm beginning to wonder if our security forces are becoming stretched, through no fault of their own, but rather by the idiocy of politicians inviting in an alien and hostile culture amongst us. I do have a great del of admiration for some of the work the security forces do, though I believe that the best way to deal with the threats they face is at arms length, they should not really have to be dealing with the likes of this...
Telegraph.

Britain faces a new generation of self-starting “Nike terrorists”, the security services fear, amid alarm over the speed with which a gang of home grown extremists were able to find and gain support for a 9/11-style plot from the “heart of the beast” of al-Qaeda.
The terror cell hoped to kill hundreds of people with eight suicide bombers, armed with guns, in what would have been the worst terrorist outrage on UK soil. The ringleaders now face life behind bars after yesterday being convicted of planning a terror campaign. But the security and intelligence services are concerned how two of them, with no apparent previous links to al-Qaeda, were able to quickly make contact with the terror group’s international arm in northern Pakistan to learn how to make bombs and poisons. The plot – which The Daily Telegraph can also reveal the plot was personally blessed by al-Qaeda’s number five, Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti, who was killed in a drone strike last year – was the most serious since plans to blow up transatlantic airliners with liquid bombs in 2006.

Yet it does strike me that if our idiot politicians hadn't invited them or their parents in from cultures which clearly cannot or will not integrate or adapt to ours then our security forces wouldn't have to be constantly on guard and infringing the rights of the ordinary man/woman on the street with various governmental schemes to further intrude into the tatters of our civil liberties.
Then again perhaps this is exactly what the government wants, or rather those in power over us which sometimes includes the government and politicians and sometimes not. After all, what a godsend islamics were to them, clearly deranged, clearly dangerous and hell bent on aggravating the indigenous population into accepting ever greater security measures simply to keep them contained. It's certainly one explanation for the deliberate appeasement of islamics and muslims combined with permitting known world terrorists to live amongst us and recruit from the islamic community. Add to this the constant attempts to increase their power along with abuses against the indigenous population followed up by heavy handed legislation in answer to the cries of 'something must be done' means that sooner or later the islamics will drive us into accepting something extreme one day simply to rid us of their idiocy. Of such nightmares Nazi type final solutions are born and I have a sneaking suspicion that might be the end game plan. Someone rising up after an atrocity and herding us all into making the sort of diabolical mistake that still haunts Germany.
If I'm right then the islamics are playing right into the hands of those who wish to have control over every aspect of our lives, they'll pay the price as the majority willingly accept the cost of ridding us of them.
I hope I'm wrong, but even I can see the problem here and can't think of a civilised solution, not one that will work now.

Dhimmitude

When the islamic community reaches a certain tipping balance, I suspect that abuses like this will become more commonplace, though again, once this happens, I doubt it will be reported as rioting and murder will no doubt ensue if any sort of criticism is levelled at the barbarians in our midst.
Mail. (Usual caveats)

An Indian domestic worker was repeatedly raped and beaten by her employers who threatened to murder her if she complained, a court heard.
The 39-year-old vulnerable and illiterate mother-of-four was used as a 'sexual toy' and 'general dogsbody' by an extended family and their friend who forced her to become their slave for a total of six years.
She was scalded with boiling water, burned with a hot iron, beaten and threatened her throat would be cut and her body buried in a back garden if she didn't do as she was told, a jury were told today.
Despite the woman approaching numerous agencies for help, Croydon Crown Court heard how the abuse continued.
The court heard how the woman initially went to live with Aleemuddin Mohammed, 44, a supermarket manager, and his wife Shamina Yousuf, 42, after they successfully applied for the woman's visa.
Both are accused of assaulting the woman and paying her just £24 during the two years and eight months she worked for them.
The woman was then allegedly forced to moved in with Mohammed's mother, 56-year-old shop worker Shanaz Begum, and her partner, butcher Enkarta Balapovi, 53, who is accused of raping her.
After escaping the couple, she was then sent to live with an acquaintance of the family, optician Shashi Obhrai, 53, from Northwood, who is accused of assaulting her.
Prosecutor Miss Caroline Haughey said: 'Each of these defendants treated her with contempt, ignoring her basic rights and taking advantage of her naivety, her vulnerability and her ignorance.

Oh I'm sure that many will claim that this wasn't because of the religion or that it is rare and unusual, though when such cases do come to light it's usually an islamic involved.That's because slavery is the natural default state of the islamic mind for anyone not a muslim, even then some muslims if they are from different countries or tribes come under such a state, islam being top heavy from the Arabian peninsular perspective where a Saudi muslim trumps any other.
The state of dhimmitude as far as muslims are concerned is where the likes of non muslims belong, tolerated at best, there to be used and abused at worst and all justified by the abomination that is the quran. Women dhimmi's are of course the lowest of the low and simply there to be used by muslim uber-menschen which is why we have the current grooming scandal in the UK as the men perpetratng the outrage saw (and probably still do not see) nothing wrong in what they did, these young girls were theirs to do with as they wished, they weren't 'human' they were dhimmi's. Not so long ago there was a spate of kidnapping of young girls in Egypt, oddly enough they were all the daughters of coptic Christians, there was a cursory police investigation, but apparently they were all 'married off' to muslims and forced to convert so that was ok.
This is the type of mindset we have to deal with, a cancerous group think justified by a fascistic command and control handbook on controlling every aspect of their lives including how to treat the unter-menschen around them. That it makes no sense at times and has no place in the modern world makes no difference, it's from their supposed god so that makes it something to be done, besides it allows them to justify barbarism in the name of their religion.
There can be no place for islam in a modern society, the odd muslim perhaps, but not communities of them, in that way lies cultural suicide.

And whose fault is that?

Here we go, the UK 'must' be prepared to face a massive hike in energy prices because we're about to run out of power in the next couple of years. I mean you have to aske yourself just why we're running out and why all those nice shiny and expensive toys the government and enviroloons have been conning us into sticking up all over the place aren't going to make up the shortfall. After all, wind and solar are free once you get past the initial setup costs and the environmental disaster that is the huge concrete block a bird mincer stands on. After all weren't we promised by the now sacked and arch criminal Huhne that in the long run power would get cheaper etc...
Telegraph.

Households must prepare for a sharp rise in energy bills within two years as Britain comes “dangerously” close to power shortages, the chief executive of Ofgem has warned.
The country would become more reliant on foreign gas to generate electricity as European Union pollution laws meant the dirtiest coal-fired stations had to shut, said Alistair Buchanan, the regulator’s outgoing head. He pointed out that gas was already 60 per cent more expensive in countries such as Japan that relied on imports. It was impossible to predict how high bills could go for British households, he said. Ministers admitted that Britain faced a “looming energy gap” but blamed the previous government for agreeing to shut coal plants too quickly. Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, admitted that consumers could feel a “pinch” starting within two years. The Government was fighting to “keep the lights on”, he insisted. Mr Buchanan warned that the “near-crisis” would occur between 2015 and 2018, pushing up bills. Blackouts were “not likely” but there would be a “double squeeze” on energy prices.

So, the blame game starts, though admittedly in this case pointing the finger at the previous government is quite easy, they did start the green cash cow rollng by insisting on closing down coal fired (cheap reliable) power stations and filling their pockets full of taxpayers cash by building and subsidising useless solar and windpower schemes.
In the end though it always comes down to the taxpayer getting it in the neck as we pay the price for politicians putting greed and dogma ahead of common sense and an incredible lack of foresight. The fact that it's EU laws driving the lunacy is also a factor, though such laws don't apparently seem to be bothering the Germans as they build a massive series of coal fired plants to back up their birdmincers.
Still a solution has been found...

Mr Buchanan warned that it was very important for the Government to persuade people to use less energy.

A masterful solution is it not? Why do I suspect though that when it comes to people, Mr Buchanan means you and I and not the government or the powers that be?
I suspect when we're all sitting in our houses freezing in the dark in a few years time as we don't dare use the heating or electricity too much that our MP's will still be cosy and warm and telling us that 'we're' all in this together...

The grasping millipede

Millipede E was out and about in his beloved EU today trying to garner support to pick our pockets from other socialist (another word for thieves I think) leaders to make those of us who contribute to the EU's excesses pay more to fund the pipe dream of ever closer union penury.
Telegraph.

Left-wing leaders must unite across Europe to reject “collective austerity”, Ed Miliband has declared as he embarked on a tour of the region.

Austerity which is only necessary due to left wing overspending particularly in the UK due to in part Millipede's hand in it.

The Labour leader said the European Union was failing to work for its citizens and called for reforms to ensure that the single market helps reduce unemployment. Mr Miliband has already held a number of talks with Francois Hollande, the Socialist president of France, on how to tilt European economic policies away from deeper public spending cuts. On Monday, he met the Social Democrat Prime Minister of Denmark, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, before travelling to Sweden. Later this week he will visit the Netherlands. After his meeting with Ms Thorning-Schmidt, over Danish pastries in Copenhagen, Mr Miliband said Europe should be reformed “now”, rather than waiting for “years” under David Cameron’s timetable for a referendum in 2017.

It's failing to work because of its socialist roots Millipede, not in spite of them. Socialism only works till other people's money runs out and we've ran out of money.
Also there's the r for reform word again, the EU is basically unreformable because basically there's no mechanism in place to reform it in a way which might work. Ever closer union means that what the EU takes, it does not give back. The only way to reform it is to destroy it and perhaps start again with saner objectives, you can pretty much guess how that will go down with the EUphiles, there's also the entrenched moneygrubbing aspects in the way too.
No, Millipede is spouting the same magic moneytree policies that have been tried and found wanting whenever a left wing government gets into power, they all fall foul of market forces and a total lack of feasibility in that whenever government gets involved, things take longer, cost more and never quite work the way anyone expects.
That's what Millipede E is selling.
I just hope no one is buying.

What's yours is mine...

There's something hypocritical about the Liberal democrats in that they appear to be neither liberal or democratic supporting state intrusion into our lives at all points with an unwholesome support for the mostly unaccountable EU in the process.
Their latest wheeze to squeeze the taxpayer is to go after family heirlooms and jewellery.
Mail. (usual caveats)

Families will be forced to pay tax on jewellery and other heirlooms under controversial new plans drawn up by the Liberal Democrats.
Under the scheme, tax inspectors would get unprecedented new powers to go into homes and value rings, necklaces, paintings, furniture and other family treasures.
Householders would be forced to pay a new ‘wealth’ levy on the assets – with the threat of fines for those who refused to let snoops value their possessions.
A policy document seen by The Mail on Sunday spells out how the taxman ‘may have to visit homes to test values of jewellery, paintings, etc’.

Now granted this idea has about as much chance of becoming law as a snowball's chance in hell but it does show you the mindset of those in power within the Lib Dems in that they see the rich or indeed anyone with money as a target, the politics of envy writ large in other words. Problem is that the Lib Dems have far more in common with the grasping comrades of the Labour Party and its constant war on anyone with cash, property, civil liberties and freedom of thought. They truly believe that the state is the best (and only) solution to all life's problems and to hell with anyone who wants to do things their way. despite the catalogue of state failures and inefficiency over the years practically from the founding of the modern state.
Their solution to everything is more control and more state spending and to do that they need to pick a pocket or several million to pay for their grasping schemes. I still run into the odd person who truly believes that the Labour Party are the party of the working class and that the Lib Dems are a protest vote of choice without actually looking at what those parties have ever done (recently) for the working class in mass uncontrolled immigration, high taxation and state intrusion into their lives. Sometimes it's a joy to watch the blinkers come off, most times though they cannot see just what they vote for.
Any party who advocates more control over our lives and more spending of our cash on things no government should ever be involved with (Yes Tories I'm looking at you too) should not receive our votes.
The Lib Lab Con should go with the rest of the dinosaurs quietly into extinction...

Parish Notice

Not sure how blogging is going to go over the next few weeks as I'm starting a new job and haven't a clue as to the availability of internet access either at home or at work.

Master race/master religion

Some comments are just too good not to re-use and the blog title comes from a comment in the Telegraph to an article by Andrew Gilligan.
Telegraph.

Police have been accused of “covering up” a campaign of abuse, threats and violence aimed at “Islamicising” an area of London.
Victims say that officers in the borough of Tower Hamlets have ignored or downplayed outbreaks of hate crime, and suppressed evidence implicating Muslims in them, because they fear being accused of racism. The claims come as four Tower Hamlets Muslims were jailed for at least 19 years for attacking a local white teacher who gave religious studies lessons to Muslim girls. The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered more than a dozen other cases in Tower Hamlets where both Muslims and non-Muslims have been threatened or beaten for behaviour deemed to breach fundamentalist “Islamic norms.”

A lot of muslims left islamic countries to escape from this sort of extremism, unfortunately they didn't leave their religion behind and new immigrants brought in extremism and their children were infected by the religious form of Nazism. Intolerance, misogyny, homophobia and ignorance all part of the islamic creed (and other religions have their moments too I know) yet only today does islam having never gone through (or unlikely ever too) enlightenment and reform to take a place in a decent civilised society. After all, they are beholden to the actual word of a god given to a desert warlord which cannot be changed or altered. As the words given allow the rape and murder of islam's enemies, their subjugation under a 'protection racket' designed to make them pay for their own safety, plus the knowledge that in any dispute with a muslim they are the loser. After all, what was good for old Mo is good enough for all who aren't muslims today. Not that muslims have that great a time of it within islam, just look at the hellholes they create for themselves today in the rest of the world and hope to do to us.
As a commentator said at the end of the article...

saulgone
Can't quite see much difference between a "master race" and a "master religion".

He's not the only one.

Squandering our money

We give far too much to the EU, we are after all one of the few who actually pay in more than we get out, so what do we do when we discover that the EU is giving our money away to countries not in the EU?
Well, seems we do nothing...
Express.

BRUSSELS bureaucrats have handed more than £100million to Turkey to build a high-speed rail link - in case the country joins the EU.
The staggering sum does not have to be paid back and there will be no return on the investment.
The cash is from a £12.1billion fund to support nations hoping to join the EU to which Britain contributes £120million a year.
News of the money for the rail link between Turkey's two biggest cities, Istanbul and Ankara, provoked outrage last night.
Tory MP Douglas Carswell labelled the EU's decision "bizarre".
He said: "Other countries that have given money to Turkey, such as China, expect a return on their capital.
"It is funny how a communist country understands the fundamental principal of capitalism while the EU elite are giving money to Turkey without looking for a return on their investment."

Except moan and continue to vote for political parties who are in love with that damned institution. If Turkey were to join the EU (something that I hope will only happen if we leave) the EU's current financial problems could be dwarfed and the internal immigration problems certain countries are experiencing could be come far, far worse. Yet no one in the EU or indeed it appears the UK government  appears to be able to heed the warning signs, perhaps they believe we'll welcome 70 million Turks in a similar way they appear to believe we'll welcome all those Romanians and Bulgarians? I suspect part of the problem is that the bureaucrats of the EU do not have to live next to the problems they create, a factor shared by many of the political classes in all of Europe. They have become divorced from reality and never see the consequances, it's always someone else who deals with the mess.
This is why they are so profligate with our cash, they haven't a clue where it comes from and how it affects us.
We should perhaps simply rise up and hang them all, before they bankrupt us.
Just a thought...

Own goals

Inflation is on the up though apparently (amazingly enough) much of it is the fault of our idiot politicians and their ever grasping nature.
Mail.

Sir Mervyn King yesterday accused the Government of scoring an embarrassing ‘own goal’ by pushing up inflation through green taxes and tuition fees.
The Governor of the Bank of England warned that the unprecedented squeeze on living standards will last for a further three years as prices rise and wages stagnate.
But, in a coded attack on ministers, he said much of the pain was ‘self-inflicted’ because it stemmed from big increases in energy bills and tuition fees.
‘Whether it’s on financing education, green policies or other policies, what they have done is push up prices and that clearly makes our job in the short-run more difficult,’ Sir Mervyn said.

Yes in their ever increasing attempts to make kids pay for adult education in universities along with the ludicrous claims that green energy is somehow going to save the planet from CO2 and we should be honoured to empty our pockets into their coffers it does appear that Mervyn King actually knows what and why it's happening.
Not that I expect ministers to take any notice other than to trot out a few cliches such as hard times and the needs of the planet etc.
What Mervyn King didn't say (but I am) is that we're being ripped off by greedy uncontrolled government who have it in their power to rid us of these hidden taxes and can bring inflation down to boot.
The green energy scam has been going on far too long and is enriching those in government who support it in the energy ministry. huge ugly bird mincers dot our landscape whilst the ones at sea corrode and fail due to the fact that they cannot be efficiently maintained. This plus the subsidies used to make them economic come out of the green surcharge as in any normal world they simply would be a failure due to market forces.
In no sane world would a nation dependant on keeping the power going use wind power as it simply does not work generally when it's needed.
Coldest days of the year = generally no wind.
No, we're being robbed and they know it and we know it, problem is they don't care and we don't seem to vote them out...

Two tier, two faced

There's definitely a two tier legal system in operation in the UK, it's often enough applied to minorities getting away with or receiving a lesser sentence than someone of the majority, but occasionally it's a member of the 'establishment' getting preferential treatment...
Mail. (usual caveats)

A woman police officer responsible for issuing fines to drivers for talking on their phone was using her own mobile when she was involved in a fatal crash, an inquest heard yesterday.
Collette Carpenter had the device on loud speaker and rested on her lap to have a conversation with her partner when she pulled out into the path of motorcyclist David Bartholomew.
The 54-year-old father-of-two collided with the side of Miss Carpenter's Peugeot 206, was catapulted into the road at Ferndown, Dorset, and died of horrific injuries hours later on March 20 last year.
When she was interviewed by fellow police officers, Miss Carpenter, 23, lied and claimed she hadn't been using her mobile phone at the time.
The special constable later said she had briefly taken an incoming call before changing her story again and admitted that she had been on the phone for her entire journey with the mobile on loud speaker on her lap.
She claimed that talking on loud speaker with a phone on her lap was 'the same as having a passenger in the car'.
A police accident investigator told the inquest that by using her phone, the off-duty officer had 'very likely' contributed to the crash.

Now most cases actually involve texting when causing an accident when using the mobile phone. However, it does make you wonder why she tried to lie about using it at first rather than go straight to the using it on speakerphone excuse. A more cynical person might just suspect that even the speakerphone excuse was just that, an excuse and the phone wasn't on speaker at all, though naturally proving such would be difficult.
The very fact that her story changed and she was caught in a web of lies you suspect should have been taken into account. Though it apparently wasn't and she walked free after killing a motorcyclist after pulling out at a junction.

One motorist who has been penalised in the past wrote on a local internet forum in response to the inquest: 'So much for Dorset Police's 'No Excuses campaign.
'I received three points for having my phone on my lap whilst on loud speaker so it must be an offence.'

As far as I can tell (I may be wrong) she didn't even get points on her license. I suspect that most of the people involved in the enforcement of the 'No Excuse' campaign do the very things that they prosecute drivers for, whether it be Police Officers, magistrates, speed camera operatives, Driver Awareness Course instructors, council officials and Councillors.
I may be wrong...